Committee Transcript 1997-May-01 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Streamlining of Administration of Provincial Offences Act, 1997, Bill 108, Mr Harnick / Loi de 1997 simplifiant l'administration en ce qui a trait aux infractions provinciales, projet de loi 108, Mr Harnick

Statement by the ministry and responses

Mr Jim Flaherty, parliamentary assistant, Ministry of the Attorney General

Ms Annamarie Castrilli

Mr Len Wood

Mr Harry Danford

Association des juristes d'expression française de l'Ontario

Mr Gérard Lévesque

M. Michel Landry

M^me Nathalie Boutet

Association of Municipalities of Ontario

Mr Roger Anderson

Ms Pat Vanini

Halton-area municipalities

Mr Michael Kovacevic

Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton

Mr Eric Johnston

Mr David White

Town of Orangeville

Ms Linda Dean

Mr Vern Douglas

York-area municipalities

Mr Don Sinclair

Mr Richard Duncan

Town of Caledon

Ms Nadia Koltun

Peel-area municipalities

Ms Kathy Zammit

Mr Michael Minkowski

Mr Paul Dray

Mr Oudit Raghubir

City of London

Mr Grant Hopcroft

Canadian Bar Association, Ontario Branch

Mr Étienne Saint-Aubin

Mr Anthony Keith

Appointment of subcommittee

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

Chair / Président: Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente: Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York PC)

Mr MikeColle (Oakwood L)

Mr HarryDanford (Hastings-Peterborough PC)

Mr CarlDeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)

Mr EdDoyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)

Mrs BarbaraFisher (Bruce PC)

Mr TomFroese (St Catharines-Brock PC)

Mr SteveGilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)

Mr MichaelGravelle (Port Arthur L)

Mr RosarioMarchese (Fort York ND)

Mrs JuliaMunro (Durham-York PC)

Mr MarioSergio (Yorkview L)

Mr R. GaryStewart (Peterborough PC)

Mr DavidTilson (Dufferin-Peel PC)

Mr LenWood (Cochrane North / -Nord ND)

Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:

Mr TobyBarrett (Norfolk PC)

Ms AnnamarieCastrilli (Downsview L)

Mr TedChudleigh (Halton North / -Nord PC)

Mr JimFlaherty (Durham Centre / -Centre PC)

Mr ErnieHardeman (Oxford PC)

Mr PeterKormos (Welland-Thorold ND)

Mr BartMaves (Niagara Falls PC)

Mrs LillianRoss (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)

Mr FrankSheehan (Lincoln PC)

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre / -Centre PC)

Also taking part /Autres participant(e)s:

Mr JohnGerretsen (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles)

Clerk / Greffier: Mr Tom Prins

The committee met at 0906 in room 151.

ELECTION OF CHAIR

Clerk of the Committee (Mr Tom Prins): Honourable members, it's my duty to call upon you to elect a Chair. Are there any nominations?

Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton North): It gives me great honour and privilege to nominate the member for Dufferin-Peel, Mr Tilson, as Chair of the committee.

Clerk of the Committee: Thank you very much. Are there any further nominations? There being no further nominations, I declare the nominations closed and Mr Tilson elected Chair.

STREAMLINING OF ADMINISTRATION OF PROVINCIAL OFFENCES ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SIMPLIFIANT L'ADMINISTRATION EN CE QUI A TRAIT AUX INFRACTIONS PROVINCIALES (CONTINUED)

The Chair (Mr David Tilson): Good morning. I'm looking forward to an interesting session on this committee. I have sat on this committee in the past and I know it always deals with interesting issues.

The first bill that's before us this morning is Bill 108, An Act to deal with the prosecution of certain provincial offences, to reduce duplication and to streamline administration. I believe you all have the agenda before you.

The first speaker is the parliamentary assistant, Mr Flaherty, who is speaking on behalf of the minister. Mr Flaherty, you have 15 minutes, after which each caucus has five minutes to make either a statement or a question to you. The floor is yours.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

Mr Jim Flaherty (Durham Centre): Mr Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate this opportunity to make some remarks about Bill 108 before you begin the public hearings this morning. Before I do, however, I would also like to say a brief word of thanks to the many municipal, judicial, legal and enforcement individuals and organizations that have already assisted the Ministry of the Attorney General with this project. Their input and cooperation has been much appreciated by this government, and we look forward to continuing this productive relationship as we proceed through both the legislative and implementation processes.

As you know, Bill 108 proposes amendments that will enable the government to transfer to municipalities all of the remaining administrative functions and some of the prosecutorial functions of the Provincial Offences Act. The government is proposing this transfer for a number of reasons.

First of all, we have made a commitment to eliminating government waste and duplication.

Second, we know that it works. Four years ago parking tickets were successfully transferred to municipalities. They now handle 95% of them. This experience has shown that services can be provided to the public at a lower cost and that there are a number of other benefits to be gained by involving municipalities more directly in local justice. We are now taking the next logical step.

The transfer was recommended by the Crombie Who Does What panel.

By allowing municipalities to prosecute minor ticket-type offences, the province is able to focus on prosecuting dangerous criminal offences.

Finally, we are creating a new revenue source for municipalities, estimated at up to $65 million annually, which can be spent on further improving local services.

This morning I would like to provide the committee with the bill's highlights. As you will hear, we have recognized the need to ensure consistent standards for the administration of justice; we have ensured the continuation of contributions to the victim fine surcharge; we have ensured that the transfer will occur in as smooth a manner as possible; we have turned fine revenues over to partner municipalities; and we have taken steps to ensure that the terms of the partnership agreements are adhered to.

As the committee knows, the Provincial Offences Act provides that charges under provincial acts can be laid under one of three parts of the act, part I, part II and part III, each one of which has its own procedural stream.

Part I offences relate to certificates of offence or ticketing procedures. Approximately 80% of these part I offences are issued under the Highway Traffic Act. Infractions include speeding up to 49 kilometres over the limit; failing to stop at a red light or a stop sign; and failure to wear a seatbelt. Other part I offences include minor Liquor Licence Act infractions, such as having an open bottle of liquor or being intoxicated in a public place, as well as ticket scalping under the Ticket Speculation Act.

Part II offences are parking tickets which, as I stated earlier, are almost entirely under municipal control already.

Part III offences, largely Highway Traffic Act offences, are often more complex and can result in jail sentences.

The responsibilities to be transferred to municipalities under Bill 108 include first of all administration of parts I, II and III of the Provincial Offences Act, and then prosecution of part I ticketable offences. The province will continue to prosecute part III offences. Allowing municipalities to prosecute minor ticketable offences will enable the province to focus on prosecuting more serious criminal matters.

I should emphasize that Bill 108 makes no changes to law enforcement or adjudication of provincial offences. Police or enforcement officers will continue to lay charges and provincially appointed judges and justices of the peace will continue to decide Provincial Offences Act matters.

Since our government remains committed to victims of crime, our amendments guarantee that fine revenues will continue to be subject to the victim fine surcharge. These moneys will be directed to the victims' justice fund, a dedicated fund for providing services to victims of crime. Section 1 of part I amends section 60.1 of the Provincial Offences Act to ensure that fine payments made by a defendant are first credited towards the victim fine surcharge.

While Bill 108 continues the move to transfer matters that have local impact into the control and accountability of local authorities, it does so with full appreciation of the need for consistent provincial standards for the administration of justice. This is why the province will retain responsibility for setting and monitoring standards in order to ensure uniform, fair and equal justice. Let me stress that the maintenance of current standards and the preservation of the integrity of the justice system are fundamental to this transfer.

The Ministry of the Attorney General will issue clear program standards which all partner municipalities will be required to meet. A committee of external and internal legal and academic experts is currently developing province-wide standards which will be laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the Attorney General and the municipal partners.

Some of the specific highlights of Bill 108 are as follows.

Section 162 gives the Attorney General the power to make agreements with municipalities that authorize them to perform court administration and court support functions for all provincial offences and federal contraventions, as well as prosecution functions for cases which proceed under parts I and II of the Provincial Offences Act. The section states that performance standards and sanctions shall be detailed in the agreement, that the municipality shall meet the standards, and that it is subject to sanctions for non-compliance.

Section 163 of the bill enables small municipalities, which may have limited resources, to join with others to provide administrative functions and to assume and implement Provincial Offences Act duties as smoothly as possible.

Section 164 ensures that the agreements we sign are a matter of public record.

I mentioned that Bill 108 provides a new revenue source for municipalities. Section 165 creates authority for municipalities to collect and enforce fines and prohibits municipalities from arresting and incarcerating persons who have not paid their fines. Municipalities will be able to enforce fine payment through civil enforcement and private collection agencies, and may also access the Ministry of Transportation's sanctions of denial of driver's licence and vehicle registration renewals. This section also allows the municipalities to keep the balance of fine revenues after they remit specified payments to the province.

Section 167 sets out special rules to apply when an agreement is in effect. For example, hearings must still be held in the location where the offence occurred, as required by section 29 of the Provincial Offences Act. In order to help municipalities address local needs, however, hearings can be held in municipal facilities and court offices can be outside the courthouse.

Importantly, section 168 preserves the Attorney General's existing right to intervene only in the prosecution of a case, or in an appeal, where the interests of justice require it.

Under section 170 the Attorney General can order a municipality to comply with the terms of a partnership agreement within a specified time and can suspend, revoke or cancel the agreement if the municipality does not comply with the order.

Section 171 authorizes the agreement to include a provision for a review committee whose functions and composition will be determined by regulation. The review committee will be the primary mechanism for monitoring municipal compliance with the agreement.

Section 173 allows the Attorney General to make regulations that are designed to provide for the effective implementation of agreements, to describe the review committee, to impose obligations on third parties and to provide for fine payment during transition.

We are aware, of course, that some municipalities may be too small to take over provincial offences on their own. Section 174 allows for joint agreements to be made with two or more municipalities, which will permit greater flexibility and economies of scale.

The consequential amendments to section 3 of the Municipal Act will allow regional, metropolitan and district municipalities to make agreements with the Attorney General. They also give municipalities the power to perform these responsibilities in areas outside their territorial limits as specified in the agreement.

I would now like to provide the committee with some information about the Ministry of the Attorney General's plans for implementing the transfer.

The province will be inviting municipalities to consider partnership in the Provincial Offences Act transfer. Interested municipalities will receive a proposal package which will detail criteria and outline the scope of the work to be transferred. In the package, the province will also provide interested municipalities with financial information related to provincial offences in their areas.

Those municipalities wanting to apply for partnership will be required to submit proposals, which will be evaluated according to specific selection criteria. Once selected, a municipality will sign a memorandum of understanding which will set out clearly the respective roles of the Attorney General and the municipality.

Transfer will take place in a phased process. The initial rollout will begin with a group of approximately 10 municipalities. The phased process will enable the initial partner municipalities to use their experiences and expertise to assist other municipalities as they come on stream. We expect the transfer of responsibilities will start this year and be completed within the next two years, when approximately 75 municipal partnerships will be formed. I should advise the committee that the Ministry of the Attorney General has already received several expressions of interest from various Ontario municipalities.

Mr Chairman and committee members, this government believes it has a responsibility to eliminate government waste and duplication and to provide government at the most appropriate level wherever it can. Bill 108 helps achieve both of these objectives.

Furthermore, we know from experience with parking tickets that it works. We have a responsibility, therefore, to take the next logical step and transfer the functions being proposed in Bill 108 to the municipal level.

Municipalities have already responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to increase their local revenues and to take on additional responsibility for local justice matters, and taxpayers will, I am sure, be equally supportive of a system that enables the province to focus justice resources on more serious offences. Thank you.

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Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview): May I say at the outset that I wish you well in your term as Chair of this committee. I sit here as the Chair of another committee. I notice some former Chairs. I know how difficult your task will be at times, but it'll be very rewarding, I am sure.

The Chair: I'm not sure whether or not that's a compliment, but thank you very much.

Ms Castrilli: It is intended to be.

This is a piece of legislation which cannot really be considered on its own. I think we all agree there is a need to streamline the judicial process to ensure that there is no duplication. I can't imagine that any one of us who would take issue with that.

The problem is whether this particular piece of legislation achieves those goals. In that context, I'd like to raise some questions. I'm not sure whether the parliamentary assistant will have time to respond to them, but the concerns I would bring to the committee are as follows.

Remember that this bill is the result of recommendations that were made by the Who Does What committee, originally chaired by David Crombie. At the time David Crombie thought this government's initiative would generate some $65 million, which in fact the parliamentary assistant has indicated. The Crombie commission was much more conservative. It stated that it would be $30 million, certainly no more $40 million, that would be generated.

When you look at this particular piece of legislation and you factor in the startup costs and you factor in the deductions the government is going to take off that revenue -- municipal administration, adjudication, prosecutorial costs and the 15% victim fine surcharge for victims' justice fund, which has been mentioned here -- one wonders how much there will be left for municipalities. That's a real concern. The government really hasn't produced any indication of what the actual financial implications will be.

Municipalities are going blind into this arrangement, which at first would seem to be, if you're looking just at the revenue sharing, very reasonable. There have been no data presented that would indicate it would be a financially viable agreement.

The next concern I'd like to raise, apart from the fact that any savings that are generated might be negated by the issues I mentioned before, is that while the parliamentary assistant talked about standards, again the legislation doesn't deal with that, and municipalities and the people of Ontario are going to be left to take it on faith that there will be standards. But even assuming there are standards, not all municipalities will have the manpower and the ability to enforce whatever standards are in place. Again there is an issue here of going blind into this particular situation. One is left with the impression that not all the facts are on the table. I think before municipalities enter into it, they must be given very clear statements as to what they're getting into.

With respect to the memorandum of understanding which the bill contemplates, while it certainly speaks to the agreement, it says nothing about what happens if municipalities feel that the agreement is not working out. There is no provision for them to get out if it turns out that this is not a revenue-sharing initiative for them that's cost-effective, if it turns out that the administration costs are too high, that the standards can't be met by some of the municipalities. I say to the parliamentary assistant that it's really unfortunate that the bill doesn't deal with that. I would urge that this is an area that should be looked at.

Mike Harris is very fond of saying that there is only one taxpayer, and we agree with him. The danger we fear with this bill is that this is one more measure to offload costs on to municipalities. You must give assurances to municipalities that this isn't the case.

Il y a un dernier point que je dois faire ce matin, et c'est que la loi présente une difficulté pour les Franco-Ontariens en particulier. Vous savez que la Loi 8 dit clairement que les municipalités ne font pas partie de la Loi sur les infractions provinciales.

Une fois que cette loi entre en vigueur, vraiment les Franco-Ontariens doivent s'en préoccuper, s'ils auront accès à la justice dans cette province, parce qu'il n'y aura pas la responsabilité de la part des municipalités de donner des services en français, ce qu'ils ont maintenant au niveau provincial. Avec ça, je conclus.

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): Congratulations on your election as Chair of this committee. I'm sure it's going to be interesting as we continue on.

On Bill 108 there's no doubt, from what I understand, that a lot of municipalities are in support of the transfer of these duties over to municipalities, but there are also a number of questions that have been brought up, and I just want to carry on from the Liberal member's questioning.

A lot of offences that are being prosecuted right now are protected under Bill 8, under provincial offences, but when you transfer these over to municipalities, from what I understand, that does not necessarily come under this legislation, Bill 108, and we would be looking for amendments.

In my particular area, for example, the population is 95% francophone, so if you're changing offences from provincial jurisdiction over to the municipalities, the services these communities are given now should be carried on under the French Language Services Act. That's going to be a concern as the hearings continue, and we'll be looking for amendments to make sure these people are protected and that they don't end up in the same jackpot as the Montfort Hospital, where they feel the only francophone hospital in Canada is being shut down by Mike Harris. That's a concern.

We will be looking for the draft agreements that have been reached with the municipalities. Is the French language guarantee in those agreements? There must be draft agreements out there now that we could get copies of so we would know where we're going.

There's a concern about who's paying the costs of startup. One municipality's estimation is that the startup costs are going to be $300,000 or more for rental space, staff, office equipment. What type of revenue are they going to receive in return? Is it going to cost them money?

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Now that the municipalities are going to be controlling police budgets, rather than the police services boards, are the municipalities, in order to gain extra revenue, going to be setting quotas for the officers who are out there, given the charges? Are some areas of municipalities going to be neglected and they'll target certain areas so they can increase revenue?

There is a cost of operating this and it has to balance it, especially when some of the municipalities in my area are looking at tax increases of $400, $500, $600. Some of the municipalities might have to double their taxes in order to pay for the services they've been paying for, for now. They'd like to see the revenue, but is the cost of it going to be more than what revenue they're going to take in?

We know that the transfer is going to take place, from what I understand, starting in 1997 and continuing on over the next two years. But 1997 is a very trying year for most of the municipalities in Ontario and especially in northern Ontario, where every six or seven municipalities are being told they must wipe out themselves, wipe out their administrators and elect one government, a mayor and six or seven or 10 councillors to represent these eight or 10 municipalities. If they don't do that by January 1, 1998, they're going to lose out on any compensation from the $1-billion compensation package that's out there.

There's a lot of turmoil out there right across Ontario by the heavy-handed dealings of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, so this throws a lot of things into jeopardy. I know there's a lot of support for Bill 108, but some amendments are going to have to be brought forward so it makes sense to the people in Ontario, especially in northern Ontario.

Mr Harry Danford (Hastings-Peterborough): I'd also like to congratulate the Chair on assuming this position.

I have one short question for the parliamentary assistant. We've seen what success has happened over the last few years with the parking situation, but now that we're expanding the bill and allowing for a number of other things to happen -- you spoke in your opening comments about the interest from the municipalities -- I wonder if you could expand a little bit more on that and give us a little clearer indication about what level of interest there is by the municipalities in Bill 108.

Mr Flaherty: There is significant interest by municipalities. They'd expressed interest already in participating in proposals, which are not yet available for them, in the proposal package. It's anticipated that some municipalities will get together and cooperate because of the size of some of the smaller municipalities. They could work together in their proposals to the Ministry of the Attorney General.

The revenues are attractive to municipalities. There's no question that based on past years, and I`ll give some statistics, substantial revenues will be available to municipalities. The average annual Provincial Offences Act revenue during a four-year period, and this is from 1992-93 to 1995-96, was approximately $100 million. The question of the expenses one incurs in order to earn that income has come up. In 1995-96 the Ministry of the Attorney General spent approximately $35 million on operating expenses to run the Provincial Offences Act program. It is estimated that for municipalities the Provincial Offences Act program has a potential annual net revenue range up to $165 million, which is the figure I used in my opening remarks.

The municipalities will also have the benefit of having information concerning the number of provincial offences in their area so they can localize their own proposals in their negotiations with the Ministry of the Attorney General before entering into memoranda of agreement with the ministry.

Mr Danford: I have no more questions. Unless the other members of the committee do, perhaps the parliamentary assistant would like to use the time left to perhaps address some of the ones that were -- I'll leave that up to him.

The Chair: It's up to the Conservatives. You've got a total of five minutes and you've got a few minutes left.

Mr Flaherty: There was a question raised about standards and how standards are to be stipulated. The standards are to be set out in the memoranda of agreement. As I mentioned in the opening remarks, those memoranda are to be made public, so the standards will be a matter of public record for everyone in the province to look at and observe and make sure they're maintained and honoured.

With respect to the question concerning non-performance by municipalities if they don't live up to the terms of the agreement, as I mentioned earlier, the Attorney General retains his supervisory function, his power of intervention under section 168 of the act, and ultimately if there is non-compliance then the agreement could be terminated by reason of that non-compliance with the terms of the agreement.

With respect to the issue of French trials and the administration of justice in French, the Courts of Justice Act guarantees and continues to guarantee the right to a trial in either English or French. A number of municipalities in Ontario have already passed resolutions with respect to services in both languages.

Over 50 of Ontario's municipalities located in the province's designated areas have voluntarily passed resolutions declaring themselves officially bilingual, and these municipalities represent 63% of the total French-speaking population located in these designated areas.

The Chair: That concludes the preliminary comments of the parliamentary assistant and each government caucus. We'll now commence the hearing from public deputations. I think you all have an agenda before you.

ASSOCIATION DES JURISTES D'EXPRESSION FRANÇAISE DE L'ONTARIO

The Chair: The first deputation is the Association des juristes d'expression française de l'Ontario. The directeur général is M. Lévesque. Bonjour. Perhaps for the record you could introduce each member of your delegation, and then you have 20 minutes for a presentation and/or questions. So if you wish to have questions from the various caucuses, you would have to allow time at the end.

M. Gérard Lévesque : Merci, Monsieur le Président. Vu que la traduction simultanée est fournie aux membres, nous allons faire une partie de la présentation en français. Je présente notre président, M^e Michel Landry de Hawkesbury, et notre vice-présidente, M^e Nathalie Boutet de Toronto.

M. Michel Landry : Bonjour, membres du comité. Le projet de loi 108 et tout projet portant sur sa dévolution des services aux municipalités est une chose qui nous préoccupe énormément ; il demeure de grande importance aux francophones de l'Ontario. Notre exposé sera divisé comme suit : d'abord nous allons vous présenter le problème perçu par l'AJEFO au niveau du projet de loi 108 ; les lois provinciales existantes ; dans un troisième terme nous parlerons de l'élément fédéral qui est important ; et en dernier lieu nous parlerons d'une solution pratique que l'AJEFO propose.

L'AJEFO est une association de juristes qui siègent souvent comme groupe aviseur au ministère du procureur général, au barreau du Haut-Canada, au ministère de la Justice du Canada et d'autres organismes. Notre organisme travaille en partenariat avec de nombreux juristes anglophones. En fait, 20% de notre membriété est anglophone et c'est tout dans le but d'assurer l'accès à la justice dans les deux langues officielles des tribunaux de l'Ontario.

The issue of Bill 108, according to AJEFO and various legal and non-legal organizations in Ontario, to our view seriously threatens to diminish the linguistic rights that already exist in our province. It is our contention that Bill 108 as it now stands opens the door to potential linguistic battles, namely litigation. Municipalities will be stuck with these legal battles, and the purpose of the act is to reduce duplication and simplify administration. From that standpoint it will do the opposite.

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Au Canada et en Ontario on a pu maintenir, au fil des années, diverses politiques de bilinguisme. Les divers gouvernements ont cru bon de reconnaître l'importance égale du français de l'anglais par diverses lois. En Ontario, la Loi sur les infractions provinciales suit ce principe.

In Ontario the Provincial Offences Act, as it now stands, follows the important aspect of bilingualism in our province. For example, let's take just a speeding ticket. Under the Highway Traffic Act at the present time any Ontarian can receive a summons ticket in both French and English. If you need information on the infraction, you can call the ministry and it has a policy to answer inquiries in both French and English.

If a person contests, the notice he or she receives will be in both languages. The prosecutor will proceed in the official language that the citizen requests. Last but not least the judge, by law, has to have the capacity to hear the matter in the two official languages of the Ontario courts.

Our conclusion is that the act as it now stands provides full service in both French and English in designated areas in Ontario. Why? Because it is run by the provincial government. Why? Because it is subject to the French Language Services Act and the Courts of Justice Act. Whether in Ontario, Windsor, Sault Ste Marie or Hawkesbury, bilingual proceedings are present.

My colleague M^e Nathalie Boutet, to my right, will elaborate where the problem lies when you transfer these powers to the municipalities as proposed in Bill 108.

M^me Nathalie Boutet : Je vais vous décrire quelques lois de l'Ontario qui s'appliquent également à ce débat. Il y a la Loi sur les services en français.

Cette loi décrit que la langue française jouit en Ontario du statut de langue officielle devant les tribunaux. On y précise que chacun a droit à l'emploi du français pour communiquer avec le bureau d'un organisme gouvernemental et pour en recevoir les services, et ce dans les régions désignées.

Par exemple, sont couverts par cette loi les services et les procédures du ministère du procureur général et des autres ministères et de leurs organismes, conseils et commissions, telles les communications au sujet des services soit au comptoir, au téléphone, en personne ou par l'entremise de systèmes tels les boîtes vocales.

Il y a également la Loi sur les tribunaux judiciaires. Cette loi s'applique aux instances introduites en vertu de la Loi sur les infractions provinciales. Elle déclare que les langues officielles des tribunaux de l'Ontario sont le français et l'anglais.

Une partie à une instance peut donc exiger que l'instance soit instruite de façon bilingue. Si une telle demande est faite par un citoyen, la couronne provinciale est obligée, selon le paragraphe 126(2.1) de cette loi, d'assigner à la cause un poursuivant ou une poursuivante qui parle et l'anglais et le français.

Je tiens à souligner que selon cette loi, il n'est pas suffisant d'offrir au citoyen un interprète. C'est la loi telle qu'elle existe aujourd'hui.

Tout cela semble satisfaisant. Cependant on se rend compte que les municipalités ne seront pas obligées de fournir les mêmes sortes de services dans les deux langues des tribunaux de la province. Je vous explique. L'article 1 de la Loi sur les services en français exclut spécifiquement les municipalités.

La Loi sur les services en français ne s'applique donc pas aux municipalités qui accepteraient de prendre en charge la dévolution de pouvoirs décrits au projet de loi 108.

De plus, l'article 169 de la Loi sur les infractions provinciales indiquerait ceci, si le projet 108 est accepté : que la municipalité qui agit aux termes d'une entente avec la province, ne le fait pas à titre de mandataire de la couronne de l'Ontario ni du procureur général.

Ceci est très grave lorsque l'on se rend compte que les droits acquis des citoyens seraient perdus. En effet, les aspects suivants présentement offerts dans les deux langues officielles ne le seront plus nécessairement :

Les billets émis ne seraient pas nécessairement bilingues ; le greffier du tribunal qui peut être un employé d'une municipalité ne devra pas être bilingue ; le tribunal peut siéger à l'endroit désigné par la municipalité, donc pas nécessairement dans des locaux où il y a affichage bilingue, et le poursuivant ne sera pas nécessairement bilingue.

Malgré les commentaires du gouvernement, cette constatation de pertes de droits acquis est aggravée par le fait que 90 municipalités se sont illégalement déclarées unilingue anglaise. Je dis «illégalement» en faisant référence à la cause célèbre que vous connaissez tous, la cause de Sault-Ste-Marie. On a reproduit, à l'onglet 3 du mémoire qu'on a présenté, un sommaire en français et la cause en anglais.

Brièvement, dans cette cause, l'honorable juge Loukidelis de la Cour générale de l'Ontario en 1994 a prononcé illégal le règlement de la municipalité se déclarant unilingue anglaise. La déclaration unilingue anglaise de Sault-Ste-Marie avait fait tellement de dommage qu'il nous semble qu'il ne faudrait pas créer encore une fois un tel débat linguistique.

Afin de vous illustrer d'autres exemples que le projet de loi 108 enfreint, je vais demander à M^e Landry de vous faire état de problèmes apportés par la dévolution aux municipalités des infractions fédérales.

Mr Landry: "Why is the federal government involved?" you may ask. The answer: the Contraventions Act of Canada. Canada has devolved some of its powers to the Ontario government. They basically provide a form of executing Canadian laws through the Provincial Offences Act. You probably have in your own ridings several of these infractions that are handled by the Provincial Offences Act, namely under the historic canals regulations, under the airport traffic regulations, under the federal government property traffic regulations, under the national parks etc, all regulations that are processed through the Provincial Offences Act.

If I were to have a speeding ticket in Georgian Bay Islands National Park or on any airport lands in Ontario, Ontario has as of today provided me with a full right to proceed in either of the two official languages of the Ontario courts and the two official languages of our country.

What if a municipality refuses to maintain these services on its territory which has a federal airport? It will not be in contravention of French Language Services Act, as we mentioned earlier, because municipalities have been specifically excluded; it will not be in contravention of the Courts of Justice Act; but it will be in contravention of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As noted on page 1 in our submission, section 16(3) of the charter notes, "Nothing in this charter limits the authority of Parliament or a Legislature to advance the equality of status or use of English and French."

"Does this province truly want to leave municipalities stuck with charter challenges?" is a question AJEFO is asking. They will also have to conform with section 21 of the charter. If you look on page 3 of the memorandum we've prepared, "Paragraph 20(1) of the charter stipulates that any member of the public has the right to communicate with and to receive available services from an office of an institution of the Parliament or government of Canada in French or English."

There is also the question of the French-language act of Canada which will apply, because devolution has given it to the provinces and now we're giving it to the municipalities. These municipalities will have to provide services. If you look once again in my memorandum, section 25 of the Official Languages Act: "...where services are provided or made available by another person or organization on its behalf" -- so we're doing this on behalf of the federal government -- then the Official Languages Act applies. It even goes further. Section 22 says there has to be an active offer, so the municipalities have to actively offer services in both official languages.

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In conclusion, by federal law municipalities will need to provide bilingual services. The Provincial Offences Act, as it now stands, grants the right to all Ontarians to be serviced in both French and English. AJEFO's position: Why not maintain bilingual services as they now stand? AJEFO and the Franco-Ontarian community are not asking for new rights. All we are asking for is to maintain the services at the level now offered in our province.

I will ask Nathalie to provide the solution we're offering to this matter.

Ms Boutet: AJEFO has received important support for its position not only from French-speaking citizens but also from English bilingual citizens. Among others we received support from the County and District Law Presidents' Association, which has as members a large number of lawyers everywhere in Ontario.

I also wish to remind you that the Commissioner of Official Languages shares our concerns. You may find his letter in French and in English at tab 5 of our factum.

Nous avons une solution très simple. Nous vous proposons une clause ; nous l'avons déjà écrite. Elle est toute prête à être insérée dans le projet de loi 108. Alors, même si les débats en Chambre vont très lentement ces temps-ci, le gouvernement ne devra pas passer plus de temps que nécessaire pour amender le projet de loi 108.

Cette clause se trouve à la page 8 de notre mémoire et elle se lit comment suit : «Toute délégation de responsabilité à une municipalité, faite dans le cadre de la présente loi, ne porte pas atteinte aux droits linguistiques existants, notamment les droits reconnus par la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés, la Loi sur les langues officielles, la Loi sur les services en français et la Loi sur les tribunaux judiciaires.»

Cette clause est inspirée d'autres clauses de maintien de droits, par exemple, telles que décrites dans la Loi de 1988 sur le conseil scolaire de langue française d'Ottawa-Carleton et dans la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés.

This concludes our presentation. We thank you very much for your attention and for allowing us the opportunity to share our concerns with you. We are available if you have any questions.

Mr Len Wood: Thank you for your presentation. I apologize that I'm not fully bilingual, but my wife and children and grandchildren are fully bilingual and both my daughters are teaching in the French language in southern Ontario. I've been representing the area of Hearst, Kapuskasing and Smooth Rock Falls, which has a heavy percentage of francophone population, over the last seven years.

I'm sure you heard during the five minutes I had earlier that I made a request of the parliamentary assistant that we see draft copies of the agreements with municipalities to see if the memoranda include the guarantee of French language. He said the draft agreements were not ready yet. I'm sure there must be one draft or whatever so that we can get hold of it.

The parliamentary assistant had said that 63% of the municipalities that are covered under Bill 8 are going to agree to give French-language services. Do you feel that's enough, or should we have 100% of the municipalities?

Mr Landry: Certainly at the present time we're lacking 37% of the population that will no longer receive services they were entitled to and have been entitled to for some time now.

On the question of the memorandum, I think it's important that there be a clause in it stipulating that services will be offered in both French and English in all the areas designated under the French Language Services Act, but we think it's not enough. We think you absolutely need a specific clause, such as one we have drafted for this committee, for three reasons.

First of all the advantage of having that special clause is that the government will maintain the objective it's always stipulated it would maintain: that they keep French-language services intact as they are given at the present time.

The second advantage we see with a special clause stipulating that the services that are already there be continued is that it will help the government in not being criticized by municipalities that may eventually be prosecuted under the charter, and I don't think the government wants to open the door to charter challenges for municipalities.

Third but not least, there's a clause within the act itself that is clear, simple, effective and that can be incorporated fairly fast.

Ms Boutet: I just have one point to make sure that we all understand what we're talking about. It's not 63% of municipalities. I understand it was mentioned that the 50 municipalities -- we've been told, without seeing any numbers, that covers where 63% of the French people live, but it's only 50 municipalities, when we know that there are 90 municipalities that have declared themselves unilingual English.

Mr Flaherty: Thank you, all three of you, for being here this morning, and not only for your presentation but also for the factum, which is well done. It'll give us an opportunity to review that after you've gone. You can leave that with us, and I appreciate that.

You're raising issues before us that are important and that need to be considered and reviewed. The experience with municipalities so far in Ontario with the transfer of the ticketing power that was given in the last four years or so seems to have resulted in responsible behaviour by our municipal partners in the province. I hope we can assume that municipalities will continue to exhibit that degree of responsible behaviour in their municipal endeavours.

The figure that you mentioned is absolutely right. The figure was 63% of the total French-speaking population located in these designated areas and over 50 of Ontario's 200 municipalities. Perhaps I could ask you this: Is there any reasonable expectation on your part that any of the municipalities which voluntarily provide bilingual services would change their position as a result of this devolution of administrative power?

M. Lévesque : Nous avons l'expérience des dernières années, et la jurisprudence confirme que lorsque c'est un poursuivant municipal, il n'a pas les mêmes obligations linguistiques que lorsque c'est un poursuivant provincial.

Voici, lorsque le français a été déclaré au même titre que l'anglais, langue officielle des tribunaux de l'Ontario, la pratique du procureur général était tout le temps d'avoir un poursuivant bilingue. Il y a quelques années, les infractions municipales de stationnement ont été transférées aux municipalités. Il y a eu des causes qui ont confirmé, entre autres à Toronto et à Penetang, que lorsque le procureur était celui de la municipalité, il n'avait pas les mêmes obligations linguistiques que le poursuivant qui était nommé par la province.

C'est à ce moment-là que la province a modifié l'article 126 de la Loi sur les tribunaux judiciaires pour nous donner le paragraphe 2.1 et confirmer que lorsque le poursuivant était provincial, nommé par le procureur général, il avait l'obligation de parler la langue du poursuivi, tandis que lorsque c'est le contraire, lorsque c'est la municipalité, cette obligation-là n'y est pas.

Nous avons la transcription de deux causes que nous avions données à ce moment-là au sous-procureur général de l'Ontario, qui était M^e George Thomson, qui est maintenant le sous-procureur général du Canada, et qui a confirmé que c'était le cas que la municipalité n'a pas les mêmes obligations linguistiques que la province lorsqu'il s'agit de poursuivre le citoyen. On traite à ce moment-là le français comme n'importe quelle langue ou dialecte. On peut parler français, mais c'est traduit en cour et le mandat de l'avocat de la municipalité, même s'il est bilingue, comme dans la cause de Toronto -- à ce moment-là il lui avait été donné de parler seulement en anglais. Alors, c'est une crainte légitime et c'est confirmé par la jurisprudence à cet effet.

M^me Castrilli : Merci bien d'être venus ce matin et d'avoir souligné ce que je crois et ce que mon parti croit être un problème fondamental avec ce projet de loi.

Nous avons dans cette province la Loi 8, comme vous savez. Il y a presque 11 ans maintenant que nous avons proclamé la Loi 8, qui reconnaît la contribution des Franco-Ontariens et donc l'importance de la langue française en Ontario. Je crois que c'est aussi très important non seulement pour l'Ontario mais pour le Canada, surtout en ce moment très critique dans notre existence en tant que pays.

Je dois dire, auparavant, que je suis absolument choquée, avec tout le respect que je dois à l'adjoint parlementaire du ministre, que le procureur général ne soit pas ici ce matin pour discuter de cette question, un projet de loi qui aura des conséquences très sérieuses pour cette province.

Avec ça, je trouve votre suggestion très admirable. Je voulais vous demander exactement ce que vous suggérez. Je suis d'accord avec vous --

The Chair: I hope it's a quick one, Ms Castrilli. It's my first day in the chair and we're already five minutes behind time.

M^me Castrilli : Je m'excuse. It certainly hasn't been because of me. Je suis d'accord avec vous que l'article 169 est un problème. Je veux vous demander, à ce propos, si vous êtes sûrs que les résolutions des municipalités qui ont décidé d'être bilingues sont des résolutions fixes, si on dit ça. À mon avis, ce sont des résolutions que les municipalités peuvent changer une autre fois et qu'il n'y a pas une loi qui réglemente les municipalités en ce moment. Je voulais vous demander si c'était aussi votre avis.

M. Landry : Oui, c'est notre avis. En plus, comme vous le savez, au niveau des municipalités il va y avoir des changements importants où on va avoir beaucoup d'amalgamation. Donc ça va vraiment diminuer le nombre de municipalités qui vont se déclarer bilingues. A ce moment-là, ça devient un problème important au niveau de la Loi sur les services en français.

M^me Castrilli : Donc il n'y a pas de garanties en ce moment.

M. le Président : Merci beaucoup pour votre présentation.

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ASSOCIATION OF MUNICIPALITIES OF ONTARIO

The Chair: The second presentation is from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, Mr Roger Anderson.

Mr Roger Anderson: Members, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, my name is Roger Anderson. I'm vice-president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, regional councillor for the region of Durham and deputy mayor of the town of Ajax. With me today is Pat Vanini, senior policy adviser of AMO.

I'd like to thank you on behalf of the association for the opportunity to appear before you today to present issues related to Bill 108, the Provincial Offences Act. Unfortunately Terry Mundell, our president, whom I'm sure you've all seen a lot lately, is in this building but involved somewhere else with the transition teams this morning.

Ontario's municipalities are facing enormous changes and challenges as we approach the 21st century; 1998 will herald a fundamental transformation of municipal and provincial roles and responsibilities. For many years, municipalities have promoted measures that foster stability in municipal revenues and stability in municipal costs.

Municipalities are seeking reforms that are sustainable over the long term. We want reforms that help us to plan for economic self-reliance and to manage growth in our communities. We want reforms that help us achieve better government at less cost to the taxpayers.

Since 1992 annual provincial funding to municipalities has declined by $1 billion; $700 million of that was cut by the current government. In 1998, municipalities will lose another $1 billion annually because of Who Does What. At the same time, the province's expectations that property tax dollars will fund provincial programs is growing.

That is one reason why the revenue side of the reform equation is critical to municipalities. There are a number of excellent opportunities for the province to consider how municipal revenues can be delivered. A critical example is the fuel tax. Currently, the fuel tax is not tied to roads in any way. The tax is collected and spent by the province, not by municipalities. Yet, municipalities are increasingly expected to pay for the roads without having access to the fuel tax revenue or any other financial support from the province. The province no longer has an interest in the municipal roads program. It stands to reason that now is the time to review access to fuel tax revenues. We are not looking for a new tax, just an appropriate allocation of an existing one.

AMO is greatly encouraged by the Attorney General's decision to transfer provincial offences revenues to municipalities, along with the responsibility for administration and prosecution under the Provincial Offences Act.

Municipal governments are proven, capable managers in the delivery of services to their communities. With appropriate legislation and minimum regulation, municipalities can find innovative and cost-effective ways to achieve quality service. It is true about everything we do.

Municipalities deliver critical services to their communities. Currently, local service responsibilities range from police and fire services to recreation and child care. As the province continues to devolve responsibility for key services, municipalities take on an increasing role as Ontario's primary provider of public services.

The administration and prosecution of certain offences under the act is a good fit for municipal government. Municipalities are already involved in the enforcement of municipal bylaws and have a proven track record in communities where local administration and prosecution of part II offences has been previously transferred.

AMO has analysed the bill and as part of this presentation we'll focus on six areas.

The first one is local resources and local priorities. AMO believes that the transfer of responsibility for administration and prosecution, through partnership agreements between the province and municipalities, can maintain the integrity of the act and its processes.

The success of the transfer of responsibilities will rest with the implementation and the development of appropriate memoranda of understanding and the principles on which the transfer is based, including the transfer of access to related revenue.

As managers of broad and comprehensive service responsibilities and trustees of scarce public funds, municipal councils are constantly faced with tough expenditure decisions. Because they are accountable locally, balancing those decisions with local priorities is critical.

Revenues from provincial offences must be considered in that same context. Municipalities involved in delivering services under the Provincial Offences Act must have the authority to use related revenues not only to support the POA process but also to address local priorities. It is not appropriate for any limitations, either under the act or in memoranda of understanding, to restrict local decision-making on how best to use these new revenues.

Provincial offence revenues currently flowing to the province flow into the province's general revenue fund for use to support the government's priorities. The same principle must be embodied in the transfer of the responsibility and revenue capacity to municipalities.

Therefore, AMO recommends that net municipal revenues from POA responsibilities should flow to the partnered municipality, or municipalities, to be used to finance service priorities as they determine. Memoranda of understanding must not restrict the use of net revenues.

The second concern is linking revenue access to service responsibilities. Linking revenue access to service responsibilities is a fair and reasonable principle for the devolution of responsibilities. The level of government responsible for service delivery must have access to any related revenue. That principle is the basis of AMO's support for Bill 108. The principle must also apply to the devolved, or future devolution of, proceedings under the Contraventions Act.

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If, for example, federal responsibilities such as the enforcement of parking laws at airports or minor criminal or narcotic offences devolve to the province, and possibly through to municipalities, the level of government with the service responsibility should be the one that receives the revenue.

AMO recommends that current and any future additional devolution of responsibilities under the Provincial Offences Act or the Contraventions Act must be accompanied by the related revenues and be negotiated through amendments to memoranda of understanding.

Goods and services tax implications: The act appears to make a municipal partner an independent contractor. In light of this, it is unclear whether the services as provided by municipalities under the agreement with the Attorney General are liable to goods and services tax. The act should clearly establish that the administration and prosecution services being delivered by municipalities on behalf of the province are not subject to goods and services tax.

Ontario is a vast and diverse province and circumstances vary greatly from one geographic region to another. In some parts of Ontario, the municipal option may not be appropriate given the geographic coverage and nature of governance.

For municipalities to make appropriate decisions about partnering, the Ministry of the Attorney General must share information on caseloads, fine revenue, the costs related to court facilities and court operations and other financial information, such as infrastructure, technology and human resource costs. Without this information, municipalities will be unable to make informed decisions, develop appropriate business plans or make the necessary budget adjustments. In most cases, 1997 municipal budgets will have been completed before the initial rollout of POA changes, limiting the ability of some municipalities to proceed in the short term. Municipalities and property taxpayers must not be asked to take on undue financial risk, and it is not appropriate or acceptable.

Therefore, AMO recommends that the municipalities must not be mandated to take on these new responsibilities, especially where the cost benefit is marginal or questionable.

Local choice also extends to how municipalities carry out their responsibilities. Municipalities should have the flexibility to engage the appropriate person or persons to perform the functions under the provincial-municipal agreement. These persons may or may not be municipal employees.

Rather than focusing on the "who," the provincial interest should focus on the ability of the person or persons to properly carry out the duties under appropriate supervision. This supervision should be performed by an employee of the municipality or, with the consent of the Attorney General, by some other person or agency.

Therefore, AMO recommends that municipalities should have the flexibility to engage the appropriate person or persons to perform the functions under the provincial-municipal agreement, including persons who are not municipal employees.

Timing: The time frame for carrying out the transfer, while targeted for completion in 1999, should remain as flexible as possible. There is a great deal of work to be done to make a seamless transition that meets the needs of all parties. The province must recognize that the 1997 municipal election may impact the speed at which municipal decisions and the development of partnership agreements proceed. While the target date of 1999 seems appropriate, timing of the transition must be flexible in order to ensure an effective and efficient transfer of responsibilities.

We know there are a number of important tools that must be developed and decisions that must be made in order to facilitate a smooth and effective transfer of responsibilities. A generic memorandum of understanding must be developed as the basis for local agreements. Performance standards and monitoring requirements need to be designed with careful consideration of the needs of both partners.

The same can be said for ongoing education and training. Municipal input and participation in the design of these processes and activities will ensure outcomes that satisfy both the province and the municipalities. A full knowledge of these issues will allow municipalities to fully understand the implications of participation in provincial offences administration and prosecution.

A generic memorandum of understanding for local agreements, performance standards and monitoring requirements should be developed in consultation with municipalities. Details of the generic MOU, performance standards and monitoring requirements should be provided, along with the call for proposals to ensure that decisions to participate are fully informed.

Municipalities see Bill 108 proposals as a major step in the right direction. The guiding principle that the level of government which manages the service and generates the revenue should have access to the revenue is a very sound one. Bill 108 advances a spirit of partnership between two levels of government. It promotes a genuine, meaningful disentangling of responsibilities.

Ontario's municipalities lead all orders of government in innovative, effective and cost-efficient service delivery. If municipalities are allowed to integrate the administration and management of services and related revenues under the Provincial Offences Act into streamlined local service systems, everyone will benefit. Let's make sure that we get it right. By adopting the recommendations that we have put forward, this new and vital partnership between the Ministry of the Attorney General and Ontario's municipalities can be held up as an example of how governments can work together to provide better services at less cost. Other government ministries can learn a great deal through this process.

The Chair: Mr Anderson, thank you very much. We're still running behind schedule, but I am going to allow one question per caucus.

Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): Yes, a quick question. Your recommendation 4.1, about municipalities having the flexibility to engage someone other than a municipal employee: It appears to me that's allowable in the bill, section 167, paragraph 4. It says with "the Attorney General's written consent," and I would assume that would mean when striking an agreement with the Attorney General, if the municipality wanted to do it that way, it would just be in the agreement.

Mr Anderson: As long as it's in the agreement and it's part of the agreement, that's fine.

Mr Maves: So it appears that it's allowable under the bill.

Mr Anderson: Under the bill.

Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood): Mr Anderson, the government is throwing around a figure of $65 million that the municipalities of Ontario will benefit from the Provincial Offences Act changes. Crombie estimated $30 million. What are your associations' estimates of what this means in terms of revenues?

Mr Anderson: In light of the downloading, any revenue is appreciated, whether it be $30 million or $65 million. When you consider the $1 billion that has been taken away, $65 million is somewhat negligible, in all seriousness, but it'll go a long way in helping municipalities with access to some more revenue.

I think it's an example of the type of revenue source that municipalities today are going to be looking for and are going to need, as time progresses. We aren't absolutely convinced on the $65 million and we're not absolutely convinced on the $30 million either, but it is revenue and if you're going to force the responsibility on us, then we want the revenue.

Mr Len Wood: Just briefly, one question; there might be two in the one. Are you aware of the cost that it's going to be to the municipalities to implement the new functions that are in Bill 108? Is there a fear, with this being transferred over to municipalities, that the municipalities, in order to try to generate extra revenue, are going to direct police officers into certain areas under some type of quota system in order to make sure the revenues increase because of the downloading that is happening by the province to the municipalities?

Mr Anderson: I'll answer the second part of the question. I am going to have Ms Vanini answer the first part of the question with regard to the cost of the administration.

Municipalities today, in all fairness, try as hard as they can, at least municipal politicians try as hard as they can, to direct police officers where to do radar. If we could get them on local streets today instead of everywhere else, we'd be a lot happier because of the problems we have on local streets and roads under our jurisdiction.

The revenue source -- our authority over the police force won't change, and busy as all get out as it is today, if we can get an officer out in Durham region to do any radar today we're happy. So if we could get him to do a bit more, of course, it would be a plus as long as the people paid their fines.

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Ms Pat Vanini: In terms of the cost, I guess municipalities are still waiting for some of that information from the Ministry of the Attorney General and have been relying on the figures related to net revenue which would be without those costs included.

Once we have that information, we'll have a better sense of what it means for each of the municipalities or the entities of municipalities working on the transfer. I think it's probably safe to say that because municipalities already have an administrative system around parking and other enforcement of bylaws, there probably are some further efficiencies that could be made in the transfer. So until we see those costs we can't quite estimate what further cost savings could be incurred in the transfer, but certainly the net revenue looks reasonable at this point.

The Chair: Ms Vanini and Mr Anderson, thank you very much for coming and making your comments to the committee this morning.

HALTON AREA MUNICIPALITIES

The Chair: We'll ask the third presenter this morning to address the committee, the Halton Area Municipalities, Mike Kovacevic, assistant city solicitor. Mr Kovacevic, good morning.

Mr Michael Kovacevic: Good morning, Mr Chairman. With me today is Jennifer Huctwith, the assistant town solicitor for Oakville. If I can't answer any of your questions, Jennifer will be able to assist me in that regard also.

Mr Kovacevic: As you indicated, I am here representingthe five municipalities within the Halton area, namely the city of Burlington, the town of Oakville, the town of Milton, the town of Halton Hills and the region of Halton.

We'd like to thank you for the opportunity to make submissions on Bill 108. Our submissions result from the formation of something called the Halton area services review committee which is a committee that's been struck in Halton in order to look at the role the municipalities play in the provision of services and try to find the most efficient way of providing services within our area.

One such service identified to be provided to the residents by the municipalities is the Provincial Offences Act responsibilities that will be transferred pursuant to Bill 108. All the councils of the five municipalities within Halton and the two school boards have, by resolution, endorsed the formation of the Halton area services review committee and the services it is examining, in this case, namely the Provincial Offences Act. Our submissions are representative of the review team dealing with the Provincial Offences Act and we currently have a team working on effecting the transfer of the POA responsibilities to our municipalities and the team is made up of representatives from all the participating municipalities in our area.

Our main reason today for submissions on Bill 108 is to support Bill 108. We see the opportunity to provide a service in an efficient manner that would generate revenues for our participating municipalities. At the present time, with the way Bill 108 is drafted, we do not find any provisions within it disagreeable. However, later on in my presentation I will indicate that we believe there are some omissions or concerns that we do have with Bill 108 that perhaps could be added to the bill.

One key element that we do see in the Bill is section 174. It is significant specifically to our area because section 174 allows the province to make agreements with a number of municipalities in an area, not just one. In our situation, this allows our municipalities to work together to effect a local plan for the provisions of Provincial Offences Act services. The current situation in our area is that we have three courts: one in Burlington, one in Oakville and one in Milton. We would like to retain our three courts for Provincial Offences Act services and perhaps share some common elements through intermunicipal agreements among ourselves.

The rationale for retaining the structure as we have it now is that we would like to see a seamless transfer of the service to our area. Further, the larger municipalities would like to retain this service in their areas because we feel it's quite onerous for citizens to travel a potentially large distance -- they're inconvenienced -- to go up to Milton to a main court for a traffic ticket.

Another reason we would like to retain our service as it is currently is that it would allow the larger municipalities to share their greater resources with the smaller municipalities in our area. We have two large municipalities and two smaller municipalities, and the two smaller municipalities within our team are already trying to work together to maybe have a centralized location for themselves.

We also see the opportunity, as I indicated before, to share common elements. In our case it could mean sharing a prosecutor or two prosecutors within the number of municipalities that would be served, and sharing the administration. One large municipality could provide administration services in one area for a number of the municipalities. This is all possible currently under the act through allowing intermunicipal agreements and having the province have agreements with a number of municipalities.

As I indicated before, we are currently working on a plan to become a pilot site for the transfer of the PAO responsibilities to our area and, as I indicated, the key is flexible legislation. Currently, Bill 108 provides that flexibility and we would not favour any amendments that would take away that flexibility to us.

As I indicated previously, we do have some concerns that have not been addressed in Bill 108. I believe you've been provided with my submission in written form. On page 2 of the submission, the concerns that we have are outlined there and I'll go through a few of them for you.

Currently in Bill 108 there's no protection afforded to municipalities if the information provided to the municipalities by the province that forms the basis of the transfer of the responsibilities is incorrect through one reason or another. There is no provision in Bill 108 to transfer any existing infrastructure such as computers to participating municipalities.

Subsection 162(3) of the bill deals with standards that participating municipalities have to meet. However there is no provision in the bill for the province to recognize or be accountable for inherited deficiencies such as backlogs in the systems, and we would not want to be accountable for deficiencies that resulted from provincial administration prior to the municipalities taking over. There is no provision in Bill 108 for any training or funding for training of municipal staff who will be carrying out provincial responsibilities.

We feel there is also a need to amend Bill 108 such that municipalities that do undertake an agreement with the province have the ability to establish their own set fines for part I and part II offences. Currently, we have to get judicial approval for these set fines. However, in some cases that doesn't recognize local needs and problems that are specific to each community.

Accordingly, if we were given our own power to set our own fines, it would make things much easier. However, we do recognize that there is a provincial interest in this regard and there could be safeguards built into the act that would ensure that an appeal mechanism to provincial authority could result.

Further, the ability to set fines by ourselves without judicial approval would only extend to municipal bylaws and not provincial statutes.

There is no provision in Bill 108 that would ensure that the existing integrated court offices network computer system, known as ICON, would be maintained and financed by the province. There is also no provision in Bill 108 addressing the province's responsibilities once the ICON system becomes obsolete and outdated.

We have information, and it hasn't been confirmed, that the current system is very close to being obsolete and a new system is being designed. Whether it incorporates all of the current ICON system is also a concern. So this is a major concern to municipalities because it may be a major cost for us in the future.

We would suggest that Bill 108 be amended so that the existing ICON system is maintained and financed by the province and that any replacement be fully funded by the province. Such funding would include its installation, its maintenance and, if applicable, its creation. The continuation of ICON or a similar system is important because then it would ensure that the present-day intercourt communication would be maintained.

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There is no provision in Bill 108 that would allow municipalities to declare unpaid fines uncollectible. Municipalities should be allowed to declare unpaid fines uncollectible if collection enforcement proceedings do not result in the recovery of a fine. Further, municipalities should not have to pay any moneys with respect to particular fine revenues to the province pursuant to subsection 165(5) of the proposed legislation if the amount of the fine has been declared uncollectible by a municipality.

There's no provision in Bill 108 concerning accounts receivable existing on the date of the transfer of the Provincial Offences Act responsibilities to municipalities. Bill 108 should indicate that municipalities would not be responsible for any uncollectible moneys that existed prior to the transfer. Certain amounts may be uncollectible for a number of reasons beyond a municipality's control, including the expiration of a limitation period to commence civil collection proceedings.

Currently in Halton we've been informed by the administration that for all the courts in Halton -- basically Burlington, Oakville and Milton -- for provincial offences, there's $6.5 million in accounts receivable that has not been collected by the province. These accounts receivable date back 10 years. We would not want to be responsible for the liability associated with that unless the debt is able to be collected in some form or another.

It is our request that perhaps the items I've outlined could be addressed in amendments to Bill 108.

I'd like to end our submission by indicating that we are enthusiastic about Bill 108. We're enthusiastic about taking over the responsibilities and are working towards a pilot project and that we're ready and willing to take on Bill 108 at this time. Thank you, Mr Chairman, and members of the committee.

Ms Castrilli: Thank you very much for being here this morning. I'd like to start by asking you if you've done any costing of some of the items that you mentioned here: the infrastructure, the training of staff, the maintenance of these computer programs that you say are obsolete and the replacement of them if you have to do that. Have you done any of that?

Mr Kovacevic: At the present time, we're undergoing that costing and we have looked at the cost of employees so far within Halton. When the province transfers the responsibility to the area municipalities, there is an indication that four to five surplus staff will result from the court administration and we might be willing to take on some of those people. We may not be able to pay the levels of the current salaries of the provincial employees, but the costing we've done to date -- and I can base it on those figures -- we haven't worked out an exact amount, but we have worked out an amount that we might predict we would get in revenue.

Currently, the three courts generate about 25,000 tickets between the four municipalities. That information comes from the court administration and from the Attorney General's office. If you average $100 per ticket, which is a conservative average, that works out to $2.5 million in gross revenue for our five participating municipalities.

We use a conservative rough cost of 50 cents on the dollar in order to carry out the administration of the service. That's not POA-related costs relating to any police services, that's just the court costs and prosecution costs etc. So we would see revenue of half of the $2.5 million, and for Burlington, my municipality, because of our size, that would probably generate a net revenue to us of about $500,000.

Ms Castrilli: Have you factored in the 50% that needs to be paid to the victim surcharge or the victim adjusted fund?

Mr Kovacevic: Yes.

Ms Castrilli: This includes all of that?

Mr Kovacevic: It's a very rough calculation at this time because at the present time all the information has not been released for the province and we're still in the process of gathering statistics. We had to make a very rough estimation at the beginning of our process to see if it would be worthwhile for us to undertake the Provincial Offences Act responsibilities, and according to our rough calculations we felt it was.

I believe the Attorney General's figures for costing were 35 cents on the dollar. We've just increased it, to be on a safer side, to 50 cents on the dollar at this point. But as I say, it's a very rough estimate.

The Chair: We have to move along.

Mr Len Wood: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm interested in number 4. You're saying there's no provision in Bill 108 for funding for training of municipal staff.

In the area I represent, the largest community is about 10,000 in population and there are about 20 municipalities that are smaller than that. I know you're talking about Burlington in your presentation, but the cost of training and who's going to be doing the jobs and all that -- you're saying Burlington could probably make $500,000. There is a concern that in some of the other 860 municipalities there might not be the revenue. The cost of setting things up and training the employees and continuing to retrain the employees for that might be more than what revenue they get.

Mr Kovacevic: In our opinion, the act provides some flexibility in that regard, because if you're a small enough municipality you can enter into intermunicipal agreements with other municipalities. For instance, 15 small municipalities could partner up and have the service provided among themselves through an agreement so that their resources could be pooled together.

One example of that is, through discussions I've had with Brampton -- and this is to be confirmed by Brampton, but these are just discussions -- I believe they may be providing the service for Caledon, which is a much smaller municipality. In our instance, we have Milton and Halton Hills, which are both small municipalities. As I indicated in my presentation, they will be partnering up to provide the service for themselves, I believe within the Milton area, so they can rationalize their resources and not have two courts, one in Milton and one at Halton Hills, because they don't have the resources to undertake that. Then we, as larger municipalities, may provide them with some administrative support and some services also.

Mr Len Wood: A lot of the municipalities up until this point in time -- I know that's going to change as we go along -- over the last 20 years, abolished their municipal police forces and have been supplied OPP services. Those were some of the agreements that were reached by the Conservative government at that time. Now they're going to have to pay a certain amount for OPP policing.

I'm just wondering, and it's a question that a lot of people are going to be concerned about, are municipalities going to be able to have enough OPP officers to enforce these infractions or are they going to use bylaw enforcement officers? Who's going to be giving out speeding tickets? How are these services going to be done? I know towns like Smooth Rock Falls and Hearst have had free police servicing. Are they now going to have to use their own municipal employees to do it? It's a great concern. There are a lot of things that are up in the air right now.

Mr Kovacevic: Our municipalities are within a two-tier structure and we have a regional police force. However, we are, through other means, encouraging an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act such that municipal bylaw enforcement officers can be appointed under the Highway Traffic Act to enforce moving violations such as speeding. Also, we'd be favourable to having photo-radar instituted in our municipalities to a certain degree because revenue generation would be quite substantial.

At this point, much of the enforcement on Highway Traffic Act offences is carried out by our regional police and also by the OPP in our areas because we have the 400 series highways running through them.

With respect to the smaller municipalities, I don't believe I have the ability to answer the questions with respect to the OPP. I have never dealt with those types of problems.

Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): Thank you for your presentation. I just want a comment or two about your concerns on this transfer of responsibilities. You're suggesting it should be done by amendment to the act. Under this act, you've got the memorandum of understanding between the province and the municipalities. Do you not feel that it might be better to have some of your concerns addressed in that memorandum of understanding, which will give the individual municipalities some flexibility in their agreements, rather than have it carved in stone within the act?

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Mr Kovacevic: Being a lawyer and having to litigate many contracts and agreements in the past, I would rather have something carved in stone than have it be open to interpretation under an agreement. Therefore, with respect to current concerns -- and my client is my municipality -- I would rather have my municipality's concerns taken care of through legislation and carved in stone rather than having them subject to interpretation by a judge who is not involved in the drafting of the agreement. To me, there's more protection afforded through legislation.

Mr Chudleigh: I was just pleased to see the general support of the bill. My question was very similar to Mr Stewart's in that Ontario is a very diverse province, as the member for Cochrane North would indicate, and an agreement that could be reached with a community in southern Ontario through a pilot project perhaps might give some indication of that diversity that would be required throughout Ontario. Many of the concerns that you've listed in your brief, do you think that some or most of those concerns could be addressed through an agreement reached with the Attorney General, which the act provides for?

Mr Kovacevic: As I indicated before, I'm more comfortable with the concerns being addressed through legislation. The concerns I've outlined, in fairness, I would like to see applicable to all municipalities because I think they would protect all municipalities. However, they can be addressed in an agreement, but preferably, for the protection of municipalities, from my client's point of view, I would like to see them in legislation.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kovacevic, Ms Huctwith, for coming and making your comments available to the committee.

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF OTTAWA-CARLETON

The Chair: The fourth presentation is the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, David White, legal counsel, and Eric Johnston, deputy regional solicitor. I should tell the committee that Mr Johnston and I went through two universities together some time ago, so I have some bias towards him. It's good to see you again.

Mr Eric Johnston: Thank you, Mr Chair. I was afraid you might disqualify yourself from the proceedings. I'm glad you made the disclosure at the outset and avoided the problem of my dealing with that issue.

My name is Eric Johnston. I am deputy regional solicitor for the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. With me is Mr David White, a solicitor in our office, who is a little more knowledgeable about the subject at hand, and I will certainly defer to him with respect to detailed questions. We'll try to keep this brief.

The regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton fully endorses Bill 108. I think the bill has a rather apt title: Streamlining of Administration of the Provincial Offences Act, 1997. The region of Ottawa-Carleton is pleased to be here this morning to be able to support this progressive legislation.

The support of our regional municipality is detailed in the booklet which has been distributed to you this morning. I will merely try to touch on some of the highlights contained therein.

The regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the province. It's known as being the nation's capital, but we also have our local issues. The region of Ottawa-Carleton has a full range of upper-tiered services, as one might expect from any regional municipality in Ontario.

It's interesting that regional police have been a recent addition to our area of jurisdiction. In fact, we were the last regional municipality to take on that function, notwithstanding that we were one of the first regions to come into existence. Ottawa-Carleton region, together with our regional police force, has been actively involved in building the foundation for Bill 108 through the provincial-municipal provincial offences task force.

In addition, the council of the region of Ottawa-Carleton in February directed staff to prepare a proposal and submit it to the Attorney General with a view to taking on the responsibilities contemplated in Bill 108. In our view, the Provincial Offences Act initiatives contained in this bill are in keeping with the overall scheme of this government with respect to accountability. What it does is place the function in one spot and provides the possibility for one-stop shopping.

In addition to that, we see greater efficiency. There is the opportunity to maintain the high existing level of service in this function, together with a reduction of costs. There is currently somewhat of a duplication and overlap between the Attorney General's recordkeeping and that of police forces. It's our view that can be reduced significantly.

From the local perspective and that of having a police force, we see a significant reduction of police court-related costs with respect to attendance in court on charges.

Ottawa-Carleton looks forward to the new partnership with the ministry contemplated in this legislation. Ottawa-Carleton is confident that it has the ability to carry out this serious responsibility that the transfer entails.

The regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton has a large staff. It has the experience and it has the resources to undertake this function. Being a large metropolitan municipality, we have a significant in-house counsel: the legal department. That department has over the years acquired a certain knowledge and expertise in the prosecution area. We are ready, willing and able to take on additional staff that may be required with respect to the new functions.

I should also indicate, having come in shortly after 10 and having only heard the last part of one of the submissions to the committee, that Ottawa-Carleton has for many, many years had an official language policy. There is a bilingual policy for the corporation. The prosecutions I refer to that have been carried out by solicitors in our office are done in both official languages and we have that capability.

Ottawa-Carleton doesn't propose any specific amendments or changes to the bill. Mr White participated in the task force and I think many of the issues and concerns that may have come up this morning or been submitted on an earlier date were addressed to our satisfaction in that exercise.

I might just mention, and this is contained in the booklet, that there are some concerns. They're not significant ones, but I think they should be registered with the committee. We see Bill 108 as the first step in an overall reform process. It is a provincial-municipal partnership. I submit to you that it should be viewed as an evolving, dynamic relationship and, as situations change, both partners should be able to make adjustments accordingly. The consultation which has occurred to date we suggest should be ongoing and become an important element in any future discussions and issues.

The final point is that the access to the provincial facilities and resources, in our view, becomes a key or a critical element in the continued success of this initiative.

The regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton believes that the interests of justice and of the public will be well served by the amendments contained in Bill 108 and is eager to enter into a new partnership with the provincial government. In conclusion, on behalf of Ottawa-Carleton regional municipality, we urge the government to move forward with this initiative on the basis that it is proposed.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Johnston. Some of the members of the committee may have some questions.

Mr Len Wood: Yes, a couple of questions. As you mentioned earlier, you heard the submission made by the first presenters that they were concerned there's no section in Bill 108 that guarantees French-language services. I know you're saying you already have them in Ottawa-Carleton, but is it a concern of yours that there should be something in Bill 108 that would guarantee the services to the municipalities? I know Ottawa-Carleton is a large area, but Bill 108 also covers a large number of other communities that might not be able to continue on the same basis as what the provincial government is doing right now. That's one of the questions I would be concerned about.

The estimated cost of startup is concerned with revenue that's going to be coming in, because we're all aware that since January there have been a lot of announcements that the municipalities are going to have to pick up more of the costs for welfare, for long-term care, for everything. The costs of starting this up and the revenues, are they going to be enough to compensate for the dumping that is taking place?

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Mr Johnston: With respect to the first question, as you indicated, it's not a particular concern in our jurisdiction. As to whether it is desirable policy to put it in this legislation, I guess the alternative is to have it contained as a directive. Perhaps it could be an issue that is addressed in the memorandums of understanding. Whether it's necessary to include it in the legislation, I guess my initial reaction to that is that there are other ways of achieving that goal without enshrining it in the legislation.

The Chair: Mr Maves.

Mr Johnston: The second aspect: I would defer to Mr White with respect to the startup costs.

The Chair: I'm sorry. I'm at fault, Mr Maves. I interrupted and I shouldn't have.

Mr Len Wood: There's a second answer coming here.

Mr David White: As far as the startup costs go, again we have done some preliminary work estimating things like technology transfer, increased staffing, and we are confident that the revenue that is proposed to be produced by the administration and prosecution function will more than cover the startup costs involved.

The Chair: Mr Maves, now you can jump in.

Mr Maves: You mentioned on page 6 that you've a demonstrated ability to conduct prosecutions in either French or English. I'm just wondering about your region's commitment to continuing to provide that level of service.

Mr Johnston: As I indicated, there is an official policy of the corporation passed by council. There is no question that commitment will continue in the future.

Mr Maves: How long have you conducted prosecutions in either official language?

Mr Johnston: Bear in mind that the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, being an upper tier, did not from day one involve itself in prosecutions. So it's been a relatively recent involvement and it's been connected with some of the recent assumptions of jurisdiction. I would say it's in the area of six or seven years. The recent assumptions of jurisdiction relate to solid waste. Also there is an arrangement we've entered into, again with the province, for prosecuting under their tobacco control legislation. Both of those examples are done in both languages, and I might indicate predominantly in French.

Ms Castrilli: I just have a couple of quick questions. The first is that you indicate on page 7 of your brief that you're going to be required to hire new staff to have technological changes and you want to assure that there is a stable source of revenue from the collected fines, which is a responsible attitude, it seems to me, for municipalities to want to take.

Doesn't it bother you that in the context of this bill the Attorney General has unilateral power to get out of an agreement if he decides its standards aren't being complied with or for other reasons and there's no power on the part of the municipalities to say, "Look, this deal isn't working out and we want to look at it again or, in the worst-case scenario, get out of it"?

Mr Johnston: Not particularly. We view this as a partnership arrangement. We will negotiate the memorandum. If the ultimate unilateral decision remains with the province of Ontario, that's fine.

Ms Castrilli: The second question I have goes back to the first presentation that was made by the Association des juristes d'expression française de l'Ontario. Their simple recommendation was to add this clause to the bill and, given the very large number of Franco-Ontarians in your area, I wonder if you might specifically comment on it. They're asking for one simple amendment that says, "Any delegation of power to a municipality under this act shall not be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from existing language rights." They set out the charter and the existing legislation. They're not asking for anything in addition to that. Would that trouble you, as a simple recommendation?

Mr Johnston: No, that would be quite acceptable.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Johnston and Mr White. It was a pleasure hearing you, and it was good seeing you again, Mr Johnston.

TOWN OF ORANGEVILLE

The Chair: The fifth delegation before us this morning is the town of Orangeville, which is the largest town in the beautiful riding of Dufferin-Peel -- I keep having biases this morning -- Mr Vern Douglas, the director of building and bylaw enforcement, and Linda Dean, the town clerk. Good morning.

Ms Linda Dean: Chair Tilson, members, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, we thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to present our views with respect to Bill 108. As you know, we're representing the views of the town of Orangeville. Following our presentation, Mr Douglas will answer any questions.

By way of introduction, the town of Orangeville is situated in the southern part of Dufferin county, just 80 kilometres northwest of Toronto, at the intersection of Highways 9, 10, 24 and 136. With a population of approximately 22,000, Orangeville is a fast-growing, fully urban municipality. It is by far the largest urban centre in the county, accounting for approximately one half its population. We are a full-service municipality, providing water and sewer services, waste management, day care, transit, fire and police.

Orangeville runs efficiently and effectively and has been able to serve its citizens well with no tax increase in the last seven years. We have a full-scale police service of approximately 30 officers and deliver local bylaw enforcement through the building and bylaw enforcement department.

The effect of Bill 108 would provide an opportunity for the province and municipalities to reduce overlap and duplication, as both levels of government have staff providing similar job-related duties. It will also be a new revenue source for municipalities even after the costs have been considered.

There is no doubt that this downloading of responsibility would be a boon to municipalities, which are constantly struggling with the problem of maintaining services to their citizens with ever-shrinking resources. The new revenue source will give municipalities much-needed funds which can be spent on further improving local services and maintaining others that could otherwise be subject to budget restrictions even after this increase in revenue.

We applaud this government's initiative in introducing Bill 108. This bill follows through on the previous government's Bills 25 and 47, which also proposed elements of a transfer of responsibilities under the Provincial Offences Act. It encourages municipal self-sufficiency, which, while benefiting the municipality, also provides cost savings and process efficiencies to the province.

We are very much in favour of this proposed transfer of responsibilities. It is another tool for municipalities to hold the line on property taxes. It is therefore important that the revenues be returned to the source municipality to use as the need dictates and that the expenditure of such revenues not be restricted in any way through the agreement with the ministry.

One of the specific areas of Bill 108 we wish to address is clause 165(5)(c), which refers to municipalities being responsible for the "costs the Attorney General incurs for adjudication and prosecution, for monitoring the performance of the agreement" and for enforcement.

There's no indication of the dollar value of the costs referred to in this section. Municipalities would need this information to decide whether they want to submit a proposal. Although these costs could vary, some indication of a range or a percentage of revenue would be helpful. We would like to see some percentage or formula incorporated into the act.

Another section we're pleased with is paragraph 167(1)2, which provides that the court location "need not be in premises operated by the province of Ontario for court purposes."

This offers flexibility to the municipality by not requiring that the established court facilities be used. Alternate facilities which may be available to municipalities could be a cost savings in some circumstances. This section gives municipalities the option of using the existing courthouse or establishing its own POA court in another location.

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Paragraph 167(1)4 states that "the municipality shall not without the Attorney General's written consent...in advance, assign to a person other than its own employee a function that the agreement gives to the municipality."

This clause seems to prevent municipalities from contracting out certain court services, and we think municipalities should be allowed the opportunity to contract out, for example, prosecution services if they could realize a cost savings or process efficiency in so doing.

The council of the town of Orangeville has expressed its desire to participate in the proposed transfer of responsibility from the province at its meeting held on March 24. The terms of reference for the transfer of responsibility have not been included in Bill 108. It is our understanding that these criteria will not be released until after the bill is passed. As a result, there is no forum for municipal input on the matter of the terms of reference.

The town of Orangeville is concerned that the terms of reference for a request for proposal could be designed to favour large municipalities or possibly an upper-tier municipality exclusively. The criteria should not restrict municipalities from taking on this enhanced responsibility based solely on size or on the basis that it is not an upper-tier municipality. Both lower-tier municipalities and those of smaller size can be fully capable of taking on the court administration and prosecuting functions proposed in Bill 108. Most lower-tier municipalities have experience in the prosecution of parking infractions and municipal bylaw violations, experience which upper-tier municipalities generally do not have.

Other information we think should be included with the request for proposal is that which relates to the costs municipalities may incur in taking over this function. For example, what would be the cost to rent back the courthouse facilities? What are the pay ranges of existing staff? How many are currently employed at each location? What are their hours of work? What would be the cost to lease or buy the computer hardware or software required to take on this responsibility? All of this information is necessary for municipalities to be able to put forward a meaningful and viable proposal to the ministry.

Most of the prosecutable offences in Dufferin county occur in Orangeville. Town staff in bylaw enforcement and in the police service have the most in-depth knowledge of the bylaws, including background and intent, and this is more likely to result in successful prosecutions. It is noteworthy that the town has also initiated discussions with neighbouring rural townships with respect to our provision of this service to them, and the discussions are ongoing right now.

Orangeville's situation in this regard is not unique. It is probably repeated over and over again in many urban municipalities that are situated within a large, rural county. The province will need to consider the local governance issues related to current levels of service delivery and which level of government is currently providing services as they relate to Bill 108.

In closing, the town of Orangeville believes that it can successfully take on the new responsibilities proposed in Bill 108 without sacrificing the current level of service and without jeopardizing the integrity of the system. What we are asking for are terms of reference which would be inclusive of all municipalities, whatever size or tier, which would allow for selection to be made on the merits of a particular municipality and the quality of its submission to the ministry, and a commitment that the revenues will be returned to the source municipality to use without restrictions and also the ability to contract out court services, where appropriate, if a cost savings or process efficiency can be realized.

We want to thank you for this opportunity to express our views to the standing committee. We'd be happy to answer any questions.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Dean. Any questions from the government caucus?

Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): Previous presenters have had differing opinions on whether there should be an MOU or whether it should be enshrined in legislation. What's your feeling on that? Do you think you can address all the issues through a memorandum of understanding or do you think it needs to be enshrined in legislation?

Mr Vern Douglas: I think each county or region is unique. I don't have a problem with the memorandums being open to interpretation and working with the province on bringing it forward.

Mrs Ross: You've stated that Dufferin county has had some discussions with respect to this. Are you optimistic that agreements can be reached for an efficient service?

Mr Douglas: With the surrounding municipalities? We're still working on it. The clerks and treasurers of each of those municipalities have met twice. There are another two meetings coming up. They are leaving their options open at this time, but they're definitely interested.

Mr Len Wood: We have now heard a presentation from a smaller community. We've heard from Ottawa-Carleton, we've heard from Burlington and the large, urban, populated areas. I know Orangeville a little bit. I have travelled through there quite often going to Listowel and Mitchell and Stratford, where my family used to live.

You're saying you're looking for the terms of reference as to how it would affect all the municipalities. We heard in an earlier presentation that AMO has been involved in the negotiations. What is your involvement with AMO?

Ms Dean: We are a member municipality of AMO. I have had the opportunity to read AMO's submission, and we are in agreement with it. We support their recommendations.

Mr Len Wood: In northern Ontario next week, on May 8 and 9, all the municipalities are meeting, involved in the concerns of how this bill is going to affect them and how all the mega-downloading is going to affect them and their tax base. Has your municipality been meeting with other municipalities on the same concerns?

Mr Douglas: Yes, we have, and that is a concern. I think all municipalities share the same interest, that any surplus revenues that may be generated should go back to the source municipality, whether the OPP would be their police service or not. If a ticketable offence was issued in their municipality and they were paying for the police service, they would want those surplus revenues to come back to that municipality and not stay with an upper-tier government.

Mr Len Wood: Some of the concern is that a lot of the 100-series bills are involved in mega-dumping. Bill 108 is allowing the municipalities to retain some resources.

Another concern is that the responsibilities for police services, the budgets and so on, are going to be given to the municipalities. Some of the police officers are saying they fear they're going to be given quotas; that the municipality, the mayors or reeves, is going to say, "We want you to target that particular area because we need extra revenue." The same thing could apply to municipal employees. Is there a fear that some areas of the municipality might be left out because of a quota system that the mayor and town council might impose on their employees and the police to increase revenue?

Mr Douglas: We haven't heard any of those fears. We have a good rapport with our own police department. They're very proactive in the areas of the Highway Traffic Act that they need to be; I believe the OPP in our county are as well. I don't think there will be pressure on the police services to increase, I guess, their tickets to allow for more revenues.

Mr Len Wood: Our NDP caucus met yesterday with a lobby group made up of police officers, and this was one of their concerns not only with this bill but with some of the other changes that are taking place, that there's going to be a big demand for municipalities to increase revenues. One of them was saying, "Len, when you get stopped from now on, you might not only pay a speeding ticket, but you might be given four or five other charges, which will give revenue of not only $100 for no seatbelt, but you could get four or five charges just to increase the amount of revenue that's coming."

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming, Mr Douglas and Ms Dean. Give my regards to Orangeville.

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YORK AREA MUNICIPALITIES

The Chair: Our final delegation this morning is the York area municipalities. I have four names and two people coming. Don Sinclair, solicitor corporate, and Richard Duncan, I hope I have your names correct.

Mr Don Sinclair: Yes.

The Chair: If you would identify yourself, welcome to the committee.

Mr Sinclair: Thank you, Mr Chairman, members of the committee. My name is Don Sinclair, solicitor with the city of Vaughan, and with me is Mr Richard Duncan, a prosecutor with the town of Richmond Hill in the region of York.

The region of York, as you will know, lies immediately north of Toronto. It consists of nine municipalities, rural and urban, the rural municipalities being West Gwillimbury, Georgina, King, Whitchurch-Stouffville; and the more urbanized municipalities being Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Markham, Aurora and Newmarket. The population would be in the range of 500,000.

Richard and I don't speak formally for the councils in York region. We're here as a result of meetings staff in that region have been having, staff of the various municipalities and the region itself.

Vaughan council, which I report to and work for, did give authority for its staff to pursue this POA transfer. We initially thought that it would be specifically to a municipality. We've learned since that it's much more complicated than that, at least in a situation like York region.

Those solicitors who are directly employed by municipalities had a meeting recently. I've attached notes from that meeting to this presentation. If you look at pages 3 and 4, I'll go through those quickly. These recommendations are being made by the solicitors in York region to their chief administrative officers, who are meeting tomorrow to discuss this project:

That there be a consolidated proposal from all the municipalities in York region to achieve transfer of the Provincial Offences Act administration in the region -- that is, that not one municipality do it or the region per se but all municipalities consolidate into one proposal.

The options to locate the administration: It could be operated within the administration of the region, which is now in Newmarket, or a separate board or authority could be incorporated with membership from each participating municipality. So it's not occurring specifically within a municipal administration, but there would be a neutral, independent third party established to carry on.

That there may be room down the road for requests for proposals from the private sector for such administration.

That in York region the transfer occur at least in two phases:

Phase 1: Achieving an immediate and seamless transfer, assuming the existing court facilities in Newmarket. The reason this is an issue in York is that the court facilities being in Newmarket are north of where most of the people are. They're a bit out of the way, but they're there.

Looking at phase 2: After completion of the initial transfer, that the body that would be administering the POA in York region prepare implementation plans to provide services in the urbanized south of the region, where the people are, where the infractions are occurring, essentially. This could include new court locations, satellite facilities, improved first attendance facilities and so on.

The solicitors are also recommending to their CAOs that there be an implementation task force or committee established. I don't think I need to go into the details on that.

Back to page 1 of the presentation, in terms of options for the administration, which is really what we're going to address this morning, be it regional, be it within a local municipality or be it through a board or authority, I think you've heard some other solicitors indicate, especially the solicitor from Halton, that the act right now permits agreements among municipalities and an agreement with the Attorney General with a group of municipalities.

There are attractions to each option. When we thought of this idea of a board or authority undertaking this administration, we looked at the act to see if it would be permitted or precluded. It's not specifically permitted, which means it may be, in terms of municipal law, precluded. You want things to be as clear as possible. We're not saying that we want to do a board or authority in York, but we would like at least to be open to the possibility of creating one.

We are suggesting that there be an amendment to the bill to permit such a board or authority to be incorporated by municipalities if, when they get together, they decide that's the best way to operate this service in that region. The wording we've suggested here is: "The municipality may assign to any person permitted in the agreement a function that the agreement gives to the municipality and for purposes of such assignment may incorporate a body corporate."

I think we would, as solicitors, be making that recommendation anyway, but it's especially important in the context of the amendments coming along to the Municipal Act. The draft that we have seen would state at section 12:

"Unless a municipality is specifically authorized to do so by this or any other act, it does not have power to,

"(a) incorporate a corporation...."

If the Municipal Act goes through with that clause in it and the POA amendment did not say that there was a specific authority to incorporate a corporation, it couldn't be done without a change to the legislation, so let's do it now. That's what we're suggesting.

There are also some other minor amendments to the bill that we would suggest. The bill is suggesting an amendment to the Municipal Act, section 206.1, and we would suggest it either not be included in the bill in so far as it doesn't necessarily add anything to the bill or, if it is added, that it not, again, preclude the activities being assigned to a person who is not specifically an employee of the municipality.

That's the submission I want to make. Mr Duncan, did you have anything to add to that?

Mr Richard Duncan: The only concern I see at this particular stage is the reference in Bill 108 with regard to the Contraventions Act. In a recent prosecutors' association conference that was held on April 25, it became known to us that the federal government has changed its prescribed fines, which I understand are tantamount to our set fines. Those were taken down from areas of $300 to $75. It also was apparent that at this particular time there are few federal departments involved in the Contraventions Act, and it seems, as far as my analysis is concerned, that many of the federal departments at this particular time are standing by and seeing how those that are involved fare with the agreements between the provinces and, consequently, the agreements between the province and the municipalities.

The Contraventions Act is an extremely complicated piece of legislation. It also is not very much in terms of revenue-generating. It could end up costing municipalities far more than it's worth to enforce, and that's a particular problem that we don't want to get into.

In addition to that, the downgrading of their fines has caused some concerns among many of the people whom I've had discussions with, in addition to the complication of this type of act for enforcement purposes and the detailed process that would have to be gone through in order to change such an act or to bring amendments to such an act.

Right now with the Contraventions Act, under Bill 108 the revenues would go back to the province. There is no sharing of that or doesn't seem to be any sharing of that revenue with the municipality. It seems the province gets part of it and the federal government gets part of it. Keep in mind that many departments, if they see that things go well with prosecutions at the municipal level under the Contraventions Act, could start loading a lot of their legislation into this area, and that then would become an extreme cost for the municipalities.

The Chair: Do you have further comments?

Mr Sinclair: No. Thank you, Mr Chair.

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Mr Colle: Thank you, Mr Sinclair and Mr Duncan. The real conundrum here is, if you devolve the POA offences down to the local municipalities, how can this be done if you've got all the different municipalities in York region? You're going to have varying standards, because the municipalities will have the authority, it seems, to charge different amounts, treat the administration differently. For instance, they're going to have a different approach in the city of Vaughan than you might in Newmarket or in Richmond Hill, and then everyone is going to have their own independence, and then the different bylaw enforcement officers: Are you going to have your own Green Hornets? Then you have red, blue, green, orange hornets all over the place.

I think you make a very good point: You're going to have to have some kind of board that's going to have to administer the POA. Whether it be regional or whether it be some federation, I can't see it functioning unless that's allowable. Does that seem to be allowable under the act right now? That's what I wonder about.

Mr Sinclair: Well, our concern would be that it's not and that the act be amended to permit it. It may not end up being the final solution in York region, but unless it's there and permissible, it can't happen.

Mr Colle: The contradiction too is difficult, because local municipalities like Richmond Hill or Vaughan have particular needs in terms of the provincial offences and how they see their specific local needs, which may be very different in Newmarket than they are in Woodbridge, for instance.

As you said, there are still rural areas involved in York region, so you need that particularity in terms of treatment of individuals and offering of services. You need that, yet you need the coordination, because some of the municipalities blend into each other. When you go up Yonge Street, it's hard to tell where one ends and one begins.

Perhaps what you're really asking for is for a definition or clarification of what kind of arrangement; what kind of, as you're saying, POA services board or something like that can administer this.

Mr Sinclair: We're not asking that the bill put in the specifics of whatever that arrangement would be, just that it permit it. Then it would be worked out with the municipalities, with the region and with the Ministry of the Attorney General. It won't proceed without the consent of the province or the ministry, but it would have to be negotiated, settled, signed and then implemented.

Mr Len Wood: On your final page there, page 2, in section 4 you're saying that the way you see it is that there would be a transfer of solicitors, bylaw enforcement officers, police and court personnel from the province to the municipality in different phases over the next two years.

Mr Sinclair: No. That list on the last page is who would be on the task force or committee to undertake implementation of the POA transfer in York region.

Mr Len Wood: Okay. There was a concern; one of the previous presenters was saying that they would like to see a change made so that contracting out of these services could be done. What's your view on the municipalities doing it with their own employees or contracting out or outsourcing the services?

Mr Sinclair: There are different modes of contracting out now, and I'm not sure the bill would prevent hiring, say, an outside prosecutor to take on a specific case or even files. I know now that when we were looking at the existing situation in York region, the clerks and reporters of the court are on contract. They're not provincial employees up there. So there is that happening to some extent now.

When the solicitors themselves were meeting to discuss this, they themselves were thinking it might be appropriate to put out a request for proposals down the road once the region and the municipalities in the region know the parameters, the extent, the costs, the involvement and the obligations that come with this kind of a transfer. I think it's something that's not to be not considered, but I can't give you more specifics than that now.

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): Certainly as an MPP for part of York region I appreciate your being here and making these comments. I just wondered if you could explain for us what happens now in terms of the part 1 jurisdiction. Is that being done by individual municipalities or by York region?

Mr Sinclair: Richard, you've got experience with that.

Mr Duncan: In York region each individual municipality will, through its bylaw enforcement department, issue part I tickets for certain bylaw offences that we have prescribed fines for, that we have set fines for, and short-form wording.

We have an option of either swearing a part III information or issuing a part I ticket. Those are prosecuted by the municipality. For three of the municipalities in York region, they have full-time prosecutors who handle those. In many of the other municipalities an officer will prosecute a ticket done by his fellow officer and then it would turn around in a trial.

Those are handled by the municipality at this particular time. With Bill 108, of course, we're looking at a transfer of other responsibilities that the municipalities have never had. Certainly, the prosecutors now involved in municipal prosecutions don't have that experience to prosecute, say, Highway Traffic Act or some of the other acts that will come down. So of course we're looking at certain training costs. We don't know whether that's going to be borne by the municipality or the province. There's an indication the province is going to assist in that; certainly it would have to assist in setting the standards and so on.

Mrs Munro: Do you see this as an opportunity, then, to fold in and centralize that whole process?

Mr Duncan: Certainly. Yes.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Sinclair and Mr Duncan, for your comments. They're very helpful to the committee.

That concludes the delegations for this morning. I have a couple of technical or housekeeping matters for the committee to consider before we adjourn until this afternoon.

With respect to May 8, I am suggesting that the clause-by-clause for Bill 108, this bill, be conducted on that day, and the amendment deadline be for the previous day, Wednesday, May 7, at 4 pm. For the clause-by-clause for Bill 109, which is the public libraries bill, we're suggesting that the clause-by-clause be conducted on May 15; that the amendment deadline and the written submission deadline be for the previous day, May 14 at 4 pm.

If there are no objections, that is what will be proposed for the scheduling for the next couple of weeks.

Mr Colle: I am just wondering -- I'm new in terms of this committee --

The Chair: Welcome to the club.

Mr Colle: Is it possible that I could get that in writing to pass on to my House leader, or whoever it is, and give it back? I don't want to make any mistakes.

The Chair: Absolutely, we'll be pleased to do that.

Mr Stewart: Chair, I'm wondering if there might be an agreement to have the clause-by-clause ready by noonhour instead of 4 o'clock in the afternoon, that being late in the day.

Mr Colle: I don't have a problem with that, if I can just pass it through to our House leader.

The Chair: Mr Wood, you're okay with that?

Mr Len Wood: Yes, but I can't guarantee it because I won't be here, but I will make an effort.

The Chair: That's all we can ask, Mr Wood. Okay, if that is it for this morning, that concludes our deliberations this morning, and perhaps we'll recess until 3:30 this afternoon. Thank you very much.

The committee recessed from 1130 to 1545.

TOWN OF CALEDON

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, I think we can start. I'm sorry to have kept some of the delegations waiting.

The first delegation this afternoon is from the town of Caledon, Nadia Koltun, who is town counsel. Ms Koltun, welcome to Toronto.

Ms Nadia Koltun: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman, members of the committee. As I'm sure you're aware, the town of Caledon has made its position known by way of a written presentation, which I gather has been distributed to all of you. My comments will be brief. I don't intend to go through the written comments line by line.

The town of Caledon supports this legislation and supports it wholeheartedly. The only change we are asking that the committee and the Legislature consider is a change that allows the Attorney General to enter into an agreement, for the purposes of Bill 108, with a municipality or a group of municipalities. Currently the legislation provides that the agreement between the Attorney General be with a municipality. As the town of Caledon is one of the many municipalities that have appeared before you and said we're trying to structure something among a group of municipalities, we are joining with them in the submission that says that somehow a group of municipalities be able to enter into this agreement.

The reason the town of Caledon supports this legislation is because it will be able to use this legislation to achieve the administration of justice at a local level, which is something the town of Caledon desires to occur. Bill 108 will also permit the municipalities that want to participate in this bill to work cooperatively, to set up new arrangements between them across geographic boundaries to produce a comprehensive, centralized delivery of justice on a local level.

Bill 108 allows the municipalities to achieve significant savings -- for our purposes anyway, in the town of Caledon -- in terms of policing. Last, Bill 108 will allow the municipalities to continue a process which has already been started under previous amendments to the Provincial Offences Act through Bill 25 and Bill 47. Bill 25 had the effect of transferring down to local municipalities that chose to opt in the complete enforcement and collection of parking tickets. Bill 47 allowed the processing of part I charges under the Provincial Offences Act through a system which is referred to as first attendance. We believe Bill 108 continues the trend of allowing municipalities to be partners with the province in the administration of justice in the province.

Those are the principal reasons the town of Caledon wishes to support this legislation. Briefly, I will just go through the rest of the presentation adding detail to these principal reasons.

In terms of the town of Caledon, for those of you who may not be aware of where we are in the province of Ontario -- I know Mr Tilson is intimately familiar with our --

The Chair: It's a beautiful area.

Ms Koltun: Yes, one of the best in the province, we feel. We are the northern half of Peel region. When you move north from the lake, there's Mississauga and then there's Brampton and then there's Caledon. Geographically, if you add the area of Mississauga and Brampton together and double it, we are the town of Caledon; that is our geographic size. We are much overshadowed in the press by Mississauga, but that doesn't mean we don't have much happening in the town of Caledon, as Mr Tilson will confirm.

One of the things that the town of Caledon is working on presently, which will come to fruition about September 1, is the transfer of all its criminal and POA prosecutions from the courthouses in Brampton and Mississauga to the courthouse in Orangeville. When we say that the town of Caledon believes in the local delivery of justice, that is exactly what we mean, and this transfer will implement that. By September 1, approximately 13,000 Criminal Code, narcotics, young offenders and Provincial Offences Act prosecutions will move from the courthouses in Brampton to the Dufferin county courthouse in Orangeville.

When Bill 108 becomes law, which we are confident it will, there will already be in the courthouse in Orangeville 10,000 Provincial Offences Act charges under part I of the POA which will have originated out of Caledon. Orangeville is far closer to the town of Caledon than the courthouses in Brampton or Mississauga. The material I provided to you indicated that it takes us about 20 minutes to drive to the courthouse in Orangeville from our detachment centres, as opposed to about 45 minutes to the courthouses in Brampton and longer to Mississauga.

We have arranged for the transfer of these charges without any amendments to the Provincial Offences Act, just working with the legislation as it exists today. It will be in place. It is something that Caledon has undertaken because it believes in the principles that underlie Bill 108 and because we believe in the speedy administration of justice at a local area.

When Bill 108 comes into effect, we will already be in the Dufferin county courthouse. The Attorney General's office will be doing the administration of these 10,000 POA charges. The town of Caledon would like to relieve the Attorney General's office of having to look after the 10,000 POA charges. We will have established through this transfer that we have the capability in Caledon of doing it. May I say on behalf of the municipalities generally that municipalities are capable of taking up the responsibilities for the administration of justice in the province.

We could not have accomplished our objective of transferring the charges from the Brampton courthouses up to the Orangeville courthouse without the cooperation of the other municipalities involved: the town of Orangeville and the county of Dufferin. Bill 108 allows us to extend that area of cooperation.

The town of Caledon wishes to work with the county of Dufferin in processing not just the 10,000 Caledon POA charges in that location, but also the additional 3,000 to 4,000 charges generated through the county of Dufferin and its constituent municipalities through the town of Orangeville police force, the OPP and the town of Shelburne police force.

We have started to work with the county on that objective. The county council at its meeting on April 4 passed a resolution indicating that it wished to enter into negotiations with the town of Caledon for the purposes of Bill 108. That resolution was sent to the constituent townships of the county and on about April 22 the township of Mono endorsed that resolution. The other townships are still in the process of considering it.

I think I've already indicated to you that Bill 108 gives us the opportunity for significant cost savings. The OPP has its largest contract for police services in the province of Ontario with the town of Caledon. With the transfer of the charges from Brampton to Orangeville, we will save significant amounts of time on the part of the police, principally travel time, but also attendance time and waiting-around time in the court.

We also believe that our court management bureau will be downsized because it no longer has to cope with the huge load of charges they have in Brampton and Mississauga. We also believe that with Bill 108, we can stand by the principle that the revenues realized through Bill 108 should be dedicated to the question of community policing.

Last, as I indicated to you previously, Bill 25 has permitted the town of Caledon to participate in the computerization and collection, on its own hook, of parking tickets. Parking tickets are not perhaps the biggest thing on the provincial level, but they're certainly a big thing for municipalities. We welcome that particular initiative.

Most particularly, the amendment, through Bill 47, of the Provincial Offences Act which provided for first appearance attendances on part I POA charges was extremely helpful to the town of Caledon. We find that of the 10,000 charges laid under part I of the Provincial Offences Act, approximately 80% are resolved through the first attendance process provided by Bill 47. Through our effective use of that piece of legislation, we think we've established to the satisfaction of the province that we are capable of taking over whatever obligations are required by the province in Bill 108.

That basically concludes the presentation.

The Chair: Ms Koltun, thank you very much for your comments. I know members of the committee will have some questions for you.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): I think we should put to the parliamentary assistant, because you raise the issue, whether municipalities can group together or form a co-op and share resources. We're dealing with 84, a proposal made in 84. I'm asking the PA, was that considered during the drafting? If it was, why was it not written into the legislation? If it wasn't considered, is it something the government might consider?

Mr Flaherty: I don't want to take up any of your time, but I --

Mr Kormos: Go right ahead. I'd love to hear your answer. So would Ms Koltun and a whole lot of other folks.

Mr Flaherty: I was going to ask Ms Koltun about that. The bill, in section 162, says the Attorney General may enter into an agreement with a municipality, but later on, in section 174 -- and I want to ask you whether this addresses the concern you've raised --

The Chair: Mr Flaherty, Mr Kormos has the floor with respect to questions, unless you consent to him asking that question.

Mr Kormos: We'll share our time. We'll combine the two time frames and work this out.

The Chair: I'm glad to see the cooperation.

Mr Flaherty: Section 174 says, "An agreement made under this part may also be made with two or more municipalities." I'm wondering if that provision, as it stands, would satisfy the concern about the Attorney General being able to enter into agreements with groups of municipalities, as I understood your concern.

Ms Koltun: Yes, it would. Section 174 would certainly answer the question very satisfactorily if the contract could be between the Attorney General, the town of Caledon and the county of Dufferin, clearly. But if the town of Caledon and the county of Dufferin chose to try to make an independent group or body of some type, like a board of management or an incorporated non-profit corporation, no, this section would not deal with that last issue, but certainly it would deal with the particular situation between the county of Dufferin and the town of Caledon.

The Chair: Go ahead, Mr Kormos.

Mr Kormos: I appreciate your comments and your interpretation of 174. I put it to the PA that this comes from an extremely qualified and experienced municipal solicitor who's had experience across the province. I just put to the PA that I suspect that sort of revision to the bill might be well received by all the caucuses.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Kormos. Do members of the government have any questions? If not, we go to Mr Colle. Yes, Mr Flaherty?

Mr Flaherty: I will ask one more question.

The Chair: You've got to jump in fast, Mr Flaherty.

Mr Flaherty: I know. You're a very fast Chair, on your first day on the job. I'm impressed.

The Chair: Keep going, Mr Flaherty.

Mr Flaherty: In reviewing some of the background material, I noted that the cities of Brampton and Mississauga and the town of Caledon have formed a regional joint task force to prepare for the transfer of Provincial Offences Act responsibilities. Is that something in addition to your work with the county of Dufferin?

Ms Koltun: We have always been, thanks to the organizing efforts of the city of Brampton, included in the work that the city of Mississauga and the city of Brampton have been doing in responding to the initiative of the province. What we would like to do, in addition to what we've already done in working with Brampton and Mississauga, is to bring the county of Dufferin into the package as well.

Mr Flaherty: I must compliment you for making that arrangement about the Orangeville courthouse, because I can imagine that would be very convenient to the people who live in the town of Caledon.

Ms Koltun: Exactly.

Mr Flaherty: It's nice to see the justice being administered in such a way that it's actually convenient for the consumers.

What benefits do you see to the town of Caledon, other than that convenience, in the arrangement with the county of Dufferin?

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Ms Koltun: Aside from the convenience, for us what's very important in this transfer is that we do have some local control over the administration of justice. When we are with the cities of Brampton and Mississauga and the heavy criminal load and heavy POA load they generate, our concerns aren't always the very first concerns heard; we have to share the list with a lot of other pressing matters. This means, we find, that we lose control over getting our defendants through the justice system as rapidly as they deserve. That has been a very critical factor. The savings, the more effective use of police time, is also important, but it's critical that we can meet the rules in Askov promptly and get the attention our defendants deserve.

Mr Colle: It's the same point that we've repeatedly raised has to be clarified, and I just hope the government side does clarify it: What kind of body will this bill recognize in terms of a legal entity to deal with the administration of justice under the POA? We would certainly support an amendment which would clarify that so there wouldn't be any ambiguity, so there could be agreements with an entity that would be functioning on behalf of the municipalities and coordinating the activities. That's what we'd like to have clarified.

The Chair: Thank you for coming, Ms Koltun. You've shown again what a progressive riding Dufferin-Peel is.

PEEL-AREA MUNICIPALITIES

The Chair: The second delegation this afternoon is from the Peel-area municipalities. I have four names: Kathy Zammit, the deputy clerk of the city of Brampton; Michael Minkowski, senior legal counsel for the city of Mississauga; again Nadia Koltun, counsel for the town of Caledon; and Paul Dray, prosector with the city of Brampton. Thank you for coming.

Ms Kathy Zammit: Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. We would like the committee to be aware that we represent the entire catchment area of the areas served by the southeastern portion of the central west judicial district.

Bill 108, which will result in the transfer of certain prosecutorial and administrative functions for provincial offences, is consistent, we believe, with the direction of the provincial government in its review of services to determine the appropriate level of government to deliver those services. The legislation does not, however, represent a paradigm shift. Rather, it represents a continued devolving to the municipal level of responsibility for the enforcement and/or administration of specific provincial statutes.

For example, municipalities have been responsible for the enforcement of the Ontario Building Code Act for many years, including laying charges, prosecuting and collecting fine revenues for infractions. Over recent years, municipalities such as Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon have assumed responsibility for enforcement of the Fire Marshals Act. More recently, in 1994, the province provided municipalities with the opportunity, on an opt-in basis, to assume responsibility for the administration of part II offences under the Provincial Offences Act. Part II relates exclusively to parking tickets, and in many municipalities, including both Brampton and Mississauga, these matters are now handled very efficiently at the local level.

You will find that local governments are willing to assume the responsibilities contemplated in Bill 108, are well positioned to take over those functions, and possess the expertise and experience to provide an efficient and effective level of service for our residents.

The ability to create efficiencies at the local level has been clearly demonstrated through the transfer in recent years of the administrative responsibilities with respect to those part II offences under this act, as well as the enforcement of other provincial legislation referred to earlier.

We are confident that our municipalities will achieve similar efficiencies with respect to the responsibilities we would assume under Bill 108. Local accountability has clearly been proven, in other areas, to be a positive influence.

We are equally confident that the integrity of the administration of justice will be maintained. Municipalities have demonstrated their integrity and abilities through the exercise of their responsibilities under specific legislation such as the Building Code Act and the Fire Marshals Act.

With respect to Bill 108, the ministry is developing specific standards to which municipalities will be required to comply, and any other concerns could be addressed in a memorandum of understanding.

As you may be aware, municipalities such as Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon have extensive experience in the prosecution of our own charges laid under both parts I and III of the Provincial Offences Act. In addition, Brampton and Mississauga both already operate first attendance facilities with respect to part II parking matters. The proposed transfer, we believe, is a natural and positive progression.

Municipalities are continuing to be expected to absorb additional responsibilities without offsetting revenue. The transfer of these responsibilities appears to be accompanied by an anticipated net revenue to the municipality. Such revenues will facilitate enforcement services as well as other programs offered and administered by municipalities. We support the fact that the bill does not restrict where those revenues could be spent.

We recognize that the bill includes the transfer of responsibilities for charges processed under the federal Contraventions Act and that the province has been negotiating with the federal government with respect to costs and revenues in that regard. It is our recommendation that the bill be amended to delete the clause which provides that fines and fees imposed under the federal Contraventions Act shall mandatorily go to the province. Again, this matter would be addressed through the memorandum of understanding, depending on local circumstances.

Bill 108 expressly exempts municipalities from the status of crown agents. This will also have the effect of possibly removing any protection from liability in the event of public nuisance litigation by an upset defendant. It may be appropriate to amend the bill to include a provision which protects staff from any liability where staff is acting in good faith, similar to provisions within the Building Code Act and other pieces of legislation. The municipality may still be found liable, but at least the prosecutors and others in the system will be shielded in the course of discharging their duties.

The task force established to review the transfer of responsibilities for administration and prosecution of offences under this act recognized the diversity of municipalities within the province of Ontario by the representatives appointed to that task force. Large and small municipalities were represented, cities, towns and separated cities, local and regional municipalities, urban and rural.

With the enactment of Bill 26, the province has acknowledged that local circumstances may dictate a sensible focus for the provision of a specific service. Further, this government's policy pronouncement is to respect to decision-making at local level and allow for local circumstances to respond to local needs.

It's our recommendation that Bill 108 be amended to provide that POA authority should be a matter for local municipalities, with provisions similar to those included in the Municipal Act in the last couple of years to allow for the migration of services where local circumstances dictate. This would allow for consistency between this bill and other municipal-related legislation.

In closing, on behalf of the cities of Brampton and Mississauga and the town of Caledon, we wish to indicate our solid support for the intent of the proposed legislation, with and the amendments noted in this presentation, and to confirm that the municipalities of this province consider the transfers contemplated by the bill to be appropriate and consistent with the evolving recognition of the value for local autonomy.

Clearly, such a transfer can only be to the benefit of the provincial government, the municipalities and the people of Ontario, and we ask that the members of the Ontario Legislature support this bill.

Thank you for your time and attention. We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Mr Flaherty: Thank you for coming. I appreciate and recognize that the municipalities have acted more than responsibly in dealing with the part of the Provincial Offences Act with which you've been dealing for the last several years. I have no doubt that you will be more than up to the job of dealing with more of those offences under Bill 108.

With respect to the proposal concerning federal contraventions, do you have any data with respect to the volume of those types of offences in your municipalities?

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Ms Zammit: The primary municipality would be Mississauga, so perhaps Mr Minkowski could respond.

Mr Michael Minkowski: The only data we have at the present time relate to the volume of parking tickets being issued at the airport. That arises as a result of a very recent agreement between the city and the federal government for one year, whereby the municipality is to administer the ticketing and enforcement of parking tickets. The figures we have there indicate a projection for this year of 52,000 parking tickets for 1997.

Mr Flaherty: Fifty-two thousand parking tickets at the airport? Oh, my.

Mr Minkowski: That's right. That's based on the 1995 and 1996 figures provided to us by the feds.

Mr Flaherty: You've entered into some sort of memorandum of understanding with the federal government with respect to prosecuting those tickets?

Mr Minkowski: Yes.

Mr Flaherty: Who is the prosecutor? Are you the prosecutor?

Mr Minkowski: No. For Mississauga it's my colleague Mr Meeham.

Mr Flaherty: I wanted to ask you about your experience prosecuting the parking ticket offences over the last few years.

Mr Minkowski: Mr Dray is the prosecutor for Brampton, and he can just as easily answer that, if you wish.

Mr Paul Dray: I don't personally do them, but somebody in my department does the actual prosecutions under part II. We have been very successful.

The other part of that is the first attendance, which eliminates a lot of the tickets ever going to court. If someone comes in and there's a malfunctioning meter or there's something that is an issue that can be addressed, why put that person to a court? We can take that out of the system. The POA provides in our area for the same type of system, where someone can come in and meet with the prosecutor, whether it be on a Highway Traffic Act and/or a bylaw, and in many cases we can reduce the fine or come up with something, and then they go before a justice and that is recommended by both parties. The first attendance has been very successful, as Ms Koltun has also said.

Mr Colle: Ms Zammit, in terms of the reference to allowing for the migration of services, what do you mean by that?

Ms Zammit: There's legislation now which allows certain responsibilities to local municipalities. The best example I can think of is waste management. Where there is a double majority, I believe it is, within the municipalities of the area and the population of the area, those services would then migrate to an upper-tier level of government.

Mr Colle: Essentially, you're trying to indicate that you want the municipalities to have some kind of ability to come together in delivering a service in a cohesive way, based on what they agreed to in terms of your double majority system or whatever.

Ms Zammit: Yes, if it's appropriate for the municipalities within the area, it would be a local responsibility. Where the circumstances in the local area would dictate that it would be a more appropriate focus at a senior level of government, the provision would be there to permit that.

Mr Colle: The question here is going to be, what role will the region of Peel play in the delivery of these services?

Mr Dray: My understanding is that the CAOs have met with regard to the regional role in this, and my understanding is that the region has no interest in this at this time. In our particular region, it's not a direct elect to the region and local councils control the region. There's been an agreement that the region is not interested at this time in this particular project.

Mr Colle: Just one other question, dealing with migration again. Some people may live in Brampton but work in Mississauga and so forth. In terms of the continuity of fines and the level of fines and how they're dealt with, will there be attempts to deal with that to make it not contradictory, obviously?

Mr Dray: There are two issues. The first is that provincial fines are set by regulation and we have no control, so there will be continuity with regard to speeding, stop signs and lights. There will be no variance there. With regard to bylaws, the set fines at the moment are approved through the Attorney General's office and the Chief Judge and there may be some little bumps there. In Peel we've been lucky enough to have council and the enforcement get together and we've even tried to standardize our traffic bylaw so that if you get a ticket in Mississauga it's the same fee in Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon. There are some discrepancies, but if you park in a fire route in one, it's going to be the same in all three. That still is at the discretion of the municipality, so there may be some variances there, but provincial matters are set by the province and there won't be.

Mr Colle: It's certainly in parking areas where you might have a bit of discrepancy, the parking fines and parking bylaws.

Mr Dray: Right at the moment there are some discrepancies with regard to some areas in Caledon only, and it's because they had a real problem in certain areas with people from the city visiting those areas and congesting small communities. They have a tag-and-tow and their fines are higher in some areas there than they would be in the city. But all the other fines between Brampton and Mississauga have been coordinated and are the same.

Mr Kormos: I'm wondering if you could take a look at section 169: "A municipality that acts under an agreement under this part does not do so as an agent of the crown in right of Ontario or of the Attorney General." That obviously addresses, among others, section 162, which talks about the type of relationship that exists by virtue of the agreement under part X with the municipality that enables the municipality to prosecute and to undertake responsibility for courts administration, court support functions. Do you have an understanding of what the motive of section 169 is, that the municipality is not an agent of the AG or of the crown?

Mr Minkowski: I can't speak as to that understanding. We don't have that. Our objective or suggestion is to pick up the language that you see now in subsection 170(3), which provides that, "No proceeding for damages shall be commenced against the Attorney General or an employee of the Ministry of the Attorney General...." and to have a mirror type of provision apply to staff at the municipal level.

Mr Kormos: I'm in agreement with you. I'm concerned because I'm suspicious, I suppose, about why 169 is there. I just wondered if you had considered it. Now I'll ask the PA. What the heck? Let's go to the horse's mouth --

Mr Flaherty: Horse's what?

Mr Kormos: -- and get it addressed directly. Section 169: Why is there a need for that?

Mr Flaherty: The concern behind section 169 is that the Attorney General has the power, for example, to lay charges and re-lay charges, and it is not intended that this power of the Attorney General be delegated to municipalities.

Mr Kormos: You've got to carry on with that a little bit more, because I understand what the power of the AG is and there's some transfer of that power by virtue of the agreement. There's an agency effected by the agreement, which is why I'm assuming section 169, which says there's no agency -- there's an agency inferred in the first section of part X when you talk about the contract, the agreement. But then clearly the government wants to say there is no agency, nobody can argue agency here, notwithstanding that there's one implied or in fact created by section 162. So what is being addressed there? If you want to curtail powers of a municipality that acquires this right under part X, you could simply put that in the bill. I'm curious as to what's being addressed by statutorily denying an agency which clearly is created in section 162. What's being resisted or prevented?

Mr Flaherty: Again, the concern that is being addressed by section 169 relates to the powers that only the Attorney General has; for example, to stay a charge or to re-lay a charge. Those powers are specifically not passing by way of agency, given the provisions of section 169. That's a matter of policy and a matter of the Attorney General retaining those powers that are his.

In terms of the contractual relationship, the contractual relationship will be established by the memorandum of understanding between the municipalities and the Attorney General.

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The Chair: You have a minute, Mr Kormos.

Mr Kormos: I understand your concern about staying charges, which isn't an overwhelming issue in this level of prosecutions. Why would there be a concern about re-laying charges? The government seems to be prepared, at the election of a municipality, to surrender to it all the prosecutorial powers, all the administrative and bureaucratic authority. Why wouldn't you give it the power vis-à-vis that level of charges, provincial offences? You've deemed municipalities adequate to prosecute them. Why wouldn't you give them all of the powers of the Attorney General if you're going to lay that on the lap of the municipality? Don't you trust municipalities?

Mr Flaherty: The Attorney General has his responsibility to administer justice and supervise the administration of justice in the province of Ontario. The Attorney General is going to maintain that obligation not only to do that, but to maintain standards in the administration of justice, just as in section 168 the Attorney General maintains his power to intervene in proceedings should the Attorney General see fit to do so, including an appeal at any stage, given his responsibility as the chief law officer of the crown in the province of Ontario.

Mr Kormos: I also note that --

The Chair: Mr Kormos, I think we'll have to leave this till perhaps clause-by-clause. I know it's an interesting topic but we have a time limitation.

Ms Zammit and members of your delegation, thank you very much for bringing your comments to the committee today.

OUDIT RAGHUBIR

The Chair: The next delegation is Oudit Raghubir. Welcome to the committee, sir. I hope I pronounced your name correctly. Thank you for coming, and you may begin.

Mr Oudit Raghubir: I'm representing myself. I'm not representing a municipality. I don't have a group of legal people advising me or directing me how to address you, so you will have to bear with me.

The Chair: You're doing a fine job.

Mr Raghubir: At the moment I wish just to give you something of my background. I'm presently an employment counsellor at human resources. Previously I was a welfare worker. Prior to that I had a year of experience in the probation services. I was here on February 20 addressing Bill 103, so I have a personal interest. I take my one time and I'm showing up here all the time.

Also I want to tell this side of the House I go back a long way, not with political connections, but I go back a long way to the late Mr Hugh Latimer, go back to Bill Davis and Mr Robarts. When I'm going to speak here today, don't think I am a basket case, because I have some credibility in the community.

I did get a copy of Bill 108. I had a look at it, very carefully. I did read the Provincial Offences Act very thoroughly, going back to 1979, and I'm here today to talk about the Provincial Offences Act and how a municipality can abuse it and how the justice system is being abused, how a municipality enforces its bylaws just to get convictions against ordinary citizens.

First of all I want to make one point: Under the Provincial Offences Act, you can have a partnership with municipalities. You can have a partnership in your cost factor with welfare and all these kinds of things, but the law has to be fair and consistent under the Provincial Offences Act. For a very long time municipalities have overabused their power. I remember well, when I go back, there was only one Attorney General who understood it, and that was Mr Ian Scott. We discussed that. The current Attorney General does not even have a vague idea. His late assistant, Michael Code, replied to me based on the Provincial Offences Act that has a 20-year history and cannot get it right. There were a few other attorneys general before that who did not get it right.

What I am saying here is, municipalities, when they want to pass a bylaw or they have passed a bylaw and it's not working, use the Provincial Offences Act to prosecute people. Parking and all these things to me are like petty cash. The big issue: Is the municipality using the Provincial Offences Act to retain expensive lawyers to take advantage of poor people? That is my concern here.

It's a very serious matter, this Provincial Offences Act. One of the speakers before made a comment: "I wish some of the other lawyers who are advising municipalities would listen to what I'm saying." I wanted to tell you, and I insisted, that you cannot have the Provincial Offences Act in partnership. You must remember one thing. The Provincial Offences Act is quasi-criminal in nature, so if a municipality passes a bylaw just to convict you, he's creating a criminal offence. But it looks to me like that is what has tied up the court system, particularly in the city of Toronto, for a long time.

They have derived their power from you, the province, based on the BNA Act. I don't know how you're going to make some of these changes based on the Municipal Act and all these kinds of acts that are involved, but my primary concern here today is it has been too long and the time has come to an end. The municipalities must not abuse the Provincial Offences Act. It is in laymen who lay charges in front of a justice of the peace, and the justice of the peace does not even understand the -- I will go so far as to say I remember very well that for the last 15 years, most judges of Ontario, a lot of them, didn't understand the Provincial Offences Act. I have been convicted in it because I own an income property in the city of Toronto.

Some of the best lawyers in town -- I remember recently Mr Clayton Ruby admitted to me, "Look, the city of Toronto should be taken for fraud," because he was the prosecutor at one time retained by the city of Toronto, and just after there was Mr Ian Scott.

I've taken this opportunity here today to tell you how serious this matter is. This committee, if you want to streamline, you've got your Bill 103 passed and everything you got passed, but the justice system has to be fair, and it's not going to be fair by having pockets of administration of justice, so help me God. The Charter of Rights is not going to be applied fairly and squarely.

I have, and I'm quite sure I know a lot of people can't even comprehend -- I don't mean the Provincial Offences Act. I'm telling you this: I've seen lawyers in this city who still don't understand the Provincial Offences Act in relation to their bylaws when they want to prosecute people. But the idea is to get the prosecution. When you're wrong in passing a law -- a bylaw is a law and it is short of right. When you pass a law, it's inconsistent, it's fakish, then you use the Provincial Offences Act.

I don't know most of your expertise here but I am just going to show you what a provincial offences act does. This is what a provincial offences act does. From 1982 to the current time: Plead to one judge; appeal another judge, Madam Justice Weiler; another judge; appeal again; charge again; convicted again. This is what it is. An Osgoode Hall law professor wrote a big report and still can't get it right. That's what the Provincial Offences Act does to ordinary human beings and citizens.

I'm going to tell you this: I have sat in courts in this province and I have seen ordinary people under this provincial act who don't know the difference, don't understand it.

Let me show you something, what happens with the Provincial Offences Act. You charge two people; you go in front of a justice of the peace and you charge them and you give them two summonses. Then the information you prepare for the judge is different. These are all court documents I have retained. To give an example, they have sent a summons to my wife and sent one to me. They're both partners. You go to court; you're lost. They try you both together. You act very silly, stupid, in front of the judge. You don't know what's going on. After a little while, I did some research. I went and got a court paper where the judge signed, and I found out that whoever this municipality bylaw enforcer is changed the information, and the judges proceeded. It takes a long time. This is the kind of thing that goes on in this city. Transcripts even disappear in the court if you've got a case.

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Mr Chairman, this has been a long-drawn-out process. I'm here and I don't have lawyers. I'm representing myself. I have followed this system very carefully. I've spoken to Mary Hogan; I've spoken to George Thomson. None of these deputy ministers can get it right -- none of them. Mr Scott was going to do his best but he has a conflict in this matter. All pertains to the Provincial Offences Act, nothing else. The act can be overused.

Even the OMB will tolerate it, because what tends to happen -- Mr Colle is here; he and I spoke very strongly about the OMB and what I think about it. They can go there and manipulate the bylaws. This is the kind of thing we have. What it does is it ties up the court system; it ties up our municipalities from functioning effectively and properly. These are the kinds of things under the Provincial Offences Act.

Mr Chairman, I'm sure this is the first time you've heard this. There is one more lawyer in town, a guy named John Andrea. He's in your riding. He's a fellow who did an investigation for Mr Joe something. He was the only lawyer who told me: "Don't worry, Raghubir. They're all abusing the Provincial Offences Act. They can't do anything." But you have orders; the city got a restraining order.

I know we are leading into a new century. We are leading into some new things. I'm even surprised at some of the best-qualified municipal lawyers. Look at these things. Nobody will want to take them on because they won't have any money -- earning a living. What is he going to do?

Mr Chairman, as I finish here today -- I'm here because the Provincial Offences Act for a layman like me, I can only do so much about it. Mr Roger Oatley made some strong comments, and I think this committee or the Attorney General's office should go back and read some of those municipal interpretations in case law that have been dragged out before dismantling anything. All I'm asking for is fairness of the law, consistency; the law must apply right across, fairly and squarely. The municipalities are too inconsistent with law. They can't get it right and they will never get it right.

In my deputation today I will not say anything more, but I will expect when this is all over that this Minister of Municipal Affairs has got everything he wants and he may take the privilege of having that inquiry on the city of Toronto where this kind of abuse transpired. It was created by Madame Justice Weiler, but still, you can take the Provincial Offences Act and do anything you want with it.

Thank you very much. I don't have anything more to say.

Mr Colle: Thank you for taking time as a private citizen to come, as you've come before.

I guess the days ahead are going to be quite amazing. As you know, we are going to enter into re-examining and blending and consolidating over 120,000 bylaws here within the six municipalities. I would ask you to be involved in that. I know Andy Paton and other municipal lawyers are rubbing their hands with glee because they know the motherlode is coming and they're going to make a fortune, trying to reinvent and rejig all these bylaws across Metro. I just hope you can be a watchdog, because these lawyers are going to -- no offence to the lawyers here; I'm covered with lawyers. Anyway, there's going to be a pension for life for the lawyers of Metropolitan Toronto. It's going to be a gift that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and the Premier have given to the Law Society of Upper Canada.

Mr Raghubir: Mr Colle, today will be my last day here. I have been here before when your government was in power. I was invited to talk about the housing act. When Ian Scott was -- I'm trying to remember what was done. I have been here on other things, to talk about building codes and all these kind of things, and today will be the end of me here. I tell the people on this side of the House -- I didn't ask favours from anybody -- I go back to the late Hugh Latimer, and that is credibility. We are old friends. We were just friends. For someone like the Raghubirs, for something like this to be done for 15, 16 years, is a disgrace to this House, and I'm saying that, a disgrace to this province and a disgrace to this city.

I spoke to Larry Grossman before all this, before the new Attorney General. I said, "Larry, something has to be done." I knew his dad, knew Hugh Latimer. I'm not a lawyer. I'm an ordinary guy. Who's going to listen to me? These are some of the people, but I don't know where this goes. The Deputy Attorney General, the deputy minister, knows me well, knows me by name. I am telling you, I have seen this happen in the city of Toronto. I can't believe that these kinds of things continue.

I phoned David Crombie. I phoned John Sewell. I phoned Art Eggleton. These are other people's mess that I have to deal with. You know what? They've got me like a sucker because they just keep the heat going and they're using me as a pawn. I don't know what Mr Colle said. I have made this in Bill 103. Yes, you're right; if this minister is serious there is a way 100,000-and-something bylaws and can end up as just a thousand. But he's not going to be pay me $300 or $400 an hour, right? I'm not a lawyer.

I came and spoke fairly and squarely on Bill 103. Mr Colle was here; he can tell you. I spoke fairly, and I see three things came true. The Ontario Hydro story. I said, "You'll save 20% to 30%," and it's true. Ontario Hydro realized that. I said also, "You have to amalgamate ARB and OMB," and it's happened. I heard this recently. I didn't do too bad, Mr Colle.

I'm here to see the system work and work fairly, but this one, I was weighted. I know, Mrs Munro, that a few times I was a little bit upset that this was cancelled a few times. Your name was given to me; no reflection. I'm taking my time to be here, and this will be the last of it.

The Chair: Mr Kormos, I believe, will have a question.

Mr Raghubir: Sorry, sir. You go ahead.

Mr Kormos: I find lawyers as offensive as anybody finds them. I know far too many of them. Yes, they can be as offensive as they come.

Look, you've obviously spent a whole lot of time over the course of time -- and I don't want to know what you and your wife were charged with.

Mr Raghubir: A bylaw. I have a building with 10 units and not enough parking. That's all.

Mr Kormos: Now we know. Eventually, was there a fine or an order imposed?

Mr Raghubir: The first time I was convicted, in 1983, there was an order, no fine. Judge Charlton gave me a fine of 50 bucks, but I appealed it and won the appeal. I did it on my own. What is interesting is that when Madam Justice Weiler said, "Because the bylaw was passed retroactively, retrospectively, I set it aside." That was an OMB decision. I am surprised, if the city is paying a lawyer $100,000 or $200,000 a year and he can't interpret that. There's something wrong, man. The city said they didn't know what happened, so they came back and charged me in 1987 -- convicted. I appealed that one. I went in front of appeal court. All the evidence didn't show up in court, so I let the trial to go through. What else are you going to do? Then they charged me back again another time. I let it go, because at this point I didn't know the city game. But do you want me to tell you what the city game plan was?

The Chair: If you can be brief.

Mr Raghubir: They wanted to go to Supreme Court. They have lost three cases -- the guy that sells the flowers, a guy who was selling T-shirts, and the Dome story -- so they need another sucker to go to Supreme Court.

Mr Kormos: Is this the city of Toronto?

Mr Raghubir: The city of Toronto.

Mr Kormos: I would go see Tom Jakobek, because if anybody can resolve your problem it's Tom Jakobek. I would take my paperwork to him. I'm serious, Mr Raghubir. I'd insist that Tom Jakobek sit down with me until he understands the whole issue.

Mr Raghubir: He can't do anything. Barbara Hall, even, cannot do anything.

Mr Kormos: Go to Jakobek first.

The Chair: Thank you for coming, sir.

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CITY OF LONDON

The Chair: The city of London, Mr Hopcroft, is here to visit us. Good to see you again, sir.

Mr Grant Hopcroft: Thank you. Nice to see you again.

Let me begin by thanking the members of the committee for giving the city of London an opportunity to bring forward some suggestions for the committee's consideration. Let me start, before I get into the written submission, by commending the province for making the legislation as permissive as it is, for having the confidence in municipal governments and the ability of municipal governments having the capacity to take on the responsibilities, and obviously the revenues that go with it, as part of this bill.

Most of the submissions I will be making are matters of a technical nature where we have some suggestions which we think will improve either the clarity or the ability of municipalities to deal with the legislation.

The first area I'd like to focus on is with respect to the administration and support functions in the bill. Clause 162(1)(a) of the proposed act contemplates the municipality performing administration and support functions, including the functions of the clerk of the court. By way of incidental comment, at this point it is assumed that the government will establish a transition team and will provide transition assistance with respect to labour relations, finance, accounting, computer systems, information and such other matters, to avoid disruption to the administration of these offences.

In London, the present courts administration and courts functions for provincial offences are combined with those provided for criminal offences. The reference to the "clerk of the court" can be interpreted as including or excluding the functions of the clerk-monitor present during court proceedings, interpreters or other in-court personnel. Although the French Language Services Act excludes municipalities as a government agency that is to provide services in French, the proposed act is unclear as to the obligation, or not, of municipalities to provide administration and court functions in both official languages.

We're suggesting the act be clarified by way of amendment or regulation with respect to: (1) The municipality's responsibility in situations where there is combined administration; (2) defining the functions of the clerk of the court; and (3) the obligation, or not, of municipalities to deliver services in French in so far as this administration is concerned.

The next issue I'd like to touch on is part III prosecutions by municipalities. Clause 162(1)(b) refers to municipalities conducting prosecutions in proceedings under parts I and II of the act. We now, as you know, conduct prosecutions under part III, and the present wording could be construed as divesting a municipality of the powers we currently have. We think this needs to be clarified.

The third issue is the dispute resolution procedure, which we are requesting be inserted. Right now, 162(1) empowers the Attorney General and a municipality to enter into an agreement authorizing the municipality to perform functions and conduct prosecutions, including the Contraventions Act of Canada. Subsection 162(3) provides performance standards and sanctions and requires the municipality to meet standards and exposes the municipality to sanctions for failure to meet them. Section 171 of the act allows an agreement to provide for a review committee whose composition and functions are determined by regulation.

It is our submission that the act should be amended to provide for a process for adjudication of disputes by an independent body with respect to whether a municipality has attained the performance standards specified in the agreements, and if not, whether the sanction imposed for failure to meet such standards is fair and reasonable in the circumstances. It is respectfully submitted that the Attorney General should not be in the position, as a party to an agreement, of adjudicating alleged breaches of that agreement.

The next submission is a request for a privative clause. Subsection 164(2) of the act requires that judicial notice be taken of the agreement, and subsection 164(3) provides that no proceeding is invalidated by reason only of a person's failure to comply with that. The proposed act, however, is silent with respect to challenges of its legality either by way of a separate application or as a defence in a prosecution.

The proposed act should be amended by the insertion of a privative clause which would preclude any action or other judicial proceeding by third parties to impugn the agreement, the authority under which the agreement is entered into or the steps taken either by the Attorney General or the municipality to enter into the agreement.

The fifth submission is with respect to estimates and accounting. The act in clause 165(5)(c) provides that municipalities shall pay to the Minister of Finance, among other things, the costs incurred for adjudication and prosecution, monitoring performance and enforcing the agreement. Presumably, municipalities should make provisions in their annual budget for such costs. In addition, the municipality should be provided, if it wishes, with an accounting of the costs after the fact.

We are requesting that the act be amended to provide for submission by a prescribed date each year to the municipality of the annual estimates; and second, an accounting, if required, after the fact of the actual costs incurred.

The sixth submission is with respect to court costs regarding the Contraventions Act Canada. Clause 165(5)(d) requires a municipality to pay to the minister fines and fees imposed under the Contraventions Act Canada. It would appear that the municipality will bear the costs of administration related to proceedings and the imposition of fines and fees without receiving reimbursement either from the Minister of Finance or the Attorney General of Canada for this service. The act should be amended to provide reimbursement for those costs.

The next issue is with respect to interest claimed in civil proceedings to collect fines. Subsection 165(7) of the act precludes a municipality from collecting any other charge for acting under an agreement except with the Attorney General's written consent obtained in advance. The wording of the subsection appears to preclude a municipality claiming interest in civil court proceedings used to collect outstanding fines unless the Attorney General consents in advance to such civil proceedings being initiated. The act should be amended to allow municipalities to claim interest in proceedings brought to collect outstanding fines without a requirement for that consent.

Similarly, we are requesting in our eighth submission that the act be amended to remove the constraint upon the Attorney General only giving consent in advance and to confer the discretion upon the Attorney General to give consent either before or after the event to cover situations where, through inadvertence or impracticality, prior consent is not obtained.

Paragraph 9 of our submission reflects the requirement, in our view, to enable the use of persons not municipally employed. Paragraph 4 of section 167 and the complementary amendments to the Courts of Justice Act variously refer to "municipal employee" or "employees." Those provisions would preclude a municipality from engaging persons who are not in a relationship of employment with the municipality. We should be permitted to engage a person who is not an employee of the municipality to perform functions under the agreement provided the municipal council ensures the person is properly trained and qualified to perform the duties and properly supervised with respect to the nature of those duties. Such supervision should be performed by an employee of the municipality or, with the consent of the Attorney General, some other person or agency.

We are requesting that the act be amended to allow municipalities to engage persons other than municipal employees to perform functions provided that the municipal council ensures the person is properly trained and properly supervised; and second, that the supervision is performed, with the consent of the Attorney General, by someone other than a municipal employee.

The last issue I'd like to address is the goods and services tax implications, something which municipalities I think have good reason to be concerned about, given recent assessments and reviews. Section 169 of the act states that a municipality acting under an agreement does not do so as an agent of the crown. The effect of this is to make the municipality an independent contractor.

Given this status, it's unclear whether the services provided under the agreement would be liable to goods and services tax. The act should be amended to establish a status in law between the Attorney General and the municipality and between the municipality and other participating municipalities that addresses the attraction of goods and services tax.

In the time permitted, I'd be pleased to answer any questions.

The Chair: Your usual well-thought-out brief, Mr Hopcroft; I am sure members do have some questions.

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Mr Kormos: The concern about Bill 8 communities and the obligation to provide provincial services in both languages has been raised, obviously, earlier in response to this bill. The municipality wouldn't object, would it, to complying with Bill 8?

Mr Hopcroft: No, I don't believe so. What we're asking for is clarity with respect to our responsibilities so that it is absolutely clear.

Mr Kormos: It's interesting, because you made reference to section 169 and how that could impose the responsibility for collection of GST, as to the cost of the services being provided. I've asked about section 169 of other presenters earlier.

Have your staff given any other consideration to 169, and do you have any concerns about the fact that you're performing this Attorney General function by virtue of prosecuting, yet you're not deemed to be an agent of the Attorney General? Have you given any thought as to what that means, be it a benign impact, exactly what the purpose of that is, or has it confused you? It may not have confused you in the way it's confused or bothered me.

Mr Hopcroft: I can only assume it's there in some way to distance the Attorney General from whatever we may do. I think if we have adequate performance standards and there's adequate diligence done before agreements are entered into that we should be entrusted with the powers to act as agent, first to address the GST issue and, second, to ensure we have the ability to carry through the functions the Attorney General currently does in his administration of the act.

Mr Kormos: I'm inclined to agree, subject to whatever, because we're looking for some of the arguments that support 169. I'm trying to find out why it's there. I appreciate that. Thank you kindly.

Mr Flaherty: Thank you, Mr Hopcroft, not only for travelling here this afternoon but also for the written presentation, because it raises a number of issues that certainly will be reviewed and considered. You've raised some points that have not been raised here earlier today in these hearings.

With respect to the first point on the first page, dealing with administration and support functions, the bill would provide that the municipality would only be responsible for provincial offences work and not criminal work, although if I understand this correctly, the same court clerk in some places currently would do both criminal and provincial work. Is that right?

Mr Hopcroft: That's correct.

Mr Flaherty: Is that the situation in London?

Mr Hopcroft: It's the situation within our district where in fact there's a dual administration.

Mr Flaherty: The proposal would be that during the transition planning the separation of those functions would have to be addressed. Since only provincial offences work is being transferred, obviously no criminal work is being transferred, that will have to be addressed as part of the implementation process. There's no question about that. I thank you for raising that point.

With respect to the second point on page 1, part III prosecutions by municipalities, I understand some municipalities do prosecute some part III offences. I gather London does.

Mr Hopcroft: Yes.

Mr Flaherty: The intention is not to take away any of the work that's already being done.

Mr Hopcroft: We appreciate the intention. We just want to make sure that --

Mr Flaherty: I'm glad you've raised it. We'll have to address it during the memorandum process to make sure there's no change in the system that I gather is working well in London.

On the GST issue, I'm unclear as to the consequence there. Is the concern that the municipality might have to impose GST on fines?

Mr Hopcroft: The concern is that there may be GST imposed on any compensation passing back and forth between the municipalities or the Attorney General, either between cooperating municipalities or between a municipality and the Attorney General. We've had, unfortunately, as a municipal sector, some very unpleasant experience with the federal government as to GST being attracted for a number of transactions that we don't believe were ever contemplated when the GST was first brought into play. We're seeing now a number of transactions attracting tax at the municipal sector level that really only add cost to the function, detract from the ability of local governments to provide those services in as cost-effective a way as would be the case if the administration were done as an agent of the provincial government. If we have that agency status, clearly, by implication, it would be exempt and GST would not be attracted, and the function of the local provincial offences administration would be something purely between the province and the municipalities without attracting that tax-due process.

Mr Colle: I just want to thank Mr Hopcroft for coming here. I think there are some very valid points and I hope attention is paid to them, especially the one about interest. I think either it's got to be in the memorandum of agreement or it should be certainly amended to ensure that municipalities don't get caught short on the collection of those fines, the interest on those.

Mr Hopcroft: We can certainly appreciate that the minister would want to have advance notice in as many cases as possible. We feel that the discretion to deal with these after the fact is important as well.

The Chair: I know I'm going to regret this, but Mr Kormos says he has one small question.

Mr Kormos: I trust that it's both the Brian Mulroney and the Jean Chrétien GST that causes you concern.

Mr Hopcroft: It is the federal GST that causes concern.

The Chair: I knew I'd regret it. Thank you very much, Mr Kormos. Mr Hopcroft, thank you for travelling from London to spend a few moments with us on this bill.

Mr Hopcroft: Thank you. It's always a pleasure and we hope that we've been of some assistance in making the legislation better.

The Chair: I know you have. Thank you, sir.

CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION, ONTARIO BRANCH

The Chair: The final delegation to see us this afternoon is the Canadian Bar Association, Étienne Saint-Aubin, chair of the official languages committee.

Mr Étienne Saint-Aubin: Mr Chair, I apologize for this cold-afflicted voice. I guess the keen anticipation accumulated over these many weeks of adjournments may have finally done me in. My name is Etienne Saint-Aubin. I'm a lawyer and I'm here with my colleagues, senior counsel in the city of Toronto, Tony Keith, and Paul Rouleau will be rejoining us shortly.

I'm here on behalf of the Canadian Bar Association, Ontario branch, which represents 14,000 members associated with the laws of this province. I know you've heard this said many times before, but I do intend to be quite brief. The written material you've received in fact is not a written brief as such. It's a compendium of the relevant Ontario legislation that is of concern in the issue of the legislation before you today. Therefore we intend to focus on one aspect of this bill which is of concern to the CBAO.

The measure before you today devolves responsibility for most provincial offence administration and prosecution to municipalities. We understand the guiding intent of that legislation to be one of improving and streamlining the administration of justice. The one aspect which runs counter to this approach of streamlining and improving and which is likely to cause unnecessary problems is the fact that the legislation contains no provisions for maintaining existing rights to the use of the French language before the courts, except for the fundamental right to being heard in the French language which continues, and municipalities continue to be subject to the aspect of a citizen being heard before the finder of fact, but also the very important issue of services provided at the counter, both in terms of the court offices and in terms of the prosecutorial offices, knowing that often these matters needn't go to a court of law if they can be dealt with expeditiously in the form of the services aspect.

The legislation does not adequately protect these rights to receive governmental services designated under the French Language Services Act in these designated areas. The provisions that I handed out under the French Language Services Act do not apply to municipalities. That was a policy decision made several years ago when the act was adopted. It does not apply unless they specifically adopt a bylaw to that effect.

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We believe these issues should be of concern to the committee and to the government because there's a great risk of unravelling the historic and finely balanced and honourably made-in-Ontario achievements of all three parties. All three parties have established and strengthened over the years this right to the use of the French language as an official language of the courts and as a language of governmental services under the French language act.

It has been my privilege to have had a direct involvement in both these important pieces of legislation. They reflect the knowhow of this province. But they also reflect a keen sense of the "know why." These obligations were not imposed upon the province of Ontario by any court. This was a path freely chosen by its people as a means to reflect, as the physical heartland of this country and in a sense its heart and soul, that the protection of minority rights is an eloquent testimony to a love of this united Canada.

We understand the ministry's position to be that issues such as language can be addressed in individual agreements with municipalities one at a time under the legislation. We see three possible choices that can be made in this matter: One is to forget about this completely, and for one moment I and my colleagues do not countenance that the government would even consider that as an honourable route. Second, there is this churning up of the language issue with municipalities one by one. I needn't belabour the point that language issues have a special sensitivity to them.

Mesdames et messieurs, ça ne prend pas la tête à Papineau pour se rendre compte qu'il y a une voie beaucoup plus simple.

The road is, of the three, and the last one that I'll identify, the plain and simple road -- and I adopt the words of the presenter just previous to us from the city of London. I am pleased to hear this call for clarity and it meshes precisely with what we're calling for: putting it up front, plain and simple, with a provision to maintain existing language rights, to make legislation subject to other language legislation finely crafted over the years by all parties. We're of the view that this method has the merit of clarity but also of adequately reflecting what this province is all about.

Mr Flaherty: With respect to the Courts of Justice Act, I appreciate the common ground, the acknowledgement of course that the Courts of Justice Act does provide a protection with respect to trials themselves. As you know the proposed legislation, the bill, does deal with standards being reserved to the Attorney General in terms of the provincial application of the legislation. We had a presentation this morning by the association, which was helpful. They raised some of the points which you have also raised and these are matters obviously to be considered, and I appreciate the presentation that you've made to us here.

With respect to the extent of the concern, if I may address that, and we did talk about this this morning to some extent with the representatives of the association, as I understand it, over 50 of Ontario's 200 municipalities located in the province's 23 designated areas have voluntarily passed resolutions declaring themselves officially bilingual. The municipalities that have done so represent about 63% of the total French-speaking population located in these designated areas.

I find that encouraging in the sense that I think most reasonable observers would conclude that the municipalities in Ontario that have taken upon themselves the obligation of administering and prosecuting parking offences over the past several years now have done so in a responsible manner. It's certainly reasonable, based on that past performance, to anticipate that they will continue to demonstrate a degree of responsibility in the way they take on some additional responsibilities under this legislation.

My question to you on the extent is, what is your information and expectation with respect to the responsible behaviour of municipalities in Ontario in this context?

Mr Anthony Keith: In answer to the question, I think the concern of the Canadian Bar Association, to put it simply, is that existing rights should not be undermined. It should not be left to a whim, if it comes down to that, or a decision on the part of a local municipality as to whether it will or will not continue to provide rights at the municipal level that already exist at the provincial level. That's the concern.

Yes, it's appreciated that in many cases municipalities have accepted the linguistic duality that exists; other municipalities have not. Other municipalities have gone out of their way to declare themselves opposed to that sort of responsibility. It seems to us contrary to fundamental justice that one would allow the possibility of existing rights to be undermined so that in some parts of the province these rights would exist and in other parts of the province they would not. That is not to my understanding the way the administration of justice ought to be maintained in this province.

Mr Flaherty: I find it a bit surprising in the context of elected municipal officials that they would not be responsive to their ratepayers and citizens in their communities who would require services in both languages. For example, when the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton's representatives were here earlier today, they emphasized their commitment to providing French-language services to their citizens. Do you not believe that other municipalities would emulate a municipality like the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton in being responsive to the persons who elect them?

Mr Saint-Aubin: If I may add, sir, the track record of municipalities that have tied into the French Language Services Act -- I beg to differ as to the impact on the French-speaking population of this province. Very few francophones are affected in terms of enhanced rights by a list of municipalities actually operating with such a bylaw.

This isn't being said, first of all, to be disparaging of one municipality or another, but I have heard it said -- and I think there is great wisdom in the approach of this government not to reopen the French Language Service Act. But if the government is not going to do anything about this issue, it's going to have to address it in individual agreements with municipalities. If that isn't reopening a language issue, I don't know what is.

You have it from London that they see merit in things being put up front with clarity. We see more than merit in that. You will forgive me, but from the perspective of a minority, it's extremely distressing for us to be removed from what is entrenched in law, and in effect being put like a baby in a basket at the doorstep of an individual municipality and hope for the best.

Clearly, the choice of options -- if one of the considerations is, "What is the most adroit way of dealing with this sensitive issue?" it is the route of clarity. We are concerned -- and I think the track record is legitimately of concern -- that individual agreements are not the way to go.

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Mr Colle: Thank you, Mr Saint-Aubin. I guess the frightening part is that there are over 90 municipalities that have passed resolutions or certainly introduced resolutions making themselves unilingual. I think we're really into creating a checkerboard sort of justice system, and even though it's at a lower level of offences, it is a very dangerous area to delve in, especially when we don't have to. I hope the government is not serious about not amending this act to ensure fundamental language rights.

My question is, do you support the amendment? Are you aware of the amendment that the association de juristes put forth this morning in terms of their amendment? Would that satisfy the Canadian Bar Association? I don't know if you're familiar with the amendment they are proposing.

Mr Saint-Aubin: I don't necessarily have the exact wording but certainly the first priority of the CBAO is to maintain existing language rights and make the legislation subject to them. We certainly endorse that position if that is the position of l'AJEFO.

The subsidiary position, if it need absolutely be second best -- and it would certainly be second best -- is that the province at the very least pursue these individual agreements with municipalities. But that is not a first choice; it's a last resort.

Mr Keith: Mr Chair, if I might just pick up on one of Mr Colle's comments, and that is, even at this low level of the administration of justice, I think all studies have shown in any jurisdiction that citizens come into contact with the adminstration of justice at that level for the most part, and coming into contact with the administration of justice in this province shouldn't underline that it is a unilingual system. It's not. We have that established now under the Courts of Justice Act and under the French Language Services Act.

I simply wish to draw attention to the fact that we're talking about an important public service and an important level of interaction between the provincial government, its administration of justice and the citizens whom it's there to serve.

Mr Kormos: I should indicate that we're in agreement with AJEFO and yourselves, with a common submission. AJEFO's amendment seems to be very broad and an effort to be all-encompassing, to avoid, I presume, effectively, loopholes through it or means of arguing one's way through it.

I agree with you. I suppose I was pleased with the response of the city of London to the question put with respect to the comments made in the very first part of their submission. They did not express a position that was anti-utilizing French language but simply appeared to want to have some certainty. That leaves me with the conclusion that the bill, as it stands -- because there might be some who are going to argue that the bill implicitly requires that those delegated powers -- it implies that Bill 8 attach to them.

I suggest not, especially when you get down to section 169, which is the no-agency section of the bill, which creates that clear schism, a broad schism between the municipality doing prosecutorial AG type of duties and the AG. I want to follow that more with Mr Flaherty.

I appreciate Mr Flaherty's argument about municipalities: "Oh, one wouldn't expect them to deny the interests of a number of their constituents." In most communities where I come from, in Niagara, Welland, there's a strong francophone community. It's a Bill 8 community of course, but almost inevitably, at least in southern Ontario, and even throughout most of the north, a minority.

Second, clearly for the government of Ontario it wasn't sufficient to merely rely upon their goodwill to provide French-language services. That's why tripartite support existed for Bill 8. I fear there is an anti-francophone bigotry in this province which remains, which rears its head from time to time and exploits scenarios when that movement -- and it is a movement; I believe that -- seems most appropriate. I think it's imperative that the government build this into the statute.

I should indicate that the deadline for submission of amendments will in all likelihood be May 7 at 12 noon. I would ask that you take a look at the AJEFO proposal and, please, if you have views about a more appropriate amendment, I trust you would offer them up to all three parties. I'm confident that the opposition parties would table them on your behalf. I think it's important to have those on the table for discussion during clause-by-clause. I'd ask you to consider the AJEFO proposal, and if there are improvements and variations that you would consider, present those as well. I appreciate very much your participation.

The Chair: Gentlemen, I think we've run out of time. Thank you very much for coming this afternoon and putting your views forward to the committee. That concludes the delegations this afternoon.

APPOINTMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE

The Chair: There's one item we could discuss before we recess until next week, and that is the topic of a business subcommittee.

Mrs Munro: I move that a subcommittee on committee business be appointed to meet from time to time at the call of the Chair, or at the request of any member thereof, to consider and report to the committee on the business of the committee; that the presence of all members of the subcommittee is necessary to constitute a meeting and that the subcommittee be composed of the following members: Mr Tilson, Mr Gilchrist, Mr Marchese and Mr Sergio; and that any member may designate a substitute member on the subcommittee who is of the same recognized party.

The Chair: Is there any discussion? Any comments? All those in favour? It is carried.

We stand recessed until next week, May 8, at 10 o'clock.

The committee adjourned at 1718.