CONTENTS
Wednesday 23 October 1991
Appointments review
Elinor Grace Mahoney
Subcommittee report
Members' services
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Chair: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
Vice-Chair: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East PC)
Bradley, James J. (St. Catharines L)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough NDP)
Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East NDP)
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East L)
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent NDP)
McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South L)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay NDP)
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West NDP)
Clerk: Arnott, Douglas
Staff: Pond, David, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1009 in room 228.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW
Resuming consideration of intended appointees.
The Chair: If we could come to order, please. I see a quorum. I would ask our first witness to come forward.
ELINOR GRACE MAHONEY
The Chair: Welcome to the committee. Ms Mahoney is an intended appointee as a member of the Residential Rental Standards Board. It is a half-hour review, and if you have no objections, I think we will get right into the questions. Each party is allocated 10 minutes, and as you were selected by the official opposition review, I look to Mr Grandmaitre to begin questioning.
Mr Grandmaître: Thank you, Mr Chair, and good morning, Ms Mahoney. I am not going to ask you about your experience, because I know you have had a great deal of experience dealing with landlords and tenants over a great number of years. My first question concerns minimum maintenance standards at the municipal level. Do you think this government should impose, or have legislation that would impose, minimum housing standards at the municipal level? In other words, should every municipality in the province of Ontario have a minimum standards bylaw? At the present time just a little over 50% or 60% of our municipalities do have minimum housing standards, and it is not working. Do you think the government should impose this upon municipalities?
Ms Mahoney: As you know, the previous government brought in the RRRA, the Residential Rent Regulation Act, and that imposed something slightly different, a minimum provincial standard on rental housing. It applies only to rental housing, not to other residential housing, and it acts as sort of a default fallback to cover those municipalities which do not have municipal standards.
I understand that a recommendation went forward some time ago from the Residential Rental Standards Board to the minister recommending that the government look into imposing, through an amendment to the Planning Act, I believe, municipal standards that would be enforced and come forward from the municipalities. I think I am sort of 50-50 on whether I think it should be administered strictly from the municipal side or whether it should be from the provincial side.
I had the privilege of travelling to different municipalities throughout Ontario over this past summer to follow the Bill 121 hearings. What I heard tenants requesting was a province-wide standard, as there is now, and as there may not be under Bill 121, and that it should be an addition to municipal standards.
The problem is that the committee travelled only to municipalities that had a municipal housing standard. What I heard from representatives from legal clinics in Hastings and Prince Edward counties is that municipalities that do not have an adequate housing standard to cover the insides of rental housing should adopt one in addition to the provincial standard.
I guess it all comes down to how much the provinces want to impose upon municipalities. I think that decision is one that cannot be taken lightly and cannot be taken in isolation from other provincial-municipal concerns. So I really cannot comment on whether that is the way to go. What I do believe is that at a very minimum there should be a provincial standard for residential housing, particularly for rental residential housing, and there should be a fallback provincial enforcement where municipalities fail to enforce existing bylaws properly.
Mr Grandmaître: So basically you are agreeing with me, because I would like to see a provincial standard.
Ms Mahoney: I would like to see provincial standards, whether they are fully municipally enforced or not. My understanding, through the hearing process, is that tenants want to have a second crack. If the municipalities do not enforce standards, they want to be able to go to the province and say: "Will you do it for us? The municipality won't." So my understanding is that tenants want to have a provincially enforced standard, even if it is in addition to a municipally enforced one.
Mr Grandmaître: As you know, Ms Mahoney, under Bill 121 the board will be abolished. Do you agree with this or not?
Ms Mahoney: You can imagine what the obvious, self-serving comment would be. I do not agree with it, and in fact that would be the comment I would have made long before my name was put forward as a nominee.
Those of you who have been involved with the Bill 4 hearings and with the responses to the green paper and with the Bill 121 hearings know that the Tenant Advocacy Group, of which I am a member, has taken a consistent position. This is that the Residential Rental Standards Board should be strengthened and have additional duties and that the duties now allegedly done by the rent review services branch, which is enforcement of rent penalties, should be taken away from the branch and given to the board.
What the minister has elected to do with Bill 121 is exactly the opposite, which is to take the functions of the board and give them to rent review services branch. Our organization opposed this, and we continue to oppose it. As a board member, I would, of course, be restricted to doing the duties currently assigned to the board, which also, you might remember, include making recommendations to the minister about housing policy. I think it is indicative of the minister's flexibility that despite the fact that the minister knows my organization and I oppose that particular provision of Bill 121, she has nevertheless endorsed me as a candidate for the board. So one assumes that she is certainly open to hearing opinions that may not currently be the provincial housing policy.
Mr Grandmaître: What are your thoughts on the 3% cap on capital improvements? Do you think it is enough? Do you think it is fair?
Ms Mahoney: My initial response would be that the 3% cap is misunderstood by almost everybody.
Mr Grandmaître: Does that mean tenants and landlords?
Ms Mahoney: It is misunderstood primarily by government politicians who served on the Bill 121 committee and also, I believe, by a lot of other people who do not understand rent review because their lives have not required them to and who are gallantly trying to understand how the cap would work in Bill 121. I cannot, in the time allotted to me, explain how it works. I would love to have had an opportunity to do so at the Bill 121 hearings.
What I hear many people saying is that 3% is not enough to cover the cost of capital expenditures required for this province. I would agree with that, but on a policy level, I would have to ask, "Is it intended to?" I think the answer to that, from the minister, is clearly that it is not intended to. It is intended to represent the tenants' share of the cost of capital expenditures on an annual basis. It is not intended to cover the cost.
What the minister said, what the previous minister said, and what, indeed, the Premier said, is that a tenant's rent is intended to cover a whole slew of things: not just the four walls, but regular upkeep, maintenance and upgrading, where necessary, of capital expenditures. Adding all these extra costs to the annual rent increase is, by its nature, unfair, so I believe what the minister has done is to say tenants should pay a share of that because they benefit. But they do not benefit totally, because they do not own the building. They do not benefit when the building is sold. They do not benefit from the tax relief and so forth that a landlord who does capital expenditures may obtain. I believe what the minister is saying is that the 3% represents, on an annual basis, what is reasonable to expect the tenants to pay.
I may or may not disagree with that position, but I think it is the minister's position. When people say that 3% will not pay the costs, I think that is accurate. But I do not think that is a telling criticism of the 3%, because I think the minister would say that landlords, who own the property, should also pay, and that their share is the rest.
Mr Grandmaître: Are they not paying the mortgage?
Ms Mahoney: Do they not own the building?
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Mr Grandmaître: Yes, but -- I did say it was my last question. Dalton.
The Chair: One quick question.
Mr McGuinty: One quick one, eh? That is tough. Maybe you can respond to this, please. It is Ms Grace-Mahoney or Ms Mahoney?
Ms Mahoney: Is it Ms Elinor Mahoney.
Mr McGuinty: Okay. The landlords have complained that with this cap they are not going to be able to pass along sufficient costs and as a result -- you have probably heard this argument several hundred times -- buildings are going to deteriorate and the net result is going to be additional work for the board. Do you see that?
Ms Mahoney: My quick answer would be that the minister is taking care of it by abolishing the board, so it is somebody else's work. However, that work I would be willing to take on if the minister were to change her mind and extend the reign or whatever of the Residential Rental Standards Board. I think it is fair enough to say it should be a government priority to protect rental housing and to enforce the standards. The other board members would probably also say it is fair to take on that extra work, that it is important work.
Mr Frankford: I am a representative for Scarborough, and basement apartments are a big issue there. Does that come within your jurisdiction now?
Ms Mahoney: Do you mean, would it come into my jurisdiction as a board member, or do I have knowledge of that in my current position?
Mr Frankford: As a board member.
Ms Mahoney: My understanding is that when work orders go forward to the board, sometimes a work order will say work has to be done in the apartment, but there may also be a part of the order that says the landlord is required to obtain vacant possession. That creates quite a quandary for the board, because the board's responsibility is to improve the maintenance standards of housing, not to get rid of the housing. So I am sure they have to be very careful which parts of the order they recommend the minister act on in the capacity of a rent penalty.
Mr Frankford: At the present time basement apartments are illegal in Scarborough, so although in theory you may have jurisdiction, in reality people would not be raising complaints until they were legal?
Ms Mahoney: That is right, and it has been the view of the Tenant Advocacy Group and my view as well that the province should look very carefully at all the laws affecting tenants' rights. It is our view that tenants who live in housing that for one reason or another does not meet with the restrictive zoning requirements really do not have access to their rights under tenant protection legislation. We feel that is an inequity that demands to be righted. I do not believe it is within the ambit of the Residential Rental Standards Board except with respect to making recommendations to the minister. Certainly that is an issue I would take to the board as a tenant representative.
The Chair: Does any other member of the government have any questions for the witness? Hearing none, that concludes your appearance before the committee, Ms Mahoney. We wish you well.
Ms Mahoney: Thank you very much.
The Chair: The next matter on the agenda is to determine whether the committee concurs in the appointment of Ms Mahoney. Of course, if any member of the committee wishes to defer this for one week, that will be the case. If not, I will entertain a motion concurring with the appointment.
Mr Wiseman: Concurrence.
The Chair: Moved by Mr Wiseman that the committee concur. Any comments? Questions? All in favour? Opposed?
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Congratulations.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Chair: The next matter is the report of the subcommittee on the committee business. It is attached to your agenda. I will give you all a couple of minutes to go over this and see if you have any questions or concerns.
Any comments or questions about the subcommittee report? Are we in agreement to accept this as presented?
Mr Waters: Today we will be done prior to 11 o'clock, unless we have a full schedule. Is there some possibility of looking at some of the reviews, if we know long enough in advance?
The Chair: I think the subcommittee is attempting to achieve that by meeting every two weeks. I do not think we will have these kinds of holes in our schedule in the future. Hopefully that will not be the case.
Mr Waters: Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate that.
The Chair: Anything else? Nothing else. Accepted as presented, then. I will not require a motion.
MEMBERS' SERVICES
The Chair: The next matter is a request by Mr Frankford in relation to committee resources and a number of suggestions and proposals he wants to bring forward to the committee.
Mr Frankford: I find this an interesting committee because it really gives us a lot of information about agencies and about the appointees. Consequently I, and I am sure every one else, is getting a huge stack of paper, and it is not manageable.
For a start, I would like to know what is available on computer, because if the stuff was on disc it would be much more accessible. Is Hansard on the computer? Are the research documents we get? Could they be provided at this present time on disc?
The Chair: Our clerk and researcher can contribute.
Mr Pond: This is Doug's jurisdiction, not mine, but I know in my office there is a policy that the electronic mail function on our terminals is not hooked up with the members' terminals, if they have them, for security reasons.
As you know, whenever we deliver a document to a member or, in the case of a committee, to the clerk, it is in a sealed envelope and the recipient has to sign for it and that goes into our records for security reasons. I guess the concern -- again, this is Doug's jurisdiction, not mine -- in the library has always been that if you send stuff on electronic mail directly to a member there is a security risk. You do not know who is going to be looking at it on the other screen and you do not know what is going to happen to a document when it is on somebody else's screen. Doug is the authority on this, not me.
Clerk of the Committee: I have no answers at this point. On the question of committee Hansard, I do not believe committee Hansard is available through electronic mail. I believe House Hansard is. I can investigate whether that is feasible and report back.
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The Chair: I guess, Dr Frankford, what you are saying is that the volume of mail you get in respect to this committee is just too onerous and difficult.
Mr Frankford: There is a huge pile of stuff. One day one might like to recall it to see the research stuff on agencies or the background on individuals or whatever. If it were on disc I think it would be quite easy to manage. Right now it is unlikely really to be utilized.
Perhaps there is a further step. What about other things? I was thinking, as one example, of the Ontario Municipal Board's 400-page consultants' report. Do consultants produce those things on disc? If that were the case, then it could be easily distributed and we could all read it.
The Chair: I am advised they did not.
Mr Pond: Coopers Lybrand did not in that case, and that is why Mr Kruger would not give you a copy.
Mr Frankford: I will come around to that, but perhaps we could make a recommendation that in future consultants' reports should be.
Mr Pond: Mr Kruger will say he needs more money to pay for that.
Mr Wiseman: Now, wait a minute. Most people do their reports on computers now and store them on a disc. What we would really be asking is that they supply a disc as opposed to a 400-page copy. Is that a big deal? A 400-page report, published, bound and so on has got to be a lot more expensive than a solid disc.
Mr Pond: The concern there is that discs can be altered by the recipient.
Mr Wiseman: Not if you put in a secret code word that says you cannot access the programming.
Mr Pond: I defer to your greater knowledge.
Mr Frankford: It is quite easy to check whether it matches the original: Count the bytes or something.
Mr Wiseman: I am not sure that this is a big deal in terms of security.
Mr Grandmaître: You can always call the OPP.
Mr Wiseman: I am sympathetic to what my colleague is saying. These are the pages we have received so far. My opinion is that as we are doing a public review of the appointees and as their résumé is part of the public domain, the questions we deal with in this committee are part of the public domain through Hansard, and the descriptions the researcher supplies us with are also public domain, this kind of thing could be done electronically. Some of the other topics and issues would be sensitive and therefore would not want to be done electronically, but is there some way we can define how it is?
The second part of the question is the cost associated with doing this. A very careful assessment of what that means to the committee's budget would have to be discussed and thought about before we would be able to go ahead and do that.
The Chair: It would have implications for other committees as well.
Mr Waters: Not wanting to throw too much of a wet cloth on all of this, I know in my case I do not have a lot of time in my office. When I am reading this, it might be a few minutes in the House, it might be a few minutes waiting for a meeting or whatever, so the problem then becomes, if it is on a disc, how do you access it if you are outside your office? If you have time enough to sit in your office a disc is great, but if you do not have time enough to sit in your office --
Mr Wiseman: Do you not have a laptop computer?
Mr Waters: I just wonder if the expense of a laptop computer for everybody in the Legislature --
Mrs Carter: I will tell you something: I do not want one.
Mr Waters: That is a concern. If you supply discs, the next thing you will have is vast numbers of members requesting the laptop to go with the disc, and where does it end?
Mr Wiseman: I am getting a laptop anyway, because they are great.
Mr Marchese: As a personal point of view, I am not a big fan of computers or anything associated with them. My immediate instinctive reaction is to say no, that the present system works well for me. But given the concerns some members are raising, I wonder if Douglas could not prepare something on the advantages and disadvantages of computerizing, based on cost or efficiency or --
The Chair: Security.
Mr Marchese: Security and perhaps other things. Would that be a useful thing to do for the members so that we do not spend too much time on this?
The Chair: It is probably useful. I just wonder if it is reasonable at this point in time. We will have Doug respond to that.
Clerk of the Committee: To start with, I certainly do not have the expertise to assess your needs, but I guess that is not the first question. The cost viability I could assess, I suppose. However, I do not have the basic computer expertise and would have to go to other sources within the assembly for that. That is possible, though.
Mr Marchese: That is fine. The difficulty is, if members say, "This is what we need," you have to do that anyway. Before we do that, it would be useful to use whatever knowledge or expertise you need to draw on just to put together two pages of --
The Chair: Since we are talking about a service for members though, I wonder if it would not be more appropriate -- Doug can correct me if I am wrong -- for us just to make a request to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly, which for all intents and purposes is the committee responsible for members' services. It may be something that falls within their mandate, because it would have implications for all committees, not just this committee. In view of the concerns expressed here today, perhaps it is something whose feasibility we could request they take a look at.
Mr McGuinty: I was going to say the same thing. I think there is merit to investigating this further, but I would suggest it is outside the scope of this committee and probably Doug just does not have enough time or the expertise to deal with it. I would suggest it is something that should be taken up with the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly because if it has implications, it has implications for all committees and for the way we do business here. Maybe this building, which is going to be 100 years old next year, and the procedures we follow here just have not to caught up with modern technology. Maybe that is what we are after here.
Mr Marchese: Agreed.
Ms Carter: But I think we are always going to need hard copy that we can carry around and pull out when we have five minutes.
Mr Frankford: In response to what Dan said about what one would use it for, I see this committee as particularly valuable for the archival stuff being developed, there is going to be a real body of knowledge about agencies and about appointees. So I do not agree that it is just a matter of choice and that you can do it just as well from a file of hard copies. I do not think you can. I think that is no longer acceptable. With computers you can search up, down, sideways and backwards.
The Chair: To make sure we have covered all the bases, perhaps if he has a moment or two Doug could contact you to prepare a draft letter the committee could look at next week to agree or disagree with or make some changes. Once we have agreed on the content of the letter and the request, we can forward it to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly.
Mr Marchese: Sure.
The Chair: Anything further while we have this opportunity?
Mr Marchese: I move adjournment, Mr Chair.
The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1139.