CONTENTS
Wednesday 19 August 1992
Appointments review
Catherine Louise Frazee
Robert D. M. Owen
Mary Ellen Johnson
Christie Ann Jefferson
Frank Giannone
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
*Chair / Président: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC)
Bradley, James J. (St Catharines L)
*Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)
*Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)
Ferguson, Will, (Kitchener ND)
*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)
*Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L)
Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West/-Ouest PC)
*Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne ND)
*Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants:
*Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC) for Mr Stockwell
*Jamison, Norm (Norfolk ND) for Mr Ferguson
*Mancini, Remo (Essex South/-Sud L) for Mr Bradley
*White, Drummond (Durham Centre ND) for Mr Marchese
*In attendance / présents
Clerk / Greffier: Arnott, Douglas
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1003 in committee room 1.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW
Consideration of intended appointments.
CATHERINE FRAZEE
The Chair (Mr Robert W. Runciman): I call the meeting to order. Members, the first witness today is Catherine Frazee; I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Ms Frazee, would you like to come forward? Ms Frazee is an intended appointee as full-time vice-chair of the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal.
This is a half-hour review; 10 minutes for each party on the committee. You were selected by the Conservative Party, and I'm looking to one of the members, Mr McLean, to begin the questioning.
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): Welcome to the committee. I thought it would be an appropriate time, before your appointment takes effect, to come and discuss with us some of the knowledge you may have with regard to the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal. One thing I'd like to find out from you is, do you think workers should be compensated for workplace stress?
Ms Catherine Frazee: Certainly my experience at the Human Rights Commission -- and I'm going to draw heavily on that in my response to that and probably other questions today -- is that we have evolved in our thinking over the past several years to appreciate that in certain circumstances stress can amount to a disability, as defined by the Human Rights Code, along the continuum from, at one end, healthy levels of stress to, at the other end, stress which renders an individual dysfunctional. I think a certain line has to be drawn and decisions and judgements have to be made on an individual basis.
From my reading of work and from recent decisions of the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal, in certain circumstances where there is a link to indicate that serious conditions of stress are caused by the experience of employment, it would seem that an interpretation of the statute would indicate that it is an appropriate area for compensation.
Mr McLean: You would feel then that the range of occupational diseases covered by the WCB should be expanded?
Ms Frazee: I'd prefer to say as a matter of principle that our understanding of disability is always going to be an evolving notion and, over time, as new conditions come to our attention, it is going to be necessary to embrace those within our definitions of injury and disability.
Mr McLean: At present there's a more than $10-billion unfunded liability and it's growing at $100 million a month. If you're planning on expanding the occupational disease section, that would put a greater burden on the unfunded liability. How would you anticipate collecting that money if you're going to expand it?
Ms Frazee: I hear your concern. With respect, I think the role of the adjudicator is to interpret the legislation; the policy issue you're identifying is probably rightly one for the legislators to consider. If it is a matter of policy that this is an issue the government deems not to be appropriate for compensation, then that is a decision I think the legislators have to make.
Mr McLean: As chairman of the Human Rights Commission, you would be fairly well aware of the WCB and how it was operating because you would have people who would to be referred to you. There's been a lot of discussion lately with regard to the effectiveness of that board. Many people have called for a royal commission to look into the workings of the WCB. Would you think that would be appropriate?
Ms Frazee: I don't think I have an opinion or should express an opinion on that issue, except to say that I appreciate the process of review of any institution. Again speaking from experience of the Human Rights Commission review, as long as it's responsibly conducted and concludes with a set of tangible recommendations, it's always a healthy process. Following a review, however, I think there's always a need for time, first of all, to give consideration to the recommendations and then to put those recommendations into effect. There needs to be time following a review for that process.
Mr McLean: Most of we members have several people in our ridings who are having problems with the WCB. I get calls nearly every day that they're unhappy with the answers they're getting. There is an appeal process there for them, but I had one yesterday who was so mad she wasn't even going to bother appealing it because she felt nobody was helping her. Have you any idea of the amount of appeals the appeals tribunal board is handling?
Ms Frazee: My understanding is that it's somewhere in the order of 1,100 cases coming in each year. I may be a little off, but I think that's about the volume coming in.
Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): You're a little different from some of the people who come here because you've come from a high-profile position and we know a little more about your background. Everybody else comes and we don't know what they've done. Unfortunately you come from an area where there's been a tremendous amount of controversy; there's a great backlog.
I see one of two things: either you didn't have the resources at the Human Rights Commission to handle the number of cases, or as the person in charge it would have been your fault. I don't believe that, because I believe the resources weren't there. The lady who's going to follow you came here and we asked her, "How are you going to handle it?" and she said, "Better case management." I don't think that's going to help, with the number of cases.
Could you explain for the committee what you see as some of the problems of the Human Rights Commission so that basically we can feel confident that the problems there weren't relating to your management, that it was a case of resources, if you follow my drift.
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Ms Frazee: I think I do. I think the commission is on record, certainly before my time and as a full commission during my term as chief commissioner, as indicating that for a very long period in its history the institution was underresourced. You don't change that overnight. It takes a good deal of time to address a problem that has built up over a number of years.
At the same time, I would emphasize that we also determined, certainly during my term as chief commissioner, that there was more we could be doing as an organization to deal effectively with our case load. So we set in place a number of initiatives, administratively and operationally, which we saw had a very significant benefit in terms of our productivity. These included things like setting very clear performance standards and performance expectations, communicating very clearly throughout the organization the priority attention that needed to be paid to case load reduction, providing better training, providing better tools etc.
Those processes and those initiatives have really begun to demonstrate to the commission what a well-run and efficiently run organization can produce. At the same time as we've seen that happen, at the same time as we've seen the commission become more effective and better able to manage its case load, we've seen our intake rise to an unprecedented extent: More and more people are coming forward, so the resource pressures on the institution continue, as more and more people I think either have confidence in the Human Rights Commission or are simply experiencing severe levels of discrimination in society. They're coming forward and they're entitled to service. That creates, for the organization, a real current workload pressure, as distinct from a backlog pressure, that we're all going to have to watch very carefully and that the government, I know, is keenly aware of.
Mr Carr: One other question with regard to the appeals tribunal: With the number of processes, the way it is now, I'm told that very few people get turned down if they push it right through. I've kiddingly said to some people, because all the members have spent a great deal of time on WCB claims, that what we should do is just eliminate it. Anybody who wants it gets the money, and we would save more than through all this process.
I don't know if that's correct or not, but in terms of the process, right now people are saying the same things as about the Human Rights Commission, that it doesn't work, it isn't fast -- a tremendous amount of frustration. Is there anything you can see, looking overall, that we could do to change the system to improve it? Quite frankly, I'm thinking that, unfortunately for you, you're jumping from one tremendous fire into another. That may be good, because your talents may be able to help. Is there anything we can do to assist you so that we don't keep blaming the system?
The Chair: A 30-second response.
Mr Carr: There's never enough time.
Ms Frazee: A 30-second response: It really has to do with taking into account the recommendations of the report that's recently been prepared about the Workers' Compensation Board. Clearly, that will not be my responsibility as a member of the tribunal, but I expect that members of the tribunal would be looking at that report as well with respect to the operations of the tribunal, to see if there are components there that we can learn.
Mr Carr: Thank you. Good luck.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr White.
Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): Good morning. You're a real bear for punishment, obviously. You're going from a very senior position with the Human Rights Commission, which has gone through some difficult times in terms of backlog, in terms of the demand for services, to the WCAT, where the nature of your position will be totally different.
Ms Frazee: Yes.
Mr White: You would be serving as a member of a tribunal on an individual case-by-case basis. The issues about the problems with the services of the WCB would probably be very difficult for you to hear about, because you wouldn't be able to do anything about them.
Ms Frazee: Yes.
Mr White: I'm curious about some of your views. We've talked a little about the stress issue and the unfunded liability. First off, I'm wondering if I could ask you a very simple question: How would that be for you, hearing these cases where time after time what you would hear from the claimants, from the appellants, would be how terrible the service had been, how inhumanely they had been treated? As a member of the tribunal, there would be very little you could do about that.
Ms Frazee: I suppose the most appropriate thing for me to do as a member of the tribunal is ensure that a fair and just remedy is ultimately rendered to the individual. If parties appear before the tribunal and have a great deal of negative comments to make about what has gone before, it's incumbent upon us to ensure that the process they face now at the hearing, at the tribunal, is one which is conducted professionally, one where principles of fairness and efficiency prevail, so that at the end of the day, regardless of what the decision of the tribunal is, at least the individuals who have appeared at that hearing and participated in it are left with a feeling that they've had a good experience, an experience of fairness in treatment.
Mr White: What you're saying is that you would not allow the quality of their previous treatment to prejudice your decision one way or the other.
Ms Frazee: Absolutely. I think the integrity of the tribunal demands nothing less.
Mr White: I'm wondering if I can ask you a couple of questions around the case issues. Very frequently, the problem is that people are injured on the job and it is deemed that they have had an injury which incapacitates them 10%. They are granted a pension which might come to, say, $90 a month or something because their injury has only partially disabled them. Unfortunately, it has partially disabled them to the point where they're unemployable. They're not people with a huge degree of linguistic skills etc, and their bodies are what they need to work. Do you have any thoughts on that issue?
Ms Frazee: By all means stop me if I'm going down the wrong track here, if this isn't addressing the heart of your question, but I think it's very important -- and I'll certainly come to a better understanding as I do move to this position, as I learn more and more about the statute and the act as it has been amended subsequent to Bill 162 -- that there is a very clear recognition in the act of the duty to re-employment where an employee is capable of performing the essential duties either of the original job or of modified work.
I think that principle of re-entry, re-employment for the worker, is a very important one and one which speaks to the kind of scenario you've described, where an individual has had, as you've said, perhaps a 10% or 20% injury but is certainly capable of doing certain kinds of work. It is very important to recognize that this individual still has a contribution to make to the workplace, with accommodations.
Mr White: I have one small further thing, the issue of the time lag, the issue of the rage, frustration and total impotence that the individuals feel over a period of a year, 18 months, two years while they have a claim in and then go to an appeal stage. As a member of the tribunal, what kind of recourse would you recommend -- again, this would of course have to be on a case-by-case basis -- to mollify that problem?
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Ms Frazee: It's critical that the decision from the tribunal be rendered as quickly as is reasonably possible. I know the current goal of the tribunal is to ensure that decisions are forthcoming within a four- to six-month period so that no parties are left in limbo for an unnecessarily long period of time. I think that's of critical importance in getting final decisions made efficiently.
Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): Let's face it: The WCB didn't take WCAT as a welcome addition. Do you feel that as things changed since the beginning, WCAT is accepted more by WCB than it used to be?
Ms Frazee: I'm going to be speaking impressionistically, solely because I haven't --
Mr Waters: I also know that sometimes when things aren't resolved at WCB they go to where you formerly were, so you should have some idea.
Ms Frazee: Let me say that I think a tribunal that establishes for itself a reputation of integrity, a reputation of dealing fairly and intelligently with the issues that come before it, is always accorded a certain amount of respect from the body that is ultimately reviewed by it. I think it's incumbent on members of the tribunal to ensure that we're well informed, that we're sensitive, that we're cognizant of WCB policies, that we're cognizant of how the WCB operates, that where we take exception to particular policies we take care to articulate why we've taken a different view. If there is that clarity of communication and that integrity of process, then I think naturally there will be at least an acceptance and a respect for the necessary role of an appeal.
For example, if an administrative decision-making body does not have an independent review mechanism, it is so easy for the public to become very sceptical and very mistrustful of that body. Oftentimes I think having an appeal built in and a legitimate and responsible level of appeal operating in fact enhances the credibility of, in this case, the WCB itself. It enhances the trust in that institution as part of a total set of procedures and a legislative scheme for compensation of injured workers.
Mr Waters: I represent very much a seasonal area of the province.
The Chair: You have 30 seconds, Mr Waters.
Mr Waters: Okay. Do you think it's right that compensation should be related to your present wage? I'll give you a quick scenario. A young lady in my riding at age 16 was caught in a meat grinder and lost the best part of her arm. She was working at a local corner store, and for life her compensation is based on that minimum-wage job as a student. Do you think that is the way we should be paying compensation to our people in this province?
Ms Frazee: That's a very important and very substantive question and I think I'll defer from responding in an off-the-cuff way. I think that would require a very careful analysis of the legislation and the purposes of the legislation and a very careful application of the legislation to the situation. I'm sorry, I really would prefer not to give a quick response to that.
The Chair: We'll move on.
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): I must apologize for my tardiness, but apparently a question arose on the possibility of compensating stress in the workplace. Could you repeat your answer for me, please?
Ms Frazee: I think the bottom line of my answer at that time is that I believe I heard in the original question exploration of a policy issue which I think is really an issue the legislators ultimately would have to address. The role of the tribunal is to interpret the provisions of the statute as it currently stands and to apply those provisions in a consistent and fair manner.
I did say, certainly on the basis of my experience with the Human Rights Commission, that our understanding of disability has evolved to the point where we do appreciate that in some situations stress can amount to a disability. It doesn't always, but in some situations it is so severe as to be found, at least by the Human Rights Commission, to be a disability.
Now, under a different piece of legislation, where it is necessary to determine links of causation between the stress and the employment, I appreciate that those decisions are very complex, but I do understand that there is an least some jurisprudence currently that has come from the tribunal that would assist us in interpreting the statute as it presently stands.
But as to the larger policy question about whether, socially, we can afford to compensate people who are disabled by workplace stress, that is a policy question for the legislators, I think.
Mr Grandmaître: I understand it's a government policy or intention or statute, but how come the WCB people released a discussion paper on stress? Do you think that's your responsibility? Shouldn't the government itself introduce a paper or release a paper instead of the WCB doing it?
Ms Frazee: First of all, the decisions of the Workers' Compensation Board to issue policy guidelines is really an area that's not appropriate for me to comment on at this point. My interest and orientation today, anyway, are towards the tribunal.
To take your question a step further, I think the role of the tribunal is to look at the legislation as it currently stands, to consider the policy guidelines of the board and to apply, as reasonably as possible, the interpretation of the statute in making decisions on individual cases. I'm afraid that's the best I can do for you.
Mr Grandmaître: One last question and then I'll pass on to Mr Cleary. I know you weren't there at the time, but did the government ask you to release a paper on stress in the workplace?
Ms Frazee: At the Human Rights Commission?
Mr Grandmaître: No, I'm talking about the WCB. Do you know?
Ms Frazee: No, I'm not aware of anything like that.
Mr Grandmaître: Thank you.
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): According to the figures we have, in 1991 more than 60% of the initial decisions were reversed by higher bodies. What can you do to ensure that fewer decisions reach the board? Many of the injured workers in our community feel that if there were a centre set up to help workers with their paperwork and the system, in many ways, probably they could take some of the workload off the board. I'm just wondering how you feel about those things.
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Ms Frazee: I'm sorry, I think I would need to have a little more substantive understanding of the reasons for which those decisions were reversed. It is possible, of course, that decisions are reversed on appeal for reasons of differing interpretations of the statute. Let me put it this way: It may well be that the interpretations the tribunal members are making have to be thoroughly articulated so that there is a more widely held understanding of the interpretations of the tribunal. There may be other reasons, which I suspect you are alluding to, which have to do with things that have happened at the operational level at the WCB, where procedural elements may account for the deficiencies in the earlier-level decisions.
I think I'd really need to be better informed about the nature of the final decisions being made and why they were being reversed before I could really comment in any helpful way about how to prevent that or how to ensure more decisions at the front end that don't get reversed.
Mr Cleary: Would you support one of these information centres?
Ms Frazee: I'd like to know a little bit more about the role of the information centre. I expect that, again, my position as a tribunal member would not involve me in necessarily assessing the utility and the appropriateness of that kind of administrative entity.
Mr Remo Mancini (Essex South): When you were head of the Human Rights Commission, I understand that things weren't quite as you would like to have found them. In leaving the commission, you said you had accomplished what you had set out to do: to give the commission a new vision and opportunity to redeem itself.
I was surprised to learn that you would want to leave the commission, as important a body as it is, especially being the head of the commission, to take on a position as a vice-chair of a tribunal where there would be no administrative responsibilities but basically adjudicative responsibilities. Are you losing the enthusiasm you've had and shown all these years? Are you slowing down? What's the real reason you want this adjudicative position?
Ms Frazee: That's a fair question. Believe me, whatever answer I give you, it will be just the tip of the iceberg. A great deal of thought and careful soul-searching went into this decision to move on from the commission at the end of my term.
I think that I'm primarily looking for new kinds of challenges, and I would anticipate at the tribunal an environment rich in intellectual and conceptual challenges and, as you rightly point out, where my time might be freed from many of the operational kinds of urgencies I've been dealing with at the commission for three years. It's time for a change, personally.
Adjudication is a field which holds a strong appeal for me. I think I have qualities which will suit that vocation. A career in adjudication is an option which I feel quite positively about at this time.
The Chair: Mr Mancini, you finished ahead of time.
Mr Mancini: After your comments of yesterday, Mr Chair, I have to be very careful.
The Chair: Ms Frazee, that concludes the review. I want to mention that Mr Mancini asked if you were slowing down. Nowadays, in the political sphere, we all have to be politically correct, as you know. I just had a birthday, and no one could say I was getting older; now they have to say I'm chronologically challenged. In any event, thank you very much for appearing here. We appreciate it and wish you well.
ROBERT OWEN
The Chair: Our next witness is Robert Owen. Mr Owen, would you like to take a seat, please. Welcome to the committee, sir. This is a half-hour review. Mr Owen was selected for review by the Liberal Party, the official opposition. Mr Owen, as indicated on your agenda, is the intended appointee as a vice-chair of the Ontario Municipal Board. We'll begin the questioning with Mr Grandmaître.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Owen, you've been a member of the OMB since 1983. Would you describe to me the real progress you've seen since 1983?
Mr Robert Owen: There have been a number of what I consider positive and useful changes in the board. Perhaps the most important one, in terms of today's society, is the better mix, both by gender and racial and cultural diversification. I have some statistics if you're interested: We have seven women, two francophones, three blacks, two Orientals and two Italians. We have others who bring to the board different qualifications. In the "old days" the board was largely composed of lawyers, of which I happen to be one, but we are now in a minority. The number of planners has increased in recent times, and that's been an important change.
The training of members is something that has been recently instituted. In my view, because I was part of it, I suppose, certainly the feedback we're getting from members has been extremely effective and very useful. We have both member training for new members and continuing education, as I call it, for all members.
We have also seen a reorganization in the staff that I believe is more effective in the manner in which files are processed. It allows the public and municipalities a better handle on who's doing what. By that I mean that the staff is organized into a sort of regional basis, where one person is doing everything for, say, Ottawa-Carleton. People get used to talking to the same person, and I think that helps.
Further, we have been making a considerable degree of progress in what is quaintly called alternative dispute resolution, but in particular for this board it's been an institution of pre-hearing conferences. For many hearings, 10 days and over, we have also instituted settlement conferences where possible, in jurisdictions such as Ottawa and Toronto where there are a number of small files with narrow issues and few parties. We found that the settlement conferences, which I am involved in, have been extremely successful. In that settlement conference area, we have been using a mediation type of thing, because we create a very informal atmosphere, and it works.
Mr Grandmaître: Can I interrupt you, Mr Owen, because we have only 10 minutes.
Mr Owen: Okay. I want to be full and fair in my answers.
Mr Grandmaître: Good. I'm quite satisfied with your answer.
I'd like to talk about the added responsibilities you were given -- I'm not going to use the word "imposed" because Mr Kruger's going to jump on me -- in the last five or six years. I'm talking about the critics who say that these responsibilities shouldn't have been added to the OMB, that they should have been added to another body instead of the OMB because the OMB was overworked and understaffed. What has happened in the last five or six years with these additional responsibilities? Has the OMB been able to cope?
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Mr Owen: I'm here as a proposed appointee for vice-chair, and as such, although I am a member of the board, I am not as intimately involved in the statistics and the opinion of the chair and the vice-chairs and senior staff on these issues. However, from my personal point of view, I think the board is coping. We're given things to do presumably because someone feels we're capable of doing them and they relate in some way to our present position. It does create more work. The development charges are, perhaps, one of the examples. However, that hasn't "taken off" quite like we expected.
We have a backlog which we're working on, but I can't say we shouldn't have some of the things. Perhaps there could be ways of changing things around a bit, but we're all dealing with municipalities, and I really don't know if it's appropriate to start creating more tribunals doing the same thing. I worry a little about the cost-effectiveness of something like that.
I think we're doing a good job with the resources we have, and we're certainly trying to improve the process. Over time, with some of the initiatives we're taking and that I hope to be part of, I think we should be able to do a better job. But I don't think we should shirk the responsibilities given to us by the Legislature.
Mr Grandmaître: One last question, Mr Chair. Now that the OMB is under the wing, if I can say that, of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and not the Attorney General, what are your thoughts on this?
Mr Owen: Again, a personal thought is that I have always considered myself to be independent. I've served under three different governments. I have had no experience, nor have I during my time ever heard of anyone having any experience, of interference by a minister or ministry or, for that matter, a member of Parliament, in the affairs of the board.
Mr Grandmaître: Never?
Mr Owen: Never. Certainly I've never, and I've not heard of anyone complaining about that sort of thing. We've been around a long time, and I think in fairness to the members of the Legislature and the various ministries, they know we're an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal and they treat us as such. They may not always be happy, but they still treat us as such. I don't think the change to that ministry is going to create a real problem. The perception, however, is one that needs to be addressed, and perhaps through the tenure argument we may settle that.
Mr Cleary: Having been a municipal politician for many years, and now at Queen's Park, I've heard much criticism from the public, from many different people on a variety of issues, about your board and the length of time it takes to get a decision. To follow up on what my colleague has said, it is my understanding that you say that that's improving, that the length of time is probably less now than it used to be.
Mr Owen: We're whittling away; not fast, I agree, but things take a bit of time to do. With the settlement conferences, the pre-hearing conferences, the hopes of this case worker idea where we've got regions and so on, that is relatively new. Again, everyone in government has "no money and no time." However, despite those limitations, I think we are working better as a team with just members and staff.
One of my particular objectives if I am appointed is that I want to see a better working of the case worker where we can talk to people, can narrow issues and so on, and where we can get more effective hearing time estimates and therefore shorten the real time and produce more decisions and quicker.
Now, quicker decisions: It's always been a rather amusing bugbear of mine that everybody's running around wanting a fast hearing. I always thought they wanted a decision from the board, not a fast hearing. There's always a bit of a problem with weighing how many hearings you have and how long it takes to get a decision, because we are all human beings and we can only produce so many decisions, carefully reasoned, within the time frame. I think that's being worked on.
Regarding the computer ability of members, new members -- and frankly, myself as one of the older members -- are the only ones now completely using the computer for decisions. It's going to make a difference when we get more computer-literate people on or convert some of the older people to computer literacy, because you can do an awful lot at home, in your hotel room and so on, and the modern age should make a wonderful difference in that kind of delivery. We're not making huge strides, but I think we are making strides and I see a light -- as someone said today, hopefully not of the train but sunshine -- at the end of the tunnel.
The Chair: You've been listening to the Republican convention. We're going to have to move on to Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: I appreciate the opportunity to ask you some questions and thank you for coming. It isn't just the Ontario Municipal Board that's got backlog problems; we've heard from the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the WCB is backlogged and doesn't work, right now the Ontario Municipal Board's got a backlog and the Rent Review Hearings Board has a backlog of about 6,000 cases. Indeed, as a lawyer, you know our courts are now up to 40,000 cases as a result of the Askov decision, and I think that's why there's so much frustration in the public. It is also with politicians, but everything in this province seems to be backlogged, clogged and not working.
If we were to eliminate the Ontario Municipal Board and say, "We're not going to do it; the final authority will be Halton region or whatever," do you think that would create a tremendous amount of injustice in the province?
Mr Owen: My experience in that regard has been twofold. From discussions over many years with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the president, who speaks to our seminars on occasion, many municipalities realize that on the one hand they like us because we perform a good role when we have municipal politicians dealing with ratepayers, and: "Elections are elections and let's just dump it on the board. We'll trust them to do the right thing." On the other hand, municipalities sometimes get very upset when we disagree with their decisions.
I had an experience recently in London where the ratepayers said: "We don't care what your decision is, Mr Chairman. This will be the first fair hearing we've had in this long process and that's what we'll go away remembering." Frankly, I don't think the elimination of this board is going to serve the people of Ontario very well, because the politicians in the other committees below us simply don't have the time to spend on some of these issues. We spend a lot of time -- maybe too much time -- but the full and fair hearing has always been a touchstone and will be for me continually. Councils can't do that. They can't spend a day or three days or two weeks listening to one single planning issue.
The other thing is, of course, we get far better evidence, far more thorough evidence from everyone at our hearings than they ever do at any of the lower levels, and perhaps the decisions we make are better because of the kinds of things we hear, not because of the people we are but simply because of the kind of evidence we get. So I don't think that's going to solve the problem.
Mr Carr: We've discussed with the human rights people how to deal with a backlog. Everybody has come in and said the same thing you have, "automate" and "better case management." Crown attorneys are saying right now, "If we just had better case management." It's the same with the human rights. The lady who was in here before you left and a new person came in, and the lady who came in said: "We just had better case management. We've had Coopers and Lybrand in and they haven't." Isn't it true that with the numbers that are coming before the Ontario Municipal Board, unless we put more resources into it, we will never get rid of the backlog that we're looking at right now?
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Mr Owen: Throwing money at a problem is an old solution. To some degree, resources are important, and I still believe that we could stop being reactive and be more proactive as a board and not just simply get the paper in and process it: Get the paper in and talk to the people who are involved, talk to the ratepayer groups or the parties and try to find out what the real problems are and try to institute some kind of a mediation process.
Mediation is a different sort of field than we're in at the moment. It's going to cost some money, I suppose, but it's certainly something to try because, for instance, Municipal Affairs, in my view, might have a role in attempting to mediate. For instance, if you follow the Sewell commission and if the Sewell commission comes to fruition and so on, the role of ministries may change.
Perhaps those people could take a more active role in attempting to settle things before they have to come to us, because what we see is that the parties never talk to each other. They're over here and over here and they never talk until they walk into the board hearing. Many of us will say, "Hey, why don't we take five minutes and talk about things?" You'd be surprised at the number of "five minutes" that will help solve an awful lot of problems. If we can get that going earlier, then I think we can make some real progress.
Mr Carr: One of the problems, not to take a shot at your profession as a lawyer --
Mr Owen: Everyone does.
Mr Carr: It's the same thing with politicians and lawyers, and if you're both you're really in trouble.
The major concern is that right now of course it is the same thing with something as simple as marriage; they just that say if they could get together, they could agree on it and they wouldn't have to have a lot of court battles. The problem is that in our legal system, most people who go before the board need to have some type of lawyer.
Isn't it true that in our adversarial system, where lawyers are involved, it's better from the lawyer's standpoint to go there and get his fee rather than try to solve it quickly, and as a lawyer, how do you see us being able to force this type of mediation when our system is basically set up as: "Adversarial. Get your lawyer. Come before the board, present your case and somebody will make a decision"? Are there any thoughts on that?
Mr Owen: The first thing I just want to say is that we say consistently to the public and we mean it, "You don't need a lawyer." In my view, the best thing --
Mr Carr: But most do. Most either have a consultant or a lawyer.
Mr Owen: They bring them, but if I had any advice to the public I'd say: "Bring a planner. This is a planning issue or an assessment. You don't need a lawyer." A lot of lawyers, with great respect to our profession, don't know anything about planning.
Mr Carr: Planners charge less per hour, too.
Mr Owen: The number of lawyers who appear before the board know little about the board. We're trying to create, for instance in assessment appeals, practice directions, like the certificate of readiness that the court has, where you can't get a hearing date until you're ready to proceed.
Although it starts to sound like we're legalizing it, I don't like that term, but if we're going to deal with lawyers I suppose that's one of the ways to deal with it. Do more of what the court's doing, simply saying: "No hearing until you're ready. No adjournments, and you've got to get your little ducks in a row." Lawyers always wait until the file. Don't look at the file until the night before, for heaven's sake. We've got 17 other people screaming at us.
I don't know the solution to that. If anyone can find it, we'll certainly solve the backlog of just about every body they appear before. Certainly practice directions and the assistance of pre-hearing conferences and the certificate-of-readiness idea should go some way.
There's a lot of adverse reaction to that pushing around, but perhaps we need to go back to the Legislature. Perhaps we need to get some more teeth so we can do some of this stuff and, like the courts, say: "Goodbye. You're just dismissed. We warned you we're not going to do that." Now we don't have that kind of power and I'm not sure we need it. I don't want to cater to lawyers because I don't think we have to have lawyers and I don't want to make the impression to the public that you can't win without a lawyer.
Mr Carr: One of the problems with the process is that it's very intimidating for a layperson, as you know, to come before --
Mr Owen: Intimidating before this committee.
Mr Carr: Yes.
Mr Owen: Not so bad so far.
Mr Carr: That's very simple among friends, but it is very intimidating, particularly when there's a great deal at stake, and I know many people have said that. The fact of the matter is that the average person looks at it and finds it very complicated. Is there anything we can do to simplify it so that an average person going before it will not feel intimidated like he does now? Is there any process we can use to do that?
Mr Owen: We start getting into, I think from the question, what the Sewell commission, among others, is looking at. Personally, in my experience, I try to allay and I think I'm quite successful in allaying the concerns of the ratepayers. I personally believe very strongly that you've got to put people at ease. We're not a court. Most of the time we're appearing in little halls or kitchens or all kinds of things. We're not in the nice quarters at Dundas Street all the time, or these nice quarters, and it's a matter of training of members and the kind of members we have to try and make the public more comfortable.
The other side of it is a reliance on the information office of the board and the case workers who are there and the communication with ratepayers to tell them what's going to happen, to tell them what they need. We're doing that. I believe that a lot of the old concerns are not as real today as they were, certainly when I joined the board, and I want to keep that process going.
Mr Carr: Good. Thank you and good luck.
The Chair: We'll move on to Mr Wiseman and then Mrs Carter.
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): I'm pleased to see you this morning. I have a few questions. The first question I have will determine where my questions go from here. Are you primarily and have you primarily been responsible for assessment reviewing, or have you taken part in the amendments to official plans?
Mr Owen: I have a broad general experience on the board. I started out in 1983 as part of the assessment division in order to try to clear up -- and successfully; this time we did -- the assessment backlog in large part. Since then, I would say that after that three years, I've been doing general planning and that's the majority of what I am doing now. With the exception of major assessment hearings, that's what I've been doing.
Mr Wiseman: That leads me to my next question. I happen to represent a riding that is both a rural and urban riding. It's Durham West. It has Ajax and Pickering, which means it's under considerable urban pressures. The general view of my population of people who are involved in planning is that the Ontario Municipal Board is basically locked in the 1950s, basically irrelevant, does not take into account the Food Land Guidelines and has basically -- they've used phrases like, "In the back pockets of the developers and has absolutely no relevance and is absolutely useless when it comes to protecting the interests of the rural area."
That's a pretty harsh indictment, but I have some difficulty with what the board does and I'd like you to see if you can clarify that and clear it up. In the community I come from, it has an official plan but the official plan is irrelevant, because they change it on a regular basis and then when anybody appeals to the municipal board, the municipal board upholds the changes to the official plan without putting it into any kind of context.
We have some development in Ajax that is probably the most horrendous development and misplaced development you can possibly conceive of because of changes that have been made to the official plan and upheld by the Ontario Municipal Board. You go from a low-density, single-family dwelling subdivision into a high-density area across the road, with no transitions or anything, because of the way the official plans have been amended in the past. Could you comment on that, and do you think official plans should be that easily amended?
Mr Owen: We are a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal and the decisions the board makes are the result of the evidence produced at the hearing by the various parties. That is the basis upon which we make our decisions. There is usually a loser and the losers are never very happy. I happened to be in that general area dealing with a matter where the ratepayers won, much to the chagrin of the developers and their proponents.
One can always find, I think, isolated, or perhaps not so isolated, issues where developers seem to win, but on the basis of simply talking about an official plan, it is a guide to development in the municipality, and if there's a problem in the province, it's that municipalities are not updating their official plan. There may be lots of reasons for that, but when you have the regions of York and Peel not having an official plan, what can you do? The board is only dealing with what's in front of it. Now, fine, we make amendments to official plans, but that's based on particular evidence.
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Let's say it was affordable housing. I don't know what it was, but if it was affordable housing, one of the concerns of the government and previous governments has been the provision of affordable housing, particularly non-profit and cooperative housing, which usually means higher densities which may, under some circumstances, on the basis on certain evidence, make good planning sense given the other concerns of the importance of affordable housing. I can't get into the specifics of that one. I just simply don't know that issue; but yes, official plans do change. They were intended to change.
It might be better if municipalities were able to do the five-year review that the act seems to require them to do, but there are lots of reasons why they can't. Money is undoubtedly one and staffing is another, and everything takes a long time to do.
Mr Wiseman: So basically what you're saying is that consumers buying a piece of property, if they go through all the hoops of checking out what the zoning is behind them, don't really have any right to expect that the zoning is going to stay intact.
For example, the reason I'm here is because I bought a piece of property. I checked out the zoning behind me, and before I moved in the municipality had changed it from public use to commercial use -- in other words, a 42-foot building behind my house, less than 52 feet from my back window.
Consumers have no protection in this regard if they cannot expect to go to the Ontario Municipal Board and have some teeth, in that they can say, "The official plan said this; we checked it and this is why we bought, and then we go and find out that the Ontario Municipal Board isn't going to uphold the rights of the consumer." This is the kind of frustration that is in my area, because it's happening all the time.
There was another old public space. It was a greenbelt. It was zoned that way in the official plan. It was rezoned almost overnight. There were 16 people who made presentations to the council and they were ignored. It was rezoned for six commercial, 20-storey towers, just like that and it was upheld at the Ontario Municipal Board.
The problem I have with the board is -- and it may not be your problem; it may be in the legislation, and this is the question -- that the legislation says "have regard to." For example, the wetlands policy is a guideline that's put in section 3. We've had a case in the Ganaraska forest where the commissioner said: "Oh, well, I've had regard to it. I looked at it and now I'm ignoring it and going ahead."
It says in the official plans in part 3, "The municipal board may make any decision that the minister could have made." The board has that kind of power. It's stated here with some descriptions. But how can they allow these kinds of developments to go through? We're seeing, on a constant basis, regeneration -- the Crombie commission report on sustainable planning -- and none of this seems to be reflected in the decisions the board is making.
Mr Owen: Again, that's not a decision of mine, and I don't want to discuss that particular decision. However, the board, again, simply deals with the evidence that's presented. If the government or a ministry has a particular concern, as they did in the Palladium hearings in which I was involved in Ottawa, and if the ministry chooses to appeal or appear, very frequently that's the kind of evidence that can sway the board in whatever direction the ministry would like it to be, on the basis of evidence.
We do regard those policies, and we do regard them with care, in my view. I do, anyway, and I think the board members will, as a whole, but it isn't just a piece of paper. We need some people there to tell us why this policy is so important in this area. It's really not appropriate for us to simply read the file. We wouldn't have to have any hearings. That would get rid of the backlog; we'd do the paperwork. We need the people to turn up, and I presume in that particular hearing the people who turned up presented a better case in favour of whatever the development may have been than the people in opposition.
Mr Wiseman: But this gets back to the catch-22 that Mr Carr was raising and the fact that a lot of the people appearing don't have lawyers and can't afford planners. The developer who comes in with his great maps, great charts, flow diagrams and environmental studies clearly would have the advantage. What the guidelines in terms of the wetlands policy, the Food Land Guidelines and the Oak Ridges moraine -- I've got a case where the council has okayed something on the Oak Ridges moraine and it's going ahead.
This isn't something I think the general public should have to know coming in. I think it's the responsibility of the board members. The criticism we had of the board from the Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society is that you seem to make the decisions in isolation from all the other information you should know going in.
The Chair: I'm afraid I'm going to have to jump in there. We're over the time. That concludes the review. Mr Owen, we appreciate your appearance here today.
MARY ELLEN JOHNSON
The Chair: The next witness is Mary Ellen Johnson. Welcome to the committee. Mrs Johnson is an intended appointee as vice-chair of the Ontario Municipal Board. Again, this is a half-hour review. This time we're looking to the government party to lead off.
Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): Could you tell us something about the process by which you were given this position?
Mrs Mary Ellen Johnson: My appointment to the board?
Ms Carter: No, for the vice-chair.
Mrs Johnson: There was a competition within the board. There were, I believe, six or seven board members who applied. We were interviewed by the chairman and a representative of the Premier's office. My colleague Mr Owen and I were chosen or selected to proceed further in competition.
Ms Carter: Can you give us some ideas as to how the board can respond to planning issues raised by tenants' and ratepayers' associations?
Mrs Johnson: Are you referring to need for more housing or to matters under the Rental Housing Protection Act?
Ms Carter: Planning issues.
Mrs Johnson: You'll have to assist me. As you know, the board acts through its hearing of appeals. Are you thinking of an appeal that has come to the board or a type of appeal that comes to the board involving ratepayers or tenants?
Ms Carter: Either, yes.
Mrs Johnson: Let's assume it's ratepayers. This is housing?
Ms Carter: Yes.
Mrs Johnson: All right. in the course of an appeal, the board wants to hear the concerns of any party or concerned citizen who comes forward and feels that a planning issue or an appealed application before the board isn't proper for one reason or another. The board hears those concerns through evidence, so it's important that the persons who come before the board are prepared to speak honestly and fairly of their concerns and to give the board the best impression they can, quickly and firmly, of where their concerns lie.
Ms Carter: One question that was raised just now that I think maybe we could just touch on again was the question of training board members, because it seems to me that this is a very demanding board to be on and you do need to have a lot of knowledge and skills.
Mrs Johnson: Absolutely.
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Ms Carter: Would you have any ideas for improving that training or do you think it's pretty well in hand already?
Mrs Johnson: This is training of board members?
Ms Carter: Of board members by staff.
Mrs Johnson: Actually, the board is involved right now in its own training program. It has two incentives going forward under the auspices of the board. There are two subcommittees. One is a board subcommittee involved with the training of new members and the orientation of new members so they can quickly get their feet in the water.
The other subcommittee, which I have the privilege of chairing, is involved with ongoing education for board members. That committee has been in operation just over a year and we're coming up to our fifth or sixth workshop. This is member-generated. We bring in outside speakers, we use our own very talented board members and we use some of our own staff people.
Our attempt and our approach -- and I think it's very successful; it's being extremely well received by the membership -- is to make sure that we are sensitized to the problems and needs of society, which are ever-changing, and to changes in the world and the complex matters that are coming before the board at the moment, such as environmental issues and matters of that kind. This is a very changing world, and we've got to move with it.
Ms Carter: It certainly is. I understand there have been complaints by groups of citizens appearing who didn't have legal support. I would hope that board members are being sensitized to that.
Mrs Johnson: I would hope so too. I'm concerned to hear that. From time to time I'm sure things may go a little awry at a hearing, but the approach of the board, the general philosophy of the board, is that an unrepresented group or an unrepresented individual coming before the board is treated with all the respect that any party carrying armfuls of lawyers and expert witnesses would have. Indeed, board panels as a rule bend over backwards in the other direction until sometimes we're criticized for being too helpful and too attentive, perhaps, to the unrepresented persons. So most of the time I think you'll find that we do that. If once in a while we slip a little bit, I'm sorry, and we'll try to do better. We are trying to make our new members very much aware of that; indeed, they are aware of it.
Ms Carter: Do you have any thoughts on intervenor funding for people who maybe don't have a direct interest in the case and are just appearing because they have some broader concern as citizens?
Mrs Johnson: There are a lot of issues caught up in intervenor funding, and we have to think about several factors there. One is that the cases we have in front of the board where intervenor funding would be appropriate are probably cases where there are large public issues involved, and great numbers of members of the public and individuals and groups wish to be represented because of their very strong concerns.
These cases, when you come down to it, are not that frequent. There may be 20 or 30 of them a year. They usually involve matters like official plans, environmental matters and things of that ilk. I can see very much a role for intervenor funding there. We often have groups come in front of us without counsel and, again, we do our best to assist them, but they would feel more comfortable, their input might be more meaningful, and the hearing might be more expeditious if they had intervenor funding.
Having said that, the next question is: How would intervenor funding be determined? How would the selection of the hearing and the groups be made? How would it be monitored? Finally, where would the funding come from? Those are all issues that have to be sorted out. There's some guidance in what has been happening with the Intervenor Funding Project Act and the environmental assessment matters, and we can look to that. But generally speaking, I think in a very special kind of hearing, intervenor funding for groups that are recognized, that show their ability to act in a responsible manner and that wish to go ahead should be looked into, very much so.
The Chair: Mr Frankford for about two and a half minutes.
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): You're a lawyer and a planner?
Mrs Johnson: And a public administrator. I'm all three, sir.
Mr Frankford: Would you like to make some comments on community involvement in planning on a broader scale? My impression is that in the past what went on was very site-specific. Now the approach is more broad. I'm thinking in particular of one decision that I've read very recently which certainly raises broader community planning questions.
Mrs Johnson: I don't think you can have a community without community planning, and in Canada the input of the public in planning has become more and more pronounced in the last 20 to 30 years. Now we see the fruits of work in the 1960s and 1970s. We see established community groups that follow all the community incentives and the changes in official plans that may come forward in municipalities. They're established, they have a long history themselves -- they should have -- and I would hope that municipalities and indeed the board rely on their input and involvement. They should be encouraged and they should be playing a role, and they are playing a role.
Mr Frankford: Do you think they have enough access to independent planning advice, or do you see ways in which the board could be helping them develop that?
Mrs Johnson: That's asking the board to step a little beyond its mandate. I think your question is perhaps better put to municipal leaders and to groups at other levels. Our mandate begins when an appeal is made to us and we become involved at that level, and when people are before us, as my colleague Mr Owen said, we are bound by the evidence we hear. If we have a community group come before us and it doesn't really have the evidence it needs or that we should hear, that is terribly unfortunate.
It's difficult. I think that may be where your question was going. We would endeavour to assist them by saying, "Perhaps evidence is needed in that line," or they may see it themselves as the hearing unfolds. We would try to make allowances and get them perhaps to ask for an adjournment or something like that so they could go out and get some planning advice. Now you're talking about the thing that was raised earlier, intervenor funding. How do they pay for the planning advice? It isn't cheap.
The Chair: I have to jump in at this point. We'll have to move on to Mr Grandmaître. My apologies.
Mr Grandmaître: First maybe I should declare a possible conflict of interest. Ms Johnson worked for me for three and a half years when I was mayor, and I can tell you, she is the best member of the OMB.
Anyway, going back to the problems municipalities are having with the OMB -- and this is not a speech -- I spent two and a half years as the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and I was very surprised at the number of municipalities that didn't know anything about the OMB, its functions, its responsibilities. I was very surprised.
Going back to what my colleague Mr Wiseman was alluding to, I think you have a responsibility to put on seminars and promote yourselves and explain to not only the newly elected municipal officials but all former municipal politicians as well what your responsibilities are, because too many municipalities in this province are taking advantage of the OMB. They're shying away from their responsibilities and saying: "Let the OMB resolve it. We don't want to make a local decision." I think that's a big problem in this province.
I want to emphasize the fact that I think you should have some kind of program to educate local politicians about your responsibilities, and now that you're under the wing of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, I think it's also the responsibility of the minister to create these seminars. I know Mr Kruger will tell me, "We'd like to do it but we don't have the money, so let the minister pay for it and go around this province and educate people."
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I want to talk to you about the added responsibilities you people have gained in the last five or six years. I've asked your colleague Mr Owen his thoughts on these additional responsibilities. I've always thought the OMB had no business in the assessment. When I was Minister of Revenue I tried my darnedest to get the OMB out of that business. What are your thoughts? Maybe I should have asked Mr Owen, because he was part of the --
Mrs Johnson: You're speaking of assessments in particular?
Mr Grandmaître: Assessments and the added responsibilities you've gained in the last five or six years, because you've become a big monument and people are scared.
Mrs Johnson: We're also the court of last resort for individuals; we're the court of last appeal.
Let's start with the assessments. The assessments represent in many cases a home owner's appeal of his assessment. He wants to have that appeal. There has to be a court of appeal for him. Where would that court of appeal be? It's a matter related to property. The OMB has developed an expertise in assessments. We have the ability to conduct hearings that are objective and fair. It seems to me that the board hearing assessment appeals is entirely appropriate and that's something we have absorbed and perhaps should continue.
Another matter that often is raised as a possible thing the board could dispense with is appeals for minor variances. Again, you're talking in many cases of individuals, of appeals to make a small change to a family home or the grocery store on the corner. You may be speaking of other things as well, but let's talk about those very basic things. Those are individuals who go in front of a committee of adjustment. In many cases, we're dealing with a committee of adjustment in an urban area that's incredibly busy. They hear 40 or 50 appeals in an evening. The person feels he hasn't had a fair hearing if he's turned down, or conversely, the neighbours who came because they didn't like the sound of this at all. They're very concerned about their homes, their investments, their neighbourhoods, and that application was granted at the committee, authorized at the committee, and nobody really listened to them.
They want a forum to go to, an independent forum that they feel is free of all political ties, that's fair, that's open, that's practical, where you can come without a lawyer or a host of planners if necessary. I think the Ontario Municipal Board provides a signal service in regard to the hearing of appeals for minor variances. Perhaps they could be heard by municipal councils, I don't know. I think people feel better when it's in a non-partisan setting such as the board is able to provide.
Mr Grandmaître: But there are also added costs to municipalities when you have to appear before the OMB. Anyway, one last question and I'll pass on to John.
How about your term, Mary Ellen? Do you think it should be for ever or should we have a limit on it?
Mrs Johnson: That's a question that's been very much debated, both within the board and elsewhere, and there are great concerns about it. As you know, the present term is three years, renewable for a further three years. I've had a wonderful three years and I've been renewed for a further, I hope equally wonderful, three years.
When I first came to the board, I came in a very free, very open way, because personally I've had no problems, as you know, in my own life and in my career. I've been very flexible and very movable, but it's not that way for everybody.
We need to have on the board the best people we can get. We need to attract to the board people from all walks of life and people from all parts of the province. I'm thinking particularly of attracting people from the north and the east of the province to be board members. If they are to move closer to Metropolitan Toronto, and that sometimes seems to be the best course of events, then they have to uproot themselves, leave their homes. It may mean a spouse uprooting as well and leaving a career; now we're dealing with two-career families and all sorts of things that we didn't have to contend with 20 years ago. Those things all have to be weighed.
It may well be that the best people have to say to us, "We're sorry, we can't come unless the term is a bit longer." I don't think it should necessarily be for ever, but I think it should be renewable for a longer term. I also think that the possibility of board members at the end of their terms moving on to other boards and tribunals should be something they have in their own thoughts and their own training programs as potential matters.
Mr Grandmaître: Good luck.
Mr Cleary: Mrs Johnson, you've been a member of the board for a few years now.
Mrs Johnson: Four years.
Mr Cleary: What is the average length of time -- when I say "average," maybe it's not a fair question -- an appeal would take?
Mrs Johnson: To work through the board system? The waiting time from the moment an appeal is fully perfected -- that is, it's all ready to be heard -- comes in is 15 to 18 months. We have a backlog which amounts to 15 to 18 months of work; that's not satisfactory and we know it.
Mr Cleary: How does that compare to when you went on the board?
Mrs Johnson: It's slightly greater. The board has been labouring under a backlog for some years.
Mr Cleary: What do you think the first step would be to improve that, to get that time frame down?
Mrs Johnson: There are a number of steps the board is taking at the moment to decrease the backlog. We're working on a number of matters in a coordinated fashion. For one thing, we've obtained a few new members. It might help if we had a few more; I know it would. We are conducting something we call pre-hearing conferences to decrease the time that a very long hearing would take, to define the issues in a long hearing and to perhaps settle some matters, things like that.
We're involving ourselves in mediation and negotiation to a greater extent than before. We're becoming more experienced in that, but we have to become more experienced than we are now because that is a very important thing. We're using lists of short hearings to bring them together --
The Chair: I have to jump in there. Mr Carr, please.
Mr Carr: First of all, thank you for coming. I appreciate the opportunity.
My question's along the same line. I talked with Mr Owen about the backlog. It doesn't make you feel any better, but it's happening with everybody who's coming before us: The Ontario Human Rights Commission is backlogged, WCB is backlogged; members here can spend 60% of their day dealing with those problems. The rent review board is backlogged 6,000 cases. Indeed, as a lawyer you know the courts are backlogged such that the Askov decision sprang about 40,000 cases.
In each of those cases, people come before us and say, "Better case management; we're going to computerize." There are two options. One is more members, which the Human Rights Commission said would do it. I think it's safe to assume that no group is going to get any more members, because of the scarce resources we're facing.
Isn't it true that some of the things you talked about, the conferences, the mediation and so on, are really just scratching the surface, that in spite of this effort we really won't make a dent in the backlog because the number of cases coming in increases each year?
Mrs Johnson: No, I don't agree at all. I think case management already in the board is making a difference. It may not show as yet, but we're moving in a very organized way to decrease the backlog. We're aware of what those cases mean. Those are people, and we know how important this is. I think the impact of what we're doing now will start to show in three to six months. These are things we must do and that we are doing.
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Mr Carr: I think of the Human Rights Commission. That's what it did. They commissioned Coopers and Lybrand to come in and have better case management and computerize. At the end of the day, it got worst.
With regard to intervenor funding -- all of us here hope the case management will improve it -- my fear is that you'll take a great step forward, hopefully, with case management, but that as a result of intervenor funding we will have more people appearing, and a year from now we will be sitting here with a bigger backlog. Do you agree that intervenor funding will allow more cases to come in and increase the backlog?
Mrs Johnson: Let me answer that in this way. The cases are coming now. I don't think people are deterred from appealing to the board or becoming involved in major appeals to the board. In intervenor funding, again we're talking about major cases and long-term cases. Those cases are not being deterred because of the lack of intervenor funding; they're happening.
But what's also happening is that because the persons who are major players as to being citizen appellants are not represented by competent counsel and do not have with them the expert witnesses they should have, the true expert witnesses who are needed to balance whatever is on the other side, the hearings take longer. They don't take less time; they take a great deal longer because people don't know how to present their case. They labour to do so. They're entirely sincere in what they're trying to do.
The board members, as I mentioned earlier, attempt to the best of their ability to assist. As I say, we get to the point where we're stepping over the line in terms of whether or not we're conducting a fair hearing vis-à-vis the proponents of the project, and they have lawyers who call us to task for that.
These hearings take longer. Matters happen which may open it up for appeal on points of law and that sort of thing. I think initially, yes, you're going to lose a day or so while a hearing might be held as to the granting of intervenor funding, but I think in the long run the cases themselves will be shorter in length because they'll be more efficiently and effectively conducted.
Mr Carr: One of the government moves was to appoint Dale Martin. I think his title is facilitator. In the Legislature, Chris Stockwell said that's a good appointment because if you appoint somebody who is the best at holding things up and slowing things down, he may be the best person to be able to turn things around. One of the concerns is that basically what he will be doing now is picking and choosing, because of the backlog, what will be coming before it. Do you agree with that step and do you agree with somebody having powers to be able to push something to the head of the line, I guess to use a better word, and how do you see his role? Do you think it will help or what?
Mrs Johnson: It's not in my knowledge that this is happening at the board level. Our process is that appeals come to us as appeals. They're filed. They're perfected. They're made ready to go and then they become part of the system. I stand to be corrected, but as yet I have not seen that activity happening. It may be happening; I'm not sure. The matters that do go to the head of the line are affordable housing projects, and it may be only four to six months that they're waiting.
Mr McLean: I have a couple of questions. What I'm gathering is that the OMB is not what it was intended to be any more. What I'm hearing from you is that people are going there and they're not prepared. I always felt the OMB was a board that sat down and listened to commonsense approaches, that you didn't have to have a lawyer if you wanted to go to it, that you could do it on your own. What I'm getting from you is that you're saying people are not prepared. They're coming there and their counsel is not even prepared. Therefore, you have to be a lawyer in order to be part of the process.
Mrs Johnson: I hope that's not what I said, sir. The discussion was directed to long hearings, very cumbersome landmark hearings. These are hearings that may go on for six, eight or nine months, where the issues are extremely cumbersome and there may be lawyers, up to 10 or 12 on one side, four to five on another side, and one ratepayer group sitting there without representation all by itself trying to contend with these other people.
By and large, sir, most of our hearings are the very hearings you described. I was speaking of that earlier in terms of the minor variances, appeals and the assessment appeals. The board is there as the court of last resort, as it's always been, to represent the person who comes before it without counsel, without witnesses, to hear what his concerns are, to hear his own evidence as a witness if he's got no one else with him. That's the way the board has functioned. We've always made the public welcome and, as I say, we've bent over backwards to assist them.
Mr McLean: Okay; we'll do a couple more questions. In your opinion, what should the length of the appointment to that board be?
Mrs Johnson: I think the length of appointment to the board should be longer than the current three-year renewable. Perhaps a seven-year or 10-year renewable would be an approach that should be considered. Another approach is to return to the at-pleasure appointments which were the norm before --
Mr McLean: I didn't think there was any stipulation at the present time of the length of the appointment. I think it may have changed. Has it changed by regulation?
Mrs Johnson: Currently, the act has not been changed. The act says appointments are at pleasure, but the appointments in recent years have been for three years and our understanding is that they are perhaps, if behaviour has been appropriate, renewable for a further three years but no longer.
Mr McLean: I'd like to go back to the question of intervenor funding. You indicated that you didn't think intervenor funding would increase the case load of the board.
Mrs Johnson: No, because the very specific, long, difficult cases come to the board anyhow. They're there. They're cases like the Etobicoke waterfront hearing. They're cases like the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton official plan hearings. They're very important cases. They involve all sorts of economic, environmental and social issues which should be at the board.
Mr McLean: What are the criteria laid down for intervenor funding?
Mrs Johnson: At this point, the board does not have intervenor funding at all, so there are no criteria. We cannot order intervenor funding no matter how meritorious the case of the person in front of us may be. However, there has been some work done as to intervenor funding with other boards.
I believe the criterion is that the appeal in question be a very major matter where the public interest is at stake, that the public should be represented in all its aspects, that the persons who come forward are truly representative of the public and are a responsible group, that they've tried elsewhere for funding, have tried to raise it on their own and indeed may have raised some of it on their own, and that they have the means to take the intervenor funding they receive and use it responsibly and well.
Mr McLean: Thank you. Being raised on a farm --
The Chair: I'm sorry. You're over the two minutes now, Mr McLean. Mrs Johnson, that concludes the review. Thank you for your appearance here today. We wish you well.
That concludes the meeting for this morning. We'll reconvene at 2 pm.
The committee recessed at 1137.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1401.
CHRISTIE ANN JEFFERSON
The Chair: Come to order, please. The first witness this afternoon is Christie Jefferson. Welcome to the committee.
Ms Christie Ann Jefferson: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Ms Jefferson is an intended appointee as the chair and member of the Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Council. This is a half-hour review, 10 minutes allocated to each party represented on the committee. Your review was at the request of the government party. I'll look to Mr Wiseman to begin the questioning.
Mr Wiseman: I'm not going to ask any questions. I think you're a member of my riding. You live in Claremont?
Ms Jefferson: That's right. I hope that counts for something.
Mr Wiseman: I don't know what. I just want to welcome you here and indicate that this process has been developed to open up the process for appointments to agencies, boards and commissions so that all of the population can see how it works and can be included in the process. We're a friendly lot.
Ms Jefferson: I'm quite happy to be here, actually.
Ms Carter: I understand that some of the obvious groups that might be represented on this board are in fact debarred from it because of conflict of interest, so that only leaves certain other categories, into which you evidently fall. Could you tell us how your background and experience fit you for this position?
Ms Jefferson: Certainly. I have been an executive director of charities for the last 15 years and have quite extensive management and administrative experience. I've dealt with budgets of up to $2 million and staff of 20-some. Certainly, in terms of the administrative side I have very strong experience. I am not a lawyer -- I'm a criminologist by training -- but have for much of my career been involved in legislation, legislative review and regulatory reform and I think have a sound appreciation of that as well as an ability to demystify the law and the regulatory process so that there can be meaningful participation of non-lawyers in that process.
I've also been involved in a lot of delicate situations that required mediation and negotiation skills and patience. I really have learned through a variety of situations how to handle disparate interests in a way that hopefully consensus can be built.
Ms Carter: As I'm sure you know, there are various ongoing controversies that you're going to find yourself involved in. One that has been brought to my attention as an MPP is the dispute between optometrists and ophthalmologists as to what can be done by the optometrists as opposed to what is beyond their turf. Do you have any opinions on that?
Ms Jefferson: I don't, which I think is one of my advantages. I'd have no axe to grind at all.
Ms Carter: You can have opinions without having an axe to grind, which is why we need you.
Ms Jefferson: That's right. I certainly am a firm believer in thorough, open process. I think our council would meet with both parties as well as talk to interested consumer groups and public interest groups about the debate before us and hopefully engage in a process whereby people felt heard. My understanding is that the review process most groups felt was fair even if they didn't necessarily get what they wanted. That is the way I would approach it.
Mr White: I'm very impressed with your résumé. Frankly, it looks like we have an excellent person for what will be a very difficult role. We're talking about a whole set of laws, a whole set of new regulations. Let me get straight to a couple of tricky questions.
You've been involved in a lot of women's groups like the Elizabeth Fry Society, LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, Opportunity for Advancement, which I know is a very progressive group. In your letter to the minister, you make mention of your work with survivors of violence and sexual abuse. In the recent report, about a year ago, of the Ontario Medical Association I think it was --
Ms Jefferson: The task force report?
Mr White: The McPhedran report? It talked about sexual abuse of patients. Frankly it wasn't, as it sometimes occurs in the novels or the mystery television programs, by some dentist who drugs a patient. It wasn't through use of technologies, but through counselling in a counselling environment. What are your thoughts? In the health care professions, the majority of the professionals are women, but so are the majority of the clientele. Where there are abuses, it's in a trusting relationship with women most often.
Ms Jefferson: To be quite frank, that's one of the things that attracted me most about the position, the opportunity to be involved in the progressive changes that need to occur hand in hand with the professions in dealing with what is in fact a breach of trust. I think there are few kinds of situations that can be as powerfully debilitating as that kind of trust in a professional that's violated. I think, though, that the task force report is certainly a model and the kinds of recommendations are quite interesting.
There seems to be a real commitment on the part of the college, and hopefully other colleges, to undertake this kind of work in a voluntary, progressive, self-regulatory approach. It's something I'm hoping can be the case. I certainly don't believe in overregulation. But I have had a lot of experience in the area of abuse; I've been involved in the development of the "No means no" legislation. Certainly, in all my work, whether with single mothers or prisoners -- for example, about 80% of prisoners in the Prison for Women are self-disclosed survivors of abuse and quite often at the hands of people they trusted.
Women with disabilities are four times more likely to be sexually assaulted, usually by a care giver, than women who don't have disabilities. I think I can bring that kind of knowledge and those kinds of connections to inform both the council and help inform the colleges so that the intent of the legislation is carried out effectively.
Mr White: You spoke a few moments ago about the OMA and the College of Physicians and Surgeons and how they've undertaken to deal, within their self-regulatory body, with this problem. Yet I've heard people say that, for example, social workers, psychology, other counselling professions would be better regulated through common law. You're suggesting that a college, a disciplinary body of self-regulation, would be more effective.
Ms Jefferson: I'm not suggesting more effective. That's what the legislation now has set out. I think it behooves the council -- if I'm appointed, I would certainly take this approach to see how that works; the educational approach of seeing whether or not colleges will in fact implement effective policies and procedures dealing with sexual abuse of patients.
In the long run, if they don't, then we would have to review what options are available and whether further specific policies and regulations laid out in the regulations in the health act itself or whether some other mechanism would be more effective. Again, I think that would be a consultative process. There are no magic solutions to these kinds of issues.
Mr White: Within the health disciplines, those bodies, the medical association, dental association and psychologists, which are all male-dominated professions, are the only ones which are allowed to use the term "doctor" and essentially have roles, even within their legislation, which sets them up in a way significantly above the other regulated health professions, which are primarily female-dominated. Any comments on that?
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Ms Jefferson: Certainly I think in general there is a need to look at the equity issues, both in terms of gender but also in terms of racial representation in health professions. But at the same time I think this committee has a specific role, and who gets, for example, fees under OHIP is not something that would fall within the gamut of this particular council. However, ensuring that the public has choices of regulated professions where you're assured there's some kind of body that is training and regulating, a variety of options, I think begins to build that kind of equity and development of alternatives in Ontario.
The Chair: This has to be very brief, Mr Frankford. Actually, we are at the 10-minute mark, but I'll let you have a quick question.
Mr Frankford: I guess you will be overlooking the way the health turf is divided up. Would you like to comment on the physicians' right to diagnosis?
The Chair: You have 30 seconds.
Ms Jefferson: That's a very controversial area, I do realize. Certainly that has been one of the exclusive rights and one, I gather, that is a matter of hot debate. I think the kind of training that doctors receive certainly qualifies them to do some kinds of procedures and controlled acts that probably most other professions should not be doing. However, what's the role of the nurse practitioner, for example, who can be very helpful in dealing with common problems and may not need necessarily to refer the patient to a doctor? I think there's some room for development in this area, but that would have to be very carefully thought out.
Mr Cleary: Ms Jefferson, do you approve of the recent amendments to the Regulated Health Professions Act?
Ms Jefferson: They seem to make a great deal of sense. There are clearly some issues not dealt with yet, but I think the approach seems to be a fairly sound one.
Mr Cleary: Are you in favour of additional health professionals being licensed by the provincial government? Why or why not?
Ms Jefferson: The criteria that were developed by the review make a lot of sense to me. I'm not a great believer in regulating for the sake of regulation. I suspect there are some professions that need not be regulated. However, I know there are areas still in question, like naturopaths, like registered nursing assistants, that would have to be looked at right away by the council in terms of whether they do meet these criteria. I don't know whether that answers your question fully enough.
Mr Cleary: Do you believe in the institutional approach to health care or a community-based approach?
Ms Jefferson: On the whole, community-based health care is probably ideal for day-to-day health problems. At the same time, I don't think one can only deliver health care through that kind of model. There will still need to be institutions where there is specialty that has the equipment and knowledge available within an institutional setting for more complex medical problems, but on the whole I favour options and a community-based, cost-effective, efficient health care system.
Mr Grandmaître: What are your thoughts on the ongoing dispute between RNs and RNAs?
Ms Jefferson: Once again, I can't claim to have a great deal of knowledge about the dispute other than that I know it's happening and haven't come to any final conclusions. I know the RNAs are very anxious to have their own college and have been unhappy with the present situation. Again, I can respond to you on process, perhaps, of how I'd come to a final decision or how the council would: I think talking to both parties fully so that everything is on the table, as opposed to innuendoes and talk behind closed doors, to get it out in the open; give people a chance to review a tentative decision so we can make sure we've taken everything into account and have some public comment, legislative comment perhaps, and then make the final decision.
I know there is almost always more to something than meets the eye. I've learned a couple of times in my earlier days the hard way by leaping before asking. I'm pretty thorough. I believe in a fair and open process, and the chances of coming to the right decision generally are pretty good.
Mr Grandmaître: Last month I had the opportunity of meeting both sides of the argument, the RNs and the RNAs. There's a rumour going around in the Ottawa-Carleton area that hospital administrators are closing beds for the simple reason that they're getting rid of RNs because they've become an expensive item around a hospital. They claim that RNAs can do as good a job as registered nurses. What would be your answer to this kind of rumour.
Ms Jefferson: I certainly would want to, first of all, get at the source of that rumour. I would want to talk directly to hospital administration and find out if in fact this is going on. I think the council is created to represent the public interest. We will have access to some money to hire experts, if necessary, to actually do a study on it, and find out the facts before leaping to a conclusion. I certainly would not want us to make any decision based on rumour and innuendo. I'd want the facts.
Mr Grandmaître: This is the first time you've heard of this rumour?
Ms Jefferson: Yes. I did not know of this particular situation.
Mr Grandmaître: We've been losing a lot of RNs and RNAs to the south. A lot of them are moving to the United States for a number of reasons. How can we prevent this exodus of our qualified professional nurses?
Ms Jefferson: It's a very good question. I'm not sure what the council's role would be in that, except perhaps to look at and work with the colleges in terms of what their membership criteria are. There are a lot of nurses, for example, trained in other countries who can't even get licensed here. It's a great source of frustration that there is this whole pool of qualified people who can't get their foot in the door while there's this exodus.
My sense is that the council could be helpful in increasing the pool. Whether or not we might be able to make recommendations regarding financial matters, which it sounds like this is -- in other words, I know that they're offering a lot more money and perks south of the border. That's something that wouldn't fall directly within the realm of the council's work, but I suspect we could have the opportunity to make recommendations or comments on what we would feel would improve that situation and make Canada competitive to keep good nurses.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you think our guidelines are too restrictive in Canada or in Ontario to make foreign nurses, RNs or RNAs, welcome to Ontario?
Ms Jefferson: That's the sense I've had. It's certainly a very consistent complaint by a large number of organizations representing different immigrants and racial minority groups, that they are being excluded and not having their skills utilized. There just seems to be these hoops of fire they need to jump through, and they're not in a position to, having arrived on our doorstep.
I think it's certainly worth reviewing; again, however, keeping the public interest very much in mind. No one's suggesting that unqualified people should be filling in for nurses, but I think it has been a problem of unnecessary qualifications and procedures that don't have anything to do with actual ability to do the job.
Mr Grandmaître: Recently, I was talking to a number of high school students, girls and boys, and nursing was one of the topics of discussion. One young lady told me that at one time she'd thought of becoming a nurse, but with all the things that are happening in the province, the cutbacks in health care, cutting back on hospital beds and so on and so forth, she was seriously thinking of choosing another profession. How can you regain this confidence? How can you build on this confidence and give these young people an opportunity to practise or to graduate in what they intended to do, when right now, with all the bed closures or cutbacks in the health care system, it's discouraging to some young people?
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Ms Jefferson: Yes, that is a reality and one that is not about to go away. I think there are a number of possible strategies, certainly for there to be more public education as to what actually nurses can do, what kinds of opportunities are available, including the community health setting, whether it's public health nurse or what have you.
There are a lot of options. I think we have in our minds a sort of classic picture of the nurse as working on the floor in a hospital when the opportunities now in community health centres and other community-based facilities are fabulous for young people who are interested in a nursing career. I think there hasn't been that educational, outreach work done to let young people know that these opportunities are there and it's still a very exciting field.
Mr Grandmaître: Good luck to you.
Ms Jefferson: Thank you.
Mr McLean: Welcome to the committee. I notice on your résumé you indicate that you were "responsible for securing and maintaining all government funding and for developing and meeting a budget of just under $2 million."
Ms Jefferson: That's correct.
Mr McLean: What organization and who was involved in that?
Ms Jefferson: That's the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, or LEAF as it's usually referred to. That's a national charitable organization that was created to take on test cases in the courts using the Charter of Rights, so the funding base is very mixed. It's some government -- also the court challenges program, one of the major sources, has recently been cut. The organization has about $700,000 worth of donated legal services, but it has to raise about $600,000 a year from everything from direct mail to selling cookbooks -- one has to be very creative in this climate.
Taking advantage of various subsidized programs, for example, the social assistance employment program has been a tremendous source of support for LEAF and we've ended up hiring many of those women. It's quite a mixed bag, so I've had quite a bit of exposure -- of course foundations and corporations as well, so a good cross-section. I'm very comfortable with budgets and handling money and juggling to make ends meet.
Mr McLean: Did you have a deficit?
Ms Jefferson: We had a $3,000 deficit this year on $2 million. That's pretty good right now and that's the only one since I've been there.
Mr McLean: The letter you sent to the minister says, "I have a deep personal and political interest in being an effective part of the changes that are occurring in Ontario's health system." What do you mean by "political interest?"
Ms Jefferson: Small-p. I have been an executive director, as I mentioned, for 15 years of charities and am totally non-partisan. I have never been a member of a political party, I've never helped a candidate run for office, because I think it's extremely important that the objectivity of the organization be maintained.
By political, I mean literally in the small-p sense of the word, in the sense of I am looking forward to being part of changes in the health care system, moving towards those kinds of safe options for Ontario residents, community-based facilities, dealing with sexual abuse by professions. These are needed reforms I'm looking forward to being a part of, the political process in that sense.
Mr McLean: Good. I'd like to talk you for a while just with regard to district health councils. I certainly have some views about how efficiently they operate and the input that they make to the minister's office. Could I have your views on how you feel the district health councils have worked out across the province?
Ms Jefferson: My last direct exposure to health councils unfortunately is dated. It goes back to when I was executive director of a group called Opportunity for Advancement. My experience there was, they were kind of a closed door. At that point, six years ago, it did not seem easy to access those councils or be a part of that process. I have no idea if that's changed or not, sir, but I'd say there were causes for certainly looking at making that a more open, effective system, given that dated experience that I've had.
Mr McLean: I know they do phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3 of programs designed to make recommendations to the ministry, yet I sometimes don't see the input coming out of the minister's office after they have made it. I often wonder if they're used by somebody in the minister's office that they've started some 10 years ago.
Ms Jefferson: That I'm not familiar with, and I don't feel able to comment on just what it was like as a community group. It was a pretty far-off process that was very hard for us to access, but what happened between the minister's office and those councils I'm afraid I have no knowledge of.
Mr McLean: As the regulatory advisory council, what do you feel the main job will be with regard to the regulatory procedures?
Ms Jefferson: I really liked how the review put it, which is that the council is there and the regulations are there really not for the benefit of the professions but to represent the public interest, to make sure that we have qualified health professionals providing quality service, that we have options that professions that should be regulated are and, finally, that the whole issue of sexual abuse of patients by professionals is effectively dealt with, hopefully by self-regulation and, if not, by other means. I think that's sort of the general approach I would say the council's role is. In some way, it's not unlike the Legislature but a chance to be really hands-on.
Mr McLean: But as an advisory council, wouldn't it have had some input into the announcement the minister made yesterday?
Ms Jefferson: No, the council has actually not yet been set up. The hope actually is if everything goes well and this position is finalized, then the rest of the council members will be selected and it will be a two- or three-month process. This is a brand-new council and, to some extent, it's guesswork at this point what the full parameters will be. But it is being designed -- I've been very clear about that in discussing the position -- as an independent body that reports directly to the minister and through the minister to the Legislature.
Mr McLean: Really what it is, it's an advisory body to the minister?
Ms Jefferson: To the minister and to the Legislature in terms of whether or not further regulation is required, either bringing in new professions --
Mr McLean: But I thought that's what the district health units were supposed to be doing, advising the minister on what's taken place.
Ms Jefferson: My understanding, and again it may be outdated, is that they were also perhaps more oriented towards program development and policy development in terms of health initiatives, whereas this is looking at professions that have either never been regulated or have been regulated under very antiquated legislation.
That's the focus, so I think it's somewhat different. It doesn't mean we wouldn't talk with the councils. My understanding of the role is different, but I'll certainly clarify that. It's a very interesting point.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much for coming in. I appreciate the opportunity.
In speaking with doctors and nurses and hospital administrators, they say that in the overall scheme of things, looking at the Regulated Health Professions Act, from the consumer standpoint, which you've talked about, there's more chance that they won't be serviced because of funding issues, for example, things like the 1%, 2%, hospital beds being closed, nurses being laid off. They say when you look at it in the overall scheme of things, there's more chance that the public won't be served because we don't have the funds to serve them than the fact that we don't have health care regulated, and so, as a result, they're getting poor service, if you follow me.
Do you agree with that, and how do you assess where we are at with our professionals? I believe we have probably the best in the world and yet we're setting up a board to take a look at them at the same time when the biggest pressures come from the funding side. Can you maybe comment on why you see this being so important and why you want it?
Ms Jefferson: Certainly my understanding is that in fact the health professions themselves wanted this. There were something like 75 professions that came forward wanting to be regulated and it was a paring-down process. The exact reason why all 74 wanted to, I can't claim to know, but certainly I think there has been a call for the need to have contemporary regulations.
I don't think anybody's suggesting in the professions that they stop being self-regulating but within some kind of context as to who can do what and who gets what title and what each profession is able to do in terms of controlled acts and clarifying jurisdiction. Those are, I think, quite different issues from the funding issue and those are certainly very real and pressing concerns.
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This council's not set up and it's one of the questions I asked during the interview process: What will we have in funding? We don't. This council's there for that one piece. It seems to me, however, that the kind of situation I'm thinking of -- I don't know if you're familiar with the midwives case, Sullivan-Lemay, that came out of British Columbia, where they were convicted of negligence. They are totally unregulated.
The midwifery task force here, for example, quite clearly said the public safety, the interests of the public, needs to be regulated and indeed midwives themselves want to see it regulated. They don't want quacks, they don't want people setting up shop and calling themselves something that they're not qualified to do.
I see them as different processes. I also think, though, as more choices are developed of safe and accountable professions, that we may see creative alternatives emerge that perhaps in the long run can meet the cost issues but still provide quality health care. I think a lot of those answers will come from the professions themselves.
Mr Carr: In terms of what you would like to see, I guess what I was trying to get at, and I probably didn't explain it very well, even though, for example, the nurses' association did want to have the regulations, the average nurse says, "This doesn't affect me as much as the fact I'm worried about my job and what's going to happen at the Oakville Hospital."
The Chair: Please direct your question, Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: What was I going to say now? In terms of the regulation, what would you like to see? Where are the major areas where you see regulation going to be taking place?
Ms Jefferson: It's not in the cost area, and that may be something that people mind in the long run. I think really to clarify, for example, on the issue of nursing, there are many roles that nurses could perform that could be recognized in regulation to allow for development and growth of the nursing profession that could be very welcome. I think it's one of the things we need to look at very carefully.
The Chair: I'm sorry, that will have to do. Ms Jefferson, I know it's frustrating for witnesses on occasion as well as members in terms of our time restrictions. We appreciate your appearance here today and wish you well.
Ms Jefferson: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure.
FRANK GIANNONE
The Chair: Our next witness is Mr Frank Giannone, who is an intended appointee as a member of the Ontario Housing Corp board of directors. He's been sitting in the audience so he understands how this process works, and we'll look to Mr Waters to begin the questioning.
Mr Waters: I have a couple of questions. One thing is, I'm very glad to see that we have a home builder or a builder sitting on the board. We have a stock of housing out there about 25 years old or better that, from what I can understand and what I've seen, is in very great need of repair. I was wondering what your feelings are on how to deal with this problem -- I think it's growing daily -- and how exactly we should deal with this.
Mr Frank Giannone: Definitely you've got a problem out there with aging stock and repair with respect to that stock. You've also got a problem with housing and how it was designed, how it fits into communities or doesn't fit into communities, how well it meets today's needs for the current tenants.
I think a planned approach has to be carried out, which the tenants have to be involved in. I think we need to know from them what they need from us in terms of the repairs. I see my role on the board as some form of assistance in recognizing the costs that are involved and the procedures to go through in making those changes.
Mr Waters: Okay, I appreciate it. There are a couple of things when I looked through the thing that was prepared for us. I understand you were involved with immigrant construction workers in dealing with a problem that the Portuguese community was faced with. As much as I support you in all of that, I also have another question, and that is, bringing young people in, because I see that you're bringing in skilled trades. One of the things that I've always been very much a supporter of is that I think we have to start training our own young people for these skills. I know it has nothing to do with this, but I was wondering about your comments on that.
Mr Giannone: I do have views on that. As a resident of the Toronto area -- I live in Mississauga; therefore, I live in a community where the majority of construction is governed by unionized trades. We in the Toronto area have historically built our housing, built our commercial buildings, through the immigrant worker. Again, this is strictly my opinion. That's for a specific reason. It's very, very difficult in this area to encourage our young people to get involved in the construction trades. They're not looked upon by second-generation immigrants even as trades that are desirable to be in.
During any construction boom, we see that our workers don't come from the local areas. They either come from other parts of Canada or they come from overseas to replace the ones that we're losing over time. My history, background, isn't as far back as a lot of other people go, but I'm told that as far back as the 1920s there has always been an immigrant labour force.
Mr Waters: Yes, and I think it's high time that we started looking at people across the sea and how they work and train their people, and I think we should be ourselves.
Might I ask you why you are interested in serving on the board in particular?
Mr Giannone: The company I work with and my personal views are that the housing industry shouldn't necessarily only be involved in home ownership but that the housing industry should be involved in the full range of housing, whether it be home ownership, non-profits, cooperatives, or public housing.
I've always had an interest in the type of housing, the form of housing, that is produced from all levels. Our company has been involved from public housing, social housing, all the way up through to the most expensive housing that's around. It's something I feel I've got a good grip on, and through my home builder ties I've been able to develop it even more.
Mr Waters: I have a number of people on our side who want to question, so I'm going to have to share some time here.
The Chair: Ms Carter and then Mr Frankford.
Ms Carter: I also am glad to see that you're a builder, and I'm particularly delighted that it was your firm that built the advanced house, the energy-efficient demonstration. How do you feel we're doing in regard to getting our publicly owned houses to be energy-efficient and environmentally advanced?
Mr Giannone: I can't comment on the existing stock, because I don't have any experience with the existing stock of OHC, but the new social housing that is being produced is what I would consider to be at the front end of the technology.
Ms Carter: You have about 600 units under construction by your own company, so could you tell us something about what advantages they might be offering in that respect?
Mr Giannone: Not only has the code changed considerably in the last couple of years, bringing the standard house closer to what an R-2000 house is, but the requirements of the Ministry of Housing with respect to any new housing projects far supersede what the minimum requirements are of the code.
You're finding the units being designed tighter, you're finding the air-handling requirements in the units to be superior to what they were in the past and what they are in standard-code buildings. The inspection procedures are also more stringent.
Ms Carter: As a director of the Ontario Housing Corp, is this a concern that you will be advancing?
Mr Giannone: In any renovations or any repairs of existing stock, I would expect the corporation to look at the cost benefits and the environmental benefits of incorporating some of those aspects into the design.
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Ms Carter: I understand that baseboard electric heating is now out.
Mr Giannone: Baseboard electric heating is not a very desirable form of heating.
Ms Carter: Are you installing gas furnaces, and if so, are they highly efficient?
Mr Giannone: Every new social housing project is required to be heated by gas-fired units.
Ms Carter: Okay; thank you.
Mr Frankford: You mentioned how Ontario Housing projects fit into the communities, and this is a considerable concern in my area of Scarborough East. Could you share any thoughts you have around that, I guess both from the perspective of the residents and of the surrounding community?
Mr Giannone: First of all, in design form, our firm -- again, when I refer to "our firm," I also speak about myself personally -- strongly believes that any social housing project should be designed to be inconspicuous within the community that it's in. Too many times we see architects get carried away and not look at the surrounding environment, hoping to make their own statement with respect to the form of housing. What you end up with is, "We know what that project down there is," whereas our company approaches it that we don't want the surrounding community to necessarily know that it's different than the other.
I was through one of our projects, actually, a couple of days ago that was built in 1982. The people who end up living in it also have a different atmosphere in terms of the project they've got. They're satisfied with what they've got. They don't see the difference between themselves and the people who surround them, as well.
Mr Frankford: When you're appointed, do you see anything that you can do with the old, existing Ontario Housing buildings?
Mr Giannone: It's my understanding that OHC has recognized that the design, both of the micro environment and the macro environment, of these projects has not been suitable for the current tenants' needs, and therefore it's my understanding that it intends doing something about that and I hope to play a role in that.
Mr Frankford: Do you know what Pruitt-Igoe is?
Mr Giannone: No, I don't.
Mr Frankford: Okay; it was a notorious public housing project in St Louis that ended up by being blown up.
Mr Giannone: No, I don't think we're looking at anything like that.
Mr Grandmaître: At the present time, we're going through a very serious recession and I think the construction industry is suffering for it. Just in the Metro area, 79,000 construction workers are out of work.
I've noticed in the last four or five years, maybe six years, the government has had a terrible time attracting developers to build non-profit or co-op or rental units for a number of reasons. Some developers were against rent controls in Ontario. For a number of reasons, developers have simply shied away from building residential or rental units.
With your background, you must be familiar with the rent supplement program, I'm sure. I think this is a great program. Not only the present government, but the former government, which I was a member of, didn't promote this program enough. Instead of going after private developers that don't want to build rental units, I think we should have expanded the rent supplement program so that the government could rent 50 units here, 100 units there and so on and so forth. If developers are not interested in building rental units, then let's rent elsewhere. We would have a better mix of people instead of having 150 non-profit units. A lot of people are concerned about ghettos and so on and so forth. What are your thoughts on the rent supplement program?
Mr Giannone: If I may, first of all, current non-profit projects are already encouraging a mix of incomes. You're getting the people who need the subsidies and you're getting people who are on the market side of the rental scale, so you're getting that mix in the projects that are being developed today. Rent supplements would encourage a continuation of that mix. Although I'm aware of the program, I'm not fully conversant on it, but I do see that as an alternative, in my limited understanding of the rent supplement program.
As well, if I may comment on something else you said, developers and associations don't necessarily support and have not necessarily supported both this government's and the previous government's position with respect to the delivery of non-profit and cooperative housing. However, if I may say so myself, if it wasn't for the programs that have been in place for the last couple of years, there would be a lot more people out on the street unemployed today.
Developers who do mix the form of housing they deliver have been able to deliver non-profit housing and have been doing it quite willingly and have been keeping people employed. Our company has not laid anybody off over this recession period because of our ability to do both market housing and non-profit housing.
I think the delivery of non-profit housing over the last couple of years has played a major role in allowing the construction industry to survive and to keep good-quality, skilled people working. At the same time, I'm not shutting the door to expanding the rent supplement program.
Mr Grandmaître: Talking about good skilled of the construction workers, we're losing a good number of our skilled workers. They've lost confidence, I suppose, in the province, and they're moving elsewhere. I'm sure you must be familiar with the Ontario Labour Relations Act. Do you think this is a good time to bring in this type of legislation?
[Laughter]
Mr Grandmaître: Is that your answer?
Mr Giannone: I've got some concerns about anything that has a tendency to concern business people investing money in the province. At the same time, I'm not completely conversant on it. I read more about it in the papers than follow what is actually going on and what the recommendations are.
Mr Grandmaître: Politicians, too, read the newspapers. That's the only access we have.
Mr Giannone: What the papers have been saying hasn't been good, but I would assume, as in all labour legislation -- my father is one who has had an impact on the way I look at things. Without the labour legislation we've got now, we wouldn't necessarily have the quality of life we've got. He's been a supporter of unions. Our company has a union shop. It's just that going too far at any specific time can be worrisome. It's easier to do it when the market's booming along.
Mr Mancini: Mr Giannone, welcome to our committee.
Mr Giannone: Thank you very much.
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Mr Mancini: From previous work I've done on a past committee, it was brought to our attention, a number of years ago, that the Ontario Housing Corp is probably the largest public housing corporation in the world, one of the largest, maybe second only to the New York City Housing Authority. That makes the responsibilities of the corporation important in many respects, not only because of the tax dollars that are used to make the structures available to our citizens, but to the overall economic and social impact it has on all our communities across the province.
I firmly believe that one of the responsibilities of government is to try to assist people to have a stake in their community, wherever they live. To me, the most important way to do this is to try to allow home ownership. I was wondering if you see in the future any possibility for a discussion about allowing people who live in Ontario Housing Corp units the opportunity to own their units.
Mr Giannone: I am also a proponent of home ownership. It's my view or my opinion that public housing of all forms should be an interim form of housing and that we should hopefully be able to move people out of the poverty and out of the problems they've got now on to better things, although I don't think that's possible in all cases. That's my view of how I look at housing.
I think the kind of housing we're providing now actually encourages that, because we have a tendency for people to have a little bit of pride in ownership, even in the cooperatives and non-profits that we see now, and that pride in ownership translates to pride in themselves and then hopefully that means they're going to have a better life and hopefully will be earning more money and move out of there.
Having said that, I'm aware of programs that have been put into place where public housing has been transferred to the residents. I think the first step is to give the residents, the tenants, some form of participation in the management of those. Once they've got that management in there, then the possibility does exist if we want to do that, but we can't lose sight of the fact that it doesn't matter how perfect we try to be, we're always going to have people who are going to need some form of subsidized housing. We've got to be prepared to provide that stock of housing.
Mr Mancini: I concur with your views entirely that it's the responsibility of government to ensure that subsidized housing is available when it's needed. I have no problem with that position. I just think we could be doing better for our citizens by having a debate.
I don't for a moment perceive that the debate will be short or in any way pleasing to all people, but I firmly believe that there are a substantial number of people who live in the housing corporation units who, if given the appropriate opportunity and if properly prepared, would probably like this opportunity. They would like to be like their neighbours a few blocks away and have a stake in their community and their province through ownership. I think a lot of the money we're spending at the present time -- while our heart is in the right place, economically we're not doing the justice we can be doing for our citizens.
I would hope that if you feel that way to any degree, at some time during your tenure you might want to engage this debate and maybe have one or several pilot projects to ensure that it can work and that whichever ones are undertaken are given every opportunity to work.
I know of a particular situation in my constituency where a private rental low-rise development over a beautiful piece of property was transferred from rental to individual ownership. Many of the same people who rented actually bought, because they were extremely affordable. They were made to be affordable. They were redone and many of the right tools -- not all, but many of the right tools -- were in place. To drive by that piece of property today, one sees a marked improvement not only in the neighbourhood, but I believe in the attitudes of some of the people I've spoken with.
The Chair: On that note we're going to have to conclude. I gave you an extra minute there, Mr Mancini, even though you're not wearing a tie. I hope you appreciate that. We'll move on to Mr McLean.
Mr Giannone: He looks like a builder.
Mr McLean: I was interested in your remark earlier on, Frank, with regard to all the units now, that the new housing projects have gas-fired furnaces. When did that take place? I thought there was electric heat in a lot of those units.
Mr Giannone: All new projects, I believe, as of about a year to a year and a half ago, were mandated to be gas-fired. Some old projects that had already been approved and into the process, I think, continued to go on with electric heating, but anything that was on the drawing board had to be changed to gas units.
Mr McLean: Did that directive come from the ministry?
Mr Giannone: Yes, it did.
Mr McLean: The Ministry of Housing?
Mr Giannone: I think a combination of the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Energy.
Mr McLean: Would the Ontario Housing Corp board of directors have any input into that?
Mr Giannone: I'm not aware if they did or didn't.
Mr McLean: Are you aware of the functions of the board?
Mr Giannone: I've very limited knowledge of the functions of the board. I'm aware of the functions of the board, again in a limited way, as it pertains to the units under its control, the 84,000 units and 16,000 rental supplement units.
Mr McLean: I've some interesting questions. Last night on TV, of course, they were talking about building plastic houses now.
Mr Giannone: Yes.
Mr McLean: I had a phone call this morning from an individual who wants to build houses out of steel, use the old cars and get the steel all redone and build homes out of that. Have you heard of that?
Mr Giannone: Actually, the steel houses or the plastic houses?
Mr McLean: Either one of them.
Mr Giannone: The steel houses have been proposed for many years. I can recall as a child following my father around to a little house that was being done out of steel, I guess in the late 1970s. The problem the steel houses always had has been one of cost, number one, and number two, flexibility. It's a lot easier to work on low-rise applications. It's much easier to work with lumber, just in terms of how lumber fits in, and how easy it is to cut a piece of lumber versus trying to work with steel. For high-rise, I don't think it fits in because of cost.
Mr McLean: What about plastic?
Mr Giannone: Plastic houses: That plastic house was designed specifically for the export market. I don't think it's a house that's desirable in the home ownership realm here in the Toronto area, because the standards of the Ministry of Housing with respect to the quality of homes are higher actually than the building code. I think it would be difficult, from a building code point of view and from a community point of view, to try and fit those units into a community here in Ontario.
Mr McLean: I'd like to move on to the Ontario new home warranty program. You'd be involved in that as a builder. Do you find it's working?
Mr Giannone: Yes, I do find it's working. I find it, especially in the last few years, to be very proactive in the way it's approaching things. It's being more diligent with respect to the builders that should or should not be in the program. It's creating a more difficult environment for what I consider to be my poor competitors to get into the market to compete with me. At the same time, I think it's representing the home owner, and again it's taken a proactive approach to representing the home owner.
Mr McLean: I've had some problems with it in the area I represent whereby the home owner -- it could be the second owner within six months -- is just not getting any satisfaction from it at all. I just don't know what to do for the individuals, two of them that I know of. Would it be through the ministry? The builder says it's not his fault any more that the basement is cracked.
Mr Giannone: Even if it's a second, third or fourth owner, they're warranted under the life of the warranty. It doesn't matter how many owners it's gone through. There should be no reason why that home owner should have a problem. If you want my advice on what he should be doing, I can give that to you afterwards, unless you want it now.
Mr McLean: You might as well give it to us all, so we can all tell them.
Mr Giannone: It's just a process of being very persistent. The warranty program cannot deny any home owner the opportunity to have a conciliation, and once a conciliation has been done, if the warranty program rules against the home owner, the home owner has another avenue, and that's the appeals tribunal. That's a very knowledgeable group of people. I very rarely have seen and heard of situations where, when a home owner is justified, he doesn't get his way. In fact, I find that if it's marginal, the warranty program leans more towards the home owner than it does towards the builder, and as a builder, I approach it also in that way, that if it's a marginal item, I tend to --
Mr McLean: Thank you. We only have 10 minutes, so I'll give my colleague a couple of questions.
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Mr Carr: I just had a quick one relating to the building of non-profit housing. As you know, if you take the number of units that have been built and the amount we've spent on a per-unit basis, building non-profit housing has been very expensive on a per-unit basis, anywhere from $1,600 to $2,000. And I think you're right: Without them, a lot of people like yourself would have been out of business. It's the only building going on now.
The problem is that there are tax dollars being spent and the Ministry of Housing, through a lot of these applications, has been rubber-stamping them. Supposedly they are to look at them thoroughly and say, "Yes, the developer took the amount, the consultant took the right amount, the architect -- " How do you explain the fact that when you look at housing in Ontario, the number of units divided by what we spent, the cost per unit is very high?
Mr Giannone: There's a debate going on whether or not housing should be delivered more on a community-driven basis or whether they should be encouraging developers such as myself to deliver turnkey projects. My experience, both as a turnkey developer and a general contractor bidding on the community-driven projects, is that there are some people and some groups and some architects who design a very good-looking product that is very cost-efficient and there are others who get absolutely carried away.
Therefore, when you tell me that there are projects that make sense and others that don't make sense, I can tell you of many projects that are extremely cost-efficient, especially in today's environment. But I can also point to projects that should have had a little bit more care, and I think that's a fault of the system that was set up where -- and I go back. It wasn't set up last year and it wasn't set up in the years before that. It's something that just evolved both provincially and federally where we allow some people -- and I don't want to point my finger at architects or groups or whatever -- to get carried away with what they're designing. It has an extreme impact on cost in those cases.
Mr Carr: Because I assume you've put together some good ones and so on.
Mr Giannone: I haven't put together any bad ones.
Mr Carr: But looking from the broader sense, if you look at the total, we've done a very poor job and it's been taxpayers' money.
Mr Giannone: I disagree with you.
Mr Carr: If you take a look right now at what we've spent on non-profit housing divided by the number of units, it is much higher than what would happen if the public sector was doing it. Some of them might be doing a good job, but the fact is that $1,600 to $2,000, which are some of the figures, is very high.
I wanted to jump on to one other thing, because we're running out of time. Projects like Ataratiri -- we will spend probably close to $1 billion with that one. That's not $1 million, it's $1 billion. We won't have had one new rental unit. What do you say for experiences like that, where literally money has been wasted, when we have tried to put non-profit megaprojects together and we end up basically wasting the public's money?
Mr Giannone: It may sound a little rash in the way I approach it. My business, the construction business, is very cyclical. When we reach or come close to that peak, it's my belief that the government should pull itself completely away from competing with the market side of it. It means that we might not be delivering housing for two or three years, but on the other hand the way I look at it is, in times of recession like what we've got now, the money we saved would deliver twice as many units. Let's overbuild when we've got situations like this. Again, it's a bit rash in that we might not be delivering the housing in those two or three years, but I can ask you to look back and I guarantee you that we didn't deliver much housing then anyway.
Mr Carr: One last question.
The Chair: No, I'm sorry. We're over now.
Mr Carr: No last question. Thanks anyway.
The Chair: Mr Giannone, we appreciate your appearance here today and wish you well.
Mr Giannone: Thank you very much.
The Chair: The final matter on the agenda today is the concurrence. We've heard from five intended appointees today. Do we have a motion to concur with all five? Want to do it on an individual basis? Do we have a motion for Ms Frazee?
Mr Wiseman moves that we concur with the appointment of Catherine Frazee as full-time vice-chair of the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal. Any discussion on that motion? All in favour?
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: The next is Robert Owen. He is the intended appointee as vice-chair of the OMB.
Do we have a motion to concur with Mr Owen's appointment? Moved by Mr Waters. Any discussion?
Mr Wiseman: I'd like to make a couple of comments. It springs from the information that they gave us this morning. There are about three or four areas of concern that I have and that stem from one of the questions that Mr McLean raised and from some of the experiences that I've had.
I think there's a philosophy at the Ontario Municipal Board --
Mr McLean: Pardon me, the question I raised to Mr Owen?
Mr Wiseman: It was the question with regard to having expertise. People that are -- you said, I believe, that --
Mr McLean: I wasn't here when he was interviewed, sir.
Mr Wiseman: Oh, then it must have been when the next one did it. But I'll just make comments. But still it raises the issue about having to have experts, having to have lawyers, having to go out and hire planners, having to go out and find people who are expert in the field and paying them and coming before the board.
I agree with Mr McLean when he implies the notion that that is an alteration of what the Ontario Municipal Board is supposed to be. I think it's supposed to be a board where the laymen can come in and put forward their concerns and put forward their issues and rely on the expertise and the precedents and the foundation of the members of those boards, and to make hearings and to have the decisions that they're going to render on all of their experiences and not just on the evidence that is being given by laypeople who come before them, whether they are expert in the field or whether there may be holes in their argument. I'm very concerned that the members of the board would use as an argument that because the person who came before them was not an expert, they cannot make the right decision, even if they know that the decision they're making is the wrong one. That may sound a little complex but that was implied by some of their comments.
I also have a little bit of difficulty in terms of them saying that the guidelines and section 3 of the Planning Act and the issues that are raised in section 3 of the Planning Act are only meant as guidelines. I think they're there to be more than just guidelines to be ignored by members of the board, and there are examples of where the board has simply said, "It's a guideline and we're not going to follow it," and I have some difficulty with them saying that.
The official plans: I had some real difficulty with their responses on the official plans.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair -- can I interrupt you, Jim, for a minute? I think we're discussing the appointment of Mr Owen and not what the responsibilities are --
Mr Wiseman: I'm discussing his responses to the questions --
Mr Grandmaître: -- or the mandate of the OMB.
Mr Wiseman: No, I am discussing his responses to the questions and --
The Chair: I think Mr Wiseman has been on solid ground so far. I'll allow him to go ahead.
Mr Wiseman: I'm almost finished anyway. I think it's incumbent on the members of the Ontario Municipal Board to be very careful about what they do with official plans. As I understand official plans, they take a long time to develop and they should take into consideration social planning, economic planning and environmental planning and create an equilibrium within a community that is supposed to function. To change an official plan as often as the municipal board is allowing, and to use the excuse that it gave, is not satisfactory. With official plans and the development of a community you have to take much more care and take it much more -- I was going to use the word "seriously" but I'm not sure that that's the word I want to use -- but it has to be a greater consideration than the Ontario Municipal Board is giving.
The excuse, the argument that they use when they're saying that, "People coming before us making deputations were not experts; they didn't have the people backing them up," I find to have been a change from what the mandate of the municipal board was originally intended to do. They have the right to say no under the guidelines. They have the right to refuse subdivision sprawl on food lands, under the Food Land Guidelines. They have the right to say no to sprawl on the Oak Ridges moraine and they have the right to say no to the destruction of wetlands under section 3 of the Planning Act.
To say that you're going to allow that kind of sprawl and that kind of degradation of the environment simply because the people before you are not expert in that area, I think has changed the mandate of the board and has altered it in such a way that the average person can no longer come before the board and be able to give a deputation and expect the experience and the precedents that have been set and the legislation to be applied. I think that's very serious.
I think I've made my point but I would like to say in closing that the sooner this committee gets back to the Ontario Municipal Board review the better I'll like it.
The Chair: Any further discussion?
Mr Grandmaître: I can understand Mr Wiseman's feelings but I think you have a golden opportunity to sit down with the Minister of Municipal Affairs, who is responsible for the OMB, and change its mandate. If you don't like the mandate of the OMB you have access to your minister, the minister responsible; have him change the mandate. I wish you good luck.
Mr White: I just wanted to state that I generally concur with Mr Wiseman, a rare phenomenon; however, I won't go into length with my concerns. In regard to Mr Grandmaître's advice, I'm sure that we'll attempt to follow it. The issue of the mandate of the OMB is an issue for dispute as well, Mr Grandmaître. Thank you, Mr Chair.
The Chair: No further discussion. Call the motion regarding Mr Robert Owen as the vice-chair of the OMB. All in favour? Opposed?
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Next motion required is for Mary Ellen Johnson, again as an intended appointee as vice-chair of the OMB. A motion is moved by Mr Waters that we concur. Any discussion? All in favour? Opposed?
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Next motion required is to concur with the appointment of Christie Jefferson as a chair and member of the Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Council. It is moved by Mr Wiseman that the committee concur. Any discussion? All in favour? Opposed?
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Finally, intended appointment of Frank Giannone as a member of the Ontario Housing Corp board of directors. It is moved by Mr Mancini -- this is a precedent -- that the committee concur. Any discussion? All in favour? Opposed?
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: That's it. Committee adjourned until 10 am tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1515.