CONTENTS
Wednesday 4 November 1992
Appointments review
Shelly O'Neill
Draft reports
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:
*Brown, Michael A. (Algoma-Manitoulin L) for Mr Cleary
*Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot ND) for Mr Ferguson
*Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Mr Wiseman
*In attendance / présents
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 0938 in room 228.
The Chair (Mr Robert W. Runciman): Come to order, please. I'm going to see a quorum.
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Nobody's here, Bob.
The Chair: Well, this is it.
The first item on the agenda is the report on the subcommittee business; that was attached to your agenda. Do any members have any problems or concerns or questions in respect to the subcommittee report? If not, we'll move on to the next item of business.
Mr Marchese: Mr Chairman, do you want a motion to receive the report?
The Chair: We take it as received unless there's a problem with it.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW
Consideration of intended appointments.
SHELLEY O'NEILL
The Chair: This is a one half-hour review of the intended appointment of Shelley O'Neill as a member of the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council. Ms O'Neill, welcome to the committee; come forward and take a seat. Would you like to make a few brief comments before we begin the questions?
Ms Shelley O'Neill: Just to tell you that I am a registered nurse in this province, that I currently sit on what's called the hospital services realignment committee out of the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council and I'm interested in being a full member.
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): Welcome. I guess you were working at Women's College.
Ms O'Neill: I was, yes.
Mr Frankford: And you were around at the time of the proposed merger?
Ms O'Neill: Yes, I was.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any thoughts on what district health councils should be doing in cases like that?
Ms O'Neill: Can I give you a bit of brief history about Women's College? Would that be appropriate? It was a time when the hospital was experiencing a deficit. That CEO and the board made a decision to merge with the Toronto Hospital Corp, and they just made that decision. We, the nurses, felt this wasn't appropriate, that they hadn't looked at all of the proposals, that there needed to be some more investigation, and we took a position that we were opposed.
I think the district health council's role is, as it does now, to review service programs; it's there to review if hospitals decide to cut programs or if they want to expand. The role of the district health, from my perspective, is to look at all of that and to decide whether it is necessary or not necessary, based on what your community looks like.
Mr Frankford: As I recall, at that time there was considerable public interest in the whole question.
Ms O'Neill: Women's College Hospital has a defined community. It doesn't mean that Women's College Hospital's community is downtown Toronto; it has a community that's far-reaching. It had a very strong community and a lot of support, people who really cared about its culture and felt that it would be lost.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any thoughts about how the community could be better articulating itself or could be better represented?
Ms O'Neill: I think what hospitals are doing now, in the last year and a half -- it's a step in the right direction -- is that they're forming community advisory boards and they're inviting the community to sit on them and participate in some of the decision-making. I think communities really don't know what's going on in the institutions, and they have to be brought in. So it's a step, and I think the district health council has a role to play in that too; you know, increase that profile.
Mr Frankford: Speaking of community boards, there is an eastern health area community advisory board. How do you see bodies like that fitting into the district health council, the overall planning of an area?
Ms O'Neill: There's a mechanism now. The eastern community health board you're speaking of is a division of the Toronto board of health, and the Toronto board of health appointed a member of the Toronto board of health to sit on the district health council. So there is a form of communication. I think there has to be more dialogue between the district health council and those types of bodies. To some extent they're in limbo, because they don't have all the information. So there has to be more dialogue and more participation in the process, and the district health council can do that.
Mr Frankford: Another aspect that comes out of this is elected versus appointed boards. Do you have any comments on that?
Ms O'Neill: I'm torn. As a nurse and someone in the system, I've often thought: How do people get on these boards, and what are the criteria? Do I have to have, with respect, a degree in law behind my name? Do I have to have chartered accountant letters behind my name? How do I get involved?
I think it has been, to some extent, a closed process. I think you still have to have a mechanism to appoint. If you're going to enter into elections, you have to decide what that community is and you have to look at what the hospital provides in terms of its services. If it's not providing a service and you have somebody elected who has an agenda, you have to be careful.
Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): As you know, there's been a lot of discussion going on about the restructuring of long-term care. Do you see district health councils as having a role to play in that future?
Ms O'Neill: A major, major role. For the first time, to some extent hospitals have had to review their budgets in front of a district health council. I think our chronic care institutions and nursing homes and that whole aspect have been -- "neglected" is not the word I want to use, but it's been sort of a forgotten thing. Now, because our population is aging and we're going to have more people accessing types of services, the district health council must play a role and it must play a role in terms of assisting in the planning of those services. Right now things are all over the place; people find it hard to access services. The other difficult thing is that people, even the district health council, don't necessarily know who's providing what and what the services are. So they have to get right in there and play a role.
Ms Carter: One other point. You are a registered nurse.
Ms O'Neill: Correct.
Ms Carter: Some constituents have written to me and complained that registered nurses seem to be a dying breed at the moment, that there are no jobs for them. In particular, I met one couple when I was out talking to people about the referendum: The man had completed a registered nursing course after the business he'd worked for had failed and was totally unable to get any kind of employment, was just going on welfare. Could you comment on that?
Ms O'Neill: Granted, it's a very difficult time for nurses, because where we have traditionally been employed have been institutions, hospitals, and that's changing. I think you're going to find nurses in the community doing things like nurse practitioner. But, with respect, that's not really an issue for the district health council. I don't think the district health council should entertain human resource issues. That's not for them to do. I think they can make comments about where roles should be, but they shouldn't get involved in that kind of discussion.
Ms Carter: But you do see them as being involved in access to health?
Ms O'Neill: Yes.
Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): You're already involved with a district health council, I believe, in Toronto.
Ms O'Neill: Yes. I sit on what's called the hospital services realignment committee, a subcommittee of the district health council.
Mr Waters: So you already have a working relationship with some of the members of the district health council?
Ms O'Neill: Yes, I do.
Mr Waters: I come from central Ontario; Muskoka, to be exact. We have a district health council that covers Muskoka and Parry Sound. We had a situation where the district health council, because of population, is heavily weighted in favour of Muskoka by representation. We had a hospital closed in Parry Sound, which is not my riding; actually, it's represented by Mr Eves.
Ms O'Neill: Right, in Burk's Falls.
Mr Waters: The people in that community still feel ill-treated. Do you think there's a way within the health councils in rural Ontario that we can maybe amend it so that people feel they have some fairness within the system? I know it's an unfair question when you're looking at cities.
Ms O'Neill: In Toronto it's somewhat easier because everything's centralized, it's within walking distance; we just have to look at downtown Toronto. But if you've got a district health council that has a region, that is to service two distinct areas, something should be said about some sort of mechanism where there's equal representation. If it's heavily weighted towards Muskoka, there should be some --
Mr Waters: They cover three very small communities in the Parry Sound area on the Highway 11 corridor.
Ms O'Neill: Right. The members of that community who don't feel they're being serviced, with respect, should demand their rights. Maybe the district health council that services those areas should review its mandate or review its bylaws or something along those lines to try and get a better reflection of the community. Maybe they should be going out to the communities and having a public forum and saying: "This is what we do. Tell us if you think we're representing you. If we're not, tell us how we can do it better."
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): That's quite a responsibility, being a member of the district health council for Metro. Do you think your responsibility as a DHC is simply too much to really do a good job? After all, you're responsible for 41 hospitals, 68 homes for the aged, and nursing homes, 20 community health centres, six public health units. Do you think you should have more than one district health council, to go back to what Dan was saying, to have some fair representation? Do you think we should have two or maybe three district health councils?
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Ms O'Neill: No, simply because when we were doing the reviewing of budgets -- the district health council in Metro is there, it's been established, it knows who it is that it's there for. I don't necessarily think it's too big to handle. I think they're doing a good job and I don't see fragmenting it any more. I don't think that having three more district health councils is going to solve the issue. I think they should keep it the way they have it. If the workload is getting too much, they have a mechanism to deal with that. If we start having four or five district health councils in Metro, I think we're going to get into what we commonly call turf wars, vying for whatever.
So it's there, members of that sector know it's there. No, I don't think so.
Mr Grandmaître: The biggest complaint of members of DHCs is that their recommendations or most of their reports are taken very lightly. It goes into a black hole, if I can quote this lady right, for the simple reason that maybe the ministry is too busy doing something else and it's not paying enough attention to what you people are trying to do. After all, you're supposed to be the advisers to the ministry and the minister. This lady, who was the chair of the Eastern Ontario District Health Council, indicated that the ministry often failed to respond at all to reports submitted by her DHC. In her words, "The reports seem to disappear into a black hole."
If that's the feeling -- and she wasn't the only one. I sat on a DHC for eight years. I'll be very honest with you: For the last couple of years I was a member on that DHC, I felt very uncomfortable because we were simply meeting for the purpose of meeting.
You've had all kinds of experience, a lot of experience as a nurse, dealing with doctors and nurses and DHCs and so on and so forth. You told me that you felt quite at ease, that you didn't have to improve the representation and that the ministry is responding to the DHCs' reports or recommendations. You don't feel at all being left out or in a black hole?
Ms O'Neill: This whole process I just went through, the review process that the ministry has told the district health councils to do -- I can't tell you that I feel like it's just gone into a black hole, because we're still in that process. So far, the sense I get is that the district health council members feel we're doing something very important, and it's been a very good exercise for all of us.
If, at the end of the day, what we recommend doesn't go forward or is in limbo, then from my perspective, I would probably think of doing some pressure on the government of the day to say, "You've given us this mandate and it hasn't been followed through, so what are we doing here?" But at this point in time, until the end of the process I'm involved in right now, I can't answer that. I'm excited, in the sense that I'm part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Mr Grandmaître: Back in 1989, the government of the day or the minister of the day gave district health councils additional responsibilities, for the simple reason that too many of them felt left out. I'm just wondering, what has been your experience since 1989? Do you think those additional responsiblities have created a better atmosphere between the DHCs and the ministry?
Ms O'Neill: I think so. It also has created between district health councils and various members of the community like hospital sectors, long-term care sectors -- it was interesting for those of us who were on this committee doing a review process. We came back and as a group we discussed it, and people were excited because they thought, "We didn't know this was going on," or "We had no idea that hospital A was doing this, hospital B was doing that."
Mr Grandmaître: When you say "we," you're talking about staff or what?
Ms O'Neill: No, the subcommittee I was on. It was a really good review process, because it opened eyes for a lot of people. With respect, the district health council to some extent had no idea what was really going on, and because of this review process and because a budget had to be handed in and numbers given, they're getting a much better definition of what exactly is going on out there.
I think that's partly the limbo feeling. Yes, they probably were not in previous times getting support. On the same hand, they weren't always getting all the information, and now that's coming together. At the end of the day, maybe in two months from now, I can answer that question, but for now, I think so far it's working for people who are on that committee.
Mr Grandmaître: Good luck to you.
The Chair: Mr Brown, did you have any questions? Well, Ms O'Neill, that concludes questioning. We appreciate you being here this morning and wish you well.
Ms O'Neill: Great. Thank you very much.
The Chair: The next item on the agenda is dealing with Ms O'Neill's appointment. It's the only review we have this morning. The Chair will entertain a motion to concur. Moved by Mr Waters. Any discussion on the motion? All in favour? Motion carried.
DRAFT REPORTS
The Chair: The next item on our agenda is the draft reports which have been prepared by our researcher dealing with a number of ABCs. I'm not sure David has any comment on this. For example, with the Ontario Municipal Board, David has done a draft report on this, but -- pardon?
Mr David Pond: I think I know what you're going to say.
The Chair: We are still looking at hearing from a number of witnesses before we finalize that report. David, did you want to comment on that?
Mr Pond: Yes. The format of these four documents differ, depending on how far the committee has gone in reviewing them. For example, because the committee has heard a lot of testimony on the OMB and the LLBO in particular and has considered earlier drafts, what you have in front of you on the OMB is far more complete than, for example, the memo from me on the Ontario Board of Parole, which the committee hasn't considered since January. That's why some of these documents are longer than others. That's the only reason.
The Chair: All right. How would the committee wish to proceed with this? I thought initially we could take a look at the Ontario Board of Parole recommendations and draft report that David has prepared. Has everyone had an opportunity to take a look at this? We'll open it up for discussion, then.
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Mr Waters: I look at the report on the Ontario Board of Parole, and 1, 2 and 3 are dealing with victims' rights; then I go to 4 and you jump ministries. My question is, should we include this in the recommendation or should we pull it out and fire something off directly to the Attorney General? Recommendation number 4 is dealing with something totally different, which the AG actually deals with, and that's compensation for victims of crime and violence.
Mr Pond: As you know, we haven't looked at this since January, and the membership of the committee has changed pretty considerably since then. As I always try to do in these things, these recommendations reflect what individual members wanted in, and the member who wanted that particular recommendation considered isn't here anymore, if you take my meaning. If this committee, as presently constituted, wants to --
Mr Waters: But at the same time, David and Mr Chair, I don't think it is something that we shouldn't at least fire off a letter or a separate recommendation indeed to the AG, that there should be something dealing with victims of crime. There is a number of programs out there now.
The Chair: What you're suggesting, Mr Waters, is the fact that we were reviewing the operations of the Ontario Board of Parole and our report should be confined to that, but that doesn't restrict us from sending a letter as a committee to the Attorney General.
Mr Waters: Yes. I just wondered whether it was proper to include it in the report on the Ontario Board of Parole or whether we should pull it out and send off a separate letter.
Mr Pond: That point also applies to page 6, the material under the heading "Temporary Absence Passes." That is material that doesn't really have that much to do with the Ontario Board of Parole, quite frankly, but again that was a subject dear to the heart of two members who are no longer on this committee. What we could do is just have a separate section that says, "Recommendations directed to the following ministries," if you take my meaning. Include it in the report, but say: "Recommendation directed to the Attorney General," "Recommendation directed to the Minister of Correctional Services."
Mr Waters: That's fine. I just think we should make sure that this doesn't go to the Ontario Board of Parole. It isn't their responsibility, so in effect it will die. I would sooner that it went to the appropriate minister.
Mr Pond: To be fair to the government, I don't think it will die, because if you recall our last report, when we asked agencies to respond to previous recommendations, when there was a recommendation -- this happens quite often -- from a previous report, which is really not the responsibility of the agency in question but the minister, the agency will simply forward it to the minister and the minister would provide a comprehensive response. So they don't get lost in the shuffle.
The Chair: Mr Grandmaître, did you have something to say on this?
Mr Grandmaître: No. I think the six recommendations are there and we need to follow up on those recommendations, especially number 5. How effective is the parole board or the parole boards? I think it's very important that we should have maybe an additional sheet that would talk about their failures and their successes, how effective they are, how sophisticated they are. I think we should elaborate maybe on number 5. That's about my only recommendation.
Mr Marchese: I have three comments on three separate areas. With respect to 4 and 6, we should leave it in the report and suggest that because they relate to AG, those recommendations should be sent to that ministry to deal with. That takes care of our concerns. We agree they should be done, we agree they should be left in the report; however, because they connect to the other ministry, those recommendations should be sent there.
In terms of recommendation 1, I wanted to suggest a wording that's different from what is written there: "The Ontario Board of Parole and the Minister of Correctional Services should consider introducing a policy whereby victims are informed."
My suggestion would be that we say, "The Minister of Correctional Services should consider establishing a mechanism whereby victims who so wish are informed." It speaks to a mechanism and it speaks to those who want it, as opposed to a blanket statement that everybody is informed. It deals with the workload issues, it deals with those who are interested in following this and it takes cares of both concerns at the same time.
Mr Grandmaître: Don't you think that policy has more of a bite than simply a mechanism?
Mr Marchese: It just depends what it is that we want to establish here, whether we need a policy or whether we need a mechanism for people to be informed. Others can comment on what the policy would achieve versus what the intent of the motion is. If others believe we need a policy, I'd like to hear what that would be, versus my suggestion.
On number 3, I just wanted to know whether it's redundant based on what already may be happening. Does not current policy allow victims to make submissions at the moment? If that is the case, is recommendation 3 redundant?
Mr Pond: They are allowed to make written submissions to the board on their own initiative. The onus is on them to follow the case, so to speak, and make a written statement. Where this comes from is that some of the members -- and again a couple of them aren't here any more -- wanted something more specific than just written submissions. They wanted victims' impact statements, which is slightly different than just a submission, and the board doesn't have a procedure whereby it formally considers victims' impact statements. At least, that's what we were told.
The problem of course, as one of the members who is no longer here who is a lawyer pointed out, is that once you get into that you get into this whole business of due process and whether the offender who is applying for parole is getting due process if this thing is submitted without he or she having a chance to rebut it, and so on. That's why that member suggested the second sentence in recommendation 3, "Such a policy should balance victims' rights against the offender's charter right." He felt that was important.
The Chair: I think we're in general agreement with this report.
Mr Waters: I would like to comment, if I could. To start with number 1, one of the things we found is that the parole board at the present time doesn't have the name of the victims. The parole board doesn't deal with that. The crown would be the person who would have that at the time.
As Mr Marchese has said, when you start looking at that, some victims want to put the whole thing behind them and never want to hear about it again. So if three years or two years or a year and a half down the road they get a letter saying, "So and so, who committed this act against you, is coming up for parole," it brings the whole thing back into their life. With Marchese's wording, it would give them the ability, if they so wished, then they could sign a thing right on the day of the court if they wanted.
The Chair: I thought we were in agreement with that suggestion. That's my understanding.
Mr Waters: One of the other things I found when we were looking at all of this -- and I can't remember where it is in the report. It says something about the federal law --
Mr Pond: Top of page 2; the first paragraph on page 2.
Mr Waters: It's my understanding that under federal law, the onus is still on the victim to track the offender.
Mr Pond: I'll have to check that. As a matter of fact, now that you mention it, that law has been changed again, as of yesterday I think; C-36 just went through the House yesterday.
Mr Waters: It's difficult to keep in track of what they're doing, actually. It seems to be moving at quite a rate.
Those are some of my concerns that I wanted to bring forward at this time. But overall, the package looks like we're going down the right road here.
The Chair: Okay. This will come back to us with the changes suggested by members.
Perhaps the next-easiest one to deal with -- maybe I'm wrong on this -- is the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario.
Mr Pond: The committee considered a draft report on the LLBO in June and suggested a couple of changes, which are highlighted in the shaded ink that we use in our office, and that starts on page 12. The membership of the committee hasn't changed that much since June so this probably will be familiar to you.
On page 12, when the committee approved recommendation 3, dealing with sexism in liquor advertising, members suggested that the committee should also have a recommendation in here on the regulation of lifestyle advertising. They directed me to go away and do a bit of research on what the state of the art was in terms of regulating lifestyle advertising.
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Lucky for us, just after the committee met in June a federal committee released an extremely comprehensive report called Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: A Preventable Tragedy. This was the standing committee on health and welfare of the House of Commons, which, take my word for it, is exhaustive. They've interviewed everybody who counts in the business, so to speak. As you can tell from the shaded passage in the middle of page 12, the Department of Public Health for the city of Toronto has also issued a relevant report, and the government of Quebec has also already tackled this problem; the bottom of page 12 and top of page 13.
This leads into the recommendation which the committee proposed putting in last time, which is recommendation 4 in the middle of page 13: "The government should strive to develop new rules and standards which would eliminate the lifestyle advertising of alcoholic beverages."
The Chair: Any additional comments on these recommendations? Mrs Carter, you had some comments when we dealt with this earlier.
Ms Carter: I was in favour of reducing lifestyle advertising, and I still am.
Mr Waters: At this point, I don't have any real concerns about it.
Mr Marchese: I just have a few comments. I hope to be given another opportunity to come back to the previous item for some clarification after we deal with this.
I want to make a comment on something on page 3. Under the Liquor Licence Act, in (b), "the applicant is not a Canadian citizen or a person lawfully admitted to Canada." I have a concern about "the applicant is not a Canadian citizen."
While I agree that people should become citizens once they've been here for the required time, some of them decide not to. So they could be here for 20, 30 or 40 years, decide to apply for a licence, and that particular wording does not allow them to get a licence.
My concern is that it would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for one. I imagine that nobody may have taken this to court yet, which seems interesting, in the last eight or 10 years, but I think it would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. My suggestion would be that we ask the ministry to review that; either to delete or to review that; or to review with intent to delete.
The Chair: I read that differently, but perhaps David can --
Mr Pond: I think the intent there is "the applicant is not a Canadian citizen or a person lawfully admitted to Canada for permanent residence and ordinarily resident." I think it is actually an umbrella clause that's supposed to catch Canadian citizens, but everybody else who may not be a citizen but who is legally here and is not a fly-by-night operator. That's the intent, to limit the fly-by-night operators. I'll check with the ministry, but I don't think it actually reads that you have to be a citizen to get a licence.
Mr Marchese: Well, that's the way I read it. I see. The way you've explained it is "the applicant is not a Canadian citizen or a person lawfully admitted to Canada...." It relates to the next section, is that the intent of what you're saying?
Mr Pond: Yes.
Mr Marchese: I didn't read it that way at all.
Mr Pond: I'll check. I can check with the ministry. That's very easy to do.
Ms Carter: So a landed immigrant would be okay.
Mr Pond: Oh yes, absolutely.
Mr Marchese: If that is the case, the wording, it seems to me, should be clarified.
Mr Pond: You could say that about a lot of statutes. I can raise that with the ministry; that's very easily done.
Mr Marchese: Can I ask a question in addition? On page 11 in the last paragraph, it says: "In the spring of 1991, then minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations Peter Kormos announced that the government intended to eliminate sexism in alcohol advertising. Members discussed this issue with the witnesses from the LLBO. Ms Karankatsanis indicated that the cabinet, and not the board, would take the initiative on this issue."
Mr Pond: Absolutely. She didn't hesitate to say that, no.
Mr Marchese: My feeling would be that the LLBO should be involved in this; in fact, could make recommendations to the minister on lifestyle advertising, given its involvement and knowledge of the field. For them to simply shrug it off to the minister or to cabinet I think is not useful or wise.
Mr Pond: In fact, under the regulations, the board has legal authority to do that.
Mr Marchese: David, my feeling is that we should state that they play an active role in making recommendations to the minister on lifestyle advertising, given their experience and knowledge of the field. Is that useful to the other members?
The Chair: I just wonder if we should be directing him to do that. This is really a government policy question. I'm wondering if it should be us saying to an agency of the government that, "We, as a standing committee, want you to develop policy recommendations in this specific area." If we do this, we should perhaps be calling on the government to utilize the experience of the agency in preparation for moving in this direction; rather than us directing or calling on the agency, perhaps to call on the government to utilize the talents and experiences available so it's part of the process.
Mr Marchese: I agree with that. From the wording, it appeared as if somehow they didn't want to be involved, although Mr Pond suggests that they already have the right or the obligation to do so. We just wanted to remind them that is something they should be abiding by.
The Chair: We could incorporate that, encourage them to --
Mr Waters: That would go into recommendation 3, wouldn't it, David? Where it says, "The government should strive to develop new rules and standards which would eliminate sexism in liquor advertising," we could add another sentence in there saying they should be consulting with the LLBO, or the LLBO should be assisting the government with its expertise in this field.
Mr Marchese: I'm trying to make a separate comment. I realize that; they should be using their expertise. What I want to say is that the board itself should be making recommendations, and it's a different emphasis on the issue. The ministry should be involving them, but the board should not shrug away from being involved, in other words, given that is already an obligation or a responsibility they have. I would leave it to Mr Pond to work out a wording that reflects that.
Mr Pond: If you're finished with the issue of lifestyle advertising, we can go on to the top of page 14 and an issue dear to the heart of Mr Waters. I think he understands where this is coming from. He didn't want the total focus of this business of the influence of drink on young people to focus on driving. He wanted mentioned the other activities which could be potentially dangerous if you're under the influence.
Also, in the first full shaded paragraph on page 14, the member suggested that to be fair to the industry, we put in a paragraph acknowledging that it has launched advertising campaigns which are designed to promote the awareness of drinkers of the danger of excessive drinking, sort of to balance some of the recommendations.
Mr Waters: Indeed, they've been doing a wonderful job. It's just that we're trying to get people to listen to what they're saying.
Mr Pond: Then with recommendation 5, the shaded bit, the second sentence in recommendation 5, it was specifically recommended by members at the last meeting in June. One of the members who's not a member of the committee any more specifically recommended that wording. That's why that's now in there.
The Chair: Any further comments on this report?
Mr Pond: There's more on pages 14 and 15. On this issue of mandatory labelling of liquor products, again the member suggested that I go away and do a bit of research on what other jurisdictions are doing with regard to mandatory labelling. Again, this wonderful report that came out just after the committee met, from the federal standing committee on health, Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: A Preventable Tragedy, made that recommendation. I cite from it in the shaded passage at the bottom of page 14, which leads into the recommendation 6, part of which you've already proved, and then the new addition to recommendation 6 is in the shaded ink on the top of page 15.
The phrase "and in particular the danger to the foetus" was recommended by members. Then the last sentence there, "If this is not permissible under the Constitution, the government should lobby the federal government to implement such legislation," I invented because, as I realized, it's more or less a federal responsibility since liquor products are interprovincial.
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Ms Carter: That sounds good to me.
The Chair: Okay. Those are a couple of modest changes.
Mr Pond: Okay, so I'll redraft that for you.
The Chair: We should be able to get that one into the House before the end of the fall session.
Mr Marchese, back to the board of parole.
Mr Marchese: If I can go back to the previous item, just to be clear -- I want to be helpful, not to confuse it -- I suggested a wording that says "establishing a mechanism whereby victims, who so wish, are informed." Mr Pond, my comment on this: Is this the case right now? Does the ministry have this in place already?
Mr Pond: That may be a matter of interpretation. They have a policy whereby information is distributed in the appropriate places, such as courtrooms, about your rights in Ontario as a victim which you, as a victim, can access.
There are a couple of programs that the government offers, but the point the members kept making when the witnesses were here is that the onus is totally on the victim to access the programs. If you were in court and you were distraught that day -- now I'm repeating what one of the members said -- and you didn't happen to see the pamphlet on your desk -- it's a very nice pamphlet -- is that really your fault? I think the whole thrust of these recommendations is that the board and the ministry, I suppose, should take a more proactive attack.
Now, the second point we made is, the witnesses did say, to be fair to the witnesses, that the government is reviewing this whole area of victims' rights: what they have, what they don't have and so on. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, for example, which grants money to victims, is also under review. Frankly, I don't think there's any problem with what you've suggested, to tell you the truth.
Mr Marchese: Okay. Fine, thank you.
The Chair: All right. We'll move on to the district health councils' report. David has raised a number of issues and questions for our consideration in respect to this.
Mr Waters: I would like, I guess, to enter it as a submission. I don't know exactly how we do this, but I received some correspondence from the executive director of the Association of District Health Councils of Ontario yesterday and, with his permission, I made sure that -- in fact he asked that I have this distributed to all members of the committee.
What it deals with is that there is a task force out there, a joint task force at work right now, between district health councils and the ministry. If you look at the top of page 2, you will see what the role of the task force is. I think it will shed some light on the feelings of health councils and what the ministry is indeed doing at this point in time to try to deal with, even in advance, some of our concerns that we were raising and that health councils were raising.
The Chair: Maybe we should just table this in light of that. David can have an opportunity to look at this, and we can as well.
Mr Waters: Sure.
Mr Marchese: So table the whole report? Table this letter and --
The Chair: David's report, and then David can come back to us in light of the information here.
Mr Marchese: Sure.
Mr Waters: That's fine.
The Chair: Okay, that takes us to the Ontario Municipal Board.
Mr Pond: As members know, we've looked at the OMB for years and years. It's the one agency the committees have come back to over and over again. As a result, I haven't made that many changes to the original draft report. The changes begin on page 19, once again in the shaded ink, and they go on and on -- that's wrong. I'm sorry. I've done actually more work than I realized I'd done. Page 14, sorry. This is the easier one to look at.
If you recall, at the last meeting, or maybe even at the last-but-one meeting, the committee approved recommendation 1 on page 15, which says as follows: "The Attorney General consider" -- that probably should be "should consider" -- "removing assessment and minor variance appeals from the jurisdiction of the OMB."
Members pointed out to me that there had been developments on the part of the ministry, recent developments in the spring, which should be incorporated into the report to make it look up to date. So the first paragraph on page 14, which is in shaded ink, simply sort of takes note of the efforts by Mr Cooke to reform the planning process -- they were introduced in April -- some of which will have an impact, hopefully, on the workload at the OMB. Members suggested that I put that in just to make the report look up to date, if you like. It's an awkward way of putting it.
Again in that spirit, the second paragraph, or I should say perhaps the last paragraph on page 14, which is in shaded ink, the legislation I refer to here was passed subsequent to our last meeting, but again it will have the impact, I would presume, correct me if I'm wrong, of lowering or reducing the OMB's workload. To make a long story short, all I was trying to do with these two paragraphs on pages 14 and 15 was to improve the lead-in to recommendation 1, which you already approved many moons ago.
The Chair: Do you want to take this right through, Dave? Then we'll take questions as they arise.
Mr Pond: Okay. Now, the substantive change to this draft is on page 19. I'll point out immediately this may well anticipate what the committee hears from Mr Sewell, but nevertheless at the last meeting in June the committee did direct me to put in some wording on this particular point that I'm about to mention, so I did. You may feel you want to table this particular passage until we've heard from Mr Sewell, but I'll explain it for you, in any case.
The issue once again is the perspective of OMB members towards community groups, economic development. There are some members of the committee, and one member's no longer here, who feel that some OMB members are not sufficiently conversant with the ecological approach to land use planning, they're not sufficiently conversant with the Foodland Guidelines, and part of this concern arose out of the testimony the committee heard from the last two OIC appointments the committee reviewed to the OMB a couple of months ago.
Anyway, this is what page 19 and page 20 and page 21 is all about. Again, it's a lead-in to the recommendations at the bottom of page 21, numbers 6 and 7: "Training programs for OMB members should include material on the ecological systems approach to urban planning."
Recommendation 7: "The government should appoint members to the OMB who have a background in ecological theory and its application to planning issues." There's shaded ink on pages 19, 20 and 21. It's designed to lead into those two recommendations, which were suggested to me at the last meeting of the committee when it looked at the OMB.
The Chair: Is this number 7 supposed to be restrictive in its interpretation, or are we suggesting here that it should appoint some members or any future appointees?
Mr Pond: Good question.
The Chair: I don't think it should be that all-encompassing myself.
Mr Waters: Well, it's my understanding at the present time that there are some members of the OMB who are well versed in ecological theory, and through the public appointments process the government attempts to ensure that there is a broad range of skills and backgrounds reflected in the makeup of the OMB. I think you've got to have the balance that is there. You've got to make sure indeed that there are some people who are looking at the ecological theory, but at the same time you have to have a creative balance, I think, in order to have the OMB do its work in an efficient and proper manner for the province.
The Chair: Mr Waters and I are both thinking along the same lines, that certainly we as a committee concur with having a number of members, or some members, I'm not sure how you phrase it, who have these talents and abilities, but we certainly shouldn't imply that it is a requirement for every member of the OMB to have this sort of background.
Mr Waters: Maybe if we had the recommendation look at a change in the wording so that the board reflected a balance that included all aspects of society and giving an example of ecological theory being one. I don't know, maybe a change in the wording that ensures that there's a balance but at the same time that there's somebody looking at the environmental issue who has an expertise or who is an ecologist.
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Ms Carter: I wouldn't want to weaken that requirement. I don't see why it can't coexist with the other expertise that's required. I'm not saying you give everybody a test on his environmental attitude, but I think it's something we can expect people to grow into as time goes on.
Mr Waters: What number 7 says is that basically everybody should have an ecological theory background. I don't think that's necessarily bad, but it shouldn't be mandatory that you have that background.
Ms Carter: But they can acquire it. There can be training there that gives everybody that.
Mr Waters: It can be part of the training process that they learn something of the ecology, but I think you have to make sure you have a balance. The OMB is supposed to reflect the province and the people within that province, I always thought.
Mr Marchese: I think, on that, "the government should appoint members to the OMB," it doesn't say all members, obviously. I read it as saying some members.
Mr Waters: I don't.
Mr Marchese: But that's the difficulty; it doesn't say one or two or three, although I agree with what Dan is saying.
The Chair: I wonder if you need number 7 here at all, if you read the preamble to it, talking about OMB members becoming familiar with the ecosystems approach to urban planning. It seems to me that number 6 would probably be adequate.
Mr Marchese: Except it says training for OMB members, as opposed to nominating some members who have that background, so in that respect it's different. I think training should go on for all members, but I also think what is discussed on page 20 and page 21 is so critical that it would be useful to have some members -- an undetermined amount, of course -- have that kind of background.
But I read 7 as saying "some." If the wording isn't clear, perhaps Mr Pond could look at that and put that in.
Ms Carter: That is ambiguous.
Mr Pond: Okay, no problem. I can also stick in short paragraphs here -- we did this with the LLBO in a previous incarnation of that report -- to the effect that the current government is already appointing people from a diversity of backgrounds, this being one of the factors the government takes into consideration; some kind of nice short paragraph to that effect. We did that with the LLBO report.
Mr Grandmaître: Now that the OMB is under the wing of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, I think it's the responsibility of the minister to make sure there's a good balance on the OMB. That's one of the reasons why it was taken over by Municipal Affairs: that really good planning and ecological theory should be represented in its membership. In fact, that's the only reason I see the Ministry of Municipal Affairs wanting the OMB to be under its wing.
I still can't understand why the Minister of Municipal Affairs would want that responsibility. I think he likes writing to himself: The OMB writes to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and the Minister of Municipal Affairs writes to the OMB and it's the same office. I still can't understand why they're mixing the two, but anyway, it's done.
The Chair: Further comments on this, Mr Marchese?
Mr Marchese: On number 2, it's quite clear that the current legislation does not require municipalities to update their official plans; that's fine. I think recommendation 2 is useful in terms of what the ministry could look at. Could I also suggest that given that the Sewell commission is looking at a whole range of issues, we send a note to Mr Sewell urging him to look at this, if he hasn't already done so.
The Chair: You raise a point that I was going to raise. We have tentatively scheduled Wednesday, November 25, for further witnesses related to our OMB report. The proposed witnesses are John Sewell and Dale Martin. If the committee agrees, I feel that prior to the appearance of both Mr Sewell and Mr Martin, we should perhaps supply them with a copy of our draft report. I think it would be most helpful to us.
Mr Marchese: I agree.
Mr Pond: I'll update it in light of today's discussion and then give it to you, I guess. Is that okay?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Lynn Mellor): Yes.
Mr Marchese: Further, on item 4, I supported intervenor funding when we discussed this in the past, and I still think it has merits. On the one hand, it will create more jobs for lawyers, who obviously will take advantage of this; to be weighed by the need to have certain communities have access to this, because they don't have the money to be able to take a case when they feel their community's needs are not addressed.
I think the ministry is looking at this, but we should be looking also to recommend alternative dispute mechanisms as well. I don't know how deeply the ministry is looking into this -- I understand it is -- but it might be useful to recommend also that it looks at other alternative dispute mechanisms.
Mr Pond: Just as a point of clarification, that would be outside the framework of the OMB? To be fair to Mr Kruger, I think in his tenure as chair they put a big emphasis on mediating the cases that came to them and getting them resolved without having to go to a full hearing.
Mr Marchese: I think you're right. I think that would be useful to suggest: outside of the OMB hearings.
Mr Pond: In other words, that recommendation you're recommending should be directed to the ministry specifically, not just to the OMB.
Mr Marchese: Right.
Mr Pond: The standing committee on administration of justice in the previous Parliament issued a major report on what the experts call alternate dispute resolution, ADR. I'll check into that. There may be some specific recommendation in there that may be relevant to this.
Mr Frankford: Getting back to 6 and 7, about material and training and ecological theory, I thought one of the things Mr Kruger talked about was increasing the staff resources, with particular expertise such as ecology and planning. I think another advantage of that could be that those resources could be shared with applicant groups so that they could make their case more strongly. I wonder if something relating to that should be mentioned.
Mr Pond: Then you get into the problem that the OMB is a quasi-judicial tribunal. I won't say Mr Kruger would say this, but I think one of the problems you'll hear about that notion is that if the board got into the habit of helping out certain parties and not other parties with material; in other words, if the board said to the staff, "Here's this community group that is obviously underresourced versus this big monster developer; go share with them our staff knowledge about this particular kind of project," immediately the lawyer for that developer would go to court and say, "You're violating the principles of natural justice. That's a bias."
The OMB is a tribunal. It's not an agency of the government that plans land use. It adjudicates disputes in a legal context. I think that's the objection you would immediately hear to that suggestion. I may be wrong.
Ms Carter: I'm still not quite happy about the emphasis as regards 6 and 7 and Dan's contribution. I don't see this as something that is a kind of sectoral interest, that some people are interested in the environment and others aren't and you have a kind of tug of war as to how much this is taken into account. This is something that concerns everybody and that we're all going to have to incorporate into our thinking if we're going to have any future. I see it as legitimate to say that if people don't have this kind of understanding, then they should be acquiring it.
Of course, we are waiting for the Sewell commission, and probably as a result of what they say this will become more built into the basic requirement of what something like the OMB is doing. I don't want to leave any sort of impression that this is a fringe thing. This is a change that the whole of society is having to make, and the OMB as much as anything else.
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The Chair: I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. I thought there was a consensus that we would change this recommendation to ask the board to ensure that some appointees had a background in this area, not all appointees.
Ms Carter: But that in any case, there should be --
Mr Waters: If you go back up to 6, where it talks about training, part of the training program can be --
Mr Marchese: That remains. That's recommendation 6.
Mr Waters: Yes. If you look at the two as working together, it will do what I think --
Ms Carter: But I still feel that it is an advantage to any applicant to have that background, and I certainly would think that anybody who is being educated as a planner in this day and age should have that built in. I don't know what the curricula are, but --
The Chair: Yes, but not everyone on the OMB is a planner. We have farmers, lawyers, a range of people. That's the whole idea.
Okay, anything further on this?
Ms Carter: We also have some errata.
Mr Pond: Quite possibly.
Ms Carter: I don't know whether somebody should read those into the record and get them put straight.
Mr Pond: Go ahead.
Ms Carter: Page 1 under "Structure and Organization," the second sentence should read, "As of October 1992 the board consists --
Mr Pond: That's way out of date. These kind of statistics will have to be updated, yes.
Ms Carter: So that would be done.
Mr Pond: Yes. The problem, of course, is that when things change so quickly, keeping it all up to --
Ms Carter: So you're aware of that. Page 2, table 1, under Peter Howden, QC, add "appointed to the bench May 31, 1992."
Mr Pond: He's gone.
Mr Marchese: Right. He was appointed to the bench, so he's gone.
Mr Pond: I knew someone was going to bring this up. The whole of table 1 has to be updated.
Ms Carter: Okay. There was one about Stanley Cole too. Add "Medical leave of absence commencing December 1, 1992."
Mr Pond: He's gone too. If you aware that anybody's gone, just let me know. That makes it easier for me.
Ms Carter: So just to make sure, I'll continue. Page 3 under Gordon Thomson, QC.
Mr Pond: He's gone.
Mr Marchese: We could just pass this on to Mr Pond later as opposed to doing it now.
Ms Carter: There isn't a lot more, but you seem to be aware of it.
Mr Grandmaître: It's a good thing we're not doing the same thing with Ontario Hydro. We'd be changing every weekend.
Ms Carter: So Edward Canning and Ernie Magee? Pages 4 and 5, Edward Canning and Ernie Magee will be returned to Ontario Highway Transport Board, fiscal year 1993-94.
Mr Pond: So he's only on the board for a temporary period.
Ms Carter: I guess. Page 5, Meena Dhar? She has not yet commenced her appointment. Of course, we saw her last week, didn't we?
Mr Pond: That was the date of her certificate, that's all.
Ms Carter: Yes. Page 14, at the bottom of the page regarding Bill 165: "Removal of the capital expenditures approvals from the board's jurisdiction will not affect the board's hearings workload, as hearings on these applications are rarely held."
Mr Pond: Could you read that again? Do you mind? Where exactly are you on page 14?
Ms Carter: At the bottom of the page.
Mr Pond: Under Bill 165?
Ms Carter: Yes. "The removal of the capital expenditures approvals from the board's jurisdiction will not affect the board's hearings workload, as hearings on these applications are rarely held." That's to be noted.
Mr Pond: Okay. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you for that. Anything else? We'll leave this in abeyance until we've met with Mr Martin and Mr Sewell and then we'll go from there. They'll be provided with the rewrite, the update of this draft report.
As to the other two, since they're relatively modest changes to the Ontario Board of Parole report and the LLBO report, hopefully we can have them in rather short order and get them into the House.
Mr Grandmaître: When's our next subcommittee?
Clerk of the Committee: We have the November 18 selection.
Mr Waters: I have no problem with your request. I think you have one person you would like to to review, right?
Mr Grandmaître: Read my lips.
Ms Carter: He's gone.
Mr Waters: Why don't we schedule it past this weekend.
Clerk of the Committee: We had determined people for November 18, so the next opportunity would be the appointment slot that you've set aside, which is December 9.
Mr Waters: Can we do that in advance of there? Can we reshuffle something, maybe?
The Chair: Reshuffle our schedule, you mean?
Clerk of the Committee: November 25, we tentatively have the OMB. December 2, review of ABC, with the Metro Toronto Police Services Board.
Mr Marchese: Is that okay in terms of the delay it causes, Dan? We could extend the time --
Mr Waters: Actually, I just know that it's a hot issue from across the way, and I would like to get on with it while it's --
Mr Grandmaître: It's a shocking issue.
The Chair: What's this, Hydro?
Mr Waters: That's what I'm assuming that they want.
Mr Grandmaître: I just want to make sure, that's all.
The Chair: Well, as the clerk points out, we have just the one date left for reviews, December 9.
Mr Waters: If we can't shuffle somehow, then that's what we have to go with, I guess.
Mr Grandmaître: December 9, as far as I'm concerned, is --
The Chair: That'll be fine.
Mr Waters: Normally we do this in sub, but there's only one that I think my friends across the way really want to review.
Mr Grandmaître: Only one.
Mr Waters: How long, Ben?
Mr Grandmaître: Three hours.
Mr Waters: What is the maximum we're allowed for a review?
The Chair: Three hours, I think it is.
Mr Grandmaître: Three hours, yes; that's the maximum.
The Chair: I'll have to check the standing order.
Mr Waters: Can't you do it in two, Ben?
Mr Grandmaître: I won't even be here.
Mr Marchese: Sorry to hear that.
Mr Waters: Do I really want to be here at 9 o'clock in the morning?
The Chair: Rather than keep all of the committee around for this, why don't we adjourn the meeting, and the subcommittee can sit here and wrangle over this one. Meeting adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1048.