INTENDED
APPOINTMENTS
MARGARET STANOWSKI
CONTENTS
Tuesday 18 January 1994
Subcommittee report
Intended appointments
Margaret Stanowski, Legal Aid Committee
Brent Gibbs, Travel Industry Compensation Fund Board of Trustees
Christine McMillan, Brock University Foundation
Wilhelmina Nolan, Custody Review Board
Kenneth Laing, Pesticides Advisory Committee
Joanne Weigen, Ontario Special Education (English) Tribunal
Judith Turner-Macbeth, Barrie Police Services Board
Christine Forsyth, Council of the College of Nurses of Ontario
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Chair / Présidente: Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud 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)
*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)
*Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
Mammoliti, George (Yorkview ND)
*Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
*Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne ND)
*Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Abel, Donald (Wentworth North/-Nord ND) for Mr Mammoliti
Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC) for Mrs Marland
Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND) for Ms Carter
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel:
Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
Yeager, Lewis, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1010 in the Ontario Room North, Macdonald Block, Toronto.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Vice-Chair (Mr Allan K. McLean): I call the standing committee on government agencies to order. I would like to have a motion to adopt the first report of the subcommittee with regard to the subcommittee meeting that was held by conference call on January 6.
Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): So moved.
The Vice-Chair: All in favour of the subcommittee report? Opposed? The subcommittee report is adopted.
INTENDED APPOINTMENTS
MARGARET STANOWSKI
Review of intended appointment, selected by the third party: Margaret Stanowski, intended appointee as member, Legal Aid Committee.
The Vice-Chair: On our agenda this morning are half-hour reviews of intended appointments. Margaret Stanowski is an intended appointee for the Legal Aid Committee. If you have any opening statement you would care to make, you can proceed. If not, we will proceed with the committee's questions. It was a selection of the third party. Unfortunately, none of the members is here yet. Two of them, I guess, are on the road somewhere. We have about 10 minutes each. Who would like to start?
Mr Waters: Good morning and welcome to the committee. I guess one of my first questions would be, what management skills will you bring to the Legal Aid Committee? Looking at your background, you seem to have a long background that touches with the committee. How will that work with you or make you work better with the Legal Aid Committee?
Ms Margaret Stanowski: I think my résumé does indicate 20 years of managerial and line experience as a staff person and volunteer. I've worked with very diverse social service agencies and correctional agencies over the past 20 years. My skills as an administrator I think have been clearly evident over the years, again in both staff and volunteer positions. I bring strong leadership to a position. I bring fairness, flexibility and certainly thoroughness and responsibility to any position that I assume. I've got a lot of experience in program design, communications and strategic planning, and I believe some of those are key assets in management today.
Mr Waters: This committee is made up of a combination of members you're going to be working with, lawyers and people such as yourself. I imagine it's going to be an interesting committee to be on, but once again I guess it's the strengths that you will need to indeed have the public's perception come in versus, shall we say, the lawyers'. Do you see that as being a difficult thing, to have the public's needs dealt with versus the lawyers', or do you think that will be something you can work quite well together on?
Ms Stanowski: Yes, as a challenge I think you can put it very nicely. I do see myself, in terms of being considered for this position, as being amply qualified to represent the community. I've represented provincial and national constituencies in various positions. I do believe that as a community person who has evidenced a great deal of contributions over the years there is clearly a role for lay representation and that, in my experience in the justice system and certainly having worked with a variety of lawyers in the legal profession, they too welcome balanced input from the community in terms of the very complex responsibilities that face this Legal Aid Committee in the delivery of services to the disadvantaged.
Mr Waters: One of the things that has come up time and again is what people feel are the delays, I guess, in getting through the system and getting approved. There have been two sides to this question. One is that some people say it's too easy and that other people say it takes too long. Is there some more efficient way of bringing the client and the legal aid system together and getting on with whatever the client's needs are?
Ms Stanowski: I do understand that issue is now being concertedly and actively assessed right now through the various offices throughout Ontario. I believe some pilot projects would be effective -- expeditious yet responsible identification of those who are financially unable to pay for their own legal services. Again, I will confess to not having 100% knowledge of the system; I believe it's certainly very complex. The issue, as I understand it, is, as you mentioned, expeditious identification of those who require financial assistance and yet indeed responsible identification of those in terms of the time that would be necessary to verify income and other assets that may be considered in terms of an eligibility requirement.
I do see it as a balancing situation in terms of not wanting to deny expeditious and timely access to legal services, yet on the other side, in terms of fiscal restraints, due opportunities and due responsibilities and accountability to ensure that the individual is indeed meeting the requirements in terms of financial aid and access to legal services. As I said, I do understand there are some pilot projects through the area offices in Ontario that are looking at that very issue right now.
Mr Waters: I'll turn it over to my colleague Ms Harrington.
Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): Thank you. Other folks may have questions; I'm not sure.
Certainly in our constituency offices we are faced with these concerns almost every day, certainly every week, when we go home, about people needing and trying to get legal aid. We have a very good clinic in St Catharines, a legal aid clinic, that I use.
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): Can I interrupt you for one second? There are two there. There's the Niagara North Community Legal Assistance, which is not, I understand, legal aid but a legal-aid-type clinic; and then there's the legal aid office, I guess some lawyer who dispenses it. Which one were you referring to in St Catharines?
Ms Harrington: Actually, the legal aid clinic.
Mr Bradley: Yes, and I agree with you, that's a good service. I just wanted a clarification on the two.
Ms Harrington: What we're finding is that there's just so much pressure for this service, and the money involved is certainly something that our government has to be concerned about. One direction that I think we might be able to look at is alternatives to a legal situation. We might term it a diversion or screening of the cases and finding an alternative way of resolving so that we don't burden the system further. Have you any ideas of how this could be accomplished?
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Ms Stanowski: My review of this issue thus far has certainly indicated a primary consideration of containment of legal aid costs while still preserving broad access to legal aid, as well as ensuring high-quality services to those in need of such legal assistance. With that in mind, I understand there have been some pilot projects undertaken in the area of family and refugee law as well as issues I believe the Attorney General is looking at in terms of screening and disclosure issues that would provide for consideration of matters which would go formally before the court, perhaps considering timely diversion or diverting that individual to other alternatives within the community, in consideration perhaps of how resources are being allocated to non-violent offences within this province. You know, containment of the justice system itself is a big issue.
I'm a little aware of diversion projects. I'm working currently on one right now with the director of the justice review in terms of non-violent offenders being diverted from the court system and having their matters assessed within the community so that indeed the matters are seen to be duly dealt with in a responsible and punitive manner, yet again not necessitating the costly resources of the courts.
I do see the directions that are being undertaken right now within the Attorney General's ministry as well as within the Legal Aid Committee itself to responsibly assess alternatives, particularly in view of how non-violent offences are being handled through the formal justice system, again without in any way compromising an individual charged with his rights to access the formal justice system and duty counsel or a defence attorney.
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): It seems to me that in the area of, supportive legal papers, there's legal aid, there are community legal clinics that have been referred to. I know this is not quite the same, but I think it's an interesting development, the legal plans which I think the auto workers, for one, have developed.
I know this may be into a somewhat different field, but I'm wondering whether there should be some sort of coming together of all these alternatives and whether you have any thoughts about a development of some sort of integration of the ways in which people can have assistance with their legal costs or some sort of prepayment for legal matters when they arise.
Ms Stanowksi: Just to ensure that I'm aware of your question, as I understand, there are 71, soon to be 72, legal clinics within Ontario.
Mr Frankford: Community legal clinics.
Ms Stanowski: Yes, which would be separate from the certificate side, as I understand. From what I'm gathering, the clinic side would be separate from responsibilities. If I indeed receive this appointment to the Legal Aid Committee, clinics would act as providing more legal public education, law reform to the legal welfare of the community. They would indeed refer over to the legal aid area office for consideration for a legal aid certificate so that they could access a lawyer of their choice.
I believe that when you're looking in times such as we're experiencing today, in this era of very severe limitations, all creativity is necessary in assessing how legal aid services are delivered in this province. Containment of costs, preserving access to lawyers of those who are unable to pay and ensuring that they're of high quality are very important issues as we assess and review various options and alternatives.
My experience has demonstrated that pilot projects have proven to be quite successful in assessing the results of various initiatives over a period of time. So while you are assessing a variety of factors in terms of changing a system, piloting them in various geographical and culturally and linguistically different areas, you will then be able to learn and apply those results to an assessment of potential change to the system.
I also understand there are certainly a number of external factors that are affecting how we contain costs and how we review costs within the legal aid system. Certainly the recession is creating a higher need for legal assistance in terms of those falling under social assistance and under the low-income wage. We're seeing various legislations that affect delivery of legal aid services. The Young Offenders Act is a good example of that. We see an increased number of refugees, given the Immigration Act, increasing crime rates and rigorous prosecution of spousal assault cases.
I think when we're assessing change and how to manage change, we assess the external and the internal considerations that are affecting how we contain and possibly review potential changes to a system that has been in existence I believe since 1967.
Mr Bradley: We get a lot of calls in our constituency offices from people who are concerned about government expenditures these days and various instances they bring to our attention. We get them from two different sets of people, those who require the services and those who are annoyed that any services are provided. Do you believe it is a good use of the taxpayers' money to have two people who are going through divorce proceedings both being funded by the taxpayer?
Ms Stanowski: Again, I think the fundamental principle here is a preservation of the individual's right to legal services in terms of the issues that would be affecting litigation. The requirements for assessing financial eligibility would apply equally to both the husband and wife. If there is a determination of financial eligibility, I could see it's a matter that would have to be duly considered by the area office. I think we are experiencing that, from what I'm gathering. I'd like to review some of the issues that would be affecting that system, the public reaction in terms of concerns that a husband and wife would both be accessing legal aid. Again, I'd like to further consider that and review the issues.
Mr Bradley: It may be we will reach a situation, because the economic difficulties are obviously great in this province and in other jurisdictions, where we will be weighing, much as we detest having to do so, the right, as you have stated, to counsel for each individual against the right of an individual to have radiation before the cancer has spread into the lungs from the throat or wherever it spreads. It's a very difficult thing that governments have to go through now and that's why the questions are asked. In the best of all worlds, everybody should have that right. We now don't live in the best of all worlds. That's why I asked that particular question, how that's weighed. It comes to a second question of verifying who actually needs legal aid.
There are a lot of people, by the way, who would object to the taxpayer paying for two people fighting maritally and they're paying for lawyers for both sides. There are a lot of people who are objecting to that today, while they can't get what they would consider to be the best of health care services.
To get back to verification, I watched a television news clip, which means that is the way it is whether we like it or not. The television news clip is what everybody saw; therefore when I have to discuss it with my constituents; I have to discuss the television news clip. It showed, whether it was on CITY TV or some other television station, that they came in, they got their legal aid certificate and nobody asked them any questions apparently, or there was at least no verification of that. Yet I see in some cases, to speed up the system, there's talk that if a person has a low income, you don't even have to go through that verification. Aren't we going to have to come up with some kind of verification or have a total revolution against legal aid?
Ms Stanowski: I understand the Provincial Auditor raised some of these issues in terms of verification, in one instance through a bank receipt or an automatic teller receipt. From what I'm gathering, again in terms of my preliminary overview of the issues affecting the system right now, there is certainly very much of a need to standardize the financial eligibility requirements for individuals applying. I think clearly there's a balance here in terms of responsible management of public funds. The issue here is ensuring that area offices are applying the same principles and the same standards in verifying whether a person is indeed eligible, balancing, on the other side, expeditious yet responsible access to legal services that would not undermine the time it would take to verify the assets and the income of an individual applicant. I do agree there are two very significant issues that require a great deal of consideration in terms of accountability for public funds.
Mr Bradley: Is there a danger, and I realize there's both a danger and an opportunity, that by providing legal aid as easily as some people in the province think it's provided, we initiate a lot more court cases than otherwise would be initiated?
Ms Stanowski: That could be a perception by the public. I think certainly public education plays a role in this in terms of access to formal judicial services. I believe that issue is of significant concern right now to this government in terms of various investment strategies that are being undertaken so that we do indeed contain the growth of the justice system.
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Various auditor reports that I've reviewed have got a lot of those concerns in terms of the swelling of the justice and the court systems. My facts suggest that 85% of the individuals appearing before courts right now are there for non-violent offences. That's a very significant factor when we consider how these very expensive costs are being managed to deal with non-violent offenders.
I believe that matter is going to have to be addressed before we see increased growth within our courts and various other aspects: law enforcement, incarceration and various other components of a very costly system in this province.
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): I just have one question: Is it possible that on a harassment case, if an individual is turned down at one clinic, he could go to another clinic and get assistance?
Ms Stanowski: The clinic situation would provide advice and representation, as I understand, in some instances as well as a referral. Are we referring here to a certificate for legal aid or legal advice from a clinic?
Mr Cleary: I would think it was a certificate.
Ms Stanowski: A certificate. As I understand the process, if the area director did deny a certificate to an applicant, there would be redress for that individual, and the redress would occur through the area committee, which would review the decision of the area director of that particular legal aid office. So there would be opportunities. I believe the annual report provides statistics on the cases where decisions made by the area director are overturned through area committees.
I believe it could be possible, but since only one legal aid area office exists in each geographical area of the province, it would be very improbable that the person could access another geographical area if they were turned down for legal aid, given financial eligibility or the fact that the matter may not be eligible under the legal aid requirements. They would have to go through the process of putting their case to area committee volunteers of the region in which they're applying.
That's my understanding. I don't profess to have all of the knowledge with respect to the process in legal aid.
Mr Bradley: Are you having a problem getting lawyers to continue to take these cases on even though we're in difficult economic times? I read in some column -- I shouldn't say where it was probably; I thought it was a columnist in the Toronto Star whose views are well known on many issues, Ms Landsberg -- that you couldn't get these lawyers to take certain cases any more. Is that the case or not?
Ms Stanowski: That's, as I understand, a significant issue. From my knowledge, about one third of the lawyers in Ontario are involved in the legal aid plan. With respect to issues with respect to family law, the tariffs are lower, and there are some lawyers, given the cost and eligibility for the tariff under the plan, who would not indeed participate. I do believe, in terms of my own 20-year involvement in working within the justice system, that there is a broader commitment that lawyers can contribute to the community, and by facilitating a broader participation of private lawyers in the legal aid system it would indeed provide high-quality services. I do believe that is an issue before the Legal Aid Committee right now. The column you referred to -- I believe it was in Saturday's paper -- did clearly point out some of the issues affecting family law currently within this province.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Jackson, any questions?
Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Yes, a couple very briefly. I apologize for my late arrival. Some of these questions may have been raised.
I'd like to explore the concept of the abuses within the legal aid plan, not by design but by the practice where persons who become eligible in matters of matrimonial dispute and divorce tend to use the plan as a tool to punish someone from whom they are seeking their divorce. We all hear horror stories, because as legislators we always find out after the fact and we always hear the bad cases; we never hear all the good cases that we know the legal plan is capable of.
Do you have any views with respect to the plan as it relates to not being utilized as a cudgel, for want of another word, by one party or the other? What innovative things might be done within the legal scope of practice that deals with mediation in family law matters? I'm seeing a growing incidence of stories that are atypically multiple fronts with issues in a divorce action.
Ms Stanowski: I believe the Family Law Act in 1986 did provide for a number of additional matters in which individuals could litigate. The statistics that I've reviewed show that in those matters of domestic family law 70% of the individuals applying for legal aid assistance are female, compared to 90% under criminal law being male. So I would see that perhaps the women may not have access to additional financial resources to support their litigation in court.
Again, I think there are numerous assumptions about the plan, perceptions perhaps. The material that I've reviewed to date shows that the plan has been subject to a great deal of scrutiny through an Ontario review as well as through a joint federal-provincial review and, most recently, through the Provincial Auditor's report. I believe that was released in December.
I believe that with any system there are going to be issues. I believe the findings that I've seen are that the need for standardization in terms of eligibility financial requirements and for the matter itself were seen to be reasonably well handled. The access to the system appears to be, again, reasonably well managed. I think the eligibility requirements are being subjected to a great deal of standardization within the 50 area offices within this province and I think that is going to be a challenge for the administration of the legal aid plan, to ensure that there is that standardization and that eligibility does meet the requirements that are set out under the legal aid plan.
Mr Jackson: My question centres on the processes of court reform and who drives that. If the public is willing to pay a lawyer and as long as the state is willing to keep courthouses open, maybe we shouldn't be interfering with how long it takes to process justice. But when the state is paying for both the legal services and the court process, the public generally raises questions about the length.
My question is more tied to court reform in terms of the process within legal aid which allows for protracted legal intervention. I don't wish to get into who is eligible, because that's a matter for review and a matter of checking eligibility, and maybe doing a more thorough job. I'm more concerned about the process that allows sort of a revolving door, utilizing multiple lawyers within the legal aid plan and things of that nature, where it leaves the other party in a wake of extensive legal expenditures because the one party has what some define as a blank cheque. We know it's not that open-ended, but it amounts to a blank cheque under certain circumstances. That was more the focus of my question.
In full acceptance of the multicultural society in which we live, do you support the notion of segregated clinics, targeting certain groups within society? I'd like to know your views on that subject.
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Ms Stanowski: As I understand the history and my knowledge of the information clinics, they began in Ontario in 1975. They started off with eight and now are getting close to about 72. The clinics really evolved out of community need and out of community issues.
Mr Jackson: I know the short history. I was basically asking you about clinics which specifically respond solely and exclusively to an identified target group within Ontario, segregated clinics which meet the needs of an individual group, whether they be handicapped, black, defined linguistically. I'm asking your opinion on whether this is a direction you find helpful in Ontario.
Ms Stanowski: My understanding in terms of special-needs populations is that often the mainstream agencies or clinics would not be in a position to deal with the specific issues that would come from those special-needs populations, be they elderly, disabled, linguistic or culturally specific matters. I do believe there has been a history of success in dealing with the special-needs population in Metro Toronto.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for appearing. I wish you well.
BRENT GIBBS
Review of intended appointment, selected by the official opposition: Brent Gibbs, intended appointee as member, Travel Industry Compensation Fund Board of Trustees.
The Vice-Chair: Next is Brent Gibbs, the intended appointee to the Travel Industry Compensation Fund Board of Trustees. Mr Gibbs, if you want to avail yourself of the opportunity to have a few opening comments, you're quite free to do that.
Mr Brent Gibbs: I don't have any.
The Vice-Chair: We'll let members ask you some questions. It's the official opposition that wanted this review, the loyal opposition.
Mr Bradley: The loyal opposition? Okay. The first question I have is in regard to what kind of assessment should be made against those who are in the travel industry to ensure that the fund is in fact buoyant. In difficult economic times we're finding more and more businesses are having difficulty, to say the least, and some are in business one day and the next day they're not in business. Then a lot of people have their lives disrupted by that fact.
The first is, what kind of assessment? Do you think there's going to be a need for an increased assessment? Should there be more taxpayers' dollars into this fund? Should it be exclusively an industry fund to compensate those who are left out in the cold, so to speak, when the company collapses and they're left on the shores of Venezuela?
Mr Gibbs: I guess there are two facets to that question. The first is the degree of rigour with which one approaches the entrance of participants into that sector, into the business of travel regulation. It is one of the sectors in Ontario, as I'm sure you're aware, that is regulated by the government. There's a registration requirement for entrance, to come into the system. Those registration requirements include the notion of financial ability to run the organization and past history in terms of criminal activities and things like that. So there is a screen that new registrants and applicants go through to get into the system in the first place.
In fact very recently the regulations have been changed to strengthen the ability of the compensation fund to be a self-managed fund, totally industry supported. There are new regulations that strengthen the working capital that companies have to have at all times. There are new regulations that strengthen the trust requirements so that consumers' moneys are now kept in trust accounts in the travel companies for new registrants or those who are under such terms and conditions. There are increased financial reporting provisions in the new regulations that went into effect December 9, I think, whereby all travel companies have to submit a financial report to the fund, depending on their size of operation.
So I think in that sense both the participants coming into the sector itself and the checks and balances on the current operators are sufficient to maintain it as a viable method of consumer protection.
Mr Bradley: How much of a staff do you think is required? Is there a need, in this world of little money and little staff, for more staff to be watchdogs? Or do you think the present staff who administer through government is sufficient, to your knowledge?
Mr Gibbs: The compensation fund itself is not part of the civil service proper, as you probably are aware. They have a staff of five individuals, which seems to be sufficient currently to run the administration of the fund. The regulation of the travel sector itself is divided between government proper and the compensation fund. That would seem to be sufficient, as far as I'm aware, for processing the claims and doing the work they do.
Mr Bradley: Does the fund deal almost exclusively with collapsing companies and people caught at one end of the country or another, or maybe out of the country, maybe one end of the province or the other, or does it get into the details of whether they're providing an honest service to people? Does the fund get into that at all?
Mr Gibbs: The fund does not get into the honest service part with the exception that there are the financial reporting requirements. There are trusting requirements now in terms of consumers' money, and that would be a function of the fund to monitor that in the financial reports. The honest service? The ministry regulates the travel sector from the perspective of advertising and other aspects of the travel industry.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Thank you very much --
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Mr Curling, you have gone over your time by two minutes.
Mr Curling: Who has?
The Vice-Chair: Your caucus has. We'll move on.
Mr Curling: I had a wonderful question.
Mr Bradley: Tell Liz what it is; she'll ask it.
Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): Do you believe that the compensation fund at the present time does adequately protect all consumers in this province?
Mr Gibbs: Yes. Obviously you can't provide total wide-ranging protection. There are end-service deliverers, whether they're cruise lines or hotels, airlines and that sort of thing, that both do not operate from within the province and are certainly not regulated by the province. Consumers have to be aware that if you book a hotel in a southern climate, that hotel may be out of business tomorrow. We don't regulate that or control that.
What the fund does do is provide compensation and relief for businesses that are regulated in Ontario, that do have a problem and go out of business or into bankruptcy or insolvency or something like that.
Mr Jackson: Brent, welcome. I had the occasion to be the recipient of your fund twice in a very short period of time back in the 1970s. Both experiences taught me. In one I received my travel package moneys refunded within about seven weeks and the other one took about a year and a half. So I'm familiar with the concerns about topping up the fund.
I have a couple of questions that flow from that experience. Both instances were late in the season for southern travel. There seems to be a consistency with bankruptcies at the end of the season. You've made all your money and "bang." Can you share with the committee your thoughts around how you might monitor and anticipate when everybody on the street is telling us that something is in trouble with a company?
I understand you can't pre-empt it, but is there anything you can share with the committee about the high incidence of failure at the end of the season when it's also the time when it's hard to increase your rates and pass it on to an industry that has to go through its hiatus?
Mr Gibbs: Sure. As I mentioned, there are new regulations that went into effect this December that improve the financial monitoring process, which is really the only vehicle that exists right at the moment to deal with the problems you mentioned. The monitoring process requires the largest of the companies now to provide financial reports on a quarterly basis. That is new. It requires the medium group of companies to provide financial reports semiannually.
I guess it's a balance, as you well know, between intrusion into the business operations of the company and the protection of consumers' money. It's hoped that this kind of regular financial reporting and the trusting of consumers' money, which is also new -- mandatory trust accounts for new businesses -- will have a big impact on both preventing unknown bankruptcies and protecting consumers' money.
The third area that the government certainly is looking into is a stronger enforcement mechanism for those who go bankrupt under suspicious circumstances. We've had a couple of charges laid recently against companies for either a breach of trust or fraud. When that sort of thing becomes common knowledge, then the companies will be a little more diligent in terms of their financial obligations.
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Mr Jackson: Is there any monitoring of changes in labour legislation relating to bankruptcy which pre-empt any securing of funds? I mean, we pay the employees who get isolated first and then there are some outstanding moneys to the fund which have not as yet been contributed. Any thoughts you want to share with us about any improvements that could be made in that area?
Mr Gibbs: I'm sorry; I don't understand that question.
Mr Jackson: More generally, the front-line workers are also victims in this scenario, as well as travellers. There seems to be a tension between compensating those employees who are owed back wages and those persons who are travelling. It's sort of a wide-open question. I'll give you my other question, which is, briefly, the criticism I've heard is people who are able to return to the travel industry in Ontario get licensed and become operational within a very short time after having declared bankruptcy or having wound down their company and left some negative experiences for travellers. Any comments on either of those two areas?
Mr Gibbs: On the first one, I don't think I have a comment in terms of labour legislation, whether that's in fact part of the fund's jurisdiction or whether that's another ministry's jurisdiction.
Mr Jackson: It just bumps you.
Mr Gibbs: Yes.
Mr Jackson: Every time we adjust something for the benefit of the employees, it may affect the ability to compensate because of the access to the fund.
Mr Gibbs: Yes.
Mr Jackson: Thank you. It's been very helpful.
The Vice-Chair: Members from the government may have some questions.
Mr Waters: I'll start. You're part of the OPS?
Mr Gibbs: Yes, I am.
Mr Waters: I guess I'd like you to go into why a civil servant is a member. I'd like to get that very clearly on the table. I know you're replacing a person who was a civil servant. Could you expand on that?
Mr Gibbs: The regulation of the travel sector is a divided responsibility. The fund itself, which is not part of the civil service, has a responsibility for managing the compensation fund, for receiving the financial reports of the participants in the industry and monitoring those financial reports and that sort of thing.
The government proper runs the registration system and monitors entrants into the sector itself. Because of that division of responsibility, it's obviously necessary to have a great deal of contact and liaison and alignment of effort between the two organizations. The ministry representative, who is certainly at this point in time the only civil servant on the board, is to make sure that the ministry is aware of policy issues as they come to the compensation fund board, to make sure the ministry's ideas are represented and to carry issues from the board back to the ministry in terms of their administration.
At the staff level, there's an enormous amount of contact and virtually daily working between the staff managing the administration of the compensation fund and the staff managing the registration process and the other monitoring processes that go on in the government itself.
Mr Waters: It's entitled to five to nine members?
Mr Gibbs: Five to nine members, I believe, yes.
Mr Waters: How many at the present time?
Mr Gibbs: I don't know that.
Mr Waters: There is a problem with the airline industry and bankruptcies. On the changes that were made, can you go into depth as to why we're no longer covering the airline industry and indeed how these new changes will benefit the travelling public?
Mr Gibbs: Several years ago the federal government completed the deregulation of the airline sector in Canada. Previous to that there were various controls on the industry to make sure there was financial solvency and that sort of thing. When that regulation was eliminated, we found, as you mentioned, considerable numbers of airlines going bankrupt.
The travel compensation fund was intended to compensate travellers from Ontario who dealt with participants who were registered in Ontario -- federal airlines are not -- so that the compensation fund found itself, I think, paying for travel services which were not delivered, which were the fault of the federally regulated, or in fact other nationally regulated, airline industries. The fund paid out moneys, for example, when Yugoslavia Airlines went out of business -- not the intention of the fund. By the way, paying for these airline failures put enormous financial pressure on the revenues and the resources of the fund. The government has lobbied the federal government for some sort of compensation system when airlines do go out of business or can't deliver the goods, and so far that hasn't materialized.
Mr Waters: And the fund at this point in time has a debt problem?
Mr Gibbs: The fund, as I understand it right now, is slightly over $5 million in debt.
Mr Waters: And there is a plan in place to bring it back to zero or indeed put it on the positive side of the balance sheet?
Mr Gibbs: Yes. Again, the new regulations were put through in early December as a three-pronged attack on the deficit of the fund. The first is there was an increase of fees from the contributing registrants in Ontario. That increase should amount to somewhere close to a $1-million increase in revenues each year. That alone, if the status quo were maintained, would eliminate that deficit in about five years. On top of that, the new financial reporting requirements for registrants should very much strengthen the number of participants going into bankruptcy. On top of that, there is a requirement for minimum operating capital. One of the problems with bankruptcies is the moneys paid to the registrant for travel services eventually get used for other things, the operating capital drops to zero or below zero and money that's paid for travel is often used for operating expenses and eventually the company goes into bankruptcy. So now there is a requirement to maintain a minimum operating capital and hopefully avoid some of the bankruptcies.
Mr Waters: The $1-million increase in fees, the fee structure, is it a flat-rate fee or is it prorated on the size of the company?
Mr Gibbs: It's prorated on the size of the company but it's also based on the dollar volume of total sales, and it's also different for a retailer and a wholesaler. I'm not sure of the numbers but I believe retailers pay $4 per $10,000 worth of sales. Wholesalers, the bigger organizations, pay, I think it is, $16 per $10,000 worth of total sales.
Mr Waters: And this is the new fee structure or the old one?
Mr Gibbs: The new fee structure.
Mr Waters: What would the old one have been?
Mr Gibbs: I think the old one was $3 for retailers per $10,000; that was increased to $4. I don't recall what the old wholesaler was.
Mr Waters: So although there was an increase, it isn't an increase that will indeed cause harm to the industry.
Mr Gibbs: No, they certainly won't cause harm to the industry. In fact, back in the 1980s when the fund was quite solvent and there was less pressure on the fund, it was a holiday for registrants in the fund.
Mr Waters: Indeed, that's happened in the past and could still happen in the future once they get out of this debt crisis.
Mr Gibbs: If the sector itself becomes less prone to bankruptcy, if the economy improves and the sector improves, that's a possibility in the future.
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Mr Waters: I gather that this is primarily what you deal with: people who are from Ontario who are vacationing outside of the country.
Mr Gibbs: Yes.
Mr Waters: So these are people who are exporting their vacation dollars.
Mr Gibbs: It provides coverage also for people who are working and who are vacationing in Toronto too, either retail or wholesale.
Mr Waters: That was part of what I wanted to get at. Also, it deals with the domestic market in-province.
Mr Gibbs: Certainly. Oh, for sure, any travel booked through an Ontario registered retailer, travel agent or wholesaler, tour operator, whether it's a northern Ontario trip of some kind or something to Mexico.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for appearing, Mr Gibbs. I wish you well.
CHRISTINE MCMILLAN
Review of intended appointment, selected by the official opposition: Christine McMillan, intended appointee as member, Brock University Foundation.
The Vice-Chair: Next, is a half-hour review of an intended appointment to the Brock University Foundation, Christine McMillan. Mrs McMillan, you have the opportunity to open with a few remarks, if you would like, or we can go right into questions.
Mrs Christine McMillan: I'd like to thank you very much for seeing me this morning and I'm very pleased to meet you all.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. It's the loyal opposition, the official opposition.
Mr Bradley: Welcome to the committee and good luck in your endeavours because, heaven knows, Brock University can use more money.
With any organization there are amateurs and there are professionals in the field of fund-raising. Many organizations out there end up hiring what are called professional fund-raisers who get a portion of the amount of money raised. Would this foundation be in a position to hire such fund-raisers? In other words, is it going to be legal for you to hire such fund-raisers?
Mrs McMillan: As far as the legality goes, I don't know, but I would certainly hope not.
Mr Bradley: If we were to then have a circumstance where you're going to go out and fund-raise, and that's obviously what you're going to be doing, who would you anticipate would be doing this actual fund-raising? Would it be people from the university itself who are already part of the university or would you anticipate hiring some people? I'm not necessarily saying professional fund-raisers who keep a portion, but hiring some people who perhaps know the committee or who know where the money for education in Ontario might be found.
Mrs McMillan: I think a lot of it is done through volunteer work now. The university has a liaison committee. Grant Dobson is the head of the public relations committee that deals with this sort of thing. He would know far better than I would. Actually, I have to confess that I know very little about this foundation. All I know about it at the present time is that it is being created so that people can make donations to Brock and that the foundation itself is not part of Brock; it's an autonomous foundation. The reason that it's a crown foundation is because people who contribute to it will receive, I believe, 100% of the donation that they make as a tax deduction in the year that they make it, whereas if they make it through a regular charitable donations route, they get 20%. As far as I know, that's the reason for creating the crown foundation. I believe that Brock has someone waiting in the wings who wants to donate to Brock if we do have a crown foundation.
Mr Bradley: The chairman -- it says "chairman" in here so it must have been a man -- of the Canadian Federation of Students commented when Bill 68, which enables these crown corporations to be established, was before the House: "I see it as an abdication on the part of the provincial government to fund universities. It could be used as a future excuse to reduce the base level of funding."
Do you in fact -- and you have had long experience in this field of education and on the board of governors of Brock University -- see a danger that the establishment of these foundations will in fact reduce the provincial government commitment commensurate with the amount of money that you happen to raise on your own?
Mrs McMillan: Again, I don't know. I don't think that would be the purpose. I would think that the government would be as happy as the university to see donations to the university. We need the money, and the funding that's being received at the present time is -- well, I shouldn't say insufficient, because everybody manages with what they have, but we could certainly do with more, as you said earlier.
I don't think the purpose of the government in setting up the crown foundation would be to take money away from the university, but things are tough. I don't know what's likely to happen in the future. Again, I just hope that wouldn't be the case. I think if someone wants to donate to Brock for the sake of the university, then that person is donating to something extra at the university above what would be received in government grants.
Mr Bradley: In terms of how the money is to be distributed, you would be aware, having been involved with the university for a number of years, that there is competition within a university community itself for the various dollars to be expended, and some departments are said to have more clout in the right places than other departments at various universities. How would it be determined how this money would be distributed to the university itself?
Mrs McMillan: You mean, once it's received by the university, what would the university do with it? I noticed that Terry White's name was one of those suggested for membership on the committee. I think it's very important that the president of the universities should be involved. He has the best overview of what's required for the university.
The rest of us will simply have to do our homework, listen to people, find out what's required and make up our minds, when the time comes, what the best thing to do with the money is. I understand that as an autonomous organization we have the right to decide on our own, if we're members of this crown foundation, how the money should be spent. I think the way we do it is by amassing the greatest amount of information that we can and listening to all the people connected with the university and bending over backwards to be absolutely fair.
Mr Bradley: Could there be a danger out there that while every university is no doubt happy to have this opportunity to raise funds under the new criteria which have been established, would this not however place smaller universities such as Brock or Lakehead or Trent in a position of having to compete even more so with the larger and long-established universities and could this in the long run perhaps not be beneficial to Brock University?
Mrs McMillan: It depends on its setup, doesn't it? Because if Brock gets to keep everything that's given to Brock, then it's an extra. If anything is taken away because of what's given to Brock, then it's a detriment. I don't think that's the intention. I would hope that anything that Brock could raise through this means would be of help to Brock and not in any way a detriment.
Mr Bradley: I'll make an observation for you in this last period of time: Those of us who've been involved by various levels of government would like to share your optimism about whether governments will in fact reduce the allocation to universities by the amount that foundations raise funds. I urge the foundation to be very vigilant of that and to inform all of the local members of the Legislature if indeed you perceive that government grants appear to be going down at approximately the same amount of money that you are raising.
Mrs McMillan: Thanks for the warning. I know that Terry Varcoe, who is the vice-president in charge of administration at Brock, is one of the very best in Ontario and I'm sure he'll keep a close eye on it.
Mr Bradley: I say that generically as opposed to any particular partisan box.
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Mrs Witmer: I certainly do support the formation of these foundations. I have two universities in my own community: Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo. They're most optimistic that they will be able to raise additional resources and be able put those towards educating the young people in this province. Hopefully, things will not materialize as Mr Bradley has indicated.
However, if we're going to have the maximum effectiveness from the foundations, and that obviously is to make money so that the universities can function more effectively and do some of the research and some of the teaching and build some of the buildings that need to happen, what would you be recommending? How can these foundations maximize their effectiveness in the early years? What do they need to focus on?
Mrs McMillan: I suppose they need to get out to the community. Each member of the foundation would have certain acquaintances who could be a starting point. The university has committees of speakers who go to various functions and talk about the needs of the university. I think publicity is probably the main avenue to start with. If you have any suggestions as to how the foundation should function and go about it, I'm sure the foundation would be very happy to hear you.
Mrs Witmer: Obviously, that's going to be the content of some of the first meetings that the foundations across the province will have as to how can they maximize their effectiveness, how they can communicate in order to encourage people to give money to the universities.
Just on a personal note, why do you personally believe that you were selected to sit on the foundation board?
Mrs McMillan: I'm not sure. I was chairman of the board at Brock for four years and had been chairman of the Niagara South board and a long-time member. I suppose it's my interest in education.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you. We wish you well.
Mr Jackson: I'm not sure that the foundation as it applies to the university prohibits the foundation from utilizing funds for ongoing operational costs of a university, which differentiates itself from a hospital foundation, which specifically limits to program expansion and/or capital works but not operational dollars. Is that your understanding?
Mrs McMillan: Yes. As far as I know, the university would be free to use the money. I have to be honest and confess to you that I know very little about this. We had a communication from Grant Dobson saying that Brock wanted to set up a crown foundation and that the main point was that it was to be separate from Brock University, and anything beyond that is just guesswork on my part, because I don't really know.
Mr Jackson: In your experience with school boards, you differentiated from funds which were created for future capital needs. They were protected and preserved by virtue of governments changing their opinion on how capital should be treated and how well it should be funded.
I want you to share with the committee, if you can, your views on whether or not this fund should be a long-term goal to help enhance the university's breadth of program development for expansion of both capital and program, or do you see it fulfilling a rather more immediate need of assisting with ongoing operational? This is the major tension between foundations tied to immediate tax relief to gain cash for operational costs.
Mrs McMillan: I see what you're getting at. All right. I don't think that the foundation should be necessary for supporting ongoing costs.
Mr Jackson: Operational costs.
Mrs McMillan: Operational costs; that's right. I think the university should be sufficiently funded and be able to raise enough money through other means that operational costs would not have to be met through a crown foundation.
Ms Harrington: Welcome. Thank you for coming all the way up on such a cold day.
You certainly do face a challenge to get this thing going and start attracting donations. In looking at the broader picture -- other questioners have mentioned it and also you in your answers -- a partnership with individuals and businesses in the community and across the region is something that I think individuals and businesses want, to be part of the university. That this is a natural community growing period. Hopefully, it will work out well.
I had two questions. I think both of them may have been touched on. The first one asked the criteria that you would use as a foundation for the allocation of the funds that you raise. I think you said you don't know yet.
Mrs McMillan: I think it would be a matter of listening to all the opinions or all the suggestions that you could amass and then making up your mind as to what was the best thing to do.
Ms Harrington: Certainly a lot of that would have to do with what the donors wanted to happen with their money, I would imagine.
Mrs McMillan: Yes, and that's another thing that I wondered about with a crown foundation. Are the donors allowed to specify what they would like the money to go for? If they are, then of course their wishes have to be honoured.
Ms Harrington: That will be an interesting process you'll be involved in, looking at the criteria.
The other question was about the size or type of staff you might have. Do you know whether you will be hiring someone?
Mrs McMillan: No. As I say, no one has talked to me about it. I don't know what Brock has in mind to do about the crown foundation. As far as I know, it would be run through Grant Dobson and his office, which is presently in existence. I haven't heard anything mentioned about hiring anybody.
Ms Harrington: We're in the process of evolving and maybe universities will each have a little different way of setting up a foundation.
Mrs McMillan: Are all the universities in the process of setting up a foundation?
Ms Harrington: I believe it's their option now whether they want to pursue this. I think most of them would be making use of this new opportunity.
The other thing I could ask you is a bit about your background. I know for many years you were the chair of the Niagara South Board of Education. I guess the community involvement is the important one now that you're going to be going after the community right across the Niagara region. What connections do you have with the rest of the Niagara region? Your name is known, I think.
Mrs McMillan: I was going to say probably through my husband mainly, because he was mayor of Thorold for 13 years and a member of regional council, and our son, who was a Liberal candidate in the past provincial election, and various charitable organizations that I belong to: the hospital auxiliary, the cancer society, the YMCA, that sort of thing. There's nothing specific, I guess, for me personally outside the field of education. I'm probably best known through being chairman of the Brock University board, because that was reported far more often in the Standard than anything to do with Niagara South, since Thorold seems to be on the fringe.
Mr Bradley: Or any of the provincial members.
Ms Harrington: Those contacts will be very helpful for you. You're probably as well known as your husband.
Who do you think should sit on the foundation? Whom would you go after?
Mrs McMillan: I was given a list of the people who have been suggested. Any of them would be excellent. The people at Brock must have suggested those people for a particular reason. I think any of them would be very good members.
Ms Harrington: I think it's key that you make sure there are folks there from all different sectors and parts of the region.
Mrs McMillan: Well, that has been done.
Mr Waters: Do you feel that the gifts could compromise the integrity of the university and do you believe that the foundation should have the right to reject a gift? Let's say somebody wanted to donate to Brock and it wasn't in line with where Brock was heading. If they had designated a gift for XYZ and Brock was going ABC, how do you feel Brock should proceed with something like that?
Mrs McMillan: I don't really think that would be a big problem, because I think anybody who wants to donate a sizeable amount to Brock is going to have the best interests of Brock at heart and will listen to what the people connected with Brock think is most necessary. If anybody has some kind of pet project that doesn't coincide with the direction that Brock would intend to go in, I think that person would be most unlikely to give a large amount. I don't believe that sort of problem would arise and that it would be impossible. I think it would be quite possible to talk to a person and say: "This is not consistent with Brock's aims at the present time. Would you consider using the money for something else?"
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Mr Waters: These foundations are relatively new in Ontario, but other provinces have them. As we go through the process, do you think we should expand this? Do you think it's a good thing for libraries, museums, art galleries?
Mrs McMillan: I'd say you should see how it works for the universities and then decide.
Mr Waters: Do you think it should be expanded or it should be basically left at the university level for a number of years to see how it's going to work out? Also, if there is that type of money sitting out there, or gifts sitting out there, should it be funnelled into education rather than to libraries and the museums or do you think they're equally important?
Mrs McMillan: With my background in education, naturally I would prefer education. It's unfair to ask me that.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Frankford, did you have a question? You have time for a question.
Mr Frankford: I must confess, I don't know about Brock in great detail.
Mr Bradley: Just send money.
Mr Jackson: He was a great general.
Mr Frankford: With your involvement there, did you have any thoughts about which part of the university you would like to direct funds to, any specific programs or faculties?
Mrs McMillan: We have a new business program which is very popular and has been well funded through donations. Taro Corp has been very generous to Brock.
Anyway, there are a number of areas at the university which could always use more money. I think the university has a five-year plan, where it develops certain aspects of the function of the university on a regular basis. The people who are concerned with that would certainly talk to prospective donors and tell them where the need is greatest at the present time.
Mr Frankford: So if you haven't been lobbied already, you would anticipate being lobbied by particular faculties to direct foundation funds to them?
Mrs McMillan: Possibly. I think that happens in any organization. You just have to listen and make up your own mind as to what's best.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for appearing before the committee today. I wish you well.
WILHELMINA NOLAN
Review of intended appointment, selected by the third party: Wilhelmina A. Nolan, intended appointee as member, Custody Review Board.
The Vice-Chair: We have next on our agenda today the review of the Custody Review Board, Wilhelmina Nolan. We'll give you the opportunity, if you would like, to make an opening statement or comments. If not, we will proceed with the questions.
Ms Wilhelmina Nolan: I have no comments.
The Vice-Chair: Proceed with the questions. It's a third-party review.
Mr Jackson: Welcome and thank you for coming forward today, not only for the position, but before the committee.
I've had a chance to look at your background, which in my view is very helpful to the position in terms of understanding the needs of the children who are before the Custody Review Board, and so I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. Although you don't have the power to reform the Young Offenders Act, there is specifically some latitude contained within the notion of placing some children in varying forms of custody. It has been said that one of the problems with the Young Offenders Act is that it lumps all children together. We've got murderers in with young girls who are runners. We have 21-year-olds in young offenders' facilities by virtue of the length of time it takes for the court process and who then do their three years. They can still be, when they're 21 years of age, in the same cottage in a schedule 1 facility, for example, with a 13-year-old girl who's a runner.
The other big problem is that the child has the absolute right to deny any program intervention for assistance.
Those are the two areas that concern me most. I think a board can sensitively place an individual, but there is some flexibility in ensuring that certain program access is available to some young offenders so that they don't become more hardened young offenders.
Could you comment about either your understanding of kids who might be clients or your opinions, which they would be at this point, I guess, about access to those kinds of placement/access to program which can be helpful as opposed to just lumping the general population and hoping that a child survives that, no matter how long they're being held in custody? I thought I'd start off with a real light question early. Is that okay?
Ms Nolan: Well, I'm a mother of two children. What I noticed a lot about being a mother is that children need guidance. Certainly if there are opportunities to just give them opportunities to make their situations different, to get away from whatever has brought them to custodial facilities in the first place, those should be presented to them. Certainly it must be fair that they have the right to refuse such intervention, but I do believe in that horse to water theory, that they certainly should be presented with opportunities. It does somehow seem disturbing that a 13-year-old runner, as you say, might be placed in the same facility as a more hardened criminal. I would think that kind of situation should be looked into, if an opinion is to be made that those kinds of things should be taken into consideration.
Mr Jackson: I noticed you have some experience with shelters? Certainly in your experience there you would have seen children who were also involved in sort of a placement at a shelter along with the mother who's had to flee a violent situation. Have you had an opportunity to visit any of the other custodial facilities, any of the three levels of facilities that this Custody Review Board will be referring young offenders to?
Ms Nolan: Actually while I was hired by the Metropolitan Toronto Association for Community Living, I needed to visit Metropolitan Toronto West Detention Centre and/or work with developmentally handicapped youth who had been held in custody for one reason or another and work with people involved in the criminal justice system on behalf of those people. As well, inside the shelter there were some youths who would be involved, from time to time, with criminal authorities.
Mr Jackson: Do you have any opinions about the incarceration of those youths who have contacted HIV? As a review board member, would you have opinions about the appropriate placement and/or issues of exposure to the staff with respect to -- I mean, let's face it: We are dealing with, unfortunately, young girls who have resorted as street youths to prostitution, been forced into it for various reasons, and we have incidents of known carriers in that cohort in custody. Do you have any opinions about this area? Because we don't seem to be getting much direction or opinion coming from those persons in authority. Do you have any opinions about that?
Ms Nolan: I remember reading over the years about the transmission of HIV throughout custodial facilities. HIV's a very scary thing for me. I should think it would be important to prevent the further transmission of the disease. I don't know the regulations currently around that, but I should think we would want to protect as many people from contracting that virus as possible.
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Mr Jackson: I would think you'd carry that forward as a concern because we integrate the populations under the Young Offenders Act and they're not maintained under lock and key, and that's understandable. In many respects, they're children and there are fire considerations etc.
However, there is more of an isolation with the adult population and the incidences of contraction are a little different than the methodology of contraction for the youth population. If I could leave that with you, I would feel more comforted that there was someone who was equally concerned about it. I've seen some statistics which indicate a dramatic rise in the young offender population. I believe it's a legitimate question for a member of the board to which you, I believe, will make a fine contributing member.
Ms Harrington: I wanted to find out a bit more about what you will be doing in this role. Is it actually working with the youth?
Ms Nolan: Yes, I understand that I would be a person who would go into a custodial facility and make an assessment around a placement of a youth.
Ms Harrington: Do you feel comfortable being able to do that, talking very personally about how their life is and where they're going?
Ms Nolan: Yes, I feel extremely comfortable. Actually, I think I'm probably the kind of person a youth would be able to relate to.
Ms Harrington: That's very important.
Ms Nolan: I understand a lot personally about the way that youth may end up involved with the correctional system, things that might have gone on in their families throughout their life history that might have brought them before the criminal justice system. My work also in the community and shelters and various community groups that I've served has given me a really clear idea of the varying kinds of situations that bring people, not only youth but all people, to the criminal justice system and the kinds of issues they've had to face.
Ms Harrington: I guess the key is somehow getting individuals to empower themselves to make the choices in their life and realize that they do have that power.
Ms Nolan: I agree 100%. I don't think many youth actually realize that they can empower themselves to change and to make the most of themselves and become productive. I had some doubts about that myself while I was a teenager. I came from a very poor family, lived near Regent Park and was presented with many opportunities to move over to the other side of the tracks. Somehow opportunities were presented to me. I feel very fortunate that I've been able to none the less become productive and to give something back, to turn my life around and like what I see in the morning. I hope to present that to youth as well.
Ms Harrington: So you feel that for young people at this age there is a good chance -- I don't know whether it's 50-50 or what -- that they do change?
Ms Nolan: Yes, certainly, depending on an individual situation. I've seen youths who perhaps have less chance than others of turning around. You would want to look at each one individually, but certainly those who would present themselves as having the motivation and the capability of moving forward and becoming productive should have that opportunity.
Ms Harrington: I have one last question on the number of people who do this job. I wasn't sure how many were actually on the review board, but would there be enough to service all the youth who need this service?
Ms Nolan: I understand that the numbers have increased significantly over the last couple of years. Perhaps some of that has to do with a program to educate youth as to their rights to the review process. Certainly the number should be adequate to fulfil the function of the board.
Mr Waters: In the background material that we received, we find that the role of the board is that you can go in and talk things over with the director, but really you don't have any power to overrule any decisions made by that person. I was wondering if you felt that the role of the board is adequate if indeed you can't effect any change, because it says here, according to the board, almost 95% agree with the decision of the provincial director. If you can't change that person's mind, I guess you might as well agree. I just wonder if you feel that the board has enough power to really go in and look at, from your perspective, the needs of these young people in turning their situation around for them.
Ms Nolan: Ninety-five per cent is a pretty high percentage of assent to the board recommendations.
Mr Waters: This is what we have in our research material, so that's what I have to go by.
Ms Nolan: Yes, I've gleaned this over the last week. If that figure is correct and the board is well chosen, as you seem to have a very careful review process, I don't see it as problematic. What about the other 5%? I don't understand the situations that have been involved there, but the 95% seems to be okay, it seems to be fair enough. I don't think the board needs to have power as such. Its function is to make recommendations, isn't it?
Mr Waters: One of the other stats that they threw at us is that the number of 15- and 16-year-old youths who have been held in the last five years has increased from 311 a day to 1,000 a day. Those stats are rather frightening. Following on what Mr Jackson said, I think we really have to start looking at how we intervene and how we deal with these youths before they get to here or, when they get to here, to make sure that they're not back again next year, or the year after, or three years after, whenever they get out, that they're not out for three months and back in. I was wondering if you had any ideas of how we can intervene in such a way to a better extent, I guess, so that we intervene in these young peoples' lives in a positive way so that they're not back.
Ms Nolan: I find the number disturbing as well, the increase in the number of youths being detained, being held in custody by police. I wonder what's contributing to it as well. I have some ideas about glamorization of crime and just generally what is leading to youths feeling that it's appropriate to break laws, appropriate to stray from the good side of society.
We were talking a little earlier about empowering youth to actually speak and to be heard. Is there a way to motivate them to become more productive, to not want to buck the system, to not want to involve themselves with the criminal justice system? Do they really understand what that means? If they do, perhaps that would be a deterrent. I can't see that youth, most youth anyway, knowing the kind of life that criminals are involved in or people who are held in custodial facilities for most of their lives are involved in, would want to willingly go and involve themselves in that kind of system. Perhaps we could look at those kinds of deterrents and more appropriate guidance for these children.
Mr Waters: The one part you said that I really like is empowering. I guess somehow we have to hear them to hear what they're saying, and I'm not so sure that we as the adult community always really hear what our young people are saying to us, and then from that point try to work something through, because these figures just can't keep going on. We see more in the large cities. We're starting to see more and more youth gangs, neighbourhood gangs or street gangs. In small towns, where you don't have so much of the gang mentality, what you're seeing is the vandalism. They seem like a troubled and frustrated group of people in general.
Ms Nolan: And why is that?
Mr Waters: I wish you well in your endeavours. I just hope that somehow, somewhere out there we come up with a way of listening and hearing and dealing with the problems of our young people.
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The Vice-Chair: Mr Frankford, you have a minute.
Mr Frankford: I wonder if I can get clarification from the researcher of this statement about the number of youths held by Ontario police as tripled from 311 to 1,000 a day. Does this mean this is the number who are taken into custody day after day or is it the number who are held, who may be held for several days. Does it reflect turnover?
Mr Lewis Yeager: I'll get that information for you for this afternoon.
Mr Curling: Thank you for coming before the committee, Ms Nolan. I think it's a very responsible position that you will be undertaking. If anyone knows that, I'm sure you know that. Let me just follow up on what Mr Frankford was saying here. There seems to be a contradiction somehow. They said there is not an increase in youth crime. This is the note they gave me here. In the meantime, on the next page it talks about how the number of 15- and 16-year-olds held by the Ontario police has tripled in the last five years -- I know we can play statistics -- from 311 a day to more than 1,000 a day.
Statistics of course will show that there's no increase in youth crime, but the fact is that in perception outside in the community it is felt that youth has gone just rampant in vandalism and crime and all that, even if it is not true, that there is an increase. The perception is there, and dealing with that perception made it more and more difficult. When they do come before the board, where do they go? Do they go in an institution like Metro East Detention or do they go into a home? That's a decision you can review and make. I've got to make some comments, because I want you to respond afterwards.
I hear you saying "empowerment" and I'm worried about that kind of empowerment because I feel that the young people in the school are much more empowered now. They know their rights in the sense that many of them understand the legal system itself when they are pulled over by police and what have you.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't know it, but I think they are not less of knowledge now than before, so they are quite empowered. The young kids are calling 911, are calling the cops on their parents if they're trying to restrain them or do anything. Now, having to deal with that, I wonder if we are going in the right direction. You will be seeing more coming to you. You will be making more decisions of where they go and what they should be doing. People talk about the Young Offenders Act a lot. Do you think the judges are not making decisions regarding some of these young offenders -- I don't want to call them young offenders; these 16-year-olds -- who have done adult crime, not perceiving them as adults because they feel there's a weakness in the federal law and the provincial law?
If you don't understand, I could explain it a bit more, if you want.
Ms Nolan: If you would.
Mr Curling: The fact is that with some crimes that are committed the judge can make a decision whether or not a crime done by the 16-year-old is an adult crime and then you regard this person as an adult. Much of that is not being done, they say. The complaint we have been hearing is that the judges feel that if the law was clear they wouldn't have to be making those decisions there. Therefore, many of those young offenders doing adult crimes are dealt with as young offenders, and they feel they can get away with it because the punishment is less severe. Do you feel that there should be some adjustment to that?
Ms Nolan: I like to feel safe in my home. When you say "adult crime," is that extortion or is it murder? How does that affect our society? How does that affect my children and myself in our home in the evening? I'm not a legislator and I don't have knowledge of the acts, inside and out, the federal and provincial acts. I'm concerned around basically safety and I'm concerned for youths. Yes, if a child is a menace to society, where there will be violent crimes, murders and these sorts of things that are very, very dangerous to all of us, we should take action to make sure we're all safe.
When I was speaking about empowerment, referring back to that, perhaps besides knowing their rights under the legal system and what they can get away with, they could understand opportunities to not involve themselves with these kinds of systems. I really want to be clear about that. I think empowerment is both ways. Yes, you have a right not to be abused by your parents or whatever and, yes, you have a right to a fulfilled and happy life.
Back to your question around the legislation, I really think we should try to make sure that we're safe, that both the child and the rest of us are safe. If a judge is unclear, perhaps he would consider the rest of society and where he is releasing a child.
Mr Curling: I see. I just want to clarify that too. If two 14-year-olds stick up a bank, if a crime was committed, in one regard one would say they must be adults. People are in shock when they hear it's a 14-year-old or a 12-year-old. They say that he or she should be in bed, that kind of response from the community, or that individual should be studying, doing the things that people at that age would have been busy doing, becoming an adult. Therefore, too much of that is being done.
I'm sure you've visited Metro East Detention. Many of them feel actually -- not many -- when I've talked to them, that they have six months, three months, "It's not on my record," and they seem to be empowered by that knowledge.
The fact is too that I fully agree with you that all these rights should be taught in the school, to say these are the rights of the citizen and when you're being held by the police or what have you, you have those kinds of stuff. But I speak for the community outside which says: "We don't seem to be protected. We want a safe environment and that is not being done." More and more of that will come before you, I would say.
Where do we put this individual? We don't gain anything by putting them into Metro East or any confined area. Are there, in your view, any changes that will come about? There are nice terms that they use. Mr Jackson knows all those terms anyhow. Not confined custody. What is it now? Open custody. They seem to be going more for that. Do you see any changes in those sorts of things? You've been making those decisions and reviewing those decisions -- "No, not open custody; confined custody."
Ms Nolan: Well, yes, I've seen a move generally throughout most social services to integrate as many people as possible into mainstream society. Again, I need to consider it. I really believe that we need to be safe and the youth need to be safe. You need to weigh each case individually. If I really believe there's a chance that someone is going to be injured, if there are weapons and significant danger involved, then I would be reluctant to suggest that someone like that should be outside on the streets with the opportunity to repeat that sort of offence.
Mr Bradley: Does not the existence of this board in itself suggest to young people who are offenders in this case, who I presume have been convicted and going to be placed somewhere, that one more time they have the ability to manipulate the legal system to their own end?
Ms Nolan: I'm certain that there will be a number of people who would ask for appeals or reviews through this board, who would want to manipulate the system in order that they may free themselves, have the opportunity to repeat crimes, get away with something. I'm certain there will be that element. There will also be other elements, perhaps people whose circumstances were not fully understood. Each situation would need to be weighed individually. Throughout the shelter system, for example, I met many, many people who looked to manipulate the system for their own benefit, and often to the detriment of others. There were others who sincerely wanted to re-establish themselves in a peaceful life. People are all very different. They need to be looked at individually.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for appearing before the committee today. I wish you well.
I would ask the subcommittee to remain. We want a short subcommittee meeting. I'll adjourn the committee until 2 o'clock.
The committee recessed from 1150 to 1407.
KENNETH LAING
Review of intended appointment, selected by the government party: Kenneth Laing, intended appointee as member, Pesticides Advisory Committee.
The Vice-Chair: I see a quorum, if we can call the government agencies committee to order. Kenneth Laing is our intended appointee to the Pesticides Advisory Committee. If you have some opening remarks or comments you would like to make, fine; if not, we can go directly into questions. The pleasure is yours.
Mr Kenneth Laing: We can go directly into questions.
Mr Waters: Good afternoon and welcome to the committee. I wouldn't be nervous, by the way, coming to this committee. We're usually friendly. We don't bite too hard. I found interesting, when I was reading some of the background, that you're an organic farmer. "Organic" doesn't mean necessarily 100% organic; the odd time you end up having to use pesticides.
Mr Laing: I guess that depends on how you define "organic." I operate under the Organic Crop Improvement Association rules. They set up the rules; they send out an inspector once a year to inspect my farm. There's perhaps a handful of chemical pesticides in their regulations that I would be allowed to use now. They are different in that a lot of them are botanicals, which means they come from a natural source. For instance, rotenone is derived from a natural source. There are breakdown pathways in nature to reduce that chemical back to its natural constituents as opposed to a chemical that's been created by man. There may be no natural pathway to break that chemical back down in nature.
Mr Waters: Has this been the type of farming you've done solely? Or were you a farmer who was farming in, shall we say, the modern way and then converted to this?
Mr Laing: I was a conventional farmer. I've been farming for 14 years. Only in 1989 did we switch to doing things organically.
Mr Waters: Out of curiosity more than anything, because I don't know whether it's actually part of the reason you're here, did you notice a big difference in your yields when you switched? Have you been able to pretty well maintain a living, shall we say?
Mr Laing: Yes, we've maintained a living. In fact, it sort of varies from one crop to another. Some crops have improved, some have stayed about the same and others are difficult. You have to change your management and you may have to overcome your pest problems and production problems by design rather than a quick-fix chemical. Chemicals are the last resort on an organic farm, but there are a zillion other methods you can use. Some of them are as old as crop rotation. Some of them are as new and as high-tech as pheromone disruption.
Mr Waters: Do you see conventional farmers gradually getting away from the man-made chemicals and pesticides and starting to look at alternatives? Or do you see an increase in general?
Mr Laing: I see most of the farmers, particularly in fruit growing, which is our major source of income, moving away from chemicals. They're getting into integrated pest management where, instead of going out and spraying every seven days just because the book says so, they'll hire a scout to see whether there's a pest out there before they spray, or they look themselves.
Mr Waters: It amazes me that in our country we say to a farmer, "You cannot put this on. We won't allow this chemical into Canada to be put on our crops," and yet we have tolerance levels on food and produce and different things that come into the country that are grown elsewhere. I was wondering if you could comment, whether you feel if we ban it for us, we should ban the import of it, or is it just something that we have to tolerate because we're in a world market.
Mr Laing: You know, to be fair, I think if our farmers can't use it, I don't think we should allow it in. I think there is a big difference in the way chemicals can be used around the world. What you might spray for weeds in Central America or South America may not behave exactly the way it does in Ontario, so there may have to be a difference in registration between those two places, just because the climate and the soil are different in those two areas of the world and maybe they break down differently. Maybe down there the residues disappear very quickly, whereas they might disappear slowly here.
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Part of the problem, I suspect -- you might correct me if I'm wrong -- with organic growing of fruits and vegetables is that they don't of course turn out as perfect as when you spray them. Part of the problem is that if that is so, and because we've been chemicalized for so many years and only appreciate the way the apple looks in its perfect form and if it's organically grown, it will look rather different and it may not be that pleasant, so people may not buy it. Is that a problem?
Mr Laing: It's a problem for poor organic farmers. I think we don't really need to lower our standards. There may be a few cases where it would make life easier, but of the strawberries and raspberries I grow you probably couldn't tell the difference to look at them. I don't think we should lower our standards very much.
Mr Marchese: If you have an apple that's organically grown, would it look the same if you spray it?
Mr Laing: Yes, a well-grown organic apple looks pretty much like a chemically grown apple. I'm still a farmer. I've got to control the pests. I've just got to use different methods. You've still got to control them.
Ms Harrington: Following a bit along that line about what I call a cosmetic use of pesticides for spraying, say, schoolyards and parks in order just to make them look more perfect, what would be your position on that? I know some municipalities are now trying to get away from spraying. Do you have a position on that?
Mr Laing: I discourage cosmetic spraying. I think there are alternatives. Maybe you're going to have to change people's perception of what looks pretty, but if you're trying to grow all grass and it ends up having dandelions in it and you have to spray to get rid of the dandelions, maybe you should look at growing something else than just all grass. Maybe you should mix some clover in there or take a different approach.
Ms Harrington: Do you feel the province should get into legislation around this issue, or do you think it's up to the municipalities?
Mr Laing: We might need some legislation, I believe. I live in a county where the township sprays and the county doesn't, so you have one road where the roadsides are sprayed and yet my township road is sprayed. It's sort of a curious thing.
Ms Harrington: It's a lovely area down there near St Thomas. I once stayed in a guest house which was a farmhouse near Port Stanley. It was very nice, surrounded by an apple orchard.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee, Mr Laing. I'm just looking through some of the material before me. You operate a 70-acre farm and you have strawberries, raspberries, Christmas trees and cereal grains. I take it you are making your money out of strawberries and raspberries.
Mr Laing: They all make money. It goes together to make a living. You're asking me why I might be able to make money growing cereal grains. I guess part of it has to do with reduced costs and better returns.
Mr Cleary: Yes, but I'm looking at your acreage.
Mr Laing: True, it's the intensity of the strawberries and raspberries that will let me make a living on 70 acres.
Mr Cleary: How many acres of each do you have?
Mr Laing: We grow about two and a half acres of strawberries, about two and a half acres of raspberries and five acres of Christmas trees.
Mr Cleary: Being you're an organic farmer, how does your price for raspberries and strawberries compare to others that may produce them a different way?
Mr Laing: We start out at about the same price at the beginning of the season with strawberries and by the end of the season I'm getting the same price and the other growers are getting half as much.
Mr Cleary: What do you think your main goal would be on this advisory board?
Mr Laing: I bring a farmer's point of view. I've got pests to control. Chemicals may be my last resort, but I also have some expertise in setting up an alternative system, a way of farming with fewer chemicals. Part of the mandate of this committee is to reduce pesticide usage through its granting grants for research. They don't just classify pesticides.
Mr Cleary: Getting back to some of my colleagues' remarks on the other side, we have different outbreaks of different types of weeds, if you want to call them that. The one weed that's invaded a lot of Ontario right now -- and I don't know whether it spreads on to your farm land or not -- in a number of ways, whether in the springtime, is the purple loosestrife. I understand that in a lot of ways that's going to be controlled by a beetle or a bug. I'm sure that in other parts of Ontario chemicals get involved in it too. Do you have any comments on that?
Mr Laing: There are lots of ways to control weeds. I guess you have to understand what the weed's telling you when it appears. If I can give you an example of weed control on my farm, twitch grass is a big problem. It's a big problem for lots of farmers. I thought, when I switched to organic farming methods, that I'd be overrun by quack grass, but I wasn't and I'm not really afraid that I'm ever going to be. It's just that you can solve some of those weed problems by management.
When you till the soil, what crops you grow have a big influence on weeds. The state of your soil and how healthy it is, the structure of it, the organic matter, all have an influence on what sort of weeds you have out there. If you compact your soil, you're going to have weeds that are out there to solve soil compaction. There are certain weeds that'll show up when soil gets compacted.
There are a lot of different techniques to control weeds. We grow a green manure crop before we plant out strawberries and raspberries. Those two crops are very difficult to control weeds in once they're established. You've got to control them before those crops go in or you're in a real mess.
Mr Cleary: Do you feel that you will have any problem representing the organic farmers and the other side of the coin, which is the agricultural community that uses the pesticides, representing them all?
Mr Laing: I've been both. I think I can understand the problems of all farmers. It's not easy to develop alternatives and sometimes you do need to use chemicals.
Mr Cleary: How do your yields per acre compare to possibly the agricultural people around you who use the pesticides?
Mr Laing: My strawberry yields are well above the provincial average. They're not quite as good as when I was a conventional grower, but they're close, and we'll probably get them up there.
Mr Cleary: Okay, but in your cash crop, as I think you said in here, how do your yields compare?
Mr Laing: They're slightly lower than probably my county average. It depends on the year. Sometimes they're probably equal to it, but I get a better price for those crops.
Mr Cleary: What are the cereals that you grow?
Mr Laing: Winter wheat and spelt, which is sort of a specialty grain much like wheat.
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Mr Cleary: So your yields almost compare to the provincial average.
Mr Bradley: Are you the only farmer's rep on the committee now? The farmers always felt they were underrepresented on the committee for the last 10 years at least, or maybe eight years. Are you the only representative who is a full-time farmer?
Mr Laing: No, I believe Don Lobb has just been appointed to this committee as well.
Mr Bradley: There are two now, so the farming community will be happy, will it?
Mr Laing: Should be.
Mr Bradley: That remains to be seen. That's just a point of interest to me. There's a problem that arises with federal and provincial regulations and who has pre-eminence. How do you think this problem can be solved where there are different federal regulations and different provincial regulations?
Mr Laing: I think it's important that things be fair, that farmers in both provinces are subject to the same regulations. But it's sort of the same story on the international scene. A chemical you apply in northern Alberta may not disappear as quickly as one we might spray in southern Ontario, and that's a difference in climate, a difference in soils. The soil pH can make quite a difference. Some areas have acid soils; some are high in calcium.
Mr Bradley: Do you have a view on cosmetic spraying, that being of course spraying so that the lawns will look nice and the trees will look nice and so on? There's a great argument out there concerning that matter, how cosmetic spraying, some will say, is not necessary; others will say that if you want to beautify, then you must have cosmetic spraying.
Virtually every director of parks and recreation, up to a few years ago, would send me a letter saying, "I support exactly what you're doing; I'm really for the environment." I always look for the word "but" somewhere in there. In the third paragraph the "but" would come in, "But you're going to cost me $50,000 more this year because of some bizarre rules that you're bringing in," and they're usually bizarre rules related to cosmetic spraying. I'll leave the question pretty open-ended: Do you have a view on cosmetic spraying for cosmetic purposes?
Mr Laing: Yes, I think we should discourage it.
Mr Bradley: Prohibit it or only discourage it through education?
Mr Laing: Develop alternatives, educate people. I think you can educate the public to have a different concept of beauty and neat and tidy, I guess. It may depend on what you plant. We don't all have to plant grass and it all doesn't have to be a half-inch high. There can be some variety.
Mr Bradley: You must find it a dilemma as a farmer, knowing that there are people living in urban areas using great amounts of pesticides on their lawns to make them look nice while they are telling farmers that they can't use pesticides, or shouldn't, because it might poison the apple they're going to eat. You must find that discouraging from time to time.
Mr Laing: Yes.
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I wanted the opportunity to ask a few questions. I'm pleased to see you here today and I'm pleased to see your appointment being made, because I think it's going to bring another perspective to that advisory committee. I'm one of those farmers who never used insecticides when I was farming, and there are other methods. When I go to the market on the weekend, I go and buy my produce from the organic farmer, because I do know the difference.
In the Holland Marsh our celery is grown to the tune of 100 pounds of fertilizer per acre, our carrots are approximately 700 pounds of fertilizer to the acre and our onions are about 500 pounds of fertilizer to the acre. It worries me because I think people are buying those carrots and onions and food weekly and it's a detriment to their health. What would your opinion be on that issue of the fertilizer? I know you're a farmer, so you know as much about fertilizer as I do.
Mr Laing: I think you can develop alternatives. I don't use any chemical fertilizer on my farm and I get reasonable yields, but you have to look at a specific crop, understand what it needs and find some other way to supply it. It's not always easy, but if you're committed, you can tackle them one at a time and solve them.
Mr McLean: We have a problem on Lake Simcoe. Mr Bradley would be well aware of the phosphorus level that lake has; it's up to 105. We got it down to about 85 at one time. But until they stop the runoff coming out of the Holland Marsh into Lake Simcoe -- and I blame it on the fertilizer that's there -- they will never solve the problem on Lake Simcoe. We don't hear the consultants and the professional people addressing that issue as a problem. Do you not believe that is a major problem? Are you aware of the situation at all?
Mr Laing: Oh, I'm aware of it. I guess I'm one of those people who believes that agriculture should be spread out more. You shouldn't have concentrated production units in one area. A marsh is a good example of overconcentration. You can grow carrots elsewhere in Ontario. It's not going to be maybe as easy, but maybe we should get away from that concentration. It's just like having a lot of livestock in one unit. You're just going to have environmental problems no matter what you do if you concentrate enough animals in one small area.
Mr McLean: I'm a believer that the produce we're producing in the high-volume fertilized acreage is a cause of a lot of cancer that we have today. It's hard to say that but the amount of potash and phosphorus that's going into those vegetables -- and we're eating them -- I just happen to believe is wrong. But nobody is addressing that very issue that I see. I had a tour of the marsh last year, and they didn't want to talk about the amounts of fertilizer and the tonnage that's going into growing that very food. On top of that there are the insecticides they're using for their onions and to kill the leaves on their potato plants. I'm glad to see you on the committee because I think you'll add another perspective to it that a lot of people don't recognize.
The other issue that I see you're faced with is the larger companies, farmers. The little farmer is kind of getting pushed out and now we've got the big ones coming in that are going to be more in the line of using more insecticides. What is your opinion on that?
Mr Laing: It seems that when those big companies come in, it always makes room for smaller people. Partly for some of the reasons you've mentioned, big companies don't always do a good job. It's difficult for them to do a good job in terms of quality, so it makes room for small people like me who can produce high quality.
Mr McLean: Did you ask to be appointed to this committee or was your name recommended by anybody? How come you're being appointed?
Mr Laing: I didn't ask to be on the committee.
Mr McLean: Who did ask you?
Mr Laing: Linda Pim.
Mr McLean: That's good. After you were asked, what did you think you could do to make it a little different?
Mr Laing: I guess my expertise is in alternatives, so somehow maybe I can see the levels of pesticides in Ontario reduced. I think there's a lot of pressure on farmers to reduce pesticide usage; part of it's environmental, part of it's economic. One of the great advantages of organic farming is to reduce your input costs. Fertilizer and chemicals cost a pile of money, and you don't have a whole lot of control over those inputs. I mean, you buy chemicals from transnational companies.
Mr McLean: But on the pesticides committee, are you going to be dealing with the other aspect of the fertilization of the land as well or just on the pesticides that are going to go on the top?
Mr Laing: It's just restricted to pesticides.
Mr McLean: Will you be talking about the other aspect that I raised with regard to the amount of fertilizer that is being used?
Mr Laing: If it fits in.
Mr McLean: I'm glad to see your appointment. I wish you well.
The Acting Chair (Mrs Elizabeth Witmer): Thank you very much, Mr Laing, and I wish you well.
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JOANNE WEIGEN
Review of intended appointment, selected by the official opposition: Joanne Weigen, intended appointee as member, Ontario Special Education (English) Tribunal.
The Vice-Chair: Our next witness is an intended appointment to the Ontario Special Education (English) Tribunal. It's a half-hour review. You have the opportunity to make some opening comments, if you so wish, or an opening statement. If not, we will proceed with questions. What's your wish?
Mrs Joanne Weigen: Oh, you can proceed with the questioning.
Mr Bradley: I've watched in education, having been involved directly in it a number of years ago, the pendulum swing from integration to segregation. It's a pronounced swing now to integration, of course. I guess it initially started out as integration and then people decided that segregation was best for the student, and now integration seems to be in vogue. I'm going to throw a general question out to you. I know it's hard, but perhaps I can narrow it a bit by saying, do you believe that all students should be integrated into the so-called regular classrooms of this province?
Mrs Weigen: In a way, I do, but it's an individual decision from the teacher and the psychologist. They should be because it's a wide world and they should mix, if they're able to. I've had a lot of experience, 30 years, volunteering, getting paid as a psychology technician, doing tests and observing children in a learning disability setting and working with kids and observing. I also worked at Dunlace school in 1989 and 1990 as a special-ed tutor. But unfortunately the budget was cut, so all part-time help was lost, and the students really need all the extra help they can get.
I also want to say that I observed at Dunlace school that the next room was filled with computers stacked up, empty. I think somebody should look at that. I think for special ed you don't need a computer, you need practical skills, because the object is to give them a livelihood. I've taught children who have worked for the post office and another child who actually became a short order cook; he had dyslexia. I believe in the practical skills.
Mr Bradley: I admire your enthusiasm and desire to work with such children because it requires a good deal of talent. It requires not only education that can be listed on paper; it requires a great deal of empathy for the children.
Mrs Weigen: And a lot of patience.
Mr Bradley: A lot of patience and a lot of understanding.
Mrs Weigen: I've always loved children, ever since I taught Sunday school as a teenager.
Mr Bradley: That's good to hear. I remember going to Sunday school many years ago.
I'm going to go to this question, then, because I try to frame a lot of questions in terms of present-day financial realities, which I think we have to. I don't like having to do it but that's the world we live in and our government other governments have to face that. Given the choice of continually reducing the resources available to children in so-called regular classrooms, that is, children with some disabilities in a regular classroom, or putting those children together in a classroom where they would have a lot of expert and sympathetic assistance, what would be your choice? I know that's an awful choice, but you're really describing reality when you see what's happening.
Mrs Weigen: Right, this is realistic. I would put them together first with a lot of help, extra tutors etc, together. Then I would move them out as they progressed, to give them self-esteem etc, into the classrooms and let them mix with the normal flow of children, if they were able to. It's an individual case. I can't say cut and dried.
Mr Bradley: What is your observation from your experience of the acceptance in 1994 of special children in so-called regular classrooms? Years ago they might have been made fun of because public attitudes were not as progressive as they would be today among the general population. A lot of those kids, when I went to school, had some rather nasty labels placed on them.
Mrs Weigen: This is the trouble. I recall reading of a case where a child was labelled mentally retarded. They thought she was mentally retarded until they did an IQ test and found she was about 120, which is above average. She just got the wrong label and she was put through the program. We have to save situations like that.
Mr Jackson: They called her slow.
Mrs Weigen: Yes.
Mr Bradley: Are the other children in the room accepting of having exceptional children in the room? Do they consider it a nuisance or someone they can pick on or do they tend to be sympathetic and supportive in your observation?
Mrs Weigen: I think if the teacher is empathetic and chooses the way that Mary Jane is going to come into the class, "She's going to join us for gym," integrates her for gym, art, and see how she integrates into the classroom, and not the academic subjects at the beginning but slowly.
Mr Bradley: Is there still a place for institutions? I hate to use this word, because I think it's misused very often and it has very negative connotations. Is there still a place -- a regular school can be called an institution -- for institutional learning for such children or should they all be placed into regular classrooms? I've observed some children whom it would be a real challenge to deal with in a regular classroom.
Mrs Weigen: I've also done work for a year at the MacMillan centre, I think they call it the Hugh MacMillan Rehabilitation Centre, for cerebral palsy kids. They go with the mothers and they go to the social worker. I'm taking care of the children. In that case, where it's so bad with the wheelchair and the care they need, they should not be placed. But somebody who has dyslexia or a mild case of mental retardation should be placed in the integrated schools.
Mr Bradley: I look at expectations that parents have and it's really been marvellous to see how some children have responded very positively to integration. I get the feeling that some parents, however, watch the television program where there is a young student who is developmentally disabled but very highly functional and integrates quite well into the system. I get the feeling sometimes that all parents, and by gosh, they've got to have this hope at least in their heart, feel that their children are going to be able to fit in as well and do as well. Are there undue expectations in some cases?
Mrs Weigen: Yes. First of all, there's a great feeling of hopelessness and hurt when your child is not so-called "normal," and the parents themselves need counselling by wise and empathetic people. It's not just the child, but the parents are looking after the child in a private system, and why they sometimes become obnoxious is that they're not getting scratched. It's very important for the parents to feel that the system is doing the best for the child. It's a terrible loss and let-down for the parent.
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Mr Bradley: This is a lob ball question, particularly from an opposition member, but I'll throw it out there; you'll hit a home run with it. Is it your observation that we need more money to be placed in the field of special education to make it more effective?
Mrs Weigen: I don't think it's more money; it's the thought behind the program. I think you can do a lot with a small amount of money. It's not just the money involved; it's the experience of the teachers. They don't have to be PhDs; they just have to like the child and feel empathetic. You know, you don't need this PhD or MA; you need somebody who's caring. What I do is I play cards with the kids and get them on to skills. I teach them money management, practical skills. I would throw away the computers. Except for the very elementary computer that has pictures that they can press a button and get, other than that I think the government is spending too much on computers, and the cost escalates. That's just my opinion.
Mr Jackson: Thank you very much, Joanne. Building on the question asked by a member of the most recent government from the one we have today, you answered a question with respect to funding interestingly. I'm always curious to understand why, when Bill 82 was first envisaged, we identified children and then we funded on the basis of identified need, which for special education in particular is pretty critical, yet the funding model was completely reversed about five years ago under the previous government. There was a small envelope of dollars. It was a mean average and yet there was no real effort to determine exact need, and much of the criticism we hear out there is that there's wide disparity among school boards as to the kinds of programs available and/or the least costs of the programs are the ones they say are the ones needed for their board.
I mean, we've completely shifted the paradigm on its ear in terms of dealing with individual needs for children with learning disabilities. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that based on the response you gave to Mr Bradley, who was much relieved to hear that it wasn't the funding issue, but I still see it as an identification needs assessment moving to --
Mrs Weigen: You definitely need the assessments of a skilled MA psychologist to assess the children, but in the classroom you just need sympathetic teachers who are trained and skilled in teaching the children. I don't think all the money in the world is going to help the program as such. A little bit of money will help, but I think probably, in this cost-cutting time, you don't need huge funds for special ed.
Mr Jackson: How do you interpret the fact that only a handful of applications ever make their way to the tribunal in a given year?
Mrs Weigen: If it wasn't for my husband seeing it in the paper --
Mr Jackson: I'm sorry; I didn't mean applications for the position on the tribunal. There was a time when we were knee-deep in appeals -- they weren't called appeals in those days actually -- and now there is just a handful that ever make it before the tribunal to which you were applying to be a member of. That was the nature of my question.
Mrs Weigen: Right, legal appeals. Is this what you're stating?
Mr Jackson: Yes, once they've passed through the identification and placement review committee, the final appeal is your tribunal, and your tribunal is dealing with basically parents or guardians advocating on behalf of a child with special needs who are challenging the school board's contention that it has a program to meet their needs.
I don't mean to oversimplify each appeal, but there are these problems in Ontario today: Hardly any ever get to your level and generally always they deal with the fact that their assessed needs are not being met. This has been, again, part of the paradigm shift. We were getting too many applications, but we have a process which responds much in the way you have. It's not a matter of money; it's a matter of the individualized program. I was wanting to determine if you were aware that there are only a handful of cases that ever even get to the tribunal.
Mrs Weigen: I wasn't aware of that. I just met Darlene at 1:30.
Mr Jackson: Maybe Mrs Witmer has a question.
Mrs Witmer: Perhaps I could follow up on that. How much information do you have about the role of the committee and the actual number of cases?
Mrs Weigen: Actually, Darlene gave me a sheet, but she took it away; she said she wants the sheet back. I'd like to take it home or Xerox it and study it.
Mrs Witmer: I guess I have to tell you, I've been sitting on this committee now for a couple of years and it really makes me wonder how people can be appointed to a committee and not be familiar with the role and the work that they're going to be doing. I'm just a little surprised.
Mrs Weigen: Yes, I really would like a Xerox copy.
Mrs Witmer: Although there are very few students who will actually come before your committee -- I think it indicates somewhere that we're seeing only about one or two -- when people do appear before the committee, it is important that people sitting on the committee understand the role. I can see where you have a lot of expertise in the classroom and you've had expertise beyond the classroom. However, as a member of this committee, your role would certainly be quite different.
Mrs Weigen: It would be a listening role and making a decision, I assume.
Mrs Witmer: You say, "I assume." I find it unbelievable that people come here not fully understanding what it is that they're going to be involved in. I think it's rather unfortunate. I know you're well-intentioned.
My colleague referred to the fact that there is discrepancy throughout the province as far as the willingness or the ability of school boards to offer special education services and to integrate students into the classroom is concerned. I think you yourself have alluded to the fact that there are not enough special education tutors or assistants, whatever we call them, available. How do you think integration can be implemented more effectively? I will personally say to you that it's not working well in all situations. We have a government now that's decided: "We'll all integrate. Whether it's suitable or not, we're going to put everybody together. We're all equal."
Mrs Weigen: It's not that. They say that in life a child is born to live and that they're all equal, but they're not all equal. Some are brain-damaged, some have medical problems and some are high achievers.
Mrs Witmer: What would you do to make sure that integration occurs in a more effective manner than is presently occurring, Joanne?
Mrs Weigen: First of all, I have a daughter who's a teacher herself, who graduated with a BA five years ago from U of T. I think the faculty of the U of T should have subspecialties, because there are not enough jobs now for teachers. They should take a couple of courses and have subspecialties, where they come out as trained teachers who are able to deal with the population of learning-disabled children. There's a lot of talent there, but it's not being used.
Mrs Witmer: I think we're going to see some changes. I think we're going to see teacher training expanded, probably to a two-year program, simply because of what you've indicated. Teachers just simply are not able to cope with all the situations that are being presented to them within the classroom. For example, these children who have special needs are put in with one teacher.
Mrs Weigen: The teacher is overwhelmed.
Mrs Witmer: Exactly.
Mrs Weigen: She needs an aide. There should be money for an aid or some volunteer from the community who's willing to work, another pair of hands.
Mrs Witmer: Yes, that's right.
I guess you don't know your role that well, but I'm just wondering if there's anything that the special education tribunal could do. I don't think there is. Do you see that tribunal being able to do anything at all?
Mrs Weigen: They could go into schools, write simple reports, not 10 or 12 pages but just send memos out, one page, because the average person's eyes can only intake one page. Send that out monthly. Have monthly training sessions or meetings. Have a continuity -- just don't send the teachers out there and leave them there for years -- so they feel like somebody's looking after them and caring about what they do. There must be continual learning on the part of the special-ed teachers.
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Mrs Witmer: I guess the problem at the present time is that the quality of special education throughout the province is very different, and certainly the ministry doesn't seem to be taking any initiative in ensuring that there is the necessary support available and that school boards do provide the necessary services. That's one of the biggest problems, I can tell you.
I've been involved as a teacher and as a trustee and I still continue to get calls from people across the province who simply know that their child has special needs but the school board is not committed to helping those families and the ministry's not providing the push and the shove.
Mrs Weigen: Number one, people of means -- you know, above-average people of means -- hire a tutor for their child, get individual care.
Mrs Witmer: Exactly, if they have the financial resources.
Mrs Weigen: If they have the means. Basically, I feel that in the Income Tax Act, for people with lower means who pay out the money for the tutor, it should be like a tax-deductible expense, just like you go to the dentist and you get, like I had, a bite plate made for my teeth because I'm a grinder. It's a tax-deductible expense; it's a medical expense basically. It's an educational expense and it should be deducted, used for the income tax system, so people are more used to doing when they want to have tutors.
Mr Marchese: I think Ms Witmer has identified the fact that there probably have not been any ministry guidelines for appropriate levels of service for the delivery of special ed for quite some time. It isn't a new problem, but rather a very old problem, in terms of creating system-wide criteria and enforcement mechanisms as well. I agree with her that it continues to be a problem in terms of how we deal with it, because we haven't done it in the past either.
There are several things I want to ask, quite a number of different questions. First, did you get any information at all about what this tribunal is all about?
Mrs Weigen: Just one page, and it was a map of the location here, so I followed the map.
Mr Marchese: That is all you got? You got no other information when you applied for this position?
Mrs Weigen: I got this.
Mr Marchese: And does whatever you're about to show me give you enough information about what this tribunal is all about?
Mrs Weigen: These terms of reference for the review of appointments in the public sector, this is what I got.
Mr Jackson: How this interview will go.
Mrs Weigen: Yes.
Mr Marchese: The issue of segregation versus integration continues to be a very important debate, and I don't think we've solved it. The problem with segregation is that it segregates kids in a way that is much more harmful, in my view, than integration. I think they both carry problems. But when you separate students off from their regular classroom, in my view and all the research I've ever read, it does more damage to students.
Mrs Weigen: Yes, their self-esteem is shattered.
Mr Marchese: But the educational systems have always argued that we separate them to help them. My view is that we separate them to make it more useful and more easy for the teacher to teach those who learn much faster, but we haven't done students any favours. Do you agree with that general thrust of thinking?
Mrs Weigen: I agree with your thinking. We haven't done students any favours.
Mr Marchese: Any favours at all.
Mrs Weigen: No.
Mr Marchese: The problem with integration is that if we put them into the classroom without the support and the knowledge that special education teachers have, it's also a problem, because if you segregate them in an integrated model, you still have the same problems.
Mrs Weigen: It's the same problem as the gifted child. I think there's the gifted child at Earl Haig school. They're in a school with other kids who come to do -- because I have a friend teaching there -- theatrical work. There are other children to mix with in the recess time and everything. It should be mixed.
Mr Marchese: You mentioned something that I want to challenge a bit. You talked about the whole idea of visiting a classroom and saying there were so many computers in special ed and that's not what they need, what they need are the more concrete experiences.
Mrs Weigen: It was where I was tutoring, the next room. I wish somebody would go to Dunlace school on the second floor and find those computers, because it's a waste.
Mr Marchese: Right, but the point I want to make is that if we take the attitude that those special education children don't need the computers, we reinforce the exact problems I'm talking about; that is, that they don't have the skills. They really need concrete, practical knowledge to survive in life, but let's not worry about their intellectual needs, because they really can't handle that. If we take that approach, as I think many schools have, high schools and elementary schools, then what we in fact do psychologically is to segregate them intellectually and delimit their abilities. Don't you think this is happening?
Mrs Weigen: Don't forget their intellectual abilities are lower anyway. They're not on the average level, the high level that we're talking today. Don't worry about their intellectual levels being lowered; just worry about them getting practical skills and earning a living.
Mr Marchese: But that's my concern, exactly this psychological problem that we're dealing with in the educational system that's complicating things, because as soon as we say that they have limits, we in fact create self-prophesies. That has been a problem in the educational system for a long time. So if our expectations are automatically lowered because they're not learning, then those kids will never learn, because we build in a poor learning model.
Mrs Weigen: There are children coming through the American school system who can't even read, and the teachers pass them year after year. They get out with diplomas. They're useless in society.
Mr Jackson: But they have great self-esteem.
Mr Marchese: If I can give you experiences of the Italian community in Toronto, and the Portuguese community now, thousands of those students are in special ed and shouldn't be there. I recall not my own experience, but thousands of students my own age.
Mrs Weigen: That's too bad.
Mr Marchese: It's an insufferable experience. Many of them were told, of course, that they were good with their hands, the Italian immigrants. If you're good with your hands, that means you have practical skills but no intellectual skills?
Mrs Weigen: Perhaps it was a language problem they had in the first place.
Mr Marchese: But that's the point I make, that as soon as teachers begin to say that they have problems, and if they say that is a language problem, then already, once we've done that, if it's just language for the moment, let alone how they look and how they dress and their attitudes, whether they're rough, whether they have accents, all those other things, once we begin to do that, then we reinforce poor academic models on those kids and then we stream them into the deadend high schools where we teach them how to survive.
Mrs Weigen: They shouldn't go to the high schools. I believe the government here should have vocational training schools.
Mr Marchese: They do. That's the point.
Mr Jackson: He called them "deadend high schools."
Mr Marchese: "Deadend" meaning that by grade 11 most of them drop out. They don't end up in colleges and they certainly can't get to university. But we teach them those little skills to survive because, as we know --
Mrs Weigen: Such as carpentry.
Mr Marchese: There are some serious problems in this field. Let me ask you another question, because they identified it here in the research that we've got. There's this gentleman called Ken Weber. He's a former chair of the Ontario Special Education Tribunal who acknowledges that the process is intimidating to some parents. However, he also points out that of the thousands of IPRC meetings held since the Education Act was amended in 1980 to provide for them, only a handful have generated appeals and litigation. He suggested this is an indication that, generally speaking, the process is satisfactory. I think he's absolutely wrong. The problem is that parents of course are incredibly intimidated.
Mrs Weigen: They don't want to fight.
Mr Marchese: They don't understand the system.
Mrs Weigen: That's it, the bureaucracy of the system.
Mr Marchese: Nobody empowers them to learn how to deal with that. If parents knew the problems they have once they're placed in special ed, in that they're locked in literally for life, they would be fighting it. The problem is they either have language difficulties or normal parents just don't know how the system works and they're completely intimidated, and that's why we have few appeals.
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Mrs Weigen: Everybody who's gone through university knows through hard experience how the bureaucratic system of the university works, or they wouldn't have gotten their degree. Because you have to take this course to get into this course and follow the rules.
Mr Frankford: This discussion recalls to me a family in my riding that came to see me with two autistic children who are totally unmanageable, really. I think this condition tests the whole system, the whole approach, and I wondered if you had any experience and any thoughts you'd like to share on it.
Mrs Weigen: Actually, these autistic children were hospitalized at Verdun, which is a psychiatric institute. I don't know enough medically to speak as to whether they should be at the psychiatric institute. I don't think they can be in a proper classroom.
Mr Frankford: It seems to me that these children are essentially uneducable and I think the idea of integration cannot apply.
Mrs Weigen: No, for that case or severely handicapped children, like cerebral palsy kids, there's also no integration. But I don't know enough about autistic children. I don't think there are enough trained staff, because it's usually on a one-to-one basis dealing with an autistic child. That's worth a lot of study. It's very interesting.
Mr Frankford: Yes. This is one family. They belong to an association. I gather it's not a common problem, but for a small number of families it's a very, very heavy problem.
Mrs Weigen: But these are usually cases that are put in psychiatric hospitals or institutions and kept there.
Mr Frankford: I think that's the question, as to what sort of institution. I don't think anyone wants to see any psychiatric hospital per se but some sort of sheltered environment.
Mrs Weigen: Maybe that's the best solution they have at this time, to do it that way. But it's a very interesting subject, and I'd like to read more on it.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. We appreciate your attending before the committee today. We wish you well.
JUDITH TURNER-MACBETH
Review of intended appointment, selected by the government party: Judith Turner-Macbeth, intended appointee as member, Barrie Police Services Board.
The Vice-Chair: Our next witness today is Judith Turner-Macbeth, intended appointee to the police services board, city of Barrie. If you have an opening statement or any comments you would like to make, feel free to do so. If not, we would proceed with the questioning.
Ms Judith Turner-Macbeth: I would just like to say good afternoon and thank you for having me here. I'm ready for your questions.
Mr Waters: It's a wonderful day to come down from Barrie, I can imagine.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: It's terrific driving, yes.
Mr Waters: Probably better than yesterday but not a lot.
I guess we might as well get to probably one of the more burning questions that usually comes up at these hearings, or as we go through this, and that is the powers of the police services board, especially in these times of restraint. Do you think the board should have powers to say that within its community you can't cut here but you can cut there? Do you think that's what the board should be doing?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I think the board should be giving some pretty firm guidance in the area of monetary policy for the police services. What you've got to do is to make the best use of scarce resources, and it may be that there's significant room for improving delivery of certain services without expanding the cost factor of doing that. It may be easier for outside people -- for example, the board -- who are not police officers on the line and entrenched within that power structure to see places where there could be improvement on the delivery of services, and if the board can investigate that and make recommendations on that, I think it should be looking at that. I think that's part of their function.
Mr Waters: Maybe the city comes along and says the police services have to cut 15% out of their budget. Would there be any area where you would say, "No, you can't touch that area"? In other words, are there areas that as a representative on the police services board you would be not in favour of touching, that you would say, "No, this is too important to the community's policing"?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Going into it, I don't think I would take a positive position on segregating out certain areas that you can't touch until I'd had a chance to look at all of it. I don't have preconceived ideas about what is essential and what is not essential at this stage. I would want to investigate it all.
Mr Waters: With the new weaponry we've allowed, the semi-automatics, how do you feel the people of the city of Barrie and indeed the officers as well are going to take to the new weaponry?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I think it's going to be a mixed response. I think in Barrie there's a public perception that crime is getting out of control in our city. We've had a recent string of murders and the statistics on break and enter and so forth are alarming. I think people are starting to become frightened of living in their own city. So I think there'll be a significant section of the population that be happy to see those new arms issued because they may think it puts the police back in control. I think there will also be a significant section that is alarmed by the increase in firepower in the police force and in society generally. I don't know if you're going to get a consensus one way or the other on whether it's good or not. I think there'll be a lot of debate about it.
Mr Waters: You touched on society and the problems we're having. Earlier on today we had different people in where we were talking about youth. We all seem to have the same feeling that in our communities there is a problem, whether it be youth or young adults, that somewhere there is a problem. One of the things I'd like to know is your feelings as to what you would like to see the police services board work at or recommend indeed to the police on how we should be moving on this. There's got to be some answer somewhere. My personal feeling is that somehow we've failed our children -- I don't necessarily blame the children, I don't necessarily blame us, but somehow society in general -- a vast number of kids who have slipped through in the last 10 years.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I agree with you. I think that if the police services board can help focus the direction of community policing with respect to integrating better with young people and creating a more useful dialogue with them, it may help. I think young people often feel like they're part of a different society and a different culture than the rest of us. If they can be made to feel like we're all in this together and that we need them as much as they need us, we may work towards solving some of those problems with the youth. I think the police need to be out there working with schools and young people in a significant fashion, not just appearing once a year perhaps in a school to talk about safety issues and so forth. They really need to be a presence and really need to be talking with them to find out what their concerns are and what they can do to help them.
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Mr Waters: I just have one more quick question, and then I'll turn it over to my colleague. Going on the same topic, in rural Ontario -- and I come from a riding, Muskoka-Georgian Bay, where there's a collection of rather small communities -- what we've managed to do is strip the schools out of our communities. We did a wonderful thing. We decided that bigger was better and everybody should ride on a bus for two or three hours every day and go to this big, wonderful jail that we call a school, because it looks more like a jail than a school, and that indeed the parents shouldn't be involved because they're all removed and how do you get there.
I really wonder whether that isn't part of the problem, that whether we look at a city, a small town or whatever, we have to get our schools back to our communities, that we're losing track of our children.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Yes, I would agree with you. I think probably children who grow up feeling a sense of community are more respectful of that community in the long run, and by alienating them, you're right, they're alienated from their immediate community and the place where they live when they do have to go a long way to travel to school.
Ms Harrington: I think it is important that we have women on police services boards. Therefore, I'm pleased to see you here. Do you feel that as a woman you have a unique perspective on policing?
Secondly, there certainly are changes going on out there, I believe. I've seen them in my area; I represent Niagara Falls. There is more of a sensitivity from our police officers, for instance, on the issue of stalking. I've had to deal with that in the last little while from the point of view of one of my constituents. What further changes would you like to see? What direction would you like to see police going in?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Perhaps in some areas I would bring a different type of perspective to the board because I'm a woman, primarily because I've had experience in working with women on what are traditionally perceived as some women's issues -- domestic violence, sexual assault, that sort of thing -- which have been fields that have traditionally been occupied by women. I would have that sort of knowledge and perhaps sensitivity to those issues that maybe my male colleagues wouldn't have. The more people you have on your board who have that type of experience, hopefully that starts filtering down into the force and their ability to deal with the victims of that sort of thing.
I don't have a great deal of contact with the police in Barrie, but I think on the whole they're doing quite well in dealing with that type of issue and in increasing sensitivity to it, as you've mentioned. I think they're doing quite well and I can't identify for you specific areas that need to be improved at this point.
Mr Bradley: There is a feeling among police officers in this province, and perhaps beyond this province, that their ability to fight crime is being limited by governments and legislative bodies, and perhaps even to a certain extent the courts, that they are out there, they're the good guys, the good women out there to fight crime, and yet the focus of attention is increasingly on the police as bad people and they have to increasingly defend themselves when the public perception is that crime is increasing.
As a member of the police services board, would your general thrust be supportive of the police in carrying out their responsibilities or to continue the path of restricting their ability to fight crime, as I believe has been happening in many jurisdictions over the past few years? That's certainly reflected by the calls to my constituency office which are, I assure you, far more right-wing than my views.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by restricting their ability to fight crime.
Mr Bradley: The government just gave them bigger guns, I guess, some kind of bigger guns or better guns, automatic weapons the government gave them that they've been wanting for a long time to be able to have guns equal to the people they deal with, I suppose. On the system of bail, people they know have been consistent problems over the years to the community and there they are out there. In Sudbury we had a case where it is alleged, because I think it might be before the courts, so I have to say "alleged," that a person shot a cop, and that person, in the view of some members of the Legislature and many in the public, should never have been out.
In other words, every time the police try to do something -- and I understand they have an agenda of their own as well -- they seem to be having their hands tied by us do-gooders who feel that they must impose upon themselves restrictions far beyond those which the crooks must impose upon themselves, to put it in very basic language.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Issues like bail and parole and so forth are clearly beyond the jurisdiction of the board or even this level of government. I can understand the frustration if, as a police officer, you went through the investigation and the work involved in making an arrest and then found that person out on bail the next day when you think that person remains a danger to society and should not be out on bail.
However, I don't really consider that a hindrance to the police officer doing his or her job or fighting crime as such. Those are issues that, if they're going to be addressed, need to be addressed at the federal level. I can understand their frustration and I think I would be a supportive member, supportive of the police force, but I would certainly not classify myself as right-wing in any way and I could probably engage in some sort of debate with your constituents about those sorts of issues.
Mr Bradley: You would have a great time, I assure you.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I'm sure.
Mr Bradley: On the issue of employment equity, the government has brought forward and brought into the House an employment equity bill and proceeded with it. What are your general views on employment equity in the context of -- I guess I'll ask a different question first and then get to that. The question would be, do you think that all police officers should be capable of breaking up a brawl at the toughest local tavern?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: No.
Mr Bradley: So not all officers have to do that? So we just hire some who are tough enough to do that and then others who are not tough enough to do that?
Mr Jackson: There's a loaded comment.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Yes, wasn't it? That was sort of loaded, wasn't it?
Mr Bradley: That's a very basic question. In St Catharines we used to have a place called the Franklin Tavern. It's got a different name and is a nice place now. I always asked the question, "Can you break up the fight at the Franklin tonight?"
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I don't think that's an appropriate criterion for hiring. I think the police, if they're not involved in more than that, then they absolutely need to be involved in more than that if we're going to have valuable communities. The officer who can break up a brawl at the Franklin Tavern is not necessarily the best person to be out there perhaps working with the young people in the schools. There are all sorts of different functions within policing and there are all sorts of different types of people who can fill those functions. Therefore, I see no problem with employment equity and it causes me no personal concern.
Mr Bradley: Do you believe that the government should be implementing a policy of employment equity in police forces across the province?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Yes. In fact, it's legislated as part of the police act right now.
Mr Bradley: And you are supportive of that?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Yes.
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Mr Bradley: The police will come to you and tell you they don't have enough money. After they've been told that there isn't any more money, they'll be there to say: "We don't have enough money and, of course, if you don't give us more, go and get it somewhere, then the world will end. There will be much more crime and so on." You have a legal background which I think if of some assistance in that regard. How would you tackle those problems of the police coming and saying, "You will be a irresponsible member of the board because you won't give us more money to have more police officers and more equipment out there to fight crime"?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I would look at their budget issue seriously, but I certainly wouldn't let them impose that sort of responsibility on my shoulders. As I mentioned earlier in speaking with Mr Waters, I think there is probably room to examine budgets with a way of making better use of resources. One issue that comes to mind is perhaps training.
I don't know what the training budget is in the Barrie Police Force, but there's an awful lot of community knowledge and expertise out there that could be used in training officers. You don't necessarily have to send them off on formal education courses for everything in order to train them to be effective officers. You can make use of the community resources to do that and you would find people who would be more than happy to share their knowledge and help towards that community policing function within that. You may be able to, for example, increase the level of expertise within your force at a relatively small cost.
Mr Bradley: There is an issue that has had a lot of public scrutiny, that one being the issue of what you should put in the local newspaper and the local newscast as to when a crime has been committed.
There was a standing committee on the Legislative Assembly in 1991 which did a comprehensive review of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The committee believed that the reporting of the fact that a crime has been committed and the name of the street or general location where the crime occurred is sufficient to allow public scrutiny of police activity and make the public aware about crime in a particular neighbourhood.
In other words, this seems to suggest that the victim doesn't necessarily have to be named. Some newspapers have a policy where they don't even name the person who's allegedly committed the crime until such time as that comes to trial. What are your views on what should be published by the police? What information should be provided to the news media by the police when a crime has been committed, first of all, and, second of all, when a person is released from prison with a background that would be of concern to the local neighbourhood?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: That's a tough one. I think to a large extent the answer depends on the nature of the crime. For minor crimes, I think the street and the location, as set out in the report, are probably sufficient. There's not a lot of community worry about smaller types of things. The violent offender who's released from jail causes problems. It causes ethical problems for me because if I knew that person was living next to me and my children, I'd be very concerned.
On the other hand, I can clearly see that by releasing details about that to the public, you're continuing to keep that person effectively in jail and restricting their opportunities for the rest of their life. I don't have a position that I can take firmly on that. I can see both sides of that issue and they both cause me some concern.
Mr Cleary: You had mentioned that you had much to offer being a lady member of the police services board for the first time. Has Barrie ever had a lady on the police services board?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: No. As a matter of fact, there is one other provincial appointment on the board who is a woman. Our mayor is also a woman and she's mandated to be on the board. So there will be three of us if I'm appointed.
Mr Cleary: I'm glad to hear you say that you would be supportive of the police officers. I am very supportive of them because I was a police officer at one time. I'm telling you that the public is just not aware of all the things that are going on until you are in their boots.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I'm sure.
Mrs Witmer: Who invited you to apply for this position?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: I was approached actually by a colleague of mine who had been approached by our local member to see if she had any suggestions, and she suggested my name.
Mrs Witmer: And your local member is Mr Wessenger?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: That's right.
Mrs Witmer: I notice that your curriculum vitae was sent to that individual here and then forwarded to Mr Christopherson. Was there public advertising in the newspaper?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: No, not that I'm aware of. I shouldn't say "no;" I'm not aware of that.
Mrs Witmer: Would there have been advertising in the newspaper at all for the position?
Interjection.
Mrs Witmer: Not necessarily? How many other people applied for the position? Does anyone have that information?
I thought that part of this process -- at least it is in my community -- was that there is advertising in the newspaper. But what we unfortunately discovered, and I think it needs to be made public at this time, is that an ad was placed in our local newspaper at home and people were invited to apply for the position. I received numerous phone calls from individuals who were interested in the position and wondered if they should apply or whether it was a fait accompli; would the local NDP members make the decision and the recommendation? I encouraged these people to apply, thinking it was indeed an open process and the best-qualified individual would get the job.
However, then I received a phone call one day from someone who's a member of a visible minority group -- and this was about three months, maybe two months, after the ad was in the paper -- indicating to me that the individual had received a call that day from one of the local NDP members asking that individual if she could put forward the names of other visible minority members because they wanted a visible minority person on the police board.
That person, I have to tell you, was absolutely shocked. They had seen the ad in the paper, they really did think they were looking for the best candidate, and now, suddenly, it appeared that all of the names that had been submitted had been totally overlooked; the government had decided it would have a visible minority person put into the position. She was very upset -- very upset. I guess this is a case of employment equity, but I think the government should have been honest. Why waste more money on government advertising if you really don't have an open competition and if you really are looking for a visible minority candidate?
The other thing that really bothered this individual is that if she were going to put forward names, it would appear that those people would be in the hands of the NDP and would have to conduct themselves accordingly.
I have to tell you, in my own community the process for applying to the police board has left a very bad taste in the mouths of many individuals. I hear you say that you were indirectly approached.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: If I can give you any assurance about that, I have no political affiliation with any party and my colleague who approached me has none either. We both know our sitting member professionally because he's also a lawyer, so he knows us in that respect.
Mr Jackson: I've had experience with a lawyer application for the police services board and I have serious concerns about that because of conflict. I had occasion to call Mr Christopherson's office because Minister of Labour Bob Mackenzie's son is responsible for all these appointments. He was very forward and very forthcoming when asked, and he was able to share with me the total number of applicants, how many were women, how many were visible minorities. I had problems with the Halton appointment because it was a labour organizer, card-carrying NDPer and a lawyer.
Your case is a different challenge for me. I personally feel strongly that we need more women participants on police service boards, but I have a real serious problem with lawyers. Let me say to you why. At least one woman member of our board in Halton had to sign extensive documentation distancing herself from a whole scope of practice in order to become a police commissioner. I thought it was rather punitive or that she was being martyred unnecessarily in order to achieve this all-important arm's-length relationship.
Here are a couple of examples. You've indicated your scope of practice includes family law. As a member of a police commission, you would be privy to all sorts of personnel information about a given officer who is having emotional difficulties, family problems manifesting themselves and the need to put him on a drug program, on an alcohol program, on therapy or whatever. The example used to me by police commissioners who've come up against this conflict is, now the lawyer, during the regular scope of his or her professional activities, is advocating on behalf of the divorcing wife to say, "Officer, was it before or after you had your nervous breakdown that you decided you were having problems with your marriage?" That's just one example, and I know many examples.
I can refine it for you as a woman who is expressing awareness and will bring additional sensitivity to the issue of the point at which the police officers are making charges of domestic assault. This is a very critical, pivotal time in terms of charges and countercharges. We're seeing some very negative practices resurfacing. How does that position you as a lawyer whose scope of practice includes certain activities where you would be advocating on behalf of the husband or the wife in a domestic situation?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Actually, I need to correct you, because my practice doesn't include that. The only family law I actually do now is not law so much as mediation. I do family law mediation work, where I'm an independent neutral who comes into the litigation in an attempt to get the parties to resolve their issues. I do not have family law clients as such and haven't had since early in my career back in the early 1980s. Those types of issues are not likely to apply to me. Clearly, if I was involved in a mediation and one of the persons was an officer, I would probably have to refer them to a different mediator, if I knew anything of them. It's very important that I be a neutral, and if I know anything about them, I am no longer a neutral.
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Mr Jackson: That's additional comfort. I hope you appreciate where I'm coming from.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: You're perfectly justified to ask me those questions.
Mr Jackson: I've seen cases and I've seen problems currently with the existing appointee, to whom I objected, which is like shouting up a pole in terms of the activities of this committee, but it serves as an effective forum. I must say that you didn't present the same kind of conflict. This lawyer was knee-deep in criminal law and was rubbing shoulders with the officers to whom he was responsible on a daily basis.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: Again, I haven't done any criminal law since the early 1980s.
Mr Jackson: That offers me a lot of comfort with your application in that respect. You do not receive any referrals, nor does the colleague who referred you to this position with Mr Wessenger's office?
Ms Turner-Macbeth: No, absolutely none. When I see Mr Wessenger, I say, "Hello, Paul," he says, "Hello, Judith," and we go on our way. We don't have any deeper relationship than that.
Mr Jackson: I was only looking for the financial one.
Ms Turner-Macbeth: No, certainly not.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for attending before the committee. I wish you well.
CHRISTINE FORSYTH
Review of intended appointment, selected by the third party: Christine C. Forsyth, intended appointee as member, Council of the College of Nurses of Ontario.
The Vice-Chair: Our final appointment for this afternoon is Dr Forsyth, an intended appointee to the Council of the College of Nurses of Ontario. If you have some opening statements or remarks, please feel free to do so. If not, we will proceed with the questioning.
Dr Christine Forsyth: I would like to say thank you very much for inviting me to appear before the committee and also to say that I consider it an honour to have been nominated by the minister for this position.
Mrs Witmer: Christine, my comments have to do with the new Regulated Health Professions Act and your personal opinion of that act as a nurse. I know there's been a lot of discussion and debate.
Dr Forsyth: Are you asking me whether I am a nurse? Or are you a nurse?
Mrs Witmer: No, I'm asking you as to your knowledge of the act and your opinion of the act.
Dr Forsyth: I think the act is a great advance in terms of public protection and public choice, opening up accessibility to health care while providing very strong regulatory safeguards for the public. Also, I think the act represents a real evolution in the province's ability to provide greater choice to consumers for the kinds of health care they need while knowing that there is in place a very clear system for protecting them from any abuse.
Mrs Witmer: When you say there's more choice for the consumer, could you just elaborate on how you see that choice?
Dr Forsyth: I think it's been made clear through the act that there are certain core services that are permitted to certain groups of health professionals. There is also protection against performing any act that would be considered harmful to the health care consumer. Beyond that, the consumer is free to choose among a very broad variety of procedures in order to take preventive measures and health care.
Mrs Witmer: As a nurse, is there anything you would have changed within the legislation as it pertains to the nursing profession?
Dr Forsyth: I'd just like to make clear that I'm not a nurse.
Mrs Witmer: You're not a nurse?
Dr Forsyth: No, I'm not.
Mrs Witmer: All right, but you are being appointed to the council of the College of Nurses.
Dr Forsyth: Yes, I'm being appointed as a representative of the public to serve as one of the new public members. The council composition has been changed to include far greater numbers of public members so as to ensure that the public interest and the right to know and monitoring of the system is carried out effectively under the new act.
Mrs Witmer: That helps me to understand the response that you just gave me.
There's been some concern about the new midwifery legislation. Do you know what the concerns of the nursing profession are regarding that particular piece of legislation?
Dr Forsyth: No, I'm sorry, I don't.
Mrs Witmer: There's been a suggestion made that new legislation should be introduced which would require midwives to be qualified nurses and that they be regulated by the College of Nurses on the grounds that obviously that's something that nurses have done in the past. Do you have any comments on that suggestion that's been put forward?
Dr Forsyth: It seems to me that the act, having already been passed, there are very clear provisions in place for the profession of midwifery specifying exactly what services midwives may provide to Ontario consumers. There is also a role for nurses in the process of birthing and delivery and health care, pre-natally and post-natally. I think that, as far as I'm aware, the College of Nurses is intent on working out a very amicable and collegial process for working with midwives within the Ontario health care system that will allow nurses to perform all the health care giving that they are capable of providing and are allowed to provide under the legislation but in concert with the rights of the midwives now to provide this service in the province.
Mrs Witmer: So you don't support them being nurses first.
Dr Forsyth: I don't have a very clear opinion on that at this point.
Mrs Witmer: Why do you think you were nominated for this appointment to the council? What expertise would you have?
Dr Forsyth: I have about 20 years' experience working as a volunteer director in various organizations in the community, community services. Through the YWCA I was responsible for the direction of education, training and social work to women and their families. I've also been a public director of arts organizations in the province, in the city.
In my professional career, while I was an executive with a large life insurance company, it was my direct responsibility as a senior manager to work on the process of financial services re-regulation within the Canadian framework and at the provincial level too. That was a very long-term process that took place over a period of 10 years. I was intimately involved with that.
My role was providing policy and planning advice to management and to liaise with government and also to have a very strong role through the industry associations and, in my public affairs role, with the public, because within the financial services framework -- and I realize that financial care and health are different, but none the less the bottom line was to protect, was to offer the Canadian consumer of financial services and financial protection the broadest possible range at the most economical cost while being absolutely sure that whatever mechanisms were in place would protect their decision, so that there would be very clear designations as to the certification of individuals qualified to give financial advice to a person and that they would be sure that there would be a regulatory framework that would enhance their confidence in those abilities.
From a professional perspective, I have been through this process on the financial services side and am acutely aware of the difficulties, the dislocations and also the challenges in broadening opportunities when you open up freedom of choice to consumers.
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Mr Jackson: I was very intrigued by your four years with Intergovernmental Affairs. Could you fix for me in time exactly about when that was?
Dr Forsyth: Yes. It's not four years with Intergovernmental Affairs; it was two years with the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada and two years with Intergovernmental Affairs. The period that I was with Intergovernmental Affairs was 1978 and 1979. I was with the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada in 1976 and 1977.
Mr Jackson: Did you work at all with Darwin Kealey during that period?
Dr Forsyth: Yes.
Mr Jackson: I know of Darwin's involvement with the Ministry of Health and I'm very intrigued by the depth of your CV in this area, but the page hasn't permitted you to give a fulsome review of that.
Dr Forsyth: No.
Mr Jackson: My area of concern is with the fact that Ontario is producing so many nurses without the resultant number of jobs. I wonder if, given the depth of your background and the limiting scope of the college you will be working with, you see a role for advising the government or powers that be at looking at strategic human resources planning for the nursing profession and integrating that. Do you see a broader role? Because I think that's a critical issue. We're just producing, at taxpayers' expense, far too many graduates to go to the United States and feed their health care system. I have really strong concerns about that, aside from their regular mandate, which comfortably fits. Your background would exceptionally prepare you to assist in that public debate and assist governments in developing policies.
Dr Forsyth: My response to your question would be that with the rationalization of our health care system under the new legislation, I would hope that with the changes towards the community health services, the growth in primary care in localized communities, where the hospitals have been required to cut back because of the very severe financial constraints under the difficult economy, rather than decreasing the scope of individual health care professionals, I would hope that in working with the college -- and part of its mandate is to strategize in terms of the potential of the nursing profession within the health care system -- there might be a chance to --
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Mr Waters is next.
Mr Waters: Welcome to the committee. You're going on the board, as I understand it, to represent us, the public, and not as a nursing professional but indeed as a person who has a number of skills, which your CV goes quickly over, that we feel you could use or that we could use sitting on the committee to bring this whole new thing into some shape and form. I was wondering if you could briefly go over some of those skills that you think you bring that will help us try to shape this committee from the public's perspective, not necessarily from the nurses' perspective but from the public's perspective, which you will be representing on this committee.
Dr Forsyth: I'm not quite clear what you're --
Mr Waters: Maybe what I should do is take one issue. The scope of practice hasn't been fully determined. The nurses have a definite idea of what they would like to see as the scope of practice. As the public, we might have a different idea. I was wondering how you feel your work history and that would relate to thrashing this issue out so that everyone has an understanding of what the scope of practice of nursing will be.
Dr Forsyth: Thank you very much. I appreciate your clarification. Yes, I think that what public members can bring is a broader perspective in terms of needs as well as services provided. I think in terms of my own background, the area of planning, my own interest has been in policy analysis, in developing alternative strategies, in viewing the bigger picture and hopefully bringing to bear the individual perspective; in other words, the impact of larger political or policy initiatives on the individual. So what I feel that I would bring is a very long-term experience in extrapolating from the immediate situation, and this is going beyond the particular situation of the nursing profession as it is practised and as it has been practised and perhaps looking at a broader perspective as to how it might be integrated into the changing environment and be responsive to, I would say, more sophisticated consumer demand for quality health care and understanding how that might impact on individuals and on their choice and on their expectation of safety and protection.
Mr Waters: Right now my daughter is in her last year of training. She and I have talked about her future life and, as do most young people right now, she has some concerns. One of the things that I think we both actually agreed on was the fact that nursing will change, that indeed, as people spend less and less time in the formal hospital setting, nursing will indeed go -- it used to be the Victorian Order of Nurses would be out in the public. Maybe they will work out of a hospital, but I think you will see nurses throughout our community, as we move to more community-oriented health care. I was wondering how you feel about that. Do you feel that should be part of the training of our nurses who are going through the system now or should we just let it sort of develop on its own, or do you think we should start preparing our young people who are going through for that?
Dr Forsyth: I think it's important to prepare our young people for all the opportunities that lie before them because I think that rather than decreasing the possibilities for nurses, the new regulations increase the potential for nurses within the system. I really feel that there's a close correlation between the quality of care that Ontarians can receive and the circumstances or work conditions, the quality of work life, of the professionals who are providing that care. In other words, professionals who have been trained properly and who meet the appropriate standards and who are given full support and scope to practice within the regulatory framework, full scope and support to practise their profession, will be in a position emotionally and psychologically to provide the maximum, the optimum health care to their clients and their patients.
Mr Waters: I guess with that the scope of practice becomes an important piece of legislation or set of terms of reference because I know my colleague Mr Wood, down at the other end of the table, represents a far northern riding. For years we've had nurses who actually work in communities and there isn't necessarily a doctor there and there's an informal sort of scope line where the nurse can do this, but in southern Ontario we lost that. At one time I think we had it here in southern Ontario. Hopefully, this scope of practice will work out a nice definition.
The other thing that nurses are concerned about is midwives. Nurses have a belief that you should be a nurse and then, as an extra credit or whatever, be a midwife. I was wondering how you felt about that.
Dr Forsyth: I don't have any strong opinions one way or another about whether midwives should first of all be registered nurses, be trained nurses, but I do believe wholeheartedly that anyone who is regulated and allowed in this province to provide health care to Ontarians should be fully qualified and fully regulated.
I don't feel prepared, at this point, to talk about jurisdictional questions among the professions. I gather that there were many, many years and hundreds of hours of input among all the professions to arrive at the list of permitted acts and allocation of who should perform them. I'd have to go back over that and perhaps refresh myself about how those decisions were taken, but I assume that the decision to allow midwives to practise midwifery in the province was done with very careful consideration and that they will be required to meet very exacting standards in providing that service.
Ms Harrington: Welcome to the committee and thank you for coming. I'll ask you a question that's often asked here, and that is, how did you get this position? Did someone approach you or did you put your name forward?
Dr Forsyth: I did both in a discussion with a colleague of mine from one of the boards that I have served on. I have not served on a public agency or board before but I have, as I say, given many years of volunteer service. One of my colleagues there suggested that I put my name forward, which I did some months ago and indicated my interest in serving.
Ms Harrington: I think it's important, certainly with the new act coming into force, that we have some very good people to get it working well, so I certainly wish you well. I hope you're looking forward to it.
Dr Forsyth: Oh, I am indeed. I think it'll be very challenging. It's a very exciting time. It's very much, I think, going in the right direction for our province.
Ms Harrington: Can I ask you quickly, what changes would you like to see? You're going into this with a vision, I think, of improving the system. Are there any particular changes that you would like to be part of?
Dr Forsyth: What interests me and what I think is very important in coming is the inclusion of public participation in all regulatory bodies affecting the health care in this province. This in itself is a major change, the fact that the public does have such a direct role now.
I can see that there will be a period where there will be adjustments necessary, where policies will have to be set up, where there will have to be education for the professionals, but also for the public, to understand their new role and their new responsibilities, so that they are clear that the public does have input. I would hope that as a public member I might be an appropriate conduit for that kind of education, inwardly to the college and to the profession itself, but also outwardly to my fellow citizens in this province so that we understand that there is now a new partnership in health care.
The Vice-Chair: Next will be Mr Cleary.
Mr Cleary: Thank you, Mr Chair. I'm just going to pass on this, to help keep you on schedule, and wish the witness all the best.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Dr Forsyth for appearing before the committee today. We wish you well.
Would the members now like to vote on these individually or as a group?
Mr Waters: I move that we vote on them as a group.
The Vice-Chair: Do you concur with the intended appointments reviewed today? Is there any discussion on that? All those in favour? All those opposed, if any? It's carried. They're concurred with.
We'll carry on at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1555.