ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 404
ONTARIO PRIVATE CAMPGROUND ASSOCIATION
UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS' ASSOCIATION OF CANADA, BAY OF QUINTE BRANCH
UNITED COUNTIES OF STORMONT, DUNDAS AND GLENGARRY
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
CONTENTS
Thursday 13 October 1994
St Lawrence Parks Commission
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Local 404
Peter Cazaly, president
Ontario Private Campground Association
Brian Cox, representative
Village of Morrisburg
Gordon McGregor, reeve
City of Brockville
John Doran, mayor
John McManus
Anna Maria Lehmann
Shirley Palmer
Glen Cunningham
Dyanne Beauvalet
Gary Gale
Village of Bath
Bruce Talbot, reeve
United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada
Douglas Crawford, president
United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry
Neil Williamson, economic development director
Charles Sangster, warden
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
John Ryce, chair, MCTR employee relations committee
Roger Haley, job security officer and negotiator, eastern Ontario
Michael Oliver, board member, region 4
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)
Ferguson, Will, (Kitchener ND)
*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)
Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
*Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
*Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne ND)
Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND) for Ms Harrington
Morin, Gilles E. (Carleton East/-Est L) for Mr Bradley
Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC) for Mrs Witmer
Villeneuve, Noble (S-D-G & East Grenville/S-D-G & Grenville-Est PC) for Mr McLean
Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Iles ND) for Mr Ferguson
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 0900 in the Best Western Parkway Inn, Cornwall.
ST LAWRENCE PARKS COMMISSION
The Chair (Mrs Margaret Marland): Good morning. I'd like to resume this meeting of the standing committee on government agencies as we continue our agency review of the St Lawrence Parks Commission.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 404
The Chair: I would like to welcome our first deputation this morning, Mr Peter Cazaly, president of Local 404 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. Welcome to the committee. You have a half-hour, and I know you're aware that committee members like to ask you questions, if you can leave some time at the end. Please proceed.
Mr Peter Cazaly: Madam Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for giving me time to address you on some concerns that I bring to you from Local 404 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. The members of Local 404 represent a large number of employees, well over 200, who work for the St Lawrence Parks Commission in various areas: parks and security, maintenance and engineering, Upper Canada Village and its support services, operations and administration. It represents classified, unclassified, seasonal and, of late, student employees. I bring to you certain concerns on behalf of these people to this committee.
We are facing some difficult times. Funding cutbacks, building and park closures, the prevalence of outside contracting and the failure to replace employees lost by retirement and attrition, all these, have seriously jeopardized the commission's ability to deliver quality service in its recreational, tourism and historical preservation and interpretation mandate. We are concerned with people here, and we are concerned with jobs.
The commission, as an agency of the Ontario government, has an obligation with a more than 30-year tradition behind it to conserve, protect and interpret our historical and natural heritage. Like John Cleary, I'm a native of this area, having lived here all my life, and I remember the events that took place more than 30 years ago in this area when many of us were forced to lose our homes and our farms and our livelihoods and to cope with the change in life brought about by expropriation and forced sale of our lands. Quite frankly, one of my strongest memories as a child was sitting watching my grandfather cry for the first time in his life as he was forced to sign over a farm which had been in the family for more than 200 years. I'd never seen him cry before.
The gentleman who engineered the sale with us promised me and the children sitting around the table that we would all have jobs for the rest of our lives with the St Lawrence Parks Commission, as our home and our farm were being taken away from us.
Those commitments and those promises are still very much alive in the minds of the people who remember these events. Upper Canada Village remains a symbol for the people who lost their homes and their buildings, and they are the proud conservators and interpreters of these sites and these assets. As public servants, we all take pride in our ability to preserve them and to interpret our way of life to those who visit us.
There's a sign on Highway 2 as you approach Upper Canada Village from the east that still calls it a museum, and we who work there are proud to claim it as a museum. The recreational areas and facilities that were set up around Upper Canada Village are a public service, traditionally maintained by public funds. To the best of my knowledge, they were never intended to make a profit. The buildings, artefacts, skills and expertise, as interpreted by commission employees, are part of what a government traditionally does for its citizens as a cultural institution. Upper Canada Village and its surrounding agencies are a cultural institution on a scale which involves a worldwide reputation and a three-star rating in the Michelin Guide. We will match our expertise and our knowledge against any federal institution, including the Museum of Civilization. Cultural institutions are traditionally funded in part or whole by public funds and staffed by skilled and trained public servants and government employees.
Upper Canada Village is a repository not only for artefacts, architecturally historic buildings, records, botanical and zoological breeding stock, but possesses an enormously talented group of employees whose skills, knowledge and expertise are unique in this country. They are respected and admired by visitors to whom they communicate in many languages. There are people sitting in this room today, interpreters from Upper Canada Village, who speak languages beyond English and French, who have enormous ranges of skills and abilities, many of them unique in this country, and the sad thing is that their numbers are being depleted by government cutback and by profit-driven management policies. Once gone, they and their knowledge will be impossible to replace. Closed buildings, half-doors and scarce staffing don't encourage these people with expertise to stay.
Another part of the purpose of the parks system and Upper Canada Village is its educational role. I'm a teacher with 25 years' experience in the public system in Ontario, and I came to Upper Canada Village with the hope that I could be a teacher in a different way in a different venue. They are very much teaching operations. We teach in the areas of natural, social and cultural history and studies. We have up to this point sadly neglected this part of its outreach in this area: It is underfunded and sadly understaffed. There is enormous potential in expanding a wide range of educational programs for all ages and interests which could provide employment the year round and attract many more clients to commission sites.
Quite frankly, our employees face a difficult time, with the renovation of the social system in Ottawa, with a press which designates them chronic users of the social system and of UI. There are enormous opportunities here beyond the traditional season of the Upper Canada Village and the parks to turn it into one of the best educational facilities in the world. There's an opportunity here to employ those people for the very skills they possess.
When the commission was founded it was understood widely throughout this community that it had an obligation to remain a major employer in an area where jobs have always traditionally been scarce and where the dislocations created 30 years ago robbed many residents of their traditional means of employment. Although this may not be written in stone, there may be no document which attests to this for all time, I was there, and many of us remember the promises that were made to those of us who lost livelihoods and ways of life: "Don't worry, the St Lawrence Parks Commission will take care of you. We'll have jobs for you and your children for many years to come." We believe those promises should still be honoured.
Too many services are being contracted out to low-paying, inadequate companies whose shoddy service and workmanship have diminished the reputation of our customer service. Filthy washrooms, which we have had to endure all season long at Upper Canada Village and elsewhere, bad construction, and sloppy, uncaring work do not enhance the quality that the commission sites used to stand for. Some of our bargaining unit employees have informed me that their job during the season is to go around and take care of the mistakes made by outside contractors during the winter.
Our bargaining unit employees care about the quality of their work. Many of them go way beyond the call of duty in training themselves on their own time and at their own expense during the winter season. Their skills are professional-level. We are all being cheated, visitors and taxpayers alike, when they are replaced by outside contractors who use unskilled, inadequate labour. Quite frankly, OPSEU holds the same views about well-meaning but untrained volunteers. People do not come to Upper Canada Village and the parks to talk to volunteers who know little or nothing about the site.
The commission always seems to have money for special projects, construction or otherwise, but when cuts have to be made, employees are the first to suffer. In many cases, they tell me they are restricted from working on or bidding on these winter projects, when they are the people who most need the work. Management needs to wrestle seriously with ways to keep employees working the year round. What is the point of planning new buildings and attractions if there is no skilled staff to interpret or run them?
Labour-management disputes stem primarily from an unwillingness on the part of many supervisors and some management to honour the collective agreement. I've been president of the local for approximately three months, and I've come to the conclusion that many of our difficulties in the breach of the collective agreement come from the supervisory staff who either will not read the agreement, patently don't understand it or simply wish to get around it in an illegal way. We are constantly dealing with disputes that would never occur were this not the case. Seasonal, unclassified employees, who are the majority in our workplace, are among the least protected in our workforce and certainly the least secure in our society. We have a hostile environment from the press especially, which of later weeks has designated us, as I said before, chronic users of the social system.
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In conclusion, to end on a positive note, we face the future with hope and with optimism. For many of us, the St Lawrence Parks Commission and its various sites are still a very good place to work. We enjoy our jobs. We train ourselves to do those jobs well beyond the call of duty and well beyond what is offered to us in training. What we ask is to be treated with dignity and fairness, and we expect to have our skills, knowledge and professionalism acknowledged. We're all very proud of what we do.
I know you enjoyed yourselves yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm glad you did, on your tour the day before. What I would have hoped was that you could have come through Upper Canada Village when it was in full swing. When the village is animated and alive with interpreters and with members of the public, it's a very, very special place. I would wish that you had, if you have not already done so, talked to the interpreters onsite, to the people who work in the parks and in other agencies, and realize just what a very special group of employees they are. Their skills, their knowledge, their ability to deal with a wide variety of visitors from all over the world are unmatched in this country. We are proud of what we do, and our conviction is that no one can do it better than members of OPSEU. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Cazaly. I would like to explain why we scheduled the hearing for this week. I know you are aware that a representative of each caucus toured the village when it was open three weeks ago, so there is a representative of each caucus who knows and can convey what it is like when it's open. We couldn't, however, schedule the public hearings when everybody was working, because then they wouldn't have had the opportunity, as you've had today, to come before the committee. That's the reason we are meeting this week, after the parks had closed, so everyone had an opportunity to come before the committee.
Mr Cazaly: Thank you.
The Chair: We have five minutes per caucus, and in rotation this morning we are starting with the government members.
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): Good morning. You referred to being here before the flooding and the promise that was made. I was given to understand that in fact it wasn't called the parks commission at the time, but the economic development corporation or --
Mr Cazaly: Yes, you're quite right, although that certainly didn't last for any length of time and it eventually evolved into the organization which we now have in place. As I said when I was speaking, the government of the day and perhaps even its agency, Ontario Hydro, was very careful, I think, not to etch these promises in stone, and that's why I was very careful in calling it an understanding. The understanding has always existed in this area from the very beginning that those who were dislocated -- and we're talking about the flooding of an extensive area here and the loss of many farms and the livelihood that goes with them. The understanding was that people who were dislocated were going to be given an opportunity for employment in the various activities of the St Lawrence Parks Commission.
Mr Frankford: It seems to me that perhaps one can identify three major components of what are now the parks. There's a land trust aspect, there is the heritage aspect, and there's also the economic development, more broadly, which maybe is not that much in the mandate now, but I think it was in the first place. That must be part of what is expected, that it's economic development for the area, not just those other things. It seems to me that perhaps there's an inconsistency, that if one is trying to pool all those together but then to have essentially a profit-or-loss bottom line, this doesn't really work for the other things like the cultural-educational aspect. We can certainly argue that museums are not supposed to be profit-making activities.
Mr Cazaly: I agree that there may be a perceived tension among those three activities. Nevertheless, the lands are and I think should be certainly seen as a public trust. My point is that they were taken by expropriation and forced sale. No one was more aware of that than those of us who lived around here at the time. To simply talk about a wholesale disposition of those lands, either through sale or through lease to private contractors, it seems to me does not honour those particular agreements that were made.
You're quite right. Upper Canada Village is very much a heritage preservation-oriented site, yet the development that was talked about at the very beginning was a development for tourism, a development in which the tourist industry of eastern Ontario would be seen as something which would be the driving engine of the economy at that time, and certainly now: We are a very large employer here, obviously.
Farming, the traditional means of earning a living, was certainly undergoing tremendous transitions in the 1950s and 1960s. My own experience of living on a farm is that radical changes occurred; small farms were no longer economically viable. The parks commission was seen as alternative employment for the people of this area.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any broader vision of how the local economy should work, the balance between tourism and maybe other things?
Mr Cazaly: "Other things" meaning heritage and the educational component of the village?
Mr Frankford: Whatever.
Mr Cazaly: To some extent, I think tourism is an economic necessity that underfunds the interpretative or heritage aspect of the commission itself, and I think you need a very close alliance between the two. I still maintain that the public servant is the one who can best interpret the natural heritage of this area, which I think is a tremendous drawing card for tourists themselves. People come to the bird sanctuary, they come to the parks because they represent a natural heritage that they delight in. There was talk about preserving the shoreline, at the time of the Seaway flooding, so that it would be accessible to all rather than to a few. I still see that as very much the mandate of the commission.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Thank you for coming before the hearing. I would agree with you that the potential of the St Lawrence parks is not really fully utilized in many ways. The potential is there to make a good living for the people around us and to educate the people of Canada, or maybe the world, who come and see these great assets we have here.
It's a short time we have and my colleague really wants to get on record with some of the things he wants to clarify with you, but I was extremely interested in your ninth point, where you say that many supervisors and some management more or less fail and are unwilling to honour the collective agreement. That must be rather painful after going through years of negotiation in order to get certain things recognized for the workers. How did you feel when the ultimate stroke came about, when the government of the day completely violated the collective bargaining agreement with the social contract? How did that affect the system here? What was your feeling about that?
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Mr Cazaly: I'll give you an example of that, because during the last several months it has become obvious to many employees that even though, in their evaluation the season before, they were recommended for movement into a higher pay category, shall we say, or some reward for an increase in salary, they realized that of course the social contract makes that impossible at this point. That's one aspect of ways in which we find it very difficult to deal with. Many of our employees face not only a reduction in their salaries because of the social contract, but also a reduction in their UIC benefits, so they're being hit twice. It's very difficult to deal with, obviously.
Mr Curling: So you have to look at sources. I think all the governments have to look at sources where they can find money, having abused the collective bargaining agreement. How do you feel then, looking at the pension fund, OPSEU, and using that as a sort of investment into this program and having some ownership then, so to speak, in this situation here?
Mr Cazaly: That's a difficult area. I said I was a former teacher, and as of three or four years ago the government gave the pension fund the right to dabble in the stock market to increase the revenues for the pension fund itself. There have been some difficulties with that and I think in many cases the pension fund as it exists for classified employees -- they don't represent a large component of our bargaining unit people -- is probably an area they would find very difficult to control once it's used.
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Thanks for your presentation, Peter. I guess that some of the things in your opening remarks about the promises in the past, many of us know them. I don't think that much can be done about that, but we have to look from today forward and I think all strive with the goal to make the St Lawrence Parks Commission possibly better than it is now and attract more visitors to the area. I think that's everyone's goal. Some of the things that have happened in the past, the parks that have closed, some of the vacant land that's around that's not maintained, do you support a partnership agreement on those parks and that vacant land, something that would attract more tourists to the area and possibly would be a great benefit to Upper Canada Village and the St Lawrence Parks Commission?
Mr Cazaly: The danger of those partnerships is that it makes it so very easy for management to say, "Look, they can run the parks much more cheaply with the private sector." My job is to defend public service jobs here and I still maintain that people employed under the OPSEU agreement are much better employees than those who are running in the private sector. Obviously, the commission needs to look again at what its mandate is. Parks are not just places for recreation, although they are that; they are places for the natural heritage to be enjoyed, to be preserved and maintained. I still maintain that the level of professionalism of public service employees is well beyond what you see in the private sector. We can do the job better.
Mr Noble Villeneuve (S-D-G & East Grenville): Mr Cazaly, thank you for your presentation. How many OPSEU members do you have who are presently employed in the Parks of the St Lawrence as opposed to, say, five years ago?
Mr Cazaly: I don't have the actual figures, because I was just dealing with Local 404. We have approximately 285 bargaining unit employees at the moment, excluding students, GO Temps and those under temporary contract.
Mr Villeneuve: You have painted the private contractors in a rather bad light here. Would you suggest that students are in the same situation, or what's your opinion on students working at the parks?
Mr Cazaly: At the moment, students under the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act are part of the bargaining unit system, although certainly their role is not clearly defined at this point. My job as the president of the local is to defend the students and to represent their needs to the best of my ability and what is presently allowed by the collective employees' bargaining association.
Mr Villeneuve: Park closures have been a major travesty in the area because it's prime waterfront property. The perfect example is Grenville Park, which was closed for years. It cost the parks commission somewhere in the area of $40,000 to operate at a deficit the last time. They're now recouping some $20,000-plus from the people who operate it. We have a situation in Charlottenburgh and Raisin that is also alarming: two pretty prime waterfront properties that are not being used and haven't been used.
We get mixed messages, my colleague the member for Cornwall and I, regarding the local OPSEU position. What is your position on these park closures? We want to hear it from the people who are directly involved here regarding successor rights and all the rest of it.
Mr Cazaly: The parks' closures are the thin edge of the wedge. Obviously, what they allow is for the commission to further consider the possibility of using the same mechanism for recouping income in other areas. It stands to reason that if you're able to rent out the parks and receive remuneration that is profitable in return for that, what that allows you to do, and we heard some aspect of that yesterday, is to look at the other facilities, the non-park facilities, in the same light.
Certainly, that's an area where I think most of the members of the local would be very loath to tread. Obviously, we're not going to countenance, at this point, any discussion of the fact that Upper Canada Village or any of the prime attractions can be better run by the private sector.
Mr Villeneuve: That's a bit of a dichotomy because the ones that are being run by the private sector have turned a deficit into some money back to the Parks of the St Lawrence. Now, I realize from your earlier statements that your particular philosophy and theory are that the Parks of the St Lawrence were never intended to be returning moneys too, I guess, as an arm of the government. But reality has to set in here at some point when the well is dry, and I think it's very close to being dry now.
Mr Cazaly: That may be so. Nevertheless, as you say, the parks were seen as a service to the public on behalf of the government. You don't run most major cultural institutions in Ottawa looking at the bottom line or the profit-making mechanism. Naturally, you want to return some value on your money. But at the same time you also have to see them as services that the government provides to the people. The shoreline was cleared of private enterprise so that the whole public could enjoy it together.
Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): Just following up on that, I understand what you're saying and I appreciate what you're saying, but the fact is that the government's running something like an $8-billion to $10-billion annual deficit and the parks commission is losing a significant amount of money. Going over your brief here, you make some references to certain things like a potential for year-round operation and you mention also that there's an obligation to remain a major employer. I guess I'm wondering if your local has taken a look at, or perhaps through the larger resources of OPSEU provincially, if you've taken a look at or even been asked -- this is another element you may want to comment on. You say you run these parks better. When we look at the Johnstown situation, it doesn't look like you run these parks better, and the public utilizing the park is not giving us that same kind of feedback as well.
I'm just wondering what things you have done in terms of developing specific proposals to submit to the commission which say to it: "This is what we can do in cooperation with you and other partners to make sure that these are efficient operations. If we don't make money, at least we come close to breaking even."
Mr Cazaly: That's a valid question. I have just recently been put on to a business improvement group established by the management of Upper Canada Village where we sit down and we look at ways of extending the employment season, ways of making money by offering a whole range of different services. Certainly, the educational component is one that we're looking at seriously at this time.
I quite agree in some cases that there is quite a difference between running a park for profit and running Upper Canada Village for profit. Unfortunately, the commission has a wide range of services within its purview, but I don't think there's a lack of ideas at this point. Certainly, my reading of the situation out there is that we could be doing so much more to extend the range of services offered by the commission beyond the season into the shoulder season and even during the winter programming.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Cazaly, for your appearance before the committee this morning.
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ONTARIO PRIVATE CAMPGROUND ASSOCIATION
The Chair: Our next deputation is Brian and June Cox, who are representing the Ontario Private Campground Association. Good morning, Mr Cox. Welcome to the committee this morning. You're doing this alone, I gather.
Mr Brian Cox: I'm doing this alone.
The Chair: That's fine. Please proceed. You do have one half-hour, and if you could leave time for questions by the members, they would appreciate it.
Mr Cox: My name is Brian Cox. I represent the Ontario Private Campground Association and I'm owner-operator of Upper Canada Campground located in Morrisburg. We have a concern with the leasing policies of the St Lawrence Parks Commission that we would like to see addressed.
If I may, I'd like to open with a letter from our managing director, Mr Fred Gray:
"Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to your review of the St Lawrence Parks Commission.
"The Ontario Private Campground Association has, for the past 25 years, been the voice of the private campground industry in Ontario. There are an estimated 150,000 campsites in the province of Ontario of which 120,000 are in private campgrounds. Tourism is becoming an increasingly important aspect of economic life in Ontario. The economic impact of the campground industry is often overlooked because of its generally rural and scattered nature. The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation in their March, 1994, release...establishes the average spending by a tourist per night in 1993...at $78.23. This is an industry which can have a notable positive economic impact on small rural communities which are otherwise unable to attract industry or tourists. Our members are not megadevelopments, averaging 91-100 sites provincially. Even with only 30% occupancy over just a 90-days' season, the average campground can be pumping well in excess of $200,000 into small rural communities close by, in addition to the wages paid and purchases generated by the business.
"The private campground industry in Ontario only asks for two considerations. They do not ask for special financial handouts or concessions. They only asked to be brought to the table to participate in tourism planning that affects them and they ask that the playing field be level. To be as productive as possible for the benefit of all Ontario, tourism must be developed cooperatively. A move which might be advantageous to one segment of the tourism industry may well be at the expense of another. This is particularly true with respect to campgrounds. At the present time, the private campgrounds in the area and the St Lawrence Parks Commission are operating in balance. They are, in combination, responding to the demand. Any increase in supply will upset the current balance and jeopardize the continuing presence of existing private campgrounds. Any expansion in supply should be a matter of joint concern and consensus. The financial support from public funds, which has provided the commission with an enviable land base, should not be used as an economic club to bludgeon private competition. The commission's historical and tourism mandate should not be used as an excuse to kill private campgrounds. Such is not needed to respond to the current tourism demands. Such a move will kill another taxpaying employer. Any future changes in this respect should require a joint consensus.
"The private campground industry asks also that a level playing field be maintained. A private campground could be paying municipal taxes, business taxes, special assessments...such as garbage, as well as corporate taxes. A private campground could be paying interest on borrowed money, as well as repaying capital. After a number of years of negotiations, charges in private parks are (almost) on par with publicly funded parks. Any capital improvements in publicly operated or leased parks, without the need to pay interest or repay capital, tips the playing field to the advantage of the public parks. Even if exactly the same site rate is charged, there is a strong business advantage to the public parks. Any leasing or use of commission campgrounds without factoring in a figure comparable to the cost of operating, carried by necessity by a private campground, tips the playing field.
"In conclusion, the current supply meets the demand. Public lands should not be used to overexpand supply at the expense of the private businessman. Further, an economic equilibrium of operation must be maintained which goes beyond just the hourly rate involved. Both segments contribute. But private industry also contributes taxes and fees to its local municipality."
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have eight minutes per caucus and we're starting with the Liberals.
Mr Cleary: Thank you for your presentation. I take it from your presentation that you would not support the parks that have been closed by the St Lawrence Parks Commission being reopened under private enterprise?
Mr Cox: Absolutely not. In fact, just the opposite. What we ask for is a fair base. Perhaps, if you wouldn't mind, I could finish the last two pages and it could explain our local position. Would that be possible?
The Chair: Yes. I'll have to recalculate everything, but that's fine. Go ahead.
Mr Cleary: Forget that I said it.
The Chair: Carry on. We'll just time from when you're finished.
Mr Cox: As private campground owners, we have a vested interest in the commission's parks. After all, we are in competition with one another.
They made a prudent business decision a few years ago to close five money-losing parks. Two of these parks have been reopened by other interests and have almost instantly shown a profit or are operating at near capacity. One certainly has to wonder why.
A surge in new campers has not been demonstrated in any other park in the area. People have been drawn from the private sector to these parks by prime water frontage at bargain prices.
The easy way to solve our concern would be to request the commission stand by its original decision. This would not be in the best long-term interests of anyone; in fact, just the opposite. More commission property should be made available for tourism activities that complement rather than compete with the facilities already available. What we would ask is that the commission property be made available in a manner that is fair to competing businesses of the private sector. We would ask for the commission to re-examine its leasing problems and to develop new policies in line with that of the private sector.
Leasing should be based on the same components as other businesses: payments on the appraised value of the land; taxes to the municipalities; depreciation on appraised value of the commission's chattels on the property; setup fees for leasing.
There is nothing secretive or speculative about any of these components. This should be public knowledge before any lease is signed and be the bare minimum accepted by the commission regardless of whether being undertaken by a private entrepreneur, a corporation or another level of government.
In closing, we in the private sector are not afraid of competition. However, the commission was created to promote and assist tourism in eastern Ontario. It must assist all the industry equally in this highly competitive field and not unfairly subsidize those who choose to lease its property.
I thank you for this opportunity to address the committee.
The Chair: I guess now we're down to six minutes per caucus. We'll start again with Mr Cleary. We've given you a little bonus, you realize.
Mr Cleary: I deserve it. Thank you.
I think you're going against the wishes of a lot of the municipalities that seem to support reopening these parks that have lain vacant for many, many years. The municipalities and the people I talk to seem to support the reopening in some way. I could take a drive with you and I could talk to many businessmen who think that if they were reopened, they would attract more investment and would pay money to the Ontario government, some of the revenue would go to the municipalities and everyone would benefit. I happen to agree with them.
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Mr Cox: I agree with you fully. That is absolutely correct. What we would like to see are these parks reopened, but in such a manner that they are not unfairly subsidized by the commission.
Mr Cleary: But if those parks were reopened under private enterprise and a percentage of the revenue went to the Ontario government, you don't think that would benefit you?
Mr Cox: Absolutely. It's the mythology of the way these leases are set up. The land has a value. The roads have a value. Taxes have a value. Not only the parks themselves but other vacant land as well has a fixed value. We would like to see those parks be made available, but be made available at a rate that is competitive with the private sector.
Mr Cleary: And a percentage of revenue.
Mr Cox: Not necessarily a percentage of revenue, because what that factors in is a bad season. If you have a bad season, then you just pay less revenue. That is not the way it works in the private sector. If we have a bad season, we lose financially. These parks, if they're re-leased, should be set up in such a way that it's a very fixed cost. I think you'll find that anybody in a private business would prefer it that way.
Mr Cleary: My colleague has a question here.
Mr Curling: I'm learning about all these camping sites and all that, but my understanding is that some of the people who do have camping, especially in the St Lawrence parks, would like some extended time, what they call the short-term or what's the --
The Chair: Shoulder.
Mr Curling: They needed some extended time to stay and not to be moved so regularly. Would that, in any way, have an impact on your business? Do you support that, that they should maybe have more time there?
Mr Cox: I think that the commission should turn the parks over to whoever operates them, and they should operate them in whichever fashion they feel is best. As long as it's turned over on the same financial basis that the private sector faces, they should be free to operate their business. If they wish extended shoulder seasons, if they wish to change the zoning so that the trailers may stay there on a year-round basis, it should be up to the individual operator how they wish to operate those parks.
Mr Curling: What if the St Lawrence Parks Commission decided to turn over some to you, then, and lease you those parks? Maybe then you could run it more efficiently.
Mr Cox: I don't believe I could operate it any more efficiently than the St Lawrence Parks Commission; I don't believe any person in the private sector could. They could provide different activities, they could provide different bases, but I don't believe that the private sector should be denied the opportunity to try.
Mr Curling: On the balance side, though, and I'm trying to understand it, if the government pumps more money into it, it puts you at a disadvantage because you're in the private sector and they're using public funds to do that. On the other hand, you're saying that they can run it efficiently. Because they would need more money for maintenance and what have you, that flies in the face of competing with your kind of a business.
Mr Cox: Are your stating that the St Lawrence Parks Commission would reopen these campgrounds or that the private sector would reopen these campgrounds?
Mr Curling: There are parks that are closed now, right? Maybe if they were given to the private sector, if they reopened, they could operate it. You're saying no, you wouldn't like to see that, those closed parks.
Mr Cox: No, we would like to see those parks reopened.
Mr Curling: But not leasing it to the private sector?
Mr Cox: Definitely reopened by the private sector, but to be done so that the private sector that is operating those campgrounds faces the same financial concerns that anyone else in the private sector faces.
Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much, Mr Cox, for your presentation. The fact that you're situated in the middle of an area which is basically known as Upper Canada Village, the name of your campground is Upper Canada Campground, does that help you or hurt you?
Mr Cox: I would definitely have to say it would assist us.
Mr Villeneuve: It assists you. What's your capacity?
Mr Cox: We have approximately 110 campsites.
Mr Villeneuve: Your occupancy this summer, or any summer, would be running at about what level during the May 15 to September 15 period?
Mr Cox: On the norm, 60%.
Mr Villeneuve: The adjacent parks run by the Parks of the St Lawrence, would they be anywhere close to 60% occupancy?
Mr Cox: No, they would not, because the parks are inherently larger. So I would say they would have a lower percentage occupancy than what we would have.
Mr Villeneuve: Are your sites all serviced?
Mr Cox: No, they are not.
Mr Villeneuve: Your serviced sites would be the ones that are preferred by the camping community?
Mr Cox: Yes, they are.
Mr Villeneuve: So they would fill up first and then your secondary sites, with only possibly hydro or with no service at all, would be filled up.
Mr Cox: That is correct.
Mr Villeneuve: I think the parks commission has been very careful to not be out there servicing some of these sites. They do have some serviced sites, but I think minimal. The percentage of your serviced sites, would they be in the 50% area?
Mr Cox: Yes, it would be high.
Mr Villeneuve: Whereas the parks commission serviced sites would be in the 15% to 20% range?
Mr Cox: I think that's probably fair, yes.
Mr Villeneuve: I certainly appreciate the fact that they have looked at that and they don't want to be in direct competition with people such as yourself. The example -- and again, I go back to Grenville Park, and we've used the Cooper family on a number of occasions -- I understand that they're at the upper end of the camping cost schedule. Would you know that?
Mr Cox: We reviewed that information. I believe they've been directed to be in the upper end, yes.
Mr Villeneuve: Do you have a problem with that?
Mr Cox: As far as them being directed? Yes. I don't believe that the commission should be directing its lessees, dictating their policies.
Mr Villeneuve: Would you not agree, though, that's to protect people like you?
Mr Cox: Yes and no. If the leasing structure is not set up as we foresee it should be set up, then yes. There is the private entrepreneur on one end, whose primary interest is profit; there is the commission at the other end, whose primary interest is to service the people of Ontario. Anything in between the two extremes ends up in a no man's land that the commission gives rules to, and basically nobody's happy. So it's that grey area that the private sector has trouble with. If the land is to be available, then we would like to see it go full swing to the private sector. Either the commission runs it, or if it does not wish to run it, please turn it over, lease it to the private sector so that they may operate it.
Mr Villeneuve: No strings.
Mr Cox: They have strings in the sense that it's leased. If life is not going as they would like to see it go, they always have the opportunity to revoke that lease.
Mr Villeneuve: My colleague from Brockville would have a couple of questions during our time.
Mr Runciman: Do you view a 60% occupancy rate as a good season?
Mr Cox: I believe we had a good season this year, yes.
Mr Runciman: How did it compare to previous years?
Mr Cox: Probably up about 5% or 6%.
Mr Runciman: I tend to agree with you in terms of reopening some of the closed campgrounds for that particular purpose. I'm surprised at your occupancy levels being as high as they are, because from what I see along the Thousand Island Parkway and the federal campground at Mallorytown Landing, I suspect they're lucky if they have 30% to 40% occupancy levels during the course of the season. Now they're contemplating closing that federal campground along the parkway. Maybe my observation is incorrect, but there seem to be fewer people camping, or at least fewer people using government campsites. I'm not sure if either one of those is correct. What's your view on what's happening in terms of the number of people who are camping?
Mr Cox: I would say the numbers are pretty constant. What happens is that the government campgrounds tend to service more the tourism people, the mobile people, whereas private campgrounds tend to serve more people who treat their campsites like cottages, hence the appearance of a greater number of people.
Mr Runciman: So you have a lot of seasonal campers, people who come and put their trailer or whatever there for the season.
Mr Cox: Approximately 30% of our market is that way, yes.
Mr Runciman: Can I ask you what your daily rates are? How do you compare?
Mr Cox: That varies upon the pricing structure. It's $17.50 base, that's for water and electricity, and then it's an additional $1.50 per person on top of that. We tried to set up our structure like that because if you have a large family you use our facilities more than if you have a small family, which is fair to people with smaller families.
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Mr Runciman: Do you provide other services that perhaps government campgrounds don't provide?
Mr Cox: We provide a larger entertainment value, yes.
Mr Runciman: In what respect?
Mr Cox: We have a trampoline. We have one summer student who full-time simply -- can I use the word "babysits" children, in the sense that they organize activities: baseball, soccer. With the same people at your facility, after a while the children get a little rambunctious, so there's a need to entertain them, and that's what we focus on, entertaining those children.
Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): Good morning. From my understanding, the parks commission, and indeed I believe even to a certain extent when they leasehold parks, does cater to transient tourists; that's part of their mandate. They pretty much, in their own parks anyway, have left the seasonal business to the private sector. You're saying that you'd like that thrown open so that indeed they could take your seasonal sites and move them? Coming from Muskoka, I can tell you that people want the waterfront. If you were to throw it open, you would see a major migration to the waterfront.
Mr Cox: For the commission to operate that way or for the private sector to operate that way?
Mr Waters: Whether it's the commission or the private sector, if they leasehold the park, it's still the park on the water. It doesn't matter.
Mr Cox: If the private sector was to take over the commission's property at its face value, I think that the pricing structure would reflect that and the seasonal lots would reflect that, and there would not be a concern.
Mr Waters: You're telling me that people wouldn't pay $5 more a night to go and stay on the water?
Mr Cox: Yes, they may.
Mr Waters: Or $50 or $100 more a season to have a waterfront lot? I think that they very much would pay that.
Mr Cox: Yes, they would. That is the current concern that we have.
Mr Waters: I guess that's where my concern is. I think that the commission puts in restraints in order to protect the private entrepreneur in eastern Ontario so that indeed, whether it's through our parks run by the St Lawrence Parks Commission or in a leasehold situation, we're not affecting your business in a negative fashion to that great of an extent, because I could see a major migration if you did that, if you opened it up and I wanted to fill my park. The first thing I do is I go after your seasonals, and I have the waterfront to do it.
Mr Cox: I think not, because if that was the case, then I could go out and purchase another piece of property and do exactly the same. I believe the cost factor of that property will ultimately determine the cost of the seasonal lots.
Mr Waters: I don't think you're going to see the committee recommend that the St Lawrence Parks Commission divest itself of its waterfront property at all. I don't think that you will see that kind of a recommendation in order for it to just be sold off to the private sector.
Mr Cox: We're not asking them to sell it; we're asking them to make more available to be leased by the private sector. If the commission is not going to be developing the waterfront property, has no plans to develop not only those parks but other land tracts as well, we would like to see them be made available to be developed.
Mr Waters: Maybe Mr Pond or Madam Chair could clarify this, but I seem to recall that when the subcommittee did the tour and we were standing in Charlottenburgh Park it was mentioned that they were looking at leasehold opportunities for the land, not necessarily as a campground.
Mr Villeneuve: With successor rights.
Mr Waters: What I'm trying to get at, at this point, is that just because we're looking at leaseholds for those parks or those lands, and hopefully by the end of this month that will be in place, it does not necessarily mean that it will be a campground. There seems to have been an assumption at this set of hearings that this was all that was being entertained. Mr Pond, I see you nodding your head in an affirmative fashion, that they're looking for the best opportunity for the land, not necessarily a campground. What would your feeling be on that?
Mr Cox: I would just like to see some of the properties be made available for development. I'm sure if they are developed as campgrounds, the leasing-pricing structure will make them competitive; if they're developed for other interests, all the better. It will not be in direct competition with the private sector.
Mr Waters: In a couple of cases when the parks have closed, the municipalities have taken them over; they've become the leasehold operator. Indeed, I'm pretty well certain that was an offer at Charlottenburgh and Raisin River. If these are viable parks, why wouldn't the municipalities have taken them over? Any idea why?
Mr Cox: I think it's up to the individual municipalities to make the choice. I guess Osnabruck decided yes. It may be the distance of the communities from the parks.
Mr Waters: I just wondered, because it's been something that's been gnawing at me for a while. What I'm hearing from Mr Cleary and from a number of people down here is that these are viable parks, and yet there was an opportunity for local management of the parks through their townships and they said, "No, thank you." So I just wondered if it was an opportunity for the township to make money. I know most municipalities are looking for dollars.
The Chair: Is that a question? You're now out of time.
Mr Waters: Oh. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr and Mrs Cox, for your appearance before the committee this morning.
VILLAGE OF MORRISBURG
The Chair: Our next deputation this morning is the reeve of the village of Morrisburg, Reeve Gordon McGregor. Welcome, Reeve McGregor. Please have a seat and be comfortable. I think you have been advised that the committee likes to have time to ask questions. You have half an hour for your presentation and questions.
Mr Gordon McGregor: Good morning, gentlemen and ladies. I do know a couple of you, I guess: Noble, John. Allan McLean was supposed to be on the agenda. Is he here?
Mr Villeneuve: No. He had a tough schedule.
Mr McGregor: I'm not sure if the presentation I have is in keeping with the required criteria, but it contains some items that are of concern to us in the village of Morrisburg and a lot of things that have been brought to my attention by both tourists and residents of our area. Did you want me to read this?
The Chair: It's your choice, Reeve McGregor.
Mr McGregor: You all have copies.
The Chair: Yes. You may read it if you wish, which places it on the Hansard record.
Mr McGregor: Okay, I'll read it, because people behind me like to hear what I have to say about our concerns.
The Chair: Good. Thank you.
Mr McGregor: Very minor; I've heard some data just since I came in about the operation of parks, the maybe transferring of parks land and so on, and I have none of that here. It's a few very small things.
I would say that the reason for my being here is not to offer criticism of the St Lawrence parks operation, but rather to suggest methods of cooperation between our municipality and the parks.
Before I get to that point, there are a couple of suggestions I would like to pass on to you. These suggestions are the result of comments passed on to me by tourists visiting our area. There are only two, and they're small:
(1) The village, and I'm referring now to Upper Canada Village, has buildings closed on a rotating basis. How many I don't know, but there are buildings closed on different days. These people have paid the full admission price and would like to see it all. That's one complaint.
(2) The general area of the St Lawrence parks looks very run down due to lack of grass cutting. This year there were some improvements made there, but there are still areas that could be improved on.
Some thought could be given to rectifying these situations.
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As reeve of the village of Morrisburg and a small restaurant operator, I receive a lot of comments and suggestions concerning the parks area. None of them is critical, but offered with interest. They are as follows.
Winter activities: At one time there was a toboggan slide on the mound at Crysler monument. It was well used both by toboggans and skiers. It would still be used if the entrance were plowed, and the roadways around it. The village of Morrisburg is offering to plow this entrance, as well as the parking lot, for cross-country skiing on the north side of Highway 2.
This isn't written, but to follow that up, I have had some dialogue with the reeves of Williamsburg township and Osnabruck township and they would very likely offer the same services in other areas that could be and are not used in the wintertime. This would bring more activity to the village, more revenue to the parks and of course more visitors to our community.
The war memorial at the foot of the Crysler monument mound has been closed for a number of years. This memorial is quite important to us. Morrisburg council is willing to attempt to generate interest in manning this memorial with volunteers if permission were granted by the parks commission.
It has also been stated to me that children get quite bored after a short time at Upper Canada Village. Should consideration be given to a different type of activity for them? One example given was a water slide and maybe some rides. A suggestion that followed this was maybe some private enterprise.
The train which sits as a static display just west of the village has deteriorated to the point where it needs a lot of repair. There has been some talk of its being moved to Smiths Falls. This is part of our history. Once it is gone, it is gone, and so is that part of our history. We are trying desperately to get groups interested in restoring it where it sits now, and we're asking for a reasonable amount of time to achieve this. The Morrisburg and District Chamber of Commerce has taken an interest and it is on its agenda.
In conclusion, I would like to say that Morrisburg village, the chamber of commerce and the business improvement area, the BIA, are extremely interested in the operation of the St Lawrence parks and are willing to cooperate in any way they can.
The St Lawrence parks and Upper Canada Village are important with regard to the economy of our community. We realize that money is not a bountiful commodity with our present government, but maybe some cooperation can go a long way, also keeping in mind that eastern Ontario will always be here and we need all the help we can get. There's a little subtle sarcasm there. I hope you can pick it up.
We do enjoy an excellent relationship with the management of the St Lawrence parks, and hopefully anything we can do together will enhance this relationship.
There are a couple of other things that I didn't mention in this report. A bicycle path or a bikeway which now runs from Cornwall out to Long Sault hopefully will find its way to Morrisburg and west of Morrisburg, here again with the cooperation of the St Lawrence parks, the village of Morrisburg and the township of Williamsburg. This is something I have discussed with Mr Shaw, the manager of the St Lawrence parks; and also the cooperation we enjoy with regard to information services with various people.
That is briefly what I have to present to you. I would be happy to answer any questions for the next 25 minutes.
The Chair: Thank you very much. The Progressive Conservatives. We have eight minutes per caucus.
Mr Villeneuve: Gord, thank you for your submission and for taking time to come from your restaurant and tell some of the advice that you get. I'm sure you get a good deal of advice, both from tourists and from people who are employed in the parks. What's the major concern from people who are employed in the parks as they have a coffee at Gregor's Place in the morning?
Mr McGregor: Where do I start? I don't know. The parks have changed so much over the past 10 or 12 years that maybe a lot of them don't know where it's at or where it's going. First is the different ways, I guess, of operating the village. I really don't know how to answer the question, but there has been a drastic change in the parks and I guess we would have to contribute some of it to the economy. I know in my business I rely a lot on the people who come to visit the area because of the parks, and I can see a drop in that in the past four to five years.
Mr Villeneuve: I can tell you that some of the people who come to me, first of all, would say the management isn't doing what they feel should be done, the union isn't protecting them the way they should be. As a matter of fact, there seem to be so many negatives that at times I wonder if there are positives. It's good to have this hearing because we've seen a lot of positives and I think that's very important.
When the parks are in full swing, do you notice, as reeve of the village of Morrisburg, considerable additional economic activity?
Mr McGregor: In my business I would say yes, because a lot of people come to the village, and if you're going to see it, you have to stay more than one day. A lot of people stay overnight and use my place and any other facility for eating in the village.
There's another thing as well to that. Because of the economy again and because of the shortness of money, high rates and so on, there are a lot of one-day travellers as well, and I get a lot of these.
As I said at the outset, I didn't come here to criticize the operation of the parks. Yes, I hear a lot of complaints about how the place is run as compared to what it was 15 to 20 years ago, keeping in mind that I've been here for 32 years. I really don't know where one would start.
With all due respect to Mr Shaw, who is a friend of mine -- and I have no knowledge of his capabilities as a manager, but I would assume they're reasonably good because we have a lot of dialogue, he and I -- here again being quite honest about it, from what I hear, I sometimes wonder if he gets all the information he should get.
Mr Villeneuve: Communication can always be a problem. At times, communication comes out at the wrong time to the wrong people at the wrong place, and that may indeed be what you're speaking of.
One final question, and my colleague from Brockville would like to ask you a few questions. On the rotating establishments within Upper Canada Village that are closed, we understand that if someone were to stay there two days -- and of course, they'd have to pay the admission for two days -- that would solve that problem.
Secondly, a lot of the people I've spoken with say the place closes down too early in the evening, when they have paid possibly at 3 o'clock and all of a sudden, two hours later, they're being asked to leave.
Mr McGregor: This is a complaint as well, not only from people who are already in there but people who are going there. I've had people in at 3 o'clock in the afternoon who say: "We're going to Upper Canada Village now. What time does it close?" "It's around 6." This is a surprise because in the long summer evenings, you could probably be wandering around enjoying a nice sunset or whatever over the village.
Mr Villeneuve: After the heat of the day.
Mr McGregor: That's right.
The Chair: Mr Runciman.
Mr Runciman: How much time do I have?
The Chair: Three and a half minutes.
Mr Runciman: Reeve McGregor, do you have an economic development commission or committee in your township or the county?
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Mr McGregor: Yes, we do, the South Dundas economic development committee.
Mr Runciman: And you're a full participant in that?
Mr McGregor: Yes.
Mr Runciman: Is the parks commission represented on that commission?
Mr McGregor: Yes, they are.
Mr Runciman: What's the working relationship? We had the president of the Eastern Ontario Travel Association here yesterday, just as an example, and he said if he had control over the property by the Crysler Park and so on that he'd have no trouble at all in getting a major investor to put a hotel there. I wonder about that and I just wonder if that sort of discussion has ever been raised at your commission meetings, if there have been any attempts to see if indeed there is interest in that kind of development.
Mr McGregor: I don't attend the meetings myself. There is a representative from council on the commission. I have never heard that. Well, I shouldn't say I've never heard that. There was some mention some time ago about a hotel being put there, but I was of the impression that it was the government itself that was thinking of putting it there. I have a thing about parks' property --
Mr Runciman: I think the government has had enough bad experiences with those kinds of investments, Minaki Lodge for one. I'll say it right out now, before someone else does.
Mr McGregor: I'm well aware of that and certainly agree with you that they maybe should stay out of that business, as well as a few others. But I have a thing about parks' property in that between Church Road and Ingleside there's quite a nice piece of land there and I just heard somebody mention a while ago about how quickly people would move in if the parks were to give it up.
Mr Runciman: Gord, I have very little time. I want to get a couple questions in.
Mr McGregor: Go ahead.
Mr Runciman: My point is that I think there should be more effort in terms of -- and maybe it's happening, but it doesn't sound like it's happening. You have a rep on the commission, but perhaps there could be more effort in terms of working cooperatively to enhance the attractions. Another element of that is, you mention in your brief here the train, the engine that you're concerned about.
We talked about this yesterday with the greater Kingston area, about the concern in Kingston about losing the sunset review, I think it's called, at Fort Henry. I posed the question and I think others did as well, if there's such concern about the impact that it's going to have on the area in the loss of tourism and the economic spinoff benefits, why wasn't there participation by the municipality, the chambers and so on in funding that, or encouragement from the corporate sector, what have you?
I guess I'm saying to you, here you're saying, "We're looking around," but if it's that important, why isn't the municipality or the county taking the bull by the horns and saying: "Look, we're going to guarantee that this is maintained to save this for this area. We'll guarantee that to the commission and if need be, we will fund it. But at the same time we're going to go out and find, hopefully, other sponsors. But we're going to be up front, we're going to commit ourselves to funding this and ensuring for the future that this historically important attraction stays in our area"?
Why don't you take those kinds of initiatives?
Mr McGregor: My answer to that question would be, until a very short time ago, I don't believe anyone was aware of the condition that this train was getting to be in. It was more or less taken for granted that it's there and it always will be. Only recently did it come to our attention that this was going to be moved, maybe to Smiths Falls to a museum they are attempting. I was up there and looked and they have enough junk up there already. It's going to be years before they get anything done with it, so why add another piece that's going to just sit there and deteriorate?
Because of the fact that we just heard about it because it just came to our attention how bad it was, we really haven't had time to do too much of what you said. But we have now the reeves of Osnabruck, Williamsburg, myself and possibly Cornwall township who are interested in keeping as much stuff here as we can.
I said a while ago about a subtle bit of sarcasm about eastern Ontario will always be here, and I don't know how many people west know it is here. So we have to do, I guess, as much as we can to try and promote this, and the train is one of them. But now that we're aware of the fact and we have people working at it, what we're asking for is a reasonable amount of time to do just what you asked.
Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): Welcome to the committee. I certainly appreciate the positive attitude in your presentation, that you want more cooperation with the commission for everybody's benefit, which I'm sure is the best way to go. I wasn't quite sure till you explained exactly what your sarcasm was, but I think there's a suggestion that money is extra tight under this government. I'm not sure that's the case, because as we travelled around, we heard for example that there's been a lot of investment in the marina at Upper Canada Village, there's been a lot of investment in bridges and roads and the sewage works at Fort Henry and so on, so I think there's quite a lot of infrastructure work going on there that was necessary to keep the whole thing functioning.
Mr McGregor: If I can stop you for a moment, I probably would have said the same thing if the Liberals or Tories had been in there, because here again I'll say it's eastern Ontario and money is always hard to get past Belleville.
Ms Carter: But as somebody in government, I find that money is always hard for everybody. There's never enough. But as a representative of an eastern Ontario city, I do understand what you mean as well.
Mr Villeneuve: You're talking Peterborough.
Mr McGregor: That's way west.
Ms Carter: We just scrape in. We're never quite sure whether we're central or eastern, but I guess for this we count as eastern.
One change that we have brought in is that now there is going to be revenue retention within the commission and I think that might lead to changes as regards some of the things that you mentioned, that there might be a little bit more money forthcoming to boost some of those things that obviously have been falling by the wayside. So let's hope that with cooperation and so on you will be able to deal with some of those points.
But I did want to take issue with you very much on one of your suggestions. You say that kids get bored at Upper Canada Village and maybe there should be a water slide. To me, you know, that goes against the whole spirit of what we're trying to do here. I can imagine taking a bunch of kids along and because there's a water slide there they would say, "I don't want to stay in this boring old village," and they'd be off. Yet it seems to me there are tremendous possibilities there for kids. Certainly at Fort Henr, they were having groups of children stay there and sort of live the life and really absorb history that way. I'm not quite sure how much is being done at Upper Canada Village. I think the schoolmarm deals with people in a very Victorian way and so on. But I really think that would be a retrogressive step, because I think we've got something unique here and if you start filling it up with fun fairs, you're going to detract from the whole atmosphere of what it is we're trying to do. I just wondered if you might have some comments on that.
Mr McGregor: Yes, I have a comment. In the first place, don't take issue with me on that, because I don't have any kids and I could care less whether there's a water slide there or not. I do have grandchildren, however, but they have one at home.
What I said in this is what people have told me, quite a number of people. They are saying that as interesting as you try to make Upper Canada for the children, maybe there should be something just off way. When you say it would take away from what you're trying to do there, if you get over to the marina area, your nice new marina that you mentioned, that certainly is not in keeping either with what they were trying to do in Upper Canada Village.
Mr Villeneuve: A little bit away from the theme.
Mr McGregor: It's away from the theme, so something in that area wouldn't hurt what you're trying to do in the village at all. We're not talking about putting it in the village; put it away from the village.
Ms Carter: I see. Yes, but I just feel that there's such a unique opportunity there to do something with children that you couldn't do in almost any other place.
Mr McGregor: I agree with you there, but that only even lasts for a certain amount of time. I wouldn't argue with you.
Ms Carter: Yes, possibly we could have entertainment for kids that would be more in keeping with the original time. Kids can play old-fashioned games and --
Mr McGregor: Yes. Maybe this little suggestion will spur something else. That's all we're saying.
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Ms Carter: Yes, okay. I think there were some other very successful things that we have done to help tourism in this area. One is the CRIS program of reservations, the central reservation and information system, that I believe has increased business quite a bit, and also the highway signage, which I understand is still not completed, but certainly deflecting people from the 401 and making them realize what you have here.
Mr McGregor: Yes, they're looking good.
Ms Carter: Also, I appreciate your mention of the bikeways. That is probably an excellent way to go in this area. What you have is a very large area of parkland that is basically flat. As we all know, there's an increasing number of seniors in the population, and I expect to join that group relatively soon. I think open-air activities with frequent places of interest that you can call in at, places to stay and so on, are going to be very attractive to that market and probably would draw from all over the world because a lot of countries don't have the kind of space that we have here.
Mr McGregor: There's lots of space, but you must also keep in mind that I'm in a position where I listen: People come in and they tell me they saw this, they saw that, but they would like to also see this. I think people who are in charge of this sort of thing should maybe listen to what some people are saying as well. I'm in the same position, just in a smaller way, municipal government. We don't have all the answers, and you have to listen to someone else on occasion.
Ms Carter: Yes. I think there are different scales we have to look at here. We were having suggestions, for example, that some people who have residences in the area are worried because they want to see a view down over the water and the natural vegetation gets in the way and so on. But I think if you're looking at it as a world-class tourist attraction, then maybe you don't want to cut away all the natural vegetation; you want to leave that there because it's part of the attraction. I think grass cutting is debatable too, how much of that you actually want to do, whether you want a vast area of cut grass or whether you just want some areas where people can play ball or whatever and others that are left more wild.
Mr McGregor: I think after driving down Highway 401 and witnessing all the weeds, it's a treat to get off and see where there's some grass cut. It did have some bearing on the attitude of people. When you go down there, you see -- in areas, yes, I agree with you, possibly in the village where the grass back in the 1800s was this long or something. But out where you are trying to attract people in to see something, they're not going to find weeds and grass this high too attractive and say this might be a nice place to go.
Ms Carter: I challenge that. In England we call them white flowers, not weeds.
Mr McGregor: We don't have white flowers here.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee, Gordon. We haven't had the opportunity to see too many municipal politicians yet, but we would like to get your views on a few things. You're reeve of a municipality right in the heart of the parks commission and also a member of county council that represents a big area of the parks commission.
I just want to ask your opinion on a letter I have before me. It's from the office of the assistant deputy minister and it's addressed to Frank Shaw:
"The minister has told me that the government is opposed in principle to the privatization of any provincial parks, including those owned by the St Lawrence Parks Commission. This would not apply, of course, to the operation of the provincial park by a public agency, including a municipality, so that you can proceed with the Osnabruck negotiations.
"In the case of the private sector proposals for other parks, a cabinet submission will be required to obtain exemption from the government policy before a Management Board submission can be submitted. In fairness to the people who submitted bids, you should advise them of the policy of the present government as soon as possible. I would not be optimistic in obtaining policy approval in time for the 1991 operational season."
It's signed by the assistant deputy minister.
Gordon, do you think that you and your county council and municipal politicians agree with this type of proposal?
Mr McGregor: What you're saying in short there is that they do not like the idea of private people taking over the parks?
Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): It's okay for the municipalities.
Mr McGregor: I don't know. I've got sort of mixed feelings in that. But when I look at some of the things that have happened or things that I've heard about -- and I'll use I think it's Glengarry Park, where they put in new washrooms or spent thousands of dollars on new facilities for washrooms, showers and so on and so forth, and immediately closed the park. I understand now that those washrooms have been vandalized. The new fixtures -- toilets, showers and so forth -- have been broken out. In short, they're a hell of a mess. This is what I've been told. I haven't been down to see it, but this is what I'm hearing.
Here we have then the waste of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money where maybe someone could have gone in and taken over the operation of that park, whether it be private or municipality. If a municipality can make a park work and generate some revenue for itself, I see no problem with that. I also would sooner see a private enterprise go into a park and operate it properly than see something happen like what did in Glengarry Park. That was a terrible waste of money.
Mr Cleary: We might be talking about Charlottenburgh and Raisin River there.
Mr McGregor: Charlottenburgh, okay. Yes, that's the one.
Mr Cleary: I have heard from many of your municipal colleagues who have been after me about this situation and they're very discouraged with the way the parks have been left. Maybe that wasn't fair to ask you that here, but we have to know. That's what these hearings are all about. I think we've got to deal with the municipal people, that's very important, and get their opinion, because I know I was a municipal politician and I guess I was as grouchy as any of them that governments didn't listen, so that's why I asked you.
Mr McGregor: That's my view. I was terribly disappointed, as a matter of fact a little upset, when I heard about the situation down at that park where these new washrooms were built and that happened.
Mr Gilles E. Morin (Carleton East): This letter that John just read dictates to me three messages. The first one is that the government has no money to operate the parks the way they are now. They are against privatization; in other words, they don't want any private enterprise to take over or at least to establish some form of partnership. Thirdly, it tells me that if the government cannot do it, if the private organizations are not allowed to do it, therefore the responsibilities are directed towards municipalities. That is the message I get out of there.
That means to you that you'll have to pour in money or you'll have to accept the inevitable conclusion that the parks are going to be closed. To me, I don't find this acceptable. I agree with you totally when you say that eastern Ontario is neglected. I'm from eastern Ontario, and it's been going on since I've been elected in 1985, and I see it more and more and more. If we don't rally together, if we don't get together and communicate a direct message to this government that something has to be done, the situation is going to get worse. That is my feeling.
The second comment that I want to ask, a question this time: winter activities. You say that the mound at Crysler monument was closed. Why was it closed?
Mr McGregor: I have no idea why it was closed. As I said in my letter, a toboggan slide had been there. The mound is probably the biggest hill in Dundas county and it was used by tobogganers and skiers, but it's not any more. Anyone who wants to go there has to walk in from Highway 2.
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Just to follow it up for a second and then I'll answer, the cross-country ski trails, probably two or three of the better ones on the north side of Highway 2 which people really liked, including myself, were closed, probably because they couldn't plow the parking lot. I did discuss this with Mr Shaw, stating that we would be willing to send two of our trucks down and plow the entrance and plow the parking lot to provide winter activities for these people. This, as I stated earlier, would also maybe generate some more income for the village store or whatever in the wintertime, and that seemed like a good idea.
Mr Morin: Were there any remarks made to the effect that the monument was built in respect of the soldiers who died there? I'm thinking immediately of the cenotaph in Ottawa, where kids used to use skateboards and there was a stop to that because of the mark of respect. You know, that's a monument for the dead soldiers. Was there any remark made on that? Were there any comments made on that?
Mr McGregor: No. What I was referring to was the memorial itself. It is a building -- it's actually the War of 1812 -- and inside the building there is quite a display and there was a slide presentation and so on, very interesting. It should still be going on. The monument itself is good; there's no problem there.
The Chair: I'm sorry, we're out of time. We'd like to thank you, Reeve McGregor, for your appearance before the committee this morning.
Mr McGregor: Is that half-hour up already?
The Chair: Yes, with a stopwatch, no less. But thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.
Mr McGregor: Thank you for the opportunity of speaking to everyone. I was going to add another comment to Mr Morin's bit about eastern Ontario. We are here, and one way or the other we are going to get recognized east of Belleville. Supposing it takes us years and years, we will.
Mr Villeneuve: Keep working at it.
The Chair: That would be good. Thank you.
Mr McGregor: I was down to Niagara Falls and I visited a few parks in that area, and what a difference between the dollars that are spent in Niagara and the Toronto area and what we get in Upper Canada Village and so on. Why don't you see if you could throw us up a few more bucks this way?
Interjection.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Waters, maybe on your next round you could place your comment.
CITY OF BROCKVILLE
The Chair: Our next deputation is the mayor of the city of Brockville. I would like to welcome Mayor John Doran. Good morning, Mayor Doran. Please make yourself comfortable. I think you know you have 30 minutes, and included in that time the members would like an opportunity to ask you questions. Please proceed. Thank you.
Mr John Doran: Certainly. Thank you very much. It's certainly a pleasure for me to be here this morning as mayor of the city of Brockville. I have a prepared presentation that I'd like to go through, and then an opportunity to ask questions or to respond to any concerns that the members of the committee may have.
The first comment reflects, I believe, our city, the corporation of the city of Brockville, and the supportive relationship with the St Lawrence Parks Commission. The commission is an integral component of the economic fibre of eastern Ontario and has developed excellent relations with the communities it serves. In an endeavour to outline some of the more specific relationships and the related impacts on same, I would like to note three or four specific areas where we feel the commission has worked very closely and does have an impact on our community, the city of Brockville.
The city clearly recognizes that the St Lawrence Parks Commission provides a significant base on the tourism economy of eastern Ontario. Its attractions, parks and points of interest provide significant anchors and clusters of tourism opportunities that stimulate travel to our area and generate economic impact as a result of this visitation. We are aware that the commission contributes approximately $80 million in sales activity annually, with over $15 million in tax revenue and over 1,000 person-years of employment to the economy of eastern Ontario.
Our own community actively packages tourism opportunities with group travel markets and the St Lawrence Parks Commission attractions. Particular examples are Upper Canada Village and Fort Henry. Our community has been supportive of the major capital improvements to the commission's attractions and feels these enhancements will maintain the tourism product and attractiveness to the discretionary traveller. We also have been encouraged by the commission's transition to entertain our visitors as opposed to strictly educate. This has been particularly well orchestrated in the Upper Canada Village and Fort Henry activities.
Finally, we consider the government's approval for the commission to retain revenue a very strategic step towards revitalization and financial stability of the parks commission sites.
One area that's very important to our community is the various partnerships that we have been able to entertain. The St Lawrence Parks Commission has been active in developing working relationships with area communities, and again the development and marketing of the eastern Ontario tourism product has been the key focus.
Specifically, the parks commission plays an active role on the board of directors on the Eastern Ontario Travel Association. The commission provides advertising support in most of the community and regional tourism guidebooks and has been a major player in the formulation of market plan development. The commission, through the general manager, is also active with the Ontario East Economic Development Commission. This association is a much broader organization, with responsibilities related to industrial, commercial and tourism-related activities.
In terms of partnerships developed with the city of Brockville, the commission has been a supporter of the extension of the St Lawrence bikeway path from the Thousand Island Parkway to the city of Brockville. The commission also has worked with several tourism and environment-oriented agencies on the development of a vision statement incorporating all aspects of tourism development and the environment of our area. This working group is international in nature and represents both communities and park authorities in New York and Ontario.
In the area of communication, the St Lawrence Parks Commission have not isolated the corridor communities in the development of their own plans for future growth and development. We are kept apprised of all significant developments of the parks commission and have been invited to contribute accordingly to their planning. The parks commission has invited all area communities to special events associated with historical sites, parks and special-event programming. We are most pleased on the communications between the commission and area municipalities.
Just a brief summary: We trust the comments contained herein clearly identify our support of the activities of the St Lawrence Parks Commission. We trust this openness will continue and our community will continue to be provided with greater opportunities for partnership in the development and marketing of our eastern Ontario tourism product.
Some general comments: I think eastern Ontario is linked by two or three major communications systems. We have Highway 401, we have the heritage highway or old Highway 2, and one of the important gems in our area, I believe, the St Lawrence River. In Brockville we have an excellent municipal harbour. The parks commission has recently developed its harbour, and we have been looking at ways of utilizing the St Lawrence River as an alternative method of transportation with the land-based transportation systems to really expand the tourism market in eastern Ontario.
In Brockville we think we're anchored between two solid anchors, Fort Henry on the one side and Upper Canada Village on the other side. What we've been attempting to do is organize communities that are not really destination tourism communities as part of a co-op advertising program. The parks commission has been very supportive of our efforts not only in the tourism area but also in the heritage area of our community. Whenever there's a heritage event going on and our heritage organizations need support or direction, we can always turn to the parks commission, and they have been excellent in providing us information.
I'd certainly be prepared to answer any questions or comments that members may have.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mayor Doran. Eight minutes per caucus, and we start with the government members. Mr Waters.
Mr Waters: I didn't realize I was at the top of the list. I found your presentation intriguing and actually quite delightful.
Mr Villeneuve: Nothing negative.
Mr Waters: Nothing negative.
Mr Doran: You're waiting for the other shoe.
Mr Waters: I like to see some positive things. So often people come and it's negative. It's nice to see some positive things.
Frank might just crawl under his chair when I suggest this, because it's going to make more work for him, and so might the people from the ministry here, but I have thought about -- and we did it this year; it took us two years to plan it -- a marine heritage festival, and what better place to do something like that than the St Lawrence? It was the highway before the white people ever came here. In our case I know it took us two years of planning and work to create such a thing, but has there ever been anything afoot to bring all of the communities together to focus on the St Lawrence and eastern Ontario as a marketing -- because the marketing of that is incredible, what it does to your community.
Mr Doran: I think the catalyst that brought that clearly into focus for a number of municipalities in eastern Ontario that enjoy the river was that there was a movement afoot when several municipalities were looking at the casino issue; one of the issues raised was the possibility of a floating casino. What that really precipitated was a discussion of parallel transportation systems, where someone could get on a boat or some kind of floating device in Kingston, go to Upper Canada Village, get off and get parallel bus systems. That did start us thinking more of linking that communication vehicle, I guess, the river as that connecting link. I think up until this year that has been somewhat bypassed, because we've all been interested in developing our own harbours and our own waterfront facilities.
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Mr Waters: It's something I've noticed since the redevelopment of the Chrysler marina. Before when I went down there, several times, I've never seen crew ships like I see now, and at Upper Canada Village. Obviously, it has affected the viability of the village. If their visitorship is up this year, that's partially because we now have people looking at the river as a means of transportation and as a tourism product, more than just for fishing or the odd sailboat, shall we say.
One of the things I think also happens is that after an attraction is as old as Upper Canada Village, if you don't build on it, it does become stale to some of the local people. I'd like to know your feelings, if indeed the money becomes available to do the waterfront at the village. To me, for any community along the river that would have been there historically, if you were building a historic community, the front door is the water; that was the highway of the past. It's the one thing that really is lacking, I find, at the village, and I wouldn't mind your comments on whether we should proceed with that or not.
Mr Doran: That would be an area that certainly is one which needs some attention. As I mentioned before, we've all taken the river for granted as a transportation vehicle, and we've focused on Highway 401 or the Heritage Highway. I think these linkages are the next generation to attract tourism.
What we have seen in our harbour this summer, and we have a fairly sheltered harbour, is more boater traffic and larger boats. One of the things we're seeing is that people are buying those kinds of boats instead of cottages and using those as one- or two-week recreational retreats, compared to where we used to see them going to cottage country before. I think it gives us an opportunity to attract those people.
One of the things we find in our harbour is that once they get there, it's: "What do I do? How do I go uptown" or "How do I shop?" We've had a demand for walking tours, and we have our chamber of commerce on the waterfront. The demand there this year has been for a lot of information about, "What can I do this afternoon for two or three hours?" I think anything that the village could do to add to that would certainly be a plus, because it's another reason to stay there for an extra day if you have a family or whatever.
Mr Waters: If I might make a suggestion, you've mentioned that you want a bicycle path, and one of the things I've talked to some communities about -- in fact I talked to Gananoque yesterday after the meeting -- was taking the found or stolen bicycles that your police force accumulates and painting them one colour and putting them as courtesy bikes. As your boat traffic increases, it gives these people an opportunity to get around, and so what if somebody takes one? They've taken a stolen bike. Well, we've lost a lot. I think we have to look at all those things.
Mr Fletcher: Excuse me. My son just had his bike stolen.
Mr Waters: What I think happens is that if they're not reclaimed, there's no cost to the municipality other than a bit of paint or something to make them one standard colour. It gives you that linkage for the bike path that you so desperately want and need and the linkage to Upper Canada Village via the bike path. I think it would be a wonderful addition.
Mr Doran: I could see that if we had a number of communities that did the same thing, so that if you're a boater, you know that if you stop at any one of these three or four marinas there's transportation. Even if it's to go to the local grocery store to get some bread and milk and groceries or whatever else it may be, at least you have a transportation system there.
Mr Waters: But that means changing some mentality where historically everybody competed with the next town, now making everyone understand that they shouldn't compete with the next town but that it's another region they compete with.
Mr Doran: In the conversations we had about a year ago when we looked at the other issue I talked about, that became evident to the waterfront communities; you're looking at Gananoque, Brockville, Prescott, Cornwall and Morrisburg, those that front on the waterway. We've never really gotten together and discussed the waterway and how we can maximize that up until that particular issue.
Mr Waters: How do you feel about leasehold opportunities or partnership opportunities? Early on, when we talked to the parks commission one of the things we talked about was the fact that there is not a lot of bedrooms; in certain areas, there are some big gaps along the commission. Do you think about partnerships in creating some of that bedroom industry, let's say, small country inns or something like this with a partnership with the private sector?
Mr Doran: Partnerships in what respect? That the private sector would put in the equity and then local entrepreneurs would build them or renovate them or create them?
Mr Waters: Partnerships in the sense that the commission would retain ownership of the land on a very long-term lease, let's say, and work out a partnership, yes, where the private sector would build the facility, probably, on it.
Mr Doran: You'd have to take it almost community by community to see where the land is actually held and who owns the land, and I can only speak from our community's perspective. Waterfront land is very cherished. If the municipality owns it, of course they want to control it; if the private sector owns it, of course they want to maximize their rate of return, and traditionally that's condominium and high-rise. We always continually fight that battle: How do you accommodate both criteria?
But anything to encourage people to use the river as a highway, be it through bed and breakfast or some accommodations, would be well received by communities. I think in our case of Brockville, we have a number of older homes downtown that could very easily be converted into bed and breakfasts, easily within walking distance of the harbour.
Mr Morin: The more I look at this issue of tourism and the St Lawrence Parks Commission, I have sympathy for the commission in the sense that it is given the responsibility to make sure that it tries to reduce the deficit as much as it can. They've come out with studies, they've come out with reports that the only solution is to form partnerships not only with municipalities but also with private industry, and to create jobs. They have done this with Grenville and it's a success; it works well. Talking to my colleague Noble, apparently everybody's happy: They are making a profit, the government is making money, and it serves the public well.
On the other hand, here is a letter sent by an assistant deputy minister from the ministry of tourism that says:
"The minister has told me that the government is opposed in principle to the privatization of any provincial parks, including those owned by the St Lawrence Parks Commission. Of course, this would not apply to the operation of a provincial park by a public agency, including a municipality, so that you can proceed with the Osnabruck negotiations.
"In the case of the private sector proposals for other parks, a cabinet submission will be required to obtain exemption from the government policy before a Management Board submission can be submitted."
The St Lawrence Parks Commission does its best, under pressure, to come up with a solution, a good solution for eastern Ontario. The government says no. On the other hand, you also have OPSEU, the union, that comes along and says, "Look, if you close the thing, we're going to be without jobs." It seems there is sort of a vicious circle there. This is why the message will have to be communicated very clearly that the government must take the lead to try to encourage, first of all, to listen to the St Lawrence Parks Commission, make sure the employees are well protected, and make sure the citizens of Ontario benefit from the fact that the industry is flourishing. Somebody has to take the lead, otherwise we are staying put, we are doing nothing. We know what the answer is, we know what it is, and we must make that decision. Do you agree with that, Mayor?
Mr Villeneuve: But that's not a leading question.
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Mr Doran: Yes. I'd back up, though. When you talk about privatization, there are different ways to accomplish that. I think the one thing we all can agree on is that we do not want to see our parks closed, locked shut, that people cannot get into for whatever reason. That's the key thing, because when someone travels in eastern Ontario and sees provincial parks that are no longer operating -- and we have one or two in eastern Ontario -- I think it sets the wrong image, and somehow we have to make sure those facilities operate. Privatization may be the municipalities taking it over with some kind of cost-sharing, the private sector taking it over, or contracting the facility out somehow.
You're right. One of the things we clearly need in eastern Ontario is a strategic plan for tourism development, which encompasses a number of things: It encompasses marketing, it takes in the St Lawrence Parks Commission, and it also involves municipalities, because we have a role to play. I think most municipalities are prepared to accept that role, provided that we know everybody's on a level playing field and we know what the rules are and that the rules don't change.
Mr Morin: Privatization doesn't frighten me. There's nothing wrong in making an honest buck, but under control. The government could keep its property, long-term lease, establish real good standards so it doesn't become a circus, so we don't destroy the beauty we have. That can be done: strategic planning, as you say, very true. Get the municipalities involved, because you benefit from it. You are the experts because you live here, you see it every day. If you want to attract people, make it a decent place to live, make it a pleasant place to be and to visit.
This is why I think some freedom must be given: freedom of expression, of your feelings. Nobody understands your situation better than you -- not the Toronto people, not the people from down south: people from eastern Ontario. This is why it's so important to voice your opinion and let the politicians know what you wish to have. It's only through constant pressure that you'll achieve that.
What I find sad is that we all know the answers, yet nobody wants to make the move. I would encourage you, Mayor, along with your colleagues, the other municipalities, to bring that forward to the association of municipalities, because if you don't do it, obviously nobody will do it.
Mr Doran: You're right. We have a role to play in there. It's easy to sit here and complain about what we have or don't have, but that's not really going to change the reality of the moment. What we do have are some resources that we have to maximize, and we as municipalities have to be prepared to fund our share. But one of the things we clearly need to know is, what is the strategic plan and what are the roles of all levels of governments: What's expected from the municipal level, the provincial level and the federal level?
We see at first hand the impact of tourism, we know what it means in our community. This year we're benefiting from a very good year in tourism, and our merchants know that and I think they're prepared to respond. But we really need to know how we fit into that overall plan.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee, Mr Mayor. I know the feeling of many of the municipal politicians around here about the present policy of the government on private enterprise taking over operations that were closed, no matter what they might be, that only municipal people could enter into an agreement to operate what they've operated in the past, possibly unsuccessfully if they were closed. Would you not feel that if it were turned over to the municipality, the only one that could enter into an agreement, that's another case of downloading on the municipalities?
Mr Doran: It depends on what the criteria are for the municipality's responsibility. If it's simply that of finding someone to operate the facility and also funding the cost of that, then 100% of that decision-making responsibility should indeed be the municipality's. If it's to find a private contractor to do that and to subsidize the deficit, then of course it's a strict download, no question about that.
But I think a partnership role could be played between the private sector and the municipality and the province. The one thing anybody who's involved with tourism is concerned about is the shrinking dollar commitment to the tourism industry from all levels of government, and I know the EOTA is very concerned about that and very active in its lobbying issues in that area. I think we can play the game as long as we know the rules and the rules don't change. That's the key thing, I think; it's important.
Mr Cleary: We've been trying to get to that stage for almost five years now, that partnership. We hear, "It's coming, it's coming." We hear it's coming in November. I hope I'm surprised and it does happen, but I'm not sure it's going to.
Mr Runciman: John, the city of Brockville -- I don't know if this is unique, but in my experience it is: a municipality within its boundaries operating a campground right on the waterfront. What's the municipality's experience with respect to that? Is that a money-loser in terms of its operation? Is it a break-even proposition? How does it work?
Mr Doran: No, it produces revenue to us; we see it as a revenue source. We combine that with the operation of our harbour as well and the two really are run under our parks and recreation department. It's not a large campground, as you well know, but we see it as a real asset. One of the assets is that it's so close to town, really just on the fringe of town, so people can camp there and walk, within a two-minute time frame, right downtown.
Mr Runciman: How do your rates compare with the private sector? Do you do some sort of analysis of that?
Mr Doran: We do an analysis of that, and we're on the same par or a little bit below that, because it is a municipal campground.
Mr Runciman: You also this summer -- this is the first time I saw it. You're allowing a private sector operation in the park with the rental of Sea-Doos. How is that working out, and do you see any expansion to that in the future, that sort of initiative?
Mr Doran: Not well, and no. It's not necessarily private sector operating it but the type of business they were operating. One of the things we noticed very quickly, from the residents around there, is that the people who operate Sea-Doos use them for maybe 15, 20 minutes. You rent a Sea-Doo and you go out and you go around and around and around for 15, 20 minutes, then you leave and the next person comes along and they go out and they go around and around and around for 15, 20 minutes, and you have this constant noise. We found it wasn't a positive experience and we won't be doing that next year.
But we strongly feel that private sector, if they come forward, have a role to play and should have access to municipal property, provided that it can be controlled and it fits in with our strategy.
Mr Runciman: So are you doing anything else along that line, in terms of those kinds of initiatives that aren't going to offend the neighbourhood?
Mr Doran: Very much so. One of the things we're working with is the Brockville Foundation, which is a charitable foundation that people contribute money to. They're looking at heritage things, and, as you know, one of the projects we're looking at is the establishment of a viewing platform on one of the islands which is a stone's throw from the shipping channel so that people would be able to come to Brockville, go out to the island and spend an afternoon there and watch some of the ships go by.
The other thing we're looking at too is coordinating and listing the times at which the major ships will be passing Brockville so that tourism will know. If you happen to be in the city, you can say, "In half an hour we know there's a large ship coming by, so we could go out to an island or we can go down to the harbour and watch it pass the city."
Mr Runciman: The Gananoque chamber was here yesterday, and they were talking about marketing tools in respect to, from their perspective, Fort Henry. I think you're right in the centre of Fort Henry and the village. She was saying that the chamber and other agencies could sell tickets, for example, out of their agency to Fort Henry or to Upper Canada Village, what have you, for some sort of commission. I gather that's not occurring now. You haven't heard any feedback along those lines?
Mr Doran: No, not that I'm aware of. But one of the things that I know our chamber has talked about in preliminary terms is a kind of passport. We talked about it for the city of Brockville, but you could certainly do it for eastern Ontario, where you could stop at one place and buy an eastern Ontario passport which would include a number of different events or attractions or whatever. The thing is to encourage people to stay that extra half-day or extra day, because that certainly generates extra dollars.
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Mr Runciman: How do you feel your community would feel about the development -- I know Ron Huck was here yesterday, the president of the EOTA, and he mentioned the idea of building an accommodation centre or hotel, what have you, down in the Crysler Park area. How do you think that would go over in terms of your own municipality, additional rooms coming on the market? Do you think that's a viable proposition? I know Prescott's been trying to get a hotel for years and years and years. Brockville would like to have a waterfront hotel. I just wonder how realistic that is.
Mr Doran: Having been in the motel business at one time many years ago, I think the problem you run into is, the summer's not the issue. In the summer you can use the rooms and you normally have a fairly high occupancy rate. The problem is the wintertime. I think that's one of the problems Prescott struggled with: How do you put people in those rooms in the middle of February or January? That's the problem. I think probably Upper Canada, though, would have a bigger drawing card than a lot of communities, because you could create some activities around the events that are already there in the village.
Personally, myself, I don't think you'd find any negative reaction from the city of Brockville. I think you'd find support. Anything that's going to bring people into our area -- and we're hoping to get them to spend an hour or two in our community -- is certainly going to be an attraction.
Mr Villeneuve: Your worship, thank you for being here. You mention that you had more boat traffic in your harbour this year than normal. Is that because possibly they left from Alexandria Bay and came over to Ontario?
Mr Doran: We'd like to think so.
Mr Villeneuve: Alexandria Bay has had many, many empty motel/hotel rooms this past summer. Have you noticed an increase in your occupancy in Brockville?
Mr Doran: Our traditional occupancy in Brockville has stayed pretty well standard. We're up fairly high in the summer months, like about 95% to 98% during the summer months, and that's been up there. Where I've noticed it particularly increasing this year is at the harbour, with the number of boats and the size of boats, and quite often a number of those boats tend to be coming from Quebec. They tend to be from the Montreal area because, as they come up the river, Brockville gets to be one of the major centres that you could stop at.
Mr Villeneuve: Would they be doing the triangle, then, up the Rideau, down the Ottawa and back to Montreal?
Mr Doran: I don't believe so. I think if you look at the statistics you may find that some of the traffic on the Rideau is dropping drastically because of the fees that have been imposed there and some of the other criteria that they're looking at. The people I've talked to who spend time on the Rideau I think have noticed a decrease in traffic this year, so I think what you're finding is, people are coming up the St Lawrence and utilizing harbours like Brockville or Morrisburg and spending some time on the islands, maybe going to Kingston, and then heading back east.
Mr Villeneuve: It's an area of very heavy boat traffic in the summer, particularly the private small watercraft coming from both Alexandria Bay-Brockville and all of the points in between. A river festival, that type of thing -- I understand you had a bad experience with a $1-million fish here a few years ago that didn't work out very well.
Mr Doran: It got caught.
Mr Villeneuve: It got caught.
Mr Runciman: The first day.
Mr Doran: The first day, yes, it got caught.
Mr Villeneuve: What did it cost Lloyd's of London?
Mr Fletcher: You've got to tie a rock on those things.
Mr Doran: Maybe we should let them go in Prescott.
Mr Villeneuve: Seriously, has there been some thought given to festivities, fleet activities, whatever -- the Maritimes have that in many instances where they have a special weekend/week where all of the watercraft and people who own them get together at some sort of a festival. Does that happen, or is it being considered?
Mr Doran: We have Riverfest, which is 10 days in the early summer and our harbour is double and triple-booked. We actually raft boats three deep off the dock because there's that much of a demand, and that's 10 days of concentrated activity. We've never really taken it the second step, though, of trying to link that with other communities, say with what Kingston's doing or Gananoque. We see that at the start of our summer season, Riverfest, and it's been just a tremendous event. We'll get on an evening 30,000, 40,000 people down on the waterfront.
Mr Villeneuve: Right after shad-fly time?
Mr Doran: Yes, hopefully.
The Chair: We'd like to thank you again, Mayor Doran, for your appearance before the committee this morning.
Mr Doran: Thank you.
JOHN MCMANUS
The Chair: Our next deputation this morning is Mr John McManus. We do not have copies of Mr McManus's presentation. However, they will be circulated to you upon return.
Mr John McManus: I'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity to participate in a review of an agency I think is vitally important to the economy and social fabric of eastern Ontario. I am here as a taxpayer because I, in part, pay the bills of this organization and I share, along with everyone else in Ontario, partial ownership of this organization. I'm a worker and a union member at Upper Canada Village, and in these two roles I share the same desire as an owner: I want the commission to succeed and to contribute.
My focus is Upper Canada Village because I know it best, but nothing I have seen would indicate that my comments do not apply commission-wide.
A problem facing this committee is mismanagement of the St Lawrence Parks Commission. This problem has been identified by the 1989 report of the standing committee, officials in the ministry, local residents and business people, visitors and staff. I will address problems with marketing, mandate and social responsibility, budget, visitation, the future and solutions.
There are also many human resource problems, including harassment, discrimination against women, francophones and the disabled, nepotism and cronyism and anti-union activities. These problems have resulted in the processing of a large number of grievances which are now before the grievance settlement board as well as the filing of an unfair-labour-practice tribunal complaint.
Marketing was an area found wanting by the previous committee. Five years ago, improvements, including a vigorous marketing strategy in the populated area of central Ontario, were suggested. No action was taken by the SLPC.
Marketing is still inadequate. You can drive up and down 401 -- I'm sure some of you have -- without finding any St Lawrence Parks Commission or Upper Canada Village literature. Information is not found at the international bridges at Cornwall and Ivy Lea. If you go to Ottawa, you will find no information in hotels. In Merrickville, one hour from Upper Canada Village, where I live, there is information at the local museum; unfortunately, it is more than 10 years old.
Mr Runciman: What about at Sam Jake's Lodge?
Mr McManus: None. The original mandate of Upper Canada Village was to celebrate local history by preserving and displaying the material culture of eastern Ontario, to interpret this rich heritage and to educate the public. During the past few years, this mandate has been changed. Upper Canada Village is now an attraction with no mandate to deal with local history or to educate anyone. This change to a theme park mentality is completely out of step with the tourism business of the 1990s. According to the Ontario tourism industry report of February, 1994, cultural matters are foremost in the minds of travellers and attractions are losing the interest of the travelling public worldwide.
The standing committee, in its last report, also requested that the social responsibility of the St Lawrence Parks Commission be clarified. This responsibility stems from the beginning years of the commission when the government of Ontario was burning people's houses and was involved in flooding their farms and villages. At this time, a trust was entered into by the government and its ministries. People's land and houses were replaced and the economic opportunity lost to the St Lawrence Seaway water would be replaced by a vibrant tourist industry that would create jobs and profitable business opportunities.
This trust has been betrayed by the management of the St Lawrence Parks Commission. They have been in the business of shutting the operation down for the past few years. Every time Upper Canada Village closes a building, they might as well get in their car, buy a padlock and padlock a hotel, because businesses will go down.
There is a motel in the area that met with representatives of Upper Canada Village to discuss cross-marketing. This business has been sold twice and has gone bankrupt once and is still waiting for a reply from Upper Canada Village.
The last review in 1989 also dealt with budget matters and especially administrative overhead, which was described as at least twice as high as at other agencies. This is reflected in my instructions about budgeting. When I price a program, I calculate the labour cost, I determine the cost of the materials needed, then double the total to pay for overhead. A program that costs $2,000 to present costs $2,000 to administer. No business in the world can run with a 50% overhead.
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At Upper Canada Village, if all non-management staff were fired and no money was spent for supplies, they would still lose more than $1 million. Budget deficits have been fought on the backs of the staff. Obviously, we are not the problem and this is not going to work. For seven months of 1992-93, 43 managers managed 49 workers. Upper Canada Village has responded to an administrative overhead that's out of control by raising the salaries of managers and by firing enough workers to find this money internally.
Salaries, however, are not the only problem. At Upper Canada Village, they have managed to overspend their ODOE budget by $100,000, approximately 30%, this season.
Mr Runciman: What is that budget?
Mr McManus: About $425,000.
Mr Runciman: What is ODOE?
Mr McManus: Other developmental and operational expenses, the money that's needed to buy the goods that are used up or the services that are used up in programming.
Visitation has fallen. From 1988 to 1993, attendance at Upper Canada Village fell from 260,000 to 190,000. This 30% decline indicates something seriously wrong. With professional management working, the business should be headed in the direction of operating 12 months of the year. However, we have been engaged in closing buildings and turning a once living history village into a dead village. In 1990, 25,000 visitors were lost by management decision. Education programs, adult workshops, a Christmas program and a March break program were cancelled and the season was shortened by two weeks.
Closed buildings have had a disastrous effect on visitation. On any given day, 25% to 30% of all buildings are closed, and going a second day isn't going to help. On your tour, you saw two thirds more than an average visitor, and you saw nothing, because even if the village had been open, you would only have seen 70%.
The future looks bleak, but I do have faith that this is an important agency and can be made to contribute, although it seems probable that within two years, Fort Henry may have left the commission and the Ministry of Natural Resources may have integrated the St Lawrence parks into the provincial system.
Upper Canada Village seems intent on facing a changing future with a policy of staff layoffs and building closures. A waterfront theme park has been planned, but no funding is available to build or staff this project. The management at Upper Canada Village will have to show that they can run what they have before their new project should be taken seriously.
Solutions: Upper Canada Village needs better management. Buildings need to be open and they need to be staffed. Honest relations need to be established with staff and the people of the area. The huge administrative overhead and the ludicrous management-staff ratio need to be cut to rational levels. A marketing staff that believes in Upper Canada Village and its product needs to market aggressively. Upper Canada Village needs to have professional management working towards a 12-month season that will attract enough visitors to make the economy of eastern Ontario boom.
Upper Canada Village is now a contributor to the Ontario treasury and has the potential of being even more productive. The Kubursky report details this. If the administrative overhead was rationalized, the operating grant would be less than $1 million. If this $1 million were eliminated, the Ontario treasury would lose up to $4 million directly in taxes, a further $4 million in taxes as money ripples through the system and potentially $3 million-plus in welfare payments and raised costs for health, social services, police and university loans. A $1-million operating grant could mean the difference between 237 direct jobs or no jobs. A car manufacturer in southwestern Ontario would get $12 million from the government to create this many jobs.
Funding for Upper Canada Village is seed money needed and used to create employment, economic opportunity and government revenue. With professional management, the economic return would rise, the grant needed would fall and both the region and the Ontario treasury would benefit.
The Chair: We're down to 15-minute rotations, as members will notice from their agenda, and we have less than five minutes left so I would suggest we have about a minute and 20 seconds per caucus. We start with the Liberals.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee. I heard you say something that I found interesting. Did you say 43 managers and 49 workers?
Mr McManus: I did.
Mr Cleary: Could you explain a little bit to us --
Mr McManus: For the five months from November 15 to March 15, 43 managers were at work and only 49 employees were at work. We're mostly a seasonal staff and one of the tricky things that has always happened is staff ratios are expressed as if everyone worked for 12 months. Sometimes I think they count the cows and the horses. You get these wonderful ratios. The truth is much different. If you take person-years of employment, you'll find that the ratios are ludicrously small and I think the ratio of 43-49 over the winter of 1993 proves my point.
Mr Runciman: John, I very much appreciated your contribution here today. I'm not sure if everything you're saying is accurate or not; we're not in a position at this point to reach that determination. But I appreciate your contribution much more than the OPSEU presentation earlier because I think you're being pretty frank in respect to your position and in terms of offering alternatives as to how this place can succeed as well, or how the whole operation can succeed.
Since we have very limited time, I hope you will follow up on your submission today by writing to the clerk of the committee with more details about things like nepotism and some of the problems you see in the operation of the commission. When we get a response to this, we will ask the commission folks for a response to what you've said here and then I'd like you to respond to their response so that we have as many facts on the table as possible when we write a report. Thanks for being here.
Mr McManus: You're quite welcome. I am going to give the clerk a package with a number of documents. Some of them are quite confusing, but I'm available after work or on weekends on the telephone to anybody who wants any explanations. I will follow up on your suggestion. Thank you.
Mr Waters: Hi, it's nice to see you again. I can remember when we did the Crysler marina I met with a number of employees just before we actually did the opening. There are some of us around the table who were there that day. I know at that point there was a major concern about the marina once it was redeveloped being turned over to the private sector to be run, and jobs there.
It was around that time, because I was just getting accustomed to what was going on with the park commission, that I realized how important revenue retention was, that indeed it took away any idea of the park commission ever privatizing that or contracting it out because it was able to keep the revenue from it. I would say that revenue retention is probably helping the park commission in keeping the jobs and indeed hopefully, if we ever get the expansion on Upper Canada Village, that there will be more jobs there. I would see that very much as job protection, the expansion etc.
As far as the 30%, I know that I come from probably, I like to think one of the premier tourist areas in the province, and if we only drop by 30% during the worst recession since the 1930s that the whole world has seen, it would be a miracle. It was far greater than that.
The Chair: Mr McManus, we'd like to thank you again for your appearance before the committee this morning.
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ANNA MARIA LEHMANN
The Chair: Our next presentation Ms Anna Maria Lehmann. You have 15 minutes. Please proceed.
Mrs Anna Maria Lehmann: My name is Anna Maria Lehmann. First I would like to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to present my concerns regarding the operation of the St Lawrence Parks Commission. Secondly, I sincerely appreciate the effort and the diligence of the committee members in addressing my concerns and in recommending a solution. I've presented a written brief, but as it is rather detailed I will just go over it in headlines.
One of the things I'd like to address is the objective, why I am here. I respectfully ask the committee members to review the operations of the St Lawrence Parks Commission and answer the following questions: What is management of the St Lawrence Parks Commission doing to promote tourism? Are the Ontario taxpayer and the visiting public getting full value for their money? What is its responsibility regarding the protection of the local history and its conservation? Where is this site headed? What is the long-term economic viability of the St Lawrence Parks Commission?
I consider myself to be a tourism professional, so my main question is, of course, "What is the management of the St Lawrence Parks Commission doing to promote tourism?" The integral part of success in the tourism industry is, in my view, customer service.
I have two pages which state nothing but cutbacks and elimination of services. It's too long to get into it, but I'll just state the last thing, that a review of the organizational chart from Upper Canada Village from the year 1990 compared to the reality of the operating season of 1994 shows a loss of 50 skilled interpretative positions, loss of front-line staff providing quality customer service. I think you can appreciate that if you have two pages of nothing but cutbacks, the question is really there: Do the taxpayer and the tourist get value for their money?
After "Customer Service Delivery" I make a couple of question marks. Just a few small points to that: Why is customer service delivery promised after waterfront development at Upper Canada Village? According to management of Upper Canada Village, waterfront development is the most extensive -- I would call it the most expensive -- and dramatic proposal for change to the village's physical layout, programming and image since it was first created in 1961.
I have to pose the question, if the St Lawrence Parks Commission cannot manage what it has a mandate to manage, what economic benefit will the commission derive from redevelopment? Second, what was the economic benefit of a capital expenditure of approximately $16.8 million during nine years of operation, and how did it translate into customer service? Was it just a corporate logo and uniforms? Why the increase in admission fees of over 300% in the last decade and at the same time that downsizing and elimination of customer service? Then of course, why is the excellent customer service of the interpretative entertainment officer limited to the exclusive visit of VIPs, and who pays for this service?
I'm also very concerned about marketing. Why does the St Lawrence Parks Commission lack a marketing strategy, taking into consideration all program planning -- and that should be based on facts -- all operations -- and that should be based on visitor response -- price sensitivity, including the needs of intermediaries and different market segments, and evaluate decisions based on program success and cost? After all, we have revenue retention.
Just a few comments to that. Why is relevant marketing research information not accepted by management? I have personally informed management that Tourism Canada, at great expense to the taxpayer, does extensive market assessments of major foreign markets, namely, the US, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and so on, and its findings are available for free. I went to Ottawa and visited Tourism Canada myself, picked up market assessments, studied them and offered to provide the market assessments to my supervisor. The market assessments are available for free and present a valuable resource for marketing strategies. Needless to say, they didn't take the market assessments.
Why has each and every effort on my part to promote Upper Canada Village been stifled or boycotted by management? For example, I was asked by a German tour operator to survey German visitors on my own time, but was denied management approval to carry out the survey at the parking lot of Upper Canada Village. I have asked to advertise and promote the guided walking tours at the opening of the visitor centre at the bird sanctuary, just to be told that the St Lawrence Parks Commission did not want the guided tours to be advertised.
Why is the marketing department making press releases in the Brockville Recorder and Times that people in the area are not interested in history or its preservation? I don't think that is so, and I can't understand their comments.
Why is the marketing department promoting a service on TV, CJOH, if the program was not even available this year? The announcement was made by a marketing official in August.
Of course I have a problem with management style and exemplary actions, and its impact on customer service.
An Upper Canada Village division corporate priority is supposedly to improve visitor services and hospitality, so why would a manager make a statement at staff announcements that the paying visitors, namely, the United Empire Loyalists, were "a royal pain in the butt" just because they expected customer service?
Why are the requests for customer service by European tour operators purposely ignored by management? FFO, a German tour operator, had a number of bus groups last fall, and they requested linguistic services at various times, to no avail. Why are the complaints by tour operators and the visiting public ignored by management, and where do the many visitor complaints end up?
Why have competent and dedicated employees been intimidated and harassed, and did this management ever consider its impact on its most valuable resource, the employee? Favouritism, nepotism, harassment and intimidation are the largest obstacles to success at the St Lawrence Parks Commission.
Of course, you see my conclusion. I have to take it somewhat lightheartedly, or else I would not have survived my working season at Upper Canada Village.
I thank you again for letting me speak.
The Chair: Thank you. We have two minutes per caucus, and we start with the Progressive Conservatives.
Mr Villeneuve: Anna Maria, you are still in the employ of the parks commission as an interpreter?
Mrs Lehmann: Yes, I'm laid off right now, a seasonal layoff.
Mr Villeneuve: When a German tour bus, for instance, which I believe is one of the languages in which you interpret -- why has there not been a reaction to accommodate these people to give them some personalized, in their own language, interpretation? Can you explain that?
Mrs Lehmann: No, and those are the questions I am asking because, quite frankly, it is beyond me. I don't understand how marketing and how management at the St Lawrence Parks Commission works. I have been in the private tourism industry for over 20 years in Europe and I have worked at Upper Canada Village for the last 12 seasons, and never in my life in the private industry have I seen management which would work like that. I just can't understand it.
Mr Villeneuve: Do you put your requests through to your supervisor or do you go through a union? Is there a protocol that you're missing, or is it just being completely disregarded?
Mrs Lehmann: When I was approached, I went to my supervisor, and they said: "We can't accommodate that. We have to look at it next year." If you have the tour groups staying and if they are asking, it is pretty difficult to say, "We'll look at your request next year." I wouldn't even dare to give them that answer.
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Mr Villeneuve: Is there any interpretation done at all with these people or is it done in the English language, which most of them don't understand? Is the interpretation simply set aside?
Mrs Lehmann: Officially, German is not the language we use. They might be lucky and they might hit somebody who speaks German with them. They might not be lucky. I'm not controlling the scheduling.
Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): Thanks, Ms Lehmann, for your presentation. You raise some disturbing items in your presentation. Although I think it's fair to say that you and the commission share the same goal of providing a first-class service, obviously, as to how you do it, there is some discrepancy there.
I'm interested to hear, first of all, about the charges you raise of harassment and intimidation. Is your position not unionized?
Mrs Lehmann: I would rather not comment on the --
Mr Gary Wilson: No, but I was just wondering whether you wouldn't have gone through the union to raise those issues.
Mrs Lehmann: Let me just tell you that there are quite a number of grievances to that effect pending, so I do not --
Mr Gary Wilson: I just wanted to make sure you had access to that, other than the other questions you raised. We've discussed quite extensively issues like the promotion of tourism and market development, for instance, and your assessment of what the commission is doing is quite at variance with most of the things we've been hearing during our deliberation.
There is the issue of the changes that are made in any operation that you'd probably expect, by evaluating to see what kind of reaction there is to the services that are presented. You have a long list here of the elimination of customer service. Could it not have been that the demand just wasn't there, that these things weren't popular enough to be continued? Is that a possibility?
Mrs Lehmann: I personally feel that usually you have to respond to customer service quickly, and I'd just like to mention one maybe minor detail.
A friend of mine is a German tour operator. They were visiting the village this year: Her husband has been visiting the village in 1984, 1985 and 1986, and she was visiting the village this year. She was appalled about the service cuts. What she told me was, "This is not a living village any more." It isn't just the village. Unfortunately, it's the foodservices which are contracted out. She and her friend who is a travel writer -- her husband is in the publishing business -- went to the village to eat. Mind you, they paid for it; they did not feel they were tourist operators or VIPs. At about 2:15 in the afternoon other visitors were coming and they were told, no, they would not be served any more. They were still eating their lunch and all around them, they were putting up the chairs up on the tables. She was appalled at the service, and I couldn't even mention, "This is contracted out; the St Lawrence Parks Commission has nothing to do with it," because the visitor does not see it that way.
Mr Morin: Mr Runciman a minute ago raised the point to Mr McManus that you should write to the committee, be more elaborate, explain the things you are saying in your presentation. I would highly recommend that you do that.
Mr Cleary: Thank you, and welcome to the committee. We had a presenter here yesterday, Ron Huck, who touched on some of the things you had touched on to attract visitors to our community and to stay longer. A question I asked yesterday is that some tourists say they cannot see Upper Canada Village all in one day, that they would have to go back, they told me, several days, but it was clarified yesterday that if you went back on a rotating basis you would see all the village in two days. Is that correct?
Mrs Lehmann: With all the closures -- my friend intended to come back and wanted to see many things. They have all been closed. Right now, it is a fact that probably in a couple of hours you can go through and see everything you're able to see, because services have been eliminated or are not shown that day.
Mr Cleary: But you would have to come back a few days to see the whole village.
Mrs Lehmann: If everything were in operation, yes.
Mr Cleary: As to your last remarks about favouritism, nepotism, harassment and so on, we would like more information on that, because this is a hearing to hear all sides of this issue. How can this committee do its job if we don't hear the particular incidents?
The Chair: Do you wish to make a response to that?
Mrs Lehmann: I would like to make the comment that right now, the way I see it or perceive it, there has been promised to be an investigation into the case because, yes, I have been threatened with my life. I do not wish to make any comments here to that effect because that might jeopardize an investigation.
The Chair: That's right. If you're in the middle of a process, we would advise that you do not. Thank you for your appearance, Ms Lehmann, before the committee this morning.
SHIRLEY PALMER
The Chair: Our next deputation is Mrs Shirley Palmer. There is only one copy of this presentation available, so again you will receive it on our return to Toronto. You have 15 minutes, Mrs Palmer. Please proceed.
Mrs Shirley Palmer: I wish to thank the committee for the opportunity to present my views of the health and safety concerns or the lack of same at the Upper Canada Village. My verbal presentation will attempt to show the disregard for safety of employees and patrons of UCV by management personnel. All information given can be documented by myself or by witnesses.
Number 1: the spraying of buildings inside and out with toxic pesticides, with no warning to employees or tourists. The resulting illness by woollen mill workers and by at least one tourist is documented. These types of toxins and dates of spraying are part of my written brief. Subsequent request for such information and posting of the same was met with the attitude that such information was never given before nor posted before so was unnecessary.
Number 2: There was and still is a major public concern with regard to Willard's Hotel, as the building is a home for numerous bats and mice whose excrement is within five feet of dining/food area. Numerous requests for actions netted nothing in my year as co-chairperson of health and safety.
Number 3: No employees, workers in the kitchen and servers, have had fire safety training or first aid in this building, and the fire escapes on the second floor of this wooden building are almost useless.
Number 4: There are long periods of time when an interpreter is alone on the floor of various buildings where there is dangerous moving machinery run by water power. In such cases, anyone injured or caught has no access to aid of any kind, let alone to stop these machines, as they are water-power driven. My brief is that this is contrary to the Department of Labour guidelines.
Number 5: Also, use of student labour with little or no training on machines and work safety in high-risk positions constitutes a hazard to themselves and to other employees and tourists. All attempts to make Upper Canada Village a safe and healthy environment for both workers and tourists was met with procrastination and indifference by management unless it was cosmetic. The approach of management appears to be one of confrontation and harassment towards anyone trying to show an interest in an honest enforcement of health and safety rules. Management have now installed a health and safety representative who in all things follows the health and safety concerns, but only management orders.
Thank you for your attention to my concerns.
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The Chair: Thank you, Mrs Palmer. Three minutes per caucus, and we're starting with the government members in this rotation.
Mr Waters: You make a number of health and safety accusations, or infractions, at Upper Canada Village. Have you ever had the Ministry of Labour come in?
Mrs Palmer: I have a copy in my brief here of where I wrote a letter to the Minister of the Environment. I first sent it to the department of labour. It was sent to the Minister of the Environment and it was answered to me by J.J. Onderdonk, who was to get back to me -- and here's the copy of his letter -- and he refused to do so.
Mr Waters: And this was I take it on the pesticide?
Mrs Palmer: Yes, it was.
Mr Waters: Okay. I guess my other question is, you talked about people working in the mills. Is there a way of historically interpreting the mills as they would have run and meeting today's safety standards? As I go through them, and I'm just a member of a committee but I've been through there several times now in the village and I've been through other ones that are interpretative as well, they all seem to run pretty much the same way. How do you bring it up to 1994 safety standards and still have it water-powered and run in the same way that it was 150 or 200 years ago?
Mrs Palmer: Well, that would be a very hard thing to do, but the main point of issue is, do not leave a floor with one person working on it alone when the only way to stop the movement of the machines is to go to the back of the building and turn the gate shut. Therefore, if that person is sitting up at the front end and gets a dress or a pant caught in the machinery, she's there for ever, until somebody comes in. Tourists don't know how to stop the power. We work alone, and we've asked and asked and asked not to be alone, and our help was robbed from us. I am a woman mill operator, and I was left alone. I was left with two floors of moving machinery -- two floors. Of course, I could only be on one floor. The bottom floor was unattended, with children running through, bus tours running through. This is dangerous. Somebody will eventually be killed.
Mr Waters: What do you see as a resolution for this? How do you think it can be resolved?
Mrs Palmer: By keeping personnel, enough personnel, on the floor, two people minimum at all times, so that if there is an accident -- keeping the people behind the ropes is great. You need the people there to do it.
Mr Waters: Yes, but I'm not only looking at the mill, I'm looking at indeed the whole of the village. The last three people, yourself included, have made some fairly strong accusations about the day-to-day operation of the village and management, and I'm wondering, what's the answer? Just more people?
Mrs Palmer: The answer in the places where the mills are is to be not left alone. The answer to the other places would be to give the proper training to the students. But students cannot walk into a job and be green in it and learn it in a matter of a week or a day. So they should be accompanied by an interpreter. They shouldn't be alone.
Mr Morin: You have a letter in your hand, and there was a response. What is the date of that letter?
Mrs Palmer: July 17, 1991, when I was the health and safety chairman.
Mr Morin: And that's when you wrote? You had a reply?
Mrs Palmer: That was the year and the month that I wrote to the department of labour and to the Minister of the Environment.
Mr Morin: But you never had a reply since then?
Mrs Palmer: No, never.
Mr Morin: Did you approach your union? Did you tell your union?
Mrs Palmer: Yes.
Mr Morin: Surely they must be extremely concerned with your health. Like anybody else, if it's dangerous to work, I mean, I would be concerned too. But was there anyone from the Ministry of Labour who came and visited the quarters, visited the site, and said, "Look, there should be a gate around this in order to protect the employees"? I can see a lady with a long dress being caught in one of those spinning shafts. I could see that so easily happening. Why isn't there anything --
Mrs Palmer: That's what I want to know. This is why I'm keeping the pressure on. I wrote to the head office of OPSEU. I wrote to every dignitary that I could think of. I had a list of letters, about 10 of them, and sent them out, and nobody would pay attention to me.
Mr Morin: You had no response?
Mrs Palmer: No.
Mr Morin: May I make a suggestion again, because we're limited with time. Why don't you write to the committee, to the clerk? Those letters are treated confidentially. Because you've had a few minutes to express your opinion and to try to tell the grievances that you are facing --
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Morin. Any letters that come to the committee are not confidential. They are for the public record.
Mr Morin: I apologize. Obviously I made a mistake. But at least it's for the benefit of all the committee members, and none of these committee members, I strongly believe, would be in favour of letting you work in a place where it's dangerous, if this is the case. So please don't hesitate to let us know. That is our job. That is our responsibility, to make sure the employees who work for the government are happy. If they're not happy, how can you promote an industry? How can you make money if you work in an area which to you and others is dangerous and it's not in a setup which is conducive to happiness and to promoting our industry, which is tourism? That's all I have to say.
Mrs Palmer: I pursued every avenue I could think of at that time. I was new on the health and safety. But when there was an overspraying of chemicals in my building, I went to the clinic and had blood tests taken, and they're in my package for you to see. It's documented for you, the information that you need. I didn't know where to turn. So I am taking the advice that I heard today: Press and press and press until somebody pays attention.
Mr Morin: You came to the right place.
Mrs Palmer: Thank you.
The Chair: Mrs Palmer, I would like to advise you that if you are considering submitting your package, anything you submit today to the committee, because these are public hearings, will be on the public record. I think the clerk has been trying to advise the deputations today that if there are grievances in the process, not to jeopardize your grievances by putting something on the public record that might have that result. So I'm simply advising you, with caution.
The last one is Mr Villeneuve.
Mr Villeneuve: Are you still the health and safety person or responsible person in the area that you work?
Mrs Palmer: No. I did not work this year due to ill health. I did not return to my job this year.
Mr Villeneuve: Was ill health -- you don't have to answer -- in part caused by the fact that you worked under the conditions that you've explained?
Mrs Palmer: I would say yes.
Mr Villeneuve: Have you had a number of workers' compensation claims in the area that is of concern to you?
Mrs Palmer: Yes, I have, and when I left work on August 29, 1993, my employers told me in a letter that I was putting on a work stoppage. I was taken off work by the advice of our known Dr Tombler, who is a specialist in Cornwall and who has sent me to two neurologists. I have been diagnosed with problems that I can't return to work, and I have received no compensation or anything since August 29 of last year.
Mr Villeneuve: We appreciate the fact that you've come to this committee and put on the public record the concerns that are very real that you have, and hopefully we can address them to some degree to your satisfaction.
Mrs Palmer: Thank you. I just would like to make it a safe place for my fellow workers and the tourists.
The Chair: Thank you, Mrs Palmer, for your appearance before the committee today.
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GLEN CUNNINGHAM
The Chair: The next deputation is Mr Glen Cunningham. Welcome to the committee, Mr Cunningham, and you also have 15 minutes.
Mr Glen Cunningham: I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak. My remarks are to the standing committee on government agencies in respect to the operation of the St Lawrence Parks Commission. I'm Glen Cunningham. I'm a retired employee, 27 years, from 1958 to 1984. I was supervisor responsible for our maintenance and restoration services throughout many years, agriculture and horticulture various years, crafts and trades, cleaning and security.
Upper Canada Village and security and artefacts, the collection: Upper Canada Village is an invaluable, irreplaceable collection. It has been the policy in recent years to move from display buildings into storage much of the original artefacts and furnishings and replace these with reproductions. Currently a significant percentage, perhaps a majority, of the artefacts in this collection are in storage in the Christ Church basement and in the French Robertson basement and attic. Neither area was designed from a security or an environmental standpoint to be a warehouse for such an invaluable collection.
The situation has been made even more grave by the fact that the in-house fire department has been eliminated and the in-house security staff has been contracted out to outside agencies, and, I must add, only one person instead of two. Although electronic surveillance systems have been installed in such areas as the golf clubhouse, revenue office and entrance store, all of which could be replaced if disaster struck, the collection itself remains in peril. It's like the banker putting the loonies in the safe and leaving the main money in the cash register.
Recommendations: The best method to ensure the collection is not lost in its entirety, as would be the case if fire were to strike the current storage locations, is to have artefacts returned to their original buildings, where they are once again enjoyed by the general public.
The second point: Unless and until a proper facility is built and maintained, the collection in storage should be moved where it can be kept safely by another responsible authority, one with curators interested in the safekeeping of the collection. Alternatively, such artefacts could be returned to the original donors.
The adequacy of the existing fire and security measures should be reviewed and, where appropriate, strengthened.
Visitation and popularity of the site: Annual visitation to Upper Canada Village from the late 1970s to the 1980s declined by over 100,000 people, from 350,000 to 250,000. From the mid-1980s to the present it has dropped by another 60,000, to 190,000 in 1994; see table 1. Fort Wellington, the closest park site, on the other hand has experienced stable attendance -- see table 2 -- from the mid-1980s to the present: 46,000 in 1985, 48,000 in 1994. It would be interesting to compare the trends in visitation at Upper Canada Village to that of the National Capital Commission, where tremendous growth has been experienced over this past decade.
Recommendations: Greater effort should be made in keeping Upper Canada Village clean, properly maintained and authentic so as to attract more visitation. I visited it yesterday. The front entrance and administrative booth/toll-house is not in keeping with the 1860 setting, a modern octagon booth that was built up in the open spaces, cement paving. You'd think it was owned by a cement company. The entrance store complex has become too large and filled with modern commercialism, rather than the original setting of a store in a small farming community. Gardens and grounds within the village have lost much of their attractiveness; they are poorly designed and maintained. Modern patios with umbrellas have been allowed to be built within the village, beside Willard's Hotel. The A-frame timber bridge at the entrance to the village and the timber lift bridge over the blockhouse have been replaced and are out of character with the site. The canal gates have been removed and not replaced. The bateau, a major attraction of this village, has had its maintenance neglected to the point where complete replacement is likely necessary.
The quality and type of demonstrations need improvement. The very popular woodworking demonstration should be reinstated: hewing, pump-boring, shingle-making, cooperage, drag saw, pit saw. But it should also be noted that with the current policy of having a village operating in a single period of 1860, many of the interesting demonstrations have been abandoned: broom-making and the above-noted. A large part of the educational values of Upper Canada Village was lost through this change to a one-period time.
This is an old grievance of mine: Bus drivers and tour guides must be treated as VIPs. Establish suitable day accommodation for the bus drivers and tour guides, a facility close to the parking lot complete with newspapers, lounge, coffee and TV. They always complain to me. It was like the worst thing they could be hit with was to be told they were going to Upper Canada Village to lie on the grass for four hours. Provide suitable recognition to tour buses and tour guides who bring a large number of visitors to the village. Give them a discount on the merchandising.
Efforts must be made to improve the morale, the quality and the friendliness of the interpretative staff. I was there yesterday. It's terrible. The extremely poor employee morale within that village staff, which is due to more factors than I can address within this brief presentation, is no doubt influencing negatively on their liaison with the general public.
Plans to make considerable capital investments and expand the village to Ault Island should be held in abeyance until such time as existing buildings can be adequately staffed and reopened, ie, rotating closures of at least two display buildings each day within the village and permanent closure of our main site, the Crysler battle memorial building and Grand Trunk Railway, and trying to give away the train.
The Queen's Gardens: The current gardens are not being adequately maintained due to the budgetary restraints and shortage of staff. There is also an absence of long-term planning for this important garden. Consideration should be given to operating these gardens in cooperation with horticultural programs offered by provincial and federal colleges and universities, eg, Algonquin College, Kemptville, St Lawrence and Agriculture Canada's experimental farm. I believe the highly successful Niagara Parks Commission's approach to such gardens should be studied as a model. We're looking at trying to retrain people. What better area than this?
Campgrounds: The special fee for senior citizens -- and I am one -- currently a 60% discount, is open to abuse and should be replaced with the travel industry's normally accepted 10% discount only.
Standards of performance should be established for private operators and municipalities -- I understand the commission is into this a bit with a couple of groups; it worries me a bit on long-term maintenance -- to ensure the campgrounds are maintained properly for a long period of time. A mechanism must exist to ensure the operators are responsible for undertaking regular maintenance, eg, maintenance costs based on a percentage of revenues. Regular inspections should be performed to ensure that these standards are maintained. Operators must obtain approval for installation underground, and I believe that has been going on this summer without anyone knowing.
Crysler marina: The new building is a welcome addition. I am a boater myself. However, it has done little to enhance the marina beyond being a fuel stop between the Thousand Islands and Montreal. The loss of the Upper Canada Playhouse to Morrisburg, which was opposed by the staff at the village, was a great loss and an example of the lost opportunity to make the marina more attractive.
A restaurant-bar with suitable evening entertainment during the peak season is essential to entice boaters to stay in that marina beyond the hour required for fuel. This could be operated in cooperation with the clubhouse. Agreements could be made with various civic organizations for barbecues, cookouts, live plays, campfires and entertainment for children.
The marina needs to be equipped with a proper maintenance and storage facility, boat lifts and repair facilities, and this could be tendered out.
Taxi service to the golf course, Upper Canada Village and Upper Canada Playhouse should be supplied with the purchase of dockage fees.
Consideration should be given to encouraging a concessionaire to operate adjacent to the marina -- and I mean the bay to the east -- such attractions as a large water slide and Sea-Doos and windsurfing rentals.
Old Fort Henry: The elimination of the sunset ceremony at the fort is a tremendous loss to tourism in eastern Ontario and should be reinstated.
It is my understanding that many Ontario tourist offices in the northern United States have been closed recently or their operations significantly curtailed. Given the advantage of the $1.40 dollar, this is no time to quit advertising in our giant across the border, the United States. What is going on?
Administration: Although it has been 10 years since I was a manager in the St Lawrence Parks Commission and therefore it is difficult for me to comment on the current organizational structure, I have often noticed that the number of vehicles parked at the administration building often outnumber the vehicles in the main parking lot.
My recommendation is that a thorough and independent review of the management structure of the St Lawrence Parks Commission should be undertaken in relation to the responsibility and numbers of staff being supervised.
I want to thank you for this opportunity.
The Chair: Thank you. We have a minute per caucus, and it's the Liberal caucus first.
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Mr Morin: I just want to thank you, sir, for an excellent presentation, constructive ideas, and that's what it's all about. If everybody participated the same way as you do, I think it would give more of a positive feeling for everything. So congratulations. We don't have enough time. I don't have any questions. I think you are very thorough and I hope that somebody will heed your recommendations.
Mr Villeneuve: Glen, thank you very much for your recommendations. I believe we should build on our strengths. The strength has been the golf course. It has been a moneymaker. We can't overlook that. You've mentioned the golf course and we haven't spoken of the golf course very much. Could you possibly zero in on some of the problem areas within the golf course across number 2.
Mr Cunningham: I just looked at the golf course as the one small division of the St Lawrence parks that's highly successful. With my experience, I leave success alone.
Mr Runciman: What about the geese?
Mr Cunningham: The geese. We have way too many geese in eastern Ontario, but I'm not the one to complain about that. We brought them in here. I think the St Lawrence Parks Commission is the last group to ever complain about it.
Mr Villeneuve: We've heard of nepotism and we've heard of intimidation and what have you. Were you aware of some of that 10 years ago?
Mr Cunningham: Relations with employees have changed an awful lot in the last 10 years. As a supervisor, as a manager in my years at the St Lawrence parks, we always considered we had 48 hours to settle a grievance and it was a terrible thing if the supervisor couldn't settle it in 48 hours. It was something you didn't have happen. You settled that in some way. You called the guy in the office and you kept him there until you had come to an agreement. You didn't start handing it up the rank. It was looked at as being a downer if a supervisor couldn't handle it and he had to hand it to the next level.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you for your presentation. The last few presentations have all come forward with ideas about how to get Upper Canada Village moving, how to improve upon the situation. Far from what I've been hearing from the privatization people of everything else, this I find to be more constructive, your discussions and the discussions of the previous people on how to improve on the situation that really has been deteriorating over the last I guess 10, 15 years. It fluctuates with the economy also. I can understand that.
One of the things that interested me was when you talked about they should look at what Niagara Falls has done as far as their gardens are concerned. Remember the climate too. They're in the banana belt down in Niagara Falls.
Mr Cunningham: Oh, yes. I'm not saying we've got to garden like Niagara Falls. It took 150 years to do that. What I'm saying is that government's main push today is to retraining people. What better diversion is there than horticulture? Our society is getting older. There are more and more people needing yard work. They want people to come into their yards and do it and we need more and more people with expertise in horticulture. Bring these students in and give them some credits towards their education. Make it a training process, not a weed-pulling deal.
The Chair: We thank you, Mr Cunningham, for coming before the committee this morning.
DYANNE BEAUVALET
The Chair: Our next presentation is Mrs Dyanne Beauvalet. If I'm not pronouncing your name correctly, please tell us how you pronounce it.
Mrs Dyanne Beauvalet: Don't worry about that. It is not what's important at this stage. My name is Dyanne Beauvalet. I have been a worker at Upper Canada Village for 10 years and have been part of the non-recall staff for the last two years.
I want first of all to thank you, members of this committee, for giving us the time and opportunity to voice our concerns that have been going on for some years.
I would like to add to what I've written down that some of the employees of Upper Canada Village who have spoken in front of you today are people who are putting themselves on the line. Some of those people have been warned to not say anything before it was passed by their supervisors, and so on and so forth. So some people here could find retaliation just because they have been brought here, which is very sad. But I think on the other hand it shows this committee that employees at Upper Canada Village do care deeply about the village and about what you are trying to set here. I will go back to my notes now.
I have been an historical interpreter for over 15 years as part of three major organizations: namely, the National Capital Commission, the St Lawrence Parks Commission and Parks Canada. I have worked in the position of interpretative program manager, interpretation officer, historical weaver at the village and historical interpreter.
The reason for my presentation is my very, very strong belief in the importance and significance of history and heritage, both cultural and natural. Someone has written many moons ago, and I think we should never forget that, "What is a tree without roots?" The tree is all citizens of Ontario. We need to know our roots. Upper Canada Village is part of the roots of this area and we should protect those roots so that people can feel proud of who they are.
As per a document that was given to us, the employees, which was called Employee Orientation Manual, 1988, written by the St Lawrence Parks Commission, I will quote from page 2, "Goals and Objectives":
"To acquire, preserve, develop, maintain the historic and recreational resources within the area of the commission's jurisdiction for the benefit of the people of Ontario and their guests;
"To operate at a high standard of excellence the commission's resources and facilities for the educational and recreational enjoyment of its visitors;
"To encourage and promote year-round the tourist industry in eastern Ontario for the economic benefit of the province;
"To be as self-sustainable as possible."
I would like to take these goals and objectives and compare them to what I perceive as being the reality.
Acquire: To our knowledge, very little has been acquired lately but a lot has been contracted out, leased, or the St Lawrence Parks Commission has severed any or all ties to what it owned, for example: Fairfield House, Farran Park, Crysler Park, maple sugar bush, to name a few.
Preserve: Is our natural and cultural heritage still preserved by the St Lawrence Parks Commission; ie, how many artefacts have disappeared as sites have been leased? As sites are being leased, do they have mandates to preserve, to protect, to present?
Develop and maintain: The development that we have heard about recently is the waterfront development. It is not in keeping with the goals and objectives, as I see them here, but is an entertainment and amusement park in the image of Disneyland. How are our roots going to be looked after?
How can we talk about maintaining, in view of the closures, cutbacks and the elimination of services?
Benefits: How can the people of Ontario and their guests benefit from increased prices, fewer learning opportunities, ie, education programs? As well, professional historical interpreters providing a broader history of Ontario are disappearing at a frightening rate.
To operate to a high standard of excellence: At UCV this past summer, at least in the interpretation staff, almost half, if not more, were unskilled students who couldn't deliver that standard of excellence because you just don't pick up a job like that. How can they provide customers service with a high standard of excellence?
To encourage and promote year-round the tourism industry: All programs have been cancelled for the winter. Marketing tools are not reflecting these decisions, which results in deception for the tourist. It gives a poor image of Ontario to the visitors.
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To be as self-sustaining as possible: Working in three major organizations over the last 15 years, I realize that is very difficult, particularly when you're talking about cultural implications. It requires, to my thinking, that management of this SLPC believes strongly in the preservation of culture, heritage -- natural or historical -- and being able to defend those goals and objectives that have been set forth many years ago.
In conclusion, I have always felt that the SLPC has a major role to play in the safe keeping of Ontario's natural and cultural heritage. With the will and prompt and direct action from the Ontario government -- example: making management of all departments of SLPC really accountable to the Ontario government and to the general public -- we will be able to enjoy our work, free of harassment, discrimination, nepotism and favouritism. This will enable the tourist professionals, which we are, to share with enthusiasm and pride our knowledge, skills and our love of eastern Ontario's natural and cultural heritage.
Thank you very much.
Mr Villeneuve: Thank you, Mademoiselle Beauvalet, for your presentation. You speak of reprisals and intimidation. I've heard that on a number of occasions, not only today. This continues --
Mrs Beauvalet: Yes, it does.
Mr Villeneuve: -- actively continues?
Mrs Beauvalet: Yes, it does. From my knowledge, even though it's second hearing now, because I haven't been there for the last two years, but I'm very much concerned about the village. That's why I'm here today. And yes, it has happened in the past and it's still happening.
Mr Villeneuve: You work for Parks Canada.
Mrs Beauvalet: On a term basis. I don't have a full-time job.
Mr Villeneuve: On a term basis. Do you see the same situation occurring at the federal level as you see at the agency of the St Lawrence parks?
Mrs Beauvalet: No, I'm sorry. There are problems everywhere. I mean, I'm not going to say that Parks Canada is an angel, nor is NCC, but I don't see as much harassment. I don't see the lack of respect for the employees I've seen and lived and still am living through all the grievances I have against the village at this point. I don't see that. I don't feel threatened when I'm working and I don't feel that I'm a second-class citizen. I'm just a normal being trying to do a job.
Mr Villeneuve: The cost to the tourist to visit Upper Canada Village has gone up quite dramatically over the past number of years. Have you, as an interpreter and as a person who was there, discussed with people on a casual basis or on a more official basis that they are unhappy with the value for money?
Mrs Beauvalet: I have heard it many times. I'm a skilled weaver talking about flax which, by the way, doesn't exist any more in the village. I'm gone, so they're not talking of a part of our heritage that is very important, which is the growing of flax into linen. I must say that because I was in a very special field, I have been stopped on the streets in Ottawa by former patrons of Upper Canada Village at least four times, which is a lot when you consider that it's a public attraction. People came to me and said, "Why aren't you there any more?" I said: "Well, I can't comment at this point. This is the way it is." "Well, we have been there and we're not going to go back again." I said: "Well, that's not giving us anything. Write to your Legislature to do something about it." There's a feeling that they're not getting the value for their money.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you for your presentation, Ms Beauvalet. Of course we're disturbed, I think, by the tenor of the last several presentations. I just want to see what you, looking at the evaluation that has to go on over the programs that are being presented -- for instance, you just mentioned the flax. The weaving program that you were involved in I guess was stopped, was it? Is that what you just said?
Mrs Beauvalet: When I was non-recall, I didn't leave on my own will. I left after three years of being harassed in some form.
Mr Gary Wilson: It has nothing to do with the program, in your view, that it wasn't popular any longer?
Mrs Beauvalet: I don't know and I can't comment on that because I have grievances against the village and I would be in jeopardy at this point, so I have to be very careful. I only wish I could comment. I feel gagged at this point and I think this gag that's put on us because of our trying to better this village over the last five years at least is one of the reasons why we're here at this point. You're one of our last resources to open up the can of worms that's in there, I'm sorry to say, to let us speak freely somewhere so that you finally find out the truth of how caring people, people who believe in history, people who believe in this village, people who believe in tourism and people working in harmony, haven't been allowed to do their jobs and instead have been sort of pushed aside.
Mr Gary Wilson: I think again, when you look at the range of submissions we've heard, everyone shares those goals. But I think it's fair to say that there can be a disagreement or problems arising out of how you get or reach those goals and that is certainly one of our responsibilities, I guess, to make sure that we do have an airing of the disagreements, as much as we can, to try to make the attainment of the goals possible. But I do want to --
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Wilson. I'm sorry. It's two minutes and they're used.
Mrs Beauvalet: May I comment just a second on that? I don't know all the government's gears, wheels -- I'm trying to find the English words to say what I have to say -- but I would appreciate and I would ask this committee to find a way, if there is any political way, that we can be heard, what we really have to say and not have to sort of zigzag through because we are under pressure of not able to do so because of our deep involvement with grievances at this point.
Mr Morin: Thank you for being here, Mademoiselle Beauvalet. I just want to assure you, and I know I can talk on behalf of my colleagues, that you have sympathetic ears here, and if you cannot express yourself clearly and without fear, there's something wrong.
Mr Cleary: Thank you and welcome to the committee. As my colleague said, that's what this committee is all about. We're the ones who should know what's going on. I've heard about the issues for several years in my office and on the street. The only thing is, I'm a little bit disappointed. I've been told names of people responsible. I didn't hear that today. I can assure you, for one thing, that our goal is to clean up the problem, because no one can work like that. We've heard it too many times. We know there's a problem and that's why I might have gotten criticized a bit.
It was us, the Liberal Party, who picked this as our choice, to look into the operations of the St Lawrence Parks Commission, because we all have one goal in mind: to make it a better place and to attract more tourists and to get people to come back year after year and create employment. That's the only way we can operate now.
Mrs Beauvalet: Thank you very much. I would like to address the names issue that you bring forth right now. We have all discussed among ourselves whether we were going to do it. I mean, the names are there; we all have them. But again fear is behind us not naming anything, and we didn't want our presentations to be personal accusations because we didn't feel it was the right place.
Mr Cleary: Anyway --
The Chair: No, you've finished your two minutes.
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Mrs Beauvalet: I thank you very much.
The Chair: We appreciate your coming before the committee today, Mrs Beauvalet.
Mrs Beauvalet: We hope that we can hear from you after, and if we can help you in any way, don't hesitate. I can be reached by phone or any which way, to keep on talking. I do believe in the village; I still do after being away from it for two years, and I care.
The Chair: I think you understand that the committee is not restricting itself, it's the grievance procedure that restricts what can take place here in terms of your participation with the committee.
Mrs Beauvalet: I realize that, but at the same time, time is getting very short for us to be able to put that together. The grievance process is very, very slow. It's dragged on now for a year and a half. We're always under that, but we have to defend ourselves at the same time, so that's why we're here.
The Chair: Thank you. We understand.
Mrs Beauvalet: Thank you very much, everybody. We appreciate your ears.
GARY GALE
The Chair: Our final deputation for this morning is Mr Gary Gale. Mr Gale is going to speak without his presentation in writing for the committee. Mr Gale, you have 15 minutes.
Mr Gary Gale: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you this morning. I must identify that I am currently in the process of seeking justice for what I believe is a wrongful dismissal and subsequently a tainted arbitration decision. I was hoping to identify the details of my case this morning, what had happened to me and to what extent the management of the St Lawrence Parks Commission go to get what they want.
My lawyer has advised me not to go into specific details of my case since it might jeopardize my future potential hearings, but I will identify that I was an employee of the St Lawrence Parks Commission from 1971 to 1990. I was president of OPSEU Local 404 from 1980 to 1988. My position was excluded; it was deemed to be abolished in 1990. I went through three years of arbitration hearings. A few months after the decision was handed down, I was made aware that one of the arbitrators was aware of information that was relevant to my ultimate dismissal.
I apologize that I cannot go into any more details, but I will say I fully agree with Dyanne before me. I think the committee has a moral obligation to look into what has happened down here with management. At some time everybody must be given an open forum without fear of repercussions to explain what has happened to each one of them. Again, I thank you for listening to me.
The Chair: There are four minutes per caucus. The government members, Mr Waters.
Mr Waters: Seeing as how we can't talk about your case, I guess I'd like to talk about the future of Upper Canada Village, because this seems to be what we're talking about at the moment. The waterfront development, somebody referred to it as a Disney World type waterfront development. The plans that I've seen aren't that way at all. If it was a historic village that had been created in the 1800s or before that, indeed the waterfront would have been the most developed area within the village, and that is lacking, is it not?
Mr Gale: I left the village in 1990. I was the budget officer. They were given funds to develop the waterfront at that time, but I don't think they really had a clear idea of what they wanted to do with it. Since 1990, I can't comment much on what's gone on.
Mr Waters: Historically, then, for those of us who don't come from eastern Ontario, has there been much change at the village, shall we say, expanding it and keeping it fresh and new in programming and that since its inception back in the early 1960s?
Mr Gale: With the change in management I don't think they really clearly understood what the village was or how much the St Lawrence Parks Commission meant to eastern Ontario per se. Most of the management are from outside eastern Ontario. They were brought in not fully comprehending the situation. I don't really think they have a commitment.
Mr Waters: I guess the other question that has been discussed here a lot, except for the last few presentations -- and you are either employees or former employees or in some sense related to the village over a long period of time, the number of you -- I'd like your feelings about, in particular, the Charlottenburgh and the Raisin River parks. They are closed. It was a decision that came out of some recommendations by someone from the outside who came in and looked at it and said, "These things should be closed." This was back in 1989. Should they now be turned over to the private sector?
Mr Gale: As an ex-OPSEU activist, it should be looked at, but with some restrictions on hiring employees who were displaced or lost their jobs there. You guys have to look at the hardships that these displaced employees went through at the time when they lost their jobs, and that should be looked at before. There should be a compromise, I agree.
Mr Waters: So you're saying that successor rights --
Mr Gale: If you want to call them that, yes.
Mr Waters: Okay. How much more time?
The Chair: You have 30 seconds.
Mr Waters: I guess at this point I'd just like to thank you once again for coming out this morning, because we don't have much time left. It's nice to hear all sides of everything.
Mr Gale: Good. Thank you very much.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee. Just for the record, it was said that the parks were closed in 1989. One of them was closed in 1989; the other one that you mentioned was closed later.
Anyway, we've heard many times about the favouritism, nepotism, harassment and intimidation at the St Lawrence Parks Commission, and that's what this committee is all about. That has got to come to a head, and people like yourself are the only ones who can help bring it to a head. We've heard that many times today; I've heard it many times in my office; I hear it from the employees. Do you agree that is taking place at the St Lawrence Parks Commission?
Mr Gale: I agree 125%.
Mr Cleary: You agree 125%.
Mr Gale: It was definitely going on, a lot of favouritism, a lot of --
Mr Cleary: Nepotism?
Mr Gale: Empire building.
Mr Cleary: Okay.
Mr Gale: A lot of egotistic management.
Mr Morin: I guess that your presence here, Mr Gale, is -- you're doing it in a very subtle way. I know you cannot discuss your case. I understand that.
Mr Gale: Yes.
Mr Morin: At the same time, I think the message you want to convey to this committee is: "Please investigate. Please take a look inside."
Mr Gale: I think you owe it to the employees, such as myself, who were there for 20 years. As the next OPSEU president, I'd know a lot of stories about what happened. Also, I have never known an employee who did retire happily, on a happy footing; every one was either forced out or was glad to leave the commission due to pressure tactics.
The Chair: Mr Cleary, are you finished?
Mr Cleary: Yes. You've been out since 1991, you say?
Mr Gale: Since 1990.
Mr Cleary: Since 1990. Well, I really appreciate your taking the time to come here today. I think, as I said earlier, it's very important to the committee in making its decisions and recommendations.
Mr Gale: Thank you very much.
Mr Cleary: Do you --
The Chair: No, just a second. The Progressive Conservatives would like to ask a question.
Mr Villeneuve: Everybody gets to ask here. Thank you, Mr Gale, for being with us. I hope this doesn't jeopardize your case. You worked under a former manager, Mr Cunningham. Several minutes ago he sat in the same chair that you're in and told us that he would basically, as a supervisor, solve the problems within 48 hours. Back in those days, did you see some of those problems occur and then be resolved?
Mr Gale: At one time, yes, you'd be able to sit down with management and settle things, basically as said, right in their office, without going to the grievance route. Nowadays, it looks like management wants the employees to file grievances. It seems absurd, but they almost want to drag it on, hoping the employees will forget about it and drop it.
Mr Villeneuve: So the process you've gone through, you started in 1990 on what you feel was a wrongful dismissal. We're now at the end of 1994. There has been no settlement of your case?
Mr Gale: No. I was made aware of facts after my arbitration decision was handed down.
Mr Villeneuve: Facts that you had not been privy to prior?
Mr Gale: Yes, I was; myself or my lawyer was privy to.
Mr Villeneuve: So this has caused an undue delay, then?
Mr Gale: Definitely.
Mr Villeneuve: So some personal information was withheld?
Mr Gale: Yes, it was.
Mr Villeneuve: My colleague from Brockville.
Mr Runciman: I was just curious if you were a past president of the OPSEU local.
Mr Gale: Yes, I was, for eight years.
Mr Runciman: You have filed a wrongful dismissal suit. Did you go through the grievance process or were you in management at the time of the dismissal?
Mr Gale: My position was excluded.
Mr Runciman: Excluded from the bargaining unit?
Mr Gale: Yes.
Mr Runciman: But you had to agree to that, I assume. Did you have an option to go back into the bargaining unit or to remain in the bargaining unit?
Mr Gale: I do not want to get into much detail without endangering or committing or saying something, but the idea was that my position was excluded; I was without the protection of the union. Two years later I was out the door, fighting on my own, basically.
Mr Runciman: I guess we have to take this with a grain of salt in the sense that you have an argument with the commission. There's a perceived bias there, whether there is one or not.
Mr Gale: Definitely, yes.
Mr Runciman: You mentioned general managers not coming from eastern Ontario. I think that's probably pretty accurate. I just wondered what your observations were in 19 years about managers. I know we've had quite a number of changes in terms of general managers, and I guess the buck has to stop somewhere in respect to what's occurred over the past 10 years. Have you got any observations to make with respect to the number of general managers, the quality and their approach to the operations?
Mr Gale: My belief is that there's a lack of accountability between the commission and some government per se. I think managers are left on their own too much to decide things that have an impact on the whole commission.
Mr Runciman: Did the commission members ever in the past give the employees an opportunity to have input? Is there ever an opportunity to have a bearpit session with the members of the commission so that they know they're not just getting information from the management side of the fence, they're also hearing it from the employees?
Mr Gale: You're talking about the commission speaking directly with the employees?
Mr Runciman: Yes.
Mr Gale: No, very few; never.
Mr Runciman: So there's never this opportunity, perhaps once a year or twice a year, for the staff to sit down with the commission?
Mr Gale: Well, management did ask employees what they thought in certain situations, but their input was never acted on too much, to my knowledge.
Mr Runciman: That was with management or the board members?
Mr Gale: Management and employees; the commission itself never met directly with the employees. I know of various instances when employees approached individual members of the commission. Nothing was ever done.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Gale, for your appearance and taking the time to be before the committee today.
Committee members, before we recess for lunch, I've been asked to give you a couple of messages; one is that if you have transported yourself down here by Via Rail, hang on to the ticket stubs, because the clerk will need those after you have returned to Toronto. Also, would you check out of your rooms over the lunch-hour and bring your luggage in here for the afternoon. Also, would you please pay your incidentals on your bills. I think that's a very good way to refer to those expenses if you happened to have incurred them. We'll start again at 2 o'clock.
The committee recessed from 1235 to 1404.
VILLAGE OF BATH
The Chair: We will call this afternoon's session to order. We welcome as our first deputation this afternoon Reeve Bruce Talbot from the village of Bath. Please have a seat and make yourself comfortable. The clerk will distribute those for you, if you would like to have a seat; she'll come round and get them. Reeve Talbot has very graciously agreed to allow Mr Douglas Crawford to have the last five minutes of his deputation time. I'll try to look after that as far as the clock is concerned. Because of those members who have to catch the train this afternoon, we do have to keep on time, so Reeve Talbot, please go ahead.
Mr Bruce Talbot: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I thank you and the rest of the honourable members for the opportunity to give this presentation. I've circulated some copies of the presentation to you people, so I'll follow through on that.
Basically, I wanted to say that tourism has the potential of becoming a major component of economic development of the southern portion of the county of Lennox and Addington, which is served by the Loyalist Parkway. The Loyalist Parkway Group of Advisers, LPGA, was created in 1989 by order in council and is actively engaged in promoting the tourist industry in this region. Two of this region's major tourist attractions, the Gutzeit-Fairfield House in Bath, built in 1796, and the Fairfield House in Amherstview, built in 1793, are neglected. They are the property of the Ontario St Lawrence Parks Commission.
The Loyalist Parkway runs along the lakeshore on its way from Kingston to the ferry at Adolphustown. It is acclaimed as one of the most scenic drives in the province, according to a survey in 1993 of those taking the ferry. In fact, it's been held that it's one of the best-kept secrets in the province. Historically, this region is the birthplace of English-speaking Ontario, and the parkway represents perhaps the greatest acknowledgement in Canada of the United Empire Loyalists.
Ontario's first steamship was launched in Bath, Ontario's first brewery was in Bath, its first criminal court was held in Bath, and among other important initiatives was the engineering of Ontario's first highway, designed by Asa Danforth in Finkles Tavern of Bath. The region also provided the leaders of the province's first democratic assemblies.
The survey already mentioned underscored the importance of tourism to the area. The development of these two neglected properties would provide vital attractions for tourists and focal points for the whole region. Commercial enterprises would inevitably be required to service this growing tourist industry.
There are less than 20 18th-century frame buildings of this nature left in the province of Ontario, and failure to provide the proper attention to two of these fine examples is irresponsible.
Seventy per cent of the population growth in the greater Kingston area is attributable to migration, not to normal growth in families, and a major factor attracting people to this area is the quality of life we possess. It's also known that there is a strong correlation between quality of life and the protection and preservation of our historical background and buildings. Again I might suggest that disregard to these buildings in any form has a negative impact on the quality of life.
The impact of the operation of the St Lawrence Parks Commission on the Gutzeit-Fairfield House in Bath and the Fairfield House in Amherstview over the past 37 years has been acutely disappointing. As for policy implementation effects on the county of Lennox and Addington, no stated policy has been perceived by the county.
I'd like to add that in the initial invitation there was no request for solutions or other proposals, but I could offer some suggestions if you so desire. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. It's three minutes per member in order to allow Mr Crawford five at the end. It's the Liberals first this afternoon.
Mr Morin: One question I asked yesterday to a representative from Kingston, from the Kingston Area Economic Development Commission -- perhaps you're very much aware that we're having financial difficulties within the commission. Some of the parks have been closed. Others have been opened with the cooperation of private enterprise; it seems to be working very well. There are all kinds of good recommendations that have been made by the parks commission which have to be assessed and evaluated.
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The question I asked a representative from Kingston was, would you be willing to participate financially in restoring these houses, and if you were to do so, do you think your constituents would be agreeable to it?
Mr Talbot: I can't speak at this time because this would be a decision of the future council coming up in the November elections. I think the next council would definitely consider some of the proposals. I could suggest that if adequate capital funding were provided to make the properties usable -- I'm talking in terms of plumbing and heating. There are also approximately $2.5 million worth of paintings in storage, an estimated base value, that we cannot keep in the building because of the environmental conditions. These would serve as an attraction, and I believe the village would consider a proposal, with adequate capital funding, of managing the property, or even if the ownership were ceded back to the municipality, that it could take over the operation.
Another possible idea is that if the Loyalist Parkway Group of Advisers was set up as a commission, rather than a group of advisers, and with an adequate budget it could possibly, I think gladly, assume management of these properties.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee, Mr Talbot. You said to my colleague that you'd commit a future council. Do you not intend to be part of that?
Mr Talbot: I'm retiring this year.
Mr Cleary: But you can say anything you want in here, you know.
Mr Talbot: It's said that most of the government is run by retired people.
Mr Cleary: As to some of these properties that have been closed down due to financial restraints by the government, do you feel some kind of a partnership should be worked out with private enterprise so they could be reopened? Are you in agreement with that?
Mr Talbot: Personally, I would agree with it, yes.
Mr Cleary: You talked about your properties. I'm going to ask you about the parks that have been closed. Do you feel they should go out to private enterprise with a partnership, a percentage of the revenue going back to the province of Ontario?
Mr Talbot: In some instances a private-municipal agreement does work very well and there are firms out there that are willing to take on projects of this type. In fact, I think our future council will be considering such an agreement done privately. They certainly can offer a lot of benefits in that they have all the expertise in engineering and architecturally and construction; it's all in one package, so they can definitely offer a better price. I think most private municipal agreements are based on a time span whereby the private enterprise would put so much funding into a reserve account plus maintain the property, and then after a term -- whether it's 25 years or something -- cede the property over to the municipality. I think that's a good way to do it.
Mr Cleary: Do you think --
The Chair: I'm sorry. That's the time, Mr Cleary.
Mr Cleary: That was short.
The Chair: I know. The clock does that.
Mr Villeneuve: Reeve Talbot, thank you very much for being here. You talk of neglect at the Gutzeit-Fairfield House and the Fairfield House itself. What type of neglect are you speaking of? Are you speaking of a leaking roof that may deteriorate the property, or a lack of paint? What's the magnitude here?
Mr Talbot: The building is not usable at the present time. We don't have plumbing facilities, we don't have heating facilities; I'm under the impression that the roof requires major repairs. It's at the point of being a liability. As I mentioned previously, there are a number of oil paintings in storage that are certainly valuable and a major attraction that would require attention.
Mr Villeneuve: Are both or either of these houses being operated presently by the historical society or open on a part-time basis?
Mr Talbot: They are open on a part-time basis by volunteers, and maintenance of the grounds is done by volunteers as well. We do have some assistance from the local penitentiary for grasscutting and this sort of thing.
Mr Villeneuve: Do you feel this is an important attraction to the town of Bath and to the general area?
Mr Talbot: Yes, I do. The town of Bath, if I might elaborate, is in the throes of major growth. I'm speaking about approximately 2,000 homes coming on stream, which would quadruple the population. Bath is, I feel, destined to be the only town between Kingston and Picton along the parkway, and increasingly a burgeoning tourist trade is developing.
Mr Villeneuve: Would you feel comfortable, if indeed you were to continue as the reeve, with operating a tourist attraction -- in your case it's a historic home. But if this were a campsite, where there might be a perception of competing with a taxpayer who may have a campsite down the road, would you feel comfortable as one who would be, as the reeve and council, operating this type of facility?
Mr Talbot: I don't think it would compete. It would probably be a benefit as a focal point and a tourist attraction in that the commercial establishments would further develop and benefit from the trade. It's a waterfront property. There are virtually thousands of boats going up and down that lake each year, as well as the traffic on the parkway. I don't think there would be any competition.
Mr Villeneuve: We had a representative of the camping fraternity this morning who was quite nervous about having even the St Lawrence Parks Commission in its present structure. They are an asset to him in the immediate area of Upper Canada Village, but he was very nervous about the competitive aspect, the fact that you as a municipality or the parks commission as a body were laying down rules that had to be followed, as opposed to competition as it evolves between one competitor against another. He felt that was to some degree unfair.
Mr Talbot: These two properties I speak of do not have any space to accommodate camping.
Mr Villeneuve: I was throwing a theoretical question at you and you answered in a very political way, sir. Thank you.
Mr Gary Wilson: Welcome to the hearings, Mr Talbot, and thanks very much for you presentation. Probably alone of the group here I have seen Fairfield House, at least the one in Amherstview, through the efforts of Barbara Snyder, I think one of the leading volunteers, and Stewart Renfrew, who grew up near the house. Both have an interest in it and its future, and after seeing it I can see why. It is in a marvellous location and certainly highlights several features of early Ontario life that I think are unique and should be looked after and indeed promoted. It's not only for that location but its point along the Loyalist Parkway that I think adds to it immeasurably and would certainly be a strong feature of the area.
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I want to say too, in mentioning the Loyalist Parkway and the group of advisers you referred to, Paul Johnson has made us all aware of the need or at least the benefit of having that as a commission and has certainly worked very hard in promoting it and indeed the whole area, the Loyalist Parkway, as one of the strongest tourist features in eastern Ontario.
You mentioned, just as you were closing your remarks, that you had some proposals that you thought might be worth thinking about. Have you gone through those in answering the questions from the other two parties, or is there something else you'd like to mention here as far as what might be done?
Mr Talbot: I don't have anything at the present time other than what I've already offered as suggestions, plus the introduction by Mr Villeneuve suggesting a private municipal arrangement. I personally feel that's a possibility as well.
Mr Gary Wilson: What about support from the rest of the greater Kingston area? Do you find that enough people there are aware of what these two properties represent, the potential they have, and that you might be looking for support from, say, the Kingston Area Economic Development Commission?
Mr Talbot: No, there's very little support. Our municipality is completely surrounded by the greater Kingston area, yet we're not a participant. The answer is no, not too much support. The only support we do get is from the Ministry of Transport, as you know, for the parkway group of advisers and the signage.
Mr Gary Wilson: Do you see any forms of cooperation there in the future with the greater Kingston area? Briefly, what's the history of that? Why is Bath not part of that?
Mr Talbot: I don't know. Maybe because we're small potatoes to begin with, but I think that scenario is rapidly changing. I could foresee in the future possibly some sort of liaison with the Kingston Area Economic Development Commission. Three years ago, our population was about 1,000; today it's 1,550 and we're looking in the future at between 6,000 and 7,000 population, so that probably would be of some significance in the greater Kingston area.
Mr Gary Wilson: Have you any idea of what the cost would be of the way you'd like to see the houses developed? Has anyone ever done an analysis of the cost of opening the houses, bringing them up to standard?
Mr Talbot: I don't have an estimate on that. I believe the committee overseeing the property had someone come in and look at the structure, but I would think, and I'm only guessing, in the neighbourhood of $125,000 to repair the roof. I gather that the beams underneath -- and this is hearsay at this time -- are deteriorating quite badly. As to the restoration of paintings, I have no idea; they've been out of sight for a number of years, in storage.
Mr Gary Wilson: Of course I have to use the Loyalist Parkway to get out to Amherst Island, so I am familiar with a good part of it, anyway, and it strikes me as being attractive, especially from the point of view of its nearness to Lake Ontario. There's virtually nothing between it and the shoreline, which is quite unusual for most roadways.
The Chair: That's it for questioning.
Mr Gary Wilson: I just want to ask about bicycling. Is there much bicycling along the road?
The Chair: To be fair, Gary -- I'm sorry. I'll only get in trouble with everybody else.
Mr Gary Wilson: Yes or no?
Mr Talbot: Yes.
Mr Gary Wilson: That was a fast one.
The Chair: I know. That's why I use the stopwatch.
Reeve Talbot, thank you very much for allowing Mr Crawford the balance of your time this afternoon.
Mr Talbot: Certainly.
UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS' ASSOCIATION OF CANADA, BAY OF QUINTE BRANCH
The Chair: Mr Douglas Crawford is the president of the Bay of Quinte branch of the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada. Welcome, Mr Crawford, to the committee. You have five minutes.
Mr Douglas Crawford: Thank you, Madam Chairman, and members of the committee. Lawson Staples, who is reeve of Adolphustown, has asked that I speak to you this afternoon. We have had quite a long relationship with the St Lawrence Parks Commission. We opened a museum in Allison House at Adolphustown in 1958, so it's been 36 years that we've had a good working arrangement with this committee; we've operated the museum for that number of years.
During the past year, due to the park being at the very eastern end of the St Lawrence Parkway, they suggested it was going to be closed. They have made arrangements, first through the township of Adolphustown and then through the UEL branch, to manage the park. This is our first year at it.
We're really not interested in making money. Any money made will be split 50-50 with the St Lawrence Parks Commission, and our 50% will go back into the park. But we have had some very good arrangements with the St Lawrence Parks Commission. Problems that have arisen have been resolved. I just wanted to make you aware of the situation. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
The Chair: There is a minute per caucus, if you have any questions of Mr Crawford, starting with Mr Villeneuve.
Mr Villeneuve: Thank you, Mr Crawford. Do you have any facilities within your municipality operated by the St Lawrence Parks Commission?
Mr Crawford: This is in Lennox and Addington, in the Adolphustown Park, which has been owned and operated for many years by the St Lawrence Parks Commission. The house that's sitting in the property is known as Allison House, and that's been used as a UEL museum for the last 36 years.
Mr Villeneuve: Do you have a formal arrangement with the commission?
Mr Crawford: We have a lease arrangement with them, yes.
Mr Villeneuve: And it has been working well?
Mr Crawford: Yes.
Mr Villeneuve: And you operate on a volunteer basis?
Mr Crawford: We do hire some people through seed grants and so on, but most of it is all volunteer.
Mr Villeneuve: Do you take in any money from the public?
Mr Crawford: Admission to the house, yes.
Mr Villeneuve: There is admission, and the arrangement is a percentage of that admission?
Mr Crawford: Not the house. We get $2 admission to go through the museum, and we have a tearoom where it's $2 for a cup of tea and a biscuit. The parks admission is separate.
Mr Gary Wilson: Mr Crawford, I must say I missed the exact location of the house you're describing.
Mr Crawford: It's in Adolphustown. You go down into the park, and it's Allison House. It's owned by the Seaway commission and it's where the museum has been located. There's also a UEL cemetery there.
Mr Gary Wilson: I see. What's the number of people who go through there?
Mr Crawford: I think they served 1,000 teas, and another 600 or 800 would have gone through the museum itself, and it's open in the off-season to school tours and so on.
Mr Gary Wilson: I see. There's quite a bit of activity in that area, the number of school tours?
Mr Crawford: Yes, there is. Our directors on the board of education, at least on the township board, have made it available.
Mr Gary Wilson: Just to continue with this bicycling theme, what about in your area? Do you find there are a lot of cyclists along that area of the parkway?
Mr Crawford: I'm up in the Hillier and the Prince Edward county area. There are bicycle paths on the side of the road there, and I see quite a few, but I don't know about on the Adolphustown side.
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Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee. I took from your presentation that you had signed an agreement with the St Lawrence Parks Commission and that you return 50% of your revenue or your profit to the parks commission?
Mr Crawford: We are operating under a verbal agreement at this moment because it's something new. They've only recently decided that other groups could run a park. It's our profit; if we make a profit, half of it will go to the St Lawrence Parks Commission. I understand that last year Adolphustown township ran the park and made $4,000 or $5,000, I'm not quite sure, and half of that went to the St Lawrence Parks Commission.
Mr Cleary: So this is your first year?
Mr Crawford: This is our first year.
Mr Cleary: Do you hire students?
Mr Crawford: There are three people who are a management team, and they're the ones who ran it last year for the Adolphustown council, and they will hire students.
Mr Cleary: That's great. Maybe we could get some more of these verbal agreements going on some of these that are closed.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Again, Reeve Talbot, thank you for sharing your time with Mr Crawford. The committee appreciates both of you coming before us today.
UNITED COUNTIES OF STORMONT, DUNDAS AND GLENGARRY
The Chair: The next deputation is Mr Neil Williamson, the economic development director for the counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, certainly a familiar name in our caucus. Welcome to the committee. You have half an hour, and the committee members like to have time within that time frame to ask you questions.
Mr Neil Williamson: I apologize. The warden is on his way; he is tied up in a meeting with a seniors' facility. He knows the time to be here, so he will be arriving and joining me soon. The warden did ask me to present this document today, so I'll start to take you through it. I'm going to read this as if the warden were delivering it. I'm never comfortable doing that, because I'm not the warden.
As warden of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and on behalf of the members of council of the united counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, we are pleased to be invited to comment today regarding the impact of the operations of the St Lawrence Parks Commission and its policy implementation effects.
A vast majority of the holdings or assets of the St Lawrence Parks Commission are concentrated within the geographic boundaries of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. We recognize that generating economic activity in eastern Ontario is a stated priority of the St Lawrence Parks Commission and the government of Ontario.
A statement quoted from a vision document prepared by the St Lawrence Parks Commission states, "Our challenge is to create new corporate and community partnerships which provide high-quality entertainment and excellent customer service that lead towards increased visitation and greater economic benefits."
The philosophy of the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Recreation states:
"The Ministry of Tourism and Recreation believes that people are its greatest strength and most valued resource. People make Ontario a good place to live and visit, and the ministry a good place to work. We strive to be appreciative and respectful of our clients and each other. We help people develop their potential. We listen and respond to our clients' and each other's needs. We recognize the skills and success of people. We encourage and reward excellence."
As a principle and belief, the St Lawrence Parks Commission states, "Its greatest future strength must be built upon leadership and motivated people, with commissioners, staff and communities working together."
Our Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry department of economic development, established in 1990, has maintained a working relationship with senior management in an attempt to realize that vision. Further, a recent one-day focus group hosted by the parks of the St Lawrence invited our Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry director of economic development to participate on behalf of municipal and united counties interests.
In the background notes forwarded in advance to prepare for the focus group session, one document stated that "In an environment of fiscal restraint, when more must be done with less, the commission has lost its ability to do many things well."
Under the heading of "Concerns" we'll deal with item 1. One objective of the commission is to encourage and promote the tourism industry in Ontario east on a year-round basis for the economic benefit of the people of the region and the province as a whole. Since the closure of two parks of the St Lawrence, one in 1990 and the other in 1993, several municipalities in the united counties have been unable to resolve their reopening under private sector leases to offer employment, increase tourism revenues or additional tourism selection choices.
This effort has been strongly supported by our provincial member, the honourable John Cleary, MPP for Cornwall. I also want to mention that although I don't have copies of letters from Noble Villeneuve, he has been most supportive of our attempts to try and resolve these matters.
In a letter dated June 28, 1994, Mr Cleary states in frustration:
"Once again, the NDP ministers have effectively disregarded the interests of the private sector, as well as the best interests of tourism in the area, by citing contracting-out positions for work previously carried out by unionized employees of the St Lawrence Parks Commission. My Laughren also reiterates his government's constant reference to consultation on the matter, which to my knowledge are now into their fourth year with no evident progress being made.
"I find it truly unfortunate that the province's ideological views have hindered the creation of jobs for the unemployed and students, and have refused to cooperate with private investors. Tourists to the area, local businesses and recreationists share the disappointment over this government's policy on the parks commission."
County councillors share this frustration in attempting to source new revenue and employment in partnerships with the private sector and the parks. The parks remain closed and subject to vandalism and overgrowth. They do not add to the general attractiveness or image of the municipalities they are located in, and of course offer no new employment or revenue opportunities.
We would like to request that, with the continued support of the commissioners and senior staff of the St Lawrence Parks Commission, the Ontario government move towards the reopening of these parks in 1995, under private sector agreements, without the restrictive and costly labour issues which would preclude success.
This matter raises the need for a provincial mandate that will change the rules and allow the commission to enter into new labour or collective agreements and review collective agreements and associated wage-benefit problems to ensure that jobs are indeed protected by building and developing products on behalf of the residents and the parks of the St Lawrence.
Item 2: Another statement of principle and belief from working papers states, "The commission is dedicated to communicating effectively with visitors, staff, community leaders and associations, private tourism operators and the MCTR."
This is an area that we in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry would like to see dramatically improved. A regular series of meetings between our community economic development/tourism director, other economic development directors throughout the territory, the Seaway Valley Tourist Association, and including elected councillors, should be held regularly to discuss well in advance plans for the parks' future. Receiving a media release on the plans for the upcoming year one day in advance of its being released to the media is not sufficient, in our minds, and does not come under the heading of effective communication.
Our director of economic development had suggested this issue be dealt with at the recent focus group session. It was well received by staff and commissioners in attendance. This would improve the perceived reluctance to buy into the parks' new vision. Improved and truly effective communications will allow for planning and cooperative marketing efforts on both fronts to benefit residents, municipalities, the parks and the province.
I pause for a moment to welcome Warden Sangster.
Item 3: The selection process for appointing commissioners to the parks should be put into the realm of the parks and not Queen's Park. In this manner, the commissioners can be selected to fit into certain categories of expertise to match the new needs of the parks of the St Lawrence.
Item 4: The vision required to successfully operate the parks of the St Lawrence needs to be longer than a provincial political re-election schedule. This will allow for forward planning. It has been said that the current vision is not a vision. Certain items will be reviewed on an annual basis, but the new vision will be guided by time frames of 10 to 20 years, with markers along the way to be measured and adjusted as required.
Item 5: Certain regulations need to be amended to allow the management of the parks to borrow funds or access other sources of funding directly, either at provincial or federal levels, as municipalities and counties can now do. Government orientation stops business development.
Item 6: As a result of the focus group's efforts, several other items should be addressed and considered by the standing committee:
(a) If the parks had ownership of the land, they would be able to sell, lease or reach other agreements with private sector or public partners in a more business-directed manner. This would result in new developments, assessment and employment. A heritage fund could be established as a result to preserve the valuable collections. Restrictions now placed on the parks and their attempts to operate in a business or entrepreneurial manner are being frustrated by the province of Ontario. It's like telling your teenager, "You can have the car tonight, but not the keys."
Real or perceived government red tape and too many channels in the provincial approval process do not allow for the immediate action required by the parks, or for that matter any business, to operate and create opportunities.
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(b) Current government policy restricts free enterprise. Severe government cutbacks do not allow for planning issues to be addressed properly, as any other business would require, to be successful. Further, perceived contradictory provincial government policies frustrate S-D-G, park management and commission efforts.
(c) The vision of financial self-sufficiency within 20 years is admirable but too far in advance to grasp. It is proposed that the Ontario government consider providing to the parks of the St Lawrence a five- to seven-year window towards achieving this goal. This would provide a sense of urgency. Further, sufficient additional funding from the province should be provided to the parks to allow this step to be taken with success during that time.
(d) New attractions should be created to attract additional tourists to Ontario east and keep them here overnight or for one additional day. This would benefit not only the parks but all of the partners with increased employment and revenue.
(e) It should be recognized that preserving the heritage of Ontario does not always represent a possible profit opportunity. Transfer payments should be amended and increased to reflect and recognize this role, which has been passed along to the parks, rather than maintained by the province of Ontario as occurs in other areas of the province.
(f) Consideration should be given to an increase in available marketing dollars provided by the province to better position the parks and Ontario east. This will be done in close partnership with available marketing dollars from the tourism associations and economic development agencies through the parks' territory. For too long, MCTR has been perceived to be ignoring most of Ontario east, and I exclude Ottawa in that matter.
Perhaps funding in this regard could be directed towards a new initiative under development by our S-D-G economic development office that was proposed by Premier Rae and Governor Cuomo, for implementation in 1995, to increase visitations between residents of Seaway Trails New York and the Seaway Valley.
Additional suggestions will be coming forth after the process of focus groups and a search seminar has been held and presented for consideration to the commissioners of the parks. But in the perception of the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, these issues deserve recognition and attention today at this hearing with the standing committee.
The current organizational strategies reflect too much of the old vision and old reality. There is a recognized need for new strategies to reflect the current financial reality and the new vision. In this regard, leadership has been taken by the parks in hosting focus groups to design a vision for future successes. These sessions have provided an extensive and very creative list of projects that will require and deserve the support of MCTR and the province of Ontario.
In summary, we wish to thank you for the opportunity to present these concerns and issues before you today. We, as S-D-G, will continue to support and work closely with the parks in our ongoing efforts to increase our slice of the tourism pie in Ontario east and, in particular, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry.
We ask that you please continue to support the Parks of the St Lawrence. They represent one of our partners as our "gateway" and "branding" towards tourism growth and revenues, offering employment to our summer youth and new opportunities to private sector businesses.
A recognition of their successes to date would be most beneficial and motivating as they continue along the new path, towards new partnerships and financial self-sufficiency. The provision of increased taxation in the $15-million range for all of Ontario and the resulting spinoff revenues of over $60 million certainly deserve support and encouragement.
It's respectfully submitted on behalf of Warden Charles Sangster, United Counties, S-D-G.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Williamson. The government members are first. Mr Waters, and it's five minutes per caucus.
Mr Waters: I'd like to go through a list of your concerns, and I gather we're talking about Charlottenburgh here again, just so that you're aware. I believe it was closed due to recommendations by an outside consultant who had come in and said to close it. It was closed, I believe, for the 1990 season and has been closed ever since. To let you know, we are hoping that by the end of this month there will be something that the commission will be able to go out with and go to the public for tender on that.
At the same time, I think you have to recognize that part of the collective agreement includes successor rights and all of those things. That's part of the agreement that the parks commission has entered into with its employees. Those things are in place and have to be dealt with as we do this. You couldn't turn it around in a matter of six months or ignore that; it took time to sit down.
The current minister has been in place for about a year and a half. Within two or three months of becoming minister, she had directed me to come down and work on the problem. Hopefully, we will have something in place or the ability to have it in place by 1995, to answer that question.
You ask about them being able to be run like a business, being able to set their fees and keep their dollars. For the first time the commission, in all of its history, managed that this year. We passed something last year that allowed that. This year I believe I got something from the parks commission just a while back that says that the annual revenues have reached $5 million, which is a new record for the commission. Obviously that is working, which I think goes to jobs in the long term, as well as an upturn in the economy, both inside and outside the parks commission.
On the appointment of the commissioners, I guess that's part of the legislative process, that's part of the rules under which the St Lawrence Parks Commission is run, the legislation. I guess we haven't seen a demonstrated need to change that at this point. For the most part, people who care very deeply about the parks commission in eastern Ontario are indeed represented on that commission.
I don't want to take up all the time; I would like some time for you to respond to some of this.
The vision: I think what you're looking at is that we have another similar parks commission, the St Clair Parkway Commission. Although it doesn't have Upper Canada Village and the fort, it does have attractions and it was the first one. They figure that by the year 2000 they will be self-sufficient. It's 30% there now. That was more than four or five years to do that, because there's a capital investment that has to go in in order to broaden the base so they can do the business.
I guess I'd leave it at that and ask you if you have any comments on what I've just said.
Mr Williamson: A couple of points: First of all, you had an opportunity to meet with some of the representatives, or your representative did, regarding the issues of the parks, and there are two parks we're concerned about.
You mention that it's a start in what the parks of the St Lawrence has been doing. I will speak personally: I am personally very, very pleased with the efforts and the new incentives and the new excitement I see from the parks. When I have staff, I believe in motivating staff to go further and not to put a cap on them. I don't expect them to increase 5% a year; if they can achieve 15% to 30%, I like to let them loose to do it. What I'm hearing from the focus groups that were held recently -- there was a total of three focus groups; I only participated in one as a full partner -- that excitement must be maintained and must be motivated. The start is there. I'm pleased you're recognizing it, but I think they need further encouragement and further loosening of the rules to allow them to do that.
I understand your concerns over the labour, but four years is a long time to try to reach something. I appreciate the parks starting to think as a business. It's been a long time. That's why we relate in this brief that too many things were done in the old way. They're being turned loose and they're doing their own evaluations among themselves as to what training is needed, what's required to enable them to do the job they see in their own vision. That's why I'm asking for the encouragement of the province of Ontario to allow them to do that.
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As far as the current rules are concerned, they are current rules, and I'm suggesting those current rules may need a review as we move towards self-sufficiency and that 20 or 30 years is too far along the line. I don't want to hear a 2000-anything towards self-sufficiency; I'm talking five years to seven years. Given the sense of urgency, let them get on with it. Help support them financially to do that, let them do it and be proud from an Ontario perspective that they can achieve that.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee, Warden and Mr Williamson. We have had many discussions over many years about these closed parks. Today we have all the players in one room. We have union representatives, we have the parks commission and, across the way, we have government members.
It's very hard for me to buy the time period that's gone by. We've heard, meeting with former ministers, "We're going to get it ironed out." Today we hear, "We're getting it ironed out in November."
I've been carrying this around with me for some time and I'm going to read it to you. It's from the office of the assistant deputy minister and it's addressed to Frank Shaw:
"The minister has told me that the government is opposed in principle to the privatization of any provincial parks, including those owned by the St Lawrence Parks Commission. This would not apply, of course, to the operation of the provincial park by a public agency, including a municipality, so that you can proceed with the Osnabruck negotiations.
"In the case of the private sector proposals for other parks, a cabinet submission will be required to obtain exemption from the government policy before a Management Board submission can be submitted. In fairness to the people who submitted bids, you should advise them of the policy of the present government as soon as possible. I would not be optimistic in obtaining policy approval in time for the 1991 operational season."
As far as I know, that is still in place, and it's signed by the assistant deputy minister. We've discussed that many times in this area, and the warden is from the east part of this area. The businesses down there are just furious.
Mr Waters: When was it in 1991 -- May, June?
Mr Cleary: February 22, 1991. We've met with all ministers since that and nothing is happening. The parks commission's hands are tied as long as you have this ideology of a policy in place, and parks have been closed four years. If you gentlemen would like to make a comment on that --
Mr Charles Sangster: Thanks, Mr Cleary. I have to back up everything you've said there. We've met three or four different ministers over the years. They were always going to guarantee that there were going to be solutions coming within six months, nine months. It's nearly four years down the road now. Now we hear that in November things are going to happen. If that's still the policy of the government, how can those things happen now?
Mr Cleary: I know that the counties in this particular area, because these parks are in the counties, have been working very hard to attract tourists to the area. They've agreed that they would be involved in some kind of partnership as long as we can get these parks open. The demand is there. There are all kinds of residents from another province looking to put their little campers in a site. We have golf courses, we have restaurants, we have everything depending on this, but we've been batting our heads against the wall. Mr Williamson and I have talked about this many times. Do you gentlemen have any solutions, what we could do to get this off the ground?
Mr Williamson: I'm pleased to hear that Dan Waters is telling me we're going to be seeing something in 1995. I will reiterate, I used the word "frustration" in our brief that's going through. I continue to believe and look forward towards that.
Mr Cleary: I'm sure there's much land in the parks commission that's not being used and probably not even being mowed, and I'm sure that you gentlemen would support some kind of partnership agreement to create jobs in this land in our area.
Mr Williamson: We have been working towards that, as you know, for some time and are willing to be flexible to reach agreements that would be satisfactory to all parties. We appreciate the labour concerns, but because my background is economic development, I'm interested in revenue and I'm interested in successful businesses. The current collective agreements that are in place preclude success for the private sector to be able to employ people and to make a profit at that level, and in discussions with several people, there are opportunities there to negotiate some of those points.
Mr Cleary: Thank you. Don't give up.
Mr Villeneuve: Charlie, you live close by there, Bainsville. You're within one concession of a number of parks, several that are closed, but the private parks that are operating there, like Lancaster Park, would they still be going full speed right now at this time of the year?
Mr Sangster: I would suggest this time of the year they're getting pretty well closed up for the fall, Noble, but just last weekend they were still going full tilt. But now is the end.
Mr Villeneuve: I know they have a lot of activities there. Campers participate in something going on almost every weekend. Would you be aware if Lancaster Park has been full up pretty well all summer?
Mr Sangster: Yes, I would suggest it's been full up.
Mr Villeneuve: And the fact that Charlottenburgh and Raisin are closed right close by in Charlottenburgh, you would be missing a number of economic activities that would be part of the business in Bainsville, the business in Lancaster, whenever they were open and were basically having many out-of-province people set up shop there for the entire summer. In 1990, the first year that Charlottenburgh was closed down, did you notice a marked reduction in commercial and economic activity?
Mr Sangster: I would suggest that in the village of Lancaster their businesses went down 15% to 20% the first year. That's what the people there tell me.
Mr Villeneuve: That's a pretty important lack of ripple in economic activity. We always tend to think of tourists as people with non-Ontario licence plates. I have been saying that within the 10 million population in Ontario we have many tourists with Ontario licence plates and we have to zero in on that area known as the Golden Horseshoe, not only to advertise but to let them know the type of facilities we have along Lake St Lawrence, Lake St Francis, and not only the negative activities that no longer -- or happen to a lesser degree.
Do you feel we're advertising enough in that Golden Horseshoe area to make them aware of what we have here in the east?
Mr Sangster: I think we are, for what we have left open.
Mr Villeneuve: That's an interesting comment. But it was a very important economic activity, as you say, when your business goes down 15% during that time of the year when you expect to be doing strong business.
In your experience, have there been negatives when the parks were open? I recall well that the OPP would say, "We will be monitoring these parks very closely to make sure that alcoholic beverages are not taken in." Were there negative effects when those parks were open?
Mr Sangster: I wouldn't say so. You've had occurrences when you get a lot of people together, period. But if you want to go into that about the parks that have been closed, I think there have been a lot more negative things happening in those parks since they've been closed, with smuggling and vandalism and whatever.
Mr Villeneuve: Someone this morning suggested that at Charlottenburgh, the newly installed equipment -- I know there's a major problem with the septic system there yet, but I understand that newly installed bathroom/washroom fixtures have been vandalized. Are you directly familiar with that, Charlie?
Mr Sangster: I would say everything that's been put in there is a write-off.
Mr Villeneuve: All the more reason to have them open, and the quicker the better.
The Chair: Thank you very much. That looks after all three caucuses. I again thank Mr Williamson and Warden Sangster for coming before the committee this afternoon.
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ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
The Chair: Our next presenter has been here two days, actually, if I'm not mistaken.
Mr John Ryce: We enjoy it.
The Chair: So you're well prepared and well briefed. This deputation is the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Mr John Ryce, who's chairperson of the MCTR employee relations committee, and Mr Roger Haley, who is the job security officer and negotiator for eastern Ontario. If any of that information isn't correct, please correct it, and would you introduce the other two gentlemen with you, please.
Mr Ryce: Thank you, Madam Chairperson, committee members. My name is John Ryce and, as mentioned, I'm the chairperson elected to represent OPSEU on the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation ERC. I wear a couple of other hats too. I'm local president for Local 464, which is at Fort Henry. I'm also a concerned staff member; I've worked for the commission for 16 years now. I also have Roger Haley with me, who is a staff member of OPSEU, job security officer. I've asked Mike Oliver to sit in in case you have questions. He's an elected official; he's a board member for region 4. We also have Peter Cazaly, who is the other president of the two locals involved, who spoke this morning. I've asked him to sit up here in case there are any specific questions with his local in the question-and-answer period.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union wishes to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak before it with regard to the operational review of the St Lawrence Parks Commission. Although there have been others before us yesterday and today speaking in terms of localized concerns, I wish to stress that this specific statement has been authorized by OPSEU and I have been directed to make these presentations acting in my capacity as chairperson for the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation employee-employer relations committee.
The union is committed to working with its membership and the employer to make the St Lawrence Parks Commission a model workplace. Our goal is to identify areas of past difficulties or inefficiencies with hopes that in the future there would be positive changes and improvements.
The first area is under the heading "Heritage, Culture and Education." We feel the commission is not living up to its mandate of preservation and collections management of the artefacts, land and property it has control of in public trust. The commission is a cultural institution, and we should not exist with the main purpose of making a profit. We operate museums and provide public services. With revenue retention we cannot accomplish this mandate effectively. Our emphasis on education seems to be diminishing in the past few years. As we've heard in the last couple of days, there seems to be a large number of artefacts tucked away or hidden away that the public doesn't have access to.
Under budget restraints, as in the rest of the government, we have been cut back, and cut back so much that we cannot deliver the quality product and service we are world famous for. We are not trying to say that the commission should be immune from government restraints, but we sometimes question its method of dealing with these cutbacks. A lot of the cutbacks came at very inopportune times, a lot of times after a major part of our season and our major workforce have already left us or are about to leave. It's very difficult for us to deal with them that way when we have very little money left in the pot and they want a substantial amount.
Several parks and buildings have been closed due to lack of finances. It's not fair to the taxpayer to come to Upper Canada Village and find some buildings and displays closed down. As we heard earlier, you would need at least two days, possibly more, to be able to see everything that a few years ago you were able to see in one day.
The union has also tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with management and the government to reopen the parks in eastern Ontario. Right now as I sit here, I'd like to set the record straight. Both myself and Roger Haley were in negotiations, about a year ago now, with Mr Waters and some of his staff.
First of all, the union is opposed to shutting the parks down in the first place. But if they are shut down and then have to be reopened, we're in full support of reopening the parks, but the only problem is that we have to meet certain conditions. There are successor rights, as Mr Waters has spoken about, and we have our collective agreement. We can't be breaking the law, and we could be making the collective agreement and breaking it as well. We are fully in support of opening these parks again, but we have to make sure that the rights of our members are being looked after.
It came as a bit of a surprise to hear that there's going to be a request for proposals going out next month, but I fully anticipate that the conditions that were sought when we met with Mr Waters will be met and will be part of the terms of this request for proposals.
The world-renowned sunset ceremony at Fort Henry fell victim to both budget cuts and revenue retention. Because it was a losing program financially, the commission decided to cancel all performances for 1994. Part of the problem is that on paper it costs us approximately $275,000 to run the sunset ceremonies -- we had to increase our staffing levels, increase our training time to run these sunset ceremonies -- and we only grossed $57,000 from it. They're not taking into account the economic spinoff in that study that was done, which basically says that, up to $100 million, the St Lawrence Parks Commission is responsible for generating economic spinoffs.
We've cut this program because for the St Lawrence Parks Commission, it wasn't making a dollar. But as an agency of the government I believe we have a commitment to the rest of the province in the economic spinoffs. If you use these figures, for every $1 million we get cut, we have the potential of maybe losing $6 million or $6.5 million of economic spinoffs to the rest of the community. It's very important to our partners in the Kingston area, and the government has to realize how much the spinoff means to them.
Funding for the biannual visit to Washington was also discontinued. Without the Fort Henry Guard Club and many concerned employees, this international exchange would not have taken place this year. Unfortunately, we had to staff it again by using volunteers.
Under the issue of contracting out, the social contract says the government is supposed to be looking seriously at repatriating contracted-out services, but the commission seems to be headed in the opposite direction. They are slowly picking away two or three jobs here, two or three jobs there, until pretty soon we'll have no more public servants left in the commission. There is a certain level of mistrust and a sense of betrayal due to the contracting out and privatization of many jobs and services that were previously done by OPSEU members; for example, security officers, cleaners, food services, tradespeople, parks etc. The quality of service for the public has suffered, and I can attest to that with many examples which I won't bore you with today.
As to the point brought up yesterday that private enterprise people work 18-hour days, well, they may have the ambition to do that if they're the owner-operator and they're lining their pockets, but I don't think the minimum-wage people they employ have that kind of motivation to work 18 hours a day.
I know fellow public servants have a commitment to their job and the job they do. It doesn't make sense that we're letting private contractors make money off our operations when now it is our new mandate, with revenue retention -- if that's the way we're going to stay, if they're making money, why can't we make money at those same things? We've got to look at getting some of those services back into the public service.
Capital spending: We understand that for an organization of our size, age and diversity, we require major capital funding to protect and preserve the province's investment in the St Lawrence Parks Commission. What is hard to accept is that when we are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the parks -- and the Charlottenburgh Park is a prime example. In my research -- I don't have my file with me -- they spent in the neighbourhood of $200,000 or $300,000 in the year after they closed it, and there it sits. All this money the government has invested in this park, and it sits there empty. That doesn't sit well with us either. We think it's poor management of the funds. The money could have been better spent elsewhere.
It is also very hard for the staff to continue to see money being spent on various projects while services and programs continue to be cut back. Some of this money would be better spent on our most important investment: the retention of experienced and qualified staff. We must have more flexibility with the way we spend capital dollars. As opposed to all this contracting out with our capital funding, we should be looking at putting more jobs, opening those buildings back up and turning this into salary dollars.
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Employee-employer relations: The St Lawrence Parks Commission has several productive union-management committees that foster a sense of cooperation and information sharing. I have been a part of these committees for about the last four or five years, and many of them work very well and the commission does a good job of trying to communicate with the staff. However, there are many grievances filed yearly, mainly because of a few managers who have no respect or appreciation for the union and the collective agreement. Grievances have unnecessarily become a costly venture for both sides.
We are a seasonal operation, but many of our jobs are required year-round. Management relies too heavily upon classifying positions as seasonal. The seasonal workers are treated as second-class employees, with few benefits, and are usually the short-term solution whenever there is a need for salary dollars. Cuts are made to seasonals without regard to the importance of their positions. Staff morale remains very low due to the yearly layoffs and shortened contracts.
Seasonal employees and the students -- a rough guesstimate; I don't have the exact figures -- make up approximately 80% of our workforce. For a short-term fix whenever we need any money, that's the way they get their contract shortened, because you have an immediate saving right away. This is not right.
We continue with too many layers of management. In the last reorganization, which took place about a year ago now, decisions were made to cut some middle management, which helped to deal with some of our concerns.
There is also abuse of some student contracts. With CECBA reform, students are now part of OPSEU and we represent them. There are some former students who remain in student position and salary, contrary to the St Lawrence Parks Commission definition of a student. We feel driven because of revenue retention and the driving force behind saving a dollar to hire a student at half the price.
The continued use of volunteers and work programs threatens the jobs and existence of the rest of the employees. It is very difficult to accept the fact that we had staff doing a particular job previously but now we have a volunteer performing those functions. Some ex-employees have literally lost everything they own and have been forced to move in with family members.
We have three major recommendations that come out of our report.
First of all, we feel the St Lawrence Parks Commission must become more directly accountable to the ministry. The direction of programs and final decision-making must be mandated and closely scrutinized by Queen's Park. The ministry should review whether we need commissioners and the use of the commission or their directors' mandates and policies. I've always felt, being on the ministry ERC, that we should be similar to places like Fort William and Huronia, which have direct accountability to the ministry, and then we wouldn't require a board or commissioners. We could probably streamline a lot better in terms of human resources, and we would be more accountable and our management would be more accountable to the ministry.
We also recommend that the allotment of funding for capital ventures must be reviewed. Project dollars should be shifted when available to restore essential services and programs, again such as hiring staff that is badly needed.
The third recommendation is that the ministry must intervene immediately in labour relations and hiring practices. Our services have suffered dramatically. As we saw this morning, there has to be some kind of investigation or looking further into some substantial claims made by employees this morning.
If you require any clarification on our views and opinions, please do not hesitate to ask. We hope this helps in making the St Lawrence Parks Commission better for the government, management, staff and the public. Thank you very much.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee. I know you've had two reasonably long days here, but I guess the goal of the committee and the goal of everyone here was to make the parks commission a better place and to be around for a long time and create more jobs.
I'd like your views on the Raisin and Charlottenburgh parks, one of which has been closed for going on five years. From the research I've done -- it could be right; it could be wrong -- it's my understanding that the former employees who worked there were all working somewhere else, who wanted to work. I'd just like your views on that.
Mr Roger Haley: Mr Cleary and I have been corresponding over the summer on this very issue, and we began last fall, in 1993, with Mr Waters.
Right from the top, as Mr Ryce said, OPSEU opposes privatization of all types. But having said that, Mr Waters is right: It does happen, and there are successor rights in effect. It binds both the union and the employer. It's a law and must be followed, and we're going to pursue those avenues every chance we get.
All through these two days we've heard, "We're going to privatize this and privatize that." I can assure the commission and the committee that OPSEU will go up the St Lawrence River as far as need be and apply successor rights to every privatized campsite facility in this commission, if need be. They spoke of one new collective agreement. We will also oppose that. They will have as many new collective agreements as they wish according to the successor rights.
Having said that, and what Mr Ryce has said to you, we agree those campsites should have been opened long ago. The successor rights are in place for privatization purposes. There is no reason, in our opinion, why those campsites shouldn't have been operating this summer. I believe there are one or two employees outstanding who haven't worked. Arrangements must be made for those people to be working.
The last I heard, Mr Cleary -- you and I spoke in the spring -- the topic had been shifted to Management Board, to Mr Charlton's office. That's where it died. I know about nothing further than that. But it should be open now.
Mr Cleary: I think it is dead. I can't get any information either.
I want to talk about a family operation. Say proposals come out; I don't know whether they will or not, but if they do and it were a family operation, I'd like to know where you stand on that, a family operation.
Mr Haley: It doesn't matter to us whether it's a family or a megacorporation. The successor rights do apply and our job positions that go with that operation fall within that piece of legislation.
Mr Cleary: I'm not going to read this letter again -- I've read it about three times now -- but do you support the contents of that letter?
Mr Haley: I'm glad to hear they oppose privatization of the parks. I believe there will be some difficulties with municipalities operating the parks. I can see there's been far too much downloading on the municipalities by every ministry: roads, land registries and so forth. The municipalities and the local taxpayers simply cannot have any more financial burden and responsibilities placed on them. I give them credit for offering to keep necessary projects open because they don't see any other alternative, because they're being abandoned by lack of funding and the commission itself. However, having said that, being a local taxpayer, I wouldn't want to see my taxes raised and raised and raised to support a provincial operation.
Mr Cleary: I guess we would sooner refer to a partnership than a private, because everyone gets a share of the profits of that and it creates jobs, and the more people we get working the less that each of us as taxpayers supposedly will have to pay. I have lots of questions, but my colleague --
Mr Morin: I don't have time.
The Chair: No, I'm afraid not. You've had 38 seconds over time.
Interjection: Is that all?
The Chair: I just want you to know I'm being generous.
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Mr Villeneuve: There are a number of areas I want to question you on. First of all, one of your own members attempted to put forth a submission on Raisin River Park and told me that under the existing contract, where successor rights would apply -- and he's a member of your union -- he could not operate the park. He was planning to operate it with his wife and his family and one student. What sort of successor rights is he subject to there? Can he operate with a student or does it have to be someone from your local?
Mr Ryce: The OPSEU positions would come first. If successor rights are applied, I believe those positions are protected and become within OPSEU. You can't say, "We're just going to hire all students," especially now that the students are in OPSEU as well. We have to protect those positions as they were prior to privatization.
Mr Villeneuve: Can he hire his wife and daughter?
Mr Ryce: He certainly can. They would be in OPSEU. That's the legislation.
Mr Villeneuve: He's one of your members.
Mr Ryce: That's fine.
Mr Villeneuve: That's why we've got a dichotomy here. We would sure like to break this impasse, and I'm not sure we're breaking it today.
Mr Ryce: I have a real simple solution to the whole problem, and we could have the parks open again next year: Just give the St Lawrence Parks Commission some funding back. They will open up with our own members the way they were prior to shutting them down. The reason they were shut down, I understand, was because of budget cuts and we didn't have the money to run them. Reinstate some of our funding and we'll put our members in and we'll open the parks back up again. Part of the whole problem with that is that we can't compete fairly because we don't have the servicing as the other campgrounds have. This whole profit thing -- we're saying one thing with revenue retention, but also, we can't compete fairly. There's got to be a balance there somewhere.
Mr Villeneuve: Your colleague Mr Haley says he doesn't want the taxes to increase and increase and increase. I don't know, but we've got a rough row to hoe right here as we deal with this impasse. But let's leave that alone. I think we know where you stand on that.
Half a dozen people made presentations just before lunch -- very, very interesting. Where do you stand on some of these things, without getting into specifics? I believe you are major players here. This is a very serious concern.
Mr Ryce: I'll let Michael Oliver, our board member for the region, speak to the question.
Mr Michael Oliver: I had a lot to do last summer on behalf of the president of the union. I investigated some complaints that were going on in the St Lawrence parks. I would seriously push for an investigation. There are so many serious allegations of harassment and of nepotism and favouritism and people's contracts being cut short that it has to be looked into. By any reasonable management, government would have to look into these allegations. I'm hoping that's one of the recommendations coming out of here today. The allegations are that serious that they just have to be investigated, and we would urge you to do so.
Mr Villeneuve: Management hires and then they become employees of the parks commission. Do they automatically become your members, members of OPSEU?
Mr Oliver: Yes, they're in our bargaining unit.
Mr Villeneuve: You're in a dichotomy of having to defend someone who is one of your members whom you may not have agreed with the hiring of in the first place?
Mr Oliver: Once somebody is a member of the union and they pay union dues, then they in fact have all the rights and protection under the union. That's what makes it so great to belong to a union, as they have all that protection built into it. Once they're our members and we represent them, that's our legal obligation.
Mr Villeneuve: That's a bit of a dichotomy, much like what we've just discussed regarding successor rights for you, is it not?
Mr Oliver: I was hoping that I could give a Cornwall perspective on these parks, and I hope I get that opportunity, but we're in the business of defending people and representing people; it's just that simple. From what I saw last year -- your question is, should we be taking action? This committee very strongly should recommend an investigation of the St Lawrence parks, based on what you heard this morning.
Mr Villeneuve: I will be supporting your stand on that. I agree with you 100%.
The Chair: You have another minute.
Mr Villeneuve: Back to the parks that are closed. The economic effect, as was heard from the warden, a 15% decline in business, bang, when Charlottenburgh shut down, and to a lesser degree Raisin, because it's a smaller park and a family type, maybe a little more self-contained that what Charlottenburgh was, creates, again, the famous dichotomy that your people will not be working when the parks are closed. One of your own people attempted to lease one of these parks and was turned down by the rules that he contributes to support. Could we not reach some sort of a compromise here?
Mr Oliver: I'd like to tell you that the last four or five years, not just as an OPSEU board member but as president of the labour council in Cornwall -- I think John Cleary knows the effort that we put into unemployment in Cornwall. It really comes as a slap in the face to the unemployed in Cornwall, after the hundreds and hundreds of hours we've put in on different committees trying to help the unemployed, when we see any government by design taking jobs out of this area. So we are just as upset, whatever happens, whether it's parks or small industry leaving. It's a wonderment to us when $60,000- to $70,000-a-year people make decisions that $14-an-hour public servants are making too much and it should go to the private sector at the minimum wage. That doesn't seem like fairness in my perspective.
The parks shouldn't have been closed in the first place. We're seeing the Americans with 40 cents on the dollar coming over here. We're losing all that money. John's been fighting this for some time now, the potential and the ripple effect we're missing. The parks should be open, but they should be open with accountability and standards, and those standards are built into public service. It's something that was there.
If you ask a $14-an-hour employee, "Okay, we're going to shut; your job's gone and we're going to replace you tomorrow with somebody at minimum wage," of course they're going to fight that, and I'm glad they have an organization to do that for them, because it's just not fair.
The parks have been handcuffed. They can't compete with the private sector in this area because the rules are different. That's why they're in such a mess. If you put us on a level playing field, the parks would contribute. I'm going to quote what the last person who was up here talking from the S-D-G counties' department of economic development said, that preserving heritage does not always mean profit, and attracting new tourist dollars means enhancing attractions. We support that 1,000%. So I think we're close, but it doesn't always mean robbing the middle class; not even the middle class, the working wage. That's not always the answer.
The Chair: Mr Waters and Mr Wilson, five minutes.
Mr Gary Wilson: What? Just five? They got 38 seconds more. They got four minutes more.
Mr Waters: You're eating into my time, Gary. You just lost out there.
The Chair: All right, I'll give you five minutes and 38 seconds. You got 38 seconds extra.
Mr Waters: Gentlemen, I think one of the things people have trouble understanding is successor rights. Do they go with the person or with the job? There is a big difference. Could you clarify that for the committee members?
Mr Haley: With the position.
Mr Waters: With the position, not the person, right?
Mr Haley: Not the person. An example: If there were four bodies, four workers' positions in that certain operation when it shut down or when it was sold, when that business was sold, those four positions go with that sale of business.
Mr Villeneuve: They caused it to shut down.
Mr Waters: You have to understand what successor rights are. Mr Haley is the expert. He knows this.
I can tell you that I appreciate the meetings over the last two or three years, in particular starting last fall. It was as difficult for me almost as it was for the union members, because in my past life I was one of the people who fought against privatization. We sat in a room and came up with an agreement or the potential for an agreement that went against the very things we talked about in order to protect the existing jobs that were there. That was the sole reason why. Do either of you gentlemen want to expand on that, as to why there was any agreement at all or the potential of an agreement that could come later this year?
Mr Haley: That piece of legislation is crucial to maintaining rights and benefits of any worker, regardless of whether you're working at Alcan or Domtar. There will always be someone coming along wanting to slash and make more profit. It's just human nature. You want to make more profit. That is a crucial piece of law that helps protect the average worker. Regardless of whether the person is an OPSEU member or not, he will soon become an employer, and that law pertains to the employer and to the government and to the unions. It's not just OPSEU, it's every union in Ontario, every employer in Ontario. You sell a hospital, you sell a business, and that piece of legislation applies. So it is the position.
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Hopefully, and it's just news to us this week --
Mr Waters: Well, the potential.
Mr Haley: The potential -- we'll get it going for next spring and we can work on that. The commission, and we haven't expanded upon this yet, has neglected to discuss the tendering process and the contracting out with us, contrary to our graciously imposed social contract. That's supposed to be done also. They haven't discussed any contracting out with us. They just go ahead and do it. This is the first chance we've had to discuss any contracting out.
Mr Waters: John, I think you mentioned in your brief that in the summer of 1990 we were still spending money on Charlottenburgh.
Mr Ryce: Again, I don't have my file with me, but when I did some background in this I found that -- and I'm not sure what park it was. Is it Charlottenburgh that has all the problems with the septic and that?
Mr Waters: Yes, that's the one.
Mr Ryce: Well, they spent enormous amounts of money on its last year of operation and apparently the year after it closed down they still came and spent a pile of money on it.
Mr Villeneuve: In 1989.
Mr Waters: In 1989 and 1990.
Mr Ryce: And I've got the facts that I got through the commission when I started looking into this thing, because I had no idea even where Charlottenburgh and Raisin River parks were. I started with getting a map to find out where they were and doing research, because I'm down at Fort Henry so I don't have the luxury of being familiar with all the area down here.
I found that pretty hard to accept, that even after it was closed down, there was $100,000 or something spent on this park that was totally shut down already. The decision had been made to shut it down, and apparently they did not finish what they started, because the septic system is still defunct. I guess they started on it, from my recollection, but they did not get it finished.
Mr Waters: Okay. How much time do I have left?
Mr Morin: Five seconds.
The Chair: No, you've got 30 seconds. No, sorry, you've got a minute because I said you were getting an extra 38.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks a lot for your presentation. It offered some really thought-provoking elements. One I'd like to check on here first of all is the thing around the sunset ceremony which gets a bit more specific than we've got time to get into, but in part it comes down to the amount of money that's available. You speak to that in a few places in your presentation. But the second recommendation says that the capital venture should be evaluated and thinking maybe the money should go to, as you have it here, essential services and programs, which of course is a year-over-year thing requiring a lot more money than the one-shot capital deal.
Then, when you think of something like Fort Henry, where the province is spending $900,000 to put in an essential service, unless that's spent, the future of the fort is at risk, so I can't see how you could oppose that. Also, it does come down then to dollars and cents; you've threatened the future of the money-generating aspect of the fort, or of that attraction. So I guess the question is, where's the money going to come from, and do you think there's enough money there now, that it's just a question of how it's allotted?
Mr Ryce: No, there definitely isn't enough money there now. I could tell you that from --
Mr Gary Wilson: Sorry, there isn't or is?
Mr Ryce: There isn't enough money there now. We've been cut so thin that we're below the crucial level. Yes, definitely the sewer system at St Lawrence Parks Commission or at Fort Henry is long overdue. I work in the mains department; I've been well aware of it since I've been there, for the last 16 years, and it's at least 16 years overdue.
We definitely do need capital expenditures and capital funds. There's no way that we can run and keep the nature of our business going with just our regular budget and our transfer payment. What I'm saying as an example is that the money that was put into that park that was shut down would have been much better spent on wages, and we've shut down to a point where it looks like wherever you get capital dollars, it's all contracting out. We've got to redefine the way we deal with our capital allotment, and if it means supplementing the program and hiring staff and increasing the staffing levels, if that's what we have to do with it, that should be acceptable.
We're going to have all nice new buildings that aren't falling down, but they're all going to be closed to the public because we have no staff to run them, and that's what we're getting at -- definitely, not that we're getting too much capital money; I don't think we are. I think we get in the neighbourhood of approximately $3 million a year. It's going mostly to good use, but there's some other waste of it when we're spending on stuff that we would be better off having employees to do the job. That's what we're looking at.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We would like to thank Mr Ryce, Mr Haley, Mr Cazaly again and Mr Oliver for your attendance at the committee today.
Just before we adjourn, I would like to thank our staff for facilitating this committee hearing so well in the last three days. We've had a very tight schedule to keep to and, in spite of the rude comments about the Chair using the stopwatch, we have managed to finish almost on time.
I've appreciated everybody's cooperation. Particularly, it's interesting, I think, that when we hold public hearings on the road and we bring our staff, everything flows along the same way it does in our legislative committee rooms. I want to commend Lynn Mellor, the commander-in-chief who keeps all of us on our toes as the clerk; Beth Grahame, as our Hansard person; and Dimitrios Petselis and Rocco Rampino for making everything work well. Thank you all very much.
Mr Morin: I'd like to congratulate the Chair for having done a very good job; a steel hand in a velvet glove.
The Chair: The other person I wanted to mention is Mr David Pond, our researcher, who will have all this information to enjoy for the interim period, till we meet yet again to complete the review.
Mr Gary Wilson: Translators?
The Chair: No, thank you. I've completed the appreciation.
Mr Cleary: Could I just say another word too? It was great to have you here, but now that you know where eastern Ontario is, you're welcome to come back and spend your money at any time. We welcome that often.
Mr Villeneuve: S-D-G is to the north, west and east of here; not to the south.
The Chair: Thank you all very much, and this committee stands adjourned until we reconvene at Queen's Park.
The committee adjourned at 1536.