Legislative Assembly of Ontario

SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT

INTENDED APPOINTMENTS
KENNETH KOPROWSKI

CONTENTS

Wednesday 18 December 1996

Subcommittee report

Intended appointments

Mr Kenneth Koprowski

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Chair / Président: Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt ND)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt ND)

*Mr RickBartolucci (Sudbury L)

Mr BruceCrozier (Essex South / -Sud L)

*Mr EdDoyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)

*Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber PC)

*Mr GaryFox (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings /

Prince Edward-Lennox-Hastings-Sud PC)

Mr MichaelGravelle (Port Arthur L)

Mr BertJohnson (Perth PC)

*Mr PeterKormos (Welland-Thorold ND)

*Mr FloydLaughren (Nickel Belt ND)

*Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)

*Mr DanNewman (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)

*Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand PC)

Mr TonySilipo (Dovercourt ND)

*Mr BobWood (London South / -Sud PC)

*In attendance /présents

Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:

Mr JackCarroll (Chatham-Kent PC) for Mr Bert Johnson

Clerk / Greffière: Ms Donna Bryce

Staff / Personnel: Mr David Pond, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1002 in room 228.

SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT

The Chair (Mr Floyd Laughren): The standing committee will come to order. The first order of business is the report of the subcommittee dated December 12. At that subcommittee the official opposition party had no selections, nor did the government. The third party selected for an intended appointee to the Ontario Municipal Board, Mr Ronald J. Emo, and that will be held on January 15, the third day we're back in the new spring session in January.

Mr Bob Wood (London South): I move adoption of the subcommittee report.

The Chair: You heard the motion. Any comments? All in favour? It's carried. Thank you for that.

INTENDED APPOINTMENTS
KENNETH KOPROWSKI

Review of intended appointment, selected by third party: Kenneth Koprowski, intended appointee as member, Licence Suspension Appeal Board.

The Chair: The second item of business is the half-hour for the intended appointee, Mr Ken Koprowski, to the Licence Suspension Appeal Board. Mr Koprowski, would you take a seat at the table. We welcome you to the committee. It is traditional that you have an opportunity to make any opening remarks, at which point there will be questions from members of the committee.

Mr Kenneth Koprowski: Thank you, Mr Chairman and members of this committee. My name is Ken Koprowski and I'm from Fort Frances, Ontario, where I have lived for the last six and a half years with my family. I am a lawyer. I was admitted to the Ontario bar in 1974. I am a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and of the Canadian Bar Association.

After my call to the bar, I spent 16 years of practice in London, Ontario, both in a law firm environment and, for 12 of those 16 years, as a solo practitioner. During those years I practised in criminal court; highway traffic court; county court, as it then was; the Supreme Court, as it then was; family court; Small Claims Court; and some tribunals. Additionally, I was involved in the practice of real estate, wills, estates and corporate-commercial. You sort of run the gamut when you're practising on your own. In 1990 I left private practice and was hired on as lawyer-executive director of the Rainy River District Community Legal Clinic in Fort Frances, with a satellite office in Atikokan.

In addition to the administrative and supervisory functions as executive director, I also appeared on behalf of our clients in Ontario Court (General Division) and in front of several different tribunals, including the Workers' Compensation Board, the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal, the Social Assistance Review Board, the board of referees and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.

For the purposes of this interview, I will assume that you have reviewed my résumé. You will note throughout my career I have attempted to become as involved as I possibly could in whatever community I was living at the time, not only because I happened to like the activity I was involved in but also because I wanted to present a more positive image of lawyers to other people -- I felt a burden to do that -- so I volunteered on many different committees.

Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): A formidable task.

Mr Koprowski: But nevertheless one that I took on zealously. You have to understand that the executive director is as high as you can go in the clinic system, yet I felt I had abilities and talents that would allow me to do other things. That is why, for one thing, I applied to be a deputy judge of the Small Claims Court. It was simply a question of calling the regional senior judge in Thunder Bay and asking if he could stand to have another deputy judge available. He could, so I was sworn in. Unfortunately, I don't sit as frequently as I would like to. There are two senior deputy judges in Fort Frances and they seem to get first crack at it.

But I still felt -- and this is what leads me here today -- I had talents and abilities that I could use beyond my position as executive director, and I also wanted to expand my horizons still while maintaining that position. That is why I applied for this position and that is why I am here this morning, so that you can determine whether you feel I am capable of being appointed to this board.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Koprowski. Mr Kormos had to step out to make a phone call. He'd originally thought he was going to go first.

Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): I had a big comment to make about lawyers, but he's gone.

Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): He'll be back.

Mr Preston: No, I'll leave it.

The Chair: There are other lawyers on the committee.

Mr Preston: Yes, I realize that.

The Chair: Don't be restrained. Any questions?

Mr Bob Wood: We will reserve our time, Mr Chairman.

The Chair: Okay, thank you for that.

Mr Bartolucci: Welcome, Mr Koprowski. Did you grow up in southern or southwestern Ontario or in northern Ontario?

Mr Koprowski: I actually grew up in Wallaceburg in southwestern Ontario. I lived all my life in Wallaceburg until I went to university in London.

Mr Bartolucci: A lawyer who moves to the north can't be all that bad, and that's certainly a compliment. And you're staying there. Are you enjoying Fort Frances?

Mr Koprowski: Very much so, sir. Were it not for the fact that my wife is a doctor and is totally overworked, it would be a tremendously idyllic situation.

Mr Bartolucci: Your wife should be here with you. We could be asking her some excellent questions as well, but we won't.

I have no doubt that you'd be an excellent appointee to the board, so I'm not even going to ask you very many questions about that. I have maybe one or two questions. The information package you received, did you enjoy the video?

Mr Koprowski: I didn't see it, sir.

Mr Bartolucci: You didn't watch it?

Mr Koprowski: I didn't have time. Our service up in Fort Frances for courier is not as good as it is down here and I didn't even have time to view that.

Mr Bartolucci: It's not much anyway, so don't worry about it. I haven't been able to see them either, to be perfectly honest. We haven't seen any of them. There's only one member of the committee who's been able to see them.

There are some new changes, obviously, to the over-80 drivers. That's going to impact on your appeal board and you as a board member. That's a delicate balance, obviously. How do you view the changes? Do you see the changes as being positive?

Mr Koprowski: There are several changes in the Road Safety Act, 1996. That was one of the things I requested be faxed to me, because I didn't have a copy of it. I was able to review it, albeit rather quickly. Overall, I think the changes are positive. I'm thinking specifically now of the 90-day licence suspension. I don't like the idea of people driving and drinking. Overall, I think they're good. Quite frankly, I'm somewhat concerned as to whether some provisions may stand up to a charter challenge, but I think the long-term goal is very positive and certainly I would support that, subject to whatever the courts may have to say about the charter vis-à-vis the new amendments.

Mr Bartolucci: Let's go back to the over-80 drivers because I think that's going to be a very dicey thing for members of the appeal board. You're going to have people here who've had so many years of driving, and although I see the changes as being very good, to be perfectly honest with you, there is still going to be that opportunity when the 80-year-old is not going to be able to accept the fact that he or she will no longer be able to drive. How do you weigh the material as a board member? How would you? You're an experienced lawyer, a very competent individual, obviously. How do you weigh that?

Mr Koprowski: First of all, evidence is the key. You have to have evidence on which to make a decision. There have to be sufficient facts to support any decision you make, and sufficient evidence, usually medical evidence in a case like that, to support the facts.

Driving in this province, any province, is a privilege. It is by no means a right that is ingrained in the Charter of Rights, and any privileges can be removed. When you talk about driving, driving is no longer a luxury, it's an absolute necessity these days, especially in the north when there are such great distances, but one has to weigh whether or not a privilege can be removed if it's for the betterment or maintenance of the public safety. That's always a delicate balance.

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One can't give an answer ahead of time that will fit every single situation where a licence may be suspended for an over-80 driver. You have to look at the facts individually in each case. If there's medical evidence, if there's evidence of convictions or improper driving over a period of time, and enough of them, it may be that that person's driving privilege has to be suspended. What is worse, allowing one person to continue to drive or exposing more people to injury or worse because you did?

I think what has to be done, the bottom line, is that you look at all the evidence and see if there are problems with the police, if there are problems medically. Then sometimes they just have to accept that fact. Many of my clients had to accept a judge's decision even though they didn't like it, but that's the way it was and they had to live with that. Assuming the facts support it, then sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and say you can't drive.

Mr Bartolucci: Thank you very much for the answer. It's an excellent answer as far as I'm concerned.

Let's go to the 90-day suspension. I too agree that it's very serious to drink and drive, there's absolutely no question about that, but there are other infractions that happen almost on a daily basis, I'm thinking, especially down here -- we see it in the north but not as frequently because the road system doesn't allow us to do it -- and that's reckless drivers. If you spend any time at all down here, I certainly don't think these people follow all the road safety rules. Do you think reckless driving should be a cause for automatic suspension as well?

Mr Koprowski: It depends on what you mean by reckless driving. Again, you have to look at the facts of each case, and that again depends on the legislation involved, because you have not only the Highway Traffic Act but you've got the Criminal Code provisions dealing with those things too. Those provisions do permit a suspension of a driver's licence upon conviction.

I know we're not talking here about a suspension on a conviction, I know we're talking about a suspension beforehand, but reckless driving is going to be more a question of evidence than whether or not someone has blown over on a breathalyser. There is something concrete in a breathalyser where you see the fail or pass reading. There's something concrete. Reckless driving I consider to be more of a judgement call. Was he doing it? Well, you ask five different lawyers and you're going to get five different answers, maybe 10 different answers, I don't know. But when you see a reading that says "pass" or "fail," or in our particular case "fail," then there's something concrete that you can rely on in making that suspension decision. So there is something more concrete in that than the concept of reckless driving. What may be reckless driving to one person may be just normal driving in city circumstances to someone else. What we might consider to be reckless on the road from Fort Frances to Thunder Bay may be the norm here in Toronto. But a fail is the same in Fort Frances as it is here in Toronto. Therefore, you have something more concrete.

So the answer to your question is, if the circumstances can be shown -- and that's the problem with reckless driving -- then sure, suspend them, but you're going to have more problems with doing that than having something concrete like a fail reading.

Mr Bartolucci: When I'm talking about reckless driving, I'm talking about passing on the right, which is very dangerous, or exceeding the speed limit significantly. I think all those are causes for reckless driving, because they truly endanger the lives of others as well as oneself. I guess that's my interpretation of reckless driving.

You show from your résumé a great involvement in community service. No one will challenge that. Why did you decide upon the licence suspension board? Any particular reason?

Mr Koprowski: Yes, sir. It was one that I was told was taking applications and so I thought I might as well.

Mr Bartolucci: I have no other questions. I wish Peter was coming back because I think he wanted to ask a few.

The Chair: I think he wanted to ask -- I'm only guessing. How did you hear about the opening, that your application would be given serious consideration?

Mr Koprowski: I was told about the opening. I was given no indication as to whether the application would be given serious consideration. It was just suggested to me: "If you want to do something like that, apply," but there was nothing to indicate the chances of success in that. I was told by a friend of mine in Fort Frances that applications were being taken and if I was interested, as I was for the deputy judge position, because this friend of mine knew my desires that way too -- I said, "Fine, I'll do that." I asked for the terms of reference for the Licence Suspension Appeal Board, what its jurisdiction was, what it had to do, before I applied, because I thought if it was something I might not be interested in, I wouldn't even bother doing it. But once I received that, I sent in my application to Toronto along with my résumé. Really, I didn't know what the chances were of it even being accepted. I was quite surprised when I received a call.

The Chair: Government members, any questions?

Mr Bob Wood: We'll waive our time.

Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): I wouldn't mind asking, since Mr Koprowski is originally from Wallaceburg, which happens to be in my riding -- I welcome you here this morning -- for your opinion on something. The 90-day administrative licence suspension, do you see it having any impact on the number of people who are charged with impaired driving pleading guilty as opposed to fighting the charge, since the two terms could run concurrent if in fact somebody pleaded guilty? Do you see it having any impact?

Mr Koprowski: By the time an impaired driving charge gets to court, the 90-day period will have gone, will have expired. I don't think being charged with an impaired driving charge would really affect a person's approach to the charge because the impaired driving charge covers a far heavier penalty. When you compare that with the 90-day suspension, the 90-day suspension is relatively short compared to what could happen on an impaired driving conviction. I don't think the 90-day suspension will affect how people approach whether they defend or plead guilty to impaired driving charges.

Mr Carroll: Even though they could end up with a 15-month licence suspension if they had the 90 days, plus they were found guilty of impaired.

Mr Koprowski: That's true, but you see my point is I think they will be more willing to contest an impaired driving charge, were that to be the case. They're doing that even now. Because an impaired driving conviction can result in such a long suspension, a minimum one year, they're doing that even now. I don't think that will change. Besides, if you get an impaired driving conviction, you're not talking just a licence suspension, you're talking increased insurance premiums and all sorts of other repercussions. So there would still be the incentive to defend an impaired driving charge even over and above the 90-day suspension period.

The Chair: No other questions? Mr Koprowski, thank you for coming before the committee and for answering the questions put to you. We appreciate it. Good luck.

Mr Koprowski: Thank you, sir. Shall I leave now?

The Chair: You can stay. We'll be dealing with whether or not the committee agrees on your appointment, so you're free to stay. Why don't you?

Mr Koprowski: Yes. Thank you very much.

The Chair: We're ready to deal with concurrence.

Mr Bob Wood: I move concurrence in the intended appointment of Mr Koprowski.

The Chair: Any debate? Comment? If not, ready for the question? All those in favour of Mr Koprowski's appointment? It's unanimous. Mr Koprowski, you've obviously impressed the committee.

I thank members of the committee. That completes our business. The next scheduled meeting is January 15.

Members of the committee, I'll see again in the next couple of days in the House, but for people whom I won't see again, people from the secretariat, I wish them a happy season. Thank you all very much for your cooperation. We are adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 1020.