Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The committee met at 1500 in committee room 2.

Committee business

The Chair (Ms. Laurie Scott): Good afternoon, everyone. The Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy will now come to order. We’re joined by staff from legislative research, Hansard, and broadcast and recording. Please wait until I recognize you before starting to speak, and as always, all comments should go through the Chair. Are there any questions before we begin? Okay.

Today’s agenda item is committee business. Are there any motions now? MPP Thanigasalam.

Mr. Vijay Thanigasalam: Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the committee enter a closed session for the purpose of organizing committee business.

The Chair (Ms. Laurie Scott): Any discussions or comments? MPP Burch.

Mr. Jeff Burch: Thank you, Chair. It probably won’t surprise you that we are not in favour of moving in camera, with the issues that we’ve had with consultation with the government, our issues with getting extra days to accommodate people that want to present. We’re not sure what the government is going to do, if we’re going to have full hearings or not on this bill. We think it’s important for transparency that this happen not in camera but in public view. And I would ask for a recorded vote.

The Chair (Ms. Laurie Scott): Okay. Thank you very much.

MPP McMahon, the motion is that the committee enter closed session for the purpose of organizing committee business, and we’re open to questions, comments or discussions.

MPP Bell?

Ms. Jessica Bell: Thank you. I will be voting against moving this committee to closed session. Bill 39 is already incredibly controversial. I was just down at city hall, and it’s full with people who are furious that this government has made a decision without consultation, without mentioning it during the election period, to allow Mayor Tory to pass legislation with just eight—a third of city councillors.

This has never been done before in Canada. It is an assault on our democratic norms, and it is important that our conversations around how many people are allowed to speak at committee—it is important that that is public. We just went through Bill 23. I made it very clear to the members opposite that there are going to be issues if we don’t allow people who want to speak to speak, and the government at that time ignored our requests.

It’s important that there’s transparency. I will be voting against any move to make this committee a closed session to determine our business.

The Chair (Ms. Laurie Scott): Any further discussion or debate? MPP McMahon.

Ms. Mary-Margaret McMahon: Sure. I feel there’s no need to go in camera. This is just, to my understanding, scheduling proceedings. Again, why wouldn’t we want to be public about that? I think there’s a lot of distrust with the public for politics and politicians, and this is why. This just helps fuel the fire. So why not be open and have those conversations publicly, transparently, completely, and do so without doing this motion? This is democracy. So I’ll be voting against as well.

The Chair (Ms. Laurie Scott): Any further discussion or debate? MPP Bell, yes.

Ms. Jessica Bell: I would like MPP Thanigasalam to explain why you’re making a decision to move a motion to have all our business in secret, given that we’re talking about democracy here and regional chairs and city hall. Why move it to a secret conversation?

The Chair (Ms. Laurie Scott): Any further discussion or debate? Seeing none, shall I put the question? Shall the motion carry? This is a recorded vote.

Ayes

Holland, Grewal, McGregor, Pang, Sabawy, Laura Smith, Thanigasalam.

Nays

Bell, Burch, McMahon.

The Chair (Ms. Laurie Scott): I declare the motion carried.

There being no further business, this committee—

Interjection.

The Chair (Ms. Laurie Scott): No. I’m sorry—a recess, right. We have to recess. We’ll recess and move into closed session. It will take about five minutes.

The committee recessed at 1505 and later continued in closed session.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HERITAGE, INFRASTRUCTURE AND CULTURAL POLICY

Chair / Présidente

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente

MPP Laura Mae Lindo (Kitchener Centre / Kitchener-Centre ND)

MPP Jill Andrew (Toronto–St. Paul’s ND)

Mr. Hardeep Singh Grewal (Brampton East / Brampton-Est PC)

Mr. Joel Harden (Ottawa Centre / Ottawa-Centre ND)

Mr. Kevin Holland (Thunder Bay–Atikokan PC)

MPP Laura Mae Lindo (Kitchener Centre / Kitchener-Centre ND)

Mr. Graham McGregor (Brampton North / Brampton-Nord PC)

Ms. Mary-Margaret McMahon (Beaches–East York L)

Mr. Billy Pang (Markham–Unionville PC)

Mr. Sheref Sabawy (Mississauga–Erin Mills PC)

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock PC)

Ms. Laura Smith (Thornhill PC)

Mr. Vijay Thanigasalam (Scarborough–Rouge Park PC)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

Ms. Jessica Bell (University–Rosedale ND)

Mr. Jeff Burch (Niagara Centre / Niagara-Centre ND)

Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim

Ms. Thushitha Kobikrishna

Staff / Personnel

Mr. Michael Vidoni, research officer,
Research Services