INQUIRY RE MINISTRY OF HEALTH INFORMATION
CONTENTS
Thursday 12 March 1992
Inquiry re Ministry of Health information
Kim Morris
Robert MacMillan
Nuala Doherty
STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
Chair / Président(e): Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président(e): Miclash, Frank (Kenora L)
Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)
Christopherson, David (Hamilton Centre ND)
Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North/-Nord L)
Eves, Ernie L. (Parry Sound PC)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent ND)
Mills, Gordon (Durham East/-Est ND)
Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury ND)
Owens, Stephen (Scarborough Centre ND)
Scott, Ian G. (St George-St David L)
Substitution(s) / Membre(s) rempliçant(s):
Cunningham, Dianne (London North/-Nord PC) for Mr Eves
Elston, Murray (Bruce L) for Mr Scott
Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold ND) for Ms S. Murdock
Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND) for Mr Bisson
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Campbell, Charles, counsel, Iler, Campbell
Clerk / Greffier: Arnott, Douglas
Staff / Personnel: Taman, Larry, Committee Counsel
The committee met at 1016 in room 151.
INQUIRY RE MINISTRY OF HEALTH INFORMATION
The Chair: Good morning. We will call the Legislative Assembly committee to order to commence our morning proceedings.
Prior to moving on with our first witness, I would like members of the committee to receive, which will be distributed, the in camera transcript of Deputy Minister Decter of March 2. That will now be distributed and marked as exhibit 118.
As a second order, I would like to inform members that it is the intent that the calling of the witnesses for today will be Kim Morris, Dr MacMillan, Mary Fleming and Nuala Doherty.
Third, I would like to introduce members to counsel Larry Taman, who will be acting as counsel to the committee for today.
Last, I would like to welcome Kim Morris, the constituency assistant to Shelley Martel, before this committee. Good morning.
Miss Morris: Good morning.
Mr Christopherson: On a point of order, Mr Chair: Just before we begin today's proceedings, there is an issue of extreme importance, as far as our caucus members are concerned, that I feel I must raise before we begin today. There was yesterday, of course, and it is in the media today, the suggestion and the allegation that there was a leak of information by the Sudbury civil servants, and we moved to in camera. That name has now been given, and I raised it in subcommittee, and we feel obliged to raise it again today. This is not a star chamber. Somebody has been accused of very serious infractions, the name has been mentioned, and we feel that in the interest of justice for that individual, for the civil servants in Sudbury who have a cloud over them and for the public who are not hearing as much of these hearings as they need to, and hopefully we will rectify that in the final report, but because of those concerns, we feel it is absolutely necessary that this individual be called in and be given an opportunity to respond to those allegations.
I have had a chance to review the terms of reference as well as the House leaders' agreement, and the three documents that form that House leaders' agreement state very clearly in a memo to Dave Cooke from Remo Mancini, dated January 23, "However, the total list of dates the committee can sit should include the days of February 14, 21 and March 13." Those reflect the Fridays of each of the weeks that we are meeting.
This caucus is prepared and is committed to being here tomorrow to hear this witness, to give him a chance to respond to those allegations. I implore you and the subcommittee to reconsider and give this person the opportunity to clear his name or to at least affirm, if that is indeed what happens, the allegations that were made.
Second, I would just like to say, at the beginning of the last day of hearings, that it is going to be critical for this committee to ensure that as much as absolutely possible needs to be made public in the final report. There has been an awful lot of important facts and situations discussed in camera that have not been captured by the release of the censored transcripts and I am concerned that there has not been enough attention paid to the fact that the obligation is to get the information out, not to keep it contained.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Obviously this caucus agrees very strongly about this. Look, it goes well beyond the inconsistencies between Mr Harfield's evidence yesterday and that of Dr Donahue's evidence some short time ago. Those inconsistencies were even more intense in the in camera evidence of Mr Harfield. Somebody is not telling the truth here. Either Dr Donahue is lying or Mr Harfield is lying.
A so-called civil servant who is a so-called leak, purportedly from Sudbury, was named by Mr Harfield. I think in view of what had been said publicly, what had been said privately in camera -- because I think in addition to hearing from that so-called civil servant, it is imperative that the in camera evidence of Mr Harfield be released. There was not a single thing in his evidence that is a breach of FOI, of freedom of information, or that is confidential. There is not a single word in all his in camera evidence that is confidential or FOI. It is most revealing about some of the manipulation of Dr Donahue of this scenario and it is imperative that evidence be released promptly -- not 10 days after the fact, but now.
This so-called civil servant from Sudbury, who is a so-called leak -- it is no difficulty to get her or him here within a matter of hours if need be. Look, I will take the truck up to Sudbury myself and pick her or him up and have her or him back here promptly, well before we retire for the afternoon.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kormos. Are there any other -- Mr Harnick and then Mr Hope. Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: I have no problem with the immediate release of that transcript. In terms of the days that we were to sit in this committee, we as a subcommittee have urged the government House leader, Mr Cooke, to allow us to continue this hearing for at least another week. Mr Cooke was adamant that he would not permit one single extra day of sittings.
Mr Kormos: You will not sit in the evenings.
The Chair: Order.
Mr Harnick: Mr Kormos says that I will not sit in the evenings. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Mr Kormos: Very specifically, we tried --
Mr Harnick: Let me finish, Mr Kormos.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Kormos: You are being paid a hundred bucks a day tax free.
Mr Harnick: Mr Kormos, let me finish.
The Chair: Order, please, Mr Kormos and Mr Harnick. Mr Harnick, you have the floor, speaking to this point that was raised, if members will allow that to happen.
Mr Harnick: If Mr Christopherson made some comments about who would or would not sit in the evening, what he has told Mr Kormos and the rest of his caucus is totally erroneous.
Mr Christopherson: It is not.
Mr Harnick: It was decided by the subcommittee at the outset of this procedure that our counsel, at her request, did not wish to sit in the evenings because she needed that time in preparation. So it was agreed at that time that we would not sit in the evenings. However, we have sat many evenings beyond the 6 o'clock time.
Mr Wood: What about Fridays, Charlie?
Mr Kormos: Let's do it tomorrow, Friday.
Mr Harnick: We have urged the government House leader to provide us with the extra time. In writing, he said, "Absolutely not," and that is the way it has been left. Our position is you can release the transcript right now as far as I am concerned. I believe Mr Elston will probably be taking the same position. He may wish to discuss that, but I can tell you that if you are complaining about no time for these hearings, it is because of your own House leader and you know it.
The Chair: Mr Hope.
Mr Wood: You just said it was because of the counsel.
The Chair: Mr Wood, please. I would hope you would allow your colleague to speak to this point of order.
Mr Wood: Sorry, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Wood. Mr Hope.
Mr Hope: Mr Chair, I would just like to reflect on some of the things we talked about when this committee process began, about the confidential information and about making sure the public is well aware of what takes place during this process. I think Mr Christopherson raises a number of good points, because when you go in and out of camera so much -- and lately we have been doing that -- to disclose or find out some information, it just leaves a question mark with the general public.
We believe it is important that as much of the information as possible is revealed openly. It is nice that transcripts are out there, but there is still the public that watches this. I know that people who live in Ungah in my riding pay attention to this hearing because it is one that I am involved in as their local member. I am sure they are wondering what is going on today.
I would just like to reflect back on when this whole thing began. When we first sat down, we raised this whole issue and the issue about meeting. I think if we closely scrutinized Hansard, we would find out that Mr Harnick really interjects quite often.
The Chair: Order, please. If you would like to speak to the point Mr Christopherson brought forward, it would be appreciated --
Mr Hope: It is. If you would just let me finish --
The Chair: Mr Hope, please, I am speaking. I think your comments on this point of order will be very well appreciated by all members of the committee. In keeping with that, I just hope you will speak to the point of order.
Mr Hope: I am speaking to the point of order, because Mr Christopherson also indicated sitting in the evenings and on Friday and I was getting to that before I was interrupted.
If we reflect on Hansard, there was a number of evenings that we were planning to sit, but due to scheduling and other things we could not sit in the evening. From this side of the House, this committee was willing to sit on those evenings and on those Fridays to make sure that all witnesses were brought before this committee, so it is nice that we point the finger at Mr Cooke. Unfortunately, this committee is the one that has been pushing the issue of the evenings and the Fridays, to make sure we can get as many people as possible before this committee to make sure that justice is being served and that the facts and information being brought to this committee are based on truth and to make sure that nobody out there is faced with a cloud over top of his head and that he would have the opportunity, if some allegations were made against him, to come before this committee to air his concerns.
Mr Christopherson: Mr Chair, I do not want to revisit points that have been made, but I think it needs to be understood very clearly that under the negotiated agreement between the three parties, where there was unanimous agreement, it was the opposition members, in their memo -- the Liberal House leader to be specific -- who requested that Fridays be included. There has been no political will on the part of the subcommittee, which is controlled by the opposition, to try to accommodate evening sittings nor to utilize the Fridays that they so clearly wanted to ensure were captured by these terms of reference.
What we are specifically asking for is -- the day before the final hearing a very serious allegation has been made against an individual. That name has been given in camera. That person deserves the right to come back. My point is, we are prepared to meet this evening, which I remind Charles Harnick --
Mr Harnick: No, I have a commitment.
Mr Christopherson: Mr Harnick has said he was not going to meet beyond 6 or 6:30, no matter what.
I would say to you, Mr Chair, that we are prepared to meet tonight and/or tomorrow, which is within the mandate. It does not require a House leaders' agreement and does not require going back to the Legislature. In fact, we are utilizing a clause that the opposition insisted be in there and we are saying, in the interest of fairness, that it be used and that the person be brought and given the opportunity to respond. That is the nugget of our concern.
Mr Harnick: I would ask, Mr Chairman, if you could produce and file as exhibits the letter we wrote to the government House leader and the response we received. I suspect that can end this matter and we can get on with hearing the witnesses who are waiting today. If we keep arguing about this, we will not get to cover their evidence either.
I reiterate what I said: You can release the transcript right this moment and I suspect that those reading the transcript will be able to make whatever determinations they want to make out of it. You can release that transcript right now; nothing is being hidden. There is certainly no desire to do that.
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But I will tell you that the conundrum that the government now finds itself in was a conundrum created by their own House leader after the insistence of our own counsel, who advised that justice could not be served properly if we did not extend these hearings. The government House leader came in and told us that we absolutely could not change those dates.
It is very interesting now that Mr Christopherson no longer wants to refer to that House leader's agreement that he kept referring to in our subcommittee meetings a month ago. He does not want to talk about that agreement any more. When he relied on it, it was fine. Now that the agreement is contrary to what he wants, he does not remember it any more.
I would ask, Mr Chairman, that you please file those exhibits, those letters at this particular time.
Mr Christopherson: For the record, I voted against those motions in subcommittee. That subcommittee is controlled by you.
The Chair: Order, please. Mr Conway?
Mr Conway: Mr Chair, I would be the last one to want to see anything done to disadvantage any member of the new democracy in these hearings, so let me say that I would certainly be personally willing to sit tonight or tomorrow --
Mr Owens: Hear, hear.
Mr Conway: -- to accommodate the plaintive wishes of my friend from Hamilton. Having said that, I would like to get on with the witnesses who are scheduled for this morning and this afternoon.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I have listened very carefully to all of the points of order and to the comments thereafter. Is there any other -- I am sorry, Mrs Cunningham?
Mrs Cunningham: Mr Chairman, just to make certain that the letters will be filed so that we can look at them. I think if there is anything to be learned from this, that is "Never say `never.'" Those of us who have been part of committees like this in the past, we just should not be putting up the "no" until the committee is proceeding and until we see what is happening.
You very well know, and it has certainly been reported in the media, that the hours of this committee have been a matter of negotiations. I am speaking now as the whip of our party who has tried to plan people's time. Everybody knows that next week is the March break. We did put in a request for the week of the 23rd. It was not responded to in my view, which meant that -- certainly the subcommittee heard a verbal response, Mr Chairman, but we did not get anything in writing, and now we find ourselves, after being told, "No, this is not negotiable," that we are asking for more time.
I just think we should all learn something. I do not know what the order would be, because I have certainly been in telephone conversation late last week on this very issue, Mr Chairman. So if somebody wants to make a different decision on behalf of the government today, more power to them, but I think we should not be holding the witnesses up.
The Chair: Mr Owens?
Mr Owens: No. On a point of order, Mr Chair: There seems to be some difficulty in the message that these folks are receiving. We are not asking for more time. Mr Christopherson has simply asked the members of the third party -- Mr Conway has agreed to sit tomorrow, but those dates tomorrow are included in the letters from your party and from the Liberal Party. We are not asking for more time. I do not know how you have come to understand that.
Mrs Cunningham: That is fine. If you are not asking for more time, then I withdraw that observation. Thank you very much. If you are not asking for more time, that is great.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Firstly, I think --
Mr Christopherson: I think we have got a majority of the subcommittee now willing to bring in the person named yesterday.
The Chair: Well, I am going to speak, if you will permit me, to the point of order, Mr Christopherson, which you brought forward. If you have another point of order which you would like to raise after that, we can entertain that. But I think that you brought forward a point of order, that comments were made around that order, and I think that, as a result, we should deal with the one that you raised.
With respect to the issue of time, I am left only with the memo that has been provided to me, and that memo -- and I am not going to read from it in whole, but certainly in part, and the parts that deal with the dates. It is to the House leaders, under date January 23, to Ernie Eves, Remo Mancini and it is from Dave Cooke, and it states:
"The committee shall sit February 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, February 24, March 2, 3, 9, 10, 11 and 12."
That is the memo which I, as the Chair, have been given under the terms of reference. It is the days that this committee has been authorized to sit. In the event -- and I think members will be aware that there has been a motion, which has been provided, to ask to sit extra days. We have not received, to my knowledge, a response to the request to sit extra days. Because we have not received the request to sit extra days, I, as the Chair, am left with this memo which outlines the days upon which we are authorized to sit. That is where this matter begins and where this matter ends.
Certainly if there is any agreement for this committee to sit longer, I recognize the motion that is already out, and we would be, I think, in accordance with that motion, pleased to sit further. But I must tell all members of the committee that the memo that was given to me under date January 23 outlines 15 days that this committee can sit. The days are outlined within the memo and the last day that this committee can sit, pursuant to that memo, is March 12, the day here.
The second point is dealing with the release of information heard in an in camera session, and I think that there is not any one particular person who does not have and has not had from day one the desire that all information that we hear, both in the public and in the in camera session, be released. From my perspective, from day one we have recognized that is going to be and would be a difficulty, but that we as a subcommittee devised, as best we could, a procedure for the release of information heard in an in camera session.
We have done that, and the procedure that has been arrived at by members of the subcommittee is that at the end of an in camera session a transcript would be made. That transcript would then be delivered by envelope to our counsel. Counsel would review that transcript, report back to the subcommittee, and then the subcommittee would release the information of an in camera proceeding, keeping in mind different pieces of legislation, specifically the freedom of information legislation.
That has been the procedure that this committee has operated under from day one. I think that what we have attempted to do is strike a balance, first, on the desire of all members of the committee and the subcommittee, and all members, to release the information that we hear both publicly and privately, but also recognizing that in some instances there are pieces of legislation such as the freedom of information legislation which we must, as legislators, be wary of and respectful of, and heed our own terms of reference, and that we have attempted to do.
In the event the members of the subcommittee wish to change the process, on this last day, that we have had for the preceding 14 days, well, then, that is certainly permissible under, as I believe, paragraph 5 of the terms of reference. I would ask members of the subcommittee as we, in my opinion, invite Ms Morris and her counsel to attend before this committee, to think about this particular issue so that we may have a subcommittee meeting. My suggestion would be that it could be held prior to the afternoon sittings, that we could in fact have a subcommittee meeting for approximately one half-hour in the recess break from 12 to 2 at a time convenient to members of the subcommittee, so that if there is a desire to change the process on the last day that this subcommittee and this committee have abided by since day one, then give the subcommittee that opportunity to do so. I would ask members of the subcommittee to decide and check their schedules as to whether a 30-minute subcommittee meeting would be permitted and possible in the recess time between 12 and 2.
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I am, and I will tell you now, as the Chair very reluctant to change the process under which this committee has operated without a subcommittee meeting. I believe that it a total and clear breach of our terms of reference, and the way in which it is properly done is through a subcommittee meeting. We did not make up the terms of reference; we were given the terms of reference. I, as the Chair, want to make certain that members of the subcommittee and members of this committee abide by those terms of reference. We will do so through a subcommittee meeting held, if members wish, in the recess between 12 noon and 2 pm.
Mr Christopherson: I do not wish to belabour this; we all want to get on with the questioning. Therefore, I would say that there seems to be some misunderstanding. I do not know if we are going to clarify a paper trail today. I am prepared to give you a copy of this memo, if it would be of assistance to you, from Mr Mancini, the House leader for the Liberals at that time, indicating the dates they requested.
My interest, however, is that I think we have a majority of the subcommittee that is prepared to invite this witness. Time is of the essence. What you are talking about is a delay of at least two hours. That is half the time it would take this person to travel down here. I would suggest that it would be much more efficient and profitable for this committee in terms of using its time properly that you take that majority indication and ask staff to begin contacting this individual to make arrangements so that if they wish to be here today, albeit at the last minute, to respond, they can get here in a timely fashion and we can meet with them at the end of our planned witnesses.
Mr Elston: Mr Chair, I am now the House leader of record, I guess, for the official opposition. I can tell you that my first meeting with the now New Democratic Party House leader was one in which the message was given quite strongly to me that there was to be no variation in his original position and he was quite strident and very specific about not making changes, although, because of the setback of the moving back of the reconvening of the House, which the New Democrats of course have postponed to April 6 -- a very major departure from the way this place used to work -- Mr Cooke decided to allow us to sit one extra week to do the report only. Those were the only positive replies to a request for more time for this committee.
He was quite strident that there be no more addition of any time whatsoever, that if there were to be any modification, it would not occur under his guidance, and in fact he was extremely precise about his way being the only way and everything else was to be left as it was. I can tell you, Mr Chair, that if there is to be a change in the way in which this committee does business, it should go to the House leaders because, I will tell you, Mr Cooke was not particularly accommodating with us. I found his new way -- at least I found it to be a new way because when we dealt with Ms Martel as House leader I found her to be much more accommodating and much more flexible. It sounds to me like there is a new day of organization under the current New Democratic Party House leader.
His toughness, in my view, prevents or at least restricts the type of flexibility the official opposition had when I was House leader before. It certainly makes it extremely difficult for us to accommodate your request for flexible schedules when our request for that same flexibility has been met in the first -- I admit this is only the first -- meeting I have had with him with a very strong no. I think that is the way of the world in this Legislature.
The fact that you have unilaterally postponed our reconvening is another statement about how you wish to run business. I can tell you that that alone firms up the way in which business will be done by you here in this place, and for you now to complain about us preventing flexibility is just a wee bit too difficult for me to stomach.
Mr Harnick: We have now, Mr Chairman, wasted 45 minutes. Might I suggest that if Mr Christopherson is in such an uproar about having the subcommittee meeting, we have that subcommittee meeting for the next 15 minutes and reconvene at 11 o'clock and sit here till 12:30 so these witnesses can give their evidence and get home at a reasonable hour, and maybe we can break this logjam, because we are otherwise just sitting here wasting time. I know Mr Cooke would be very upset to see the time we are wasting.
Mr Christopherson: I can agree with that, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Thank you.
Interjections.
The Chair: I sense a motion being made to recess for 15 minutes to convene a subcommittee meeting, and I am going to ask, if that be the motion that I sense, is that carried? Carried.
We will recess for 15 minutes and move into a subcommittee meeting, which I remind members is in camera.
The committee recessed at 1045.
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The Chair: We will resume the morning sitting, I understand, of the Legislative Assembly committee. Prior to our first witness, I would like to inform members of the committee that the subcommittee has unanimously agreed to request the extension of the public hearings to accommodate a single witness, that witness to be heard at 2 pm on Monday, March 30, 1992.
KIM MORRIS
The Chair: Having said that, I would now like to welcome Ms Morris. Good morning. It is the process in this committee that prior to the questioning by counsel and committee members that an oath be administered. I invite the clerk to administer the oath at this time.
Kim Morris, sworn.
The Chair: For Hansard's purpose, could you introduce your counsel to the committee?
Miss Morris: My counsel is Mr Charles Campbell.
The Chair: Prior to inviting our counsel to commence questioning, I would like to give you a warning that has been given to all persons that have appeared before the committee, and that is that in the event you are asked a question you cannot properly answer without divulging confidential information, could you or your counsel please advise the committee of that. If there is not a way to divulge that information without giving information of a confidential nature, then this matter may be addressed by the committee in an in camera proceeding.
Mr Campbell: I can advise you that we have discussed that and I do not think there are any issues of confidentiality with respect to this witness.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I would now like to invite Mr Taman to commence questioning for today.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, good morning. Mr Campbell, good morning. Miss Morris, I understand that you are Ms Martel's constituency assistant.
Miss Morris: Correct.
Mr Taman: In Sudbury East?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: You have held that position since April of 1991.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: You told me the other day that you are a graduate of Cambrian College in 1988 and that in December of 1989 you started work as an assistant to the caucus in the New Democratic Party.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: From May of 1990 until October of 1990, you were legislative assistant to Mr Laughren in opposition.
Miss Morris: Yes, I was.
Mr Taman: I understand that you were on the minister's staff in Ms Martel's office from October 1990 until April of 1991 and that you have held your present position since then.
Miss Morris: Correct.
Mr Taman: Explain to the committee what your particular responsibilities are in Ms Martel's office.
Miss Morris: As constituency assistant, I am actually the outreach assistant, therefore I do the outreach duties such as representing Ms Martel as an observer at meetings she cannot attend, doing certain constituent mailings. I do case work in the constituency office and I also do administrative duties.
Mr Taman: Let's talk for a moment about procedures in your office. I understand the office is located in Hanmer, and that is in Valley East about a half an hour from Sudbury.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: You are in a shopping centre there.
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: Look back to November of 1991 and tell the committee who worked in the office at that time.
Miss Morris: Back in November there were four people in the constituency office. There was myself, the other constituency assistant by the name of Pauline Hébert, Monique Lavigne, who was a special assistant/receptionist/ typist, and Margaret Scorthorne, who was a trainee because Monique was going on maternity leave.
Mr Taman: Do I understand that you were responsible for the overall running of the office?
Miss Morris: There is no hierarchy, but because I am in charge of the budget, yes, you could say that.
Mr Taman: You report directly to Ms Martel.
Miss Morris: Yes, I do.
Mr Taman: It is part of your responsibility to see that the others in the office and the office as a whole do their work smoothly and effectively.
Miss Morris: More or less.
Mr Taman: Let's talk about phone procedures. Explain to me what happens in your office if a member of the public calls to ask for information, to make a comment or to discuss an issue.
Miss Morris: Back then it would have been one of Margaret or Monique who answered the telephone, most particularly Margaret, as she was training and Monique was overseeing this. She would answer the telephone. If the constituent only had a comment, she would take down the name, address, telephone number -- that is on any issue -- and take down the comment, say, "Thank you very much for calling," and that would be the end of the discussion. If the constituent asked a question or wanted a reply to his or her comment, it would then be passed along to myself.
Mr Taman: So the general procedure is that if there is just a comment to be recorded, the receptionist would do that. If there is to be a discussion of substance, that would go to you.
Miss Morris: Correct.
Mr Taman: If you and your counsel would have a look at exhibit 106, at a spot which I think I have tagged for you, you will see about midway through the tab, under the date of November 15, an entry that reads "Donahue," and there are a series of names. Then if you turn the page, you will see the name "Susan Magkot." Is that an entry that the receptionist would have made when Susan Majkot called?
Miss Morris: Yes, it is.
Mr Taman: So we can be reasonably confident, in accordance with your procedures, that Ms Majkot called Miss Martel's constituency office on the 15th of November.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: You have also told us that if there was to be any discussion of substance with Ms Majkot or anyone else, that would take place with you.
Miss Morris: Correct.
Mr Taman: How do you know that any such discussion could only have been with you?
Miss Morris: As Shelley has previously indicated, I am the more political staff, and since Margaret was a trainee -- and even to this point -- she does not answer issue questions. Those are not her duties. The other constituency assistant, her duties were only workmen's compensation. Therefore, any issue question comes to me automatically. That I am sure of.
Mr Taman: Are those the instructions the receptionists are given in your office?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Were those instructions in place on the 15th of November?
Miss Morris: Yes, they were.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, explain to the committee where you get your instructions as to the position you are to take or the information you are to provide in substantive discussions that you might have with a caller.
Miss Morris: I take it from Miss Martel.
Mr Taman: So Miss Martel would sometimes or all the time indicate to you what responses she wanted you to give?
Miss Morris: Yes. Whenever there is an issue arising, I discuss it with her. We will discuss ways of dealing with the issue and she will then tell me how she would like me to reply.
Mr Taman: I understand that in the normal course, Miss Martel is in Sudbury each Friday in her minister's office.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: And I understand that in the normal course, you might see her in the constituency office every second Friday.
Miss Morris: Correct.
Mr Taman: What would she do in the constituency office on a typical visit?
Miss Morris: We have a lot of constituents who wish to see her, so I schedule constituent appointments. There is also her mail to go through, and if any of us have case work to discuss with her, that is the opportunity to do it.
Mr Taman: Do you recall whether or not in the week leading up to November 15 you saw Miss Martel in the constituency office?
Miss Morris: Not that week.
Mr Taman: So you did not see her in the week prior to the 15th, or say the two-week period prior to the 15th?
Miss Morris: I saw her, yes, but she did not come in her constituency office for appointments. We had community clinics that week.
Mr Taman: Let's just turn for a moment to Dr Donahue, and again, let me ask you to turn your mind back to the 15th. I take it by then you had heard of Dr Donahue?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Tell us what were your sources of information in connection with Dr Donahue. First of all, had you seen the letter he circulated among the Sudbury-area MPPs?
Miss Morris: By the 15th, yes, I had.
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Mr Taman: And if you will look with me at exhibit 101, tell us please whether you had seen that bundle by the 15th.
Miss Morris: Exhibit 101? No, I do not recall ever having seen this bundle.
Mr Taman: Have you seen the letter that Dr Donahue wrote to his patients about the closure of his office, if you and Mr Campbell would look to tab 48?
Mr Campbell: What volume, volume 1?
Miss Morris: Yes, I have seen this.
Mr Taman: We know there was some coverage in the Sudbury media during that period. Had you seen some of the media coverage about Dr Donahue's situation?
Miss Morris: Yes, I had.
Mr Taman: Now, in your constituency office, do you have access to a clipping service?
Miss Morris: No, we do not.
Mr Taman: So what you would have seen was just what an ordinary person in Sudbury could have found by reading the mail.
Miss Morris: That is correct.
Mr Taman: And did you also have some knowledge of the threshold and how it worked?
Miss Morris: I did not have any particular knowledge on that issue, no.
Mr Taman: Did you gain some knowledge about Dr Donahue from calls that you received during this period?
Miss Morris: Yes. His patients who had received that letter or memo were calling us and identifying themselves as Dr Donahue's patients, saying that he was intending to close his clinic.
Mr Taman: And I understand that you might have received 100 or 150 calls in November on this subject?
Miss Morris: That is correct.
Mr Taman: And I understand that a large number of them were in the period from the 11th to the 25th of that month.
Miss Morris: Yes, a two-week period; that is about it.
Mr Taman: Ms Morris, can you tell the committee, please, how many callers you personally spoke to during that period.
Miss Morris: I estimate I must have spoken to about 50 of them because most of them only wanted to comment.
Mr Taman: Were they mostly patients of Dr Donahue?
Miss Morris: The majority of them, yes.
Mr Taman: What was the tenor of those conversations with patients of Dr Donahue during that period?
Miss Morris: Well, understandably so, the patients were upset that they were losing their doctor. They could not understand exactly what was the issue pushing him to leave.
Mr Taman: And what was their general attitude towards the government policy in this circumstance?
Miss Morris: They were angry, and of course they blamed the government for sending Dr Donahue out of Sudbury.
Mr Taman: What did they expect you or Miss Martel to do about it?
Miss Morris: They did not give us a solution per se, but they wanted action from our office.
Mr Taman: Ms Morris, you have identified the sources of information that you had during that period. Did you have any other sources or have we canvassed them all?
Miss Morris: I believe you have touched them all.
Mr Taman: And based on those sources, let's just review briefly what you recall knowing about Dr Donahue on the 15th of November. You knew he was a dermatologist.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: You knew he was in Sudbury.
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: You knew he was about to close his office.
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: You knew he had a lot of upset patients.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: You knew, did you, that he did some electrolysis in his practice?
Miss Morris: I believe at that time I knew he did some.
Mr Taman: How did you know that?
Miss Morris: I think there must have been some mention of it in the newspaper, but I cannot really recall if I knew previous to -- exactly when I knew that he was doing some electrolysis.
Mr Taman: And if you think again of November 15, did you know at that time whether or not Dr Donahue had gone through the threshold?
Miss Morris: I did not know.
Mr Taman: Did you know anything at all about Dr Donahue's billings as of that date?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: Did you know anything about Dr Donahue's overhead?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Did you at any point try to calculate from the public information, as we heard some others might have done, what Dr Donahue's billings or income might be?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, during this period would you be, in the ordinary course, in contact with Ms Murdock's office?
Miss Morris: Yes, we would.
Mr Taman: About what sorts of matters would you be in contact with Ms Murdock's office?
Miss Morris: For example, if we received cases that were in their riding or if there were meetings that I would be curious as to whether Ms Murdock or her assistant was attending that we could not, if they could represent us as well -- issues, matters like that.
Mr Taman: Did you, during this period leading up to the 15th, speak to Ms Murdock's office about that sort of issue?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Did you speak at any time during that period to Mr Waddell in that office?
Miss Morris: I am sure I must have.
Mr Taman: Did you speak at any time during that period to Giselle in that office?
Miss Morris: I am sure.
Mr Taman: Giselle's family name is?
Miss Morris: Adams.
Mr Taman: Did you during that period discuss with Mr Waddell or Ms Adams Dr Donahue's situation?
Miss Morris: I am sure I made a comment such as: "Are we ever getting a lot of calls. Is your office as swamped with calls as ours is?"
Mr Taman: Did you have any other discussion about Dr Donahue with them?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: It would be fair for us to agree, would it not, Miss Morris, that during this period Dr Donahue was a hot issue in Sudbury?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: We have heard from other evidence that Miss Martel had the lead on this issue among the Sudbury members?
Miss Morris: Yes, she did.
Mr Taman: We also know from the evidence that there was a meeting coming up on the 15th of November in Sudbury to discuss this issue?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: In the face of that, I suggest to you, Miss Morris, that it would have been natural for your office and Ms Murdock's office to have more than just a passing discussion of Dr Donahue. Are you sure that you did not have any more detailed discussion than you have told us about?
Miss Morris: Yes, I am sure. You are correct in saying that Shelley took the lead on this issue. However, her Toronto office was dealing with it more than the constituency office.
Mr Taman: Now, who in the Toronto office was dealing with it?
Miss Morris: To my recollection, that was David Sword.
Mr Taman: Was it Mr Sword's responsibility or your responsibility to help the minister organize and prepare for the November 15 meeting in Sudbury?
Miss Morris: It was Mr Sword's responsibility.
Mr Taman: So your evidence is that in your conversations with the Murdock office you did not discuss Dr Donahue's billings?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Nor his billing practices?
Miss Morris: Definitely not.
Mr Taman: Nor anything other than that you were both getting a lot of phone calls?
Miss Morris: That is correct.
Mr Taman: Let me ask you the same questions about Mr Laughren's office. Were you in communication with Mr Laughren's office during this period?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: To whom would you speak there?
Miss Morris: I would speak to any of the three constituency assistants, but perhaps mostly to Mr Ian Wood.
Mr Taman: And why to Mr Ian Wood?
Miss Morris: He is also the outreach assistant.
Mr Taman: Did you talk to Mr Wood about Dr Donahue in the period leading up to the 15th?
Miss Morris: I am sure I made similar comments to what I said to Ms Murdock's office.
Mr Taman: Again, what was the general nature of your discussion with Mr Wood during the period?
Miss Morris: "Are you having as many phone calls on Dr Donahue as we are? Are you swamped?" So on and so forth, just along those lines.
Mr Taman: You are quite sure in your own mind that you did not have any more detailed discussion than that with Mr Laughren's office about Dr Donahue's circumstances?
Miss Morris: Yes, I am sure.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, in the period leading up to the 15th did you have an opportunity to speak to Miss Martel about the Donahue matter?
Miss Morris: Yes, I did.
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Mr Taman: I understand, just to fix this in time, that you saw the minister on the 1st of November?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: I understand that you also spent time with the minister on the 14th and 15th of November?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: November 11 was constituency week?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Can you recall when during that week you spoke to your minister about Dr Donahue?
Miss Morris: I remember distinctly speaking -- when Dr Donahue's name came up was on the evening of the 15th. We had a community clinic in Warren and then in St Charles, which are outlying communities about an hour from our constituency office. The 15th, as you know, was the day that she had the meeting in the afternoon with the doctors. Therefore, I went to the clinic and then she met me there. Afterwards, we went for dinner at my parents' house in St Charles.
Mr Taman: I want to come to those events in a minute, but let me just ask you about the period leading up to the 15th. You had a large number of callers during that period?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: They all wanted to discuss it. Did you know of your own knowledge what response to give them?
Miss Morris: No, I am sorry, that was before the week of the 11th that I knew -- that I had spoken to Shelley about that.
Mr Taman: So you think you spoke to Miss Martel some time before the week of the 11th. Agreed?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Did you speak to her about the response you were to be instructed to give to callers?
Miss Morris: Yes. When I present an issue -- that could be every week or every second week -- I say, "This is the hot issue in our riding this week." She will say, "Well, how are you handling it?" if it is a minor issue, or if it is something large such as this one, she gave me indications as to how to respond to the phone calls, the inquiries.
Mr Taman: Did she in fact give you instructions as to how to deal with callers who inquired about Dr Donahue?
Miss Morris: Yes, she did.
Mr Taman: What were your instructions?
Miss Morris: My instructions were to concentrate mostly on explaining what we were doing to help this situation, to help rectify the situation. Therefore, I would answer to the constituents that Miss Martel was in contact, first of all, with the two other area MPPs. As well, she was in contact with Ministry of Health officials, as well as prominent doctors taking the lead on this issue in the Sudbury area; that she would be meeting frequently with these people to arrive at a conclusion.
Mr Taman: Ms Morris, suppose that I am a caller and I say, "Well, that's all very nice, but I'm one of Dr Donahue's patients and I have an important problem and I want to know what's going to happen to me." What would you say?
Miss Morris: I would reiterate: "Well, Shelley is working on this issue. She is doing the best she can. Hopefully there will be a resolution soon."
Mr Taman: Suppose I add that I am concerned about why this policy seems to be driving specialists out of Sudbury. What do you say to that?
Miss Morris: I would say: "I understand your concern. I will make sure to pass along your comments to Miss Martel."
Mr Taman: Did you speak to any callers about Dr Donahue's billings?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Or his billing practices?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Or his practice mix?
Miss Morris: Excuse me?
Mr Taman: The various procedures he formed in his practice?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: You had no conversation of any kind with --
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Did you have any information from your conversation with Miss Martel about Dr Donahue's billings?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: About Dr Donahue's billing practices?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Did you have any discussion with Miss Martel or anyone else about any suggestion of impropriety in Dr Donahue's practices?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Or his billing practices?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Did you have a file on Dr Donahue in your office?
Miss Morris: Yes, I did.
Mr Taman: What did you have in your file?
Miss Morris: In our Dr Donahue file, we had the list of callers who had called on the issue. We had a couple of newspaper clippings, though it was not complete. We had faxes that people sent us. That was what we call our Dr Donahue file.
Mr Taman: And did you have anything else at all?
Miss Morris: Oh, the memo that we saw.
Mr Taman: I am sorry, which memo is that?
Miss Morris: Exhibit -- the memo with the three phone numbers of the MPPs' offices.
Mr Taman: It is exhibit 46, I think, in which he indicated that he was going to close his practice.
Interjection: Forty-eight.
Mr Taman: Forty-eight? Thank you.
Miss Morris: We had that memo as well in our file.
Mr Taman: And is that all you had in your --
Miss Morris: Yes, that is all.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, did you have any information that you could send out to constituents who called?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Did you in fact send anything out at all to constituents who called?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, I take it that we have agreed, based on your office procedures and the log entry, that Susan Majkot was in communication with your office on the 15th of November?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you have no reason to dispute that?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: It would also be common ground between us that if Ms Majkot had a discussion of any substance with anyone, that that discussion would be with you?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Now, you and your counsel have had an opportunity to review the testimony that Ms Majkot gave before this committee.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Let me just refer you to the material parts of it. I am looking at page 1110-1 of the transcript from Monday the 9th of March. About halfway down the page, Ms Jackson said to Ms Majkot: "You mentioned that to the administrative assistant and what did she say?
"Ms Majkot: She chuckled and she said -- I do not know the exact words she said, but something to the extent that Dr Donahue had been practising illegal billing procedures. I said, `Pardon?' and she said, `Dr Donahue is billing illegally and we have the documentation to prove it.' And she asked me if I would like a copy of the documentation."
Did you say anything of that sort to Ms Majkot?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: Not with respect to the billing practices being illegal?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Not with respect to having information?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: And not with respect to sending information out?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, the members will want to know how you can be so sure that you did not say anything of that sort. Can you help us with that?
Miss Morris: Sure. First of all, there are a couple of things here. I would never display an attitude like that with a constituent, the whole idea of I "chuckled," and using that kind of language.
Second, "illegal" is a word I shy away from. As you are all aware, our conflict-of-interest guidelines apply to constituency assistants, and we cannot deal with anything legal: not a parking ticket, speeding ticket. And "illegal" is a word I just do not want to use because they are so stringent, those guidelines, that I do not want to get in anything similar to that.
I did not have any information, so how could I speak about any? I did not know anything about his billing practices. How could I have mentioned anything about the billing practices? I did not have any documentation, so how could I say I would send some out?
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, if you just follow down the page a bit, Ms Majkot went on. She said, "I said yes, I wanted a copy of the documentation, and she took my name and address....Then I said: `I still don't think it's right. I think something should be done because of the area that he services.' She said, `Well, when the public becomes aware of what he's doing, they won't be so supportive towards him.'"
Did you say that?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
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Mr Taman: Did you at the time of November 15 have any instructions from Ms Martel as to whether she was supportive or not of Dr Donahue?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: So your denial of this conversation is absolute and entire.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Let me discuss with you a second possibility, then. Is there anyone else in your office with whom Ms Majkot may have spoken?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Now, you have told us that in the ordinary course, the phone would be answered by the receptionist?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: And during this time there was a receptionist in training whose name was Margaret?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Is it possible that she could have spoken or had this conversation with Margaret?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: How do you know that?
Miss Morris: Because of the way our offices are set up. I can hear everything Margaret says, as she can hear everything I do and say. And I know that she has never answered a reply or a question from a constituent, or I would have heard, and so I am sure she transferred it to me.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, do you have any idea to whom in your office Miss Majkot spoke these words, with whom she had this conversation?
Miss Morris: No, I do not.
Mr Taman: If she did not have it with someone in your office, do you have any information or knowledge or belief as to with whom she had it?
Miss Morris: No, I am afraid I do not.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, I think that Ms Majkot would have impressed some members of the committee as someone who had no particular interest in this matter and who was simply recounting to the best of her ability something that had happened to her. Do you have any explanation for what has happened here?
Miss Morris: I am not Ms Majkot. I am afraid I cannot say what happened. All I can say is, I would never have answered in that way or answered with that information. I always answered that Shelley was working on it, as I have said before, with the other MPPs etc. And that is all I can say. I answered all questions that same way, so I do not know where she got the information.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, sticking with the 15th for a moment, I understand that you saw Miss Martel on the 15th?
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: Did you see her early in the day?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: Did she come by the office to drop a package off?
Miss Morris: She might have, but I did not see her that -- not during the day.
Mr Taman: All right. So did you go to the meeting with the doctors on the 15th?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: I understand that in fact you went to a constituency clinic on the 15th?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: And that was a clinic that started at about 4 o'clock in Warren?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you drove there and met the minister there.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: And I understand that she arrived late?
Miss Morris: Yes, she was a bit late.
Mr Taman: And how long did the clinic last?
Miss Morris: It was from 4 to 6.
Mr Taman: And was there any discussion of Dr Donahue at the clinic between 4 and 6?
Miss Morris: No, there was not.
Mr Taman: None at all.
Miss Morris: None at all. There were constituents there with their own problems.
Mr Taman: What sorts of things were being discussed at the clinic?
Miss Morris: Problems, workmen's compensation problems, invitation to a park opening, I believe, or that was already done. Just normal case work having to do with FBA, GWA, that kind of thing.
Mr Taman: Now, I understand that you had a later constituency clinic in St Charles that night?
Miss Morris: Correct.
Mr Taman: And that on the way to St Charles you and Miss Martel stopped at your parents' for a quick dinner.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: Was there any discussion of Dr Donahue at the home of your parents?
Miss Morris: There was not a long discussion. What happened is, when we got in the news was on television, and we rushed to the television set because Dr Donahue was on. Shelley watched the newscast and then she said, like -- now I cannot quote her, but she made a comment to the television, saying, "You're not going anywhere." We did not elaborate on anything after that; we went and ate.
Mr Taman: Explain to the committee what you mean when you say that Miss Martel made a comment to the television.
Miss Morris: Well, Dr Donahue was on the television and she just, like off the cuff, "You're not going anywhere." It was just very spontaneous.
Mr Taman: Did you have any further discussion with her about Dr Donahue?
Miss Morris: Oh no.
Mr Taman: Now, let me just press you on this for a minute. We have agreed that there was a hot issue in Sudbury.
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: And that it was about Dr Donahue.
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: We know that your minister or your member has just come from a very difficult meeting with the doctors, agreed?
Miss Morris: Oh yes.
Mr Taman: And she has told us in her evidence that she was not very happy about some of what went on at that meeting.
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: You are an assistant who has been with her for a number of years.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: You talk to her about matters that concern her.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: And it is your evidence that, pulling all these circumstances together, you and she did not at your parents' home say anything more about Dr Donahue than what you have just told us.
Miss Morris: No, I was not involved in the Dr Donahue issue, except for taking constituent calls. That was being handled by Toronto by Mr Sword.
Mr Taman: So that was all the conversation you had about it at your home?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Taman: And then you spent the rest of the evening together driving to St Charles and at the constituency meeting there?
Miss Morris: We both took individual vehicles, and yes, we were at the clinic.
Mr Taman: Did you speak to her at all about Dr Donahue at the clinic?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Did you have any further conversation about Dr Donahue with her on that weekend?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, explain to us why it makes sense to you that you and Miss Martel would not have talked at all about Dr Donahue during this weekend.
Miss Morris: During the weekend?
Mr Taman: Well, during the time we have just discussed.
Miss Morris: There were a lot of other things going on in the constituency office. There were other issues that perhaps were not as hot, if you would like to call it that, or as demanding as the Dr Donahue issue, but there is always regular case work. We were understaffed at the time. There is always administrative stuff to discuss. In community clinics we always get a whole lot of case work. A big part of our case load comes from our clinics. Usually when there are five minutes free at the clinic, we will start discussing how to deal with the case work.
Mr Taman: Given the importance of the issue, did you not consider it appropriate to let her know that you had been receiving all these calls, what the callers had been saying and what you had been saying?
Miss Morris: She knew that we had been receiving a lot of calls, plus the reason for the file is that she wanted to see how many calls were coming in.
Mr Taman: When you say "the file," you are referring to the office file you told us about?
Miss Morris: Yes, our office file that has the faxes and the telephone numbers. As I said, she knew how I was responding, as I always respond the way she indicates to me on any issue. She knew how many calls were coming in from the file, and it was being handled by Toronto; the political part was being handled by Toronto. Therefore, I was not directly involved with it.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, let's turn to the period between the 15th and the 30th of November. Did you go to the meeting with the cardiologists on the 30th of November?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: Did you know about that meeting before it took place?
Miss Morris: I cannot recall that I did.
Mr Taman: What action did you have on the Donahue matter during the period of the 15th to the 30th?
Miss Morris: For the next week after the 15th, we still had a lot of phone calls and we would answer -- well, Shelley did go to the meeting on the 15th, which is still in discussions, hopefully there will be a resolution. Towards the end of the month it started dying down, and that is the most that I --
Mr Taman: Did you follow the media during that two-week period?
Miss Morris: I did not follow it very closely, but I was aware of it.
Mr Taman: Did you see the piece in the Sudbury papers in which Dr Donahue said he would be better off if he owned a Mac's milk store?
Miss Morris: No, I cannot recall that one article.
Mr Taman: Did you have any further reports or conversation with Miss Martel during that period from the 15th to the 30th, let's say?
Miss Morris: I might have; I do not recall.
Mr Taman: Do you recall anything specific about any conversation you might have had with Miss Martel during that period?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Then, if we look at the period leading up to the 5th and 6th of December, what action did you have on your Donahue file during that period?
Miss Morris: That it was becoming more and more quiet in the office.
Mr Taman: Did you have any conversation or instructions from Ms Murdock -- Miss Martel, excuse me, during that period?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, have you spoken to Miss Martel about Ms Majkot's evidence?
Miss Morris: After Ms Majkot appeared on Monday, Shelley called me to offer her support, but that is the extent.
Mr Taman: When you stay "to offer her support," what did she say to you and what did you say to her?
Miss Morris: She said something similar to, "Well, I just saw Ms Majkot's testimony." I had not seen it, as we do not have a television set in our constituency office, but I had heard from a constituent or someone the brunt of what she was saying. I said, "Yes." I was a bit upset at that point. She said, "Well, you know, hang in there." She said, "Probably you'll be called to the committee now." I said, "Yes, well, I'd want the chance to say my side." I do not think there was much more said.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, did you discuss with Miss Martel at all what it was that Ms Majkot said that you said in the conversation, or at least that was said by an administrative assistant in the office?
Miss Morris: What I did say was, "I hope you know I would never say something like that." What I was most offended at was that I had chuckled. I thought that was very unprofessional of anyone to do that. That is about the extent of what I told Shelley.
Mr Taman: Miss Morris, those are all my questions. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Taman. We will now recess for lunch and then we will be back at 2 pm, where we will start questioning on a rotation basis.
The committee recessed at 1203.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1406.
The Chair: We will resume our hearings and call the afternoon session of the Legislative Assembly committee to order. At the end of the morning session, Mr Taman had completed his questioning of Ms Morris. As is in keeping with prior witnesses, we will now start a rotation, and that will be started with a member of the official opposition, Mr Conway. The time period allocated per caucus is 15 minutes.
Mr Conway: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Thank you, Ms Morris, for your attendance at and evidence to this committee. I want to quickly review with you again your background. Did I understand you this morning -- I was reading some of the material, so I apologize, but I think I heard you say in response to committee counsel's questions that you had, prior to working for Ms Martel, spent some time working with Mr Laughren's office?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Conway: When was that?
Miss Morris: From about May of 1990 to right after the election, around the beginning of October of 1990.
Mr Conway: Then after the election you joined Ms Martel's staff as, I take it, the sort of senior person in her constituency office?
Miss Morris: No. Before that I went into Ms Martel's minister's office, until April of 1991 -- so from October 1990 to April 1991 -- and there I was scheduling assistant and French communications assistant.
Mr Conway: All right. Just for clarification, do you want to take me through your work history since you left school? Just quickly, I want to get an idea of the chronology here.
Miss Morris: December 1989, NDP caucus administration, general office clerk; May 1990, legislative assistant, Floyd Laughren; October 1990, minister's office, Northern Development and Mines, Minister Shelley Martel, and then April 1991, constituency assistant.
Mr Conway: Thank you very much. So you have had a good experience in a variety of functions serving members who are ministers in the government.
Miss Morris: Shelley was the only minister I worked for.
Mr Conway: When you worked for Mr Laughren, you worked in --
Miss Morris: I was just his legislative assistant. As soon as he became Treasurer, I did not work for him any more.
Mr Conway: So your experience with Mr Laughren was while he was a private member, the member of the Legislature for Nickel Belt?
Miss Morris: Correct.
Mr Conway: Thank you. I do not mean to be mischievous in asking this question; I hope you will take it in that spirit. I take it I would not be wrong in thinking that you might be what I would call a New Democratic partisan, among other things?
Miss Morris: I suppose you could say that.
Mr Conway: I do not mean to embarrass you with that. I would just assume someone who is doing those jobs would perhaps have had some --
Mr Hope: Embarrassed? She probably feels good about it.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Conway: Well, some people are very sensitive around here. I ask the question quite --
Mr Wood: She says she's not a Liberal, Sean.
Mr Owens: The days of McCarthy have returned.
The Chair: Order.
Mr Conway: Well, I do not expect that Ms Morris is a Liberal; I would not expect she was a Conservative. I think it would be a reasonable assumption, one that I would make, and I just want you to confirm it, that I would not be wrong in thinking that you would consider yourself a New Democrat.
Miss Morris: No, you are not wrong.
Mr Conway: Thank you.
Mr Kormos: The first time today.
Mr Conway: I wanted to again go back to the circumstances of that week particularly of November 11 to 15. We heard the committee counsel take you through the testimony or take you through some of the exhibits. Certainly those of us who have been here for all of the hearings have, I think, by now a pretty good impression of just what kind of interest there was in and around Sudbury on what I will call the doctors issue.
I was a bit surprised this morning, and correct me if I heard you incorrectly, to say that you did not have a very good understanding that part of Dr Donahue's problem concerned the delisting of electrolysis or epilation. Is that what you said this morning, that you did not really connect Dr Donahue to the delisting of electrolysis, that you were not aware that he was a doctor who was potentially going to be affected not just by whatever that agreement was back in the summer of 1991, the so-called framework agreement, but that he could be affected by the decision of the government to delist electrolysis?
Miss Morris: I was not totally aware of all the facets of his practice, no, not at that early stage. I was not aware of all the implications of the cap on his practice, because I did not know that much about his practice.
Mr Conway: But I am looking, for example, at exhibit 106, which was entered, I think, yesterday by Ms Martel, which has to do with the Donahue issue. Exhibit 106.
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Conway: I just noticed on the front, the very front page of that, that on November 12, a constituent had called. I will not mention the constituent by name, but it is clearly indicated from the note on the file that electrolysis is an issue. I think we heard from some of the people working in Ms Murdock's office that they had an understanding that part of the problem with this Dr Donahue had something to do with his electrolysis service.
Miss Morris: I was aware that he was doing epilation or electrolysis, but more than that I did not know.
Mr Conway: You had no knowledge, for example, that some of the Sudbury area members had been approached by a group who were actively involved with trying to get electrolysis delisted?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Conway: You were not aware of that?
Miss Morris: I must not have been in the constituency office when they approached Shelley.
Mr Conway: So that week, then, we have a lot of pressure building. We know from other evidence that Ms Doherty, from whom we will hear later this afternoon, was very busy, as I take it was Mr Wood. Certainly Mr Sword was to become concerned. People in the Minister of Health's office were, you know, being pressured by a number of the Sudbury members and/or their staff about this doctors problem in Sudbury and it clearly was the burning issue of that week and later weeks, was it not?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Conway: It would be very hard to go to work every day and not encounter some constituent file or some constituent, either in or around the office or maybe even on the street, who wanted to talk a bit about the doctors issue.
Miss Morris: You are correct.
Mr Conway: And on this Friday, November 15, we have a meeting which your minister attends with Mr Laughren and Dr Donahue and others where the subject is canvassed. I gather it was an interesting meeting. Some of the other testimony suggests that it was quite an interesting meeting where people put their cards on the table, so to speak.
Later that day you are travelling with Ms Martel -- by the way, this is the day that Ms Majkot calls your office. I was really struck -- because I have a constituency assistant with whom I travel, I was very struck by something you said, and that is that you had dinner at your parents' with Ms Martel, and on this night particularly and the night of the meeting, November 15, when Ms Martel, Mr Laughren, Dr Donahue and others are at the Civic Square, where I think the regional chairman said that this was one of the most important issues and meetings that he had been involved with in some considerable time. So we have a real impression from a number of other people who were there that not only was this a very hot issue, but this was a very important meeting with the key stakeholders all being there. Now, we are just a few hours after that. It is also the day that Ms Majkot calls the constituency office and seems to have talked to you.
You are on the road to the clinics, and again, as a member with a large rural constituency, I thought what you had to say about the pressure of those clinics was very believable. I do some myself, I suspect not as well as Ms Martel, but it is not easy and there is a lot on your mind. I thought what you had to say there was quite believable. Without wanting to be provocative, I have a problem, and I want you to help me understand what you said about what happened at that dinner meeting -- dinner with your parents. You are in between two clinics, I take it, at that point?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Conway: And you do not have much time?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Conway: It has been a very busy, hectic day, particularly for the minister, but probably for the minister's assistant as well. The news is on. Dr Donahue is on the news. The minister, by your testimony, looks at the television -- I thought this was quite believable, because I can imagine myself talking to the television under those conditions -- and says something like, according to your view of what Ms Martel said, "You are not going anywhere," you said she said about Dr Donahue, who was on television talking about the fact that he might leave Sudbury and northern Ontario. All of that I thought was quite believable. Now, do I understand your evidence to suggest that no more was said? Not a word passed between the two of you as you had dinner and then went off to -- was it Warren? Was the meeting in Warren that night?
Miss Morris: St Charles.
Mr Conway: In St Charles, which is how many miles away from dinner?
Miss Morris: Ten-minute drive.
Mr Conway: Ten-minute drive. So you have dinner, you drive to St Charles, and there is no more discussion, nothing at all about what happened around that television broadcast or what happened earlier in the day at what Tom Davies has described and I think Ms Martel has described as a very important meeting on an extremely hot, sensitive, politically delicate issue in the Sudbury basin?
Miss Morris: You are correct, it was very delicate. We were not alone. Whether she would have talked to me if we had been, I cannot say. My parents were there.
Mr Conway: But I want you to help me understand the import of your testimony. Beyond that comment of Ms Martel saying to the television, "You, Dr Donahue, are not going anywhere," you and she talked not at all further on the Donahue case that day?
Miss Morris: Not that day, no.
Mr Conway: Not at all?
Miss Morris: She watched the little news clip, says something like, "You're not going anywhere." She might have turned around and a little ashamedly laughed a little, like, "Sorry, I'm talking to the TV." Other than that, I am sorry, we were very pressed for time. We had perhaps half an hour, because Warren is further away. We had perhaps half an hour to go in, watch that little news clip, eat, freshen up and go to our other clinic.
Mr Conway: I understand that, but I am trying to imagine myself in Ms Martel's situation and my constituency assistant in your situation. I am looking at things like exhibit 106 and I am thinking of the day I have had. Boy, if you look at exhibit 106 and if you look at what Ms Murdock's office tendered -- I think it is exhibit 81 -- I mean, busy, busy phones. It is just on everybody's hit parade apparently, this file.
We know that Ms Martel is getting a little bit concerned about the way this debate is shaping up. We also know that on that meeting on November 15, Mr Laughren -- correct me if I am wrong; I do not have the exhibit right in front of me -- the Treasurer says at that meeting on -- he speaks up quite vigorously at the meeting on November 15, and I do not know whose testimony it is, but says he was quite outspoken. I think that is one of the occasions when he says to Dr Donahue: "It's time I think we got some of this information out into the public. Let's open your books so we can see what's going on here."
I am just imagining my constituency assistant and I driving around the riding on a day like that. We might be going to clinics all right, but I tell you, in my experience -- and it is only 16 1/2 years as a local member -- we would be talking about nothing else in the car to Warren or to St Charles.
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Miss Morris: We were not in the same car.
Mr Conway: That is helpful. That is very helpful. You did not travel together?
Miss Morris: No. I have indicated I was in my vehicle and that is why she came later.
Mr Conway: Fair -- but --
The Chair: Mr Conway, I just want to remind you that two minutes remain.
Mr Conway: But not even at -- how long were you at your parents' again?
Miss Morris: Perhaps half an hour.
Mr Conway: You were there for an hour?
Miss Morris: Half an hour.
Mr Conway: Half an hour. You see, I raise all of these questions because we have one of the most troubling facts in this entire hearing. We have had a witness who I thought was a fairly straightforward Sudburian who did not appear to have any axe to grind. She told us that some time on the day of November 15th she phoned Shelley Martel's constituency office about the Donahue matter and was told the things that are now on the record, and one of these exhibits indicates that call was received. We now have your testimony, which is an absolute, flat contradiction of that evidence.
That is a difficulty with which this committee is going to have to grapple, and I guess it becomes really a matter of credibility. I would like to think I am reasonably fairminded and I want you, in the few moments that are left me, to help me with my difficulty, because there is a black and white version of what happened on that day in your office on that call re Dr Donahue's file. I am very troubled by the stark contradiction in your testimony vis-à-vis Ms Majkot's testimony. Can you help me at all in sorting out that very troubling contradiction?
Miss Morris: Like I have said before, I am afraid I am not Ms Majkot. All I can say is what I told the constituents who called in. If you want, I will repeat it. All I said was what -- I had always put the emphasis on what Shelley was doing to rectify the situation, which was being in constant contact with the area MPPs, Miss Murdock and Mr Laughren, as well as health officials, Ministry of Health officials, and the top community doctors who were involved. I am afraid that is all I can say.
Mr Conway: Did you say in response to Mr Taman that you do not -- do you have a memory of talking to Ms Majkot? Do you remember the --
Miss Morris: I am afraid I do not recall her call, although I am sure she did call our office.
Mr Conway: But there were so many calls on this subject that you do not have a particular memory of --
Miss Morris: I am afraid not.
The Chair: Mr Conway, your time has expired.
Mr Conway: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: Miss Morris, you told us earlier, and I want to understand this, that the first time Dr Donahue's name came up was on the evening of November 15 in discussions between you and Ms Martel. Is that correct?
Miss Morris: No, I am afraid not. I had spoken to her about it previously.
Mr Harnick: Tell me when you spoke to her previously.
Miss Morris: I am afraid I cannot recall the exact date, but after the calls started filtering in through our office I am sure that, like with any other issue, I would have indicated it to her, whether it be by telephone, written memo or personal contact. Therefore, I am sure I would have -- the first or second week definitely. I think probably the first week I would have mentioned it, but it was just a small trickle. After it became really heavy I am sure I would have mentioned it again.
Mr Harnick: Well, you see, part of the problem with your evidence is that you are sure what you would have done but you do not know what you did. Is that correct?
Miss Morris: I am afraid not. You will have to give me an example of what I am not sure of.
Mr Harnick: Well, you do not know whether you did it by telephone; you do not know whether you did it in person; you do not know whether you did it by mail. The problem I have is that you are supposing what you would have done in this situation, but you are coming here today and not telling us in fact what you did do.
Miss Morris: Every week there are different issues that pop up in the riding, sir.
Mr Harnick: I appreciate this, and let me tell you something: The regional chairman in Sudbury said that this was the most important issue that he ever dealt with in his career. Are you aware of that?
Miss Morris: I am sure it is.
Mr Harnick: You are nodding your head as if it is. Obviously it was an issue that was very important to Ms Martel.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Harnick: If it was a very important issue to Ms Martel, my assumption would have to be that you recognized that and you would be aware of some of the things going on around this issue.
Miss Morris: Might I remind you that the issue was being dealt with out of our Toronto office.
Mr Harnick: Well, the issue may well have been dealt with out of your Toronto office, but it was your Sudbury office that was receiving the phone calls, was it not?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Harnick: All right. And you realized that you were getting an inordinate number of phone calls on this issue.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Harnick: Of course. And because of that, at some stage you probably had to say to Ms Martel: "Boy, we're getting a lot of phone calls. What ought we to do?"
Miss Morris: Yes, I did that.
Mr Harnick: In fact, you would have a recollection of doing that, would you not? This was an important issue.
Miss Morris: Well, I speak to her about every issue.
Mr Harnick: Well, do you remember speaking to her about this issue which is the biggest issue that the regional chairman had ever had to deal with in Sudbury?
Miss Morris: I cannot remember exactly when, but yes, I am sure I spoke to her about it.
Excuse me, Mr Chairman, my contact just popped out. Could I just have a second?
The Chair: Okay, fine.
Mr Harnick: That is the most major effect I have ever had on a witness.
Interjection: Take it easy, eh, Charles?
The Chair: We will have about a three-minute recess.
The committee recessed at 1427.
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The Chair: We will call the meeting back to order. At the recess Mr Harnick had the floor.
Mr Harnick: Miss Morris, you cannot tell me when you had your discussion with the minister, but when you had the discussion with the minister, what is it that you told her?
Miss Morris: I cannot recall my exact words, but I am sure they must have been something --
Mr Harnick: I do not want to know what you are sure they must have been; I want your best recollection of what you told her. I do not want you to reconstruct it for me now. Every answer you have given me is, "I'm sure it must have been." I want to know what you said to the best of your recollection. I do not want you to reconstruct it today and say, "Well, this must have been what I told her." I want to know what you told her. You do not remember when you told her; now I want to know what you told her. I do not want a reconstruction; I want your recollection.
Miss Morris: I do not recall enough to speculate.
Mr Harnick: All right. Now on November 15, what did you do that day? When did you get to the office?
Miss Morris: I got to the office at 9.
Mr Harnick: Did you leave at any time between 9 and noon?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Harnick: All right. Who else was working there that day?
Miss Morris: That day there was Pauline Hébert, the other CA, and there was Monique Lavigne and Margaret Scorthorne.
Mr Harnick: On exhibit 106, you have seen the name Susan Majkot?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Harnick: In whose handwriting is that?
Miss Morris: I would say that is Monique Lavigne's writing.
Mr Harnick: And you did not then take that call initially?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mr Harnick: And you have no recollection of speaking with this woman?
Miss Morris: Not her particularly.
Mr Harnick: Now, during the course of the week of the 11th to the 15th, I suspect that on the 11th your office was closed?
Miss Morris: Yes, it was.
Mr Harnick: Because it was Remembrance Day. So that some time between the Tuesday and the Friday, the calls started to come in, I gather.
Miss Morris: They had begun before, but they were a lot more concentrated.
Mr Harnick: Had you had your discussion with Ms Martel when they had begun before or after the period that they became more concentrated?
Miss Morris: Before the 11th. Before the week of the 11th.
Mr Harnick: You had your discussion with Ms Martel before the week of the 11th.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Harnick: Well, I can tell you that Ms Martel was quite categorical when she said she told you what her instructions were on the night of the 14th when you picked her up at the airport. And you have no recollection of that, do you?
Miss Morris: Of the night of the 14th?
Mr Harnick: That is right. You picked her up at the airport, did you not?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And that is when Ms Martel told us that she gave you the instructions.
Miss Morris: I do not recall that.
Mr Harnick: You do not, do you?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Harnick: Because you do not recall receiving any instructions.
Miss Morris: I was giving all that week of the 11th, I was saying, I was especially pointing out that she will be attending the meeting of the 15th, because it had been in the news media. Therefore I had spoken to her before. Perhaps she does not recall it.
Mr Harnick: She says she did not give you any instructions until the 14th, which means on the 12th, the 13th and the 14th, you were receiving calls at your office and you were talking to people who were calling in about Dr Donahue, right?
Miss Morris: I was talking to those people.
Mr Harnick: That is right. Without instructions from Ms Martel.
Miss Morris: No, I am afraid I did have instructions. Perhaps she does not recall the exact date she gave them to me.
Mr Harnick: Well, she recalled that it was when you picked her up at the airport, the night before.
So let's move on. During the 12th, 13th and 14th, you spoke with Mr Waddell, did you not?
Miss Morris: Excuse me? What were those dates?
Mr Harnick: The 12th, the 13th and the 14th.
Miss Morris: I might have.
Mr Harnick: Well, you spoke with Mr Waddell on a fairly regular basis, did you not?
Miss Morris: Yes, I did.
Mr Harnick: And when there was an issue like this, you would be speaking to Mr Waddell about it, would you not?
Miss Morris: I would comment on it. We would not be discussing it thoroughly.
Mr Harnick: Well, let's put it this way. When Mr Waddell called, you said to him, and I am quoting as best I can remember from this morning: "Are we getting calls. Are you also swamped with calls?" Is that the discussion?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And it just stopped just like that, did it not?
Miss Morris: Well, we would not get any further into it.
Mr Harnick: No, because it would be too obvious for you to say to Mr Waddell, "What are people saying to you?" I mean, of course you would not do that, would you?
Miss Morris: We know they would be saying the same thing, as the memo indicates our three numbers.
Mr Harnick: Well, how do you know they would be saying the same thing if you do not discuss it with them?
Miss Morris: The constituents would advise us that they were calling the three offices due to this memo.
Mr Harnick: But what were they saying to Mr Waddell and what were they saying to you? You are telling us you do not know what they were saying to Mr Waddell because you would never speak to him about that, would you? I mean, you want us to believe that. Right?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Harnick: You want us to believe that here you are getting swamped with calls, and you and Mr Waddell are trying to field the calls and answer them, and God forbid if you spoke to one another and said, "Well, what are you saying to the people?" You would never discuss that, would you?
Miss Morris: Not particularly, no.
Mr Harnick: No, you did not care about that, because it was the biggest issue that you had ever had in your office, right?
Miss Morris: I get my instructions from my MPP.
Mr Harnick: But you do not know when and you do not know where and I tell you you do not know what either. Right?
Miss Morris: Excuse me?
Mr Harnick: You are going to have to be a lot better than you have been for us to believe you and not to believe Ms Majkot.
Mr Hope: Are you calling her a liar?
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The Chair: Order. Mr Harnick, if you have a question to pose to the witness, please.
Mr Owens: He should apologize, that is what he should do.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Harnick: No, I am not going to apologize, as Mr Owens says. We have a big job here. We have to see who the credible person is, and it is either Miss Majkot or it is this witness, and this witness cannot tell us what the answers are on some very critical, sensitive areas.
Mr Owens: So it is okay to --
The Chair: Order, please, Mr Owens.
Mr Harnick: You do not ever recollect speaking with Miss Majkot, do you?
Miss Morris: No, I do not.
Mr Harnick: And you come here on the basis of what you have just now told us and you insinuate that Miss Majkot is not telling the truth. Is that correct?
Miss Morris: I have never insinuated that.
Mr Harnick: All right. Those are my questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Harnick. Mrs Cunningham, and I just remind you there are five minutes remaining.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you. I have just a couple of follow-up questions to those of my colleagues, Miss Morris. I am curious. When you were asked to come to testify before this committee, in what capacity were you asked to come?
Miss Morris: I am sorry? As constituency assistant?
Mrs Cunningham: That is my guess. Did you realize that you were going to be asked questions about the testimony of Susan Majkot?
Miss Morris: Yes, because it was following her testimony that I was called.
Mrs Cunningham: Well, I am curious then as to what you might have said when you were asked to come because you have told us today that you did not talk to a Susan Majkot, not to the best of your ability, to respond to that. Ms Majkot said she did not know who she was talking to. You have suggested to my colleague that the handwriting is that of Monique Lavigne.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: My guess is that the person who wrote it down would have been the one who spoke to her.
Miss Morris: Monique would have taken down the name, address and telephone number but would not have replied anything. She would take a comment, if it would have been just a comment.
Mrs Cunningham: Did you ask Monique Lavigne if indeed she did have a conversation with Ms Majkot?
Miss Morris: I asked both secretary/receptionists if they have ever spoken to a constituent replying to questions or comments -- not just Ms Majkot, anyone -- and they have said --
Mrs Cunningham: But did you ask if she had spoken specifically to Susan Majkot? Did you ask that question of Monique Lavigne?
Miss Morris: No, I did not.
Mrs Cunningham: I think it would have been an important question for you to ask, given the circumstances under which you are here today. I would have expected any one of my constituency workers to have drilled their people in a more defined way if I were coming before a committee of this Legislative Assembly.
Miss Morris: I asked them if they had spoken to any constituent, not just this one person. I did not know her name. I did not have a television set --
Mrs Cunningham: Well, I find your response particularly vague. I have to tell you that. I am only speaking as a member of provincial Parliament who would have been keenly interested to find out about any conversation specifically to the witness I was going to be asked to testify about. I just find the question particularly vague on your part as the constituency supervisor, and I just wanted to make that intent clear.
Earlier today in your testimony I think you talked something about not using a certain word with regard to the legality of something, and I forget what word you used. Could you tell me about that again? You said "I would never say something was illegal."
Miss Morris: The word "illegal."
Mrs Cunningham: Yes. Could you tell me in what context you made that statement here today, because I cannot remember.
Miss Morris: Yes. It was when I was looking at the exhibit.
Mrs Cunningham: Yes?
Miss Morris: And Mr Taman was asking why I was so adamant in saying I would not have said that and part of my response was because of all the conflict-of-interest guidelines that we are subjected to in the constituency office, such as all your constituency offices. We cannot deal with parking tickets, speeding tickets, because they are legal things. We do not deal with anything legal. That has been drilled into our heads so much that we shy away from anything remotely legal and any of the jargon.
Mrs Cunningham: Would you have thought that this was a legal matter with regard to the number of calls you would have received between the 12th of November till the 19th? Would you have thought that these calls about the doctors were a legal matter?
Miss Morris: Oh no.
Mrs Cunningham: So in what context were you talking about the word "illegal" then?
Miss Morris: I am saying I would not use that vocabulary, just for that word I would not use it.
Mrs Cunningham: You would not use it in any regard ever in your constituency work?
Miss Morris: Not about case work, no, I would not.
Mrs Cunningham: Okay. So you think that is a particularly strong word in your work?
Miss Morris: I find it is a very strong word.
Mrs Cunningham: Would you expect members of provincial Parliament to be using a word like "illegal" in reference to constituents or in reference to some of the cases that they get in their office?
Miss Morris: I cannot answer for an MPP, but I --
Mrs Cunningham: Well, I am not telling you to answer for an MPP. I am telling you, if you take it that way, as an important word to stay away from in your work, would you expect that perhaps myself would have the same point of view, given the conflict-of-interest guidelines?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: So you must have been absolutely shocked when you saw what the minister said about one of your constituents that people had been phoning about on the 5th of December.
Miss Morris: I cannot comment on that.
Mrs Cunningham: You cannot comment? I do not see any reason why you could not comment as to whether you were shocked or not.
Miss Morris: I was surprised. I was surprised. I was shocked that something like that had happened, that whole event happened.
Mrs Cunningham: These conflict-of-interest guidelines -- you mentioned that you worked for another member of provincial Parliament before you worked for Shelley Martel.
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mrs Cunningham: Who was that member?
Miss Morris: Mr Floyd Laughren.
Mrs Cunningham: And at that point in time, did you have any guidelines or any training in your office as a person who worked for a member of Parliament who would have been in opposition?
Miss Morris: We had guidelines. They were not as strict. And I was a legislative assistant; therefore, the case work was not -- I practically had no case work. The duties were very different.
Mrs Cunningham: As a legislative assistant?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: Okay.
The Chair: Mrs Cunningham, just to remind you, time has expired.
Mrs Cunningham: Could I ask my last question, Mr Chairman?
The Chair: You can ask one final question, yes.
Mrs Cunningham: Okay. My question is with this regard then, with regard to the conflict-of-interest guidelines. In your work now as the person, I think, in charge of the office -- is this correct, the constituency office?
Miss Morris: There is no hierarchy, but --
Mrs Cunningham: I beg your pardon?
Miss Morris: There is no hierarchy per se, as in your office, but I oversee perhaps the receptionists.
Mrs Cunningham: My guess is you are here because you are the person in charge of the office. That is my guess. I mean, you may not have a hierarchy, but that is my guess.
The Chair: Mrs Cunningham.
Mrs Cunningham: So my question would be this: Do you believe that the conflict-of-interest guidelines that you operate under are appropriate for not only the minister you worked for -- I do not mean the minister, but the member you worked for as a regular member of the Legislative Assembly, probably in opposition, as myself -- as they are for the cabinet minister you work for now? Has anything really changed with regard to conflict of interest, your use of the word "illegal," the guidelines that you would be particularly confidential about the people you work with? Are things tougher now for you than they were when you worked in your constituency office or when you worked for Mr Laughren with regard to your work?
Miss Morris: They are different from when we were in opposition. They are more strict, yes.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Thank you. You know that Ms Martel has been for some time an advocate on behalf of doctors and health care in the north, has she not?
Miss Morris: Yes, she has.
Mr Kormos: And she has had contact with a number of doctors and clinics and institutions in the course of doing that, has she not?
Miss Morris: Yes, she has.
Mr Kormos: And you know who Dr Abdulla is, from Larch Street in Sudbury?
Miss Morris: I have heard from him -- about him.
Mr Kormos: He is a cardiologist.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: In a letter that he is asking and that I have delivered to the Chair of this committee today, he writes -- this is a letter dated March 12, 1992:
"Since Ms Martel's appointment as minister of northern affairs, I have had, on more than one occasion, the pleasure of meeting with her to relate my concerns regarding the delivery of medical care in Sudbury and northeastern Ontario with particular emphasis on cardiology. Ms Martel has always been willing to meet and discuss these matters. She has taken the time necessary to understand the implications of the problems discussed and further, I know that she has been successful in bringing about positive changes for the improvement of medical care in northern Ontario.
"Ms Martel's past contributions to medical care in this community and throughout the north is most appreciated and it is sincerely hoped that this shall continue in the future."
That is signed by Dr Abdulla. Do you agree with the sentiments expressed there?
Miss Morris: Of course I do.
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The Chair: Mr Kormos, I would like to indicate that we will be making a copy of this, distributing it and marking it as exhibit 119.
Mr Kormos: You are familiar with the northeastern Ontario cancer centre, are you not? That is on Ramsey Lake Road in Sudbury.
Miss Morris: Yes, I am.
Mr Kormos: And, once again, here is a letter dated March 11 addressed to Mr Offer as Chair of this committee -- and a copy has been delivered to him, as I have been asked to do. Far be it from me not to do what I am requested.
Once again, this letter, in part, addressed to Mr Offer, March 11, 1992, writes:
"In my capacity as director of patient care services and a member of the senior management team at the Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre I have worked with Ms Martel on several projects.
"Her support of this centre through attendance at program functions or through the political process has been of great assistance to us in several areas but particularly in our stem cell transplant program. Thanks to Ms Martel Northern Development has financially supported our transplant program, which is the only one of its kind in Canada.
"Shelley has always been sincere, caring and straightforward when dealing with us, and to consider she has acted in any other manner I find incomprehensible."
That is signed "Claire McChesney, director, patient care services."
Do you agree with the sentiments contained there?
Miss Morris: Yes, I do.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, that is going to be distributed and marked as exhibit number 120.
Mr Kormos: I would ask as well then, Chair, without me having to read the contents of these letters dated March 12 from Peter B. Dunscombe, PhD, chief physicist at Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre, and R.J. Bissett, MD, acting chief executive officer of Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre, addressed to you and which I am delivering and ask that they similarly be marked as exhibits. Perhaps the clerk could come and take these from me in case the wind catches them. Thank you.
Mr Harnick: I think there is a lot of it over on that side.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Kormos: You know that calls are received on a whole number of issues depending upon what is thematic at a particular time, what is current, huh?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: And you have seen the photocopy of basically the log of calls relating to the doctors issue, have you not?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: And that log, in your view -- it is an exhibit. Have we got the exhibit number for that, Chair?
The Chair: For which one, I am sorry?
Mr Kormos: The log.
Mr Campbell: 106.
The Chair: 106.
Mr Kormos: 106. It reflects the people who have been calling and the nature of the commentaries, does it not?
Miss Morris: The people who have been calling; not always the nature of the comments.
Mr Kormos: Perhaps, Chair, I could have the statements provided by Ms Edwardh to committee counsel as a result of questions posed to a number of those people on that list.
The Chair: What was that that you are requesting?
Mr Kormos: I want the statements that Ms Edwardh gave counsel, obtained from a number of people whose names appear on that list, the log.
The Chair: I do not know that they are marked as an exhibit at this point.
Mr Kormos: But I would like them. She provided them to counsel and I want to refer to them now.
Mr Harnick: On a point of order, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Yes, point of order.
Mr Harnick: I do not know what it is that Mr Kormos is referring to, but I think it is a rather odd way to enter into evidence statements from people who are not here, who cannot be cross-examined, and I think it is a rather odd way to enter evidence taken by another lawyer who is not here today, who is representing one of the parties. Clearly the circumstances would indicate that that is the most self-serving of evidence, not unlike the letters that Mr Kormos just read in. But they certainly are obtained in the most self-serving way. The people are not here to be examined, and I think it is highly improper to start putting in evidence --
Mr Kormos: These happen to be accurate compared to the stuff you tried to lay on us yesterday.
Mr Owens: That is right.
Mr Harnick: The fact is that nothing that is being put to this witness in those statements has anything to do with this witness.
Mr Christopherson: Mr Chair --
The Chair: Mr Christopherson.
Mr Christopherson: Thank you. In fairness now, there has been an awful lot of latitude and you have tried to keep all the other parties at bay when someone has the floor and have been relatively successful, assuming we have been in a fairly responsive mood.
Yesterday we had a last-minute document that ended up being somewhat incomplete. There was not a murmur about Mr Harnick's right to have that document entered as an exhibit. We had something to say about the content but not his ability to do that.
Mr Harnick: It was clearly relevant.
Mr Christopherson: I really think that it is improper that at this time Mr Harnick wants to suddenly create some new rules about what constitutes exhibits and what does not, and I would strongly recommend, Chair, that you allow Mr Kormos to continue in the fashion that he chooses, which does not violate any rules that we have set to date.
Mr Harnick: May I respond to that?
The Chair: Mr Harnick and Mrs Cunningham.
Mr Harnick: The evidence we talked about yesterday was evidence that was relevant to something the witness sitting here before us had said, and it was perfectly proper to put her comments to her. Now, what I suppose is about to be entered as an exhibit are the statements taken through the investigator, who was referred to yesterday, who ran around Sudbury getting ex post facto statements from witnesses, and they have nothing to do with this witness. This witness cannot comment on the validity of those statements whatsoever.
The key issue here is what Miss Majkot says. I suspect they do not have a statement from Miss Majkot. They are not going to bring these people to be cross-examined as Miss Majkot was brought. They had the opportunity to examine Miss Majkot. We now have the opportunity to deal with the individual who says Miss Majkot was not telling the truth, and that is exactly what we have done.
I cannot see the purpose or the fairness of putting in statements from people that we do not have the opportunity to examine. It is one thing to talk about hearsay, but it is another thing -- at least if this witness could say, "That's what somebody told me," I could accept that, but those statements have nothing to do with this witness. This is nothing more than a ploy to throw more paper into the mix here, but it has nothing to do with the witness. Why do they not wait and do it when Dr MacMillan is called as a witness? It has as much relevance to him as it has to her.
The Chair: Mrs Cunningham.
Mrs Cunningham: Mr Chairman, before us we have exhibit 106, which Mr Kormos knows about. On that exhibit, over some 16 days, in the office that Ms Morris is responsible for -- and I am sure she would be pleased to be asked questions about that -- there were some 76 names submitted and any one of them could be questioned. In my perusal of these, and adding things up, they were not friendly calls. They were not friendly in favour of the policy of the government. I do not think they were unfriendly towards Ms Martel, and nobody is questioning whether she is a popular or good worker right now, but I do think if we question anything, it ought to be evidence that is before the committee that this witness has the authority and the experience to respond to. Any letters in support of Ms Martel that have nothing to do with this witness, I do not think it is fair to be asking her whether she agrees or disagrees with some letter that somebody wrote and I do not think that is the purpose of these hearings. She has obviously come all this way to be asked about what she knows about with regard to the previous witness this week or her work in the constituency office. Anything that does not relate to either of those two things, Mr Chairman, I think is inappropriate at this time.
The Chair: Mr Christopherson.
Mr Christopherson: Before you rule, I would just like again to underscore the fact that the time allocations, by and large, you have left to the caucuses to use in the way they deem necessary. In fact, I think I attempted to raise a point of order on someone who was asking a question which in my opinion was totally off the mark -- I think it was just yesterday -- way off what we were talking about. I was advised by you at that time that it was within their right to use their time as necessary and I would --
Mrs Cunningham: And you had your time.
Mr Christopherson: Excuse me. And I would strongly suggest, Chair, that this should fall under that category.
The Chair: Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: I just want to caution everybody to be very careful that we do not trample on agreements that were made between Ms Edwardh and Ms Jackson when these statements were provided to Ms Jackson by Ms Edwardh after the issue was raised by Mr Harnick, who came here with a transcript of a supposed MCTV interview with one of the persons interviewed. It was that which prompted Ms Edwardh to identify the statements that were made and to indicate that they had been provided to Ms Edwardh to be dealt with at a later stage in these proceedings. So I just caution, knowing Ms Jackson is not here today, to be careful about trampling on agreements that were made between counsel.
The Chair: Are there any other comments? Seeing none, I have heard and also had an opportunity to speak to counsel as some of these points were being made. The point and advice that certainly I am receiving from counsel is, firstly, that this would be hearsay upon hearsay; secondly, that it would be entered into without the opportunity of speaking to the person who was in fact the maker of that statement, and it would in fact depart from some of the rules of how this committee has operated from day one.
Having said that, I would think as a result that these would not be proper to be entered as an exhibit and, as a result of earlier decisions that have been made, would rule accordingly.
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Mr Kormos: I am going to tell you, Chair, with all due respect, that is a stupid ruling because you have not even seen the statements I am referring to.
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: Be quiet.
To talk about them as hearsay on top of hearsay shows a naïveté either about the subject matter of those documents, which are handwritten by the persons making those statements and signed by them, or a real ignorance of what hearsay consists of.
The Chair: The ruling has been made. I understand what you are saying. Mr Harnick: Are you challenging the Chair?
The Chair: If you are challenging the Chair, then you can do so. Otherwise, I have ruled that it is not in keeping with the way this committee has operated in the past. It is without opportunity of members of this committee to in fact question the individuals who have allegedly made those particular statements, and the question as to it being hearsay upon hearsay is one which I feel is absolutely right and proper. Mr Kormos, if you do not agree with that particular ruling, that is up to you. You may continue the questioning.
Mr Kormos: Just like the comments of stockbroker Buddy Bocy of Donahue's were entered for the purpose of cross-examining Miss Martel yesterday, your inconsistencies are more than remarkable; they are disgusting.
In any event, Ms Morris, you were spoken to about some of the staff who worked for other MPPs in the Sudbury area, one Waddell. Then counsel talked to you about Giselle Adams. She works for whom?
Miss Morris: Sharon Murdock.
Mr Kormos: Is she a civil servant?
Miss Morris: No. She is a constituency assistant.
Mr Kormos: Oh. Has she ever -- some constituency -- that means she is political staff, huh?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Are you aware, having worked in the ministry and up there, that some political staff are seconded from the civil service? Are you aware of that?
Miss Morris: Some are.
Mr Kormos: Do you know whether or not Ms Adams is one of those people who was seconded from the civil service to political staff?
Miss Morris: I am afraid I do not know.
Mr Kormos: But in any event, it would be incorrect for me to refer to her as a civil servant. She is clearly political staff, huh?
Miss Morris: She is a constituency assistant.
Mr Kormos: Is that the same position you have?
Miss Morris: I am the outreach constituency assistant.
Mr Kormos: Do you know Keith Harfield?
Miss Morris: No, I do not.
Mr Kormos: Has Ms Adams ever talked to you about Mr Harfield?
Miss Morris: No, she has not.
Mr Kormos: So you do not know whether she has received telephone calls from Mr Harfield or not, do you?
Miss Morris: No, I do not.
Mr Kormos: Mr Waddell indicated before this committee that he had engaged in a back-of-the-envelope exercise of estimating Dr Donahue's gross income. Are you aware that Mr Waddell had testified to that while he was here in front of this committee?
Miss Morris: Yes, I am aware of that.
Mr Kormos: That they had performed some exercise, based on the public reports coming from Dr Donahue himself?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Were you aware that they were commenting on this to at least some of the people they had contact with?
Miss Morris: I only became aware of it when it was released through the press.
Mr Kormos: That indeed either Mr Waddell or perhaps Giselle Adams had spoken to people calling in about Dr Donahue and replied with their estimates of his income?
Miss Morris: It was indicated that a constituency assistant had given out estimates.
Mr Kormos: All right. But that certainly was not you.
Miss Morris: No. A constituency assistant from Sharon Murdock's office.
Mr Kormos: If there was any staff person in Sudbury who gave out estimates about Dr Donahue's income, it was either Waddell or Adams from Sharon Murdock's office and certainly not you from your office?
Miss Morris: That is correct.
Mr Kormos: Did other people handle the queries to Martel's office about Dr Donahue, other than yourself?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Kormos: Were you consistent in how you handled them?
Miss Morris: Yes, I was.
Mr Kormos: You may know as a result of MCTV coverage that at least one person in the Sudbury area complained about a private investigator taking statements from people who had called Miss Martel's office. Are you aware of that MCTV interview?
Miss Morris: Yes, I am.
Mr Kormos: So you know that there has been a so-called private investigator, indeed one who was retained by a law firm that acted for Ms Martel, asking people what they were told when they called your office.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Approximately half a dozen statements were handwritten by people who were contacted by that investigator. Did you know that?
Miss Morris: No, I did not know that.
Mr Kormos: Okay. Well, I tell you that and those are the statements, of course, that I say have been provided to committee counsel. I have seen those statements. Now, does it surprise you to learn that each and every one of those statements indicates that when they called Ms Martel's office they did not speak to Ms Martel? Does that surprise you?
Miss Morris: No, I am not surprised.
Mr Harnick: A point of order: What Mr Kormos is about to start to do is to read those statements. Again, I think you have ruled that he is trying to do something indirectly which he cannot do directly. Again, he is going to make certain allegations that we will not have the opportunity to examine about, because this witness clearly did not give those statements; she does not know about those statements; she did not take those statements. What Mr Kormos is trying to do is downright --
Mrs Cunningham: Silly.
Mr Harnick: Slippery.
Interjections.
Mrs Cunningham: You are having a good time at the public's expense.
Mr Kormos: Can I go now, Chair?
The Chair: With respect to the point of order -- I think we will wait for the question to be posed -- but I think with respect to this particular matter, we have allowed members to ask questions in the way in which they feel is proper. If the witness cannot respond to the question as posed, well, that is the way in which the particular individual member has decided to use his or her time and I would rule that accordingly.
I see this as something which is much different than the entering of an exhibit of a statement taken by one individual to another individual, who is then asking another individual to comment, which is of course hearsay upon hearsay. But how an individual rules or uses his particular time in asking a question of a particular witness on information which the witness may or may not know is how that particular person wishes to use his time.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, Chair.
Mr Christopherson: Chair, was there not a letter from the OFL yesterday that was entered in and that you allowed as an exhibit?
Mr Harnick: That was Shelley Martel.
The Chair: Yes, and for your particular interest, that was a letter, which was during the examination of the minister, written by or to the minister on a statement made or allegedly made by the minister and as such it was directly referable to the witness before this committee. Mr Kormos.
Mr Christopherson: Just for the record, that is not the point that you used to rule.
Mr Kormos: I tell you, Chair, I am requesting that I be provided with -- I do not have the statements. Ms Edwardh provided them in good faith to committee counsel so that they could be retrieved upon request. She placed them in committee counsel's custody. I do not have them. I am asking for them now.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, just to be clear --
Mr Kormos: Have you been instructed to do so by Ms Edwardh?
The Chair: With respect to the point that was raised by Mr Harnick my ruling was that you can pose the questions. I am giving you the opportunity to do so.
Mr Kormos: Thank you. I do not have the letters, the statements. You see, they were not statements taken by the investigator; they were handwritten statements by the person whose words were contained in them, signed by those persons. That is why some day, if the Chair has a little time, I will help him out on the law of hearsay.
But in any event, Ms Morris, would it surprise you to learn that half a dozen of these statements provided by people who called your office all indicated they were treated with professional response on the part of whoever it is they were speaking with, albeit was not Ms Martel?
Miss Morris: I am not surprised. I am glad they said that.
Mr Kormos: As a matter of fact, these statements indicate that the response they received is exactly how you told us you responded to people as a rule when they called about Dr Donahue. Does that surprise you?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Kormos: I suspect the reason it does not surprise you is because that is the way you dealt with all the people who phoned in about the Dr Donahue, capping, threshold, doctors in the north issue.
Miss Morris: Exactly.
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Mr Kormos: And there was no deviation.
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Kormos: And you are not about to explain why Ms Majkot would come here and say what she said.
Miss Morris: I cannot explain it.
Mr Kormos: But you are under oath here?
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Are you prepared to lie?
Miss Morris: No.
Mr Kormos: Are you lying?
Miss Morris: No, I am not lying.
Mr Kormos: Would you like to see those statements that were obtained by the private investigator of the half-dozen or so people who wrote them out? Would you like to see them?
Miss Morris: If I could, I would like to.
Mr Kormos: You know what? You cannot, because the Chair says he is not going to let anybody look at them, notwithstanding how interestingly --
Mrs Cunningham: They are taking auditions for the Stratford Festival this afternoon, Kormos.
Mr Kormos: -- Ms Morris, notwithstanding how interestingly they would tend to corroborate what you said. I am not sure, but I think we struck a nerve.
Now, Giselle Adams, the staff person for Ms Murdock, the one who was involved in -- you are aware of it through the press -- the fabrication or the estimate of Dr Donahue's gross income --
Mr Harnick: Point of order.
The Chair: Point of order.
Mr Harnick: That is a misstatement of the evidence. We have never examined that person [inaudible] Waddell, and he was the one who gave that evidence. So I do not know what Mr Kormos is talking about other than the fact that he is again misstating the evidence, stretching the evidence or whatever you want to call it.
Mr Kormos: You know exactly what I am talking about. We struck a nerve and it is too bad the nurse was not here to administer Novocaine.
Mrs Cunningham: For yourself. The only person who needs medication is yourself.
Mr Kormos: But obviously when you start squealing, Mr Harnick --
Interjections.
Mr Kormos: -- when you start squealing you are obviously getting nervous. You do not want the statements to be provided and you do not want Ms Adams.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mrs Cunningham: Cool down.
The Chair: Order, please, Mr Kormos, Mr Harnick, Ms Cunningham. I think we have got everyone.
Mr Owens: Shame on you.
Mrs Cunningham: Let's continue with the preschool program.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, there are approximately two minutes remaining and you may continue to pose your questions.
Mr Kormos: So Giselle Adams is the one who works with Mr Waddell?
Miss Morris: Herself and another assistant.
Mr Kormos: Yes, that is Mr Waddell?
Miss Morris: And there is another assistant.
Mr Kormos: Oh, and there is yet one more.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Now, I appreciate you do not know Mr Harfield. Do you have occasion to have people call you just to make general inquiries about the status of legislation, that sort of thing --
Miss Morris: Um, yes.
Mr Kormos: -- you know, because you know these things?
Miss Morris: I do not know those things, but they ask.
Mr Kormos: Well, you know more than most people do.
Mrs Cunningham: Oh, give me a break.
Mr Harnick: Her evidence sure did not indicate that, Peter.
Mrs Cunningham: How insulting.
Mr Christopherson: What is insulting is that you will not let him finish.
The Chair: Ms Cunningham. Please, Mr Kormos, would you continue your question.
Mr Wood: To the penalty box.
Mr Hope: Two minutes for interference.
The Chair: Let me remind all members of the committee, in light of the time and the amount of days that we have sat, interjections and interruptions are clearly out of order. Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: I mean, people who might be consultants might phone you to find out, for instance, the status of a bill. Would that not be reasonable?
Miss Morris: They might.
Mr Kormos: Yes. And if Keith Harfield were a consultant he might be inclined to phone you, or indeed Giselle Adams as a constituency assistant for Ms Murdock, would he not?
Miss Morris: He could if he wished.
Mr Kormos: And that would not offend you, would it?
Miss Morris: He could ask.
Mr Kormos: You are not any special sort of contact. You are there for anybody who wants to call you and who wants you, whether they are consultants or not. Is that not right?
Miss Morris: That is right.
Mr Kormos: I mean, you are sort of public property in that regard.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: And you will talk to people whether they are consultants or not.
Miss Morris: Yes.
Mr Kormos: And in so far as you are aware, so would the staff for Ms Murdock.
Miss Morris: I do not see why not.
Mr Kormos: Mr Waddell?
Miss Morris: Mm-hmm.
Mr Kormos: The other CA, or even Giselle Adams?
Miss Morris: That is correct.
Mr Kormos: So Mr Harfield never called you, but you are not aware as to whether or not he might have called Ms Murdock's office.
Miss Morris: That is right.
Mr Kormos: Okay, thanks. Maybe Mr Owens has got a couple of things he wanted to ask.
The Chair: I am sorry. The time has expired. I would like to thank you for coming before this committee.
ROBERT MACMILLAN
The Chair: The next witness that we are going to recall is Dr MacMillan. Dr MacMillan.
Dr MacMillan: Good afternoon.
The Chair: And welcome back.
Dr MacMillan: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: I understand that you are with your counsel, Mr Page?
Dr MacMillan: Correct.
The Chair: I would remind you that I believe you were in the committee on February 10 --
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
The Chair: -- at which time an oath was administered. For members of the committee, I understand that Dr MacMillan's testimony today will be both in a public and in an in camera session. Having said that, I invite our counsel, Mr Taman, to commence questioning.
Mr Taman: Dr MacMillan, Mr Page, I just have a few questions arising out of evidence that Dr MacMillan gave earlier on and evidence that has been given by other parties. As I have indicated to both of you, there was some evidence before this committee: It came from Dr Hollingsworth who indicated as follows, and I am looking at the evidence for February 17. It is at 1105-2.
Dr Hollingsworth said in his evidence: "When I stood up to speak at the meeting on December 5 in Sudbury, which was a public meeting held to clarify some of the problems in Sudbury, Dr MacMillan took a file with my name on it marked `Confidential' and placed it in his lap in clear view of Mr Decter, the Deputy Minister of Health. I think that there is a file on me and I feel that that action, while it may have attempted to make me cower in front of bureaucracy, has only firmed my resolve to find out about that file."
Let me ask you a number of questions arising out of that evidence, Dr MacMillan. First of all, did you have a file or files on your lap during the course of that meeting?
Dr MacMillan: I may have had the media handout. I do not recall taking out -- and I would have no reason to take out -- any particular file unless it was simply the same material that the members of the audience had.
Mr Taman: Did you have in your possession on the day of the meeting a file of any kind on Dr Hollingsworth?
Dr MacMillan: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: Did you know Dr Hollingsworth prior to going into that meeting?
Dr MacMillan: I did not even know him when I was in the meeting. I believe I knew about three or four individuals at the most. Most of the speakers -- I did not know who they were until they got up to speak. There was somebody beside me or in front of me to whom on occasion I would say, "Who is that?" but I do not recall having Dr Hollingsworth identified to me by anyone prior to it being announced that he was going to speak.
Mr Taman: Dr MacMillan, did you have with you for the meeting of the 5th information of a personal nature on any physicians?
Dr MacMillan: Yes. In my testimony last month I indicated that I had had conversations with some doctors, private, personal conversations with respect to their fear of the threshold and its impact on their income. Of course, if you remember my testimony, I was the one who asked for a meeting with the county medical society. I did not know what I was getting when I asked for it, but I was the one who precipitated that meeting as far as I understood. When I went to the meeting I therefore took about four or five physicians' billing information as it related to their thresholds, what their income was, what their technical fees were, when the threshold would be impacted, if it would, and how much reduction would be made from their yearly income. So I had that information; I had it in my briefcase. I did not take it out of my briefcase because, to my amazement, none of the physicians wanted apparently to approach me, to meet with me, after coming all the way to Sudbury.
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Mr Taman: Was Dr Hollingsworth one of the physicians on whom you had personal information for that meeting?
Dr MacMillan: No. In fact, of course with this almost file paranoia of Dr Hollingsworth, I inquired of my staff to determine whether there was any file around on Dr Hollingsworth. I made a very thorough inquiry both in Sudbury and in Kingston and no one has ever created a file on Dr Hollingsworth. I had not heard that word so much until I came to these hearings. We do not have any information on Dr Hollingsworth's income that I was able to find, except for what is in the computer.
Mr Taman: Dr MacMillan, how did you carry the documents relating to the other physicians?
Dr MacMillan: In the same briefcase I have here.
Mr Taman: What did you keep them in?
Dr MacMillan: I usually keep my files, my documents, in those plastic covers that keep things together. I do not use hard-covered paper documents, except for on rare occasions.
Mr Taman: Were they carried in anything that was marked with the word "Confidential" on it?
Dr MacMillan: No. I would not need to mark "Confidential." They were in my possession. I am very careful where I take my briefcase and I watch it. Normally of course I do not carry such information in it anyway, other than hopefully to the benefit of the physicians, for which I made the visit to Sudbury.
Mr Taman: Dr MacMillan, you indicated that you did not know Dr Hollingsworth before going to the meeting.
Dr MacMillan: No. I still do not know him. I do not think I have ever met him.
Mr Taman: Mr Decter indicated in his evidence that you identified at his request Dr Hollingsworth for him. Can you explain how that happened?
Dr MacMillan: Well, I will acknowledge that might have happened. As I said, as people got up on occasion I would lean over to someone and ask who that is. In fact, a fellow past president of the Ontario Medical Association was sitting right behind me and I was speaking to him several times. It is not inconceivable that I asked someone who that was out of curiosity or in response to the deputy's question to me.
Mr Taman: The deputy minister indicated in his evidence that he recalled you pointing out Dr Hollingsworth's name on the underserviced area program list in your lap. Did you have that list in your hand --
Dr MacMillan: It was in the package and I may have -- I do not recall doing that. I may have pulled it out and pointed it out or observed it when someone told me his name. I do not remember.
Mr Taman: There was another aspect of Dr Hollingsworth's testimony that I wanted to put to you. Dr Hollingsworth said this, and I am looking at 17 February, 1200-1:
"There was, we felt -- well, I certainly felt -- a definite intimidation occurring particularly when I spoke at the meeting in Sudbury and Dr MacMillan produced a file marked "Confidential" while I was speaking. That was very threatening at the time. Different physicians had told me that Dr MacMillan had told them he was carrying their files in his briefcase. I am told he produced the file of one physician and threw it on the desk and said, `You don't bill very much, do you?' So there was a definite attitude that there were good boys and bad boys in the classroom."
Do you have any comment on that evidence?
Dr MacMillan: I sure do. I mean, I do not know what this Dr Hollingsworth has against me. I was up there to help physicians. These are lies or exaggerations. I just could not believe it when I saw and read this type of evidence. I had no -- I mean, many of them -- he said "I was told." I do not know how he would get excited when a file was brought out "Confidential," because I was a long distance away from the speaker, so it must have been -- if someone told him that did occur, which it did not, it was probably told after he spoke. I do not know how he would be rattled.
I did speak to several physicians I knew. There was a great air of hostility towards all three of us who had come up from the ministry to assist in the understanding of this agreement. In particular Dr Donahue, who I had phoned, made no attempt to come over to speak to me about his particular situation. I spoke to a classmate. I checked with him even last night with respect to whether or not I had said such a thing to him, that he was not billing up to the threshold. He denied that the subject was raised by me at all. I would not go up to a strange physician and do it, and as I said, there were only three physicians in the room who I knew. This is totally offensive and I reject it completely.
Mr Taman: Dr MacMillan, just to turn to another area of the proof, Mr Corea indicated in his evidence that he met you in a gathering in Dr LeBlanc's office, I believe, on the 14th, and I think in your evidence you indicated that you had not met Mr Corea. Would you explain that to the committee, please?
Dr MacMillan: Yes. I am glad to have the opportunity to correct my evidence. When I saw Mr Corea testifying, I recalled as he was speaking that indeed he did come in that day. I do not know whether anybody took the time to introduce him to me; they may have thought we knew each other. I recall someone coming to me. I explained in my earlier testimony about a marked copy, a blacked-out copy. In retrospect, that was undoubtedly Mr Corea, and I did receive that document and subsequently destroyed it.
We did have a conference call that morning. Mr Corea remained. The evidence he gave was slightly incorrect as well. His evidence was that we were talking to Mr Tom Davies, I believe, or Dr LeBlanc; in fact, we were talking to the director of health and social services for Sudbury district.
Mr Taman: Was there any discussion at that meeting on the 14th about briefing Mr Floyd Laughren?
Dr MacMillan: Yes. The recollection I have is that -- of course, it is important to know what the conference call was about. As I recall it, I think it was the evening before that a very notorious and televised session of the council had taken place where the Sudbury and District Medical Society, I am told, attended and made a presentation and a petition to get council's endorsement in opposing the government position on threshold and the OMA-government agreement. This had created quite a storm of further discussion and debate and discontent, and it is my understanding that indeed council did support the medical society in its attack against the program and did indeed make a resolution in that regard. It was peaking at that time, as I understood.
I was quite removed at that early date of November 14 with respect to the press coverage and the involvement of Dr Donahue, but it became quite apparent that Mr Laughren and others were going to be called upon to debate and I did not know at that point that they had been debating as much as they had about the issue.
Eugene LeBlanc and I thought it might be courteous, inasmuch as I was led to believe Mr Laughren was going to be having meetings that weekend about the issue, to be certain that he was aware of how the agreement was working, how we were coming in our calculation as to the extent of the number of people affected in the province, in particular the number of people affected in the north, and I believe we agreed that I would phone Mr Laughren the following morning, November 15, which I did.
Mr Taman: Did you reach Mr Laughren?
Dr MacMillan: Yes. I looked up the telephone records and I had one call that lasted a minute and I believe, in retrospect, they said no one was in the office yet and to call back. I called back. I was not about to speak to Mr Laughren. In fact, I did not know he would even be in the constituency office at about 9:30 on Friday morning, and so I asked to speak to a constituency assistant.
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Mr Taman: What was your conversation with Mr Laughren when he came on the line?
Dr MacMillan: Mr Laughren came on the line and was appreciative of my call, was eager to understand details of the agreement, its impact and how we were administering it, in particular the fact that in December, the following month, the first physicians that were going to be affected would have a withdrawal made from their cheques. I provided him with general information about the issue in Sudbury. I do not recall speaking in any detail whatsoever about Dr Donahue. His name might well have been mentioned, I do not recall.
Mr Taman: Let me just press you on that point for a moment. We know from other evidence we have had that Dr Donahue was a topic of considerable conversation. We know in hindsight, although you did not know it at the time, that this turned out to be an animated and in some ways difficult meeting. Are you quite sure there was no discussion of Dr Donahue in your conversation with Mr Laughren?
Dr MacMillan: No, I did not say that. I said that there quite well might have been a discussion. You may recall from further evidence that the same morning I gave an interview to CBC Sudbury, which I think Mr Laughren heard part of, in which the issue of withdrawal of services in the north was discussed. This was because CBC wanted the response from government with regard to Dr Donahue's earlier statements, I believe on the Monday and on the Wednesday, in the press. So that interview you have as an exhibit. I think I probably, because it was so close to the time when I gave that interview, an hour or two earlier, that I would have mentioned the issue of dermatology in the north, and Dr Donahue's name undoubtedly would have come up, but I would not have revealed anything in a detailed manner with respect to his billing, nor was I asked.
Mr Taman: What is your recollection of your conversation with the Treasurer? What do you recall discussing with him about Dr Donahue?
Dr MacMillan: I really honestly cannot recall. There was certainly no detailed information that I provided to the Treasurer of Ontario, but I am told by legal advice, had I done so, I would still not have been in breach of anything.
Mr Taman: Just to turn to another matter for a moment, we heard evidence from Ms Martel that she had the underserviced area program list in hand when she spoke to Dr Kosar and Dr Hollingsworth on the 2nd of December. I think I am also right in saying that it was her evidence that she had received that from you at the breakfast meeting in Sudbury on the 30th of November.
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Taman: Is that consistent with your recollection?
Dr MacMillan: No.
Mr Taman: What is your recollection?
Dr MacMillan: Well, I do not have a recollection of the UAP underserviced area list.
Mr Taman: Did you have the list on the 30th?
Dr MacMillan: I did not have the list on the 30th that I know of.
Mr Taman: Had you seen the list before you saw it in the package on the 5th?
Dr MacMillan: I do not believe I had, no.
Mr Taman: Have you looked to see whether or not you had a copy in your office in Kingston before the media package came into your possession on the 5th?
Dr MacMillan: Yes, I have, and there is in my office -- in the provider services branch, not in my own private office area, there was a copy that my staff were using in order to determine who we had to be concerned about and who we did not have to be concerned about.
Mr Taman: Have you made any inquiries to try to establish the source of the list?
Dr MacMillan: Yes. When I saw the evidence given by the minister with respect to that document, I was surprised that she had ascribed her receipt of that to me, and I thought it must be Dr LeBlanc who had given it to her. So I contacted Dr LeBlanc, who would more than likely have been in possession of that document at the time, and asked whether he had given it, because I did not recall that I had given the document nor did I have it. His recollection was that he did not remember giving it to her either.
Mr Taman: Then just to turn, I think, to my last subject, there was evidence from Dr Donahue that he had tried for some time to establish contact with OHIP to discuss his circumstances. Do you know whether there was any contact received in your office from Dr Donahue in the weeks and months leading up to November of 1991?
Dr MacMillan: Well, recognizing that assertion, I also researched that matter and was unable to establish any recent contacts -- and recent being last fall -- inquiring about any particular issues surrounding the billing and the thresholds. Dr Donahue did write in, as many physicians did, applying for exemption under the threshold agreement, but at no time did Dr Donahue make any attempt to call any one of my staff or me.
Indeed, I have given evidence and I want to stress it: I phoned him on November 28 and said, "Dr Donahue, I understand you're really upset with this threshold. Have I got good news for you. You're not really affected very much by this threshold and let me tell you why," and I went into details about the fact that he was not going to be affected to a very significant degree whatsoever by the threshold and that this was his happy day and I would be glad to come and talk over more with him.
Mr Taman: I do not want you to discuss, and I know you would not, any numbers you might have had or might have discussed in connection with Dr Donahue, but when you said that he was not affected, I take it you had in mind the underserviced area program component of his practice.
Dr MacMillan: No, not that solely. There are two other very, very important components: the extent to which a doctor is sheltered by the technical fees and the extent to which he, as a dermatologist involved in epilation, would also be protected from the exclusion of the epilation fees up until November 15 when, of course, they were delisted.
Mr Taman: And how did the underserviced area program component figure in?
Dr MacMillan: The underserviced area component in his particular case, as you have heard, allowed him to not even -- the clock did not even start ticking until September 1, a third of the way through the year. So the first third of his income was entirely sheltered.
Mr Taman: Did you discuss with Dr Donahue on the 28th the possibility of further contact to discuss his circumstances?
Dr MacMillan: Yes, I did. It was a very congenial conversation. Dr Donahue seemed -- I had never spoken to the man before. He was quite appreciative that I called. He seemed quite interested and quite willing. I mean, I was the executive director of OHIP. I was going to be travelling to Sudbury. I offered to see him and I was shocked when I got to the meeting on December 5. After this effort I had made and the conversation, it certainly seemed like he did not want to allow any kind of effect to his predetermined course of action.
Mr Taman: Were you prepared to discuss with him his circumstances in Sudbury on the 30th?
Dr MacMillan: I was, yes.
Mr Taman: And did you in fact have any discussion with him?
Dr MacMillan: The only discussion -- it was not a discussion. I wanted to get the attention of the chairman. After two hours of speeches by doctors, the deputy was getting a little irritated that he did not get a chance to speak and I thought he might leave. I asked Dr Donahue if he would not mind indicating to the chairman, Dr de Blacam, that the ministry would like to have an opportunity to respond. I did not speak to him in a conversation.
Mr Taman: Have you ever discussed with Dr Donahue the circumstances of his practice as it might have impacted on the threshold that had then existed?
Dr MacMillan: I did in the one conversation I had on the 30th. I do not recall another conversation. I might have had another short call from him. I cannot check my records on incoming calls, again, trying to line up a time for the meeting, but I have no evidence of that. I went up on the 30th and I believe that Dr Donahue was away. Then, when I went back on the 5th for the doctors' meeting he made no attempt to approach me and neither did I try to seek out him.
Mr Taman: Mr Chair, those are my questions for the public session.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Taman. We will now commence questioning with Mr Harnick and there will be a 15-minute time allocation per caucus.
Mr Harnick: Doctor, I am always a little intrigued about the witness who comes back a month later and has a recollection later in time than he had earlier in time, particularly after he has had a chance to review the transcripts. Now, doctor, we know about exhibit 44, which has been discussed in these committee hearings for some time. When you saw the full document, your description was that you almost fell off your chair, correct?
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Dr MacMillan: Um, what, um --
Mr Harnick: That is the --
Mr Taman: Perhaps Mr Page could show 44 to the witness.
Mr Harnick: That is the so-called Teatero --
Dr MacMillan: Memo?
Mr Harnick: Memo. There is nothing really to look at. I think it is the white --
Dr MacMillan: Yes, I recall it.
Mr Harnick: When you saw that document, I believe it was in LeBlanc's office --
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Harnick: -- the first time you saw it, you indicated that you almost fell off your chair.
Dr MacMillan: No, your recollection is not correct. What I have testified is that I almost fell off my chair when, three weeks later, someone from the press purported to have it.
Mr Harnick: Well then, to put it mildly, it was a document you thought was highly inappropriate.
Dr MacMillan: I thought that it was far too detailed and contained sensitive information that I did not believe should get into the hands of the Minister of Health.
Mr Harnick: You were concerned about it?
Dr MacMillan: I was concerned that it had gone from OHIP to Queen's Park, to people who might not recognize the sensitivity as much as I would and my staff should.
Mr Harnick: Because of that, you wanted its retrieval from every source that it went out to?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Harnick: We then have the document being returned while you were in Mr LeBlanc's office allegedly. Surely a document of that sensitivity that you were concerned about retrieving and showed up in the office would have been something you would have remembered. That is a very significant piece of information. Here is the document coming back. Somebody shows up in the office and gives it to you. You did not have any recollection of that, did you, the first time around?
Dr MacMillan: Yes, I did. In fact, I testified that I recalled seeing one of the memos with a lot of black lines through it.
Mr Harnick: But you do not recall somebody coming in and giving you that memo?
Dr MacMillan: I recall someone coming in and showing me the memo. I do not recall precisely taking it from his or her hand and putting it in my briefcase, as Mr Corea has testified.
Mr Harnick: That would have been pretty significant to remember.
Dr MacMillan: Well, I remember elements of it; I cannot remember everything.
Mr Harnick: You certainly did not remember Mr Corea?
Dr MacMillan: Oh, I certainly remembered him when he came --
Mr Harnick: When he came here and you got to see him and read his testimony. Now it all became clear to you.
Dr MacMillan: When I saw his face on television, I recognized him.
Mr Harnick: All right.
Dr MacMillan: I did not know his name at that time.
Mr Harnick: And you do not have any recollection of Mr Corea being there for the phone call?
Dr MacMillan: Oh yes, I do. I told you there were a number of people there. There are several hundred people in the Ministry of Health on those floors. My office is in Kingston. I do not know them all. There are many people in the communications staff, people on Dr LeBlanc's staff, and there are people on the minister's staff. In retrospect, I certainly remember that face being there and understanding he was a member of staff.
Mr Harnick: You will agree with me that all of this did not become clear to you until after you had read Mr LeBlanc's evidence and seen the transcripts and watched your television set. Is that correct?
Dr MacMillan: Oh yes, that is correct. I did not remember that until I saw Mr Corea and his testimony.
Mr Harnick: In spite of how important the document was. Now, it is interesting, what you say. You told us about your discussion with the Treasurer. You indicated in that discussion you were not sure that you spoke about Dr Donahue but you were sure that you did not speak about billings.
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Harnick: I find that somewhat contradictory. You do not know whether you had a conversation about a particular subject matter but you are sure what was not discussed in that conversation.
Dr MacMillan: Well, I do not find it troublesome. I think I testified that I thought that I probably talked about Dr Donahue, since he was such a timely, topical feature and I had spoken on the radio and in the morning about the issue of dermatology. I would say that I know that I would not talk about detailed medical billings because I do not talk about detailed medical billings about any doctor with anyone, other than that particular physician or his designate.
Mr Harnick: You see, what bothers me is that throughout the last 15 days, every time we spoke to people, they had vivid recollections of all kinds of things until Dr Donahue's name was mentioned, and then everybody went fuzzy. From what you are telling me, you are pretty fuzzy about some of these things as well.
Dr MacMillan: Well --
Mr Harnick: Let me move on to one other question.
Mr Page: Do you want to answer that, by the way?
Mr Harnick: The underserviced -- I think the question is rhetorical. I do not know --
The Chair: You asked a question, but we would like to give the opportunity -- if you would like to respond?
Dr MacMillan: I think it is fair to say that my memory is not perfect for something that happened three months ago. I do spend a lot of time on the telephone. It is quite a special conversation to have with the Treasurer of Ontario. I do recall that clearly, but I do not recall every aspect of what I discussed with him. I have tried to do the best I can.
Mr Harnick: Doctor, I want to talk about the underserviced area program for a moment. One of the things that has concerned me is that there is a preoccupation, dealing with every doctor we talk about, about the fact that everything is fine because the program ends up going longer than they think or when the threshold was instituted they were on the underserviced area program so life was fine; there was no predicament that any doctor would be in. But would you agree with me that once the underserviced area program ends, that is when the doctors are going to have the problem?
Dr MacMillan: That is correct.
Mr Harnick: And if it is delayed because of their involvement in the underserviced area program for a few months, they may get a few months' respite from it, but once it is over, the impact of the threshold is going to affect that doctor. Be it from the end of September or the end of August or the end of July, once it ends, the impact of the threshold hits that doctor?
Dr MacMillan: Yes, and particularly the next year.
Mr Harnick: Of course. So a doctor who is on the underserviced area program may very well say, "Well, I'm fine now," but would have every reason to be concerned once that program ended.
Dr MacMillan: Yes, and I am sure that is the very reason why even those in the underserviced area program were in the big cause.
Mr Harnick: So if Dr Donahue, as he came in here and told us and admitted that he was totally mistaken about the date that the underserviced area program ended for him, if it ended a few months later in time than he thought, the impact of the threshold is still going to be just as great on him come the next year.
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Harnick: Thank you, doctor.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Harnick. If there are no further questions, Ms Cunningham, we will then move to the members of the government.
Mr Kormos: The Teatero e-mail, the one that is an exhibit here, the one that has caused so much concern, contains an accurate expression of Dr Donahue's gross billings for the previous year, does it not?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Kormos: And those are figures -- that figure is obtained from OHIP files, is it not?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Kormos: You have read a number of newspaper accounts which purport to identify Dr Donahue's gross billings, have you not?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Are any of them accurate?
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: Thank you. Now, November 28 -- that is okay.
The Chair: Mr Kormos --
Mr Page: That clearly would involve having to disclose what was in the OHIP file.
The Chair: Yes, and I understand that Mr Kormos stopped the question.
Mr Kormos: Forgive me for having slipped into that.
Mr Elston: Peter, you made a mistake.
Interjections.
Mrs Cunningham: Slip of the tongue again, eh, Kormos?
Mr Kormos: I slipped into that.
On November 28, when you talked with Donahue on the telephone, did you know that that evening he was going to be speaking to a group including Keith Robert, or Robert Keith Harfield, a so-called consultant in Sudbury, at a group called Contax?
Dr MacMillan: No. I do not know anything about that.
Mr Kormos: You do not know Robert Keith Harfield, a so-called consultant, lives in Manitoulin, operates out of Sudbury?
Dr MacMillan: No, I do not know him, and in fact I have tried to find out who he is through staff and I cannot find any staff in the Sudbury office or in Kingston who know who he is.
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Mr Kormos: When you talked with Donahue on November 28, but hours before he met Mr Harfield at the Contax meeting in Sudbury, did Dr Donahue seem to have a reasonably good handle on what his financial position was?
Dr MacMillan: Well, in respect of Dr Donahue, he testified that the ministry made a mistake in a letter. And they did; the underserviced area program had the wrong date. That is why I said, "I think I have good news for you." I checked out the proper date and clarified it with him. That is the only discussion we had really about the issues. The billings, his billing patterns were not discussed at all. Epilation was not discussed. It was simply the impact of the threshold, how much money was OHIP going to claw back from Dr Donahue.
Mr Kormos: You have access to accurate records which would speak to Dr Donahue's gross billings?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Did you ever provide any of that information to Giselle Adams?
Dr MacMillan: No, I do not --
Mr Kormos: Giselle Adams of Sharon Murdock's office in Sudbury.
Dr MacMillan: I do not know that person; I had never heard the name until today.
Mr Kormos: Are you aware of her ever having obtained that type of information from OHIP, from you or any other source in OHIP offices?
Dr MacMillan: No, I cannot find any source of information on Dr Donahue's billings that seemed to get out of the ministry, other than the famous Bill Teatero memo.
Mr Kormos: And the stuff that has been published is so off base as to be ludi -- I am sorry; I suppose that would not be a fair question either?
The Chair: No, I am sorry.
Mr Kormos: That is right. I am sorry.
The Chair: Are you finished, Mr Kormos?
Mr Kormos: Yes.
The Chair: Mr Mills.
Mr Mills: A brief question, Mr Chair. Thank you very much, Dr MacMillan. I can remember very plainly the day that Dr Hollingsworth testified. He spoke rather vividly of this document on your lap with "Hollingsworth" on it and "Confidential" on it. He said, among other things, that you seemed to know everything about him. You knew his date of birth, his telephone number. Then, when I questioned him about it, he said that that was his Irish wit, that it was not true. So I am just suggesting to you, sir, the perception of the document on his lap with "Confidential" and "Hollingsworth," maybe you think that was Irish wit too?
Dr MacMillan: Well, Mr Mills, I believe that the issue and the evidence about his date of birth and so on was evidence between -- relating to the Martel meeting. I do not think it related to the meeting in Sudbury where I was present. All I can say is that I believe his evidence was secondhand, from a Dr Lord who was sitting behind him. All I can say is, there was absolutely no file whatsoever on Dr Hollingsworth. I had never met the man, I was not interested in the man, I had no knowledge of him being in my list of physicians I knew were going to be affected, and so why would I bother with a Dr Hollingsworth?
Mr Mills: Thank you very much, doctor. Mr Chair, to correct that, I know that this was another incident, but I would just like to go on the record to say that I can understand how Dr MacMillan was annoyed about the seeming untruths that Dr Hollingsworth spoke of a certain --
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr Elston: Why are you saying that?
Mr Mills: But he calls that Irish wit.
The Chair: Mr Mills, excuse me, please. This part of the hearing is made for questions to the witness. Mr Hope.
Mr Elston: Is there some reaction to people of Irish descent that you find offensive?
Mr Mills: No, I am saying that lying is Irish wit.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Harnick: A point of order, Mr Chair.
The Chair: I am sorry --
Mr Harnick: A point of order, Mr Chair.
The Chair: There is a point of order by Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: Mr Chairman, I find it a very difficult thing to see a witness who appeared here branded as a person who has not told the truth, and I think that is what Mr Mills just did. I say this with respect, but the doctor is not here to defend himself, and to make that comment on television -- and this is being televised -- about a doctor and characterizing him the way that you have I think is highly improper for someone on this committee to do.
Now, we are going to weigh the evidence and we are going to write a final report, but to say about the doctor what you just said I find highly improper and I just, as a member of this committee, want to dissociate myself from that comment. I think that is a very, very serious item. I think that surely I would ask the Chair to consider what was just said and surely Mr Mills might want to reconsider whether he wants to withdraw that comment.
The Chair: Mr Harnick, I have heard your point. I would like to give Mr Mills an opportunity to reflect on what you have said.
Mr Mills: If I have offended anyone, I withdraw that.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr Hope: It is okay now?
The Chair: Mr Hope.
Mr Hope: Gee, thanks. I was just waiting for some other interruptions. Dr MacMillan, I want to reflect back on your conversation on November 30.
Mr Elston: There have been no lessons learned in this committee.
The Chair: Mr Elston, please.
Mr Elston: Oh, I thought it was my turn.
Mr Hope: On November 30 you had a conversation with Dr Donahue, you said, or on the 28th you had a conversation?
Dr MacMillan: On the 28th I phoned him from Kingston.
Mr Hope: He sounded happy about the news you had to share with him?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Hope: He did? Do you use your title as director of OHIP --
Dr MacMillan: Executive director of the health insurance division.
Mr Hope: Okay, well, whatever. That long title, do you use it to bully people?
Dr MacMillan: No, I hope not.
Mr Hope: Did it seem in that conversation on November 28 with Dr Donahue that he trusted you?
Dr MacMillan: Yes. I phoned him to give him good news and to hopefully relieve his concerns about his fiscal position; that was the only motive. Also I had, by that time, phoned Dr Killiam de Blacam to offer myself to go to Sudbury and meet with some members of the medical society because of the anxiety and the concern about how the threshold was going to impact on health care in the north.
Mr Hope: Did you know what Dr Donahue looked like before December 5?
Dr MacMillan: I do not believe so, unless I saw some press clipping with his picture. I know he was on the front page of the newspaper when I got there on the evening of, I believe, November 29.
Mr Hope: Okay. You did meet him on December 5 at the meeting with the doctors?
Dr MacMillan: I recognized him. I do not believe I was formally introduced to him.
Mr Hope: Now, on Saturday you went to a conference? That is the following Saturday, December 6 it would be.
Dr MacMillan: That was Friday; Thursday was December 5.
Mr Hope: Okay, Thursday the 5th; the 6th is Friday. Yes.
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Hope: The Friday you went to the conference?
Dr MacMillan: Yes. I was giving a talk at it.
Mr Hope: Were there quite a few doctors there at that conference?
Dr MacMillan: Most were not doctors, but there were a number of doctors there, yes.
Mr Hope: Okay, good enough.
Mr Christopherson: Dr MacMillan, is it fair to assume that anybody who had direct access to the confidential OHIP files and used information on the gross billings of Dr Donahue would have the accurate figures?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: In other words, if you were to talk about his billings, since you have obvious access to the files, it is a fair assumption that you would be using an accurate figure?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: You have already testified that the Teatero memo, exhibit 44, contains the accurate billings, as you know them.
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: Is it fair to assume that anyone who had access to the Teatero memo or was briefed by someone who had access to that memo would indeed be using accurate information, the accurate gross billings figure?
Dr MacMillan: It is possible, in which case I would really believe that it came directly from OHIP or from the OHIP computer or the doctor. But people tend to round out figures as well. So one could expect that one might not take it right down to the last cent, but round it out to the nearest thousand or nearest ten thousand.
Mr Christopherson: Okay, but if accuracy was important in the use of the figure, for whatever reason, believability, credibility; if it was important that you got it right, my question is, and I hope it is very clear and very focused, if I had access, which I have now had, to the Teatero memo, exhibit 44, and I wanted to go out and talk to somebody with some sense of wanting them to feel that I know what I am talking about, it is fair to assume that I would use the number that is in there, and in doing that I would be giving the accurate number?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: Is it fair, if I am dealing with capable, competent people who are looking at that and then briefing me, that I would use the accurate figure, if I had it?
Dr MacMillan: I would think, yes.
Mr Christopherson: Thank you.
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Mr Conway: Dr MacMillan, I want to pick up on that point that my colleague from Hamilton has just mentioned. You said something that really struck me about exhibit 44: that if someone used that, it would be your best guess that the individual would have to have had that directly out of OHIP.
Dr MacMillan: Maybe I should not have used the word "directly."
Mr Conway: Let me put my further question to you.
Dr MacMillan: I meant to say the only two places where I think that detailed information would normally be would be with us, producing the cheque, or the receiver of the cheque.
Mr Conway: Fair ball. That is the whole reason for your concern around exhibit 44, that you knew that. You know now and you knew then, as of November 14, that exhibit 44, the full version of which this committee has seen in camera, went to places that caused you some concern. In fact, a political staffer to the Minister of Health brought, in his own person, a copy of that back to you, so it is possible that a person in that position might have accessed the information, since that person, by admitted testimony, walked a few floors with exhibit 44 in hand, which would have told that person that number.
Dr MacMillan: I agree. I think it is possible that anybody in Kingston or Toronto who had it in his hand could have released that number.
Mr Conway: I appreciate that. I am not saying it did happen, but I am just simply saying it could have happened, because we know that one of the people who had his hot little hands on exhibit 44 was Larry Corea, political assistant to Frances Lankin, and he very helpfully brought that back to Dr LeBlanc's office on request. He had the opportunity to at least access the information that was contained in the Teatero memorandum; that much we can certainly say.
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Conway: All right. Now I want to come back to one of the aspects that continues to trouble me a great deal, and that is the answer Ms Lankin gave, quite a declaratory answer, to Mr Harris in the Legislature on December 9. I do not know what the exhibit number is, and perhaps I could be helped. I have it in front of me unmarked.
Since you were here last we have had a number of people, not the least of those witnesses being Ms Lankin herself, who I thought made a very compelling argument about the very difficult and disadvantaged position in which she found herself as she gave that answer. I have not had a chance to look at all of your previous testimony, but I repeat, I am deeply troubled by this aspect of these hearings, because Ms Lankin, someone for whom I have a very high regard, told this committee -- let me put it this way. She told the Legislature in a way that I believe she had every reason to believe was the case as she knew it, quoting Ms Lankin from Hansard of December 9 in response to the question from Mr Harris, "I have very specifically asked and received assurances from my deputy minister, who has heard directly from the director of OHIP, that no confidential information with respect to doctors' files and their billings and their incomes has been shared with anyone outside the OHIP department."
Now I have to tell you that I was left deeply troubled by what Mr Decter said to this committee, and I regret to tell you, Dr MacMillan, that I am troubled by what you have said, particularly in this chain of events. So I want to give you an opportunity to tell me again exactly your version of how Ms Lankin could have given that answer that so clearly implicates you in, as we now know, not a particularly favourable light.
Dr MacMillan: First of all, I do not share that. I am not the director of OHIP; I am the executive director of the health insurance division, which is a component of OHIP. The general manager and head of OHIP at the time was Dr Dave McNaughton.
Now I have looked at this comment as well and I have been concerned about it too, and I believe I had told you -- in fact it was in response, I believe, to Mr Harnick that I said I may have misled the government at that time.
Several observations: Number one, and I heard Tiina Jarvalt's testimony in which she believes that she phoned me and gave in evidence, and I think it is an exhibit, a document that I prepared on the 10th, the following day, to describe how I had been challenged at the December 6 meeting, how I had told the deputy and I had told the minister's office and I had told Ms Martel's office.
And then on Monday, if I were asked, it is extremely important for the committee to remember at that time, on the 9th and 10th, there was no knowledge of the Teatero memo being on the street, or its contents. It was one of life's minor crises, along with 10 others probably that day, three weeks earlier, and my only concern at that time had been to save that information from the minister. I did not know we had a rat in the ministry. I did not know someone would take that out and give it to the press. In retrospect, I guess, the worst thing happened; it went out, or its contents went out, and somebody clearly has acted improperly.
If I were asked at that time, not knowing that that memo, which was probably back in the back of my mind, I would have answered: "Things are tight as far as I know. I do not know of any kind of information that got out." Now, out of the OHIP department, if the minister said that, that clearly would not have been consistent with what I had told the deputy or Tiina Jarvalt. I would have said, "I don't know of anything, sir. I don't know of anything that has gone out of OHIP that would result in Minister Martel making these charges to someone."
I do not remember being asked about it. I could have been. The deputy testified, I believe, that he does not remember asking me. I am not the director of OHIP, and therefore if Pat Malcolmson, the head of the claims payment agency, which is in charge of the Sudbury office and other parts in the Ministry of Health in Kingston, were asked, I do not know. If the general manager of OHIP, Dave McNaughton, was asked, I do not know. I do not remember. I did not give reassurances that I can recall.
Mr Conway: My difficulty, you see, and I continue, I tell you, to find your reaction on the morning of November 14 is entirely credible. I think your behaviour after the Dodds outburst at the Royal York on the morning of December 6 is equally very credible. And then I begin to get lost.
I cannot imagine, and I am angry, as a member of the Legislature -- and I do not know who to be angry with or at, but I have to tell you that the deputy minister and the executive director of OHIP are on my anger list, and I want you to tell me why I should take you off the list, because you have been dealing with this file, you know it fairly well, it has been one royal pain in the neck from the middle of November onwards for both you and the deputy, to say nothing of the cabinet ministers.
There may have been other pains in the neck, but this one -- and I have watched your earlier testimony this afternoon, and again I find it very understandable. You are running a department where you have just lost a minister, and after four or five or whatever it is, three or four weeks in November, and particularly after that outburst by Mrs Dodds, I cannot believe that you -- that all lights did not go off. Whether or not it involved the Teatero memorandum directly is a side point, although it is not very much of a side point.
When the minister would make these assurances -- and maybe it is the deputy who has to bear the responsibility, but someone has got to bear some responsibility. I just have too much respect for your intelligence and your experience to imagine that you would not have conveyed the concern, if nothing else, of the morning of November the 14th to someone in very high places so that that kind of an answer that she gave could not possibly have been given.
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Dr MacMillan: Well, it was on the morning of the 6th that I started thinking a lot about this. I mean, someone got up and said that Shelley Martel had seen Dr Donahue's file. I mean, I knew that from the moment Mrs Dodds challenged me that that was the story, and of course I thought and I talked and I searched and I phoned Sudbury, "Has anybody given any file to Shelley Martel?" I made those inquiries. Nobody had to ask me. I cannot recall being asked, but I would have given the answer that I was certain in my mind, from doing my research, that nothing had got out.
I did not know that the information, passed up and modified and eventually got to the minister in a proper way, was on the street. I knew on the 10th at 5 o'clock; I knew from what Anne Dawson said on the telephone. So if I am remiss, it is in why did I not think of that. I fault myself, I guess, for not thinking of it, because had I recalled it, I would have thought, "Gee, I wonder whether that got out."
But certainly the Sudbury district office has files on the physician; our office has files on the physician. We are like a bank. You go into the bank and they can call up Sean Conway and they find out your balance and when you made a withdrawal. We are like a bank. We have 1,200 employees in the Ministry of Health who can find out Dr Donahue's figures.
Mr Conway: I know that, but I take you back to November 14. You are rightly concerned about two things: political staff have got this bloody memo and people down in the communications branch have either got it -- you believe they have it by this point, I am sure you do.
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Conway: I think you said that.
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Conway: You are a veteran around here. That has got to make Bob MacMillan think, "Oh, God, get it back." Your first impulse is the right one, but later on, it never crosses your mind that there might be a leak out of either one of those places. It just does not cross your mind.
Dr MacMillan: No, it does not.
Mr Conway: Did you ever talk to Sue Colley at any point between November, say, 14 and December 6 or 7 on that particular matter?
Dr MacMillan: No. If it had crossed my mind, I would have put on my old coroner's hat. I would have gone out and investigated and I would have found out, "Gee, did I get every copy?" I just did not think of that.
Mr Conway: All right, fair ball.
Dr MacMillan: It was three weeks earlier and I just did not remember it and nobody mentioned it to me, reminded me of it.
Mr Conway: That does not sound like the Bob MacMillan I know, but I have got to believe what you tell me.
I want to quickly touch on a couple of other things. Again, I have an unmarked copy of an exhibit and I quickly want to refer to it. Nuala Doherty, on October 31, 1991, has a memo. I do not know the number, but just hear me out very briefly. She is the constituency assistant to the minister of finance, Mr Laughren. I was struck at the bottom of that October 31, 1991, memo from Nuala Doherty to the Treasurer, Mr Laughren, about the Donahue matter. At the bottom it simply says "Present Appeal." Now, this is October 31. "Present Appeal" is the title. "Dr Donahue's financial statements have been sent to the joint management committee." We have had some other evidence to suggest -- I think it was Dr Graham from North Bay who had some memory of the matter -- Dr Donahue's financial statements, says this memo, going to the joint management committee. Do you have any recall on that?
The Chair: That was exhibit 91.
Dr MacMillan: I have heard this conversation before and I have thought about it and discussed it with others. I believe there are usually about 15 people at the joint management committee. All the sessions are open to everybody. There are no behind-the-scenes discussions. I recall of course, vividly, the numerous discussions about the threshold and what we might do about it and the negative impact on certain areas in the north. I believe, although it is a long time ago, Dr Donahue, who had become high profile at that time, was discussed. I can absolutely say there were no files of any kind on Dr Donahue. I am absolutely certain of that. There were no figures mentioned. I would have been appalled. I would have been shocked. I would have told the deputy to keep quiet or something. I am certain of that.
Mr Conway: But it is possible that the Donahue matter in some fashion was discussed by the joint management committee?
Dr MacMillan: Yes.
Mr Conway: I have got a very few moments left and I want to quickly touch on one or two other matters. Ms Murdock, in her testimony to this committee -- Ms Murdock being the member of Parliament provincially for Sudbury city -- talked about the breakfast conversation that you talked about in your testimony. I just wanted to be sure. Ms Murdock indicated you had been very helpful in explaining to her the medical review process that is contained within the college of physicians' mechanism. You remember that conversation?
Dr MacMillan: I have noted that she had said that. I did not give evidence of that topic being discussed. In listening to her, I have to surmise that I did discuss it with her, but I do not recall it. A lot of people ask me about what happens when doctors' billings are a concern to OHIP.
Mr Conway: But it could very well have. She testified to it, so you are not saying it did not happen.
Dr MacMillan: No, no, it could very well be I briefly explained the process.
Mr Conway: Finally, because I am almost out of time, I want you to very quickly take me through again what you did from the time that Mrs Dodds made her speech down at the Royal York through to early the next week, probably Monday or Tuesday. I am talking now about the events from Friday morning, December 6, through to probably Tuesday, December 10, and quickly. I do not expect a complete recitation. I am particularly anxious to know to whom you talked about the Dodds outburst.
Dr MacMillan: Oh, okay. I had just given a talk on confidentiality and I had been on a panel and there were a number of questions and Mrs Dodds got up, posed the question and I gave the response; you have seen it in the transcript. I at lunch was looking for a place to sit down and I sat down beside the registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and on my right was Bob Elgie, who had come up from the east. The registrar turned to me and said, "Oh, have you met Mrs Dodds?" I said, "Yes, I've met Mrs Dodds." I sat down and had lunch. We had a general conversation.
In the afternoon I went to give a talk at a conference on the health card and I got thinking about this and worrying about this and I went and phoned -- and I cannot remember in which order -- the deputy's office, the minister's office, Mr Howard, and I phoned a MaryLou at Miss Martel's office, simply stated what had happened and thought that I had told the people I should tell about it, and I believed that was not the end of it, just asking me. I spent the weekend at home, as I recall. I do not recall talking to anyone about the matter, and I was not, frankly, very surprised when I heard that it was into the political arena on Monday.
I think I heard what went on in question period and immediately we began to look at how tight our shop was, the issue of any leakage of information out of OHIP. We will give evidence later as to what steps we took in order to try to ensure that we were as tight as we could be sure we were. We prepared several briefing notes which you have seen and which are in evidence, and that took us through to the call on the 10th at 5 o'clock or 5:20. I was in a meeting with people. People saw my shock at what Anne Dawson said -- we discussed it after -- about the propriety of my response, which I am still wondering about. And the next morning, on the way to work -- oh, I informed Toronto about the revelation. In fact, I phoned Mr Howard, who had also received a call by that time.
The next morning is Wednesday the 11th. Not surprisingly the minister requested my presence in Toronto and I met with her, as she has described, in the meeting at noon and I gave them a summary that I had written on the plane as to the sequence of events since Friday.
Mr Conway: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Conway. Time has expired. Prior to moving into in camera, I am advised counsel, Mr Taman, would like to ask a further question.
Mr Taman: If you cast your mind to the meeting of the 6th and the interchange you had with Mrs Dodds, was Mr Decter there at that point?
Dr MacMillan: No. Mr Decter was late, as I was, getting in from Sudbury on the plane. Mr Timbrell was speaking behind him but Mr Timbrell went first, giving the opening presentation. Mr Decter gave his. I think Mr Decter had been gone at least an hour or more at the time when Mrs Dodds came to the microphone and posed her questions. He knew nothing about it until I informed his office.
Mr Taman: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We will now adjourn and recess for 15 minutes to move into an in camera session with both Dr MacMillan and also Mary Fleming. We stand adjourned until 4:30.
The committee continued in closed session at 1630.
The committee continued in open session at 2043.
NUALA DOHERTY
The Chair: We will call the evening session of the Legislative Assembly committee to order. With us is Ms Nuala Doherty, who is the constituency liaison in the office of the Honourable Floyd Laughren. Good evening. Ms Doherty, it has been the custom of this committee that prior to questioning taking place an oath is administered. I would invite the clerk of this committee to administer the oath at this time.
Nuala Doherty, affirmed.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms Doherty, again, as is the custom of the committee, a warning has been issued to all persons who have come before the committee, and that is, in the event that you are asked a question which you cannot properly answer without divulging confidential information, then could you or your counsel advise this committee. If that information cannot be provided without divulging information of a confidential nature, then the matter may be addressed by this committee in an in camera session. For Hansard purposes, I would now ask if you could introduce your counsel to this committee.
Ms Doherty: This is Charles Campbell.
The Chair: Good evening, sir. The procedure of the committee is that counsel to the committee, Mr Taman, will commence questioning. At the end of that series of questions, then there will be a rotation from caucus to caucus. Having said that, I would invite Mr Taman to commence.
Mr Taman: Ms Doherty, Mr Campbell, good evening. Ms Doherty, as the Chair said a moment ago, you are the constituency liaison officer in Mr Laughren's office.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: I understand that you work out of his Toronto minister's office?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: You have held that position since January 1991?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Before that you worked at the Working Women Community Centre.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you have also, in the recent past, been an employee at the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And I understand that, as it happens, you are from Sudbury?
Ms Doherty: Originally.
Mr Taman: Originally, and by coincidence your father is a doctor in Sudbury.
Ms Doherty: Was, yes.
Mr Taman: Now, I understand that your first substantial contact with the issue of the thresholds came when your office received a copy of a letter which was circulated by Dr Donahue on about the 24th of October.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: I have a copy of that letter that you gave me, and if you would look with me at exhibit 101, if Mr Campbell would help you find it, we have at exhibit 101 an example of this letter that was in fact addressed to Ms Martel.
Ms Doherty: I did not receive that letter.
Mr Taman: No, I understand that. What I am asking you to do is tell me whether or not you received what appears to you to be the copy of that letter that was destined for Mr Laughren.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: I think because yours is different, we should mark it as the next exhibit and we will circulate copies.
The Chair: We are now going to be making copies and then it will be marked as --
Mr Taman: I think it is 122.
The Chair: Yes, it will be marked as exhibit 122. We are now going to be endeavouring to make copies and distribute it to the committee.
Mr Taman: It is the same letter as one that was already circulated to committee, seeing that this is just Mr Laughren's copy. The copy that you gave me earlier on did not have the second page of the bit at the end dealing with cost savings through local service.
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: Do I take it that you got the letter without that second page?
Ms Doherty: No. I think it came off at a later date.
Mr Taman: All right. So we will mark that then as exhibit 122.
What did you know, if anything, about thresholds or Dr Donahue on the 24th of October, when you got that letter?
Ms Doherty: I knew very little. I only knew from dealing with Dr Abdulla's letter in June of 1991.
Mr Taman: And that had been your very first contact?
Ms Doherty: My very first contact, yes. But no, I had never had any contact with Dr Donahue.
Mr Taman: And was this really the first you had heard of Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: All right. Now, I understand that around the 31st of October, you spoke to Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And how did that come about, Ms Doherty?
Ms Doherty: I had a meeting with Floyd Laughren on the 31st, and in that meeting I told him that Tom Davies, the regional chair of Sudbury, would like to speak to him about Dr Donahue's situation, and I told him that we had received a letter from Dr Donahue. So we called up Mr Davies and Mr Davies summarized Dr Donahue's situation. He said that he would like Floyd to speak to Frances Lankin about Dr Donahue's situation and said that Dr Donahue was -- his concerns were very legitimate and that he was very open about his financial situation, that he was in debt. So after that meeting, or that conference call, I called Dr Donahue and I spoke to him about his concerns.
Mr Taman: And what did you and Dr Donahue discuss?
Ms Doherty: He said he was in debt and -- I am just wondering if this is confidential information that I should --
Mr Taman: Well, I think that --
The Chair: Okay, um --
Ms Doherty: The numbers I could just not say.
The Chair: Again, if you cannot provide a response which does not entail divulging confidential information, or what you think might be confidential information, could you please advise this committee and the matter could be addressed in camera.
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Mr Taman: You talked to him about his debt situation?
Ms Doherty: Yes, he told me how far in debt he was. He told me how much he paid his nurses, how many staff he had, how much he paid out in wages per year. He said that he was the only full-time dermatologist in northeastern Ontario. He gave the parameters of the northeast that he served. What else? He said a lot, that he earned less than a general practitioner and that southern dermatologists tended to deal with -- well, they dealt with serious cases but also not-so-serious dermatological conditions, but because he served such a large population, he saw only very serious dermatology problems.
Mr Taman: So as at the 31st of October, would it be right to say that your information base about Dr Donahue was basically drawn from the letter of the 24th, from your conversation with Mr Davies and from your conversation with Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: You took that information base and you prepared a briefing note for the Treasurer on the 31st of October?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Is that the briefing note that has already been put into evidence as exhibit 91?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: If you just quickly review that briefing note with me, it indicates under the topic of "Situation" that, "Dr Donahue services a large area"; it indicates that the "population is approx 400,000"; that he has "14 staff: 6 full-time RNs at $35K/year; he pays $450,000 in wages," and so on and so forth, along the lines of what you have earlier told us.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: If you skip to the very bottom of it, there is a topic "Present Appeal" and it says under that topic, "Dr Donahue's financial statements have been sent to the joint management committee." Where did you get that information, Ms Doherty?
Ms Doherty: I believe either from Tom Davies or Dr Donahue himself.
Mr Taman: In your phone converstion with him?
Ms Doherty: Yes. I have a note in my rough notes on my conversation with Dr Donahue and there is an indication of the joint management committee appeal.
Mr Taman: Did you send this memorandum to anyone else at about the time you made it, apart from the Treasurer?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I believe I sent it to Larry Corea.
Mr Taman: Why did you do that?
Ms Doherty: Just to make sure that Larry had a synopsis of what, you know, this doctor's position was. I had spoken to Larry the day before and I had been talking to him about the letter I had received from Dr Donahue, and so the following day I sent him this note.
Mr Taman: So just that I understand, why had you been talking to Mr Corea?
Ms Doherty: So that he could look into the situation and find some resolution to it.
Mr Taman: What did you expect him to do?
Ms Doherty: Well, I was concerned that Dr Donahue was going to leave Sudbury. He said that he would be leaving in two weeks and that Sudbury would be without a dermatologist. I wanted to find some kind of solution to this problem.
Mr Taman: We know that on or about the 12th, Mr Corea sent a memo inside the ministry. Let me ask you, between the 31st of October and the 12th of November, was there any action on this file at your end?
Ms Doherty: No, I was away.
Mr Taman: You were away for part of that time, I understand.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: So what was the state of the play when you came back from your vacation?
Ms Doherty: Well, I was not sure if there had been much action from Health yet, so I called Larry on the 12th. I spoke to Floyd actually and asked him if he had spoken to Frances Lankin. He said that he had not, that he had not seen her, so I asked him if he could speak to her. Then I called Larry to find out if we had a response yet from the ministry and he said that he would look into it.
Mr Taman: Did he get back to you to tell you whether or not there had been a response?
Ms Doherty: I do not think so; no, I do not -- we had trouble getting hold of each other by telephone.
Mr Taman: Did you know by this stage that there was a meeting on the 15th in Sudbury?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And was it part of your responsibility to get the Treasurer briefed for that meeting?
Ms Doherty: Yes. It was the day that Dr Donahue had planned to close his practice, and that was the day that Shelley Martel and Floyd were going to meet with Dr Donahue and a cardiologist in Sudbury.
Mr Taman: So do I understand that that was another reason why you were anxious to get information from Mr Corea?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I wanted to prepare for --
Mr Taman: And you were not actually getting all that much satisfaction as of the 12th or so.
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: All right. Do I understand that, partly at least in consequence of that, you and Mr Laughren's executive assistant, Betty Notar, agreed that a memorandum should be sent directly from her to Sue Colley?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Will you look with me at exhibit 49, if Mr Campbell will give you a hand? Ms Doherty, is that the memorandum that Betty Notar sent to Sue Colley?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And what was the purpose of sending that memorandum?
Ms Doherty: I drafted the memo for Betty's signature, and the purpose was to get a response from the Ministry of Health. I wanted to prepare Floyd for the meeting, and I was also very concerned that Dr Donahue was going to leave Sudbury Friday, and there were many constituents who were very upset about this as well. So my purpose was to find out whether Dr Donahue really was going to leave Sudbury or not, and whether or not we had a political response to this issue, meaning, if he left, how would we provide dermatology services in Sudbury? Was there some sort of interim solution that could be found? So that is what I was looking for.
Mr Taman: And you were anxious to have this information quickly because you were told both that he is closing his clinics on Friday and that the Treasurer has to participate in a public forum on Friday.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: If you look just quickly at the memorandum with me, you say in the second paragraph in the second line, "We would like to request briefing notes on Dr Donahue's actual position." What did you have in mind when you drafted the words "actual position"?
Ms Doherty: Well, I was not really sure at that point on the 13th whether or not Dr Donahue was staying in or leaving Sudbury. He told me that he would be leaving Sudbury on the 15th and he would close his practice and move to Colorado. On the 12th, when I returned to work from being away, I read an interview he did on MCTV where he talks about opening up The Doctor's Studio after the 15th of November, so it seemed to me that he was planning to stay in Sudbury. There was some conflicting information there. I wanted to know whether he was staying or going.
Mr Taman: And if you carry on with that sentence, you say "and a political response from the Ministry of Health." What were you looking for there?
Ms Doherty: Well, I wanted to know how we would deal with the situation if he left, how would we provide dermatology services in Sudbury if there was a problem there, and if there is a problem with the threshold, how would we deal with that?
Mr Taman: The committee has heard that in response to your efforts to get information Mr Corea actually sought some information from Dr LeBlanc. If you look with me at exhibit 28, this is a memorandum on the 12th of November from Mr Corea to Dr LeBlanc and others. Have you ever seen this memorandum before?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I have a copy of it.
Mr Taman: When did you get your copy?
Ms Doherty: I actually was trying to remember this, but I do not actually remember receiving it, but it probably was received on the 14th or 15th.
Mr Taman: In any event, in or about the time it was made.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
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Mr Taman: We also know that in apparent response to the memorandum you drafted for Ms Notar, Ms Lankin's EA, Susan Colley, wrote to the deputy to try to jolly things along. That memorandum is found at exhibit 29. Have you seen that before?
Ms Doherty: I have, yes.
Mr Taman: Again, do you expect you saw that in or about the time it was sent?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: What was the next thing that happened in your dealing with this file, Ms Doherty?
Ms Doherty: Well, I think on about the 13th of November, I decided to try to get more information on the underserviced area program. I had found out from Larry by phone that Dr Donahue had been on the underserviced area program until the end of August, which meant that his billings would have started at zero.
Mr Taman: When did you find that out?
Ms Doherty: I think the 13th.
Mr Taman: And what did you take from that?
Ms Doherty: That he had billed $400,000 between September 1 and November 15.
Mr Taman: That is to say that if he was in fact over the threshold --
Ms Doherty: November 15, yes.
Mr Taman: -- on the 15th of November, then given his underserviced area program status, the clock does not start ticking until September 1. You thought the amount must have been earned during that interim?
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Taman: Did you have any other conversation with Mr Corea on the 13th or so?
Ms Doherty: No, I think that is about it.
Mr Taman: I understand that after talking to Mr Corea, you tried to learn more about the underserviced area program?
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Taman: What did you do?
Ms Doherty: I called the Ministry of Health and spoke to Tariq Asmi. He told me about, in general terms, how the program worked. He told me that I should meet with Dr Claire Brunet, and I did. I walked over to the Hepburn building and I spoke to Dr Brunet.
Mr Taman: Who is Tariq Asmi?
Ms Doherty: His job title I do not know.
Mr Taman: He is an official in the underserviced area program?
Ms Doherty: He works in the underserviced area program.
Mr Taman: Did he seem to be aware of Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Did you and he discuss Dr Donahue at all?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: What was your conversation?
Ms Doherty: If I could just refer to my notes on this. I took notes of our conversation; I would just like to refer to them. He said that the purpose of it was to provide more equitable service in underserviced areas and there they were tax-free financial incentives to encourage doctors to establish full-time practices in certain areas. He told me that there were bursaries and a northern travelling specialist program. He talked a bit about Dr Donahue and said that the fee for service, that he was using it to support his staff of 14 and that was an inappropriate use of fee for service, that perhaps there were other ways of funding such a large practice.
Mr Taman: What did you take him to mean when he said that it was an inappropriate way of running such a large practice?
Ms Doherty: I thought there may be other programs within the Ministry of Health that perhaps Dr Donahue should be using.
Mr Taman: And did you have any idea of what they might be?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: And did you have any other conversation with Tariq Asmi?
Ms Doherty: No, I did not.
Mr Taman: Did you at any point talk to Dr Brunet?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Who is Dr Brunet?
Ms Doherty: She is senior to Tariq Asmi in the underserviced area program. She told me about dermatology services in the north, and she was discussing the relative nature between dermatology and perhaps cardiology or surgery. She said that when a dermatologist goes on holidays, they do not replace that dermatologist; that when a surgeon goes on holidays, they do, so surgery is more critical to a community than dermatology is; that dermatologists typically have a low overhead and better working hours than other doctors; that she had worked in Timmins as a GP and that they had a fly-in doctor at one time per month and that was sufficient for the needs of the community; that what a dermatologist can do is diagnose the skin disease and the follow-up treatment can be continued by a general practitioner.
Mr Taman: Did she also give you a copy -- if you will turn to exhibit 8 -- of a document summarizing the underserviced area program? It is about halfway back in exhibit 8, which is actually a bundle of documents.
Ms Doherty: I do not see it; oh, here it is.
Mr Taman: Have you got it?
Ms Doherty: Okay.
Mr Taman: So I am looking at a document that is entitled, "Summary of Components," and the first heading is "History" and then "Activities."
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you received your copy of that document from Dr Brunet?
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Taman: And that would be on about the 13th of November?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Did you have any other conversation about this matter with Dr Brunet?
Ms Doherty: She had listened to French CBC radio that morning and told me that she had heard Dr Donahue discussing his situation and she said that it was an important test case.
Mr Taman: And she said what, I am sorry?
Ms Doherty: Actually she may not have said this. Perhaps Tariq Asmi said that it was an important test case.
Mr Taman: And what did you take from that?
Ms Doherty: That the whole threshold policy was -- whether or not we were going to be giving exemptions -- being tested with this case.
Mr Taman: So that Dr Donahue was the case, it was put to you, that would test the operation of the thresholds in the underserviced area program?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: All right.
Ms Doherty: Well, for all doctors who wanted exemptions.
Mr Taman: I understand that you continued to look for information by talking to Ms McArthur at the Ministry of Health.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Who is she?
Ms Doherty: She is, I think, I believe, the executive assistant to Eugene LeBlanc. I spoke to Diane McArthur to find out if the joint management committee had met, because I understood that they were to deal with Dr Donahue's concerns.
Mr Taman: And where did you understand that from?
Ms Doherty: Larry Corea told me that the joint management committee was dealing with this issue.
Mr Taman: And did he tell you specifically that they were dealing with Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: What did he tell you, as best you can recall?
Ms Doherty: I asked him -- because he was extremely busy -- who in the ministry I should do follow-up with regarding Dr Donahue, and he said to phone Eugene LeBlanc's office.
Mr Taman: And why?
Ms Doherty: I wanted to find out how his case was progressing through the ministry. I wanted to track it to make sure that it was dealt with.
Mr Taman: You wanted to make sure that something was happening?
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Taman: All right. When did you speak to Diane McArthur? Was that on the 13th as well?
Ms Doherty: If I could just refer to my notes here, yes, it was the 13th of November.
Mr Taman: And what was your conversation with Diane McArthur?
Ms Doherty: Well, she said that she was aware of Dr Donahue's concerns, that they had received a letter from him, that they would be considering his case in the context of all the other letters from doctors from around the province who had applied for exemptions, and that they would be looking at this in terms of specialty and geographic region and what the needs were of the communities.
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Mr Taman: Did she give you any indication that any options were being considered at this stage?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: And did she give you any indication of what steps had been taken within the Ministry of Health to gather information?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Did she indicate whether there had been any communication between the Hepburn Block and Kingston about data on Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Did she indicate to you whether or not the Ministry of Health had any concerns about Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Was there any discussion between you and McArthur about appropriateness of services?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Or billings?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Or distribution of procedures among various medical specialities?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: It was simply an indication that they did indeed have the situation in hand and were looking at it?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And were you comforted by that?
Ms Doherty: Well, I thought things were proceeding fairly slowly, that I had to wait until the joint management committee met and dealt with this. I understood that they had only had one meeting prior to this, so I was not sure this case would be dealt with, no.
Mr Taman: Now, Ms Doherty, I understand that you talked to Larry Corea on the 14th.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: I would just like you to summarize what the state of your knowledge about Dr Donahue was before you spoke to Mr Corea on the 14th, and let me suggest some things to you. You knew that Dr Donahue was a dermatologist?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you knew that he was in Sudbury?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: You knew that he was threatening, or indicating an intention to close his practice?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you knew that he was on the underserviced area program?
Ms Doherty: Yes, until August 31.
Mr Taman: Until?
Ms Doherty: August 31.
Mr Taman: Right. And you considered putting some of that data together, that he might have billed as much as $400,000 between September and the middle of November?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you had some information about how much he paid his staff?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: You got that from him?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: You knew everything that was in the memorandum you wrote to the Treasurer on the 31st?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: You knew that he felt he dealt with only the most serious medical problems?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Because he had said that to you. Now, let me ask you whether arising out of that information base -- have I got it all pretty much?
Ms Doherty: Yes, well, also I guess I knew that the electrolysis was a significant part of his practice. It was significant to him because he had devoted an interview on television to it.
Mr Taman: All right, so you had seen that in the clips.
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Taman: And did you know anything else?
Ms Doherty: Let's see, I think that is about it.
Mr Taman: All right. I understand that you had then some concerns about the service situation in Sudbury arising out of this information. Just share with us what those concerns were.
Ms Doherty: We were receiving many calls into the constituency office and I believe Floyd received some calls at home. People were very afraid that they would lose their dermatologist and that they would have to travel to Toronto to receive care. I also knew, from Ian Wood in the constituency office, that cardiologists may hit their threshold before Christmas and that the obstetricians may hit their threshold after Christmas. So it was becoming a big issue in the riding.
Mr Taman: All right, and so you were concerned, I take it, about the possibility that there might be a substantial number of medical specialists who would be leaving northern Ontario?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: I understand that, as well, you had some concerns about what I think a moment ago you called inconsistencies in Dr Donahue's circumstances. What did you have in mind there?
Ms Doherty: Well, he said to me on the phone that he only saw serious skin problems because he was the only full-time dermatologist in the area and he did not have time to deal with the less serious conditions that GPs in the north would tend to deal with, the less serious conditions, whereas when I read the interview he did on MCTV, it became apparent to me that he was doing electrolysis, and as electrolysis was being delisted that Friday, November 15, I thought that was not a serious condition yet he was working on it.
Mr Taman: Look with me at exhibit 10, if you will, and tell me if that is the news report in which you learned that Dr Donahue's practice included some electrolysis.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: All right. What other inconsistencies, as you saw it, did you feel needed to be explored in Dr Donahue's circumstances?
Ms Doherty: He said he had extremely high overhead, and yet Dr Brunet had told me that dermatologists had low overhead compared to most other doctors. So that was another inconsistency. And he said he had a large staff complement, yet Dr Brunet had said that a dermatologist is more concerned with the diagnosis and that GPs would do follow-up if need be, so there was somewhat of an inconsistency there. He said that he did not earn very much money -- well, that is the impression I got. He told me that he earned less than a general practitioner, and he said in his interview on MCTV that electrolysis did not bring him in very much money, yet I knew what he was paying some of his staff. I am losing my voice.
Mr Taman: Do you have some water there?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I am fine. He said he was breaching his threshold, or that the threshold was forcing him out of business November 15, and I knew how much he was paying his staff, so I figured from that that he was probably earning a lot more in two and a half months than a GP would earn in a year.
Mr Taman: I am not asking you to do it now, but did you actually try to calculate out the numbers to satisfy yourself on that point?
Ms Doherty: Well, it did not take very much calculation. It was self-evident.
Mr Taman: So you had a look at what he told you he paid his staff --
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: -- and you figured out how much it would cost him for staff over a period of three months or so in this little interim period --
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: -- and you concluded, as I understand it, that it did not get you very close to $400,000.
Ms Doherty: I concluded that he would be bringing home between $150,000 and $200,000, if what he said was true, that he was reaching his threshold November 15.
Mr Taman: So that was just mathematics based on what he had told you.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And your understanding of a kind of rough calculation.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: So do I understand that this was really just an inconsistency which you thought needed to be explored in your mind?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: All right. Was there anything else? Were you alert to the fact that although he was indicating an intention to leave the community he was also contemplating opening a clinic? Was that something you knew?
Ms Doherty: Yes, that was the other thing: Was he actually going to leave or not? He said he was going to leave November 15 and his patients were frightened that he was going to leave, yet he did say he would open up the Doctor's Studio in Sudbury for electrolysis.
Mr Taman: So would it be fair to say that your general disposition towards Dr Donahue at this point was that on the one hand you were concerned about the service implications of him and others possibly leaving the north, if that was going to happen --
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: -- but that on the other hand you had a questioning attitude towards his particular circumstances?
Ms Doherty: Yes. I wanted to know what was actually happening.
Mr Taman: Now, I understand that on the way over to meet Mr Corea on the 14th you bumped into Ms Martel.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And that was in the elevator coming down from the seventh floor in the Frost building?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
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Mr Taman: And she had been there for a meeting?
Ms Doherty: I believe she was there for an estimates meeting.
Mr Taman: You were there with Mr Wood, who is Mr Laughren's constituency assistant in Nickel Belt.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you were on your way to see Mr Corea. Was there any conversation among you and Miss Martel and Mr Wood during that elevator ride? Those of us who have been in the Frost building know this could be quite a long ride, I should tell you.
Ms Doherty: It was not too long. Ian would know Shelley Martel. I had met her once previously, so I do not really know her. Shelley Martel asked Ian what he was doing in Toronto. I do not know what he responded, but I know he was in Toronto for a workshop, a communications workshop, put on by caucus services, and was on a break. It was actually before the workshop began. And she -- I think Ian was saying that we were going over to the Hepburn Block to meet with Larry and to get more information on the doctors' situation in Sudbury, and Shelley mentioned something about losing some sympathy with Dr Donahue's situation.
Mr Taman: And what did you understand her to mean by that?
Ms Doherty: I did not pursue it. I was not really talking to Shelley. I was listening to her conversation with Ian, and I just assumed that she probably knew what I knew, which was that he had been -- if he was reaching his threshold November 15, he then would have been billing $400,000 in two and a half months, so he actually may be earning more than he was saying he was.
Mr Taman: Now, this is a conversation, I understand, that took only a couple of minutes.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And did you or Mr Wood actually speak to Miss Martel about any of the questions that you had on your mind?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: And so she, you recall, said something to the effect that she had less sympathy for Dr Donahue than she once had.
Ms Doherty: Something like that, yes.
Mr Taman: And you, without discussing the specifics, just took it that she might be thinking of some of the same questions that you were.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And was there anything else in that conversation with Miss Martel?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: So you then made your way over to Mr Corea's office.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you got there about lunchtime.
Ms Doherty: I believe so.
Mr Taman: And Mr Wood was still with you.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you talked, I understand, for about 10 minutes.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And you were following up on your request for information, which had been advanced by Ms Notar's memo of the 13th.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: You now have a Treasurer who has a public meeting on the 15th, and it is now the 14th, and you still have no information.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: So would it be fair to say that you went over there with the intention of getting some information out of Mr Corea so that you could brief your member?
Ms Doherty: Yes, well, I thought there might be some response and I was disappointed that there was not, although we received an indication that the right people were looking into this and, um --
Mr Taman: Let's deal with it one point at a time. Excuse me for interrupting you, but first of all, you had hoped to get something and you did not. What did you hope to get?
Ms Doherty: Well, a response to the memo, which was Dr Donahue's actual position, and a political response.
Mr Taman: So were you told when you might expect that response?
Ms Doherty: No. Well, I was told that maybe the following day we would receive some materials.
Mr Taman: And did you have any conversation with Mr Corea about the questions that you had raised in your own mind?
Ms Doherty: Yes. I believe I raised many of the inconsistencies I just noted and that Larry indicated that they were good questions to be asking, that we were on the right track, but he did not have any answers for us. That is about it.
Mr Taman: Did you have any conversation with him about getting information about health matters from the Ministry of Health?
Ms Doherty: Health matters?
Mr Taman: That is, was there any discussion with him about private and confidential information in the context of this file?
Ms Doherty: Well, he did say if we needed to know it we would get it, meaning if -- that we would not receive any confidential information, which was just fine with us. We did not want any confidential information.
Mr Taman: So you thought that you could get an answer to your memo without getting any confidential information?
Ms Doherty: Yes. I expected the Ministry of Health would vet the information.
Mr Taman: Did Mr Corea have anything else to say to you about confidential information?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Did you discuss at all with Mr Corea Dr Donahue's billing practices?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Did you have any discussion with him about Dr Donahue's financial circumstances?
Ms Doherty: No, just our questions about them. He did not have any answers.
Mr Taman: What about his practice mix among various medical specialties, was that discussed?
Ms Doherty: I do not remember, no.
Mr Taman: Did you discuss with Mr Corea on the 14th any concerns that the Ministry of Health might have in connection with Dr Donahue's practice?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: And did you discuss whether or not for any other purpose the Ministry of Health was having a look at Dr Donahue's circumstances?
Ms Doherty: Just that they were looking into the questions we asked, you know; what his actual position was, nothing else.
Mr Taman: Did Mr Corea show you any documents or memoranda to give you information?
Ms Doherty: No, only that -- the only memos he showed me were the e-mails. At that point I realized that Health had been working on it since the 12th.
Mr Taman: Now, let's talk about which e-mails he showed you. Can you tell us that?
Ms Doherty: The ones I saw -- I identified at the beginning, the one from Sue Colley and the one he had sent summarizing my memo.
Mr Taman: Just so we are clear, the memoranda he showed you at that time, as you recall -- and if you will just look with me -- were exhibit 28 and exhibit 29?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Now, will you look with me at exhibit 44?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: If you look in the top right-hand corner -- I guess it is the second page -- of that document you will see an e-mail. It is dated November 13, 1991, said to be from Mr Teatero.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Did Mr Corea show you this memorandum?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Are you sure?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: How can you be sure?
Ms Doherty: Because I have never seen it before.
Mr Taman: Have you ever seen it before today?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Did you then on the 14th have any other conversation with Mr Corea?
Ms Doherty: On the 14th? No.
Mr Taman: Did he tell you that Dr MacMillan was involved in having a look at this file?
Ms Doherty: I think the 13th was the day I first heard Dr MacMillan's name in association with the doctor situation in Sudbury. It was very fleeting and my sense was that the right people in Health were starting to deal with this issue, because I think Larry had said that OHIP had to deal with some of the questions around Dr Donahue's situation and Dr MacMillan was the person to -- it was not said directly like that, but the impression I was left with was that the right people in Health were dealing with this and Dr MacMillan's name was mentioned.
Mr Taman: Did you see it really as part of your job to try to get the Ministry of Health to respond to this?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
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Mr Taman: Did you come away from the meeting thinking that that was starting to happen?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I was hopeful that we would have some briefing notes for Floyd Friday.
Mr Taman: Did you come away from the meeting with any other conclusions? I take it that you would have concluded that there might be something to the questions you were asking?
Ms Doherty: Yes, and that Dr Donahue was going to have to discuss his problem directly with the Ministry of Health.
Mr Taman: Let me ask you, why did you come to that conclusion?
Ms Doherty: Larry must have said something about that, that that was the right way to go about it, that Ministry of Health people should be dealing with this, OHIP should be dealing with this problem.
Mr Taman: Did he explain to you why that was so?
Ms Doherty: Not really, no.
Mr Taman: Did you in fact get the information you had hoped for from Mr Corea on the 15th?
Ms Doherty: We received form letters that were sent out to MPPs regarding the decision to provide no exemptions to the threshold.
Mr Taman: If you look at exhibit 52, this is a bundle of documents that were prepared in the Ministry of Health to be sent out to various persons who were interested in this issue. If you flip through, there is a letter to MPPs. Did Mr Laughren get his copy of that letter?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: I have a copy of the letter that is stamped "Received Nov 19 1991." Do you know when you received it?
Ms Doherty: Well, our office would have --
Mr Taman: When you first saw it?
Ms Doherty: Well, the first time I saw it they were letters to other MPPs. There was a pile of them. Floyd Laughren's name was not among them, but it was just a form letter, and then I received our copy the following week.
Mr Taman: Probably on the date it is stamped, November 19. Chair, perhaps we should mark that as the next exhibit.
The Chair: That will be marked as exhibit 123. We will have to make photocopies and distribute it to members of committee.
Mr Taman: It is Mr Laughren's copy of letters that the members have already seen. So your situation, as I understand it, on November 15 is that you still have no information to speak of, agreed?
Ms Doherty: Agreed. Well, yes, just the information from Dr Brunet in the sense that Dr Donahue had to deal directly with the Ministry of Health.
Mr Taman: You still have no answer from the Ministry of Health to your memorandum of the 13th.
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: So you have got a doctor who has patients in your MPP's area who says he is going to close and you do not really know what, to use your expression, his actual position is: Is this going to happen or not?
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: In addition, you have got a member who is going to an important public meeting on the 15th and has no briefing note.
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Taman: So do I understand that on the 15th you set to work to provide your own briefing note for Mr Laughren?
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Taman: Is this a briefing note in which you attempted to provide him with all the information that you thought was relevant as of that point?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Was it also a briefing note that took into account everything that you had learned up to date in your research?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Including everything you had learned that you thought was significant in your conversation with Mr Corea on the 14th?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: If you look at exhibit 105 -- will you have a look at it and tell me whether that is the briefing note that you prepared.
Ms Doherty: Yes, Ian and I worked on this.
Mr Taman: In the first paragraph of the memorandum, you indicate that the Treasurer should know that it may be necessary for Dr Donahue to share more details of his practice with the ministry if there is going to be a solution to this problem?
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Taman: And then in the second part you give some details about dermatology in the north, the northeast?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And then in the third part I take it this would be some of the information you got from Dr Claire Brunet. You tell him a little bit about dermatology?
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Taman: And then in the fourth part there are some other considerations which you think that he ought to know about.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And then in the fifth paragraph you express an opinion which you set out there. Now, can you tell me, Ms Doherty, how you came to put this opinion in the briefing note?
Ms Doherty: I did not want this opinion to be in the briefing note. I strongly objected to it being sent out to Floyd in this manner. I thought it was inappropriate. Although Ian and I wrote it together, I really thought that we did not have answers to our questions and we should not be saying these things.
Mr Taman: Now, let me just be clear. This memorandum goes out under your name and Mr Wood's name.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And who wrote this opinion?
Ms Doherty: I did.
Mr Taman: All right.
Ms Doherty: With Ian.
Mr Taman: And you say that you considered it inappropriate to go in a briefing note to the Treasurer.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Why was that, precisely?
Ms Doherty: Well, I never put opinions in briefing notes. I do briefing notes all the time, and we just do not put in our opinions. Floyd would not be interested in an opinion like this. It does not provide any useful information.
Mr Taman: But I take it it would be fair to say, since you typed it into the machine, that it reflected some --
Ms Doherty: It was a reaction to some of the information that we had, but when it was printed out, as you do with drafts, you realize that whole sections, perhaps, should be removed. I just thought that this was premature, we did not have all the answers to the questions, so we should not be saying things like this.
Mr Taman: So it was inappropriate because, if I understand what you are telling us, you did not really have a basis to express such an opinion?
Ms Doherty: We did not have a basis to express such an opinion, and number two, we do not put opinions in briefing notes.
Mr Taman: So that was a second sense in which it was inappropriate.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: If you knew that then, as you know it now, Ms Doherty, how did it end up in the briefing note?
Ms Doherty: Ian has a senior position to mine, and when it was printed out, I said that I would go back to my computer and I just had to press "control page down" and it would be gone. He walked away with it to the fax machine, and I went with him to the fax machine and I said, "I really don't think we should send this to Floyd," and he proceeded to fax it.
Mr Taman: Now, do you know whether or not Mr Laughren saw the briefing note around the time it was made?
Ms Doherty: He did not.
Mr Taman: And how do you know he did not see it?
Ms Doherty: I asked him when he returned at the end of February from his holidays.
Mr Taman: And how did it happen that he did not see it when it was faxed to him, I take it to his constituency office?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: On the 15th. How did it happen that he did not see it?
Ms Doherty: When the briefing note was completed, he was just about ready to go to the meeting, and he -- well, Sue Wyers, I believe, in the constituency office, picked it up.
Mr Taman: Who is Sue Wyers?
Ms Doherty: She is the constituency assistant in Chelmsford. I spoke to Sue on the phone and she said that Floyd was on his way out the door. I asked to speak to him, and Ian was with me, and I asked him to please disregard the bottom part of the memo, but that the salient points of the memo were that Dr Donahue should discuss his practice with OHIP, with the Ministry of Health directly, and that dermatology was not supposed to have high overhead, that sort of information, very quickly and briefly over the phone, and he went off to his meeting. He does not read in cars, so I do not believe he would have read this on the way to the meeting.
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Mr Taman: Did you ask him later on if he had read it when it was sent in November?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I did.
Mr Taman: When did you ask him?
Ms Doherty: At the end of February.
Mr Taman: What did he tell you?
Ms Doherty: He said that the first time he saw it was when he received this file to prepare him for potentially being called to this committee.
Mr Taman: Did he read the memorandum then in February of 1992?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Did he let you know his views about this part dealing with your opinion?
Ms Doherty: Yes, he did.
Mr Taman: What did he say?
Ms Doherty: He was very unhappy. I do not remember his exact words, but he expressed great disapproval.
Mr Taman: Why was he unhappy?
Ms Doherty: He did not say why; it was just evident that you do not put things like this in a memo.
Mr Taman: I take it, as we sit here today, that you are satisfied this was not appropriate to go in the briefing note?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Speaking of briefing notes, if you look at exhibit 14 you will see a briefing note that was prepared by the critical issues group in the Ministry of Health. It is dated the 14th, dealing with delivery of dermatology services in Sudbury. Did your office get that memorandum or briefing note on the 14th or 15th?
Ms Doherty: No, we did not.
Mr Taman: Do you recall whether you ever received this?
Ms Doherty: No. I do not have it in my files.
Mr Taman: I am sorry, I cannot quite hear you.
Ms Doherty: Was this in the package that went to Sudbury on December 5? Because it may look vaguely familiar to me, but --
Mr Taman: But you do not have it in your file?
Ms Doherty: No, I do not think so.
Mr Taman: Will you look with me and Mr Campbell at exhibit 53?
The Chair: Ms Doherty, I am advised by our Hansard that if you could speak up just a little bit it would be helpful. Thank you.
Mr Taman: If you look at exhibit 53, that is a memorandum that is addressed to you by fax and also to Mr Sword in Miss Martel's office. It sets out what are described as certain "additional thoughts that you might want to incorporate into Floyd's and Shelley's notes." Did you get this document?
Ms Doherty: I got it the afternoon of the 15th.
Mr Taman: I cannot quite hear you still.
Ms Doherty: I got it the afternoon of the 15th.
Mr Taman: Was that after you had prepared and sent off your own fax?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Briefing note?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: If you just have a look at it with me, can you tell me to what extent it adds to the information base you had at the time you wrote your briefing note?
Ms Doherty: It just confirms that Dr Donahue should really sit down with the Ministry of Health, so for me it was important that I ensure that the right people talked to Dr Donahue directly. It is basically, I suppose, information that I already knew about.
Mr Taman: Did you do anything with that information?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: What happened next then in your dealing with this matter?
Ms Doherty: I called the constituency office on Monday to find out what the result of this meeting was on Friday, and Sue Wyers told me about how the meeting had progressed. I wanted to know what the fallout would be. There was nothing really new. I expected -- I am not sure what I expected, but I thought there may be something happening on that day because Dr Donahue was supposed to have closed his practice. I believe he did not actually close his practice. He waited another few weeks or two weeks. He waited another couple of weeks before he closed his practice.
Mr Taman: If we look at the period between the 15th and the 30th of November, tell us what action if any you were involved in in connection with Dr Donahue and thresholds in the north.
Ms Doherty: Okay. I was told by Sue, I believe, Sue Wyers in the constituency office, that Shelley was now to take the lead on this issue and so I would have a lesser role. I had some contact with Dr de Blacam, the president of the Sudbury medical society, and he wanted to have Michael Decter attend a meeting in Sudbury. He wanted Michael Decter to deal with the issues in Sudbury. There was a tentative meeting set up for November 23, which did not eventually work out. I had trouble getting information about even when that meeting would be. I know there was a lot of media coverage during this period in Sudbury. The media was calling for the three MPPs to meet with the doctors, and there seemed to be a lot of misunderstanding about what the MPPs were doing to try to solve this problem.
Mr Taman: Did you in fact drop a bit out of dealing with this problem, given that the lead, as you expressed it, had gone over to Miss Martel?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Did you know that the Treasurer went to the meeting in Sudbury on the 30th?
Ms Doherty: This is the meeting with --
Mr Taman: With the cardiologists on the 30th.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Were there any preparations involved at your end in connection with that meeting?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Did you know that the Treasurer participated in a breakfast meeting the day of that meeting?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Did you get a report from him about what had happened at that breakfast meeting?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: So if we look at that whole period, can you just summarize for me what, if any, were the additions to your knowledge of Dr Donahue and the thresholds during that period?
Ms Doherty: Nothing new about Dr Donahue, certainly.
Mr Taman: Now, if you look with me at exhibit 55, this is a fax to Mr Corea from you. It is dated November 19. Can you tell me what prompted the sending of that fax?
Ms Doherty: I wanted to know when the meeting was actually going to be, the 23rd or the 5th. I believe on November 19 I did not really know. We had not received an invitation. It may have come to the office, but it never reached my desk. There were demands that the three MPPs attend the meeting, but we had not received an invitation, and it was of concern because we schedule Floyd well in advance for meetings. So what else is in this? I was aware that Health received regular media files, and I thought it would be useful if I could get them on a regular basis, and I could in turn share them with the other MPP offices, both Sharon Murdock's office and Shelley Martel's office.
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Mr Taman: Will you look at 56 and tell me whether or not that is a reply to 55?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I think so.
Mr Taman: And then 57. Can you identify that for us?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: Tell me what that document is, please?
Ms Doherty: It is in response to a memo I sent to the Ministry of Health. The first issue has nothing to do with the doctor situation. The second is in response to my request -- I was forwarding a request from Dr de Blacam that Michael Decter deal with the situation directly.
Mr Taman: And then, finally, if you will look at exhibit 63, can you identify this as a communication from you to Mr Corea indicating what you believed to be your understanding about what was going to go in the package or the press kit for the meeting on the 5th?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: If we look at the period from November 30 till the meeting on the 5th, did you have any involvement with this matter, apart from what you have just told us about?
Ms Doherty: Well, Shelley's office, represented by David Sword, Sharon Murdock's office, represented by Alan Ernst, and myself met with Larry Corea to plan for -- well, getting materials, information materials, in time for the December 5 meeting in Sudbury with the Sudbury medical society. After that meeting I typed up what we felt would be useful information to have at that meeting and I sent it to Larry.
Mr Taman: That is the document we have just exhibited?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Taman: And I understand that during this period you also had a word with Dr LeBlanc?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I did.
Mr Taman: What did you and Eugene LeBlanc speak about?
Ms Doherty: I had asked, I think the day or two before the December 5 meeting -- I had been speaking to Dr de Blacam and I asked what was on the agenda for the December 5 meeting, and he said there was not an agenda. Though I pressed, I could not get a response. I decided to call Eugene LeBlanc's office because I understood that he may be involved somehow and I asked him if he knew what was going on. He indicated what he knew would be the subject of the meeting.
Mr Taman: Did you have any contact with the threshold issue of any substance after December 5, Ms Doherty?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Prior to coming here today, and apart from any conversations you have had with Mr Campbell, have you discussed these events and your evidence today with anyone?
Ms Doherty: I reviewed the sequence -- the chronology of events with Floyd Laughren.
Mr Taman: When did you do that?
Ms Doherty: February 27, and Simon Rosenblum was in the room.
Mr Taman: What about Mr Dee? Did you speak to Mr Dee?
Ms Doherty: Yes, not about my testimony but about -- well, I am not sure of the date, but he came over to review the file and we just quickly went through my file.
Mr Taman: And Mr Wood, did you speak to Mr Wood as well?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Taman: Sorry?
Ms Doherty: No, just to ascertain a date -- the November 14 date when we met with Larry Corea.
Mr Taman: Mr Chair, Ms Doherty has been good enough to give us a bundle of notes which she has kept from time to time on this matter. I think it would be appropriate for these to go before the committee in camera for this reason: I am concerned they should be fully vetted for any sensitive information. I have not had an opportunity to do so, and so on that basis I suggest we might wait to look at those notes, if anyone wishes to do so, until we can quickly convene in camera.
The Chair: Fine. We understand, and we have always been sensitive to that particular matter. As a result, we will review those particular notes but only on an in camera basis.
Mr Taman: Those are all my questions. I should say in fairness to Ms Doherty, just so there is no misunderstanding, that she provided me with these notes some time ago and we have not had the opportunity to vet them, so it is our failing, not hers.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Taman. I will now open up a round of questioning. We will commence with Mr Harnick. Keeping in mind the amount of time on questioning, I have allocated 25 minutes per caucus.
Mr Harnick: Ms Doherty, I find your evidence fascinating because you are the first person I can think of who actually went out and spoke to Dr Donahue. You attempted to find out what the facts of this situation were by starting at the real source. I think what you found out very early on, before any real controversy had started to arise, was that Dr Donahue was in debt. He had a number of staff. You learned how much he was paying his staff. You learned that he was the only full-time dermatologist, and you learned that he was earning less than a general practitioner. Is that correct?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: I suspect as a result of that meeting you had some sympathy for his situation and at that stage, in your mind, you wanted to help him. Is that correct?
Ms Doherty: Yes. I understood his problem as he explained it.
Mr Harnick: You wanted to go out and help find a solution for him, correct?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: All right. Then you wrote a memo that I found to be rather curious in that you were writing to Sue Colley under the name of Betty Notar, correct? Did you not do the memo?
Ms Doherty: I drafted it.
Mr Harnick: You drafted it.
Ms Doherty: For her signature.
Mr Harnick: She signed it, but it was really your memo.
Ms Doherty: Well, she read it and approved it and signed it.
Mr Harnick: But you drafted it.
Ms Doherty: I drafted it.
Mr Harnick: I gather you drafted it on the basis of your interview with Dr Donahue.
Ms Doherty: And the subsequent information I was getting on the situation in Sudbury.
Mr Harnick: I am a little confused, then, about the sequence. In terms of the sequence, you saw Dr Donahue --
Ms Doherty: I spoke with him on the phone.
Mr Harnick: You spoke with him on the phone, and then I understood that you prepared that memo.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: Then you went out after that to see Tariq Asmi and Dr Brunet.
Ms Doherty: Yes. There was a time lapse of about a week and a half.
Mr Harnick: But the memo was written first and then you went to see those individuals when you did not get any --
Ms Doherty: The November 13 memo?
Mr Harnick: Yes. Which came first, the memo that Betty Notar signed or the visits to Tariq Asmi and Dr Brunet?
Ms Doherty: I am not absolutely sure which came first, but I think the memo came after my meeting with Dr Brunet. I cannot be absolutely certain.
Mr Harnick: Okay. I will not dwell on that other than to say you were after, in that memo, what Dr Donahue's actual position was.
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Harnick: And you defined "actual position" as being, was he staying or was he leaving?
Ms Doherty: Yes. Was he at his threshold or was he not at his threshold?
Mr Harnick: Okay. That makes a little more sense to me, because generally when you ask what somebody's position is, I sort of think in terms of his financial position.
Mr Doherty: He told me what his financial position was. That was not a question for me. The question was he equated reaching his threshold with leaving Sudbury, so the two were equal in my mind.
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Mr Harnick: You also asked for a political response. In your evidence you described -- when you were asked what you meant by political response, you defined it as how to provide dermatology services. That is how you defined --
Ms Doherty: How to --
Mr Harnick: -- political response, would be how to provide dermatology services.
Ms Doherty: Oh yes, how would --
Mr Harnick: Assuming he left, I gather.
Ms Doherty: -- dermatological services be provided to the Sudbury area residents?
Mr Harnick: Why do you describe that as a political response?
Ms Doherty: That was the issue, how were we going to deal with the threshold issue in Sudbury? It was not just dermatology either. It was -- for November 15, yes, we wanted to know how we would deal with the gap in service.
Mr Harnick: What is political about that?
Ms Doherty: It is a policy issue.
Mr Harnick: Well --
Ms Doherty: Policy issues are determined by politicians.
Mr Harnick: Okay, so there was a political connotation to the policy that was going to be implemented?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: Am I right about that?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: I do not want to put words in your mouth, but we are really dealing here with a political situation, as you saw it.
Ms Doherty: Yes. Part of the response could come from the civil service, of course. There may be other ways of dealing with this situation.
Mr Harnick: Contemporaneous with this memo and those words, you went out and you saw Tariq Asmi.
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Harnick: She thought it was unusual --
Ms Doherty: He.
Mr Harnick: He?
Ms Doherty: He.
Mr Harnick: He thought it was unusual, I think you said, that it was inappropriate for a doctor to be charging a fee for service at the same time as paying a staff of 14.
Ms Doherty: No, I believe he meant that in order to finance or support a staff of 14, one should not be using the fee-for-service model.
Mr Harnick: What other models did he provide you with?
Ms Doherty: He did not talk about any other models.
Mr Harnick: Did you know what he was talking about?
Ms Doherty: No. I was aware of community health centres. I was vaguely aware that they are organized differently. I thought that perhaps there were other ways of organizing a doctor's office. I did not know particularly how.
Mr Harnick: All right. Then you saw a Dr Brunet who told you that dermatologists generally have low overhead, that there is no need to replace them when they go on holidays -- a GP can do their job -- and that generally a dermatologist just has to see somebody once and a general practitioner can do the follow-up, correct?
Ms Doherty: That is what can happen, yes.
Mr Harnick: You were also told that Dr Donahue was an important test case.
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm. Tariq Asmi actually said that.
Mr Harnick: Okay. Did you not find it a little bit strange that these people, who were, I guess, not particularly involved with policy development and political items, were all of a sudden telling you that this was a threshold test case?
Ms Doherty: No, I think that they were probably aware of -- well, I knew that they were aware of what Dr Donahue had been saying in the media. He had had several interviews in the media. They receive media files and they obviously read them.
Mr Harnick: Dr Donahue at this stage, as we were reaching the middle of November, was quite a high priority within the circle that you had been investigating in, I suspect.
Ms Doherty: He was a high priority in --
Mr Harnick: Well, everybody seemed to know about his case.
Ms Doherty: Oh, yes.
Mr Harnick: And everybody seemed to know that there was some notoriety associated with it.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: Did you find that to be a little unusual?
Ms Doherty: It is one way of changing a system.
Mr Harnick: And I suppose it is one of those things that happens when the Treasurer starts sending memos asking for information. People generally respond pretty quickly, I suspect. When Floyd Laughren wants something, people generally pay attention, right?
Ms Doherty: Yes, they do; sometimes, no.
Mr Harnick: But did you get the impression that this time around people were well aware of what was going on?
Ms Doherty: Oh, I believe that Health was aware there was concern from our ministry and they were working hard to get a response for us. It just was not happening as quickly as we might like, but from the time I first spoke to Floyd to the November 15 meeting, it was only two weeks.
Mr Harnick: Now, after you had gone and done this little bit of investigating, you really had two pictures in mind. You had the picture that Dr Donahue was giving you, correct?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And you had some information in a general sense that other people were giving you --
Ms Doherty: Well --
Mr Harnick: -- suggesting that there was something unusual about Dr Donahue's practice.
Ms Doherty: Some of the information I was getting that led to questions was from Dr Donahue himself.
Mr Harnick: But you initially said you were sympathetic with Dr Donahue's situation.
Ms Doherty: I did not say I was sympathetic to Dr Donahue's situation. I said I understood it.
Mr Harnick: All right.
Ms Doherty: I understood his arguments.
Mr Harnick: And you were going to go out and try and help him is what you told me.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: All right. And at the same time you had now seen Dr Brunet and Tariq Asmi, and it is safe to say that you were somewhat sceptical at this point, were you not?
Ms Doherty: Yes. As a result of the information they gave me, I had a better idea of the practice of dermatology and what it entailed.
Mr Harnick: And in fact you really had a whole lot of questions that you wanted answered so you could provide the accurate information to Mr Laughren.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And that is the state of your mind when you went to see Larry Corea.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: He was the next person you saw, and he was, as I understand it, the -- how did he describe himself? He was the customer service person with the Ministry of Health.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And that is why you went to see him.
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Harnick: And when you went to see him, you told him about what Dr Donahue had told you, I suspect.
Ms Doherty: I had sent him the fax, a copy of the memo I had given Floyd summarizing his position.
Mr Harnick: Did you go to see Larry Corea personally?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And was that when you were with --
Ms Doherty: Ian Wood.
Mr Harnick: Ian Wood?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And Ian Wood had been receiving all the phone calls back in Sudbury.
Ms Doherty: And Sue Wyers was --
Mr Harnick: But Ian Wood was with you. So he had a real appreciation of how fast and how frequently the phone was ringing with inquiries about Dr Donahue.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And you went to see Mr Corea.
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Harnick: And I suspect you told him what Dr Donahue had told you. That must have factored into your conversation with Mr Corea.
Ms Doherty: He already knew what Dr Donahue had told me.
Mr Harnick: All right. And then I guess you went and you put to him some of the things that Tariq Asmi and Dr Brunet told you.
Ms Doherty: Yes, I probably would have brought that up. I was talking about some of those inconsistencies or the questions we had, and part of some of that was as a result of the information I had received from Dr Brunet.
Mr Harnick: And you put all this to Mr Corea.
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Harnick: And Mr Corea obviously had been receiving documentation from you and perhaps from other people. Is that correct?
Ms Doherty: Documentation?
Mr Harnick: He must have been looking into the Dr Donahue situation by this time himself, was he not?
Ms Doherty: Oh, yes. Yes.
Mr Harnick: So he had been doing some digging on his own, had he not?
Ms Doherty: He had, I found out at that meeting, sent an e-mail on the 12th asking -- well, summarizing my memo to him and sending it off.
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Mr Harnick: Is that the Betty Notar memo that went to Sue Colley or is that a different memo?
Ms Doherty: I sent Larry the initial memo I had directed to Floyd. I understand that Larry took that memo and sent an e-mail to somebody in the Ministry of Health summarizing what I said and asking for a response.
Mr Harnick: When you went to see Larry, what did he tell you about Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: He did not tell me anything about Dr Donahue. He --
Mr Harnick: When you put the propositions to him from Tariq Asmi and Dr Brunet, and he already had your memo summarizing his actual position, surely you talked about Dr Donahue.
Ms Doherty: I talked about all of my questions, all of the things that did not really make any sense to me.
Mr Harnick: What did Larry Corea tell you about Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: He did not say anything to me about Dr Donahue because I understood he did not know anything yet. He had not heard back. He had not had a response to our request for information. What he said to me was that those were good questions that we needed to have answered before we could deal with the policy questions of whether there should be exemptions to thresholds.
Mr Harnick: So you went to Mr Corea to get some answers and you ended up giving him some questions, and he really had nothing to tell you.
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Harnick: All right. Then as a result of that you came back and you produced exhibit 105.
Ms Doherty: No, it was the following day.
Mr Harnick: Well, at some stage you got back to your office on the 14th. Did you do anything between the 14th when you got back to your office and finished your meeting with Corea and the 15th when you prepared this?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Harnick: All right. So the next thing you did, after you saw Corea, was prepare exhibit 105, correct?
Ms Doherty: Yes, on --
Mr Harnick: You did not see anybody else. You did not do any more research. You just went and prepared exhibit 105.
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Harnick: And the very first conclusion you came to was, "Donahue has not disclosed the full details of his practice."
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Harnick: How did you know that?
Ms Doherty: Larry had told us that the questions we were asking were valid, legitimate questions, so those questions needed to be answered and that would be disclosing more details.
Mr Harnick: So because you found out that fee-for-service was perhaps an inappropriate way to pay a staff of 14, you were now coming to the conclusion that Dr Donahue had not disclosed the full details of his practice.
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Harnick: Because dermatology generally has a low overhead, but Dr Donahue told you he had a high overhead and had 14 people, that made you come to the conclusion he had not disclosed the full details of his practice.
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Harnick: How did you come to that conclusion? Tell me the facts you relied on.
Ms Doherty: I relied on the facts that he said he was reaching his threshold, that I knew he had completed the underserviced area program August 31st, which meant he would have billed $400,000 in two and a half months. I knew he paid his nurses $35,000 and they were the highest-paid people in his office; perhaps that was an assumption, but I think that is true. I knew there were 14 people on his staff. I did a simple calculation in my head and figured that in wages alone, maximum $80,000 to $100,000, and let's give him $100,000 in other payments for equipment or rent. I do not know. I am not an expert in health overhead, but I thought that might be reasonable, and I figured he must have been taking home $150,000 to $200,000.
Mr Harnick: Did you talk to Mr Corea about that?
Ms Doherty: Those were the details that did not make sense. He --
Mr Harnick: Did you talk to Mr Corea about all those figures?
Ms Doherty: I had not really thought it through. At that point I was thinking, "$400,000 is a lot to bill in two and a half months."
Mr Harnick: Did you ask Mr Corea about that?
Ms Doherty: I did not ask him. I was saying, "Gee, that means he's been billing a lot," and he said yes.
Mr Harnick: Mr Corea agreed that he was billing a lot.
Ms Doherty: It seemed a lot.
Mr Harnick: Did Mr Corea have any details of that for you?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Harnick: Did he work out any figures with you?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Harnick: You wanted to invite Dr Donahue to share the details of his practice with the Ministry of Health health council, medical society. Why is that?
Ms Doherty: If there was a problem that needed to be resolved, if he was hitting his threshold, if there was another way to organize his practice, then perhaps the other people involved with health provision in the Sudbury area should get involved.
Mr Harnick: This is another conclusion that you reached on your own?
Ms Doherty: Partly. I think it had to do with something Dr Brunet said about the community becoming involved in solving the service needs of the Sudbury area, that that was --
Mr Harnick: So that helped you come to the conclusion that Dr Donahue should really make public the details of his practice.
Ms Doherty: Not make public, no. I mean, what was in my mind was that the real focus was that he should talk to the Ministry of Health about his practice, the details of his practice, and if he wanted to get to -- if there were other problems that needed to be resolved in terms of provision of service, then he should involve the appropriate community organizations to do that.
Mr Harnick: Dealing with the area where it says "Our Opinion," that means yours and --
Ms Doherty: Ian's.
Mr Harnick: -- Ian Wood's opinion.
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Harnick: You said, "He wants taxpayers to support his entrepreneurial greed." Where did you get the facts that drew you to that conclusion or that opinion?
Ms Doherty: Well, I do not think we had the facts to make that kind of statement. We still had questions in our minds. I certainly did.
Mr Harnick: Why would you write that down then?
Ms Doherty: I think it is the reaction of somebody who earns a lot less money who cannot imagine what it is like to bring in what he could have been bringing in in two and a half months and that --
Mr Harnick: But did you ever stop to think that maybe your calculation was wrong?
Ms Doherty: Oh yes, I did, and that is why I thought that should not be there.
Mr Harnick: Yet you wrote that down anyway, even though you might have been wrong.
Ms Doherty: Well, typing and writing is very quick for me, so --
Mr Harnick: Did anybody tell you you might be right --
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Harnick: -- to bolster your opinion?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Harnick: No one told you you might be right?
Ms Doherty: I did not ask anybody if I was right. It was a quick, momentary reaction.
Mr Harnick: And then you said, "He wants to be exempted from the threshold or he will withhold services from people who really need dermatology care."
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Harnick: How did you draw that opinion?
Ms Doherty: Can you repeat what I said?
Mr Harnick: You said, "He wants to be exempted from the threshold or he will withhold services from the people who really need dermatology care."
Ms Doherty: There was an element in his talk in the media of "If I don't -- " well, he was basically saying, "If I don't get an exemption, I'm leaving," and many patients were really upset that he would be going and they were scared. That was my impression. I thought that since he was going to be repaid at the rate of two thirds between $400,000 and $450,000 of billings and one third after $450,000, he need not leave right away if there is some sort of solution that can be found with the Ministry of Health. But, who knows. I mean, that may not have been the way he was thinking.
The Chair: Mr Harnick, I would just like to remind you that the time is coming to an end.
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Mr Harnick: I will not belabour it. There is just one last question I have. In the course of your meeting with Mr Corea, in which Mr Corea had no answers but only listened to questions, somehow there was a fleeting mention of Dr MacMillan's name?
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Harnick: Did that come up in your questions or did it come up in his answers?
Ms Doherty: It had to do with what was the Ministry of Health doing while it -- I mean, my recollection is vague probably because the information was vague. It was in relation to who in the Ministry of Health should be dealing with this issue, and Dr MacMillan's name came up then.
Mr Harnick: I gather that is because he was the head of OHIP.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Harnick: Who looks after doctors' billings, right?
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Harnick: All right. Thank you.
The Chair: I would just beg the committee's indulgence. I was just trying to find out some information from Ms Doherty, if potentially she would require a recess for a few moments, and I am advised that not at this time.
Mr Christopherson: Nuala, dealing with your October 31 memo to Floyd following your phone call with Dr Donahue, what was Dr Donahue's tone with you on the phone?
Ms Doherty: He was very straightforward, low-key. He sounded as if he worked hard and he was tired.
Mr Christopherson: Did he make a favourable impression upon you or no impression or a negative impression?
Ms Doherty: He just sounded straightforward. He impressed me as a person who was very straightforward and, you know, wanted some sort of resolution.
Mr Christopherson: It is a fair bit of information for someone to give about themselves as contained in exhibit 91, your October 31 memo, particularly since we know how important confidentiality is to Dr Donahue. With that in mind, how was he with the information? Was it forthcoming from him? Did he want you to have this information? Did he just respond to questions, or did you really have to push to get this kind of detailed information about his private practice?
Ms Doherty: He freely disclosed it, and he confirmed what Tom Davies, the regional chair of Sudbury, said, that he was very open with his books.
Mr Christopherson: That is interesting. So the regional chair had said to you or to others --
Ms Doherty: And Floyd in a conference call.
Mr Christopherson: -- and to Floyd in a conference call --
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: -- that Dr Donahue had been very open with this information?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: That was consistent with your experience with him on the phone?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: That is interesting. I would like to read transcripts from March 9, 1155-3. It is a questioning of Dr Donahue by Ms Jackson, our committee's counsel, and it reads in part:
"Do you recall speaking to Ms Doherty, Mr Laughren's assistant, in or around this time?
"Dr Donahue: I do not remember the conversation. I have sort of a vague memory of speaking to somebody from Mr Laughren's office but it is fairly vague.
"Ms Jackson: And in terms of the kind of information that you were using to make the points that you have been describing this morning, is the information that is set forth in here consistent with the kind of information you would give in this conversation and in others about your practice?
"Dr Donahue: When pressed, yes."
I see you kind of scrinching up your face. Could I ask you to verbalize your response to that kind of testimony?
Ms Doherty: I do not press people for information; I ask them questions. If constituents want to give me information, then they give it to me; if they do not, that is fine. I try to work with what I have, but that is about it.
Mr Christopherson: So you would not describe your tone with him or your approach as being pressing or having pressed in any way, shape or form?
Ms Doherty: Absolutely not.
Mr Christopherson: Okay. Floyd has been a member up there now for over 20 years. We celebrated his 20th recently with a big celebration.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: Is it fair to say from your experience and knowledge that most politicians do not stay in office for that length of time unless they are serving their constituents well?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I would say so.
Mr Christopherson: Does Floyd have a reputation in Sudbury as being someone who serves his constituency well?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: Is health an important issue in Sudbury?
Ms Doherty: Very important.
Mr Christopherson: Why?
Ms Doherty: Because in our riding, people have to travel great distances to see specialists. Within Nickel Belt they have to travel sometimes from Chapleau down to Sudbury, and for other specialists, all the way to Hamilton. It is important to them that specialists remain in the north so that family can visit people when they are in hospitals. It is a great expense because although the northern health travel grants cover many of the costs associated with health, they do not cover all of them. So it is a hot issue.
Mr Christopherson: Is it fair to say that Floyd has considered the health issues in and around Sudbury, in his riding, to be of importance to him?
Ms Doherty: Yes, very important to him.
Mr Christopherson: Has he spent a lot of time over the years focusing on health issues?
Ms Doherty: Yes, I understand he has. He was involved in setting up the cancer treatment centre in Sudbury.
Mr Christopherson: And I think you have testified earlier that you were aware -- not you, it was the previous witness; it is getting awfully late -- that it was acknowledged that Shelley Martel was the lead person on this issue through a system that the three members have: whoever catches it first is expected to run with it and keep the other offices apprised.
Ms Doherty: Yes, and partly because she was Minister of Northern Development and this was a northern issue.
Mr Christopherson: And of course, health being so important, they would put the one who could be the most effective on the case.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: Do you believe that Shelley was making what we have come to know as or know that you call the "doctors issue" a priority in dealing with home issues in the riding?
Ms Doherty: I understood that it was -- yes, that she was working on this.
Mr Christopherson: It is interesting, the November 15th memo, exhibit 105, because hard as some of my colleagues from the opposition parties might try, they are still not able to get to square one with their great conspiracy theory. You see, if you have been following this, the great conspiracy theory goes like this: "The Premier's office" -- something like this. It changes, but basically it is: "The you-know-what hits the fan. The Premier's office becomes involved. They put together a coverup plan. All of that happened after December 5th, but what led up to December 5th was a major -- another conspiracy by the Sudbury members to discredit Dr Donahue because he had been causing so much trouble."
The interesting thing is that, as this opposition theory goes, all of this really starts to jell around the middle of the month. And the interesting thing about exhibit 105 is that, of course, being dated November 15, it falls smack dab in the middle of the month and right in the middle of the jelling part of the theory.
It also happens two days after exhibit 44, which is the infamous Teatero memo, which is the one that was pulled back by Dr MacMillan which contained some information that should not have been in there. It also contains some information that, if one were to believe it, might raise some serious questions in anyone's mind and certainly would not leave you leading the charge to defend certain individuals in Sudbury.
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It is also interesting about this memo because it comes after you have met with Larry Corea. And as part of the conspiracy goes, he is the gatekeeper of the information and he is the one who divvies out all the info to all the little operatives up in Sudbury, who then do their duty to discredit and attack Dr Donahue. And you write this memo after exhibit 44 has been written, released and retrieved; in effect, out there. You have written it after you have met with Larry Corea, who is the gatekeeper to the information, as the conspiracy goes. Yet the first statement, the first line on the page after the part that Mr Harnick talked about is, "Donahue has not disclosed the full details of his practice," -- this is the interesting part, after the comma -- "with a fuller discussion perhaps we could find a solution to this problem to help him stay in Sudbury."
When I read that, that does not sound to me like someone who has a game plan that: "We're going to go after this fellow and we're going to do him in with this secret information that we've got that we shouldn't have. Now we're going to totally destroy him because he's causing all this trouble."
That sentence says -- consistent with what I have heard you say about Floyd's approach to health care and how he cares about his constituents and the fact that Shelley is the lead minister on this because of the fact that she is responsible for northern development. There is all this focus coming from these people because that is the way you operate. That is why we have members who have been there for an awful long time. And it says that at this point, November 15, after you have met with Larry Corea, there is still a very strong desire to not only find a solution, a political solution, but that it would help him, Dr Donahue, stay in Sudbury.
I want to ask you very directly, Nuala, were you involved in the conspiracy?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Christopherson: Did you have confidential information that was given to you from Larry Corea or anywhere else that you were using in concert with the other ridings up there to discredit Dr Donahue?
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Christopherson: Were you attempting, on behalf of your member and with the other offices, to try to find a solution that would keep Dr Donahue there so that you could meet the needs that he expressed and that you were hearing from your constituents?
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: Chair, I would submit to you that those answers are consistent with the kind of facts that have come out in this case, and that all the other things we have been hearing are totally unsubstantiated. At the end of the day, I think that is what has been proven. Thank you.
The Chair: Are there any further questions? Mr Conway.
Mr Conway: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Ms Doherty, let me thank you first of all for, I think, some very excellent testimony. You have been extremely forthcoming, very patient, very tolerant, and I want to thank you for that. I also want to say I have sat through a lot of testimony from a number of people including a number of political staffers and I will say this, that you have been the most direct, the most mindful. You have remembered infinitely more than a lot of your colleagues, and I have been very impressed by that. I am thinking of your testimony particularly in relation to Ms Colley and Mr Corea. I mean, they could not seem to remember very much about anything, particularly at critical junctures.
You have been, I think, extremely impressive in terms of what you have remembered. From my point of view, I have been very impressed the way in which you have recalled that and presented it. I find you extremely credible on that count and I just want to say that, because I think at the end of this day, a long day, it ought to be said. This day started with another political staffer who had some constituency responsibilities for another minister and she seemed to be less focused, from my point of view, than you have been in this regard.
I just have a very few questions actually. I do not share some of the views of the member for Willowdale, who took you through a fairly detailed examination. And what do I say about my Clarence Darrow friend from Hamilton? I want to just ask you about something you said that I thought was interesting. In that elevator meeting on November 14, I think it was, you said you did not know Shelley Martel very well. You had met her perhaps once or twice before?
Ms Doherty: I met her once before.
Mr Conway: But Ian knew her quite well.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Conway: Or better than --
Ms Doherty: He knows her because he works in Chelmsford.
Mr Conway: Tell me a little bit about this fellow Ian Wood. I mean, just what do you know about him? I do not know him at all, but what -- I ask the question because I am going to lead quickly into a point around exhibit 105.
Ms Doherty: What exactly would you like to know about Ian?
Mr Conway: Well, what do you know about Ian Wood's background? Was he a university professor? I know Mr Laughren has a Mr Simon. I think he used to teach up at --
Ms Doherty: Simon Rosenblum.
Mr Conway: He was an academic at Laurentian, was he not?
Ms Doherty: Laurentian, yes.
Mr Conway: I do not know this fellow Ian Wood at all. Was he an academic someplace? Was he a political activist? Was he a --
Ms Doherty: I know he goes -- I believe he goes to Laurentian University now part-time. He has a wife and two children.
Mr Conway: What is his background? Do you know? Is he a --
Interjection.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Conway: What did he do before he joined the staff of the minister of finance?
Ms Doherty: I believe he worked in some kind of painting store.
Mr Conway: The reason I ask the question is that I am looking at exhibit 105 and I hear what you said about what is now the delicate part of this exhibit, I think, and that is, "He" -- meaning Donahue -- "wants taxpayers to support his entrepreneurial greed." I was struck by what you said about how you felt about that. I can understand how at first cut it came to be in this memo. Obviously I believe you about the fact that you wanted it out for the reasons you gave. This guy Ian Wood did not listen to you.
Ms Doherty: Mm-hmm.
Mr Conway: That just struck me as interesting because I think prudence would be on your side, but I understand how sometimes, in the heat of the moment, prudence does not always win the argument. But you have indicated that you did not want it there in the briefing note but Ian did, and Ian then just strikes me as more hawkish, obviously, than you are.
Ms Doherty: I do not know whether he particularly wanted it there, or maybe he was mindful of the time and wanted to get something to Floyd quickly. I do not know.
Mr Conway: But I understood your testimony to suggest that once you got a look at the hard copy of this, you said -- my words, not yours -- "That shouldn't be there; let's take it out," and Ian walked over to the fax and just zapped it off to the riding office.
Ms Doherty: Well, I have experience in a legal clinic and I know that it is better to be late or not to send something rather than to send something that is wrong.
Mr Conway: No, I am impressed by that. I think you showed good judgement, but I fairly remember your testimony earlier in response to Mr Taman, the committee counsel, that had you had your way it would have come out of the draft but Ian was not willing to do it. He took it over to the fax and shot it up.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Conway: The other question I have is that it must be fascinating working for the Treasurer. I know your employer, if I can use that word. He is a very impressive fellow. Some of the testimony that you gave around the meeting with those two officials at the Ministry of Health -- I cannot remember their names, but the two doctors, Brunet and the other chap.
Ms Doherty: Tariq Asmi.
Mr Conway: Would I be right in thinking that as this Donahue controversy unfolded into mid and late November, did the Treasurer at any point raise with you concerns around the agreement, the framework agreement, that this might have not just quite been the agreement he thought it was?
Ms Doherty: No, he did not.
Mr Conway: That there was no question raised in any conversation you had with him that this test case that was referred to by one or both of those physicians, Brunet or the other fellow, might in fact relate back to the framework agreement and that in fact the case in Sudbury, where there was resistance -- and I think I fairly recall some of the earlier testimony that Sudbury was one of the few places, if the only place, in the province where the medical society had rejected the framework agreement.
Ms Doherty: That is right.
Mr Conway: And you knew that.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Conway: This Donahue case might be important for another reason, that this might be a case to test some of the fundamentals in the agreement.
Ms Doherty: Yes.
Mr Conway: Did that ever come up in conversations you had --
Ms Doherty: I do not know what you mean by "the fundamentals." I think the question was whether the policy of no exemptions would actually work in an underserviced area such as the north.
Mr Conway: I was struck by the evidence that you advanced in relation to what those two officials at the ministry said. There are those who would, I think, look at that agreement -- the framework agreement -- and see it as a very significant achievement with consequences that I suspect many in the province are yet to fully understand. We have heard some testimony that -- and I forget who it was. It might have even been Ms Martel who indicated a certain frustration that Jack Hollingsworth was complaining about an agreement he had voted against but did not seem to understand. I think I am fairly accurate in recalling that testimony of -- I think it was yesterday.
The interest I have -- and I put the question again in a slightly different way: This framework agreement in which I would have to believe the Treasurer, as minister of finance, quite apart from being member for Nickel Belt, Willowdale or Hamilton Centre -- the Treasurer would have a very real interest in that agreement because it is dealing with, among other things, not just the provision of health care but an effort to contain some of the most significant expenditures within the purview of the province of Ontario.
Again, I just wondered whether or not there had been any thought in your mind that when those two officials, or one of those officials in the ministry, raised the possibility about this being a test case, that had been commented upon in a related way by the minister of finance, the member for Nickel Belt; that in fact he might be heading into a situation in Sudbury where some of the more exciting possibilities of the framework agreement were about to be played out, as it happened, in first instance in his own community.
Ms Doherty: Did he make comments?
Mr Conway: Mm-hmm.
Ms Doherty: No.
Mr Conway: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. Seeing there are no further questions, I would just like to indicate to members of the committee that Mr Taman has a few questions he would like to ask Ms Doherty. I have now been advised that they would like to be pursued in an in camera session. As such, we will be moving from this into an in camera session and we will take a recess of five minutes.
The committee continued in closed session at 2244.