Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The committee met at 1304 in committee room 1.

REGULATED HEALTH
PROFESSIONS AMENDMENT ACT (SPOUSAL EXCEPTION), 2013
LOI DE 2013 MODIFIANT LA LOI
SUR LES PROFESSIONS
DE LA SANTÉ RÉGLEMENTÉES (EXCEPTION RELATIVE AU CONJOINT)

Consideration of the following bill:

Bill 70, An Act to amend the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 / Projet de loi 70, Loi modifiant la Loi de 1991 sur les professions de la santé réglementées.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Thank you very much, everyone. We’ll call the meeting to order. We’re here to discuss clause-by-clause of Bill 70, An Act to amend the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991. I’m going to ask each of the caucuses if they’d like to have opening remarks before we go right into clause-by-clause. I do understand there are no amendments today.

I’m going to start with the official opposition. Mr. Clark, do you have any comments or an opening statement?

Mr. Steve Clark: Thanks, Chair. I’m just going to make very brief comments. Certainly I want to welcome the members of the ODA who are here today. I know it’s their annual lobby day, and I’d certainly encourage members to come to their event today in the Legislature. I’d also like to thank all the deputants who appeared last Wednesday at committee and who made some very insightful comments.

I hope that if this bill does ultimately move forward and receive third reading and passage in the House, every regulatory body would take very seriously the comments that were made, not just here in the Legislature but also as part of the review process that ultimately led to the tabling of Bill 70.

So I take the comments that we received very seriously, and I hope that all the regulated health professions would carefully review the exception that this bill would provide them and to put those safeguards in place to protect patients of all the professions in the province of Ontario.

Thank you, Chair, for giving me this opportunity.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Thank you, Mr. Clark.

Anybody from the third party? Ms. Forster.

Ms. Cindy Forster: Thank you very much, Chair. I also want to thank the Ontario Dental Association, the chiropractic association; I think the College of Physiotherapists was here, as well as the Ontario Medical Association and the rape crisis centre.

Although the different colleges from the regulated professions act have differing views, I can tell you that it was quite a learning experience for me and my colleagues listening to that. Clearly, we heard the zero-tolerance message that is important to each one of those colleges. If it does receive third reading, we in the NDP anticipate and expect that this legislation will be treated with the utmost caution and respect by those colleges who determine that they want to actually exercise the exception. I think the pieces of information that came to us about the costs that can be incurred by individuals and colleges certainly were an important piece of this as well.

Having said that, we are going to support it here today, and we look forward to it coming to third reading.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Okay. From the government members, Mr. Crack.

Mr. Grant Crack: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I’d like to congratulate Mr. Clark on bringing forward the bill. I also thank all the stakeholders that have participated in the public hearings. We look forward to moving the bill forward.

But I do have a point of order: I was just wondering if I could ask if we could put a motion before we get meeting on the—

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): We have a what?

Mr. Grant Crack: Put a motion forward concerning some scheduling—

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Is it a motion to do with this bill?

Mr. Grant Crack: It is not relevant to this particular bill.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): No. We’ll do it after the clause-by-clause, then.

Mr. Grant Crack: Okay. Thank you very much, Chair.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Thank you.

Mr. Clark, you had one further comment?

Mr. Steve Clark: Well, I just want to also—I was remiss in not acknowledging with thanks the efforts from the Ministry of Health. I know that some people may not recall that this bill has changed in a couple of different forms, and the final change was done when my staff and myself met with the Ministry of Health and worked with them on the final version of Bill 70. So I do want to acknowledge with thanks to the minister, the Honourable Deb Matthews, for her assistance in helping me with this final draft that was acceptable to her as minister. So I want to acknowledge and thank her.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Thank you, Mr. Clark. Anything else from anyone? Okay, we’ll go right into the clause-by-clause.

I’m going to put them together here, sections 1 to 3. Shall sections 1 to 3 carry? That’s carried.

Shall the title of the bill carry? Carried.

Shall Bill 70, as amended, carry?

The Clerk of the Committee (Mr. Trevor Day): Just Bill 70—no amendments.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Sorry. I apologize. I should have brought my glasses.

Shall Bill 70 carry? Carried.

Shall I report the bill to the House? Yes? Okay. Thank you very much, everyone. We’re done with that.

Now—

Mr. Steve Clark: I move adjournment—

COMMITTEE BUSINESS

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Excuse me. I think we had a motion first, though.

Interjection.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): I did offer Mr. Crack an opportunity for a motion. Go ahead, Mr. Crack.

Mr. Grant Crack: Thank you very much, Chair. It’s just concerning the scheduling of committee hearings and clause-by-clause following Wednesday, December 4. I would like to put the motion forward now, if that would—and I can pass copies out to all the members.

Before starting, I’d just like to point out that during the House it was brought forward by the member from Nickel Belt that seeking unanimous consent for second reading—it has to do with Bill 106, which is the French Language Services Amendment Act.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Okay. Do you want to just read that out, Mr. Clark?

Mr. Grant Crack: I move that upon reference of Bill 49, Protecting Employees’ Tips Act, 2013, to the House for third reading;

That the Clerk, in consultation with Chair, be authorized to arrange the following with regard to Bill 106, French Languages Services Amendment Act (French Language Services Commissioner), 2013:

(1) One day of public hearings and one day of clause-by-clause consideration, commencing on the first sessional day after Bill 49, Protecting Employees’ Tips Act, 2013, has completed clause-by-clause consideration, during its regularly scheduled meeting times;

(2) Advertisement on the Ontario parliamentary channel, the committee’s website and the Canadian NewsWire;

(3) Witnesses be scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis;

(4) Each witness will receive up to five minutes for their presentation, followed by nine minutes for questions from committee members;

(5) The deadline for written submission is 3 p.m. on the day of the public hearings;

(6) That the research office provide a summary of the presentations by 5 p.m. on Friday of the same week following public hearings;

(7) The deadline for filing amendments with the Clerk of the committee be 12 noon on the day preceding clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Okay. You’ve all heard that motion by Mr. Crack. Are there any questions on it?

Mr. Steve Clark: I’d like a 20-minute recess before we vote.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Before we vote?

Mr. Steve Clark: Yes.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Is there any debate on this before we recess? Okay. Twenty-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 1312 to 1332.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Okay. Thanks very much for the 20-minute recess. Mr. Crack has moved the motion. We’ve debated it.

Interjection.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Yes?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: May I just add a comment?

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): It’s just the vote at this point. Okay, so we’ve heard the motion read. All in favour of the motion?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Recorded vote.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Okay, recorded vote, first of all.

Interjection.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): I’m sorry. I apologize; I thought we would have that opportunity.

Okay. So we’ve got who’s in favour. All those opposed? Okay. It’s carried.

Any other business of the committee today? Okay.

Mr. Bas Balkissoon: We’re adjourned?

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Oh, yes. Would you like to go?

Interjection.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Two weeks from today, we’ll be starting at 12 o’clock with Bill 55. We will have lunch available prior to the meeting, okay?

Mrs. Amrit Mangat: At 12 o’clock?

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): At 12 o’clock. We’ve got a full day, the next two, on Bill 55—two full days.

Yes, Ms. MacLeod?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: I just wanted to say, with respect to the previous vote, that I was happy to support the motion moving Bill 106 forward. That said, I think that the challenge that we have moving forward, and I would encourage the government to adhere to this, is to ensure that—there are subcommittees set up so that we can do that. That is why the subcommittee was struck, and I suspect that it would be much easier for us to move legislation forward if that subcommittee actually met.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Yes, and we’ll probably have a—

Ms. Cindy Forster: If we’re still entertaining debate after we’re adjourned, we also fully support the bill; however, this process is circumventing the subcommittee process. This item wouldn’t even get on the agenda for Legislative Assembly until, probably, December 3. There was lots of time for the subcommittee to meet. In fact, this bill was probably France Gélinas’s bill to start with, along with all the others that she has brought forward. That was why we chose to abstain from that vote: because we’re not following process.

The Chair (Mr. Garfield Dunlop): Okay. Anything else? Okay. The meeting is adjourned until two weeks from today.

The committee adjourned at 1335.

CONTENTS

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Regulated Health Professions Amendment Act (Spousal Exception), 2013, Bill 70, Mr. Clark / Loi de 2013 modifiant la Loi sur les professions de la santé réglementées (exception relative au conjoint), projet de loi 70, M. Clark M-109

Committee business M-110

STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

Chair / Président

Mr. Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North / Simcoe-Nord PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente

Ms. Lisa MacLeod (Nepean–Carleton PC)

Mr. Bas Balkissoon (Scarborough–Rouge River L)

Mr. Steve Clark (Leeds–Grenville PC)

Mr. Grant Crack (Glengarry–Prescott–Russell L)

Mr. Vic Dhillon (Brampton West / Brampton-Ouest L)

Mr. Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North / Simcoe-Nord PC)

Ms. Cindy Forster (Welland ND)

Ms. Lisa MacLeod (Nepean–Carleton PC)

Mrs. Amrit Mangat (Mississauga–Brampton South / Mississauga–Brampton-Sud L)

Mr. Michael Mantha (Algoma–Manitoulin ND)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

Ms. Teresa Armstrong (London–Fanshawe ND)

Mr. Rob E. Milligan (Northumberland–Quinte West PC)

Mr. Jeff Yurek (Elgin–Middlesex–London PC)

Clerk / Greffier

Mr. Trevor Day

Staff / Personnel

Mr. Bradley Warden, legislative counsel