CONTENTS
Wednesday 22 April 1992
Election of Chair
Election of Vice-Chair
Business subcommittee
Subcommittee on communications from the public
Organization
STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE OMBUDSMAN
Chair / Président: Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East/-Est ND)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente: Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)
Akande, Zanana L. (St Andrew-St Patrick ND)
Drainville, Dennis (Victoria-Haliburton ND)
Duignan, Noel (Halton North/-Nord ND)
Henderson, D. James (Etobicoke-Humber L)
Johnson, Paul R. (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings/Prince Edward-Lennox-Hastings-Sud ND)
Miclash, Frank (Kenora L)
Murdoch, Bill (Grey PC)
Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND)
Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)
Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC)
Clerk / Greffier: Carrozza, Franco
Staff / Personnel: Murray, Paul, committee counsel and research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1008 in room 151.
ELECTION OF CHAIR
Clerk of the Committee (Mr Franco Carrozza): Good morning, members. My name is Franco Carrozza; I am the clerk of the committee. This gentleman is Paul Murray; he is the researcher and also counsel to the committee. My duty is to call upon you to elect one of your members as Chair. I will open nominations.
Mr Noel Duignan (Halton North): I nominate Mark Morrow as Chair.
Clerk of the Committee: Are there any other nominations? Being none, I shall call upon Mr Morrow to take the Chair.
ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIR
The Chair (Mr Mark Morrow): Thank you very much, members of the committee. The second item on our agenda is the election of the Vice-Chair. I would now like to open the floor for nominations.
Mr Duignan: I would like to nominate Christel Haeck.
The Chair: Are there any further nominations? Seeing none, I declare the nominations closed. Christel, will you stand for Vice-Chair?
Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): Thank you, I will stand.
BUSINESS SUBCOMMITTEE
The Chair: Ms Haeck moves that a subcommittee on committee business be appointed to meet from time to time at the call of the Chair or at the request of any member thereof to consider and report to the committee on the business of the committee; that substitution be permitted on the subcommittee; that the presence of all members of the subcommittee is necessary to constitute a quorum; and that the subcommittee be composed of Mr Morrow, Chair, Christel Haeck, Vice-Chair, Mr Miclash for the Liberal Party and Mr Murdoch from the third party.
Motion agreed to.
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE PUBLIC
The Chair: Item 3 on the agenda is establishing a subcommittee on communications from the public.
Ms Haeck moves that a subcommittee be struck to consider on the committee's behalf communications from the public; the subcommittee to be composed of one member from each party and the Chair of the committee, namely, Mr Morrow, Chair, Christel Haeck, Vice-Chair, Mr Miclash for the Liberal Party and Mr Murdoch for the third party, with a quorum of four; substitution shall be permitted on written notice. All communications from the public to the committee shall be referred to the subcommittee, which shall review and respond to them, provided that all decisions by the subcommittee shall be unanimous; any matters which are not decided unanimously by the subcommittee shall be considered by the full committee. The subcommittee shall report to the committee, for consideration by it, any matters which in the subcommittee's opinion warrant the full committee's attention. The subcommittee shall, subject to direction by the committee, determine its procedures.
Any discussion?
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): Could I get Mr Ramsay's name substituted for my name on that second motion?
The Chair: Yes.
Motion agreed to.
ORGANIZATION
The Chair: Item 4 on the agenda, discussion as to organizing a meeting of the subcommittee to review cases from the public. I have a recommendation to bring forward to you that the subcommittee meet on April 30 -- it would be a Thursday afternoon -- to review the cases from the public to bring back to the committee as a whole. Any discussion on that?
Ms Haeck: Is there a chance that another time could be found? I have House duty consistently at that time.
The Chair: How's next Wednesday morning? The subcommittee will meet next Wednesday morning.
Mr Hans Daigeler (Nepean): Is that prior to the committee meeting next week?
The Chair: That's our next item of business, item 5, discussion as to the next committee meeting to review the draft of the annual report. I have a recommendation here that we meet as a whole on May 6. Is there any discussion on this? It's a Wednesday morning.
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey): Two weeks?
The Chair: That's basically in two weeks, Mr Murdoch. At this time, Paul might like to give us an update on how the report is going, but first we have to decide on May 6. Is that agreeable to everybody? Agreed.
Paul, would you care to say something?
Mr Paul Murray: Sure. As you know, the last time we met in March we discussed the contents of our next annual report. I've been preparing that and we've set a day, May 6, to review a first draft of that report. We need those extra couple of weeks because we're still awaiting some responses from certain ministries we wrote letters to. That's basically where we're at with the report at this point.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Is there any other business before us? Seeing none, we stand adjourned until May 6.
The committee adjourned at 1016.