Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The committee met at 0900 in committee room 1.

Subcommittee report

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Good morning, everyone. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will now come to order.

The first thing on our agenda today: We have the report of the subcommittee dated April 18, 2024. I’m going to ask someone to read it into the record and move its adoption. Someone from the subcommittee, anyone?

MPP Jamie West: Sure.

Interjection.

MPP Jamie West: I was letting him have it.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Okay. Well, I will recognize Mr. West.

MPP Jamie West: Your subcommittee on committee business met on April 18, 2024, to consider regular meeting times for the committee and recommends the following:

That the committee establish a regular meeting schedule of Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. and Thursdays from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., and that the Chair of the committee be permitted to call meetings outside of these stated times as needed.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Is there any debate or discussion on that subcommittee report? Mr. Rae.

Mr. Matthew Rae: Maybe MPP West can answer. Is there a reason it’s 7 p.m.? Because the House sits until 6, usually. I know we can sit at any time, Chair.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Mr. Rae has asked why 7 o’clock. It’s—

Mr. Matthew Rae: Because the House rises at 6, usually. I’m just raising that point.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): So, just as I understand, that was the original window of time. We didn’t make any changes, so I don’t know why it’s until 7. The Clerk and I were discussing that it may have been until midnight, but we didn’t think that that was an appropriate—and I shouldn’t assume things.

Mr. Oosterhoff?

Mr. Sam Oosterhoff: Are we allowed to amend it? If it’s the recommendation, we can amend it to 6? I know it sounds minor, but it’s just—7 is long.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Okay. Mr. Oosterhoff has suggested an amendment. Is that a friendly amendment? Mr. West, are you amenable to amendment?

MPP Jamie West: Yes, I am.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Okay. Mr. Sarrazin?

Mr. Stéphane Sarrazin: And why exactly on Thursday? Why not on Wednesday or—

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Okay, so, Mr. West, do you want to talk about what the subcommittee discussed?

MPP Jamie West: Just for context, we have work that’s been piling up and we traditionally haven’t really been meeting on Thursdays unless it was urgent. But the amount of work that we had, we’re recognizing—the new co-chair, MPP Bailey, and I and the Chair were talking about that we’re going to have meet on Thursdays. I don’t think 7 was the end time that we talked about, but the intent was really to give people some notice that we’re probably going to be meeting on Thursdays on a regular basis, and it probably won’t just be for an hour, to get caught up on stuff. I don’t think there’s any intent to stay longer than we need to, but we wanted to give some notice. We wouldn’t be doing this for two weeks and give notice to people if they have conflicts that would require them to switch committees. It’s basically a heads-up because I know that Thursday afternoons are difficult for some people.

I think there’s an opportunity, even, to switch dates, but we didn’t want to do anything—we thought it was best to stick with the schedule we had because we didn’t know what everybody else’s schedules were. Having MPP Bailey and I choose dates on our own may cause issues with everybody else. But that’s sort of the context of what we were doing.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): I’m going to add myself here. I had attended the last full meeting, and neither of the subcommittee members were able to attend. I took away from that meeting—Ms. Hogarth had mentioned it, as well as others—to keep the same meeting slots that people already had their House duties scheduled around, which was Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons. So that’s the information I took back to the subcommittee, that that was what I felt the direction had been.

If members are wanting to change—so, all of this was necessary because we have new rules that apply to our committee since the standing order changes. We have now been given permission to sit whenever we would choose, and the feelings seem to be that some continuity was better for scheduling. But we do now have the flexibility to meet at the whim of the Chair—woohoo—but during recesses or whatnot, as the committee chooses.

Any further discussion on these days? And I give it back to the committee, that if folks want to meet on a different day, that’s okay.

Mr. Rae?

Mr. Matthew Rae: Since I started this whole can of worms, my apologies, Chair. I’m fine with the two dates you selected and with the significant amount of time on Thursday. I 100% agree with MPP West that we need to devote that much time to the very robust agenda before us. It was just a comment around the 6 p.m. because the House sits until 6 p.m.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Okay, so do we need a formal motion to—

Interjection.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Okay, in that case, Mr. Oosterhoff, I’m going to turn back to you. There does need to be a formal amendment.

Mr. Sam Oosterhoff: There does?

The Clerk pro tem (Ms. Tanzima Khan): You can just say, “I move to amend the subcommittee report.”

Mr. Sam Oosterhoff: Okay. I move that the subcommittee report be amended to change the recommended time from “1 p.m. to 7 p.m.” to “1 p.m. to 6 p.m.” that the committee will meet.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Okay. Procedurally, is there anything else? Does anyone need to discuss that?

Interjection.

The Chair (Ms. Jennifer K. French): Okay. Any debate or discussion on the amendment?

In that case, we’ll vote on the amendment first. Mr. Oosterhoff has moved that we change from “1 p.m. to 7 p.m.” to “1 p.m. to 6 p.m.” in the subcommittee report. Is it the pleasure of the committee that the motion carry? Okay.

In that case, is there any other debate on the motion, as amended? No? In that case, are members ready to vote? Okay. All those in favour of the subcommittee report, as amended? Okay. All those opposed? Okay. The report is carried. Thank you.

I would like to bring everyone’s attention to the memo that should be in front of you prepared by legislative research. This memo outlines all the committee’s exhibits produced by legislative research to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in relation to the committee’s study on the rehabilitation and restoration of the legislative precinct and related to the representation of Indigenous perspectives at the Sir John A. Macdonald statue installation on the Legislature’s grounds.

This memo had been requested by the subcommittee so that all of the background work could be organized into one place for the convenience of everyone, recognizing that we do have some new committee members and some rejoining us. Also, just having it all in one place, we thought, would be helpful.

Following this meeting, the Clerk is going to send out an electronic version of this document and a link to a folder containing all the documents mentioned within it. I request that all of you bookmark that so that you can find it at your leisure. We will be continuing to add materials to this folder.

We will now be moving into closed session, so I will recess briefly to allow the committee to properly go in camera.

The committee recessed at 0909 and later continued in closed session.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

Chair / Présidente

Ms. Jennifer K. French (Oshawa ND)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président

Mr. Matthew Rae (Perth–Wellington PC)

Mr. Robert Bailey (Sarnia–Lambton PC)

Ms. Jennifer K. French (Oshawa ND)

Ms. Christine Hogarth (Etobicoke–Lakeshore PC)

Mr. Ted Hsu (Kingston and the Islands / Kingston et les Îles L)

Mrs. Robin Martin (Eglinton–Lawrence PC)

Mr. Sam Oosterhoff (Niagara West / Niagara-Ouest PC)

Mr. Matthew Rae (Perth–Wellington PC)

Mr. Amarjot Sandhu (Brampton West / Brampton-Ouest PC)

Mr. Stéphane Sarrazin (Glengarry–Prescott–Russell PC)

Miss Monique Taylor (Hamilton Mountain ND)

MPP Jamie West (Sudbury ND)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

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

Mr. John Yakabuski (Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke PC)

Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim

Ms. Tanzima Khan

Staff / Personnel

Ms. Joanne McNair, Table Research Clerk,

Table Research

Mr. Nick Ruderman, research officer,
Research Services