CONTENTS
Wednesday 12 December 1990
Organization
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Chair: Huget, Bob (Sarnia NDP)
Vice-Chair: Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay NDP)
Arnott, Ted (Wellington PC)
Charlton, Brian A. (Hamilton Mountain NDP)
Churley, Marilyn (Riverdale NDP)
Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)
Dadamo, George (Windsor-Sandwich NDP)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Klopp, Paul (Huron NDP)
Offer, Steven (Mississauga North L)
Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)
Wood, Len (Cochrane North NDP)
Clerk: Brown, Harold
Staff:
Luski, Lorraine, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
Yeager, Lewis, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1615 in committee room 1.
ORGANIZATION
The Chair: Today's agenda is reports of the subcommittee and consideration of a budget.
I will read report 2 of the subcommittee:
"The subcommittee met on Tuesday 11 December 1990 to consider the request for sitting time during the winter recess. It was agreed that the Chair should request one week of sitting time during the winter recess and that preferably the committee would sit during the week of 28 January 1991.
"The subcommittee considered a tentative witness list for the committee consideration of the zebra mussels matter and after some discussion the meeting adjourned."
May I request a motion to accept report 2 of the subcommittee?
Moved by Mr Dadamo.
Agreed.
Report 3 of the subcommittee on business:
"The subcommittee met on Wednesday 12 December 1990 to consider the witness list for invitation to appear with respect to the matter designated by the committee under standing order 123 relating to zebra mussels and loosestrife.
"The witnesses to be invited are as follows:
"Dr Joe Leach, Ministry of Natural Resources, Wheatley; Dr Gerry Mackie, University of Guelph; Ministry of Natural Resources -- panel; Ministry of the Environment -- panel; Dr Dave Garton, Ohio State University; Don Schloesser, US Fish and Wildlife Service; Ontario Hydro; Lambton Industrial Society; Canada Coast Guard; Municipal Engineers Association; Ontario Marina Operators Association; Canadian Mariners Association; Federation of Ontario Cottagers; Conservation Council of Ontario; Federation of Ontario Naturalists; Canadian Environmental Law Association and/or International Joint Commission and Great Lakes United; Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters; Greenpeace.
"The committee will plan to meet during the week of 28 January 1991 unless directed otherwise by the House."
I will accept a motion to move acceptance of report 3 of the subcommittee.
Moved by Ms Churley.
Agreed.
The next order of business is a budget and we are in the process of passing that out. Does everybody have a copy? I will ask Harold Brown to get into the specifics of the budget and provide his insight and comments.
Clerk of the Committee: The budget you have before you is what we would call a barebones budget for the purpose of this committee to meet for the one week as requested. It provides for per diems for members, the translation of a report, the attendance of witnesses, the printing of a report and other administrative costs that are incurred through the operation of the committee on a day-to-day basis. In the event that the committee ever has to travel or requests further meeting time, that would have to go by way of a supplementary budget to the board. This is the basic budget.
Mr Klopp: How long are we going to meet? We are going to meet for four days for sure? Does it mean that we are going to meet for four days, 12 hours, on this particular issue?
The Chair: That is correct.
Mr Klopp: Excuse my ignorance. I am sorry that I missed the first meeting.
The Chair: It would be 12 hours.
Mr Klopp: Are we going to meet four hours per day or does this mean that we can go up to four days?
The Chair: You would be looking at four hours of witness hearings per day.
Clerk of the Committee: If I may help, Mr Klopp, the four days are provided in the event that we cannot in fact schedule the witnesses over the three days desired and we may have to run into the fourth day.
Mr Klopp: I can probably find things to do.
The Chair: Are there any questions or discussion on the budget? Seeing none, could I have a motion to accept the budget?
Mr Arnott: One question. Could the clerk explain the figure of $2,000 for catering?
Clerk of the Committee: The coffee that we are drinking today has to be paid for, as it has been in the past and will be in the future. In the event that we have to travel, which we do not at this point, that also covers any coffee service or meeting room service from a restaurant.
Mr Ramsay: The printing costs seem very high. What is the distribution? Is it the distribution of the number of copies or is this specifically the printing of reports? Why is that $7,000?
Clerk of the Committee: Actually, I am hoping that we can get a report done for $7,000. Printing costs, we have experienced, have gone up considerably over the past year. The reports that I have had experience with have run between $4,500 and about $8,500, and $7,000 is not an extensive report to have printed. The number of copies that are usually printed of a report runs in the order of 750 to 900. It depends on the extensiveness of the witness list as well as a number of copies that have to be delivered to Publications Ontario for sale at the bookstore.
The Chair: Are there any further questions or discussion?
Ms Churley: I take it that this is pretty much a routine budget?
Clerk of the Committee: Pretty much the only variable you see on this budget to any other budget you will see is if there are additional reports prepared or if there is additional meeting time required. Those are the main variables in the committee budget.
The Chair: If there is no further discussion, I would receive a motion to move acceptance of the budget.
Mr Wood so moves.
Agreed.
That concludes the items on the agenda for today's session. I will say, however, that there may be a need for the subcommittee and the full committee to meet next week in the event that we are given legislation by the House. I just want to advise you of that. I do not have anything to tell you other than that at the moment, but it may very well be that we are required to meet next week and I will advise you. Any other business before the committee?
Mr Ramsay: I have a technical question about legislation being referred to the committee. Do we have any choice in the timing of when we consider that or is that determined by the House leaders? I am not familiar with how that is done.
Clerk of the Committee: If I may, Mr Chairman, if the committee is charged with considering legislation, the request for the time has to be made to the House leaders for the committee to sit and it has to sit according to the order of the House. The length of time is contained within the request of the committee as to when it should sit, and any government legislation takes precedence over the matter that we have before the committee at this time. So our schedule for the zebra mussels matter would be pre-empted by government legislation.
Mr Ramsay: Just automatically.
Clerk of the Committee: Automatically.
Mr Ramsay: Unless the House leaders agreed that -- would they let us go ahead with our week and then start the next week?
Clerk of the Committee: That would have to be contained within the authority of the House's direction.
The Chair: If there is no further business before the committee, before adjourning today's session, I would like to make a couple of comments.
One of them is that I was very pleased yesterday with the spirit and co-operation that we had in subcommittee in determining the witness list and the format for the hearings.
I would also like to acknowledge and thank the research staff, Lewis Yeager and Lorraine Luski, for providing some much-needed guidance in putting together a good format. I am extremely pleased with the outcome of yesterday's session and I am looking forward to very, very informative and productive sessions in the third week in January.
If there is no further business before the committee, I will move adjournment.
The committee adjourned at 1626.