RED TAPE REDUCTION ACT, 1998 LOI DE 1998 VISANT À RÉDUIRE LES FORMALITÉS ADMINISTRATIVES
CONTENTS
Monday 28 September 1998
Red Tape Reduction Act, 1998, Bill 25, Mr Tsubouchi /
Loi de 1998 visant à réduire les formalités administratives,
projet de loi 25, M. Tsubouchi
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair / Président
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte PC)
Mr Dave Boushy (Sarnia PC)
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South / -Sud L)
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold ND)
Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge PC)
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa PC)
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming L)
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte PC)
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough PC)
Mr Bob Wood (London South / -Sud PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood L)
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)
Clerk / Greffier
Mr Douglas Arnott
Staff / Personnel
Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1701 in room 228.
RED TAPE REDUCTION ACT, 1998 LOI DE 1998 VISANT À RÉDUIRE LES FORMALITÉS ADMINISTRATIVES
Consideration of Bill 25, An Act to reduce red tape by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts / Projet de loi 25, Loi visant à réduire les formalités administratives en modifiant ou abrogeant certaines lois et en édictant deux nouvelles lois.
The Vice-Chair (Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins): Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to call the standing committee on administration of justice to order. The first business on order is Bill 25, and there should be a motion for a subcommittee report. Moved by Lillian Ross. Can we have a seconder for that report? Seconded by Mr Stewart. Any discussion on that report?
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): Obviously we have a list of the anticipated participants obtained from the clerk, and I'm grateful to him. It would appear that in view of the fact that there are three slots open waiting for participants, the time frames selected were not by any good planning but by accident appropriate. Perhaps we could determine from the clerk whether he anticipates any further requests for participation in the hearings.
Clerk of the Committee (Mr Doug Arnott): The deadline for receipt of requests to participate was Monday, September 21. I've not had late requests.
The Vice-Chair: If there were other people confirmed, they will be here. Any other discussion on the motion?
Mr Kormos: One more point. I should indicate that here we are sitting five days, one day, today, being members' statements and five days being submissions. It was only an hour a day. Obviously this committee would usually sit from what, 3:30 or soon thereafter, whatever the craziness, until 6 o'clock. Heck, these could sit, in total, a good two-day or three-day maximum, no two ways about it, except the committee had its hands tied.
I think to vote on the subcommittee report is a little bit redundant because the only reason the committee is sitting for six days is because of the time allocation motion. No House leader from the opposition parties suggested that six days is necessary to hear all of those submissions. In fact, it's a bill sponsored by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, which is pretty omnibus. It ends up here in the justice committee and it covers everything from soup to nuts because, and we know the reason why, the time allocation motion referred Bill 25 to this committee for a total of six days. In other words, the committee was compelled to sit for six days to displace any standing order 124 application for consideration into the shooting and death of Dudley George at Ipperwash and to make inquiries into what, if any, involvement there was by the Premier or his staff in his office into that shooting.
That's why the bill's here, that's why it's consuming six days of committee time and that's why the committee undergoes the embarrassment of sitting for only an hour a day. There are no more participants. The government members like to talk a big game about efficient use of House time and committee time. I don't think this is a very efficient use of committee time or of House time. We all know it's very, very transparent. We all know the reason that this bill is in front of this committee for a total six days when there are only enough participants to permit an hour a day of sitting is to sidestep, circumvent my rights, any other member's rights, opposition members. What's interesting is that standing order 124 is an opposition member's right and it's spelled out, it's articulated very specifically in the standing orders. It's not, let's say, a right that's merely time-honoured or one of tradition. It was actually considered important enough to be included in the standing orders and it's been there for a good chunk of time. It's been there for the 10 years I've been here and it precedes that, I'm sure of it.
I think it's pretty sad that an articulated right of an opposition member, whether it's me or any other opposition member and whether it's now, in 1998, or down the road, that those modest rights -- because they are modest -- are attacked and confronted as that time allocation bill attacks and confronts what were my rights under standing order 124, in view of the seriousness and the tragedy of the shooting of Dudley George and some very strong suggestion that the Premier, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General have not been forthcoming in response to questions put to them about Ipperwash.
The party labels are rearranged, but I can't help but reflect upon, by God, these people, the government members' federal cousins, along with other opposition members in Ottawa, who are doing some very adamant and aggressive questioning in question period in the federal House with respect to non-disclosure. In that instance, it's alleged non-disclosure by the Prime Minister. So it's interesting. Now mind you, I appreciate that for some of these government backbenchers their federal cousins are the Reform members, but once again the Reform Party caucus of the federal Parliament has been pretty aggressive in accusing the Prime Minister of non-disclosure and of course referring to the APEC police conduct and the Prime Minister's role in that.
It's interesting how, by God, it all depends whose ox is being gored, I guess, but the games that are played in an effort to defeat the truth and any search for the truth. Diogenes would be a pretty sad person around this place right now, let me tell you. He'd be an awful lonely person and he'd be wandering these hallways, just awandering and awandering and awandering.
Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood): Where is he a member from?
Mr Kormos: Diogenes would be an awful, awful lonely person in this particular chamber.
You know what I'm going to do. I'm going to oppose the subcommittee report. I'm going to vote against it because I think the subcommittee report is irrelevant or redundant in view of the fact that the subcommittee had no control. I was there at the subcommittee and they had no control. It had to meet for six days because the Premier's office wanted to block any effort to use standing order 124 to consider the death of Dudley George. As you know, there was just the recent commemoration of the anniversary of Dudley George's tragic death, his slaughter, an innocent unarmed man slaughtered.
I'm going to ask for a recorded vote and I'm going to vote against it.
The Vice-Chair: We'll have a recorded vote.
Ayes
Boushy, Hudak, Ross, Stewart, Bob Wood.
Nays
Colle, Crozier, Kormos.
The Vice-Chair: I declare the motion carried.
At this time we will start our deliberation by the parties and we will turn it over to the parliamentary assistant, Lillian Ross.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): We're here today to talk about Bill 25, one of the government's red tape bills. As everyone is aware, in 1996 the Premier set up the Red Tape Commission whose mandate was to look at all the thousands of pieces of paper that government generates to see where we could promote efficiencies and eliminate waste and duplication, to provide better service to consumers. This red tape bill is another of those bills that hopes to achieve that purpose, to achieve government efficiencies and better service to business who, as we know, are the people who create the jobs in this province, always keeping uppermost in mind the public interest at heart.
This particular red tape bill, Bill 25, consolidates seven red tape reduction bills that were previously before the Legislature. There was a total of 17, and 10 were passed by the Legislature, but because of the heavy agenda, it was impossible to complete the process for the others. Therefore, the seven bills have been consolidated into one because it was felt that consolidation would be a much more effective way of handling these proposals.
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As I mentioned earlier, most of the proposals within this bill make it easier for the public and for business to deal with government, always keeping in mind the objective to reduce paperwork, to eliminate waste and duplication and to promote efficiencies in government services. The proposals in this bill free business from unnecessary rules and regulations that cost time and money. As everyone knows, rules that cost time and money are a burden, not just to business but to the people of Ontario. They prevent economic growth and can form a formidable barrier to job creation.
The bill also includes new protection for consumers and changes that would benefit community groups, and I'd just like to go through a few of the highlights of the bill if it's passed.
The Loan Brokers Act would be amended to strengthen the legislation to deal with unscrupulous loan brokers. Currently when loan brokers have violated the law and have charges laid against them, they can still operate their business. This amendment would allow a cease-and-desist order to be issued against them to prevent them from carrying on business.
The Sheep and Wool Marketing Act, not used since 1985 when the Ontario Sheep Marketing Agency was established, will be repealed.
A list of prescribed investments for trust funds will be replaced by a prudent trustee standard to allow more flexibility to invest funds and maximize income for beneficiaries.
Under the Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, the Parks Assistance Act was made redundant by new land use planning guidelines and therefore will be repealed. Also at the Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, section 12 of their act sets out regulation-making authority to establish financial systems programs, and that section will be repealed. The ministry has always had the flexibility to establish, revise and rescind grant programs without recourse to the regulations and has never established any financial assistance program under section 12. Therefore it makes sense to repeal that section.
Under the Ministry of Health, health sector appeal boards will be merged, hearing and review processes will be streamlined and procedures relating to complaints, discipline and appeal proceedings will be clarified.
Under the Ministry of Natural Resources, 11 forestry-related acts will be reduced to five and outdated legislation repealed to simplify and enhance forest protection.
In total, the Red Tape Reduction Act, 1998, includes amendments to more than 100 acts, many of them at the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. There are quite a number under the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations and too many to be able to itemize in these short moments. But the changes under the Corporations Act will allow not-for-profit corporations -- those are corporations that would include hockey and bowling leagues, community centres and tenant groups, that type of corporation -- other than charitable corporations to dispense with an annual audit if their annual income is less than $10,000 and if all of their members consent to doing so in writing.
Under the Corporations Act, changes would allow mutual insurance corporations to hold annual shareholders' meetings within the first three months rather than the first two months of every calendar year. The change is being made because it takes approximately three months to conduct an audit. Therefore, it makes sense that they be given time to accomplish that audit. They would also be allowed to publish notice of the meeting and the annual statement in a local newspaper instead of mailing these documents to every policyholder. Again, that's subject to approval of the board and they still have the ability, if they want to mail it, to do that. It just allows a little bit more flexibility.
Changes to the Liquor Licence Act would eliminate unnecessary delays in the granting of a liquor sales licence while still maintaining regulatory control.
There would be changes to the Theatres Act to get films and videos into circulation faster.
As most of the members will know, most of the red tape bills that have come before the Legislature have, I think, achieved considerable success in eliminating regulatory provisions that no longer serve any useful purpose. A great deal of what's in this bill is the result of the Red Tape Commission under the direction of Frank Sheehan. I think the commission is doing a great job of looking at red tape and trying to make services better and more efficient for the people of Ontario.
We can't get away from rules and regulations, and oftentimes it's important that we do have them in place. They are necessary and desirable. What we have to do is be careful that when we put rules and regulations in place, they make sense and they're not there just to fill out a piece of paper and make life a little bit more complicated for people. The other thing is that what we don't want to do is put up barriers against efficiency and discourage people and organizations from achieving their true potential and creating jobs across this province.
The Red Tape Reduction Act, together with other measures, continues the government's fight to cut the stranglehold of unnecessary rules and regulations. Most of what is in this bill will be things that the Red Tape Commission has reviewed and said, "Yes, there need to be some changes there." A lot of the changes allow for flexibility to make changes to address the technological advances that are being made. A lot of them repeal acts and sections of acts that no longer exist or there is no need for any more.
It makes absolute sense, and I hope that we can get through these committee hearings and address this bill and hopefully get it through third reading. I think some of the other members on the committee would also like to speak to the bill at this time.
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): I'd like to speak to this bill. I'm probably, as I look around the room, the only member of the committee who is on the Red Tape Commission or is a commissioner. We've had some interesting dealings over the last three years on what has become a maze of red tape in this province. It has been getting larger and larger and more and more of it over the last 25 or 30 years. The statement "Time is money" probably describes red tape better than anything else. Certainly the mandate of our government is to create jobs and investment, and it makes it very difficult when you take a look at the barriers that have been put up in this province over the last many years.
Removing those barriers, which much of this legislation does, makes it easier, faster and less expensive for business to be conducted. Indeed, if business can be conducted more efficiently the jobs will emanate from that and the public will be better served. One of the things that has happened in this province over many years is that we have forgotten one very important thing, that is, customer service. The customers happen to be the people out there who pay the bills and who elect us and are called taxpayers. We have put every known obstacle that we possibly can in front of them over this past many years.
There are many examples of it. I can remember looking at one particular development that wanted to be done in this province, and after something like 12 years they finally got approval to do it. One locally that I can think of has been in the neighbourhood of about seven years getting the development put through because of red tape. They now have got to sell the property because they don't have any money left to develop it. That's the type of red tape that goes on.
If you look at some of these bills, one under Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, one of the things that this bill does is it brings that ministry and some of the things suggested, being the Registry Act and certainly the Corporations Act, into the technology of today. I look at a couple of them. Under the Registry Act: to support electronic fund payments or other methods of payment. Why do we always have to do it the same old way? The Corporations Act: to permit directors' meetings by telephone. Amazing, that we have telephones these days. Why wouldn't we use them with less money and less cost for the people of the community and the province?
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One of the things we do in red tape, when we look at some of these things, is we have a little fellow who sits in a chair in the corner of the room. When we look at the red tape presentations and the acts that are in place now, or the proposals for them, we kind of refer to that little person in the corner and decide what effect red tape or proposed regulations or regulations that are in place now will have on that particular individual. It's surprising the effect that the red tape we have in this province now has on that.
Mr Kormos: Not if you don't let him out of the corner.
Mr Stewart: Not if we don't. But if we keep him up there and we have a direction to go, it is surprising what kind of good common sense decisions we will make on it. Again, I go back to customer service. The customer happens to be not only ourselves but the people of this province. Certainly, if you look at all of the suggested changes in this red tape bill, there is none of them that will not enhance business, that won't create jobs. They will make it easier to carry on business, will streamline administration, will improve customer service, will make it easier and less time-consuming to deal with all of the ministries involved and will simplify the process. How wonderful it would be if we could simplify a lot of processes that we do in this province. So I'm very supportive of this bill and I hope all members of the House on both sides will support it in the future.
The Vice-Chair: Is there anybody else on the government side who wants to say anything? If not, we'll turn to the opposition.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): I just have a few comments and I think my colleague Mr Colle is going to have some as well. Certainly, when it comes to red tape, generally, for the most part, we all agree that the less red tape, the fewer barriers that are put up, the better, be it for business, be it for anyone who is trying to access a government service. I've spoken a number of times that I think each piece of legislation that's proposed should have a sunset clause in it and at that time be reviewed. If the legislation is not doing what it's intended to do, it would be reviewed without question so that we then either could revise the legislation, reduce its impact and/or even eliminate them, as you have done in some of these cases.
It's interesting to me today just hearing the comments. I muse a bit about what has been said. Customer service: I agree 100%. Anything we can do to improve customer service from government is a goal we should all seek. The strange thing is that I think it was Mr Murdoch who introduced a resolution in private members' business a year or so ago that addressed customer service when it comes to voice mail on the telephone. It's interesting how technology can take a good thing and sometimes twist it into something that isn't so good.
I use an example: Just last week in trying to contact the Ministry of the Environment I made three calls and, lo and behold, got voice mail in every case. It was during regular business hours between the time of 9 until noon or 1:30 in the afternoon until 4, I think it was. Frankly, I don't know how many times I would have got voice mail had I tried any more, but after three times I simply said, "I'd best go on to something else." When we use technology we have to use it the best way. I think I'm not alone in this room in thinking that there is one use of technology that certainly builds frustration.
The recent series of property tax bills: You talk about red tape and about paper that we have to deal with. I need only remind the members of the committee that in attempting to improve the property tax system in Ontario, the government had to make no less than four or five bills. I think that's an example that's a bit contrary to your objective of reducing red tape. It would appear to me that it has increased red tape. We're not here to debate those specific bills. I only use them as an example.
As was pointed out by Mr Kormos, the agenda of this committee, if you want to use an example of red tape: We're taking some six days over a period of two or three weeks to deal with a bill that you on the government side say is going to make life easier, and yet what do we do? We tend to take what should have been a relatively easy and straightforward hearing on a bill and made it much longer and, I suggest, more difficult than it should have been.
We should take to heat this objective of reducing red tape, of making it easier to access government, of making it easier to deal with government, to heart on everything that we do in every day of government.
Mr Colle: My colleague has mentioned one of the ironies of this whole thing here today. I don't think it's the fault of the chairman or the committee, but this is supposed to be about reducing red tape and making government more streamlined, yet we have the most convoluted, absurd schedule of witnesses. This could have all been done today, or in one or two sittings. They've stretched this over Monday, today; Tuesday the 29th; Monday again; Tuesday again. There's something here that doesn't really sound logical or doesn't feel right. I think Mr Kormos alluded to the cause of it. The government is playing another game and the game is basically to try and fill up these days that the committee has available to it so they'd block the potential debate over something the government doesn't want to talk about, and that's Ipperwash and the unfortunate death of Dudley George at Ipperwash.
The government is here talking about reducing and streamlining and making government more efficient. We're going to sit here for all these days and have people come from all over. If the government's serious about reducing red tape, they could at least get their act together and not have this stretched over so many days. That's the hypocrisy of this whole thing.
In terms of the bills themselves, there's a whole series of changes here. A lot of it is window dressing, as we know. There are some changes that are probably pretty functional that had to be done, but the government giveth and the government taketh. This is a massive bill which basically gives unprecedented ministerial power to impose more user fees. There are dozens and dozens of new user fees in this bill that the ministers will be able to do by regulation without any checks and balances, so we are giving the ministers more power independent of the consumer. We'll have no way of knowing that the minister is imposing all these new user fees and regulations. It's not only one minister. It's minister after minister who has been given more backroom power to impose user fees and make changes in ordinary people's lives.
As my colleague has said, if you look at what's happening to people's lives in Ontario over the business tax confusion, we have now got the most complex, convoluted, confusing property tax system in the world right here in Ontario. If you want to do something about red tape elimination, I would love the red tape committee to look at our property tax mess. People in this province, especially small business people -- never mind the residential homeowners -- don't know what their tax bill is all about. It was a confusing situation with mill rates and assessments in the past, as you all know. Now we have five bills dealing with property taxes. Real estate professionals don't understand property taxes now, especially on commercial properties. Lawyers and accountants cannot figure out our property tax mess right now. It is so confusing and convoluted, is being amended. There was another amendment I guess announced today where they're going to have to extend the time allotted for appeals because some of the municipalities -- the last day for appeals was supposed to be September 30. They got their tax bill the same day.
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There is a lot of red tape that is being thrust upon the people of Ontario that is a lot worse than the red tape that's being eliminated. A tax you can't understand is a bad tax. The people of Ontario do not now understand this new Mike Harris assessment system, tax system. It is impossible, and it's not just NDPers and Liberals who are saying that. These are Tories who are saying they cannot understand their pass-through on business occupancy tax. You're going to have to have a Bay Street law firm to understand how you can get your business tax from a tenant.
The tenants and landlords across this province are at war with each other because of the rash, absurd changes you made whereby the landlords are now tax collectors and they have no way of collecting taxes from a tenant who says: "I don't see the bill. It's not in my name; it's in your name." People are losing money hiring lawyers and accountants to collect a tax that the government is imposing, that the government thinks they should be collecting for them. It is a mess.
In Orillia there were people in the streets last week. The mayor of Markham doesn't know what to do now. Mississauga doesn't know what to do with this tax mess. That is what I call red tape that the government should be dealing with. These are mostly minor.
I'm glad there's a member of the Red Tape Commission here. I challenge him to take on eliminating the red tape mess that's been created in property taxation. It is a black hole, to say the least.
Also, in terms of customer-friendly service for government, which it's trying to do, what's happened here is that this government has now gone from eliminating red tape to imposing telephone tapes. You can't talk to a real person in this government. The ordinary citizen says, "Are there any real human beings working for the Ontario government any more?" Some of them have not talked to a real human being in a year. They can't get through the telephone tapes. It's one tape recording after another, after another. As members, our office has this problem; I'm sure even on your side you've got this problem.
The ordinary citizen is flabbergasted by the telephone tape game that's been thrust upon them. I wish the Red Tape Commission would have eliminated some of the telephone tape games that are being played. It is a way of obstructing the public's access to government. The public can't talk to real people, ask ordinary questions and or get a simple reply to, for example, "How do I get my health card?" You can't get a reply. It says, "Punch 1," and then once you punch 1 they say, "Would you like your services here or there?" Then they tell you after waiting about half an hour, "Come down to the city of Toronto to get your health card." Then you stand in line, you get your picture taken and you say, "Where's my health card?" "We can't give it to you because it's got to come from Kingston." Talk about modern electronic technology.
This is red tape that the ordinary citizen, the ordinary person, is really fed up with and is saying to this government, "Help make my life a little easier." Never mind the ordinary citizen. Can you imagine the small business person trying to figure all this out and trying to get information? It is most complicated. I don't want to say it's just the provincial government that's got this problem. We know that all governments have had this problem with getting away from the customer, but I say to you, you should talk to some of your ministers about eliminating this barrier. Almost all the ministries have imposed this telephone barrier between the public and the ministry and the people who work there. I would hope there'd be some initiatives in that. That would be really helpful in terms of getting rid of obstacles to customer service.
I would say also that one of the things I talked about in the House, which I thought this could have dealt with, is this whole area about natural gas brokers. Unscrupulous people have been going door to door for the last couple of years signing up people without their knowledge to a fictitious paper company and saying, "You are now going to receive natural gas service from this company." I've got a person who's been trying to get out of this for three years. He's gone through four different companies that he got signed on to. He's written to the minister. I've written. Telephone? You can't get through. He keeps on trying to find out, "How can I get out of this?" He's gone to see Consumers' Gas in person, saying, "I don't want to be part of this ABC company."
This is the type of protection consumers need so that they won't be used by these fly-by-night operators who set up these phony companies to sign people up. Then they show some other company that comes around to buy them out: "We've got 1,000 or 10,000 people signed up. Take my list." People are not getting protection from their government that way. The government has decided to stand back and say, "We'll try and do a little bit better for the gas broker scams," but there are all kinds of people who already lost in that gas broker scam who can't get out. They are so interwoven within these scams -- these companies are selling and buying lists -- that ordinary citizens can't get out. I wish they would have done something in this Bill 25 to allow people to withdraw from these companies that are essentially buying and selling their rights without their knowledge and they can't extricate themselves. I find this very frustrating when I see people who have been trying to do this for three years.
This bill is part of an attempt to tell people we're trying to make things more efficient, but what I'm concerned about is that in the name of efficiency the bottom line of this bill is they've given too much power for my liking to ministers and the people you don't see and can't ask questions of. When they can set too many regulations and make too many changes, impose fees and regulations, I don't like that because I can't get at them. How can you get at them? There's no way of knowing who these people are, what their job descriptions are. They're never accountable. They never answer questions. They're making all these regulatory changes, and more and more of this regulatory power has been given to these unelected, faceless people in ministers' offices.
Opposition members certainly would never have an opportunity to question them, and I'm sure even government members will never have an opportunity until it's after the fact. If that trend continues, you're basically giving more and more executive power to unelected people. I know it's simple, because the life of the minister becomes easier and the minister then doesn't have to answer all these questions, but as government does that, you remove the proximity of the people from the people making the decisions.
It's wonderful if we could all work in a vacuum and government could work in a vacuum, but government that works in a vacuum basically becomes a government that's incompetent, corrupt and really not a government that is answerable. That's what happened in the Soviet Union. There was a separation between the people and the government, and you had a total collapse. That is the underlying ideological part of Bill 25 that I find very disturbing. It's giving more and more power to people who we will never see, never know their names or ever question. They can question us, they can yell at us and they can confront us as politicians, which is good, but these people will never be questioned or challenged for whatever decisions they make because you won't even know they did it until it's too late, and then you won't know whether it was them or not because they can easily hide behind the bureaucracy.
I wanted to use those as my opening remarks. Thank you for listening.
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Mr Kormos: I listened with great care to the comments made by Ms Ross, who is the parliamentary assistant, here speaking for the minister and for the government. I listened as well to Mr Stewart, who is a member of this Red Tape Commission. Look, we've got to deal with the proposition that these red tape bills, this included, are all about somehow creating jobs.
It's been interesting. The observations made to date: First you take a handful of these amendments and find out that what they do is to relieve the ministry of the requirement to go through regulation to set fees and to allow the minister to establish fees by fiat. Now, I appreciate that the regulations committee is dominated by government members and inevitably a new fee structure is approved, but you have got opposition members on regulation committees, insofar as I'm aware. It's been a long time. I recall the regulation committee as a place of punishment. If you'd really slipped to the bottom of somebody's pecking order you got sent to the regulations committee. You know exactly what I'm talking about. But at least you had some public overview there and at least you had the requirement that they be published in the Gazette.
What you've got here, and this is carrying on from what other members of the opposition have said this very afternoon, is the power to generate new fees without there being any need to subject them to the scrutiny of a tripartisan committee and without there being any need to publish them. You can just generate new fees by fiat left or right, helter-skelter. It's a fascinating piece of legislation, this Bill 25. The government had better be very careful.
For instance, creating jobs: I read the Sheep and Wool Marketing Act. I pulled it out of the RSOs. The fact is that the repeal of the Sheep and Wool Marketing Act, to be fair to the commentators, doesn't create one new job, doesn't relieve any burden on anybody, doesn't create any new financial interest, but it's because the statute had become stale, had become obsolete.
What's interesting is that there's a whole bunch of amendments here but there's two complete acts, and I hope people have looked at those, schedule C and schedule J. I know you've read schedule C, Chair; I know you have. Schedule C gives the power to legislative counsel. Previously, every 10 years the Legislature had to pass a statute called the Statute and Regulation Revision Act which gave a legislative counsel commission the power to examine all statutes and to clarify them. As well, it empowered them to omit statutes from the RSOs that are not of general application or that are obsolete. You see, schedule C basically duplicates that act, and rather than having to pass it every 10 years, it is passed once and for all. We don't need the Red Tape Commission once schedule C is passed because legislative counsel has the power to repeal statutes that are redundant or that are obsolete or that no longer have currency. It gives very clear, specific power to repeal or revoke statues, regulations or provisions that are obsolete or are spent or have no legal effect.
This is a bunch of hogwash. What the Red Tape Commission did was collect those statues submitted by ministries that normally, come 1999, would have been submitted to legislative counsel and its commission in anticipation of preparation of the RSOs. Do you understand what I am saying? Talk about pulling the wool over your eyes. This is a load of crap.
Now, there are some dangers involved, though, because there is the Jerry Springer amendment in here.
Mr Colle: Where is that?
Mr Kormos: Wait a minute. You've got to read these bills. That's the amendment to the Marriage Act. I frivolously call it the Jerry Springer act because what it does is repeal the form to the act that sets out the relationships by consanguinity which bar marriage. It anticipates that there will be a regulation passed to set out the same or similar relationships. If that regulation isn't passed, I tell you, it's going to be the Jerry Springer show. Bizarrely, this government is repealing the section of the Marriage Act which precludes people in certain relationships from marrying each other. Why in heaven's name they'd want to do that I have no idea. At least down in Welland-Thorold it's not obsolete. I can't speak for other parts of the province or for other members.
This is particularly in reference to schedule C as the reason for the amendments. You know, Ms Ross, why there's a need to amend the Bulk Sales Act, don't you? When legislative counsel did the Revised Statutes of Ontario in 1990, legislative counsel, pursuant to the statutes of Ontario act, 1989, forgot to include that section even though it had been passed in the original legislation. At least when you've got the statutes revision act, every 10 years you have Parliament considering the process. With schedule C, the Statute and Regulation Revision Act, there is no longer a decennial consideration of statutes passed in the previous 10 years so that they can be re-reviewed with a view to finding errors like the error that was made in RSO 1990 under the Bulk Sales Act.
The other interesting statute here is schedule J. I know that's the last one, but I know you read the whole bill and I know you reached schedule J. Schedule J repeals the act which creates the policy and priorities committee of cabinet. The policy and priorities committee exists by virtue of statute and it is considered the committee of the executive branch. Repealing that is a very interesting proposition, because P and P acted as a buffer, a continuum, a nexus between caucus and cabinet, if there ever is a nexus between caucus and cabinet -- a whole lot of backbenchers would consider that to be unlikely -- but certainly between cabinet and the Premier. P and P was, among other things, the court of last resort for a cabinet minister who wanted to drive a particular policy agenda. He or she might have it resurrected or revived in P and P.
Schedule J in this bill repeals the act which creates the policy and priorities committee. That is a very dangerous proposition. That suggests that not only is the backbench irrelevant when it comes to the Premier's office, but that the cabinet is irrelevant as well with the abolition of the committee of the executive branch, because the Premier is a prima facie or de facto -- what do they call it? Please, staffers, what do they call it when by virtue of your office -- ex officio. Am I right on that? The Premier is an ex officio member of P and P. I'm pretty sure, as I recall the statute, that the Premier is a member of P and P. It's not silly stuff. It's a very interesting thing that this government would repeal the policy and priorities committee. It indicates what a whole lot of people and a whole lot of pundits have written about and suspected, that the real operation of this government isn't from within cabinet office or even the Premier's office, but from far outside the Premier's office. Why else would you abolish P and P?
Go down the list. You've got a whole whack of amendments here which take away the regulatory requirement to establish new fees and put it solely in the hands of the minister, where it can be done secretively without any overview or oversight by anybody. How does that create jobs? Not one, nada, zero, zip. You've got a whole bunch of statutes that would have been repealed in any event by legislative counsel come 1999-2000 because they were obsolete, no longer with currency. You heard the definition I read to you a little while ago etc, that the legislative counsel has power simply to exclude from the RSOs. I'm not sure very many people understood the incredible power. Legislative counsel can change the wording of legislation. Under the old revision of statutes legislation it was every 10 years, and now under this fixed legislation it's permanent, the revision of statutes and regulations. Legislative counsel has incredible powers. No creation of jobs there.
I'd like to know how assigning to deputy ministers or ministers the power to make appointments as compared to delegating or requiring that power to be exercised by the Lieutenant Governor in Council creates any jobs. Mind you, it avoids -- what does it avoid, Chair? Think about it for a minute. When you've got the minister himself or herself or the deputy minister making appointments -- we have a very special committee here that may not have a great deal of power, because it's dominated by the government, but at least it has a public airing of some of the personalities who enjoy governmental appointments. The name of it is the agencies, boards and commissions committee. When you remove appointment power from the Lieutenant Governor in Council and give it to the DM, bingo. When you look at motive, what you permit is the secret process, the secret selection, the good old days of pork barrelling that we've seen a revival of in this province over the course of the last two and a half years in terms of appointments with no public scrutiny, regardless of how modest that scrutiny might be.
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I acknowledge matters like electronic filing, although it scares the daylights out of me, because I saw the experiments -- and again, they didn't come from this government; these things have been in the works for a number of years. I know that. They have their origins within the ministry bureaucracies that are obsessed with high technology and are wined and dined by the sellers of high technology and as often as not bamboozled by them. But I'm scared to death of the absence of integrity in the whole system of electronic filing of, let's say, writs and other court processes.
Yes, a few favours to the corporate world and corporations, but as I had to explain to these folks when with great hurrah they eliminated the annual filing fee of -- how much was that, for business corporations? Remember, friends? The annual filing fee was reduced or eliminated. I had to point out that small businesses in this province, real small businesses, the kind that I grew up in, the kind that my grandparents ran and my parents ran and the kind that prevailed in the communities I represent and live in, aren't incorporated. You're talking about small business. I'm talking about real small business, bona fide small business, that tends not to be incorporated. They're talking about operations with 20, 25, 30 non-union employees. I'm talking about mom-and-pop operations. I know for a fact that you know exactly what I'm talking about. They tend not to be incorporated. They don't file annual returns in any event.
Yet let me tell you where they got whacked. I was just at a meeting of Niagara regional council, that got hit for over $18 million in new taxes. As a result of the downloading and as a result of the reassessment, speedily done in the course of less than a year when the experts all told the Premier that it should have taken at least three years, you've seen major shifts of new business taxes, especially in a community like Niagara-on-the-Lake. I know that specifically because they were there with the overhead charts and talked about new businesses. Small mom-and-poppers: That little restaurant whose taxes went up by over $9,000 to in excess of $24,000, the little soda stand in Niagara-on-the-Lake, isn't incorporated. The lady who owns that doesn't give a tinker's damn about being able to hold board of directors' meetings over the phone. She got hit for $9,000 in new property taxes because of Al Leach's current value assessment.
This doesn't create jobs. This is so redundant. As has been pointed out by Mr Colle and Mr Crozier, among others, this is the red tape, because the obsolete bills would have been taken care of by legislative counsel anyway by virtue of the decennial revision of statutes act. All it does is clear them from the books. Otherwise, they simply don't get used.
This creates new powers for ministries that prohibit and prevent public access to information and public oversight and it provides some modest relief for the corporate world when in fact the real small businesses of this province, I'm convinced, don't have corporate lawyers and corporate auditors. They're lucky if they've got a few bucks in the bank at the end of the week, after paying the mortgage and paying their taxes and after they've paid maybe the one or two part-time staff they've got on a weekly basis, to pick up food for their own homes. So let's not talk about job creation, not with this. Far from it. This is a scam.
Consumer protection? I tried to call the cops a month and a half ago. There was a set-up in London -- I drove out there -- a motor vehicle repair shop that was ripping off its customers and it hadn't posted the mandatory signs under the legislation. I was going to burn him. I was going to turn him in. I was going to rat him out. I called the ministry. I said: "I need the cops. You've got to bust this guy. He's scamming people in London. I got a phone call so I went down there and inspected the place." I did it undercover. I wasn't in a suit, right? It's true. I got put on voice mail and voice mail and voice mail. Finally, somebody answered my phone who is the director of investigations. I said, "What about investigators?" She said, "No, I'm it." The director of investigations is all the investigators. I said: "I want to bust this guy. I've got the goods on him. I was there. He hadn't posted the proper material under the Motor Vehicle Repair Act." "Oh, let's do conciliation, perhaps in a few months' time." I don't want to conciliate with the guy. He's ripping people off. I want him shut down.
There is no consumer protection. Mrs Ross, the ministry has been gutted. It's like calling 911 and getting busy signals or getting elevator music. The ministry has been gutted. I've tried it, and I've tried it more than once. They're not all busting the people they should be busting. Take a look at the correspondence you're getting on scams like the natural gas scams or roofing scams or basement scams or asphalt scams, and take a look at the form letters the ministry sends out: "Oh, not in our bailiwick," or, "You can submit for arbitration or conciliation." A pair of seniors who have been skimmed, scammed, skinned for $10,000 for a rip-off roof don't need conciliation; they need their money back. The ministry simply can't do it any more because it doesn't have the capacity, doesn't have the staff, doesn't have the investigative staff and it doesn't have the desire any more.
I think my time is up, Chair.
The Vice-Chair: It is.
Mr Kormos: We'll have more to say as we go on through the balance of these hearings.
The Vice-Chair: I'm sure you will.
Mr Kormos: Third reading will be a treat.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. This brings to a conclusion the hearings for today. We'll stand adjourned until Tuesday the 29th at 5 pm.
The committee adjourned at 1757.