SAVINGS AND RESTRUCTURING ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 SUR LES ÉCONOMIES ET LA RESTRUCTURATION
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF KITCHENER AND WATERLOO
WATERLOO REGIONAL LABOUR COUNCIL
CANADIAN AUTO WORKERS REGIONAL POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
GUELPH/WELLINGTON COALITION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
ONTARIO SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
WATERLOO REGIONAL COALITION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS COUNCIL, ONTARIO PUBLIC LIBRARIES
WATERLOO PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP
WATERLOO COUNTY WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONGREY ASSOCIATION FOR BETTER PLANNING
CANADIAN AUTO WORKERS, LOCAL 1451
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL 677
CONTENTS
Wednesday 10 January 1996
Savings and Restructuring Act, 1995, Bill 26, Mr Eves / Loi de 1995 sur les économies
et la restructuration, projet de loi 26, M. Eves
Chamber of Commerce of Kitchener and Waterloo
Frank Varga, president
Ed Lemont, chair, federal-provincial affairs committee
Waterloo Regional Labour Council
Mike Cooper, chair, political action committee
Canadian Auto Workers Regional Political Action Committee
Sharon Mitic, representative
Dave Fairfull, representative
Chris Greason, member; chair, Perth County Coalition for Social Justice
Guelph/Wellington Coalition for Social Justice
Bill Clifford, member
Marion Cummings, member
Wendy McCowan, member
Susan Neath, member
Ontario Social Development Council
Rev David Pfrimmer, president
Peter Clutterbuck, executive director, Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto; member, Social Planning Network of Ontario
Ernie Ginsler, executive director, Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo
Malcolm Shookner, executive director
Waterloo Region Tax Watch
David Kresky, chair
Ian Munro, director
City of Owen Sound
Jim MacKay, acting mayor
Peter Lemon, councillor
Craig Curtis, city manager
Ann Kelly, councillor
Waterloo Regional Coalition for Social Justice
Kevin Smith, member
Matt Willems, member
City of Guelph
Joe Young, mayor
Strategic Directions Council, Ontario Public Libraries
Eleanor James, chair
Jane Watkins, member
Hazel Thornton-Lazier, vice-chair
Waterloo Public Interest Research Group; Waterloo County Women Teachers' Association
Jennifer Newcombe, staff representative, Waterloo Public Interest Research Group
Heather Cain, volunteer researcher, Waterloo Public Interest Research Group
Donna Reid, executive director, Waterloo County Women Teachers' Association
Howard Greig
Grey Association for Better Planning
Peter Ferguson, president
Canadian Auto Workers, Local 1451; United Steelworkers of America, Local 677
John Coleman, president, CAW Local 1451
John Cunningham, president, USWA Local 677
Kitchener Public Library Board
Peggy Walshe, CEO
Bruce MacNeil, chair
EVIDENCE SUBCOMMITTEE
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT
Chair / Président: Maves, Bart (Niagara Falls PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Tascona, Joseph N. (Simcoe Centre / -Centre PC)
Flaherty, Jim (Durham Centre / -Centre PC)
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East / -Est L)
*Hardeman, Ernie (Oxford PC)
*Maves, Bart (Niagara Falls PC)
Pupatello, Sandra (Windsor-Sandwich L)
*Tascona, Joseph N. (Simcoe Centre / -Centre PC)
Wood, Len (Cochrane North / -Nord ND)
*Young, Terence H. (Halton Centre / -Centre PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Cooke, David S. (Windsor-Riverside ND) for Mr Wood
Gerretsen, John (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L) for Mrs Pupatello
Phillips, Gerry (Scarborough-Agincourt L) for Mr Grandmaître
Sampson, Rob (Mississauga West / -Ouest PC) for Mr Flaherty
Also taking part / Autre participants et participantes:
Agostino, Dominic (Hamilton East / -Est L)
Leadston, Gary L. (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
Martiniuk, Gerry (Cambridge PC)
Wettlaufer, Wayne (Kitchener PC)
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Richmond, Jerry, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The subcommittee met at 0858 in the Valhalla Inn, Kitchener.
SAVINGS AND RESTRUCTURING ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 SUR LES ÉCONOMIES ET LA RESTRUCTURATION
Consideration of Bill 26, An Act to achieve Fiscal Savings and to promote Economic Prosperity through Public Sector Restructuring, Streamlining and Efficiency and to implement other aspects of the Government's Economic Agenda / Projet de loi 26, Loi visant à réaliser des économies budgétaires et à favoriser la prospérité économique par la restructuration, la rationalisation et l'efficience du secteur public et visant à mettre en oeuvre d'autres aspects du programme économique du gouvernement.
The Chair (Mr Bart Maves): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, committee members. Welcome to Kitchener. Before we begin proceedings this morning and hear witnesses, Mr Cooke has a motion.
Mr David S. Cooke (Windsor-Riverside): Mr Chair:
Whereas there has been overwhelming public interest in Bill 26 and 47 groups and individuals have requested to appear before the standing committee on general government in Kitchener, which far exceeds the 15 spaces available today for hearings;
I move that this committee recommends to the government House leader that when the House returns on January 29, 1996, the order with respect to Bill 26 be amended and that the bill be returned to the standing committee on general government so that further public hearings can be arranged for the community of Kitchener;
Further, that this committee recommends to the three House leaders that they meet as soon as possible to discuss this issue.
If I might, Mr Chair, just very briefly speak to the issue. This community, like every other community that we've been to, is going to see about 20% of the people who want to be heard. Every place we go, even those individuals and groups that are supporting the legislation are saying that the process is too rushed, that there's not ample opportunity for everybody to analyse the bill and participate in the process and there's been great criticism of the lack of democracy, both in the legislation and in the process to debate the legislation.
All this motion does is suggest that there be a recommendation to the government House leader that this matter be revisited, and I ask the government members to approve this motion so that at least the views of the committee and the views of the people who are appearing before the committee are transmitted to the government House leader.
Mr Rob Sampson (Mississauga West): I welcome the opportunity to speak yet again to this motion and reiterate our position. While I understand that the time slots today have been filled and there are some deputants who will not have an opportunity to speak to us in person, we are more than prepared, and we've stated this before many, many times, to review additional written submissions. Frankly, most of the submissions we've been receiving, even when we have a presenter in front of us, have been written submissions that have been read to us, and then we have one or two or three minutes each to ask questions.
I would encourage individual presenters, if they want to make submissions, to present us with the written submissions and we will review them. I'll be asking, Mr Chairman, later on today that those written submissions do come to us as soon as they are received by the clerk of the committee or the Chair of the committee, so that in our downtime, so to speak, as we move from city to city, we can review those particular submissions and give due consideration to them.
All three parties agreed to the time limits and to the procedure and the process that we are currently following. That's what led to the establishment of this committee and the locations we're visiting and the time slots and the methodology for people being on the committee.
I want also to clarify the fact that it's not the government that is deciding who is on what time slot at any given time; it's an agreement that was reached by all three parties as to how the time slots are going to be organized and allocated among the various people wishing to make submissions.
Again, the Leader of the Opposition said on December 8, "We now have a substantial amount of time to look at this bill." We believe that's the case, we believe that's true, we still believe that's true. We're prepared, though, to look at written submissions as they do come in.
Again, in order to get this particular meeting going today, I think we should move ahead. We will not be supporting this resolution, and I look forward to the representations from the various people who come to speak to us today.
Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): We will be supporting the motion. I think the public in Kitchener and this area should appreciate that this bill is totally unprecedented. There's never been anything like this before. The NDP government introduced something called an omnibus bill that was basically housekeeping, and even that bill was introduced in June and was not passed for five months, to allow a reasonable debate about it. This bill, the government attempted to force through in two weeks, and I think it was an insult to the public of Ontario.
In the Kitchener area we now have organizations, meaningful, significant, major organizations, that are being denied an opportunity to present to this committee. We have offered to pass the important parts of this bill. The government says, "We have to get this done to get our fiscal house in order." Identify those, we will pass those on January 29, and then provide more time so the organizations in the Kitchener-Waterloo area have a chance to let their views be known.
Frankly, every presentation brings a new perspective. I suspect the chamber today will bring us some new ideas. Every single presentation brings us new ideas. But those people are being denied a fundamental right to be heard on an important bill that literally touches everyone.
In terms of saying there's adequate time, this bill does not have adequate time for debate. It is being rammed through because this government thinks it knows best and to heck with anybody who opposes it. So I think any reasonable person would say the process we're going through is unfortunate and should be changed. This motion attempts to change it.
To the groups in the Kitchener-Waterloo area that can't be heard today, you say, "Well, put in a written presentation." Frankly, this committee will be meeting until 9 o'clock on Friday night of next week, and then we begin what's called clause-by-clause hearings at 9 o'clock the following Monday morning. Do you really think all of us will have a chance to read and absorb written briefs from the two thirds of the groups that will not be heard? We're going to hear from only one third of the groups and individuals that want to be heard. Do you really think that over that final weekend all of us are going to have a chance to read those briefs and to reflect those comments in what we call clause-by-clause when we deal with the bill? The fact is, we won't.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Phillips. We'll put the motion to all of the voters this morning. For the government side, Mr Young, Mr Hardeman, Mr Sampson and Mr Tascona.
All those in favour of the motion?
Mr Cooke: Recorded vote.
The Chair: Recorded vote. All those in favour of the motion?
Ayes
Cooke, Gerretsen, Phillips.
The Chair: All those against?
Nays
Hardeman, Sampson, Tascona, Young.
The Chair: I declare the motion lost.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF KITCHENER AND WATERLOO
The Chair: Good morning, gentlemen, from the Chamber of Commerce of Kitchener and Waterloo. Welcome to our committee. Before we continue with that, I'd just like to welcome also Mr Wettlaufer, the member for Kitchener; Mr Martiniuk, the member for Cambridge, and Mr Leadston, the member for Kitchener-Wilmot, to the committee proceedings today.
Gentlemen, you'll have 30 minutes this morning to make your presentation. You may use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation to receive questions and responses from the three caucuses. I'd appreciate it if, before you begin, for the benefit of the committee members and Hansard you'd read your names and your organization into the record.
Mr Frank Varga: I'm Frank Varga, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Kitchener and Waterloo. With me this morning is --
Mr Ed Lemont: Ed Lemont. I chair the federal-provincial affairs committee of the Kitchener-Waterloo chamber of commerce.
Mr Varga: Mr Chair, may I proceed?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Varga: We are here representing the Chamber of Commerce of Kitchener and Waterloo. We are also representing the Chamber of Commerce of Cambridge; the president could not join us this morning, but we've had joint consultations with them, and this presentation represents the Cambridge chamber.
We thank you for the opportunity to present the position of our chambers of commerce regarding Bill 26, the Savings and Restructuring Act. This presentation will deal only with the non-health aspects today of this bill and is based on what we consider a high-level preliminary review of the proposed amendments contained in the bill. It is the intent of the chamber's standing committees to continue their analysis of the various proposed amendments, critically evaluate proposed regulations and encourage an ongoing dialogue with the government of Ontario.
The Chamber of Commerce of Kitchener and Waterloo is the product of a merger of the Kitchener chamber and the Waterloo chamber in 1992, a move which recognized the need to cost-effectively service the business community of the two cities. Our mission is to serve business in Kitchener-Waterloo and be its voice in the betterment of the community. Today, this chamber has a membership of 1,200 businesses, representing all sectors of the business and employer community.
The Cambridge chamber of commerce has a membership of 760 businesses. Its mission is to be the voice of business, committed to the enhancement of economic prosperity and the quality of life in Cambridge.
Collectively, our total membership of 1,960 members includes small, medium and large employers who provide thousands of jobs in one of Ontario's most progressive and economically productive regions.
The chambers strongly support, in principle, the stated purpose of Bill 26, which is to reduce government spending, to promote economic prosperity through public sector restructuring and to create a climate which will attract investment, create jobs and encourage businesses to grow.
Deficits averaging nearly $10 billion annually over the last four years and an accumulated debt of more than $90 billion are not acceptable to our members, and therefore we urge the government to get its financial house in order.
In our opinion, the general initiatives proposed in Bill 26 are strategically correct. However, I would like to make some general observations before dealing with the specific sections of the bill.
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Tough economic decisions must pass the tests of democratic scrutiny and debate. We offer ourselves to participate in the dialogue necessary when the regulations are crafted. In the government's own words, they must "pass the test of common sense." We believe that orders in council and centralization of regulatory powers must not become indiscriminate tools used to exploit special interests of any kind or to deny society at large the creativity inherent in public disclosure and democratic debate.
Deregulation must capture true savings and efficiencies without reducing the standards of care. For example, for the environment and the quality of life in our communities, streamlining processes, and we emphasize "processes," rather than replacing the goals that we have in this province may be the best approach.
Although the chambers are supportive of the general focus of the bill, it is imperative that the associated regulations do not distort the general intent of our goals in this province. Therefore, we request the opportunity to dialogue on regulations as they are proposed.
We would like to note that we are disappointed that this bill does not propose limitations on government at either the provincial or municipal levels. This bill in fact suggests that governments may have more freedom and flexibility to intrude upon and control the lives of citizens and the activities of business, particularly at the municipal level.
We believe that all levels of government are too big and too powerful. Government must be limited, as well as being effective and efficient. We sincerely hope that you will consider limitations within the regulations and we look forward to dialogue in this regard.
Within the conceptual context of this bill, we do not observe a commitment to actually lowering the cost of government with coincident savings being returned to the population. We propose that a no-net principle be incorporated. While we support the principle of user fees in some cases and we believe that market forces should dominate choices, we are concerned that some governments will simply implement user fees as disguised incremental taxation. We propose that where user fees are to be implemented to support existing services, there must be a coincident reduction in the general tax levy. This is the no-net principle.
We strongly wish to reiterate that we do not feel we have a revenue problem in this province. We have a spending problem. Spending must be limited at all levels of government. Taxing jurisdictions should not be allowed to increase taxes or revenue under downloading scenarios or within other scenarios as in the case of user fees, as indicated above.
I now wish to turn over the presentation to Ed Lemont, who is chairman of the federal and provincial affairs committee at the chamber of commerce, to deal with the specific sections of the bill. I will close with a summary on behalf of the chambers and may make some comments during Ed's presentation as well.
Mr Lemont: Let me refer now to the specific schedules of the bill.
Schedule A is the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, 1995. We do not disagree with the intent as set out in this particular schedule.
Schedule B, Amendments to the Corporations Tax Act: Again we do not disagree with the intent of this schedule.
Schedule C is Amendments to the Income Tax Act. We do not disagree with the intent of this section.
Schedule D, Ontario Loan Act, 1995: We agree with the proposals in this particular schedule.
Schedule E, Amendments to the Capital Investment Plan Act, 1993 and the Highway Traffic Act relating to Toll Highways: We support the concept of tolling systems for the financing of new highways; for example, Highway 407 currently under construction. We do not support the concept of applying tolls to existing highways. However, should tolls be applied, it must be under a no-net principle wherein taxes are reduced in direct relation to user fees collected. Tolls must not exceed allocated operating costs.
On the matter of collections and disputed tolls, the right of appeal must be maintained. We're of the opinion that the corporation must not have the right to file a notice of lien or charge against the real or personal property of a person who owes a toll, a fee or interest.
In general, we recommend further consultation with commercial transportation companies prior to the enactment of this bill.
Schedules F, G, H and I all deal with health care issues, which we are not commenting on at this time.
Schedule J, Amendments to the Pay Equity Act: We agree with the elimination of the proxy comparison method for determining whether pay equity exists in an employer's workplace.
Schedule K, Amendments to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act: We agree with the prescribing of a fee for the application to request information or for making an appeal. However, the fee must not exceed the direct cost of providing the service. We're concerned with the autocratic authority of a head of an institution to refuse a request which is deemed to be frivolous or vexatious. Therefore, these decisions must be open to scrutiny by an efficient appeal process.
Schedule L, Amendments to the Public Service Pension Act and the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union Pension Act, 1994: We do not disagree with the intent of this schedule.
Schedule M, Amendments to the Municipal Act and Various Other Statutes Related to Municipalities, Conservation Authorities and Transportation: part I, the Municipal Act: We are in general support of the proposed amendment of part I. However, as stated previously, we're concerned about the potential of unlimited power to regulate by governments. For example, we feel the powers granted to municipalities regarding fees and licensing are much too pervasive. Increasing the potential for regulation at the municipal level is contrary to the government's stated intention of allowing free market forces to assist in encouraging economic growth and sustainability. Specifically, amendments proposed under the general licensing powers section, part XVII.1, are unacceptable. Licence fees must impart value to the licensee.
Mr Varga: I'd like to refer specifically to that section at this point. Under, I believe it would be considered, section 257.2, and following on page 151, starting at clause (f), the municipalities are granted "the power to impose conditions as a requirement of obtaining, continuing to hold or renewing a licence, including conditions...." I won't read the whole part, but we have specific concerns about the pervasive nature of the powers granted the municipalities in this regard, particularly when it's simply to collect revenue as in (i). We believe licences must impart value to the licensee, and if municipalities do not have an ability to impart such value, they should not be able to impose such licences.
We're concerned about a municipality's ability to restrict the hours of operation of a business or the ability, under subclause (iii), of a municipality to inspect an employer's premises at any reasonable time. We don't understand what the purpose would be in that respect.
On page 152, we see that there's an arbitrary ability under clause (g) to impose special conditions on a business within a class of businesses where that condition might not be imposed on the other businesses. This seems to be quite arbitrary.
The ability to regulate equipment, vehicles and other personal property is confusing to us. I don't know that there's enacting or enabling legislation within the province that gives municipalities the right to look at vehicles in any regard.
Under clause (k), "the power to exempt any business or person from all or any part of the bylaw," there seem to be quite far-ranging powers that are conferred on the municipalities. We feel that government should have limited powers and not more powers, and while we understand the intent of the legislation and applaud the government directionally, we feel limitations need to be applied with respect to municipalities. Many businesses conduct operations in a multiplicity of locales, and if there are going to be special licences or conflicting conditions imposed from municipality to municipality, it would be very difficult for business to operate, or want to operate, within this province when some of the regulations imposed may be imposed in an arbitrary nature, particularly if it's simply for raising revenue when there's no value imparted on the basis of the licence to the licensee.
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Mr Lemont: Part II of schedule M is Other Statutes Relating to Municipalities. We are on record as strongly supporting initiatives that reduce taxes and enhance cost-effective government at all levels. We support amendments that increase the tools available to local municipalities to operate cost-effectively. However, we must again reiterate our earlier position that while we support greater flexibility for local governments and boards, a no-net principle must apply. User fees, for example, must not be used as disguised taxation, where user fees are implemented to support existing services. A general tax decrease should be experienced by the population. We trust this will be considered in the regulations.
We also wish to state our disappointment to the continued reference to two-tiered local governments. We have stated previously that we believe there should only be one tier of government locally below the provincial level. While we at this time are not prepared to suggest the appropriate structure, we strongly suggest this bill should encourage movement to a one-tier system. This is fundamental to achieving savings and efficiency at the municipal level.
We do express concern over the use of orders in council and regulations to achieve desired results. Democratic processes must be protected.
Part III of this schedule is the Conservation Authorities Act. We do not disagree with the intent of this section.
Part IV, Transportation Statutes: Again we do not disagree with the intent of this section.
Schedule N, Amendments to Certain Acts Administered by the Minister of Natural Resources: We are in agreement with the reduction in administration costs relative to permits, licences etc. However, current standards of care in environmental protection must not be abandoned. Licensing may not be the most cost-effective method of implementing and enforcing desired standards of performance. In this area we recommend that changes should be based on scientific principles, not on political interest only. We support the segregation of funds received under the Game and Fish Act in a separate account in the consolidated revenue fund, and dedicating these funds to the management of the resources that produce these revenues.
Schedule O, Amendments to the Mining Act: We don't disagree with the intent of these amendments. However, the principles of self-regulation and deregulation must ensure that current standards of environmental care are maintained or enhanced. Cost-effective improvements are supported.
Schedule P, Amendments to the Ministry of Correctional Services Act: We agree with the intent of the amendments in this section.
Schedule Q, Amendments to Various Statutes with Regard to Interest Arbitration: We do not disagree with the intent of these amendments. However, we would suggest that a closer look should be taken at the process of appointing arbitrators.
Mr Varga: I'll close with the summary and then be available for questions. Again, we'd like to reiterate that we strongly support the broad strategic initiatives of Bill 26. However, we do urge the government to enhance the quality of democratic debate in its pursuit of achieving fiscal savings by including groups such as ourselves in the process of crafting the regulations and ensuring that we have that opportunity.
We clearly have a high interest in supporting initiatives that improve government operating efficiencies and the restructuring of government. They are fundamental to the savings required in this province in order to build and sustain a healthy economy.
I trust that our members' general concerns in the areas of democratic process have been heard. We want to participate in the development of the regulations. Our concerns are about the increasing government power, regulatory power, the deregulations that reduce standards of care or ultimate goals in this province, increasing regulatory flexibility at the municipal level that may damage the ability for market forces to operate fully, and tax increases masquerading as user fees.
The Common Sense Revolution must apply to all sectors of our economy and community. We appreciate very much the opportunity to make this presentation to the standing committee today. We look forward to continuing open dialogue on the above matters and others that may involve our interests.
The Chair: That leaves about three minutes per caucus for questions, starting with Mr Cooke. I'd like to welcome Mr Agostino from Hamilton East to the committee this morning.
Mr Cooke: Just a couple of questions. Throughout your presentation you've talked about, and I think you've reinforced, the concern that many of us have that while this legislation sets out a direction, the guts of it are going to be in the regulations, and throughout your presentation you've talked about concerns that you might have if regulations went in a certain direction. I believe at the beginning of your presentation you talked about offering your assistance in developing the regulations.
Would you agree that there should in fact be a public process on the regulations because they're so important to the guts of this legislation? I'd put forward two ideas: (1) that the regulations should be draft regulations and should be released before the bill gets third reading so we can see specifically where the bill is going and how it's going to be implemented; (2) that those draft regulations then should be referred to a committee so there can be participation by people like yourselves to clarify and improve the draft regulations.
Mr Varga: We wouldn't support anything that's going to slow down the implementation of the needed changes in this province. We believe that there's been a strong mandate given to this government. We think that the bill can proceed with the minor changes that we've suggested and that the regulations can be crafted probably in the normal manner. We would hope that what you would mean by "public participation" would include groups like ourselves and other interested parties who have a particular vested interest in the specific regulations that apply to the various sections of the legislation, and we'd participate in that normal manner. But I don't believe that this province or this country can afford to wait any longer than we have to get on with the kinds of creative moves that we need to get this economy fully functioning and back on a level playing field.
Mr Cooke: I don't disagree, but I guess I'm a little confused at your approach then, because on one hand, you're saying that you support the direction of the legislation but that you recognize, as you have throughout your presentation, that the regulations are really the guts of this legislation.
Let me give you an example, and it's reinforced by an article in today's Toronto Star. There are in fact provisions in this legislation for municipalities not only to increase fees in licensing but also to bring about different types of new taxation at the local level: sales, gas and income. That's going to be clarified either by an amendment to the legislation or by the regulations. I would think that if you're concerned about the direction of governments, you would want to see those regulations before the bill becomes law. I'm assuming from the whole tenor of your presentation that you would not support municipalities having the right to bring in a gas or sales tax.
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The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Cooke. Unfortunately, we've gone beyond. You might want to answer that, sir, on the government's time. Mr Wettlaufer, for the government.
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): Thank you, Frank, for your submissions and for appearing before the committee today.
One of your concerns deals with the accountability of government. Do you not feel that with 70% of the government expenditures today being in the form of transfer payments to the MUSH sector -- the municipalities, universities, school boards and hospital boards -- by returning the authority for the expenditure of those moneys to the local boards, that would also increase their accountability to the local taxpaying sector, ie, the business sector and the private taxpayer? Do you not feel that is beneficial?
Mr Varga: We support the notion of giving municipalities and local boards more flexibility in the discretion of the use of funds. However, we think there have to be some limits on it and there has to be some consistency across the province because of the way business and most people operate. People aren't just localized any more. They don't just worry about Kitchener or Waterloo or London, so there needs to be some limits to the power that municipalities have and some consistency across the province.
We understand there's only so much money in the pie, and it's really a question of distribution. If we think there's enough money in the system, by all means give them the ability to make the decisions that are truly local. But our community is shrinking -- the global community, the provincial community, the national community -- and therefore there still has to be a need for some regulations that suggest consistency -- not standardization necessarily, but consistency -- of guidelines across the province in some areas. We have not been able to get down to that level; we hope we can if we participate in the regulation process.
Mr Wettlaufer: Do you not feel that the demands by the local constituents are going to vary considerably from locale to locale?
Mr Varga: In some matters they are, but on matters of health care, for example, I would suggest there's probably going to be a general set of expectations across the province. When it comes to whether you want signs on your front lawn, or whether you want billboards and so on, which municipalities always have, that's the kind of stuff the local citizens certainly are going to have differences on, based on the character and the cultural makeup of a community.
But on the bigger issues, like health care, for example, or regulations in terms of business operating or business operating hours or standards within what you can license and what you can't, say, with respect to whether it's the electrical and mechanical trades, the heating trades, the plumbing trades, we're worried that these regulations and powers that the municipalities are going to have are going to intrude into various areas that the municipalities have no expertise on and cannot impart value to those particular activities.
Mr Phillips: I really appreciate the chamber's presentation. It's not unlike other ones we've heard. Many groups say, "Hurry up and implement the bill, except the parts where we have major concerns, and then take a good look at them." I think you've done a good job of highlighting an area we haven't talked a lot about, and that is the business licensing.
Here is the situation as I understand it. Firstly, a whole bunch of your members who currently don't pay licence fees will pay licence fees. The minister has said that a whole bunch of new businesses will pay licence fees. Secondly, it gives the municipalities the power to impose conditions requiring the payment of a licence fee, which may be in the nature of a tax, for the privilege conferred by the licence.
The bill also goes on to say that if there's any conflict between a provision in this part on licensing and a provision of any other section of this act or any other act, the section that is less restrictive of a local municipality's power prevails.
You pull all of those together and also recognize that all of the mayors we've talked to so far have said, "Our transfers from the province have been cut dramatically; we have to find new revenue sources." The deputy mayor of London yesterday said, "We need this bill passed right away because we've got to begin implementing these new fees." Do I understand correctly that even if this bill still contains these provisions -- that is, lots of new businesses licensed, virtually unlimited flexibility for municipalities to impose licences, overriding any other act, and it could be in the nature of a tax -- it is the chamber's position that we should still pass the bill?
Mr Varga: I think we should pass the bill, but there's another section of the bill that suggests the minister has the ability to impose limitations on these licences; I can't find it, but I know it's in there. So our hope would be that in the drafting of the regulations or in our consultations with the ministry, we would be able to impart some suggestions that would put limits on what municipalities can do in the area of licensing and fees.
Mr Phillips: Would you not think it would be in the chamber's best interests to not rely on regulation? Regulation is change at the stroke of a pen. You may or not be consulted. Yesterday we heard that the government passed a regulation to take away pension benefits from pensioners. They had to go to court to get that regulation overturned. Do you not think it may be a wiser course of action from your members' perspective to try and deal with -- you call these provisions unacceptable --
The Chair: I apologize for having to interrupt, but we've already gone a little bit beyond here.
Mr Phillips: That's part of our problem.
The Chair: I want to thank you gentlemen for coming forward this morning and making your presentation to the committee.
WATERLOO REGIONAL LABOUR COUNCIL
The Chair: May I please have a representative from the Waterloo Regional Labour Council come forward. Good morning, gentlemen, and welcome to the standing committee on general government. You have 30 minutes to present this morning. You may use that time as you see fit; you may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions. I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourselves and your organization for the benefit of Hansard and the committee members.
Mr Mike Cooper: I'm Mike Cooper, the chair of the political action committee for the Waterloo Regional Labour Council, and with me today is Kirk Oulds, the first vice-president of the Waterloo Regional Labour Council. We'd like to thank you first of all for the opportunity to present to this committee, although we do have some concerns about the time lines.
To start, the Waterloo Regional Labour Council has 95 affiliates, representing almost 20,000 unionized workers in the region. Labour's role in the community is to promote the interests of its affiliates and, in general, to advance the economic and social welfare of the workers of the province.
Bill 26 introduces three new acts, amends 44 acts and repeals two acts. I don't believe any member of this committee fully understands the scope of what's in this 211-page bill. I know the working people of this province don't know how some of the provisions of this bill will affect them.
The labour council believes Bill 26 is an exercise in deficit reduction that will continue to punish working people in their communities. We would ask the government to withdraw this piece of legislation, but knowing you won't, we would ask you to reconsider the time lines to allow for more input from those who will be affected by the enormous scope of this bill. This is evident by the government's action of splitting the bill hearings into two separate subjects already. We ask the government to further separate this bill to allow the experts in each area of the legislation to assist you in getting it right.
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We must question whether the government has any interest in getting it right by its previous actions of cutting social assistance to the neediest and the most vulnerable in the province and saying they will have to rely more on families, friends and churches. At the same time, the Mike Harris government is cutting funding to the very groups set up by family, friends and churches to assist those in need, without any consultation with these groups to see if they could continue to provide the necessary services. Bill 26 is a complete abdication of responsibility of the Mike Harris government in Ontario to care for the poor, the socially disadvantaged, the less skilled, the less capable, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed.
Bill 26 is a power grab, the likes of which have never been seen in the history of the province of Ontario. This bill will give Mike Harris and a select few cabinet ministers and unelected advisers sweeping powers over our health care system, municipalities, the environment and our right to the protection of privacy. These same ministers are immune from liability for using their discretionary powers under Bill 26.
We will not have time on this occasion to address everything in this omnibus bill that deserves comment or criticism. We know the government is not interested in allowing sufficient or significant public hearings on this massive legislation. Mike Harris doesn't want to know what the working people of Ontario have to say. The government doesn't want to hear that this bill moves too far too fast. The government doesn't want to have people speaking out about the changes that would Americanize health care, give cabinet sweeping powers over municipalities and doctors, gut environmental protections, wipe out pay equity for the lowest-paid women in the public sector, lift the ceiling on drug prices, allow the implementation of sweeping new user fees and much more.
A study by Statistics Canada in 1991 revealed that the current deficit is the result of a decrease in revenues and interest payments on the debt, not social spending. Yet we constantly hear in the news media that spending on social programs is out of control and needs to be cut. The government is perpetrating a hoax that in the name of dealing with debt and deficit we're going to have to tear apart our social programs. In reality, deregulation, privatization, free trade and a worldwide recession are the causes of our problems.
They are offering two solutions to our debt and deficit problem: (1) reduce expenditures affecting the needy, (2) increase income, which means user fees for government services. Both discriminate against the poor. Current cuts are penny wise and pound foolish. Cutbacks will only serve to widen the income gap. The amount saved today will pale in comparison to the costs we as a society will incur over the long run. Deteriorating neighbourhoods, despair and wasted lives, which already exist in many cities south of the border, will characterize our future landscape unless we reverse this trend now.
The impact of the cuts on the economy results in reduced spending in supermarkets, corner stores and department stores and in the private housing market. Evidence regarding consumption habits shows that lower-income households spend nearly 95% of any increase in income on survival -- that's food, clothing and shelter -- while higher-income households spend 60% and save 40%.
The hope of supply-side economics has always been that skewing income distribution in favour of the wealthy would lead them to invest in productive activity which creates more jobs, thereby increasing the incomes of poor people. This is the trickle-down theory which was the central tenet of supply-side Reaganomics in the US during the 1980s. Reagan's policy didn't create jobs, but it did increase income disparities and greatly increased the national debt.
The Harris government is leading Ontario in exactly the opposite direction that it needs to go, towards the low wages and low social standards of the Third World countries, rather than the high wages and strong social infrastructures of countries such as Germany. The government is punishing Ontario's poorest people today and risking the general quality of life and standard of living for all Ontarians tomorrow.
Since the Tories intend to cut even deeper than they would otherwise have to do in order to implement their promised 30% cut to the income tax rate for everyone, what do they have to say to the $25,000-a-year worker who would have received a $1,913 tax saving over three years under the tax plan but who will now be unemployed because of the restraint plan? How will the Tories get people to spend their tax savings on goods and services at a time when thousands of ordinary workers will be losing their jobs? Do not layoffs and insecurity discourage spending?
The cuts were rushed in reaction to the so-called crisis of the government learning, on taking office, that the deficit for 1995 would be $1 billion to $2 billion more than expected. This was not good news, but no one else described it as a crisis. No bond rating agency, lender or economist said this would affect the province, provided it continued its graduated four-year plan to eliminate the deficit. Harris used the crisis to justify abandoning coordination of the programs he had promised to bring in at the same time as the cuts and which were supposed to help people survive the cuts. He also cut much deeper and faster than he said he would.
While everyone would like lower taxes, polling suggests we don't want it at the expense of such things as job creation, our health and social safety net and paying down public debt. By not giving the tax cut, the government will save up to $5 billion annually, permitting it to balance the budget two years sooner than planned.
In a recent poll 67% wanted and 33% were opposed to a balanced budget before a tax cut; 76% wanted higher priority on job creation while only 23% wanted a higher priority on lowering taxes; 74% wanted to protect health and social programs while only 23% wanted to lower taxes; and 75% wanted a reduction in the deficit before lowering taxes.
There are several areas of Bill 26 which affect our members directly by reducing their disposable income. They are amendments to various statutes with respect to interest arbitration, Pay Equity Act amendments, the Public Service Pension Act, freedom of information changes and the new user fees that are being allowed to the municipalities. We'll try to get through these as much as possible while our time allows.
On the amendments to various statutes with respect to interest arbitration, schedule Q, the bill would amend legislation governing interest arbitration in the fire, hospital, police, public service and school board sectors. In these sectors the Legislature is determined that, given the essential nature of the services provided, the terms and conditions of collective agreements must be determined by a process of compulsory interest arbitration rather than through recourse to strikes or lockouts.
In determining compensation matters under collective agreements, the traditional criterion used by arbitrators to determine wages in the public sector is comparability with employees performing similar work for other employers in the public sector and with employees performing similar work for employers in the private sector. This ensures that wages for employees governed by interest arbitration in the public sector follow freely negotiated settlements in those sectors where the parties have the right to engage in free collective bargaining with the right to strike or lockout.
However, the bill would require arbitrators to consider the following criteria: the employer's ability to pay in light of its fiscal situation; the extent to which services may have to be reduced if the current funding levels are not increased; the economic situation in Ontario and in the municipality or municipalities concerned; comparison of the terms and conditions of employment and nature of the work performed with other employees in the broader public sector; and the employer's need for qualified employees. These criteria would not apply to interest arbitrations where, on or before the day Bill 26 receives royal assent, an oral or electronic hearing began or all submissions were received by the board.
These provisions constitute a significant interference in the independence and integrity of the arbitration process, requiring boards of arbitration to consider governmental criteria in awarding collective agreements.
Arbitrators have stated that basing an award on ability to pay could render the interest arbitration process largely irrelevant, since the use of ability to pay could allow the government and employers to unilaterally determine wages and benefits by simply allocating a fixed or reduced amount for employee compensation in their transfer payments or budgets.
Furthermore, to the extent that the imposition of the ability-to-pay criterion leads arbitrators to reach a predetermined result and biases their decision in favour of employers, reliance on ability to pay would undermine the independence of arbitrators and the integrity of the arbitration process.
If employers can unilaterally fix or reduce the budget for employee compensation and then argue that arbitrators are bound by the employer's budgetary decision, this could also undermine the process of collective bargaining itself, since there would be little if any incentive for employers to reach an agreement when it is clear that arbitrators will have no choice at the end of the day other than to award the employer's position.
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Arbitrators have also criticized the requirement to apply the ability-to-pay criterion on the basis that it requires public sector employees to subsidize public services through substandard wages, a situation criticized by all arbitrators as unacceptable. Moreover, since there is no objective test for measuring a public sector employer's ability to pay, arbitrators have held that ability to pay really amounts to no more than willingness to pay. In this sense, the ability-to-pay factor can be viewed as a subterfuge for wage controls. By imposing this criterion on arbitrators, government may be able to effectively implement wage controls without doing so directly, thereby using arbitrators as a buffer to escape responsibility.
The adverse impact of the ability-to-pay factor on the independence of arbitrators was recognized when similar legislation was adopted by a Tory government for a temporary period in the early 1980s. At that time the chair of the Ontario Police Arbitration Commission expressed concern that arbitrators may cease to be available since the proposed legislation will impinge on their independence. As a result of such concern, the legislation was not renewed after a period of one year.
As well, the extent to which the imposition of the ability-to-pay criterion deprives employees of a fair and impartial mechanism for determining their terms and conditions of employment was recognized by the International Labour Organization in 1985 when its freedom of association committee concluded that if arbitrators are directly appointed by a government which lays down in legislation certain criteria which arbitrators are bound to follow in the determination of awards, it is inevitable that confidence in the system will diminish.
The bill also requires arbitrators to consider the extent to which services may have to be reduced if current funding levels are not increased. The intent of this provision is not clear, but it may be to encourage arbitrators to make awards which require employees to subsidize the maintenance of certain levels of service through substandard wages. However, some observers have suggested that the effect of this provision may well be to involve arbitrators in decisions respecting the level of service that should be provided by employers, thereby relieving public sector employers of their responsibility for making decisions for which they can be held accountable.
Under the Pay Equity Act amendments, the main thrust of schedule J of the bill is a proposed repeal of the proxy value provisions of the Pay Equity Act. The repeal would take effect on January 1, 1997. As outlined more fully below, the proxy value provisions were added to the act in 1993 to provide for pay equity for female employees in the broader public sector who, because there were no male job classes in their establishment, were effectively denied access to pay equity under the act; for example, certain day care workers, nursing home employees, employees of children's aid societies and employees of transitional services for women and children. The proxy value provisions permit pay equity comparisons to be made with female comparators in designated proxy establishments.
When the Pay Equity Act was originally enacted in 1987, it provided for pay equity by comparing female job classes to male job classes with the employer's establishment, the job-to-job comparison method. However, if for any given female job class there was no comparable male job class within the employer's establishment, then no pay equity adjustment was required.
Effective January 1, 1993, amendments were made to the Pay Equity Act to provide two additional comparison methods in order to confer wider access to the benefit of the act. These were the proportional value and proxy value methods of comparison.
Under the proportional value method of comparison, if there is no comparable male job class within the establishment, a female job class is compared with the representative male job class in the establishment. The job rate for the female job class is then fixed as a proportion of the job rate of the male job class based on the relative value of the work performed, and required pay equity adjustments must be made.
The proxy value method is applied to establishments in the broader public sector in which there are no male job classes at all in the establishment. Under this method the employer called the seeking employer is required to find a proxy establishment in accordance with the regulations which list appropriate proxy employers. Information about the duties and responsibilities of female job classes of the proxy employer is compared with the key female job class or job classes of the seeking employer.
A job rate for the key female job class of the seeking employer is set by applying the proportional value method to the relevant job class of the proxy employer. Job rates for the other female job classes of the seeking employer are also set. By comparing these job classes to the key job class using the proportional value method the required pay equity adjustments must then be made. Schedule J also contains transitional provisions changing the minimum pay equity payments required to be made by employers in proxy value cases for the interim period from January 1, 1994, to December 31, 1996.
Under the current legislation there is a minimum annual pay equity adjustment which is the lesser of 1% of payroll in the preceding year and the amount required to achieve pay equity. Additional adjustments must be made in the case of proxy value comparisons prior to making the minimum payment.
The transitional provisions under schedule J would change the minimum payment required in proxy value cases. A new minimum adjustment payable for the period from January 1, 1994, to December 31, 1996, would require the payment of "the lesser of 3% of the total of all wages and salaries payable to the employees in Ontario of the employer in 1993 and the amount required to achieve pay equity." However, we noted that while the requirement for annual proxy value payments has been removed, the bill does not clearly specify when the adjustment must be made in respect of the interim period.
In addition to changing the minimum pay equity adjustment in proxy value cases from an annual 1% payment to a total 3% adjustment in respect of the interim period up to January 1, 1997, the other proposed changes regarding the minimum payment could result in significant reductions in the minimum amounts required to be paid to achieve pay equity in proxy value cases.
First, the amount is to be calculated based on all wages and salaries, which may be interpreted more narrowly than payroll under the current legislation. Second, the calculation was based only on wages and salaries payable in Ontario, whereas currently there is no express limitation. Third, the bill would alter the base for determining minimum proxy value, pay equity adjustments from the current base of payroll over the preceding 12 months to the proposed 1993 base.
Further, schedule J would repeal a provision of the current act requiring certain adjustments to be made before the minimum required adjustments. The bill would also provide that even where a proxy value plan has been posted, the employer is not bound by the schedule of compensation adjustments for achieving pay equity and may amend the schedule as stipulated.
Being short on time, we'll just go briefly over the Public Service Pension Act and the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union Pension Act. Basically what this does is set up public employees for the fall when the government sells off and starts privatizing a lot of the services they now provide. They'll be sold off to their friends, and the idea here is to make sure that the public sector workers don't move into these jobs, don't maintain the high wages and benefits they're used to right now in their contracts. They'll be dumped out without any guarantee of a job, and this is the whole reason for this. That's why we're opposed to it, because basically what you're going to do is take some good, high-paying jobs with decent benefits and turn them into low-paying jobs with no benefits.
Bill 26 would amend the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to give the head of an institution the right to refuse access to a record, where in the opinion of the head on reasonable grounds the request for access is frivolous or vexatious, even where the requester would otherwise be entitled to obtain access to the record under the legislation.
While the determination of the head may be appealed to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Commissioner, permitting institutions to refuse access to records on this new ground will inevitably result in denial of records to those individuals who are unable to afford an appeal, delay access request and involve individuals who do appeal in lengthy and costly proceedings.
Bill 26 would also amend freedom of information legislation to require individuals in all cases to pay a prescribed user fee. At the time of making the request, in order to obtain a record, individuals will also be required to pay a prescribed user fee as a precondition to appealing a decision to the commissioner. The bill does not impose any limit or criteria for determining the amount to be charged but does allow for different amounts to be charged for different records or to different persons.
As well, the cost of retrieval would be expanded to include the first two hours of manual search time, presently not charged for, as well any other costs beyond those which are presently specified. Finally, the bill would extend the requirement to pay fees for retrieval of information to a request by an individual for access to his or her own personal information.
In regard to the Municipal Act provisions for new taxation powers and user fees, municipalities and local boards, with the exception of hospitals and school boards, are given broad new powers to pass bylaws imposing fees or charges on any class of persons. These fees and charges may be levied for any services or activities provided by the municipality for any cost payable by it for services and activities and for the use of any of its property.
In addition, the nature of the changes that may be made appears virtually unlimited, including fees or charges which are in the nature of a direct tax. Such fees or charges can vary on any basis that the municipality or local board considers appropriate. In this connection, the municipality may treat different classes of persons differently and may deal with each class in a different way.
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These provisions, taken together, would appear to allow for municipal poll taxes, a host of user fees and other charges for municipal services, and may even permit municipal charges based on income. While the minister may make regulations preventing municipalities from exercising these wide powers, the circumstances in which the minister would do so is left entirely unspecified.
The power of municipalities to license various business activities has been expanded to give municipalities what the government explains in the explanatory material accompanying the legislation to be a "general licensing power." This general licensing power would apply to any trade, calling, business or occupation, except for certain manufacturing activities.
Under the current provisions of the Municipal Act, the failure to grant a licence and the suspension or revocation of a licence is subject to an appeal to the Divisional Court. However, the proposed amendments appear to grant the municipality final say as to whether or not a particular licence is granted or refused, revoked or suspended without any right to appeal.
Finally, where there is a conflict between the licensing powers of a municipality and the provisions of any other legislation, the bill provides that the provision that is less restrictive of the local municipality's power prevails.
It seems we're running short on time. It's very clear that a number of the schedules in this bill are going to take money directly out of pockets and reduce people's disposable income.
There's much more to talk about in this omnibus bill, some of which we haven't touched upon and some sections that we haven't even learned about yet. As I stated before, labour's role in the community is to promote the interests of its affiliates and, in general, to advance the economic and social welfare of the workers of the province.
Government's role in the province is to protect the neediest and most vulnerable and to build a society free of poverty, hunger and homelessness. With the introduction of Bill 26, the Mike Harris government sees itself as no longer responsible for the poor and the vulnerable, the hungry and the homeless, the people in crisis for the moment or those whose circumstances leave them in ongoing need.
The Waterloo Regional Labour Council asks this government to rethink its position and work with all the people of the province by delaying the passage of Bill 26 and by allowing sufficient public input, concern and criticism to help you get it right.
Thank you very much for your time.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Cooper. Unfortunately, we're left with only about one minute for questions from the caucuses. We'll start with the government caucus; Mr Young.
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): Just a brief comment. We hear the comparison to Reaganomics a lot and I don't think it fits. As a matter of fact, I'm sure it doesn't, because when Ronald Reagan was president they increased spending to the tune of almost $1 trillion -- military spending, the largest military buildup in history. There's no comparison to the economy of Ontario.
Bill 26 is designed so that Ontario will restructure and will create a level playing field for business. We know if we cut spending, if we cut all the government out of Queen's Park, we'd still only save $5 billion. We'd still be spending $4 billion or $5 billion a year more than we're taking in.
We have to represent all of Ontario. You do an excellent job of representing your members, but we have to represent people who are unemployed, we have to represent people who are not union members. We've seen some good news already and we know we're going to see a lot more. In Alliston, we know that Honda's expanding -- there'll be 1,000 jobs plus spinoffs -- and Disney's coming to Toronto. We know there will be a lot more because we're creating this level playing field.
In your statement you say that "lower-income households spend 95% of any increase in income;" 87% of the people of Ontario make under $50,000 a year. We're going to give them all a tax cut. My question is, don't your members want a tax cut? Don't you think they would spend it in the economy? Your statement says they would.
Interruption.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Young: I'd like to know, have you polled your members and asked them if they want a tax cut? We did, on June 8, and a lot of them voted for us.
Mr Cooper: In my presentation you have the results of a poll that was taken in the province that showed no, they don't want the tax cut at the expense of job creation and the loss of our health and social safety net.
Mr Young: But we don't accept the premise of your question.
The Chair: Sorry, Mr Young, but a minute is a short period of time and we've come to the end of that. Mr Phillips.
Mr Phillips: Well, there's good news in here, according to the government; bad news, I think. The number of people out of work in 1996 is higher than it was in 1995. Then the number of people out of work, in this document, in 1997 is higher than it is in 1996. So two and a half years into the Common Sense Revolution, the government itself is predicting more people out of work than when it came into power.
My question to you is around the pension provision. The government tried to take $250 million out of public sector pensions. They tried to do it through regulation. You took them to court, or the public sector took them to court, and the court said they couldn't do that, they were acting illegally. This bill now does what they couldn't do in the courts. It passes a law allowing them to take $250 million out of the pension fund.
What is your judgement on the climate that this might create for the bargaining that is going to take place between the Ontario government and the public sector over the next few months?
Mr Cooper: I think it's quite obvious just from the news this morning where the Ontario Public Service Employees Union said that they would go to the end of this week -- and they expect no movement from the government -- and they will be putting themselves in a strike position.
Mr Cooke: One minute is extremely difficult. Gerry has talked a bit about the climate for negotiations. I'd like to just ask you about a little bit more about that. There's the OPS, but then there's all of the workers in the broader public sector, teachers and all of the municipal workers and so forth. Your chamber this morning -- and I'd encourage you to talk to the chamber -- said that in addition to the arbitration changes that are proposed in this, there should be restrictions on even who can be arbitrators in the province.
Do you not believe that's going to result in exactly the opposite of what the government says it wants to achieve and that means there's going to be a lot more public sector strikes? Why would the employer even want to negotiate? They'll get such a good deal on arbitration, they might as well force them all out on strike.
Mr Cooper: That's absolutely true. I'd like to make a small comment here and it may be in response back here. If we're talking about fairness here, if you look at what's happening in Ontario, employees' wages are going up by 2% to 4%, and yet in the third quarter last year, corporate profits were going up by 20%. That is not a level playing field, and that's not fairness in the province. This bill is going to increase the unfairness by penalizing the poor for the tax breaks for the rich.
The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen, for coming forward to the committee today and making your presentation.
CANADIAN AUTO WORKERS REGIONAL POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
The Chair: Can I have members from the CAW political action committee come forward, please. Good morning and welcome to the standing committee on general government. You'll have 30 minutes to make your presentation. You may use your time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions and response. I'd appreciate it if you'd each read your names into the record for the benefit of Hansard and committee members.
Ms Sharon Mitic: Good morning. I'm Sharon Mitic and this is Dave Fairfull and Bonnie Dunseith. We represent the Canadian Auto Workers Regional Political Action Committee. The areas include Stratford, Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph and Brantford.
We are very concerned about the undemocratic direction and implementation of Bill 26. We believe your government is not interested in listening to the people of this province. You are here today only because of pressure from the opposition parties.
Bill 26 is so complex and far-reaching that the average citizen of this province cannot comprehend the consequences of the changes. The two-month time frame proposed by your government from first reading to passage of the bill does not allow sufficient time to determine the effect of the proposed legislation.
This legislation contains 17 schedules which enact or amend over 40 separate pieces of legislation, giving unprecedented powers to government ministers and the Ontario cabinet. We request that this committee recommend to the provincial government to separate and hold public hearings on the related acts. We are fairly sure that our suggestion is made in vain, considering the government majority on the committee quashed a motion to simply inform the government House leader about the public interest regarding this bill.
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The proposed amendments to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act give more arbitrary powers to ministries and institutions, while at the same time reducing their public accountability. Proposed institutional power to deny access to information will jeopardize the appeals process. This is a direct contradiction of your statement in the Common Sense Revolution on page 17, which states, "It is rare that politicians and bureaucrats voluntarily surrender power, but it must happen."
We question the government's common sense in giving the head of an institution the right to refuse access to a record where, in the opinion of the head, it is frivolous or vexatious. The definition of vexatious is "causing or intending to cause annoyance." We raise this concern considering the request may challenge an action initiated by the head of the institution. This proposed change equates to putting the fox in charge of the hen house. If someone requested information and inquired a few times to see what stage the request was at, would the head of the institution have the power to claim this was vexatious?
The various user fees for retrieval of information and appeals will also deter people from seeking out information. Past studies indicate the present fee system is sufficient to deter frivolous requests. To tip the balance of access further, your proposed legislation allows the head to decide who will pay for this information and who will have the payment waived. With this power, the head can unilaterally give a gift to a friend via the taxpayers' pocket.
The Common Sense Revolution failed to mention Tory plans to make it harder to get information from the government. What are you planning on doing that you need to hide?
Dave will continue.
Mr Dave Fairfull: Connected to the above concern is the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act where disclosure doesn't apply to for-profit corporations receiving either $1 million or 10% of gross revenues from the Ontario government, as it does to the broader public sector. If private enterprise wants government funds, the same rules should apply. We should be most interested in comparing private salaries over $100,000 versus public ones. This direction leads us to the conclusion that your government promotes double standards.
Another pro-business, trust-the-private-sector, put-on-the-blinders concern is the proposed changes to the Mining Act. This bill gives Ontario mining companies more room to pollute. The rules now state that a mining company that winds up operations must satisfy the government that it has a plan to clean up any toxic waste it produces. The rule is to prevent mines from pulling out and leaving the landscape of northern Ontario littered with poisonous tailings.
Under the proposed new bill, a mine that closes no longer has to have its shutdown plan approved by the government. It simply must inform the government it meets provincial standards. The current law requires careful annual inspection of every tailings site. The proposed new law will replace this with only random spot-checks.
The Environment minister of this government has told the Toronto Star, "You can't have a healthy environment without a healthy economy." This is a frighteningly incompetent thing for an Environment minister to say. There is, in fact, a direct relationship between the health of an economy and the danger to the environment. The environment needs to be protected from a healthy economy; it cannot protect itself. This government needs to ensure that adequate measures are put into place and enforced. Whether this government or the Environment minister cares to admit it or not, it costs money to keep effluent from healthy factories away from healthy rivers and lakes.
Our next concern: The proposed taxation powers of municipalities would appear to allow for municipal poll taxes, a host of user fees and other changes to the municipal services, and may even permit municipal charges based on income. Your Common Sense Revolution claimed there is only one taxpayer, and any municipal action should not result in increases to local property taxes. It is also our understanding that the Minister of Municipal Affairs retains the power to limit or impose conditions on the charging of such fees.
The confusing and inconsistent information prompts us to pose the question: Do you plan to exercise your right to disallow any municipal tax you do not like? If not, what power will the municipalities have to make up for the shortfall in funding cuts?
The direction of this legislative change is a fundamental shift to regressive taxation policies designed to disproportionately affect the middle- and lower-income earner and the social services recipient.
The right-wing manipulation of public opinion against welfare recipients obscures the inevitable elimination of recreational, counselling and cultural opportunities for many children in our community, including children of middle-income families.
Your proposal to privatize public services without a municipal referendum opens the door to a less civilized society. The loss of universality of social programs will jeopardize living standards for many of our citizens, including the right to quality education. Two tiers of service will ensure superior education for the children of the wealthy. The poor, the disabled and the mentally challenged will be shut out of mainstream society if family incomes do not permit the ability to pay extra charges.
We fear the failure to include any mention of rules and regulations for the new legislation will bequeath a legacy of poverty and neglect for our children and a burden of social and health problems for society. We urge you to exercise caution in your haste to benefit the élite of Ontario.
This government plans to implement a new tax on plan holders and members of benefit plans. This would likely include benefit plans supplied to workers by their employers such as dental, prescription drugs, eyeglasses and any hospital coverage. This tax will be a further burden on the working class that is already beginning to struggle to keep its families healthy under this government's cutback program. Working people don't need a more burdensome tax on top of this.
The right of citizens to decide through a referendum whether a municipality will privatize its hydroelectric utility or its water system or its sewage treatment has existed for years. Portions of Bill 26 indicate repealing this provision, a fact not mention in the campaign platform.
We are also concerned that permanent environmental damage will occur if communities implement user fees for garbage collection. If it comes down to a dollar for a loaf of bread to feed the family versus paying for garbage collection, the choice is clear. The elimination of the funding for the blue box program will add to this problem.
The implementation of transit fare hikes will be devastating to the majority of transit users. Upper-income earners do not require public transit. Limiting accessibility to this system for users of public transportation will further alienate and isolate sections of society, leading to an increased demand for social services. It is a sad day when someone can't afford to get to work, to send the children to school, and when a senior, due to limited funds, can't receive medical treatment.
Ms Mitic: The government's attack on women and children is extremely alarming to our committee. Cutting jobs and services people depend on to provide tax cuts for the rich will impact some of the most marginalized members of our society. The Equal Pay Coalition is alarmed at the government's intention to eliminate some of the most progressive legislation introduced in a Canadian province or the international community in the past decade.
The Equal Pay Coalition believes omnibus Bill 26 shuts the door on women who are still owed wage adjustments under pay equity using the proxy method. This is not fair. The women being left out in the cold work in child care centres, nursing homes, treatment centres, and provide services in the community. In a recent speech to the Pay Equity Commission, the Honourable Elizabeth Witmer said publicly that she and your government are firmly committed to pay equity. Why is your government stopping the progress of the most underpaid and vulnerable women towards fair wages? It is just because these women work in all-female workplaces. This bill takes away their right to achieve pay equity under the proxy method.
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In 1985, the government of the day set out a method to achieve pay equity using comparisons to jobs in the same workplace. Women in all-female workplaces were left out, but the government promised to find a fair method so that they would get pay equity too. These women tend to be the most underpaid and undervalued women workers in the province.
In 1993, the government of the day set out the method so that women in all-female establishments could achieve pay equity. These adjustments were not retroactive and would take a long time to implement, but the promise of equality kept these women going.
In 1995, without reviewing the Pay Equity Act, as required by law, your government has stepped in to roll back pay equity. Your government tells these women that they will either get no money or get only partway to the wage parity they were promised. This means you expect them to continue to subsidize the important community services they provide. You are telling them to give up hope of being paid what they deserve.
We support the Equal Pay Coalition's recommendation that the proxy pay equity methodology be maintained until women reach equality. However, if the government insists on rolling back these promises, at a minimum, these women should not lose what they have gained. Any pay equity plan that was agreed to must be honoured -- no takeaways. Employers who renege on payments must be subject to enforcement. The provision for complaint in the Pay Equity Act must be maintained.
You failed to mention your plans to roll back pay equity in the Common Sense Revolution. The women of this province are not prepared to go backwards. We will not provide low-wage labour or unpaid labour so the business community can increase its profits.
Pay equity is a long overdue right for women workers. It helps women who are working poor in the service sectors and in many other undervalued occupations. Without pay equity, women will be forced to live on substandard wages despite working long and hard for them. Pay equity not only benefits individual women, it is important for a thriving economy. Pay equity adjustments are pumped back into the economy as women buy clothing, food and provide housing for themselves and their families. We envision a society where the bottom line for policy decisions will be the economic security and equality of all its citizens.
Time does not permit us to address all areas of concern, nor are we able to assess the full implications of Bill 26. We would like to mention briefly our opposition to a number of proposed changes.
It is our understanding that amendments to the Capital Investment Plan Act and the Highway Traffic Act will give authorities the power to put a lien on a person's house or other property to collect unpaid tolls; interference with respect to interest arbitration for fire, hospital, police, public service and school board sectors where the proposed changes could require public sector workers to subsidize the provision of public services through substandard wages; also the amendment to take away certain pension rights from Ontario public servants whose jobs are about to be eliminated.
We have, however, come to the conclusion that Bill 26 will further polarize a society where the income gap between the rich and the poor is rapidly increasing.
We believe Bill 26 has been designed to circumvent the legislative process. We repeat our opening statement: Three weeks does not allow sufficient time to consult with all groups wishing to speak.
The changes you are proposing and have already introduced will promote intolerance and backlash against the most vulnerable in our society, pitting workers against the unemployed, the rich against the poor.
Bill 26 is a direct attack on the Canadian values of caring, sharing and the dignity of work. The Conservative government's plan to dismantle fundamental government social programs, transfer more wealth and power to the already wealthy and powerful and roll back the basic gains that working people have built up over the postwar period will not be accepted without resistance.
Our final question to the panel: Are you aware of all the proposed changes and do you understand the consequences of Bill 26?
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have three minutes per caucus for questions, starting with Mr Phillips.
Mr Phillips: I appreciate your presentation. Actually, your last few paragraphs I think are exactly what is planned, unfortunately. This bill is all about implementing --
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Phillips. I apologize, I'm sorry, ma'am. Did I stop before you were about to --
Ms Chris Greason: I have some added stuff, information here that was kind of a last-minute portion of it.
The Chair: Go right ahead. I apologize, Mr Phillips; I assumed they were done. It was my fault.
Ms Greason: I'm also part of the social action committee. My name is Chris Greason and I'm from Stratford. Being part of the social action committee and also being president of the labour council and a member of Local 1325 in Stratford, I'm also the chairperson of the Perth County Coalition for Social Justice, which is an arm of the continued fight that we have. So this is part of the presentation that we've put together. I'm a fast reader, so I'm going to go through this rather quickly.
The Perth County Coalition for Social Justice is a grass-roots organization whose purpose is to provide a forum through which the population of Perth county can voice concerns and take action to resist the current government's self-serving attacks on our lifestyles and our communities.
The coalition was formed in response to a huge cry of outrage voiced by the many and diverse people and the interest groups that populate Perth county. Never before in the history of Ontario have so many people felt collectively motivated to mobilize against the government of the day -- women, labour, seniors and disabled, farmers, health care workers, and the list continues to grow -- all persons coming together saying no to this government, a government that has incurred the wrath of Ontarians as no other government before it.
Bill 26 is a massive piece of legislation designed to give the government undisclosed and sweeping powers. It will give the government carte blanche in effecting changes that will result in dire circumstances for individual Ontarians and the landscape of the communities they have worked to build.
In response to this encroachment on our rights as citizens and taxpayers to participate in this process of change, the Perth County Coalition for Social Justice is taking this opportunity to submit some of the things that we went through to the standing committee on Bill 26 and our views on this detrimental and decidedly undemocratic piece of legislation.
In attempting to pass Bill 26 without discussion, the provincial government has made an unprecedented power grab, a move that will give government ministers and their appointees the power to make up whatever subjective rules they see fit without having any debate in the Legislature, let alone any consultation in the communities to be affected.
The Perth County Coalition for Social Justice is calling for the scrapping of the omnibus bill, a bill which attacks our democratic process, will devastate our public services, impose hardship on our communities, a hardship that will especially be felt by those who are most economically disadvantaged -- children, seniors, the unemployed, the disabled and persons on assistance, the majority of whom are women-led, single-parent families.
Should the Conservative government be allowed to sweep aside its campaign promises and carry out its corporate mandate without being challenged or should we allow the government to autocratically award itself heretofore unknown power to govern and create change in this province, against the wishes of many, many Ontarians, at the expense of our communities? As a coalition comprised of concerned citizens who are dedicated to preserving a decent standard of living, present and future, we'd like to say no to this government.
Just as collective agreements sometimes need interpretive guidelines, and just as those guidelines are sometimes much longer than the collective agreement itself, so should Bill 26, the omnibus bill, or the Savings and Restructuring Act, 1995, come with such interpretive guidelines.
The 221 pages of this bill contain so much language that is open to interpretation it leaves one wondering just what rights are left for individual Ontarians. Rights of appeal are extracted. Rights of protest are met with autocratic, authoritarian-like, "We know what is best for you" responses. The right to open public consultation on legislative changes is being shunned as at no other time in the history of Ontario. Even these public hearings were agreed to only after unprecedented action in the House. What this government is doing is shameful, disrespectful and diametrically opposed to the established democratic process of Canadian government.
We wonder just how many individual MPPs have actually read the bill in its entirety, and even more importantly, how many of them understand its full meaning. Without interpretive guidelines, what is written in Bill 26 can be read different ways by different persons and result in completely different comprehension and implementation.
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Many portions of the bill are shocking, to say the least. The Ontario Transportation Capital Corp may establish an electronic toll system on our highways. The corporation may also decide whose vehicle will have the toll devices attached to them. This obviously means some groups may be fitted and others not. By whose discretion? The bill also allows the corporation to place liens against real estate and personal property of those who owe tolls or interest on unpaid tolls. There is no right to a hearing on a disputed toll, no right of appeal.
In schedule D, the Ontario Loan Act authorizes the government to borrow up to $5.6 billion in 1996 from capital public markets, international loan markets and the Canada Pension Plan for the consolidated revenue funding in order to discharge any indebtedness or obligation of Ontario. Does this mean that to balance the budget and claim to have eradicated the deficit, the government will actually be able to increase the debt by $5.6 billion in 1996 alone?
In the amendments to the Independent Health Facilities Act, the minister is allowed to specify which persons may send in proposals for a licence to establish and operate an independent health facility without ever having to request proposals from the general public. This coalition fails to fathom how the majority of our elected representatives can find this sort of blatant favouritism acceptable.
Access to personal information under these amendments is left entirely up to the minister. He or she decides who will have access to any or all of the information regarding any person. This alone is unconscionable, but the amendments go even further, to expand the immunity of the crown and prevent persons from claiming compensation against the crown, the minister or any director for damages resulting from any actions by any of these individuals.
Then schedule K alters the freedom of information act, which has already been mentioned previously. Most notable, it has been interpreted to mean that no piece of information on any person in the province is safe from scrutiny by anyone, unless the request is deemed to be frivolous or vexatious. Quoted is section 10 of the act:
"(1) Every person has a right of access to a record or a part of a record in the custody or under the control of an institution unless,
"(a) the record or the part of the record falls within one of the exemptions under sections 12 to 22; or
"(b) the head is of the opinion on reasonable grounds that the request for access is frivolous or vexatious."
Changes to the Municipal Act will allow the minister to rule as a czar might. The minister will be able to wipe out an entire municipality by annexing it to another or dissolving it completely and incorporating its inhabitants into some other municipality. Municipalities will be able to sell or dispose of conservation areas for which they no longer receive provincial funding.
Section Q is about the arbitrators, which has previously been mentioned; I'm going to skip over that.
Schedule A, the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, stipulates that any public sector employee paid over $100,000 annually must have that wage publicly disclosed. Perhaps the amendment should also read that any private sector employee paid over that salary level should also have to make a public disclosure.
Then amendments to the Corporations Tax Act and changes to schedule G, the Ontario Drug Benefit Act, I just found out late last night that we have standing on January 17 for the health, so I'm going to skip over this portion. But I did want to mention just part of it, with the physicians, because of personal contact with some of the physicians about being told where they can and where they cannot practise.
If an area is oversupplied, then the Minister of Health will implement a moratorium and no more physicians will be allowed to enter into practice in that geographic area until the minister decides that the area is open again. An eligible physician who fails to comply with such requirements or conditions will cease to be an eligible physician under the minister until his or her designate decides the physician is again eligible.
These changes and others in schedule H, amendments to the Health Insurance Act and Health Accessibility Act, make one's jaw drop, and I'm sure the doctors will also be implementing some of it.
The Chair: Thank you. We unfortunately have only about three minutes for questions, although Mr Cooke did consent to dividing his time between the other two parties. He had to go out for one minute. Mr Phillips, about a minute and a half, sir.
Mr Phillips: Hardly time to do it justice, but you are right, this bill is designed to implement the Common Sense Revolution. It's very clear that they want to cut spending drastically -- it said $6 billion here; it's now $8 billion -- so they can fund $5 billion worth of tax cuts, and the more you make, the bigger the tax cut. It's also quite clear that it will be the least-able-to-afford citizens who are going be hit the hardest.
I'd just like you to comment on, I guess, one thing. We had the minister, Mr Leach, indicating that he was encouraged to hear that one of the mayors -- because there are going to be all these new fees introduced, all sorts of new fees -- who was planning to introduce fees would find corporate donors so that underprivileged children could use libraries.
I personally find it abhorrent, the thought that if your family doesn't have money, somebody's got to find a corporate donor for you to use a library. I guess I'd just ask your organization how you would respond to the thought of corporate donors having to be found so that young people who don't have money can use a library.
Ms Mitic: My concern is that large numbers won't be able to access libraries if for some reason corporate donors aren't found. As a library user all my life, I find that absolutely disgusting, that every citizen doesn't have equal access to public libraries.
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre): Thank you for your presentation. We don't have very much time, but I'd just like to give you a little bit of the government's reasoning behind some of the areas you addressed.
With the freedom of information on the issue of access, we've heard from police boards, municipalities and school boards, and I'll give you an example of the reason why they've got concerns and why we've put it down to the local level in terms of making them accountable to deal with frivolous or vexatious claims.
The example given yesterday was an individual with over 700 requests, over 200 appeals to a police service, and the information being requested was things like police shoe size, the number of fax machines for the police, the number of UFO sightings. It cost the police service over $75,000 in terms of dealing with this type of request.
Their concern is basically that they'd like to make the decision whether it is frivolous or vexatious. We're not taking away the right of appeal, but the amount of money that would go into preparing for these appeals giving information on shoe sizes, this type of information -- I think what we're trying to bring in is a more accountable system to make it more cost-effective for the taxpayer and to bring the decision to the local decision-makers who have been elected at that level.
With respect to pay equity, we're not stopping the process for pay equity. The government's committed $500 million this year, in 1996, in terms of achieving pay equity. And I think you do know that the pay equity we're talking about, bringing it in line with the private sector; the private sector doesn't have proxy comparison, which involves comparisons with other organizations. The principles originally were comparing male and female within the original organization and we're returning to that. Also, there is no other province that even has proxy comparison. What we're trying to do here is bring back some reality for the taxpayer and say who is going to subsidize what.
The Chair: Mr Tascona, I apologize for interrupting, but you've come to the end of your time.
I apologize again for the interruption. Thank you for coming forward today to make your presentation.
GUELPH/WELLINGTON COALITION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
The Chair: May I please have members from the Guelph/Wellington Coalition for Social Justice come forward. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for coming today to appear before the standing committee on general government. You have half an hour this morning to make your presentation. You may use your time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions. I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourselves at the beginning of the presentation for the benefit of both Hansard and committee members.
Mr Bill Clifford: My name is Bill Clifford, and on my left is Wendy McCowan, on my right is Susan Neath and on my far right is Marion Cummings. We are all members of the Guelph/Wellington Coalition for Social Justice. Everything that we read is included in our written submission, which you have, and it has additional information as well. Thank you for permitting us to appear before your committee.
The Guelph/Wellington Coalition for Social Justice is a member of the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice and the Action Canada Network. Our coalition is made up of over a dozen local organizations, including the Guelph and District Labour Council; the Guelph Ministerial Association; Ten Days for World Development -- Guelph; Local 636 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Guelph; the Guelph Professional Fire Fighters Association; the Guelph International Resource Centre; the Wellington County Women Teachers' Association; District 39, Wellington county, Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation; the Wellington Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation; the Wellington county branch of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association; and a number of other local organizations. It is some two and a half years old.
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On behalf of our members, we must clearly state our opposition to both the contents of Bill 26, the omnibus bill, which gives the cabinet arbitrary and far-reaching powers, and the method of its introduction to the Legislature and the Ontario public. It was brought to the floor of the Legislature when the opposition parties were in a lockup examining the Finance minister's economic statement and would have become law before Christmas but for the actions of the opposition.
The GWCSJ does not believe three weeks of hearings are sufficient, given the broad and fundamental implications of Bill 26, and agrees with Robert Sheppard of the Globe and Mail, who stated, "At the very least, this omnibus bill should be broken into four separate acts: health care reform, municipal restructuring, civil service and pension changes, and then the rest." This was on December 18, 1995, in an article.
The omnibus bill amends 44 other acts, repeals two others and creates three new ones. In brief, Bill 26 includes substantial changes to the following areas with which our brief will deal: municipal affairs, where municipalities will be restructured, giving them broad powers to dissolve or alter boards and commissions, as well as to initiate or raise taxes and user fees within their territory; rewriting the rules of bargaining with firefighters and other workers in the public sector.
The changes are organized into 17 schedules given letters from A to Q. We have chosen to discuss the following:
Schedule M, municipalities: This part of the bill amends the Municipal Act and 12 other statutes relating to municipalities. This is one of the most important and we think dangerous parts of the bill. It gives the Minister of Municipal Affairs much greater power to restructure municipalities, privatize public utilities and impose new direct municipal taxes and user fees.
The power to dissolve or change local boards: The bill would give municipalities broad powers to eliminate local boards. The definition of a local board includes school boards, public utility commissions, public library boards, boards of parks and recreation management, boards of health, police services boards and other bodies of a municipal nature. Under the bill the council of a municipality would have the power to dissolve or make changes to any local board simply by passing a resolution. The only restriction is that the cabinet must pass a resolution permitting the dissolution of the local board in question.
Privatization of public utilities, including electricity, water, sewer or transportation, will now be carried out by a vote of city council. The present law requires a referendum to be held in the jurisdiction involved. The contracting out of municipal services was already permitted in Ontario without a referendum. Bill 26 will see the selling of services directly to the public, as now occurs in more full-blown privatizations.
Our coalition opposes these powers for a variety of reasons. First, the power to dissolve or alter local utilities without a municipal referendum is undemocratic. When was this government, and the municipalities now poised to exercise these powers, given a mandate for such changes? What powers will local voters have to oppose these changes that might significantly raise taxes?
Secondly, the number and the scope of the proposals being floated by the government leave people confused and a little fearful. We hear on the one hand that the Wellington board of education will be combined with Dufferin public board, while the Wellington separate school board will be linked with the separate school system of Waterloo -- this was in the Guelph Mercury of September 7, 1995. Although this proposal came out of a study done for the former NDP government, it will certainly be easier to put into effect under Bill 26. Would further amalgamations destroy the close cooperation exemplified by the two Wellington boards, which, working together, achieved a saving of $2.9 million in 1995? That's from the Guelph Mercury of September 7, 1995.
Local fire services may become part of a Wellington county service. Counties and regional governments are empowered to do this in the omnibus bill. Moreover, these powers were inserted into Bill 26 with no consultation with interested parties. For example, the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association was assured in writing by Premier Mike Harris and Labour Minister Elizabeth Witmer before the June election that changes to working conditions would not be carried out without consultation with Ontario's firefighters. Copies of these letters are at the end of your written brief.
This was not done, and what are the plans for public utilities in Guelph? Guelph Hydro seems to enjoy a large measure of local support. It, like all local hydros, is self-supporting. Its mandate is to deliver electricity as a local service on a full-cost-recovery basis, with no recourse to taxes. It operates on a non-profit business basis; this in a brief your committee received from the chair of the Municipal Electric Association last Monday in Windsor.
Yet the Harris government has launched a study of Ontario Hydro under Donald S. Macdonald, with a broad mandate to comment on all aspects of the electricity market, "including the 300 local utilities that supply power to most of Ontario's population." This was in the Globe of January 4, 1996. The size and scope of these plans strike us, and many Guelphites we speak to, as bizarre.
An education system straddling three counties, a fire service taking in Aberfoyle, Fergus, Mount Forest and Guelph, and utilities covering goodness knows what, will leave the ordinary citizen's head spinning. We worry that established, effective local organizations will become large bureaucracies requiring even more tax dollars and responding less to individual problems. Bigness, ladies and gentlemen, is not always better.
New taxation powers and user fees: Municipalities and local boards will be given powers to impose user fees or charges on any class of person. These may be levied for virtually any purpose; they may take any form, including a direct tax. Subsection (9) states that user fees cannot be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, "on grounds that they are unfair or unjust." At present, municipalities can levy user fees, but only on matters specified in provincial legislation, such as garbage, water and sewage charges, homes for the aged and public transit. The new law will permit municipalities and boards to charge for almost anything. As Mr Terry Mundell of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario stated in commenting on $700-million cuts to Ontario's cities and towns, "The equation is very simple: Reduced transfers will require reduced services, increased taxes, alternative sources of revenue, or some combination of the three," Globe and Mail, December 22, 1995.
Guelph has been hit by a last-minute funding cut of $900,000 from 1995 and a reduced transfer from the province of $1.8 million, putting our city in a precarious financial position. This was in the Guelph Tribune, January 3, 1996. We already have a councillor talking about cutting Guelph Public Library services. This just happens to be the oldest free library in Ontario.
Increased charges will likely be levied for transit, water and sewage rates. There will be a myriad of charges imposed for garbage collection, use of parks and arenas, amateur hockey -- Guelph presently receives a provincial subsidy of $46 an hour, which is matched by skaters; what will happen to amateur hockey? -- snow removal, library services, even police and fire.
Ms Marion Cummings: As I address my comments to this committee, I am aware of the fact that this government really doesn't consider this bill of much consequence. Surely, if it did value the issues contained therein, there would be at least one woman at the table.
The effects on education: The impact of Bill 26 on the quality of public education is a frighteningly negative one. We are concerned with the following areas: firstly, the criteria proposed for arbitrators and selectors in section 5 of schedule Q; secondly, the restructuring of municipal boundaries without reference to consultation with the educational community, as indicated in section 1 of schedule M, referring to subsection 25.2(2) of the Municipal Act; and, thirdly, the ambiguity regarding the disbanding of school boards as indicated in section 1 of schedule M, referring to subsections 210.4(2) and (3) of the Municipal Act.
If the extent to which services may have to be reduced without additional funding is going to be a decision of an arbitrator or selector, then the decision-makers are truly burdened with a very grave responsibility.
The students of Ontario need the broadest possible education to provide the most qualified workforce for a competitive market in the global economy. We're very concerned that programs which provide knowledge and skills directly linked to a productive society may be lost. Future citizens require the ability to work with technology at all levels. We can't afford to discard programs in information retrieval and application, consumer studies, industrial design and technology. Our youth really need, now and as future workers, to communicate effectively and sensitively with each other, to recognize and deal with personal problems without conflict. We can't afford to ignore the twentieth century diseases of violence and crime. How can we not make guidance programs mandatory, given the high cost of unemployment and of deviant behaviour?
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Our future employees need direct experience with the workplace and how abstract verbal and numeric skills will be used in the workplace. Let's not consider cooperative education expendable.
It's crucial that all be prepared to live physically and emotionally healthy lives. The knowledge and skills for physical health are the backbone of health and physical education curricula. Emotional health requires not only guidance programs but support for the artistic pursuits which release stress, improve communication and inspire humanity.
Bill 85 established the mandate to provide special education for those with special needs. If we're going to reduce the extent of services to those students, we will be criminally disadvantaging them further in their efforts to become productive citizens. The continued commitment to educational assistance now is less costly than the drain of social assistance in adult life. Be assured that if not served in their formative years, many will fill our welfare rolls and our prisons.
The Harris government made a promise to maintain current levels of educational services so that children in the classroom would not be penalized, yet this very government will reduce spending grants to school boards. If the government desires to maintain or increase the level of services, then it follows that boards must be able to pay current or increased costs. We suggest that boards of education must be provided with the means to increase current funding levels though additional taxes and levies.
Schedule Q also refers to potential deployment of non-teachers in teaching roles. We are opposed to this. Qualified teachers are best able to integrate the delivery of skills -- for example, using electronic card catalogues, considering conflict resolution alternatives, using consumer price indexes -- within the total curriculum. These are not isolated skills. Technicians whose expertise is limited to their own fields are not acceptable teachers.
The restructuring of municipalities without consultation with the educational community is hazardous. Where a new structure does not conform to the shape of the current board of education, there are bound to be confusion, administrative inefficiency and tax complications. Our school systems are trying now to reduce any form of extraneous waste and inefficiency. This aspect of schedule M works against these efforts.
The intent of schedule M is ambiguous in regard to the power of municipalities to dissolve boards of education. It appears to some that such a possibility exists -- as was quoted in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, January 6, in the article "Bill 26 Out of Line," page A5 -- despite the unclear wording of the suggested change to the Municipal Act, subsection 220.1(1). We sincerely hope that this section will be clarified by the minister to confirm that the intent is to maintain the governance of boards of education under the Education Act.
The Municipal Act has never had boards of education under its jurisdiction. If the Municipal Act were now to regulate the structure of school boards, we would consider this very detrimental to education. If municipalities can disband boards of education, one must ask, who would handle the variety of administrative functions needed to deliver education? What body or bodies would apply for, receive and administer the per-pupil grants? What superadministration might you require to coordinate the variety of different levels that could arise, and from what budget line would you fund that one? Would all students residing in the same jurisdiction be offered or guaranteed equal quality of education?
Our educational neighbours to the south have perceived the costs, both economically and qualitatively, of overcentralized education. The city of New York is currently considering how it may best restructure its system into the constituent boroughs instead of centralized. The centralization of education in France has certainly not provided a higher quality of education. Your own government has elsewhere indicated its recognition that more bureaucracy provides less connectedness to clients. If amalgamation creates monolithic and unwieldy systems to administer, it's surely not the route to educational improvement.
The other door which would be opened by the disbanding of boards is that of charter schools. We're firmly in opposition to this model of education, as it destroys the fibre of free and equal access to quality education for all. The resulting streaming of students, as well as inequitable allocation of funds and teachers, is to be condemned for its perpetuation of poverty cycles.
Mr Clifford: The effects on Guelph cultural life: Our coalition wonders in particular about the effect the new taxes and user fees will have on Guelph's rich cultural life. Guelph currently receives about $200,000 a year from the Ontario Arts Council to support its three music festivals -- the Guelph Spring Festival, the Hillside Festival of Guelph and the jazz festival -- along with the MacDonald Stewart Art Centre, the Guelph Civic Museum and numerous other local arts organizations. Other large donors are the University of Guelph and the city itself. Given the cutbacks to all three of these donors, is it realistic to ask individual ticket buyers and the private sector to pick up the slack?
In 1983, the Guelph Arts Council got $300 from fund-raising, while in 1995 that figure had reached $40,000 -- interview with Sally Wismer, Guelph Arts Council on December 31, 1995.
In a recent study of arts funding published in the Globe and Mail, November 23, 1995, there was a comparison of two similar-sized western and eastern cities in the US and Canada: Omaha and Winnipeg, and Boston and Toronto. The Canadian cities enjoyed a greater richness of arts offerings and a more generous level of individual financial support. But should government funding in Canada be cut further, private donations may not fill the gap. The study found private donations in Canada were close to being exhausted.
Although it is difficult to get exact figures on the economic impact of arts activities on Guelph itself, there are fairly close approximations which are used by the Canada Council and others. It has been estimated that Guelph's three music festivals add over $1 million to the local economy: the Hillside Festival, $454,000; the spring festival, $633,000; the jazz festival, $44,000. Calculations are worked out in your written brief. This then is an industry that adds a richness, both spiritual and economic, to Guelph while more than paying its way. Years of cutbacks and freezes have left it close to the edge. As Brian McCurdy, general manager of the Guelph Spring Festival, recently stated, 1996 could be a make-or-break year for the Guelph Spring Festival -- Guelph Tribune of December 26, 1995. The same could be said for much of Guelph's artistic life.
Ms Wendy McCowan: Restrictions on arbitration, schedule Q: This schedule amends the Fire Departments Act, the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act, the Public Service Act and the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act. Teachers, firefighters, police and hospital workers will now be subject to the restrictions of Bill 26, which inserts statutory criteria which an interest arbitration board is required to consider in making its decision.
Arbitrators will now have to consider (1) the employer's ability to pay in light of its fiscal situation, (2) the extent to which services may have to be reduced if the current funding levels are not increased, (3) the economic situation in Ontario and in the municipality or municipalities concerned, except in the case of the Public Service Act, where the economic situation of Ontario is considered, (4) a comparison of the terms and conditions of employment and nature of the work performed with other employees in the broader public sector, and (5) the employer's need for qualified employees.
These provisions represent significant interference in the independence and integrity of the arbitration process and we oppose them. Traditionally, boards of arbitration have been extremely reluctant to look at the criterion of ability to pay since it could require public sector workers to subsidize the provision of public services. The new criteria could render collective bargaining largely irrelevant since employers would resist coming to an agreement because they would feel confident a favourable -- to them -- arbitration decision would be reached. Ability to pay could allow the government to unilaterally determine wages and benefits by reducing transfer payments.
Moreover, since there is no objective test for measuring a public sector employer's ability to pay, arbitrators have argued that ability to pay really amounts to willingness to pay. Can this be simply a veiled method of imposing wage controls? As public sector wages and numbers are pushed downwards, won't the public dependent on those services be increasingly at risk? Is not the deep-seated anxiety felt by Ontarians concerning their future in part at least the result of lower-quality and disappearing public services?
The bill also requires arbitrators to consider the extent to which services may have to be reduced if current funding levels are not increased. While a number of interpretations may be made on the purpose of this measure, one effect it could have is to involve arbitrators in discussions about the level of service employers provide. This then would relieve governments of their responsibility to make decisions for which they should be accountable.
Conclusion: Bill 26 has been characterized as one of the most direct power grabs in modern Ontario history. Under it, "The Premier or one of his ministers will have the power to make fundamental, far-reaching decisions without so much as a nod to the Legislature, much less to the rest of us." Cabinet government can be "vigorous, executive-dominated government, but it is not...government-by-announcement" in which critical citizens and interest groups are "derided, marginalized and ignored." Robert Vipond, Globe and Mail, December 11, 1995.
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What alarmed many in our coalition were not just the contents of the omnibus bill, bad as those were, but even more, the fact that Premier Harris and his cabinet, and many in the PC caucus, saw nothing wrong in the arbitrary way the government tried to push this measure through the Legislature in the last couple of weeks before Christmas.
Our suggestion is to break down the omnibus bill into at least four parts, as suggested in a recent Globe and Mail editorial of December 19, 1995. Then use the ensuing consultation process to develop a truly "common sense" program.
In our view, in these uncertain times, the Ontario public would choose a number of public services to which they have become accustomed and have them delivered at the provincial or municipal level as efficiency would dictate. If given a choice, Ontarians would also opt for a program requiring greater equalizing of sacrifices so that the poor, the disadvantaged and the unemployed would not bear the brunt of the financial burden being presently shouldered. It would be a slower process, building on existing strengths and institutions, but the end result would be a better one.
Mr Clifford: Thank you for listening to our presentation. If you have questions, please address them to those people making the particular part of the presentation, although others of us, including Susan, on my right, will be only too willing to help answer the questions.
The Chair: We've got less than two minutes per caucus and questions will have to be quick. Mr Cooke leads off.
Mr Cooke: I'm going to try to stay away from the specifics in your brief, because with two minutes we can hardly get into them. I do appreciate the overall approach that you've taken in your presentation. I look specifically at some of the areas in education that you've referred to and the possibility of charter schools. I can only think that would be one of the outcomes if in fact there were no such things as school boards and it was moved for administrative purposes to the municipal side, that charter schools would possibly be one of the outcomes. The $400 million that's being taken out is of course going to hit the classrooms, which we were told wouldn't happen.
I guess the question that I want to ask you is, what I see in this legislation and in the economic statement that was made by Mr Eves, both of them, is that we are changing the very nature of Ontario, the very face of Ontario. Maybe that's something that the people of the province want. I don't believe it's the discussion that we had in the election. And this bill does that. It would be law today, it would have been law a few weeks ago, if there hadn't been some extraordinary action in the Legislature.
What kind of format, what kind of process, how do we involve people to actually have that discussion about the very future of our province and the kind of province we want? I don't believe the people want the direction this government's going, but maybe I'm wrong. How do we engage people in that discussion?
Mr Clifford: I would think that the consultancy process which has been begun with this committee could be better continued with individual ministries looking at budgets, talking with their own employees, talking with the public, and cutting the cloth to fit what it presently has to do. In other words, you do it by ministry rather than simply imposing on the local level of government a set of cutbacks and so on that they have to somehow deal with.
What we're seeing as the end result of this process, if this is as far as it goes, is simply a transfer of taxing powers and user fees etc to the local level and no real saving for the individual person.
The Chair: Mr Young.
Mr Young: Thank you very much. Is it Marion who was talking about education? I work at the Ministry of Education. I'm parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education and Training, and every concern you expressed about education, I share. Your presentation was very, very thoughtful and I appreciate it.
But what we're trying to address with the restructuring is that we have 168 school boards. In one school board there are more trustees than schools. We have to address the administrative waste. We spend $530 million a year on preparation time and, a trustee told us yesterday, over $300 million on retirement gratuities. That's what we're trying to address.
But one of your comments, that schedule Q refers to potential deployment of non-teachers in teaching roles, I can't find in there. Could you please tell me where you came up with that?
Ms Cummings: Let me just find the page again. In looking at the five criteria, you talk about "the employer's need for qualified employees." You talk about a comparison between the employees and other comparable employees.
I can give you a for-instance situation in the Waterloo board of education. English as a second language is delivered by qualified teachers who are paid as qualified teachers. In the county of Wellington, English as a second language is delivered by educational assistants who are paid as educational assistants.
I believe that if we are looking at comparable employees in other areas, that opens the door for us to say that subjects such as guidance might be taught by a social worker and therefore paid at a lower level. Employees such as design and technology teachers might be replaced with non-professional teachers. It seems to me that those clauses leave room for that.
Mr Young: Wouldn't the college of teachers address that, though?
The Chair: Mr Young, I apologize for interrupting, but two minutes is a short period and we have to go to the opposition.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): There are just a couple of comments that I want to make, and one relates to the Municipal Affairs area. I'm the Municipal Affairs critic for the Liberal Party and I'm also a former mayor of the city of Kingston for some time in the 1980s.
Let there be no mistake as to where this comes from. The government is handing over fewer dollars to the municipalities, and the municipalities for years and years and years, for the last 20 years, have been asking for more power. There's no question about it. The interesting thing, of course, that's happening is that they've put all the powers in here and now the minister himself is saying, "Well, I really didn't mean that" or "Maybe I'm going to make some changes" or "The way the municipalities are interpreting it is wrong" etc. They're not even coming clean on it, in other words. The powers are there for municipalities to do almost anything.
The big mistake that was made, quite frankly, is the fact that, yes, the municipalities got what they wanted, but nobody talked to the general public as to what they wanted. The ministry -- and I'm sure his thought was well intentioned in this: Just do what the municipalities have been asking for for years, and just basically thought, "Well, now everybody's happy." He's grossly mistaken because he forgot the general public in the whole thing.
There's just one other comment I'd like to make and maybe get your comment on as well, and that's with public consultation. This is not public consultation. This is a matter in which you're allowed to make a presentation and we can question for two minutes. Yes, we agreed with it because there was nothing else. It was either this or nothing. True public consultation is to take each section of the bill and to have discussions about it, a flow of information back and forth. I wonder if you wouldn't agree with that, that that's the real method in which you consult, not to bring a bill with 44 different parts into it.
Ms Susan Neath: I would like to comment on that. Nothing that this government has done has been a consultation process. To say that this bill is going to go through on the mark on January 29 leads us to believe that no matter what we submit to this government will not be considered. What they have written is cast in stone and they are very closed-minded. Our own local MPP does not even do a dialogue with the community at large except for the inner core. That's exactly what this government's like. It's not for the people of Ontario.
Mr Young: That's why we're here.
The Chair: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming forward today and making a presentation to the committee.
1110
ONTARIO SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
The Chair: If I could have the Ontario Social Development Council please come forward. Good morning, gentlemen, and welcome to the standing committee on general government. You have half an hour to make your presentation. You may use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions from the three caucuses. I'd appreciate if you'd introduce yourselves at the beginning of your presentation for the benefit of Hansard and committee members.
If we would could keep the private conversations down or outside, I'd appreciate it, in deference to the presenters.
Rev David Pfrimmer: Thank you, Mr Chairman. My name is David Pfrimmer. I am the president of the Ontario Social Development Council. I want to say on behalf of the council that we are pleased that we were able to be before you here in Kitchener here today and to make this presentation. We're also very mindful of the fact that there are many, many groups and many, many people across the province who don't have this privilege and this opportunity to speak to you. That's a source of some serious concern to us, particularly given the nature of this legislation.
In that regard, the council has invited some people to be with us. It's my pleasure to be able to introduce to you on my left Peter Clutterbuck, who's the executive director of the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto and also with the Social Planning Network of Ontario, which is an organization that the Ontario Social Development Council has helped pull together; on my immediate right, Ernie Ginsler, who's the executive director of the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo in this community; and on my far right, Malcolm Shookner, who's the executive director of the Ontario Social Development Council.
In terms of our presentation, we've tabled before you a written submission. We're not going to go over it verbatim, but I would like to just say at the beginning that the Ontario Social Development Council has been around since 1908 and it's a province-wide organization. Part of our role as a charitable group has been to try to promote policies and programs that are focused on people-centred sustainable development and that contribute to individual and community wellbeing.
We have highlighted there the major key issues of the bill, and without further delay I'm therefore going to ask Peter Clutterbuck to comment on a few items of our concern.
Mr Peter Clutterbuck: Honourable members, I'm pleased to be here talking on behalf of the Social Planning Network of Ontario, as opposed to just the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto, which I'm the executive director for. I'm the chair of the SPNO group, over 30 organizations across the province that are community-based, independent, in the voluntary sector, working closely with their municipalities around the social concerns of their communities, and one of the reasons most of our comments today have to do with schedule M and the changes to municipalities.
One very key principle of social planning is citizen involvement. Some comments came up in the earlier deputations with respect to, what kind of public consultation and citizen involvement do we want? Clearly, a healthy civic culture depends on ways in which citizens can become actively involved. Democracy does not begin and end with elections. Clearly, we agree with those who have commented that the scope and range and effect of the provisions in Bill 26 are such that they needed to be dealt with in a lot more depth. We appreciate that there has been a modification from the original plans, but even at that there needs to be an awful lot more public consultation on legislation of such potential impact on the province.
I'm going to make a few comments with respect to several areas. The first has to do with the relationship between the municipalities and the voluntary sector in schedule M. A lot of our municipalities provide support to the voluntary sector through social planning councils and other forms of cash or direct grants or in-kind resources to the work of the voluntary sector. It is our contention that the savings and restructuring bill and some of the reasons for it actually undermine the voluntary sector and affect the ways in which the public sector through municipalities and even the province can work with the voluntary sector.
As responsible and caring individuals in this province, we share what we have by volunteering our time and donating our money to the non-profit community sector. As a society, I think we've agreed that there should be some level of public investment in our voluntary sector as well. This is one of the ways we've established a vital partnership between the voluntary sector and the public sector. That is clearly threatened, as many organizations are no longer able to cope as government withdraws from that partnership and essentially starts to undo a level of civic engagement which I think we'll regret in the long run.
In Metro Toronto alone, over 65,000 volunteers annually, through a large network of non-profit agencies, participate and contribute eight million hours of community service work. Many of them now are threatened and going out of business and underfunded, and because government is pulling out, this very base of support in the voluntary sector is at risk.
Research actually shows that this is a vital partnership. Those countries which have higher levels of public investment in social infrastructure are also those countries which have a higher level of civic engagement and citizen participation. So voluntary contributions will not increase or substitute for government if it pulls out. It is a partnership; it's not just a one-sided type of thing.
Secondly, in terms of some of the powers that will be granted to ministerial authority in Bill 26, we've identified -- by the way, our formal presentation that will be presented to you later will be properly edited and some typos will be corrected, because we picked this up late last night and we couldn't do a final review of it -- one of the things we are really concerned about, for example, again with respect to public involvement, is the elimination of opportunities for the public even to help the politicians at the municipal level make important decisions through practices like referenda. Changes in service delivery of such scope and effect merit the kind of open public debate which referenda allow, and we should not be reducing access to decision-making in this way.
In fact, now it's more important than ever to reinforce citizen commitment and participation in our democratic process. It is the only way we're going to overcome the tremendous amount of public cynicism which threatens to undermine our public institutions. So provisions like referenda around such important changes are important to keep in schedule M and all the acts that apply to municipalities.
Finally, a quick comment on user fees, which you've heard a lot about, and the opportunity for municipalities to impose charges and user fees. We agree with those who feel this is not the direction to go, that moving from a tax base to a price base, essentially marketizing municipal and public services in general, is not a good direction to go. We will be paying the same amount of money or more in the long run and losing that notion of collective responsibility and sharing around essential services that we all wish.
Just as an example, particularly at Metro Toronto we work with people who are on low incomes, moms on social assistance, for example, with kids, who have already lost 21% of their income since October of this past year and are now perhaps being faced -- already within a welfare income, their capacity to buy reading materials for their children or to engage in certain social recreational opportunities in their community are already limited with the resources they have at their disposal.
With the threat of imposing user fees for the use of libraries or parks and recreational facilities, clearly these moms and their children are disadvantaged and they may have to go through some kind of means or needs test to distinguish themselves as being different and stigmatize themselves by asking for special consideration from the municipalities, as some mayors have indicated they are prepared to do. Why should we differentiate among our population in this way?
Finally, it's quite interesting that the user fee section gives a wide range of powers to municipalities to differentiate between different classes of people, but at the same time removes the right of appeal on grounds of any of these charges being unfair or unjust. I might just ask, if the municipalities out there found a clever way in which to charge a user fee or a special charge to local members of provincial Parliament, whether you might not feel you should have some right of appeal, that you shouldn't be distinguished with such particular attention and not have grounds for appealing that something was unfair or unjust.
Mr Cooke: Don't give them any ideas.
Mr Clutterbuck: Basically those are the current concerns I just want to highlight from our short brief here, and we'll get a chance perhaps to have some discussion with you about these points and others that are included in the brief.
Mr Pfrimmer: I'll ask Ernie Ginsler from the Kitchener-Waterloo Social Planning Council to highlight a few of their concerns.
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Mr Ernie Ginsler: Welcome to Waterloo region. Waterloo region and the governments in Waterloo region, the regional municipality and the local governments, have a rich and long-standing tradition of consultative and participatory government. Waterloo region has been noted in Ontario as one of the most productive, one of the most economically active, one of the most successful regions in all of Ontario and probably in all of Canada.
We have an excellent educational system, we have an excellent human service infrastructure and we have governments that serve people because they understand what the people want. It's a tradition in this community and it's well understood in this community that no individual and no particular party has a stranglehold on the truth.
The way that governments have been able to build a strong and viable community in Waterloo region is by extensively, continually and with commitment consulting all the stakeholders in our community, whether they be political, community, business or whatever, taking the best ideas from anybody who wishes to offer them and putting together policies and programs which, by combining those best ideas, serve the community best. That's why Waterloo region works.
Through the Waterloo Region District Health Council, through the Waterloo Region Social Resources Council, recently closed because of provincial defunding, and through two community-based social planning councils, our own in Kitchener-Waterloo and another in Cambridge-North Dumfries, this community has built an extremely strong infrastructure of human service organizations.
One of the things that the economic development departments and the municipalities know in Waterloo region is that what makes our region strong is not that it has the lowest property taxes in Ontario but that it has among the best human services in Ontario. When businesses want to locate somewhere, although property taxes and income taxes may be one factor, the majority of the factors, and all the research indicates this, have to do with quality of life. Businesses want to know that their employees will be safe, that they'll have access to public transportation, that they'll have well-qualified and trained employees, that they'll have access to quality health care and that they'll be able to get the services they need for their families. Otherwise, they'll go somewhere else.
The purpose of Bill 26 is to centralize decision-making, to take decision-making away from the community, in fact to take decision-making away from the Legislature, and to put it into a few people who feel they know best what Ontario needs. This is anti-democratic, it's anti-government, it's certainly anti-participation.
People must not only be governed fairly, they must see that they are being governed fairly. Bill 26 takes away from the community the ability to see the process of government and it takes away from the community the ability to know that distinct and different interest groups have been able to participate in a process which has led to legislation, policies, programs, practices, procedures which will impact on them. Clearly this means less accountability to the public, less accountability to taxpayers, which is to say less accountability to all of us.
Centralization of decision-making in the hands of a few people is the kind of government that democracies work to change. Centralization of policymaking, decision-making and powers over people is not one of the policies that is enunciated in the Common Sense Revolution, it is not one of the campaign platforms that the Conservative government ran on, and, I can tell you from every contact I've had in 16 years of working in Waterloo region, it is not what the citizens of Waterloo region believe in.
Mr Pfrimmer: Now I ask Malcolm Shookner to make a few comments.
Mr Malcolm Shookner: As we all face the prospect of cutbacks and downsizing and fewer resources to work with, we've got to keep in mind that communities rely on the voluntary sector to be able to meet their basic needs and improve their quality of life, working in partnership with others. The impact of this bill and of the agenda we are dealing with now, the effect of it will be to weaken the voluntary sector even further, which is going to have serious implications for our long-term quality of life.
We recognize that the deficit is a problem, one of many we are faced with in Ontario, but this kind of scorched-earth approach to deficit cutting is not going to solve our problems, it's going to dig us deeper into a hole. It leaves out important dimensions of community life that are so important to people. We think that the provisions in the bill which allow for the moving of the power to tax to the local level through user fees and other forms of tax are going to create growing inequities in the province as some communities are able to raise taxes while others will not be able to, and even within those communities, as you've heard, there'll be growing differentiation between those who can afford and not afford public services.
We think that the more progressive form of taxation, which is the income tax, is a better way to raise adequate tax revenues, because after what we've heard from many politicians, "The taxpayer is the taxpayer is the taxpayer." Whether we're paying in user fee to use the public library, whether we're paying higher property taxes, whether we're paying higher or lower income taxes provincially and federally, it's all coming out of our pockets.
We think there's got to be a different way of using bills like this one to be able to achieve the kind of fiscal health that we believe is in everyone's interest. I think the only big question is the lack of accountability in responsive government that you've heard about and the problem of trying to reduce the role of government in making decisions about public services.
It has been noted recently by Statistics Canada that the Ontario government for years has been actually spending less per capita than most of the provinces in the country and that this idea of fiscal constraint is not new to any of us. It has been going on for quite some, and successive governments of every political stripe have wrestled to bring program spending into control. That's certainly evident in the kind of information recently put out by StatsCan. In fact, the tremendous growth has been in interest payments, and that's a subject that has not been addressed.
The other concern we have is that Bill 26 is realigning the powers between the municipal governments and the provincial government and centralizing power in a non-accountable way in the ministers while offloading the responsibilities in the municipalities. In the end, it's going to be people complaining at the local level about the withdrawal of services and higher taxes, which leaves the provincial government off the hook.
Finally, the point about the implications of the bill to discourage public participation, we believe, is going to undermine the kind of democratic practices and tradition that we have in Ontario.
Mr Pfrimmer: Just in brief conclusion, and I think you've heard some of the concerns we have particularly, overall our interpretation of this bill is that it will have a devastating and deconstructing effect on communities across the province, that it will further enable all levels of government in some ways to abdicate responsibility to other levels of government. saying, "It's somebody else's job, not mine," which will result in the harshest part of the burden being placed on the people least able to speak for themselves, poor people, those who are not politically consulted in the whole process.
I think we're also concerned that this probably reflects an overall direction that many people in Ontario do not want to go in. The concerns they have as individuals, their concerns for their family, their commitment to their community and their civic responsibilities are enabled by government, not removed from them.
In many respects, we are deeply troubled by this piece of legislation. I think it probably should be divided, and it's worthy of more serious reflection, particularly because of its tremendously important and adverse impacts on vulnerable people. With that, I think we're available for questions.
The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen. We have three minutes for questions per caucus, starting with Mr Hardeman.
Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): Thank you, gentlemen, for the presentation. I commend the region of Waterloo for its progress over the years. I would just suggest that the problem with part of Ontario or part of local government is the inability to restructure their municipalities and their administration under the present legislation to accommodate or to do what the region of Waterloo has been able to do since its formation. Being from the neighbouring municipality in Oxford, we too were able to do that through a long-drawn-out process to restructure the way we govern to reduce the number of municipalities to provide better government for less money.
The sections in the bill to allow that for other municipalities in the province -- your presentation seems to be that it is too much top-down, that the minister has too much power to make that happen as opposed to hearing the voice of the people. Would it help if the legislation included the obligation on the commission to have public consultations so that what the minister implemented by regulation would be what the people of the area involved wanted?
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Mr Ginsler: I think if we talk about consultation, we have to talk about meaningful consultation, and consultation is only meaningful if the people who are consulted have real impact on the decision. Something like, if consultation is what is currently in the Planning Act as "have regard for," which means I'll listen to what you say but I'm going to go off and do what I intended to do anyway because I obeyed the letter of the law and I had regard for, that's not going to help anybody.
Referenda, which involve people in choices and in determining their future, which then inform the process and in fact direct the process, are the best way of getting that kind of --
Mr Hardeman: If I could interrupt, on restructuring municipal government, in fairness, the efficient operation of Waterloo region was not created by a referendum. It was consultation with the public and implemented by provincial legislation. I just point out that hearing the public is an important facet of it, but is there not a need to have a way of implementing something without going through the 10-year or 12-year process of Queen's Park as opposed to letting the local people make the decision?
Mr Ginsler: I would suggest that Waterloo region works not because of the process which created the region and the municipalities, but because the government that resulted from that process consult regularly and pay attention to their constituents. It wasn't the saving of a few politicians that makes Waterloo region work; it's the fact that government listens.
Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): I want to thank the presenters. I think it was an excellent presentation outlining some of the major concerns that we have. I want to talk a bit about the impact of the user fees as had been discussed, and particularly the impact on vulnerable people, not only people who receive government assistance, who need help from the government of this province, but the working poor as well.
I think what this bill is doing is continuing a pattern that I think has seen a total dismantling of progressive social policy in this province that has come about over the last 40 years. We've seen just an absolute massive attack on the needy and the disabled, welfare recipients, single moms across this province. It's just been unprecedented the way that group has been marginalized, targeted and brutalized by this government.
Now I think this part of the legislation, as you talked about, is going to give not only the government and the minister the blind power to secretly increase the user fees on the disabled, on senior citizens for the drug payment, the copayment as they call it, which is a user fee, which is a back-door taxation. There's no other way of calling a user fee anything else but that. It is taxation, it is taxation through the back door. It is taxation that sounds more pleasant. You don't see it on your tax bill, but you will see it in every service used in the municipality. We have seen municipalities that are already chomping at the bit. They just can't wait to get this new-found power that this government is going to give them to be able to impose a user fee. Everything that moves, breathes or makes dust is going to be user-feed across this province.
The impact is going to be on the most vulnerable kids. This is a concern when in the summer parents who have the dollars and have the ability can take their kids to the cottage, can take their kids to the lake. Parents who are relying on assistance, who have disabled kids, who often cannot afford that, rely on the local swimming pool or the local recreation centre for those services, and those are the people who are going to be the most impacted by this legislation.
From what you have said, I get disturbed because I think that this is going to be devastating to many, many people across this province. What impact, from the work you've done -- I know the Ontario Social Development Council also tends to do a lot of work as sort of parents and friends as social legislation will impact in the future. What do you see as a sort of impact on those kids, and particularly the kids of the people who are low income and needy in this province, as a result of this massive ability the municipalities will have now to put in user fees for every local service that exists?
Mr Pfrimmer: I'll just make a brief comment now and ask Peter to comment.
I think one of the things that deeply troubles everyone who's in the area of social development, Canada has signed and pledged itself in an international forum to observe certain basic rights and respect certain covenants we've signed under the UN that respect people's rights and assure people that we will fulfil our social obligations to vulnerable people; not only respect human rights, but fulfil our social obligations to people within our community, our national community.
What I think we see happening by many levels of government at this point is elected officials walking away from those responsibilities, abdicating those responsibilities. What's really important to remember is that in Canada the provincial level of government has responsibility for fulfilling our social obligations, and I think in some respects what we see today is a real abandonment by government of that obligation to act on behalf of all people. These user fees, I think, are another reflection of walking away from those kinds of responsibilities. They may be subtle, they may have appeal, they may wash politically in the public arena, but I think we're also eroding confidence in the tax system which is in fact the way in which we fulfil our obligations to each other, as well as acts of charity and philanthropy and those types of things.
Mr Cooke: With the short time that we have -- what do we have, a minute and 30 seconds or something?
The Chair: Three minutes.
Mr Cooke: I just wanted to make a comment on a couple of parts of your presentation and then ask for a comment on something else.
I do find part of your presentation particularly important because we haven't had a focus on one of the thrusts of this bill, being to remove the ability for public participation, whether it be on local boards, committees, perhaps school boards. I like the way you've outlined some of your concerns about moving away from opportunities for public participation through referenda. One presentation -- I can't remember who it was -- said they thought it was rather strange that the government was demanding that there be referenda for casinos but eliminating the opportunities for a referendum for who owns our public utilities at the local level. That shows how out of whack this legislation is in fact. So I think this is a different perspective that you take and that is important for us to hear.
One other point that Mr Hardeman mentioned was that the creation of Kitchener-Waterloo wasn't by referendum; it was by legislation. I think that's an important comment. It wasn't by referendum; it was by legislation. Under this bill, it can be by regulation that new regional governments can be set up. So I think that really shows the extreme of this legislation.
To follow a bit on Dominic's comments, one of the comments the government has made is that with the user fees, to avoid inequities, what can happen is that you can just go out and raise money from the corporate sector. Many of you are involved -- or all are involved -- in the voluntary sector. I'd like to get your comment about how feasible it is to go out to the private sector to raise funds for yet another area that government is pulling back from.
Mr Clutterbuck: I believe the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy has made it quite clear in its own public statements since the fall that there is no way in which, just in terms of practically meeting the need and substituting for what government either did with the community or did in partnership with what the voluntary sector was able to provide -- the prospects of substituting through corporate contributions or even individual contributions for that matter, it can't be met. I haven't got the figures that they show about the gap, but they do have some actual research and estimates on this.
Secondly, I think we have to be honest with going to the corporate sector. Corporations have a certain purpose. Their purpose is to do business, sell goods and services, and frequently their particular interest, when they wish to develop good public and community relations policies, is to work in some ways with the communities, but they are usually looking for some other benefit beyond a direct contribution. Not that that shouldn't be encouraged, but we shouldn't become dependent on another self-interested sector. We should be looking to our public system that elects our political leaders and that establishes a base of support through collecting taxes from all of us as being the primary way, the core way, the base way in which to support community activity, and then look to opportunities with the corporate sector or individual donations to supplement, to enrich and to provide perhaps other ways in which the voluntary sector can work. We shouldn't shift it all to the private market.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for coming forward today and making your presentation.
1140
WATERLOO REGION TAX WATCH
The Chair: May I please have the representatives from the Waterloo Region Tax Watch come forward. Good morning, gentlemen, and welcome to the standing committee on general government. You have half an hour this morning to make your presentation. You may use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions and response. I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourselves at the beginning of your presentation for the benefit of Hansard and committee members.
Mr David Kresky: My name is David Kresky and I'm the chairman of Waterloo Region Tax Watch. On my right hand is Boris Sniatenchuk, past chairman, and on the other side is Ian Munro, who is one of our directors.
I'll just introduce you to what Waterloo Region Tax Watch is. We're a small, local organization of taxpayers. Since 1988 we've been gathered together to monitor local government spending and responsibilities, to make sure that local government is accountable and responsible to the people who support it: the taxpayers. We have about 1,000 members in our group and we have many supporters outside of our group.
As far as the local government's response to our activities in the last seven years is concerned, we are accused of being tax watchdogs and being ultraconservatives and various other descriptions, so I would like to suggest that for many years we've been placed in the position that the new government is accused of being in today. However, our aims are rather simple: We demand that government be responsible and accountable to the people who elect it and the people who pay for it.
In that line, we support what the current government is doing in its intent. We support the need to reduce spending, the need to eliminate the deficit and the debt, the need to bring back to reality the fact that there is no more money available to be spent frivolously and that priorities must be set so that the province of Ontario and its people will be able to prosper in the coming years.
However, having said that, I have to say that Tax Watch has some concerns about this particular bill. One of our concerns is the process by which this omnibus bill is being put through the government. I read the synopsis of the bill and I was rather concerned about the way that synopsis is written. It seems to be apologetic to the NDP, saying, "Well, they had omnibus bills; therefore, it's okay for us to have it too." I would like members of the government to remember that we got rid of the NDP.
Mr Cooke: Not all of us.
Mr Kresky: As the government of Ontario.
Mr Phillips: They're not extinct. They're endangered, but they're not extinct.
Mr Kresky: So please don't think that simply because others have done it, this should be an excuse and a crutch to pursue policies and the means to an end. We feel the means are very important, as well as the end. We think it's very important that there should be discussion in the Legislature, within the government and between the other parties. We would hope that politicians have reached a level of maturity today where we realize that we are in this together, that we have to find solutions together and that, I'm going to say, the idiotic political behaviour of the past has to come to an end. We're not here to bicker; we're here to find solutions to the problem we have, which is, we have no money to spend. We may want to spend it, but we have none. That's why we're concerned about the way this bill is being pushed through the government. We would prefer to see legitimate and ongoing discussion, even though time is short.
We're also concerned about the concentration of large amounts of power at the cabinet level. By voting for the Common Sense Revolution, we voted a government in; we didn't vote in a cabinet. We feel it important that the whole of the government should be involved in discussing the policies of the government. I feel badly, and I know my members feel badly, if we think that the MPPs we have elected are somehow hog-tied and don't have a voice for us, because we feel that's our voice in the government, since we do not have direct access to the cabinet.
We're also concerned with the elimination of some of the tools that we feel are very important: the use of referendum and the freedom of information act. These are two tools which we believe would give the taxpayers the ability to monitor the powers that you are giving the municipalities in order to make themselves more efficient. It's fine to pass on to local governments certain powers, but we need tools as well to help the municipalities to achieve their goals.
The freedom of information act is a very important tool for us. In this region in the past you may be aware that the separate school board was pursued by a certain individual under the freedom of information act, and as a result of her very strong and almost single activities, their director was forced to resign and has since been charged with criminal charges due to activities he was doing with finances of that school board. Now, that man would have been the person who had the power to say, "I believe these are frivolous pursuits under the freedom of information act and I won't allow them." That would never have happened. We're really worried about that.
The use of referenda: This hasn't been widely available in the province and it's now going to be eliminated. We believe that if anything the use referenda should be strengthened. We believe that taxpayers need to be consulted for such items as major expenditures within their municipality or major changes in the way that municipality is going to levy taxes or user fees.
For instance, in the city of Kitchener down the street, we have a brand-new $65-million city hall. Many, many people in this community were not in favour of spending that money on that building. We had no voice; we were refused a voice. If we had been allowed to have a referendum, that would have been voted down. It was felt there were far cheaper and equally usable alternatives to that building. Now we're stuck with it.
Similarly, in this community we have an arts centre up the road which costs us more than 2% in our taxes each year as a subsidy to that building. That building and its activities provide no service to the people of the city of Kitchener. However, we have been continuously told by our councillors that they would rather raise user fees in other areas, they would rather reduce our real services like snowplowing and such, in order to subsidize that particular facility. If we had the use of referenda, we could tell them, "There's no money, and we want things like that, which provide no real service, to be considered for cuts." If you simply give the municipalities the power to use funds the way they desire, they can do what I have just described to you and we have no recourse.
It's easy to say we can vote them out come election time. As you all know, a person can get elected with as little as 20% of the vote if there are enough people running for the position, which means that 80% of the city would have voted against that person but that person holds the power. Although I like to be optimistic, I am afraid that in our experiences over the past seven years in battling government to try to convince them that their spending is often irresponsible and needs to be looked at very closely, we have found local politicians to be unresponsive, even at times abusive.
We feel, as taxpayers and a taxpayer group that shares the interest of people and of this government to reduce frivolous spending and keep things in line, that we need to be given tools to help monitor government rather than have those tools taken from us. Waterloo Region Tax Watch has for years been pursuing the same intent as the government we have now, because we believe that in the end, by saving money we will benefit all the people in the province of Ontario: the poor, the rich -- everyone. If there's no money, we all suffer. We feel we need the tools to do this as taxpayers. We need to be able to "help" our local politicians understand, or come to understand, that we want them to listen to us too when it comes to telling them how to spend our money.
After all, the city is not just a little business that needs the help of the province to make better decisions. The city is us. We are the people who support the city through our taxes. We are the people who are the city. It does not exist outside of us. However, we have no tools, other than an election every three years, by which to ensure that local politicians hear what we have to say. We are saying to the province now, rather than take away the few tools that are available to us, we would like to see them incorporated -- with the kind of powers you'll give to government to help itself, we need powers for us to help government as well.
Those are our concerns. Thank you for being able to address this group.
The Chair: Thank you. We have about six minutes left per caucus for questioning, starting with the opposition.
Mr Phillips: I appreciate your thoughtful presentation. The bill, as you may or may not know, has been named in the media as the "bully bill," and the more we deal with it, the more I realize that it's not a bad name for it in that the bully bill seems to have no friends. I look down the list every day of groups presenting, and I find that virtually every group, even those that say, "Overall we support it," have major reservations about it. That's what happens to bullies in the end: They have no friends.
You've raised for us a very interesting point and underlined it, and that is that perhaps the government feels that once an election takes place, it has the right to do whatever it wants until the next election. They often say to us: "There was consultation. That was on June 8, and it's all over now until the next election."
The provisions you point out in here about the powers to the municipalities I think are similar to that. On this fee thing it says, "Despite any act, a municipality...may pass bylaws imposing fees or charges." So it's just a bylaw now, despite any act. If a municipality or a local board has imposed fees or charges under this act, there's no appeal to the OMB on the grounds that the fees or charges are unjust or unfair. They've taken that appeal out. They've also amended, as you point out, I think, so that now all that's required is to pass a bylaw. It says, "Despite subsection (1), a council may pass a bylaw to eliminate the requirement to obtain the assent of the electors before passing a bylaw under this section." In other words, they can avoid a referendum.
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The act goes on later, on the licensing provisions, to say, "If there is a conflict...in this part and a provision of any other section of this act or any other act, the section that is less restrictive of a local municipality's power prevails." This truly does give, it is the intent of the bill to give, local councils sweeping powers to impose fees or licences. That's what they're trying to do, and to take away from organizations like yours the right of either a referendum or an appeal to the OMB or even using some other acts to stop it.
My question to your organization is, have you any suggestions or recommendations for us on how we can deal with your concerns in the bill that might ensure the municipalities are able to do what they want to do, but make sure that organizations like yours retain some opportunity for some input?
Mr Ian Munro: On this point, one of the things that has come up quite often is user fees. We feel that the user fee is a form of tax. However, we support the idea of user fees for many of the things governments do but feel the introduction of user fees in a municipal arena must be revenue-neutral.
With regard to that, we sent a proposal to Premier Harris recommending that municipalities that increase taxes or user fees to fill in those things the Ontario government was coming off have their grants further reduced by 105% of the increased revenue. There is no point in one area of government reducing spending if another area brings it up. Therefore, the idea of municipalities raising revenues by taxes or user fees or some other means to defeat what the government is trying to do in cutting spending is wrong.
Mr Phillips: You probably lost that one in that the government has stated it is the intent of this bill to give municipalities the opportunity to compensate for their cutbacks in transfer payments. They said that's the intent of this.
Mr Munro: This is the area in which we disagree with the bill.
Mr Phillips: I appreciate that; I'm just saying to you that I know you've suggested that, but the government has said, "No, no, our intent is the opposite of what you want; that is, to allow municipalities" what they call "unlimited flexibility in imposing fees," and we've heard three or four mayors now saying, "Hurry up with the bill, because every day you delay is a day we can't impose these new fees."
We were in London yesterday and we, in the Liberal Party and the NDP, have been trying to get more time for hearings on this. The deputy mayor of London said, "No, we've got to get this passed so we can begin to impose the new fees," and the minister himself has said they need that to compensate for the cutbacks in transfer
payments from the province. So I'm just saying to you I think the government has said, "Sorry, but we're not going to listen to your group on this matter."
Mr Munro: Maybe we need your help there.
Mr Cooke: I suspect that you'll have more impact than we will, so continue to speak out. I suspect that your organization and my political party would philosophically disagree in a lot of areas. I appreciate your presentation and the approach that you've taken in your brief. I guess one of the things I was thinking of when you were reading your brief, or presenting your information, was that people have to remember that when the Conservatives got about 45% of the vote across the province, we had about a 60% turnout, so that means that they got about 27% of the eligible voters who voted for them in the last election.
You've got to put all this in perspective about the huge mandate that the government has received to push through things that are going to change the very face of this province. That reinforces the need for consultation and for participation as we move forward on legislation and policy change. I could give you the numbers. We're going to end up hearing about one out of five individuals or groups that have applied to be heard by this committee. It's a very, very small percentage.
If in fact we go through this whole process and we see that provincial taxes are lowered, although they're going to bring in the health tax on individuals -- so we have a lowering of income tax, an increase of this new health tax and then we have a whole host of new user fees at the municipal level so that in the end we see that user fees and municipal taxes are increased to take up that tax room and spending -- would you believe that would be going back on the promise that Mr Harris made in the election when he said if there were going to be any new taxes it would have to be referenda, and if there were any new taxes and new spending, that he would resign?
Mr Kresky: Well, I'm not certain about promises but I agree with the things you've just said. Again, I have to just remind this government of Ontario that probably most of the members of our group helped to get your government elected. Certain members sitting at this table know we helped get them elected.
Mr Gerretsen: No, surely you didn't. I can't believe that.
Mr Kresky: We want them to remember that. We want also to remind you of two things here. Yes, the need for consultation is very important, especially when you have a majority, because you have the power to do what you desire. Therefore, consultation shouldn't be a threat to any activities. Also, as we all know, and as Mike Harris knows very closely, it was the swing vote in this election that helped the PCs get into power, because those people believed in what the Common Sense Revolution represented. I feel that the ground is slipping under the Common Sense Revolution, which was supposed to have been a strategy developed through public consultation.
I'm not threatening, but I have to warn you that the swing vote has swung, in the last two elections, a different way. I suggest to you people that we support the intent of the government, we share the interests of the government; that's why we elected you. We know of the need to reduce the threat to our economy, to our lifestyle, to the province of Ontario. However, we want to be part of this decision-making process. I don't want to have to vote Mike Harris out in the next election simply because I feel that he and his party abused the needs of --
Mr Cooke: We were on the same wavelength on my question time until you got to that.
Mr Kresky: Unfortunately, Mr Cooke, that's why you guys went out too. But I think this is the crux here.
Interjection: Give us a chance.
Mr Kresky: Well, earn your chance. The crux here is that the electorate of Ontario has become so frustrated with the need for commonsense government, for responsible and accountable -- especially accountable -- government that we will vote out -- not vote in, we will vote out -- those groups which do not give us the ability to help people not spend our money frivolously. I think this a very important thing that all the parties must remember.
The representative from the Ontario Taxpayers Federation -- I read his brief -- said the economy reflects things: People aren't spending their money and this shows you that if people don't want to spend their money, then businesses will suffer.
As taxpayers, we don't have that choice. I have to pay my taxes or I am taken along the legal road --
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Mr Cooke: I'd like you to use a little bit of their time to lecture them. I just have two other comments to make, because I think they were interesting parts of your brief.
On the freedom of information act changes, I think you are dead on. Access to information is power and if we restrict the general public's access to information, then we're empowering bureaucracies and we're disempowering the public in a very dramatic way. I think your comments are right on and I really like the one line that you used, that people elect MPPs, they don't elect cabinets, and that's why legislation is important as opposed to empowering cabinet at the expense of the Legislature. I appreciate your presentation today, and if I have any time left, go on lecturing those folks across the way.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Cooke. For the government, Mr Martiniuk.
Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge): It would seem that you're one of the few organizations speaking today that agree with the NDP who were to balance their budget within three years of election, the Liberals who were to balance their budget within four years of an election, with a $2-billion tax decrease, I should add, and of course, we intend to balance our budget.
One of the problems in balancing a budget with our government is simply that a vast majority of the moneys we expend are in fact transfer payments either to individuals or to boards, municipalities and organizations. My problem seems to be that if we're going to proceed with the balancing of a budget, which is what everyone agrees to, other than a few organizations that attended this morning, we're going to have to give greater flexibility to our stakeholders and the people we work with, our partners as a government.
I have heard this morning, and this is where you seem to disagree with the various social justice groups, that our municipal governments are not worthy of the confidence that I believe our government is placing in them. You have said, I think this morning, that in your opinion local governments cannot do the things we want them to do. We've heard that from many groups this morning.
I put it to you that first we must give flexibility to our partners, and secondly, what can we do to repair the faith that I happen to have in our local representatives? But individuals and organizations like yours have voiced that they do not have any faith in our local governments. What can we do to repair that faith that you seem to lack? I'm dealing specifically with Waterloo region because I know most of the local representatives in this region as individuals and as politicians and I feel they do an excellent job.
Mr Kresky: Mr Martiniuk, I agree. It's not that we have no faith in local government; it is that you want to give your partners the ability to deal with things with greater flexibility. All we ask of you -- and you're taking it away -- is that we as your partners and as the partners of the municipalities and local government -- after all, we are the people -- want you to give us the tools and the flexibility to work with the municipalities to ensure that they do not pursue other misguided lines.
We don't want to have to wait for a three-year election. We want to be able to have access to information, to be able to have referendums, to be able to say to our local government, "We want you to put down your priorities, how you will pay for them, and then if we disagree with your list of priorities and means of paying for them, we want to be able to say that we would like to have a referendum on it now so that we also can have a voice."
We do not want to be told, dictated to, what fees will be, what tax increases will be. We do not want that. We want to be partners with the municipalities. We want to have the faith restored. The only way we can do that is for us to be allowed to participate with them; the same thing that you are giving them. That's all we ask.
Mr Munro: Just one point I'd like to add to this: Yes, we do have faith in local levels of government, within limits. One of the reasons we're in this mess, the municipalities in Ontario and in Canada, is because governments have been doing things that governments should not do, or too much. That is how we got into the position where we've got such a debt and a deficit that we're having an awful time getting out of it.
Someone on television the other night on Wall Street Week mentioned that the people of the United States, as individuals, are now paying something like 16% of their revenue in interest payments -- mortgages, credit cards and the whole ball of wax -- and made the point that once before it got up to that limit and we dove in North America into an immediate recession. It's happened again. We're up to 16%. Canadian governments, I believe, are spending something like 31% of their revenue in debt payments; therefore, for the province of Ontario to cut debt and allow other levels of government to increase it, just defeating that purpose, is counterproductive.
Mr Hardeman: I would just like to say that the process of public consultation is very important and I would support that, but I find it interesting that the two presentations here in the last hour came in and the first one said public consultation in Waterloo region works perfectly, better than any place in the world; the next presentation says, "We need more limitations on our local politicians because they've done" -- and you actually mention two or three projects that would not have proceeded if enough public consultation had been held.
I think you spoke of a slippery slope on the Common Sense Revolution. This public consultation does create that too. I would also point out from our perspective that we support your position that you voted for the Common Sense Revolution. We see this bill as the main tool to implement the Common Sense Revolution and the end result will be what you voted for.
The Chair: Mr Hardeman, the time has come to an end. Gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for coming forward today to make your presentation. Committee, we will recess until 1 o'clock.
The subcommittee recessed from 1209 to 1302.
CITY OF OWEN SOUND
The Chair: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the standing committee on general government. We have before us Mayor Stew Taylor from the city of Owen Sound. Welcome to the committee. You have half an hour to make a presentation today. You may use the time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions. I'd appreciate it if you could perhaps introduce yourselves and those who are accompanying you at the table for the benefit of committee members and Hansard.
Mr Jim MacKay: Thank you, Chair. My name is Jim MacKay. I am acting mayor for the city of Owen Sound. To my far left is Craig Curtis, our city manager, and to my left Councillor Ann Kelly, and to my right Councillor Peter Lemon. We want to thank you for this invitation to allow us, the city of Owen Sound, to express the concerns of our community on Bill 26 and to tell you firstly who we are.
We are a small city of 20,000 people. We actually have a drawing area of 28,000 people. We have in our community small and varied industries. We are 120 miles north of Toronto and approximately 100 miles north of Kitchener. We consider it the snowbelt. We are the only city in two counties, Grey and Bruce, and we are the hub of the area for services and shopping.
You have our brief before you. Our brief is listed in five areas. We cover the background. We cover Bill 26. We cover the Association of Municipalities of Ontario's position, the city position and the city's requests. As you can see, we would start out with our general comments and observations.
We know there's an AMO position that's generally supportive of the intent of the legislation as it affects municipalities. They have taken issue with a number of details of the legislation and they have recommended a number of changes which are referred to in the detailed sections of this very brief.
The city of Owen Sound has the following major concerns regarding the contents of Bill 26 and the method in which it was introduced.
The new legislation was introduced in the lockup budget presentation on November 29 and was originally intended to be passed on December 4, without public hearings. The city of Owen Sound was only able to obtain a copy of the legislation on December 12. This is not an acceptable democratic process. The legislation has far-reaching direct and indirect impact on municipalities throughout the province, and no provision was initially made for community input. The government is now convening a small number of hearings -- and we are here today -- at which the presentations will be strictly limited. It is understood that the government still intends to pass the bill by January 29. This puts in question the province's commitment to respond to the briefs of the individuals making presentations. This is not an acceptable consultation process.
This legislation is a broad grab-bag of different initiatives. The more common Canadian practice has been to separate legislation of this kind into manageable portions; thus the items which have broad community support can be implemented quickly and more controversial items can be debated in public. The bill does not reflect an acceptable legislative approach.
In summary, the city of Owen Sound wishes to express its strong objection to the manner in which the bill was introduced, the lack of consultation with the municipalities in its preparation and the lack of opportunity for municipalities and individuals within the community to provide input -- and people from our community have already voiced concerns. The city of Owen Sound considers that Bill 26 contains some excellent initiatives but some initiatives that will detrimentally impact on our community and, we know, on others throughout our province.
We recommend that Bill 26 be broken down into component parts to be debated separately. We recommend that the adoption of Bill 26 be delayed at least to the end of March to facilitate additional public hearings in convenient locations throughout the province and to encourage a full and public debate.
Municipal restructuring: Current legislation is presently cumbersome and expensive. Restructuring studies that have been undertaken have resulted in very few changes. The case study of the town of New Tecumseth states that duplication among local administrations is a luxury that taxpayers can no longer afford. We agree with that and have already taken steps for consolidation.
The city of Owen Sound's position is that we generally support the provincial government's municipal restructuring initiatives. However, we feel that whereas local autonomy is important, some provincial legislation, leadership and vision are required. In addition, the legislation does not outline the means by which public and community input can be obtained.
The city has concerns that councillors would be personally liable for actions which might result in a municipality being adversely affected financially. This is contrary to the normal procedure, in which council as a whole has shared responsibility.
The city of Owen Sound supports the amendments regarding municipal restructuring in principle. The city of Owen Sound requests the provincial government to clarify its preferred vision regarding municipal annexation and amalgamation. The city does not support AMO's position that a commission for the development and implementation of a restructuring proposal be established only at the request of the municipality.
The city of Owen Sound requests the provincial government to delete the amendments of section 25, which would impose unwarranted financial consequences, and we request the provincial government to amend the legislation to outline the means to provide opportunities for community input in decisions on municipal restructuring.
Conservation authorities and their restrictions are of great concern to us. The impact of this legislation must be carefully considered in conjunction with the provincial government's November 29 financial statement. In terms of this statement, grants to conservation authorities will be reduced from $34 million to $10 million over the next two years. Provincial funding for conservation authorities will be limited to flood control and no funding will be available for the operation and maintenance of the authorities.
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It is assumed that the province may be attempting to download this responsibility to municipalities. This is given further credence by the fact that the grant reductions to conservation authorities appear in provincial documents under the heading Municipal Funding Reductions.
The city of Owen Sound requests the Minister of Natural Resources to provide a clear statement regarding the province's plans for the future of conservation authorities and the provincially significant lands under their jurisdiction and control.
The city of Owen Sound expresses major concern that the province is abrogating its responsibilities regarding provincially significant conservation authority lands and again is attempting to download this responsibility to municipal governments.
The city of Owen Sound recommends in the strongest terms that amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act be put on hold pending consultations between the provincial and municipal governments on this issue.
User fees and licensing: The city of Owen Sound has established a broad range of user fees. However, the prescriptive nature of the present Municipal Act and other legislation pertaining to municipalities limits the city's ability to establish user fees in all areas. The present legislation respecting business licensing is very restrictive and antiquated and therefore confusing to interpret. The city of Owen Sound generally supports the concepts of broadened authorities for user fees and licensing without ministerial intervention.
With respect to licensing, the city strongly supports the simplification of the Municipal Act but cautions that simplification should not be done at the expense of clarity.
We request the minister to remove the ministerial authority to enact legislation and regulations that would generally limit a municipality's ability to establish user fees or licensing. We request the minister to clarify the intent and scope of the five-year limit for licensing bylaws with respect to the continuances of licences pursuant to a licensing bylaw, and we request the provincial government to provide municipalities with operating funding for libraries on an unconditional basis without restricting their ability to charge user fees.
Under the heading of Development Charges on page 15, the city of Owen Sound's position is, the issue of development charges and their future was considered by the Owen Sound city council and the following resolution was adopted on December 13, 1995:
"That city council hereby supports the position of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to provide municipal councils the authority to establish their own development charges policies and not further restrict the present practice.
"The city of Owen Sound requests the provincial government not to amend the Development Charges Act in a manner that further restricts a municipality's ability to charge for municipal services."
Under the heading Arbitration, the city of Owen Sound supports the amendments to the Fire Services Act and the Police Services Act regarding arbitration, subject to the changes recommended by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.
Under Special Purpose Boards, we are aware that certain municipal services are governed by provincial legislation and operated by special purpose bodies such as the library board, the police services board and the public utilities commission.
On page 20, the city of Owen Sound supports the amendments to the Public Utilities Act allowing the municipality to dissolve a PUC without holding a public plebiscite. There would still be debate; it's just the public plebiscite.
We request the provincial government to enact legislation giving municipalities greater control over the police department's budget. We request the provincial government to establish charges for the OPP for their services on a fair and equitable basis which does not create an inequity, which I am sure you are aware exists across jurisdictional boundaries.
We request the provincial government to provide municipalities with operating funding for libraries on an unconditional basis without restricting their ability to charge user fees.
Under the heading "Fire Department Restructuring," the boundaries drawn around work performed by fire department bargaining units have made it extremely difficult to design and organize for optimum efficiency, both in costs of operation and effectiveness. Section 5 of the Fire Departments Act specifies that only the chief and the deputy chief are excluded from the union. Ideally, the role of captain should also be excluded from the bargaining unit, thereby allowing the transfer of some management responsibilities, including discipline.
Bill 26 does not address the fire department restructuring, in spite of numerous requests from the AMO, as municipalities throughout the province of Ontario are concerned with this situation.
The city of Owen Sound requests the provincial government to amend the Fire Departments Act to define the role of captain outside the collective bargaining unit, thereby allowing the transfer of some of the management responsibilities, including discipline.
Under the heading "Pay Equity," throughout the core city businesses, pay equity was achieved through job-to-job comparative and proportional values. In the case of our home for the aged, Lee Manor, proxy comparisons were used, which is the plotting method. The proxy method provided the most lucrative funding arrangement for our home for the aged, Lee Manor. Bill 26, in schedule J, amends the Pay Equity Act to discontinue the use of proxy comparisons. This amendment does affect Lee Manor. The proposed amendment does not come into force until January 1, 1997.
The city supports the elimination of proxy comparisons. Proxy comparisons tend to upset internal equity within an organization. The city requests that further clarification regarding the employer's obligation if job-to-job and proportional value comparisons are not possible.
Under the transportation statutes, there are a number of items covered under this area but I'll only touch on, in general, the changes to the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act give more power and authority to the local municipality. However, the cost for reconstruction and maintenance of these roadways is left with the local municipality, and subsidies, as you know, are no longer conditional but are part of the unconditional provincial block funding.
The city of Owen Sound supports only the accounting and reporting functions that could be amended as proposed, provided the municipality is liable for the financial recordkeeping responsibilities. We request the provincial government not to amend the act that eliminates the financial support for the King's highway connecting links. These roadways are part of the provincial highway system and, if amended, they place an unfair financial burden on our municipality.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you on behalf of the city of Owen Sound for the opportunity of presenting this brief to you today.
The Chair: Thank you. We have just a little less than five minutes per caucus for questions, starting off with Mr Cooke.
Mr Cooke: Thank you, Mr Chair. I apologize; I was a couple of minutes late getting in after the break.
I just have a couple of questions for you. First of all, I appreciate the fact you've come in from a fair distance to appear before the committee, and I certainly sympathize and agree with your concerns about the process. I could run through each of the communities, but I won't, other than to say that to hear we had 47 requests from individuals and groups to appear and 15 were heard, and that's been the type of trend that we've been experiencing in every community. Some are even worse. In Hamilton, the numbers are going to be even higher. I believe in Hamilton we've had 82 requests and only 15 are going to be heard later this week.
I don't know really where to begin, so I'll just try to touch on a couple of areas. I've had a little bit of experience for a couple of years with some restructuring of local governments and the county studies that were begun by Mr Sweeney but were driven at the local level and recommendations that came up at the local level, and one or two were ultimately implemented.
One of the concerns that I have, and I guess I want to get your feedback on it, is that the proposals in this legislation would in effect allow regional governments -- because, as you know, the current regional governments are exempt from those restructuring provisions; it's only targeted at the current county and separated cities governments -- would allow for all of this to be done by regulation. It's very unclear in the legislation as to what the public participation would be, and even if there were amendments to the legislation, we would have grave concerns about saying you could still do it by regulation, even if there was a provision that said the public had to be consulted. We should be using the legislative process that when a decision is made, then legislation comes into the House. All of us who are duly elected get an opportunity to debate, and then you would have further public hearings on the actual piece of legislation.
I'd like you to just expand on any concerns you might have on restructuring and your feelings about why county governments have been targeted with this piece of legislation.
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Mr Peter Lemon: If I may, first of all, the fact it is by regulation is an affront to me because it's avoidance of the democratic system, because then a nameless bureaucrat somewhere can make the regulations and put them in place without any free and open discussion, which we favour.
One of the factors is that some of the county boundaries, which were drawn up 150 years ago internally, are not an accurate representation of the reality of today. Using our own case as an example, the city of Owen Sound has a community of interest around it of four townships. According to our survey, 35% of our workers inside the city come from the surrounding area, about 40% of our library use comes from the surrounding area and in recreation I think the percentage is about the same. So what you have to do is start to recognize that there are some boundaries that are artificial and don't represent reality.
And to have a separated municipality like Owen Sound provide services, we have to have the tax base, and of course the rural areas, because of provincial legislation in some respects, have an advantage over us. For instance, we pay for policing. It costs us, I don't know, $3.5 million a year or something in that neighbourhood, yet the townships around us which have a lot of commercial development living off the city don't pay for their OPP policing.
I also think some of the county boundaries will have to be looked at as well.
Mr Hardeman: Good afternoon. First of all, you spoke to the issue of a number of studies have been done in the past number of years about restructuring and redoing the way municipalities govern themselves but nothing ever seems to happen. In fact, I believe most counties have a study on the shelf now that has been prepared somewhere in the last 10 years. Then in your presentation you have a couple of comments.
I guess first I want to say about the public involvement, to make sure that we have sufficient public involvement, you seem to be concerned that a commission should not require the request of a municipality in order to make it happen. For the minister to appoint a commission should not require the request from the municipality. That would indicate to me that you're suggesting the minister should go and do this on his own?
Mr MacKay: No, I think we're suggesting that some municipalities will not want to consolidate or amalgamate. I would advise you that we have already held our meeting with our local townships and the village of Shallow Lake to start a process towards consolidating our area on a one-tier government basis.
Mr Hardeman: If I could then maybe clarify that part of the legislation, there are two different ways of having the minister appoint a commission. One is the request of a certain number of municipalities. The second one is the request of a municipality. You're suggesting in your presentation that that should not be required. If it went one step further, I would suggest that this would be a top-down approach to restructuring. The intent of the legislation is not to do that. I just wanted to clarify that.
Mr MacKay: I'll ask our city manager to address that.
Mr Craig Curtis: The one point that was made at our committee that actually considered this brief was the fact that the legislation is supported by our municipality, but we don't support AMO's position with regard to a commission only being appointed if requested. That doesn't mean that it would take away the say of local municipal councils or holding local hearings, but rather that in order to resolve a local problem, the minister could have a say and appoint a commission and get input independently from a request.
Mr Hardeman: I just wanted to point out that doing that, if we remove the part that it did not require the request of a municipality, that would give the minister, as some would have us believe the legislation presently does, the authority to move in and appoint a commission where no one had made a request. So I think it's been made clear in there that that is required to see that it is not an attempt to have the minister reorganize Ontario but to have it the local initiative, at the very minimum to have a municipality requesting a commission.
If I have the time, I would like to deal with the issue of the licensing and the user fee. The position of the city of Owen Sound is that that should be pretty inclusive, that they should have the ability to charge user fees where they deemed appropriate. Is that fair to say?
Mr MacKay: I do believe that's our concept. I also feel, and in reading through this brief, that in some cases I don't want any competition from other municipalities in some areas. I do think there also need to be guidelines, but that's a second discussion.
Mr Hardeman: But is that suggesting then that we want the total authority but we don't want the neighbours, so we don't want it to become a competitive situation?
Mr MacKay: I'm thinking particularly of bingo licensing and maybe I'm restricted in my thinking because of that. I wouldn't want the general concept that it must be for charitable organizations and for a specific purpose to be accomplished.
Mr Hardeman: But you are committed that local government is well able to license and to do that appropriately.
Mr MacKay: Yes. I do believe we've been ahead of the provincial government all along on this issue.
Mr Gerretsen: Thank you very much and I really appreciated your presentation as well. I won't dwell on the manner in which this was introduced, other than to say that as a former local politician as well, if you would have introduced a bill like this, of this magnitude, in your local municipality and in effect stated to the municipality, "We're going to pass it in three weeks without any public input," I think it would be fair to say you'd be run out of town.
Ms Ann Kelly: That's right.
Mr Gerretsen: And that's the main difference.
Just dealing with the restructuring aspect -- and it's too bad and I totally agree with you that the bill should be split up in a number of different parts, because you can talk about each one of them and have a real meaningful discussion for quite a length of time. Dealing with restructuring, the real problem -- and I'm talking 20 years of experience -- is the fact that, first of all, when restructuring takes place, you're not only dealing with municipalities but you're also dealing with the rights of the general public, who may very well have a different interest than what is expressed by each individual council. There's absolutely no problem if two municipalities decide to do something and the general public agrees with that. The problem that usually comes up is, what happens if that process falls down?
And, yes, this act basically allows things to happen a lot quicker, but it allows it to happen without any public input and without any right to appeal. I think that is the fact, and I'd like your comments on this, that the government totally seems to miss in this whole process, that there's no requirement for public input, and the fact that when a commission is appointed, not even the minister can appeal whatever the commission decides, which could be something straight off the wall. Hopefully not, if they choose the right people and all, but it could happen and there's no right of appeal to either the minister, to cabinet, to the OMB or to anybody. What are your comments on that?
Ms Kelly: That's the bottom line of the whole brief, isn't it?
Mr Gerretsen: That's right.
Mr Lemon: Don't you feel that in the whole piece of legislation, throughout Bill 26, not just in that area, there is the lack of appeal? There's the lack of appeal on the matter of health matters; there's lack of appeal in other areas. One of the things is it's setting up ministers to become autocrats. This is a democracy. I wonder.
Mr Gerretsen: I couldn't agree with you more. I'm a new member, a relatively new member, but I couldn't believe some of the powers that are being transferred here.
Mr Lemon: Exactly.
Mr Gerretsen: Yet many of the government members, being honest and people who really believe that they're doing the right thing, either don't understand that or they don't comprehend it, or maybe they've never been involved in any of these processes before etc. They have just accepted that, unfortunately, as a fait accompli, and, "I guess that's right, because Ernie and Mike are saying that this is the way to do it," etc. They're well-meaning people, but as far as I'm concerned, they're just totally wrong about the whole process. And it's too bad in a situation like this, when we've got a bill of so much magnitude, that the process is the thing that we're talking about. We shouldn't be talking about process; we should be talking about the meat of the thing.
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Mr MacKay: We're talking about process. In our community we were already ready for your situation on downloading and we have held two, one an employee initiative and another a council initiative, and we must hurry back tonight because we have an open meeting at our community from about 5 o'clock till at least 9:30 or 10 to receive briefs or comments concerning restructuring our city so that we spend less money. We've looked for $1.2 million less for this coming year, but you downloaded a little more than we anticipated and so we're still looking to cover that area as well without increasing the taxes of our community. So we've been very proactive in trying to accomplish our task.
Mr Gerretsen: You're the first organization that has made any comments with respect to the Development Charges Act, which is really part of Bill 20, but I do too find it a little bit curious that even though we have a government here that talks about partnership -- and by the way, all governments have talked about that over the last 20 years. I'm sure that every speech that every minister has given to AMO, and I was at 16 of those meetings, you know, it's always been the same: "We want to get into greater partnership" etc.
Yet in that particular act they're saying that municipalities can't do anything to strengthen the Development Charges Act. They're basically told to lay off. You can sort of pass or extend what you have now, but you can't improve on that if you as local councillors feel that you have to.
Mr MacKay: I'll let Mr Curtis respond to that issue.
Mr Curtis: On the issue of development charges, the only reason we included that in the brief when it went to council was because of the statement by the minister that there would be regulations that fees cannot be charged as a substitute for development charges. This kind of ran up a flag that there was obviously some intent to bring forward legislation to change the rights that municipalities have in that regard, and we felt it was therefore an opportune time to bring forward the concern, because if the intent of Bill 26 is to give rights over to municipalities, that will be taking them away.
Mr Gerretsen: It's going to --
The Chair: Sorry, Mr Gerretsen. We've come to the end of the half-hour. I'd like to thank you for making the trip in and coming to present to the committee today.
Could I please have representatives from the Waterloo Regional Coalition for Social Justice come forward.
WATERLOO REGIONAL COALITION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
The Vice-Chair (Mr Joseph N. Tascona): I welcome our next presenters, the Waterloo Regional Coalition for Social Justice. I believe we have Kevin Smith and Matt Willems. You can commence any time.
Mr Kevin Smith: Thank you. We're from the Waterloo Regional Coalition for Social Justice. It's basically just sort of an amalgamation of local citizens' groups that are concerned about the direction that political policies are heading in, both provincially and nationally. It represents both the employed and the unemployed.
The current government of Ontario was elected with a mandate for change. Although the Waterloo Regional Coalition for Social Justice does not agree with many of the changes proposed, many people in this province voted for a drastic overhaul of the public sector and everyone will feel the effects of it.
What this government has forgotten, though, is that democracy isn't over with the casting of an election ballot. The people of this province have very little information and influence in policy direction right now, and this bill serves to further curtail democratic citizenship and marginalize public input. I thank you for holding these public hearings and hope that in the future the opposition won't have to resort to such extreme measures to get a public debate on important legislation. Democracy isn't an encumbrance that can be tossed off in times of alleged fiscal crisis.
I would like to focus for a while on the effects of the bill on the municipalities of the province. First, we must look at the power that the Minister of Municipal Affairs assumes under this bill. The minister has the power to restructure municipalities, obtain any information he deems relevant to the efficiency and effectiveness of the municipality, exempt certain businesses from licensing provisions and administer conditional grants to the municipalities. So essentially the minister has the power to know all about municipal operations and can direct their policies in any way the minister sees fit.
Municipalities can now freely privatize some services and charge licence fees for others, all without public referenda. Soon municipalities will be able to give conservation authorities whatever funding they wish, and dissolve them as well.
The rationale for this is to achieve budget targets with greater efficiency, so we must forego democracy and instead resort to dictatorial fiat by ministers and municipalities. It is as if the provincial government is a large corporation that is buying out smaller municipal corporations and is now proceeding to streamline and downsize their operations without any democratic input whatsoever.
Not only is this highly authoritarian, but the shuffling of responsibilities will not solve our problems. Certainly there are costs which can be cut. For example, Kitchener and Waterloo could be merged and we could sell one of their shiny, new city halls. Waterloo region can probably deliver some services to the wider area more efficiently than the cities can. However, offloading deficit problems from the province to the municipalities and encouraging the use of user fees and privatization only transfers the cost.
There is only one taxpayer/consumer, and instead of paying for services as taxes, he or she will pay for them in consumer prices and in user fees. The result is not greater efficiency but higher costs, decreased accessibility and poorer service from more poorly paid and trained staff. Moreover, the private businesses which run these services are not democratic or publicly accountable. If there is waste or mismanagement, the public will pay the price and will not have the recourse of outrage that they have with their public institutions. They may end up paying lower taxes but paying higher prices for services. If it all comes from the same pocket, what's the point?
Also important is the limit of access to public information from the changes to the freedom of information act. We've had a taste of this already. The text and description of Bill 26 has not been made electronically available by the government, though it can be obtained from an MPP for a $20 charge. It's a good thing it wasn't perceived as a frivolous or vexatious request, or I would have nothing to comment on today.
Availability of government information is an important democratic right. If you want cost savings in this area, I would recommend publishing all non-confidential information electronically automatically, and thus avoid these costly information searches.
Another important aspect of this municipal offloading is the resulting inequality that will develop as property taxes and licence fees become the funding source for essential services. We can see this in Waterloo right now with the roads. The costs for road improvement are shared by those who live on the street, so those with low-income housing have very poor roads, which are avoided by others. If this happens with other services, you end up with ghettos, pockets of poverty amid pockets of affluence, which is a recipe for social breakdown. Moreover, as Matt will point out, competition between municipalities for industry and business will make the preference of industry the deciding factor for levels of social services, rather than the electorate.
Of course, it's ridiculous to criticize the current direction of the government if there are no other options. However, the Waterloo Regional Coalition for Social Justice feels there are options which can be envisioned and implemented by an open-minded, compassionate government.
The solution I'd like to propose for our fiscal problems is not one which diminishes democracy, but enhances it. The public needs to know all about the operations of the government so that they can set priorities about where their money is spent. All government administrative information should be made available to the public so that they can make their own choices and set their own priorities. Moreover, all non-profit and for-profit businesses that are receiving government money or special tax breaks or that provide monopoly or oligopoly services should have to make their administrative records public for public scrutiny and possible regulation or nationalization if a public institution is deemed to be more efficient. The public needs a forum in which their views on financial matters can be expressed, since an election ballot is a crude tool for giving input on public finance.
The government is committed to decentralizing funding and control of services. This process brings decisions closer to home for the citizens. However, it also makes funding less consistent and equal since poorer neighbourhoods can't afford the quality of service that richer neighbourhoods can. We are not city-states in Canada. We have chosen to come together as a nation to provide equal opportunities for our citizens to be successful. Since higher levels of government have more power to draw on funding sources, they should be paying the costs and setting basic standards for quality, while the lower levels should have the latitude to implement what their constituents want within this framework. Offloading funding problems on those least able to collect revenue is not a responsible solution.
The government talks about setting priorities, and we certainly endorse this position. Our priorities should be on cherished public services and basic needs. Giving taxpayers a break so they can save more money or spend it on imported luxury items doesn't make good economic sense. We need to get together to make our flat taxation system more progressive, closing unnecessary tax loopholes and considering wealth and inheritance taxation so that all the benefactors of our society can pay a fair share of the cost of maintaining it. Most public goods, like health care and mass transit, are cheaper, more efficient and more accessible than their private counterparts and are available for all to use. People need more, not less, input into solutions and must be assured that everyone is doing their fair share to resolve our fiscal problems.
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If the situation is as dire as is claimed, we should carefully consider all possible options before we dismantle our public services, especially if we will end up with more expensive or lower-quality private services.
The government has said they probably won't use all the powers that they're giving themselves in this bill. If they are truly interested in the small-c conservative agenda of less government and a freer society, they will not give themselves any additional powers unless they are absolutely necessary. I strongly urge them to rethink their plans for this province before they do irreparable damage to Ontario society.
Mr Matt Willems: Good afternoon. I'd like to speak about what I perceive, and I think other people would perceive, would be the economic impact of Bill 26.
At the heart of Bill 26 is a desire to change fundamentally the structure of government decision-making to control a budget that is effectively out of control. Unfortunately for the government, it seems that the supply-side measures in the proposed bill will fail. These measures cannot possibly solve the problem, as cuts will slow the economy down by taking money out of the pockets of those who will spend it for sure and so reduce tax revenues and increase government outlays, exacerbating the budget problem.
The social justice coalition believes that the government should fundamentally rethink its policy direction. Rather than decentralizing the government by pushing responsibilities on to lower levels of government, it should redirect its efforts to push the federal government to offer aid to the provinces in the form of low-interest-rate loans, as was done during the 1930s when a debt crisis of similar proportions was last experienced.
I would argue that no solution will be possible without incorporating a new monetary policy at a national level. The provinces already must pay a higher interest rate than the federal government to borrow on international bond markets, so a simple consolidation of provincial debts at the federal level in itself will reduce expenditures by several billion dollars. My argument will thus dwell on an argument that is actively suppressed in the media because it runs against the interests of the parasitical financial community, the largest source of the same media's advertising revenue. Just because the entire world seems to be on this course does not mean that it isn't misdirected. As they say, fish will follow a foul boat.
First I will establish that pushing the problems to lower and less powerful levels of government is not a feasible solution, and then continue to argue that the solution lies nationally and internationally. As John Ralston Saul, the world-acclaimed Canadian writer and former investment adviser, states:
"The point of decentralization is not really to deal with the tension between big government and the citizen, because there are actually three players in this triangle: the citizen, big government and big business. Any move by two players is affected by the third. Interestingly enough, the big companies are mostly in favour of decentralization. The president of a large Canadian bank recently broke Adam Smith's `utmost silence' of the employers and said publicly that national standards in social programs were nonsense. Everyone, he said, has different needs. He didn't, unfortunately, go on to explain the different regional needs of cancer and heart attack victims."
The push by the Ontario government to turn around the budget is based on the idea that decentralization will increase local choice and bring government to the people. This might put the province's budget on a better footing, but the budget problem will be pushed on to municipalities, much the same way as the federal government has pushed its own fiscal problems on to the provinces by reducing transfers. Saul goes on to say this about decentralization:
"Of course, the regional governments can't raise taxes. The source of revenue would simply leave for another region. In fact, the effect of decentralization without guaranteed funding and national or multinational standards is a competition between regions for the lowest possible tax rates. The region with the fewest tax sources must drop to the lowest tax rates. The standards of programming will drop with the taxes. Inequality between regions reappears rapidly, to such an extent that the programs may not even survive."
We must realize that we are in a crisis of international proportions -- witness the tension in France, the US, Japan, Mexico etc -- and the problem will only be solved by coordinated action. Countries and regions cannot compete among themselves forever for ever lower tax revenues. We will need courageous politicians to carry out these changes from every level, and for most of them this means going against the advice of the special interests that helped fund their election campaigns.
The government has also promised a massive 30% income tax cut that amounts to about $5 billion in revenue, about half again the size of the current deficit. We believe a much more effective and stimulative move would be to lower the retail sales tax. Reducing income taxes on the rich and middle classes will not stimulate the economy with a multiplier effect of the same magnitude as a cut in the sales tax, because these groups tend to save a larger share of income. In a stagnant economy, there is little incentive to invest savings in factories, so these savings tend to be invested in existing assets, leading to so-called bubble phenomena. This is also known as the paradox of thrift. A sales tax cut benefits those low-income individuals who pay virtually no income tax.
In a Globe and Mail editorial on December 11, it was suggested that the government cut the retail sales tax from 8% to 3% instead of the 30% income tax cut, for the same reasons I've mentioned. Under the circumstances, I do not think the government will lose face in carrying out this alternative tax cut, even if the cut is only 3% or 4%.
Other measures proposed in Bill 26 will not ultimately solve the fiscal problem but will reduce public services. This will add administration costs and divert money from consumption in the private sector to pay for the additional fees -- in other words, a zero sum game. However, I must agree with the typical economist's perspective -- and I say this with reservation -- that modest user fees for certain services may redistribute resources in a more efficient way, since consumer behaviour will be more closely determined by real costs. But it is important to note that this will divert income from private consumption and set in motion the negative forces stemming from slack demand: reduced sales and income taxes from fewer well-paid members of the labour force and additional bad debts due to a greater number of bankruptcies of insolvent businesses and individuals.
Add to the drain on family budgets that will be caused by new user fees the effects of actions to limit the government's expenditures by cutting government personnel in the order of 13,000 employees, along with a draconian 22% cut already borne by many social assistance recipients, and also cuts to higher education, and you have a recipe for a massive slowdown or collapse. We should remember as we begin the new year that the economy is perilously close or already mired in another recession, even from a narrow technical perspective.
Meanwhile, the government is taking no action on risk-free, non-stimulative payments to international bond holders, while cutting expenditures to people with more basic needs who would be spending their cheques within the province. To argue that the government's hands are tied in the manner it borrows is to argue against the historical reality. As the recently retired chief economist of Hoogovens NV of the Netherlands, Dr A. Van Der Ryst, has written:
"In the past, receiving interest income on bonds was never 100% guaranteed. In numerous instances throughout history, interest payments were in fact postponed or did not take place over certain periods in the event of war, revolt etc. Alting Bosken reports that the state of New York suspended the payment of interest to persons `within the enemy's lines' according to article 5 of a new law passed on July 12, 1782. He also mentioned many countries in Europe that misused their credit to varying degrees. England, believed to be on a very sound footing, at times reduced interest payments, France and Spain ceased payments, Russia violated its payments promises, Portugal repeatedly brought about conversions, each time involving a reduction in principal and interest."
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I would not suggest that the government default on its obligations. However, I'm merely suggesting that a balance should be re-established. Every 1% reduction in provincial borrowing costs on, as you know, the $100 billion in provincial debt would reduce the deficit by $1 billion. The Province of Ontario Savings Office could be used more actively to fund the debt by selling bonds directly or through department stores etc to Ontarians. It could also leverage itself, much as a commercial bank, to fund itself by an amount several times the approximately $4 billion in liabilities it now handles.
Sections 14 and 18(c) and (j) of the Bank of Canada Act give the Minister of Finance the power to instruct the bank to lend to any level of government whose debts are guaranteed by the federal government. Let us say that we allow the Bank of Canada to create $15 billion of the $30 billion that will be needed to be added to the money supply this year. This unusually large addition to the Bank of Canada's assets will not lead to any additional inflationary pressure if modest reserve requirements are reintroduced for commercial banks. At the moment, the Bank of Canada creates only a small fraction of total new money each year, which stands in stark contrast to the role it assumed from its inception in 1935 until the 1960s.
However, the reason the cuts being proposed seem to be the chosen solution for all of our politicians is that they fit neatly into the ideological perspective that dominates corporatist thinkers and the think tanks they sponsor worldwide, as well as the media they fund. That perspective, repeated with religious conviction, is that the public sector is necessarily inefficient whereas the private sector is perfect. This perspective is convenient for those who want to grow the private sector by stripping the assets of the public sector, since the private sector and its profits are not growing at an acceptable rate, due predominantly to unreasonably high real interest rates.
The private sector is not growing sufficiently to provide jobs, especially for those just coming out of school, because it has been burdened by mushrooming interest costs in the same way as have all levels of government. Central bank policy has stopped inflationary pressures by creating a massive pool of unemployed and desperate citizens who will work for a fraction of their previous salaries. The victory over inflation has been achieved with high interest rates which, as already mentioned, have increased government expenditures on debt servicing to an already unsustainable level and raised the costs of doing business; that is, in the private sector. The only solution will have to involve low real interest rates. There are other central bank levers and legislative powers -- such the reserve requirement, moral suasion, and wage and price controls -- which can be used to control inflation and are far less damaging to the social fabric.
As we can see from table 1, Switzerland and Japan have had low and stable interest rates, which has helped to control their governments' interest expenditures. In fact, of most of the countries examined, Canada is behind only Italy in the amount it pays out to the bond markets worldwide. That is about 10% of GDP, and that includes all levels of government. So local government, provincial government and federal government interest payments together add up to 10%, which is about twice as much as the United States and Japan, Switzerland etc. That's because of the deliberate policies of John Crow and Gordon Thiessen.
This is a result of central bank policy which provided bond holders with the highest real interest rates of the G-7 over the past 10 years, and subsequently also caused the collapse of the Canadian dollar a few years ago. Currency markets lost faith in our ability to pay. Without low interest rates, governments will continue to lose the battle against stagnation and collapse no matter which other measures are taken, such as the majority of those in Bill 26.
I think most of you probably have a copy of table 1. What you can see is that our inflation rates have not varied considerably from the other countries in the study, which include Japan, Switzerland, the US and Germany. But if you look at interest rates, they, on the other hand, have differed significantly. To argue that because Canada is a small country we must raise our interest rates several points above those of the US is fallacious I believe, because if you look at the Netherlands, which is a small neighbour of Germany, its interest rates have mirrored those of Germany all the way through from 1988 to 1994.
Bill 26 and the so-called Common Sense Revolution is in fact no different from other supply-side agendas in the past that have failed. These measures target the unemployed to increase the incentive to work and increase the disposable income of the relatively wealthy so they invest more. Governments must rediscover the effectiveness of demand-side policy if social and economic problems are to be reversed. The problem is not that there is no money around. In fact, there has never been more money around than today. The supply of money grows every year, faster than government expenditures.
However, ownership of that money is being concentrated at alarming rates. Notice the wealth reportedly owned by the richest 10 Canadians just last week. Yet the government is reluctant to increase taxation on the rich or lobby the feds to help the province fund itself by low-interest-rate loans from the central bank as it did during the 1930s, so will never balance its books by targeting an ever-greater population of marginalized citizens. Trickle-down economics is an apologist's theorizing.
Governments arguing that they have no levers of control over the way they borrow and create money are copping out of the responsibility they have to the general public and merely satisfying the short-sighted and destructive demands of their friends within the financial community.
Reintroducing reserve requirements would allow the central bank to hold a much larger share of the public debt, as it had done until banks got their way. Having the central bank hold more public debt would not be creating any additional money as long as the banks are required, once again, to hold significant reserves at the central bank. Right now I believe Canada is only one in three countries in the world that has no reserve requirements any longer. I believe Sweden and another country do not have them. This was a directive of the Bank of International Settlement a while ago. It has since run out of favour. It's not being pushed through other parliaments at the same rate as it was during the late 1980s.
In fact, if governments are perceived to be the cause of inflation because they print too much money, commercial banks deserve 30 times the blame, because that is the multiple they are currently adding to the money supply every time the central bank prints a dollar.
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To reiterate, the government should target interest expenditures for reductions by innovative collaboration with the federal government rather than stick to its current agenda. It appears, however, that both levels of government kowtow to the needs of the bond market, the sacred cow of corporatist ideologues. Lower and more stable interest rates will also improve real investment in machinery and equipment as the present value of projects improves relative to an investment in riskless government bonds.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Willems, I'm going to have to --
Mr Willems: I have a paragraph left. Is that all right?
The Vice-Chair: We're out of time right now. We're running late.
Mr Willems: I have two pages.
The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry, but we are running late and we have other groups to present. I'd like to thank you for your well-thought-out presentation at this time. Thanks very much.
Mr Willems: Thank you.
Interjection.
The Vice-Chair: No. We are out of time right now and we have another group and we're running late.
CITY OF GUELPH
The Vice-Chair: Our next group is the city of Guelph and Joe Young, the mayor.
The Chair: Good afternoon and welcome to the standing committee on general government. You have half an hour to make your presentation. You may use the time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for responses and questions. I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourself at the beginning of your presentation for the benefit of committee members and Hansard.
Mr Joe Young: Mr Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Joe Young. I'm the mayor of the city of Guelph and I'm here to present the thoughts of Guelph city council as well as to add a few personal general comments, all related to Bill 26. I will be verbalizing based on some notes as opposed to providing you with a written submission. On that basis, my submission really has to do with two major elements, as I've briefly stated, one having to do with the recent council resolution.
This past Monday night, which was only two days ago, council had as an item on its agenda the whole business of Bill 26. What we were doing was looking at and reacting to a resolution which was recommended to us by our senior staff. The resolution had two major components. One had to do with asking council to support Bill 26 and the second element of the resolution had to do with our desire to assist the province in the development of regulations which would follow Bill 26.
In connection with that first element which, as I say, had to do with support of the bill itself, there were some councillors who spoke very strongly in favour of support and there were others who were opposed to support, not in its entirety necessarily but certainly on certain major elements, as they saw it. As examples, there were at least two members of council who were very, very upset and spoke strongly in opposition to the dollar reduction, the financial reduction in support of conservation authorities and other changes that related to conservation authorities.
I can tell you that in Guelph we are offered a very good service by the Grand River Conservation Authority, which has control and jurisdiction in connection with several rivers, all of which become the Grand River conservation area or basin. We have worked very closely with them and have been very, very satisfied in terms of their work with us. They're a very good organization. They have been very protective of the wetlands, the rivers and literally all the waters in the area, including our drinking water.
I think any danger that would be posed to that organization is rather frightening. I say that because, taken in total, if we do not look after the planet, the planet is not going to be in a position to look after us. So we'd better make the right decisions, and I think this is quite a mistake in terms of any harm through dollars or other changes in authority etc relative to conservation authorities. As I say, this feeling was expressed by at least two council members.
Another concern had to do with changes to the freedom of information act. There was not a great deal of detail relative to that except, as I understand it, there is not going to be the freedom to the freedom of information that there has been. In other words, a city clerk I think can make certain determinations as to whether a request is flippant or not and therefore decide whether to provide the information or not provide the information.
Overall, generally it was felt that the bill was too far-reaching, or so far-reaching; it was too all-encompassing and with far too little time to be thoroughly studied, understood and to be really commented on. I must say that prior to Christmas we attempted to get copies of the bill, and we must have been a week and a half, two weeks minimum before we even had a copy, and of course the holidays came along right after that.
Interruption.
Mr Joe Young: If I may continue without interruption from the back, the council resolution is as follows. I'm hopeful that the people at the back will listen.
The resolution on Monday night was, "That the mayor or his representative attend a general committee hearing scheduled for January 10, 1996, to advise the committee that Guelph wishes to work together with the province in the formulation of any regulations which may have direct impact on municipalities." I can leave this copy with you, if you so desire. That was the resolution.
Really, in effect what it does is that it strongly underlines the fact that the development of regulations is extremely important in those areas where we, as a municipality, will be affected. So members of our council and members of our staff are more than happy and willing and actually anxious to work with the province in the development of regulations.
We see the major thrust of Bill 26 as being positive because it is attempting to make government at the various levels more efficient, more effective and less costly. I don't think you can argue against that. So we certainly welcome this general direction. I want to make a strong point of that.
In terms of personal general comments -- many of these are from councillors -- in terms of the business licensing change, we welcome that very much. We have had problems and a lot of people are very upset over business licensing fees. For example, if you are attempting to get a licence fee for a restaurant, we are required to charge up to $20, but not more. That is legislated. Yet, we have to send our people to make certain inspections and investigations before we issue the licence.
So the health unit, which is really the health unit of Wellington and Dufferin counties and the city of Guelph, has to send its people out to the location, our fire department has to go out there, our building department or inspection department has to go out and so do our zoning people. We add all of this up and I'm sure we are somewhere, in the order of cost, of $200 to $500. We are allowed to charge a maximum of $20. So I see a greater freedom under the business licensing, that change, as being very beneficial.
Along the same lines, the present licensing act is very restrictive in terms of what we can license and what we cannot license. For example, we cannot license clothing stores; we cannot license consultants; we cannot license home businesses. There is a whole variety of commercial activities in the city of Guelph that we cannot license and there's a whole raft of other ones that we must license. It's very difficult, when you study the list, to come to a conclusion in terms of what the real basis is behind it all. As far as I'm concerned it's very antiquated, what we have presently to work with, so we welcome the changes that we see in the business licensing aspect of the bill.
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Block grants: Previously, I understand we received funding in terms of allocated and unallocated dollars. I've always had a problem with that because I see the allocated dollars as having a steering effect on municipalities. In other words, we're being pushed by the province to do certain things, and it's hard to argue against that, but the problem that poses for us is that we see these dollars out in front of us, for example, to do something in connection with roads or bridges, and we may want to do these things maybe five or 10 years down the road. None the less, we see these provincial dollars and we say, "Okay, we'll put that as a priority and we'll get at that right away." That takes away from our real priorities which were ahead of that road or ahead of that bridge.
So with the entire amount coming now as a block grant, literally unallocated, I think that will allow us to deal with our priorities the way we see them. That's a very good move. The only disturbing thing is that the block grants are being drastically reduced, so I'm not sure whether we're winning or whether we're losing.
Mr Agostino: I think you are going to be losing.
Mr Joe Young: The one thing I would say is that the city of Guelph and I think most municipalities in Ontario have been very fiscally responsible. We have not had a financial problem. We run the city the way you run a home. There's so much income, and you can't spend more than the income. So we've been able to live and get by and do, I believe, quite well.
Unfortunately, through a series of governments in the province and federally as well, we as a nation and as a province are in difficulty. I think we all have to share in the suffering and the sorrow and the hurt but, none the less, as I say, it's unfortunate that because we have been doing I believe quite well, we now have to suffer this downloading and unloading of some of the misery. Maybe that's life.
Moving on a little bit, public sector salary disclosure: In Guelph we've always been very open about salary disclosures. It's public money that's being spent on salaries and it's never been a big secret around Guelph in terms of who gets what. With this business of now having as a requirement to disclose salaries of $100,000 and over, or maybe it's over $100,000 -- I'm not sure -- I think that's more than welcome and long overdue. It's going to be on a much larger scale than just municipalities; it's across the whole broad sector and I think that's a good move.
Interest arbitration, as I understand it, is a very good move as well. In terms of nitty-gritty, the arbitrators now have to consider the ability of the municipality to pay added salary or added wages. When we talk about the ability of the municipality to pay more, we're talking about the ability of individual taxpayers. That's what it really comes down to. I think it's very important, because my experience and observation has been, over the years, that this has not come into consideration at all. There have been other matters that have been considered. So to me the change in arbitration regulations or rules are going to be more than welcome.
The only other thing I would say, and I think it's very important, in looking at arbitration awards -- they should not impact on the tax rate for local taxpayers. In other words, they should not cause the mill rate to go up in itself. So if there's going to be an increase in salaries as a result of an arbitrator's decision, I think the arbitrator has to look at our other sources of income to pay those added dollars. That has to do with growth and development and possibly other ways in which we get our income, but it should not really impact on the tax base.
The next little heading I had here was restructuring. I've always believed in what is called restructuring. I'm not sure that I've ever referred to it as such, but I think every level of government and every business -- and many businesses are forced to do this sort of thing long before governments get around to it -- has a very direct responsibility to offer the most efficient, effective and low-cost service that it can to the community. We're not going to do that if we close our eyes and say, "What we have today is what we should continue to have literally forever." We should always be looking at ways of improving how we can be more efficient and provide a better service to our customers, who happen to be the taxpayers, and so we must always look at this.
We have not had formal discussions with any of our neighbouring municipalities, but I would certainly welcome that, because, as I say, if you don't look at these things, there will not be improvement, so we would certainly welcome that.
I must tell you that we work very closely with Wellington county. We are partners in social services and we are partners in many other things that we do together including, believe it or not, searching for a landfill site. So we do work in a very cooperative effort, and we can always do better.
Finally, I want to talk about what I believe could be referred to as unilateral ministerial authority. This bothers me enormously if I understand what is being proposed correctly. To me, it is a form of dictatorship, without consultation, without input by many of those who are affected. I think about basic democracy, and I must tell you this gives me a lot of concern.
I was listening to some of the previous speakers, including the people from Owen Sound, and I think there is this general concern right across the province, just based on people who have spoken to me and people I've spoken to and from listening to others such as I mentioned, the people from Owen Sound.
It bothers me enormously and yet I say to myself that I'm a citizen here in Ontario and I have a provincial government. I would hope that my provincial government would make sure that if a minister is going to be making a decision, he has plenty of input, that there's been plenty of dialogue and plenty of discussion. That is my hope. I basically don't agree with the authority, as I understand it, that the ministers are going to have; I think it's much too powerful. But setting that aside, overall I think generally I agree with the thrust of the bill.
Just to sum it up, I agree with the business licensing changes, the block grants, the public sector salary disclosure, the interest arbitration, the restructuring opportunities, and I'm very unfavourable towards that latter item, the unilateral ministerial authority. Members of the committee, that pretty well summarizes my thoughts, plus the resolution and background from the council of the city of Guelph.
The Chair: Thank you, Mayor Young. We have just a little more than four minutes per caucus for questions. We're starting with the government caucus.
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot): Your worship, you mentioned in closing that you personally supported the initiatives in Bill 26. I take it that was the sense of the resolution passed last night by your council?
Mr Joe Young: No, it was not. As I said at the outset, there were two major elements to the recommended resolution from our senior staff. One had to do with support and it was in the resolution they provided to us; the second had to do with our sincere desire to get involved and have input into the development of regulations. The part of that resolution that talked about support of the bill was struck out. The resolution was not accepted, it was struck out, and we ended up just as I read it to you. The support is for our staff, literally, and members of council to be involved with the province in the development of regulations.
Mr Sampson: I just want to follow up on that. You want to be a part of the process that determines regulations but you don't want to support the bill that enables the regulations to be established. Is that the drift I'm getting? I'm sorry, I must have missed a --
Mr Joe Young: You have to think of the council as a group of people who come together with one single resolution.
Mr Sampson: Right.
Mr Joe Young: The point I was trying to make is that there was enthusiasm by some members of the council, and there was a great concern and lack of support by other members. The resolution that carried -- and this is the important part because we have democracy in Guelph -- was a resolution that did not contain the support of the bill.
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Mr Sampson: You speak of the powers of the minister that concern you as they relate to the municipal side of the act. Can you be more specific as to where those areas of concern are and how we might want to deal with them?
Mr Joe Young: I don't know if I can be more specific, because I have not read through the bill. I have read a great deal about the bill. I have read a summary of the bill by our legal advisers, and we had the general discussion with input at the council meeting. I would hesitate to be very specific beyond that. I do know that in practically every element of life, as far as municipal government is concerned, we're involved with the province. I gave you the example of the steering effect of the allocated funding that we've had to date, and it has been beneficial in one sense, but it has made our life a little more difficult in terms of carrying out what we saw as our major priorities.
Mr Sampson: On the licensing fee issue, is it your sense that the powers that are being given to municipalities under this proposed legislation would encourage the municipalities to perhaps justify the fee for the service provided, or vice versa?
Mr Joe Young: No, absolutely. My goal in licensing fees is that we as a city collect and cover our costs. The way it has been, especially where the legislated fees are there -- I gave the example of the restaurants. We're only allowed to charge $20. Local taxpayers are subsidizing the establishment of restaurants and the ongoing activities of the restaurants, because the permission to carry on is a yearly repeat of that permission. For example, the health unit has got to go in there and make its determinations, so has the fire department for safety reasons, and our costs are up in the hundreds of dollars, but we can only charge $20.
Mr Sampson: To recover that cost from some other revenue source. Am I out of time?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Gerretsen: I find this all very interesting. It's kind of like -- the chambers come here and say, "We like this bill, but we don't like the powers you're giving municipalities." The municipalities are saying, "We like this bill and we like those powers." The chambers and the municipalities, to be honest about the situation, really better get together on this so we know exactly what it means.
If you are saying, sir -- and I used to be a mayor as well, so I know all the parameters. If you're saying it's going to cost you $500 to do a proper licensing of a facility, then I think there should be a news release issued saying, "All right, so that everybody knows, if you want to start a particular kind of business, it's going to cost you $500 for the licence." Then at least the knowledge is out there.
It's a little bit like the way the minister has brought this bill forward. He's basically said to the municipalities, "We're going to cut your grants in half and we're going to give you all this direct taxation in licensing power," and then when he's asked questions about it specifically, "Does it mean they can do whatever they want in those areas?" "Well, it doesn't quite mean that," or, "I'll get a legal opinion that says they can't do this, that or the other thing." Let's at least be honest about the situation. You want the licensing power, I can understand it, but I think the business community had better understand that as well as to what it means exactly.
Mr Joe Young: A couple of comments: First of all, we meet on a regular basis, twice a year, with the chamber of commerce. I started that just a year ago. Prior to that it was very spasmodic. The point is that, as a city and as a council, we work with many organizations within the city. We try to do it on a very regular basis, because I believe we do need teamwork across the whole spectrum within the municipality. It doesn't mean that if we're going to have teamwork everyone has to agree, and the chamber and we on council often don't agree. That's fair enough; I have no problem with that. But to respond more directly to the statement you made, we do publish our fees. People wanting to go into business know what the fees are and they know what help we can give them.
Mr Gerretsen: I'm not suggesting you don't, sir, and I'm sure you as the local municipality feel you're doing a great job. I'm a great believer in local government, but I think what's happening through this Bill 26 is that there are two or three different messages being given to different groups in the hope that not everybody will understand the message that's being given to someone else. You talk about ministerial powers, for example. You know as well as I do that once something is in regulation, you might never see it again.
Mr Joe Young: I said earlier that the business of support is not included in the resolution. The problem is that there are many aspects that I think people do support, including me. First of all, I support the general thrust, which has to do with better government -- more efficient, more effective, lower cost -- and it's hard to argue against that. On a broad spectrum, I totally agree with the bill -- on a broad spectrum. When you get into the bill, there are things you agree with and disagree with, and that was the reason council did not include the word "support." To me, that's sort of fair. What other conclusion can you bring?
Mr Cooke: Thank you, your worship, for coming before us today. I understand and totally support your view that the municipalities, and I would argue the members of the Legislature, need to be involved in reviewing the draft regulations before the regulations become the law. I do have a little bit of concern thinking that you might have faith that that is actually going to happen when you explain to us that it took a couple of weeks to get a copy of the bill.
I notice in the Guelph Mercury on Tuesday, January 9, reporting on your meeting, your city administrator is quoted as saying, "Creech also said, like others, he doesn't completely understand the massive legislation yet but there is little time to have input."
You haven't had a chance to read the bill, your city administrator doesn't understand the bill completely, we couldn't get copies of the bill, and it's very clear from the process that the government's been using that it wants the bill to go through very quickly. If they want the bill through very quickly and they didn't even want to have public hearings, what on earth gives you the belief that there's going to be consultation on the regulations, which are the guts of the legislation?
Mr Joe Young: I didn't say that I had belief we'd be given the opportunity. What I did say was that it is our sincere desire to have input.
Mr Cooke: It's a little difficult to understand how there can be support for the legislation when there are these kinds of parameters around it.
The other thing I want to follow up on is the licensing fees. I appreciate your candour here today, because I would like to have every chamber of commerce that has appeared before this committee in the last few weeks, in Toronto and on the road, hear what you had to say; that, for example, a restaurant that paid up to $20, if it's full cost recovery, could be paying between $200 and $500 for a business licence. There is going to be a holy war between the business community and local councils. The philosophy of this bill is full cost recovery on licences, and if that's what's followed to recover some of the lost grants, there's going to be a holy war.
Mr Joe Young: Let's put it this way: If it is going to be a holy war, and I'm not sure that that's what it's going to be --
Mr Cooke: Maybe an unholy war.
Mr Joe Young: Unholy war. I don't know that I would not welcome that. I believe in getting all the information out on the table. I'll tell you very frankly, in my mind I always come back to the individual taxpayer, and I disagree that an individual taxpayer should subsidize some other activity where someone else is going to benefit.
Mr Cooke: I don't disagree with you. What I would like to see from the business community is, they line up and say, "We support the bill," and what it really boils down to is they support the title of the bill, and then I would like it that they had this on the table and I'd like them to come back and say, "We still support the bill even though some of the licensing fees could be going up by 500%, 600%, 700%, 1000% or more," and then see if they still want to come up and line up here and pledge allegiance to the Tory government.
Mr Joe Young: That's a question you will have to pose to them.
Mr Cooke: I realize that.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Young, for coming forward and making your presentation.
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STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS COUNCIL, ONTARIO PUBLIC LIBRARIES
The Chair: May I please have representatives from the public libraries of Ontario come forward. Good afternoon and welcome to the standing committee on general government. You have 30 minutes to make a presentation today. You may use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions. I'd appreciate it if you'd each introduce yourselves at the beginning of your presentation for the benefit of the committee members and Hansard.
Ms Eleanor James: Good day. Representing the council here today, I am Eleanor James, chair of the Strategic Directions Council. I'm also library director of the Oakville Public Library and member of Chief Executives of Large Public Libraries of Ontario. On my left, Hazel Thornton-Lazier, library trustee, vice-chair of the Strategic Directions Council, currently on the Metropolitan Toronto Public Library Board and past president of the Ontario Library Trustees' Association. On my far left, Jane Watkins, who's a member of the Strategic Directions Council, chief executive officer of the Milton Public Library and chair of the Association of Medium Public Libraries of Ontario.
Our membership constitutes a broad cross-section of public library organizations in Ontario. We'd be happy to respond to your questions at the end of our presentation, and we had a couple of points of clarification to ask of you as well.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today, to bring communication from our membership concerning Bill 26.
The Strategic Directions Council was formed in 1992 in response to recommendations in the Ontario public library strategic plan, The One Place to Look. Our mandate as an organization is to "provide coordinated, cooperative province-wide leadership and direction to implement an ongoing strategic planning process and to respond to issues of immediate concern to public libraries."
Public libraries have taken an active interest in the attempts to restructure government. The Strategic Directions Council submitted a brief to the provincial municipal task force in 1994 and we emphasized in our recommendations that, "Any changes to the provincial-municipal relationship which would affect the services public libraries provide to their communities be subject to consultation with the stakeholders most affected, the vast majority of Ontario citizens who use public libraries." A hearing was granted by the Pilkey commission, giving our speakers the opportunity to educate those involved in the study and clarify items important to the operation of public libraries.
In September 1995 the Honourable Marilyn Mushinski, Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, attended one our council meetings and spoke to the issues facing libraries and the provincial government, specifically the conditional grants, user fees, boards and legislation. Our council coordinated a response to her message and we're here today to continue that dialogue.
In setting the context for today's presentation, which will focus on clauses in Bill 26 concerning library governance and user fees, I put forward to you the following profile.
Public libraries are a universal, open-learning environment for all age groups.
Public library usage continues to climb with collections embracing both print and electronic content.
Public library staff have demonstrated abilities in innovation and in technology, providing one-stop access to information, local, provincial and beyond.
Public library staff understand information management and provide leadership to partners in education, business and community service agencies.
Public libraries are being increasingly used by the citizens to interact with government information, and some of the recent initiatives in this area are to register a business, and that was called Clearing the Path, the environmental registry and the Ontario Investment Service.
This current state, with public library service playing a critical role in the social and economic health of individual communities, has been advanced by the strong partnership in existence between the provincial government, local library boards and municipal councils. We feel that now more than ever there is a need to guarantee the retention of a strong provincial interest in public library service. While public libraries are municipally based and operated, their scope and outlook are increasingly global. The information needs of library users cannot be met through local resources alone. We rely upon the provincial infrastructure so that resource-sharing partnerships can continue, with municipal libraries serving as entry points into this province-wide information system.
Today we're here to discuss Bill 26, in particular issues raised in sections 8 and 10 of schedule M, which amend the Municipal Act. It's clear to us that a primary focus of this bill is to provide the tools to allow municipalities to restructure, eliminate duplication, increase efficiency and reduce costs. However, in this drive to achieve these necessary goals, the public library community urges your consideration of the following points.
Section 8, concerning library boards: It is our understanding that this section provides municipalities with the power to dissolve or make changes to local boards. It's our further understanding that the municipality will only be able to pass a bylaw to dissolve or make changes to a local board in accordance with yet-to-be-determined regulations made by the Minister of Municipal Affairs.
When the regulations concerning the dissolution of local boards are being developed, we strongly urge you to consider existing library board governance structure and to keep the following points in mind.
Municipal councils clearly have fiscal control over public library service. The current Ontario Public Libraries Act, 1984, clearly defines the municipal/public library/provincial relationship. We would argue that this existing piece of legislation especially delineates the public library/municipal council relationship: Council appoints our board members; councillors sit on each library board; council establishes the timing and form of the budget; council approves the annual operating and capital budgets line by line; council receives the annual audited statement.
Public library boards are excellent examples of effective volunteerism in the province of Ontario: 3,500 citizens in the province volunteer their time and energy to the development of an increasingly complex service that balances community needs, municipal direction and provincial initiatives.
Perhaps the single most important task a library board undertakes is to provide municipal politicians a buffer from issues of intellectual freedom and censorship. Boards consist of non-elected volunteer community members. When special-interest groups question material held by the library, the needs of the larger community can be considered dispassionately by board members. The merits of the request can be assessed without fear of political pressure or later political reprisal. It is vital that this clarity of intellectual vision be protected.
The council questions the need to alter the existing governance structure. The reasons that have been given for change -- that is, elimination of duplication, increased fiscal accountability, cost reduction and increased efficiency -- don't at all seem applicable in the case of the library board.
The council would therefore like to highlight the following points as the regulation to dissolve or make changes is being developed by the minister: Public library boards are now fully accountable to their municipal councils; public library boards are responsive to their community needs; public library boards are efficient; public library boards play a unique role within their communities by upholding the principles of intellectual freedom and access to information.
If the determination is made to provide an alternative means of governance, offering municipalities choice and flexibility in governance models corresponding to local situations and needs, the council insists that in the interest of the public good, the regulation affecting public library boards must uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and access to information.
Section 10, which talks about user fees, provides broad powers to municipalities and local boards to impose user fees or charges for any service or activity provided by them. The minister has the power to make regulations limiting or imposing conditions in the imposition of fees and charges.
Historically, the wide spectrum of services provided by public libraries have generally been provided using the payment made by the user via taxes. Public libraries now do charge some user fees within the context of current library legislation and as determined by local option.
Many libraries are totally opposed to charging fees. Care must be taken to see that Ontario does not become a society divided into the information-wealthy and the information-poor. This may appear a well-worn phrase, but libraries have identified, in recent letters sent to provincial government ministers, the individual impact fees would have on their particular community.
Many also believe that if additional fees for library service become a necessary or desirable additional source of revenue, some consistency or adherence to basic principles province-wide would be beneficial. If no common ground is established, negative results may be experienced across the province wherein each municipality's locally drafted user fee policy comes into conflict with resource-sharing partners. There is a need for uniformity in the application of user fees in libraries across Ontario to facilitate the creation of an integrated, efficient and productive library network. Our minister has indicated her support for the development of a province-wide standard.
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Our council believes that any additional fee for service over and above the financial support provided by municipal taxpayers must be implemented fairly. Equitable access to information is the cornerstone of a democratic society and of Ontario's public library system. It is central to the public concept of public libraries.
Currently a task force representative of the public library community is working with the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation to define core public library services; in other words, what should be provided within the tax base without extra fees applied.
The council strongly recommends to you that the imposition of additional user fees in public libraries be guided via a ministerial regulation and that this regulation be developed with input from the existing task force in consultation with key stakeholders.
Public libraries intend to be of ongoing assistance to government in seeking new ways to safeguard citizens' access to a highly valued product -- public library service and its role in a learning knowledge society. We are confident that we can assist with furthering goals set out in the Premier's throne speech:
"Ensure the needs of all Ontarians -- urban and rural, east and west, north and south -- are accommodated in the delivery of services...."
"Pursue partnerships," "increase flexibility," "empower municipalities," "prevent duplication."
"We have too many children who can't read, too many who can't use a computer, too many children who don't have the skills required for today's jobs."
In closing, before responding to your questions, I would like to summarize our thoughts. In public libraries citizens in this province have something so valuable to their future it must be placed at risk. It is imperative that a clear strategy be put in place before any legislative or regulatory changes are made. We believe it is possible to find solutions that maintain priority services in our communities while respecting the needs of those who govern, those who pay and those who benefit.
AMO, in its submission to your committee, gave recognition that -- and this is a quote from their presentation -- "the province has a responsibility to set and monitor provincial standards." AMO also pointed out that which is mirrored by the broad representation on our own Strategic Directions Council -- and we've listed the membership inside your front page -- that there is a "diversity of communities across Ontario."
Working in partnership, we can safeguard what is vital to all. To repeat our recommendation, particularly with respect to user fees where we feel that there is discussion about change, the imposition of additional user fees in public libraries must be guided by a ministerial regulation and not just left to happen by individual free will and be developed with the existing task force and in consultation. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have over four minutes per caucus for questions. We start off with the opposition caucus.
Mr Agostino: I want to talk about a couple of points, one being the issue of the potential abolition of library boards as the power of Bill 26 will allow. I have sat on library boards in our municipal councils and I can tell you that, given that opportunity, subject to whatever ministerial regulations may come for the abolition of library boards and in effect having councils running libraries, would be absolutely devastating to the library system, particularly in the area you've talked about here of intellectual freedom and censorship.
You would then, I believe, have a system that is guided on the basis of political whim and political pressure, the views of minorities, the views of organizations. Writers whose views do not conform with the majority would then be subject, I believe, to action when councils reacted to public pressure. I think library boards in this province have made some very gutsy decisions over the years in withstanding public pressure on the issue of censorship and intellectual freedom, to ensure that there was wide access to all information to people in the community.
If we move to a system, as this bill will allow, that would allow municipalities to abolish library boards, and if those decisions were then made by municipal councils, I think it would be devastating. I think it would just absolutely destroy the intellectual freedom that libraries to some degree now enjoy, because every decision would be based on political whims. It is very difficult to imagine some of the information that would be taken out of libraries, some of the books that would be removed, some of the magazines that would be removed, only because political pressure deemed it to be so. I think that is very, very dangerous. I just cannot underestimate in my mind what it would do to our library system if that happens, as this particular bill allows.
I just want to touch on the issue of user fees. Again, if it is a concept -- it's still undefined, as you mention, and that's a concern I share -- if the municipalities, with this bill, want to move to the areas of cost recovery, we can then imagine the cost of library services and what that would do, particularly to people who can least afford it and who probably have the greatest need for the resources of a public library because they often do not have many of the private or other resources that people who are wealthy and people who can afford to access those would have. I think, again, you would go after a group of people who probably need the public library system much more than anyone else.
I'd like you to comment on the dangers of both the aspect of councils running libraries rather than library boards and the issue of user fees, particularly on people of lower income who cannot afford, obviously, what will be substantial library user fees.
Ms Jane Watkins: You've been very eloquent and certainly support our position on both cases. I think I'd like to comment, particularly about user fees. Then I'll turn it over to Hazel, and she perhaps would like to comment about library boards.
Presently across the province, we charge minimally for things like programs, photocopier fees, those kinds of things, and we raise perhaps 3% to 5% of our budget in that particular cost-recovery avenue.
It's very difficult to choose how in fact you would impose a user fee to library users. We don't discriminate by format, so it would be very difficult to choose one thing to charge for. I understand there has been some comment about charging for videos because people are willing to pay for them, but videos are also a form of information. You can't choose between formats about how you might go about choosing for them.
The danger in terms of membership fees, which is also something that has been discussed, is there are a large number of people who cannot afford a membership fee, no matter how small it is. If in fact that is imposed, they will not be library users and they will not have access to information or pleasure reading or anything else.
So on both counts I think there is a danger in charging fees in public libraries.
Ms Hazel Thornton-Lazier: I would like to comment on library boards. I presume many of you have heard many of these things before, but library boards have proved to be very good governance bodies, historically of course. I think this is probably due to the fact that you have volunteers who are dedicated and knowledgeable.
I'm not implying that councillors are not dedicated and informed also, but you do have many demands on your time. We have had the opportunity to concentrate on the needs of the library community and we have proved to be, in the past, a very good buffer between the CEO and the council and the public, and any issues that have been controversial seem to have been solved quite adequately. This has kept you people out of this political arena, and also it has meant that you haven't had to choose sides or perhaps become involved when it comes around to election time again. I don't know whether that's adequately answered your question or not.
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Mr Cooke: I apologize that I wasn't here when you read your brief. I did go through it very quickly and I'll go through it more thoroughly later. I'm trying to cover off being in here and also talking to a few people out there. Let me raise just one point with you and one of the concerns that I have of the whole philosophy of moving to block grants, basically, to municipalities.
There's been a significant decrease in the library grants, the block grants to the municipalities, and the argument would be, "Well then, it's up to the municipality to decide about user fees and how much money they're going to pay on library services."
As a former Minister of Education, I think I came to appreciate the role that libraries play in our communities and in our province to a greater extent than I ever did before, especially when we started doing literacy testing in grade 9 and discovering very clearly from the other research we did with the testing that the students who did the best in the literacy testing were those who were exposed to reading material at a very young age, both by being read to by their parents and in programs in our libraries, having access.
Obviously, low-income families are going to have less reading material in their own homes and are going to rely on libraries, appropriately so, and the programs that are provided. A lot of people, I think, forget there's a lot of programs in libraries directed at kids. Moving to a block grant will mean that we'll begin to have, even to a greater extent, a checkerboard Ontario where the communities that have a lot of wealth, commercial and industrial property tax money, will have thorough and complete library services; those that don't won't. We already have that to some extent in our education system.
I'd just like to get a feel from you as to what you think will be the long-term impact -- because I think we've got to think about what Ontario's going to look live five, 10, 15 and 20 years from now -- of the approach that's being taken, and then user fees which will restrict access for low-income kids to our library systems.
Ms James: I think libraries have a real concern about money and the limitations on all fronts, even though they've accomplished an awful lot through partnerships with education and trying to put money together to make it go further. There's been a lot of lobbying done about the conditional grants. I think it varies library to library as to the percentage of income that makes up in a library budget. This is why I think in our speech we really emphasized the provincial role, that it helps when there is a Public Libraries Act and there is also money coming from the province to libraries. In some cases it's 50% or more of that local library's budget, in other cases it's smaller, but it's not only through the conditional grant; there is other money that is running agencies. There's an Ontario library service in the north and one in the south. That's a significant amount of provincial money that is helping smaller libraries do the job in the north and in outlying areas.
It's disastrous how some libraries are affected, not just in one way but in various ways, from the different sources of money. The conditional grant coming straight to the libraries helps tremendously to safeguard that.
The Chair: Sorry to interrupt, but we're into the government caucus's time, so I have to let Mr Leadston go forward.
Mr Leadston: If I may, I'd like to preface with a little bit of background. I served 16 years on this local council in Kitchener and 14 years with the regional council, and I served several terms on the KPL library board as a trustee. It's interesting that on page 8 you use the word "imposition" of user fees. Yet from my experience and my discussions, the library systems, both locally and the Waterloo regional library system which services the township areas, had wanted to implement user fees other than the ones you have described, but interestingly enough, the previous two governments disallowed it.
There are many areas that I know the boards are examining in terms of a user fee for services that are provided. Similarly, I've had many comments that most municipalities have a community information centre and all libraries have an information centre -- it may go by a different name -- and yet they're both funded primarily by the municipality and they both offer the same service. Again, it's a major duplication that has been pointed out to me on many occasions. There have been discussions at the local level and I'm sure there have been discussions at your level. How do you respond to that?
Ms James: Very quickly, on the community information centre, it varies from place to place. In our situation in Oakville, it's run by the library. In other towns, it's very much a social service agency funded from different avenues. So it varies, I think, depending upon the nature of the community. But again, I think the networking through electronic means is making partnerships really come to the fore there in a database sense.
When you're talking about user fees, it's a very complex issue. The library community has been studying it for about 18 months. We know that it's in the municipal sector and being heavily talked about, and there has been an awful lot of work done.
There was a policy conference by the Ontario Library Association done in the fall and this task force that our own minister has set up. We're hoping that we have some time in the next four months, because we think we're close to having a solution of defining those core services, to safeguard things like Mr Cooke is talking about, and Mr Agostino, what is necessary for the majority of the population. Then if there are some user-driven services that are specific to one area of clientele, some libraries are setting up fee-based enhanced information services for the business community. Maybe the general taxpayer shouldn't absorb that cost; it runs on its own basis. So we're close to finding a solution there.
I think what we find would be disastrous is if the door was opened to user fees in the province for libraries without any rules attached. It could vary community to community. Within Halton, there are four municipalities. We have an awful lot of resource sharing. We have no non-resident fees between municipalities. If we all did something differently, the public would be totally confused I think, and as Jane said, the administrative overhead for some fees just doesn't make sense.
But we're close to finding a solution and we would certainly like the next few months to reach that solution, to satisfy what's being talked about in AMO as well as within the library boards.
The Chair: Thank you for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee today.
WATERLOO PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP
WATERLOO COUNTY WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair: May I please have representatives from the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group and the Waterloo County Women Teachers' Association come forward, please. Good afternoon, and thank you for coming to appear before the standing committee on general government. You have half an hour today to make your presentation. You may use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions and response from the three caucuses. I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourselves at the beginning of your presentation for the benefit of Hansard and for committee members.
Ms Jennifer Newcombe: My name is Jennifer Newcombe and I'm a staff representative from the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group.
Ms Heather Cain: My name is Heather Cain and I'm a volunteer researcher at the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group.
Ms Donna Reid: My name is Donna Reid and I'm the executive director for the Waterloo County Women Teachers' Association.
Ms Cain: As I said, we're from the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group. We are a non-profit, non-partisan organization with a membership of over 13,000 undergraduate students at the University of Waterloo, as well as members of the larger community.
WPIRG is part of the provincial network of Ontario Public Interest Research Group. Our mandate is research, education and action on environmental and social justice issues. We are also a member of the Waterloo Regional Coalition for Social Justice.
If implemented, Bill 26 will have far-reaching and deleterious effects on not only the social sector but on the environment as well. It is of utmost importance that Bill 26 is amended in order to protect and improve the level of environmental protection afforded in this province today.
Economy and environment are interconnected and cannot be separated. Environmental degradation has economic impact. Conversely, improving environmental conditions has direct positive economic impact.
The government purports to be committed to reducing the provincial deficit. However, the cuts they are proposing to several agencies and laws will have devastating long-term effects on both ecosystems and the economy. It is in this light that we will be addressing the changes to the Municipal Act, the Conservation Authorities Act, the Mining Act, the Forest Fires Prevention Act, the Public Lands Act and the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act. We'll also offer the government some viable alternatives that would save it money without compromising environmental health.
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First, the whole discussion of this bill needs to be put into context.
One of the things we find most offensive about this legislation is the manner in which it was introduced. We have all heard the story about its inaugural reading into the Legislature while opposition members and the media were locked in a room reading the budget statement.
Then there is this convenient exemption from the Environmental Bill of Rights. Under this bill, any piece of legislation likely to have a significant environmental impact, such as Bill 26, is required to be listed on an environmental registry for 30 days to allow for public comment before its passage.
The exemption happened because a regulation was passed to exempt bills that would result in the elimination, reduction or realignment of an expenditure of the provincial government from the Environmental Bill of Rights. It occurred the very same day that Bill 26 was introduced into Parliament.
All of this seems to be in keeping with the very troubling trend in this government to eliminate the public from decision-making. With respect to environmental policy in this province, it is a continuation of the government's dismantling of public advisory committees such as the Municipal-Industrial Strategy for Abatement Advisory Committee, the Advisory Committee on Environmental Standards and the Environmental Assessment Advisory Committee, as well as the end of intervenor funding, which costs the government virtually nothing, and the destruction of the Planning Act, which was the product of four years of public consultation with a broad spectrum of stakeholders.
The contempt for accepted democratic processes, the disregard for public knowledge and ability and expertise, is insulting. Ultimately, it results in a government that is weaker and less effective, more out of step with its constituents and, more importantly, less democratic. I find it difficult to comprehend why your government is so afraid of involving the public in the running of this province. In a democracy, public participation is not a privilege to be meted out at the whim of government; it is a fundamental right.
Amendments to the Municipal Act will allow municipalities to be more readily restructured, thereby facilitating the process of annexation of land and encouraging urban sprawl. Servicing costs as a result of urban sprawl will likely be funded through higher taxes and user fees. Alternatively, Bill 63, the revised Planning Act, if left untouched, would act as a counterbalance to the tendency towards urban sprawl.
The Planning Act includes mechanisms to facilitate the intensification of development. Urban sprawl not only has negative environmental impacts -- for example, the development of prime agricultural lands and wetlands -- but also has significant economic impacts. The cost to provide infrastructure to outlying regions is enormous and borne by taxpayers. If your government is serious about fiscal restraint, the revised Planning Act should be left alone.
Bill 163 also requires basic environmental protection standards to be implemented on a provincial and watershed level. This makes much more sense than leaving important decisions up to individual municipalities that do not have to consider the effects their activities such as river pollution will have on downstream communities. It is in the government's best economic interests to take a long-range planning perspective and leave the revised Planning Act alone.
Perhaps one of the most devastating aspects of Bill 26 is its de facto gutting of the conservation authorities in this province. For 50 years, conservation authorities have taken on the challenging and necessary role of watershed management in southern Ontario. Their approach to planning supersedes political boundaries and prioritizes ecological protection. In so doing, the conservation authorities have contributed to both environmental health and economic prosperity.
Here in the Grand River basin, among their many activities they play a fundamental role in flood control, water quality improvement, natural areas protection, education, recreation, the design of better agriculture and woodlot management programs, and erosion control. The authorities are losing 70% of their provincial funding within two years. Their activities will be reduced in maintenance and operation of existing flood control structures. No new projects will be allowed to be undertaken; thus even this meagre role in flood control is very limited.
The authorities will no longer be able to levy municipalities for tax contributions, forcing them to rely on the goodwill of individual cities for support. In this region, the current levy is only $5.84, a small portion of our annual municipal taxes. The likelihood of cash-strapped municipalities faced with need from so many other sectors voluntarily giving money to conservation authorities seems unlikely. The authorities are the second-largest landowner in this province after the provincial government. Without provincial support, they will not be able to afford the huge land taxes they currently bear. This may mean the mass privatization and potential development of current recreation areas and environmentally sensitive areas. They are further threatened by the fact that municipalities will have increased power to dissolve the authorities.
The result? We will see an overall decline in environmental and economic quality. For example, in this community, the Grand River Conservation Authority has done much work to improve water quality in the Conestoga rivershed. The river is threatened by agricultural runoff containing pesticides, milk house runoffs and sediments. After the cuts, this river and others like it in this watershed could become as polluted as they were back in the 1940s and 1950s, and it is not just the river that suffers, but the people and animals drinking that water, in the form of higher water treatment costs and the resulting health bills. Taxpayers will undoubtedly pay more to maintain quality of life and the economic system in the future.
If the gutting of the conservation authorities happens in this province, the damage will be irreversible. Once authorities privatize land, it is final. There will be no going back after the next election to re-create what was lost. Without conservation authorities, we lose access to incredible conservation and education programs. We lose much more than that, however; we lose the future-oriented vision of watershed planning, a holistic approach which balances the needs of people, ecosystems and the economy.
Like the Planning Act, the conservation authorities provide a valuable function and their role is irreplaceable. Mechanisms need to be put into place to ensure that they are not compromised to the degree that Bill 26 proposes. The government should review its land taxation policies, as they are currently biased towards development. Before government refuses to subsidize land tax for the authorities, they should consider the degree to which they subsidize corporate expenditures in retail businesses. These should be considered a cost of doing business for those companies.
The Mining Act is being amended to reduce the supposedly burdensome cost of administrating mine closure and mitigation plans. These costs amount to $5 million per year, a relatively small price to pay for prevention and mitigation of environmental contamination. More importantly, mine closure and its regulation and the environmental effects of mining should be assumed by companies as a normal cost of doing business. If mining companies cannot afford these costs, they should rethink their participation in this industry.
Bill 26 eradicates corporate accountability for pollution by halting the requirement for closure plans. Closure plans assess the adequacy of environmental protection and the potential risk of future spills and leaks on a company-by-company basis. Government mining inspectors are being reduced from six to two people. This will further increase environmental risks. The potential for liability suits against the province is huge and it is obvious that the government is concerned about this too. Section 153 is being included to provide broad immunity to the crown for acts or omissions relating to closure plans. This is completely undemocratic and does not contribute to the positive economic restructuring that this government so proudly claims to be undertaking.
Revisions to the Mining Act also obstruct the free flow of information. Information about mine closure plans is being made exempt from the freedom of information act, denying public access. Therefore, public dispute of a corporation's mining practices will become increasingly difficult, if not impossible.
Bill 26 further amends the Mining Act with an exemption-from-liability clause which gives mining companies the option of surrendering their lease to the crown within 12 months of mine closure. This will allow companies to potentially escape liability if they have not been proactive in preventing adverse environmental damage. The crown will now be liable for this cost. I ask you, how does that save us, as taxpayers, money? Bill 26 shifts the responsibility for environmental mining infractions and disasters from companies to the taxpayer. It is better to have the government safeguard the interests of the public and the environment than to trust the uncertainties of private operators, accountable only to themselves.
The amendments to the Forest Fires Prevention Act, the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act and the Public Lands Act all significantly reduce the number of projects on public lands that require a government permit. Currently, anything from logging to dock-building must be approved. The following activities will no longer require permits to take place on public lands: logging, mineral exploration, industrial operations, clearing, dredging and filling of shore lands. Unless the government enacts regulations for these activities, it will mean an open season for the vast public lands, rivers and lakes in the province. Is this amendment really about the cost of issuing permits? How does that compare with the cost of unregulated logging or mineral exploration on public lands?
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The Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act may no longer require a permit for all dams. Smaller ones, including some hydro dams, may be exempt, increasing the likelihood of degradation of fish habitat and streams. If anyone can build a dam without any permission, problems will occur. Will the province seek to underhandedly avoid any liability with a clause similar to section 153 of the Mining Act? If so, we can fully expect the quality of our streams, wetlands and forests to decline. The government must make proposed amendments public before adequate public review can occur.
The revisions to these bills are being done under the guise of saving the province money and streamlining the process. What these amendments really do is facilitate private development of public lands.
In conclusion, Bill 26 represents a leap backwards in terms of environmental protection in this province. Certainly the proposed amendments indicate a serious lack of understanding on the part of this government of the connection between environmental health and economic prosperity.
The potential long-term cost of Bill 26 mortgages the future to pay for the economically flawed idea that beneficiaries of your income tax break will choose to invest in Ontario and not in offshore tax havens and speculative markets. Average Ontarians will again inevitably bear the costs. All this from a government that arrogantly proclaims to be deficit fighters looking out for the future best interests of the people of Ontario.
The Conservatives have introduced Bill 26 purportedly to provide the tools to help municipalities, hospitals, colleges, universities, schools and the provincial government to meet the new financial targets. But clearly this bill goes beyond simple financial savings. Many of the mechanisms in Bill 26 save little money but, more dangerously, ease the regulations for business involved in mining, and facilitate development and resource extraction, all while exempting them from the same standard of responsibilities that individuals are expected to meet. The overall effect is that government is less open, less accountable and less democratic.
It is this government's obligation to act for the long-term good of the people of the province. In this respect, Bill 26 fails. To pass this legislation as is would be irresponsible and unethical. We echo the numerous other individuals and organizations who have called for an extension of these hearings and for further public consultation on this bill.
In closing, we'd just like to thank this committee for letting us register our concerns here today.
Ms Reid: My name is Donna Reid, and I'm here representing the Waterloo County Women Teachers' Association. Our association has 1,860 members, and we are women who teach in the public elementary schools in the region of Waterloo. I am a teacher. I am surprised and I am upset that I'm the only teacher representing here today. It's not that I'm blaming teachers; we tried. In fact, I'm only here today because my colleagues to my left have allowed me to take some of their time.
There's great distress by a number of people at the lack of opportunity not only for teachers but for everybody to come forward as individuals or as groups to speak to you and to tell you how we feel. I consider it as part of my role as an individual, as a teacher, as a mother, as a grandmother, as a citizen and as a taxpayer to let you know what are the ramifications of this omnibus bill that you have put before us, and that's what we've tried to do. It hasn't been a simple task, given the time lines, given the fact that teachers have been on a two-week break. However, I am here today to speak to you.
I think it's important for you to know that I am only one out of the five federations that represent teachers. There are two others presidents sitting in the audience today from the other federations who I'm sure would have loved to have this opportunity to speak to you as well. You can see we represent a number of your constituents here in the region of Waterloo.
We accept, as teachers, that we are role models for our students, and we endeavour to practise democratic procedures within our classrooms in how we treat everyone. It's our feeling that a one-day hearing to cover a large geographical area with such a dense population as it is here is simply not adequate. It is not practising democratic procedures.
As concerns pay equity, since we're a women's organization we're very concerned about pay equity. I want to try to give you a face so it's not just a bunch of numbers but it's a face. One of the other roles I play is president of one of the crisis shelters within our region. It is the women who are employed in these crisis shelters -- and the Women Teachers' work with them quite closely -- who will suffer if you remove the proxy method of determining comparators. The pay equity plans that they were able to negotiate will be quashed, and they will not, then, receive what they should in the way of pay. They will always be behind. It seems to me very, very unfair that the lowest-paid women workers in our society would be the ones who have to pay.
Many of the ones before talked about user fees and how regressive user fees are. It's our opinion that user fees just put more obstacles in the path of children, the children in this region who need to have an enriched society, they need to have experiences. The board that I work with has an Even Start program. That's for young children before they come to school, for those kids in our society who don't have experiences, who need to be with other children, who need experiences out there in society. User fees are going to make it even more difficult for those programs to be run and more difficult for individual families to be able to give experiences to their children.
Concerning the boundaries, as an organization we're very concerned that the government intends to exempt the boards of education from the schedule by regulation. It's by regulation that is our concern. We would really hope that you would put it within the legislation. Regulations can be changed easily. So we would prefer that it was really right within the legislation itself.
There's been much discussion around arbitration. I don't think I need to say much more than to say that teachers are going to be subjected to this arbitration as well. It affects the independence of arbitrators. In effect, the government is deciding the parameters of what it is that we can negotiate.
I did put in a section on health, even though this isn't about health, because how can you talk about children in our region, how can you talk about children that are in our schools without talking about health and without talking about the effect that some of the regressive stances you have taken will have upon the children in this region? We know that in the classrooms around this region there are more and more problems as far as health is concerned. This is only going to exaggerate those problems. Those children are going to suffer more and more, and they're the ones who don't have a voice. So they need to have us, as their teachers, as their role models, to come here and to tell you that it will directly affect the children in those classrooms.
In conclusion, we're very opposed to the transferring of power from the Legislature to the cabinet. Of course, we're not the first ones who have said this. In the Legislature, those people we have elected have an opportunity to debate it fully, and we have an opportunity as a society to listen to that debate; in cabinet, it is not so. I've done my part today; our association has done its part today. I managed to get here. I managed to be able to come and talk to you. Now I ask you, will you do your part and will you jointly own the province with us?
The Chair: We have a little over two minutes per caucus for questioning. Not seeing Mr Cooke, I'm going to start with the government side.
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Mr Young: Just for the record, although you may be the only teacher group represented today, we have heard from -- I'm just counting here from a list I have -- eight teachers' unions, and there are, as of the standing right now, another four scheduled to speak. So I don't want you to think that we're not listening or we're not hearing what teachers have to say, because we care very much.
Are you by any chance a member of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario?
Ms Reid: Yes, I am.
Mr Young: We did hear from them. Or the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation?
Ms Reid: No, I'm not.
Mr Young: Or the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association?
Ms Reid: No.
Mr Young: We have heard from them. I think that's very important. We do want to hear from teachers. I wanted to point that out before I passed the mantle here.
Mr Wettlaufer: Donna, you mentioned that there was a lack of time to make your presentation to the committee, and I think we appreciate that. The one thing I would like to point out, however, is that we have in the province of Ontario and in our democratic country a form of government called responsible government. The government is responsible to the Legislature.
The public hearings process is conducted in such a manner that there are hearings around the province one day at a time. The previous government only sat and reported to the Legislature 21 days out of an entire year. Our government covered that and more in the first term of office -- in the first session, I'm sorry.
The one thing I would like to talk about is your concern about the interest arbitration. It's a fact of life, unfortunately, in the world, not just in Ontario, that we have a financial situation which is very, very serious. I would never want to downplay the role of teachers or firefighters or policemen -- I'm sorry, police officers -- but it is very necessary I think to keep in mind that we have a financial crunch in the world, and we must keep in mind the ability to pay at all times. We must keep in mind the extent to which services may have to be reduced if the funding levels are not increased. That has to be kept in mind. We do have to keep in mind the economic situation in Ontario and in the various municipalities. We are asking the arbitrators to keep these in mind.
The Chair: Mr Wettlaufer, I apologize for interrupting, but we have to move forward to Mr Phillips from the opposition caucus.
Mr Phillips: I hardly know where to begin. Let me just say to the teachers' group, the area of most concern to you should be the arbitration one. I think this fundamentally changes bargaining for teachers. It very negatively affects the teachers, I think it will lead to more strikes and I think it requires an enormous amount of debate.
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to turn my attention to the other side of the issue, because my understanding is that the Grand River Conservation Authority, a well-regarded organization, does not have an opportunity to speak today. They had a brief ready and were unable to present it. So I'm going to ask you to be a surrogate for the Grand River Conservation Authority.
My understanding of the intent of the bill is that the government said: "We used to spend $34 million on conservation authorities. We're going to cut that down to $10 million. We are only going to fund flood control, $8 million, and $2 million for maintenance of conservation lands." In other words, they're going to dramatically cut funding. Then they're going to say to municipalities: "Now you pick that up, at the same time as we're cutting $700 million from your grants. Furthermore" -- to the municipalities -- "we're going to give you the opportunity to take control of the conservation authority." As a matter of fact, none of the provincially appointed members are even going to be able to vote when the conservation authority's role is changed dramatically. That's the intent of the legislation, I think.
I guess my question to you, as the surrogate for the local conservation authority, because I think you know it, is what do you think the impact of that might be for the Grand River Conservation Authority?
Ms Newcombe: That's the basis of our concern, and I think clearly that municipalities are not going to be able to pick up the financial responsibilities the provincial government's downloading on them. I know that there are mechanisms within the amendments to the act that will allow the privatization of conservation lands and I think that's what's going to happen. The conservation authorities as we know them will cease to exist in this province.
Ms Cain: If you want an example, the mayor of Cambridge has already said that they can't take over the two conservation authorities there, so those areas will be up, as Jennifer has said, for development. Not only does that impact on environmental quality and protecting environmental areas; it also means that people no longer have equitable access to these areas for recreation purposes.
The Chair: Mr Cooke? Okay, you can have about another minute then, Mr Phillips.
Mr Phillips: I really appreciate that. I look forward to the written brief by the conservation authority as well, I might say.
Back to the teachers' organization: I think one could argue that these are very dramatic changes and they are substantial. In fact, I think this is the next stage of the social contract, this is the son or daughter of the social contract -- the arbitration. In fact, one of the bond rating agencies said that the social contract expires in March 1996 but proposed legislation has been introduced that will guide arbitration awards. This is a very important mechanism that could offset the impact of the reduction in grants. In other words, the government is saying to the bond rating agencies, "Don't worry too much, because this process is going to offset the reduction in grants." My question to the teacher organization -- I don't know whether you've had a chance yet to debate it -- is, do you think this will lead to fewer or more labour disputes within the educational sector?
Ms Reid: I find that difficult in one sense, and I think it comes from the fact that I'm an elementary teacher. It's really, really difficult for elementary teachers to even think in terms of strikes and working to rule, because of the age of the children we teach. We really are loath to have to be reduced to such methods of trying to deal with labour disputes. But undoubtedly I can feel already that there is a wedge that is being placed between teachers and their boards. I'd like to say up front that the board that I've been with for a very long time, the Waterloo County Board of Education, is a good board. It works responsibly and it works well with the teachers, and I think we work well with it. I would hate to see anything happen to that good relationship that we have built up over a long period of time, but it can change, and it can change rapidly. This is one of the things that, along with reductions, the factor of the $400 million being taken out of education, is definitely going to be a cause for some dissension between us.
The Chair: Thank you very much for coming forward today to make your presentation to the committee.
HOWARD GREIG
The Chair: May I please have a representative from the county of Grey come forward. Welcome to the standing committee on general government this afternoon. You have 30 minutes to make your presentation. You may use the time as you see fit; you may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation to answer questions and responses from the caucuses. I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourselves at the beginning of your presentation for the benefit of committee members and Hansard.
Mr Howard Greig: I am Howard Greig. I'm reeve of the township of Sullivan, a councillor for the county of Grey. I'm not representing either of those bodies; I'm here on my own. I'm here to support the government in what it's doing with Bill 26. It's been long overdue. I think they need some verbal and moral support out there. The public did elect this government to make some changes. They have taken the initiative to do it and deserve credit for doing it post-haste. It has to be done. As a councillor and a politician and an active member in the community, I think I can speak for and represent the silent majority out there that feels this is certainly warranted.
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Municipalities have now grown up. They're mature brothers of the province. They no longer need the strict guidance and controls we've known in the past. Bill 26 will give the municipalities that right to run their own affairs and see fit as they so desire, and that's the way it should be; that's democracy. If the electorate out there doesn't agree with what the municipal politicians are doing, every three years they won't be there.
It's certainly the right direction for the province to be going in and we do appreciate that. I certainly do appreciate it personally. I've been in politics 14 years and it is the direction we need to go in.
I'm not going to take up the 30 minutes. I'm just here to give my support to the government and their proposals and encourage them to pass this bill as soon as possible.
My one and only area of concern in the bill is with the powers being given to the ministers. I have a little concern with that in that there is a tremendous amount of power being given to individual ministers if this bill is passed as it presently is proposed. I don't have a problem with the present ministers having that authority, but I'd have a problem with some of the ministers we've known in the past and that we may know again in the future. We never know, but there is a lot of authority there and they could make arbitrary decisions that might be to the detriment of the general public. I would be concerned with that even if it's a grandfathered part of it, because once the government does that once, it makes it fairly simple to do the same again. I would be concerned with that.
The Chair: We have plenty of time for questions and responses. We have eight minutes each. We'll start with the government caucus.
Mr Hardeman: On the issue of control or the power of the ministers you referred to, and obviously coming from a rural county in Ontario, you would have had some involvement with restructuring and changes, could you give us some idea as to whether, without giving control or an end resolution mechanism on the restructuring process, you feel there's a possibility of achieving restructuring without that?
Mr Greig: I think it can be accomplished without the ministers specifically having that power to arbitrarily decide what the restructuring may consist of. I think it can be done with cooperation and discussion among the municipalities involved, and possibly through a commissioner or commission, to do that as is proposed; but for the minister himself to have that authority where he could arbitrarily make a decision, I would be concerned with that, that it wouldn't at least be a cabinet decision.
Mr Hardeman: The other issue is, a number of presenters have mentioned the power of the ministers, but there's also been concern expressed by the power being granted to municipalities, that too many decisions will be made by the local elected officials and they will not deal with those according to the wishes of the electorate. Do you think there's a need to tighten up what the municipality is allowed to do and what types of charges they should be allowed to charge?
Mr Greig: No. I think you'll find the municipalities are quite a responsible level of government, and it's been proven through the last number of years that they are a responsible level of government. The criticism, and I think we all hear it, usually comes from special-interest groups where their special interest may not be getting met. If that is a majority opinion and not a special-interest group, then the democracy will prove that they were right and that the people elected were wrong.
Mr Hardeman: One final question: On the restructuring again, based on your experience and your involvement in Grey county, is there an opportunity, do you see a mechanism that could be put in the plan that would provide more local input, or be more locally driven, as opposed to the ministers' powers that you referred to? What, in your opinion, would be required to be changed to reassure everyone in municipal government that local initiative is the intent?
Mr Greig: I think the parameters and guidelines could be set by the province but the initiative has to be at the local level.
Mr Tascona: I'd just like to ask you questions in two areas: Schedule Q, which deals with the interest arbitration provision -- I presume that your county has been involved in interest arbitrations before?
Mr Greig: Yes.
Mr Tascona: What we've heard here is support for strengthening of the interest arbitration provisions in terms of the concern about arbitrators being given the power to award wage increases, which they feel will just be passed on to the taxpayers in terms of tax increases. What is your opinion on the provisions that we've proposed? Do you believe they should be strengthened, and if so, why?
Mr Greig: No. I think the provisions that are proposed are quite adequate. It appears to me the provisions would give the arbitrator the discretion to take everything into account. I think we've all had arbitration awards in the past that the taxpayers have suffered for from that day on. We're still paying and suffering for some of those arbitration awards that were handed out a number of years ago. For the government to initiate something that would guide those arbitrators a little better and help the taxpayers out, I'm in full support of that.
Mr Tascona: Basically what we're putting forth are some mandatory criteria which have to be considered, but there can be other things, other factors, considered also under that legislation.
One other area that we've had concern from, and from both sides -- from police forces and school boards and municipalities -- has been dealing with freedom of information. On the other side of the coin, we've heard that certain groups don't want that power to be on terms of determining frivolous or vexatious claims being put into the hands of heads of organizations such as yourselves, basically for reasons dealing with accountability and the concern of the freedom of information access. I'd just like to ask your opinion in terms of the approach that's being taken by the government and what your experience has been with freedom of information.
Mr Greig: On the freedom of information, I'm a politician and have been for a number of years and I'm in full support that all information should be available to the public. Quite often there have been too many decisions made in the past that the public wasn't aware of. All the information, through the freedom of information act, should be available. There are very few things that shouldn't be.
Mr Tascona: What we've done is to put it at the local level so that they may be made. Some of the concerns were from the police forces, that they've faced numerous requests on information such as shoe sizes and dealing with UFO sightings and information that cost them in the amount of over $75,000 to go forth and basically deal with an appeal before the commissioner. They like the approach we're taking in putting it into their hands initially, but that they don't have to go through the great expense of preparing for a privacy commissioner appeal. That's the approach we're taking at this time.
Mr Greig: I'm in full support of that position.
The Chair: Mr Sampson, you have two and a half minutes.
Mr Sampson: The other concern on that particular item that's been brought to our attention is that it wasn't felt as though the individual in charge of dispensing the information also should be responsible for determining whether it's a frivolous request. I guess the concern was that if they don't want to release the information, for instance, about their travel expenses, they would determine it was a frivolous request or somehow manage the fee so that that, by definition, restricted the availability of the information.
Is this a concern that you would share? Do you believe, for instance, as it relates to your day-to-day activities, that somebody else should be making that decision as to whether or not the request is frivolous?
Mr Greig: I can't foresee that being a problem, but I guess there are particular situations where a municipality or a local government may try to hide information through that. I'm not sure what the solution is to that.
Mr Sampson: The privacy commissioner has said: "This is a solution for you. Have the group go and prepare the information, and after the information is prepared and the expense has been absorbed, I'll determine whether or not it's frivolous." I want to ask you whether that solves the problem of the frivolous request. It's not that it's frivolous; it just costs you a lot of money to get an answer that perhaps you shouldn't have had to do the work for. Are you aware of what the privacy commissioner has recommended as amendments to this particular section of the act?
Mr Greig: No, I'm not familiar with that.
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Mr Gerretsen: Let me first of all tell you that I come from a municipal background as well. I was involved in a council for 16 years, with eight years as mayor a few years ago, and I'm a great believer in local government.
But let's call a spade a spade. Do you agree with me, from your reading of the act, that there is an attempt by the province to give the municipalities much more power by way of direct taxation? Would you agree that that's so, and that that's the tradeoff?
Mr Greig: Yes.
Mr Gerretsen: Municipalities have been asking for that for years, and the tradeoff is that they're only getting half the grants in a couple of years.
In the discussion you've had with your people in Grey county, has there been any discussion about what kinds of taxes could be imposed as a result of this? Have you talked about a gas tax or a head tax or income tax?
Mr Greig: Not in particular, no -- user fees more than direct taxes.
Mr Gerretsen: What the government's trying to say is, "Yes, we're giving these powers in this act, but we didn't really mean it, so we're going to maybe change it a little by way of legislation." Do you think that's a fair way of approaching it, when the act itself in its own plain wording says they can charge a direct tax on just about anything going?
Mr Greig: Maybe each level of government should be given the same level of freedom -- should they not? -- if we're partners in governing the people of this province.
Mr Gerretsen: Right, as long as that's the message that goes out to people. That's all I'm talking about. I'm saying that at least the same message should go out to everybody so that people out there understand what can happen with respect to taxation. Right now, they're trying to fudge it by saying it's not really as bad as everybody makes it sound.
Mr Greig: I don't think the people have a concern about this. It's certainly not what I'm hearing.
Mr Phillips: I'll just follow up a little on that. I gather from your answer to a question you were asked earlier that the intent of the bill is to give the municipalities unlimited flexibility for fees and taxes because of a belief that the local municipality knows best how to do that.
I just want to be sure I'm clear about your perspective. Certainly the mayor of Mississauga, the chairman of Metro Toronto and I think the London council all believe that the bill does permit them to introduce a gas tax. I just want to be sure that your perspective is that that's right, that your support of the bill assumes the bill does permit, if a municipality wants, the introduction of a gas tax or a local sales tax, that that's your interpretation of the bill because you are supporting the bill; and second, that you are very much supportive of that direction. Have I interpreted your views properly?
Mr Greig: Not being a lawyer, it's certainly my interpretation that yes, there will be new possibilities for taxation by the municipalities.
Mr Phillips: Like gas taxes and --
Mr Greig: I'm not a lawyer and I'm not familiar with what all may be involved.
Mr Phillips: And that's what you'd like to see in the bill too?
Mr Greig: The freedom, yes, and the flexibility.
Mr Phillips: And that's why you're supporting it. I appreciate that.
Mr Agostino: I want to follow up on what Mr Phillips just said, along the same lines. In Hamilton-Wentworth -- I spent eight years on council there -- the chairman of economic development, Councillor Ross, whose wife is the Tory MPP for Hamilton West, went on record about three weeks ago talking about the possibility of a gas tax, that it's something the municipality would consider and would have to look at as an option.
Along the line of user fees, the Premier went on record in the House before the election, as the leader of the third party at that time, that a user fee in a sense was a tax; that user fees, copayments, whatever you want to call them, are a form of taxation if there's only one taxpayer. Whether it's federal, provincial or municipal taxes, a tax is a tax is a tax. Do you agree with that view of now-Premier Harris that a user fee is a form of taxation and is a tax on people in this province?
Mr Greig: I guess you can play with words all you want. User fees have been around for years and years. Why shouldn't user fees be increased to cover something such as library use? Recreation has been paying user fees for years, so why not level the playing field?
Mr Agostino: In your view, should user fees be there as a mechanism to make up for the shortfall in the 40% cut in transfer payments to municipalities from the province?
Mr Greig: No, I don't see any direction where the municipalities will be picking up that 40%. We're just going to cut back.
Mr Agostino: So you believe that you will increase user fees to some degree but that you're obviously going to have to make some massive cuts elsewhere to deal with this shortfall that the province has now passed on to the municipalities.
Mr Greig: Yes, the municipalities can make cuts and they're quite willing to make cuts. We've been part of the $100-billion deficit in this province and we're quite aware that we've been sharing in that $100-billion deficit. I think we're prepared to take our share of the cuts.
Mr Agostino: On another line, the area of who makes the decisions for you: You talk about local autonomy and local decisions. Do you believe you should have the power as a council to make the determination on how many firefighters and what kind of fire service you should have in you community, how many police officers and the level of police service you should have in your community? Do you believe you should have the power at the local level to make that decision, knowing the community as you do and knowing the needs in your own community?
Mr Greig: Absolutely. Local politicians are the people who know their needs.
Mr Agostino: Are you aware of the fact that part of this bill will now take that power away from you, that an arbitrator could determine for you how many police officers, how many firefighters would serve your community? Do you agree that that should happen?
Mr Greig: No, the local municipalities should have the authority to determine how many there should be.
Mr Agostino: So you don't agree with that part of the bill then, I assume.
Mr Greig: I'm not aware of arbitrators being given that authority.
Mr Agostino: The arbitrator will have that power based on what the arbitrator may assess as your financial ability --
Interjections.
Mr Agostino: You guys should read the bill. The way the bill is outlined on the power of the arbitrator, the arbitrator could have that power. Ask the police officers who have spoken to you and supported you during the campaign and have told you you've betrayed them as a result of this bill. Ask the police officers and the police association whether they have that power or not in municipalities. This bill will give arbitrators the power on their own assessment, the things you've outlined here, to determine how many police officers or firefighters can serve municipalities across Ontario.
You can't have it both ways. You can't argue that you're going to give municipalities power in the economy and then have an arbitrator dictate to them how many police officers and firefighters they're going to have in a particular municipality.
Mr Cooke: Read the Globe and Mail.
Mr Wettlaufer: Is that where you take the interpretation of the bill, from the newspapers?
The Chair: Order, Mr Wettlaufer. Mr Cooke has the floor.
Mr Cooke: I certainly don't take the interpretation from you, that's for sure.
First of all, let me thank you for coming before the committee. How long have you been on county council in Grey?
Mr Greig: Eight years.
Mr Cooke: I got the impression from your introductory comments that when you were talking about past ministers of Municipal Affairs who gave some direction to local governments, I might have been in that group of ministers.
Mr Greig: I didn't specify Municipal Affairs.
Mr Cooke: No, I just remember that Grey county and I had a grand old time for about two years.
You've had a chance to read through the bill and schedule M?
Mr Greig: Yes.
Mr Cooke: With respect to restructuring governments, because this is something that county councillors and others have felt very strongly about, are you offended at all that this section of the bill only refers to county governments and leaves out regional governments and Metropolitan Toronto in particular?
Mr Greig: No. Regional governments have been through the restructuring proposal. That's why there are 13 regional governments in the province.
Mr Cooke: But there is a lot of talk. Right in this particular region Mr Sweeney is leading an exercise to look at restructuring the region of Waterloo, and the GTA is looking at restructuring. Some people in other areas have expressed a little bit of concern that counties are being treated differently than regions.
Mr Greig: Counties are different than regions, and I don't think this bill precludes regions from amalgamations or annexations or restructuring. I don't see anywhere in that bill it would preclude that.
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Mr Cooke: But they're not covered by the powers that would give the minister the right to be able to do it by regulation?
Mr Greig: No.
Mr Cooke: And you have no concerns about the minister having -- well, you said you did have concerns about the minister having that kind of power.
Mr Greig: Yes, I did.
Mr Cooke: You do have those concerns.
Now the taxes and user fees: I listened to AMO and listened to other municipal politicians say they're very happy that they're being empowered. Do you have any concerns at all when you hear Mr Leach say if there's any user fee -- and there's provision in the act that gives him the power -- or any tax that you implement, he can override you and he will override you by regulation? Do you not see that that's not really fully empowering you, that you can be the evil person to bring in the user fee and he can be the hero by saying, "No, I'm going to stop you from doing that"?
Mr Greig: I'd be concerned if that was to occur.
Mr Cooke: It's in the bill.
Mr Greig: It hasn't occurred, though.
Mr Cooke: It hasn't occurred because the bill hasn't passed yet.
Mr Greig: I realize that.
Mr Cooke: You have to wait for the bill to pass first. Do you have any concerns that in the bill it says that municipalities are going to be empowered to eliminate a whole series of boards, but the minister has said that by regulation he's going to prevent you from eliminating a number of boards?
Mr Greig: There are particular boards that the minister is concerned that municipalities should maybe not have control over, yes.
Mr Cooke: Which boards would you feel you shouldn't have control over?
Mr Greig: I'm not sure there are any boards that the municipality shouldn't have control over.
Mr Cooke: So you have concerns about that section of the act too, and the power that the minister has there?
Mr Greig: Not in particular.
Mr Cooke: It's been a long-standing request of municipal councils that they want to have control over police budgets, and I gather now the Solicitor General is going to review police services. But there was a very firm commitment, and I'm gathering from your presentation you would be very familiar with the Common Sense Revolution -- do you have concerns that when the government is saying, "We're going to empower local councils, but when it comes to police services, we've made a commitment in the Common Sense Revolution that police budgets and the justice system can't be reduced," that is really not partnership, that's not really empowering municipalities because you're not going to be allowed to decrease police services because that's a commitment that they've made in the Common Sense Revolution?
Mr Greig: I think we have to cross that bridge when we get to it. I haven't seen that as a problem.
Mr Cooke: But you might, you might.
Mr Greig: We might. I think you'll find municipalities very responsible.
Mr Cooke: Mr Chair, I think that the presenter has made himself very clear that he has total and complete confidence in this government. Maybe we can get together a year from now and see whether that confidence still exists.
The Chair: Thank you for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee today.
Mr Greig: I appreciate the opportunity.
GREY ASSOCIATION FOR BETTER PLANNING
The Chair: May I have the Grey Association for Better Planning come forward, please.
Mr Peter Ferguson: I think you've all got copies of my brief. I intend to read it. Feel free to follow along in the written material, but I'll be saying exactly what's written.
Am I right in thinking that this is the government side and this is the opposition side?
The Chair: That's correct. Mr Ferguson, welcome to the standing committee on general government. You have 30 minutes today to make your presentation. You may use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation to field some questions or responses from each of the caucuses. I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourself and your organization at the beginning of your presentation.
Mr Ferguson: Glad to be here. My name is Peter Ferguson. I'm president of the Grey Association for Better Planning. I was glad to see that we've got lots of representation from Grey county this afternoon. I'd like to thank the government for making this opportunity possible and I'd like to thank the opposition for making this opportunity possible as well. We're glad to be here to talk with you. I'll just read through this. Feel free to refer to it on paper, as I say, and we'll talk about it when I'm done.
The Grey Association for Better Planning was formed seven years ago by citizens of Grey county who could see that the social, natural and economical health of the county had been endangered by a series of ill-considered planning decisions at the county and local council levels. Grey county had, and has, a fine official plan, but its intentions were being thwarted by elected officials making planning decisions contrary to it and their own staff's advice. We banded together, met with local politicians and sought the assistance of the provincial government in ensuring that municipal planning commitments were met.
Since that time the scope of our efforts has expanded. Rather than acting simply as a watchdog, we have grown to provide education, advice and assistance on planning matters throughout the county and elsewhere in the province. We have been participating in developing Grey's new official plan and have conducted a variety of workshops on allied issues such as water-taking and aggregate extraction.
During this development, we have come to see planning as a dynamic process. There's no such thing as a plan which is good for all time. Planning activity is cyclical. You determine current conditions, make your best estimate of future eventualities, determine your plan for action, use it over the period of its effectiveness, and then sit down again to reassess how things went and make revisions for the next period.
This sort of process is essential for the success of any future-oriented activity, whether it's deciding the family's household budget or projecting the operations of Microsoft over the next decade. In our work at the municipal scale, we've come to see that effective land use planning has two primary requirements: first, accurate, detailed, pertinent information, and second, effective democratic systems.
The first of these we call product -- the hard information we deal with and produce in any planning activity. The second is process -- the ways we work together on the product. No planning activity can be successful if either part is weak. If your information is faulty, the plan will be defective no matter how well you work together. Similarly, no matter how good your information, if you can't work together your plan will never be satisfactory. Only good product, dealt with through good process, will produce good product for reassessment next time, and so on -- an effective, dynamic cycle, which brings us to why we're here with you, an effective, dynamic government.
We don't imagine you've had a lot of people coming in to congratulate you on this bill. These meetings are usually opportunities for people to blow off steam, and you've probably had a lot of that. The bill's had a great deal of bad press and we were quite worried about it. But having perused it over the holidays, we found only a couple of things under the rubrics of product and process on which we think we can give you some useful advice.
Under product, we ask you to save the conservation authorities. If we are to maintain this province's ability to compete, we will have to ensure that our infrastructure is maintained and enhanced, and we should be investing in the means of doing this. The present bill acts to undercut, and envisions the disappearance of, our conservation authorities. In our work on municipal planning, we've found that these authorities play an irreplaceable role in providing information on systems which span municipalities. They are the only institutions in the province which can provide planning guidance on a watershed basis. Without them, we'll lose the future capability of planning at that scale which lies between the municipal and the provincial.
I work as an architect, and much as we like clearing the decks and designing striking new buildings, it has become clear over the last decades that reuse and refurbishment of existing buildings is almost always more cost-effective. You simply cannot build anew at anything like the cost of buying and improving. This principle applies not only to the physical world but to that of institutions. Our conservation authorities are existing assets. To destroy them means that they will never be replaced. The cost of starting over again will be prohibitive.
It may be thought that there are enough agencies that can take up the slack, but we would urge you to look beyond the present bill to consider a variety of other government initiatives which have similar effects.
Revisions to the Planning Act: Exempt municipalities from adhering to provincial policies; assign planning approval authority to counties with inadequate official plans; forbid ministries other than Municipal Affairs and Housing to appeal planning decisions to the Ontario Municipal Board; restrict public input to the planning process; reduce the number of required public meetings; limit public appeals to the OMB; and eliminate public meetings for the approval of housing subdivisions.
Changes to the environmental assessment process: Reduce the authority of the Environmental Assessment Board; exempt solid waste disposal sites from approval under the Environmental Assessment Act.
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Changes to the environmental assessment process: Reduce the authority of the Environmental Assessment Board; exempt solid waste disposal sites from approval under the Environmental Assessment Act.
Reduction of the Niagara Escarpment Commission: Cut its funding by 30% beyond the previous cuts; eliminate its capability of appearing at OMB hearings; reduce operations to the point of eliminating the NEC as a viable institution.
Devolution of the conservation authorities will add to this list: ending the management of water resources on a watershed basis, ending rational flood control and prevention, and ending effective land and water conservation programs.
Together, broadly then, these changes will ensure that effective information from many sources -- what we call good product -- is lost to us, and with the elimination of the conservation authorities and similar agencies, probably lost forever, because these cannot be replaced.
This isn't simply a matter of letting the environment ride because we're in economic hot water. The economy is not separate from the environment; it's fundamentally dependent upon it. One need only look at eastern Europe over the past half decade to have this made indelibly clear. Our hearts all rose when Communism was sloughed off in favour of free-market aspirations, but achievement of that glorious potential we now recognize is decades away if possible at all. Why? Because the old regime rejected the need for environmental planning in favour of economic development. And now freed citizens have once more become prisoners, this time to a destroyed infrastructure. We must be conservative. We must conserve our habitat and conserve our institutions, so that we may prosper by them.
Under process, we would ask you to maintain provincial and municipal accountability.
Our response to the proposals for municipal restructuring is more ambivalent than to those for the conservation authorities. We believe it is high time there was a redesign of the municipal system, for in planning work we become aware of some of the weaknesses in the organization of our present democratic system.
But just as wee the downgrading of conservation authorities leaving a gaping hole in the middle scale of information generation and use in planning, so we believe that your proposals for municipal restructuring will cause a polarity in the scale of government which will operate against the interests of citizens as we try to plan our futures.
At present, the municipal-provincial system comprises three strata: Firstly, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs governing municipalities through the Legislature by stated policy; secondly, upper-tier municipalities carrying primary responsibility and maintaining sufficient resources for planning; and thirdly, lower-tier municipalities being assisted by and required to respond to both upper levels while providing local planning refinement.
If the changes you propose go ahead, we will be left with only two layers: (1) The minister of the day, who may govern by fiat and at whim and need not govern at all, and (2) A single tier of municipalities which, if too large, may provide insufficient local sensitivity in planning or, if too small, will likely have insufficient resources available to accomplish effective planning.
By all means, let's streamline the municipal system but let's also ensure that: The provincial government maintains its authority over municipalities; the province acts in an open, democratic manner with its rules and regulations available to all and determined by legislative vote; municipalities remain responsible to the province for their performance; and redesigned municipalities are given sufficient resources to provide effective planning.
In conclusion, then, there are two ways in which we want you to improve this bill:
(1) Eliminate the changes to the Conservation Authorities Act. Do not let our children be able to say that we destroyed their economic resources the way the Communist governments have destroyed eastern Europe.
(2) Ensure that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and other ministers are accountable to the Legislature for their actions, and that municipalities are redesigned effectively. Ensure that our children can never look back and say that in 1996 we concentrated power in the hands of the few the way the National Socialists did in the Reichstag in the 1930s and let local governments waste away.
Communists, fascists: These terms have been bandied around, perhaps too frequently and irresponsibly in the last few weeks. We believe that you intend to be true conservatives, to conserve our institutions, conserve our democratic system, conserve our habitat, and conserve our children's futures and, in being Progressive Conservatives, to improve on them all.
Please withdraw this legislation and make the changes we advise. Provide your constituents sufficient time and information to be able to assess your proposals and advise you on their acceptability. Governance in a true democratic society is not a matter of us and them; it's a matter of us, all of us, working together to develop solutions on which we can all agree. Do not feel threatened by an informed, active citizenry. We all share the same aspirations of health, freedom, prosperity, and we all want to work together freely to achieve them. We're here to help. Please let us.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Ferguson. We have a little less than six minutes per caucus for questions. We start off with the opposition caucus. Mr Gerretsen.
Mr Gerretsen: I just have one comment, sir, and that is with respect to your comment on page 2, "This exempts municipalities from adhering to provincial policies." I'll tell you, the little that I know about this situation, this is probably one of the toughest things to get through because the ultimate power that the province has in a lot of these areas is usually through its policy statements, as you probably well know in the planning area, and to suggest that municipalities ought to be exempted from that -- it may be a good thing; I'm not suggesting it's not, but I think that you'd almost need a totally new revolution within Queen's Park to ever see that happen. I think what this is really all about is control, isn't it, and I think the province always wanted to retain control over situations. I don't think you'll ever see that exemption.
Mr Ferguson: You don't think we will? That is precisely what the proposed changes to that act -- if I can talk off topic there for a while. That's precisely what the changes to the Planning Act proposed by the government imply, that the policies will exist, but the municipalities only plan in regard to those.
Mr Gerretsen: Only have regard to them, yes.
Mr Ferguson: Yes, which means that they need do nothing.
Mr Gerretsen: Except, of course, in this particular act there are some heavy regulatory powers that are given not only to then Minister of Municipal Affairs but also to -- not specifically in the planning area, but my comment was more as a general comment, sir, that generally speaking I think the notion that a cabinet minister will give up those kinds of provincial policy statement mandates, if I can put it that way, I think simply won't happen.
Mr Ferguson: Yes, quite so. This current bill that we're discussing now puts in the minister's hands ultimate power, unalloyed power --
Mr Gerretsen: That's correct.
Mr Ferguson: -- power for which there's no accountability.
Mr Gerretsen: Yet it's under the guise that a lot of these powers, not only to this minister but to other ministers, are being given to the community at large, but I think what most people don't realize is that through regulation there's always this power to claw back whatever they want at any given time.
Mr Ferguson: Quite so.
Mr Phillips: Your advice on the Conservation Authorities Act is very useful. The government has said: "Listen. We're going to slash our support for conservation authorities. We fund them to the tune of $34 million right now. We're going to cut it to $10 million." That's a given. It's a done deal. It's finished. But then they're going to say to municipalities: "But maybe you'll want to pick up the slack and take over. We recognize we've just cut your grants by 48%, but maybe you'll want to pick up this additional burden."
Frankly, I think it puts municipalities in a bind because they're going to have difficulty enough maintaining services that they were providing before. So I think effectively what they've done is they've choked off the source of revenue for conservation authorities. They've said, "Go to the municipalities and find more money from them" at the very time when municipalities, I think, are going to be extremely hard-pressed to survive.
So I gather from your comments that your belief is that if this bill proceeds the way it's written and the conservation authorities as you know them are done.
Mr Ferguson: That is the undertone, and certainly one of the specific elements of the proposals under this bill is that provision be made for the dissolution of the authorities and we think that that's envisioned and being worked towards.
Certainly we agree with you about the problems of the municipalities managing the work of the conservation authorities. In fact, under this legislation the municipalities are able to undertake only flood control and not flood prevention. Historically, over 50 years, we've learned that the best way to control floods is not after the fact but before the fact, to take measures to work with the landscape in such a manner that it doesn't produce floods. This legislation permits municipalities to take action only when there is a problem. So not only are the costs being devolved to the municipalities, but there's insufficient money and insufficient scope of work being provided under this legislation to maintain the system we now have.
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Mr Phillips: Just to give us a flavour of how important -- because I appreciate this is perhaps the core of what your group does, the planning --
The Chair: I'm sorry to interrupt, but we've just now come to the end of your time. We have to move into Mr Cooke's time.
Mr Cooke: Very briefly, I just have a couple of comments really. First of all, I appreciate your presentation. I think that it's very focused and very well-thought-out. I agree with your concerns about conservation authorities, but I guess what I see this bill -- and I think we've made some reference to the new Planning Act. In many respects, I think the new Planning Act is part of this whole deal.
The deal that was struck coming out of the economic statement, budget, whatever you want to call it, the omnibus legislation and the Planning Act, was a deal with some in the municipal sector that: "We're going to cut back your grants in a huge way. We're going to put together some of the other odd dollars into block grants and no longer have targeted grants." Basically, some of these things local politicians have been asking for for a long time; some of them I disagree with fundamentally in terms of the different roles that the province has to assume and that the municipal governments have to assume.
It may not be popular to say to municipal politicians, but municipal governments are established by legislation by the province to carry out some provincial responsibilities at the local level. You're not supposed to say this, but it's true: Municipalities are creatures of the province. Therefore, the province has a very important and specific role: to oversee the role and responsibility of municipalities, whether municipal governments like that or not. They're not a constitutional level of government; they're part of the provincial government.
I think what has happened here is that in order to quiet down the opposition from the municipal politicians about the cut in grants, a deal was struck that: "We'll give you things: constrictions on arbitration; we'll give you the block grants. We'll do something to conservation authorities. We'll do something in the Planning Act." Unfortunately, I think it's a very shortsighted approach, but a lot of the municipal governments have decided to buy into this.
Conservation authorities, as you know, have been an irritant to some local politicians for a long time in the way that they operate. I can only look at my own community. If they didn't have the role for -- you specifically referred to flood prevention. Down in Essex county flood prevention is extremely important. The work that's been done down there after a couple of major floods has saved millions and millions of dollars in preventing floods that would have occurred if that work hadn't been done.
So I guess what you've done for me is clarified some of the longer-term impacts of what we will all experience down the road if there aren't some very substantial changes in this particular piece of legislation. I don't think any of us on this committee, no matter which political party we belong to, are advocating the status quo. We didn't get elected to say that everything should always remain the same. Of course there's got to be change in a democracy and in a vibrant society. But that doesn't mean that this kind of change is good for the province, almost turning back the clock in the way that we have operated.
So I don't have a specific question for you. I just wanted to say that I think what we've got here is a deal that's been struck with the municipal sector, and I don't think it's a deal that's going to operate in the interests of people, the environment or the long-term interests of the province.
Mr Ferguson: Certainly that's our concern, that this may be seen by itself and in the short term to be of benefit to some sectors of society, but in the long term and in the context of everything else that's happening we'll very greatly run the risk of environmental and social and economic degradation flowing out of that.
Mr Hardeman: Good afternoon, Mr Ferguson, and thank you for coming in. I just wanted to go to the restructuring part. Obviously we all recognize the need for change in governance. I think Mr Cooke just mentioned that the status quo is not an acceptable alternative.
I wanted to go to the restructuring section of schedule M. You mentioned in your presentation that following this bill we could end up with a minister from the provincial level who does the governing over a single-tier government. What part of that section suggests that we're talking, or that the act is recommending, single-tier government? Could you explain and clarify that for me?
Mr Ferguson: The provisions for the minister establishing a commission for the restructuring of municipalities. We believe that streamlining municipal government implies single tier. We're not against that. We're probably in favour of it. What we're trying to do is draw your attention to the possibility that those single-tier municipalities may either be too large and thus unresponsive, or too small and thus incapable of effective action.
Mr Hardeman: I thank you very much for that answer. Going on on the same topic, looking at the present process to go through a restructuring process, again recognizing change, there is nothing except we can have local negotiations and then the local municipalities can ask the minister to appoint someone to look into it, or the minister can see that there's a problem and he can prepare legislation and put it through the Legislature with a majority government without ever asking the local citizens.
The two differences between this and what presently exists is that there is a process to follow which gives the local municipalities an ability to start it for themselves or to come up with a local solution and ask the minister to implement that, or if there is not a total unanimity of those municipalities, to ask the minister to appoint a commission or commissioners to look into that. Having reached that point, of course, the implementation of the plan is by regulation as opposed to legislation. I guess that's where your presentation differs from the legislation, that you feel that should carry on in legislation, that it would be implemented by legislation.
Mr Ferguson: Hopefully, yes. The provisions of the proposals permit, as you say, municipalities to make presentation or request for restructuring. We're a little concerned that neither the Legislature at the provincial level nor the citizens at the local municipal level are envisioned as having any participation in this process. It's between minister and municipality. The rest of the Legislature and the rest of the citizenry of these jurisdictions are not envisioned as participating. We would think that anyone who is a member of a local government would be wanting -- hopefully they will -- to get local input and local participation, but it's not required and as Mr Cooke was saying, probably should be requiring that.
Mr Hardeman: From your perspective of the choices, one or the other, which in your opinion would be more important, mandating local involvement in the start of the process or the Legislative Assembly debating it for a day or two days at the end of the process? If we only had one or the other, which would be your preference?
Mr Ferguson: I can't say that I would accept one or the other. We have to do both. We have to have provincial authority and we have to have local accountability and local responsibility.
Mr Hardeman: I recognize that but the present system does not have the first one where you have public participation, I guess is my point.
Mr Ferguson: No. Progressive Conservatives, let's improve them, we can do better than is being done now.
Mr Hardeman: In governance, just a question on the municipalities: You mentioned the size of a municipality, that in a single tier it may be too large and unwieldy to be effective. Do you have any suggestions on a size that would not be -- recognizing that even if it's single tier it could be any size. Hypothetically, we could just remove the upper tier presently and leave all the lower tiers as they presently exist if that was the local wish. Do you have any suggestions on what would be appropriate?
Mr Ferguson: It's really difficult in these matters to come up with a single number, whether it's numbers of people, numbers of dollars, numbers of square miles, which will act as a useful guideline throughout the province. In a lot of discussion about provincial planning, there's been a lot of sentiment that there should be local solutions to these problems.
My hope would be that in every jurisdiction we sit down together, which is what I guess we're proposing, and try to determine with what we've got what makes most sense in our jurisdiction, whether it's in Grey county, whether Owen Sound's in or out, whether we're in four pieces or three pieces. It's all dependent on the variety of social and physical requirements. I can't say what an effective average size is going to be until we have them all and we know. And we'll run into problems in trying to determine that.
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If we really step back and try to redesign the municipal system, we have to begin to look at these historic borders, which make no sense other than to surveyors, to begin to look to our watersheds, look to our economic system, look to our transportation system and begin to define new borders which are exclusive of the old borders. If we're going to do it, let's do it right. The first principle is to figure out what really exists now, redraw the lines according to that and try to get rid of as much history as we can.
The Chair: I'd like to thank you, Mr Ferguson, for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee.
Mr Ferguson: Is that it? Is that half an hour?
The Chair: Yes, sir.
Mr Phillips: That's all there is.
Mr Ferguson: Thank you very much for having us.
CANADIAN AUTO WORKERS, LOCAL 1451
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL 677
The Chair: May I please have representatives from CAW Local 1451 and USWA Local 677 come forward. Good afternoon, gentlemen, and thank you for coming today to appear before the standing committee on general government. You have half an hour today to make your presentation. You may use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation for response and questions. I would appreciate if you'd both take the time at the beginning of your presentation to introduce yourselves for the benefit of Hansard and for the committee members.
Mr John Coleman: My name is John Coleman. I'm president of CAW Local 1451, which represents approximately 1,500 members at Budd Canada.
Mr John Cunningham: I'm John Cunningham, Local 677, USWA. I'm the president of that local. We represent 900 members.
Mr Coleman: I'd like to basically just generalize over the bill. I'm sure some of the speakers I've heard or the presenters I've heard have gone into specific areas, but the standpoint I'm coming from is really, I suppose, the autocratic and dictatorial way in which this bill seems to cover everything. That's basically where I'm coming from, so I'm generalizing on Bill 26 in general.
In generalization, this bill could drastically change the way people have received services and dealt with issues within their communities in the past. If and when this omnibus bill is passed the government, and in some situations the municipal government, can arbitrarily close hospitals, restructure communities, dictate where physicians can practise, establish fees for services, introduce new taxes, privatize health services, deregulate drug prices, limit access to government documents, and collect and disclose patient information, just to mention a few.
This arbitrary power is considered by its proponents as a necessity for the government to carry out its mandate. They give the impression that it will only be used if necessary, and that in many cases there will be debate and consultation within the Legislature and with the public.
One of the government's campaign promises -- they always seem to be telling us they're only doing what they said they would do -- was less government intervention. It is now becoming apparent that they only meant it in terms of the reduction of resources available, and deregulation and privatization of government services from a cost-reduction point of view only. They did not mean it from the perspective of centralized control and management over decisions that they deem to be in the interests of their agenda. Obviously, for them this kind of intervention is okay.
I'd just like to interject here that the gentleman who was up here from Grey county seemed to be comfortable with you people having that kind of power. I don't care what political stripe you are; I don't think any government or municipality should have that kind of power, no matter who they are.
I do not think that the majority of the 45% of Ontarians who voted for this government expected them to remove their democratic right to debate through our Legislature or public forums such as this so that they be given the opportunity to have some influence on the decisions that affect them. No matter which way you cut it, arbitrary decision-making in the hands of a few becomes autocratic and can eventually lead to dictatorship. Until proper, and I emphasize "proper," consultation is conducted with the people directly and indirectly affected by these changes, Bill 26 should be rejected in its entirety.
Many of the issues addressed in this bill have evolved over a period of time. There are obviously reasons why they were initiated. You cannot expect people to accept changes through arbitrary decisions. Change has to come through consultation and debate. People have to understand why those changes are being contemplated. Purely financial reasons should not be the ultimate criteria. There are other ways to achieve efficient and cost-effective programs, not just by cut-and-slash methods.
When we reflect on the actions that this government has implemented since it has been in power, everything has been forced through the Legislature with as little debate as possible. Even for this bill, they did not want the process we are participating in today. They had to be shamed into establishing these hearings. Hopefully, some of us who are presenting at these hearings will have some influence over the outcome of this bill. My sense is that to the majority this is a just a formality that they felt they had to implement and that subsequently there will be very few changes.
In closing, I wish to bring to your attention what I believe to be the scariest thing about this bill: that once it is passed, individual ministers, even without the knowledge of their own cabinet or caucus, will have far-reaching decisionary power, and on top of that any of those decisions that may have any legal connotations can be made without any repercussions to those individuals because they are given immunity from prosecution through amendments made in this bill to certain acts.
Think about this for a while. How many of us can make these decisions with the knowledge that we will not be made accountable through due process within the organizations we work for or are affiliated to? My guess is, very few of us, and rightly so. I appeal to all of you to give serious consideration before you give consent to this bill, and that is including you in power.
Mr Cunningham: Thank you for the opportunity to present and thank you to CAW Local 1451 and John Coleman for sharing their time today.
Our local, in its 35-year history, has had its factory bought and owned by carpetbaggers, stripped by corporate raiders and currently is owned by a company that could be considered a corporate cult by even the most right-wing businessperson. Through this, we have maintained a viable, flexible workforce with only one strike, for seven days, in 35 years. Yet in Bill 7 you would tell us our business and tell us that we must have secret votes, which we already have, yet you would carry on your votes in secret and your mandates in secret.
We have suffered through, in that 35 years, seeing the closure of the Strange Street plant throwing 1,400 people out of work. This local's historical ability to negotiate has kept a thriving business in this community when much of the rubber industry turned its back on Canada. So who's closed for business?
It's strange to see the Conservative government using closure legislation from the end of the NDP governance that they hooted and hollered about as the third party. I remember that the opposition members insisted this was a horrid abuse of power, that the NDP passed that legislation but never did use it. But it would appear that after reflection you enjoy power so much you created Bill 26 to round out that stable that Bill 7 started.
I will concentrate on some issues that John has not; however, everything John has said is the true common sense.
Schedule K: In society today, we all must sign away the ability for others to check the validity of claims that we would make in insurance, illness or accidents; we must sign and allow a full disclosure to justify our claims.
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Sometimes the investigations could be considered to be frivolous or vexatious; however, we recognize it as a check and balance, not nice when it's aimed at yourself, but necessary just the same. Our local has survived frivolous and vexatious inquiries and investigations from different government institutions and individuals. While being exonerated from wrongdoing, the experience has drained us financially and stressed us out. But we still recognize the right of those individuals and those institutions to inquire and challenge us on the rightness of our decisions.
We, as a union or as individuals, have the right to question you. To take away or weaken that right is clearly wrong. This government has already demonstrated a deaf ear on input and is busy collecting legislative power to make it a government whose actions are only by decree. The Information and Privacy Commissioner, Tom Wright, says measures would threaten the fundamental right of the people to know what is happening in their government and, further, that new fees will deter people from seeking out information.
From schedule G: When in opposition, you also screamed at the minister in power then for reviewing private health information, yet you now want that power. This is the omnibus oxymoron of the day. Like good politicians, you're speaking out of both sides of your mouth, which even Jean Chrétien avoids. At this rate, the government is moving with scorched earth policies that grab at concentrated power from lower levels of government at a time when the federal government is weakening federalism.
The freedom of information is a right to be protected at all costs. If your actions are so correct, then do not hide the light of truth is under bushel basket, but hold it up to the light for all to access and all to see.
Schedule L: It would be easy for our local, with no immediate effect to us, to overlook these parts of the act. Our local has been successful in returning $1.4 million in pension surplus wrongly taken from our members and also instrumental in returning $750,000 to Local 73 United Steelworkers of America members here in town. Our contract in 1991 was forced open under the threat of closure. These changes are an outright announcement of not honouring contracts and will strip public employees of pension rights that were duly bargained for at a time other benefits areas were ignored. They could have made other gains instead of pension enhancement. If you can't honour contracts with your employees -- and they are your employees -- who could trust you in a normal business affair?
Cruelty is making schedule L retroactive to January 1, 1993, the day the OPSEU plan was established. This is the second bum's rush on the OPSEU plan, as a court challenge on the specific terms of sponsorship agreement between OPSEU and the government by judicial review was successful. The override of funding on the commuted value or upon full or partial windup or upon termination robs those people of the benefit that their moneys could have earned elsewhere.
The Pension Benefits Act of Ontario provides for grow-in provisions that are just and right for a lifetime of service. Factoring now would also appear to be out the window. The override of schedule L will extend contractual rating "tools," as you optimistically call them, to pension plans for government of Ontario employees, GO Transit, Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Ontario Housing Corp and OPP officers. You're trying to go through the back door. Why would OPSEU plan members or members of the public service pension plan, in the face of this union genocide, practise anything but civil disobedience?
Bill 26 will exempt those acts from grow-in or unreduced pensions. The override of bridging benefits further denounces any thought of fairness. This schedule is highway robbery, along with Bill 7, and future legislation during your four years left. It is clear that our democratic state is for sale, and that is not the same as being open for business.
I was in the demonstration at the OFL that was turned away from Queen's Park and it's paramilitary buildup of some 16 prison buses, a mounted squad, a riot squad, indeterminate and plainclothes policemen. They were there in our honour, and we went peacefully on to Bay Street. It's this government that's spoiling for a fight, not labour. Labour was contractually open for business. You are dismantling the economy at a time when a global downturn threatens to turn into a full-fledge depression in Ontario with your push.
Schedule Q: People said that we in the private sector are whining over the new labour bill. This legislation will destroy the collective bargaining system, and both Bill 7 and this schedule complete the full circle. I'm sure the destruction of the pension statutes for all will be mirrored in legislation in the near future. You're using the Chicken Little syndrome of "The sky is falling" with the deficit to sell off the province. You're not brave enough to face the effects of your legislation, but instead propose laws that you call "tools" and allow anyone but yourselves to take the brunt of this upheaval.
Schedule M: This is wholly unacceptable and will take weeks to treat properly, as this whole bill will. The conservation authorities, which the previous man talked about, will be slashed by 70% yet are hamstrung by the fact that they cannot levy more. Be careful now. You want to impoverish us, overencumber free union affiliation, weaken health care to be unrecognizable, except to the extent that it will look like an American system. But unlike Marie Antoinette, who at least would have allowed us to eat cake, you'll leave us unhealthy, in the dark and in low-grade excrement just like a mushroom, and expect the economy to flourish. What is the plan for the next four years, with the economy dropping through the floor globally?
There's too much to comment, and all these comments are against your bill. This local phoned for standing as early as December 12. I understand there are four schedules. If you look upon the order of schedules, originally there was an open slot at 3:30. I believe that our local should have been slotted in at the earliness that we phoned. I believed, as I sat in the Legislature and watched the Legislature the night that the Liberals and the NDP rightly took over the Legislature and only forced these hearings before you tried to rush it through, that you are denying us democracy.
I thank you for the opportunity to present.
The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen. We have just over four minutes for questions. We'll start with Mr Cooke.
Mr Cooke: Just a couple of comments. First of all, I obviously agree with your concerns about the process. While I'm sure the government members are getting tired of listening to people express their concerns about the process, it's essential. Even if we can't get changes on this process, I hope the experience that the members of this committee from the Conservative side are having will prevent this process from ever being used again in the next four and a half years. I try to remain optimistic; I hope you are too.
I know we're not dealing here with the health side, but John referred at the beginning to the effects on the ODB, the Ontario drug benefit program, and the copayments. I talked to some folks in the CAW back in Windsor, and they said that perhaps one of the impacts is going to be that all of the retirees who are currently on the Ontario drug benefit program will come back on to the benefits that they have from the place they were originally working at, because in those cases it's 35 cents a prescription. That's going to have a dramatic impact on the cost of benefits for the various companies across the province, which will then come back to the bargaining table, where the companies will probably try to take back some benefits from the rest of the workers. So while a lot of people in the province may think this is only going to impact seniors or retirees, it could in fact have a substantial impact on younger workers as well. Has there been a discussion about that at all within the CAW?
Mr Coleman: Within our retirees' chapter, yes. We have close to 200 retirees, and that is one of the issues they are raising. We didn't get into details here simply because this was on the general bill and not on the medical.
Mr Cooke: I appreciate your comments on the public sector pension plan. They've been made several times. It looks like it could be anywhere between $200 million and $400 million that will be pulled out of the pension plan, which I must say almost makes Conrad Black -- and I believe that some of the regulations and law changes that were put in place were a result of his pulling money out of private sector pension plans -- look generous compared to what this government is attempting to do.
I also very much appreciated your comments about how the government tried to lecture the labour movement in Bill 7 about democratization. I hadn't really thought of that parallel. They can hardly give anyone else in the province a lecture on democratization when we've been going through the process we have on this bill and in the Legislature to just have adequate public hearings.
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I wondered, though, if there was anything else you wanted to add on the arbitration changes and ability to pay, because I think there still is a lot of misunderstanding. It seems like a reasonable thing to say an arbitrator has to consider ability to pay, but that's because I think there's a lot of people who don't understand the implications, if there's anything you might want to add. I understand you're private sector and not affected by this, but there are obviously many in the public sector, your brothers and sisters, who will be affected.
Mr Coleman: To be quite honest with you, David, I've gone over it and I don't fully understand this bill myself. We have other things to do as well within our local union and I haven't had the opportunity. We've gone by all the information we can, and based on that information, that's what we're taking to them. So I really can't answer; I don't know whether John can.
Mr Cunningham: It's obvious that the legislation on arbitration absolves all upper levels and that it's just a pass-down to the municipalities. As I said, they're going to have to bear the brunt because what it says is, if I set my budget, then there's no money. If I undercut and decide at this point that there is no money, then you're opening up contracts. That's exactly what you're doing. If you're at the negotiations time, you're setting an impossible precedent to negotiate. We recognize quite clearly, at least in the private sector -- I felt on the pensions I must speak for the public sector because I believe this is just union-busting in its purest and most simple form, and it'll come around for us. It will come to us and that's why I comment on their behalf.
The Chair: On the government caucus side, Mr Tascona.
Mr Tascona: I thank you for your presentation. I realize that the CAW has been very active. You're the second-largest union in this province, from what I understand, in the private sector. Certainly you have an accountability to your union members. You're very responsible towards them and represent them as best you can in these tough times, as we are. We're accountable to the taxpayers.
There's no doubt, let's be honest, we have a philosophical difference about how we should get the province's finances in order and what direction we should be taking.
Certainly dealing with such things as collective bargaining, you both have had experience in terms of negotiating agreements and also, it would appear, in dealing with closures and dealing with avoiding strikes in situations where you have to make the decision whether you want to call the members out or not. But certainly we're dealing with a situation where we're being faced with presentations in the public sector where they're saying ability to pay is not a factor; it's not something that should be considered in the public sector because if you award an increase in wages, it can be passed on to the public. That type of attitude doesn't sit well with me.
I would put it to you, if you're facing an employer and he said to you, "We can't pay you," I know exactly what your response would be. You'd say, "Well, why not? Let me see your financial books."
We're not trying to hide anything here. We do have the financial books to show the problems that we have in terms of a $1-million debt every hour that's increasing in charges and basically the debt that we have of $100 billion. How we can be fiscally responsible, how can we deal with the mess that we're in, if we're faced with a situation where we go to arbitration and arbitrators shouldn't have to look at ability to pay, yet in the private sector ability to pay is the key factor in wage disputes?
How can we deal with that and just say, "Well, we're going to let you do what you wish, Mr Arbitrator; you determine the services, you determine the wage increases," and we don't be responsible to the taxpayers, rather than making the local officials responsible, and the elected officials? After all, the whole theme here is being accountable to the taxpayers. It's like you're being accountable to your members and saying: "We did the best job we could. We tried to get the best that we could get for you in the situation."
Mr Cunningham: I'll draw the parallel that we just finished negotiations this spring and we were told that we needed rollbacks, that we needed lifetime caps on benefits, that we needed yearly caps on benefits, that there was no way to pay, that we must be competitive, that we were being beaten worldwide, yet we ship equipment worldwide for those competitors to beat the hell out of us.
In this situation, what you're going to do is shut down the factory and then say that we can't produce. If you shut down the factory, there's no product, so how are you going to make money to begin with? Those people spend taxes and they are part of the economy that you are dismantling.
Mr Tascona: We're not shutting down the government.
Mr Cunningham: You are not going to; you're going to allow the municipalities, after cutting all their grants, to shut down those employees.
Mr Tascona: But if you realize --
Mr Cunningham: If you want --
Mr Tascona: If you shut down the plant --
Mr Cunningham: Excuse me, but I think I had -- if you want to start, the first thing would be not by selling off the LCBO, which earns $260 million a year.
Mr Tascona: No decision's been made on that.
Mr Cunningham: I realize, but you're threatening it.
The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Tascona, but the government side's time is exhausted.
Mr Phillips: Just a comment and then a question. As one of the government members said earlier today, this bill is all about giving them the tools to implement the Common Sense Revolution. A key part of the Common Sense Revolution is they've got to find $14 million a day to fund the tax break. That's what the tax break will cost: $14 million a day. This is all about how they're going to find the savings to find $14 million a day for their tax break.
We do have representatives from two of our most sophisticated unions, if I can say that, and largest, steel and CAW. You two understand collective bargaining. Here's the situation with the pension, as we understand it. The government has indicated it's going to be significantly downsizing its number of public servants; 13,000 I think is the number they've used. They know that when they do that, by law the pensioners are entitled to certain benefits. They wanted to save at least $250 million of the pensioners' money. They tried to do it through passing a regulation. Anybody who thinks regulations are democratically debated doesn't understand regulations. These things are passed by cabinet and then on a Saturday published in the Gazette, and you've got to sort of search through it.
They tried through regulation. The union took them to court. The court said: "You are acting illegally. You can't do that."
So what we've got now is this schedule Q, which is a bill designed to exempt the government from the Pension Benefits Act that the provincial government passed. The provincial government passed this bill many years ago to protect pensioners. Strangely enough, the first group to be exempted is going to be the Ontario government exempting itself from the Pension Benefits Act to take $250 million of entitlements from these pension benefiters who are going to be laid off.
My question really is this. You have experience in the private sector. What would be the bargaining climate in your organization if your employer attempted to do that with your union? By the way, the contract bargaining is on right now, as we speak, with the Ontario public sector.
Mr Coleman: Very, very hostile. We have a pension agreement, and under the collective agreement we're entitled to those benefits. We have a 30-and-out agreement. You could say that's very costly. If a person starts at 18 years old in our plant, he can retire with full benefits at 58.
Mr Cooke: Forty-eight.
Mr Coleman: Sorry: 48. Thanks, David. I'm thinking of myself; I'm retiring at 58.
If those things were taken away -- and I don't fully understand a private sector pension; obviously I don't know all the ins and outs -- it would be very hostile.
But can I take a moment? I'd like to respond to Mr Tascona. I'd like to respond to that and I didn't get a chance for that. Do you mind if I do that?
Mr Phillips: He does, but I don't.
Mr Coleman: At the plant that I work at, Budd Canada, they have productivity problems too, and they're being squeezed by what we call the OEMs to reduce their prices, and they cannot pass costs now on to them. So as a private sector we have to look at ways of increasing productivity and improving efficiency. I don't know for the life of me why you can't do that with your unions. That's one.
The other thing I've got is, you're talking about deficit reduction. One of the largest pieces that you have to pay out, and I believe Kenny Lewenza of Local 444 mentioned this too, is you have $5 billion that you're going to give back to us, and I will benefit partially by that because I'm in the $60,000-a-year-plus range. I will partially benefit by that. But why the hell would you not pay that off of the debt, and at least that's $5 billion now that you will not have to pay interest on? Why aren't you looking at things like that?
Why didn't you look at some form of tax reform and closing some of the loopholes for some of the wealthier and the multinational corporations? I'm not talking small businesses; I'm talking these multinational corporations. You don't want to touch any of that, you don't even look at that, because to you it's a no-no. You can't do that because they'll threaten to leave the province.
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Mr Young: Many have.
Mr Coleman: No, no, I disagree. I disagree entirely.
The Vice-Chair: We're out of time now, sorry. Thanks very much.
Interjection: Do I still get my question?
The Vice-Chair: We're out of time.
Mr Gerretsen: You said it a lot better than I ever could. Thank you.
Interjections.
The Vice-Chair: Thanks very much. We appreciate that. And I agree that you could say it much better.
KITCHENER PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD
The Vice-Chair: Our next presenters are the Kitchener Public Library. We have Peggy Walshe, chief executive officer. Thanks very much for coming to present here today. Can you just introduce yourselves, please.
Ms Peggy Walshe: I just came from the budget wars of city council, so this looks very familiar.
My name is Peggy Walshe. I'm CEO of the Kitchener Public Library. I'd like to introduce Mr Bruce MacNeil, the chairman of our board, who will do the presentation, and Mr Eric Bow. We also have two representatives of the Cambridge Public Library, who have just arrived. Our issues pertaining to governance of public libraries are representative of Kitchener Public Library, Waterloo Public Library and Cambridge Public Library. Some of you will have received the document. I wasn't sure how many people were attending. I apologize.
The Vice-Chair: We all have a copy distributed.
Ms Walshe: Mr MacNeil will present on our behalf.
Mr Bruce MacNeil: As Peggy mentioned, I'm here as chair of the Kitchener board and am presenting on behalf of members of the Waterloo and Cambridge public boards. We're talking about Bill 26, schedule M, section 210.4 of the act, which proposes the dissolution of the local boards. By definition, public library boards fall within this section of the bill.
At present, public libraries in Ontario are regulated by the Public Libraries Act, 1984. The creation of a board is subject to specific terms and conditions which emphasize representation from the community it serves, and that includes representation from both school boards, representatives from city council and community representatives approved by city council. Public library boards are a little different from other boards and commissions governments have set up over the years. They're run by volunteers as part of the community and do not have independent financial control over library budgets.
The public libraries are, in our opinion, very effectively and economically managed. A public library's budget estimates must be submitted to council, which approves and amends the budget, which is then adopted by the library board. While authority for the expenditure of moneys voted by municipal councils rests with the public library board, boards adapt administrative, financial and planning policies consistent with those of the municipal council.
Public library activity in our region is really significant. For example, our library had over one million visits in 1995. Cambridge Public Library has had 500,000 for the same period. Cambridge has 55,000 current members of its library, while Kitchener has approximately 101,000.
Why is this significant? Given the diversities and sheer numbers of people using these facilities, public library boards ensure that issues relating to the selection of materials and intellectual freedom can be dealt with at arm's length from the pressures of the electoral process. Intellectual freedom is a fundamental principle of our society, and its protection from political wishes is essential.
As charitable organizations, public libraries, through the efforts of their boards, are also instrumental in fund-raising. Were the public library to become a city department, we believe that few people would give freely of their money and time.
In 1995 alone, the Kitchener Public Library board members attended over 40 board, committee and special meetings, each of its nine members contributing between 80 and 120 volunteer hours. Through the efforts of the board members and the expertise that they have, the library has developed a 10,000-square-foot extension responsive to the community.
The board has also completed a new strategic plan which sets the direction of the library for the next three years. The development of this plan is one that took the largest part of the past year and involved each of the members of the board and also library representatives and others meeting with various community groups. Being detached from the political electoral process catalysed free and open discussions with the communities the library serves. That was something that was really special over the past year. We did meet with an awful lot of people and there was a lot of community involvement.
To summarize:
Library boards are unpaid.
Library boards are comprised of community representatives committed to public library service.
Library board members donate hundreds of hours of their time.
Libraries are subject to municipal funding, checks and balances.
Library boards protect intellectual freedom and ensure balanced, community-responsive materials selection.
Library boards foster fund-raising and advocacy.
It's important to note that some Progressive Conservative MPPs, like Gerry Martiniuk of Cambridge, do not support the dissolution of library boards.
Mr Gerretsen: That's interesting.
Mr Cooke: He's got to vote against the bill, then.
Mr MacNeil: In a letter to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs parliamentary assistant, Ernie Hardeman, Mr Martiniuk states: "As you know, the local library boards are a no-cost item as they are staffed by volunteers and in addition, the library budgets are established and controlled by the local council. I believe it is important that these independent no-cost boards are continued to preserve our library service."
To quote my colleague Mr Horton, chairman of the Cambridge Public Library board, "We survived the Great Depression without having to eliminate public library boards; surely we can also deal with the problems ahead of us without setting in motion the mechanism for their demise."
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. I apologize for any interruptions while you were speaking. Between the parties we have at this time about seven minutes each, and we start with the government party.
Mr Young: With regard to accountability, and what we're trying to do is let local municipalities have a little more accountability, or hopefully a lot more accountability, to the voters and the taxpayers, we've seen in Burlington a few weeks ago where the father of Leslie Mahaffy begged them to take a ghoulish and inaccurate book off the shelves about his daughter's torture and murder, and they turned him down. To me, that was the epitome of not being responsive to the community. There were even local councillors making presentations to the library board, and they still turned them down.
I have a lot of faith in local officials in my town -- I live in Oakville -- that they will be accountable to the public. I don't think they will disband the library boards. I think there will be changes.
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I wanted to ask you, with regard to change, as libraries become more a source of information in society -- I go to the library now and I'm a big user. You can get books but there's a toy-lending library, there are tapes, there are videotapes, there are compact discs. They're even offering access to the Internet now. What kinds of core services do you see us protecting so that they're universally available regardless of income, regardless of your financial status, and what kinds do you think we might end up charging for?
Ms Walshe: I know where this is going and where it's coming from. It's the other section of the bill. I attended the Ontario Library Association and voted against some of the concerns of my fellow members, partially because there was a discussion about the idea of core services pertaining only to things like prints and perhaps not other things.
Personally, I believe information lives in whatever environment it lives in, be it on line, be it the Internet, be it CD-ROM or whatever. The way people use it and how they access it is more important, and therefore I don't feel that charging for one material versus the other is very productive. I think, however, that you're right, that there is a whole issue of how do you protect what is core and what is important? Certainly, in our community here we have differing opinions on that, and things that we're wrestling with have to do with what is a fee-based service, as an example; the ability to pay, for instance, the business community in providing on-line refereed information --
Mr Young: We have that in my library, yes.
Ms Walshe: We're setting one up. Access to more remote sources that are not immediately available on site might be a condition of things that are not core or "ability to pay," because we have to access them remotely. However, there is the discussion of whether core includes membership fees or not, and certainly in this region we don't have solid agreement on that approach.
Mr Young: We hear a lot of fearmongering that children won't be able to get books, which I think is a source of stress and it's unnecessary. Would you agree that the issue is that people have access to information, that it's less important how we finance it?
Ms Walshe: Of course, that's my profession. Access to information is pretty important. I think some people have a greater ability to pay than others and I'm certainly one of those individuals who doesn't believe in dinging kids. Certainly, having come from budget discussions this morning, I know at the municipality there is an interest in charging all kinds of things, and unfortunately children are one of those groups. We of course have not discussed the issue of user fees. We can't be taken singly in the consideration of what is core and what you charge user fees for. I think you look collectively at the society, and if children are getting dinged a whole lot for a whole bunch of things, then maybe we as a society have a lot of questions to ask.
Mr Young: I agree and I don't think that's going to happen.
Ms Walshe: After being at the meeting I was at this morning, I would question that.
Mr Martiniuk: Peggy, I wonder if you'd just elaborate a little bit on the arrangement with CODA, the Community Opportunities Development Association, that Minister Tsubouchi is aware of and our government is aware of. It's a major initiative and it's quite innovative and I'm sure that it could be a model that could be used throughout the province. I wonder, in light of our discussions, if you could elaborate on that initiative with KPL.
Ms Walshe: With the fund-raising foundation?
Mr Martiniuk: Yes.
Ms Walshe: Actually, it's an excellent question; it segues very nicely. I came from a federal government environment where cost recovery was important, so I came in with a different kind of mindset than a lot of individuals in my business.
However, one thing that became apparent prior to my time was the need to fund-raise, and what we did in that regard was to create a foundation. There was an individual foundation, that is, on the side of the Kitchener library, and its purpose is basically to raise money in order to offset the cost of loss of money, say, through other sources. That's how we started. We run the Kitchener Public Library government book store and that's one initiative we're trying to make available.
We now have got into an arrangement with CODA. It's a superb relationship, as I see it. There was an interest in setting up a coffee shop as part of our services, with the new extension, and we went to tender. The best proposal that came forward was from CODA. We saw it as an absolutely wonderful opportunity to help get people back into the workforce through a training environment, and everything was on an equal footing with others. We're helping these individuals, we're getting a little bit of funding from the profits of the coffee shop, and we're providing a service to our public. It is working out very well.
We're looking at other kinds of initiatives not unlike that sort of thing to help us raise money, and again, the money raised through that will go to the foundation for library services. But we're very new at this and we're one of the only libraries doing this.
Mr Gerretsen: Just so I'm clear, what percentage of your total library budget did you raise by fund-raising?
Ms Walshe: Absolutely minimal.
Mr Gerretsen: Like what, 1%?
Ms Walshe: The coffee shop initiative just started in September, so we've perhaps raised a couple of thousand dollars.
Mr Gerretsen: So we're talking about something very small.
Ms Walshe: Very small. We do get donations from people passing on, bequests etc, but these are not great gobs of money, no.
Mr Gerretsen: The suggestion seems to be that somehow we can get corporations to do a lot of this fund-raising. I think there's a total lack of understanding. There's already an awful lot of fund-raising going on in just about every community. Having been involved in and chaired a number of fund-raising efforts in my own community, I think the fund-raising side is almost stretched beyond imagination, and to suggest that we should fund-raise for core services, if they're regarded as core services, is simply not realistic.
Ms Walshe: I would agree in the sense that having promoted a foundation, actually having set one up, and having spoken to a number of organizations in this community alone who are interested in setting up foundations -- someone put it very bluntly to me. They said, "You realize, Peggy, that public libraries are up against the disease and kids' foundations." So we will be challenged, no doubt, and there are a lot of foundations and charitable things going on now.
However, what I think we believe as a board is that our city councils have a fundamental responsibility to fund library services at least in some basic way, simply because the tax base is such that it does so; that is, we have so much money per capita, per household, that goes to this service so that a household should feel free to come to a library.
Mr Gerretsen: The real fear, of course, is that municipalities have been asking for these powers for the last 20 or 25 years and this is finally an opportunity that's been opened up to them because of the lack of financing coming through from the province, and there are some municipalities that will just do away with library boards immediately. There's no question about that in my mind.
Ms Walshe: I would be concerned that perhaps what's happened in the omnibus is that the idea of boards being eliminated is addressing concerns about other kinds of boards, which may be holding up cost-cutting or policy issues or that these are paid members of boards etc. We're dealing with a lot of money, and if indeed Mr Harris's agenda is to save money, perhaps look where the money is. In our case, our boards don't get anything.
Mr Phillips: It's very clear to us, and I think even the government would acknowledge, that it has negotiated with AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. They've dramatically cut the grants, but they said, "We'll give you all these other powers." Even AMO's brief said:
"We understand that the government is considering regulations.... The purpose of this legislation is to provide greater autonomy to municipal governments, not less. Regulations restricting our capacity to manage will counter that intention. The example of library boards is a good one. An exemption for library boards would be totally unacceptable and would seriously undermine the intent of this bill."
In other words, they are saying to the government: "You promised you would eliminate library boards. You've got to live up to that commitment." My question to you is, and I'm sure you've talked to other library boards around the province, have you had any indication at all from the government that it is considering backing off on the commitment it seems to have made to AMO, and to exempt library boards from that?
Ms Walshe: We know that the ministry that's representing libraries is negotiating on behalf of public libraries -- and there is a whole bunch of us -- to be exempt from the condition in the bill. I think it's perceived maybe as a temporary measure. However, I think the reason library boards are negotiating so hard is that we have a fundamental principle: "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" We've already taken provincial cuts, in our case $95,000 this year, $95,000 next year, then I go to council and I'm lined up for some more cuts.
I feel that at the board we need to have some decision-making on how we are going to realize this, and it isn't done through the electoral process.
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Mr Phillips: I understand that. I think the problem you run into is that this was a piece of negotiation between the government and AMO, and you were one of the bargaining chips.
Ms Walshe: We weren't consulted.
Mr Phillips: It's unfortunate. Frankly, I find it unfortunate that we're dealing with an item this significant as probably one of a hundred equally -- with all due respect to library boards, as important as you are, there are another 99 equally important issues. Originally we were all trying to deal with this in two weeks from start to finish. Now this will be law on January 29, and according to AMO, they would find it unacceptable if the government backed off on a promise they made, so unfortunately I find the library boards are caught in the trap.
Someone over here mentioned scaremongering, that there's scaremongering going on. Well, I think it's unfair to accuse Mel Lastman of scaremongering. I just think it's beneath the Legislature's dignity to accuse the mayor of a major community of scaremongering. I will certainly ensure that he hears about this, that he's being accused of scaremongering. But he's indicated that certainly, because he's faced with a financial problem, he is going to put fees on library services. He's indicated that we shouldn't worry too much because he thinks he can find enough corporate sponsors around to ensure that -- he calls them "underprivileged children" --
The Vice-Chair: We are out of time. Next to the opposition.
Ms Walshe: I wish I were in North York, sir.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Cooke, it's your turn, unless you want Mr Phillips to continue.
Mr Cooke: Oh, I think Gerry's made his point. The last time I gave him time he raised the social contract.
Mr Sampson: So let's give him a few more minutes.
Mr Cooke: I just have a couple of questions. One would be back on what I've asked other representatives who have come to us from the library boards. I've just been thinking, as you've been talking, that from my time in the Ministry of Education I became familiar with more of the programs that were offered, especially to younger kids, in our library system.
I've just been trying to think -- if some of those programs have to be cut because of lack of resources, then we may in fact be shifting some of those costs over to our schools; or if the schools, because of their cuts, can't pick any of it up, then we're going to have more difficulties. We will then have to offer remedial programs later on because kids haven't had ample opportunity to develop some early literacy skills, which quite frankly we don't do a good enough job of now to be cutting back in that area at all. I don't know.
I don't want you to have to take sides here. I guess that would be referred to as scaremongering. But maybe you could just comment.
Ms Walshe: Certainly, I think it's a very real concern. We do know that the heads of our school boards are confronted with cuts, and one thing that was discussed was the delivery of library service. Of course, needless to say, that puts some fear in us because, again, public libraries have never served public library curriculum.
I have been approached by a number of people in my community, and these are parents, who have said: "If, for instance, they cut school library service, I'm not going to let my kids walk down to the public library on their own. I can't do that." Equally, we say: "We get a thousand of kids a week. We have so many kids. We couldn't handle it." Certainly, we couldn't in terms of cost.
We've talked with the heads of our school boards about this, our real concern: How are we going to do this? Regardless of political wishes or anything else, the main thing is to make sure our kids are literate. There are studies that show that when they learn and they read earlier, they do much better in society and contribute better to society. I have a fundamental concern, not only for our community but for my own child, that if these things aren't available, then what problems will we deal with later on? So again, it is a concern.
Mr Cooke: I was actually amazed when I went into one of the branch libraries in my riding -- I was a sceptic -- to see the library just filled with kids when they have the reading programs in the summer. It's not a luxury. I think it actually saves us money in the long run by exposing very young kids to being read to at a young age.
Just on the fund-raising for a second -- and I don't know whether this applies to libraries -- I've been told, certainly in other sectors, the health care sector in particular, that when you go out and try to raise money for a foundation or whatever, you're not very often going to get people, either when they pass away, in their wills, or corporations or anyone else, who are going to donate for operating expenses. It's got to be for capital.
Ms Walshe: Absolutely.
Mr Cooke: So this isn't really going to be an answer for some of the day-to-day expenses of libraries.
Ms Walshe: I would agree. Indeed, in some of the research we've been doing in setting up our foundation we found that people are more willing to donate not only to, say, capital projects like buildings but usually one-shot deals. They're going to look at a project that attracts them. If they're interested in technology, they may be interested in donating a PC or whatever. That indeed is a fundamental problem for libraries.
Just to keep us going on a normal basis we need essential funding; to do anything new, perhaps we can look at fund-raising initiatives. Indeed, our foundation is looking at just that. But the items that we've got listed are things to move us along in response to the demand for technology, for basic new collections in international collections which we don't have, a PC centre. Our users are saying, "We need to have this stuff in the library because we don't have it." They need access to a community network. They need everything. Some of them are defined as core. I would; someone else would say it isn't core. We all differ on that. But you're quite right that we're looking at projects.
Mr Cooke: Just one final comment. I think you've brought home to me that we need to do some work on the cumulative impact on kids. We can talk about library services here, we can talk about cuts in other areas that are impacting on kids, but the cumulative impact on children is something that I think either a committee of the Legislature -- or work needs to be done in the government, because it simply is overwhelming.
If I have a minute left, Mr Phillips can have it.
Mr Martiniuk: Mr Chairman, on a point of order: On January 5, 1996, I wrote to the Chairman of this committee, simply because I didn't know how to contact the subcommittee, requesting that the committee reconsider its decision to not let the Grand River Conservation Authority appear to make a presentation. I have not heard a result of that letter, so I have undertaken with the Grand River Conservation Authority to deposit with this committee its brief of January 9, 1996, which concludes:
"We strongly recommend that the proposed amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act be changed to provide a mechanism to allow the member municipalities to agree on a majority basis to services and levies other than flood control."
That's signed by the chairman. I'll be filing that with the clerk.
The Chair: Thanks very much, Mr Martiniuk.
Mr Phillips: I'd like to point out, also on a point of order, that I feel badly for the Grand River Conservation Authority and I also feel badly for the other 35 groups that wanted to be here today to present. In every community we go into, there's the same problem.
The Vice-Chair: That's not a point of order, Mr Phillips.
Mr Gerretsen: Neither was his.
The Vice-Chair: This committee is adjourned until 9 am tomorrow in Niagara Falls.
The committee adjourned at 1720.