FEWER POLITICIANS ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 RÉDUISANT LE NOMBRE DE DÉPUTÉS
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE
CONTENTS
Thursday 7 November 1996
Fewer Politicians Act, 1996, Bill 81, Mr David Johnson / Loi de 1996 réduisant le nombre de députés, projet de loi 81, M. David Johnson
Mr David Austin
Ontario Federation of Agriculture
Mr Ken Kelly
Ms Gael Hepworth
Mr John Sewell
Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Mr Paul Pagnuelo
Dr Graham White
Citizens for Public Justice
Mr Gerald Vandezande
Mr Bill Green
Dr Robert MacDermid
Mr Chris Climo
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT
Chair / Président: Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls PC)
*Mr JackCarroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
*Mr HarryDanford (Hastings-Peterborough PC)
Mr JimFlaherty (Durham Centre / -Centre PC)
*Mr BernardGrandmaître (Ottawa East / -Est L)
*Mr ErnieHardeman (Oxford PC)
Mr RosarioMarchese (Fort York ND)
*Mr BartMaves (Niagara Falls PC)
Mrs SandraPupatello (Windsor-Sandwich L)
*Mrs LillianRoss (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)
*Mr MarioSergio (Yorkview L)
Mr R. GaryStewart (Peterborough PC)
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre / -Centre PC)
*Mr LenWood (Cochrane North / -Nord ND)
*Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre / -Centre PC)
*In attendance /présents
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr SteveGilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC) for Mr Flaherty
Mr TonyMartin (Sault Ste Marie ND) for Mr Marchese
Mr John R. O'Toole (Durham East / -Est PC) for Mr Tascona
Mr JosephSpina (Brampton North / -Nord PC) for Mrs Ross (afternoon)
Also taking part /Autres participants et participantes:
Mr RosarioMarchese (Fort York ND)
Clerk / Greffière: Ms Lynn Mellor
Staff / Personnel: Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Legislative Research Service
Mr Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1003 in committee room 1.
FEWER POLITICIANS ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 RÉDUISANT LE NOMBRE DE DÉPUTÉS
Consideration of Bill 81, An Act to reduce the number of members of the Legislative Assembly by making the number and boundaries of provincial electoral districts identical to those of their federal counterparts and to make consequential amendments to statutes concerning electoral representation / Projet de loi 81, Loi visant à réduire le nombre des députés à l'Assemblée législative en rendant identiques le nombre et les limites des circonscriptions électorales provinciales et fédérales et à apporter des modifications corrélatives à des lois concernant la représentation électorale.
The Chair (Mr Jack Carroll): Good morning. Welcome to public hearings on Bill 81. A couple of housekeeping things first of all: You have had placed in front of you the minutes of the subcommittee meeting where we outlined how the business of this committee would be conducted during these hearings. We need a motion to adopt it, please.
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): So moved.
The Chair: Any questions on the subcommittee report? All those in favour of adoption? Opposed? The subcommittee report has been adopted.
As you know, we're on a bit of a tight time schedule here. Our scheduling for Ottawa and London will continue as long as spots are available. So we're still accommodating the people who are calling in as long as spots are available. If we're going to be in a place, we may as well be busy.
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): Mr Chair, we were supposed to get a list of witnesses for Ottawa and London. Is this list ready?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Lynn Mellor): They're only being finalized 24 hours prior to the meeting, so I won't have Ottawa's until at least 5 o'clock tonight and I won't have London's finalized for release until Friday, because of the way it's set up in the subcommittee.
Mr Grandmaître: Can you provide us with -- I know it's not final -- how many phone calls or letters, how many requests you have received?
Clerk of the Committee: If it's the wish of the committee, I can give you what I've got. Everyone who has communicated with the committee to date has had a call go out to them. If it's the wish of the committee, I'll provide that for you when we come back this afternoon.
The Chair: Is that fine, Mr Grandmaître?
Mr Grandmaître: Yes.
The Chair: Since we are on a relatively tight time schedule, we will continue to fill in spots as they are available. I have had at least one written request, and there have been a couple of other verbal requests, to allow members of the Legislature to appear before the committee. It's an unusual request. It's something we should talk about. We have an opening before lunch today, so we'll defer that particular issue until then.
Mr Grandmaître: Until when?
The Chair: We have an opening at 11:40, so we'll discuss that issue before we break for lunch.
DAVID AUSTIN
The Chair: Our first presenter is David Austin. Good morning and welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes to use as you see fit. Any time you allow for questions will be shared among the three caucuses and will begin with the Liberals. The floor is yours.
Mr David Austin: Good morning. I'm here as an individual citizen. However, I will expand that a little to say that I have done my own review of my own constituents. That means the folks on the golf course, the people I know in business and my general friends and neighbours. The words I have here represent a netting down of their feelings about this proposal, Bill 81.
Just a word of personal background so that you understand a little where I'm coming from: I was born in the early 1930s and have childhood recollections of a very tight monetary situation within my household and the place I was born, England itself. I obviously came through the war years, and the war years taught me another lesson, which was that food is not a right, food is something you are lucky to get in some cases, some people. I think that's very obvious in Africa today. Just to give you an idea, I have some rather hard lessons that my thoughts and views may express. You may see those buried in it.
I've been 30 years in industry. I was then asked if I would like to retire, one of those early people at the end of that revolution when all was free and everybody could afford everything; again, a little impact on my thought process. A working sort of person, an air frame technician, I worked on the Argus aircraft at Canadair, through computer software specialist with International Business Machines and 15 years of management in that company.
What all that has led me to is what I feel is a deep-seated belief that you cannot spend what you don't have and that you have to do a job well. If you do a job, if you propose to take on a job, that job should be done to the best possible ability, but only within the resources you have. That seems to be the real nut of the whole thing.
If you put the two together, my entire experience in business and industry as a working person is that there are only so many resources. Those resources must be placed on the highest-priority needs, and my opinion is that in this world, in the political world, those are health and education. I have two children, I have grandchildren, and it's imperative to me that health and education, particularly education, are kept in the best order possible, using as many resources as can be done.
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When you use those resources, you must use them in the most efficient way, and that leads me, of course, into Bill 81. I've looked a little at the back history. I'm aware that the number of members in the House has gone from 90 in 1957 to 130 in 1987, with obviously a more or less equivalent increase in the number of residents within Ontario. However, the way that was done, if I have a slight perception, is that the increase in members was done to lower the number of constituents in the fast-growing areas within Ontario; not an unreasonable thing to do, on the surface. We've reached the point now where expenditure limits the ability to do that.
There is also a philosophical problem, and I'll talk to the philosophical one first. I believe very strongly that each citizen or voter should have an equal-value vote. That, to me, is absolutely basic to democracy; within reason, as far as it can be driven. The second one, of course, is that any government must avoid unnecessary expenditures and must streamline as much as possible so that the resources can be put where they give the most leverage to the population. Let me address each of those.
The equal-value vote, as I call it: Today, if I understand correctly, my vote is worth about 25% of a vote in the smallest riding in Ontario. I come from a constituency that is quite large, and I'm aware of the smallest riding. That does two things. It's a real problem in that it disfranchises me to some degree. My vote, my opinions and my background are not reflected in my government as they could be, albeit in a minor way.
The other one is the perceived problem, and the perceived problem is probably the biggest part because a large part of politics is perception. The perception is one of being cheated. The perception is that if a government gets in that I don't like, I have been robbed of my chance to prevent that from happening. No partisan message here at all; it's just a fact that this perception can be out there in all people, and it's something that needs to be addressed. In my discussions with my associates that came out as possibly one of the largest problems.
For purposes of discussion on what could be done about this, let me break Ontario down into urban, rural and rural north constituencies. In the urban constituencies, if you reduce the number of members from 130 to 103, the impact on the voters in the urban areas is relatively minor. The additional workload to the MPPs, or to the riding associations which have to try to get those MPPs into office, is not that much tougher. It is a few more streets to walk, a few more houses to call on, but there isn't really a problem.
In the rural ridings, it begins to show some concern because of the growth in the area, the distances you have to travel. Obviously, I will go on from that to the northern ridings, which can become quite large. I'm aware of the size those ridings will move to; I've studied the maps.
One of the things I did in business was to organize a support organization within the business community in which I worked, International Business Machines, computer hardware and software, which would work to support all of Canada, the Caribbean, South America, Australia and Japan. It was not an easy task. It took some significant effort and some very key people with unusual skills to put together something that would do that. That was done in a process which would, through organization and technology, allow communication and problem-solving -- all those sorts of things I believe an MPP has to do. He has to be reachable by his community, by his constituents. He has to solve those problems and get resolutions in place.
If we look at that organization and technology, I've talked to some of the MPPs and some of the riding offices. Multiple riding offices, suboffices and volunteers to run those suboffices are obvious ones being done today. Clearly they will have to be enlarged for those large ridings up in the north.
Use of call centres: I have a degree of closeness to those in that my daughter works for a call centre that operates for many businesses. I have discussed this with her and she agrees with me that a small segment of a call centre could be bought by an MPP or by a riding association, and that call centre would provide the appropriate ability to communicate between the MPP and his constituents.
Other thoughts come to mind. Modified hours of sitting of the House: Clearly the folks who have to work the ridings in the north need a little longer time than the folks who live in Toronto. Sit longer in the evenings Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, take Thursday afternoon off, and you're on your way back to your riding -- those sorts of things.
Special cost allowances must be built into the system without the sometimes unfortunate appearance that MPPs are getting something for nothing. We have to support those MPPs who are carrying these larger ridings.
Then you get into the cellular phones, the radio phones, e-mail and the Internet. The e-mail/Internet area is exploding and I'm convinced that it can be used.
The other point I wanted to talk about was the actual avoidance of money, of cost. Let's address that very quickly. Ontario will no longer need to run an office which has to coordinate and work on and assess riding sizes. The reduction of 27 MPPs and staff; the real estate requirements for those people; operational costs of heat, light, phone and copiers; shared voters' lists -- I've looked at the amount that the government has suggested it might save per year: $11 million, $400,000 per MPP. I think they're way too low, personally. As a businessperson, I can see many costs behind each MPP that would explode it much higher than that.
If we look at that $11 million -- just accept that -- that is 2,200 Ontario taxpayers, average-type taxpayers, $5,000 a year, who could use their money somewhere else. I'd like to look at it in that way. I see the folks in this room as people who are the medium between myself as a taxpayer and the programs that are necessary out there to keep Ontario healthy and growing.
The summary comes down to, if you like, common sense. Voters and taxpayers will understand this change; there's no question. Everyone I've talked to has said yes, it's the right thing to do. It will give more equitable representation, it will give a significant deficit reduction -- doing the same job for less -- and it will clearly represent less debt for my children and my grandchildren. None of the people I discussed this with, or myself, can see any real downside risk to this change at all.
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Mr Grandmaître: Thank you, Mr Austin, for being with us this morning. I agree with you that we have to do the same job with fewer resources. If I understood your presentation, you're saying, "Use the technology that's available to MPPs to serve your constituents."
We don't know what the government intends to do. I realize that there will be some savings. We don't know the actual dollars, because we haven't gone into the issue in depth. What's happening in Ontario is that we are going through some serious changes; you mentioned education, health and many others. I agree that those changes are necessary, but at the same time MPPs should be given the tools to represent their people adequately when they're faced with these major changes. I still believe our constituents should be part of the decision-making process.
What we have before us today, especially in northern Ontario, is that many of our MPPs will not be able to serve their constituents adequately for the simple reason that you cannot travel 350 kilometres one way and 350 kilometres the other way to cover your entire riding.
We all believe redistribution is necessary. We don't agree we should be using the federal model. It should be a made-in-Ontario model that would represent our constituents and constituencies.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): Thank you for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. You're saying, because you have two children of your own, that health and education are very important for our future. We're talking about $11 million in savings. During the election campaign Mike Harris was saying that referendum was the way to go, that we should have referendums on major issues. We haven't seen any yet. But if you do one referendum a year, you're talking about $23 million to $24 million, compared to $11 million in savings for having fewer politicians.
The area I represent has four different languages, a number of different cultures and is huge -- before this bill came forward it was bigger than a lot of countries -- to be represented by one person. Now another 50,000 in population is to be added on to that particular riding. Do you think this is fair for a local member of Parliament? On one hand, you're going to save $11 million. On the other hand, just one referendum is going to be $23 million or more.
Mr Austin: I don't think I can speak to the referendum situation. That should only be used in very select situations. You people were elected to do the job you said you were going to do. We have to leave you with that responsibility.
But let me address the distances, which I may be able to help both of you with. Obviously, when I started developing this huge system that was needed across continents, there were breakthroughs that had to be made in a technological way. Money had to be spent to accomplish it. I personally feel that some fair portion of the first year's savings in this case would have to be plowed back in to allow each of you MPPs to represent your ridings in a fair way that gives those constituents the ability to get to you.
Mr Gilchrist: I'd like to thank you for a very thorough presentation. Indeed, we have gone through many bills where there are nothing but groups that come before us, and I'd like to applaud you coming as an individual. Certainly you appear to have done your homework in all of this.
I'd just like to clarify for the purposes of the sort of summarization we do with the groups that come forward, that your position or your basic premise is that, given our limited resources, money should go where it is most needed. Would I be fair in saying that you believe it's more important that $11 million goes to health or education than to MPPs' salaries?
Mr Austin: No question, absolutely.
Mr Gilchrist: I guess the second point is the merit of representation by population. You used the statistic of 25% of the value. Actually, I should bring to your attention that right now there is a disparity of as much as 400% between the smallest riding and the largest riding in terms of population, and while members opposite like to tell us about the geography, on the flip side we have ridings today, under the terribly unfair distribution of population we've inherited, that have a greater population than some provinces. There are ridings that have more people than Prince Edward Island, which has 27 sitting MPPs, or MLAs as they call them, to represent them. I hardly think that's fair. Do you believe it's fair to the people in ridings like Markham and York Centre that they have an MPP who has to do literally five times the work of some of the northern members?
Mr Austin: No, clearly not. That is also totally unrepresentative.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Austin. We appreciate your input this morning.
Mr Austin: Thank you for your time.
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE
The Chair: Our next presenter is Ken Kelly, vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. Good morning, Mr Kelly. Welcome to our committee. You will have 20 minutes. Should you leave any time for questions at the end, they would begin with the third party, the New Democrats. The floor is yours, sir.
Mr Ken Kelly: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I would like to clarify: Is that 20 minutes plus questions or 20 minutes including questions?
The Chair: It's 20 minutes including questions.
Mr Kelly: Then, if I might get down to business, I'm going to ask that we enter on the record the presentation we've had handed out to you. That will absolve us from the need to read it. If I could make a few comments, then we can get right to some questions, if that's acceptable.
The Chair: Yes, sir. The members of the committee will be sure to read your presentation.
Mr Kelly: As many of you know, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture represents some 40,000 farmers and farm families across Ontario. Of course, by definition, those are people from agricultural and rural areas. You've heard a number of times from our organization and many other organizations over the years about the value of the industry of agriculture economically and in creating wealth and jobs in this province. We have a substantial interest not only in this province, but in the way this province operates and the access that we have to government and our ability to work with government to provide a climate to continue to stimulate our economy and then to provide a tax base we can all benefit from.
It would appear from the information we have at this time that the percentage of rural seats is going to drop from about 25% to 18%, and it would seem then that agriculture's voice and rural Ontario's voice is going to be somewhat diminished and somewhat muted if we go ahead with the redistribution in the way we're talking about.
Historically, we have had a model of distribution in this province that's based on representation by population, but it has been modified for distance, for convenience and the ability to communicate, not only for the elected people but for the people of the constituency.
I would note here as an aside that we're looking at a rather interesting contradiction: We have a government that continues to talk about supporting the concept of rural development while it moves to downsize or remove the representation of rural Ontario. Quite frankly, we wonder how that works, how that could be consistent. If we're looking at agriculture to be one of the engines that drive the economy in this province, we need the representation and the access to build the climate to allow that to continue happen. So we question.
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We're concerned, of course, that if we start to redistribute ridings we may well diminish the capacity of rural MPPs to move rural and agricultural issues to the forefront in the minds of government officials. One of the best ways historically that we've had to ensure that agricultural and rural programs and issues are dealt with when they need to be dealt with and in a way they need to be dealt with is to work with and through the local politicians, the local MPPs, so that they can carry our message back to Queen's Park, back to the people who make the decisions.
People's access to government is one of the issues we're dealing with here. We question whether it's the right way to go when we take a look at government cutbacks, take a look at the big picture and see, for instance, notwithstanding the "No cuts to agriculture promise," continued attention to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs that appears to want to reduce and minimize the number of staff, the number of programs, the ability for information dissemination and transmittal in rural Ontario and agricultural Ontario, at the same time removing the political representation.
No one has fully quantified the cost savings of this redistribution at this point. I would suggest, from my personal point of view, that in the total scheme of things it's probably rather a paltry sum. Politicians are and have been and will always continue to be an easy and popular target. But we need to be very careful that we balance these savings against the increase of time required, the increase in cost to constituents and at the local riding level, and the increase in inconvenience of constituents trying to contact their elected representatives.
We have to be concerned about the ability of the member of provincial Parliament to reasonably handle the increased workload that is liable to be caused not only by a larger constituent base and greater distances, but also by greater boondoggles and difficulties that may well occur with fewer government staff. That may require constituency office help and political intervention to bring about those timely resolutions to issues we talked about earlier.
In a nutshell, our concerns deal with the ability for farm and rural people to reach and get the attention from their rural representative they may well require from time to time. I think we all understand the nature of constituency work: There tend to be local matters pertaining to health, education, transportation and those types of things.
We're somewhat concerned for the negative impact on the rural economy of reduced representation and our ability to continue to create and build that climate for success that agriculture and this province need. We need a strong Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to provide the services, the information and the advice in many instances across this province, and to connect the people of the land with the people of Parliament. We can't have it both ways, I submit, not only to cut back on the ministries and the service to people in one way, but also to cut back in the political way.
As an organization, we have an abiding preference for open consultation and arriving at a new Ontario electoral boundaries model rather than necessarily opting to adopt the federal one, which may not have the best of implications or the best of results for the people of Ontario.
Having said that, I apologize. If I had taken a little more time, I could have used a few more political niceties and maybe expressed myself in softer ways, but I wanted to get the import of our message across in as timely a period as possible.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Kelly. You don't need to apologize for not using political niceties. Sometimes around here some people don't either.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): Thank you for coming before us today and, in such a concise and focused manner, presenting what I see as the major issues re this whole piece of legislation. It seems, coming from a rural part of the province, that you would understand, probably more than anybody, the respect in this province that we've had over the years for tradition, for the evolution of processes, as opposed to radical change and, within a matter of a month or two, changing the balance of power in various jurisdictions.
In this instance government in Ontario, it seems to me, started out to respond to issues of rural concern because we were primarily rural. Slowly but surely we've become urban-centred. I don't think anybody would disagree that we need to sort out the balance of representation and the way we do democracy and that at this particular point in our history, with population shifts and changes, we would want to revisit the question of how the Parliament is constituted. But to base it simply on a process that the federal government went through, to match that in a mirrored fashion and to want to do this in a period of a month and a half -- because the government wants this done by the end of this session, which is December 12.
Normally in this province we have an arm's-length, objective commission established that goes out and talks to people in the rural area, that goes up to the north and talks to people in the north, that considers the very real issues of people in urban Ontario, and at the end of the day makes a presentation to government that is then looked at and approved or amended, whatever. In this instance there is no commission; there's simply a ramming through of a scenario that has been developed by the federal government that's now going to be applied to Ontario. Would you be supportive of, at this point in time, a commission going out and doing this in the way we've always done it in Ontario as opposed to the process that's now before us?
Mr Kelly: I'm not going to presume to suggest which is the best way of talking to and dealing with the real issues that people are concerned about, what the best way of dealing with that necessarily is. We need to continue to concentrate on the interdependence of rural and urban Ontario, not necessarily the differences between rural and urban Ontario. We need to understand each other's needs and deal with those needs. We need to bring together the people of this province and the sectors of the economy and the geographic locations rather than divide them.
My organization is not fearful of change; we are not against change. We are not in favour of change for the sake of change, but we're in favour of change that will take us from where we are to a better place.
I'm not sure if that fully answers your question. If you take a look at the first proposal that came out having to do with the northwest region -- in our organization we have, if you will, our own ridings as well. Within the Ontario Federation of Agriculture we have 47 or 48 counties and we have 79 regions within those counties across the province. I have spent some time between Thunder Bay, Dryden, Kenora, Emo and Rainy River. I know what it's like up there. I know that no politician, at least none I've ever heard of or seen or dreamed of in this country, is going to be able to deal with a geographical area that is similar to the distance between Montreal and Chatham; that's not humanly possible.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
Mr Kelly: I'd just like to add one more thing if I could, Mr Chairman. I realize we now have two spots up there. So now we're talking about a geographical area from Toronto to Montreal or from Toronto to Chatham, and I --
The Chair: Thank you. Mr O'Toole.
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Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): Thank you very much, Ken. Good to see you again. I'm very familiar with the federation. I've met Tony Morris a number of times. Just to recognize the importance of agriculture -- and I want that on the record -- it's the second-largest industry, not just in Ontario but certainly in Durham East, my riding.
I think the most important thing you have brought up here is the importance of organizations like yours. Together with the changing organizational thing -- we saw a couple of weeks ago how everyone is able to get all the teachers out or all the unions out through the Internet, blast fax or whatever else -- communication technology has certainly changed in the last 30 or 40 years. You've got 79 regions in your organization, and that's communication. I think we can get over this barrier of the large land masses and truly represent those people, through technology and other kinds of -- I also agree there should be support mechanisms in place for those very large ridings. That should be addressed and I'm sure it will.
To take all the politics out of it, I've looked at this right from the beginning. I know Dan McTeague, the Liberal MP from my area, worked very hard to change some of the boundaries for political reasons. Not one of the MPPs I'm aware of in Durham has tried to jig with the boundaries or their names, and whether it's a political party that designed them or not, we feel there were sufficient hearings. We're prepared to live with those boundary changes and represent all of the people, I believe, more effectively and more efficient. That's what this is about. We're not just going to reduce spending; we're looking at efficient use of taxpayers' dollars. After all, you and I are paying for it at the end of the day.
It's obviously up to the public to comment on the adequacy of their member. I look at some members and their commitment in the long term and the short term to their constituents. That's a real issue. There needs to be some measurement of accountability and I'm completely supportive of that.
But I want to share a bit of my time with Terence Young, who could review some of the numbers with you as well. I'd be pleased to meet with you after.
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): I've been in this job now 15 months. I have an area that is partly rural and partly urbanized, like north Oakville and north Burlington. The reality is that most of the contacts with my constituents, over 80%, take place through my staff, no matter how much I'm in the office on the weekend and Fridays. That's done through correspondence and telephone etc. What I wanted to ask you is, can you think of any way administratively, perhaps by giving northern representatives additional resources -- staff or expenses, whatever -- you can get the same level of contact with a member that someone has, to address the distance issues?
I'll give you an example. I have two offices, one in north Oakville and one in north Burlington. The one in north Burlington, because of budgetary measures, I only keep open two days a week, but it is helpful to have a presence in that community. Can you think of any administrative ways we can support MPPs in the north?
Mr Kelly: I'm going to, if I may, start with Mr O'Toole's question. We understand. We've been pushing and working with Bell to deal with the whole issue of availability of communications. Down the road that is going to continue to improve. There are two or three pilot projects going on in northern Ontario right now that you're probably well aware of, having to do with satellite, radio, telephone, fax and computer feeds and things like that, but we're not there yet. Some 34% of rural Ontario today -- and we're talking about changes today and in the next year and a half -- don't have access to a private line so that they can run either a fax or a modem, or even talk about personal business without fear of invasion of privacy.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Kelly. Unfortunately, it took too long to ask the questions to allow you any time to have any answers.
Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): Mr Kelly, let me say that your message came very clear. I have a couple of questions if I have the time, and one is that it seems that's not a problem of finding some money, finding some savings. It's a question of giving more accountability, making the system fairer, making the system more equitable. The bottom line we have heard, even from the previous presenter, is that we have to do more for less. Can you please tell me how less representation can produce better service or more service to more constituents?
Mr Kelly: I think the people of Ontario are prepared to pay for a reasonable level of service. Very simply, the issue is, what do people need, what do they want and how are people going to access what they need and want? As I mentioned earlier, 34% of the people can't get to a fax machine, can't have a private talk either with the constituency office or with their MPP because they don't have a private telephone line. They can't send a fax. They may well send a letter, but that's not necessarily how business is being done.
Where we're going and where we are and how fast we take to get there and how quickly people adapt to technology are all issues that need to be mixed into this. It may well be that overnight isn't the way to do it. It may be we need to leave some time for people to adapt and not only have access to but embrace the technologies we believe may well replace the personal contact. I don't know about you people around this table, but I know that where I come from we're people people. We're in the people business. People don't talk to answering machines. People don't talk to computers. People --
Mr Sergio: I have other questions.
Mr Kelly: Sorry. People talk to people, and people elected representatives to have someone to talk to when they had problems. I'm not sure we're going to be able to give people what they need at this point in time.
Mr Sergio: The political perception, because I think you said "political perception," is that diminishing the number of representatives will concentrate more powers in the Premier and his cabinet office, therefore making the various representatives, especially in the north and rural areas, less representative, with a lesser voice. Do you feel that may be the case?
Mr Kelly: Again, I'm not prepared to comment other than that when I vote, which I do at every election, I don't vote for someone to be a puppet to someone else's whims and desires; I vote for someone in my riding to represent me as a constituent and to take that message to Queen's Park. Whether you can control more people more easily or fewer people more easily, or whether that's even an issue, I'm not going to talk about. That's the way it is from where I see it. I don't know how other people vote or what value systems they bring into the polling booth, but when I vote I want somebody who will listen to me when I have a problem, carry that message down and work for me.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Kelly. We appreciate your input here this morning.
Mr Kelly: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I very much appreciate being given the time to speak with you, and I apologize if I ran a little long from time to time. I also apologize to Darren Hannah, who is the staff support person from our policy research department who accompanied me here today. Thank you for your time and your questions, and if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact me.
GAEL HEPWORTH
The Chair: Gael Hepworth, good morning and welcome to our committee.
Ms Gael Hepworth: Good morning. My name is Gael Hepworth. I'm a member of the City of York Community and Agency Social Planning Council. I came here today because those of us who are active in the city of York have some serious concerns about the manner in which this government is addressing our area of the city. Included in that is the fact that the seat of one of our provincial representatives will be redistributed into three of the federal seats as a result of this redistribution.
The major issue affecting our community is the fact that we are a very underserved area within Metro. We don't want to become the latest slum in Metro, or a new slum in Metro. We see that, if we don't have a voice at Queen's Park, the policies being conducted will result in that eventual activity.
Over the past 25 years I've been an active member and supporter of community groups and organizations in Metro and the city of York. I've made deputations and met with a broad range of individuals involved in the political process. For some time I've been concerned that the representation at the federal level has been both distant and ineffective. The sheer size of federal ridings and the lack of ongoing participation in local affairs has resulted in representatives who are out of touch with the communities they represent.
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This lack of contact with area residents is not as critical at the national level, due to the nature of the decision-making process in Ottawa. They are charged with the responsibility of acting on behalf of all Canadians, and it is the interplay between different regions of the country that is essential at that level. That does not mean that these boundaries reflect the needs for effective governance at the provincial level.
It is essential that voters remain connected to those who represent them. Poor voter turnout and lack of recognition for local representatives shows the degree to which people are alienated from those who rule in our society. We have recently seen voters turn to a more negative approach in democratic participation, with radical changes in governance at each electoral opportunity.
At the provincial level, the elected representatives must understand the impact of policies and practices upon local communities. The division of power in Canada requires that the provincial level of government distribute programs, services, resources and policies that reflect the needs of local communities. The impact of this bill will effectively eliminate any effective provincial representation or response to issues in my community.
I would like to share some of these concerns with you. In the city of York we currently elect two provincial members of Parliament. One of those ridings would be replaced, with the distribution of three areas into surrounding ridings. In effect, our residents will be denied an opportunity to speak during the process of significant change at the local community level.
On the list currently are the closing of our local hospital -- Northwestern General Hospital is one of the hospitals slated to close -- and the elimination of the city of York, both at the council and the board of education level. It is essential that our very needy community can fully participate in the process of changing our governance structures. It is essential the services not be simply sloughed off but delivered in an accessible and effective manner. We need representatives who understand our local area needs and concerns to represent us. The redistribution along federal boundaries does not meet those needs.
One of the things our local social council does is assess the demographic information available from Statistics Canada and look at how that reflects in our local community. Our population in the city of York is 140,000 people. We have 16,000 children under the age of five in our community, with very few child care services available at all. The majority of child care services that are presently delivered in our community are delivered through the local school board. Elimination of our school board will decimate child care in our area.
Of our population, 13% are youth between the ages of 15 and 24 for whom employment is an ongoing challenge. We have 14% seniors in our community. There's 12.8% seniors in Metro; there's 13.7% in our community.
Our community is predominantly female-led, single-parent families who of course are tenants and are subject to the rent decontrol legislation you are currently looking at.
Our ethnoracial mix: 45% of our residents were born outside Canada. Teaching English as a second language is the number one concern for our educational needs in our city. Having access to employment is a high concern for our community.
Some 19.5% of our residents have less than a grade 9 education. This is significantly higher than in Metro or Ontario. We seriously need access to the resources you're talking about. If we're talking about pooling money, one of the reasons our board of education is effective is that the Metro governance structure for education pools funds and distributes them according to how many children we have. That has not happened at the municipal level. Our municipality has half the funds available to the board of education to spend for the people in our area.
Our labour force participation is a reflection of both language and education. Of course, it comes out that we have a higher rate of unemployment than anywhere else in Metro.
Our housing: We have a significant tenant population, and our tenant population cannot afford market rent. We have some subsidized housing units available in the area, but the reality is that no developer is going to come in and provide housing for our residents. They simply do not have the resources to pay for it.
The lack of services in our community includes no access to Canada Employment centre; no access to children's services; no citizenship and immigration office, even though we're a number one destination for immigrants; no health and welfare office; no Metro homes for the aged; and no Ontario Welcome House facility. The reason the City of York Community and Agency Social Planning Council was formed was to ensure that someone talked about these issues, that we made deputations at forums such as this and that our community's concerns were discussed.
One of the things I wanted to show you is this. This is a document our community worked hard on. It was our community economic development strategy. We won an award from the Royal Bank of Canada for doing this work.
We are a community where volunteer input is significant. Every one of our agencies has more than 200 volunteers who come out on a regular basis. We have two very active Meals on Wheels.
Senior citizens' developments: We have a number of senior citizens' agencies because we are a large senior citizens' community with low access to resources.
We are a very active and involved community. All we're asking is that as you put us through this process of reorganizing all of the mechanisms for the delivery of service, you rethink this distribution of elected officials and ensure that whatever boundaries are set in place are those that reflect the needs of local communities, not those that are simply sloughed off from Ottawa. There are two different governance processes and they are two different areas where community input is involved.
At this time I'd like to end my presentation.
Mr Gilchrist: Thank you, Ms Hepworth. I appreciate your coming before us and making your presentation today. I want to bounce a couple of numbers off you. I don't want to be caught up in statistics, but you started your presentation -- and I hope I'm not misquoting you on this -- with the thought that right now York South was underrepresented, or perhaps overworked might be the flip side of that.
Ms Hepworth: The city of York.
Mr Gilchrist: The city of York? Okay, that basically is almost all encompassed within the riding of York South.
Ms Hepworth: No, it's not.
Mr Gilchrist: Without splitting hairs, looking at the fact that you actually have two members who overlap, it even makes the case better. Just to pick one of them, for example, York South is an area that has a lot of the concerns that you spoke of here today. A lot of the issues that our government is grappling with, whether health, education or other social problems, are evidenced in that area.
I just want to bring to your attention that York South had the grand total of 37,000 people in the June 8, 1995, election, yet there are ridings in this province with over 90,000 voters. So the ability for the MPP currently to get around and meet and greet and see and be seen clearly is almost three to one over the opportunity for Minister Tsubouchi or Minister Palladini to get around their respective ridings. Under redistribution, it still only goes to 55,000 voters. Every riding south of the 401 in Scarborough, for example, will range from 63,000 to 69,000.
From my perspective, the federally appointed non-partisan boundary commission took into account certain differences even within the urban context. I just wanted to bring to your attention that there has been a reflection. We were confident that no matter where the boundaries were drawn, historically the boundary commission has always weighed those different factors. We had confidence in May 1994 when we made this commitment that they would do so again. We had no ability to gerrymander. It is strictly the federally appointed group that has made these decisions and I think they've done a fine job of balancing that.
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I guess my very short question to you would be, do you believe that to adequately represent York you need more than a 20% differential to, say, Scarborough, which has many of the same problems?
Ms Hepworth: No, I'm asking you to respect our historic boundaries in terms of the way our community functions, and in fact this does not do that.
Mr Grandmaître: I'm glad you brought up the question of the megacity or the supercity that's on everybody's lips in Ontario, not only in Metro. As you know, with the new concept of this megacity, you'll be controlled, if I can use the word "controlled," or represented by 44 councillors -- this is the formula that's before us now -- plus a supermayor.
Right now, we're faced with Bill 81, redistribution, diminishing MPP representation throughout the province. With this new redistribution, Metro will be losing seven MPPs and the GTA will increase its number of MPPs by one, from 18 to 19. What I'm getting at is this government is trying to control politics not only at the local level, not only at the provincial level but at the federal level. They're quite satisfied and they're quite pleased to say, "Hey, the federal model is great," but this is the first time I've heard these people say that the federal government has done a good job.
They want to use the federal government's redistribution model and say, "Hey, if it's good enough for the feds, it's good enough for us," and we're saying: "No, it's not. We should have a model made for Ontario that represents the people of Ontario." I agree with you that you can't deal with education problems and health problems, social problems in your area, in your riding or in your city more adequately than you can at the present time. I think we should redo the riding boundaries so that they would reflect your real needs in your city and in my city.
Mr Len Wood: Thank you for your presentation. I was listening when you were saying that the federal redistribution should not necessarily be used for Ontario, and I agree with you that, as far as I'm concerned, Ottawa did a terrible job of making sure that minority groups or regions are represented fairly in Ottawa, and now Mike Harris is doing the same thing in Ontario, where you're taking large areas and making them larger with no resources available.
In the area I represent, and we had a presentation just before you came in, rural Ontario, agricultural Ontario is still saying that we have party lines; we don't have the technology for people to be able to use fax machines or any of this. In northern Ontario probably 80% can't use the technology. So my argument is, why would Mike Harris say, "We'll let Ottawa call all the shots, and whatever they do, we'll do in Ontario," and that's going to be good for the people of Ontario, even though there are going to be large numbers of communities that are going to be muzzled?
Ms Hepworth: It's like a double whammy. Not only do you get shut out federally, but now you also get that reinforced provincially. One of the good things about having different boundaries was the fact that you could expect some kind of balance to happen as a result of those very different boundary structures.
Mr Len Wood: When it comes to the representatives federally in northeastern Ontario, there are three Liberal members there and they're saying it's going to be physically impossible to represent that area in Ottawa, and now the same boundaries are going to be applied to northern Ontario. Every municipality, mayor, reeve in northern Ontario, including the Sault Star -- there's an editorial saying it doesn't make any sense for Mike Harris to ram this legislation through and eliminate democracy in Ontario for large areas of the province.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Hepworth. We do appreciate your attendance with us this morning. Sorry we caught you a little out of breath there at the beginning, but thank you very much.
Before our next presenter comes forward, I'd like to beg the committee's indulgence. We have people coming and talking to us. I would appreciate it if we would listen while they talk to us and show them some respect.
JOHN SEWELL
The Chair: Mr Sewell, you have 20 minutes of our time to use as you see fit. The floor is yours, sir.
Mr John Sewell: I don't want to make any remarks whatsoever on how many ridings there should be in the Ontario Legislature. I believe that's a very difficult question and I'm willing to leave it to other people. But I do want to talk about two particular issues: first, the idea of giving city residents a fair chance in the legislative process and, second, something about specific riding boundaries.
One of the things that the new federal riding boundaries do is they tend to confirm the long-standing bias in Canada of giving more representation to rural residents than to city residents. In fact, I think one can say that the new federal riding boundaries are really unfair to city residents, and to that extent Bill 81 is also unfair.
What I did was look at some of the population figures for the current selected federal ridings. I must say it's not easy to get hold of the new report about the electoral commission. Of course, I'm not allowed access to the legislative library. They said they had it; they wouldn't give it to me. The University of Toronto does not have it. I spent a fair amount of time at the Robarts library yesterday. I've had to use the 1991 figures, but I think they're generally accurate in terms of what's happening.
You can see rural ridings across the country on one side of the chart and city ridings on the other. Mention has been made, I think, of Markham or some of the large suburban ridings in the Toronto area which have an even larger population than anything shown here. I am aware that the new federal riding boundaries don't do much about this, that they confirm the bias in favour of rural residents. I think that's wrong and this mistake should not be confirmed again in Ontario.
There's a lot of talk today about the idea that the taxpayer should be given a fair break. Cities, as we know, are the engines of the country's economy and it's in cities that most taxpayers live. It's often been said that about half the tax dollars arriving in Ottawa are generated in the Toronto urban area. I'm not sure if those figures are exactly correct, but certainly more than a third of all tax dollars are generated in the Toronto urban area. Yet city residents don't have as much say in government as rural residents.
I think if taxpayers are going to be fairly represented in Ottawa or at Queen's Park, then it's only right that as individuals they, as city dwellers, get as much influence as rural dwellers. If you want to use the taxpayer argument, and I suspect some people might, then make sure you're giving fair representation to people who live in cities because they're the ones who pay the bulk of taxes, they're the ones who really make the economy hum in this country.
Bill 81 doesn't give them equal voice and to that extent it's a bad bill. It's as bad as what the federal government is doing. So I want a really simple principle, which is, do not draw riding boundaries which give rural residents more clout than city residents. One wants to reduce the number of ridings; that's fine. Just make sure that those of us who live in cities are not underrepresented so that one of our votes is worth half of the vote of somebody who happens to live in the country. That's entirely unfair and it is not representative of taxpayers, if that's who you think you should be representing.
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The second issue has to do with fair riding boundaries. One of the issues I've been involved in from the early days of when I first got elected to Toronto city council is how you create riding boundaries that are fair to people. We had a big hearing in 1969 to create what was known in Toronto as block wards, where we tried to create a ward system with boundaries that ensured that people had a fair chance of representing those people who elected them, the people who lived in their ward or their riding.
The provincial and federal governments have never adopted that approach and they've always tried the strip approach in the centre of cities. So in the Rosedale riding, or to use its provincial counterpart, the St George-St David riding, you have the wealthiest people in the country in the same riding as the poorest people in the country. The wealthiest live in Rosedale, the poorest live in Regent Park. So who is the MP or MPP to represent, the poor or the rich? They have different demands. They want their MP or their MPP to say different things. The people in Rosedale think that public services aren't all that terrific. They can do quite well on their own, they've got the resources. Whereas the people in Regent Park desperately need more services and are quite willing to see taxes raised in order to get those.
The MP or MPP is in an impossible position. He can't represent both, and one of those groups generally goes unrepresented. As it turns out in that riding, it's usually the people at the bottom who get unrepresented because poor people don't have the power of others. But it's entirely possible that at some point you could elect in that area somebody who said, "I don't care about people in Rosedale, I'm only going to represent people who live in Regent Park," and I think that would be unfair to people in Rosedale.
These new riding boundaries confirm that general kind of an approach, and it's wrong, because it means that certain people really get disfranchised. It's clear you can redraw riding boundaries to avoid that kind of a problem -- never entirely, but almost entirely. I think the ward system in Toronto manages to do that in a fairly reasonable way.
I'm suggesting that one should not be compounding the bad policies of Ottawa here in Ontario. There is a decision being made to reduce the number of MPPs, and I'm not here to quarrel with that. But if that is going to happen, do it in a way that ensures city residents are fairly represented, at least as fairly as rural residents, and second, make sure that the riding boundaries that are drawn up do not mix different classes and income groups so that one of them doesn't get represented. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sewell. We've got about four minutes per caucus beginning with the Liberals.
Mr Sergio: Mr Sewell, thank you very much for coming and making a presentation to our committee here today. There is perhaps a perception from what we have read and from former presenters here that this is more of a symbolic act that the government is imposing upon the people of Ontario than a factual fact. It is: Where is the fair representation with the proposed system? How is this going to save money and still manage to keep a fair democratic process? And I think that's what the crux of the question is. Is the present system being democratic? Is it delivering services? Is it being accountable? Will the proposal, as it is today, be making representatives more accountable, more effective, giving more fair representation to their people?
Mr Sewell: As I say, I'm not here to comment on the number of MPPs.
Mr Sergio: What about the services? What about delivery of representation to the various communities?
Mr Sewell: I don't have any comment on that. I have comment on two basic points which I think are key.
Mr Sergio: We don't disagree that some changes are needed. When we see ridings, for example, up in the north like Rainy River, represented by the leader of the third party, Mr Hampton, 19,000 or 20,000 people, versus Mr Palladini's area, which has 120,000 or 130,000 people, we see that some changes are needed in there. But we also believe that delivery of fair representation, services, is paramount to the political system and the accountability of that particular system. We have that concern.
Mr Sewell: What's the question to me?
Mr Sergio: As a citizen, do you have any concern with respect to that?
Mr Sewell: I might have some concerns but I have no comments on that today. There are two major issues, and if they aren't addressed, the other issues are almost irrelevant.
Mr Sergio: Then I'll pose to you one more question, and you may wish to comment or not, given your particular position. With a lot fewer politicians, do you think this will concentrate more power in the Premier's office and its inner cabinet, alienating a lot of the rural and northern members?
Mr Sewell: Let me just say this: The number of politicians you want to have is a very complex issue; it is not a simple issue. I don't think you can make too many really big generalizations. I know at a municipal level, if you have more than 25 people on a council, you're immediately into political parties and a centralization of power. That's one of the great problems with all the regional councils because they generally have more than 25 people. Beyond that, I don't have any useful comments for you. It's an extremely complex thing. To rush into it and say that we're going to do this or that is a very difficult thing. I don't have any comments once you get beyond 25.
Mr Martin: Mr Sewell, you make some good points here this morning, and certainly points we need to hear and try to get our heads around. You are probably aware, or may not be, that not long before you we had a rep from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture making an argument to make sure they don't lose any of the clout they have and their ability to influence decisions that are made that affect them. There's that need to find some balance.
Mr Sewell: With respect to the balance, I think that one person, one vote is not a bad one. I don't know a better principle. But to say that because you happen to be a farmer you deserve twice as much clout as anybody else, I think that's dumb. Or that because you live in a town rather than a city, you deserve twice or three times the clout of someone. That's a bad principle. One person, one vote is a pretty good one, and that's the basis on which I'm asking we proceed.
Mr Martin: Traditionally in this province, in our attempt to balance the concerns of northern Ontario and rural Ontario and the cities as we've evolved as a province re the mix of population, we've not taken a very simplistic approach. We've tried to be sophisticated. We've set up commissions that took into consideration things like diversity of community or diversity of interests, which I think speaks to your second point: means of communication, topographical features, population trends, varying rural and urban electoral districts, existing boundaries of municipalities and wards, and a number of other things. Is there any value to that to you?
Mr Sewell: There's a small value, but as I say, there's an overriding question. In our culture there's an overwhelming bias against cities. Cities are considered to be bad places -- people should move out of them -- and they've been consistently underrepresented. They're treated as though they're nothing. Right? This is why we're in a position where Prince Edward Island has provincial powers but in Ontario there are 10 cities larger than Prince Edward Island and they have no powers at all. That's part and parcel of the bias.
The idea that you would underrepresent city people is one that's part of our culture. Everybody says: "Of course, that's the case. We have to overrepresent farmers" -- that's generally the argument -- "because they protect the land." Hey, come on. They're the biggest polluters we know.
Interjections.
Mr Sewell: It's true. Take a look at who's producing most of the contamination in streams. It's a serious problem.
Mr Young: We all eat the food.
Mr Sewell: We all eat the food. There's no reason we have to pollute streams to produce food that is edible.
The point I want to make is that there's no reason why those of us who live in cities shouldn't have at least as much say as people who live in rural areas. It's a really simple point. But the cultural bias is against it, and what I'm trying to do is argue against that cultural bias. It's in cities that the economies are created, that our social structures are created, that our values are created, and I believe they should have a much more significant say in the politics of the country.
The argument I am making here is a really simple one: Just don't hurt somebody because they live in a city and say, "Your vote is not worth as much someone else." Start on the principle of one person, one vote. That's the way I think riding boundaries should be designed.
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Mr O'Toole: Mr Sewell, thank you very much for your presentation. I've heard many of them since starting with Bill 163.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, as has been mentioned by my colleague, would disagree with you quite vehemently.
Mr Sewell: Right, I agree.
Mr O'Toole: I'm certain you know that. They consider themselves the producers and the hewers of wood and the cities as the consumers. There aren't many grain fields or Holstein cows in Toronto.
Mr Sewell: Correct.
Mr O'Toole: To me, the federal-provincial alignment and its constituent organization are transparent to the constituent. When they phone my office in Durham East, they don't know what the issue is, whether it's federal, provincial or municipal. I think we're overrepresented in Ontario. Would you agree that we're more overrepresented than anywhere else in the world? By the time you take the utilities, the trustees, the provincial and the federal, we've got everyone totally confused and overrepresented.
I take great exception to the reference to fair riding boundaries and its assumption, which I won't let stand unchallenged. You say very clearly: "...and the poorest people -- living in Regent Park. Whose interests should the MP or MPP represent, since" -- your assumption -- "he clearly cannot represent both?" I take great exception to that. It's a purely ideologically purposed argument that you're making versus an idealist's argument. I'm naïve enough to believe that I should represent all of the people all of the time and take their concerns to Queen's Park or the municipal table, whatever. If you disagree with that, you disagree with the fundamentals of what the duty of an elected person really is.
Mr Sewell: No. Let me just comment on that: I believe very strongly that the political representatives do their best to represent the people who elect them, but I believe --
Mr O'Toole: That's why we're held in such poor esteem. You think we're representing vested interests.
Mr Sewell: Maybe one of the reasons they're held in bad esteem is that you get someone to come and you won't let them speak, right?
Mr O'Toole: I'm listening.
Mr Sewell: Thank you very much. I believe, having been a politician for some years, that it's impossible to represent all points of view; it just is literally impossible. What usually happens is that the strongest people in your riding are the ones whose views you represent most. When you're in a riding where there are very wealthy and very poor people, I know that poor people don't get represented. Their views do not come to the fore for all sorts of reasons: they aren't sophisticated enough to know how do it; you don't meet them at your cocktail parties; and on and on. It's a fact of life.
What you should try and do is devise riding boundaries which put the same kind of people in them so the job of the political representative is made easier. You only have one general kind of person, with all of the differences that involves, to represent. I'm not trying to denigrate MPPs or MPs or political representatives; I'm trying to say, let's be honest about how difficult the job is.
Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): Thank you, Mr Sewell. I'm very sympathetic to your first point. You're not ready to talk about the total number of MPPs, and I respect that. I want to give you two examples. Right now in the riding of Rainy River there are 19,000 voters; in the riding of York Centre there are 129,000. That's a 6.5-to-1 ratio.
Mr Sewell: Crazy.
Mr Maves: This legislation will change that. Rainy River will now have 53,000; York Centre will have 73,000.
Mr Sewell: Crazy.
Mr Maves: But the difference is quite substantially smaller.
Mr Sewell: So what?
Mr Maves: Would you at least admit that is headed in the right direction?
Mr Sewell: There's no question it's headed in the right direction, but it's not good enough. We've had this bias for too long. I personally believe we'd have a fundamentally different kind of politics in this country if cities were given fair representation -- much different politics than we've now got. One person, one vote. Why should we say that someone in the city riding you mentioned should have two thirds of the vote as somebody in Rainy River? What's so terrific about those people?
Mr Maves: I agree 100%.
Mr Sewell: Good. That's terrific. Then we're going somewhere.
Mr Maves: When you draw boundaries you can't have, say, 75,000 voters in every riding time immemorial. There will be some discrepancy.
Mr Sewell: Of course there will be, and I'm quite willing to live with that. What I'm not willing to live with is the overwhelming bias of the current figures, and that's what we've got. If we said that we've got to get rid of that overwhelming bias, that would be a good start. Say: "One person, one vote. Yes, it's going to be a bit of this and a bit of that." I agree about those difficulties, and it does get into the question of how you make sure these kinds of people are all generally the same so that other interests don't get --
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sewell. We appreciate you attending with us this morning and giving us your input.
CANADIAN TAXPAYERS FEDERATION
The Chair: Our next presenter is Paul Pagnuelo, executive director, Ontario, of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Good morning, sir. Welcome to our committee.
Mr Paul Pagnuelo: Good morning. First of all, unfortunately, I didn't have much time or much advance notice in terms of the appearance today, so my remarks are going to be brief and I would prefer to spend time in question and answer.
The government has introduced Bill 81, which will pare down the number of MPPs from 130 to 103. That's a cut of more than 20%. Obviously it's a heated debate, as I, sitting here in the last several minutes, could notice from some of the comments.
There are those who are going to cry blue murder over the fact that the size of the Legislature is coming down, that it's being downsized. You always get people who will argue that big government is good government and that the bigger the government, the better the government; that Ontario probably needs more legislators to represent the population, not fewer; and that perhaps the Harris proposition to cut the number of MPPs is nothing more than a cynical ploy to shore up voter support.
I'd like to take a more objective view. I think the taxpayers and electors should share the move to a smaller Legislative Assembly, and in the time available this morning I'd like to offer four short reasons why.
Number one, it will save money. Because the new provincial boundaries will correspond to federal electoral districts, taxpayers will definitely save on MPPs' salaries, expenses and, to some degree, staff, and on the cost of planning and running elections.
We'll be the first to acknowledge that the savings that are going to be achieved are only going to be a very small drop in a very large bucket, but nevertheless today it's important that we look at the fact that every dollar saved adds up. Ontarians will reap $2.1 million annual savings in MPPs' salaries alone. That's $2.1 million that the Legislature itself can contribute to reducing the province's deficit.
We've all collectively got to make every effort. Ontarians everywhere are being asked to sacrifice in terms of reducing our reliance on government and looking at more efficient ways of delivering government services. Again, a lot of this is leadership. The average voter out there looks to our elected representatives to demonstrate leadership in action, not just in words. Yes, it is symbolic to a large degree, but symbolism means a lot to people out there.
Number two, it will restore the principle of one person, one vote. As they now stand, Ontario's electoral boundaries are anything but democratic. Suburban voters, for example, are grossly underrepresented. Their votes are worth less than those in the cities or rural areas. The new boundaries will provide a much purer although, I'm going to acknowledge quite clearly, not perfect form of representation by population, which is a cornerstone of western democracy.
It's going to prevent gerrymandering. Manipulating constituency boundaries to secure the greatest possible advantage for the governing party is a well-honed practice in politics. Bill 81 will reduce the likelihood of gerrymandering in Ontario by adopting the boundaries set out by the impartial federal electoral boundaries commission. In aligning the new boundaries based on work done by a body outside the Legislature's jurisdiction, the number of seats held by each party should more accurately reflect the votes cast in any given election.
It emphasizes the need for fiscal responsibility. I talked about this briefly. Ontarians will only accept the need for spending reductions, which incidentally are absolutely necessary, if they are applied fairly across the board. Saving the perks, pay and jobs of politicians while the rest of the population is forced to tighten its collective belt would be sheer hypocrisy. Since assuming office, Premier Harris has taken some very bold steps and done more than any Ontario Premier before him in providing leadership by example. They may be symbolic issues, but again, they're important to many voters.
More important, I think credit is due to the Legislature as a whole, to every member. By agreeing to legislative initiatives such as scrapping the MPPs' gold-plated pension plan and tax-free allowances, putting party politics aside, the fact that all parties agreed and moved forward quickly on that sort of initiative sent a very symbolic but important message to voters across the province that they're prepared to make the cuts among themselves as well as to government programs.
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Getting the province's fiscal house in order isn't an easy job. Looking back, if the consequences of high annual deficits and debt had been appreciated at the time, I doubt the previous governments would have followed the route they did, and that's previous governments of any political stripe, because today the sad reality is that we're trading program spending for debt interest.
I think each of the three parties is committed to the objective of balancing the budget, paying down the debt and reducing the punitive burden of debt interest. Where there's going to be a disagreement, and there is obviously, is how to reach that objective and within what time frame. But I would ask you now collectively to continue providing the example that voters are looking for in their politicians by reducing the number of MPPs in this Legislature to match the federal boundaries for this province.
In closing, I would also like to call on the Premier today to continue what I would call his good housecleaning spree by next firing his guns on the political donation tax credit, which is used to subsidize country club memberships, suits, dry cleaning, what have you, for party officials and MPPs. It's unfair that taxpayers are being forced to pay not only for the weenie roasts and golf games of party members, but also for political views and opinions that they oppose. So we think that that's another area where the system could be made fairer for everybody.
I'd like now to respond to questions which you might have.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Pagnuelo. Beginning with the New Democrats, Mr Wood, we've got about four minutes per caucus.
Mr Len Wood: I might some save some time for Mr Marchese. You've made an excellent presentation in covering a lot of different areas. It seems like your concern is that there'll be money saved by reducing the number of MPPs, and yet we know, from what we're hearing, that all the money that's being saved on this, or a lot of it that's being saved on this, is going to be used to put extra staff in the Premier's office and add to the cost of running the government. So a lot of the savings that there might be -- you're saying $2.1 million -- are going to be spent around --
Mr Pagnuelo: I haven't heard that earlier discussion. If that were to be the case in terms of we're going to save $2.1 million here and add a whole bunch of extra staff over and above what exists today --
Mr Len Wood: It's been in the newspapers.
Mr Pagnuelo: Well, I think that would be a terrible mistake.
Mr Len Wood: You call on the Premier to continue his good housecleaning spree by firing his guns at other things. We know that these things are not going to happen. This is strictly a political agenda by a Conservative Party that is coming forward and saying, "This is what we promised during the election campaign and we're not going to look at the electoral boundaries commission; we're just going to put in a Conservative agenda which is going to be on the next election, without consulting like the federal government did." The federal government had a study done on electoral boundaries, and the province is not doing that.
Mr Pagnuelo: I guess my response to that would be, if the federal government found that those boundaries were appropriate for Ontario, do we need to go through another study that says they're not for Ontario in terms of provincial politics?
Mr Len Wood: Yes, we do. We don't agree with them.
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): I'm going to place, Mr Pagnuelo, two questions, if I can quickly. One has to do with the fact that they say they will save $11 million. That may or may not be entirely accurate, but there's some savings if you get rid of politicians. People like that. People like getting rid of politicians because, by and large, we have helped to contribute creating an atmosphere out there to the public that politicians are not to be valued. I'm saddened by that. I didn't say you said this necessarily; I said we here are contributing to this. But if we have one referendum, as they support, and I'm not sure where you are and your position with referendums --
Mr Pagnuelo: I'll explain to you where we are.
Mr Marchese: But one referendum will cost $25 million. Do you think that's a better saving for the province -- to have referendums -- versus having MPPs who can represent their ridings in a way I think they need to be? In the northern ridings, you're going to have bigger ridings than some countries -- like Belgium, as one example. Will they be able to adequately represent people when you do that, and do you care about that?
Mr Pagnuelo: I guess the question I have is when you talk about representing people, what do you mean by "representation"? Is it responding to their daily phone calls, their letters? Is it carrying their collective views back to Queen's Park? Is it ensuring that there's a proper balance of voters to MPPs that is fairly distributed across the province, whether it's per capita one in 100,000 or one in 50,000, whatever the magic number may be?
The whole issue of a reduction of the number of MPPs isn't because people hate politicians as such. You know, let's get rid of politicians. People are sitting back today and they're seeing in their own environments, in their own work environments, regardless of what it is that you do, that everybody is cutting back, that we're making do with fewer managers at the top, the workers are expected to do more.
I think, if we look at the history of the Legislature, things haven't dramatically changed in terms of how we run governments. I think there's an opportunity here for politicians to re-examine what their roles are and how they can better perhaps allocate their time to put more emphasis on --
The Chair: Mr Pagnuelo, unfortunately we have to stick to the time. It's very tight.
Mr Young: Mr Pagnuelo, nice to see you again. I want to assure you that when you speak on behalf of your members every member of this government listens carefully, and I appreciate we've had a number of conversations one on one. I totally agree with you that the Premier's done more than any other Ontario Premier before him in providing leadership by example.
There's one issue here related to matching the ridings to the federal which I'm particularly pleased about, and that is, if you ask the average voter on the street I bet you half or more don't know what riding they live in federally or provincially, and if we match them up they'll know who to call more readily when they have a provincial concern or issue and a federal concern or issue. Can you comment on that?
Mr Pagnuelo: Absolutely, but I would even go further. A lot of people that we're in contact with on a regular basis, our own members, many don't understand the difference between an MP and MPP. Let's start with the very basics, let alone what riding they perhaps are in.
The number of calls that I take and respond to where people think it's a federal issue and it's a provincial issue, or vice versa, is just absolutely unbelievable. We also find that that same thing happens in terms of municipal politics, that many people think that what is a municipal issue is really a provincial or a federal issue. There's so much confusion out there. People just don't understand what the roles of each of the various legislatures or municipal councils are.
We think, in terms of simplicity, it would make life a lot easier for the average voter out there if they knew: "This is my riding and I'm served by this MP and this MPP and it serves all of us; I haven't got an MPP who serves me and some other neighbours, and an MP in Ottawa who serves a different constituency and I might happen to be part of that." So I think that's where there's some commonality.
Again, you can't downplay the cost savings in terms of working collectively with our federal partners in terms of not duplicating effort.
Mr Young: Serving the taxpayers better.
Mr Pagnuelo: Yes.
Mr O'Toole: Thank you, Paul. I hope that the explanation you gave of duplication of a federal member or the provincial member, as you well know, you live in my riding --
Mr Pagnuelo: I live in your riding, John --
Mr O'Toole: -- and do you have two --
Mr Pagnuelo: -- and I've got a different federal member. My riding is different federally.
Mr Young: It's a constant problem, a real problem. I'm sure many of the members here experience that, but now just to reiterate, I believe you've made a couple of very good arguments and I think the taxpayers expect no less than more effective and more affordable representation. We're overrepresented not just at the provincial level but I'd say the municipal level as well, but it's effective representation.
Are you pleased or have you got any other encouragement for this government to move forward with its agenda, with the possible exception of the tax credit thing? That may be a problem.
Mr Pagnuelo: Well, certainly on this issue move forward. If people don't like what the new federal boundaries are and if there's a sense that there's still not a proper balance, then let's go back and work with our federal partners. But obviously the federal government and the three political parties in Ottawa felt that they were appropriate. And if they're appropriate in a federal context, I fail to see why those same boundaries aren't appropriate provincially here in Ontario.
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Mr Sergio: You said something that I totally agree with, that it is very symbolic to a great deal, that the savings are a drop in the bucket. If that is the case -- and according to the last comment by Mr O'Toole, he says people don't know whose problem it is, if it's municipal, a Metro problem, an MPP's problem, a federal problem -- how are we going to improve the situation, this fair representation, this effective representation, by increasing most ridings by some 20,000 or 30,000 constituents?
Mr Pagnuelo: That has absolutely nothing to do with improving people's understanding of the differences between the federal role and the provincial role.
Mr Sergio: That won't change, right? You're still going to have the same problem, right?
Mr Pagnuelo: No, no. You'll still have a problem in terms of distinguishing what the difference is and the roles of each government, but it will be a lot easier to know who your member is because you'll know what riding you're in. You're not going to be worrying about the fact that you're in one riding provincially and in another riding federally.
Mr Sergio: It may be the case that you may know in which riding you'll be living, but when you're calling anyone for any particular problem, you may not know, as the normal taxpayer out there, whether it is an MPP's problem, an MP's problem, a Metro councillor, a local councillor.
Mr Pagnuelo: A change in boundary ridings isn't going to change that issue in terms of, "Is my issue a federal issue or a provincial issue or a municipal issue?"
The Chair: One short question, Mr Grandmaître.
Mr Grandmaître: One very short question. By the way, you're absolutely right, people are crying the blues. You've got the right colour.
You also say it will save money; it emphasizes the need for fiscal responsibility. I have one very short question: Do you agree that MPPs should have the same budget as MPs to serve their public or their constituents?
Mr Pagnuelo: I think whatever it takes to do the job properly.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you agree that we should be getting the same amount of money to serve our people as MPs are getting?
Mr Pagnuelo: I think when it comes to serving your people, you have to look at the issues you deal with versus the issues the federal government deals with.
Mr Grandmaître: So you agree then?
Mr Pagnuelo: I would say that they shouldn't be matched. In fact, perhaps you should be receiving more.
Mr Grandmaître: Well, that's better.
Mr Sergio: Coming from you, that's a surprise.
Mr Pagnuelo: Let me go one step further: Whether the number is 50,000 per MPP or 100,000 per MPP in terms of constituents that you serve, the most important thing is that the concerns they have -- because, let's face it, most will not reach an MPP regardless of the numbers. It's physically impossible for you to deal with everybody but it's vitally important that you have staff that people can reach. The strength of all of us, of all of you is your staff. So the one thing I say and taxpayers say don't scrounge on is your own staff who are going to support constituency offices or your offices here in Queen's Park, because that's where the concerns of people can be heard and can be brought forward to the Legislature.
Mr Grandmaître: Are you telling us that MPPs can hide behind staff and say, "They are to blame; that's not the minister"?
Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): That's not what he said.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Pagnuelo. We do appreciate your input here this morning.
That's our last presenter for the morning. The clerk has our travel packages for us for Ottawa and London. In addition to that, I would like to deal with this issue of requests from members of the Legislature to appear, to have status before the committee. We've had two written requests now. It's an unusual situation, so I'd like to have us arrive at a decision here.
Mr Grandmaître: I agree with you that it is unusual. But I spoke to the House Clerk, and I was told that by unanimous consent we can have MPPs making representation. Since northern Ontarians are dearly affected by Bill 81, at least two of our MPPs have requested that they appear before this committee when this committee visits the north. We have, if I'm not mistaken, David Ramsay, who would like to appear before this committee when we meet in Timmins, and the other one is Frank Miclash, when we appear in his riding. I think it's only reasonable and I wouldn't mind having your own people making representation to this committee.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): I don't feel that members should be making presentations to these hearings. The hearings are for the purpose of listening to what the public have to say on the subject. I think we as members get our opportunity in the House, so I disagree with having them make presentations.
Mr Young: I would, given the opportunity, vote against it. The members have ample opportunity to address these issues in the House. This is an opportunity, quite an expensive one and a meaningful one, to go out and listen to the taxpayers and the voters. I don't think I want to take that time to listen to more politicians.
Mr Len Wood: I don't have a problem with people making presentations. Now we know we have David Ramsay and Frank Miclash wanting to make presentations, I would be disappointed if the Conservative caucus tried to muzzle some of their own backbenchers who might want to come forward and make presentations based on some of the presentations we've heard today from the rural and agricultural areas. We're going to hear more from northern presentations, and I don't have a problem with that.
Because you're affecting the democratic process, elected MPPs should be able to come forward and make their own presentation, whether it be in Dryden, Timmins, Sault Ste Marie, Ottawa or London. I think they should have that right to be able to come forward, because this piece of legislation is affecting a lot of staff out there and a lot of MPPs out there. It's seriously affecting the wellbeing of the MPPs as well.
Mr Sergio: I hope they will seriously rethink their position and not view this as a political opportunity. I myself have no idea what the requirements and needs of the people up north are versus the people I represent here in Metro. The only thing I know is that people are people but needs could be different. They cover a huge territory up there, which I would love to be familiar with. Those people know what it takes, what's involved, to fairly represent those people. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an elected representative speak on behalf of their people, especially a lot of those who can't reach and make representation to the committee.
Further, Mr Chairman, I see you have travelled on other committees, and I bring to the attention of the members the last one which travelled, where a lot of people made first, second and third presentations on the same item, representing other people. All right? I wonder what the difference is when an elected member asks to speak on behalf of his or her own people versus someone who gets on the agenda and says, "This person now is speaking on my behalf," solely to get on the agenda.
I call on you to shed some light and some justice. We invite your members to come and make representation. But you have to be aware, and I hope the members are aware as well, that other methods are thought of to come out and make a representation, and we have seen that. We have brought that to the attention of the Chair and the members of the committee. While we thought that was an unfair practice, we still heard those concerns from whoever. So I hope you people will rethink this and allow the members to make representation.
The Chair: Just so we can tighten up the discussion a little bit and not turn this into a three-hour discussion, is there a possible compromise here, since the way of assigning spots for presentation is based on each caucus having the ability to assign 25% of the spots, that we could leave this to the discretion of each caucus, and if they want to schedule some of their members into their assigned spots, they have the option to do that? I would entertain a motion to that effect, if somebody sees that as a compromise.
Mr Gilchrist: I don't think a motion is required, Mr Chairman. That's totally within the purview to send a substitution form to the clerk at any time.
Mr Grandmaître: No, no, no.
The Chair: No, it's not in the form of a substitution, it's in the form of 25% of the spots are allocated to the government, to the official opposition and to the New Democrats; the other 25% are to a fourth list of people who just call in. What I'm suggesting is a compromise that would say that if the Liberals in Dryden want to have Frank Miclash make a presentation, they assign him one of their 25% of the spots.
Mr Maves: I'm a little bit disturbed by this, because I think that members have an opportunity in the House and in the hallways -- I see Mr Miclash all the time, and Mr Ramsay, and I know Mr Miclash has already spoken to the bill in the House. Hearings are public hearings; they're for the public to come and tell us their feelings on bills. If we start having members come in to speak about bills on committee time, the committee just becomes another forum for members to speak their piece. I think it should be for the public.
No matter how we try to do it or how we try to slice it, I think it's dangerous, because we're taking away opportunities from the public and it defeats the purpose of public committees. Why would we travel to Dryden to hear Mr Miclash? What a terrible waste of money that would be. Really. I can go to his office and hear from him. Why do I need to travel to Dryden for that?
Mr Len Wood: He travels to Toronto to hear you all the time.
Mr Sergio: That's very unfair.
Mr Martin: I frankly don't understand the fear here --
Interjections: Fear?
Mr Martin: -- the fear of having a duly elected politician appear before the committee, but I guess it's consistent, actually, with the underlying intent of this bill, to diminish the role of politicians and the role of this Legislature in the business of this province.
This bill is a fundamental attack on the traditions of this province and the way we govern ourselves and is as serious a piece of business as anything that's been before us or will be before us. So it behooves us to hear from anybody, including members who want to speak to it.
The other thing is it's also, in my mind, an attack on the integrity of politicians. I think politicians should be, because of that as well, allowed a chance, even if it's only for 20 minutes, to put their thoughts on the record in a formal fashion, as would happen in the case of somebody coming before this committee.
I'd be in agreement with your compromise. I think it's a great idea, and in the spirit of respecting the right of each party to bring before a committee whomever they feel is the best spokesperson for them on a particular issue representing their constituents or the province, we should move in that direction and not be afraid of this.
Mr Grandmaître: Before we started this morning, I think we approved what the subcommittee had decided on, the number of hours and where we would travel. I'm not trying to deviate from the subcommittee's agreement, if you want to call it an agreement, but I'll give you an example, Mr Chair. Today we have four openings, and you don't think that an MPP can take one of these slots?
I'm not asking you to go beyond the hours that were agreed upon; I'm not asking you for this. If there is room to accommodate an MPP, I think we should accommodate an MPP. It doesn't matter what side of the House he's from. I'm not asking you to go beyond what the subcommittee accepted; I'm asking you to simply respect the request of MPPs. I find it very unfair. I realize that MPPs can be listened to in the House every day, but at the same time I think when we go to their ridings they should be respected.
The Chair: We still have two more people who want to speak to this, but we are being called to the House for a vote, so we will recess until 3:30, at which time, during one of the openings this afternoon, we'll continue the discussion. This needs unanimous consent or a motion put forward that would be voted on and either accepted or rejected.
The committee recessed from 1155 to 1634.
The Chair: Time is a bit of a precious commodity this afternoon, so we will begin. As I understand it, we have probably somewhere in the vicinity of 80 minutes to deal with five deputations. If it's all right with the deputants, to be fair to everybody, I'd like to cut those down to about 16 minutes apiece. Can I have unanimous consent for that? Agreed.
GRAHAM WHITE
The Chair: The person who is our first presenter, Mr Green, is in the building somewhere, but Professor White, the early bird gets the worm in this case. Welcome.
Dr Graham White: I suppose I'm a witness of a different colour if Mr Green can't be here.
Mr Chairman, honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to speak about Bill 81. In my view this bill, if passed, would seriously erode the quality of democracy in Ontario. This bill is ill advised and ought not to be supported.
Public debate on this bill has largely focused on how it will adversely affect the representation of Ontario residents, particularly those who live in northern Ontario. It is to me a self-evident proposition that the quality of representation in the Legislature will decline if the same number of people are served by substantially fewer MPPs. I do not accept the argument that if 103 MPs can satisfactorily represent Ontarians in Ottawa, then 103 MPPs can equally well represent Ontarians at Queen's Park. The policy fields within the province's constitutional jurisdiction -- health, education, social welfare and municipal government, for example -- are of far greater day-to-day significance for people than are the matters falling under federal jurisdiction and therefore place a heavier burden on provincial members.
However, I do not propose to pursue this line of argument. Doubtless the committee will hear more about this in its travels through the north. Rather my presentation raises issues that have not generally been addressed in the public debate on this bill. I suggest that Bill 81 would produce a significant decline in the quality of Ontario democracy in the following interrelated ways:
(1) It would increase the likelihood of serious and unacceptable distortions in how accurately the composition of the Legislature reflects the voters' expressed preferences.
(2) It would contribute to the centralization of power in the cabinet.
(3) It would seriously reduce the effectiveness of the Legislature.
Let me elaborate.
Electoral distortions: In our first-past-the-post electoral system, MPPs win election by attracting more votes than any other candidate, regardless of whether the winning candidate has 25%, 40% or 60% of the vote. It is well known that, in the aggregate, this system means that voters often do not get the Legislature they voted for. Typically, this system overrewards the party that wins the largest share of the vote, so that, for example, the current government enjoys a large legislative majority having won only about 45% of the vote and the previous government also won a strong majority of the seats with less than 38% of the vote.
What is less well known but is clearly the case is the fact that these undemocratic distortions are more pronounced the smaller a Legislature is for a given number of electors. Consider if each voter had his or her own electoral district. The resulting Legislature would be perfectly representative of how the public votes. Now consider if one riding encompassed the entire province. This would produce an extremely distorted House, since no matter what proportion of the electorate voted for parties other than the winning party, these parties would go unrepresented in the House. These are of course absurd situations, but they help to illustrate how and why distortions worsen as House size decreases.
It is no accident that the worst distortions of our electoral system are found in smaller legislatures: the government winning 31 out of 32 seats on the basis of 54% of the vote in the most recent Prince Edward Island election and the government winning all 58 seats in New Brunswick in 1987 on the basis of 60% of the vote. Yesterday's Toronto Star contained numbers by Graham Murray and Alan Hall which allege that if you transpose the results from the 1995 provincial election on to the current federal boundaries, you would produce a Legislature of 73 Conservatives, 23 Liberals and seven New Democrats. This is an example of how the distortion of the first-past-the-post system becomes worse as the Legislature is smaller for a given number of electors.
Such unfair and undemocratic results are made more likely by reducing the number of ridings, as proposed in Bill 81.
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Increasing the cabinet's power and weakening the Legislature: A Legislature dramatically reduced in size is likely to increase the power of cabinet because private members, government as well as opposition, will have less capacity to review its actions and to influence its decisions.
On the government side, a smaller government back bench is likely to be a weaker government back bench, both in terms of overall talent and in terms of clout with cabinet. A government caucus in which close to half the members are ministers is more likely to be dominated by cabinet than a caucus where only one out of three or four MPPs is a minister.
While the relative influence of the government backbenchers over cabinet is an important issue, it is on the opposition side that the numbers question is really critical. The Legislature is our central democratic institution. A healthy, effective Legislature requires a strong, effective opposition. Under Bill 81, opposition caucuses will necessarily be smaller. Moreover, as I showed earlier, opposition caucuses are likely to be disproportionately smaller than they are today. This will seriously weaken the Legislature in two ways.
First, opposition members will simply be too thinly stretched to do an effective job. There will not be enough of them to adequately cover the myriad activities of the government and to hold it to account for its policies and their administration. In addition, since MPPs will have more constituents to look after, they will have even less time to devote to their duties as legislators. An effective opposition may be an irritant to the government, but it is an essential component of our British parliamentary system.
Second, the committee system will be significantly weakened for the simple reason that there will not be enough MPPs to make it work. To an extent, this reflects the overall reduction in the number of private members available to serve on committees. Assuming a 20-member cabinet, and removing the Speaker as well, there will be 82 instead of 109 private members.
The total number is, however, misleading, for the real numbers crunch will come because of the large reductions in the size of party caucuses. This is most likely to be a problem for the opposition parties, but it is not hard to imagine a situation where government lacks sufficient numbers of back benchers to do committee work. The almost inevitable result will be fewer committees doing less work.
As a lover of theatre, I greatly enjoy the spectacle of question period, but as someone who worked for several years for legislative committees in this building, I know that the most effective, most meaningful work of the Legislature is done in committees like this one. It is no accident that, of all the provinces, Ontario has the most active, effective committee system as well as the largest House. This important part of our Legislature will suffer markedly without adequate numbers of MPPs to serve on committees.
In sum, Bill 81 promises to worsen the undemocratic distortions of our electoral system, further centralize power in the cabinet and undermine the effectiveness of the Legislature. These are serious consequences that far outweigh any potential monetary savings. Thank you.
Mr Young: Thank you, Professor. I wanted to ask you to comment, please, on the committee system and how your thoughts might change if the actual cabinet were smaller, as our cabinet is, and if the committees were smaller, because we sit with 15. We take 15 people all over the province and there's a lot of expense associated with that. I personally think that a lot of the work we do in committees could be done by much smaller committees. Wouldn't the ratio bear out and produce a logical representative result if you had smaller committees and a smaller cabinet?
Dr White: To answer the first question first, I'm not sure that there's much leeway in the size of the cabinet. You can't really expect the cabinet to go much below 15, and those extra five backbenchers you'd get I don't think would make a significant difference.
You raise an interesting question on the size of committees. I'm not sure they need to be 15. However, having worked on committees, it seems to me that it's asking simply too much and it is unfair to have caucuses represented by a single member on the opposition side, which is effectively what you would be suggesting. I don't think that's fair. It doesn't make for an effective committee. You need at least two members per caucus to make a committee work.
Mr Maves: You made a point that I have a problem with; that is, that the policy fields that the provincial government deals with "are of far greater day-to-day significance for people than" federal. I worked for a federal member before I was a provincial member and I dealt with, on a daily basis, Canada pension plan problems, unemployment insurance plan problems, Revenue Canada problems, old age security problems -- I could go on and on; it's a huge list. I can assure you from my experience that they're no less significant for people than what I deal with as a provincial member. How did you come to that conclusion?
Dr White: I certainly don't underestimate the workload of federal members, and yes, there are significant social programs that are the responsibility of the federal government for which people go to their MPs. However, if you look at the jurisdiction of the province, most social welfare measures are provincial, all education measures are provincial and health issues are provincial. Those are issues that affect people on a day-to-day basis where they are in contact with their government, where they need help from elected representatives.
Mr Sergio: We haven't got too much time to go into too many questions in detail, but I want to take you to the conclusion of your presentation, where you were saying that this would "further centralize power in cabinet and undermine the effectiveness of the Legislature." With this centralization of power, concentrated perhaps in the Premier's office and the inner cabinet, can you expand briefly how this would impact on the efficiency of the Legislature itself and the individual members too?
Dr White: As I attempted to explain in the presentation, I'm not sure I would say it would concentrate power in the Premier's office. It would simply, as a whole, give cabinet more numbers relative to the government back bench and to the Legislature as a whole, simply give cabinet an easier ride in that numbers game, but also because the government backbench and the opposition members would be too thinly spread to ask the questions, to do the research, to spend the time that's required to hold them to account.
Mr Sergio: Then you would have a very powerful central cabinet, let's say, that would overpower the actions of the individual members.
Dr White: Our system is built on a strong cabinet and I accept that; I have no problem with a strong cabinet. However, to me, at some point there are limits and one of those limits is a strong Legislature. I suggest this would undermine the Legislature.
Mr Martin: I appreciate your presentation this afternoon. You hit on some very important points and I'm glad you made them. I would not want to sit here and argue, to be frank with you, "We do more work than them," in terms of federal-provincial. We all do a lot of work if we're committed to the job, and the more manageable the group of people and the area we have to deal with, the better we do that job, as far as I'm concerned. Certainly you make that point more eloquently than I would.
The other is the point you make about the job that we do as private members here in challenging the government on various things, no matter what side of the House you're on. As a backbencher in government, I found there was always more than enough stuff to get my head into and around. For example, in preparation for this particular piece of work I'm into two books that you've written, because I find that this work here is of some great import re the evolution of democracy in Ontario.
I was just wondering, given that you have done some research and the fact that we're not going the usual route here -- normally there's a commission set up that is at arm's length, objective. That's how the federal government arrived at its new boundaries. We're not doing that in Ontario. Is that an anomaly? Has that happened before? What's the pattern in the jurisdictions you've studied?
Dr White: I'm not sure there is a pattern. I'm certainly not aware of any jurisdiction that's reverted to federal boundaries. Most of them probably couldn't do that because there are so few federal seats within their boundaries. It's really only feasible in large provinces like Ontario and Quebec. In my view, the issue isn't really, and the burden of my presentation wasn't so much, the process as the outcome. Quite simply, in my view, a smaller Legislature makes for a less democratic government, and it doesn't matter how you get to those specific boundaries. The bottom line for me is that there is a critical mass of MPPs you need to make this place effective. If you reduce that number significantly, as this bill proposes, you will undermine the democratic process.
The Chair: Thank you, Professor. We appreciate your input and we apologize for cutting you a little short.
Dr White: I used to work in this building, Mr Chairman; I understand.
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CITIZENS FOR PUBLIC JUSTICE
The Chair: Mr Vandezande, who was our fifth presenter, has asked, because of a family emergency, to get on early. We can let you come forward now, sir. We have to leave to go back in the House in about 10 minutes. You could take those 10 minutes and then we could come back and give you your other six minutes, or you can stop at the end of 10. Which is your pleasure?
Mr Gerald Vandezande: I'll probably need 10, but we'll see.
The Chair: Okay. The floor is yours, sir.
Mr Vandezande: Mr Chair, members of the committee, I guess what happened yesterday, when I was supposed to appear before the committee dealing with referenda, and what's happening today in some way points to the increasing undermining of democracy. When major policy initiatives and pieces of legislation come before the House and this committee, people who want to participate increasingly are squeezed out of the process. Yesterday we couldn't appear; today our time is reduced. I register that not as a critique but as a reality.
In principle, although I haven't seen the comments by the previous speaker, I virtually adopt them in their entirety. As Citizens for Public Justice, we have often dealt with the whole question federally and provincially, with the importance of democratic participation by voters, not only during elections, but also between elections.
When you look at the package that's before this committee and before the committee that deals with referenda, and you take those two initiatives combined, you have a further undermining of democracy. Bill 81 in no way guarantees increased accessibility, nor does it guarantee increased accountability. In fact it will probably cost more, both financially and politically. Politically, which is most important, people have increasingly the feeling that Queen's Park and all that goes on here is far removed from them. That was a very concrete experience with Bill 26, when I appeared and finally managed to squeeze out of the committee a copy of the bill which at that time the committee at first refused to give to citizens.
Why I'm highlighting this is that when a government gets into power with 45%, or the previous one with nearly 38%, it thinks it can do as it likes. They think that once they've won an election, no matter how, they can act arbitrarily. We need some checks and balances with respect to the democratic process.
The Legislature, in our view, is the chamber that represents citizens in the making of laws and policies. Therefore, we argue that electoral reform of the Legislature ought to be undertaken if the parliamentary system is to be more responsive in its representation of Ontario's diversity. In our view, electoral reform must be guided by three principles, namely, effectiveness, fairness and equity in representation of all the voters of Ontario.
That's why we would argue that this committee seriously consider, together with the committee that is looking at referenda, the need for proportional representation, so that we get rid of the inequities that currently govern the system and allow governments, once they gain a majority of seats, to ignore the majority of the voters, who didn't vote for them, and nevertheless the government of the day proceeds as it wishes.
In our view, citizens should get what they vote for. If someone votes PC or NDP or Liberal, that vote should go to that party. As well, representation must be equitable, so that in the Legislature representation must be in accordance with the actual support garnered on election day.
Third, it must be effective, namely, citizens should expect that the electoral system will enable their representatives to faithfully carry out the agreed-upon principles and election promises to which voters lent their support.
In the previous election 55% of the public voted for parties other than the Conservatives. Their voices do not constitute 55% of the seats in the House. We have an inequitable system that doesn't really allow for proper popular democratic participation in politics. We're suggesting that this bill be tabled, that the referendum material be tabled and that the combined committees look at an alternative. In that way you also do greater justice to the outlying regions. The argument came back to me -- and since you will be disappearing into the House I'll now make it -- that under proportional representation you don't necessarily guarantee the seats in the north, which is less populated, that the people there will get adequate representation. A party would run an enormous risk of alienating many voters if it didn't have on its slate of candidates qualified spokespersons who were familiar with the people and the people's interests in the north and thus would ignore that whole block of votes. The same goes for Metro or elsewhere.
What we're arguing is that this bill, because it really ends up with a centralization of power, both in the cabinet and the government caucus, ultimately ends up also in an increase in power in the bureaucracy. Therefore, there is less accountability, less accessibility, and the people will even begin to feel more cynical.
Today, and Mr Young was there, we met 75 people representing about 100 different organizations across this province out of the faith community dealing with social problems. These people increasingly feel sceptical, if not cynical, about their ability to access the government. We simply cannot get the kind of appointments and consultation we think are essential on major changes that were not discussed during the previous election, nor were they the mandate of the majority of the people elected to the provincial Legislature. We can't even discuss them, leave alone be a part of the development of policy alternatives. We are totally shut out, totally ignored, and at best we can get 15 minutes before a committee if we can get in. People then say, "We need radical alternatives," and in my view that leads to the Metro Days of Action.
If the government takes seriously only one thing from the Metro Days of Action, it should be to guarantee greater representation. We need a representative democracy, greater accessibility, greater accountability and greater participation by the people who are directly affected by the policies the government introduces, by the agencies working with the people who are directly affected and by ordinary citizens like myself who have an interest in the overall development of public policy and who want the diversity of values and perspectives to participate in the decision-making process.
We plead with you to look at the possibility of proportional representation and to look at it in the context of a greatly diversified Ontario. We have a variety of faith and value perspectives that have totally different views with respect to major policy initiatives, particularly of this government. Take seriously the definitions of democracy in the various dictionaries plus the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The preamble to the Ontario Human Rights Code speaks very significantly about the government's obligation to enable full and fair participation by all the people of Ontario in the democratic election process but also during the decision-making process between elections.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. We've got about a minute and a half left, not really an effective time for any questions. Did you have any further comments you wanted to make? I tried to divide a minute and a half up, but -- do you have any additional comments you want to make, sir?
Mr Vandezande: The question I would like this committee and the referendum committee to address is, what recommendations would you as committees make so that the stakeholders, the people directly affected by government policies who currently really don't have adequate access to those who make the major decisions in this province, will be guaranteed genuine participation in the development of policies and possible alternatives, so that the people whose lives are directly affected, whose future hangs in the balance, may participate and perhaps help the government and the opposition find genuine practical alternatives that lead to a more genuine democracy rather than a lessening of democratic participation?
That's a question that you may want to address as a committee, that you may want to address to the Legislature and particularly to the government. Bill 26, which we dealt with at great length, trying to figure it out, had enormous ramifications. Had it not been for a number of us insisting, with the help of the opposition parties, that there be public hearings and that we get access to the proposed amendments to Bill 26 -- in fact, we are still in the dark about some of the consequences of Bill 26.
That was unacceptable, intolerable, a violation of democracy, and I don't say that easily. I went through the Second World War, and all of us had buttons on; mine fell off in the hall. You know, Canadian soldiers gave their lives for the freedom of people like myself. I'm eternally grateful, deeply thankful for that liberation, but let's make sure that the freedom that we were given also in this country, my country, our country, is used responsibly so that no majority can engage in the kind of democratism and majoritarianism that ignores the inherent human rights of the minority.
The Chair: Thank you very much, sir. You're more than welcome, if you want to stay until we come back, another six minutes, so we could ask some questions. It'll be your call. We'll be recessed until the next vote.
The committee recessed from 1702 to 1707.
The Chair: We can start the questions with the Liberals.
Mr Sergio: Some previous presenters have mentioned that the savings we would acquire with the passage of this bill would be very insignificant, very minimal. Would you say then there's nowhere to go after those minimal savings at the cost of diminishing democracy?
Mr Vandezande: I think that's true. If you go with 103 seats you would have to, in any event already with 130 -- as it is now, there is inadequate accessibility at the riding level to any MPP because the MPP only has 24 hours a day, most of which he spends here. Second, if you reduce the number and make the riding larger you're going to have to increase, if you want to be true to the principles of democracy, accessibility at the local level. That means more offices. I dare say, and I'm a cost accountant by background, if you did a cost-benefit analysis simply in terms of dollars and cents you would substantially increase your budget as corporations, and I've worked in a multinational. Centralization inevitably means it costs more money, and that's what you're doing here. Centralization of bureaucracy means less accountability, less accessibility and more financial costs.
Mr Martin: I think you make some interesting connections between the work that's going on re the introduction of more and more referenda in the province and the diminishing of the role of this House by way of fewer members and because of all the things you suggest will happen: an enhancing of the executive power and all that. It's interesting. I'm partway through a book here called A Parliament in Crisis: The Decline of Democracy in New Zealand. Part of the thesis there is exactly that: The more you give power to the executive council and cabinet, the more you take away from the private member to represent his constituents, the less democracy you have. That's the premise.
Mr Vandezande: I think that's true. The rumour that is circulating in the document I've seen that leads to sharp reduction or the abolition of school boards is going to raise a major crisis in terms of what we mean by democracy.
What we will have, by the government's own admission, is the centralization of decision-making power in the bureaucracy with respect to curriculum and other major matters that I think ought to be decided by those who are providing the teaching and sending their children to the schools. But because local boards will be eliminated in the name of efficiency, we undermine the quality of education, undermine the quality of popular participation, increase the costs of the bureaucracy, cause further centralization, eliminate the diversity for which our province is known; thus you get a uniformity that has never been the intent of a genuine democracy.
In a democracy you invite diverse views to come to the fore and participate on an equal basis in the shaping of decisions. To use the notion of a financial bottom line to rationalize a reduction in democracy is an idolization of money that no party should ever subscribe to in the name of democracy.
Mr Young: Mr Vandezande, thank you very much for coming. I always appreciate your remarks and consider them very carefully, as do other members of the committee.
I'm looking at some information I have from the Citizens for Public Justice with regard to income tax, looking for new sources of revenue for the federal government. There are some very interesting suggestions here: changing RRSP deductions; tax exemption for lottery winnings; green taxes to help protect our environment. Some are very interesting.
The unions in Ontario have, and I may be wrong, I believe about $1 billion a year in income that they get from union dues, and they don't pay any taxes on that. I wonder if you have any comments on that.
Mr Vandezande: I happened to be, at one point, a full-time union negotiator and a representative for the Christian Labour Association of Canada. The dues paid by people to have adequate representation in the workplace are a contribution to the social stability of a province, and I don't think they should be subject to taxation.
With respect to the other figures you quoted, those are from a document we'll be discussing with the parliamentary committee dealing with the federal budget tomorrow. Let me just use that, and I don't know whether you intend it. You can't decide the RRSP issue or the casino issue or other issues, talking about taxation of earnings, by way of referendum. You've got to ask, "Which core values do we as a government, do I as a finance minister, employ when I make an assessment of which incomes, which earnings are taxable?" I don't understand why this government or the federal government simply doesn't declare income to be taxable, no matter what kind of income, and then do justice to the needs of people by removing the inequities in the system, which currently favours high-income earners, corporations and others that pay inadequate taxes.
The Chair: Thank you very much, sir. Unfortunately we've run out of time. I appreciate your being here this afternoon.
Mr Vandezande: I was just going to make the one point about the social assistance reduction.
The Chair: Unfortunately we do have to finish by 6 o'clock, and we have two more presenters, so I must be difficult on the time. I apologize for that. Thank you very much for your input here this afternoon.
BILL GREEN
The Chair: Our next presenter, going back to the beginning of the list now, is Mr Bill Green. Good afternoon, sir. Sorry for the delay. You have 16 minutes. We've had to cut the time down to accommodate the five people within the time frame because of what's gone on in the House this afternoon. The floor is yours, sir.
Mr Bill Green: Mr Carroll, I remember you from the tenant committee.
The Chair: Oh, right, yes.
Mr Green: I lost four minutes there and I'm losing five minutes here. Pretty soon I'm going to come in here for free.
The Chair: If things had gone in the House the way they normally do, we would have had ample time, but unfortunately they didn't.
Mr Green: I understand that. Good afternoon. I hope you're all well today. It's been a hell of a day for you, as I understand. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you on this proposal. My name is Bill Green. I'm just a citizen. I'm currently recovering from cancer. During this time I volunteer, program and produce at CIUT-FM, the University of Toronto community radio, and I'm on the board of directors of Metro Tenants Legal Services, as well as trying to recover.
I came here today, though, representing no organization, only as a private citizen, a voice deeply troubled by this bill and its implications.
There is an old Polish proverb that says: "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under socialism, the reverse is true."
When I asked to speak to the committee about this bill, I was given a copy of the Premier's statement and responses to the legislation. In that statement the Premier used the words "cost" or "costly" five times, "spend" three times, "pay" and "taxpayers" twice each, as well as "money," "debt" and "savings." Not once did I see the word "democracy" or the words "elected members." Not once did the Premier tell the people that democracy, the people's right to representation, was being dismantled.
It is indeed a sad and frightening situation when a government proposes to tear down the people's expression of democracy because it's not cost-efficient in their minds. In other words, democracy costs too much money.
I remember watching film footage of the old US Senate hearings into communism, the old "red menace" hearings of the 1950s, when finally a senator had to ask Joe McCarthy if he had no shame and how low he would sink. We could use that senator right now. Reinhold Niebuhr once said that man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but his inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
The halls of this building are festooned with pictures of those individuals who made this province a great place to live, but not one of them ever made it a cause to deprive the citizenry of this province of the right to representation.
Down the street from here and in just about every town in Ontario is a cenotaph dedicated to those who died protecting democracy. This bill shames that sacrifice. Do you say to them now, "Sorry, democracy may have been noble then, but now it's just too expensive"? Abraham Lincoln said that those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. Bureaucracy may need a shakeup, downsizing, but not democracy.
Where I live, there are many new Canadians, and when I ask them why they came here, almost all of them say for a better life. When I ask further why they come, it's because they have a chance at freedom, justice and tolerance, and again they say a better life. When I ask, "By better life, do you mean more money?" I usually get educated by being told they want a better life, not a better lifestyle. Usually then they tell you the horrid stories of the loss of democracy, the rise of tyranny and corruption in their birth homes. Then they finally tell of the loss of hope and the resulting emigration from their homes. The loss of hope -- we hear a lot of that lately.
This government's obsession with the deficit, taxes and money has clouded their vision and sense of democracy and justice. They have become fiscal junkies who only see debt reduction, free market economy, profits, money, power. Money to them is freedom, and like drug addicts, they have to have it. They don't know anything else, it seems, and are incapable of learning because of that addiction. They would sell their children's democratic legacy in the name of fiscal responsibility.
Plato said that we can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
When I took business in school, I was told that the object of business was to provide goods and services at a profit. Profit, though, is defined in the dictionary as gain. Gains come in many forms and descriptions, and they are not just monetary. Somerset Maugham said it himself: "If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." When you profit morally, you gain wisdom. When democracy gains, it enlightens and empowers the citizenry to build and maintain a just and equal society.
Canada has been described as a country of people who got together and decided to have a country. Within walking distance from this very building there's a Russian restaurant, a Nicaraguan bookstore, a Romanian market and a Haitian art gallery, and the list goes on. We're very blessed to be able to share in this cultural potluck with our many friends. But remember, these people came from Stalin's Russia, Somoza's Nicaragua, Duvalier's Haiti, countries where freedom and justice became commodities and not human rights, where despots and tyrants victimized the people both militarily and economically and the voices of opposition were stifled and brutalized.
When you tell these people now how the government wants to reduce the numbers of democratically elected representatives, they sadly shake their heads and say, "Bill, that's how it started in the country of my birth, and that's how it all fell apart." Power in the hands of the few is the first step to autocracy and misery. It has been said that tyranny of the economy is as deadly as tyranny of the gun. History has shown us that so-called great societies died because people were first deprived of their freedom of choice.
I read recently where these cuts would benefit the current government by eliminating opposition representation in Toronto and the north. Respectfully, I would remind all of the folks that you were elected in many cases by only 50% of the 40% who actually voted, and some of you with even less. I believe it is your moral and ethical obligation to serve those who didn't vote for you or didn't vote at all as equally as you do those who did vote for you.
I'm going to end this very shortly because I would rather you go to the people and ask them what they want instead of going out and telling them what they need.
If democratically elected officials are the pillars of society, then lessening their numbers only weakens the foundation of that civilization. You have a chance, like Spike Lee said, to do the right thing. Walk away from this bill. It would show the people that you have the strength of character to defy those who demean democracy for fiscal reasons.
Fix the bureaucracy of government, but leave the democracy alone. If you truly are building for the future and our children's future, remember what Oscar Wilde said: "Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them."
Thank you. Questions?
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Green. We've got about two minutes per caucus for questions, beginning with the NDP.
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Mr Martin: I just want to thank you for an excellent presentation. Certainly there's no doubt after a presentation like that of the importance of what we're doing here and the fact that we over here feel we're talking about the fundamental right of citizens to representation in the House where laws are made that govern them and all of that, and that we shouldn't be doing this. The bill comes in. Three weeks later, after a bit of consultation, mind you, through negotiation and push and shove at the House leader level, we get I think five days of public consultation.
We've been asked twice now by presenters if the government wouldn't consider tabling this legislation plus the legislation on referenda. I don't think that's going to happen, but there is another option, and that's the option of going to a commission, which is the traditional way of doing this kind of business. I don't think there's anybody who disagrees that from time to time you need to look at and assess whether you are being served well by the representative process that's in place.
Would you concede to the need for at least a commission? Would that answer your concern about the diminishing of democracy?
Mr Green: Diminishing of democracy to me has to do with numbers. As the province grows, I think you need the representatives, because you need to have someone there to hear the voices. If you're going to take 27 or 29 or 30 MPPs out of this House, you've got 30 less vehicles for people to speak to, whether they're on that side or this side.
I'm not a socialist, folks, but then again I'm not a capitalist. When I sit there and I look at the Conservatives on that side and I say they went to law school, many of them, and other parts of school, I say they can't believe, and I guess I'm too much of an idealist, that taking democracy away from the people is a good thing.
Mr Martin: That's a good point.
Mr Young: I've known a lot of veterans, my father was a veteran, and I really, really disagree with your analysis and your conclusion that they would say this is anti-democratic. The freedoms that the veterans fought for in this country are far more substantial than the actual number of seats in the provincial Legislature.
What I'm sure they would agree with is that with the government $100 billion in debt, being increased by only $8 billion this year, but in the previous government $10 billion a year, they would insist that we deal with that, and this is one of the ways we're dealing with it. We're showing leadership.
You made a comment that we should ask the people what they think, and I want to tell you, we did that. We did it on June 8. We published the document. You should get a copy of it, because we're implementing all of it.
Mr Green: I've got one.
Mr Young: It's called the Common Sense Revolution. This was a very clear part of the document; it's a clear part of our mandate. With 130 seats, not 103, we won a clear majority, which is 82 seats. It sounds to me like you're saying that if we doubled the number of politicians, our government would be twice as good, which does not follow.
I want to defer to my colleague Mr Gilchrist to comment.
Mr Gilchrist: Thank you, Mr Young. I guess I would just follow up with some statistics you may not be aware of, Mr Green. Reductions have happened before. In 1935, faced with the overwhelmingly dire circumstances that the province faced at the time, there was exactly the same 20% reduction in the number of members. I haven't heard any part of your evidence that there is any factual evidence to show there was a reduction in democracy in Ontario arising from that.
Like Mr Young, I take exception to the premise that it may be the quality, not quantity, of members who serve in this House that should be the issue. I think it is somewhat repugnant to members of all parties to suggest that the small redistribution that's in effect here for most ridings in terms of the geographical areas and the levelling out of population to remedy the fact that there is a 525% variance from the smallest to the largest riding today, that one citizen in the riding of Rainy River has 6.25 times the voting power of a resident of York Centre -- we're remedying that grave injustice, that very undemocratic situation, and that's the intent of this bill.
Mr Sergio: I have thoroughly enjoyed --
Mr Green: Is this questions or statements?
Mr Sergio: Yes, I guess you were waiting for the question. It wasn't there.
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I just inquire, because we're going to be together for a while, whether this exercise is about deputants coming and making a presentation and then questions of them for clarification, or are we going to hear a stream of speeches?
Mr Gilchrist: Let's save the soapbox, shall we?
Mr Martin: Mr Grandmaître was cut off this morning.
The Chair: Basically, the people can use the time any way they see fit.
Mr Sergio: Mr Green, I have thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and I'd like to have a copy of that if possible.
This morning we had Mr John Sewell, who I'm sure you're familiar with. He did say that we need some changes, but he does not agree with the changes proposed by this particular bill. He said to the committee that people are totally confused at the levels of government -- federal, provincial, Metro, local, school boards -- and this does not dwell well in servicing the people of Ontario. I wonder, if this comes from a former mayor, from someone who is well familiar with the intricacies of government and servicing the people, how a larger constituency and reduced representation would serve better those constituents. Any idea?
Mr Green: That's a pretty wide question. Part of your question has to do with all those different forums. I think there's far too much bureaucracy. You can make the law, but whoever carries it out, there's too much of that. I agree with that in many respects. I think the people must have the opportunity to voice their opinions, voice their thoughts and have their input into how their country or how their province is run. I have no problem with that whatsoever. How it's costed, how it's worked on, is a whole different story.
What bothers me more than anything else with this thing is this sort of: "Hey, there are too many. It doesn't work. Let's change it." Boom, like that, it's gone, it's over.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Green. We do appreciate your input here today.
ROBERT MACDERMID
The Chair: Our next presenter is Dr Bob MacDermid from York University. Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to our committee. We're going to be able to squeeze you in before we have to leave, I think, to go vote in the House.
Dr Robert MacDermid: Thank you very much for at least the limited time I'll get to speak. I want to very quickly thank you for inviting me and giving me this short time. I want to cover about four points, some of which have been covered by other participants. I'll spare you the reiteration of those points except to mention them, and then cover a couple that I have not heard mentioned since I have been here.
The points I want to talk about are, first, how Bill 81 in its reduction of representation is unprecedented -- and I'm cognizant of the comments of Mr Gilchrist a moment ago -- in Canadian electoral history, either at the federal or I think at the provincial level, and certainly since the war.
Second, I'd like to talk about what the reduction in representation means for ordinary citizens and for you honourable members, because I think perhaps you had not considered what kind of a workload you're taking upon yourselves in doing this.
Third, I'd like to just briefly talk about what effect devolving the right to define constituencies to the federal government might have to the citizens of Ontario. I'm not sure whether you've reflected upon that.
Finally, I just want to talk briefly about representation and how crucial it is to democracy and how we must always be aware when we make changes to representation what the ramifications for democracy as a whole might be.
Let me start with Bill 81. In the brief time I've had to prepare for this hearing, I've come to realize that what Bill 81 proposes is completely unprecedented in Canadian democracy. The occasions on which the number of representatives at either the federal or provincial levels of government has declined can probably be counted on two hands. In most instances, the decline in members was less than 10% and occurred as a result of population shifts from one province to another. Bill 81 is proposing a decline of 27 seats, probably the largest absolute decline in Canadian history. It is almost the only occasion on which representation at either federal or provincial levels has declined, as I mentioned, since 1945.
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Every province, on every other occasion of redistribution, has seen fit to increase representation as population increases. Even PEI has increased the size of its Legislature to 32 members, a level of representation unheard of in Ontario, now or in the foreseeable future. Given more time to research the question, I suspect that the abrupt decline in representation that's proposed in this bill is unparalleled in the history of western democracies.
The bill proposes to reduce the number of representatives by 21% and to increase the average number of electors per constituency by 35%. If we extrapolate the annual growth rate of the electorate between 1971 and 1995 to the year 2000 and we divide by 103 seats, it means that on average every MPP will have 35% more constituents to represent than is currently the case.
The average constituency size will grow from about 50,000 to, according to my calculation, 69,300, and that's the average. Of course there will be some levelling out, as the member indicated before, through this kind of redistribution, but inequalities will still exist. You're not proposing to make northern Ontario entirely one constituency, I take it. There will always have to be some constituencies that have lower numbers of electors than other constituencies. So that's an average. I expect the constituency which York University is in, North York, which is the largest constituency in the federal House, will somehow hopefully be levelled down, but I suspect it will still remain as one of the largest.
That average of 69,300 is the largest average constituency size in all of Canadian provincial politics. No other jurisdiction in Canada thinks so little of the function of representation that it would choose to create constituencies of that size. It's only matched by the lack of power that Ontario voters have in federal elections. We all know that Ontario voters are underrepresented in federal elections.
What does that mean, though, for the ordinary citizen and for you honourable members, who may have not thought through exactly what this means for you? Perhaps it's necessary to go through some simple calculations to understand how the provisions of this bill narrow considerably the possibilities of democratic participation for citizens.
Suppose a constituency office is open 250 days a year. I know that's not true because I've had some involvement with a constituency office. I imagine it's more in the order of 200 days a year. Suppose a constituent wishes to contact an MPP's office once every two years. That's a fairly limited amount of contact. Surely we'd all agree that we must have a democratic infrastructure that is capable of handling participation by one citizen every two years. In a four-year period, if we go through the mathematics, that would mean 138,600 calls to a constituency office. Divide that number by 1,000 working days in a four-year cycle and you get 139 calls a day. That's of course a low estimate. It would in fact be much higher.
I know that no representative or representative's staff could possibly handle that level of contacts. I know from experience that the average MPP has in their constituency office two and a half or three staff members, and even with the current volume of contacts, they are simply incapable of handling and responding to citizens' requests for information, citizens' requests for assistance with different government proposals. What this expansion of the size of every constituency means is that if we do not put more money into the average MPP's budget to be able to respond to these requests, we're really diminishing the likelihood that citizens will ever bother even to try to contact an MPP, because that busy signal or that voice mail response will be the only one they are likely to get.
Let me then move to the third point I want to make, and that is ceding the rights -- if not in law ceding the rights, at least in practice ceding the rights -- to determine electoral boundaries to the federal government.
It is true that I think the most apparent trend in Canadian federalism over the past 25 years has been the downloading of service delivery from the federal to the provincial governments. I heard what Mr Maves had to say, that the federal government still continues to offer a number of important services which citizens have a right to have representation on. However, in the main, shared-cost programs and conditional grants where the province produces and delivers the service has meant that the provincial government has grown in importance, in many instances with respect to the policies that most affect citizens' lives: education, health, welfare. It is the provincial government that plays the prime role.
The growing importance of provincial governments is reflected in the universally higher number of representatives to provincial governments. That's true in every province. People are more likely to need to contact a provincial MPP than a federal MP.
The other part of moving to federal boundaries is that adopting federal election boundaries denies the importance of provincial government programs. Moreover, it ties an Ontario citizen's level of representation in Queen's Park to the rules that apply to the distribution of seats at the federal level. I'm sure members are all aware that the number of seats Ontario currently has at the federal level, the 103 seats that you're proposing to diminish to, seriously underrepresents its population in Ottawa furthermore because of constitutional guarantees made to different provinces at and since Confederation.
I wonder if Ontario citizens will be surprised to hear that the extent of their representation at Queen's Park will now depend upon the size of Quebec's representation in Ottawa. In other words, what you're doing is saying that citizens' representation here will now be tied to guarantees under federal representation that Quebec have a certain number of MPs in Ottawa. That is what you are doing when you pass this bill.
Let me turn finally to representation as what I consider to be the fundamental, the very essence indeed, of democracy. It's the basis for all governing decisions, and in fact the history of the growth of Canadian democracy is the history of the extension and expansion to different groups in society who were excluded from basic rights of citizenship. It's a history that we should be both proud of and ashamed of. We speak of it as the history of the extension of voting rights first to the propertyless, then to women and then to native Canadians, but in fact it is the history of the granting of rights for representation to groups of individuals who we once thought, or our ancestors once thought, had no right to have their opinions heard, indeed who had no opinions worthy of consideration.
I remind you of this little bit of history because its significance lies not in the granting of the right to vote, but in the possibility of voting for someone who represents your interests. In other words, the history of Canadian democracy is then the history of the extension of representation, grudgingly and bit by bit, to more and more people.
How does this feed into the size of a constituency or what difference does the number of electors make to the quality of the democracy we experience here in Ontario? Some are obviously prepared to believe that it makes no difference and that increasing the geographical area and population of a representative's constituency makes no difference whatsoever; that increasing the number of electors by as much as one third will have no effect on the quality of representation. We'll simply elect better members.
That belief rests upon a very impoverished idea of representation, a belief that assumes that the only interest and responsibility of a citizen is to vote every four or five years and stay out of government in between those events. It is a belief that implicitly pushes citizens away from taking part in government and from making their views known to representatives. The logic implicit in this belief is quite simple: Since citizens don't take part to any great extent and often have little to contribute, nothing is lost by reducing their opportunities to do so. Decreasing the number of representatives cannot really affect the quality of democracy and will give to citizens the tax savings that they want and value above anything so vague and general as representation. The argument is flawed, I think, in an important way. It supposes that apathy is centred in individuals, is a function of individual makeup and not of the system of representation.
It is not that people do not wish to take part in government, but they are rarely given the opportunity or encouragement to do so. A representative that does not encourage and expand participation will in the end fail to represent. That is because the real essence of representation is dialogue. For views to be represented, they need to be made known. A representative needs to constantly consult with constituents, to constantly offer opportunities to discuss with them the issues of the day, to hear their opinions and to decide how they best can be represented. I'm sure, as representatives, you all know these things to be true.
The larger the group being represented, the more impossible the act of representation becomes, the more demobilized and depoliticized voters become and the more superficial becomes the job of representative, who now is limited to being a representative of his or her party, of his or her government, who is limited then to handing out 50th wedding anniversary certificates and other events that have no representational meaning and few opportunities for meaningful political dialogue. It is the very kind of pseudo-representation that will grow as the size of constituency grows, where representatives do not seek our opinions, do not try to engage us in dialogue that discovers our opinions and our arguments, but rather seeks to represent the opinions of government or party to us and display for us the power and prestige of office.
The more people to be represented, the greater will be the tendency towards this kind of pseudo-representation and the fewer opportunities we will have to participate in our own self-government.
The Chair: Just to let you know, Dr MacDermid, we're down to the last two minutes.
Dr MacDermid: Okay. In closing, I urge the committee to consider wisely this bill's proposal to reduce representation so dramatically that it cannot help but affect the quality of democratic experience that all Ontarians will have in the future. No imperceptibly small reduction in expenditures could possibly justify diminishing the quality of our democratic freedoms.
The Chair: With just a minute and a half left, we don't have any effective time for questioning. Did you have any final comments you wanted to make?
Dr MacDermid: I think I probably said all I need to say.
The Chair: Thanks very much, and we apologize for cutting it short, but the indications of the day made us do that. We will now recess until after the vote.
The committee recessed from 1743 to 1750.
CHRIS CLIMO
The Chair: Mr Climo, we have a small window of opportunity for you to make your presentation to us. We'll allot you the 16 minutes we've had to cut the times down to this afternoon. The floor is yours, sir.
Mr Chris Climo: I won't take 16 minutes. I believe I have more like about six minutes, but those were all the thoughts I have, and I believe in efficiency, so I shall give them to you.
Members of the committee, my name is Chris Climo and I'm from the city of Etobicoke. I'd like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to address you today on the Fewer Politicians Act. I believe the committee hearing system is an important part of our democratic process, since it allows citizens of Ontario to address their views on specific subjects directly to the elected representatives.
Our parliamentary system is built on representative democracy, which conveys the power to members of the Legislature to make decisions on behalf of their fellow citizens between elections. I'd like to state that I recognize and respect the mandate that the electorate has given you as MPPs. However, I believe it is important that citizens have an avenue to express their views between elections. This hearing process provides that avenue. It is the responsibility of citizens to avail themselves of that opportunity. For the record, I'd like to state my belief that expressing your views calmly and legally using this avenue is much more effective and morally defensible than expressing your views by shouting, marching and protesting on public avenues.
This is the first time I've ever appeared before a committee to address proposed legislation. However, I believe that the Fewer Politicians Act is an important step in the process of redefining government to reflect the realities of the 1990s.
I'm a chartered accountant by profession and I work for TD Securities. Those of us who were employed in the private sector through the late 1980s and the 1990s have seen downsizing of almost all businesses to reflect the new realities. Scant few businesses have escaped the efficiency drives, the cost controls, the hiring freezes and ultimately the cost cutting. The key to success is to deliver satisfactory goods and services to your customers in the most efficient manner. This is accomplished through a variety of factors, including technology improvements, but an essential component remains the reduction in staff levels. This means fewer people working both harder and smarter to deliver the same level of service.
I believe the group whose jobs have been most affected by these changes are the middle management levels, a group that I number myself among. These people are working 60- to 70-hour weeks, including time on evenings and weekends, with little or no additional compensation. Their lives have been dramatically changed in the past 10 years.
By contrast, the government of Ontario had not previously faced up to the realities of the late 1980s and the 1990s. The government continued to grow, to increase spending, to increase staff levels and ultimately to increase both taxes and deficits. The government essentially denied the laws of economics through their unlimited taxation power and their massive borrowing abilities. The government was not sharing the burden with the citizens and taxpayers of Ontario, the very people they are supposed to represent.
In June 1990 the citizens and taxpayers sent the government a wake-up call. Welcome to the reality of the 1990s, ladies and gentlemen. To date the new government has demonstrated they've heard that message. They've been striving to reduce the size of government, the bureaucracy of government and ultimately the cost of government. The Fewer Politicians Act is an important symbol of that commitment by the Legislature. For starters, I've heard estimates that the reduction from 130 to 103 MPPs will save $10 to $11 million a year. That alone is a very compelling reason.
I also believe that the realignment of the ridings to the federal guidelines will result in savings of election administration, and it is my belief that it will reduce confusion among the public of who their members are and should increase cooperation between MPs and MPPs since they will cover the exact same territory and serve the same constituents. The present system overlaps varying constituencies and, I believe, confuses the members of the public as to who their members are and makes it difficult for the two levels of government to cooperate due to the overlap of their various ridings. This coordination between the two levels of government will, I believe, improve the level of service to constituents and not decrease it as other people have stated.
It has been said that MPPs will not be able to properly service a riding the same size as a federal riding. I dismiss that argument completely. Most federal MPs manage to serve their constituents, to deal with a large variety of issues while spending probably more time travelling back and forth between Ottawa and their ridings than most MPPs due to the increased distances. It is my belief that any MPPs who feel they cannot work as hard or as efficiently as MPs on behalf of their constituents should look for another line of work.
This act demonstrates that you, as MPPs, are committed to more efficient government, to spending the taxpayers' money more wisely and to working harder and smarter to deliver the same level of service. It also demonstrates that your commitment begins at the top and that you are personally prepared to share the same burdens as your constituents and face the same realities. In my opinion, you owe them nothing less.
Mr Sergio: You're an accountant, right?
Mr Climo: Yes, sir.
Mr Sergio: Of course, to make a representation to our committee today you did a little bit of research, I would say. Do you really see some $10-million, $11-million, $12-million saving by this restructuring?
Mr Climo: Based on the preliminary numbers I've seen, that is the estimated saving. I am not opining as to whether that is in fact a saving. If you'd like to provide me with the books and the information I'd be prepared to do so. That is based on the reports I've seen.
Mr Sergio: I want you to know that we ourselves haven't seen any figures yet.
Another question: You have stressed the fact of, "Let's wake up to the realities of the 1990s." What does this mean to the realities of the democratic process? Can you expand on that, please?
Mr Climo: It is my belief that 103 hardworking members of the provincial Parliament should be able to represent the people in Ontario. As I said, it's simply a part of things that everybody had done. It's a matter of working harder, it's a matter of working smarter. Many people in all sorts of businesses are doing jobs that used to be done by two people, are working overtime, are working hard, and I don't deny that as MPPs you'll likely work hard. I think that's the reality.
Mr Sergio: Like they say, you've got to do more for less, right?
Mr Climo: Everybody else has had to up to this point, and I believe the government should have to as well.
Mr Martin: I want you to know that I appreciate your coming today and making your presentation. I think it's important that we hear from people like yourself and I think what you have to say is very important as well.
My only question to you is, given that this piece of work the government is on to now is quite important, has some rather far-reaching ramifications, it's quite significant -- dropping from 130 members to 103 members is a real incursion into the fundamentals of representative democracy -- do you think it's appropriate that we do this in two months, with six days of hearings, 16 minutes per person, 20 minutes when we get back on track, when traditionally we've done this kind of thing -- I don't suggest for a second that we shouldn't visit this issue and from time to time make changes to reflect the reality of a particular day. But doing it in two months as opposed to going out to an objective arm's-length commission, which is the normal way, which the federal government did to arrive at their numbers, does that make any sense to you?
Mr Climo: I have a couple of comments on that. First, as I said in my statement, it's certainly important to get representation from the public, and I think this process is doing that. With due respect, maybe people who are taking 16 minutes haven't organized their thoughts and you could hear a lot more people if they'd do it in six or eight. I sat down with what I thought were the key things and presented those to you and didn't come up with 15 minutes worth of other things. So I think members of the public could present in less time and you'd get more input.
I also think, though, that if the idea is right, there needs to be debate, but there's no point in debating an idea that is the right idea. Also, I would say again that in the world of business, which I call the world of reality, you have to move quickly. You don't have the luxury of saying, "Let's give this two months, four months, six months, eight months, 10 months; let's study it." I think governments need to realize they don't have the luxury of doing that either. They need to debate the ideas, hear the relevant points and make a decision.
Mr Harry Danford (Hastings-Peterborough): Thank you, Mr Climo, for your presentation. I have to agree with a lot of the points you made. I think the boundary that runs corresponding with the MPs certainly does take away a lot of confusion for the people we represent, certainly the technology part of it too. I have a rather large rural riding. We've adapted ourselves so that we can serve it well with the 1-800 lines, computers, even conference calls if it's a group situation. I think we address those and that we have progressed since the last time the boundaries were adjusted.
Another thing was brought up this morning or earlier today, and I'd just like your comment on it. It was suggested by one of the presenters that we have a four-day week here sitting in the Legislature. If it was reduced to three and perhaps we extended the hours, it would allow us another day back in our riding, regardless of whether it's rural or urban. I just wonder what your comment would be on that. We could serve our constituency even better as far as spending more time and providing the service is concerned, which is what we're all trying to do.
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Mr Climo: That certainly sounds like a viable idea. As MPPs, you have two roles, one of which is to be here in the Legislature, and that's certainly important, but you have a role in serving your constituents which is probably of equal or greater importance. If that meant longer days in the Legislature in the three days that you're here and more time in your riding to serve constituents, that might make up for the fact that the ridings may be a little larger. Certainly I think that would make some sense. You need to say, "How much work needs to be done and how much time do I have to do it?" and whatever schedule needs to be set to fit it in, you do it.
As I indicated to this gentleman, in the world of business and reality, you don't have the luxury of saying, "Let's schedule another five days or six days or eight days," because the time has passed. You know when the deadline is, you know what has to be done and you have to make your schedule work accordingly. Maybe three days here and two days out would be the best way to do it.
The Chair: Mr Maves, a quick minute.
Mr Maves: Just on whether we should have more time to look at this, as Mr Martin had said, I'd like to point out that this has been in the Common Sense Revolution since 1994, so the idea has been out there for over two years now.
Also, the members opposite have said they want to have MPPs appear in the public hearings. I'm against that. I think public hearings should be for people from the public and not other MPPs. They have their chance in the House. How do you feel about that?
Mr Climo: I agree with you. As I said, I've never appeared before a committee before, but I think this is important. All the members were elected to represent their constituents and make those decisions in the House, and that's the place to do it. There was a concern that there wasn't enough hearing from the public with the restricted amount of committee time. If you put more MPPs in this chair rather than regular citizens, you'd hear from even fewer members of the public. I'd say even one MPP in this chair is too many.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Climo. We do appreciate your coming forward today and giving us your input.
Mr Climo: Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
Mr Gilchrist: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I seek your indulgence and I ask your forgiveness if the habit that I have become accustomed to on another committee is not the practice of this one. I don't say that in the slightest way to say that one is better than the other.
In looking at the number of gaps we had today and knowing that other names have been sent in, I guess when I agreed, and certainly when I voted in here, that the selection would be in rotation, it was my expectation that when any one list runs out, you don't stop the selection and the slotting. For instance, if the government were to only send in six names but each of the opposition sent in nine, when you hit the sixth government member, you then go Liberal, NDP, Liberal, NDP, Liberal, NDP. I'm curious to know whether some other strategy is used in this committee, because I see we have a number of gaps again in London and Ottawa. I'm just curious to know whether every name has been accommodated that has met the deadline.
The Chair: Have we accommodated all the names in London and Ottawa? I guess that's the first question.
Clerk of the Committee: As I discussed with you, the people who are on A, B and C, the caucus lists, if the lists were beyond the numbers that were available, I haven't been instructed by anyone to continue to schedule any that are left over. From this morning's instructions, what I have followed is, anyone who calls in to my office requesting an appointment in either Ottawa or London is being scheduled in any of those spots, regardless of any affiliation.
Mr Gilchrist: Okay, that clarifies for those two. I just want to put on the record that when we agreed to schedule in rotation from the lists, I did not see anything limiting that to an equal number from each list. I absolutely accept, if the clerk believes that those who were the excess, if I can call them that, have now been told how to remedy that, that's fine. We'll leave it up to them to do it. But I would like if at all possible for the northern ones that the strategy is, anybody who meets the test of meeting the deadline gets scheduled. After the equal distribution -- on the Employment Standards Act, one particular opposition party had five times the number of names, and we assimilated it simply by going one government, five opposed, and that sort of thing. In other cases, we've been able to go pro, con, pro, con, but I think it really is important that the most fundamental principle is anybody who meets the deadline should be allowed the opportunity to speak.
The Chair: We've never run into a situation where we didn't have enough people who wanted to address the committee, so it's a little bit of a unique situation. I would assume --
Mr Sergio: Mr Chair, on a point of order: The members are leaving. There are two important items to be discussed yet.
The Chair: We cannot discuss those two important items, because there's nobody here from the third party. We'll have to discuss them in Ottawa tomorrow.
Mr Gilchrist: We have a break tomorrow morning in Ottawa, a gap.
The Chair: We'll have to discuss them during one of the breaks tomorrow morning. It's not fair to discuss them in the absence of one of the caucuses.
My understanding was that the instructions we gave the clerk were the spots to be left vacant would be filled up with people from the D list if there was an excess there. The clerk's interpretation and the one that I thought was the interpretation too was, if a spot was assigned to the Liberals, then it would either be a Liberal-designated person who would go in there or somebody from the phone-in list, not somebody from one of the other two caucus lists.
Mr Sergio: In that particular scenario, are you saying if the spot is empty and Mr Miclash is available and he wants to come, then he would be allowed to make a presentation?
The Chair: That's the issue we've got to talk about tomorrow in Ottawa. This is a little different issue. We can talk about that again tomorrow.
Mr Gilchrist: If those people have now been given a different mechanism to get on, I am happy with that. I would hate to think anybody whose name was in by the deadline wasn't accommodated somehow, without caring what list they were on.
Clerk of the Committee: Mr Gilchrist, I am accommodating anyone who phones in to my office and is on the D list as a result of their calling in.
Mr Sergio: Do we have a list for tomorrow?
The Chair: It's been distributed, I believe.
Clerk of the Committee: The rough one has been distributed. There were still a number of changes being made. It was distributed at 3:30. It should be there.
The Chair: We are adjourned until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning in Ottawa.
The committee adjourned at 1808.