Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

CITY OF TORONTO ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 SUR LA CITÉ DE TORONTO

CONTENTS

Thursday 6 March 1997

City of Toronto Act, 1996, Bill 103, Mr Leach / Loi de 1996 sur la cité de Toronto, projet de loi 103, M. Leach

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

Chair / Président: Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente: Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York PC)

Mr MikeColle (Oakwood L)

Mr HarryDanford (Hastings-Peterborough PC)

Mr JimFlaherty (Durham Centre / -Centre PC)

Mr MichaelGravelle (Port Arthur L)

Mr ErnieHardeman (Oxford PC)

Mr RosarioMarchese (Fort York ND)

Mr BartMaves (Niagara Falls PC)

Mrs JuliaMunro (Durham-York PC)

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)

Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:

Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber PC)

Mr SteveGilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)

Mr JohnGerretsen (Kingston and The Islands L)

Mr JohnHastings (Etobicoke-Rexdale PC)

Mr MorleyKells (Etobicoke-Lakeshore PC)

Mr DanNewman (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)

Mr John R. O'Toole (Durham East / -Est PC)

Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)

Mr TonySilipo (Dovercourt ND)

Clerk Pro Tem /

Greffière par intérim: Ms Lisa Freedman

Staff / Personnel: Ms Cornelia Schuh, Legislative Counsel;

Mr Jerry Richmond, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 0903 in room 151.

CITY OF TORONTO ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 SUR LA CITÉ DE TORONTO

Consideration of Bill 103, An Act to replace the seven existing municipal governments of Metropolitan Toronto by incorporating a new municipality to be known as the City of Toronto / Projet de loi 103, Loi visant à remplacer les sept administrations municipales existantes de la communauté urbaine de Toronto en constituant une nouvelle municipalité appelée la cité de Toronto.

The Chair (Mr Bart Maves): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This morning the standing committee on general government will meet for clause-by-clause consideration from 9 to noon and, if need be, from 3:30 until completion of clause-by-clause.

Mr Sergio, on a point of order?

Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): Or whatever, just on the bill itself, Mr Chairman. Can you please advise me when it's appropriate to make a motion? I wish to place a motion in front of the committee.

The Chair: If it's a motion on a section of the bill, it's appropriate to do that when we are in debate.

Mr Sergio: My motion is on the entire bill.

The Chair: We'll get to that point. My first question this morning, in order to start discussion on the bill: Are there any questions or comments, and if so, to what sections? Committee members, we can go section by section, or if there are specific sections you want to speak to, we could do that, or if you want to speak to it and then we can take the vote. There are no amendments on the entire bill at once.

Mr Sergio: As I indicated, I'm looking for direction from the Chair as to when it's appropriate to make a motion on the entire bill, not on any particular clause.

The Chair: You can move the motion now, Mr Sergio.

Mr Sergio: My motion is very simple, Mr Chairman: that the bill be withdrawn.

Interjection.

Mr Sergio: You can vote against it. Perhaps you would reconsider such an action, but you may vote against it. It's very plain; it's very simple.

The Chair: The motion is out of order. This committee has no power to withdraw the bill because we have to report the bill back to the House.

Mr Sergio: Then I will change my motion: that the bill not be approved. We have, I believe, that prerogative.

The Chair: That type of motion would come at the end of clause-by-clause, when we get to --

Mr Sergio: Before a vote?

The Chair: It's more appropriate when I ask, "Shall I report the bill to the House?" which would be the last question if we went through clause-by-clause, and then you would probably make a motion that the bill not be reported to the House.

Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): On a point of order, Chair: Clearly the committee is charged with, as you correctly said, going through clause-by-clause, but if the committee were of a mind to recommend to the Legislative Assembly, which is the body to which we are reporting, that in light of the work we have done and in light of what we have heard it's our recommendation that the bill should be withdrawn, wouldn't that be something we should do at the beginning rather than at the end of the process?

The Chair: You can make that recommendation, but we still have to do clause-by-clause. Clause-by-clause could be simple. We can say, "Shall section 1 through section 31 carry?" "Yes." And then we get to the questions of: "Shall the schedule carry?" "Shall the title carry?" "Shall the bill carry?" "Shall I report the bill to the House?" If the committee decides, no, it shouldn't report the bill to the House, we can --

Mr Silipo: So not reporting it to the House is the way in which we would be recommending to the House that we not proceed?

The Chair: I believe so, yes, and that would be after we've completed clause-by-clause. Okay? We'll put that motion off until we get through the clause-by-clause and then we'll entertain that motion.

Mr Sergio: At the appropriate moment, I will reintroduce it.

The Chair: Okay. Are there any questions or comments, and if so, to what sections?

Mr Silipo: I have, first of all, a couple of general questions and then I have questions on particular parts of the bill.

This is a somewhat unusual situation we find ourselves in, having a bill in front of us for clause-by-clause without one government amendment. I say that because even last night, I believe, the parliamentary assistant reminded us, in asking a question of one of the deputants, that it's very unusual for there to be a situation where there are no government amendments to a bill.

I want to pick up on that and ask the parliamentary assistant why, in light of what we've heard, do we not have any amendments? More particularly, why do I get the sense that the game plan the government has this morning is to finish this process in about two and a half minutes? I wonder if the parliamentary assistant would like to answer. Then I have a couple more questions.

Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): I'd be pleased to, Mr Silipo. We've been saying this week, since the plebiscite vote was held on Monday night, that as we have been asked by Mayor Hall and by many other people to take our time to consider what we've heard from the almost 600 presentations that were made before us in this committee and what we've heard at the town hall meetings and what we've heard face to face and via phone calls and letters from our constituents -- we've been asked to consider any number of very specific suggestions that have been made about the bill.

Over and above that, there's no doubt that many people expressed concerns about other legislative initiatives that are not, strictly speaking, part of this bill. They're not even related, except in the sense that they are on the legislative calendar. Over the next three to four weeks, until the bill comes back for committee of the whole House for third reading, we'll take that time to consider those suggestions, consider the specific amendments that some people have proposed.

0910

I found it very interesting that the last presentation scheduled for all these hearings, Ms Ruppert, scheduled for 8:45 last night, contained some of the most thoughtful and most detailed suggestions. I think that highlights precisely the need for us to give all our members a chance to benefit from what Ms Ruppert and others said on the last day of hearings. Of course Hansard won't be printed for a couple of days, so the members who weren't privileged to sit in the committee, I would think of all three parties, have not been afforded the ability yet to read the last few days' worth of submissions made to this committee.

Having reflected on all those submissions and having considered the other issues, such as the disentanglement exercise, over the next three weeks we'll have the opportunity to craft not only even more amendments than we've already considered for this bill but also to resolve a number of the other outstanding issues that caused concern to people.

By still giving lots of notice to the two opposition parties -- we certainly do not have any intention of springing the amendments at the last minute. I don't know the exact date, but I will give you an undertaking that you'll have plenty of lead time to consider it and to respond and, quite frankly, to craft your own amendments, if you don't like the wording we've chosen, to change any particular section of the bill.

Really, that's the reason we didn't want to rush forward, and we didn't want to do it in a piecemeal fashion either. There's no doubt that if we had brought forward some amendments this morning, we would have been accused of just tinkering and doing window dressing.

Some of the most substantive issues we need another couple of weeks to consider. That's precisely why the House leader included the ability to have further debate and further opportunities to introduce amendments in committee of the whole House. As Mr Silipo knows, normally you would offer one or the other: either committee hearings or committee of the whole House, which is in effect an opportunity to have hearings in the Legislature itself. By having both, we've built in that extra opportunity.

I look forward to his response to the amendments when we send them to him over the next few days and weeks, and then I look forward to debating all the amendments as a package when we come back to committee of the whole House.

Mr Silipo: First of all, I appreciate that response. I'm not one who likes to preach, but I would say to the parliamentary assistant that it would have been more respectful of the process of this committee and indeed of the process of this Parliament for that kind of statement to have been made somewhere in the course of the proceedings, without waiting for a question from an opposition member.

If the government isn't prepared to table amendments now or if the government isn't prepared to withdraw the bill at this point, which is what it should do, I actually think it's wiser for them to take some time and give this some more thought than to simply proceed with a couple of minor amendments. As I've been saying all along, this is not, in my view, a bill that's amendable at the end of the day.

I hope the time will be used by the government to look at not what minor amendments, or even what major amendments, you can make to this bill, but to think seriously about the message that voters in the referendum and people who have appeared in front of this committee have given this committee and this government in a very clear way: that the amalgamation of the six municipalities in Metropolitan Toronto is wrong, that you shouldn't proceed with it, and that you should look instead at what the alternatives are.

It's very true that people have also expressed very clear concerns about any number of other issues which the government itself, in putting forward this piece of legislation, has linked inextricably to it; that is, the downloading of social services and other services on to the property tax base, and the similar venture it's on through Bill 104 in terms of creating incredibly huge school boards. I note that in Metropolitan Toronto the new school board that would be created would have over 500 schools and 300,000 students, would become unmanageable as a governance structure and would tremendously diminish the right that parents and other citizens would have to have any input into the continuing improvement of our schools.

Similarly, the provisions of Bill 103 diminish greatly the effect that local citizens can have on their elected council. When you have one council responsible for 2.3 million or 2.4 million people, you hardly can call that a local municipality.

The sad part is that there are clearly other ways to do this. There are other sensible alternatives. One of those sensible alternatives we believe we've put forward as the New Democratic Party caucus in suggesting to the government that there is indeed a way out of the corner they've painted themselves into. There is a way, but that way has to start, first and foremost, by the government withdrawing the bill. You can find your own words for doing that: You can set it aside, you can send it somewhere, you can call it whatever you want, but at the end of the day you don't proceed with the bill. That's the essence and that's the very first step.

Second, we're suggesting that you need to have a real process put together that involves people. We've called it a citizens' assembly and my Liberal colleagues have, in a similar measure, called it a civic assembly. It doesn't really matter what we call it; what matters most is what we are suggesting it do. What we're suggesting it do is that it become the vehicle through which there should be ample and useful and real discussions about what should happen. Those discussions can be based and should be based, in our view, on a couple of fundamental principles.

First is the notion and the understanding that we all agree there should be some changes made to the way in which the greater Toronto area is governed into the foreseeable future, that the way in which the two levels of government that exist now at the local level function and the way in which they deliver those services need to be looked at.

Within that, the reality today is that the region is no longer limited to Metropolitan Toronto or to Peel region or to York region or to Durham region. The region is one region, and therefore we should look at the integration of services, particularly services like transportation, economic development, urban sprawl.

Second, then, we should look at how to evolve the governance structure from the present five regional councils into, as I would argue, eventually one regional council that will reflect that the new region is one region and therefore needs to be governed as one region.

Mr Morley Kells (Etobicoke-Lakeshore): That's the NDP position, is it?

Mr Silipo: Yes, we've put that out in writing, Mr Kells. It's out there for you to look at and reflect on and respond to.

We have said that the second thing that civic assembly or citizens' assembly should look at is how to strengthen local government. We're not suggesting that the status quo is necessarily what should remain in terms of the number of municipalities. But you can make the argument just as strongly, I would argue even more strongly, that if you believe reducing municipalities at the local level is important and is somehow going to deliver better service for people, you can't just look at that within the boundaries of Metropolitan Toronto. If you look just to the north, as just one example, you have more municipalities with even less of a rationale as to why you have to have so many municipalities, if you want to apply the same logic.

I think there are good reasons why you should have any number of small and larger local municipalities, because they reflect the history and the evolution of communities throughout the province, in this case throughout the GTA.

We would say that what you need at the end of the day are strong local communities, local in the sense that they are small enough to be able to respond to the needs locally, but also set up in a way that it's very clear to people who is responsible, the local municipality or the regional level of that local government, for what services, so that there is no duplication. We agree very strongly that this needs to be sorted out and that there is some duplication.

0920

It's interesting that all of the studies, including the government's own study, the KPMG study, found that the greatest savings that could come about would not come about as a result of amalgamation, they would not come about as a result of the act of putting together those councils; they would come about as a result of resolving the duplication that exists.

Mr Kells: You're in favour of a mega-megacity.

Mr Silipo: Let me clarify again for my colleague Mr Kells that we're not talking about a mega-megacity; we're talking about local municipalities continuing to exist and we are talking about a new regional structure, not a local government, that reflects what the new region is.

Interjections.

The Chair: Order, please. Ladies and gentlemen, we're just basically in some opening comments, and Mr Silipo's in his. Some others may want to do a similar thing before we get into specific section by section. I would like to keep the back and forth confined to the section by section. Mr Kells, if you're interested in getting on the list to make your own speech, that's fine, I can put you down.

Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Yes, get on the list, Morley. Please. I want to hear from you.

The Chair: Until then, Mr Silipo has the floor.

Mr Silipo: I would be very happy to hear what Mr Kells has to say and I will listen attentively if he wants to speak to this. I mean that sincerely.

Chair, you may look at these as opening comments. They are in effect a serious proposal to the government as to how it can deal with the problem that it's created, how it can get out of this corner that it's painted itself in, how you can put this bill aside, withdraw it, put whatever words you want to that action, but get rid of it and bring forward instead a process and a way that gets us to dealing with what the real problems are.

To conclude my point on that, we have made a suggestion as to how that could be done through the citizens' assembly, a process that would involve citizens and politicians from the provincial level as well as the local level. But we aren't putting forward a position that says, "Don't do anything for the next three years." That's why we have also said that what should happen to ensure that the process of change continues, that the process of discussion continues but also is done in a way that actually results in some decisions and some actions -- we therefore put forward the proposition that the way to do that is to delay the municipal elections in the GTA for one year. That would give us the time frame, that would give us the window of opportunity within which the process of discussion can both continue and be real and be given the time to develop. But at the same time it gives the government a way to say that some change would come out at the end of that process, that it's not a delay into the future.

I'm interested in hearing what members of the committee have to say about that, and I appreciate the dilemma the government members are in. I appreciate they may not have firm positions on this yet, that this is something they may want to think about over the next couple of weeks, as Mr Gilchrist suggested, as people in the government are looking at and thinking about this.

I don't know where my Liberal colleagues are on this, because my sense is that some of them are supportive, but I was a bit distraught, I have to tell you, at the fact that the Liberal leader seemed to dismiss outright the notion of the delay of one year of the municipal elections. But that's fine. It may be that we have a difference of opinion on that, and that too is part of the democratic process.

I just want to stress that we have put forward that proposal as a serious alternative to the way in which the government seems to us at this point to want to proceed with Bill 103. We think it's a real and doable proposal. It's also a way that gives the government a way out. I hope very sincerely that in the remaining couple of weeks the government members take a good, hard look at that.

The proposal is written on paper, not in stone, so we're not fixed to every comma that's in there, but we've put forward some notions that we believe are important and significant in showing a willingness to work with the government, with the Liberal caucus, with citizens out there and with all the local and regional governments in trying to come up with solutions that will be there not just for the next couple of years but for the next 30 to 50 years, which I think is what we all want. The changes we are making, whether it's through Bill 103 or some of the other bills that are now in front of the Legislature, are not things that can be easily turned around if we discover they don't work, so we have to try and get it as correct as we can.

I would just say in conclusion that I do hope those are taken seriously. I have a number of other questions that I want to ask and points that I want to make as we go through the sections, but I'll save those for as we go through.

I just want to pick up on one other point I heard the parliamentary assistant make, which is that the amendments, whatever they are going to be, we will get in a reasonable time ahead of -- April 1, I guess, would be the date that we would likely deal with this in the Legislature. I would just say to him that there is also one other major problem that remains in the way in which we now are locked into dealing with this bill. Of course, the problem will disappear if the proposal that I've put forward is in any way taken up by the government.

But if it's not, then I'm sure it hasn't gone unnoticed by the parliamentary assistant and other members of the committee that the time we have for committee of the whole, set out in the time allocation motion passed by the Legislative Assembly, is only one hour. To expect that we could reasonably debate any number of important amendments in one hour's time I think even the parliamentary assistant would have to admit is a bit of a stretch.

We may want, as a committee, to make some recommendation on that, and even if we don't, I would just say to the parliamentary assistant that this is something he should seriously look at, obviously together with the minister and the government House leader, in terms of how some greater time could be accommodated. I note that had we gone today through the normal process, we would have had the equivalent of, at the minimum, a couple of days of House time to be able to deal with clause-by-clause and amendments and it would seem to me that something comparable to that would be, as a minimum, required if we're going to get any number of significant amendments to the bill. I would put that as a suggestion for the government caucus and particularly the parliamentary assistant to take up with the House leader and the minister, and we'll rejoin the discussion at a later point.

The Chair: I next have either Mr Sergio or Mr Colle, and then Mr Kells.

Mr Sergio: I'll defer to my colleague Mr Colle.

The Chair: You'll follow Mr Kells, Mr Sergio.

Mr Sergio: Sure, that's fine. With pleasure. Absolutely.

Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood): The major concern we've had from day one is basically a process that is open, transparent and fair, to give not only the opposition time to participate but the public time to participate. As you know, the public and speaker after speaker has been most upset by the fact that the government has been ramming this through, made up its mind even before there was any debate in the House that the bill was basically a done deal.

What I find most troubling is that this seems to be continuing. With no amendments being presented by the government, it makes it almost impossible for the public or the opposition to have any meaningful input. I think that's an affront to the committee. It's an affront to the public again. What I also find troubling is that over the last two or three weeks there have been very specific amendments proposed, leaked, debated in detail in the daily newspapers, from government sources; specific, detailed amendments, article after article, on the trusteeship, on the transition team, on provisos in the bill, yet the committee has seen nothing from the government and the committee sees nothing from the government today again.

0930

How is the committee, or the opposition or the public, in any way, shape or form going to have any time to deal with these amendments in a meaningful way if in essence after today the committee is not going to be dealing with any of the amendments? All we have left is one hour in the House. It has been specified by the closure motion that was brought in on January 29 that "one hour shall be allotted to consideration of the bill in committee of the whole." That's another affront. The minister's parliamentary assistant, the minister, the detailed reports of these amendments in the Toronto papers daily show that some of these amendments are quite controversial, quite convoluted. If you want to discuss or analyse the amendments, or the public wants to have time to digest them, never mind the opposition, how can you do this in one hour? It's impossible. It becomes a joke. It becomes a farce.

The only thing that can be done is that this clause-by-clause should be deferred to the day when the government produces its amendments formally, publicly, in a transparent way, and not through leaks to their favourite newspapers. That is an affront that we should not stand for.

That is what I am moving right now, a motion deferring the clause-by-clause until the government legally, formally, procedurally correctly presents its amendments. When it does that, then we as a committee, and at the same time the public who in overwhelming numbers have shown grave concern about this bill and this process, should participate in that clause-by-clause. There's no way that the public will accept a one-hour time frame to discuss the future of their cities. This is a continuation of a disregard for basic participation in this significant bill. There is no way that this clause-by-clause today has any meaning without the government's proposals being before the committee.

I've been asking around to find out if this has ever been done before, if this is normal practice, and everybody says: "I don't know of it. I haven't heard of it." So here we go again, trying to shortcut the system, trying to play games with the people who have a deep concern over this bill and their cities, and we're told we only have one hour on April 2, or whatever the day may be, for the committee of the whole.

Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): April 1, April Fool's Day.

Mr Colle: April Fool's Day, which may be appropriate, if you think an hour is sufficient.

My motion is to defer the committee of the whole up until the time the government brings forth its amendments and that the committee of the whole take place at an appropriate day or time, that a day be given to consider the clause-by-clause plus the amendments at that time.

Anything other than that would basically be just playing tricks with the system, just trying to basically do it by newspaper leaks and do it by 200,000 faxes a day. We don't want to see that continued, and the public has said clearly to you -- Mr Chairman, you've heard them -- person after person says they are tired of being insulted. They want their legitimate right to participate, not in a token way, respected.

This deferral gives a bit more credibility to at least giving the public a chance to look at these amendments. As the government says, they could be very fundamental, very substantive, and there's no way it can be done in the one hour allotted. That is my motion, Mr Chair.

The Chair: Actually, Mr Colle, you've talked about two motions and both are out of order. The first that you talked about was a motion to defer clause-by-clause analysis of the bill, which is beyond the ability of this committee to do because we're instructed by the House that we must do clause-by-clause analysis today. So that would be out of order.

The second one was a motion to defer committee of the whole, which is also out of order because it's beyond --

Mr Colle: I haven't done that. I misspoke myself, but I didn't ask for that. If I could just clarify something, it is my understanding that it is the prerogative of this committee to ask the Legislature to heed the instructions of this committee. Rather than our making that unilateral decision, I think we can request the Legislature that there be an amendment whereby there be a deferral of the clause-by-clause, given the unusual circumstances of this bill and the fact that the government has not produced any amendments, considering the gravity of the amendments the government is proposing and the time frame allotted of only an hour. My understanding is that it would be in order to request the government, I guess -- that's who we're requesting, the Legislature -- to basically defer the clause-by-clause. I would like a ruling on whether we can make that request.

The Chair: The only motion that would really be in order to that effect is a motion perhaps that, first of all, as we stated earlier on, at the end of the clause-by-clause analysis when we ask, "Shall I report the bill to the House?" if the committee decides no, we shouldn't do that, I would still report the bill, but report that the committee has said not to report the bill. That's one way of doing it.

The other way of doing it is a motion to the effect that a request be put to the House leaders to alter the orders we've been given from the House, the motion that was passed in the House, to defer clause-by-clause analysis. Even if that passed, we would still today have to do clause-by-clause analysis, though.

Mr Colle: Certainly I would be amenable to amending my motion basically to request -- I think that's the most practical thing -- that this committee recommend that the House leaders alter the direction given on January 29 to allow for meaningful debate and analysis, either through this committee or through the committee of the whole, giving them a meaningful amount of time to debate, analyse and scrutinize the amendments that the government will bring forth at that time.

I will agree with that if that be the case, but I still think the clause-by-clause doesn't have any effect in reality if the government hasn't proposed its amendments. What are we going to do here if the amendments aren't before us? It seems kind of foolish for us to sit here, going through a bill which everybody says to reject, and on the other hand we have no counterproposals from the government. We're making a mockery of this thing if we sit through this without government amendments. Why would we waste the whole day of the committee when the government is refusing to produce its amendments? It just won't work in a meaningful way.

The Chair: What I'd like to do with that particular motion is put that motion, in case it's defeated, and then we would dispense with debate about that.

The motion Mr Colle has put is that the House leaders be asked to recommend to the House that clause-by-clause be delayed. That's the motion. I'd like to deal with that and then we'll continue on with the opening comments.

We can speak to that motion before we vote on it. That's the motion on the floor and the first person who's put their hand up to speak to that motion is Ms Munro.

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): I wonder if we can't deal with the two issues that have been raised by, first, Mr Silipo and Mr Colle. I would suggest a friendly amendment to that motion that we approach the House leaders to negotiate either a deferral of the amendments in the committee or extend the time allocation for the committee of the whole.

The Chair: Can you elaborate on your first point?

Mrs Munro: All I'm suggesting is that we give the House leaders the opportunity to negotiate either.

The Chair: I don't think Mrs Munro's suggested amendment is to add "or that time be extended"; I think -- is it a replacement or is it an addition, in a sense?

Mrs Munro: It's an addition.

Interjection.

Mrs Munro: Yes, to extend the time allocation of the committee of the whole, which is essentially what Mr Silipo has.

The Chair: Now I have to deal with that amendment first. The motion would read that the House leaders be asked to recommend to the House that clause-by-clause be delayed or that committee of the whole time be extended. So then you'd be giving the House leaders an option. We can add that point to the debate. Now we have to deal with that amendment.

Mr Gerretsen: It seems to me totally in order. I was rather shocked when I started watching this on television a few minutes ago that you were even doing clause-by-clause today. The bill specifically deals with one concept. If you look at the explanatory note of the bill, the very first line, it says, "The bill replaces the seven existing municipal governments of Metropolitan Toronto with a new single-tier city of Toronto."

The government itself has said that after the referendum that took place on Monday, in which three out of four people basically who voted said, "We do not want a megacity," it is going to bring in amendments. I take a very practical approach to this. What is the sense of going through this bill on a clause-by-clause basis when the entire bill deals with a concept on which the government itself is saying, "We are going to bring amendments forward"?

If you're going to deal with this on a clause-by-clause basis and if you're going to presumably pass all the various clauses because you've got the majority on this committee, are you then going to renege on some of the clauses you've passed here today once the amendments come forward at the committee of the whole level? This, to my way of thinking, would be just a greater affront to the people who are involved in Metropolitan Toronto, because basically what you're saying is, "Yes, we agree with you, there ought to be some changes, but in the meantime, we're going to pass our bill on a clause-by-clause basis anyway."

The whole process really boggles me. Surely to goodness if you're going through a bill on a clause-by-clause basis, you should have all the amendments there so that people know what they're voting for, so that you're not voting in favour of a particular section one day and the next day having the government come in with an amendment that in effect amends that section and would wipe it out. It just makes absolutely no sense to me to go through this process at all until you've got all the amendments actually here or at the committee of the whole, if there's an extension to that, to deal with at the same time.

That's really all I want to say. I think the average person out there who's watching this must be totally confused. Here the government has said, "We're going to bring some amendments in, but in the meantime, we're going to pass the bill as it is on a clause-by-clause basis," which makes absolutely no sense at all.

Interjections.

Mr Gerretsen: I'm glad the government members are listening to this.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, could I have order, please. There are too many conversations around the room.

Mr Gerretsen: Actually, I agree with Mrs Munro's very sensible suggestion. It's one of the very first sensible suggestions I've seen come from the government during the past couple of years. I congratulate her on that.

The Chair: I've got Mr Colle and Mr Silipo first and then Mrs Munro.

We'll take a quick recess.

The committee recessed from 0945 to 0950.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, if you could resume your seats, please. In a healthy spirit of cooperation, I'm going to go to Mrs Munro first.

Mrs Munro: I'm going to withdraw my friendly amendment.

The Chair: Now I'm going to go to Mr Colle.

Mr Colle: I'll withdraw my original motion and replace it with the one I'm about to read.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr Colle: "The House leaders be asked to move a motion in the House to extend the time available for committee of the whole to ensure that adequate time is available for full debate of all amendments."

The Chair: Is everyone clear on that? We don't want it re-read?

Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): Re-read.

The Chair: "The House leaders be asked -- "

Mr Silipo: No, I didn't want you to re-read it. I'd like to speak to it.

The Chair: We will speak to it, but these guys want it re-read.

"The House leaders be asked to move a motion in the House to extend the time available for committee of the whole to ensure that adequate time is available for full debate of all amendments."

Mr Colle, you have the first opportunity to speak to your motion.

Mr Colle: Just briefly, it gives the House leaders an opportunity to maybe make the decision in terms of allocating some reasonable amount of time. It still leaves them the prerogative to analyse and discuss the impact of our request that we be given adequate time considering that the amendments are going to be coming at a later date. This still leaves their hands free to deal with it as they see fit, and it's just an indication from us that we'd like them to deal with that request for more meaningful input.

Mr Silipo: I think it's a good motion. I will support it. I just regret that Mrs Munro, who had earlier seen the wisdom of putting forward that very suggestion, has now been --

Mr Marchese: Persuaded.

Mr Silipo: -- persuaded by her colleagues to pull back. I just think that's really regrettable.

The Chair: Actually, in fairness, Mr Silipo, before you carry on with that thought, that was at my request because it made the whole process smoother.

Mr Silipo: Then that's fine. Then I would expect that Mrs Munro is still supportive of it, given that she had suggested it, and I hope that other government members will be supportive, because this is the only course that's left, given the way you've chosen to deal with this bill. As I said earlier, the best course of action is, in whatever way you choose to do it, to withdraw the bill. If you're not going to withdraw the bill, then whatever changes you're going to make to it, we need to at least have adequate time and certainly not an hour's time in committee of the whole to be able to deal with those changes. I would think that this kind of suggestion and motion is the least you can do in terms of ensuring adequate discussion of these changes.

Mr Gilchrist: Very briefly, I won't be supporting this motion for a very simple reason: The House leaders are meeting at 11 o'clock, and I'm told it's one of the items on the agenda. I think it's inappropriate for this committee to be trying to direct the House leaders. These are things more appropriately done at their level. It's my understanding that it is being discussed this morning already, so it's superfluous and unnecessary.

Mr Sergio: What's being discussed?

Mr Gilchrist: The issue of timing on that week when we come back for issues such as committee of the whole House and the other items that were previously agreed to by the House leaders for the schedule that week.

Mr Sergio: Then maybe we should adjourn the committee until we see what they suggest.

Mr Gilchrist: I don't have the power to do that, sir.

Mr Marchese: In response to the parliamentary assistant, it's clearly very appropriate. I'm not sure why Mr Gilchrist would say it is inappropriate. This is the committee that's been sitting here for five weeks hearing deputations, close to 600 of them, and most of us have been impressed by what they've had to say and influenced, I would hope, at least on this side, by what people have had to say. For the parliamentary assistant to say it's inappropriate because the House leaders are meeting is inappropriate. The fact that the House leaders may be meeting is fine, but this committee should instruct the House leaders if it so wishes, based on the experience it has had over the last five years, to do so.

Mrs Munro: It might seem like years.

Mr Marchese: Did I say "months"?

Mrs Munro: No, "years."

Mr Marchese: Years, my God. How quickly we age in this committee.

Interjection.

Mr Marchese: It is an onerous task we've had over the last five weeks, absolutely true.

It is appropriate for us to instruct the House leaders based on our experience of what we've heard. This motion is a very simple motion, and the House leaders can choose to disregard it, but if it has the weight of this committee, they will not disregard it. So it is very appropriate. If it is being discussed, that is fine. We're simply assisting them in their thinking should they be moving in a different direction. I think it would be wise for these other members here to support the motion, Mr Chair.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Marchese. Ms Castrilli?

Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview): This is a critical piece of legislation. The minister has announced that there will be amendments since the people have spoken very loudly and clearly that the current piece of legislation as it stands is not acceptable to them. I don't think there's any discussion on those points.

I am surprised to hear the parliamentary assistant say that this motion is inappropriate. That it would ever be inappropriate for a committee of this kind to give their views to the House leader, I can't understand it; that is precisely what we are here for. We are here to reflect the views of the people and to pass them on, in whatever way we can, to the government. The House leader is a vehicle of doing that. The House leaders' meeting is a vehicle to do that. People clearly want more discussion of this issue. One hour to discuss the complex amendments that will come is not sufficient. Obviously, people will need to be given input, and I think the democratic process requires it.

I think the House leaders would probably appreciate a motion, particularly since they're already discussing this issue at 11 o'clock. Surely if this item is on the agenda, they would want to hear from this committee as to what we think is appropriate in the circumstances. Therefore, I think the motion is entirely in order and ought to be supported by everyone here.

Interjection.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, I know most of the people who are here in the audience today have been here throughout most of the process, and I've already said several times there's to be no participation from the audience. Especially today when there's going to be at times perhaps heated discussion back and forth among the committee members, I can't allow audience participation, so I'd appreciate it if you'd heed that request.

I see no further desire by anyone to speak to this motion, so I'm going to put the question.

All those in favour of Mr Colle's motion?

Mr Marchese: On a recorded vote, Mr Chair.

Ayes

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Sergio, Silipo.

Nays

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Newman, O'Toole, Parker, Tascona.

The Chair: I declare the motion lost.

Mr Colle: This is truly disgusting. She made me withdraw my motion; now she left. It's another affront.

The Chair: Order, Mr Colle.

Interjections.

Mr Gilchrist: The clerk asked her to withdraw it.

The Chair: Mr Colle, you're not even at your chair. Order.

Mr Colle: She ducked it because you told her to. Is that what you did?

Mr Gilchrist: I did not.

The Chair: Order, Mr Colle.

Mr Colle: Didn't you tell her to leave?

Mr Gilchrist: No. You're contemptible.

The Chair: A two-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 0958 to 0959.

The Chair: We're back and in order. Now that the motion has been dealt with, we are going to continue opening statements. The next presenter on the list is Mr Kells, followed by Mr Sergio.

Mr Sergio: Can we take a couple of minutes of recess?

Mr Colle: Let's walk out. We want a recess.

The Chair: What are you requesting?

Mr Sergio: Five minutes.

The Chair: A five-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 1000 to 1005.

The Chair: Continuing in our process, the next person in line for speaking is Mr Kells.

Mr Kells: Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the honourable member for Dovercourt. Maybe my colleagues weren't all here when the honourable member -- I guess the best thing we could call it is a lecture to the government members about maybe what should happen in relation to Bill 103. It triggered in my mind that we need sometimes to go back a little in history to refresh ourselves on just what had taken place prior to 1997 or the fall of 1996.

In 1988, when the Liberal government was at its peak of power, under the Minister of Municipal Affairs of the day, John Sweeney, they brought in a creation, the Office of the Greater Toronto Area. Part of its mandate was to look at the five regions and come up with a significant plan to look after growth. Implicit in that mandate was also a change in governance.

I had great respect then and still do for John Sweeney. I thought the government recognized, as it said in its announcement, that something had to be done and it had to be done quickly. They knew that in a 25-year span we'd be looking at six million people in the greater Toronto area. As a matter of fact, the term "greater Toronto area" was created at that time.

They set out with considerable investment, and they even had a deputy minister, Gardner Church. The logical thing, as I recall, at the time was that if it's important enough to have a deputy minister, pretty soon it's going to be important enough to have a minister.

We all waited in eager anticipation for the outcome of those deliberations, and I must say that just before the election in 1990, the report did come down. There were a number of reports that took in the problems involving the greater Toronto area: We had the Kanter look at the Oak Ridges moraine, which was vital; Crombie had been looking, on behalf of the federal government, at the Toronto Harbourfront, and that was extended into a provincial royal commission also to take a look at, as a matter of fact, all the water that led from Lake Ontario up into the greater Toronto area; we had the growth scenario, which took a look at where populations should be directed and how they might best be directed.

These deliberations and the announcements were well-received, and everybody understood that something had to be done. As we entered into the 1990s, the scenario was set by the government of the day to take a look at how we would direct growth and what we would do about governing ourselves as we did that; very important, a major plank in the Liberal government's election platform.

As we all know from history, the NDP won that election, and all of a sudden the Office of the Greater Toronto Area undertook a different role altogether. Instead of reporting to municipal affairs, it was taken in under the wing of the Ministry of the Environment, under the minister then, Ruth Grier, and the significance of that office started to diminish considerably. The reports that we expected, the follow-up reports that were announced, were delayed and delayed. We waited a long time for something to happen, to evolve from the Office of the Greater Toronto Area.

Obviously, that never happened. The deputy minister, Gardner Church, decided he had no future at that time under that situation and departed. When the minister of the day responsible for the Office of the Greater Toronto Area, Ruth Grier, was moved over to the Ministry of Health, then the Office of the Greater Toronto Area, one more time, was moved back to municipal affairs.

At the same time, it became obvious to the mayors and reeves -- it's mainly mayors now -- spread throughout the greater Toronto area that they had problems. They had problems because change was coming, pressure was coming. We had the Development Charges Act. All the elements we're discussing today were all in the picture in the early 1990s. So under the leadership of Hazel McCallion, the mayors spread out through the greater Toronto area started to meet and discuss all the problems involving governance, growth, change, all the pressures.

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I had the opportunity to attend many of those meetings. As a matter of fact, so did representatives of the then Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ed Philip. There wasn't any direction that ever came from the ministry about those deliberations. A few more reports did eventually make their way out of the office of the GTA, but they were more catching us up to the growth possibilities. They posed questions, but they never posed any answers.

Here we have this lecture we just got from the member for Dovercourt, telling us that all of a sudden these problems that we don't know how to handle just dropped in on us in the last year or two --

Mr Silipo: That's not what I said.

Mr Kells: Oh, yes, you did.

Here we have this history. It's a matter of record that the Office of the Greater Toronto Area had presented most of these problems in a growth way. The mayors of the greater Toronto area had been discussing the problems they were having. The area of coordination between Metro and the region surrounding Metro had long been a problem. Your government, the government of the day, the NDP government, decided for some reason not to tackle any of those major issues until the last minute. You have to admit, in a timing situation, the appointment of the Golden commission was a get-ready-for-the-election effort. As a matter of fact, when it finally came in under our government, even though we had accelerated the timing of the report, I thought there was a great deal of merit in what the Golden commission has come up.

I just wanted to get that history out there. This didn't just happen. The Liberal government recognized that something had to be done, but in the five-year period under the NDP government, very little was achieved in looking at how we were going to govern ourselves and any changes that had to be made.

The other thrust of the honourable member's lecture was that somehow the government doesn't understand local government, doesn't understand the issues. He was kind enough to bring over his caucus report for me to read so I'd get it right. I thank the honourable member. I actually have a copy in my office; it was given to me by the mayor of Etobicoke. They managed to get it pretty well laid out in one page, but the important part of your manifesto is not what it says but what it doesn't say. What it doesn't say, with all the criticism we received from the third party, there isn't any guarantee under "Principles" -- you are not willing to guarantee that not one of the local municipalities in Metro would be removed. You're not willing to say you would protect local governments right down the line. You do not mention that at all.

If you really felt as strongly as you indicate --

Mr Silipo: We're not describing the solution.

Mr Kells: If you're describing the solution --

Mr Silipo: We're not describing the end solution.

Mr Kells: Your position, your principle, should be, if I hear you right, that you will protect the integrity of local government. That means you will keep all the local governments, and you know that does not make sense. If you're looking at the government --

Mr Silipo: We're saying we're not defending the status quo.

Mr Kells: You said you'd be happy to listen to me. Would you be kind enough to listen to me?

The Chair: This is not a back-and-forth. Mr Kells has the floor.

Mr Kells: Your point is easy to take. What you've done here is that you've tried to put a document together that covers all fronts. You've managed to say, "We will protect the integrity of local government," but you won't put it in writing.

If you really were serious, you would say, "Whatever we do, if we were the government of the day we would make sure there would be an East York forever" or a York forever or an Aurora forever. But that's not what you're saying. You really have no position. With all due respect to the Liberal Party, they do not have a position either.

You've managed to spend your time -- and I understand that the role of the opposition is to pick apart, if they can, the legislation put forth by the government, but with all due respect, if you're going to do this, you should answer all the questions the public have, and they have many, about your position.

You've managed very cleverly, and we understand that, to nail us to the wall for the legislation we brought forth, but at least --

Interruption.

Mr Kells: Unfortunately, I don't know what kind of nerves we seem to have touched on. I really was only trying to sketch some of the recent history, and I'm also only responding to the rather strong points made by the honourable member for Dovercourt. I would just like to leave it there.

I simply wanted it on the record that this question of what to do with governing ourselves, the question of what to do with the greater Toronto area, is not something that arrived on the scene just 12 months ago or two years ago. Your government for five years had an opportunity to deal with it in a very constructive way, and if you look at the record, there is nothing your government did to come to grips with the problems that have been there since the late 1980s at least.

Mr Sergio: I'll come back to the point made by the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, but let me go back to what the parliamentary assistant was saying before, that the government doesn't want to tinker with the bill but wants to do it right. He's saying what the minister has said. He's saying what Mr Harris has been saying.

The fact is that if you don't want to tinker with the bill, we should have known, not now, but on February 13 when we had the minister coming in front of this committee and saying that this is a public hearing like any public hearing should be. I'm pleased that the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore is here; he's a past member of provincial and local government. It's quite normal that when you initiate public hearings you tell it the way it is. You tell your intention and say, "We want to hear you, and we're going to take what you say into consideration, because whatever we're proposing, we want to make it better either way, according to what the people have said."

For five weeks we've been listening to the people here, and the people in unison, unequivocally, have said one thing: "We don't want to tinker with the bill. We don't want to see any amendments." This is what they have said. I go back to what Mr Gilchrist, the parliamentary assistant, was saying about the last deputants of yesterday, and I hope the members will be listening and acting accordingly -- not, unfortunately, like the member who made a sensible amendment and then had to abandon it, had to abandon her responsibility, because politics interferes with the true facts.

This is what the last speakers yesterday said: that to carry on with Bill 103 or any amendment is simply not going to cut it, that people have become extremely politicized, that it has no logical support, that it cannot be window dressed, that this has now gone too far, beyond any act of redemption. "No amendment will appease us. People are now angry, not concerned; they are now angry and any change will be treated with scorn." This is what the last deputants said yesterday.

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It is not what Mr Harris wants. It is not what the opposition wants. It is what the people want. The people have said that no amendment will make this bill any better. The bill as it has been presented must be withdrawn; it must be brought back to the table and must be redrawn.

We have said all along that changes are necessary and should be made. We have said how we're going to make those changes. We'd take the best of all the studies that have been done, initiated by the government and paid for with taxpayers' money. Some of those studies they did include good recommendations.

We were hoping, the people were hoping, that the government would indeed take those recommendations into consideration and bring a bill that would reflect exactly the views of the people who dealt with those reports.

Let me go back to what Mr Kells was saying. At no time did Mr Sweeney recommend anything close to what we are debating here today -- nothing, not even close. We didn't have to wait for Mr Sweeney to say we needed changes. He did because he was empowered to come up with some recommendations, but he didn't recommend anything like this. Nobody knows that better than the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore. This bill doesn't even deal with the GTA, and that was a cornerstone of those recommendations. There's not even a mention of how the government or Bill 103 will address the problem between 905 and 416.

Tax reform -- the tax system is a major problem, about which the member wrote long articles when he was the chairman of the Urban Development Institute. Unless we equalize the unfairness that exists within the 905-416, Metro will not survive. They are not addressing this particular inequity at all. It is totally unfair that even today we are living unprotected in Metro, without taking into consideration the 905. With all the downloading that Metro will have to absorb, we still have to support and subsidize the 905 region. I'm asking you people, is that fair?

Ultimately, we have to consider what the people have said in the last five weeks. As has been said, this committee's responsibility now is to make recommendations to the Legislature. It is not that the Legislature has not empowered this committee to make recommendations. It has.

If Mr Leach on February 13 had said to us, "Go ahead and hold public hearings, but we will not take into consideration what you have said until April," I think we would have heard an outcry from the people saying: "What's the use? We're coming here for five weeks and then we won't know what you're going to do until April."

Now you're going to tell us after we have spent five weeks. Is this a farce? Was this pre-arranged by the government, by the minister? Are we now going to be waiting to see what the minister is going to do until one day prior to a vote in the House? Don't you think the people have a right to know what the minister intends to do now that we have heard the people? I think it would only be fair to take into consideration at this stage.

The minister has been saying: "We are going to make some changes. We're going to make sure that we do it right." Between Mr Leach and Mr Harris, they must be exchanging, maybe passing in the hallways or stuff like that, or in telephone calls: "What are you going to say? Make sure we both say the same thing."

They have been saying that: "We're going to make some changes and we want to get it right." Well, if you want to get it right, it is our position -- and we have been saying that. That is why the Liberal position did not attach any particular time before or after the election. We have said we are going to take whatever time is required to make it right. If it takes six months, if it takes us beyond the next municipal elections, we're going to take whatever time is required to make sure that indeed the government gets it right.

For you to get it right, let's have participation of the players here. As the Premier has said, "We want to make sure we are going to have participation by those people affected and not treat them simply as spectators paying the bills, with no voice in the actions of the government." Why don't we do that? I think it would be rather fair. I hope the members of the government side will take that into serious consideration. We have heard that this is bad, bad, bad legislation.

Let me see if I can put this together because this came out from Mr Kells himself. If you take a skunk and dress it up in fancy clothes, spray some perfume on it and put on some sunglasses, then say "my nice French poodle," it's still a skunk. This is bad policy and no matter how you're going to change it, no matter what kind of amendments, it's still bad legislation. Let's take our time and do it right.

Mr Marchese: I want to begin by saying that I have been very impressed by the regular and steady presence of people who have come to attend these committee hearings, and not just as deputants but people who want to hear what others have to say and what we as members of this committee have to say.

I have to also say that I have been informed by them. Often, as politicians we have to decide, who is it that informs us about how we make policy? If not the 600 deputations we've had, 95% saying no to Bill 103, if we are not informed by them, the question is, who are you informed by, except some judgement of yours that says, "We know what we're doing"? So we hear 600 people, but we're going to disregard them and disregard them wilfully, because we, the keepers of knowledge, know exactly what we're doing.

If we don't listen to these 600 testimonies, which I consider as evidence of why we should not do it, then what are we doing? If we don't listen to the experts we and they have quoted who say that amalgamation in this form will be more costly, if you yourselves and your minister, your parliamentary assistant and the Premier insist it's going to be cheaper in spite of that evidence, we've got a problem, and I believe we have a serious problem. You've produced no evidence. The only evidence was the KPMG report, which was discredited by most people who came in front of this committee and by most experts who have reviewed the report. That's the only evidence you produced: a discredited report produced very quickly in two weeks. It's hardly something you could hang your hat on as evidence of why you need to amalgamate.

In my view, we've got a serious problem of credibility. We have the other credibility problem of M. Leach saying before the election, "We're going to get rid of Metro." We have the same credibility gap and problem when you have M. Harris saying before the election that he wants to maintain strong local government and was in favour of the elimination of Metro as well. That's a credibility problem. Mr Kells can say, "What did you do?" and we can go back to the discussion. I'm not sure it's going to solve your particular problem as government in terms of how you respond to the 600 deputations first.

Mr Kells: I'm responding to your lecture --

Mr Marchese: I appreciate that. That's fine. I'm not sure that going back to what we or others did or did not do is going to solve our particular problem. You can raise it, but I think your immediate response has to do with responding to the people who came in front of this committee. That's the first one.

Your second problem is responding to the referendum, which you have nonchalantly dismissed as simply a mere public opinion poll. Why is this a problem for you? It's a problem for most governments if they decide to wilfully disregard these results. It's a problem because your Bill 86 that you passed at the end of December clearly authorized and authorizes municipalities between elections to hold referendums.

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I have to tell you, I was a member of that committee for that whole duration and I heard some of the honourable members who are here and who were part of that committee refer to those matters as referendums. That's what most of you who were part of that committee dealing with Bill 86 said. You called it a referendum; the municipalities would be able to hold referendums. Now of course you conveniently dismiss it because it doesn't suit your interests to call it a referendum, so you will call it whatever you wish. But before, and in committee, you called it something different, and I recall very vividly what you were calling it.

It also permits, in that bill, that municipalities can have different arrangements for how people can vote: by phone, Internet and other means. You have done that in Bill 86. Now you dismiss all of those procedures as simply being bad or not done properly. You can do what you like, but that's what you legislated the municipalities to do and that's what they've done. To the best of the abilities of those municipalities, that's what they've done.

You might say there were irregularities, you might say you found ballots here and there. I think that will happen in any municipal election. Continue to say what you like. The point is your bill permits municipalities to do that. The bill doesn't say, "You will do it so right, otherwise we'll discredit it and dismiss it." The bill doesn't take that into account. The bill doesn't say, "You better be sure that whatever mechanism you choose, it had better be 100% right, otherwise we, the Conservative government that passed this bill, are going to be annoyed or unhappy." You didn't say that. The bill doesn't permit that. It just permits municipalities to do their best and to choose whatever form they want by way of whatever voting methodology they choose. That's what you did. I need to remind you of this because some of you conveniently dismiss it and disregard it.

You've got a second problem. You've got individual testimony of people whom I consider experts in their own way. By the way, I should say many of these people have come in front of this committee taking time out of their busy lives. Some of them, like Ms Lush here, are retired. She's here because she's upset about what's happening. Other people here are self-employed, many of them. Some work at home. Many probably work at home, no doubt. They're leaving that work because they feel strongly about what you are about to do to local government. That's why they're here.

Please don't dismiss their work, their presence, their desire to come back day in and day out, as they have done. I don't know what some of you might call it, but just praise it and acknowledge it, if nothing else. If you dismiss their evidence and dismiss the referendum we've had in Metro, you, my friends, have a big problem.

You are a government that's fond of referendums, generally speaking. So how you on the same hand as being fond of them now find a way to dismiss them is problematic for you. It contradicts your basic principles, as I've seen you, as I've seen your performance and I've seen what many of you stand for. I think you've got a problem. But you might want to defend it. You might want to say: "No, that's not the kind of referendum we want. We're thinking of something different." I'd like to hear from some of you with respect to this issue.

On the whole issue of the evidence here and of the results of the referendum, which were very emphatically clear, they're saying to you, "Please don't put cosmetics on the corpse." To borrow an image from one of the people who has attended these hearings here today, you are putting cosmetics on a corpse. I think it's an appropriate image. They're telling you Bill 103 is flawed fundamentally because you're getting rid of cities. They don't want you to do that. Frankly I don't want you to do that. If you put cosmetics by way of amendments on this corpse, you've got a problem. They are not asking you to amend a fundamentally flawed bill; they are asking you to retreat and to reject it, based on what they're telling you.

Mr Kells: It doesn't say anything here that you --

The Chair: Order.

Mr Marchese: I'll get to that, Mr Kells. Don't say what we would do. You're in charge, as M. Stockwell used to say. I remember Stockwell, when he was on the opposition benches --

Interjections.

Mr Marchese: Mr Kells, I'd like to participate with you.

The Chair: Order, please. Mr Marchese has the floor.

Mr Marchese: I remember Mr Chris Stockwell on the other side. With his eyes popping out but very emphatic and very energetic, and I used to respect that frankly, he used to say, "It's not what we said; it's what you said." That's what he used to say. "You've got the wheels," he used to say.

Mr Kells: That's why we use interjections and that's why you should answer back.

The Chair: Order, please, Mr Kells.

Mr Marchese: You're the ones in charge, you're in government, you're the ones who have a particular problem to deal with. People are telling you that they're not here to deal with amendments, and some of them are very nervous and angry about the fact that you're carrying on as if nothing has happened in the last couple of days. So we've got a problem.

Why are you not bringing forth any amendments today? I'll tell you why: You're hoping these fine people will go back to their work, retreat, rest for a while, have a long pause so that people might forget. You see, they're smiling. They understand that too. You're smiling too, Morley.

Interjections.

Mr Marchese: Of course, yes. But the real intention is to hopefully have these fine folks go home, forget what they have been dealing with for a month. That's not going to work. You know that. You hope it will work, but it won't.

Second, you're hoping -- you're going to do some public opinion polls, by the way, because you need a couple of weeks to get a sense of not just where Metro people are at but where the rest of the province is at. You're going to be doing these polls, you're going to have a retreat in a couple of weeks, and Mike is going to say: "Okay, boys, we've got a big problem. The folks don't like what we're doing, so we're going to retreat from Bill 103 because the polls clearly indicate we're in trouble." Or the polls might be 50-50 and Mike might say to you: "Boys, stick it out. You guys in Scarborough, stick it out. You'll be okay. You'll get re-elected; not to worry. You guys in Etobicoke, don't worry. You'll be elected. Stick it out. You'll be okay." North York, the same thing. East York, including Mr Johnson -- I would say he's got a problem too. But he might say: "Stick it out. We've got 15 seats here and I think we can hold on to most of them."

You can probably hold on to that, but who knows? That's what you're going to be doing. You need time for public opinion polls to give Mikey -- I beg your pardon, the Premier -- a sense of where the public is at. That's why you're not putting motions today, hoping they'll go away and hoping your public opinion polls reveal that you guys might have a chance.

We then have the problem of this one hour that you guys have come up with in committee of the whole. This, I would argue, is indicative of your modus operandi. It's a modus vivendi too. It's indicative to give one hour. It suggests to me and to them that you people have a wilful disregard for them. I'm convinced you will bring many amendments, if you don't withdraw from this. So to give one hour for this is in my view shocking. In my view it's embarrassing. In my view it's dismissive of all the efforts these people have made.

It is a modus operandi, and we've seen you in action. We've seen you do this over and over again with many bills. I have been part of bills that you have repealed in a matter of weeks which took us years to do. The Advocacy Commission took us years, something people with disabilities and seniors asked us to do for decades, and you guys repealed the Advocacy Commission in weeks. But that is the modus operandi of this government. It's not as if it's a shocking new idea; it's quite consistent with the way that you behave as a government.

That's why some of you have been attacked. They're using strong terms and I know you don't like some of them. I realize you don't like some of them. The acceptable term I think is "autocratic." There are other, more extreme words which I won't use, which you find offensive. But for them you are more than autocratic, because based on the culture that we've had, they're not used to this kind of autocracy. It is indicative of the change of culture you people are involved in. You're changing political culture in such a way that they don't like it, and neither do we.

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Although you might have legal authority to do what you're doing, although you'll be challenged, you have no moral authority whatsoever. You have no moral or political authority, I argue.

Mr Kells: You care so much?

Interruption.

The Chair: Order. Mr Sewell and people in the audience, I'm not going to pick individuals all day long and ask people to leave. At some point in time, I'm just going to ask the whole audience to leave. Mr Sewell, I'm not going to ask individuals to leave all day long. If I continue to get outbursts, I'm just going to ask the whole audience to leave. That's not fair to some people who are sitting here and have sat through these proceedings properly the entire time.

Mr Sergio: But it's because of your members.

The Chair: If you can't control yourselves, then please go to committee room 2, which is an overflow room. Thank you.

Mr Marchese: I have to remind the member for Etobicoke-Humber that his comments were not well received by most of the people who were present that day in the House on the debate we had the other day. That's why I was very gentle with you.

Interjections.

The Chair: Order, please.

Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): That's a very dangerous --

The Chair: Mr Ford, you'll have an opportunity, if you so choose.

Mr Marchese: Mr Ford, I won't remind you of what you said in the House, but some of them were there. It wasn't nice. I'm being very gentle with you.

Mr Ford: I remember your government in power too.

Mr Marchese: They may have legal authority, but they have certainly no moral authority at all, based on the referendum and based on the 600 deputations and based on all the other deputations that wanted to come here to appear, to speak, but we didn't have the time for them, and that was five weeks -- almost unheard of. We've been here now six years, some of us. Frankly, I've never seen this display of individual and community desire to maintain local autonomy. I have never seen it. They tell you the same. Some of you, if you were politically involved wherever you come from, from your backgrounds, would know that this is impressive. This is an impressive display of personal desire to maintain local autonomy.

Mike Harris agreed with that in 1994 when in Fergus he said, "Bigger is not better." In fact he said then that bigger is more costly. That was M. Premier then. But now it's a different story. Something happened on the way to the forum here that made him change his mind.

Our alternative isn't something that we have dreamed up necessarily on our own; it's something that comes out of the Golden commission. It doesn't mean that we are 100% in agreement with everything that's there, and neither are these people here in 100% agreement with what's there, but what she proposed and the members of that committee proposed was something that keeps local government and local autonomy strong, effective and alive, and says, "What problems are we trying to solve?"

The problems we were trying to solve, they were trying to solve, and as a government we should be looking at solving, even though you're saying that was some other little group that's studying what else we could do. Golden studied this and said: "We need to solve the transportation issues for Metro and the GTA; we need to solve the environmental issues as they relate to Metro and the GTA; we need to solve the regional planning in Metro and the GTA; and we need to solve economic development as it relates to Metro and the GTA." That's what we were trying to solve. I agree with that, I'm sure Mr Kells agrees with that and I'm sure most of you who have studied this agree with that. That's why the Golden commission said, "Keep strong local government."

Do you want to be trapped in an argument that says: Are you going to insist on making sure York exists, or East York exists? I'm not sure that's the argument you want to get into. We had the mayor of East York come here in front of this committee, sitting right there, arguing why East York operates so efficiently. I was convinced by the argument. Some of you might say: "No, I'm not convinced. We want to get rid of little East York." But I know Dave Johnson, when he was there as the mayor, called it the Garden of Eden of Ontario, and a lot of people from East York agree that it's probably the Garden of Eden.

The point is, we need to solve those larger issues. I have to be frank with you: In the beginning when Golden came up with the idea of this strong GTA-Metro coordinating body, I was a bit frightened by it because it seemed big to me. If it's at the cost of eliminating our municipalities, our local government, I say no. If it's at that cost, then this is the wrong answer. The point is keeping local government and coming back to the Golden commission's report about how you manage transportation, economic development, environment and regional planning issues. Those are the big ones. That's what we need to solve.

That's what our proposal speaks to. It doesn't obviously solve all the questions you might have. Mr Kells, you were looking for alternatives, right? These are the people who are giving you alternatives. This is the suggestion. You can poke holes in our suggestion, that's fine, but it was a suggestion that we had proposed to your government to get out of the mess, and it can be done. You can dismiss it, but people have come up with other suggestions and you are dismissing them. I wouldn't dismiss it. There's time for your government to recover from the hurt that I think you've inflicted on us and the public here in Metro and yourselves. I think you can recover from it, and we're offering a way out of this mess.

As I say, looking at the amendments, looking to do what you've done in Kingston -- I know in Kingston, for example, the people on the transition team are not just ordinary folks, they're politicians. They are regional chairs who are part of those transition teams. I know for the trustees of the reserve funds, there in that particular bill you've specified how those moneys should be spent. You didn't include that in this bill. I know they're inconsistent in terms of how you raise them in the one and not the other, and you're likely to put what you have in the Kingston bill as it relates to their amalgamation back into this bill as a way of solving some of the serious concerns people have.

I tell you, what I heard the 600 deputations here say is that some parts of the bill are excessively bad. People spoke strongly against the powers of the trustees, because they were more than autocratic, some of them argued. They were against the powers of the transition team. They were afraid of what you might do to the reserve fund. All those are elements that they disliked, hated and feared, but they feared more than that the entire bill, the bill itself.

Please don't think that tinkering with the bill is going to solve their problems or ours. What people wanted, the deputations and the referendum results, what they are expressing is a desire to have a withdrawal of Bill 103 in its entirety, short of which is unacceptable to some of us and to most of the deputations and to most of the people who voted in that referendum.

Ms Castrilli: It seems to me that the essence of good democratic government is a willingness to listen to the people. It's what we are elected to do. It's what each one of us has an obligation to do. That obligation does not disappear because there's a majority government. In fact, that obligation increases precisely because you have a majority government. It's precisely because you have the majority of the members of the Legislature that it is incumbent upon you to listen to what others have to say, because it can be quite easy to listen just to yourselves. There's a temptation that is there that we need to fight against as politicians and as people who care about public policy.

When you reflect on Bill 103, which is before us, it's important for so many reasons. It's important because of what it does, it's important because of what it is, and it's important because of what it symbolizes. It has crystallized in a way that we can truly understand what it is that a majority government ought or ought not to be able to do.

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We had an instance very early on, in Bill 26, where clearly the oppressive elements of a majority government came to light, where a government gave itself extraordinary powers to deal in health matters and in municipal matters, to be able to do it outside the confines of legislative debate and outside the confines of public debate, through regulation. The government chose to do that and then said, "By the way, those decisions that you might not like will not be questioned by a court of law."

We thought, we hoped that was only an isolated incident, and you know how vigorously we fought against that particular piece of legislation and the mindset that it demonstrated right off the bat. But that was not an isolated incident, and I submit to you that Bill 103 is probably the most heinous example of that mindset. We have here a government that from the beginning said, "We don't care what the people say, we have a plan."

We said: "Show us the plan. What's it based on?" No credible authorities could be produced. In fact, all of the studies that were done, with the exception of one, said the exact opposite. The one that was brought forward by KPMG, which was a document that was done haphazardly in three weeks, with the dictate not to talk to anybody who knew anything about the subject, by the way, is not a report that can be believed. Time and time again we've asked for justification for plans, for reasons why this would be a good idea, and the only answer we've gotten is, "Because." That's just not a good enough answer.

The people decided on their own that they wanted to have a say because this government was not going to let that happen, and they have spoken in a series of referenda across this city and other cities, which ought to be fairly evident to the members of the government. I remind members of the government that you too, many of you, live in those cities, and it is your constituents who are speaking up, as well as everybody else's. I would hope that you would be able to listen to those voices. They're surely not to be ignored.

I worry about how this bill is being put forward. I think the process is very important. I think it speaks to the essence of democracy and to the value that we put on the individual citizen and his or her ability to express themselves and to be heard.

The process that we have in place right now is exactly the opposite. Earlier today there was a motion to extend the time for clause-by-clause analysis, and the reason that motion came forward was because we are now told that there are going to be some amendments to this legislation and we will have one hour to discuss those amendments.

Imagine the lunacy of the situation: We are being asked to deal clause by clause with a piece of legislation and those very clauses may not be there when we discuss the amendments. That is absolutely absurd. Those amendments may fundamentally alter this -- we hope they will -- and we think that individuals ought to have an opportunity to review it, to understand it and to be able to comment on it. That is what a responsible majority government in a democracy does.

The process, frankly, is a sham. The public can well be forgiven for believing that you have already decided what you are going to do and the public be damned, the will of the people be damned. That is unfortunate. That really is a shame.

Dealing with the substance of the bill itself, there's no question that it is haphazard. It isn't based on any foundations. None of the reports that have spoken to a restructuring, a coordination between cities and between the GTA, is paid even the remotest lip-service in this piece of legislation. In fact, as has been pointed out before, there's not even any indication what will happen beyond the borders of the new amalgamated city, so the problems will remain.

There were some very sensible alternatives put to the government through the Golden commission. Rejected. One wonders why a government would reject a thoughtful document that spent a year and a half looking at the issue, that talked to countless experts, that talked to countless people. One wonders why they would just dismiss it out of hand in favour of a proposal that has absolutely no foundation, at least none that the government has been able to put forth.

This is to be accomplished in a very short period of time. In Hamilton-Wentworth, when they tried the amalgamation, they're still at it 10 years later. In London, some three years later they're still having difficulty meshing bylaws. We're now struggling with six cities and expecting to do it overnight. It's simply impossible to believe that it could be done, not to mention the fact that we have heard an enormous number of people talk to us about what they think the quality of their life will be, the importance of their neighbourhoods, what it means to live in the city of Toronto, in the city of North York.

The city of North York, which I and my colleague Mario Sergio are from, is one of the most efficiently run cities in the world. Mel Lastman has told us repeatedly that we are efficient, we are effective --

Mr Kells: Is that your candidate? What day was that?

Ms Castrilli: He said it every day. I don't need to give you a date.

The point is, it is a wonderful city to live in. I've been to meeting after meeting in North York, as have my colleagues, and people come out and say that. It isn't the mayor. You can discredit the mayor if you want, but it's the senior who lives there and it's the single mother who lives there and it's the student who lives there. They're all coming out and saying, "This is a great place to live and we want it that way; we're content with it that way."

Mr Sergio: Harris lives in North York, doesn't he?

Ms Castrilli: Yes, I guess. I haven't seen him at any of our meetings, though.

All the experts who have looked at the proposal before us have indicated that if the real rationale is that you're going to save money, that's simply not so. All of the studies, all of the examples, all the practical life experience that we have of amalgamations have added additional costs, have not lowered costs. I think the government is really quite bald-faced in saying that this is the way we are going to save money. It isn't going to save money, so that's not why we're doing it. And if we're not doing it to save money, the government still hasn't said to us why it's proposing to go forward with this. I hope it isn't just stubbornness to a principle that you have, because stubbornness to a principle that is wrong is still wrong.

We are concerned about the time that's been allotted to this. It doesn't begin to respond to the objections that there have been. These are very complex issues and you cannot simply rush them through. The opposition is quite willing to let it take as long as necessary to get it right. This is not a game. This is six cities with 2.5 million people who deserve our full attention and our time.

Let me end on that, because I think this is really where we start. There isn't enough time to deal with the very serious concerns that the people have expressed, not only individually or through groups and through meetings, but through a referendum which was conclusive.

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The Chair: Seeing no further opening statements by anyone, I'm going to move to consideration of the bill's sections. We'll start with section 1. Is there any discussion on section 1?

Mr Colle: I want to strike the name of the bill, if I could speak to that. Bill 103 says, "An Act to replace the seven existing municipal governments of Metropolitan Toronto by incorporating a new municipality to be known as the City of Toronto." I think that's an affront to the citizens of the six cities, the citizens of the borough of East York --

The Chair: Mr Colle, the title is a separate part to be considered on its own at another time. We're just on section 1.

Mr Colle: When will we do that?

The Chair: We'll get to that point at the end.

Mr Colle: Why wouldn't we do the title at the beginning?

The Chair: That's just the procedure. It's always been that way.

Mr Colle: I'd like a clarification of that.

The Chair: It's been that way since the history of the Legislature in the consideration of all bills.

Mr Colle: The title is last?

The Chair: Yes, both the long and short titles of the bill are the last two things.

Mr Colle: Okay.

The Chair: Section 1.

Mr Colle: Let's just be clear in terms of --

The Chair: Any discussion on section 1?

Mr Colle: Which is the general part?

The Chair: Yes, section 1 starts with "definitions" and ends with "urban area."

Mr Colle: In this act, the definition of "local," can I speak to that?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr Colle: There is no way that these are able to replace local, in terms of using the word "local," because they're not local any longer. They're basically all regional boards. I don't see how this definition makes any sense, because they're no longer local entities. I'd like to strike that because there's no continuity in terms of what they're actually doing. You're creating massive regional -- health boards, which are now local, are being made regional. It's a contradiction of terms, so I'd like to strike that.

The Chair: In order to strike that, you would have had to propose an amendment to that effect. You filed no amendments, so you can't put an amendment today. You would have had to file that amendment by 7 o'clock last night.

Mr Colle: Can't I just move to strike?

The Chair: You can vote against the section.

Mr Colle: And I can give my reasons why again?

The Chair: Sure.

Mr Colle: Okay, so that's why I would certainly vote against that.

In terms of (a), the neighbourhood committees established under section 5, we have no idea what these are going to be. We have existing neighbourhood committees. We have no idea whether they're going to replace existing volunteer neighbourhood committees. Unless we have that clarification, I can't see how you could even begin to appreciate what the impact of these are going to be.

The board of trustees: I'm not sure whether I should deal with that later when we deal with the section on trustees, which I will.

"New city": Certainly I'm going to be asking you to vote against that because in essence it is not a new city whatsoever. It's an abomination. Whatever they're going to create is not a city any longer.

"Transitional year": Certainly the chaos that it's in, there's no way it's going to be able to be done properly in a year.

Those are some of the definitions I just wanted to question and ask to be struck or voted against. That's in part I.

Mr Silipo: I have some comments and then also a suggestion or a request to make. Section 1 is of course the section that includes the definitions that apply throughout the rest of the bill. It sets out, as Mr Colle was saying, various definitions, including the new city being "the city of Toronto incorporated by this act"; a reference to the transitional year; reference to "local board"; an important definition of the urban area, being the area that is in effect Metropolitan Toronto. The importance of this section is that it then lays out the definitions that are used in the subsequent sections of the bill.

I'm assuming from the way you started this that we will be going through this bill section by section, so I would actually suggest, or request, that we deal with section 1 at the end of the sections. I want to tell you why. I'm not going to make any assumptions, although I could, but I won't make any assumptions out of respect for the process that we go through as to what the government members are going to do with particular sections of this bill.

It would seem to me that if they are truly contemplating making some major changes, as they put it, to various parts of the bill, they might want to indicate that at this stage of the proceedings by actually voting against, if not the whole bill, which they clearly will not do, at least some major chunks of this bill. That at least would seem to me to give a message to the people, not just the people who are here this morning following the discussion but indeed the people who may be following this outside of this committee and the people who have voted in the referendum and the citizens who expect a real answer from the government.

Given that the definitions impinge on the rest of the bill, I wonder whether it would be appropriate for us to deal with section 1 as the last section. So to defer that, I would request that we defer consideration of section 1 until we've dealt with the remaining sections of the bill.

The Chair: So your motion is to stand down section 1 until we've gone through 2 through 31. In order to do that, I would need unanimous consent. Is there anyone who wants to discuss that? Unanimous consent to stand down section 1 until sections 2 through 31 have been considered?

Mr Sergio: Mr Chair, on a point of order, if I may --

The Chair: Mr Sergio, before we take that vote?

Mr Sergio: Before we move further, because I think the motion interferes with what I'm going to say. I'd like to know if the government intends or the Chair or the parliamentary assistant is going to withdraw section 9 as it stands now, since it has been struck down by the court. I haven't heard how we are going to deal with section 9.

Mr John L. Parker (York East): It wasn't struck down. You don't listen.

Interjections.

The Chair: Order, please.

Mr Sergio: If they would allow me to finish, I'd like to have clarification from you or from the parliamentary assistant how we are supposed to treat section 9 in here, which deals in its entirety with the trustees. We know that we have a court ruling. Can you please interpret for me the court ruling; as we will be moving through the clause-by-clause, how we will have to interpret and deal with section 9. I believe that section 9 is no longer part of the bill.

The Chair: We can't jump around to different sections of the bill. We can either consider sections 1 through 31 all at once, which would allow the opportunity to jump around from clause to clause, or we'd go from section to section to section.

Mr Sergio: I can take that, but I was hoping that since we have that particular case and judgement, that maybe the government would have said to us section 9 is no longer part of this bill here.

The Chair: My understanding is that it is.

Mr Sergio: All right. We'll deal with it then when we get there.

The Chair: Okay. Is there unanimous consent to stand down section 1 until sections 2 through 31 have been considered? Unanimous consent? Okay. Section 1 will be stood down until we've completed sections 2 through 31. Therefore, we'll move now to section 2. Is there any discussion on section 2?

Mr Colle: In the incorporation, it says "under the name `City of Toronto'" on January 1, 1998. Certainly I'm going to ask members of the committee to vote against that because this basically contradicts the emphatic statement of the 400,000 people on March 3 who voted No to change the names of their cities. It's an affront certainly to the people of North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, the borough of East York. In fact, the people of the city of Toronto have said they don't want their city's name taken away from them and given to the megacity creation of the Conservative government.

I would certainly urge that subsection (1) be voted against because it is contrary to the will of the people. They've given reasons why the government should not take away the names of their cities and usurp a name that has a long tradition, going back over 160 years as a city and even before then. It would be an affront for this government to take away that name and basically use it to give a veneer to the megacity, to think that people will forget it still is a megacity. That's what people do not want. They don't want in any way to be insulted by using the name of the city of Toronto for this proposed megacity. Whether it be East York or North York, they don't want this affront to continue by taking a name that means a lot to people.

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The Chair: Just for clarification, before I move to Mr Silipo, to vote against subsection 2(1), you have to vote against the entire section.

Mr Colle: Excuse me, just on a point of order, Mr Chair: Do I then talk to each part of section 2 or do I get a chance to come back to 2(2)?

The Chair: Normally you should do it all at once and speak to your points on section 2, but since I've recognized Mr Silipo, unless he wants me to go back to Mr Colle --

Mr Silipo: Mr Colle has more to say than I do.

Mr Colle: Subsection 2(2): "The body corporate is a city and a local municipality for all purposes." This is a ludicrous assertion. It's no longer a local government because this act basically abolishes local government. Therefore, it is a total contradiction. In essence, what you have here is a hybrid of a regional government or some new kind of entity, but it certainly is not local in any way, shape or form, and the people have said emphatically that they don't consider this megacity proposal to be a local government.

Board of control, subsection 2(3): "Despite subsection 64(1) of the Municipal Act, the new city shall not have a board of control." This is an imposition on a new megacity, if it ever comes to pass, dictating that government in essence will not be able to determine whether it wants a board of control. To take that right away from that future government is contrary to the basic principles of local governments, where they decide for themselves what is the best way to structure their governments.

For the government to dictate that they shall not have a board of control is usurping the power of the people who elect local councils and also the people themselves, who should have a role in that. To take that right away is contrary to what local government is all about. We've had boards of control in the past. I know North York has had them, and the city of York; Toronto has had boards of control. You have historical precedence for that.

Also subsection (4): "The new city stands in the place of the old municipalities for all purposes." This is at the core of what people are saying no to. They don't agree to the so-called new city. In fact, they don't even consider it a new city. They consider it, as I said, a conglomeration of what the government is creating, is concocting, and "in place of the old municipalities for all purposes." The public has been emphatic. They don't want their old municipalities replaced, in place for all purposes. They've said that emphatically in these hearings. They don't want that to happen.

Clause 2(5)(b) says, "all the assets and liabilities that the old municipalities had on December 31, 1997, are vested in and become assets and liabilities of the new city on January 1, 1998, without compensation." This is basically expropriation by the megacity of the assets which belong to the citizens of those cities. This government through this legislation has no right to expropriate these assets and certainly not to do it without compensation, because the people have spoken emphatically that they don't want this megacity to proceed and certainly they wouldn't want their assets taken away from them without compensation.

Those are the points I wanted to make on section 2 and that is why I would urge you to vote against the whole major section 2.

Mr Silipo: What's in a name, right? Subsection 2(1) constitutes the new city of Toronto, la cité de Toronto in French. But of course it goes back to the definition sections, which is why I made the request and I appreciate the agreement of the committee to delay dealing with section 1. The urban area is what's being constituted as the city of Toronto and the urban area is the whole of Metropolitan Toronto. So here you have under subsection 2(1) the nub of the decision. There are important pieces that follow, but subsection 2(1) is really what changes the various municipalities in Metropolitan Toronto into the one large megacity.

For that reason I will oppose it. I would urge members of the committee to oppose it and I would urge particularly members of the government caucus to use this as the occasion to show that they are listening, if they are listening, by defeating this section and by at least holding out the possibility that they are serious when they say they are reflecting on the results of the referendum.

Mr Sergio: I'll make my general comment on the entire bill, instead of going clause by clause because I don't think I can add anything to what has already been said, not only by myself but by everybody. I would rather see at this stage that perhaps we should move on and let the people know where we stand and let the people know where you stand. Let's go clause-by-clause, let's vote on clause-by-clause and let's cut this bit short because I think we know at the end of the day what you people want to do and I don't think we have to prolong the agony. That's my point. I would be prepared to go to clause-by-clause right now without further debate.

The Chair: This clause, though, is before us. I don't know how the committee members feel about that.

Mr Gilchrist: Put the question.

The Chair: Mr Sergio has suggested we put the question on all of the sections, 2 through 31, right now.

Mr Silipo: No.

Mr Sergio: I was only joking.

The Chair: Any further debate on section 2? Seeing none, shall section 2 carry?

Mr Silipo: Recorded vote.

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Newman, Parker, Tascona.

Nays

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare the section carried.

Moving to section 3, any discussion on section 3?

Mr Colle: On section 3, some reiteration of what a lot of the deputants said over and over again, just to remind the committee of what they said: The head of this new council will not really be a mayor; it'll be more like another Premier who in essence will require millions of dollars to run and will be wiping out the locally elected mayors who can be open to people from the general public.

It'll be essentially a mega-mayor, only open to special interest groups. As I've said many times, you'll need a limo, a lawyer or a lobbyist to make an appointment with this new mega-mayor, him or her. That's not what the people want, and they said that on March 3.

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In terms of 44 members, this is a 60% reduction in the number of representatives in Metropolitan Toronto. It is the downsizing of democracy, it is a taking away of representation, and it's an affront to people who believe that they want locally elected councillors they can access. This dramatic reduction and taking away of locally elected officials and local mayors and replacing them, going from 106 to 44, or 45 with the mayor, is in no way adequate. The public over and over again has said they want their representation and they don't want it downsized and ripped out with a 60% reduction in democracy in Metropolitan Toronto in the six communities.

In terms of other parts of this section, the other thing is in terms of the way this has been folded into the federal boundaries. Arbitrarily, without giving the people of Metropolitan Toronto any say in this, this government has said, "Local government will now be fixed on federal boundaries." The ultimate order is in the hands of the minister. It says in part -- excuse me, I'm down to section 4 and I was on 3; I was a little bit ahead of myself.

The main objection to section 3 is that it essentially links with the whole approach of this act, which is to decimate local democracy and local representation and put in a corporate body that will be in essence a puppet government because the minister and his trustees and transition team will be appointing the chief bureaucrats of this new corporate entity. Therefore, not only will the civil service of this new corporate entity called megacity be unaccountable, but their local representation will be dramatically reduced, therefore, giving even more power to the appointed trustees and transition team who will be hiring all the new heads of the departments and setting up the structures of each department in this new corporate megacity.

That is contrary to what almost all the deputants said and what people have been saying at public meetings. They don't want a corporate megacity governing their local communities. They want a representative local government that is accountable to them and not the minister only and appointed bureaucrats like the transition team and the illegal trustees. They've said emphatically no to that.

Mr Silipo: Very briefly, section 3 is the section that sets up the membership of the new council. I won't repeat the points Mr Colle has made, with which I generally agree, but I know that some reaction from the government caucus has already been heard against our proposal to delay the municipal elections for one year to allow real process and to allow citizens to be involved in discussing what should happen, not just with respect to the future of local municipalities but also with respect to the real problem, which is how we govern and deliver services through the whole greater Toronto area.

Despite that initial opposition, I note with some interest that under subsection (1) there is an extension of the term by one month. I realize one month is different than nine months, but the concept of extending here to facilitate implementation of this bill, as the government sees it, is already there. I would just ask again, members of the government in particular, to consider seriously our suggestion to delay the municipal elections by one year, as a way to actually get at some real solutions to the problem.

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Mr Silipo: A recorded vote.

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona.

Nays

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 3 carried.

Moving to section 4, any discussion?

Mr Silipo: This is actually one section where I hope the government members are reading it and actually looking at what it means, because there is a very clear error in the schedule. I assume it's an error. I think the minister acknowledged in a question we put to him in the House that it was an error, because they've omitted the federal riding of Broadview-Greenwood from the schedule and put in its place instead York North. If this were to carry, you'd have the peculiar situation where the new city that you would be creating would not have Broadview-Greenwood. They might be happy with that, actually, but you would have the riding of York North, which is in York region.

I would hope at least on this section the government members would see their way to voting against it as a way of acknowledging that there's been a mistake.

Mr Gilchrist: Mr Silipo, we certainly do acknowledge the gremlins crept into the drafting on this one. In fact, there will be one other amendment brought forward when we're in committee of the whole House. Since the bill was first prepared the federal government has renamed one of its ridings. You will recall that under the Fewer Politicians Act we are using identical names. It's described as Beaches-Woodbine and it's now called Beaches-East York. I can confirm that those two amendments will be brought forward.

Just as an aside, voting on the section does not vote on the schedule. The schedule would be voted on later. I think your point relates more to the vote on the schedule later, not on the section itself.

Mr Silipo: Fine, we'll do it in the schedule.

Mr Colle: I'll certainly be voting against this section. It imposes the wards by the minister and this is not what the people want.

The Chair: Any further discussion on section 4? Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Mr Marchese: A recorded vote.

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona.

Nays

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 4 carried.

Moving to section 5, any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Mr Silipo: A recorded vote.

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona.

Nays

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 5 carried.

Moving to section 6, any discussion on section 6?

Mr Silipo: Just last night we heard from CUPE Local 1, I believe, the union representing workers for Toronto Hydro. This section 6 deals with creating, in effect, one hydro-electric power commission for the whole megacity, as opposed to the separate ones that exist now. They pointed out very clearly the problems that would be encountered in moving in that direction, the additional costs in terms of moulding the systems together -- or the additional cost if you kept the systems separate -- that there would be continuing to manage it as one system.

I think it's one particular section of the bill that should give the government members some pause for reflection and I hope at this point in time that they would be prepared to vote against it.

Mr Colle: It is interesting in this that from day one, the government, the minister mentioned that 72% of the services, the expenses for those services in the six cities in Metro were amalgamated. This is what they kept repeating but it was found to be basically a false figure because they happened to overlook a $1.9-billion part of the budget that is not amalgamated, and this is the six hydro-electric commissions. They kept on using that figure to show that most services were amalgamated. They certainly did include the TTC, which is a commission, as part of their figures. They didn't even examine what the implications of $1.9 billion would be on this proposal. It's just another slight oversight in terms of the government's rush to judgement here.

Obviously, if they couldn't even appreciate the $1.9 billion in budgets for these commissions, what kind of credence can you give that they know what they're talking about in terms of changing them into mega-commissions? I'll certainly be voting against it.

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Shall section 6 carry? All those in favour? Opposed? I declare section 6 carried.

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Section 7. Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 7 carry? All those in favour? Opposed? I declare section 7 carried.

Section 8. Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 8 carry? All those in favour? Opposed? I declare the section carried.

Section 9. Any discussion?

Mr Silipo: Section 9 establishes the board of trustees and sets out in great detail, in about 10 subsections, many of the powers, although those are continued also under the next section, section 10. Without getting into a lot of the details of this because we've had this discussion throughout the hearings, this has been an area of major concern. I think the government has indicated already that they intend to make some amendments to this section.

I want to say for the record that when I asked the minister in the House a week ago today what changes he was contemplating -- that was the same day there had been a story in the Toronto Star outlining a number of changes -- he said to me simply that they were looking at some changes. I found it interesting that just the day after, when Mr Gilchrist, Mr Colle and I were at TVO to tape a program, when Steve Paikin, the host of that program, asked the minister the same question, he gave him a very detailed answer of the kind of amendments that he was not only contemplating but was very likely to bring forward in this area. Those include dealing with some of the retroactive provisions of the trustees, doing away with some of the more draconian measures in this part of the bill.

I find it interesting, first of all, that the minister continues to show his disrespect for the Legislature by refusing to answer questions when a member of the opposition asks him, yet is quite comfortable in answering the same question in great detail when a member of the media asks him the question. It shows you the kind of attitude the government has and particularly this minister has. They should continue, in my view, to answer questions from the media -- that's part of the responsibility of being in government -- but they should also answer questions when members of the Legislative Assembly put those to them.

Given that the government has already indicated through the minister that there will be significant changes to this section, here is a great opportunity for the government members to show that they really are true to their word when they say they are reflecting and are thinking. For the time being, just vote against this section, do away with the section, take it out of the bill in the way we report it, if you intend to replace it with something else, if you intend to remove some of the draconian measures in here, the powers of the trustees.

We believe you don't even need to have trustees. Even if you intend to persist with your crazy notion of the megacity, you don't have to have trustees. When we asked the minister at the beginning of this process what was really the point of having trustees, he said: "Really, we just want to protect the property that's there. We want to make sure that nothing untoward happens." You can do that, quite frankly, with a simple provision in the bill that says municipalities aren't allowed to do X and Y. You don't need to have a group of unelected people overseeing the elected officials of the various municipalities in Metropolitan Toronto for the next year.

The minister still retains powers under the Municipal Act to deal with situations where there are real problems, which, as members know, is the only case where the role of trusteeship is in any way justified. It's not justified when you have councils duly elected continuing to perform their duties. The whole section shouldn't be here, but since you yourself have indicated that you are willing to make some changes to this whole section, at least today give that some credibility by voting against this section. I would request a recorded vote on this, Chair.

The Chair: We're not ready to have that vote yet, though. We have Mr Colle next.

Mr Colle: As you know, this is one of the most typical aspects of this bill, which demonstrates what this bill is all about and what this government is all about. I remember that in the House the day the bill was introduced or the day afterwards, I asked the minister whether he was using his royal prerogative in appointing these trustees and giving these trustees retroactive power over the municipalities and saying the power of the trustees was legislated before the bill was passed. In other words, on December 17 when this bill was introduced, the minister said the trustees could have power before the Legislature even dealt with it. I remember his comment on that day was, "This type of thing happens all the time." He continued on, and the trustees met behind closed doors, they went to the councils. They basically were working despite the warning that they would probably be violating the law. The minister continued to allow them to work, continued to have them conduct their affairs.

What I found most disturbing is that as a committee we only asked three witnesses to come before us; that's all we asked for. We've asked three times, and each time these trustees have said no to this committee. They will not come before this committee. That is one of the most disgusting things I've seen. I think you've done a good job as Chair of this committee, but for those three trustees not to have even the courtesy to come before the committee and come out of hiding to see what they've done -- my concern is that these trustees have hired staff, they were instructed by the minister to hire an accounting firm, they had legal help. Are the legal help and staff still working despite the court order saying they were null and void? We weren't able to ask them that question because they refused to come here. I think that's an affront to this committee, and it is typical of how these trustees are an affront to this whole process.

The judge said about these trustees, "It seems to me contrary to fundamental principles of responsible government." Do you know what the government's defence was? The Attorney General's representative responded "that these appointments were made not pursuant to the City of Toronto Act," -- they couldn't do that because the act wasn't passed, they realized -- but "in the exercise of the crown's prerogative." That is what the minister's defence was, that they were using their royal prerogative to make these people take control over the six cities and Metro the day the bill was tabled, before the bill was passed, and then basically conduct these affairs behind closed doors.

Whenever we have a judge rule that a major part of an act is illegal, null and void -- if you members of this committee vote in favour of section 9, I think you're basically in contempt of court, because the essence of section 9 is the trustees. If you haven't read the ruling:

"I conclude that the orders in council of December 18...were made without authority and are of no legal effect. The appointments are therefore void. The appointees' actions have no legal effect until they are appointed pursuant to a statute."

In this statute that you're going to vote for, in section 9, it basically says, "There shall be a board of trustees consisting of one or more members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor." You've got the court saying they're illegal, null and void, so if you vote for this section, I charge that you're in contempt of court because you're essentially violating a judgement of Judge Brennan. It's clear and explicit. If you vote in favour of section 9, especially when the parliamentary assistant and the minister said they're going to change it because they've been caught, if you vote in favour of this section, in essence what you're saying is: "I don't care what the courts say. We're just going to do what we're told to do and we're going to vote."

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Mr Parker: We have legal counsel sitting here. I wonder if she would comment on your legal opinion.

The Chair: Order. Mr Colle has the floor.

Mr Colle: It's very clear: a court ruling. It's not the opposition. All the deputants have said the same thing about the trustees being illegal, abhorrent, anti-democratic. Now we have another test for this committee: whether you vote for section 9 or follow the court, follow the people, in saying that these trustees were null and void, had no power and certainly shouldn't have been given power, as the minister tried to on December 17, before the bill was even passed.

Mr Gilchrist: I'll make a few comments that apply equally to sections 10 and 11 as well, given that they also deal with the trustees. Let me start off by saying that I think Mr Colle continues to cross the lines of good taste and malign the character and integrity of the three individuals, three very respected former civil servants. I think his interpretation of the facts is totally out of sync with reality.

The fact that they could not attend prior to the court ruling was based strictly on what the legal staff had told them. It's quite appropriate that they couldn't comment while the lawsuit was pending. The moment the lawsuit was rendered, a judgement on the orders in council, strictly the way they were hired as an advisory board, had nothing to do with this bill.

As you yourself just read into the record, Mr Colle, the judge himself said once the bill is passed, they have absolutely every right to do what the bill proposes they do.

Mr Colle: Read the judgement.

Mr Gilchrist: I have read it. As you've just kindly read into the record, that confirms my point.

The fact of the matter is, as an advisory board, they did not have accounting services. You continue to misspeak yourself on that matter as well. One of these days, perhaps you will check your sources before you keep making statements on the record. I know you're protected by parliamentary privilege, but I don't think that should be any kind of blanket coverage to keep misspeaking the facts here.

Mr Colle: On a point of personal privilege, Mr Chair.

The Chair: Mr Colle, if you'd like to go back on the list, I can put you on the list.

Mr Colle: No. On a point of personal privilege, Chair: This member has basically said I am not telling the truth. I want to read to him in the record what his own -- I want to read this in the record, because I'm sick and tired of you misleading the public.

The Chair: Order, please. Mr Colle, the point of privilege in committee has to be referred to the House.

Mr Colle: He's just told me I'm not telling the truth and I want to quote what his own minister said.

The Chair: You can have debate and you can refute what he's just said by getting back on the list after he speaks. You can refute at that point in time. Mr Gilchrist has the floor. If you want to refute what he said, you get back on the list; that's the way you do that.

Mr Colle: I can argue a point of privilege. I have a point of privilege. I want to move it.

Mr Gilchrist: You have a fact that refutes my fact; that they did retain accounting services?

The Chair: We have a point of privilege here. You have to move it. It has to be debated and voted on in the committee and then it has to be reported back to the House. I don't make a ruling on privilege.

Mr Colle: Excuse me, Mr Chair, but I thought the same rules apply as in the House. If I have a point of privilege, I can stand up in the House --

The Chair: In the standing orders that govern a committee, that's the case with privilege.

Mr Colle: What would you like to say?

Mr Newman: I just want to say that it's fine for you to make accusations about --

The Chair: Order, Mr Newman.

Mr Colle: Can I just say my point of privilege?

Mr Gilchrist: The Chair has just ruled. Now you're in contempt of the Chair.

The Chair: You can put a point of privilege, but I can't rule on a point of privilege. The committee has to vote on a point of privilege and it has to go before the House.

Mr Colle: Therefore, I can put my point of privilege.

The Chair: You can state what your point of privilege is without -- I'm not going to entertain a debate about who said what, though.

Mr Colle: I can put my point of privilege. On December 17, 1996, under the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, a letter was sent under Minister Al Leach's signature to all councils. It's in the fifth paragraph. That was on December 17, when they were given power by the minister.

"I have asked Jack Pickard, former treasurer of Metro, Val Gibbons, a former provincial deputy minister, and Cy Armstrong, the former CAO of Edmonton and Hamilton-Wentworth to act as the board of trustees.

"They will be retaining the services of a major accounting firm to assist them with their task."

How am I to find out whether or not this firm was hired when the trustees refuse to come before this committee and deny that, when the minister has not given us any instructions that would refute that and in the letter it says they will be retaining the services of an accounting firm? I asked the trustees to come here and refute that. They didn't come. I just want to put that on the record.

The Chair: You asked that question yesterday and Mr Gilchrist undertook to provide an answer on that and I think actually during the discussion on this section that is what he's doing. Okay?

Mr Gilchrist: You got your answer. Are you done interjecting?

The Chair: Mr Gilchrist, continue.

Mr Gilchrist: Thank you. I guess the other thing you could have done is what I have done: Turn to the staff member from the ministry and simply ask. Amazing to have had the facts at your disposal instead of the supposition; but the facts are they didn't do it.

Mr Colle: Why didn't they come here then?

Mr Gilchrist: Why didn't you ask the staff? They would have given you the same answer they gave me. There's been a staff member here every minute of these hearings.

Mr Colle: You are intimidating the staff members.

Mr Gilchrist: Oh, get serious.

The Chair: Mr Gilchrist has the floor. Speak to the section.

Mr Gilchrist: Thank you, Chair. Let me go back to section 9, and 10 and 11 as well. To Mr Silipo, who was here when we started first thing this morning -- some of the other members were not -- let me repeat what I said then. We certainly did hear the concerns of people, particularly about the sections dealing with the trustees. As the minister has stated in the press and in the House, we have heard those concerns expressed and many people took the time to couch them in very specific terms. To them we are grateful and we have crafted some amendments, but as I mentioned earlier, we hope to take the next three weeks to give further consideration to just how considerable the changes should be to these sections.

I am very confident that at the end of the process and by the time we come back to committee of the whole House all the substantive concerns people had and all of the, I believe, unfounded accusations that were levelled about what the trustees could do and might do, and in a worst-case scenario had the power to do, will be dealt with very directly.

It will be very clear that if there is any kind of oversight at all it would be purely and simply as protection for the taxpayers of these cities. It would not involve any reduction in the powers and the ability of the councils to do their good works. But at the end of the day, in the transition period it is appropriate that there be some oversight. We have heard the specific concerns expressed for sections 9, 10 and 11, and I certainly give an undertaking to all the members that they will see amendments that deal with those concerns very directly.

Mr Sergio: This is perhaps the clause that gets to the real heart of the entire matter here. There is no other clause, in my view, that is more offensive than this one here. I will read you the one that really turns me off. It's clause (c) when it says, "review 1997 operating and capital budget under section 11" -- and the parliamentary assistant is quite correct that section 9 deals also with 10 and 11 -- "and amend and approve them when the board considers appropriate."

This is the big problem here with the entire situation that gives the power. The minister has said, "When we approve the bill, we're going to bring the trustees back." They will have to deal with this section here and subsection here as well. They can tell the local municipalities that they can amend their capital and operating budgets and approve or not approve of them at their discretion, in their own time, at their own consideration.

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Ultimately, what are the taxpayers supposed to do? Are they going to get a tax bill, or will they not be getting a tax bill? Will the local municipalities and councils deal with the budgets in good faith, or will they not? How are they going to be dealing ultimately? Will they be sending a tax bill, what they will be paying for? Will they be getting another subsequent tax bill at the middle of the year and one in the fall? Has this been really thought out by the minister? Has it really been thought out by the government? I don't think so. When the minister says: "That's okay. Don't worry about it. We'll respect the court decision, but this is what we're going to do once we approve of the bill. We're going to bring the trustees back with the same authority."

I hope you people take into consideration that local councils in March, April, whenever they deal with the budgets, will have to deal according to the needs of the particular community, right? They will be sending the tax bill accordingly. But you will have in place, and you have just said yes, that the minister is going to reappoint them with the same power, and they can change all of that. This is most offensive, this is an imposition on the local council and this is something that the local taxpayer should not be subject to. I hope you will vote against the entire clause.

Mr Newman: In response to Mr Colle speaking on Judge Brennan's ruling, I might want to suggest to Mr Colle that he actually read the judge's ruling, because he read a section today that I think answered his own question that he had. That question was on the existence of the trustees. If he'd read Judge Brennan's ruling, he would have seen that the ruling dealt only with the orders in council; in other words, the certificates deciding on the appointment of those three individuals. That's what it was all about. He didn't rule that the trustees were not in order. What he ruled on was the orders in council. If you read the whole judgement, you would see, Mr Colle, that it's all about the orders in council, not the existence of trustees. It's based on the orders in council. Read the entire decision.

Mr Colle: The trustees are null and void.

Mr Newman: Read the entire decision.

Interjection: Mike, if you don't believe us, ask Annamarie. She'll tell you.

Mr Newman: What I might want to suggest, there's a lawyer right beside you. Ask her. Maybe she can tell you, because she's been very silent on this issue.

I respect your opinion if you don't like the trustees. I can accept that. But when we're talking about a legal judgment here that deals with the orders in council and not the existence of the trustees, I think you'd be the first to agree with me, if you read through it. We can talk about this later, but if you read through it you'll see that it's about the orders in council, not the trustees. I respect your opinion on not liking them, but re-read the judge's ruling.

Ms Castrilli: I'd like to respond to Mr Newman by saying that I will not be silent on this issue. Let me tell you what the judgment does say. The judgment says that this government, a democratically elected government, had the nerve to go to court and say, "We have a royal prerogative to do something that the statute does not allow us to do." That's what the government did. No democratically elected government in this century has ever done that. No court has ever found another government guilty of that, has never had to deal with the issue that a government thinks it has the divine right to rule. That's what the judgment said.

Mr Newman: What did the judge say?

The Chair: Mr Newman, order.

Ms Castrilli: Let's be very clear about that.

I want to respond to Mr Gilchrist, for just a minute, with respect to section 9. I won't deal with the substance of it. The substance of it is offensive enough. This points to a classic problem. Here we are discussing a section of the bill which for all intents and purposes may not look like this at all when it comes back to the committee of the whole. We've already been told there are parts that are objectionable, there are parts that may be ultra vires and there are going to be amendments. We don't have those amendments. We will have one hour at the end of it to discuss all of the amendments. That to me is unfathomable and I will vote against this section.

The Chair: Any further discussion on section 9?

Mr Silipo: A recorded vote, Chairman.

The Chair: Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Munro, Newman, O'Toole, Parker, Tascona.

Nays

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare the motion carried.

Mr Sergio: Can I ask that they be all recorded votes?

The Chair: Yes, you can.

Section 10: Any discussion on section 10? Shall section 10 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Munro, Newman, O'Toole, Parker, Tascona.

Nays

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 10 carried.

Mr Sergio: You didn't count their votes.

Ms Castrilli: Mr Chair, I take notice of the audience participation voting against.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Castrilli.

Section 11: Any discussion on section 11? Seeing none, I will put the question: Shall section 11 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Munro, Newman, O'Toole, Parker, Tascona.

Nays

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 11 carried.

Section 12: Is there any discussion on section 12?

Mr Silipo: Briefly, this is probably the most offensive of all the sections in here, because this is the section that says, "The decisions of the board of trustees are final and shall not be reviewed or questioned by a court." It also is one of the sections that I believe the minister indicated they likely would change. So again I would say to the government members, if no other section, this is the one section, if you've heard anything, that you should be saying no to at this point.

Mr Colle: This was the interesting interjection when Mr Gilchrist, the parliamentary assistant, said during the hearings that this is the type of power all civil servants get in a normal state of affairs. This is the section that puts these trustees as a transition team above the law. These are the people appointed by the minister who would establish the running of this government whom Judge Brennan said were null and void. This is the section that, again, totally contradicts basic democratic premises of saying governments shouldn't be above the law, civil servants shouldn't be above the law and certainly appointed trustees shouldn't be above the law.

Let me read it again, and how offensive it is, "The decisions of the board of trustees are final and shall not be reviewed or" -- not even reviewed -- "questioned by a court." How more offensive can you get? I asked for an example from the legal staff of municipal affairs, if there's another bill which has a similar section. His response was no. This is the first time in the history of this province that there is such a section. The decisions of appointed bureaucrats "shall not be reviewed or questioned by a court." That is why people are so disgusted with this bill. No bill or trustees or government should be above the law or above being questioned by a court, because what that means is that people have no recourse. That's what this section does and that's why it's the most abhorrent part of an abhorrent megacity bill.

Mr Marchese: Very quickly, Mr Gilchrist has said that he's heard the concerns and that they have crafted amendments -- which obviously they don't have today but another day they'll bring them -- and that all substantive concerns the people have had are being dealt with. I tell you, the most substantive one is to withdraw the entire bill, but if they cherry-pick, as they are clearly doing, this is one of the more substantive things that people spoke about in this committee. I hope they listen to that as well.

Mr Gilchrist: I'm pleased to respond to Mr Marchese's last comments. I could have added section 12 when I said sections 9 through 11, and I will add it. I certainly can confirm that there will be further consideration of everything in section 12 as well.

Interruption.

The Chair: Order, please, ladies and gentlemen. Any further discussion on section 12?

Ms Castrilli: This is really a matter of what a government has the power to do. I will remind you again that you do not have the power to put yourself or any body that you appoint above the law. I would appeal to your sense of justice, to your sense of fairness to look carefully at this section and vote against it. There is no reasonableness basis upon which you should vote for this section unless you believe in dictatorship.

Interruption.

The Chair: Order, please, ladies and gentlemen. Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question: Shall section 12 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Kells, Munro, Newman, O'Toole, Parker, Tascona.

Nays

Castrilli, Colle, Marchese, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare the section carried.

Interruption.

The Chair: Mr Sewell -- we're going to recess for lunch. I'm going to ask the audience to please leave because I've asked several times for order. We don't have order. When we come back from lunch -- and I apologize to those who are staying in order -- you'll have to watch from the overflow room if you want to. We're in recess until 3:30.

The committee recessed from 1201 to 1556.

The Chair: Welcome back for the afternoon session of the standing committee clause-by-clause analysis on Bill 103.

Mr Gilchrist: Mr Chair.

The Chair: Mr Gilchrist has a motion.

Mr Gilchrist: Having discussed the matter with representatives from all three parties, despite the unfortunate events that took place at noonhour and the violation of the rules of order and decorum at that time, and understanding that your ruling can only be overturned by a motion with the unanimous consent of all members, I move that we allow the audience back into the committee with the understanding, without any overriding specificity, that the standing orders require order and decorum at all times, and I would trust you to request such an observance of the rules from the audience once they're in. I move that the audience be permitted back into the hearings.

The Chair: For that to happen, we need unanimous consent. Do we have unanimous consent? We do have unanimous consent.

We'll take a two-minute recess and allow them into the room and make it clear to them that we suffered something bordering on grave disorder this morning -- I don't think anyone will disagree with me on that -- and if we have any disorder anywhere near that level, I'm going to remove everyone from the audience.

We have a two-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 1558 to 1602.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, order, please. To the members of the media, I know that you know better than to interview people during a committee hearing. If you want to interview Mr Sewell, he can do that outside.

Ladies and gentlemen, just quickly in explanation, because of the disorder we had at the end of the morning session -- many of you were here for that; some of you may not have been -- I was very clear all morning long talking about disorder and that I wasn't going to pick individuals if I could help it, and if we had too much disorder, that unfortunately I was going to ask everyone to leave. We had what was bordering on grave disorder at noon. I made a ruling that the audience would not be allowed back in, that they would have to go to the overflow room for this afternoon's hearings. After much discussion from the subcommittee and on unanimous consent by the committee members, they have agreed to allow an audience back into the room.

But there is to be order in the room. As I've told you for five weeks -- and I see many of you nodding your heads, and I've been very clear and very fair about this the whole time -- I am bound to keep order in the room. Any time we get to a point where we're having disorder, where we have catcalls when members try to make statements -- they have a right to make statements and have debate without being shouted at from the audience -- any time that happens -- I'm going to say it right now, because I said it several times this morning; I'll repeat it again -- I'm not going to pick individuals out; if we have disorder coming from the crowd, I'm going to have to ask the crowd to leave.

So if you're sitting beside someone who is not respecting the rules of the Legislature, which all of the members of the Legislature have written over the years, please nudge them in the ribs and ask them to calm down and come to order. Thank you very much.

We are now on section 13. Any discussion? Mr Silipo.

Mr Silipo: I think we have the continuing request from this morning to deal with these, when we get to the vote, with recorded votes. I'm assuming that still carries from this morning.

This is section 13, which deals with the application or non-application of freedom of information to the proceedings of the board of trustees. You'll recall this morning, Chair, that one of the things that I think, to be fair, upset people was the fact that in voting through each of these motions, we arrived at section 12, which is the section that says that the decisions of the board of trustees are final and not to be reviewed or questioned by a court.

I and others were making the point this morning in committee that that, among others, was a good section for the committee members of the government side particularly to show some good faith on, to show that they've heard something during the referendum.

If you're not prepared to withdraw the whole bill at this point -- and I asked the Premier this afternoon, you'll know, to at least allow you to not report the bill back at the end of this process, and I hope people are giving some thought to that. But in the meantime, voting against some provisions of the bill, like that one, is at least a small step you can take towards showing that you understand to some extent and appreciate what's been going on over the last number of days and weeks.

I would make the same argument, without belabouring the point, with respect to section 13, that here is another occasions for the members of the government side particularly to say, "We're prepared to make a change by not recommending this section back to the Legislature."

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing no further discussion, I'll put the question. Shall section 13 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare the motion carried and section 13 carried.

Section 14: Any discussion?

Mr Silipo: Section 14 is what I call the insult section of the bill. The rest of it is the injury, and this is the insult. It's an insult because this is a section that asks the new city under the proposed bill to actually pay for the expenses of the trustees. This government is going to impose trusteeship on the elected representatives in Metropolitan Toronto, and then you're going to ask the citizens of Metropolitan Toronto to pay for that as well. I think it's more than just an affront.

I think my memory serves me correctly in saying that this is one of those areas where the minister himself indicated he's prepared to make some changes. It would be useful to see some good faith from the government caucus in rejecting section 14.

Mr Colle: I just hope that the existing local councils are instructed not to pay any of the bills of the trustees. As you know, Judge Brennan has ruled the trustees are null and void. I hope the minister has directed the Metropolitan Toronto government that it is not to pay for any of these expenses, since Judge Brennan ruled they're deemed to be null and void. I hope they have done that; I don't have any indication they have. But I'm certainly voting against that section also.

Mr Gilchrist: This is certainly one section where I can assure Mr Silipo he'll be very satisfied when he sees the amendments.

The Chair: Any further discussion?

Mr Silipo: Satisfy me today. Satisfy people today.

The Chair: Order, please. Any further discussion?

Shall section 14 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 14 carried.

Section 15: Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favour of section 15?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: Section 15 carries.

Section 16: Any discussion?

Mr Silipo: I actually have a question first before I make some comments, and I guess it would be directed to the parliamentary assistant. This is the section that establishes the transition team. Subsection (4) asks the transition team to "consider what further legislation may be required to implement this act, and make detailed recommendations to the minister." If this section is going to remain as it is, I ask the parliamentary assistant, when would he expect that legislation to come forward?

Mr Gilchrist: Mr Silipo, as the minister has said on a number of occasions, this bill provides the skeletal framework for the governance structure, and the technical and most of the transition issues would be dealt with in a City of Toronto Act version 2. The expectation would be that the transition team would work diligently after passage of this bill, and we would hope their recommendations would come back to us in time to introduce something in the spring to be debated in the fall, and I think that timetable is still doable.

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Mr Silipo: I would just say then, in terms of some comments, that just shows me how completely impractical this is, that you could actually think that you could, through those time lines, deal with the myriad of issues around implementation. It's just undoable. For that reason alone, this provision shouldn't be adopted, nor should it be adopted when you look, under (4)(d), at the fact that this is the body that will be charged -- again, an appointed group of people, not the elected people -- will be given the task of hiring the department heads for the new city and other employees as they deem appropriate.

So you're going to have another set of appointed people setting in place the structure and hiring the people who are going to be the senior staff people for the city. That's something that I think makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in terms of any sense of respecting the role of duly elected local officials. I'm assuming the government will come to its senses and make some changes to the section, within the context of the whole bill. Again, I would ask government members to show some good faith and oppose this section of the bill.

Mr Colle: In terms of this clause here, like the trustees, the transition team is also not subject to the courts. I would think that in the amendments, whatever the government is going to do in withdrawing this bill, that certainly should be considered.

In terms of the trustees, the transition team with these powers given to it establishes in essence the new government. It will hire the department heads and other employees, and the new council is to be bound, it seems, by these transition team decisions. In essence, what you're basically establishing is that the next government you're proposing will be a puppet government that will be controlled by this transition team that will be handpicked by the minister. There's no way this section should be supported. It should be completely withdrawn.

Mr Gilchrist: Just to clarify something for Mr Colle, it has been said before in these hearings and by the minister, and I'll repeat it again, that every issue the transition team deals with will be advisory or in the form of a recommendation. The new council will have to adopt them at its first meeting, and accordingly, if the new council disagrees with any of the decisions, including the hiring that has been done by the transition team, it can overturn those decisions literally at its first council meeting, which is assumed to be January 2, 1998.

Mr Sergio: Just briefly, that is why this thing isn't really going to fly, because you're going to have a council that is going to be elected sometime in November. Then the transition team is going to tell those councillors what to do and what not to do, and all in December, by January 1, 1998. It deals with releasing of information, releasing of reports, a number of things; it even deals with access to private information as well.

How can you compile all of that in a month's time, Christmas and New Year's holidays, stuff like that? This is one reason this is not going to work: You people are going too fast. We are saying: "Send it back. Take your time and do it right." By pushing it like this, you are not going to get it right, so I hope you will not support this section.

The Chair: Is there any further discussion on section 16? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 16 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare the section carried.

Section 17: Any discussion?

Mr Colle: Section 17 in essence continues the formation of this puppet government. As it states here in section 1, "The transition team and the person shall agree on the terms of employment, and the new city is bound by the resulting employment contract." What you have is this transition team is going to hire heads of departments, senior bureaucrats and those senior bureaucrats will be forced upon the new government. The only way out of it is by having huge severance contracts to get rid of the appointed, hired transition team department heads. So the transition team will impose department heads and key staff on the new government.

How will this new government be independent if the transition team is handpicked by Mr Leach and then the transition team in turn handpicks the department heads and then the new megacity government is bound, as it says in section 1, by the resulting employment contract? That is the essence of why this whole section should be struck and is certainly not in any way, shape or form giving any autonomy to this proposed new megacity government.

Mr Silipo: A question to the parliamentary assistant: I thought earlier on he said that the people who would be hired by the transition team would only remain employees of the new city if the new city agreed. Paragraph 1 of section 17 doesn't say that. It says the new city would be bound by the resulting employment contract. So how does this subsection square with what Mr Gilchrist is saying? Is he saying there'll be an amendment to this?

Mr Gilchrist: Mr Silipo, for example, it would be quite appropriate for the transitional team to offer a conditional contract to someone saying, "Conditional to the approval at the first council meeting, you will be the new," fill in the blank, "head of the administration." Clearly the council would then have the ability to ratify on January 2.

You could argue they're bound for one day. Their first scheduled council meeting is expected to be January 2 and they will ratify all the decisions that the transition team has made. A conditional hiring contract obviously will require the approval of the council in order to continue to carry on, in effect, and if someone agrees to become the new head of the administrative offices, then they know that up front when they say yes.

Mr Silipo: But I don't see any place in this bill where it suggests or states that the transition team can only give people conditional contracts. What I see the legislation saying very clearly is that the transition team hires the senior bureaucracy and gives them a contract and the new council is bound by that contract. There are -- and I can point them out to the parliamentary assistant -- at least a couple of provisions later in the bill that say very clearly the provisions of this bill supersede any other provisions or any other regulations.

So this is going to be the credo. This is what people will turn to if you pass it as it is. I don't understand how what is here meshes with what Mr Gilchrist is saying, unless he's prepared to indicate that this is an area where there will be amendment, in which case I would say to the government members, why approve this subsection if you're going to make some changes to it?

Mr Gilchrist: I can certainly take your request to clarify the wording under advisement and, as we've indicated earlier, if there aren't already amendments drafted that address your concerns directly, I'll undertake to make sure they're raised with the ministry staff.

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 17 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 17 carried.

Section 18: Discussion?

Mr Silipo: Section 18 is the equivalent to section 12. This is the section that gives the transition team the power to have their decisions held as final and not to be reviewed or questioned by a court.

I recall very clearly hearing the minister on TVO indicate that this is an area, together with section 12, that gives similar protection to the trustees. It puts these two groups of appointed people above the law, above the ability to be questioned in the normal way that even the minister himself is subject to be questioned through the court processes. So this is putting clearly people above the law. It's attempting to do that.

The minister has said that he's going to make some changes. I would say to the government members, this is clearly one of those issues where you should be able to show some good faith and not approve today something that your own minister has clearly said he's going to take out of the bill.

1620

Mr Sergio: On the same section, this is like the minister saying to the people, "Either my way or no way at all." We don't think this is fair. There should be no one with that power, that those people are not responsible to anyone other than the minister himself. I just can't see anyone from the government side or anyone, period, wanting to have those particular powers given to someone else and not be responsible to the very same people who ultimately pay their bills through their taxes and stuff like that.

It just doesn't make any sense. It is an affront. It's really offensive to the people. It's draconian at least and it's dictatorial. I hope you people take that seriously and vote it down.

Mr Colle: As you know, the government, through the media and this committee, has been saying that the transition team and the trustees are not above the law, but I want to read it into the record again for the public to be aware of it. Subsection 18(1): "The decisions of the transition team are final and shall not be reviewed or questioned by a court." This is the shadow government. The transition team will be in essence the government of the new megacity and they will not be subject to any review or questioning by a court.

Another onerous part about section 18 is subsection (2): "The Statutory Powers Procedure Act does not apply to the transition team."

So what you have is this shadow government. It doesn't have to abide by normal rules of natural justice as it conducts the affairs of government over the next year or two or three. That's what it means. In the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, simple things like "The parties to a proceeding shall be given reasonable notice of a hearing by tribunal" -- they don't have to do that. What this does, the elimination of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, is it says this transition team which is going to run the new megacity government doesn't have to notify the public, doesn't have to notify interested parties of the time and place of the hearings; they can be behind closed doors. They don't even have to give public accounting of what they've decided.

This transition team is even more onerous than the trusteeship because the trusteeship will only last for perhaps, who knows, a year. This transition team will last indefinitely, because they may go on beyond January 1, 1998. It's up to the minister's prerogative. They are going to be establishing the new government. They are going to be the real government. They don't have to basically follow the rules of common law, open due process.

If you look back at the McRuer commission that was set up to look at this type of intervention upon people's civil rights, that's why the Statutory Powers Procedure Act was introduced. This government is now taking us back about 20 years, before the McRuer commission recommended the Statutory Powers Procedure Act. It hasn't been given much attention. As you know, we've had a hard time getting our point of view across, those of you who oppose this bill, because the print media has been so much a propagandist for this bill. But that is something I encourage you to look at and I hope it is not included in any way, shape or form in the future, the exclusion of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, which adds to the onerous, draconian aspects of not being subject to judicial review. I just wanted to make sure the public is aware of that. They also exclude themselves from due process.

Mr Gilchrist: Mr Colle doesn't have to worry about taking a back seat in propaganda to any of the newspapers. Mr Colle, you know full well earlier in these hearings the legal branch advised that even when the Statutory Powers Procedure Act is not applied, natural justice still has to guide the activities of this and every other board.

Mr Silipo: Thank God for that.

Mr Gilchrist: In response to Mr Silipo's opening comments, I can assure you that, as with section 12, you will be similarly completely satisfied with the treatment in section 18 when the amendments are brought forward.

The Chair: Any further discussion?

Mr Colle: I just want to emphasize that this is quite unprecedented. This is going to be their municipal government if they are successful. This transition team will be basically the heart of the new megacity government. They are not subject to basic processes. For instance, the Statutory Powers Procedure Act deals with public hearings. You're going to have the management of the new megacity government -- the decisions made by this transition team can't even be reviewed by the court, can't be questioned by the court. I can imagine if they had said, "The decisions of the transition team shall not be reviewed by a court," but they're saying not even questioned by a court. This transition team can't be questioned. You can imagine, if it can't be questioned by a court, what an ordinary citizen can question.

The Statutory Powers Procedure Act is a very detailed list of protections the public has which the McRuer commission saw fit to protect the public interest by giving you detailed protections to due process and open doors. They are basically shunting that aside and saying, "We're going back, before the McRuer commission decided to set up these protections for the public."

I just want to emphasize that, because it is part and parcel of a pattern of denial of the fact they're taking away due process and they're going to usurp a lot of basic rights we've established over the last couple of hundred years with this type of protections that we have fought to preserve.

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 18 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare the section carried.

Interruption.

The Chair: Order, please, ladies and gentlemen.

Section 19: Any discussion? No discussion on section 19; I'll put the question. Shall section 19 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 19 carried.

Section 20: Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 20 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 20 carried.

Section 21: Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 21 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 21 carried.

Section 22: Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 22 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 22 carried.

Section 23: Any discussion?

Mr Colle: This applies to the extra powers of the transition team: "The Minister shall designate a member of the transition team, or another person, to conduct the 1997 regular election."

The minister is going to handpick the person to run this election. Remember, if the transition team member runs the election, he or she is not to be questioned by a court. So you have a person handpicked by the minister who is going to run the election. It is going to be his or her role basically to decide a lot of very intricate details about recounts, about eligibility of voters. That person will not be able to be questioned. That person will be above the law. On top of that, the minister will handpick that person to do that.

On top of that, the costs of these elections will be paid by the taxpayers of Metropolitan Toronto.

1630

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 23 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 23 carried.

Section 24: Any discussion?

Mr Silipo: This is one of those subsections that I also find very offensive, because this is the one that gives the minister all the residual powers that he would ever dream of wanting to have and he can do that by regulation.

Subsection 24(1) says, "The Minister may by regulation...impose conditions on the exercise of the powers of an old council...impose conditions on the exercise of the powers of a local board of an old municipality...deal with transitional matters...." This in effect gives the minister the power to cover anything that they haven't thought about and to simply do it by regulation. It's basically saying we're going to make sure the minister has any other form of dictatorship that hasn't quite been covered by the legislation and he can do that by regulation. I find that completely offensive in the parliamentary democracy that we supposedly function under.

Mr Colle: If the minister doesn't have the powers through the trustees that he handpicked or the transition team that he handpicked, on top of that he has to give himself even more onerous powers. I would like to see the lawyer, if it is a lawyer, who wrote this bill, and we know we will never see this person. He'll never admit that he ever wrote this legislation. It would be amazing to speak to these people; where they came from, what law school they came from. I know there are a couple of lawyers across from me too, and Mr Silipo. I think they would love to ask some of these questions of this person. But those persons will never admit that they've done it, and we know that, because it's the most disgraceful piece of essentially illegal legislation ever drafted. I think when people say they're looking for Machiavelli -- I would think that we should find out who the person or persons who wrote this bill are somehow and expose them. That's what we should do.

In terms of the onerous powers this minister will have, not only does the minister have the powers under Bill 26, he's also being given the power in this act to:

"Define any word or expression used in this act that has not already been expressly defined...." In other words, if he wants to change the definition, the so-called expression that was perhaps not -- he can do that at his pleasure.

"Impose conditions on the exercise of the powers of an old council." He gets to do whatever he wants to the old councils.

"Deal with transitional matters in connection with the...election and the new city."

"Provide for any other transitional matter...."

It's just mind-boggling that a minister would even require these other extraordinary powers beyond what he already has as a minister under Bill 26, on top of this transition team and trusteeship.

If this isn't overkill -- and they must have expected this type of upset from the public and they're expecting this upset for years to come. That's why they're putting in so many powers, because they know the public would eventually catch on. They have to go above and beyond to ensure that they have a complete grip on every aspect of this new megacity, because they know the public will eventually find out what they're up to. That's why they need extraordinary powers.

Mr Sergio: I think they have covered it very well -- just to add that the minister may be doing that just by regulation. He doesn't have to come to the House for permission, authorization or anything. As Mike Colle mentioned, Bill 26 gave the minister the power and he can do whatever he wants at any time, and whatever council -- they may impose those impositions there. It means that the elected people just don't have any responsibility, any power, and the taxpayer ultimately will suffer the consequences. It's most unfortunate.

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 24 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 24 carried.

Section 25: Any discussion? Shall section 25 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 25 carried.

Section 26: Any discussion?

Mr Colle: Another bit of overkill: "This act applies despite any general or special act and despite any regulation made under another act, and in the event of a conflict between this act and another act or regulation made under another act, this act prevails." I think that's clear enough. On top of that, even more incredible power to this act and to the person who is going to execute this act. That's all.

The Chair: Further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 26 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: Section 26 carries.

Section 27: Any discussion?

Mr Silipo: You will recall earlier on that section 2, one of the first sections of the bill, creates the new city of Toronto. Section 27 is the section that kills the existing municipalities, because section 27 says:

"The following municipalities are dissolved:

"1. The municipality of Metropolitan Toronto.

"2. The borough of East York.

"3. The city of Etobicoke.

"4. The city of North York.

"5. The city of Scarborough.

"6. The city of Toronto incorporated by the City of Toronto Act, 1834.

"7. The city of York."

This is the section of the bill that kills the existing local governments within Metropolitan Toronto, and I'm opposed to it strenuously.

The Chair: Any further discussion?

Mr Colle: I guess the thing that's striking there is 1834. You can see they're basically trying to wipe out 160-odd years of history and traditions. That's all I'll say.

The Chair: Shall section 27 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 27 carried.

Section 28: Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 28 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 28 carried.

Section 29: Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall section 29 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 29 carried.

Section 30: Any discussion?

Mr Silipo: Yes, particularly subsection 30(2) is what I find a very offensive section, and again, one where I think we've heard some murmurs from the government about potential changes. This is the subsection that says that other sections of this bill, namely, the sections dealing with the board of trustees, the transition team -- no, not the transition team, but the board of trustees and in effect all of the powers set out under the various earlier sections "shall be deemed to have come into force on December 17, 1996." That was of course the day on which the bill was introduced.

This is the section that would give the board of trustees the power to reach back into the past, not only to tell elected officials what to do from the time this bill becomes law, if it ever becomes law, but also to be able to reach back into time. I just can't think of any words that would describe the level to which I find that notion completely offensive.

I would say to the government members, we don't have many sections left. This is one of the few left for you to show some inkling of good faith to the people of Metropolitan Toronto and oppose at least the retroactivity that's envisaged under this subsection.

1640

Mr Gilchrist: Mr Silipo, I can assure you this is one where again there will be amendments and you will be satisfied by the conclusions we've reached.

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Shall section 30 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: Section 30 is carried.

Section 31: Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Shall section 31 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: We now move back to section 1, because we stood section 1 down until we were finished up to section 31. We had some discussion on section 1. Is there any further discussion on section 1? Seeing none, I'll put the question.

Shall section 1 carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare section 1 carried.

Shall the schedule carry? Any discussion?

Mr Silipo: I think this is the last shot we get at it, or at least the government members get at it. I thought there was some indication earlier that at least on this one we might see some changes. I see Mr Gilchrist relaxing back in his seat; it indicates perhaps not.

People should know what we have in the schedule. I'm prepared to accept that it was just a drafting error, but it's one of those drafting errors that shows very clearly what happens when you try to rush through a piece of legislation as important as this. What this schedule envisages, as it is now written, is a new city of Toronto made up of all the existing federal ridings, with the exception of Broadview-Greenwood, which has been omitted from the schedule, but with the inclusion of York North, which is in the regional municipality of York.

I know this is going to be corrected if this goes through, but it just shows the absurdity. Quite frankly, if it wasn't so serious, it would just be funny that you have this kind of error. It's clearly seen and acknowledged as being an error and even at this stage, as we're reporting the bill, the government certainly wasn't prepared to bring in an amendment to deal with that and isn't prepared to vote down a schedule that it has already admitted very clearly is wrong and would create incredible errors if it were to be allowed to stand.

I just emphasize that because I feel that sometimes -- I try and resist this thing of wanting to preach to members opposite, but there is some meaning to the whole parliamentary process. What we go through here shouldn't be seen as just a charade that we go through and then you fix it at your own convenience when you've screwed up on something. This is a committee of the Parliament of Ontario. Here's a blatant error that you've made, it's a blatant error that you've admitted to, yet you're prepared minutes from now or seconds from now to put up your hands and approve this schedule that sets out a structure of the new city which is incorrect. I just don't know how else to put it. It's just completely ludicrous.

Mr Gilchrist: Mr Silipo, it has far more to do with the fact that it was not appropriate to piecemeal amendments, some today and some later in the package we'll give you. In this case, I will tell you most definitively there will be two amendments, one which will rectify the gremlin that crept in after who knows how many times this was vetted, and also one that reflects the change that came in as a result of the federal government changing the name of one of the other ridings subsequent to the preparation of this bill. But I will tell you most definitively there will be two amendments that deal with both of those, as you've requested.

Mr Colle: I just think it's a sad commentary on a government -- or not a government. I think there's just essentially a little clique that put this together and this little clique really doesn't know what it's doing. You can imagine drawing maps of something of this magnitude, and they include this new city as being part of the 905 region, outside the boundaries of Metropolitan Toronto. I think it should make government members question this little clique that drew up this crazy megacity proposal. They are people who should be questioned, and I hope you as government members question them.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre): I just want to confirm with the parliamentary assistant: We voted on paragraph 4(1)1, which refers to a schedule. Are we discussing the same schedule at this time?

Mr Gilchrist: Yes. The schedules are voted on separately, though.

Mr Tascona: Thank you, but my question was, it's the same schedule we had looked at before under section 4?

Mr Gilchrist: That's correct.

Mr Silipo: And we raised the same points before.

The Chair: Any further discussion? Seeing none, I'll put the question. Shall the schedule carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare the schedule carried.

Shall the title carry? Do we have any discussion on that?

Mr Colle: Again, this is an affront, as I said at the beginning, taking a name from the people of Toronto and using it to basically label this monstrosity. I think that's the final affront, using the name of the city of Toronto in this way. It's an insult to all the people who made this a great place, made the city certainly, and helped make it that way. To use it against their will is even a further affront. I think the people will not let you forget this, if you do this, and get away with it.

Mr Tascona: On a point of procedure, Mr Chair: We passed section 31, which was the title of the act. What are we voting on now?

The Chair: That's the short title of the act. This is now the long title of the act. Any further discussion? Shall the title carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: The next question is, shall the bill carry, but I know Mr Sergio wants to move a motion. Knowing what the motion is, the motion's out of order. You can move it, but it's out of order. The way to vote against the bill is to vote against the bill when I say, "Shall the bill carry?"

Mr Sergio: You haven't even heard my motion and you already declare it out of order.

The Chair: It was the same one we were discussing before. You asked me to go back to the motion that you raised before. That's why I know what it is.

Mr Sergio: Yes, and it was okay. It was in order before. It was a question of time. Now you're saying it's out of order. So if this is the right time to move my motion, it is that, in reporting to the House, this committee recommends the withdrawal of Bill 103.

The Chair: It is out of order, because we can do three things: report the bill, report the bill with amendments or not report the bill, which is the last thing that we'll vote on, which is a question we'll get to. So when I put that questions --

Mr Sergio: Are you saying then that my motion is premature?

The Chair: You don't need to move that motion because I have to put that question.

Mr Sergio: All right, then, when the time comes I'll --

The Chair: Okay. The motion is out of order anyway. The question is, shall the bill carry? Do you wish to speak to it still, Mr Silipo?

Mr Silipo: Then the reporting one is afterwards?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr Silipo: Okay, I'll hold.

The Chair: Shall the bill carry?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: The bill carries.

The final question: Shall I report the bill to the House?

Mr Silipo: This is the final shot we get at it here and I just want to go back to the point I made earlier. I asked the Premier this afternoon during question period whether he would instruct the government members of this committee not to report the bill back to the House. I made the point to him that I want to make to you here, which is that whether or not the committee reports the bill back to the House, the bill will be deemed to be reported back by the decision that the Legislative Assembly has already made. The answer the Premier gave me was that he doesn't instruct committee members. If that's true, then I would say to the government members to vote their conscience, at least on this procedural piece, which won't make one iota of a difference in terms of where the bill's going to go because the bill will be deemed to be in front of the House, but at least it won't have your imprint on it as having reported it back to the House.

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It seems to me that if there's any truth at all to the assertion by the Premier that he doesn't instruct you, then I have to believe that there is still some sense left among the members sitting across from me that they really don't believe that this bill, as it is in its present form, should appropriately go forward. They've clearly already indicated that by virtue of the minimum of the many amendments that they've indicated and I would just say to them, this is your last chance to show some sense of understanding about the incredible degree of outrage that exists out there among the public on this bill, on your downloading package, on what you're doing and the way in which people expressed that view so clearly in the referendum of this past Monday.

I don't believe that individually members across would come to the conclusion that this is a bill that's worthy of being reported back to the Legislative Assembly, so I would ask them please -- this is your last shot -- to show some faith and some respect for the citizens of Metropolitan Toronto and at least agree not to report the bill back to the House.

Mr Sergio: As the member for Dovercourt has said, we have listened to the people and it is our responsibility to make our decision. The bill is going to go ahead, it's going to be in front of the House, whatever we send from this committee is going to be there. I think it's important because even during the hearings I would say most of the members have paid attention very much to what the people had to say. They have heard the sincerity with which they made the presentations, the passion, and I am sure that deep down in their hearts and souls they know that the bill, as it is, is not for the benefit of Metro Toronto and I think it's going to have an effect even out of the Metro Toronto limits.

We should be doing the right thing: Send a message to Mr Harris and Mr Leach that this bill is not in the best interests of the people. Yes, they should go back to the drawing-board and work together with people where the people have said, "We have a stake. We want to have some input," and come up with something the government can feel good about and say, "We have given a possibility to the people to participate and have a say in it," and really come up with something that is going to be working for the best of the future city or cities.

I think there is nothing wrong if this committee were to approve of my motion -- I wish I was so lucky -- to send a message to the House and say, "We don't like the bill, we don't like the content, we don't think it's fair." I think the process has been what it has been and we know what is the content of the bill. If we were to say to the minister and the Premier, "Just withdraw this bill; go and come back with something that is much more acceptable, get those people involved, use those reports, recommendations" -- Crombie, Golden and others made some good recommendations -- I think we would be doing the right thing. After all, aren't committees and public hearings set up to listen to the people and report to the Legislature what we have heard?

If we fail to do that, it means we have shut down completely our eyes, our ears, our souls, our hearts to what the people have said, because the people have said, "We don't want to see any tinkering. We don't want to see any amendment. We don't see anything in this bill that we can support." If we are fair in our observations, in the assessment and our decision here today based on what we have heard, there is only one thing to do: The right thing to do is send this bill to the House with a negative recommendation and say: "We don't like it. It's not fair. Therefore, withdraw it and go back to the drawing-board."

I appeal to you, Mr Chair, to the parliamentary assistant, to the members. This is the last kick at the can you have to at least send it in there and let the Premier and the minister realize that when this bill was introduced it was not with the best intentions. I hope you can send them that message.

Mr Colle: Some very critical things are being said. I know the members opposite are reasonable people and I respect you for your position in the government. I just encourage you to evaluate what's taken place over the last number of months since this bill was introduced. I'm sure the minister and staff and so forth have told you that this would be something that it has not turned out to be. I'm sure you were reassured there would be some opposition and the usual suspects would oppose it and so forth, and I know that Mr Newman's been at meetings with myself, and Mr Parker's been at meetings.

These are sincere people who have grave reservations about this bill. I ask you not to buy -- you were at Cabbagetown at the meeting when -

Mr Newman: I did not say I had grave reservations about the bill.

Mr Colle: No, I didn't say that. I said the people had the grave reservations. You certainly witnessed those grave reservations at the meeting; that's all I'm saying. I struck fear certainly; I was talking about the people.

The government, with all its resources, has spent how many millions of dollars pushing this bill? Unanimous support of the three editorial boards -- you pick the papers up -- daily trying to prop up this bill, the fax campaign, the radio ads, the establishment of that group, Alliance for Amalgamation. Despite all that, the people have seen through it and have opposed this bill, and they're not just New Democrats or Liberals or malcontents. They're Tories, they're people of all walks of life who just do not think this is going to work, because nothing works when you shove it down people's throats.

Things have worked in this province because people have been partners and have been respected for what they have had to say. Whether you disagree or agree with what they've said, they've said no to this bill. I know the spin doctors are trying to reinterpret what the people have said, but 76% of the people who voted, voted no. It's never happened in the history of this province we've had a plebescite/referendum of that nature, beyond what you've seen in the public meetings etc. The people have spoken.

I ask you not to keep believing all the propaganda coming from those few who are pushing this bill. It is not good for you as individuals or good for your government to let this small group dictate this bill to the people of Metropolitan Toronto, because even if they are successful in convincing you to vote for this bill, there is so much resentment, there is so much upset caused by this bill -- and you've seen it -- it's not over. Whether you're successful in getting royal assent, six months from now, a year from now, whatever it is, this will not stand because it doesn't have the consent of the governed. Therefore, I urge you to consider the long range on this. By letting this small group make you think that it's going to be over once it's passed and the thing will die down, this will never die down until this bill is gone.

The Chair: Seeing as it's 5 o'clock, we're finished debate and I can only put the remaining question: Shall I report the bill to the House?

Ayes

Ford, Gilchrist, Hastings, Munro, Newman, Parker, Tascona, Young.

Nays

Colle, Sergio, Silipo.

The Chair: I declare the motion carried and I shall report the bill to the House.

The committee stands adjourned until the call of the Chair.

The committee adjourned at 1701.