CONTENTS
Monday 5 October 1998
Protection of Children involved in Prostitution Act, Bill 18, Mr Bartolucci /
Loi de 1998 sur la protection des enfants qui se livrent à la prostitution,
projet de loi 18, M. Bartolucci
Survivors of Medical Abuse
Ms Sharon Danley
StreetLight Support Services
Mr Jeff Ramdowar
Ms Amanda Chodura
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Présidente
Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre / -Centre ND)
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie PC)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William L)
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury L)
Mr Jim Brown (Scarborough West / -Ouest PC)
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound PC)
Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel
Mr Philip Kaye, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1534 in room 151.
PROTECTION OF CHILDREN INVOLVED IN PROSTITUTION ACT, 1998 / LOI DE 1998 SUR LA PROTECTION DES ENFANTS QUI SE LIVRENT À LA PROSTITUTION
Consideration of Bill 18, An Act to protect Children involved in Prostitution / Projet de loi 18, Loi visant à protéger les enfants qui se livrent à la prostitution.
SURVIVORS OF MEDICAL ABUSE
The Chair (Ms Annamarie Castrilli): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our final session for presenters on Bill 18.
Our first presenter today is Survivors of Medical Abuse, Sharon Danley. Ms Danley, welcome to our committee. We're very pleased to have you here. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. You can use all of that time or part of that time, and if there's any time remaining, the members of the committee will ask you some questions.
Ms Sharon Danley: I'd like to thank everyone for the opportunity to speak to this assemblage on Bill 18, An Act to protect Children involved in Prostitution, and what some of us feel will greatly affect our community and, more importantly, our young women.
We appreciate that we are all concerned for the safety and, hopefully, healthy growth of our young people, but we strongly feel that this bill has too many loopholes and, further, that it sets up the potential to abuse under the guise of concerned authority. Further, we don't see any safeguards built in for accountability and/or deterrents for potential abusers within the authority arena.
I hope you will concur that abuse in systems and institutions is a very real problem in this country. Most have heard of the variety of abuses experienced by the brave and courageous souls disclosing their personal humiliation in public in order to stop these vile acts against others, mostly the vulnerable, the most recent one being that solid institute of Canadian pride, the Maple Leaf Gardens.
I am the co-facilitator of Survivors of Medical Abuse. As a counsellor-therapist and self-esteem trainer, I bring a varied background of study to our group's position on this bill today.
Firstly, maybe we missed something, but we find that the title of this bill is misleading, in that police can decide that prostitution may be, or is, taking place, even if a child may not be engaged in such acts.
We appreciate that there are those concerned with our young women/children prostituting themselves. But attempting to solve the problem with this bill is a gross misconception of the deeper, real problems. We know these children/women, femmes, engage in prostitution for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is poverty.
We give a loud, clear message to women when society pays the lowest wage for the most important work: child care. Why would a woman do this kind of work when she can be paid substantially more, in some cases up to $10,000 a week, for doing substantially less in body prostitution? When a femme has been incested, raped or molested, because there still aren't the deterrents in place to abolish these kinds of assaults, it makes it even easier for a young person to sell her body, because she's dissociated in the relationship with her body.
It's worth noting that, historically, society thought it was quite proper for young women to marry at age 14. Yet today we oppose our femmes engaging in paid sexuality, on one hand, while we revere and exploit their bodies on the other. Prostitution inside or outside marriage is just that. However, outside marriage, at least in theory, a femme has her own money and her own life; that is, unless men are insidiously taking the money from her in forms of pimping and forced drug dependency etc. Whatever happens to these people anyway?
We see this bill as simply a political and religious issue disguising itself as care for our youth. Let me ask: Why are the victims still being attacked, the most defenceless, least privileged among us? Why are these young women targeted instead of the men who use their services? Attempting to control femme sexuality without acknowledging male involvement deflects male responsibility, while further assaulting women. Blaming women for their bodies while not making men accountable is hypocritical, especially when society supports that a woman's worth is directly linked to her sexual appeal.
If we had a proper society, much like the Scandinavian countries, women would not only be safe, they would be respected and equal. Put strong deterrents in place for the users of the trade. Don't further victimize the victims, especially with a bill that has potential for further abuse.
Arresting and labelling won't do anything except tag and penalize these poor young femmes for life. Historically, arrests encourage higher-risk behaviour because, among other things, police and courts don't protect; in most cases, they punish.
More importantly, how will it be determined that a young femme is engaged in prostitution anyway? Police will decide based on perception. Ladies and gentlemen, surely you realize perception is highly subjective.
1540
My daughter, who is 25 and can pass for 15, is epileptic and on massive drugs. She could be mistaken for a teenager on drugs and labelled, by who knows what kind of justification, as a prostitute. Why not arrest the men involved in any kind of solicitation, not the women? After all, it's the man who can afford to pay for the services. The femme usually needs the money or she wouldn't be soliciting in the first place.
Arresting for suspicious behaviour rather than action is extremely dangerous and can lead to horrendous injustices, errors, overuse of the courts and, more importantly, the misuse of power.
Where are the provisions built in and guaranteed that the police or workers are ethical, compassionate, skilled or educated enough to deal with this kind of brutality, beating up on femme victims while leaving their perpetrators alone? The real criminals rarely get dealt with, let alone punished.
How can the police make judgements and be supportive at the same time? The recently publicized Jane Doe case certainly speaks volumes about the lack on the part of police departments. It has been documented that it's not beyond some police to take advantage of prostitutes. Let me clarify here that this is not an attack on police in general, but we cannot ignore the offenders among them.
Further, what are the criteria for designated safe houses, and who will the people running them be? We've heard countless testimonials and it's on public record that no institution is unfettered from abusing those it is in place to serve. The children's aid and the social services industry, to name but two, are top of the list of governmental agencies documented that have committed horrendous, irresponsible acts in the name of service. Where is the accountability there?
Further still, what if I were to try to protect my daughter from an unethical arrest due only to suspicion? Under the bill, I could be fined and imprisoned. Meanwhile, where are the men in all of this?
The labelling and criminalizing of what may appear as, yet may not be, prostitution is deflecting the real issue of child poverty and all of its ugliness. Poverty, not prostitution, is the real crime.
As an instructor in the fashion industry and trainer of self-esteem, I have personally witnessed countless young women trying to gain self-worth by being the perfect body or face. Most of these young women dream of becoming a fashion model, all in the need to be loved, which of course increases self-esteem. This is yet again society's imposition that women's worth is directly linked to their sexual appeal. Unfortunately, not all young women have solid mentors or family who properly guide and educate them around these issues.
Why would so many women feel inadequate? Again, because society tells them, through advertising, the Internet, films, magazines, TV, billboards, commercials etc that their worth is directly attributable to their sexual appeal. How can self-esteem prevail with our girls when they are inundated with the idea that pornography, soft porn, erotica and even Fashion Television underscores and reveres sex appeal as a woman's most important asset?
Society's and the fashion industry's more recent obsession with the waif and heroine look of 12-year-olds is appalling. It's insidiously disguising itself as fashion, where bare-breasted and buttocked young things parade their bodies down the catwalks of Paris, New York and Japan, scantily covered in so-called fashionwear. This fashionwear is accepted and even revered by the world. It is no wonder that Fashion Television is legitimized and is the number one show where men are incarcerated and fed this kind of acceptable visual pornography.
Pornography and the acceptance of it is the real crime. Sex highs are an addiction whose appetite increases for younger victims and more sadistic rituals in order to satisfy the media-produced, unquenchable thirst for more and increasing sexual deviance.
The influence of new and increasing cultures who devalue women is also growing like a cancer. Some countries, for instance, are known for their lust of the little-girl or child-woman look. There are shops in some countries that sell little schoolgirls' used undergarments to a perverted male clientele. This is a sickness, and it is seeing its way to North America, and our girls will be the victims. Vancouver has child prostitution growing in leaps and bounds, and they also have a large influx of these offending cultural contempts for women.
Cliterectomies, female ownership, rape, incest, various forms of beatings and other assaults are growing in this country, ladies and gentlemen, once again because deterrents aren't in place.
If the culture is more important than the human rights of the femmes within the culture, then the culture should disappear and allow for a more humane way of living and honouring personkind.
Poverty and lack of education are also what should be addressed. Why aren't the funds being poured into these arenas? Our daughters', nieces', granddaughters' and neighbours' lives are at stake.
As adults, we are responsible to our youth to give them what they need to grow to their fullest potential, not to penalize them for being victims of our greed, sexual deviance or indifference to their well-being.
We hear that concerned parents of prostitutes have no power. What is it that sends these children to the street and then to drugs only to medicate the pain of the street? How is it that young boys aren't targeted and massively rehabilitated when they are found enticing these young women into prostitution?
This government has a responsibility to deal with the deeper crime of poverty, not attack forced vulnerables and dependants for trying to survive.
We beg you to stop Bill 18, for the sake of our femmes. Put the money into affordable homes, fairly paid jobs and education. Put effective deterrents in place for sex trade users and the media that create and feed their sexual hunger. Make men accountable for their acts of lust and perversion, not women for trying to survive their forced poverty. Doing anything less is not only criminal, it's shameful.
Once again I thank you for the opportunity to speak, and welcome any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have about two and a half minutes per party. We begin with the NDP.
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Thank you very much for coming, Ms Danley. I know how concerned you are about coercion when it comes to people who are vulnerable.
I know you've been at some of the hearings and you know that it poses a real conundrum for a lot of us, who feel as strongly as you do about protecting the victims of those who would exploit them and who certainly define prostitution as child abuse -- not self-abuse, child abuse. You know it's a problem to try and figure out how to make them safe.
I would agree with you that the root cause is certainly the whole issue of people being in a position where this is the only way they can make a living, so I don't disagree with you there. On the other hand, we certainly have heard of the difficulty of simply trying to do that, because it very often it involves coercion of another kind. For example, in the social assistance system there is coercion of another kind. I hope you understand that it's not a simple thing for any of us around this table to figure out how to do this.
Ms Danley: Oh, I do appreciate that.
Mrs Boyd: I take it that you understand that the purpose behind the bill and the discussions we've been having is to protect children.
Ms Danley: Yes, I do appreciate that.
Mrs Boyd: Do you believe there is no way the bill can be fixed?
Ms Danley: I think there are lots of ways it can be fixed.
Mrs Boyd: Could you suggest some?
Ms Danley: First of all, as I see it, there are a lot of loopholes. What are safe houses, decided by the minister? What is a safe house? Who's going to work in them? What are the criteria for the people working in these houses? This is my real concern, the possible or potential for abuse of workers on vulnerable people. The need to have a sensitivity and an experiential education is vital, I believe, far more than theoretical training.
Safety: If you're going to incarcerate or pull them away from harming themselves, boy, you'd better be really good at making it better for them someplace else. You're only going to add to the hurt, the resentment, the betrayal and everything else they feel, and in time they'll be back on the street again. It has to be rehabilitation that works, not that works on paper.
1550
Mr Jim Brown (Scarborough West): Good afternoon. You and I agree on a big item, and that's the deterrence factor. These are kids. They come to the big city and their parents don't know where they are and the authorities can't tell the parents where they are. It's a big problem that causes a lot of heartache to the parents. They come to the big city and some adult gets hold of them and befriends them, maybe gives them drugs, and away we go, they're in the business.
I've been promoting seizing johns' cars, seizing the assets of the pimps, who oftentimes are drug dealers as well, and realizing those assets into money and plowing it back into some programs to help the kids. I don't know what else -- I mean, it's a great attempt that Mr Bartolucci has made, but it's not going after deterrents. Can you give me your opinion on seizing johns' cars and attacking and taking the assets? What else can we do?
Ms Danley: I think we have to look at the judicial system, unfortunately, because it just doesn't work. It doesn't work at all. It takes up time, takes up money, and in the end people die off before there's any justice. That's what it feels like. We have to set the deterrents in law. I don't feel really comfortable with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I think we've got to have just stronger jail sentences or, better than jail sentences, community work and public discussion. If people are caught doing this, make it public. Let the public know who these people are, for one thing.
Mr Jim Brown: What about taking their assets, to take away the profit motive of the business? They're doing it for money.
Ms Danley: Of course they are, and they're going to find another way to get around it. It might be a start, but I think we have to look at rehabilitation, long and arduous as that will probably be.
Mr Jim Brown: To rehabilitate the johns and the pimps?
Ms Danley: Exactly. I know. But when we've got people out there abusing in the sexual arena in a variety of different ways, what is causing them to do this? We have to look at it.
Mr Jim Brown: Pimps and johns are the people with the money.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Thanks very much for your presentation, Ms Danley. I respect your opinion in your presentation. I have a few concerns and a couple of questions about your presentation, and maybe you can expand on them. I don't know how this bill can ever be deemed to be sexist. I'm certainly concerned about addressing the problem, both the female and the male side of child prostitution. I don't know exactly where you're coming from in not reading through the legislation.
Let's talk and let's follow up on a point Ms Boyd made, because it is a relevant point, I believe. I believe presenters should come here offering alternatives and suggestions, and because you mentioned the safe house, maybe we could follow up on that. I think it's an integral part of this bill, and I'd like your opinion and your definition of a safe house, because I see where it could form an important part of it. How would you, if you were the author of legislation, define a safe house, and who would be the people you would put in the safe house to achieve the goals and the intent of the bill, which I think everybody in Ontario wants?
Ms Danley: Having been a recipient of the shelter system myself first-hand, I can tell you that what I find appalling in so much of the institutionalization is bureaucratic, administrative overload. Most of the time, the money and the resources are just going in administration. I would make sure that all the people involved were experientially educated, that is, having been there, done that. I do not agree with bureaucracy or theory or academia running something that's that important. I think we really have to look at the community of survivors; give them work, because they really can help. I think it should be absolutely, totally accountable not only to the government but to the public -- open completely.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Danley. We appreciate your very strong presentation and the views you've expressed here today.
STREETLIGHT SUPPORT SERVICES
The Chair: Our next presenter is StreetLight Support Services, Jeff Ramdowar and Amanda Chodura. Good afternoon. Thanks very much for being here. We appreciate the fact that you're here.
Mr Jeff Ramdowar: My name's Jeff Ramdowar. I've been working with StreetLight for the better part of two years now. In principle, I agree with this bill, one reason being that one of the duties in my job is going to the Metro West Detention Centre once a week and seeing some of the girls in custody there. The girls in custody range in age from 19, 21, 22, some of the ones we've seen, and most them got into the business when they were 16 and 17.
Some of the reasons they get into prostitution are low self-esteem, a situation at home, wanting basic needs, food and shelter; some reasons are jewellery, clothes, basically what they see on TV, what everybody else is wearing. They can't afford that by living at home in these small towns, so they come down to Toronto. The pimps take advantage of this and lure them with false promises. Love is one of the major things. These girls will come down and all they're looking for is somebody to love them for who they are, and this is one of the promises that's made to them, and of a better life, and suddenly they find themselves out on the street working for these guys, making anywhere from $700 to $1,000 a night and maybe only seeing $10 to $20 of that.
Like I said earlier, in principle I agree with the bill. There are a couple of things that I think should be looked at. After the apprehension, what happens then? Where do these girls go? A voluntary program, residential, staffed 24 hours a day by counsellors-social workers who have a basic knowledge of life on the street and prostitution in general is very important; having the girls team up with a peer who has possibly been in the program a bit longer to show them the ropes, what steps they have to take to get out. The program should be monitored to know what changes have to be made to it to change with the times, like what's happening with prostitution and pimping in general, techniques, things that are said. It's all changing rapidly, so the program should change with what's happening out on the street.
Within the program, it should be easier for these girls, men and women, to get hooked up with welfare, health cards, social insurance cards. They shouldn't have to travel all around the city to obtain these things. If drugs are an issue, there should be drug programs offered, rehabilitation programs offered, retraining programs if they decide they want to go back to school or get into the workforce. It should be easier for them to get into mainstream jobs. It should be made easier, perhaps within the shelter system or at the safe house they live in.
Also, the board of education should offer programs. Sex education should touch on STDs, birth control, low self-esteem, and basically the lures of the street, what to ignore when you hear it when you're out there. When you come off the bus from, let's say, Sudbury and you're in the downtown core, you'll be hearing a lot of things. A lot of people will be coming up to you making false promises. So it's what to watch for and be aware of.
1600
I got a call at about 12:30 this morning from an officer who picked up a young girl, 18, who was beaten up. She recently gave the police a statement against her pimp. She was in the shelter system for a while. What happened there was that she ended up meeting up with a couple of girls who were in the shelter who used to work for the same guy. She was threatened there, so she left the shelter system to return to her own home. Last night at about 11:30 she was met outside her apartment by three girls who work for this gentleman and she was beaten up pretty bad. At this point, we're going to have to move her out of town.
The way the shelter system is now, it is not set up for men and women who engage in prostitution. As much as the shelter system tries to touch on it, it doesn't go into as much detail as it should. A lot of the shelters are right in the downtown core. As far as pimps go, we don't give them enough credit. We think, "OK, we get these girls into a shelter; they give a statement and that's the end of it." No. These guys will go through the blue book and call up as many shelters as they can to find out if this person is staying there. I've been in situations where pimps have actually planted girls or guys into shelters to find out if a certain person is staying there.
Policing child prostitution serves its purpose, as far as apprehension and prosecution of pimps and men who use the services of child prostitutes are concerned. I think social services have to play more of a role dealing with the issues: Why did they leave home? What happened to put them on that bus to Toronto and fall into the lures of a pimp? Why are they selling sex for money? And how do we help them put this part of their life behind them so they can move on?
The quicker you get somebody who's engaging in prostitution off the street the better. You've got a better chance of putting them back on that right path. But you still have to look at a good year-and-a-half or two-year window of steady counselling support, ensuring that they don't go back out there.
Ms Amanda Chodura: We've been coming in contact with a lot of women who -- they're tending to move them now. The pimps are very well organized. There are certain families who run the whole of Canada. They will move them from Calgary to Toronto for the purpose of isolating them.
With this bill, we can pick up the younger ones, make the connections, get them back home, whereas without it, they're lost in these cities. And they will move them again. They will let them work for six months to a year and then they will move them to Halifax. The whole idea is to keep them totally unattached from any social service workers they may come across, any kind of stability. It's really important that we counteract a very vicious group of manipulators with a very strict solution.
The Chair: We have about two and a half minutes per caucus. We'll begin with the Conservatives.
Mr Jim Brown: I've heard stories like what you related. I have met Cherry Kingsley, who was a childhood prostitute. She's now about 25. She survived. She's brilliant. She's told me of stories where some of her friends died of AIDS; they were murdered. It's very vicious.
What I'd like to do to the bad guys -- I'm sure you might share some of my feelings. They're just basically kids and they're being manipulated and used by adults. You heard what I said to the previous speakers about seizing assets and taking cars. I'd like your comment on those things.
What else can we do? The Criminal Code is so wishy-washy. The federal government has said, "It's OK to have sex if you're 14 years old." It's applied to the males as well. There are male strolls in Toronto. So it's both sexes, and it's an epidemic.
What do we do to go after the guys who are making all the money in this? They're the guys who are making it work, either the johns or the pimps, who are oftentimes drug dealers.
Mr Ramdowar: As far as pimping goes, with the male strolls in Toronto, there's a different aspect to that; there are different reasons for getting into that. With the females, though, we have to disillusion people from even getting into pimping. It's even before that.
Mr Jim Brown: How do you get the pimps disillusioned without getting their attention?
Mr Ramdowar: That's a great idea, taking cars away. Clothes is a big thing. Believe it or not, these $200, $300 track suits -- taking clothes that were bought from profits of procuring is a big step.
Mr Jim Brown: Some of these guys have got big cars and a credit card with a big limit. If we took that, what do you think? That would slow it down.
Mr Ramdowar: Yes, definitely, and it would show that -- with this girl who was beaten up last night, these other girls who beat her up were paid to do it. Take the money away. What totally frustrates me is the justice system. When you get a girl to sign on a guy who's pimping her and then 12 hours later he's out on bail --
Mr Jim Brown: Yes, that's right. The police will say that, that it's so wishy-washy that you can't go after them. That's what I'm saying. As opposed to relying on the Criminal Code, what if we went after all the things they own and gave a disincentive to being in the business? Good idea?
Mr Ramdowar: Definitely. It's a great idea.
Mr Bartolucci: I would like to thank you for a very excellent presentation. You offer some excellent recommendations, by the way, and I thank you for them. I'm sure the other members of the committee will be studying them carefully, as I will be.
I'd like to follow up on one. Maybe you can just expand on it a little because it caught my eye immediately. That's a program that would match a child with a compatible peer, and the peer's role would be to offer support while helping the child through the process of exiting the street. I think that is a fantastic idea, I really do. How can it work practically, given the situation we have?
Ms Chodura: StreetLight, where we both work, has a peer program. It's implemented from the start. A few of the people who work there are -- I suppose you could call them peers in that they have been involved in prostitution before. What you get there is an understanding between the two. A lot of the women or children who work the streets do not trust anybody. With these people who have been through similar situations, they can strike up a rapport. You would literally, like we're doing now -- we connect them.
Mr Bartolucci: And they're former teen prostitutes?
Ms Chodura: Teen prostitutes or they started prostitution in their teens. Maybe they're in their 20s and now they're trying to do something else. In some cases, it's getting their GED.
Mr Ramdowar: Fortunately, I personally have never had to engage in prostitution. I've got a good rapport with the girls and the young men, but at times it just shuts down. There's nothing more I can say; there's nothing more they want to say to me. Then I will offer it up. I'll say: "I've had girls who've gone through our program and other programs in the city. How would you feel about going for a coffee with them and talking to them, or going to a movie?" They're like: "They were involved in prostitution? OK, great." They just have a way of connecting that we as workers lose because we weren't out there.
1610
Mr Bartolucci: I know my time's up, but if you could, I'd really appreciate receiving a little further detail to your suggestion number 4 about your evaluative process. I think that's very important as well. Because we don't have the time, if within the next three weeks you find some time to put down what you consider to be a good evaluative tool and send it to me, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much and thanks for your presentation.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you. I really appreciate not only the presentation but the kind of work you do, because it is very important work, isn't it? I'm curious as to how many young people you would be seeing at StreetLight.
Mr Ramdowar: Within the last year, I've seen just over 200 people who have engaged in prostitution from a young age and have been doing it to date. Our clients range from anywhere from 14 right up to 53, 54.
Mrs Boyd: So you don't cut off at a particular age. You deal with the whole --
Mr Ramdowar: No, we've got to deal with the whole thing. Someone doesn't wake up one morning and say, "Look, this is my chosen life, this is what I want to do." I know there are a few people out there who would say that, but I don't particularly believe that myself.
Mrs Boyd: They really get hooked into it from one form or another. I'm really interested in your talking about needing to look at what the changing issues are, because they do change, not only over the space of decades, but whatever the incentive is changes, depending on the culture that's on the street at the time.
Mr Ramdowar: Pimps are not walking around with that old stereotype of the fur coats and the big cars any more. They're not. They start off by being your best friend, and the way they talk to the girls -- street lingo changes.
Mrs Boyd: They're maybe even the love of their lives, right?
Mr Ramdowar: That's actually one of the biggest reasons, or ways, to get a girl, or a guy, to work for you. It's the promise of love.
Ms Chodura: And when they're younger, they're more vulnerable.
Mrs Boyd: And in many cases have come from backgrounds where that love has been lacking. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you both very much for being here. In particular, on behalf of the committee I thank you for the work you're doing.
We now move to the next item on the agenda.
Mr Bartolucci: The next item on the agenda is clause-by-clause. There has been a request that clause-by-clause be delayed for three weeks to allow time for all the parties to draft the necessary amendments they feel would enhance or change the bill. I suggest that that three-week delay would be very important with regard to this issue, so I move a motion that clause-by-clause take place on October 26.
The Chair: A motion has been placed on the floor.
Mr Jim Brown: When should we have amendments in, a couple of days before that?
Mr Bartolucci: The Thursday before?
Mr Jim Brown: I think that's the 22nd, so have the amendments in by the 22nd?
Mrs Boyd: We've already submitted our amendments. I'm curious. I'm not at all objecting to this; I'm just wondering why we didn't make this decision last week.
The Chair: Mr Brown, would you answer this for the government? OK, Mr Bartolucci.
Mr Bartolucci: To be perfectly honest, we had a request from the government side; there was a period of time necessary to consult other ministries. When Mr Brown spoke to me, it certainly made sense to me. I would, as the author of the bill, like some time to evaluate some of the recommendations we've had. For example, today's recommendations are certainly ones that I would like to maybe build into the process, and that's going to require time. That's the only reason, Mrs Boyd.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you. I have no objection.
The Chair: Any further discussion? All in favour of the motion that clause-by-clause be delayed until October 26? The motion carries. We agree that the deadline for the amendments will be October 22? Any objection to that? I don't think we need a motion; I just think we can agree to that. That's agreeable.
Are there any other items?
Mr Jim Brown: I'd like to move to adjourn until the 26th.
The Chair: All right, all in favour of adjournment?
Mrs Boyd: I have a question about that. I understand there is at least one other matter that has been referred to this committee.
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Tonia Grannum): We have Bill 20, another private member's bill, and Bill 23 was just referred. We could arrange a subcommittee meeting to deal with how we're going to proceed with those two bills.
Mr Bill Murdoch (Grey-Owen Sound): Are they not both private members' bills?
The Chair: Yes, they are.
All in favour? We are adjourned. Thank you.
The committee adjourned at 1616.