Chair /
Président
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands / Kingston et les
Îles L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Mr John C. Cleary (Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh L)
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands / Kingston et
les Îles L)
Mr John Hastings (Etobicoke North / -Nord PC)
Ms Shelley Martel (Nickel Belt ND)
Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls PC)
Mrs Julia Munro (York North / -Nord PC)
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Tony Ruprecht (Davenport L)
Mr David Young (Willowdale PC)
Also taking part / Autres participants et
participantes
Mr Erik Peters, Provincial Auditor
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel
Mr Ray McLellan, research officer, Legislative Research
Service
The committee met at 1004 in committee room 1.
ELECTION OF CHAIR
Clerk of the
Committee (Ms Tonia Grannum): I'm going to call the
meeting to order. Honourable members, it is my duty to call upon
you to elect a Chair. Are there any nominations?
Mr Tony Ruprecht
(Davenport): I move that John Gerretsen, MPP, Kingston
and the Islands, be the Chair of the standing committee on public
accounts.
Clerk of the
Committee: That's a nomination. Are there any further
nominations? There being no further nominations, nominations are
closed and I declare Mr Gerretsen elected as Chair.
ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIR
The Chair (Mr John
Gerretsen): Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much
for the confidence you have shown in me.
Honourable members, may I
have the names for the election of Vice-Chair? Are there any
nominations for the election of Vice-Chair?
Mr Richard Patten
(Ottawa Centre): I'd like to nominate Mr John Cleary
from Cornwall and Stormont and something else, I'm not sure
what.
The Chair:
Stormont, Dundas and Charlottenburgh. Are there any further
nominations? I declare Mr John Cleary to be the Vice-Chair of the
committee.
APPOINTMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE
The Chair:
There's a motion by Mr Maves. Mr Maves, would you like to move
the motion?
Mr Bart Maves
(Niagara Falls): I move that a subcommittee on committee
business be appointed to meet from time to time at the call of
the Chair, or at the request of any member thereof, to consider
and report to the committee on the business of the committee;
that the presence of all members of the subcommittee is necessary
to constitute a meeting; and that the subcommittee be composed of
the following members: Mr Gerretsen, Chair, Mrs Munro, Mr Patten
and Ms Martel; and that any member may designate a substitute
member on the subcommittee who is of the same recognized
party.
The Chair:
Any discussion on the motion at all? All those in favour?
Opposed? Carried.
COMMITTEE BUSINESS
The Chair:
First of all, I'd like to welcome you all to the committee. I
know there are some new members here and it's their first term in
office, but there are also some very highly experienced members
on this committee.
It's my understanding that
the public accounts committee is the oldest committee of the
Legislature. It's been in operation ever since the Legislative
Assembly of Ontario was first organized and formed. As such, our
principal responsibility is to deal with any matter that's
referred to us by the Legislative Assembly but primarily to deal
with the Provincial Auditor's report. I'll call on the auditor in
a few moments.
The auditor's report is
scheduled to be released on November 16. I believe a note has
been passed to you that a lock-up will occur on that day at 11:30
in order that you may be fully familiar with the report prior to
its official release when the House commences that day.
I also understand that this
committee, by tradition, has been more non-partisan than perhaps
some of the other committees since presumably-I know-we're all
interested in the same thing, and that's to make sure that the
public gets its money's worth for any of the programs that are
funded by the government in one way or another.
With that, I would now call
upon the Provincial Auditor, Erik Peters, to say a few words and
then I'll entertain any discussion there may be on anything he
has to say or any other comments you may wish to make at this
time. Mr Peters, welcome.
Mr Erik
Peters: Thank you very much and congratulations on your
appointment, and the Vice-Chair. General congratulations to you
on your appointment to this committee, which, as you can very
well imagine, I consider really my minister, if you will, as a
group, because you are dealing with the issues that we bring
forward to the Legislative Assembly.
On November 16, we will
follow the normal routine of presenting our report. However, I
would like to alert you to an issue on the record and I'll leave
it up to you whether you want to discuss this briefly after this
in camera. It will not take more than five minutes, unless you
have long questions about it. There is a very serious issue at hand arising out of Bill 4
that I have to alert you to and I would leave it at your-
Mr Patten:
What's Bill 4?
1010
Mr Peters:
Bill 4 is An Act respecting the Legislative Assembly and its
officers. Section 1 of that bill deals with my office, and
because this amendment to the act was passed without any
consultation with my office, it surprised my office greatly and
has a direct impact on the independence of my office that I would
like to discuss and bring to your attention as a matter that has
great urgency. I'm asking you if we could briefly discuss that. I
have a very brief handout that I would like to discuss with you,
and I've put it on the record whether you want to discuss this in
Hansard or in camera.
The Chair:
Just so that I'm clear, you're saying that the bill has been
passed?
Mr Peters:
The bill has been given assent. It was given first reading on
October 25, second and third readings on October 27 and was given
royal assent on October 28, so it's in the public domain.
The Chair:
Any discussion on that issue?
Mrs Julia Munro (York
North): It seems to me that for any discussion in depth
we should probably wait until the subcommittee has had an
opportunity to be apprised of this.
Ms Shelley Martel
(Nickel Belt): I've been sitting on the committee for a
long time and it's not normal for the auditor to come before us
and say that there's a matter of urgency which he needs us to
deal with. I'm assuming that it is, because it is not common for
him to ask the committee to deal with something immediately. So
given that he has and that it's not common for him to do so, I'd
suggest that if it's only going to take five minutes, then for
those of us who are here, we stay and we deal with this in
camera.
The Chair:
Any further comments?
Mr Maves: I
also agree with Ms Munro. While I respect that there's a certain
level of urgency, I think it's normal that our subcommittee
should meet to discuss anything beyond what was put on the
initial agenda for today. I think that's the more appropriate
course of action, that the subcommittee get together, perhaps
with input from Mr Peters about whatever it is he'd like to
discuss, and then that subcommittee decide on an appropriate time
to discuss that business.
The Chair:
When you say it's urgent, Mr Peters, what are we talking about?
Are we talking about a matter that, in your opinion, needs to be
dealt with right away, or could it wait a week? Could we have a
subcommittee meeting first?
Mr Peters:
It is merely information. It is information. It is a matter that
I have a plan to deal with and will deal with. But it is a matter
that, because the committee is not sitting before I table and it
is a matter that has just arisen, I just want to advise you of
the implication of one of the sections of Bill 4, without any
rancour, criticism of anybody, just to let you know that section
1 of Bill 4 is an impediment, is interference with the
independence of my office and therefore I think it should be
brought to the attention of this committee.
Mr Patten: I
would ask the committee to indulge the auditor. If it's five
minutes, it's only information. We're not talking about a big
debate here. Members of the committee should probably be aware of
something if it does pop up elsewhere. We will not be here next
week. We're talking about meeting after the tabling of your
report, I presume.
Mr Peters:
That's right.
Mr Patten:
This could drag on and maybe it is something that we should be
aware of anyway. If you're talking about a five or 10-minute
thing, then that's fine with me.
Mr Maves:
Chair, we're happy to let the auditor make his statements, but
I'm concerned. In the last four years that I've been on
committees, that isn't normally the way we proceed. I'm just
wondering if the committee is going to have a different way of
proceeding and bringing matters to the table than is normal. You
understand that normally it's the subcommittee, we all know, that
gets together and agrees that we're going to meet and what it is
we're going to discuss. I'm just wondering, are we setting up a
different way of doing that, where we supersede the
subcommittee?
The Chair:
No, but as has been indicated before, the auditor had stated that
it's a matter of urgency. If he just wants to make a statement to
the committee at this point in time and wants us to dwell on it
so that we can deal with it at the next meeting, perhaps that's
the best way to deal with it, since there's nothing else before
the committee today anyway. Would you like to state your concerns
then?
Mr Peters:
Yes. I have a brief handout that's just two pages long. One is
actually the section of the bill and the other one, the front
piece, deals with the implications of that.
I think while you have the
handout, what it has to do with is that, as you know, Bill 4 is
An Act respecting the Legislative Assembly and its officers.
Section 1 of that bill says, "Subsection 5(1) of the Audit Act is
amended by striking out `within the highest range of salaries
paid to deputy ministers in the Ontario civil service' and
substituting `to be fixed by the Lieutenant Governor in
Council.'" This particular section does three things:
Number one, it removes the
linkage of my remuneration from the deputy ministers. This is a
first, unprecedented in Canadian history, that the government has
decided to remove the linkage to a pay scale that is in existence
for all other legislative officers in Canada.
Secondly, and more
importantly, it says the Board of Internal Economy is no longer
responsible to set my remuneration, but the Lieutenant Governor
in Council, which of course is cabinet. The impact of this-and
that's all I want to advise you of-is on the first page, which is
an extract from the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation's
publication Improving Accountability-Canadian Public Accounts
Committees and Legislative
Auditors. It outlines effectively the impact of this amendment to
the Audit Act.
This amendment was passed
without any consultation with my office. There was no prior
notice whatsoever.
The other reason I want to
point it out to you as a matter of urgency is simply the fact
that this committee, in 1996, made recommendations to the
government to amend the Audit Act on professional matters and
some housekeeping matters. None of this has been dealt with,
although the Minister of Finance agreed in principle with the
committee, but this particular section was put through. Why I ask
for the privilege is that it is published and I just wanted this
committee to be aware of the implications of this particular
amendment to the Audit Act.
With that, currently we have
arranged for meetings with the government and I hope we can come
up with a plan to deal effectively with the situation. I just
thought that, since it had royal assent, the members of this
committee to whom I report should be aware of my concerns. Thank
you, Chair.
The Chair:
Any comments?
Mr Maves:
It's a matter of record that I'm a very staunch supporter of the
Provincial Auditor's office and the work that they do. In fact, I
had a private member's bill that would expand the scope of the
Provincial Auditor's office, so I don't want anyone to feel that
my comments are meant in any way to denigrate the Office of the
Provincial Auditor.
I just find it somewhat
alarming that we didn't even take a vote on it. We had a
discussion on whether or not we were going to hear Mr Peters's
point. We didn't even take a vote on whether or not we were going
to continue further beyond the agenda and we've now superseded
the normal committee process of what's going to be discussed on
an agenda. I'm a little bit alarmed by that and it's nothing to
do with comments that were made. I mean, it's fine that that's
brought to our attention. I'm just concerned that we're now
superseding the normal procedure with which a committee does its
business.
The Chair: I
didn't hear a motion being made to the contrary at the time. I
made a suggestion and there was no contrary comment, so I let Mr
Peters speak.
I think for the record it
should be noted that according to standing order 106(i), this
committee "is empowered to review and report to the House its
observations, opinions and recommendations on the report of the
Provincial Auditor and the public accounts, which documents shall
be deemed to have been permanently referred to the committee as
they become available." It does not specifically deal with the
matters that are raised by the auditor at this stage.
On the other hand, I can well
understand how there may be a concern of who controls, in effect,
the salary of the auditor. Whether it's the Lieutenant Governor
in Council or the Legislative Assembly certainly places a
different kind of scope on it. But he stated his concerns for the
record and we can deal with it in the future if we so wish.
Mr Maves:
Except that, with respect, the contents of his comments are in
effect irrelevant to the point that I'm trying to make. My point
is not one of the Provincial Auditor's comments but one of
committee procedure. It's well-established procedure that-I know
that a committee can overrule a subcommittee, but it's normal
procedure that anything that's going to be discussed at a
committee meeting is normally laid out ahead of time and agreed
to by a subcommittee.
The Chair: I
asked the auditor to make an opening comment as he is sort of the
main officer responsible to this committee and his comments were
not exactly what I had in mind initially. As far as the scope of
his activities with this committee is concerned, he wanted to say
something else, and although I heard some concerns before that,
there wasn't really a motion put that he was not to deal with
these matters.
But I understand your
concerns and I'll certainly take them under advisement and
hopefully the committee will continue in the past practice that
way.
Ms Martel:
All I was going to say was, if the government didn't want him to
proceed, the government could have moved a motion not to have him
speak and we could have had a vote. That's the option that all of
us can exercise on anything that's before us. I think this
discussion is getting to be a bit ridiculous, and if there's
nothing else, maybe we should just adjourn and hope everyone has
a better day.
The Chair:
Before doing that, however, because we're not going to have a
meeting between now and November 16, perhaps the auditor could
just address us as to what's going to happen on November 16 so
that the members of the committee can be aware as to when the
auditor's report in effect is being delivered, the sequence of
events. Does anybody have any objection to that?
Mr Patten:
It's right here, Mr Chair.
The Chair:
Thank you. It's clear to everybody. Is there any further business
for the committee at this point in time then? OK.
Thank you all very much for
your attendance. I look forward to a fruitful meeting in the
future. Adjourned.
