SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT

CONTENTS

Thursday 18 November 1999

Subcommittee report

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Chair / Président
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands / Kingston et les îles L)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr John C. Cleary (Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh 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 Doug Galt (Northumberland 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 1005 in committee room 1.

SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT

The Chair (Mr John Gerretsen): Good morning, everybody. I call the standing committee on public accounts to order. We have before us the report of the subcommittee on committee business. I believe everyone has received a copy. Any comments?

Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): Mr Chair, I'd like to move acceptance of the report of the subcommittee.

The Chair: Is there a seconder for that? Ms Martel. Should it be read into the record? Mr Patten, would you like to read it into the record, please?

Mr Patten: "Your subcommittee on committee business met on Wednesday, November 17, 1999, and recommends the following:

"1. That the committee table periodic reports on the sections of the auditor's report that have been reviewed.

"2. That the 1998 report of the standing committee on public accounts be distributed to the members of the committee, and that the committee adopt and table the 1998 report.

"3. That the Provincial Auditor provide an updated report to the committee on the Andersen agreement.

"4. That the schedule for the public accounts committee in its review of the 1999 annual report of the Provincial Auditor be as follows:

"November 25: Government advertising (chapter 2 of auditor's report) (Management Board)

"December 2: Community accommodation program (3.04), child and family intervention program-3.03 (chapter 4 of auditor's report) (Community and Social Services)

"December 9: Report of the Provincial Auditor on the Andersen agreement (Community and Social Services)

"5. That the committee will begin each section with a closed-session briefing by the research officer and the Provincial Auditor. The deputy minister and other appropriate staff of each ministry will be asked to attend the committee following the closed-session briefing to provide a response to the auditor's report.

"6. That the committee request of the House leaders, to sit for 10 days in February to continue its review of the 1999 annual report of the Provincial Auditor.

"7. That the committee review the additional following sections of the 1999 annual report of the Provincial Auditor, schedule to be determined.

"3.01-Family Responsibility Office (Attorney General)

"3.02-Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (Attorney General)

"3.07-provincial personal income tax revenue and related credits and reductions (Finance)

"3.08-Cancer Care Ontario (Health and Long-Term Care)

"3.12-Year 2000/information technology preparedness (Management Board Secretariat)

"3.14-provincial highway maintenance (Transportation)

"Chapter 4."

That is the report.

The Chair: Comments?

Mrs Julia Munro (York North): We would like to change point 6 to read "to sit for up to 10 days."

The Chair: Are you moving that as an amendment?

Mrs Munro: Yes, I am.

The Chair: Is there any discussion on that? I think that was the gist of the discussion yesterday by the subcommittee.

Mrs Munro: The reason I suggest that is that we had a discussion that we want 10 days in the period when the House isn't sitting. But there was some discussion as to whether we would have them all in February. I think it locks us in when we ask for it to be in February, and so I suggest that we might want to have a couple of days in March or something like that. Given the discussion we had last night, some consideration might also be given to making it "up to 10 days in February and/or March."

The Chair: Would you like to move that as part of the amendment, as well, because I think that was-

Mrs Munro: I do feel that, if not, we restrict our House leaders.

The Chair: I agree. Is there any discussion on that amendment? All agreed on that? Yes. So "up to 10 days in February and March" to give us greater latitude and flexibility.

Any discussion on the report of the subcommittee itself?

Mr Erik Peters: I just want to bring one item to your attention, which is that you will be discussing year 2000 preparedness in the year 2000. Is that intentional? I want to raise the point with you. There may be method in the madness, in the sense that you might want to find out what actually happened on January 1. The alternative would be to consider moving it to the December 2 meeting and moving December 2, which is part of chapter 4, to item 7. I just suggest it, and I can't make a motion. So it's up to you to deal with that issue.

The Chair: Any comments on that?

Mrs Munro: Yes. I appreciate the point the auditor has made on that issue. There's no question that it is after the fact. However, given that one could argue that much of what we are discussing is after the fact, perhaps we will leave the December 2 item and, as my colleague suggests, we can then look at what should have happened if we are looking at the year 2000 in the year 2000.

The Chair: I guess the other issue is that if we're not going to discuss until December 2 or 9, what effect could the recommendations we make have within the different ministries that are affected by them?

Mrs Munro: In 10 days?

The Chair: It's kind of late, anyway.

Mr Patten: This could be quite serious. If the auditor identified something that was catastrophic, then that would presumably have been responded to immediately. However, if there is something urgent that the auditor feels he should look at, I wouldn't mind taking a special hour or two just to look at that, in view of the time pressures on the issue.

The Chair: The auditor would like to make a comment on that.

Mr Peters: Since we took our snapshot in March 1999, and only a reasonable update up to about May or June, we saw nothing catastrophic at that stage that wasn't surmountable.

The Chair: Is there any further comment on that? Unless I hear an amendment to the subcommittee's report-

Mr Patten: I'm trying to get a sense of the urgency here. If it is, I'd be prepared to offer November 25. In all seriousness, if this is urgent, I'd be prepared to suggest that.

The Chair: I understand what you are saying.

Ms Shelley Martel (Nickel Belt): Perhaps I could ask a question. If I recall-because I went to the press conference where the auditor made his report-the issue around Y2K really had to do with hospitals. I think that is what we're talking about-

Mr Peters: One of the issues.

Ms Martel: -and whether some 20 hospitals that had not replied to the Ministry of Health were ready. So I guess my question is, is that what we're going to be looking at, or is there some other area of government that you feel needs to be targeted? Otherwise, if there was nothing that wasn't insurmountable at the time, the only problem I could identify was hospitals, and I'm not sure we in this committee are going to be in a position to do much about that, since they are transfer payment agencies anyway.

Mr Peters: There were essentially three issues in the year 2000. One was the number of hospitals that had not responded at all and the percentage of hospitals that had indicated they would not be compliant. The second issue was that seven of the critical systems still required acceleration at that point in time. The third issue was that they were only starting to deal with contingency plans or backup plans in the event that any of the tier-2 or tier-3 did not work.

Having the Management Board Secretariat before us would provide an update as to how they viewed it. There's no additional work by us, but it would be an information session for the committee by the Management Board to tell them how they felt it was going to go.

The Chair: The suggestion I have is that since the Management Board is going to be here on November 25 anyway, why don't we ask them to address that issue as well at that time? Do you have any difficulty with that, Mrs Munro?

Mrs Munro: No.

Mr Patten: You're a very smart Chair. That's great.

The Chair: Could we have a friendly amendment to have 3.12 included on November 25? Is that agreed to by everybody? Agreed.

Any further discussion on the subcommittee's report?

Shall it carry as amended? All in favour? Opposed? Carried unanimously.

We're now going to hand out the second item in the subcommittee report, and that deals with the 1998 annual report of the standing committee.

Anything further that the committee would like to discuss at this stage?

Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): Adjournment?

The Chair: Are you moving adjournment? Just a minute. Ms Martel wants to say something.

Ms Martel: There is a motion that the report be adopted. People are just receiving it now. Maybe we could just say that the subcommittee determined yesterday that because all the work had been done on the report, we really should have it reported to the House. The only reason it wasn't was that there was not a sign-off on the original document by one member. Otherwise, it would have been printed, translated and presented to the House. So we thought we should do that now.

I move that the 1998 annual report of the standing committee on public accounts be adopted, that the report be translated and printed, and that the Chair be instructed to present the report to the House.

The Chair: Any comments on the motion?

Mrs Munro: I understand and appreciate Ms Martel's position on this. I would just say that given that our agenda was merely to look at the report of the subcommittee, we might want to give members an opportunity to have a look at this before we ask them to do that, and that perhaps the resolution that has been suggested could come up at our November 25 meeting.

The Chair: Is that agreeable, Ms Martel?

Ms Martel: That's fine with me. I think the earlier agreement we also made, that there be no changes-that people understood that, only because the work had already been done, probably by people who weren't on the committee at the time.

The Chair: Would you like to withdraw the motion at this stage and reintroduce it again?

Ms Martel: Sure. I withdraw.

The Chair: Any further discussion, comments or statements? OK. The meeting is adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 1016.