Transcription du comité 1991-juin-19 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The Chair: I want to call the intended appointee Catherine Whetter to come forward, please. Ms Whetter, just take a seat there at the front. Welcome to the committee. We appreciate your appearance here. You were selected by the Liberal Party, the official opposition, for a half-hour review. Do you have anything you would like to say before we begin?

Ms Whetter: Yes, sir, I would.

The Chair: As briefly as possible. You can sit down.

Ms Whetter: I will stand, please. I come here and I am very angry because I am a volunteer. I have been volunteering for 40 years and this is the first time anyone has questioned my integrity and my commitment to my community. For this reason, I am here to protest that volunteers be called before this committee. If you are appointing people or looking at the credentials of people whom you, the government, are going to pay, yes, I think you have a good reason to ask for them to come before you and explain their reasons. But I am a volunteer, and as a volunteer it costs me money to come down here to explain why I am being appointed or being selected to be chairman of the district health council.

We are all volunteers on that district health council. There are so many providers and there are so many consumers. I am a consumer. I work for a living in a small business and it takes time out of my business to come here. Since I have been selected as chairman, I find that I am taking time from my business to go down to do the chairman's business in Cornwall. It is a 40-minute drive one way. I was, up until I received this call, very happy to do it because you get into a mode, I suppose. You feel you are doing it for the betterment of your community. It sounds idealistic and I know that is outmoded today. I am told that you are supposed to be politically correct, but I cannot be. I come from a very different era, where you did things for your community, for its benefit and not for the benefit of yourself. You improve your own lot in helping someone else. That goes without saying.

I am just a little upset that I should be called here because my fellow council members chose me to be a chairman for this year. The last couple of years we have had a retiree and that has made it much easier. He could pop in any time. But this year, it became my turn.

I should tell you how we select. Everyone has a vote on our council. We ask first those who would like to be on the executive to let their names stand. Then when we vote, we vote for those and the seven names which receive the most votes are selected for the executive. Then the executive goes in and chooses its chairman, vice-chairman and treasurer.

Now when I went in, I suggested to them that I really did not want to be chairman. That is what really angers me: I did not want to be here. The other person said: "I come from Clarence Creek. It is an hour's drive from there and in the wintertime I don't always make it." I said, "Yes, I realize that." So she said, "You take chairman and I'll take vice-chairman and we can work out our meetings together." I said: "Fine. That sounds great. We'll do that." Because she is bilingual and I am unilingual, I thought this way we can work out any problems we have with our francophone community. So this is what we did.

Then I received a call, "Come down and explain yourself." I do not think that is fair to volunteers, particularly when I read in the paper that this particular government is encouraging consumers to be on different agencies and boards, to give credence to the recommendations of the boards and councils. So I wonder why I am called here today. It really does upset me. It upset our council and I am sure it has upset every district health council in the province, of which today there are 28.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I do not think your selection for review here today is any reflection on your integrity or your commitment to your community. It is part of a process that has been developed by the new government and certainly all three parties that participate in this committee have an opportunity to select people to come forward.

Ms Whetter: I am aware of that.

The Chair: Just basing this on memory, I think your name was selected solely because of an interest in the eastern Ontario element and the implications for eastern Ontario and certainly had nothing to do with your abilities or your commitment or your past efforts on behalf of your community. I think that is the reason you were selected. I am sorry you felt there was some slight to you personally because I am sure it was not intended.

Ms Whetter: It is a slight to all volunteers, really and truly.

The Chair: It is a good point which I am sure will be brought forward. We would still like to have a bit of an opportunity to ask you some questions. We are discussing a permanent standing order for this committee and you make a valid point, whether indeed we should be reviewing volunteers or not. That is an excellent point and it will be considered, I assure you of that.

Mr Grandmaître: I feel the same way as you do, because I think we are not serving any of the public the way we should be. I congratulate you for your voluntary work. I was going through your CV and I see that you are a very busy woman. Thank you for all your volunteer work.

I am not questioning your integrity and I am very surprised that you would feel that way. When you were approached, whoever approached you to become chair of your DHC, were you not told there was a possibility that the government had put in a new process?

Ms Whetter: Yes, sir, and the district health council did send a letter suggesting that volunteers should not be required to come because, after all, we are volunteers and volunteers are scarce. We had to fill a vacancy in Prescott county. We ran ads in the paper twice and then we got on the phone to ask people we thought might. You see, it is not easy.

Mr Grandmaître: No, I realize it is not easy. I was a volunteer myself, and still am. With the money I am making, I consider myself a volunteer at Queen's Park.

Putting that aside, you have been an active member on your district health council since 1986. In 1989, the then Minister of Health thought the district health councils should have a new approach to their responsibilities towards the community and the health providers. Do you agree with most or all of the changes that were brought about in 1989? Did it make the district health councils more active?

Ms Whetter: We now, to me, have become more facilitators. I chaired a meeting not two weeks ago, and I am still pretty angry about that too, because I sat there and there were Ministry of Health and Ministry of Community and Social Services people there, and what I did was just get them together and get them talking together to form a committee to work to bring about better services for our dual-diagnosis people. Some are not within our area because we cannot offer the services. In fact, two from the children's aid are in Guelph because we have not got them. This upset me. I thought, "Surely to goodness you people can talk to one another. You're working for the same goal," but they did not. So that is what I did. I spent my time persuading these people to get together.

There is going to be more, I am sure, because the Health people in Toronto here have sent down directives, let's put it that way, and asked us to involve the MCSS people. Our executive director suggested that perhaps if we had a wine and cheese party and invited all of the managers of the MCSS within our area, to get to the district health council people, we would have a faster and a more pleasant rapport with them and perhaps when they need Health people they will not feel quite so threatened. From what I could gather, it was turf protection.

Mr Grandmaître: Would you agree with me that the district health councils, not only in eastern Ontario but right across this province, are not very well known? Especially their responsibilities, because they do carry a lot of responsibilities. With the consultation directly with the minister or the deputy minister, I think your added responsibilities since 1989 have become a very serious business, especially for volunteers.

Ms Whetter: It is.

Mr Grandmaître: You carry a lot of weight.

Ms Whetter: It is something that we were discussing. As I mentioned earlier, we had a retiree. If they continue to add more and more to our agenda, we are going to have to have just retirees because I cannot take that kind of time. I get up at 5:30 to get my work done. We are a dairy farm. I do that. I went down to be there at 9 in the morning. That is a bit of a hustle because I have a 40-minute drive to get there. That is why the vice-chairman said she would never make it. It would be an hour for her if the weather was good.

This is something I think the Health people have got to look at, how much they wish us to take on. For studies and recommendations, yes, we can do those very well, but I do not know how much more we can cope with within our scope of using volunteers.

The other problem, as you said, is that we are not very well known. About 99% of the population I do not think even knows we exist. The other 1% is made up of providers, who find us just a darned nuisance, or municipal elected representatives, who find us a threat to their already diminished authority. I am sorry, we should be working together, and we are not. Right now, I am attending the Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes and Services for Seniors annual meeting, and it came out loud and clear that the district health councils are not understood at all.

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Mr Grandmaître: What will you do as new chair, a new approach? What will you do to make people in the community of eastern Ontario much more aware of your responsibilities and to invite them to participate and help you in making the right decision?

Ms Whetter: We have already started, sir. My appointment was in the paper. Jeanne d'Arc St-Jacques was the appointment for her area and was covered by all the French-speaking papers in the northern part, and mine was in the Cornwall and Dundas areas. I am trying to persuade the council to send out little blurbs in the paper of what we are doing, and this has started. We are making an effort, but I honestly think we should do a bit more. This is something we are going to have to work on if we wish to get to the community, because it is getting so difficult to get volunteers, even for our committees. You almost have to twist their arm.

I worked on one man for two months to persuade him, and he is excellent. He has all the qualification you would want for long-term care. He is a senior citizen, he is retired, he has travelled around, he knows the community, he has lived in it all his life, and it took me two months to persuade that man. Now he is interested, he thinks it is great, and he is a good addition, but to go around and ask each individual -- because we have four or five committees.

Mr Grandmaître: Can you tell me about your pet project? I was reading this in the Standard.

Ms Whetter: Yes. That was my reason for submitting my name for district health council. Our youngest son was and still is emotionally disturbed. He came to us at three and a half. He is our adopted son. We tried to get help in Cornwall, and it was both inadequate and just not appropriate, so when this district health council ad appeared in the paper, I thought, although it did not help our son, perhaps I could do something for somebody else.

One night one of our neighbours and I were sitting around, and I had been in the community 18 years and he had been there I think 25 years, and we counted up 25 suicides within a 10-miles radius of our home. We thought that was pretty shocking. Many of these are young people, not old ones. They are teenagers and people in their early twenties. This was really my reason for submitting my name to the district health council.

We have just finished a study, and they had done one in 1986, and the same shortcomings are turning up again and again. That is the thing I really would like to see changed.

Mr Grandmaître: How concerned are you about the escalating cost of our health care system in Ontario, and are you concerned at the possibility that this universal service could receive some severe cuts from the federal government and possibly the province of Ontario, or any other province for that matter? Are you concerned that this great system may be fragmented within the next five or 10 or 15 years?

Ms Whetter: I am. As a taxpayer I am very concerned, and I honestly think there are duplications in service, like from the Ministry of Community and Social Services and the Ministry of Health. From what I have seen with the mental health study, I think we are running around creating problems where none should exist. We should have a smooth system whereby if I go to my doctor, he can plug me into a system where I will go right through.

What really shook me is our son started in MCSS, which I did not know -- I thought it was the Ministry of Health; I was not informed otherwise -- and then when he got to a certain age, he fell through the cracks because the Ministry of Health did not pick it up. So what have you got? You have a young lad there who is not doing well at all. He is old enough that we have no control. He is on welfare and he should not be; he should be a working citizen, but because of the treatment he received, or lack of it, we can do nothing.

Mr Grandmaître: One last question: We would like to think that our system in Ontario is the best in Canada. What are your thoughts on that?

Ms Whetter: I cannot tell you, sir, because I only know of Ontario. From what I have heard from other people, one, I think we have a marvellous volunteer system. I cannot emphasize that too much, because it is not only volunteering on boards and so on but you have all the volunteers in the hospitals and everywhere else. Two, I think we have it too good. We do not realize how good it is.

Mr Grandmaître: Absolutely. Thank you. Good luck.

Mr Waters: In some of the background that we have received there is a comment that I found a bit disturbing and I would like you to comment yourself on it. In one of the articles it says: "With the maturing of the district health council, there appears to be a tendency towards increased provider domination of the councils."

Ms Whetter: Not in ours. Ours is actually tipping the other way. We are getting more consumers than providers. I cannot comment on others, but I can comment on ours.

Mr Waters: What they are saying is that the professionals stay on and the volunteers from the community come and go, therefore those who stay on sort of dominate. That is not happening in yours?

Ms Whetter: Not in ours, no. We got a provider from Dundas, because that was the only one we could get. We advertised twice. We went around and banged on doors. We got one provider and that was it, but the other one is a consumer. There are two representatives from Dundas. I represent the five counties of Stormont, Dundas, Glengarry, Prescott and Russell, and we try to keep a ratio, a proportion, of consumers to providers and also of francophones to anglophones. This is hard; really it is.

Mr Waters: You have the extra problem down there of the language balance that some of the other councils do not have to put up with.

Ms Whetter: Yes. That is why we always try to have on our executive enough francophones so that we can get the flavour of what they require, and they require quite a bit down there, I can assure you. I am an anglophone, remember, but I see that if we do not help our whole community, we help no one.

Mr Waters: The other question I have, because it was also in the comments that they provided us, was that health councillors are not elected by the community. I was wondering if you could comment on whether you feel there should be basically --

Ms Whetter: If I was waiting for an election, sir, I would not be elected, because I do not have enough relations in the county. Too many elected officials in our area are elected by relatives.

Mr Waters: Okay. That answered that one.

Mr Frankford: I have to admit I am a family doctor myself and you mentioned about family doctors. It seems to me that a considerable amount of health care in the community is what goes through family doctors' offices.

Ms Whetter: It is primary care, yes.

Mr Frankford: And it seems to me that a lot of that really does not come into consideration by district health councils. Would you like to comment on that?

Ms Whetter: We have always had a doctor on our council and he has always been very vocal. We have an anglophone now but he speaks French, and the one before was a francophone. We always try and have somebody of that profession on our council, although we do get letters saying we do not have input from the academy of medicine in Cornwall. But they have problems of their own that we cannot solve for them; they have to solve them themselves.

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Mr Frankford: Just moving on, it seem to me there is not enough input from physicians as a whole, because I think a significant proportion of what is going on in health is what is provided in their offices.

Ms Whetter: Do you know what we want? I am a consumer. Do you know what I really want? Sometimes I come in and I natter and chew at you. Do you really know, sir?

Mr Frankford: I hope so. In the other direction, I am not sure if there is enough input from bodies such as district health councils to co-ordinate in a community-based practice. I am just wondering if you would like to comment on that.

Ms Whetter: We have a health and hospital services committee, and we also have a mental health committee. We have community health and the doctors are invited to come and make their views known, and they say, "We are too busy." It is not Toronto; we do not have a lot of doctors to spare. We were lucky to get the one in Dundas and that is only because he is new. He has only been there a year.

Mr Frankford: One final question: I am certainly well aware that there is this problem of unequal supply, particularly in rural areas. Would you say that district health councils could get more involved in a more rational system?

Ms Whetter: We have been trying. This is something we are trying to do. In fact, we are hoping to set up a meeting with the doctors of the area and the person from the Ministry of Health, to come down and explain the community health clinics. Perhaps we could get some of those going so that we could persuade some of the younger doctors to come into our area. I think it is either at the end of this month or early in September. It is to get our people from the Ministry of Health to come down to us. We are working on it.

Mr Hayes: Ms Whetter, I certainly understand your frustration at having to come away from your busy schedule, especially with the Toronto traffic, but I would just like to explain to you, the process here is that when we do appoint people for boards and agencies, we do not bring everybody in. Each party, as a matter of fact, chooses a person it wants to bring in. In this case, I guess it was the Liberal Party that suggested we bring you in.

Ms Whetter: Yes, I am aware of that, and I wonder why, because I was appointed.

Mr Hayes: It is not always necessary, but I think it is also important for you to know that you certainly will be reimbursed, or your expenses will be paid by the Ministry of Health.

Another comment I would like to make to you is that, actually it is a breath of fresh air to have someone come in front of us and publicly --

Ms Whetter: -- give you the devil. Yes, I will.

Mr Hayes: -- give us the devil. I think that is very important. It is important that people like you with your volunteer work speak up. If we do not speak up, a lot of times we do not get things done the way we want them, and I compliment you for that.

There have been some concerns in the past about the Ministry of Health really not paying any attention maybe to some of the district health councils. Can you relate to that for us and maybe tell us what is really needed to improve our relationship?

Ms Whetter: When our studies go in, they seem to go into a black hole, and it takes a long time. Perhaps other district health councils which are closer to Toronto may have better luck. Maybe they can get on the phone or come down and knock on the door and say: "Look, folks, this is really what we want. This is what our community really needs," and much of what we ask for is really cost-effective. When we really look at it, we are not asking for randy old schemes to put up large buildings and staff. Mostly it is just to get the services for our people so that we keep them out of the hospital, so that we keep them out of the doctor's office, and healthy. That is really what our main thrust is.

Sometimes, as I say, it is frustrating. I look at our studies and I think, "Dear Lord, why did we go through all those problems?" I can tell you, because I added it up, that this month I will spend at least 15 to 20 hours just on volunteering for the DHC.

Mr Hayes: I believe you.

Ms Whetter: That is not counting the time I drive back and forth to it. As I say, it is a 40-minute drive to Cornwall, one way.

Mr Wiseman: I would like to ask you a couple of questions. The one I would like to have you comment on the most, and you sort of alluded to it but you have not really described it, is about groups that resist change because they are protecting their own turf. Do you run into problems where changes could have been made but they were resisted, not for any sound reason but because people were maybe protecting their own little empires?

Ms Whetter: Do you want me to name names?

Mr Wiseman: No, I do not think you need to name names, but perhaps you could --

Ms Whetter: We have a problem in that we have two hospitals in Cornwall and we have two emergencies. We have two of this and two of that. That is not cost-effective. But do you think we can persuade them that maybe if one took one and the other one took another -- no, sir.

The other is our mental health. It is in a mess. I have two letters now that are actually directed to the Ministry of Health. Really and truly, it is of their own making. I should not, but I would like to go in there and show them a few office practices that, if they just tried them, would certainly be much more cost-effective and they could put their people to work where they are supposed to be, instead of sitting in an office pushing paper.

Mr Wiseman: This is going to be a really big problem for any government that tries to make changes in the system, because you can see that every time one program perhaps is cancelled a whole group of people gets angry about the cancellation of the program.

Ms Whetter: Yes.

Mr Wiseman: If you could offer any insights on how to do this or how to approach these kinds of changes, we would be more than grateful.

Ms Whetter: I am sure you would, but I do not have an answer either. Remember, my husband and I just run a small business. I always bring those experiences to what I do at the district health council, so when I see someone have a program where it is top-heavy with management, I know it is not going to run properly. But the Ministry of Health is like a cash cow. It is like any ministry. "We'll have a manager for this and a manager for that and a supervisor for this and a supervisor for that," and so then we do not have anybody out in the field. If I did that, we would not get any hay in at all.

Mr Villeneuve: Catherine, it is always very refreshing to see you. I am sorry I had another meeting. I came as soon as I could. I am sure you are very much aware of the problems with, say, the hospital in Winchester.

Ms Whetter: Yes, I am.

Mr Villeneuve: I have been bringing them to the attention of the former Minister of Health and to the present Minister of Health. I am not sure what will happen there. All of a sudden, we find that more important than looking after patients are people's jobs. All of a sudden, people who worked at the hospital say, "My job is now redundant." The hospital has projected a $1.4-million deficit on top of a $500,000 deficit that is there now and, all of a sudden, the business of the hospital is more important for the people who are working there than the patients they are serving. That disturbs me. I would like your comments on it. Talk about protecting one's little empire. I think this is what we have gotten down to and I feel rather sad about that, because the primary aim of a hospital is to treat people who need some health services. Your comments on that, please, Catherine.

Ms Whetter: Yes, I have watched that from a distance, in the paper. I have been watching it, though, and I think what has happened to poor old Winchester, and I think has happened to a lot, is that during the time of the former administrator it was built up in this managerial sort of way -- "We need people for this and we need people for that" -- and the patient was forgotten. I do not think Winchester is alone. I think there are many hospitals running into the same situation. They have managers. "We'll give that one a fancy title and that will give her X number of dollars." The patient has not received any better care.

I would like to see that hospital turned into a clinic. Have a clinic there and offer some outpatient services instead of always having to go into hospital to stay. I think the community which it was built to serve would again be served better. I am not very happy with that situation there at all.

Mr Villeneuve: I know we have many problems in a large rural community, and Cornwall being the centre generally gets a lot of the attention, as you have just mentioned. Yet there are some 50,000-plus people in the area I represent who are being served primarily by the Cornwall hospitals and the other three hospitals, in Kemptville, Alexandria and Winchester. I appreciate your approach, the commonsense approach, the successful dairy farmer approach, which is a pretty heavy work ethic. I think the district health council is in good hands as long as you keep on speaking your mind the way you do.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Whetter. We appreciate your appearance here today, even though you were not terribly pleased with the request to be here. We appreciate the opportunity to talk about the concerns of members and we wish you well with your added responsibilities. Also, as Mr Hayes indicated in terms of expenses, you should be able to claim those from the Ministry of Health. If you have any difficulty in doing so, contact our clerk and he will expedite matters for you.

Ms Whetter: I just have one last comment, sir, to all three parties.

The Chair: Make it brief, please.

Ms Whetter: Would you please go back and tell them volunteers do not grow on trees?

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MICHAEL CASSIDY

The Chair: Michael Cassidy is an intended appointee as a member of the Ontario Hydro board of directors. Welcome to the committee and welcome back to Queen's Park. Do you have any brief comments you would like to make?

Mr Cassidy: Yes, I have a brief opening statement.

It is an honour to be nominated to the board of directors of Ontario Hydro and I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear before the standing committee on government agencies to have the appointment reviewed. Your committee is one of the welcome innovations which has taken place in the Legislature since I was last here as a member in 1984.

Ontario Hydro is one of the largest companies in Canada and it directly or indirectly serves every citizen, every industry and every business in the province. It accounts for a major share of the funds borrowed by the province every year and is one of the province's major employers. In fact, Hydro is so big that in the past it has tended to be a law unto itself without being effectively accountable to the government, to the Legislature or to its owners, the shareholders, the people of Ontario. That position is changing now and that is why I look on the prospect of joining the Hydro board at this time as such a challenge.

The change in government last fall has brought a change in direction for Hydro, with a strong emphasis, a strong priority on conservation and on energy efficiency. Hydro's continuing reliance on nuclear energy for new generating capacity is being profoundly questioned. These are all new directions with which I am in broad sympathy.

The Power Corporation Act already gives the government power to issue broad policy directions for Hydro, and the amendments which I gather were recently tabled will in fact allow it to issue directives to Hydro as well. I think that is as it should be for any crown corporation, but it takes more than a few policy directives to really change the direction and the culture of an organization as big and as well established as Hydro.

The board of directors that is now emerging reflects a much broader range of experience and of concerns across the province than has been traditional at Ontario Hydro. If I am confirmed as a director, I would see the board playing a significant role in helping to implement change from within, in responding to concerns about conservation and the environment, in working out new forms of partnership with native peoples, with Hydro's employees, with its consumers, with the municipal utilities and with business.

My background is untypical of people who have been appointed as Hydro directors in the past, but none the less I believe I am well qualified. I am an economist and business journalist by profession, I am now head of my own small company working in the area of public affairs and, as you know, I have had a great deal of exposure to the kinds of issues that affect Hydro through almost 20 years of public life at all three levels of government. I think I know every corner of Ontario from my work here at Queen's Park and I was a persistent advocate of energy conservation as an alternative to singleminded concentration of nuclear power when I was in the Ontario Legislature.

Any board of directors has special responsibilities for the direction and management of the company for which it is responsible on behalf of the owners or shareholders, which in this case means the people of Ontario. Hydro is no different. While my sympathy to the government's policy directions is clear and, I am sure, plays a role in my being selected to be nominated to the board, I am committed. I do commit myself to give my best judgement to the operations and the policies of Hydro based on my knowledge and experience if I am confirmed. Thank you very much and I welcome your questions.

The Chair: You were selected for review by the third party and we will start off the questioning with Mr Jordan.

Mr Jordan: It is certainly a pleasure to have the opportunity to discuss the future of Hydro with you as the recent appointee, or nominee I guess it is at the present, to the board.

First of all, do you feel that this committee is really going to serve a purpose this morning in providing time for this interview relative to your appointment or do you see it as strictly an information session without any effect on whether the appointment is acclaimed or not?

Mr Cassidy: In the end the committee, I understand, makes a recommendation and in fact passes a vote. I think the process is extremely important. It is one I supported during my time, particularly when it was adopted in the federal House where I was a member, because I think the very fact of having the review makes any government think twice before putting people into positions for which they are not qualified or where they cannot make a contribution. Just the fact that any appointment is subject to review is in itself, I think, an important check on a government.

In addition, I think if the members are doing their job and an appointment slips through that perhaps should not have been made, whether or not the members, say, from the opposition, have got their votes to actually reverse an appointment, they can still make life very uncomfortable for the government and unmake an appointment or make sure that kind of appointment is not made again.

Mr Jordan: From your presentation, you are well aware of the changes the Minister of Energy has initiated in the Power Corporation Act.

Mr Cassidy: Yes.

Mr Jordan: I take from your comments that you support that change?

Mr Cassidy: I think that is healthy. There should be a means by which the government, which represents the owners, which is the shareholder, should be able to give that kind of directive. I think it would be unhealthy if any government were to try to take over the operations and management of Hydro by issuing constant directives. If the system works well, I hope this power is used sparingly.

I also hope, and I think it is probably the case, those directives have to be made public. In the past, we had a situation when I was at Queen's Park where the chairman or the president of Hydro would have a little tête-a-tête with the Premier and the Premier would indicate that he wanted a dam in Arnprior or something else, because that would be valuable for some reason, perhaps a political reason, and it would get done. It was done with a wink and a nod and people could not tell whether the responsibility was the government's or whether the responsibility was Hydro's. I think it is much healthier to have this out in the open.

Mr Jordan: The point that bothers me is that the board of directors has made an appointment of an executive officer who knows the operation, who has the executive training to do the job, and there seems to be a feeling in government, a fear that even though he may be best qualified, he would be reluctant to implement its policies. Do you see that as a reason not to choose the better-qualified person?

Mr Cassidy: Obviously, I was not a part of it, but looking at the internal evidence, the period that elapsed between Mr Franklin announcing his resignation as president and chairman and the appointment of Mr Holt as president and CEO was extremely brief. Therefore, I would have to question whether they did a really thorough search process. I would have thought there might have been four or five presidents or chairmen of Hydro utilities across the country who might have been considered for the position if they were doing what they said they were doing, which was looking for somebody with those qualifications and competence.

Mr Elston: The same then applies to Mr Eliesen's appointment too, I take it?

Mr Cassidy: That appointment was not, however, made by the Hydro board.

Mr Elston: I understand that.

The Chair: Mr Elston, you are out of order, please. Mr Jordan has the floor.

Mr Cassidy: I am just simply saying I have some questions about a board which is in a sense a lame duck.

Mr Jordan: May I intercede here for a minute? You suggested that the present board did not do a proper search for a qualified person.

Mr Cassidy: I cannot say that. All I can say is that the time that elapsed between their indicating to the government that they were commencing a search for a president and then making the appointment was extremely short given the nature of the job. I just really question whether demonstrably they did a search outside of Hydro, and it seems to me that with a corporation this large you have to look outside as well as inside.

Mr Jordan: They had an outside consultant look outside and inside Hydro and then they made this choice of a president. Do you accept the fact that as an executive officer, he does have the knowledge, the training to do the job to a more qualified degree than the chairman whom the government would like to take over that position? You accept that from your own assessment of it on a personal basis?

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Mr Cassidy: You must understand that I do not have much more than the CV of Mr Holt to guide me. I would say that at the very least it looks, say, about equal, and Mr Holt has a knowledge of Ontario Hydro. Mr Eliesen has a knowledge of Ontario Hydro, again through a couple of years as Deputy Minister of Energy since his appointment at the beginning of 1990, I guess it was. Mr Holt has not been a chief executive officer and Mr Eliesen has been. Mr Eliesen has four or six years at the CEO level in Manitoba, and it seems to me that is like managing the Syracuse team and then coming to manage the Blue Jays. It is a step up. But the kind of responsibilities he has had in fact have been broader than those of Mr Holt.

Mr Jordan: How many employees at Manitoba Hydro?

Mr Cassidy: Probably about one seventh the number at Ontario Hydro.

Mr Jordan: Or maybe one tenth, and the technology and the whole operation are completely different. You would have to be aware of that yourself.

Mr Cassidy: I think you are making the argument, Mr Jordan, that nobody but somebody who came up from internal sources could ever become the chair of Ontario Hydro. Therefore you would say that perhaps Mr Franklin should not have been appointed five years ago.

Mr Jordan: No, I do not. I think he was well qualified and was well researched.

Mr Cassidy: But he did not have a knowledge of Hydro. He did not have a knowledge of the technology. He did not have a knowledge of most of the core businesses of Hydro --

Mr Jordan: But he had more than a professional --

Mr Cassidy: -- and he had not been a CEO. He had been a professional manager and I am sure is very good, but you can always second-guess any choice like that. We are talking about changes in direction for Hydro. At the very least I think the outgoing board should have, let's say, consulted with the government before taking actions that I consider to have been peremptory.

Mr Jordan: In 1978, Mr Cassidy, you asked the then Minister of Energy, "What specific steps is the government taking to ensure that full consideration is given to the employment implications of all future energy policy directives in this province?" That was a question of yours to Mr Auld in 1978 regarding changes in Ontario Hydro, and I ask you that this morning relative to the changes that I see you are planning, or your government. The government and the corporation, as I see it, are going to be one. If this nuclear change takes place, what consideration is being given in order with the question you had asked at that time?

Mr Cassidy: In the first place, you said the government and the corporation are going to be one. I stated that, while my views are matters of public record, if confirmed as a director of Hydro, I certainly intend to use my judgement and my experience in terms of reaching conclusions on the board. I will not be turning around and calling up somebody in government and saying, "What do I do next?" That is not why I am being appointed.

The second thing is that I look at, let's say, the employment implications of a $12-billion investment like Darlington. When Darlington is built, in the end it will take a handful of people to operate. There are problems right now, as you know, just in terms of whether the technology is going to work out.

Back in 1978, one of the arguments I was making was that we should look at the range of initiatives by Hydro in the areas of conservation and alternative forms of energy as well as the route it was taking, following the nuclear option. One of the reasons was because of the employment implications.

Mr Jordan: Do you see conservation as a form of rationing?

Mr Cassidy: No, I do not. I do see it as a means of using energy more efficiently. I do not think you disagree with that. You have lights blazing all night because nobody bothers to turn them out. It seems like a waste in terms of where we are in our society. Whether we have to burn irreplaceable oil and gas to burn those lights, whether we have to send hot air up into the environment and contribute to global warming, whether we have to use hydraulic power that can be used for other purposes -- anything like that is a waste and I am sure you agree with me that it should be avoided.

Mr Jordan: In a speech to the Association of Major Power Consumers of Ontario, Frank Pickard stated, "The ongoing uncertainty over the province's energy cost and supply is the biggest single issue industry is facing in this province." How would you address businesses in the province which are concerned with the province's energy supply?

Mr Cassidy: I would have thought the bigger issues might be such things as the exchange rate, which is creating tremendous problems, and some of the implications of the free trade deal, but that is perhaps another discussion.

However, given the concern of the association of major power consumers, I think that the current hearings over the demand-supply plan of Hydro, which I believe will take another couple of years, are clearly creating uncertainty, but it is an uncertainty that one has to say must have existed from the time the previous government decided to initiate that kind of process.

It is an uncertainty that probably exists in almost every jurisdiction in North America because of the concern over environmental implications of major projects such as electricity generating projects, and it has led to various forms of environmental assessment. Therefore I suspect the association's counterparts in other provinces and states in North America are saying the same thing with respect to their situation. That is the kind of public environment we live in.

I do not think you would suggest that the Environmental Assessment Board should not be holding those hearings but, yes, I agree that it creates some uncertainty. That is going to happen.

Mr Wiseman: I have a number of questions for you. They revolve around the untapped capacity that is available to Ontario Hydro. In a recent study that Hydro has done, it has gone through five or six different forms of energy sources and has sort of estimated the number of megawatts that are capable of being generated, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 6,000 to 7,000 megawatts. The cogeneration alternatives are numerous.

Do you see this as a major focus that they should be embarking on, to have cogeneration buyback facilities developed throughout the province?

Mr Cassidy: Yes, I do. The amount of power that comes from that source right now is extremely limited. For many years it was limited because Hydro's buyback rate was so low that it basically did not pay. The reason that the buyback rate was low was because Hydro essentially did not want to see base load diverted from its nuclear power plants as the program continued from Pickering to Bruce and then to Darlington.

Yes, I think this is one area which should be encouraged. In many cases, cogeneration and small electricity generating projects are a good deal less environmentally damaging and more environmentally sensitive than megaprojects of whatever type.

Mr Wiseman: One of the problems that I foresee in this area is that the rate being paid now on the buyback in off-peak hours is really quite low. It would seem to me that the off-peak-hour time would be when the energy would be available from the cogenerators. The peak hour time, when the rate is the highest, would be when they would be selling it to their customers, so there would not be as much to purchase back. It would seem to me that the real benefits of costs, setting it up and getting it started, that their profit may be made in the off-peak hours as opposed to the peak hours. Could you comment on that?

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Mr Cassidy: That is a fairly technical issue, but I would assume that in off-peak hours, while Hydro can slow down the water it is using in Niagara Falls and so on, it cannot slow down the nuclear power stations. Basically they produce enough base load that there is not a lot of call for off-peak power coming from cogeneration.

If the price varies then, I would say as an economist, what that means is you are sending a signal to people or firms who want to engage in cogeneration to try to design their facilities in such a way that they can feed power into the grid at the times that Hydro needs it the most. Therefore, to cut the rate in peak hours and to increase it in off-peak might make certain types of cogeneration more financially attractive, but at the same time that would be of less use to Hydro.

In the end, Hydro's problem is that in a few days in December you get the load peaking in Ontario, and whether by its own sources or by buying from somewhere else when other people are having the same problems, it has got to be able to meet that demand. That is why a differential price may make some sense.

Mr Wiseman: I am concerned about research and development, and in particular the fact that we as a country are not really involved in an in-depth way in hydrogen research.

You will probably recall the speech that Howard McCurdy made in the House when the federal government cancelled its hydrogen research at the National Research Council. In it he indicated that other nations in the world, particularly Germany, are far ahead.

Do you see the potential for Ontario Hydro to become even more involved -- I know they are doing a little bit of hydrogen research in Mississauga -- but even more involved with hydrogen research?

Mr Cassidy: It is an area I do not know a great deal about but, as I recall, Ed Philip used to be extremely interested in this area as well in the Ontario House. It seems like a natural because hydrogen is basically a way of responding to the problem we just talked about, of taking off-peak power and translating it into a power supply which is available to meet the peaks.

I think Hydro should be looking at it very seriously, although until now it is one of those things that is always just out there but never quite realized. Maybe it will not work, but I would certainly like to see it pursued.

Mr Wiseman: I have one last question concerning the upgrading of old equipment and the programs Ontario Hydro has put into place with respect to giving grants for the use of energy-efficient motors. This is creating a problem in the industry of rewinding motors. Businesses are getting grants from Ontario Hydro to buy brand-new high efficiency motors. People who are rewinding motors are not getting any grants to rewind them in an energy-efficient way, so they are going out of business.

I would be concerned that a director should take care to look holistically at what his or her programs are going to do in the marketplace. Could you comment on that?

Mr Cassidy: I think you make a good point. It may be that if you are going to provide an incentive of 25% of the cost for an energy-efficient motor, maybe you provide something less than that for a motor that is not quite as energy-efficient but that is certainly a substantial improvement which has been produced by a recycler or a rewinder.

I was struck by the success of Hydro's marketing of energy-efficient lamps with the aid of Loblaws a year or so ago. I have no particular objection to Hydro using marketing and other devices in order to try to sugar-coat energy conservation and get people to be on board. I think there is a great deal of public sympathy and support for that, if people can be given the chance to do it without too much difficulty in access. Just as they are prepared to use blue boxes across the province, they are prepared to use energy-efficient lightbulbs if you make them available in a reasonable way.

Mr Klopp: Maybe this is more of a comment. My riding is in a rural area, so I guess I get to run into the Hydro people a few more times than some people in the cities do.

One of the comments that I have heard in off hours is that Ontario Hydro is looking at renting companies to do work for it rather than having staff. From being out in the coffee shops, I hope they are doing it recognizing that in rural Ontario it is not more cost-effective not to have full-time staff. When a Hydro line goes out, as some of the members here know, it is not very easy to get someone at short notice. Maybe they are standing around, but you actually do need them. It is like the guys running the plow. We do not need them all summer. But in the wintertime we all want someone there and it is better to have them working on staff full-time.

I certainly hope that if anything like that is done, the board will consider what is more efficient in human terms and in service to the people of rural Ontario. I know when my Hydro line goes out, I do not want to have people sitting around waiting for five hours until they get some contractor to come over. We want that person to come fairly fast. That is why I do not mind that Hydro bill. I certainly hope that is being looked at.

Mr Cassidy: I think that is a valid point. I am aware of the issue. Obviously I have not had a chance to explore it in detail.

I think one of the challenges in terms of turning Hydro around -- and we are talking, I think, about turning Hydro around -- is it has to become more efficient, oddly enough, because if you look at the profit figures, the recession has really hit Hydro badly. It is now projecting power rate increases which are well above the rate of inflation, and that is going to have an economic effect on the province as well.

That increase in efficiency does not have to be achieved, in my opinion, by buying everything from Mexico or by subcontracting to people who are working a full 15 hours or something like that. That is not the way Hydro should operate. That will not give you both the security and safety for workers and the reliability we demand in our Hydro utility in this province.

Mr Klopp: I just want to make a really short comment on the whole thing. It always seems that upper management never gets cut. It is the linemen whose jobs we are going to be cut to make it more efficient. I hope that attitude is looked at all the way through.

Mr Cassidy: I hear you. Yes.

Mr Waters: I have a bit of a concern, and that is that Ontario Hydro seems to be going through the province right now reviewing some of the small hydroelectric plants that have been built since the early days of Hydro -- they have been there for 50 years or something -- looking at decommissioning or refitting. I wonder if you could comment on what side of this you would like to see, because I have seen some already they have taken a look at and decommissioned to the point where they cannot be rebuilt.

Mr Cassidy: I think you raised one of those when Mr Eliesen was here with respect to a plant somewhere in Muskoka. I was surprised to see that, because I would have thought that one way or the other it should be possible to continue to use that and to feed that power into the grid. I do not know the circumstances in that particular case. It may be that Hydro on its own would have difficulty making that particular operation work, but the local municipal utility, for example, might be able to make it work by making it an adjunct to other operations so that it was more efficient to run after it was re-equipped. There may be other options which should be exempt. I am not averse to that at all.

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Mr McGuinty: Mr Cassidy, as a director, to whom would you owe a fiduciary duty, to the government or the ratepayers?

Mr Cassidy: The fiduciary duty of a director in a normal private corporation is in fact to the shareholders. Hydro does not have share capital and it is a crown corporation, but the owners are the people of the province whose ownership is transmitted through the government, which in turn chooses the directors and has some say in naming certain officers of Hydro. That is a rather ambiguous answer, I guess. I think the concept of stakeholders is probably the best one to look at. As a director and given that situation, obviously I would have regard for the views of the government, but also for the interests of the other stakeholders, which means the ratepayers, the businesses, the municipal utilities that have a particular role within Hydro, users in industry and so on.

Mr McGuinty: My concern, of course, is that you could be placed in a position of conflict as a director, particularly in light of the proposed amendments to the Power Corporation Act, which even go so far as to absolve you from any responsibility or accountability as long as you are doing as the government tells you.

Let me give me a specific example of something that is taking place right now. As a ratepayer, I am not happy that the government has ordered Ontario Hydro to pay $160 million more for uranium from Elliot Lake over the next three years than it can get elsewhere on the open market. It also told them to inject $65 million into the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. There you have a case where as a ratepayer I am not pleased with those actions. How would you resolve that conflict as a director if I as a ratepayer expressed my concerns to you? Do you condone the government using Ontario Hydro to solve an unemployment problem in the way it is doing?

Mr Cassidy: I think you have to go back a bit, Mr McGuinty. The problem at Elliot Lake dates from decisions of the Conservatives back in the 1970s to commit to a contract which at the time appeared to be uneconomic and which have proved to be uneconomic in the sense of this high-cost uranium, when much lower-cost uranium was available from outside the province.

The government, in making its wishes known to Hydro, and Hydro itself therefore had a choice: Do you then walk out? The people of Elliot Lake are not responsible for that. Do you continue the contracts until the year 2000 and then have the town face the same problems of readaptation as it has to face now or do you try to find some middle course? You are a politician. It makes sense to try to find some way by which everybody can benefit without getting into the very high cost or just simply continuing as though the world had not changed.

I believe the previous government was going to continue the contracts till the year 2000. I think what is being done is a good deal more prudent, but I find it very hard for Hydro to say, "Too bad, chaps. Mistakes were made in the 1970s so we are going to shut you down today," when Hydro is the last remaining customer for Elliot Lake uranium.

Mr McGuinty: So you condone the government using Ontario Hydro's funds to deal with what are properly government problems.

Mr Cassidy: Let's start by saying that this is a directive. The government has taken responsibility for saying to Hydro, "Go ahead and do it." As I said before, I think that is as it should be. I mentioned the Arnprior dam, with which I was intimately involved. Somebody from Hydro wandered into Arnprior one day during an election in 1971 and said: "We are going to build you a dam. We always knew you wanted it." It was touted as an economic development investment. In my opinion, to this day I think it was an unjustified investment.

There was no directive that Hydro was taking an action which you would categorize as being uneconomic and unjustified. That was done with a wink and a nod, and I do not think that is correct. But I think Hydro has a special responsibility for Elliot Lake, which perhaps sets it apart from using Hydro as an instrument to, let's say, give cheap power to a particular part of the province as an instrument of economic development. That would probably be better done by means of direct government incentive.

Mr McGuinty: One last question on the nuclear option: I take it you do not favour the nuclear option. Is that correct?

Mr Cassidy: Put it this way. We have the nuclear option in the sense that there are 10,000 or 15,000 megawatts of nuclear power out there coming on stream when Darlington gets sorted out. I cannot see for the foreseeable future, let's say a 10-year or 15-year time span, that Hydro is going to move away from that amount of reliance on nuclear power. The question for the next decade is, does Hydro continue to commit new nuclear stations or does it look very intensely at all the other options? That would be the direction I would prefer.

Mr McGuinty: If the environmental assessment which is reviewing the 25-year demand-supply plan at the present time, if that body which is conducting what I would categorize as a thorough, impartial and objective review of the plan, recommends at the end of the day that a nuclear component be contained in our approach to future generation, how would you react to that?

Mr Cassidy: That would mean if Hydro then found it needed to meet electricity demand by having a nuclear power station, it would have the basic authorization from the Environmental Assessment Board to do so; but it does not mean Hydro therefore has to start to put the shovels in the ground the next day and build a nuclear power station, if it proves possible and desirable to use other means to meet the need for power through alternative sources of generation or through demand management and conservation.

Remember that the plan Hydro put forward was a plan which was shaped at the time of the previous government and therefore perhaps went more heavily on the use of nuclear than some other plan put forward by Hydro that the new government would rely on. So it does not mean that Hydro is committed, although it opens the door if that is needed.

Mr Elston: Mr Cassidy, you are antinuclear, are you not?

Mr Cassidy: I have indicated my position, which is that I have grave reservations about it. We looked very strongly, when I was leader of the party, at trying to de-emphasize the use of nuclear. We did not say the nuclear plants then existing in Ontario should be shut down. What we did say, though, was that we should be looking very strongly towards means of conservation and energy efficiency.

Mr Elston: You have a job with the Ginger Group Consultants?

Mr Cassidy: Correct.

Mr Elston: Still?

Mr Cassidy: Yes.

Mr Elston: Do you not think that as a consultant and probably a lobbyist you have some major potential for conflicts of interest?

Mr Cassidy: I have thought about that and I have inquired about it, and the answer is no. My field of action is Ottawa. My area is public affairs, but I am not engaging --

Mr Elston: Do they consume hydro in Ottawa?

Mr Cassidy: Yes, but I do not happen to have worked for anybody particularly concerned with Hydro, and as a director of Ontario Hydro I am obviously going to be aware of the fact not to enter into contracts which engage me in conflict of interest.

I find it surprising that the president of the Bank of Nova Scotia could be on the board of Hydro when it is a major financial agent for Hydro, and I think that there are problems that have to be looked at in terms of conflict of interest in the existing board, but I do not think there is a problem.

Mr Elston: We heard Mr Klopp say there should be no contracting out. Is that your position?

Mr Klopp: I did not say that.

Mr Elston: I misunderstood. Mr Klopp is not saying Hydro should not contract out; he just said you should be careful.

Mr Cassidy: He was questioning the use of contracting out. I think it is a very valid point.

Mr Elston: What is your position? Are you in favour of contracting out in proper circumstances?

Mr Cassidy: I would question the use of contracting out. It has been suggested, however, that smaller companies, entrepreneurs, co-operatives and that kind of thing be able to develop alternative sources of generation, and I do not know if that is a bad --

Mr Elston: Contracting out, as you well know, Mr Cassidy, talks about the workforce of Hydro. The question I asked you quite directly was, are you in favour of contracting out?

Mr Cassidy: As a general principle, no.

Mr Elston: As a director, you would say there will be no contracting out for Hydro?

Mr Cassidy: No, I would not exclude it but I would just say that as a general principle I would prefer to keep it in-house where that is possible.

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Mr Elston: The issue now for me is with respect to the use of Hydro to raise extra tax dollars for a cash-strapped government, as Mr Walkom would have put it, in different words than he used in his column this morning. Do you look at Hydro as a ready source of tax-raising capacity for the government of Ontario?

Mr Cassidy: With the drop in its profits in the most recent fiscal year, the answer is obviously no. Hydro was under very serious financial constraints. With the new nuclear stations coming on, each one that comes on brings a very substantial load of interest and debt repayment to Hydro, and of depreciation when they stop being in the construction phase. Hydro, therefore, is going to have difficulty keeping its rates from rising in real terms.

Mr Elston: Just two questions to finish that off. You would have resisted the directive to make a payment of $65 million to the heritage fund by Ontario Hydro?

Mr Cassidy: In response to Mr McGuinty, I suggested that if that is a better alternative than spending on uneconomic uranium until the year 2000, I would look at what has been done now very seriously.

Mr Elston: That basically is a payment of public funds into a public body for government regional development, is it not?

Mr Cassidy: I am given to understand that it was suggested to the previous government that the money keep on going in and that the contracts keep on going up to the year 2000. That could have cost a billion dollars or more.

Mr Elston: No, I talked about the heritage fund payment, which is different from what you were just talking about.

Mr Cassidy: I am just saying that I can add that $200 million is an awful lot less than $1 billion and in that sense I think Hydro is acting responsibly.

Mr Elston: But the government really has done that. The issue for me then is that, second, as a revenue-generating source you would resist, as a director of Hydro and a person who is now responsible to the ratepayers and others, a move by the current government to put provincial sales tax on energy, including electricity, as is being done now by the federal people and the GST?

Mr Cassidy: To put provincial sales tax on energy?

Mr Elston: Yes.

Mr Cassidy: I thought I paid that when I bought gasoline, but I just --

Mr Elston: Hydro. We are talking about hydro, Michael.

Mr Cassidy: Okay, yes.

Mr Elston: I am being kind of specific here. I know we pay it on gasoline. What about electricity? GST is paid. Are you in a position as a director of Hydro responsible to the ratepayers, responsible for all the economic activity that you have talked about and responsible for following provincial directives, to make a representation to the current government, as its choice, not to put provincial sales tax on electrical energy consumption?

Mr Cassidy: That is a good question and I cannot give you a direct answer to it because I have not --

Mr Elston: You have not given me any yet, so I would not be surprised.

Mr Cassidy: I would have to say that I do not know. I think it depends as well on terms of the overall --

Mr Elston: But you did know when you did the material here on your GST-related studies for certain organizations through your company, the Ginger Group, about the effect of GST on all sorts of things. Why would you not know about the effect of provincial sales tax being placed on electrical consumption? It seems to be relatively the same principles at work, would you not think?

The Chair: Mr Cassidy, you are not going to have time to respond to that. You can do it privately perhaps. We have some tough time restrictions on this committee.

Mr Elston: I want to go to a board meeting and ask him some more questions. Is that appropriate?

The Chair: Sure, whatever.

Mr Elston: Can I get appointed?

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Cassidy, for coming here today. We wish you well.

SUSAN GILLESPIE

The Chair: The next intended appointee for review is Susan Gillespie as a member of the Rent Review Hearings Board.

Ms Gillespie, welcome to the committee. Do you have any comments you would like to make at the outset before we get right into questioning?

Ms Gillespie: I would just like to make a couple of brief comments.

The Chair: Very briefly, please, because we are under some tough time constraints.

Ms Gillespie: Yes, I realize that.

The Chair: Can we have order, please, out of respect for our witnesses if nothing else? Thank you very much. Ms Gillespie.

Ms Gillespie: I would just like to say, as opening remarks, that I am a civil servant in the province of Ontario and I have been asked by the deputy minister to take a position at the board as vice-chair and director of the Rent Review Hearings Board. This position is the senior civil service position in that organization.

Initially, the vice-chair position was the only position in the board that could be a civil service position, and under section 39 of the act that particular position was limited to the vice-chair. However, that section of the act was repealed and replaced with another section that has taken out any restrictions on civil servants being appointed as members of the Rent Review Hearings Board.

One other comment I would like to make is that I understand you all have a copy of the bio and job description that was sent out. The position description included here is a member position. The additional responsibility for the vice-chair and director are not reflected here and that is the position I have been asked to assume.

Mr Turnbull: Obviously, we will have a difficult time in terms of rental housing. We have a tremendous number of appeals; we have a backlog. It seems to me that is going to be exacerbated by the tinkering being done by this government in the rent review process. Specifically, I want to talk about the need for renovations.

I believe $10 billion worth of renovations are required for Ontario's rental stock. You are obviously aware of the proposed new rent legislation that is before the House. Let's take a case of a building that has not had extensive renovations but has got to that point in its life where it does need extensive renovation. Let's hypothetically draw the case that it needs quite extensive underground parking repairs because the rebar has rusted out. You have some balconies that need major repair and the windows after a 25-year or 30-year life need replacement. They are not energy-efficient. Is it your opinion that the proposed legislation will allow landlords to be able to pay for those renovations?

Ms Gillespie: What you are asking for is an opinion on proposed policy of the government. As a professional civil servant, I have no opinion on government policy as to whether I agree with it or not. It is my responsibility as a civil servant to implement the policy that is there to the best of my ability, regardless of the government in power or which way it goes. I am not able to comment on proposed government policy.

Mr Turnbull: How would you act as a civil servant in this position when you are faced with a difficult position when a landlord is being told he must do certain renovations and he says: "I can't afford it because there is not enough money to do this and I have a mortgage. I can't pull the money out of thin air"? You would have that responsibility.

Ms Gillespie: As a civil servant and as vice-chair of the board, I am responsible for the implementation of the existing policy to the best of my abilities, which means that we have to have an expeditious process to implement the existing legislation at the appeals level. We hear the appeals of the initial orders and there are rules in the legislation, rules in the regulations that limit what board members can consider on a hearing. It is our responsibility to make sure they are responsible for making their judgement calls based on those rules. As vice-chair and director, I am responsible for providing support and moving things along as quickly as possible so that delays are removed.

Mr Turnbull: How can you provide them with the support if you have laws and regulations that conflict with the reality of money? You are going to have this difficult position. You are going to be in the appeals process where somebody says: "I am sorry. I would love to do these renovations, but I don't have any money." How will you, as a civil servant, be able to handle that load?

Ms Gillespie: By following the legislation, by implementing it.

Mr Turnbull: Blindly.

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Ms Gillespie: As a civil servant, one is not judging the government, one is not judging the policies. One takes the policies and administers them to the best of one's ability, and if somebody has a set of circumstances that in his opinion are not dealt with favourably by the policy, it is the policy that we are responsible for administering. You cannot be selective as to whether its application should not be made across the board. One has to be very consistent about that. It is the existing policy that we have to deal with.

Mr Turnbull: If you have difficulty with policy and you are being obliged to administer it without any judgement, would you consider that you have the responsibility to input to the ministry and to the minister the problems you are having with how realistic the regulations are?

Ms Gillespie: I think in the administration of the legislation one has to follow the policy and the regulations and the statutes that exist, but there has always been a mechanism for feedback to be brought forward. There is a review of orders done by a policy branch for example, input from the client groups and to the policy-making area to give that kind of feedback. But from our perspective, we have a responsibility under the legislation. As civil servants, we follow the policy that is there and, as I said earlier, regardless of which government is in power. It is the government to which you have loyalties.

Mr Turnbull: I understand what you are saying, but the thing I am struck with is you are a quasi-judicial body, and when anything goes before the courts, a judge interprets a case within the framework of the law, but also has the right to look at precedents that have been set. Precedents are often based upon a logical conclusion, but what you are telling me is you are not allowed to reach any logical conclusion as a civil servant. You just have to follow the guidelines blindly.

Ms Gillespie: One does not blindly follow, but one follows the existing policy that is there. As a member of the board sitting on a hearing panel reviewing an appeal, my responsibilities are to determine the facts of the case, to take the existing legislation and regulations and apply them as fairly and as accurately as is humanly possible to those facts.

Where court precedents have been set, then yes, they do direct to the board and the minister, with respect to the treatment of certain areas. That is at a parallel of senior civil servant and member of the board. As a member of the board holding a hearing, I review the facts of the case and apply the legislation to it. As a vice-chair and director of the civil servant, whether one agrees or disagrees with existing policy or future policy is irrelevant, because it is the existing policy that we are there to implement and that is what we do to the best of our ability.

Mr Turnbull: As a senior civil servant -- and I am not asking for an opinion; I am simply asking for information that you have seen within the ministry -- is it possible within the framework of the proposed new legislation to be able to pay for major renovations of buildings?

Ms Gillespie: I do not know. I have no answer to that.

Mr Turnbull: Are you aware of what the average amount of household income is spent by renters in this province?

Ms Gillespie: On average across the province?

Mr Turnbull: Yes.

Ms Gillespie: I do not have those statistics with me. When you look at that type of a scenario, if you look at the rent-geared-to-income rent supplement units, there is the percentage limitation of income and then you compare that to the private sector when you need to have a revenue comparison.

Mr Turnbull: You will be responsible for the private sector housing?

Ms Gillespie: Yes.

Mr Turnbull: Yes, and you do not know what that is at the moment. What is your experience with the private sector rental housing?

Ms Gillespie: Rent review?

Mr Turnbull: Yes.

Ms Gillespie: Perhaps you could elaborate a little on your question.

Mr Turnbull: I am rather curious that you do not know how much is spent by the average household in this province. It is actually just over 17%, but I was just curious. We have established that you will not be able to do anything by way of interpretation, but I take it from what you were saying you are prepared to input information to the ministry on the views of legislation.

Ms Gillespie: The minister has asked for input from the civil servants into his legislation. He sent out a consultation paper last year and gave the opportunity to all of the people who work in the ministry, plus all of the potential clients affected, to input into his consultation paper.

Mr Turnbull: In looking at your resume, did I see that political science was one of your majors?

Ms Gillespie: A long time ago, yes.

Mr Turnbull: Are you a member of a political party?

Ms Gillespie: No, I am not.

Mr Turnbull: Have you ever been active in any political party?

Ms Gillespie: No, I have not.

Mr Turnbull: I have no more questions. Thank you very much.

Mr Wiseman: I would just like to cover some things that might be more relevant than the previous questions. Your job on the board would be a one-year term, is that correct?

Ms Gillespie: Yes.

Mr Wiseman: Are you taking a leave of absence, or what kind of security do you have in terms of being able to return?

Ms Gillespie: I retain my civil service status. At the end of the appointment I would still be a civil servant and my next assignment would be up to the deputy.

Mr Wiseman: How long have you been involved in rent review?

Ms Gillespie: Fifteen years.

Mr Wiseman: That would make it 1976, relatively early on in the process, since the Davis government brought it in and announced it in the 1975 election.

Ms Gillespie: That is right.

Mr Wiseman: Rent review has undergone a considerable amount of change since then and obviously what is now happening is some more change. Could you give us a history of how you have been able to keep current in terms of the legislation? What I am looking at particularly is your familiarity with the legislation which will allow you to make the decisions based on it.

Ms Gillespie: It is a big question. I have worked in all of the phases of rent review. We are into the third act right now and there is a fourth before the Legislature.

In the initial legislation, I was a member of the staff. I was an information officer, mainly information and inquiry. I continued to work for the Residential Tenancy Commission once that was established to replace the first law that was in effect. The commission was established to administer the legislation and I again was in the information stream and dealt with clients, providing very current information on the legislation and the regulations and the procedures. I was given an appointment to the commission to act as an adjudicator under the Residential Tenancies Act and I held that position for four or five years. Then I experienced various adjudicating rent review applications by landlords or tenants.

When the new legislation came in, I applied for the position of regional manager of the northern region of the new rent review services branch. At that point, instead of actually making decisions on the case for which you needed extensive and thorough knowledge, I took on responsibility for managing the delivery of the program, which meant that from a more management perspective I was responsible for rent review across northern Ontario and for implementing the government policies and what not. One becomes very aware of what the content of the legislation is, so that the staff are given appropriate training and development and the procedures are in place to ensure a good product.

Mr Wiseman: So your history in terms of the legislation and what has come before is pretty extensive.

Ms Gillespie: Very extensive.

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Mr Wiseman: Since there is a backlog right now and, as I understand it, a number of people are being appointed to help alleviate this backlog, do you know the number?

Ms Gillespie: The number of people being appointed?

Mr Wiseman: Let's back this down a bit. How many adjudicators are there?

Ms Gillespie: There are 38 board member positions available and nine vacancies at this particular time. Two appointments have just gone through and, with the elimination of the restriction on civil servants being hired or being given orders in council to act as board members, we are hoping to have people within the program appointed to board member positions for the period of a year to have well-trained and qualified staff moving into the positions relatively quickly. That way we can get an earlier move on eliminating the backlog. Just to train up from scratch a new board member is quite a lengthy process because of the legislation itself.

Mr Wiseman: Do you feel comfortable with the direction in terms of putting people in place to adjudicate? Do you feel comfortable with the direction that is now being demonstrated? Are there enough people coming in?

Ms Gillespie: With the nine, you mean?

Mr Wiseman: With the nine new people.

Ms Gillespie: We can make a lot of inroads into the backlog, and having them up and trained very quickly will help us even more. Whether the nine will ultimately be sufficient we will see as we go through the process, because the one other component that is missing is that I have got to get a good review and understanding of any other difficulties that might be experienced in the board that we may be able to alleviate, so other areas that are perhaps blocking the resolution of appeals can be dealt with.

On the one level we are hoping to hire new board members through this process to get more people sitting on appeals, but there is more to resolving an appeal than just sitting on a hearing. We have got to make sure that all of the supports are there within the organization to schedule them as quickly as possible to make sure there are no blockages caused perhaps by a lack of co-ordination of staff activity supporting the hearing process and that they are removed if they exist.

So it is a two-component area here. It is getting board members and it is making sure that the process and the staffing and the procedures in place to support that are working well. Then we will know whether ultimately that will be enough and we will deal with that when it arises.

Mr McGuinty: You have had extensive involvement in the rent review process over time. Were you consulted with respect to the legislation that is being brought forward at the present time?

Ms Gillespie: Only as far as the minister sending out a copy of the consultation paper last February inviting comments from staff in the ministry as well as members of the public and whoever else might have been interested.

Mr McGuinty: I think one of the other members addressed the issue of the backlog. That is something that has plagued the system for some time. What do you see, if you are successful in obtaining this appointment, as undoubtedly you will be, that you can do to resolve that difficulty?

Ms Gillespie: As I just mentioned, one of the first things is to get new board member positions on stream so that they can have more people committed to holding the hearings at the appeals level, because we are only talking about the appeals level here, and to look through the organization to streamline processes and procedures to expedite as much as possible the process without compromising the quality of the decisions that the board members will be making on the appeals.

We are also looking at areas to improve training for staff as well as board members. That again will be a function of what I find out in the next few weeks on the job and the problems that are encountered by the regional managers and that they have identified. It is a very big picture with a lot of components that will come together and make greater moves into the process itself.

Mr McGuinty: How has your case load been affected by the interim legislation, and how do you think it will be affected by the new legislation?

Ms Gillespie: Interim legislation being brought forth?

Mr McGuinty: Yes.

Ms Gillespie: Initially the incoming appeals were at a somewhat lower rate than in previous months simply because of the negative impact of new legislation in training and establishing new procedures to implement the bill for the Residential Rent Regulation Act into the process at the initial level. On average about 25% of the initial level orders are appealed to the board, and our incoming workload is very much a function of how many outgoing orders there are from the rent review services branch. That was one of the initial ones, and one expects that. It is a temporary thing.

With respect to other areas, the impact of Bill 4 and the number of appeals that may come out of that, we still do not know, because once the legislation was passed, there were certain time frames where landlords had an opportunity to update their previous submissions, which meant that at the rent review services level, they were not able to proceed as they would have without this bill amending the legislation.

They have had to hold back on reviewing those to give the landlords their opportunity to make further submissions, given Bill 4, and then the tenants an opportunity to respond to that. They are at present waiting for those time frames to elapse, and until they do, will not be in a position to issue any orders on them. Ultimately we will see the impact of that in late summer.

Mr McGuinty: I gather it is the members who actually sit on the board.

Ms Gillespie: The appeals? Yes.

Mr McGuinty: What criteria are there in use at the present time for membership on the board?

Ms Gillespie: The individuals must be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Other than that and the qualifications for the job, I do not believe there are any specific criteria.

Mr McGuinty: Are you satisfied with the ability of the members at present? Are we doing what we should be doing in order to get the best people into those positions?

Ms Gillespie: I am not in a position at this point to comment on the ability of the members. There have been none except the recent two who have been appointed since my arrival on the job, so I really cannot comment on their backgrounds or their qualifications. I am satisfied that what we will be doing in the future, through competition and selection, will result in qualified people being hired.

Mr McGuinty: If you had to define criteria for qualification, what would those be?

Ms Gillespie: Understanding of the legislation and regulations, of the adjudicative process, and a financial administrative background. There is an extensive component with respect to financing acquisitions of property, so knowledge in that and the property management area is quite important. One's ability to look at the facts and apply the legislation, the judgement, is very important as well. Those are the key components, although they are certainly not all of them.

Mr McGuinty: How did you come before this committee today? Were you contacted by someone? Did you submit an application?

Ms Gillespie: No, to come to the committee today, Mr Arnott called me and said I had been asked.

Mr McGuinty: How did you make application for the position then?

Ms Gillespie: On the request of the deputy. The ADM of housing policy and general manager of corporate resources approached me in early May, and there was a follow-up conversation with the deputy after that. That is how I was approached.

Mr McGuinty: Those are my questions, Mr Chair.

The Acting Chair (Mr Grandmaître): The government side has three minutes. Did you want to relinquish those? I would appreciate it because we are running late again. Thank you, Ms Gillespie.

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LORENZO PETRICONE

The Acting Chair: Our next nominee is Lorenzo Petricone, intended appointee as member of the Rent Review Hearings Board. The third party requested this interview.

Mr Petricone: My name is Lorenzo Petricone. My opening comment may be a little bit of a taping of what the person ahead of me said.

I have been a civil servant since 1986. I was working with rent review even before that as a commissioner with the Residential Tenancy Commission. I have had approximately 300 hearings dealing with about 9,000 units to be reviewed or in other ways subject to the act. All the time I have been a civil servant I have been involved with rent review, first as a co-ordinator of rent review compliance, and more recently as chief co-ordinator of building standards programs, which deal mainly with maintenance of buildings.

I am currently an appeals commissioner under the Residential Tenancies Act in order to clear up some of the issues that are coming back from Divisional Court. I have been asked by the executive director of rent review programs to help clear the backlog of the Rent Review Hearings Board and have accepted to do that for the next year.

As I said, I am a civil servant, and eventually at the end of that year, if I am no longer needed at the rent review, I will be going back to my job as a civil servant.

Mr Turnbull: I am very concerned about the backlog of renovations in this province. I understand, and your colleague before you said it, that as a civil servant you simply apply the law. Let's just talk about when you were applying it as a rent review commissioner. You had 300 hearings. Are there statistics kept of the number of appeals that are launched from one commissioner to another?

Mr Petricone: There may be statistics. I kept my own statistics. I think approximately 20% of my decisions were sent to appeal. Obviously some of them were affirmed, others were changed.

Mr Turnbull: Do you know of that 20% which was which?

Mr Petricone: I have no idea. I am not prepared right now to tell you what was affirmed and what was changed.

Mr Turnbull: What typically was the issue that people were appealing?

Mr Petricone: A number of issues. The matters to be considered are so vast that sometimes the treatment of evidence would be appealed. For some of them, in the opinion of the appellant, it would have been the meaning of some evidence, or possibly the lack of some evidence that could cause the order to be appealed. In other cases, there may have been strictly a clerical error in the order itself that would require an appeal. There are a number of reasons why an order may be appealed in the Residential Tenancies Act.

Mr Turnbull: In your opinion, as a result of Bill 51, the applications that were made specifically for renovations, because I gather this is your field of expertise --

Mr Petricone: You are talking about Bill 51?

Mr Turnbull: Bill 51, which was the Liberal legislation amended by Bill 4.

Mr Petricone: Yes, the Residential Rent Regulation Act.

Mr Turnbull: Under that, do you think the amount of money for renovations that was applied for by and large was justified? You saw the cases and the appeals. Were the moneys being spent on renovations?

Mr Petricone: Before I answer that question, may I remind you that I held hearings under the Residential Tenancies Act, not under the Residential Rent Regulation Act.

Mr Turnbull: Okay, but you heard appeals recently under Bill 51, right?

Mr Petricone: No. My job under the most recent legislation has been, as I said, with compliance and with the building standards program. I have had no input or direct involvement with adjudication of obligations for review, nor obviously for appeal, which is a different body altogether, the Rent Review Hearings Board.

Mr Turnbull: Yes, but obviously you have stayed current with what is going on.

Mr Petricone: Current as much as possible because of my two other jobs. In some cases I had to look up some of the orders that had been issued. Obviously, as I said, I had no authority to deal with the decisions or with the reasons behind those orders of the other appeals.

Mr Turnbull: With the compliance branch you initiated, if you wish, sometimes against the landlords' wishes but certainly on behalf of the tenants, renovations to buildings that were needed. Is that correct?

Mr Petricone: I did not quite understand the question, sir.

Mr Turnbull: In the compliance branch you identified problems with the standards of the building.

Mr Petricone: No, in the compliance branch I mainly enforced the legislation and particularly the offences that could have been committed either by the landlords or the tenants to the legislation. We had a group of investigators doing exactly that. We would intervene mainly following a complaint of either one of the parties and we would investigate it and usually tried to resolve the problem before it got any further. In other cases, it would then be taken to court.

Mr Turnbull: But the compliance was with respect to the building standards.

Mr Petricone: No, that is my current position. My job now entails applying the decisions of the Residential Rental Standards Board. I do not know if you are familiar with that board. They send us reports on the status of building maintenance in certain buildings that have been inspected by various inspection bodies, mainly building inspectors, fire inspectors or rating devices inspectors. The residential standards board eventually issues an order of a report to us, to the rent review services. We then process that report, and in some cases issue orders for suspension of rent increases. Sometimes if matters go any further -- -

Mr Turnbull: But this is because the maintenance of the building is not up to snuff.

Mr Petricone: Yes, right.

Mr Turnbull: Is it your opinion that there will be enough money in the system to be able to renovate these buildings under the proposed new legislation?

Mr Petricone: Sir, I wish I could afford the luxury of having an opinion on that. I am a civil servant and, as such, I can work with the law, apply the law as it exists and as it has been knowledgeably and intelligently discussed by you people.

Mr Turnbull: Okay, then the other side of that argument is, under the applications that were made under the previous legislation, prior to Bill 4, were the costs justified for the renovations?

Mr Petricone: Do you mean if each application was?

Mr Turnbull: Most.

Mr Petricone: I think I said earlier that I do not work with the decisions on applications under the Residential Rent Regulation Act.

Mr Turnbull: But being involved in the ministry, I am sure you were aware of what was going on.

Mr Petricone: Only marginally, sir, not in a direct decision-making position.

Mr Turnbull: What do you feel that you will bring to this job as a civil servant?

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Mr Petricone: My experience. Possibly I neglected to say that before joining the civil service, for 32 years I worked in the construction field.

Mr Turnbull: I saw that in your curriculum vitae.

Mr Petricone: I feel -- at least it is my opinion; that opinion I can have -- I am quite qualified to work with rent review and to judge on the merits of the case the situations that are brought before me, both from my experience in private industry and my experience with government and rent review.

Mr Turnbull: My concern is this. I understand the difficulty that the civil servant has. I am not trying to elicit any political statement from you. It is just the fact that we have a deteriorating housing stock and we going to have to fund the renovation of that. I basically believe that under the proposed legislation, there will be no money available for it because lenders will not lend. I am curious, when somebody is bound as you are as a civil servant just to apply the laws without any relationship to whether they make any sense, whether that does not compromise the whole process.

Mr Petricone: As professional civil servants, the only thing we can hope is that you as politicians or as lawmakers give us the tools and the laws that may resolve the problems you have just outlined. Once that document comes down to us, we have no other choice but to stick to it. Possibly, if I can bring out an example, if a judge were to apply his own opinion on capital punishment --

Mr Turnbull: But a judge does interpret the law.

Mr Petricone: But he cannot apply capital punishment if the law prevents him from doing that.

Mr Turnbull: He has a range of things that he can apply. You do not.

Mr Petricone: That is when the law allows a decision-maker the discretion of that range. There are laws that allow that discretion and laws that do not allow that discretion.

Mr Turnbull: I have no further questions.

Mr Hayes: Mr Petricone, there has been some criticism of the system presently and in the past, in that landlords may be able to afford, for example, a lawyer to go and represent them, yet some of the tenants do not have that luxury or cannot afford that. It puts them into an awkward imbalance really or maybe unfair representation sometimes. What is your perception of that? What do you think we can do to improve that, so everybody has a fair representation at hearings?

Mr Petricone: In terms of representation, you are right. Often the landlords may have a specific rent review consultant to appear on their behalf. Often in my experience with the previous legislation, groups of tenants would have an association which in turn would provide a lawyer or a consultant on their behalf.

It was and I think still is the responsibility, in this case of the hearing board member and in my time of the commissioner, to make sure that all parties have an opportunity to bring out their own particular issues. Something that, as commissioners, we were encouraged to do is to ask questions and possibly sometimes to analyse the evidence submitted by both parties. In that case we would help the party that was not properly represented in bringing out all the issues involved.

Mr Waters: I had to step out for a few minutes, and the only question I wanted to make sure of is that you are under the same guidelines Ms Gillespie mentioned about her employment status upon completion of this one-year term.

Mr Petricone: I suppose so, yes. I have not seen those guidelines.

Mr Waters: I just wanted to find out for sure if you were under the same guidelines.

Mr Petricone: Yes. I am told that I am in for a one-year appointment. I am still a civil servant. I will go back to my job when I am no longer needed on the hearings board. I have accepted to help clear up the backlog. It has been offered to me and I have been invited to be part of this group by the executive director of rent review programs and I have accepted.

Mr McGuinty: You are a civil servant, as we have heard. Is it usual for a civil servant to become a member of the Rent Review Hearings Board?

Mr Petricone: Since Bill 4 has allowed that, yes.

Mr McGuinty: Are you the first?

Mr Petricone: No, I do not think so. I think there are at least two more who have been appointed.

Mr McGuinty: You retain your position as a civil servant, as I understand it. You will have a job to go back to.

Mr Petricone: Right.

Mr McGuinty: Was it requested by someone that you make application for this position?

Mr Petricone: I actually did not make an application. I was asked by the executive director of rent review programs if I were willing to give a hand in clearing up the backlog at the hearings board. In order to be a member of the hearings board, I need to be appointed by order in council. It was specifically mentioned that due to Bill 4 I would not lose my status as a civil servant and that therefore once my period under special assignment is completed, I will go back to my job.

Mr McGuinty: You are employed in which ministry now?

Mr Petricone: Housing.

Mr McGuinty: Would it not make sense to assume that your performance as a member on the board will be subject to review by your employer, the ministry?

Mr Petricone: I suppose so, yes.

Mr McGuinty: Do you not see a potential for conflict there?

Mr Petricone: If I understand you correctly, you are looking ahead. You are saying after I become, if and when I do become, a member, my performance on the board will be reviewed by the ministry. I think it is the same as any other job we do for the government that is subject to review by senior management or otherwise, is it not?

Mr McGuinty: You have been advised, I gather, that your job is to get in and help clear up the backlog.

Mr Petricone: Right.

Mr McGuinty: If you do not accomplish that in the eyes of whomever, that may be a factor in terms of your future advancement.

Mr Petricone: It is the same as any other shortcomings I may have in any other position within the government on which, as I said, I have been working for the last two years. The fact that this opportunity or this particular offer was made to me makes me believe that there are not very many instances when my performance has been lacking.

Mr McGuinty: I may be concerned if I were to appear before you as an appellant, for instance, and if I were to learn that your foremost objective was to clear up the backlog. My concern would be to ensure that I had a full hearing and that you carefully considered my case on its merits and made an impartial decision. I would not be overly concerned once I had the opportunity to appear before you about the speediness, within reason of course, of your reaching that decision.

Mr Petricone: You said that my foremost objective is to clear the backlog and I beg to disagree with you on that. I think my main objective is to judge each case on its merits regardless of the time or regardless of the evidence that I must consider in order to pass a reasonable, and to the best of my ability, just judgement on that case. Obviously, this is done. The reason I am sent to the hearings board is to deal with as many cases as I can possibly deal with so that the backlog that now exists diminishes or disappears entirely.

Certainly I would disagree with you that my main objective is to clear the backlog. My main objective is to act as a member of the board with its full capacities and with its full responsibilities.

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Mr McGuinty: Do you maintain your same salary?

Mr Petricone: I think I am going up one or two classifications.

Mr McGuinty: On the board?

Mr Petricone: On the board.

Mr McGuinty: Is that usual? If someone were appointed off the street, so to speak, would he receive that same salary?

Mr Petricone: I suppose. I am not very clear about this, but I understand the classification of the board members is an AM-20, and I am now at an AM-18 civil position.

Mr McGuinty: I wonder if I might take advantage of Ms Gillespie's presence to ask her as the acting director if she might have the answer to that.

The Acting Chair: Do you people agree to Mr McGuinty's question to Ms Gillespie who is not before us? Granted. Would you come up, Ms Gillespie, please.

Ms Gillespie: With respect to the board member positions, they are classified at an AM-20 position, and anybody who is in the civil service who is appointed to that position for the period of one year would be paid at the appropriate level based on the normal rules of promotion under the civil service guidelines. If somebody were hired, as you put it, off the street to do that position, he would be paid at that position level, which is AM-20. At the end of the term, if the civil servant goes back to his or her original position, then he or she would revert to the salary appropriate for that position.

Mr McGuinty: Coming back to your statement, Mr Petricone, you would be making more in this position.

Mr Petricone: I would be making more as a member of the board.

Mr McGuinty: As a member of the board. But that, notwithstanding, would be the same that a person off the street, so to speak, would receive.

Mr Petricone: A person off the street would get the same treatment I get.

Mr Hayes: I would like to comment on that last question. I think we are fortunate that we have people who already have lots of experience in the field who can fit right in. We appreciate that. I guess also you were not picked by any political party or anything. You people were chosen actually by some of the senior members of Housing because of your experience and expertise.

Mr Petricone: That is right.

The Acting Chair: Mr Petricone, thank you for appearing before us this morning.

LAURA BRADBURY

The Acting Chair: Our next nominee is Laura Bradbury, intended appointee as chair of the Social Assistance Review Board. Ms Bradbury, good morning. Your coming here was called by the third party and I do not see any member from the third party, so I will go directly to the government side. Mr Waters, sorry to surprise you.

Mr Waters: I was waiting to see what the third party had to say because it had selected Ms Bradbury for this. After all, I feel that if you are going to subject someone to the hearings, you should at least be here when the hearing takes place.

Having said that, I did have a question here and I am just trying to find it in all this. Where did it go? Is it all right to pass and then come back when I dish this thing up?

Mr Frankford: There was a decision this week about a student being able to remain on welfare.

Ms Bradbury: I read that in the paper. I have not seen the actual court decision.

Mr Frankford: This was a court decision, was it?

Ms Bradbury: Yes. I understand it was a decision of Mr Campbell in what was formerly the Divisional Court.

Mr Frankford: This is the sort of thing which would relate to the work you will be doing.

Ms Bradbury: Yes, that is correct.

Mr Frankford: Do you have any comments on the decision?

Ms Bradbury: I have not seen the decision so I would not feel comfortable commenting on it, but I understand from what I have read in the paper that the effect of the decision will impact on the system generally. If a case that raised those issues came before the board, we would look at that decision and consider that and the legislation in determining how it relates to the facts in the particular case.

Mr Frankford: Since this is the initial decision, you will have to look at it.

Ms Bradbury: Yes, that is right. I think you must know that the General Welfare Assistance Act and the Family Benefits Act provide people with a right of appeal to the courts on a question other than a question of fact alone, and so the courts may often be involved, and any decision of the court with regard to the legislation we are interpreting would be an important precedent for us.

Mr Frankford: Would you now have to make some general policy or general advice based on this?

Ms Bradbury: I think the ministry will likely take that decision and review its policy. As you have heard earlier, it would not be the board's role to make policy decisions, but any new policy change that the ministry adopted would have an impact on cases we heard at the board level.

Mr Frankford: So you have not formed any personal position on this.

Ms Bradbury: I have not. As I say, I have not read the decision and I have not read the original board decision that went to appeal, so I would not feel comfortable commenting on it at this point other than to say that from what I read in the paper, I think there will be an impact on the system generally, but that is at the ministry level.

Mr Waters: Do you find that the appeal process is intimidating for social assistance recipients?

Ms Bradbury: I think this board has gone a great distance in trying to make it not intimidating. Mainly the board has, as you probably know, 21 full-time vice-chairs. They hold hearings and of those about three are lawyer positions and the rest are all lay adjudicators. As I understand it, they are drawn from a social service background, a community-oriented background, so the people who are hearing the appeals are people who have been involved in the system and who understand the issues. I think that in itself makes it less intimidating, and that is an important principle that this board is operating from. From what I hear in the community, it results in a fairly non-threatening hearing atmosphere.

Mr Waters: What happens? Does the board sort of monitor itself, make sure that it is keeping things down to the level of the average working person or person in need?

Ms Bradbury: Yes, in the sense that they do a lot of outreach and general education, so they keep in touch that way in terms of getting feedback from the people who come before them. In the case of this board, it is more likely to be feedback from the representatives. The community clinics are involved quite often in bringing appeals to the board. As I understand it, they do quite a lot of education and outreach. That is how they get feedback about their process.

Mr Waters: Do you think this social assistance system is a fair system, that it is evolving towards it?

Ms Bradbury: I cannot comment on the system. I have read the reports, the Transitions report of the Social Assistance Review Committee that came down in 1988 and the recent Back on Track report. Both of those reports comment on the need for change in the area, and I understand that the committee that produced the Back on Track report is also looking at proposed changes to the legislation. There is a growing feeling that there is a need to reform and change the area. The way that would affect the board is, if there is new legislation we would be required to interpret and apply it fairly in any cases that come before us.

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Mr Waters: Is there any external monitoring?

Ms Bradbury: The chair position reports to the minister, so there is that kind of monitoring. I think any minister would have the ability and the right to ask for an outside review of one of its administrative tribunals. You know that I am currently with the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal. When Mr Sorbara was the Minister of Labour, he requested exactly that kind of review from Coopers and Lybrand. So there is that kind of feedback or control or monitoring that is available to a minister.

Mr Hayes: The advisory group on new social assistance legislation made comments regarding people's applications being turned down and not receiving notification in writing. Of course this advisory group made a suggestion that a clear policy should be sent out to administrators and staff affirming that all decisions must be provided in writing and that person must be advised in writing of his or her right to appeal.

Can you elaborate on it and do you support that particular suggestion?

Ms Bradbury: I read that in the report and I do support it. I think from my experience at workers' compensation, we prepared a plain English guide to the tribunal that we provide to the Workers' Compensation Board. They include that notice of the right to appeal in the guide when they are advising people that their appeal has been turned down, and that tells them they have a right to appeal to the tribunal. Maybe something similar could happen with SARB and the agencies and municipalities.

Mr Frankford: Presumably MPPs' offices would help people get to the board.

Ms Bradbury: I am not sure if that has been a traditional route. I know that in workers' compensation it is a traditional route, yes. There are still some MPPs who appear and represent people in appeals and people from their offices sometimes appear. I am assuming it is similar in social assistance cases.

Mr Frankford: You are not sure.

Ms Bradbury: I am not sure, no.

Mr Frankford: Would you see a potential for conflict there?

Ms Bradbury: They are representing the person as a constituent. I do not think that in terms of the MPP or someone from his or her office appearing as a representative in an appeal hearing there is a conflict necessarily, no.

The Acting Chair: Seeing that a member of the third party is before us, Mr McLean.

Mr McLean: I wanted to ask a couple of simple questions on the review procedure. I have been involved in municipal politics for a long time and realize what goes on at the county level with regard to the social assistance review boards. In your opinion, do you think there are enough people across the province who are there reviewing some of these cases?

Ms Bradbury: Do you mean at the ministry level or at the board level?

Mr McLean: At the local level.

Ms Bradbury: I just do not really have enough information about that. I see that the numbers of appeals have increased dramatically as the recession continues. My guess is that the municipalities must be as burdened by an increased workload as the board is.

Mr McLean: How many of those would get to the provincial Social Assistance Review Board?

Ms Bradbury: I do not have those figures, I am sorry. I have read the board's annual report and I see the number of appeals they handle, but at the lower level I do not have those figures.

Mr McLean: I see. I observed you indicated that in some cases MPPs are there when the WCB cases are brought before a board --

Ms Bradbury: Very occasionally.

Mr McLean: -- but I have never known of any members to go to the Social Assistance Review Board.

Ms Bradbury: That may be. I would not know. My experience so far has been in workers' compensation. I was just commenting to Mr Frankford that it occasionally happened and that given it is a similar social justice area it would not surprise me if it were similar in social assistance, but I do not have hard information about whether that happens.

Mr McGuinty: Ms Bradbury, you made reference earlier to Back on Track. In there, it is indicated I think a number of times that a policy should be clearly established dealing with the matter of decisions being provided in writing and persons being advised in writing of their right to appeal, and as well information included on how to go about beginning that appeal process.

Ms Bradbury: Yes.

Mr McGuinty: How do you comment on that?

Ms Bradbury: I commented earlier that it seems important to me that when there is a first level of decision that denies someone's application, it is very important to advise him of his right to appeal because it is a right that exists in the legislation. I would support that recommendation in the Back on Track report. I commented earlier that in the workers' compensation system, at the board level, they include information about the appeals tribunal and the right to appeal at that level. I think something similar may be important to social assistance as well.

Mr McGuinty: Can you comment on whether welfare recipients are able in practice to exercise their right to appeal?

Ms Bradbury: Do you mean whether they have the resources to do that?

Mr McGuinty: Resources or whatever is required.

Ms Bradbury: I cannot. I can only comment on the statistics I have seen. From the statistics I have read, it seems that more than half the people who appear are represented. Generally they are represented from the legal clinic community or from lawyers with a legal aid certificate, that type of representation. As you know, the legal clinics are available to people who do not have many resources.

Mr McGuinty: Back on Track also made reference to a number of instances where welfare administrators actually ignored the rules in order to, as they saw it, I guess, protect welfare recipients. The report recommends that we develop some kind of enforcement strategy to ensure that the administrators comply with the rules.

Ms Bradbury: That is a ministry concern. I think from the board's point of view what is important is general education. The way I think that would be accomplished is through publication of their decisions. That is about to happen, as I understand it. Then their decisions would generally be available to the lower-level decision-makers who can see patterns and reasons for reaching decisions the way they did, and that has an important effect. It certainly had an important effect in the workers' compensation system. I would support that move to publish the board's decisions for that reason.

Mr McGuinty: A number of articles have been published recently in the media which have been critical of the process which enables people to apply for social assistance and of the criteria that are used. I guess the criticisms are saying that the system is subject to abuse, that the necessary checks and balances are not in place. That may be partly a function of the fact that these are difficult times and people generally -- I am not sure if this is a fair comment -- are less charitable. What is your opinion with respect to those checks and balances? Too many people, it seems to me today, are arguing -- not too many, but many people are arguing -- that the system is ripe for abuse and we are not doing all we can to ensure that those in real need are the ones who get assistance.

Ms Bradbury: I cannot really comment on that. I was struck, though, when I read the Transitions report by its figures on the percentage of abuse. Their estimate was that it was less than 5%. If that is still the case, it would not suggest to me that there was a great deal of abuse. Again, that is a ministry problem. The board would not have an active role in setting guidelines or policies to deal with that.

Mr McGuinty: Do you feel the board has any role to play in raising its profile in the community?

Ms Bradbury: Yes, I think it does have a role to play in terms of general outreach and making people aware the board exists and there is a right to appeal to the board and the kinds of decisions that can be appealed to the board. I think it does have a role and I understand that the board has been quite active in that role in the past three years.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you for appearing before the committee. We wish you well.

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HARRY ADDISON

The Vice-Chair: Next we have Harry Addison. There is a chair right there. We have half an hour to deal with the intended appointment of Harry Addison as the vice-chair of the Ontario Racing Commission. It is a government recommendation that we have him before us, so we will start with the government party.

Mr Waters: I notice from your curriculum vitae that you have an exceptionally long time with horse racing throughout the province, because you seem to deal with all of the different tracks. Do you have the racing commission's position on drug testing as to the horses?

Mr Addison: If I can allude to the relationship between the Ontario Racing Commission and the federal government, the federal government sets the standards for drug testing. In other words, they write the book about what is admissible and usable and the racing commission in Ontario then enforces the rules and sets the penalties.

As far as a position on drug testing is concerned, we specifically are dealing with a drug right now that has some controversy associated with it and that is the drug Lasix, which is an anti-bleeding medication for horses. The commission has worked very hard on the proposed introduction of Lasix with the race tracks, with the horsemen and with all segments of the industry, the breeders, and came up with a system of the introduction of Lasix on a user-pay basis. There is no cost to the taxpayer for it.

The reason we basically promote the use of it is because it is clearly a workable drug. It is effective. It is a diuretic. The alternative is, you just open the door to other medications being used if you do not have one in place that the industry at large is comfortable with and Agriculture Canada is as well.

So, yes, we are very forceful on our administration of the misuse of drugs and yet we are very supportive of drugs we believe will enhance the industry, both making the industry viable for the investors and, of course, the welfare of the horse. Naturally the fans, the patrons, the people who make our industry tick, must be protected. So full disclosure is a very important part of it.

Mr Waters: Are there a lot of drugs used in horse racing?

Mr Addison: There are a lot of drugs that can be used but done within a regulated period of time. For instance, they have anti-inflammatory drugs that can be used up to 48 hours prior to a race. These are horses that have inflamed joints, soreness, whatever. This allows the trainer to train the horse on these drugs, but he is not allowed to run on the drug. All these guidelines are set for various drugs prior to race time. There are virtually no drugs that are admissible for race day use.

Mr Waters: This drug, Lasix, is it?

Mr Addison: Yes.

Mr Waters: What do you use an anti-bleeding drug for?

Mr Addison: What happens with horses just through exertion is that they will bleed internally. Probably 90% to 95% of all horses bleed when they race. They may bleed through the nostril, they may bleed through the mouth, but in the vast majority of cases they just bleed internally, and it affects their performance. The problem here is they choke.

What happens here is that the people do not know this. The public does not know when a horse is bleeding. For instance, the problem with the Lasix use, if it is not controlled in a proper way, is that a horse could run on Lasix one day and run very well, the next time not run on Lasix and not run very well, and if the public is not informed of this, then the better is at a big disadvantage.

What we propose in the system we have ready to go in place is that a horse must stay on it for 150 days. The betting public is made aware of it in every instance that the horse runs, and if a horse changes hands, either through claiming or through a buy-sell or whatever, he must stay on the drug if he has been already on it.

The horse is scoped, first of all, and he must be a proven bleeder. In other words, if a trainer says, "I think this horse bled," then he is scoped by a veterinarian we authorize and sanction. If he is found to be a bleeder, then the trainer must make a decision to put him on the drug. If he puts him on the drug, he must stay on the drug. It is not a performance-enhancing drug. What it does is allow the horse to perform to the best of his ability on each and every occasion that he runs. It is much fairer for the public and it is much fairer for everybody in the industry.

Mr Waters: Okay. I see other members of the caucus.

Mrs Haslam: I usually premise this by saying this is probably a dumb question, but I would like to learn as much as possible about some of the commissions we look at and not all of us know everything about all of the agencies, boards and commissions that we have. So I have this really interesting question. Do you own horses?

Mr Addison: Yes, I do.

Mrs Haslam: Do you race horses?

Mr Addison: Yes, I do.

Mrs Haslam: Is there a conflict of interest then, when you serve on the Ontario Racing Commission?

Mr Addison: No.

Mrs Haslam: Why?

Mr Addison: If my horse is involved or my trainer is involved in a situation that has to come before the commission or the steward, I naturally disqualify myself.

Mrs Haslam: But you set rules. According to this overview, you approve the appointment of race track officials and employees.

Mr Addison: That is right. They are submitted by the race track. We do not submit them.

Mrs Haslam: "Setting terms and conditions of licences; making and promulgating rules for the conduct of horse racing." It is a very powerful board dealing with racing in general. Would you concur with that?

Mr Addison: Yes, it is.

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Mrs Haslam: I just wondered whether people would perceive that someone who has something to gain in horse racing should actually be a member of the Ontario Racing Commission.

Mr Addison: Quite the contrary. The industry for a number of years was represented on the commission, or the commission was made up of people associated with the industry. The industry had several years of discontent. They struck the government at one stage in the game, because they were dissatisfied with the lack of knowledge the commission had as it pertained directly to their industry.

Since 1985 the commission has been made up of horsemen, of people who have an investment in the game and in the industry at large. When you talk about rule-making, although I share a rules committee, the rules are made up by a large segment of the industry. They write the rules and I may oversee the consensus.

Mrs Haslam: I have one more quick question. When you talk about the makeup of the commission, are they all horse owners or are there other people involved in racing but not as owners?

Mr Addison: At the present moment we have two new appointees and I am not positive. They have an association with the industry. One is a former driver and another one has owned horses. Whether they own horses at the present moment, I do not know. The chairman does not own any horses.

Mr Klopp: I come from the riding of Huron where we have a racetrack, Clinton. I pretend not to understand the system of horse racing. It reminds me a little of the dairy board and commissions and all that. I know, though, that you know what a dairy cow looks like and you know what a horse looks like. I know a lot of my friends enjoy racing and one of these days I am going to go along with them too.

One of the concerns that was raised by one of my constituents in the area -- I am sure you know him, but I will not name him; it is not that important -- was about the number of racing times they have at Clinton Raceway and other areas. I know he asked me as an MPP to make sure that they do not forget about Clinton and that they do not forget about the Dresdens of the world. I guess that is where the buck stops, at your board. Are you aware of that? I want to bring that point out since we have a couple of minutes.

Mr Addison: No question about it. Believe me, the Clintons of the world -- I have forgotten neither the Hanovers nor the Dresdens nor the Barries nor the Windsors nor the Rideau Carletons. I am interested in the concern of your constituent, but one of the things I think we have established and been able to maintain at the commission is the balance between the small and large racetracks as far as race dates are concerned. We only allot dates. We do not supervise the parimutuel aspect of it. That is federal jurisdiction under the Criminal Code.

As far as dates are concerned, there is a great concentration of racetracks in southwestern Ontario, as you know. We have made it our business to ensure that these tracks are viable. Their viability is directly tied in a lot of cases to their race dates, and even more directly to the capability and quality of their management. We get involved very directly with their management and their racing profile. Their racing profile is their dates, what they can offer in a season.

I believe Clinton races very few days a year, but is a viable and healthy situation. I wish they were all as healthy. Clinton's needs, believe me, are just as important to us as the Ontario Jockey Club's needs and any other racetrack. When we look at dates for a place like Dresden, we most definitely take into consideration all those surrounding areas and the impact on every other racetrack.

If you did a survey of the racetracks in Ontario, I think they would all agree that a very satisfactory balance has been maintained. But as you say, some people would like more race dates. They think that if they had more race days, they would be better off, but I think we have let logic be the governing factor here and from my standpoint I believe everybody is pretty happy.

IVOR HORNCASTLE

The Vice-Chair: Next we have Ivor Horncastle, the intended appointee as member, Wendaban Stewardship Authority. Welcome to the committee, sir.

Mr Grandmaître: I have just a few very short questions. Mr Horncastle, this very special authority. I call it a special authority as it has just been created by a new government. You have been nominated as a member of this authority for one year. I find it very difficult that you would not be appointed for a longer period because you will be asked to do some very serious negotiations. Maybe it is not a question; maybe it is a comment, but I find that one year is a very short period of time for such an important and new authority. How do you feel about a one-year appointment?

Mr Horncastle: I would tend to agree in that for the first target, the initial year is going to be used up more in organization and bringing people up to speed on resource management and what have you. I feel that in the first year very little will be learned by those involved. It would be a shame that just as you get them up to speed they will have to -- that is the term that was set. I am in the position that I have been involved in the resource issue around Temagami for the past four to five years so I am quite aware of the matters involved, but some of the members have not been involved and it will take them quite some time to come up to speed.

Mr Grandmaître: Can you give me your thoughts on the logging operations that are going on in the Temagami area?

Mr Horncastle: In the Temagami district at the present time I do not believe there are any major logging operations taking place due to market conditions and what have you, but there have been logging operations in recent years that have been done in a manner that has proved we can log and still improve logging practiCes, rather than the old clear-cut method.

Mr Grandmaître: Do you think there should be any logging or no logging?

Mr Horncastle: I do not think there should be no logging. I think logging should take place. I believe it is needed to regenerate the forest. If you hope to maintain a pine forest, you will certainly have to log it. However, how we log it must be the important question. It has to be done very carefully and I believe it can be done that way.

Mr Grandmaître: One last question: The Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Bud Wildman, made a very important announcement recently in the House concerning self-government for native people. I agree that native people should be self-governed. Can you give me your thoughts on self-government?

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Mr Horncastle: I believe it is something the natives have been wanting for some time and I believe they should be given the opportunity. By being given these four townships over which they have total authority, I think we will be very pleased by what we see, how they govern the resource management of these four townships. They are very wise in the ways it should be managed.

Mr Waters: Is there a feasible tradeoff between the local industry and the natives in the area on land use? Do you think they could resolve that?

Mr Horncastle: I believe it can be resolved. One of our objectives at the authority was to work on a treaty of coexistence which Teme-Augama Anishnabai are very interested in. Chief Gary Potts has mentioned numerous times he wishes to work with the people where they are residing on their home land. With his efforts and the efforts of the local community and the people involved, I believe it is feasible; maybe not tomorrow but down the road, yes.

Mr Waters: In other words, it is going to take conversation and a lot of it to come to some sort of a mutual understanding.

Mr Horncastle: A lot of hard work. Yes.

Mr Waters: Actually, that was the only thing I was wondering.

Mr Wiseman: My concern is sustainability of the ecosystem and how we achieve this. Do you have any thoughts on how you might like to try and develop that or any thoughts on what your view of sustainability means in this area?

Mr Horncastle: The reasons for the stewardship authority looking at the four townships they have authority over and not allowing any further development in those four townships is exactly so they may study the sustainability of that area in terms of logging practices, increased tourism activity, hunting, trapping, fishing or increased cottaging. It all has to be studied, and that is why Chief Potts has a moratorium on logging at this time. He is not ruling logging out but he wishes to further study it before it is logged and then you realize it is not sustainable and you have destroyed something you cannot replace.

Mr Wiseman: Have you had extensive discussions with Chief Potts?

Mr Horncastle: No, not extensive.

Mr Wiseman: Have you met him at all?

Mr Horncastle: Yes, I have.

Mr Wiseman: Have you discussed any of these things with him?

Mr Horncastle: No, Chief Potts does not sit on the stewardship authority. I live very close to him and I see him every day but we do not delve into these issues unless we are at meetings.

Mr Wiseman: This could be a contentious issue. What we are experiencing is some criticism by hunters and anglers and so on of other decisions that have been made. Have you experienced any of these discussions in your area at all?

Mr Horncastle: From anglers' and hunters' organizations and what have you?

Mr Wiseman: Yes.

Mr Horncastle: It is very difficult if you are a conservationist and the anglers and hunters state they are that, just that, as are fisherman. I do not think they can really object to the route the stewardship authority wants to take in that area. Unless you know exactly what you have on the land, you cannot really allow the hunting or the fishing to take place, unless you know the numbers you are dealing with. I do not believe we have those details available to us at this time, and that is why we want to study the area.

The Vice-Chair: There being no further questions, I appreciate your coming this morning before the committee and I wish you well in your endeavours. It is very important.

I wonder if we could have unanimous consent so we can concur with the ones we had this morning.

Agreed to.

CATHERINE WHETTER

The Vice-Chair: Mr Waters moves the appointment of Catherine Whetter as chair of the District Health Council of Eastern Ontario.

Mr Frankford: I have no hesitation concurring with this, but I thought one might pick up on some of the comments she made about district health councils and representativeness.

The Vice-Chair: I was not here but I think the discussion took place when they were here. If you want to discuss it further, we could do it with regard to any of them. I do not think you would want to discuss each one of them as we go through. They have all been dealt with. I asked for unanimous consent for their approval and I do not think we should get into a discussion on each one pro or con with regard to the discussion you had with them.

Mr Frankford: I was not wishing to do that. I am willing to withdraw, but it seems she raised some interesting questions about the district health council and I wondered whether it was in order to say anything at this point.

The Vice-Chair: If you want to discuss anything with regard to the intended appointees, this is the time to do it before it is concurred with.

Mr McGuinty: I would be interested in hearing Dr Frankford. He has an interesting perspective on this matter.

Mr Frankford: As I say, I think she is a very good nominee. She has obviously given a great amount of volunteer activity to this. I think this raises questions about district health councils and whether they should be so dependent on appointment. She did not like the idea of elected positions and seemed to think there was no chance of people like her getting on through election. I wonder if that is the case. I would like to at least raise the possibility that there should be election, which could result in greater, broader representation and also perhaps raise the possibility of payment for these services.

Mrs Haslam: I am not talking directly about Ms Whetter because I was not here for her interview, but following along on what Dr Frankford has said, I am just wondering. If part of our mandate is to review and look at agencies, boards and commissions, perhaps what he wants to talk about is not correctly placed here, but should be taken note of. It is part of our mandate and in the subcommittee we should maybe consider that as one of the agencies, boards and commissions we look at, along with the red goat meat board Mr McLean wanted to look at this year.

I just feel that it is worth noting and that perhaps in the subcommittee we could discuss this and bring it out as one of the agencies, boards and commissions we review. I do not feel this is the place to do it. We are discussing Ms Whetter and I agree that we have lots of leeway to talk about appointments, but if Dr Frankford is looking at re-evaluating what we have, then let's make that note and go on.

Mr Frankford: I would just add that the district health council is one of the agencies that it has been suggested we look at as agencies. Since we are fortunate in having people with experience appear before us, I thought it might be useful to pick up on some of the things that were said.

Motion agreed to.

MICHAEL CASSIDY

The Vice-Chair: Mr Hayes moves the appointment of Michael Cassidy to the Ontario Hydro board of directors.

Motion agreed to.

SUSAN GILLESPIE

The Vice-Chair: Mr Klopp moves the appointment of Susan Gillespie to the Rent Review Hearings Board.

Motion agreed to.

LORENZO PETRICONE

The Vice-Chair: Mr Frankford moves the appointment of Lorenzo Petricone to the Rent Review Hearings Board.

Motion agreed to.

LAURA BRADBURY

The Vice-Chair: Mr Hayes moves the appointment of Laura Bradbury as chair of the Social Assistance Review Board.

Motion agreed to.

HARRY ADDISON

The Vice-Chair: Mr Waters moves the appointment of Harry Addison as vice-chair of the Ontario Racing Commission.

Motion agreed to.

IVOR HORNCASTLE

The Vice-Chair: Mr Wiseman moves the appointment of Ivor Horncastle as member of Wendaban Stewardship Authority.

Motion agreed to.

The Vice-Chair: That concludes the work of the committee this morning. We will meet next Wednesday at 10.

The committee adjourned at 1244.