CONTENTS
Wednesday 6 November 1991
Appointments review
Wayne Colbran
Perry Kendall
Sharon Laffrenier
David Henry
Neville Chenoy
Wayne Colbran; Perry Kendall
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Chair: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
Vice-Chair: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East PC)
Bradley, James J. (St. Catharines L)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough NDP)
Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East NDP)
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East L)
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent NDP)
McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South L)
Marchese, Rosario (Fort York NDP)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay NDP)
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West NDP)
Clerk: Arnott, Douglas
Staff: Pond, David, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1009 in room 228.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW
Resuming consideration of intended appointments.
WAYNE COLBRAN
The Chair: We will come to order. I see a quorum. I welcome our first witness this morning, Wayne Colbran. Mr Colbran, welcome to the committee. Mr Colbran is an intended appointee of the Woodstock Police Services Board. He was selected for review by the official opposition.
This is just a half-hour review, so I think, Mr Colbran, if you do not have any strenuous objections we are going to get right into the questioning, 10 minutes for each caucus. We do not have a Conservative representative here, so we will begin with Mr Grandmaître.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Colbran, I was going through your CV. Are you retired at the present time?
Mr Colbran: No.
Mr Grandmaître: Are you working?
Mr Colbran: Yes. Actually, I just found a job. I just went back to work on September 30. I had been laid off for nine months.
Mr Grandmaître: You have been very active in your community. Have you worked with the Woodstock police force in the past on certain programs?
Mr Colbran: No specific programs with the police force. I have worked on different committees with members of the police force -- community committees, the United Way. We have a community complex they are building now and a number of police officers have been on that board with them, including the chief. I have sat on two or three different boards with the chief.
Mr Grandmaître: How would you describe your police force? Is it adequate? Where could it improve its services?
Mr Colbran: I would say our police force is more than adequate. They are very community-minded people. We seem to have a good relationship with our police force in Woodstock. I am not sure whether I am qualified at the moment to say where I could improve it or what improvements I could see. I guess I envision that as the kind of thing I could learn, being on the board. In every community, especially in these times, there is always room for improvement, more along the lines of education from and to the police force as far as the community itself is concerned.
Mr Grandmaître: The composition of the police force, male as compared to female uniformed officers or employees of the police commission, do you think it is adequate? Do you think it can be improved? Do you think we should have more women on the force?
Mr Colbran: Again, I think there can be improvements. I have noticed within the Woodstock force in the past few years there has been movement in that area. What I look at in a police force is that its members should reflect the community itself.
Mr Grandmaître: How were you approached to submit your application? How did you find out?
Mr Colbran: Through the ad in the paper. I saw the ad in the paper, and because I have been active in my community in the last 12 years on different boards and stuff, I applied for that. Also, six or seven months ago I was approached by the mayor of the city and the police chief. They asked me at that time, if and when it came up, if I would be interested. I had a few months to think about it, and when the ad came up, I decided to apply for it.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you know how many people applied for the same -- I am not going to call it a job.
Mr Colbran: I have no idea how many. I only know of one other person. I understand she applied and got the appointment or she is at the same stage as I am. That happens to be Marilyn Mann, the executive director of the United Way. Because we have worked closely together with the United Way for the last 10 years -- it just came up in conversation a month or so ago -- she had heard that I had been applying too. Other than that, I do not have any idea how many more people have applied.
Mr Grandmaître: One last question to you, Mr Chair: Is it possible for us to obtain -- not because Mr Colbran is before us this morning -- the number of applications, the number of people who have applied, not only for police service boards but any orders in council? Would it be possible as part of our notes?
The Chair: I think as a committee, if we have unanimous consent for that sort of thing, we can certainly make the request. I stand to be corrected, but I think the appointments secretariat would be under no obligation to provide it, but we can certainly make the request if members think it would be helpful in the future.
Mr Grandmaître: I think that would be a good start if we are going to look into the process once more, or whenever.
The Chair: You are making that a formal request. I am not seeing any objections to that so we will communicate that to the appointments secretariat.
Mr Frankford: Is crime an issue in the local elections in your area?
Mr Colbran: No, actually. From what I can see through the local media and everything the major issues in our municipal elections are taxes and the environment.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any particular concerns about crime or any particular types of crime?
Mr Colbran: Not particularly, no. I have never really sat down and prioritized any of them. I guess domestic abuse, if I really sat down and thought about it, might come to the top of my head.
Mr Frankford: So crimes of violence and robberies and so on are not major concerns in your area, or not major problems, that you can see.
Mr Colbran: They are not major problems at the moment, but so much has changed in the last couple of years. In the last year or so they have started to surface a lot more than was ever noted before.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any thoughts on whether the existing police are suitably trained or adequately trained?
Mr Colbran: I have really had no preconceived thoughts about that. I believe, through some conversations with the local police force, there is always room for more in there in the training for the police and the education for the police force as to how to handle it properly, and the other way around, the confidence of the community not to be afraid to approach the police and to know that those officers have been properly trained in how to handle it.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any thoughts about whether that should be something which is part of the police officers' routine work or whether there should be some other social workers or other response team that goes in to relieve the police of handling those rather heavy cases?
Mr Colbran: I have never really put a great deal of thought into that.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to talk a little bit about the youth in your area. Have you seen any or do you perceive any potential problems for youth and youth gangs developing?
Mr Colbran: Not youth gangs. Again, I guess I would have to stress the economic situation that has changed so much in the last two years. I guess my county and my city have been just as hard hit, but when you live in that community it has been particularly hard hit with job loss and things like that in the last two years. I have noticed there is an increase in youths leaving home and receiving welfare -- no particular gang involvement or anything like that, but there are some problems that way. I think that is something that is new and the police force at the time is having a hard time keeping up with that kind of thing because it is something new that we have not had a real major concern about in the past.
Mr Wiseman: Are you aware of any programs that the police are doing in local schools, and if there are not any, would that be an area you would be interested in pursuing?
Mr Colbran: Yes to both. This is something I was always impressed with with the Woodstock police force even a few years ago when I was in school. The police force in the Woodstock community always had a police officer who was assigned to the school board. I guess back then it was more particularly on road safety and bicycle safety and all that, but they have kept up with the times and have included drug abuse and different things like that. Again, because these things change so rapidly, the only thing I could say that could be improved on is continued upgrading on the education for that. The Woodstock force prides itself in making sure there is an officer assigned to the schools.
Mr Wiseman: My last question. Idle hands tend to create problems, and one of the big problems in my community is that there is very little for the youth between the ages of 12 and 18 to do. There seems to be an awful lot of things to do for youth here under the age of 12. There is skating and dancing and all sorts of different things, but once they get about 12, 13 or 14, there seems to be very little to do. I notice from your curriculum vitae that you still like to play hockey and lob ball and have coached in softball and so on. In your community, do you see the police services board as perhaps trying to take some kind of lead role in promoting activities for youth between the ages of 14 and 18?
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Mr Colbran: It is something I never really considered as part of the police board, but it is an interesting idea. I think part of the board's responsibility would be community relations and what they can do to improve the relations, as I said before, both ways. I can see them looking into something like that.
Mr Marchese: I have just one question, Mr Colbran. On the issue of making police forces more representative of our diverse communities so that it should include aboriginal people, visible minorities, other linguistic groups, women and so on, for me that is important. Is that important to you, something you would promote that needs to happen?
Mr Colbran: Yes, I think so. The police board or any community board that we have should reflect the community. I think that helps the minority groups or the community itself feel more relaxed and more trust in the board, and I think it helps the officers themselves -- if you are talking about the police force -- to be more understanding of those groups and the way they think. It would be easier to establish a good working relationship with them.
Mr Marchese: So you agree with the idea of goals and timetables for the recruitment of different people on the police force?
Mr Colbran: Yes, I think so, as long as that is reflected within the community itself. You would have to take an overall view of the community to make it reflective, but it should be something that is set down, through the board and the police chief, to make a realistic effort to accomplish that.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Colbran, I have one question. Does Woodstock have an auxiliary police force that you are aware of?
Mr Colbran: Yes. Actually, it is in its infancy stage right now. I believe it is no more than two years old.
The Chair: And they are purely volunteers, as you understand it.
Mr Colbran: Yes.
The Chair: I am glad to hear that. I would like to see that spread right across the province.
Thank you very much for appearing here today. We appreciate your coming down and wish you well.
Mr Colbran: Thank you.
PERRY KENDALL
The Chair: Our next witness is Dr Perry Kendall, who is an intended appointee as a member of the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council. Dr Kendall was selected for review by the government party. Welcome to the committee, Dr Kendall. I am going to look to the government party to lead off the questions. Mr Marchese?
Mr Marchese: Dr Kendall, the first question to ask you is why do you want to do this?
Dr Kendall: I first put my name forward in 1989 when I arrived in the city as the medical officer of health. It is my opinion that if one is to look at achieving health for all and increasing the health of the local community, which is the function or the mandate of the public health department on a community basis, it is really important to do that in a comprehensive planning setting.
We recognize that access to health care is a primary prerequisite for health, but it is not a necessary or sufficient prerequisite for health, and I think with the pressures on the health care system that have been building over the last few years, and in the context of reports that have been written on health for a variety of governments in Ontario and across Canada, one has to start looking at comprehensive planning, reallocation, questioning where we are going, and in view of the economic constraints on the health care delivery system at the moment, I think that is more critical than ever. The district health council is the only body truly mandated to do that from the comprehensive perspective.
Mr Marchese: There are probably a number of problems related not just to communication with the ministry and the district health council, but possibly other ways in which the different bodies perceive the work to be happening. What do you perceive some of those problems are and what suggestions do you have to improve the levels of communication and response to the different needs of health in Ontario?
Dr Kendall: Perhaps if I could concentrate on Metropolitan Toronto, I think at the Metro level the task is daunting but not overwhelming, just from the absolute richness and complexity of the resource base there and the fact that historically those resources have developed independently from one another and not at all tied in with each other. There has been no necessity for sharing resources for comprehensive planning; that is a relatively late addition. As one has teaching hospitals which serve North America, and in fact sometimes they serve outside the nation, they have provided fourth-level services for the entire province in terms of teaching and research. We have community-based hospitals, community health centres, public health units, of which there are six, some 3,500 social service agencies, social planning at the metropolitan level, home nursing care delivered at the metropolitan level -- it is a very rich and complex mix. Just communicating within those players has been difficult.
I think in the past, the district health councils have been limited more to planning and advising at the margin of expenditures in that the people have had direct access to the Ministry of Health over the 20-year history of the district health councils. It is going to become much more critical now to look at regionalization, at single voices; to not listen to end runs, and try to plan comprehensively within the sense of the vision that the last three governments, basically, have enunciated since planning for health care in the 1980s, and which followed the Lalonde report of the early 1970s.
I do not know if that has answered it. Can I specify the mechanisms for communication?
Mr Marchese: If you have suggestions, yes.
Dr Kendall: If the mandate for the district health council is clearly to be the comprehensive voice to take a responsibility in planning and advice, and if the advice is listened to and responded to, then that will strengthen the message.
Mr Marchese: Let me ask a specific question connected to the Toronto Hospital. They made an announcement just last week about laying off people and closing beds. Part of the requirement which I understand should take place is that the district health council be part of that decision-making process. I believe the district health council was not advised about it at all, or even consulted about those plans. Do you have a view on that?
Dr Kendall: Yes, I do. I think that historically, as I said, the larger institutions have acted very independently and have not seen the necessity, the need, or even the legitimacy for a larger area to plan. It is still, perhaps, touch and go as to whether they can be pushed to see that reality and that legitimacy.
When I was asked to review the impact of closure of beds at the Toronto East General Hospital, my recommendation was that obviously hospitals were reacting independently on an ad hoc basis. The experts I talked to in the paediatric field from the Hospital for Sick Children recognized that as well, and they also recognized that the 1986 report of the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council on rationalizing paediatric services within Metro have basically been largely ignored by the major players. One of my recommendations was that the hospital council for Metro and the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council be mandated by the ministry to look at rationalizing the situation and the pressures around hospitals and look at bed closures and the provision of alternate services. That, I think, is now beginning to happen, but one is going to have to force the major players into that.
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Mr Frankford: As you know, I come from a background in direct provision of health care within Metro. I guess a large part of what is provided by physicians hardly comes into the equation right now. I believe you would agree, and do you see any ways of improving that?
Dr Kendall: I guess the majority of physicians are independent entrepreneurs within the health care system, billing on a fee-for-service basis. I do not see that as the optimal route to go. I think the method of encouraging alternative patterns of practice through community health centres with complementary health personnel can provide both a better range of services within a global budget and also reduce the dependency on physicians.
I happen to be in that group that thinks we have too many physicians, for a start, and I happen to think many of their services are demand-driven to meet target incomes rather than related to the health of the population in which they happen to be residing.
I do not think one could mandate all fees for service into either salary, per capita or community health centres, but I think incentives have to be developed if one is going to manage that section of the health care resource pie to push in that direction and to make the incentives such that physicians will move in that direction. That is particularly important as the population ages. Just about everybody, including the Canadian Medical Association, agrees that a fee-for-service basis is not the ideal way of dealing with large populations such as seniors with multiple varied complaints and chronicity.
Mr Frankford: One of the things the DHC does is approve applications for community health centres, but I do not think it actively plans them. Do you see some way you could do that and do you have any thought of how you would like to go about it?
Dr Kendall: I was looking at the budget of the district health council and it is just under $1 million. It is supposed to plan for a region that is probably about 25% of the population of Ontario, and I would guess about 35% of the health care dollar is spent in that region. Basically, you have given them a very large mandate and they have less than 0.02% of the total budget to do that planning with. If they were to take that on, and I think it would be appropriate, I would certainly see pouring some more resources into the district health council so it would be able to support the volunteer base it relies heavily on at the moment.
They might have to persuade the Ministry of Health to reallocate money for its own -- or most large hospitals have two to three health planners. One could do a secondment, for example, for a period of time from those hospitals. That would be reallocation within the system with people who already had a skills base.
Mr Wiseman: I have a comparative question. Have you done any reading or studying about some of the innovations taking place in the United States in response to the cost of delivering medical care to corporations, for example? I know that Chrysler, Ford and GM are running into such medical costs that they have actually started their own hospitals, hired their own doctors and moved in that direction. Also, in Boston, they have created clinics that are holistics where they have multiple professional approaches to medicine. Have you studied any of these?
Dr Kendall: I have tried to keep abreast of the literature, yes. I would not claim to be an expert in that literature. Obviously, the health maintenance organization is one of the broad-based, more holistic clinics that you are talking about and that certainly appears to be cost competitive and quality competitive within the US system. I think it is a model that bears reviewing for its appropriateness in Canada. There are some parallels with community health centres and with the proposed comprehensive health organizations. We do not really have any of those in Metro at the present time.
The other part, the techniques for managing costs and controlling costs within the individual hospitals, the diagnostic-related groups and intensity of care weightings, are being explored by certain hospitals up in Canada as well.
There are techniques that can be used within the Canadian system to manage within the existing system, manage hospital costs, for example, analyse hospital costs. They do not necessarily tell you whether the services being provided are de facto necessary, but they will tell you whether they are being provided in a competitive fashion.
Mr Wiseman: That raises a very interesting question about whether services are necessary, because in the same journal I read about the clinic in Boston, apparently in one sector of Boston heart bypass surgeries were extremely prevalent and then in another area they were dealing with the same type of heart patients in different ways. Do you see the different health council as trying to come to grips with the philosophy of medicine, as it were?
Dr Kendall: It may be more appropriate for the hospital council of Metro Toronto to take on the responsibility for examining differentials, perhaps, in care or differences in surgical rates and apply that analysis to its group, but I would see them working very closely with the Metro Toronto District Health Council. I am not sure the Metro Toronto District Health Council can be all things in detail to all people. What it can be is a forum to set the direction and give support and use very competent groups that have already existed with their memberships and which also have resources and databases and work with them once an overall direction has been defined.
The Chair: I will to move on to Mr McGuinty.
Mr McGuinty: I understand you are not a big fan of the federal government's expenditures restraint act.
Dr Kendall: That is correct.
Mr McGuinty: And you have a concern about the eventual elimination, I guess, of cash transfers for medicare. If that program were to continue, how would you see that affecting health care services in Ontario?
Dr Kendall: If the reduction in cash transfers continued, and eventual elimination?
Mr McGuinty: Yes, if it continues.
Dr Kendall: It would certainly reduce the resource base coming to Ontario. Both those cuts under Bill C-69 and the other Canada assistance plan cuts I believe in the last fiscal year cost some $2.5 billion to the province, if my figures are correct. That is significant. That is going to place a lot of constraints on both the welfare side and the provision of funding to the existing health care side. That is why I am interested in becoming very involved at this point in time, because I think the health care system could be at a crossroads.
I was reading yesterday in the Globe and Mail that a majority of Canadians would apparently be ready to support a fee-for-service system, and I would see that as being the wrong route to take. I think the preservation of the health care system -- not the components of the health care system, but the principles of the system we have now -- is very important. I think the system can be managed in such a way that the finite resources can provide a better and broader basis for health than they currently do, but I would see that this comes from managing the system better and reallocating within the system and looking for future needs, rather than reacting to constraints by slash and burn and finding alternative sources of revenue in user fees, for example.
Mr McGuinty: I gather you see the transfers as being the big stick the federal government can use to prevent the introduction of user fees and extra-billing. Do you think those would be a natural outcropping with the elimination of the transfer payments?
Dr Kendall: I think so, yes. Quebec certainly is talking about using user fees or disincentives for one pattern of care. British Columbia, prior to the recent election, was certainly favouring user fees and what it would call individual responsibility for use of services. I think a number of other provinces would also turn to that, because in some ways, within certain provinces, it is politically acceptable. Obviously the Canadian public currently sees it as an acceptable way to go, and it is probably easier than taking on the entrenched interests of the large institutions or the physicians, who one would have to take on head to head if one was going to reallocate and change the health care system sufficiently.
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Mr McGuinty: Do you know how the user fees are working in Quebec now?
Dr Kendall: No, I do not. I think they were talking about introducing a $5 disincentive to users of emergency departments when a community health centre could have been used instead or when, in the judgement of the administrator or somebody, there was an alternative for cheaper access.
Mr McGuinty: I am not in favour of user fees personally, but the argument is often made that those of us in government have an obligation to attempt to take reasonable steps wherever possible to eliminate abuse. Do you see any kind of procedure or method that might be available to help us deal with abuse? I know there is some in the system.
Dr Kendall: I think user fees quite frankly are a red herring. It assumes that every quota of care that is currently given is necessary and therefore we need to prop that up and in fact continue it, whereas I think one could question that, right from the basis of simple lab tests that are routinely ordered. In every study I have looked at, it has been shown that the majority of those are never really considered by the doctor and form no part whatever in the diagnostic or therapeutic processes that are under way, but most of them are routinely ordered and then they are routinely ignored. The same thing goes for antibiotic choices and diagnostic tests.
If one looks at some of the larger elements in the health care system, as you are aware, we currently have caesarean section rates that are around 20%. Absolutely nobody with any authority thinks that is necessary or desirable, and it could be reduced, yet we still maintain that sort of excess.
The largest increase in coronary artery bypass graft surgery has been in men between the ages of 70 and 79. To my certain knowledge, this has never been evaluated as to whether it even provides a better quality of life compared with medical practice.
I would suggest that before we start looking at user fees, which have been shown only to impact upon the sick and only to impact adversely on those who are poor -- they certainly do not change utilization for those who can afford it -- we start looking at inappropriate utilization or generation of services within the system.
Mr McGuinty: So your focus would be on providers as opposed to users.
Dr Kendall: Yes.
The Chair: Dr Kendall, I have a couple of questions. I am not sure where you are coming from with respect to taking on the vested interests in the health care system, but I am curious, as an observer, obviously, of the health care system in Ontario and an active participant, what is your view of what has transpired since the ban on extra-billing in 1986? How do you think that impacted on the system?
Dr Kendall: There are still some administrative charges which can be levied by certain physicians in certain groups. They have to be levied up front and service cannot be withheld if the administration fees are not paid, but overall the billing system, the fee-for-service system, has tremendous capability to adapt to constraints. If you are constrained in one area, you merely have to increase your services by a small fraction and you can make up for the income or the revenues you were not getting from another area. That has been shown in British Columbia.
I do not think physicians suffered financially in any respect because they could not levy user fees. So in fact one had a transfer from the government to the government, as a provider, from the pockets of the individuals, and I think that was equitable and fair. That was overdue, because the user fees were geographically inequitably distributed and they obviously impacted harder on some individuals than others. I have a philosophical objection to user fees or balanced billing.
The Chair: Do you think anyone suffered by the ban on extra-billing?
Dr Kendall: No.
The Chair: No one at all, not even the system. You do not think the system suffered in terms of the fee for services certainly taking a much larger chunk of the health care budget now than it did a few years ago?
Dr Kendall: I would hope that would act as more of an impetus to change the system rather than prop it up or maintain it, because I think it needed some major change.
The Chair: What about the agreement the current government has entered into in terms of the Rand formula, if you will, with the OMA and the cap on incomes? I am getting some feedback in terms of specialists who are talking about closing down their operations, not investing capital dollars in new equipment, and that we could start to see that impacting on the users within the next few months. Obviously, the GPs are not unhappy with the $400,000 ceiling. In fact some have suggested it might be a goal to work towards. I am just wondering what your overall views are in respect to that agreement and where it is taking us.
Dr Kendall: I believe it works out to about an overall 7% increase by the time you factor in a number of allowable increases, including the size of the population, aging of the population and complexity. It struck me that the 7% increase across the board was a very generous settlement for the highest-paid professionals in the province. It may be worth it if in the long run the OMA can be brought on side in the joint management committee to look at the very tough choices that are going to be facing the profession in terms of how the income is distributed between the professionals, the amount of work the professionals do and getting into quality assurance and continuing medical education and even capping the numbers of professionals working within the province.
The Chair: Are you optimistic that is going to happen?
Dr Kendall: I am going to wait and see.
The Chair: Thank you very much, doctor. We appreciate your appearing here. You have been very helpful and very informative. I wish you well.
Dr Kendall: Thank you very much.
The Chair: The next matter on the agenda is that, as you will recall, we had a request by Mr Grandmaître that we take the one week in respect to deliberating on the intended appointees who appeared before us last week so that perhaps some concerns could be investigated or what have you. In any event, the request was made and we now have to make those determinations this morning. I am looking for motions. I think we will deal with them on an individual basis.
We had Sharon Laffrenier, who is an intended appointee as a member of the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Services Board; the honourable David Henry, who is an intended appointee as an alternate chair of the Lieutenant Governor's Board of Review, and Neville Chenoy, who is an intended appointee as a member of the Child and Family Services Review Board. That is it, so we have the three of them.
SHARON LAFFRENIER
The Chair: I am looking for a motion dealing with the appointment of Sharon Laffrenier to the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Services Board. It is moved by Mr Wiseman that we concur with that appointment. Any discussion on the motion?
Mr McGuinty: The only point I wanted to make is that I had and I have some very serious reservations about Ms Laffrenier. I do not feel we had adequate time to explore her views and her abilities further, and as a result I feel I am not prepared, to be honest, to make a decision. If the government party feels it is prepared on the basis of the information it received at that time, I want to make it clear that I do not feel that way. I just want to put those comments on the record.
Ms Carter: I can understand that people might have felt that she was not very articulate, but I feel that with an appointment like that we are going into something new. We are looking at groups of people who have not been brought on to this kind of board or commission before, in fact somebody who has been in many ways disadvantaged. To expect that kind of person to show the polish and the self-confidence and the eloquence that maybe somebody would who has had a silver spoon in his mouth and become a lawyer and this kind of thing --
The Chair: No reflection on the present company, of course.
Ms Carter: -- or a doctor or whatever else, is not realistic. I felt that to reject her for that kind of superficial reason, when she is obviously a person who has had a lot of what you might call experience of probably the seamy side of life and whose heart, it seemed to me, was very much in the right place, would be a mistake. So I would vote very strongly to give her a chance.
The Chair: Anything else? Any other member?
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Mr Marchese: I agree with what the member for Peterborough just said, because it is so easy for us within a particular culture to have certain expectations of all people. If they are not as articulate as many of us are, we see that as a particular problem or deficiency. We tend therefore to view them negatively in relation to the skills they might have and in relation to what they could bring to a particular agency.
I agree absolutely with what the member for Peterborough just said. We need to remind ourselves of that. While I understand what the member for Ottawa South just pointed out earlier, at the same time we need to keep this perspective as we interview the candidates so as not to fall into those particular errors that we traditionally could make or have made.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to comment on that again. We need to remember that we as politicians develop a familiarity with one another, and the barriers, in terms of having awe for one another, break down as this familiarity develops. But the general public out there do not have the opportunity to become as familiar with us as we are with each other. When they come before us here, eight or nine strangers who are investigating who they are, what they are about, asking questions, it can be very daunting. She was quite nervous.
It does not take away from the fact that within her own community she has worked on social councils, she has worked in the community with people and she has been an advocate of people in her community and has participated in a very positive way. It does not take away from the fact that she was nominated by other members of her community who suggested that she come and do this. The fact is that she is volunteering and will bring a perspective to the police services board that will be unique. I have a little bit of difficulty in using nervousness as a criteria for appointment to police services boards.
Mr Grandmaître: I find this discussion somewhat strange. I think this is the first time we have had this type of discussion and we are all talking about the same person. Who is nervous? I have heard the members for Durham West and Peterborough say this person has great qualities. I am not trying to denigrate her, but we all have something to say or were thinking of something and I think it shows that the members for Durham West and Peterborough are not too sure of that appointment. They are not too sure and they are not fully convinced.
It is our job to find the best-qualified person for that job. What they are saying is that she might have been nervous but she has a great heart, worked with the community and so on and so forth. These are all great qualities, but we still have to find the best-qualified person for the job and there is a limit to every person. Ms Laffrenier might be a great person with great qualities, but we are appointing a person who I think is over her head.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to comment on that. I have done some research into her background. She has shown great potential to grow. She began in a situation that you and I have only had an opportunity to read about and not experience. She has grown and she has broken out of that cycle that she was originally born into. She has not only grown out of it to develop her own net worth, she has grown out of it to expand and to help other people to do the same thing.
If what I said causes you to think that I have any reservations about supporting her, I would like at this point to say that I do not have any reservations about supporting her. In terms of people who have come before this committee, notwithstanding her nervousness, she is probably one of our very good appointments in terms of demonstrating ability and demonstrating ability to grow out of circumstances and to show innovation, creativity and generosity to others who have not had the same kind of opportunities. I think she will be an excellent person on that services board, and when she becomes comfortable she will really start to show leadership. I have no reservations whatsoever.
Ms Carter: I have none either.
Mr Marchese: Mr Grandmaître raised some questions that many of us have had to deal with in the past. When we speak of looking for the best candidate or the most qualified, that is the criterion we have used in many institutions to keep a lot of other people out, most of the time perhaps unwillingly, unintentionally. But when we use that criterion, that is what happens.
We never look at how we view candidates. We never look at how race, for example, could be an issue in terms of how we reflect on the person's qualifications. We sometimes never look at their experience and knowledge they bring, as to whether they could be good candidates in those positions as opposed to did they answer the questions the way we wanted and were they articulate in answering those questions?
We often have to look at ourselves in terms of how we judge and how we evaluate those aspects of an interviewee because we could make serious mistakes. I throw that out as something we need to assess ourselves on all the time as we review candidates.
The Chair: We have had a pretty thorough discussion.
Mr McGuinty: To ensure I am not misunderstood, I agree with most of the comments made by the government members, but they are misconstruing my reservations as being somewhat dependent upon the witness's nervousness, her lack of ability to express herself, how articulate she was. Those are of no concern whatsoever to me.
There is something beyond that. We should remind ourselves, from time to time, this is not a popularity contest. We have a job to do. Sometimes it is not easy to do and we have to make tough decisions. All I am saying is that I do not feel I have enough information to make me completely comfortable in appointing this person to this position. That is all I am saying.
The Chair: We have a motion from Mr Wiseman to concur in the appointment of Sharon Laffrenier to the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Services Board.
Motion agreed to.
DAVID HENRY
The Chair: The next appointment we have to deal with is the Honourable David Howard Henry, intended appointee, member and alternate chair, Lieutenant Governor's Board of Review. Do we have a motion to concur with that appointment?
Mr Waters moves appointment of David Howard Henry.
Mr McGuinty: I am not sure we could find a more qualified candidate than Mr Justice Henry.
The Chair: I was extremely heartened by his responses to my questions. I am optimistic about the job he is going to do as alternate chair.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to make one comment on Judge Henry. While you are concerned and have a good feeling about his qualifications -- I believe he is qualified -- I have a reservation in that we were unable to pin him down in terms of the philosophical and intellectual criteria he will use in order to determine the people who come before him. I have reservations about that. However, the point to be made here is that he has demonstrated in his past that he has this intellectual ability, and we know his record, clearly. He will probably be a good appointment, but in terms of reservations, if I had reservations about anybody, I have reservations about knowing what his intellectual parameters are, because he did not tell us.
The Chair: Mr Waters moves that the committee concur in the appointment of Judge Henry.
Motion agreed to.
NEVILLE CHENOY
The Chair: The final intended appointee from last week's review is Neville Chenoy, intended appointee as a member of the Child and Family Services Review Board.
Mr Frankford moves that the committee concur in the appointment of Neville Chenoy.
Motion agreed to.
WAYNE COLBRAN
PERRY KENDALL
The Chair: I will move on to this week's reviews. Is there any member who wishes to see the decision with respect to the intended appointees' review this morning delayed? No concerns.
Mr Wiseman moves that the committee concur in the appointment of Mr Colbran and Dr Kendall.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to make a comment about Dr Kendall. In the time we have been reviewing people, this gentleman who was before us today is probably one of the most qualified and most brilliant we have seen. He comes to this appointment with an intellectual rigour that will be extremely beneficial to the people of Toronto. If anybody can help the health system come to grips with the problems it is facing, I believe this gentleman has all the qualifications to do that. I am really quite pleased with this appointment.
Motion agreed to.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Chair: The next item on our agenda is the report of the subcommittee on committee business. That is attached to your agendas. Are there any questions, comments or concerns with respect to the subcommittee report?
As you can see, we have laid out the committee's schedule as best we can, plus we are advising you of the selections made for review in the upcoming weeks, the Ontario Energy Board, Mary Rounding. No selections were made for the October 17 orders in council. October 24, selected by the third party, the Ontario Board of Parole and the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario. I am assuming from the lack of response that the committee concurs with the report of the subcommittee.
Mr Grandmaître: I would like some clarification. Mary Rounding will be before us what date?
The Chair: November 20.
As the committee concurs with the report of the subcommittee, we will move into closed session. We are going to be dealing with the draft reports David has prepared for us on TVOntario and the Eastern Ontario Development Corp.
The committee continued in camera at 1104.