PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS SECRETARIAT
CONTENTS
Thursday 4 February 1993
Public appointments secretariat
Marilyn Sharma, general manager
Marilyn Roycroft, director
Committee mandate
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
*Chair / Président: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville
PC)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe
East/-Est PC)
*Bradley, James J. (St Catharines L)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)
*Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)
Ferguson, Will, (Kitchener ND)
*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)
*Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L)
*Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West/-Ouest PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay ND)
*Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Drainville, Dennis (Victoria-Haliburton ND) for Ms Carter
Duignan, Noel (Halton North ND) for Mr Waters
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND) for Mr Ferguson
Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Mr Waters
Villeneuve, Noble (S-D-G & East Grenville/S-D-G & Grenville-Est PC)
for Mr Stockwell
Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim: Manikel,
Tannis
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative
Research Service
The committee met at 1010 in committee room 2.
PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS SECRETARIAT
The Chair (Mr Runciman): I'll call the meeting to order. Our first witness this morning is Marilyn Roycroft, who is the director of the public appointments secretariat. This is an annual event and this is Marilyn's second appearance before the committee. She had only been in the job, I think, a couple of weeks or something when she initially appeared before the committee. This is, in essence, to discuss the relationship between her office and the committee, whether she has any concerns, how she feels it's operating and receive to feedback from the committee as well. We intend to do this on an annual basis at least.
Ms Roycroft has someone else with her, an additional witness. Perhaps you could identify yourself and your role for Hansard.
Ms Marilyn Sharma: My name is Marilyn Sharma and I am the general manager of the public appointments secretariat.
The Chair: Welcome to the committee. Ms Roycroft, would you like to start off?
Ms Marilyn Roycroft: Thank you very much. I appreciate and welcome the opportunity to be here, Chair. I was in fact not even on the job when you last introduced me, when I was sitting in at the back of the committee meeting. I appreciate this opportunity very much. It is a new process. I've been here for approximately 10 months now and I think it's a learning process for all of us. I welcome this opportunity to hear the concerns.
I receive letters and phone calls from a number of MPPs of all parties, and again I welcome that because we learn something about how the process works as we go along.
In addition, though, let me just say, Marilyn Sharma being here this morning, that I would like to also introduce to the committee members three other members of the secretariat staff who form part of the working group. Many of you may know them from doing work with some of the boards and commissions. St John Payne is one of the consultants who works with a number of the different boards and agencies, Brenda Sukhnandan is my assistant and Nancy Pearson is the other political staff, along with myself, in the secretariat. Nancy's main responsibility is to work with this standing committee and you probably recognize her. I think she's here most days you sit.
I don't think I want to open with a lot of remarks. I'll wait and hear the questions. I can only say that having been on the job now for 10 months, the whole area of boards, agencies and commissions, that whole quasi-judicial administrative justice system, was a bit of an unknown quantity to me. Like most citizens in this province, I understood it only in the very vaguest of terms. I now understand it a lot better and find the value of a number of the boards and agencies to be misunderstood by the bulk of the population, and I welcome this process and any process that informs the people of the province about this fourth level of government, in essence.
Just by way of information for any of you, in doing some preparations for a speech last week, I came across an article that Judge Rosalie Abella had written about the whole system of judicial and quasi-judicial boards and tribunals. I have brought some copies along. Judge Abella has described the system with its flaws and with its perfections in a most wonderful way. If any of you would like a copy of that out of interest, I brought some extras with me. It's a wonderful article.
Anyway, please, we'll take some questions.
The Chair: Hopefully, all members are aware that Ms Roycroft has responded to a questionnaire that the committee provided her with and all of you have that in front of you. Who would like to begin the questions? Mr Frankford?
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): No.
The Chair: I'm looking for someone to begin.
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): I'll start.
When we look at it, the appointment system has changed, to say the least, in Ontario over the last while. There has probably been a far greater cross-section of people appointed to agencies, boards and commissions in the last several years than was perhaps contemplated in the past.
One of the concerns I have is that in our efforts to reflect all of Ontario -- for instance, to have so many rural people, so many city people, so many people who are this, that and everything else -- are we, in your view, getting, and I don't know if we ever did get, the best qualified people? I say that from this point of view. My concern always is that the civil service will run everything. If you appoint people who aren't top-notch people to agencies, boards and commissions, the staff of the agencies, boards and commissions will run the place and the others will just go like this.
I sat on a hospital board years ago where the number one thing you had to do was get your hand up this high and then back down because nobody understood what was happening.
Are we getting that, in your view, from your observation? We have to have so many people -- and I'm saying this generically -- who are partisans of the government. That's fine. When the government wins, it's allowed to do that and so on. But are you noticing that agencies, boards and commissions are running themselves as a result and that the people who get appointed to them are not doing that good a job, that they may want to but they're just not doing that good a job?
Ms Roycroft: You raise a number of interesting points and it's a good starting point for discussion, if I can be frank.
I think the quality of the candidates being appointed is extremely high. I think it has always been very high. I think the variety and the range of responsibilities and work that the 500 to 600 boards and agencies do around this province is enormous. The range is enormous about what they do, whether they're a quasi-judicial tribunal or whether they're a minister's advisory. In some ways you have to separate, because they have quite different responsibilities and duties.
The needs of a good number of the boards and agencies to reflect both a geographic representation and an expertise or an interest range are real. The chairs of the board say: "I need an accountant. I need that expertise." A chair will look at the makeup of a board and say: "I have simply no one from northern Ontario. It's just not right. I need to have that representation."
In those senses, I think that need to represent is real, legitimate and serves the province and the commissions better. What we strive to do, and have always done, is to find the best qualified people, the people who will bring the skills and expertise that the board needs at the same time as trying to make sure that the representation is there. I'm not sure, in some cases, that it's a lot different than what always was attempted. We're trying to work very closely with a number of the senior chairs on this. That's different than a minister's advisory committee. I have to be honest; they're quite different things. For a minister's advisory committee, they may advertise if they're appointing one. They'll get hundreds of applications and they'll choose from that. We don't get as much involved in that as we would with the Ontario Lottery Corp or the Social Assistance Review Board.
In terms of skill and expertise, I can only speak from my perspective, but I certainly think that if you ask the chairs, some of whom have been here for various governments, they would speak to the quality of the appointments.
Mr Bradley: The second thing gets into, how do you appoint and how does it reflect all of Ontario and not just all of Metropolitan Toronto when these appointments are made? I know the difficulty is that with a lot of agencies, boards and commissions, the reason you have people from Toronto is because it's convenient. I understand that. Even from somebody well outside of Toronto, there's a compelling argument in many cases to have Toronto people here. You try to reflect, I guess, all of Ontario and you end up reflecting all of Metropolitan Toronto, and the thinking in a big city is often different from the thinking in a mid-sized city or a rural community and so on. How are we addressing that, or is it as it always has been, that there's a predominance of Toronto people on these committees?
Ms Roycroft: Well, it's a struggle. I met with the chair of the Ontario Lottery Corp yesterday, and he needs some senior financial people on that board. The list he had -- and he had made up the list by contacting a whole number of different individuals of his acquaintance -- was primarily Toronto-based. We sat there and we said, "What are we going to do?" He said, "I need representation from outside of Toronto." We decided, based on that, to talk to a couple of the people already on his list and say, "Who do you recommend in your field?" It happened to be banking in one area, and the other was computer skills. "Who do you recommend that you know who happens to be based in London or in Ottawa?"
In terms of some of the expertise, financial is a big problem, Jim, because a lot of the expertise happens to reside in this city in terms of senior positions. The Ontario Lottery Corp, Ontario Hydro, some of those boards are quite specialized in their needs. We struggle with it and we often refer it to professional associations. We wrote to the chartered accountants and we've also written to the professional engineers' associations, asking them to encourage their members outside the Metro area to send us résumés if they're interested in any appointment, because some of those specialized skills we can use and we would prefer to get them from outside Metro.
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Mr Bradley: Let me raise this concern: I live in a much more non-cosmopolitan community than Metropolitan Toronto, and so a lot of the people who are looking to get on agencies, boards and commissions pick up the form and say, "There are five boxes to check and I'm zero for five; I'm not going to get an appointment." There are five check marks on there, five categories of people, they say, "That's it, I don't have a chance." My information to them is, "You have the same chance as everybody else," but they have that perception that because they can't check off any of the boxes, or maybe only one of the boxes, they're not going to get chosen. I'll just ask you to comment on that.
Ms Roycroft: I think all you can do, Jim, is what you're doing, encourage them to apply, because, yes, we are trying to better reflect the province in the membership on the boards and agencies, but the first things we go after are skills, expertise, experience. If a chair says to me, or a minister, or the ministry staff working with them, "This board needs to better reflect; let's work on that," we'll work on it, but it will always be within the parameters of skills, experience and expertise.
A lot of people don't fill that out. It is voluntary. It says so on the form and it is, so I would hope it isn't a barrier. If it is a barrier, if you continue to see that, we need to work on it because it's not meant to be. It is meant as a tool to help us. When we pull out of the computer bank 60 or 70 people who have expressed an interest in the Social Assistance Review Board, we send them over to the chair. That happens to be one of the boards where the chair basically does the interviewing, the selection and then recommends. There's not much politics left in the selection of the Social Assistance Review Board membership. I think you know that board well.
In that case, the chair then has at least some sense of some different representation based on the application. She still interviews. She still goes through a very tough process. Those are full-time jobs. It's information and we use it as a tool, but it shouldn't be a barrier and people should continue to send them in as much as possible.
Mr Bradley: You have the perennial generic problem of partisan appointments to deal with that every government has. I was very unpopular with the Liberal Party because I refused to put party hacks in places because they were party hacks. I want good people in there whoever they are, and if you're the government in power and you have a lot of good people, nobody can object to that.
Interjection.
Mr Bradley: I know, you're right; everybody hated me in the Liberal Party for that. I could never run for leader because all I ever said was no to the hacks.
How do you people wrestle with this when there's political pressure to put a person in who is a campaign manager, bagman or bagwoman, or whatever you call a person who raises all the money and things like that? How do you people wrestle with that? Does the Premier, does the cabinet finally, in this regime as well as every other regime, still say, "Well, we want that person even though that person is perhaps not the best person you can get but is a good New Democrat, Liberal or Conservative," depending on who's in power?
I know it's a dicey question and I'll take whatever answer you want.
Ms Roycroft: It's an interesting question.
Mr Bradley: There are a lot of good New Democrats out there; I'm not convinced they all get appointed. I see some appointed who --
Ms Roycroft: Neither are they.
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): I see some bad Liberals and Tories getting appointed too.
Mr Bradley: I didn't know you could use that adjective in front of the word "Liberal," but okay --
Mr Wiseman: Actually it's a redundant phrase, because it means the same thing.
Ms Roycroft: In some senses, I think it's fair to reflect on a bit of a change in the times. I think the appointment process for all governments now is different than it was 10 and 20 years ago.
Mr Bradley: I agree with that entirely.
Ms Roycroft: I thing we witnessed that publicly in the United States where this same process is going on with Clinton's administration. I think that part of this public process, which you're very much a part of, has furthered or put additional pressure on that change. So the partisan nature of the appointments, though I wouldn't deny that there is one at times, is really limited, and it's by and large limited to some key positions where the appointment matters in terms of the position sharing the agenda of whichever government's in power. But for the vast majority, and I'm talking over 90% of the 6,000 or 7,000 appointments we make, there is very little.
When we look at the applications, when we look at the résumés, again, almost all of the time we have no idea what the person's partisan, if any, activities are. I think the bulk of the people who apply now, coming out of the public process, are not the same people who used to be interested, because I think those people don't believe they're going to get the appointments any more, so we get more general members of the public, who may vote one way or not but aren't active and we don't know whether they are or not.
Mr Bradley: Are you able to identify if people are members of extreme groups, for instance, the Heritage Front or something like that, when they apply? I guess everybody in Ontario should have the right to apply. If someone has an agenda which is clearly outside the mainstream of the province and clearly a negative agenda, you may be concerned about that if they're a member. I use the Heritage Front because they've been in the news lately. Is there a way of identifying those?
Ms Roycroft: It's an interesting question. We've actually been working with a number of the chairs on that, because they have some concerns also. I think the only way we've been developing a strategy is that almost everybody is interviewed in one way or another, over the phone or by the chair in a personal interview or in our office, and if we identify any sense that there's anything, we do do a personal interview and we try and pull out opinions, points of view, and get a sense from the chair whether that would work on that board or not, and in some cases it simply wouldn't work. It would be a disruption on the board. The chair makes that decision and we don't appoint that person.
But we haven't had it as a major problem. It was a concern expressed by a number of chairs when the whole process opened up, but because a lot of them have been involved with us in interviewing or in helping short-list people, I don't sense that they're quite as concerned about it. But it's hard to do that without infringing on individual rights of opinion and freedom of speech.
Mr Bradley: Yes, that's what you encounter. I understand that. That's a very difficult line to go down. However, there are clearly people the government would be embarrassed to have serving in agencies, boards and commissions if indeed they had an agenda which was clearly, for want of a better word, an evil agenda, as opposed to one which is political, and that's not always evil, at the same time.
Is there still a political minister who has a final say? Does this government have a political minister in each area or a political minister overall?
Ms Roycroft: If they do, I haven't met them.
Mr Bradley: Or is that the Premier himself?
Ms Roycroft: I haven't met them. The appointments, as always, do go to cabinet, so there's discussion at the cabinet level. The Premier's involved, certainly in his own appointments and in some others he has a particular interest in, but again, the involvement tends to be to say early on, "This is the quality, this is the type of person I want." It tends to be less partisan in each of --
Mr Bradley: What about firing people from agencies, boards and commissions? One of the difficulties governments have when they come in is that you might have someone sitting in, I'll say the Ontario Lottery Corp, who is, as I am, adamantly opposed to casino gambling. If you had a person in there, that person is not going to be very useful to you if the government policy -- and the government has the right to decide -- is that it's going to establish 10 casinos in Ontario. This is theoretical. If that person is adamantly opposed to casinos and is not going to make it easy for you to implement casino gambling, is there a provision now for terminating these people without ending up in court, or are these considered to be like jobs in the civil service where you need a gold or platinum handshake to get them out?
Ms Roycroft: No, no, no, and again, it really varies on the type of board or agency, but in the lottery example, my own sense would be, the integrity -- most of the people on that board are quite senior, experienced business people or members of their community. There are a number of professors, there's a head of a local hospital board. My own sense is that if they have a personal difference of opinion on a major policy direction, I believe that they would likely resign, but that would be their own individual decision. Certainly there's been no pressure brought to bear that I'm aware of from this government, from ministers or from chairs, to do that.
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If we deal with a different problem, which is non-attendance or a range of other problems, then again we would seek the chair's advice, because the chairs, by and large, for the senior boards, run those boards. We would seek the chair's advice on what they wanted to do with an appointee, and we're involved in some of those discussions with people now.
In terms of differences of opinion about policy direction, there was no turnover of membership in the boards and agencies when the governments turned over in the past; there wasn't this time. My assumption would be that the political culture in this province is not to do that and it certainly hasn't been what we've done.
Mr Bradley: Unlike the civil service, however -- and I know some of these positions are civil service --
Ms Roycroft: Yes.
Mr Bradley: -- with agencies, boards and commissions, you're unlikely to get as politically a neutral person in a position. My concern for any government that takes office is that you may have a board which is adamantly opposed to the agenda the government has, and that board has been appointed by a previous government. Let's say, in this case, it's a Liberal government-appointed board that was totally opposed to the NDP agenda and the NDP is legitimately elected. I always thought there was a very difficult problem getting rid of the people earlier than when their term came up. Is there some kind of provision for being able to get rid of them without ending up in court? I know the people who are -- like the vice-chair of the Environmental Assessment Board. That's hard, because that's kind of like a civil service position. I'm talking about the other positions down the line.
Ms Roycroft: Marilyn may have a comment on it in terms of the civil service aspect of it, but the appointments, by and large, are three years, with a one-term renewal; I mean a second three-year term. Every board and agency differs. Some, by legislation, we can make one-year reappointments, two-year reappointments; there's some flexibility. In other cases, there's no flexibility and we get into trouble sometimes with the legislation, where there's a high turnover on a board and the chair really needs some people to have a third term because they really need the continuity, and we can't; by legislation we can't. Those are rare cases, but we've had a problem.
The U of T board ended up with, again, a funny turnover pattern, because people moved away and it was going to turn over half its board one year, which it was really unhappy about. Again, legislatively, our hands were tied. Bob McGavin and I couldn't figure a way to solve it. A number of boards are looking at changing some of the membership terms to give them some greater flexibility to deal with contingencies.
To try and answer more directly, I don't know of a board or agency where there's been a major problem with either the chair or the membership leaving because that was their decision, or the minister wanting a change in direction. I haven't been involved in that in the 10 months I've been here, I can honestly say. There have been differences of opinion; ministers work then with the chair to try to sort it out, but there hasn't been a change in membership as a result of that.
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I can't believe what I'm hearing here this morning. I have never seen so many blatant political appointments in my life. There has not been one person from my riding, other than a member of your party, who's been appointed. A chief financial officer's been appointed, an ex-candidate has been appointed, his wife and his family all have government jobs and you come in here this morning and say they're based on ability.
I have been here since this committee was first formed. I've sat in and never missed any and I have seen people go through here who should never be appointed. There's never been one who has been turned down and you say these people are being appointed are based on their ability and qualifications?
Ms Roycroft: I do. In fact, my understanding is that the committee, by and large, has voted in favour of most of the candidates who come forward as intended candidates and if the committee -- I'm being quite frank -- has concerns about the level of skill, expertise or experience they're bringing, I have not been hearing that. I read Hansard and I talk to committee members. So I'm interested in hearing about it.
Mr McLean: Then that's good, because it got to the stage after about the first six months that there wasn't much point in complaining, because we knew exactly what was happening. We knew there was no point. Ben never voted for one for the first year and a half, and many others are the same. But there's never been one who has been turned down.
In my riding alone, I know, because I knew the appointments were coming up, and I made sure there were other people who applied within the community. The city of Orillia made a recommendation to your people, sent the letter in, of who it thought should be an appointment. It was totally ignored. I didn't even know the person who got the appointment; the city never knew who it was, and the person got an appointment. You come in here and tell me it's based on their service to the community; totally wrong. That's what I see going on all the time, and over 90% to 95% of appointments are appointed as party members.
Ms Roycroft: That's news to me. I don't know that.
Mr McLean: All you have to do is look at the names and look at where they come from.
Ms Roycroft: The other thing you should know about is that the bulk of the appointments, in terms of the 5,000 or 6,000, come in the housing and the health fields. That's where the large numbers of appointments are. Those appointments, by and large, are made on the direct recommendation of district health councils, hospitals and city councils. In fact, as you know, it's been a complaint of mine that the committee at times reviews some of those people, because we pass them through. We encourage and hope that the local municipal governments are appointing and recommending for appointment people of skill and expertise and good community representation, but we don't say no to them; we've never done that. Those are over 50% of the appointments.
Mr McLean: The point is that this committee never sees any names, only ones who are recommended by cabinet. We see no names before that. We have no idea who's applying for what.
Ms Roycroft: I understand that, but what I'm saying is that if you look at all the housing and the health appointments that come before you, 90% of those are in fact directly coming out of either the municipal government, the district health council or the district hospital, and those are local community people.
Mr McLean: But we haven't made a habit of reviewing those, because we feel they are being recommended by whoever and that's their duty to do that. But the ones I'm talking about, that we're dealing with here, as I was going to say, I see nothing wrong with political appointments, but the perception out there is that they're being reviewed by a committee before they get their appointment, which is not true. To a certain extent, they're already being recommended. There has not been one in two years who has been turned down, and if this committee is reviewing them, why are we reviewing them other than to find out who they are? Some of the appointments we've made here, I just shake my head and can't believe it.
Ms Roycroft: Let me reiterate: If there are appointments where you have serious concerns about their expertise or their skills, then I think that does need to be on the record. My own assumption has been that if in fact things came out during this public review process that so disturbed the government, the chair of the board or commission and the secretariat, we would be seriously looking at that before it went on. The fact that this hasn't happened, I think by and large is a tribute to the quality of the candidate. But we will continue to take the reviews seriously, and if the committee, again, has objections, it needs to make those known.
The benefit of this process is that at least the public has a better sense of what's going on. Like in the States, you get a chance to ask the questions before television cameras. They're on record. We understand that lots of people read Hansard, and there's a much greater understanding of what the boards and agencies do as a result of this committee meeting. Certainly, in terms of some of the major boards, the police services boards and that, which you've concentrated on, there's a much greater understanding of the public nature of these appointments because of this committee.
The Chair: Mr McLean, do you mind a supplementary from Mr Grandmaître?
Mr McLean: No, that's okay.
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): Thank you, Al. You're saying that you've never heard of any candidates or appointments that came before us who weren't, let's say, good candidates. You just said this.
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Ms Roycroft: What I said is that my understanding is that the committee has not objected to the skills and expertise level of most of the candidates. Now, I don't sit through here. I do read the Hansard and I do come for some of them. But that's my understanding.
Mr Grandmaître: My question is, have you ever consulted with the members of this committee, especially the government members? Have you ever consulted with them?
The Chair: When you respond, we go back to Mr McLean, because we're using up his time.
Ms Roycroft: Have I consulted with the government members of the committee?
Mr Grandmaître: Yes. I meet with these people every day and they question some of our appointments. You've never heard about this?
Ms Roycroft: I've heard about one or two. In terms of 1,400 that went through last year, there are bound to be glitches. This is not a perfect process. We try to make it as effective as possible. But I certainly haven't heard about large numbers of complaints. No, I haven't.
Mr McLean: I want to move on to another area, but I have one last question on this. The fact is that in the area I represent there has not been one appointment other than a party member. You indicate that they are appointed on quality. Why would that happen?
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): We want names.
Mr McLean: Government party.
Ms Roycroft: I don't have an explanation for that. We don't do a review of the appointments riding by riding, so I wouldn't have a sense of that. I hear what you're saying, and I'm obviously registering it, so I will be looking into it.
Mr McLean: But the thing that bothers me is that you came here this morning and you're giving us the impression that everything is fine, that there were excellent appointments out there, everything is just great. I'm here telling you that is not the way I see it. I can give you names as proof of what I'm talking about. I think that if you want to look at quality, you've got to look without being -- well, I know how the system works.
Anyhow, how many staff members are there in your secretariat, under your jurisdiction?
Ms Roycroft: In total, there are 10 staff: eight civil servants, two political staff. The civil service component -- and Marilyn certainly can speak to this -- of the operation basically does the administration and the support for the public process. The book we put out every year Marilyn Sharma herself has responsibility for. The application forms, the processing, the keeping in touch with the chairs, the working with the ministry people, that's all done by all of us.
Mr McLean: What is your budget for the year?
Ms Sharma: The 1992-93 budget is $1.079 million.
Mr McLean: For a staff of 10?
Ms Sharma: Yes.
Mr McLean: What is the average salary of your staff?
Ms Sharma: The average salary would be somewhere around $45,000. But keep in mind that last year we had a budget of $1.4 million and we actually spent $800,000, with a saving of $636,000 that we returned to the consolidated revenue fund.
Mr McLean: It was $800,000 last year. What was your budget then for the first year?
Ms Sharma: That was the first year of operation, including a startup cost of $456,000, which was taken out of this year's budget. To date we have spent $600,000, so we are looking at a surplus of somewhere around $400,000 that will be returned to the consolidated revenue fund.
Mr McLean: Who estimates your budget? Who does your estimates for your budget? He's estimating pretty high. Both years you've --
Ms Sharma: What happened is that we produced one book for two years.
Mr McLean: What was the cost of the books to be produced?
Ms Roycroft: The first year was expensive because we did it for the first time, but Marilyn has managed to bring the cost down considerably for the second year.
Mr McLean: What's it going to cost?
Ms Sharma: The cost this year was $93,000.
Mr Wiseman: What was it the first year?
Ms Sharma: It was $189,000.
Mr Frankford: Do you know the sales of the book?
Ms Sharma: For the first year it was sold out in the bookstore. They charged $34.
Ms Roycroft: We actually make profit for the bookstore. It's a best seller. We don't make that money; the Ontario Government Bookstore sells them.
Mr McLean: How much?
Ms Sharma: It's $34.
Mr McLean: But they're sent to all the libraries.
Ms Roycroft: That's free.
Mr McLean: There are thousands that go out free.
Ms Sharma: Yes, we send to the 1,500 libraries across the province.
Mr McLean: Is there any consideration being given at all by your secretariat to some changes that could be made with regard to how the people are coming forward to be appointed?
Ms Roycroft: In terms of how we reach out to more people?
Mr McLean: Yes. Well, I think the committee, we come here and we have a person who's designated as an appointee. We go over them and we pick out one or two or three each and like to have a look at them. It would be nice to compare, pick out one area and have some of the people who have applied -- say: "Okay, there are three people who have applied. We need one appointment. Let's interview the three and see which one we think is the best."
Ms Roycroft: Right. It may be the decision of the committee or the government to go that route, but at this point -- I mean, that would be, in a sense, a formal hiring process or a second appointment process. My understanding of the mandate of the committee is that it's a review process, and I think it does an effective job of reviewing and of publicizing the process by virtue of that. But if you wanted to change that, it would have to be a change that the government supported.
Mr McLean: Last question, Mr Chair. You had indicated in your opening remarks you get a lot of phone calls from all three party members. What numbers would those calls be? Do you get a lot of phone calls from MPPs with regard to appointments?
Ms Roycroft: I probably receive either a letter or a phone call from two to three MPPs a week, and they do come from all three parties. People by and large call to say, "This is a very good person. I think you should look particularly at his background. He's well suited for the board he's applying for," or they call to say: "I don't know this person at all, but I sent you the résumé over. I hope you'll look at him." They give me that information.
So the calls tend to be pretty straightforward, and I try to get back to everybody who does call. I don't always. In fact, I tend to get back to the opposition before our own members sometimes. But I do get those calls and I do get those letters.
Mr McLean: I'll pass for now, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Okay. Mr Fletcher.
Mr Derek Fletcher (Guelph): Just going along with what Mr McLean was saying, as far as MPPs writing you recommendations about people, phoning you, does that carry any weight with the board? Do you listen to what MPPs are saying?
Ms Roycroft: If in fact the person has not been pulled out to be considered because we didn't know that he was specifically interested in that board or agency, it very well might mean that he does get pulled out. In fact, by and large it always does.
The selection process is a very complicated one and it varies board by board. If it's a board where the chair has a very major role to play, then it goes to the chair, with the information that the MPP requested the person be seriously considered, and it rests with the chair then to do the interviewing, do the selection and make the recommendations.
If it's being done internally by the minister's staff, if it's an advisory committee meeting two or three times a year, again, that would go to them for their consideration.
Mr Fletcher: On page 7, I'm looking at, "To make the guide more accessible to individuals, the secretariat is now making the guide available on a loan basis to individuals who find it difficult to access it at a public library or cannot afford to purchase it from Publications Ontario." Who are these people and how do you make it accessible to them?
Ms Roycroft: Sometimes it's people who call us or drop in who want more information. We have in fact let people take them home, and by and large they've all come back, or we've mailed them out to people who don't have access to a public library and, again, they've come back.
Mr Fletcher: Is that the north?
Ms Roycroft: Yes, it's by and large the north or small communities, or they live on a farm and they don't get into town very often.
Mr Fletcher: This is really the first time that it has been made accessible to people in general across Ontario. How is that working?
Ms Roycroft: This is the first time any government in the country put together --
Mr Fletcher: A guide.
Ms Roycroft: -- a guide like this. The Americans have in Washington what they call their purple book, but this is the first book of its kind in Canada.
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Mr Fletcher: How is that working? Has it increased the number of applications, the number of people who know about the system?
Ms Roycroft: Tremendously. We tried to look at the numbers. We were 4,000 last year, and up to 10,000 people this year have either put their applications in, their résumés in, or indicated to us or to the minister an interest. So the numbers are up dramatically. I think for an area of government that was relatively unknown and still is relatively unknown, this part of the process, which is to make the public aware of that level of government, has been very valuable.
Mr Fletcher: How do you advertise this? How do you go about advertising? Do you spend money on advertising?
Ms Roycroft: We did the very first year. Before I came, Marilyn was involved in an advertisement. We were swamped and that's partly how the bank started. We don't advertise in general now. We do work with the ministries and the chairs on specific appointments to advertise. So in other words, if the Social Assistance Review Board is hiring and it is a full-time job, then it by and large advertises for that, and we work with it on the ad, but we haven't done a general ad since the very first one.
Mr Fletcher: Do you get a lot of calls, complaints, from MPPs about the people who have been appointed, or is this just something you're hearing now?
Ms Roycroft: I haven't had a lot of calls complaining. No, I haven't.
Mr Fletcher: I know I phoned once or twice.
Ms Roycroft: I've had some, yes.
Mr Fletcher: All these Liberals and Conservatives in my riding who are getting all these appointments; I'm not sure what's going on, Allan. I'm not sure. You're living in the wrong part of the country, that's all.
Mr Bradley: That was only when Bob White got appointed.
Mr McLean: And you weren't happy about that.
Mr Bradley: Did you approve of the SkyDome appointments?
Mr Fletcher: No, I didn't.
Mr Wiseman: You're using up my time here.
Mr Fletcher: I didn't realize there were more people. Mr Chairman, I'll pass the time right now.
The Chair: Mr Frankford and then Mr Wiseman.
Mr Frankford: A few weeks ago there was a very flippant article on the op-ed page of the Star saying something like, "Need a job? Apply for government," which I thought was very superficial and it didn't acknowledge the fact that this is now an open process, that one couldn't have known one could even apply a couple of years ago.
Ms Roycroft: But in fact it resulted in us getting a good number of phone calls in the following days, and what we do is explain to everybody how the process works. So it was a bit flippant, but in fact it did give people a sense that we're there.
Mr Wiseman: Yes. It brought a lot into my office to look at the book.
Mr Marchese: It's true.
Ms Roycroft: Yes.
Mr Frankford: One of the problems with the book is that it's a hard copy and it's out of date as soon as it's printed. Have you considered an electronic version?
Ms Roycroft: Yes, we are looking into it, and Mr McLean got at the finances a little bit. Because these are the first couple of years of operation, yes, our budgeting may not have been right on, but we've turned back in substantial sums each year. One of the things that we're doing is taking the publication of the book in-house for the next publication, which will save us, again, considerable money and may allow us to also do some electronic updating on that basis.
If people have indicated an interest in a specific board, we keep in the office and available to anybody who wants to see them, master sheets with the current membership of the board. We send those out to people; if they're interested, we send them out to them.
Mr Frankford: So an MPP could update his office files.
Ms Roycroft: Absolutely, and often they do. If they have a special interest in a specific board, they'll call me and say, "Are there any openings coming?" I send them the up-to-date sheet, not just the book.
Mr Frankford: That's worth knowing, because I think we would very much use that.
Ms Roycroft: Because the turnover's quite dramatic. People move, they change jobs and then can't do it; lots of reasons people have to go off before the end of their terms.
Mr Wiseman: Just in case anybody has forgotten the previous method of appointments --
Mr Bradley: Here comes the chief government defender, Dave Cooke's boy.
Mr Wiseman: -- I have a book that I've been reading, and it comes from a book called Dirty Business by Crooks, an appropriate title. This is written of a description of the Tory --
Mr Bradley: Are you letting the committee know you read books?
Mr Wiseman: Sure. "Every Thursday morning in a private dining room in the basement of the provincial Legislature, the Premier and his closest advisers met to ensure that someone appropriate was filling each of the 3,500 positions in the vast quasi-government network. Historian Desmond Morton has observed that" --
Mr Bradley: There's a neutral observer.
Mr Wiseman: -- I knew that would get a few of you going -- "the innumerable government appointments are more than comfortable and respectable sinecures for deserving supporters. They also provide a pervasive infusion of values, ideas and directions through most of the governmental and quasi-governmental agencies of Ontario." Of course, that is a description of the government previous to the Liberal government, which opened it.
Mr Marchese: I can't believe that.
Mr Wiseman: No, that wouldn't have happened.
Mr Marchese: Allan, did you hear that?
Mr McLean: I have nothing against political appointments, but don't let on to the people that they're not. That's what the problem is.
Mr Wiseman: I'm going to say that when that book came out -- and I first started on this committee two and a half years ago -- I promoted it in my riding and I can say that there has been a diversity of people who have been appointed from my riding and that, in fact, I know of no New Democrat who's been appointed from my riding to any of the agencies, boards and commissions. There have been some Liberals and there have been some Tories, but I know of no New Democrats.
Mr Marchese: And we're upset.
Mr Wiseman: And I'm upset -- no. But there have been a lot of appointments and a lot of people who've been appointed who belong to no political party --
Ms Roycroft: Exactly.
Mr Wiseman: You said earlier that you have no way of knowing what those numbers are, but --
Mr Marchese: Allan knows.
Mr Wiseman: Allan knows. He thinks they're all political. But in terms of the book, when people phone up in response to the article, I just say, "Come on into my office and you can fill out an application form just like everybody else and have an equal opportunity to get these jobs."
Ms Roycroft: I think if you have people who are interested in serving either on a specific board or serving on the ABCs in general, the best advice you can give them is to fill the application in and indicate a general interest: "I'm interested in any health boards," "I'm interested in farm boards," or "I'm interested in social service boards," because then their names get automatically pulled out of the computer when we look at any number of 30 or 40 boards, as opposed to their saying, "I'm only interested in a specific board." So in terms of advice for your own constituents, the wider their interest levels and ranges are, the more likely they'll achieve an appointment.
I think that the benefit of the book is that for once people actually have a sense of all the different things that these boards and agencies do. Most people had no idea before; none whatsoever. They just didn't have the information.
Mr Wiseman: Yes, that's true. Have you thought about perhaps informing -- I don't know how you would do this -- sitting members of all three parties who are actually on the boards and agencies that are in their ridings so that they have an idea, because, as you say, there are so many?
Ms Roycroft: It is in fact something we're actually looking into now, a communication method, and we've been talking to various people about how we can do it mechanically, just because of the sheer numbers, but we would really like to be able to let the MPPs of all political persuasions know of the appointments in a timely manner. We understand you sit on platforms with these people. It would be very helpful for you to know, and we're trying to work on that right now.
Mr Wiseman: There's a lot of interaction going on, especially with our district health council in terms of the review, for example, for hospital beds in Durham, and it would be very useful to know who's on, who's coming up and so on.
A way of doing that, to get back to what Mr Frankford was saying, was that if you have a database on a disk or something and if it's alphabetized and it's accessible through an index of some kind or another by riding or town or whatever, then you'd be able to access them all. Actually, a geographic index would probably be more useful.
Ms Roycroft: The trouble is that the health boards, the hospital boards, are by hospital or by city, but the bulk of the other boards are provincial boards that have representation from everywhere. So that's one of the things we've been struggling with: How do we do the electronic breakdown?
Mr Wiseman: You can cross-index it. You can do it by board, you can do it by name, you can do it by geographic region. For example, Durham is so big. I mean, Durham is bigger than Metropolitan Toronto in terms of area and there's diversity all over. There are agricultural boards and --
Interjection.
Mr Wiseman: Don't get me on Toronto. But anyway, if I can leave you with one thought, this kind of electronic index would be very, very useful.
Mr Frankford: CD-ROM.
Mr Wiseman: Yes, CD-ROM. They're making the CD-ROMs even more accessible now, faster application, and it could be done through an e-mail network of some kind or another. You just phone up and you can get it.
Ms Roycroft: We'll have a look at that. Thank you.
The Chair: Mr Marchese, just about seven or eight minutes.
Mr Marchese: Jim Bradley actually raised an interesting point about getting the best-qualified people in order to deal with some of these committees where civil servants control an agency or board. It's an interesting point because in my experience, as well, I know that a lot of boards simply dominate the committees and there is no critical review and there's no criticism of the organization.
It seems to me the way to get at that is that you would need so many more people in the office in order to look at what the problems are in the board, agency or commission and find out who the suitable person would be. I can't see how else you would do it, but the point is an interesting one in terms of what you might want to do.
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Ms Roycroft: It was a very thoughtful point. I think the only way we've been dealing with it is to work really closely with the chairs, who by and large know as much as anyone can know about the workings of their boards, and to respond to their needs for specific expertise. The example, again, of the meeting yesterday with the chair of the Lottery Corp -- the chair really wants some specialized expertise not so that they can second-guess what the corporation staff are doing, but so that they can do some planning 10 years down the road. How we do that takes time, but it's valuable work to be done -- I don't dispute it -- and we use the chairs at this point. That's the closest I can come -- and some of the ministry people who work closely with those boards.
Mr Marchese: The difficulty is that if you rely on the chair as a source of information, if the chair happens to be the source of the problem, then you will not get good information as to who should be appointed, and in some cases the appointment suggestions come from him or her.
Ms Roycroft: It's true. It's difficult. It's very tricky.
Mr Marchese: How many applications did you get that you have to sort through?
Ms Roycroft: We have over 10,000 formal applications or contacts. In other words, they've written us a letter, they phoned in or we have a piece of paper from them. Those come to our office, they come to ministers' offices and they go directly to the chairs of the boards and agencies. Not all of them end up in our talent bank, in the computer bank, because if they're interested in only health boards, because they appoint over 3,000 appointments, they tend to keep their own system and we don't get as involved in that. But we have 6,000 or 7,000 in our own talent bank.
Mr Marchese: Right. That's the difficulty. Allan McLean talked about this in terms of some people who apply and they don't get it, and the implication or assumption is made that it's given to another political appointment, as opposed to the fact that you deal with a great deal of applicants and how do you sort it out. I think people should remember that when you get thousands of applications, it's not an easy process to deal with. If somebody doesn't get it, to simply make the assumption that it's given to a political appointment I think is a mistake. Don't you agree?
Ms Roycroft: Yes. I agree.
Mr Marchese: I want to say, for the sake of continuing with Allan's point, that we get a lot of people from our own political base saying to us: "Why is it that you appoint a lot of people who are not in fact NDPers or people who have supported this party? Why is it that you appoint others?" And they point to mostly Conservative appointments.
Mr Wiseman: They point to Andy Brandt in my riding.
Mr Grandmaître: That's one out of 5,000.
Mr Marchese: Bernard, that's what we say about some of the NDP appointments. The point is that the same kind of criticism that people --
Interjections.
The Vice-Chair (Mr Allan McLean): Mr Marchese has the floor. Don't put this Vice-Chair in a problem. Mr Marchese, carry on.
Interjections.
Mr Marchese: You're keeping great order, Mr Chair. I'm really happy about that.
The Vice-Chair: Really, what you're supposed to do is ignore the interjections and carry on with your question.
Mr Wiseman: Yes, they're out of order.
The Vice-Chair: They're out of order.
Mr Marchese: I just wanted to --
Mr Grandmaître: Continue. It's very interesting.
Mr Marchese: Of course it is. I just wanted to simply balance the criticism in a way that people are aware that we get the same problems from our end as you assume from yours. It's useful for Marilyn to know that, if she hasn't heard it from the rest of our colleagues.
Can I ask you -- I think you mentioned this: How has the opening up of the appointment process brought new applications or new applicants whom we might not have ever had in the past?
Ms Roycroft: There have been a number of ways it was opened up. The book is the biggest and the most obvious, because the book is everywhere, people can see it and people talk. What tends to happen in terms of appointments is networks. People get talking with each other and they pass the word around.
In addition, there was the ad that was done about a year ago now. We have never ruled out the possibility of doing another ad. In fact, we may very well do a more selected one in targeted areas. There's also the whole secretariat, which is a number of people who handle phone calls. Three or four of us go out on a regular basis to meet with groups to explain the agencies, boards and commissions and that whole system of appointments. Finally, there's the standing committee review process, which again spreads the word to the wider community.
So I think the work that we do with the standing committee, with people who apply, with the chairs -- there's just a lot more information about what boards and agencies do, what vacancies there are, how you manage to get on them or not and to express an interest in it. I think it's very positive in terms of both the public administration in this province and public policy development, because boards and agencies are this odd hybrid of administration and policy development. I think the more people who reflect a wider range both of issues, opinions and communities that are on boards and agencies, the more we'll have a more responsive system, and that's good government.
The Vice-Chair: A short question, one minute.
Mr Marchese: Thank you, Mr Chair. That's fine.
Mr Grandmaître: Let's go back to your bank of names. How many names would you have in your bank at the present time?
Ms Roycroft: In the physical bank in our office we have somewhere around 6,000 or 7,000. We also have, though, in various chairs' offices and in the offices of ministers who are responsible for the various agencies, probably an additional 4,000 or 5,000, which we access and they access. We don't all put them into the computer bank, but they come out of the information that's been spread by virtue of this public process. In the past, people didn't write in asking to be on boards and agencies in the numbers that they do now. At least that's my understanding from the civil servants I've been dealing with. So the process has increased the number of interested people.
Mr Grandmaître: How are they entered in your bank? By their interest in a ministry or --
Ms Roycroft: Marilyn could speak probably a bit more accurately about this.
Ms Sharma: Generally, what we do is enter their name and their address. If the person applied for a specific board, we would enter that board. We would enter whatever information they provide on the application form in terms of experience, skills, any professional qualifications, and if they don't have professional qualifications, any community experience they may have indicated on the form. We have key words in terms of skills, professions and experience that we can call individuals up under.
Mr Grandmaître: I've noticed in the last 18 months, let's say, that there have been a lot of lateral appointments. What I mean by "lateral" is people already working in a ministry -- let's say Housing, for instance -- and they're appointed to an ABC. I've noticed this in the last 18 months. More and more people from ministries, already active in a ministry, are being appointed to an ABC. How come?
Ms Roycroft: Well, Mr Grandmaître, it's only in very special circumstances where the board, by definition of its makeup, has civil servants on it. By and large, they're not there, so it would be only because the makeup of that board.
It was interesting when Jim read the book and the number was 3,500. We're now over 5,000. There are new boards and agencies that get set up, it seems, frequently, and some of those do say there must be some crossover with a civil servant. But if it doesn't say that, we by and large don't put civil servants who work in the same area on those boards. We have occasionally. When someone who was a member of the OPS applied for a board or agency that was not in their area at all, we have of course put their application forward as a possibility. But I think what you're talking about is a direct link between what they do and the board.
Mr Grandmaître: That's right.
Ms Roycroft: All I can say is that that would be the makeup of that specific board. Have you got an example?
Mr Grandmaître: I can't give you specific examples, but especially in the last maybe 12 or 18 months, I've seen more lateral movement of people, especially Housing. For a while we've seen a lot of people making $50,000, $60,000, $65,000 a year being transferred from their ministry to an ABC at the same salary.
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Ms Roycroft: It's the rent review board that you're specifically referring to. Nancy was here. My understanding is that because that board is in fact slated to sunset within a year, to deal with the existing case load there were several civil servants put on, but it was specifically for a period of time to work on the case load that already existed, because the board's not expected to go on. That's my understanding of that situation. There are some other boards where we have done an appointment of a civil servant, but it's very rare in my experience.
Mr Grandmaître: I'll have to make a note the next time this thing happens.
Let's go back to the frustration of this committee. I think it's very important that you should know, because this is what you call a new process. I have a copy of the Premier's announcement in the House on December 20, 1990, that he was going to change. "The time has come to strip away the secrecy and mystique which have always surrounded the government appointments."
Mr Noble Villeneuve (S-D-G & East Grenville): Sounds good.
Mr Grandmaître: It sounds good and it looked good at the time. But what really frustrates the members of this committee -- I don't know how the members of the government feel about this -- is that when you pick up the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star on a Thursday morning, right after the Premier has signed the order in council on Wednesday morning, you read about the appointment of Miss So-and-so or Mr So-and-so. Then they have 30 days to appear before us. That's a mockery. They have already been appointed. The OIC is signed. If we were to vote -- and I have dared the members of the government to vote against that OIC. That's never happened. It's frustrating because here's a Premier who's telling us the secrecy is gone, the mystique is gone, we've got a clean sheet and yet we read in the newspaper that this person has been appointed and yet he has 30 days to appear before us.
Ms Roycroft: What you read about are the appointments that the government already understands have some profile attached to them. In that case, it's been the decision to make the announcement that this is the government's intended appointment. The order in council in fact is not signed until the person goes through the process. It gets signed by the Lieutenant Governor when the person goes through this committee process and only then.
Mr Grandmaître: How come we read this in the newspapers?
Ms Roycroft: Part of the public process is that the names come to this committee. The names are already part of the public and so the government decided in a very select number of situations, the chair of Hydro, for one, where it would, because of the interest in the appointment, make a public announcement about the nature of its intended candidacy. We take 100-plus appointments to cabinet every week. You don't see them in the papers. You only see some that already have some profile attached to them.
Mr Grandmaître: Ms Roycroft, I'm going to tell you something. I get phone calls from people phoning me. They say, "Look, I've been appointed to such-and-such an ABC and I might be invited to come before your committee." They already know, and I don't even know and this committee doesn't even know. They phone me and say: "Look, I might have to go before your committee. How does it work?" I feel frustrated because I'm a member of this committee and I want to know.
Ms Roycroft: You would know that because the committee gets the name the day after it goes to cabinet. The people will get phone calls to let them know that they may very well be called before this process, before the committee.
Mr Grandmaître: No, I'm talking about people saying, "Look, I was told that I was appointed to such-and-such an ABC."
Ms Roycroft: The process is not a simple one for people to understand. It is a complicated process. The way it should work is that they get called after it's gone to cabinet with information that their name's going forward and that they may be called. By courtesy they get told that. But you have the names as part of this committee before that should happen. Mr Grandmaître, it's not perfect. I know sometimes it doesn't happen exactly like that, but that is what the intention was.
Mr Grandmaître: No system is perfect, but I'm going back to the Premier's comments of December 20, 1990. He was going to just accomplish a miracle in the province of Ontario, no more patronage appointments and so on and so forth, and when you have to sit Wednesday after Wednesday in this place and go through this mockery, this masquerade, it's frustrating.
Ms Roycroft: Let me paint a picture which shows you that it is not a masquerade. The Social Assistance Review Board in the past was greatly criticized for the partisan nature of its appointments by a number of previous governments going back 20 and 30 years. In the fall of this year there was an ad placed in the papers. They received 450 applications. There were four vacancies. The chair set up basically a review, a panel of people, comprised of herself, two other people on the board itself and a couple of outside academics and community members. She interviewed and recommended to the minister involved and those appointments were made. We had unbelievably little to do with it.
She's now got two more vacancies. She's told us she'd prefer not to advertise, for the expense. She still has the 400 applications of six months ago. She's going after the best qualified, best experienced people she can find. She was appointed and given the responsibility to do that and by and large she's doing it.
That's one example. Those are full-time jobs now. They are different from the advisory ones; I don't dispute that. But that's one example where the process has changed dramatically from where it was in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mr Grandmaître: Also, if you do add a bank of 5,000 to 10,000 names, how come a good number of people who appear before this committee have been approached by ministry staff? Don you not have enough competent people in your bank of names that they have to be approached by the minister's staff or ministry staff?
Ms Roycroft: You're hearing that people are called by them?
Mr Grandmaître: Yes.
Ms Roycroft: These are people who have not previously indicated in some way or another that they are interested?
Mr Grandmaître: Right on.
Mr Roycroft: In some cases, if they don't feel that they have an adequate number or an adequate representation base, ministers' offices do try; they do outreach to stakeholder groups and communities to try to find more people who might be interested. That's the only explanation I would have, and I would think it would tend to be the people who are directly working with those boards and agencies. That would be the only explanation I would have, that they didn't feel they had an adequate selection base.
Mr Grandmaître: These people tell us: "I was asked. I received a phone call from somebody."
Mr Marchese: Who are these people?
Mr Grandmaître: I don't know; I'm asking.
Mr Bradley: They are the "they" John Diefenbaker always referred to.
Mr Grandmaître: These people have received a phone call from somebody in the minister's office or somebody in the ministry, asking them to apply.
Ms Roycroft: But isn't this an example of how the mystery's been taken out of the process? We have a book. We have people reaching out.
Mr Grandmaître: No, no; I'm going to stop you there.
Ms Roycroft: There isn't any mystery left in it.
Mr Grandmaître: No way. It's a front. You're asking people to apply, and yet you leave those names aside, you pick up the phone and you say: "Joe Blow, you'd be a great candidate. Apply for it." So that's a front.
Ms Roycroft: You'd have to say the same thing about the 450 people who applied.
Interjections.
Mr Grandmaître: I've got them on the other side. I've got them going, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Just to remind you, Mr Grandmaître, your colleague Mr Cleary would like to ask some questions as well.
Mr Grandmaître: Oh, John, go ahead. Do you want to see my questions?
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): I've got some of my own. Thank you, Mr Chairman. It's my understanding, in the previous conversation, that you had said a monthly report of upcoming vacancies, six months in advance. Who all will get notified of that?
Ms Roycroft: The vacancy list goes to the ministers who are responsible for the boards and agencies. In other words, if it's a Health board, the Health minister gets the notification. Everybody has the book, so you see it over the next three to six years, because the terms of when they expire are in the book. We try to help the ministers and the chairs out by giving them advance warning that their term expiries are coming.
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Mr Cleary: Who gets that book, again?
Ms Roycroft: This book goes out to all public libraries in the province, all MPPs' offices, labour councils and a number of professional associations and community organizations that have requested it. It is available in the bookstore and can be purchased.
Mr Cleary: When did that start going out?
Ms Roycroft: The first one went out a year ago. This is the second one and we're in the works for the third one now.
Mr Cleary: You mentioned three-year appointments with a possible renewal of the appointment for another two years, three years.
Ms Roycroft: The normal procedure -- Marilyn, correct me if I'm wrong -- is that the bulk of the appointments are for a three-year term with the possibility of a one-term renewal, but some legislation has two-year terms. Occasionally, some legislation says there can't be a renewal, but by and large the bulk of the appointments are for three years with the possibility of a three-year renewal.
Mr Cleary: Say I'm running out on my three-year appointment. For what reason would I not get reappointed?
Ms Roycroft: The reasons vary tremendously, but the bulk of them would be non-attendance -- the chair simply says it's just not working -- or an indicated non-interest. In other words, the person says he doesn't want it. The reasons vary, but they're pretty straightforward. They're not differences of opinion usually. The only time someone would be told that he wouldn't be reappointed would be if the ministry or the chair have determined they need some additional or different expertise or there are some other needs the board has that aren't being met and they need some greater appointment flexibility, but those are very rare situations.
Mr Cleary: In other words, from what you tell me, if a person attends the meetings and the chairman is satisfied, he should be reappointed the second time.
Ms Roycroft: That is by and large how we've tried to operate, as did the Liberal government when it took over in terms of having people who were already in position for certain periods of time by the previous government. Let me just say there are exceptions and there have been. We've never denied that there is a partisan nature to some of this, but those are extremely rare exceptions. I know that because I get involved in them and they are very rare.
Mr Cleary: This book we have now is updated?
Ms Roycroft: Yes. In fact, a number of the other staff are here who keep the book updated. This book translates into three binders in our office and it's updated almost daily, so anyone at any moment can find out the exact -- if you call us because a constituent of yours is interested in a particular board, we can give you the exact vacancy on any board at any time. That's what we do for MPPs and members of the public who call us.
Mr Cleary: It's all yours, Bernard.
The Chair: Time for one quick question.
Mr Grandmaître: I might as well use the time.
Mr Bradley: Just reading the coverage of yesterday's shuffle, I can think of two appointments you could make that would fit in perfectly with your government.
Ms Roycroft: I'll talk to you later, Jim.
Mr Bradley: The Premier's staff themselves couldn't have written the story better.
Mr Grandmaître: How can you improve the system?
Ms Roycroft: I'm certainly open to suggestions. We've been looking at that. We're trying to figure out some better ways to communicate with members all across the parties about the appointments process and the appointments that are made. I think that's fair, and we should be doing that better. We need to be more creative and have different strategies around how we distribute the information about boards and agencies. The public education component, as I've said, is very important: We'll only get more and better-qualified people if more people know about it. So I'm looking all the time for ways to get out better information about it.
I think the committee occasionally focusing on specific boards for a while and then also reviewing the mandate of an agency is very helpful. That highlights your interest for the minister involved, the chair and the members of that board, and you can reflect some of that.
I'll stop now, because you wanted to add something. Please go ahead.
The Chair: We'll come back.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair --
The Chair: No, I've been more than generous with you, Mr Grandmaître.
Mr Villeneuve: Ms Roycroft, if I as an MPP write you a letter of support for someone from my riding who I may or may not know --
Mr Bradley: Mistake number one.
Mr Villeneuve: Is that a mistake, as my colleague from St Catharines has suggested?
Ms Roycroft: Absolutely not.
Mr Villeneuve: Would you handle this differently than a name you have received?
Ms Roycroft: Absolutely not. We often get letters of recommendation from mayors, from federal MPs, from lots of community people. Their letters of recommendation go along with the application and the résumé to the chair and to the minister's office, and they're not treated any differently at all. In fact, if you can speak to someone's community involvement or to important parts of their background which would make them a better candidate, I think it's incredibly helpful for you to do that, and I encourage MPPs to do it.
Mr Villeneuve: Does it help? Does it carry weight? I hear you say it goes in with the application, the résumé, whatever goes to the chair or to the minister or wherever it goes from your office. Is it positive, is it negative or is it neutral?
Ms Roycroft: It's positive in that it highlights them, because chairs and ministers are political people, but in all fairness, it's probably more neutral in the end. If the push is for expertise and skills, which by and large it has been, there's no question it would be neutral for the full-time boards: In the end there's almost a quasi-hiring process, so skills, knowledge and expertise are going to be the determining characteristics for the candidates.
I think it's still worth doing. For you as a politician to encourage people to do that by virtue of writing letters and encouraging them is very positive to the system of government in this province. That's partly what the boards and agencies are: They're a fourth level of government.
Mr Villeneuve: I come from a very rural riding way out in the far southeastern reaches of Ontario. We don't have a great deal of representation other than the St Lawrence Parks Commission, which is a local organization, and we do have primarily people from the riding, which is a natural.
Ms Roycroft: In fact, that's a board that advertised locally just a little while ago, and we've received a real increase in the number of applications, which is terrific. We were very pleased.
Mr Villeneuve: I have several people who've contacted my office. Effectively, they say, "We know that you, as the elected person, can make this happen," and I say, "Well, I'm sorry."
Interjection: You used to be able to.
Interjection: Not any more.
Mr Villeneuve: The government people say I used to be able to. Quite obviously they can make it happen now.
Ms Roycroft: I think they should respond.
Interjection.
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Mr Villeneuve: Back to the question. The far reaches of the province, the north, the southwest and the southeast, by and large do not have equal representation on many boards, agencies and commissions. Is there some way of correcting that? I realize my riding is a four-and-a-half-hour drive from downtown Toronto, southwestern Ontario is three and a half hours and the north is so many hours of flying time. But we do want representation from those people, who, just because of the geography of our province, do not have as much opportunity as the downtown people. Is there some way you're trying to address and correct that?
Ms Roycroft: You're absolutely right. We need that representation on boards and agencies. Everyone's aware of that and struggling to try and discover better ways to do it.
The advertisement is one, and we're looking exactly at targeted advertising in certain areas to say there are appointments available in X areas, a more general ad, but targeted geographically, particularly in the northeast. The northeast of the province is badly underrepresented, in a sense, and we've been trying to do something about that.
We're open to any suggestions. It's not an easy one, because the appointments come, as you know -- there's no pattern to it. Vacancies occur; they're on different boards; people have different interests.
One of the advantages of the application form is that people who not everybody knows get a chance to say: "Yes, I'm an engineer, but I'm interested in this whole other range of boards and agencies. I'm interested in health issues and social issues." If you could encourage more of your constituents to send us in more general interest applications, as opposed to, "I'm only interested in the St Lawrence parks board" -- I use that as an example. But "I'm interested in any tourism board" would, by definition, get their name pulled up for more provincial boards as well as the local boards. That's one way of increasing the possibility of selection. We work closely with the ministers' offices in this regard, but we're open to other suggestions.
Mr Villeneuve: So you're suggesting that I, as an elected person, do send letters of recommendation. Be they neutral, as it appears to be, you're still suggesting that we do it.
Ms Roycroft: Absolutely.
Mr Villeneuve: It's pretty frustrating at times.
Ms Roycroft: Mr Bradley and I talked about this at the very beginning. I think the times have changed. I think this is the way appointments are going to go across this country now. Our understanding from phone calls from various other provincial governments is that they're looking at our system. This is the way it's going to go. The public is demanding a much more open, a much more accountable process.
If that's the case, as a local MPP you have an opportunity to use your influence to encourage people to become part of that process, and that's an asset for you. You don't have to be ashamed of the process. You can be proud of it and you can have a role in it.
Mr Bradley: But then he'll owe the government a favour. In opposition, never owe the government a favour.
Mr McLean: Give me a break. The city of Orillia had looked at eight different people; it had recommended one. The appointment was made. That person wasn't even known to the city council, wasn't known to me, and yet got the appointment. The next appointment they made was an aboriginal who lives on the Rama reserve; he was appointed to the Orillia city police commission. My understanding is that the person is affiliated with the NDP on the reserve. Yet the council had written a letter -- and you're saying to this member that it is an asset for him to write. I'm telling you, why didn't the city of Orillia's letter bear some weight. They appointed somebody who's not even know to them.
Ms Roycroft: I don't know the specific example; obviously I'll look into it. But I can only say, in the general sense of how I've seen the process unfold in the eight or 10 months I've been here, that is my experience. There are exceptions, and this may be one of them, but the general rule is exactly how it has been working.
Mr McLean: We're looking at appointments here to the Ontario Land Corp. There's been no legislation created for that, yet there are people who are looking to be appointed to it. Why would that be?
Ms Roycroft: Until we have legislation or an ability to actually appoint people, it will be unlikely that their appointments will happen. We need a legislative basis on which to make the appointments.
Mr McLean: We're going to be interviewing Fred Upshaw and I think Mr Ryan. They're here for recommendations.
Ms Roycroft: This is the new Ontario Land Corp? I'm sorry, I thought you were referring to another board.
Mr Bradley: Fred's apolitical. Don't worry.
Ms Roycroft: All I can say is that I actually will look into it. I was aware that we were looking at the legislation, but I'm not current on where it is. I'll look into it for you and get back.
Mr McLean: I feel bad that you're so positive about these appointments yet I can show all kinds of examples where it's not happening. I'm disappointed that the public out there doesn't know it's not happening. What am I to say to the Orillia mayor about how these appointments are affecting him? Everybody knew the guy who the city thought should make an excellent appointment: totally ignored. Yet you say the letters of support are proper. It's misleading.
Ms Roycroft: If the person was someone that the municipality really wanted on, the municipalities on the police services boards do have a certain number of positions, so they could appoint that person. Again, I don't know the specific case.
Mr McLean: There are three provincial appointees.
Ms Roycroft: Right, but there are municipal appointees on police services boards.
Mr McLean: Well, they're always the mayor and somebody else; they'll look after that. But it's the provincial appointees who are the problem. Of course, the chief financial officer, the last time, happens to get the other appointment.
Mr Bradley: Called the bagman.
Mr McLean: The bagman for the NDP. So you're telling me it's a process that's open? For the record, it is not.
The Chair: Are you finished, Mr McLean?
Mr McLean: Yes.
Mr Frankford: I'd like to ask you something about the comprehensiveness or the accuracy of the book. I'm aware of two agencies: One is the advisory committee on genetics, which was certainly listed in the first edition. So far as I know, it doesn't exist, although by being listed there it gave every indication it was, and I think this is potentially quite an important agency. Another agency in which I'm particularly interested in Scarborough East is the board of the Guild Inn, and this was not listed in the first edition, and it was only really by happenstance that we found there was legislation creating a board. Are you aware of any other missing agencies?
Ms Sharma: In the case of the first one, normally what happens is that agencies don't come off our books unless they are officially off. You may have seen that all the members' terms have expired, but it has not been officially removed from our records, and it stays on until that time.
In terms of the Guild Inn, I'm not familiar with the legislation that created it or whether or not it is a provincial board.
Mr Frankford: It is indeed, because appointments have been made.
Ms Roycroft: There were the odd appointments that we didn't catch the first time. We've been trying to catch them as we go along. We are trying to clean up the boards that still remain in the book that aren't really functioning now, but our sense was that as long as they existed in legislation we had to list them, even though the appointments aren't being made. We have talked to the ministers involved about the problems for the public that that presents. We're trying to clean it up.
Mr Frankford: Yes, because I think the genetics one was really an important body; I know people who were interested in getting on that.
Mr Dennis Drainville (Victoria-Haliburton): I just wanted to say that in terms of the discussion I've heard thus far, I would like to clarify something as a member of the government party, because I think there are some misapprehensions and misunderstandings about the system. There's no question that the system of making appointments to agencies, boards and commissions is a system which has a partisan element to it. There's no question about that, and I don't think anybody would deny that.
To say that that partisanship is in fact becoming more pervasive is absolutely erroneous. As a government member, I have sent many letters and I have made requests, long before my present difficulties on certain issues, and very often those appointments have not been made, even though I have tried to make strong representations about certain people.
There is also a tacit understanding under the questions you're asking that, "Because you are government members, naturally you will be trying to promote New Democrats." Let me be clear about that. I've promoted people from every party for positions on agencies, boards and commissions within my riding.
Mr Grandmaître: That's why you're not in cabinet.
Mr Drainville: And the one I worked the hardest for was for a gentleman named John Eakins. So I want to be very clear. With all the hidden thoughts that somehow it is only a matter of partisanship in terms of appointments, we need to be very clear about this point: that those who care for their riding and care for their constituents are always going to ensure that those they try to give references for are people who have the qualifications and will do the best job for the people of Ontario.
Mr McLean: You've got a lot to learn.
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Mr Tony Rizzo (Oakwood): When people show some interest in any appointment and they are not chosen, other people are chosen, do you get in touch with them? Do you inform them that, "This person has been chosen instead of you," or that we are going to keep their application for another appointment, or what?
Ms Roycroft: The sheer numbers don't allow us to do as much of that direct communication with people to keep them informed about the process as I would like. If they get to the final stages and it's a full-time job and there is an interview process, if they get that far, of course they get letters or phone calls to say what's happened. But if they're one of 300 people who have applied for a minister's advisory committee and they don't make it, we aren't yet able to let everybody who doesn't get it know. We, of course, let the people know who do get it.
No one comes out of the bank. If the appointment they were interested in is filled, we still keep their name in the bank because what we've discovered over the course of the two years is that people resign, people leave, and we always need to have others, and people who have already expressed an interest is where we start. We're not quite as able to inform people of the process of the appointments in a general way as much as we'd like, just because of the sheer volume of the numbers.
Mr Rizzo: I know it would involve some costs, but do you think it would make sense if -- for example, some people applied and nobody got in touch with them for any particular reason because other people have been appointed. I think it would be good PR if they were informed of those people who had been appointed so they could more or less look at the qualifications of those people and then feel good about themselves and say, "Okay, I've not been appointed, but somebody else who was more qualified than I was has been put in my place," rather than a government member or whatever, a representative of any particular party.
Ms Roycroft: I hear what you're saying, and we will look into it. We have been trying to figure out other ways to do it that would be less costly and would be time-efficient, and we will continue to look at it.
Mr Wiseman: Just as we were talking earlier about the Toronto-centred problems in terms of the agencies, boards and commissions, there's another problem. If you come from a region such as mine, which is Durham, we have an Oshawa-centred problem in that most of the agencies, boards and commissions have a preponderance of their members from that core area, which means that in some cases the areas that are not part of that core wind up being underrepresented and therefore do not receive the same kind of services that the core region does, particularly in health services and outreaches for counselling, whether it be addiction or AIDS or whatever, or whether it be even facilities for battered women.
How can that be addressed? In the boards, agencies and commissions that are centred, like the district health councils and so on, how can the regions like Ajax and Pickering have their voices heard when they have such a minority of people?
Ms Roycroft: It's a valid point you make, and I think that it's actually worth talking to the Minister of Health about because it is a concern, and district health councils are very important and people care about them. We understand this because the sheer numbers of people who are interested in sitting on them are enormous. You're right: To get accurate representation of the community, the wider community and the centre core, is a very difficult thing.
Now that you've raised it with us again, we will bring it to the attention of the minister's office. We're working more closely with the minister's appointments, not just the Premier's appointments but the minister's appointments, in terms of trying to help with efficiency, because with the health appointments there are some problems with quorums when we don't get the appointments made in a timely fashion and also in terms of equity. We are starting to work more closely with the minister's offices. We'll bring that to their attention for sure. We've heard it before from people in the communities, and we'll try to raise it again.
Mr Wiseman: Would it be worth investigating a double-majority or a triple-majority type of structure so that nothing can pass unless it's agreed to by all regions equally? It really is a major problem. For example, in Ajax and Pickering, which have a population larger than Oshawa, we don't have services for battered women, and we don't have services --
Mr McLean: Garbage dumps.
Mr Wiseman: -- for children who are in desperate need. The one place that we did have was closed because it didn't rank high in terms of the district health council's grading. The one thing we do get, as somebody mentioned, is dumps, and it's for exactly the same reason. It's that the preponderance of the elected officials are also somewhere else, so they tend to pick on an area --
Ms Roycroft: I hear the concern and I don't disagree with it. I think you should raise it with the minister, because if you were looking for a change in the voting mechanism it wouldn't be through our process. It would be through theirs.
Mr Bradley: You can't speak for the government on this, I realize, but I'll try to elicit some views from you. If this committee were really to be similar to an American committee, the Senate, which considers members of the cabinet, if it were to have a degree of importance, this committee would have the ability to veto appointments by the government. Do you foresee the present government allowing a circumstance where this committee would really have the power to veto appointments of the government?
Ms Roycroft: I can't give you a definitive answer on that, Jim, but I can certainly say that it's my understanding that if this committee, in its review process, brought to the public attention serious reasons why someone should not be appointed, that would obviously be brought to the attention of the cabinet minister, the cabinet and the Premier. That is my understanding of how it works and it's certainly how I've been operating since I've been doing this job.
Mr Bradley: Another radical change -- and I'm not holding my breath until it happens and I'm not saying it in a particularly negative way -- that would be contemplated would be allowing the committee to review a number of names and to make a choice. From your contacts with the people who have the real power in the government, do you foresee that happening?
Ms Roycroft: Again, I can't speak for the cabinet, but my sense is that most governments would be unlikely to change that aspect of it. The very fact that this is a review process as opposed to an appointments process determines the mandate of this committee. The partisan nature of the appointments process has been talked about this morning. I think what Mr Drainville raises is the interesting point. It isn't so much partisan in a party sense, but any government retains the right to appoint people who share the direction that that government wants to go in in terms of some serious policy directions. I can't believe governments would want to change that in a major way.
Mr Bradley: The next question relates to the practice of having people appear before this committee. I'd be interested in your comments on the experience. It can have both a positive effect and a negative effect, so the first question -- it will be a two-part question perhaps; we'll see how it comes out -- is, have you found that by requiring people to potentially appear before this committee, you have had people not wish to proceed with an appointment because they're afraid that the members of the committee might ask them a question which would be potentially embarrassing to them in a public sense? Is it scaring some good people off, or at least some people off?
Ms Roycroft: It has made some people nervous, not so much that they're afraid of -- what's been expressed to me is that they're just nervous about speaking in public, in front of the members with the media present, if they were there. That's the nervousness for lots of members of the public who would never normally be in this forum, which is why they hear about it ahead of time, which is Mr Grandmaître's point. We try to reassure them. To the best of my knowledge -- Nancy could correct me -- I don't know of anyone who has said, "No, I won't go forward." They've expressed some concerns about it but they've gone forward.
Most of them come out of it saying, "That was really an interesting process," and they learn a lot about how everything works. For most of them involved, the feedback we've had in terms of some phone calls and letters has been that they have valued the experience and taken it back to their work on the commission in a much more serious way.
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Mr McLean: Could I have a supplementary? Mr Stewart from Penetanguishene, who applied for the police services board, resigned before he came on the board.
Mr Fletcher: Why?
Mr McLean: The guy didn't want to appear before the committee.
Ms Roycroft: Again, I don't know of that specific example, but --
Mr McLean: I do.
The Chair: Do you still have more, Mr Bradley or Mr Grandmaître?
Mr Grandmaître: Yes. Let's talk about the role or the responsibilities of this committee. As you know, this committee was to review agencies.
Ms Roycroft: Yes.
Mr Grandmaître: Personally, I think we're not doing a very good job, because of the added responsibility of reviewing appointments. I've tried at least three times, I guess, to get the Premier to realize what this committee is doing, especially the added responsibilities. He should create a specific committee to look at appointments and maybe another committee to look at agencies, because we're not doing a very good job as far as reviewing agencies. This was the intent of this committee when it was first created, to look at agencies.
Ms Roycroft: My understanding is that you are going to be discussing the mandate this afternoon; you're going to have a discussion around that issue this afternoon.
Mr Grandmaître: What are your thoughts on that?
Ms Roycroft: It's an interesting question. I think the balance to be struck is the benefit you gain as committee members having the opportunity to talk to individuals who are going to take part in that commission. You learn a lot from that process and you also learn from the agency review process. The mixing of those two information sources gives you a better sense of what's happening out there than you would if you only could look at one part of it; let me put it that way. The time factor remains your problem. It's a problem for us also. When the House isn't sitting and you don't meet as frequently, we do occasionally run into some quorum problems, so we're constantly pressuring the House leaders for more time for this committee also. I think that's a point that you need to discuss.
The Chair: Can I have a supplementary, Mr Grandmaître? It's tied into your response and what Mr Grandmaître's asking about revisiting the question of a separate committee. When you suggest revisiting, who are you talking about? This committee revisiting it or the government itself?
Ms Roycroft: I think if the committee discusses it and has some recommendations, obviously the government would look at that.
The Chair: I see, but there's no intention on the part of your office or anyone within the government.
Ms Roycroft: No one has talked to me about it.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr Grandmaître: If you go back to Jim's inquiry of when this one person sits at your desk and she or he is the chosen one -- "Out of 10 million people in this province of Ontario, you have been chosen to sit on that board or commission, whatever." They're supposed to be the very best, the cream of the crop. We have people who come here and have no idea what they're getting into, especially on police commissions.
Mr Bradley: There are a lot of elected people in that position.
Mr Grandmaître: Especially on police commissions. They have no municipal background; they don't know anything about municipal budgets or police budgets. They know the police chief in their community and how many constables are on the force, but that's it. I'm questioning, why did you choose this person? That person is supposed to be the very best in that community, and they don't even know about community policing; they don't know anything about policing. Do you think it's fair for those people?
Ms Roycroft: Let me raise a couple of points. The boards and agencies vary, as we've said, greatly in what they do. In some cases, people are there because the need is for a very specialized expertise or experience in a community. In other cases, by legislation they must be laypeople, so on some boards and agencies you get laypeople coming before you, and my concern is that I want this committee to always know that the person is there because they can't be a health professional or they can't be whatever. I think that would help your review process. I think that's started to happen now more than it was before. That's the one point I wanted to make.
The other point is that a number of chairs have raised concerns with us about turnover of membership and what happens with that, the loss of expertise. We are in the process of working with almost every chair to try to develop some better training processes, because no matter whether the person's a layperson or an experienced person, most people come to the board not knowing enough about it, and they need a training process. In fact, in some boards there's none at all. Most boards are now looking seriously at training, which would address some of the concerns.
I guess the only other thing I could say directly in response to the police services one is, as much as possible -- again, the definition of the "best qualified." If we were looking at a job definition with job descriptions, it would be an easier role. These are very difficult and unscientific positions we often are asked to fill. As much as possible we work with the chair and the local community to try to reflect that community and fulfil the needs so that the board does do that.
If we're not doing that, I want to know about it, because that's something the minister needs to know about, and we will try to change some of it, because it is not our intention to have police services boards that do not reflect in a very real way the expertise, the experiences of that community. It just doesn't make sense.
Mr Grandmaître: One last question, Mr Chair: Would it be possible for our research people, who do a good job -- that's one good thing about this committee; the research people are good -- when we are being briefed, to let us know how many people applied for this job or for this appointment? Because we only see one person.
Ms Roycroft: I'll look into that.
Mr Grandmaître: Is it possible to provide us with more information and say, "One hundred and fifty people applied for this job"?
Ms Roycroft: I'll look into it. I think in some cases it's very easy to do; in other cases it wouldn't be so easy. We'll look into it for sure. It's a reasonable request.
The Chair: Ms Roycroft, Ms Sharma and other members of the staff of the appointments secretariat, we appreciate your being here. I think it's been an interesting morning.
Ms Roycroft: Thank you, Mr Runciman. May I take one opportunity just to introduce some of the staff who came in after -- because the committee members, probably more than most MPPs, do interact with our office. I wanted to introduce the others. Some people have gone. Rosemin Dhalla and Jackie Boros are here, in addition to some others who were here before. But these are in fact the staff, when you call for the current, updated list or information about vacancies, whom you'll likely end up dealing with. But at any point if you would like to deal directly with myself, Marilyn or Nancy, please don't hesitate to ask for us.
The Chair: Okay. Thanks very much.
Ms Roycroft: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Okay, we're going to break and reconvene at 2 o'clock to talk about the committee mandate.
The committee recessed at 1158.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1408.
COMMITTEE MANDATE
The Vice-Chair: We'll call the government agencies meeting to order and this afternoon we're dealing with the work of the committee. I'm sure I will have a fair bit of input, but if there are going to be any changes made to some of the rules of the committee, I think we should hear from the government side to see what they are proposing.
Mr Grandmaître: What you're really asking, Mr Chair, are no major changes.
The Vice-Chair: If they have no changes, there's not much point in us spending a whole lot of time talking about them if they are not interested.
Mr Grandmaître: Yes, you're right.
Mr Marchese: Actually, Mr Chair, I was interested in hearing the members to see whether they felt comfortable with the process and if they weren't, we were quite willing to listen to the discussion and see how to go. Personally, I think what we have been doing has been effective in terms of individual interviews and agency interviews. I don't know if others have suggestions on how to improve this process, but I would be happy to participate in that discussion.
Mr Grandmaître: Once again, I think the responsibilities of this committee should be to review agencies or to look after the appointments of the government. I think responsibilities should be divided, and I've mentioned this in the past, because we are simply not doing a good job as far as reviewing agencies is concerned.
When these added responsibilities were given to this committee, we weren't given any additional time. In fact, we had to fight for an extra week to review agencies. To be fair to the secretariat and to be fair to the government, I think our responsibilities should be split and it should be done as soon as possible.
The Vice-Chair: What you're saying is there should be one special committee to deal with appointments or interviews.
Mr Grandmaître: Absolutely, because you know, we're only reviewing -- what's our monthly average? When the House in session, we don't review 20 people per month, right?
The Vice-Chair: That's right.
Mr Grandmaître: Maybe there are 100 or 150 appointments during that month. I think it's a disservice to the government and to this committee.
Mr Marchese: For clarification, because I was talking to Tannis briefly, were you suggesting that we have more time to interview individuals and agencies? Is that what you were saying?
Mr Grandmaître: No. I think the responsibilities of this committee should be split into two committees.
The Vice-Chair: Noble, can I have your views?
Mr Villeneuve: For comfort level, and I'm subbing today, I can appreciate the frustration that many of the members of this committee are experiencing, because basically you deal with appointments when they are a fait accompli. That is a very, very frustrating situation. The only opportunity that members of the committee have is to select who will be the individual to sit in this committee and be questioned.
The results under a majority government and under the structure of this committee, quite obviously, if it comes to a vote, are that the government wins. That's fair game. However, I would like to be able to see who else was considered for a particular appointment so that we would be able to possibly question someone who thought they might have qualified for a particular appointment to an agency, board or commission and was indeed overlooked for someone else. I think that would add some credibility, if you will, to this committee.
Mr Grandmaître: We should have a choice.
Mr Villeneuve: The only choice that the committee presently has is to select, after the appointments have effectively been made, who will come before the committee and be questioned. It's cut and dried. Certainly I, as a member of the Legislature, would like to see possibly the list of people who thought they qualified and indeed were overlooked.
The Vice-Chair: I think the point has got to be made very clear that all this committee will do is a review. We have nothing to do with regard to the appointments. It is totally just to review who already has been recommended.
Mr Villeneuve: I think many members of this committee, when it was first initiated, thought they would have considerably more input into the selection than indeed simply reviewing.
Mr Bradley: I did not start out with high expectations. I never thought that I would, as a member of this committee, have any influence of significance on the final outcomes. I think the limited role the committee can play under the rules that are there now and the rules that are likely to continue to apply to this committee is that we can at least question the people who are going to be appointed to agencies, boards and commissions.
It may be that as a result of some of the questioning somewhere along the line, if something comes out which is particularly detrimental, the government may reconsider that particular appointment. Members of the government caucus do speak to other members of the government. They may express some concern about the performance of a person or perhaps the background of a person, and in that light, the committee can have some influence.
I doubt that the government, realistically, is going to concede its right to appoint people and to have its appointments carry unless it sees fit differently. I think the government will continue to see this as only an advisory committee and not as a committee with teeth. Despite the fact that as a member of the committee, it would be advantageous to me, I doubt that the government is going to share the long list of people who are applying for agencies, boards and commissions, because it's going to believe it's within its purview as the government to make those appointments. But, you know, if you don't go in with high expectations, I guess you can't have those hopes dashed.
I make the point, to the annoyance of my friends on the government side, I suppose, from time to time, that my concern is not so much with the process but with the way it is portrayed by the Premier as being significantly different. The process is a bit different. The outcome is significantly the same.
But I think all governments, as has been pointed out this morning, are under more public scrutiny today than ever before, so are going to tend to be, at least try to be, more cautious about most of the appointments that are made to the agencies, boards and commissions.
As for the suggestion of my friend from Ottawa East -- is that called Vanier now, or still Ottawa East?
Mr Grandmaître: Ottawa East.
Mr Bradley: Ottawa East, provincially -- there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of dealing strictly with appointments is that you have more time to deal with appointments, and I'm attracted to that. The only disadvantage I see is that you don't get the other half of the picture. That is, you don't get to see what these agencies, boards and commissions are all about.
If I were a House leader -- and, you know, one of the dangers of being in this institution for so long, some would say too long, is that one tends to worry about the procedures as it relates to what the House leaders have to worry about. But the House leaders have to worry about staffing these committees with MPPs, and I know, as the deputy House leader in charge of question period, that I am involved in a pitched battle with my colleagues for at least an hour in the morning over who's going to get on question period and have to duck about the hallways so as not to be assaulted till noonhour at least.
The problem is that doesn't leave me a lot of time as an individual member of this committee to be in this committee. I know what it's like for House leaders to have to staff these committees, and it makes it difficult. All of us have other things to do than sit in committees, and then they roll the committee when there are fewer people in here. It's at the very least not enhanced.
We can make a recommendation, if we wish -- the opposition members; the government members may not wish to -- that we have that opportunity to view all the applicants' names and perhaps a short résumé on them. I would love to see that. I'm not optimistic that it will happen, nor, if I were all honest, can I say at this point that I would as a government necessarily agree with that. As an opposition person, I think it's a great idea.
Second, we could recommend that the role at least of the committee be enhanced to such an extent that if the committee does turn it down, it is turned down. The government still has the majority in the committee, and that's fine. There may be a distant member of the government or maybe all the members of the government sit there and say: "Look, we just are not going to like this particular appointment. This person's not going to do a good job."
If the people sitting on the committee aren't overly desirous of sitting on the cabinet table or don't have other reasons to curry favour with the government House leader, the whip or the Premier, then the chances are that with people such as the member for Guelph, who doesn't worry about those things, we may see some of them turned down. So I think the concession the government could make would be to make the committee decision final.
Now, the danger they're going to get into, they're going to say, is, if they're in a minority position, what do they do, because then they can't control it, and I don't say control in an evil way in this case, but they may feel that virtually all their appointments could be in danger in a minority situation where there isn't some kind of agreement with at least one of the opposition parties. To be mischievous, because I had a person once tell me that in government our job is to make policy and opposition is to make trouble, the danger would be that, just to make trouble, the opposition could continue to turn down appointments and use it as a bargaining ploy to gain other concessions. I'm just trying to be fair enough to see what the government view might be on this.
The Vice-Chair: Well, we'll hear it now. Rosario, you're next.
Mr Bradley: The shuffle has been made, so Rosario can say what he wishes now.
Mr Marchese: Thank you for the power you have given me, Mr Chair. I knew it was always divine; I just needed it to be accorded.
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The Vice-Chair: Use it well; it won't last long.
Mr Marchese: First of all, on the split, I really don't think it would be useful to do that. I find that the two are very much complementary and that to split them would really make this whole committee process very boring. I frankly like the idea of reviewing agencies, and if I just had to review --
Mr Grandmaître: Do you think it's enjoyable now?
Mr Marchese: Frankly, I'm learning a great deal in reviewing different agencies and boards --
Mr Grandmaître: Agencies, yes.
Mr Marchese: -- but also individuals, sometimes not as much. But I am learning quite a lot about things that I frankly did not know. But to split them would really, in my view, make it more difficult and be totally unnecessary. I think they're complementary and they should stay together.
I thought, if anything, we should give more time to do reviews, not only of individuals but of other agencies. That is something that I think we need more time for, but the split doesn't do it. Besides, you need more people to have another committee to do two different functions, and I don't know whether you could find the members to do that, or the interest for that matter.
In terms of wanting to see the list of people who have been overlooked, I'm not convinced that you necessarily want to do that. The reason I think you want to do that, Noble, is that you believe that a lot of Conservative members who have been putting their names forth may not be appointed.
Mr Villeneuve: No.
Mr Marchese: If I'm wrong, I'm willing to hear what you have to say about that. That's my assumption about why you want to see the list. But do all of you want to see these lists, to get to a point Jim also made? Jim said he welcomes the opportunity to review all of the names, with their résumés. That might be interesting, and frankly, if some of you were interested in doing that, I would be willing to pursue that.
I don't have an interest in doing that with all of those names. I just don't think I have the time or the complete interest to review that as part of what I do here in this job. But if you're interested in that, I'll pursue it, because if it makes you happy, that's great. But it certainly doesn't make me happy. There's so much to do here in this Legislature that that's not one of the things I want to spend time with. But I'll pursue that with the secretariat.
In terms of how else we can enhance this committee, again I'm not totally convinced of how that might work. One of the things I have observed is that many of you are very partisan when you have called somebody who happens to be an NDP sympathizer and that's where most of your anger seems to be drawn out. If you want more power, enhanced power to turn somebody down because of that, then I don't know whether there's usefulness in that, although I must say, from time to time there were members I have seen here with whom I wasn't too pleased. To be sure, we communicated that back to the people who recommended some of those individuals.
I can recall two in particular. More than that I'd have to struggle to remember, because on the whole, many of these people we have seen have been very good. But there were a few, and we communicated that back. But if there is some other way of enhancing the usefulness of this committee, if people don't feel it's effective, I'm willing to look at that. But I want to pursue your suggestion of reviewing the names if it's useful to you.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Drainville.
Mr Drainville: I want to speak, if I might, on the philosophical basis. I'm not part of this committee, but I have thought for a long time about the whole issue of appointments by government and how those appointments affect how policy is disseminated within the province.
It seems to me that there is a very important and healthy tension between the needs of the opposition to question, to probe and in a sense to debate the merits or demerits of a particular person going into a particular role on a board, agency or commission. That has to be there. There have to be tools for the opposition to be able to look and scrutinize carefully the kinds of appointments that are being made by the government of the day. I think to that extent we always need to be very open to providing those tools. And remember, there's a healthy tension here.
There's also the other side, and that is, a government has to govern. I am absolutely sure that it is important for any government when it's in power to ensure that if it's going to be making major appointments to various boards, agencies and commissions, the people who are appointed to those positions have to reflect in some way the philosophy, if you will, of the government of the day. It is only by having that kind of situation that a government can effectively govern in the areas that those boards and commissions are going to be responsible for. So there's always going to be that tension.
My own feeling is that this committee should have more prominence than it has. I wouldn't want to go as far as the American system, because that has great deficiencies as well. But rather than having this as a standing committee, the way it's presently structured, there should certainly be some other kind of format. We're not very inventive or imaginative in this province when it comes to establishing committees of the Legislature. We have select committees and we have standing committees, and really you wonder what the difference is between the two when they're operating.
In fact there are many ways of looking at this, and we can look at many provinces. We can look at Quebec, for instance, that establishes one-person commissions and three-person commissions, each party being sometimes represented equally on those commissions. There are a whole lot of ways of going about it. I don't think we do ourselves or the province a service by perpetuating systems that basically need to be fixed. That will take me off on to the tangent of parliamentary reform, which I will not go towards, but I think it is a significant issue that has to be discussed.
What this all comes down to ultimately is that this is a very important committee. I can understand the frustration sometimes on the part of the members of the opposition when they feel that they are not given as much information as they need to make some of the decisions, and I think some of the information that's requested is very legitimate. On the other hand, I also am very aware of the needs of the government to ensure that its policy is disseminated and put forth in the province.
If there's going to be any kind of report from this committee, it should probably be recommendations that say we don't have to do it this way. Let's suggest a different format. Let's suggest a different way of doing this kind of thing. Maybe we need a smaller committee. Rather than having six members and five members, maybe it should be a smaller group of people reviewing these things. We should allow our imaginations to look at what all the possibilities are. With that, I end.
The Vice-Chair: Maybe I could have a clarification. You indicated that most of the appointees should have the philosophy of the administration. What about the people who are working for the civil service? Should they have to have that philosophy too?
Mr Drainville: I said, "Most of the major appointments." There are certainly many appointments in the province where it's not necessary in the least to have the government of the day have its philosophy maintained, and many of those are local boards of whatever kind. What you need are good-hearted citizens who have a commitment to the community and are willing to serve in whatever capacity.
For instance, when you're looking at the Social Assistance Review Board, you would want the chair to reflect the basic tenets of the government in terms of how it operates; the Workers' Compensation Board, the Ontario Municipal Board, you would want people who both have the qualifications and are also somehow within the philosophy of the government.
That's not true of every case. This is not the case for those members of the civil service who by virtue of their experience and knowledge sit on various boards and agencies. They're not there to represent the government but rather to represent the interests and the education that they have, and their knowledge of that subject. So in that case, no, of course they would not represent the government's view.
The Vice-Chair: That's why appointments are supposed to represent the view of all the people too.
Mr Frankford: I've been on this committee since I got here, and I've found it a very interesting one. On the question of whether it should be divided between reviewing individuals and reviewing agencies, I feel very happy with what we have now. Sometimes I find I'm getting bored with what comes across in the individual review. Sometimes I can't see what is going to be gained, or the importance, from my perspective, can seem rather marginal.
With one or two of the agencies we reviewed, I felt the same and didn't feel I got a great deal out of perhaps the two that we did recently, which were rather brief reviews, but I think it all ties together.
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Perhaps, if I can say, the balance exists between the way that the two work together. For instance, we've looked at a lot of small and some large police board appointees. We've also looked at the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force as an agency. I think what I've learned in one type of review helps my understanding of the other, and I think it is very beneficial to be in this position and be exposed to both.
I don't believe we've really had any major difficulties with the character of anyone. I trust that's a reflection of the scrutiny that takes place. I recall that we have had one or two occasions when there have been questions clarifying whether people felt they were in a conflict situation, and we've heard how people have resolved their conflicts.
One that stands out in my mind was the Ontario Energy Board, where I think the woman was married to a lawyer who worked for a law firm which was potentially in some conflict. I think that was very useful for clarifying the situation in relation to spouses bringing potential conflicts. I think the fact of this review process must have forced them and the agency to work through what was appropriate.
Maybe there are things hidden away where we should take an aggressive US Senate-style approach, but I have not had any indication that that exists and I haven't heard that suggested from the opposition.
I think we should also acknowledge the accountability function. I assume the original purpose of this committee was that all boards and agencies were potentially reviewable and should conduct themselves in a manner that they might be reviewed and, in theory, sooner or later they would be reviewed. I think that aspect is not stressed enough.
Another thing which I find very interesting around the individual reviews is that they give a chance to discuss policies or the approach that an agency might be taking. I think there are obviously times when there's a difference, maybe occasionally philosophically, but it can often just be in emphasis of what I, as an individual member, would like to see as opposed to what the government is looking for here.
I think this is a very useful opportunity, in a rather informal way, to bring that across, to raise some issues which one hopes the appointees will take back when they're actually involved on the appropriate board or agency.
The Vice-Chair: I think we've had a pretty good discussion from each party with regard to some of the problems we've seen and some of the ways that perhaps it could be changed. I'm wondering if the proper avenue to take would not be that each caucus bring something in writing, some specific proposals for the committee to deal with. We can continue to go around and talk with regard to what we would like to see, but maybe we should have it in writing.
Mr Villeneuve: Just a short reply to my colleague the member for Fort York. I had occasion to be subbing on this committee on another occasion, and the individual who was being questioned was going to sit on a board of which he had absolutely no knowledge at all. I became convinced, through the interrogation process, that probably the only reason that individual was here was because there was pretty heavy involvement in the union movement. The question did come up, would this individual be in favour of having a profession which is presently not allowed to strike because it's an essential service? The answer was, "I think that would be a good idea." That's of concern to me, and we're talking of the nursing profession.
I would have liked to have seen who was overlooked, because this person was appointed and then was reviewed and interrogated in this committee. That's one of the reasons, and I wouldn't say maybe in every case but in certain cases. That was one example I saw as I sat here as a substitute for someone else. The individual had no knowledge at all of the board on which that person was going to be sitting and making some pretty important decisions. In that light I would have liked to have seen if there was a short list of people who did not have the opportunity. That's one of the reasons. I think, Mr Chair, your suggestion of --
Mr Marchese: Noble, there's a question before you go on. Are you suggesting you do that in every case? In some cases? When do you determine that?
Mr Villeneuve: No, the rather obvious case that I thought of here was that this individual knew absolutely nothing and came from a totally different walk of life. Maybe that was done intentionally; I don't know.
Mr Marchese: In that respect, when a member observes that this is a problem you would say, "I would request to see what other names were overlooked, because this did not seem to be the ideal candidate." So in that instance you might request that?
Mr Villeneuve: I would like this committee to have the opportunity of doing that.
Mr Grandmaître: But the fact is that we cannot stand down a name, because after 30 days that person is automatically appointed. We can't stand down a name because automatically he's appointed. This is not my turn to speak, so I'll wait.
The Vice-Chair: No, I think Noble was finished. But this is strictly a review. Yes, it's your turn now.
Mr Grandmaître: Oh, my turn? Following on what Noble was saying and what you were saying previously, Mr Chair, that each caucus should write its own report, you will recall that some months ago, in the days of Miss Phillips, we did table a dissenting report and were told in no uncertain way: "No way. We will not change the formula. This is it. We will have to live with it." Maybe some members will tell me, "Well, that was then, this is now. Maybe we could use a different approach," but our approach hasn't changed. We were told that no, they're not willing to change the workings of --
Mr Marchese: Who told you that, Bernard, if you don't mind?
Mr Grandmaître: You will recall that when Miss Phillips appeared before this committee some months ago the Tories and the Liberals wrote a dissenting report. We couldn't agree on the final report. Do you recall this?
Mr Marchese: I don't recall what was recommended.
Mr Grandmaître: Changes. It was a minority report.
Mr Marchese: Can you remind us of some of those changes?
The Vice-Chair: Our legislative researcher will clear this up for us.
Mr David Pond: Actually, Nancy Pearson's here. She probably can answer this as well as I. The original version of the standing order which empowers this committee to review appointments and went into effect in December 1990 required the committee to review the standing order and issue a report with its comments on the standing order in the summer of 1991. That's the report Mr Grandmaître's referring to. Essentially, the committee split. The government had one point of view, the opposition had another point of view and, as a result of the report, the standing order was tinkered with slightly. Some of the procedural aspects of it were tightened up, but the substance of it hasn't changed since December 1990.
Mr Grandmaître: Meaning that the government is not willing to make any changes.
The Vice-Chair: They're not aware of that report?
Mr Grandmaître: They're not aware of that report. But I'm not trying to be unfair to Rosario. I don't think you were on this committee at that time.
Mr Marchese: I think I was.
Mr Grandmaître: You were? The Vice-Chair: I think you were minister.
Mr Marchese: I wasn't? That was before.
The Vice-Chair: You were way up --
Mr Marchese: In 1991? Oh, of course.
Mr Villeneuve: Seems like ages ago.
Mr Grandmaître: Anyway, we did try and it didn't work. So why should we write another report saying the same thing?
Mr Bradley: Maybe they've changed their minds.
The Vice-Chair: What do you think? Each one should bring in something that we could maybe change, caucus it and look at another point of view?
Mr Marchese: I think I'd like to review this with some of our own committee and talk to the secretariat as well, because a number of suggestions came forth that we could look at if they facilitate the work of the committee. If it makes people feel they're having more of a say in some instances, we should do that, and before we do that, perhaps it would be useful for the next meeting to bring suggestions about ways to change it and then to give us an opportunity to review that. We could do that and every other group can do the same.
The Vice-Chair: You'll probably find some of them in this morning's Hansard too.
Mr Marchese: Okay, yes, we could look at that.
Mr Grandmaître: We can always table our old report.
Mr Marchese: That's what the Chairman was --
Mr Bradley: We believe in recycling in our party.
Mr Marchese: If the other members would like to present something different or new for the next meeting, that would be useful. Then we could look at it.
The Vice-Chair: And you will talk to the secretariat and try and figure out some way.
Mr Marchese: We'll review what had been suggested in 1991, to see what we can do with those.
The Vice-Chair: Great. This committee's adjourned until February 16.
The committee adjourned at 1441.