CONTENTS
Wednesday 6 January 1993
Appointments review
George Zukovs
Caroline Byfield
Donna Mann
Betty Walsh
Karen Trace
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Chair / Président: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
*Acting Chair / Président suppléant: Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud 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:
Abel, Donald (Wentworth North/-Nord ND) for Ms Carter
Arnott, Ted (Wellington PC) for Mr Stockwell
Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC) for Mr McLean
Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot ND) for Mr Ferguson
Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC) for Mr Runciman
Mahoney, Steven W. (Mississauga West/-Ouest L) for Mr Cleary
Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Mr Wiseman
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1005 in room 228.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW
Consideration of intended appointments.
GEORGE ZUKOVS
The Acting Chair (Mr Cameron Jackson): I'd like to call to order the standing committee on government agencies. We're here to commence in rotation a series of reviews, up to 30 minutes.
Our first appointment review is Mr George Zukovs, who is the intended appointee for the Municipal/Industrial Strategy for Abatement (MISA) Advisory Committee.
Please come forward, Mr Zukovs, and welcome this morning. Please have a seat. We will require you to speak directly into the microphone because we are recording on electronic Hansard, and since this was a review requested by the third party, we will begin our review with the third party, in rotation.
Mr Gary Carr (Oakville South): One of the questions I had is, I had a chance to look through your résumé here. How did you actually find out about the position? Maybe you could give us a little bit of an idea of how you found out and how you got interested in wanting to have this position.
Mr George Zukovs: Well, in point of fact, how I found out was through a currently serving member of the committee. It was in casual discussion, more in reference to the fact that Dr Mackay had left the committee and that there was in fact a vacancy. On the strength of that, I undertook to submit a letter to Dr Heathcote requesting that I be considered for the committee.
Mr Carr: And who is the member?
Mr Zukovs: Mr Fortin.
Mr Carr: With your background, how much do you know about the position? Had you been familiar with what the position will entail?
Mr Zukovs: As a consultant, I had done work on behalf of the Ministry of the Environment in relation to the MISA program, so I was in general familiar with the MISA program and the MISA advisory committee. I have never attended any of their meetings nor am I certainly intimate with the details of their operation, but I certainly understand the generality of what they're there for and what they're there to do.
Mr Carr: What type of strengths do you think you could bring to the position?
Mr Zukovs: Well, I've been engaged in environmental management and protection for probably over 20 years now, and through that I've worked, in the very early part of my career, in industry, in the food processing industry, and have subsequently worked for government and as a private consultant.
I think my technical background, both in industrial treatment and in municipal waste water treatment and master planning is quite strong and it would be beneficial. As well I have specific knowledge of the program through work I have undertaken for the Ministry of the Environment in connection with studies on things like local limits development, which is sewer use management, things like the inorganic chemical sector, where I managed the project developing the best available technology options, and other projects that we've undertaken, including the look at 37 municipal treatment plants in Ontario and identifying the types of contaminants that were resident within those facilities.
Secondly, I think the strength I would bring is that I have an ability to work in a committee environment, that by nature I tend to be more of a conciliator than a confronter, and as a consequence I think that it would bring some dimensions to that committee to assist them in their work.
Lastly, I think I'm very strongly committed to the idea of trying to perhaps give something back to the province in the sense that I've had a very good education through the Ministry of the Environment in the years I spent there and I've been quite successful in a consulting sense in the province, so feel quite strongly that some of that can be returned.
Mr Carr: If you were in charge of taking a look at the MISA program, what would you specifically do? Are there any ideas of what you would change? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it? Maybe you could just give us a little bit of an idea, if you were the person in charge, what you'd like to see happen.
Mr Zukovs: Certainly one of the things I'd like to see happen -- and I'll be quite frank; I'm sure that many minds have been put to this question -- is to try to streamline the process and expedite it to get it in fact moving a little more quickly than it has in the past.
Having said that, I think it's worth observing that the parallel process undertaken in the US has yet to come to its conclusion 20-odd years later and tens of millions of dollars down the road. I think one issue that needs to get tackled right off the top is how to get some momentum back into the MISA program, how to get some profile for that program and frankly how to get people excited about it again.
Mr Carr: As you know, working in the government one of the biggest problems always is how do you streamline things in a bureaucracy. Good ideas that quite often originate here sometimes get bogged down in the actual field. Knowing a little bit about what the program is intended to do, do you have any suggestions of what could be done to streamline it, since that seemed to be one of the biggest concerns you've got?
Mr Zukovs: I think what it would take is considerable change perhaps in how they're doing business, and that I think would need to be balanced off against the desirability of moving it forward more quickly. What I'm implying, for example, is that the notion has been put forward that the US and other jurisdictions have developed these industrial regulations, have developed, in the case of municipal pre-treatment programs, other programs that are of some use to us and that could be imported.
One approach that might be of some benefit might be to take those results and import them directly -- Ontarioize them, if you will -- put them in as an initial position for regulations and then move to fine-tune those regulations down the road. Have something in place, have something ongoing and then move subsequently to make the changes. That would, unfortunately, I think, require a substantial change in how that whole enterprise does business.
Mr Carr: Do you think we'll see that change?
Mr Zukovs: I hope so. I hope we'll see some change.
Mr Carr: Overall, how would you rate the program. If you were taking a look at it from the outside, how would you rate it? Good, bad, fair, excellent, poor?
Mr Zukovs: I'd give them somewhere between a C plus and a B minus. They've been at it about six years, there's been a change in government in the middle of that six-year period and outside of that, as I think I've indicated, they've really had to create virtually from scratch a whole set of rules, a whole bureaucratic infrastructure to deal with a very major program. I think in that sense they've done well, as well as could be expected.
Mr Carr: In other words, if we had not had this program we would have been much worse off?
Mr Zukovs: I would say yes. I think one of the very positive benefits of this program has been that it has at least focused both industry and municipality on the issues of toxicity, on the issues of effluent discharges and what they're going to have to do. If the specifics aren't there at the moment, certainly the agenda has been laid out. I think that has a positive and beneficial effect.
Mr Carr: It seems like we at least have some ideas and are heading in the right direction, but there are many people concerned that we aren't making very much headway, that things aren't getting that much better. Would you be able to tell us if that is the case? Do you think we are making improvements, or are we still slipping further behind? Because it seems like we've put in some good programs but, unfortunately, some other things happen so that we never really seem to get ahead. Overall, how would you evaluate what we're doing in this province?
Mr Zukovs: I think that's one of the most difficult questions to answer in the sense of what constitutes quality of the environment, how do you measure that and how do you decide whether we're doing an adequate job in the long run. Again, many people have tackled that in a scientific sense and have tried to define that.
My opinion is that we are making progress. We have brought higher degrees of control to industrial discharges. We have brought higher degrees of control to municipal discharges. Since the 1950s we've literally built many sewage treatment facilities and water treatment facilities. I personally could not have imagined, say, 10 or so years ago, that we would have a thing like the blue box program we're undertaking now. That, I think, reflects a real societal change in terms of how we're thinking about the environment and what we're doing.
I'd say yes, I'm optimistic. I think that we are making progress, that there is somewhere to go with this program.
Mr Carr: One last question: With regard to the technology involved, you talked about some of the problems with the United States. From a technical standpoint, how would you rate us in the world? Are we doing well in that area with the technology? Who do you see as the leader in the world in some of the technology that's involved?
Mr Zukovs: I'd say we're doing as well as anybody in the world. I think I can say that with some authority from the standpoint that one of the things we did as part of this industrial sector look was to have a look at worldwide technologies for control of inorganic-type facilities. These are things like, for instance, soda ash producers, chlorine producers, people who are making ammonia nitrate fertilizers and so on.
I think our technologies are equal to anywhere in the world that we were able to ascertain, certainly on the European scene and within the US. There are always places where there are some new, interesting, innovative technologies, and I think we should try to learn from those things. But overall, I'd give our industry a reasonable grade on that in terms of its utilization of appropriate technology for control.
The Acting Chair: You will have to be very brief, Mr Arnott.
Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): Thank you, Mr Zukovs, for coming in today. I appreciate your interest in this committee.
The MISA program has been operating, as you say, for a number of years and you've given us your views on its effectiveness. You have some strong views on that and I thank you for sharing those with us. You talk about cooperation with other jurisdictions as to how we solve this problem in Ontario, and looking for answers from other jurisdictions. Do you think we have enough formal mechanisms in place to be able to share ideas with other jurisdictions with respect to this problem, or are there other things we could be doing?
Mr Zukovs: I'll be quite honest with you. My experience has tended to be that rather than through formal channels, it's the back channels that tend to produce, quite often, the best results in terms of really understanding how other jurisdictions are doing business. I spoke about the fact that one possibility might be to import regulations from other places. One of the hazards there is really to understand what deals were made at the table when those regulations were being put in place.
There truly is not a complete, scientific, cut-and-dried process, as I'm sure you're aware, but one of tradeoffs and things going back and forth. I think that type of information tends not to get transmitted effectively by senior bureaucrats who have a position, a program and a line that they're espousing on things. If we can somehow promote a more free exchange at a working level, then I think there would be benefit.
Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I have a couple of questions this morning. One is about water pollution in the municipal sector. Are we doing enough with sewage in the smaller rural towns? When I took over my particular riding, we had something like eight or 10 outstanding sewage plants that had been on the line of request for 10 years or better. Are we doing a good enough job? Are we putting enough to it? Do we know enough about what we should be doing there?
Mr Zukovs: I think the answer is that we could be doing more. Interestingly, I think this is almost a universal problem.
Just as an aside, I was working recently for the people in Cincinnati doing some review work and one of the issues that came up was that in the rural areas adjacent to Cincinnati they're asking exactly the same thing. People are on septic tanks, on home treatment systems. How can we tie them into a central collection system, how can we make this whole process more effective and how can we allocate some money to actually get this done?
My experience in Ontario has been that there certainly have been programs of rural improvement, both water and sewage, that have had reasonable levels of funding. Again, I think we're making some choices here. We have larger municipalities with many problems, we have smaller municipalities with problems, and I think we could be doing more in terms of improving what we're doing in smaller rural municipalities, centralizing treatment and so on.
Mr Waters: I just find it interesting. I have one community desperately looking for a new water plant, because they have wooden pipes and asbestos pipes. The wooden pipes have gone porous; they're running under septic systems. Septic pipes are breaking down; they're now digesting the asbestos and they're looking at replacing the water line. They're not thinking at all about the fact that their backyards, where all their sewage or septic tanks are, are becoming somewhat hazardous, I would imagine, at this point.
Mr Zukovs: Truly, notwithstanding the fact that we've done some remarkable things in Ontario, I think, over about the last 40 years, there are still parts of Ontario, still within incorporated municipalities -- I can point, for example, to areas in the city of Windsor -- that are still on septic facilities. Part of it's a local issue, with people being asked to vote their money to put in sewage collection systems and that's going to be reflected in their taxes, and part of it's an issue of how hard perhaps the regulators need to push to get some of this moving a little more quickly and in place.
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Mr Waters: I'd like to move on to something else. I'd like your opinion on the zero discharge of organochlorine compounds from pulp and paper.
Mr Zukovs: As I understand, the minister has taken the position that organochlorine compounds in pulp and paper effluents are undesirable. I would tend to share the view that as a goal, it's a very worthwhile goal to reduce or eliminate those compounds. What we hear is that the science is equivocal on whether or not this is exactly the right thing to be doing, how far we need to go and what we need to do. I think, rightly or wrongly, that the position is a conservative one and one that at least stakes out a long-term goal in this sense.
The question is going to come, how fast and how hard is the industry going to get pushed? That is going to take some delicate judgement, to really take into account the state of the industry currently and to somehow meld that with the desire to eliminate these compounds. The technology is there. How quickly it can be implemented is the real key question here.
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Mr Zukovs, the previous government I believe made an important contribution in terms of pollution abatement. My concern with the next step has to do with pollution prevention. In what way does your background help to make a contribution towards a policy or regulations concerning prevention as opposed to simply abatement?
Mr Zukovs: From a technical standpoint, if you will, one of the things I do regularly in looking at either municipal or industrial problems is to look at what I would call the easy things to do, the simple things to do first. Quite often, that pollution prevention label fits those things quite nicely.
For example, in an industrial sense, the first thing you ask yourself is, can you change the process, can you change the raw materials? If it's cooling water that's contaminated, can you change the source of that cooling water? Build that as the first element of solving the problem; don't stick a treatment facility on the tail end of the thing, if you can at all avoid it.
Part of pollution prevention is a way of thinking, a philosophy, if you will, and that's something I've been engaged in for some years now. In municipalities, the analogue is, for example, water conservation: Can we reduce the amount of effluent discharge from a sewage treatment facility by implementing a water conservation program?
Mr Marchese: To what extent are we doing what you're suggesting?
Mr Zukovs: To the extent that we are starting on this process. Industries really do understand what they're up to in most cases and I think are quite capable of looking at their own processes and saying, "That's the easiest, cheapest way of doing business."
In the case of municipalities, we're on the cusp, if you will. The region of Ottawa-Carleton just recently appointed a permanent staff position of water conservation coordinator. Metropolitan Toronto has as one of its planning tenets to look at water conservation.
Mr Marchese: I have another question, Mr Chair. Is there time?
The Acting Chair: Go ahead.
Mr Marchese: I'm also interested in the ecosystem approach to chemical management. Perhaps you might want to give a definition of what you think that is. As a further question, would the role of an ecosystem approach help to define a regulatory approach or a policy approach to this issue?
Mr Zukovs: That one is kind of a broad-ranging question. Let me say this: One of the things engineers in particular are greatly cursed with is tunnel vision. Sometimes we have a tendency to look at very specific issues of what we do with this particular effluent or how we take out this particular pollutant and lose sight of the fact of why we're doing that.
The issue of ecosystem is really to say that in and of itself there is value connected with a diverse, abundant, natural ecosystem, with many species fulfilling all sorts of different niches within that ecosystem, and that anything we do to impair that natural process is in fact undesirable. Sometimes with the things we measure in those effluents as chemical parameters, we can't really say how that's going to influence that ecosystem, so we tend to focus on what we can measure and lose sight of what our goals really are.
I think that needs to come back into the regulatory process. The way it's being manifested right now at least in part, is through the look at toxicity of effluents, looking at whether or not this effluent as a whole -- never mind all these parameters, but as a whole -- is toxic to specific organisms and therefore can be said to have some ecosystem impact.
Mr Marchese: Again, would you say we're doing what you're suggesting or not?
Mr Zukovs: No. We're moving in that direction. I don't think we're there, by any means. In fact, our regulations are still based on numbers at the end of the pipe, rather than simply saying, "This is really our goal," out here. We tend to focus on what we can do as engineers in terms of measurement and control.
Mr Steven W. Mahoney (Mississauga West): Mr Zukovs, I almost wonder, when I look through your résumé, if we're going to be underutilizing your talents. You've worked for just about every municipality in this general community in dealing with some of those problems. I was actually a member of a municipal council when MISA was first introduced, and there was a lot of shouting and gnashing of teeth that perhaps the province was simply pushing off its responsibility to the municipal sector. I wonder if you have any sense of how the municipalities are reacting to it today and whether it is really working, not so much from a pollutant perspective but rather from an intergovernmental perspective.
Mr Zukovs: I agree with you. Initially, particularly as at about the same time the enforcement and -- I can't remember the other half of their name, but in effect the environmental police -- were put in place as well. That certainly had a galvanizing effect on a number of officials.
My sense now is that there is still some confusion out in the municipal arena as to what MISA is going to hold in store for them in the long run. There isn't really a clear agenda being defined that says, "These are the things you're going to have to do with this timetable." I think they're operating currently in some uncertainty. Given the state of the economy and the state of their financial affairs, I think this has tended to recede to the back of their minds rather than to the forefront. I suspect that as the economy improves and as we get a little more financial capability, it's going to move back on to their agenda, but there isn't quite that same level of intense anxiety that there was in connection with the first announcement of the program. I think things are getting better, from that standpoint.
Mr Mahoney: Yet if I read this correctly from our research documents, only 44 municipalities -- albeit representing almost 60% of the population, but only 44 municipalities -- out of, what, 850 in the province have adopted a bylaw in this regard.
Mr Zukovs: We're talking about industrial sewer use?
Mr Mahoney: We're talking about prohibiting -- in 1989, the ministry slowed things down, as you surely know, because of the estimated cost, but asked municipalities -- I'll just read -- "to voluntarily adopt an updated model sewer use bylaw as an interim measure."
That hasn't been done, by and large, throughout the province. Certainly in the high-development communities I suppose it has. I just wonder if this isn't a low-cost or no-cost factor that we could somehow encourage the municipalities to follow through on and, if you agree with that, how we might do it.
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Mr Zukovs: Certainly with the municipal bylaw issue, most municipalities have some type of bylaw, not necessarily the 1989. They could have something that comes from antiquity literally. I would tend to agree that there is some positive benefit for them to move on the bylaw issue even from a revenue standpoint. Many municipalities have organized it such that their surcharges and penalties do in fact pay for the program and produce excess revenue. It is possible to organize it in that fashion, so it's an area that I think can be moved on.
Perhaps the reason nobody has done more to this point is, again, trying not to get out in front of the MISA program. The one hazard with announcing and then not coming with the specifics is that people tend to sit there and say: "I don't want to be in front of the pack. I want to make sure that when it moves, I move in an appropriate direction." I think there is some hesitancy out there on that basis.
Mr Mahoney: As a member of the advisory committee, would it be your advice to change the requirement to adopt such a bylaw from being voluntary to making it mandatory?
Mr Zukovs: I think that was one of the mechanisms that was being looked at by the sewer use bylaw people within the MISA group. If memory serves, a number of such mechanisms got looked at, including that option. I'll be quite honest with you. I'm not absolutely to the minute current on which option is currently being looked at and favoured by staff, but I'd say it's certainly one way of going about the whole thing.
Mr Mahoney: But what I'm interested in is your position as a future member of the advisory committee. Would it be your advice that it be mandatory and that the municipalities simply be required to adopt such a sewer use bylaw, or would you leave it with some local autonomy?
Mr Zukovs: First off, as a general principle, I would say yes, there should be some mandatory program, not necessarily the 1989 bylaw, but some general program for sewer use management.
Secondly, as far as the local autonomy issue is concerned, that is an essential ingredient of that program, so we're not talking about central dictation of what exactly you're going to do in your program but rather fitting it to the local circumstances. So the answer is, briefly, yes.
Mr Mahoney: That's good.
I've noticed over the years that we can easily identify some of the major industries. In fact, in some of these data that have been done, whether it be a steel mill or whether it be pulp and paper -- I wouldn't use the word "easy" because it's technically sophisticated, but it's easier to identify than in communities where you have an awful lot of small businesses who may be dealing in pollutants of one type or another, small chemical operations.
My community in Mississauga is a prime example, but many of the other members would have similar types of areas. One of the difficulties we have had over the years in my experience municipally was to trace the source of the pollutants. Something may bubble up or gurgle up downstream; in fact, we had a mysterious white foam all over our streets and couldn't figure out where the heck it was coming from.
Have you had any experience in this regard or any recommendation, recognizing that there is substantial economic difficulty for these small businesses, on how the provincial government, MISA and the municipal sector can work together with the private sector, not to create an undue burden, yet obviously to make these policies effective?
Mr Zukovs: Let me answer in this way: As far as the smaller industries are concerned, first, there are some that have already been identified for which programs are moving and in place, either by the application of technologies or some education or some combination of regulation, education and technology. A good example is the photofinishing industry. Generally, you're talking smaller businesses that are operating and have the potential for discharging in their effluents significant toxics, things like silver and so on. There, that's been sort of a technological fix, coupled with, if you will, some education within the industry. There's just better boxes to treat the discharges now for photofinishers.
So that's one positive way we can address the thing. Gas stations are another one that I think have been looked at and regulated. Laundromats are another that have been looked at, and really nothing much has been done in that regard on the laundromat issue.
Mr Mahoney: Am I out of time? I just wonder if you've had a chance to read the auditor's report on the problems. It was in the 1992 annual report.
Mr Zukovs: Unfortunately, I haven't.
Mr Mahoney: Okay. I would have been interested in your comments. He's identified some implementation programs and the fact that there has been a change, by the current government, in the direction. Perhaps you'd want to have a look at that before commencing your activities.
Mr Zukovs: Yes, indeed.
The Acting Chair: Mr Zukovs, thank you very much for your attendance here today. The committee will be making its determination at day's end. We appreciate your attendance and your forthright responses. On behalf of the committee, thank you.
Mr Zukovs: Thank you very much.
CAROLINE BYFIELD
The Acting Chair: The second appointment, according to the clerk's schedule, is an appointment proposed for selection and review by the governing party, and it is for Ms Caroline Byfield for the Ontario Agricultural Museum Advisory Board. Ms Byfield is here today. Please come forward. Please feel comfortable and speak into the microphone. Did you want to make an opening comment? Then we'll proceed with some questions. You're comfortable; fine.
Mrs Caroline Byfield: I'm comfortable.
The Acting Chair: Then we'll proceed. Dr Frankford would like to begin.
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): Welcome. I've read your résumé here and you seem to have some very specific expertise which would seem to fit you very well for this position. I wonder if you read an article in the Toronto Star yesterday about appointments to agencies, which was headed, "Need a Job? Try Government Board Game."
Mrs Byfield: No, I didn't read it.
Mr Frankford: It was, I think, very flip about these appointments, sort of saying they're just jobs. As I understand it, this board meets three times a year, so I don't think you're going to get rich.
I must confess that I've never been to the museum and that I've never given it any thought, but it seems to me that museums can be a collection of artefacts, but they can also be much more. They can give a sense of history and relate what's happened in the past to what happens today. I just wonder from, again, what I've just read here, not knowing this museum, to what extent the museum is doing that and also whether you would see some ways of emphasizing that more.
Mrs Byfield: I have not been involved with the agricultural museum until now. I have certainly been aware of programs that have gone on there, and of exhibits. For instance, last year the Canada Packers quilt exhibit was held there and drew people from all across Ontario to see it. I think things like that do make people aware and educate them and bring them to the museum.
Mr Frankford: To what extent is it more than just a collection of artefacts, but something, let's say, a living archive? Are there videos of people's memories of rural life and things like that?
Mrs Byfield: I'm sorry; I can't answer that. I've been there to exhibits, but I have not been there in the last two or three years.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any particular direction you would like to set if you're appointed to the board?
Mrs Byfield: I think education, starting right with school children and educating them about our rural past and making them aware of what is there and how they can learn about it.
Mr Frankford: Your background is in antiques.
Mrs Byfield: In antiques. I grew up on a farm in Bruce county and milked cows and did all those kinds of things growing up, although I live in the city now.
Mr Frankford: What is your opinion of the museum right now?
Mrs Byfield: I think it's a place I like to visit. I would encourage other people too and feel they could learn from going there, learn more about agriculture.
Mr Frankford: I certainly intend to go now that I know about it.
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Mr Waters: In looking through the documentation on the museum I noticed that it seems to offer an education program, but I think it's onsite. I was wondering, and one of the questions I would have is, do you feel the museum is in need of improvements and if so, what would they be?
Mrs Byfield: In need of --
Mr Waters: Improvements. Looking at it as they may do with Science North where they go out to the schools in the smaller communities, and take the museum to the communities so that maybe some of the children in rural Ontario understand a bit more about their heritage and where the farming community has come from. I was wondering, basically, would you be, along those lines, in support of that type of thing or do you think it's --
Mrs Byfield: I think that would be a great thing to do, to start with school children and make them more aware of how important agriculture is.
Mr Waters: Do you see any other improvements that the museum should have? As you said, you haven't been there for a couple of years, but in your past knowledge of the museum, do you have any new ideas as to how, shall we say, to maybe bring up visitorship or heighten awareness of the museum?
Mrs Byfield: One area, I think, is large exhibits. I go back to this Canada Packers quilt exhibit, or large exhibits that draw from other museums, and have shows that bring people from other areas. Even though they've been to the museum before, it brings them back. So often people go to a museum once and say, "I've been there; I've seen it," and they never go back again. I mean, they're not against it but they just feel they've seen it, and I think that's an area that could improve. I say that coming from Kitchener, where we have a very active museum community, with exhibits continually changing and drawing people.
Mr Waters: That was one of the things I noticed in some of the notes I have, that you're also involved with another museum.
Mrs Byfield: I'm not now. I was at the time the résumé was prepared, but I am not now.
Mr Waters: Were you successful? That would be the question.
Mrs Byfield: Yes. I think I was.
Mr Waters: Okay. That's all.
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): Tell us about your farming experience or experiences.
Mrs Byfield: I grew up on a family farm in Bruce county, on a 150-acre farm. I was the oldest child of seven and so was the first one, so I got to drive the tractor first and do all those kinds of things. We had milking cows, hens, a mixed farm. Many of my relatives still farm and I visit them.
Mr Grandmaître: Have you ever visited the museum?
Mrs Byfield: Yes.
Mr Grandmaître: What would you like to do as a new member of this board? What changes would you like to see?
Mrs Byfield: Before I could recommend changes I'd have to know the inner workings of --
Mr Grandmaître: But you visited the site and you do have experience, as you pointed out.
Mrs Byfield: But in just overall visiting a site, you really don't know the inner workings and can't come up with changes unless you know the inner workings and why things are being done that way. I would have to study these things before I come forth with wanting to make changes.
Mr Grandmaître: What got you interested? How did you get interested in becoming a member of this board? Did you apply or did you get a phone call or how did it come about?
Mrs Byfield: Well, it was very indirectly, three years ago, and if you read my résumé it led towards -- I was asked to do appraisals at year-end for tax purposes. They were looking for someone to do this and they asked me to give them a résumé, so I did and I never heard any more about it, so I assumed they got somebody else. Then, just before Christmas, I got a phone call saying that my name had been put forth to be on the board. I was quite willing to do this but I had not actually applied to be on the board.
Mr Grandmaître: I see. You received a phone call from the ministry?
Mrs Byfield: Yes.
Mr Grandmaître: I see. You did receive a phone call from the ministry.
Mrs Byfield: Yes.
Mr Grandmaître: I see. Any other questions?
Mr Mahoney: Sure. With regard to the issue of change, I recall going to the museum when I was first elected here, so we're going back four and a half, almost five years. I'm sorry to admit I haven't been back. We have another member who admits he hasn't been there. You admit you haven't been there in two or three years. I look at the total of 74,000 people in attendance over the year. Is that enough? Are we getting out there? Are we promoting the heritage of agriculture properly, and if not, do you have any ideas on how we could or should?
Mrs Byfield: Obviously, we're not promoting it enough or we would have more visitors there. We're going to have to look at different ways to get visitors to go back. As I said, getting people to go back is the important thing, I think. For people to make one visit and then not go back is the usual.
Mr Mahoney: Is there any benefit, though, to dragging in people kicking and screaming, if that's what they're doing?
Mrs Byfield: No. They have to want to go, and they have to feel they've got something from it.
Mr Marchese: I can see Steve being pulled in.
Mr Mahoney: No, not that; God. I think it's a great place, actually. We had a wonderful tour and I'll never forget David Fleet's first experience at the south end of a northbound cow. It was quite fascinating. We called him Farmer Fleet after that. But in seriousness, I did enjoy going there. I have spent some time on a farm, but I wouldn't say I grew up on one. I wonder what we might do to make it more attractive. Let me ask you this: Should the museum make money, should it break even or should it be subsidized by the taxpayer?
Mrs Byfield: I don't know any museums that make money. It would be great to say they should, but they don't make money, so they have to be subsidized in order to continue on. I think museums play a very important part in learning about our heritage and different areas, for instance, in learning agriculture in this particular museum.
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): They should put this in Middlesex county, after that annexation.
Mr Mahoney: Always looking for a political shot somewhere there.
Mr Bradley: Not me.
Mr Mahoney: No, not Jim. Let me come at the underlying question or what I'm trying to get at directly. Why is it important that we even care about the heritage of agriculture in the province? Why do you think it's important?
Mrs Byfield: Agriculture was the mainstay of Ontario. The early settlers were mainly farmers.
Mr Grandmaître: They're fast disappearing, though.
Mrs Byfield: Fast disappearing, yes.
Mr Mahoney: Which is maybe why it's more important, because they're fast disappearing. Thanks very much.
The Acting Chair: We don't have museums to politicians, though.
Mr Grandmaître: Wax museums.
The Acting Chair: Wax museums, and you cannot tell the difference in true life and in posterity. Mr Arnott, on that note.
Mr Mahoney: Cam Jackson in Niagara Falls right beside the Queen.
Mr Arnott: Thank you, Mrs Byfield, for coming in today to submit yourself to these questions. Coming from a rural riding and a rural background myself, I agree with you that the heritage of rural Ontario has to be fostered and preserved and that this information has to be out for everybody. I think one of our fundamental problems in rural Ontario is that many in urban Ontario don't really understand rural life, and I think this is an important part of it. You've indicated that this museum should play an important part in that, and I certainly agree with that. How can we get more people from urban Ontario to come out to a place like this?
Mrs Byfield: I keep going back to exhibits. Things that draw me back to museums or pioneer villages are where they have pioneer days and certain activities are taking place, for instance, threshing or harvesting, that city people aren't used to seeing and would like to see how it was done. These activities draw people back. Even though they may have been to the site before, they will go back for special events.
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Mr Arnott: So it's most worthwhile, I think, to encourage school groups to come into museums such as this one, and I would think it would be most worthwhile to encourage many of the urban children to come in, many of whom have not seen the south end of a northbound cow until they're elected to the Legislature perhaps. Have you got any ideas as to a number of ways that we could approach that so that we could get more urban kids to come to see the museum?
Mrs Byfield: That would have to be done through school boards in encouraging them to make these trips to a place like Milton.
Mr Arnott: You indicated in your letter that you did some work for the Wellington County Museum, the fine museum we have in Wellington. Could you explain to me what exactly it was in terms of appraisals that you were doing?
Mrs Byfield: I was doing year-end appraisals of donations that people had given, and this was for tax purposes.
Mr Arnott: So when an artefact is donated to the museum there's an appraisal done by --
Mrs Byfield: An appraisal done and these people are given a tax receipt for this amount.
Mr Arnott: Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr Carr: I just have a couple of questions. I notice here you've been an active board member of the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation. In terms of your work with the foundation, what would you say are some of the things you accomplished as a group there? What are some of the things you've done and how do you think you can apply them to this position that's coming up?
Mrs Byfield: The Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation is a funding branch of the Waterloo region, and we funded different projects that we felt were worthy within the community; for instance, someone publishing a book on a local subject. We also sponsored heritage day events where we paid for the advertisement and the rooms these things were held in so that smaller groups that didn't have any money could put on displays to make the public more aware of heritage in Waterloo county.
Mr Carr: How successful do you think you were with the endeavours as a group?
Mrs Byfield: Between the time I started on the board till the time I left, about a six-year period, there was a great deal of difference between the visibility in the community, and making people aware of heritage and people willing to do things to promote heritage in the community.
Mr Carr: I notice here you said that you made some of the donations to some of the museums. What exactly would it have been that you were donating?
Mrs Byfield: I donated textiles to the Joseph Schneider Haus. To Doon Crossroads, which is just down the road from us, I donated cutlery appropriate to a certain building, paper artefacts that were appropriate to the time period of Doon Crossroads. There have been numerous things over the years. Right now I'm trying to think of what they are.
Mr Carr: Without getting too personal, you're mentioning here you're an antique dealer. How are the antique dealers doing in the province of Ontario today, would you say?
Mrs Byfield: Well, they're like everything else. Business is down, but if you work very hard at it you can still make a living.
Mr Carr: Are there more people getting into that or fewer or are they dropping off? What's happening?
Mrs Byfield: Some dropping off and then others, who think that it's an easy way to make a living and are out of work, are trying it. The numbers are probably about the same, although it has changed at both ends.
Mr Carr: Okay, good. Thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: Are there any other questions? We do have a little bit of time left if there are any other committee members who -- Mr Cooper.
Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): Good morning. It's good to see you here. I'm aware of most of the facilities you've worked at or have been involved with in the Waterloo region and you've done an excellent job out there. The one issue that comes to mind right now is, there's an old pumper fire truck at Doon Heritage Crossroads and basically it's just sinking into the mud because there's no money to restore it. Is there anything like that at the Ontario Agricultural Museum? Do you know, or would they accept anything like that?
Mrs Byfield: I don't know. I know that right now within museums there is quite a bit of trading going back and forth with things like you're saying. "I can't use it at my museum, but can you use it at yours?" I know that is going on, but I don't know whether --
Mr Cooper: So during the tough economic times right now, where there isn't money to restore a lot of these things, would you still be accepting them?
Mrs Byfield: The museums aren't accepting things unless they absolutely fit into their own mandate and they can afford to look after them -- the museums that I'm involved with, anyway, or have been involved with.
Mr Waters: Places like Joseph Schneider Haus in Kitchener and Doon Heritage Crossroads are pretty well right in the city, so the schools have been playing a very active role. I know with the Ontario Agricultural Museum they say they rely heavily on students. With the cutbacks in educational funding right now, is this going to continue, do you think, being as it's more out of town and schools are cutting back on road trips? Do you think this may affect the attendance there?
Mrs Byfield: It probably will affect that, school trips.
Mr Waters: How would you respond to that to keep the attendance up there?
Mrs Byfield: I feel that's an area that shouldn't be cut back, but I don't have any say in that.
Mr Waters: Right. So do you think by bringing in more special events, that might make it more viable, to keep the attendance up? Do you think that might be the way to go?
Mrs Byfield: I think that special events would. Special events often do break even in that they charge admission and have many people going and they sell food and things like that, so that they do break even.
Mr Waters: Okay. Thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: If there are no other questions by committee members, Mrs Byfield, I want to thank you for coming today. The committee will make its determination at day's end. Did you have any closing comment you wanted to share with the committee?
Mrs Byfield: I don't think so. I would be pleased to be on the board, but that's up to you people.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your attendance today, on behalf of the committee.
We do not have our next deputant and we are two minutes before the hour, so I will call a five-minute adjournment. The committee has a five-minute adjournment.
The committee recessed at 1058 and resumed at 1101.
DONNA MANN
The Acting Chair: I'd like to reconvene the standing committee on government agencies. Our third intended appointee has arrived. I'd like to invite Donna Mann to the table. Welcome. Please be seated. The microphone in front of you is required because these hearings are recorded for the purposes of Instant Hansard.
Ms Mann, would you like to make a brief opening statement? Then we'll proceed in rotation with our questions.
Rev Donna Mann: I'm happy to be here. I look forward to your questions and I hope that I can give to you an idea of who I am, what I'm about, my interests, the things I'm concerned about and how I might be helpful in such a committee as I've been approached to be a part of.
The Acting Chair: Very good. Thank you and welcome. Since this was a third-party review, I believe we'll begin with Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: I appreciate the opportunity to ask you a few questions. As you know, the province right now has some problems in dealing with police forces right across this province. Maybe you could just give us an assessment of what you see happening in the province with police forces and some idea of what you think could be done to improve the relationship that is probably soured to the point that I think it's the worst it's ever been in our history. What do you think is the cause and what do you think can be done about it? Start with the easy questions first.
Rev Ms Mann: On the first part, "What do you think is the cause?" I couldn't answer that, I'm sure, to your satisfaction. I think it's not an easy job to be a police officer and it's not a safe country any more the way it used to be. If it ever was, it certainly is not the same. I feel confident that police forces do everything they can to relate to the people, but I could not answer what is the cause. What was the second part of your question?
Mr Carr: The solution, if there's anything that can be done to improve it.
Rev Ms Mann: Continue to work together, continue to talk, to listen, to negotiate, to hear all parties.
Mr Carr: How did you find out about this position? How did you come about being interested?
Rev Ms Mann: My name was put forth by someone in the town, as I understand it.
Mr Carr: Who was that, somebody in council? Do you know who it was?
Rev Ms Mann: Judy Gray, the clerk-secretary of council.
Mr Carr: Did you have any political affiliation at all?
Rev Ms Mann: Not really, not actively. I exercise my right to vote, but I'm not in any party in particular, in a voice or opinion.
Mr Carr: How did you become interested in this position? Did you voice some concern or did somebody just say that you seemed to have a lot of talent that we should put to use? How did it come about? Did you have a specific interest in this?
Rev Ms Mann: I suspect it's because I've been vocal in the town through articles in the paper or because I am clergy in the town. We have a clergy column that we all take turns writing, and I suspect that my concern for people has come out in that. I've been involved in arranging some education, in the town, for violence in the home and teenagers on the street and things like that.
Mr Carr: Right now, looking at the Durham police, how would you assess how well they've done in terms of the board? How would you assess the board in its responsibilities? How well has it done?
Rev Ms Mann: As I understand, there's a good relationship between the board, the force and the town. I have not heard anything derogatory about that. I think the work -- education -- in the schools is what I notice foremost, also communication on the street, willingness to inform and to answer questions from both the board and the police force together. I see some continuity and some consistency there.
Mr Carr: You mentioned a couple of the articles that you'd written that some people may have seen and realized you had some interest. How would you assess those articles? Were they critical of the police? Were they supportive of the police? How would you sort of sum them up?
Rev Ms Mann: They wouldn't have been towards the police at all. The two articles that I wrote were asking for zero tolerance to violence, and that was just a term we've been using in Grey county because we have a lot of violence in the home.
Mr Carr: One of the concerns that I have with the police across this province is that, as you know, crime is on the rise dramatically. They're facing more difficult situations. I was a critic for the Solicitor General and spent some time out with the Metro police up in 31 Division as well as the Halton police force. I would suggest that if you get a chance to do that, ride along with the police to see exactly what the men and women are facing. I think it's a good way to get into it.
Having done that, I think most people in this province see the escalation in crime and see that this province is focused on things -- for example, the regulations on police -- that they're focusing on the police at a time when we have a rise in crime, and what we should be doing is assisting the police to stop the rising crime, the violence in the home, the murders, the robberies and so on. Would you like to see us focus more on the criminal element or do you think we should be taking a look at the police and what they're doing and giving them more restrictions in how they operate? Which would be your main focus?
Rev Ms Mann: They're both important. I think they both need to be reminded of the balance that has to be kept. As you will know from my résumé, I have a son who is a police officer and I realize the tension and the stress, the sensitivity that he has to exercise. I also see the support he gets, as I read in the paper and so forth, that there's support and education for the force.
The other side of that is to keep informing the community about its responsibility to the force and the force's responsibility and accountability to it. In our community, the police statistics are put in the paper: how many calls are domestic calls or traffic violations and so forth. The people are on to that. They watch for that and they're concerned about that. So from the public's point of view and from the force's point of view, there's a good balance there.
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Mr Carr: Just one last quick one. What force is David with?
Rev Ms Mann: Waterloo regional.
Mr Carr: Waterloo region, okay.
Mr Arnott: Thank you and good morning, Reverend Mann. It's a pleasure to meet you. I have a couple of questions. Coming from an area adjacent to yours, in Wellington, policing in a small-town atmosphere is certainly different than policing in the city. I think one of the main issues in rural Ontario with respect to policing is the cost of policing as opposed to some of the other issues that seem to dominate the public's attention in Toronto, for example.
The composition of the Durham board, I assume, is probably three provincial appointees and two municipal appointees. Is that correct?
Rev Ms Mann: I'm not sure of that.
Mr Mahoney: It's two and one.
Mr Arnott: Two and one. Do you think that's a fair way to compose a board? I guess what I'm getting at is that a lot of the cost of policing in a small town is borne by the local taxpayers, often with a very small tax base upon which to do that responsibility, and policing is a very, very expensive responsibility of the local government. There's been a concern expressed to me on a number of occasions by municipal officials in small towns that they should have more control over the bottom-line budget of the policing function.
Rev Ms Mann: At the town councilship?
Mr Arnott: Yes. I guess when the police services boards were set up, some of the power that was there was devolved to the board. Do you have any views on that particular issue? Is it satisfactory the way it is?
Rev Ms Mann: I sit on the library board in town, and the council does have the bottom line with the library board. I've heard it said at those meetings that they don't have the same right with the police officers. It's not that these people were saying that they should, but I right away got a feeling that it was sort of beyond and over -- it sort of bypassed the town. I myself don't find fault with that. I think sometimes we need to be accountable to a larger body outside of who we are as a town.
Mr Arnott: Secondly, I wanted to ask you about the issue of political activity of police officers themselves. There was an announcement made by the Solicitor General, I guess. On October 3, 1991, the Solicitor General, Mr Pilkey, announced that there were going to be increased opportunities for police to engage in political activity.
It's very ironic that at the same time, about the same week, I received a call from a municipal councillor in the village of Drayton who was sitting as a municipal councillor, had served a three-year term, and also was a member of the Waterloo Regional Police Force as his full-time job. Now, in the small town of Drayton, a councillor's job is very much part-time, but he found that because of the Solicitor General's recent initiative -- a different initiative -- he was denied the opportunity to run for municipal council. At the same time the minister was taking credit for expanding the opportunities for political involvement by police officers, the direct opposite was happening to this individual.
Do you think that police officers should be given the opportunity to run for municipal council in small towns? I think they should.
Rev Ms Mann: I think a police officer in a small town is really scrutinized and is very carefully watched, as is any person in leadership in a small town. I would think they would need to be very careful not to be taking a particular stand politically, but I'm not sure about that.
Mr Arnott: So you generally have some concerns, I guess, about political involvement by police officers. Is that what you're saying?
Rev Ms Mann: I would say they need to represent the people across the town rather than putting their own opinion foremost. They can have an opinion or have a stand, but --
Mr Arnott: Okay, that's fine. Thank you very much.
Mr Cooper: It's a pleasure to have you here this morning. I have a couple of things. With the Solicitor General taking the stand now on employment equity, I understand with the very small force that you have in the town of Durham, what the Solicitor General is asking is that you have representatives from women, minorities, native people and the disabled. I understand none of them is represented right now on the police force there. Do you have any idea how that could be implemented on such a small force?
Rev Ms Mann: My understanding is that there have been two women in auxiliary positions there in the past. I don't know how far back that has been. That tells me there's an openness for that to happen. If you look at the community to see what would be a fair representation of the community, men and women would probably be a fair representation. We don't have a native population, or a black, or an Oriental, so the men/women would be a fair equity if you take a representative of the community.
Mr Cooper: I know one of the issues that's come up locally in Waterloo region is the question of hiring disabled police officers. Right now the ministry's pretty well leaving it open as to what the description of a disabled person is. Could you think of any possibility where a disabled person could be a full-time constable?
Rev Ms Mann: I think there must be tasks to do other than ones that would be on the walk. If the person is disabled where they would be in a wheelchair or in a particular seat, whether they were wheeled into it or they walked with a cane, I would think there are lots of positions they could fill without having to walk a beat on a street. I would not be averse to seeing a physically handicapped person doing some police work.
Mr Cooper: The point is, some handicaps aren't totally visible and some of these people, if it's a controlled disability, could possibly be full-time constables. Would you be open to suggestions like that?
Rev Ms Mann: I would be open to suggestions like that. I wouldn't have the answer to how they might best work.
Mr Cooper: I know that's a difficult question. The next thing is on the use of force and the reports. Do they file reports right now in the town of Durham?
Rev Ms Mann: There is accountability. I don't know how that happens, how the forms are made out or to what extent, how many copies or anything. I've not asked that question.
Mr Cooper: The question now is: Do you agree with the position the Solicitor General is taking where these reports can be used to better train the officers?
Rev Ms Mann: I have no problem with that.
Mr Cooper: The next one I'd like to talk about is community policing. I'm not totally familiar with the town of Durham. Do you know what kind of direction they're taking on this issue?
Rev Ms Mann: They have a 24-hour police service in the town. They're very much in touch with the community. You can find them at any community setting. Is that the kind of answer you're --
Mr Cooper: Sort of like that. It's more outreach where they're more in contact with the public and things like Neighbourhood Watch and going to schools.
Rev Ms Mann: They go into the schools.
Mr Cooper: Do you promote that direction the Solicitor General has taken?
Rev Ms Mann: Yes.
Mr Cooper: All right. Thank you very much.
Mr Frankford: You heard a simplistic statement from opposite that crime rates are rising, which is rather puzzling since the number of murders in Metro Toronto declined 28% last year. I can give an example of figures from my riding of Scarborough East that crime in Metro Housing has declined. Do you have any figures on the crime rate trends in your area?
Rev Ms Mann: Because I'm interested in the domestic violence that happens in Grey county, I know those figures are up. They're up for our area. Teenage suicide, for instance: That kind of self-inflicted violence is up.
Mr Frankford: Do you know how much?
Rev Ms Mann: No, I can't give you a percentage on that.
Mr Frankford: One of the things that has to be borne in mind is comparable methodology. Crime figures may go up because there is more interest in a particular problem. It doesn't necessarily mean that patterns have changed, as the oversimplifying critics often pick up on.
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Mr Waters: You were talking about small-town Ontario, and that's where I'm from. I used to work with family violence before becoming an MPP, more actively than now. What we found was that stats were never kept, historically, and it was difficult to get stats.
I agree with you that family violence is on an increase. Unfortunately, when times are tough and dollars get tight, violence in the home seems to come to the forefront, and I would agree with that. But I would ask, about community involvement and more interaction between the community in general in a small town and police, do you think there's enough of it? I know that at one time we had town police. We now don't have that in our communities. We have the OPP and we seem to have lost the community involvement with the police. I was just wondering if you find the same thing.
Rev Ms Mann: I like to see the police officer walk down the street in our town, and I like to see the car at 11:30 at night go around the corner when I know there's a bunch of kids gathering. The community involvement, to me, is really important, and for them to be visible at different areas of concern that are held within the town.
Mr Waters: You led to my next question, which was the police car going around and the young members of our communities. One of the things I'm finding in Muskoka in particular, and our community police officers are finding the same thing and are trying to work with the young people, is that we're having difficulty with our communities arranging things for young people.
When I grew up, there were at least a couple of restaurants that were open through the evening where the kids would gather, and there was a jukebox and things like that. There's none of that any more. It appears in large communities you have the Y and you have other programs that are paid for by the community. But what I'm finding in small-town Ontario is that unless there's a profit to be made, either by the community, or by the town, or a fee for use, or by private business, there's nothing for our children to do, and we're finding, I believe, a definite increase in property damage.
Rev Ms Mann: We have a doughnut shop that's open all night and they can go in there out of the cold, and there are teenage dances once a month at which the police officers are around and talking to the kids and so forth. We don't have a lot, but we do have those two things. The churches provide some, but unfortunately are not always able to reach the young people who really need to be reached, which is unfortunate. But there are some things we have in the town that are positive for the young people.
Mr Waters: I guess I look at it that one way of keeping the cost of policing down is that if we maybe invest our dollars elsewhere to keep the crime rate down, we could assist them in some way in small towns, because I think that in most of small-town Ontario it's pretty much property crime or vandalism on the streets.
Rev Ms Mann: And as a result of drugs and alcohol. There's a lot of that in small towns.
Mr Waters: Yes. I would agree with you on that.
Rev Ms Mann: Rural areas, long lanes, isolated.
Mr Grandmaître: How would you describe your police force?
Rev Ms Mann: Caring and friendly and aware.
Mr Grandmaître: So you think they're doing an adequate job, or a good job?
Rev Ms Mann: Yes. I'm new to this, even thinking of this and judging them in that way, but in the last two or three months I must admit I've been taking a closer look. Since I've been looking at this committee, I've been taking a closer look at their involvement and their activity and at them as individuals.
Mr Grandmaître: Maybe I should follow my list of questions. What are the most repeated crimes in your community?
Rev Ms Mann: Domestic.
Mr Grandmaître: Domestic. How do you think the police -- not the police services board, but the police chief and the rest of his crew, four people, I think; four full-time and one part-time -- are responding? How are they communicating to those families? Are they doing a good job?
Rev Ms Mann: Just to back up a little bit to answer your question, we have started a support group in the town, a support group for women who might find themselves in conflicting situations at home, and what I've heard from them over the past couple of years is that the police have been very helpful to them. That's just come out in conversation.
Mr Grandmaître: Some larger police forces have social workers assisting the police services board or the police chief to respond to those needs. Do you think your board could hire such a social worker?
Rev Ms Mann: I don't know that.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you think it would help?
Rev Ms Mann: I think it would help, but also on the other side of that I think of the cost factor.
Mr Grandmaître: I'm sorry?
Rev Ms Mann: I think of the cost factor.
Mr Grandmaître: Yes. At your present budget of $305,000, are people complaining about the cost of policing?
Rev Ms Mann: No. I have not heard that.
Mr Grandmaître: What's the total budget of your municipality or community?
Rev Ms Mann: I couldn't tell you that.
Mr Grandmaître: Steve?
Mr Mahoney: Go ahead, Jim.
Mr Bradley: I have some questions here that I missed. Do you believe in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada? Are you a supporter of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Rev Ms Mann: I have not read it lately, to be honest with you, but I would say yes.
Mr Bradley: Do you believe, then, that the police officers who are refusing to answer questions of the investigators from the special investigations units are correct in saying that they should not have to answer questions because their rights are being violated under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Rev Ms Mann: I think we all have to be accountable to someone, someplace, some time, and someone has to put that process into place. I don't know what else to say about that.
Mr Bradley: I was listening to Mr Cooper's questions, and was I correct in assuming that you believe the police should have to file a report every time they pull their guns?
Rev Ms Mann: I know that's a conflicting issue and I liken it to my experience as a nurse. We were always asked to document so much as an aspirin. You say, "Well, I can take an aspirin at home and it doesn't hurt," but there was always someone who wanted to know exactly how many aspirins were given. I just liken it to that.
I, myself, have no problem with documenting or being accountable, and I have told that to other police officers. I know a few. We've had discussions about that. I concede some of their stories where they have a lot of paperwork, where they're working under the stress of the moment, but myself, I have no problem with accountability.
Mr Bradley: The feeling in my community, if I may reflect the majority feeling in my community, is that the police are attempting to fight increasing crime in the province of Ontario rather than decreasing -- the statistics would show an increase -- and that the tools the police officers have to fight crime in fact are being taken out of their hands. How would you deal with this matter when faced with these complaints by police to your commission?
Rev Ms Mann: My personal opinion is that they should be able to have what they need to be able to do their work. If a gun is part of that -- is that your question, whether they should be able to have a gun?
Mr Bradley: I think generally the police are being more restricted in what they can do to fight crime. Their feeling, at least, is that they're being more restricted in what they can do to fight crime in their communities.
If we speak to our general population, one of the complaints we get as politicians is that we never reflect what the majority feels out there. We perhaps reject what some very noisy people will tell us is happening, but the public out there is totally frustrated. When I speak to organizations and so on -- I try to be moderate and defensive of government positions, believe it or not, when I believe those positions are correct -- I constantly get hounded by people saying that we're taking the tools away from the police, that we're constantly listening to people who are anti-police, and that the public would like the police to have the tools to fight crime.
Rev Ms Mann: I would agree with that.
The Acting Chair: Last question, Mr Bradley.
Mr Bradley: The last question is on violence; family violence I guess is the general term we use. What mandate would you give to police officers within your community? I see the people in the background who work for the government rolling their eyes and smiling. You'll find, back there, that that is not a wise thing to be doing in the committee, this constant roaring at what members of the Legislature have to say, from people who are not elected and who sit there and advise government members. I think you members should take control of that.
The Acting Chair: For a final question; we're deviating fairly substantively.
Mr Bradley: Okay. Marital violence: What mandate would you give to officers within your community, as a member of the police commission, to deal with issues where men in a spousal circumstance have perpetrated violence upon women and the women refuse to press charges? What mandate would you give to the local police force in those cases?
Rev Ms Mann: Not to give up on any particular situation; if it's been a recurring event where the charges have been dropped, not to just say, "Well, I know that's going to happen again," but never to give up, to continue to give the circumstance priority attention as if it was the first time. I'm aware we have that situation where someone, usually the wife, will drop the charge. After the police officer's spent all day in Walkerton court, she doesn't show up to continue. Usually, that's out of fear on her part. There's a whole lot of dynamics there that have entered in because of their relationship.
Whoever asked that question about the social worker or that other party who might be able to spend the time in relational dynamics would be very effective for that. But there again there's the cost factor. I can't see that happening right away.
Mr Bradley: Thank you. That's a good answer.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Mann. As the Chair of the committee, I appreciate your hitting on that fine point about victims' services as a necessary adjunct and support to active police work and the police board's concerns in this area. Do you have any closing statements you'd like to share with the committee?
Rev Ms Mann: I'm wondering why there aren't some other women here asking questions.
Mr Waters: There is normally one woman on our side of the table who isn't here this week. It's just that in the interim --
The Acting Chair: I thank you for your question, but we have a regular series of members of the committee and we also have substitutions, and there are extensive substitutions to this committee today; I the Chair am as well.
Thank you very much for your attendance today. I appreciated and found your interview very interesting. I wish you well. This committee will be making its final determination at day's end and the clerk will notify you accordingly.
This committee now stands adjourned until 2 of the clock, and I would ask the subcommittee to remain for a brief meeting.
The committee recessed at 1135.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1406.
BETTY WALSH
The Acting Chair: I'd like to call to order the standing committee on government agencies. At this point I'd like to call forward Ms Betty Walsh, intended appointee as a member of the Education Relations Commission and the College Relations Commission. Welcome, Ms Walsh. Please take a seat and feel comfortable. The microphone is there so that your comments and any questions can be recorded on Hansard. Do you have an opening statement you'd like to make before we begin with questioning?
Ms Betty Walsh: I'm excited to be here. I'm looking forward to this appointment, if it's your wish. I guess I'm in a state of mild anxiety, which is what you would approach an examination with, but I'm looking forward to your questions.
The Acting Chair: We're one of the rather tame committees; at least, we're going to be today under me as Chair.
Mr Marchese: Jim Bradley's not here.
The Acting Chair: Now, now, now, we'll keep personalities out of it.
Since your appointment was asked to be reviewed by the governing party, we will commence with questions from it.
Mr Waters: Right off the bat, I guess what we should ask is why you chose to serve on this particular commission, your interests, your background and what you feel you would bring to the board.
Ms Walsh: I have been associated with the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act and the ERC, which administers it, since 1975 when I was teaching in Pembroke for the Renfrew county board. The secondary school teachers of Renfrew county asked me to conduct the bargaining for them, to be their paid employee, as a matter of fact. I was given time off to do this. We chose final offer selection under the act. It was the first time it was done. We learned a lot through the ERC, which was very helpful, about being employees in Ontario. I think this has continued to happen throughout the course of the bill being administered by the ERC. The rights and responsibilities of both employers and employees and what a grievance was, what bad faith is, all these things became defined and the relationships became better. I have therefore had a lot of experience with the commission and with the act, and I've had a lot of experience, in different ways, with bad faith bargaining and all the other things.
I am very impressed with the legislation. It was, when it came out, a model of labour legislation. As I say, it's taught all the parties a lot. I've been very impressed with the commission itself and with its employees and agents. They have really taken the spirit of this legislation, which is to provide harmonious relations between the parties, and have trained people to assist who've been excellent and helpful, not bullying or anything. They have had fact-finders who have been scrupulously fair. They have noted when parties are getting in trouble, and that has been a very important part of their job, to see that things were going badly because of the length of negotiations, the number of people to assist coming in, the number of maybe silly charges against one another. They have instituted the same thing as the labour relations board has done, relationships by objectives, in which the parties have learned how to defuse some of the anger they have towards one another, to stop polarizing situations and to work together in a better way. So I feel I've got a lot to bring to it.
I did my master's degree in England six years ago at the London School of Economics. At that time I chose for my dissertation teacher bargaining in England and Wales, so I was able to make a comparison between the horrendous bargaining situation they had with teachers there, and their contracts and everything else, and what we have in Ontario. I was really proud to be part of a system that worked things out in such a civilized fashion.
Mr Waters: Is there anything about you that would give any party legitimate cause to perceive that you would not approach this appointment with neutrality? Looking back in your résumé, you obviously come from one side.
Ms Walsh: I come from one side, yes, that's true. I would expect that I would be able, in the confidence of the commission, to suggest why one side had a point of view that wasn't understood, maybe, by the rest of the people there, and I think that would be very valuable. I have agreed to the conflict-of-interest guidelines and I understand the position of the commission to be absolutely neutral on all things; therefore, I wouldn't have agreed to this job if I couldn't feel I have that capability. I think that's very important. I'm a person who believes in compromise, in any case.
But I could say what is not on my résumé, that for the past nearly two years I have been working with boards in the native community. I'm a volunteer consultant with CESO, the Canadian Executive Service Organization. They called me in first to give advice to a native band council, on Walpole Island, down by Lake St Clair, where they had fired the agents. The teachers had been loosely represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and when the band took over, that union dropped out. The teachers sought certification under the Canada Labour Code. The band felt it had lost face by the fact that the teachers had asked for a union but, you see, the band had summarily fired the principal, so what happened was understandable.
So I went in there and said, "I'm not going to negotiate for you, but I'm going to look at the items on the table and I'm going to make some suggestions." I looked at their budget. I found that after they had fired the principal they were being so nice to everybody that anybody could get a day off if his neighbour's roof had a shingle off it. I said, "You're being too nice."
I really was able to get on their side, so much so that when I finished a day's workshop with the council, they asked me to be director of education. They really did. I said, "I'm not qualified to be a principal, let alone that," but they said they'd shortlisted twice and they didn't find anybody they felt they could trust the way they could trust me, because I'd been very open with them.
In fact, they settled very shortly after. It was settled quickly, because once I got the application for certification, I realized that a conciliation officer would be in quite quickly and that they would be in trouble.
The Acting Chair: Mr Marchese.
Mr Marchese: Betty, as a first question, out of interest, who put forth your nomination to the Education Relations Commission?
Ms Walsh: The Ontario Teachers' Federation.
Mr Marchese: Given your background, I'm sure you've had a lot of positive and perhaps negative experiences with the Education Relations Commission. Out of that, as a context, would you say there are some failings or shortcomings of the Education Relations Commission and/or, as a result, would you empower it differently if you had it your way?
Ms Walsh: There have maybe been one or two people in the past whom the affiliates found difficult to deal with, but they didn't stay around very long. Certainly they wouldn't stay around very long as mediators because the parties would just say they would prefer somebody else. So that works out quite quickly.
The act itself -- you're not asking me about the act; you're asking me about the commission.
Mr Marchese: About the commission. But presumably it relates very much to the act, because you'd have to change the act.
Ms Walsh: The commission has to administer the act, and the commission may have had some difficulties because of minor omissions from the act about which it had to seek clarification through the labour relations board, because there were attempts to bargain for people who were at the beginning not covered by the act, like continuing education teachers and psychologists with teaching certificates and things like that.
The commission did its job beautifully in both of those cases by going to the Statutory Powers Procedure Act where necessary and to the Labour Relations Act and getting them to make decisions about these.
I really have no fault to find with anybody at the commission. I've always got along very well. Their data collecting has always been a marvel, and most of the parties are on line with their computers. It has saved so much bad feeling when both parties have access to the same stats. It's a very good service.
Mr Marchese: Let me ask you one further question at this time. In reading some of the research, I read this: "Over 70% of all collective agreements negotiated under the terms of the act have not been settled until after contract expiry on August 31 and the Education Relations Commission has been called in. This is a high percentage compared to other collective bargaining regimes elsewhere in the government and in the private sector." What is your reaction to such a comment?
Ms Walsh: Well, it's true. The act says that the parties, if they want to renew or amend the agreement, must give notice to the other party in January of the year in which the agreement expires and they must meet within a month. For most places, the meeting within the month is just informal, something to meet the requirements of the act. There isn't much serious bargaining done until later, partly because the statistics on the cost of living aren't out, and other settlements. There's a tendency maybe to wait a bit to see what's happening in the whole sector. It's just slow. The boards are very busy people and it's sometimes difficult to get a meeting. They haven't set their -- I don't lay blame on either party.
Mr Marchese: That's the point I'm asking, Betty. Given the fact that it takes so long to come to some agreement, usually involving a third party, is there something that you think should be done in order to perhaps reduce that long, long negotiating period?
Ms Walsh: I don't think it worries the parties. I really don't. I think it has become maybe a bad habit that this is what they're doing. Very, very seldom, unless it's a multiple-year collective agreement, do they start the year with an agreement. So that's just the way it is. I think both sides drag their feet a little bit, although the teachers really do try to come out with a -- and the affiliate people who work with them say: "Get a position ready by March anyway. We want to see it. We want to look at it and give you some advice about the wording."
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Mr Mahoney: Ms Walsh, I wouldn't question your credentials at all; I think they're quite extensive. What I would question is, do you think we need this commission?
Ms Walsh: Definitely.
Mr Mahoney: Can you tell me why?
Ms Walsh: You mean, rather than this, have it taken over by the Ontario Labour Relations Board?
Mr Mahoney: Perhaps let me help with some additional comments. There are comments made by some folks that would seem to be critical of the commission. I wonder, if the negotiations don't take place seriously until certain referrals and issues are sent there, what kind of teeth the commission actually has. If you get to the stage as a commission where you determine in a strike that the students' year is in jeopardy, you can inform the government of such, but there are no real teeth, no recommendation; the commission does not recommend that a strike be ended. I wonder if this is just not a little bit of bureaucracy in the middle between the two parties trying to negotiate a deal.
I wonder, more important than my thoughts on it, what your thoughts are going to be as a person who -- while I respect your statements in the beginning of some concern about your appointment, I'm sure you know that the appointment will be ratified and we're going through a process to put certain comments and thoughts on the record, I guess, from both us and from you. That's just life. But I wonder if this commission is a level of bureaucracy that's unnecessary. Do you have any comments on that?
Ms Walsh: To go back to your first observation about teeth, the commission, as I see it, is not to go around -- its purpose is to provide harmonious relationships, and teeth aren't in it. What is in it is assistance, information, qualified people; if there is something with respect to, for instance, the problem I mentioned before about the summer school teachers and the continuing --
Mr Mahoney: I'm sorry, the problem what?
Ms Walsh: Continuing education teachers, summer school, night school teachers, who were not envisaged as being part of bargaining. That's brought back to people like you. The commission sees that there is a problem, an omission, and it says it's up to the Legislature to correct that. What has happened here is that when the parties appear to be having difficulty and the commission helps them -- provides people to assist, provides information -- the records show that that help has defused very explosive situations which would have ended in strike, which would have ended in jeopardy. Therefore, they've done a terrific job.
One workshop, on relationships by objectives, has put out a monograph which proves that in the future they'll need fewer fact-finders, fewer mediators, fewer arbitrators and fewer strikes. So it's not an interfering body; it's a body that monitors. Its duties under the act are not to have teeth, is my understanding.
Mr Mahoney: To go back, Mr Marchese made the point that over 70% of all collective agreements negotiated have not been settled until after expiry of the contract. If you're talking about a commission that would, and presumably does, help to avoid the confrontation of a strike, would it make any sense to have that commission involved earlier or in a broader scope so that contracts indeed are settled before August 31?
Ms Walsh: There is that possibility that they can do that.
Mr Mahoney: Do you see a mandate for them? I don't see a mandate for them to do that here. If there is a mandate, I don't think they've been successful up till now.
Ms Walsh: No. It's at the request of both of the parties prior to the expiry of the collective agreement. So that is their mandate and they do not interfere -- although, for instance, the bad strike in Carleton, they have already arranged for workshops between the parties to set goals and do some problem-solving.
Mr Mahoney: If indeed we were in the midst of a major strike, a lengthy strike, by teachers, do you have any qualms in saying publicly, as a member of the commission, that you believe this strike is now, at this point in time, jeopardizing the education of the students?
Ms Walsh: I'm not sure, but I think it would be inappropriate for me as a member of the commission to make any private statement whatsoever.
Mr Mahoney: As a member of the commission, if the commission were to advise the government, which is my understanding -- I've lost where it was but in this report it states that it is the commission's job to advise the government when the point in time arrives when students' education is now in jeopardy. You would be a member of that commission. Would you have any qualms in standing behind a statement of that commission that said that students' education was at this point in time in jeopardy as a result of the strike?
Ms Walsh: I want to make sure that I understand your question. If you're asking me, would I agree to a resolution -- I think that the act says that this has to be by resolution -- would I be part of the positive vote in a resolution to declare jeopardy, that's one thing; if I would make a public announcement, I wouldn't, but I would be part of a resolution under certain circumstances. But the circumstances in which jeopardy is declared are different in every case.
Mr Mahoney: Of course, and I respect the fact that the question is hypothetical. This really goes back, in essence, to a similar question that was asked earlier about any potential bias that you may have, and it's our job to ask you if you have any bias or see any bias. According to the report I have in front of me, it states in it, "The commission monitors the progress of a strike and is required to determine when the continuance of a strike, lockout and school closing will jeopardize the students' successful completion of their year." Presumably that's the measuring stick that you would use: Are these kids going to get their year or they going to lose their year if this strike carries on?
When the commission judges that point is reached, it notifies the government. You don't recommend to the government as a commission that it bring in back-to-work legislation. But presumably, with parental pressure, if you, as a member of this commission, were to collectively say -- I'm not asking whether you would issue a press release. You're part of the commission; you're responsible for the report. I assume there would not be a mechanism for you to issue a minority report saying that you disagree with the rest of your colleagues on the commission.
Ms Walsh: No, I wouldn't suspect so.
Mr Mahoney: So I would presume --
Ms Walsh: You're asking me if I would vote for jeopardy?
Mr Mahoney: I'm asking you if you would have any difficulty in being part of a commission decision to notify the government that the students' successful completion of their year is in jeopardy. Do you have any trouble with that?
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Ms Walsh: My answer to that is that I don't have any trouble with that if I felt, in consultation with the other commissioners, that this was so. Of course that decision has been made in nine cases already, which are about 12% of the sanctions, so in the 74 sanctions and nine the decision has been made and it has been made for a good reason, in some cases. In some cases, I have to say that I believe the thing has run its course, because there is very bad feeling.
When a situation arises where, in the view of the commission, a party or parties are intransigent and that there will never be a settlement, then jeopardy certainly is there, but that's very seldom.
Mr Carr: Welcome, as somebody from Oakville; it's a pleasure to have you here. That was the most important thing I found in the résumé there, that you're from Oakville, but I was also very impressed with --
Mr Mahoney: Watch how gentle he's going to be.
Mr Carr: I was also very impressed with the background at the London School of Economics.
One of the questions I have relates to what is happening. As you know, the province has limited transfer payments to school boards, and teachers' salaries and negotiated settlements have been above what the transfers have been. As a result, the property taxes have increased, and in Halton, for example, for the first time the school boards are now having public hearings on the budget because so many people are concerned about what's happening, as are the regions and the town. Our board says: "Here we are; we got 0% from the provincial government and we've already negotiated increases going way back," because some of the agreements are two, three years or whatever, and they really can't control the cost, because 80% of the cost of education is teachers' salaries.
There are some people who have therefore called the provincial government to legislate increases to match the transfer payments. So if the province gives them 1%, that's what the teachers would get; if they got 2% and so on and if they got zero they would get zero. In order to do that, what would happen is that the provincial government would take the political heat with the teachers. The way it is now, we are just increasing the property taxes.
Do you agree that during these tough economic times that's something the provincial government should be doing with regard to teachers' salaries -- in other words, capping them; whatever the province says it can afford to give school boards, that's what the teachers' salaries should be limited to?
Ms Walsh: The government has done that before: in 1982, the Inflation Restraint Act, and in 1975 the federal government did that, of course.
I think what you're seeing in the opening positions of teachers is historical. I mean, there are places in the province where the teachers always open with 20% and the board opens with minus one or whatever, and they settle all of the other things and then they come back to the reasonable figure. I think that when these facts are public it teaches a disservice, because they are looked upon as being quite insensitive to the economic climate. At the same time they say: "We never intended to get 4%. We know we're going to have to limit ourselves to this and we're lucky to have jobs." Teachers are very soft-hearted people. They don't like to strike, I can tell you. It's heart-wrenching for them. They don't like to be -- I see some smiles there --
Mr Carr: He's a teacher, that's why.
Mr Marchese: He's a former teacher.
Ms Walsh: Yes.
The Acting Chair: Let's not invite Mr Bradley into this debate.
Mr Mahoney: They think we're soft-headed, actually.
Ms Walsh: Anyway, I say that when you see an opening position of 5% in these economic times, the teachers will tell you, "We had to start there or we would have gotten nothing at all," and that's the way it happens. They know what the situation is. They know there are relatives and friends without jobs. They're working at the food banks. They know better.
Mr Carr: In this case, knowing the economic climate -- and you may not know, but the deficit position is horrendous here in the province -- looking at this situation now, from the teachers' perspective, from the government's perspective, should we be doing the same thing as has been done in the past? Would you favour that now, during this time?
Ms Walsh: Did it work?
Mr Carr: I'm asking you.
Ms Walsh: I'm asking you. The Inflation Restraint Act put the lid on it for a little while. It cost a lot of money to administer that act. If that's what you want, you can do it.
Mr Carr: I guess it would sort of put you out of business for a little while. If they did that and said, "This is what you're going to get next year and so on," there wouldn't be any need to take a look at it because both sides would know and it would be legislated.
There is the problem we've got in the whole issue of the public service. Coming from Oakville, let's use the Ford example. If Ford Motor Co goes on strike, you can still buy General Motors or whatever. In the case of school, you can't, if you go on strike. There are many who feel therefore the teachers have all the power in terms of negotiating. I think you're right. I've had a lot of teachers who were soft-hearted, although I did have the odd one who was pretty hard on me as well, maybe with reason. Do you favour the present ability of teachers to strike, and if you would make any changes, what would they be?
Ms Walsh: I don't approve of any change in their ability to strike. I think there are balances here; there are checks. There are so many procedures to go through before there's a strike. In looking at the figures, in over 3,000 sets of negotiations, there have been 2.4% sanctions in all of these years since 1975. I think that's remarkable. It shows how the situation is. Unless the situation is one that has been building up over a long period of time, and the Education Relations Commission, and the College Relations Commission as well, can tell you that this was to be expected, that it had done everything it could to try to get these people to be more reasonable -- they did end it themselves in ways. Therefore, it may not have anything to do with salary. It may have to do with long-standing bad feeling between the parties.
Right now there are other things than salaries that are being considered. There are a lot of other things that have to be negotiated, and if you put fetters on the negotiation process, you're going to do an awful lot of damage to other initiatives the government has put forward at this time, destreaming, for one, that will have to enter into negotiations in some way. Destreaming is certainly going to be a topic for cooperative collective bargaining in which the parties sit down and look at the problems for component staffing.
Mr Carr: Having been involved with teachers, I don't think ever before in the past has there been as much of a threat of layoff of teachers. It just seemed we got increases, but none of the boards ever took a look at layoffs. As you know, the Peel board has had a look at it, and there are many saying that if the increases and the amounts get any greater, what's going to happen is that there will be the sacrifice, because there will be layoffs. Having come from the teachers' side, how aware do you think the teachers are of that? Are they concerned about that in this day and age?
Ms Walsh: I think they are and I think they know perfectly well, because it's happened in the past, that there's a tradeoff. Peel knows very well that there's a tradeoff, because it got into a situation just as I came back from my sabbatical in 1986 where it had made a tradeoff between salary and staffing. It didn't fly, but they knew perfectly well what they were doing. They said, "This is what we want." They had to take maybe larger class sizes if they wanted to get some of the other compensation items. It wasn't really salary so much as other compensation items that they were looking for and they couldn't have that and the staffing they wanted. They can't have everything and they know it. They know about tradeoffs and this is what's happening right now.
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The Acting Chair: Ms Walsh, that brings to a conclusion the amount of time the committee had allocated. Do you have a closing statement you wish to share with the committee?
Ms Walsh: I just wanted to say something about my representing teachers. I would come to the commission to help in the process. I have worked with all the affiliates of the Ontario Teachers' Federation and I have their respect. I was the person chosen to negotiate with DGDEP, which is the director general of dependants education programs for the Department of National Defence when it divested itself of all responsibility for schools on the Canadian Forces bases. I worked with all of them there, so I feel I can bring the point of view of teachers to this commission, but I certainly will be unprejudiced in any decisions I have to make, and I give you my word on that.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Walsh, for the time you've spent with the committee. On behalf of the committee, we wish you well. We will be making our final determination at day's end and the clerk will advise you accordingly.
Mr Bradley: You're a cinch.
The Acting Chair: I'd almost forgotten how much I missed you, Mr Bradley.
KAREN TRACE
The Acting Chair: I'd like to call forward Ms Karen Trace who is the next intended appointee for review. Ms Trace is being considered as a member of the Board of Funeral Services. Welcome, Ms Trace. Did you wish to make a brief opening statement and then we'll begin with questions from the official opposition?
Ms Karen Trace: First, I'd like to say that although my résumé is not funeral-service-specific, my background and experience in dealing with people in stressful situations and my understanding of the grieving process fit together with my knowledge of the working of the Board of Funeral Services.
Mr Grandmaître: I was going through your very impressive CV and I was going to ask you the question: What makes you want to serve on this Board of Funeral Services?
Ms Trace: I've been working with people in extremely stressful situations for many years and I feel I'm a good advocate for people. I feel I have a very good understanding of different cultures and religious practices. I have a lot of access to a wide range of reference material. I possess the ability to evaluate and analyse situations very clearly, so I feel I could represent the public through the Board of Funeral Services very well.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you know the composition of that board?
Ms Trace: Yes, I do.
Mr Grandmaître: Where will your experience come in handy, through the licensing committee, the complaints committee, the discipline committee or the compensation fund committee? How can you serve on one of these four committees with your past experience? How can you apply this past experience on these four different committees?
Ms Trace: I could see myself perhaps being on the compensation committee as I am presently a treasurer of my union local; perhaps the discipline committee with my experience of working with people. I'm not really quite sure where I would fit in, but I could see myself directly fitting in with people or perhaps more on the compensation end of things.
Mr Grandmaître: Let's talk about the compensation fund committee then, the prepaid funeral services. Are you familiar with the prepaid?
Ms Trace: Yes, I am.
Mr Grandmaître: Are you totally satisfied that these people are doing a good job?
Ms Trace: From my understanding and what I've read, yes, I am satisfied that our funeral establishments are doing a good job. But I also realize that with handling the amount of money, in the millions of dollars, there is room for error. There is greed and there are all sorts of other human problems we run into.
Mr Grandmaître: What about the pressure that some of these funeral directors or funeral people are applying on future customers, like using the phone and so on and so forth, pressuring people? I know we're all going to die, but let's not rush it.
Mr Mahoney: Speak for yourself.
Mr Grandmaître: But it's only for three days.
Interjections.
Ms Trace: That's certainly why the board is set up, to investigate situations throughout the province that we hear of, of pressure that's being put on individuals to prepay services or whatever.
Mr Grandmaître: The biggest complaint I've been receiving about prepaid funeral services is that people have a difficult time in obtaining total satisfaction. For instance, a lady walked into my constituency office and showed me a certificate -- she called it a certificate -- which she had bought some 14 or 15 years ago. She was trying to get the funeral director or the manager of the funeral home to tell her how much money she had in the bank. She's written a number of letters, seven or eight letters, and not made phone calls. She couldn't get total satisfaction. Do you think this is fair? It's her money. It's her investment.
Ms Trace: No, it isn't fair, but I feel she's started with the right route, coming to her MPP and then taking it further. She should be getting satisfaction, and going through the channels to get it is very important. But I believe she would then have the option to come to the board with her case, and then the board would help her to deal with it and get the satisfaction she desires.
Mr Grandmaître: I thought it was very strange that she couldn't get the answers she was looking for.
The Acting Chair: Did you give her the answer, Mr Grandmaître?
Mr Grandmaître: No. I know Steve has the answer, or maybe a question. Go ahead.
Mr Mahoney: A lot of the issues surrounding this industry and the problems that I've seen in the past have been the selling methods that have been employed by various organizations. There was a lot of concern expressed a number of years ago about the telemarketing programs that were going on. There were agreements by people in that industry, primarily selling graves but also getting involved in some other services, that they wouldn't phone into seniors' homes, that they would be more careful. Have you had any experience with any of these problems, or do you know what's going on currently in the industry?
Ms Trace: I haven't had any experience while living in Canada. When I lived in the United States, I had a tremendous amount of experience of having harassing phone calls, but certainly not since I've been in Toronto.
Mr Mahoney: They can't do it any more here as a result of, I guess a couple of years ago, the change in the legislation. But what concerns me is that very few of us, I think, prepay funeral arrangements, whether it be a gravesite or actually selecting the coffin or that type of thing. Most often the decisions are made at the most stressful time you could possibly ever imagine. You go into the showroom and you are going to put your loved one in the cheapest casket? It's not likely that's what you want to do.
I wonder if you have any comments about how we might strike a balance in that area. For example, my first reaction to this was that I found it hard to believe, but I've had some time to think about it: I actually have a meeting in my community office on Friday with some people who want to start up a business, and they're renting coffins where they would simply be used for the wake and then when the actual burial or the cremation takes place, the body would be removed from that coffin and it would be put back into the system, rather than burning a perfectly good $5,000 or $6,000 coffin.
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Mr Grandmaître: What's it called? Do you know?
Mr Mahoney: It's called rent-a-coffin.
Mr Bradley: That's what I need when I die.
Mr Mahoney: It really is, and these people are coming in to see me with this business. It sounds morbid, but the more you think about it, the more you think if you've ever gone through the experience of selecting a coffin and going through the funeral arrangements and the cost that's involved and everything else, you can only deal with those kinds of decisions at a time when you're not under that kind of stress. Who's going to say, "We're going to put dear old mom in a rent-a-coffin," other than Bradley, at the time it's about to happen?
But I wonder how we can desensitize -- I don't know what the word is, but you, going into a position on a board like this, will have an opportunity, and you're going in from a layperson's perspective, to hopefully bring some commonsense ideas that, once you get past the smirking and the grimacing at these ideas, maybe they're not so bad. I don't know. Do you have any comments, or what do you think about that?
Ms Trace: As a consumer of funeral services, we had 10 family deaths in a period of three years, so I'm certainly very familiar as a consumer, both my husband and my father. Because we were dealt with in such a sensitive manner, I don't know what the percentage of insensitive funeral establishments are. We were taken into the room and shown the wide range, but there was no pressure to buy the $4,000 casket in each case. Actually, we chose the most inexpensive one we could. I believe funeral establishments are very sensitive to people's needs and I would hope it's not general practice to pressure people into spending more money on buying the kinds of things they can't afford.
Mr Mahoney: By and large, I think that's probably true. Do I have time for one quick one?
The Acting Chair: Yes, you do.
Mr Mahoney: The issue of one-stop shopping is another one, where there are restrictions as to whether or not people who own cemeteries can own a funeral home, whether or not they can own the monuments. There are restrictions in all of these areas. There are some folks who believe that the one-stop shopping concept should be made available. How do you feel about that?
Ms Trace: At the moment it appears that the way it is works very effectively and I don't feel it needs to change, unless it's not something that's working effectively.
The Acting Chair: Mr Arnott.
Mr Bradley: Are we out of time?
The Acting Chair: You're out of time, Mr Bradley, but Mr Arnott isn't.
Mr Arnott: Thank you, Mrs Trace, for coming in today. I have an initial question, seeing your résumé and the information the clerk has provided for us. I would just like to ask you, how did you come to apply for this position on the Board of Funeral Services?
Ms Trace: There was an invitation in the paper in February, and I was very interested. I feel it's very important for me to step outside of my comfort level and do something interesting and different. I've had experience on two independent boards of directors but felt I wanted something a little bit more, so I went to the library and I researched.
Because my résumé certainly points at abnormal psych and special needs, I did apply for some of those positions, but as I went through the book, I just kept coming back to funeral services several times, and I finally stopped, figuring if I keep coming back here, there's some reason I need to look at this further. So I did and felt that with my own experience, especially my experience with grief counselling, it was something that would be a real challenge for me to try.
Mr Arnott: I noticed the grief counselling mentioned in your résumé and I just wondered if you could explain to us the extent to which you've been involved in grief counselling a little more specifically.
Ms Trace: In my grief counselling, I work with people in stressful situations. I presently work with families whose children are developmentally delayed, and it's not the grief of death so much as the grief of the loss of normalcy. They are dealing throughout the years as their children go with different griefs at different levels when their children hit puberty or what not. It's a little bit of a different grief, and certainly I do deal with people who lose their children who are developmentally delayed.
My own experience has been as a young widow with other young widows and being involved very heavily for a number of years in doing grief counselling. I was a phone volunteer on the distress lines for a number of years as well. That's not counselling per se, but you are doing a lot of talking to people in tremendous stress, stressful situations.
Mr Arnott: Do you have any specific goals that you would hope to accomplish, say, within your first year, assuming you're appointed to the Board of Funeral Services?
Ms Trace: Just to be an advocate for members of the general public and to make sure they're represented, their best interests.
Mr Arnott: All right, thank you very much.
Mr Carr: I have a couple of questions. You mention in here that you just applied. You saw an ad in the library?
Ms Trace: In the Toronto Star.
Mr Carr: In the Toronto Star. So it's not a political appointment. You're not affiliated with any political party?
Ms Trace: No, I'm not.
Mr Carr: I was also interested, knowing your background and some of the things you've done and taking a look at funeral services, if there's anything you could change, what would you change in the way they operate right now?
Ms Trace: I wouldn't change anything presently. It certainly appears that things go very smoothly, from what I pick up out of the newspapers. It appears that the funeral services are keeping abreast of our very ethnic diversity in the province of Ontario and the sensitivity to people from different cultures. I can't see, from the outside looking in, that there are things I personally would like to see changed.
Mr Carr: So your hope is just to keep things running smoothly and efficiently?
Ms Trace: Yes.
Mr Carr: Good. Thank you. Good luck.
The Acting Chair: If there are no other questions on this side, then Mr Marchese.
Mr Marchese: Karen, I have two questions. My first one relates to funeral costs in general. Part of what I've read here is that the average cost is anywhere from $3,000 to $4,000. The minimum might be about $700 and the top range would be about $15,000. My personal view is that they're very expensive and I would like to be able to see a reduction of cost for funerals. I don't know whether you agree or disagree with that. If you agree, what would we do? If you disagree, why?
Ms Trace: I certainly know from own experience that my funeral cost was not that high, but it probably would be at this point if I were preparing the same funeral I did a number of years ago. It does seem very high to me. Certainly as a single parent, that would be a tremendous amount of money for my kids to come up with. I guess I see as an alternative the transfer services where you can pick up the body right from the place to the crematorium or the cemetery as an alternative for cutting costs. Then you could have your own memorial after that, but you wouldn't have your body there. I would see that as a much lower-cost alternative to people who couldn't, who didn't want to pay the high cost.
Mr Marchese: But I presume there's a cultural pressure in terms of procedures that are already established that people feel they need to go through. I imagine that changing that is part of a problem or a barrier for most people. They feel they would have to do it and therefore the costs keep on staying where they are or increasing.
Ms Trace: That seems to really depend on the cultures. I know that with the Muslim and the Jewish cultures they don't embalm and they bury very quickly. They wouldn't incur as much cost as I, as a Protestant who does the three days of visitation, might. Our procedure is very different prior to the burial or cremation. I don't know.
Mr Marchese: Let me ask you another question connected very much to costs. In relation to operators of transfer services, who simply collect the body and place it in the casket or box and then take it directly to the crematorium, they can't perform memorial services.
Ms Trace: Right.
1500
Mr Marchese: There are some people out there who would like to be able to do that, and they argue that if they could, they could provide a cheaper service. Any comment on that?
Ms Trace: I don't have a comment at this time on that.
Mr Marchese: Okay, thanks very much.
Mr Waters: As I had the unfortunate experience of arranging for a couple of funerals, one of the things I found was that I agree, I don't think funeral directors pressure a person into purchasing a coffin or a funeral that is somewhat more expensive than he really can afford. I think society pressures you into it or your family might.
We teach our children so many things: we teach them life skills, we teach them how to cook, clean, do all these wonderful things. But one of the things that we do not teach them is that there's one thing that is inevitable, and that is that if you have relatives, it's inevitable that you're going to bury a relative and you're going to have to arrange for that funeral. Usually, the first time that ever happens to you is the first time you have any contact with a funeral home.
I'm wondering if there shouldn't be some more education out there as to the process that you go through from the time your relative succumbs to whatever to the point that the funeral is complete and the bills are paid. I'd like your comments on that if you've given that any thought.
Ms Trace: I haven't given it a lot of thought, but I agree that certainly education would help. I think if you luck out and you get an establishment that is extremely sensitive, or as in my case one which our family has used for many years and has been very satisfied with, then you're sailing, because they take your hand and they guide you along. But unless you've dealt with it, you really are just blindly going ahead. So education certainly would be valuable.
Mr Waters: Getting back more to the board, what do you feel the purpose of the board is?
Ms Trace: The purpose is to regulate the funeral establishments as is set out in the act of 1989, and if there's discipline that needs to be dealt with, to deal with those issues. I believe there's over $500 million in trust funds throughout the province to deal with problems relating to that. It's to oversee and to protect the rights of the people of the province of Ontario. Our understanding is that we have very high standards and are very well regulated in this province, and it is a bit of an example for the other provinces that have different regulations that our standards are so high.
The Acting Chair: Are there any other questions?
Mr Frankford: Is the setting up of new funeral establishments subject to the board's approval?
Ms Trace: I'm not familiar with that.
The Acting Chair: Mr Pond has a response that might be of assistance.
Mr David Pond: You have to get a licence. The act and the ministry set the standards. It's like any other licence: You meet the standards, you get your licence. Then you become regulated by the board, so to speak.
Mr Frankford: Do board members have any say in who should get regulated?
Mr Pond: No, but they do have the authority to discipline, and I suspect that if they recommend to the registrar and to the ministry official that a licence be suspended, that would probably carry a lot of weight, quite frankly. But it doesn't do that in itself, no; the ministry does that.
Mr Frankford: So if I qualified and wanted to set up an establishment, I don't go to the board, I go to the --
Mr Pond: No, the registrar is in the ministry.
The Acting Chair: Mr Bradley, you had a burning question.
Mr Bradley: Our party's time is all taken up.
The Acting Chair: The Chair has a certain degree of flexibility, and I'm dying to hear your question.
Mr Bradley: It was one I think you dealt with previously but which I'd like to get your answer on, and that's the pre-paid funeral one. I believe you responded to that. At the time, did you express a view on the ethics involved in the selling of funerals to people ahead of time?
Ms Trace: My personal view is that I wouldn't choose to partake in that, but I think that's a very individual thing. It depends on the people involved. If they feel it's important to establish that and have that set before they die, then that's okay.
Mr Bradley: There was one other question. The Chairman is distracted. I'll ask the other question.
The Acting Chair: Go right ahead. You're not that big a distraction, Mr Bradley.
Mr Bradley: There have been some people who have expressed great concern about the environmental consequences. One is the health consequences and two is the environmental consequences involved in the delivery of funeral services, the disposal of fluids and things like that, which is never a nice subject. It's a difficult subject to deal with.
Do you have any views on that, any experience in terms of general concern about the environment that you would bring to the board as it relates to any new precautions that might be taken? There are some people, for instance, who believe all these graveyards are going to cause a great problem some day when everything disintegrates and there's a problem.
When I was Environment minister I used to get a call every time I was on any radio program from a person just outside of Hamilton who asked me what was going to happen in those graveyards. Any views on the environmental problems encountered by those who operate funeral parlours?
Ms Trace: I expect they're adhering to all the laws the province has laid out for them and I haven't heard anything of pollution in the environment in reference to all this waste. Certainly the hospitals would have just as much waste parts that they dispose of as well.
Mr Bradley: I'll leave that with you as something you may wish to discuss with them. I know the funeral directors themselves are addressing the problem in cooperation with the Ministry of the Environment, but it may be something that would interest you. The whole issue of biomedical waste is one of great controversy and interest over the years and some day will be solved. Attempts have been made over the last several years, including now, to solve the problem and I can assure you it isn't solved yet.
The Acting Chair: And that's from a former Environment minister. Thank you, Mr Bradley, for your additional contribution. It was appreciated by the committee. Ms Trace, thank you for coming today. I appreciated your attendance. Did you have any closing comments you wish to make to the committee?
Ms Trace: No, I don't. The Acting Chair: Okay. On behalf of the committee, we wish you good luck in your future activities and congratulations.
Ms Trace: Thank you.
The Acting Chair: I have been advised by the clerk that the intended appointment of Herbert Robertson for the Ontario Film Review Board has been withdrawn by Mr Robertson.
Mr Mahoney: Do we have details?
The Acting Chair: The Chair told you everything he knows. I'm surprised it was that short. We are on Hansard, I would remind everybody, since we're talking about the withdrawal of an application.
Mr Grandmaître: When did this happen?
The Acting Chair: Just this very moment. It is my understanding the gentleman is here but --
Mr Grandmaître: He's not a cabinet minister, he doesn't have to resign.
The Acting Chair: No. He personally -- we've been advised that the gentleman has withdrawn his application and that is all the Chair has and that is sufficient for the record. Therefore, if there are no --
Interjection: Is he here?
The Acting Chair: I said that he was here. He's not physically in the room at the moment, but he was here. If I might, in the interests of time, if there are no other questions or comments, we --
Interjections.
The Acting Chair: I would be pleased to entertain a motion by Mr Waters to concur with the five appointments reviewed today.
Mr Grandmaître: I thought this was done weeks and weeks ago.
The Acting Chair: It probably has been, Mr Grandmaître. Any discussion on the motion? If not, I'd like to call the question. All those in favour? Opposed, if any? As declared, carried.
Your steering committee, by way of information, has met. Do you wish to share the names of the appointees at this point? I'm advised by the clerk we don't. So stand by your e-mail and we will limit your suspense.
With there being no further business, this committee stands adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1510.