Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

APPOINTMENTS REVIEW

TERRENCE HEATH

BRIAN MONK

RONALD W. BOISSOIN

MICHAEL BRAGER

AFTERNOON SITTING

PAMELA BORGHESAN

LINDA SHEPPARD

MARY E. SHAMLEY

CARMER J. SWEICA

CONTENTS

Tuesday 9 March 1993

Appointments review

Terrence Heath

Brian Monk

Ronald W. Boissoin

Michael Brager

Pamela Borghesan

Linda Sheppard

Mary E. Shamley

Carmer J. Sweica

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

*Chair / Président: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC)

*Bradley, James J. (St Catharines L)

Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)

*Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)

Ferguson, Will, (Kitchener ND)

*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)

Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L)

Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)

Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West/-Ouest PC)

*Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay ND)

*Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)

*In attendance / présents

Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:

Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot ND) for Mr Ferguson

Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury ND) for Ms Carter

Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Mr Wiseman

Sola, John (Mississauga East/-Est L) for Mr Grandmaître

Villeneuve, Noble (S-D-G & East Grenville/S-D-G & Grenville-Est PC) for Mr McLean

Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND) for Mr Marchese

Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:

Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L)

Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn

Staff / Personnel:

Nishman, Robert, research officer, Legislative Research Service

Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1011 in room 230.

APPOINTMENTS REVIEW

Consideration of intended appointments.

The Chair (Mr Robert W. Runciman): I call the meeting to order. I want to pass on a request, via James looking after the sound controls here, that if at all possible, don't touch the microphones or play with them. You could not only damage his ears in a serious way but also damage the sound system. I guess it's rather sensitive. We'll get right under way.

TERRENCE HEATH

The Chair: Our first witness is Terrence Heath, who's an intended appointee as a member of the Council of the Ontario College of Art. Mr Heath, would you like to come forward, please. Welcome to the committee, sir. I apologize for the delay in getting under way. This is a maximum 30-minute review. If you're familiar with the process, it's a 10-minute rotation available to representatives of each of the three parties. Would you like to say something briefly before we get under way?

Mr Terrence Heath: No. I'm ready to answer your questions.

The Chair: Okay. Let's hope the government party is ready, because it's going to lead off the questioning.

Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): One of the things I'm concerned about that caused considerable tension was around employment equity and hiring. Do you have any views on that?

Mr Heath: On employment equity?

Mr Frankford: Yes, and on the policy to hire women.

Mr Heath: Yes. The Ontario College of Art made the decision to hire only women for a period of time. I think that cultural organizations and educational organizations have always been the leaders in trying to deal with equity. I think the Ontario College of Art made a decision to address an obvious problem, which is not just a problem of the college. Every institution is in a context, and the context of modernist painting and art was the macho male genius. Those macho male geniuses were hired in our institutions, and I think it had to be redressed. The board made a decision on how to address it. It's not the only way to address it; you can do quotas, you can do all sorts of things, I suppose. I think they made a move which will benefit the college in the long run. I think, though, that of course it did put the college through some strain.

Mr Frankford: Can you update us on what has happened there and how it has worked out?

Mr Heath: I think it's worked out well. There's a very large pool to draw from in Canada. We have a very vibrant and large visual arts community, and I'm sure we could staff the entire Ontario College of Art with women and still keep our standards up, if that's what the question meant. Those things are red herrings, this standards business. I think the qualified people are there and now they're simply drawing in one way in order to balance it. I think that's been a successful policy.

Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): It's been recommended that a special restructuring committee be struck. I'm just wondering how you feel that you, as a member of the council, will be able to work with the restructuring committee.

Mr Heath: That's a very difficult question, because of course we're in midstream. I don't think there's any choice but to do that. I must say that I believe the boards we appoint in cultural areas, health and education and so on should be self-governing. They represent a community directly and they should be given the authority to govern those institutions; that's why we put them on boards. That's the only reason I would want to sit on a board. Why would I spend my time, hours and hours of unpaid time, devoted to an institution if I thought somebody else was going to have charge of it? I believe in the self-governing of our not-for-profit institutions.

It is true, however, that once in a while our not-for-profit institutions run into problems. We don't have problems when the economy's expanding and there's extra money; we have problems when we get into restraint. It is the responsibility of the board to deal with that restraint problem and it is the responsibility of the board to deal with the management problem. It's not entirely the responsibility of the board to deal with the curriculum, which is a public -- much larger than the Ontario College of Art, for instance, or the University of Toronto or whatever, because there is a point at which the entire society's needs have to be addressed by these institutions, especially if they're receiving large amounts of public funding.

As a judgement call always, once when the major funder steps in and how the major funder steps in, I think it is the job of the board to work with the structures that have been put in place, presumably to try to make the institution better. As a board member, I would feel I had either been misunderstood or else I hadn't done my job properly if restructuring were forced on me. It seems to me very important to work with the governing board.

But as to where those lines are, I don't think anyone knows where you draw those lines. I drew a line when I was chairman of the task force on the Art Galllery of Ontario, and that was that I insisted the task force be independent of both government and the Art Gallery of Ontario. That caused some consternation, but I think that in the long run that was and is the only way a task force can really address the problems of an institution, by being independent and by being seen as independent. But it certainly has to respect the governing board's responsibility for the institution. Does that answer your question?

Mr Wood: Yes. I just really wanted to know what you would see as some of your priorities in managing the finances of the gallery.

Mr Heath: Finance is not my prime area. I'm a management consultant and I work more on strategy and planning and that area. I think, though, that the board is responsible for the financing and I think it is a wrong move on the part of a board of a not-for-profit institution to simply expect that funding will continue to increase and is sort of automatic. I think the board needs a business plan -- I realize the Ontario College of Art had a business plan -- and I think that business plan has to be as realistic as possible, but beyond that, I think you have to operate within your budget. That seems to me to be the bottom line for institutions. That means some very hard decisions sometimes, but I don't see any way around it.

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The Chair: Nothing further? Okay, then we'll move on to Mr Cleary.

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Mr Heath, I see that you're a very busy person and I just wondered why you were applying for this particular position.

Mr Heath: I have a reason, but I'm just trying to word it in such a way that it doesn't cast blame on people.

First of all, the very largest reason is that I think that increasingly one of the things we're identifying in Canada as an exportable competitive position is our creativity and innovation. I think that comes out through our educational institutions, and I think in particular our arts training institutions are extremely important to us economically. That may come as a surprise to people who, I think, focus on business, MBA programs and so on, but in fact it's that innovation and creativity, that ability to do something in a different way. It is so basic to the arts community that they don't even know they do it, but every artist, when he looks at a pot, also sees that it could be a hat, as that Russian woman noticed in the Globe and Mail today.

I think that's very important, and I think the premier visual arts training institution in Canada is the Ontario College of Art. This is where I don't want to be too critical, but I don't think that in fact since somewhere in the 1950s -- 1955, 1956 -- it's led Canada in the visual arts. I think the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design took over; I think of the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver. I see no reason why the Ontario College of Art shouldn't be the nation's leader in that, and I think I could probably help it to be.

Mr Cleary: That leads up to my next question. What changes would you like to see initiated almost immediately?

Mr Heath: I don't know that, because for one thing I haven't been briefed yet by the college. I will be, I assume, before the first meeting, if you accept me.

I think the governing board is very dependent, obviously, on the staff for policy advice and direction, and I would certainly be a good listener on this. I have some ideas of my own, but I think that when you join a corporate body, you act as a corporate person. I have some ideas on how the Ontario College of Art would function, for instance, in regard to the Art Gallery of Ontario, in a different sort of way, how it would function in regard to the international discourse on art which is going on right now and which we are not benefiting from in the way we could benefit.

I do have a personal agenda, but I'm not sure how those ideas fit in with the way it's funded, with the way the board's thinking now, with the way the staff's thinking, because you can't impose an agenda on an institution. The institution has to want to do it. It's like trying, if you're coming into office, to impose an agenda on the civil service. If they don't want to do it, you're going to have some trouble making it happen.

I think, though, that I would like to get very much engaged with the policy side of the college. Is that ignoring your question?

Mr Cleary: No. Thank you.

Mr John Sola (Mississauga East): Do you have any new concepts for fund-raising, taking into account the problems the provincial government has with finances at the present time with the large deficit? When you think of the hassle the minister had in funding the art gallery, if you wanted to carry on in some sort of progressive direction, you're going to have to come up, I think, with funding in addition to what you get from the government. Do you have any new ideas in that regard?

Mr Heath: Well, I'm not sure there are new ideas in fund-raising. Obviously, we're not going to expand dramatically in public funding in our institutions. This is my inclination: My tendency as a manager would be at this time to look at cost savings as a major part. What you want is the funding which will allow you to develop in the way you want to develop, and that may not mean additional funds; that, in fact, may mean a better deployment of the funds you have. I don't know intimately where the money's being spent in the Ontario College of Art to know whether there are savings, but having taught for a good number of years at a university, I do know that there usually are areas that can be looked at much more closely.

One of the problems is that in an expanding economy, which Ontario's pretty well always had -- I come from Saskatchewan, so I'm used to more of a bouncing economy -- is that it's always expansive, and expansion is almost always accompanied by inefficiencies and very often by an inability to say what business you're in, what you actually want to do. It's the Peter Drucker question of "What business are you in?" and those are questions I would push for if I become a member of the governing council: that the college be, (a), extremely clear on what its business is, what it is doing and (b), that it be looked at for cost savings and efficiencies.

That may seem like a slightly negative approach to fund-raising, but that's where I would start. Then you use your people -- I hope there are people on the board who have good private sector connections, because I think that obviously has to be pushed and pushed and pushed.

That all said, I think there is one area of fund-raising that I have worked with and have found very lucrative and I think it needs to be explored. Again, I don't know the exact structure of the Ontario College of Art, but that is the whole question of legacies and money bequeathed to institutions into trust funds and foundations.

I started one of these at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and it's amazingly successful. It consists of, for instance, the assignment of life insurance policies, straight legacies and bequeathings in wills, the assignment of assets and properties, and these are held in trust for certain purposes in the institution.

This is an area that almost every fund-raiser you talk to will shy away from because they don't want to go out and talk to people about when they die. In fact, people are much more resilient than that and we found that in talking to people they were perfectly willing to consider the assignment of funding after their death, to the art gallery in this case. I think that educational institutions are obvious places where this might be pursued with a lot of vigour because you do have alumni, you do have people who have some commitment to the institution. Those would be things I would begin with, anyway.

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Mr Sola: I'd like to refer --

The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Sola, we can't pursue it any further. There are strict time limitations.

Mr Heath: Too long an answer, you see.

Mr Noble Villeneuve (S-D-G & East Grenville): Thank you very much for coming before us this morning. I liked your statement here a little earlier that you want to live within your budget. That's sometimes easier said than done, and we who are elected people sometimes become very frustrated with having to deal with hierarchy and bureaucracy.

You are presently the principal of Heath Consultants. What exactly does that entail? Are you a lobbyist?

Mr Heath: No. I work with non-profit organizations in management structuring. I also work somewhat with the public sector. Right now, for instance, I'm working with Environment Canada. They are decentralizing, and I'm working on the accountability structures of the regional integration, the decentralization, of the department.

I work in the management area but I don't work in private sector management; I work in public sector management or not-for-profit-sector management.

I do produce reports. What consultant doesn't? But the main thrust of my firm is that we work as facilitators for managers to correct their own problems, and so we work with workshops. I belong to a management network across Canada which focuses on both psychological and structural transition in organizations.

Also, though, for instance, I'm working right now on a heritage training policy for the Northwest Territories government which will deal with the first nations. In the north you don't have the tribal structure, so you have, actually, a community structure, and the question of heritage policy within the first nations people's communities is very much tied to language and a number of other things which we often don't put as a priority in anglo Canada. That's the sort of area I work in.

Mr Villeneuve: When you say "non-profit," I gather basically then the funding is coming, to a great degree, from public agencies, ie governments, and also from the private sector. I think you touched on the private sector, fund-raising through the private sector.

As it relates to the Ontario College of Art, and if indeed you are accepted to that council, what do you see as your number one priority here? Are we talking funding? Are we talking the way students are educated? Are we talking about who is accepted at the college? And I have maybe a few questions about enrolment and how that's chosen. Coming from the far reaches of southeastern Ontario, we do have some of my constituents who have attended the art college, but not many.

Could you just maybe comment on your priorities if indeed you do become a member of the council of the college?

Mr Heath: You've touched on a battle I fought for a good number of years in the west. I think that many of the people in our society, in the first generation, do not have access to our institutions, not because there's any policy against their having access but because we haven't created the way for access. I tried, for instance, for a good number of years to -- I worked in a university. I realized they didn't have one first nations person in the entire university. This was before federated colleges, Indian colleges and so on.

I tried by the financial means to do that, to set up scholarships and ways of getting into the university. But that's not where you work at it. You have to work at it at a community basis. I guess if I have a passion in public life, it's that I believe that communities have the ways of solving their problems if they can be put into the larger context. For instance, in the case of enrolment at the universities, unless you start in the high schools and they know what the universities are and what the colleges are and what's offered, so on and so forth, you can't simply just change the college and say, "We're going to have 10% from this community and 10% from that community." I don't think that works. I think you have to start from the base.

One of the questions I would ask, for instance, because the Ontario College of Art is obviously a provincial organization not a Toronto organization, is, what is your presence in Sudbury? When was the last time anybody from the college was there? What kind of contacts do you have? Or Cornwall or whatever. That's one of the questions we raised in the task force on the Art Gallery of Ontario as well: How are you in the province? Not whether you say you do this, but where are you? Tell us. I would ask that question. I think the question can also be asked in the high schools: Do you know about the Ontario College of Art? Those are simple questions, but are they at the career nights? If people don't know, then they're not going to go. That's for sure.

Mr Villeneuve: I think you're certainly attacking it at the root. If there's perceived problem, that's certainly where it is.

Final questions: Again, I go back to your job as a consultant. I would think that you've had nothing to do with advising the federal government on some of its choice of art works.

Mr Heath: I have.

Mr Villeneuve: Could you tell us a little bit about that, sir?

Mr Heath: Ontario is one of the few provinces that doesn't have an art bank. If you're an artist in Quebec, you can sell to either the Quebec art bank or to the Canadian art bank. My experience with the art bank is that I've sat on juries which bought art for the Canada Council art bank. I've also been a curator who selected art for international conferences; for instance, when the Helsinki agreement people met in Bulgaria a number of years ago, I chose the Canadian works that were shown at the conference.

The art banks serve a lot of different public purposes. And it's done by jury, partially geographically selected. But there's no doubt that when you select a jury, you've already selected what they are going to choose. There's no doubt about that. I think, though, that it's a contentious issue always. It's the sort of issue that you face all the time in the arts world, and that is, are you going for large public appeal or are you going for what is defined as a much narrower, state-of-the-art sort of work? It doesn't matter whether you're in drama or what you're in.

Mr Villeneuve: I probably am one who doesn't appreciate that it's always in the eye of the beholder, but there was something to do with a painting and the title had something to do with fire.

Mr Heath: Oh yes, Barnett Newman. That wasn't the Canada Council art bank; that was the National Gallery of Canada.

Mr Villeneuve: Another one had to do with raw beef hanging. To me, that ain't art. It may be in the eye of the beholder. I have a little problem accepting that, and maybe I'm behind the times. What are your thoughts on the kind of money that was spent on those things vis-à-vis where it might have been spent elsewhere?

Mr Heath: When we're looking at $5.8 billion for a helicopter, I think if you took one cruise missile and converted it into cultural funding you'd probably pay for most of Canada's funding. We're talking peanuts in culture. But nevertheless, that said, even peanuts have to be distributed wisely.

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First of all, with regard to the Barnett Newman, I'm not going to question the National Gallery of Canada on its choice, because we've given it the responsibility of making those choices and I think we have to make sure we respect that. It was, on market value, a bargain. It was paid I think $1.7 million or $1.8 million. I suspect in the market now, you could probably get $4 million for it. For just sheer market value purchasing -- don't talk about quality or art or anything -- it was a good buy. That's because of Barnett Newman's reputation.

The meat dress, however, is another matter, and I think that needs to be argued. That is why it was produced, to be argued about. It was for people to disagree about it.

Mr Villeneuve: They accomplished that.

Mr Heath: Obviously there is a passionate statement being made, that is, that women are being presented as meat in the market. That passionate statement, that presentation, overrides -- we'll never get down to saying, "I think the colour's just not quite right," or, "It's compositionally not quite right" etc. That sort of piece is never going to be discussed in old formalist art terms, because it's a passionate public assertion. It wasn't bought, it was exhibited I believe in an exhibition, and it accomplished exactly what it set out to.

For instance, if a business person wanted to make a point in the marketplace and got that much attention, we would consider it very, very successful. So I think it was a very successful piece and an extraordinary thing for the national gallery to do.

Mr Villeneuve: Mr Heath, I thank you very much. Maybe I understand it a bit better now. I had a little problem with it before and maybe still do.

The Chair: Mr Heath, that concludes your appearance here this morning. Again, I apologize for the little delay in getting under way and wish you well.

Mr Heath: Thank you very much.

BRIAN MONK

The Chair: Our next witness is Brian Monk. Brian, are you in attendance? Would you like to come forward, please. Welcome to the committee. Mr Monk is an intended appointee as the chair of the Governing Board of Denture Therapists and selected for review by the Conservative Party. Anything you'd like to say briefly, Mr Monk, before we get under way?

Mr Brian Monk: Not really. I've been on the board a year and a half now. I was eligible to sit on the board because I had a life of serving at the association level, both provincially and nationally. My last position was president of the Canadian association. I stepped down from that about four years ago and, after a couple of years out of office, I was eligible to be voted to the governing board.

I have been a denturist all my life. I am a professional denturist and still practising. I'm trying to do my best to regulate the profession and make sure we do our work properly.

The Chair: Fine, thank you. I'll ask Mr Villeneuve to begin the questioning.

Mr Villeneuve: Mr Monk, thank you for being with us this morning. I see you have experience that brought you to a number of continents prior to settling here in Canada on a permanent basis. From your experience in New Zealand, England and then in Canada -- you've quite obviously chosen here -- what do you feel, in your profession as a denture therapist, you can bring to the Governing Board of Denture Therapists? Would it be experience from here in Ontario or would you be able to enrich that with some of your experiences that have happened elsewhere?

Mr Monk: My experience in England was just basic education. I was an apprentice to a dentist and I went to college during my apprenticeship. Then I went into the Royal Air Force and gained more experience as a dental technician. Then I came to Canada. When I was in New Zealand, I got into a different branch of the profession where for almost two years I was doing nothing but designing and surveying the designing of partial dentures, which is now our new expanded scope of practice. So I feel I have some expertise there, which could be useful to our profession when Bill 50 is proclaimed, the Regulated Health Professions Act.

Mr Villeneuve: Could you comment on Bill 50 and the changes that you feel it would bring?

Mr Monk: I think it's wonderful. It brings all professions to more or less an equal level. We are all going to be self-governing and totally responsible to the public and to government legislation. We'll have more public input; there are going to be more public members on our board. We have an expanded board and we can fulfil our duties at a better level. Right now, we have a problem because there are only nine of us.

We have complaints that have to be passed on to disciplines and we are so short-staffed that we have people serving on both committees. They have to disqualify themselves because a disciplines committee person cannot hear a complaint that he was responsible for passing forward. So we shuffle our committees around to try and make the best use of our manpower.

Mr Villeneuve: So you feel complaints will be much better looked after and serviced with Bill 50 coming on stream.

Mr Monk: We've done a pretty good job up to now. The problem is that if it goes further, then we have to be careful who sits on the disciplines committee. Even the executive committee passes complaints forward to disciplines. I serve on both boards now, so I have to disqualify myself from hearing a matter that came forward from the executive committee when it comes to disciplines.

Mr Villeneuve: We, as elected people, were lobbied long and hard by people who were left out by Bill 50, and I gather quite a number of people were set aside in another category from being full-fledged denture therapists. Maybe you could comment a little bit on what that's done to your profession prior to having a governing agency which will be brought on by Bill 50.

Mr Monk: We've had a governing board since 1974. The present governing board is going to be expanded and the name will be changed. We're going to be called the College of Denturists when Bill 50 is proclaimed. But we have had a board since 1974, so we are active.

Mr Villeneuve: But you did not have the power that you will have to be fully self-regulating?

Mr Monk: We're going to elect members to the board once Bill 50 is proclaimed. Right now, our board members have always been appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Basically, though, the board has handled the other matters.

Mr Villeneuve: Okay. I guess that's pretty well all. All I can tell you is that we only go to your profession when we absolutely have to, and thank goodness you're there when we need you.

Mr Frankford: Good morning, sir.

Mr Monk: Good morning.

Mr Frankford: I happen to be a member of a different profession and I'm quite interested in comparing different professional bodies. I'm a physician, and I think our annual fees are going up to $550. I notice that yours are $600 already.

Mr Monk: With only 437 licensees, we have to provide the same committees and do the same work that the larger professions have to do. Right now, we do get a government grant, $45,000 or so a year. That's going to cease when Bill 50 is proclaimed. So our licence fees will probably have to go up quite a bit more.

Mr Frankford: Would you like to comment further on that, because I don't know which others, but there must be some other professions with memberships no bigger than yours. Presumably they're all going to have much the same needs and financing.

Mr Monk: It's going to cause quite a bit of financial hardship too, but then I understand the dentists are paying $1,300 to their board now. They've got a much bigger membership than we have, more licensees. However, we were told that if we wanted this, we had to bite the bullet; we have to finance it ourselves. Our licensees are aware of this.

As a licensing board or a governing board, we're just going to have to be very careful with our budget. We spent all last Friday on the budget for next year. We're running into a deficit position all the time. We were at an overdraft of $35,000 just recently. Our legal fees went from $30,000 the year before to $75,000 this year. The legal fees, even with Bill 50, with the RHPA, the templates -- we have to have lawyers advising us on the regulations, how to draft the regulations. We've got another batch of that coming up, so that has taken money, but it's only a one-time thing. Once the bill is proclaimed, that will cease. It's just getting us into the template with the regulations.

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Mr Frankford: Could you comment then on another thing which I think you briefly touched on? The fact that you've got 437 members and you would have to elect, how do you see that working out?

Mr Monk: We have got our electoral boundaries already established. I can't tell you how they work out, but it's pretty fair the way we've got it worked out. It will be calling upon the profession from all over Ontario to serve on the board.

Mr Frankford: I don't know how your members are distributed but --

Mr Monk: Most of them are in Metro. You can say about 50% are in the Metro region.

Mr Frankford: I'm just wondering whether the reality will be that if you're in northern Ontario, you know, you and your colleagues there will have to sort of draw lots as to who's going to be the member.

Mr Monk: I'll just give you the breakdown of the association. Their secretary comes from Timmins. They have members from Ottawa. We had one from Sarnia. We even had a board member from Windsor and we had a board member from Ottawa. We just got a new public member from Sudbury. We are pretty well spread out. We try to keep it regional. I'm the only one from Metro on the board, the only professional member.

Mr Frankford: I think that's another thing, that professions, in their protection of the public, want to review the standard of care besides responding to complaints.

Mr Monk: Our next board meeting is this Friday, and this quality assurance is new. It's new to all professions, as a matter of fact. I guess you're aware of that. I don't know if you had it before, but most professions never had a quality assurance program. We're interviewing somebody with expertise in quality assurance programs to give us advice on how to actually get this in place before RHPA is proclaimed.

Mr Tony Rizzo (Oakwood): You mentioned professional members. Do you have different kinds of membership in your association?

Mr Monk: No. Our governing board is made up of six members of the profession, six denturists, and three public members or members who represent the public. They're appointed by the Ministry of Health to serve on the board. They're laypersons.

Mr Rizzo: What requirements do you want for people to become members of your association?

Mr Monk: You mean for the board?

Mr Rizzo: No, for the association.

Mr Monk: Any licensee, if he pays his membership dues, can be a member of the association.

Mr Rizzo: Licensees from Ontario?

Mr Monk: The governing board is the only one that can issue licences. We have a registration committee. The majority of our licensees are graduates from George Brown College. They have a three-year denturist program there -- or I should still say denture therapist. I've got to be honest with you. I still consider myself a denturist. We started out as denturists. The title "denture therapist" was a sort of political compromise when we finally achieved legislation after that hard four-year fight with the dentists back in the early 1970s. Only in Ontario are we called denture therapists, but under Bill 50, we will go back to the title of denturist again. That is an achievement I feel quite pleased with. But the college teaches and we give a licence to the graduates of the college if they meet the standards, and the college sets those standards.

We also have to look at people coming from other jurisdictions, other parts of Canada, but mostly from Europe or other parts of the world. It's the registration committee that interviews them and determines if they could get a licence to practise as a denture therapist or denturist in Ontario. Sometimes they send them to George Brown for an exam. Sometimes they even send them back to school for a year. I understand this is done by other professions as well.

Mr Rizzo: So if somebody comes from any of the countries in Europe, he can apply for membership.

Mr Monk: They can apply for a licence. We don't consider it membership; we're licensees. The association has members and not every licensee is a member of the association. That's a voluntary thing where you pay another fee to be in the association. This is the same as the doctors and the dentists and all professions out there. You pay your licence, which is your licence to practise, and you pay your association dues which entitle you to be a member of the association. The association is the lobbying group; it fights for the profession.

Mr Rizzo: Do you have a set of criteria for giving a licence to anyone who applies?

Mr Monk: Oh, yes.

Mr Rizzo: In terms of those who are coming from other countries?

Mr Monk: Yes. They have to be able to meet the standard of practice that is set in Ontario, and the standard of practice is what is taught at George Brown College.

Mr Sola: I'd like to carry on with that line of questioning, the standard of practice. Since I've been elected, I've had quite a few constituents come in with complaints about self-governing disciplines or self-regulating bodies. The perception of the public quite often is that self-regulation is more like self-protection, protecting the practice, protecting the profession, protecting their income, rather than protecting the quality of service or protecting the public.

Since you have such an extensive experience in the field, could you comment on that? In your experience, what do these self-regulating bodies place as the first priority?

Mr Monk: I don't know about the other boards, but I know our board. We feel our mandate is to serve the public, to protect the public. I've been on the complaints committee. Our chairperson of the complaints committee is a public member and she makes damned sure that the complaint is looked after and properly. There's no sloughing it off and saying: "Well, he's a good friend, you know. We won't proceed with this."

The complaint is fairly heard. We call in both the practitioner who the complaint is made against and we call in the complainant, the person who's had the poor service or feels she's had poor service. The dentures are fairly assessed by two qualified licensees independently. One will examine the patient with the dentures and fill in an assessment sheet, hand it to the chairperson, and then another member of the profession goes and does the same thing and the chairperson looks at the two assessment sheets. Then the patient is excused and we debate the results of the assessment, why there is a discrepancy or, quite often, they've both been very similar, very close. We feel it's a fair assessment of the quality of the work.

Mr Sola: Do you make your results public or is it handled in private?

Mr Monk: It's not made public at present. Disciplines are going to be public after the new bill is proclaimed, but complaints at that level are still held in camera.

Mr Sola: There's been quite a bit of discrepancy in certain professions. Things have hit the headlines about professional misconduct, sexual harassment, that sort of thing.

Mr Monk: In that nature, I checked with our registrar because I've been going to these seminars on sexual abuse, not learning how to do it but --

Mr Sola: I would hope not.

Mr Monk: -- how to counteract it and we have never -- touch wood; I don't know if this is arborite -- had a complaint brought to our board about a denturist doing any sexual misconduct.

As I said, I was at a meeting last week or a couple of weeks ago with all the professions, because we're trying to do something with this Bill 100 that's coming up, this sexual abuse bill. There are some things in there that we feel are a little threatening to some aspects of the profession. We only see nudity from the neck up and our patients usually are anywhere from 60 to even 95, so maybe that has some bearing on why there are no complaints, but I've never heard of a complaint of a sexual abuse nature in Ontario.

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Mr Sola: You were mentioning about standards for the admittance of new members, especially people from other provinces but more so people from other countries. I know there have been quite a few complaints laid at the feet of the medical profession and the legal profession and some of the other professions that there are undue obstacles placed in front of obviously qualified people, people who have come here with medical degrees, who have passed all of the subsequent tests that have been required of them and who still have a tough time cracking the profession because the obstacles placed are just insurmountable. In that regard, what is your experience? Again, is it protecting your turf or is it protecting the quality of service that the public gets, in your experience?

Mr Monk: We don't have much of a problem. You see, Canada is the world leader in denturism. I'm going to call it denturism; that's how we refer to it. We have four colleges here in Canada, where in Europe I don't think there's one. There's only one in the States and it's nowhere near the quality of what we have here. George Brown College here in Ontario sets the standard for the world now. It's been accepted by the international association as the criterion for denturist education. We are very fortunate that we have a really dedicated group of instructors in our college. They've put together a curriculum that meets everything. It's a good three-year program.

Consider that the three-year program teaches young people in all aspects of denture prosthetics. That's all it is, making an artificial replacement for natural teeth. That's a three-year program. The dentists take a four-year program where they are supposed to learn root canals, orthodontics, extractions, oral surgery and on and on, and removable prosthetics. That's part of the dentists' curriculum, so we feel our three-year program more than meets the education requirements to turn out a first-rate denturist when he's graduated from school.

As I said, the other countries don't have this education so we don't get many applicants for licence. Most of them are people who have come here as dentists. They can't get into dental school, can't get a dental licence, so then they say,"Oh well, I'll see if I can become a denturist." That's where most of our European applicants come from, that background.

The Chair: Anything further?

Mr Cleary: Dr Frankford kind of touched on what I was going to. But according to your financial statement here, you must run a pretty tight ship. I have just two comments. I just didn't hear too clearly where you intended to get the balance of your revenues from. You had also stated in response to another question that you have never had any sexual abuse problems.

Mr Monk: No, I said we've never had a complaint brought to the attention of the board. I don't know any other way we're going to find out about it. There might be a problem there. I said this at an interprofessional meeting a couple of weeks ago and I understand one of the members of one of the female professions, I think an occupational therapist or something, said to our lawyer afterwards, not knowing that he was our lawyer as well as her lawyer -- Porter Posluns represents a lot of professions and happen to be their legal counsel -- "How can that denturist say that in this day and age?" I just said: "That's all we know. We have never had a complaint of a sexual abuse nature brought before our board." That is a fact. I'm not fibbing. It's an absolute fact. It might be there. The patient isn't complaining.

But as I said, there's no disrobing in our practice and most denturists today have female staff working in the office. If you're smart, you keep the door open and the female staff are pretty close by. A friend of mine was working late with a patient. His partner had gone home. It was a female patient and I think she'd had a drink or two before she came. She was getting a bit frisky and he had to carry on a fictitious conversation with his partner down the hall to make her think somebody was still there besides him. The encouragement can come from the other side on occasion. You just have to be careful.

Mr Cleary: Okay; that's it.

The Chair: Okay; fine. That concludes the questioning then, Mr Monk. Thank you very much for your appearance here this morning. We appreciate it and wish you well.

Mr Monk: Which is Mr Stockwell?

The Chair: Mr Stockwell is not here.

Mr Villeneuve: He's in the vacant chair.

Mr Monk: Oh, okay. I was looking around. I didn't look that close. He's from my area.

RONALD W. BOISSOIN

The Chair: Our next witness is Ronald W. Boissoin. Welcome to the committee, sir. Mr Boissoin is an intended appointee as a member of the Workplace Health and Safety Agency. Any brief comments you'd like to make before we get into questions?

Mr Ronald W. Boissoin: Just that I'm quite pleased to be here today to receive your questions and I'm ready to do so.

The Chair: Okay, great. You were selected for review by the Conservative Party. Mr Villeneuve, are you ready to lead off?

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you, Mr Boissoin, for being here. Thirty-five years in the automotive industry with GM?

Mr Boissoin: Going on 36.

Mr Villeneuve: That is quite a record. You have been involved in health and safety for quite a number of those years. Could you just elaborate on what you've seen evolve in the time since you were first on some of the health and safety areas of the plant you worked in, a little bit of what's evolved? I don't think any of us, certainly not on this side, has been involved with the automotive industry.

Mr Sola: Yes, I have.

Mr Villeneuve: Oh, there he is. Okay, we have.

Mr Boissoin: Right on. I'll be glad to. I came into health and safety in about 1976, before the Occupational Health and Safety Act was really enacted out of the original Bill 70. At that time in the auto industry, we had an internal responsibility system. Along with the CAW, we had health and safety committees, which weren't legislated until 1978. We've had a long experience working with our counterparts in the union. We've run a bipartite process, actually, since the early 1970s -- I believe 1972 or 1973 -- when the CAW negotiated that right.

I initially worked as a health and safety representative on the floor. I was the supervisor of health and safety in our car plant in Oshawa. I took responsibility in the 1980s for a regional health and safety board -- the city of Oshawa -- General Motors-wise. About five year ago I assumed the responsibility for health and safety for the corporation. Again working jointly with the CAW, I also have a counterpart who was appointed by the CAW as a coordinator opposite myself. Each of our health and safety people has a union counterpart at General Motors.

Mr Villeneuve: The advent of robotics: I'm sure you've seen them come from their infancy. Within the plants that you have experienced, in your opinion, has this been a positive to reducing accidents in the workplace? What do you see as the pitfalls in this particular area?

Mr Boissoin: The only pitfall that could come out of robotics would be a lack of training. Certainly, we faced up to that very early in the game. Our people who work with robotics receive anywhere from 500 to 1,500 hours of training in the robotics systems and only those people who are trained are allowed to be in or near areas where robotics are.

Robotics in themselves have significantly reduced the opportunity for injury in the automotive assembly plants. We used to have what they call jungle lines at one time. Coming from Ford, you may appreciate that. It was an old system, old welding systems where you could hardly move through the areas, with cables and various other things that were used in the workplace. There were a lot of inherent dangers with sharp metals, exposure to injuries and that type of thing. Robotics has basically taken away the dirtiest jobs, I guess would be an easy way to say it, and inherently dangerous jobs.

I think that in areas where our robotics installations are predominant, it's probably reduced accident injuries upwards of 70%.

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Mr Villeneuve: I've seen your other affiliations, and I'll let the experts here on the automotive trade ask about that.You're a past president of the Thornton Dundee Ratepayers Association. What's your main raison d'être?

Mr Boissoin: In terms of that?

Mr Villeneuve: Yes.

Mr Boissoin: It was just that we were in a new area and there was a need to put together a park for the citizens of that area. When you move into a new subdivision, there's literally nothing there. I guess I was just one of the people who was up front in trying to put first a rink in and then a number of other things and I was appointed a president as such. It was basically for the people, for the kids in the community.

Mr Villeneuve: A final question, Mr Chair. You're not the lucky recipient of a dump site or anything like that?

Mr Boissoin: No, I don't think so, that I know of, no.

The Chair: We'll move to the government caucus. Mr Wood.

Mr Wood: Thank you for coming forward. One of the questions I'm concerned with is, why would you be interested in serving on the board?

Mr Boissoin: It's in a sense a continuation of what my life has been all about for the last 14 or 15 years. I've been very, very involved in health and safety. I'm really not sure what is on the brief you have there, but I'm quite proud; just earlier this year I received the Canada 125 medal for my efforts in a number of activities that were associated with safety, and it's just a continuance of that. I think there are gains to be made by working in the bipartite process and I'd like to contribute to it.

Mr Wood: There's been some controversy on the agency here as far as voting and the procedures are concerned. I just want to know what your position might be if you were in a minority position on a vote. Would you continue on the board or would you resign or what would your position be on something like that?

Mr Boissoin: I'd like to think that I'd continue on the board. I've lost more than one thing in the past. I guess that's what you have to deal with over the years, and my objective is to try to do the best we can.

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): What about the bipartite board? Do you feel that it works well?

Mr Boissoin: There's no reason why it shouldn't.

Mr Cooper: I know in the past it's always been kind of adversarial between the employer and the employees. Is this working well?

Mr Boissoin: I have been involved now for about a month, and in my dealings with Mr Forder and Mr Carriere and the other people there, I see no reason why it can't. We've done it in our plants. It's just been the norm since, as I say, the early 1970s and it's not anything that's new to me. Certainly when you get the employees involved, they're the ones that know most about the workplace, the guy that's got to do the job and has got the tool in his hand. To be quite honest with you, they've got generally a better feeling for what the workers are up against. So I have no problem with that process whatever.

Mr Cooper: The agency's been around for two years now.

Mr Boissoin: Yes.

Mr Cooper: Have they had any large accomplishments?

Mr Boissoin: As a matter of fact, I was very, very pleased to be exposed to one just a matter of a couple of weeks ago, and that was the soft-tissue injury prevention program that they put together. I think that's significant. As a matter of fact, I took it back to our workplace right away so that we could have a good look at it and see if we could use it in our processes. That's significant.

I think the training that has been put together at this point, once we can finally dot all the i's and cross the t's, is going to be significant in terms of helping the workplace parties, the health and safety people out there who have got a job to do.

The Chair: Last, Mr Rizzo.

Mr Rizzo: I was reading here through the report the percentage fatality rate in Ontario. Do you think this agency would help in reducing those rates further?

Mr Boissoin: I would certainly hope so. That is one of the reasons that I'm involved.

Mr Rizzo: Do you really think there may be some problems in terms of how the owner companies deal with the security, with the safety in their places, in view of the fact the competition's getting worse every day?

Mr Boissoin: I think we've got a bit of a selling job to do, in that respect, in some areas. A true health and safety professional looks at it from the standpoint that if you can make the workplace as safe as possible, there are end-of-the-line profits for the business. In terms of reducing accident injuries and fatalities, if they get to that standpoint, even if a company is only looking at the bottom line, certainly it affects the bottom line by being safer in the workplace. Any health and safety professional knows that, I think, inside. I certainly feel that way.

The Chair: We'll move on to Mr Offer.

Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Thank you, Mr Boissoin, for your responses to the earlier questions. As you know, the agency has had some difficulties in the past, and you will be aware that the management appointments of the agency have in fact resigned en masse as a result of allegations of some ministry interference in the ongoing operations of the agency. I am assuming that you're here as a management appointee as opposed to the labour side.

Mr Boissoin: That is correct.

Mr Offer: I'm wondering if you could share with us how your name came forward. Was it through the advisory committee or through the Ministry of Labour?

Mr Boissoin: I think I'd have to give you somewhat of an assumption. I believe it originally was put forward by the Ministry of Labour. I met with the Ministry of Labour on a number of issues over the years. For whatever reason, they felt that they should do so. The management advisory committee accepted that, I understand, but I believe it was through the Ministry of Labour, yes.

Mr Offer: I'm aware of correspondence that has been sent by the Ministry of Labour indicating that it's going to be proposing candidates for the management directorships to the MAC for comment. Are you aware as to the reaction by the MAC to your appointment?

Mr Boissoin: I saw a document in which they had accepted my name, and that was all.

Mr Offer: Thank you. The reason I ask is because I've been involved in the agency and, as well as many others, have been concerned with what was going on in the agency. That leads me to my next question. I believe that if the agency is to truly operate and be successful in a bipartite fashion, as it was designed to have been, there should not be any ministry interference. I'm wondering if you could share with us your thoughts as to bipartite and the relationship of the agency to the Ministry of Labour.

Mr Boissoin: I'll sort of work that around backwards a little bit. We spent most of yesterday as a caucus, sitting there trying to determine how best we could deal with our, if you want to say "opposites," on the labour side so that the types of things that have happened in the past don't necessarily happen again. Not having been part of the process before, I really don't know how much the Ministry of Labour may or may not have interfered. I really couldn't comment on that, to tell you the truth. I would like to think that if we do our job right, nobody has to interfere. I can't really say much more than that because I wasn't a party to what went on.

Mr Offer: Do you feel that in a bipartite operation such as the agency it should be more open for public viewing than in the past?

Mr Boissoin: I think maybe one of the criticisms that has been levelled, certainly by the management side, is that they really didn't know what was going on. But I don't have any answers yet. It's a little early in the game. I think maybe as we work through the process we'll try to find a way so that they have a little better feeling that what is happening is for the good of the workplace and is out there for everybody, for both sides of the house. That may settle some people down. Again, it's a little early in that process. We're just now working on it.

Mr Offer: I've just taken a look at your very impressive résumé. Do you believe that on issues that are going to be before the agency, significantly, of course, the issue of training and the delivery of that, those issues can be addressed by management and labour on a consensual basis as opposed to the imposition of a vote?

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Mr Boissoin: I definitely think they can be, and that's the end to which we were meeting yesterday, to try to move forward in that regard.

Mr Offer: You'll know that some of the difficulties that have arisen in the agency in the past have been, as many have alleged, a forced vote on the issue of training, hours of training and the program itself. Do you have any opinions as to the decision that was arrived at in the fall?

Mr Boissoin: Having now talked to the parties that were involved in the process, I have a different opinion than I had previously, to be very honest, because I wasn't party to it, again. I think I basically feel comfortable with why it had to happen. The most important thing is, if I am there, then I've got to try to decide to do the right thing going forward. I can't get into the heads of the people who made those decisions at that time to determine why, but based on the information that I've been given, I think the process had got to a point that they had to do something.

Mr Offer: Again, not to belabour the point, we will all be aware that these vacancies are as a result of people resigning from the board.

Mr Boissoin: Right.

Mr Offer: Do you have any thoughts as to how to rebuild the confidence of those who felt compelled to resign from the agency?

Mr Boissoin: Yes. As a matter of fact, as I was saying, that was part of the process we were involved in yesterday, so that as a caucus, as a group, we get to the point that we're not splintered all the time and we can approach things in a dignified, proper manner. I think the approach we're going to take is that as a caucus we'll take a vote, and a simple majority rules. We have to accept that going in, that we're not always right; we're obviously not always wrong. But we have to accept the fact that there's a line somewhere at which you've got to get on with the game.

Mr Offer: Do you feel that there must be a distance between the Minister of Labour, the Ministry of Labour, and the workings of the agency?

Mr Boissoin: Not too much of a distance, in the sense that neither side can work in a vacuum. Some of the things that the agency will be working at will definitely affect how things are done in the workplace. The Ministry of Labour is certainly in the workplace on a regular basis, looking at the same types of things, so you've got to have contact back and forth to the extent that both sides feel comfortable with what they have to do in the future and that type of thing. So I do think there has to be some contact, certainly.

Mr Offer: I'm questioning what it means, then, to be a bipartite agency, hopefully working with consensus, and still indicating that there's got to be this very close relationship to the ministry. The reason I ask that is because I just can't forget how and why some fairly well-respected individuals were compelled in many ways to leave the agency at a time which was crucial in its decision-making. I think one of the things they might say is that the ministry wasn't allowing the agency to do what the agency was designed to accomplish.

Mr Boissoin: It's really impossible for me to answer that because I don't know what happened in the past in terms of involvement with the minister or anything like that. I'm thinking more from the standpoint that even now with the bipartite process we have in our plants, which is not unlike what we're looking at here, the health and safety committee has to decide what is right and what is wrong in the workplace and try to take actions on it. The ministry is still there and it may not agree with what the health and safety committee decides.

When the determination is made to go in a certain direction by the agency, and having reached a bipartite agreement, I think the ministry might advise. I don't think they should necessarily have the right to overturn anything in that regard because the bipartite process should work out there. But based upon experience and based upon a lot of other things, they may have some good advice which you could use. That's what I'm talking about in terms of not direction but more advice.

The Chair: Mr Boissoin, that concludes your appearance here. We appreciate you coming by this morning, and I wish you well.

Mr Boissoin: Thank you very much.

MICHAEL BRAGER

The Chair: Our final witness this morning is Michael Brager, who is an intended appointee as a member of the Ontario Film Review Board. Mr Brager, would you have any brief comments you'd like to make before we get into the questions?

Mr Michael Brager: No. I'd just like to say good morning and hope I can answer your questions.

The Chair: Okay, fine. You were selected for review by the Conservative Party, and Mr Villeneuve will begin the questioning.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you, Mr Brager, for being here. I see you've a lengthy and illustrious career in the film industry, according to your curriculum, starting in 1948.

Mr Brager: That's right.

Mr Villeneuve: You would at this point like to be a member of the Ontario Film Review Board. We've not heard a great deal of it lately. I presume they're probably giving the green light to just about everything that's coming through. Could you comment a little bit about what you've seen in the past and what you want to bring to the film review board as an individual with that sort of experience?

Mr Brager: As far as commenting on what they've put through and what they haven't put through, I don't have any firsthand knowledge of that at all. My work has always been in mainstream films, not the exploitation type and certainly not video. That's an education in itself that I think I'll have to learn.

As to what I could bring to them, I hope that I could bring my expertise of the last 40 years as far as technical knowledge perhaps and as a liaison with the distribution companies in 35 millimetre. I realize there's other work involved as well, but that would be where I would think I might fit in to use my knowledge of the past.

Mr Villeneuve: I guess I, as a person of the public, would immediately think of two issues when we hear of the Ontario Film Review Board and that would be violence and sex, not necessarily in that order of importance. Could you possibly explain to us where your thoughts are and how far you would allow films to go in both of these areas? I know that's a very grey question, but you will have at some point some decisions to make based on your conscience and what you feel the public of Ontario can absorb and possibly what the public of Ontario should not be exposed to.

Mr Brager: I think, first of all, there are guidelines as far as the different categories are concerned: family, parental guidance and restricted. I'm certainly not aware of all these guidelines and I think that regardless of personal viewpoints, to do the job properly and to the best of my ability, I'd have to be governed by those guidelines. I realize there's quite an area in the guidelines.

I think on a personal basis my main concern, being a father and a grandfather and so on, is violence definitely that seems to be coming forth more and more. Certainly there are always probably fast-buck film people who are out there who want to show their film, regardless of quality and so on, to make money. But I think that my knowledge of the review board has always been that it's handled things in a good manner, I would say.

They have to review what comes to them; they don't have any say in what they see and what they don't see. I think on that basis they've been very diligent in handling what they have seen. Certainly, again talking on the distribution side, I know there have been arguments and discussion about categories that a film would be placed in and so on, but again there is an appeal process that has worked very well, and I say this as distribution again. I think it's been handled very properly.

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Mr Villeneuve: Have any films that you've been involved with gone before the film review board and been censored or had problems?

Mr Brager: Censored? You mean by --

Mr Villeneuve: Or cuttings, or whatever.

Mr Brager: No. We have had problems in classifications.

Mr Villeneuve: In other words, you would have preferred to see a different classification, as someone who is involved in the production, as opposed to what it finally wound up as?

Mr Brager: Yes.

Mr Villeneuve: Could you expand on that a little bit?

Mr Brager: For argument's sake, and depending on the picture involved, the classification board could give you a Restricted category, which means people under 18 couldn't see it, and perhaps the distributor would want an AA category with warnings and so on and so forth, which means people under 18 could see it. Now it could also work in reverse, that the producer or distributor isn't interested in having people under 18 see it because they realize it is an adults-only picture and perhaps the board in its wisdom has given it an AA.

There have been some appeals, I would say mostly with Restricted, by the board and the distributor hoping it would be AA. Some of these appeals have been won and some of them have been lost. I think that's fair game.

Mr Villeneuve: There have been situations where when controversy occurs it's a bonanza for the film itself, because it does get in the front pages when there's controversy between either the film review board, the censors, and whomever or whatever. Publicity seems to be the name of the game. Could you comment on that a bit, again from your experience?

Mr Brager: Yes, I've seen cases like that. I remember years ago in Ontario there was a film -- Hieronymous Merkin, I think the name was, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, I think the board passed it, but it was a court case and that gave it a lot of notoriety. There are other cases where I know distributors have threatened to go public perhaps. I don't know if "threatened" is the right word, but they have said they would go public unless they could get what they considered as justice from the film board.

I would say that 99 9/10 of all cases I know of have been settled amicably between the distributor and the film board by the appeal process, and I think most distributors have been satisfied with the appeal process. They realize there are differences of opinion and that's all you can do. But certainly you're right in that notoriety through the newspapers and so on and so forth tends to create more publicity and perhaps tends to create more people wanting to see the movie, and it has the adverse effect to maybe what it should be.

Mr Villeneuve: Do you feel that with the home video industry now, you have real control over what the people of Ontario will and will not see?

Mr Brager: As I mentioned before, video is a new education for me altogether. I've just never in my working years had anything to do with it, except to go into a store and buy it like everybody else. But I know they do review every video. I think it's necessary, no question about that, and I think it's certainly having a lot more of a handle on it than if they didn't do anything.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much. I am very much a novice and I'm here to learn. Thank you.

Mr Brager: I feel the same way.

The Chair: Mr Frankford, would you like to ask some questions?

Mr Frankford: I was going to ask the same question. With videos, is it really practical any more? Presumably there are far more video films out there than theatrical films and the ease with which they could be brought across the border or whatever.

Mr Brager: You mean is it practical to still have the review board look at them and so on?

Mr Frankford: Yes.

Mr Brager: Oh, I believe it is, yes, because I think it would just keep more of those coming across the border if you didn't. I think the big majority of people still go into video stores to buy them as opposed to the ones who would bring them across the border illegally or anything like that. I think if you didn't have that review process, there would be more and more fast-buck operators putting videos on shelves, or trying to, and more and more lowering of standards perhaps, so I would say definitely.

Mr Frankford: There must be some very specialized films, foreign-language films, films for ethnic markets. I believe India in fact produces more films than any other country. Do those all have to be reviewed?

Mr Brager: You're talking videos or films in general?

Mr Frankford: Both.

Mr Brager: Yes, they're reviewed. That's my understanding. I haven't been too close to it, but I think when a foreign film comes in, the producer or distributor has to give a worksheet of the dialogue in English and so on and so forth. That's my understanding anyway.

Mr Rizzo: Are you familiar with the classification of the films?

Mr Brager: Yes, I think so.

Mr Rizzo: Would you like to see any changes in it or do you think they're okay the way they are now?

Mr Brager: I think it covers the spectrum pretty well of the films that are coming in. I'm an endorser of the information pieces -- I like that idea very much -- violence, nudity, sexual or whatever. I like that, but as far as the classifications, I think it's worked well.

Mr Rizzo: There are certain libraries that offer videos to their clients. Do you think the same libraries should be able to distribute videos that are on the market now or should there be some restrictions on that?

Mr Brager: I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

Mr Rizzo: Libraries not only give out books, but many have videos also. Some libraries are restricting the type of videos they are distributing to people. Do you think there should be such restrictions?

Mr Brager: They're restricted because of the material involved?

Mr Rizzo: And the type of classification, yes.

Mr Brager: Again, I assume what they do bring in has been reviewed by the board. They don't have any special licence for that. I'd like to hear their argument pro and con as to why. If it's an exploitation-type film in their opinion, then maybe they are justified in not bringing it in.

Mr Rizzo: By finding out the information, do you believe they may have some justification in terms of what is going to be distributed to the public in one way through a private business, why the same material cannot be distributed through libraries?

Mr Brager: Yes, I understand. I don't know if it's just that there's so much volume that they couldn't handle it all anyway or they're handling a certain type of historical or geographical movie as opposed to a regular Hollywood type.

Mr Rizzo: I think that's a coverup, maybe just an excuse that they cannot handle the volume, but the real reason may be because some library board members don't see the work of the Ontario Film Review Board as very progressive.

Mr Brager: Yes, I understand. Basically, if they carry all the books, they should carry all the videos. I don't think there would be any discrimination there.

The Chair: We'll move on to Mr Bradley.

Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): My first question relates again to videos. There seems to be a lot of interest in those these days, probably much to the chagrin of people in your business, the original business at least. There are videos that are classified or deemed illegal by the federal government, they're smuggled into the country and classified or deemed illegal by the federal government and smuggled into the country. They're being rated, but not banned, by the review board. Representatives of the police forces who combat these videos coming into the country are certainly concerned about that, the widespread access to their view of pornography, especially what's referred to as kiddie porn. Do you believe the board, if indeed this is happening, should be classifying movies the federal government deems to be illegal for viewing in the province of Ontario?

Mr Brager: That's quite a question. I didn't know this practice was in use today, to be honest with you. I'd like to hear the justification of the Ontario film board for adhering to that practice; I guess there are two different agencies at work. But again, if the review board has a mandate to do that, then it might have to go through with that procedure. I suppose the bottom line would be if somebody wanted to lay charges with the police against it. I couldn't comment otherwise.

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Mr Bradley: speaking on behalf of the community, as you're supposed to be exercising community standards, do you believe the board should have the power to ban outright films in the province of Ontario instead of simply classifying them?

Mr Brager: Yes, I think they have that power, and I --

Mr Bradley: Do you believe they should have that power: To completely ban a movie considered inappropriate for showing in Ontario?

Mr Brager: Again, with appeals, by going through the proper channels and so on and so forth.

Mr Bradley: Censorship is always difficult to deal with; you're as aware of that as anybody. A decade ago, if we'd been in this committee, senior and well-respected members of the New Democratic Party would have been arguing heavily and passionately against virtually any form of censorship. Viewpoints change over the years, and people from various parties and so on would have perhaps changed their viewpoints.

Today there is some concern being expressed not only about violence and explicit sex, which many people have a problem with, but also with the portraying of any particular group in society in a way which is considered to be inappropriate, denigrating or inferior. Do you believe the film review board should in fact be censoring, clipping and removing from the films those parts of a film that portray, for instance, women -- there are many people who say they portray women in certain ways, racial minorities in certain ways or other minority groups within society. Should that be subject to censorship?

Mr Brager: I would say basically no, because I don't know where you'd start and where you'd finish clipping. Community standards certainly come into it. Warnings: If you put information pieces on a film, that perhaps could soften the blow to a particular race or religion or gender, but I don't think I would say snip them.

Mr Bradley: Excuse my ignorance of this: I don't know whether the board has the power to reclassify films, but there are now some films coming back which have what most of us would consider to be an outdated viewpoint of individuals in our society. There's a controversy going on over, is it Showboat, in North York at the present time. The way some of those were originally written, in the context of the time they were written, those kinds of movies or shows portray people in a different way from what we would consider to be acceptable in 1993. Do you believe those films should be banned or clipped or censored in any way?

Mr Brager: No. They might, like you say, have to be reclassified, but I don't think I would be an advocate of banning.

Mr Bradley: I'll move to another; we're obviously short of time, so I have to go from one to another. Slasher films have also been the subject of some controversy, especially as children get to see them. Those are the ones where they cut people up in a thousand pieces or something like that, with a knife. They're quite violent. I guess some people consider them funny in a horrific way. You know how people, kids particularly, laugh at these things that happen. They don't consider them reality, I suppose. Yet we see within our society some of that happening in reality. What are your views on the so-called slasher films?

Mr Brager: I've heard that term, "slasher," but I never knew what they were until you just mentioned them now.

Mr Bradley: That's what I think they are, anyway.

Mr Brager: Personally, I abhor them, certainly as far as my children and grandchildren and my own standards are concerned. I think you have to live with some of them, but I have no idea, probably, of how low they've sunk even in comparison to some 35-millimetre, mainstream Hollywood pictures, which are certainly violent enough; I'd have to see that with my own eyes.

Apart from that, I think the review board has the guidelines and the power to ban or to put it in a restricted category with a lot of warnings. Once the board has passed a film -- I know of a film, though I'm not 100% sure it was in Ontario, that after being passed, there was such an outcry that it was taken back and banned or perhaps cut, censored, to justify more what the community standards would be.

Mr Bradley: I think there might be a little time for a last question, on language used in films. I know that's considered to be the least offensive, I suppose in many ways people say that words can't hurt you and so on, but there's a feeling in a good segment of the community that you can't go to a film any more without listening to obscenity every second minute of the show. It makes it uncomfortable for people who find that offensive, yet they like to go to some good films. It's very difficult to take kids there or to bring a video home and show it without listening to all this language. At least with the parents, it makes their faces turn red sometimes.

Do you have a view on the adult accompaniment films -- or the ones that aren't the strict Walt Disney ones; I don't know what the next category up is -- that kids can go to but still have to listen to a large number of words? I don't think anybody really does speak that way, but kids then in the school yard, when you walk by, tend to use the same language with relative impunity. Do you have a view on language in that kind of films? I'm not talking about the restricted ones, where you would expect it.

Mr Brager: On a personal basis, I certainly share a lot of your concerns as far as language is concerned. As a matter of fact, I think some of the language used unnecessarily waters down the whole concept of the movie. At the same time, I think the language is the least offensive part of the movie, again perhaps through community standards. I think the movie people would say that the language is mirroring what's happening in the school yards, not promoting what's happening in the school yards. I don't know which way that goes, but that's what they would say.

Mr Bradley: Do I have any more time?

The Chair: A quick question.

Mr Bradley: A quick question would be on going to the video store and being able to determine what you can take home. I've had parents complain to me that they look at a title and it looks very innocent, but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has a little change to it or something: They think they might be getting the old Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but they find out it's a lot different than they had anticipated. Do you know how we can overcome that problem? We've talked a bit about labelling. I think that's important.

Mr Brager: I think the video manager or the video owner could do a big part in that; they're going through his cash register. Education would be the biggest tool, I think. I'm not sure whether they put warnings on videos like they do on 35-millimetre films.

Mr Bradley: I can't operate a videocassette recorder yet. I still haven't reached that, so I don't buy them, but I've heard that complaint. No doubt the Chair has heard that as well.

Mr Brager: I've heard of it happening too. I think there are a couple of different versions of Alice in Wonderland.

Mr Bradley: That's right.

Mr Brager: As I say, the video operator would certainly be a good place to start. There's no question about that.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Brager. We appreciate your appearance and wish you well.

That concludes the morning session. I neglected to mention that Rob Nishman is joining us from legislative research and will be helping out David Pond and sitting in for David on occasions as well. We all welcome you, Rob, to the committee.

Mr Bradley: Is this bureaucracy gone wild?

The Chair: We'll break for lunch, and we'll see you all back at 2 o'clock.

The committee recessed at 1151.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The committee resumed at 1409.

The Chair: I see a quorum, unless anyone challenges me on that.

PAMELA BORGHESAN

The Chair: Our first witness this afternoon is Pamela Borghesan. Ms Borghesan, would you like to come forward and have a seat please. Welcome to the committee. Ms Borghesan is an intended appointee as a member of the Ontario Criminal Code Review Board. She was selected for this review by the official opposition, the Liberal Party. Before we ask Mr Cleary to begin questioning, would you like to say something briefly before we get under way?

Ms Pamela Borghesan: I have no initial statement.

The Chair: Okay, fine. Mr Cleary, would you like to begin?

Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee. I guess the first question is that I would like to know how you found out about that. Were you approached or did you just have those interests in mind?

Ms Borghesan: How did I find out about the opening?

Mr Cleary: Right.

Ms Borghesan: I wasn't approached by anybody. A colleague of mine, whom I articled with here in Toronto, was aware that the committee may need members and just informed me to apply to Health if I was interested in the position, so it was my own application that was submitted.

Mr Cleary: If it was your own application, you must have some views and some changes that you'd like to see take place. Do you have some type of agenda?

Ms Borghesan: I don't have any personal agenda in particular. I haven't considered any changes that I would want implemented. My area of interest is in criminal law and mental health law and I would just like to pursue those interests.

Mr Cleary: Those are all the questions I've got.

The Chair: Mr Villeneuve, do you have any questions?

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much for being before us. You would have a say in the Lieutenant Governor's warrants, as a member of the committee. Could you give us your ideas as to convicted criminals? Many of them are allowed to leave their place of incarceration under Lieutenant Governor's warrants. Could you just give us your thoughts on that? Would you feel the rules are too loose right now? Should they be tightened up? Should there be Lieutenant Governor's warrants at all?

Ms Borghesan: I believe the system of Lieutenant Governor's warrants is predicated on mental illness. In that respect, those offenders who are considered to have a mental illness differ greatly from your average criminal offender, so I do believe there should be some sort of process to divert them from those other offenders.

With respect to release from places of incarceration, I think definitely there are different factors that go into the consideration of whether or not they should be released and those should be considered at separate hearings.

Mr Villeneuve: Many solicitors -- and you are now one I gather, you are done articling and you've been called to the bar.

Ms Borghesan: Yes.

Mr Villeneuve: Congratulations.

Ms Borghesan: Thank you.

Mr Villeneuve: Many solicitors, in the defence of criminals, quite often appeal to the courts under problems -- psychiatric problems and others -- and the idea comes forth that after they've been incarcerated or under some sort of managed environment they overcome these. Could you maybe express your thoughts? I realize that all cases are pretty well individual and I won't paint you a case scenario, but that's been a pretty big problem in people out on Lieutenant Governor's warrants creating havoc again.

Again, I go back to that Lieutenant Governor's warrant for solicitors who use this, and we've got some ongoing cases. There's a pretty prime one going on in Ottawa right now where someone will likely be incarcerated; however, the lawyer defending this person is very much using that. I don't know when these people acquire or resume their normalcy. In your opinion, and I want you to give me your personal opinion, do you feel that should be strengthened, that there should maybe be a trial period where someone would not be allowed to simply walk the streets as a normal, average citizen after a murder?

Ms Borghesan: I believe, if I'm correct, the Supreme Court of Canada has held that there indeed has to be a hearing to determine whether or not they should walk; there's not an automatic incarceration once they've been found not criminally responsible because of mental incapacity. I believe perhaps in some instances the requirement of public safety has not been properly canvassed, and that should be a strong requirement at any hearing at the criminal code review board.

Mr Villeneuve: I see a lot of your studies have been done in the Kingston area. Is Kingston home?

Ms Borghesan: Yes.

Mr Villeneuve: It's great to have someone from eastern Ontario on the board.

Ms Borghesan: Thank you.

Mr Bradley: You're so parochial.

Mr Villeneuve: We don't have enough from that end of the province.

The Chair: Mr Villeneuve, would you mind if I took up a few minutes of your time, since you're not using it all?

Mr Villeneuve: By all means.

The Chair: This is an area that I have a significant interest in because I have a forensic facility in my own riding, and we've had a significant number of incidents, unpleasant in nature, over the past number of years of forensic patients being let out in the community on loosened warrants, or a warrant being lifted, and committing very serious crimes, including murder.

One of the things I'd like to know your views on is the rights of victims and their families. I dealt with a situation in Brockville, where a little boy was murdered in Toronto. This chap was in the forensic system, was let out in Brockville and was working in a bakeshop. He wasn't monitored as well as he should have been by the folks in the facility, and he came close to murdering another individual. Over the years, the mother of the boy who was murdered had been so frustrated in her attempts to try and track where this guy was, and she didn't know that he was out in the community. Every time she had attempted to appear before the review board, as it was at that time, her efforts were frustrated. She never had an opportunity to give her views on what this man did to her and her life and her family's lives and how she viewed it in terms of releasing him to the public. I'd just like to know if you have any views about victims and victims' rights and how they might apply to your responsibilities.

Ms Borghesan: It's my understanding that it's the chair's responsibility to determine the admissibility of such evidence at a hearing. However, if it was determined to be admissible evidence, I think there is a certain degree of relevance that should be attached to it, and a fair degree of weight should be given to that sort of evidence. However, I really don't think it can be determinative of an issue, or at least determinative of the final issue of whether or not to hold the patient or release him. But I do think it's worth consideration by the board.

The Chair: What about notification in terms of allowing the victim or the family to know where this individual is and when he may be out in the community? There are concerns; I've bumped into other situations where victims, particularly women, are very much concerned about the implications, about this individual being out in the community and coming after them again, if you will. There is not, to my knowledge anyway, any provision or requirement for notification of victims. How do you feel about that?

I guess what I'm looking for is someone who would be an advocate for victims, and I think there's little of it in the system. I know the judge who headed up the review system -- and I got this third hand -- said he didn't want any of that sob story stuff, and I have a lot of trouble with that.

Ms Borghesan: Yes. I think there is a difference between notifying the victim and his or her family and notifying the general public, which seems to be a big issue these days. I think you're correct that the system doesn't provide for too much of that, and perhaps that's to be remedied by the system, because there's also the issue of infringement of the patient's or offender's rights; that has to be considered, but that is not the only consideration.

The Chair: The rights of offenders seem to be paramount in our society. I won't take up any more of your time, but I hope certainly you'll keep those kinds of concerns in mind.

Mr Frankford: As a student, you were involved in some cases with Lieutenant Governor's warrants.

Ms Borghesan: Yes.

Mr Frankford: Can you elaborate on your impression and perhaps talk about the difficulties or otherwise of determining mental capacity and dangerousness?

Ms Borghesan: I sat in on a couple of hearings and watched the process. In the specific instances that I had experience with, I don't think there was too much difficulty because under the circumstances I observed it was obvious to everybody that the individuals were suffering from grave mental disorders and should be detained in custody.

I think there are going to be issues of difficulty when the individual seems fine and the psychiatric reports don't indicate any special problem, and yet there's the interest of society to be weighed against those factors. In those circumstances, the individual case will have to be looked at on its own facts.

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Mr Frankford: Is it your impression, either from what you've observed here or from studies -- I'll rephrase it. Would you like to comment on the difficulties for physicians and psychiatrists to make assessments of capacity and dangerousness?

Ms Borghesan: I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?

Mr Frankford: Would you like to comment on the difficulties for physicians and psychiatrists in particular to make judgements on capacity and danger to the public?

Ms Borghesan: Not having a background in that area, I'm not sure how much I could comment on it. I'm not sure of their criteria, on what they base their assessments. I know that as a member of the board you have to take their assessments at face value and give them the weight they're worth.

Mr Frankford: So is it your impression that you will be depending very much on those professional judgements or is it something that --

Ms Borghesan: It's a factor to be considered among the other evidence.

Mr Frankford: But you as a board member, and in your case a lawyer, will have to form your own judgement based on interviews and reports from other people who have been taking care of the individual.

Ms Borghesan: Yes.

The Chair: Mr Wood, do you have any? We'll move on. Mr Bradley.

Mr Bradley: If I were to reflect the viewpoints of the public I represent in my constituency, the majority viewpoint would be that there is a general feeling out there that people are being released from confining circumstances and are a threat to innocent people in public. Their view would be that boards of this kind do not have on those boards people who reflect those points of view. I understand that in judicial circumstances or quasi-judicial boards it may be important, or in fact it is considered to be important, to have people who know the law well and who are experts in some field.

The concern I have is that the people who sit on these agencies, boards and commissions simply seem to be totally out of tune with what the general public believes, and as a result all of us who are members get telephone calls from apprehensive people and we have to simply say there's a system there.

A general question, and I had the disadvantage of coming in a bit late because I was in another meeting: Is it your view that in the past the Lieutenant Governor's warrants were abused, that the ability to keep these people in institutions was in fact abused, as some learned people of the law have contended?

Ms Borghesan: I'm afraid I couldn't comment on that, not having been in the field for many years and not having any statistical data. I don't feel I could make a comment in that area.

Mr Bradley: Do you believe that, because there is a suggestion out there -- and I think people recognize that in some cases people are going back into the community. We want to make that as good an experience for the general public and the individual as possible, that person being integrated back in the community. Is it your view, in whatever experience you have to this point in time, that the resources are adequate to handle people where there might be some question about their committing another crime? In other words, are there sufficient resources out there, whether it's probation officers, whether it's people who work in the medical field, to ensure that these people are not going to commit a crime after they've been released or while they're under some kind of supervision?

Ms Borghesan: I don't think any system could be infallible. Definitely there are areas set up to deal with those concerns. Perhaps some restructuring or reprioritization of their mandates is in order. I note that one factor the Criminal Code urges people on the board to look into is reintegration into society. I think if that factor was canvassed in more of those areas that you speak of, the social network, it could be a more effective system. But, as I said, nothing's going to be perfect.

Mr Bradley: How much weight is given or should be given to the viewpoint of the family of -- in this case we'll say the offender? At one time, when I first sat in this Legislature, there were some people who were on the cutting edge of things in terms of reform who said -- and I'm getting away a bit from these individuals, but it's in the general field -- that psychiatric patients' rights were abused, so there were amendments made over the years to the Mental Health Act which have now convinced many families of these individuals that they have a much easier time getting out than they used to.

I guess the question is, how much weight should be or is placed on the viewpoint of members of the immediate family who may have kept in contact with that person while that person was incarcerated or held in an institution for psychiatric patients?

Ms Borghesan: If the family can offer no support or no basis for their opinion, I don't think the weight should be all that much. If, however, they can offer something concrete that they would offer the offender upon release, then that should be given more weight than a family that just says, "I want that person out." You're speaking of the family of the offender, correct?

Mr Bradley: Yes, I am.

Ms Borghesan: I think there has to be something concrete offered before it would hold much weight, more than just moral support.

Mr Bradley: Recognizing that everybody you're going to consult has perhaps a bit of vested interest, how much weight should be placed on the viewpoint of the police authorities, either on the provincial basis or on a local basis, on the viewpoints of those individuals?

Ms Borghesan: With respect to release?

Mr Bradley: Yes.

Ms Borghesan: I think police often have a better grasp of the pragmatics of the area and the situation than they're given credit for. In the right circumstances, the police opinion can hold quite a bit of weight, especially if there's been extensive investigation into the offender and the background and the crime and the prevalence of the crime, that sort of thing. Also, the police can often reflect community views which may not have a forum otherwise.

Mr Bradley: At the risk of repetition, because you may have addressed this question already, but if you would be kind enough to address a response to this question, do you believe that the identity of these people should be made known to the municipality or locality in which they're being released, the identity being visual and name and perhaps the place they're going to reside? Do you think that is fair? Do you think it's reasonable? Do you think it should not be done?

Ms Borghesan: I think if it is going to be done, there have to be parameters set up about what sort of offender's identity is going to be released. I differentiated earlier between releasing that information to the victim's family and to the public in general. I do believe there can be rights infringements of the offender. I'm not convinced that in every case that would trump the public interest. I think in some cases the public interest requires notification.

Mr Bradley: I would simply ask, because you will be appointed -- there's no chance you will not be appointed by this committee, I assure you of that, because the government has the majority -- whether the opposition likes it or not. We may well like your appointment, but the government will call its majority at the right time.

I would simply ask this, and you may consider it very presumptuous on my part and you may simply ignore it, because you will be independent in committee, but I hope you will communicate to the committee the concern of at least some members of the committee about the rights of victims and about the apprehension of the community and the general feeling that is communicated to some members of the Legislature at least that the system seems to be totally backwards in terms of who gets protected and who doesn't.

You may wish to share that viewpoint. I'm not saying it's the majority of the committee, I'm not saying it's anyone other than those who have expressed views, but I get the feeling that people who sit in judgement are just totally detached from people out in the constituencies who are beside themselves over what's happening out there. I'll just leave that with you.

The Chair: Thanks very much. We conclude your appearance and we wish you well, Ms Borghesan.

Ms Borghesan: Thank you.

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LINDA SHEPPARD

The Chair: The next witness is Linda Sheppard. Welcome, Ms Sheppard, to the committee.

Ms Linda Sheppard: Thank you.

The Chair: Ms Sheppard's an intended appointee as a member of the Ontario Film Review Board. You were selected for review by the Liberal Party, the official opposition. Would you like to say anything briefly before we get into questions, or move right on?

Ms Linda Sheppard: I don't really have a statement. I thank you for agreeing to question me. I'm here, obviously, because I'm interested in this appointment to the review board and I look forward to your questions and trying to answer them as well as I can.

The Chair: Thanks very much. Mr Bradley will begin.

Mr Bradley: Was there anybody who suggested you apply for appointment to this board or did you of your own volition decide you would be interested in this?

Ms Sheppard: The way it came about was through a personal contact of mine. I learned there were going to be some appointments made to the film review board and at that point I started to think about whether it was something I'd be interested in applying for. I decided it was and I followed it up from there.

Mr Bradley: What qualifications or expertise do you believe you bring, if you could express it yourself rather than looking at a résumé and having somebody else express it? I think there should be a great cross-section of the people and I'm not saying there's a set of qualifications that somebody's on, but what do you believe you would bring to the committee that perhaps someone else would not?

Ms Sheppard: Specifically to my own work experience -- because I have been involved in the children's publishing industry for the past 16 or 17 years, I think that would be useful background to bring to the work of the committee, particularly since a lot of the work has to do with classifying films with the interests of children at the other end of that classification.

I worked for a publishing company and was responsible for developing its list of children's titles for about 10 years -- actually longer than that, 15 years -- and I've been freelancing for the past four or five years, also in the children's book industry. That has kept me involved with children's cultural activities, not just in print but also in film and video. As part of that work one is always deliberating about what is appropriate, not appropriate, for children at various ages and stages.

As a specific example, last year I was involved as editor and co-publisher of a series of books called Degrassi Talks. These books were based on the video series shown on CBC TV that you look as though you're familiar with. There were a lot of questions in terms of what's appropriate to put into print, because those programs -- if you saw them you know they dealt with some very nitty-gritty issues involving teenagers and problems that teenagers have. I think it's that awareness, that work experience, that qualifies me to apply for this appointment.

Mr Bradley: Do you believe the board should censor or simply classify?

Ms Sheppard: It'll take me a minute to answer that. Is that all right?

Mr Bradley: Sure, I understand.

Ms Sheppard: I'm aware of both sides of the argument about censorship and because I have a publishing background -- as you probably know, the whole question of freedom of expression and censorship is a very contentious one. When I think about it often in print, I get persuaded by the argument as to where you draw the line when you're talking about censorship.

However, in looking at the work of the review board, I think my position isn't totally consistent, because I do see the value of having the power to censor when it comes to some of the material that I believe is available, particularly in adult sex videos. I think my concern here really stems from the whole issue of violence, particularly violence against women and children, which I think is a growing concern in our community. I believe from the reading I've done that it's not possible to say scientifically whether or not these images do have a destructive effect on people's attitudes and behaviour, and in this area, I think I would like to be conservative and say that it makes sense to me to use the power of censorship that the review board has at this point in time.

Mr Bradley: We often think, when we deal with these issues of pornography, of censorship, of violence, of the effect on people who are viewing it. What weight should be given to the effect on those who must be the actors and actresses, recognizing that a lot of what is portrayed may be camera tricks and so on? In a lot of cases it's not camera tricks. A lot of people forget that people have to make these films somehow. There have been some rather celebrated cases of people who've written books after they've made films of this kind who said it isn't a very pleasant thing. What weight should be given to that aspect of it, consideration of those who must make these movies and the fact that if they're allowed to be seen, those people will continue to be in the circumstances of making the movies?

Ms Sheppard: I have to admit that's not an aspect of it that I've given a great deal of consideration to, because I was thinking of it more, as you said, in terms of people watching. I'm not aware of the books that people have written, either. I think that's a problem, as you've outlined it. I see it probably as less of a problem than the problem that's created by people viewing the images.

Mr Bradley: There are people who have offered complaints about movies -- of course, the pornography and violence in particular are almost taken for granted -- which portray people of certain ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, lifestyles, women in many cases, in a light which is either not accurate or is degrading or demeaning. Do you think those movies should be censored?

Ms Sheppard: Yes, I do. You've lumped a number of things together in that question.

Mr Bradley: That's because we have only 10 minutes to ask questions.

Ms Sheppard: Behaviour that can be easily described as dehumanizing or degrading I think is probably where it's easiest to say, yes, that should be censored. But I think you also alluded to some broader issues about people from various racial backgrounds who might be portrayed in a negative way.

Mr Bradley: Portrayal of native Canadians and native Americans, aboriginal peoples, over the years has not been very favourable, until recently perhaps, and also portrayal of people of different racial backgrounds and so on. There are old stereotypes out there, yet they may still make their way into movies. I guess I'm asking if you believe that should be chopped out, or should the people simply be warned that this is the case?

Ms Sheppard: At the moment, in all my reading about the way the review board works, it's based on what is perceived as what community standards are. Those particular instances that you have mentioned I guess would fit more into the mandate of the board to give information about rather than to censor.

Mr Bradley: I think of Aladdin as one.

Ms Sheppard: Exactly, right.

Mr Bradley: In terms of a live show, Showboat is the one that's caused the controversy now, the way it portrays people. Some people of the Arabic community have said Aladdin sheds an unfavourable light on people of Arabic background, and people who are Afro-Canadians or Afro-Americans in many cases feel that Showboat certainly doesn't portray people of their background in a favourable light at all.

Ms Sheppard: I sense that the community probably isn't at a position where it would support censoring these materials, but I also sense that is a growing issue of debate. It probably falls within the mandate of the review board to engage in ongoing discussion and consultations around these issues to see whether there is a point where the community says, to which the review board has to respond, "It's time to take stiffer action," or "It's time to improve your educative function." At the moment, I think a lot of the work of the review board is not widely disseminated. Even with the classifications, if you go to your video store, they're not on the video, so how do you know what they are? You have to look in a catalogue, which we all know nobody does.

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Mr Bradley: I guess the words I want are "politically correct." Should movies be politically correct?

Ms Sheppard: I'm saying that the review board has to talk to the community about this. I don't think there's a yes or no answer at this point.

The Chair: We have to move on. Mr Villeneuve.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much, Ms Sheppard, for being with us this afternoon. You have a very impressive résumé. I notice that a few years back you were a researcher for the Liberal Party of Canada. Are you still sympathetic to those folks?

Ms Sheppard: No, I'm not.

Mr Villeneuve: Do you have any political affiliations?

Ms Sheppard: I do. I'm a member of the New Democratic Party.

Mr Villeneuve: Having said that, there are strange statements about the road to Damascus and what have you in this Legislature. We're not going to pursue that any further.

How effective do you think the Ontario Film Review Board is in light of satellite dishes and videos, which you referred to, and the films that are seen by residents of Ontario? Do you feel you will have any teeth as a member of the board?

Ms Sheppard: I think that's a good question. I read the report the Ontario Law Reform Commission did on the activities of the board, and I think there were some good suggestions in there on how the work of the board could be made more effective in terms of making the information more widely available. They suggested that perhaps the classifications that are given to films could be stickered on videos and video boxes, which I think is worth considering. I don't know if any of these things have been done since that report came out, because I have no way of actually finding that out. That was one thing that could be done. Also, with the information pieces the board can attach to a film, there don't seem to be any regulations that make it mandatory that these be big enough so people will actually see them and pay attention to them and also know what they mean.

Within existing technology, I think the work of the board is valuable, but it could be made more valuable by some not-too-complicated improvements.

Your question about technology is one that is really hard to answer. We know what is going on at the CRTC at the moment, and the future looks just overwhelming: 500 channels on your television set, pay-per-view, all this kind of thing, which would mean that everything the review board could censor or classify or whatever could be widely available to anybody just by putting your credit card in the TV. I think that's a problem.

I suppose the whole question of reviewing, classifying and censoring films and its effectiveness would have to be debated by the review board to see whether there are steps that could be taken to make it remain effective in the next decade, for example. Possibly that means going to national standards, and maybe it means going to international standards. I'm not sure, but I think those are questions that have to be addressed.

Mr Villeneuve: Certainly the world of technology is ever-changing, and I believe it certainly has usurped some if not most of the power from the Ontario Film Review Board.

As a member of that board -- and you will become a member of the board -- how do you feel about this: If indeed there is a film you have some strong objections to, the minute that film makes headlines, negative or positive, it brings its infamy to the public and kind of whets their appetite: "What's in there that maybe I shouldn't see?" The minute that happens, you can almost guarantee that the film is going to be a success, which is the reverse of what we're attempting to do. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Ms Sheppard: I think it's a problem, but I don't immediately have a solution beyond, I suppose, trying to make it very clear why the review board has taken a position on a certain film and justified it widely to the public.

Mr Villeneuve: Your background is very much in publications for children etc. We've been hit lately with some so-called kiddie porn, which to me is very objectionable, yet somehow or other there seems to be a market out there. Do you have any ideas on how we could be treating this in a way so that if the film review board says no, indeed it is no?

Ms Sheppard: You're saying that if the film review board says no, people will go after it?

Mr Villeneuve: That's what happens, and the follow-up question is about violence against women and children in particular. That's become a major problem, yet there are some people who think, "We need to see this." I'm not a filmgoer, but our children from time to time bring home films. For whatever reason, I guess my taste in films and the taste of people who review and give awards to films are not the same. I saw Silence of the Lambs and I really didn't think it was much of a film, but it got rave reviews and won awards and what have you. It's a reverse psychology thing. It works upside down.

Ms Sheppard: This is true, but I think the power of censorship and the work of a film review board have to be seen as effective only within certain parameters. Some of the issues you're raising are really broader societal issues. Well, this is all a broader societal issue in that it needs to be dealt with in the broader society, and then it may eliminate the need for, or even the attractiveness of, such films. There has to be a lot of education around violence and improvements in the equality of women. At the same time, I think a lot of this destructive behaviour comes because there's still poverty, there's still child abuse, and that generates a lot of destructive behaviour. Education and a broader societal attack on those bigger issues have to happen at the same time that you're dealing with specific instances of objectionable films by the film board.

Mr Villeneuve: I congratulate you on soon becoming a member of the board. With your experience, I think you'll be an excellent candidate. We'll be watching, from a distance, what happens.

Ms Sheppard: You should call me back in a year and see what I say then. Thank you very much.

Mr Frankford: Following up on your comments about technology and the rapid changes going on and the responsibilities of the board for reviewing videos, I just wonder whether it is possible to do the job any more. It must be very easy to import videos from across the border or wherever. How can the board possibly know that every video produced is going to pass by it?

Ms Sheppard: It probably can't. I think that problem is only going to be exacerbated -- don't you? -- in the next five or 10 years. Well, in fact by next April: They say we're going to have access to those satellite dishes. You probably read the article in the Globe too. It listed all the specialty channels. It didn't say "adult sex channels," but we know they are there. Our population is going to have access to them. That's where I think, as I was saying before, the whole area of what is available on film and video needs to be looked at on a national basis and then perhaps an international basis. I don't know if that's realistic, but I don't see that there are many alternatives.

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Mr Frankford: The board reviewers, I believe, do run through films quickly. I don't think you routinely have to see every --

Mr Villeneuve: Fast-forward.

Ms Sheppard: Well, I've been told that fast-forward doesn't mean you're not aware of the images, but because I haven't had a chance to actually do it I'm not sure exactly what that means.

Mr Frankford: I understand Mrs McLeod, at a Liberal dinner, suggested that one of her approaches to cutting the deficit would be to review all 500 boards and agencies. Do you have any thoughts on where the film review board should be on that list to cut the deficit?

Ms Sheppard: No, I don't, but I think that would be a question to ask people who get appointed and then have had a chance to do the job for six months or a year, and then ask that question. I think I'm not in a position to answer.

The Chair: Is there anything additional? Mr Waters.

Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): Part of the board's current mandate is to reflect community standards in its decision-making. Coming out of that, I'd ask maybe two or three questions for you to comment on. One is, can you tell us about the community or communities that you'll be representing, and also what your understanding is of the community standards, and I guess how the public can be reassured that as community standards change indeed it's reflected in the decisions of the board? I was just wondering if you could comment on all that in one word or less.

Ms Sheppard: I'll try. I was thinking about this and that there are really two ways that the board can deal with or respond to community standards. One is the sort of composition of the board itself. I don't know what the backgrounds of other members of this board are, but that would be one way. By ensuring that the members who have these appointments represent a diverse group of people, you would be dealing at one level with community standards.

The other is that I would see it as part of the responsibility of members of the board to continually monitor, debate and keep informed about specific issues that seem to impinge on the board's mandate to classify and to censor. In particular, I guess at the moment one would think about the whole issue of violence, because I think there is a lot of debate going on in the community about violence now and about the effect of visual images in both film and video, whether those have destructive effects on people's attitudes and then behaviour. That's an ongoing debate. So in order to keep in touch with community standards, I think that there has to be consultation back and forth.

I have two reports on my desk at this moment about the latest data on television and violence which I haven't had a chance to read, but there they are. I think it's that kind of thing that members of the board would have to keep in touch with and to be always discussing to make sure that what the board is doing relates to community standards as expressed, I guess, in a sort of fairly broad, consensual way.

Mr Waters: The other one that I would just question: When I look at page 2 of the information supplied by the legislative research service, it says four things under section 33 of the act. The board may, after reviewing the film, classify the film in one of four categories; classify it and make approval of its viewing conditional; classify it and make approval of its viewing conditional on the film being shown only in certain locations; and the last one, refuse to approve the film for distribution or exhibition.

I wonder, do we exercise the last possibility as often as we should? I really wonder whether some of the films that are out there are appropriate for viewing, period.

Ms Sheppard: For anybody over 18?

Mr Waters: Yes. I'd just like your comment on that.

Ms Sheppard: Well, we know specifically the kinds of scenes that the board will make a decision to censor on, and those include sex with violence and degrading and dehumanizing behaviour and sexual activities among children, but you're asking about things beyond that.

Mr Waters: I get an impression, and maybe it isn't so much -- I'm a small-town country boy, and maybe the values in the rural part of the province are different than what they are in the cities, but I get the feeling when I talk to people within my constituency that they question whether indeed some of these films are appropriate, period. Maybe that isn't taken into consideration when we talk about the community. Maybe there isn't enough reflection of the overall community. I don't know. I was just wondering about that.

Ms Sheppard: Well, possibly that's true, and I guess until I actually have some experience in the way these things play themselves out --

Mr Waters: It would be difficult. You haven't sat on the board yet.

Ms Sheppard: I don't know about the composition of the board. I mean, I don't know about rural versus urban members, actually. Maybe that's a factor.

The Chair: Okay, that concludes the questions and responses, Ms Sheppard, and thank you very much. We'll be voting on concurrence to the appointments later on and I'm sure someone will advise you rather shortly.

Ms Sheppard: Okay. Thank you.

MARY E. SHAMLEY

The Chair: The next witness is Mary Shamley. Ms Shamley, would you like to come forward and take a seat, please. Welcome to the committee.

Ms Mary E. Shamley: Thank you.

The Chair: Ms Shamley is an intended appointee as a member of the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation, and her review is a request of the government party. Would you like to say anything briefly before we get under way?

Ms Shamley: No, thank you.

The Chair: Okay, fine. I guess you understand the process.

Ms Shamley: Yes, it has been outlined to me.

Mr Frankford: I notice in your résumé of volunteer experience that you have a number of health-related things: the Thames Valley District Health Council, the Premier's Council on Health Strategy, the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine. Would you like to relate the present appointment being considered to these other things you've done?

Ms Shamley: It seems to be the process that I've entertained since I first sat on the hospital board at Four Counties and have just more or less become interested in the whole health area and how it expands. This one came as a result of some consultations I was doing with the hospital. I became aware of the fact that the regional centre was involved in outreach. As a result of that, we got into conversations and they asked if they could put my name forward to the board.

Mr Frankford: Do you have any thoughts at this stage, and I know it may be difficult, of what you would like to do on the cancer agency?

Ms Shamley: From the little that I know of it, not having been part of it, the things that interest me most are the planning aspects and the whole role of being in touch with the local communities and somehow involving them in the provincial agencies as well so that they feel equal partners.

Mr Frankford: Would that involve any sort of treatment that I think is traditionally associated with a cancer institute? Would you go further into things like palliative care and terminal care, or is that outside the mandate?

Ms Shamley: I'm not sure, not having been part of it, but I understand that the foundation is responsible for diagnosis and treatment and planning and research. My involvement at the local level was around chemotherapy being offered in the community hospital, in sort of an ongoing attempt to have that happen, and I thought that was really quite exciting.

Mr Frankford: In these positions, were you involved in research or did you sort of become aware of the potential for research and perhaps community-based research?

Ms Shamley: I've become aware of the fact that you have to have research, you have to have a clinical base and you have to have the academic base as well, but it has to be very closely in touch, it seems to me, with what people feel they need and they have to be part of the research as well, it seems to me, and the results of the research. So it's not something that's ethereal; it has to be something that's grounded in the local communities.

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The Chair: Mr Waters, do you have anything, to move on?

Mr Waters: I believe actually it's in my colleague's riding just north of me where they've moved some of the therapy into Parry Sound, working out of the Sudbury hospital, because there's a cancer centre there. I would wonder, are you in favour of that type of thing where we can do it so that patients can indeed take their chemotherapy at home, or do you feel that the larger centres are the places to do these things?

Ms Shamley: I think it needs both. I think where it is possible to have therapy offered close to people's homes, then I think that's important, but I think there must be situations in which people would have to travel to a regional centre and we just have to make that as easy as possible.

The Chair: Mr Cleary, do you have any questions?

Mr Cleary: Yes, thank you, Mr Chairman. Welcome to the committee. I see by the information we have that you've really been involved in a number of committees. I even see here where you've been on a municipal council.

Ms Shamley: Yes.

Mr Cleary: I guess the question that I might have for you is, the funding that you get to be able to carry on the duties that are expected of you, do you think that's sufficient?

Ms Shamley: I think expenses have usually been paid in the situations in which I've worked as a volunteer, and I think, yes.

Mr Cleary: Yes, but the amount of money that -- I don't know whether these figures are right, I imagine they're right -- the provincial government gives you to operate your committee. It said, "The foundation primary sources of funding by the Ministry of Health." Do you think those figures are sufficient or are you familiar with them?

Ms Shamley: No, I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with those figures.

Mr Cleary: Okay. We hear a lot about increases in cancer in a number of areas, and I guess with the experience that you have on all the committees you've sat on, do you think a lot of that could be prevented and would that be the direction you'd like to go in?

Ms Shamley: I'm not sure what the figures might be in terms of prevention, but I think that's one whole aspect in health that has to receive its fair share. Prevention certainly has to have one; treatment, research. I think all of those areas have to be addressed, not treatment alone.

The Chair: Mr Villeneuve.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much for being here this afternoon. You are a consultant; a consultant in the health care delivery, or just what sort of consulting do you do?

Ms Shamley: I'm a consultant in mediation, negotiation, strategic planning. My special area of expertise is in health care but I get into other areas as well, whenever there's a situation that needs mediation.

Mr Villeneuve: Like ONA?

Ms Shamley: I don't do labour mediations as much, no.

Mr Villeneuve: Could you just name a couple of your client groups?

Ms Shamley: Non-profit organizations that are going through difficulties in their organizations, for instance, might call me in to work them through a problem. On occasion I've been called in to a situation where there's been a personality difficulty and they've simply called me in to see if we could mediate an agreement. In one case I was called in, it was health-related, some home support workers had run into difficulty with a particular client and both parties asked me if I could help them reach a solution, an agreement. It's that kind of situation.

Mr Villeneuve: That gives us an idea of your particular consulting business. You have a very impressive résumé. Mediation and politics sometimes go quite well together and sometimes they don't, but politicians have to be mediators and negotiators. As you see the hospital structure today, with the nursing profession and quite a few of the health service providers mandated to negotiate and not strike, are you in agreement with that?

Ms Shamley: I think, given the kinds of situations that we're operating in financially and economically, we need to be able to reach agreements that are mutually satisfying. That means both employees and employers have to come up with solutions that are long-lasting. That requires a lot of work and energy and I think it has to get us beyond the sort of win-lose situation we've been in.

Mr Villeneuve: Cancer treatment has been very high profile since Terry Fox and Steve Fonyo and many others and many billions of dollars have been expended. Do you feel that basically these dollars are going to the root of the problem or are there too many peripheral areas that may be siphoning some of this money and maybe not quite enough of it is going to research? Have you looked into that at all?

Ms Shamley: No, I haven't, but I would expect that would be one of the jobs that this particular organization was to be looking at continually.

Mr Villeneuve: I'm sure you will be a member of the cancer board. Do you have specific targets in mind? There are cancer drives continuously and certainly we all support them very much, because the big C is a major killer. Do you have any target areas, let's say, that if you were told that 60% of the money that is donated by volunteers, by donors to a particular cancer drive -- I think April is Cancer Month -- are you familiar with the percentage of the dollars that are actually received go to actual research and how much goes to other things? Are you to some degree familiar with that?

Ms Shamley: No, I'm not, but I would be looking for a balance. I would be looking for evaluation mechanisms to make sure that what is going on is evaluated regularly.

Mr Villeneuve: I think you bring a wealth of experience to the board. Certainly, I personally will be watching, having had ever so short an opportunity to meet you here. I think it would be great, Mr Chair, if we could bring someone like our appointee in waiting to the board back in a year or two to explain some of the frustrations that you may have had and some of the wins. We as politicians know a lot about frustrations, we sometimes know a little about winning, now and again, but it's not always win-win, as it will be with your board. I like your philosophy and we look forward to your being a very positive addition to that board.

The Chair: Fine. That concludes your appearance here today. I'll echo what Mr Villeneuve said and wish you well. All the luck in the world and hopefully you'll enjoy these new responsibilities. Thanks very much.

CARMER J. SWEICA

The Chair: Our final witness is Carmer J. Sweica. How did I do on that?

Mr Carmer J. Sweica: Pretty close. Sweica as in pizza. That what I tell them.

The Chair: Sweica as in pizza. Mr Sweica is an intended appointee as a member of the Workplace Health and Safety Agency. It's a half-hour review. Would you like to say anything before we kick off the questions?

Mr Sweica: No, I'm open to questions.

The Chair: Mr Villeneuve, would you like to begin.

Mr Villeneuve: You bring some very impressive credentials. Your involvement with the Workplace Health and Safety Agency will be requiring you to make some decisions as the problems come forth. Do you have any particular goals you would like to see as a member of this health and safety agency?

Mr Sweica: Being sort of the new guy on the block, I haven't really thought about it, but as far as I'm concerned, my goal is to see that the workplace becomes as safe as possible, no matter where it is, because goodness knows, we've got enough injuries coming through the system and I'm aware of those through the Workers' Compensation Board. You're never going to eliminate it, but the better we can become in that area, the better it's going to be for everybody and for the province.

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Mr Villeneuve: You've been in management for quite a number of years. I gather you've been in management pretty well all of your career.

Mr Sweica: Yes.

Mr Villeneuve: How do you feel about the relationship between management and employees? Maybe you could explain to us what Lackie Bros does.

Mr Sweica: We were multifaced in the sense that we had transportation, we had industrial contracting and also we had a manufacturing facility. In the manufacturing facility, we did have a joint health and safety committee, which I was on, and of course I worked with the employees that way. It was a healthy relationship.

Mr Villeneuve: So you see nothing but some positives here, and your experience from the management end of things coming on to this board, then, would possibly strengthen the liaison between management and the working group. Do you have specific mechanical ways of getting things to occur at the board level?

Mr Sweica: I have not had experience as yet, but I've had that experience at the Workers' Compensation Board, and labour and management seemed to work together. I feel I sort of have labour on my side. In other words, we're approaching a subject together, and the interest of both parties is to resolve the situation, no matter what it is.

Mr Villeneuve: In my constituency, we often now have the employer attending an appeal by an injured worker to present the other side of the scenario. There are always many sides, certainly more than two sides, when we have an appeal that goes to the WCB. What has your experience been as part of management when you've had an injured worker who possibly felt that he or she was not being dealt fairly with by the WCB? Have you been supportive? Have you been, in certain instances, on the other side? Why have you seen fit to do this?

Mr Sweica: On a number of occasions, I've been at those hearings, the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal hearings that you're talking about, supporting the worker because I didn't think the worker was getting a fair shake by the compensation board over different things. So I was there to support him, and that's management.

Mr Villeneuve: As manager, have you ever been on the other side?

Mr Sweica: Oh, I've been on the other side as well.

Mr Villeneuve: As manager, you pretty well decide from the information that you have, medical information etc, "Yes, this is a legitimate claim," or, "No, this may not be a legitimate claim," and you've been there to express your opinions as management in whatever the dispute was.

Mr Sweica: Yes, and concerns.

Mr Villeneuve: I appreciate that.

Mr Sweica: And trying to be fair to both sides; it's not been a process of being frivolous at all. I thought there were some real issues to be discussed, and that's why I went.

Mr Waters: You're a person who has experience with WCB. I think the intent of the agency was to cut the costs of WCB, cut the number of accidents, cut the pain and suffering for the employee and cut the cost to the employer. Working through the agency with a bipartite committee, do you see that as a possibility, that indeed eventually it's a win-win situation for everyone?

Mr Sweica: Oh, definitely. Nobody wants to see any workers injured at all, because it's of no benefit to the employer or to the worker. The worker's the one who seems to suffer the most rather than the employer.

Mr Waters: Much has been said about the bipartite head, and that's what everybody would like to get at. Although it's at this point probably a bit of head-butting, or there has been in the past, how long do you think before we get beyond this and get down to the ultimate job, which is the safer workplace? Do you think it's something that will ever resolve to any extent?

Mr Sweica: Well, you're going to have your differences; let's face it. I've worked with a labour-management group with the central Ontario chapter of the construction safety association for quite a number of years, as I think you'll see in the CV, and we were able to resolve problems. Sure you'll fight within the group, as you people probably do too, but we seemed to come out with a consensus on many matters. With the new board, as it's presently structured from the management side, I can see that there's going to be some improvements over the past. Mind you, we're second in line, because the first group was just initiating the stages, but I think it's going to work, and we're committed to that. At least, I am.

Mr Waters: Thank you.

Mr Sweica: You're welcome.

The Chair: Anything else from the government members? Mr Cleary, do you have any questions?

Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee, sir. I see by what we have in your curriculum here that your work experience goes back to 1949. You must have seen quite a change in the health and safety workplace over those years.

Mr Sweica: Oh, definitely, yes.

Mr Cleary: I guess my question to you would be, with the experience that you have, what would be your aim once you start your new position?

Mr Sweica: Number one is to make the system work. I guess in finance you call it zero budgeting. I guess you can call it a zero injury frequency type of thing. It's utopia, I think. There's always going to be injuries, but our aim, and my aim, is to get this down as low as possible, especially when you consider that yearly in Ontario, there's over 400,000 claims that come in to the Workers' Compensation Board on injuries. Mind you, some of them aren't critical or anything of that nature, but they're still injuries. If we can cut that down and continually cut it down, I think it's good for everybody.

Mr Offer: I know you recognize the tremendous challenges before you and before this agency. I guess my questions are on the basis that we are all aware what happened to the agency. In the past four or five months, a number of the management representatives have resigned, and I think it's clear that they are alleging that there was an interference that required them to resign. I think they're saying that there was an interference in the bipartite operation of the agency. I would imagine that you're here as a prospective representative of the management side of the agency?

Mr Sweica: Correct.

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Mr Offer: Are you aware of the difficulties that the agency has not too recently gone through?

Mr Sweica: I'm very aware of it. You'd have to be blind if you weren't.

Mr Offer: In dealing with your particular application, could you maybe shed some light as to the proposal for candidates for the management side? I understand that the ministry itself was considering putting forward candidates to represent the management side of the agency, and I'm wondering if you could share with us whether, to your knowledge, you were from the ministry candidacy side and whether the management advisory committee has reviewed your position?

Mr Sweica: I know that MAC has reviewed it. I don't know who put my name down.

Mr Offer: I wonder if you could give me your opinion as to whether the work that goes on within the agency should be more open to public -- maybe the word "scrutiny" might be a tad harsh, but rather, more for the public to view.

Mr Sweica: How would you propose that? I can't understand the question.

Mr Offer: I know there is a certain issue around confidentiality within the agency and there is a thought that this confidentiality was taken to such an extreme that it has in fact eroded the bipartite, hopefully consensual way in which decisions can be made. There is a view that with opening up the process, one can hopefully recover from the problems of the past and move towards some of the hopes of the future. I'm wondering if you might have any opinion on that.

Mr Sweica: What the management side is now saying is, "We want a proper consultation process," and in a proper consultation process, you immediately open it up to your clients, to whomever you want. Being in a similar situation or mode in workers' compensation, we would go to the consultation people with the understanding that there is confidential material on the table, and that's as far as it's to go. We want input and all kinds of information to flow in to us on certain issues or topics so that we can make a decision that's wide open in that sense. In essence, I guess through that process we're becoming more open and confidentiality is lessened, but there is a confidentiality process or policy in the board.

Mr Offer: Can I ask your thoughts on the type of distance there should be between the agency and the Ministry of Labour? I ask the question because, again, I can't help but remember why management representatives, many extremely qualified as yourself, felt obliged to step down.

Mr Sweica: You know most of them, too.

Mr Offer: I believe they were concerned with the activities of the ministry in the agency. I guess the question is, is there a concern for yourself of the Ministry of Labour becoming too close to this agency and in fact providing potentially a barrier to the agency doing the work it's supposed to do?

Mr Sweica: I don't think they're providing a barrier. I think we should work with the ministry, because we have resources at the ministry that we can call on. Obviously, the way it's structured through Bill 208, we still have to report to the minister, but we're keeping him cognizant of what's going on in the agency so that he's aware of it.

Mr Offer: Is there further time?

The Chair: You've got a couple of minutes left.

Mr Offer: Thank you. On the issue of bipartisanship, do you believe bipartisanship can work? The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour chuckles, and I can full well understand why.

Ms Sharon Murdock (Sudbury): Coming from you, I can understand.

Mr Offer: However, there's a concern about the imposition of votes and whether voting in the agency should be a mechanism of first resort or of last resort. I'd like to get your thoughts on that.

Mr Sweica: The process we have, as you probably know or may not know, is consensus. It's only on, I guess, a major matter that we'll come to a vote, but all our board meetings are based on consensus and it can work.

Mr Offer: There has been some concern over the certification program which had been instituted, the hours and things of this nature. In your opinion, is that an issue which has now been decided and you'll move on to others, or should it be potentially revisited?

Mr Sweica: I don't think it should be revisited. I think all parties are now cognizant of, say, for example, the hours and, of course, other things are being developed around this core certification, like the criteria, evaluation. But it's all becoming part of that particular program. So I think it's going to be clarified and has been clarified.

Mr Offer: Just as a final question --

The Chair: I'm sorry, you've exhausted your opportunities.

Mr Offer: That was my final question, then.

The Chair: Mr Sweica, thank you very much. We appreciate you appearing here today.

Mr Sweica: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Someone will be letting you know the outcome very shortly. In fact, if you want to stick around for a few minutes, you'll find out first hand.

Mr Sweica: How long will it take you?

The Chair: As the final matter of business, we require a motion to concur with the intended appointments reviewed today. Mr Wiseman moves that motion? Any discussion on the motion? All in favour? Opposed? Seeing none, the motion is carried. Meeting adjourned. See you tomorrow.

The committee adjourned at 1527.