Chair /
Président
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex L)
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines L)
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex L)
Mr Bert Johnson (Perth-Middlesex PC)
Mr Morley Kells (Etobicoke-Lakeshore PC)
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie ND)
Mr George Smitherman (Toronto Centre-Rosedale /
Toronto-Centre-Rosedale L)
Mr Joseph Spina (Brampton Centre / -Centre PC)
Mr Bob Wood (London West / -Ouest PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands / Kingston et les
îles L)
Clerk / Greffier
Mr Douglas Arnott
Staff / Personnel
Mr David Pond, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1002 in room 228.
ELECTION OF CHAIR
Clerk of the
Committee (Mr Douglas Arnott): Honourable members, good
morning. It is my duty to call upon you to elect one of your
number as Chair of the committee. Are there any nominations,
please?
Mr Bob Wood (London
West): Mr Clerk, I nominate Jim Bradley as Chair of the
committee.
Clerk of the
Committee: Are there any further nominations,
please?
Mr Bert Johnson
(Perth-Middlesex): I move that nominations be
closed.
Clerk of the
Committee: There being no further nominations, I declare
Mr Bradley duly elected Chair of the government agencies
committee.
The Chair (Mr James
J. Bradley): Thank you very much, members of the
committee, for your kindness in nominating me-I may regret after
a while saying "kindness"-and your kindness in electing me as
Chair of the committee.
ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIR
The Chair:
Our next order of business is election of a Vice-Chair of the
committee. Do we have nominations for the position of
Vice-Chair?
Mr John Gerretsen
(Kingston and the Islands): Mr Chair, I'd like to
nominate Mr Crozier as Vice-Chair.
The Chair:
Mr Crozier's name is placed in nomination.
Mr Johnson:
I move that nominations be closed.
The Chair:
All in favour of closing nominations? Nominations are closed. The
Vice-Chair is Mr Crozier.
APPOINTMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE
The Chair:
We also have the business of the appointment of a subcommittee on
committee business. The subcommittee deals with matters related
to upcoming business and makes all the important decisions, I'm
told, on a committee of this kind.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault
Ste Marie): I move that a subcommittee on committee
business be appointed to meet from time to time at the call of
the Chair, or at the request of any member thereof, to consider
and report to the committee on the business of the committee;
that the presence of all members of the subcommittee is necessary
to constitute a meeting; and that the subcommittee be composed of
the following members: the Chair as Chair, Mr Wood, Mr Crozier
and Mr Martin; and that substitution be permitted on the
subcommittee.
The Chair:
You have heard the motion. Any discussion on the motion?
Mr Joseph Spina
(Brampton Centre): I'm sorry, I missed the name of the
third person.
Mr Martin:
Mr Martin.
The Chair:
Any discussion? We'll put the motion to the committee, then. All
in favour? Opposed? The motion is carried.
I'm told there are some of us
who have not served on committees frequently. Certain changes
have taken place in the rules of the Legislature that may impact
upon the committee. The clerk of the committee has suggested that
there may be a time two weeks from today where we might be
briefed on those changes and how they might impact on the
committee, and any other matters that might relate to our
procedures.
In addition to that, Mr Wood,
you had informally before the meeting talked about how the
committee had worked in the past and whether it was satisfactory
to continue to work in that fashion. Any discussion of that
matter?
Mr Wood: I
think the subcommittee is going to meet after this meeting and
will have a report to the next meeting of the committee, which
may well involve some suggestions as to rules and how things
should function. I don't know whether a briefing is necessary or
just a memo that we might then simply ask questions on. Maybe
that's a more efficient way of dealing with the question of
bringing all the members up to date.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Wood. That sounds like a good suggestion. If we
were to have that written material for us, certainly any
questions arising from that could be dealt with at a future
meeting of the committee, probably at the earliest opportunity.
That is a very good suggestion that the subcommittee will
certainly look at carefully.
Is there any other business
this morning for the committee on government agencies?
Mr Martin:
I'm just wondering if maybe the government members would inform
us of when they propose to start bringing some of these
appointments forward. It's been since April 29 that we've had any
vetting of appointments by
this government. There have been one or two people appointed, I
think, since then and I'm wondering if we might expect that
there'll be some appointments early next week, perhaps.
The Chair:
First of all, I'll go to the clerk of the committee to have any
comment on how this might be transpiring, and then if any
government members have a comment, I'll ask for it.
Clerk of the
Committee: I have not received, and understand there
have not been, certificates tabled with the Clerk of the House,
with the committee, for some time. I understand that there may be
certificates coming forward soon.
The Chair:
Is there a government member of the committee who might be able
to assist us in this at this time, or not?
Mr Wood:
Since there was no committee until a few days ago, of course,
there was no committee to submit appointments to. My
understanding of the rules is that appointments must be submitted
to the committee now that it's constituted, otherwise they can't
be submitted to the Lieutenant Governor for a signature. As soon
as the cabinet starts to make appointments, if they want to have
them signed, they're going to have to submit them to
committee.
1010
Mr
Gerretsen: I think the point that Mr Martin made is a
very valid one, though. Appointments have been made over the last
six months. We've read about these appointments in the newspaper.
Some of them have been of a very partisan nature on all sides.
Surely to goodness it would be incumbent upon the government
members to undertake to this committee that by the next committee
meeting they will have a complete list of all those people who
are seeking appointments and whom the cabinet intends to appoint.
Can we not get that undertaking?
I have never been on a
committee yet in my four years here that has four such senior
members of the government caucus as this committee has. We have
an eminent lawyer from the London area, Mr Wood; we have the
Olympic commissioner here in Mr Kells; we have Mr Bert Johnson
here, who is the Deputy Speaker of the House; we have Mr Joe
Spina here, who we all know was born in Sault Ste Marie and has
carried on an illustrious career here in the Metro area. Surely
these four highly influential members can give an undertaking to
this committee to bring forward at the next committee meeting the
names of people the government intends to appoint.
Mr Martin: I
was wondering if it wouldn't be appropriate for the government to
present to us a list of the appointments since April 29. We might
pick one or two to bring before the committee and have a little
chit-chat with them to see what's been going on to try to
determine if in fact, as has been inferred, a little bit of
patronage has been happening and if that has been appropriate; or
has it been more than other times, or are there people on this
list who perhaps have slipped by who maybe shouldn't be sitting
on some of these boards and commissions? We might be able to give
some direction to the government around some of that. Is that an
appropriate thing to ask or is it out of order?
The Chair:
First of all, I'll ask for a response from the government
members, if they have a response at this time. They may be able
to help us out in this regard.
Mr Wood: The
standing orders permit us to deal only with what is submitted to
us. As a committee, we can't do anything more. If you want to
consider ones prior to this time, that's a matter the House would
have to do by resolution. I think that's a point you may wish to
take up with your House leader and have him take it up with all
the House leaders. The committee in and of itself can't do what
we lack the jurisdiction to do. The House has got to authorize
that by resolution, as indeed, as I recall, was done four years
ago. Whether it's appropriate this time is a matter for the House
to decide.
Mr Spina:
That's in line with my thoughts. The objective of the committee
is to vet up-and-coming appointments. It's our responsibility, as
members of this committee, to draw out any of those recommended
appointments to authorize or challenge as we see fit. What is
historical, I think, is actually beyond the mandate of this
committee, and I think it would fall within the scope of the
Legislature itself to change that.
If the opposition members
wanted the list of appointees, I don't think that's a difficult
problem. I'm sure the appointments office would be happy to
provide that to them. To debate that at this point would really
be rhetorical.
The Chair:
Mr Kells, did you have a comment?
Mr Kells: I
think my colleagues have expressed where we stand. I don't
believe there's any debate required until we get into our normal
routine, which is coming right on our heels.
The Chair:
Mr Wood has helped us out, first of all, with the legal process
we must follow, apparently, and the clerk confirms that it is
indeed the case that a resolution of the House would be necessary
to look at appointments that have already taken place. Mr Wood
has also helped us out by letting us know that has already been
done; there is a precedent for that.
I would anticipate, from Mr
Spina's comments, that the government would be very co-operative
in providing a list of appointments that have been made since the
last time this committee sat. It's a public document and they
would be, no doubt, happy to do that.
Mr Martin, did you have a
further comment?
Mr Martin:
I'm really appreciative of the Chair's clarification of all that.
That helps me to understand where I need to go if we indeed
decide to follow up on it.
The Chair:
So the opposition party representatives who wish to see this
matter pursued then, as Mr Wood has recommended, will go to their
respective House leaders to have this discussed at the House
leaders' meeting and a resolution to conclude that meeting, while
it'll certainly be in the hands of the House, whether they
believe that the committee should deal with those matters. I think that was very
helpful, Mr Wood. Thank you for your assistance in that
regard.
Any other business to come
before the committee?
Mr
Gerretsen: I just want to respond very briefly to what
Mr Spina had to say, that in effect we could just get a list of
the appointments that were made from the appointments
secretariat. Perhaps Mr Spina is not aware of the fact that at
times, as an opposition member, you don't quite get those lists
as quickly perhaps as a government member does. Just in case we
are not able to get those lists, will Mr Spina undertake to get
them for us in short order?
The Chair:
I've always known Mr Spina to be a most co-operative individual,
but I'll let him speak for himself.
Mr Spina:
The irony is that these appointments are a matter of public
record. Quite honestly, to be straightforward with you, Mr
Gerretsen, I found out about many of these appointments, as you
did, in the newspaper. Whether it was a former member of the
government or a former member of the opposition who received an
appointment, such as Mr Miclash or Mr North, I found about these
as you did. As a matter of public record, if the committee was
requesting to see that list, I'm sure it's within the scope of
the Chair to ask the secretariat to provide that list of
appointments that have been made, purely for information
purposes, because obviously it's not within our mandate to debate
those appointments.
Mr
Gerretsen: I have a follow-up question. Does he think
it's appropriate for a government member not to be provided with
that information before he reads about it in the paper? Should
he, as a government member, not have access to the name of
whoever is appointed, rather than finding it out that way? I'm
sure he'll agree with me that that is not appropriate and that he
should have found out in a different way than the way the
opposition members find out, by reading it in the papers. Do you
agree with that, Mr Spina?
The Chair:
You have to direct any questions through the Chair. If Mr Spina
wishes to respond, he will; if he doesn't, he will not. Mr
Martin?
Mr Martin: I
don't know, maybe others aren't interested in this, but would
there possibly be some of the documentation that went with some
of the applications that came forward for these positions: their
resumés, why they qualified, why the decision was made to
pick them, say, over somebody else, or would that be jumping the
gun a bit? Maybe we should have that in with people we might call
forward. I just think it would be interesting to know why some of
these folks got appointed, what their qualifications are, so that
we're all comfortable and satisfied that they are actually going
to do a good job for the people of Ontario.
The Chair: I
will ask Mr Wood to respond to that.
Mr Wood: I
think the member will find that full and complete information
will be provided and, obviously, after he sees that, if he feels
he needs more, he's entitled to ask. But I think he'll find it to
be quite helpful when he gets it.
The Chair:
Mr Clerk, anything to add to that? What you were addressing in
terms of appointments that have already been made, which may or
may not come before this committee as a result of action taken in
the House-would the committee receive that information only if
that resolution were to pass in the House? I guess that is my
question.
Clerk of the
Committee: I don't know what material will be
forthcoming in the way of a list or provision of information.
The Chair:
This may be a matter as well that the subcommittee may wish to
discuss, but I certainly understand what the member for Sault Ste
Marie, Mr Martin, is saying. It appears that the obligation would
not be there on the government to provide the information-I'm
talking about an obligation now as opposed to their own
volition-that Mr Martin has suggested unless there is a
resolution of the House that this committee deal with those
appointments. Other than that, it would have to be done, perhaps,
outside the purview of this committee or you may try a motion
before the committee. But it would appear that it would be of
their own volition that they would provide that information, that
unless this committee is dealing-I'm just talking about the
committee now-with those specific appointments, the government
may not be obligated to provide that information.
Mr Martin:
Perhaps we can talk about it further in the subcommittee. If we
resolve it there, we can bring it back to the committee and ask
for further input.
The Chair:
Any other comments or business to come before the committee?
Mr Wood: I
move adjournment, Mr Chair.
The Chair:
Mr Wood has moved adjournment of the committee. All in favour of
the motion? It is carried.
