Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The committee met at 1400 in committee room 151.

The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Valerie Quioc Lim): Good afternoon, honourable members. In the absence of the Chair and Vice-Chair, it is my duty to call upon you to elect an Acting Chair. Are there any nominations? Mr. Hatfield.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Thank you. I would like to place in nomination the name of the member from Welland, Ms. Forster, to be Acting Chair this afternoon.

The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Valerie Quioc Lim): Okay. Ms. Forster, do you accept the nomination?

Ms. Cindy Forster: Sure. Yes.

The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Valerie Quioc Lim): Are there any further nominations? There being no further nominations, I declare the nominations closed and Ms. Forster duly elected Acting Chair of the committee.

Subcommittee report

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Good afternoon. The Standing Committee on Social Policy will now come to order. We are here to consider the report of the subcommittee on committee business relating to Bill 73, An Act to amend the Development Charges Act, 1997 and the Planning Act.

I understand we have a member who will read the report into the record.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Well, I could. Sure.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Rinaldi.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Thank you, Madam Chair, and congratulations. I’m sure you’ll enjoy your post, although it might be short.

Your subcommittee on committee business met on Thursday, October 22, 2015, to consider the method of proceeding on Bill 73, An Act to amend the Development Charges Act, 1997 and the Planning Act, and recommends the following:

(1) That the committee meet in Toronto on Monday, November 2, 2015, and Tuesday, November 3, 2015, during its regular meeting times, for the purpose of holding public hearings.

(2) That the committee Clerk, in consultation with the Chair, post information regarding public hearings on the Legislative Assembly website, the Ontario parliamentary channel and Canada NewsWire.

(3) That the committee Clerk, in consultation with the Chair, place an advertisement regarding public hearings in one major English-language newspaper and one French-language newspaper for one day during the week of October 26, 2015.

(4) That the committee Clerk, in consultation with the Chair, send the notice of public hearings to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario for circulation to its affiliated organizations.

(5) That interested parties who wish to be considered to make an oral presentation contact the committee Clerk by 12 noon on Wednesday, October 28, 2015.

(6) That if not all requests can be scheduled, the committee Clerk provide the subcommittee members with the list of requests to appear; and that the subcommittee members prioritize and return the list to the committee Clerk by 10 a.m. on Thursday, October 29, 2015.

(7) That the deadline for written submissions be 6 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3, 2015.

(8) That witnesses be offered four minutes for their presentation followed by six minutes for questions divided equally among the three parties.

(9) That proposed amendments to the bill be filed with the committee Clerk by 2 p.m. on Monday, October 9, 2015.

(10) That the research officer provide the committee with a summary of submissions as soon as possible and no later than 4 p.m. on Tuesday, November 12, 2015.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Thursday.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Sorry. Thursday, November 12, 2015.

(11) That the committee meet for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill on Monday, November 16, 2015, and Tuesday, November 17, 2015, during its regular meeting times.

(12) That the committee Clerk, in consultation with the Chair, be authorized prior to the adoption of the subcommittee report to commence making any preliminary arrangements necessary to facilitate the committee’s proceedings.

That’s the subcommittee report, Madam Chair.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Thanks, Mr. Rinaldi. Now, under number 9, you said, “Monday, October 9.” I’m assuming you meant November?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Absolutely. It was November. I knew it was November.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Good. Thank you. So is there any discussion, amendments? Yes, Mr. Hardeman?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I apologize for being late, but I was spending my time reading the document that we’re referring to here, the planning document that’s some 35 pages long, and realizing how much there was in it, as I was trying to compare it to the subcommittee report.

I guess the main part that I had some concerns with is that, in fact, we are asking people to come in from all over the province who we want to consult with and hear what they like or dislike or agree or disagree with, on this document. We want them to come here, and then the best we can give them is four minutes.

When this bill was introduced, the minister introduces the bill and has 20 minutes to explain to the public, in broad strokes, what’s in the bill. When he gets through with that, each opposition critic gets five minutes to speak to the bill that they haven’t even read yet.

Now we’re saying that the people who are going to be affected by this bill, who have spent at least the last five or six months that this bill has been out there, languishing in the wading pool for the government to get around to bringing it forward at this committee—we ask these people, who have spent all this time doing all this review—they’re going to condense that into four minutes to make a presentation to us. Then each party is going to have two minutes to ask them any questions they may have. So in fact, even at that point, we are going to expect more time for us to speak to this bill than for the people presenting.

I can just see the president of AMO, representing 448 municipalities, I think it is, coming here to express all the concerns that they’ve heard from their membership in this past five or six months, and they come here and say, “Well, we really appreciate all the work you’ve done, and all those reports, but just leave us the written report, because we really haven’t got time to listen to you.”

I think this is just absurd. This bill has been on the docket long enough that it’s evidently not the number one priority for the government. There’s no reason why an extra week or two would hurt the program of the government, to have these changes put in place. In fact, some of them—I remember when the bill was first introduced, and particularly the part about changing the OMB. I can remember, in my five minutes that I had to speak to the bill, referring to the fact that the minister had, in his mandate letter—the Premier had given him instructions that he was to hold public hearings, and review and change the Ontario Municipal Board.

I said, “Well, it seems kind of strange that you’re still doing that review, and here you’ve got the bill making the changes already.”

He said, “That’s okay, because the review isn’t finished, but as this bill is going through, we can do that review.”

All these people—the building industry, the planning industry and the municipalities—are all doing that. They’re doing their work. They’re reviewing what’s here, they’re looking at it, and they’re going to present to us as we move forward and before we make the amendments and bring it back to the government for third reading. But this committee is suggesting they don’t want to hear from them. Four minutes, to say, “Good morning. How are you? I’m the president, and this is the secretary with me, and there are two more mayors here with me, and they’re from here, here and here.” The Chair says, “Time’s up,” and that’s all we hear from the average delegation.

I’ve been here quite a number of years, and I don’t think I’ve ever, ever had public consultation with four minutes for the organizations to make a presentation. It has always been 20 minutes for the general-public individuals. It’s usually 25 minutes or half an hour for delegations from AMO or the home builders’ association or organizations like that. I just can’t imagine that the subcommittee would think that four minutes per presenter is appropriate.

Of course, when you look at that, if we’re looking at changing the four minutes—and I can see already that I’m getting some nodding from the government side that they too agree that this is rather ridiculous for four minutes.

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Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Who’s doing that? He’s seeing things, Madam Chair.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I just want to say: I think I’ve already used the time it would take both AMO and the building industry to have made their presentations to this bill, and look how little I’ve been able to say so far.

I think that’s really the important part of it: that we need to give the people an opportunity to speak, and this report does not provide that opportunity. That’s why I’m so happy to be able to be here—I wasn’t able to be at the subcommittee—on behalf of the stakeholders that I’m critic for and responsible for, to see if we can’t be reasonable about it and get some reasonable length of time for people to be heard.

For 34 pages of legislation that everybody, including the minister, when he introduced it, said was very important legislation—it was long time that we did this, and we made it work better. I would think that we, at the very least, deserve to give them a little more time.

I understand that the government might be interested in increasing the time for the individual at the expense of the number of individuals we can hear. That, to me, is a non-starter. To say, “Yes, we will hear more from some people, but there are some more people we’re not going to hear from at all,” doesn’t make any sense at all.

My suggestion is that we need to increase the number of hours that we’re going to have committee hearings to hear that. Just maybe, Madam Chair, you can help me with this. If we just go back over the last six weeks of this committee and find out if there’s anything collectively, any single item, in that time that you did that had more impact on the people of Ontario than this bill is going to have, I believe you’d be hard-pressed to find that.

I don’t know why all of a sudden we think we have to have this one done in two weeks when for others we couldn’t even get around to have a subcommittee to tell us to get the meeting going. There have a lot of committees that haven’t been holding hearings at all for some time now because they just can’t seem to get the others to agree on which bill they’re going to hear and how much time they’re going to spend on it.

I just find it unbelievable, I guess is the right word for it, that we would come forward with a subcommittee report that is so limited in public participation. We might better have just had a subcommittee report to refer it back to the House for passing, because it doesn’t seem to me like—unless they have in mind one or two amendments or some amendments, since they’ve read it, that they feel that should be changed; I can’t see another reason. The timing of the subcommittee report will not allow them, even with four minutes of input, to have time enough to go through the system to have the amendments come before you for final approval, consideration for which will have included the presentations that we’ve had from the delegations. I just don’t believe that we can move forward with that.

I do have an amendment that I would like to put forward to see if we can maybe start the process of making this a process that is going to serve the public, at least to some extent.

On point one, I would like to add: “Monday, November 16 and, if required, Tuesday, November 17.”

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Do you have these in writing, Mr. Hardeman?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I just have one copy here.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): You’ll read it in and then we’ll stop and get a copy.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Yes. So then the full section would read, “That the committee meet in Toronto on Monday, November 2, 2015, Tuesday, November 3, 2015, Monday, November 16 and, if required, Tuesday, November 17 during its regular meeting times for the purpose of holding public hearings.”

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Is that your entire amendment?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: That’s that amendment, yes.

Mrs. Gila Martow: Number one.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Number one. Do you have any more amendments?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Yes.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Is there any discussion on this amendment? Mr. Rinaldi?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Madam Chair, just a bit of clarification in the process, and maybe the Clerk can help us. Mr. Hardeman did a presentation and introduced amendments. Do we respond? I want to clarify some of the issues that he brought forward prior to the amendment. Or do we deal with the amendments first?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Now that the amendment is on the floor, we have to speak to the amendment, but certainly, you can address them. It’s your time, right? So you can address the amendment as well as whatever else you want, to respond to Mr. Hardeman.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: He indicates he has got more amendments. Are we going to proceed with all the amendments first, or one at a time?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: One at a time.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: I’m just curious. Is that the case?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): One at a time is what—

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: You can’t put more than one amendment on the floor at the same time.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Okay. I wasn’t aware of that.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): The Clerk is getting us copies of the amendment now. Mr. Hatfield was next on the list, and then I’ll move to you.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Thank you.

The Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hatfield?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the member from Oxford has made some very good points.

Let me correct one thing he did say, though: There are 444 municipalities represented by AMO. I think you said 448.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I was trying to embellish it a little.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Yes. That’s okay.

I would like, before we proceed too far—although it may be not in the technical sense of how we have to do our business—if the member from Oxford could give us an understanding of the other amendments.

Madam Chair, the way I see it, we’re being asked to vote on extending the days. I’m just speculating that one of the amendments will be more time for the delegations to make a presentation, which perhaps should have been the first amendment. If you decide to increase the days but you decide not to increase their time, or you decide not to increase the days but you vote to increase their time, I see one as not complementing the other.

So if we can get from Mr. Hardeman, perhaps, an idea of where he’s going with this, because although we have to deal with amendments one by one, if we don’t know what the other ones are, it’s going to have an impact on how we vote on the first one.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hardeman, could you maybe share that with the committee?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Yes. I can assure you that the intent of the first resolution is to have more time to have hearings, and at the same time, we would then be able to have more time per delegation.

The challenge in doing it the other way, as was suggested there, is the fact that if we had the time one first and increased it to 20 minutes, and then this one failed, then in fact, we would hear from only half or a third of the people that were wanting to speak here. Hearing more from fewer people is not the intent of this. We wanted to do it such that the number one issue is how long the committee will sit to hear. That’s why that’s the first one on the list.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Are there only two amendments?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: No, there are a couple of others, but most of them lead to the same purpose as what we’re talking about here: to get the timing right, so it fits in. When you add two days, all the other dates have to be somewhat moved in the subcommittee report.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I’m still not satisfied that we can vote on one, not knowing what the other ones are, as opposed to knowing what they all are and then seeing if they fit as a puzzle or as a package.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I have no problem with having the others printed. Hopefully, they were covered on the same page.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Maybe we can do that while Mr. Rinaldi is speaking to the amendment. We can have the other ones printed, so we can at least have a look at them.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: I’m in the same process as Mr. Hatfield. I mean, either we have an open agenda, or we deal with it piecemeal. Anyway, I will speak to some of the member’s—and his amendment.

I’m not going to segregate it into little pieces. I’ll just speak in general about what we’re trying to do here.

We’ve had second reading debate. There has been a number, whether it’s municipal leaders—a lot of them are municipal leaders—speak to the minister that we’ve heard from on the composition of the bill. There has been an enormous amount of discussion with AMO on this particular bill. They’re aware, so it’s not something new that they’re just going to get two minutes to look at. As a matter of fact, they have been sending stuff to the ministry on an ongoing basis.

I think the member has suggested that, you know, it’s four minutes, and we get a lot more submissions but not as substantive.

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Like I say, as PA, I can verify that we’ve heard from a number of people. The other piece is, people have the opportunity to give us—because even if they have 10 minutes, I’m not sure they can capture, in many cases, all of what they want to talk to us about. In many cases, they follow up by written submission or they leave a document with us here, for all of us to look at and assess.

The member specifically pointed out that he has never heard of this before. Well, I would hope that the member remembers, when he was in power, in many cases there were no consultations. So there were no—

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Come on, Lou.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Ernie, you know it—

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Stick to the facts.

Mr. Vic Dhillon: Ernie, you forgot.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: He forgot.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Order. Mr. Rinaldi has the floor.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: All I’m saying is, it’s kind of: “You know, it was okay then but it’s not okay now.” But I don’t want to use that as a reason, Madam Chair. I just pointed that out because he did point it out to this side, to the government side.

I think the subcommittee worked on this. They came up with these dates. We’ll try to accommodate as many people as we can.

The other piece is, I think the subcommittee—correct me if I’m wrong here—will have the opportunity not necessarily to bring in submissions in the order that they submit, but also have an opportunity to choose who they want to be here. All the parties have the choice to do that.

I think we’re addressing all those points. I think it’s important, frankly, that we get as many people here as we can. I can almost guarantee, in all the committees that I’ve sat on in the eight years that I was here prior, that in the majority of the cases, they leave us a substantial amount of documentation to back up their case.

The other piece is, the ministry has already had a number of inputs from the building industry, from municipalities and other interested folks, since the bill was introduced. We debated it in the House at second reading, so there has been a lot of exposure.

Madam Chair, I will suggest that we carry on with the report from the subcommittee, and let’s get this done.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hatfield.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Can I ask a question on this? In previous hearings of this nature, what was the time limit? Is there an average? Mr. Hardeman has suggested 20 minutes; other ones I’ve been at were five. How do you decide on four minutes, five, 10, 20 or whatever?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Are you asking specifically on Planning Act issues, or any issues?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I was asking too broadly, I guess, but on Planning Act issues.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Committees.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Committees, yes.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): It’s totally up to the committee, unless the House prescribes something beyond that.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: All right. But is there an experience of record that says, in previous discussions of a similar nature, the committee chose 10 minutes or they chose 20? Has anyone been limited to four?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): We don’t have that information here, but we can certainly provide it.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I think that would be good to have. I’m a new member. I haven’t been in on the decision-making process of this type. I was on the subcommittee and went along with the four minutes. I think Mr. Hardeman, from Oxford, has raised some very good points. I just don’t have the background on which to base whether four minutes is enough, and I would feel more comfortable had I that information in front of me.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Rinaldi.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: If I can, very briefly—from my experience of eight years—I was here before—the times are all over the place: five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I think Mr. Hardeman can attest to that as well.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: If I could, Madam Chair?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hardeman?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Until the last six months or a year, I had never heard of anything with five or four minutes at committee hearings in presentations in all that time that I was here before then. The debate at subcommittees was always whether it should be 15 minutes or 20 minutes, not four and five minutes. That’s just a recent thing.

I would just point out that, in fairness, I don’t believe—and I’ve been involved with municipal affairs in quite a few of those years that I’ve been here. Without checking back, I think it’s fair to say that I don’t know of a single time where we passed a significant municipal affairs bill dealing with planning or the Ontario Municipal Board that had just two days of hearings—not two full days of hearings, but two days of hearings while the House is sitting, which is, in this case, just six hours of hearings in total. Even with this government—the Liberals—when we were doing planning bills, they generally went out to the public and travelled. You only do that when the House isn’t sitting. They were all-day in different parts of the province, so the people could participate in those things that were going to affect them so much.

I just wanted to also question: The parliamentary assistant mentioned that they have been consulting and they have heard from a lot of people on the bill, between second reading and it finally getting to committee. I guess I would ask him to point out where the committee fits in there, because if he did consult with all those people, what they told him and what they said is only with him. Why are we then sitting here and discussing clause-by-clause amongst this committee, if we never got to hear any of the evidence? That’s why I think it is important to have the people able to come here and give the evidence, so that all of the committee can participate and decide what’s the best thing to do to get the best possible legislation for the people of the province, not just based on what one side of House heard during their term for consultation.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Madam Chair?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Rinaldi.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Just for clarification: As you know, once a piece of legislation is even intended to be proposed somewhere down the road, or once it’s introduced, you’ll get stakeholders or people or individuals writing to the ministry about that particular piece. We didn’t go out and, like you said, have public hearings; no, we didn’t. I just want to make sure that it was just information supplied to the minister, because they have an interest. That’s something that happens quite often.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hardeman.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I’m not casting aspersions. I understood that that’s what you meant: that, in fact, the ministry had been gathering information from individual people, not that you were holding public hearings. All I’m saying is, of the information that you’ve said you’ve gathered, that we’ve had enough debate about this. If that information is going to have any impact on this committee’s decisions on what we need to change to make this a good bill, it has to be shared by all the people on the committee. That hasn’t been done, and that’s why I think that we need more time to hear from people: so we can collectively make the best bill possible for the people of Ontario.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hatfield.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I’m wondering whether the mover of the amendment would—call it a friendly or a sub-amendment to the amendment, just a minor tweaking of the words: “That the committee meet in Toronto on Monday, November 2, 2015, and Tuesday, November 3, 2015, and, if required, based on the number of people who have initiated an interest in speaking, that we also meet on November 16 and, if required, November 17.” That way, if there is no interest expressed, there is no reason to meet.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Madam Chair, I would—

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): So are you moving—

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: It’s not part of the amendment.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): No, it’s not part of the amendment.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I would just point out that the only amendment that I’m making on that first one is where it’s “Monday, November 16, 2015, and, if required, Tuesday”—and that’s just added to it.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hatfield, you can amend the amendment with a sub-amendment. There’s no friendly amendment. Then we would have to discuss and vote on the sub-amendment.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Yes. I really don’t want to complicate matters, but I think that I can sense some opposition to the original amendment. I’m trying to find out if, perhaps, there is a compromise to say that, if required—and you know why they’re required, based on the number of submissions that have come in—we would continue those hearings after constituency week.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): So you’re not moving that?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I will move the amendment, yes.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): You’ll move a sub-amendment?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Yes, the sub-amendment.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Could you actually write that out for us, Mr. Hatfield?

So we’ll take a five-minute recess at this point until the sub-amendment is written out. We’ll copy it and then we’ll be back at 2:36.

The committee recessed from 1430 to 1444.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): All right. I’ll call the committee back to order.

Mr. Hatfield?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to inform the committee that after some deliberation, I have decided to withdraw my sub-amendment to Mr. Hardeman’s amendment.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Thank you, Mr. Hatfield. So we’re back to the amendment. Any further discussion on the amendment? Mr. Hardeman.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. There were some questions about previous deliberations on planning bills, and I mentioned that there had been a number—I couldn’t remember one where they were less than 15 or 20 minutes. I haven’t got the full report yet from all of them, but I did pass out a paper that on Bill 51 in 2006, in fact, it was this government that did that. It was a review of the Planning Act and the delegations were three days and 20 minutes per delegation. I think that’s an example. It was the same government that did it, and that seemed to be the appropriate length of time to have it.

I just wanted to read it for the committee, and for the record. It was the Chair:

“We’re at the public hearing portion of our meeting. I’d like to welcome our witnesses and tell them that they have 20 minutes to make their presentation.

“Our first delegation this morning is the Ontario Catholic school” teachers’ “association and the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association. Could you come forward?”

The reason I read that—and I think it’s so important—we talked about just the stakeholders that are directly affected by the planning process in the province. But schoolteachers, at that point—both the Catholic and the public school teachers’ associations—decided that the Planning Act was important to them too. The parliamentary assistant seems to want to insist that everybody who has an interest in it has talked to the minister or has informed the government what they would like in this legislation, but—

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Point of order, Mr. Hatfield.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Yes. I don’t want Mr. Hardeman to say anything incorrect, so I’ll point out that it’s not the “teachers’ association,” it’s the “trustees’ association.”

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Thank you, Mr. Hatfield.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: My apologies. I did read it right; I just said it wrong.

I think it’s important to point out that there are a lot of people who are affected by the items that are in this bill. Away from the planning of the province is the judicial part of the province, which is the Ontario Municipal Board. There are a lot, on both sides of the issue—there have been private members’ bills in the House by members of the Legislative Assembly that were to abolish the Ontario Municipal Board because they felt so strongly that this wasn’t doing the job that it was supposed to do. There are others who believe that the Ontario Municipal Board should have more powers. These are different groups, and these are not groups that have had an opportunity to present to this bill, because when the government was doing their, shall we say, one-on-one with the population, these were not people who knew yet about the importance of this bill to them. Now we advertise that we’re holding these public meetings so these people can come forward and speak to us about this bill, and I don’t believe that they can do it in the length of time—in four minutes. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. So I really encourage everyone to reconsider it and support this amendment.

I think what’s really important about this amendment—and it’s the first step in the amendments that I’m proposing; what the right amount of time is is in a different amendment. I think my largest concern is having the government agree to, “Well, yes, we’ll extend the time for each delegation,” but if we don’t increase the number of days that we can hold meetings, then in fact with the extra time we’ve got, we just heard, we can just give a little bit more to some of the people but we’re going to hear from fewer people. Again, I think this, in 2006, points out that there are an awful lot of people yet that we haven’t heard from who will have an interest in this bill.

So with that, I would hope that we can get support for this motion.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Any further discussion?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I would call for a 20-minute recess.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Any further discussion? Then I was going to call for the vote after that discussion.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: So we’re breaking for 20 minutes?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Well, then the member has the right to call for a 20-minute recess, under the rules, just before we vote. So if you have any further debate, you need to do it now.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: No.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Okay. A 20-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 1449 to 1509.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): I call the meeting back to order.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Chair?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Rinaldi.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: I ask for the vote.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): We have to vote first.

Interjection: We have to vote first?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Yes. There’s no further debate.

The vote is on the amendment that the committee meet in Toronto on Monday, November 2, 2015; Tuesday, November 3, 2015; Monday, November 16; and, if required, Tuesday, November 17, during its regular meeting times, for the purpose of holding public hearings.

All those in favour? Opposed?

Interjections.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): You wanted a recorded vote, did you?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Yes.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Okay.

Ayes

Hardeman, Hatfield, Martow.

Nays

Anderson, Dhillon, Mangat, Rinaldi, Thibeault.

The Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): The amendment is lost.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Chair.

The Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Rinaldi?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: I wonder if I could indulge you to about a two or three-minute break, if we have agreement.

The Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Does the committee agree?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Take five.

The Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Take five. Five minutes.

The committee recessed from 1510 to 1516.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): The meeting is called back to order. The debate on the report is now back on. Mr. Hardeman, are you going—

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: No, go ahead.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Rinaldi.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Madam Chair, I don’t quite have it written down here, but we will have it written down. My recommendation is—this is in general; I know the member opposite will correct me if I’m wrong—that, first of all, we’re going to add an extra day—I know we need an order from the House—which will be the 9th of November. I know it’s constit week, so we’ll have to get the House to approve that, but the intent is for between 2 to 6 on the 9th. The time allowed for each delegation is 15 minutes. That’s total. If there is any time left over for questions, it’s got to be within those 15 minutes.

Are you okay with that? I just got it to two minutes, but are you okay with that?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Before the vote on it, we have to have it written.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Yes. First, we’ll need to recess for a few minutes for you to write that amendment.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Yes. They’re doing that right now.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Okay, but having said that, we can’t even pass the amendment until we have the House approval, under the standing orders.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Okay.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): We’ll have to have a gentlemen’s agreement of sorts that—

Interjection.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): But we can pass the times.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: We can pass the times; right?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Yes.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: And not the day?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Not the date, because it’s during constit week.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Could it be “subject to House approval”?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): I think we’ll recess while that amendment gets written, for five minutes, and then we’ll see how we can sort out the rest.

The committee recessed from 1519 to 1540.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): I call the meeting back to order. Mr. Rinaldi?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Yes. Thank you, Chair. I move an amendment to the subcommittee report. I think everybody has a copy.

I move that item number 8 be struck out and replaced with, “That witnesses be offered 15 minutes for their presentation and if not all the time is used, the remainder of the time be divided equally among the three parties for questions; and

Item number 9 be amended by striking out “2 p.m. on Monday, November 9, 2015” and replaced with “10 a.m. on Thursday, November 12, 2015”; and

Item (1.1) be added to read, “That the Chair write to the three House leaders and request that a motion be presented to the House authorizing the committee to meet in Toronto from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday, November 9, 2015, for the purpose of holding public hearings.”

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Any debate, Mr. Rinaldi?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: No. I think it’s pretty clear, Madam Chair.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hardeman?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I agree with the motion, and I just want to, on the record, make sure that the last item, (1.1), the intent of the committee to hold hearings that day—recognizing that we’re asking the House leaders to approve it but that we expect that to happen.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Is that an amendment?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: No.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: No, it’s no amendment. We’re all honourable members.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): We’re clear. Okay? Anyone else? Further debate? All right. Are you ready to vote?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: On the amendment?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: On the amendment.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): On the amendment, yes.

All in favour? Opposed, if any? That amendment is carried.

Now we’ll go back to the subcommittee report, as amended. Any debate? Mr. Hardeman.

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Yes, Madam Chair. For the record, I just wanted to put on the record that item number 5 in the report, “That interested parties who wish to be considered to make an oral presentation contact the committee Clerk by 12 noon on Wednesday, October 28”—my understanding is that it will not be in the paper till October 27. I think that’s setting an awful short deadline for accepting applicants. I would just like something to be added in that in fact the Clerk would be authorized to accept applicants who came in beyond the deadline.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hatfield.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Thank you, Madam Chair. Why isn’t it just simple to change the date to the 29th or 30th? We’re not going to get it in the paper and then give people a few hours to get it in. I don’t see it as a problem. It’s easier to change the date than to put out a little thing: “But we’ll accept you after our deadline.” Right?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Rinaldi?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I’m open to a suggestion on what date it should be.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Are you making an amendment?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: No, I’ll leave it open to you to do that, through you, Madam Chair.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): The Clerk tells me that any change affects the next piece, which is getting the prioritized list ready whenever. It’s up to the committee to—

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Percy, what date did you suggest?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I didn’t make a date, Lou, but after hearing—through you, Madam Chair—what the Chair just told us, that the Clerk informed her that if you change (5), you have to change (6) because we have to get back and give our priorities: I have no problem with changing the dates at all, and I’ll be open to your suggestion on what date it should be, but if you change (5), we have to change (6).

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Rinaldi.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: For clarification to the Clerk, I guess, if we went, instead of noon, to the end of Wednesday, does that create a problem?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: To the end of which?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Right now, it says “noon on Wednesday, October 28,” in (5). What if it went till 5 o’clock?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hardeman?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: Madam Chair, I personally believe that if we, as a committee, can accept that some late applicants, if they come in the next day, could be accepted by the Clerk, then I don’t think we need to change anything.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Yes, and the Clerk is actually suggesting that. We could just add something that says, “The Clerk’s office will review presentations and accept as many as they can accommodate if there is room available.”

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Madam Chair?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hatfield?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: If I was reading it as an interested party, and by the time I read it it’s already past the deadline, I might be like, “Why would I even bother submitting it?” I think if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it right. If that means changing those two dates in (5) and (6), then I think we should do it.

I’ve scratched out, “12 noon on Wednesday, October”—does it say the 28th?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): The 28th.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: The 28th. And this is the 26th, so the earliest this would be in the paper would be the 28th, because you’re not going to get it in today for tomorrow, right?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): They have made arrangements to get it in tomorrow.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Tomorrow? With the date change?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): It will be this date.

Mr. Percy Hatfield: The 28th?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): They’ll have to do another ad. Will you be able to get that in as well?

Interjection.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): All right. So—

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Well, we’d have to change the ad anyway if we’re going to add, “We will accept past the deadline.”

I don’t know. It just seems that we’ve rushed to judgment on it, and because of the other changes that we made, I think the committee opens itself up to criticism. I’ll just leave it at that.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: Chair?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Yes, Mr. Rinaldi?

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: I have a suggestion that will hopefully smooth things out here. One of the recommendations is that each party has the opportunity to choose people that we wanted. If we leave it right open, we don’t have that choice. So here’s my suggestion: On number (5), instead of “12 noon on Wednesday, October 28,” we move it to “12 noon on Thursday, October 29.” And then, on (6), I would suggest the very last line: “Friday, October 30,” so that adds that other day. That way, each party still has a choice to choose who they want to come.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Any discussion on that amendment?

Mr. Percy Hatfield: I can support it because number (7)—the written submissions can still get in by the 3rd.

Mr. Lou Rinaldi: That’s right.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Mr. Hardeman?

Mr. Ernie Hardeman: No, I’m fine.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): You’re good? So the amendment would be, under (5), “That interested parties who wish to be considered to make an oral presentation contact the committee Clerk by 12 noon on Thursday, October 29, 2015.”

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Right.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): And (6), “That if not all requests can be scheduled, the committee Clerk provide the subcommittee members with the list of requests to appear; and that the subcommittee members prioritize and return the list to the committee Clerk by 10 a.m. on Friday, October 30, 2015.”

Mr. Percy Hatfield: Madam Chair, I think that if the Clerk was to contact the media before 4:30 today, the change in date may get in there for tomorrow.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): I’m sure she’ll try and do that.

Okay, so no further debate. All—

Interjection.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Cindy Forster): Yes, the amendment by Mr. Rinaldi: We’re voting on the amendment that I just read. All in favour of the amendment? Opposed, if any? That amendment is carried.

Now we are back to the amended Standing Committee on Social Policy report of the subcommittee on committee business. Any further debate or amendments? Seeing none, all in favour of the amended Standing Committee on Social Policy report? Opposed? The Standing Committee on Social Policy report of the subcommittee on committee business is carried, as amended.

I don’t think there’s anything further on our agenda. This meeting is ended.

The committee adjourned at 1550.

CONTENTS

Monday 26 October 2015

Subcommittee report SP-457

STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL POLICY

Chair / Président

Mr. Peter Tabuns (Toronto–Danforth ND)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président

Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Bramalea–Gore–Malton ND)

Mr. Granville Anderson (Durham L)

Mr. Vic Dhillon (Brampton West / Brampton-Ouest L)

Mrs. Amrit Mangat (Mississauga–Brampton South / Mississauga–Brampton-Sud L)

Mrs. Gila Martow (Thornhill PC)

Mrs. Kathryn McGarry (Cambridge L)

Mr. Norm Miller (Parry Sound–Muskoka PC)

Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Bramalea–Gore–Malton ND)

Mr. Peter Tabuns (Toronto–Danforth ND)

Mr. Glenn Thibeault (Sudbury L)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

Ms. Cindy Forster (Welland ND)

Mr. Ernie Hardeman (Oxford PC)

Mr. Percy Hatfield (Windsor–Tecumseh ND)

Mr. Lou Rinaldi (Northumberland–Quinte West L)

Clerk / Greffière

Ms. Valerie Quioc Lim

Staff / Personnel

Ms. Erica Simmons, research officer,
Research Services