BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA TRUST COMPANY ACT, 1996
CONTENTS
Wednesday 26 February 1997
City of Ottawa Act, 1996, Bill Pr73, Mr Grandmaître
Mr John C. Cleary
Mrs Edythe Dronshek
Mr Ray Jacobsen
Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company Act, 1996, Bill Pr63, Ms Bassett
Mr Bruce Smith
Mr Stephen Clark
Mr Rory MacDonald
STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND PRIVATE BILLS
Chair / Président: Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex PC)
Mr TedArnott (Wellington PC)
Mr TobyBarrett (Norfolk PC)
Mr GillesBisson (Cochrane South / -Sud ND)
Mr DaveBoushy (Sarnia PC)
Mr JohnGerretsen (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
Mr SteveGilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC); parliamentary assistant
to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
Mr JohnHastings (Etobicoke-Rexdale PC)
Mr GerardKennedy (York South / -Sud L)
Mr TonyMartin (Sault Ste Marie ND)
Mr TrevorPettit (Hamilton Mountain PC)
Mrs LillianRoss (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)
Mr TonyRuprecht (Parkdale L)
Mr FrankSheehan (Lincoln PC)
Mr BruceSmith (Middlesex PC)
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau PC)
Mr DerwynShea (High Park-Swansea PC)
Also taking part /Autres participants et participantes:
Ms MarilynStanley, solicitor, legal services branch, Ministry of Finance
Clerk / Greffier: Mr Tom Prins
Staff / Personnel: Ms Susan Klein, Mr Michael Wood, legislative counsel
The committee met at 1009 in room 228.
The Chair (Mr Toby Barrett): Good morning all, and welcome to this regular meeting of the standing committee on regulations and private bills for Wednesday, 26 February.
We have three main agenda items today: some organizational discussions, Bill Pr73 and Bill Pr63. Going back to the issue of organization, I understand there will be a change in the membership of the subcommittee. At this point, I would entertain a motion.
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): I move that Mr Gerretsen replace Ms Pupatello and that Mr Gilchrist replace Mr Shea in the membership of the subcommittee on committee business.
The Chair: All in favour of that motion? Carried.
That concludes that order of business.
CITY OF OTTAWA ACT, 1996
Consideration of Bill Pr73, An Act respecting the City of Ottawa.
The Chair: Our second order of business will be Bill Pr73, An Act respecting the City of Ottawa. The sponsor is Mr Grandmaître, MPP. I understand Mr Cleary will be standing in for Mr Grandmaître. I would ask our sponsor and the applicants if they would please approach the witness table. Mr Cleary, if you wish to make a few very brief opening remarks, then we would ask the applicants if they would also introduce themselves and continue with their presentation.
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Good morning, Mr Chairman, members of the committee and guests. I'm here today on behalf of my colleague Ben Grandmaître, MPP for Ottawa East, to present Bill Pr73. Ben sends his regrets. He's unable to be here this morning on account of an unexpected call back to the riding, the result of the restructuring commission on Montfort Hospital in Ottawa, a very surprising and disappointing decision to Ben as well as the other MPPs from Ottawa, Dalton McGuinty, Gilles Morin and Richard Patten. I know that many of the constituents in the Ottawa area are very upset with this announcement and already my office has received telephone calls and e-mails about this decision. But that's not why we're here today.
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): They wanted the Civic closed, right?
Interjections.
The Chair: I wish to ask for order.
Mr Cleary: I'll try to get off the subject, because I know it's bothering a few of the members here.
I have been asked to present Bill Pr73 on behalf of the corporation of the city of Ottawa. The purpose of the bill is to enable the city of Ottawa to enter into and perform agreements with the federal government in respect of federal parking regulations and tickets.
With me here today to go over the contents and answer any questions the committee may have are Edythe Dronshek, legal counsel, and Ray Jacobsen, licensing, transportation and parking branch. I will now turn the table over to Edythe and Ray.
Mrs Edythe Dronshek: The purpose of this application is to provide the corporation of the city of Ottawa with the specific enabling authority to enter into and perform agreements with the federal government in respect of federal parking regulations and parking tickets. The agreements would be for the enforcement of regulations made under an act of Canada with respect to parking contraventions on federal property located in Ontario, including the issuing of tickets for vehicles illegally parked, the prosecutions resulting from the issuing of parking tickets and the collection of fines and court costs resulting therefrom and the management of parking facilities on property of the federal crown.
At the request of the federal government, the corporation has presented a proposal representing an expression of interest to provide processing, collection and customer response services with respect to parking tickets issued on federal property located in Ontario. In addition, the corporation has expertise in the field of management of parking facilities, parking strategies and enforcement. Thus, the authority respecting parking enforcement and parking management has been included in the application, so that all parking-related issues are authorized at this time so that the corporation and the federal government could pursue the purchase of these services, if desired.
Recent amendments to the federal Contraventions Act provide the federal government with the authority to enter into such arrangements with municipalities and to incorporate by reference the necessary provisions of the Provincial Offences Act, Ontario, the regulations and rules of court to make the provincial procedures applicable. Thus, it applies the provincial law to all federal offences that are designated as contraventions and utilizes the procedures already in place in Ontario under the Provincial Offences Act. The offences are designated by the contravention regulations and an offence that is designated as a contravention is and remains a federal offence, despite the manner in which it is prosecuted.
The corporation of the city of Ottawa is desirous of entering into this purchase-of-service agreement with the federal government and has the expertise obtained from dealing with its enforcement of municipal parking regulations in Ottawa.
There is no provision in the Municipal Act which would authorize the city to enter into parking-service-related agreements with the federal government, whether the agreements are for processing administratively the federal offences and tickets, enforcement of parking regulations or management of parking facilities. In addition, there is no authority for the corporation to deal with matters that go beyond its municipal boundaries. Thus, the corporation respectfully requests the committee to approve the application as presented.
Mr Jacobsen and I are willing to answer any questions the committee may have.
The Chair: Thank you, Mrs Dronshek. Mr Jacobsen, do you have any further comments?
Mr Ray Jacobsen: No, I'll just answer any questions with respect to the actual processing of tickets, should you have any.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Jacobsen. Are there any other interested parties who wish to speak to this bill? Before we go to questions from the committee, at this time we ask the parliamentary assistant for municipal affairs for comments. I am very pleased that MPP Derwyn Shea has agreed to sit in for this session.
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): It's his job.
The Chair: Mr Shea is leaving this committee.
Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): Am I leaving the committee?
Mr Bisson: I always quite appreciated having you here. You were an ally --
Mr Shea: I appreciate that, Gilles, but having moved to another ministry -- I appreciate that testimony. I hope that was on Hansard. I need that --
Mr Bisson: I think we need to clarify. More times than not, you weren't able to whip your government members into line. I had to help you.
The Chair: Mr Shea, anything to --
Mr Shea: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I think most of us who have had municipal experience understand exactly what is being proposed here and the reasonableness of the request. The proposed bill enables the city of Ottawa to make agreements with the federal government so that the city can enforce parking regulations and prosecute offences and manage parking facilities on federal land, including those outside the city of Ottawa. It's a recognition that in many ways the city has the administrative experience and the infrastructure for enforcement that the federal government does not have and it seems quite appropriate that we give approval to the bill.
I will point out to the committee for its guidance that no objections from any ministries have been received to this bill.
Mr Bisson: Thank you very much, Mr Shea. It's really a sad moment in this committee's history to see you leave. I've really appreciated having you as an ally to try to bring some common sense to your caucus on a number of issues that we have had to deal with on this committee. I hope your successor is, I won't say "enlightened," but -- there you go. He's getting the idea. Let Hansard show he's hanging himself with his tie.
I've got a couple of specific questions, I guess. In the transferring of this authority on to the municipalities, is there any agreement between the federal government and the municipality about revenue-sharing, or do you keep all of the revenue from the tickets?
Mr Jacobsen: There will be revenue-sharing. I shouldn't call it "revenue-sharing." They will be paying us a certain per-ticket fee for processing all tickets.
Mr Bisson: Rather than having the RCMP do it, they're asking your police to do it.
Mrs Dronshek: If I may say so, the federal government isn't really enforcing very much and when they do, at this point they've been processing it as a summary conviction offence rather than the way the province has, the two-part tickets, so in fact their success rate has not been overly good.
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Mr Bisson: But if I understand it correctly, it's the RCMP now who are giving --
Mrs Dronshek: There are various -- there's the RCMP, there's staff at federal properties who issue all kinds of --
Mr Bisson: You indicated there's an operating agreement of some type.
Mrs Dronshek: There will be once this authority is obtained.
Mr Bisson: The police of the city of Ottawa will be --
Mrs Dronshek: No, we do it ourselves. The police issue parking tickets within the city of Ottawa. Perhaps Ray can explain better, but we have licensing enforcement staff.
Mr Jacobsen: The police issue very few parking tickets. The majority of parking tickets the city of Ottawa issues are issued by the parking control officers. We have an administrative component that looks after the processing and administration of that and we're just going to take this particular work from the federal government and add it on to that process.
Mr Bisson: What you're doing is getting into an agreement with the federal government that your people will do what the federal government used to do before and was not able to do adequately because of the legislative authority they were under. What kind of percentage are you going to be getting between your people doing it and the feds? What kind of revenue-sharing agreement do you contemplate?
Mr Jacobsen: We have not entered into a formal agreement yet, so it would be perhaps premature to comment on that. However, we have had indications that we will certainly make a profit on this.
Mr Bisson: All right. The other thing is that with regard to the lands you will actually now have authority to go on to, is it all land that is controlled by the federal government?
Mr Jacobsen: We won't be writing tickets for them. They'll still be responsible for writing tickets on all the federal properties within the province that they currently are writing tickets on. Once the ticket is written, though, all the tickets will be shipped to us and we will take over from there, doing the processing and arranging for prosecution and things like that.
Mr Bisson: So your people are actually not going to give the tickets.
Mr Jacobsen: No.
Mr Bisson: Okay, I misunderstood. I'm glad that you clarified that. Is anybody opposed to this process? Has anybody come to the city of Ottawa and said, "We don't think this is a good idea?"
Mr Jacobsen: We haven't had any objections. We raised the matter before our municipal council and it was widely covered in the press. We have not had a single objection from anybody.
Mr Bisson: I'm going to have to go back to the beginning again because I thought your people would be actually going out and issuing the tickets. Can you explain?
Mrs Dronshek: The authority does go that far, but at this point the --
Mr Bisson: Yes, because when I read the legislation, it gives you the right to do that.
Mrs Dronshek: Yes, it does.
Mr Bisson: So the federal people, either the RCMP or whoever it might be, will still go out and issue tickets.
Mr Jacobsen: That's right.
Mr Bisson: Why then do they need to give it to you? If you can explain that more clearly for me, why do you need to do that? Why do you need to do the processing?
Mr Jacobsen: They don't have a processing system set up that works well for them and we do.
Mr Bisson: So rather than them creating another --
Mr Guzzo: Next to the mob, they're the best.
Mr Bisson: Give it to the mob?
Mr Guzzo: No, I said next to the mob, they're the best.
Mr Bisson: Let the record show the good judge made that comment.
The primary reason for this is in order for you guys to process the tickets, not to collect them. Do you envision having your people going out and issuing tickets in the future?
Mr Jacobsen: If the federal government would want us to do that, yes, we'd be amenable to discussing that particular type of arrangement. We have not had any discussions of that sort yet.
Mr Bisson: The only problem with that is, if we give you the authority to do that under this legislation, there is no public process afterwards if the feds decide they're going to hand this off to you. Right? You'd have the authority to do it --
Mrs Dronshek: That was included in the original public process we went through.
Mr Bisson: I'm going to come back to this in a minute. I'll let somebody else go. I just want to come back to it. Do you want to give somebody else a chance for now?
The Chair: I only have one more question indicated. Mr Ruprecht?
Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale): I wanted to use this occasion to come back to one of the points that was discussed at this committee, and that was that the Red Tape Review Commission had gone through, I would assume, all government structures and decided where money could be saved. All of us here who have some municipal experience would know that the appearance of two people from the city of Ottawa and our sitting here costs us thousands of dollars.
You've come through the blue book and the Common Sense Revolution. I'm wondering, Mr Chair, whether this may not be a totally correct example of how to save money. It certainly should be looked at. With legislation of this type that seems to be fairly straightforward, fairly simple, and where there are precedents in other municipalities, this could be perhaps the one example where we could save some money. This is non-productive time, for them to come here when there could be other ways that could be arranged, through whatever other mechanisms we could come up with, even through this committee by other means, perhaps electronic means, without people having to come here, waste a whole day, spend all that money, and then there's our time and all the recording devices in place. I'm just wondering whether this would be one of the ways that we could overcome some of the problems we discussed earlier.
This leads me to my final point. We have raised this. Members of the government have, I certainly have on our side, and the NDP -- I'm not sure whether you were here before on this issue, but certainly they have agreed with it as well. At this stage maybe we should wait until this is over, but where are we at in this business of trying to save taxpayers' money, when one of the major pillars of the Common Sense Revolution has been to try to do just that? I just wanted to put that on the record.
The Chair: Mr Bisson, did you want to comment on the Ottawa bill?
Mr Bisson: I'll comment on that later; I want to speak to the Ottawa bill.
The Chair: Mr Ruprecht, we leave the ball in your court, if you wish to entertain a motion at some point or suggest this for the subcommittee of the standing committee, if you were looking at changing the structure of how we do business here. Could I leave that with you?
Mr Bisson: To be helpful, maybe we can deal with that issue after we've dealt with our two presenters here this morning. They are here on limited time. It's something the committee can deal with on its own.
The Chair: If you wish to have that dealt with by the subcommittee, there's a structure there to take a look at how we do business of the standing committee.
Mr Ruprecht: Somehow it should be taken up. You keep raising it on this side and we keep raising it. I'm looking at Mr Shea's comments as well, which really triggered my comments in terms of having municipal experience and knowing there are precedents for this. If there were no precedents, there would be a different dynamic here. But since there are precedents and since this could be handled in a different way, I thought to make these comments to at least have the Chair's agreement that somehow we could look at this again, if it hasn't already been looked at. I thought that we had been looking at it and that by now you'd have some process in place where we could actually go through it and save some money.
The Chair: Mr Shea has a comment on this.
Mr Shea: I think we should pick this up after we have had the deputants and dealt with this bill. We'll pick it up at the end. Probably it's wise to send this on to the subcommittee. Chairman, I raised this at the very beginning of this term, that I think there are other ways for us to improve the efficiencies of our committee functions: real-time video; a lot of ways. We can come back and visit that when we're not taking up the time of the deputants. Mr Gerretsen wants to get on the question paper, so I'll defer to him.
The Chair: I also feel this is something that could be discussed by our subcommittee.
Following rotation, I now go to Mr Bisson and then Mr Gerretsen.
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Mr Bisson: I'll tell you where I'm coming from on this issue. You would know that as we speak the federal government is divesting the RCMP of the responsibility of policing our federal airports, at least in Ottawa, if not across the country. They're divesting them of a number of functions they used to do. My concern is that I want some assurance that if we're going to give you this legislative authority, it's not with the intention of in the end taking away opportunities the RCMP would have to place some of their officers who will be out of work because of what's going on with the restructuring within the RCMP. Do you want me to explain that further, just so you're clear where I'm coming from?
Mrs Dronshek: Yes.
Mr Bisson: The federal government has gone to the RCMP and said, "You're no longer going to be responsible for policing in the airports." I met with a group of RCMP officers and staff, I guess it was last Friday when I was in Ottawa, and that was one of the issues they raised with me, that they're really worried about what this is going to mean to all the RCMP officers across the nation once you take away those responsibilities. That's 10%, 15%, 20% of the manpower of the RCMP.
One of the things they talked about was that in doing this, they need to make sure that they try through attrition to deal with some of the displacement that will happen with that; that they try to find other things for the RCMP officers to do rather than putting them out the door. In this day and age, where you've got the federal government downsizing massively, you've got the provincial government downsizing massively, and the municipalities will shortly, with the downloading that's coming to you, be downsizing drastically, a lot of people are going to be without work as a result.
My concern specifically for the RCMP is that if you as a city get the authority to do the issuance of the parking tickets, that's work that used to be done by federal employees, namely the RCMP and others. The assurance I'm looking for from you -- you said: "All we want to do is process the tickets. We don't want to go out and issue them. We don't want to take that responsibility." Are you able to commit to that today?
Mrs Dronshek: The bill does go farther than that. That's all the purchase-of-service agreement is at this point. We don't at this point plan to go any further than the processing, but we wanted all the parking-related issues in there in case. A lot of the properties that have been identified are bases rather than -- if you want to explain, Ray, what they've identified as boundaries.
Mr Jacobsen: There's a total of 11 different areas within the province that have federal properties -- the city of Ottawa is only one -- for instance, Trenton, Kingston, Petawawa. The RCMP, as you know, also enforces moving regulations. We have no interest at all as a city, as part of the control function, of taking over moving regulations at all. We're only interested in parking. To this date, we have not had a single conversation with respect to taking over any kind of enforcement function from the federal government. It's strictly a processing, fee-per-ticket arrangement.
Mr Bisson: So you are only going to do the processing. You're not interested and don't entertain getting into discussions of going out and doing the enforcement side of the parking offences.
Mr Jacobsen: Not at this time.
Mr Bisson: What I'm looking for from you if I'm going to support this is some assurance that that's not going to happen. I'm somewhat concerned about what it means for the federal employees on the other end.
Mr Jacobsen: I can't give you that assurance because I simply don't have that information.
Mr Bisson: If we were to take that power out, where would you stand? If I were to move a motion to amend the legislation that you don't get the enforcement ability, where would you be then?
Mrs Dronshek: It isn't the enforcement ability; it's the ticket issuance ability. We'd be in a position where we couldn't even give it to a federal office building or deal with parking. Ottawa has streets that are federal and we couldn't even give a parking ticket on a federal street; we'd have to walk by it on our route and do it. That's the situation. But this doesn't deal with any of the moving offences, the traffic offences or any of those violations. It's simply parking tickets.
Mr Bisson: I'm talking about parking offences. That's what I'm talking about.
Mrs Dronshek: They don't issue very many. Could you give him a volume, Ray?
Mr Jacobsen: There's a total of 23,000 tickets issued across the province, roughly, every year. Some 90% of those are in Ottawa. The rest are spread out over the other 10 locations.
Mrs Dronshek: That does not include the airport.
Mr Bisson: But you're telling me that you're not going to get into the enforcement side of parking offences.
Mrs Dronshek: We're saying we haven't been asked to even consider it at this point.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): The earlier discussion that Mr Ruprecht had about having this kind of matter come before a committee like this reminds me of the first time I visited Queen's Park in the mid-1970s, when I was chairman of our transportation committee in the city of Kingston. We came here on a similar sort of request. At that point in time we wanted to park cars on boulevards, which wasn't allowed, and we were surprised that it needed some sort of provincial consent and change to an act to make it happen. Now here we are 20 years later and I guess these relatively minor problems still come before a committee like this. I certainly concur with the comments made earlier, that the quicker we can deal with these matters and even get them off the books so they're more of a local decision, the better.
Coming back to Mr Bisson's query, I think it's fair to say that probably at some point in the future you will be involved in the enforcement situation as well. We don't want our RCMP officers to be issuing parking tickets; we want them to fight crime in this country. Parking matters ought to be dealt with by people who have perhaps not as high a salary expectation etc. It's something I totally concur with. Let's face it, sooner or later, you're going to be involved in the enforcement aspect as well, aren't you, issuing the tickets?
Mr Jacobsen: I don't know. I can tell you I'm an ex-member of the RCMP and the cost between us and our PCOs is quite significant. The cost between what we pay people and the RCMP is quite significant salary-wise. I really can't answer your question, sir. We have never discussed it. If at some time it came up, we'd have to discuss it at that time.
Mr Gerretsen: Do I take it that currently you're not issuing a lot of tickets because you don't have the proper enforcement mechanism under the new Provincial Offences Act to see the tickets through the final result?
Mr Jacobsen: We don't issue any tickets on federal property at all, sir, because we do not have the authority to do so. We issue tickets only on municipal property.
Mr Gerretsen: No, we're talking about the enforcement, what happens after a ticket is issued. What you currently want to do is that any ticket that's issued by the RCMP on federal property will go through your enforcement operations.
Mrs Dronshek: That's right; we'll fold it into our administration system.
Mr Gerretsen: Currently, then, whatever administration is being done by the RCMP to process the tickets they're issuing is being done on much more cumbersome and costly basis. Is that correct?
Mr Jacobsen: That's what we've been led to believe and that's why they're seeking our assistance.
Mr Gerretsen: The other question I have is that I don't quite understand subsection 2(2): "For the purposes of carrying out an agreement entered into under this section, the territorial jurisdiction of the council of the corporation is not confined to the boundaries of the city of Ottawa." Does the City of Ottawa Act have special provisions that allow you to act beyond the boundaries of the city of Ottawa?
Mrs Dronshek: Some of the provisions of the Municipal Act do that as well. It is meant to allow us to do the processing of the tickets coming from a place like Petawawa; deal with the customer response service through a 1-800 number; and then if there's a trial, get the documents back to Petawawa, where a federal prosecutor will handle the court placing. But we are very nervous about even processing and dealing with the customer response part of the service without having the authority that says we're not confined within the city of Ottawa.
Mr Guzzo: That's the law where you were. You didn't know that, eh?
Mr Gerretsen: That's a new one to me and I've been around for a while.
Just so I'm clear -- I'm from Kingston and we've got a base there as well -- let's say the military police, which is federal property, issue a ticket. You want the authority through the city of Ottawa administration to process that ticket.
Mr Jacobsen: That's right.
Mr Guzzo: To clarify the point, in the operation you have now in Ottawa, 22 years ago you took away from the city of Ottawa police department the issuance of tickets and turned it over to the parking authority.
Mrs Dronshek: Yes.
Mr Guzzo: Why did you do that? I know you had an enlightened council of the day and you're probably going to go on at great length about how good that council was. Resist the urge and just --
Mrs Dronshek: Absolutely, but it was a cost-saving measure at the time, and the police didn't want to waste their time issuing parking tickets instead of doing moving offences or criminal matters. The police didn't want the administrative process of dealing with something as minor as parking tickets, so the power was given to Ottawa to set up the Green Hornets and set up the administration for that.
In addition, in Ottawa we also have a system in place that's called a deputization program, whereby an owner of a private property can apply, fill out an agreement and obtain authority, and we will appoint the people he names as staff to issue tickets on his property so that they are legitimate tickets and they don't need to call a city of Ottawa staff person to come out to deal with a parking matter on a private property. In fact we have a fair number of situations where this is okay. But we can't even do that for the federal property because there's no authority to deal with the federal government.
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Mr Guzzo: So 22 years ago the police department and Ottawa said, "We don't want to issue tickets any more; we want to fight crime," and they handed it over and it's a cost-saving arrangement. And here we are today, with the federal government and the RCMP, a trained force that receives much more expensive and longer training than a municipal police force, still trying to preserve the right to issue tickets to keep them busy. They haven't got enough to do. Is that what Mr Bisson was suggesting? I don't know. It's an interesting comment.
The other thing you might just put into the hopper, into Ms Dronshek's explanation of what happens in terms of, say, Petawawa or down at Trenton, is the part about the federal prosecutors, special prosecutors hired by the federal government -- no crown attorney in Ontario capable of handling a parking ticket case. They might handle a murder case or a rape case, but not a parking ticket if it's issued on federal ground. Think about that one. Special lawyers on retainer to the federal government -- no patronage there.
Mr Gerretsen: What have you got against lawyers, anyway?
Mr Bisson: Let me ask this question. Of the people who are issuing tickets on behalf of the federal government, is it primarily the RCMP or are there other people who do it? Who is doing it?
Mr Jacobsen: There are three different categories. There are the RCMP, who probably issue 85% to 90%, there are the commissionaires, and then there's the national parks police. I'm sorry, it's the military police as well.
Mr Bisson: What I'm looking for from you, to be blunt, is some kind of an assurance from the city of Ottawa that if you do end up being approached by the federal government, which I expect you will be because they're downloading as well, you would enter discussions with the federal government that say, "We're prepared to take a look at entering into some sort of agreement that will give an opportunity to those displaced employees of the federal government of coming to do these jobs for the municipality of the city of Ottawa." That's what I'm looking for.
This is not legislation you'd be committing to, but I'm looking for some kind of direction. As it turns out, I met with three or four RCMP people last Friday when I was in Ottawa and the whole issue of what was happening in the RCMP is what was hot on their plate. They were really worried about what this meant to their manpower. When they look at how many officers they've got across the country and look at what's already happened with attrition -- there hasn't been a lot of hiring within the RCMP -- there's not a lot of room to deal with these displaced officers.
They're saying, here are people who have been with the force for 10, 15, 20 years, who are very well trained, who have given a lot of their time, like other people, to serve the RCMP, who are worried about losing their job.
I'll speak out for them here, because nobody else here, especially the Tory party, is going to mention that. What I'm looking for from the city of Ottawa is not to obstruct you but that you take a look at making sure, for those people who will be displaced by the federal Liberals when all this is downloaded on to you, that there is some sort of attempt to find a place to put these displaced people. Would that be the intention of the city of Ottawa?
Mr Jacobsen: If the time ever came when that scenario came to fruition, certainly we'd listen to any proposals put forward to us by the federal government. It should be recognized, however, that we are restricted by a collective agreement. Whenever we have a new job in the city of Ottawa, the process has to recognize that we have a CUPE union and we have to go through the hiring process dictated by a collective agreement with CUPE.
Mr Bisson: I know. I don't want to be obstructionist. I understand what you're trying to do here, and there's a logic to what you're trying to do in regard to the agreement that you're getting into process. But I'm nervous about what this means further down the road for a lot of people who work for the federal government, namely, in this case, the RCMP. I'm not satisfied, quite frankly, that there's going to be an attempt at least to find a way of accommodating some of these people who will lose their jobs, and I'm looking for some indication you're going to do that.
I'm afraid, once you leave this committee and you have the authority, there won't be anything on the record and there will be no kind of assurance that the city of Ottawa will say, "Listen, we're prepared, where possible, to deal with some of the displaced employees who will be affected." I understand you've got a collective agreement and you've got to go through that, and I don't suggest for a second that you try to go around that. But if there's an ability to be able to find some sort of an agreement to do so, that would make me a little bit happier.
Mr Jacobsen: I could say that I would make a recommendation to that particular aspect of what you're proposing. However, the decision-makers who decide this are much higher in the corporation than I am.
Mr Bisson: I recognize that, and they're good friends of the good Judge Guzzo, and that's the problem I have with it.
Mr Guzzo: No self-respecting Mountie wants to be issuing tickets, let me tell you that.
Mr Bisson: Listen, there are many police officers across this province who issue parking tickets who are quite capable of doing other things as well. In the city of Timmins we have police officers who issue parking tickets on a fairly regular basis, and I don't see a lot of people complaining about it. I don't suggest that's all they need to do, but that's part of the workload of an RCMP officer in the city of Ottawa. If you take that work away from them, it's going to have an effect on how many RCMP officers we need in the federal capital. All I want is some sort of an assurance that we're able to deal with that or at least look at that when we transfer those services over.
Mr Guzzo: The Attorney General can make up some more charges against former prime ministers and occupy lots of their time.
The Chair: Before we wrap up questions, Mr Bisson, did you have anything further?
Mr Bisson: I have a motion I'd be prepared to push forward, but I don't want to put the motion if the city is telling me that they will recommend to the council that if this does happen, where the RCMP or the federal authorities get into discussions with them to do the enforcement side, this issue is looked at. If you're prepared to do that, I'll support the legislation; if you're not, I'll move a motion.
Mr Jacobsen: I can say that I will recommend to the commissioner of engineering and works, who is responsible for licensing, transportation and parking, that should we enter into an agreement or into discussions with the federal government, part of that discussion would include the possibility of looking at the hiring of displaced RCMP members to perform the functions as outlined in the particular bill.
Mr Bisson: And the others as well, the other 10% who do it?
Mr Jacobsen: Sure.
Mr Bisson: The answer is?
Mr Jacobsen: Yes, I would also recommend that we consider those.
Mr Bisson: On that basis, I will support the legislation.
The Chair: Are the members ready to vote? We're voting on Bill Pr73, An Act respecting the City of Ottawa. The sponsor is Mr Grandmaître.
Shall section 1 carry? Carried.
Shall section 2 carry? Carried.
Shall section 3 carry? Carried.
Shall section 4 carry? Carried.
Shall the preamble carry? Carried.
Shall the title carry? Carried.
Shall the bill carry? Carried.
Shall I report the bill to the House? Yes.
I wish to thank Mrs Dronshek and Mr Jacobsen. I now declare this order of business closed.
1050
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA TRUST COMPANY ACT, 1996
Consideration of Bill Pr63, An Act respecting The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company, Montreal Trust Company of Canada and Montreal Trust Company.
The Chair: Our next order of business is Bill Pr63, An Act respecting The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company, Montreal Trust Company of Canada and Montreal Trust Company. The sponsor is Ms Bassett, and Mr Smith, MPP, is standing in for Ms Bassett. Perhaps before we ask you to commence with your opening remarks, I would ask the clerk of the standing committee for some further information.
Clerk of the Committee (Mr Tom Prins): I just want to provide the committee with a brief background of what's happened with this bill. After first reading, it went to the commissioners of estate bills and they produced a report, which I'll read into the record in a minute. In the report, they required a number of amendments to be made if they were to support the bill. If each of these amendments is moved and passed, the bill would proceed through its normal course through the committee and through the House. If any one of these amendments was not passed, pursuant to the standing orders the committee would just cease consideration of this bill.
Let me read the commissioners' report, a letter dated January 21, 1997, to Claude DesRosiers. You should all have a copy of this in front of you as well.
"Report pursuant to section 58 Legislative Assembly Act
"Re: Bill Pr63, An Act respecting The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company, Montreal Trust Company of Canada and Montreal Trust Company
"We are of the opinion that the bill in its present form should pass with the amendments set out in the statement attached.
"Dated this 21st day of January, 1997." It's signed by estate bill commissioners John D. Ground and Susan E. Greer. I'll read the statement.
"This act provides for the transfer of the trusteeship and agency business of Montreal Trust Company of Canada and Montreal Trust Company to The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company. The Bank of Nova Scotia acquired all the voting shares of Montreal Trustco Inc on April 11, 1994, and thereby acquired all of the shares of Montreal Trust Company of Canada and Montreal Trust Company, each a wholly owned subsidiary of Montreal Trustco Inc. The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Bank of Nova Scotia, proposes to acquire the personal trusteeship and personal agency business of both Montreal Trust Company of Canada and Montreal Trust Company. It would be impractical, given the number of trusts and estates comprising the personal trusteeship" --
Mr Bisson: Excuse me, was that "impractical" you said?
Clerk of the Committee: "It would be impractical, given the number of trusts and estates comprising the personal trusteeship and personal agency business of Montreal Trust Company of Canada and Montreal Trust Company to apply to the Ontario Court (General Division) under section 5 of the Trustee Act to have The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company appointed as successor trustee for each trust and estate."
I'll read the recommendations.
Section 3, subsection (1): "We recommend that the word `natural' in the 10th line of the subsection be deleted as the provision should apply to property held for any person, whether natural or not, or for any purpose."
Section 3, subsection (1): "We recommend that, grammatically, the words, `every document and trust' in the 12th line of the subsection be replaced with the words `a document or trust'."
Section 4, subsection (2): "The cross-reference to `section 1' in the ninth line should be to `section 2'."
Section 4, subsection (2): "The last phrase of this subsection should be reworded to read `would have had or been subject to if this act had not been enacted'."
Section 7, subsection (1), item 2: "The word `applies' in the fourth line of this item should be replaced with the words `would otherwise apply'."
Section 7, subsection (2): "The introductory clause of this subsection should be reworded to read `Despite paragraph 2 of subsection (1), this act does apply to'."
Section 7, subsection (2), clause (a): "The word `for' should be deleted at the beginning of this clause and the word `and' inserted before the words `The Bank' in the eighth line."
Section 7, subsection (2), clause (b): "The word `for' should be deleted at the beginning of this clause and the word `and' inserted before the words `The Bank' in the 10th line."
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Prins. Are there any questions for Mr Prins before we commence?
Mr Bisson: It hasn't been amended yet. We're going to have to move them all.
Clerk of the Committee: The commissioners require these amendments to be made, and we'd have to do that in the normal clause-by-clause process.
The Chair: At this point, I would ask Mr Smith for a brief introduction and I would ask the applicants for opening remarks before we proceed with questions.
Mr Smith: It's certainly a pleasure to be here this morning to represent my colleague Isabel Bassett, MPP for St Andrew-St Patrick, who's the sponsor of Bill Pr63. Ms Bassett sends her regrets that she's unable to attend this morning. I'm joined this morning by Stephen Clark, who's counsel with McCarthy Tétrault, and by Rory MacDonald, who's president and CEO of The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.
As the clerk indicated, there are a number of matters to be considered here. I draw your attention to the compendium notes that are attached to your submission and, in particular, the correspondence from the estate bill commissioners. Certainly, as Mr Bisson indicated, appropriate amendments will be placed before the committee to address those concerns.
At this time, I'd like to turn it over to counsel to make some brief comments.
Mr Stephen Clark: Mr Chairman, members of the committee, I would like, if I may, just to give a brief explanation of why this bill is necessary and sort of put it in a business context, if I may. As was noted by Mr Prins in his opening comments, coming right from the estate commissioners' report, the Bank of Nova Scotia acquired control of the two Montreal Trust companies in 1994. At the time that the Bank of Nova Scotia acquired the Montreal Trust companies, it had its own trust company, The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. What has gone on since that time is that there has been a reorganization of the business of Montreal Trust so as to be a better fit with the business of Scotia Trust.
You may have noticed that in the marketplace this is exactly what has been going on, as the Toronto-Dominion Bank has been reorganizing the affairs of TD Trust and the Royal Bank of Canada has been reorganizing the affairs of Royal Trust. In essence, what all of these reorganizations have done is to put the retail deposit-taking functions, the things you often see in terms of deposit accounts, GICs, under the bank so that they can be sold and marketed under the banner of the bank, leaving other more traditional trust services in the trust company.
In Scotiabank's case, it seeks to continue this reorganization by having Scotia Trust assume all responsibility for the personal trust functions within the Scotiabank group. In other words, if it's to deal with personal trust, it would be a Scotia Trust function, thereby leaving the corporate trust function with Montreal Trust.
This change would have no effect on employment at all, because those persons who are involved in doing this function for Montreal Trust would continue to perform those functions for Scotia Trust. In fact, there has been a harmonization of the employment positions of all people with Scotiabank, Scotia Trust and Montreal Trust, as employees now move smoothly between the two organizations.
To get there and be substituted as the trustee for all personal estates, Scotia Trust needs to be substituted in place of Montreal Trust. There are basically three ways this can be done, some of which were alluded to in the opening remarks. The first way is to have each individual maker of a will consent to that transfer. The difficulty with that is that for deceased persons that obviously is not possible. For persons who are alive, that would put them to the expense and trouble of going back to their solicitor to change the trustee to Scotia Trust. The third way is to go to court and ask a judge under section 5 of the Trustee Act to order a substitution of the trustee for each and every estate, and that's the reason the estate commissioners' report says it's impractical to do so, because there are thousands of them.
The procedure that is being used by Scotiabank here in Ontario, which is to ask for a private member's bill and have the substitution take place, is exactly the same procedure that was used in the earlier 1980s by various trust companies and was used last year by the Toronto-Dominion Bank in connection with TD Trust. As well, the same legislation is being requested in each of the other provinces of Canada.
As required under the Legislature's procedures, the Scotiabank bill has been reviewed by the estate commissioners. The comments have been read this morning and Scotiabank and Scotia Trust agree with all of those comments. We regard them as technical, and it is important, as was noted by Mr Prins, that they all be passed in order for the estate commissioner's report to be accepted.
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I think others will make comment in a few moments, but we have also held discussions with the Ministry of Finance concerning this bill and, at least as far as we are aware, they are satisfied that it proceed.
There has been one objection: a gentleman by the name of Mr Theodore Stein, who is a retired employee of Montreal Trust. As a retired employee, he was offered a preferential rate of return on his deposit products and GICs with Montreal Trust. He has written a letter objecting to the passage of this bill. I have personally talked to Mr Stein yesterday and given him assurance that what the bill does has nothing to do with his personal position on rates of return on his deposit products and GICs. Mr Stein was concerned that we were amalgamating or somehow doing a corporate manoeuvre which would affect Montreal Trust and Scotiatrust, and it does not. I've spoken to him and explained that to him. I've also said that somebody from Scotiabank or Montreal Trust would call him and provide him with that reassurance.
With me is Mr MacDonald, who is the president and chief executive officer of Scotiatrust. Between us, hopefully, if there are any questions, we can help answer them.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Clark. Mr MacDonald, did you wish any remarks before we go to questions?
Mr Rory MacDonald: No, thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Are there any other interested parties present? Seeing none, I will draw the committee's attention to the fact that there is an interested party, as Mr Clark has mentioned, Mr Theodore Stein. He is unable to be here today, but you have his letter to the clerk in front of you. That should be in your package of material.
At this point, we would now ask for comments from the government through Mr Derwyn Shea, who is representing the parliamentary assistant for municipal affairs, Mr Gilchrist.
Mr Shea: The deputant has given a very good background. He's detailed it very precisely. It is an issue we have dealt with in the past in other situations, and the rationale obviously is one where it is considered that a private bill is in order. At least Scotiabank particularly considers it to be in order, since section 5 of the Trustee Act only permits the transfer of trusteeship on a trust-by-trust basis rather than en masse. I think the deputant has made very clear the difficulties that trust-by-trust presents for the bank. The proposed bill permits the trusteeship of all trusts and estates held by the Montreal Trust Co of Canada to be transferred to the Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.
I've been advised that no objections to the bill have been raised by any of the ministries that would be involved in this matter. I would like to just pause to ensure that the legislative counsel, Susan Klein, can confirm that's the case.
Ms Susan Klein: Yes. I circulated the bill to the Ministry of the Attorney General, the office of the public guardian and trustee and the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations and they all advised me that they had no objections to the bill. I also sent it to the Ministry of Finance, which had a more active interest in the substance of the bill, and I'm not aware that they have any objections at this point.
Mr Bisson: Has the Ministry of Finance responded?
Ms Klein: I've had discussions with the Ministry of Finance and I believe they are satisfied. There is a counsel from the Ministry of Finance here as well to observe.
Mr Shea: Thank you very much, Ms Klein. Mr Chairman, if you'd indulge me, I'd just ask for any comments from the Ministry of Finance in that regard to confirm this.
Ms Marilyn Stanley: My name's Marilyn Stanley. I'm a lawyer with the Ministry of Finance. Ministry officials have reviewed the bill and there are no problems with it.
Mr Shea: I want to make sure we're very clear. Obviously, we're dealing with things of importance, such as wills and estates, and that's why we want to ensure everybody's had a chance to look at it. Clearly there are no objections to the bill from the ministries involved. The estate bill commissioners of the Ontario Court of Justice are of the opinion that the bill should pass, conditional upon the amendments placed before us. I understand one of the members of the committee will propose the amendments. They ought to carry. It is my understanding that the deputant has no difficulty with those amendments, and I pause for a moment to ask him to confirm that is the case.
Mr Clark: We agree to all the amendments.
Mr Shea: The final point that would be of concern to the committee is whether there's any objection. The deputant has responded to that. There was one objection laid that was before the committee. The deputant has indicated that he has spoken with that objector and there seems to be no further difficulty in that regard.
The Chair: We now call for questions to the applicants, to Mr Shea or in this case perhaps to other staff present at this meeting.
Mr Gerretsen: This deals with Mr Stein. You indicated that you spoke to him and that you clarified the situation with him, Mr Clark. Did he indicate that he would be here this morning regardless, or did you suggest that he not come here this morning? What happened exactly? Did you speak to him personally?
Mr Clark: Yes, I did. I spoke to Mr Stein personally. He is 79 years of age and currently has pneumonia. He misunderstood what this bill was doing. I think his concern was that if in any way the result of these steps could affect the interest rates he received, then he had a personal position of objecting. When I assured him that it did not, I said to him as well, "As a business matter, why don't I have somebody from either the bank or the trust company call you and talk to you about it?" But I assured him that what we were doing in this proposed bill had nothing whatsoever to do with his preferential rates of return, as an ex-employee of the trust company, on his deposit.
Mr Gerretsen: Did he indicate that he would not be here this morning as a result of your assurances?
Mr Clark: Yes, he did.
Mr Bisson: I just want to understand one thing. The individual business would go to the Scotia Trust Co, so anybody who has investments at Montreal Trust would be transferred, through this bill, to Scotiatrust. I understood that correctly, right?
Mr Clark: What it does is it transfers the trusteeship where you've got a trust company that is the administrator, trustee or executor in an estate situation.
Mr Bisson: So it's strictly with the estates.
Mr Clark: Yes, it is the personal trusts. To be fair, when you read the wording it casts a wide net, but it's the personal trust business. The business objective is that when you look at it, you've got personal trust on the Scotiatrust side and corporate trust on the Montreal Trust side.
Mr Bisson: If a trusteeship was being managed by Montreal Trust and it's now going to be transferred over to Scotia, would the benefactors see any kind of difference?
Mr Clark: No, they wouldn't. Two helpful comments on that: The first position is that of course legislation governs the role, duty and responsibilities of a trustee; second, this bill specifically provides that if you had a complaint against the predecessor, Montreal Trust, that claim may be brought now against Scotiatrust. In other words, Scotiatrust stands up and says, "I assume full responsibility for everything that's gone on with this estate, everything in its past." That's a distinction from one that was here, for example, last year. Scotiatrust stands up and says, "We are responsible."
Mr Bisson: That's the question I was getting to. I just wanted to make sure that when all this is transferred over to Scotiatrust, you assume all the responsibilities and all liabilities or whatever that would have been under Montreal Trust, and there is no difference in benefits or anything like that for anybody.
Mr Clark: None at all.
Mr Bisson: You're saying there's no staff implications, which is interesting. You've just transferred all those people over?
Mr Clark: Mr MacDonald may want to respond, but what's ended up happening is that people move between the bank and the two trust companies fairly easily, in terms of benefit plan and everything else. It's become one organization.
Mr MacDonald: They're specialized officers. Basically, what you have is a marketing issue. We have customers of Scotiatrust and customers of MT going to the same officers, who are doing dual roles, and it's confusing everybody. But it's the same people.
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The Chair: Any further questions? Are the members of the committee ready to vote?
Mr Bisson: Aren't there some amendments first, before we do any votes?
The Chair: Yes, there are some amendments. We will walk through the sections and where amended I'll draw that to your attention.
Mr Kennedy, did you have a question?
Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): What number of accounts and what value are in question here?
Mr MacDonald: Within Ontario, or the whole company?
Mr Kennedy: Within Ontario, as it affects our jurisdiction.
Mr MacDonald: It would be about $1 billion and about 2,000 accounts.
Mr Bisson: How much is on the corporate side?
Mr MacDonald: I don't have that number. On the pension side which we just sold, it was about $150 billion.
The Chair: Further questions? Are the members ready to vote?
We're voting on Bill Pr63, An Act respecting the Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company, Montreal Trust Company of Canada and Montreal Trust Company, sponsored by Ms Bassett, MPP.
Shall section 1 carry? Carried.
Shall section 2 carry? Carried.
With respect to section 3, I understand there is an amendment.
Mr Smith: I move that subsection 3(1) of the bill be amended,
(a) by striking out "natural" in the 10th line; and
(b) by striking out "every document and trust" in the 12th line and substituting "a document or trust."
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
Shall section 3, as amended, carry? Carried.
I understand with respect to section 4 there is an amendment.
Mr Smith: I move that subsection 4(2) of the bill be amended,
(a) by striking out "section 1" in the ninth line and substituting "section 2"; and
(b) by inserting "or been subject to" after "had" in the second last line.
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
Shall section 4, as amended, carry? Carried.
Shall section 5 carry? Carried.
Shall section 6 carry? Carried.
I understand there's an amendment to section 7.
Mr Smith: I move that paragraph 2 of subsection 7(1) of the bill be amended by striking out "applies" in the fourth line and substituting "would otherwise apply."
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
I understand there is a second amendment to section 7.
Mr Smith: I move that subsection 7(2) of the bill be amended,
(a) by inserting "this act does apply to" after "subsection (1)" in the first line;
(b) by striking out "for" in the first line of clause (a);
(c) by inserting "and" after "otherwise" in the eighth line of clause (a);
(d) by striking out "for" in the first line of clause (b); and
(e) by adding "and" after "trustee" in the 10th line of clause (b).
The Chair: Does this second amendment to section 7 carry? Carried.
Shall section 7, as amended, carry? Carried.
Shall section 8 carry? Carried.
Shall section 9 carry? Carried.
Shall the preamble carry? Carried.
Shall the title carry? Carried.
Shall the bill carry? Carried.
Shall I report the bill, as amended, to the House? Agreed.
I wish to thank Mr Clark and Mr MacDonald and now declare this order of business closed. This also concludes our agenda.
Mr Bisson: I just want to wish Mr Shea well in his new endeavours. It has always been good working as an ally with Mr Shea on committee to bring some common sense to the government side. Your assistance in doing that has been very appreciated over the years.
Mr Shea: Thank you, Mr Bisson.
The committee adjourned at 1116.