ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED ENGINEERING TECHNICIANS AND TECHNOLOGISTS ACT, 1998
CONTENTS
Wednesday 9 December 1998
Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians
and Technologists Act, 1998, Bill Pr25, Mr Baird
Mr John Baird, MPP
Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists
Ms Margaret Nelligan
Mr Angelo Innocente
Mr Bruce Wells
Association of Architectural Technologists of Ontario
Mr Peter Adams
Mr David Hornblow
Cassels, Brock and Blackwell
Mr Frank Monteleone
Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario
Mr Walter Bilanski
Ms Laurie MacDonald
Association of Geoscientists of Ontario
Mr Bill Pearson
City of Kingston Act, Bill Pr22, Mr Gerretsen
Mr John Gerretsen, MPP
City of Kingston
Mr Gary Bennett
Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario
Mr Brian O'Keefe
Mr Stewart Fyfe
Ms Beth Pater
STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND PRIVATE BILLS
Chair / Président
Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Dave Boushy (Sarnia PC)
Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk PC)
Mr Dave Boushy (Sarnia PC)
Mr David Caplan (Oriole L)
Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford PC)
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie ND)
Mr Tony Ruprecht (Parkdale L)
Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea PC)
Mr Frank Sheehan (Lincoln PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North / -Nord L)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Anne Stokes
Staff / Personnel
Ms Laura Hopkins and Ms Susan Klein, legislative counsel
The committee met at 1008 in committee room 1.
The Chair (Mr Toby Barrett): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this regular meeting of the standing committee on regulations and private bills. We are considering two bills today. The first bill: continuing discussion on Bill Pr25, An Act Respecting the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists. Our second bill for discussion this morning is Bill Pr22, An Act Respecting the City of Kingston.
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED ENGINEERING TECHNICIANS AND TECHNOLOGISTS ACT, 1998
Consideration of Bill Pr25, An Act respecting the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists.
The Chair: Going back to our first order on the agenda, Bill Pr25, sponsor, MPP John Baird, Nepean. John, perhaps you would introduce again the candidates.
Mr John R. Baird (Nepean): Perhaps they could introduce each other and their position for the record.
Ms Margaret Nelligan: Margaret Nelligan. I'm solicitor for OACETT.
Mr Angelo Innocente: Angelo Innocente, president of OACETT.
Mr Bruce Wells: Bruce Wells, executive director, OACETT.
The Chair: Thank you, and if you would continue discussion.
Mr Baird: Maybe I'd just make some very short comments. I appreciate that you've got an important bill following this one on your agenda and this is giving us a second day. We'll try to make it quick, particularly for the good mayor of the city of Kingston, whom I know quite well.
This is obviously an important issue. I wanted just to maybe report back on two discussions that have taken place between the engineers and the architectural technologists. They've had some meetings with both and have agreed to make two amendments to the bill to try to address I think some of the fair comments made by members of the committee at our last meeting.
I would like to say just finally there is, while perhaps not universal admiration for the bill, a substantial amount of support for it from associations across the province who are not objecting to it. Certainly the Attorney General, whom I've met with, has no objection and is supportive of the direction that the bill is going in. So maybe without further ado, I'd turn it over for some brief comments by the group.
Mr Wells: Mr Chairman, thank you for hearing us again after last week. At the start, Mr Stephen Fram, who was at this table last week, is in Florida now for the winter so he will not be with us today and his comments will not be available.
You asked us at this hearing last week to look at two particular issues, and those two particular issues were to sit down with the Association of Architectural Technologists of Ontario and look at their amendments and try and come up with some reasonable conclusions to that particular thing.
We have done that. We have looked at the amendments. We have indicated that we will not oppose the amendments that they have put in. We don't think that they're really good in terms of basis of law and we are aware that some amendments have been drafted for you in that particular area. Our legal counsel has looked at them, is able to talk to them, answer questions on them, and we are supportive of that particular process.
The second area that you asked us to do was to sit down with the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario and try and see if we could come to some conclusion as to just what we would do with the designation "professional," which we were wanting to use in those designations.
We had a meeting with the executive of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario on Monday night. Mr Innocente and I could not get agreement from the professional engineers of Ontario at this time to use that designation. I want to stress that this was not a situation where they simply said adamantly, "No, we refuse." There was some discussion and we see some things coming down the line that would do that. Accordingly, I asked that those two new designations that we had asked for be dropped from the legislation and that we would go back to the designations that were in the act in 1984 and which you approved at that time.
Just to clarify, there is a document that hopefully was passed out to you, OACETT Protected Designations. The technologist designations: CET and AScT. CET, certified engineering technologist, is used for individuals registered in engineering-related disciplines, and AScT for individuals registered in applied science disciplines.
We use the certified technician, CTech, at the technician level for both engineering and applied science disciplines. That particular designation was approved by you in 1984. It is a designation that is used in this same capacity in nine provinces in Ontario. Indeed Quebec, which is not using it now, is looking in terms of moving in that particular direction. We are also moving on the work we're doing internationally to try and get that introduced as a kind of universal, international designation so we get out of the vegetable soup that Mr Shea was talking about in the past.
I'm not going to talk about the description of work. I'm going to let my president do that. But before I sit down, Mr Chairman, I would like to read two letters into the record. One is on the letterhead of the Consulting Engineers of Ontario. It's dated December 9.
"To Whom It May Concern:
"Consulting Engineers of Ontario renewed and strengthened its working relationships with OACETT in 1994 as a result of their participation on the sectoral committee that was established to develop a sector strategy for the consulting engineering industry. Based on their significant contributions to this study, OACETT was invited to further build on this partnership through a seat on the Consulting Engineering Sector Council. Also, OACETT became an affiliate member of our association in 1997.
"OACETT members form a major element of our industry and our association. Approximately 45% of the employees in the firms in our consulting engineering industry are technicians and technologists.
"We are pleased to support OACETT's efforts to include a generic description of work for technicians and technologists in the OACETT Act. We believe that it will help to clarify the competencies for employers and clients of our industry."
That's signed by Mr Don Ingram, PEng, the president of the Consulting Engineers of Ontario.
A second letter, dated December 8, to the president of OACETT from the Ontario Association of Architects:
"Dear Mr Innocente:
"Further to attendance by representatives of the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) at committee hearings on the OACETT Act, 1998, which were held last Wednesday, December 2, 1998, I wanted to take a moment to confirm the position of the OAA council.
"OACETT representatives have met with us on a number of occasions during the development of the OACETT Act and have kept the OAA council fully informed of progress and proposed amendments. A number of our specific concerns have been addressed over the course of successive drafts of the act.
"OAA council has reviewed the most recent draft which was provided to us on November 19, 1998, and have also had the draft reviewed by legal counsel. As you are aware, OAA council did have a technical concern with the wording of section 12(2) of that draft. I am now advised by our legal counsel that an amendment has been proposed which addresses those concerns.
"Therefore, I am pleased to confirm that the Ontario Association of Architects is raising no objection to the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists Act, 1998, with the amendment cited above.
"I would also like to take this opportunity to thank OACETT for including us in such a constructive way in the development of the OACETT Act and for responding to our concerns.
"The architects of Ontario wish you well, and look forward to a future of continuing positive relations."
That to concludes, basically, my remarks. I'd just like to say in closing I think I've met every one of you over the last two years. Going around this province, I think I have talked to about 170 people at Queen's Park about these proposed amendments. We have bent, twisted, turned, talked, discussed, compromised and done everything that every committee has told us to do. I hope you will recognize that and the support that we have received from basically the total community in this area when you look at what we have asked you to do.
I turn that over to our president, Mr Innocente.
Mr Innocente: Briefly, I wanted to go over the one page that was sent to the committee, why a description of work is needed in the OACETT Act. Just to reiterate, to focus on CETs and what they have in common; clarify the differences between CETs and related occupational fields; help students choose the appropriate technological profession for them; educate employers about the type of employee they need to perform a certain job; to provide words of limitation and not an exclusive right to practise.
Our description of work gives members of the legislative committee a better idea of who the organization applying for legislation is and what its members do. The description of work, as the one in the OACETT bill, can be helpful to those governed by the legislation and the organization governing them by publicly describing the limits within which practitioners work.
A description of work can be helpful to employers and people who retain a practitioner who is governed by a professional organization such as OACETT. It can help by clarifying the kind of work the person is held out as competent to do, and also help if there is a complaint arising out of the practitioner's work. That is the reason why we have come forward with this description of work.
Bruce Wells has indicated the meetings we have had with AATO on Monday and Professional Engineers Ontario on Monday evening. We've come to a decision in removing the professional titles, and there are several amendments that we hope the committee will endorse along with the bill.
At this point, if the committee would like, you could hear from AATO and some of the other associations in attendance, and then we'd be happy to sum up for the committee.
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The Chair: Thank you, Mr Innocente. No further comments from the applicants? At this point, in keeping with procedure, we'll call for any additional comments from any interested parties. I see a hand at the back. Could you approach the witness table, please, and identify yourselves.
Mr Peter Adams: Good morning, members of the committee and Mr Chairman. My name is Peter Adams. I'm the executive director for the Association of Architectural Technologists of Ontario. With me are David Hornblow, the president of the association, and our legal counsel, Frank Monteleone, from Cassels Brock.
As you saw last week, we handed out a one-page overview concerning this particular bill. In the interim, we did indeed meet with the association of engineering technologists. We didn't come to agreement as to how this bill should proceed. The concerns we had still stand. Now, they have made some progress in that area in terms of removing the professional titles that were of concern to a number of groups.
They've also met with Professional Engineers Ontario. I would certainly call upon the committee to ask Dr Bilanski, who is the president of the PEO, for his opinions this morning and find out his opinion of whether this bill should move forward.
Our feeling is that, yes, indeed OACETT did meet for the last two years on several occasions with the architects, they did meet on several occasions with the professional engineers, they did meet on several occasions with members of the committee, and they met with us Monday. Our concern is that the first time we had a face-to-face discussion with this organization concerning this bill was this past Monday.
During the advertising period, we sent them repeated opportunities for their president and executive director to meet with us, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To OACETT's credit, they proposed setting up a committee structure. Our concern was, with the bill moving forward this fall, that immediately the two associations should make it priority one and discuss how to make sure that architectural technologists are not caught up in this legislation. Unfortunately, that offer wasn't taken up and their president and executive director indicated that it was not possible to meet with them at all over the last three months, and we're here today.
Our concerns with this proposed legislation come down to two broad areas, the first being the titles that have been employed. We're an association of architectural technology and they're supposed to be an association of engineering technology. Our concern comes down to the fact that as of last week, half the titles they were proposing did not contain the word "engineering" or "engineer" in the title.
As of this morning, we were handed amendments to consider before we came into the room today. My understanding from hearing the previous presentation as well as what we've had a chance to go through before coming to the table is that the amendments withdraw the titles that have the descriptive word "professional" in them throughout the bill. That is certainly one step towards solving some of the concerns that some of the groups have mentioned, but it does not resolve all the problems.
They have two titles that are technician titles, one a generic "certified technician," the other a "certified engineering technician." I put it to the committee that if they're an engineering technology association, why a generic title? The explanation we were given on Monday was that it follows PEO's example, the Professional Engineers, where they have P Eng and then subdisciplines; that this follows a similar pattern.
Unlike the professional engineers, "certified technician" does not describe a core competency. There is nothing in that title that tells the public what that is. The representatives on Monday, although they are free to describe where that title will be employed, whether it will kept within the construction understanding or the construction industry, did not state that it would not be given to groups that are not related to engineering.
We have two technician titles in our association and we're very concerned that moving forward with this is going to increasingly cause the public to question what the technician category really means in the marketplace. Both the technician titles that our association employs have descriptive words in them to indicate to the public that if they're employing that individual, that individual has a core competency. We don't think that's a lot to ask.
Secondly, the description of work: We've certainly had conversations with a number of the committee members around the table, including Mr Baird, who very kindly made some time to see us as well regarding this. Frankly, we've also received a document that came in yesterday afternoon from OACETT giving the rationale for this, which I'll let our president Mr Hornblow speak to, the gist of it being that it will clear up confusion.
The description of work does not contain a reference to engineering; in fact, it has been described that it could apply to our members. One of the claims in the document is that students coming out of school are going to understand what this profession of engineering technology is. When they're asking for this description be applied to titles that don't contain the word "engineering" in it and the description itself doesn't contain a reference to engineering, we're not sure how that's going to clear up anyone's understanding of what an engineering technologist does.
The primary concern we really have is that a number of the groups around the table -- the engineers, the engineering technologists, ourselves as the architectural technologists -- have spoken to the need for umbrella legislation or a comprehensive review of how design and these types of services are provided in the industry. We feel that creating a number of titles acts, with descriptions of work, is a step in the wrong direction.
Essentially it comes down to two broad areas: (1) There is already an act in Ontario that describes the practices of architecture; (2) there's already an act in Ontario that describes the practice of engineering. Anything that changes that should happen within the scope of those acts, in our opinion.
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I foresee the day when all of us may be, if this act passes, forced down a different path. The concern we have, for all of us, is that every time a group wants to add a description of work now, because we're going to be derailed from going after the primary concern, which is taking a new look at how these services are provided in the existing framework, we're going to come back here time and again. We're all going to have to come back before the committee, because if we change our acts, all the other groups are going to have to come back and make sure we don't put anything in that adversely affects them. We'll be back here, with our legal counsel, taking days away from what we do for a living to come back here time and time again to do this.
From a larger perspective of getting on with everyone's stated aim of getting at umbrella legislation, our bigger concern here is that when we call these other groups and say, "Shall we meet and discuss umbrella legislation?" their response is going to be, time and again, "We're working on putting a description of work in our titles act right now, but we'd happy, after we've met for the next two, three, five years with interested parties, to sit down with you and talk about how that just might work."
We can't help but look at the red tape implications for this, that there is a number of acts. The public is going to be sitting on the outside of this process looking and saying: "Now to understand architecture I will have to understand the main act that deals with architecture and successive smaller acts that have descriptions of work in them. Now I'm going to have to pore through the engineering act and then I'm going to have to pore through a number of descriptions of work and successively small titles bills."
Not unlike the fact that each of us has a driver's licence and there's one Highway Traffic Act, the titles bill exists to give those titles to a particular group. The titles that have been asked for here today should not be protected titles. "Certified technician" is far too vague a title to protect. The description of work is far too vague; it doesn't link up with individual titles. At the end of the day, when we pass this Bill Pr25 into law, we're left with a confused public trying to sort through and figure out how everyone interrelates and how these titles are described by the description of work.
I'll very quickly turn this over to our president, and then our legal counsel will make a few remarks concerning the legal problems or the legal implications for our association should the description of work move forward as proposed.
Mr David Hornblow: I was quoted last week in my speech that this current piece of legislation, even with some of the proposed amendments, will muddy up the waters even further. I still feel that way today, even after reading the most recent amendments and even after meeting with OACETT on Monday.
OACETT has stated several times that they've met with the PEO, the OAA and this committee. We've extended an offer to meet with them on several occasions to deal with these issues far before they came to this committee, and we still wish to extend that offer to them.
We don't feel this bill should move forward the way it is currently and with some of the proposed changes suggested. There are several reasons. Reviewing some of the latest information that I received yesterday from OACETT themselves, from reviewing their bylaws, in particular bylaw 18, this bill certainly doesn't go far enough to do what OACETT was hoping to do; that is, to clear up those muddy waters or to clean up the vegetable soup, depending on what terminology you wish to use.
OACETT sent me a document called Appendix A. It says, "CETs need a statutory description of work to stress the principles uniting the diversely employed professions" within the first section. They further go on to say, "To clarify the differences between CETs and related occupational fields." I fail to see how the description of their titles or the description of work does that. Further in that paragraph it says, "the proper relationship between engineering technology and professional engineering." When I look at "certified technician" and the multiple disciplines that OACETT says they represent, I fail to see how that is accomplished through the description of work, which clearly overlaps with many of my members', who have taken their time to come out again today in support of our association's opposition of this.
They further go on to say, "provides clarity with respect to the work of CETs and architects." Again, I clearly state that this description of work does not do so; in fact, it overlaps. It doesn't say what an engineering technician or technologist does; it says what everybody does within the construction industry.
The third paragraph goes on to say, "To help students choose the appropriate technological profession for them." When a student applies -- and I was once a student -- whether through the college system or the university system, they apply for a certain discipline within their studies. Our students currently apply for architectural technology, architectural technician, building technology or building technician courses.
Currently, within their bylaw 18 and within information we've been given in the past and with our discussions -- however brief they might have been -- not related to this act, they've been using derivatives of our titles, which only adds to the confusion for students further on as they graduate, not knowing which organization represents them, not knowing which organization truly represents the concerns of the public in that particular discipline.
They further go on to say, "To educate employers about the type of employee they need to perform a certain job." Again I look at the description of work. It doesn't tell me that n certified technician solely can do this work, it doesn't tell me that an engineering technician solely does this work, but it also doesn't clarify who does what. "A statutory description of work will help employers understand who does what." I look at the bill and I look at the titles and I look at that description of work; it doesn't tell me who does what.
They go on to say in their fifth paragraph, "To provide words of limitation and not an exclusive right to practise." That's how they start this paragraph right off, yet then they further say in this paragraph, "The proposed description of work proposed for the OACETT Act limits what CETs are allowed to do." They also imply within this paragraph that it is the scope of practice, not so much the description of work. So this might be the first step towards a scope of practice within the discipline. It goes back to what Peter Adams, my executive director, said: that we currently have two scopes of practices within two current pieces of legislation that we all feel should be looked at towards the umbrella legislation.
They also go on to say, "It does not restrict what non-CETs can do." My legal counsel will allude to some of the difficulties within the current piece of legislation that we feel would be definitely a hindrance. I'll give you my example of my take on it.
Currently, the Architects Act does three different things. The Architects Act protects the title "architect." The Architects Act protects work done by an architect; it has description of work, who does what. The Architect Act goes on also to define what is architecture in the province of Ontario. I may not necessarily agree with the wide-scoping brush that this definition has been given, but it has been given that. By reviewing that and by what has happened to my membership in the past, this current piece of legislation causes me concern.
In the past membership and non-membership of the AATO and of the OAA, the OAA is taking people to court on the basis of the description of what architecture is. In doing so, they've used the description of what architecture is, so in turn they've held themselves out as being an architect. This is held up in a court of law, and the person has been found guilty or held in abeyance because of it not being so clear. When I look at the legalities and I go through each section of this act, I don't see how my members in the future will be protected from possible litigation from their association.
They say, "The inclusion of a description of work in a private bill reserving title is a worthy precedent." I would agree if it's under the umbrella organization, not in a titles bill. I say that honestly, because we stood before you two years ago and if we thought this was the way to go we probably would have tried it as well, but we did not feel that this was the way to go. The way to was through an umbrella piece of legislation to clear up discrepancies that have arisen within the industry stemming from the Architects Act and the engineers' act -- no fault of their own, by the way. They go on to say:
"A description of work will give members of the committee a better idea of who the organization applying for legislation is and what the members do. Members of some occupations, eg, librarians, may do work that is known."
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They also use the example of road superintendents. Again, when I use two diverse groups such as librarians and engineering technologists and I go through their various disciplines, how do they relate to engineering technology and how to do they relate to how a member of the general public will understand what a CTech is or an applied science technologist is without something modifying it, in other words, clearly stating that there's a certified engineering technician, clearly stating that there are certified engineering technologists?
The last two paragraphs of appendix A also cause me concern because, again, it contradicts what this piece of legislation is intended to do and what it fails to do:
"The description of work in important even though non-members of OACETT may do the described work and other organizations may use the description of work for their own purposes."
If I can go along and put this same description of work within my act, how does that help the general public understand what an architectural technologist or building technologist or a certified engineering technologist does, if I can use the same description of work? It doesn't clear up in my mind what an engineering technologist does, it doesn't clear up in my mind what an architectural technologist does, and it certainly doesn't clarify the differences between the two groups and the two professions. They say it resolves any confusion within the industry.
I lastly want to leave you this after going through their appendix A, after going through their bylaw, which is in part of our submission to you: It doesn't do so. It doesn't meet the benchmark to which this committee has held it so far and it doesn't meet the benchmark which the public and the industry will hold it up against.
As far as the legal ramifications, our legal counsel is more adept to go over those various things, so I'd like to turn it our to our legal counsel.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Hornblow.
Mr Frank Monteleone: I will be brief. My name is Frank Monteleone and I'm a partner at Cassels, Brock and Blackwell. I just wanted to deal with two issues from a legal perspective.
With respect to the work description, you've heard our concerns with respect to the description being generic, without substance and that it appears to be virtually unlimited in terms to what area of expertise the work descriptions could apply, including the work undertaking by AATO members. There clearly has been no attempt to draw a dividing line between the descriptions of work for OACETT members as proposed in this bill and the work which AATO members can undertake.
We also understand that the descriptions of work in this type of a bill are precedent-setting, and as we've emphasized, further consideration should be given as to the impact of proceeding in this manner rather than pursuant to umbrella legislation.
I believe I can express the concern with regard to AATO members this way: If you look at the proposed bill, and in particular sections 10, 11, and 12, under section 11, a person is prohibited from using a protected designation or title, and a person cannot imply or hold out that he or she is, for example, a certified technician. The question I would ask is, by performing work which is within the description of work in subsection 12(1) of the bill, does a person imply that he or she holds one of the protected titles from OACETT? Section 13 would not be a complete answer to this concern in light of this language.
The descriptions of work are so vague as to be virtually meaningless and this vagueness permits degrees of overlap, again, using AATO members as the example. We suggest that concern should be resolved before this bill is approved.
With respect to the protected title "certified technician" to which Mr Adams has already spoken, the only issue that I want to respond to is the fact that this title already exists in the 1984 act for OACETT. I would just comment that the entire bill is before you and therefore you are in a position to consider whether in 1998 the designated title "certified technician" is an appropriate one in light of the concerns that Mr Adams has already raised.
I believe that those are the issues.
Mr Adams: I'd just like to wrap up our presentation by indicating again that we don't understand why there is an urgency with moving forward with it this morning. Our group has had its one meeting of consultation which occurred between these committee meetings with OACETT. I think you'll hear, if you ask the president of professional engineers, that there are some concerns regarding the timeline as well in their association. I'd encourage you to bring Dr Bilanski forward to ask him directly.
Frankly, I think we would all benefit from taking a chance, to go through and see if there aren't alternatives to what we have before us today. It's been especially tough on our organization; a number of our members are sitting here today, who have taken time off work, because they feel quite strongly that this process hasn't been properly considered. We can only ask, if OACETT's had time and time again to meet with the architects and to meet with the engineers and to meet with members of the committee, why only one meeting with us?
Again, thank you very much, members of the committee. We look forward to your decision.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Adams.
We've heard from the applicants, we've heard from one interested party. Is there a second interested party that wishes to make comment?
Mr Walter Bilanski: Mr Chairman, it would depend on whether you wish to hear from the professional engineers again. We are here. That would be up to you.
The Chair: It's up to any second interested party if they wish to add any additional information. If not, I will go to the committee members for questions.
Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): Mr Chairman, I would like to hear what Mr Bilanski has to say before we get into the questioning.
The Chair: Yes, have a chair. For Hansard I'll just ask you again to identify yourself and your organization.
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Mr Bilanski: Walter Bilanski, president of Professional Engineers of Ontario, and Laurie MacDonald, registrar and CEO of the Professional Engineers of Ontario. I would like to thank you for giving me the privilege of addressing this standing committee again.
I'm going to open more to questions than really statements as far as I'm concerned. I believe -- I didn't play the tapes -- last week when I appeared here, roughly at the same time, I showed concern on behalf of the profession, which I do not need to reiterate to you but perhaps to some of the audience.
We work under the Professional Engineers Act which is there to protect the public. There is quite often a misunderstanding it is there to protect the engineers; it is not. It is there to protect the public and that is what we are here for, and with any changes or alterations or additions, we must and we do take into consideration the public.
The one aspect that we were concerned about was the name "professional." We did have a meeting last Monday with our executive committee and I understood, and I understand, that this title is going to be removed.
At the same time last week, I believe I mentioned that the time interval was short. Council did approve the act as it was going, but certainly I, as chairperson, had and have reservations if you ask whether we had ample time to really delve into it in detail. I was quite surprised, still am, that our joint committee apparently did take into consideration the changes that were made in the last two weeks, I believe. The official letter came in on November 19; nevertheless, I understand that they did not come to a conclusion.
Unfortunately, I do not see the chairperson of that particular committee. Therefore, my position has not really changed from last week other than I understand that the concern about the name "professional" is alleviated. Certainly, Laurie, if there's anything that you would care to add, please do so.
Ms Laurie MacDonald: I have nothing to add.
Mr Bilanski: I know the macro aspects and she knows the micro aspects.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Bilanski. We will be coming to the question portion of the agenda shortly, if you wish to have a chair.
Mr Bilanski: Thank you.
The Chair: Are there any additional interested parties who wish to speak before we go to the committee? Yes, sir, would you come forward?
Mr Bill Pearson: Thank you. My name is Bill Pearson. I'm the president of the Association of Geoscientists of Ontario, and John Bowlby is our vice-president.
Your committee may not be familiar with our organization but we represent over 1,000 geoscientists in Ontario who have been pursuing enabling legislation for licensure of our profession and this has particularly been highlighted by the recently released Toronto Stock Exchange, Ontario Securities Commission, Mining Standards Task Force.
We have had a number of discussions with OACETT over many months because many of our members work very closely with technologists and technicians. We, as geoscientists, are involved in many matters that affect both public interest and public safety in Ontario. We utilize the skills and talents of technicians and technologists in this work in areas such as resource development, environment practice and civil infrastructure development. So we're naturally very interested in following the developments of OACETT and how this legislation is evolving.
We would like to express our support for the amendments that OACETT has proposed. We particularly think the section on the description of work is a good addition because it clarifies what work can be undertaken by technicians and technologists relative to licensed professionals. I think this guidance is very useful in resolving some of the current confusion in the marketplace on provision of technical services within the geosciences.
We would just like to thank the standing committee for the opportunity to make our comments.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Pearson. Mr Bowlby, any comments?
Mr John Bowlby: No further comments.
The Chair: Are there any further comments from a separate, interested party? OK, at this point in our agenda --
Mr Shea: On a point of order, Chair: I ask your response to two points I want to raise. We have before us today two extremely important bills, Pr22 and Pr25. I'm sitting here and I'm conscious of the time on behalf of all the colleagues, all of us around the table, and we recognize we have people here from Kingston who have a significant issue to raise and I'm concerned about that. I can only assume that the assumption of the Chair was that Bill Pr25 would be resolved in terms negotiations prior to this meeting and that some of those negotiations may not have materialized. I'd like to keep us focused, if we can, mindful of the time frame before us.
I think I have to say that because I know what's on the agenda for all of us, and we want to deal with them in a complete and fulfilling fashion, but I'm concerned that we find ourselves in what still appears to be a fruitless dialogue that the committee will now have to wrestle with and resolve. That leads me to my second point about how to deal with Pr25 in a fitting fashion.
The process here has always been disconcerting at best. I hear from an applicant, I hear from somebody else, I hear from somebody else and they all take off and go into different parts of the room. If you want to then put them to examination, it's a matter of, "Let's wait for you after Alphonse," and the next one comes up and then the next one. It might be helpful, at least for me and my simple background, Chairman, to ask you for your indulgence and maybe we could ask at least one representative from each of the three major positioning groups to take a place at the witness table so if we want to ask questions we may be able to go to the questions very quickly to a representative of each group if that's necessary. For me it could be resolved with three or four questions, I think, but it may have to go to a couple of different parties at the time. I'm trying to facilitate that, because I'm mindful of the time. I seek your guidance.
The Chair: We will be going to questions. That's an idea. Mr Hardeman, comments on behalf of the government?
Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): Thank you very much --
The Chair: Unless you want to make a motion, Mr Shea.
Mr Shea: I don't want to make a motion. I have too much respect for your position as Chairman, and I know you'll facilitate matters of this committee, so I'll leave it in your hands.
Mr Hardeman: As I mentioned at the previous meeting for this bill a week ago, the government and the ministries that were involved with the review registered no objections to the bill. It was obvious from that meeting that there were some questions raised by the members of the committee that in the committee's opinion needed addressing. In fact, the issue was brought forward to today. I think it related to the questions of the word "professional" in the document and the other issue, I think we would all agree, was relating to the description of work in the bill.
I would point out that as the ministry registered no objection to the bill in it's previous situation, nothing that has come forward in the discussion today would, in my opinion, change the ministry's position on whether they would or would not object to the bill. I leave that to the committee members to make their own decision.
As we deal with the bill, I have some amendments that have been proposed by the applicant through the sponsor of the bill, Mr Baird, that I would be prepared to move into the record for any amendments that the committee may want to support in dealing with the bill.
Furthermore, I, as another member of the committee, would not object to the suggestion of committee member Mr Shea to ask maybe three spokespeople for the individual groups to be at the witness table in order that we could facilitate the question period more expeditiously.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Hardeman. Any amendments would be done during clause-by-clause. I do have a question from you, Mr Hardeman. Do you wish to ask that now?
Interjections.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): I just want to comment on Mr Shea's point. I'm trying to rest in my mind how that will make it more efficient, as a matter of fact, if we put three people up there, whether or not that shortens the time. I know democracy is quite a tedious, long, struggling process. I'm just wondering if by putting that it is compacting the question into one. Maybe what we need in a committee is an extended time to be heard rather than trying to ram it through in the short time we have. I'm just trying to understand how we would facilitate it.
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Mr Shea: Chair, I'm happy to respond if that's of assistance to you. Mr Curling, I want to make it very clear I'm prepared to stay here and take as many weeks as necessary to ensure that Pr25 is dealt with in the most judicious way possible. Understand that. On the other hand, I'm also conscious that, for whatever reason, and I don't hold the Chair or staff accountable for this, we also have a circumstance where Mr Gerretsen is here to present Pr22. People have travelled from Kingston and elsewhere, and they have a significant issue to deal with. I'm prepared to stay here for weeks and weeks, if necessary, to resolve that as well. But if it was a matter of facilitating a question -- and I believe the parliamentary assistant has adequately expressed the government point of view -- I can resolve my questions with two or three simple questions. All I need to do, though, is have the three of them there so they each have a chance to make a very quick response so I can see them in parallel.
I can do it the other way: I can have each group come up in our traditional fashion and they can stay here and we can all take lots of time to make sure we've asked those questions. Then we can go through the next group, and as each group lays out groundwork that may cause some doubt on a previous answer, I can go through the routine and bring them back and carry on through that. I'm happy to go through that process, Mr Curling. But out of respect to both Mr Baird and Mr Gerretsen, and particularly to the applicants, I was simply trying to find a way to facilitate the matter at least, I confess, for my benefit. I had hoped that it might be for the benefit of the committee. If it is not, sir, I am perfectly prepared to defer to your experience and to your wisdom and let this matter unfold in a longer period of time. That's all I have to say, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: I would like to move on to questions from committee members to either the applicant, to Mr Hardeman our parliamentary assistant or to any of the interested parties that have presented, starting with Mr Martin.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): I have no difficulty with the method that was suggested. I think it might facilitate. Different people may want to respond to different questions, and to be dragging them back and forth with the crowd we have here this morning doesn't make much sense. If you want to bring forward, say, a rep from each group and do that, I have no difficulty with that.
Mr Shea: Could I have a show of hands on that, Chairman?
The Chair: Could I have your question first? Does it relate to any of the interested parties?
Mr Martin: There was some talk this morning of there being an umbrella act that governs a certain group of workers in the province and, underneath that umbrella, different professions that define their scope of work. There was a suggestion that the definition of "technologist" might be more adequately addressed there as opposed to in this specific act. It sounds like we have three groups here this morning who have different views of whether defining this set of activities in this act is going to impede the ability of other professions to do the work, or if it will in fact confuse the public.
I think we have to be concerned about the issue of confusing the public. When you hire somebody to do something, you want to know very clearly and specifically what they have the professional qualifications to do.
I'd like some further clarification on the issue of there being an umbrella act and then specific acts, how that fits.
The Chair: OK. Was that a comment or did you have a question?
Mr Martin: I want somebody to clarify that for me.
The Chair: OK. You have a question and you haven't indicated whom you wish to answer.
Mr Martin: This may be a situation where all three of them may want to.
The Chair: OK. Given your wishes, then, could I ask for one representative of all the groups that presented this morning to sit at the witness table. I'm asking for only one representative from each of the interested parties plus one representative from the applicants, if that's in keeping with the wishes of this committee.
Mr Wells: Chair, since you have some amendments, speaking in terms of the legal area I think OACETT's legal counsel should sit for them. Hopefully, that will help speed it up for you.
The Chair: That's fine. Would the other interested parties that presented have one representative at the witness table if you wish to answer questions?
Mr Martin, you may want to repeat your question.
Mr Martin: It's the question of how the individual professions fit within the umbrella and the confusion we have here, this designation.
Ms Nelligan: If I could address that simply: At the moment, with respect to workers in the areas registered under OACETT, there is no umbrella legislation. We're using the term "umbrella legislation" here much like "health disciplines legislation," which would cover all workers within that field.
In this area there is no umbrella legislation. There are a number of pieces of public legislation: the Professional Engineers Act and the Architects Act. There are then private bills which confer on certain associations the right to confer titles, and that is the category into which the OACETT Act fits. It's a right to title bill.
With respect to whether the description of work in the proposed OACETT Act would impede or prohibit any other person from carrying out a particular practice, I would direct you to subsections 12(2), 13(1) and (2) of the bill, which were put in specifically to deal with this issue. Subsection 12(2) -- and I believe you will see a proposed amendment later this morning to tighten up some drafting in that -- provides that this act does not confer on anyone the right to perform work that only a licensed person may perform under an act of Ontario or Parliament. Subsections 13(1) and (2), I think, go even more directly to the question you raised, Mr Martin:
"13(1) This act does not affect the right of a person to describe himself or herself as a technician, an engineering technician, a technologist or an engineering technologist.
"(2) This act does not affect the right of a person to perform the work described in subsection 12(1)."
It's very clear on the face of the legislation that in no way does this description of work prohibit any person from performing the work described.
Mr Martin: I'd like some comment from the other groups.
Mr Adams: On behalf of the architectural technologists, I would add, and probably the other committee members have a similar question on this, that we all foresee a day when the practice of architecture and engineering is looked at in terms of -- there are some considerations by the different bodies within the industry -- that there's overlap and that currently where the lines are drawn does not reflect skill sets but reflects where the lines are drawn, if you will. In other words, if the architects were here they would probably suggest that there's some question about what percentage of an architectural technologist is an architect, whether it's zero or 10% or 100%. Right now the Architects Act does not permit an architectural technologist to do things that the general public is not allowed to do. So there is no scope of practice.
It's a similar situation for an engineering technologist. There is no defined scope of practice for these different groups. When they were created, the execution of how to train and create these professions happened but the scope of practice did not. When we talk about that, you're going to hear a lot more talk from groups such as ours, which feel that it's time they were included in the public legislation, that it doesn't make sense that they're not, and you're going to hear counter-arguments from those that, perhaps, maybe enjoy the situation as it is today or have very serious concerns. I'll let them speak for that process over time and other opportunities to come before committee, about who is qualified to do these different roles.
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So all we're talking about when we talk about umbrella legislation is the coming together of all these groups to review who does what, and to sort out what that will eventually look like. No one debates the fact that it would not be 15 or 20 different acts. Usually when people talk about umbrella legislation they're talking about a singular or limited number of entities. We currently have an act that deals with the practice of engineering. We have an act that deals with the practice of architecture. They seem like a logical starting point to resolving the problem of who can work in those fields. Our group's concern is: How does creating a series of descriptions of work -- and we've all heard around the table today that this is an extremely vague description that can apply to just about anybody -- solve the problem? What it does is that to understand the practice of engineering in Ontario a member of the public will have to understand the engineers act and will also have to understand the engineering technologists act because of the description of work.
Whether or not we think it's vague, it has legal implications for the future. Our group's concern is that despite assurances from legal counsel for the engineering technologists, our counsel has advised us that this description of work, in concert with the other sections of the act -- when we get into description of titles, it talks about somebody implying they're a certified technician. Our members don't imply they're certified technicians; they are. They're architectural technicians or building technicians. So we have a real concern that these sections are going to come back to haunt us.
To get back to the umbrella legislation, which is the core of your question: All of these groups, and a number of them are here today, are going to speak in favour of this. Frankly, if we were interested in a quick fix, we would say: "The umbrella legislation's way off. Give us a description of work. Give us a piece of it right now, and then we'll go to the Ministry of Housing and carve out an area of practice over time," which is what's going to happen. So down the road it's only going to get more confusing for the public.
The public is going to end up this description of work that has other things added to it over time. Each group is going to come before you and say, "We'd like a description of work." We're going to come back to the table and say, "This is how it affects us." All these groups will be back before you again and again. And I ask you, "Where's the fire?" They have a titles act. We're not talking about a group that, if they have a negative answer this morning, will suddenly be without any protection for the titles that they've enjoyed since 1984. That will still continue. It doesn't grandfather; nothing happens to it. It's not timing out in any sense of the word. They're here to add to that.
As we've said here, and as they have said in their own brief to you, we're talking about setting a precedent this morning by passing this description of work. It has a serious set of implications for all of us. I'm sure the other parties will elaborate it from their point of view. But I think it is really incumbent on the committee members to ask yourselves, "Do we want to set this precedent, and do we want to go through the process of hammering out ad nauseum before this committee the wording of titles bills?"
The Chair: Do you need any further information, Mr Martin?
Mr Martin: I know it's taking a bit of time, but I'd like the engineers to maybe share briefly --
Mr Shea: Just tighten up the answers.
Mr Martin: Yes, just tighten up the answers if you would.
Ms MacDonald: On behalf of the Professional Engineers, we're certainly open to discussion about an umbrella act, but we really don't have any comment because we don't know what it would be, we don't have any details. We know the concept has been floating around for some time. But until we have some idea of what it might look like, I don't think we can really comment on it.
Mr Martin: Just a supplementary: The division of trying to unscramble the egg, after you've spent a number of years defining and adding to and perhaps overlapping -- will what's going on here this morning complicate that and make it difficult down the road to do something of that nature?
Ms MacDonald: Are you directing the question to me?
Mr Martin: Yes.
Ms MacDonald: I guess the easy answer is: I'm not sure. The comment I would make is that PEO supports the act as presented here, although we have a defined scope of practice in our act which we feel, by law, we're obligated to enforce and will continue to do that. We think our definition is quite clear. It defines engineering practice which impacts on public safety. Regardless of what comes out in the OACETT Act, we'll continue to enforce the scope of practice in our act in the public interest.
Mr Hardeman: My comments are going to be directed to just two parts of the bill. I think we've gone through this at a previous meeting, and there seemed to be consensus of all the presenters at the last meeting that there were two contentious issues in this bill. I would like to confine my questions to that and hopefully the answers too, not to rehash the principles of why it's being presented.
The first one is the issue of having the word "professional." I believe the professional engineers' association presentation last week was: "We support the bill, except we did not realize the word 'professional' was being used and we have concern about that so we require more time to talk about that. We're not saying it's negative, but we would like to discuss that." It appears that the applicants are prepared to remove all reference to "professional" in those descriptions. Is it reasonable to assume that that would take away the professional engineers' objection to the passing of this bill?
The other part of the bill, and I think it relates to the architectural technologists too. Their presentation on the titles was in fact that there was no need for those titles. Everything else is, in fact, the same titles that were there before. So this act is not going to change those titles if those amendments were to be passed.
Mr Adams: Are you looking for comments?
Mr Hardeman: Yes.
Mr Adams: Our concerns, if you look at our overview, were of the generic nature. We heard, actually, in your presentation last week, Mr Hardeman, that the Attorney General's office opposed the inclusion of "professional technologist" because it was too vague, and asked that "professional" be added to the other two titles. I guess our concern was: If you use the same yardstick for the "certified technician" title, does it not fail too?
Mr Hardeman: I guess from the committee's point of view, with the amendments that propose to remove the last two titles, 5 and 6, the titles will be identical in the proposed bill as they would be if the proposed bill does not get passed.
Mr Adams: They would be identical but they wouldn't be righting a wrong that's existing since 1984?
Mr Hardeman: Assuming that we're not in a position to correct the wrongs of the world, then it's reasonable to assume that there's going to be no change there.
Mr Adams: We're just limiting it to this.
Mr Hardeman: I just want to get it clear in my mind.
The other one is the issue of the umbrella legislation that would describe the scope of work. Recognizing that this committee does not have the ability to create new umbrella legislation to accommodate all facets of our society, that this committee has to deal with what's here, if you had umbrella legislation defining the scope of work for your organization, the architectural and engineering technologists, is there any reason to assume that that scope of work would be broader in definition than what is in this bill?
Mr Adams: I'm not sure if I understand.
Mr Hardeman: Could it be more generic than this bill?
Mr Adams: Could this be any more generic or could anyone's be more generic?
Mr Hardeman: Would you see anyone becoming more generic than this in any piece of legislation?
Mr Adams: I think it would be a struggle to be more generic than what's here. And if by implication you're saying, "Does it apply to a broad number of groups including ours?" Yes.
Mr Hardeman: I guess I have a problem with, if it's so generic that it does not direct it to a certain group, and it goes on to say, "This act does not affect the right of a person to perform the work described in the section. It does not apply to other people who have similar titles. It does not restrict them," I cannot understand why any organization would consider that negative to their organization.
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Mr Adams: Actually, it comes from an understanding of how the Architects Act has been enforced on our membership. Our members are prohibited by law to say they practise architecture. Would you not assume, if you heard somebody say they're an architectural technologist, that there was some element of architecture in that title? That's the kind of weapon that's been used. When these things get into law, they cease to just be the spirit of the moment and they become a very real tool that the courts look at in enforcing how these different bodies are going to interact or interrelate.
Our concern is, because this is so vague and doesn't actually mention engineering anywhere throughout it, it could very well be used to come down on our membership. If you look at the definition about working in codes and under acts, our membership does that every day. A number of them are here today. You can ask them direct questions. By passing it here, there are sections here that say that if you hold out or imply that you are any one of these titles -- these sections are not adequately covered off by section 13. There isn't, within each section, any way to disarm those points of law. Our legal counsel has told us we have a very real problem with it. We're the ones who will have to live with it, I guess, if it passes.
Ms Nelligan: If I could just supplement, with respect to the legislation governing architects, that has the force of public legislation. I'll be paraphrasing here because I don't have the act in front of me but, unlike this bill, that act would say that the work of an architect is defined this way and no person may perform that work or they have committed an offence.
It's very clear this is a private bill; it's not public legislation. No offence is created by performing the work contained in this bill. I'd just like to draw that distinction between the public nature of the architects bill and this bill.
Mr David Caplan (Oriole): In the appendix, when it talks about why a description of work is needed, there's a reference to related occupational fields. How many related occupational fields are there?
Ms Nelligan: I'll jump in here on the answer although I am legal counsel. The OACETT registers members in 64 subcategories. I can't recite those for you at the moment but they cover a lot of different areas: engineering, chemists, geoscience and building design. Those are the four categories I can tell you right now. If you'd like more information I can ask our executive director.
Mr Caplan: The point is there are a vast number of related occupational fields.
Ms Nelligan: That's right.
Mr Caplan: Then my question is, how does the description of work here clarify the differences between those occupational fields, as is the claim in the appendix?
Ms Nelligan: It doesn't clarify the differences between the occupations but it does clarify the position of the technician and the technologist vis-à-vis the professions that operate under public legislation, such as the professional engineers and the architects, and it provides some clarity that the technicians and the technologists work within standards and codes. That has not yet been said before. It describes the work that the technicians and technologists do but it does not attempt to draw lines between the particular areas of the 64 subcategories that would be in the registered categories.
Mr Caplan: Or with other related associations.
Ms Nelligan: That's right. So by not defining those areas we are also not trying to limit those areas or impede on their areas.
Mr Caplan: Where is the clarity? For example, engineers and architects already have a well-defined scope of practice in law, and that's unquestioned. That already exists. Where is the clarity with other occupational fields that this description of work is supposed to provide?
Ms Nelligan: It provides clarity for a number of areas -- not all. Particularly vis-à-vis some public legislation where the definition of work is very broad, it provides clarity. We have the agreement of those professional associations that this provides clarity for the people who perform technologists' and technicians' work under the direction of that profession. The clarity is meant to meet that layer and not necessarily the different disciplines that arise within OACETT's membership.
Mr Caplan: I think we could go on a bit about that, but it is recognized that this is a significant precedent, to have description of work in a private bill. That's readily acknowledged.
Ms Nelligan: It's fair to say it is a precedent. I'm not sure that it is significant because it is not purporting to go into the realm of public legislation or prohibit any person from doing anything or creating a duty on any person. It does have some precedent in that the style of legislation is new, but it's inoffensive from a precedential point of view because it's not rocking the boat on creating prohibitions or creating new duties.
Mr Caplan: But it has never happened before.
Ms Nelligan: To my knowledge this has not happened before, no.
Mr Caplan: In this way.
Ms Nelligan: No.
Mr Caplan: One further question. In the description of work in the appendix, the last point says that other associations and organizations could use similar or even identical wording in their own titles acts. What I'm interested in is, if that is the case, if another organization -- the landscape folks, architects, or some others -- used identical wording as description of work, wouldn't that be rather confusing? Where is the clarify about what everybody does if everyone has the same descriptions of work?
Ms Nelligan: We believe it could provide clarity for other associations should they choose to adopt this approach in their legislation, including our friends at AATO. A description of work may help with this. If they could get agreement with the association of architects on a description of work, they may not have so much litigation between the two parties as to who's trampling on whose field, because you have an agreement as to what work is performed by the technicians and technologists. Again, since this is a private bill, it doesn't have the force to the effect that if somebody contravenes a provision, it is an offence. It's not a licensing statute.
The Chair: I have two remaining questions. I know committee members --
Mr Caplan: I have some further questions but I would welcome a comment from some of the other presenters.
Mr Adams: We've heard that they don't feel it would impact on us, and the first opportunity they had to discuss that with us was last Monday, after the bill was already here.
I would ask the committee members -- you're calling yourself a certified technician. You're now saying this is our description of work. If you hold out and say, "I'm going to call myself a certified technician," and then read out this description of work, try it on somebody who hasn't been here this morning and see if they understand what that person is. That's our complaint. There's nothing in the description of work or the title I've just mentioned that uses the word "engineering" or "engineer."
We've been told it's a good idea because we could put it in our act too. I'm really not too sure how that solves -- they've said in their own piece, "It will help students understand." Well, if the students are going to see the same thing in 15 different pieces of legislation, will that make them understand that a lot of groups have an understanding of a vague description, or does it give them an understanding of what each group does individually? I can't help but draw the conclusion that it's all extremely vague.
Mr Caplan: If I could --
The Chair: Mr Caplan, we have another response as well waiting from Mr Innocente.
Mr Innocente: Sorry, Mr Caplan. Just to help our counsel, since this is more a technical issue, when you asked the question, "Codes and standards -- how will you know what an individual can do?" I look at my own practice, civil discipline, and I have to work within codes and standards. I have to work within municipal by-laws and regulations every day, and they vary from municipality to municipality. So I know very clearly what, as civil, I have to work with. In the building codes it's very clear what we can and can't do. In the chemical area I'm sure there are chemistry rules and regulations. So it's not for OACETT to say exactly where those limits are other than that they're defined somewhere else. One of them is the engineers act and one is the Architects Act. We obviously can't do engineering, we can't do architecture, but what we say our members should and can do is what's allowed in the current regulations.
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Mr Caplan: I have a quick question for one of the other presenters, and that's Mr Pearson from the geoscientists.
I understand from you comments that you're in support of the act. First of all, I understand from your comments that a lot of work is being done in scope of practise arising out of some circumstances that happened previously, but will your association be coming forward and looking for description of work to be placed into your titles act as a result of the precedent being set in this bill today?
Mr Pearson: In terms of formulating what we would propose to have in an act, we would be looking to have a definition of "practice" following the precedent set in engineering and architecture. That would be the approach we would be looking at. This type of precedent has been well established for our profession in other provinces and it has largely followed the engineering approach for the definition but obviously for geoscience. Clearly, we would look at what is proposed in these acts to see what sort of impact it would potentially have. I think you'd be back to the same point that was mentioned previously, that this is not defining a legal scope of practice for a certain profession like engineering. If we have an act with a definition for professional geoscience, which is certainly our intention, then that would define the bounds for where a geoscience technician or technologist would also be practising. So it would have exactly the same effect as for the engineers and the architects that presently exists.
Mr Caplan: Could the description of work that appears in this bill be applied to a geoscience technician or technologist as well?
Mr Pearson: I don't see any reason why not. It's written in more or less a generic sense, trying to define the boundary between what a licensed professional does and what a technician and technologist does. It basically relies on the particular legislation that would exist in a different profession, again, the engineers, to really define what that scope of practice is. So I don't think, in my understanding of law, that in a right-to-title act you're able to define a specific scope of practice in detail. That is always in government legislation under licensure. From our point of view, the chief advantage of this definition is defining that boundary, but the scope of practice for a different profession would be defined in the government act.
The Chair: Would committee members like to wrap this up.
Mr Shea: I've got a couple of questions, so I can get them very quickly.
To the professional engineers, Ms MacDonald, when I meet someone and they give me a business card and they have the "PEng" designation on the card, what am I getting?
Ms MacDonald: You're getting a licensed professional engineer.
Mr Shea: Having said that, what does that word "engineer" mean?
Ms MacDonald: How detailed an answer do you want?
Mr Shea: Let me put it in lay terms. I'm just a layman so you'll have to help me through this. I want to do some electrician contracting. Is it possible I could have somebody who's really specialized in mechanical engineering?
Ms MacDonald: You would want to get somebody with a speciality in the field that you're doing, so you would want to get a PEng with qualifications in that area.
Mr Shea: So there are different streams or different specialities within that.
Ms MacDonald: Yes.
Mr Shea: That's all I wanted to get at. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I had it on the record that there are those streams.
They're not designated. You don't go around saying, "PEng, mechanical" or "PEng --
Ms MacDonald: No.
Mr Shea: That may be a way to resolve some of the issues before us today. I suppose if somebody's got a concern with a certification designation, you say, "architectural technologist" or whatever. I suppose that's one way you could proceed. Then everyone's very happy to say, "Gee whiz, I'm all the same but I've got 'something special,'" but that hasn't come before us today so I can't go there.
A question, then, to the legislative counsel. If the legislation that's before us is approved today, with the amendments that the parliamentary assistant wants to put forward to resolve the issue of concern to the professional engineers, does this have retroactive aspects that in effect require everyone in the province by a certain date to use the same standard designation?
Ms Laura Hopkins: No, sir, it doesn't.
Mr Shea: So I still continue to grandfather everybody with different designations?
Ms Hopkins: It only restricts the use of the four designations that are set out in the statute and they're already restricted by virtue of the 1984 private bill.
Mr Shea: Thank you. I have no other questions.
Mr Frank Sheehan (Lincoln): I'd like Mr Bruce Wells to come up, please. I just want to get some things on the record. Has OACETT encroached on any of AATO's titles as set out in their bill, section 9(1)?
Mr Wells: No, sir, we have not.
Mr Sheehan: I'm looking at a licence certificate here, a membership card, albeit it's back in 1995, and one expired December 1998. You have "engineering technician, architectural." Does that encroach?
Mr Wells: If you go back to the hearings when this act was founded, when the Architects Act was promulgated, you will note that I asked for amendments and specific clarification, and Mr Shea and I had some interesting dialogue on that. The rewording supplied from legislative counsel is very clear on that. I could pull it out, I'd have to find it, but basically what it said was, "You, OACETT, are not allowed to use the terms 'registered building technician,' 'registered building technologist,' 'architectural technician', 'architectural technologist.'" When further queried, and Mr Shea was very involved in resolving this, the question was again repeated. It's on page 185 of that testimony and it basically said, "That's all that you are protected," and that's what we have consistently said. We have not used designations that we have not used. We are simply doing what we have been doing since 1962, and we were very much assured by that committee at that time that we could do so.
Mr Sheehan: Mr Adams has had some concern, and I had a conversation with you last night. Have you undertaken to expunge all the offensive references in your literature?
Mr Wells: Yes, we have. We're not doing this because we're forced to; we're doing this because we're trying to be a good citizen. We have had, as you know, letters from their lawyers threatening to sue us over the terms that we feel we can use. We have taken the initiative to clean up on our Web site where there have been references to "architect" and "architectural." If you take our by-law 18, which was approved by our annual meeting in May, you will find that all references to "architectural" have been taken out of it. When you see the 1999 membership cards that will be coming out -- you haven't seen them yet because we haven't got them out the door -- I can assure you that references to "architectural" have been taken off those cards too.
I have not done that because of this hearing or anything. I'm an executive director of a multi-million-dollar association and when we get threatened to be sued on four occasions by lawyers, one gets a little cautious of what one puts on documents. We took it out for that reason.
Mr Sheehan: So we can't attribute any high motive there.
Mr Wells: No.
Mr Sheehan: I have a question for your lawyer, if I may. You made the statement, "It's a private members bill, therefore it has no penalties or no offence," but in section 11(8) it says, "A person who contravenes any provision of this section is guilty of an offence."
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Ms Nelligan: Perhaps my statement was a bit broad, Mr Sheehan. Under right to title legislation, to use a certified title in an unauthorized manner is an offence but that is the only offence that's created under the act.
Mr Sheehan: What's the remedy or what's the penalty?
Ms Nelligan: It would be up to the association to bring an action under the Provincial Offences Act in court to have --
Mr Sheehan: So it's a civil action?
Ms Nelligan: Yes.
Mr Sheehan: A question or two and then I'll turn it back to Mr Wells. Will this designation and clarification you're getting on this assist any Canadian members of yours in NAFTA, free trade?
Mr Wells: Yes. We have agreements through the Canadian Council of Technicians and Technologists, of which we are founding members with the UK, at this point. We have been working with the US. We're now working with the Washington Pact company countries to expand in there. So yes, it will help in this regard.
Mr Sheehan: How does it help?
Mr Wells: It starts to clarify the fields in terms of who does what, the titles used. These designations are tied into agreements that come at national levels. You don't make agreements with various countries without having some standard. Accordingly, some of the things that we need to do, like designation-certified technologists, have to have some kind of standardization across the country, as do CETs and AScTs. I'm not suggesting to you that it's perfect, but we have tried to clarify that stuff and are working towards it.
Mr Sheehan: Mr Adams, following on Mr Caplan's query, I perceive, when I look down this list that you provided me, there are areas of expertise that are not engineering in nature, nor are they essentially scientific, yet they would I think require a certain degree of certification or recognition that there is an expertise involved. Would you agree with that statement?
Mr Adams: I agree with the principle of registering people in particular areas. But do I agree with a generic title without a core competency? Unlike the professional engineer --
Mr Sheehan: I don't want any more sermons. This thing has gone on too damn long. I'm sorry to cut you off but I've listened intently for two weeks now. The point is, and I come back to what the professional engineers' lawyer said, they have "professional engineer" and then you can have a competency in electrical or mechanical or whatever. I don't understand why you would insist that there cannot be a certified technician and then go into something that is not scientific and is not engineering in scope, so why would you deny those people that right to have "certified technician"-whatever?
Mr Adams: Would you like me to respond?
Mr Sheehan: As quickly as you can, please.
Mr Adams: As I was mentioning before, because they are a professional engineer, you understand that they've gone through a period of education and that they are now recognized as a professional engineer in Ontario. The certified technician, when you're taking it by itself -- the "technician" title is used and different associations have different levels of educational requirement for that. There is no standard in the industry for what the educational requirements of a technician are, unlike a PEng.
Mr Sheehan: OK, but it was pointed out by the lawyer here that there are codes of practice and standards that go with setting yourself up, say, as a marine technologist or whatever. Am I not correct that these codes of practice apply and they're recognized by the industry?
Mr Adams: The industry doesn't understand by itself what a certified technician is.
Mr Sheehan: Let me ask you another way, then. Do the people in the industry or in the business have an argument with any of these titles that are set out in section whatever of this bill? If I am in the construction business and I want a technician with a specific set of skills and I see somebody is a certified technician-whatever, does that mean to me that is somebody who is knowledgeable?
Mr Adams: If "certified" had a descriptive word, then yes, you'd know an architectural technologist or technician would be coming with an architectural background; you'd know an engineering technologist or technician would be coming with an engineering background.
We're not disputing, I might add, the use of the word "engineer" or "engineering."
Mr Sheehan: I'm going on the "certified technician" and I can see lots of areas where, other than them incorporating a list of names as long as my arm, you're not going to have it. So there has to be one cap list dash such-and-such and then everybody is going to understand it.
Mr Adams: But are they all in engineering or are they in something totally different?
Mr Sheehan: I already made that point. I look down your list and I see things that are not engineering in nature, nor are they scientific in nature, and yet they require a whole host of skills. For example, somebody who is operating controls -- computerized technology on controlling heavy equipment or machinery in a factory -- not an engineer, not a scientist; a technician. So I don't have any problem with "certified technician."
Their bill has been around since 1984. Yours has been around since 1996. Has there been a big mass of complaints or a whole host of complaints made that people don't understand these titles?
Mr Adams: Actually, it is a large concern with our membership, and certainly in the industry, as to what a technician is. By having specific descriptions and a title that explains what it is, you make it easier for the public to understand whom they're employing, and the more vague you become --
Mr Sheehan: With respect, you said your members. Have you canvassed this list of names, this list of associations? Is this paper accurate, that there are 10 different associations, over 112,000 people, who have no problem with this bill? Have you canvassed these people to find out why they have no problem?
Mr Adams: They're not our association. We've canvassed our association. That's whom we're here representing.
Mr Sheehan: We're dealing with public concern and perceptions here. I'm concerned, as a representative of the public, whether or not what you're presenting has the complete picture for me to digest.
Mr Adams: I appreciate your concern.
Mr Sheehan: I think that just about kills me.
The Chair: Are the members of this committee ready to vote?
Mr Sheehan: Can we have the amendment, please?
The Chair: We will. First of all, we do that in clause-by-clause. Are the members of this committee ready to vote? We are voting on Bill Pr25, An Act respecting the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists. The sponsor is Mr Baird, MPP.
In keeping with procedure, I wish to collapse section 1 through section 7. There are no amendments for these sections. Shall sections 1 through 7 carry? Carried.
Section 8: Do I have an amendment?
Mr Hardeman: Yes. I move that paragraphs 5 and 6 of subsection 8(2) of the bill be struck out.
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
Shall section 8, as amended, carry? Carried.
Shall section 9 carry? Carried.
Section 10: Is there an amendment?
Mr Hardeman: Yes. I move that subsections 10(5) and (6) of the bill be struck out.
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
Discussion?
Mr Sheehan: I don't want to discuss. I'm just trying to follow the major numbering.
The Chair: Just backing up, we did vote to carry this amendment to section 10. Is that correct?
Interjection: Yes.
The Chair: Shall section 10, with that amendment included, carry? Carried.
Further amendments?
Mr Hardeman: I have a motion. I move that subsection 11(3) of the bill be amended by striking out "or as a professional applied science technologist" in the fourth and fifth lines.
The Chair: First of all, shall this amendment carry? Carried.
With respect to section 11, do you have further amendments?
Mr Hardeman: Yes, I do. I move that subsection 11(4) of the bill be amended by striking out "or as a professional certified engineering technologist" in the fourth and fifth lines.
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
Anything further on that?
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Mr Hardeman: I move that subsections 11(5) and (6) of the bill be struck out.
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
Mr Hardeman: I move that subsection 11(4) of the bill --
Interjection: We're already at (7).
Mr Hardeman: Oh, sorry.
I move that subsection 11(7) of the bill be amended,
"(a) by adding 'or' at the end of clause (a);
"(b) by striking out 'or' at the end of clause (b); and
"(c) by striking out clause (c)."
The Chair: Shall this amendment to section 11 carry? Carried.
Shall section 11, including these several amendments, carry? Carried.
Section 12.
Mr Hardeman: I move that subsection 12(1) of the bill be amended by striking out "a certified engineering technologist, a professional applied science technologist or a professional certified engineering technologist" in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth lines and substituting "or a certified engineering technologist".
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
Are there further amendments to that section?
Mr Hardeman: I move that subsection 12(2) of the bill struck out and the following substituted:
"Same
"(2) Subsection (1) does not authorize a person described in that subsection to provide services that only persons authorized under an act of Ontario or of Canada are permitted to provide."
The Chair: Shall this amendment carry? Carried.
Mr Martin: Just before you move acceptance of section 12, I want to put on the record that I won't be voting for it because I think it creates a problem in the industry that does not move forward in the area of clarifying just exactly what different categories within a profession do. I find it disappointing that the groups that are here today weren't able to come together to find some way resolving this.
I think the idea of an umbrella piece of legislation somewhere down the road that covers all of this and gets the different professions together to decide who does what so that the public can be better served re greater clarification would be a good thing. I think, having listened to the discussion both last week and this week, that this section further entangles this and scrambles it in a way that will make that exercise more difficult when we finally get to it.
I will be voting against section 12 and, because of that, ultimately against the bill.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Martin. Further discussion on section 12?
Mr Caplan: I recommend that section 12 be struck out. It is in my opinion not appropriate, from a public policy perspective, to include this kind of language in a private bill, this type of definition of work. Further, if you take it to its ultimate conclusions, scope-of-practice legislation ought to come from the ministry. I have no argument with OACETT. I think it's quite laudable that they've brought this to the fore and have been pressing for umbrella legislation.
I don't believe that the process is well-served, that there will be conformity with all the other associations and interested parties as there should be. I do not believe that this will provide clarity. I also have some significant concerns about the precedent this will set, not just in the design and technology industry but in all particular title bills.
I predict that this committee will see several such bills coming forward asking for the description of work to be placed in those bills. This committee will be making ad hoc decisions on a case-by-case basis, and I do not believe that is appropriate, so I will not be supporting this section.
The Chair: Further discussion on section 12.
Mr Sheehan: Relative to the inclusion of that section, it's not really necessary in the sense that the activity that it's setting out to preclude is already precluded under the Professional Engineers Act, for example, or the Architects Act. What you really have is a prohibition to do something that's already prohibited.
We had some extensive conversations with the Red Tape Commission's lawyer on this subject last night and it was felt that it has an added strength or an added clarity for the public who may not be familiar with the other acts. That's why, from my perspective, it should be included.
The Chair: When we vote on section 12 I should ask for clearly a show of hands.
Do you have further discussion on section 12?
Mr Hardeman: For the record, Mr Chairman, in support of section 12, it does not mean that I as an individual disagree with umbrella legislation. I just see absolutely nothing in this section that would prohibit umbrella legislation to be drafted and be put through legislation to deal with them all. I think it related to my question about this being so generic that you would never make anything more generic than this, and would imply to me that if you brought in umbrella legislation, it would tighten up this definition. This would not inhibit that process from happening. Since this is the way the applicant proposed the bill, I see absolutely no reason not to support it as it presently is amended so the associations can all carry on working towards drafting umbrella legislation that would cover them all.
Mr Curling: Mr Chairman, I'll be very short. I'm quite surprised, with great respect to the parliamentary assistant -- having recognized the fact that you see that umbrella legislation should come forward from the ministry. Maybe that's where the legislation should have come forward, recognizing that they wouldn't have allowed this private member's bill. You are then pointing out that you are not against it; you accept this one. I feel it's an unnecessary exercise that we could have accomplished through main legislation.
The Chair: Shall section 12, with the several amendments, carry? I'd like to clearly see some hands up on this vote so we're positive on this one. Those against? Carried.
Continuing on, I wish to collapse sections 13, 14, 15 and 16. Shall sections 13 through 16 carry? Carried.
Shall the preamble carry? Carried.
Shall the title carry? Carried.
Shall the bill, as amended, carry? Could I ask for a show of hands? I heard a no. Shall the bill, as amended, carry? I wish to see a show of hands. Those opposed? Carried.
Shall I report the bill to the House? Yes.
I wish to thank the applicants and the interested parties and declare this first order of business closed.
Mr Wells: Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to apologize for taking so much of your time.
The Chair: Thank you.
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CITY OF KINGSTON ACT, 1998
Consideration of Bill Pr22, An Act respecting the City of Kingston.
The Chair: I wish to continue with the second item on the agenda, Bill Pr22, sponsor MPP John Gerretsen, Kingston and The Islands. I would ask the sponsor and the applicants to approach the witness table.
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Chair: I would like a ruling from the Chair. Bill Pr22, 1998, sponsored by the member for Kingston and The Islands is, in our opinion, out of order. I refer to Beauchesne, section 1055, which states that there are four principles which have been followed in determining whether a bill is properly a public bill rather than a private bill. The first is that the matter is an issue of public policy.
Bill Pr22 allows the municipality, under section 6, to delegate to corporations initially owned by the municipalities any of the council's or the city's powers or duties relating to the provision of a municipal service. This affects a very wide range of powers that are normally subject to the Municipal Act. It also does this in a way that is very sweeping and would set a precedent for the conduct of municipal government in this province.
One particular requirement of the Municipal Act that could be affected is the requirement under section 55 for a municipal council or a local board to hold public meetings. Bill Pr22 specifies in subsection 5(3) that the municipal corporations created by the act are not to be considered local. Local boards are required to have open meetings.
Beauchesne's second criterion is that the bill should be public if it proposes to amend or repeal public acts. I would contend that the references made above also fit this criterion. I would also ask the Chair to note subsection 7(6) of Bill Pr22, which allows money to be transferred to the new corporations from various reserve funds despite various acts, including the Development Charges Act, the Municipal Act and the Public Utilities Act.
Beauchesne's third criterion refers to the magnitude of the area and the multiplicity of the interests involved. Since the bill refers to virtually the entire scope of municipal activity in the newly amalgamated city of Kingston, it in our view fits this criterion.
Finally, Beauchesne's fourth criterion is that the bill, though partly of a private nature, has as its main objective a public matter. I think I've made it clear in my previous comments that this is the case. I would ask the Chair to please rule on those points at this time, if you would, before we move on.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Martin. We do have some information with respect to a ruling of the Speaker of the Legislature. I would ask our clerk to better explain. It happened yesterday, did it?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Anne Stokes): The standing orders do allow for bills that don't comply with standing orders to be referred to the Legislative Assembly committee. In this situation, this bill has been referred to the regulations and private bills committee. The Speaker ruled on this point of order in the House yesterday and he felt, in his opinion, although he didn't have much time to review it, it was a matter for a private bill.
The legislative counsel, I believe, has some information that can clarify that, as to whether it's properly a private bill or not and can address that.
I would also just like to bring to your attention that this bill has been referred here. There's now a point of order as to its appropriateness for referral here, whether it is properly a private bill. It's a procedural issue and the question is, is this a subject matter for a private bill?
The committee has the absolute right to determine that today, notwithstanding what the Speaker said yesterday. You can take the information from legislative counsel or you can make your own decisions. You have the absolute right to determine in your decision whether this is properly a private bill and belongs here for consideration. That's something for you to decide.
Perhaps I'll turn it to legislative counsel.
Ms Hopkins: The issue is a procedural issue so I don't intend my comments to be about the merits of the bill, just about the procedural issue.
The bill does three things. It broadly addresses financial issues in the municipality, the method to be used to deliver certain municipal services and a legal issue relating to the appointment of municipal staff.
Municipalities in law have only the powers given to them under statute. Powers are given to all municipalities under such public statutes as the Municipal Act. Private bills are used for two reasons in connection with municipalities. They're used either to give special powers to a municipality, powers that a municipality doesn't have under the public legislation, or to create an exception to the public law. An exception might be in the nature of giving a municipality a different power or imposing different procedures than the procedures established under the public legislation.
Sometimes these special powers or these exceptions are matters of great importance within the municipality. A private bill can deal with a matter that is of great policy importance within the municipality. The procedural question for the committee to decide is, does the bill deal with policy matters that are not best considered by this committee but policy matters that are best considered primarily by the assembly as a whole?
As members of the committee know, private bills have a special, simpler process. Once a private bill is introduced in the House, it's referred to this committee and this committee scrutinizes the bill from both a policy and a legal perspective. Once the bill is reported from this committee, usually the bills are not debated at second or third reading; the policy consideration has occurred in this committee. In contrast, public bills are considered fully by the assembly both during second reading debate in principle and during clause-by-clause in standing committee.
The question for this committee is, is it more appropriate that the policy issues in this bill be considered in this committee or by the assembly as a whole? I believe there is no precedent for a private bill to be ruled out of order on the grounds that it considers important issues of public policy more appropriately considered by the assembly. An example of a private bill that considered issues that members of the public might consider to be important is a private bill for the city of Windsor a few years ago regulating the production and transportation of explosives through the municipality. This was an important issue within the municipality and it had an effect on people outside the municipality as well, including an effect on people outside the country. It was considered that this policy issue was appropriately considered as a private bill instead of in the House.
I'm not able to offer you any advice beyond the fact that that is the fundamental question to be considered as a policy matter for you today.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): I knew the point of order was coming. I wasn't quite sure where it was coming from. I haven't even had an opportunity to introduce the delegation that's here today.
I would just note that the Speaker did say, and I'm quoting from his ruling yesterday, "it may be that the standing committee on regulations and private bills, after considering the bill, may find that the subject matters unfit for private legislation."
I would request, Mr Chair, since we have a delegation here from the city of Kingston, as well as some people from the Kingston area who have objected to the bill in this form, that this committee give the courtesy to these people to at least listen to their concerns and then the committee can decide itself as to how it wants to proceed with the matter.
There have been some concerns raised, but I believe, since there's a rather substantial delegation here from the city and there are a number of people here as well who have contrary viewpoints, that the committee should give these people an opportunity to be heard on this matter.
The Chair: Further information, Mr Hardeman.
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Mr Hardeman: I'm not sure that it's further information but it is speaking to the point of order about whether this bill is rightfully before this committee. I think the Speaker's ruling yesterday is quite telling and in fact the bill is in order and the committee can deal with the substance of the bill in any way the committee deems appropriate. But in order to deal with that, one has to first of all look at and consider and understand what's in the bill before one makes the decision that the content of the bill is inappropriate.
As legal counsel suggested, the content of the bill may very well not be the type of policy or the type of thing that the committee deems appropriate to be passed in a private bill. I think we would then have every opportunity to speak to that and to vote against what is being proposed. But I don't think that should inhibit the committee's ability to consider the bill, to just suggest that someone who brought a private bill forward does not a right to have it heard by the committee and the content considered by the committee. I think the Speaker in his ruling made that reasonably clear, that the committee does have that ability.
I want to make sure that the record is clear. That does not mean I support the content of the bill, but I do believe that the committee has an obligation to hear the presentations on the bill.
Mr Shea: I've indicated that I'm prepared to stay here and listen as long as necessary, and it may be that the clerk would provide some nourishment for the members of the committee before everybody totally collapses. We have until 1:30, at least, when the division bells ring for the House to gather for other business.
I am personally starting from the position that this is more rightfully posited within the Municipal Act and it is through the appropriate committee where public hearings might well be convened, but I have an open mind. I say this by way of giving the deputants an opportunity to know where I start from. They may wish to address that in their comments, on why it's more appropriately seized in this committee or not. I'll be guided by the comments.
Both the clerk and legislative counsel were very professional in their comments to this committee, and we will listen carefully. I think we ought to listen carefully.
All I would plead with the deputants is the hour and to give them the best use of that time, knowing that the bells will be ringing shortly. We can't do more than that. You've heard my comments earlier today where I had hoped we would be able to expedite matters on another issue.
That's my comment by way of establishing the ability to listen. I am also aware of legislative counsel's comments about precedent, although I am always pleased to establish precedent.
Mr Curling: The Speaker has ruled on the matter before us to say it was appropriate to be dealt with in committee. Having done that ruling and having it here, I am just wondering if we have to question the Speaker's ruling that it's OK here. Having heard from the clerk and also from legal counsel what the procedures are in the past with private members' bills, I have no problem at all in having this come forward and listening to this presentation now.
The Chair: Mr Martin, you had further discussion on your point of order?
Mr Martin: Yes, just a few comments on the point of order. I have listened to the advice and information of legislative counsel and the clerk and suggest to you that this is more appropriately debated someplace else, in the larger chamber, where we all have a chance to say our piece and the fullest process of this place is allowed, which is the various readings and the time that's allowed for debate and then public hearings.
The change that is being asked for here is huge and it's fundamental. A municipality is a creature of the province, of the provincial Legislature. As such, it needs to come back to that body if it's going to change the way it does business in the kind of way that is suggested here, which will set, I suggest to you, quite an interesting precedent for other municipalities as they try to deal with the very difficult challenges they've now been charged with.
This Parliament has gone through a very fulsome and difficult exercise of deciding who does what, what the provincial government does, what municipal governments do. That was done in full public view in the House with massive debate, across-the-province hearings and all the rest of it.
I suggest to you that what is being asked by the municipality of Kingston now is that they be allowed to do the same thing, which is to turn over to some other body what they have been charged to do by legislation, which takes some responsibility off of them re accountability to the public, ultimately. That requires more than the rather short bit of discussion we are allowed here by the two hours that we have on Thursday mornings.
This is huge. It's a fundamental change in the way that we do democracy in this province. I'm not sure whether spending time here this morning debating this or listening to the arguments that are made is not simply duplicating what could more appropriately be done at some other time in a larger forum.
I would suggest that we take a vote on this right away.
The Chair: You have a point of order that's before the Chair right now. I would like to rule on your point of order and not on a motion or a vote. That's in the hands of the committee.
With respect to your point of order, Mr Martin, I feel this bill should be in the hands of this standing committee and I concur with the ruling of the Speaker. I now wish to continue. This bill is in the hands of the committee with respect to its future.
Mr Martin: Could I move a motion then that this bill be referred back to the larger House?
Mr Shea: May I respond?
The Chair: I will entertain discussion. I just want to repeat the motion.
Mr Hardeman: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: This relates to the motion that was just moved. I would question the ability of a committee, without discussion or without hearing the application, to refer it to the House. As a process, the Legislature referred the bill here as a private bill. We'll have to ask the clerk about the appropriateness to just pick it up and refer it back without any discussion or without any recommendation. I wonder whether that's appropriate.
The Chair: You're suggesting the motion is premature?
Mr Hardeman: Yes. I would think the motion is out of order.
The Chair: I would like to ask for some advice on that from staff.
Clerk of the Committee: The committee does have the right to consider whether this is the appropriate place to consider this bill, whether it's properly a private bill. A motion can be made to that.
Mr Hardeman: Madam Clerk, that was not the motion. The motion was to refer the bill to the House.
Clerk of the Committee: Properly, if the bill is not considered here, then in effect, it would not go forward. It would have to be reintroduced and it could be reintroduced through a private bill. It could be reintroduced as a private member's bill.
Mr Martin: I would beg your indulgence to have a motion submitted such that that's exactly what it is we're doing here. We're asking the committee to decide on the appropriateness of this being dealt with at this level as opposed to being reintroduced at the larger table.
Mr Shea: I understand what Mr Martin is trying to do, and I have some sympathy for his point, but I go back to my opening comments, so I'll make a motion that we defer consideration of that motion until the applicants have had an opportunity to make submission to this committee, but in no case later than 25 minutes past 1 of this clock today.
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Mr Curling: Have you got the previous motion?
Mr Shea: I've got an amendment to his motion. I've done a deferral motion, which takes precedence over the motion. That's all.
The Chair: I'll ask for advice. We'll have to wait a moment for advice from the clerk on this procedure.
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Mr Chair: In that time, if the deferral is in order, we should make sure we hear from both sides.
The Chair: I would ask both Mr Shea and Mr Martin, since these motions are outstanding, could we go forward with the sponsor?
Mr Gerretsen: Thanks very much, Mr Chair --
The Chair: Another point of order. Mr Hardeman.
Mr Gerretsen: I've seen methods of trying to silence me in this House, but this is the best one yet.
Mr Hardeman: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: In a matter of process, I would suggest that it's out of order that the Chair has a motion on the floor, with a request for deferral of that motion and waiting for a decision on that, and is proceeding with the activity until a decision on that is made. I don't believe that's an appropriate approach.
The Chair: I've been advised that the vote should be taken on the original motion.
Mr Shea: Rather than the deferral?
Clerk of the Committee: It would require the unanimous consent of the committee to defer consideration of a motion.
Mr Shea: When was that rule written? Let me table a request and ask for that in writing somewhere along the line. I want to see that. Who's rewriting the rules?
Mr Martin: Do you want to ask for unanimous consent?
Mr Shea: I still want unanimous consent. I still, obviously, have put it forward.
Mr Martin: Agreed.
Mr Caplan: Agreed.
Interjections.
The Chair: I recognize unanimous consent.
Mr Shea: Understanding that we will vote no later than 25 after 1.
The Chair: I understand there was unanimous consent. Is that correct?
Interjection: No.
The Chair: There was not unanimous consent.
Interjections.
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot): I'm not in my proper chair but, Mr Chairman, with respect --
The Chair: Maybe sit in your proper chair. I just want to repeat that I heard unanimous consent on that deferral motion.
We now go to consideration of the original motion from Mr Martin.
Mr Martin: Obviously there wasn't unanimous consent.
Interjection: If you deferred it, we can't consider it.
The Chair: I declare the motion deferred. I wish to request the sponsor, MPP Gerretsen, Kingston and The Islands, to comment and please introduce the applicants.
Mr Gerretsen: Let me first of all introduce the members of the delegation that travelled from Kingston to Toronto this morning for the 10 o'clock hearing of this committee on regulations and private bills.
To the left of me is Mr Gary Bennett, mayor of the city of Kingston; to the left of him is Diane Corcoran, the city solicitor. Next is Mr Robert Little, who is the solicitor for Utilities Kingston; and next to him is Mr Jim Keech, the manager of Utilities Kingston. Also in the audience we have Mr Gardner Church, who is consultant extraordinaire to the city of Kingston, both old and new.
I will leave it to the city and Mayor Bennett to make the presentation with respect to the bill. I know there are at least two other individuals in the audience who may want to make some comments as well -- one being Beth Pater and the other individual being Stewart Fyfe -- whom I'm aware of from the Kingston area. There may be others as well. I'll turn it over to the mayor.
Mr Gary Bennett: I have a written statement of my comments, and I'd like to have it distributed at this point in time, provided this won't create a procedural wrangle.
Mr Caplan: You never have that at council.
Mr Bennett: Actually, I thought I was at my council meeting for a moment there.
In the interests of time, I will not read directly from the comments. I recognize the limited time available before us, and there has been a suggestion that if you're going to hear one, you should hear all, which I concur with. I appreciate the committee's consideration of our delegation here today.
I'd like to, first of all, begin by suggesting that there are three separate issues within the private member's bill that the city of Kingston is encouraging the committee to support, and it's imperative that two of the sections be given consideration by this committee today. The other issue, I think the issue that is the subject of what will probably need to be wider public consideration, is the incorporation of municipal entities. If I could just speak to the two issues that in my mind are quite critical, I would encourage the committee to give consideration to at least these issues today.
The first issue relates to the issue of governance, which is under sections 2 and 8. Essentially, what these issues revolve around is, when the city of Kingston was created, there was a consideration that we would create a board of control within the structure of the city of Kingston. It was also our intention that this board of control would be governed on the basis by which a simple majority of council could overrule decisions of the board of control. The Municipal Act speaks to the fact that the board of control requires a two-thirds consent of council to overrule their decisions.
We were modelling our community along the lines of the London, Ontario, board of control, which is the only other board of control in existence. We assumed that the Municipal Act was in conformity with the only other board of control in existence. That was not the case.
When the minister created the new city of Kingston, in the implementing order it gave the board of control of the city of Kingston powers in accordance with the Municipal Act, which requires a two-thirds vote of council to overrule decisions of the board of control. This has created a considerable degree of consternation on my council.
Through significant discussion over the previous six to eight months, council has agreed that perhaps we need to be a council of equals, and as a result of that we're asking under sections 2 and 8 that decisions of the board of control can be quite simply overruled by a simple majority vote of council. It is hoped that the committee would concur with the wish of council and support those sections.
The other issues relate to sections 3 and 4, which are financial issues. Within the restructuring order itself when the city of Kingston was created, there was a condition within the restructuring order which required the city of Kingston to reduce its 1998 operating expenditures by at least $16 million from what the budget was in 1996. In hindsight, the agreement in the order should have kept open the possibility that the years 1998 and 1996 would have been comparable years. A lot has occurred in 1998. As it happened, the city of Kingston confronted an ice storm, with its attendant costs and revenues, and there was also the transfer of new expenditures and revenues from the province. As well, there were previous years' deficits that had to be budgeted for in 1998 by the new city of Kingston.
What we did -- and I think this is the key point for the committee. The increases that were incurred in 1998 all happened after the expenditure reduction, which was required under the minister's order, was met. In fact, we exceeded the minister's order requirement. We reduced the expenditures of the city of Kingston not by $16 million, as required under the ministerial order, but in the magnitude of $20 million. So, we have exceeded that requirement under the minister's order.
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As a result the reality is, as I've indicated, a variety of externalities and some internalities. The budget for 1998 of the city of Kingston exceeded the 1996 budget but it did not do so until we had met the expenditure target as had been agreed to in the ministerial order. We have concurrence from our legal staff and our accountants, auditors and financial staff that we met the requirement in the restructuring order. What we're asking for now is relief from that requirement in the order. In other words, either the budget of the city of Kingston is illegal or the provincial download is illegal. I hope the committee would concur that it's our budget that may possibly be not in conformity with the ministerial orders, and we're asking for a legal remedy from that.
The final issue, and this is the issue that I'm sure will involve more of the committee's time, is the issue of the incorporation of municipal entities. May I just say at the outset that I think overall the municipality of the city of Kingston prides itself on being an innovative, progressive community. With the creation of the new city of Kingston, we recognize that we have some enormous financial challenges before us. Overall, the new city of Kingston is facing over $200 million in capital demands, essentially capital backlogs that quite simply need to be dealt with for the new city of Kingston.
We have developed, through a significant amount of council debate and public consultation, a document, which is referred to as The Road to Reform. This document spells out a variety of strategies that the city of Kingston believes it needs to pursue in order to develop the financial ability to address this capital backlog. But there's no question that the city recognizes that many of the tools available to it to address this capital backlog are not adequate. This is why we're asking for the same powers as a natural person under these sections of the private member's bill.
We believe there are three ways in which the city of Kingston can undertake the necessary capital investments: We can do so through privatization, in other words, the outright sale of some city assets or services; we can do it through the investment of tax-based funds; or we can do it through long-term partnership contracts which have recourse to the tax base. It appears to the council of the city of Kingston that if we can't afford (b) and (c), we're really left with privatization as our only option.
The Kingston city council, while not opposed to all privatization, believes the city should use other options that are available to every person in society. We quite simply are seeking the ability to enter into equity partnerships in which private investment capital is used to make essential investments in city-owned businesses in return for equity. We recognize that there are implications that go beyond our community in terms of this policy, and we're here today to begin to discuss them. But there's no question, from the city of Kingston's point of view, that this provision would not extend the range of powers, nor would it lessen council's control on civic decisions. The reason we're asking for this and the reason council makes this request is that it will assist Kingston in finding the capital it needs to meet the economic challenges it faces.
I recognize that the committee may find it difficult today to support sections 5 through 7 in this bill, dealing with incorporating of entities, and I would appreciate, first of all, that the member's individual support for raising this matter with the government would be considered. I also ask that if the committee is not prepared to support sections 5 through 7, they be referred to the Minister of Municipal Affairs for a full consultative policy review.
Overall, the implications that are being raised in a variety of quarters probably will not be resolved in this room today, but I would certainly like to thank the members on behalf of all Kingstonians for your attention and consideration of these matters. Once again, I re-emphasize my earlier remarks that if the committee could give consideration to those issues outside the issue of the incorporation of entities, it would greatly assist the city of Kingston.
As there has been some discussion in the local media and in the community about the issue of public consultation on this issue, I would make two final comments. May I state here for the record that the city of Kingston did debate this issue. We developed a document referred to as The Road to Recovery. The document was circulated widely in the community and is available in numerous public locations for public review. We also engaged in two public consultation processes, where we encouraged people from the community to attend, where we could review The Road to Recovery document and explain the path the city of Kingston was embarking on. Regrettably, as sometimes happens through public forums, there was limited public participation in both of those consultations.
The final issue I'd like to raise is the issue of privatization, which quite simply takes me by surprise, I must say to the committee. If the city of Kingston had an agenda of privatization, we would be honest about it. We would tell the community and we would tell our employees that privatization is the agenda of the council of the city of Kingston, and we would proceed with that agenda, in consultation with our employees and the community. This approach we are taking is the pursuit of private capital for public purposes. That, to me, is very different than pursuing an agenda of privatization.
Personally, I do not have difficulty with looking at service areas that municipalities provide and looking at the value that privatization could bring to the delivery of those services, but I recognize that there are many services that municipalities provide that would be inappropriate for privatization. Having said that, that doesn't necessarily mean that therefore all services are inappropriate for privatization. I am not that ideologically narrow not to recognize that it is important that municipalities have to have the responsibility of providing value to their taxpayers, and if there are a variety of services that can benefit the taxpaying public in terms of better value, better service and ensuring accountability and control of those services, councils across Ontario should be prepared to consider them.
This bill is not some kind of a veiled attempt to privatize the services within the city of Kingston. It's unfortunate those sorts of debates occurred. It's important to remember, and I hope all members agree, that as members of government if we spent more time debating the merits of issues and not the motives behind issues, we would accomplish a lot more in terms of our conduct of the public's business.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee. I have not read from my statement, but I'm certainly prepared to answer any questions the committee may have.
The Acting Chair (Mr Gary Leadston): Thank you very much, Mr Bennett. Ms Diane Corcoran, do you wish to make a statement?
Ms Diane Corcoran: No, thank you. Mr Bennett has covered all the matters. I'm available to answer questions if need be, but I don't have any further submissions.
Mr Robert Little: I have nothing to add, either.
The Acting Chair: Are there any other interested parties wishing to address the committee? Would you please come forward and identify yourself and whom you represent, please. Would you state your name and title.
Mr Brian O'Keefe: My name is Brian O'Keefe. I'm the secretary-treasurer of CUPE Ontario. On my left is Jim Woodward, who is our legislative liaison for CUPE. We represent several thousand members in the Kingston area, and we represent 180,000 members across this province.
We have great concerns about the implications of this particular bill. I'm going to look at it in three particular areas: first, the issue of accountability; second, the process issue; and third, the issue around privatization.
On the accountability issue, this bill would potentially totally transform municipal government in this province, and it would totally undermine the Municipal Act. We are talking here about moving the delivery of municipal services away from the control of the municipality to corporations run on business principles.
To have this under the control of a Kingston infrastructure group is, to say the least, very frightening. We're not talking about a small number of services here. We're talking about a very broad range of services: water, sewage, gas, electricity, buildings, vehicles, roads, garbage, the airport, transit, customer services, to name but a few.
This is a massive restructuring. This is not the way we normally do business in Ontario. This has huge implications. It means that these corporations will be, to a very large extent, operating totally independent of council. When the public call in to complain about the delivery of a particular service, councillors are not going to be able to adequately respond because they don't have any real control any more over the delivery of those services. That has got really quite frightening implications as far as democratic rights are concerned, and it also leads to back-door government and doing things in the corridors. That's something we're totally against. The citizens of this province should be very alarmed about this trend towards moving the delivery of our services away from public control. That's the accountability issue, and it's a major one. We're not just talking about a small amount of power here.
I was reading the mayor's document. He talks about the main impetus for this being centred around the municipal utility. I have to tell you, we have municipal electrical utilities across this province that manage quite nicely with the structure of municipal government that we have in Ontario at this particular point in time. Toronto is an example. We have a relationship between the city of Toronto and Toronto Hydro. To make a special case that somehow or other Kingston is different in this regard is really quite erroneous.
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On the process issue, I heard what was said here this morning about the procedural part of this, but aside from that, looking at the appropriateness of the policy-making aspect of this, I think it's totally inappropriate to try to deal with issues of this magnitude through a private member's bill. This rightly belongs to the main assembly. Also, it should be put out for public hearings. The public should have full input into matters that have major implications for the way we do business in this province.
At this particular point in time, there has been absolutely no consultation about this issue at all. The first we heard about it were the articles that appeared in the Whig-Standard on the weekend. I think that's where most other people found out about it as well. So not only has there been no consultation at the provincial level, there has been very little, if any, consultation even down in Kingston.
I want to point out that this doesn't only have implications for Kingston; this has massive implications for the rest of this province. If this bill were to pass, it would set all sorts of precedents for other municipalities across this province. That's a major factor that has to be taken into consideration here. We're dealing with a major provincial issue which should be dealt with in the provincial Legislature. To do it by way of a private member's bill is totally inappropriate.
On the issue of privatization, I totally disagree with the mayor. He says he has to have this to avoid privatization. I don't accept that at all. This is exactly the method that was pursued in Britain when they introduced privatization in the municipal area. This was the way they started: the municipalities holding shares and staff members staffing these corporations. It wasn't long before these corporations ended up in the private sector. We see that happening here. I think the control of council has been taken away and we're on a slippery slope here. I don't have to go into all the evils of what privatization can generate. You've got the whole aspect of lowball bidding. Once you get a contractor in there, they've got a captive market. If that particular corporation goes bankrupt or whatever, it's the taxpayers in Kingston, or wherever this might be introduced, who would be footing the bill. You have to take that into consideration.
Our experience with contracting out and privatization is it will lead to significant deterioration in service levels. There are some services that rightly belong in the public sector, and municipal governments have an obligation and a duty to make sure those services are delivered in the public interest. As far as we're concerned, there are absolutely no guarantees in this.
Once again, I want to reiterate that this is not just a Kingston issue; it's a provincial issue. It has massive implications for the electorate in this province. It should rightly be debated in the main assembly and put out to public consultation.
I urge you very strongly to withdraw this piece of private legislation.
The Chair: Mr Woodward?
Mr Jim Woodward: Mr O'Keefe has covered every point that I would bring forward.
Mr Gerretsen: I wonder if I could make a point of information. This bill has been referred to as a private member's bill. It is not a private member's bill. A private member's bill is a bill in which a private member brings an issue forward. This is a private bill promoted by the city of Kingston which I was asked to sponsor in order for it to be brought before the Legislature and its committee for due consideration.
The Chair: Yes, this is a private bill. Thank you, gentlemen. Are there any additional interested parties that wish to speak to this bill?
Sir, if you could have a chair and identify yourself.
Mr Stewart Fyfe: I'm Stewart Fyfe, a resident of Kingston. I've been involved in local government since 1950. I teach the local government courses at Queen's, and have since 1956. I follow these civic affairs very closely.
I'm going to restrict my comments to sections 5 and 6. In a little aside, I agree with what they're doing at the board of control: the less of it, the better.
Section 6 authorizes the delegation of any of the city powers and duties related to municipal services to corporations. The definition of "municipal services" includes all municipal property. So everything could be transferred. This would be a revolutionary change. Most municipalities could be taken out from under the Municipal Act or other municipally related acts, which are legion, and placed under the Corporations Act, an act constructed on entirely different principles. It would also be a precedent for every municipality in Ontario. There are no significant restrictions on what could be delegated or how that service would be provided in the bill. This bill in effect gives a blank cheque to city hall.
These new corporations would be of two kinds. One kind would be incorporated under the Corporations Act. The city would own all the initial shares and would appoint the directors, who would be municipal employees or agents of the city -- I stress "agents of the city." The term "agent" is not further elaborated on, nor what happens after the initial shares.
With regard to corporations under the Business Corporations Act, the bill is silent. It says it can be created, but after that there is nothing except that the initial shares must be subscribed for by the city or another business corporation incorporated by the city. There's no mention of the appointment of directors, reporting or anything else in the bill for that type of corporation. It could be taken to envisage joint ventures and even the sale of the corporation to another body, which would take those powers of the city with it.
The embracing of the corporation to deliver services in the bill is rather curious, when it is remembered that one part of the amalgamation agreement was to do away with as many boards as possible, as they were seen to cause duplication, problems of accountability and of control. The city got blamed for everything, but the power went somewhere else. There were all kinds of different labour agreements and pay scales and accounting processes and all the rest. What seems to be envisaged by the bill is a family of corporations, each with its own staff: executive directors, auditors, whatever.
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I believe the committee has received a number of comments on the bill, on the details, but I'm not going to go into that. When so much power is being delegated with so little explanation or constraints, problems are bound to multiply. However, while not going into that length, I do want to speak to a couple of aspects which are troubling.
Why is there a specification of directors? There are two kinds: municipal employees, who are put into a very serious conflict position, and agents of the city, who could be literally anyone. I don't know if an agent of the city is someone who happens to be doing some work for the city and something else -- if that makes them an agent of the city, I don't know. The bill is silent. This seriously erodes any concept of political accountability. Conceivably, it could erode council's powers to such an extent that it would be difficult to get candidates to stand for office because the position would have so little to do, so little power.
With regard to drafting the provisions of delegating powers in terms of council, including municipal properties, is it legal to delegate to a corporation the right of entry on to property which building inspectors and building standards officers have? Is it proper to transfer a public highway to another body under the Corporations Act without first closing the street? The bill appears to say so, but I'm not a lawyer.
This goes to the internal evidence that the bill has not been well-thought-through. Apparently, there is a series of protocols and constraints to be developed, but none of them are in this bill. They are only ideas at present, which may or may not be adopted by council and certainly will be modified by future councils. There would be no public discussion of these.
In defence of the bill, it may be argued that such sweeping powers will not be used by council but are necessary to give it flexibility in developing a new manner of providing new civil services. In answer -- I think there are two. One is, why ask for everything? Why ask for a blank cheque in a public policy area if you don't need it. Everything is in here, from the town hall to the park bench, to be literally transferred. While this council may give assurances, they can neither bind themselves nor future councils. That blank cheque goes on forever, until someone changes it. In effect we're being asked, "Trust us with a blank cheque."
While I respect the integrity and motivation of council -- I once worked at city hall -- the track record of this bill is not good. Discussions of the rationale for this bill have been largely behind closed doors. I try to follow council, but I am unaware of any council debate regarding the need for sections 5 and 6. At city council last night, these three council members said they had never seen a copy of the bill. I think the mayor said he had only read it that day, but I don't want to put words in his mouth. But there was an assurance given that this bill contained nothing of any importance that had not already been discussed. When I asked, council members said, "We never discussed sections 5 and 6."
As an aside, this raises the question of, how do you discuss a legal document, an application to this assembly, which you've never seen? And how can an application for a private bill reach the Legislative Assembly without council's approval of the text? If you examined the required advertisement in the bill, it would give you no idea there was any major power being asked for at all; it was a very minor thing with certain constraints.
I used to have to deal with mortgage insurance, and I discovered very early that when you're dealing with lawyers what is left out is very often more important than what is put in. There are an awful lot of holes in this bill.
The Chair: Are there any additional interested parties that wish to address this committee?
Welcome. Could you please identify yourself.
Ms Beth Pater: Good afternoon. My name is Beth Pater. I'm the NDP candidate in Kingston and The Islands for the upcoming elections.
Interjection: Welcome, Beth.
Ms Pater: Thank you. I have been a long-term observer of all levels of government and I'm very concerned about this bill. I must say, I concur with all of what the previous speaker, Stewart Fyfe, says. I just want to point out a few of my concerns.
I believe this bill moves in a direction that would hinder both accountability and openness of government. Government essentially is not a business. It can be businesslike, it should be efficient, but is should not have to run its departments as corporations to achieve that. Businesses compete with each other; city departments should not. Businesses give preferential treatment to their best customers; city departments most definitely should not. Business is not accountable for serving the public interest; city hall must be. City services should not be privatized, especially in areas that are now being downloaded from the province, services that affect public health and safely.
This bill would open the door wide to privatization. It does not restrict the services. It states that the city would have to own the initial shares, but it doesn't say anything about further shares. I find it very troubling, especially subsections (2) and (3) of section 6, that the board is chosen by the council and are employees or agents of the city. That is so broad.
This bill has far-reaching and undemocratic implications, I believe. Concerns are being raised in Kingston right now by former and current city councillors, those who work in municipal government and those who study it, like Mr Fyfe, and citizens in general. Those concerns must be addressed.
What is the rush to such dangerous territory without public consultation, I ask? This bill goes far beyond the city of Kingston. It affects provincial public policy, and should be given much more time for consideration. If Mr Gerretsen doesn't agree with its content, as was alluded to in the Whig-Standard, I think he should withdraw the bill immediately. At the very least, this committee should be coming to Kingston for a meeting.
The Chair: Are there any further interested parties that wish to address the committee?
Mr Gerretsen: I wonder if I could just make one comment with respect to the last comment that was made, Mr Chairman. I don't believe it's incumbent upon me to withdraw the bill once the bill is within the confines of the Legislative Assembly or one of its committees.
The Chair: We'll go to the parliamentary assistant, MPP Ernie Hardeman, for comments on behalf of the government, and then we'll throw it open to questions from the committee.
Mr Martin: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I'd like a ruling on that.
The Chair: I didn't hear it. Did you say, "Point of order"?
Mr Martin: Yes, a point of order. I'm wondering if maybe the clerk could clarify whether in fact the member can withdraw the bill at this point if he so chooses.
The Chair: Did you hear the question?
Clerk of the Committee: Could you repeat the question? I'm sorry, I was conferring.
Mr Martin: The point that was made by the member was that he, at this point, could not withdraw the bill that he has introduced. Is that true?
Mr Curling: It has nothing to do with not withdrawing; it's that he has no power to withdraw it.
Clerk of the Committee: If I can address the question, the bill has been referred to the committee by the Legislature. It's not in Mr Gerretsen's power to withdraw it at this time. It is here for the committee to consider. The applicant could decide, if they wish, to withdraw or not proceed further with it.
Mr Martin: OK.
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Mr Hardeman: I want to commend all the presenters thus far. From the notes I've taken prior to the meeting and now, listening to the presentations, most of the points I wish to bring up on the bill have been presented by the presenters.
First of all, the ministry looks at the bill as a three-pronged bill. There are three specific issues in the bill that we need to address today, the first one being the issue of the board of control and the changes in the voting of the board of control. As was mentioned by the mayor, there was some concern that when the restructuring order was put in place, the proponents thought they would have a simple majority vote at council to overrule the board of control's decisions, but because of the Municipal Act stating it's a two thirds vote required and that London had special legislation to allow that to be 50%, they found themselves in a bit of a problem.
The ministry's position on it was that at the end of the time frame of the restructuring, if we go to the simple majority vote of a board of control, there would be little difference from, if not identical, to a committee of council. Council would have the ability to eliminate board of control and go to an executive committee of council or some other form of providing the same function. Then they would have a simple majority situation, where they have a smaller group to deal with the issue and then present it to council, and the simple majority rule would then apply.
Having said that, just as with the bill we dealt with earlier this morning, there's no reason not to deal with that issue in this bill. Even though there may be another form of doing it, the ministry has no objection to doing it this way since it has come this far. But I suggest if that is the only item in the bill and the city of Kingston had yet to prepare it, there is likely a simpler way of achieving the same objective. So the ministry does not register any objection to that part of the bill.
I want to skip over the centre one, which is the one that most of the presentations have been on, the issue of the corporations.
I want to deal with the third one first. That's the issue of changing the restructuring order that deals with the savings that the municipality would find in their first budget. It was not quite as explicit in the presentation, but maybe we can deal with that when the question period starts.
The restructuring order not only dealt with savings that were going to be found in the first budget; it also dealt with where those savings were going to be expended. I have some concern. If it was part of the proposal that got everyone on side to agree to this restructuring as to where the savings were going to be spent, directed to a certain portion of the municipality, but after the fact we would come back and say, "But circumstances have somewhat changed; we now want to direct that money, the savings that were going to be found, to a different part or collectively across the municipality," that may very well have been the issue that would have been the stumbling block of not having created the corporation in the first place.
That was one of the solid things that bound the deal together, or it would appear that it may have been. As a ministry, we would really like to be assured that the people who were going to be positively impacted by where that money was going to be sent -- recognizing that this change is going to change that part of the restructuring proposal. We would be very interested in hearing from the applicant whether the people in the township part that became part of the new city of Kingston are aware that the benefits they were going to derive from this are going to be achieved in the way they had envisioned.
The third area is the ability of the city of Kingston to set up corporations. We've had considerable discussion about whether this is an issue across the province or whether it's localized to the city of Kingston. I suggest that the present Municipal Act does not deal with setting up corporations. But we should all recognize that the present Municipal Act is a very prescriptive act which says what the municipality can do, so one is to assume that if it doesn't deal with setting up corporations, the municipalities cannot do that.
The province has held considerable public consultation on new proposals for the Municipal Act. The majority of the discussions and the discussion papers on that direct us to the area of not having municipalities setting up capital corporations. A lot of that discussion includes the fact that municipalities feel there may be a need to deal with some type of structure that would facilitate the ability, as Kingston has suggested in this bill, to bring in the private-public sector partnerships to provide some of the municipal services. The ministry has grave concerns about the broadness and the broad-brush approach, as was mentioned by some of the presenters; that this would theoretically allow the total operation of the municipality to be incorporated into a private corporation.
We have many concerns about that. First, all those functions that would be in the incorporated sector would no longer be covered by the Municipal Act but would now be covered by the Corporations Act. They would no longer be required to have open meetings. They would no longer have to have the same public notices for purchasing and selling properties. They would no longer be covered by the safeguards we have for municipalities in their investment approaches. The members of the board, regardless of who they are -- and there has been some concern expressed about how they would be appointed -- would not be covered by the municipal conflict-of-interest laws and so forth. We have some grave concerns about that.
Generally, the ministry also feels that many of the pluses of doing it this way are achievable under the present legislation in place. You can set up partnerships with the private sector but still have it under the auspices of the local council. So we have some concerns.
We also have some concerns that if you take the assets and transfer them to another entity, the ability of the municipality to function financially in their borrowing and spending needs may be inhibited, because they have no assets as collateral for their borrowing. We have some concerns with that.
The major concern is that it does appear, since the bill allows it to be all municipal services, to take away political accountability for those services. We do not see anywhere in the legislation where the members of the board will go to the public to be elected so the public would have a voice in running that corporation. We have some concern on the broadness of that.
We also have some concern with the issue of the corporation then being allowed to set fees without that accountability. They could set fees at whatever they deemed appropriate as a corporation, with no ability to get back to the people who they would be responsible to. In all the areas where municipal services are regulated in some way through the municipality, we have some concern that this bill would allow all those regulations to be avoided. One of the presenters mentioned the issue of whether, as a corporation owning and operating the city street, they would still be covered. In our opinion, they wouldn't be covered by the Municipal Act on the obligation to keep the city street as a city street for city purposes.
With that, the ministry has grave concerns. I'm prepared to hear the discussion, but at this point we are not prepared to support that part of the act.
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The Chair: We now go to questions from committee members to the applicant, to interested parties or to the parliamentary assistant.
Mr Curling: Mr Chairman, could the mayor come forward for some questions?
The Chair: Certainly.
Mr Curling: Mr Mayor, thank you for coming and for your presentation. I have some serious concerns about the process itself. I'm not being facetious at all, but I know you were elected by the people of the city in a very democratic way. When this private bill was being prepared, was it discussed at all in council at full length?
Mr Bennett: Absolutely. The issue we're dealing with here was the subject, as I indicated, of a fairly comprehensive document that council developed in partnership with senior staff, called The Road to Recovery. In that document, if you read that document -- I regret I didn't bring copies to provide the members -- it clearly lays out the intent to proceed in accordance with this type of approach to the delivery of certain services within the city of Kingston.
It's my understanding that the government did redraft the final version of the bill before you here, so members of my council do not have copies of the redrafted bill. I was perplexed last night when a couple of members of council indicated that they didn't realize they were the powers we were asking. These are the same members of council who have been asked to sit on a committee to develop the protocols between this entity and council itself, so I'm not sure whether someone isn't reading their reports or what the issue is. There may be other issues swirling around this that go well beyond that, but from my consideration, every member of council had the equal opportunity to be informed on this, and there were not three members of council at last night's meeting who stood up and asked what was going on. There were two; the balance of council looked at me and said, "We're not sure what the issue is, Mr Mayor, but let's get on with it, and good luck in Toronto on Wednesday."
Mr Curling: Was it at any time offered to the people of the city to have some input, direction? These are some dramatic changes happening here. When they elected you and the council, do you think they had an idea that this is the direction the council would go in?
Mr Bennett: There's always a dilemma in terms of public consultation versus leadership. If you sit there and constantly consult with the public, I agree you're sometimes accused of providing no leadership. But in this particular case, the city of Kingston moved slowly on the issue. We developed The Road to Recovery document. I held a press conference, which all the members of the media were invited to attend. In addition, we had two public consultation sessions that followed the release of The Road to Recovery document. Contrary to statements made here earlier, there have been no closed-door discussions of this issue by council. It's been discussed publicly at all times with council.
Part of the issue may be the fact that it's not the way we're used to normally doing business. I concur with some of the earlier statements made here. It is a significant departure from the way municipalities do business. We recognize, and I hope members recognize, that municipalities in the 21st century in Ontario cannot operate, in my mind, to confront the sort of challenges they will, inside a 19th-century legislative framework. I'm encouraged by the fact that the current government is contemplating significant changes to the Municipal Act, but currently the legislative framework we work within is based on the model that was developed in the 19th century. What we're suggesting is, yes, government in the 21st century must conduct business differently. It needs to be conducted, in my opinion, significantly differently from the way it's been conducted in the past.
The issues of accountability are important to all of us, and it's imperative, I agree, that we strengthen accountability in terms of the operation and conduct of government. I don't believe what we're trying to do will weaken accountability. I would be prepared to argue with anyone here that it strengthens accountability. We won't resolve that issue today, but I'm satisfied and I'm committed to the concept of enhancing and improving accountability in government.
Mr Curling: Would you say it's fair to describe this process as that you took leadership, although undemocratic; that it's leadership you have taken?
Mr Bennett: I probably wouldn't concur with the "undemocratic" characterization. There's no doubt that there will be many in the community who, if you're not prepared to share the actual decision with them, believe they haven't been adequately consulted. There's no question that what council's intent is and continues to be is that the committee that's developing the protocols that will determine the relationships between council and these operating entities will be developed by council, and there will be excellent and comprehensive opportunity for public consultation. That has always been our intent. I guess we haven't stated that.
The real issue, in my mind, is developing appropriate protocols between council as an elected body and these incorporated entities. I can assure you that every member of council has the same concerns that have been addressed here today: ensuring that there are strong accountability measures and mechanisms between council and these entities. We are in the process of developing those protocols. I guess there has been some criticism that in the absence of those protocols, what are you approving? There may be some validity in that position. But from the city of Kingston's position, we're not naive about the fact that there is going to need to be fairly stringent, comprehensive operating protocols between these entities and the council as a public elected body.
Mr Curling: Could people in the city of Kingston wake up tomorrow and find the city owned by a corporation, not by the members they elected, by just one sweep of the pen here today?
Mr Bennett: That would not happen until there was ongoing public consultation about the need to create this entity and what the operating protocols would be between council and this entity. It's important that we communicate to the public that we are strengthening the issues of accountability between this entity and council.
I agree that it would be inappropriate for council to quite simply receive these powers and then just, carte blanche, go ahead and start incorporating services the municipality is involved in. We are compelled to incorporate under the changes to the Energy Competition Act. In this particular case, I'm intrigued by the fact that the government on one hand is compelling us to incorporate in terms of the conduct to the provision of certain services, but in other areas there seems to be an enormous amount of concern about allowing you to incorporate in other fields and in other service areas.
Mr Curling: Just a comment on this: You must have observed what happened in Toronto and the amalgamation, the merger that went on. One of the biggest discussion or concerns that the citizens here had was that it was moving too fast, with not enough consultation. When you were moving in this direction, were you mindful of those facts that we have learned a lot about in what happened with this merging of city of Toronto? Although there are good aspects of it, one of the major criticisms was that they were moving so fast, and the attitude. You must have been thinking, "If I move in that direction in Kingston, some of the fallout could be negative." Were you concerned about that?
Mr Bennett: I recognize, as a student of local government, that the province of Ontario has the constitutional responsibility for the creation, the formation and the operation of municipalities, and I accept that constitutional authority. I agree, though, that public consultation is an important component of any issue that impacts on people's lives and the services they are provided by government.
In this particular case, there will be those who argue that we're moving too quickly. There will also be those who recognize the need for government to quite simply conduct itself differently in the 21st century. I know that my taxpaying public is not prepared to continue to be subjected to ongoing taxation requests from the city of Kingston that grow year after year. They are asking us to be a progressive council, be a progressive community. In many ways we want to be recognized as being on the forefront of public sector restructuring. This is clearly one example of what we're trying to do. It opens up a vast number of issues that go beyond our community. We recognize that. But what we're trying to do as a municipality is recognize that we're prepared to work in partnership with government at the provincial level to create a different operating environment for local government. I think it's imperative for the 21st century.
Mr Martin: In light of the late hour and the fact that we've heard from quite an array of people and certainly the ministry's comments, to not prolong this any further than it needs to be prolonged I would at this point, if it's appropriate, move that this bill not be reported.
We're getting close to 1:25, the time beyond which we would not go, as Mr Shea said in his agreeing to and my agreeing to not have a vote on the motion I put at the beginning of this session. We're now five minutes from that. If we continue down a road of further discussion and questions, we'll go beyond that and have the possibility of nothing being done, this being left hanging out there and people not knowing where they should go next.
If we move quickly to not reporting this bill, I think it sends the message to the municipality of Kingston that they need to take another avenue, perhaps to participate in the larger discussion that is going on now about the Municipal Act and how that might be amended to deal with some of the issues they are challenged with at the moment. I move that this bill not be reported.
The Chair: As I understand, that is a question that the Chair poses to the committee at the end of clause-by-clause: "Shall this bill be reported to the House?" I'll ask for further clarification. I question whether that motion is appropriate.
As I understand it, that motion would be out of order at this point but would be appropriate at that item on our clause-by-clause consideration.
Mr Martin: I suppose I could put it this way, then, and perhaps we won't get support for it, but I hope everybody's recognizing where we're at in terms of time: If we could have unanimous consent to move to this motion and vote on it, we could all get on with our business. The municipality of Kingston then would have clear direction that it needs to find another avenue if it wants to proceed down this road.
The Chair: We should have some discussion on that as well.
Mr Hardeman: On the same issue, I have some concerns. Though I think everyone in the room, including the applicants, realizes that there are grave concerns with the centre body of the bill, there are some items in the bill that are required and seem to be reasonably well supported by the members of the committee. Any suggestion that the bill not be reported or that we totally vote against the bill would also eliminate the ability to deal with the board of control situation and their budget situation. At the very least, I would hope we could not make a decision on the bill so those two items could be addressed and could still be approved without the contentious parts of the bill.
My presentation was to assure the committee of my lack of support for the corporate part of the bill, but we should not in our haste lose those parts of the bill that are very much required by the city and that should be dealt with. If they cannot be dealt with in the next three minutes, we at the very least should just adjourn the meeting so that could be corrected and it could come back at another meeting to deal with those issues.
Mr Caplan: When is our next scheduled meeting of this committee?
The Chair: Next Wednesday morning, as I understand it.
Mr Caplan: We are rapidly running out of time. I would follow the suggestion of the parliamentary assistant that there are areas of this legislation which may quite easily be dealt with by this committee, but others perhaps much more contentious which may require some additional thought. I suggest that we continue to proceed and deal with it at our next regularly scheduled meeting.
Mr Shea: If it requires a motion to defer, I will.
Mr Hardeman: Mr Chair, I think what would be required would be to suggest that it is now past 12 o'clock and this meeting should adjourn until the next scheduled meeting.
Mr Shea: Chairman, before you bring down the gavel, I hope we will follow the recommendations of the parliamentary assistant. I hope Mr Gerretsen will hold himself available for the committee next Wednesday morning. There are some questions I'd like to raise with him.
I would like to thank the mayor. I have to tell you, the mayor has given me some food for thought. He has presented his position and his council's position in a very thoughtful and insightful and sensitive way. I appreciate the comments very much.
Mr Gerretsen: I wonder if I can just make one comment with respect to my sponsorship of this bill. On any request that comes to me from the municipality I represent in this provincial Legislature, which is followed by the motion from that council about a private member's bill, I feel I have the duty and obligation to bring it to this House. The House can then deal with the matters in the way it wants to, either by committee or otherwise. That was my intention in bringing it here.
I too have some concerns about some aspects of the bill. I certainly support some other aspects of that bill. I think any other way, for me not to have sponsored this bill, would have been a denial of the democratic principles that were, however some people may feel about it, enunciated by the council through the resolution of bringing this bill forward.
The Chair: The committee is adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1324.