Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The committee met at 0900 in committee room 1.

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): I’ll call the Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills to order.

We have two private bills on the agenda for consideration today.

850148 Ontario Inc. Act, 2018

Consideration of the following bill:

Bill Pr4, An Act to revive 850148 Ontario Inc.

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): The first bill is Bill Pr4. If I could ask the applicant and the—

Ms. Kathleen O. Wynne: Sponsor?

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): —and the sponsor to come to the table.

Ms. Kathleen O. Wynne: Good morning, Mr. Chair. Good morning, members. I’m Kathleen Wynne; I’m the MPP for Don Valley West. I’m here with Janice Mitchell, who is a constituent of mine. Janice and I met recently in my office. As you can see from the preamble, Janice has applied for special legislation to revive a company, 850148 Ontario. She wants to do that to resolve an issue around ownership of a piece of property.

I’m going to turn it over to Janice to explain the details of the situation.

Ms. Janice Mitchell: It came to our attention—

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): Could you just state your name for the record, for Hansard?

Ms. Janice Mitchell: I am Janice Mitchell. It came to our attention that this piece of property that we own in Prince Edward Island is owned by a previous numbered company that we had. The company was dissolved without taking care of the ownership of the property. We found out we had to revive the company in order to deal with the situation of the property in order to get our lives in order.

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): Okay, thank you. Are there any other interested parties in attendance that would like to speak to the bill? Seeing none, are there any comments from the government members? Seeing none, I’ll ask: any comments from any other members? Are the members ready to vote on Bill Pr4?

Shall section 1 carry? All those in favour? All those opposed? Seeing none, carried.

Shall section 2 carry? All those in favour? All those opposed? Carried.

Shall section 3 carry? All those in favour? Any opposed? None; carried.

Shall the preamble carry? All those in favour? Any opposed? Carried.

Shall the title of the bill carry? All those in favour? Any opposed? Seeing none, carried.

Shall the bill carry? All those in favour? Any opposed? Carried.

Shall I report the bill to the House? All those in favour? Any opposed? Carried.

Thank you very much.

Ms. Janice Mitchell: Thank you.

Ms. Kathleen O. Wynne: Thank you very much.

Brownwood Holdings Limited Act, 2018

Consideration of the following bill:

Bill Pr3, An Act to revive Brownwood Holdings Limited.

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): The committee will now consider Bill Pr3.

Mr. Roman Baber: Good morning, Chair. My name is Roman Baber, and I’m the member of provincial Parliament for the riding of York Centre. I’m appearing today in connection with Bill Pr3, which was brought forward at the request of a constituent of mine, Mr. Herbert Finkelstein, who is represented today by his solicitor, Joel Levitt.

My understanding is that Mr. Finkelstein is looking to revive a company entitled Brownwood Holdings Ltd. in order to enable it to deal with certain property. I thank you for the ability to appear before you, and I’ll turn it over to Mr. Levitt.

Mr. Joel Levitt: Thank you very much.

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): Could you state your name for the record?

Mr. Joel Levitt: Good morning. My name is Joel Levitt, and I am counsel for Herbert Finkelstein and for Brownwood Holdings Ltd. Brownwood Holdings Ltd. is a single-purpose corporation. It holds a piece of property in Florida, a condominium, for the benefit of Mr. Finkelstein. It was cancelled in 1995 for failure to comply with the Corporations Information Act. That was at the time when you had to pay a fee and file a return in order to keep your corporation alive. My understanding is that through inadvertence, I believe, the notice was sent to the former head office address and never came to the attention of the corporation. It was dissolved. Mr. Finkelstein didn’t become aware of it until he decided to take some estate planning advice from me, and through that advice we determined that the corporation had been dissolved. We’re looking to revive it for purposes of dealing with the corporation and the piece of land that it owns.

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): Thank you. Are there any other interested parties that would like to speak to the bill? Seeing none, are there any comments from the government members? None? Any comments from the opposition? Yes.

Mr. Jamie West: I’m just curious about the failure to comply with the Corporations Information Act. Is there anything about the reviving of the corporation that will be concerning? I don’t even know what that act is, to be honest.

Mr. Joel Levitt: So at the time, under the Corporations Information Act—and I believe that it was either the late 1980s or early 1990s that this requirement was in place. They would send out a form which was a standard sort of annual return that you might see for a federal corporation. Ontario corporations nowadays don’t have that obligation. But together with that, you also had to pay a fee; it was revenue-generating at that time. It wasn’t large; I think it was about $25. I believe it was in place—and I’m not 100% accurate on this—for about four or five years. My guess is that it was creating a lot of these dissolutions, which was leading to a lot of additional government work. It was taken out for that purpose. So that’s how it happened.

This act will allow the company to be revived. The Ministry of Finance has given approval to the revival, so all the taxes have been brought up to date—all the payments.

Mr. Jamie West: Okay. That’s all I was concerned about. Thank you.

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): Are the members ready to vote?

Shall section 1 carry? All those in favour? Those opposed? Carried.

Shall section 2 carry? All those in favour? All those opposed? Carried.

Shall section 3 carry? All those in favour? Those opposed? Carried.

Shall the preamble carry? Those in favour? Those opposed? Carried.

Shall the title carry? Those in favour? Those opposed? Carried.

Shall the bill carry? All those in favour? Those opposed? Carried.

Shall I report the bill to the House? Those in favour? Those opposed? Carried.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Joel Levitt: Thank you very much.

The Chair (Mr. Randy Hillier): Seeing that there is no further business of the committee, we’ll adjourn regulations and private bills.

The committee adjourned at 0909.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND PRIVATE BILLS

Chair / Président

Mr. Randy Hillier (Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président

Mr. Kaleed Rasheed (Mississauga East–Cooksville / Mississauga-Est–Cooksville PC)

Mr. Toby Barrett (Haldimand–Norfolk PC)

Mr. Will Bouma (Brantford–Brant PC)

Mr. Paul Calandra (Markham–Stouffville PC)

Mr. Mike Harris (Kitchener–Conestoga PC)

Mr. Randy Hillier (Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston PC)

Ms. Mitzie Hunter (Scarborough–Guildwood L)

Ms. Laura Mae Lindo (Kitchener Centre / Kitchener-Centre ND)

Mr. Paul Miller (Hamilton East–Stoney Creek / Hamilton-Est–Stoney Creek ND)

Mr. Billy Pang (Markham–Unionville PC)

Mr. Kaleed Rasheed (Mississauga East–Cooksville / Mississauga-Est–Cooksville PC)

Mr. Amarjot Sandhu (Brampton West / Brampton-Ouest PC)

Mr. Jamie West (Sudbury ND)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

Mr. Jim McDonell (Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry PC)

Clerk / Greffier

Mr. Eric Rennie

Staff / Personnel

Ms. Catherine Oh, legislative counsel