CONTENTS
Wednesday 24 April 1991
Report of subcommittee
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Chair: Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold NDP)
Vice-Chair: Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay NDP)
Arnott, Ted (Wellington PC)
Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)
Dadamo, George (Windsor-Sandwich NDP)
Huget, Bob (Sarnia NDP)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Klopp, Paul (Huron NDP)
Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury NDP)
Offer, Steven (Mississauga North L)
Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)
Wood, Len (Cochrane North NDP)
Clerk pro tem: Manikel, Tannis
Staff: Luski, Lorraine, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1609 in committee room 1.
REPORT OF SUBCOMMITTEE
The Chair: We are dealing with the report of the subcommittee with respect to the proposal by Mr Waters, pursuant to standing order 123, that this committee devote 12 hours of its time to a consideration of the procedures of the Workers' Compensation Board which impede the provision of efficient services to workers and employers.
There was no issue taken at subcommittee with the propriety of that proposal. There has been a consideration by the subcommittee of witness lists that were submitted, one by Mr Waters and one by Mr Arnott. There were no other lists of potential participants submitted and it was proposed, as is indicated in the report by the subcommittee, that nine hours be devoted to listening to those persons, basically half-hour slots, three hours for the committee to meet after hearing the participants to discuss or to make presentations and then to discuss the report with research.
It was suggested that matters commence on Monday 6 May, and it was proposed that these half-hour slots be universal but for the group of four vice-presidents from the Workers' Compensation Board, who will appear as a bloc for a period of one hour. They are the second to last presentation, and the last presentation is the new chair of the Workers' Compensation Board, a half-hour.
There was no consideration of the breakdown between submission and questioning. I think a general rule has been 15 minutes and 15 minutes. I do not know if anybody has any comment on that. That only gives five minutes for each party. In speaking to the report of the subcommittee, somebody may want to talk about that. That is always problematic, is it not? Some participants require so little questioning, others people want to spend more time with.
Mr Ramsay: Maybe the first consideration should be, what does the committee feel would be fair to the presenters as far as their time frame is concerned? Considering the complexity of this subject, what should we be allowing them, what do you think they would require, and maybe work from there. Maybe we should have discussed this before, but anyway we are going back a little bit now that we have already given them a half-hour. What would you think, Dan?
Mr Waters: Yes, I have a concern with four vice-presidents, if they could consume an hour, and we would never actually get to the questioning.
Mr Ramsay: We can dictate, though, the length of their presentations. That is what I am saying.
Mr Waters: Yes, I think we should ask them for very brief opening remarks and then get into the questioning.
Mr Ramsay: Maybe that is the format we would like: "What we want to do basically is discuss with you these matters and we will give you five minutes to present your case on these matters and then we will have 25 minutes for discussion."
The Chair: I think in addition to that, what always happens is that people prepare written reports and then they read those, on the presumption that politicians have difficulty with that. They may be right, but if we could indicate to these people that we would appreciate it, if they prepare written reports, that written reports should be given to us a week before they show up so they could be distributed to the committee.
Mr Ramsay: That might alter the time frame.
The Chair: That would permit all that much more time for discussion, because we would not expect them to read that same report once they got here. We would assume that people had read it.
Mr Ramsay: That would alter the time frame, though, because now we are asking for the report to be given to us a week in advance of our hearings. That might be a timely way of doing it and it might be a good idea then to rethink the scheduling of the hearings in light of adopting that procedure. That might be a very good way of proceeding, that we actually would have written reports. So basically they have presented all they want to say to us. We will digest that individually and then when we come to the hearing, basically it will be discussion. We have it in front of us and we are knowledgeable of their point of view and it would be a half-hour of discussion between all three parties and the delegate.
The Chair: You were talking about the first participants not having a week's lead time. Surely we can make an exception. We can ask them to submit it a day before or two days before and we can make an exception. We do not want this to drag on. I think we can indicate to groups that appear here that they will have some leeway, perhaps five minutes, to do any comments in addition to their submission, but not necessarily so, and then the balance of time shared equally by the three parties.
Mr Ramsay: Do we have enough time to be fair to those people? Let's just look at the calendar. Are we, first of all, going to consider this approach? When does the clerk think she could start contacting witnesses? Tomorrow? I guess if the clerk could start contacting witnesses tomorrow, then we are not starting until the 6th, I do not know if there is time.
The Chair: If the first witnesses have not got enough lead time to prepare written material, well, then we are going to have to make an exception, and hopefully the clerk will juggle the people so that the people who are called first are people who are more likely to have material already prepared or who are going to be brief in their submission in any event so that we can breach that general rule of five minutes and perhaps extend it a little bit.
Mr Waters: When you look at some of the groups, such as the injured workers' groups, those people probably have a brief in their hip pocket that they can send to us in advance. Some of these groups work constantly on it, so you could probably pick some of those that it is obvious they are going to have something prepared. Even if you got it, I do not know whether you need it a week in advance.
Mr Ramsay: I was wondering if we could ask the clerk's advice, with her experience in this. How much time historically have you found that groups need to prepare their presentations? Are we pushing them too much by the schedule we are proposing?
Clerk of the Committee: The experience I have had is that most organizations would need at least two weeks to prepare written material. If the committee wants it a week in advance, then we are talking about three weeks down the road. The committee may want to consider asking groups to prepare a summary for the committee to have in advance, in which case you may not have to give them quite so much time.
Mr Waters: Are we going to need all that much material from them in advance when we have our own research people doing some work for us as well? They can leave written material with us, if they wish, but they have five minutes for opening statements and after that it is open, and if they wish to leave some written material with each member so that we can deliberate over it or read it and then when we get in our three hours of discussion we could use it then, that is fine.
Ms S. Murdock: Given that I deal with the Workers' Compensation Board, I know that the four VPs from the board have material already ready.
My experience, albeit short-lived at this point, in the previous committee that I was sitting on is that most of the groups were given a half-hour rather than an hour, and almost inevitably it was the groups that would be finished very quickly in terms of their brief summary of what they wanted to say, and then we would split the time evenly. It was quite well done. It was the individuals who came in who would use up almost all of their time if you did not set a limit, as Mr Ramsay has said. So I do not know whether it is necessary for most of these people on the list, from my experience, knowing most of them, to even have to be given much lead time in terms of sending us something.
The Chair: Perhaps the clerk should advise the groups that she contacts what our hopes are and what the ideal scenario is and we simply have to be flexible in that regard. We have indicated, and I think there is consensus, as to what the best case would be, but we are going to have to be flexible because of the time constraints. This is one of those 12-hour sessions where we have some real difficulties. We want to get this started as soon as possible. You do not want to get it dragging on, because who knows what could be referred to the committee for consideration in the weeks to come?
Is there a consensus in that regard then? If so, perhaps somebody could move acceptance or adoption of the subcommittee's report. Mr Ramsay.
Mr Ramsay: Just to summarize then, when the clerk approaches the witnesses, we will say: "We desire to have a half-hour discussion with you, and we would ask that you give a five-minute summary of your position. If you can give us that summary and any other material in advance of that, this would be desirable, but if not, we are really anxious to hear you."
The Chair: It seems to me that reflects what the consensus is. Now what about somebody moving adoption of the subcommittee's report?
Mr Wood: I will move adoption of the subcommittee's report.
The Chair: In favour? Opposed? That is carried.
Motion agreed to.
The committee adjourned at 1620.