Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE

MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

CONTENTS

Monday 11 May 1992

Highway Traffic Amendment Act, 1992, Bill 124

Ministry of the Solicitor General

Bill Hutton, superintendent, OPP traffic and marine branch

Irene Fantopolous, policy adviser

David Edgar, special legislative assistant to the Minister of Transportation

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

*Chair / Président: Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold ND)

*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgianne ND)

Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North/-Nord L)

Dadamo, George (Windsor-Sandwich ND)

*Huget, Bob (Sarnia ND)

*Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)

*Klopp, Paul (Huron ND)

*McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South/-Sud L)

Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury ND)

Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L)

Turnbull, David (York Mills PC)

Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants:

Cunningham, Dianne (London North/-Nord PC) for Mr Turnbull

MacKinnon, Ellen (Lambton ND) for Mr Dadamo

Sutherland, Kimble (Oxford ND) for Mr Wood

* In attendance / Présents

Clerk / Greffier: Brown, Harold

Staff / Personnel: Anderson, Anne, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1552 in committee room 1.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE

Resuming consideration of Bill 124, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act / Loi portant modification du Code de la route.

MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

The Chair (Mr Peter Kormos): It's 3:52 pm and all caucuses are represented. I want to apologize to Superintendent Bill Hutton from the OPP and to Ms Irene Fantopolous, who is here as a policy adviser from the policy development branch of the Solicitor General. We were to have started at 3:30. Please come forward, Superintendent Hutton and Ms Fantopolous.

I don't know, sir, whether you want to make any introductory comments. If you do, please feel free; otherwise we'll start with questions. I propose again to start with Ms Cunningham as sponsor of the bill and then to have all members of the committee participate. We are pretty freewheeling in this regard because we've got a fair amount of time and we want to have a full dialogue. Is there anything you wanted to say first, sir?

Mr Bill Hutton: I've never been before a committee such as this. I'm representing the Solicitor General, not just the OPP; I just want to make that point clear. I rushed down here from Brampton, according to the speed limit, because I've been meeting all week with all the traffic sergeants in the province, so I haven't had an opportunity to discuss this meeting here this afternoon.

Basically what was prepared for me for this meeting is that the Ministry of the Solicitor General supports programs and initiatives which focus on public safety. Bill 124 is one such initiative to increase helmet use and to decrease the number of deaths and injuries resulting from bicycle crashes.

While the ministry supports the intent of the legislation, the imposition of mandatory helmet use at this time may be premature. Safeguards to complement the legislation must first be put into place. This does not mean that there can be no legislation in the near future, but the following areas need to be considered before enacting this legislation.

I think the key to what we are trying to do, especially in the OPP, is community policing and discussions with the community and getting a sense of what it wants us to do. There's far more emphasis on example and education and less time and resources spent on enforcement. I think that's what we are trying to strive for in the 1990s.

Generally consideration must be given to the comprehensive bicycle review undertaken by this government, and specifically by the Ministry of Transportation. This review takes into consideration the necessary steps that must be taken prior to mandatory helmet use. Legislation enacted specific to the use of helmets must identify and support a long-term program. This is critical because, when legislation was passed regarding child restraints, the industry was unable to supply approved car seats to meet the demand and the market was flooded with unapproved car seats. As such, there must be time for the industry's standards to be researched and developed, and any legislation that is passed must therefore take this issue into consideration.

The legislation as drafted will be unenforceable through the court system, pre-empting compliance by the general population and discouraging enforcement by the OPP and municipal police services. For example, a child under age 12 cannot be charged or convicted for a provincial offence for not wearing a helmet. It is to be noted, however, that in other jurisdictions, mainly in the United States, there have been some unique enforcement strategies in this regard. For example, in certain states the parents are made responsible for their children not wearing helmets. However, this should not be taken to mean that this would be enforceable in Ontario.

There would be increased costs in enforcement, litigation, and to the cyclist to purchase helmets. An Ontario market base needs to be developed to support the demand that will occur as a result of this legislation.

Finally, it is preferable to encourage voluntary helmet use, with increased public education and training, as opposed to mandatory helmet use, which may be seen by the cyclist as an imposition. It would be preferable to introduce the legislation once a certain percentage of compliance is reached; therefore a more incremental approach is desirable.

The above position would ensure that (1) substandard helmets will not surface on the market; (2) the industry will be prepared to meet increases in demand; (3) gradual voluntary acceptance and compliance would be encouraged; (4) there would be an increase in tendency for parents to have their children wear helmets, and (5) room for planning and growth will occur. While there is an American standard for bicycle helmets approved by the Canadian Safety Association, it is important to provide Ontario with the time to develop standardized helmets, which would promote Ontario's economic base.

In conclusion, I would reiterate that the ministry supports the legislation in principle, but that the issues we have just mentioned should also be taken into consideration before proclaiming the bill in force.

The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mrs Cunningham.

Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): Thank you for coming before the committee today. I wonder if I can start by handing out some of these pamphlets or passing them around. We had some at the last meeting but there weren't enough for everybody. Whoever didn't get one last time should perhaps get one this time, including Superintendent Hutton, because I have some questions.

I think I can speak on behalf of all of us on this committee, which has been particularly non-partisan and searching for answers to this tremendous problem with regard to the statistics in Ontario and Canada, especially of young people injured on bicycles. Some 15,000 in Ontario are admitted to hospital a year, 1,500 are seriously hurt in Ontario with bicycle injuries and another 15 die.

After a number of weeks and months of hearings, the consensus before the committee, on behalf of the people who have come here from many communities -- medical, home and school, Kiwanis Clubs, parents of the head-injured -- has been that for some 10 years in Ontario bicycle safety has been a priority in schools, certainly with Kiwanis and other groups, which are well documented in the minutes of these meetings. The time has come for legislation. I think if we were to listen to and take the advice of the public, some 98% of those who have come before the committee, we would probably be recommending this bill to the government of the day for immediate implementation.

It's been the committee members who have pretty well agreed with some of the concerns you have today; that is, we would like to have all the answers before we proceed. So what I'd like to do is ask you some questions along the way on some of the points you made.

You'd like to see more education and ultimately less enforcement, which would be great. That's certainly the view of the committee, I can say unequivocally, in that we've been talking about maybe as long as a two-year implementation period. I'm wondering what you think about one or two years.

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Mr Hutton: Bob Scott, who works for me, put together a paper for the Solicitor General and was suggesting more than five years. I don't think that's realistic. Two years? I don't think we would have any trouble with a two-year period of introducing this legislation and then trying to get compliance. Two years would be a lot of time to get into the schools, where we should be encouraging this type of mandatory helmet use.

I think we also have to start getting into large corporations and ministry buildings to talk traffic and traffic safety. When I talk about traffic, that's also bicycle and bicycle safety. I'm only new in my position as the director of the traffic and marine branch, but it seems to me that in terms of human and equipment resources, do you want to sit out on the highway stopping 50 people in five hours or do you want to be in a position to have five or six officers sitting at a service centre talking to 2,000 people an hour, encouraging them to wear seatbelts or slow down or whatever?

I think a two-year time period in regard to getting to the users of helmets would be a suitable time period.

Mrs Cunningham: In general, we have been talking one or two years and at the end of these hearings we'll sit down together and decide what we will be recommending with regard to the legislation, but I'm happy to hear you think two years is practical and reasonable.

With regard to what you had to say to us today, you talked about this comprehensive bicycle review. In the last couple of weeks we have been trying to find out what that is. We can't find out. We don't know what it is. We don't know anybody who sits on it. We don't know anybody who knows anything about it. We've all been waiting to hear about it and we've wanted to help actually. The Toronto cycling club has been very interested in participating. I'm wondering just what that means.

The Chair: Some people have even referred to it as being chimerical.

Ms Irene Fantopolous: I can answer that. Basically it's an interministerial committee that's been working on a comprehensive study in terms of bicycle helmets and bicycle policy overall. Nothing has been formalized in terms of that yet, but it does include a lot of the issues that have been spoken about today as well as in other committee hearings, as I understand from you. It's not a final report in that sense, but we are looking at the various issues outlined today.

Mrs Cunningham: Who are the members of this interministerial group?

Ms Fantopolous: There's the Ministry of Transportation --

Mrs Cunningham: Yes, but are there people?

Ms Fantopolous: There are people. I've just been involved in recent weeks on this. One person from Transportation is David Hunt and from the Solicitor General's --

Mrs Cunningham: Perhaps what you could do is provide us with a list of the people, just so we don't have to take up a lot of time and so you're not put on the spot as far as guessing names. It would be helpful to us.

Ms Fantopolous: Okay. To you?

Mrs Cunningham: Yes. Also, if you have any minutes or any report at all, we would be most appreciative of it. I think this committee feels particularly privileged in having had some of the best experts in the medical field and in the helmet-producing field, business and industry, and certainly from the volunteer fields who are out there educating now and spending their time doing that in some communities.

We've been particularly fortunate to have people take time to come from all over the province to speak to us. I have to tell you that we didn't seek them out: If their names came forward as experts, in one or two instances my executive assistant, Andrea Strathdee, would follow through on the advice of the committee, but we didn't seek people out. They felt this was an important enough issue to come forward, so members of the interministerial committee -- from the very beginning we had hoped they would come and we felt that maybe two or three of the ministries were represented here during the hearings, but certainly not any members of this group. It would have been a great opportunity for them to hear at first hand, as we did. But I'm just passing that on because it was mentioned by Superintendent Hutton.

With regard to the approved helmets, this pamphlet is the most recent one we have. A lot of pamphlets have been put out by drug companies and medical groups and distributors themselves, but this would be one -- I'm not pushing it in any way, I'm just saying that at the bike ride in London this one was handed out. What interested me was that there's at least one distributor who's ahead of us, so we shouldn't be sitting back.

First of all, this particular helmet, this Carlyn helmet, is an approved helmet to the best standards we can get, I think; according to the group that talked about standards, it would be the best you could do, to get one that has been approved by CSA, Snell and ANSI. I think there will be more distributors like this coming forward. This was an independent person, a woman who works out of her kitchen. These helmets all come from Quebec, they're all Canadian.

One of my great concerns personally has been, as I've travelled through some of the retail stores -- I mentioned one last time, but I didn't mean to single it out either. I hope people don't get too defensive. It doesn't matter where you go; you can pick these helmets up now, and the market is flooded with helmets that are not approved by these three standards. It's our intention to stop that in some way. One of our great hopes in this committee is that we get some Ontario-manufactured helmets.

I'll take direction, Mr Chairman, on this one too, because I'm not quite certain when you talk about the date that this bill is proclaimed and then enforced. I haven't asked that question yet, but we'll need an answer on it. Do you proclaim it and then enforce it, or what do you do? For instance, if we want this bill to go through this spring can we in some way build the lead time into it, or do we have to wait two years to have it proclaimed? That's a question for the legislative researcher.

We're going to be looking for direction here. It says in bold print here, "CSA is not yet equipped to approve infant helmets." I'm just wondering what you think of the status of this and the fact that we've got them in Ontario and whether you were aware before you came to this committee that there's a great deal of movement here. Certainly there aren't any manufactured. Just an opinion on that, because of your concerns about approved helmets.

Mr Hutton: I guess I've been aware of this committee and helmet safety and bicyclists. I am a member of the board of directors of the Council on Road Trauma in Hamilton and I know they've been a major pusher of this type of legislation.

Mrs Cunningham: They have.

Mr Hutton: Personally, to be totally honest, I have never gone into a store and looked at the helmets that are for sale and I don't know how much research the ministry has even done on it. I know that Bob Scott, who works for me and is a member of that joint interministerial committee, has been involved the last couple of years and is also involved with a group in Mississauga in helmet usage for bicyclists. He was to be here today representing the ministry but is at an inquest in Sault Ste Marie. He is far more knowledgeable on these issues than I am.

I'm sorry I can't give you a ministry position as to how much research they've done, other than that they voiced those concerns of, "Are they available in Ontario?" and "Let's not get into the same problems we got into with helmets for motorcyclists and car seats for infants." There were all kinds of them out on the market and in the vehicles. It wasn't until after we started investigating fatalities that we found out they weren't safe, and not even approved. So we don't want to get into the same predicament with the helmets.

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Mrs Cunningham: Perhaps it would be appropriate at this time to tell you that at our last meeting, the committee wanted as part of our process to take a look at some of the questions we would have to answer with regard to each issue; for example, who would be covered by the legislation and who would be exempt; where this legislation would apply with regard to roads and schoolyards and what not; what the penalty would be; how the legislation would be enforced, and the date to come into force. We get into the whole issue around helmet standards: which standards to approve; whether they should be mandatory; helmets for under-five-year-olds. So we are going to answer those questions to the best of our ability.

In the meantime, as these are issues laid out in a document we're going to look at later, I would ask you, Superintendent Hutton, and Ms Fantopolous, if you could in fact take this away and come back with some answers with regard to both of your areas of expertise. Certainly the Ministry of the Solicitor General is going to be asked to answer these questions, so it's here, and the bike helmet issue is part of it. So I think that's appropriate.

With regard to children under 12, perhaps you could help us with that now. You mentioned that there were American standards or enforcement strategies where parents would be responsible. We're aware of them. Every member of this committee has researched every state and every jurisdiction that we know, that we can find. So we know there are interesting strategies with regard to making the parent responsible to the extent that if you are stopped, you have to appear within 48 hours with the bicycle helmet. That would be the first step. I'm just wondering if you had thoughts about those or if there are any precedents in Ontario with regard to any other kind of enforcement around appearing at the scene with your driver's licence. Do you get a chance to show up with your driver's licence in Ontario if you haven't got it? Is there any precedent for this?

Mr Hutton: In most of the jurisdictions, if you got stopped and you didn't have your driver's licence, you could be given 24 hours to produce it. In the insurance, it used to be 72 hours, so some things have changed. It depends on the attitude of the person you're stopping and the attitude of the police officer as to whether it is a policy or is not.

I know we just got a Canadian national award for one of our OPP officers. During Seatbelt Enforcement Month, if you weren't wearing your seatbelt, you were given an offence notice. However, if you showed up in the detachment during the week and viewed a video on seatbelts and there was an agreement with the crown attorney in that particular jurisdiction, then the charge was dismissed or withdrawn.

So certainly if you were to stop a cyclist who was not wearing a helmet, it would be to everybody's advantage if he or she had an opportunity to come to the police station, if it's open, and view a video and to bring a parent along at the same time, within 48 hours or a weekend or whatever. I would see nothing wrong with that type of procedure. I would encourage it.

The Chair: I don't know whether you're prepared to comment on this because it might be something Ms Fantopolous, counsel for the Ministry of the Solicitor General, could better address. I understand there are some sections of the Highway Traffic Act that until recently created a vicarious liability; that is, the owner of the car was responsible on an absolute basis. But the courts and the appellate courts have had things to say about that, especially in view of charter arguments that were made. That might be one of the problems with the proposal about having parents liable for their children's -- criminally or quasi-criminally liable. Research has asked me to direct this question to you. That might be something counsel for the Ministry of the Solicitor General could address, especially in view of what the courts have done with those vicarious liability sections in the Highway Traffic Act.

Ms Fantopolous: Okay, we'll have a response for you.

Mr Hutton: There are still several sections in the Highway Traffic Act where the owner of the vehicle is charged rather than the driver.

The Chair: Which would be the parallel of what Ms Cunningham was trying to --

Mr Hutton: Yes, that's correct.

Mrs Cunningham: There are, I think, a number of other questions, but my colleagues on this committee will probably cover them, as they normally do. I've certainly asked the three I was most interested in. If my colleagues don't cover them, I'll add to it, but they themselves normally have pretty interesting questions, so I'll pass.

Mr Paul Klopp (Huron): Good afternoon. You mention in your preamble something about car seats for young children. That was part and parcel of the seatbelt law, was it, that you had to have car seats for young children? Am I correct on that?

Mr Hutton: Yes, but even prior to that, when car seats came into vehicles, there were several that were never approved.

Mr Klopp: Okay. Back when the helmets for motorbikes were put in place -- I wasn't old enough; maybe I was 10 or 12 years old. How did that process go in place? Do you remember that? Were you involved in that at all?

Mr Hutton: I remember being part of it. I rode motorcycles for five years on the OPP itself. When it first came in I remember that the legislation said you had to wear one, and they were wearing them on their arms and legs and not on their head. That's what happens when you don't cover all the bases. Actually, the week I was on training, we had a helmet that was not CSA-approved.

Mr Klopp: Was that legislation put in place like, bang, here it is today, and tomorrow morning at 12:05 it's now law, or was it phased in?

Mr Hutton: I don't think it was phased in at all. It just became law and you had to have a helmet.

Mr Klopp: The police had to grapple with that law for a long time.

Mr Hutton: Just that one example I gave you -- on the highway, you had to be 16 and have a driver's licence. You could be stopped and had to identify yourself because it was a motor vehicle and you had a driver's licence. Even today you would know the person who was identifying himself as Joe Public and had a picture of Joe Public. You knew that was the person.

Mr Klopp: What I'm trying to get around is that we can learn how not to put in a good rule, because my sense is that at that time it was hammered in place. Everybody agreed it was a good law, but because they didn't do the education, everybody rebelled against it: 17- and 18-year-old friends of mine who don't normally break the law. They were told next week they were going to have to wear a helmet and they abused it to the nth degree. Now we don't think twice about buying a helmet and throwing it on your head when you get on a bike. Nobody thinks about that.

My question is around this whole idea. You're really keen on the idea, from what I understand, of putting in some form of real education program and being serious about promoting this idea of a helmet law. I believe we all are. But for heaven's sake, to go ahead and pass a law tomorrow and say "Next week at 12:01 it's law" would probably be the wrong thing to do if you really want to get people to --

Mr Hutton: Buy in?

Mr Klopp: -- buy in.

Mr Hutton: I can't tell you. You'd have to go back and research the motorcycle issue. How many motorcyclists were already wearing helmets before it became law?

Mr Klopp: Very few.

Mr Hutton: We don't know that. My perception was that a lot of them were, whereas with cyclists I believe the figure is 5%. The challenge today, even in policing, is that if we're at 83% in seatbelt usage, how do we get to 85% and 90%? We've set our goal at 95% by 1995. It's a lot harder to get that next 3% or 5%. It won't be too hard, I don't think, to increase the 5% usage of cyclists up to 40% or 50%, but at what point are you satisfied and then all of a sudden you make it the law and you start enforcing it?

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Mr Klopp: So in short, you like the idea of first being serious about the law but graduating it, advertising, putting dollars into the young people, and from the police point of view, for the best energy use of your time, that would be also the right way to go.

Mr Hutton: Yes. We discussed this at great length today. I'm not saying wearing a helmet on a bicycle is another program, but if it's another program that has to be enforced, then it's another program that won't get much attention unless you start having a lot more serious accidents.

It's not a case of doing more with less. What I'm trying to emphasize is, let's do less but more of that less. This month if it's seatbelts, then I'm not going to be pressuring the people in the field to come in with radar charges and impaired charges and all those other charges as much as if the emphasis this month was on them.

If we're serious about seatbelts or whatever other program we're serious about, then let's be concentrating on that from an example point of view, an education point of view and an enforcement point of view. The more programs you send out the more frustration there is and the more reasons it gives them to say, "We don't have enough people to do all these things and here you are forcing another program on us."

I think every police service in this province has an excellent record of getting into the schools and delivering the message, and that will continue. I don't see us taking those resources away. That's the best place to start, in my opinion, and I don't think you'll get too many police chiefs or anybody else opposing that opinion. Then build on it from there.

The children start encouraging the mothers and fathers, just like they do with the seatbelts, to start wearing them too: "Here you are telling me to wear a helmet, but how come you're not?" So they deliver the message home and then you expand it from there. That's my opinion.

Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I think I'd like to talk a bit about enforcement. We've had people coming before us making the accusation that the police don't enforce the bicycle laws now, so why would they enforce these? When I go around the city of Toronto -- I find more so here than in my home town, but then again it's a small town and it doesn't have as many stop lights and that -- that indeed cyclists are not obeying the law.

I was wondering how the OPP would deal with the enforcement of this, given that we do the two-year lead-in and all of those things. How do you feel the OPP would deal with the enforcement?

Mr Hutton: Because most of our enforcement is in the small towns --

Mr Waters: That's why I asked, because you patrol my town.

Mr Hutton: Certainly we wouldn't be running into them on the 400 series highways because they're not allowed there in the first place.

I don't disagree with your comment that you see a lot of bicyclists committing all the offences. First of all, I don't think they're aware that a lot of the offences they're committing even pertain to them and are covered in the Highway Traffic Act. When you get a driver's licence, you learn the rules of the road. When you start riding a bike, who's teaching you anything? Where do you learn the rules of the road? We don't do that.

Mr Waters: But I seem to recall when I went to school that was probably one of the first times I ever had contact with the police. An officer came into the little community of Windermere, which is like 50 houses if you're lucky, on a good day in the summer. They came into this little one-room school back then and indeed spent a day going through the rules of the road. Don't they still do that?

Mr Hutton: It's been a couple of years since I've been out in the detachments, but they're getting into each classroom about 40 minutes a year. Again, it's all these programs, you know, about awareness of strangers stopping you on the road. I'm sure they're really emphasizing that today. That may be the only 40 minutes they're in your school today and they might not have talked about bicycle safety or crossing at a pedestrian crosswalk.

Even though they're in there, I don't know how much time they would have to cover these things, but again if this legislation's going to come in and we're saying the first thing we've got to do is educate the public, especially the young kids, then we'd better be doing it. We'd have to emphasize that, "Here comes some new legislation," and we'd have to spend some time during the course of that 40 minutes or three visits a year -- maybe it's more in some smaller areas -- to make sure that part is covered.

Getting back to enforcement, we're having a hard time convincing some police officers to enforce seatbelts, because it's $78. When it was $25 it wasn't a bad fine and people would accept that. Now it's $78 and people are really getting upset. But, I mean, 12 or 13 years later they should be wearing them by now, so I don't know why they're getting upset.

I've had police officers admit to me that they're reluctant to charge somebody, and again it gets back to education; it gets back to the way we're doing business. At the end of the day your supervisor may want 10 radar charges and I don't care who else you stopped and warned about wearing a helmet on a bicycle or a non-moving violation.

These are the kinds of things from a managerial point of view and the day-to-day detachment philosophies getting back and giving credit for everything they're doing, whether it's talking to 100 people or laying one charge. I mean, what would you sooner have your people doing?

Mr Waters: As the OPP expands its community policing in the small towns across the province, I seem to recall I saw a couple on their bicycles. Actually, I come from Bracebridge, so I believe we had some community policing going on last year on bicycles. Are they going to expand that in the communities?

Mr Hutton: Again, if you adopt the philosophy of community policing, it's what the community wants. If the community wants you out on bicycles patrolling the paths and in between townhouses and all those other good places, what better way to get around than on a bicycle?

I know we are expanding it. I see more and more requests for bicycles. I've actually seen more and more requests for motorcycles because they can get off the main road and into those areas where in the past we haven't been visiting because we drive along in a car and a car can't get to a lot of these places. But community policing is what the people want you to do.

In your town if bicycle safety is the concern of the day and the policemen are adopting the philosophy and listening to the community, then this month they should be putting their emphasis on bicycle safety and not the speeders going down a highway where there are no accidents. So by educating the kids and by them educating the parents, it becomes a community concern. They should be emphasizing that program until they're satisfied there's a large compliance.

Mr Waters: So what would be the two or three main points you would want to see in the bill or would want the bill to deal with if we go ahead with it? Is there anything from your perspective that should definitely be in the bill, maybe not as part of the bill but somewhere so that it sets down a set of rules or something? Let's say the bill or the regulations.

Mr Hutton: I'm not sure what you are asking. What should the section of the Highway Traffic Act say?

Mr Waters: If you could write the law, from the perspective of the Solicitor General or the OPP, is there anything that they would definitely want to see in there?

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Mr Hutton: I've seen a draft of the section you're addressing and there's nothing wrong with the section, nothing wrong with the wording. All we're saying is, give us some time to make sure there are proper helmets out there and there's proper education. The other issue that has to be addressed is, how do you deal with enforcement of those under 16 and under 12?

Mr Klopp: How would you do it -- you're out there in the field -- if you could sit down and make this law or write it up so that you could enforce it? I'm looking for your ideas. Nobody will pin it on you.

Mr Hutton: I was already asked, "How do you deal with those under age 12?" and if you can't enforce it through courts -- and I don't agree that's the way to go -- then you have to put some rider in there that either the child doesn't ride the bike any more until he or she gets a helmet or you deal with the parent and the child through a video or through an educational component such as that.

The Chair: Research has asked this question, and perhaps, Ms Fantopolous from the Ministry of the Solicitor General, you might ask your counsel to direct their minds to it: Would it be within the jurisdiction of the province to give a police officer the power to seize on a discretionary basis a bicycle that is being operated by an unhelmeted rider? You see, that wouldn't involve the laying of any charges, so the age of the rider would not be material. But the power of the police officer to discretionarily seize that bicycle and the route for return of the bike could be the sort of things Superintendent Hutton is speaking of. Research would be interested in hearing what counsel for the Solicitor General has to say about that.

Ms Fantopolous: We'll get a response for that.

Mrs Cunningham: Just a bit of an analogy which my friend Kimble Sutherland will relate to: We have a towing company in London that seizes your car, puts it behind locked doors and you pay $98 to get it out, and it doesn't even represent the public.

Mr Klopp: That's why Kimble got a new car. His other one was only worth $50.

Mrs Cunningham: He probably knows this one intimately. It's a terrible analogy.

Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): It's $98 and then it's a $12 cab ride from your riding over that.

Mrs Cunningham: But when you think of what people can do to each other -- I raise it sort of facetiously. There are things happening out there that aren't helpful when you talk about fining people. We have the private sector doing it, unreasonably so, in my view. I think you made quite an impact on most of us when you talked about the seatbelt fine in place now as being a lot. We don't want to get into that here for bicycle helmets. That's not what we're trying to do.

Mr Hutton: Under the old Juvenile Delinquents Act we had to go to the courts and convince them to allow us to charge someone under 16 say $5 for going through a stop sign or whatever when I was in the small town of Winchester, because you'd have to take that young offender all the way to Cornwall. So there was all my time, they'd have to go to the parents, and they lost work. These are the kinds of things I hope we can guard against.

I've had an opportunity to visit a few of the young offenders courts in the last four or five months and they are all-day sessions. I was in one just last week and there were 133 names on the docket. Are we going to start piling up the docket with children between the ages of 12 and 16 for not wearing a helmet on a bicycle and then be in court all day with the officer and the parents?

I don't know if the Attorney General's office has looked at those kinds of things, but how do you deal with that type of enforcement? I would suggest we stay away from that.

Mrs Cunningham: That's why you're here. You're obviously influencing us because we're nodding our heads as you speak. There's more time too, so you can give us more ideas today.

Mr Waters: I was just going to say that if indeed you decided that you were going to charge the adult -- I had to slip out of the room and I didn't know that you and the Chair had some interaction on this topic, which is just fine by me -- if a parent, let's say, bought a child a helmet and when he left the house the helmet was on and he was stopped, I think it would be difficult to pursue it with the parent, as in charging the parent. But if the parent refused to supply the safety equipment as specified in the law, do you think at that point the parent should be charged, if you're going to have an enforcement angle on it at all?

Mr Hutton: The first time, I'd say no.

Mr Waters: Okay, but let's look at time two. The first time is, "Produce a helmet or pay a fine," and I would say that is something that is already out there in one of the other jurisdictions. But let's look at time two or time three. We've gone all of the nice ways or the soft ways of trying to encourage them to abide by the law and the parent is still saying, "As an individual, I feel that it's an infringement of my rights and therefore I'm not going to purchase a helmet for my child." At that point, what do you do from your perspective? We're looking for some guidance or some ideas as to where we should go.

Mr Hutton: I would hope by now it would be an easier sell, because I've been involved for 25 years in sports and in hockey. Show me a parent today who says, "I'm refusing to allow my son or daughter to wear a helmet to participate in the hockey game tonight." Again, how many parents are aware of the tragedies that are going on in Ontario as a result of kids and adults and everybody else getting involved in accidents with cyclists?

In talking to them, I would hope that the parent would not be opposed to a child's going out on a bicycle with a helmet on. But if you're asking what you do the second or third time, if you charge them and bring them into court, what's the message the judge has to deliver to them? How can he convince them any differently from you or I talking to a parent at the doorstep? I don't know.

Mr Waters: Probably a fairer question of the Attorney General, right?

Mr Hutton: Yes.

Mr Sutherland: Of course, if you made it illegal to sell a new bicycle without selling a helmet with it, that would solve the problem too, but that might be considered a little bit draconian.

The Chair: The Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations had been invited to come here to address those very sorts of concerns, but its absence has been conspicuous.

Mr Hutton: I did think of that too while you people have been asking me questions.

Mr Klopp: It was brought up the other day actually.

Mr Sutherland: You used the analogy in the sports field too. I know a lot of arenas now won't let you go on and play without wearing a helmet, so you get the conditions building up there.

I want to come back to the enforcement issue. I think we all understand the difficulty of trying to balance priorities in terms of policing -- do you go after impaired drivers this week? do you go after speeders this month? do you go after the seatbelt people another week or another month? -- and in terms of how you manage that with the resources you get.

I guess my sense would be, though, that simply by passing the law and having it there, if an officer is out doing his duty -- I don't know, maybe he's got speed traps set up, or whatever the correct term is for them, checking on speeding drivers, but he's sitting there in a stationary position, certainly in an urban setting anyway -- if someone goes by without a helmet, he can easily just as well, while he's out there on duty, go and do that. If we're going to have 100% enforcement from the day this thing is proclaimed or that it would be carried out, it would seem to me that just the fact of passing it and it's being there and police using their discretion as they have with seatbelts, you would get us up to a compliance factor that you want to look at.

While 83% is probably not where we want to be seatbeltwise, obviously it's certainly far better than where it was before we had mandatory legislation for seatbelts. Enforcement of that other than when you have your specific blitzes put on generally is -- well, maybe not. I don't know what the directives are in terms of it being compulsory to charge people on seatbelts or whatever, but it was my understanding that there was some optional nature there and it's enforced differently at different times. I don't know for sure, but I'm told if someone's pulled over and the police are just asking and he gives an officer a hard time, then maybe he'll get charged with a seatbelt offence or that type of thing.

It would just seem to me that by passing it and having it out there with the option to enforce, that increases compliance by itself. As soon as you get a few people in the neighbourhood finding out, "Yes, I got charged for not wearing my helmet," that increases compliance by itself too.

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Mr Hutton: It's been my experience people don't go home and tell anybody they got charged. It's my experience that if tonight you're out at a RIDE spot check and get through it, you'll tell a lot of people the next morning. I don't hear too many people going home and saying, "I got stopped at a RIDE spot check last night and got charged with impaired driving."

Mr Sutherland: But the fact that I would tell people, "Yes, I went through a RIDE spot check," would that not in fact increase awareness that you are out there, you're doing the program and, yes, it reminds me about the fact that I'm not supposed to be drinking and driving? Likewise if it got out there, "Oh, yeah, I saw the police officer pull over so-and-so on his bicycle for not wearing a helmet."

Mr Hutton: The other problem you bring it up is, how do you stop people on bicycles? That's another big concern. We've had problems for years enforcing the Motorized Snow Vehicles Act, because how do you catch them? So how do catch bicyclists? Having some experience, even on motorcycles, trying to stop other motorcyclists, as soon as you get off the bike or as soon as you get out of the car, they're gone. How do you identify these people? You said you wanted some points.

Mr Sutherland: I guess we can accept that. I would say generally, though, I certainly hope the majority of people are law-abiding citizens, so if a police officer puts his lights on, they pull over and comply with the fact he's caught them for speeding or he's caught them for some infraction of the Highway Traffic Act, and therefore you're going to catch the majority of people --

Mr Hutton: Because the majority are on the road. These cyclists are on paths, on sidewalks where they shouldn't be, in between buildings and everything else.

Mr Sutherland: So you're saying the level of compliance will be far lower in this because of the ability of cyclists to go where police patrols may not normally be going?

Mr Hutton: It'll just be harder to stop these people and deal with them, whether, as you say, we have discretion to talk to them or charge them.

Mr Sutherland: In terms of the education stuff -- I guess I'm a little younger than some of the other members over here -- I remember seeing the bicycle safety films. You also have, at least in my community, the Optimist clubs, who have been very good with their bicycle safety rodeos.

It would seem to me that the education component wouldn't be that difficult to fit into, in terms of what service clubs are doing and in terms of the fact of the police visits that are going on within schools already. I know certainly in many of the areas the police officers, at least the OPP detachments and other ones, always have booths set up at the fairs, that type of thing, in terms of education. I was just wondering how much lead time you think you really need in terms of education before enforcement, or can they not be going along now on the same path?

Mr Hutton: Hopefully, we're doing both at the same time in any program, but the emphasis would be on education rather than enforcement. I would hope we're not getting caught in a numbers game where somebody higher than me is saying at the end of the year, "Well, where's all the charges for not wearing helmets on a bicycle?" versus, "Yes, but we've talked to 400,000 children, or groups of people." I think you'll see, especially in the last two or three years, there's a lot more emphasis on using those groups to work with us.

We're even entering into a volunteer program where people in the community have been coming in and staffing the detachments at night just to keep `em open. While they're there, it doesn't create that much of a problem if you're saying you have to come in to the detachment within the next couple of nights to view this video. Whether it's a police officer showing it to you or confirming you came in or volunteer people, then it's done.

Mr Sutherland: I'd certainly think that Mrs Cunningham would not be demanding those types of statistics of how many charges you had laid in a year versus how many people you had educated. I understand those difficulties because the public's expectations when there's an issue -- certainly in my area representing the riding of Oxford where we had the stretch of the 401 with many fatalities and cross-median fatalities, there was a great deal of pressure put on the OPP detachments covering that area to come up with more enforcement, more patrols, to watch speeders and control that type of thing. I certainly understand that difficulty, and I hope that wouldn't be the case, but just by the simple fact that if you have this bill passed and people know it can be enforced you'd see tremendous increases in compliance.

Mr Bob Huget (Sarnia): Very briefly, ever since we've begun discussing this bill in committee, I've been keeping my own unofficial bicycle poll and I'll be pleased to tell you that for the first time in about six or seven weeks I actually saw a bicycle operator with a light on his bicycle that worked at night. I saw that the other night. It was quite an occasion for me.

The point I'm trying to make is that there are many, many more things involved besides the use of a helmet and I'm quite concerned that we don't forget all those other things, because the helmet's important. But I think there's been a fundamental change in the use of a bicycle between when I grew up, which was in the 1950s, and the use of a bicycle now. It's much more a regular commuting vehicle than it was in my day. Then it was a recreational vehicle that you were forced to use until you could drive a car. That's changed significantly, I think, over the years, and the number of people who use bicycles as regular commuter vehicles in Toronto is evidence of that.

I think there are many things we have to deal with other than the helmet issue. The helmet issue is important, but since I've been keeping my unofficial poll I think the most hair-raising experience was being almost run down on a pedestrian crosswalk on Wellesley Street by a bicycle operator at night who had no light, but did have a helmet; I managed to see that as he disappeared into the darkness. He had no intention of stopping for those flashing and yellow lights, none whatsoever. I guess I don't know what a helmet would do for that individual, I really don't.

My question to you is, how do we address all those other issues and do you think there should be some kind of examination, some kind of licence before one operates a bike today?

Mr Hutton: Actually, as you were talking, I thought you were going to say you saw a person with a helmet and that made him a lot more safety conscious and you wouldn't see all these other offences, but obviously you just disproved that thought. At what age would you start?

Mr Huget: I don't know. Obviously, that wouldn't apply to small children, but if you get to an age where you can operate a bicycle unsupervised on public roads, we've got some real problems. Safety consciousness about wearing a helmet, I think, is great, that's admirable. But what does it do for the people whom I've been experiencing on a daily basis since we've started to talk about this bill?

For example, in night operation of a bicycle many of those people had helmets but no lights, or they went through the flashing yellow lights on a crosswalk, or they disobeyed a red light, or were in the middle of an intersection where they clearly shouldn't have been, helmet or not.

When we get to the point where today, unsupervised, you're going to use a highway which is very heavily travelled -- for example, our city streets in Toronto -- and do that unsupervised, would it make any sense to at least have an education or licensing component at that point? Age 10, 12 -- I don't know. Pick an age. Obviously five is not the age.

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Mr Hutton: Did you ask that question of the Ministry of Transportation, since it's to do with licensing?

Mr Huget: No, I didn't. I just wanted your views.

Mr Hutton: I'd be interested in knowing their response. At what age is it a right to ride a bicycle on a street? I don't disagree with the picture you're painting of our everyday bicyclists. Perhaps, with all the programs we have, there's too much onus on or recognition given to the officer who goes out and catches the high speeder and not enough for stopping the young child or adult on a bicycle and bring it to their attention. Maybe some of them don't know; I don't know.

Of course ignorance is no excuse, but again, what credit do they get at the end of the day for stopping five bicyclists and having a chat with them and saying: "You're driving down the wrong side. Do you know it's an offence to drive on the sidewalk?" With legislation such as this, it may be time for us to re-emphasize the importance of bicycles and encourage our people to get more into these programs and get credit at the end of the day for doing it.

Mr Huget: What I'm leading to in a roundabout way is if the education component around helmets is deemed to be important; in other words, we've got to go out for two years and educate people on the use of helmets. Is education on the Highway Traffic Act, the law and road safety just as important? Is it a mandatory component of that helmet education, because I think without the other it is of little or no value. I would hate to see children educated in the use of a helmet -- which is an admirable thing; I agree with that -- without education on the rules of the road and the dangers of what's out there, and in the case of older individuals who can understand, there are laws that have to be followed. I think there needs to be that educational component as well.

Mr Hutton: I think we're learning too from the provincial and even federal initiatives we've had in the last couple of years, whether it be Seatbelt Month or Impaired Driving Month.

What we started to do is give a handle to those drivers and say, "This is the law and here are the sections of the Highway Traffic Act that pertain to seatbelts." You could do the same thing with bicyclists. I am sure even the expert cyclists in this province would be totally unaware of all the sections of the Highway Traffic Act that apply to them. I've asked myself the same question many times: Are we covering all those things in the educational component in the schools? If we are, then why aren't they listening to the police officer delivering the message?

Mr Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): Thank you, sir, for coming out this afternoon. I have two questions I would like to ask you. Which would you sooner see, the law brought in now, followed by education two or three years before enforcement, or two or three years more of education and then the law being brought in?

Mr Hutton: I think we're suggesting that the two or three concerns we have be dealt with first and then the legislation.

Mr Jordan: Are you talking of two years' education and then bring the law in?

Mr Hutton: Not only education, but getting these other issues addressed about enforcement, market availability, standards and then the legislation and start enforcing it.

Mr Jordan: Would you see it being detrimental to the legislation if we were to bring it in sort of prematurely, followed by education and these other --

Mr Hutton: What lead-in time do you allow in the legislation for people to go out and purchase these helmets? Then what do you do with all the people who cannot afford it?

Mr Jordan: No, just to alert the public that it's on the books and that it will be enforced, that it's there and that as soon as the education, whether it's two years or whatever, and the availability of the equipment are there, you'll start gradually enforcing it. Is the fact that it is on the books going to help us get on with the education and these other requirements?

Ms Fantopolous: In terms of the bicycle review policy we've been talking about, I think all these issues have to be addressed. Whether legislation would encourage public education more, as opposed to --

Mr Jordan: That's what I'm wondering.

Ms Fantopolous: That's what you're trying to say. That would depend on what priority this government gives to this issue. Again, resources would have to be deployed in terms of enforcement. There might be a backlog in court cases; we don't know. All those kinds of issues have to be dealt with. Are we, at this particular point in time, prepared to enforce that legislation? The position of the ministry is to obtain voluntary compliance. Let the people do it on their own and then enact the legislation.

Mr Jordan: You're saying enact it, but can we have --

Ms Fantopolous: Or proclaim it at a later date; I think that's the position of the Minister of Transportation. If the bill does go through and is enacted, it should be on the proclamation date. We'll have from one to two years.

Mr Jordan: We should start enacting it as of the proclamation date?

Ms Fantopolous: That's right. I believe that's the position of the Minister of Transportation.

Mr Jordan: I was wondering if we could do it the other way; have the bill brought in and proclaimed but enforcement not take place for a period of time.

Ms Fantopolous: I don't know the percentage of resistance you'll get from the public if you impose mandatory helmet use. They may say: "Well, it costs $100. I don't have $100 to pay for a helmet."

Mr Jordan: We would phase that part of it in.

Ms Fantopolous: It depends on how it's brought out to the public. We would prefer to educate first and then bring in the legislation.

Mr Jordan: My second question is regarding the municipalities. We were talking about their riding on the sidewalk. I'm walking across the park; they're on the walkways there. Some have helmets, some don't. They don't have horns or anything. They just come up behind you. If you happen to step in the wrong direction, you're knocked down.

Why would the police be involved in that type of enforcement? Why would it not be a bylaw enforcement officer from the municipality who would enforce a law such as this? Just because it's included in the Highway Traffic Act, if it is to be, why couldn't each municipality be responsible through the bylaw enforcement officers in that town? They know where the kids are riding, the alleyways or the sidewalks, whereas the police, at a much higher rate of pay normally than a bylaw officer, I know in our town, don't have the same opportunity to go and talk to the children or know where the activity is, as people driving around in a car.

Mr Hutton: If it's a bylaw, then it can be enforced by the bylaw enforcement officer. If it's a provincial statute, it can't, to my knowledge. I don't believe he's identified as a police officer in the Highway Traffic Act.

Mr Jordan: Yes, but for giving tickets for winter parking, they come under the Highway Traffic Act. Through a procedure with the ministry, you can pass that over to your municipal bylaw office to enact that. I forget the procedure we went through in our community to do that, but it was available. He or she did the winter parking, did the illegal parking and things like that, which really came under the Traffic Act, especially on the highway going through the community.

Mr Hutton: I think we'd have to get you an answer for that, because in my 24 years of experience as an OPP officer, we don't enforce bylaws. I don't know the answer to your question.

Mr Jordan: It's the reverse. It's a bylaw enforcement officer enforcing your --

Mr Hutton: I don't know if he can enforce the Highway Traffic Act.

Mr Jordan: He needs a special order, I think.

Mr Hutton: I don't think he can.

Ms Fantopolous: I don't know if you would want to put a clause in the legislation to allow municipalities to enact a bylaw. That may be an option you may wish to consider in this regard, allowing the municipal bylaw people to issue a ticket.

Mr Jordan: I think it would put the responsibility where it should be, closer to the problem, rather than making it another responsibility of the provincial police, who are overworked and understaffed at present.

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Mr Hutton: Or municipal police. I don't know how many person-years they put to education in the schools or those types of enforcement programs on the bike paths or anywhere else.

Mr Waters: If I hear what you're saying correctly, Mr Jordan, you're saying if we pass a law, leave it up to municipalities.

Mr Jordan: Well, outside the highway traffic area. First of all, it's illegal to be on a four-lane highway with bicycles, is it not?

Mr Hutton: Controlled-access highways.

Mr Jordan: Yes. There are a lot of controlled-access highways that are just straight two-lane highways, and they're posted, "No bicycles allowed."

Mr Waters: Would that not make it very difficult for, let's say, someone who was vacationing in the province? If they go into one municipality, they'd have to wear a helmet; in the next one they wouldn't. There would be no standardization. It would be an unbelievable mess, wouldn't it?

Mr Jordan: No. I would leave it provincial in law enforcement, like many other provincial laws we have, whether they're zoning or chief building officials' duties or whatever, but they can be carried out by the municipal officer. For instance, it used to be that a bylaw enforcement officer couldn't issue a ticket, a summons. Well, you can pass a resolution of council, send it to Toronto and have it approved, and it comes back giving that fellow the right to do that.

Mr Huget: The Green Hornets will do it.

Mr Jordan: Yes. He can issue me a summons actually, by giving me a ticket.

Mr Hutton: If it's an offence you committed in contravention of a bylaw of that municipality.

Mr Jordan: That could be the key to it. I see what you're saying. If they didn't pass a bylaw supporting the provincial bylaw, then they couldn't use their bylaw officer to enforce it. They'd have to have the police do it. There's got to be a cheaper way and a closer way to deal with it.

Mr Waters: That's what I'm saying. It would end up being a real hodgepodge, very confusing.

Mr Jordan: Enforcement here seems to be the big hurdle.

The Chair: I should ask you to note that research has asked me to ask Ms Fantopolous if Solicitor General's counsel could advise whether provincial offences officers would be capable of enforcing this legislation if it were part of the Highway Traffic Act, as compared to a mere municipal bylaw. Their capacity to do that might address Mr Jordan's concerns.

Mr Jordan: That's what seems to be coming out. The enforcement of it is the problem. Everybody is in favour of it. Everybody is in favour of the education. Everybody is concerned about how we're going to enforce this thing.

Mr Klopp: I think we should look at the idea that the local people do the education. It's quite interesting. If you can get a law that says it has to be in every area, and then each municipality somehow or other creates a committee or something, a bylaw, then you can maybe appoint your local Lions Club through your own municipality and it would do the work. It's an interesting concept. I think I'd like it looked at a little more closely.

The Chair: The point is well made. Anything else, Mr Jordan? Any other questions to put to either of these people who are here on behalf of the Ministry of the Solicitor General?

The committee now is going to consider the process and the issues as prepared by Ms Anderson in her paper, and in view of the fact the Solicitor General would have a significant interest in the process and the issues, I wonder if you two might stay with us for at least a short while, because Ms Cunningham and others may have questions of you once that has been done.

That having been said, do I understand, Ms Cunningham, you're moving that the committee approve -- we'll do this in two parts. Everybody has a copy of the paper by Ms Anderson. Two parts: one is process, the second is issues. Are you moving that the first part of the paper, entitled "The Process," be adopted by the committee and incorporated into the committee's agenda?

Mrs Cunningham: Yes, I am.

The Chair: It's moved by Ms Cunningham. Do you want to comment on that?

Mrs Cunningham: I just think we're ready to deal with this. We've been listening to a lot. It isn't that this precludes any other submissions before the committee, but the question we're now getting asked is, "What next?" I think we've seen by today that there are no easy answers, but sooner or later somebody has to, if we decide, get on with drafting the regulations, and certainly we've been asked.

I guess Ms Fantopolous is the one who will be able to help us on this. I think it would be fair, since we've done so much work, to give some direction on what we want. That's the intent of this paper. We've looked at all of the issues that have been raised by the committee. We've put them into a format that we think begs a solution and some direction to yourself. But I think before we get into those issues we should talk about the process. We'll look for help as well from Ms Anderson on this, because this is the normal process if something would happen with regard to legislation by the government. But we've got a bit of a different tack here.

If you'll bear with me, I'm just going to read it and we can make decisions as we go along. Has everybody got a copy of this? If you haven't, there are lots up here. We can't deal with it without this.

"Since Bill 124 was introduced as a private member's bill, it has not gone through the same policy development process within the various ministries that would be carried out for a government bill."

I have to stop here and say that we thought the government had already had an interest -- not this government but the government, some government -- with regard to bicycle safety and the use of bicycle helmets, because throughout this process, which has gone on for almost a year now, we've been told about this other committee.

We're a little bit surprised that the committee hasn't sort of kept up with us. That's not a criticism. It is probably directly related to one's workload. So now we're saying, maybe the timing is even better, because there wouldn't have been as much wasted. We thought that was going on at the same time. We thought at the end that committee would come to us and say: "These are the issues we've identified. These are our concerns," and we would say: "We agree with you. Let's add to it with this," and the whole thing would have come together. But, because of workload or whatever, that hasn't happened. We're in the position now of telling at least the Solicitor General's office what's happened.

"At the same time, there are a number of issues to be decided that are not incorporated in the current amendment contained in Bill 124."

Of course that's just one word: "bicycle."

"There is little experience to draw on for a committee wishing to develop further the policy contained in a private member's bill. As a consequence, we suggest the following steps:

"1. The committee should make decisions on those issues it wishes to be covered by the bill. It should decide both the policy direction of the issue and whether that policy should be expressed as an amendment to the legislation or a regulation. We have developed the following list of issues and suggested actions to help structure this discussion."

The issues are following. So that's a piece of information. Let's deal with it when we've done the whole thing and what you really want to do.

"2. As a result of its discussions, the committee should draft a report containing its decisions, to be submitted to all appropriate ministries for their review. The committee should recommend that an interministerial committee develop a single response, to be returned to the committee by a specified time, such as the fall."

I would not go for that. I think that it's too late. I think we can do it sooner, given all the work that's been done.

"This would allow the ministries' policy development process to be carried out. The committee might further request that the response contain the specific amendments to be considered in clause-by-clause.

"We suggest the ministries include..." I'm not going to read them because they've been read by the Chairman on a number of occasions, mainly to underline their absence. But I agree with the list. I'm not being particularly uptight about the fall except that the impetus is here now for this committee, and I think it is for the government as well.

"3. The committee would review the response by the ministries.

"4. Clause-by-clause, incorporating amendments to the bill."

My assumption is that the step between 3 and 4 -- and this is where you can help us, Anne -- after, "The committee would review the responses by the ministries," wouldn't we have in there somewhere that the regulations would be drafted?

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Ms Anne Anderson: You can put suggested regulations in the initial report to the ministries in step 2.

Mrs Cunningham: I see.

Ms Anderson: The committee would not draft regulations.

Mrs Cunningham: Okay, but where do the regulations come in -- between 3 and 4?

Ms Anderson: They don't. The regulations are drafted officially by the Lieutenant Governor in Council or by the minister who's specified in the legislation. The regulations are drafted quite often after the bill has gone through. The way of getting the information you want in the regulations to the ministries would be in some form of report -- either the report in number 2 or in some other written document like that.

Mrs Cunningham: I see the main difference here. It's actually been one of my great frustrations as a member of this Legislative Assembly, certainly in opposition, but I think government members have felt the same thing: that we end up so often with a bill but there are no answers. Everything we've ever listened to in the committee, whether it be the Independent Health Facilities Act or some other things I sat on like some of the Sunday shopping stuff, although we've had direction we've never seen the end result of it.

Sometimes the regulations appear down the road somewhere and none of us who have been involved have seen them. We have a chance here to at least direct what ought to happen. As far as I'm concerned, that's the purpose of this committee. The bill itself is clear. The questions we have to answer probably can only appear in regulations; otherwise we're not giving any direction. It would be easy to pass the bill: bicycle, yes or no? That's the bill. Do you want helmets or don't you? But I think the purpose of this committee -- and I think the superintendent should certainly feel somewhat relaxed -- is to be more responsible than that and come forth with this report that would recommend the regulations.

Ms Anderson: Some of the items you might want to recommend could go in as amendments to the bill so that your bill would no longer be one word but could perhaps incorporate some other things --

Mrs Cunningham: And that comes under issue-by-issue?

Ms Anderson: Yes, it would be incorporated under clause-by-clause later on.

The Vice-Chair (Mr Daniel Waters): Could I ask a question here? The helmet at this point is under the Highway Traffic Act, right? And it would have to be changed, I believe? Maybe we --

Ms Anderson: Are you talking about the standard for the helmet, or the --

The Vice-Chair: Yes. The helmet as described in the Highway Traffic Act is indeed not anywhere near the helmet that we --

Mrs Cunningham: No, but it specifically relates -- it's in the regs.

"5. The bill is reported back to the House and proceeds through normal channels."

At least from my point of view I would like the discussion to be around number 2 because I think the others are pretty self-explanatory. I think this is probably an appropriate time to talk about at least the ideas that have come before the committee with regard to an implementation date. The other legislation I think -- not all of it but a lot of it -- has an implementation date usually in the spring, because that's when people are bringing their bicycles out and students are starting to think about riding again, certainly in Ontario.

I suppose it could be in the fall, but to my way of thinking it's spring. We're told by the consumer people that most bicycles are sold in the spring of the year and that most people acquire new bicycles, meaning secondhand new bicycles, in the spring of the year. My view was that if we were going to have an implementation date it would be the spring of 1993 or the spring of 1994, depending on what we came up with.

At that point, in my view, if we were to do something like that, I wouldn't be prepared to wait until the fall for this interministerial committee, which I thought was meeting all along, to respond to our report. Could the committee have some discussion around that point now, Mr Chairman? To my way of thinking, this process thing we could pass today. I don't like the fall, but that was just an idea anyway.

The Vice-Chair: Is there anyone who wishes to comment?

Mr Klopp: My definition of the fall or the way I'm understanding this -- and correct me, Mrs Cunningham -- is that we asked them to get back to us in the fall with the report so we can get on with it, so we can have a chance to get something done in 1993, if we're so lucky. Maybe if we put the date on there, if they come back September 25 with a report, not "fall," which leaves it too wide open.

Mrs Cunningham: I'd like to see the report to us in the spring.

Mr Klopp: This spring?

Mrs Cunningham: Yes. I'm talking about before the House rises at the end of June.

Mr Klopp: I call June summer. I'm sorry.

Mrs Cunningham: Yes.

Mr Klopp: It's the farmer in me, I guess. Spring was last week.

Mrs Cunningham: And then for us to respond to this. Please jump in here as well if you've got some assistance for us. This is the first time we've had to get down to something specific. My idea was to get something done this spring, so that we would know what these regulations and any amendments ought to look like, and then the bill could be introduced in the fall -- that was the way I looked at it -- with an implementation date probably for the following spring of either 1993 or 1994. I think we're on a roll right now and we're going to lose a lot if we don't look at something specific before the House rises.

I don't want to impose my opinion -- I've tried not to do that -- but on this one I --

Mr Klopp: Excuse me, but since you said June -- to me spring was last week.

Mrs Cunningham: Okay.

Mr Klopp: I apologize. I don't mind asking them if they could have it back June 15 or something like that, have a date. If they can't, they'd better have a good reason why they can't. I can appreciate that we've studied this to death.

Mrs Cunningham: So perhaps, since we're in the second week of May, it could be the second week of June, something like that? I don't think it's going to be that difficult for them. Writing the legislation will, because we'll tell them what we think should happen.

The Vice-Chair: Ms Fantopolous, I believe you've indicated you have something to say.

Ms Fantopolous: Yes. I have a question just in terms of the report. Has it already been drafted by this committee? I understand from what you're saying that you're looking at about a month for all the ministries to respond. Is this report ready or will it be ready in two weeks?

Mrs Cunningham: It won't be ready until the end of May.

Ms Fantopolous: That gives us all less time to deal with it and I think it's important that we have enough time to look at all the issues, although you've said they've been looked at over and over again. I'm just wondering in terms of your readiness.

Mrs Cunningham: That's a good point. We may not get this written for another couple of weeks. It would be our goal to have it done so you could have some response to it by the summer. But you're right: It's going to take us a couple of weeks to do this.

Ms Fantopolous: Okay.

Mrs Cunningham: Shall we leave that point and just keep in the back of our minds that it might be a nice goal?

The Vice-Chair: Mr Brown has raised an interesting point. I personally don't have the answer, and that is, who would convene this interministerial committee?

Mrs Cunningham: Maybe Irene could answer that.

Ms Fantopolous: In terms of who would convene it, I'm not in a position to give an opinion. I would imagine it would have to go higher in terms of the deputy minister and he can decide who, or someone can be designated. I don't know how senior you want this committee to be, at what level. That has to be a decision that has to be made by this committee. At the same time, a letter or something should go out to our deputy minister or minister to have someone be responsible for each of these ministries.

I understand the Ministry of Transportation is taking the lead in terms of the bicycle policy review, so in terms of the lead ministry it would be Transportation. That might give you some sense of where to go with it.

Mr Huget: Could we ask that someone get back to this committee within the next week or two weeks in terms of developing the makeup of this committee and indicate to us that there is a committee in place? With its membership intact, that information should to come to this committee within the next week or two weeks at the outside. We should be able to ascertain whether or not this interministerial committee has been put together.

I don't think we can really control the speed at which the committee works, but we can certainly control the speed of the formation of the committee. I think we can ask quite legitimately that someone come back to this committee within 14 days with the makeup of that interministerial committee.

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Ms Fantopolous: Okay. Basically what you're asking is, who is involved in the bicycle policy review?

Mr Huget: Absolutely. There seems to be some confusion around that, and I agree with Mrs Cunningham -- once or twice a year, and this is one of those times -- that clearly momentum is needed in getting that committee working, because it plays a very critical role in terms of our deliberations here. Without some indication of who is on that committee, that it's been struck and is prepared to go to work, then you're quite right, momentum disappears. We should be able to expedite that, either with friendly persuasion or a lead pipe.

Ms Fantopolous: I can certainly find out in terms of who sits on that committee and get back to you in the next couple of weeks.

Mrs Ellen MacKinnon (Lambton): Could somebody explain to me why Citizenship, treasury board and Management Board are included in this list of ministries?

Ms Anderson: Citizenship was included because of some of the exemption questions, I think, to do with different religious reasons why people might be exempt, the Sikhs, for example.

Mrs MacKinnon: I'm sorry, I can't hear you.

Ms Anderson: Citizenship was included because there had been some discussion that some of the exemptions might be for religious reasons. Sikhs, for example, might request an exemption. There was some thought that maybe Citizenship might be involved in it for that point of view, and treasury board because of any funding or expenditure implications.

Mrs MacKinnon: Does Management Board have the same responsibility, funding?

Ms Anderson: I'm not sure. There are control functions built into Management Board as well for the funding.

Mr Sutherland: Management Board looks at it from a policy standpoint; treasury board actually allocates the dollars.

The Vice-Chair: Any other discussion?

Mrs Cunningham: Only to add that certainly the Ministry of Transportation has taken the lead from the beginning, and it's my view that we probably have to send an official letter from the committee to each of the ministers saying that this committee will in fact be struck and that we need a representative.

At the same time, we should be asking the Minister of Transportation if he will officially take the lead. He has taken it so far, and I think he will. Certainly his representative, David Edgar, has been here all along and would probably be best qualified, in my view, to guide the process. It's the legal people we're going to need, and perhaps within the committee itself it would then be that they would decide that the Solicitor General would draft the regulations, I don't know. I think that's a decision to be made by the experts on the committee. Could you respond to what I just said?

Ms Fantopolous: In terms of the administration of the Highway Traffic Act, it is the Ministry of Transportation that administers it, although there are enforcement issues that belong to the Solicitor General. In terms of protocol, it would be Transportation that would be administering and drafting up the legislation. I may be wrong on that count, but I do think it's their responsibility.

Mrs Cunningham: Mr Edgar is here. Would you agree, David, that --

The Vice-Chair: Excuse me, David. Could you go to a mike.

Mr David Edgar: Yes. Since it is an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act, it's the responsibility of Transportation, I think, to take the lead on it. What I might recommend is that the committee draft a letter to Transportation to ask that the committee be struck and report back to this committee at a time when the committee is ready to make proposed recommendations on the issues.

Mrs Cunningham: I think the good news out of today would be that the committee could be in place very quickly. If we get started on that today, at least we've accomplished that first step, plus the lead for the drafting of the regulations.

The Vice-Chair: I'm going to interject here because I've been having some discussion with the clerk, and there is a concern as to whether indeed we can ask that a committee be struck or whether we can demand that a committee be struck. We will have to wait until Wednesday to get that answer. In here we're saying that the suggested ministries include, but we don't know for sure whether we can indeed, on a private member's bill, demand that a committee be struck including all of these ministries. The clerk has assured me he will get that answer for us by Wednesday and will give us that answer.

Mrs Cunningham: My view is that we send a letter immediately to the Minister of Transportation telling him what we want to do and asking him to take the lead on this, asking him to be responsible for drafting the regulations and that as part of his responsibility, because it has been the practice that the ministries he requests to be part of this implementation process are -- and put them down. Then it's up to him whether he wants them all or not. So rather than asking --

The Vice-Chair: Are you making this as a motion?

Mrs Cunningham: Yes, that is a motion.

The Vice-Chair: Any discussion on Mrs Cunningham's motion?

Mr Huget: Sorry, I didn't hear the motion.

Mrs Cunningham: Two things. I said that we send a letter to the Minister of Transportation asking him to take the lead on this, asking him to be responsible for the drafting of the regulations and asking him to strike a committee, the membership of which may -- he can decide whether he wants it to not, as it's his responsibility, not ours -- include, and the following thing.

I just think that's the way it should go. We have to show some initiative here if we want to get it done. We know what happens in committees and meetings and all this stuff, and if we don't give --

Mr Sutherland: Right.

Mrs Cunningham: Right, Kimble? We've learned something, haven't we? Is there anyone who would object to that?

The Chair: Are we calling the question?

Mr Huget: Yes.

Mr Klopp: Do we have to have a quorum?

The Chair: We have a quorum. Can I get the opposition's point of view? Oh, I'm sorry. They're not here.

Mrs Cunningham: You're asking for that?

The Chair: They're here and ably represented in Mrs Cunningham.

Mrs Cunningham: We don't have an opposition today, remember?

Okay, that takes care of the process then.

The Chair: So there is consensus on this?

Mr Klopp: Consensus.

Mrs Cunningham: How's everybody doing with regard to how you want to spend the rest of today? That's up to you, Mr Chairman. When is our next meeting? Do you want to go through these issues today?

The Chair: Our next meeting is on Wednesday at 3:30. We have scheduled to appear here at 3:30 a representative of the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation. I don't anticipate that they'll use up a great deal of the time. That means there will be time on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the agenda as we go down the road and perhaps as a matter of issues as proposed in this paper.

Mr Huget: Just on a point of order, Mr Chair: You mentioned Wednesday's meeting at 3:30. As you probably know, no one from at least one of the parties showed up here until 3:52. People are being kept waiting. Witnesses are being kept waiting. I think that is tremendously unfair, and I would ask the Chair if he could perhaps send a little reminder by means of a note of the importance of attending and starting these hearings at 3:30. I find in the last few weeks it's beginning steadily later and later and later past the time.

The Chair: People can obviously be late for any number of reasons, some of them better than others. However, any of the caucuses can indicate that they want the matter to proceed, notwithstanding their absence.

Mrs Cunningham: Let's do that.

The Chair: Unfortunately, they didn't do that today. As a matter of fact, is it the committee's wish that we commence at no later than 3:35 and that any caucuses that aren't represented be deemed to be present?

Mr Huget: I would move that, Mr Chair.

Mrs Cunningham: Yes, we can do that.

The Chair: Okay. There is a consensus in that regard. Thank you. What the clerk might do is advise the caucuses that this is how it's going to take place, especially on Wednesday, because we do have personnel here. It's different when we're here without members of the public. Point well made.

With respect to issues, let me first determine for Mrs Cunningham --

Mr Sutherland: Just before that, do we still need our guests here?

1730

The Chair: Ms Cunningham is going to indicate to me very shortly, once we deal with this issues part. With respect to issues, again not wanting to preclude any discussion about the proposed issues, I want to know, for everybody's benefit, is there consensus at this point with respect to those as a list of issues, perhaps not exhaustive, but certainly a working list of issues for the committee to consider?

Mr Klopp: These are good.

The Chair: Is there consensus in that regard?

Mrs Cunningham: That's good.

The Chair: Ms Cunningham, do you have any more need of the superintendent or of the staff person, Ms Fantopolous, from the Solicitor General?

Mrs Cunningham: I think they could probably help me answer the question on that. We haven't had a discussion with regard to exemptions. We haven't had a discussion with regard to where. We have had discussion today with regards to the penalty and the enforcement. I think it might be appropriate, Mr Chairman, if we do have some representative from the ministry. Perhaps Mr Edgar could help us on this one as well. Do we have enough information now to make these decisions, at least in a preliminary way, and send them to the committee?

The Chair: Mr Edgar, come on up to a microphone, please.

Mrs Cunningham: Is there anywhere where we should be asking for representation from one of the ministries? Perhaps Superintendent Hutton would help us on this. He's got the paper in front of us. Is there something there he hasn't told us today that he feels he can be helpful with? The only one we haven't really talked about, Superintendent Hutton, is the "where." I'm not sure what you would say there.

Mr Hutton: You'd be restricted to the definition of "road" or "highway" in the Highway Traffic Act, if you brought it in through the Highway Traffic Act.

Mrs Cunningham: I think the second sentence there is interesting, "It would be complicated to change the act to incorporate these, and may not be necessary since most cyclists will have to use the highway to reach these areas," which means that we would leave the word "highways" in the act, not specify in the regulations "playgrounds" or "schoolyards" or "parks." That would be my interpretation of what we have before us. I wondered what advice you would give in that regard.

The Chair: If I can interject on behalf of research, perhaps once again Ms Fantopolous might ask Solicitor General counsel to speak to that, because it may be much broader than merely expanding the definition of "highway". It may be a major constitutional issue about what the province has the jurisdiction to control. Clearly the province has the jurisdiction to control conduct on roads, highways, public thoroughfares. There might be some people, counsel, who would say that it's only the Criminal Code that can control conduct on other than highways, again because of respective jurisdictions. Maybe Ms Fantopolous could have counsel address that.

Ms Fantopolous: This question, as it pertains to the Highway Traffic Act, can be forwarded to the Ministry of Transportation. They may be better able to deal with that.

The Chair: I think the committee's concern is of course about the Highway Traffic Act. Does the province have the jurisdiction to legislate conduct of this type that is not on a road, highway, public thoroughfare?

Mr Hutton: Especially bicycle paths. I don't know how'd you cover that.

Mrs Cunningham: I agree.

The Chair: There are undoubtedly going to be some high-priced lawyers who could tell you what they think.

Mrs Cunningham: Could I ask you, Ms Fantopolous, if you would look at this issues paper, and if there is some information that you think we should have, either send it to us or be present at the committee on Wednesday?

Ms Fantopolous: Sure.

Mrs Cunningham: We're pretty humble about asking people. Although the point was made about people being late -- we don't want people coming to waste their time -- we are always seeking the best advice. I suppose the same could be said to the superintendent. If you feel you could be useful or helpful with us as we go through this on Wednesday, certainly we'd welcome your good advice.

Mr Hutton: I just wish Bob Scott could be here because he's been on that committee for the last two years, but if there are questions I can't answer, I'd certainly make him available some time to you.

Mrs Cunningham: That's good; that's very helpful.

The Chair: Superintendent Hutton and Ms Fantopolous, thank you very much on behalf of the committee for your time and your input; we appreciate it. It's been an interesting exchange, among other things.

Mr Hutton: It's been interesting for us too; for me anyway.

Mrs Cunningham: May I just add that it's been very candid on your behalf, and we really appreciate that. We weren't quite certain what you would be saying, and I think we've welcomed your candid responses and your commonsense approach. It's really been enlightening.

Mr Hutton: I hope the ministry has the same opinion of today. But we're the ones who have to educate them, so that's my opinion. Thank you for those comments.

The Chair: Thank you, people. Take care.

Are there any other matters before the committee? No other matters; that means we will adjourn till Wednesday at 3:30 pm, at which time the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation will be present, and as well other committee business may be addressed.

The committee adjourned at 1736.