CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
CONTENTS
Wednesday 16 January 1991
Organization
Children's mental health services
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair: Caplan, Elinor (Oriole L)
Vice-Chair: Cordiano, Joseph (Lawrence L)
Beer, Charles (York North L)
Haeck, Christel (St. Catharines-Brock NDP)
Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent NDP)
Malkowski, Gary (York East NDP)
Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie NDP)
McLeod, Lyn (Fort William L)
Owens, Stephen (Scarborough Centre NDP)
Silipo, Tony (Dovercourt NDP)
Wilson, Jim (Simcoe West PC)
Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North PC)
Substitutions:
Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South PC) for Mr J. Wilson
Miclash, Frank (Kenora L) for Mrs Caplan
White, Drummond (Durham Centre NDP) for Mr Silipo
Clerk pro tem: Carrozza, Franco
Staff: Drummond, Alison, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1400 in committee room 2.
ORGANIZATION
The Vice-Chair: Order. The committee is in session. Mr Owens has a point of order.
Mr Owens: Mr Chair, on a point of order, just a quick item of business: I have spoken with the other two whips, Charles Beer and Elizabeth Witmer. We have received a request from the Federation of Ontario Facility Liaison Groups, from Margaret Paproski, who is the president of this organization. She has requested that we add her to the list of deputants under the multi-year plan, and I have agreement from the other two parties that we do that. Do we pass the information to the clerk now to contact her, or can we do that through the minister's office?
The Vice-Chair: That would be for a deputant to appear before the committee next week, on one of our designated days.
Mr Owens: That is right.
The Vice-Chair: Would you please pass that information, if you have it available right now, to the clerk.
Clerk of the Committee: Does this mean that you are amending the previous report of the subcommittee concerning standing order 123?
Mr Owens: That is right.
Clerk of the Committee: And this has unanimous consent?
Mr Owens: That is right.
The Vice-Chair: We have unanimous consent. All three members of the subcommittee have agreed, so we can add the group.
Mr Owens: I need to get this photocopied. I will pass it to the clerk as soon as it is done.
The Vice-Chair: Terrific. Are there any other items of business before we start into our report? I do not see any, so perhaps we could start.
CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
Resuming consideration of the designated matter of children's mental health services pursuant to standing order 123.
The Vice-Chair: We will now begin our deliberations on the draft report. I remind members that we have approximately two hours. I would like to confine our discussion to a little less than two hours. That will permit us to have a half-hour to approve final recommendations, the final report, on Monday following, at which time we will be meeting in the afternoon to consider that.
The committee will be meeting at three o'clock on Monday 21 January and the subcommittee will be meeting at 11:30 am to clear up any difficulties with that final report. Is that acceptable to everyone?
I would like to proceed now with our draft report. I will turn it over to our research officer.
Ms Drummond: If everybody could turn to page 11 of this document with the research services letterhead on it, this is solely for the use of the committee. I thought it might be convenient for the committee to have in one place the specific recommendations that were made by various witnesses. So I have tried to collect those out of all the documents that we received up until yesterday afternoon. I see there is one more. This is not even necessarily a format that the committee may want to stay with. It is just for reference.
The Vice-Chair: Has the subcommittee met to discuss the format of the report? Or you have not done that at all?
Mr Owens: No, not at all.
The Vice-Chair: We should proceed on the basis of dealing with the content of the report and how it is set up, and then deal with recommendations. Is that how you would like to proceed? I am open to suggestions here.
Ms Drummond: In the last Parliament, in the last Legislature, this committee did a report on food banks under this standing order and the contentious parts were essentially the recommendations. The covering memo explained what the body of the report is. As you will see, it is not entirely complete, because I was not able to put in everything that we got from the witnesses yesterday.
If individuals have concerns about that, I would appreciate hearing about them over the next few days. It would probably be more productive for any concerns in the body of the report to be sent to the subcommittee for Monday morning. This part of the committee is really to give me some guidance on what the recommendations might be.
Mr Beer: I know that our time is very limited. We have just received this document, and I will throw this out for questions. Do we want to stop so that we can all have a chance to look at those recommendations and meet, I would suggest, in 15 or 30 minutes, but just something whereby we can look? It is very helpful to have this, but then that would not be a formal part of our meeting. It would just give us a chance to look at those, to look at the notes we have made about things we thought we wanted to include, and then to begin again in 15 to 30 minutes, having had a chance just to look at these and be able to be a little more specific. I make that as a suggestion.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Hope, I do not want to take up too much of our time here.
Mr Hope: No, exactly. I believe we ought to have an opportunity to review the documents that have been presented by research. Just listening to Charles about some his comments that he is quoting, they do have recommendations and I guess we also have recommendations and we do not know necessarily if they are embodied in here. I think it is appropriate that we take a little bit of time to discuss and to look at what is being presented to us today. That is just my personal concern. It is not concerned with the topic.
The Vice-Chair: I want to turn to the Conservative Party members and give them an opportunity to have input into this.
Mrs Witmer: We want to read the information first.
The Vice-Chair: Okay. I think then it is appropriate at this point to adjourn the meeting at least, I would say, until 2:30, for 20 minutes, to give us an opportunity to go over the report. We will reconvene at 2:30 and then begin our deliberations on dealing with the actual recommendations. Is that agreed? Mr Owens?
Mr Owens: Sure. Can I just ask a process question?
The Vice-Chair: A process question, yes. Let me adjourn the meeting and then we can deal with that. We are adjourned.
The committee recessed at 1408.
1452
The Vice-Chair: I call the meeting to order once again.
I will make my remarks very brief at the beginning here. We are just going to be looking at recommendations and the body of the report, as pointed out earlier. If there are any difficulties with that, it should be and could be brought up with the subcommittee members for further discussion. But we are going to deal with recommendations, and I hope everyone has had an opportunity to look at the recommendations that have been put forward by our research officer.
Mr Jackson: If the subcommittee is not going to meet until Monday morning, could we take a limited 5 or 10 minutes just to discuss the first pages dealing with the narrative aspects of the report and then move into recommendations quickly? I have only three or four points we would like to raise. I think it may be helpful for Alison to get that now versus Monday.
The Vice-Chair: Do we have agreement to do that? Mr Jackson's suggestion is that we briefly look at the body of the report and then we give direction to Alison with respect to recommendations after that. Is that correct? You want five minutes to do the body of the report.
Mr Jackson: Five or 10.
Mr Owens: If Mr Jackson would like to make his recommendations, we in breaking did not study the narrative portion of the report. I would be glad to entertain that as a member of the subcommittee.
The Vice-Chair: Why do we not do that? We will deal with that in subcommittee, if there is time at the end of this session. You obviously have not had time to look at the narrative or the body of the report. If there is still time, then we can deal with it in five minutes.
Mr Beer: If it is just a matter of putting on the record some of the thoughts that they want to make sure are being discussed, I would think we could take 5 or 10 minutes and just do that.
Mr Owens: I do not have a problem, as I said, with its being put on the record.
Mr Beer: We have not looked at that but I would like to know what your concerns are. We may share them. Not necessarily concerns but additions or whatever.
The Vice-Chair: Am I to understand there is consensus to allow for Mr Jackson to put his concerns on the record?
Mr Jackson: No. I would like to take 5 or 10 minutes for anybody to contribute to the narrative portion, if there are some things that jump out at them, so that that is very helpful to Alison. Waiting until Monday so that she meets with the subcommittee in the morning and then presents to the whole committee in the afternoon is running her real tight.
The Vice-Chair: Do I have consensus to do that?
Ms Haeck: Just to be expeditious and in no way to interfere in any way with this process, as Mr Owens has already mentioned to you, as a caucus we did not take the time to go through the narrative. We solely looked at the recommendations.
What I think we should be doing is that each caucus go back. At this point we should be looking strictly at the recommendations and overnight looking at the body of the narrative to suggest to our representatives, the whips, what we feel should be added and that the subcommittee deal with whatever additions there are.
I can foresee the process of that 5 to 10 minutes ending up a whole lot longer and we are moving this a whole lot further around in time than really was allotted. I think we can probably handle this very expeditiously through the representative whips and the subcommittee can add or delete whatever it feels is appropriate and it can be brought back to us on Monday.
The Vice-Chair: I, therefore, understand that there is no consensus to put forward Mr Jackson's suggestion.
Mr Jackson: I think the last speaker summed it up. We have spent so much time debating whether or not we should talk about it that we could have got my three or four quick points on the record so that the NDP could understand them when it was doing its own analysis. Unfortunately, that is not the direction we are going.
The Vice-Chair: That is not the direction we are going, so we are going to move forward at this point.
Mr Jackson: That is fine. We will share them with you on Monday.
The Vice-Chair: We are going to move forward and deal with recommendations as we planned to do and we will deal with the rest as we go along.
I turn my attention to our research officer to direct us through her list of recommendations. We obviously have a set of recommendations from each of the parties which we will try to blend with the rest of the recommendations that have been put forward by our research officer and deal with those on each basis as they come forward from each party. All right? Can we proceed?
Mr Owens: Mr Chairman, do we have the recommendations from the Conservative Party as well? We are ready to go and I have copies.
The Vice-Chair: You have copies for each of the members. Why do we not ask the Conservatives? Do they want to share their recommendations?
Mr Jackson: I think we had indicated already, Mr Chairman, that we had met earlier today and that we hoped to have them by day's end in a written form. That is on record.
The Vice-Chair: All right. I am sorry if all members did not hear that. I apologize. I should have taken note of that.
Mr Owens: In terms of my understanding of today's meeting, I guess I would like to understand what the end of the day means. Are we going to have them within the context of the two hours that we have today?
The Vice-Chair: Is four o'clock okay?
Mr Jackson: No.
The Vice-Chair: Five o'clock?
Mr Jackson: I will talk to my researcher who is working on it. We hope to have them done by day's end and we are going to make every effort to do that. We can certainly get it in their hands first thing tomorrow morning.
The Vice-Chair: Is this going to be a real point of contention?
Mr Jackson: It is not even a legitimate point, Mr Chairman. I am just telling you when I can get our stuff together. It is a point of information, not debate.
The Vice-Chair: Okay. Shall we proceed knowing that?
Ms Haeck: No.
Mr White: How can we discuss what is not here?
Ms Haeck: We have managed to get ours together.
The Vice-Chair: Just a moment. Let me try to bring some sense to this. We will be proceeding with the recommendations that have been put forward by our research officer. We have time allocated to us to do so. If you do not wish to put forward your recommendations as a result of the information you now have before you with respect to the Conservative set of recommendations, that is your option. But we will proceed with hearing the research officer and her list of recommendations. That is how I intend to proceed.
Mr Owens: Not to exclude the Conservatives from the process, but our concern is that we are limited to the 12 hours. How are we going to be able to fully discuss the recommendations from the Conservative Party if we do not have them at this point? Our intention is not to exclude; we want to include so that we can fully participate.
The Vice-Chair: I am trying to deal with all of these things in a fair and equitable fashion, but if the Conservatives do not have their list of recommendations in written form, then I think that is more a matter of inconvenience rather than a case for me to halt the proceeding of the committee until they get their recommendations. Short of that, I do not know what else we could do at this point other than to proceed.
Mr Jackson: We have discussed all this. We broke once already from these committee hearings with the understanding of how we were going to proceed. Now we are taking up valuable time discussing the process we discussed 35 minutes ago. I am sorry to bring that to everyone's attention, but I understand that we were going to proceed with the recommendations. I made a simple suggestion that we look at the narrative very briefly. It was not a consensus. I thought we were just naturally going to start looking at Alison's recommendations as we heard them and get some discussion and feedback and, to the extent that we could contribute from our own caucuses, we would do that as we were able. That is what I understood your directions were.
The Vice-Chair: If there was a misunderstanding, that might be the case, but I intend to proceed.
Mr Jackson: As I just described it?
The Vice-Chair: I intend to proceed with our hearings. This is the day we have to do that and this is the time we have scheduled to do that. I am looking for direction and I am looking for a consensus. Seeing no consensus --
Mr Jackson: I am looking for a ruling. I have heard "consensus" from you on three or four occasions in the last five minutes.
The Vice-Chair: A ruling will be made. I have already indicated to you that I intend to proceed with our deliberations.
Mr Jackson: That is exactly what I heard you say. I am waiting for us to proceed.
The Vice-Chair: That is a ruling. I do not have to reiterate it.
Mr Jackson: Great. I am not challenging it. I am encouraging you to get on with it.
The Vice-Chair: I am going to entertain one more comment from each of the parties and then we will proceed.
Mr White: I just want to make a point of clarification; I am sure you will accept this in a friendly manner, Mr Chair. The point was made both by yourself and Mr Jackson that the recommendations listed were from Ms Drummond. In fact, they are not her recommendations or the recommendations of the committee but simply a list of the recommendations from the witnesses, and in no way is it incumbent upon us to accept them, especially as many of them are contradictory.
The Vice-Chair: Is there a comment from the other two parties? One final comment and then we will proceed.
Mr Beer: As you noted, we are here. I think we should go forward and look at the recommendations. With the recommendations we receive later this afternoon, the subcommittee -- I would make the commitment with Mrs Witmer and Steve Owens that we would look at those tomorrow morning or later this afternoon. If those presented a problem in terms of our discussion and those kinds of things, then the subcommittee could determine that we are going to have to do something between now and when we come back together on Monday, just to be fair. But these are here, we have some time, and I think what we have put forward is just to be helpful, and I think much of it does fit in with what has been recommended. There are a couple of issues we want to discuss with everyone.
Mrs Witmer: I would concur with Mr Beer. I am not sure why we are delaying. Many of the recommendations we would be putting forward would be similar to what has been put forward by the witnesses, and I would suggest that tomorrow the subcommittee could meet to discuss anything else.
The Vice-Chair: Okay. We will now proceed with the list of recommendations from witnesses which is contained in our report.
Mr Hope: On a point of order, Mr Chairman --
The Vice-Chair: Is this on a different matter?
Mr Hope: It is pertaining to this whole issue we are talking about.
The Vice-Chair: I have made a ruling, unless you wish to challenge the Chair.
Mr Hope: I just wish to point out something. You are saying it is all new. I have been listening to what has been taking place in the conversation. Yes, we are running out of time. We all sat here listening to the presentations. The researcher has now put it on paper. We listened and now we have to develop recommendations. We are arguing about whether we are going to review these or review what we have put together. I think we had better review what the parties have developed, because this is just reiterating the briefs. I think we have to move in a progressive way, not a regressive way, in making sure things happen for the children. We are sitting here arguing, and I am saying we have a prepared document that we wish to share and debate upon.
The Vice-Chair: I have been very patient in addressing everyone's concerns and I have made a ruling. I intend to proceed at this time unless there is a challenge to the Chair.
Alison Drummond, our research officer, will you proceed with the list of recommendations in the report?
Ms Drummond: If everybody could turn to page 11, I have organized the various specific recommendations made by witnesses in terms of goals and principles, problems of access to services; on the following page, recommendations involving co-ordination of delivery of services; and on page 14, various recommendations that were made for changes in the funding process; and finally, research needs. That is just one way the recommendations could be organized. I am open to any guidance from the committee about whether that is an appropriate way to organize and how the committee wants to treat the recommendations by the witnesses.
The Vice-Chair: Is there any discussion or debate on this item? Any suggestions on how we should proceed with respect to these recommendations from witnesses? They are listed. In the past, if I could bring my limited experience to bear on this, I think we have always in a report listed recommendations from witnesses as they were presented. I do not see any difficulty with doing that. Unless the committee disagrees, we should do that.
Mr Owens: A simple listing of the recommendations as opposed to adopting them as the committee's recommendations?
The Vice-Chair: It virtually gives us a summary of what we have heard in capsule form. That is all we are doing here.
Mr Martin: I am wondering if it is valuable to spend our time going through something we spent the last two days listening to, whether we should not move into -- this is where I have a concern -- the recommendations which the two parties which have presented some positions have made, so we can see if there is some consensus on that, on a report we would move forward. I think we are going to have a real difficult time here this afternoon with all of this.
The Vice-Chair: We are having a difficult time.
Mr Owens: You are earning your $90 a day. Come on.
Mr Martin: I would suggest humbly that we take what we have, wait for the PC recommendations to come later this evening and that we get a chance as a caucus to take all of that material and go through it and then come back on Monday with some further refined recommendations that we could probably more readily agree on, because we have seen what everybody is putting forth.
The Vice-Chair: I think I have made it very clear, as the Acting Chair of this committee, that there is a limitation on us with respect to time. We cannot order our business beyond the time we have been given. It is impossible to do what you are suggesting. Mr White, on the same point?
Mr White: Slightly different.
The Vice-Chair: I want to deal with the matter before us, with respect to recommendations that have been put forward by the research officer.
Mr White: A couple of points. I would like to move acceptance of the report, an excellent summary of the presentations and of the narrative end of the recommendations that were before us, an excellent source point for further review. Of course, the recommendations which the Liberal caucus and ourselves generated were from these very points. However, after having used that, I think we as a committee need to discuss where it is we are going. We do not appear to be ready to do so at the moment. I would suggest that we simply accept this report and adjourn until such time as the third party representatives deem that they will be ready.
Mr Jackson: First, I want to clear up one misapprehension that all the new members may have. We have only had two committees that have done these 12-hour allotments. I had the privilege of working on one of them, on food banks. The NDP did not table its recommendations. We proceeded. We had no difficulty. At the eleventh hour, they pulled out a minority report. That was fine, too; it was their right to do so. In no way was it seen by the Liberals or the Conservatives, at that time, to be disruptive. It was just the manner in which they were willing to proceed. I am going to further state for you that there is no specific strategy that there was perhaps in effect at that time. We are just simply stretched and we do not have it in written form.
The Vice-Chair: I have a suggestion.
Mr Jackson: I just want to clarify some assumptions.
The Vice-Chair: This is the Chair's prerogative. I would like to stop the clock. Perhaps we can proceed with our debate without using up any more of our time for our recommendations. Let me adjourn.
Mr Owens: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: Can I make a motion or a suggestion that we hold these discussions on the process in camera?
The Vice-Chair: I need a consensus from the committee to do that.
Mr Jackson: I do not support in camera meetings. Under most every circumstance, I do not support them. Stop the clock but do not ask people to leave the room.
The Vice-Chair: I will stop the clock, adjourn this part of our session and try to deal with this in 15 minutes. That is what I am going to give us to discuss this matter in terms of how we proceed. Is that agreeable?
The committee recessed at 1511.
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The Vice-Chair: Order.
Mrs McLeod: I think it is important and I wanted to make the statement on the record that we not be under any illusions about the task we have undertaken, with 12 hours of committee hearings on one of the most complex and comprehensive subjects that we could possibly have undertaken. I hope we do not believe that in those hours we have heard all there is to hear, understood all of the perspectives, have them absolutely clear in our minds, and then can move to make recommendations which are comprehensive and all-inclusive. I really believe all we have done is opened the field of children's mental health so that we understand the complexity and the questions, and are ready to make some commitment and call for some commitment to getting on to addressing those questions.
The Vice-Chair: I am going to suggest, as the Chair, that someone put forward a motion to adopt the recommendations that have been put forward by our research officer and deal with those.
Mr White: I had put forward that motion.
The Vice-Chair: You moved that? Is it seconded?
Mr White: The motion was that we accept the report of Ms Drummond, the research officer, as a point of information and discussion.
Clerk of the Committee: And be added to the full report as the recommendations of the witnesses.
Mr White: Yes, as recommendations of the witnesses.
Clerk of the Committee: It would be an appendix to the report.
The Vice-Chair: Do we have agreement on that?
Mrs Witmer: I second it.
Motion agreed to.
Mr Martin: There is a report on the back of this from the Ministry of Education. Is that part of the packet?
The Vice-Chair: That is not part of the report. That is just for your information.
We shall now proceed to deal with recommendations by this committee to the Legislative Assembly. Are there NDP recommendations or Liberal recommendations?
Mr Owens: Again, in terms of process, before we get into wrangling, whichever group we decide to deal with, shall we deal with the recommendations in their entirety or one at a time? Again, it is a process question.
The Vice-Chair: I think it is appropriate to deal with them one at a time and deal with them in as detailed a way as possible with the limited time, keeping in mind the limited time we have. Can we do that? I think we will start with Liberal recommendations and then move to NDP recommendations. Is that acceptable?
Mr Beer: What we were trying to do here was set out an approach. I do not know whether the best thing is to read these through and then have discussion, but I am conscious of time. First of all, in the first one, looking at the question of a vision, it just seemed it was important. The first one speaks to a question of vision and how we approach children, and we are recommending that the government use the Children First report as a basis to initiate a progressive agenda for children.
Again, that is partly in terms of what Lyn was talking about, that in the nine hours of hearings we cannot pretend to understand everything and to set out all of the answers, but we thought we needed to start somewhere and that vision is something we would be asking the government to come forward with.
The Vice-Chair: Could I make a suggestion that we read each of the recommendations. Each of these has been passed out.
Mr Beer: Yes.
The Vice-Chair: Every member of the committee has a copy of these recommendations, correct?
Mr Beer: I believe so.
The Vice-Chair: I would like to proceed in as expedient a fashion as possible. I am trying to sort that out.
Mr Beer: How much time do we have?
Mr Jackson: I might suggest that reading them verbatim into the record invites grammatical changes and the whole ball of wax.
The Vice-Chair: I am informed by the clerk that we must do that in order to approve recommendations.
Mr Jackson: I understand that.
The Vice-Chair: What I was trying to do originally was get consensus on the recommendations that will be put in the report.
Mr Jackson: I did not know you and I were going to debate the issue.
The Vice-Chair: Please allow me to finish.
Mr Jackson: I thought I had the floor. If we were going to entertain a debate, then that is fine, but I understood that when you recognized me I could share with you my suggestions, for which you had asked. I was in the process of sharing that with you when you cut me off.
The Vice-Chair: Actually, I did not ask for your suggestions, but you can proceed now.
Mr Jackson: No, you did not ask for mine particularly; you asked the group in general. I was simply offering a suggestion. It is your right to interrupt me, but I am unaccustomed to that in this building.
The Vice-Chair: You are not accustomed to it?
Mr Jackson: No, I am not when I am in order.
The Vice-Chair: We will not have a further debate on that.
Mr Jackson: You did not rule me out of order. You interrupted me. Robert's Rules of Order -- read them.
The Vice-Chair: Unless you wish to debate and challenge the Chair --
Mr Jackson: I did not.
The Vice-Chair: -- I am going to cut you off at this point. I think what we should do is proceed with respect to the recommendations that have been put forward by the Liberal Party. We will deal with them each one at a time, and if there is no consensus then we will deal with the matters that are not in agreement. We will start with the first recommendation.
Mr Beer: I think, as we have said, we are dealing with a new process here and one of the difficulties we are all finding is that we are looking for the first time at a number of different recommendations. We have put ours forward obviously in the context of having a discussion. The wording of them is not necessarily set in stone. Perhaps something we are going to have to come to grips with is, how do we get that kind of give and take discussion that encompasses the New Democratic Party recommendations and our own? I guess I was seeing that at the end of that the indication is then to our researcher who would go away and try to put those together.
I am concerned that if I am to read each of these and we are somehow to have to vote or whatever, it seems to me we probably do not have time to get through the first couple of these. How do we discuss and then have those crafted so we end up with something that is not New Democratic or Conservative or Liberal but rather reflects the consensus? I just see a problem with process here that is interfering with our attempt to deal with the substance.
Mr Jackson: Mr Chairman a point of order --
The Vice-Chair: Just a moment. A point of order: I will entertain that and then I want to make a final comment.
Mr Jackson: Mr Beer has made the point that I was attempting to make, so he will have our full support. That was entirely the point I was trying to make before I was cut off.
The Vice-Chair: I apologize for any inconvenience to you personally.
Mr Jackson: It was only meant to be helpful. I appreciate that.
The Vice-Chair: Okay. I appreciate that.
Mr Martin: I appreciate what Mr Beer has just said as well, and take his earlier comments to me as very constructive.
Mr Jackson: It's the way to go.
Mr Martin: Okay.
The Vice-Chair: Do we have agreement on that? Can we proceed in that fashion?
Mr Martin: I just wanted to comment on his comment, because we were into somewhat of a discussion on this here and I think it is important. Time is of the essence. As Mrs McLeod said earlier, this is an important issue and we need to come up with some good recommendations. If we are going to sit and debate each one of these for hours, we are going to be here for ever. That is why, I guess, earlier I had said that we are going to have a really difficult time with just these two than the Conservative one later.
If somehow we could put in place a process that spoke to perhaps groups of us, and the generic groups are the ones that are here right now, the Liberals, Conservatives -- taking these away and working them over and seeing if we cannot put our report together with your report, so that we can all agree on it, and give it to the research person to take away and incorporate into some food for thought for us for the next meeting. Perhaps we might arrive at something. Otherwise we are going to go on for ever.
The Vice-Chair: I am trying to get advice from the clerk in terms of how to proceed.
Mr Owens: I was going to recommend that we stop the clock at this point.
The Vice-Chair: I think we are going to have to do that. Let me recess the meeting.
The committee recessed at 1530.
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The Vice-Chair: I call the committee to order. We will hopefully restore some sanity to this process now. We have agreement by the subcommittee. Its report is to proceed in this fashion: The subcommittee will be meeting and conferring with each other tomorrow at some point with respect to the three lists of recommendations we have, which the research officer has been directed to amalgamate and synthesize, so that we will then have a list of recommendations. Some consensus will be reached by the time the subcommittee meets on Monday morning, which has been scheduled for 11:30 am. So you will be discussing this tomorrow after the researcher has been given time to amalgamate all of the recommendations by each of the parties, put them together in a digestible format and separate out those issues which are contentious.
It does not mean we will not have time to debate. We still have an hour and 45 minutes remaining. We will be meeting to consider those final recommendations which can also be amended, so nothing is absolutely final until we meet as a full committee on Monday. That will take place at 1 pm on Monday, at which time we will then proceed to deal with final recommendations which will then be voted on and adopted. Is that acceptable to everyone? Good. We will adjourn and this committee will meet again at 1 pm on Monday 21 January.
The committee adjourned at 1610.