CONTENTS
Tuesday 16 April 1991
Child and Family Support Statute Law Amendment Act, 1990, Bill 17
Loi de 1990 modifiant les lois relatives aux obligations alimentaires, projet de loi 17
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair: White, Drummond (Durham Centre NDP)
Vice-Chair: Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East NDP)
Carr, Gary (Oakville South PC)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West L)
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph NDP)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Mathyssen, Irene (Middlesex NDP)
Mills, Gordon (Durham East NDP)
Poirier, Jean (Prescott and Russell L)
Sorbara, Gregory S. (York Centre L)
Wilson, Fred (Frontenac-Addington NDP)
Winninger, David (London South NDP)
Substitutions:
Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury NDP) for Mr F. Wilson
Wessenger, Paul (Simcoe Centre NDP) for Mr Winninger
Clerk: Freedman, Lisa
Staff: Revell, Donald, Legislative Counsel
The committee met at 1533 in room 228.
CHILD AND FAMILY SUPPORT STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1990 / LOI DE 1990 MODIFIANT LES LOIS RELATIVES AUX OBLIGATIONS ALIMENTAIRES
Resuming consideration of Bill 17, An Act to amend the Law related to the Enforcement of Support and Custody Orders.
Reprise de l'étude du projet de loi 17, Loi portant modification des lois relatives à l'exécution d'ordonnances alimentaires et de garde d'enfants.
Section/article 3:
The Chair: Okay. I would like to call the meeting to order. We adjourned for a 20-minute bell prior to voting on the motion by Mr Sorbara on page 46 in your yellow copy.
Motion negatived.
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that sections 3e, 3f, 3g, 3i, 3k and 3m of the act as considered by the committee in its consideration of section 3 of the bill be renumbered as follows when the bill is reprinted:
First column: section number as considered by committee: 3e, 3f, 3g, 3i, 3k, 3m; second column: section number on reprint: 3f, 3g, 3i, 3e, 3h, 3k; and that all necessary changes be made to internal references in the bill.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Shall section 3, as amended, carry?
Mr Wessenger: There is one subsection we should go back to.
The Chair: Was that the amendment to the amendment, or whatever it was, brought in yesterday?
Mr Wessenger: Okay. We will leave section 3 to be dealt with later. We will go on to this next one.
The Chair: Are there any amendments on sections 4, 5,6 and 7?
Mr Sorbara: We have stuff that we did not do on section 3.
The Chair: We did not carry section 3.
Mr Sorbara: Okay. We are going to go back after.
The Chair: There is still an amendment that came forth yesterday that has to be dealt with.
Sections 4 to 7, inclusive, agreed to.
Les articles 4 à 7, inclusivement, sont adoptés.
Mr Wessenger: I move that the motion be amended by striking out the proposed subsection 3g --
Mr Sorbara: Hold it. You are reading the wrong one.
Mr Wessenger: Did we hand them out? I am sorry. No, we have not handed it out. This is going back to subsection 3g(8).
Mr Sorbara: Lisa, how do we get back there?
Mr Wessenger: We need unanimous consent.
The Chair: Is there unanimous consent?
Agreed to.
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that the motion be amended by striking out the proposed subsection 3g(8) of the act and substituting the following:
"(8) When the director's duty to enforce a support obligation which is subject to a support deduction order ceases, the director shall give written notice to each income source affected by the support deduction order of any change in the amount to be paid."
Mr Wessenger: The purpose of this is to correct a problem with the originally drafted resolution, which is based on the PC motion, which required the director to notify each income source affected by a support deduction order when the support order had terminated. Mr Sorbara raised the problem that there is no reason for the income source to be privy to information regarding the status of a support order. This replacement motion deals with that concern by limiting the information provided to the income source. When the director's duty to enforce a support obligation ceases, written notice must be given "to each income source affected by the support deduction order of any change in the-amount to be paid."
Mr Sorbara: This does solve the freedom of information problem. Of course, it does not solve the information problem. There may well be an instance where there are five income sources, only one of which is the subject of a support deduction order and so only one of which needs to be privy to any change in circumstance or change of amount.
I do not think you have solved the problem, but I am not going to dispute it any further. You are not doing the right thing here, but you will probably have an opportunity to fix it in committee of the whole, so just make a note of it.
Motion agreed to.
Section 3, as amended, agreed to.
L'article 3, modifié, est adopté.
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Mr Wessenger: We have another amendment to section 3.
Mr Sorbara: Let's do it in committee of the whole, shall we?
Mr Wessenger: We have to stand it down, so we will have to stand section 3 down.
The Chair: What? We just passed it. We just carried it. What is this?
Mr Wessenger: I would like to move for adjournment for five minutes.
Mr Sorbara: Within a few minutes you might be the Minister of Community and Social Services. Get through the bill. Within minutes.
The Chair: You need five minutes?
Interjections.
Mr Wessenger: Okay, well, let's move on to another section. We will just stand this down, then. That is the best way. We will stand down section --
The Chair: You cannot stand it down; it has passed. We have to reopen section 3 with unanimous consent, because we did not have the amendments in front of us.
Mr Sorbara: We will get to those in committee of the whole, I suggest.
Section/article 8:
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that subsection 10a(4) of the act as set out in section 8 of the bill as printed be struck out and the following substituted:
"(4) A sheriff who receives a request for information about the amount owing under a writ of seizure and sale in respect of a support order from a person seeking to have the writ removed from the sheriff's file shall promptly give notice to the person who filed the writ of the opportunity to file a statutory declaration under subsection (1)."
Mr Wessenger: Does anybody want an explanation? As a result of consultation with the sheriff's office it was originally suggested that subsection 10a(4) as drafted was too limiting and did not contemplate all the circumstances in which the sheriff would be required to remove a writ from his file. The sections requiring the sheriff to give notice of the opportunity to update a writ were separated from the section outlining the circumstance where the sheriff must remove a writ from his or her file.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that section 10a of the act as set out in section 8 of the bill as printed be amended by adding the following subsections:
"(6) A sheriff shall not remove a writ of seizure and sale in respect of a support order from his or her file unless,
"(a) the writ has expired and has not been renewed;
"(b) the sheriff receives written notice from the person who filed the writ to the effect that the writ should be withdrawn;
"(c) notice is given under subsection (3) or (4), a statutory declaration is subsequently filed under subsection (1) and the writ, as deemed to be amended under subsection (2), has been fully satisfied; or
"(d) notice is given under subsection (3) or (4), 10 days have elapsed since the notice was given, no statutory declaration has been filed under subsection (1) since the giving of the notice and the writ has been fully satisfied.
"(7) A statutory declaration may be filed under subsection (1) by telephone transmission of a facsimile of the statutory declaration to the sheriff along with a cover page that contains the following information:
"1. The sender's name and address.
"2. The date and time of the transmission.
"3. The total number of pages transmitted, including the cover page.
"4. The telephone number from which the statutory declaration is transmitted.
"5. The telephone number of a person to contact in the event of transmission problems.
"(8) If a copy of a writ of seizure and sale has been delivered by the sheriff to a land registrar under section 137 of the Land Titles Act and the statutory declaration is filed under subsection (1) in respect of the writ, the sheriff shall promptly deliver a copy of the statutory declaration to the land registrar and the amendment deemed to be made to the writ under subsection (2) does not bind land registered under the Land Titles Act until a copy of the statutory declaration has been received and recorded by the land registrar."
Mr Wessenger: The purpose of this is to set out the circumstances --
Mr Sorbara: Dispensed.
Mr Wessenger: Does anybody want to hear it? It is really the question of removal of the writ, when certain circumstances have to be satisfied before it is removed.
Mr Sorbara: I am wondering whether the phrase "telephone transmission of a facsimile" is going to be relevant two or three years from now when facsimiles are transmitted directly into the telecommunications system. Somebody will challenge the transmissions down the road.
Motion agreed to.
Section 8, as amended, agreed to.
L'article 8, modifié, est adopté.
Section/article 9:
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that section 9 of the bill as printed be amended by adding the following subsection:
"(1) Subsection 11(1) of the act is repealed and the following substituted:
"(1) When a support order that is filed in the director's office is in default, the director may prepare a statement of the arrears and the director may, by notice served on the payor together with the statement of arrears, require the payor to file in the director's office a financial statement in the form prescribed by the rules of the court and appear before the court to explain the default."
Mr Wessenger further moves that subsections 9(1) to (3) of the bill as printed be renumbered as subsections 9(2) to (4).
Motion agreed to.
Section 9, as amended, agreed to.
L'article 9, modifié, est adopté.
Section/article 10:
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that section 12b of the act as set out in section 10 of the bill as printed be amended by striking out "3k" in the third line and substituting "31."
Motion agreed to.
Section 10, as amended, agreed to.
L'article 10, modifié, est adopté.
Section/article 11:
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that section 13b of the act as set out in section 11 of the bill as printed be amended by adding the following clause:
"(ca) prescribing classes of persons and information to be supplied to the court and the manner in which information is to be supplied for the purposes of subsection 3a(4);
"(cb) prescribing deductions for the purposes of subsection 3c(10)."
Motion agreed to.
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The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that clause 13b(e) of the act as set out in section 11 of the bill as printed be struck out and the following substituted:
"(e) governing the form and posting of security by a payor under section 3d and the realization thereof."
Mr Wessenger: This is just adding to what can be prescribed by regulations.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Page 55, Mr Sorbara?
Mr Sorbara: Forget it.
The Chair: Are you withdrawing it?
Mr Sorbara: I can withdraw it?
Clerk of the Committee: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: Withdrawn.
The Chair: Page 55 withdrawn.
Mr Wessenger moves that clause 13b(f) of the act as set out in section 11 of the bill as printed be amended by striking out "3i" where it appears and replacing it with "3j."
Motion agreed to.
Section 11, as amended, agreed to.
L'article 11, modifié, est adopté.
The Chair: The clerk informs me that we have a few amendments left, a couple which will be circulated. So perhaps we can have a five-minute recess.
Mr Sorbara: I do not think we need a recess. I have some remarks to make on the upcoming section and on section 14. That should give the folks enough time to get their act together or, failing that, they can do it in committee of the whole, I think.
Section/article 12:
The Chair: Mr Poirier's motion, page 56a.
Mr Sorbara moves that the French version of section 18 of the act as set out in section 12 of the bill as printed be struck out and the following substituted:
"18. Le titre abrégé de la présente loi est Loi de 1985 sur les obligations alimentaires envers l'enfant et la famille."
The Chair: Legislative counsel informs me that there is an identical --
Mr Revell: I think the package has just been passed around, has it not, Mr Chair?
Interjection.
The Chair: No, we are still discussing it. Mr Revell brings up a point. l do not see the --
Mr Sorbara: Is this not clever? Ha, ha, ha. Is this not clever? After all the speeches that I made about child and family support and the lies that we are being told, now they are going to call it the Family Support Plan Act. I will blow it away.
Interjections.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chair, I have a motion on the floor.
The Chair: You do, sir.
Mr Sorbara: It gives the bill a French short title. Are you asking that I withdraw that?
The Chair: No.
Mr Revell: Can I just clarify where we are at just so we will understand? The motion that Mr Sorbara has read into the record and which is now on the floor is complementary to amendments that were made previously that were moved by Mr Poirier to pick up the element of obligations towards the family and to children. Now there is a government motion that is being proposed but has not been moved. I am not going to explain the reasoning behind it, but the substance of it is that it is also here and it changes the name from the present title of Child and Family Support Act to simply the Family Support Plan Act, 1985. Then, while the French version has not been distributed, there would be a complementary amendment made automatically in the French version because of the way the House operates. I can give you how that would read if the government motion went ahead. It would read, «Le titre abrégé de la présente loi est Loi de 1985 sur le régime des obligations alimentaires envers la famille.»
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, I appreciate that explanation. I think what I should strictly do is have a friendly withdrawal of my motion and let the government simply move the motion that gives this bill an even more outrageous title than the office and even more outrages me.
The Chair: So you are withdrawing 56?
Mr Sorbara: My motion is meaningless, really, because as Don has said, there is going to be a different title and that will automatically trigger a different French title, so there is no use having it on the floor. In the time that we have left, let's get the new title moved.
Are we all listening, class? Are we listening? Okay. Whoops. I have got a problem. Well, I will save my final remarks for section 14.
Just to help things out, Lisa, are we allowed to move all of these amendments at once, that is, la, 4a, 5b, 56b and 57b? No?
The Chair: No.
Mr Sorbara: Okay. Well, why does the parliamentary assistant not just quickly move them?
The Chair: Are you withdrawing 56a?
Mr Sorbara: With unanimous consent.
The Chair: I do not think it requires it.
Mr Sorbara: I have withdrawn my motion -- chucked it.
The Chair: And 57a, which is along the same lines?
Are you withdrawing 57a as well?
Mr Sorbara: That was my motion, was it not?
The Chair: No, 56a.
Mr Sorbara: Okay. I will chuck both of them.
The Chair: We still have Mr Harnick's motion, page 57, in this group, and now we are going to the motions that were presented to us a few moments ago, 56b in the package that was just handed out, which is essentially what Mr Sorbara's motion would have dealt with.
Mr Sorbara: Do you mean then we are not going back to la, 4a and 5b?
The Chair: We will when we have finished the other part as well.
Mr Sorbara: Is it necessary to have unanimous consent to go back to them?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, it is.
Mr Sorbara: Then you can do that in committee of the whole and just deal with 56.
The Chair: Okay, 56b. Mr Wessenger.
Mr Wessenger: Page 56b. Even with this we are going to have a conflict.
The Chair: Can we have a recess for five minutes?
The committee recessed at 1601.
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The Chair: I would like to call the committee back to order. We are dealing with the government motion on page 56b.
Mr Wessenger moves that section 18 of the act as set out in section 12 of the bill as printed be struck out and the following substituted:
"18. The short title of this act is the Family Support Plan Act, 1985."
Mr Wessenger: The purpose of this amendment is to change the name of the act because of the submissions made by several people from the law profession, also the judiciary, because of the confusion with the Child and Family Services Act. We are responding to that concern by changing the name so it will not be confused with the family services act.
Mr Sorbara: It is getting very late in the day. Nevertheless, I just want to once again lose my temper on amendments like this. There is a word missing, and it is "order," and the word "order" should go in after "support."
What is going to happen is that your members are ultimately going to pay for this. They are going to pay for this because politicians always pay for the hypocritical steps that they take, whether in government or in opposition. You see, what is going to happen is that some reporter is going to report one of these days that the Legislature has passed the Family Support Plan Act. That is going to be the headline and that is all they are going to read. They are going to think, as a result of that headline, that the government has done something unusual or special to help now support families, particularly families that are in need of support.
This bill does a lot of things -- and I am glad we are finally getting to the end of it -- but what it does not do is provide the kind of support that our families need. It gives a branch of government one pretty strong weapon to make sure that orders that have been made by the court are fulfilled. You are going to pass this and you are going to try to get a little bit of political play out of the fact and you are going to put it in your householders, no doubt: "We passed the Family Support Plan Act. That's one of the things we did in the spring session. It took us a long time to get it through." And in your speeches you will say some awful things about me and the way in which I have handled certain amendments to this bill. But I do not mind that. What I mind and what I resent and what I resist is this kind of nonsense.
Take a survey. Go and talk to your constituents. What do people want from their politicians but just honesty, just being forthright, just doing what you said you were going to do? This does not do it and I am sorry to see it, but I understand the realities of what is going on and so I am not going to say anything more about it.
The Chair: Any further discussion? Shall the government motion on page 56b carry? Carried.
Shall section 12, as amended, carry?
Section 12, as amended, agreed to.
L'article 12, modifié, est adopté.
Section 13 agreed to.
L'article 13 est adopté.
Section/article 14:
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that the bill as printed be amended to add the following section:
"14a. Section 39m of the act, as enacted by section 14 of this act, is repealed and the following substituted:
"39m. Where an employer contravenes section 39L, an employment standards officer may order what action, if any, the employer shall take or what the employer shall refrain from doing in order to constitute compliance with section 39L and may make an order to reinstate in employment the employee concerned, with or without compensation, or to compensate the employee in lieu of reinstatement for loss of earnings or other employment benefits."
Mr Wessenger: The purpose of this amendment is to have some remedy in the case of an employer dismissing an employee with respect to a support deduction. So this gives the right of reinstatement, and also it changes and removes the $4,000 limit. There is normally a $4,000 limit on the amount that may be awarded and this removes that limit. This has been at the request of the Ministry of Labour.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, notwithstanding these amendments that have removed the $4,000 limit, this section I think is perhaps the most outstanding example of the way in which politicians can get caught in their own hypocrisy and in their own rhetoric.
1620
The incumbent Minister of Labour, during consideration of Bill 162, with all of the drama of a wounded Shakespearean character, would shout and scream at me sometimes during question period in Parliament that a section almost identical to this one that I had -- I am sorry, I made a mistake. It was in Bill 114. I can just hear him now. He would use the phrase, "It's not worth the powder to blow it to hell and the minister knows it." And then there was an election and that same man, the member for Hamilton East, crossed the floor, put on the mantle of the Minister of Labour --
Mr Morrow: About time.
Mr Sorbara: -- and has the audacity to suggest in this act that the sanction against the employer should be almost in the same words. If they were not almost the same words, it would not be so offensive, I would not find his support of this amendment to his own legislation so repulsive, but he preached all over the province that this protection for Sunday workers and the sanctions against employers were not worth the powder to blow it to hell. Here it is right here, not three months later, after he becomes the Minister of Labour and he has his own bills amended in the very terms that he rejected out of hand.
You should have heard his speeches, they were outrageous, how employees would be coerced by evil-minded employers. They would be dragged into the stores on Sunday, they would be chained to the counters, they would be forced to work the cash registers because our Sunday protection bill was not worth the powder to blow it to hell.
Now, a few months later, when we need a sanction in this bill, we need to tell employers they are prohibited from discriminating in any way against an employee against whom there is a support deduction order. In other words, you cannot fire him, you cannot dismiss him, you cannot reduce his salary, you cannot change his hours, you cannot punish him because he is paying the obligation to his wife, so you have to put a sanction. But he takes those very words and puts them in this bill and has the audacity to support them as the Minister of Labour.
What are the people to believe? What are the people who voted for Bob Mackenzie to believe about his commitment to what he says as a parliamentarian? I support this section. I think you need a sanction. I think the sanction will work. In fact, I think 95% of the employers would not discriminate in any event. They would simply receive a support deduction order and put it into place and they would respect the privacy of the individual and they would respect the sensitivity of the matter. Just because they have to make one more deduction on a paycheque, I do not think they are going to be moved to fire or discipline the employee and I think that was the case with 95% of the retail employers in respect of Sunday shopping, but Bob Mackenzie said differently. Bob Mackenzie said that the majority of employers were bad guys and that the sanction we were putting in the law was not worth the powder to blow them to hell.
Mr Mills: I think it is different.
Mr Sorbara: You cannot have it both ways. I do not want to be interrupted, I tell my friend the member for Durham East, because I am almost done and we are almost done, but to me this is the final offence and the final affront, that he would not even bother to do what he says he believes in as Minister of Labour and that is to put in a harder sanction, a firmer sanction, a greater penalty against the employer. After all, if you really believe what you say, it should be reflected in what you do and I am terribly disappointed that the Ministry of Labour has chosen not to put in a stronger sanction.
With that, I want to tell my friend the parliamentary assistant that I will support this sanction and get on with the taking of the vote on this amendment.
Motion agreed to.
Section 14, as amended, agreed to.
L'article 14, modifié, est adopté.
Sections 15 and 16 agreed to.
Les articles 15 et 16 sont adoptés.
Section/article 17:
The Chair: Mr Carr moves that section 17 of the bill as printed be amended by adding at the end "which day shall be at least six months after the day on which this act receives royal assent."
Mr Carr: As we heard, the reason for this is that during some of the discussions it will take that period of time before all the regulations are put in place. The government does not plan to move ahead with this until that time. During some of the discussions with the director, if my memory serves me correctly, she talked about trying to gear up for January of next year as the date she was looking at. That was the hoped-for date to get everything included in there and I think that was at the time when we were looking at maybe excluding some of the people who are already in the system but are not in arrears. They are going to have to be included now.
This particular amendment is going to give the time necessary to make sure it gets done properly so that we do not have the legislation come through and have the people who are going to be affected scrambling around to try to make it work before the proper time has been allotted to getting it done correctly. Six months is probably the minimum time it will take to do that. That was the aggressive, optimistic stance and I suspect it will be a little bit longer than that, so we put that in.
Through some of our discussions with some of the people who came before the committee, there was also some concern to let some of the people know who are going to be affected by it, ie the employers. We heard some of the situations. I guess it was the one group from the Canadian Payroll Association which talked about having to have computer systems that are going to have to be changed in businesses now to meet the time frames that were put in place. We did not improve the amendments that wanted to extend some of the time frames to three weeks.
I think we settled on 14 days so we are going to have the computers readjusted. What we had hoped to do with this amendment was to allow for all the parties concerned enough time to realize what is coming down the pipe and to bear accordingly. If not, what is going to happen and what has happened in the past too many times for bills that attempt to get pushed through for whatever reason, good reasons or whatever, is that they get off on the wrong foot, we get behind and we will be looking at a situation where our friends from the department there are playing catch-up. Hopefully this amendment is going to alleviate that problem and allow employees and employers, individuals affected, the government, to be able to get the time frame in place, to put the things in place to do it properly. That was the reason for the amendment.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Carr. Any discussion of the PC motion, page 57?
Mr Wessenger: Yes. I do not think we should tie ourselves down particularly on the question of royal assent, because it is quite probable or quite possible that there is going to be a public awareness program before royal assent is given. So I would not support the amendment.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr Carr: I guess that puts the kiss of death on it.
Motion negatived.
Section 17 agreed to.
L'article 17 est adopté.
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Section/article 18:
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that section 18 of the bill as printed be struck out and the following substituted:
"(18) The short title of this act is the Family Support Plan Amendment Act, 1991."
Mr Wessenger: The purpose of this is obviously to change the name in compliance with the change of name of the act.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, if you will indulge me one more brief speech, I am just going to take the opportunity under this section to make my final comments on the bill and in a sense wrap up the debate in committee on this bill and say goodbye to all of you, at least say goodbye to the bill as we send it off back to the House. If I had planned my life more effectively, I would have brought, for the purposes of these remarks, a passage or two from Shakespeare, Shakespeare's ability to end a play, wrap it up and let it go in a puff of smoke and say: "It was all a fantasy. It was all just like players on a stage."
Mr Harnick: This is a tragedy.
Mr Mills: All the world's a stage.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, you are losing control of the meeting.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, will you speak to the motion, please.
Mr Sorbara: Yes, I will. I just beg your indulgence for a moment. I did not do that. While we are deliberating, in the midst of an article called Who is `Them,' I just quote this passage for your consideration: "Ultimately our wealth and wellbeing depend on the value that the world places on the work that we do, on our skills and our insights."
All of you I think have been -- what is the right word? -- you have been great fun to sit with on this committee in consideration of the bill. Although for you it is perhaps a brand-new experience, I must say that for me as well this is my first experience considering the bill as a parliamentarian in a committee of the Legislature and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I have enjoyed the debates. I have enjoyed the opportunity to joust with my opposition colleagues, particularly with the government members. I hope you have learned, among other things, that a bill does not necessarily pass easily in this place even if it is a bill we all agree on in principle.
Just to say one serious thing about this bill, I think we all do agree in principle that we should go ahead with this even though you know I personally have worried about it a lot. I do worry about the state intervening in the private lives of people. I think we all should. You will get to find out, as you develop more experience, that the power of the state is formidable. The state has the power to seize you, to imprison you, to impose the War Measures Act, to take away your children, to take away your livelihood and to confiscate your property. The state has the power to send you to war. The state has the power to bring to the head of a nation a madman like Sadam Hussein who can bring about the decimation of his people. And believe it or not, this small band of us, including the executive council, which is chosen out of the 130 of us, represents the state and we are very, very powerful. Our power is constrained only by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Ms S. Murdock: Mr Chairman, on a point of order: Are we discussing section 18 at this point?
Mr Fletcher: It is a final farewell.
Ms S. Murdock: We have been listening to final farewells.
Mr Sorbara: Well, I will stop right now and just say to Ms Murdock or whoever she is --
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, the kind of leave-taking you are attempting here is appropriate but usually, when we are discussing the final part, which would be the title of the bill --
Mr Sorbara: Yes.
The Chair: -- which, while this amendment deals with it, we then have to go back to, "Shall the title of the bill carry?"
Mr Sorbara: Okay. I do not have very much more to say. Can I sum up in five sentences? I do not want to offend Ms Murdock any more than I have to.
The Chair: I think Ms Murdock has a point of order which is legitimate. However, your discussion here, or in one minute's time, I do not think is really pressing. If you are not going to repeat the same discussion, then --
Mr Sorbara: I appreciate that I have been a nuisance to the committee, and that they have had some foundation --
Mr Morrow: No.
Mr Sorbara: I just want to tell you, in the end, I think that apropos of the little quote that I put on the table, I think our work is important, even when we have to use tactics like the ones that we have used here.
Ms S. Murdock: We?
Mr Sorbara: We, including myself and my colleagues, and you, Ms Murdock in the sense that your tactic has been to not consider a variation of the bill. I appreciate that. Do you know what? I respect that. I have had occasions where I have had to ram measures through committees. I have, and I understand it, and I understand the role of the opposition now far better than I did during the five and a half years when I sat on the other side of the House.
I want to say a special tribute to these folks who are sitting at this end of the table, who put up with this and put up with the time it takes to consider a bill, and they did it with good humour. They advised the committee well, and I just wish them the best of luck, both through committee of the whole and after the bill gets implemented, and to my Tory colleagues, and even to the Lushers over there who come daily to listen to our debates and who have very strong views on a number of things that we as a Parliament have to consider. But I say to them, and to anyone else who sits through these things, the fact that we can have people come and sit and watch what we do in open court is the heart and soul of democracy.
So, like the bard said, it was all just a play and did not mean anything, and I will now let you know that I am going to support section 18 of the bill.
Mr Harnick: I wondered when you would get around to speaking to that section.
Mr Mills: Speaking to section 18, I feel like my colleague over there -- when I came on this committee, I did not know you, sir. I heard all kinds of rumours about what a nuisance you were. People warned me and they said, in dreaded tones, when we were talking to this amendment, that terrible, terrible Greg Sorbara --
Mr Carr: Attention. The Attorney General is here.
Mr Sorbara: Are you still in the cabinet, Howard?
Mr Mills: I might tell you privately that in my next life, I hope to put a lot of this into book form.
Mr Carr: In the humour section.
Mr Mills: And I must say, every day you were not here -- and I say this truthfully -- I missed you. I have learned a lot from you and your caginess and the way you operate, and I really am impressed to be in a room with someone of your debating skills and stature, really. I am not saying that loosely. I have enjoyed the friendship here, in talking about this amendment, learning to get to know people here much better, much more closely. I have enjoyed it and I look forward to further committees where, perhaps, you gentlemen will share with this wonderful --
[Interruption]
Mr Sorbara: He is managing my delegates. Every time the government does something, I get a bigger donation.
Section 18 agreed to.
L'article 18 est adopté.
1640
Mr Wessenger: I would like to ask if we could have unanimous consent to deal with sub 1 of the bill, because there are some changes that relate to the change of name.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, I am not prepared to give unanimous consent, and I will tell you why. The bill is going to be going into committee of the whole.
Mr Harnick: It would be out of character.
Mr Sorbara: We have not finished with it yet.
Mr Fletcher: You had me fooled.
Mr Sorbara: We, as a caucus, have decided that we want to give the Attorney General plenty of time to prepare for the implementation of this bill, but that the House should have an opportunity to debate it for some time in committee of the whole. At that point, a variety of amendments will be brought forward, I am sure, not by us, but by, I suspect, either the Attorney General himself, who graces us with his presence -- how marvellous. This is really quite a day. We have been talking about you for a month.
Interjections.
Mr Sorbara: Oh, listen now, I have lingered outside the door as my bills were being carried by committee, and popped in every now and again. It is not to be obstructionist or anything like that, but I think now we are trying to complete our work here, get on with it, and we will be in committee of the whole.
For our part, our party plans, not to try and revisit all of the amendments, but simply to send the bill off with a few comments about how we would liked to have seen it. I can assure you that you will not be there for a number of amendments. Those amendments that we wanted to bring to the bill have been discussed in this committee, and they have been defeated. We understand that. The government has a majority, and that is fine, so we will not be bringing them forward. I am sure that Mr Elston, and perhaps Mr Kwinter, and perhaps Mr Poirier, and perhaps some other members would want to say a few words in committee of the whole on this bill as the entire Legislature in its committee form considers it. I deny unanimous consent just so that you will have a little bit of work left to do and we can get out of here this afternoon at a reasonable hour.
The Chair: Unanimous consent is denied. Shall the title carry?
Mr Wessenger: I would like to ask for another aspect of unanimous consent before Mr Sorbara refuses. This is a section where an amendment was made at his request, so I am wondering if he is going to deny unanimous consent to doing an amendment which is really on an issue that he raised.
Mr Sorbara: I do not have a copy of this section. My preference, frankly, Mr Chairman, is to --
The Chair: Does Mr Sorbara have a copy of that?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, this was distributed.
The Chair: It was distributed -- 10a?
Mr Wessenger: Page 10a. Section 3c and --
Mr Sorbara: Again, without any malice or without any obstruction to the bill, why do we not just take these amendments, and I will give you my undertaking that as they are moved in the House, I, for my part, as the whip on this committee, will try and have these amendments moved as expeditiously as possible. I will not undertake to constrain my colleagues, who might want to speak on the bill generally in committee of the whole, but for my part, I understand where your amendments are going. If you deliver us a package of the proposed amendments for committee of the whole in a timely fashion, I am sure we could deal with them expeditiously. But I think we are winding down here and ought not to be considering more amendments, particularly as we just passed the title of the bill.
The Chair: Are you denying again, Mr Sorbara?
Mr Sorbara: Yes.
The Chair: Anything further?
Ms S. Murdock: Rien.
The Chair: Shall the title of the bill carry?
Title agreed to.
Le titre est adopté.
The Chair: Shall I report the bill to the House?
Mr Sorbara: I support reporting the bill to the House. I just point out that yesterday, before that amendment, none of you submitted your answers. Your answers are late, by the way, as to whether or not that was a trick amendment. There is a lot riding on that, so you can submit your answers to my office. You have four more days to do so. A lot is riding on it. It might have been a trick amendment.
I want to say one final thing just as we report the bill. If there is anything the ministry can do in moving the implementation time of this bill, it is something our party would be anxious and willing to support. I realize the bill does not come into force until a date to be proclaimed by the cabinet. The cabinet has absolute discretion as to when it proposes to do that. It could be never, in fact, or it could be as soon as the day after we pass it. I would encourage that. I see the Attorney General here with his parliamentary assistant and the whole crew from the new building on Bay Street. I would encourage them to get on with implementation even though they are not accepting the recommendation that we would have had on the bill. I wish them good luck with it.
Mr Carr: I just wanted to add my thanks to the members of the committee. When we started here, people told me that you become a lot friendlier with people on the other side as a result of this committee. I think it is true and I think that is good. We have just got to make it so we can get on committees and get around to meet everybody.
I, of course, am disappointed that some of our amendments did not go through, so hopefully in the House we will have a chance to bring some of the more substantial ones forward and see if there is any movement. We saw a little bit of wavering on some of them there and we saw one foot in and one foot out. At the end, hopefully, some of our discussions got through to the Attorney General. So we saw a little bit of movement, but in the end unfortunately the substantial amendments that we had hoped to bring forward did not go through. So we will try again with that and I hope everybody realizes that they were brought in the spirit of trying to make things better and we will look forward to a long summer with you all as we get on to other things.
Mrs Mathyssen: We on the government side would like to thank all members here for bringing wisdom and diligence to the review of this bill. We hope that the Solicitor General will take it back now to the ministry and that our efforts to provide support for the families of Ontario where it is needed will indeed be our contribution.
Ms S. Murdock: I would like to say one thing --
The Chair: With Mr Sorbara's indulgence.
Ms S. Murdock: Mr Wessenger and I were visitors to this committee and it has been a real learning experience for me.
Mr Harnick: You mean you are not going to be here full-time?
Ms S. Murdock: No. I am on resources development actually. But I am glad this has been the learning ground through which I am going because I have a feeling I am probably going to be using this experience extensively. I know that Mr Sorbara and I have had altercations at times throughout this committee, but I do have to say to him that it has been an actual pleasure at times watching you and listening to you and your articulation, your presentation of arguments. In actual fact, I hope that I can be as articulate as you.
And I really appreciate the support that Mr Carr and Mr Harnick have given during this committee. Dianne Cunningham too has been very committed to certain aspects of this bill and it has been a tremendous experience for all of us and I thank you for it.
Mr Sorbara: It seems to me that with what I have seen, we are going to hear a final word from the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General. I look forward to that. And these are really my final remarks. There are three categories of people that I also wanted to commend and these are very serious sentiments as well.
The parliamentary assistant has done a very commendable job of carrying this bill. I have had parliamentary assistants carry bills for me and I have not seen it done any better by them. It is a difficult job and you are, particularly given your newness to the Legislature, responsible for pretending that you understand every single thing about a piece of legislation on a very quick basis. I know you do not understand every single thing and we all accept that. I understand perhaps only a little bit more than you and only because I had five and a half years to learn a little something and your learning curve is probably as great as that of any of us.
To legislative counsel, thank you for bearing with us, at least bearing up with me. The others can speak for themselves. I do not think Don Revell, when he joined us for committee consideration, expected that he would be here for a couple of months, but that is the breaks and that is what happens in government. He has served us very well, and any criticisms that we have had of the bill have been in the main based on our own frail understanding of the structure of legislation rather than any defect in the crafting of it.
And, of course, to our clerk who puts up with us with the best of humour and consults on all matters, including the success of our ball team this year. I want to say thank you to her and to you who have done an absolutely admirable job of trying to curtail me from exercising my right to freedom of speech. Congratulations to you. You are going to continue to thrive in your career as a parliamentarian until about four years from now when you will end your parliamentary career, like the rest of your colleagues. So thank you all and best wishes until the next time we come together to consider a bill. If you think this took a long time, wait until we get to Sunday shopping.
Mr Wessenger: I would just like to thank everybody for the assistance they have given me and the contribution they have given with respect to this bill. In particular, I would like to thank, of course, ministry staff and the clerk and legislative counsel because they have been very co-operative in assisting me on some of the changes we have had to do with the legislation.
I would also like to thank members of the opposition because I think they have contributed to this process. They have made suggestions that have been included in the legislation. They have pointed out items that needed clarification. I am very pleased to see how this process works. It does have its political partisanship, but that is to be expected. But it has been fun. I must say I have enjoyed the experience working with people here and I am looking forward, actually, to coming back again and taking some more legislation through this committee. So thank you to everybody.
Bill, as amended, ordered to be reported.
Le projet de loi, modifié, est déféré au comité plénier de la Chambre.
The Chair: The subcommittee shall be meeting at approximately 3:15, after question period, in the opposition library tomorrow afternoon. We are now adjourned to the call of the Chair. Thank you.
The committee adjourned at 1652.