CONTENTS
Monday 16 September 1991
Retail Business Establishments Statute Law Amendment Act, 1991, Bill 115 / Loi de 1991 modifiant des lois en ce qui concerne les établissements de commerce de détail, projet de loi 115
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)
Gigantes, Evelyn (Ottawa Centre 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)
Winninger, David (London South NDP)
Substitutions:
Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot NDP) for Ms Gigantes
Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville NDP) for Mrs Mathyssen
Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South PC) for Mr Harnick
O'Connor, Larry (Durham-York NDP) for Mr Winninger
Also taking part: Kormos, Peter, (Welland-Thorold NDP)
Clerk: Freedman, Lisa
Staff: Swift, Susan, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1001 in committee room 1.
RETAIL BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES ÉTABLISSEMENTS DE COMMERCE DE DÉTAIL
Resuming consideration of Bill 115, An Act to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act and the Employment Standards Act in respect of the opening of retail business establishments and employment in them.
Reprise de l'étude du projet de loi 115, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les jours fériés dans le commerce de détail et la Loi sur les normes d'emploi en ce qui concerne l'ouverture des établissements de commerce de détail et l'emploi dans ces établissements.
Mr Morrow: I have two motions that I would like to put on the floor at this time. I will start with the first motion, then move to the second motion.
Mrs Marland: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: Mr Carr had his hand up first.
The Chair: I saw Mr Morrow raise his hand first and I saw Mr Carr.
Mrs Marland: That is fine. I want the record to show that you chose to recognize Mr Morrow. I just think that is rather interesting.
Mr Sorbara: Another minor point of order, Mr Chairman: I look forward to hearing the motions of the Vice-Chair of the committee. My understanding is that as a matter of the rules of this committee, we deal with one motion at a time.
Mr Morrow: That is what I said. I have two motions and I will deal with the first one first and then move to the second one.
Mr Sorbara: We are going to speak to and debate the first one? You might intimate what the second motion is going to be and if you have some introductory remarks, I look forward to hearing from you, so long as we are not trying to debate two motions at the same time.
Mr Morrow: I would never do that. As I said, I do have two motions. I will now move on to motion 1.
The Chair: Mr Morrow moves that clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 115 be postponed to a future date as agreed to by this committee.
Mr Morrow: Now, if you will allow me, I will speak to my motion. This committee spent four weeks on the road in 11 cities. We heard from roughly 280 presenters. We had an awful lot of input from the public. They had an awful lot of good things to say. We are not prepared at this moment to come back. We did listen to the public. Therefore, we are asking that this be delayed.
Mr Sorbara: Notwithstanding that there was some suggestion by way of urgent phone calls to our party, its caucus, its leader and its senior staff, intimating that the government was proposing to postpone clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 115, nevertheless, coming here this morning at 10 o'clock, I remain rather startled that the government has put forward this motion.
All the more so, I am startled that the minister is not here to address the motion. I see the parliamentary assistant sitting on the committee, but he has not raised his hand or taken the opportunity to be the first speaker on the motion by Mr Morrow. More than that, the remarks of Mr Morrow give no reason at all why the government is bringing forward this motion to delay clause-by-clause consideration, and we would certainly like to hear that.
Mr Morrow is right that we did hear from hundreds of people. The clear majority of the submissions that we heard opposed the government bill, and I want to say at this point that if the government is saying, through its motion to delay clause-by-clause consideration, that it is rethinking a bill that was almost uniformly rejected by the people we heard from. I say almost because there were two or three or perhaps 10 people who came before the committee who said they liked the bill in its current form, but the large majority of people rejected it.
Some, I grant you, notably the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, wanted an even tighter piece of legislation. They would have had virtually no exceptions to the rule that Sunday is not for shopping. They made their position very clear. But if you go through the research, and indeed our researcher, Susan Swift, has done that, if you go through a summary of the submissions, you will see that by and large, people rejected the government's bill.
I think it would be appropriate for the government to put its cards on the table, play openly with the people of this committee, the members on this committee and, more important, the people of the province. Let us know what is happening.
Your Premier, when he was sworn in as Premier of this province and accepted the responsibilities of being the Premier, talked about a new style of government, a new openness and a new frankness with the people of the province.
I would welcome a statement from the government that it is reconsidering its position. I would welcome a statement from the government that it is examining perhaps providing other criteria to allow businesses that want to open to stay open. I would welcome a statement from the government that it proposes to allow the current legislation, Bill 113, another six months or a year's trial period to see whether it is sufficiently strong to achieve the common pause day that the government is determined to achieve. I would welcome hearing from the government that it was reassessing its long-standing commitment to the notion of a common pause day.
I would welcome a statement from the government that it was trying to bring forward a definition of "common pause day" consistent with the themes in the legislation. I would welcome a statement from the government that it was looking at a series of criteria to assist those border communities, in particular, that are reeling in their retail sector, that are haemorrhaging badly and pleaded before this committee for the government to act reasonably and allow them to compete with their competitors across the border.
I would love the government to come forward with a statement that it was going to try to come up with something to respond to those small businesses in the Beaches that have been struggling to try to respond to a vibrant Sunday market in their community. I would love the government to say something to the municipal politicians who are going to have to debate this issue during the upcoming municipal elections. It is a sensitive issue. It is an issue upon which feelings get exacerbated rather early during the course of the debate. I would love to hear something or other from government.
We had submissions of a very high quality, I believe, during the course of these public hearings. I am reminded, for example, of the submission from the solicitor for the district of Muskoka who argued passionately and eloquently as to why the government ought not to proceed with this bill. In fact, his arguments went further. He argued that the government should completely abandon the notion that it should somehow provide special regulation for retailing on Sundays. He said, in short, that the government should get out of the business of trying to determine who could and who could not buy a toaster oven on Sunday.
Hundreds and hundreds of hours were put into the preparation of those submissions, thousands of hours of staff time by lobbyists, by groups all over the province, including the United Food and Commercial Workers. My God, we had one woman, Pearl McKay, who was with us almost every single day. When she was not, somebody else was.
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We need to hear not simply that the government would like to put this off but where the government is coming from, even if it is a statement that the government caucus is brutally divided on the issue. That is fair. That is fine. I have been in a government caucus. We have been divided on issues. Come forward and say that. You do not have to name names. You do not have to say that Gord Mills prefers a wide-open Sunday shopping approach but Wayne Lessard feels they cannot tolerate it down in Windsor. That is fair. That is okay. We can listen to that.
But beyond simply us on this committee representing the people of the province, I am thinking about the people who spent all of those hours with this committee, making submissions to this committee. They deserve an answer. They deserve an answer not based on a timetable established by a row in caucus, but in accordance with the timetable established by the Legislature and by this committee and by the government.
It was the government, after all, that proposed, and we accepted, the agenda for public hearings, and we accepted to come back during this week and give all or some of this week to clause-by-clause consideration. We are ready to proceed with the bill if the government so chooses. We would be even more delighted if the government determined not to proceed with the bill, and if that is the determination of government, I believe that you should say so, and we will not make an issue of it. I can assure you of that. Neither in the Legislature nor on the hustings will we accuse the government of backtracking. In fact, we would say that the government has made a wise decision in abandoning Bill 115, and we would look forward to that.
We can exercise our political responsibilities and our legislative responsibilities and our responsibilities for public administration with the highest of standards. If the government has chosen, as we hope and expect, to abandon this bill, then we are prepared to say that looks very good on you, that you have listened to the preponderance of evidence that we heard before the committee, that you understand the problems of retailers in the communities that we visited, that you are sensitive to the fact that although I guess theoretically all of us would prefer that for one day of the week we could all simply sit by our firesides, the reality of the marketplace is different. We would welcome that. We would applaud you. We would congratulate you. We would be forced to say, and I think happily, that the government and its members and its caucus and its cabinet have paid attention, by and large, to the people of the province.
You can throw off the shackles of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and the other alliances with the trade union movement. It will not destroy their position in society. They have a very effective role and an important role to play, but you at one and the same time can say here and to them that your responsibilities as a government go beyond commitments made to colleagues in the trade union movement. The evidence that we heard argued forcefully for an abandonment of this legislation, and I hope what we are hearing from the government this morning is that it is prepared to consider that.
For our part, we are prepared to proceed. We have worked on the basis that the government was going to continue in its determination to pass legislation not well received by the people of this province, and so we have submitted a package of amendments that would modify the bill, we think, in accordance with what we heard without destroying the bill in the minds of the government members and the government itself. We are prepared to argue, based on the evidence that we heard, that these amendments will make the bill a better bill and more consistent with the people's wishes in this province.
We are prepared, however, to abandon these amendments if you are prepared to tell us now that you will postpone indefinitely consideration of Bill 115 and give the present law time to take hold in the province. That is not to say that I would support that because the present law was passed by a Liberal administration. It is based on the evidence that I heard and that my colleagues on this committee heard during the course of public hearings on Bill 115. We heard many mayors say that they were quite content to provide local regulation for the business of Sunday shopping.
I recall, for example, Stan Lawlor in North Bay saying that although he had been an opponent of Bill 113 when it was initially proposed and passed in the Legislature, he was quite comfortable, thank you very much, and had met with the business community in that city, the retail community, and had come to an agreement. I believe that Windsor and Niagara Falls and Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay and Metropolitan Toronto and Mississauga can do the same and ought to be given an opportunity to do that.
The terrible thing about the motion that I have just heard from Mr Morrow is that it says nothing other than, "We haven't made up our minds yet, and we would like more time." This is a breach of faith, I tell the government members, to all of those people who have tuned in today, who have come here today, who are ready and anxious to know the government's position and what the government has decided in light of what we have heard during the past month of public hearings.
I look forward to my friend Mr Morrow's second motion. I hope it will tell us more, but I say to him that in his opening remarks he has disappointed not only the government members but all of the people who have participated in this vigorous debate, not only during consideration of Bill 115 but over the past three years. For a caucus and a government which has been the champion of something called a common pause day to say, "My God, we need more time; we don't know what to do," simply is not enough. We need to hear more and we need to hear more urgently.
We will be very anxious to know what the government's position is, and I want to reiterate that if it is the government's position that it has listened to the people and is willing now to postpone indefinitely further consideration, you will receive our congratulations, our speedy support on this committee and a commitment to assist you if you should ever want again to delve into the perilous waters of the regulation of Sunday shopping. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sorbara. Mrs Marland.
Mrs Marland: Mr Chairman, I am yielding my turn to follow Mr Carr, since he is a regular member of this committee. I do have a question on a point of order, however. Is it your intention to take a second motion from the same person without recognizing any other member of the committee with a motion?
The Chair: It is my intention to hear debate on the motion that is in front of us.
Mrs Marland: You have one motion in front of you.
The Chair: At that particular point in time, Mr Morrow or Mr Carr, both of whom have indicated they have motions, will have the opportunity to present them.
Mrs Marland: No, I am asking you a question. You know that Mr Carr has a motion.
Mr Fletcher: No, he does not.
Mrs Marland: Yes, he does, as a matter of fact. Maybe you do not know, but your Chairman knows that Mr Carr has a motion.
The Chair: I will get back to you on that point after Mr Carr has finished speaking, Mrs Marland.
Mrs Marland: I would suggest that I have never sat in a committee where one person moved two motions at once.
The Chair: Mrs Marland, I will get back to you on that point after Mr Carr has finished speaking.
Mrs Marland: Thank you.
Mr Carr: I think Mr Morrow was correct when he said we have heard from hundreds of people, and I think Mr Sorbara is right when he says that the vast majority of people are opposed to this bill. We heard from municipalities that are opposed to it. We heard from the unions and the retail workers. The consumers are confused by it. Business groups were opposed to it. The tourism groups were opposed to it. I -- and I guess I spoke earlier with the Chair before we met -- feel I have an answer and a motion that I will table if we get a chance to do it today. Failing that, I will give a copy to the clerk and circulate it to anybody who would like to take a look at it.
I, like most people who have taken a look at this, including the government, think this bill is so flawed that it cannot be implemented, applied and enforced either consistently or fairly. As a result, I think my amendment may be very helpful in that regard. Hopefully, we will get to it, and if we do not, as I said, for any of the members who would like to take a look at it, I will circulate it and give a copy to the clerk, because I think that really addresses what needs to be done.
The government said two things in the throne speech. One was -- and I will paraphrase it a little bit; it is not a direct quote -- "When we make mistakes, we will admit them." This is a case of, I think, making a mistake, and now it is time to admit it.
We heard from numerous groups, those that are opposed to Sunday shopping -- and those who were on the committee heard this more times than they wanted to -- and the question I asked people was, "If this bill goes through unamended, will the Premier have broken his promise to the people?" Almost to a person the overwhelming majority of the people said yes. So it will be interesting to see exactly what the reason was for the amendments that are coming through.
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I understand that the Solicitor General had a press conference that he was going to hold last week, but it was cancelled. The reason that we have heard about through some of the papers is that the NDP caucus is divided on the issue.
I think very clearly if this bill goes through, as we heard as we went around the province, there will be Sunday shopping in the province of Ontario. We know Windsor, Niagara Falls, Thunder Bay, Kenora, all the municipalities that have said they will do it.
During the throne speech, the government also said that it will listen to the people to the best of its ability. I am telling you, if you listen to the people we have heard -- and I know Mr Mills said at least 100 times, "We are listening, we are listening" -- everyone on all sides of the issue said: "This is a bad bill. It should not go through."
We will attempt to work with the government, but as my motion will address, I believe this particular piece of legislation is so badly flawed that it could not even be amended to try and get the intention which the government stated in the beginning.
I do not know what time frame they are looking at for bringing this back in. Hopefully, when we get a chance to speak to the motion that I will be bringing forward, we will have a little bit better answer to this problem, because by postponing it and attempting to refine the amendments, I do not think it can be done.
I do not know what the intention of this group will be, whether they will allow my motion to be heard, but I will be circulating it to the members if in fact we do not get to it because of procedural circumstances here this morning.
So, basically, on the one hand, I agree with the government. It has a very difficult task, because this piece of legislation cannot be amended. We will hopefully get a chance to come up with some of the solutions that I propose when we speak to my motion.
The Chair: Before we move on to Mrs Marland's comments, my understanding, very simply, is that after the debate and the vote on this particular issue is finished, no one will have the floor unless recognized by the Chair.
Mr Carr: It is interesting to see where your eyes wander.
Mr Morrow: Mr Chairman, on a point of order: Can I please refresh your memory back to Peterborough when you allowed Mr Sorbara to put two motions on the floor? We debated one and then we debated the other one. You set the precedent then.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr Sorbara: This is government corruption.
Mr Morrow: There is no government corruption.
Mrs Marland: Are you raising a point of order, Mr Morrow?
Mr Morrow: That is my point of order, sure.
Mrs Marland: I would like to speak to the same point of order.
The Chair: Mrs Marland.
Mr Morrow: Excuse me. I still do have the floor. You did set the precedent in Peterborough when you allowed both motions to go through. Are you saying that you are changing that?
Mr Sorbara: Let's speak to that point of order, okay?
The Chair: If you could refresh me on that point, were there other motions on the floor at that time? Were there people wanting to be recognized?
Mr Morrow: Mr Sorbara said he had two motions to go through. We dealt with one first and then you allowed him to have the floor to deal with the other one.
The Chair: Were there other motions?
Mr Morrow: That is irrelevant at this point.
Mr Fletcher: Yes, Mr Morrow made a motion right after that. He had a motion.
The Chair: Mr Carr and Mr Morrow have motions that are forthcoming.
Mr Fletcher: On the same point of order, Mr Chairman --
Mr Sorbara: With the greatest deal of respect, Mr Chairman, I think given that Mr Morrow has raised a point of order, the appropriate thing is not for you to enter into a debate with him --
The Chair: I am not entering into a debate, I am just asking for clarification.
Mr Sorbara: -- but to allow him to speak to the point of order. I would like to do that and my good friend Mrs Marland would like to do that. I will keep my comments very brief.
Mr Morrow's raising of the precedent represents absolutely no precedent at all. If you recall, in Peterborough I did advise the committee that I was going to be bringing forward two motions. I brought forward one motion. No other member of the committee had an intervening motion and I brought forward a second motion. Each of those motions was debated and dealt with by the majority of New Democratic Party members on the committee.
That is my recollection of the facts. I do not see where the event in Peterborough set some sort of precedent allowing my friend Mark Morrow to bring forward two motions, but it does not really matter. This is all stuff and nonsense. All we need to know is where the government is going to be going on this. Why can we not just hear from you?
The Chair: Mr Fletcher, on that same point.
Mr O'Connor: Where is your point? Come on.
Mr Sorbara: This is terribly silly. Will you not understand that? I just want to know where you are going.
Mr Fletcher: I think -- Mrs Marland.
Mrs Marland: Excuse me. I think I was next.
Mr Fletcher: I think so also.
The Chair: Mrs Marland, my apologies.
Mrs Marland: I think you need a lot of help, Mr Chairman, I say with respect. The point of order that has been raised is the most ludicrous argument I have heard in six years here, for a member to suggest that a precedent was set at another meeting. The fact is that if that took place at another meeting and nobody was bright enough to challenge it under the rules of order by which our committee meetings are held, then that is the loss of whoever wants to challenge it today. The point is that these legislative hearings adhere to our rules of order and nowhere in the proceedings do we have two motions placed at once, at one time, and successively by one member unless they are recognized a second time by the Chair. If it happened at another meeting, it has no relevance at all today.
Mr Fletcher: Yes, it does.
Mrs Marland: I will try not to interrupt you when you are speaking, so I would appreciate the same courtesy.
Mr Chairman, I would like you to rule on whether you are going to accept the point of order raised by Mr Morrow or not. He has raised a point of order. Would you please rule on his point of order.
The Chair: Last comment, Mr Fletcher, on this issue.
Mr Fletcher: As far as the rules of order are concerned, I do not see them before me and I do not think the member opposite really does know the rules of order, because when the Chairperson does make a decision, that decision is usually binding no matter what happens.
Mrs Marland: I --
Mr Fletcher: Do not interrupt me now. If I remember correctly, in Peterborough, Mr Sorbara did come forward saying he had two motions to discuss. He placed the first motion first, which was debated, and then he was going to place the second motion. Mr Morrow also had a motion that would have done exactly what those motions would have done, and you knew that he had a motion. As far as his motion was concerned, we had to wait until after the discussion of Mr Sorbara's two motions. I think a precedent has been set and I think that you should follow along with that precedent.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Fletcher. I think the point very simply is that --
Mrs Marland: You have had two speakers from the government side. May I make a further comment?
The Chair: I am wanting to simply rule on this issue. As far as I can understand, the situation from Peterborough is largely irrelevant if there was no point of order raised at that point in time. I believe right now we are in a debate about Mr Morrow's motion. At the end of Mr Morrow's motion being debated and voted, the floor would yield to whomever is first recognized.
Who had the floor last? Mrs Marland, on the motion of Mr Morrow.
Mrs Marland: On the motion before you, before I make that comment, I have a question of the clerk. Could you confirm for this committee what rules of order these legislative committees sit under?
Clerk of the Committee: Legislative committees sit under the standing orders of the Legislative Assembly and the precedents of the standing orders of the Legislative Assembly.
Mrs Marland: It would be possible, if Mr Poirier wanted to have a copy of the rules of order, he could get them out of his desk in the Legislature. That is where they are kept.
Mr Sorbara: What is she talking about?
Mrs Marland: He said he did not have any rules of order.
The Chair: Could we return to Mr Morrow's motion?
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Mrs Marland: I understand Mr Morrow's motion says that clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 115 be postponed to a future date as agreed to by the committee. Apparently, there is not a typewritten copy of his motion available, so I have a handwritten copy from the clerk.
In speaking to this motion, I would have to ask why the government members are asking for a postponement of clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 115. Obviously if they had any intention of proceeding with this bill they would have prepared any amendments which they wanted to make. I have to wonder perhaps if this bill is going to go the same way as so many of the New Democratic Party government promises, where when they get out into the real world and find out what the real world thinks about their position, then they start retrenching and going backwards very, very quickly. Probably a very good example would be the automobile insurance policies for this province.
I think this government has a lot of explaining to do. It has just invited the public in this province to take part in public hearings and now it does not know what to do with the public input. Perhaps they can explain to that same public why they spent over $150,000 this summer listening to them. It is the most incredible experience to sit here this morning and find out that you are not ready with amendments.
I have travelled this province for six years on standing committees, looking into having public input into legislation that was in its second-reading referral to committees by the previous government of very complicated bills, some of which some of you might be very familiar with. I would suggest Bill 162 was a bill that had a phenomenal amount of input by the public, and the staff at that time were writing amendments as the hearings were being held, for the government to present at the end of the public input. Bill 162 was a bill on which, I would suggest, there was not any corner of this province where injured workers or unions did not have a presentation at those hearings.
The fact is that this bill, which has a tremendous impact on the people who work in this province, is a bill that apparently your party, when in opposition, felt was very important. It had such a priority that you wanted to deal with it right away. You had so much difficulty with the Liberal government's legislation that you could hardly tolerate it.
That is what I really like, an unbiased Chairman sitting and being coached by one of the members of the government.
Mr Morrow: I am not coaching him.
Mrs Marland: Anyway, I find this situation this morning is deplorable. It is an insult to the people of this province that you have spent $150,000 listening to them and you are not ready to go ahead with your own legislation and with your own amendments. If there is some disagreement in your caucus, so be it. You have had a caucus meeting, I understand, you have had your caucus retreat. You still have staff in the ministry who could draft your amendments.
It is deplorable to me that we are sitting here with you saying that you want the clause-by-clause consideration to be postponed, taking up committee time, I may add, from other committees which had work to do this week and could not sit to complete their work because you were sitting to complete yours. Now you are here this morning in this shoddy way saying: "We're not ready, folks. We don't have any amendments. We can't get on with the business of the House. It needs to be postponed."
If any of those statements are wrong, please tell me. But the motion, as I read it, says, "Postpone to a future date." I have to ask you why. Perhaps you can tell us why you want to postpone to a future date. Maybe if you can explain why you want it postponed to a future date and you can justify what you have subjected the people of this province to this summer, instead of a whole lot of gamesmanship and backpedalling, you can convince the public that what you are doing is more straightforward than it appears on the surface.
Mr Sorbara: Where is the minister? Where is the press release? Where is something, anything, that tells us where you are going?
The Chair: Mrs Marland, are you finished your remarks?
Mrs Marland: I am for now.
Mr Fletcher: There are a few reasons why the bill is not ready, because when we went out on the road and we went across the province there was a lot of constructive criticism about the bill, and a lot of people. To hear the members opposite saying that no one liked the bill is a crock.
Mr Sorbara: One or two deputants liked the bill.
Mr Fletcher: Most of the people --
Interjection.
Mr Fletcher: Now I know where you get it from.
Most of the people who came forward said -- and this came from the tourist people and everyone else -- "It's a step in the right direction. It needs some fine-tuning." That is what we are about to do, fine-tune it. As far as what we have said in the throne speech and everything else, the Premier said, "We will go out, we will listen to the people, we will consult with the people," and that is what we have done. We are back now with a piece of legislation that is only draft legislation. I think everyone realizes that. It went out for consultation.
Mr Sorbara: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: This is not draft legislation. This is a bill that has had two readings in the House. There are people's businesses that are relying on the determination of what we are doing on this thing. For Mr Fletcher to say that this is draft legislation is a crock.
Mr Fletcher: You are right, Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: My God.
Mr Fletcher: It went out to the public with the intention of there being amendments made. I think everybody knows that, and I think Mr Sorbara knows that. At least when we went out this time, we went out and we listened to the people. I know that when Bill 113 and Bill 114 went out, you did not listen to anyone, and in fact the legislation came back without any changes except for minor changes which did absolutely nothing. Most of the people, in fact, 90% of the people, who appeared before on Bill 113 and Bill 114 were opposed to the legislation, yet it just went through and it got forced through. That is not what this government is about.
Maybe the other members have been around for six years, going out on committee and everything else, and this is a little different, but then we said we were going to be different. We said that in the throne speech and we said that during the election campaign. We cannot cover every person in the province. We have to look at this piece of legislation as if it is for the province, not just for border communities, not just for the city of Toronto. This is a piece of legislation for all.
We are not a divided caucus on this issue. The caucus has spoken on this issue. We are just willing to take it back and show that we have listened, so that people do realize that we have listened to what they had to say. We do realize that it is an issue that many people have many different views on. We are trying to make the legislation a little better, and I cannot understand why the opposition -- of course I can, in a way, because I know they have always operated that way: "Okay, we've heard the people. Let's go back and now we'll just ram this piece through." We do not work that way.
Mr Sorbara: This is inappropriate.
Mr Fletcher: I think it is about time you got out of the old ways of doing things and started listening for once.
Mr Sorbara: This is absolutely inappropriate.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, please, would you allow Mr Fletcher to have his time.
Mr Fletcher: You have never listened to the people before. That is why you are sitting where you are sitting. That is quite obvious. Now that we see that things are changing around here, maybe you can get on board and help us out a little bit.
Mr Sorbara: You tell the people that you do not know what the hell to do on Sunday shopping. Tell the people. Christmas is coming, my friend. People would like to know.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, you are to be given the opportunity to speak after Mr Poirier, but please do not interrupt Mr Fletcher or Mr Morrow.
Interjection.
Mr Sorbara: With a comment like that, you are really the avant-garde of the Legislative Assembly. We do not tell anyone what we are going to do.
The Chair: Are you finished, Mr Sorbara?
Mr Sorbara: Hardly.
Mr Morrow: I am not going to sit here and grandstand, so I will not be that long. Look, is it not really refreshing that you have a government over here --
Mr Sorbara: That does not know what it is doing.
Mr Morrow: -- that is listening to the people? As a third-party member said, in previous times they made amendments while they went along with a bill. "What's that? You havn't heard from everybody. How can you make amendments when you havn't heard from everybody on a bill?" We have now heard from everybody. We have had a couple of weeks. We do want to bring in amendments. We have asked that the bill be postponed. It is obvious.
You ask why. You say the people of Ontario deserve an answer. It is really nice that a government sat here and listened to the people of Ontario for a change. Do you want to talk about Bill 113 and Bill 114? Yes, let's talk about them. What did the people tell you in 1988 and 1989 over Sunday shopping?
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Interjection: They didn't like it.
Mr Morrow: They did not like Sunday shopping. Did you listen? No. We are listening.
Basically, what we are doing is we understand Sunday shopping is a very complex issue; it is very frustrating to everybody. We feel that two weeks to go through 280 presentations probably is not enough time. We want to come back with some very good amendments to the bill. We need time to do that. We are asking for the time. We obviously have not had enough time, and, as I started out, I will reiterate that it is really refreshing that, unlike Bill 162, we are taking the time to bring in good amendments. We did take the time to listen to people. That is exactly what you go on the road for, to listen to the public. That is exactly what we did.
Mr Poirier: I look across the committee room here and I have dear friends that I like very much on an individual basis, but as I sit here listening to how this is coming forward, I am amazed, I really am. I cannot help it, having been in government for five years, listening to Bulldozer Bob come forward and say: "Get the hell out of the way. We're there tomorrow morning. At least we know what the hell we want. We're ready to do it," and the whole patente. I have heard that for five years, that we were not fast enough, we did not consult enough, etc.
Here we come forward on Monday, September 16 at 10 o'clock to hear, just like that, no motion written down, "Oh, by the way, we need more time." No explanation given. The minister does not come forward to do it himself. No explanation given, nothing written down, not even an idea of the length of time that is required. For so many years I heard so much determination that the NDP knew exactly what the hell was required, exactly what was wrong with Bill 113 and Bill 114, which the previous government had. "Get out of the way, we will remediate to that immediately."
When the people ask me, "What is it like at Queen's Park?" goodness, I wish they were here this morning to listen to this. I do not understand why you are not ready, why by now you would not have your list of amendments. You have listened to the people. I ask my colleagues here in opposition, would you remember if we would have said something like that or if you, when you were in power, would have said something like this, and say, "We need more time"? As my friend said, Christmas is coming along, the business community needs a hell of a sense of direction from this government. How long will you take? Will you do like the Tories in Ottawa, pass the GST in December for January 1? Are you going to wait until December 24 to decide what the hell the business community is going to do with retail shopping around Christmas time?
There is an emergency to this now. This is September 16, soon Christmas. I just cannot believe the way you are heeing and hawing and whatever. My good friend there talked about fine-tuning. I was talking to my wife last night. I have to bring my car in for a tune-up soon. I do not think I would want to leave my Jeep in your hands because by the time you would bring it back to me I could sell it off at an antiques auction and maybe the tune-up would not be done.
Jeez, you guys are in government now; you are not in opposition any more. You have to pick up your little sockies and do something, for Pete's sake. You are dealing like you are still in opposition. You can have more time. What are you going to do, give us hell now because it is not going fast enough? Yes, some people supported it. Yes, some people wanted modifications. Yes, some people thought it stank like hell. We heard the whole gamut, as you know.
But, my God, do you not have the expert opinions by now either in the ministry or politically, to have by September 16 the list? You have heard the same things we have heard. Do you not have some proposed amendments by now? Where the hell are your experts who could translate a feeling of what the people said throughout Ontario to bring forward in time for Christmas, for Pete's sake, the busiest time of the year for the retail people, no matter what you decide? We can respect that, even though we may not agree.
Mr Fletcher: It is not the only Christmas in history.
Mr Poirier: It is not the only Christmas, but September to Christmas 1991 is going to make it or break it for a hell of a lot of retail businesses in Ontario, and you know that, Derek. No matter what you decide, the ball is in your court, and it is going to be there for a number of years. But if you are going to, as we say, flush to the left and flush to the right and flush to the centre, with what the hell you will have to decide, Jesus, we are going to have political cobwebs in this place. We are going to have parliamentary cobwebs.
Obviously you may be divided on this. Maybe you are. I do not know. It does not matter what kind of debates you have had inside your caucus on this. But Jesus, bring it forward. We have got to look at this. We have got to do this for the people of Ontario, no matter what you decide. Please get into high gear. Do your tune-up, and get into high gear. There is a hell of an emergency to this decision coming forward, and the way it was announced, with all due respect to the Vice-Chair -- I like him personally very much. It is how you announce these things. It is how you do not do things, for Pete's sake. Is this going to be another government auto insurance thing? I do not know, but can I make a friendly suggestion? I would like to talk for a hell of a lot longer, Mr Chair, but since there is an emergency --
Interjections.
The Chair: Gentlemen, will you allow Mr Poirier to --
Mr Poirier: Hey, guys, do something. Look at me, get in gear, tell the PA, my good friend Gord. Grab the Solicitor General by the coat lapels, shake him down a bit but, damn it, bring something forward, and I hope it is not going to be long term. But the way this was brought about is very, very bizarre and parliamentarily, for me, extremely frustrating because we cannot get our teeth into something. I want to do a tune-up too, along with you. Please, guys, wake up. Get out of the parliamentary coma and get running shoes like Derek has right now. Put all your white running shoes on, but run with the ball. Do it.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Poirier. Mr Sorbara and then Mr O'Connor.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, I want to tell you and the other members of the committee that I find the events this morning somewhat shocking. You will probably know, sir, that we received calls at our caucus retreat on Thursday and Friday asking us not to come this morning, to agree quietly to a postponement of the consideration of clause-by-clause of Bill 115. We had to reject that request because we felt that it was appropriate for the committee to meet and the government to come before the committee and to explain to the committee, and through the committee to the public, the government's position on this bill.
I am just going to overlook the political barbs on Bill 113 and Bill 114 and Bill 162; they are thoroughly irrelevant to what we are doing here this morning. But I want to suggest to the government members, and particularly to the parliamentary assistant, that we must take this stuff more seriously. You are playing fast and loose with the lives of people.
Let me just give you, Gord, one example of what I am talking about. Dylex Corp proposed an amendment through its submissions which would, if accepted by this committee, allow virtually every retailer in the province to remain open for the Christmas season. The Dylex amendment is in force now in the province of Quebec and has --
Mrs Marland: Excuse me, Mr Sorbara. May I ask the name of the person who just spoke to the Chairman?
Interjection: I am from the whip's office.
Mrs Marland: Which whip?
Interjection: The government's.
Mrs Marland: I thought so. Thank you. Sorry, Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: As I was saying, there was an amendment proposed to this committee by Dylex Corp which would, if it were accepted by the committee and the government, allow virtually every retailer in the province to remain open for the so-called Christmas season from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day, that is, the Sundays during that Christmas season. It is an interesting amendment because it is in force in the province of Quebec, as I understand it, and it seems to work very well and it provides us a kind of catalyst to the retail sector during a very vibrant period for shoppers, for consumers, for businesses, etc.
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We wanted to make arguments in support of the Dylex motion, among other motions that we would be proposing. The government has said in effect here, "We don't know when we're going to come back with this bill." Well, there are businesses out there, I tell the parliamentary assistant, that desperately need to know. They have to organize their workforces. They have to place orders for goods. They have to organize their personal schedules. They have to know. For the government just to come here and say, "Look, would you mind if we postponed this indefinitely?" is unacceptable. You cannot play fast and loose with the lives and the businesses of the people of this province. We need to know.
If the government is saying, "We are completely reconsidering the agenda here," that is okay. We accept that. If the government had said, "We want to do further study on a couple of small points; other than that, we are going to proceed," that would be okay. For my friend Mr Fletcher to suggest that there were too many documents to read in such a short period of time simply ignores the fact that our own researcher has summarized every single submission, and it is here for us and available for us and it is available to the government. So let us not hide behind the length of submissions, and let us not simply abandon the people who are relying on our decision whatever it is.
Once again, I want to tell you that if your thinking is to let Bill 115 die a quiet and natural death, we will not make a lot of it. We will not put it to you in the assembly. We will acknowledge that you see your public responsibilities as a government before the political commitments that you made in opposition, and we will congratulate you.
If you say, "We are examining further three other options on section 4 of the bill, the pivotal section of the bill," then we will ask our researchers to go off and do similar examinations and be prepared to meet you and the amendments which you propose. Or if you say to us, "We need better worker protections and we are scouring the world to find the tightest protections possible," we will scour with you. If you say to us, "We are examining the possibility of setting up some crazy Ontario tourism board to which every business that wants to open on Sunday must make an application," we will meet that argument as well and fight against it. But to say nothing, to offer us silence, not even a date, not even a suggestion that you will be ready by next week or the week after or the month after or the next session, is a complete abandonment of your public responsibilities.
This is not a criticism of the committee members, and I want to make that perfectly clear. I have been in a government caucus and I understand the constraints you are under. What shocks me, what surprises me, what leaves me in disbelief is that the minister is not here to present a position. I know how it works. It is the minister who has asked for more time; it is the cabinet that has asked for more time, and it is the caucus that is the forum for the vigorous debate. I understand how that works. The obligation of a minister is not to hide in some office building, tuning in to this committee by radio or telephone or government whip messenger. The obligation of the minister is to be here, to make submissions. My friend Morrow talked about Bill 162. We had people on Bill 162 every single day, and when the committee was at an impasse or when it needed the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Labour was there.
What do we say to the businesses of this province about the government's policy on Sunday shopping? Yesterday I could have said: "The government has a policy of bringing about a quasi-common-pause day, requiring most businesses to close and setting forward a series of criteria that will allow those stores which can appeal to a generally tourist market to open. The bill includes protection for retail workers who do not wish to work on Sunday."
That is a pretty simple and straightforward bill, and I tell my friend who said there were so many submissions to look at the bill. It is three pages in its English and French version. It is a very short document. Legislative counsel needs about a minute and a half to draw up the amendments once the decisions are made.
As an open government, you have an obligation to tell us where the debate is now. Is Gerald Vandezande prevailing, he of the Coalition Against Open Sunday Shopping, who wants all the stores to be closed and all of us to sit quietly at home for the duration of Sunday? That is a valid position. It is one that I reject, but it is a valid position. Is it his arguments that are going to win the day or is it the arguments of the others who say, "Please get out of the business of regulating Sunday shopping"?
You see, in this area of public policy, there are only really four options. The first is no regulation whatever; the government to get out of the business and cede the territory. That is one option. A number of jurisdictions have --
Mr O'Connor: Are they your amendments, Greg? Can we look forward to these?
Mr Sorbara: I will cede the floor to you in a few moments.
The second option is the one in force right now, what can best be described as an unfettered municipal discretion to set up store hours in respect of Sundays and holidays in local areas. It has worked so far. We had a period when the courts said there should be no law, and that sort of worked as well. That was the first option, and as I said, the second option is an unfettered municipal discretion.
The third option is basically reflected in the government's proposals in Bill 115, not draft legislation, but a bill that was debated for a second time in the House and has been the subject of public hearings. That option is described best as a narrow municipal option allowing municipalities to allow some stores to open based on criteria established by the province through the statute and through regulation. Municipalities are empowered, but their discretion is fettered and narrowed and constrained by rules established by us here at Queen's Park through the statute and through regulation. That is the option the government chose when it introduced the bill and that is the one it has been arguing for.
The fourth option is to require virtually all stores to close by provincial standard, that is, remove the municipality entirely from the process, state in the statute what stores shall and shall not be open. It is an option preferred, I suggest to you, by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and a few other witnesses before our committee during public hearings, the provincial standard option. You will recall that the United Food and Commercial Workers, in arguing for that option, argued for drugstores of 2,400 square feet or smaller only to be allowed to open, and a number of other positions.
In each of those options, there is some fine-tuning to do, the fine-tuning referred to by my friend Mr Poirier. That is not difficult work. There are some choices to be made, but it is not all that difficult. If the government would tell us, for example, that it was moving from the third option I described to the second option, that would be informative to the public. Those who are here listening today and working for various interests in this debate would be able to go back to their employers and their clients and say, "The government has moved thusly." But to say nothing is an insult and I would say a cowardly act. I am sorry to use that word.
The fine-tuning that needs to be done is a matter of making choices. I realize that this issue is a tough one. I want to tell the members of the government caucus that it was equally tough for us in our caucus. There was no unanimity. There were fights. There were pleas from some members not to proceed at all. There were pleas from other members to go the whole route and just get out of the business. The breadth of debate and discussion was as wide as the issue itself. But government is a matter of making choices; opposition, frankly, is not. We are elected to put another point of view, to hold the government to account. We have choices that we will make on this bill, but really, when you are elected to government, you have to make choices. You cannot simply say to the people: "My God, we can't figure it out. Please give us more time."
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A number of us walked a couple of miles or so this morning to get to work, because the government cannot make a choice on whether or not it is going to end the TTC strike. It was a long walk. Fortunately the weather was all right, but you have got to make choices. My God, Sunday shopping is an easy one. The economy is falling apart and the government is not making choices. It made a choice on automobile insurance. I am sure it is one that Mr Kormos did not like, did not appreciate, argued against, but at least a choice was made, and our party says, "Congratulations, you did the right thing."
Now is the time to make a choice. If you need more time to work out the fine points, it will be granted, but let us know where you are going. If it is at all possible, allow for a 20-minute adjournment for the minister to come here and explain to us the quality of the debate and where he is going on it. That is not particularly for us -- we will debate whatever amendments you bring forward when you bring them forward -- it is for the public.
Larry, you were not with us right through this exercise, but you were with us on many occasions. We had storekeepers tell us that in some instances it was life and death to their businesses. I will quote you. We heard other storekeepers who said, "Please keep us all closed." I remember the owner of a Canadian Tire franchise making that plea, and one who was so appalled with the voice level at the hearings that he decided not to participate. I appreciate that. I can appreciate that if you own a store and you do not particularly need the Sunday market, you would like all your competitors to be closed. That is a reasonable position. But understand that you cannot just tell the world to put itself on hold while you try and find the politically popular decision. You cannot do that.
We made a decision; maybe it was the wrong one. Based on the evidence that I heard during these public hearings, it was the right one, an unfettered municipal discretion. I still like it after all I have heard, but at least we made the decision. You are right, we took it in the ear on September 6, a year ago, perhaps for the decisions we made, but at least I can proudly say that we made decisions.
We made decisions on auto insurance; we made decisions on Sunday shopping; we made decisions on worker training; we made decisions on a whole variety of things, teachers' pensions, and I could go on and on. Government is a matter of making hard choices. To simply say to us, "We don't know where the hell we're going on this bill," is not enough and not worthy of a government nor a government caucus. I plead with you to send out some messenger to hail the minister and drag him in here and allow him to answer our questions so that we and the public can know where the government proposes to go on this small but important issue of Sunday shopping.
Mr O'Connor: It gives me pleasure to be here today to speak on this motion, though it seems that a lot of controversy has been raised around it. One thing I know as a new member, I found that as we toured the province, people seemed to look at us just a little bit differently. They thought these people, these members of the government, seemed to be listening a little bit, and they felt that was something that had not been there necessarily when the committee travelled the province before.
We had the mayors in all the towns that we went to and the mayors who came down here. In fact, one of my own mayors from Georgina came down and made a presentation. He liked what we had, but he wanted some changes. We heard from the mayor of North Bay when we were there, and he was against Sunday store opening and did not believe that the province should be involved in it. We have heard from councils, in the case of Collingwood, where they were very split and where they were going to go with it. As we travelled the province, we heard from chambers of commerce, and they did not like where they were tied in through the regulations.
I am sure the members opposite recognize that it is not very often that a committee of the Legislature gets to tour the province and bring the regulations along with it for discussion. All too often, the regulations have been left up to the ministry involved to take care of, so when you have a full debate going on, in fact you do not have a full debate going on, because all you are talking about is the bill and not the regulations. That was something that was a little bit different, and we allowed people to have some input there for a change.
I felt that it was very open. I felt that it reflected a change in us as elected politicians. I think as members of Queen's Park, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, our constituents do not always recognize what role we have, whether we are in government, whether we are the opposition or whether we are even in the third party. But we all have a role, an active part to play in the introduction of legislation, the full debate of legislation, and they do not necessarily understand. So when we go around the province and we offer the opportunity for some input, they really believe they are getting a chance to have some input, and so do I. I do not think we should just decide lightly on a time frame or something and say, "This is what we have got to do today, make up our minds." We have got to make sure that decisions that are made are made with the utmost care.
If we take a look at legislation affecting the legislation we are looking at, if we take a look at the border communities -- and we have heard from the mayors of the border communities. They have talked about how they are very hard hurt, they are very hard pressed by this issue, yet we hear those communities are split.
We heard from the municipality of Windsor saying that they want everything wide open. We heard a submission from the mayor of Sarnia, and he said that council had voted on it, but he campaigned against Sunday shopping. It is a very important issue and it cannot be just dealt with really lightly.
We have heard from retailers across the province, large and small, on both sides of the issue, retailers who do not want to be open because they want to have that one day with their families, that one day of the week when, if their employees choose to have that day off, they do not want to have to make that decision. They would just as soon be closed so that they can share that time with their families.
What we deal with here is market share, and the larger stores can too often take up the market share, which will put the mom-and-pop shop out of business, the ones we go to when we look for our little league and our hockey teams, when we go to them for sponsorship and when we go to them for United Way contributions. We go to those people and we expect them to be there for us. They are a very vibrant part of our community. We cannot ignore their wishes.
As Mr Sorbara said, the unions and their presentations -- and on occasion, we heard when they got together with some of the larger retailers. I believe it was in London, where the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and National Grocers got together and they agreed on a lot of things. One of the members said, "Well, it's nice to see that they finally agree on something." Frankly, when any sort of collective bargaining takes place, when the contract is signed at the end of the day, they do agree on that. That is something they come to agree with. There is a lot of agreement there and there is agreement here on the legislation, but there are still a lot of concerns that were raised that have to be looked at. We just cannot ignore everything that took place.
The mayor of London suggested that we perhaps have a committee to take a look at regulations and maybe fine-tune some of that. The mayor of Hamilton agreed with that. He thought that was something that should be looked at. When we took a look at this legislation we took around the province, we took the regulations with it. We wanted to make sure that we listened to all sides, because that is part of it.
I am sorry that the member for Mississauga South was not able to travel with us and to have an opportunity to hear people coming and presenting to us. The member for London North, from your caucus, when we were there, said that it was refreshing to sit down and see that there was actually some interaction going on here. She said that she herself was going to make some amendments, and I was looking forward to those amendments.
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That is something that we have to take a look at. We have to take a look at all the amendments that do come forward. Ours are not quite ready yet. We have some fine-tuning to do to them, so of the rapidly approaching 300 briefs that were presented, we just cannot tread lightly. I think we need to take a look at what the legislative research has put together. Myself, I know I have been taking a ton of notes. Maybe it kept me alert after some of our fine meals that we had while we were travelling the province, but we do have a lot of resources at our fingertips and we should not ignore them. We should make sure we use them wisely and make our decisions wisely.
I think it would be arrogant of a government to sit down and to ram a piece of legislation through without hearing fully from the amendments of the opposition and I think we should hear from that side as well, because you were elected to the Legislative Assembly by your constituents, not knowing whether you would be on the government's side or the opposition side, just knowing that they wanted you to represent them. That is fine. We were elected to represent, along with you.
At the end of the day, when the votes are taken, then yes, they will pass. But we have to make sure that we hear the amendments. I am looking forward to the amendments from the member for London North when they come forward. I guess the motion of the member sitting with us here, Mr Carr, does not allow for that amendment from Ms Poole to come forward, but I suppose there will be time for them to discuss this now. We will offer you that time so that you can consult with your caucus a little bit more fully, because this is not a decision that needs to be taken lightly.
Mr Sorbara: You've done it. You've had caucus retreat.
Mr O'Connor: Excuse me. As we look at this legislation, and we talk about business decisions that need to be made, you are right, there are a lot of serious business decisions to be made. The recession we are in is just devastating. We have 980,000 people on social assistance in the province. Since 1989, it has gone up 83%. So when we take a look at decisions, I do not think we would want to be taking things lightly. We have to take a look. What do we do? Do we send everyone out on social assistance to go shopping on Sundays because that will keep the retail business going?
I think we really have to take a look at everything. Everything needs to be weighed with a certain amount of credibility. We have to add some of that credibility that, to us, seems to be lacking. We do not want to make decisions lightly. We have to hear everything, compile it all together, listen to amendments from both sides of the House and wait for that to come forward, and a second motion may in fact speak to the timeliness that you are talking about.
Mr Sorbara: No, it does not. I have already checked it out. It has nothing to do with this.
Mr O'Connor: So what we need to do is make the decision with some wisdom. I think wisdom that has been allowed -- a little chuckle from across the floor. I am disappointed, because we have heard a lot of partisan rhetoric today. I have to say that I am disappointed by it, because when I travelled the province, I found that the committee here was a very likeable group of politicians getting together, legislators, listening to public input. That is something that we have to try to at least keep in the committee process if we cannot keep it in the House. We need to make sure that we hear from all sides, so that is what we have to do. Decisions are not to be made lightly. With that, Mr Chair --
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr O'Connor. Mr Kormos, you are next.
Mr Kormos: Far be it for me, Mr Chair, to prolong the debate, but I feel obliged to make some comments. First, I am no longer a member of the committee and I recognize that, having been pulled from the committee by the whip's office last week, disappointingly but not surprisingly. There is life before Honey Harbour and then there is life after Honey Harbour.
Mr Sorbara: You're alive and well.
Mr Kormos: And I am alive and well. So not surprised but disappointed at having been pulled, and notwithstanding rationale that might be given for my being withdrawn, it is interesting that my participation during this week was requested by the whip's office through Quick-Mail on those personal computers, which I retained a copy of fortunately.
Mr Sorbara: Why do you lose your job every time you take a position?
Mr Kormos: Please, Mr Sorbara. I am not going to take up a whole lot of the committee's time. What I have to say I feel is important and some of it is not particularly easy for me to say, so please bear with me. I appreciate your wanting to get involved in this, and we will talk about that later.
Mr Sorbara: We can meet privately in my office if you want to.
Mr Kormos: I am afraid of the bill I would receive. Do you specialize in unjust dismissal?
Mr Sorbara: No, but I can certainly bone up on it pretty quickly.
Mr Kormos: In any event, notwithstanding that I am not a member of the committee, of course, as a member of the Legislature, I have a right to participate in the deliberations of the committee and to speak at the committee process. That is a long-standing rule. It is a rule that is a good one, it is a rule that is healthy one, and it is an opportunity that I intend to utilize and perhaps, at the right moment, exhaust.
Having spent two weeks with this committee during the course of its travelling about the province, not during its first week of touring, the northern tour, but during the second two weeks, I shared the opportunity with other members to hear from a variety of segments of communities across the province. I think I have a reasonably good feel for the position that the Liberals or the Liberal members or the Liberal Party have on this bill. I say they are perfectly entitled to that position, and it is a position which carries with it some arguments. There are no two ways about it.
At the same time, it is no secret that I have been, and it should be no secret that I remain, an adamant advocate of common pause day. Just as I, when a member of the opposition, opposed the concept of municipal option, I continued to oppose it. I made no secret of my opposition to municipal option during the course of the two weeks of committee hearings that I participated in. I believe, as do many people in the community, that the municipal option will result in wide-open Sunday shopping. Again, fair enough. If there are people who are advocates, as there are, of wide-open Sunday shopping, then they would be reasonably pleased but for the difficulties that would put municipalities in in the interim and the expense that will put municipalities to.
This committee heard from a number of people and heard some sound representations. It heard from a number of organizations and individuals, including the UFCW and retail and wholesale workers and the Ontario Federation of Labour, and perhaps most important, an organization called Fairness for Families, Mr Vandezande, who has been a spokesperson for that organization, which is an umbrella organization representing a number of churches and a number of labour organizations here in the province of Ontario and, I believe, speaking for large numbers, admittedly not all, but large numbers of unorganized retail workers.
It is my view that the representations made by Fairness for Families are not only sound in terms of creating a common pause day, but they also interestingly happen to coincide with long-standing NDP policy. I do not take that policy from Agenda for People or other documents that may be attacked as being ad hoc, but I take it from the Ontario New Democratic Party policy manual which reports the decisions of convention, which is how our party has traditionally prided itself on determining policy.
The policy determined by the Ontario New Democratic Party, which every one of us brought into the election campaign in 1988, was that the New Democratic Party in Ontario endorsed the 1985 all-party committee's recommendations, endorsed the concept and the structure of the Retail Business Holidays Act as it stood before being amended by the last government and before the creation of municipal option, and inherent in that endorsement, recognizing that there was a need for beefed-up enforcement and beefed-up penalties to make the consequences of violation more meaningful, is a rejection by convention. After debate on convention floor and after a democratic vote within the party, there was a strong resolution, a strong decision, which in my view rejects completely the concept of municipal option.
Yes, I am disappointed that this committee cannot carry on today. I was anticipating and hoping for amendments to the legislation which I could have supported, not by way of vote but by way of voicing my support in this committee. I am not aware yet of those amendments. I have reviewed the Liberal amendments, and once again, I understand the Liberal Party position on this issue and the amendments that the Liberal Party makes are consistent and somewhat consistent with that position.
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In view of the fact that there are no amendments before this committee, or proposed to be put before this committee this morning, that would give effect to what I believe to be long-time New Democratic Party policy, and in view of the fact that there are no amendments that have been tabled or filed with the clerk which would create a universal standard, creating a real common pause day for retail workers, recognizing the need for exceptions for certain industries, certain facets of that industry which ought to remain open, in view of that, I am not prepared to be as critical as some of the opposition members are about the delay.
It remains that a lengthy delay would, of course, carry on with the uncertainty, which I recognize, and I think every member of this committee was sensitive to the uncertainty and the concerns that the retail community, that big property developers, that plaza owners, that workers, that community leaders, that politicians at the community level have about the future for their community and Sunday shopping. Obviously, once the status quo is created it is difficult to disrupt that status quo. It is easier to maintain the status quo than it is to disrupt that, for a variety of reasons.
I am anxious to see this committee resume its work as promptly as possible. I, of course, cannot and do not speak for the government, and I have concerns about the fact that lengthy delay would but further harm the goal of those among us who believe strongly in a common pause day, and that is what causes me concern in that regard.
I do point out, however, that the opposition has available to it, beginning next Monday, if not sooner, question period. During that time, I have no doubt they will be reminding this government persistently that the province awaits legislation and amendments for the committee to discuss. I will, at least in spirit, share any legislative member's concern about any ongoing delay. In view of that, I want to make my position clear. I feel I have no obligation, but I join in urging people to -- quite frankly, a brief delay is far better than bad legislation, and I have throughout the course of these deliberations felt that this was bad legislation, legislation that will not achieve the effect that we promised during the course of our election campaign, that will not achieve the effect that we are committed to as a result of the democratic party process by way of party convention. I would far sooner see a brief delay than see us contradict ourselves or fail to keep an election promise.
A lengthy delay is another matter entirely, and I am not at this point prepared to prejudge in that regard. I am prepared to recognize that the opposition can be very effective during the course of, among other things, question period, in making sure that the Solicitor General's ministry brings this matter back before the committee with appropriate amendments as promptly as possible.
I do want to thank the committee members for their hospitality and their charity of spirit, good spirit, during the course of my brief -- oh, too brief -- two weeks with them. I look forward to the chance again. Thank you, Mr Chair.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kormos, for that very thoughtful insight. Mrs Marland, please.
Mrs Marland: One has to be a little sympathetic with the member for Welland-Thorold, being pulled by the whip from this committee. It seems that the long arm of the whip reaches all the way into this committee room this morning and speaks to our Chairman, the first time I have seen that done in six years. There are certainly wonderful ways of getting messages to the Chairman, if the Chairman happens to be a government member, through the government members sitting on the committee. But this morning all I have seen is total coaching, and I am disappointed that the Chairman seems to take his directions from the staff in the whip's office directly, as something was whispered to him and he nodded. Goodness knows what it was. Is it your turn to go to the washroom? Goodness knows what they said, but it does point out how inept the operation of this government is, and I think that is of major concern to the people of this province, the kinds of things that I see going on here this morning.
I would like to respond to Mr O'Connor's suggestion that it was unfortunate that the member for Mississauga South had not been on the committee this summer.
Mr O'Connor: We would have welcomed you.
Mrs Marland: I would like to tell you that I have been here six years and this is the first summer I have not spent going around this province asking the same questions of the same people about Sunday shopping. How many times do you keep going back and asking the people of this province what they feel, wish and think about Sunday shopping?
Interjections.
Mrs Marland: If there is one subject that has been done to death in this province, it is Sunday shopping.
Interjections.
Mrs Marland: And now, having done it to death again --
The Chair: Excuse me. Would you please allow Mrs Marland to make her comments? If you gentlemen have a point of order, you would be recognized on that. Otherwise, please allow her to speak.
Mrs Marland: Having done this Sunday shopping issue to death, you cannot tell me that your ministry staff are sitting with bated breath trying to find the time to prepare these amendments and, in any case, although I respect the fact that Mr O'Connor says he has volumes of notes and he wants to re-read the researcher's notes, do not try to fool us. I mean these amendments are never going to be written by the committee members of the government sitting on this committee. You are going to get the instructions from the cabinet and the cabinet will make sure that the ministry staff and the Legislative Assembly staff who are the researchers give them any more information that they need -- in the long run, the six members of this committee are not going to write these amendments. If they do, it will be the first time in history.
I think that the concern that Mr O'Connor expresses about the number of people on social assistance because of what is going on in this province is very real, and I sympathize and agree with him. I share the same concern.
I should suggest to you, Mr O'Connor, through the Chair, that you would share the same concern for all those people who are presently losing their income today, last Thursday and Friday because of the TTC strike. If you are really concerned about the people of this province, then I would suggest that you would ask who is sitting on the throne while Ontario burns, perhaps who is mooning out of the Premier's window while the TTC strike is allowed to continue. You cannot be concerned on one hand about the number of people on social assistance and then be pushing people out of their ability to earn money because they simply cannot get to work because we have a TTC strike on at the moment.
I think it is fine to say you are concerned, but when you are talking about drafting amendments and then you go on to talk about how much time that takes and then you go on to talk about regulations -- well, we are not talking about regulations here. Regulations will always be a part of legislation. The ministry has the power to write its own regulations. I would hope by now that you know that the committee has no input into regulations, so the regulations are not an issue at all.
I must say it was rather interesting to hear Mr Sorbara talk about some of their debate on this same subject in years past, and the fact that he said there were some who said they should go the whole route and get out of the business. Of course, that is exactly what they did with Bill 113. They did go the whole route, they did get out of the business, and they dumped it on the municipalities, and we know that is not a solution. But for you to come into this committee today and have it so incredibly engineered that the Chairman chose to recognize a government member for his motion first, although the member to his left had his hand up first, it is just a great big sham. We are just sitting here wasting time, as far as I am concerned, because it is all a foregone conclusion. What you are going to do is exactly what you want to do.
You do not know what you are going to do in the long run, because otherwise you would have your amendments here. There is no way that in two weeks your staff could not have the amendments if you knew what you were doing or what you wanted to do. I guess you are just going to sit on the fence, like you have with a number of other issues, and then read a few more polls and finally decide which side of the fence you are going to jump off. So good luck, but I think you are an apology for representation of the people of this province, and I hope you feel as badly as I do that you have been put in this position by your cabinet.
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I recognize that not one of you has a decision to make on this issue. You are getting your orders and it is very obvious, as I said, the orders come all the way from the whip's office. They pull somebody who might be one vote not in accord with you. Is that not interesting?
This is supposed to be the New Democratic Party. I do not think the New Democratic Party knows how to practise democracy where it would be so frightened that the poor little member for Welland-Thorold, Mr Kormos, might vote against it. They are so apprehensive that they have then only five voting members. Well, count how many voting members you need. You have five, and the Chairman can vote if there were a tie with five of us on this side.
They did not need to make this big demonstration of pulling the member for Welland-Thorold. Thank goodness he has a mind and an intelligence of his own, that he would come and see, as a representative of his people, as he sees fit. It is just too bad that the rest of you do not have the intestinal fortitude that the member for Welland-Thorold has to speak your minds on behalf of the people you represent.
Mr Sorbara: Maybe you should meet in her office, not in mine.
Mr O'Connor: Thank goodness for partisan politics.
The Chair: Is that it?
Mrs Marland: That is it.
Mr Poirier: I was listening to my good friend Larry O'Connor. Larry, you sound so wonderful. I never doubted your sincerity whatsoever, but welcome to government, Larry. There comes a time when you have to stop to listen, at least momentarily, so you can sit down and write a bill, modify it, bring it forward, one, two, three, touchdown. If you want to land with a bill, you have to take off with it first. We have listened. What would you have done when we studied Bill 30 and listened to over 900 presentations, Larry? How long would you need to bring the modifications forward after 900 presentations? A year or two or three? Another mandate?
You guys cannot plead you did not know where Ontario stood on this. We did what we had to do. I enjoyed it immensely, but it is time to take off with it now. Are you proposing that we listen to some more people and do another tour or something? We finished that, as far as I am concerned. Now the time comes, the pleasurable task of government members to gather forth all the different varying opinions you have heard --
Mr Poirier: That is right. I am aware of the Tory motion that Gary is going to come forward with.
Mr O'Connor: Where is it?
Mr Poirier: It is time to listen, to brew all this together, sit down with your partisan and non-partisan experts, since you are so democratic, write down the amendments that you think reflect what the majority of the people want. But now, lo and behold, you are realizing that not everyone thinks alike. Is that not interesting?
You have a whole gamut of opinions and no matter what you do, damned if you do, damned if you do not. No matter which modifications you are going to bring forward, somebody is going to be cheesed off at you. If it is not going to be big business, it is going to be small business, or whoever. You will have to land with this soon.
Where is the minister? Why are you not coming forward with some lists? You should have had it by now, a list of proposed government amendments, if any, even though the minister and you guys have said that the principle of a common pause day is not negotiable. Moses has spoken. All right, where the hell is your list, if you have it, and when is it coming forward?
You are government now, boys and girls. You will have to deliver. You just cannot say, "We need more time." Democracy has a time to listen, but also a time to do. So you had better come forward with that list of amendments pretty soon or a lot of people are going to be cheesed off inside the House and throughout Ontario.
Larry, those speeches are very, very nice, but it is time for action now, not just words, believe me. You said you have listened to a lot of partisan speeches and whatever. It is not because I am a Liberal that I speak this way. It is also because of what I listened to at the same time and at the same table and in the same places that you listened. You are going to have a hell of a tough deal, because you know no matter what you decide, you are going to get some snowballs with little hard rocks in the middle thrown at you from last year's freezer, or the freezer two or three years ago.
I think with time you will realize that Bill 113 and Bill 114 were a hell of a good compromise, even though I recognize that partisan politics cannot get you guys to admit publicly that it was a good compromise.
Interjection.
Mr Poirier: No, that is okay, but remember my words. We will talk about that in a couple of years when, for the next couple of years, the courts are going to be tied up like hell with your so-called designation for tourism. It is going to be a hell of a mess. I have been talking to some chambers of commerce since then also and they are really cheesed off, especially if the law is going to put it in their laps to decide which zones are going to be tourist.
You are going to have a hell of a hornets' nest in your hands for many, many years to come, and the next government that is going to take over from you guys three or four years hence is going to have to really clean up the mess. So, Margaret, get ready.
Mrs Marland: Here we are.
Mr Poirier: That is right. No, Margaret, you will still be in opposition, but get ready to go again on the road to correct the mess that is going to be happening with the current bills.
Mrs Marland: At least we will see our pensions, which is more than you guys will.
Mr Poirier: That is right.
Interjections.
Mrs Marland: You have to get re-elected once to get your pension.
The Chair: Mr Poirier, have you finished your comments?
Mr Poirier: I just want to remind Margaret I was appealing to her. I probably will see her in caucus on travelling committees again, but do not get too quick, Margaret, about where the positions are going to be. I want to say that all three parties will have to look at this again together, because there are so many damned flaws and I do not really think that the amendments you are going to bring forward are going to prevent this from being in front of the courts for many, many years to come, with all my due regrets.
Mr Mills: There have been some dramatics here this morning. Anybody would think that the world is going to stop. I would just like to say on behalf of the ministry that I do not recollect anyone here saying this morning that we do not know where we are going. We sure know where we are going, but we are not putting forward that point of view at this point in time.
Another statement that was made -- I think Greg said it -- was that we have no amendments ready.That is absolutely ridiculous. Of course we have amendments, but we want to put the complete package of amendments forward for discussion in this forum. It is a complex issue and we have never dodged the bullet about that. I think that we know and you know that the whole issue has generated more correspondence and more input than any other subject ever in the history of the Legislature. Then Greg says something about having to make choices. I think that is what the delay is, in making choices. I feel it is so important that we have to get it right this time and that is why we are looking at it and we are listening and we are discussing it further.
I am not going to say too much more, but I do take exception, when I may have a different point of view from one of my colleagues, I do not like that to be recognized as a lack of intestinal fortitude, because I think that I have a great big measure of that. Just because my colleague may or may not have a different point of view than I do, I have a role to play on this committee for the minister, and that should not be seen as any less intestinal fortitude than anyone else.
Mr Sorbara: It is not so much that we object categorically to the government needing more time to consider where it wants to go, although frankly I do not think more time is asked for in the interest of the public. I think more time is asked for in the interest of politicians and the political flak they are going to take from one side or other, depending on the decision they make.
That is why, in response to Mr Mills, I say that the timetable needs to be set not by the government or the interests of the government, or the political expediency of the Premier or his cabinet or his caucus, but by the interests of the people whom we are elected to serve.
You probably do not realize the extent to which a constituency, the retail constituency and all of its various organizations, has tuned in today to see the results of the work that they participated in. You probably are not aware of the number of phone calls that come to MPPs and to research offices about what is being proposed, what is going to happen now. That is the real world of public administration, governing and legislating.
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I have a great deal of respect for the fact that the member for Welland-Thorold comes before this committee and expresses a view. It is a view with which I disagree fundamentally, but I was not at the NDP policy convention that adopted clause whatever it was calling for a common pause day for retail workers and more. I was not there. I did not participate so I am not bound nor do I have any particular allegiance to that point of view, but I respect the fact that an elected member of the Legislature sits here and discharges his public responsibility, and does so, I might say, with some eloquence.
We talked about parliamentary reform, and yet we have now on the opposite side of this table six government members and one government member in the chair who, through the course of this debate this morning, have not expressed a view, have talked procedure, have thrown a few political barbs but have not expressed a view, have not said that they are deeply committed to the thrust of Bill 115 or would like amendments to move it more in direction A or direction B. At least Kormos came and expressed a view.
Mr O'Connor: Have you got a motion?
Mr Sorbara: I have a view. I think we should back off from Bill 115.
Mr Morrow: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: Can I ask Mr Sorbara please to speak to the motion? That is what the government members have done all morning, speak to the motion.
Mr Sorbara: I will speak to the motion. I would like to put forward an amendment to that motion at this point.
Mrs Marland: Do you have a copy of the motion?
Mr Sorbara: I move that the motion be amended by adding the words "but that the committee, through its Chairman, request that the Solicitor General attend this committee this afternoon at 2 o'clock to answer questions regarding Bill 115 and the issue of Sunday shopping prior to the --
The Chair: Do you have it in writing?
Mr Sorbara: No, I do not have it in writing, but I am hoping the clerk is taking it down.
The Chair: She is experiencing some difficulty in following it. Go ahead.
Mr Sorbara: -- "to answer questions on Bill 115 and the government policy on this matter."
The reason I am putting forward this amendment is because I am disposed to support the government's request for more time, although I think you could have done your homework before then, but only on condition that we and the public know where the government is going on this thing. You cannot stonewall. It is shocking that the minister is not here this morning, that he is not available to the press, that he is not available to us, that he is saying nothing.
I tell you that there is now a very large cloud hanging over the question of Sunday shopping in this province. There cannot help but be. The fact that a government, when it is charged with bringing forward its position in clause-by-clause consideration, is simply absent tells the people of the province that the government is deeply divided on the question. That lack of certainty can be overcome by the presence of the minister here at this committee to answer questions and to answer questions to the press as well. We have to know.
The member for Welland-Thorold says we will have an opportunity in question period to ferret that out. Well, I say fair enough, yes, we will, but the appropriate place for those questions to be put and those answers to be given is here in this committee. If the government members will simply nod their agreement, I would be in favour of an adjournment right now so that we can give time to the minister to make arrangements to come before this committee and answer questions. No, it looks like they are not willing to do that.
The thrust of my amendment is to have the minister come here to answer our questions on where the government is going on the issue of Sunday shopping. I am not sure how that links in to the main motion, but I would tell the members that if they are prepared to support the motion to have the minister here and clear up these uncertainties and this cloud that has now arisen, we would be certainly more interested in helping them get through this little bit of embarrassment for the government over its readiness to proceed with its bill.
I just want to say once again that you need to get off the stall button. God, this issue is relatively easy compared to the other issues that we as a province are confronting.
We have a metropolitan area that is paralysed right now without a transportation system. We need the government simply to --
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, speak to the motion, please.
Mr Sorbara: I am speaking to the motion. If you look at the motion, you will see that it is a motion to defer public business. I am speaking to the question of the deferral of public business, and I think the transit strike is a good example of deferring public business.
I am not saying that the government of Ontario should change its political stripes or its political perspective and bring the Legislature back to legislate an end to the TTC strike. We have made our position clear on that. We think that should happen. We think the collective bargaining process in this instance has gone as far as it could and that the only resolution to this issue is by way of back-to-work legislation.
Mr Morrow: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: Will Mr Sorbara please speak to the motion that I originally put on the floor and not to the TTC strike.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara is arguing his amendment to your motion. However, he has digressed somewhat from that.
Mr Morrow: Does the TTC have anything to do with that amendment?
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, please return to your amendment.
Mr Sorbara: If I have to set out the linkage directly for my friends opposite, I will do that. Your motion, I say to the Vice-Chairman, is a motion to defer public business, and so we are discussing the deferral of public business, namely, the issue of Sunday shopping. I am speaking about the TTC strike as an analogy. If it turns out that the --
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, would you please return to your amendment, which is inviting the Solicitor General.
Mr Sorbara: My amendment invites the Solicitor General to come here to explain the reason why the government is not proceeding today on the Sunday shopping bill. That is the substance of my amendment. I am trying to argue by way of reference to the TTC strike why the need to know is urgent not only on the business of Sunday shopping but on the business, arguing by way of analogy in the TTC strike. If that is out of order in parliamentary practice, sir, I refer you to about 130 years of Hansard where parliamentarians are invited to argue by way of analogy. The two issues are strikingly similar.
The government will have to make up its mind whether or not it is going to bring in back-to-work legislation. The terrible uncertainty that exists right now is that it refuses to make up its mind. Cabinet met on Wednesday. Surely to God cabinet was discussing on Wednesday the implications to the province of a rejection by the Amalgamated Transit Union
The policy and priorities committee met on Thursday and discussed the matter again.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, please return to your amendment.
Mr Sorbara: Friday, there were further meetings. Monday morning, we still do not know.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, please return to your amendment.
Mr Sorbara: I want to tell the Chair that his interference is, in my view, with respect, inappropriate and compromises my privileges as a member. I do not need to work to your time frame nor your view of the way in which I should frame my arguments in respect of the motions that are on the table and my amendment to it. We do not have time limits in this committee and we are invited as parliamentarians to speak to the issues that are before us.
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The Chair: You are indeed. Please do so.
Mr Sorbara: I think it is unfortunate that the Solicitor General has not come here today. I think we could get on with this matter if we simply had an opportunity to question the Solicitor General, and I would put that amendment before you for your consideration. I hope that you will support it. There is a need on our part, on the part of our colleagues in the Legislature, on the part of retail workers, retail business owners and operators throughout the province and the public generally, to know what the government's intentions are on this issue.
All of the reasons that have been given here this morning by government members as to the delay do not add up to a hill of beans. They do not mean anything. They are without substance. The only person who can adequately put the position of the government forward is the Solicitor General, and I hope that the government members will not be so foolish as to vote against this amendment and reject an appearance by the Solicitor General before us to answer these questions.
You have a right to put those questions as well. I grant that you have a better opportunity to put them in caucus where the public is not watching, but surely the real debate ought to go on in this context in this committee, and I urge you to support the amendment.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara moves that the motion as put forth by Mr Morrow be amended by adding "but that the committee request that the Solicitor General attend this committee at 2 pm today, September 16, to answer questions on Bill 115 and the government policy on this bill."
Substantively correct, sir?
Mr Sorbara: That is exactly correct.
Mr Morrow: I am going to speak on the amendment. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak. As far as I can recollect by the clock, we have been sitting here for just about two hours debating my original motion. At this time, I am going to call the question.
Mrs Marland: Are you placing a motion to call the question?
Mr Morrow: I am calling the question.
The Chair: The clerk would like to explain what the effect of that motion would be.
Clerk of the Committee: I just want to clarify that calling the question means we are calling the question on Mr Morrow's original motion and we lose Mr Sorbara's amendment.
Mrs Marland: The member who is calling the question has already spoken to it.
The Chair: There is no debate on calling the question. All in favour of doing so?
Mrs Marland: There are rules of procedure, and he cannot call the question after he has spoken on it.
The Chair: I am sorry. Are you raising a point of order, Mrs Marland?
Mrs Marland: Yes, it is a point of order, Mr Chairman.
Mr Sorbara: You ought not to be bringing in closure, my friends. That is the most foolish option you could choose. I just want to warn you about that. It is stupid. It is foolish. If you are afraid to debate the issue and ask the Solicitor General to come here, you are in very serious trouble.
The Chair: Thank you. Mrs Marland, my understanding is Mr Morrow has the right to call the question whenever he wishes to. We are now voting on --
Mr Morrow: We have had full debate.
Mr Sorbara: He is not allowing the vote on the amendment. Why don't you caucus for two minutes to see whether you really want to do this?
The Chair: We are now voting on calling of the question as Mr Morrow moved.
Mrs Marland: Is the ruling that it is in order to close debate, to move the motion to call the question when he has already spoken on it?
Mr Morrow: We have all spoken on the original motion.
Mrs Marland: I am not moving to close debate. That is the only difference.
The Chair: As long as in doing so he is not infringing upon the rights of the minority. He has the right to call the question at any point in time.
Mrs Marland: The rights of the minority?
The Chair: The rights of the minority. If you wish to call that issue into question, you could do so, I believe.
Mrs Marland: Well, Mr Chairman, I will call that issue into question because we have four opposition members here. Mr Carr has spoken once, and there have been any number of members from the government speaking, which is possible with seven of them sitting there, for goodness' sake. I think the least Mr Morrow might do is extend the opportunity to Mr Carr to speak before he cuts off debate.
The Chair: The only question at the moment is whether or not Mr Morrow's motion is in order. Mrs Marland suggests that Mr Carr should have the opportunity of speaking more than once. I believe most of the government members have spoken already and Mr Poirier and Mr Sorbara have already as well. Any further discussion on this?
Mr Poirier: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: May I ask you to confirm the point of order that says if there is a call for a vote, it bypasses all amendments to the main motion that have been brought forward? I thought that with a call for a vote, you would have to deal at that point with the amendments that were brought forward.
The Chair: No.
Mr Poirier: You are certain of that.
The Chair: Yes. When the question is called, it is on the original motion.
Mr Poirier: I find that a hell of a surprise, to be very honest with you. By doing that, with all due respect -- whoever makes proposed amendments, let's call a vote on the amendment for one thing and then go back to the main motion. But by calling a vote on the main motion to drop all possible amendments to me sounds like a hell of a breach of the standing orders.
Mrs Marland: Yes, it is.
The Chair: I believe that is correct, Mr Poirier, but perhaps we could recess for a couple of minutes to confirm that.
Mr Poirier: Yes. I would think so.
The Chair: We will recess until 12. If we can resolve this issue, hopefully we can do so speedily after that time.
Mrs Marland: Mr Chairman, we cannot recess until 12 when the committee automatically adjourns at 12 without a motion to extend it past 12.
The Chair: No. It does not automatically adjourn. We are authorized to sit all day. That includes the lunch hour. Can we recess until 12 o'clock and return at that point?
The committee recessed at 1158.
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The Chair: Order. I believe we have substantiated the issue that Mr Poirier brought up, that in fact the vote is upon the main motion. As well, it is my opinion that the main motion has been spoken to at some length so that the call for the question is in order.
Mr Poirier: And drops all discussion on the amendments.
The Chair: Can we now vote on the question?
Mr Sorbara: Can I raise a point of order, Mr Chairman, just prior to the vote? I am just wondering whether the government realizes that it looks very much like, in the face of a call for the minister simply to come and tell us where he is going, the government is using closure to avoid that. That looks very, very bad to the public.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sorbara. Calling the question on Mr Morrow's --
Mrs Marland: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: I just want to be very clear then. You are saying that although an amendment was placed on the floor, an amendment to the main motion of Mr Morrow's, it is in order for Mr Morrow to call the question on the main motion and ignore the amendment.
The Chair: That is after lengthy discussion as Mr Poirier, I am sure, can bear out. We have had the finest brains in this place deal with this particular issue. Calling the question always reverts back to the main motion.
Mrs Marland: My point of order is asking you who was the source of the judgement.
The Chair: The clerk of this committee, my own understanding of the rules as I have gone over them well before this point on that issue as well, and the clerk of all committees in this assembly. Can we move on now to the question? All in favour of the question being put?
Mrs Marland: I have never heard of that happening.
The Chair: All in favour of the question being put?
Mrs Marland: A recorded vote, please, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Yes, a request for a recorded vote.
The committee divided on Mr Morrow's motion, which was agreed to on the following vote:
Ayes -- 6
Cooper, Fletcher, Lessard, Mills, Morrow, O'Connor.
Nays -- 4
Carr, Marland, Poirier, Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: One more little knock at democracy.
The Chair: The question is now put. All in favour of Mr Morrow's motion?
Mrs Marland: A recorded vote, please.
The committee divided on Mr Morrow's motion, which was agreed to on the following vote:
Ayes -- 6
Cooper, Fletcher, Lessard, Mills, Morrow, O'Connor.
Nays -- 4
Carr, Marland, Poirier, Sorbara.
Mr Morrow: I have a motion that I would like to put on the floor, please.
Mrs Marland: Are you recognizing Mr Morrow again ahead of Mr Carr?
Mr Morrow: I was first, Margaret.
The Chair: Excuse me, Mrs Marland.
Mrs Marland: I cannot believe this.
The Chair: There were three hands here --
Mr Sorbara: Let him make his motion. We can deal with it in two seconds.
Mrs Marland: It is a sham.
The Chair: -- in whose direction I was brought.
Mrs Marland: Yes. Well, I am surprised. You have got something wrong with your hand.
Mr Morrow: Margaret, I had my hand up first. I watched.
Mr Carr: Go ahead, Margaret.
Mrs Marland: It is so biased.
Mr Morrow: I move adjournment of this committee until September 30.
Mrs Marland: You know, the one thing about chairmen of standing committees is that generally they are not biased. I think it is unfortunate. You have the votes to kill any motion we place anyway.
Mr Morrow: Do I have the floor, Mr Chair?
Mrs Marland: I think it is unfortunate what is going on here this morning. I have never seen it before.
The Chair: Mr Morrow, you have the floor.
Mr Morrow: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I repeat my motion.
The Chair: Mr Morrow moves adjournment of this committee until September 30. Any discussion?
Interjections.
The Chair: A motion to adjourn is not regularly debatable. However, when it has a date, it becomes debatable. Any debate? Mr Carr.
Mr Carr: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I guess I do not want to get into the situation of who got their hand up first. It was very clear. I came in this morning, I said I had a motion and had the courtesy of circulating it to the two opposition parties so they could see it. Let's face it. They can vote any way they want, getting on the record. The essence of the motion is there.
What I am upset about more than anything else is we try to rush through and get our hands up before the next guy because we do not want to be embarrassed by anything, yet at the same time we have a Premier who says that he wants to listen to the people, that his government is going to be different and when there are mistakes made will admit them. We see no change. We have still got the games that are being played in committees, where people come in to try and get motions because they are a little embarrassed about what might be said.
Very clearly the people of this province said this bill stinks, period, end of sentence. But instead of dealing with it, all we have done now is postpone it. The people of this province who came in, on both sides of the issue, whether they be the people for or against, said: "This bill is terrible. We don't want it. You need to make the changes necessary." Instead of admitting that, the government is trying to hide behind a veil of amendments that will change it. I do not think it can be done. I think this bill is so flawed, and I will bow to the judgement of some of the people who are lawyers, but I cannot see that any amendments are going to change this bill to make it any better.
Instead of fooling around and playing games in committee, going back now, I think what should happen is the government should admit it and say, "For whatever reason, we made mistakes, just like we did on the oath to the Queen, just like we did on the auto insurance bill," and at least be honest with the people. People would understand that.
It is like Margaret Marland when she was in with the chairman of TVOntario and he tried to defend the nine TVs in his office. Instead of saying, "I'm sorry. We made a mistake. It was wrong. I don't need nine TVs," the character tries to defend it, something that is undefendable, just like this piece of legislation. They try to defend it and it cannot be defended. It is so flawed that no amount of amendments are going to change the intent, whatever the intent was.
I guess what bothers me is we had a Premier in this province who went around during our committee hearings and said: "We're still for the common pause day. We're going to stick to it."
We had a Solicitor General who came in, who sat in that seat and did not realize what the people in this province had been saying. When I told him we would have Sunday shopping in this province, in the vast majority of places, and named the Niagaras and so on, the look on his face -- and I guess I have dealt with politicians enough; I know when somebody is saying something for one reason -- he was shocked. He did not even know what was happening in this committee.
Mr Chair, I will be voting against that. I had wanted at that time to talk about it. I guess it is just like what happened when this committee met and the Premier of this province stood up in the House and said over the conflict-of-interest bill: "We want to hear from the opposition parties. We want to have input." Less than two hours later Evelyn Gigantes, the member for Ottawa Centre, invoked the same amount of closure because they did not want to have debate, although the 30-second clip on the TV that night was of the Premier saying, "We're open, we're honest, we want to hear from the opposition parties." The reality is when you get in the committees, the fact is the opposite.
It is one of two things: Either they do not know what is going on in the committees or they do not care. I guess my feeling is that for this committee to now postpone and not talk about some of the debates of what a member wants to bring in, something that I think would be helpful, all we are saying is: "Go back and start over again. This piece of legislation is so flawed that nobody likes it in this province, but at least come clean with the people and be honest with them and tell them why you are going back and not have some type of charade as has gone on here this morning."
When I got into this as an opposition member and as a business person, I thought we were going to try and be constructive when you got into politics, but I guess I was living in a dream world when I actually thought that a member of the Legislative Assembly in the province of Ontario would have input on the committees, because obviously you do not. Whether it is conflict of interest or Sunday shopping, if it is not in their interests, what they will do is simply close you off and shut you down. That is all I have to say about that.
The Chair: Is it agreeable to committee members that we adjourn debate on this particular motion until 2 o'clock?
Interjections: No.
Mr O'Connor: Just keep sitting here. Just keep going.
Mrs Marland: No, it is agreeable.
Mr Morrow: No, it is not agreeable.
Mrs Marland: What do we need, unanimous agreement?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: Okay, well --
The Chair: It is not apparent, Mr Sorbara.
Mrs Marland: That is fine except for those of us who have appointments booked in now.
Mr Sorbara: I really cannot believe it. I will be speaking at some length on this motion, probably till about 5 o'clock when we adjourn for the day, and then perhaps for the next two or three days if it is necessary, unless the government shows some sort of indication that it just wants to be reasonable. Is it not reasonable that we simply have a lunch break, get back, wind up this discussion this afternoon and then go about our business? Why have you come here to wage war this morning? What is going on over there? We criticize you, we think appropriately, because you both postpone --
Mr Morrow: Mr Chairman, on a point of order: I know this is not a real point, but if you can give me two minutes so that I can have a chat with Mr Sorbara, I would very much appreciate it.
The Chair: Are you suggesting recessing for two minutes?
Mr Morrow: I would like a two-minute recess.
Mrs Marland: Excuse me, this is a sham. That is not a point of order and I am not going to sit here and tolerate it.
Mr Morrow: I just said it was not a point of order, did I not?
Mrs Marland: All right then, why did you raise it as a point of order?
The Chair: What we are looking at is some way of dealing with the business that is before us. Mr Morrow quite rightly pointed out that is not a point of order. However, he is attempting to resolve the situation with Mr Sorbara and Mr Carr, I am sure. It seems to be a reasonable suggestion that we recess for a couple of minutes in order for that to occur. Is that the will of the committee?
Mrs Marland: Not until I have spoken.
The Chair: You have.
Mrs Marland: Do you want me to raise a point of order and play the same game?
The Chair: We will recess for two minutes.
The committee recessed at 1213.
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The Chair: Is there unanimous consent to recess until 2 o'clock?
Mr Morrow: By agreeing to have lunch until 2 o'clock, can I verify that we do not lose the original motion on the floor?
The Chair: No. We pick up business where we left off.
Mr Morrow: Then you do have consent.
The Chair: Mr Carr spoke last, and after Mr Carr would be Mr Sorbara and then yourself.
Mr Morrow: You do have consent then.
The Chair: We have consent to recess until 2 o'clock.
The committee recessed at 1220.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1405.
The Chair: When we left off, Mr Carr had finished his remarks and Mr Sorbara and Mr Morrow wished to speak. I wonder if there are other people who wish to speak at this moment.
Mr Carr: To drag this out a bit so they can get here?
The Chair: Any further speakers?
Mr Poirier: What we are discussing right now is just prior to the vote on the main motion, as called for by the Vice-Chair, correct?
The Chair: The motion was to adjourn the committee until September 30.
Mr Poirier: That is right..
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, would you like to speak? You were on the list here.
Mr Sorbara: I am going to try to keep my remarks as brief as possible. Some of what I have to say on this motion will reiterate what I said earlier this morning. I can accept the government's request for a delay. I can accept the fact that the government needs more time to carve out what I hope will be a new position on the business of Sunday shopping. I guess the thing that disappoints and surprises me is that we have no indication today where the government is going on this bill. If it were just me, it would be insignificant. Who cares that I am at a loss to tell my own constituents what the bill on Sunday shopping is going to look like.
I want to tell you, Mr Chairman, that on Tuesday of last week I asked members of our caucus staff, our caucus research office, to get in touch with Mr Mills or the minister himself or someone in the minister's office to provide us with an indication of how the government was going to respond to what we heard during the public hearings. I will tell you in open committee the reason why we wanted that information.
We do not want a lot of political grandstanding on this bill. We accept that the government had a policy supporting the notion of a common pause day. We do not think the government has achieved that through its bill -- I think Mr Kormos's remarks this morning were as informative as any need be on that score -- but we accept the fact that you wanted to proceed with the bill. It was our view that if the government were willing to allow some more flexibility in the bill, we might be able to proceed very quickly through these clause-by-clause meetings that we were scheduled to begin today.
In other words, we accept the fact that the government wants to replace the law we put on the statute books of the province with something different. We accept the fact that you do not want to simply rehash our bill. But we tried to organize and arrange some sort of meeting with you, with Gord, with the minister, with the policy adviser or with the communications person, to see if there was some sort of accommodation that could be made so that we could move expeditiously through this part of the consideration of the bill.
We were hoping that perhaps the Dylex amendment would receive the support of the government. The Dylex amendment, as you recall, provides for the unfettered opportunity for retail businesses to open on Sunday during the Christmas period. I understand that would be difficult because Christmas shopping is anything but tourism; it is a completely different brand, if you like, of Sunday shopping.
We were also interested in seeing if the government would expand what we consider to be narrow criteria for allowing stores to open. We were looking for the addition of economic development as another basis upon which municipal councils could divert from the so-called common pause day. We were looking for, and continue to look for, the elimination of the arbitrary distinction between drugstores of 7,500 square feet or less and those which are 7,500 square feet or more.
We appreciate, I say to my friend Mr Fletcher, that this part of the act was a mistake our government made. We are responsible for that arbitrary distinction. We acknowledge as well that consideration of an amendment of that clause would have required unanimous consent of the committee, because technically we are not considering that section of the bill and would need unanimous consent to open up that chapter, if you like.
We were anxious to see whether the government would look at some other approaches to the hearings process, to expedite it and not put a big administrative burden on storekeepers, on store owners and the municipal councils that have to hear their applications.
All of these things I think emerge, in our view, from what we heard during the course of public hearings. Right now I am in the dark. I have no idea what the roadblock is and the public has no idea what the roadblock is. I want to tell my friends on the other side, and through the parliamentary assistant in particular, that we will wait by the phone for your call when you have things to discuss with us relating to this bill.
I obviously do not speak for the Tories, but for our part, a reasonable set of amendments arising from the general consensus, if I can go that far, that we need to be more open and more flexible in our regulation of Sunday shopping, would be welcome. If we had our druthers, I reiterate, we would simply abandon this bill and allow the municipal option as it now stands to be the law of the land, because we believe it is working.
If you choose to go that far, I reiterate, we will not make that shift in policy an embarrassing moment for you in the public context. In fact, we are willing to applaud you for a shift that I think responds to the public and to the requirements of the marketplace in most communities in Ontario. I plead with you not to leave this matter undecided for a very long time. My plea comes not on behalf of a political party, but on behalf of a community that is crying out for some certainty. Even if you want to go the whole route and close everyone down on Sunday, that will be better than lack of certainty. Storekeepers have to make arrangements for the way in which they are going to conduct their business.
We had for a while a sort of tourism exemption under the law that preceded Bill 113, and then we changed the law to a municipal option that we thought would allow individual communities to set their own patterns. Then the court threw that out, and then another court brought it back in, and then there was an election, and then the government determined to do something else, and today it says it is not sure where it is going. This is unfair to a part of our economy that is reeling with the economic downturn and the recession. It is so difficult to be competitive any more in the retail sector.
All of us heard the submissions from people in border communities about the fact that most people routinely cross the border now to buy their gasoline. I had a similar experience last night in north Toronto with the differential in the cost of gasoline as between any Ontario city and the cities in our border communities. I stopped at a gas station and beside me was a tourist who had come from Cleveland, Ohio, for a few days, including for the purpose of seeing a performance of the Phantom of the Opera. As he was pumping his gas I was going by him, and as he saw the numbers click up he said to me, "How much does this darn stuff cost anyway?" I said, "It's right there, 55 cents a litre." "How much is that for me?" In other words, how much in American dollars and in US gallons. I said, "About $2.40 a gallon." You could almost hear his heart skip a beat.
We know from our experience that in Windsor, Sarnia, often Thunder Bay, Cornwall and so many other border communities, people routinely leave their own communities, cross an international border to buy gasoline and cigarettes and beverage alcohol and perhaps a jug of milk and perhaps a toaster oven and so many other things. This is having a terrible impact on the retail businesses in those communities and elsewhere. They need certainty. They need to know the context in which they are going to have to compete. They are going to need to know whether or not they are going to be able to open their doors on Sunday to a marketplace which is indisputably there. It is this government that is going to make that decision and this committee that is going to have an impact on that decision.
The urgency is real, although my friend Fletcher from Guelph would pretend it is not. For example, a number of municipalities, including Hamilton-Wentworth and Niagara, are about to consider passing bylaws under the existing act to allow more opportunities for storekeepers to open. That is happening right now in municipal councils around the province. So you are not surprised, I should hope, that I say to you that people need to know the government's position.
It is now time for a decision. It is now time to make choices. I hope and pray that your choice reflects a more open, more flexible policy to allow the marketplace and individual communities to set the pattern. I agree wholeheartedly that the interests of retail workers have to be right at the centre of whatever we do, but we have the opportunity to strike off on a new course. I plead with my friends on the government side to encourage the Solicitor General, his cabinet colleagues and your caucus colleagues to do what is right, to come back to this table even before September 30 -- we will be willing to do that if you can get it together that quickly -- with amendments that allow the businesses in this province, the retail businesses in particular, to compete in a fair and effective way.
I really am terribly disappointed, not so much for the delay but that the delay was accompanied by a stark and ominous silence. You have cast uncertainty on to the marketplace, and uncertainty is the one thing the marketplace cannot long tolerate. The time for making decisions has already passed. We hope you will discharge your responsibilities and allow us to proceed with this bill in whatever form as soon as possible.
Mr Morrow: I appreciate being given the chance to say a few comments. If we look at both opposition parties, neither opposition party has basically spoken to the motion or the date, so therefore at this point I would like to call the question.
Mr Sorbara: You guys are absolute cowards. Let's vote. You cannot even let this motion be debated and allow MPPs who have come here this afternoon to debate the bill to have their say. That is a cowardly act.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, please.
Mr Sorbara: It is disgusting; closure on day one. You guys are in for it. Put the question. This is not debatable. Let's have the vote.
Mrs Marland: Do you realize that only Mr Sorbara has spoken to your motion?
Mr Fletcher: You spoke.
Mrs Marland: I did not speak to this motion. This is your second motion.
Mr Sorbara: The cowards have spoken.
The Chair: Excuse me --
Mrs Marland: I am just informing him informally that no one has spoken from our party on this motion, Mr Morrow.
The Chair: Mr Carr has spoken. Mr Poirier spoke on a matter of clarification, not on the motion.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, you are required to put that motion now.
The Chair: Excuse me, I am not.
Mrs Marland: No, you did not speak on this motion.
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The Chair: Yes, he did. Mr Poirier asked a question of clarification. He did not speak on the motion. Is it your intent to speak on the motion, Mrs Marland?
Mrs Marland: Yes.
The Chair: Please go ahead.
Mrs Marland: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Interjections.
The Chair: I am sorry, but my ruling is simple and it is that we have not had an adequate opportunity for you to speak. Mrs Marland, please go ahead.
Mrs Marland: I appreciate that very much, Mr Chairman. It is unfortunate the government members do not wish to hear what the opposition has to say.
Mr Cooper: I do.
Mr Mills: I do.
Mrs Marland: Yes, thank you for saying it. It is funny, this morning we had seven members and now we are down to three government members.
It almost seems that sitting as a member of this committee today is an exercise in futility. When each one of us is elected to serve our constituencies as a member in this Legislature, each one of us is given both a privilege and a tremendous opportunity. It is ironic to sit here and witness what is going on by the government members of this committee, who by their own party platform say that they are the protectors of the people. You would think nobody ever cared about people until their party came into office as government in this province. They lay claim to be the only people with compassion, the only people for workers' rights, injured or otherwise, yet they are willing to say that it is okay to lose another two weeks and continue the chaos on the subject of Sunday shopping that exists today in this province. We have already had two weeks and now you want to delay it a further two weeks.
If you listen to your own source of support, if you listen to the people who I assume voted you into office, it would not take you a month to write amendments to make this bill at least support their viewpoint. The amendments may not be amendments we can support, but at least your own amendments, some of them, must be very straightforward for you to prepare, because you know the viewpoint you want to represent and you know the people's concerns you want to focus on.
It is funny, but I was just reading some notes on this bill and I did not remember what the former Solicitor General, Mike Farnan, had said in the Toronto Sun on June 8. Apparently he admitted that worker protection provisions of the bill are flawed and that it will be difficult to protect workers who refuse to work Sundays. For a political party, now the government of this province, which claims its whole reason to be in office is to protect people, and in particular from things we hear constantly from this government to protect workers, how could you not have brought forward an amendment, if it was possible to amend this bill, to cover even that concern alone?
I am quite sure the two opposition parties were not asking you to bring all your amendments today. It certainly happened in the past that we have not received all three parties' amendments on the first day you start doing the real work of the committee, which is making amendments to legislation to try to make it work.
We happen to feel this bill is so bad that it cannot be amended to make it work. But I am sure, since it is your bill and you drafted it, that you must think it can work. Is it not rather ironic that if you do not have amendments today, perhaps you think the bill is okay? That is always a possibility. The bill was drafted with your direction. It was drafted based on a lot of information that existed from last year and the year before that and the year before that. Nothing has changed except the government, the government that professes to care for the people who work in this province, the government whose party professed to care about a common pause day to protect people who chose not to work on Sundays, and yet this same government introduces a piece of legislation that does not protect the very people you promised in each one of your campaigns a mere year ago that you would protect.
I notice also that the new Solicitor General, Allan Pilkey, told this committee that the NDP will not budge on the principle of a common pause day. The quote is from the Toronto Star, August 16, 1991, and the quote attributable to Mr Pilkey is, "The principle of a common pause day is not up for negotiation." Well, if your Solicitor General, whose bill it is, has made some statements that now are being questioned, how is it that you cannot address what is being questioned? How is it that you cannot get on with the business of proceeding with this bill?
The fact is that the question of a common pause day is up for negotiation. It is up for negotiation every Sunday in every month in this province today. You know what is going on across this province, and whether you are for or against a common pause day as individuals, you hold a very real responsibility to those people who elected you. Maybe you have not done what I have done. To my knowledge, I am the only member in the Legislature who held a public forum on Sunday shopping, the only one. I challenge any one of you who is going to be voting on this closure motion for the next two weeks of silence on behalf of the government to tell me how you have canvassed those people who voted for you in your ridings. What kind of canvass have you done? Have you held a public forum on Sunday shopping? Have you sent out a questionnaire? What have you done to find out what the people who put you in this privileged office want you to do about Sunday shopping?
If you do not have that answer, then I say with respect to my friend the parliamentary assistant, do you have the intestinal fortitude to vote to represent those people who gave you this privilege as a member of provincial Parliament? If you do not know what your constituents want, then you do not have a right to vote to put off this issue for a further two weeks on top of the two weeks that has already passed when normally in any committee that I have worked on, after two months and three months of hearings, we have had the amendments prepared within one week.
We are in a situation where Sunday by Sunday people are forced to break the law because municipalities are at variance with their neighbour municipalities. We have such a zoo out there where the municipalities individually have the choices. They have the choices about tourist exemptions, and they have the choices about whether or not they will pass bylaws on individual types of retailing or exempt individual types of retailing. We have such a mess that I think to sit back and say: "Well, we will put it off. We will have a month." I do not hear any motion today that says that on September 30 you are going to bring in amendments, and that is the part I find appalling, because as was said earlier this morning, we do not know what your opinion is or where you are coming from except from these trumpeted messages that keep coming down from the whip's office.
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I would like to see you strong enough as individuals to decide that you have an obligation to vote on this committee to get on with the business you were elected to do, and to defer something for a whole month from the end of public hearings is not a businesslike approach, I suggest to you. If you want to prove that you are a responsible government, then get your business hat on and act in a businesslike fashion. That does not mean that a whole month after public hearings you may bring in amendments. I would like to ask the parliamentary assistant if this motion before us now, the deferral of dealing with amendments till September 30, means that on September 30 he will have amendments before this committee?
Mr Mills: All things going well, I believe that is the intent.
Mrs Marland: That is the intent.
Mr Mills: I think that -- oh, I must not speak.
Mrs Marland: No, I am asking a question through the Chair, so it is in order for you to answer.
Mr Mills: I think there are a lot of concerns being shown here that in my opinion are not warranted. I would just like to say one thing. You ask me, "Have you polled your people before you answer this?" I would like to tell you for the record that I write a column for the Canadian Statesman, the Orono Weekly Times, the Port Perry Star, the Scugog Citizen, the Courtice News, and all those newspapers cover the length and breadth of my riding.
Some time ago, when this was a big issue, I said to the folks out there: "I want to know. Everybody wants to have Sunday shopping, but nobody wants to work on Sunday. How do you feel about it?" I must say -- it may be unique -- that the response in my riding has been very low-keyed and almost negative. For my own riding, Sunday shopping has not come across as the all-engrossing issue we perhaps tend to think it is. I tell you that honestly, Margaret. You can count on two hands the people who have approached me through this outreach approach to all my constituents, "What do you think about it?" They have not come to me. Thank you, Mr Chair.
Mrs Marland: Thank you for that answer, Gord. I do believe that in your case you are being quite open about that. It is interesting, however, how your own position actually is contradictory to Vice-Chair Mark Morrow's position. He said this morning that this is such a big issue, is so important that this is why you are not rushing the amendments and that is why you do not have the amendments here today, because it is such a big deal and we are going to spend a whole month preparing the amendments. Obviously he has one opinion and you have another.
Mr Mills: I am just talking from a personal perspective about that issue.
Mrs Marland: I know. It is the personal perspective that you are elected to be honest about, and I appreciate that is what you are doing in what you just said. But what I am saying is anybody who thinks it is not important, especially in the kind of economy that we have today in Ontario, is out to lunch.
I say with respect that we cannot assume the general public all buy these newspapers. I would not be so presumptuous in Mississauga to even -- it would be Alice in Wonderland for me to think that everybody in Mississauga reads the Mississauga News, although it is a good newspaper. To find out what the opinion is on Sunday shopping, if we really want to represent the people who elect us, then we have to go to those people directly and not ask them through a newspaper column. If Gord has done that, at least he has done something, but the fact remains that here we are with work to do and obviously all I can assume is that this was an important issue for this government.
My goodness, this government brought down few enough bills in its first eight months in the Legislature in any case, so if Sunday shopping was not a priority, why did it bother bringing in this bill in the first place? I would suggest to you that it was a priority for this government and it thought that maybe it could dance and doodle around with the mess that the Liberal government left and in so doing, it made it a priority.
Of the few bills of any significance this government brought to the House in the first year of being in office, it chose Sunday shopping. If it is not important, then why would it prioritize the order of business in the House to get it through, get it out for committee hearings, and now, whoopee, we sit for a month with no work done on it?
Suddenly it is not a priority, and as I said this morning, it is probably like automobile insurance: Maybe we are not going the right way. Then why do you not come out honestly, front and centre, and say: "I guess maybe we are not going the right way. We heard from the public and there are a lot of things in this bill that will not work. It is possibly unenforceable." I am not assuming it is, but possibly it is unenforceable, possibly you have heard people say that, so suddenly, would it not be great if you decided: "It is not really that we need a month to look at it. It is not really that we need a month to develop amendments. It is really that we are changing our position"? I would be quite accepting of that.
It is much better to admit that a position is changed. I think when the cabinet comes out and announces it is going to legislate the TTC back to work, that is probablu going to be a red letter day in the Premier's office because he will have seen the light from a party position that a year ago he would probably never ever have possibly imagined in six Sundays in one month would ever happen. But the reality of government is that things do happen and things do change, and you are a much bigger giant in everybody's eyes if you say, "We were wrong about that. We have decided now that this is not the way to go, and we would like to look at protecting our workers in a realistic way because that is what we promised them when we ran for election," instead of another series of meaningless, broken promises, which this bill represents. It is a nothing bill, and you know that.
If it is so bad that it takes you a month to develop the amendments, does that not tell you what a great bill it is? If it is such a good bill, it would not take you a month to write the amendments to it. I have never heard of spending a month to prepare amendments to a bill. Why do you not just scrap the whole thing and come back with something rewritten that does what you want it to do and what you promised the people of Ontario you would do on the subject of Sunday shopping? It may not be what I would do, but at least you take your own position about what the people of Ontario want and not something that you are going to spend a month preparing amendments to.
I am totally opposed to this deferral to September 30 because I would rather we got on with the business today and say, "This bill is not what we need," and accept the motion of my colleague, the critic for the Solicitor General, the member for Oakville South, Gary Carr. His motion makes a great deal of sense. You all have a copy of it, and you would end up then with a chance to start again and perhaps get it right this time.
Mr Carr: I will just add a couple of quick points. The problem the government is facing, as I see it, probably is twofold: One, how do we make changes to a bill that is so obviously flawed, and two -- and I think more important -- how do we now communicate our changed position?
I think it is unfortunate in this day and age that we spend more time, rather than getting the bill right, thinking how are we going to try and sell this message and communicate it so that we do not look like we have back-directed, to make it look like we have not broken our commitment.
It was interesting. Over lunch I was reading the speech from the throne. I must admit it was not an exciting lunch, but during the reading of it, during the speech from the throne, they said the government was going to listen to the opposition parties. It is interesting. We are coming up on just about a year since that throne speech was written. For those of you who do not remember -- I looked at the date because I had trouble remembering -- it was November, and very clearly, in a year's time, we have gone from listening to the opposition to trying to invoke closure because you do not want to take the political heat of what somebody might say about you.
As I was sitting there, I was reflecting on what I think government is and what leadership is all about. Leadership is action. Leadership is not position. It is not rhetoric that is left hollow. Leadership is action. So as one individual, I am looking forward to it.
As I mentioned before, I do not think any amendments can come in that will make this bill acceptable, but we will try and work with the government when it brings them forward, whenever that may be, to try to make the improvements that are necessary so that we have a bill that is workable. The commitment we have is that when you do bring them in, we will attempt to take a look at them and see what can be salvaged from this bill.
The only other point I would make is this: I appreciate the candour with which some of the people like our friend Mr Kormos came here today. There are some people who are prepared to stand up and say some things which might not be popular with the cabinet and the Premier of the day, but they are things that need to be said. I think we would all be well served if we listened to some of those comments.
Remember, as we go forward here, I will be looking forward to the amendments and what improvements can be done, and at that time we will attempt to make any changes we feel will be necessary. Good luck to you because I think you are going to have one difficult task.
The Chair: No further discussion? All in favour of Mr Morrow's motion?
Mrs Marland: A recorded vote, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: A request for a recorded vote: Mr Morrow's motion is that he moves adjournment of this committee until September 30.
Mr Morrow: That was defeated.
The Chair: The closure motion was defeated, or it was ruled out of order. I ruled it out of order. The motion before us is the motion to adjourn until September 30. Mrs Marland has requested a recorded vote.
The committee divided on Mr Morrow's motion, which was agreed to on the following vote:
Ayes -- 6
Cooper, Fletcher, Lessard, Mills, Morrow, O'Connor.
Nays -- 4
Carr, Marland, Poirier, Sorbara.
The Chair: Thank you. We are adjourned until September 30. However, the subcommittee should remain after our adjournment.
The committee adjourned at 1444.