CONTENTS
Tuesday 22 November 1994
Subcommittee report
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)
Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)
*Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
*Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
*Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)
*Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
*Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Iles ND)
*Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Jamison, Norm (Norfolk ND) for Mr Bisson
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND) for Ms Haeck
Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna
Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1540 in committee room 1.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): I'd like to report to the committee that:
"Your subcommittee met on November 19, 1994, for the purposes of organization and recommended the following:
"1. That subject to consultation with the sponsor, the committee proceed with clause-by-clause review of private member's Bill 89, An Act to amend the Health Protection and Promotion Act." The clerk did speak to Mr Tilson, but perhaps we'll have your comment at the end of the reading of the other recommendations.
"2. That prior to the committee proceeding with final review of the victims of crime report under SO 125, the clerk of the committee consult with the designating member of the report." On that, "The designating member would like further review at the subcommittee level prior to final review by the committee." That's what Mr Jackson requested.
"(3) That prior to the committee proceeding with consideration of private member's Bill 168, An Act to ensure Equal Access to Post-Secondary Education, Transportation and Other Services and Facilities for Ontarians with Disabilities, that the Minister of Citizenship be invited to appear before the committee to provide a coordinated briefing on behalf of her ministry and others affected such as Education and Transportation; and that the opposition critics be invited to attend the briefing."
Those were the recommendations that flowed from that subcommittee. Discussion?
Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): A couple of comments with respect to the first item, which is Bill 89. I have been meeting with a number of the emergency service workers since this was last before this committee. In fact as late as today at noon, the firefighters' associations are meeting in the Royal York Hotel, and I attended at that function and discussed this topic with them.
The ministry has put out a booklet called Communicable Disease Control which has to do with the mandatory guidelines that members of the committee may remember were discussed by Dr Schabas. I don't think it's necessary that the committee go through the clause-by-clause review of Bill 89 as was suggested. Having discussed with some of the emergency services workers, I'm content that this package is acceptable, this book of mandatory guidelines.
However, I believe that since the committee went to the trouble of holding public hearings on this matter and hearing a number of individuals from medical officers of health, Dr Schabas and other groups, at the very least Dr Schabas or someone from his staff should come and make a presentation to the committee as to the results of his deliberations with some of the parties involved, particularly the emergency service workers. There were a number of police workers, firefighter workers, and I think the ambulance people were involved, who all were involved with respect to this package. I would expect members of the committee would want to be satisfied that they are content with this package.
I would rather the subcommittee's report be amended that rather than the committee proceed with clause-by-clause review, Dr Richard Schabas be invited to attend before the committee, or his designate, to review this package.
I had one other comment on another matter, which I don't think the --
The Chair: Let's deal with that first.
Mr Tilson: On the list of bills, looking at the package that the clerk has given to us, you'll recall that there has been a bill that's been before this committee for some time, and that is Bill 3, which is An Act to provide for Access to Information relating to the affairs of Teranet Land Information Services Inc.
This matter received second reading in the House, I believe back in September 1993. I could be corrected, but it was certainly some time ago. Of course, it was introduced back in the spring of 1993, and that bill was not proceeded on at my suggestion, mainly because of discussions I had with some of the ministry officials. My concern since those discussions is that I have heard very little from the ministry concerning Teranet. As well, I am continuing to receive criticism, particularly from people in the legal community and the surveying community, criticizing this process.
I would ask the members of the committee that we continue on -- I think this is one of the oldest bills that's before the committee -- that we proceed to spend some time with public hearings on this bill.
Mr David Winninger (London South): I was having a quick conversation with the clerk. Is Mr Tilson asking that we proceed with public hearings on Bill 3?
Mr Tilson: Yes.
Mr Winninger: I thought now that there had been an agreement to fully release the text of all the legal agreements involving Teranet, and that while earlier the freedom of information commissioner had taken a more restrictive approach based on appeals that have been made to his office, now that the Teranet legal agreements have been made fully available to any requester since December 1993, there wasn't any need to proceed with Bill 3 and there now was a basis for providing information on the partnership arrangement on a much more comprehensive basis.
I guess I would throw it back to Mr Tilson and ask him why, even in the face of the much more open disclosure that requesters now get, there's really any need to proceed with Bill 3?
Mr Tilson: You may recall how this issue developed was that there were no parts of the agreement that were released and it all stemmed from a television program, I think it was W5, which questioned the secrecy of this whole process, even going back to the tendering processes as to how the successful bidder of Real/Data succeeded on this project. After considerable pressure from the media and others, you are quite right, those agreements were made public.
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This bill goes much further than that. This bill refers to all records within the meaning of the legislation. If you read the bill, it's a very brief bill, it's only three or four sections, and I'll just repeat very briefly:
"...request all records within the meaning of that act that,
"(a) are in the custody or under the control of the crown; and
"(b) relate to the affairs of Teranet Information Services Inc or the agreement between the minister and Real/Data Ontario Inc dated the 15th day of February 1991."
You're right, the original agreements have been released, but this piece of legislation goes much further than that. The concern that I'm sure all members of the House have is that this government and other governments across this land are getting into more joint ventures with public groups and the public are concerned about the control or the accountability between the government and those particular groups. This is just one of them, and it's a very large area.
The impact on our society with respect to the computerization and the involvement with respect to private corporations is quite substantial, and I'm not going to start going through the debate that we've had in the House on many occasions, and in this committee on many occasions, other than the fact that I think because of the concerns that continue to come forward and, quite frankly, the lack of report in the House on the progress of this particular company, I'm even more certain than I was when I first introduced this bill that this type of information should be made available, and hopefully would be used as a precedent for other matters, such as casinos.
We're getting into all kinds of joint ventures with private corporations, and all of these matters will have to be pursued in the future. I again repeat that I believe there should be some time with public hearings to review this piece of legislation.
Mr Winninger: I just want to say that if we had all the legislative time in the world, we could have hearings on every one of the bills before the committee, but it seems to me that a lot of progress has been made towards disclosure and that Mr Tilson hasn't up till now seen fit to want to move this bill forward again, so I don't think it could be too pressing or urgent.
But now, for example, we have Bill 168 before the committee, An Act to ensure Equal Access to Post-Secondary Education, Transportation and Other Services and Facilities for Ontarians with Disabilities, sponsored by Mr Malkowski. I, for one, would like to see public hearings on that bill, and I think that's got very widespread impact. It's very timely and I think worthy of this committee's attention, rather than to rehash Teranet where considerable progress has already been made outside of this committee.
The Chair: Mr Harnick, on the same issue. You may all decide to comment on all of the matters before you or simply stick to the issue of Bill 89, and I suspect there's no disagreement about that, or Bill 3, how that meets with our desire perhaps to deal with Bill 168. You might bring the whole thing in or just comment individually.
Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): Yes, I shall. Mr Tilson has been quite clear about how he would like to proceed with Bill 89, to deal with the issues brought up, and I think we should do that.
The next issue really is what we do with Bill 3, and it's Mr Tilson's bill. It's been around forever and he now wants to proceed in a certain way, which he is entitled to do. I think that the way this committee has always worked, at least since I've been here, is that we do it on the basis of which bill was delivered to the committee first. Clearly Bill 3 is the bill that was delivered first, and Mr Tilson, as the sponsor of that bill, is entitled to proceed with it as he sees fit.
I don't think, with all due respect to Mr Winninger, that what we really are deciding here is which bill is more meritorious, Bill 3 or Bill 168. The issue is that Mr Tilson has a private member's bill before this committee, it was delivered before any of the other bills, and he has now made a firm decision as to how he wishes to proceed. The procedures of this committee would dictate that that bill take priority because it's the next one in sequence. I'm not saying that Mr Tilson's bill is more important or less important than Mr Malkowski's bill, because that's not the issue.
The issue is that Mr Tilson, as a member of this committee, has every right to have his bill heard, and the protocol of the committee is to hear these bills in order of when they arrive at the committee, so I don't think there's really an issue here to discuss. We do Bill 89, we do Bill 3 and then we move on to Mr Jackson's 125 and complete that, and when that's done, in sequence, we then deal with Mr Malkowski's bill.
The Chair: If I can comment -- I've got two speakers, Ms Harrington and Mr Murphy -- two things: What Mr Harnick is saying is normally the way things would happen, but it doesn't prevent a committee making different kinds of decisions. That's the other matter.
Mr Harnick: I don't think --
The Chair: If I can, Mr Harnick. Hold on. The other point is, what none of you have discussed is --
Mr Harnick: On a point of order.
The Chair: I'd like to finish the sentence first, before we deal with that other matter. Some of you may also want to discuss how all of these might fit into the present time that we've got or during the intersession. None of you have talked about that or the kind of timing that you might want for each. It's quite possible that we could do all of them and none of you have talked about that. You might want to talk about how many days you might want to allow for these items to be dealt with. If you can deal with some of those issues in that context, we might be able to deal with all of them. Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: I appreciate the Chair's position in all of this. However, I don't think that it's proper that we all of a sudden decide that we are going to deal with these matters on the basis of a vote of the committee. Because if that's the case, you're setting a very dangerous precedent, the precedent being that the only ones who get to be heard are the government members, because they have more people on the committee.
The fact is the protocol of this committee has always been that we do these things in order of the way that they're filed. Clearly Bill 3 is a lot earlier than Bill 168, and if we're ever going to clean up the docket of this committee, particularly now that it looks like we're not going to be receiving any public bills, we should be doing it in the order of the usual protocol of the committee.
Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): I just want to comment on these three items. First of all, Bill 89: You asked, I believe, Mr Tilson, if you could have Dr Schabas appear before the committee. Is that correct?
The Chair: That's what he's asking.
Ms Harrington: You asked for Dr Schabas to come before the committee?
Mr Tilson: I haven't asked him but I would hope that the Chair would.
Ms Harrington: You're requesting. Okay.
The Chair: Yes, he was requesting that we invite Dr Schabas to come, for an hour presumably. Is that it?
Mr Tilson: Sometime, whether it requires the whole afternoon I don't know.
Ms Harrington: As far as I'm concerned, I think that might be possible. I think we would obviously have to look at his schedule as well before we go ahead and book anything like that. If it's an hour or whatever, I have no problem with that.
Mr Tilson: It may not have to be Dr Schabas. It could be someone -- Dr Schabas or a member of his staff.
The Chair: It shouldn't be a problem. We should be able to get him.
Ms Harrington: Secondly, with regard to Bill 3, it's my understanding that Teranet has gone into effect some time ago, and it's all open, the agreements are there for everyone to look at. I don't believe at this time that we should take up the time of this committee to deal with that particular bill. I believe the ministry is available to you to answer any of your questions and to work with you on this. Therefore, I would like to, as soon as possible, start Bill 168.
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Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): Generally, I think I agree with Mr Harnick and the subcommittee report, basing it primarily on our having a tradition of dealing with bills as they've been presented or referred to the committee by the House, and in fact it relates not to what the bills are but to the order. In fact, on Bill 3, I think it was probably the Liberal government that set up Teranet, if I'm not mistaken.
Mr Tilson: Mr Kormos.
Mr Murphy: Yes, some people created some embarrassment for the previous Liberal government on the issue. But in the tradition that we do deal with bills in the order presented on the basis of the wishes of the member, I think it makes sense then, on that basis, to deal with Bill 3, then Bill 89, for whatever amount of time is appropriate. Given the bill, I suspect just an afternoon or two probably would be sufficient for Bill 3. An afternoon probably would be sufficient for Bill 89.
As to the victims of crime report, I'd actually like to see a way through to have the committee spend more time on it. I gather that there is an interest in terms of -- I know there's only three minutes left in the 125, but I'm wondering whether we can't get more time on that report through a standing order 108 or whatever the mechanisms are that would allow us to schedule time on the topic at our own discretion to a certain degree, or make a request as a committee to the House leaders to get more time.
I think it's an important issue. We've spent a lot of time on it and it would be helpful, I think, to complete the report in the context of the rising concern about crime and the role of victims. I think that's worthwhile and I think, in the sense of scheduling the order, I see this recommendation number three in terms of Bill 168 and I think that makes sense. I'd like to hear that briefing and then proceed from there.
The Chair: Mr Tilson, how long do you think we need to deal with Bill 3? Do you have a sense of that?
Mr Tilson: As I said, with respect to the communicable disease control, an afternoon or less. It shouldn't take that long for Dr Schabas to make that presentation.
The Chair: Bill 3?
Mr Tilson: With respect to Bill 3, I would think that the public hearings would take no more than two days with two afternoons.
Mr Murphy: You could probably do the whole thing, clause-by-clause and all of it, in two days.
Mr Tilson: Yes, two days: one afternoon for hearings and one afternoon for clause-by-clause.
The Chair: All right, just to get a sense of that. We didn't get a sense of Bill 168. Once we hear the ministers or their staff talk about this, I guess at that point we might determine what time we would need for that without giving a sense of commitment now. Anyway, having a sense of that, Mr Winninger.
Mr Winninger: I didn't mean to diminish Bill 3 in any sense. It's just that bills come before this committee and, quite frankly, I think the opposition parties have used a fair amount of time on this committee dealing with standing order 125 referrals dealing with private members' bills.
I can remember a time when Mr Tilson said he didn't want to move on Bill 3; he wanted to move on Bill 89 or he wanted to move on something else. It seems to me that if you just stick with the order of precedence here, any member of the committee can at any time, if he or she doesn't like another bill or has some hesitancy about the voting time to another bill, say, "I want to pull up my bill now."
I think there's a problem with that and I think, given the amount of progress that has been made with respect to Bill 3 and given that we don't have a lot of time available for committee hearings, it's more appropriate that we deal with Bill 168.
There are other bills, I know, that are before the committee, but opposition members have voluntarily withdrawn them. I'm thinking of Bill 56, for example, Mr Harnick's bill, that at one time we were very anxious to proceed with, but -- technically he didn't withdraw it, but he voiced his desire to withdraw it. So it seems to me that this committee --
Mr Murphy: Exactly. In that case you proceeded --
Mr Winninger: It seems to me that this committee cannot be bound just by the order in which bills come before the committee. We have a little more discretion when it comes to considering how we're going to use the time that's available. We have two weeks left, I believe, that this committee can sit, and it would seem to me, other than time that Mr Tilson has requested to deal with Bill 89, having Richard Schabas appear before the committee, which some people say might take as little as one hour, that it would be appropriate that the committee devote the rest of its time to hearing from the ministries on Bill 168 and any individuals or groups from the public who want to present on 168.
Mr Tilson: I just have a couple of comments in response to your remarks and Ms Harrington's remarks. This bill was introduced long after Mr Kormos, when he was Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, signed the agreement, and I must confess it was because of everything that surrounded that and the television program W5 and all of the discussion, if I can just remind you. All of that came into being, and there was the fear of lack of accountability on this whole topic.
That's why the bill was introduced and that's why it got the support of the House on second reading and that's why it's before this committee. The House felt that there was an issue of concern with respect to accountability on something of this nature, so that your comment that the contracts were long since signed, of course that's the case, that's why the bill was introduced.
It took a television program and a lot of bantering on the part of the opposition to get the contracts released. The bill goes much further than the contracts. So I can only say to your remarks, when you say "the progress that's been made," the reason why it was delayed some time ago was that I had a meeting with some of the ministry staff in my office and I was persuaded that it wouldn't be appropriate to bring this matter forward, that there was progress being made.
But that was some time ago and there hasn't been any progress made on this whole issue. I'm just guessing at time; it certainly exceeds a year and that is why it is being brought forward at this time. You must remember we've had some very controversial pieces of legislation before this committee, government legislation, and that's why everything else has been put on hold.
Quite frankly the comment that was made by Mr Harnick that it has been precedent-setting, that the rule goes and you've said the comment, "There's no reason why all of these matters can't be dealt with in the time allotted." I'm just simply saying that my bill was introduced back in 1993. It received second reading in 1993. All of these other pieces of legislation have received second reading in 1994. Why should my bill take a back seat to these other pieces of legislation? It's just as valuable as the others in different ways and that was deemed by the House.
I'm saying that there has been a precedent set in this committee. There has been a precedent set in every committee in this place that you take it in order, and, obviously, Bill 3, by the very nature, is much higher than these other bills.I'm simply saying that I think it's reasonable that there be public hearings for a day. I think it's reasonable, like any other bill, that there be clause-by-clause and that that could take a day. With respect, Mr Chair, I would hope that you would use your position of Chair to support the practice of this committee and that we take those in order of precedence.
Ms Harrington raised the issue of Dr Schabas, whether he or another member of his staff is available. That's quite reasonable. Whether that's first or not, I think that should be then followed by Bill 3, followed by the remainder of Mr Jackson's issue.
I understand that he wished to approach the subcommittee with an effort of receiving unanimous consent because of all of the concern about victims of crime, particularly in 1994, and all of the issues that have been going on with victims of crime. He wanted further time for this committee to deliberate on that issue, and he may have some more things to say about that. I'm not a member of the subcommittee and perhaps a member of the subcommittee could talk on that. Then I think there would be plenty of time to deal with Bill 168.
The Chair: Does the committee have a sense of requiring some time to reflect on this, maybe five minutes, or are you ready to continue?
Mr Murphy: Can I ask a question? Not a speech; a question.
The Chair: I've got other speakers though. I was just wondering whether you would want to take five minutes to talk to each other.
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Mr Murphy: If I can, what I wanted to know, in order to be able to answer the question you just put, is actually what the counterproposal is. Is it to do away with --
The Chair: I think the argument Mr Winninger is making --
Mr Murphy: -- to go straight to Bill 168 and not do any of these? It's just I'm not clear.
The Chair: Mr Winninger, the question that Mr Murphy was asking is, is it your intention or preference to proceed with Bill 168 first and then Bill 3 or not to deal with Bill 3? That's the question he's posing.
Mr Murphy: And what the concept of the ordering of business seems to be.
Mr Winninger: The motion that I was going to put forward was to deal with Bill 89 for an hour or so, to have Richard Schabas come in and then to spend the rest of the time available over the next two weeks dealing with Bill 168. That was the motion that I was going to put to the committee.
Ms Harrington: And make sure that the ministry works with Mr Tilson with regard to his concerns around Bill 3.
Mr Harnick: May I make a compromise?
Mr Winninger: I thought that was.
Mr Harnick: May I suggest that we deal with Bill 89 and then Bill 3 and then leave Mr Jackson's 125 out of the mix for now and go immediately into Bill 168? We then will have a briefing on Bill 168 which will tell us exactly how extensive the hearing process need be. We will then be in a position to dictate our time, and I suspect we're coming back here in January anyway, aren't we? I mean we've got the whole month of January to deal with Bill 168. Wouldn't that be the logical way to do it? We've got to have the ministry briefing to understand what the ramifications of the bill are because it deals with several ministries.
Mr Murphy: I think there's some sense to that. I'm not familiar with the details of Mr Malkowski's bill, but by virtue of the title, we've got post-secondary education, transportation and other services and facilities. It's pretty clear it's a fairly broad bill that deals with a lot of ministries, a lot of services, and there is some logic to getting a sense of the scope of matters that deal with what and whether those various services of ministries, facilities and affected parties will want to come forward, what kind of notification we'll have to give to affected parties who might want to come forward.
It makes some sense to have a briefing from the ministry prior to scheduling all of that time, and I think Mr Harnick's right that we do have January and at the very least, I think to be fair to the people who are affected, both within the disabled community, ARCH and others, and also to affected facilities and services, that they have time to review the bill and assess its impact before we go ahead. I mean we can't just start it next week and assume that people are going to be ready or even have a sense of what the impact of the bill is.
The Chair: Just to give an opinion from the Chair, it's very difficult not to deal with bills as they come before us and, if the member decides that they want their bill to be dealt with, it's very hard for the Chair to say that we should just allow the committee to decide the order of these bills. That puts me in a difficult position.
So I'm suggesting that we deal with the practice in the way that we have, that we do deal with Bill 89 first, and I presume Mr Schabas would be available for that, and that we take the two days to hear some folks and then do the clause-by-clause and then have the one day where we hear the minister or ministry dealing with Bill 168 and, after that, decide whether or not how long we want in the intersession to deal with Bill 168. I would propose that to the committee.
Mr Harnick: Agreed.
Mr Winninger: I can accept that approach only in part, but I reject the other part, and I don't want to repeat myself on this. I don't think any member of this committee has a problem with having Dr Schabas come and speak to the Bill 89 matter, and that shouldn't take a lot of time.
The best information I have is that whatever concerns Mr Tilson has at this stage can be dealt with outside the purview of this committee, can be dealt with in direct communication or as a question in the House or whatever. But given the amount of time that's available before the end of the sitting, it's appropriate that we deal with Bill 168, and I'm advised that at least --
Mr Harnick: You're taking his rights away.
Mr Winninger: Can I complete what I'm saying? I'm advised that at least two of the three ministries affected by Bill 168 are prepared to come before this committee as early as next week, and the third one is presently being contacted. So I don't think there's a problem getting the ministries in to brief the committee on Bill 168.
Now it may be that Mr Tilson's concerns will still persist after he speaks to the ministry or after he asks his question in the House or whatever, and then I think that the committee should consider whether it needs to devote more time to Bill 3 or not. But I don't think that there's any iron-clad rule.
The committee has to determine the order of priority that the committee considers legislation in, and I don't think you can simply say it goes one, two, three, because on many occasions the opposition has objected to that. They've said: "We don't want this bill to go forward now. There's another bill we want to go forward." That has happened many times on this committee. There have been many bills and matters discussed before this committee since Bill 3 was referred to this committee, and many of those matters were promoted by the opposition, so I don't think you can go back now and say we do these all in order of precedence.
Mr Harnick: Mr Chairman, I have another compromise.
The Chair: Mr Malkowski. Hold on, please. Let me take the speakers in order.
Mr Gary Malkowski (York East): I would like to respond to some of the comments by the members of the committee, specifically about the briefing. I agree that we do need to have a briefing from the ministries of Citizenship, Education and Transportation, and I think perhaps any other ministry that feels it will have an impact under the legislation. Also, I think it's important to have enough time for the disabled community to study what they feel the impact of the legislation will be, and we may require more time to give notice of public hearings.
Thinking of all that, of course the priority is the briefing from the ministries, and I think then, after that, we can decide what we need to do. I think we can't put it off because the disabled community is waiting for something like this.
Mr Harnick: Can I suggest this, and maybe Mr Malkowski will be content with this? Can we deal with Bill 89 and have Dr Schabas come in and get rid of that, and then immediately after that, or the next session, the next day, we can have the briefing on Bill 168 so that we then understand the ramifications of that bill and we will then know what time to allocate for it, whether we want to advertise, what all the ramifications might be.
We can then set aside Bill 168 and proceed with Bill 3 while we're doing the preparation to continue with the committee hearings on Bill 168.
We're going to have the briefing, we'll know what the time allocation should be, and we can then, while the advertising is taking place, because we're going to have some delay getting together all the groups, have Bill 3 done and gone, then come back to Bill 168. But we will have the briefing on Bill 168 so that we won't waste any time in determining what has to be done, and while we're doing Bill 3, the mechanical work on Bill 168 getting ready for the hearings can be done so that we can do it in January.
The Chair: A suggestion is put forth by Mr Harnick.
Mr Murphy: Sounds fine.
Mr Winninger: I think we can go partway in this regard: One hour on Bill 89, the briefing on Bill 168, and then maybe the committee can decide how it wants to deal with Bill 3 and other issues, including the remainder of hearings on Bill 168.
Mr Harnick: Well, let's do Bill 3 right after. We'll need the time for that.
Mr Winninger: I don't think you heard me. I said let's deal with Bill 89 for an hour or what it takes, let's have the briefing on Bill 168 from the three ministries, and then through subcommittee or full committee, we decide how we want to manage the rest of our time. Not everyone gets what they want, but there has to be some compromise here.
The Chair: Is that all right?
Mr Harnick: That's fine.
The Chair: All right. Mr Winninger, the clerk requires clarification here. My assumption from what you suggested is one day is Bill 89, is that correct?
Mr Winninger: Yes.
The Chair: One day meaning one hour, more or less.
Mr Winninger: I think we should have Bill 89 for next Monday, for example, and then have at least one minister or two ministers standing by to brief us on Bill 168.
The Chair: For the next day? Do you want to do both in the same day or to do two days for the different issues?
Mr Winninger: What would be wrong with scheduling one hour for Bill 89 and the remainder of the justice committee on Monday for one of the three ministries that might be available to brief the committee?
Mr Murphy: This is in relation to Bill 89. How long were they in here for? I know I've met with firefighters and I'm sure David has and others. It's a fairly thick binder. An hour means we'll have half an hour or 40 minutes of presentation and then that leaves us only a few minutes per caucus to ask questions. So realistically we're going to have a half-hour to 45 minutes worth of briefing and we're going to want 20 minutes per caucus at least, minimum, to ask questions. You're already heading towards two hours. If we start at 3:30, which means quarter to 4, it's quarter to 6 when we're done. That's a day.
It's unfair, as I'm sure you'll recognize, to have ministers on call. Truthfully, that's not going to happen. I think it makes a lot more sense to have 89 on Monday, and we'll go with 168 on Tuesday, so everyone has a certain schedule.
Mr Harnick: I agree, and then we have a subcommittee meeting.
Mr Murphy: Subcommittee to deal with the rest of it.
Mr Harnick: To deal with the rest.
The Chair: Is that okay, Mr Winninger?
Mr Winninger: I guess if the other members of the committee can live with it, so can I.
The Chair: Very well. You're moving an amendment then, Mr Winninger, to the subcommittee report requesting that we deal with Bill 89 next Monday; following that, Bill 168 for the afternoon, however long it takes that afternoon of the 29th for the briefing? And we then subsequently have a subcommittee meeting to talk about Bill 3?
Mr Winninger: Perhaps the subcommittee can meet the same day so that we can plan for the following week.
The Chair: All right. Whatever we can arrange.
Mr Harnick: To deal with Bill 3 and Bill 168.
The Chair: Right, in terms of scheduling and timing and so on.
Mr Tilson: We may want to spend more than one day on Bill 168.
The Chair: Is that okay?
Mr Winninger: Yes.
The Chair: All in favour? Opposed? Agreed.
All in favour of the subcommittee report, as amended? Opposed? That carries.
Mr Harnick: I move that the Chair be authorized to report to the House that the following bill be not reported: Bill 56, An Act to protect the Civil Rights of Persons in Ontario.
The Chair: All in favour? Opposed? That carries.
The committee adjourned at 1625.