REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF SUDBURY
SAULT STE MARIE BOARD OF EDUCATION
BRUCE PENINSULA ENVIRONMENT GROUP
MUNICIPALITY OF BLACK RIVER-MATHESON PLANNING BOARD
ALGOMA-MANITOULIN ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS
CONTENTS
Thursday 15 September 1994
Planning and Municipal Statute Law Amendment Act, 1994, Bill 163, Mr Philip / Loi de 1994 modifiant des lois en ce qui concerne l'aménagement du territoire et les municipalités, projet de loi 163, M. Philip
Township of McDougall
Peter Spadzinski, reeve
Regional municipality of Sudbury
Bill Lautenbach, director, planning
Sault Ste Marie Board of Education
Frances Sewards, vice-chair
Don Edwards
Town of Parry Sound
Nancy Cunningham, mayor
Bruce Peninsula Environment Group
Ziggy Kleinau, secretary
Basil Morrison
Lionel Bonhomme
Municipality of Black River-Matheson Planning Board
Robert Barber, vice-chair
Austin Clipperton
Algoma-Manitoulin Environmental Awareness
Ed Burt, representative
George Rust-D'Eye
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:
Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot ND) for Ms Haeck
Eddy, Ron (Brant-Haldimand L) for Mr Murphy
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L) for Mr Chiarelli
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Mr Malkowski
Johnson, David (Don Mills PC) for Mr Harnick
McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC) for Mr Tilson
Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND) for Mr Bisson
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND) for Mr Wilson
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Ministry of Municipal Affairs:
Dewar, Diana, manager, municipal planning policy branch
Forrest, Norma, planner, municipal planning policy branch
Hayes, Pat, parliamentary assistant to minister
Smith, Karen, manager, plans administration branch (north and east)
Wyatt, Patricia, policy adviser, local government policy branch
Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna
Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 0931 in the Travelway Inn, Sudbury.
PLANNING AND MUNICIPAL STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE L'AMÉNAGEMENT DU TERRITOIRE ET DES MUNICIPALITÉS
Consideration of Bill 163, An Act to revise the Ontario Planning and Development Act and the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, to amend the Planning Act and the Municipal Act and to amend other statutes related to planning and municipal matters / Projet de loi 163, Loi révisant la Loi sur la planification et l'aménagement du territoire de l'Ontario, la Loi sur les conflits d'intérêts municipaux, et modifiant la Loi sur l'aménagement du territoire et la Loi sur les municipalités et modifiant d'autres lois touchant des questions relatives à l'aménagement et aux municipalités.
TOWNSHIP OF MCDOUGALL
The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): We call upon the township of McDougall, Reeve Peter Spadzinski. Welcome to this committee.
Mr Peter Spadzinski: Thank you.
The Chair: Just as a reminder, you have half an hour for your presentation.
Mr Spadzinski: Is that all?
The Chair: It's too much already. You have to leave enough time for the members to ask you questions.
Mr Spadzinski: I would have to say everything five times if I were to use up that half hour, so you'll be relieved that my comments will be relatively brief. First of all, I'd like to just mention that I'm also the chair of the Parry Sound Area Planning Board in addition to being the reeve of the township, and today I'd like to address some issues that relate to both of those positions which I hold.
First of all, I want to say from the outset that I laud this legislation, at least some aspects of this legislation. I believe the purpose of this legislation, certainly the disclosure aspects and so on, are commendable. I think we at the local level can only support any legislation and any guidelines that preserve integrity at all levels.
I would like to suggest, as you probably have heard over the years, that the local government is probably the government that, by its nature, is the most accountable to its electorate. My neighbours have access to me almost at will. They just have to pick up the phone. They drive over to see me. The same is true of all our councillors. I think the notion of accountability and integrity is very significant for anyone involved with local government, so we have no quarrel with the intent of this legislation. The purpose is noble. However, I would suggest to you that there is something lacking in the process that is being outlined in the proposed legislation of the province.
First of all, I'd like to just muse a little bit. I was wondering why religious affiliation wasn't being asked for in the disclosure aspects, sexual preference and so on. Of course, you would answer that it was totally irrelevant to any of the issues that we might be dealing with. Our concern as a council is that in the disclosure portion of this legislation, in order to achieve accountability, you are asking people to disclose things that are totally irrelevant to their decision-making process. My owning a condominium in Florida is of no significance to anything that I do within my municipality. By the way, I don't own one.
I would suggest that if I had a yacht docked at my local marina that was 40 feet long, that might have more relevance, but I don't have to disclose that, necessarily.
In some ways, your legislation asks some of us to disclose information that I believe is totally irrelevant to our decision-making process. I can see where with respect to real estate holdings within my own jurisdiction or any body that I'm connected with, any group that I'm connected with, in which I'm involved to some extent, certainly I ought to declare all of my holdings. But I believe that when you ask people to go beyond their area of jurisdiction, then you're asking for irrelevant information, similar to religious affiliation and sexual preferences.
My question of the committee is, if in fact we want to maintain and preserve the integrity and accountability of local government decision-making, why are you not asking also that employees of the municipality make the same kind of disclosure? What about civil servants at every level? What about advisers, legal advisers? Should they not also be asked to disclose if they are in fact involved with a decision-making process, even if it is in an advisory capacity? I would suggest to you that might be more relevant than whether or not I have a condominium in Florida.
So I would strongly urge the committee to make recommendations concerning what is relevant to the local decision-making process. I'm not here to tell you I know the answer, but I have a strong sense that some things that are going to be asked of me and asked of anyone else who runs for local government will be irrelevant and therefore will become so frightening to anyone who might entertain getting involved that they will just not get involved.
The second aspect that I'd like to just mention with regard to this: Again, I believe in accountability and I believe that we ought to disclose what is relevant and I believe that we ought to make that information accessible, but I wonder how you avoid the whole notion of idle curiosity, a busybody wanting to know my personal business for the wrong reasons, perhaps a real estate agent, perhaps a lawyer, perhaps a criminal -- and they're not all the same.
Some people may want to know my business for the wrong reasons. How am I safeguarded against that kind of thrust? Surely, there has to be a reason for someone wanting that information. It is not too much to ask that person to at least put a request in writing asking for that information so it isn't just someone dropping by on the way home from shopping and saying, "I'd like to know what So-and-so has declared." I think there has to be some safeguards to the people who run for public office.
Please understand that I do this part-time, and it is really part-time. I've taken some time off from my employment today to come here. I understand where there are full-time professional politicians, where perhaps there are some things that may be more relevant, but when you work in a community, when you live in a community, when you're so close to everyone within that community, you have no anonymity; none whatsoever.
To make all of this information public is one thing; to make it accessible is another thing. I would suggest to you that until each of you and every civil servant in the province of Ontario is willing to post their personal holdings in a very accessible place, then perhaps this legislation is going too far.
For example, if I were to ask you where your conflict-of-interest disclosure is filed, I would probably find out that in order for me to find out what your holdings are, I would have to get to Toronto somehow, or to your constituency office, which may not be very accessible. I would have to make considerable effort to get to that information. Why not put it on Internet and make it available to everyone, if we really have that as an intent, if that's our purpose?
I would strongly recommend that you place some restriction as to how people access this information and for what purpose. Somewhere a person ought to put in writing the purpose for wanting to know. They have a right to know, but they ought to make their purpose known. That's my second point.
The third point with regard to the conflict of the disclosure process and this whole notion of accountability is one of the parts of this legislation which talks about a commissioner who will be involved in investigation. My question to you is, what's the purpose of this commissioner if in fact his recommendations need not be considered by the person who has lodged the complaint?
If the commissioner decides that there wasn't enough evidence or there was no indication from his or her investigation that there was any wrongdoing and then ignores the request from some complainant, why does that person then have the opportunity to drag that on and proceed into a court hearing when it has already been deemed by someone who will have investigated, I would think, fairly carefully that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest that there was any conflict?
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I would like to suggest to you that if a commissioner is involved, that commissioner ought to have the final say. Once the investigation has been held, it's unnecessary to drag it out further and put someone through a horrendous process, not only in terms of their public life but also in terms of costs and all the other things associated with that. Do away with the commission and go right to a court hearing, or have the commissioner fulfil some reasonable function with some finality to it. That's another recommendation that I would make.
Now, just one other aspect. Those are sort of general comments and I suspect that you may have heard some of these before, I'm not sure.
As the chair of the Parry Sound Area Planning Board, we were involved when Mr Sewell and his commission visited our area. We made a submission. We expected great and wonderful things to come out of his travels around the province, and when we got a copy of the changes as proposed by Bill 163, or at least the portion that deals with planning, we were somewhat dismayed.
Our sense is that while we will supposedly have more power, those powers have been in fact given to us with a whole series of constraints that will be impossible for us to really deal with. The provincial policies that we are going to be asked to take into consideration, which in effect become really guidelines for us which we will have to certainly keep in mind when we're making decisions or else somebody's going to be upset, have never been developed in any local context.
If they're going to be relevant to us, if they're going to have significance within our planning process, then I would suggest to you that those provincial policies ought to be dealt with within the local context when they're established. They ought to be part of our official plan perhaps, vetted through a public process, included in our official plan and reviewed every five years.
We're getting tired of policies that change from month to month. We have people who apply for severances or who apply for subdivisions for land holdings, only to discover that some of the policy guidelines and the interpretation of those guidelines have been changed dramatically. We don't have that latitude. We have to do these kinds of things basically through our official plans.
I would suggest that if we're being asked to see that provincial policy is being implemented, those policies ought to take the same route that our provincial plans take so that the public not only has an awareness of those but has also had an opportunity to have an input in the establishment of those policies.
By virtue of the fact that we're so far removed from most of the decision-making arena, we very seldom have an opportunity to get involved with the establishment of policies, with hearings, and yet those policies control us in Parry Sound. We never have an opportunity to really review those policies in an effective manner.
I would, as a general comment, suggest to you that any changes in the Planning Act, in the planning part of Bill 163, that do not give the local municipality not only certain powers to see that these policies are in place and in fact adhered to -- but we must also have the opportunity at least to be able to review them and incorporate them into our official plans.
In summary, I again would just like to reiterate that the disclosure portion of this legislation, I believe, has got to make certain that the information is relevant. Please make certain that it's relevant information, relevant to McDougall township, as well as relevant to the city of Toronto.
Please make certain that I am protected so that idle curiosity isn't the motivating factor to finding out what my interests are. I believe that somewhere along the line people have got to at least show that there's a specific reason why they want to know what my holdings are. They ought to be able to access this information, very definitely. They ought not to have to drive to Toronto to get the information, very definitely. But I don't think it's too much to ask someone to put in writing a request asking for information. That, I think, is a reasonable kind of an expectation of anyone who wants to know. I think it needs to be more than just dropping by the local municipality to pick up the information.
Third, please have the commissioner's findings take on more weight than is being suggested in Bill 163. Make it a final decision. I'm not sure whether the lawyers would say this bill could have that kind of power to remove, perhaps, from people some legal rights, but I believe we do it in other areas. We do it with the Ontario Municipal Board; we do it in certain things. Why not have the commissioner be able to make a final decision, to avoid a prolonged, unnecessary, legal process that may go far beyond anything that can be asked for in terms of maintaining integrity in the local government?
The last point was, as far as planning is concerned, please make certain, do your part in seeing that this legislation is revised so that if in fact provincial policies are going to be implemented by the local municipalities -- and they're being asked to do that -- there has to be a way of vetting those policies through the local scene and incorporating them into our local official plans so that they have some meaning for our residents.
Those are all the sort of formal, official comments that I'd like to make.
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): Let's start with the Planning Act. First of all, does your region have an official plan?
Mr Spadzinski: Yes, we do. Our official plan has been in the process of being revised for the last seven years.
Mr Grandmaître: Seven years?
Mr Spadzinski: Yes. I think we've almost revised it, just in time to be two years late for the next revision.
Ms Karen Smith: It is revised. The difficulty is that certain --
Mr Grandmaître: Is that my time?
Ms Smith: Sorry.
Mr Grandmaître: In the last seven years, I'm sure you must have been faced with minor variances to your official plan or your zoning bylaw, whatever. How many of your minor variances were appealed to the OMB? Were there any?
Mr Spadzinski: I think since I've been on council we haven't had any minor variance appealed. Now, there was one appealed before my term and it came into my term of council. It involved a piece of property where someone deemed that the variance wasn't a minor one. We don't have a lot of minor variances. We certainly have a lot fewer now than we used to have. But to my knowledge right now, we haven't had any certainly in my term of office.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you agree that minor variances shouldn't be appealed to the OMB, that the council's decision is a final decision?
Mr Spadzinski: So long as the minor variance is a minor variance. My understanding is that --
Mr Grandmaître: What's a minor variance?
Mr Spadzinski: Again, there used to be a guideline, you know, a rule of thumb that I understand has been expanded so it's a hand of thumb now, or a rule of hand, I should have said. But I think that a minor variance, by definition -- and I guess the question is, what is minor? Is it 10%, is it 20%, is it 19 1/2%?
I'm not opposed to the local council having the opportunity of making those kinds of decisions. I have no problems even with an appeal of a minor variance; I really don't. Most people, in our experience, have been very reasonable. We haven't had a lot of appeals on minor variances, because I believe our local council has handled them in a reasonable manner.
Mr Grandmaître: On the disclosure part of this bill, you mention the commissioner, and I agree with you that, at the present time, this committee doesn't know what the responsibilities of, or how, the office of the commissioner will be managed. We don't know if it will have assistant commissioners in some parts of the province. But I agree with you that there should be a safeguard, because, after all, 95% of our municipal politicians are part-time people. I think we should have a disclosure kind of legislation, but at the same time I think that the commissioner will have to be very, very careful in how he accepts his responsibilities and delivers that service.
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Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): You make a very good point about the provincial planning policies, and I see your point about including them in the official plans; it's a different approach. But considering that northern Ontario is so much different from southern Ontario and the policies are not subject to review and are not being reviewed at this time, I think you make a good point about adapting them for use for especially northern Ontario.
Mr Spadzinski: We have a lot of frustration from people who think they understand the rules. They initiate a process, perhaps a severance or whatever, and out of the blue, when it is being reviewed by one of the agencies, whether it's the Ministry of Natural Resources or the Ministry of Environment and Energy, quite often if the policy hasn't changed, the interpretation of the policy begins to change dramatically. While that's always going to be the case because it involves people and people have different emphases, so if you have personnel changing they may have a different thrust, the problem we have is that a lot of these changes go beyond just interpretation; They are dramatic departures from what our understanding was of the policy, and it happens at a time after people have initiated a process. It becomes very expensive for them, and it really is a killer for development in our part of the province now.
Mr Eddy: You make good points. I regret that we're dealing with so many subjects in one bill.
Mr Spadzinski: Right.
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): Welcome, Reeve, and thank you for coming and presenting your views of the municipalities and some others this morning.
The issue that you raised on the conflict with regard to staff is an interesting one, because nobody has raised that before as we've travelled the province. When you have a lot of ministry staff that are drafting letters and writing letters, those people could be in conflict. So it's important that it be discussed and brought forward, and I thank you for that.
But there's been a Manitoba model that has been raised by different delegations, and that model is where it's filled out and put in an envelope and it's kept in the clerk's office until there has been a complaint made against anyone that they feel could be in a conflict, and then it's opened. In that way, then, it's not for public view at their discretion, as you would say. So that model has apparently worked well in Manitoba, and I think it's worthwhile that we look at it here, too.
Mr Spadzinski: I've heard terms like "gatekeeper" and I guess that's a fairly popular buzzword right now. I'm not even suggesting that we have a gatekeeper. I'm not suggesting that we put someone in the position of having to decide, especially a staff person, whether or not he's going to release that information. That makes him feel very vulnerable, and he should not be put in that position. But I do believe that it ought to be a staff person who has to be approached, who has to receive something beyond just an oral request.
So let's not put staff in the position of having to make those decisions. I think that would be a horrendous place to be in. But I think it has to be a little more formal than just, "Hi, I just thought I'd come in and I'd like to see -- " and be done with it. I think it should be in writing. I think even the purpose for the request ought to be identified. That gives everybody the safeguards, I believe, and it still makes it very, very accessible. But let's not give in to idle curiosity and all of these other things. I don't think that does anything for integrity of local government.
Mr McLean: I want to ask you a question with regard to the Planning Act. There's no question in our minds that southern Ontario and northern Ontario are altogether different when it comes to the terms of planning. This bill certainly looks after the urban areas. You have an official plan; you're not within a county; you will never have planning approval. I understand that Sudbury, if I'm reading their brief right, also never had planning approval and may never have it. So I'm wondering where we're going to come off with municipalities such as McDougall township. You will always have to go to the minister for the final approval.
Mr Spadzinski: My sense is that that's not a bad thing so long as what we're being asked to do in order to facilitate some of the provincial thrust has some reason to it. My sense is -- and this is just my sense -- that this is a kind of downloading, with almost every safeguard in it that you could possibly put in through the policies, without coming out and saying it.
So we will in fact be doing a lot of things that were done formerly by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs through either plans of subdivision and other things. But in fact, in order to implement then all of these new things that we're going to be possibly doing down the road, our hands are going to be so tied by policies that are vague that we will not really be able to make any decisions at all, and it will frustrate the whole process.
Mr McLean: And everything you do has got to be "consistent with," so that's a problem.
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): On the comment that Mr McLean made earlier, in fact the issue of staff has come up. A colleague, Christel Haeck, from St Catharines is very interested and very concerned about that and has raised it a number of times. Perhaps with people moving around in this committee, it might have been missed. That is definitely something that some of us have been talking about, and it does make good sense to think about it because you could have somebody making a recommendation to you on a downtown zoning that owns half of downtown and yet is not covered by the guidelines. That would perhaps wind up making them much better off than they currently are.
Mr Spadzinski: You mean they may have the yacht down at the --
Mr Wiseman: They may also have that. They may also have -- which brings me to the condominium in Florida. While there may be no planning connection there, there may well be another connection in that our Conflict of Interest Commissioner is always interested in tracking our mortgages and whether they've been paid off or not and watching for inconsistencies in --
Mr Spadzinski: Suspicious fellow, but anyway.
Mr Wiseman: Well, I think in the past he may have been given cause to be somewhat suspicious. In my case, there are more debts than payments so that there's not a problem. So there may well be a connection -- I'm kind of like Mr Eddy, who owes everybody everything -- so there may be some kind of a problem that can be tracked through that.
In fact, the guidelines as they would apply to municipal councillors would be less than they apply to us as members of provincial Parliament. So I just thought I'd throw that out at you so you can think about that.
On the planning part, I'm of the firm opinion that official plans aren't worth the paper they're written on. They're just there and any developer who wants to come along can change them whenever he wants.
Mr Spadzinski: Not in our township, but anyway.
Mr Wiseman: Well, I'm happy to hear that because where I come from it's --
Mr Spadzinski: Well, ask Karen Smith. She can vouch for us. We've been doing things by the book for years.
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Mr Wiseman: What, I guess, we're trying to redress in this legislation is the view from the other angle, and that is that the individual in the community needs to have some assurance that the planning process is working for them as well and not just working for developers or for people who have a private property interest.
For example, if a person buys a piece of property and they check out the zoning next door and they think, "Great, that's fine, that's the zoning that we're buying," they should be given some assurances when they actually move in that that zoning is going to hold, that there isn't going to be a radical change from, say, a public space into some kind of development. If the planning system is going to work, then these checks and balances among the residents, the developers and the council have to be brought back into whack, because what we're hearing from environmentalists, individuals and ratepayers' groups is that it's way out of whack right now; that it doesn't matter, you can line up a whole group of people who are opposed to something for very sound reasons and it'll go through.
We've heard from some councils that --
The Chair: Mr Wiseman, sorry to interrupt but --
Mr Wiseman: This is the question -- that even the council doesn't want it but it goes to the OMB. How do we get this balance back in the system or at least the perception of it?
Mr Spadzinski: From our experience, because we are a small municipality everything we do is under close scrutiny. The reality is if accountability is an important part of this legislation, as it is suggested it is, we have only three years, and we're very accountable a lot more often than you are. I know that while people can ignore their electorate, and some do, I would suggest that you will never be able to put enough legislation in place to guarantee accountability and integrity. If you're going to try to dot every i and cross every t, what will happen is that in fact you will stop all development. You cannot put enough safeguards around these things to make them foolproof.
What you have to be careful of, however, in order to achieve your goals is that you don't frustrate -- and I think there's a sense in the province now that almost everything that government touches becomes an endless process that involves inordinate costs, incredible time and may not in the long run serve anybody's best interests.
So I'm not sure how you do that. I'm not suggesting that I have the answers; I'm just saying, please make certain that if you're asking us to do things, then give us an opportunity at the local level to at least vet that so that our ratepayers, the people who have to live with our decisions, have had an opportunity to have a kick at the cat, to have a say, to see that it makes sense at our local level while it still adheres to the provincial thrust.
I'm not sure how that can be accomplished, but please don't frustrate us to the point where all development and all growth and all life eventually will stop in rural Ontario. That's in fact what's beginning to happen here. For rural Ontario, including the Parry Sound area, McDougall township, I see virtually no development if in fact some of these things begin to come to pass. We have seen provincial policy guidelines totally control our agenda locally, and I'm not sure how we'll ever resolve that.
The Chair: We want to thank you for coming, and thank you for bringing your concerns and suggestions to this committee.
REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF SUDBURY
The Chair: We invite the regional municipality of Sudbury, Mr Bill Lautenbach.
Mr Bill Lautenbach: To the Chair and members of this committee, I'm pleased to have the opportunity today to address the standing committee on administration of justice to express the concerns of our region on the Planning Act reforms proposed in Bill 163. I might also add that Sudbury is a single-tier planning municipality, so not only am I here on behalf of the regional municipality but of each of our seven constituent municipalities which we provide planning services for.
Since the regional municipality has already made a submission dated June 22, which you also have before you, I'm only highlighting the main concerns expressed in that submission together with several additional comments.
First I'd like to address the proposed new section 1.1 of the Planning Act which defines the purposes of the act. When the Sewell commission recommended the addition of a purpose section of the Planning Act, the region supported that recommendation. In our view, however, the wording proposed in this bill misses several key points of the Sewell commission recommendations.
To begin with, the proposed section 1.1 does not fully capture the essence of the original Sewell commission version. The long-term perspective embodied in the phrase "for the benefit of present and future generations" of the Sewell commission version is lost. The purpose of fostering "cultural and social well-being" contained in the Sewell commission version is also lost.
Finally, the introduction of the term "sustainable development" without giving it an operational definition would create uncertainty and set up unnecessary barriers to implementation. In a limited way, the Sewell commission version has attempted to define "sustainability." Until a better operational definition of "sustainable development" is proposed, the original Sewell commission version is still superior to the proposed version.
Furthermore, the word "accountable" of the Sewell commission version has also been deleted in the proposed section 1.1. We submit that if there is no accountability in decision-making, an open and timely planning process as proposed in the purpose section will not have much meaning. Taken as a whole, the proposed section 1.1 is a step backwards from the Sewell commission recommendation 1.
In its place, we recommend the following version as an alternative:
"The purposes of the Planning Act are to guide the sustainable and orderly development of land for the benefit of the community of Ontario, to preserve land resources for future generations, and to strike a balance between competing interests and competing demands on limited resources. In practice, planning should:
"(a) foster economic, environmental, cultural, physical and social well-being,
"(b) protect and conserve the natural environment, foster the health of ecological systems, conserve and manage natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations,
"(c) provide for planning processes that are fair, open, accessible, accountable and efficient, and
"(d) encourage cooperation and mediate differences and conflicts among different interests."
The second issue I wish to address is in regard to provincial policy statements. The bill proposes to change the "shall have regard to" wording of the existing act to the "shall be consistent with" wording. The region, much like Parry Sound, supports the change to the "consistent with" provision if it is interpreted with flexibility by the province to allow for local adaptation. Like Parry Sound, we see this as a major distinction with respect to provincial policies and north-south interests.
The region, however, sees no justification as to why all ministries and government agencies are not included among those whose decisions shall be consistent with policy statements, as they are currently required to have regard to policy statements under the current act.
We therefore recommend that besides the council of a municipality, local board, planning board, the minister and the municipal board, the decisions of every minister of the crown and every ministry, board, commission or agency of the government, including Ontario Hydro, shall also be consistent with provincial policy statements adopted under section 3 of the Planning Act.
Provincial interests are listed in section 2 of the Planning Act. This bill has already proposed an expanded list of provincial interests. There is no need for the minister to prescribe additional provincial interests by regulation under proposed section 70 of the act. If additional provincial interests need to be prescribed, the act should be amended. We therefore recommend that item 41 of this bill be deleted.
The third issue is in regard to the approval of official plans. The bill proposes amendments to section 17 of the act such that certain upper-tier municipalities with a two-tier planning structure having an approved official plan will receive delegated authority to approve lower-tier official plans. The regional municipality of Sudbury, having a single-tier planning structure, is not designated to receive that delegated authority, even though our region has had an approved official plan since 1978.
Therefore, all official plans and plan amendments adopted by the region will continue to be approved by the minister. This has created and will continue to create unnecessary delays for many amendments that are minor and do not involve provincial interests. It should also be noted that the bill provides official plan approval powers to the region of Peel and the region of York, even though their official plans have not yet been approved. I would add that Metro Toronto, being our largest region, has also not been delegated. It's my personal opinion that this should happen.
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On more than one previous occasion, the region requested the delegation of official plan approval powers from the province. Within the context of Bill 163, proposed subsection 17(2) could be amended to allow a limited delegation to occur in the region's case. We therefore recommend that the following sentence be added at the end of the proposed subsection 17(2): "For the regional municipality of Sudbury, the regional council is the approval authority in respect of the approval of an official plan amendment under section 22."
Under such a provision, the revised official plan and secondary plans will be adopted as standalone plans that will continue to be approved by the minister; whereas secondary plan amendments not subject to a referral request will be approved by the region.
A number of new provisions proposed in the bill will be very useful in reducing unnecessary delays and frivolous requests for referral to the Ontario Municipal Board. The region supports all of these new criteria for testing appeal referrals, as well as the use of alternative dispute mechanisms, which is presently not included in the act. However, the requirement that the person requesting the referral should have made a submission to council before the matter under appeal was adopted, should apply to all parties. Public bodies should not be exempted. We therefore recommend that section 17 and similar sections elsewhere in the bill be deleted. We further recommend that the same set of standard tests should apply to all referral requests, including those regarding subdivision and consents.
With regard to zoning bylaws, the most significant amendment brought forth by the bill is the extension of zoning powers to cover "contaminated lands or sensitive areas," "natural features and areas," and "significant archaeological resources." From a municipal perspective, these amendments are positive changes.
However, missing from all the proposed changes is the power to control soil stripping under the Planning Act, specifically under zoning. Despite the usefulness of proposed section 223.1 of the Municipal Act in enabling municipalities to regulate the placing of dump and fill, there is still a missing ingredient in this bill. In its submission on the interim report to the Sewell commission, the region recommended that, "site alteration be defined as a use of land," and hence may be regulated under the Planning Act. Likewise, the Sewell commission final report also recommended that municipalities be authorized to regulate tree cutting, vegetation removal, changes in elevation, placement and removal of fill, and removal of peat. However, only the dumping of fill and site alteration are covered in the present bill. We recommend that these missing regulatory powers be included in the Planning Act and that all municipalities, and not just local municipalities, be allowed to exercise these powers.
With regard to plans of subdivision, proposed subsection 51(33) allows for the withdrawal of the approval of a draft plan of subdivisions or changes in condition. When that happens, public notification of such actions is required. While there are valid reasons for such provisions, the current act allows the municipality discretion on notification for minor changes or administrative modifications. The proposed subsection 51(34) would not allow that discretion, and will lead to unnecessary delays, as any such minor change may be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board. We therefore recommend that regulations be developed to specify the range of administrative or minor changes that might be made without the need for full notification under proposed subsection 51(34).
The region appreciates the many changes that will streamline planning approvals. At the same time, however, other changes introduced in this bill are contrary to the philosophy of streamlining. For example, the bill provides that prior to considering the adoption of an official or plan amendment, a 30-day notice must be given prior to the public meeting. Likewise, 30 days must have elapsed between the public meeting and plan adoption. By not distinguishing between the adoption of the original official plan, major amendments to the plan, and minor amendments to the plan, this 30 days and 30-day schedule will lead to unnecessary delays for the majority of cases in our region. Therefore, the region recommends that the Planning Act should stipulate a procedure only for the adoption of the original official plan which in turn would stipulate procedures for major and minor amendments.
One significant change proposed under minor variance is the removal of minor variances from being appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board. This is a recommendation that our region and many other municipalities proposed to the Sewell commission during its hearings. Such a change would eliminate a significant amount of time for the OMB and will speed up other, more important appeals.
In implementation, however, a situation that is not being addressed in the bill will occur. Under the current system, it is often the municipal council that appeals the decision of the committee of adjustment to the OMB. Therefore, the municipality is the appellant. Under the new system, where council delegates minor variance approval powers to the committee of adjustment, the council will also be the ultimate hearing body instead of the OMB. Under such a scenario, who will be considered to be the appellant? Does the proposed section 45 intend that the council may be both the appellant as well as the hearing body? A number of legal and procedural issues will arise from that situation. We therefore recommend that the intent of proposed section 45 be clarified on these matters.
As a final note, I wish to impress upon the committee that although we appreciate the initiatives the province has taken in proposing reforms to the Planning Act, a substantial number of recommendations of the Sewell commission have not been acted upon. A case in point is the integration of the Environmental Assessment Act and the Planning Act. Although the proposed section 16.1 is pointing in the right direction, these acts are not fully integrated legally and procedurally as they should be. The province should continue to follow up with additional legislation and administrative changes to implement the remaining Sewell commission recommendations.
In closing, I wish to express again our appreciation for this opportunity to address the standing committee. If there are questions on my presentation, I'd be happy to elaborate them at this time.
Mr McLean: Welcome to the committee, sir. The seven local municipalities, do they have official plans?
Mr Lautenbach: All of our seven municipalities have secondary plans which are approved through regional council.
Mr McLean: And your official plan's been approved since 1978.
Mr Lautenbach: That's correct.
Mr McLean: You've had updates, of course, since then.
Mr Lautenbach: We've had amendments to those plans, but with the exception of a couple of secondary plans, we haven't yet reviewed the regional official plan in totality.
Mr McLean: Has the ministry suggested you do that?
Mr Lautenbach: We are scheduled to do that in the next two years.
Mr McLean: Have they given you an indication at that time that perhaps you may get approval to delegate from the ministry to the region?
Mr Lautenbach: We have no indication that delegation will be forthcoming.
Mr McLean: Have you asked for it?
Mr Lautenbach: On several occasions, before the Sewell commission, before our local MPPs and in a formal request to the ministry on more than one occasion.
Mr McLean: The alternative dispute mechanisms -- you touched on that with regard to the referral to the Ontario Municipal Board. Section 13, you're wanting to see that amended -- I guess deleted, really, is what you're looking at. Subsection 51(42): you're looking to have that deleted, and, "We further recommend that the same set of standard test should apply to all referral requests...." Are you saying there are some referral requests that are not at the same standard?
Mr Lautenbach: What we're saying is that the ministry can request an OMB appeal later in the process without having to go through the same --
Mr Grandmaître: Rigamarole.
Mr Lautenbach: Yes -- that individuals would have to go through.
Mr McLean: Minor variance has always been a major issue and some people have never really determined what a minor variance is yet. You're saying here that the appellant as well as the hearing body could be the same person.
Mr Lautenbach: In our particular case, that happens. That happened or would have happened under this legislation last night where in fact we did appeal a minor variance through council to the OMB. If we were the hearing body, then regional council would also be hearing that appeal.
Mr McLean: And their decision would be final.
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Mr Lautenbach: That's correct.
Mr McLean: It would be over with. Thank you. David, did you have any questions?
Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): You've indicated that you support the change of the words from, "shall have regard to," to "shall be consistent with," if -- and there's a big "if" here -- there's local flexibility in terms of interpretation by the province. I just wondered on what basis you would have grounds to believe, because that seems to be a big issue and that's an issue the previous deputant remarked upon as well.
On what basis would you be confident that you would get that local flexibility?
Mr Lautenbach: I guess, like Parry Sound, we would like to see that flexibility built into our official plans and secondary plans which the ministry and the various other ministries would grant approval for. As long as that's the case, then that local flexibility could be developed between the parties.
We certainly have differences in agriculture right off the bat. We have similar soil conditions, but different climate, so your class 1 automatically becomes our class 2. Those variations need to be adaptable into a planning system.
Mr Wiseman: You probably heard my comments about official plans to the previous deputant.
The Chair: I'm sorry, I had Ms Harrington on the list first, so if you --
Mr Wiseman: I'm really quick.
The Chair: All right.
Mr Wiseman: An official plan takes a long time to create. It's supposed to be balanced, supposed to be holistic and it's supposed to be structured in a way that one thing leads to the other and it's an integrated kind of system.
However, when you come along and change the zoning of one section of the plan that was maybe zoned medium- or low-density or natural area, then you say: "Okay, we're going to change that. We're going to make it industrial-commercial," why shouldn't you have to redo your entire official plan to bring the entire plan back into balance?
Mr Lautenbach: With our planning system here, we have a very extensive public process that we undertake at the regional level, in the first instance. When a plan is modified or changed, either for the official plan or zoning, there is also an extensive public process that occurs.
As a staff, we would also try to ensure that in fact our policies are in balance, so if they're starting to fall out of balance, we will advise the council of that in our recommendations for any change and council can take appropriate action.
Mr Wiseman: One last quick question: How many official plan amendment changes of the magnitude I've talked about have you turned down?
Mr Lautenbach: I can't give you a concrete number, but I think our track record is very good, if you would investigate it.
Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): First of all, I really appreciate your strong words here that you believe "shall be consistent with" is the way to go. I appreciate that very much, and also your comments that all ministries should be included under the same provisions of being consistent with. I do hear you on that.
I have two questions you have actually raised that I would like staff to answer. First of all, under "Minor Variance," you say, "Does the" -- legislation -- "intend that the council may both be the appellant as well as the hearing body?" I think that would receive a very quick answer.
At the same time, on page 3 you talk about the unnecessary delays that you feel may be encountered with regard to official plan amendments having to be approved by the minister. I would like to ask our very capable staff, do they see that there would be any unnecessary delays? I need to have them respond directly to you on that point.
Ms Diana Dewar: I'm Diana Dewar from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. I would like to respond to the first question. With respect to minor variances, I would like to confirm by speaking to one of our solicitors back at the office but, as I understand, if the council sets up a two-step process for dealing with minor variances, it would have the ability to review a decision of the committee of adjustment.
Ms Smith: I'm Karen Smith with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. Bill, we know each other. I'd like to try and respond to your question regarding the unnecessary delays regarding official plan amendments. I think one thing that will be changed in the new process is the rigour. It will be a time frame that is set, and we have to abide by it as much as anybody else has to abide by the other time frames for the other kinds of application processes.
We don't have a choice. We have to change and we are in the process of changing, and I think if you have noticed in the last eight months or whatever, that your time frame for the turning around of any regional or official plan amendment has been less than a month in a lot of cases.
Ms Harrington: I hope that will be helpful, Mr Lautenbach.
Mr Lautenbach: If I might, I think the difference here is that as a region with delegated authority for planning function, we're being treated somewhat differently than the other regions with respect to plan approvals once the official plan and the secondary plans are approved, and I think that's our major issue. We would like to have the ability to adopt minor amendments to those plans.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Thank you, Mr Lautenbach, for your presentation. In the same report and recommendation, many of the people who have come before us have said that the government had missed its mark completely, it is not reflecting the policy. We've had many people come before who've said that, and we await the regulations. Do you agree with that?
Mr Lautenbach: I think this legislation goes a fair distance to adopting some of the Sewell commission recommendations, but there's about another two thirds to one half of the recommendations the Sewell commission made which are not in this legislation.
Mr Curling: Two thirds to me sounds quite a big chunk and one third a gap as you've said. Other people also stated that maybe it's not new legislation that is needed to make this thing efficient. The fact is that people who have a job to do should go about it in an efficient manner, and maybe we can still get the thing working.
What happens to legislation is we have this long debate and façade that we are consulting, and the fact is that we are bogged down again, not getting it as efficient as we thought it would be. They say too that this process itself, after put in place, will take a longer time in getting plans approved or getting things working and would cost more. So said developers who are working with the system and other people too. Do you agree with their assessment of it?
Mr Lautenbach: There are a number of features of this bill which will actually speed up our process and be beneficial to us. As I pointed out in our brief, there are several other situations which will actually slow us down. One of those things which will slow us down is the 30-day notification for minor amendments.
Mr Eddy: Thank you for the presentation you've made because you've made some very, very important remarks. I'd like to correct Mr Curling, however. He says the government's missed the mark; I think the bill has missed several marks and you pointed many of them out. There is a great need for flexibility and I don't think you're going to have any flexibility, so you better be very concerned about that and probably you are.
There's an awful lot on the plate. We have several platefuls here -- several. There are the provincial planning policies which are not subject to review, and you're not going to have the opportunity to incorporate them or vary them. We have the act and many amendments. The government itself will be proposing some amendments. We have the regulations which are unknown. We have the implementation guidelines which are unknown to us at this time, and maybe you're involved with those.
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Now we have this major point that many of the $3-million Sewell commission's recommendations are being ignored and need to be considered, you have the unequal treatment of upper-tier municipalities, including Sudbury and Metro, which you have mentioned and, very important, indeed many of the counties. Then you have the need, as you have said, for the integration of the Environmental Assessment Act with the Planning Act. That's a very important matter, I think, and I want to support that.
Now, with all of these things, should we proceed --
The Chair: We're running out of time, Mr Eddy.
Mr Eddy: Yes, so am I. We should proceed --
Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): I move that his time be extended, because they're going to do it better.
Mr Eddy: Well, should we step back and all of us work together to do it better -- all of us, including us. Do you think this should proceed in the government's time frame in December, with all of these things --
The Chair: It's a non-political question.
Mr Lautenbach: I gathered that.
Interjections.
Mr Eddy: No, it's a very important question.
Mr Lautenbach: Certainly this is very ambitious in the time frame you've set up for a complete examination of all the provincial policy guidelines that are being proposed. Having said that, there are definitely aspects of this legislation which will improve the planning process under which I work.
Mr Eddy: But the present act could be --
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Hayes with some points.
Interjection.
The Chair: Mr Hayes now on the list. A few quick points, Mr Hayes.
Interjections.
The Chair: I would just remind the members that every time someone speaks a bit loudly in this room, there's a great deal of noise. Please control yourselves. Mr Hayes, please.
Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): Thank you for your very balanced and fair presentations you made here today. There are a couple of points that I want to make. One is when you talked about the exemption for other ministries. We have heard that a lot, pretty well every hearing we've had. We are certainly going to address that issue, and I think we'll be able to come up with something to resolve that problem. The other one was the issue of the added time, the 30 days for minor changes, for example. We're also taking a look at that. So we are hearing you, there's no question there.
With the Chair's indulgence, I'd like Diana Dewar to also clarify another issue for you in regard to official plan approvals.
Ms Dewar: On page 3 you made the statement that "the bill provides official plan approval powers to the region of Peel and the region of York even though their official plans are yet to be approved."
Mr Lautenbach: Once they're approved.
Ms Dewar: "...even though their official plans have yet to be approved," right. I just wanted to clarify that subsection 17(3) does provide that that will occur once their plans are approved.
Mr Eddy: But it's not equal treatment.
Mr Lautenbach: My point is that once they're approved, they get it. We've had an approved official plan since 1978 and we don't have it.
Mr Eddy: It's discriminatory.
The Chair: Very well. Thank you, Mr Lautenbach, for coming and for participating in these hearings.
SAULT STE MARIE BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Chair: We invite the Sault Ste Marie Board of Education, Ms Frances Sewards.
Interjections.
The Chair: I would just ask the members to quiet down, please. Please begin any time.
Mrs Frances Sewards: Please excuse us for bringing our presentation and not sending it in earlier. It was only approved by the board on Tuesday, so we weren't able to get it in earlier.
Mr Chair and committee members, my name is Frances Sewards and I'm vice-chair of the Sault Ste Marie Board of Education. As you can see, our brief is brief, and the board is concerned that the short time lines have made it hard to provide meaningful comment on the final proposed legislation, especially when one considers how long these changes have been under consideration.
We're addressing primarily the local government disclosure of interest act, and with regard to that, our first section, (a), pecuniary interest -- do you want me to read this word by word, or shall I --
Mr Grandmaître: It's up to you. Whatever you want.
Mrs Sewards: Okay.
No clear definition is provided for indirect pecuniary interest. Our board is concerned. We would like to know what definition would apply if a trustee was accused of having a conflict, and we would suggest that a definition of indirect pecuniary interest be included in your next revision.
We asked in our submission of November 1990 for some definition of "indirect" as it applied to pecuniary interest. With so many individuals investing in mutual funds, those kinds of things are a great concern, and they don't have any control. I won't go into any greater detail on this because we have a trustee from our board who's addressing that in greater depth individually, but a lot of trustees are quite concerned about the "indirect" provision, which is not defined in the new draft.
Second, a member with a pecuniary interest in any matter must disclose the interest and leave the meeting.
Since the disclosure by the member is made in public, we do not see a need for a person to leave the meeting, just the board table. We would recommend a change in clause 4(1)(d). We think this requirement's overkill, in our view. It removes from the individual the right to have information that's available to the public. The present act provides that in closed meetings the individual should leave the room, and we agree with that. But in public meetings, to retire from the board table into the board gallery we think would protect the rights of the individual to have access to the kind of public information that is being discussed publicly. We think that's going too far.
I guess I didn't make it clear right at the very beginning that the board strongly supports the need for conflict-of-interest legislation.
We do think it's a good thing. We think it's needed, and I'm going to refer that personally at the end.
Third, completing a written disclosure as soon as possible after a meeting and filing it with the secretary of the board seems to be an unneeded duplication. We feel an oral declaration is sufficient, if it is recorded in the minutes, disclosing the nature of the conflict.
The first draft seemed to remove the old section 6 requirement to make a record in the minutes. However, we have found there's kind of a watered-down version in section 14. The old section, which was the 1983 legislation, included the requirement to include the general nature of the interest, and we think that's more efficient. The new section 14 doesn't have a requirement to include the general nature of the interest. You just have to make an oral thing and then it's recorded in the minutes. The declaration and the interest are therefore being included in the official documentation of the meeting and it's available under the access-to-information legislation.
We think that's much more efficient than requiring somebody to go down again, after these meetings, sign more forms, fill in more bits of paper, particularly in areas where in northern Ontario you might have to travel some distance to a meeting. If you've got your written disclosure right at the beginning, we think it's stupid and inefficient to have to go back again. It should just be recorded in the minutes, and what your interest is. Perhaps being more efficient precludes it from being left in, but we think the original section 6 is better than the little section 14 where it's just an added thing.
Register of disclosure: The committee felt that the legislation should be patterned after the rules that apply to you guys. For example, forms for all elected officials should be available, perhaps from the same location, which could be the local constituency office. Presently, we think this is more stringent than the requirements for you. I believe I'm correct in saying the requirements are with a commission in Toronto and people have to go get that under certain rules.
For locally elected officials, while we obviously have to accept high standards and public scrutiny, we think we should also have some privacy rights and should be protected from prurient interests, fishing expeditions, irresponsible publications of personal affairs. All forms of disclosure for all elected officials should be available from the same location and under the same rules.
We are obviously supporting that there should be a record of disclosure and we have no problem with that. But it's how people get access to it and how it's used that caused our board quite a lot of concern. Is it fair for local officials to have people walk in off the street, just go through that list, gossip, use it for any kind of information? Our trustees feel that we should have some rights of privacy, and it might be a good idea if all of us, you and us, had the same rules, the same rights of access and the same kind of protection, as we all agree that the public should have this information so they can understand if there's a reason to make an allegation of a conflict.
So we're quite concerned about that, and that's really what (iii) and (iv) say, providing some guarantees. Access to information and the register of disclosures should not be automatic but for a justifiable reason.
On the other side of the page, we've got some other questions and concerns about that legislation. We can't find a definition of an incident of the protocol that normally accompanies the responsibilities of office. In our view, there's obviously different social obligations that are required of different elected officials. For trustees generally it means a small gift if you make a speech, and we get invited to dinners and luncheons, sometimes, of organizations. Is that unreasonable or isn't it? I guess we make a bylaw, do we, and that's acceptable? But what is the protocol? Should there be a definition? It's different for all of us, for trustees and for local officials and for you.
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In the section about pecuniary interest, no definition is provided for agent. Some of our trustees had concerns about that. I'm just presuming that there is a legal definition of agent and it doesn't mean an insurance agent or something like that.
We want to know if the Human Rights Code takes precedence over Bill 163 in all situations, in which case that would affect the access to that disclosure, or should.
A brief comment with regard to the Municipal Act section of Bill 163: We're concerned about no voting in closed session. The committee saw this change, in fact our board -- I'm saying the committee there because it's a committee report to our board and we haven't changed the wording. We saw this change as unnecessary to protect the public interest. We feel that the rules should remain as they are now. Boards vote again in open session on any votes taken in closed session. The consensus reached by voting is essential when dealing with matters of personnel and collective bargaining. The proposed act really precludes any voting at all in closed session.
I'd like to speak to that a little more other than in the brief, because we think it's unreasonable and in some circumstances not in the public interest. Presently, decisions reached in closed session have to be ratified in open session, but there are circumstances, and I've been a trustee a long time and I can think of one or two circumstances, when it's not in the public interest to vote for the first time in public session. If you're hiring senior staff, for instance, and there's been quite a lot of heated discussion and some trustees are more interested or have some reservations about an individual candidate, they vote against the candidate, but in the end the other candidate wins. We think it's in the public interest to have a unanimous vote in public to give complete and utter support to the candidate who is chosen, because then the board would obviously support that candidate.
There are matters related to collective bargaining issues that could be quite heated. I've never come across a time when a trustee doesn't want to occasionally stand up and vote against an agreement. They like to make their position quite clear. But if you had a situation where you'd had a very hot issue, and a strike issue, you could be concerned about harassment later. The board frequently would like to present a united front when they are voting to support a collective agreement.
So we don't think it's in the public interest to preclude all voting in private session, provided the provision is that you should ratify and things have to be done up front in the end and the board is seen to be taking action and everybody knows what the resolution is. I don't know if I make any sense, but we think we do.
Generally, we were concerned about the timing of this input. We didn't have any notice until July. Boards don't operate much in the summer. It's difficult to get people fired up over this kind of an issue. We're quite concerned about that. We think it's been in the making since 1990 and 1991 and it would have been better if we'd had a little bit longer than two or three months to respond.
Basically, though, we do support the changes that affect us as far as the conflict-of-interest legislation is concerned, but we do have very great, serious concerns about the privacy issues, because we don't want to preclude qualified candidates from running.
The Chair: That's it? It's time now for questions.
Mr Wiseman: I guess really the no vote in closed session is where I'll focus in. I think this is a very controversial section, because we've heard from municipalities and school boards that say they don't like it, but we've heard from the public that say they have a right to know and they would like to hear the debate. They would like to be able to say that if a senior administrator is being hired, they should know what's going on. In fact, the parents' council has recommended that there be greater access for the public to be involved in the hirings and goings on in the schools.
So we have an opportunity here to open the process up so the public can have greater participation. If there's any bias that I have in this, it's that we have far too many things being done behind closed doors and we need to have them out in the public.
Mr Eddy: That's at Queen's Park.
Mr Wiseman: In the Liberal caucus, I guess, maybe.
I guess the point that I'm making here is that if there is a debate and you come back into open council and it's just a ratification vote in open council, when do the public get an opportunity to know what the debate was all about? Where do they get access to this? If it comes out and everybody agrees, it can be done like that and it's gone, through. Where's the opportunity for the public input?
Mrs Sewards: I agree with that point of view if you take it as a given that every board and council does that and does a lot of discussion in private and then just ratifies. I'm talking about, and perhaps we should have made it more clear, there are certain things we are all allowed and expected to deal with in closed session according to the Education Act and the proposed legislation seems to deal with personnel, litigation and those kinds of things.
Surely in your own view too there are certain things that you just don't talk about in public. Otherwise you're going to be liable to the kinds of accusations of violating people's privacy, which you know about. Those kinds of things we have to be very careful about.
I do agree that if we need to involve the public, and I understand, our board understands, the requirements for involving the public, if one were going to do that, then one would involve, say, your parents in the screening and the process of developing criteria for the kind of people you want to hire, which we are doing now. But when you actually get into the interviewing and into the final decision process, then you have to have some privacy for the protection of your candidates.
You have to make this balance, and this is what you're trying to do, I expect, make the balance between the rights of the public to be involved and knowledgable and provide input and the rights of individuals and the rights of the legal process to have some things that are delicate and shouldn't be in the public domain not done in the public domain.
You can have, and we have frequently at our board, heated discussions about negotiations and stuff. We'll do it all over again quite frequently, or occasionally our chair or some of our trustees will say: "Now, just a minute. We don't need to discuss this in closed session, we can do it in public."
What we're talking about is not being allowed to vote in certain circumstances when we think it would be more in the public interest, and those circumstances are the ones I've told you about.
This has happened to our board, and this was in the 1970s. Processes for choosing candidates for situations were not so sophisticated as they are now and it was very heated. A particular candidate made it by a short number of votes for a very high position with our board. Now, we didn't think it would be in that person's interest for them to know that the board was divided about their appointment or the public to know that the board was divided about their appointment. That doesn't lead to confidence in the system or the leadership.
Those are the kinds of things. So you're precluding it completely, but I do understand --
Mr Wiseman: Let me give you an example of what our board did. Our board changed the entire busing and kindergarten policy through the transportation committee that was not open to the public.
Mrs Sewards: Well, it should have been. All committees are.
Mr Wiseman: Then it came to council and it was passed just like that. When the public found out about it in the schools that did not have busing and should not have been affected by this, they were out of the process. They were out of the information loop and it was done and --
Mrs Sewards: Well, that's bad practice, if I may say so. I don't think it's necessary to hit everybody with a heavy hammer because one or two boards or places operate ineffectively.
Mr Wiseman: It's not just one. We're hearing it across -- we heard from people in Peterborough, a local councillor who thought that the section you disagree with in terms of leaving council was the appropriate way to go so there could be no subtle body language influences on what the other councillors were going to do, or that there could be no debate.
The Chair: Mr Wiseman, sorry. We're running out of time.
Mr Wiseman: I'm just saying that we're hearing extremes from the public. They're very cynical.
Mrs Sewards: I understand that. People are cynical. We feel that too. I mean, we'll all up for election this November. But it's a balance, and our board feels there are circumstances when it's not in the interests for some things to be discussed in public.
Mr Grandmaître: Thank you for your submission. I do agree with a few of your remarks, but I question others. For instance, I agree with you that this is a very important bill. This is an omnibus bill, as you know, which amends a number of statutes, and we should be working with definitions and also regulations. But these definitions and regulations are not available. They will be available at the time of third reading only. It makes it very difficult for this committee to draw real conclusions.
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If I may quote you, "Since the disclosure by the member is made in public, we do not see a need for the person to leave the meeting." I don't agree with you. I'd like you to --
Mrs Sewards: In a public meeting.
Mr Grandmaître: In a public meeting.
Mrs Sewards: We have found it satisfactory. Pushing back from the table I agree is not appropriate. We expect our trustees to leave and go and sit in the gallery.
Mr Grandmaître: In the gallery?
Mrs Sewards: In the gallery.
Mr Grandmaître: Not leave the room?
Mrs Sewards: In public session, in open session. Of course, in closed session, and that's what we've said here, obviously they leave the room. That's not an argument. It's in public session. We feel they're entitled to the same kind of information that any member of the public or the media is entitled to, and you're in fact precluding them from having that.
In our experience, and of course I suppose it might be different for council and so on, I think it would be extremely difficult for anybody to make signals from the gallery on an issue. Certainly --
Mr Grandmaître: You never know.
Mrs Sewards: I suppose, but then you can be paranoid about anything, can't you? As far as boards of education are concerned, I don't think it's an issue. The conflict tends to be with regard to relatives who are teachers in negotiations. Frequently, they like to leave the room when they're bored by it and they go.
Mr Grandmaître: That's right, and sometimes they leave the room for the simple reason that they don't want to vote on that item. I've seen that.
Mrs Sewards: Yes, that does happen. But generally --
Mr Grandmaître: You also say that you feel an oral declaration is sufficient if it is recorded in the minutes. Then you go on to say that, "It is important to note that if a mistake is made and you disclose more than you legally need to, it is there on file for anyone who wants to see it." If I may turn the page, you say that these declarations, just like MPPs', should be in our local constituency office. Well, no, our declarations are not --
Mrs Sewards: I know they're not.
Mr Grandmaître: They're not in our local constituency office.
Mrs Sewards: The wording of that -- the committee intended that in the new way that they should be available locally, yours should be too. But certainly it should be consistent between the two for elected officials, and if people can walk in and see them --
Mr Grandmaître: One last question.
The Chair: Very briefly.
Mr Grandmaître: On page 2 -- "Does the Human Rights Code take precedence over Bill 163?" -- what do you mean by the Human Rights Code?
Mrs Sewards: I think the trustee who was concerned about this was talking about access and privacy or human rights, those kinds of things.
Mr McLean: I would like to put a little different question. I'm curious, and I've been curious a long time about this: If your spouse was a school teacher, would you have a conflict in any way as chair of the board?
Mrs Sewards: Any trustee would have a conflict, yes. Presently, if any relative is, your children, all those kinds of things.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you think they should be allowed to run?
Mr McLean: Would you have to declare that conflict at every meeting?
Mrs Sewards: Absolutely. Existing legislation provides for that. In fact, it's very sweeping. I think that's why you had to change the quorum thing, because frequently you get everybody leaving. On some boards it's been quite hard, especially in small communities.
Mr McLean: So you're saying to me, in this committee, that any member of your board who has a spouse who is in the classroom, or a teacher, would have to declare a conflict of interest.
Mrs Sewards: Absolutely. They do now. That's the existing requirement. It's very stringent.
Mr Wiseman: On issues related to negotiation of contracts.
Mrs Sewards: Yes, anything related to those kinds of things, pecuniary issues, and we take negotiations as being pecuniary because you're dealing with wage levels and so on.
Mr McLean: Most things that deal with the board would have an effect on the teachers somewhere along the line.
Mrs Sewards: Yes, it's generally taken -- I think the interpretation of most trustees and the ones who've been in those positions presumably go and get their own advice -- that if your spouse is going to be affected in a monetary way, if they're dealing with leaves and things like that -- we haven't had too many of those because we don't have many who have spouses who work in our system; they tend to work in the other system -- they still declare a conflict because it's in the same community and it has an effect. But they leave for things like leaves and things that directly affect their spouse.
Mr McLean: The final question I have -- and my colleague may have a question -- is the closed vote. You say it would make for more harmony and it would be better if they knew how they were going to vote and then come out and support it.
Mrs Sewards: I don't think I said that. I said in certain circumstances it's in the public interest not to forbid people to vote.
Mr McLean: I think what I was hearing was the fact that if you were hiring a senior administrator and there were two or three or four who applied for the job, you think there should be a vote before in committee of the whole, or in camera, and then go out and everybody would vote unanimously because they approved of this individual?
Mrs Sewards: That's what usually happens because it's treated as a personnel item and you discuss the individual who's come to the top or the two individuals who've come to the top. Usually what happens is that a committee or whatever your process is makes a recommendation to the board and the board discusses and asks questions perhaps about individuals and so on, those kinds of things.
If it's heated -- in particular, I would think of a CEO or those kinds of things -- it can sometimes be close between two candidates. Those are the kinds of issues I'm talking about. Those are the only kinds that I've come across in my experience, that one on one occasion when we have felt it was in everybody's interests to then make sure the public and all the teachers and the candidate knew they had the confidence of the board because everyone had supported them. They didn't know that it had been hot and heavy and it was a very narrow thing that they got that job.
Mr McLean: Well, I think the public should know. I think that the public should know what's gone on. If some of them don't approve 100%, that should be known. I don't think that candidate should believe that he had the full, unanimous support of every member. That's my opinion.
Mrs Sewards: Well, it is a personal thing, I suppose.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Sewards, for coming and for sharing your views with us today.
DON EDWARDS
The Chair: Is Mr Don Edwards here? Mr Edwards, please.
Mr Don Edwards: I thought Donna Bryce was going to hand these out.
The Chair: Please pass it on to Mr Johnson and he will pass it on to us.
Mr Edwards: I'll give you a moment to pass those around. Since you didn't have a chance to see it in advance, I will go through it, as I have it written, and perhaps make some comments that may not be on there.
I thank you for the opportunity to share some of my concerns about proposed Bill 163. Let me make it very clear that I am speaking only for myself as a municipally elected school board trustee. This is my ninth consecutive year as a trustee on the Sault Ste Marie public school board.
My concerns about proposed Bill 163 will deal mainly with part II, schedule B, specifically the Local Government Disclosure of Interest Act, 1994. Let me state first of all that I think all elected officials should be accountable to the public. I do not have a problem with disclosure of my personal assets. What concerns me is how the private information that I have to supply will be used, or rather misused.
When any citizen, elected or not, is required to provide information of a personal nature, some safeguards should be provided that the information will not be misused. The information that all elected officials have to supply will not be protected, in my opinion, under this proposed bill.
The information is supposed to show accountability and should only be given out to the public when there is a justifiable reason to question the accountability of the one who supplied that information. I see no such safeguards in this proposed legislation. In my opinion, this bill comes very close to violating my rights as a citizen under the Human Rights Code and also the freedom of information act that should guard such personal information.
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The Ontario government has always shown a high regard for the protection of citizens' rights and has always respected and guarded the private financial information of Ontario residents. I give you the examples of membership in numbered companies and/or generic name companies.
Disclosure of pecuniary interest is based on the member's prior knowledge. I refer you to page 89, clauses (b), (c) and (d), and you're well aware of them. I ask you, honestly, in a court of law, who is going to believe that an elected member pleads ignorance? It will be very easy to trap an elected official who honestly did not know. I refer you to the recent Martel case.
When I look at the definition of "pecuniary interest," especially the lack of definition of "indirect pecuniary interest" -- that's the indirect pecuniary interest that could cause an elected official the problems -- I see the same lack of clarity that was in the 1990 declaration of conflict act. There will be many grey areas when an elected official could easily fail to declare but later be charged with a violation. Let me give you some examples of this.
My wife and I have invested some of our retirement savings in mutual funds. That's not an uncommon thing to do today. We have no idea where those funds are loaned out. It is conceivable that I could be dealing, at a board meeting, with a company that earns me a profit and failure to declare could be a violation and cost me my elected position.
Another example, one that came up on our board recently, was selling a piece of land to a generic name company that was the successful bidder. There wasn't one trustee on our board who declared a conflict, because we did not know who the members of the company were. It is possible that one of my four brothers could have been a part of that company. In my estimation, that would have been a conflict for me.
When a charge is laid, it could easily be that my definition of "pecuniary interest" and that of the courts could convict me.
Under this proposed bill, when a commissioner brings a case to court, all costs of the one who makes the charge are paid by the commissioner's office but all costs of an unproven case are picked up by the board or council of the elected member. Why not let the courts decide all court costs? This may avoid frivolous charges.
This proposed bill will present procedural problems for any board or council. For example, the ban on any votes in closed session could cause votes in open sessions after all visitors, including the media, have left the meeting, and I know that happens. That's not what the intent was. The intent was that the public would know.
Our board has closed sessions before open sessions. I see nothing wrong with taking a vote in closed session followed by another vote in open session when the public is present. Few boards and councils do it this way. When are votes taken after the open session is over and everyone except members are gone and closed sessions are then started?
The quorum minimum of one third, which is part of the municipal changes, will cause unnecessary delays if any council or board is reduced to less than one third because of pecuniary interest declarations. The commissioner's approval will be needed. Fortunately for our board that hasn't happened and I don't anticipate it will, but I know of another board in Sault Ste Marie, the separate board, where it has happened and will continue to happen because of some of the reasons you just mentioned about having spouses who are working for the board. I'll get into that later, maybe, if you ask me.
I am also concerned that a considerable amount of time and work will have to be done by our director's office, and in case of councils, the city clerk's office, to take, record and store all financial disclosures, oral and written declarations and supply them to the public when they are requested. This comes at a time when our board is trying to reduce the time and money of administrative staff. Perhaps the commissioner's office should do this work, since that office would have to access all that information on a complaint.
At the present time, when a trustee on our board makes a declaration of conflict, he or she must always state the reason and it is noted in our minutes. What is the necessity of a written declaration, and why should a member leave the room in a public session where it can be seen by everyone that the member has not participated in the discussion?
In terms of the gifts, it will be very difficult for a trustee to determine when a gift is part of protocol when there is a lack of clear definition. Again, the grey areas could cause a court case when definitions differ. If my definition of protocol and a gift differs from the court's when I'm in court, I could be convicted for it.
Let me give you one quick example of that. I have a personal thing on our board that when any organization, such as a teacher's organization, invites me to dinner, I personally ask them the price of the dinner and I give it to them in pay. If I'm not part of the dinner -- often they do that -- it's very difficult to be negotiating with a team today and then tomorrow be invited to a free dinner for them. I do that as a personal thing on my side because I think that's a conflict. Not all my trustees agree with me, but I do that on a personal basis.
The proposed bill says that a board or council "may" take insurance for its members. Rest assured that I will be bringing a resolution to our board to obtain that insurance. That may be costly. I have no guarantee that the Ministry of Education will give grants to cover this cost, so the local taxpayers of Sault Ste Marie will have to pick up the bill. It is too costly for me and any trustee to pay the costs of unfounded charges that could be laid.
In summary, a renewed look at the conflict of interest act of 1990 and improving it could have avoided the need for extensive legislation such as Bill 163. This bill will set up an unneeded bureaucracy of a commissioner and subcommissioners in all regions to try to handle problems that I tell you do not now exist. There are very few violations with the conflict of interest act of 1990.
I ask you, who is going to pay the cost for the administration of this act?
Let me get on to numbered companies for a minute. Since numbered companies and/or generic name companies are allowed in Ontario and that could cause unknowing violations for trustees, such as I've mentioned to you, is the government going to take a look at this problem?
Taking this bill to committee with responses asked for during the summer months definitely shortened the list of trustees who may have wanted to respond. Many elected officials will be caught off guard without changes in this proposed bill.
Thank you very much for listening, and I will attempt to answer any questions that may have arisen from my presentation.
Mr Curling: The concerns that you raise have been reflected quite often by other people too, about the conflict situation. I want to ask this question: How far do you think that it should go in a family disclosing its assets? I mean your wife or your brother or your brother's wife or your brother's wife's children. Who should declare a conflict?
Mr Edwards: First of all, I have got to share this with you. I did read Bill 163 quite a few times, rather extensively. I thought it rather humorous that I could say that I don't have a spouse, but if I say I don't have a spouse, then my spouse's assets are mine. I thought that was rather humorous in a way, really. I'm not afraid to tell you I have a spouse, I'm not afraid to tell you my spouse's assets and I'm not afraid to tell you any assets of my children. I'm not afraid to disclose any of this, but I do have a very grave concern with what you do with that information I give you.
Mr Curling: And that's immediate, but I'm saying beyond that: If you decide to go into public life, and your brother's wife is not concerned about whatever you do with your life --
Mr Edwards: Why not? If my brother has investments in a firm that deals with my board and I vote for that resolution, in my estimation that's a conflict.
Mr McLean: I thank you for your presentation. It's very clear, and many have been saying the same thing as what you're saying, that access to information in the registry of disclosure should not be automatic but should be for a justifiable reason.
Mr Edwards: I'd give it to you.
Mr McLean: I think of the Manitoba model, and what I've heard is that it's enclosed and nobody can see that until there has been a charge or a complaint laid against an individual, and then it's not there for the public to see it.
Mr Edwards: I watched that on TV the other day and I have to agree with you. That's some possible safeguard you could put in there for what information I give you.
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Mr McLean: The other thing that's very clear, coming across in pretty near every delegation, is a member leave the room in a public session where it can be seen that the member has not participated in the discussion. It just seems foolish that he would have to do that. It's recorded that he said he has a conflict, and filling a form out after -- I know some councillors have to declare a conflict every meeting. Are they going to fill a form out after every meeting to say what their conflict is? It just seems too much.
Mr Edwards: I attended a council meeting on this very same thing and one thing came up in council. I'll share it with you very briefly. One council member said that if they had a piece of property they wanted to sever, they could not attend the council meeting nor have a representative represent them under your bill, under Bill 163.
Mr McLean: Thank you for taking the time to come this morning.
Mr Perruzza: I just want to get a sense of how many trustees on your board declare conflicts, and how frequently do they declare conflicts, and what kinds of conflicts are they?
Mr Edwards: On our board, very few. We have one trustee who regularly declares a conflict in transportation items because her husband drives a bus for Charterways, and so she regularly declares a conflict. The vice-chair that you heard declares a conflict on negotiation items because her son teaches in Thunder Bay. That's rather remote, but she feels that it's a conflict.
I've declared a conflict once in nine years and I have to question even why I did that, although my sister was a teacher who was retiring and there was money involved, and I said, "I'm not going to participate in this discussion." I couldn't have done anything about it. She worked for the board for 35 years and she was entitled to her retirement.
But there aren't that many, and our trustees are very, very open with any possibility of a conflict. I'm really worried about our trustees getting trapped into not declaring a conflict, even with legal advice, and then finding out later that the commissioner said it was a conflict and the court said it was a conflict and they could lose their seat.
Mr Perruzza: Two more questions.
The Chair: We don't have time for two, unless you roll them up very quickly. Go ahead.
Mr Perruzza: I was going to ask, has anybody ever been embroiled in a conflict situation? And you mentioned earlier that you would be bringing the resolution to the board wherein you would request that a fund be set up should such situations arise. That fund would pick up the costs, I guess, of frivolous accusations against one of the board members.
Mr Edwards: That's what the bill says, if the charge is unfounded, yes; the board has to pay it. I mean, why wouldn't they carry insurance on it?
Mr Hayes: On the issue of open meetings, the school board does not fall under this act as far as the open meetings go because you fall under the Education Act. When we talk about the definition of a local board, "`local board' means a local board as defined in the Municipal Affairs Act, except municipal police services boards, library boards and school boards." I just wanted to point that out to you.
Mr Edwards: Are you telling me that the item on closed meeting votes is not applicable to the board?
Mr Hayes: I'll let one of the staff respond to that so you'll get the clarification.
Ms Patricia Myatt: My name is Patricia Myatt. I'm with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
The provisions in Bill 163 regarding open meetings do not apply to school boards, so whatever provisions you currently have under the Education Act regarding your conduct at meetings are what you will have to follow.
Mr Edwards: I'll bring that information back to the board.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair, some clarification? What does the Education Act say?
Ms Myatt: I can provide you a copy of the sections. I don't know off the top of my head, but we can get you a copy.
Mr Edwards: The reason I brought that up is I know many boards, including our council -- and I'm not speaking out of turn when I say that our council has its meetings open right up to the end and then they say, "Now we will go into caucus on several items": personnel, money, whatever. My question is, when do they vote that in open session?
Mr Eddy: Do they meet in open session after, do you know?
Mr Edwards: According to the act, they can call an open session and hold votes on it, but nobody's going to be there; they've all gone home.
Mr Eddy: That's amazing. That's a presage right there.
Mr McLean: Section 6 of the act spells it out. It's on page 93 of the bill. It spells it out there.
Mr Edwards: It's one of the reasons why our board changed and had their closed sessions first and their open sessions later. It also shortened our meetings.
The Chair: Mr Edwards, we've run out of time. We thank you for the personal interest you've taken in this bill and thank you for communicating your views with us.
Mr Edwards: Thank you for the invitation.
TOWN OF PARRY SOUND
The Chair: Mayor Nancy Cunningham?
Mrs Nancy Cunningham: Yes, thank you.
The Chair: Welcome to this committee.
Mr Perruzza: Mr Chairman, how are you going to proceed with the rest of the agenda?
The Chair: We allowed Mr Edwards to go in advance of Mrs Cunningham, given she wasn't here at the time.
Mr Perruzza: Okay, she gets a half-hour?
The Chair: Exactly, yes.
Mrs Cunningham: I apologize. There's been a mixup in communications. My information was that I was to appear at 11:30, so I am here prior to my appointment.
The Chair: Do you have a brief to give us?
Mrs Cunningham: I do. How many copies?
The Chair: I suggest you pass them all around, and if there are not enough, we'll share.
Mrs Cunningham: I appreciate this opportunity to address you and hope my thoughts will come through clearly.
Generally speaking, I think municipal elected officials agree with the objectives of parts II and IV of the legislation, Bill 163. Those are the parts I am here to address today.
Open meetings of council committee have been in place for several years in the town of Parry Sound and in many other municipalities. The need for some form of monitoring to assure that the influence of a council or staff member has over municipal decisions not be used for personal benefit I think is widely recognized. However, having said this, I do have a number of areas of concern, and these concerns are shared with members of my council and members of our district municipal association.
We submit that it's politics at its worst to present a total of 19 separate acts under one bill. Those relating to planning, to disclosure of interest, to open meetings and to disposal of property have been the object of intense debate and they affect every municipality and every municipal politician in Ontario. By calling for only one vote on these four major topics, it says that municipal matters are unimportant and the province has no respect for us, for our level of government.
Under sections 21 and 22, I have a concern with the legislative process outlined, or perhaps I should say it's legislative nonprocess. It outlines how the Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations prescribing financial disclosure and duties of the commissioner and the boards, agencies, corporations and other entities or classes of them to which this act applies.
This makes it -- it's not definite, it's not restrictive. Proposed limitations are provided for in form 1, disclosure of financial information, but the form is prescribed by regulations and it's my understanding that regulations may be changed by the government of the day without reference to debate in the Legislature.
There is nothing to prevent a future government requiring specific financial information, dollar amounts, for ownership or mortgage interests, business interests, equity and bonds. I feel the form provided just sort of lulls people into acceptance if they don't realize the difference between regulations and legislation, and most of us, being municipal politicians, don't realize that difference. There will be no opportunity at the time of change to object to the requirement for more specific financial information.
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We request that the legislation be changed to limit the information that must be disclosed to identification and description of financial interests and income sources as required on the form circulated. That's what we're led to expect and I think that's what should be outlined in legislation so that it's set.
In addition, the act states that other "entities" to which this legislation applies may be added by regulation. It's difficult to imagine what these entities might be, but we request that the legislation specifically exclude advisers and advisory committees, as the people, by definition, who belong to these groups are likely in many cases to be professionals, to have to declare an interest and withdraw, and these are the people we rely on for advice. So we're going to have worse decisions at the municipal level as a result of having to have our most informed people withdraw from discussion.
Under section 15, the disclosure of financial information, pecuniary interest and gifts received, they will be kept in a register which will be inspected by the public, and copies of this information may be obtained upon request. The ability of any member of the public, some of whom have limitless time at their disposal and a desire to trap a specific councillor or board member -- you only have to be a little aware. I'm sure you have the same thing in provincial politics, but we're much closer to it at the municipal level, and there are definitely some people out there who enjoy following and harassing certain council members.
These people will, with no restriction at all, be able to peruse, photocopy, take home, study, call groups in to pore over the disclosure or lack of disclosure by some of their municipal representatives. I would say 99% of those representatives have the best of intentions and wish to disclose all that is required of them, but all of us overlook things that we should do.
So we request that application to check the disclosure records be required to be made through a municipal staff member who will then provide the information requested and keep a register of the requests as well.
The provision for not being found guilty by way of inadvertence has been removed from this act. It was previously to be found in the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, subsection 10(2). The provision of inadvertence acknowledges a fact of the human condition: We're not robots. We may fully intend to do something. We can't be programmed like machines, and we often overlook things. Even machines break down. I think there should be some room for judgement to be allowed as a person is being judged. So we request that inadvertence and error in judgement continue to be recognized as valid findings under the new act.
We also request that there be a provision made to immediately notify any member who is under investigation. I don't see that covered in the act.
We note that investigation by a commissioner can take as long as six months and will be added stress to what is occasioned by a court hearing, which they may have to go through, as well as the investigation by the commissioner.
I myself have been the subject of a lawsuit for the past three years because of my municipal actions, and it doesn't appear to be any closer to being resolved than it was three years ago. It is a stressful situation and one that I don't believe provincial members have to go through to the same extent.
We note and object to the additional financial burden placed on municipalities charged with keeping the register, paying the staff people and paying the costs of the commissioner.
Regarding the Municipal Act, while MLAs are protected by absolute privilege, municipal council members have the lesser protection of qualified privilege. We brush shoulders with our constituents daily as they function in their political lives. Partly because of this proximity, municipal politicians are at greater risk of being sued than their counterparts in the Legislature, so we strongly request that MLAs who have the power to extend protection equal to their own to municipal politicians accord us the respect of providing us with absolute privilege as well.
We are concerned that social occasions such as barbecues, picnics or relaxing over coffee before or after a formal meeting will be regarded as meeting in secret. In fact, our experience has been, unfortunately, that opening our meetings to the public has not caused a decrease in the public perception that we meet behind closed doors. Despite our rigid adherence to the rules allowing in camera proceedings, we're still the object of media attention and personal attention from people who feel we're continuing to meet behind closed doors. So although the aim is good, the object is not always met.
We're concerned that not permitting votes while in in camera settings will result in tying the hands of council so they're unable to properly direct staff on legal matters without giving a hint of these matters to the public and causing breach of the freedom of information and protection of privacy rules. In fact, open votes that are not clearly worked -- "clearly worked"; that doesn't make sense, nor do my original notes -- will continue to leave council members open to the charge they are trying to mislead the public.
Interjections.
Mrs Cunningham: You got me. I can't think at this point. What you add in I'm sure will be more coherent than I am.
Mr Grandmaître: Clearly voted on?
The Chair: Not recorded?
Interjection.
The Chair: I would move on, Mrs Cunningham. Not to worry.
Mrs Cunningham: In summary, we are concerned that with the increasing tendency of the public to litigate against council and board members, this legislation will cause people not to stand for these offices. This is particularly true for those who serve without pay on some of the boards out of a sense of civic responsibility.
Council and board work becomes more complex and time-consuming yearly. We are sure the provincial government wishes to encourage rather than discourage participation at the local level, and we believe the issues raised in this presentation must be addressed before Bill 163 is passed in order not to discourage participation by good people.
Mr McLean: Welcome to the committee, Mrs Cunningham. The drive from Parry Sound this morning I'm sure would be relaxing.
Mrs Cunningham: It would have been if I hadn't been sort of late getting this together.
Mr McLean: Anyhow, you talked about the regulations. I asked the very first day of these hearings about regulations, and they tell us that they're being done; they're not completed yet. They won't be completed until the bill is passed. They'll be passed at the same time, apparently, so we have some concern with that too, because you're very clear that you can change any bill with a regulation and make it something that it's not.
We're also looking for some amendments that may be coming from the government and we're not sure what they are yet or how many. It would have been nice if we'd had them so that we could have had input from the deputations that have been coming before us.
A lot of the deputations are very much similar, and I'm curious to know what the government's going to do with this bill, because I dare say that 70% to 80% of people coming before us oppose the bill. There are some who will have some minor change they would like to see, but for the most part the wardens and the municipal people really seem to be opposed to it. So it will be interesting to see what happens. I just think it's great that you took the time to come because I think it's important that they know what your municipality feels about it.
Under the Planning Act, do you have an official plan approved in Parry Sound?
Mrs Cunningham: Yes, we do.
Mr McLean: Are you looking for -- well, you can't get approval authorities as a city.
Mrs Cunningham: We can't, but we have -- I didn't address that section of this, but since we have a professional planner on staff, we have asked if we can be recognized.
Mr McLean: That's good, and you haven't had any word from them? Are they looking favourably upon you?
Mrs Cunningham: I haven't heard any wild cheering in the municipal office, so I gather that no, we haven't heard from them.
Mr McLean: Thank you for coming before us. Dave?
Mr David Johnson: Well, I'd like to thank you as well, and perhaps identify to some degree with your statement at the beginning that there are a number of major topics that are being crammed together, and that shows, you say, no respect for the level of government that I represented for many years in the borough of East York, and I'm very proud to have represented it. Even Bill 120 was another acknowledgement of that lack of respect for municipal concerns. Anyway, we won't talk about Bill 120 today.
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You raise grave concerns about how the information may be available to the public and the fact that there are people who have time on their hands and who would certainly go in, photocopy, get the information, have groups pour over the information and use it for whatever purposes.
My colleague Mr McLean has recommended we look at the Manitoba formula, the Manitoba procedure, whereby this information is only available, as I understand it -- this is only my second day on the committee -- if there is a complaint, and other than that, you couldn't see the information, so you'd have to register a complaint. Is that the kind of thing that you think would be perhaps a step in the right direction?
Mrs Cunningham: That certainly would bear looking at. I think there are a number of ways in which there could be some, you know, not barriers but a process to go through, and perhaps also have the person making the inquiry identified and his name or her name preserved so that there's perhaps a better understanding of why the inquiry is made, who's following through on this on the part of the municipal politicians. It seems to start with the premise that we're all trying to bilk the system, and 99% of us aren't, even though we recognize that the situations that are being addressed do need addressing. We just don't want to put the clamps on so strong that municipal politicians can't move any more.
Mr Wiseman: I'd like to go back to your section on inadvertence. In the act, it says that the commissioner, upon application, may conduct an investigation.
Mrs Cunningham: Yes.
Mr Wiseman: Then it says that upon the completion of the investigation, the commissioner can apply to the courts. Then it says in subsection 8(12) that, "Despite subsection (10), no person other than the commissioner shall make an application to the court unless the person has submitted an application to the commissioner under subsection (1)...." and there are some rules there.
Now, it seems to me that the legislation says that I just can't say that you have a conflict of interest and take you to court unless there's a 180-day expiration, and then -- this is protection for you -- the commissioner has to do an investigation. If the commissioner decides that he isn't going to move on it, then it seems to me that any person in the public would have very serious difficulty trying to get any kind of judgement in the courts. In fact, we heard from a person who's done some work on conflict of interest that they feel that this section is really a protection section.
Then the other part of this section is the power of the court. Right now, as I understand it -- and I stand to be corrected -- you are either guilty or you're not guilty. There are no strata, there's no striation, there are no levels. I mean, you could have done something inadvertently, and either you're guilty and you're punished to the maximum or you're not punished at all. So this would allow for some variations in between.
Mrs Cunningham: May I address that?
Mr Wiseman: Yes, that's it.
Mr Perruzza: In politics there's no middle-of-the-road punishment, is there?
Mrs Cunningham: Well, yes, there is, under the present Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. It allows the judge to make a finding of inadvertence and to not make the penalties descend upon the person, because in good faith they overlooked it or in good faith they thought they had received proper advice, as Shelley Martel did recently. She was still castigated in the media, but that doesn't mean she didn't act in good faith, in my view. I think that finding needs to be open to the people who are listening to us.
Mr Wiseman: I think I'd like to hear, if possible, because I think -- and maybe I didn't do a very good job on that -- it's a good section.
Ms Myatt: My name is Patricia Myatt. I'm with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. I guess the idea behind this section is, as you know, right now there are the inadvertence and bona fide error provisions, and there's been some concern that the courts have used that quite often and found someone guilty of an offence but because of the reason there was no penalty at all.
The provisions in the new act provide a range of penalties, the first being that if the person is found guilty, the court shall suspend the member for up to 90 days. If it's felt that it wasn't a severe contravention of the legislation, the judge could decide to suspend the member for one day. So, instead of saying, "Look, you were found guilty, but there's no penalty," this way they could be found guilty with a limited type of penalty. While it's left up to the court to decide, of course, that does leave room for discretion.
Interjection: So there's still discretion.
Ms Myatt: It changes the way it goes.
The Chair: If you ask your question, Mr Perruzza won't have any time. It's up to you.
Mrs Cunningham: May I respond to -- sorry, I didn't catch your name.
The Chair: Ms Myatt is her name.
Mrs Cunningham: You will only remember a year after the event that the person was found guilty; you won't remember the reasons. Just like somebody who graduates from high school, it doesn't matter whether they're the top of their class or bottom, they've graduated.
Mr Perruzza: The headline was, "Guilty."
Mrs Cunningham: Yes, that's right.
Mr Perruzza: That's what's produced and spread around.
Mrs Cunningham: That's right, and that's my concern.
Mr Wiseman: I think the commissioner, if they've ruled that there was no conflict --
The Chair: Mr Wiseman, there's one minute left.
Mrs Cunningham: I think you have faith in the courts; I do as well.
Mr Perruzza: Let them go ahead.
The Chair: Any further comments? There are about 35 seconds left.
Mrs Cunningham: I would like to say that a judge has the experience every day of making decisions like this. The commissioner may be a judge and may have that experience, but he may not either. He may be like you and me. Maybe you're a judge, I don't know.
Mr Curling: Your worship, thank you for your presentation. Regardless of how you felt, it was a very good presentation.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you.
Mr Curling: The concern that you raised at the beginning is a concern of many people. This is a very major piece of legislation that is attempted by this government. This omnibus bill, this attempt to do this, is almost disgraceful in the sense that we're hearing your concern, and that is why maybe you have limited yourself to just one of the sections of all this. So we agree with you and so have many, many people who have come before us that this should never be an omnibus bill, but we know the situation behind this is to hide things, to ram it through in that process.
Mr Wiseman: That's what you guys did on us.
Mr Curling: Give me my time, Mr Wiseman, could you, please.
Mr Wiseman: Sorry.
Mr Curling: The situation here is that they are putting themselves in this time frame, that this should be completed by December. Do you feel that this large bill, which of course leaves most of it to regulations which we haven't seen and will not see before that, the "trust me" situation, that we can complete this bill by December, have it as law by December?
Mrs Cunningham: It's very difficult to display that trust in a government that is not trusting us.
Mr Grandmaître: That's a great quote.
Mr Curling: Do you feel it would be very helpful to have those regulations before you, seeing, for instance, that it was the Sewell report itself that had recommended to this government and tried itself in a way to interpret this policy, and then we get legislation that does not reflect this? Do you feel too that if you had the regulations it could be helpful in getting them back on track?
Mrs Cunningham: It would be very helpful. At the same time, since regulations can be changed without debate in the Legislature, it's still a concern, because the regulation we have before us, even in its final form today, will not necessarily be the same that's there next year or five years from now.
Mr Curling: In that, you may have answered my question that what may appear in this regulation should be in the legislation.
Mrs Cunningham: That's correct. That's my point.
Mr Curling: Then maybe I could ask the Chairman, or maybe the parliamentary assistant, who has the ears of the government -- he doesn't get into cabinet, but he has the ears of the minister -- will there be changes in the sense that the regulations that you are depending so much on, that most of those things that you were putting in a few years ago appear in amendments and we've got it in the legislation?
Mr Hayes: Thank you very much, Mr Curling, and I certainly appreciate your support. I have had to say similar words at just about every meeting because some members don't seem to grasp it.
Mr Grandmaître: We still don't trust the government.
Mr Hayes: I'm very sorry if you don't trust me. However, the worst thing a politician can say is, "Trust me," so I'm not going to do that, but I will do the best I can with the resources that I have to do it for the benefit of the people.
This question has come up so many times about the regulations prior to legislation. It doesn't work that way, and it has never, ever worked that way, where you'd have the regulations prior to the legislation. You have the legislation, then the regulations. But what we are doing here, what no one else has ever done before, is that we will have the legislation at the time --
Mr Grandmaître: On third reading.
Mr Hayes: -- of third reading. No other government has ever, ever done it in any other way.
Mr Eddy: But the imposition of policies --
Mr Hayes: If I may finish, the point is that we do have an implementation task force which consists of people from AMO, people from the Ontario Home Builders' Association, environmentalists.
Mrs Cunningham: With respect, implementation is after the event.
Mr Hayes: Excuse me, we're not disputing that at all, but what I'm saying here is, how can you have legislation and have the regulations before? You have to have legislation to work with.
Mrs Cunningham: That's not my major point. My major point is that the controls be in the legislation as opposed to leaving it to regulation.
Mr Eddy: That's a good point.
Mr Hayes: It's just not the way that it ever has worked, and for members to sit here and pretend --
Mrs Cunningham: Oh, but it is.
Mr Hayes: No, no, I'm sorry. The fact of the matter is that we will progress more in line with the legislation than has ever been done before. Any piece of legislation that has been passed in this province in the past, the regulations have come way after the legislation. This here is going to be closer, okay? I'm just telling you how it has worked. For members to sit here and say that we have to have the regulations at the same time as legislation, other governments have not done that until well after the legislation has been passed.
The Chair: Mr Hayes, you've made your point. I'm sorry, we went way over time. Was there anything else, Mr Hayes? Very well. Mrs Cunningham, we thank you very much for coming and thank you for participating in these hearings.
The Chair: This committee is recessed until 2 o'clock.
The committee recessed from 1143 to 1402.
Mr Curling: Mr Chairman, before we start, I just want to make a quick point here. There are some people from the unorganized areas here who said that they didn't know of this hearing. They just saw it in the newspaper. If they could be given about five minutes just to make a presentation at the end, they would very much appreciate that.
The Chair: I appreciate that some of you are quite willing to be accommodating, and so am I as the Chair. We have a tight schedule. The way that we have put people into our schedule is if we've had a cancellation; otherwise, it gets complicated. We have to be at the airport, I presume, around 6 o'clock.
Mr Eddy: What time do we leave?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Donna Bryce): Five to 6, I think.
The Chair: I would recommend that as much as we would like to accommodate them, I don't think we can.
Mr David Johnson: If there are cancellations, then would you undertake to fit them in?
Mr Perruzza: If one of the other groups is prepared to give up five minutes, we should accommodate them then.
The Chair: That's right. I was about to say, if some deputants want to cut short their presentation by five minutes and we have 15 minutes to give to one of the other people who'd like to be deputants, we will do that.
Mr Hayes: If the members also would consider that.
The Chair: Otherwise, this would be an unusual diversion of our rules, I would argue.
Mr Grandmaître: Were these people advised?
The Chair: Yes. You know the way people are advised through the regular advertisements that we give in the papers.
Mr David Johnson: Well, let's get going and maybe we'll have some time.
BRUCE PENINSULA ENVIRONMENT GROUP
The Chair: We call Mr Ziggy Kleinau.
Mr Ziggy Kleinau: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Chair and members of the committee. My name is Ziggy Kleinau and I'm the secretary of the Bruce Peninsula Environment Group. I thank you for the opportunity to make this submission on behalf of the Bruce Peninsula Environment Group.
Our group has been involved in environmental issues for at least five years. Every month of the year we hold a public meeting attended by an average of 40 people. There's widespread interest and concern about planning and development in the Bruce Peninsula, a small strip of land between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay with its own ecosystem.
A substantial part is covered by the Niagara Escarpment, which was declared a world biosphere reserve by UNESCO, with the intent to protect its unique character from development. The federal government established the Bruce Peninsula National Park in 1987 on the northern part, encompassing approximately one third of the peninsula.
Needless to say, the rest of the land area is under enormous development pressure because of its scenic beauty, but it has a fragile ecosystem with wetlands, river valleys and rocky ground, poorly suited for septic installations. That fact spurred us to participate in the public hearings of the Commission on Planning and Development Reform. Several of our members made individual submissions. We were impressed by the open process and the final recommendations of the commission, which gave a perfect example of efficiency and expediency for any planning authority coming in $1 million under budget and also well ahead of schedule.
It was when we were able to assess the government's response to their recommendations that we had to become involved again.
We deplore the fact that Bill 163 was not issued in draft form for public consultation. The Sewell commission spent two years in a successful bid to receive public comment. In this bill, which after receiving first reading in May now goes before committee, some very important recommendations have been passed over.
Listening to the commission chair at the CELA annual meeting earlier this year, we were aghast that the government proud to present the interests of the working class has bowed to corporate pressure to delete five of the major recommendations of this final report: the desperately needed inspection of septic systems every five years; the control mechanism for tree cutting; deleting controls over all other ministries except the MMA, Ministry of Municipal Affairs; the right to appeal unless intention was filed before a decision; and also proposed legislation weakened by turning it into regulation instead.
We have to stress in any planning exercise the natural environment has first priority. It is only logical because we ultimately cut our own throats, so to say, by not taking into account that human beings need clean water, clean air and clean soil to protect our own health. What would a wealthy economy do for us if we cannot enjoy it because of poor health?
We realize that problems arising on the peninsula can affect water and air quality in other parts of the county and in the province and vice versa. That is why we are strongly recommending clear policy statements for all planning authorities to follow.
We especially want to see Ontario Hydro covered by all the new legislation in regard to land use and development. In the report A Strategy for Sustainable Energy Development and Use for Ontario Hydro, commissioned by chair Maurice Strong, it is stated that Ontario Hydro is one of the largest land owners of Ontario. That's found on page 78 of the report. The utility is advised in their recommendations "to formally adopt a corporate policy to protect and conserve biodiversity." Advice often has not been heeded there and so it is only fair that this corporate giant be made to play by the same rules as the rest of businesses and citizens of Ontario.
In that context, we specifically would recommend to make changes to certain sections of part III.
In section 4, clause 1.1(a), the word "economic" should be deleted for reasons pointed out above.
In section 5, under "Provincial interest," we propose that paragraph 2 be rewritten to say:
"Every minister of the crown, every ministry, board, commission or agency including every crown corporation in carrying out their responsibilities under the act shall be consistent with policy statements issued under subsection (1) and with the purposes of this act."
In this section again, we find that as a matter of priority the protection of public health and safety clause, clause 2(o), should be moved up to second spot before clause 2(b), agricultural resources of the province. Again here the legislators underestimate the importance of public health.
In section 6(5), regarding decision-making, the word "every" should be inserted before all the public bodies named therein.
In that same section under 14.4, composition of body corporate, it is absolutely essential that it calls for the appointment of a member of an environmental non-government organization, ENGO, to the municipal planning authority. How can any council used to dealing with fiscal and economic matters have any expertise on environmental issues? We have just seen it with the composition of the Bruce county planning committee where almost all members are connected with the development or business community. Such an ENGO is critically important for the preparation of an environmental impact statement, EIS.
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As time constraints prohibit us from going too much into further detail, we would like to stress only a few points that desperately need to be incorporated into the act.
As there are still too many possibilities of interpreting the act to the detriment of environmental values, we have to have the commission's recommendation for intervenor funding brought into the act by including the OMB under the Intervenor Funding Project Act.
The dire need to prevent further deterioration of our drinking water sources demands the strict supervision and inspection of all septic installations in the province on a regular basis.
The danger of depleting our aquifer recharge capacity by indiscriminate commercial water sales operations has to be addressed in all official plans.
The act needs an overall interpretation section for the comprehensive set of policies where it states that if a prohibition occurs in one policy, the prohibition supersedes all other policies where there is a conflict.
The revision of municipal plans in light of new policies must occur under a new set of Planning Act amendments governing municipal plans and to include into their content requirements the incorporation of watershed environmental planning principles for development decisions.
The protection and conservation of biological, ecological and genetic diversity has been expressed as one of the principles underlying the Environmental Bill of Rights, subsection 2(2). It is therefore necessary to bring the Planning Act into consistency with this new legislation.
The importance of mineral aggregate resources has, in our opinion, been vastly overstated, even to the detriment of agricultural lands preservation policy. Let's put things into perspective. Ontario for some time now is a net importer of food products and getting ever more so. If we insist on opening new areas for mineral extraction instead of cutting back on building these superfreeways, we might end up eating gravel some day.
To conclude our submission, we again would like to express our appreciation to the Chair and members of the committee for giving us their time and attention. We would like to express our hope that there is a desire to incorporate our proposals into the final version of Bill 163.
Mr Grandmaître: Thank you for your presentation. I agree with you that we should have legislation in place to inspect septic tanks every five years. I think Mr Sewell himself in his research indicated that 80% of our septic tanks in the province of Ontario are defective. I think it's very important, if this government and other governments want to protect our environment, that a clear inspection piece of legislation should be in place to permit the inspection and to repair those defective septic tanks.
Having said this, let me try to picture where exactly you live or the area you mention in your deputation. A substantial part is covered by the Niagara Escarpment plan, which was declared one of the world's biosphere reserves and so on and so forth. Now, part of your area is controlled by the Niagara Escarpment plan. What about the area where you live? Is there an official plan? What controls your area at the present time?
Mr Kleinau: Actually, the township of Lindsay, where I live, has an official plan, but in the meantime these counties are working on a new official plan and there we're running into quite a bit of difficulty.
Mr Grandmaître: In other words, they're more compatible?
Mr Kleinau: That's right, yes. As I say, the Bruce county seems to be very development oriented and they just go overboard with dealing out new permits for development. Quite a number of the members on the Bruce county planning committee are development oriented and there's no input from any environmental source, and this is a problem.
Mr Eddy: Thank you for making your presentation to us and giving us some good food for thought. With the official plan for the township, you say it's quite strong, or is it completely development oriented as well?
Mr Kleinau: Well, it has openings, you see. That's the problem with the councils. They always try to accommodate the developers.
Mr Eddy: But then if they're objected to, a hearing is held by the OMB. How do you find the OMB deals with it? Do you find that most of the applications that come forward are finally approved?
Mr Kleinau: The problem is that the OMB up till now hasn't had very many things to go on. I mean, everything was quite up in the air. That's why we need this planning reform and that's why Mr Sewell had these strong recommendations in his report.
Mr Eddy: Do you feel that this act should follow Sewell much more closely?
Mr Kleinau: I would say that, yes.
Mr David Johnson: I would simply on behalf of Mr McLean and myself express our thanks to Ziggy. I know that his dedication to the environment is unsurpassed. I believe I had the opportunity to listen to you during the debate on the Environmental Bill of Rights and you brought a very similar message at that point.
I think your brief speaks for itself, and consequently I really don't have any questions and, Mr Chair, would simply like to dedicate the remaining three and a half minutes or whatever is left to the unorganized township of Sudbury East planning board area in the interest of allowing everybody an opportunity to speak, since they've come this far. That's all I'll say. Thanks very much.
Ms Harrington: Thank you very much for coming up here today. I want to tell you that we appreciate very much your particular concerns regarding the septic tank systems, the tree cutting, the controls over other ministries that you enumerate here. I may ask staff to give me their idea of what should be done with the septic systems but, before I do that, I want to ask you one question. You bring up the idea of environmental advisory groups to, I believe, municipal councils?
Mr Kleinau: Exactly, yes.
Ms Harrington: We have heard this idea expressed before in southwestern Ontario. I think it's an excellent idea. Obviously council could take the advice or it could vote against the advice given.
Mr Kleinau: They need the advice to begin with, and then they certainly can do what they want with it, but it's got to be there.
Ms Harrington: How would you suggest that we go forward with this to encourage or even more than encourage councils to have such committees?
Mr Kleinau: Well, in our estimation it could be written right into the bill here. I mean, it talks about the makeup of the planning authorities and it could be part of this makeup. It could be stipulated in there.
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Ms Harrington: I think the bill very much does encourage citizen involvement at the beginning of the process, and it actually is up to a municipality, the citizens there. I mean, if you don't have people who are willing to do this, it may not be possible, but I think the way things are going, more young people are becoming much more concerned and involved.
Maybe I could ask the staff to comment on the septic tanks issue. Would that be all right?
Mr Hayes: I'll do it if you don't mind.
Thank you very much for your presentation. I just want to tell you that the government does recognize that proper installation and maintenance of septic systems is important to protect the environment. What is happening now is that there is going to be a multidisciplinary group of stakeholders to review this issue, because it is a very complex issue. They'll be making recommendations in regard to the implementation and how we're going to approach this particular issue.
There are some questions about how the inspections should be done and who pays and all of these kinds of things, but on top of that, what we have done is actually invited representatives from the Ministry of Environment and Energy to come before this committee -- I believe it's going to be next Monday -- to bring the committee up to date and see how we can come to a solution on this particular issue.
Mr Kleinau: The problem is just that, I mean, there's an estimated 33,000 new septic tanks going in a year and if they're not properly supervised, then we have that added impact on our drinking water sources. There's got to be some speedy solution to this problem.
Mr Eddy: But new ones are put in according to specification, aren't they?
Mr Perruzza: I'd like to give the time to the deputant, so I won't ask my questions.
The Chair: Mr Kleinau, we thank you very much for coming and thank you for participating in these hearings.
We have approximately eight minutes to give to the individuals who would like to depute. Eight minutes will have to suffice. Are you prepared to do that now? Please come forward then.
Mr Eddy: Mr Chair, while they are coming forward, Reeve Jim Slack has also asked for the opportunity to speak to the committee for a very short time, if possible. He did that this morning.
BASIL MORRISON
Mr Basil Morrison: My name is Basil Morrison. I am a resident in an unorganized township southeast of Sudbury. Thank you for giving me the time to speak.
Under this official plan, there are to be no further severances for year-round dwellings in unorganized townships, and the vast majority of the land in the province of Ontario is unorganized townships. Given that present rural property owners tend to be older people, they have two choices: They can sell the property in one block and move into a senior citizens' rabbit warren or they can grow old and feeble all alone on their land, forcing it into disuse. They cannot, under this proposed legislation, have the comfort and support of a family member located close by to help them maintain their property, maintain the land. They're going to have to let it go back to bush.
They own what must surely be now the only indivisible asset that there is in the country. Can you think of any other asset which is not divisible? You can even cut out a chunk of your own body and give it to someone else, but not land in unorganized townships. These are to become ghettos for the old and the lonely. How stinging that is in this the International Year of the Family. It's too bad that our children couldn't qualify under the federal program of family reunification.
This program certainly has the appearance of discrimination against seniors. This plan wants to force seniors out of their homes in the country to become part of a population intensification, a stated objective of this program, in the cities. There is blatant urban prejudice in this whole approach. Its authors assume that humanity is best served by ever-increasing density of population. To them, New York, Mexico City and Hong Kong are absolute nirvanas compared to the unorganized townships. We suffer the double disadvantage of being old and being few in number.
Now with respect to details: No consideration on this blockage of severances is given to the length of ownership. I personally have owned my land for 24 years. We have deliberately held that land. During all the years we could have severed it for profit, we deliberately held back for severance to our children when they were mature enough to be able to build their own homes and to be of aid to us.
No provision is made for a severance to a family member who cannot dispose of it, say, after 10 or 15 years. If they say, "Oh, you'll just give it to your child and they'll flip it and give it to someone else," that can easily be solved by saying that if you give it to a child, they cannot dispose of it to someone else.
The infilling provision on this number 17, under the rural division, essentially wipes out every other consideration. Not many farms are located on the edge of villages which have these houses no more than 500 feet apart. You'd soon surround the village or the small town and you'd run out of places to infill, so the infilling provision essentially wipes out all those other things.
Work on even a small farm requires residency on that farm. I don't know how many people here ever lived on a farm, but your home is usually your information centre, your tool room, your workshop and it has to be very close to where your equipment is kept. Living in town just doesn't work. You can't have a son who lives 11 miles away and be available for work on the farm when farm work needs to be done. This is not a nine-to-five job.
If an application for severance shows that it is for a full-time paid employee of the farm, that application is more likely to be approved than if it was for a paid or unpaid family member who would be there for a lifetime, not someone who just is there for six months or four years or whatever. Family members who work on the farm tend to be there.
Under this plan we are heading for depopulation of rural northern Ontario. It seems that the rural areas are to be reserved as a playground for urbanites. Is that what your intention is? That's what the plan's intention seems to be. Is that what your intention is?
Mr Perruzza: No.
Mr Morrison: We hope it is not. Thank you very much for your consideration.
The Chair: One moment, please. I want to check to see whether Ms Forrest has some comments that might be helpful.
Ms Norma Forrest: I'd just like to clarify the policies as they apply to areas without municipal organization. The policies that apply are the policies of B.11. They talk about development generally being restricted in areas without municipal organization, but development being permitted in a couple of circumstances.
One is where it's directly related to a resource in proximity to the resources necessary. That talks about the situation where you've got a farm and you need farm help or seasonal residential development. The other situation is where it's in or adjacent to a builtup area in a territory without municipal organization. If you've got a settlement area that's already there, then certainly it would be possible to expand that settlement area in the unorganized.
Mr Morrison: People living on farms don't tend to commute to the farm from a settlement area. That might be a model that has been used in some other jurisdictions, in perhaps Europe or somewhere. That's what you're saying. If someone goes into infilling, you said if they're going to live in a settlement area.
Mr Perruzza: Describe the situation that you're afraid of so that we can respond to that.
The Chair: No, please. I think Ms Forrest understood the question. If we do that, it'll delay this much more than we can afford. Ms Forrest again.
Ms Forrest: I'd just like to clarify that there are two circumstances. The first is where development has to be located adjacent to the resource. You have this on the farm. The second is if it's not a house on a farm, then it has to be within or adjacent to a builtup area. We're not saying the farmer has to live in a settlement area.
Mr Morrison: Ms Forrest, could I ask if you know of any instance in which the Sudbury East planning board has considered the building of a severance on a farm to be locating that dwelling near a resource? Are they interpreting the word "resource" to mean tillable land?
Ms Forrest: I would say that there's nothing in the policies that would preclude a planning board from being more restrictive than these policies are, and if they've chosen to say that no severances are permitted on that farm land, then that's their decision.
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The Chair: Mr Morrison, what I recommend is if there are questions that you need further clarification on, our staff is available here to be helpful to you either today or in some other way by other communications. Okay?
Mr Morrison: Thank you.
The Chair: We thank you very much for taking an interest in presenting your concerns to this committee.
Mr McLean: Can we not get one question?
The Chair: No, I'm sorry. There's no time.
LIONEL BONHOMME
The Chair: We invite Melrose Heights Ltd, Mr Lionel Bonhomme.
Mr Lionel Bonhomme: Hi. My name is Lionel Bonhomme. I'm the president of Melrose Heights Ltd. Mr Chairman, members of the committee, I would like to thank you for allowing me the time to express my opinion on a few issues relating to the Planning Act and the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act.
I'm proud to be a land developer and have actively been involved in such matters since 1966 as a second-generation developer. My father was quite active in this business from 1935 until 1983. You can imagine how many agreements the municipal government has renegotiated over the years. To give you an idea of the number of units involved in these lands, 3,200 units have been developed and we still have approximately 900 units left to develop at various stages, serviced or draft plan approved.
The first item I'd like to discuss is conflict of interest, and from what I've seen on your hearings, I guess my approach is the other side of the coin. I'm not a municipal employee or a school board employee, I do not work for government, and here's how I perceive the problems of the current legislation.
I'd like to relate to you in 1985 I was negotiating with the public school board to service a site abutting Melrose Heights development. The building superintendent for the board was an alderman from another ward and wanted the site in that ward, which was a few miles away. Negotiations were conducted over several months and culminated in a rezoning application before mayor and council, which is comprised of mayor and eight aldermen.
When discussions occurred on this application, on instructions from our solicitor I requested that all board employees or trustees leave the room in the municipal chambers. The mayor, five aldermen and one department head left the room. We did constitute a quorum legally, but these are some of the problems that can occur.
Presently on council in the city of Timmins we have a few board employees or retirees sitting as mayor or council and we also have four department heads from the municipality that are school board trustees. My conclusion and my opinion is that no board employee should be on council and no department head or municipal employee should be a trustee for a school board. I think it works two ways in that it precludes proper presentation from wards at the school level: if you have a conflict you're not representing your constituents, and on the other hand, vice versa with the municipality.
Another area where I've identified conflicts is department heads dealing with immediate family, including in-laws. They should declare a conflict and withdraw from discussions, and I think that the act does cover these situations.
Granting more approval power to municipalities: The concept appears to remove long delays and remove provincial bureaucrats who move at turtle speed. In my experience, and believe me, I've been involved in quite a number of files, some of my files have been lost for 16 or 18 months in provincial bureaucracies over the years. I've been subject to servicing and putting a shovel in the ground and waiting for an MOE certificate that's approved sitting in a typing pool six or eight weeks. I know that in Timmins our backlog of typing pool is at the most at budget time probably six hours.
I've tried over the years to explain to these bureaucrats that you're affecting the livelihood on the front lines and jobs. It can mean the difference of a construction worker collecting wages for the months of November and December or being on unemployment and on a waiting list or waiting so many weeks to be eligible for benefits or applying for social assistance. These passionate pleas do not move these agencies. They just don't care.
Another horror show I envisage is what occurs when a professional planner and engineer employed by a municipality are overruled by the wisdom of mayor and council. Over the years, for example, I've witnessed the sale of parkland to create high-density zoning for $1 to a private sector developer. This not only contravened the Planning Act in relation to park dedication but created overcapacity loads on sanitary mains. The engineer and planner recommended against such approval. Who will pay to correct the problems down the road?
Today we've got an 18-inch sanitary pipe that when it rains and the rain goes from the storm -- some of these storms are connected to the sanitary -- it accelerates and it overuses the sanitary pipe. It has to back up somewhere. There are people getting nice sanitary flows in their basements. Is the municipality going to ask for a grant from the taxpayers, the province, the feds, the municipal taxpayers? Are they going to go and raid a developer who contributed DCA funds for a mistake that was done? These are some of the problems I can see.
The matter was presented at the Sewell commission, and I feel that when mayor and council overrule the planner or engineer the matter should automatically be referred to a tribunal for independent review prior to approval. This may send a message to public officials to better assess the implications before they act.
What I'm saying is that I have seen many instances where public officials have overruled professionals, and they don't understand what their approval is giving. They're subject to intensive lobbying, they'll grant the rezoning and, five years down the road when all the projects are done, they're faced with problems. They may not be on council by that time.
Over the years developers creating more units at times are subject to long negotiations that could affect the marketing of units. There are many cases where developers agree to conditions that are not fair, but in exchange for the approval granted quickly, concessions they are not liable for, they've agreed to absorb, just to get things over with, to get their approval. There's nothing wrong with a hammer like this held by a municipality, but there should be a limit on how much time the municipality can exercise that type of hammer.
An OMB hearing can cause years of delays and if the municipality is right, the developer should pay the costs the municipality incurred in the hearing. On the other hand, if wrongful intent or if the municipality is negligently wrong and it's obvious, they should be made liable for the costs incurred by the developer. I strongly believe that if each party were liable for their costs at an OMB hearing, the backlog would disappear.
You put your money where your mouth is, and not taxpayers' dollars. It's very easy to hide behind public money and go to an OMB hearing. It's very hard as a developer in the private sector to gamble hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove a futile point. You would not be referring matters to the OMB. I've been to the OMB three times in the last 10 years and I've won every case. I've never recovered any costs. I've had to take the municipality to court once and I was awarded costs. I got 30 cents on the dollar. It's frustrating.
Department heads negotiate and represent mayor and council at servicing committee meetings. I believe that it would be proper for elected officials to be part of the negotiating committee. My experience currently is, for three years I've been negotiating. I've objected to the DCA bylaw and I've been negotiating DCA/impost with the department heads and appeared before mayor and council this past Monday.
For most aldermen this matter was new and the first report or update as to the status of negotiations. There are millions of dollars at stake. Mayor and council was not aware of our positions, our legal positions, our arguments, and they're faced with this matter three years down the road. I think it should be law that they make themselves aware of what happens in these servicing committee negotiations.
Other matters: Provincial bureaucrats who err in decisions regarding allocations, whether in mining, housing, grants or any other funding, should be more accountable for errors. The Auditor General or whoever your auditor is should review performance tests on projects for each allocator, and problem bureaucrats should be reprimanded or terminated the same way as in the private sector. If an individual in the private sector makes a mistake that costs a company half a million or a million dollars, he does not get a slap on the wrist, he gets a red slip.
Minor variances and severances should not be referred to the OMB. An independent tribunal should be created to deal with such matters. This could relieve some case load pressures.
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Mr Curling: Thanks for your presentation, Mr Bonhomme. It is said that it's not necessary to have legislation in order to make this thing efficient, and maybe we spend a lot of time as legislators feeling that if we put more legislation in, we'll feel that we've done our job. Do you feel it's necessary for this legislation in order to get the system more efficient, by getting, as you call it, the civil service, the bureaucrats, getting the politicians out of it more and having this thing working properly?
Mr Bonhomme: My opinion is that this legislation is a stab at trying to correct a wheel that has a flat tire. It's a step in the right direction and it's long overdue. It's a proven fact that the planning process over the last 25 years that I've dealt with it has been one major problem. At least I see this legislation as addressing some of the problem areas and it's a start. I think it's necessary. I think that this legislation is sending a message to provincial bureaucrats and to granting authorities that yes, they do have problems and we're trying to correct some of these problems.
Mr Curling: You have expressed that there's about 60 years of development that you and your father have been doing, I think from 1935 you said. However, you didn't impress me as a very large developer, in other words, developing a lot of units, 200 units a year or what the case would be.
What came before us mostly were people who are the smaller developers and they feel that they've been hurt more and it has been most costly to them to get you this kind of a process. Do you feel that this system, although you said it's long overdue and what have you, will help developers, if I describe you properly, will help you and people like yourself in this process, or will it slow you down?
Mr Bonhomme: I understand the land development process, I believe, in the province of Ontario, and I find that if it takes me two years to go from draft to draft to final registration stage, I've handled the file properly. I can tell you that when it goes beyond that time frame it's always provincial bureaucracies that are in the way. If my file gets lost in Timmins, I'll be able to find it in one or two days, and if it gets lost in Queen's Park, I don't even bother flying down there to look for it, and you can send any member of provincial Parliament you want, it doesn't matter.
Mr Curling: Would it be helpful for you to have the regulations? As you said, somehow people have complained the legislation did not hit the target. Maybe the knife was too dull for the tire now. But would the regulations help you to see where the government is going in having this thing more efficient, having the regulations available for you to see?
Mr Bonhomme: The regulations?
Mr Curling: The regulations, not the legislation. We have the legislation now, but they don't call it the legislation because normally not a lot can be changed. If a lot can be changed, a lot of amendments will come forward. I don't see any coming forward, but we expect some. We are hopeful, because there's a lot of changing to be done. Do you feel then that if the regulations were here or to put most of what should be in the regulations --
Mr Bonhomme: More definitions.
Mr Curling: Yes, as a matter of fact, more definitions in the legislation so you know exactly what you do, would that be helpful?
Mr Bonhomme: The only area that I'm concerned with in aspects of this legislation is to protect developers from being 100% at the mercy of municipal bureaucrats or politicians. All I'm asking for is an appeal process; if things are not going their way and they don't like it, that I have a venue to address that.
I'll give you this DCA/impost as an example. We're dealing with $4 million. I signed an agreement with the municipality in 1985. The Development Charges Act came into effect in 1991 with a sunset clause that does not apply to me. Subsection (2) of that sunset clause state that agreements signed under sections 51 or 53 of the Planning Act are exempt from the DCA bylaw where there's a conflict.
The DCA act states I'm entitled to a credit for my oversizing in my infrastructure. If you calculate that, I should get a credit of $3 million. They say, "We can't give it to you because in 1985 you agreed to oversize pipes for other lands at your expense and we will not give you a credit under the DCA act." We said: "Fine, thank you very much."
The agreement says in 1985 that we pay impost and that we pay for oversize. Three years down the road we ask the municipality: "Respect the agreement. Here's your correspondence. You state that you're using that agreement against us over here. Enforce it over here." They're saying, "You've got 850 units left, Lionel. We'll give you 350 and we'll give you your channelization costs that you want to recover and call it quits."
I'm saying, "What if I say no?" They say, "Well, you go to the OMB." It's going to cost me an extra $100,000, $150,000 to go to the OMB and I cannot recover their costs. They've already admitted that the agreement is legal and binding. So now we're saying we addressed mayor and council and mayor and council said, "This is all new to us." We have two different legal opinions. Why don't we get a court ruling? So we're bringing a motion.
We're going to be the applicant and we're applying for a ruling about an agreement entered in 1985 and a DCA act that comes in in 1991 and states clearly that agreements prior to that are valid. We're going to spend another $25,000 each to get a judge to tell us that, yes, in fact that agreement is right. This is the kind of thing I'm facing. On the other hand, if I was in a rush and I needed 100 lots for next spring, I wouldn't be going to court. I would say, "Okay, I'll take the 350 units," and I've lost 500 times $4,000 a unit.
These are the kinds of problems, and I'm saying that if municipalities want to have that power, I agree with it, but if they abuse it, they should be accountable.
Mr David Johnson: Thank you, Mr Bonhomme. I certainly appreciated your deputation. It seems to you've had a difficult time with both the municipal level and the provincial level in some of your dealings.
Mr Bonhomme: That's correct.
Mr David Johnson: As a person who has been on the municipal level and has had to deal with the recommendations of the engineers and the planners, I certainly hope I've respected them, but I understand some of the problems.
I guess basically if I've heard a consensus in this committee over the last couple of days that I've served on it, it's that there certainly have been problems at the provincial level, particularly through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. I don't know if that's where your problems are coming from or not, but I'd ask you to comment on that.
Secondly, most of the municipal people seem to be genuinely interested in expediting the applications of people such as yourself and feel hamstrung that they're going to have a difficult time doing that because of the structure that has been imposed on them, the regulations, the legislation, including possibly Bill 163 if it goes through, from Queen's Park.
They feel that they need local flexibility, that the conditions are different in Timmins, in Thunder Bay, in Sudbury than they are in Toronto, for example, and the same set of regulations should not apply. So there should be the ability of the local, elected members to be able to deal with the conditions in Timmins or elsewhere. They shouldn't be hamstrung by the same exact procedures, goals and guidelines that would take place in Toronto.
If they can do that, if they can have that flexibility, then they, in conjunction with the people they represent, can work with you, the developers, and fulfil a number of goals in terms of economic development goals, environmental protection and build the kind of community that they need. I wonder if you'd have any comments on what I've just said.
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Mr Bonhomme: Some of the problems I have encountered were with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. That's where my files got lost at the end. But I've had problems over the years with the MNR. Some of the other agencies are slow in replying. They're not interested. To them it's a nuisance that they have to reply. The MOEE has always been a major problem. They have a backlog. They have typing pools that take, minimum, six weeks to fill the blanks on one piece of paper, and you're dealing with millions of dollars. I mean I've offered to type them and bring them to the minister and fly at my own expense and it's "Do you have a process?"
As far as flexibility, I think if Bill 163 were enacted, the problems would probably arise in the pursuant two or three years. You're right, there are areas where flexibility is required, Thunder Bay, Sudbury or regional boards, and Sault Ste Marie where Timmins is a local board. There are different problems to address, but I think once you have the act in place, it would probably be the job of FONOM or AMO to identify these areas and let them do the work and bring it to you.
Mr David Johnson: Let me ask you, right now you're dealing with the Minister of Municipal Affairs primarily in Toronto?
Mr Bonhomme: That's correct.
Mr David Johnson: Now if you were able to deal with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs locally, do you think that would be an improvement?
Mr Bonhomme: It would be. There used to be a planner at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs by the name of Karen Hardy, who looked after all the Timmins files, and I guess after dealing with her for a number of years, she could track down and get through that jungle and she was a dedicated planner. What I'm saying to you here is that not all bureaucrats are the same. You have some very good bureaucrats, some very dedicated people and you've got others on the other hand -- it's like any other business, you've got good apples and bad apples.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I'm sorry, that's four minutes, Mr Johnson.
Mr David Johnson: Did I have four minutes?
The Chair: Yes. No, the problem is this. When someone asks a question close to the four-minute point and then the answer takes three minutes, we get into seven minutes and that extends the time. Do you see? That's what sometimes happens. Mr Perruzza.
Mr Perruzza: Thank you very much. I really appreciated some of your comments. Before I got this job, I was on a municipal council, the city of North York, and I can appreciate some of the things you were saying. Councils do have an enormous amount of power. The example that you were referring to, I used to call the gun-and-the hammer approach: "What are you going to take? Do you want to take a hit with the hammer or do you want the gun?"
You're right. If we can reduce that to some degree, I think that would be a helpful thing, and if we can make the rules a little clearer for all of the parties up front, for the developers as well as many of the community groups as well as the councils, because I think in the end -- and I agree with you that perhaps there are some bugs in the legislation; I wouldn't say it's perfect in its conception or its design -- but I believe, like you, that as people begin to weave their way through the legislation and through the rules, some of those bugs will be cleared.
I suspect that many of the cities, many of the councils that have come and have addressed the committee and have talked about how the province is usurping their authority and limiting their ability to plan locally and all of that, many of those same councils five, 10 years down the road will come back and address a future government and say to them: "Hang on a minute. This is working well now. Please don't come along and fix it or move on it."
I appreciated your reiterating some of that because, quite frankly, under a lot of the cross-examination that's gone on people have been able to extract from many of the deputants who have appeared before this committee the slant and the political twist to the arguments that they've desired. To me, that to some degree is wrong.
But I want to go back to a point you raised in one of your arguments. You talked about how the municipal staffers -- and it relates really to the conflict argument that you made, how we have to be diligent in our approach to how we envelope municipal councillors, as well as school board trustees. I've been both and I can appreciate some of the influences that intermingle between the two posts.
But you said we should allow the staff people and the senior staff people more authority and more jurisdiction. In that vein, would you say that senior staff, both at the school board and the municipal level, should to some degree be enveloped by conflict guidelines?
Mr Bonhomme: I think that a member of administration on the municipality, whether he be a planner, an engineer, parks and rec --
Mr Perruzza: The administrative officers per se.
Mr Bonhomme: The whole five or six department heads that come and deal with land developers should be prevented from investing in subdivisions. The temptation is too big. They should not be allowed to form investment clubs to buy land. How about if you sit on the committee for a school that's choosing a land site and you're the recording secretary of that through your job at city hall as a department head and, all of a sudden, you turn around and you option some lots for $5,000 and you turn around and you sell it to the board for $30,000? These things have occurred in the past.
The legislation, to the department heads, the temptation is too great. You either want to be a dedicated municipal bureaucrat or you want to become a speculator, but you can't have both. I think that they should fall under that.
Mr Perruzza: So we should look at some kind of disclosure for senior civil servants and municipal and school board levels as well?
Mr Bonhomme: That's correct.
The Chair: We've run out of time. Mr Bonhomme, we thank you very much. We find your presentation very helpful.
MUNICIPALITY OF BLACK RIVER-MATHESON PLANNING BOARD
The Chair: We invite the township of Black River-Matheson area planning board, Mr Robert Barber. Do you want some water?
Mr Robert Barber: No, I may need a gun or a pair of running shoes might be handy.
Mr Wiseman: You don't need that. We're friendly.
Mr Barber: Oh, you're friendly? Oh, thank goodness.
Ms Harrington: We're all friendly here.
Mr Barber: To tell you the truth, I didn't know what I was getting into. I walked into a meeting and they said, "We're drawing straws," and handed me one, and it was the short one. I don't know, I didn't see the other straws whatsoever.
However, I thank you for the opportunity to address this gathering. This is a complex matter. Planning, of course, always is complex whether you're sitting in downtown Toronto or in Black River-Matheson. I'll read the brief and respond to any questions. I don't think this will take long.
First, the planning board of the municipality of Black River-Matheson would like to congratulate the government for the efforts being made towards refining the Planning Act. On the surface it appears that the new approach may lead to a better system rather than just adding to the amount of red tape and costs involved.
The main concern our municipality has is that it seems that too wide a brush may have been used in an effort to paint the entire province equally. Conditions and concerns as they apply in southern Ontario may be very different when it comes to northern Ontario and vice versa. Unfortunately, too many of the reasonings may be too slanted towards the more developed south and need much refining to fit the realities of the north.
For instance, the new policies, while good, require the input of people from diverse specialized fields such as hydrogeological engineers and the like. In southern Ontario these specialists are often quite near and so the price of any required study is relatively cost-efficient. In the north we have to contract with distant firms, pay transportation, housing and the like, which pushes up costs dramatically.
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While it is fine to say that the developer will pick up this cost, it may just mean that any possible development will be funnelled into the south. Those in the south will appreciate that, but it will do little to enhance improved lifestyles and opportunities in the north. In time, we are sure that such firms would respond if there was need and open branch offices in the north. If all of the development is encouraged to go south, however, that will never happen and we will only slide farther back.
Another concern is that if planning and development and the revisions to the Planning Act had been kept separate, this would be truly a progressive piece of legislation to be proud of. Unfortunately, by tying this into the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act you have done a great disservice to those of us who have been promoting the planning improvements. The conflict-of-interest act should be a wholly separate piece of legislation which, while it pertains to nearly all aspects of a municipality's operation, is not just a planning matter. By handling both acts under one heading, Bill 163, you are forcing those who have been trying to get changes made in planning to also support a very controversial piece of legislation.
As a planning board, we are requesting that the two acts be separated so a more streamlined planning system can commence without the confusion and dissension of tying the two acts together. With the bill as it now stands, it is very difficult for us to support.
When addressing conflicts of interest, as the conflict-of-interest act does, you are merely scaring away people who only want to serve their communities without the danger of being sued over some misconception. As it reads, it almost reverses a long-standing presumption and makes a person guilty until they go to the high cost of trying to prove themselves innocent.
In the way this act is written, I, as the vice-chair of the planning board, may have to give up any position on that board since my cousin is the only lawyer in this municipality and often appears before the board for a client. As we read the act, I will have to vacate my seat when she appears before us, since there may be a conceived conflict, whichever way I vote. In some instances that would mean there would not be a quorum and so no business could be conducted. It may be that we are interpreting the act wrongly, but as Rusty Russell told us at a planning conference, "When in doubt, get out."
Here again, the conditions and realities of the south are being forced upon the north and fouling things up. It is difficult enough to get good people to give up their free time as it is. This act, unless watered down, will make it nearly impossible. There is a definite need to address the matter of conflicting interests, but we feel the conflict-of-interest act as it is written may be like using an atom bomb to swat a housefly.
In six years as a municipal councillor and many more as a member of the planning board, the only gift I ever received was a calendar and a good bottle of rye. This came from a contractor who had tendered on a contract we advertised and was lucky enough to get it. The next year, when the same tender came in, he lost out because he was not the lowest bidder. Under the new act, I would have been in direct conflict. I think the writers of this act should have looked at the realities rather than at some worst-case scenarios. As it is written, it may have a great deal of validity in the larger urban centres, but only hamstrings smaller municipalities.
In brief, the efforts to revise planning and development, though perhaps too restrictive for the north, are a giant step in the right direction. I am sure they can be reworked and altered to assist the entire province equally. As far as the conflict-of-interest act is concerned, there is much rethinking needed here to make it a sane piece of legislation which truly protects both the decision-maker and the people. It will be difficult, but at least there has been a start. Lastly, please separate these two pieces of legislation, so we can get on with planning without also supporting a noose around our own necks.
Thank you. Are any questions?
The Chair: Could I just raise a question with committee members? If we give five minutes each to each caucus we would have enough time to allow, as I understand, another member of the public who would like to speak, and he would have approximately eight minutes as well. Is that all right with all of you? All right. Mr Perruzza, five minutes.
Mr Perruzza: First of all, thank you very much for coming to appear before the committee. I guess my question is, why the separation? I'm not wholly sure of why. You said you didn't like the conflict-of-interest rules and, to be straightforward with you, there are some elements of it that trouble me greatly as well. But you didn't elaborate on what elements of the new rules you don't particularly like and why it is you don't like them.
There are some merits to some elements of the rules in that I believe that municipal councillors and to some degree trustees should file documents which itemize their interest and their involvement with certain individuals or certain companies. I believe that the public institutions which they will represent and which they will contribute decision-making to, in essence, have a right to know that.
The part that concerns me is how that information is circulated and who it's provided to and how that information, quite frankly, can be used against individuals on a frivolous level by people who may not happen to like you, or may not happen to like how you voted on a particular issue, or don't particularly like you as a representative and would like to see you gone and will make it their business to investigate your personal dealings in the hope of finding out something.
I don't think that's something that's helpful or beneficial, and I think that to some degree that is something we can deal with. But I wanted to know from you what elements of the act or of the bill you're not comfortable with.
Mr Barber: I think, had you read my brief, you would have seen two instances --
Mr Perruzza: I listened intently to your brief.
Mr Barber: -- where I did point out that I would be in conflict now and may have to give up my seat on the board.
Mr Perruzza: I don't believe you would be in conflict by accepting a bottle of rye.
Mr Barber: No, no, that's ancient history. That was just thrown in. That was the only one that I did get.
My cousin is a lawyer. She's the only one in the municipality. She often appears before planning board. As a direct relative of that individual, really, the way that conflict-of-interest act reads, I am in direct conflict. Should I stay at the table? All too often, because we are a small board, if I leave, we don't have a quorum, so no decision can be made. So what's the point in her even attending?
For her to be able to get on with her livelihood, and because the position I hold is merely a volunteer position, I have to give up something I enjoy because of some piece of legislation which, yes, it does have merit. I'm not shooting the law down. I'm not saying the law is no damn good at all. I'm saying it doesn't fit the mould of the majority of the north.
Also, you said, "Why separate it?" I would like to turn that around and say, why the hell did you ever combine it with such a good piece of legislation as the Ontario Planning and Development Act? Who was the idiot that put it in there? Come on, let's get down to brass tacks.
Mr Wiseman: It's irrelevant where it is.
Interjections.
The Chair: Order, please. Ms Harrington, just one more moment.
Mr Perruzza: I do have a clarification that I'd like to get. I'm not quite sure that that would be a conflict. Perhaps if we can have a clarification --
The Chair: Mr Hayes was prepared to speak to that actually. Do you want to hear that now?
Mr Perruzza: Yes, please.
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Mr Hayes: Actually, just to be very blunt, the only way that it would affect you is if you yourself had a pecuniary interest. It has nothing to do with your cousin being a lawyer. But the only people it really would affect would be your spouse and minor children. That's that part.
Mr Barber: Oh, I didn't figure on doing --
Mr Hayes: You would not have to declare any assets and you certainly wouldn't have to leave your seat.
Mr Eddy: Thank you for your presentation. You raised some good points. Many of us agree completely with you that there are far too many things shoved in this bill together. It makes it very awkward because it prevents people coming forward to comment on all parts. They don't have the time. They've concentrated on this part or this part.
Living in a smaller municipality like I do -- it's under 5,000 population; I know there are many in the north smaller than that -- the thing that I keep running into is people saying: "I serve the municipality, I get very little out of it, and this is going to stop me from serving." I'm fearful and I don't know how to get around it. I've suggested to the government we exempt municipalities, say, under 10,000 or even 6,000 or something. I don't think we have agreement on that. I don't know how to get around it, but many people are concerned. Have you any suggestions along those lines?
Mr Barber: This is the thing. I'm not saying that the conflict-of-interest act is not good. In our municipality which is 3,500 -- so you live in a big one -- it has no validity. A big payola is a crock of rye and a calendar. Whoopee. Yet that would be a conflict because I accepted a gratuity from a person who is a bidder on a contract for the municipality. I did at that time; I don't sit on council any more. It's a concern I have.
Mr Eddy: You made a point about too many of the reasonings may be too slanted toward the more developed south -- I would like to say, and rapidly developing south. That's where we have the conflict, the north and the south.
Mr McLean: I just want to be very brief. I want to thank you for coming because you certainly put your concerns very clear. I hope the government is listening. But the part that I have with your brief is the last paragraph where, "I am sure they can be reworked and altered to assist the entire province equally." I find this legislation's going to be very hard to be reworked because there's so much difference in the north and the south of the province. This legislation is geared to southern Ontario. Unfortunately what I'm seeing is the north is going to try and have to live within it, which is going to be darn hard.
Mr Barber: It is. You know, down in the south they are protecting wetlands. In the north we've got too damn many of those spruce swamps.
Mr Hayes: We appreciate the positive comments that you've made toward this piece of legislation. I just might say that I can understand what you're saying, that maybe things are getting mixed up here. But really the fact of the matter is that when you take the open local government and the planning reform and the disclosure part of it, all three of those really complement themselves. Really it does provide a framework to make planning decisions. The policies are going to be up front and people will certainly understand them.
The part about the bottle of whisky, you might have to report that, I guess, if you got a case or else a $200 bottle of whisky.
Mr Barber: It doesn't state that in this conflict-of-interest act.
Mr Hayes: It does. It will be in the --
Mr Barber: Oh, yes. But that isn't what I have to --
Mr Hayes: Hear me out, please.
Mr Barber: -- argue with, you see?
Mr Hayes: No, you don't.
Mr Barber: Just this thing in front of me.
Mr Hayes: No, you don't, but let me just tell you right now, if you get one bottle of whisky, you don't have to tell anybody about it.
Mr Barber: Somehow I wasn't going to lose any sleep over it.
Interjections.
The Chair: Order, please. Is there another point, Mr Hayes?
Mr Hayes: No, I think that's good enough.
The Chair: We thank you very much for coming down.
Mr Barber: It was an enjoyable trip. I hope that some changes are made, though. It needs it. Thank you.
AUSTIN CLIPPERTON
The Chair: We invite Mr Austin Clipperton.
Interjection.
The Chair: Mr Eddy. Order, please. Welcome, Mr Clipperton. There are approximately 14 minutes.
Mr Austin Clipperton: Mr Chairman and members of the committee, I apologize that I missed the notice in the paper of the hearings taking place and was reminded only two days ago that such was happening. I haven't got a brief put together but came purposely to hear what other people were saying, and I probably will follow up with some written comments because many of the comments I heard I support, particularly I support my council and my planning board and particularly in regard to the painting of the province with a wide brush as evidenced through the policy statements and the legislation.
I echo back to the first speaker this morning. Let us be able to adopt some of these policies into our official plan, not provincial policies. More particularly, and I won't take long, the legislation proposed does exempt, and this has been pointed out before, this afternoon and this morning, it only includes, shall we say, the municipal board, the council of the municipality, the local planning boards and so on, and the only provincial ministry is the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
The policy statements suggest, and I think it is great, that land use planning should be coupled with infrastructure. Coming from a rural, northern Ontario community and representing that community, infrastructure to us is roads, roads and more roads. One of the uses of these roads, which we have no authority to control, is the hauling of pulpwood and other timber products over our road system, this wood majorally being cut on crown lands within and adjacent to our municipality. These lands are non-taxpaying, non-grant in lieu of paying lands, and yet the product we have no control over, if, when and how this harvesting will be done.
We can, of course, impose half-load regulations during the spring season, and in fact the Highway Traffic Act does give us the right to impose half-loading or restricted loading during an extended period, and I guess you could go over the entire year. Our total public works employees consist of six people. We would require to put these six people out inspecting weights, under the weights control, to stop overhauling, overloading on roads if we did have the half-loading on over the whole year, and in fact we do have it over the period from March 15 this year until June 15. I presented this comment to John Sewell and his commission many times, and they would say, "Yes, we hear what you're saying," but I didn't see anything ever coming out in document form.
I think that the province has to grasp this problem through our small northern Ontario communities and somehow give the municipalities some jurisdiction over how, when and where the loads are going to be hauled, when they're going to be hauled and so on, from crown lands particularly, and for that matter even on private lands. I notice aggregate resources are brought into the act. Why are timber resources not brought into the legislation?
I could echo other things that have been said today but I don't have a presentation to make on them, and I will follow up with written comments.
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Mr Grandmaître: I agree with you that more leeway should be given to municipal governments, especially in northern Ontario where 65% of your area is unorganized. I think that northern Ontario should be given special powers. Maybe we should have a Planning Act for northern Ontario and the unorganized areas.
To make it more clear to northern Ontario -- because you do feel left out. You feel like, you know, we have to live like the big boys in southern Ontario and a lot of the sections in this legislation don't apply to northern Ontario. So I agree with you that you should be given more leeway in planning.
Mr Clipperton: It's a different world.
Mr McLean: Are you from an unorganized territory?
Mr Clipperton: No, I'm clerk-treasurer for an organized municipality, but our planning board includes some unorganized jurisdictions.
Mr McLean: You're familiar then with the unorganized territories, the rules and regulations that they're going to have to come by under these policy statements?
Mr Clipperton: Yes, we are.
Mr McLean: That policy statement reads: "Development will generally be restricted. Permanent residential development will not be permitted where opportunities for permanent residential development exist in nearby municipalities." So the delegation that was here before from the unorganized territories is exactly right in saying that there will be no development take place in the unorganized territories.
Mr Clipperton: It certainly will be discouraged -- is discouraged by the legislation proposed.
Mr McLean: But I think the ministry staff indicated that there would be severances allowed if it was on a farm. Is that correct?
Ms Forrest: I'd just like to clarify that. My name is Norma Forrest. I'd just like, first of all, to clarify that the policies which apply to development in unorganized territories are found in policy B.11 and those policies permit development that's related to a resource. They don't necessarily permit severances, but they do permit development.
Mr McLean: Okay, would you define a resource? Is that a logging camp or what is it? What's a resource?
Ms Forrest: It will be defined in the guidelines, but a logging camp would be a resource, a mining camp would be resource related, recreational development on a lake is resource related.
Mr McLean: Could you build a cottage then on a lake?
Ms Dewar: Yes.
Mr McLean: But no year-round residential development?
Ms Forrest: No permanent residential development except in the circumstances specified in policy B.11, which is infilling.
Mr Clipperton: I sometimes wonder, though, if there isn't more permissiveness in the unincorporated than there is in the small rural township municipality.
The Chair: Is that a question?
Mr McLean: That answers my question.
Ms Harrington: Mr Clipperton, welcome to the committee. You have come from Spanish River?
Mr Clipperton: That is right.
Ms Harrington: How far away is that?
Mr Clipperton: A hundred kilometres to the west.
Ms Harrington: Thank you very much for coming all this way. And you're the clerk-treasurer of the planning board?
Mr Clipperton: Secretary-treasurer, yes.
Ms Harrington: The question I want to ask you is something that we have heard suggested here and that is that each decision-making body, that is, the planning board or the municipality, would have what they call an environmental advisory committee so that every decision would have input from citizens who are concerned about the local environment. Can you see that happening in your area?
Mr Clipperton: I'm sure it could happen. I don't know that it's necessary. I think that we have a balance on our council and our board as it is without having to have an outside body like that.
Ms Harrington: So you think that issues of the environment are brought up in all official plan amendments?
Mr Clipperton: Yes, I guess my question back to you as a member of the committee would be, does the province require this? Does the provincial Legislature require this type of a body? They're democratically elected. So are the municipalities.
Mr Wiseman: Well, the Environmental Bill of Rights is exactly that kind of thing.
Ms Harrington: Yes. I would like to state that that in fact has come into effect, that every piece of legislation in the province now has to be subject to the environmental concerns.
Mr Clipperton: All of our legislation is subject to provincial statute. All the legislation, all the action a municipality or a planning board can take, is what is granted to them by provincial statute. Hence, we are subject to the same environmental bill that you are.
Ms Harrington: This is a suggestion that has come forward by citizens across this province in various places. They feel in some cases that the environmental concerns are not heard at the municipal level, so it's something that we should think about.
The Chair: Mr Clipperton, we'd like to thank you very much for coming down and for sharing some of your concerns with us.
Mr Clipperton: Thank you for letting me.
ALGOMA-MANITOULIN ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS
The Chair: We invite Algoma-Manitoulin Environmental Awareness, Mr Ed Burt. Welcome, Mr Burt. Go ahead.
Mr Ed Burt: Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for allowing me to come here this afternoon for a few minutes. I am sort of working under the umbrella of our group, but what quite often happens with me is when I get away from the group I usually say what I like.
Mr Wiseman: We won't know.
Mr Burt: I didn't prepare any papers. I thought that the transcripts are going to be recorded and anyone who wants to take anything out of a transcript can, and it saves a tree perhaps. That was my reason for not doing that. I'm just observing some things that I've seen around our area, and I don't want to tell anybody how to change wording in a bill because that's beyond me.
I think that in our planning in the future it's essential that we retain our diversity and actually build on our diversity, because I think in many cases we've destroyed a lot of it. If we can't work towards a sustainable future and some measure of regional self-sufficiency in our planning, I think we're in trouble, and that brings me to some of the observations I have that may or may not apply to this bill or even to this forum.
The other day, when I was coming on the bus from Ottawa through Coniston and looking at the denuded area of -- it's green, granted; it wasn't green a few years ago, but it's green scrub -- I was picking blueberries with my granddaughter in the Coniston area recently and we were picking berries around hundreds of huge pine stumps, and I looked at the area from the top of a hill and, looking at what we're doing now in our environment, it seemed to me that we haven't learned a damn thing.
Just to go around the area, that may, like I say, may or may not apply to this forum, a few years ago -- I'm an organic farmer; I just recently moved into a new home and my son has taken over the property, but I've farmed for 45 years on Manitoulin Island and a few years ago I used to buy grain for some of my livestock from the valley out here in the Chelmsford area.
I drove through there just recently and I see piles of topsoil piled up on the land that I used to purchase grain from. I look at a sustainable future for this area and I look at where we may have to produce food in the future in Sudbury and I look at what I term to be topsoil thieves who buy a piece of property, and no, there doesn't seem to be anything to stop anybody from bulldozing the topsoil up and selling the whole farm, and it's gone for ever.
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I think that in many cases in our area people get elected to local government so they can do more things that they want to do -- developing. I think there are times when, in the very near future, we're going to have to say no to a lot of developing and planning.
Just close to where I live in Carnarvon township, the reeve a few years ago subdivided his grandfather's farm. That's a little small community that lives on the limestone on Manitoulin. To the north of Mindemoya, which is in the centre of Carnarvon township in this little village, to the south of it there's some really good land, and to the north of it, and either east or west are good areas to develop homes and businesses.
But he developed a beautiful piece of property. Every time I go through there and look at the silhouette of a home against the western sky and I see six or seven lots that have no houses on them at all and then another lot, it's a mess. I often think that some day maybe the people could walk or commute by bicycle and have a community garden there in place of that kind of a development.
Then on the other side of Mindemoya in Carnarvon I see a hospital. I'm getting to be a pretty old guy, but years ago I plowed that field where the Mindemoya Hospital is and planted into wheat, one of the most beautiful crops of wheat I ever saw, and I worked in western Canada for two years. Now the hospital's there. I know we have to look after sick people, but there are lots of places it could have been built to far better advantage.
On down the road a little piece farther, in the middle of some of Manitoulin's best land, is a motel. Then when you drive on down the road a little farther and you come to the West Bay Indian reserve and you see probably the best place -- I used to go down to West Bay with my grandfather years ago, before there were the social systems that we have now, and that village was a sustainable village. Now the subdivisions and so on in the village are in the very best land that's there. So I'm not sure that we're learning very much.
If you drive up to Gore Bay, where I've gone to do my shopping whenever I couldn't get out of it, because I don't like the town any more, I see the development to the lakeshore, the total destruction of the natural environment. We've got a beautiful boardwalk along an area now that when the drains were put in, they took the soil and filled in the wetlands where the pike spawned.
Natural Resources is pretty upset right now because we haven't got any perch in our area. Some people who used to fill two freezers full, it said in the paper this week, didn't even plug one in this year. Isn't that too bad. And we wonder why we don't have the natural resources. We've got a house built in Gore Bay, a great big mansion, that years ago used to be wetlands for pike to spawn.
When we go down close to Kagawong Lake to where I live, we see very shallow amounts of soil on rock and right close to the shoreline we see areas now drilled down in the rock and blasted, and then put rock in there for septic systems. The sewage goes right in there and goes right into the lake. The people who make them will admit that. "But it's just my job. I just work for the construction company and there's nothing I can do about it."
Not very far from where I live there's a fellow who retired from this area who has spent most of the summer filling in wetlands on a piece of property that he purchased where the pike used to spawn in Kagawong Lake. He's got it pretty well filled in now and one of these days he's going to have two acres of lawn to cut. There are no laws that say -- and yet tourism is one of our big industries. But then I guess, of course, we can always just raise some little pickerel in some tanks and let them go in the lake in some kind of a boring fishery like some of the planted forests that we have in northern Ontario.
I read the other day of the MNR's shoreline management plan in our local paper. If you read between the lines, and in many cases you have to, it's a disaster. It doesn't say no to development on any of the lakes on Manitoulin. As a matter of fact, it says we can just go along, business as usual.
It's interesting that MNR 15 years ago at a meeting that I was at talked about Kagawong Lake. Maybe the north isn't as valuable as I like to think it is but there are a lot of people in the south who just come rushing up here in the summertime to get away from it all, but it's harder to do that. MNR talked about 180,000 user days per year on the lake was all that they figured Kagawong Lake could stand and they said it had surpassed that then. That was 15 years ago. They never mention that any more and it's business as usual.
In 15 years lots of development has gone on. There are subdivisions, there are cottages that have gone in, there are sewages that have gone in that we should have said no to at all. We should have said no development in that area at all. That's too fragile to even touch.
It's really interesting. I stopped at the information centre today. I'm just observing today, but I stopped at the information centre, when I'm talking about MNR, in Little Current. I went in there and MNR has a display in Little Current, and I thought it was really interesting. They have the game animals on one side of the display, commercial; on the other side, and I found that just appalling, are the latest fishing lures, the hot lures. MNR is sort of a broker for commodity items.
If we don't change some of these things -- you know, our perch are going. We smile when we talk about codfish, but we're losing our northern pike, we're losing our perch, we're losing our ecosystem. We're losing our diversity and we're not working towards a sustainable future into any of our planning at all.
I know a fellow who is the building inspector for one of our municipalities and he's got the poorest septic system of any home that I know of on the island. I don't know what we can do about some of these things, but the thing is that it's so interesting, I went down -- I very seldom go shopping. I don't need to. I'm pretty self-sufficient where I am. But I noticed in our little town, in Gore Bay, the other day that the garlic you can buy comes from China. The apple juice comes from Argentina. I checked it out. It's bottled in little bottles and little cans and little things that you can't deal with at the landfill, but it comes in barrels from Argentina. There was fruit in there from South America. A lot of the spices came from Morocco.
There's no evidence in our town of any move into the future for sustainability, none that I could find. There may be lots there, but regional self-sufficiency in the framework of a sustainable future is not buying food from -- not even from southern Ontario or western Canada. The food that we buy now from places that constantly raise monocultures has been soaked to the point with insecticides and pesticides and herbicides that it may not be fit to eat right now. We're taking them out of production in California and we'll do the same thing in Ontario.
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I wanted to mention in our planning the constant thinking about a sustainable future. The World Energy Council in the Financial Times in September 1993 talked about us having no oil in 40 years. Well, if they're out a decade or two or even a century, I don't know whether that really matters or not. But we have this term that seems to me rather than sound planning, we're in a mode of -- it's a kind of a carryover maybe from the military -- but it's mutual assured destruction. That's what it is, and I can take you around and prove it to you. Anyway I'm convinced, and I hope in the future that the municipal planning, with the help of this bill, will help to make a new start towards a sustainable future.
I thank you for the time.
Mr McLean: It was good to hear you reminiscing and talking about how we're ruining our own food plants and how we're some day going to be not living as healthy as we have in the past because of the insecticides and the amount of fertilizers that we are growing on the land. I don't know if you ever go to Barrie or not, but if you can drive around Barrie some time you'll see --
Mr Burt: I've been to Barrie.
Mr McLean: -- Georgian College on your left-hand side. I'm a dairy farmer and I picked stones off that field, before Georgian College was built, for $2 a day with a team of horses and a stone boat. So when you're driving around Barrie you can think of me.
But I want to thank you for relating what you have today to us, keeping us in mind of the problems there are out there. When I look at the Holland Marsh and I look at some of the things that are coming from Florida or California, I have grave concerns about the amount of fertilizers and the insecticides that they are using.
Mr Burt: I would have grave concerns if I had to eat anything off the Holland Marsh today.
Mr McLean: That's right.
Mr Wiseman: I have to confess that I agree with just about everything you said, and what's even more frightening to me is that we seem to be sleepwalking towards some of these ecological disasters, that we're not just looking at -- the symptom is the disappearing of the perch and the pike and so on, but what really we're looking at is the potential for what I call cascading ecological breakdown and that when sections of the ecosystem start to disappear, they take whole other sections with it that we don't have any clue about how to get back together again.
In fact, I was reading just last week that the forestry protection agency in the United States has done some studies on reforested land that was 80 years old. The trees were now quite significant but the ecosystem hasn't come back. You've got trees but you have no flora, fauna or even the ecosystem --
Mr Burt: The Swedes call that a monotonous forest. Their term.
Mr Wiseman: I guess the other thing is that the best land for farming is also the best land for developers to stick the pipes into for their subdivisions, so you've got this conflict. Within our society, we have this property rights movement that says because you own it you can do whatever you want with it.
Mr Burt: Well, it may be that it is, but I don't agree with you at all. I've just finished building a new house and I built it out of local materials that I got off my farm, almost totally, and I looked at a lot of different places that I wanted to put it, where it would be the least environmental impact.
I ended up by building it on the edge of a little cliff, where there's no soil at all on the one side, and I have diversity in that area that's unbelievable. When I'm away -- last night my wife used half of the film in her camera taking pictures of some foxes -- they had young right beside our house; they've been there all summer -- taking pictures out through the window.
The diversity that we have in wildlife, you know, the evening smells of the diversity that's there. We haven't got too damn many swamps either in northern Ontario, in my view, because back behind my house I built a wetlands. I thought if everybody in Ontario were destroying them, maybe I should build one.
I took my granddaughter down there the other day and in a half-hour we saw a muskrat, a blue heron, a pair of mallard ducks, and we saw where a beaver had set up and eat, and this was dry land just a few years ago. The beavers came in there and started it and then they left, and the diversity that's there is unbelievable. That's part of our entertainment and that's part of our world. We could never get that in some kind of a bland field that somebody developed, just to make life more bland. We've got diversity that's unbelievable. I was a long time selecting that site, and I'm really glad I got it. I just love where I live.
Ms Harrington: Just a quick comment. I thank you very much for coming here and bringing your view, which is a visionary view, a long-term view. So often there is only the short-term view. We have to keep listening to people like you. I don't know anywhere in the world where they haven't affected the balance that we have to have for the future, but we have to keep striving for that balance. So I would encourage you, and pass it along, your spirit, to younger people as well.
Mr Burt: Thanks for letting me come.
Mr Eddy: Thank you for presenting us with the information you have. I appreciate the fact that you are doing organic farming. I'm really surprised, amazed at the number of people in my area -- I'm in part of southern Ontario -- who indeed are getting into organic farming. It's growing and there's a lot of interest in it, but it's very important. I'm encouraged by some of the improved farming practices in our area, the minimum till, the no till, the environmental plans. So many people are becoming conscious that they must do it better and must do it right.
The question I have is, have you gone through the policies that will be part of the Planning Act in most municipalities, the natural heritage?
Mr Burt: Some of them, briefly. I didn't expect I was even going to be here, to come over to this meeting, so I didn't really go through them very thoroughly.
Mr Eddy: There's a lot of comment about them, and of course they're going to be imposed. They're not subject to review. But I'd like you to take a look at them and, if you have any further comments about them, please get your comments to us because you've made a real contribution. I appreciate your heartfelt concerns about our environment and the future of people in this province.
Mr Burt: I'm a member of the Ecological Farmers Association in Ontario. I was number 23 when I joined and I think there are 740 of us now.
Mr Eddy: That's amazing.
Mr Burt: On the other side, no till quite often means more herbicides, and we're still into the monocultures of corn and ethanol. We're still doing far more bad things than we ever thought of doing as good things.
Mr Eddy: Rotation of crops has come back in my area very strongly.
Mr Burt: Quite often when we think we're doing something pretty good, like the whole ethanol thing, like the energy transfer, making ethanol out of kernels of corn, how far could you get from sanity? So we've got to be careful with every move we make.
Mr Eddy: I note your concern about preservation of topsoil and some of the things that you've mentioned also. Thank you.
The Chair: Mr Burt, we thank you very much. The committee found your presentation very informative.
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GEORGE RUST-D'EYE
The Chair: Just to remind the members, Ms Hykin called a while ago to say that she wasn't coming, so we invite Mr George Rust-D'Eye, solicitor. Welcome, Mr Rust-D'Eye.
Mr George Rust-D'Eye: I'll be very brief. I'm addressing two very precise issues arising out of Bill 163. The first one relates entirely to my client, the regional municipality of Sudbury. The second is of much more general significance.
I have submitted a written brief, which I trust all of the members now have before them. In the written brief I set out precisely what the issues are and the relief that I am seeking from this committee or from the provincial Legislature in dealing with Bill 163.
The first matter is I think what I might call a bit of opportunism on behalf of myself on behalf of the region. There is a provision in Bill 163 -- it's section 52 at page 66 -- which would add to the Municipal Act a new section 223.1. That is a section which deals with the dumping of fill and the alteration of grades, and I notice the previous speaker talked about, for instance, the removal of topsoil from properties, and I think that is one of the problems that this particular legislation is intended to deal with.
Legislation of this kind has been requested in the past by a number of municipalities and it has been granted by special act to, I believe, about a dozen of them. The region of Sudbury supports that legislation. The only problem the region has is it would like to have that authority itself. The region in 1991 adopted a resolution asking that that type of power be conferred upon the region.
Just turning briefly to my brief, although I'm not going to through it in detail, at tab 1 is the original request letter whereby I conveyed to the minister of the day, the Honourable David Cooke, the request of Sudbury that it be given the power normally conferred upon local municipalities. As you may know, the region of Sudbury is unique in that the region is the only regional government which exercises local planning powers.
That request was answered by a letter which is set forth in tab 4 of my brief, signed by Mr Cooke, in which he says: "The government is sympathetic to your request.... I would appreciate receiving some assurance that providing this authority to the regional municipality does not conflict with the interests of the local municipalities."
The region went out and circulated all the local municipalities, and starting at tab 5, there is a resolution from every single one of the area municipalities of Sudbury saying, "Yes, please confer that power upon the region." So all the area municipalities also support it.
At tab 3 of my brief, there's a letter dated June 10, 1993, signed by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ed Philip, and in the middle of that page it says, "I support the region's request," and then it says, "However, as I'm sure you understand, many pressing priorities are currently occupying the legislative agenda."
At tab 2 there's a further letter, because I kept sending letters back saying, "How's this stuff doing? Are we going to get this legislation?" At tab 2 is a letter from Minister Philip saying, "I fully support dumping of fill legislation for municipalities and your request to grant such authority to the regional municipality of Sudbury."
There seems to be no problem at all in policy. There seems to be no difficulty at all with the fact that in Sudbury it should be done at the regional level, which would be, by the way, a concurrent jurisdiction with the area municipalities. The region and the area municipalities see no difficulty in that, and in fact there is a section in the proposed provision of the Municipal Act which actually deals with the potential for a conflict between area municipal legislation and regional legislation.
My simple request of this committee is that, now that it is inserting that provision specifically into the Municipal Act available to all local municipalities, it make an amendment to the Regional Municipalities Act, because that's the act actually that centralizes planning jurisdiction in the region. There's one section there that deals only with the region of Sudbury and it basically confers planning jurisdiction on it. My suggestion would be that an amendment to that section in the form I've attached to my brief would serve the purpose, or of course an amendment to the Regional Municipality of Sudbury Act itself.
I think the only reason this hasn't been done in the past is because whereby local municipalities can get a special act amendment, private act legislation, with the regions it has been the policy of this and previous governments that regional statutes are admitted only by public bills.
The second matter that I wish to deal with arises out of the proposal to abolish appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board from committee of adjustment decisions on minor variances. Under the proposed legislation, as this committee is aware, the proposal is that there will be no further appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board from the committee of adjustment for minor variance decisions, and the region certainly takes no issue with that particular decision.
The region has two concerns about this proposed legislation and, to put it in a nutshell, the first is a drafting concern. There is a provision that where the power to deal with minor variance applications is delegated by a municipal council to a committee of adjustment, which committee does not have any members of council on it, then there is a right of the council to also provide that there can be a review, as set forth in the act, by the municipal council of the committee of adjustment's decision on a minor variance.
It is unclear from the form of legislation whether or not the municipality itself may request a review. It sounds a little bit absurd that I should be raising this point because I think that the legislation was intended to have this effect and I think it's well known that many municipalities in fact do become involved in appeals from their committee of adjustment decisions.
The problem is that at the present time it's ambiguous, because you have a situation where the municipality ends up requesting itself to review a decision of the committee of adjustment, and we're very much concerned, and I think this applies to municipalities across the province, there's a concern that that ambiguity could lead to litigation.
I can see a Divisional Court challenge arising in the middle of one of these cases, which I think is one of the things which this committee is trying to avoid. One of the purposes of this legislation, I think, is to streamline the process and to avoid litigation, to confer more powers on local authorities and to enable the public to sort out who has the power to do what.
So the first request I'm making under this second branch of my argument is that the legislation be amended, and I've put forth one proposal as to how it could be done, the specific draft legislation in the back of my brief, to make it clearer that the municipal council may, on its own volition, decide to review a decision of a committee of adjustment.
That flows into my second point on this particular matter. Under the new legislation the primary application for a minor variance is to the municipal council itself. However, and I expect this will be utilized across the province, there will now be powers for the council to delegate to one of its own officials, to a committee of council or to a committee of adjustment, its powers to deal with minor variance applications.
It's my submission that if there is to be a right of review for a municipal council from a committee of adjustment that does not have any council members on it, it follows as a matter of rationality, it follows as a matter of practicality, that there should be the provision for a right of review from a decision of a staff member or officer of the municipality, from a decision of the committee of council of the municipality or from a decision of the committee of adjustment, even though it has one or more members of the council on it.
My only request, and once again I've set forth legislation by which this could be done, is to amend Bill 163 to provide a general right of municipal councils to review subordinate-delegated decision-making on minor variance matters, and I think I've set out the reasoning for this and the difficulty in the legislation. But I think I've given the committee the requests that I have, and I'll be very happy to answer any questions that any members of the committee may have in that regard.
The Chair: We did run out of time, but what I would ask the members, if you want to ask the staff for some clarification on something that was raised, that would be all right.
Mr McLean: I just have one short question with regard to the staff and review. The councils would have the final say, not the OMB? Council would have the final say on a minor variance?
Mr Rust-D'Eye: That's right. In all cases there would be a right of review by the council, but that would be the final word, subject to judicial review. That would be the final word and there would be no appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board.
The Chair: Mr Eddy, an equally short question like that?
Mr Eddy: It wasn't really a question. I'm just pointing out that in the case of some committees of adjustment they are all members of council, and there are several upper tiers that have one-tier planning only, Haldimand-Norfolk, some of the counties, and so there's more of a problem.
It seems to me, going back to the topsoil problem, the dumping of soil, that the easiest way to do it, and I'd like the staff to comment if you would or if there's time, the Topsoil Preservation Act should be amended to include the dumping of soil too, because in reality when you're dumping materials on land you're destroying topsoil. It should be to all municipalities at any level, because to do it just for the regions you're excluding some of the other municipalities. It has to be faced; it needs to be dealt with.
The Chair: Ms Dewar will be looking at that, I guess. There's no immediate answer.
Mr Eddy: The whole package?
Mr Hayes: Yes.
Mr Rust-D'Eye: This section does deal with dumping of fill as well as alteration of grades, so it provides some relief in that regard.
Mr Eddy: But it doesn't go further to deal with the destruction of vegetation, apparently, and trees.
Ms Dewar: We are looking at that section. There have been several issues that have been raised over the last couple of weeks. We are looking at that section. The other question that you asked about the other act, all I can say right now is that we'll look at that and see how the two fit together.
Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): Has Sudbury applied for a private bill?
Mr Rust-D'Eye: Not formally, sir, because my own discussions and my own knowledge of the ministry and a lot of background communications back and forth indicated to me there would be no point in trying to do that because the province would not proceed with that.
Mr Cooper: I know one of the points that comes up in that committee a lot is that there should be legislation that covers, because each municipality keeps applying and if we had proper legislation it would help.
The Chair: Mr Rust-D'Eye, we appreciate your coming and your participating in these hearings.
This committee is adjourned until 8:30 tomorrow morning in Ottawa.
The committee adjourned at 1602.