Committee Transcript 1994-Sep-16 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

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

City of Ottawa

Ted Robinson, commissioner of planning, city of Ottawa

Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton

Gord Hunter, chair, planning committee

Barry Edgington, director, plans administration division

City of Gloucester

Dave Darch, commissioner of development

Ann Tremblay, senior policy planner

Wetlands Preservation Group of West Carleton

Phil Reilly, chair

Dr Meg Sears, secretary

Association of Rural Property Owners (Eastern Ontario)

Harold Harnarine, chair, executive committee

Bruce Benson, representative

Paul Laughton

Alex Cullen

Eliseo Temprano

Rebecca Liff

Ottawa-Carleton Home Builders' Association

Richard Lee, executive director

Ron Clarke, chair, provincial policy working group

Ontario Woodlot and Sawmill Operators Association

Harry Barr, president

Township of West Carleton

Tim Chadder, director of planning

Federation of Citizens' Associations of Ottawa-Carleton

Amy Kempster, representative

Betty Hill

Catherine Culley

Big Rideau Lake Association

Julia Sneyd, chair, environment committee

Bob Sneyd, past-president

Frank Oakes, representative

Ottawa Field Naturalists

Heidi Klein, representative

Victoria Mason

Carlingwood Community Association

Dr Allan Gregory, past president

Henry McCandless, representative

Alex Munter

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)

*Acting Chair / Président suppléant: Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)

Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC)

Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)

Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest 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:

Eddy, Ron (Brant-Haldimand L) for Mr Murphy

Gigantes, Evelyn, (Ottawa Centre ND) for Ms Harrington

Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L) for Mr Chiarelli

Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Mr Malkowski

Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND) for Mr Bisson

Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Ms Haeck

Sterling, Norman W. (Carleton PC) for Mr Harnick

Villeneuve, Noble (S-D-G & East Grenville/S-D-G & Grenville-Est PC)

for Mr Tilson

White, Drummond (Durham Centre ND) for Mr Winninger

Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:

O'Neill, Yvonne (Ottawa-Rideau L)

Ministry of Municipal Affairs:

Hayes, Pat, parliamentary assistant to minister

Boeckner, Pat, manager, plans administration branch

Dewar, Diana, manager, municipal planning policy branch

Forrest, Norma, planner, municipal planning policy branch

Root, David, municipal advisor, field management branch, Ottawa regional office

Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna

Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 0834 in the Westin Hotel, Ottawa.

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.

The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): I'd like to call the meeting to order. M. Grandmaître, s'il vous plaît.

Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): I'd like to welcome you to my riding. I'm sure this is going to be the best meeting we've ever had.

The Chair: I hope so. Thank you for that welcome, M. Grandmaître.

CITY OF OTTAWA

The Chair: We welcome the city of Ottawa, Mr Ted Robinson, to this committee. Mr Sterling. I apologize.

Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): I'd just like to add that's the best speech I've ever heard, non-political too.

The Chair: Any other speeches? Mr Robinson, please. Can I ask the rest of you to just keep your voices as low as you can? It's very difficult to hear. You have a half an hour for your presentation. Leave as much time as you can for the members to ask you questions.

Mr Ted Robinson: Thank you. Good morning. I echo Mr Grandmaître's comments: Welcome to Ottawa. After looking at your schedule, it's more, "If this is Friday, it must be Ottawa." You're a well-travelled committee.

I'd like to first of all introduce myself. I'm Ted Robinson, the commissioner of planning for the city of Ottawa. I'd like to thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you this morning and also for coming to Ottawa to make it easier for us to address the members of the Legislature.

The presentation this morning reflects a report that is going to city council next Wednesday, so I don't have anything to present to you in a written form. That will be forwarded to you after the meeting next week, so you'll be able to check if what I said accurately reflects the city council's position. I have taken our report through a committee of council, the planning committee, on Tuesday and generally it was pretty well approved as submitted.

For the past two and a half years, the city of Ottawa submitted four reports to the Commission on Planning and Development Reform in Ontario. In addition, we submitted a report responding to a provincial consultation paper last spring, and our presentation today reflects again those comments and concerns that we expressed at that time.

Generally, the city of Ottawa is supportive of Bill 163. I think we find it to be an improvement over the current Planning Act and we welcome any changes that are being proposed in there. We do have two major concerns and then some minor concerns that I think probably can be either clarified later or may add support to other comments you've been hearing from other individuals.

Because we are an urban municipality, I think a lot of the concerns that may be expressed by others you'll be hearing today -- I know my colleagues from the region have different concerns than we do. We find the legislation works in many ways, so we're quite satisfied, although we are aware of the regional response. We have also been involved in their preparation as part of the municipalities working with the region.

I guess the first concern, and from what I hear it's been a fundamental concern raised by a number of people, is the change from "have regard to" to "be consistent with." While the city of Ottawa doesn't have a real concern with either wording, the concern is how the "be consistent with" is going to be interpreted. What we would suggest, very briefly -- I`m told this is the way it's intended, but to give us the level of comfort -- is to add the words "be consistent with the spirit and intent of the policy statements issued under subsection (1)," so it's clear that we're dealing with the intent, not the content. I understand, in talking to staff, that is the intention but I think it needs clarification.

Point number two is more of a minor point. It deals with section 5 of Bill 163, which deals with section 2 of the Planning Act, which would be modified by amending section 2. This applies to provincial intervention. Where it just says "any other matters," we think it should be clarified to say "any other matters that conflict with approved provincial policy." Again, I think it's understood generally when talking to provincial staff, but we think it needs some clarification so it's understood that provincial ministries will be following essentially their own rules.

Point number 3 isn't in the bill but we'd like to see it in the bill, and that deals with delegation of subdivisions. As the committee is aware, currently there are many agencies or organizations throughout the province that have delegated subdivision approval. Our region of Ottawa-Carleton has delegated approval authority, but the city of Ottawa doesn't. We feel that is an amendment that should be added to the act that allows municipalities within regions to also be given delegated authority, or at least have the opportunity to be able to convince the region that the delegated authority is appropriate for those agencies that are capable of dealing with that responsibility.

In a few minutes you'll be hearing from the region that it has outlined some conditions that it would apply to that and we would certainly support those conditions.

0840

Our fourth point is the other major concern we have, and we're not sure exactly how this is going to work. Maybe the committee can clarify it with us. Generally, dealing with the appeals from the committee of adjustment that are now going to be given to city council, while the intent of that is welcomed, the concern is how that's going to be administered. From what we've been able to determine, the full hearing process will be required by councils much like what the Ontario Municipal Board does now.

When you're dealing with a large municipality like Ottawa where we're dealing with 700 or 800 applications a year and we deal with probably 15 or 20 appeals, the concern is that they will probably double or triple when you're dealing with a city council dealing with appeals; and if we have to go through the full appeal process, the notification, hearing all the concerned citizens, we foresee a hearing a week with council or a committee of council and that just isn't functional with us.

What we are hoping to see or what we intend to try to influence the regulations or ask you today to have this clarified is that council determine how it deals with the appeals and the process. From a functional point of view, our council doesn't hear public delegations, so the onus would then be on staff to present to council the committee of adjustment position, identify the staff position and the concerns and objections raised and advise council on the action it should take and then council would make that determination. If it's not done that way, then the process isn't saving any time at all. In fact, it may take longer to schedule hearings from the committee of adjustment around all the other business of the city.

On the positive side, we'd like to fully support the establishment of the development permit system. Again, we're not sure what form that's going to take, but certainly the form that's being proposed now, that it follow the British Columbia model and that it be voluntary for municipalities to adopt if they see fit, I think is definitely the way to go. It has the potential of adding an extra tool that will address a lot of the concerns we have in bridging the gap between site plan approval and zoning amendments, and we welcome that opportunity.

The sixth point is a minor point, and we're not sure whether it's an oversight or whether it was deliberate, and that deals with subsection 20(2) of the bill, which has paragraphs 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 to subsection 34(1). It deals specifically with empowering municipalities, through their zoning bylaws, dealing with matters dealing with contaminated lands or sensitive areas, natural features and areas and significant archaeological resources.

In the first and third instance, dealing with contaminated lands and significant archaeological resources, zoning bylaws can be passed that prohibit "all or any use of land and the erecting, locating or using of any class or classes of buildings or structures," yet with the second, dealing with natural features and areas, we're not able to control the use. We can only deal with the location of buildings.

The concern there is that if we're dealing with sensitive environmental areas in the city, and we do have a few before us now, we'd like to be able to deal with the use of those lands, whether it be locating of parking lots or the whole access of the public using those lands. There are some lands even within the city of Ottawa that we would see as being preserves, as opposed to conservation areas or areas that can be heavily used by the public.

Essentially, those are our fundamental comments with Bill 163. We feel there are a few areas the Sewell commission dealt with that are omitted from the bill that we would ask the committee to consider: establishing a monitoring program for provincial policy statements, that they also follow the same principles that municipalities have to do, and that is instituting a five-year review requirement on them for reviewing policy so there's an automatic mechanism for review of policy, particularly now that the new policies are in place. I think it's essential that there be a consistent review process until all the bugs have been worked out in the relationships with municipalities and regions throughout the province to ensure that they're working.

We also like the idea of authorizing income tax credits for land donations, whether it be heritage buildings or conservation lands or environmental lands. Although that's also a federal responsibility, we think the province could show leadership here in providing that opportunity to allow individuals to donate lands to municipalities or the province so that we can more effectively protect key natural and built environmental features.

The last one is the establishing of a lead responsibility in areas of conflicting jurisdiction. Although the city of Ottawa hasn't had a lot of problem here, we have observed it throughout the region, and that is the potential of other ministries wanting them to meet their policies and the potential conflict between ministries. We feel it's important that there be one ministry or agency that reflects the provincial position and is able to say that this position is the dominant or fundamental provincial position, and although we want all others to be addressed where possible, this is the fundamental provincial position.

The last comment with respect to that is that we fully support the alternative dispute resolution process being proposed now. I think in Ottawa we built it into our system. In fact, it's probably one of the reasons why we have the reputation for having a long permit process. But, as I like to explain to individuals, one of the reasons our processes are long is that we build a lot of that dispute resolution process. We have a very involved public participation process and we do believe that is the way to go, as opposed to the confrontation process that I understand is much more the practice in other parts of Ontario.

The only other two comments I have to make, and those are not going to be in the city of Ottawa position paper -- they're more personal-related -- are in respect to a concern that I have and it's an emerging one: just the whole issue of protection of environmental lands and looking for a statement that allows everyone to understand whether it's the compensations around environmental protection, and I think you're running into some of that with the provincial wetlands. The city of Ottawa has undertaken a fairly rigorous local environmental policy as expressed in our official plan. We've identified 20 environmentally sensitive sites that are local in nature. The whole issue of how do we acquire those and how do we protect those is a concern.

Fortunately, in Ottawa many of the lands are in federal ownership. Although they're still looking for compensation, it's not quite the same impact that it would have if those lands were privately owned. But we do have sites right now that are, it is a source of conflict and we're finding ourselves having to negotiate development rights, which is fairly easy, but what we're finding now is that we're having to compromise with recreation, 5%, and trade that off with respect to the environmental lands and we don't think that's an adequate tradeoff. I think there needs to be some clarification whether there is compensation or there isn't so it is clear that we either have to negotiate that, purchase it, or we do have the right for compensation.

The last point, and this isn't a really serious one, is something that has come up and it's more of a past practice: the assurance that the provincial positions are strictly going to be those that are expressed in the policy and that the application of guidelines or other documents that are proposed by staff are simply our guidelines -- it's been our practice in the past or I've seen in the past that the guidelines have been applied as regulations -- and that it be clear to those who are working with provincial staff that the policy statements are the position of the province, not other documentation that supports those.

0850

The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll begin with questions by the different caucuses. There are four minutes. Mr Grandmaître to begin with questions.

Mr Grandmaître: I'd like to ask you about your committee of adjustment. As you know, decisions from the committee of adjustment will not be or cannot be appealed to the OMB. Does that mean the city of Ottawa will change the composition of its committee of adjustment and that committee will become a council committee? In other words, the members of the committee of adjustment will be councillors, members of council. Do you intend to change the composition of your committee?

Mr Robinson: It would be my recommendation to council that we do that. Right now, in Ottawa the committee of adjustment is seen as an independent body of council and the administration. I don't see that working with the proposed legislation. I would see the composition being staff, and it would be a staff review of the committee of adjustment and staff would then report to council through the appeal mechanism.

Mr Grandmaître: Will council retain the authority to, let's say, review those decisions?

Mr Robinson: Council welcomes that opportunity. The concern that city council will have over that is the time constraints. If we have to follow the full hearing process that's currently used by the OMB, then there will be no saving. It will be extremely onerous on city council. This committee may or may not be aware, but Ottawa has reduced the number of councillors from 16 down to 10. So it's going to be extremely onerous, and their ward boundaries have expanded in response to that. So the time constraints on councillors, I would think, are going to substantially increase, and having this extra responsibility of sitting in a hearing process dealing with appeals will be totally unworkable.

So, in response to that, I would either suggest that if city councils are to be given the authority to hear appeals, then they determine the process that works -- I can see in smaller municipalities there's no problem with that, but certainly in the large urban ones it is a fundamental problem just by the volume that we deal with -- or that you treat the committee of adjustment delegation as an optional one, like development permits, and for those municipalities that want to adopt that, they can, because I can see many municipalities wanting to, and those that it doesn't suit, they don't.

Checking with the OMB, I understand that minor variance appeals to the OMB are not a big factor in terms of its workload, so it's not a huge saving there, although obviously it is a saving. But I wanted to make it clear to the committee that we welcome that opportunity, provided that the flexibility is there so that we can deal with it in an efficient administrative manner.

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): If they are indeed minor variances, that's the important thing, minor variances. I'd like to ask you about the delegation of authority. Does the city of Ottawa have the authority to approve subdivisions?

Mr Robinson: No, we don't.

Mr Eddy: You probably know that many cities in Ontario will be given that authority. Of course many of them are not in two-tier systems of government. What's the feeling of city council regarding that? Do you think it should be at the upper tier or do you see it would be even more efficient at the lower-tier level?

Mr Robinson: Certainly in the city of Ottawa, where most of our subdivisions are resubdivisions of blocks of land, primarily administrative in nature, we can handle those very easily.

Mr Eddy: So it would expedite the planning process for subdivisions, then.

Mr Robinson: No question, it would expedite the process. More importantly, right now it's a two-tier approval, so there's the appearance of duplication, although I don't think there is duplication there. But there certainly is the appearance that you have to get city council approval and regional council approval. I think the city of Ottawa is quite capable of taking that responsibility on and should be able to do so.

Mr Eddy: I'd agree with you.

Mr Sterling: I was interested in your remarks at the end when you talked about compensation vis-à-vis wetlands and that kind of thing. First of all, I have difficulty as we proceed though the planning process in the next decade, in the next 20 or 30 years. It appears to me that future provincial governments are probably going to have to intervene more and more in terms of environmental concerns. It's happening in the United States significantly now, but they have of course a different process.

One of the things that bothered me about the wetlands policy statement has been that it was done in June 1992. The act does not require, and has never required, a debate in the Legislature or a vote in the Legislature on the policy statement. The vote would have been a foregone conclusion, because we have a majority government at Queen's Park. But the problem with not having a debate or any kind of raising of the spectre that this policy statement was coming down was that a huge number of people in the Ottawa-Carleton area, particularly the area that I represent on the outer fringes, were not aware that this was happening to them. Do you think there should be a vote in the Ontario Legislature and not just a cabinet fiat, which is what it is now, when it comes down to major provincial policy planning statements?

Mr Robinson: To be honest, I don't really have a concern one way or the other. I think from a municipality point of view and an implementation concern -- which is usually what happens when there's a provincial policy: the municipalities end up implementing it -- that it should be clear on what our role is and how we go about doing that. How the province establishes policy, obviously we'd like to be involved with that, but whether they do it the way they do it now or as you proposed is not a major concern. But I think we need more clarity and resources. If you're looking at expecting municipalities to acquire these lands, then obviously we're not able to do it with our current resources.

Mr Sterling: Let's turn to the compensation part. In the United States under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution they have a clause which says that if there is a take -- and that's how they refer to it in planning terms in the United States -- you can't take without compensating. But that has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States over the last hundred years in a whole number of ways, all the way from saying that compensation is only required if in fact there is a physical taking, for example a road, down to some more recent decisions in the United States Supreme Court whereby they have been requiring the state of South Carolina to compensate for regulations controlling flooding on the coast.

There's a money problem here. I don't think the provincial government at any time could ever compensate 100% for the wetlands policy or future environmental policies which I think will be required over the next 10 or 20 years. Can you give us any enlightenment on what kind of a compromise you could see in this? In other words, I know clarity is nice, but I don't know whether it's possible.

Mr Robinson: I guess I can only answer it this way: What's happening now is that the disputes we're involved with are being ironed out at the OMB, and depending on the circumstances of the case, you win or lose, or whether we're able to negotiate something with the developer. We've had experiences in both areas.

What we're saying is that that's not the way to do business. If there's an implied intent to protect lands, then I think you have to, first of all, look at whose responsibility it is to do that, because I don't think governments need to own land to protect it. There may be other ways we can protect it. So then the issue is, are our current controls enough that we can protect land in private ownership? If the answer is yes, then the compensation to that might be less than having to acquire it and then also assume the liability of protecting it as well, which is again an ongoing budget concern. So I think those questions have to be asked.

But certainly as an implementing body clarification is required, not so much with the provincial; I think it's clear in terms of trying to protect provincial lands. But where the city of Ottawa is involved, and I would suspect other cities are going to be following us, municipalities are going to start identifying local environmental concerns, whether it be woodlots, smaller wetlands, geographic features like escarpments and things like that, we're going to want to make sure that they're protected in the state they're in now. That's where it's not clear. Although we could go through a public process of identifying those, and I don't think there'd be too much dispute that they're worth protecting, the obvious question then comes up, "Okay, how do you protect them, and who pays for that protection?" and that's not clear.

0900

Ms Evelyn Gigantes (Ottawa Centre): Thank you very much, Mr Robinson. I wonder if I could ask you to go back to the first point that you were raising, which had to do with how we see the changes that are being proposed here, being implemented through the phrase "consistent with" and your point that, from the point of view of the city of Ottawa, it's the spirit and intent that should be the guiding principle here rather than the content of the policy principles which have been proposed. Instead of discussing this in the abstract, I wonder whether you could give us an example that would clarify the difference between those two in your mind.

Mr Robinson: I can't give you a specific example, but maybe I'll try to answer it this way. I think the most significant change that has been proposed to the planning reform is the preparation of provincial policy statements. I think they're far more meaningful than Bill 163. Although Bill 163 has some good things, it's been the clear statement by provincial ministries of what they think is important to the province. But as you are well aware, much more than I am, the province is a very large province with many diverse elements to it. Trying to provide one set of policies that tries to accommodate all areas of the province is very difficult to do.

I'm sure each area of the province wants to have a certain amount of autonomy to address the provincial concerns, but in their local context. That's going to be done, I know, through the ministerial approval of local official plans. So as municipalities go through the official plan process, they're going to be obligated to incorporate provincial policy into the official plan. That's the only way, I think, you can ever be assured that the policies are going to be enforced by local municipalities through their own policies and eventually through their zoning bylaws.

As you get into the official plan process, then the local municipalities are going to be dealing with all the local conflicts that they have to sort out, in addition to the provincial policies. I believe there has to be the flexibility there to understand the principles of the policy but be able to have the flexibility to incorporate those principles in our official plans.

The concern I have, and it's certainly going to be the fundamental concern of the regions now going through their official plan process, is that there be some flexibility there, that the intent be adopted in the official plan and that we don't get into a battle of words over the specific content of the policy.

Ms Gigantes: But in fact you and I know that when there are struggles of the nature you describe, there will be conflict and there will be argument about the meaning of words on a piece of paper and how they're to be applied in an official plan.

I'd like to get a sharper sense of what it is you mean when you talk about the fact that the principles should be applied so that their intent rather than their content -- I'm assuming that the phrasing you're using there is the phrasing that you will see included in the report going to council -- and I'd like to know, as clearly as I can, how you see the difference between those two things.

Mr Robinson: I'm not prepared to do that now, but I will undertake to the committee that the report emanating from council will give examples of that concern so you can see that in writing.

Ms Gigantes: Excellent. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Rizzo, there is time for a quick question if you want to ask one.

Mr Tony Rizzo (Oakwood): It's okay.

The Chair: Very well. Mr Robinson, we thank you for coming and thank you for sharing your views with this committee.

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF OTTAWA-CARLETON

The Chair: We invite the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, Mr Barry Edgington and Mr Gordon Hunter.

Mr Gord Hunter: Good morning and thank you for this opportunity to present the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton's position on Bill 163. My name is Gord Hunter, and I'm chair of the region's planning committee, an appointment I've held for the past nine years. As such, I am regional council's representative here today.

I am joined by Barry Edgington, the director of the region's plans administration division, who will be providing you with a technical briefing on regional council's concerns deemed most deserving of your attention. Also joining me are Jim O'Brien, the region's director of development law, and Andrew Hope, a manager in the region's plans administration division, as resource persons should questions arise that require their input.

Regional council would like to extend its welcome to committee members and notes its appreciation for yet another opportunity to provide commentary on what has been a constructive process of consultation leading to the reform of Ontario's planing process.

The documents before committee now comprise a July 27, 1994, staff report on Bill 163 as well as the minutes of regional planning committee and regional council meetings summarizing amendments that have been made to the staff report. We would like to draw to your attention the format of the staff report. It contains 22 specific recommendations and numerous proposed wording changes in the attached annexes 1 and 2. We would ask that the committee members consider these documents as regional council's position on Bill 163.

Regional council commends the government for acting with dispatch in attempting to implement the final report recommendations of the Commission on Planning and Development Reform in Ontario, the Sewell commission. Regional council has long encouraged constructive changes to Ontario's planning process, as it is widely recognized that the existing planning process needs updating.

By way of background, I would like to point out that regional council has committed considerable time and resources to the reform process that has to date culminated in Bill 163. As an active participant in the initial process, regional council contributed no less than four briefs to the commission directly and one to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs on its policy paper, A New Approach to Land Use Planning.

It is through these efforts that regional council has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate its commitment to reforming Ontario's planning process. Council endorses the province's stated goals for Planning Act reform, namely, empowering municipalities, protecting the environment and streamlining the planning process. Having said that, regional council submits that much work still needs to be done on Bill 163 to ensure that municipalities are in fact empowered and that Ontario's planning process is streamlined.

With these brief remarks to set the tone, I will turn the presentation over to Mr Edgington to highlight regional council's position on specific issues relating to Bill 163.

Mr Barry Edgington: As Bill 163 is a process-oriented draft legislation, my presentation will focus primarily on what regional staff and council believe are necessary changes that will uphold the region's long-standing leadership role in streamlining.

To give you a brief feel on some of the history involved in this regard, I will highlight some of the more specific, successful streamlining efforts the region has made over the last few years while I've been involved with the process.

As you are probably familiar, Ottawa-Carleton was one of the first regions in Ontario to receive the full range of provincial-delegated approval functions. This included consent-granting authority in 1974, subdivision and condo approval authority in 1975 and 1977 respectively and local official plan approval authority in 1980. These moves by the province to decentralize approval authority to the regions resulted in substantial progress towards streamlining the whole approval process. Finally you didn't have to go down to Toronto; you could do it regionally within Ontario, which was a tremendous step forward.

In addition, regional council over the years has further delegated its authority to certain regional staff to approve undisputed local official plan amendments, subdivisions and condominium plans. This also has had a significant impact in streamlining the approvals process here in Ottawa-Carleton.

In addition, a few years ago we established a regional streamlining committee that includes participation from the region, the area municipalities as well as the consultant and development industry. This is a permanent committee that was set up by the regional and area municipal planning commissioners, which I've chaired for the last two or three years, and that also has come up with some methods to try to improve and streamline the process. One example is where we had a joint subdivision application form. Five of our urban municipalities now jointly participate with us when we ask the applicants to submit an application form and circulate it.

We're trying to avoid the duplication in the process a little bit by at least trying to provide one-stop shopping for our urban municipalities that do have the staff that can administer the receipt of the application and the circulation of it, and then we carry on the process after that; a lot of big advantages there.

We've also tried to standardize some of the regional and local subdivision approval conditions so that the industry has one set of standard conditions to deal with, and we've done a lot of joint planning initiatives with the area municipalities in the region here, between the region and the planning staffs at the local level.

All of these refinements and improvements that we've made to the planning process here have really served to reduce the commenting time frames and have allowed regional staff to really try to expedite the development approvals.

Regional council submits that these successes should be used as a starting point for consideration of any changes proposed by Bill 163. Given regional council's keen interest in streamlining, the proposal in Bill 163 to impose the 150- and 180-day limits for processing official plans and subdivision applications respectively I think is a very positive step, as does council.

The regressive step that council feels is an omission from Bill 163 is the lack of authority to enable regional council to delegate to regional staff the approval of undisputed local official plan amendments, as well as draft plan of subdivision and condominium applications. Committee members should be aware that this well-established streamlining initiative has been responsible for saving some four to six weeks off the typical approval time frames. Regional council views the maintenance of this provision as critical if the province is serious about streamlining.

0910

In terms of regional council's recommended changes with respect to the streamlining aspects of Bill 163, I would ask you to please give serious consideration to the following:

Public bodies, such as MOEE, MNR, MTO, OMAFRA, should be required to adhere to the same commenting requirements as every other player in the planning process. Meaningful streamlining requires that the provisions of subsections 17(30) and 51(42) that exempt public bodies from making either an oral submission at a public meeting or making a written submission prior to a decision being made should be deleted from the bill.

I know from experience that when you're circulating these agencies for comments, these comments are quite often very critical to the types of approvals we give, the region acting as the minister, and modifications from some of the key provincial agencies are essential before we can recommend approval of a lot these official plan amendments and subdivisions. It's important that they're involved in the time frames that we are now under. If we're being asked to meet these deadlines, I think it's only fair to ask the commenting bodies to do the same.

Also, the appeals to draft plans of subdivision, condominium consents and zoning applications should not be forwarded to the Ontario Municipal Board without being subjected to tests similar to those outlined in subsection 17(29). While automatic appeals give the appearance of ensuring each applicant can get before the Ontario Municipal Board, many such appeals could be eliminated if approval authorities are vested with the responsibility of subjecting appeals to tests similar to those in subsection 17(29) and through the judicious use of the tools of alternate dispute resolution.

Cabinet should not be given the opportunity or the authority to revisit decisions of the Ontario Municipal Board, in our view, as this permits the inappropriate intermingling of the Legislature with the judiciary and exposes applicants and municipalities alike to further uncertainty and delay. Therefore, regional council has suggested that subsections 17(45) through (47) should be struck from the bill.

Furthermore, the approval authority should be spared the potential requirement of clause 51(14)(b) to hold a public meeting on draft plans of subdivision and condominium applications. Committee members should be aware that in this region, as Mr Robinson has already indicated, local municipalities already hold meetings of their respective planning committee -- these are public meetings -- to consider subdivision and condominium applications. Such meetings are open to the public and typically advertised in a local newspaper. To repeat this process by the approval authority is redundant and unnecessary.

Public meeting requirements should be earlier in the process than proposed under Bill 163, in order to give municipalities more time to resolve conflicts should they arise. What's more, following a planning decision, further public notice should be limited to only those who have an interest in the application.

Regional council's 11-step alternative public notification process is outlined in the submitted report that you have before you. Public notice requirements for changes to conditions of draft plan approvals should be limited to the applicant, the agency and the local municipality concerned. Subsection 51(34) of the bill should be amended to ensure that the applicants and approval authorities are not burdened with onerous and unnecessary public notice requirements involving changed conditions of a draft plan approval nature. Please note that regional council remains optimistic that the public notice requirements associated with Bill 163 will be clarified when the regulations are released.

Moreover, the province should be commended for involving regional staff in the preparation of these regulations. In fact, some of my staff, including Andrew Hope, are working with your staff in Toronto to try to come up with these regulations.

Finally, to conclude my remarks, regional council suggests that the approval authority for subdivision and condominium applications could be assigned to lower-tier municipalities within the two-tiered system, subject to the following assignment criteria: (1) the existence of an adequate complement of professional planning staff; (2) conformity of the lower-tier official plan with the upper-tier official plan and, by extension, provincial policy statements; (3) the conformity of the lower-tier zoning bylaw with the upper-tier official plan; (4) a commitment to an ongoing funding of a planning operation at the local level; and (5) conformity of the lower-tier servicing or phasing plan with the upper-tier master servicing plan.

Mr Hunter: Thank you, Mr Edgington. I'm going to summarize my summary remarks so we'll have enough time for your questions, but I did want to make a few points.

First is that we can all agree that today's economic climate dictates that Ontario must rationalize its planning process to ensure that its competitive position in the global context is enhanced. As has been previously mentioned, regional council has bought into the province's goals for Planning Act reform. However, it is council's submission that there is a better balance to be struck than that proposed by Bill 163.

To this end, regional council urges the standing committee to recommend the revisions necessary:

(1) To ensure that the implementation of provincial policy statements require flexibility and a sensitivity to local circumstance;

(2) To ensure that public bodies are subject to the same process requirements as everyone else;

(3) To ensure that approval authorities are vested with the power to refuse Ontario Municipal Board referral requests that are without merit for the full gamut of development applications, such as consent and subdivision applications;

(4) To ensure that the provincial cabinet is removed from the development approvals process;

(5) To ensure that the environmental assessment and planning processes are better harmonized;

(6) To ensure that delegation of approval authority from the councils of approval authorities to municipal staff is still possible;

(7) To ensure that delegation of subdivision and condominium approval authority is possible but only subject to certain criteria;

(8) To ensure that public notice requirements are rationalized such that they do not impose needless delay or cost;

(9) To ensure that the province is required to act upon those recommendations of the Sewell commission's final report that have not been addressed to date;

(10) To ensure that provincial ministries and agencies are provided with the resources sufficient to fulfil their respective mandates; and

(11) To ensure that the province commits itself to a consultation process on new provincial policy statements and future changes to the provincial policy statements as well as their attendant guidelines.

Further to that, at planning committee we passed a motion that -- and this is relevant to Mr Sterling's question earlier to Mr Robinson -- that all provincial policy statements must be approved by the Legislature prior to implementation. We feel very strongly about that point.

Regional council firmly believes the role of the standing committee is to come up with better legislation.

Regional council asks that the standing committee act on all of the recommendations outlined in our written submission. Let the province and its municipalities share responsibility for a more positive planning process that will build Ontario a brighter future.

0920

Mr Noble Villeneuve (S-D-G & East Grenville): Gentlemen, thank you very much. Do I detect that in spite of what we've heard that the municipalities and RMOC would have more autonomy with the very, very much more stringent regulations, and I think you're speaking of regulations right near the end of your summation here, because we do not deal with regulations -- we deal with legislation. Regulation is a beast that comes out of ministries and that runs out of control sometimes.

Autonomy, flexibility, time and hopefully a reduction in cost of land: Do you see this happening with this bill, do you see the reverse, or what are your comments?

Mr Hunter: Personally, I see a mixture. There are some things that improve the planning process and some things that purport to improve it, but really can serve as roadblocks to extending the process and increasing the cost of bringing development applications on stream.

Mr Edgington: I personally think that there are some good aspects of the bill, but I'm afraid that instead of streamlining initiatives, there are some real roadblock initiatives to expediting the process. I think there's got to be a balance of where you build in the public notice with the practicality of the administration of the day-to-day items. I think it's very essential for the legislation to be quite clear, and possibly the regulations can then get into the level of detail where we can provide some flexibility and actually spell out how the public notice procedures are going to work, and I have some confidence that that's going to happen.

But my biggest concern is that we don't take some steps backward. I think we've made some real progress here in the province, starting, as I said earlier, with the provincial delegation down to the regions. Now the area municipalities and the regions have become more sophisticated and I think that could maybe work at certain levels within the urban framework.

The problem is we're still going to be stuck with a joint process here. The rural municipalities don't have the staff to administer it, so we'll still be approving subdivisions in the rural municipalities, maybe five or six of them, but the urban municipalities will be doing it for the more urban areas. The suburban areas will have the authority. So it's going to be a blend of what it is now.

Mr Villeneuve: You see the two tiers as still being miles apart. You didn't touch on minor variances on variances and that's become a bit of a problem. Minor variances can sometimes, in some instances, bring a totally different use to an area under a minor variance. Do you have a problem dealing with that?

Mr Edgington: No. In fact, I have more confidence in the local municipality being able to distinguish between when is a minor variance a zoning bylaw, and for the most part, early in the process in 1974 we, acting as the minister, were monitoring that situation, and we monitored it for about five or six years to the point where we said, "It's not worth the staff resources to monitor that any more," because the area level was doing a perfectly fine job. So we have actually backed out of a lot of that monitoring now and the area municipalities are doing a fairly decent job of it.

Mr Sterling: I'd like to ask the parliamentary assistant, what is the objection to the delegation argument which they're putting forward this morning? Why does the bill not permit delegation from an upper tier to a lower tier for these things?

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): Actually, we've heard this many times and this is one of the motions or amendments that we are looking at right now which will certainly be addressing that issue.

Mr Sterling: So you're willing to accept it then, are you?

Mr Hayes: It appears that we may do that, yes.

Ms Gigantes: I was curious. I'd like to ask staff, on the question of a declaration of provincial interest matter under this legislation, what has been the experience over the last, say, five to 10 years in terms of declaration of provincial interest under the Planning Act? My recollection is that it's been very limited in use.

Ms Pat Boeckner: Your recollection is correct. My name is Pat Boeckner and I'm with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. There have been only a few declarations of provincial interest. One of them has been on the Toronto waterfront. I think the earliest or the first one was with development infringing on the Thunder Bay airport, and there have only been a couple of others.

Ms Gigantes: Can you, from the staff point of view, provide a description of where you think a provincial interest statement can be of value? In other words, what kinds of situations produce the likelihood that the province may want to express a direct provincial interest in a planning matter, even though an official plan has already been approved? Is it essentially because new proposals or new kinds of developments that hadn't been contemplated before are put forward under an official plan?

Ms Boeckner: Generally, it's less that there are new developments as opposed to new issues of provincial interest. As an example, before we had an affordable housing policy statement, when the issues of affordable housing were only surfacing in the mid-1980s, the provincial interest declaration was used at that time to delay some activities in municipalities which were resulting in the dividing of properties and the selling off of what were rental properties. That would be one example where there's an issue of a rising provincial concern.

Equally, the Toronto waterfront situation is another example. There was a growing public concern that municipalities all over Ontario were developing their waterfronts to the extent that access was being cut off from the public. So there was an intervention at that time and we subsequently felt that there was no need to actually do a provincial policy, because municipalities across Ontario responded very quickly to those concerns and dealt with them at their local level.

Ms Gigantes: The question that's been raised with us here is: Why have a provincial interest declaration in a revised system in which there will be an updating, presumably, of provincial policies that provide the framework for planning matters and there will also be an ongoing evaluation of how this process is working in terms of provincial planning goals? Can you give us some clear indication of why it might be necessary to leave that as an outside possibility, even though you indicate it's used very infrequently?

Ms Boeckner: I would just say that, based on past experience, it has been used in those examples that I gave you, where there was no anticipated basis for developing a provincial policy, but the basis came along or evolved --

Ms Gigantes: The case created the policy, in other words?

Ms Boeckner: Yes. The other thing that I'd ask you to keep in mind is that there are many requests on a yearly basis for this to be used. The use of it is considered at the cabinet level, so it is discussed thoroughly. The requests come from right across the board. They frequently come from municipalities, which find that perhaps the Planning Act doesn't give them the tools they need on a particular issue, or come from the public or from other ministries and other public bodies; so it's a useful tool.

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Thank you for a very detailed and extensive written brief and also a summary of what you had here. One of the problems we have with these omnibus bills, is the short time when we get to analyse some of the things you have and for us to ask you certain questions. But there are always motives why they push an omnibus bill: so that certain things can be hidden and passed hurriedly without the people having a good debate on it.

You had mentioned, as a matter of fact, and what you have stated is consistent with many of the things we've been hearing around the province about this legislation, especially in regard to the policy aspect of it and, furthermore, to the manner in which the Sewell report was treated. You stated too that of the 98 recommendations of the Sewell commission, you may have judged that about 48 that were not being acted upon.

The parliamentary assistant said maybe it's only about a third of the stuff they took, after spending about $3 million and after Sewell himself indicated that he has learned so much and understood what the province was all about in regard to municipalities.

0930

One of the things you stated here, which is not for debate very often inside the statements made by the government, is a five-year review of the policy statement. The fact is that things evolve so much around the municipality, things have changed dramatically. I'm sure five years ago in this region it was not the same.

What would you say to this government and to us, legislators, listening to the municipality? Could you tell us or tell the Chair what to do in order to change their mind about looking at the policy and reviewing the policy in the next five years?

Mr Hunter: The provincial policy statements?

Mr Curling: Yes.

Mr Hunter: First, I feel very strongly, as the planning committee stated, that policy statements should not be forced on municipalities and the regions of Ontario without a review by the Legislature and without approval by the Legislature. It should be also very clear that the regulations that flow out of the policy statements should be reviewed by a legislative committee, if not brought into law. I understand that's the way the process in Ontario works.

What we have is a very cast-in-stone official plan, and this may speak a bit contrary to the point that's made here, but our regional official plan is very difficult to amend. It becomes almost impossible to keep it current if regulations concerning the flow-out of policy statements and the policy statements themselves can be changed at the behest or whim of a ministry or by order in council without review by the Legislature, without public review. You're going to hear a lot of talk this afternoon, presentations by groups concerned about the wetlands policy statement, and Mr Sterling has already commented on that.

We found ourselves as councillors in the position of putting forward an official plan amendment based on a policy statement and based on regulations flowing out of that policy statement, while the regulations themselves were changing. In particular, we were expected to cast into our official plan schedule a map designating wetlands and adjacent lands, while the criteria to call what is a wetland of a particular class were changing in the ministry. How can we deal with that?

We can have a review of the policy statements because, you know, it is a changing situation throughout the province. We must allow terminology in our official plans that allows us to have "regard to" the policy statements and not conform completely to them if they're going to be changing in such a situation.

Mr Curling: Is this a more efficient bill that will slow down the process, or will it speed it up? It talks about streamlining it to make it more efficient. Will this make it more efficient?

Mr Edgington: In its present form, no.

The Chair: We've run out of time. Thank you for coming and for participating in these hearings.

CITY OF GLOUCESTER

The Chair: We invite the City of Gloucester, Mr Dave Darch, Ms Ann Tremblay. Welcome.

Mr Dave Darch: Thank you, Mr Chairman. As you indicated, my name is Dave Darch. I'm the commissioner of development for the city of Gloucester, and Ms Ann Tremblay is senior policy planner for the development department.

First, I'd like to express thanks for the ability to appear before the committee today to provide Gloucester's perspective on Bill 163. We're certainly supportive of the reform that's being proposed to the planning and development procedures in the province. I think, as was stated by Mr Edgington earlier, there are some very positive steps contained in Bill 163. However, we do feel there are some other initiatives which could be taken that could further streamline the process.

Our particular council considered three staff reports, one dealing with the conflict of interest, the open council meeting and the disposal of surplus lands. There was a second report that dealt with the changes to the Planning Act, and the third report related to the provincial policy statements. I believe you've received copies of those particular reports. I won't go into all the details of it, but I will try and confine my discussion here today to the more salient points of Bill 163.

The first relates to the Sewell commission's recommendations, and more particularly 12, 14, and 15, with respect to the centralization of planning activities in the province. As somewhat of an aside, our particular organization went through a restructuring in the earlier part of this year. I heard the terminology earlier "one-stop shopping"; we created a development department where we took all of the development activities within the corporation and we consolidated them into the newly formed development department.

One of the concerns we've had, certainly from a provincial perspective, is that we deal with a number of ministries that are developing policies, procedures, standards in relation to planning and development matters, and at times they're not always compatible with one another. We certainly are supportive of centralization of planning and development activities in the province. I'm not sure if there have been any initiatives taken to do that, but I guess what we would like to do is reinforce the necessity for a focal point for municipalities to contact the province in relation to matters, and we're certainly supportive of the recommendations that were contained in the Sewell report.

We do have some concerns with respect to the decisions consistent with provincial policy statements -- that's contained on page 5 of Bill 163 -- and more particularly, with the wording "shall be consistent with." We're concerned that this will eliminate flexibility for the local municipality to apply and adapt the provincial policies so that they're consistent with local land circumstances. We would like to suggest -- I believe I came in part-way through the city of Ottawa's presentation -- a wording similar to what they were proposing, that the wording be changed to "shall be consistent with the spirit and intent of the policy statement."

The city also has some concerns with respect to section 41 on page 58 in relation to the additional matters of provincial interest. It would appear that this provision allows the province to prescribe other matters of provincial interest. This can be done by regulation, so the province can prescribe these without notification, discussion or appeal. At least, that's our understanding. We don't feel this is necessarily consistent with a democratic process and we would like to see that any matters of provincial interest be incorporated via an amendment to section 2 of the Planning Act. Accordingly, we're recommending that section 41 be deleted, as well as some other associated clauses in relation to this principle.

Another area of concern is in regard to environmental assessment and related to the Sewell commission's recommendation 48 regarding environmental assessment. The Sewell commission recommended that the legislation be amended to provide that plans and plan amendments which are approved under the comprehensive planning process not be subject to the provisions of the Environmental Assessment Act. The city strongly supports this recommendation and we were somewhat disappointed to find that it was not addressed in Bill 163. It's our position that it does make sense that the background material and the planning process leading to an official plan or plan amendment should satisfy at least the initial phases of environmental assessment. We are recommending that section 9, affecting section 16.1, be modified to entrench the intent of the Sewell commission's recommendation number 48.

Two matters relating to plans of subdivision: The first one I believe you've heard already and that relates to plans of subdivision being approved at the regional level. It's our feeling that policy issues relating to development are entrenched prior to the plan of subdivision and that the requirement for an upper-tier municipality to give approval of a plan of subdivision is unnecessary and in fact is counterproductive to streamlining the development approval process.

We accordingly support that the delegation of authority for approval be given to the local municipality. I would reiterate the conditions where we would see this authority being given and I'll just repeat those: the existence of an adequate complement of professional planning staff; conformity of lower-tier official plan with the upper tier; conformity of the lower-tier zoning bylaw with the upper-tier's official plan; commitment to an ongoing funding for the planning operation; and lastly, the conformity of the lower-tier servicing or phasing plan with the upper-tier's master servicing plan.

0940

I believe in our particular situation that the city of Gloucester would certainly comply with all of those conditions and we feel it is appropriate that the responsibility be delegated to the local municipality.

Another matter relating to the plans of subdivision relates to public meetings. We don't feel that there is a necessity to have a public meeting. There is a statement, "if required by regulation." We're not sure what those regulations may be. I don't believe we've seen those. Again, we don't feel this is a positive step in the planning process and may result in unnecessary delays.

The municipality does have adequate consultation processes in dealing with policies and zoning matters, which are traditionally done prior to the plan of subdivision stage. Accordingly, we would recommend that clause 51(14)(b), under section 28, be deleted from Bill 163.

With respect to approval of official plans and official plan amendments, this is referred to in subsection (10) on page 12 of the bill. It indicates that this subprovision restricts official plan and official plan amendment approvals until 30 days have elapsed from the date of the public hearing.

We are requesting that this restriction be deleted. We're not clear on the benefits of this particular initiative. Typically, the city of Gloucester, and I know other municipalities as well, forwards official plans and official plan amendment proposals to councils one week following public meetings at planning advisory committees. On occasion, the city of Gloucester in fact has conducted special council meetings the same evening as the planning advisory committee consideration to try and streamline the process and benefit the parties affected.

The last point relates to the Sewell commission report, more particularly recommendation number 64. We are suggesting that in relation to site plan authority, the Sewell commission recommendation, parts (a) and (b), should be incorporated into Bill 163 in that it allows the municipality the option of conducting public processes in relation to site plan matters and also broadens the authority of the municipality in terms of imposing offsite matters. We feel that this is a positive initiative and we would like to see that these two provisions be added to subsection 22(2) of the Planning Act.

That concludes our presentation on the matter. We'll endeavour to respond to your questions.

Ms Gigantes: I'll be as brief as I can. I'd like to ask about the process you're describing in which there is a legislative framework at the provincial level, there are planning policies are the provincial level. Those require the regional municipalities, as the upper-tier governments, to create official plans that are consistent with both the framework and the policies. Then, at the municipal level, what you're suggesting is that the municipal plan, which also must be judged by the upper-tier municipality to be consistent with its official plan, should be implemented and all decisions about it should be made at the municipal level. Is that the regime that you're proposing?

Ms Ann Tremblay: Just on a point of clarification, are we talking about official plan and plan amendments specifically, or plans of subdivision?

Ms Gigantes: Either one.

Ms Tremblay: Well, what we're requesting is that at the lower tier, the approval for plans and subdivisions be provided, but for official plans, it wasn't our intent to be proposing that.

Ms Gigantes: Okay. So what this would mean is that if Gloucester receives a proposal for a plan of subdivision, then that would not need to be approved by the regional municipality?

Ms Tremblay: That's correct.

Ms Gigantes: And you would give that authority to all municipalities within our region, for example?

Ms Tremblay: We would give that authority to all municipalities which comply with the conditions that Mr Darch read out.

Ms Gigantes: Could you remind us again what those conditions are?

Mr Darch: All right. Ms Tremblay will read those.

Ms Gigantes: Can you refer us to anything you've provided here? I have difficulty following the presentation and the report that you've provided.

Ms Tremblay: In actual fact, I think the region's report clearly identifies that, because the matter had been regionally discussed at that time.

Ms Gigantes: Could you refer me to that?

Ms Tremblay: It's on page 32 of the region's report. It deals with responsibility for condominium approvals, section 3.6. The recommendation by regional planning committee was that the authority for plans of subdivision be delegated to lower-tier municipalities, provided that there is first the existence of an adequate complement of professional planning staff; secondly, that there is conformity of the lower-tier official plan with the upper-tier official plan and, by extension, the provincial policy matters; thirdly, the conformity of the lower-tier zoning bylaw with the upper-tier official plan; fourthly, a commitment to ongoing funding for the planning operation; and finally, conformity to the lower tier's servicing and phasing plan with the upper tier's master servicing plan.

Ms Gigantes: I wonder if we could get a copy of that, because I can't find the reference in the material I have from the region this morning.

Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): On the question of plans of subdivision, as I understand it, you don't see the need for the public notice or hearings because apparently the provisions that are there now are serving that purpose. Is that right? Because we're hearing in our submissions that there is a lot of cases where the public isn't aware of what the proposals are, and I would think if you were doing it already, then you would have no objection to putting it in the legislation that it be a requirement. I don't see then why that would necessarily be a roadblock in the approval process.

Ms Tremblay: The city has typically dealt with plans of subdivision at the same time that it deals with the zoning applications, and under the Planning Act, there is a public meeting requirement for zoning applications. That's how it's normally occurred.

For plans of subdivisions alone, where zoning and official plan designations have already been discussed, the city's position is that it's no longer a policy matter because those issues have been discussed already in a public forum and that in fact it becomes a technical matter that can be best dealt with by the planning advisory committee. Of course, the application is taken to planning committee, and that's a public meeting in itself -- not a formal public meeting, though.

0950

Mr Curling: Thanks again for your presentation. You have expressed some concerns, really, especially in part B about economic and community development and infrastructure policies. One of the things I had mentioned to the previous presenter was the short time which we have, and more or less the complement would be the implementation guidelines, which the ministry has told you emphatically that it doesn't have the time frame in which to prepare these implementation guidelines. Therefore, you don't know what you're walking into and how it will be implemented.

Furthermore, you will not get the regulations anyhow. We have written that off, although the government thought they would have sent that forward. What kind of problems would you have not having the implementation guidelines to go along with your official plans?

Ms Tremblay: Our concern with the lack of implementation guidelines at this time is that -- our experience has been in the implementation of provincial policy initiatives that there's been some conflict in the past and some cross-jurisdictions. We are hoping that the implementation guidelines would include a comprehensive and coherent review of some of those things so that we won't be in a position, when we try to implement some of the provincial policies, that we're going to be running into some real obstacles and conflicts.

Mr Darch: In terms of a practical example, we've had some difficulties with things like water quality standards. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Environment and Energy have different standards. We're trying to satisfy both agencies, and I guess we're looking for that central focal point.

Mr Curling: That is consistent with what we're hearing too. One of the suggestions that you had made here was that maybe they should delay this, not rushing into it because they need to bring this in by January 1995. Do you think this is possible at all, or what other suggestions do you give to the government?

Ms Tremblay: Staff's position is that if the real intent is to promote and achieve streamlining, that in essence to do so you would need to have the clear mandates, the clear guidelines for municipalities to implement the policies. What we're suggesting is if it's the province's wish to make amendments to the Planning Act, do so, but postpone the implementation of the guidelines and the policy statements until you've been able to iron out some of the difficulties there are right now.

Mr Eddy: Thank you for your presentation. As a person opposed to two-tier planning in Ontario because of the high cost and what I've always considered the inefficiency due to conflicts between the tiers, I must say you've enlightened me as to the cooperation in this particular municipality and I don't think we need to be going through what we're going. We could have talked to you people to improve the Planning Act, but we did. This is out of character for me, but I'm frustrated with this damn system.

We had a Sewell commission which we didn't need. We spent $3 million on it, going across this province, at least two sets of hearings to hear experts in the planning field who implement the procedures of the Planning Act, and now we have a bill that we're dealing with and everybody that comes before us says: "Sewell was better here; Sewell was better there. Why didn't you follow" -- why in hell didn't we follow Sewell more? It's a waste of bloody time.

I'm getting the message, and I'm getting the message about the roadblocks and the cost. You have so many good points that could be implemented in this bill. We have provincial policies that are not subject to review and you're going to have to follow them, and don't think that you get flexibility on "be consistent with."

My question is, is Sewell a better document and should the recommendations of Sewell have been implemented in the bill to a far higher degree than what we've got before us today, from your point of view of making the planning process in Ontario more efficient and more acceptable to all concerned?

Ms Tremblay: Having had the opportunity to review both the Sewell commission's recommendations and the bill, the city's position is that the bill goes some way in actually implementing --

Mr Eddy: Some way, yes.

Ms Tremblay: That's right. What we're saying is, it's not far enough.

Mr Eddy: Exactly.

Ms Tremblay: There are some recommendations that definitely need to be considered.

Mr Eddy: Well, that's what I keep hearing time after time after time.

Mr Darch: I guess all I can do is just reiterate what Ms Tremblay has said. There have been some of the Sewell report recommendations that are being implemented; we're supportive of those. There are others, though, and we've articulated some of those, that I think should be --

Mr Eddy: And you do see some roadblocks in the new system.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr Eddy: That's been mentioned by several people. And let's get rid of the roadblocks.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Eddy.

Mr Eddy: Planning shouldn't have roadblocks.

The Chair: Mr Eddy.

Mr Eddy: Yes?

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much for your presentation on behalf of Gloucester. In the new act, 163, in the past, how have the ministries reacted to your approval or to your submissions regarding a change in the OP or a subdivision or what have you? Are you running into a big time lag?

Ms Tremblay: Certainly in any other agency right now in planning there are some resource problems, and I think that can speak to some of the problems with trying to get planning approvals in a timely manner. There are other complications that we also have run across where we've had some larger projects that we wanted approved or official plan amendments, and some of those things had to do with what Mr Darch had talked about where there are cross-jurisdictions, for example on water quality and that kind of thing. It's taken a little longer to get approvals for that kind of thing because, of course, you have to sit down with all the parties and agree as to what's really trying to be achieved.

Mr Villeneuve: In your opinion, will 163 solve that or compound it?

Mr Darch: I think there are elements in 163 that will solve it. Some of the suggestions we've advanced today I think will even go further in doing that. I'd harken back to one of the first points I made, and that was on centralizing planning and development activities in the province. As I think Ms Tremblay just said, in one of our larger development areas in the city of Gloucester we were having to deal with different ministries that had different standards, different policies. From our perspective, we don't see why there can't be one provincial standard or policy. If the province can centralize that along the lines of what was recommended in the Sewell report, we think that will go a long way so that in terms of streamlining the process, the municipality will have one contact in relation to these matters rather than going to a number of agencies that are dealing with planning and development matters.

Mr Villeneuve: Time is cost, and any time that time is lost you run into major problems. Do you feel there should be a limit of time for ministries to respond? At times they respond with a green light or a semi-green light with some caution; other times there are questions that to me seem very trivial and they take time. Your comments?

Mr Darch: I would like to see a specified time limit, but I think you have to look at the nature of the application which you're looking at. Some things are very routine and I don't see why they those can't be addressed quickly. I appreciate it because we get requested for comments on various things as well -- some things are just more involved. That's been probably one of the frustrations that we have in our development process -- let's say inordinate lengths of time in terms of responding to some of our applications.

Mr Sterling: This is raised by the delegation here today. I would like you, Mr Chairman, to consider, before you do clause-by-clause, this request, and that is, to consider whether in fact section 41 of Bill 163 is in order. I'll just briefly put my argument.

Section 3(1) gives the cabinet the right to make a regulation in planning that in the opinion of the minister -- power of provincial interest. Then section 5 of this bill changes what the definition of a provincial interest is. I think that both section 41 and 5(q), where you allow "any other matters prescribed" or you permit the cabinet to prescribe additional matters to be of provincial interest, are out of order, because basically what you're doing is saying then you're giving the cabinet the full right to legislate. First of all, 3(1) is giving the cabinet the right to make regulations, and it's always the intent of the Legislature to define that in some way.

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The other two sections which I'm asking the Chair to rule on, not today because I think it requires some reflection but before we have the hearing, actually says that not only can the cabinet prescribe, make regulation within the ambit of the definition, but you can change the definition if you have to, without going back to the Legislature.

I think that possibly that is out of order, and I don't think it's possible to do in legislation, and I would ask before you consider clause-by-clause that you consider whether or not it is in order or it isn't in order.

I'd like you to confer with the Clerk of the House and the Speaker before you make your ruling, as well.

The Chair: We will do that, Mr Sterling. Thank you. Mr Hayes, one point of clarification.

Mr Hayes: Yes, Mr Chair. Just about everywhere we go, I have to explain some things to some members here.

When we talk about the policies -- and it is correct that cabinet does set the policies. However, we fail to let people know that there is an implementation advisory task force which is headed up by Dale Martin and all the regions have representation on it. AMO has representation. Ontario Housing has representation on this committee, and we also have people on a technical committee and we have people on the rural committee who are dealing with the implementation of the guidelines.

So there is a lot of input, and we are still getting input from people and we're still consulting with people to make sure that when the policies -- the policies are there now, excuse me, but the regulations and the guidelines, that there will be certainly flexibility in there that will pertain to individual municipalities. So there is flexibility there, and there are people who represent pretty well all sectors that get involved in planning in our municipalities, so there's plenty of input there.

I'm also very pleased to hear, and I've heard it several times, that some of the opposition members, particularly the Liberal members here, seem to indicate that we should go a lot further with the Sewell report, and I appreciate that support.

Mr Eddy: Mr Parliamentary Assistant, if they find there are problems with the legislation, could the task force come back then with the suggestion of a change of the act, possibly, or a regulation? Is that a possibility? Because when you're doing implementation --

The Chair: Mr Eddy, I'm sorry. No, we don't have time to do that.

Mr Eddy: We don't have time to answer a question.

The Chair: If you want to respond to that quickly, do so, Mr Hayes.

Mr Hayes: I think we have been very open in this government in this total process, and we will continue to be that way, and we will accept amendments and of course the government itself will be bringing in amendments, so it's a very open process and everyone will have his say and have his vote.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Hayes. I want to thank the city of Gloucester for presenting its submission to this committee.

WETLANDS PRESERVATION GROUP OF WEST CARLETON

The Chair: We invite the Wetlands Preservation Group of West Carleton. Welcome.

Mr Phil Reilly: Good morning. My name is Phil Reilly. I am the chairman of the Wetlands Preservation Group. My associate is Dr Meg Sears. She will be actually making our presentation, but my role this morning is just to explain the position of the Wetlands Preservation Group and another organization called Ecovision in this community.

Ecovision is a coordinating environmental group of which the Wetlands Preservation Group is a member, and in that context, Ecovision supports the Ontario Environment Network and belongs to the land use caucus of which I am a steering committee member. The presentation that we're making from the Ottawa-Carleton area is somewhat of a coordinated presentation and one that we took on as our obligation within the environmental community here.

We have been very much involved in the Sewell process through the land use caucus. I and Dr Sears have attended many meetings in Toronto on this process. That will be reflected in our presentation. From here it's Dr Sears and our formal presentation.

Dr Meg Sears: We really have to applaud the government for the process which it embarked upon with John Sewell and his commission. We believe that they brought forward a very good set of recommendations which would result in a much better planning process for Ontario. We have to really applaud you for taking on such a humongous task. It's a very difficult, very complex process.

We have examined Bill 163 and we have brought forward some recommendations to improve it so that Ontario will have a better planning process. It contains some good aspects of the commission's recommendations. In some cases Bill 163, as the previous submitter said, does not go far enough. In a couple of cases, actually, Bill 163 seems to go in the opposite direction. We were rather disappointed in those instances.

I'll quickly go through the submission and then we'll hopefully have some time for comments.

We'll start at the beginning, the purposes of the Planning Act. The very first purpose that is proposed in Bill 163 we believe puts forward a mixed message to promote sustainable economic development. In fact, there are two messages that have to get put across. One is that the planning process should result in a society which works, which involves economic, social, the whole range of that sort of value. The other is that the land use planning process must preserve the agricultural land and the natural features which make the province tick ecologically, which is beyond just the human concerns.

With that in mind, we believe that Bill 163 would be improved by deleting the first proposed purpose and by putting in what was essentially the Sewell commission's first two purposes, slightly rephrased so they would fit into the phrasing of the bill.

The Sewell commission proposed a very different sort of model for planning in Ontario, one that would result in decision-making being made at the local level. However, this would have to be tempered and channelled with the direction of the provincial policies. We understand these policies have been finalized; they've been approved. We sincerely hope that the government goes ahead with the policies.

They have undergone extensive consultation both through the Sewell commission, and last fall and winter the government consulted on those. Consultation we believe is closed on this so we have not commented on them, except to go so far as to say that we realize that there are many people who are very concerned about those policies. At the heart of those concerns is the notion that there must be some kind of limit to development.

Appended to the submission we've included two papers to assist the committee on these matters. Obviously we can't pave everything from here to Hudson's Bay. These policies do set out a good framework to limit growth. But the two arguments that are often made are, first of all, that it is a land owner's right to be able to develop. But while as a land owner you would like to think that you could do whatever you like with your land, society can't have that.

In fact we've enclosed a legal interpretation of Canadian and Ontario law, which has been accepted by the task force working on the Oak Ridges moraine, which indicates that a land owner's rights are not entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. There is very good case law from the Supreme Court saying that it is well within the right -- and I would say it's the duty -- of government to limit, to the extent where you say no development, the use of land, as long as it's done in good faith and for a good public purpose.

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The second argument that's often made is that if you limit the quantity of land which is available for housing, for instance, then you're going to artificially inflate the price of land and the price of housing is going to go through the roof and people won't have any place to live.

Canada's an awfully big place and it's very sparsely populated. Other jurisdictions have come to grips with this problem years ago. In England they've done this. Also, the second paper contains a description of what has happened in Portland, Oregon, where they drew the line and said: "No development outside this line. We're not going to bulldoze the orchards and the fields." In fact, although it has changed the sort of development, it has neither resulted in huge mega-high-rise developments, nor has it resulted in an increase in the price of housing. In fact, according to the submission, housing in Portland, Oregon, is two to three times more affordable than comparable west coast metropoli.

This is a case where leadership is needed. There will be some short-term pain on the part of some land owners, but this is definitely a case for leadership. We hope the government will go ahead and do what is intuitively obvious that has to be done, for the sake of future generations of Ontarians.

Moving right along, subsection 3(5) of the Planning Act says that we have to pay attention to these policy statements. The Sewell commission resulted in a very broad consensus, saying that there should be consistency in the decisions with the policy statements. We support that and we're glad to see it's in Bill 163. On the other hand, it seems rather absurd that in that same section the crown is no longer entirely bound by the provincial policy statements. We have no idea why this is, but we sincerely hope Bill 163 will be amended so that all provincial ministries and agencies will have to be consistent with the provincial policies, otherwise it's just not workable.

The next section of our submission deals with official plans. Official plans are the documents which provide the vision, the direction for development. These are supposed to take the provincial policies and put them into the context of the local area. In Bill 163, the content requirements for these official plans have been removed. We're concerned that this is not an appropriate thing to do. Content requirements for a major document like this have been previously thought to be important in an act, indeed both in the Planning Act and in the Environmental Assessment Act. Up until now we've had content requirements for the appropriate documents, be they official plans or for environmental assessments.

We would like to see that the content requirements, at least an outline of the types of things that are required in official plans, be put into the Planning Act and, along the same line, what should be in official plans.

We're realizing now that although Ontario is an awfully big place, we really do have to do some good planning. Some of the essential components of planning are looking at alternatives: Do we really need to do something or other? This kind of consideration is what comes into comprehensive planning.

It's the only way to avoid really costly mistakes down the road. Having to put infrastructure into areas which were on private services is incredibly expensive. We can't afford to do it. We have to plan ahead. We have to have comprehensive planning, not only for infrastructure -- it's been proposed that optional comprehensive planning be carried out for infrastructure. However, we believe that comprehensive planning must be carried out for water, for landscapes and ecosystems so that, although we spend a little bit more time and energy and money planning, we don't have incredibly horrendously crippling, expensive mistakes to fix up down the road. That should be in official plans.

Within this submission, I also point out other sorts of information that you need in support of comprehensive planning. If you want to do comprehensive planning, you have to know what's there, so the province should put forward guidelines as to data collection and information databases so we can have regular snapshots of Ontario, see what's working, what's not working, where we should develop and how we should develop in the future. I've outlined that.

The next section in our presentation has to do with intervenor funding. You might say: "Why? This isn't in Bill 163." Yes, but the Sewell commission did have quite extensive support for intervenor funding before the Ontario Municipal Board and this is where I say Bill 163 goes in the opposite direction. Not only is intervenor funding before the OMB not there, it's proposed that anybody who wants to go before the OMB be charged a fee before they even put the letter in the mail. This, we believe, is totally contrary to the consensus that was achieved by Sewell and it also represents a substantial barrier to citizens' participation in the planning process. We strongly believe that fees should not be part of the -- to make an appeal, to make an objection to a bad decision should not be part of the planning process.

I go on in my submission to make the argument for intervenor funding. Intervenor funding has been broadly supported and although some people say, "We can't afford it because it will result in so many more appeals and it's going to lengthen appeals," in fact, even the government interministerial committee making submissions to the Sewell commission disputed that by saying that if opponents were funded so they could do proper studies, and as long as the proponents knew that their studies were going to be intelligently looked at, then you would have better investigation of environmental effects up front and you would have shorter hearings because people would have the competence and the confidence to properly scope matters, so you wouldn't have long hearings.

Intervenor funding is fundamental to access to the planning process and if the planning process is going to be fair, as claimed in the purpose section of the Planning Act, then citizens do have to have access to it. We're not proposing intervenor funding be present for every little hearing. However, for large hearings where there are substantial environmental effects, I know personally from going through one that this is an incredible disruption of one's time, one's family life. It's a very big expense anyway, and to at least have some money to hire independent representation, technical representation, before the Ontario Municipal Board is really imperative. I've also presented guidelines for intervenor funding.

Another aspect of Bill 163 has to do with the denial of OMB hearings. This is also something that's quite close to my heart because twice in the last few years in Ottawa-Carleton there have been provincially significant wetlands. One had a plan of subdivision on it, one had an official plan amendment, and when citizens objected to the plan of subdivision and the official plan amendment for two different developments in different parts of Ottawa-Carleton, both times for these class 1 wetlands the regional municipality, the government, said, "No, these are frivolous and vexatious and we're not going to forward your appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board."

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We consider that a really gross misuse of this power, and when the provincial facilitator's office was examining this, Barry Edgington from the regional municipality, who must have been fully cognizant of these two cases of abuse of this power, was sitting on that task force and this is not mentioned in their report. They found six cases in all of Ontario's history to support their arguments for increasing the range of powers, this net, whereby you could refuse to hear a citizen's objection before the OMB. In my very limited experience, with no real searches or anything, I found two cases where this power was abused. We feel very strongly that this range of powers should not be extended.

I argue that, and actually within my submission I list all of the conditions under which a hearing might be denied, either by refusing to refer an objection or by the OMB refusing to hear an appeal. As it's argued in the paper, it is appropriate that a hearing not be initiated if reasons were not given in writing for the hearing, and it is appropriate in the case where development approval has been denied that the Ontario Municipal Board not hear it if this proposal was premature.

We believe the decision as to whether reasons are adequate and decisions as to whether a proposal was premature should always be made by the Ontario Municipal Board. It has to be made impartially. It can't be made by the same people who just passed the resolution. That's the denial of hearing section.

Finally, within Bill 163 there are lots of things to streamline the process and this is really good, because you've got to know that, okay, we've got six months to do this, two months to do that, or whatever. Every day you hear horror stories: "Well, I put my application in and it sat on so-and-so's desk for eight months. After he blew the dust off he passed it to his neighbour and it sat there for two months." It can be kind of ludicrous. It's really good that there be a time line put on things.

The concern we have is that in Canada, in Ontario, we've got a winter that's long and hard and cold, and if you have a really short turnaround time for some development applications, then there is no time to ground-proof environmental reports. If I put in an application at the beginning of November after the frost has gone in the ground, and we have a bad winter up here, then I'm going to be before the board before the MNR or whoever, whatever environmental consultant was supposed to look at it, could possibly go out and verify whether there was fish habitat there, for instance.

This is just one place where, as you go through clause-by-clause, I really hope you keep in mind that you've got to be able to check what's on the ground before you give approval to developments.

The second type of streamlining time line within Bill 163 has to do with the periods for OMB referral requests and appeals, and we think the periods for submission of all appeals and referral requests should be 30 days, partly because it just makes it consistent and partly because less than three weeks for a decision on the part of private citizens who perhaps haven't ever been involved in the planning process before is really not a very long time. For the sake of consistency, for the sake of the citizens, I think that would be an improvement to Bill 163.

The final time line is the time line for forwarding of a file to the OMB. Fifteen days has been put out in Bill 163 for all types of files other than zoning bylaw amendments. For zoning bylaw amendments, this file is supposed to be sent immediately. The wetlands preservation group has had the experience where we've had objections to the OMB and the file has not been sent for eight months. We think, rather than something which is maybe not well defined, a definite time period of 15 days would be an improvement.

Bill 163 introduces something called a development permit system. This is something which is really new in Ontario. We haven't had this before. This is the one case where we think that perhaps we're running before we can walk here. There is an awful lot that is left to regulation within this development permit system. Actually, if I hadn't read the Sewell report, just reading Bill 163, I would never have figured out how this development permit system is even supposed to work. We believe that perhaps a development permit system should be reconsidered, simply because it's premature.

Finally, one point has to do with minor variances. It's proposed in Bill 163 that minor variances not be heard by the Ontario Municipal Board. We believe they should be, simply because minor variances are not defined. Who knows what's minor? We anticipate that perhaps some municipalities would abuse this process and actually deny legitimate right of appeal to citizens, because they would push the limit of "minor." In fact, I understand that although a significant time is spent by the Ontario Municipal Board hearing minor variances, it's not a large preponderance of its time at all, so it's not that big a deal for it to hear the minor variances. It's better not to introduce this huge loophole that would perhaps cause grief down the road.

Finally, just in support of what I believe was spoken about earlier this morning to do with provincial interests and the declaration of them by cabinet, the declaration of provincial interests in matters that are before the Ontario Municipal Board has only been used a couple of times. It's a very extraordinary power, which to date has been used with very great discretion. Because we are in such rapidly changing times, I think some kind of very extraordinary appeal power to the cabinet is appropriate.

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The Chair: Thank you. We have no time for questions, but I would allow members to make some statements either in agreement or disagreement very briefly.

Mr Eddy: Thank you for your presentation, bringing your concerns before us. I'd really like to ask you a question about the OMB, considering that the OMB does make decisions that are in direct opposition to an approved official plan of the upper tier, the lower tier, zoning bylaws, and everything else, and whether there is a better system, or whether the OMB should have guidelines to operate under. Thank you. I'll talk to you about it later.

Mr Sterling: Thank you very much for taking the time to come in front of us, Mr Reilly and Dr Sears, I've had the opportunity to talk to both of you in my constituency office. I think what's important perhaps for the committee to understand is that these two people and the group they represent don't represent people who are involved in this because of what's happening in their backyard. They're not part of the NIMBY syndrome and therefore I think their credibility rises as a result of that.

The problem, as I explained in my constituency office, that I have with your positions is that I don't think the present laws in the province and in Canada can withstand what is going to happen in the future. In other words, I think there has to be a better balance, a right for the property owner to be heard, for the property owner to challenge. I really think it behooves groups such as yours to develop a fair system where that can in fact occur because somewhere along the line a government is going to turn the corner on this and perhaps go too far the other way. I think it does groups like yours to try to reach a reasonable balance.

Mr Reilly: I know we disagree on that point. That is the reason we had the Canadian Environmental Law Association develop, on behalf of the Ontario Environment Network, a position on what is the legal ramification of land owner rights in respect to the planning process. I believe that paper does a very fair job of demonstrating the consensus that's reached by development lawyers, corporate lawyers, government lawyers and public interest group lawyers. I really do commend this paper to you. We have been trying to get the other side to see our point of view as well and we haven't won that debate yet either.

Ms Gigantes: I'd like to thank the delegation for its presentation and ask whether staff might make available to us information about the number of minor variance appeals that have been made before the OMB in the last 5 to 10 years, and also the report which is referred to, the final report of the working group reviewing the use of the "frivolous or vexatious" provisions of the Planning Act.

Ms Diana Dewar: Yes, we can provide that information for you.

ASSOCIATION OF RURAL PROPERTY OWNERS (EASTERN ONTARIO)

The Chair: We invite the Association of Rural Property Owners (Eastern Ontario), Mr Harold Harnarine and Mr Bruce Benson.

Mr Harold Harnarine: Thank you for permitting us the opportunity to make this presentation. This presentation is made for and on behalf of the Association of Rural Property Owners (Eastern Ontario), ARPO for short. My name is Harold Harnarine and I am a founding member and the present chair of the executive committee of ARPO.

ARPO is an umbrella organization covering five chapters stretched across and including membership in the municipalities of West Carleton, Kanata, Goulbourn, Rideau, Osgoode and the combined counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. ARPO's membership is now approaching 1,000 and is growing constantly.

ARPO was spawned by the ineptitude, the shortsightedness and the injustices resulting from the wetlands policy statement of June 27, 1992. At present, it is allied with other organizations across the province and preoccupied with the larger questions of the politics of land use in Ontario.

I am by profession a practising economist with a strong interest in prices and money and other related macroeconomic topics. The economics and politics of land have become part of my interests, mostly from my being a part-time farmer and an environmentalist. My comments will be confined to some of the more fundamental issues underlying Bill 163. I do not propose to become entangled in the mechanical net of this complex and enormously confusing collection of rules designed expressly for speeding up land use decisions in the province.

Most economists have gone beyond the stage of arguing the relative merits of the centrally planned economy against that of the decentralized market-driven economy. The decentralized economy is nearly always given the edge, partly because it is an efficient system by which most of the economic problems of scarcity and surpluses are solved with a minimum of bureaucratic intervention. This is not to say that the market-driven economy is free of problems; more so in producing a number of rather unwholesome effects such as damage to the environment, the growth of monopolies and extremes in the distribution of wealth and incomes.

On the other hand, no one should assume that the centrally planned system, in part or in whole, will necessarily do a good job in correcting some or all of these social and economic problems. A centrally directed land planning process is likely to fail disastrously in achieving its explicit targets or goals unless we are willing to learn from our mistakes and make the required changes as we go along.

My selected comments will not be directed to the whys of the land planning process. This is not a debate in philosophy. We agree fundamentally that land planning is essential in this province. What we are disagreeing with in a very fundamental sense is the method by which Bill 163 is attempting to do this. So our questions have to do with the process, more directed to the hows as described in Bill 163. The crucial questions therefore relate to how such land use policies come into being, how they are structured, how they are implemented and some of the consequences emerging from such procedures.

I will summarize the main issues that are of concern to our organization.

Firstly, the bill describes a model of land use policy that is highly centralized and that concentrates an enormous amount of power in the hands of the minister. The express intention of the bill to foster community participation in planning is therefore reduced to a farce and is a camouflage for this excessive centralization and concentration of power.

Secondly, as a corollary to the first point, land use policy is determined and built around provincial policy statements. These statements are the rigid core and unifying force around which everything spins. Again, the public's input in the framing of these statements is limited and by invitation only.

Thirdly, the role of the OMB, seen previously as an autonomous body with considerable powers to redress the misuse of powers relating to land use at the level of the provinces and the municipalities, is severely compromised in this bill. The integrity of the OMB as an impartial institution is therefore called into question.

Fourthly, the planning process is great on the politics of land but fails dreadfully in acknowledging the crucial economic issues falling out of its actions. It is an easy matter to freeze land into some rigidly defined state by the zoning or designation process. But what of the impact of such actions on the livelihood of the people who are compelled to shoulder the full costs of such actions so that the rest of society may enjoy certain benefits?

Fifthly, the planning process as described in Bill 163 appears to take on a very rigid and inflexible stance. The failure to appreciate that the economy is constantly adjusting to a large number of forces which will inevitably involve the use of land directly or indirectly will make official plans the millstones around the Ontario economy. Something should be written into law regarding the early recognition for change so as to make official plans more the servant of the people rather than their masters.

From here on I wish to elaborate on these issues.

Firstly, the highly centralized system: We are concerned about the fact that Bill 163 describes the land policy process that is centrally determined, centrally structured, centrally directed and centrally driven. This excessive emphasis of planning from the centre results in an enormous concentration of power in the hands of the minister. The powers exercised at the municipal level are logically delegated by the minister who, for reasons not specified in the bill, may withdraw such powers or simply dissolve the organization. Example: a municipal planning authority to which such powers are delegated.

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The two features of excessive centralization and the inordinate concentration of powers in the hands of the minister give rise to some unwholesome aspects of this new approach to planning:

In the first place, the process will inevitably call for the setting up of a large and expensive bureaucracy which, instead of speeding up the process, will tend to hold up actions by concentrating on trivial procedural details.

In the second place, land use rules will likely become complex, rigid and inflexible, adding to the delay and costs of doing business.

Thirdly, the initiatives in the purchase and the development of land will be discouraged, leading to scarcities of such goods as houses.

In the fourth place, the whole approach is based on the assumption that the minister and his officials know what is best for all regions and corners of this province.

Fifthly, there's a good chance that the whole province will become clones of Toronto since the bill does not seem to make allowances for differences at the local level.

Sixthly, this top-down process of determining how land is to be used reduces the municipalities to the level of rubber stamps. The autonomy of the municipalities in land use matters is completely taken away.

The powers of the minister may be used in an unconstrained and arbitrary fashion -- example: dissolving a municipal planning authority -- causing considerable instability and uncertainty for the peoples and municipalities in question.

The architects of Bill 163 may rightfully consider themselves as faithful disciples of the more than one million planning bureaucrats who dictated terms and conditions for the operation of the Soviet economy. These architects will succeed in dragging down the Ontario economy in much the same way that the Soviet planners destroyed theirs. That is not a caricature.

Policy statements: Policy statements are the unifying force of this new approach to land use. Our experience with the wetlands policy statement of June 27, 1992, has taught us to be very concerned about this instrument. Any matter of provincial interest is potentially able to become the subject of a policy statement. These matters of provincial interest are listed on page 4. The list is so long and comprehensive that you wonder whether the architects intended to cover the whole universe of political concerns.

This totality results in three outcomes:

(1) It is bound to produce conflicts especially between the more explicit economic goals and those of a more qualitative nature, especially those relating to the protection of the environment.

(2) It is unreasonable to expect anyone to incorporate all these concerns in determining land uses.

(3) It opens up the road for a totalitarian control of land use across the province.

Policy statements are a prerogative of the minister, who consults with those deemed to have an interest in the subject. In shaping the wetlands policy, the minister conferred with such groups as Ducks Unlimited and Wildlife Habitat Canada. Neither he nor his staff thought it fit to consult with land owners, the very people who are asked to shoulder the costs so that society may reap the benefits of wetlands.

Is there anything here that says the public will be consulted? The minister is free to pick and choose those with whom he may consult. Surely that could not be interpreted as consulting the public at large.

If policy statements are the foundations upon which land use policies are built, then I invite the public to look closely at how these come into being, how they acquire the status of law and how they figuratively choke out the initiative on land use matters from the affected communities.

Policy statements are the headlock by which municipalities are virtually forced to surrender whatever little vestiges of autonomy or initiatives are found at the local level.

The role of the OMB: It is evident that with the guiding hand of the all-encompassing policy statements dictating the terms and conditions relating to local land use, the OMB will be hard put to rule in favour of some aggrieved party. Even when the appeal is allowed, the OMB now has the mandate to dismiss all or part of the grounds for complaint without a hearing. The conditions appear to be stringent and unreasonable. Appeals may be denied a hearing if they are not made in good faith, frivolous, vexatious, made for the purpose of delay or if premature. If the merits of an appeal could be reduced to these levels, then we really have a much more serious problem than we imagined with the OMB. Are these rules necessary for efficiency or are they means of prejudging and thwarting the course of possible relief, if not of justice?

Tell me, what is this condition which says that an appeal may be dismissed without hearing if the person making the appeal did not previously make an oral or written submission before the plan was adopted? I ask you, in all reason, how many of us have the foresight, the stamina, the interest or the ability to read and comprehend all the intricate aspects of an official plan such that we could feel confident in making a submission?

This condition is totally inconsistent with all notions of common sense. It is a bureaucratic trap and a wicked triviality which does a lot to damage the integrity of the OMB.

There are other activities of the OMB in Bill 163 that we consider outrageous and out of place. The OMB, that has lost its autonomy under the strong hand of a central planning bureaucracy, cannot and should not be allowed to have the final say in a dispute over land values between a land owner and a municipality. An independent third party is essential to even out the playing field in this important matter.

The economics of land: This highly centralized system of land use planning has assumed that the economic effects of its planning decisions are neutral. One gets the impression that planners behave as autocrats, arbitrarily taking from some and giving to others. They lay down rules of land use by zapping, freezing, zoning, designating, changing and redrawing maps. What they fail to appreciate is that in so doing, they are engaged in a massive process of redistributing incomes and wealth among property owners. Some are made extremely poor while some are made extremely rich, thanks to the arbitrary actions of planners.

Land is a valuable resource in fixed supply. They are not making more of it. Land also has a vast number of alternative uses. The value of land depends on the price of the products available from it. The more you restrict the alternative uses, the lower the value of land. Hence, government restrictions on what land owners are permitted to do with lands are a major cause of the fall in the market values of land.

In the interest of brevity, I'm going to skip a few pieces.

Let me put this question to those people who live mostly in cities and who are inclined to think that land ownership rights are relative to the ideology of the party in power. Just suppose that the government were to seize your property, your beautiful home with its manicured lawns and gorgeous flower beds. You may live on your property and you may continue to consider yourself the owner of the property, but as of today the property is zapped. You are allowed to do absolutely nothing to the property. You can neither cut the grass, remove the snow, trim the hedge, grow flowers or paint or repair the house. These conditions are unbearable for you so you put up the "For Sale" sign immediately.

But exactly what are you selling? A buyer who hears of these restrictions will stay away completely from your property. If the buyer is a freak, he will offer you little or nothing. You have lost your equity, possibly your life savings, as a result of the government restrictions placed on your property. Do you consider that fair play? In fact, that is exactly what has happened to owners of wetlands, ravines, valleys, areas of natural and scientific interest, significant corridors etc.

This matter, ladies and gentlemen, will not go away. We would like to see this new approach adopt a realistic stance on disguised expropriation. Why not go in the direction of planning by incentives and inducement? This method of planning by directions and decree is inconsistent with our traditions of a market-driven economy. This method is bound to fail in the end simply because it ignores the hard facts of the economics of land.

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The rigidity of the land use planning process: Nowhere in this new approach have I seen any reference or recognition of the need to change plans as conditions in the economy change. Incidentally, as a footnote, the Sewell commission did recommend that provincial policy statements be reviewed every five years.

In the private economy, market forces determine the allocation of land among its several competing uses. Planners are engaged in this same process of allocating land except that they use a different set of criteria. Planners are not gods who can foresee clearly the future needs of lands to serve the community. Depending on how the economy shifts in the future, especially in the direction of becoming more competitive in the global market, land planners will have to respond quickly or see the Ontario economy perish by their tardiness. By all means, we will have admirable land use plans, but in the meantime we will be contributing to unemployment and possibly bringing down our standard of living, all because we are unable to compete internationally.

Land inflation will be a fact of life resulting from this cumbersome structure of land use decisions. The private land market is confused and mesmerized by all the uncertainties generated by this new approach. Buying land is risky business in this environment, thus prices will be inflated by a premium to cover for this high risk. As land inflation feeds into the economy, the price of most goods and services which depend on land as an input -- namely, houses, agricultural goods, recreational services and industrial and commercial structures -- will rise without fail. Can Ontario afford this luxury?

In what follows, I offer six selected recommendations.

Firstly, give the people at the local level greater opportunities to determine their land use preferences. Decentralize the process as much as possible, retaining control of those matters that are truly fundamental and critical to Ontario as a whole.

Secondly, give the people a chance to shape provincial policy statements and to change them, adjust them or abolish them completely when they become obstacles to making rational changes in land use policy.

Thirdly, restore the OMB to its former autonomous position and let it truly play the role of a referee or arbiter in land use matters.

Fourthly, establish a commission of independent and competent persons to arbitrate in disputes relating to financial settlements in cases of land expropriation.

Fifthly, if the market value of land has fallen, say, by something like one third as a result of a planning decision, then such lands should be deemed as effectively expropriated and land owners should be compensated according to market values. If not, other financial incentives may be offered to encourage the land owner to hold land in accordance with the wishes of the planning authority.

Finally, all official plans should be required by law to become flexible and responsible to the fundamental changes in the economy. Land is a valuable resource, and our livelihoods depend on it in a direct or indirect way. When our livelihoods are threatened, the official plan must be made to yield.

The Chair: Mr Benson, you have a statement as well?

Mr Bruce Benson: Sir, I would like to bow to my colleague. You heard sufficient from him. I do not have very much to add to it, and I would not like to dilute his comments by further words.

Mr Villeneuve: Mr Harnarine and Mr Benson, thank you very much for your presentation. I also appreciated your coming to Chesterville when we had the rural economic development task force, and your presentation was certainly duly noted.

Farm land, as you know, is not subject to the wetland policies. We think that in some instances we may see people go and cut trees and indeed tile land, because some of our best farm land in eastern Ontario, and indeed anywhere in Ontario, is tiled land, which if indeed were growing trees without the tile would be wetlands. So what we see is a very strange phenomenon where we may be discouraging people from reforesting their land because it could limit the use.

We had in Napanee recently a Christmas tree farmer who told us that now that his land -- and it's marginal land -- is growing Christmas trees, he is very, very concerned as to the designation of his land as something other than regular rural land. Indeed, with the wetlands policy that we now have, the property rights of individuals are being eroded more.

A dangerous statement was made by the previous people that intervenor funding is very much their way of attacking this particular area to preserve wetlands. We all want to preserve wetlands within reason. The situation is that highest and best use of land is how one appraises it as to its real value.

Again, a presenter in Peterborough last week told us that his land has gone down 40%, based on appraisals by qualified appraisers, and continues to decline, with no real attraction for any potential purchaser. I think you've touched on that very well.

The Chair: Mr Villeneuve, I apologize, but there were only five minutes for all three caucuses. There was only a minute and a half per caucus.

Mr Villeneuve: I think the questions have been answered. The concerns are real, and they're shared certainly by yours truly.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): I rather enjoyed many of the comments that were made by the deputant. Obviously, it was a very well-thought-out presentation and a well-thought-out response to many of the issues as outlined in both the act and in many of the policy statements.

Although in one instance you say that the policy statements are very comprehensive and very detailed, many of the other people who have appeared before the committee and basically many of the other associations -- the home builders' associations primarily and some of the chambers of commerce -- have spoken to that. Basically, their criticisms have been that the statements were vague and not comprehensive enough; that they weren't clear and as well defined as they would like to have seen them defined. So there's that contradiction there in terms of the information that has been provided to the committee.

I just wanted you to elaborate on that particular point briefly so that I can understand a little more clearly what you mean by their being as comprehensive as you think they are and as limiting, because I don't see them as limiting. In fact, I see them as opening doors for many people in the development industry, opening doors for many of the community groups involved in land use planning.

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Quite frankly, I've been saying this and I continue to say it: that when this actually goes into effect and municipalities actually come to understand how the new process is going to work and adjust that new process to their own local immediate circumstance, they will discover that, quite frankly, they won't want a government in the future to change the way land use planning is being changed. If you could respond to that briefly, please.

Mr Harnarine: The answer is in your last point, that it's not a question of the wording -- the wording is reasonably ambiguous in some instances -- it's in the application of the wetland policy statements that we have had some very serious and disappointing experiences. It is the centre that determines, in the wetland case, precisely what lands constitute wetlands. The local municipalities have no input into that whatsoever. It's the Ministry of Natural Resources and its mapping experts who determine what wetlands are.

Mr Villeneuve: You're using the word "expert" pretty loosely.

Mr Harnarine: Thank you. So, I may not have any dispute with the wordings. The wordings could be vague, could be ambiguous, could be foggy, could be -- what? I have very serious reservations with the way the rules in the wetland policies are implemented.

Mr Perruzza: If we can have a brief description from staff --

The Chair: No, there's no time. No, I'm sorry. We'll have to do that with subsequent deputants. Mr Eddy.

Mr Eddy: Thank you for your presentation. You've certainly given us a lot to think about. I recognize your problem with the centralization of planning in Ontario, and it certainly is not local planning. Planning is supposed to be local planning to determine the future and the use of land. So, you've made some excellent points. It's time we recognize that municipalities should be making more of the decision. Although this goes part of the way, it certainly imposes a centralized set of provincial policies, an unlimited set of policies, because we've seen some, but what are those in the future?

I think it comes down to, at what level do we make the determination of wetlands? We've had some examples here of what's wrong with the system. So you're saying it should be local, it must be local, because they are the people who know what these are.

The other thing I note is that you're saying we must develop a system of recognizing what value we're taking away from people when we go in and in some cases in a wholesale manner determine wetlands that may not be wetlands at all. I recognize what you're saying. Thank you for your input.

Mr Hayes: One of the problems that you're talking about is dealing of course with the wetlands, and of course we understand the frustrations. The frustrations that you are talking about are what you've gone through in the past. In the past, MNR would come in and it would designate wetland areas. Now what is happening is that certainly they will map it, but of course the municipalities will be the ones that will be actually designating the wetlands, and unlike in the past, there will be lots of opportunity for the public to participate in those discussions along with the local municipalities. So, this is actually changing from the frustrations you have been putting up with in the past.

The Chair: We thank you for the personal interest you both have taken in responding to this bill.

PAUL LAUGHTON

The Chair: We invite Mr Paul Laughton. Welcome to this committee, Mr Laughton. There are only 15 minutes. If you wish the members to ask you questions, you will have to leave as much time as you can.

Dr Paul Laughton: My name is Paul Laughton of 928 Muskoka Avenue, Ottawa, K2A 3H9, and I'm here as a private citizen. I haven't seen any like that yet today. I'm a retired professor of chemistry, very ancient, and have been busy for a number of years in planning matters. I've already had a say in other organizations; this is my own private say.

First, I should say that I endorse what you're going to hear from the Federation of Citizens' Associations of Ottawa-Carleton this afternoon. At 11 o'clock last night I read another brief by a friend of mine Dr Allan Gregory, who has expressed some matters with extraordinary clarity. I wish I'd prepared them myself. So I endorse his presentation which comes late this afternoon.

The Federation of Citizens' Associations, which I may call FCA, is questioning the proliferation of fees for appeals to the OMB, and I've heard comments on that already. But I am particularly annoyed by some of the cited fees, and I've listed them here by page in the bill, and I'm afraid that the number I give is just the one that's in the aisle on that page. I think most of these are from the act rather than from the bill. These are ones which are charged against appellants who are being denied due process because another body has been dragging its feet contrary to the law, and it seems to me that people who are seeking redress of justice in a matter like that ought not to be charged a fee. In fact, I don't understand why a situation like that cannot be decided by a simple directive of the OMB on a statement of claim to them.

My next item is on the withdrawal of any review of committees of adjustment. Certainly, leaving it up to councils to be the final deciding body simplifies matters and cuts out a few OMB hearings, but it leaves us defenceless when we have a council that is not of the makeup that we would temporarily like. You may say that this is not an important matter, because committees of adjustment are temporary sorts of decisions, they affect only one property, but often they amount to de facto rezoning of a community, because, despite what they say, I have heard committees of adjustment repeatedly using previous decisions as precedents. The example I give here is where a community has two foot frontages; one for single homes, one for double homes. An appeal to the committee is made to build a double home on exactly a single home frontage. This was passed by the committee of adjustment and regarded as a minor variance.

So if you're going to take away any review of committees of adjustment beyond the council, we have to watch out for councils which would be overjoyed if they didn't have to go through a rezoning process and make it public and make it open to the OMB. Our community associations are constantly fighting little battles of this sort, and to have nothing but a council that we disagree with to go to is not a happy situation. So I hope either you will restore the OMB review, expensive though it is and though we usually fail, or at least do something about defining what is meant by "minor variance." Otherwise, a minor variance could be half the foot frontage.

The other comment directly from the bill is the section on development permits, which I must admit I didn't understand too well because I haven't had a chance to go back through the previous literature on that. But unless there are some checks and balances in the regulations to be published governing development permits, it looks as though a municipality, through an official plan, can delegate what look to me like current zoning and site plan control processes to staff, with no guarantee of any public participation at all until they reach the OMB, if indeed they're allowed to reach the OMB, because the community can deny that.

So my question is, have I missed something in this statement of development permits? Could our only protection become an expensive and time-consuming appeal to the OMB, with no provincial standard to guide the OMB?

My final, well, semifinal comment, because I picked one up from a previous speaker, is about the source of the greatest problem for the community associations and groups that I've had to deal with over the last four years, and that is traffic experts. There is a mindset in the planning community across this continent in which commercial property rights seem to be superior to all other rights. As long as a developer has in the zoning the capacity to expand and increase traffic, he can effectively insist that the community provide the infrastructure that allows that expansion, and we've seen this repeatedly before OMB hearings.

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If they can expand and they want to expand, they may expand and the taxpayer has to provide the infrastructure, and the most annoying infrastructure for communities is roads. Any traffic planner who chooses communities over cars is disregarded as too radical. In a recent hearing, we had a professor of traffic planning at Carleton University appear for the region and there was no mention essentially of his contribution in the OMB decision. He was in favour of not damaging communities by funnelling traffic through them and he carefully considered what damage would be done to the communities. "Forget it. The right was there to build the road. The road will be built. We will pave it over."

Overseas, we have a different mindset. Overseas, communities are recognizing that suburban traffic funnelled into a city core can damage the communities in between. But there's no sign of that in what is happening in the planning in this province and I don't see anything to prevent it in this bill; I wish there were. I don't know how you put it in, whether it's a provincial policy or where it would fit in. That's why I haven't suggested any wording for a change. Let the legislative experts figure that out. But until there's a change in that mindset so that the only solution to traffic jams is to put more routes through more communities, I don't know what we're going to do.

A number of overseas jurisdictions have now required that bedroom communities no longer exist, that what is now a bedroom community provide its own employment opportunities so that a bedroom community no longer exists. As I say, it is an integrated community. I see signs of that in the policies advocating multi-use in new developments. But unless you require that the planning include commercial, light industrial, we'll have communities with absolutely no employment opportunities in them except maybe a corner store, and all that traffic goes through the outer communities of the core city.

I've made some comments about the OMB. I would not like to see the OMB disappear, but certainly they have not been making us happy for the last 20 years. Some of my colleagues have suggestions about what to do about that. Is there any way that this committee can help? I know that you can't write provincial policies. Provincial policies went through the process. They're all done, finished. I don't know when the next review is possible. I hope it's tomorrow. It's about time that we begin to value neighbourhoods as much as commercial developments.

A little calculation on my own community of about 1,190 homes is that the assessed value in there is of the order of $200 million. Now, we hear that a shopping centre is $250 million. We never hear the assessed value of the property around the shopping centre and it's about time something appeared in the act to protect residential development, some balance, at least, between commercial property rights and residential property rights.

Am I allowed to make one little comment on the last presentation?

The Chair: Sure.

Dr Laughton: All the organizations I belong to are environmentally minded, and one thing I listened to there I thought was unfair. I heard criticisms of the province for not informing residents of proposed policy changes. My understanding was that this was the duty of the municipality, and if the local municipality hasn't done so, I can sympathize greatly with the people involved but I don't see that it's fair to blame the province. I love blaming the province for everything but I don't think it's guilty of that one. That's all I had to say this morning.

Mr Perruzza: Mr Chairman, I thoroughly enjoyed everything he had to say. I thought it was very clear, absolutely.

Ms Gigantes: I have a quick question. Could we get staff to provide us with some information which perhaps we could share with the witness about his question on 70.2.

Ms Dewar: Bill 163 permits municipalities to adopt a development permit system for a defined area in the municipality or for the whole municipality. It would be set out in an official plan and could be used as an alternative to site-specific zoning bylaws and site plans.

That process will be set out in a regulation and there will be an appeal process set out in the regulation. The regulations are being prepared now by staff in cooperation with the implementation advisory task force, the technical committee and a rural table. Those three committees are comprised of a number of stakeholders from various interest groups and agencies.

There have been a couple of municipalities that have expressed an interest in working with us as well to establish the development permit system, so the work is going on now.

Dr Laughton: So we hold our breath until we see what appears under 70.2(2)(e) then.

Mr Grandmaître: We haven't seen the regulations yet. That's the problem. I totally agree with you that until we find the right definition to minor variances that committee of adjustment will have too much leeway, and now that we cannot appeal its decision to the OMB I think the minor variance definition will be broader. That's my concern, and I agree with you: I'm not in love with the OMB. I've been fighting with them for, well, too many years to --

Mr Eddy: Decades.

Mr Grandmaître: Decades, yes. But I agree with you that until we do find the right definition to minor variances, I think we still need the OMB, for now anyway.

Mr Villeneuve: Mr Laughton, thank you for your presentation. Just on your last comments, and I think you're talking wetlands, the way wetlands have been designated in many, many instances, if not most of them, the owner did not know his land was being looked at as a potential wetland. People who did the designation did not advise the land owner that either they entered the land or that they were contemplating a change in zoning to wetlands 1 or 2 or 3. It was advertised in the local papers. If someone missed it, and the chances are pretty good they would miss it, all of a sudden they wind up with a designation as class 1, 2 or 3 wetland without their knowledge and I don't think that's right or fair. Yes, it is the municipality's responsibility to advertise but in many instances it's left a great deal to be desired.

Dr Laughton: We're certainly in favour of written notification which, by the way, the city of Ottawa has removed for zoning under the Ottawa official plan.

Mr Hayes: With regard to traffic and infrastructure, the policy statements certainly do address that issue in policy B:

"(5) Communities will be planned to use land efficiently, promote the efficient use of infrastructure and public service facilities, and where transit systems exist or may be introduced in the future, support the use of public transit.

"(6) The efficiency of transportation systems will be maximized by integrating transportation modes, and making optimal use of existing and new transportation systems. Transportation" systems "should be coordinated with those of other relevant jurisdictions."

Then you go over to policy E:

"(2) Municipalities should be planned to promote the most efficient modes of transportation and to reduce the need for the private automobile by giving priority to energy-efficient low-polluting travel, such as walking, bicycling, and public transit."

So these things are being addressed and implemented in the proper manner.

ALEX CULLEN

The Chair: We invite Councillor Alex Cullen.

Mr Alex Cullen: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Indeed, it's a delight to follow Dr Laughton. I know him as a veteran of municipal issues, quite experienced in planning and indeed he's a constituent of mine.

Mr Grandmaître: Is that a paid commercial?

Mr Cullen: That's right.

Mr Villeneuve: Is there something coming after that?

Mr Cullen: That's right. Good morning. My name is Alex Cullen. I'm a member of Ottawa city council, representing Richmond ward, and a member of regional council here in Ottawa-Carleton. It's my pleasure to welcome you to Ottawa-Carleton. I would like to thank the standing committee on administration of justice for providing me with the opportunity to speak to you on the subject of Bill 163 regarding land use planning and open local government. I intend to address both issues in my presentation.

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I am currently a member of both Ottawa planning committee and regional government planning committee and am vice-chair of both. I have followed with close interest the work of the Sewell commission, indeed made representations to it when the commission hearings were held here in Ottawa.

I support this proposed legislation because I believe that its reforms are timely. Land use planning has become increasingly complex and there are new societal priorities that must be explicitly taken into account when local planning decisions are made, particularly in the area of environmental protection. At the same time, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with the planning of local communities, that the planning legislation should serve communities so that the public that lives in these communities can govern its own development.

To this end, the trend of professionalization of planning must be checked and held subordinate to the principles of responsible democratic government. A municipality's official plan may be shaped by planning professionals, but it's living, breathing, real people who live in those communities and it is they who should construct that official plan.

Time does not permit me to go into a detailed analysis of the strong and weak points of the bill but I will touch on some important points.

Part III, Planning Act amendments, subsection 6(2), "decisions consistent with policy statements": By now you probably will have received delegations commenting on the substitution of the phrase "have regard for" in the current Planning Act for the bill's proposed "shall be consistent with" relating to planning decisions taken by municipalities with respect to provincial policy statements. I am very glad to see this proposed reform. The current wording in the act was far too permissive.

Communities that saw their official plans as bulwarks against unwanted development have seen planning decisions that merely nod at the policies they were to "have regard for" and charge off on an antithetical tangent to the intent of the relevant policy. The phrase "shall be consistent with" is seen as restricting the scope of this activity without imprisoning policy to the exact letter of the law.

Do not weaken this phrase by considering such weasel word qualifiers as "consistent with the spirit and intent" of the policy. If provincial policies are to be implemented and official plans are to direct local development, then the effective phrase to use is "shall be consistent with."

Section 10, substituting subsection 17(22), "notice": This section deals with a process by which an approval authority, usually an upper-tier municipality, approves a lower-tier municipality's official plan.

The city of Ottawa has recently completed an exhaustive six-year saga of reviewing its official plan. This involved extensive public notice and consultation with issue identification papers, information sessions, policy discussion papers, workshops, stakeholder meetings, round after round of public hearings and, finally, an award-winning official plan approved by Ottawa city council. Then it went to the region for approval.

Then the game started all over again. Regional planning committee found itself facing 380 modification requests, 31 referral requests, 21 deferral requests, and that was only at the start. It took five full meeting days to plow through all of this, including another round of public delegations. It was clear that the general public were not being given the same opportunity to discuss the proposed modifications etc as during the city's public consultation process. However, and not surprisingly, the lawyers for the developers were in constant attendance, providing for the committee's convenience written motions to implement their proposed modifications on behalf of their clients, as they have a right to.

Instead of being an exercise of confirming conformity with the region's official plan and provincial policies, it became a de novo process without, in my view, comparable public participation similar to what had occurred in the original writing of the plan. That is why I strongly support what has been proposed in this section. My understanding from reading this section, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the players who previously participated in this process would be notified again. I hope my interpretation is correct.

The alternative is to restrict the approval body's review of the official plan to minor technical amendments and to the issues of conformity with the upper-tier official plan only and let the Ontario Municipal Board deal with the rest.

There is a series of sections here starting with 17(29) "refusal to refer," and "dismissal without hearing." These subsections refer to new restrictions to the ability of an approval authority or the Ontario Municipal Board to consider a matter. One new restriction allows the approval authority or the OMB to refuse to consider a matter "if it is of the opinion that the reasons set out in the...request do not disclose any apparent land use planning ground upon which" to base a decision.

This new restriction is an example of the increasing professionalization of the planning process, which further removes the ability of ordinary citizens to exert control over the development of their community, either directly as individuals or through their elected representatives who are charged with the responsibility of local governance and planning under the act.

To restrict their ability to appeal what is happening to them in their own community to what is increasingly a professional definition of land use planning not only erodes their rights as citizens but subverts the principle of responsible democratic government. What is needed is a system of checks and balances, not the capture of what should be a community prerogative by a professional élite speaking in tongues that most taxpayers do not understand. Therefore, this new restriction should be rejected and the original grounds for refusal of consideration of a matter by an approval body or the OMB should remain with the time-tested grounds of frivolous, vexatious or for the purpose of delay.

The other new restriction lies in the requirement that an applicant must have made previous submissions when the matter was first being considered. This is also too restrictive, as all too often people don't realize what has happened until a decision has been made. I think the politicians around this table understand that. This is simply human nature. It should be sufficient that the applicant has provided written reasons to apply to the approval body or to the OMB. This new restriction should also be dropped.

Intervenor funding: Intervenor funding for third parties to appear on matters before the OMB was the subject of a recommendation from the Sewell commission which apparently has not been accommodated in the Bill. The commission proposed, in recommendation 85 of its final report, the following, and I'm not going to read it all: "The Planning Act be amended to permit the Ontario Municipal Board to award intervenor funding on any appeal of a plan...which, in the opinion of the board, affects a significant segment of the public and concerns the public interest and not just private interests. The decision of the board should be based on the following criteria...." and you can see the list.

It must be recognized that from time to time the public interest must be represented on important land use planning issues. The proposals outlined in the Sewell commission's recommendations are reasonable and should, in my strongly held view, be incorporated into the bill.

Part IV, Municipal Act amendments: These are the sections dealing with in camera meetings. I would like to applaud the government for moving to restrict the ability for municipal councils to conduct public business in camera or behind closed doors. As a former school board trustee from 1982 to 1988, I can tell you that it's about time municipalities caught up to the school boards in this regard. School boards in Ontario have been operating under these restrictions for many years under the Education Act with no ill effect. They know how to deal with sensitive issues in progress and when to take a vote. The principle of in camera, quite simply, is to permit briefings on sensitive issues clearly affecting the public interest, such as those listed in the Education Act and replicated in this bill, and provide the opportunity for full and frank debate on those issues outside of the public purview. However, for government to be held accountable, the decision, the vote, must be held in public.

You may have heard some deputations asking, as a result of the proposed restriction to in camera meetings, for protection of municipal council members from the law of libel. I heard this at AMO, as a matter of fact. "What for?" I say. There is no reason to justify speaking libel. The purpose of parliamentary privilege, as you all know, was to protect members of Parliament from the wrath of the crown, not to permit them to malign, slander or lie. There is no reason to expand the scope of in camera sessions beyond the bare minimum listed in the bill nor to compromise by granting parliamentary privilege to allow the ill-thought to express themselves irresponsibly.

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Schedule B, Local Government Disclosure of Interest Act: This last item I want to touch on is the principle of financial disclosure of assets and liabilities for locally elected representatives. I am a long-time advocate of this, as I've been disclosing to the public annually my assets and liabilities since before my election in 1991. I believe you have, attached, my statement of assets and liabilities.

In Ottawa, we are neighbours to our municipal colleagues in Quebec. We drink each other's wine and each other's beer and, being politicians, compare notes from time to time. In Quebec, financial disclosure has been law for many years and it does not seem to have harmed democracy there. People of quality still run for office, still serve the public. Disclosure makes sense. Not only would financial disclosure statements assist the public in determining whether an elected representative was in a conflict-of-interest situation, but it would also enhance the awareness of the elected official in his or her obligation to act in the public interest and not to advance his or her private interests. It's amazing that you have to continually learn these things.

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson said, "When a person assumes a public trust, he should consider himself a public property." These words grow more relevant with the increased responsibilities that elected officials carry today. Public disclosure must be seen as a reasonable requirement for public office. People choosing to serve the public must be prepared to give up a certain degree of personal privacy due to the very nature of public office, its responsibilities and the public scrutiny it brings.

However, there's one important deficiency in the proposed legislation regarding financial disclosure, and that is when disclosure should occur. If disclosure of financial assets and liabilities of elected officials is required, then it is only fair to require this of all candidates for elected office before the election, at the time of registration. In this way, not only are all treated fairly, but the public may know what possible conflicts of interest may arise when they make their choice among candidates. I can assure you that here in Ottawa it has not been a barrier to office. This indeed is the position of my regional council here in Ottawa-Carleton. I urge you, therefore, to perfect this legislation by taking this additional step.

Mr Eddy: Thank you for your presentation. You certainly covered many points that need consideration, and I appreciate having the opportunity to do that.

The question I have is about the two-tier system of planning. I found that over the years to be overcostly, inefficient and a source of conflict. You've dwelt on that in the case of the new official plan. Because the city of Ottawa council will no longer have representation on the upper tier, do you see the possibility of more conflict between the two tiers? Secondly, do you see one-tier land use planning as superior and a real advantage? Would you comment on that?

Mr Cullen: To take the last question first, someone has to approve an official plan. Whether it's the upper-tier municipality or the ministry, someone has to do it. Someone has to see it.

To me, when our official plan went up to the region, it didn't matter that we had representation there. The conflict occurred because it became a political process, and whether it's directly elected or indirectly elected, you still have a political process, interest groups coming forward, arbitration being asked for, and that extends the whole process; you increase the de novo situation. I don't know if when you go through an approval process, you have to restrict it to simple conformity or permit everyone to participate. But whether it's directly elected or not, my own view is it took us days because we had politicians there from different municipalities anyway. Ottawa was there, the rest of us were there, and it was a big fight.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much for your presentation. Your income at $55,700 -- I represent 23 rural municipalities. Most of the elected officials there would be making about 10% of that figure. This legislation, I gather, will not be passed by the time the municipal elections are held in mid-November. Do we make this retroactive for those people who get themselves elected, and then this comes into being some time later? What happens? Will the parliamentary assistant come in on that at some point?

Mr Hayes: The disclosure would have to be made 60 days after the election.

Mr Cullen: Same as in Quebec.

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): I just want to congratulate you for your very lively presentation. Also, it clearly indicates that high-calibre candidates are not afraid to reveal their assets. I think the points you make were very astute and, as I say, quite lively done.

ELISEO TEMPRANO

The Chair: We invite Mr Eliseo Temprano.

Mr Eliseo Temprano: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today to the standing committee on administration of justice on the proposed Bill 163 amendments to the Planning Act for the municipal planning process. I want to clarify that I am an architect. I'm a past president of the Ontario Association of Architects. I'm quite familiar with the municipal process as a person who sits on the other side of the counter, so to speak.

I'm also presently a candidate for the upcoming Ottawa city council. I am concerned about some of the decisions that might come out as a result of this committee and how this might impact on the future political administrative environment. I have three basic comments and I'd like to go through them.

In the case of Ottawa, we're governed under a regional government structure which includes various local municipalities. I have several points of concern.

I see that there is no attempt to standardize, at a region-wide basis, fundamental planning definitions and procedures. This means the definition of fundamental building blocks in planning such as car size, loading areas, aisle widths etc will vary throughout the region. We can have 16 different definitions in this area. This also means that basic procedures related to applications, application forms and requirements will also vary throughout the region. This results in inefficiency. It is not productive because what is referred to here is not a response to particular planning differences between suburban or urban conditions, but is really fundamental units that could be defined not only at a regional but I think at a leadership, a province-wide, level.

If people are aware of the Ontario Building Code prior to the incorporation of the national building code, there were multiple building codes throughout the province that required incredible amounts of inefficiency. I think for things such as a car's size, there's no reason why that could not have some leadership shown from a higher level of government, to agree to what a common size of car is and not leave that to 16 different municipalities.

I'm also concerned about there being very many different applications. I know that when I do work for clients in multiple municipalities within the region, it seems that I have to learn 10 or 11 different languages and fill out 10 or 11 different forms. Why can't there be a standardization of this process? I think this perhaps could be done in the case of a regional planning coordination committee which would aim at uniform standards. Leadership is very important in this regard. I think it would still allow the expression of unique circumstances within each municipality.

Another area I'm concerned about as an architect is the inability of municipalities to presently incorporate aesthetic design guidelines within their zoning bylaws. My experience with zoning bylaws is that if you follow it, you probably will get it approved, but it may actually be detrimental on the physical environment and the aesthetic quality of where you're planning to do a building. If you try to do something that is appropriate and the community likes, you have a problem because it doesn't follow the bylaw.

In Ottawa we have a design committee which presently confirms response to design guidelines with new proposals. This is in just a few areas. I think in Ottawa it's actually a fairly unique situation. On this design committee we have representatives not only from the professional community but from the construction community and from architects.

In the proposed changes, municipalities will be able to adopt a development permit system for defined areas or the whole municipality. Will this permit the incorporation of design guidelines with some teeth?

In this system, it is also going to be possible to delegate the issuance of development permits to staff. In the case of staff not being professionally qualified -- for example, not being an architect and trained in aesthetic issues -- I'm very concerned that architects maintain their involvement in these issues. We've had situations, for example, in the case of the building permit applications, where recent graduates of a technical college are giving their interpretation to a professional of 20 years as to how the building code should be interpreted. I think it's very important that we continue to work along the lines of the city of Ottawa design committee, where we have input from the professional as well as the public community.

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My third comment is with respect to the delegation of appeals to the committee of adjustment to the city council. I realize that the OMB is overloaded and that this downloading from the province is necessary. However, it is important when this power is delegated to reduce attempts to make it political. The beauty of the committee of adjustment is that it is a non-political committee. Delegating this authority to city council will make it more political, and I understand that this will make severe time demands on the city councils.

I would request that consideration be given to the committee of adjustment's decision being final. If this is not possible, then perhaps another method can be found; for example, in the case of a committee which is not unanimous, that an appeal be permitted to the OMB and that it exercise the rights it presently has under subsection 45(12) of the Planning Act to consider it or dismiss it, and I believe that is used very few times now. In that case the OMB would not be dealing automatically with every case that is appealed to it.

Generally, I just want to make the comment that I think it's very important that if we are looking at downloading a lot of activities to the municipal level, which I applaud, the key situation is that we have very clear policy guidelines within which we must work, or what I'm concerned with is that we will politicize all the decisions at the local level and actually result in extreme inefficiencies happening. I think it's appropriate that we be very efficient and not further delay our development approval process, which in many cases, given the present economic environment, is resulting in many people not investing in the community.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make these comments.

Mr Perruzza: Just to describe a little bit the committee of adjustment process as I understand it and as I have experienced it, I was a municipal councillor with the city of North York, and we had a very good committee of adjustment, a committee of adjustment that had a considerable amount of experience, but rarely would a committee of adjustment stand up to the wishes of a councillor on any given issue. I mean, that was just the way it is, and the independence of the committees -- and I hope that Bernard speaks to this to some degree.

When has a committee of adjustment ever turned down or run against the wishes of a mayor if the mayor was determined to stand on a particular issue? I know that quite often mayors and councillors and those people don't involve themselves in the committee process because the committee is and should be an arbiter of disputes between individuals and communities and so on. But when a councillor or a mayor or a group of councillors and mayors decided that a particular issue was important for the council or for those individuals and they communicated, as councillors and mayors and groups of councillors do, to their committees, rarely would the committee stand up to those wishes and in fact turn that down. So the committee: Is it political? Absolutely, in my experience.

Mr Temprano: My own comment to that is that I don't think giving it to the city council is going to improve the situation. In fact, it will result in everything being automatically appealed. And what you're saying, if it is political now, it's not working correctly, and I think you have to fix that problem, not download it and make it political.

Mr Curling: Thank you, Mr Temprano. Your presentation brought a new direction, or something that maybe we'd have looked at but maybe they have not attempted to look at. You spoke about the building code itself and how things have changed in some time of course. That's why the provincial policy should be reviewed every five years, because things have changed. Even car sizes, as you said, have changed, so therefore lot size may have an impact on how we build garages themselves. I'm not quite sure if they ever attempt to do that. And it's varied and complex: As I would build a house in the north and as I would build a house down in Toronto varies, and people around the province have been telling us that much of this policy is based in the south and has no impact in the north. Things like intensification as well would have more impact on the north in some respect; depends on how you look at it.

Do you see that this policy itself is not sensitive enough to some of the things that would happen, as we call it, in the north, and most of the policy now is based in the south?

Mr Temprano: I think from my experience as being the first president from Ottawa for the Ontario association in 25 years, that in fact most policy is Toronto-based, and I'd rather say Toronto than say the south. I say that with considerable experience in that area.

I don't want to get into the issue of recommending provincial guidelines. When you talk about car size, I don't think car size varies between north Ontario and south Ontario. I don't want to get into issues that I think are suburban and inner urban problems which occur within a municipality.

What I'm considered about is within the region. I had the experience of building a restaurant on two sides of Beechwood Avenue in the city, and with the different requirements you end up with a streetscape that's completely different on one side and one that's completely different on the other, and you have situations that I think don't act in the interest of the community. So if it was possible to not try to create guidelines that impact on different lifestyles or different urban characteristics, but fundamental building blocks -- for example, in the building code there's a common agreement across Canada as to what an exit width is. It's 22 inches; it's the width of a person. We can agree on that. People are not wider, hopefully, in other parts of the province.

Interjection.

Mr Temprano: Well, it depends. What I'm trying to say is that basically, on a province-wide level, there are some issues that could be considered, and I would be hesitant to go very deep in that area. But at a regional government level, I think the two-tier planning approach that has been done doesn't go far enough in areas that don't relate to particular circumstance. Why does a car have to be 24 feet long in Nepean and 19 feet long in the city of Ottawa? Why is it eight feet wide in one place and 10 feet wide in another? This is within the same region. I've had situations where I have done parking lots that are in both municipalities and I have two different car sizes. Tell me if that makes any sense.

So what is lacking is a vacuum with respect to what I call objective criterion data. I don't want to get into political issues related to the differences of how one lives or one doesn't live. I realize one has to be very sensitive to that. But I do think there's a vacuum there.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you for your presentation. Aesthetics can be a perception in someone's mind, and you touched on that a bit: What's good for one individual or group of individuals may not be for another. That's the problem I find with Bill 163. It's attempting to have one size fit all. I think there are many distinct areas in the province of Ontario that have to be recognized. The east that I live in and where I very proudly represent a riding is totally different than the Chatham area or the Sudbury area or the New Liskeard area, and I have great difficulties in having one mould fit the entire province of Ontario. Those are my comments, Mr Chair.

Mr Temprano: Could I make one small comment? I've looked very extensively at this issue. I'm very much in support, for example, of our heritage districts. But one of the problems we have under our Planning Act is that we are not allowed to define communities based on characteristics in terms of design guidelines. I live in an area called Ottawa south, which has very particular design characteristics, and any projects done in that area should try to take into account those particular designs that evolve over time. Our zoning bylaws do not do that. That's why I feel it is very important that aesthetics be a part of the development permit process and it be recognized as such. It will go a long way to resolving a lot of the problems that we have now. Those are my comments.

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REBECCA LIFF

The Chair: We invite Mrs Rebecca Liff.

Mrs Rebecca Liff: Members of the committee on Bill 163, standing committee on administration of justice, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to see some serious loopholes closed by Bill 163, and the attached 84 pages of photocopies of letters etc back up all my verbal comments.

It is not enough to make the planning process fair: Bill 163, page 3, 4(1.1)(d). What about stealing property and property rights and values from owners without adequate compensation? Just look at what is happening right here in Ottawa.

The city of Ottawa has obtained enabling legislation to fine a land owner $10,000 if a tree is cut down without a city permit, and the city has the gall to write the Honourable Evelyn Gigantes a letter dated May 6, 1994 -- copy attached as sheets 8 and 9 -- to request a proposed amendment to Bill 163 "so that municipalities can dedicate duly identified and duly designated environmentally sensitive areas without providing for compensation." Why not pay owners fair market value for property the city wishes to control? Why is it such a sin to cut down a tree on private property when the city or province can plant forests of trees on public property? Why does the city and province allow the needless waste of cutting down Christmas trees that are used as potential fire hazards indoor during December and January each year, and discarded soon afterwards, mostly without recycling? I'm more concerned with the end result to the citizens rather than with the processes.

What about immediate legislation to lower the levels of pollutants in gas and diesel fuel, and better vehicle engine modifications to lower pollutants in the air and the noise levels of motor vehicles that could fall under Bill 163, page 4, clause 2(o), "the protection of public health and safety"? All motor vehicles should be checked out by the Ministry of Transportation for safer fuel emission standards and engine noise every six months, and the two-year automatic vehicle permit renewal should be repealed in Bill 163.

My MPP, Dalton McGuinty, Ottawa South, has written to the Honourable Floyd Laughren, Minister of Finance, to obtain statistics for the past 10 years showing what revenue was collected by the province of Ontario through gasoline tax and fuel tax, and how much of this tax was used to improve roads in Ontario, lower pollutants from gas emissions and modify vehicle engines. Attached is a very revealing letter dated January 27, 1994, sheets 26 and 27, concerning pollution from the articulated OCTranspo buses used in Ottawa. The enclosed letter, sheets 28 to 30, dated June 17, 1994, from the Ministry of Environment and Energy, program development branch, shows that Ontario is now taking a chicken step when a giant step is needed via Bill 163.

With regard to Bill 163, page 28, section 45, why is the elected representative for the Alta Vista ward allowed to use our own tax funds to attempt to put a heritage designation on an old farmhouse building without compensation to the owners who wish to subdivide a very large, deep lot to put up two new houses and increase the tax base for Ottawa ratepayers? Enclosed on sheets 36 to 42 is a sad tale. Is there some way Bill 163 can protect the property owner so that he or she can get the best price for their property at sale time, rather than a heritage designation without compensation?

Bill 163, page 64, subsection 58(1), does not require city councils and school boards to hold meetings inside the city or town, and this continues the secrecy in meetings out of town at fancy places at taxpayers' expense. Why not make the change in Bill 163?

Why not modify Bill 163, page 76, section 82, section 8 of the act, to not only have all meetings of the regional council held within the regional area, but also accessible to the public? Why should the Ottawa Board of Education principals be allowed to have costly meetings at resorts at taxpayers' expense, and the same goes for the Ottawa Board of Education trustees?

How will land be acquired under Bill 163, page 78, section 3, subclause (a)(iv) of the act? No compensation to land owners is not acceptable, sheets 8 and 9. Please make the correction in Bill 163, page 78, section 3, subclauses (a)(iv) and (v), with the emphasis on diesel fuel exhaust pollution levels etc, as mentioned in paragraph 3 of this letter.

If Bill 163, page 88, schedule B, is supposed to preserve the integrity and accountability of local government decision-making, why is there no IQ test level for candidates for office? The last paragraph of sheet number 46 from Dave Cooke, Minister of Education and Training, states he does not have a structural engineer's report on file. The letter of the day, sheet 54B, published by the Ottawa Sun, outlines the five motions passed by the Ottawa Board of Education, including the destruction of a structurally sound Connaught public school and the fact that of the 18 current OBE trustees, only three -- Cynthia Bled, Brian Mackey and Russ Jackson -- faithfully represent all OBE ratepayers in accordance with the oath of office each trustee is required to take, while five trustees -- Elda M. Allen, MaryLou Fleming, Harriet Lang, Marjorie Loughrey and Margaret Woodley -- voted for the five motions shown on sheet 54, and showed very poor judgement on the other votes as well.

Note in the letter of November 20, 1992, sheets 55 to 57, that although the Education Act requires boards to employ qualified teachers, boards may appoint unqualified teachers, expecting these teachers to acquire the necessary qualifications. Please, in Bill 163, state a short time limit to qualify and that boards should not pay for that training.

The letter also states: "The qualifications of trustees are set out in the Education Act. Your suggestion that candidates be required to pass an IQ test will not be acted upon until such time as all municipal, provincial and federal politicians are subject to the same requirement." This letter is signed by the director, legislation branch, Ontario Ministry of Education.

I support an IQ test for all candidates, and I hope after reading all my documents on the antics of my city councillor and his actions during the 1991 municipal election campaign and his misleading report filed on his election campaign expenses and his refusal to give me a letter of release to Bell telephone that would confirm the fact that the cost claimed for his election campaign office is much less than the amount of real estate taxes paid by the owner of the building for the portion of time it was occupied by that candidate -- who did win the election.

In his letter of July 27, 1994, the Honourable Ed Philip, Minister of Municipal Affairs, writes that "Your suggestions will be considered when legislation applicable to municipal elections is next being reviewed for amendment." So now, in Bill 163 you should make it law that OBE trustees should not censor the complaints of OBE ratepayers by banning the publication of names and misdeeds in presentations to trustees at board meetings, like the left half of the page listing the five motions on sheet 54 that was banned by the board and not published in the OBE agenda of August 29, 1994.

Also, you should include a clause preventing potential candidates for municipal office using taxpayers' funds for personal promotional campaign flyers, or promoting an assistant in a pamphlet by a councillor when the councillor is aware that his assistant will be running as a candidate in the next election. In the case I'm referring to, the councillor donated $750 to his assistant's campaign after the assistant registered as a candidate. Earlier, in May 1991, the assistant, sheet 70, gave himself unauthorized publicity in the Alta Vista community picnic ad and then had the gall to repeat the performance in May 1994 -- see sheets 71 and 75. Also note the letter of intimidation sent by the lawyer of the new councillor because I requested a letter of release to Bell telephone, sheet 77, from him. I resent being told that any future correspondence with regard to trying to prove fraud should be addressed to the law firm and not to that councillor directly.

Another area you could correct in Bill 163 is the fact that potential candidates can collect cheques for their campaign before registration, because there are no requirements to report the date of donation. Only the date of the bank deposit and the date of the official receipt given to the donor is required. There should also be a reporting of the true value of a donation, not as in the Peter Hume election campaign of 1991 -- the value of the campaign office at only $250 for a prime Bank Street location in the ward.

Please, please, read all my comments on the sheets enclosed. This will enable you to list the necessary changes to Bill 163 to close all the loopholes mentioned above plus others you will find once you read my complete documentation.

We need justice via changes for the better in the way in which the municipal planning process is carried out and the way councils of municipalities and members of these councils carry out their activities.

The Chair: Thank you. There's only time for one brief comment from every member.

Mr Grandmaître: Thank you for your presentation. As you know, also in Bill 163, the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act will be amended or improved. Have you any thoughts on what's being introduced? I'm talking about the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. What are your thoughts on the legislation? Is it adequate, or is it not?

Mrs Liff: I think it's more than adequate. I don't think it's anybody's business what property -- if a qualified person with a certain IQ wants to run, I don't think it's anybody's business to know how this person has earned their money or personal things about them. I think it's just that they have to know when a conflict of interest does arise in their actual work, then that should be revealed and that person should withdraw, but I don't think you should be going through all that personal data and the data of somebody's husband and the data of somebody's 18-year-old-or-under child.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much for your submission. The IQ business is very interesting. In your opinion, do you think the top end or the bottom end would get elected?

Mrs Liff: Well, so far I think below the middle level is getting elected. If you take an average you'll find that's true. There are several very, very competent people, just like I just said, on the Ottawa Board of Education. There are 18 trustees; three have voted consistently over the past three years. I've watched them. I've attended most of the OBE meetings and they realize that the education in Ontario is in crisis. It needs a complete reform, a complete reversal. Instead of having 70% of the people who have no children in the schools pay the tax for schooling, some more of it should be directed to the parents of these children.

There should be a change where everybody's taught the same thing. You shouldn't have each school board writing its own curriculum. You shouldn't have, like I mentioned with teachers not qualified, being allowed to teach for 10 years or 20 years -- and so what? They have to get qualification, but so what, if they don't get them? The act doesn't say, "You have to leave after a year if you don't fulfil -- my daughter had a teacher teaching her computers who didn't know anything about computers. This is wrong. So we need a lot of changes.

I mentioned a few things that you could tie in here, but there's a basic change required, especially in education in Ontario and you need proper trustees. You need people with something up here to know what's going on and what's going on in this world before they agree to everything. Three parents come crying about something and automatically, even if it costs millions, they threw down a school --

The Chair: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we're running out of time. Mr Hayes has one quick comment.

Mr Hayes: Thank you. Mrs Liff, on your concern about the councils holding meetings out in fancy places at taxpayers' expense, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that this will not be allowed with this legislation. They'll have to hold their meetings and make decisions within their jurisdiction.

Mrs Liff: And what about the board of education trustees and the principals? They have allowances to spend and they go and waste our taxes in Hull and somewhere else.

Mr Hayes: That comes under the Education Act and it's not affected by this legislation.

Mrs Liff: But you're making some amendments to that act.

Mr Hayes: That's our next one.

The Chair: Mrs Liff, we thank you very much for participating in these hearings.

The committee recessed from 1203 to 1332.

OTTAWA-CARLETON HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION

The Chair: We welcome the Ottawa-Carleton Home Builders' Association, Mr Clarke and Mr Lee. Please begin.

Mr Richard Lee: My name is Richard Lee. I'm the executive director of the Ottawa-Carleton Home Builders' Association. With me today is Ron Clarke, chair of our provincial policy working group. Ron is also a senior planner with the local firm of Essiambre Phillips Desjardins.

The Ottawa-Carleton Home Builders' Association is an association in Ottawa representing about 350 companies in the region, and we're composed of home builders, land developers, trade contractors, suppliers and other associated companies all related to the residential construction industry. We are the voice of the residential and land development industry here in Ottawa-Carleton. We're also the voice of approximately 15,000 directly related employees and their $2.5-billion payroll. I guess as much as we are the home builders' association, we could just as well be the home buyers' association because we certainly work for the best interests of the marketplace and represent the 4,000-plus new home buyers each year.

Since, I guess, 1991 or so to now, we've been very closely monitoring the reports of the Sewell Commission on Planning and Development Reform in Ontario and certainly we've reviewed their final report in great detail. During the time frame of the Sewell commission, we've taken a number of opportunities to respond and present our views to the commission as well on quite a few occasions actually.

Following that, of course, we provided our views on the new approach to land use planning and reviewed that and commented in great detail as well. Most recently, and it brings us to where we are today, we've spent a lot of time and resources towards understanding Bill 163 and of course preparing our comments for you today.

We are major stakeholders in the outcome of planning reform in Ontario and so this is a very serious matter for our association and of course for our member firms. We have provided to you today 30 copies of our written brief concerning Bill 163 and we've commented on several aspects. We haven't tried to do a point-by-point critique of the bill, but we've picked several items of most crucial importance to us and we've also provided some comments on how they may be improved from those currently identified in the bill.

To get more specific and to be a little bit more detailed on the items of concern to us, I'm going to pass the floor to Ron Clarke and he will give you the nitty-gritty.

Mr Ron Clarke: Thank you, Richard. Just some opening remarks. In our previous presentations to the government and to the Sewell commission, we specified some of our objectives for a planning system in Ontario and in order to place our comments today in context, I'd just like to take less than a minute to reiterate and build on what our vision is.

Essentially it's based on policies and processes that recognize housing as a priority in planning in Ontario; to enable the home building and the land development industry to operate in a stable and a free-market environment; to enable the industry to provide a range of housing choices to consumers in terms of affordability, price, location etc; to keep a good supply of lands; allow flexibility in local decision-making; to streamline the process and to keep a fair and efficient conflict resolution mechanism.

We believe these goals and objectives aren't unrealistic. In fact, they basically match the same objectives of the province in terms of planning. Unfortunately, we don't feel that Bill 163, and the policy statements that were issued earlier this year, completely match those objectives.

We'll provide now some of our specific comments and our suggestions for, hopefully, what amounts to change in Bill 163. In our limited time, we'll keep our comments to what we think are the top five issues, seeing that our parent organization, the Ontario Home Builders' Association has completed a very detailed line-by-line review of the bill and that's been submitted to your committee already.

Into the meat: The first issue in our brief is the new initiative of the need for a public meeting as part of the plan of subdivision process. The new requirement is that prior to draft plan approval, a public meeting should be held and of course this is something new. The current bill doesn't require this.

The problem with this, we believe, is that it adds unnecessary time and cost to the process and it's unwarranted. It's going to burden, here in Ottawa-Carleton, the regional planning department with a brand-new responsibility, a responsibility and task they're not equipped to deal with in terms of staff, time and resources. It's going to create added costs, quite simply, to the process, in terms of the applicant, even simple things like mailing, the administration of it, the costs and all the soft costs of an applicant in preparing for and attending this meeting. In the end, we believe it's going to lead directly to higher costs in housing.

From a more philosophical point of view, as land use planners, we believe it's not needed. By the time you're into the plan of subdivision process, the zoning and the official plan designations on any piece of land are obviously nailed down. There would have been two public meetings under the Planning Act by that point and, frankly, we believe a third public meeting for the plan of subdivision aspect of it is simply overkill.

Our request today is that subsection 51(14) of the bill be deleted in its entirety.

Mr Perruzza: Where is that?

Mr Clarke: Subsection 51(14)? The page in the bill? Page 39, clause 51(14)(b).

What this is saying is that this must happen at least 30 days before the decision is made on the subdivision, that a public hearing must be made. Again to reiterate, this is a new requirement.

Ms Gigantes: Mr Chair, I think the reason Anthony asked the question is that the reference is to section 28 of the bill, which is in fact section 51 of the current act.

Mr Clarke: That's correct. Our second issue relates to new public notice requirements in the subdivision process and this is referenced -- subsection 51(34) of what will be the proposed act and that, in your document, is near the top of page 44.

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Essentially, this new requirement is that when the approval authority, in this case, in Ottawa-Carleton, the regional planners, are proposing any change to a draft plan condition or what's called a red-line change, for example, changing a lot size on a plan -- I'm sure you've heard this before -- there is a new need to go through a public notification process and it opens up also the right of appeal to basically any party that's been part of the process.

The problem with this new requirement is that again it's going to add an unnecessary delay to the applicants. Red-line changes are typically minor in nature. If there are major changes under today's system required, an application normally goes through the complete plan of subdivision process or recirculation. Therefore, there's nothing at stake in our opinion in terms of, say, a community group being concerned about these minor-type changes. What this says to us is that the province can't trust the approval authority to make minor decisions and use their discretion as professional planners and the prudence of regional council. It strips away their autonomy.

I guess the real kicker in this for the applicant is that red-line changes typically happen towards the end of the process. The plan's approved, draft approved, moving towards registration, a minor problem happens, a red-line change is needed -- this new process is going to add about a month and a half to the process and delay it at the most critical time.

Our request is that the section in the draft bill be deleted and again that would be subsection 51(34).

The third issue is the ability of the approval authority, the region in this case, to consider the grounds of appeals on plans of subdivision. This is referenced in the bill in what would be subsections 51(28) and 51(38), still within the subdivision component of the bill.

The new law is that when an appeal is made by a third party to a plan of subdivision decision, a draft plan approval decision, it is an appeal as opposed to a referral request. It would go straight to the municipal board. There's no check at the local, regional level in terms of whether or not the appeal has planning merit. This is sort of a nuance in the bill, and again I'm sure you've heard this from other areas. The official plan process gives the regional council that check and there's obviously certain tests that it can make: Is it frivolous, purposes of delay, vexatious, premature etc?

Our request is that the same approach be utilized for plans of subdivision because we can see no grounds for this approach and it demonstrates, I guess, a lack of consistency in the bill in terms of how different planning processes are treated.

The fourth of our five issues relates to the ability of regional council to delegate approvals to regional staff, and we're talking about plan of subdivision approval and official plan amendment approval.

In Ottawa-Carleton, our experience in applications recently is that the streamlining efforts that the regional government has undertaken, along with local municipalities, has worked very well. Staff has the ability, the delegated authority from regional council, to approve -- in simple terms, rubber-stamp -- official plan amendments and plans of subdivision. We believe there's an opportunity in Bill 163 to reinforce that and to explicitly give that ability here in Ottawa-Carleton and across the province.

To do that would require amendments, we believe, to subsections 17(2), as proposed, and subsection 51(5), as proposed.

Our fifth issue involves the time lines that have been set for official plan amendments, and this is dealt with in sections 22 and 17 of the proposed bill. The new requirement is that local council has basically six months to make a decision. They have 15 days to send the official plan amendment document on to the region, then the region has another five months to grant their minister's delegated approval. Caught up in that is another 30-day appeal process tacked on to the end of that. We're looking at a total of roughly 400 days in terms of the legislated requirements for timing.

Our fear is that decision-making bodies will use these dates more as a target as opposed to a deadline and we think, aside from that, that they're too long and the experience here in Ottawa-Carleton is that we've been achieving fewer amounts of time. We can see no reason why the region here in Ottawa-Carleton would have to sit on official plan amendments for five months to make a decision. It's too long, particularly in light of some of the initiatives that have been happening here where the local municipality and the region have been doing joint circulations on the first go-round, catching all of the technical agencies. There's nothing significant for the region to do with it, certainly not five months.

Our request is that sections 17 and 22 be reworked so that the time frames for OPAs be 120 days for the local municipality to make a decision. We think four months is quite realistic and that the region would need no more than three months to do their thing with it, so 90 days.

Those are our top five issues. As I've said before, we have many others. They've been addressed in our Ontario home builders' response to the government. We have some serious concerns. These are our most serious concerns. What our observations are in our discussions with other agencies is that there seems to be an unparalleled disagreement from a wide faction of groups about the bill from the association of municipalities, to the law society, to the professional planners' group to the regional government. I wasn't here this morning, but I suspect you've heard some of the same comments from Mr Edgington and Mr Hunter this morning.

We believe this bill is critical to the province. We must maintain a fair and efficient planning program to keep us on par with the needs of the province in competing in the provincial, national and even the international marketplace. It's especially critical here in Ottawa-Carleton where we have to compete with housing in the province of Quebec, two minutes from where we're sitting, where housing tends to be about 40% cheaper than it is here today, and the gap is widening, I can tell you.

Change is required. All we can hope, from this point on -- this is our last stab at it -- is that the government's going to exercise good judgement and make these changes and some other changes too. We'd certainly welcome getting into a discussion on this in the next 10 minutes that we have here.

Mr Curling: Thank you for your presentation. You have again echoed many things of some of the regions, and not so much the regions but some of the municipalities, chambers of commerce, developers, many people who are concerned about this legislation.

It is said that it is a matter of efficiency at the level that would make this process work better more than legislation. Would you agree that it is unnecessary then at this stage to have legislation more than to get -- I don't want to pick on the bureaucrats -- the system working efficiently?

Mr Clarke: There's no doubt that I strongly agree with you. We feel that the legislation we have today is not the problem. You cannot legislate a time frame for four decisions when the problem isn't the planners getting their staff report together. It tends to be, most often, and I'll say it, provincial government agencies making their responses back to the local municipalities in a timely manner. The problem isn't legislation, it's putting a commitment in Ontario to the planning program at all of the provincial levels, providing qualified staff and putting a priority on the planning system in the province. It's not the legislation.

Mr Grandmaître: I'd like to refer you to page 3 of your brief concerning minor red-line changes. You say that the municipality must give public notice. We were told some five or six days ago by staff that red-line changes will be acceptable. So maybe staff can enlighten you and provide you with the latest news. Can the parliamentary assistant?

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Mr Hayes: If I may correct that, Mr Chair.

Mr Grandmaître: You're changing your mind.

Mr Hayes: No, excuse me.

Mr Grandmaître: It's only five days ago.

Mr Hayes: I don't believe that any staff here said that the red-lining would be acceptable. It's an issue that we've heard several times, and we are going to deal with that particular issue and hope we can resolve the concern.

Mrs Yvonne O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau): That means there's going to be an amendment, is there?

Mr Curling: There will be an amendment, yes.

Mrs O'Neill: Okay. That's fair.

Mr Grandmaître: There will be an amendment?

Mr Hayes: We may have an amendment, yes.

Mr Grandmaître: You may?

The Chair: They're reviewing that.

Mr Hayes: We are reviewing that particular issue, and we will certainly deal with it, and yes, there may be amendments. There will be other amendments also to deal with some of the concerns that we have heard in these hearings.

The Chair: Mr Eddy, but be very brief because there isn't much time.

Mr Eddy: Mr Chair, as you know from the past, I'm always brief.

The Chair: I know.

Mr Eddy: Thank you very much for your concern and bringing it forward to us, because we really need to get on. The whole idea of this new act is to streamline the planning process but protect the interests of those who want to be heard on any issue. You mentioned the point of subdivisions. Tell me, do you feel that having a meeting up front in regard to a proposed subdivision can and will save time at the far end, at the time when it's decided somebody may appeal to the OMB or not? We've been told that the facilitator is doing work along these lines. Do you have a feeling about that or would you like to elaborate on that situation or do you feel it's just too much time taken?

Mr Clarke: I do have some feelings and some thoughts and opinions. The number of appeals to the board on subdivisions is relatively low in proportion to the zoning and official plan appeals. The land use should have been confirmed by the point of a plan of subdivision. The subdivision is normally just about the laying down of lots, roads etc --

Mr Eddy: And conditions.

Mr Clarke: And conditions -- between the approval agency and the applicant.

Mr Eddy: Right.

Mr Clarke: What we find, at least in the eastern Ontario experience, is that many applicants have such, I guess you would say, an ongoing relationship with interested groups, they've already seen the plan to get to the zoning and official plan stage. It's very difficult now to get zoning on a piece of land without having the concept already; that's overkill.

Mr Eddy: So just tighten up the time frame considerably and reduce costs?

Mr Clarke: Certainly, yes.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you, gentlemen, on behalf of the Ottawa-Carleton Home Builders' Association. Time is money, and quite obviously when we look at 400-plus days, we're talking about a lot of potential time lost, money lost to, eventually, the home buyer. You're in a unique position here in that the province of Quebec is a very viable alternative for the first-time home buyers and otherwise, 30% to 40% more affordable. Bill 163, I believe, from what I've heard from you, will make land more expensive. Is that right?

Mr Clarke: Yes, and along with the policy statements that were issued in the spring, even more so.

Mr Villeneuve: I'm sure that in the province of Quebec they have very nice areas to build, as we have here on this side of the Ottawa River. How much of that 30% to 40% reduced cost in the province of Quebec is due to less bureaucracy, or what is the difference? Can you tell us?

Mr Clarke: There are many things as it relates to planning.

Mr Villeneuve: Yes.

Mr Clarke: There are less controls, less processes on the Quebec side, less soft costs to a developer to get land to the point where he can draw a building permit. In addition, the policies are such that the land market in Ottawa-Carleton is controlled, squeezed into tight areas, and land prices go up. On the Quebec side, there's more ability to build in different areas and to buy pieces of land and get it through the process.

Mr Villeneuve: So what you're saying here is that if you, as a developer, start with raw land and the official plan is acceptable for what you're intending, be it row housing, single family or whatever, the process and indeed the soft costs, which you have to build in and pass on, are considerably less. As far as you're concerned, the raw land would be fairly similar in price. The added cost is due to bureaucracy in Ontario as opposed to less bureaucracy or financial requirements in Quebec?

Mr Clarke: We more or less agree. I can't argue, the land is cheaper on the Quebec side. Again it relates more to the planning program over there, where there's more opportunity. It's more wide open in terms of where you select to buy land and build.

Mr Villeneuve: We understand that the Sewell report was not followed that closely in Bill 163. Are you familiar with Mr Sewell's report?

Mr Clarke: Yes.

Mr Villeneuve: Would you have some areas in this New Planning for Ontario that should be implemented which have been overlooked in Bill 163?

Mr Clarke: I guess the honest answer is, it's been some time since we went through it with a fine-tooth comb. The fact is that we've put it on the shelf. We've turned our mind to Bill 163; that's what's in front of us.

Mr Villeneuve: That's exactly what we have to deal with.

Mr White: Thank you very much for your presentation. I have a couple of questions, one specifically in regard to your presentation here. On the third page, after issue number 2, you talked about the changing of the draft plan condition to give public notice. I'm not quite sure what "the public" would be. Would that be the local residents?

Mr Clarke: Yes, it could be.

Mr White: It "also opens up the right of appeal by third-party interests." What's a third-party interest? Who would that be?

Mr Clarke: The first party is the applicant, the second party is the approval authority and the third party is an interest such as a community group or residents or a competing developer who might oppose a portion of the plan.

Mr White: With your experience, would this be occurring on a small building site, because I understand most of your membership are builders who might build half a dozen, 20 homes a year. Would this be mostly on a small building site or the larger plan of subdivision?

Mr Clarke: An equal amount.

Mr White: In your experience?

Mr Clarke: The chance for a third party, using my definition, is equal whether it's a small site or a large development. Some of the largest developments go through without opposition, because they happen to be greenfield areas, newly developing areas where there simply aren't too many people who have an interest, other than, say, maybe another developer.

Mr White: So the greenfield areas, those are also areas where you might be most likely to be having developments on floodplains and perhaps bordering on to wetlands areas that would be affected by the legislation and the policies?

Mr Clarke: There is very little opportunity for that to happen any more with the way the policies have been set by the province, and that's been filtered down into municipal official plans. The areas where there are constraints now, there's very little chance to develop on those. They're already sort of out of the picture.

Mr White: How would you like to have the third party notified? The public, the local residents or it might be, as you were saying, a community group or an environmental group, how should they be notified?

Mr Clarke: In the same way that they are today under the current act. The notice of a decision is given in a public way, and anyone -- it's wide open -- who has solid grounds can make an appeal or a referral request. What we are talking about here is the new aspect of a minor change that really is just between the applicant and the decision-making body. There's no need for that to go to widespread public inputs and lose another 45 days in the process.

Mr White: You think that should be dealt with at the local level?

Mr Clarke: That's correct.

The Chair: We want to thank the association for the submission they made to this committee today.

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ONTARIO WOODLOT AND SAWMILL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION

The Chair: We invite the Ontario Woodlot and Sawmill Operators Association, Mr Barr.

Mr Harry Barr: Good afternoon. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to present our concerns today regarding Bill 163. As you've heard, my name is Harry Barr. I'm the president of the Ontario Woodlot and Sawmill Operators Association, a newly formed association in the province of Ontario, two and a half years in existence. Our membership is approaching 600. We're experiencing tremendous growth. At this time, we have chapters from Sault Ste Marie to Windsor to the Quebec border. Our association is provincially based, and it's operated by regional chapters.

I am a woodlot owner. I operate a family sawmill business. I'm also a municipal politician, reeve of Pakenham township just north of here, but today I'm here representing the Ontario Woodlot Association; I'll try and keep the political to one side.

As a businessman and a local politician, I'm aware not only of the costs to the individual but the costs to the municipality and ultimately the taxpayer if delays in approval or OMB hearings are required to reach a decision. Today that is why I fundamentally agree with the need for streamlining the planning process to make it more efficient. I feel that is definitely necessary.

If this new planning reform is adopted by the province, it will fundamentally change how the planning system works in Ontario. Anyone who has had to deal with the planning department at their local municipality will tell you how long and complicated the process can be.

Having said that, I have some concerns regarding the provincial policies covering natural heritage and ecosystems. In its broadest application, paragraph 34(1)3.2 of the act, which prohibits buildings or structures within a significant wildlife habitat or woodland, could prohibit maple syrup producers and other non-harvest, sustainable, produced commodities from earning a living and contributing to the rural community.

The policy statements will not allow development in areas where there is a habitat of endangered, threatened or vulnerable species south and east of the Canadian Shield. As you may or may not be aware, there are over 900 plants alone which are considered threatened in Ontario, not to mention mammals and reptiles which are endangered, threatened and vulnerable. Since over 90% of southern Ontario is in private ownership, this proposed amendment under this policy statement could deprive any woodlot owner in southern Ontario from earning a sustainable living. Activities such as the construction of a maple syrup camp in your woodlot, which requires a work permit under provincial legislation, could be prohibited under this proposed legislation. I don't believe this is the intent of the legislation, but however this serves as an example of how this legislation could impact every law-abiding woodlot owner in this province.

In fact, in areas such as eastern Ontario, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources, there has been a net gain in forest cover in the past 30 years from 15% to 38%. This trend could reverse as land owners see woodlots as a liability if their woodlot is designated as significant. This would encourage owners to maintain their land in an unsustainable state to avoid possible implications of the limitation of dealing with an area designated as a significant woodland. Land owners in the future could see owning a woodlot as a liability instead of an asset and only available to those individuals with money, able to afford it.

Currently, taxes on rural non-agricultural land are deemed residential or have the potential for development under the current Assessment Act. Although the Fair Tax Commission agrees that the assessment of woodlots is unfair, revisions to the Assessment Act are not in the foreseeable future, as we understand it.

Proposed legislation also fails to recognize that wildlife can coexist in most woodlots in Ontario where sustainable and good forest practices are implemented. We therefore recommend that the proposed amendments be limited to significant ravine, valley or areas of natural and scientific interest.

There is a need to streamline the planning process. However, we are concerned that Bill 163 in its present form will open endless and expensive disputes for land owners and municipalities, making a mockery of the streamlining objectives.

Bill 163 will effectively confiscate property market values without compensation, in particular, woodlands, stream corridors, valleys, scenic ridges and those habitats of vulnerable, threatened or rare species. Development of rural land -- most specifically, woodlots, valleys, corridors and ridges -- will be forbidden. This will have a devastating effect on the rural economy. Woodlots on private property would be viewed as a liability instead of an asset, since woodlots prohibit development. This could be a disincentive to replant land which is marginal or submarginal.

Recommendations: compensation for lost development rights of all private property within the identified boundaries to be made by the sponsoring authority; further, all property owners deemed to have a significant woodlot be notified prior to such designation -- designation would be a conscience decision made by the land owner, and compliance would be voluntary -- appropriate assessment and mill rate classification for such properties and all other woodland properties not part of a farm be established by the province prior to implementation of Bill 163; the terms "vulnerable" and "threatened" be deleted from Bill 163 and its supporting policy statements; the province resolve all conflicts and vagueness from Bill 163 and its policy statements before planning authority is transferred to the municipality; lastly, the province establish a fund to cover the cost of environmental impact studies required by property owners when an EIS has been requested by the province or other government authority.

This is our brief today, and if there are any questions, I'd only be too glad to try and respond to them.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you, Harry, for your presentation. Let's cite an example here. A designated area, that may well be wetlands or areas of concern, and let's say the beavers get in there and they dam it up. Would you be able, as a land owner who possibly stands to have his woodlot completely destroyed by floodwater, to go in there and destroy that dam? Maybe we should ask the parliamentary assistant or the staff. That's a major problem. We've got areas where nuisance beavers have come into eastern Ontario and destroyed hundreds of acres of woodlot, and you know that.

Mr Barr: I've experienced it on my own property. The township has serious problems, all townships in eastern Ontario.

Mr Villeneuve: With Bill 163, if it's in a designated area of concern, an ANSI, do you feel that you would be able to go in there and do what has to be done with these beavers to protect your woodlot?

Mr Barr: No, not whatsoever.

Mr Villeneuve: You insinuate here, and we've heard it from a number of people, that indeed this bill may well discourage or prohibit the reforestation of areas which maybe should never have had the forest cover taken off, because once it's reforested it may well be designated as a fragile area of concern or whatever, and at that stage of the game the highest and best use of that land is nothing, which returns you nothing, and therefore, whether you have money or not, you're not going to invest in a depreciating asset. Your comments on that. We've had situations explained to us where property had been reforested and then designated, and qualified, accredited appraisers have gone in and established that a considerable depreciation in value had occurred and continued to occur because there was no demand for that land.

Mr Barr: As an association, what we've experienced and witnessed so far is, that type of land, people are trying to sell it, or they go in and they clear-cut it today, and this is contrary to the beliefs and the theories of our association. We promote forestry, good and orderly forestry so it will be a sustainable forest for the future. But Bill 163 will cause people to attempt to abandon, to do bad things to the land. Planning will not take place.

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Mr Villeneuve: Your association represents woodlot owners and managers pretty well across the province of Ontario. We're trying to have one mould fit the whole province of Ontario. Your comments on that, from the input you get from your members: How many moulds do we need in Ontario? Is one mould for all of Ontario sufficient, or do we need to regionalize?

Mr Barr: We have to regionalize, because we have to recognize that in southern Ontario there is very little forest cover -- different forest, mainly hardwood -- and we have to recognize that. Move into the Sault Ste Marie area and you've got a different cover again. We have to regionalize, you're right.

Mr Villeneuve: Now, the province is divided by the great Canadian Shield, I gather, and certainly most of the areas of concern are on the south side of the shield and that's what this applies to. There is grave concern here. The taxes will not be reduced, quite obviously, and market value becomes a very elusive figure when you don't have a highest and best use. The concern that I think government should have is, who will pay the taxes that are now being paid in the event that we wind up with a market value of next to nothing? Do you have any comments on that? Who's going to pay the taxes?

Mr Barr: I can't answer that one. I don't know.

Interjection: They'll walk away from it.

Mr Perruzza: The taxpayer. Remember him or her?

Mr Villeneuve: The taxpayer?

Interjection: Nobody.

Mr Barr: Excuse me. What will happen in the townships, I'll tell you, and I'll be very clear about it, you'll get people --

Mr Villeneuve: Put the other hat on, the municipal hat now.

Mr Barr: Yes, right. You'll get the clear-cutting -- and it has happened in some townships -- and the property owner who clear-cuts will move on. If he cannot sell it, he will let it fall back for tax arrears to the township and the township becomes stuck with it. That's what's going to happen.

Mr Villeneuve: That's your taxpayer.

Mr Barr: That's your taxpayer right there, you're right.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you.

Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks a lot, Mr Barr, for your thought-provoking presentation. In fact, I'd like to follow up on some of the things Mr Villeneuve has questioned you about, this idea of the one mould, for instance.

I represent the riding of Kingston and The Islands, and it's a combination of urban and rural land. I'm aware that you have to have policy and legislation that fit both areas, so I'm interested to know, of course, since you're talking about rural development, which is a crucial subject in my area as well, what it is, just to clarify your position -- you mention, "There are over 900 plants alone which are considered threatened in Ontario, not to mention mammals and reptiles which are endangered, threatened and vulnerable." What is your view of that situation? What steps do you think should be taken to protect or to address the vulnerability, if any? What is your position on that?

Mr Barr: Well, we recognize that there are endangered species. They have to be respected, but we feel development can take place around them, and some of these species can live with man, I'm quite sure, quite capably.

Mr Gary Wilson: Sure.

Mr Barr: I mean, we just can't freeze large blocks of land throughout the province of Ontario and say it's an endangered species. I'm sure we can accommodate it.

Mr Gary Wilson: So you agree that there are things that can be done so that there is --

Mr Barr: Yes.

Mr Gary Wilson: -- let's say, something that works to the benefit of both the vulnerable species and ourselves.

The second thing is, and maybe the staff can help us on this one, when you say, "Activities such as the construction of a maple syrup camp in your woodlot, which requires a work permit under provincial legislation, could be prohibited under this proposed legislation," I just wonder how often that might happen. what is the experience of that kind of regulation?

Ms Norma Forrest: My name is Norma Forrest. I'm with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, and I'd like to address a couple of the policy issues that were raised today.

The first thing I'd like to do is explain what the policy says about woodlands and endangered and threatened species' habitat. In response to the consultation, the government changed the policy to make it a bit less restrictive.

Right now, the policy provides that where a woodland has been identified as significant, based on criteria established by the Ministry of Natural Resources, it can be classified by council into either areas where development isn't permitted or areas where development is permitted. That's based on, I guess, the sensitivity of the site or council's decision about how much development could be permitted there without threatening the woodland, and that's done through the official plan.

In response to the question about what is development for the purposes of the policy, good forestry practices under the Trees Act are definitely not considered to be development, so the cutting of trees etc under the Forestry Act is not considered to be development for the purposes of the policy.

In terms of the endangered and threatened species, there is federal legislation about endangered species, and what the policy says is that significant portions of the habitat of endangered and threatened species are to be put into a no-development designation. That's not the whole area, but just the critical portions of that habitat, where no development is permitted. Councils can permit development in other portions of the habitat of endangered and threatened species and in the habitat of vulnerable species if it's decided that development is not going to be a threat to the species.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Does that answer some of your questions, Mr Barr?

Mr Barr: Yes, it helps.

Mr Gary Wilson: So I take from that that there is a combination of things that can be done to serve the interests of all the living species in the land, which I think is a progressive and sensitive way of approaching the issue.

Mr Villeneuve: Will you amend 163 to look after that?

Mr Eddy: Thank you, Mr Barr, for coming forward and giving us your concerns, because you have some very real concerns that need to be met and I'm pleased to see that you're relieved somewhat with the statements of the ministry people. However, does your municipality have an official plan?

Mr Barr: Yes, we do.

Mr Eddy: And you'll be required to change that official plan, of course, to meet the policies of the provincial government over a period of time.

Mr Barr: We've just spent a large sum of money to redo it.

Mr Eddy: You've just completed a new official plan --

Mr Barr: We've just completed and approved --

Mr Eddy: -- that you hoped would do you for a few years, I take it.

Mr Barr: Well, at least five years.

Mr Eddy: Yes, at least. I would imagine that your association is very concerned about the growth of trees and ongoing supply. I'm from southwestern Ontario, and in certain areas there's a lot of forest cover; in other places there is little. You'd be aware that several of the upper tiers, the regions and the counties, have passed bylaws under the Trees Act regulating the destruction of trees, and I'd like to know how you feel about that.

It was done to indeed ensure a supply of sawlogs and material from the forests on an ongoing basis, protecting the forests and preventing their clear-cutting. Now, that's in force in many areas; in some areas it isn't. Do you see that as a safeguard and a good thing and something that perhaps all municipalities should at least look at? What is your view on those?

Mr Barr: You've hit an area of great concern to me. In Pakenham township, located in Lanark county, in 1985, I attempted at the county level to introduce a bylaw to regulate tree-cutting. We had one prior to that; it was inoperable, ineffective, and hadn't been applied for the last 20 years. It was there, but -- anyhow, in 1985, I attempted to update it, get some teeth into it to apply it. Well, it didn't work. The property owners decided it was an infringement upon their property rights and on and on. It lost. Today they're coming back to our association saying, "You've got to do something about the bushes; they're disappearing. The clear-cutting's going on," and I say, "Well, hell, fellas, in 1985 I told you that."

I was in business. Small timber came in and it's still coming in. There are bad things going on out there; not everywhere, but in a lot of places. We've got to do something or there won't be a bush in eastern Ontario in 20 years' time -- or 10 years' time.

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Anyhow, one of our items for our agenda this year is to look at the tree-cutting bylaw, particularly in our area. I honestly believe there should be one in every region or county throughout the province of Ontario, and we should find the mechanics to apply it. It's not expensive, it doesn't upset the property owners and we have to basically educate the people.

Mr Eddy: Yes, I agree with you --

Mr Barr: Some areas have to be clear-cut to start over. There's nothing but poplar because somebody clear-cut maybe 40 years ago. The white pine is gone, or the oak or the maple; the poplar has taken over. It should be clear-cut and planted. But it goes back to communication and education. I believe in a tree-cutting bylaw.

Mr Eddy: I'm sorry to hear that they didn't go along with your ideas. It's been shown that you were --

Mr Barr: Well, it was close; one vote.

Mr Eddy: -- trying to do the right thing. In many counties and regions of Ontario it has been enforced, and of course it prevents clear-cutting except in the case of certain poor species. So it seems to me the tools are there, one, to preserve woodlots. Second, and more important of course, is to guarantee an ongoing supply of sawlogs. That's a source of good income these days to any property owner, it seems to me.

Mr Barr: A bush lot is a harvest, but you can only harvest it every 20 or 25 years. If it's managed properly you can keep going back and back, but if you clear-cut, you don't go back for 100 or 150 years.

Mr Eddy: You're so right. I do have a concern, however, with the designation of wetlands and I'd like your views on that. We've been told that the designation of wetlands has been done by MNR. I don't know whether the criteria we're now looking at were used when that was first designated. Unfortunately, property owners didn't know people were on their property with a view of designating, and the point of compensation has come up. Some lands will not be able to be used for any developable purpose, I guess. How do you feel about the matter of compensation?

Mr Barr: Our association's thoughts on the wetland issue? Well, we believe preservation of wetlands is necessary, number one. We believe they should be preserved, but the mechanics of the whole system are wrong. Now, it started back a number of years ago; it didn't start yesterday: lack of communication with the public, lack of public meetings, whatever you want to call it, and education. It wasn't there.

It's now coming out today that it should have been there, and we feel there should be some way to compensate the property owners. You heard in my brief, let the province of Ontario land bank it if they feel so seriously about it; relief in taxation, some way to help the property owner.

Originally I was one of the strong opposers, but when the wetland policy was explained in detail, I came to understand that it isn't just quite as devious as it's let on to be. But there can be refinements to it. There can be development within certain areas of it and there can be timbering within certain areas of it, but it still needs refinement and cleaning up.

Mr Eddy: Thank you for your views. I appreciate it.

The Chair: Mr Barr, we thank you for coming and thank you for sharing your views with us today.

TOWNSHIP OF WEST CARLETON

The Chair: We invite the township of West Carleton, Mr Chadder.

Mr Tim Chadder: Good afternoon. The township of West Carleton is located on the western limit of the region of Ottawa-Carleton. It is a very large township created by amalgamation of three former townships, vastly a rural area, with some village development and significant areas for all of the areas currently covered by the different policy statements out from the province -- the wetlands, agricultural lands, floodplains and mineral resources as well.

The township has reviewed the new legislation in general terms, in terms of how it may very well affect the ability of the township to carry out the planning that is expected of it. We had a concern over the subdivision process. The time frames in it are an excellent idea in order to require people to provide comments in a timely fashion. We think it is an excellent idea.

The problem with it is, two of the concepts which were embodied in the new legislation are empowerment to the local municipalities and streamlining. With the ability of the provincial agencies to still not respond in a timely manner, we think that could still lead to problems; as well, the unclear delegation to the local municipalities and the ability of the local municipality's official plan to be the single document that should be referred to. In terms of regional official planning, they're required; local official plans are not required. It's our belief that if a local official plan is to be required, then you can deal without the regional official plan because there has to be conformity throughout the plans, providing one document for the public to refer to, which would make our job a lot easier in terms of our administration.

The second issue that was of concern to us was the role of the guidelines from the provincial agencies and the problems they cause on a regular basis because they are administrative in nature, yet they are used as policy. We're not sure how to address that concern, but it's one that we'd like to see cleared up in terms of that they would only be guidelines. If there's a policy which clearly dictates in the official plan, that's what should be utilized, because the agencies of course get to review the policy statements before they get put into the official plans.

With respect to notice requirements and requirements for appeals to the board, I believe there should be a consistent approach for all applications which are filed with the municipality in terms of time frames, requirements for notice, as well as requirements for anybody raising concerns or objections. Keyed in specifically on the zoning requirements being different within the appeal process to the board, there's some different wording used.

I heard just earlier today about the trees legislation, and the township concurs that we need more ability to control the tree-cutting within the bounds of the township. The region of Ottawa-Carleton currently does have a bylaw for tree-cutting, but it is very weak and we have found that its enforceability is quite limited. One of the key problems is that it's keyed on development applications. So you can control a development application for tree-cutting, but before there's an application, we need a policy that can control that within our official plan, without there actually being an application in front of us.

The role of the local decision-makers: Right now, we are working with Ottawa-Carleton to try and come up with some form of solution to this duplication that we find between regional and local official plans, as well as the small differences in wordings and your conformity questions, and then you add the conformity to policy statements. Right now, to provide information to the public, we have to provide them with a copy of the policy statements, a copy of the regional official plan, a copy of the township official plan, a copy of any guidelines which may be superimposed on top of all that, and to have an easy understanding for people is not really there.

In terms of the implications in the act, I think we'd like to see it strengthened to provide that local municipality with the ability to pass the legislation through the official plan, which can incorporate all of those policies and be the point of reference for anybody who is trying to deal with development applications.

That's really the summary of the concerns we had out of the package that we got.

Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks a lot for your presentation. I would like to just follow up on, since the previous presenter also highlighted the trees issue, just what your bylaw does say or why you think it's too weak. Where did it come from?

Mr Chadder: Actually, we don't have in the township a bylaw for trees. Because of the current legislation, the format of it, we found that enforceability of it was lacking and that our attempts were mostly going to be fruitless in terms of trying to protect stands of trees. Ottawa-Carleton does have a trees bylaw per se, but of course Ottawa-Carleton does not have enforcement staff, so then we get into a problem with delegation of enforcement requirements and, do you have the authority to enforce the bylaw? So we end up not doing anything other than just by persuasion.

Mr Gary Wilson: Supposing you did have the wherewithal for a tougher bylaw, what about enforcement there that you would be responsible for? Would you find that too onerous?

Mr Chadder: The township currently has bylaw enforcement staff; as well, we have planning staff, building staff who are all on the road on a regular basis and able to see what's going on in the township. It would not be that impossible to enforce, no.

Mr Gary Wilson: Perhaps we could expand on this issue of the coordination between the township and the region, with your planning staffs, for instance. How does that work out in practice?

Mr Chadder: In practice, what we have is regular meetings between the various directors and commissioners throughout the region to coordinate any policy review. That's been established. It's been getting better in the past few years, but what we still end up with in practice is the region adopting an official plan amendment which then has to go through the provincial approval process, and then the townships enacting the same amendment or a similar amendment which then has to be processed through the region. So we see a great duplication of requirements. We all have to provide notice to the same agencies twice. MOEE and MNR are circulated in duplicate. I don't see a change in that in the act with it saying the township may have an official plan; we are assuming that the same procedurally has to be done to get it adopted.

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What we will see again, no doubt, is the region will have its policy. They have a broad-brush policy statement which conforms to anything from the province, and the township deals with any local, specific items in more detail as required. In practice, we don't see very much stepping on the toes of each other. There's a lot of cooperation at the staff level. Currently, with the same politicians sitting locally and regionally, there's good contact politically. With new changes to the regional government up here, we're now going to have a directly elected regional council. I'm not too sure how that's going to impact.

Mr Gary Wilson: You'll just have to wait for the other partners to see how that's determined.

You say the surrounding area, again thinking of the township council, perhaps with a county planning system. Do you see that there can be imbalances in what the township has to contend with versus what the county has to contend with and can you perhaps offer some suggestions about the kind of cooperation that can exist there between the two levels of planning? I'm thinking on the county level, they have considerations that don't necessarily apply to a township. There wouldn't be the same kind of experience and there might be less grounds for cooperation.

Mr Chadder: The only one I've got any direct experience with locally is Renfrew county and how it deals with its applications and how it deals with its process. It's very much a county-driven process. The locals really use the county planners to do most of their work. So there's no duplication really per se in that case. It's single-tier-driven. I guess that's where the region has created that double tier, so it is a very different situation.

With respect to how you conduct it, I think there is a possibility for a lot of it to be done regionally, but then the problem gets into, when there are areas that they don't deal with, how do you deal with that split? That has been traditionally a problem, but most of the time the local municipalities will deal with -- if you just want to take an application for a subdivision for example, most of the local municipalities process the subdivision all the way through the application. The region will receive all the comments and all of the draft conditions and then just basically rubber-stamp it.

We still have the province to deal with because the region doesn't have the expertise on staff to deal with all of the issues that are involved, especially in the rural setting. They don't have the hydrogeologists on staff. Those kinds of issues aren't dealt with. With the wetlands, they don't have anybody who's a specialist in biology. We still deal with the provincial agencies. So in that kind of case, we duplicate, and it's very feasible you could cut down the time requirement.

Mr Grandmaître: On the question of designating significant woodlots and wetlands, there's also the question of compensation. If there is a reduction of your assessment because your land has been designated, ie a woodlot or wetlands, then you don't want to pay extra taxes for this piece of land. So there is a reduction. For instance, let's say the assessment people give you a reduction in your assessment. I've had reeves and mayors tell me that if there is a reduction in assessment -- as you know, assessment equals municipal tax dollars. Now municipalities are saying, "Look, if you're going to reduce our assessment, then we want to be compensated as well for the loss of taxation." What are your comments on that kind of a workout?

Mrs O'Neill: He's wearing his finance hat.

Mr Chadder: I better try to find a financial hat. I'm sure my finance commissioner will kill me for anything I say, no matter which stand I take.

Our reputation in West Carleton of course -- we have what's known as the Carp hills, a very significant area which has been acquired by the region over the past few years, great tracts of land out of that, because the region has taken the stand that it is an environmentally sensitive area. Under their policies and their official plan and through their budgeting process, they have allocated funds to purchase. In turn then, we deal with the other issues under not direct taxation but grants in lieu and other forms of reimbursement to the township from the region, for example.

In terms of the reductions in taxes, we already see a great number of those through the various programs that the province had offered. For example, there were reductions for people who had trees registered with the Ministry of Natural Resources. There was a program there, and there are some areas which are wetlands which have already received reductions in the township.

We see the clearest increase in our value added to the land after there's actually a dwelling constructed on it. That's where we see a substantial increase. We in West Carleton do have a substantial number of classes 1 to 3 wetlands as currently defined, and I don't doubt that there will be a definite decrease in our revenue generated from those lands if there are indeed reductions in assessment.

Quite frankly, our council hasn't even addressed that part of the issue yet, and I know our finance people have looked at it with great concern, but they haven't recommended anything such as you've just gone through in terms of asking the province to reimburse us.

Mr Grandmaître: As you know, a municipality can apply to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, if I'm not mistaken, if there's a loss in your assessment of more than 4%. That's the Assessment Act, I'm sorry. If you lose more than 4% of your assessment, you can apply to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs for some compensation.

Ms Dewar: We're not familiar with that act, but we can certainly get the answer for you.

Mr Eddy: Thank you for bringing your concerns forward, and we understand. Is the conservation authority active in acquiring any of these lands? You said the region was, and as I understand it, the region is paying you a grant in lieu of some sort. I wasn't aware of that. If a conversation authority acquires the lands, of course, the conservation authority then will pay, on the assessed value of the lands, full taxation. It's the region that's doing it and there is a system of grant in lieu of taxes.

Mr Chadder: Yes, there is.

Mr Eddy: And how is that working out?

Mr Chadder: Presently, it seems to be working out fine, in terms of the ability to make sure you're going to get payment. The region hasn't balked at that to date.

Mr Eddy: Is the region acquiring lands that have been designated by MNR according to its criteria as significant wetlands etc?

Mr Chadder: The region, in its official plan of both 1974 and 1988, actually designated lands as natural environment area. There were some substantial tracts of land in the east known as Mer Bleue, as well as in Rideau township known as the Marlborough forest. At that time as well, the Carp hills were also designated. The region has been active in acquiring lands in accordance with that policy. So that has been predating any of the policies that the province had enacted.

Mr Eddy: That's very commendable. I'm pleased to hear about that.

Mr Grandmaître: We do a good job in Ottawa-Carleton.

Mr Chadder: At this time, they are still acquiring lands. They just acquired a subdivision which would have been registered, and they are in the process now of working with the township to deregister that subdivision of the township and keep it as natural environment.

Mr Grandmaître: Good.

Mr Sterling: Perhaps we could have some of the people from Municipal Affairs answer this question. If in fact a property owner requests a reassessment of their property because it's been designated as a wetland, who pays for the reassessment costs?

Mr Grandmaître: The municipalities.

Mr Sterling: No, I was asking the --

Interjections.

Mr David Root: My name is David Root. I'm with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. Under the amendments to supplementary assessments, the municipality would be responsible for paying for that supplementary assessment.

Mr Sterling: So not only does the municipality lose because a lot of their lands have been designated as wetlands, but they lose in the process as well, so it's sort of a double whammy.

Mr Root: The question that was raised earlier that Mr Grandmaître did comment on is the ability of a municipality to make a request through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs for a grant in lieu of that loss. The policy has been that where there is at least a 4% to 5% loss beyond any -- where there has been a loss, where the municipality is able to assume the first 4% to 5% of that loss, it is not an anticipated loss, then they may apply to the minister for consideration.

Mr Sterling: Okay. I just wanted to point out the double whammy that these people will be getting hit with. We had this morning the region in talking to us, and they were talking about delegation of power, for instance for subdivisions. Do you feel that the township of West Carleton is in a position to assume that responsibility?

Mr Chadder: At this time, West Carleton has not partaken in the region's delegation. Right now, they do it with some of the urban municipalities. For them to process a subdivision, the region still signs off at the end, but all the processing is done at the local level. We are currently working with the region to establish that position for West Carleton. I don't see any problem in doing it with the township. We have professional engineers on staff; we have professional planners on staff; we have the ability to still work with the ministries, which is what we do currently. The region has very little role to play in the actual designing of the subdivision or in the designing of the conditions for draft approval. They are mostly administrative conditions that the region attaches at this time.

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Mr Sterling: I think it's important, however, to bring a balance to the discussion too, in fairness to those who would like to decentralize all planning power, and that is that -- and perhaps you can provide with me the dollar figures -- very recently, or I guess the work is under way now, the region and the province are pouring a huge amount of money into the village of Carp to provide it with water. Maybe you could enlighten me as to how much each is putting into this project.

Mr Chadder: It's being done at an 80% provincial subsidy.

Mr Sterling: I think it's -- what is it? -- an $8-million to $10-million project?

Mr Chadder: I believe the total project was in at around actually about $18 million.

Mr Sterling: Eighteen?

Mr Chadder: Yes. It's coming in substantially under budget of course with the current prices, but it is a very high pricetag.

Mr Sterling: This is where I always had difficulty with those who would say local autonomy is good till the end, because basically other taxpayers in the province are having to bail out residents in the township of West Carleton at this time for what one might describe as poor planning in the past in terms of the available water supply for those people in West Carleton and the ability of it to take septic sewage. In terms of the delegation that they're asking for in the act, the qualifiers are very, very important.

Mr Chadder: I believe that the qualifier is clearly established in the fact that the province has commenting authority and the ability to set conditions, provided the region is established with the same criteria in its ability to withhold the draft approval with its conditions not being met or setting its conditions appropriately. I think that could be covered.

With respect to Carp, in terms of the past practice, we're dealing with a subdivision, the two plans, if everybody understands the numbering practice in the subdivision planning process, Carp was number 148 in the whole process of subdivision planning, registered sometime in the late 1890s. That is our problem area. The area that had been registered in the 1870s is actually still recording good water and very able to produce the septic areas that are required. The need for the coordination between the levels, I strongly agree with. You cannot have one agency with the overall power to just say, "Yes, this is fine," without ensuring that all of the policies are met. The ability through the subdivision process to require such consultation and concurrences from all levels, I think you can streamline it by leaving it at one level.

Mr Sterling: In Manotick, which is another area that I represent in this riding, the province recently bailed them out of a water problem. Again, it was in the old village park, but you don't know how much is caused by -- well, it was caused by a business in the area which was not properly regulated, and the province, I think, wrote a cheque for $4 million or $5 million. So it's the balance between -- with planning power comes planning responsibility as well, and unfortunately, the small municipalities can't meet those urgent needs. Anyway, I just thought it's interesting to point out both sides of the equation when you're dealing with these things.

The Chair: We've run out of time. We thank you very much for coming and for submitting this brief to us.

FEDERATION OF CITIZENS' ASSOCIATIONS OF OTTAWA-CARLETON

The Chair: We invite the Federation of Citizens' Associations of Ottawa-Carleton, Ms Amy Kempster.

Ms Amy Kempster: Good afternoon. My name is Amy Kempster and I'll be presenting the brief, which I believe you all have copies of, from the Federation of Citizens' Associations of Ottawa-Carleton. The major items in this brief were agreed to at a meeting on Monday night of the federation in Ottawa.

The Federation of Citizens' Associations of Ottawa-Carleton is an umbrella group of over 20 community associations in Ottawa-Carleton. Many of our activities are concerned with planning. In particular, we have contributed to the recent official plan reviews conducted by the city of Ottawa, and earlier to those of the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, and we've also participated in hearings of the Ontario Municipal Board.

We believe the bill improves significantly on the present situation and we particularly wish to support part II, local government disclosure of interest act, 1994, and other measures related to open local government. Because of time constraints, we will focus primarily on facets of the bill which we believe should be improved, with a few comments on specific items that we wish to support. Where applicable, we shall identify relevant sections of the bill and the act, and in most cases, our recommendations carry forward things that we have mentioned in letters to ministers since before the Sewell commission began to meet.

First of all, I'm going to talk about items not currently mentioned in the bill. One item that one of our members brought forward, and he comes with a great deal of background because he works in the Auditor General's department, suggests that we should have an item in there about accountability. A crucial element of democracy is missing. It is the obligation to account publicly for this discharge of responsibilities of office that affect the public in important ways. We therefore recommend that the following simple provision be included near the beginning or end of each act: "All public bodies with responsibilities under this act shall report annually to the minister on the discharge of their responsibilities under the act." We think this would start the process of building accountability.

Intervenor funding: In the Sewell report, recommendations 85 and 86, it is suggested that there be intervenor funding. We've written on this several times in the past. Intervenor funding will not eliminate all the unfairness in the present planning process, but would at least level the playing field. Community associations have no money, so if we want to present our position to the OMB, we need some sort of support in the form of intervenor funding. I'm talking about positions which are not frivolous positions, which have been thought through and would be seen as in the public interest. So we would suggest that there be an effort to implement recommendations 85 and 86 of the Sewell commission.

OMB audiotapes: People with money can arrange to have court reporters take notes at an OMB hearing; people with money can't. We suggest that the OMB be required to audiotape hearings at the request of any party, and to make the tapes available on a daily basis to all parties who request them.

Since the members of the board now take longhand notes, this might also shorten the hearings and decrease the costs for all parties. We're not suggesting court reporters; we're suggesting audiotapes. This is not expensive, and we think it would make things easier for the people on the OMB board and easier for all parties.

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We would also like to see that unincorporated citizens' groups receive not only party status but appellant status before the OMB and committees of adjustment, as recommended in the Sewell commission recommendation 84(a).

There is another item that was not in the bill that we'd like to see. We support the provisions for interim control bylaws. However, we want to see that there be some teeth in the arrangement so that if a municipality says it's going to do a study and then doesn't do it, there's some way of either the developer or the citizens forcing the municipality to do the study. We feel that there's a lack in the interim control bylaw process at the moment.

We like the Sewell recommendation that there should be consideration of watershed situations in doing planning, so we recommend that the bill include, in line with recommendation 50 of the Sewell commission, a requirement that upper-tier official plans "incorporate watershed considerations."

We're confining it to the upper tier because we feel watershed considerations, the whole gamut of them as indicated in Sewell recommendation 50, are better dealt with at that level. If a local municipality wishes to include them, then that's well and good, but not all local municipalities have official plans and we feel the appropriate place to require the watershed planning is at the upper tier.

Support for items in this bill: We strongly support the section which adds the purposes, and particularly, for our purpose, "to provide for planning processes that are fair by making them open, accessible, timely and efficient." We like that.

We're aware that some municipal staff, including our own region, prefer "have regard to"; we like "shall be consistent with." We feel it will provide more certainty.

Section 9 of the bill, section 16.1 of the act: We support the section and others which emphasize the consideration of environmental matters within the planning process.

Subsection 34(1): We are pleased to see the expansion of subsection 34(1) to spell out a number of important environmental, scientific and heritage protections. I might mention that woodland protection within urban areas is particularly important because there usually are not many woodlands left within urban areas.

Suggested additions or changes to the bill: In subsection 3(1) we have a definition of "official plan." We feel that an official plan comes from the people, and there was a booklet put out by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs that suggested "is based largely on input made by citizens through the public participation process."

In line with that, we feel that should be reflected in the bill. We recommend that the definition of "official plan" be changed to read:

"`official plan' means a plan that is,

"(a) consistent with the purposes of this act under section 1.1 and the policy statements under subsection 3(1);

"(b) based largely on input made by citizens through the public participation process; and

"(c) approved by an approval authority under sections 14.7, 17 or 19."

Section 9 of the bill, subsection 16(b) of the act: The power to modify public consultation procedures within an official plan is all very well so long as an official plan cannot reduce the minimum notice requirements that are otherwise prescribed.

Community associations, being volunteer organizations, sometimes have trouble because addresses change from year to year and so on and you have to contact your members before you come up with a position. So we do sometimes need the minimum times that are mentioned and we don't want official plans to reduce those times.

It would be useful for us if performance standards for public notification were drawn up by municipalities and their success in meeting the standards made a part of the annual accountability report.

On page 12, in section 10 of the bill, subsection 17(14) of the act, we recommend that the word "as" in the second line be replaced by the words "that has expressed an interest or made representation in respect of the plan, or that...."

The decision as to who should receive the information is too important to leave in the hands of municipal staff with no clear entitlement spelled out in the act. We feel that should be corrected so that it's clear that anybody who has expressed an interest or made representation in respect of the plan would be notified.

In section 10 of the bill, subsection 17(22) of the act, we believe that a procedure such as that set out in subsection 17(14) above should be prescribed to require the approval authority to allow interested parties adequate opportunity to comment on a proposed decision before it is adopted.

We had a situation where the city of Ottawa official plan went through, then it came to the regional council and there were many, many modifications made at that point. Public notice of a planning committee meeting came out on a Sunday for a meeting on the Tuesday. Luckily, our actual association had been notified by one of our councillors and we were able to provide our position on some of these modifications at that meeting, but the vast majority of the public were not, and they had participated. Many of these modifications changed things that they thought were in the official plan. They were made normally as a result of developers coming and wanting something saying, "We'll refer this." The city said, "Well, we'll modify it so maybe it won't be referred etc," but they never consulted the other people who were involved in the official plan process.

So we would like subsection (22) be amended to read:

"(a) If the approval authority proposes to modify and approve as modified or refuse all or part of the plan, the approval authority shall, before adopting such a proposal, give written notice of the proposal and the reasons for the proposal to..." -- and these are the groups which are identified in subsection (22) -- "...and shall give them opportunity to submit comments on the proposal for 30 days from the day that the giving of written notice is deemed to be completed under subsection (25).

"(b) When the requirements of part (a), if applicable, have been met and the approval authority is satisfied that its proposal as finally prepared is suitable for adoption, the approval authority may adopt the proposal as its proposed decision in respect of the plan.

"(c) The approval authority shall give written notice of its proposed decision containing the reasoning for that decision and other prescribed information to...." the list of the groups that are mentioned in subsection (22).

The next section we wish to comment on is section 10 of the bill, subsection 17(24) of the act. We are disturbed by the introduction of new OMB appeal fees and the possibility of their increase. The current sums may not be onerous for municipalities or developers, but they would add yet another barrier for citizens and citizen groups seeking justice and redress.

Section 10 of the bill, under clause 17(29)(a) we are disturbed by the wide latitude that the approval authority staff have in interpreting "do not disclose any apparent land use planning ground." In the first place, the heading of (a) should read "the approval authority can reasonably show that," not "the approval authority is of the opinion that."

Concerning subclause 17(29)(a)(i), we don't have planners at our beck and call. To make it possible for citizens to seek justice, the act must define "planning ground." If it's not defined, it's wide open. Unlike "generally accepted accounting principles," there is no "generally accepted planning principles." What is a good planning ground? We don't know. You have to tell us. It has to be in the bill. If it's not in the bill, you are taking away justice from community associations that don't employ planners. Then only the developers have experts to say what is a good planning ground. You have to define that in the bill, otherwise the bill is very flawed.

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We also foresee several pitfalls under (29)(b), "did not make oral...or written submissions." Taken literally, if the presidency of an unincorporated group changes, the new president could be barred from carrying forward any changes initiated by a predecessor. Also, in the case mentioned above where a change in the official plan takes place with no warning at the final council meeting, no written representations would be possible at that meeting, and in some municipalities no oral presentation is allowed.

The main item we're appealing from the Ottawa official plan is one that arose from a modification made at the regional level. It was not in the plan at the city level. We're appealing it. We did have some notification of that but this illustrates the sort of problem that could occur. The council could make a modification at its final meeting approving an official plan. What do you do then if you didn't know it was going to happen until that council meeting?

I think that (29)(b) is unnecessary and prejudicial. I think maybe the developers would agree with us on that one too because it would affect them equally. If some things were done at the last minute, by council, on a particular item in the plan which affected one group of developers and was in favour of another, if that was there, they wouldn't be appealing it. I think that you need to protect all parties by thinking twice about that one.

In section 10 of the bill, subsection 17(47) of the act, we strongly disagree with the continuation in this bill of limitation on appeals beyond the OMB to matters in which the minister has expressed provincial interest before the hearing. It strikes us as grotesque that there is no possibility of review of the decisions of an appointed body with such drastic powers. This clause would have prevented the citizens of Toronto from stopping the Spading expressway extension.

Finally, we think the Ministry of Municipal Affairs needs to do to a study of OMB's decisions in recent years involving citizens' groups and citizens. An earlier study found that the success rate was low and declined significantly as the importance of the issue increased. The results of a new study could indicate that there is a continuing major problem with fairness in the dispute resolution mechanism provided by the OMB under its present constitution and procedures.

In the meantime, adoption in the legislation of the proposals we've made in this brief would help empower citizens' groups and citizens and level the playing field to a significant degree.

Thank you very much for listening to my presentation.

Mr Grandmaître: On intervenor funding -- you're being incorporated?

Ms Kempster: We are incorporated. Yes.

Mr Grandmaître: Are you saying that all groups that are incorporated should receive intervenor funding if it's part of this bill? At the present time it's not, but let's say the minister or the ministry decides to include intervenor funding. Who would qualify for intervenor funding: groups that are incorporated or individuals?

Ms Kempster: I would think they would have to prove that their case was in the interests of at least their neighbourhood, a significant-sized neighbourhood. Now, I would not required their being incorporated.

What Sewell has suggested here in his recommendation 85:

"(a) the intervenor represents a clearly ascertainable public interest, consistent with provincial policy, that should be represented at the hearing;

"(c) the intervenor does not have sufficient financial resources to enable it to represent the interest adequately;

"(d) the intervenor has made reasonable efforts to raise funding from other sources;

"(e) the intervenor has demonstrated concern for this issue at the municipal level;

"(f) the intervenor has attempted to join together with other objectors;

"(g) the intervenor has a clear proposal for the use of any funds that might be awarded."

Mr Grandmaître: Would these groups have to be registered just like lobbyists?

Ms Kempster: I wouldn't say they would have to be registered, but the powers might, in their wisdom, require that. I would have no objection to that, that groups that might wish at some time in the future to have intervenor funding should register with the province. I would not object to that at all. I hadn't thought of it as something that would be required but I see no problem with it.

Mr Grandmaître: I'm not saying it's required. All I'm saying is that lobbyists do have to be registered because they are lobbying for something. Don't you think that intervenor funding, if it goes through, should be, let's say, accorded only to groups that are registered? A group can be formed overnight.

Ms Kempster: Groups normally don't form overnight unless there's an issue that hits the neighbourhood so hard that all the residents or a large part of them are concerned. I would say the principle here is that the group must show that it represents --

Mr Grandmaître: The community.

Ms Kempster: -- the community that it purports to represent, but I would not go further than that.

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Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much for an interesting presentation. Should intervenor funding, and I follow up on my colleague M. Grandmaître's questions -- I think people in the legal profession, to which my colleague the member for Carleton belongs, and the engineering profession and the planners would have a real field day.

You've added considerable cost to the planning process, should indeed your presentation be accepted verbatim. Would you have any idea how much you would add to the cost of, say, an average single-family home?

Ms Kempster: Do you mean with intervenor --

Mr Villeneuve: Intervenor funding plus the time process. We've been told that at present the Ottawa area is about 30% to 40% more expensive than a similar area across the Ottawa River in Quebec.

Ms Kempster: First of all, our association participated with the home builders and with other groups. The city of Ottawa has had what they called a "better way" task force to shorten the development process in Ottawa and we agreed with what that task force came up with. One of the emphases in this task force -- and they can't require it -- that we liked was early consultation with the community. They can't require it before they actually get an application, but their intention is, and I believe our planning staff on this, to suggest that developers get in touch with the communities early.

We believe that if there is early consultation and the community knows early and the developer knows early what the community's problems might be, this will reduce the time taken for the process, particularly if you can come to a consensus. If the developer can make the sorts of changes that satisfy the community, you may reduce the need for appeals etc. Not all developers, though, are the same. Some will do this, and we know some developers in the city of Ottawa who will meet early with the communities, who do try to talk to the communities and come up with a consensus-type arrangement. We don't anticipate that we would need to go to intervenor funding very often, but I think the issue is of justice, really, and when it is needed, it should be there.

Mr Villeneuve: The problem I have representing a very rural area -- it's not a question but a statement -- is that once we have the urban people move into the rural area, then they oppose everything and anything. They get in there and they say, "Well, I want it to stay exactly the way it is." I would think they might use the process that you've explained to: "Well, I've got my little niche where I want it. Just let everybody else stay away from me." I have some problems with that because our rural municipalities need that additional tax base for the simple reason that there is no money coming from Big Brother at Queen's Park any longer.

Ms Gigantes: I'd like to make a suggestion, because this committee has obviously heard a number of important suggestions around time lines for approvals within the proposed process, to find out whether it might be possible for staff to put together a couple of charts, maybe three, that would describe what's in the bill, what's proposed by people who would like to close up the time lines involved, what's proposed by people such as the current witnesses who are speaking on behalf of community groups which are anxious to make sure there is adequate time for community input at the various stages of the approval process, so that members could have a look at that in some comparative format.

The Chair: I think we've got agreement.

Ms Gigantes: Thank you.

Mr Grandmaître: Isn't it in the briefing book?

Ms Dewar: We have prepared charts which explain the time frames under the proposed bill.

Ms Gigantes: Yes, if we could have something that would compare the two kinds of amendments that we've been hearing before the committee.

Ms Dewar: Yes.

The Chair: Very well. Any other comments?

Mr Gary Wilson: On the aspect of intervenor funding again, I think Mr Sterling was getting to the issue. One of the problems with it is that it I guess predisposes or sets up a process that will automatically end in OMB hearings simply because people will delay or will just think they'll have their best shot at changes in front of the OMB. So in an attempt to avoid that, there's a possibility for other kinds of dispute resolution.

Ms Kempster: I would certainly be in favour of other types of dispute resolution, but if something does go to the OMB, we would see no problem with the OMB deciding whether to allow intervenor funding to a particular group which has come before it. But we feel the possibility should be there to allow community groups to bring their concerns to the OMB.

It depends how serious an issue is. This new bill takes away the appeal from committee of adjustment. If it's just a simple appeal from committee of adjustment, you may not need too much in the way of a planner or a traffic expert or whatever; it's the local neighbourhood. But if you have a big development and it affects a big neighbourhood, then that large neighbourhood will be able to raise some funds. But planners are expensive. If you want to have a planner or a traffic expert on your side, it's going to be expensive to pay for.

Mr Gary Wilson: And you don't think you can get that hearing before you get to the OMB; you can't have it in the neighbourhood, say, in front of the council, or you can't generate the public interest that would force, let's say, a genuine hearing?

Ms Kempster: Well, sometimes your council is behind you, but then the next level may not be, or the developer appeals it to the OMB or whatever. You may end up at the OMB not because -- your council may have believed you and then the developer appeals to the OMB, but you want to be a party because you're interested in the issue.

The Chair: We've run out of time. We thank you, Ms Kempster, for the input you've given to this committee and for the interest you've taken in responding to this bill.

We are about 10 minutes early. We'll recess for 10 minutes.

The committee recessed from 1517 to 1530.

BETTY HILL

The Chair: We welcome Ms Betty Hill. Ms Hill, you have 15 minutes for your presentation. If you want the members to ask you questions, please allow more than five or six minutes, otherwise it'll be very difficult for the members to ask questions.

Mrs Betty Hill: I think what I have to say will take most of the 15 minutes, so we'll do away with the questioning. They will get a copy of it.

First of all, I'd like to introduce myself as Betty Hill. I was the mayor of the township of Goulbourn from 1973 to 1982, and also sat as a regional councillor at that time and also a member of the regional planning committee during that time, so I'm familiar with the planning process, approvals etc.

While there are a number of concerns that I have about Bill 163, due to the time allotted I will touch on only a few of my real concerns. I am certain that others will quite adequately touch on the other points that also upset me.

First, as a former politician I'm concerned about the change to the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. I feel that is what the name of the act should remain; it should not be changed to the disclosure act. Disclosure should only be necessary where there is in fact a conflict.

The purpose of the act, it says, is "to preserve the integrity and accountability of local government decision-making," which indicates that there is presently integrity and accountability that should be preserved. The new disclosure requirements appear to me to be both an invasion of privacy and most unfair, and I think it will certainly discourage many good candidates from running. I urge you to remove these new requirements from Bill 163.

My next main concern is the amendment to the Planning Act. I'm concerned about the continuous flow of policy documents and amendments to various acts of the provincial Legislature which run totally contrary to the reality of our times. Reality is that we're in the throes of a recession, and have been for several years now. Reality is that thousands of businesses have gone bankrupt; thousands of residents of Ontario and the rest of the country have been laid off jobs, or suffered job loss because of bankruptcies, or suffered wage cutbacks or shorter workweeks. Reality is that these people have less and less spending money to stimulate the economy or with which to pay ever-increasing taxes.

I ask, what is the government doing about these economic realities? I'm concerned that we're implementing policies that are not going to stimulate the economy or encourage development and improve the approval process. Instead, we continue to keep thousands of bureaucrats on the payroll to continue to write up these polices and amendments, manuals and any other materials they can think of. It took 10 years, for example, to write the wetlands policy alone. That is certainly the type of job security that many unemployed Ontarians would love to have at this time.

We have a massive debt that concerns me, growing even more massive every year, yet the government continues to approve policies and procedures that continue to lengthen the planning approval process, delay approvals, and restrict or even prohibit development.

The directions from the ministers at Queen's Park, I would respectfully suggest, to the bureaucrats should be to come up with policies and ways to reduce the bureaucracy and do away with the excessive layers of the supervisors, department heads etc, who create the paper-chase to justify their existence, and to do away with the overlapping of many departmental responsibilities and approvals.

The provincial departments and agencies actually are the main problem and cause most of the delays in the approval process. This is one of the main weaknesses of the present process. The amendment to subsections 17(30) and 51(42) allows public bodies to ignore the process of making written submissions at public meetings and to come in at the last minute with their objections. These sections exempting public bodies from following the same procedures as the rest of us should be deleted from Bill 163.

If the government is sincere about streamlining the planning process and empowering the municipalities, as the goals of the new bill are, the proper action would be to give the approval process to the regional municipalities, I feel, in cooperation with the area municipalities. These are the people who are directly in contact with each other, these are the people who are familiar with the lands affected, and these are the people most closely associated with the people involved in these development requests, whether it be a major development or merely a severance. We cannot allow the delays which run into years to continue because of the faceless bureaucrats who create an endless paper-chase to justify their existence.

The goals of the planning reforms were the empowering of the municipalities, protecting the environment, and streamlining the planning process. Bill 163 does not meet these identified goals. While the bill appears to empower -- appears to empower -- the municipalities, there is no clear mandate for municipal staff. The power is limited and can even be taken back by the province at any time.

The Ottawa-Carleton regional municipality was the first regional government created in Ontario and has been in existence for 25 years. The development in this region, I feel, has been done in a responsible manner and, as I said, I had nine years' experience in the process. They certainly are in keeping with the provincial goals of preserving natural resources and the natural environment. These have been protected and preserved in the goals of the regional official plan, which was first drafted and approved in the early 1970s. We've been working with this plan for 20-some years. The Planning Act allows other regional municipalities in the province additional responsibility, and there is no reason why Ottawa-Carleton cannot be recognized as a responsible planning approval authority for this region. It would certainly help to make the planning process more efficient and speed up the approval process. This would be what I would consider empowering the municipalities and streamlining the planning process.

The land owners in Ottawa-Carleton region have also acted responsibly in preserving these wetlands, for example, animal habitats and other important areas. Now they find they are being punished as a result, we are told, of the loss of the wetlands in southern Ontario; this is written right into the Wetlands policy document. The policy puts a prohibition on any use of their wetlands because they have been designated "significant," whatever that means. It is open to the interpretation of the MNR official to whom you happen to be speaking at the time.

But it was not enough to designate 11,600 hectares, which is some 28,000 acres, in Ottawa-Carleton. These lands include a buffer of 120 metres, or 400 feet, around the wetlands called "adjacent lands." This 120-metre buffer that was added to the wetland designation is again totally unreasonable, unrealistic, and an unfair demand to make of the land owners.

These lands can only be developed if an environmental impact study shows no impact on the wetlands. These studies cost thousands of dollars, with no reimbursement if the study shows there would be no impact. The ministry, MNR, that makes the designation takes no responsibility for whether they are correct or not. The onus is on the land owner to prove that his land is not in fact what the MNR officials say that it is.

This is certainly not in keeping with the justice system in this country, which provides that a person is innocent until they're proven guilty. Most of these land owners are not developers, as implied in the policy document. Many of these land owners bought these lands several years ago with a dream of some day building their retirement home or severing off a lot to give to a son or daughter perhaps as a wedding gift, or to provide a nest egg for their retirement, or to be used for some other passive use or hobby. There is no reason why any of these uses cannot be done.

A septic tank bed requires a very small area on a multiacred piece of land. The policy document lists among the benefits of the wetlands such things as the recharge and discharge of groundwater, maintaining and improving the water quality, trapping sediments, immobilizing some contaminants and nutrients and reducing other contaminants to less damaging compounds.

Septic beds within the 120 metres, placed at a reasonable distance from the wetlands, should present no problem or impact on the wetlands, if we are to believe these benefits laid out in the policy document.

The wetlands policy states that over three quarters of the original wetlands in southern Ontario have been lost. Because southern Ontario has not been acting in a responsible manner does not mean that all of the rest of the province must be subjected to these unreasonable and unrealistic policies. If these lands were lost, the blame rests with the staff and the officials of the ministries responsible for commenting on approvals. All of you are fully aware that the Planning Act requires that all ministries and agencies are to comment on approvals for any development and if the development did occur, I would lay the blame where it belongs. According to the Planning Act, ministry and agency officials must comment, as I said, on any development. Approvals are usually not given if an unfavourable comment is received or submitted by a government agency; and then, there's always the appeal to the OMB.

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The ministries of Environment and Energy and Natural Resources, as well as all other departments and agencies such as the conservation authorities, are responsible for commenting on development applications, and so if we are to believe these statements in these policy documents about the loss of these resources, let us put the blame where it belongs and do something about it at that source.

The solution is not to legislate policies which prohibit any use of the land by the land owner. The Planning Act provides for the control of uses, not prohibition. The solution is not to punish the land owners who have been acting in a responsible manner, the solution is to take away the power from those bungling bureaucrats and empower the municipalities and streamline the planning process.

"Shall be consistent with" are words to be added in to Bill 163 in the Planning Act. These words are to replace the words, "shall have regard to," in section 3 of the Planning Act and it is another example of the control over planning intended to be retained by the province. The goals of empowering municipalities and streamlining the planning process were never intended to be achieved with such inflexible language, and these words should not be put into section 3 of the Planning Act.

The regional government and municipalities should be given the responsibility and the authority to draft their own policies, keeping in mind the goals and the objectives of the provincial government and giving them the flexibility to take into consideration different situations and applications. The effects and applications of these policy documents are far-reaching and include a substantial loss of market value of the property, loss of assessment value and tax revenue to the rural municipalities and with no compensation by the provincial government, either to the land owners or the municipalities.

At a time when the provincial government continues to download costs to the lower tiers of government and cut back on transfer payments, these policies reduce and restrict potential for the rural municipalities to improve their tax base or increase their tax revenue. The lower assessment and provincial tax rebates to owners of wetlands certainly does not help the provincial government coffers which are in a monstrous deficit position at this time. The bureaucrats drafting these documents do not live in the real world, they live in a cloistered environment and have no idea of the consequences or the implications of these policies and legislation that they write.

The mapping and the evaluation of the wetlands: There are conflicting statements on the methods of the mapping and the evaluating of the classifications of the wetlands made by MNR staff at public meetings in Ottawa-Carleton. It appears that most of the staff do not understand or even know how or why the lines were drawn on the maps. One official will tell you they were drawn from aerial photographs; another will publicly state the lands were traversed by students hired during the summer to do the task. If the lands were walked without the knowledge and approval of the owner, it was trespassing and this is a further example of the lack of respect for the property owners. The designations were broad brushed across the maps and are not accurate. The onus for the accuracy of the designation should rest on the government to prove that they are correct, not on the owner to disprove.

There has been more than one manual written on the evaluation process -- I think there are three of them -- and the different wetlands have been evaluated over the past 10 years of the drafting of that document on the basis of whichever manual happened to be used at the time. The officials themselves interpret them differently and cannot even agree on the interpretation. And so the lands are evaluated at the discretion and whim of the particular official on a particular day with no consistency, since the evaluation is not an exact science.

In closing, I would just like to say that the goals for amending the Planning Act were excellent ones: to empower the municipalities and to streamline the planning process. That's what Ontario needs today to get out of this economic mess and to stop business from running to the States.

Unfortunately, this document, Bill 163, does not do that. It is time the government started acting in a responsible manner by putting into place policies and legislation in accordance with these admirable goals and objectives that it espouses. We need simplification of the approval process, not more paperwork and procedures that create delays and additional expense.

These policies and amendments continue to impose more and more restrictions on the powers of the municipalities to deal directly with the land owners and continue to impose more and more unreasonable, even unconscionable, restrictions on the land owner's use of his or her land. As the communist countries move away from the communist control of people's lands, it appears we are moving closer and closer to that kind of dictatorial rule.

It is time the politicians faced up to the reality of the times. Incidentally, since I talked about wetlands, I feel that loosestrife will probably have a bigger impact on wetlands than development ever will over the years and I ask you, sir, what is the provincial government doing about that wicked plant? Thank you.

The Chair: We thank you for taking the time to pass on your ideas and your concerns to this committee.

Mrs Hill: Thank you for allowing me the time. I appreciate it.

Mr Perruzza: I haven't heard the communist perspective for a long time, boy, oh boy.

CATHERINE CULLEY

The Chair: I call on Mrs Catherine Culley.

Mr Sterling: Mr Chair, on a point of order: While Mrs Culley is coming forward, I think it's worthwhile to note that Mrs Hill, after she left being mayor of the township of Goulbourn, went back to school and studied law and has just recently been admitted to the bar of Ontario. I just wanted to congratulate you publicly on your achievement.

Mr Grandmaître: And also she's a good Liberal, so she is perfect.

Mr Hayes: There is one of those, is there?

The Chair: Mrs Culley, please begin any time you're ready and, again, if you want the members to ask you questions, please leave as much time as you can. If not, there simply won't be any questions, all right? Please begin.

Mrs Catherine Culley: I came to this forum to speak for myself as an individual. I am a private land owner. I was born and raised in Quebec and have always had a deep love of nature. In 1975, I graduated from McGill University with a BSc in environmental biology. I am married and have three children.

In 1989, my husband fulfilled my lifelong dream by agreeing to buy a beautiful piece of land in the country. There we would do some farming, improve and protect a piece of nature, and raise our children in a healthy environment. God isn't making any more land like this, so it is a vanishing commodity. It was likely to be a good investment, but nothing is guaranteed. We were aware of that. However, we were not prepared to have our dream blown out of the water by the government.

I would like to start by defining the roles of citizens. A good citizen has a duty to obey laws, pay taxes, stay informed, vote for government representation, help others and speak out when necessary. I do all of the above, yet I have been victimized by my government through Ontario's recently enacted policy statements which are part of Bill 163. How could this happen?

The role of the government, as I see it, is to develop laws to help society function in an orderly manner, collect and distribute tax money for common services, help its citizens to maintain an adequate or better standard of living, and to maintain a dialogue with citizens providing information and receiving input.

Bill 163 is not a piece of legislation which contributes to these roles. My first objection to it is that it is an omnibus bill trying to do too many things at once. It is also written in such a way that it is truly impossible for citizens to understand. Bureaucrats and politicians may think that people such as myself are too stupid to understand legislation, but the real problem is not lack of intelligence.

The bill was written with reference to clauses in many acts and can only be understood if the old acts are read side by side with Bill 163. This requires enormous amounts of time which almost no citizen has, including myself, but it is becoming increasingly necessary for some citizens to do so as our trust in government is steadily eroded.

Bill 163 contributes to this erosion of trust. I have heard many recent Ontario government documents described as Orwellian, but this is one of the best examples. Of course, this refers to George Orwell who wrote Animal Farm and 1984. In the latter book, there was something called newspeak which was government language meant to confuse citizens. They had slogans such as "freedom is slavery" and "truth is lies."

The goals of Bill 163 as listed by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs have the same flavour. They are as follows: Empowering municipalities, protecting the environment, and streamlining the planning process. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Let us start with public consultation. Section 3 of the Planning Act has been repealed, and subsection (2) has been replaced with: "Before issuing a policy statement, the minister shall confer with such persons or public bodies that the minister considers have an interest in the proposed statement." I don't know what the old subsection (2) said, but clearly the minister never considered land owners, such as myself, to have an interest in the comprehensive set of policy statements. Indeed, some very high-ranking bureaucrats of Municipal Affairs have listed the clients or the stakeholders to me on the telephone and they did not mention private land owners. As a result, these policies have never had public consultation, although Dave Cooke in a November 1992 letter stated that he considered the Sewell commission to be adequate consultation.

Two sentences show cynical disregard for the public. The first is: "It should be made clear to the public in your consultations that these are the commission's goals and policies and have not been endorsed by the government." The second sentence is, "Cabinet, if it desires, can implement policy statements without conducting another extensive consultation." Well, that says it all. You have already heard a great deal about the negative effects of Bill 163 on municipal planning and development, so I will not deal with these issues.

However, I would like to tell you what the policies are doing to individual land owners, namely, property values are in free fall. I suppose I should be grateful that my government has not decided to chop me and my children into little pieces with machetes as they do in some other parts of the world. However, I am not in a very grateful frame of mind right now, because the government decided to steal my equity from me for the greater good of the people of Ontario. I have already written an article called "Errors Make Ontario's Wetlands Policy Unworkable," and I am including a copy of my presentation so you can read it later.

One of the tragic results of this entire package of legislation will be degradation of the environment as we have not hitherto experienced. The architects of this scheme seem to have forgotten that people will generally do what is in their best interests. If wildlife, trees or a scenic view get in their way of their basic needs for financial survival, these significant features will have to go.

It will start when responsible land owners, such as myself, must dispose of our land for one reason or another at reduced prices caused by draconian land use laws. We know this is a highly mobile society. You must move for employment reasons or you could lose your job. You must dispose of land when it comes the time, and if your prices are down because of government legislation, then you have no recourse, you still must sell. Unscrupulous --

Mr Perruzza: How are you being hurt?

Mr Curling: Let her finish the presentation.

The Chair: We'll get into questions --

Mrs Culley: I will finish and then you can ask.

Unscrupulous absentee speculators with no love of nature or beauty will scoop up such properties and let them grow to weeds etc such as purple loosestrife. In order to evade ANSI designation, destruction of habitat could be accomplished by accidental forest fires. Herons are easily shot as they slowly fly through secluded areas. The chances of hired exterminators being caught are slim, as there is no money for enforcement. When there are no significant features left worth saving, the speculators will be happy and the land will some day be developed due to population pressure. They win; the rest of us lose.

The system is being changed in drastic ways by Bill 163. One of the results will be a need for a massive increase in the budget for MNR. Empire building seems to be the motivation here. All of the environmental impact statements will have to be carefully examined and assessed, resulting in a huge workload to provide employment for an army of bureaucrats and, if it is to be effective, enforcement will have to be beefed up to monstrous levels. There are so many restrictions placed on land owners that we will all become criminals when we cut a tree or move a bit of soil around.

Where will the money come from for all of this? Why don't we spend it on buying significant lands at fair market value so the people of Ontario can legitimately own those parts of the environment that have heritage or wildlife value. Instead, it is being stolen from the few for the benefit of the many. That sounds suspiciously like the communist system. Have you ever noticed what the quality of the environment is like in communist countries? It is shockingly bad. Is that what we want in the people's republic of Ontario? Land stewardship is best carried out by those who have bought and paid for their land and have a stake in its condition. They love their land.

You might well ask yourselves, "Why has she got such a bee in her bonnet?" Let me explain my life since November 15, 1993, when I went to my first information meeting about the wetland policy. I knew that my land was not wetland, but I couldn't convince anyone at MNR of that fact. I was simply told that I was wrong. Because there is no appeal process, I have to convince them, but they don't want to be convinced.

I began to find out as much information as possible and went to meetings. I spent many hours talking on the phone to politicians and bureaucrats. Local levels referred me to provincial offices and those referred me back to regional and municipal levels again. I feel like a ping-pong ball. I have pleaded with everyone to help me to get this wrongful designation off my land, but no one will help. They all say they didn't make the policy so it isn't their fault. They are just following instructions to implement the policy from above. That's what the officials in Nazi Germany said when they were processing the Jews for shipment and extermination, "Just following orders."

Mr Perruzza: Mr Chairman, I'm taking offence to some of this stuff, chopping up babies and this kind of stuff.

Mr Grandmaître: Why don't you make notes and ask your questions after.

Mr Eddy: I want to hear this.

The Chair: I'd like a bit of order. Mrs Culley, please continue.

Mrs Culley: In the course of correspondence with MNR, in an effort to remove this erroneous designation from my land, I learned just what a bureaucratic nightmare is contained in these policies. Because of vague wording and lack of definitions, government officials can designate land as a provincially significant wetland or area of natural and scientific interest without grounds, and it is incumbent upon the land owner to disprove it in court. There is no appeal process. This means guilty until proven innocent, which is the opposite of our conventional justice system. In my case, MNR was totally unable, in a meeting with the head of planning at Goulbourn township, to produce a shred of documentation to justify the designation of my land. But nobody cares.

Another piece of information I found out is that different pieces of land have been evaluated with different sets of rules. In some places, application of the new rules would result in a significant reduction of designated wetland. How can you treat people differently? It is not equitable. My land was designated in 1984 under version 2, and version 3 came out in March 1993. MNR refuses to re-evaluate my land with version 3 until it gets around to re-evaluating the entire wetland complex, which could be a long time from now subject to the availability of money. This is not top priority; new evaluations and environmental impact studies are.

It has been stated by the minister that the only compensation to be received by land owners is the shared benefit of preservation of their lands. In other words, they used to own all of the benefit, the land owners did, and now the government has stolen it from them and they have been thrown the crumbs. The minister doesn't even mention the tax rebate program which is totally, laughably inadequate and will be cancelled very soon, I am convinced. You can't pay people to obey the law. The rebate was established to encourage conservation which will now be mandatory.

It has also been said and often quoted that land owners needn't be compensated for restrictions on the use of their property by zoning changes because they don't compensate society when their property gains in value by a rezoning. I call that the big lie. Of course land owners pay back to society when they realize a profit from land value increases. The first way is called the capital gains tax. Other forms are the myriad of crippling development taxes that are being imposed in larger and newer forms every day. Lastly is the economic benefit that is enjoyed by the community through employment etc.

Zoning rules are a form of contract. They control development in certain ways and everyone knows what they can and cannot do. Land values reflect permitted land uses. When someone buys land, the zoning tells them how they may use this land. When these rules change, existing owners must be compensated and any new purchasers buy the land at a new fair market value knowing the new rules.

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Someone has to pay for these changes. It should be society because society benefits. Bill 163 and the policy statements impose this cost on existing land owners. I know that the Ontario government is broke, but if these lands are to be preserved for the benefit of the people, then the people have to pay for them. Anything else is pure and utter theft. If you want to steal our land, then say so. Don't perpetuate the big lie.

I have been totally unsuccessful in my efforts as a private citizen, so I have joined some groups of people like myself. The first of these --

Mr Perruzza: Point of order, Mr Chairman: Can we have a clarification? Are we stealing this woman's land? Is the government of Ontario --

Mr Eddy: There will be no interruptions.

Mr Perruzza: -- stealing this woman's land? Can we know?

Mr Curling: Why don't you leave if you don't like it?

The Chair: What we need to do is listen to --

Mr Perruzza: No, I want to know. Are we stealing her land?

The Chair: Mrs Culley --

Mrs Culley: Yes.

Interjections.

Mr Perruzza: I am listening. I just can't --

The Chair: I'd like to ask everybody to not respond to that, because if you do, that just carries it on and on. Mr Perruzza, please, we need to hear the deputant. She's about to be finished, I suspect, and there won't be time --

Mr Perruzza: I think her time is up anyway.

The Chair: -- I don't think, for questions. So, Mrs Culley, please continue.

Mrs Culley: I have been totally unsuccessful in my efforts as a private citizen, so I have joined some groups of people like myself. The first of these is the Association of Rural Property Owners, from whom you heard this morning. This group has since joined an association called OPERA, the Ontario Property and Environmental Rights Alliance. These groups will be more effective than I have been in gaining justice. You see, there are just too many people affected by Bill 163. You can't steal that much equity all at once without getting caught. In addition, the rest of the population will be hurt as well through environmental degradation, although it isn't as obvious and it will take them longer to find out.

The government of Ontario cannot go on treating its responsible, taxpaying, law-abiding citizens this way. We have been lied to and ignored. Our rights have been removed. Our private lives have been invaded by rules and regulations far beyond what is necessary. We must spend our time fighting instead of enjoying life and family. If we don't spend hours of time writing reports and speaking to committees such as this, we are ridiculed by bureaucrats for being lazy. We have had enough.

My recommendations are, at the very least, to delay implementation of Bill 163 and hold public consultation. If you must have these policies, then create an appeal process and place the onus on the province to prove that your land is indeed significant. Last, but most important, pay for what you take. Anything else is theft. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Mrs Culley. I just want to ask a question. Does staff have any comment to make with respect to anything that the deputant has said that might clarify anything? No? Okay.

Mrs Culley, thank you for coming and we thank you for the information you've provided to this committee.

Mr Eddy: I think we do need --

The Chair: Mr Eddy, no. Mrs Culley, thank you.

Mr Eddy: You have asked the staff a question. I want to ask the staff a question.

The Chair: No, Mr Eddy. There's no time.

Interjections.

The Chair: Ms Culley, thank you very much.

Mr Eddy: -- of the wetlands policy and why --

The Chair: Mr Eddy, there is no time for that. When we get around to the next deputant you'll have an opportunity to ask a question.

Mr Eddy: But, sir, you had time to ask it. Why can't I?

Mr Perruzza: Put him in the chair for a while.

Mr Eddy: We'll have the question answered, one way or another.

The Chair: Mr Eddy, we don't have time to ask questions of that nature, because once we do that -- we're over schedule as we are and we can't do it.

Mr Eddy: But you invited --

The Chair: We did. I invited the question, there was no response and so we move on.

BIG RIDEAU LAKE ASSOCIATION

The Chair: We call on Big Rideau Lake Association. Welcome to this committee. Please begin any time you're ready.

Mrs Julia Sneyd: Good afternoon. I'm Julia Sneyd, a director of the Big Rideau Lake Association and, as chair of the environment committee, I'm responsible for addressing the environmental concerns of our members and lake users.

The Big Rideau Lake Association represents some 600 families on the largest lake in eastern Ontario. We address the interests of those various users, including permanent and seasonal residents, boaters, campers, fishers and other itinerant travellers on the Rideau Canal. We are mostly concerned with the environmental and planning policies, especially as they relate to lake ecosystems that are mentioned in this bill.

The Big Rideau Lake Association has monitored the Sewell commission from the outset. We have been a member of the lake focus study group, submitted written briefs and appeared at one hearing. We have a close working relationship with the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, Mutual Associations for the Protection of Lake Environments Inc, Environment Canada Parks, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Environment and Energy, and we have also sponsored numerous Environmental Youth Corps projects and environmental partners fund projects.

The BRLA has communicated with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs during its consultation process as well. We are delighted to be able to address this committee during its final stages of public consultation. The people who have been reporting directly to the Sewell commission on this bill are Bob Sneyd and Frank Oakes and they will present our brief to you today.

Mr Bob Sneyd: Further to that introduction, I believe you have a single-page, printed-on-both-sides outline of our position as it stands at the moment. May I just underline the fact that we have appreciated involvement at various stages of this process over the years and it's one that we have followed very closely, especially from the environmental side of it.

I'd like just to address each of the four points in this brief and comment briefly on them. If you have any questions back on that, I'd certainly be happy to enter whatever discussion the committee might feel. Following that, Frank Oakes has a couple of additional comments to make.

The first point in particular looks at the recommendation 50 of the Sewell commission. We feel very strongly, from our reading of the study, that it is essential in this day and age for enlightened environmental guidelines, and to move us on into the next century, to look at ecosystems on a watershed basis. We would very strongly recommend that the legislation be amended such that watershed planning is provided in the legislation and then the consequent details in the regs as appropriate. But from our reading, planning on a watershed basis has not been drawn particular attention to and we would very strongly urge the committee that it be so.

We're not trying to otherwise improve on the rationale or the terminology than what is to be found in recommendation 50, pages 31 and 32 in the report, New Planning for Ontario.

On that particular point, I believe that the watershed planning is crucial because it fulfils best and speaks best to goals A(1), (2) and (3), in the Municipal Affairs ministry's documents that were indicated last December 1993 and again in the spring, May 1994, and it's quite consistent with the provincial policy statements too.

On the flip side of the page, the second point, by our reading of the bill it seems as if there has been some de-emphasis of the application of provincial planning policy specifying only the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, and our recommendation is that the legislation specifically refer to: that all ministries advising on planning matters would come under specifically the legislation, under the aegis as per the recommendation number 4 in New Planning for Ontario.

The third point we note with some pleasure and support the intention of this legislation to put in the hands of municipalities some regulation over site aspects such as landfill and so on, and we are really not only curious but somewhat disturbed that the legislation has pulled out the provision with respect to tree cover and vegetation. In lake country, the particular importance of this, if I can speak to point 3 a little, is that the critical zone is the 30 feet along any watercourse on the shorelines. I think it's quite consistent with the spirit of the legislation as well as the commission's report that at least that immediate shoreline zone comes under the scrutiny of the municipality in respect of site alterations. It's absolutely crucial. There have been a number of very recent studies done by people with expertise.

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We could reference the Rideau Lake study by Michael Michalski, the studies of the Mutual Associations for the Protection of Lake Environments; they all point very specifically to the importance of protecting shoreline zone areas and that's in the spirit of the environmental protection and conservation. We feel that point is very important and does not unduly remove from any land owner the useful exercise of private property rights.

The fourth and final point in this aspect of the brief relates to the concern with respect to the legislation's omission of the Sewell commission's recommendations with respect to septic system scrutinies and inspections. This can't, of course, be done overnight, but I think legislation should point the benchmarks and the targets for implementing recommendation 91 of the Sewell commission. We feel the legislation is to some degree gutting some of the substantive and important provisions of the commission which, if we're going to move into the next century with any degree of security from the point of view of shoreline, and especially in fragile zones, shoreline contamination, is very necessary.

Again, we realize that's a broadly based problem province-wide and we are speaking particularly from lake country's point of view. But at the same time, other studies in the province, inland areas with septic systems -- the Waterloo study, for example, and the impact on groundwater -- indicate the need for checking septic systems province-wide, and we support that provision of the Sewell commission very strongly.

We would further add, if the committee is looking for some ways to further improve this legislation, which we presume you are -- the importance at this point of getting with the 21st century, from the point of view of thinking beyond septic systems -- that there are alternate technologies. They're now proven technologies. This legislation does not speak to them, and we realize at the same time that the Sewell commission, frankly, perhaps could have spoken more forcibly than it did. I think legislation is a public document in I think the people's sense. I'm not sure from the bureaucratic side, but from the people's sense we've got to I think support technologies that look ahead and not drag behind with something from the last century.

The regulations presently we feel are not up to date, even with technology, as they exist. We think the legislation should push us all to consider and implement alternate technologies that have much less input environmentally on the ground and surface waters of our province. So we make that additional point.

I'd like for a moment to turn it over to Frank Oakes for a couple of additional comments.

Mr Frank Oakes: First of all, I'd like to address you on item 32. The commission recommended that legislation set out what items must be included in an official plan. Subsection 42(1) of the bill proposes that official plan content be set out in the regulations. That content, I would think at this stage, must be fairly well known. I think it's been suggested by ministry staff that the content of that could be treated as more flexible. It could be changed from time to time, but if it were in the regs rather than the statute. But I think that for purposes of certainty and for the purposes of voiding reference to the regs, if it wasn't too extensive it could be set out in the legislation.

But if it is to be set out in the regs, I was wondering if the bill could be amended so that proposed regulations of that nature would be advertised and that we wouldn't be facing a fait accompli, that is, that the interested parties would have sufficient notice, and perhaps the bill could be amended to suggest or to make mandatory that regulations to be made under the statute be advertised in advance, however advertisements are to be placed, so that the interested parties would have an opportunity to study them and have some input.

I wanted to make one point on the commission's recommendation concerning planning on a watershed basis. The bill makes no reference to planning on a watershed basis but, again, ministry staff have said that they intend to include some proposals on this matter in the regulations.

I again am suggesting that if planning on a watershed basis is to be dealt with in the regs, it be mandatory that the statute clearly set out what regulations are to be made with respect to this matter, that they can't just make the regulations, that they'd have to be clearly authorized under the legislation.

One further point regarding rights of appeal: To help ensure better decision-making at the local level, the bill proposes than an appeal body need not consider the appeal of a person who did not file an objection in advance of a council decision. This seems to lack any sort of reasoning, in my view. In these cases there would be no automatic right of appeal. This is found in a number of places in the legislation, including section 10 and section 28.

This is an issue that the commission never appeared to have considered. If enacted into law, it would mean that any interested parties would have to file an objection to every decision which might be made that would affect them in the fear that council might by chance get it wrong. Otherwise, the citizens would have no sure way of having the decision reviewed. Consideration should be given to the wisdom of this provision and I urge you to do so.

Mr Sneyd: The committee also has in front of it two additional documents, and it wasn't our intention or expectation that you would have time to read them. These are simply by way of appendices, some of the earlier submissions that we made.

That concludes our comments. We'd be happy to comment further or discuss, as the committee wishes.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you for making your presentation on behalf of the Big Rideau Lake Association. The monitoring of septic tanks, are you speaking of all septic systems in rural Ontario, farms and rural homes, or simply those that are in so-called areas around lakes and watercourses?

Mr Sneyd: My understanding is that the Sewell commission is recommending it province-wide, and I realize that's a gigantic job, but ideally yes, if we're looking for a fallback position, it's lake country that's most sensitive. I'm not sure how that would fly legally, in the discriminatory and all the rest of it but, let's face it, all soils, all slopes and shoreline lands are not the same and I think we have to be able to define those areas that are sensitive and have the legislation regulations appropriate to the type of landscape we're dealing with. Our main concern is, of course, lake country.

Mr Villeneuve: That's being I think considerably more realistic and the possibility of that is very real. I would have great difficulty in asking every farm home and every rural home, which is nowhere close to a body of water, to have their septic systems monitored every seven years or whatever.

Secondly, you recommend here, and I thought that was already law, that no phosphate cleansers or soaps be sold. I believe this is in your presentation on page --

Mr Sneyd: That's one of the appendices, I think, that you're referring to.

Mr Villeneuve: Yes. Is that not the case now?

Mr Sneyd: I could stand to be corrected, but I don't think all soaps and cleaners that are sold are what you'd call environmentally clean in every respect. We have a program locally where we stimulate the sales of really clean products in that way and are readily available even in the supermarkets. I think there are a lots of polluting cleaners that are still available.

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Mr Villeneuve: As you know, phosphorous is a very important element of plant food, P₂0₅, and it would make a lot of farmers very nervous if all of a sudden the next step goes to having no phosphorus fertilizers. That would be a very, very major trigger for the agricultural community. You've no thoughts in that direction, have you?

Mr Sneyd: We weren't addressing the question -- you mean in fertilizers? No. We have a concern with respect to agricultural drainage into our water courses, but we're not speaking here to that issue. But I'm not aware that it's, for example, illegal to sell soaps and cleaners that aren't totally phosphate-free and entirely environmentally clean from that point of view, and that's the issue we're speaking to here.

Mr Villeneuve: Does the Premier belong to your association?

Mr Sneyd: I didn't check whether he's paid his dues this year or not, but I'll let you know if we find him in arrears or in any way delinquent.

Ms Gigantes: I know that you, as residents of the Big Rideau Lake area, have gone through years of trying to take action to make sure that the environment of Big Rideau Lake was improved.

I'd like to get a sense from you, for committee members particularly who don't come from this area, of what the history of that struggle has been, if you could give us a little capsule.

Mr Sneyd: In five hours or less. I think that the association from its inception before the first war, and if you look at our articles as they were renewed through the years, has always been primarily an environmental organization, in the days before it was fashionable, we might say, the days before we had a high profile.

The most intensive work of the association has been in the last eight or nine years, commensurate to some degree with the general public awareness of environmental issues but sharpened I think greatly by the exponential focus in terms of development and the use of the waterways, use in so many different ways -- seasonal and permanent residents, shoreline, itinerant boaters, hundreds and hundreds on the weekends and so on, for whatever purpose -- because the lake is very open in terms of access, which is fine, but the pressures are very great. The pressures are also very great from the point of view of boats through the canal system, as you know. So I think that those have been the reasons why the emphasis in recent years has been more complex.

Do you want me to make some reference to the kinds of programs?

Ms Gigantes: I wonder if you could comment on the importance of septic drainage as one of the issues you've confronted.

Mr Sneyd: This has been an area of particular attention in the last five years. We've got a couple of programs working on that. All the studies that have been done, professional studies, indicate of course that phosphorus is the number one enemy of surface waters from the point of view of a pollutant.

We have supported and worked with the various studies to try to mitigate the impact of septics by supporting increasing setbacks and so on. But you can appreciate that on a lake that is well established, like many other lakes in the province, there are many old systems, and while new development might be successfully addressed, our concern is with existing users and their systems. How do you retrofit effectively and cost-effectively for that?

Frankly, one of the major pushes we've had is in looking at alternate technologies. I spoke to that briefly. They are far more gentle on the environment and on the ground cover. There are areas of every lake near the Shield country, as you know, where drainage is poor and the soils are very shallow. They're not like deep soils, where in a lot of farm cases it's not a problem. So it's a supersensitive area.

We had programs over the last five or six years averaging in the neighbourhood of, if you want to put it in dollar terms, $50,000 a year in terms of local sources and both levels of government supporting programs. So we have literally volumes of data and studies over those five or six years that have been well validated and supported by the Ministry of Natural Resources in particular but also the Ministry of Environment personnel.

In that sense, I think we feel confident that the work of the many scores of people who have worked over the last eight or nine years has borne fruit. We're not here just because we'd like to delay your proceedings in any way. We're serious about the suggestions we're making. We feel they are ones that should be addressed at the political level, and that's where it is now, obviously, on the verge of passing this legislation.

I think we're representative of public view, reasonably, in terms of the sensitive lake environments. Our membership is about 600 families, but the lake users would be in the neighbourhood of about 2,000 to 3,000 families per year.

Ms Gigantes: Could I ask --

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms Gigantes: No?

The Chair: It would have to be brief and so would the answer.

Ms Gigantes: Very tiny. Would the insertion of reference to the water systems -- I've forgotten the exact term being used -- watersheds in section 5, the top of page 4 under clause (a), address your concern?

Mr Sneyd: Page?

Ms Gigantes: Page 4, the top of page 4. It's section 5 of the bill, clause (a). It says, "the protection of ecological systems...." I would assume that includes watersheds. But the specific reference there, would that meet your needs?

Mr Sneyd: Is that referring to the planning side of things?

Ms Gigantes: Yes.

Mr Sneyd: Yes, it is. I think the watershed concept is well enough understood that if that was added there, yes, that would address it.

Ms Gigantes: One very tiny point, if I could, is it not the case that whatever regulations are developed under this legislation, they will be advertised through the computer network developed under the Environmental Bill of Rights?

Ms Dewar: The regulations that are being prepared by staff are being put before an implementation advisory task force comprised of a number of different stakeholders, a technical committee and a rural working group, and there is very wide consultation on the preparation of those regulations.

Ms Gigantes: So it won't be on the monitors under the Environmental Bill of Rights because it's not out of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, is that right?

Ms Dewar: Norma can respond to that.

Ms Forrest: My understanding is that the Environmental Bill of Rights has a schedule for ministries being subject to it. So it depends, I guess, on the timing of when the Minister of Municipal Affairs --

Ms Gigantes: Then in fact this will --

The Chair: Ms Gigantes, we're going over time, I'm sorry. We want to thank the Big Rideau Lake Association for coming and for sharing your ideas and suggestions with us.

Mr Sneyd: Good luck as you finish this off.

The Chair: Mr Hayes has a comment with respect to the previous deputant, Mrs Culley, and the concerns she's raised. Mr Hayes, go ahead.

Mr Eddy: I have one too.

Mr Hayes: It's not a supplementary, and it's not a comment on Mrs Culley's general comments that she has made here, but our understanding is that Mrs Culley was looking for a re-evaluation of her property, or the wetlands.

What I have to say here now, to bring this to a head, is that of course the members don't know the specifics of it and I don't think we're going to decide in this committee what class of wetland it is, so what we would be prepared to do is set up a meeting between Mrs Culley and the Ministry of Natural Resources to have a site visit and to look at evaluating this particular piece of property, and hopefully we can come to a satisfactory conclusion on that.

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Mr Perruzza: Point of order.

The Chair: But there's no procedure --

Mr Perruzza: Yes, but this is something that unnerves me, when someone can come before this committee, talk about butchering babies --

The Chair: Mr Perruzza, I'm sorry, I know --

Mr Perruzza: -- and telling the government --

The Chair: Mr Perruzza, let me make a point.

Mr Perruzza: -- that there's thievery and all the rest of it --

The Chair: Mr Perruzza, it won't help.

Mr Perruzza: -- and then get special attention in this way. I say there are hundreds of thousands of other people out there who require the same kind of special attention.

The Chair: Mr Perruzza, I understand what you're getting at. Mr Eddy would also like to raise questions. We didn't have time to ask questions of the deputant. I think this is the best that can come out of staff by way of how we deal with the question that she has raised, all right?

Mr Perruzza: What question? There was no question. It was just innuendo.

The Chair: All right, we're going to move on.

OTTAWA FIELD NATURALISTS

The Chair: We invite the Ottawa Field Naturalists. Mrs Heidi Klein, welcome to the committee.

Mrs Heidi Klein: I assume you've got the handout in front of you. Fair enough. I just want to say it's a draft at the moment. I haven't had a chance to pass it by the Ottawa Field Naturalists conservation committee. That will happen on Tuesday at our next meeting, our first meeting of the season. All set?

The Chair: Yes.

Mrs Klein: I also would like to know how many of these issues have already been raised, because I will be willing or glad to move on to some other ones that are not on this piece of paper.

The Chair: I would recommend that you touch on them. Many issues have been touched on by different people, and some in different ways.

Mrs Klein: All right, fair enough. It's your time. First of all is the purpose section of the act. As my first line says, my comments will be in line with those of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists. We don't feel that the purpose section adequately supports the natural environment, and I've proposed a rewording of the one statement, "to promote economic development while maintaining a healthy natural environment within the policy and by the means provided under this act."

However, I have two other questions that are raised by the purpose section. It's not clear to me when you say "within the policy" in the purpose section exactly what policy you're referring to; I'm assuming the different provincial policies, but I find that statement very confusing. I would also like to get some interpretation as to what happens in the absence of provincial policy should additional policies need to be developed other than the ones that you've provided in your reform package.

The next item is dealing with provincial interest, in section 2. It is commendable that they "shall have regard to" provincial matters, but again it's not readily apparent what happens in the absence of policies if they're only going to be restricted to areas where policies have been developed or what happens in the absence of provincial policies. I feel that provincial ministries will need to provide additional support or advice to planners. It's too easy to just walk away, saying funds are insufficient to do addition research. It doesn't strike me that there is any sort of interim mechanism, as you're devolving responsibilities to municipal governments to take on this additional planning role, where they're making decisions.

The next item has to do with being contacted with regard to developing policy statements and wanting to know how this will take place. How do you get put on a list? Is there going to be a public registry? Why was this sort of format being proposed, which seems awfully restricted compared to the way policies are developed now? I'm looking for some clarification on that one.

The next item is subsection 3(5), decisions to be consistent with policy statements. I would like to see that this not only apply to the Minister of Municipal Affairs but all the crown. I do understand from the interpretation document that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs will be working closely with the other ministries, but that's no guarantee that the other ministries will take on the same sort of policy statements.

The final comment I have, at least with respect to the presentation in front of you, has to do with the whole contents or notions of the official plan. While I'm glad to see there's some integration with the environmental assessment process proposed, I personally find statement 16 very confusing, and I'm unable to put my hands on the exact regulation or regulatory statement to which it refers under which municipalities will be able to put in place this alternate planning process.

So I'm instead proposing that I would rather see a more clear-cut, minimal planning process put into the official plan itself which takes on some of the responsibilities that the environmental assessment process already has but doesn't necessarily mean it's an environmental assessment process, but it's already built in. So if you look at the Environmental Assessment Act right now, it already talks about reviewing alternatives and describing the environment, in addition to what you're already proposing in setting goals, objectives and policies in section 16.

Now for items you don't have in front of you, I'm curious about the whole notion of "vexatious" and how this will be determined. Will the body determining if a submission is vexatious go back to the purposes section of this act? What kind of guidance will they have in making this decision?

I'm also curious about the policy document that you have in front of you. Throughout it, it refers to the determination of significance. How will this be determined? Most of this procedure looks like it's devolving decision-making powers down to the municipalities. Are they still going to be relying on provincial ministries for determining significance? How will this be made and where's the consistency going to be across the province?

I'm also interested -- again referring back to the comprehensive set of policy statements, throughout it there's also terminology with respect to adverse environmental effects, yet you only require an environmental impact statement for goal number 1. I'm curious, under, say, goal number 3, how again this will be determined. I would recommend that the requirement for environmental impact statements be applied to all the other goals wherever you require them to determine if something is adverse and has an adverse environmental effect.

Referring to your Understanding Ontario's Planning Reform document, which I'm assuming is meant to be an interpretation of the act, on page 9 I have a few questions, again dealing with the area of environmental assessment. I've already raised the one. It's not clear to me under which regulation-making statement municipalities will be able to go into this alternative planning process.

I also, on reviewing the act, could not find where the whole idea of monitoring provisions comes up. You're offering it as an interpretation, but I don't know where it's specifically referenced in the act or if that comes up under the whole notion of an alternative planning process and the municipalities will then say that an alternative is to also monitor for environmental impacts on individual EISs. But, personally, the interpretation document does not seem consistent with what's being proposed in the act, and I would say it's somewhat misleading unless you can tell me where in the act this comes up.

The final point I want to raise, going back to your comprehensive set of policy statements document, deals with points 3 and 4; I've already partially touched on them. Again, where is information for planning jurisdictions coming from in these times of fiscal restraints? It again strikes me that you're devolving powers to municipalities but they're not ready to take on these responsibilities, let alone do some of the additional research that they'll need to do in terms of the environment, in terms of economic support, what have you. I would just like to get some clarification on this and how you propose to do this or what kind of bridging mechanism you'll be putting in place. That's it.

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The Acting Chair (Mr Alvin Curling): Mrs Klein, there is a list of questions that you have written.

Mrs Klein: Yes.

The Acting Chair: If the staff could have it, then they could really respond to you in a more detailed way. But, however, they'll attempt to answer some.

Mrs Klein: That's fair enough. I will be providing a written response once I meet with the rest of the Ottawa Field Naturalists on Tuesday.

The Acting Chair: Okay. Thanks very much. Are you finished with your presentation?

Mrs Klein: Sure.

The Acting Chair: Do you want to give a response now?

Ms Gigantes: I think it would be helpful to ask staff to make a preliminary response, if we could.

Ms Dewar: I'm Diana Dewar from Municipal Affairs, and beside me are Norma Forrest and Pat Boeckner. May I suggest that you repeat the question and we'll respond to the question and obtain any follow-up information for each question.

Mrs Klein: Okay, fair enough. What's your particular expertise -- all the questions I've listed or with what particular area?

Ms Dewar: The questions that you would like us to answer.

Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair, maybe I could be of some help. Section 1.1 for instance, I think the question was "`shall have regard to...(a) the protection of ecological systems, including natural areas, features and functions.' I would suggest that 1.1(a) be reworded as follows: `to promote economic development....'" Maybe I can give you the question.

Ms Dewar: I've had that before. There are a number on this page and then there were a number of additional questions.

The Acting Chair: I missed them. Can we do it this way, because there are a number of questions you have raised and it may take a considerable amount of time. I want to leave some time for the members to ask some questions too. You said you were going to give us a list of them and they could be responded to in writing, but there are some that they may address right now. We're going to attempt to do that.

Ms Gigantes: The first one is, what is the policy in section 4?

Mrs Klein: What's being referred to?

Ms Gigantes: Yes. In the statement "to promote sustainable economic development while maintaining a healthy natural environment within the policy," legally how is that read? Is that the policy statements?

Ms Dewar: That refers to the comprehensive policy statements.

Ms Gigantes: Why doesn't it say that then?

Ms Dewar: The legislation, the way it's drafted, I believe refers to the policy under this act, "...the policy and by the means provided under this act," which refers to the comprehensive policy.

Ms Gigantes: So it's by definition.

The Acting Chair: Next?

Mrs Klein: The next question was, what happens in the absence of policy now that you have this purposes statement?

Ms Gigantes: Could you give us an example?

Mrs Klein: Not at the moment, but I'm sure there are always occasions when policies have to be developed because this may not be adequate enough. You might decide to develop a policy on wildlife corridors instead of the general policy on natural environment you have right now. In southwestern Ontario, you need a specific policy for for wildlife corridors. You've got a general statement now about the natural environment, so what happens if more and more of a focus needs to be done just on wildlife corridors? People are clamouring for a policy. What happens in an issue area where policy hasn't been developed? It's not the best example, but --

Ms Forrest: I'm from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. It's not intended that the policy statements will be static over time. If new issues arise, there is provision under section 3 of the Planning Act for additional policy statements to be issued. Another aspect of planning reform is area-specific policy statements which may be developed for specific areas of the province in response to specific issues.

Mrs Klein: But that may take a while. Most policies take a while, so they just keep planning the way they've always planned. Well, perhaps going back to the whole idea of section 3 and additional policies being developed, the whole notion of how public bodies are going to be contacted, that seems a very narrow way of developing policy statements. Are you going to put a mechanism in place where there's like a registration, where groups like the Ottawa Field Naturalists can automatically be contacted every time there's consideration for a policy statement? How do we find out one is being proposed?

Ms Forrest: I'll answer that question. I think the process for the development of this set of policy statements may give you an indication of the process that's followed. It was a two-year process for the development of the policy statements. There were 10,000 copies of the policies circulated. There was a subsequent three-month circulation period where we met with 60 stakeholder groups and received 600-and-something comments. So we did receive information from a lot of different groups in the development of these policy statements. And the implementation task force has also been involved in developing implementation guidelines.

Mrs Klein: So that's how I'm supposed to interpret "The Minister shall confer with such persons or public bodies that the Minister considers have an interest in the proposed statement"?

Ms Forrest: Yes.

Ms Gigantes: Could I also raise the question, Norma: Once MMA comes onto the environmental registry, that will be another method of people who have an environmental interest learning about what's happening in terms of those policies. Do we have a date on that? Do you happen to know it offhand?

Ms Forrest: We'll find out the date that MMA will be covered by the environmental registry and we'll let you know.

Mrs Klein: Okay, thanks. What about the whole notion of devolving decision-making powers to municipalities? What sort of interim support mechanisms are you going to have in place? What roles will the ministry continue to have or what will it be giving up in terms of decision-making?

Ms Dewar: You asked what are we going to be doing while we're devolving responsibilities to municipalities?

Mrs Klein: Yes.

Ms Dewar: Certainly there's a recognition on the part of the ministry staff that municipalities will in many cases require a lot of training and support and advice and we are certainly concentrating a lot of effort on that during the establishment of the new planning process.

Ms Klein: So you're preparing training programs right now?

Ms Dewar: Yes, we are.

The Acting Chair: What I'm going to allow now is about two minutes for each side to ask questions, because you asked earlier on if there were any questions, and I've allowed for clarification. I was going to start with the government side if they had a question.

Ms Gigantes: I found it very interesting.

The Acting Chair: I also find it very interesting. I just want to give the right to those to rotate and get their questions in. Do you have any questions?

Ms Gigantes: My questions would be, what are the answers to the questions that we can get right here?

Mr Grandmaître: Those are my questions too.

Mr Villeneuve: Just a couple of quick comments and maybe one question. Thank you for your presentation on behalf of the Ottawa Field Naturalists.

The Acting Chair: Just a second --

Mr Grandmaître: No, Mr Chair, I just told you that I'm quite satisfied listening to the answers given by staff. I'm satisfied.

Mr Villeneuve: Just to put your mind at ease, the municipalities are seeing this as taking away a lot of their autonomy and following a very rigid set of guidelines and rules as set out by the province. So your concern regarding how the province monitors that interim period I think is pretty well looked after within 163 in that the municipalities feel that they have had their autonomy and flexibility pretty well removed with the guidelines that are quite rigid as set out in 163.

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When you speak of a register, are you speaking of a register whereby your organization, Ottawa Field Naturalists, would be registered lobbyists that would possibly go to the Environmental Commissioner if you had a problem? And we do now have an Environmental Commissioner that will be coordinating 14 ministries within the umbrella of protecting not only the environment but the concerns of people. Are you speaking of a registered lobby group that you might be?

Mrs Klein: No.

Mr Villeneuve: You're not speaking of that.

Mrs Klein: No. When I read subsections 3(2) and (3) that are being repealed -- this is point number 6 on page 4 of the bill -- when I read the statement, "...the minister shall confer with such persons or public bodies that the minister considers have an interest in the proposed statement," I read that as a very narrow interpretation, so how would we find out every time something is being proposed? Will there be a public registry saying that the Ottawa Field Naturalists has an interest in being contacted when something like this comes up?

Mr Villeneuve: So you don't want to register as a lobby group, but you want to be recognized as a concerned group regarding the environment in your particular field of interest?

Mrs Klein: That's correct, but from what I understand from the staff, the development of policy statements is really not going to change all that much and perhaps what I need to do is broaden my interpretation of this statement instead of narrowing it. Is that correct?

Ms Forrest: Yes. We would consult with all the parties that we felt had an interest, and the way it's being done right now is that we ask affected ministries to give us a list of those people because they have a pretty good idea. There are also a lot of umbrella groups that are able to give us lists of people who may have an interest; for example, the Ontario Environmental Network.

Mrs Klein: So it's more or less status quo with what's happening and that my interpretation of this section was just too narrow because of the way it was worded.

Mr White: I want to congratulate you on your presentation and the marvellous way in which you've been able to turn the process on its head and ask the committee questions. I understand from your presentation, though, that contrary to what my friend across the way was suggesting, you don't have any strong objections to provincial environmental policies offering guidance to municipalities in their development process, do you?

Mr Villeneuve: "Guidance" is a pretty flexible word.

Mrs Klein: No, that's correct. If the provincial government was going to step away from and not be the final arbitrator in a lot of this, then these policy statements, I feel, are absolutely necessary to provide some consistency across the province. I may not be happy with the exact wording of some of the policy statements, and they probably could use some improvement -- you'll get that in a more detailed letter later on -- but if the government is stepping away from it, then yes, I believe the policy statements are absolutely essential.

Mr White: Thank you very much.

Ms Gigantes: Could I ask staff to take a look at subsection 6(2), which reads, "Before issuing a policy statement, the minister shall..."? Why would we not have a direct reference there to the obligations under the Environmental Bill of Rights, because I think that that would clarify for concerned members of the public, at least on environmental matters, matters that touch directly on the environment and in fact there was public notice being given in a very broad-band kind of way.

Ms Dewar: I think that we should probably raise that with our solicitors because there may be a legislative reason why that doesn't need to be incorporated into this bill. We will raise it.

Ms Gigantes: But it keeps getting raised by everybody.

Ms Dewar: Yes, we will raise it.

Ms Gigantes: At least let's put in a footnote saying we don't have to have it in here because it's in blah blah blah --

Ms Dewar: It's in another act.

Ms Gigantes: -- and that's what the lawyers say.

Mr Eddy: A very short question. Thank you for your presentation. Are you familiar with the Sewell report and the recommendations in it?

Mrs Klein: Yes, I am.

Mr Eddy: Many deputants have come forward saying that more of Sewell's recommendations should be included in Bill 163, and I just wondered if you had a comment on that.

Mrs Klein: I agree.

Mr Eddy: Do you?

Mrs Klein: Yes.

Mr Eddy: We're getting that over and over and I just wondered how you felt about it.

Mrs Klein: No, I would like to see more of the Sewell recommendations in there.

Ms Gigantes: Have you read it, Ron?

Mr Eddy: I've read the recommendations. I haven't read all of the background on it, and maybe I'd better do that.

Ms Gigantes: I think you'd better before you go pressing ahead on this.

Mr Eddy: No, I just wondered about the comments of the presenter because we've been getting it so often from many people that I feel that I'm reviewing Sewell as we go along almost.

The Acting Chair: Thank you. You have a few more minutes if you want to make any comments.

Mrs Klein: No. I would like to get one question answered, absolutely. I deal with legislation on a daily basis, and for the life of me, I could not find by which regulation-making authority the municipalities can create a bylaw so they can do the alternative planning so they have a quasi-impact-assessment process in place. I've read it in the old Planning Act and I've read it in the revised here and I can't figure out which statement it is.

Ms Dewar: Sixteen.

Mrs Klein: Well, 16.1 is where it says they can do that but it says "by regulation," and I want to know which regulation-making statement it is.

Ms Dewar: We will look that up and get back to you.

Mrs Klein: Okay.

Mrs Dewar: I believe 16.1 gives the authority.

Mrs Klein: No, that I understand. It's a very confusing statement and it took about five people reading it to agree that that is the statement, but we couldn't figure out which regulation-making authority it was. It's section 74, as I recall.

Ms Dewar: We'll find the section and get back to you.

Mr Eddy: Well, if no one is speaking now --

The Acting Chair: No, we just thought --

Mr Eddy: All I was going to ask, if you'd permit me: When the explanation is found would we be entitled to see it or am I excluded from seeing it?

Mr Villeneuve: You're just a troublemaker.

Ms Gigantes: You have time for one more quick question.

Mrs Klein: No, what I'll say is that I will summarize --

The Acting Chair: We've got a response for you now.

Mrs Klein: Oh, good. What page?

Ms Dewar: I believe it's found on page 58 of the bill.

Mrs Klein: That's where I was looking.

Ms Dewar: Clause 42(1)(f), "prescribing the processes to be followed and the materials to be developed under section 16.1."

Mrs Klein: So that this is a regulation-making section, then?

Ms Dewar: Yes, it is.

Mrs Klein: Because I was looking at 70.2 and looking through it where it says, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by regulation...."

Ms Dewar: Does that answer your question?

Mrs Klein: Yes, it does. How do 42 and 43 vary then?

Ms Dewar: Section 42 is the general regulation powers and section 43 deals with the establishment of a development permit system.

The Acting Chair: That will be the last question in response, because we've run out of time and, as the staff stated, they'll get back to you with all the answers, and you made a list. I want to thank you very much for your presentation. I'm sure it was quite worthwhile for the committee to have heard you.

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VICTORIA MASON

The Acting Chair: May I call, then, Ms Victoria Mason. While you're coming to the table, Ms Mason, you have 15 minutes to make the presentation and you may use the entire time to make your presentation but you can also leave some time for questions if you so wish.

Ms Victoria Mason: Thank you. I don't intend to go step by step into your legislation but I have some strong views on what is happening with our legislation in Toronto and how the taxpayers are being treated. I've been attending meetings for many years at regional Nepean and I have a point of view that you people don't have.

So if I may, I'll start with the great American Benjamin Franklin. I'm a great fan of his. He said that in free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people are their superiors and sovereigns. Somehow, we've reversed it. Through the years, politicians and governments, notably in our country, have eroded and reversed the right, to the point where the people are the servants and the rulers are the superiors and sovereigns.

Here we are again today looking at the government attempting to grant more power to the politicians, our servants. The more power politicians have, the less the people have. The pendulum has swung too far. On one hand you have the local government disclosure of interest act and you say its purpose is to "preserve the integrity and accountability of local government decision-making"; on the other hand, the Municipal Act and the Planning Act, which give more power to the local government to have in camera meetings. These statutes are contradictions of each other.

If a government is to preserve the integrity and accountability of local government decision-making and there is nothing to hide, why is there a need for in camera meetings and the secrecy which surrounds them? We've had a deluge of them. Secrecy or in camera meetings are being held to avoid disclosure of complete and full information to the paying taxpayers, who are deliberately kept in the dark on issues which they're paying for.

As an example, it has become commonplace to award huge severance packages to terminated staff. I'm not sure of the real definition of "terminated." Should it mean fired, those who left voluntarily, or both? No explanation is given anywhere. Property purchases are decided in camera etc. Why do we have elected politicians if they conduct their business in secret? And to think the provincial government is intending to give these politicians more power with the Planning Act.

I certainly believe that the power they now have is being abused, or else why would a common taxpayer be verbally abused when appearing before a committee, while the developers, consultants, so-called experts and certain other special-interest groups get warmly welcomed with open arms and given all the time they need to lobby the committees? I've seen it happen time and again. There is no justice or fair play in giving more power to politicians, who only say "Yes" and "Carried" on agenda items, like trained seals, and do not deserve more power.

I can give many examples of how local government and politicians run roughshod over taxpayers who dare to express an opinion which does not agree with theirs. We are overcome with politicians and bureaucrats who hire consultants, give themselves severance packages, mileage allowances, parking privileges and any other perks they can dream up, but accountability is left only to once in three years. That is not accountability. We have heard promises from Premier Rae of public participation, and he wants to hear more from the people so we can have open local government. None of it has happened.

This committee should look to the example of Rossland, British Columbia, where taxpayers are respected and get to vote by referendum on whichever issue they choose that bothers them. In our government's haste to impose ideologies and policies through political determinism, taxpayers are losing the last vestige of democracy. We are strangled by legislation, regulations, policies, dogma, ideologies and every possible kind of political stranglehold. Taxpayers should and must have a right to their own destinies and not be locked into hopelessness. No. There must be no more delegation of power to anyone except the taxpayers. Let's turn it around.

But by your committee and Bill 163, the taxpayer is being stripped of any opportunity to be heard or to appeal to a higher level, like the OMB perhaps, except through the courts. Opportunity to appear before the OMB is being stripped from us and it's obvious that only developers, consultants, politicians who support developers -- with taxpayers' money, I must admit -- and any other pro-development groups, as well as special-interest groups with government funding, will be free to appeal to the OMB. The ordinary taxpayer, who pays for the municipal appeals, usually supporting development -- our money pays for them -- is being buried. That is not democracy. I think that word is "dictatorship."

There must be an avenue of appeal for the ordinary taxpayer. I recommend that the Minister of Municipal Affairs give the taxpayers a way to be heard by way of a municipal affairs commissioner, similar to the Environmental Commissioner.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. The taxpayers are paying the piper and we must call the tune, but we are being stripped of recourse from unfair or political decisions, which do not reflect the wishes of residents in many instances.

What does a taxpayer do when the politicians let growth get out of control, like the region does, and add insult to injury by making the residential taxpayers suffer the consequences of uncontrolled growth by letting increased traffic go any which way through established residential areas which are not intended for traffic other than local traffic? What does a taxpayer do when the police will not provide traffic and speed control when traffic travels at 70, 80 and 90-plus kilometres in a 40-kilometre zone?

What does a taxpayer do when local politicians force the residents to suffer the traffic from a local big business company which has another alternative? What does a taxpayer do when politicians put a bus route on a residential street and the homes shake and walls are damaged because of the vibrations and this taxpayer must also suffer the increased noise from high-speeding vehicles and buses? What does a local taxpayer do when the politicians approve building a sewage-pumping station in their backyard and the sewage smells permeate so badly that we cannot open our windows?

Where is our quality of life which is so loudly proclaimed when new growth is encouraged? Is quality of life only for the rich and famous, or is it for all equally? What does a taxpayer do when the provincial government elevates a highway in our backyard and tells us we won't even hear the traffic?

What does a taxpayer do when taxpayers challenge a council on excessive spending on projects which are not really a necessity? The taxpayers are denigrated and insulted, and in later years some politician will come up and resurrect it for his political opportunism.

And you consider this open local government and want to give more power to the local politicians?

Water users are told to reduce water abuse, and, "You can save money by saving water." On the other hand, the regional government gives special rates to certain businesses so that they do not pay full sewer costs. That's not fairness.

What do taxpayers do when the regional government executive committee and the chief administrative officer decide, in camera, to grant huge severances to outgoing employees over and over again and no explanation is given to the taxpayers?

I could go on and on, but I shall tell you what to do with this legislation: Shred it or file it in file 13, the parts that give more power to the politicians, like you do with the correspondence from taxpayers.

There is something twisted in Toronto. The privacy act prevents the taxpayers from obtaining information on how and on whom our money is spent, and the disclosure act says it intends to "preserve the integrity and accountability of local government decision-making." Please spare me the tears, all you politicians. There's something twisted, again.

I spent 15 years working for a justice at the Supreme Court of Canada, and I always believed there were at least two sides to a story. Where is the taxpayer's side in government legislation? The government even passes enabling legislation to make the taxpayers pay, through sewer and water costs, for all the growth in the region. Anything a developer wants, you name it, we pay for it. The developers scream and holler about development charges, even when they defer and freeze them. Whom does the taxpayer scream to? Where is our balance?

Regarding wetlands, the provincial proposals are unacceptable. The government makes no effort to prevent local governments from destroying natural wetlands, which have gone by the boards for development and roads in our area, and now the government has the nerve to impose its idealogies and policies on farm lands which are being overrun by beavers migrating from growth and development areas.

All the lands designated are not wetlands; they are mostly farm lands and rural lands which are periodically wet, and wet from beavers cutting down trees and blocking the flow of any accumulated waters on private lands. Beavers are not a protected species, and did you know that beavers carry beaver fever? I have seen a lengthy letter from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, explaining how beaver fever is spread -- through the water, I'll tell you. Does the government care how beaver fever can spread in water, or is it only interested in appeasing certain special-interest groups?

Again, where is the other side, the side of the farm land owners? To freeze lands in the name of wetlands without compensation is most insulting, but to do so in the name of conservation or preservation, while real natural wetlands are being destroyed deliberately for development, is very irresponsible. In Russia, they called that dictatorship. We call it democracy.

Mike Harris said it well when he spoke to the Toronto Home Builders' Association. He said: "Governments at all levels and of all political stripes have been undermining our economic and social welfare for years. Chronic overspending. Excessive taxation. Obsessive regulation. By trying to be all things to all people and catering to special interests, all we've done is thwart economic excellence."

Mr Villeneuve: A commonsense approach.

Ms Mason: Politicians already have too much power. Why else would they delegate authority to a CAO to approve contracts and agreements under procedure manuals and other special motions whenever they feel like being absent from meetings and cannot raise a bare quorum? That happens. Giving more power to a politician is like giving alcohol to an alcoholic.

My concerns with the Planning Act are several.

With regard to 12, minor variances: With the avenue of appeal removed, these could be subject to political misuse. I know of several instances where owners of small lots were denied a split-in-two of these lots, yet the purchaser almost immediately when he bought it got a three-lot split with the necessary minor variations. An appeal would allow the original land owner further consideration, removed from the politicians.

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On 14, giving municipalities rights to approve plans of subdivision would give too much responsibility without full accountability. Because of irresponsible growth and approvals of subdivisions, the residents of established areas are being pushed to the limit of their endurance and they are losing their so-called quality of life. We suffer the consequences of huge traffic increases through our residential areas because there is not and never was proper planning, and this proposed idea would not prevent this from going on and on. We suffer the costs of growth without control. We suffer the ever-increasing demands on our depleting financial resources.

Fast-tracking development is dangerous and not fair to the established areas. Reflect back to several years ago when the development industry laid claim to large tracts of land in parts of outer Toronto. They pushed the right buttons and got services in short order. Residents of established areas have paid over and over again for new developments beyond their needs.

New development must pay for new development. Established areas have paid for the past, now they must pay for the present and pay for the future. Enough is enough.

I have followed municipal and regional government. I have seen politicians and bureaucrats hide behind legislation. Legislation and regulations have pushed the common, ordinary taxpayer further and further away from politicians. This has resulted in frustration and despair.

I have several recommendations which would bring back government to the people who are paying for it.

No more legislation etc should be enacted until the public is fully aware of what is happening through the legislation we now have. Don't pile it on.

The committee should contact the Rossland, BC municipality -- maybe that's humbling for you, but I suggest you do it -- and obtain information from them on their system of giving power back to the people by way of referenda and anything else.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs should appoint a municipal affairs commissioner, similar to the Environmental Commissioner, to hear complaints from anyone who is not satisfied with the response from local politicians and bureaucrats. The poor taxpayer has no avenue of appeal.

They should enact a two-term limit for politicians, even forcible rotation of elected politicians, so that they do not get too familiar with certain interest groups.

I would like to see real open local government, and not more political determinism. Not from the top down; I'd like to see from the bottom up. There must be an attitude change towards the taxpayers. The government must demand it, like they did with the equity legislation. I'm sure if you can push equity legislation, you could push legislation that taxpayers are respected.

And, as Benjamin Franklin said -- I'll finish with him -- "Where complaining is a crime, hope becomes despair." It's in your hands whether we commit a crime when we speak out or whether we sink further into despair by being deprived of our rights through more power to the politicians.

The Acting Chair: Thank you for your presentation, Ms Mason.

Ms Mason: It may not be on your avenue, but these are things that are bugging a heck of a lot of us.

The Acting Chair: Yes, and I'm just going to ask the parliamentary assistant to explain a couple of points.

Mr Hayes: If I may, on your comments, you're talking about giving the municipal politicians more power --

Ms Mason: Under the Planning Act.

Mr Hayes: -- under the Planning Act. In fact, some of them have come and said that we're taking the power away from them.

Ms Mason: Well, how about giving it back to us?

Mr Hayes: Sometimes we're being criticized for making the policies and regulations and guidelines too stringent for them, and we think it's very important that they do have these policies and guidelines that they can follow for good planning.

The other part is, you talked about you're tired of all these in camera meetings. This legislation is putting a stop to those in camera meetings.

Ms Mason: No, you still have provision for a certain number of them, sir. There's a certain number.

Mr Hayes: Well, let's put it this way: There will be a heck of a lot less than there have been under the disclosure.

Ms Mason: Read the last page of my presentation. You'll see what I'm talking about.

Mr Hayes: All right. Obviously, we don't agree.

The Acting Chair: Again, I want to thank you for your presentation.

Ms Mason: Thank you, sir. I ran over time, did I? I'm sorry.

The Acting Chair: No, that's okay. Again, thank you very much.

Ms Mason: But I want you to think about getting the Minister of Municipal Affairs to get us some avenue of appeal. We're losing our right to the OMB. When Henry Stewart was there, he was very kind to people who wanted an appeal. He was very, very kind about things. But now we've lost our right. We're not going to have anything at all to go on. I think perhaps you could turn it around in our favour by having a commissioner of municipal affairs that we could go to.

CARLINGWOOD COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

The Acting Chair: I will call the Carlingwood Community Association, Mr Allan Gregory. You and your delegation have half an hour, sir. I will just advise you that you may leave some time for any questions that you may want to be asked by the committee. We understand that your assistant is Mr Henry McCandless.

Dr Allan Gregory: That's correct. Good afternoon. My name is Allan Gregory. I am the immediate past president of the Carlingwood Community Association. On behalf of the association, I would like to thank the committee for providing us with this opportunity to speak to you about Bill 163. Assisting me today is Mr Henry McCandless, who is president of the Centretown citizens' community association.

The Carlingwood Community Association is a duly constituted, unincorporated neighbourhood organization that is registered with both the city of Ottawa and the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. The association's area of representation consists of nearly 300 households. It presently forms part of Richmond ward and the provincial and federal ridings of Ottawa West.

It's a typical, active community association. Members of its executive are elected for one-year terms at an annual general meeting. All households within the association's boundaries receive timely notice of the meeting. The executive meets regularly on a monthly basis except through the summer. Its meetings are open to all residents of our area.

CCA is a member of two umbrella groups: the Carlingwood Action Committee, an umbrella group composed of local community organizations and residents, and the Federation of Citizens' Associations of Ottawa-Carleton, which I'll refer to as FCA hereafter.

Since its formation in 1986, CCA has been concerned primarily with planning and municipal matters. Some of our members participated in the region's official plan review in the late 1980s. More recently, the association was an active participant in the city of Ottawa's official plan review.

As in the case of our responses to the draft official plans prepared by our municipalities, we don't have the resources to prepare, or the time to present, a comprehensive response to Bill 163, so we're limited in this response to highlighting matters of special concern to us. Our interest in Bill 163, however, is not necessarily limited to those matters.

As a member group of the Federation of Citizens' Associations of Ottawa-Carleton, we are familiar with the FCA's brief -- I believe you heard it earlier today -- and we support that brief strongly. The FCA brief makes it clear that Bill 163 will perpetuate a number of serious inequities in existing planning processes. In our brief, we shall concentrate on two of those inequities after we declare our support for two key changes in the Planning Act.

We support section 4 of Bill 163. This section would add a new section to the Planning Act setting out its purposes. For citizens' groups and citizens, the most welcome purpose must surely be purpose clause (d), which reads: "to provide for planning processes that are fair by making them open, accessible, timely and efficient."

We also support subsection 6(2) of the bill, which would require the decisions made by planning authorities under the Planning Act and any other prescribed act to be consistent with provincial policy statements issued under subsection 3(1) of the act. We think the Ministry of Municipal Affairs has provided a sound rationale for this change in its consultation paper entitled A New Approach to Land Use Planning.

Turning now to the concept of intervenor funding, which is an issue we're very much concerned about, that concept permits a hearings board to order funding to be provided prior to a hearing to an intervenor representing a public interest that would not otherwise be represented, or adequately represented, before the board, when the representation of the public interest would help the board make a better decision.

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The Intervenor Funding Project Act authorizes a number of boards, but not the OMB, to award intervenor funding. Our long-standing position is that the unavailability of intervenor funding to citizen groups and citizens at the OMB is a serious inequity in the planning process.

In 1989, we joined other Ottawa West community groups in requesting the member for Ottawa West, Mr Bob Chiarelli, to introduce a private member's bill to remedy this situation. On December 14, 1989, Mr Chiarelli's bill, Bill 85, passed second reading unanimously and was referred to the committee of the whole House. We commend the report of the debate in Hansard to the committee, especially the contribution by Mr J.B. Nixon, the member for York Mills. Mr Nixon understood very clearly that intervenor funding is "about democracy and, more specifically, the right of the citizenry to be heard on public interest matters which affect a significant segment of the public." Unfortunately, a provincial election intervened and Mr Chiarelli's bill died on the order paper. He reintroduced it on December 20, 1990, as Bill 39. The bill received second reading approval on April 18, 1991, but apparently it also died on the order paper.

Consequently, we were very pleased when the Commission on Planning and Development Reform in Ontario, also known as the Sewell commission, recommended in its final report of June 1993 that the Planning Act be amended to permit the OMB to award intervenor funding. However, there is no provision in Bill 163 to amend the act in this way. We don't understand this omission, because the present government supported Mr Chiarelli's initiative when it formed the official opposition. A copy of the letter dated May 1, 1990, from the then official opposition House leader, Dave Cooke, to our association stating the NDP's support for the Chiarelli initiative is attached to our brief for the committee's information.

We submit that the omission from Bill 163 of a provision for amending the Planning Act to provide for intervenor funding is inconsistent with one of the new purposes proposed in the bill for the act; namely, to provide for planning processes that are fair. We ask this committee to see that such a provision is added to the bill. However, we think the provision of intervenor funding to citizen groups may only be a necessary condition for a successful outcome at the OMB for citizen groups. For reasons we shall now discuss, it may not be a sufficient condition.

After decisions have been made at the municipal level, the key dispute resolution mechanism is the OMB, an independent administrative tribunal. In its draft report of December 18, 1992, the Sewell commission wrote that the commission had "found broad support for the OMB and the role it plays as an independent arbiter and decision-maker." This statement is repeated in the commission's final report of June 1993.

Since our own experience with the OMB runs strongly counter to this assertion, we think the commission may have confined its inquiries to the main beneficiaries of the board's decisions, namely municipalities and developers, and to those professionals with a vested interest in the current role that the board plays. We doubt there is broad support in the province among citizen groups and ordinary citizens for the board. The commission also did not provide any evidence for its claim.

In looking for evidence in our limited capacity to do so, we found a little-known review by Bruce McKenna entitled "The OMB: Citizens as Losers," which was published in a book called the City Book in 1976. Mr McKenna states: "Reviewing the 135 cases involving citizens before the OMB in 1973, 10 leading principles which are constantly used to justify the OMB's decisions emerge. These, better than anything else, give an indication of the board's basic attitude towards development, planning and citizens' groups."

The leading principles identified by Mr McKenna included the following:

(1) Narrow the issue.

(2) Decide on technicalities.

(3) Reliance on experts.

(4) Faith in the good government of municipal councils.

(5) Hostility to citizen groups.

(6) Give developers and municipalities a second chance.

(7) Support for urban growth.

(8) A few must suffer.

(9) Selective reliance on official plans.

Further, although Mr McKenna found that the overall success rate of citizens was 40%, he also found, after breaking the cases down by their importance, that the success rate of citizens declined significantly as the importance of the case increased. Citizen groups lost all 11 major cases in which they participated.

Mr McKenna concluded that, "In spite of [the OMB's] semi-judicial atmosphere and its practices of taking evidence which seem to resemble an impartial court of law, it is performing the job of keeping citizens in their place," and that, "As for the province, the OMB seems a perfectly tuned policy institution. It gives angry citizens a second chance to fight when they lose, it gives them the appearance (though often not, as statistics indicate, the substance) of a fair and impartial hearing, and it siphons off anger and political energy that might otherwise be devoted to organizing local election campaigns or fighting for real local government reform. The citizens can be allowed to win quite a few small issues when no big interests are at stake, but not many big ones."

Even with some discounting, the author's findings and conclusions should have served as a wake-up call to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to monitor the OMB's decisions for fairness. We do not know of any evidence that this was ever done, but we think the ministry must have been aware of Mr McKenna's research. His findings and conclusions are now almost two decades old. We think it is reasonable to expect that the Sewell commission would have updated Mr McKenna's work by carrying out a similar review of the board's decisions of more recent years. In the absence of such a review, it is not clear what, if anything, has changed since 1973, or that the commission's apparent confidence in the board is wholly justified.

It is not even clear that the OMB enjoys broad support among developers. The Toronto Globe and Mail reported on October 19, 1993, that James Bullock, a former president and chief executive of Toronto-based developer Cadillac Fairview Corp Ltd, told the International Council of Shopping Centres convention in Toronto: "My vote would be to abolish the OMB as it relates to commercial real estate matters. It would not be missed." The Globe and Mail article goes on to say that warehouse clubs and other critics "argue that the OMB, where hearings can last for several months while legal bills quickly skyrocket, has become a costly bureaucratic nightmare."

Our own experience with the board arises from an important hearing on a regional shopping centre. The issues before the board included two regional official plan policies and a regional official plan amendment. There was ample evidence before the board of long-standing and widespread citizen-group and citizen support for the two policies and the amendment, which were approved or supported by both our city and regional councils. The board was also forced to hold three public sessions at schools in the community to accommodate the more than 100 people who came forward to present their sworn or affirmed testimony. Altogether we believe that 400 or 500 people attended the three public sessions in the schools in our community.

Members of this committee may be familiar with a little booklet published by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. Its title is Official Plans: A Citizen's Guide. The edition we have defines an official plan in part as "A policy document...based largely on input made by citizens through the public participation process." The relevant pages are attached to our brief for the committee's information.

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We entered the ministry's booklet as an exhibit at the hearing and emphasized the above statement to the board. Notwithstanding the clear voice of the citizens and the ministry's own assertions to citizens, the board found overwhelmingly in favour of the owners and operators of the shopping centre.

The board relied almost entirely on the testimony of the developers' experts as justification for its decision and, in doing so, effectively ignored the views of the citizen groups and citizens. We think some of the other leading principles identified by Mr McKenna in 1976 are also reflected in the board's decision on the issues and in its subsequent rulings on costs in favour of the developers.

We think it is reasonable for the public to expect this committee to bring about the needed review of OMB decisions of recent years involving citizen groups and citizens to ascertain whether the board's decisions still in general reflect the apparent mindset identified by Mr McKenna. We would also think the OMB's new chairperson would welcome such a review as a help to her task of giving the board its direction.

In a companion booklet to Bill 163 entitled Understanding Ontario's Planning Reform, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs suggests that the bill will empower municipalities by giving them greater local control over planning and the development process. It also states that Bill 163 "is based on the belief that planning the development of Ontario's cities, towns and rural areas can best be accomplished by the people who live there." If the minister truly believes this statement, then he should move to empower citizens, not just municipalities, and to reduce the OMB's power over the lives of the citizenry.

We think the minister should begin by instructing his officials to replace the definition of "official plan" they have proposed in subsection 3(1) of Bill 163 with the definition proposed by FCA. The FCA's proposed definition reads:

"`official plan' means a plan that is:

"(a) consistent with the purposes of this act," under the Planning Act, "under section 1.1 and the policy statements issued under subsection 3(1);

"(b) based largely on input made by citizens through the public participation process; and

"(c) approved by an approval authority under section 14.7, 17 or 19."

If the minister does not want official plans to be based largely on citizen input, he should declare that in the Legislature. We don't want other people in the province to be seriously misled into thinking they can have any real influence over how their communities develop through the official plans of their municipalities.

The other thing the minister can do is end the restriction on appeals of official plans beyond the OMB to matters of provincial interest identified by the minister. This restriction will be carried forward by subsection 19(10) of Bill 163. We submit that it is intolerable that citizens cannot take the decisions of the appointed members of the OMB on official plans to the elected ministers of the crown who are accountable to the people through the Legislature.

In conclusion, the Carlingwood Community Association acknowledges that in some ways Bill 163 is an important step forward, but we think it fails to address many of the inequities in existing planning processes. These will be perpetuated. Therefore, it is our submission that the amended Planning Act will not achieve one of its most important new purposes; that is, "to provide for planning processes that are fair by making them open, accessible, timely and efficient."

Mr Chairman, I don't know how you wish to proceed. My assistant would like to make some remarks too, but you might like to have some questions directed to me first. I'm not sure.

The Acting Chair: You have about nine minutes left and each party will get three minutes for questioning. You may choose to continue and then it will reduce the time for questions.

Dr Gregory: Well, I'd like my assistant to speak.

Mr Henry McCandless: I'll take only a couple of minutes or three. I just wanted to note one thing: that in the brief of the Federation of Citizens' Associations there was a recommendation for a clause in the Planning Act that reads, "All public bodies with responsibilities under this act shall report annually to the minister on the discharge of their responsibilities under the act."

What that does is it creates accountability reporting. I don't know -- I couldn't do this, because with the thing I paid $13.80 for, I don't see the old and the new. I can't tell whether in the Planning Act there's any decent description of accountability for anything. But the point about the FCA's submission is that it's public accountability. Reporting to the minister, we're assuming, is reporting publicly; that is, the minister tables with the Legislature. Or you could have it "shall report annually publicly" and then "through the Minister" is implied. But the point to stress there is it's public accountability.

We argue that it flows out of the notion that what accountability is in aid of is increasing our public trust in our public institutions, which all the polls and everybody says has nowhere to go but up. And we think it's reasonable to expect that in accountability there be a set of standards. I'll just cite five short ones. They are, by the way, in an article in the Canadian Parliamentary Review that I've lodged with the clerk -- I believe all MPPs get that journal -- April 1994.

It's reasonable, is it not, that those proposing actions that are going to affect the public in important ways state for that action who is going to benefit and how, and who is going to bear what costs? Those come from a Massey lecture by Dr Ursula Franklin, the question of, don't ask what are the costs of benefits; ask whose costs and whose benefits.

The second standard is that you have to state achievement objectives. You all know from your own estimates, and certainly federally, where each department has its own estimates called a part 3. They are largely descriptions of intended activity which are not statements of intended achievement or accomplishment, and without that you just get process for the sake of process.

The third standard is that you must ask the accountable to state their own performance standards, and we in Centretown are going to start doing this with the city of Ottawa now. We're going to say to each department -- for example, a legal department that can't close down an illegal operation that council has voted 100% closed -- "What would you say, Mr Legal Counsel, are your own performance standards for carrying out the council's wishes? How would you like to tell us that? Do you think it's unreasonable that we should ask you for that?"

That's the sort of thing. I mean, we are fed up being supplicators and going around beseeching. It doesn't matter, frankly, whether it's this committee or a planning committee in a city where citizens come to a microphone and supplicate. I think it is reasonable, since the citizens pay the salaries of all our elected representatives, that we have reasonable expectations of all our elected representatives at all levels of government. So that's where you get the performance standards, that you have an obligation to state what you think your own performance standards are, even for running the committee. Mr Anthony or whatever earlier, that makes me aghast.

The fourth standard is the obvious, natural one: State your actual results and the significant variance from intended results, the financial statements with reported variances, the classic example. But we don't have that in the public sector anywhere at any level of government.

The last point is really a new one, which is: State the learning that you gained from your efforts and how you applied it. That we don't have anywhere. I was brought up in British Columbia, and in 1952 we had the Wenner-Gren fiasco where a Swede came over and built a dam and left BC with $200 million or something and us holding the bag. And, what do you know, they repeated that exercise in Manitoba a dozen years later or something.

So governments don't learn from each other and organizations in government are not themselves learning organizations, even though I understand Management Board Secretariat is now launching an initiative in how to make the Ontario public service more of a learning organization.

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Those are five standards and I'll close with the idea of why public accountability is so powerful. If you ask me, as a chief executive officer of Ontario Hydro or any endeavour, to state publicly what I intend to achieve, I want to make a praiseworthy statement. You people who are elected to office know that better than I do. If you then ask me to report what I think I accomplished and I lie to you, Mr Erik Peters is going to find me out, our Provincial Auditor.

But if you don't ask me to state what I intend to achieve and the reasoning for the fairness side and you don't ask me to state my actual accomplishment, my performance, never mind financial statements -- the NCC has 14 pages of financial statements and does that help a citizen? If you don't ask me to account then I'm scot-free. If you ask me to account, then what I say can be validated by citizens' groups, by professional auditors, by a host of people and I will be found out if I mislead. The result of that is public loss of face for me and I don't want that. If there's one thing that's cross-cultural in the whole world, it's public loss of face.

But we've never simply asked for the accounting. Maybe staff would like to tell me how many times in the Planning Act, passed or proposed, the word "accountability" appears. I wrote to the Sewell commission and said, "You've got a chance to build in accountability here." I got an acknowledgement of the letter, but you don't see anything in that. They even wanted to have an accountable process. How can you hold a process to account? That's not a human being. So you're going to get that in the act; you're going to have an accountable process. That isn't even logical?

That's the pitch I want to make, that this committee can do some pioneering work and there is at least one department in British Columbia that is thinking of this very thing and most of you may know that the Provincial Auditor is keenly interested in the adequacy of accountability provisions in legislation. I will leave you with that and thank you very much for your time.

Mr Grandmaître: Mr Gregory, now that I know how you really feel about the OMB, if you were to receive intervenor funding would that change your mind?

Dr Gregory: I think, Mr Grandmaître, that's a necessary condition, as we indicated in our brief, but it's not a sufficient condition for citizens' groups to be more successful before the OMB. We think there has to be --

Mr Grandmaître: A change of attitude.

Dr Gregory: Yes, a change of attitude at the board, but I think the board has to be given some direction and I think this committee has the opportunity to do that by suggesting, picking up on proposals we have made for changes in the bill, such as making it very clear in the definition of an official plan that it is to be based largely on the input received from citizens during the public participation process. That little booklet, the edition that we cited and we filed with the board during a hearing, was the one that was issued when you were minister.

Mr Grandmaître: Yes. Thank you. Good booklet.

Mr Villeneuve: If we were to establish a hearing board, they may then become the culprits, as opposed to the OMB, because if they would not grant intervenor funding, then they would be fingered as: "Hey, you're in the pockets of someone or other." Who is this hearing board?

Dr Gregory: I understood from the Sewell recommendations that the OMB itself would be the body, the board that would hear applications and grant applications, so it would remain in the hands of the board, the OMB. There wouldn't be a separate hearing board, under Sewell's recommendations.

Ms Gigantes: I wanted to ask -- because there isn't much time for discussion, which I regret -- whether you've considered asking some of the existing students of political science at Carleton or at Ottawa U to do an update on the OMB review that you've looked at, because it does seem to me something of interest, both to the public and also it would be a good academic task.

Dr Gregory: We have considered that, but we think the ministry itself should take a look as well.

Ms Gigantes: It might be nice to have an outside observer doing it.

Dr Gregory: An independent review, yes; McKenna's was an independent review. But we think the ministry itself should be concerned with the matters we have brought before this committee.

The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. I think it is quite informative.

ALEX MUNTER

The Acting Chair: I call Councillor Alex Munter to the table.

Mr Alex Munter: It's a pleasure to be here and especially to have the opportunity, unaccustomed as I am to it, to have the last word. I've submitted -- I hesitate to call it a brief. It's two pages, but it's just a couple of points I would like to make.

I participated with many other people in Ontario in a number of workshops, meetings, consultations through the Sewell commission process, and I certainly support the direction that this bill takes us, the amendments it makes to the Planning Act, and I regret that many of the recommendations of the Sewell commission were not in fact included in the bill.

Most specifically, the three that I think would help the most in terms of streamlining the planning process in Ontario would be: the creation of a ministry of municipal affairs and planning, as had been recommended by Mr Sewell; an issue of great concern in areas like Kanata is allowing municipalities to regulate tree cutting, removal of vegetation and fill, changes to elevation on private property; and finally, the issue that was just discussed at some length here, intervenor funding to even the playing field.

The other issue that I believe is very important, coming from a municipality that is today twice the size and population that it was 10 years ago, was recommendation 7 of Mr Sewell's report, which wouldn't fit into legislation but I think is something the government should very seriously consider, which is the whole issue of cost-benefit analysis of new development.

We often find ourselves in the position in a suburban fast-growth area like Kanata that we are told we need the assessment dollars and we need the revenue that new development generates. The fact is, the reason we need it is because we have to pay the bills from the development from a few years before. So we get into a cycle, not to be too melodramatic about it, of dependency on development that requires us, and in many ways propels us, to approve proposals from the development industry because we are in need of the revenue because we have overextended ourselves.

The other element I'd like to comment on is schedule B of the legislation, and that's the Local Government Disclosure of Interest Act. I'm very delighted to see the legislation that is here today. I think, having spent the past three years getting to know many municipal politicians in Ontario, the vast overwhelming majority of local elected officials are people who are committed to their communities, who in fact sacrifice a great deal in terms of potential income, in terms of income, to serve their communities. Yet I also believe the public has the right to know and the public has the right to be protected from members of local councils and locally elected officials who cannot clearly see the distinction between their public role and their public responsibility and their private interests. I think both the public and those of us who work hard with integrity at the local level deserve the protection of clarity this legislation will provide.

One of the issues that certainly in my experience has been enormously frustrating for ratepayers who are concerned when a local official blurs the line between his or her private interest and their public responsibility is the fact that if they want to do anything about it, they've got to hire a lawyer and they've got to go to court. As a result of that, I think the legislation that currently exists is basically useless. It forces private individuals to resort to their own expense to enforce legislation that is intended for the public interest.

I think the establishment of a filing system and a public registry will proactively solve a lot of problems, because it will answer the public's questions before they have to be asked and, frankly, I think it will require those elected officials who might be otherwise inclined to be very rigorous in separating their business and public responsibilities.

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If I would have any suggestions to make in terms of improvement for schedule B of Bill 163, it would be, firstly, to require candidates upon registration for office to list their interests as opposed to only those who are elected, because I think the public, when it goes to the polls to elect its representatives, deserves that information about the people who are seeking the confidence of the electorate.

I would also say that the disclosure requirements for spouses and minor children are too narrow and that those should be broadened. There are a number of ways of doing it. I understand Councillor Cullen this morning was suggesting adult children and parents. Perhaps another way of addressing it would be all those residing in the same household. At any rate, I think that in 1994 limiting disclosure to spouse and minor children, in fact, does leave open some areas that this legislation is intended to close.

Those were the Friday afternoon pearls of wisdom and I'd be quite happy to answer any questions.

Mr Villeneuve: Mr Munter, thank you very much for taking time on a Friday afternoon to make your presentation.

We had an earlier presentation today from the Ottawa-Carleton Home Builders' Association who tell us that the costs in Ontario, as opposed to just over the river in the province of Quebec, are 30% to 40% higher development costs and therefore real estate and development are a lot more affordable on the Quebec side. From your presentation, I feel you would rather they go to Quebec than come here, because it's costing the taxpayers more money.

Mr Munter: I'm not sure I followed the question. Could you restate the question for me?

Mr Villeneuve: The question is: Because you're competing with the province of Quebec, and you said that in the area you represent you're having to go after more development to pay for past development and it's a vicious circle, you sound like you're losing on an ongoing basis. Do I read you right?

Mr Munter: What I would say is that what we need to do in the city of Kanata, where we have enough land for development for 20 years -- we have approximately 17,000 to 21,000 housing units approved, the equivalent thereof approved on vacant land -- we need to make better use of that land. We need to make more judicious decisions about the use of that land and we need to take into consideration the cost of the development in addition to the revenue it will bring.

My concern, having sat on Kanata council since 1991, is that the information we get at the council table is about the revenue from a development. There is no analysis and there is no information about the cost, and I think having the information about the cost would help us make better decisions.

There's no question, in the city of Kanata, which has a projected population of 100,000 -- one of the most rapidly growing municipalities in Ontario and will continue to be so. All I'm saying is that we need to perhaps be more judicious and more careful and have more information about how we make those decisions.

Mr Villeneuve: Are you a full-time politician, sir, or do you have another career?

Mr Munter: I work full-time for the citizens of Kanata, that's correct.

Mr Villeneuve: You would realize that in the area I very proudly represent -- 23 municipalities -- we have very few full-time politicians and I would suggest that their annual income from the business of politics would probably be in the area of 8% or 10% or 12% of what yours is.

Interjection.

Mr Munter: My income is $19,872 a year -- speaking of financial disclosure.

Ms Gigantes: We've had a lot of discussion before this committee and indeed in the work leading up to the drafting of the legislation about the disclosure guidelines and what the legislation would say, and there have been two schools of thought that oppose yours. One would say that if we ask all candidates to disclose before an election then we're going to be dealing with so many files that nobody will ever be able to sort through and make any sense of them. Another argument that has been used against the position you've taken is that it's not really fair to make somebody pay the cost, in public disclosure terms, if they don't win the election. Would you like to comment on that?

Mr Munter: My response to the first concern would be that my experience of at least the media in Ottawa-Carleton is that they certainly would have the resources to make sense of those financial disclosure statements. I don't see the burden in workload. The city clerk would open a file and would pop the forms in the file and that, certainly in my municipality, I think would be manageable; I think in most others as well.

On the issue of forcing candidates to face the music, surely someone who is seeking the public trust, someone who will, under this legislation, be required once elected to disclose financial information, would surely be prepared to do that before the election. I think underlying that statement is a suggestion that perhaps voters might ask some questions if they knew of candidates' business interests and as far as I'm concerned that would be just fine.

Mr Eddy: Thank you for your presentation. Just following up on the disclosure bit, we've had many people say that if you're going to require disclosure in the manner that it's proposed, then certainly candidates should do it also, to put them on an equal basis with the members who are already there and re-entering the race, so to speak. That's an important feature and I tend to agree with that if we're going to have what's proposed.

Coming back to your other points: The matter of tree cutting and vegetation removal and requiring fill of lands to go through some kind of process is important because what we've been told on many occasions is that people will buy land and, before submitting an application for development, they will remove what's on it and then leave it, in many cases, subject to erosion and a very bad situation. Certainly, at the very least, there should be permissive legislation on some of these things because some of the municipalities are asking for it, we've found.

I was very interested in your remarks about requiring a cost-benefit analysis of any new development. Here you're in a regional municipality. At the time the regions were formed it was for the fast-growing urban area so that regions were looked upon as becoming urban municipalities even though they included a lot of rural area.

My problem is with your concern about growth. I would imagine that all of the building that takes place provides accommodation. How do we provide for the population growth in any given area if we don't have growth? I would think most cost-benefit analyses would tend to show that it isn't cost --

Mr Munter: It would depend how you do it. Surely providing accommodation would be a benefit. If I could just clarify one thing: I don't think it would be feasible to have a cost-benefit analysis of every development proposal. But what there's an absolute dearth of at the moment is information, analysis, some kind of sense of cost and benefits that we could take into our decision-making. I think what it would produce is not prohibition of development in areas like Kanata, where we have hundreds and hundreds of acres of land that are zoned and official plan approved for urban development, I think what it would lead to might be better decisions about what kind of development on that land and it would simply, I think, empower municipalities and municipal councillors to make more judicious decisions.

Mr Eddy: What should happen and when it should happen.

Mr Munter: Yes.

Mr Eddy: Oh, I see, thank you.

The Acting Chair: Thank you very much. I think the ministry staff would like to make some comments.

Ms Forrest: I'd like to make some comments on your point about costs and benefits of development. The policy statements address that issue in several ways. First, the policies of goal B encourage development to be directed to existing builtup areas and settlement areas and encourage compact form and a mix of uses that efficiently use existing land and infrastructure.

In considering development in rural areas outside of settlement areas, the policies encourage municipalities to look at the long-term public costs of infrastructure and public services and public service facilities as part of their decision on those new development applications.

Further, in the housing policies, policy C5 encourages municipalities to use residential development standards that facilitate affordable housing in compact urban form in development and redevelopment. In fact, the ministry has issued a draft publication on alternative development standards.

Mr Munter: I would support all of those measures and what I would encourage the government to do is to empower municipalities with resources to carry those things out by doing research on dollars and cents for those items.

The Acting Chair: Thank you for your presentation. I'm sure it will be used in a most effective way.

Before we adjourn, I know this is the last part of the on-the-road mission here and I want to thank all the ministry staff and the legislative staff for all the support they are giving the committee while we're on the road.

Mr Hayes: And the PA.

The Acting Chair: And the parliamentary assistant in an afterthought, yes. We stand adjourned until 9 am on Monday, September 19, in Toronto.

The committee adjourned at 1802.