CONTENTS
Monday 26 September 1994
Planning and Municipal Statute Law Amendment Act, 1994, Bill 163, Mr Philip / Loi de 1994 modifiant des lois en ce qui concerne l'aménagement du territoire et les municipalités,
projet de loi 163, M. Philip
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)
*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
*Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)
Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Iles ND)
*Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Eddy, Ron (Brant-Haldimand L) for Mr Murphy
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L) for Mr Chiarelli
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Mr Malkowski
Johnson, David (Don Mills PC) for Mr Harnick
McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC) for Mr Tilson
Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND) for Mr Gary Wilson
White, Drummond (Durham Centre ND) for Mr Bisson
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND) for Ms Harrington
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Ministry of Municipal Affairs:
Hayes, Pat, parliamentary assistant to minister
Perron, Linda, solicitor, corporate resources management
Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna
Staff / Personnel: Mifsud, Lucinda, legislative counsel
The committee met at 1412 in committee room 2.
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 call the meeting to order. We're dealing with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 163. I think we're ready to deal with the amendments. Before that, I suspect there are some questions that people want to raise with respect to how we deal with today's proceedings.
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): I count 109 government motions. Is this the total package, or more to come?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Donna Bryce): If I could just comment on that, the 109 is total pages, not necessarily motions. That package that you have in front of you is a collated version of government, Liberal and PC motions, and I would estimate that's only about half of the total number of amendments. We're still photocopying. We've been photocopying since 12:30 this afternoon.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): So the question to this, then, is you're not ready yet with your total amendments.
The Chair: It's a matter of when we received the various amendments by all three parties here and whether or not we have had time to be able to put it all together.
Mr Grandmaître: Are all the government's amendments included in this package?
Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): Just one question: There are only one or two other amendments, I believe.
Ms Linda Perron: No, it would be more than that, because the total package is collated.
Mr Grandmaître: I realize this. I'm talking about the government motions. Is this the total package?
Ms Perron: No, there are more coming that will be integrated into the complete package.
Mr Curling: But they're not ready.
The Chair: The amendments are ready, but they're not part of this package.
Ms Perron: There might be a few that will be added during the week, but the bulk of the amendments are with the clerk's office.
Mr Grandmaître: It makes it difficult, Mr Chair, for our research people to look at a package that's not complete. That's the message I'm getting.
Ms Perron: Perhaps the clerk can tell us when the photocopying of what her office has will be completed. Will that be within the next hour or so?
Clerk of the Committee: I would hope so, yes.
Mr Grandmaître: You hope so?
The Chair: Just as a reminder, the clerk operates as efficiently as our members operate, so that had we had these amendments very early, we would have been able to put this whole package together for everybody in time. That didn't happen.
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): I find this rather odd. I've been around here for a year or two and I've been in many committees when we've dealt with resolutions and amendments and various bills. It's usually the ministry that's responsible when we're having hearings to make sure that the amendments are prepared in good time so that the opposition members can get the copies. Then they make their amendments based on what they feel has been left out by the government or any changes they feel they should make.
I've asked many times during the committee hearings if we could have a look at some of the amendments. I counted the amendments this morning. There are so far 102 government motions for amendment, totally unheard of in any piece of legislation I've ever been involved in. For us to come in here today and deal with these amendments clause by clause when the government hasn't got all its amendments in yet, I find totally unacceptable. I just don't know how you can proceed when you haven't got them in order. When you do bills, you start clause-by-clause from clause 1. You don't start at 5 or 10 and go back; you start at 1 and go forward.
I think you're going to adjourn for the rest of the afternoon and we'll have to go back and deal with them in an orderly fashion somehow. But the government has got to get its amendments in to us.
Mr Hayes: There are a couple of amendments, and of course when we met with the Liberal members this morning, we took those. We also took our amendments at 10:30 and gave them to the Conservatives.
One of the amendments deals with the city of Mississauga in regard to the parkland in lieu, and we have indicated that we certainly are going to take care of that. That will satisfy Mississauga and other municipalities. Another one deals with septic tanks. Of course everyone knows that's a tough one to deal with and that is being dealt with right now. Hopefully, we'll have an amendment for that particular one. That's being dealt with by cabinet, because that, as I think all the members know, is quite a controversial issue. We're hoping we can come up with a satisfactory amendment there. A third one deals with really technical matters, more housekeeping than anything, and those are the ones that will be coming forward.
I was going to request, Mr Chair, that at least we can deal with 10 to 20 items here today, because we do have the amendments to deal with those. It would give all three parties a chance to review them and make comments. After all, you can talk about 100 amendments or whatever, but we're not going to get through 100 amendments today. If we can get through even 10 to 20, I would suggest that we have an hour to deal with that, if the committee agrees.
The other thing is, if we're sitting here talking about taking another day, I don't know what that does for the mandate and the hours that this committee has. If this committee wants to agree that we meet until Thursday and finish up on Thursday and if it wants to adjourn for the whole day, then I think we can accommodate that.
The Chair: Can I propose that one of you make a motion to deal with how we proceed for today? Otherwise we'll simply be discussing it without any sense of what we're going to do. Does somebody have a motion?
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): I would move that we proceed with clause-by-clause and begin.
The Chair: That is a motion. Mr Hayes had proposed something rather different.
Mr Wiseman: I'll wait for Mr Hayes.
Mr Curling: I'll make the motion.
The Chair: Mr Wiseman, did you make a motion or did you withdraw it?
Mr Wiseman: I still want to make a couple of comments before I make any motion. I was on the list.
Mr Curling: No. You make a motion and then debate it.
The Chair: So you're withdrawing your motion, correct?
Mr Wiseman: Sure. I'll withdraw.
The Chair: Mr Curling, you have a motion?
Mr Curling: I would say that considering the government is not ready with its total amendments, we postpone until tomorrow or such time as they get themselves organized.
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The Chair: All right. Discussion on that motion?
Mr Hayes: Mr Chair, I don't think that is really fair in what the member is saying. We've had our amendments together. They were given to the clerk and the members had received them more than two hours prior to the meeting. What we're seeing here today is there are a couple of items that concern all members and which we're dealing with and we will come to satisfactory amendments I'm sure on these two particular issues.
I can't make a motion, but I would --
The Chair: No, that's the motion.
Mr Curling: Mr Chairman, what's the procedure? Is he speaking to my motion?
The Chair: He was speaking to yours. We will be voting on your motion first before we consider anything else. Mr McLean, do you have --
Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): Can we have --
The Chair: Hold on, Mr Perruzza. Mr McLean?
Mr McLean: I want to ask the parliamentary assistant what section of the act pertains to septic tanks.
The Chair: I'm sorry. We have a motion before us.
Mr Curling: I've put a motion forward. Will you allow me speak to it first?
Mr Hayes: No.
The Chair: Mr Curling, I thought you had spoken to it. Do you want to continue speaking to the motion? If so, please hold on until others have spoken and we'll come back to you.
Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): I'll speak to the motion.
Mr Curling: So I don't get a chance to speak.
The Chair: We'll come back.
Mr David Johnson: I don't know what the exact requirements are -- maybe it's hit and miss -- but the motion that Mr Curling has put forward is that we give the clerk's department an opportunity to get all of the motions in place. I sympathize with the clerk's department, because the motions are obviously coming from all quarters fast and furious and we just heard from the parliamentary assistant that the clerk is not even in possession of all the amendments that the government intends to put forward.
If we vote against Mr Curling's motion and proceed today, my guess is we're going to be proceeding in the absence of quite a number of the amendments and I don't think that's going to get this committee off to a good start. I know the government members are concerned about getting this through and dealing with 100 or so -- I don't know how many amendments we're going to end up with. If this is half, we're probably going to end up with over 200 amendments.
I would suggest that we'd be well advised today to make sure we have a complete list of all the amendments. Then the members will have an opportunity presumably to look at them tonight and get started tomorrow morning with everything in tow, so we're not coming back over things because amendments are coming back in -- the septic tank issue, for example, we don't have that amendment and we go back through it a second time. I think it's really imperative that we have all the motions. That's why I think Mr Curling's suggestion is a good one.
The Chair: Mr Perruzza, did you want to clarify something or have something clarified?
Mr Perruzza: The only clarification I wanted was, I know the suggestion is that we break for an hour and then come back, but --
The Chair: No, the motion before us is to adjourn for the day.
Mr Perruzza: Okay, but the opinion of the parliamentary assistant is that the suggestion may be, and obviously that's important for us in terms of direction, at least the government side, if we're going to get those amendments and they're going to be photocopied, then it's worthwhile coming back, but if we're not going to get them photocopied, please don't send us away for an hour and ask us to come back in an hour and say we're going to go away for another hour again, because that's problematic.
Mr Hayes: I've got a point I think would be helpful to the committee. The amendments that the government is going to be presenting that aren't here right now do not affect any piece of this legislation.
Interjections.
Mr Hayes: Hold on, hold on. Wait a minute. Let me finish, please. They don't affect any piece of this legislation until we get up to section 42 of the act, so if we had an hour -- I'm sorry, I don't want to --
The Chair: I understand that. That's one part of the whole procedural matter. Mr Perruzza was saying, are we likely to have all of the other amendments that are being photocopied ready if we break for 45 minutes from now to an hour? We think we might, so that's the other part. So there are two different issues. Mr Wiseman, on that motion.
Mr Wiseman: I'd like to make a couple of comments. It's not unusual, in all the hearings I've been in, to have amendments coming in later. Also, it's not unusual for amendments to be drafted right on the floor of the committee. When we were doing the Credit Unions and Caisses Populaires Act, we actually drafted amendments in response to all three parties, so it's not really a very good reason for us to adjourn this committee.
I believe that we have a lot of work that we can do on this bill as it stands. There's nothing unusual about having amendments coming throughout the process of a bill, so this is not a good reason to waste the efforts of this day and adjourn early. I would say that I would like to get on with this bill. Let's start and let's get moving through it.
It's also not unusual for a committee to decide to stand down clauses and come back, so for the opposition to be saying that they want to read through everything before they can go on, I don't know why they're saying that. I think we should just not waste the taxpayers' money and get going on this bill.
The Chair: Before I take other speakers, I just want to check to see whether the other half of the documentation is here. Ms Bryce, is that the other third or other half possibly?
Clerk of the Committee: The second half.
The Chair: Another half.
Clerk of the Committee: Both sets, right.
The Chair: I see. We now have in front of us the other half of the documentation that we were looking for. Knowing that, further discussion?
Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): Mr Chair, I want to thank you for allowing me to speak on this issue. Obviously we have a number of amendments that address concerns from all political parties and many of the groups that came before us. I think it's incumbent upon us as legislators to get on with our job. These are very expensive proceedings and for us to adjourn for the day when we have this mammoth task in front of us I don't think would be responsible.
We understand from the parliamentary assistant there's a substantial amount that could be accomplished before we get to any sections that would have to be stood down. The possibility of getting to section 42 this afternoon is probably somewhat hopeful in any case. I would suggest that we defeat the motion put forth and that we get on with the business we were elected to do.
Mr Curling: The reason I put this motion forward is exactly as to what's happening right now. Yes, you did see the Liberal Party to present some of your amendments, incomplete as they were, and understanding that some would follow, but when you arrived here today the government did not have the rest of the amendments. As you can see, this is even thicker than the one that we have before us, so there are a considerable amount of amendments.
When one speaks about wasting time, this committee starts at 2 o'clock and ends around 6 o'clock. I feel we can progress much quicker if we are organized, knowing exactly some of the amendments that we have had, if we can correlate them in a proper form.
I think sitting here trying to do this would be almost counterproductive, because we would not be able to follow this thing in sequence. I would say to you that it would be better for us to adjourn for today, and tomorrow morning when we start our committee, we'll start with something prepared and have some sort of structure to it.
The government is not ready. We know it's a large bill. Mr Wiseman and Mr White over there are saying that we have a herculean task before us. It's the process of ramming this omnibus bill through. We would like to see detail to detail, looking at each of these sections where the amendments are. It takes some time to digest these legal terms and to see that we don't duplicate them as we go along. I'm saying to you, let us get this thing together and tomorrow morning when we start we'll be in a better position to make sense of all of this.
The Chair: My sense is we're ready for the vote, but Mr Hayes, do you still want to speak to that motion?
Mr Hayes: Yes. All we're saying here is that we just want enough time to review what will be discussed today, and we want an hour to do that. That's why I cannot support the motion, because I think it would take an hour to do that. Then of course when the meeting adjourns today, it'll give staff and members time to review the rest of them prior to tomorrow's meeting.
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Mr Perruzza: If I could amend Mr Curling's motion, I would move an amendment that we shorten the time. If you're going to rule that out of order, then what I would do is --
The Chair: I would say that it would be contrary to and I would be asking for a new motion.
Mr Perruzza: Okay. So if his motion should lose, then I'd be ready to make a new motion.
The Chair: Very well. I think we're ready for the vote then. All in favour of Mr Curling's motion? Opposed? That is defeated. I'm prepared to accept other motions. Mr Perruzza.
Mr Perruzza: I move that we recess until 4 o'clock, at which time we come back and do the clause-by-clause.
The Chair: At 4 o'clock.
Mr Perruzza: It's an hour and a half.
The Chair: It's 2:30.
Mr Perruzza: Do you want to do 3:30?
The Chair: If that's your motion, we'll have a discussion.
Mr Perruzza: At 4 o'clock, yes.
The Chair: Okay. Discussion on that motion? Anyone? There's no discussion on this motion?
Mr McLean: I'd like to discuss this motion.
Mr Perruzza: Okay, 3:30.
The Chair: Mr Perruzza's recommending that we recess for one hour. Discussion on that motion?
Mr McLean: I would like to say that we don't know what's in these amendments. Are we going to sit here and go through these 200 and some pages of things to look at? Mr Curling's so right. As I suggested before the meeting, we should adjourn, go back to our caucuses and our staff and sit down and go through these things. I haven't had a chance to. You haven't. I don't know who has. The proper thing to do is just to go back and have a look at them. If you want to sit here, we can go on all afternoon and I'll guarantee you you'll get nothing done. You'll have nothing accomplished.
Mr Curling: May I ask a question to you, Mr Chairman? Have you seen his amendments before?
The Chair: No. But to answer the question, I recall the last meeting I chaired where I said to people, "Please hand in your amendments as early as possible in order to give us all an opportunity, the clerk primarily, to collate and to order these bills. That would give us enough time therefore to have all the documentation here and in advance to give the members an opportunity to read them." That didn't happen because different caucuses brought them at different times, not allowing us to do what some of you are saying we should have done. So without naming who delivered at what point, I say this so that you have that as background. But I haven't seen them, no.
Mr Curling: You're saying then you did not see them before. As the Chair, while you're trying to justify your position, I'm just saying you should have all the documents before you as the Chair in order to have proper proceedings going on. You said you did not see them before. We don't have the kind of staff that you have to get yourself organized and we're just basically asking, for the efficiency of the legislation, to allow us that time and you're saying, "Oh, you didn't bring yours in before" and all that.
The Chair: No, Mr Curling, I'm saying as the Chair that if the committee is prepared with this motion to move ahead, I as the Chair am ready to go ahead. If it's defeated, the Chair will go along with the committee's wishes.
Mr Curling: I didn't ask for your explanation at the time and I'm just responding to your explanation. You tell me the reason why and I'm saying the bottom line is we didn't have it. We're saying, for efficiency, allow us that time in order to get ourselves organized too. You are behaving like you're trying to deny this and then bring back democracy and say you'll go with what will happen in the vote.
The Chair: No, Mr Curling. There's a motion before us. That's what we're dealing with, not my feelings on the matter.
Mr Curling: You're the one explaining that. I'm speaking to the motion.
The Chair: You're asking me a question, however. Go ahead.
Mr Curling: I'm just saying to you that it is required of us, myself and my colleague, to get some time to get ourselves organized to prepare this and present it in the proper form.
The Chair: I understand that. Are we ready for the vote?
Mr David Johnson: Just a question, through you, Mr Chairman, or to you and maybe the clerk can assist. Do we now have all of the amendments before us in the two piles?
Clerk of the Committee: All the amendments that were filed with my office are in that pile.
Mr David Johnson: Are you aware from any source that there are other amendments that are coming that you do not have in your possession yet?
Clerk of the Committee: Other than the committee discussions, no.
Mr David Johnson: When you say the committee discussions, you mean --
The Chair: The comments made by Mr Hayes earlier on. Correct.
Mr David Johnson: Mr Hayes mentioned, I think, three areas. Are they now in this pile?
Mr Hayes: No.
Mr David Johnson: They're still not in the pile?
Mr Hayes: No, they're not.
Mr David Johnson: And they involve --
Mr Hayes: They're well beyond. They're way into the bill, like I said. None of those issues come up before 42. And I think, Mr Chair, in all fairness --
The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Hayes. Mr Johnson has the floor.
Mr Hayes: Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Mr David Johnson: Well, I guess the problem is, you know, we can say -- I'm just thinking of the hour. Will we have those amendments then, is the next question. Will we have those amendments by the end of the hour?
The Chair: Mr Hayes, that's a question directed to you and your staff.
Mr Hayes: No, we won't.
Mr David Johnson: We won't have those amendments. In that case, let me ask you this: When will we have those amendments?
Mr Hayes: You'll have those Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.
Mr David Johnson: Tuesday or Wednesday. So if we were to break until 4:00 or 4:30 as was the original motion --
The Chair: One hour was the motion.
Mr David Johnson: But the original motion that was put which was ignored, we wouldn't have them in that time frame, for example, if we waited a little longer?
Mr Hayes: No, you won't, and as I said earlier, Mr Chair, we won't get that far into this legislation to even deal with those motions.
Mr David Johnson: The problem with that, in looking at the motion that's before us, is that the parliamentary assistant has assured us that we won't get that far, but a lot of these motions and amendments are intertwined to some degree.
The Chair: This is true, although Mr Hayes makes the comment that those amendments do not necessarily link to any of the other amendments that we have before us. Is that correct?
Mr Hayes: That's right.
Mr David Johnson: And I would agree with what you've just said, do not necessarily link with that.
The Chair: Let me just ask the staff clearly. Do they link with any other amendment that is before us, what we may be receiving in a day or two? They stand on their own? Okay.
Mr David Johnson: Well, I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. We'll have to see.
I hear chuckles all the way around the room. Obviously there's different interpretations on whether they link or not, and I guess if the government's intent on blasting ahead, then we will find out. I'm still relatively new here yet, and it would seem to make common sense that you'd have all of the amendments so that when you're looking at the bill, you can look at them in the context of all of the amendments, but obviously that's not the case.
The Chair: I understand what you're saying. Mr Wiseman was correct. We've dealt with many bills in the past, and all of the members can confirm this, where not all of the amendments are before us. Yes, people will say it's deplorable, but it does happen regularly that there may be some amendments that are not before us, that are introduced later on.
Mr David Johnson: I understand, Mr Chairman, that situations come up from time to time -- I think Mr Wiseman referred to Bill 134, which is primarily dealing with the credit unions -- and there are things that come up which you have to deal with on the spot, and all three parties concur on that.
But in terms of knowing that amendments are coming forward, and having made up our minds, let's say, or the government having made up its mind that amendments are coming forward, would it not be practice that all the amendments would be here before we start? That's question number one.
Question number two is, is there any standard of conduct that governs committees, that speaks to when the amendments should be forward? Perhaps the clerk could assist us in that regard.
Clerk of the Committee: To answer your first question about amendments being in, the only requirement right now about amendments and when they're tabled in the standing order says that they may be submitted two hours prior to the meeting commencing, time permitting. So it's not a "shall," it's a "may."
Mr David Johnson: It's a "may." Okay, and that's the only governing feature?
Clerk of the Committee: That's right.
The Chair: Are we ready to vote on the motion? I'll call the question. All in favour of Mr Perruzza's motion -- at the time it was for 3:30 -- that we recess for an hour? Is that still the case? All in favour of that motion? Opposed? I think that motion is defeated.
Mr David Johnson: I move then, Mr Chairman, that we defer consideration -- how about we adjourn until 6 o'clock?
The Chair: You're moving an adjournment motion again.
Interjection: No, we'll be back at 6.
The Chair: We'll be back at 6. Can we have a serious motion before this committee, please? Mr McLean.
Mr McLean: I'll make a motion, Mr Chair, that this committee adjourn until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning in order that the members will have the opportunity to review the amendments that have been put on the table this afternoon.
The Chair: All right. This motion was much similar to what Mr Curling had proposed earlier. Let's have a discussion on it.
Mr White: Same motion.
Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): Let's just vote on it.
The Chair: I'm sorry. We don't have a sense of what we want to do, Mr White, so we need to have direction. There's a motion before us.
Mr Hayes: The maker of the motion and the other two parties agree that after they've had considerable length of time to review the amendments, all amendments, and of course that's really supposed to be in the essence of streamlining things and knowing fully what you're dealing with, they would work hard together and we would wrap this up on Thursday as our schedule is laid out.
Mr Curling: Is this a motion or a lecture?
Mr Hayes: No, no. You give the lectures. I never made a motion. I'm dealing with the motion, talking to the motion.
Mr Grandmaître: Shall we deal, Mr Chair, as with other bills, if we're supposed to adjourn on Thursday at 6 o'clock, that all remaining amendments are deemed to be passed?
The Chair: Ms Bryce, you can comment on that.
Clerk of the Committee: Anything that the committee does not finish within the parameters that the House leaders have authorized to meet, the committee will pick up when the House returns after October 31 at our regular meeting days of Monday and Tuesday.
Mr David Johnson: What is authorized at this point?
Clerk of the Committee: The committee has been authorized to meet until Thursday of this week.
Mr David Johnson: So that'd be Thursday at 6 o'clock.
The Chair: If we don't finish by Thursday, we'll resume when the Legislature sits again. Further discussion? Ready for the vote?
Mr Curling: Could I know what I'm voting on?
The Chair: We're voting for adjournment. All in favour of the motion? Opposed? This committee is adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1442.