RED TAPE REDUCTION ACT, 1998 LOI DE 1998 VISANT À RÉDUIRE LES FORMALITÉS ADMINISTRATIVES
ONTARIO PROFESSIONAL PLANNERS INSTITUTE
CONTENTS
Monday 19 October 1998
Red Tape Reduction Act, 1998, Bill 25, Mr Tsubouchi /
Loi de 1998 visant à réduire les formalités administratives,
projet de loi 25, M. Tsubouchi
Ontario Professional Planners Institute
Mr Ron Shishido
Mr Tony Usher
Union Gas
Mr Rick Birmingham
Ms Anne Demeter; Mr Charles Farrauto
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair / Président
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte PC)
Mr Dave Boushy (Sarnia PC)
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South / -Sud L)
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold ND)
Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge PC)
Mr Jerry J. Ouellette (Oshawa PC)
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming L)
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte PC)
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough PC)
Mr Bob Wood (London South / -Sud PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood L)
Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton North / -Nord PC)
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East / -Est ND)
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)
Clerk / Greffier
Mr Douglas Arnott
Staff / Personnel
Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1701 in room 228.
RED TAPE REDUCTION ACT, 1998 LOI DE 1998 VISANT À RÉDUIRE LES FORMALITÉS ADMINISTRATIVES
Consideration of Bill 25, An Act to reduce red tape by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts / Projet de loi 25, Loi visant à réduire les formalités administratives en modifiant ou abrogeant certaines lois et en édictant deux nouvelles lois.
ONTARIO PROFESSIONAL PLANNERS INSTITUTE
The Vice-Chair (Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins): Ladies and gentlemen, if you will come to order, the committee is now open to accept presentations. The first presentation will be made by the Ontario Professional Planners Institute. Welcome to the hearings. You have 15 minutes, and you may use any portion of it that you'd like for your presentation. If there's any time left, we'll divide it equally among the three parties.
Mr Ron Shishido: My name is Ron Shishido. I'm the president of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute. With me is Tony Usher.
We represent more than 2,200 practising planners across the province. Through our affiliation with the Canadian Institute of Planners, we have the ability to speak with one voice on matters of importance to the planning profession across Canada. Our members work in both the public and private sectors, and practise in areas ranging from community planning and design, to land use, socio-economic, environmental planning and assessment and, of importance to today's proceedings, natural resource planning and management.
Over the years, our institute has worked co-operatively with the Ministry of Natural Resources on public policy matters as well as education and training initiatives. It is in that spirit of co-operation that we're here today to present our brief.
Mr Usher chairs our natural resources working group, which prepared the position paper for council. Tony will highlight the key points in the brief, and then we'll respond to any questions.
Mr Tony Usher: First, I should clarify that our interest in Bill 25 is limited to schedule I, which pertains, as you know, to the Ministry of Natural Resources. Consistent with our previous submissions to MNR on red tape reduction, our institute supports the government's efforts to update and simplify Ontario's statutes and regulations.
However, the institute has concerns about the proposed amendments to the Public Lands Act, which as you know take up sections 48 to 59 of schedule I. Sections 48 and 50 to 59 are red tape reduction amendments to which we have no objection. Our specific concerns are with section 49, which introduces a new process for land use planning on crown land, 87% of our province. We have no concern with any of the proposed amendments to other MNR statutes.
As I believe the committee would know, the Ministry of Natural Resources undertook a planning system review from 1992 to 1995. This provided much of the impetus for the amendments to the Public Lands Act that are in section 49. Our institute was involved throughout, and we made three submissions to the MNR. Then, in 1996, we were invited to participate in the MNR red tape review. We made two submissions. Our second submission was a response to the first reading of Bill 119, which was largely similar to schedule I of the present bill.
We have also been an active contributor to MNR's Lands for Life planning program, as an advocate of an open, inclusive, sound and transparent planning process. Our comments to you today reflect our participation in and contribution to these initiatives, and the positions we have consistently articulated to MNR over the last six years.
It has long been our view that the Public Lands Act is one of the keystone pieces of planning legislation in Ontario, along with the Planning Act and the Environmental Assessment Act. Our specific recommendations and positions on the Public Lands Act amendments are as follows:
(1) We congratulate the government on proposing to replace the completely outdated and inadequate section 12 of the Public Lands Act with new sections intended to provide a proper legislative mandate for planning the seven-eighths of our province that is crown land.
(2) We believe that the Public Lands Act needs a purpose or mandate statement for public lands planning. This was recommended by MNR's planning system review and we endorsed that recommendation, but it is not in Bill 25. MNR's other major land planning statutes have purpose statements, as of course does the Planning Act itself.
(3) We believe that the Public Lands Act should require that before the Minister of Natural Resources approves or amends the land use planning guidelines referred to in the amendments, the minister will cause the guidelines or amendments to be made available in draft form and consult as she or he considers appropriate.
The land use planning guidelines will be an extremely important statement of policy and practice for planning in Ontario. Although much of what will be in the guidelines is prescribed by law in the province's other key planning statutes, OPPI can accept the guidelines approach in this case, provided there is at least a guarantee of consultation on the guidelines similar to that which is required for provincial policy statements under the Planning Act.
(4) We believe that the Public Lands Act should require that before the minister approves any land use plan, he or she will consult with any municipalities, planning boards and Indian band governments that are in or adjacent to the planning area. We agree with MNR that details of public involvement processes can be left to the land use planning manual. But we have repeatedly expressed concerns over the years that MNR does not adequately address the role of municipalities as planning partners, and we believe that a basic legislated commitment to consultation with local planning authorities before plans are approved is essential.
(5) We are pleased to see the addition of a new section, 12.2(4), which requires the minister to give notice of intent to approve or amend a plan. This is an improvement on Bill 119, which we advocated.
(6) Our institute has consistently argued that planning on public lands must be subject to an appeal process that is independent of MNR and, equally important, perceived to be independent. We believe that the objection process set out in the proposed section 12.3 does not go nearly far enough in this direction, and we believe that process will be seriously lacking in credibility.
In advocating an independent appeal process, OPPI agrees with MNR's planning system review that any process must be timely and efficient, and that appeals must be clearly limited to public land and resource planning, not to other matters.
Nevertheless, we believe that the Public Lands Act should provide for clearly defined rights of appeal to an existing or new appeal body that does four things: first, operates according to procedures prescribed by regulation; second, is appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council on the advice of the minister; third, is empowered to hold joint hearings with other boards; and fourth, is empowered to promote alternative dispute resolution.
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The Ontario Municipal Board is an excellent model for what we are talking about and it could serve as an appeal body for the Public Lands Act, as it currently does for the Aggregate Resources Act, another MNR statute. However, many other equally valid and potentially more modest alternatives are also available. Our institute would be very pleased to work with MNR to consider and evaluate the available alternatives.
On this matter of appeal, I'd just like to make the comment that we as planners believe that an independent, credible and formal appeal process will be used, but only in a very small minority of cases. We also believe that in the vast majority of cases where there are disagreements, having that process in place may be an incentive for the parties to settle their own affairs without resorting to that appeal process, and to do so more expeditiously than at present, and with greater confidence and certainty in the results.
We also understand that Bill 25 will not apply to the regional strategies or plans that result from the forthcoming recommendations of the Lands for Life round tables, which have been at work over the last year and a half. We appreciate that most of the planning and public consultation in this regional planning process have already taken place. However, if the regional strategies are not considered plans for purposes of the amendments before you, then they will not be subject to any appeal process, now or in the future, even to the limited objection process that is proposed in section 12.3.
(7) Our final point is that we are somewhat surprised that a bill about red tape reduction does not address the overlap that exists between section 13 of the Public Lands Act and section 47 of the Planning Act, with respect to land use controls on private lands in unorganized areas. Both sections provide overlapping powers.
Those are our key points, Mr Chair and members of the committee, and we elaborate on these a bit more in our brief.
To conclude: Introduced amid a wide variety of red tape reduction measures, section 49 of schedule I provides for the first time a clear legislative basis for planning in seven-eighths of Ontario. We congratulate the government on proceeding with this long-overdue initiative. It's an initiative that's so important that the government and the Legislature should not fail to give it the attention it deserves, and to get it right.
To that end, the Ontario Professional Planners Institute is prepared to offer any assistance it can to the further improvement of these important proposals. We thank you for your time, and we wish you the best in your deliberations.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. That leaves us approximately one minute per caucus.
Ms Shelley Martel (Sudbury East): Thank you for coming today. I would like to ask a question about point 7, where you say the bill doesn't address overlap issues on private lands in unorganized areas. Can you give the committee some idea of what those areas of overlap are?
Mr Usher: I don't want to get into too many technical details, Ms Martel, but basically both sections provide a power to regulate and zone land use on private lands in areas outside municipalities. In the Planning Act it's under the general powers that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has in that regard, to issue orders for lands in Ontario. In the case of the Public Lands Act it's a special power that applies just in those situations. I think that's the brief answer.
Ms Martel: You talked about an independent appeal process. Did MNR's planning system review advocate a particular appeal process?
Mr Usher: I would have to go back and look, but the process that the planning system review advocated was generically similar to what's in the bill. For example, they did not advocate the kind of thing we're advocating, and then the bill is different.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): Thank you very much for your presentation. On page 2 of your presentation, point 4, you talk about the minister consulting before approving any land use plan. Then in number 5 you say that you're pleased to see the addition requiring the minister to give notice of intent to approve or amend a plan.
It seems to me that by posting that notice of intent to approve or amend a plan, the minister is doing exactly what you want him to do by consulting with anybody who is particularly interested. Could you comment on that?
Mr Usher: I appreciate your point. It is arguable that it may depend on how these things are defined in the land use planning guidelines. All the legislation says is that the minister must give notice. It doesn't say how notice is to be given, what it will constitute or anything else.
I would regard a difference between notice, which may be given on the environmental registry or whatever and is not a very proactive kind of notice -- it's available to anybody who wants to avail themselves of it, but you have to be monitoring it. You have to check the Web site or look in the newspaper or whatever. I think that's a little different from the example we give in the Planning Act, where the Minister of Municipal Affairs is directed to consult proactively with every municipality in Ontario regarding a proposed policy statement. I think we're talking about wanting to see something more proactive, that municipalities can benchmark the government's actions against, that says, "The minister shall consult with the following." That doesn't mean that the minister has to agree with what they say, and we're not questioning the final authority of the minister to approve the plan.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. Your time has expired. We appreciate your presentation to the committee.
UNION GAS
The Vice-Chair: I call on the next presenter, Union Gas.
Mr Rick Birmingham: My name is Rick Birmingham. I am the vice-president of regulatory affairs for Union Gas.
I want to begin by stating that Union supports the changes to the Ontario Energy Board Act, specifically section 19 of that act, which are incorporated in Bill 25.
Union Gas is in the business of storing, transmitting and distributing natural gas. Our distribution network is through northern Ontario, running roughly from Orillia in the south, up through Timmins and west to Kenora. It encompasses eastern Ontario, including the towns of Belleville, Cornwall and Kingston, and also southwestern Ontario, running from Windsor to Oakville and north towards the Bruce Peninsula, to Owen Sound.
We also transport natural gas for a number of other participants in the energy market, primarily those who want to transport gas and/or sell it in other parts of Ontario, like Consumers' Gas, Quebec and the central and northeastern United States. In fact, most of the gas we transmit on our system is for those markets. The gas that travels across our system is greater than the gas we actually distribute in our areas. At some point most of the gas produced in Alberta travels across Union Gas's system. Union Gas also owns the largest natural gas storage facilities in Canada, and those are located near Sarnia. Union Gas is a wholly owned subsidiary of Westcoast Energy, a leading North American energy company.
Significant changes are going on in the energy market in Ontario. There are new, more sophisticated entrants coming into our market and beginning to offer the end-use consumer a variety of energy-related products and services.
There is also new competition for what we used to view as the utility's traditional business. In that respect, we see that our role is changing. And despite the fact that we have had a very high profile with the end-use gas customer in Ontario, we see ourselves becoming more of a wholesaler.
With that kind of backdrop, we know that we need to make some changes. One of those changes is that we have recently received approval from the Ontario Energy Board to transfer all of our merchandise-related programs to one of our unregulated affiliated companies, and that is going to create a significantly different role for us.
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Another part of that significant change, we believe, is some type of reform of the regulatory framework that governs gas utilities in Ontario. We think that's necessary because the current process can't meet the flexibility and time limits our customers are demanding of us.
Currently, our rates are set by the Ontario Energy Board under what's known as cost-of-service regulation. That means that every time we want to change our rates or the terms and conditions of those rates, we have to apply to the Ontario Energy Board and participate in a public hearing. Basically that type of regulation has been in place in Ontario for roughly the last 40 years.
The hearing process involves a detailed examination of the forecast for a given year. That forecast would include our revenues, our cost to operate and the capital spending on projects we anticipate putting in place. Then we take all those costs and revenues and allocate them to different groups of customers. Once we allocate all those costs, we design rates around them. As a customer, you can't possibly look at our forecast and know what that means to your rates.
Also the public hearing process typically lasts about a year from the time we file an application and send in evidence, go through the hearing process and ultimately receive a decision and an order from the Ontario Energy Board. It also requires the provision of a lot of information that we wouldn't typically generate in order to run our business.
The process, on an incremental basis, can run over $1 million annually and, if you include internal costs, can well exceed $10 million, and that represents about 5% of our operating costs. So it's a significant amount for us.
If Ontario is serious about creating a competitive energy industry and becoming a type of magnet for energy transactions, then we don't think that's the appropriate regulatory process. We would prefer to direct our resources and our employees to serving customers better, and find a better way to achieve the objectives of regulation.
The government is going to pass some legislation this fall under Bill 35 to consider different ways of regulating utilities. That will include Ontario Hydro, some of the municipal electric utilities and gas utilities as well. The government has said in a number of instances that they are committed to a lighter-handed form of regulation, and we think that regulatory symmetry in that regard is important because of the competitive nature of the business. We think the time is right for change.
The type of change we're talking about is often referred to as performance-based regulation or PBR. It's used to describe a set of incentive-based tools that can be applied to determine rates, and really focuses on the outcome of the utility's activities rather than looking at the costs of those activities. You're focusing on the quality of the result rather than on the ingredients that go towards generating that result.
A properly designed PBR system rewards both customers and the company for improvements in productivity, service quality and innovation. More importantly, they are typically set for a longer period of time; for instance, three to five years. That allows customers to know the implications of the rates that are going to be charged to them. They'll know what the rates look like for a three- or five-year period, and that allows them to incorporate those into their financial planning cycles.
PBR also generally results in fewer reviews before the regulator. We think that will help the OEB in that they're going to be taking on the electric side of the business, and will relieve some of the regulatory burden associated with the gas side of the energy business.
In short, we think PBR and a different form of regulation can give the utility the same type of business model that most of its customers have; that is, a competitive approach to doing business.
In summary, we think alternative forms of regulation, including performance-based regulation, represent important tools that would allow our company to better compete in this rapidly changing market and better serve our customers. Union Gas certainly supports your efforts to amend section 19 of the Ontario Energy Board Act as expressed in Bill 25.
I'd like to thank you for offering us the opportunity to make comments to your committee and, time permitting, I'd be pleased to answer questions.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. That gives us a couple of minutes per caucus. We'll start with the third party.
Ms Martel: Thank you for coming today. Can you tell me where performance-based regulation is used?
Mr Birmingham: Under the broad umbrella of performance-based regulation there is what's called incentive regulation. You can target certain costs, set a threshold for those costs, and to the extent that the company can beat those, the company is rewarded.
There are broader-based ones; for instance, a price cap where you simply set prices based on a formula. The former types, though, the targeted incentives, are being used primarily across Canada. BC Gas, in British Columbia, has one. Consumers Gas' currently has a proposal before the Ontario Energy Board. There are other examples through the US.
There have recently been examples of the broader-based form of performance regulation -- that is, setting prices by formula -- in Alberta and in several US jurisdictions. In fact, in the US we're starting to see the second generation of performance-based regulation. So it isn't really new ground that we're breaking, but it's certainly new ground in terms of being an Ontario approach.
Ms Martel: Is it in place in a number of states?
Mr Birmingham: Yes.
Ms Martel: You said we're seeing a second generation, so I'm assuming --
Mr Birmingham: A number of US jurisdictions made a type of performance-based regulation proposal, say, four years ago, and the term of those agreements was four years. So now they're making their second round of performance-based regulation proposals to their regulators.
The Vice-Chair: To the government now.
Mrs Ross: Following up on Ms Martel's questions, I'm still a little confused about performance-based regulation. What exactly does that mean to me as a consumer?
Mr Birmingham: I can give you an example. One type of performance-based regulation is known as a price cap. Let's say the rate we're charging you right now is $100. What we might say is: "We have a number of things that cause the costs in our business to increase: inflation, investing in new systems, maintaining the plant and the utility, all the pipes and compressor stations that are used to deliver gas. All other things being equal, that might cause our rates to go up, say, 3%." Then we make a commitment to productivity, to more efficient operations. Let's say that's a reduction of 1%. So the way you'd set your rate is simply to say: "It's $100 now. Next year I'm going to take your $100 and increase it by 3% for the things that drive rates up. I'm going to make a commitment to productivity that would be 1%. We're going to increase your $100 rate by 2% net. So now your rate is $102. End of story, that's what we charge you."
That compares to the process now where we would file a forecast of all the different revenue streams we have from customers, all our different costs, all our different capital projects, and then go through a very detailed examination through a public hearing process to set rates. It isn't possible, as an end-use consumer, to take a look at the evidence we file in the public hearing and determine what it means to your rate if our costs go up by 3%. This will directly link the utility's activities and the rates that are charged to customers in the eyes of the end-use consumer. It will also be a lot cheaper.
Mrs Ross: You say in your brief that it will result in fewer reviews before the OEB. Are you basing that comment on other jurisdictions such as the United States?
Mr Birmingham: Yes.
The Vice-Chair: To the opposition.
Mr Mike Colle (Oakwood): Mr Birmingham, you mentioned that significant changes are occurring in the energy market in Ontario. One change that the general public is very upset about is door-to-door solicitation by gas brokers that takes place, basically signing up people supposedly to a new contract for life with a new gas delivery agent, which may not even be an actual company but just a shell company. What is your company's position on these door-to-door gas broker scam artists?
Mr Birmingham: I guess our experience has been that most of them aren't disreputable. Most of them are legitimate companies that are buying gas in Alberta and want to resell it in Ontario to end-use customers.
We have also been very much concerned about the end-use consumer, and we have supported the government's efforts to license brokers and to require licensing to operate in Ontario. We understand that Bill 35 is going to give the Ontario Energy Board that authority, and we think that goes a long way toward making sure that a minimum standard of behaviour is met in Ontario.
The other thing we do is known as third-party verification. When a customer signs up with one of those brokers, we take the contract and send it to a third party and they actually contact the customer directly to verify that they have signed the contract, that they understand the terms of the contract, that they understand the date when that contract will come into place. If the customer agrees, then we process the contract and they now have an agent who can buy their gas for them. If they disagree, then the contract goes back to the broker and the contract is not executed until the broker has an opportunity to resolve the conflict.
Mr Colle: What if someone has unknowingly signed one of these contracts? I've had an ongoing case for two years; we finally have some success, no thanks to the government. Could you basically disallow that contract, and what role do you play in that? For instance, they've signed up with one of these brokers and the broker they signed up with sold their contract to someone else who then sold it to someone else. Does your company have any role in saying, "Listen, we will not recognize that contract"?
Mr Birmingham: After the contract has been verified, if there is some sort of commercial arrangement made between brokers to assign the contract note, we aren't involved in that transaction.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
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ANNE DEMETER
CHARLES FARRAUTO
The Vice-Chair: I call the next presenter, Anne Demeter. Anne, you have 15 minutes to use as you see fit.
Ms Anne Demeter: Mr Chairman and members, I'm Anne Demeter, from Sarnia, Ontario. I'll skip the introduction because I have a copy for each of you.
I refer to the throne speech, April 23, 1998, and I speak of the social services or lack thereof, and this is ironic because ministers Tsubouchi and Ecker have been the most generous with their time and assistance. However, a minister is only one against the many deputy ministers, most of whom are overpaid and overrated. Remember, it is the Tom Longs and company who are running this province.
In the throne speech, an 18-year-old youth from St. Catharines, Daryl Whitehead, had written to find out whether there would be a good job for him when he finished school. The reply, which got the longest and most thunderous applause, was a pledge from the government to fulfil his every dream.
This hypocrisy compelled me to write the Lieutenant Governor to tell her about another 18-year-old from St Catharines. Unlike Daryl, he is disabled with a heart condition -- five open-heart surgeries since he was two months old. Despite this he is working on his last year of high school. Jack Carroll, parliamentary assistant to minister Ecker, promised him and everyone else that those who had been assessed and were receiving assistance as children would automatically be put on adult status. I taped Carroll. This boy's name is Matthew Demeter. He's my grandson. However, his 18th birthday present from the government was to be thrown to the wolves and denied any further assistance.
Now I ask each of you to ask Carroll, in the House or out, why he misled staff by telling them that we had appeared before something he called the social assistance tribunal. Where are they located, and when did we appear before them? It's totally untrue. I give you permission to use any of the enclosed information and do it for Matt and all the others.
There is just one short piece here. I refer you to Hansard, August 29, 1997. Frances Lankin, speaking on Bill 149, decimates the ruling that one director has the power to say who will or will not be helped. She goes on to speak about Carroll and his sharp ways of using half-quotes which distort the truth, and she called it unfair debating.
The next three years are crucial for Matthew. His talents lie in the cerebral, but he needs the polishing up that university can give him. At 18, everything costs more: shoes, clothes, transportation, tickets to a concert. I want him to receive retroactively the money he should have had since March 1997, so he can become a contributing member of society. Do it for the kids. Thank you.
The Vice-Chair: Is that your presentation in its entirety? We'll split the time up, then, with approximately five minutes to a side and we'll start with the government side. Any questions from the government side?
Ms Demeter: Were there any questions?
OK, my friend Mr Farrauto is going to carry on.
The Vice-Chair: Any questions from the government side? Mr Boushy?
Mr Dave Boushy (Sarnia): Being from Sarnia, I just want to welcome you to the committee --
Ms Martel: The submission's not finished.
The Vice-Chair: The submission is not completed. I'm sorry.
Mr Charles Farrauto: Anne Demeter wanted me to contribute to her submission to this committee. My name is Charles Farrauto. I am president of Kids Need Both Parents in Hamilton.
When I entered family matters in 1990, I was earning in excess of $100,000 per year consistently. I bought and sold goods and services of all kinds, paid lots of taxes and was a very proud Canadian. I no longer earn any income. I pay no taxes and I've lost all incentive and motivation to do so, due to the system now in place for dealing with family breakdown.
In 1994, I was charged with and prosecuted for sexually abusing my daughter in the midst of a heated and ongoing custody-and-access matter. I've been cleared of any wrongdoing in that matter.
Today, four years later, I remain embroiled at both the Attorney General's office and the community and social services ministry to have them openly address their part in the affair.
To date, submissions made to the Attorney General, to the panel of experts on child abuse and to the joint Senate-House committee on custody and access appear to have fallen on deaf ears at all levels.
I also have a complaint at the Law Society of Upper Canada, three years running now, regarding one of their members who, while dating my daughter's mother, played a major role in the false allegation of sexual abuse against me. Their unwillingness to even consider that one of their members could have done wrong is evident in all their attention given to the matter at every step of the complaint process, from the bottom up and from the top down, even with hard evidence to the contrary. The message is simple: I am expected to just go away.
For the tax-paying citizens of Ontario, the message is also clear: If you want to bend the ear of your elected official, the only thing that might work at getting their attention is to file a law suit.
Few citizens have the resources or the tenacity to get their money's worth from their government, and that is common knowledge. Canadians are a tolerant people. It's their reputation that they are tolerant. For you to know of these issues and do nothing is indeed a breach of the public's trust, and if one has to go to court over these issues from a disadvantaged position, it is malicious prosecution.
I do have that. I have the tenacity and the determination for societal and personal reasons.
Why is it that in a free and democratic society, the only way the government will address legitimate issues is at the threat of a law suit? I bring to your attention the Dionne quintuplets.
Why any citizen should have to resort to such measures in a free and democratic society to receive what are their rights before the Constitution and everything this country stands for, defies all good sense and is an insult.
With all the studies to show that false allegations occur, and in fact are rampant in family courts -- see the Civil Justice Review, March 1995 -- how could ignoring that expensive information be anything less than bad faith and malicious prosecution when a family is brought before a court to determine the fate of their children?
As a justice committee it is your obligation to locate the Civil Justice Review, dust it off, and look at the section on family law and family matters before you make any decision on your work here. To do anything less would indeed show bad faith.
I make this comment directly for the Attorney General. He has not wasted one bit of correspondence with me over the entire time he has been in office, despite numerous attempts by me and others to address the failure of his ministry to answer for the problems in family courts. All that his underlings have provided me with to date is nothing more than: "Sorry about your luck, son. Try knocking on someone else's door."
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An argument against there being any problems in family matters is that only a small percentage of families end up in courts and most are resolved between the parties. If that is so, then how would this government account for the billions of dollars spent each year on the administration of justice regarding family matters? Add to that the cost to a family, both financially and emotionally, when they are forced to duke it out in the courtrooms.
No attention by any government, to my knowledge, has taken into account the diminished state of a parent, once these parents, both mothers and fathers, are embroiled in a gut-wrenching custody-and-access matter; nor is the quality of life they provide for their children when making policy decisions.
My child has been put through multiple investigations over her alleged abuse, and no one has yet taken accountability for that abuse, which is ongoing. She is failing in her work at school. Her mother is planning a life in West Virginia with her latest Internet beau; this one, after those in New York, England, Australia and God knows where else, this after four failed marriages, no less than two abortions and her lawyer lover who is now before the law society. My daughter has been left in a number of compromising situations. The children's aid society is aware of this and many other legitimate concerns and, to this date, they have no concern whatever for her welfare.
Not one of the participants involved in trying to help my family can find anything amiss. The best the CAS could do is throw gasoline on a smouldering fire, not once or twice but three times now, and then bury their heads in bureaucratic sand. No one is willing to take responsibility for how my child is being treated and, despite my efforts, eventually the stakeholders who have a financial interest in my child's best interests are going to tell me that it's my fault that my daughter is in this predicament.
For these participants to even consider the possibility that any of them could be wrong or that they are not working at a high enough degree of performance is in itself a breach of trust. And if they could admit wrong, we are faced with the fact that negligence to the point of death is OK as long as there is no bad faith -- see the coroners' reports on child deaths where the CAS is involved.
If my family matter were an isolated incident, I might adopt the attitude that many have, including government, that bad things sometimes happen to good people. I cannot accept this. These types of circumstances and the government's response to these issues, some as bad and some worse, have been playing themselves out thousands of times each year from what I have seen at Kids Need Both Parents over the seven years I have been involved with the organization. There's no shortage of horror stories.
My submissions to you today are:
(1) To consider that what I say has merit.
(2) To do nothing is a breach of the public's trust.
(3) That the money spent on social services would be greatly reduced if the citizens of Ontario were not brutalized in the courts.
(4) That those embroiled in family matters be treated with compassion and in need of healing, not thrust into an adversarial court system that few are able to tolerate, save for judges, lawyers and their administration.
(5) That mediation is the way to resolve family matters, that that process will diminish the parents least and will show how much each parent is willing to compromise their personal positions to provide for their children. No one will be forced to do anything without a good try at settling their matters, and compliance with those terms is most likely.
(6) That the great time and expense conducting the Civil Justice Review not be wasted, and be referred to especially on family matters when considering any actions for a remedy on these matters.
(7) That for the government to allow matters to remain as they are and do effectively nothing for these families is a breach of trust, and when you consider the diminished parent that results, child abuse and self-serving.
(8) That there is a possibility that the present system of dealing with family matters is wrong and that there is a better way, and to consider that for every letter written and for every concern raised in these matters, there are thousands of others.
(9) That to leave grandparents and extended family out to dry while their loved ones are embroiled in a custody-and-access matter is abusive and a waste of a valuable resource to help settle a family dispute; and
(10) That to consider a joint parenting model over a sole custodian/access parent model is not working and that compliance with any terms of a joint parenting arrangement are more likely to take place with less government involvement necessary.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr Farrauto: If I can add one item. Is there a minute?
The Vice-Chair: Yes, you have a couple of minutes.
Mr Farrauto: I have something here from the Civil Justice Review. I'm sure all of you are familiar with it, and if not, it's easily obtainable. I've got something from Charles Harnick when he took office. It's the cover letter of the first newsletter that came out from the Civil Justice Review. He says:
"I believe that in the light of the challenges currently facing the administration of the courts in Ontario, the collaboration and cooperation among the bench, the Ministry of the Attorney General, the bar and the public, enabled our committee to develop a viable plan and one that is capable of taking our courts into the next century. I am confident that its recommendations outline a model for a faster, fairer and more efficient civil justice system for the province.
"My message today is that the government will not set aside this report while more challenging and long-term goals are being developed."
I've been following these issues very closely and I've heard nothing come out of the Civil Justice Review, and Debra Paulseth, who was taking care of any concerns out of the Civil Justice Review, has never returned one of my phone calls.
The Vice-Chair: You have exhausted the 15 minutes allocated to you. Thank you for your presentation.
I would like to remind the committee that the deadline for amendments to the committee is Wednesday at 5 pm. That concludes the business here, and this committee stands adjourned until October 26 at 3:30 for clause-by-clause.
The committee adjourned at 1747.