INTENDED APPOINTMENTS ROSALIND RAJANAYAGAM
CONTENTS
Thursday 12 January 1995
Intended appointments
Rosalind Rajanayagam, Council of the College of Dental Hygienists of Ontario
Paul Nykanen, Ontario International Trade Corp.
Pat Palmer, Ontario International Trade Corp.
Raymond Parker, Toronto Islands Residential Community Trust Corp.
Bruce McGauley, Pesticides Advisory Committee.
Edward Kingstone, Ontario Criminal Code Review Board.
Subcommittee report
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
*Chair / Présidente: Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)
Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)
*Crozier, Bruce (Essex South/-Sud L)
*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)
Gigantes, Evelyn, (Ottawa Centre ND)
*Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
*Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
*Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne ND)
*Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Duignan, Noel (Halton North/-Nord ND) for Ms Carter
Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND) for Ms Gigantes
Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L) for Mr Cleary
Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC) for Mr McLean
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1003 in committee room 1.
INTENDED APPOINTMENTS ROSALIND RAJANAYAGAM
Review of intended appointment, selected by third party: Rosalind Rajanayagam, intended appointee as member, Council of the College of Dental Hygienists of Ontario.
The Chair (Mrs Margaret Marland): Good morning. We are continuing our review of government appointments to government agencies, boards and commissions.
The first person for review this morning is Rosalind Rajanayagam. I don't know how close that was, Rosalind, but if you would like to please come forward and make yourself comfortable, maybe the first thing you can do is correct the Chairman on the pronunciation of your name.
Mrs Rosalind Rajanayagam: A number of a's, but if you just look at it -- too many a's and you get scared, but Rajanayagam.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr Noel Duignan (Halton North): Don't worry about that. They can't get my name right.
Mrs Rajanayagam: What is yours?
The Chair: I don't think I do a bad job on your name. Actually, I've heard other chairmen do a worse job. Now, Rosario's name I always get right.
This is a selection by the Conservative Party, so we'll start with Ms Witmer.
Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): Welcome here this morning. My first question to you is, how did you become aware of this position and why are you interested?
Mrs Rajanayagam: This particular position I was not aware of. I was just interested in serving in an agency and I wrote to the Premier's office, to the agencies office, and then I had a call to ask if I'd be interested in serving on this.
Mrs Witmer: So you filled out the form and you didn't specify any agencies specifically.
Mrs Rajanayagam: No, I did not fill in any particular agency, just a general --
Mrs Witmer: A general interest.
Mrs Rajanayagam: Yes.
Mrs Witmer: What background, education and related experience do you feel you have that would qualify you to sit on this particular board? I know you are there as a representative of the public and you're not expected to have any expertise as far as dental hygiene is concerned. Perhaps you could just share with us why you feel you are capable of doing the job.
Mrs Rajanayagam: First of all, as a consumer I have been receiving services of dental hygienists for the last 11 years, so I'm aware of what's going on. Then I do a lot of interpreting at the Hospital for Sick Children and that's one way I'm interested in this. A few years ago I did a project for the city of Toronto board of health on the health and social needs of the Tamil community. As part of the project I had occasion to interview 55 key informants, and one of the things that came up again and again was preventive dental hygiene and how the children were lacking in that. So all these things together I think brought in -- I was interested. I'm generally interested in anything that concerns me as a member of the public and as a member of the community.
Mrs Witmer: Is there anything in particular that you hope to accomplish during your time on the council?
Mrs Rajanayagam: I guess making the public feel comfortable that everything is being done by the college to preserve their safety and the competence of the professionals. I haven't read any material yet, but that's what I hope for.
Mrs Witmer: What do you think the public perception generally is at the present time of the role of the dental hygienist?
Mrs Rajanayagam: I do not think they know too much about the preventive aspect of it. Maybe this way the preventive aspect of it can be emphasized, and treatment, and also working together with the dental hygienist has been stressed. Therefore, those two things I think are going to be a great step forward in this regulatory procedure.
Mrs Witmer: I would agree with you that certainly dental hygienists do play a very important role in this province in promoting effective dental hygiene and also the promotion of oral health and wellbeing of the public.
There's been one issue of concern that has arisen during the past few years, and that has to do with the requirement that a dentist impose an order on the dental hygienist that would enable them to work. That's being very loosely interpreted at the present time. Mrs Grier has been reviewing this issue and she has asked for a report back by April 30 of this year, 1995. Are you familiar with that particular issue at all?
Mrs Rajanayagam: No, I'm not.
Mrs Witmer: I was going to ask you to comment, but obviously that's one of the first issues that you will need to deal with. As I say, it's been an ongoing concern now for a number of years.
Thank you very much. I wish you well.
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): Good morning and welcome. I've read your résumé with some interest and you really seem to have a very useful background. You've obviously worked with the public in various ways for many years and obviously part of the Tamil community, which we know is a growing community, many of whom reside in Scarborough.
You did this study of public health for the city which you mentioned and which sounds again a very useful sort of thing. You can bring a broad knowledge of public needs to the board, so I think it's a very good appointment and I'm very pleased that you chose to apply.
One question which I think is of considerable concern to the Tamil community is access to trades and professions.
Mrs Rajanayagam: Yes.
Mr Frankford: I think for all the professional colleges, one of their functions is to review foreign qualifications and to recommend on licensing procedures for people with qualifications outside the province or outside the country. Are you aware that there are people with dental hygienist qualifications coming from other countries, say?
Mrs Rajanayagam: I'm sure there are, though I don't know. I can't pinpoint and say how many we have, but I'm sure there are. I know since the access to trades and professions was introduced, I remember two of our Tamil dental surgeons are in practice now and that's a great help to many who do not speak the language. But I'm sure there will be the dental hygienists and this will be a great asset, I think. If it's a self-regulating body, they can look into it and maybe there will be a chance for them to further their qualifications and maybe apply for certification. The assessment is very important, I realize.
Mr Frankford: Yes, I quite agree with you, and I think it's very nice that you're aware of those issues already. As was mentioned, dental hygienists I think have a very important role in prevention, and hopefully we're going to see them working as a team with dentists and not in a situation of professional rivalry. I wonder if you have any more thoughts about how we can make sure that the system in relationships of dentistry and dental hygienists works so the consumer benefits and it's not just a turf battle.
Mrs Rajanayagam: No, I haven't seen it as a battle, because I have been, I think, visiting the dental surgeon and the dental hygienist for the last 20, 25 years. They seem to work very smoothly. The dental surgeon is there just to oversee. I guess the last five minutes of your visit is when he comes in, but it's tremendous what they do and how much they teach you.
Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): I'd just like to make a brief comment. I'd like to encourage you, as the representative of the public on this board, to take a strong role. In the past, I guess, a lot of these colleges were mainly the professionals who are involved, but I believe now that it is very important for yourself, as a consumer and as a representative of the public, to take a strong role, and also to ensure that the procedures of the meetings that are used are done in a matter that is satisfactory to you and the public, such things as open meetings.
Mrs Rajanayagam: Yes. I think it's a great idea, open meetings.
Ms Harrington: So I'll leave that with you.
The Chair: The official opposition, Mr Crozier or Mr Offer?
Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): I believe all the questions that could be asked have been asked.
The Chair: All right, you have no further questions by the committee. Thank you for your appearance before the committee this morning, Ms Rajanayagam.
Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): Madam Chair, I don't believe that our next appointments are here for this morning, so maybe we should --
The Chair: All right. I'm going to suggest that we recess till 10:30 for the main committee and the subcommittee will have its meeting now and we will reconvene the main committee in 17 minutes, at 10:30.
The committee recessed from 1015 to 1033.
PAUL NYKANEN
Review of intended appointment, selected by government party: Paul Nykanen, intended appointee as member, Ontario International Trade Corp.
The Chair: Mr Nykanen, would you like to come forward please and make yourself comfortable. Have a seat.
Mr Frankford: It's an interesting position you're taking on. Do you have some comment on the government's decision to close the international trade offices?
Mr Paul Nykanen: Yes. I think we've all been observing that very closely. In the business I'm in, we're very much involved in international trade, and of course the most cost-effective avenues of being able to get our products overseas and also to set up strategic alliances is a very important consideration.
One of the things we were looking at in terms of the overseas offices was that we felt there was a fair amount of duplication of effort because of the federal government offices that were established in some places, the provincial governments having some and, in some cases, even a pretty aggressive effort by municipalities and so on.
Also, by the same token, there are a lot of parallel operations with the private sector. For instance, as the CMA we have a lot of strategic alliances in key areas such as Japan, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, India, now Mexico, Chile and so on. From our standpoint, we felt that although the closing of the offices would have an impact, there would be alternative ways of being able to handle that.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any thoughts about the regions of the world in which we should be concentrating our efforts? Asia seems to be in these days, but there are a lot more countries. Are we all getting sucked along the same path?
Mr Nykanen: The markets in east Asia are certainly a very key consideration, and from the manufacturing standpoint there's a lot of interest in places like China, for instance, and the CMA is getting very actively involved in getting into South America, particularly Chile, and we have operations and alliances in places like Venezuela and so on. We are looking at having, ultimately, a North American free trade agreement, if you will. Certainly the Far East and the North American combined market are some of the key areas right now.
Mr Frankford: Seeing what's happening today, would you like to make any brief comments on the Mexican situation and how it's affecting us currently and in the near future?
Mr Nykanen: Certainly if we look at what's happening with our interest rates and our Canadian dollar, that's a very serious situation. That's not driven because of the market nor the demand nor any other reason than a situation and uneasiness with regard to currency or investment considerations and so on. It's unfortunate that it's happening and having a ripple effect on the Canadian economy, but by the same token, the market in Mexico is very huge, and ultimately they're going to get over these problems they're into and hopefully we'll get on with business. We look at that as being a good potential market.
Mr Frankford: Have we some thought that it's all to do with manufacturing, perhaps the products of big corporations? I would submit that maybe the real need in Mexico is much more grass-roots investment in some very basic development because, for all that we talk about it, it still is, if I may say, a Third World country.
Mr Nykanen: Unquestionably. We're all familiar with some of the larger corporations that have established there for their own reasons, but when we look at a country such as Mexico, there's going to be a tremendous demand there for infrastructure -- roads, transportation, communications -- and then getting on into the normal household consumer items and so on that we'd very much like to supply. I think it's a combination of the two.
Certainly in Canada we're never going to compete with the labour-intensive basket weaving and that sort of thing. That's a given.
Ms Harrington: I see by your career profile that you were at one time with Dresser Industries. Is that at all related to the Dresser Industries that was in Niagara Falls?
Mr Nykanen: No. Dresser Industries' home base was in Dallas, actually. My responsibilities were the Canadian industrial markets for Dresser Industries. We were physically located in Toronto and had offices across the country.
Ms Harrington: Is that an abrasives manufacturer?
Mr Nykanen: No, it wasn't. It was industrial machinery and equipment.
Ms Harrington: Okay. Yesterday we met another man who is going to be with you on this organization, Mr Bill Knight. Have you ever met him?
Mr Nykanen: I have not.
Ms Harrington: It'll be interesting for all of you to be getting together soon. One of the things he mentioned that he felt would be very helpful was providing a database for small companies here in Ontario of what they do so that, I gather, other companies could take advantage of what was being manufactured here in Ontario. Have you had a chance to look at what we call the Ontario Investment Service? That is the database, I believe.
Mr Nykanen: I have, and certainly it's a state-of-the-art operation. It's a very valuable asset to be able, anywhere in the world, to electronically access information on what's available in Ontario in terms of infrastructure, skilled labour, facilities and that sort of thing. There has always been a need for that sort of thing, and having it on an electronic network is going to make it a lot more efficient. It's much easier to keep it on an updated basis electronically, rather than to distribute a bunch of hard copy around. From that standpoint, we think it will be kept as a live database and certainly be a very valuable asset.
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Ms Harrington: My understanding is that it will allow small companies to be known, what they do, what is available, so they can therefore access many more markets.
Mr Nykanen: I'm sorry, I didn't understand.
Ms Harrington: What they do will be available on database on a much wider scope around the world of people who may be interested in buying.
Mr Nykanen: That would be the objective, actually, for them to be able to make other people aware of what their products are. There are a lot of good companies in Ontario that have got very specific products, and one of the challenges is to find the markets for them.
Ms Harrington: Right. I believe it was for the Ontario Investment Service that there was a lot in the press a few months ago about the cost of being on the board, having a seat at $250,000. Some people said this was selling influence. What is your approach or opinion of this way of getting private buy-in to this service?
Mr Nykanen: I would like to think that the investment of $250,000 on to the board would not be a situation where a person would be buying influence. I know the request was made through the general business community. If we take a look at it from a manufacturer's standpoint, I think it's unreasonable to think that companies would be using the service, to invest their money in it, to actually be purchasing a seat on the board. However, it is a costly operation, and there are many types of associations or businesses that have a broad base of operation, such as real estate for instance. I don't really have any problem with them paying part of the cost, because one of the concerns is the cost of government and if you can get private sector contributions towards it, certainly that's the proper way to go. But I emphasize also that it certainly should be well protected against any type of influence.
Ms Harrington: So business people certainly believe in reducing the cost of government in this way.
Mr Nykanen: Cost reduction is a very, very important consideration. We're very concerned about the deficit and the debt and so on. I think that's our single biggest problem today.
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): The province's exports are focused on a few key industries. The automobile is of course a major one; food, electrical, communications products and chemicals are a few others. Auto parts constitute about 50% of all of our international exports. To rely on that seems to me a losing strategy at times, because when that fails we are seriously affected economically, so there's a need to diversify. Do you have suggestions about what things we should be doing as a way of diversifying our international exports?
Mr Nykanen: First of all, I'd like to say that we've certainly got to protect the business that we're doing with the United States --
Mr Marchese: Oh, absolutely. I agree.
Mr Nykanen: -- and with the Canadian dollar being where it is right now, that's what's keeping us alive. The domestic market has been extremely flat: Consumer demand has not been there, and the outlook does not look all that great. The opportunity for Canadian businesses right now, Ontario businesses, is to look at niche markets and look at beyond the United States.
To be so heavily dependent upon one country is a very precarious situation to be in. We're very vulnerable to what happens there. For instance, the rising interest rates in the United States are going to slow down the economy, reduce the buying, and that's going to affect people buying cars, which is going to have a ripple effect on us in auto parts and what have you.
It's absolutely essential that we embark on other markets as well. I like the idea of the tremendous emphasis now that is being placed on the Far East and the South American markets and so on. We've just got to diversify, but the thing is, we can't be all things to all people. I think we've got to be able to select those niche markets and go after them aggressively.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Mr Nykanen, it's nice to see you again. I know your contribution to this corporation will be quite positive. We also note that in the world it's quite renowned the way Canadians and Ontarians have done business.
I just want to pick up on the diversity, as you've talked about how we must diversify, the matter of not putting all our eggs in one basket. We have always talked about that, that we've done most of our exporting to the United States, and now we're going to Asia and we're going to Latin America.
My observation over the past couple of years is that we have sort of de-emphasized our interest in Africa and the Caribbean. I just wondered if you have any comments on that, that you see the corporation looking at those countries again. I'm not talking about South Africa -- South Africa, to me, is a country by itself now, in itself of great interest -- but other areas there.
Mr Nykanen: I don't think that companies have lost interest in any potential market. It's a matter of an evaluation of the types of businesses we are in, the types of products we are capable of producing. Canada is traditionally known for being able to compete very effectively, with quality and with timeliness and that sort of thing, and because of that we're focusing more heavily on the higher value added products, which is critical to our wellbeing, rather than a heavily labour-intensive type of product. The heavier emphasis on some of those other countries you mentioned is largely as a result of the short to medium-term potential business and the magnitude of that.
I don't think there's any disinterest as far as any particular country is concerned, but certainly if you had a business and you were looking at what market you were going to attack, you are going to look at those areas where the largest potential and the opportunity to make a profit would be.
Mr Curling: And of course we are also very known for some of the less labour-intensive products, things like telecommunications, which we are quite well known for, which can be quite effective in those countries; transportation, for instance, some of the expertise; education, the curriculum products we have, with the community colleges and the universities, that are sold very wide. But I still see that the emphasis is not there, and I see it as quite reciprocal, that if one emphasizes or puts some interest in that area, Africa and also the West Indies, actually it is beneficial for both countries in a very productive way.
Upon becoming a part of this corporation, I just wondered if you could advance some of those points to the corporation, to look at interests in those areas that are so needed in those countries, and in the meantime a great potential for business there. Do you see that there is potential there, less labour-intensive, as you said, but great products we have here that could be sold in those countries?
Mr Nykanen: Certainly. You mentioned things like telecommunications equipment and that sort of thing. There's a tremendous demand in places like Africa and Jamaica and so on for that type of product. One of the benefits of having a broad degree of expertise and interest on the board is that it brings to the table a lot of new ideas. Certainly we've got to look at all the possible opportunities, and I would say that would certainly be one of the many, if you will, that we should look at.
I really don't think there is any conscious effort not to try to penetrate the markets. It's a matter of priorities, and you can't be everywhere. I think things like telecommunications and also other types of infrastructure in countries such as that represent tremendous potential for Ontario.
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Mr Curling: A problem too we have with countries like those is that when there are no opportunities developing there, what happens is they seek to come to the country that has those developments. Many times immigration has an impact on that. Some people would much rather be in the West Indies, where the opportunities are, and that works in a reciprocal way. But that's another philosophical debate we can get on to another time.
Mr Offer: Nice to see you, Mr Nykanen. I think there is no one around this table, and in fact many outside the room, who is not very much aware of your significant involvement and expertise in a great many areas for which you stand before this committee. One doesn't even have to discuss those things. We are all well aware of your particular capability.
I would like to ask two questions. In your opinion, in this role of the OITC, is there a possibility of fostering the internal growth or creation of companies within the province that are involved in the field of exporting? It's not just dealing with those companies that are now in the field and are moving into the export area, but how can one foster natural growth of companies within the province to get into that field?
Mr Nykanen: One of the things of course is education, and that's going to be a very key consideration. One of the big challenges that small to medium-sized companies currently face is a lack of awareness of how to get into these different types of markets, how you do business in those and so on. Properly handled, I would say a good educational program to make companies aware of these opportunities would be very appropriate, tied in also with -- again properly handled -- people travelling overseas, and maybe the envoy program or something like that would be able to promote the interests of some of these small to medium-sized companies and so on.
But the big thing in getting it off the dime is to make them aware of what is available and how to do it, and that's a focus that I think the private sector has been doing quite aggressively. My association itself has been very active in how to do business in China and that sort of thing. I wouldn't say small companies, but a lot of the medium-sized companies are very interested in getting that type of information.
Mr Offer: Is there a role for maybe a greater cooperation in these types of works between the province and municipalities in a variety of areas, indicating what it is they're involved in and the type of atmosphere that exists in the province?
Mr Nykanen: I really think there's a lot of improvement for having a cooperative arrangement with various municipalities. All the key areas have economic development departments and so on, and I think we have to be more definite about changing how we work with them. In other words, let's not compete with them on a municipal, provincial and federal level but let's see how we can work together, because I don't think the money is around right now to duplicate any of that effort.
Certainly, I think dealing with some of these municipal groups is very effective. I personally have been very much involved with a number of communities that have hosted foreign delegations coming in and making local companies aware of the interests there and promoting that sort of thing, and if that is done on a cooperative basis I think that's excellent. Those instances I'm referring to have had a pretty good flavour of that sort of cooperation.
Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): Congratulations on your appointment. I'm a little curious about how the process worked with you. Was the CMA asked to nominate an individual, or were you approached personally by the government to take on this responsibility?
Mr Nykanen: We have been working over the years on a regular basis with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. Of course, trade promotion and investment attraction is a very high priority with us, as I mentioned earlier, so we have had a continuing lengthy involvement and liaison with the government, trying to help our member companies get established and so on. I'm not exactly sure when the timing came, but to answer your question, CMA was not asked to put forward the name of a person. I was approached by the ministry, probably because I've had the most direct involvement in this area.
Mr Runciman: By whom in the ministry?
Mr Nykanen: I was approached by Mr Len Crispino in the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.
Mr Runciman: Have you ever spoken to the Premier about this role?
Mr Nykanen: No, I have not.
Mr Runciman: When you decided to accept, was there an indication of what's expected of you in this role?
Mr Nykanen: I suppose I developed my own expectations as to what is really expected. We have a very strong interest in having private sector input into any of the government initiatives wherever we can possibly do that, so I had some very definite ideas myself as to the type of input I could provide to the corporation to promote these interests and so on.
Having been involved in the trade business for quite some period of time and involved with the ministry on a number of these initiatives, I have a pretty good feel for what is required. But I have not been presented with a job description that says, "This is what the expectations are." I think that I have been asked, actually, because of the expertise that I bring to the table.
Mr Runciman: Is there any indication of time commitment that would be expected from you?
Mr Nykanen: The only indication of time commitment that I have is that certainly there are going to be probably four or six board meetings -- that would be a year -- and I would expect that I probably would be called upon on specific projects or that sort of thing; it might be in addition to that. But I'd say four to six board meetings.
In order to do this properly, it's not the time commitment at the meeting itself. I think there's a lot of preparatory work that has to be done, which is sort of part of my natural business anyway.
Mr Runciman: Right. When you say you are coming to this appointment with some clear views on what you'd like to see happen, can you share some of those with us today?
Mr Nykanen: Yes. Of course, one of the things that has been a real concern is governments and government offices, at quite great expense, competing against other private sector ways of being able to do it more efficiently, more effectively perhaps.
Mr Runciman: Can you give us an example of that?
Mr Nykanen: Well, trade missions; I think trade missions are an excellent example. If you're an Ontario manufacturing business and you want to do business in India, there are many ways that you can approach that, and it has been done in many ways. The federal government, the provincial government and the private sector have done it.
For instance, in that case, with the strategic alliances that we have set up with our counterparts there, we make the contacts directly with the people who are involved directly in that sort of business. We arrange meetings. As a matter of fact, we led a delegation of about 20 companies over to India. Out of those 20 companies, 12 of them have set up specific business arrangements, whether it be joint ventures or market penetration and that sort of thing. That's been a very successful type of thing.
I can give you an example of how it shouldn't work. About two years ago -- I think it's about two; I may be wrong on the time there -- there was a trade mission that went to Italy. We had arrangements there with Confindustria through CMA. The federal government was there and the provincial government was there, and they all arrived at the same time, uncoordinated, I would say, to some degree. It leaves the most important person, the customer, the people whom we're dealing with, with quite a bit of confusion and saying, "Who is it really who is speaking here?" So we have a lot to learn in that regard, and I think we can accomplish that.
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Mr Runciman: Okay. You've been in the business of developing export markets for some time. When we're dealing with your efforts to try and sell Ontario products abroad, what kinds of problems are you facing now that perhaps could or should be addressed by the Ontario government now or in the future to try and make your job, in terms of selling Ontario products, that much easier and that much more attractive for the offshore potential customer?
Mr Nykanen: I think one of the things, whether it be internal trade or external trade, the elimination of trade barriers is a very, very key consideration as far as getting into this market and I think that an all-out effort should be made to reach agreements in these areas. I emphasize both internally and externally there.
Mr Runciman: From an Ontario perspective, though, what would you like to see an Ontario government doing at the earliest possible moment in terms of initiatives that would make your job that much easier?
Mr Nykanen: One thing we don't think the provincial government should do is throw a lot of money at business in terms of grants and that sort of thing. That's not what business is looking for. I think trade development activities, properly handled, in terms of trade missions, awareness, working in the spirit of cooperation, let's say, with some of the federal offices, the Canadian embassies and that sort of thing in the dissemination of information.
I think there's another very key role that the government can play, and that is to work in cooperation with industry to develop the kind of expertise that is needed in the small to medium-sized companies, particularly in terms of penetrating the market, looking at what the market needs are to focus on these niche markets that we do the best. I think these are some of the areas that are important. The other part of the educational aspect is that different cultures and different countries do business in different ways, and the way it works in Windsor is not the way it necessarily works in Tel Aviv.
Mr Runciman: Thank you. It's good to see your appointment. I think you'll make a real contribution.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Nykanen, for your appearance before the committee this morning.
Mr Nykanen: My pleasure. Thank you.
PAT PALMER
Review of intended appointment, selected by government party: Pat Palmer, intended appointee as member, Ontario International Trade Corp.
The Chair: Our next interview this morning is with Mr Pat Palmer. Welcome, Mr Palmer, to the committee.
Ms Harrington: Thank you, Mr Palmer, for being here. It's very important I think for all of us on all sides of the table here to get to know a bit more about this corporation and the role of you as directors.
A fairly regular question that is asked here is, have you ever been or are you now a member of the New Democratic Party?
Mr Pat Palmer: Unfortunately, none of the three parties has been able to solicit my membership in my 52 years around this province.
Ms Harrington: I see. I understand you did go to Israel with the Premier. How did that trip work out for you?
Mr Palmer: It was twofold. From a business point of view, it was very profitable and still is, carrying on some deals and contacts for businesses in Ontario with businesses both in Jordan and Israel. Secondly, it was a personal eye-opener as to that part of the world and some of the disadvantages that we suffer as a business community that we weren't aware of before going over there.
One in particular which has been followed up on by our organization and the government is the free trade issue with Israel. When we arrived in Israel, we found out that our American counterparts and the European common market both have free trade with that country and we didn't. It puts us at about a 15% disadvantage trying to get our products and services into Israel. That was one of the issues that we weren't aware of prior to going over there and we've dealt with, and hopefully that will be coming through now that the federal government has also got on side with the issue as well.
Ms Harrington: So you're working on that?
Mr Palmer: Yes.
Ms Harrington: One of the two divisions of the Ontario International Trade Corp is the capital projects, and the other half is the trade development. In the capital projects division the mandate is to help Ontario service companies -- that is, architects, engineers etc -- win international capital projects. I'd just like to speak up on behalf of one of my local firms which is very well known, Acres International, which has for decades done huge engineering projects overseas. I would like to let you know that they're available, that they are excellent and that we need more employment in Niagara Falls in that particular business, if you'd keep that in mind.
Mr Palmer: I'm quite well aware of the organization and the principals in it.
Ms Harrington: Okay. Also important to Niagara Falls are the Pacific Rim countries. We get a lot of tourists now. Our market is going in that direction, and of course it's a high-end market and we are changing and upgrading to serve that market better. In fact, some of our hotel people have been, last October, over to Japan and a couple of the other countries promoting Niagara Falls, and one of the topics that comes up when I speak with them is the closing of some of our foreign offices around the world. I understand that the chambers of commerce across Ontario were supportive of the closing. I'd like you to let me know why.
Mr Palmer: The trade offices that we had in the past were actually a duplication of a lot of other efforts that have gone on, and there was not the synergy that was necessary to really capture some of the businesses.
Let's take tourism as a particular example. In the tourism area, if you went to Niagara Falls in the past, say 10 years ago, everybody operated on their own in terms of advertising and promotion. We didn't necessarily promote the Niagara experience to our Asian friends and what not to bring them over. If I had $500 for an ad campaign, I'd do mine; if you had $1,000, you'd do yours. Now we're starting to solidify that and develop synergies which are more important than a trade office in Taiwan or in mainland China. It's critical that we work together with the resources that we do have in promoting those parts that we want to promote together.
The trade offices as well did not have and could not have the currency of information and technology to meet the requests of the domestic individuals interested in certain things. So there's no sense having an office that you couldn't have state-of-the-art to compete with other countries and what not. You're better to go in partnership reliance with other governments domestically or, in our case, with the private sector, because perhaps we can afford, because of the nature of our business, better services and can piggyback and work with the government in promoting the tourism industry, which is very important to this province.
Ms Harrington: Thank you very much. I'm glad to hear you recognize how important tourism is.
Mr Duignan: Welcome, Pat. Nice to see you here.
I want to just follow up a little bit in relation to what you're talking about, the disadvantages. You were talking about your recent trip to the State of Israel. One of the many things that happens in the European Community is the fact that when you're in school you're offered choices of many different languages, not just English but Spanish, German etc. Many businesses find that when they go into, for example, the Asian market, which happens to be the largest growing market in particular for investment here in Ontario, they don't fit in. What happens in Toronto here is not necessarily what happens in Peking or some of the other capitals of Asia.
What do we need to do to empower business to orient themselves to the Asian market in particular to make sure they fit into how business operates, and what do they need to do to operate in that market?
Mr Palmer: There are three things. Number one is to show them how to. We offer a lot of courses and programs in Canada perhaps for the small and medium-sized companies that want to get into trade, say, in Asia. But their semester length, their long periods of time -- entrepreneurs need something to help them get things started in a couple of weeks, show them how to go through the steps.
The next thing is to bring the expertise together for these people who want to get into those markets and learn about it so they don't have to run all over the place. One of the things that we undersell and don't recognize when it comes to the Asian market is the ability of our universities to help in this regard. There are a number of universities in Ontario -- the one I'm leaning towards quite strongly is Windsor -- where we have a nucleus of Asian students who have graduated and work very closely with businesses here who can assist in opening up the Asian markets. That is forgotten a lot of times, the academic centre that can help in terms of piggybacking on.
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The other side, the third point I think that's very important, is to encourage governments to continue trade missions. I don't care how good business organizations think they are, we may go over to an Asian country with our leaders and try to get profile; it never gets the profile that the political leaders of a nation or province get. It's very important to get that share of mind in the Asian countries, and you can only get that share of mind, when you're competing against other countries for that space, when you take your best marketers or your best roles over there to get that space and share of mind. The politicians do a better job.
Mr Duignan: So maybe we're useful for something. On that line, what's the most appropriate way of doing trade missions, in your opinion?
Mr Palmer: I was, as you know, involved with one about a year ago. I believe the individuals who were invited to go on that trade mission were invited because of their involvement, their expertise. It was quite a mix of strength, from marketing expertise, financial expertise and what not. I think there should be invitations extended to organizations and individuals so that you have a total breadth and depth of expertise, and secondly, the networks to go with it. Some people may have a lot of expertise academically but not have a network that they can call on for help and resources when they come back to capitalize on the contacts that they've made on these trade missions. So I think it's very important that you put the trade mission together consciously as to the mix you're going to have, the talent you're going to have and the network that they bring with them.
Mr Duignan: So you're basically talking about government-private sector trade missions.
Mr Palmer: Government and private sector; it must be a combination, because they bring different strengths, different resources. I have a different set of networks, perhaps, in the community than you have, from the political side. I think all networks have to be brought to bear, because then we know the different expertise. I can tell you from even the trade mission, the 18 of us that were on it, I was able to help a couple of the people who were on the trade mission who were looking for partners in Ontario to do something and they weren't aware.
Mr Duignan: Do you have any idea of the cost-benefit analysis of such missions versus government-alone or business-alone missions?
Mr Palmer: I know the media loves to get a point in time and say, "This generated X number of dollars." You can't, because it's a continuous process. That mission over a year ago, I'm still involved with trying to help Ontario business and some of our Jordanian friends to make contacts and develop it. Now, that's a year after. Some of these are fairly big. One of the programs that's very important that I'd like to see continue on is where we're trying to get an educational linkage going with Jordan and our universities and colleges here in Ontario. I'm working with Mohawk and the University of Windsor again to try to get a co-op exchange. So these things carry on.
The key thing is that you've got the contacts and share of mind and you've got the priority position with those people to carry those business dealings. Yes, we run across some roadblocks when we come back to try to get some of our deals pushed forward, too.
Mr Duignan: You mentioned some disadvantages when you were over in Israel. What were they, and what do we need to do to get around them?
Mr Palmer: The big one, as I already mentioned, was to have a level playing field. If I'm going to compete in any sport or any game of business, I want to have the same rules as someone else. In Israel I was at a disadvantage. My European business friends and my American friends had about a 15% advantage because they had a free trade agreement with Israel and I didn't, which was negative.
One of the advantages we do have that we sometimes overlook is that Canadian and Ontario businesses are looked upon a lot more favourably in terms of business linkages and relationships than American counterparts. They would rather do business with us. They would rather get into an economic relationship with us. We should never forget that. I think you'll find that in Mexico and other parts of the world, Asia, it's the same case. It's a very good advantage.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): Good morning, Mr Palmer. It's a pleasure to meet you again. You may recall we met previously in southwestern Ontario in Leamington, I think, on chamber business. On that note, I'd like to have your comments with regard to the assistance that can be given to small urban municipalities, rural municipalities in some cases, because we know that large manufacturers, businesses, have the resources. We know in fact that large municipalities have certain resources to attract business. But we like to think that there are some places in this province where doing business can be fun as well as profitable. I wonder if you have any comment on how the OITC could advise small urban municipalities to get into the competition for trade.
Mr Palmer: I don't know the total mix of the board that will be there, but I think the talent that's probably being brought together should be able to come up with some very solid recommendations and provide some synergy of knowledge that can be used in the small rural communities, the communities like where I was brought up and came from. One of the key things that is required in those communities is the people who are trying to promote the trade have knowledge of the community and the business opportunities in those communities going back to the network point of view that you can bring to the table and isolate.
To give you an example, Englehart, Ontario, which is a small northern community, has one of the most advanced, world-competitive pressboard factories available, and there were people in the Middle East looking for that. By that knowledge, you are able to bring that to the table, but how to get those promoted is not necessarily just by saying: "Here's a magic plan for Leamington. Here's a magic plan for somebody else."
The people in the community, first of all, have to be shown how to get involved and then next be given the network or the context. I think it's very important for people like all the board members involved with this to know the parts of Ontario, all the communities in Ontario, and not just the Torontos, the Londons, all the northern, southwestern communities, so you represent what is available and what is the knowledge, the expertise.
We have tremendous expertise in this province that's like a flame under a bushel basket. We hide it and we don't necessarily promote it. There are enough people, hopefully, around that board table who can take those bushel baskets off and really light a fire for this province.
Mr Crozier: Do you see the role of the OITC as well not just manufacturing with existing business and expertise but attracting business capital to Ontario to invest, to build, and then that may be a business that in turn will trade back with other countries, but inviting manufacturing and business to Ontario to establish to begin with? Is that part of the role, do you think?
Mr Palmer: In the global competitive market we're in today, you've got to look at alliancing to compete in projects and in major economic gains for your country and for your business. You can't go it alone as we used to do it in the past.
You're right. You may form a cluster of companies that bring strengths to the table. You may invite a British company to invest here, because of certain talents we've got in certain parts of our province, to bring sort of a manufacturing expertise. We may have a knowledge base we can bring to it, and then we may bring in an American company with the distribution expertise. But we may be together selling to the Asian market. That ability to bring international alliances together is going to be very critical for us to compete against some of the aggressive firms from the European common market and the American communities -- very important.
Mr Crozier: I noticed, Mr Palmer, that you were here while we were interviewing the previous appointee, and the question of closing the trade offices came up. He commented that there are alternative ways of contact. I was interested to know if you have any comment on what those are; in other words, what can we do? I can see where they were closed to save money and to reduce duplication, but what can we proactively do then to replace those so that we're even at a better position than we were before?
Mr Palmer: Technology and teamwork. Let me talk about each of them individually.
On the technology side, someone mentioned about the Ontario Investment Service, which is one part of the technology available. The going phrase today is "Internet." We have a community in this province, North Bay, that is connected on an Internet web and is promoting itself worldwide as a community to do business and what it's got available. That technology is the state of the art and everybody's interested. We have to use more of the private sector and the public sector technology. Our corporation, members of our chamber, have technology that can promote and is accessible to foreign investors, foreign buyers etc. So technology has to be utilized a lot more.
The teamwork side I think is the critical one, where we don't try to reinvent what each other is doing: the federal government, the city of Brampton, whatever the case may be. We should be working together as a team, taking the opportunities that we have to those other countries and dealing with trade missions that come into this province, or whatever the case may be. In the technology and teamwork things, we've got a long way to go.
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Going back to the tourism area, that's one of the critical ones where both of those can make a lot of contribution. The one that has frustrated me since I've come back from the Middle East is in the agricultural area. I come from an agricultural background and still have an involvement in it. We had possibilities in the Middle East to make some major shipments of grain stocks and crushing plants, and we still can't get that done because of certain marketing board considerations.
I know this province and the parties in it will support us in trying to break down some of those barriers with the federal government. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of tonnes of soft wheat, which is an expertise of this farming province right here in Ontario.
Mr Crozier: Mr Palmer, I know that you'll be an asset to the OITC and I wish you well. It's a pleasure to see you again.
Mr Palmer: Thank you. Same here.
The Chair: There are three minutes left. Anyone else?
Mr Runciman: My party endorses Mr Palmer's appointment and we're pleased to see that on rare occasions the government will go outside its own political ranks to appoint some very well qualified people.
Mr Palmer, I have no questions. I simply wish you well. I know you'll do an outstanding job for Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Palmer, for your appearance before the committee this morning.
RAYMOND PARKER
Review of intended appointment, selected by government party: Raymond Parker, intended appointee as member, Toronto Islands Residential Community Trust Corp.
The Chair: Mr Parker, would you like to come forward, please, and make yourself comfortable.
Mr Frankford: Good morning. Welcome. I've become quite interested in the topic of land trusts but don't know a great deal about them and I wonder if you'd like to briefly give your understanding of land trusts in general and perhaps how you see the islands as a working model of land trusts.
Mr Raymond Parker: I'd like to begin just by saying that it has been a long struggle to secure our tenure as a community, and the land trust non-profit framework that has been offered us by the legislation by your Legislature is giving us the opportunity to secure our community for the future.
It's been quite a trying time for the community, as you can imagine, to take on quite a bit of responsibility for managing our affairs. I think that one of the essences of the land trust model is that people become responsible and accountable for the land, for the community, for the resources that they're making use of.
Like I say, we have certainly been working very hard on the island with our various committees of the trust board to implement the legislation and the model. It has been quite a challenge, but we look forward to finishing it off and being able to get along with our community.
Mr Frankford: Have you looked at the broader question of land trusts? I've thought of ways in which they might work in my Scarborough riding.
Mr Parker: I think the island model is a sort of second-generation land trust model. In fact it's a residential community trust, and essentially I think it's a way of having the people who are affected by decisions actually participate quite closely in those decisions. How the model can be applied in other areas, I think, is something that we as a community, as a province, as a society would be working through over the coming years, the coming decades, because in a way it's clear that something has to happen, something has to change in the way we do things, the way we administer public life, the planning process and so on to make it more responsive and, frankly, more accountable to the needs of the local community.
Mr Duignan: You're being asked to serve as a member of this particular board and oversee certain developments on this particular project, including enacting certain bylaws on this particular project and all matters relating to the co-op. Have you ever had experience in relation to operating non-profit or cooperative projects?
Mr Parker: I have to say that I haven't had experience in operating these projects. I was asked as a member of the community to offer my services to the trust board, so I did that and the community chose to elect me to the board to help out as best I can. I think it's a learning process for all of us. I don't bring any particular experience to it other than as a citizen, I guess, who's concerned to help out with my community.
Mr Duignan: That was the basic question I had. I would simply say that if we had time I'd ask you to explain what the title of your thesis was all about, but maybe another time.
Mr Marchese: I'll continue. Welcome, Raymond, to this committee. Just to follow up on the previous question, I've always been a strong supporter of cooperative housing because I think it's one of the healthiest ways of bringing together in a housing community. I think bringing people of different economic backgrounds, levels of economy, is useful, as opposed to ghettoizing this, which is something we used to do in the past.
It seems to me that when we have so many different communities in the downtown area in Metropolitan Toronto, we've got to look at different ways of bringing people together that produces a healthier kind of city. Do you have any views on that or do your studies relate to any of this? What are your comments?
Mr Parker: Absolutely. I think communities evolve organically to a certain extent. People do move and live where they want to, live and move to a situation which suits them, and it's important to nurture that process to allow a society or community to evolve in a natural, organic way and to try to nurture that rather than imposing conditions which might, like you say, ghettoize people and create barriers between people of different situations, different backgrounds, where it would be better to try to avoid imposing barriers, so that people can come together and enjoy each other and thrive off the diversity that people bring when they come together in a neighbourhood.
I know many communities in Toronto, including the Toronto Island community, are like that. There's a great range of diversity, certainly economically, and that's something that I think is very precious, which we can appreciate in Toronto and in greater Metropolitan Toronto and which many other cities don't have.
You have this ghettoizing that certainly has happened in many American cities. It's something we would want to really look carefully at in our city and see what it is that has enabled us to avoid that, to enable communities to keep evolving in a neighbourly way and have diversity of uses, diversity of people, diversity of different economic and other kinds of activities, and learn from it: protect it, nurture it, learn from it, see how we can have more of this happen.
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Mr Marchese: One of the things that we did obviously by passing the island legislation is to keep people on the island. Part of the concern of many in Toronto and Metropolitan Toronto is that people are leaving Metro, and this was an effort to keep people in the downtown area. We believe that's part of how you create a healthier society in a downtown core, by keeping people there.
I want to ask you a question. It's difficult obviously in terms of communication between people when you have a whole mix of people, culturally, linguistically and economically. Your experience is in communication, a great deal of it. Deriving some thoughts from that experience, what would you think should be done as a way of getting people to communicate better with each other and therefore creating better urban lifestyles?
Mr Parker: First of all, you don't put barriers in front of people or between people so that they can't communicate. Clearly one aspect of that is the relationship between communication, the way people interact, and the built environment and the effects that has on the ability of people to communicate. Clearly, if people have to go out of their way or if you make it difficult for people to be neighbourly -- my experience has been and certainly probably several people here know, if you live as I've lived in high-rise apartment buildings, I've lived in buildings for an entire year and not known my neighbours, not met my neighbours. So built form certainly has a significant effect.
If you make it part of the normal everyday routine whereby you drop by, you're passing by the neighbourhood café or you're passing by whatever and people can naturally interact to the degree that they feel comfortable, then you enhance the natural tendency of people to communicate. What you want to do is to have a situation built into your thinking about the built environment in such a way that people can choose, if they want to be private, to have privacy. People have to have private space, but at the same time they want to be able to be public and be social when they want.
It's been fascinating for me to see how that works in the island community and the extent to which these kinds of community interactions are enhanced and nurtured to a large extent because of the built environment, particularly with respect to our community as a carless community. That's just one example, because of the unique history of the island, but if you take away cars and the space they take up so that you're not getting cars and the whole car culture in between people, it really enhances to an extraordinary degree the amount of communication you can have.
Mr Crozier: Good morning, Mr Parker. Are you a resident of the Toronto Islands?
Mr Parker: Yes.
Mr Crozier: Full-time?
Mr Parker: Yes, I am.
Mr Crozier: But your application says Oneida Avenue. Is that on the island?
Mr Parker: That's right.
Mr Crozier: Okay. I'm not familiar with the geography as I perhaps should be.
My question revolves around transportation. My riding is one of perhaps a few in the province where we have residents on an island, albeit Toronto Islands aren't very far away from the mainland. I just read recently in fact where there are some questions about the need for the present transportation system. In the wintertime they run several modes of transportation, where perhaps there need only be one. Would you comment on transportation to the island and for its residents, and if there are additional residents, what those needs might be.
Mr Parker: We have a community there and I think it certainly requires some level of transportation. I think what is happening, what is good, is that as we expand the community slightly, that will make the running of the ferry service more economical, more people using it, better utilization of the services; but more so, I think, the utilization of the park itself, the Metro park, of which the community is sort of the eastern gateway into the park.
The park is a tremendous resource for the people of Metro. It is used during the summer but usage of it tends to drop down over the winter to very low usage. Through an expansion of the community, we would look forward to having a more welcoming situation for people to come to the park. With a slightly expanded community, we'll be able to have a year-round café. Now we have a café that runs on the weekends through the wintertime. But it provides the opportunity for people who are visiting from Metro to have a place to come in out of the cold, have a coffee, hang out and so on.
We would anticipate that by bringing more people, making the park more attractive so that more people will come, then that of course will make the transportation system more efficient and just generally start to make better use of this tremendous resource that we have sitting 12 minutes away from downtown Toronto.
Mr Crozier: On one hand you want to attract people to the island to use the passive parks. Do you see, though, from an environmental standpoint, that it could be overtaxed, overburdened, and that we could in fact lose some environmentally fragile land?
Mr Parker: I think we would want to think about a concept of a park and the best use of the park, and one way to think about it would be to think of different uses. To a certain extent, that's how the park operates now. There are naturalized areas, there are environmentally sensitive areas, but in fact the greatest extent, I think it's fair to say, of the Metro park is a manicured approach to the park. We have quite large expanses of mown grass and picnic tables and a very managed approach to it.
That's one use which is certainly an important use of the park, but there are other uses of the park to in fact increase the naturalized areas or allow parts of the park to regenerate naturally, which is what has been happening in some parts of the park.
Indeed, in the Toronto Islands community through our efforts with the parks people over the years, and negotiating to reduce the amount of mowing and the use of pesticides and so on, in fact what were before open fields have naturalized to the extent where they are being considered for status as environmentally sensitive areas. So it's a matter of looking at the various uses and looking at the compatibility and the integration of these different uses so we get the maximum use of the resource.
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Mr Crozier: Is there a fee for using the modes of transportation to the island? If there is, does it vary for residents who are full-time, as opposed to those who visit on a day basis?
Mr Parker: The fee is $3 for a round trip at the current time, and that's the same whether it's for a visitor or a resident. There is no special discount for residents. Residents pay on a per-trip basis, which does add up, if you think about it, on a daily basis. When you think about if you have a family, then it's a significant cost. Of course, through our taxes we also pay for the system as well.
Mr Crozier: As well, I understand it's subsidized to the point of roughly $2 million a year.
Mr Parker: I don't have the figures on what amount of subsidization there might be, but as I mentioned earlier, the idea would be to increase the utilization, to increase the use of the park, slightly expand the community, so that the ferry services, whatever services, become more economic.
Mr Crozier: Do children pay daily to go to school the same fee?
Mr Parker: To my knowledge they do. I think there is a reduced fee. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm fairly sure that for children it's less than for an adult.
Mr Crozier: But they do pay a daily fee --
Mr Parker: That's right.
Mr Crozier: -- as opposed to being free. I assume there are no schools over there on the island.
Mr Parker: There is a school on the island.
Mr Crozier: Oh, there is. An elementary school?
Mr Parker: Yes. I believe it goes up to grade 7 or 8. I'm not sure about that.
Mr Crozier: Fine.
Mr Runciman: Mr Parker, you said earlier you're a year-round resident of the islands.
Mr Parker: That's correct.
Mr Runciman: You don't have another place where you live in another area of the city?
Mr Parker: The island is my home. It's my only home.
Mr Runciman: Your only home. How long have you lived there?
Mr Parker: About three years.
Mr Runciman: How did you become so fortunate as to get a place on the island? How did that come about?
Mr Parker: Well, I've been visiting the island since I moved to Toronto. I came there; basically every year I'd visit several times a year. Eventually, a place became available for rent so I moved over.
Mr Runciman: So you're renting from another owner.
Mr Parker: That's right.
Mr Runciman: You're not an owner yourself.
Mr Parker: That's right.
Mr Runciman: I had a lady in to see me a number of years ago who had owned a property over there that had been leased to someone who had then taken it over and sort of taken over on a squatter's basis, I guess, and she had a real problem with ownership. I guess those kinds of questions have never really been adequately resolved in terms of who really owns these properties. That's not something the trust plans to look at, I gather.
Mr Parker: Well, I think that's in fact the legislation. That's one of the issues that is dealt with very explicitly by the legislation through the appointment of the island commissioner, who has held hearings through the spring and throughout the summer, various applications for entitlement, and has made rulings in each individual case. So the entitlement process has been completed through the actions of the island commissioner.
Mr Runciman: Do you have any political affiliation?
Mr Parker: I don't.
Mr Runciman: Have you ever supported the current party in government, the NDP?
Mr Parker: Frankly, I haven't been active in parliamentary politics at all.
Mr Runciman: Do you have any political views that perhaps are of interest to the committee?
Mr Parker: Sorry, could you repeat that?
Mr Runciman: Your political perspectives. I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about this, but can you explain something -- and I may be mispronouncing this -- called hermeneutics that you've been involved in, the development of that?
Mr Marchese: That's not appropriate.
The Chair: Excuse me. Mr Runciman has the floor.
Mr Parker: Hermeneutics is the study of understanding, basically, to think about how it is that people can understand each other, reach understandings both among each other, understand ourselves, understand our relationship to the natural world. That's been an academic or scholarly interest of mine. I think how it might work out on the ground is just to really start to be sensitive to and to try to understand what the basis of human society is all about, and that's about understanding each other.
Mr Runciman: How does this relate to Marx? Isn't there some effort here to relate Marxism to --
Mr Parker: I think Marx, like other social scientists, was concerned about how people might understand each other and live together in a community.
Mr Runciman: So you wouldn't consider yourself a Marxist.
Mr Parker: I would consider myself a social theorist, I suppose would be one of my hats, and any social theorist would certainly have to take into account the theories of Marx like they would of Mill or Freud or any other political theorist.
Mr Runciman: A couple of quick questions with quick responses, please, because I don't have an awful lot of time. Mr Crozier mentioned the ferry service, and I know in the story in the media today or yesterday there was some suggestion that the residents could use the airport ferry. I don't understand the linkages; I don't pretend to be familiar with the island. Is that feasible, that you could use the airport ferry service?
Mr Parker: I think it's problematic. One thing is that there is a federal runway at the airport, and to make use of the Toronto Island Airport ferry requires that people be bused across the federal runway. That's probably not a good idea from the point of view of transportation planning and it -- well, I think I'll leave it at that.
Mr Runciman: You talked about increasing traffic on the ferry, more utilization, better utilization on a year-round basis of the park over there. What would your view as a director of the trust be in terms of some sort of commercial development over there that would draw large numbers of people to the park site during what are normally not high traffic times?
Mr Parker: Could you expand on that?
Mr Runciman: A casino, for example. The NDP is all into casinos, so maybe we could put a casino out there.
Mr Waters: Some of us.
Mr Runciman: That would certainly generate traffic.
Mr Parker: I think that any anticipated use, commercial or otherwise, would be something that would be very stringently considered by the trust, and the trust is responsible and accountable to the city, to Metro, to the province. As you know, our trust board has representation from members of those various constituencies and it would have to go through a considerable consultation process.
Mr Runciman: It's not an idea that turns you on.
Mr Parker: It's not something we've been considering.
Mr Runciman: One final question: As a director of the trust, I think you know the Federation of Ontario Naturalists has called for an open environmental assessment process for your planning processes and your activities. What's your view on that? Would you support that? If not, why not?
Mr Parker: I would say that in fact the planning and approval process has been very extensive and intensive. The trust is working with the various agencies. We're working with --
Mr Runciman: That's not the question I asked you, though. We have limited time. Would you support the recommendation of the Ontario Naturalists, yes or no?
Mr Parker: I'm sorry, I --
Mr Runciman: The Ontario Naturalists have recommended an open environmental assessment process for the trust's planning process and activities, and I asked you if you would support that recommendation.
Mr Parker: I would certainly support an open community consultation process.
Mr Runciman: You should have been a bureaucrat. Thank you very much.
The Chair: That completes each caucus's questions. Thank you for your appearance, Mr Parker, before the committee this morning.
Mr Parker: Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you.
The Chair: That's it for this morning. The committee will recess until 2 o'clock. Oh, sorry.
Mr Runciman: I haven't been on the committee for some time. I was just wondering, when do you vote on these? This is at the end of the session, at the end of the --
The Chair: At the end of the day.
Mr Runciman: So later on today we'll be voting on all of the appointments we've reviewed for the past two days.
The Chair: Yes. Well, no, we do each day. We voted yesterday on yesterday's appointments, and we will have a motion today for today's appointments.
Mr Runciman: Okay.
The committee recessed from 1152 to 1415.
BRUCE MCGAULEY
Review of intended appointment, selected by government party: Bruce McGauley, intended appointee as member, Pesticides Advisory Committee.
The Chair: Mr Malkowski, you had your hand up. Did you wish to speak?
Mr Gary Malkowski (York East): No, I just want to put my name down on the list for questions.
The Chair: That's a good idea. We've had as many as five at a time from one party, so it's a good idea to get your name down early.
The first person this afternoon is Mr Bruce McGauley, an appointment as a member of the Pesticides Advisory Committee. Welcome to the committee, Mr McGauley. This is a selection by the government party. I think it was Mr Waters, who wanted to find out what the Pesticides Advisory Committee did.
Mr Waters: I always enjoy anything to do with pesticides and farmers in the province of Ontario because I have a problem, and the problem actually is mentioned in the background notes. May I start?
The Chair: Mr Malkowski had indicated he wished to speak first. I haven't started the clock yet, so none of this has taken up any of your time. We'll start now with Mr Malkowski and then go to Mr Waters.
Mr Malkowski: Thank you for taking time to come this afternoon. There has been some concern expressed within the farm community about pesticide regulations and the different regulations across the provinces. There's concern about how those regulations affect the competitiveness. Ontario has some of the most stringent regulations in terms of pesticides control. Do you see that issue as a major concern?
Mr Bruce McGauley: I see it as a concern; I'm not sure it's a major concern. I believe it's important that we do place strong regulations on the use of all pesticides to ensure that their use is not abused.
Mr Malkowski: Thank you. I'm sure Dan will be able to use the time for questions.
Mr Waters: Welcome to the committee. I'm not going to attack you; it's a pet peeve, so I'll get this off my chest right off the bat. I'll go to our legislative researcher's paper. It says, "Another matter raised by the government agencies committee in 1987 was imported food that contains pesticides not permitted for use in Ontario."
As much as I think there has historically been an overuse of pesticides -- at one time the tendency, if not on this side of the border then particularly on the other side of the border, was, "Pour it on and hopefully everything will grow and it will kill everything and don't worry about the outcome" -- I have a problem where we say to a farmer here in Ontario, "You can't use this product; it's banned," but we say to an importer, "You can import this food product for consumption in this province and you can have this level of this banned product on it."
I really have a problem with that and I would like your feelings on that. In particular, is there any way of levelling that playing field? I really think it does affect the farmers. Maybe you can convince me otherwise, but my feeling is that if indeed somebody can just put something on but our farmers aren't allowed to and it lessens their yield, then the playing field is not level. Indeed, if it isn't safe for human consumption, why are we allowing it in the province?
Mr McGauley: It's a rather complicated issue from where I sit, and, as a member of the Pesticides Advisory Committee, it's something we do have to deal with.
Pesticides are lumped together, I guess, when we talk about them in this kind of forum; obviously, that's a bit of a generalization. Each pesticide has its own efficacy, its own breakdown rates and things like that. The Pesticides Advisory Committee only deals with pesticides that have been registered at the federal level. The federal government has a responsibility to look at efficacy and at human health impacts, things like that. What the Ontario Pesticides Advisory Committee is really doing is scheduling these products that have already been determined to be efficacious and safe and suitable for use on human crops. We are scheduling them into six classifications governing their sale and storage and use here in this province.
If a product has a very slow breakdown in the Ontario climate compared to, let's say, the Mexican climate, we might want to place more stringent controls on that product here than other countries do.
That does open the problem, though, as you're raising, about food that is imported into this country that our farmers can't compete with as successfully. I think that is being addressed to some extent by the residue sampling that is done on the products being allowed into Ontario or into Canada. I don't think there is a serious threat to human health, because we are monitoring that produce as it comes in to ensure that it doesn't contain high levels of pesticides that would compromise human health in the province.
Mr Waters: You mentioned the federal government, that we work within its context. I note that from 1984 to 1987 you were on the advisory committee before.
Mr McGauley: Yes.
Mr Waters: My question, because you have some prior knowledge, is the interaction between the advisory committee provincially and the federal. Is there a lot of interaction between the two so that there is a better understanding of the wants and needs of Ontario at the federal level, or are they out doing their thing and Ontario doing its thing?
Mr McGauley: That's an interesting question. My earlier term with OPAC involved forestry applications of pesticides, and we in the forestry community at that time felt the same way the farmers feel. Many products were registered for use in the farm community but they were not specifically registered for forestry use, and we felt we were compromised in our ability to control forest pests.
The farmers have a concern. That's why we invite agriculturalists on the committee so we have their concerns and are cognizant of them.
In terms of the relationship between OPAC and the federal government, in my previous term we were very much involved with the federal government. I was back and forth to Ottawa on a number of occasions with Agriculture Canada, and also with the health directorate at that time, talking about the impacts of non-registered products on applications here in Ontario.
I think that relationship needs to be there. I'm not sure how strong that relationship is right now, but that may be something I can bring to the committee if I'm appointed at this time.
Mr Waters: I'm not sure exactly how this relates, but it's another question that has something to do with the pesticides. I believe you worked for or are part of the London parks and recreation department?
Mr McGauley: Yes.
Mr Waters: I have a friend who does something similar for another community in the province, and I remember that when he started out as a student, on a golf course, there was no licence required; this was some years ago. He was, with no training or anything, putting pesticides on the golf course and on the trees and dealing with everything that's there, the same as you would in a park. I know that now the rules have changed and everyone has to be licensed.
Mr McGauley: That's correct.
Mr Waters: In the licensing process now, are people educated in, shall we say, selective use of pesticides in a much more appropriate manner, rather than just "Spread it on" and "More's better," that indeed sometimes less is better and more kills?
Mr McGauley: Yes. I think it goes beyond that, though. In any of the courses I've been involved with, and I was involved with quite a number when I worked for the Ministry of Natural Resources, we strongly attempted to educate people in alternatives to pesticides, because we were beginning to recognize and certainly do recognize now that there are a number of alternatives. The use of the pesticide, whether chemical or biological, was always taught to be the last resort: You would try to control the pest some other way, some environmentally friendly way, and if that couldn't be done, the next option was biological pesticide, and the third option was control with chemicals. That certainly is in place.
There are varying levels of licensing, depending on whether you're spraying herbicides versus insecticides, fungicides versus indoor applications in greenhouses and so on, so there are different levels of intensity in your training. But yes, label reading, all of those kinds of things, learning how to properly mix the pesticide in the tank and use the proper dose and follow the label directions, all of those things are included in the training sessions.
Mr Crozier: Welcome to the committee. I would like to follow up on the line of questioning that's begun here relative to farming. I was interested in your comment initially that you see it as a problem, but not a major problem.
I come from the southern part of Essex county where there is all variety of field crops, early vegetables, the greenhouse industry. I'm led to believe -- more than led to believe; I believe what my people tell me, and that is that it is a major problem, that in areas where pesticides are approved by the federal government -- and you can enlighten me on this -- the province can then, through the restrictions regarding storage, sale and use of pesticides, either approve what the federal government has approved or not; and that a great deal of cost is gone to by the federal government and in fact the industry to produce information on these pesticides as to their safe use, yet even in that instance the province may not agree. Could you enlighten me as to why you don't see this as a major problem?
Mr McGauley: I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't a major problem. I'm not in the farming community, so I say it out of ignorance more than anything else. I don't know whether it's a major problem or a minor problem. Not being in that particular area of expertise, I'd have to investigate further and depend on other committee members.
Mr Crozier: From your experience on the committee, I take it that your expertise in forestry is combined with someone else's expertise in agriculture and in that way you arrive at the best recommendation, in your view. Is that it?
Mr McGauley: That's correct. My background is in forestry, through formal training and also through the first, roughly, 12 years of my career, and I've now switched into the parks field for the last seven or eight years. So I hope I bring to the committee a sense of what's going on in the urban environment and perhaps I can still comment on things that are happening in the forestry area as well.
Mr Crozier: I agree. I see by your background that you are eminently qualified, but I just wanted to get an idea of what your approach may be, that you're open to -- I was going to say "open to compromise," but this maybe isn't an area in which "compromise" is even the correct word -- but that at least you're open to the views of the agricultural community so that you might be convinced we're doing the right thing.
Mr McGauley: That's correct, yes.
Mr Crozier: Also with application, very recently the farm community has been in touch with me because in our area we have a number of migrant workers, many from Mexico, and the concern is with the licensing of the applicators. I would like your view of the dangers, if you like, involved if we only license, say, one applicator on a farm and then, under supervision, others are allowed to apply pesticides. Could you give me some information that I might take back to my constituents?
Mr McGauley: I'm not right up to date on the Pesticides Act, but in the past I know that one licensed applicator could oversee the work of two or three other individuals who were not licensed. I suspect that scenario still exists. I think it is an appropriate method to work under, and it's the responsibility of the licensed applicator to speak specifically about the products and the dosages or rates that are being used, so that the individuals who aren't licensed at least understand the hazards or concerns that they should understand in that specific application with that specific product.
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Mr Crozier: When it comes to the research that's done, as I've been told, initially companies do a great deal of research when it comes to pesticide use. I suppose there are volumes of information they then present to, in this case, our federal government. It's my understanding that one of the problems with the size of our population relative, let's say, to the United States is that the market just isn't big enough in some cases for the manufacturer to do anything more extensive if it's required.
Then we have the question where the federal government spends time and effort and money and even then Ontario, with more stringent laws, may still not accept that pesticide. What is it that you could explain to a layman if I might say, "Well, gee, if it's good for BC, why isn't it good for Ontario?" Is it just a difference in the expert opinion that's given, or are we really different? Why do you think we can't have uniform approval across the country?
Mr McGauley: I think that we can have uniform approval in certain areas. I think it's one that has troubled all of us who deal with pesticides. In the United States we may have concerns about human health, and then when the product comes to Canada we apply more stringent controls. I have often questioned, is human life more valuable in the United States than it is in Canada or vice versa?
I think, though, one of the areas that we have great concern about is the environment. The Canadian environment, just because of the size of this country, is quite varied. The product, as I was mentioning earlier, may disappear much more quickly in some parts of Canada than in other parts of Canada. It depends on the amount of organic material in the soil, the number of microbes in the soil, the number of growing days or degree days in that particular part of the country. So we could have differences, and I think differences that can be supported scientifically across this country, east and west as well as north and south, mostly from an environmental standpoint, I would contend.
Mr Crozier: When we're on the subject of the environment, how do you feel, then -- and I went through this in our own municipality when groups came to us to have us either drastically reduce or in fact not use any pesticides on public parks, where children may play, this sort of thing. Do you have an opinion on this as to either the use or the banning of pesticides in public areas?
Mr McGauley: Philosophically, I look at pesticides in much the same way as I look at human medicine. If there's a need to use the medication, then the medication is justified; if there is no justification to use it, then it ought not to be used. I look at pesticides in much the same way. After all, pesticides in a lot of cases are chemicals much the same way as drugs are chemicals. If we are arguing the use of a chemical to control dandelions in a park and it doesn't make any difference in terms of tourism or other situations, then we ought not to be using the pesticide for that particular purpose. If, on the other hand, there's an economic problem that's created because of the presence of a particular pest or we see the potential for a pest explosion, perhaps it's a new pest in this province or in this country, then there may be some good justifications for using the products.
Mr Crozier: When we speak of pests, and I may be a bit behind on this, but I think that there was a provincial program to help eliminate termites, and we have, again, termite infestation in the southern part of Essex county, but I don't believe those funds are available any more. Do you have any comment for my termite friends in Essex county as to whether that should be something the provincial government should consider reinstating to assist in the control of termites?
Mr McGauley: I'm honestly not up to date on the termite issue. I guess, though, again from a philosophical standpoint, there are termites all over the world. If they are posing a particular problem there could well be some justification for dealing with the pest. In other situations, leave them alone.
Mrs Witmer: I just have one question. We've had an interesting discussion here on pesticides. Are there any other issues that are of personal importance to you that you would like to see OPAC address?
Mr McGauley: I think the mandate of the Ontario Pesticides Advisory Committee is pretty much restricted to pesticides, and that includes the full gamut, biological and chemical and all pesticides, including insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, the whole gamut.
Mrs Witmer: Is there any area there that you would like to pursue or feel needs more investigation?
Mr McGauley: I'm particularly interested in, I guess, the three big ones: the insecticides, the fungicides and the herbicides. I'm also interested in learning more about the combinations that are coming out, particularly the fertilizers combined with herbicides, because there seems to be a fair bit of that happening. I think it's something that the Pesticides Advisory Committee is dealing with in more recent times and I'm anxious to learn more about that as well.
Mrs Witmer: I wish you well. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your appearance before the committee this afternoon.
EDWARD KINGSTONE
Review of intended appointment, selected by the official opposition party: Edward Kingstone, intended appointee as member, Ontario Criminal Code Review Board.
The Chair: Our next appointment this afternoon is Dr Edward Kingstone. Welcome to the committee, Dr Kingstone. Are you related to a doctor of the same name at the Toronto General Hospital, tropical disease department?
Dr Edward Kingstone: No, they're Keystone. Those are the Keystone twins. One's in tropical medicine; the other one is in rheumatology at the Wellesley. We used to get our mail mixed up.
The Chair: I should remember the name; he saved my life.
Dr Kingstone: Good.
Interjections.
The Chair: No, I didn't wish to open that comment to the rest of the committee, but you'll be pleased to know it's some years ago.
This is a selection of the Liberal Party and we're going to start with Mr Offer.
Mr Offer: Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to ask you the first question based on that past experience, but I guess not.
I have just a very few questions. The appointment under the Ontario Criminal Code Review Board: This is a new type of board establishment with a new type of procedure. Do you have any concerns with the process under which the decision-making is undertaken?
Dr Kingstone: I'm not that familiar with it, but having read about it and reviewed it in the Criminal Code, some of the writing, it seems to me it's a reasonable mechanism for going ahead with making decisions.
I was more familiar with the workings of the other board, or heard about it, and this current one is much more in keeping with the general openness and the balance between the rights of the individuals and the needs of society.
Mr Offer: Do you believe that the process, the type of investigation it's undergone, is one which can ensure the safety of the public in matters of this kind? Are there difficulties that you think might exist?
Dr Kingstone: Well, since we're dealing with an area of behaviour where there are no absolutes and where you have to use a variety of factors in order to come up with a judgement, there are always going to be some difficulties. Short of trying some absolute way of either keeping people incarcerated all the time or not being concerned about it, it's somewhere in between that you have to find a reasonable ground.
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Mr Offer: Do you believe the board should keep a statistical record of the matters that it's heard before it? Do you have any thoughts on the keeping of statistics?
Dr Kingstone: Just in a general way, as long as the statistics are meaningful, I think I have to say I agree with the idea, coming from an area in the practice of medicine and hospitals where outcomes are always very important and the nature of decisions and the effect are something that we look at for feedback all the time in order both to see how effective and also to see how one can learn from it.
Mr Runciman: Doctor, what's your experience with forensic psychiatry?
Dr Kingstone: I haven't been involved in any intense way with forensic psychiatry but I've had an interest and involvement for many years in a number of ways. When there were times when there was a review of individuals who were sentenced to death and were being commuted and required psychiatric examination, I was involved in that process for a while.
As an editor of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, it's been my obligation and experience to review articles helping to educate our Canadian psychiatric population about forensic psychiatry. So I've had to make judgements about that.
A number of years ago, as an administrative head of the department of psychiatry at McMaster, we were involved in negotiations with the Ministry of Correctional Services about setting up a correctional psychiatry program. So there was quite a bit of investigation as to the best way of doing this. Then I spent some time acting as a consultant with the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre and teaching residents there. I've also spent some time visiting facilities in England in the forensic psychiatry area.
Mr Runciman: You've done extensive research and writing. In one of the journal articles you talked about "The Geographical Distribution of Psychiatrists in Canada: Unmet Needs and Remedial Strategies." One of the things I've heard about psychiatric hospitals in this province, and I wonder if you have a view on this, especially in terms of forensic psychiatry, is that the psychiatric hospitals, unless they're affiliated with a university for example, tend to get the less qualified psychiatrists perhaps, because, if you will, the better people can make a significantly better living in private practice than working in a hospital setting. I just wonder if you have observed that and if you have any views to express.
Dr Kingstone: I think a few years ago that was true for most of the reasons why people settle in metropolitan areas rather than in other areas of the province. A number of years ago there was a significant rearrangement of the salary structure so that some of the invidious comparisons that existed at the time are no longer there. In fact, my understanding and my evidence and from what I've seen is that the income level of people who work for the provincial hospitals is very close to those who are in private practice in the practice of psychiatry. So where people go depends a lot on personal factors.
Mr Runciman: One of the things you just mentioned in response to a previous question about the change of the law and the establishment of the Ontario Criminal Code Review Board, I think I've got your quote correctly, is that the new legislation brings more balance between the rights of the individual and the needs of society. That view concerns me a little bit. What is your understanding of the need for changes in the legislation? My view was that the legislation was changed because of so-called human rights advocates complaining about the indefinite incarceration of individuals in psychiatric facilities, individuals who had committed heinous crimes. So there was this effort to try to allow these folks greater ability to get back out into the communities across this province and across the country. I gather you share that view, based on what you've just said, that you think it's bringing more balance into the system. You thought there was an imbalance in the past, did you? Why did you reach that conclusion?
Dr Kingstone: The imbalance that I perceive is that it wasn't very clear as to some of the criteria that were being used. I find that the current list of criteria makes the protection of the public a cardinal issue before others can be looked at, the other dispositions that are available. So it spells out the mandate quite clearly, both for the operation of the board as well as for the public.
Mr Runciman: I'm not so sure. It may spell it out but we've had indications and cases of situations where the board has certainly not placed public safety at the top of the priority list. I guess I'm interested in your views in that respect, because it seems to me, when we talk about individual rights, that the rights of society at large should take precedence in terms of public safety.
I know there's always a risk factor associated with these kinds of decisions, but I'm wondering how you feel about accountability. This has been talked about in terms of parole boards and, in effect, you are performing much the same function as a parole board. What's your view of an appointee to this kind of board being accountable to the public through civil action, through the courts, what have you, in respect to you making a faulty decision which perhaps results in the death of a citizen?
Dr Kingstone: I can't comment exactly about the work of the board, but I can tell you that in my everyday work, accountability is first and foremost in the way we operate. We have an accountability to our patients; we're also very concerned about malpractice; not from the point of view that one can be sued but as a way of making sure that correct decisions are made. So I have no problem with the idea of accountability.
We know, and I've been through this, that when the accountability is too close to the decision-making, then it forces people to make decisions that sometimes are too defensive. So I think it would be a kind of accountability that would allow the best judgements of a group of people to be made and I think they should be reviewed on the basis of outcomes.
Mr Runciman: I just want to ask you a few questions about victims when we're talking about rights and how you feel about the question of victims having access to the hearing process -- that's just one element of it -- and having, through the crown perhaps or through their own representative or themselves, a limited ability to provide a victim impact statement to the board of review prior to making your decision. Do you have any problem with that concept?
Dr Kingstone: I think I would have to have some more experience with how that impacts on the way a board works. I can certainly be very sympathetic with the wish for victims to be able to have an opportunity to make sure that the effect of the crime and the future is taken into consideration. One has, to a certain extent, to take their instinct, their intuition about the future, what they're worried about, in there.
On the other hand, one would like to find a way, and I don't know if there is a way, for them to be able to leave something terrible behind and get on with their lives, as it were, because there seems to be a kind of continuation.
Mr Runciman: I don't think that's a role that you should be playing.
Dr Kingstone: No.
Mr Runciman: That's sort of a God-like role, that you're saying, "You go away and forget about this and do not tell us about the impact that this individual's actions had on your family and on your life." I don't think that's the kind of role you should be playing. That's my own opinion.
The other question in respect to victims: You'll be making decisions as a member of this board. If someone is incarcerated in Penetanguishene and there's a recommendation from a psychiatrist in Penetanguishene that, "We think this individual can now be moved to medium security" or "from medium security," their warrant is loosened so they're given ground privileges or community privileges. Those are the kinds of decisions you will be making.
Do you have any difficulty with notification of victims with respect to, initially, the hearings taking place but, secondly, a notification of this individual, say, moving from Penetanguishene to Kingston or now going to be released under supervision into the community or unsupervised unconditional release? Do you have any problem with the idea of notification, keeping victims completely informed?
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Dr Kingstone: No. Yes, in terms of rights, I feel their rights should also be taken into consideration.
Mr Runciman: That hasn't been the case in the past, but, okay, thanks very much.
Mr Waters: Thank you for coming in today. The member brought up Penetanguishene and that facility's about a mile, if that, from my riding, so I'm somewhat familiar with the facility, although I still have trouble understanding the process in which you're going to be involved.
One of the questions I have is because, as a committee, and this just being one committee of the Legislature, probably four or five times a year we have someone come in in your position, or it seems like that, and anyone who touches this particular topic, we drag them forward because we're trying to get an insight as to what's happening.
You're going to be sitting on the board. Would you not agree that one of the things the board should be looking at is becoming proactive, not necessarily with their client group that indeed they're going to be making the decisions on but maybe with the decision-makers of the Legislature and indeed some people in the public, so that the public has a better understanding about how you make the decisions and the process? Mr Runciman is getting at the same thing I think I'm trying to get at. Part of it isn't necessarily that you're making the wrong decisions; we just don't understand how you're making the decisions. Maybe there's a way of being proactive, and I'd like your comments on that.
Dr Kingstone: Except in so far as there needs to be confidentiality maintained under the rules and regulations about individual illness and individual issues, and I think that always makes it difficult, I would have no difficulty in finding a way of providing education for people. I think it's a contentious area. There's not going to be an easy way of satisfying people, but it's important to try to educate people about where the profession is, where the science is in terms of the treatment of mental illness, the success rate in treatment of mental illness, the coexistence of criminality in mental illness, because we're just learning about that, as well as the predictability.
Mr Waters: Yes, because I look at my community, and we're probably touched by it somewhat more than most, and a lot of the people in the community, to be quite honest, think that what happens is some bright young psychiatrist or someone like this comes out of a university with an honours degree, goes to Penetang or to Oak Ridge, which is for the criminally insane -- I should be more specific because there are three hospitals there -- and three years later decides that he has cured this person and that person walks out the door. That's what the community believes happens, and that indeed he hasn't cured that person. It turned out that that person was smarter than he was and he wasn't quite as bright as he thought he was. That's the way the community perceives it.
I know and you know that we have incidents where, for whatever reason, either the wrong decision was made or the person, for whatever reason, is back in the public and sometimes things go wrong. But there are a lot of times that it goes right.
Dr Kingstone: Sure.
Mr Waters: I don't think that necessarily we should have the public in at all the hearings, but there has to be, I think, some form of understanding somehow in this system, there has to be some form of understanding by the public what the process is.
Dr Kingstone: We're not dealing with a static process --
Mr Waters: And I know that.
Dr Kingstone: -- which is one of the problems with it. I think if we had psychiatrists who were too naïve, then we're not doing a good job in educating them. But there's no question that we're dealing with a process, with a science in psychiatry that is certainly not exact, because all the facts aren't there and we also go in waves.
Often there are breakthroughs in the way one can treat people and it seems that this is going to be the answer, and then after a few years it's not the answer so the pendulum swings. I think the job of the experts is to try to keep the public knowledgeable about where things are going.
I believe that a few years ago we were more hopeful that our treatment was much more permanent. I think we realize that in more cases now we are dealing with a chronic illness as we do in so many areas of medicine and what's important is the right form of treatment. Letting people out without appropriate treatment or without assurance of compliance, which is very difficult, causes a great deal of difficulty and we don't have any answer to that.
Mr Waters: Indeed, my feeling, because we do hit the three hospitals, is that we have a number of people who have other mental disorders who are not in Oak Ridge, but because they're in an institution they take their medication and everything's going well. When they come back into the community, the aftercare, the follow-up, isn't always what that particular patient needs. It might be a standard follow-up, but some patients need a different degree, I guess, of follow-up than others. I think this could be some of the problem.
Dr Kingstone: When we wrestle with this problem all the time, much of the time, because I work in a general hospital, it's not a dangerous thing because people leave. It's only, as it were, the family who gets upset and brings them back. We deal with this on a daily basis and have reviews about this. It becomes harder because the consequences when someone is released and commits a crime are much greater so that one has to err much more on the side of conservatism, but we don't have good ways of getting people absolutely to comply unless you hang on to them.
I think the issue of being very optimistic, that after a few years of treatment people are automatically better -- I don't think that is as much in existence. I think the pendulum has swung a little bit and we are looking for more profound ways both of understanding and of treatment.
Mr Waters: I've looked at your CV and I'm more than impressed and I think most members on the committee are. If I was to leave you with a parting thought it would be this: You are going to become part of a board that is under constant scrutiny by the public and if you could have any impact on that board in order that somehow we, the public in general, have a better understanding of what they're doing -- and I agree, without interfering with the individual rights -- but for us to have an understanding that we're not constantly releasing monsters back into society, that indeed there is a thought and a process -- if you could have some sort of an impact on this board becoming proactive in that way, I would leave you with that thought and thank you for coming here today.
Dr Kingstone: I would agree. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Waters, and again, thank you, Dr Kingstone. We now have two matters of business. One is to determine the appointments for today.
Mr Waters: I move that we pass the people who came forward today, probably as a block. Yes, I move concurrence as a block.
The Chair: All right. Do you wish, Mr Runciman, to vote on all of them individually?
Mr Runciman: No. I'm just trying to look for the name of the individual who was appointed to the islands committee.
The Chair: Mr Parker, number 4.
Mr Runciman: I'd like to have a recorded vote on Mr Parker. I don't mind voting on the others as a group.
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The Chair: All right. So the first motion, moved by Mr Waters, will be to approve the following appointments, and I will read them into the record: Rosalind Rajanayagam as a member of the Council of the College of Dental Hygienists of Ontario; Mr Paul Nykanen as a member of the Ontario International Trade Corp; Mr Pat Palmer as a member of the Ontario International Trade Corp; Mr Bruce McGauley as a member of the Pesticides Advisory Committee; and Dr Edward Kingstone as a member of the Ontario Criminal Code Review Board.
That motion has been moved by Mr Waters. Is there any discussion? All in favour of that motion? Opposed, if any? That motion is carried.
Mr Marchese: I would move that we approve the appointment of Mr Raymond Parker.
The Chair: Mr Marchese is moving the approval of the appointment of Mr Raymond Parker --
Mr Runciman: I request a recorded vote.
The Chair: -- as a member of the Toronto Islands Residential Community Trust Corp board of directors, and a recorded vote has been requested.
All in favour of Mr Marchese's motion?
Ayes
Curling, Crozier, Duignan, Frankford, Harrington, Malkowski, Marchese, Offer, Waters.
The Chair: Opposed to that motion?
Nays
Runciman, Witmer.
The Chair: That motion is carried.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Chair: We have one other matter of business. It's the approval of the report of the subcommittee from this morning's subcommittee meeting, if someone would like to move approval of the report of the subcommittee as printed.
Mrs Witmer: So moved.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms Witmer is moving approval of the report of the subcommittee, as printed on three pages and circulated to each member.
All in favour of the report of the subcommittee report? That motion is carried.
Mr Marchese: I move adjournment, Madam Chair.
The Chair: There being no further business, Mr Marchese is moving adjournment. All in favour of adjournment?
The committee is adjourned, thank --
Interjections.
The Chair: All right. Mr Curling has the floor.
Mr Curling: We discussed earlier about Mr Wilson not being able to appear at a certain time and Mr Engelmann not being available at certain meetings. Should they become available in February, we'd be happy to accommodate them. If not, we will also be prepared to see them in March, but that doesn't say that if both of them are not available in February that we also are prepared to see them in March.
The Chair: What you're saying is that the committee made a decision yesterday that they would see Mr Wilson in March because he was going to be away in February. Should his plans change --
Interjection: And Mr Engelmann.
The Chair: -- and Mr Engelmann. If their plans change, what you are now suggesting is that the clerk go ahead and schedule them as early as possible, and if that is February, it would accommodate them earlier and you would be very happy to do that. As a result of scheduling them in February, then you would hold over two of your other selections for the March meeting instead.
Mr Curling: For March, that's right.
The Chair: That's clear. Any questions?
Mr Waters: I have no problem with that, Madam Chair, but I was wondering, I have an alternate scheduled for February and if indeed they were available, I would be willing to give that alternate up in order to allow for Mr Wilson or Mr Engelmann. If that would help facilitate it, I would like to do it in as timely a fashion as possible.
The Chair: Right. I think from Mr Curling's indication, so would the committee like to do it as timely as possible. There is unanimous agreement on this matter, so I think that concludes the business for today.
The committee adjourned at 1507.