Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The committee met at 0900 in committee room 1 and by video conference.

The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Thushitha Kobikrishna): Good morning, honourable members. In the absence of the Chair and Vice-Chair, it is my duty to call upon you to elect an Acting Chair. Are there any nominations? MPP Kusendova.

Ms. Natalia Kusendova: Good morning. I would like to nominate MPP Deepak Anand for Acting Chair.

The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Thushitha Kobikrishna): Does the member accept the nomination?

Mr. Deepak Anand: Yes.

The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Thushitha Kobikrishna): Are there any further nominations? There being no further nominations, I declare the nominations closed and MPP Anand elected Acting Chair of the committee.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Good morning, everyone. I was pretty scared and stressed, sitting out there thinking that hopefully there are no other nominations. Thank you for choosing me. All right. Let’s get into the work.

Good morning, everyone. I hope you are well and that everyone is staying safe and healthy. At this point, I will be doing an attendance check and going over some of the guidelines for our new format of committee meetings that include remote participation and physical distancing. I will be starting with the attendance check, and will ask for the attendance again at the end in case anyone else has joined.

We do not have any of the members present in the room, so I am going to start with the confirmation of members’ attendance on Zoom. I will be asking the following questions: if they are present, and to confirm they are in fact the honourable member and to confirm that they are in Ontario.

I’m going to begin with MPP Will Bouma. MPP Bouma, please share your name and confirm that you are in Ontario, sir.

Mr. Will Bouma: Yes, thank you, Chair. I am indeed MPP Bouma and I am in my house in St. George.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Next is MPP Parm Gill. MPP Gill, please confirm your name and confirm that you are in Ontario, sir.

Mr. Parm Gill: It is Parm Gill from Milton, and I am in Milton, Ontario.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Next is MPP Natalia Kusendova. MPP Kusendova, please confirm your name and that you are in Ontario, ma’am.

Ms. Natalia Kusendova: Good morning, Chair, colleagues and staff. I’m Natalia Kusendova and I am in Ontario.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Next is MPP Suze Morrison. MPP Morrison, please confirm you are in Ontario and your name, please.

Ms. Suze Morrison: Yes, hi. Suze Morrison here, and I am in my home here in Toronto.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Next is MPP Gurratan Singh. MPP Singh, please confirm your name and that you are in Ontario, sir.

Mr. Gurratan Singh: Hello. Gurratan Singh here, calling from Ontario.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Next is MPP Nina Tangri. MPP Tangri, please confirm your name and that you are in Ontario, ma’am.

Mrs. Nina Tangri: Good morning, Chair. Yes, I am Nina Tangri, MPP, and I am in Mississauga, Ontario.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): MPP Kevin Yarde, please confirm your name and confirm that you’re in Ontario, sir.

Mr. Kevin Yarde: Yes, it’s MPP Kevin Yarde, and I’m in Brampton.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): MPP Triantafilopoulos, please confirm that you are in Ontario and your name, ma’am.

Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos: Yes, this is Effie Triantafilopoulos, and I’m in Ontario, Chair.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): And I do see MPP Mike Harris, who will be substituting for MPP Lindsey Park. MPP Harris, please confirm your name and that you are in Ontario, sir.

Mr. Mike Harris: It is MPP Mike Harris, and I am here in Ontario.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Now I will quickly go over the participation guidelines, although I know you’ve heard this many times in the past. For the Zoom participants, please be aware that broadcast and recording will be controlling your microphones as they usually would do in a committee. Depending on the version of Zoom you’re using, you may have been asked to grant permission to unmute when you joined. If you accepted, the broadcast operator will be able to activate your microphone once I recognize you. Participants using older versions of Zoom may still get a request to unmute your microphone before you are able to speak. Please wait for the unmute notification before trying to unmute.

For those members who are calling in with the audio—in fact, there is no one at this time.

During the meeting if you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact Andrew Kleiman from technical services at akleiman@ola.org or 416-804-6536. If you have to leave the call at any time, please advise the Clerk in the chat.

Just for clarity, I will be going through the voting process. Voting during today’s meeting will be through a show of hands. I will start by asking, “Are the members ready to vote?” I will be asking, “All those in favour, please raise your hand.” Our Clerk will be counting the raised hands. Following that, I’m going to ask, “All those opposed, please raise your hand,” and our Clerk will count those hands. I will then declare the vote. Unless someone specifically asks for a recorded vote after I have asked whether the members are ready to vote, the breakdown of the vote will not show up in Hansard.

At this point, are there any questions? Seeing none, are there any members who have joined? Okay, not at this time.

Committee business

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): We’re here to consider the committee process with respect to Bill 246, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act, which was referred to the committee pursuant to the order of the House on March 3, 2021. I welcome all members to discuss business today. Is there any comment? I see MPP Harris. Go ahead.

Mr. Mike Harris: I move that the committee enter closed session for the purpose of organizing committee business and that broadcasting staff be permitted to remain in the closed session meeting for the purpose of operating the electronic meeting technology.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Any debate or any comment? I see MPP Suze Morrison. MPP Morrison, go ahead, please.

Ms. Suze Morrison: I don’t understand the value of moving into closed session. We’re only here to discuss organization of committee meetings related to a bill. I don’t understand the need to go in camera and cut out the recording and public access and Hansard from these meetings—to be made available. I don’t understand how there is any benefit to the public in that. We’re not here to debate anything contentious, and it is a little bit concerning, I think, that the government members would like to exclude the public from something as simple as a committee meeting for organizing ourselves for a bill.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Any comment from any of the other members? I see MPP Harris.

Mr. Mike Harris: It’s interesting that the member would say something like that, because normally, this would be done in subcommittee, which is in camera regardless, so the fact that the member thinks that that would be contrary to what would normally happen—unfortunately, we’ve tried to have subcommittee meetings with members of the official opposition, but they haven’t gone very well over the last little while, and we’ve had to come to committee anyway to go ahead and do this. So out of respect for everyone’s time, we’re going to go this route. Hopefully, in the future, maybe we can have some better subcommittee meetings with the members and we’ll be able to get through that.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Deepak Anand): Are there any other members who would like to comment? Seeing none, at this moment, I would say we’re going to the voting. Are the members ready to vote? All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those opposed, please raise your hands. Considering this, I declare the motion carried.

There will be a five-minute recess, and we’ll reconvene in five minutes. Thank you so much.

The committee recessed at 0909 and later continued in closed session.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE POLICY

Chair / Président

Mr. Daryl Kramp (Hastings–Lennox and Addington PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente

M^me Lucille Collard (Ottawa–Vanier L)

Mr. Will Bouma (Brantford–Brant PC)

M^me Lucille Collard (Ottawa–Vanier L)

Mr. Parm Gill (Milton PC)

Mr. Daryl Kramp (Hastings–Lennox and Addington PC)

Ms. Natalia Kusendova (Mississauga Centre / Mississauga-Centre PC)

Ms. Suze Morrison (Toronto Centre / Toronto-Centre ND)

Ms. Lindsey Park (Durham PC)

Mr. Gurratan Singh (Brampton East / Brampton-Est ND)

Mrs. Nina Tangri (Mississauga–Streetsville PC)

Ms. Effie J. Triantafilopoulos (Oakville North–Burlington / Oakville-Nord–Burlington PC)

Mr. Kevin Yarde (Brampton North / Brampton-Nord ND)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

Mr. Deepak Anand (Mississauga–Malton PC)

Mr. Mike Harris (Kitchener–Conestoga PC)

Clerk / Greffière

Ms. Thushitha Kobikrishna

Staff / Personnel

Ms. Heather Conklin, research officer,
Research Services

Mr. Andrew McNaught, research officer,
Research Services