POLICE RECORDS CHECKS BY NON-PROFIT AGENCIES ACT, 1999 / LOI DE 1999 SUR LES VÉRIFICATIONS DES DOSSIERS DE POLICE PAR LES AGENCES SANS BUT LUCRATIF

EAST YORK BASEBALL ASSOCIATION

ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA

TED REEVE HOCKEY ASSOCIATION

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS

LORRAINE STREET

CONTENTS

Monday 6 December 1999

Police Records Checks by Non-profit Agencies Act, 1999, Bill 9, Mr Kormos / Loi de 1999 sur les vérifications des dossiers de police par les agences sans but lucratif, projet de loi 9, M. Kormos

East York Baseball Association
Mr Byron Yankou

Anglican Church of Canada
Rev Harry Huskins
Bishop Ann Tottenham
Archdeacon Susan DeGruchy
Rev Dawn Davis
Rev Michael Bedford-Jones
Ted Reeve Hockey Association

Mr John McKay

Boys and Girls Clubs
Mr David Rew

Lorraine Street

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND SOCIAL POLICY

Chair / Président
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président

Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)

Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC)
Mr Michael Bryant (St Paul's L)
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington PC)
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa West-Nepean / Ottawa-Ouest-Nepean PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre / -Centre ND)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan L)
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

Mr Frank Mazzilli (London-Fanshawe PC)

Clerk / Greffière

Ms Susan Sourial

Staff / Personnel

Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Research and Information Services

The committee met at 1606 in room 151.

POLICE RECORDS CHECKS BY NON-PROFIT AGENCIES ACT, 1999 / LOI DE 1999 SUR LES VÉRIFICATIONS DES DOSSIERS DE POLICE PAR LES AGENCES SANS BUT LUCRATIF

Consideration of Bill 9, An Act respecting the cost of checking the police records of individuals who may work for certain non-profit service agencies / Projet de loi 9, Loi concernant les frais de vérification des dossiers de police à l'égard des particuliers qui pourraient travailler pour certaines agences de services sans but lucratif.

The Chair (Mr Joseph N. Tascona): The committee is in session. I'm Joe Tascona, the Chair of the standing committee on justice and social policy. We have a number of presenters. I have to apologize that we're a little late getting started. The House has just put us in a position, orders of the day, so that we can start.

EAST YORK BASEBALL ASSOCIATION

The Chair: Our first presenter is the East York Baseball Association. I have Byron Yankou. You have 20 minutes to make your presentation. If you don't need to use that, there'll be an opportunity for the other parties' representatives; Mr Kormos is here and representatives of the government party, and they can ask you some questions, if they wish. So go ahead.

Mr Byron Yankou: My name is Byron Yankou. I live in the city of Toronto, and I come here today in support of Bill 9. I'm a volunteer on the executive of the East York Baseball Association, and I manage my 10-year-old son's baseball team.

Are children being victimized? Let's look at the facts. The National Foundation to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse in the United States is the organization that helped President Clinton draft a bill, which was signed into law on October 9, 1998, called the Volunteers for Children Act, which amended the National Child Protection Act of 1993.

The National Foundation to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse stated these chilling facts: The Boy Scouts of America reported that at least 2,071 scouts reported being abused by their leaders between 1971 and 1991. Yet, there were still at least 14 men who had been charged or convicted of sex offences who joined the Boy Scouts, including some who'd been kicked out before. Why? Because the national organization of Boy Scouts hadn't mandated police background checks.

In Dallas, Texas, at the YMCA there was a counsellor between 1989 and 1991 named David Wayne Jones, a 20-year-old. He had been a counsellor in an after-school program, and he had molested 41 children between the ages of three and 11 who were in his care. He's now serving 15 years.

In Rhode Island, Michael Abatto was named Tiverton, Rhode Island's Man of the Year for his work with community youth organizations. He was convicted of sexually molesting two boys he had worked with over a period of five years.

In 1993, Richard DeHuff, who was a volunteer at Big Brothers in King county, Washington, pleaded guilty to raping an 11-year-old boy in his care. He was sentenced to seven and a half years.

Dennis Bedard of Harrison, Maine, a 44-year-old man, had been a little league coach for several years when he was convicted of two counts of gross sexual assault and eight counts of unlawful sexual conduct. The offences occurred over a six-month period and involved boys between the ages of nine and 12.

In Canada, we have Graham James's shocking abuse of Sheldon Kennedy. There is the Mount Cashel orphanage. These infamous incidents are part of this country's history.

Professionally, I am a property and casualty insurance broker. I'm all too aware of the liability that both for-profit and non-profit organizations have when they hire or accept as volunteers people who work with young people. Sexual abuse liability is an area that I have some knowledge of as a result of my working with the Greek Orthodox Church of Canada.

The East York Baseball Association provides both rep and house league programs for over 600 boys and girls, ranging in age from four to 20 years old. While we have never had any problems with sexual predators, we want to keep it that way. Previous boards of my association, I am told, considered doing police background checks on volunteers, but at the executive meeting we had this past Saturday I was told they shied away because of the enormous cost. However, in the new year we will be voting on, and I am sure we will pass, that it will be mandatory that all volunteers, umpires and park workers will have to go through a police background check.

I just went to 40 College Street, home of the Toronto Police Services Board, last week and I received this package on doing criminal background checks on volunteers. The cost for volunteer organizations today is $16.05 per background check. If you multiply that over the 135 coaches, umpires and park staff we have, the little East York Baseball Association would have to pay an additional $2,000 a year. I've included a brief summary of our financial statement, and you can see here that we only charge our kids half of what we get in and we do fundraising like everyone else. We have a surplus of $4,000. If we had to pay an additional $2,000, that would be half of our surplus, which we use to buy bats, balls and equipment with. We would just have to do more chocolate almond selling, bingos and more fundraising.

The East York Baseball Association never turns away needy children because their parents can't pay. We find a way to look after our children, many of whom are from broken homes, homes of hard-working single parents or those children who come from homes on social assistance. We find a way for them to have some fun playing baseball. We haven't raised our fees in three years, but because of rising costs we will likely have to raise our registration fees 20% this year. If you want to play in our house league-last year it was $100-this year it would cost $120 for many hours of fun. But if this bill doesn't pass, Bill 9, we will probably have to raise our registration a little bit more because the East York Baseball Association will be taking the lead and doing police background checks whether this bill is passed or not.

The businesses of our area have been very supportive financially, but they're tapped out. All of the body shops, realtors, insurance brokers, doctors, dentists, legions and photo studios are inundated with requests for fundraising because of government cutbacks. Surely the government can help those volunteer organizations that work with children and work with the aged, because children may form only 25% of our population, but they're 100% of our future.

Let me tell you something about human nature. Most people won't buy insurance unless they have to by law or else if they know someone else who has suffered a loss. Even though it's mandated by law in Ontario to buy car insurance, there are still thousands of Ontarians who go without because of the cost. My point in mentioning this to you, ladies and gentlemen, about human nature is that our little baseball association hasn't done background checks in the past because of the cost and neither have huge organizations, such as the Greater Toronto Hockey League or the Ontario Baseball Association. If the government decides to pass Bill 9, the excuse of the enormous cost will be taken away from the very many volunteer organizations which work with children. The government's action will also send a message to volunteer organizations to do police background checks to help prevent further victimization of children.

To those of you who argue that there will be an extra cost for police forces of this province, I acknowledge that, yet I say to you, look at the enormous societal cost of those children who have been victimized and have lapsed into alcohol and drug addiction, prostitution and continuing the chain of sexual abuse and tell me that a small investment in doing a background check, in prevention, is worth it.

Look at the enormous amount of money that was spent on the inquiry regarding the late Martin Kruze. May God rest his soul. When it was revealed what that poor child and young man went through, eventually committing suicide, we as a society must vow that it will never happen again.

As a civilized society, we must ensure that it never happens again. When there is an organization called NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, that argues that adult society has neither the moral nor legal right to limit a child's selection of sexual partners, I say beware. There is a René Guyon Society, that has a credo of saying, "Sex before eight or it's too late." I say, with these perverts roaming around, help.

I think we all agree that society deems schooling, the fire department, policing and snow clearing to be essential services. With all the reports of abuse that I've outlined today, I hope you'll agree that police background checks are essential services that our youth and aged, the most vulnerable members of society, are entitled to. Please help prevent further abuse.

The Chair: Are there any questions from the parties? We have 10 minutes, so about three minutes per caucus.

Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre): If I may, Chair, obviously, because of what went on in the House, we started later than we had planned to. Are we able to accommodate all the folks who are here today?

The Chair: Everybody is here, I believe. We should be able to. There's one party that's going to present tomorrow.

Mr Kormos: If I may, then-

The Chair: We'll start off with Mr Kormos; three minutes each.

Mr Kormos: I wanted to make this clear. You said the Greater Toronto Hockey League does not routinely require record checks for its volunteers.

Mr Yankou: I don't believe so. I phoned up the Greater Toronto Hockey League and asked them what their position was. My son plays in the league. I spoke to a first or second director, Mr Steve Kupresak, and he said he'd take it under advisement. I phoned Mr Gardner, who's the president of the GTHL, and he has yet to return my call. But as far as I know, the GTHL doesn't do routine police background checks on their coaches.

Mr Kormos: One of my concerns, and I'm not purporting to have investigated every single organization, is that I did come across a surprisingly large number of volunteer-based organizations, especially those in health care and working with persons with disabilities, that similarly had never adopted a consistent practice of record checks. Part of the motive behind the bill is to create an incentive by not having the disincentive of a financial cost.

Thanks very much for taking the time. I appreciate it.

Mr Frank Mazzilli (London-Fanshawe): To explain the government's position, we certainly always support the record checks being done. The issue remains whether it will be a local decision or a province-wide decision that our police departments be forced into such actions. That's what the debate is about today and it will continue for the next few days. As you likely know, some police services have been providing this service free of cost to volunteer organizations, and have for some time. Others have been charging a minor amount for some of these checks. Again, I thank you for your presentation, but just so you're aware of what the debate is about, it's about the 50% or so of police services that charge a minor amount for volunteer checks.

Mr Yankou: I am aware. To us, $2,000 for our organization isn't a minor amount. We can't use the OPP checking for free; we have to use Toronto Police Service, because we're in Toronto.

Mr Mazzilli: I appreciate it. You're in one of those areas that's certainly affected.

Mr Michael Bryant (St Paul's): My question has been addressed. Thank you very much for coming.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming. We appreciate it.

ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA

The Chair: Our next presenter is the Anglican Church of Canada. We have the Reverend Harry Huskins, the Venerable Susan DeGruchy and the Right Reverend Ann Tottenham. Thank you very much for coming. We have 20 minutes for a presentation. Please introduce yourselves to the members.

Rev Harry Huskins: My name is Harry Huskins. I'm the executive officer for policy for the Anglican Church in the province. We became aware that this bill was going to be discussed in this hearing, so we've attempted to bring together a delegation to you from across the province. It was somewhat difficult to cancel some appointments. We managed to bring a couple of the Toronto bishops here. Bishop Ann Tottenham will be addressing a brief to you in a moment. Archbishop O'Driscoll, the senior bishop in the province, sends his regrets. Unfortunately, he was involved in a meeting this afternoon that has been scheduled for over a year and he couldn't make it here, but he sends his very best wishes to you and his thanks to you for considering this matter, which is very important to but is easily overlooked in the grander scheme of things. With your permission, Mr Chairman, I'll allow Bishop Ann Tottenham of the Diocese of Toronto to read our brief to you.

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Bishop Ann Tottenham: I am Bishop Ann Tottenham. With me are Bishop Michael Bedford-Jones of the York-Scarborough area of our diocese, and Reverend Susan DeGruchy who, with Harry, is on the Anglican executive in Ontario.

Mr Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to thank you for your generous invitation to speak with you today. I represent some 400,000 Anglicans and more than 1,000 congregations in the province on a matter of some concern to us: the problem that many of our groups and agencies experience in meeting the costs of police records screening checks of volunteers, the same matter you are considering in this hearing.

The moral, social and legal responsibilities we carry when we place volunteers and employees in contact with the young and the vulnerable have been of increasing concern to us. For this reason, we have made it a priority over the last three years to participate actively in both the national and Ontario screening initiatives. Our senior elected layperson, Betty Livingston, the prolocutor of our provincial synod, has taken a leading role in the development of the sections concerning faith communities. Just two weeks ago here in Toronto, there was a major training session in screening protocols and techniques. Leaders from each of our seven dioceses, and many other faith groups, were involved. They will now go back to their communities and parishes to enable us to implement these procedures in our organizations and groups.

These agencies and groups address a wide range of needs and take many forms. In our parishes we have the traditional Sunday school, youth and scouting groups that you would expect to find. We also have an increasing number of very active groups that work with seniors, the ill and those with limited mobility, the physically, developmentally and emotionally challenged and, of course, the hungry and homeless. We have an increasing number of larger agencies that work at the diocesan level. In the Diocese of Toronto, we fund 10 community ministries and agencies with specific mandates to address the needs of refugees, homeless men and women, low-income women and children, troubled teenagers, and women seeking shelter from abusive relationships. We will spend $650,000 on these 10 ministries in Toronto alone this year, and it will not be enough. Every day we see the needs growing, and we find ourselves under increasing financial pressure right across the province as we try to fill the expanding gaps in our social fabric.

In addition to these efforts on the parish and diocesan levels, we are increasingly entering into joint efforts with other Christian denominations, other faith groups, other community agencies and, in some cases, with governments. We believe that these partnerships will increase substantially over the next decade as all of us try to do the best possible job with limited resources.

All this work depends on volunteers; it could not be done without them. As we try to increase the number of our volunteers and, at the same time, implement our new screening procedures as widely as possible, the problem we are encountering is the cost of screening checks. We did not foresee this, but it is a growing problem as we try to expand our ministries. We hear about this difficulty more and more from the grassroots level. The director of community ministries program of the Diocese of Toronto says, "Without some action to restrain or eliminate the growing costs of screening checks, I foresee a deterring effect on volunteer involvement and an increasing impact on the scope of services we can provide."

This does not mean that we will not continue to try to do the job. It does mean that how well we can do that job will be undermined. We are particularly worried about the emerging situation in which we will not only have to curtail recruitment of skilled and enthusiastic volunteers, but we'll also have to turn away some who offer their services because we cannot afford to pay for their screening from within our overstretched budgets.

The alternative to this is to screen only some and not all of those who should be checked. This undermines the very screening initiatives we have put so much time and effort into developing in conjunction with the federal and provincial governments.

Our church's provincial council considered this problem, and we talked informally with many of those involved at all levels and in all sectors. One particular concern which emerged is that we do not want a situation to develop in which financially stretched community groups and financially stretched police services are placed in an artificial but destructive conflict because of this issue. In response to this, the provincial council, consisting of the diocesan bishops and elected lay and clerical delegates from each of our seven dioceses, passed the following motion:

"Be it resolved that this provincial council, recognizing the financial burden imposed on volunteer organizations and police services by the fee for CPIC checks used in the screening of volunteers, urges the provincial government to establish a fund to reimburse police services in the province for the cost of these checks and the resources and personnel, equipment and space needed to carry them out, and that the police services be given the discretion to determine which requests for CPIC checks for the screening of volunteers reimbursable under this fund are appropriate to proceed with."

We believe this approach would resolve the four major problems we see in the present situation. They are (1) the difficulty volunteer organizations are having in paying the screening costs, (2) the disparity from place to place of the actual fee being charged, (3) the inequity across the province, where some of our groups are lucky enough to be policed by the OPP or by police services that absorb the costs, and others who have to pay fees, and (4) the disparity of the financial burden between police services, some of which have relatively limited numbers of requests and others which must deal with a far larger number of requests.

We appear before you here today not as experts in the questions of public finance and administrative procedures which this problem raises. There are others present who are far more experienced and knowledgeable in these areas than we are. Your Chair's experience on the Barrie city council, Mr Guzzo's similar experience in Ottawa and my colleague, Mr DeFaria, in the Peel region, have experience in government that we do not have. We are experts, however, on what is actually happening on the ground with our organizations, groups and agencies. I think Mr DeFaria's own days as a social worker will allow him to relate to this.

We have come here today to ask for your help. Thank you for allowing us to appear.

Archdeacon Susan DeGruchy: I just have a few brief additional remarks, if I may. With regard to the definition of "qualified agency" in the bill, we have some concerns as to whether or not the church would be covered by this bill because of this definition. It may or may not be a problem in anybody's mind but our own.

Our concern arises from the fact that a qualified agency is a non-profit association whose main object is to provide services to one or more of the following client groups: individuals under 18, individuals 60 or older and individuals with a disability significantly affecting their ability to carry out activities of daily living.

There is no doubt in my mind, and in the experience of those within the church, that the church does provide services to all these groups and provides these services to a large extent. But the main object of the church is to worship and to serve Jesus Christ and not to provide those services. Those services flow out of the service of our Lord.

It would seem to me that we might wind up in a very strange situation if this bill were to become law, in that our diocesan camps, for example, do have as their main purpose serving people under the age of 18 and therefore might be able to get their volunteer checks without charge, whereas a parish church that has a Sunday school, that would serve far more children for a far longer time, might indeed have to pay for those. We just raise that as a concern for your consideration.

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Rev Huskins: Just before we have a few minutes for an opportunity to ask questions, I can say that we have with us the Reverend Dawn Davis, who is the human resources officers for the Diocese of Toronto, who deals directly with this situation every day. If a question should arise in which facts and figures, actual numbers on the ground, would be helpful, if it's OK with you I'll just refer things to Reverend Dawn Davis.

The Chair: Certainly. We have about three minutes per caucus. We'll start off with the government.

Mr Mazzilli: How many checks would you do in the course of a year?

Rev Huskins: It sounds like we're going to call upon the services of Reverend Dawn Davis very quickly. My field is policy. You know how detached that can be from pragmatics. Dawn, would you like to answer?

Rev Dawn Davis: First of all, what we look at is the various types of ministries we offer, for example, Out of the Cold volunteers, nursing home visitors, parish nurses, youth group leaders, soup kitchen leaders, the whole gamut. What we would be looking at is approximately-again, this is just the Diocese of Toronto that I'm referring to; my colleague in the Roman Catholic Church has about three times this to consider. We are one diocese of eight within the province, and we're the third-largest denomination. So keeping that in mind, just for us, we're looking at 30,000.

Mr Mazzilli: If this service were free and paid for by the taxpayers of Toronto, do you expect that number of 30,000 would increase or stay the same?

Rev Davis: No, I would imagine there are 30,000, then about 10,000 at the most every year thereafter. That would probably be at the most. I would say there would be between 5,000 and 10,000 every year. We'd have 30,000 to begin with because we'd have to get all the existing ministries covered.

Can I refer also to a question you raised earlier? We found that we're having a really difficult time getting free reference checks. They range between $20 and $50, and when there's more and more desire for that, it's becoming less an option that the police are able to give a free check.

Mr Bryant: I have a similar question. Maybe you've just told me the answer, but I'm terrible at math. What was the cost, approximately, to do these checks, say, last year?

Rev Davis: We are only starting, so right now we've only begun with our senior clergy. We have to start with our existing clergy, which is 600-

Mr Bryant: I'm sorry, I was dyslexic in my question. What do you anticipate the cost to be, approximately?

Rev Davis: I'm anticipating $600,000 at least, for the first year, and then something around $200,000 thereafter.

My Roman Catholic colleague is looking at 100,000 people who need to be checked for the first year.

Mr Kormos: Legislative counsel who got instructions to craft the bill was, trust me, not instructed to exclude the church. I appreciate your comments in terms of how you identify yourselves or might be identified by others vis-à-vis the definition of non-profit agency. We could ask legislative counsel to look at it again, and perhaps seek an amendment. But I hope you people agree that the criminal record search is not the be-all and end-all. That in itself is not the sole determinant. That's why I'm looking forward: The government has announced $1.2 million to be invested in developing a program to help organizations-because there's some expertise out there now-to develop a system whereby you can screen people, and the criminal record check is but a part of that. I hope I'm singing from the same hymn book as you in that regard.

Rev Davis: Yes.

Rev Michael Bedford-Jones: It's just that in our own diocese our major effort actually is around educating the volunteers and putting into practice, for instance, implementing safety and so forth. We very much recognize that this is only one aspect of it.

Rev Davis: The figures I used were concerning medium- and high-risk. It's not the whole volunteer sector of the church; this is just medium- and high-risk volunteers, so you can see how prohibitive the cost is for us.

The Chair: Thanks very much for your presentation. We appreciate that.

TED REEVE HOCKEY ASSOCIATION

The Chair: Our next presenter is the Ted Reeve Hockey Association; John McKay, chairman.

Mr John McKay: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, honourable members. Unfortunately, I have not made a resumé, as I see the others have done.

My name is John McKay. I'm the chairman of the Ted Reeve Hockey Association and have been for the last 20-odd years. I've been involved with minor sports for in excess of 40 years. Our hockey association came into service in 1954. At the present time, we have approximately 750 to 800 boys and girls. Most of the people involved in our organization-the larger number of them-are unpaid volunteers. We have a great number of volunteers who have in excess of 25 years. As a matter of fact, one of our members has been with us since day one. Also, a large number of our coaches come and go as their children do. Any of you who have been involved realize what happens. You come in with your child and you leave later on with your child.

So we do have a variance of people involved with our association. There are approximately 150 to 200 volunteers. Over the years, like many in the sports field, we've been very shocked and upset to learn of the many instances of sexual abuse and abuse of children in the sporting world by coaches or any others that are involved with these children.

We also feel that anything that has happened in the past is a matter for the authorities and the justice system. However, our executive feel that we should do everything in our power to prevent any such abuse in the future. At this time, we are looking for guidance from the members of Parliament on what we can do to prevent future incidents such as have happened in other sections. As the gentleman from East York said, we have been very fortunate-and I knock on wood; I am superstitious-that as of this time, we have not been inundated with sexual abuse or abuse of any kind with the children of our association.

At this time I would like to draw your attention to a letter dated March 16, 1998, to the Honourable Charles Harnick. This letter is in the material which is in your possession. We at that time asked some pertinent questions, the answers to which we have not fully received at this time. We have been involved and very concerned about this subject for quite a few years. Our executive has been back and forth, but I think the first letter was to the Honourable Mr Harnick. We had spoken to our members of Parliament, both the MPP and the MP.

So we have been concerned about this situation over the years, and at this time we're looking for guidance. Since we wrote to the Honourable Mr Harnick, we've written several other letters to government departments, but as you can see by the replies, we have no proper guidance or plan on how associations such as ours are to deal with this issue.

The issue is the safety of our boys and girls, or any children that we're involved with, from any sexual abuse in the future. We want to know what we can do to prevent this, and we'd request some guidelines from people such as yourselves.

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Some of the replies to our letters, as you can see, suggest that we contact the police or that we contact a lawyer and seek legal advice. We have had a dialogue with the police department. We've sent several letters to the police department. Incidentally, they've been very co-operative, but they, like ourselves, are in limbo as to what they can and can't do when you're taking on volunteers. They've not been able to give us any real, helpful information in our quest for ways to weed out undesirables. We feel that the suggestion to such legal advice seems geared to covering civil liability than to get a plan to prevent the abuse of our children.

Further, as a non-profit organization we do not always have the financial resources. If any of you have been involved, you know we're always looking for money. One way or another, as the gentleman from East York said, we're always looking for ways to raise money, and we don't always have the ways and means to look for legal advice.

Incidentally, we do carry liability insurance for injuries to our children, our coaches or managers, but we were informed-I think it was two years ago when our contract came out-that we would no longer be covered for any sexual abuse. I don't know if this is the time to say this, but it has put our organization in a bad position if anything should happen. Our big concern is for the children, but we must be realistic to realize that there's also a concern for the people who are doing the job. We don't want them out on a limb.

We have received a form from the police, a reference check. I guess you probably have it somewhere, or you've seen it. One of the things we're concerned with is that there's no age stated on the form and how young a person can be to be asked to sign this form to release information. We would like to make you aware that we have many volunteer members who are under the age of 18. Some of them are 15, 16, 17 years of age, and we wonder if it's proper and legal to ask them to sign a consent form of any kind. These are some of the things on which we look for guidance from yourselves, the Legislature.

Included with the form from the Toronto police there's also another form-I think you have it there-stating, as the gentleman from East York mentioned, that it will be $16.05 for each and every member to have them looked at. This would run approximately $2,500 to $3,000 a year for our organization. Listening to the members from the church, I suppose it would be a humongous amount of money for all these checks to be done, but I suspect it would cost more to run one or two court cases than to pay the money to make sure these people are not around children.

One of the questions we asked ourselves was, should we do this check once a year at a total cost of $2,500 to $3,000, should we just do the new ones coming in or should we do it every second, third or fourth year? Once again, we're asking for guidance.

Another thing that cropped into our minds was the idea of asking our volunteers to pay for this check. For any of you who have been involved in any kind of volunteer work, you're giving your time, and then to ask that a police check be done on you, maybe we could lose some very good-well, not the check being done; I agree fully with that on every one of them. But to ask them to pay for this, we might lose an awful lot of good volunteers in the future, and not only sports but any other organizations that are involved.

On behalf of the Ted Reeve Hockey Association, we support Bill 9. This support is for the 700 to 800 boys and girls playing at Ted Reeve and any other children who are involved in sports or anything else which might require older people looking after them in Ontario. We agree with the bill in that respect.

I don't know if I'm in order or not, but we would also like and hope that the committee might consider an amendment to Bill 9 to deal with the underage volunteer and clarify that situation if it is not already covered by law.

It is the hope of our association that the members of the Legislature will develop detailed guidance for organizations such as ours to assist in determining who is suitable to work with children and who is not. I've used the word several times; give us your guidance.

I must also say that it is obvious that a criminal conviction of any kind should not necessarily result in a complete ban from volunteer work. Sometimes the nature of the crime does not warrant such a ban. At present, the courts are convicting people, juveniles, and then sentencing them to community work. You've got to be very careful on how that ban is worked if they have been convicted. Assault of any kind? I don't know, gentlemen and ladies. But we do know that you cannot ban them all. These are people who might've been in trouble for different reasons. It doesn't matter what they are. As a matter of fact, we have five, six or seven young offenders who have come to our organization to work with young boys and girls because the court has given them community work to serve. So we not only serve the children; we help to serve the young people who get themselves into trouble.

I would like at this time, in closing, to remind each and every member of this committee that there are thousands of children in your constituency involved in minor sports and other fields that require senior people looking after them. These children at the Ted Reeve Hockey Association, along with the other children in the communities, need your help in providing protection from sexual abuse or any other abuse that a child might be subject to. Remember, when these children, for a few hours a week, are under our guidance, they're our obligation. We would like to see them leave our arena in a safe situation.

Ladies and gentlemen, these children are your children. They're your obligation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Please enact some laws-guidance-that would help us all to protect our future generations.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, honourable members, for allowing me to have my say today. If there's anything you'd like to ask, if possible I will answer it.

The Chair: We have about a minute for each caucus.

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Mr Bryant: My only question is that you asked for an amendment. Do you mean an amendment to the initiative or do you mean an amendment to this act?

Mr McKay: An amendment to the act. I can't see it, because my eyes are not good either way. What we'd like to see is something in the act that would give us permission to check children, because 15-, 16- and 17-year-old children could easily sexually abuse or abuse younger children, and we have the right to ask for that information. Or is it already a law? If it's the law, it's fine, we can ask them.

We're in a ticklish situation. We have people my age and people 14, 15, 16, 17. We have great variances, and one of the things that came up at one of our meetings was, can we ask these children-they're still children to us-to sign a form such as the police form to get permission to check these children?

Mr Kormos: Section 3 says, "This act does not authorize a police records check that is not otherwise authorized by law." Having said that, you will recall it was the scenario around a throne speech a few years ago where a young offender's name was mentioned as a result of his parent's giving consent, and it was concluded as a result of that investigation that a parent couldn't consent, but the clear inference was that the young person could have consented. It was a learning experience for everybody.

So it's my submission-and Mr Mazzilli raised that with me as well-that yes, you have every right to know if a young offender, who is still a young person, has been convicted of an offence that would otherwise bar him. I think you have every right to be able to screen him. Otherwise, every young person you have, if you can't do a criminal record search, you're bringing them on at great risk.

Mr McKay: You're saying it's OK, but is it law? Can I do this? Could we be sued? Could I be taken to court? Could we spend a lot of time back and forth to court if the parents were to decide to sue us because we asked? I don't know. Is it law at the present time that we can ask this child?

Mr Kormos: I'm not aware of it being clearly specified.

Mr McKay: That's my question, because we do have these boys and girls who are involved, and for me to take it back to my executive, "Hey, Peter Kormos said it was fine"-

Mr Kormos: Heck, I don't practise law, and even when I did I wasn't that effective.

The Chair: There's one more questioner.

Mr Mazzilli: Mr McKay, I just want to thank you on behalf of our members for appearing. The same question you had, of course, I had with Mr Kormos. As you are well aware, some of the intent and the good spirit in this legislation covers into federal jurisdiction, as to the Young Offenders Act. I don't know that right now any member in any of the three parties is quite clear on the question you have. Again, thank you, and we will be debating it.

Mr McKay: Thank you very much on behalf of the association, but please give us some guidance on what we can do and can't do.

Mr Kormos: On a point of order, Chair: May I please advise the Chair that the representatives from the provincial synod of the Anglican Church of Canada will be submitting a request for reimbursement to the clerk for the two persons who travelled from Sudbury. They had to leave promptly.

The other thing is, could we perhaps ask Mr Fenson, with apologies for the short time frame, if any material is available to him in response to the query put about the ability of a young offender to consent to his or her record being obtained and/or the need for a consent to be by both parent and YO. We know that the parent isn't enough-that's what was revealed a few years ago-but do parent and YO suffice?

The Chair: Understood.

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS

The Chair: Our next presenter is the East Scarborough Boys and Girls Club, David Rew, executive director.

Mr David Rew: I'm here actually representing Boys and Girls Clubs of Ontario and Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Toronto, as well as the Scarborough Boys and Girls Club, all three of which I am a member of.

My experience with children and youth goes back over 24 years full-time, and things certainly have changed. The environment out there has changed very dramatically over that period of time. In fact, I grew up through the Central YMCA here in Toronto and swam naked until I was 15 years of age-was required to swim naked until I was 15-and we certainly aren't in that position any more. That was the policy of the time. It was a YMCA and you did that. Obviously, we're not in that kind of situation any more and we are now moving towards a whole different ballpark in terms of that whole thing.

The previous speaker talked about insurance. My agency's insurance went from $8,000 to $18,000 a year two years ago for liability insurance. If I didn't want abuse and harassment coverage, I would have $8,000 insurance. If I wanted abuse and harassment coverage, it was $18,000. We went to market; the best I could do was $18,000. The other quotes were $28,000 and $30,000 for liability insurance, for my agency alone. That's one Boys and Girls Club. There are 24 in Ontario.

Clearly, there's a real issue out there around that. Police reference checks is one of 10 steps that we do in our agency to look at the whole issue. I know the previous speakers talked a little bit about high risk. High-risk volunteers are ones that you're going to place one-on-one with children and youth or with seniors or in their home. That's what they consider a high-risk volunteer. It's not a volunteer who is with five other people and never alone with a child. They'd be considered very low-risk volunteers, and therefore there are some issues around how many people and what you would do in those cases, if they're never alone.

However, having said that, there also is a case, and Boys and Girls Clubs is in front of this case in BC, where the individual made contact within the organization, then had the abuse outside the organization. This was 20 years ago. However, we still are being looked at for vicarious liability, that we allowed the contact to happen within our organization. There's no cut-and-dried issue around abuse and harassment coverage, around how you can protect yourself as an organization.

One of the things we believe in is volunteerism. As part of our core values, we are committed to volunteerism. We believe in that. There are 24 clubs in Ontario, and part of the package talks about that, talks about the number of members. We dealt with 52,535 kids last year in the province in the 24 different Boys and Girls Clubs. We dealt with over 1,000 staff and over 3,341 volunteers-that's an amazing number of people-for over 240,000 hours of volunteer time. I did a little calculation there. There are 52,000 children, 3,000 volunteers. Almost half of those volunteers were youth volunteers within our structure and organization. There are 212 full-time staff, 864 part-time staff.

The other issue is part-time staff. Most of them are youth in our communities; most of them are at high risk, are low income. They don't have the $15; they don't have that money. I use $15, because it is the Toronto Police Services Board's current fee, but they add GST to that, so it becomes $16.07 or whatever. That is a deterrent.

Interestingly enough, the Ministry of Education has now put into their process that youth will volunteer. Well, that's interesting. I had a whole classroom of students come down the other day to the Boys and Girls Club wanting to volunteer. I said: "That's nice. Thirty times $15. Who's going to pay for that? Are you, the student, going to pay for that, or am I, the agency, going to pick up that cost of having you come down and volunteer in my organization?"

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It is a requirement by law, as well, in my organization that we screen volunteers and do a police reference check. I have licensed child care and I have a number of other programs that fall under the ministry's guidelines. Again, the ministry comes down with guidelines and then no money to follow up the guidelines. To back off on the child care is a prime example of that. I have nine full-time staff in child care, plus about 10 or 15 other child care staff in my organization alone that we were going to have to do police reference checks at $45 a piece for. Then the ministry said: "Wait a minute. We'll grandfather those folks in, but any new employees you hire must have a police reference check." So now, currently, the policy says that any new employee hired must have a police reference check.

A lot of the individuals we deal with are from low-income families and there aren't the dollars to do that, so it's a choice we have to make as an organization. Are we prepared to put up the money for them, or are we going to say they can't volunteer in our programs and provide services to our community?

There's also a ripple effect. That's one of the other things I did at the bottom of my last page: 240,000 hours of volunteer time, at $8 an hour, which is very close to minimum wage, represents $1,921,134. That's what it would cost our organization, Boys and Girls Club of Ontario, to provide services if they weren't able to use volunteers.

I guess the other one is workfare. That's another interesting program, but if anybody wants to volunteer in my organization, they must get a police reference check and have that done as well.

The other thing-don't quote me on this, but I believe it's $25 to change your name in the province. I think we need to look at that. Predators are becoming very creative in their access to kids. They're having to become creative because we are becoming more vigilant about making sure they don't get access to children that are vulnerable and leaving them alone. We're also doing the police reference checks and we're training children, teaching children. However, you can change your name for $25, and if you have a police reference check on this new name I don't believe it's cross-referenced. I don't know, but I'd like somebody to check that out. But I believe it's $25 to change your name legally in this province, and once you've done that, if you have a criminal record I'm not sure it's cross-referenced against the new name.

The other concern I have is the delay in process. It's simple to say that we're going to have no-cost reference checks, but if it takes me eight weeks to get a reference check on a volunteer, the volunteer is either gone or they've gone somewhere else or they are no longer interested. If you look at the school year, by the time you get to-and we do cycles as well, which is another issue that needs to be looked at in terms of that whole process. It is a time delay. Now we pay for it so it's probably somewhat fairly quick. If all of a sudden Toronto Police Services weren't getting any money and they had all these requests, I would hate to see how long it was going to take for me to get a police reference check back from the police.

That concludes my comments today. We definitely support the bill. We see the value in doing police reference checks, as I said before, as one component of doing volunteer reference checks and staff reference checks. We certainly support the bill and we believe it would save our organization a substantial amount of money.

The Chair: We have about three minutes per caucus.

Mr Kormos: Thank you for emphasizing the business of a police records check being but one component of a broader screening process. You heard me make reference to it a few minutes ago.

The government has announced the $1.2 million. I think the government is going to realize pretty soon that $1.2 million for the type of thing that really has to be encompassed isn't going to go very far. We're going to support that goal, but with the numbers you talk about, $1.2 million probably won't do the job, so that means it's just a beginning.

You talk about the insurance. What does your insurer say about how you screen volunteers or whether or not you screen them? Would you get any insurance at all if you didn't have some sort of disciplined and identified screening process?

Mr Rew: No. I would not get any insurance at all if I didn't have a process in place, and they actually review that process. Ours is about a 10-page document in terms of the screening process and the policy around that, and they actually get a copy of that policy and review that policy.

Mr Kormos: Do they require police records checks as a part of the screening?

Mr Rew: Certainly. If we didn't do it, I don't think I could get insurance.

Mr Kormos: If you didn't have insurance would you be operating?

Mr Rew: No.

Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington): Good afternoon, Mr Rew. I have a question for you. You indicate that you're supportive of the bill, but do I understand correctly that you have a concern that if the checks were free, there would be such a deluge of checks requested that the delay could be such that it wouldn't be as valuable to you as they may presently be?

Mr Rew: I can't answer for the police services, but you've heard today the kinds of numbers you're talking about. It would have to be phased in in some sort of process. And the question arises that a police reference check, once you've completed it, is good today, but, you know, tomorrow they're convicted. Clearly, we'll also have to look at a process of, how often do you do it? One of the other speakers talked about that. Do we do it annually? Do we do it every three years?

If you've got a staff on staff and you've got a volunteer who's with you, you would hope to know that if charges had come forward you would be aware of those and subsequent charges and deal with it at that point, but it's a very tricky thing. If a volunteer comes in seasonally, if they come in and spend only the summer months with you, or part-time staff-we have a lot of staff who work for us in the summertime. They're in the higher-risk area where they're taking kids swimming, they're in with younger children all day long.

Clearly, you want to make sure they are done and done annually. The issue gets into the whole timing of that process. When a part-time staff gets hired, it's the end of May or June when you hire them, and you have to have them in place by July 1 to start working in your programs or they're of no value to you; you can't use them.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan): I want to pursue Mr Kormos's line of questioning because I was staggered by your risk and liability insurance being $18,000 and the fact that $10,000 of that is for abuse-harassment liability protection.

You said to Mr Kormos that you couldn't get insurance at all if you didn't take appropriate procedures, including following along on the police security checks. But does the fact that you take 10 steps reduce the $10,000 in any way, or is it just that it's a flat rate no matter how many precautions you take?

Mr Rew: It reduced it a little bit this year. The reality is that it's only reduced because we've had it for a year. A lot of organizations do not have abuse and harassment coverage any more in this province. This is not unique.

I made a decision that I wasn't going to expose our organization and our staff, primarily, and volunteers to not having some kind of coverage. You could have a false accusation against a staff. Technically, if you don't have any abuse and harassment coverage, you get no lawyer; you get nothing. Even if it's found to be completely unfounded, the individual would have to cough up that money out of their own pocket right now, in most organizations.

In fact, the waiver came through as a waiver, a rider, added to your insurance policy. Our insurance broker made it quite large, in red, bold letters, saying you no longer have abuse and harassment coverage. Most carriers put it on the back page, in the bottom line, in fine print, "You no longer have abuse and harassment coverage as part of this policy." And the policy didn't reduce in its cost. It just stayed the same, so everybody thought, "We've got the same coverage as we had last year." But they did not have abuse and harassment coverage any longer.

Most organizations actually operating in this province right now do not have abuse and harassment coverage.

Mrs McLeod: It seems to be that Mr Kormos's bill has led to the raising of a number of questions about the whole state of volunteerism in the province that need to be addressed in something much broader even than the bill.

Mr Rew: And the coverage I have currently is called coverage from the day it's signed forward. It doesn't cover anything previous to that. Not only am I paying $10,000 just for that coverage, it's from today forward-nothing to do with anything that happened in the past. It's a real Catch-22 that a lot of organizations have found themselves in.

The industry has been meeting around this. Two weeks ago, the broker called me and said most insurance companies are running for the hills right now around this coverage. There are only two or three that will even give it to you in the entire province. A lot of them, even the large ones, are not providing abuse and harassment coverage any more.

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LORRAINE STREET

The Chair: Our next presenter is Lorraine Street. Thank you very much for coming.

Ms Lorraine Street: Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Lorraine Street. I'm here speaking as an individual. I work as a private consultant in employment practices risk management. But I have a long background in this issue, which I'll describe to you in a moment. In the document outlined before you, I would like to draw your attention to the appendix at the end, which, if we have time, I would run through.

I am writing and appear before you today to voice my opposition to Bill 9, An Act respecting the cost of checking the police records of individuals who may work for certain non-profit service agencies.

First, let me say that I applaud Mr Kormos's good intentions in sponsoring this bill. I am very sorry to be at odds with the representatives of non-profit organizations whom I have heard this afternoon, but I believe I have no choice but to do so. Having worked in, with and for non-profit organizations as a volunteer and paid staff member for 35 years, I can attest to the serious, often desperate financial difficulties facing agencies trying to serve children, youth, seniors and persons with disabilities. Yes, paying a fee for a police records check does add a burden to already overburdened organizations. However, the solution to that difficulty, I must strenuously argue, does not lie in prohibiting police services from being able to recover the costs of providing them.

I am opposed to Bill 9 for two simple reasons: (1) It is unfair to Ontario's police agencies; and (2) it will damage and harm the very agencies it intends to support.

I believe I am qualified to make this statement because I have spent the last 10 years studying, researching, writing about and training organizations on risk management and screening and, in particular, on the use, abuse and misuse of police records checks as a screening tool. I have done more work on this issue than anyone else in Canada.

From 1993 to 1996, I had the privilege of working with the Law Enforcement and Records Managers Network, LEARN, a subcommittee of the Information and Technology Committee of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, while LEARN members developed recommended protocols for the release of information held by police, this document.

From 1994 to 1996, I led the research team and was the principal author of The Screening Handbook, the central resource of the first phase of the national education campaign, funded by the Solicitor General Canada, Justice Canada and Health Canada.

In 1995, I wrote Screening Volunteers and Employees Providing Direct Service to Vulnerable Individuals Through Police Records Checks, a resource document commissioned by the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services to assist its 5,000 transfer payment and licensed agencies in complying with the ministry's directive on criminal reference checks. That document was distributed by the ministry to its 5,000 agencies.

Since 1998 I have worked with the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Culture, and Recreation on the development of risk management tools for sport organizations dealing with harassment and abuse, and since 1994 I have conducted over 175 workshops on screening, making presentations to representatives of over 4,000 organizations in Ontario and other parts of Canada.

With specific respect to Bill 9 and the effect of Bill 9, first on police agencies, in order to respond to current levels of requests for police records checks, police agencies must already dedicate significant resources, including significant human resources. In keeping with the recommendations of LEARN, endorsed by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, many police agencies in Ontario have been providing police records checks which include not only a check of databases held at the CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, but also a check of local records, and often checks of local records of other police services. "Doing a police records check" is not, as many think, a simple matter of simply keying in a name and date of birth and receiving a computer-generated report that is then sent on to an agency or given to an individual

The best police records check service to non-profit agencies is one that includes this check of CPIC, local records, and, when warranted and possible, checks of other local records, followed by the preparation of a report that may or may not include all of the information gleaned, depending on the policies of the police agency and the specifics of a memorandum of understanding signed with the non-profit.

Such a memorandum, among other things, forces the non-profit agency to recognize and accept its own serious obligations in receiving confidential information such as this. In fact, a thorough police records check includes far more than is outlined in section 1 of Bill 9. Criminal matters and judicial orders are not the only categories of information important to screening efforts. Information relating to non-criminal matters-for example, apprehensions under the Mental Health Act, convictions or admissions of guilt under the CFSA-is equally, if not more, important to good screening efforts.

While not every police service in Ontario currently provides such in-depth police records checks, every effort should be made to encourage, rather than discourage them, from doing so. The point cannot be made too strongly: These thorough checks are infinitely more valuable in the screening process than are checks related solely to criminal matters and judicial orders. If police are not allowed to recover their costs by charging organizations for doing these checks, then I believe we will see one or more of the following scenarios result in short order:

(1) If they are to continue to provide the same or better levels of service, and if they are not allowed to recover the cost through fees, police services may be forced to divert resources from other programs or services.

(2) Instead of diverting resources from elsewhere, police agencies may decide to reduce the level and depth of their police records check service, restricting them to a check of CPIC databases and limiting their reports to a simple "hit" or "no hit" statement. This would be the least expensive way to proceed, but this kind of report is almost useless in screening.

(3) Police agencies may conclude that they cannot afford to provide this service and may discontinue it, referring individuals and agencies directly to the RCMP.

In terms of the bill's potential effect on the non-profit sector, while the bill has laudable intentions and on the surface may seem to be a good thing for non-profits, I would argue that it will have very serious "effets pervers"-unintended adverse medium- and long-term effects that will outweigh its superficial and short-term benefits.

(1) The first potential adverse effect is that police agencies may in fact decide to significantly restrict their programs or to stop them, as outlined above. Neither of these would help the non-profit community in any way.

(2) Before police arrive at this point, I believe the system, now overloaded as it is, will be swamped. Currently, it can take as long as six weeks in some areas for a police records check to be completed and returned. Many agencies already place individuals in positions, even positions of trust with vulnerable clients, on a probationary basis pending the receipt of a police records check. That itself poses risks, but many agencies feel they have no choice. If that waiting period increases from two or three weeks, past six or eight or 10, to 12 or 14 or more, the risks posed to vulnerable clients skyrocket. Abusers often know the system best, and they will take full advantage of this extra time.

(3) I believe that passage of this bill will place an inappropriate emphasis on police records checks, having the unfortunate effect of encouraging agencies to make police records checks their primary screening measure, rather than discouraging them from doing this.

It is clear from the research-including the federal government's Information Systems on Child Sex Offenders and Report of the Federal Ad Hoc Interdepartmental Working Group on Information Systems on Child Sex Offenders and the national research conducted for the national education campaign on screening-that many non-profit agencies believe police records checks to be the most important, if not the only important, screening tool available to them. Despite the availability of resources which demonstrate how untenable that belief is, it continues to be widely held, and is reinforced, I believe, because agencies are increasingly afraid of their exposure to liability, as you've just heard.

Many seek, consciously or not, to transfer responsibility for screening to the police. Understandably, agencies want the police to tell them if someone is "a good person" or "a criminal." In reality, it is neither possible nor desirable for the police to do this. The responsibility for screening must be shouldered by the agency and its representatives, the only individuals with full knowledge of and control over the situation in their organization, and therefore the only people who can properly screen paid and unpaid staff. They have an obligation to educate themselves about this issue and to do serious and proper pre-hiring, but especially post-hiring, screening through a variety of measures in order to be duly diligent.

Please let me be clear: If a police records check could "tell" agencies if someone is or is not a criminal or a person of bad character, I would be in favour of encouraging them, perhaps even requiring them. The fact is they cannot. To suggest otherwise does a disservice to the agencies which use them and places their clients and workers at great risk.

A police records check, with all its limitations, is a screening tool which must be used by agencies, particularly in screening for positions of trust However, organizations must never, ever rely on police records checks as their primary or, worse, sole screening measure. A police records check simply cannot bear that weight, as the police themselves are the first to point out. Any measure which places a spotlight or gives some kind of prominence or primacy to police records checks only undermines the work of educating agencies about what really constitutes good screening.

Before I finish, I would like to address two issues that were raised by other presenters, if I may. One is the question about the Young Offenders Act. The question is that actually there's a grey area in the Young Offenders Act in terms of whether or not information related to a young offender can be disclosed to anyone other than the young offender himself or herself. There is an Ontario case of a young offender suing the chief of police in Belleville-it's called YO v. Begbie-in which the chief of police and the commissioners were sued by a young offender. The issue was whether or not that young offender had given informed consent to having his record searched and the information being released. But Mr Kormos is also right, the agency also has the legal right to request the screening.

The other issue that was raised is that of name changes. Under the Community Safety Act that was passed last year, from now on when an individual changes his or her name in Ontario, that information will connect, there will be a cross-reference with the change of name registry and police records, but prior to that year there is no such connection.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We have three minutes for each caucus.

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Mr Mazzilli: In your view, would record checks increase if they were free of charge?

Ms Street: Absolutely, yes.

Mr Mazzilli: What do you base that opinion on?

Ms Street: The day after I read the bill, I asked the question of the executive director of an organization I'm doing work for. I asked her what she would do if they were free. She said she would send every name that came in on an application form. Instead of waiting until they had the final five or three or two applicants through their other screening measures, because of the time involved they would send all the names in. That would have the effect of swamping the system, certainly in Toronto, and in some other communities as well, I have no doubt. I understand why she would do it; I understand it absolutely. But the fact is, and this is the most important point I hope to make in this presentation, this is going to have an opposite effect from the one that's intended, that agencies will end up getting less and less information rather than more and more, and they'll get it later and later rather than sooner.

Mr Mazzilli: And in your professional opinion, having worked with agencies, do they see this as a way of avoiding liability, by doing more checks?

Ms Street: With all due respect to Mr Kormos and the questions he asked of the previous speakers, it is true that agencies will say, "No, we don't believe police records checks are the primary source of screening." Even what they assume about them is most often incorrect and they place a greater reliance on them than is warranted. For example, in a room of 100 people, if you ask them if their assumption is that a police records check would tell them if someone had a criminal record, most of the people in that room would say yes. The fact is that it can't guarantee to tell you anything. It may tell you that, but it can't guarantee to tell you a thing.

Mr Mazzilli: Having worked with non-profit agencies, the definition of a "qualified agency" under this act means a non-profit corporation or association. What would that mean to you?

Ms Street: I'm not sure I understand your question, sir.

Mr Mazzilli: A "qualified agency" under this act is specified as a non-profit corporation or association. Is that a pretty wide term, that you know of, for a-

Ms Street: Sure. If I understand it correctly, it would include sport organizations, recreation organizations, incorporated and unincorporated non-profit organizations, registered charities. It's a fairly broad definition, if I understood it correctly.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the concern you've expressed very adequately about the inadequacies of police checks in terms of providing the kind of security that's needed. I think I understand what you say, that if it's free, somehow the system is going to be overloaded. But my understanding is that the police checks are required and therefore they have to be done no matter what.

Ms Street: No.

Mrs McLeod: I'll let you respond to that, but my other question is that we've heard from the non-profit organizations the financial burden they're bearing. It seems to me that simply being opposed to this bill doesn't solve the problem of their financial burden or create a more adequate security check. I would appreciate knowing what you think a better alternative is, because obviously you're not suggesting there shouldn't be a security check at all.

Ms Street: No. A security check is not screening, a police records check is not screening, and all too often it's equated as such: a police records check equals screening or screening equals a police records check. It's a very dangerous approach to this. Screening involves many steps, pre- but especially post-engagement of someone. The most important screening measures that any organization can take are supervision, observation, monitoring and evaluation of their individuals on an ongoing basis. Those are far more important. The limitations outlined on page 5 of the presentation identify to you that virtually anyone who intends to, can find a way to circumvent a police records check report-virtually anyone. I can also give you the example of Gary Blair Walker, currently serving as a dangerous offender, who for 30 years sexually abused boys in eastern Ontario and underwent two or three police records check in the course of that. There were no reports because he had never been arrested until 1992.

So in answer to your question about what the alternatives are, they are : (1) to finally, and hopefully for all time, although I doubt it can happen, disabuse organizations of the notion that there is any kind of equation between screening and any kind of security check; and (2) as the gentleman who spoke before me was talking about, to encourage and educate organizations in the various steps that need to be done. I think there is need, very serious need, for financial support for organizations to do this. In my personal opinion, those funds should come from the funder, because this is an appropriate risk management activity. But those funds, if they're simply going to fund 100 or 10,000 or whatever police records checks, as far as I'm concerned that's money wasted. That money would far better be spent on having staff who are doing serious ongoing supervision, observation, monitoring and evaluation of individuals in positions of trust.

Mr Kormos: Yes, I did enjoy your comments. I read them before you made them, because I was starting to cover my tracks because I knew you were going to refer to them. I agree with everything you say except where you disagree with me, but that's not unusual around here.

Look, I hear what you're saying. I have some intimacy with the CPIC system and the broader-based police records checks that you talk about, for reasons that I'll not explain now.

First of all, let's talk about pedophiles. You're right. Most pedophiles, by the time they've been convicted, have probably offended X number of times. Because they are secretive, the very nature of the process is designed to avoid even apprehension, to avoid being turned in, never mind convicted. So I agree with you in that regard. The fact that somebody doesn't have a conviction for child molesting doesn't mean he or she isn't a child molester. But pedophiles are among the offenders most likely to be recidivist because of the nature of the obsession and the sickness and the perversion. So the fact that a person does have a conviction is a pretty good sign, unlike somebody who maybe got convicted of a theft-under 10 years ago, youthful shop-lifting, for instance. It isn't that same-so I think we're very much on line.

You say the funds should come from the funder. I agree. I call that the taxpayer. I agree that at some point somebody's got to pay for this. I have no hesitation. My argument, very briefly, is that as a taxpayer-you heard Mr McKay talk about, what's the cost of prosecuting an offender? Obviously, it can be tremendous.

So my response to you is that, yes, the ultimate source of funding-and the government members say there's only one taxpayer; they're right-is the taxpayer. I'm saying as a taxpayer I understand. I think, for instance, if an applicant as a volunteer knows that a records check is going to be done, instead of hit and miss, then the convicted pedophile-and I appreciate that there are all sorts of ways of wriggling around the system. But if I know that they're going to do a records check on me and I got a recent conviction for a sex offence or an assault or something like that, I'm not going to bother applying, because I'm banking on those that don't do the records checks.

I leave that with you. I don't know how you-

Ms Street: May I?

Mr Kormos: Sure. Please.

Ms Street: I would suggest to you that I agree with you in terms of the recidivist rate and that pedophiles are likely to reoffend etc, but all it would take for a pedophile who didn't want to avoid a police records check is to simply go to Nova Scotia, as I did three years ago, spend $5 at the bureau of vital statistics and walk out with a new birth certificate.

Mr Kormos: Fair enough. Quite right.

Ms Street: It would take nothing for someone to do that. It is not a difficult issue.

Mr Kormos: You're right. Locks are for honest people only.

Ms Street: I feel in a very awkward position here, because I certainly do not ever, ever, ever encourage organizations not to do police records checks when they're required. They have to do them.

The issue is, do they do them on the first hundred or on the last five? The issue is, what reliance do they place on them and where do they hold them in their hierarchy? And last, in terms of the funding issue, I think the funding needs to be there to fund the most serious work of screening, which is not police records checks; it's ongoing supervision, observation, monitoring and evaluation.

Mr Kormos: Fair enough as well.

The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate it.

The committee adjourns until tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.

The committee adjourned at 1728.