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)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Susan Sourial
Staff / Personnel
Ms Elaine Campbell, research officer, Legislative Research
Service
Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Legislative Research
Service
The committee met at 1540 in room 151.
ELECTION OF CHAIR
Clerk of the
Committee (Ms Susan Sourial): I'd like to call this
meeting to order. Honourable members, it's my duty to call upon
you to elect a Chair. Are there any nominations?
Mr Peter Kormos
(Niagara Centre): I nominate Lyn McLeod.
Clerk of the
Committee: Mr Kormos has nominated Mrs McLeod.
Mrs Lyn McLeod
(Thunder Bay-Atikokan): Thank you very much, Mr Kormos,
but I'm not sure that as one of only two members of the caucus on
this committee I can take on the chairmanship. You would not want
to have my vote removed from the deliberations of this committee,
I'm sure.
Mr Kormos:
One, two, three, four, five. No, I think not.
Clerk of the
Committee: Any further nominations?
Mr Carl DeFaria
(Mississauga East): Madam Clerk, I would like to
nominate Joe Tascona.
Clerk of the
Committee: Mr DeFaria has nominated Mr Tascona. Are
there any further nominations? Seeing none, I declare Mr Tascona
elected Chair.
ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIR
The Chair (Mr Joseph
N. Tascona): Honourable members, it's my duty to call
upon you to elect a Vice-Chair. Are there any nominations?
Mr Kormos: I
nominate Brenda Elliott.
Mrs Brenda Elliott
(Guelph-Wellington): I thank you for your kind offer,
but respectfully I'll decline.
Mr Kormos:
It's seven, eight grand a year. It's not peanuts.
The Chair:
Are there any further nominations?
Mr Marcel Beaubien
(Lambton-Kent-Middlesex): Mr Chair, it's my pleasure to
nominate Mr Carl DeFaria for the position of Vice-Chair.
The Chair:
Are there any further nominations? There being no further
nominations, I declare the nominations closed and Mr DeFaria
elected Vice-Chair of the committee.
APPOINTMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE
The Chair:
We have a motion to appoint the subcommittee on committee
business. This is a motion by Mr Beaubien. Did you want to move
the motion?
Mr Beaubien:
Certainly, Mr Chair. I move that a subcommittee on committee
business be appointed to meet from time to time at the call of
the Chair, or at the request of any member thereof, to consider
and report to the committee on the business of the committee;
that the presence of all members of the subcommittee is necessary
to constitute a meeting; that the subcommittee be composed of the
following members: Mr Joe Tascona, Chair, Ms Brenda Elliott, Mr
Peter Kormos and Ms Lyn McLeod; and that any member may designate
a substitute member on the subcommittee who is of the same
recognized party.
The Chair:
All those in favour of the motion? The motion is carried.
Members will know that the
House has referred to this committee Bill 9, An Act respecting
the cost of checking the police records of individuals who may
work for certain non-profit service agencies. May I suggest that
a meeting of the subcommittee on committee business be convened
to consider the method of proceeding on this bill, and once the
subcommittee has made recommendations they will be presented to
this full committee for approval. Is that agreeable?
Mr Kormos:
Chair, I suggest that the subcommittee might meet tomorrow at
3:30.
The Chair:
That's fine with me.
Mr Kormos:
The only reason I say that is I know what I want. If the
government members are prepared to put forth on the subcommittee
with their proposals vis-à-vis this bill, fine, rather than
do something that's going to be overruled.
The Chair:
Mrs McLeod, are you available?
Mrs McLeod:
Either myself or Mr Bryant, I am sure, could attend.
The Chair:
Mrs Elliott?
Mrs Elliott:
It's OK with me.
The Chair:
That's fine with me. Room 151 at 3:30 tomorrow.
Is there any other
business?
Mrs McLeod:
Before the full committee adjourns and is left to simply
deliberate through the subcommittee in terms of business that comes before the committee,
I'd like to have some discussion about the new role of the
committee on justice and social policy. I think both the standing
committee on social development and the standing committee on
justice in the past have played very important roles in
deliberating issues of social policy and justice policy.
I believe that we are more
limited. As I understand it, there is no further opportunity for
members of the opposition, or individual members of the
committee, to bring forward proposals for business that this
committee can carry out. Or is there some opening for us to do
that even without the 125 resolutions that we used to be able to
bring forward?
The Chair: I
believe that standing rule 127 would allow any member to bring
forth business for this committee to consider, if you want to
review that.
Mrs McLeod:
Is this under the old standing orders or under the revised
standing orders?
The Chair:
Revised.
Mrs McLeod:
If I could have some clarification of that, just so that we know
exactly what we can bring forward to the committee. Section 127
now, is that similar to the old section 125 or is it more limited
in terms of what can be brought forward?
The Chair:
From what I understand it's standing order 124. I can read that
to you:
"124(a) Once in each session,
for consideration in that session, each member of a committee set
out in standing order 105(a) or (b) may propose that the
committee study and report on a matter or matters relating to the
mandate, management, organization or operation of the ministries
and offices which are assigned to the committee, as well as the
agencies, boards and commissions reporting to such ministries and
offices.
"(b) Notice of a motion by a
member under this standing order shall be filed with the clerk of
the committee not less than 24 hours before the member intends to
move it in a meeting of the committee. The clerk of the committee
shall distribute a copy of the motion to the members of the
committee as soon as it is received. Whenever a motion under this
standing order is being considered in a committee, discussion of
the motion shall not exceed 30 minutes, at the expiry of which
the Chair shall put every question necessary to dispose of the
motion and any amendments thereto.
"(c) The proposal of a member
for study and report must be adopted by at least two-thirds of
the members of the committee, excluding the Chair. Such study in
the committee shall not take precedence over consideration of a
government public bill.
"(d) Following its
consideration of such a matter, the committee may present a
substantive report to the House and may adopt the text of a draft
bill on the subject matter. Where the text of a draft bill is
adopted by the committee, it shall be an instruction to the Chair
to introduce such bill in his or her name.
"(e) There shall be not less
than one sessional day, or three hours, of debate in the House on
such a bill, to take place at a time or times allotted by
agreement of the House leaders of the recognized parties."
Mrs McLeod:
That was if the bill passes committee by majority that it would
have to go the House for debate?
The Chair:
Yes, excluding the Chair. I can get you a copy of this.
Mrs McLeod:
Thank you. I'd appreciate it. I apologize for not knowing this in
detail before coming to the committee. My reason for raising it
this afternoon is to know how such motions can be brought
forward.
So on 24 hours' notice there
would be a motion to the clerk of the committee that this was to
be brought forward at the next meeting of the committee. Can a
motion of this nature go to a subcommittee so that the committee
could be called in order to have a discussion on a topic of
concern to social or justice policy? In other words, can the
committee only meet when there is a piece of government
legislation before it?
The Chair:
Certainly the subcommittee can meet to discuss matters. But the
language of this-you may want to study this with respect to any
particular questions you have on it-does say "the committee." You
can have a copy of that and it will give you a better idea. It
does read, "Notice of a motion by a member under this standing
order shall be filed with the clerk of the committee not less
than 24 hours before the member intends to move it in a meeting
of the committee," which suggests there is a meeting that's been
scheduled.
1550
Mrs McLeod:
In any event, the maximum length of debate on such a motion would
be 30 minutes, and I assume introduction of a bill would be 30
minutes as well.
The Chair:
It reads, "Whenever a motion under this standing order is being
considered in a committee, discussion of the motion"-if you're
just discussing the motion-"shall not exceed 30 minutes, at the
expiry of which the Chair shall put every question necessary to
dispose of the motion and any amendments thereto." The 30 minutes
are on that motion, and the proposal has to be adopted by two
thirds of the members of the committee.
Mrs McLeod:
A proposal for further study and report, then.
The Chair: A
proposal of a member for study and report.
Mrs McLeod:
So any motion that we bring forward should be to propose study
and report back to the committee on an issue. Then we'd have a
30-minute discussion, and if it was passed by a two-thirds
majority-it seems highly doubtful, but should it be-then it could
go out for committee study as used to be done under a 125.
The Chair:
As long as it doesn't take precedence over consideration of a
government public bill. That's the caveat.
Mrs McLeod:
The alternative would be to present a bill, which would then be
deliberated again for 30 minutes and debated, and a resolution then to
present the bill in the House would be put before the
committee?
The Chair: A
bill similar to Bill 9 that we were just dealing with?
Mrs McLeod:
Or a private member's bill.
The Chair:
Yes. I think Mr Kormos's private member's bill was passed in the
House and it was referred by him to this committee. That's why
it's before us.
Mrs McLeod:
Can we originate bills in this committee? Can we refer a bill to
the House from the committee? That's the way I understood the
reading of that section.
The Chair:
Yes.
Mrs McLeod:
My reason for raising this is that I do want to put on record my
personal concern and the concern of my caucus in the further
limitations that have been placed on the ability of opposition
parties, or indeed members of the government party, to bring
forward what we, as independent, elected members of this
Legislature, consider concerns and to have a full deliberation on
them.
The process under the section
125, as you know, would have allowed study and report at the
request of members, to a limited number of days per session, but
at least an opportunity for members to bring forward issues that
they felt needed to be debated and to have study and report done.
That ability to require that has now been taken away because, as
you've said, we need two-thirds support of the committee in order
to have a study and report done.
I really hope the committee
members share the concern I'm expressing that there needs to be
some forum for each member of the Legislative Assembly to have
due consideration given of an issue which is not necessarily a
priority issue for the government, or may indeed be an issue that
the government is not anxious to have debated. I really believe
that unless this committee is prepared to exercise its ability
under this new section to have some study and report of issues
that aren't on the government's official agenda, we will really
have set the democratic process back in this place significantly.
I put that on record and make that request at the first
organizational meeting of this committee.
The Chair:
What's that last part you're referring to for the
subcommittee?
Mrs McLeod:
It's not really a reference to the subcommittee, Mr Chair. It's
really an appeal to all members of the committee to realize the
ways in which the rules of committee have been changed under this
new section and to attempt to at least keep some avenues open for
members to bring forward issues that aren't officially on the
government's agenda.
The Chair: I
understand.
Mr Beaubien:
Mr Chair, for some clarification, I'm certainly not too familiar
with the rules of the standing committee, but it is my
understanding that the changes in the rules on the standing
committee procedure were initiated by the three parties, by the
three House leaders. There was debate. Am I correct in that?
The Chair: I
wasn't involved. I understand there was a meeting of the three
parties.
Mr Beaubien:
Well, that's my understanding. If that was the procedure that was
agreed to by the three parties, I fail to see the point of the
member on the opposite side. I share her concern. On the other
hand, you know, the chicken has already been hatched. It should
have been brought up long before this day. It should have been
discussed with your House leader at that point in time.
Mrs McLeod:
There was considerable discussion, and I think there's some
considerable concern about the loss of our ability to bring
forward issues under section 125. As you will know, there was
negotiation of changes in the House rules along with a number of
other issues that were on the table at the same time. In a
negotiation you win some and you lose some, and from our
perspective, the loss of the section 125 was indeed a loss. Our
House leader considered that to be a loss at the time and
presented that at the negotiating table.
The compromise, then, was the
one that has just been read out to the committee which was the
new-I didn't have the section-section 124, which puts it in the
hands of the committee as to whether or not issues that aren't
matters of government business in terms of legislation can be
deliberated by this committee.
Mr Beaubien:
So then we all agree that there was a compromise; there was
negotiation between the three parties. I think that's a very key
point to this whole discussion, because it was not unilaterally
done by anybody.
Mrs McLeod:
Again, the proposal to eliminate the section 125 was certainly
brought forward by the government House leader. It would not have
been brought forward by the opposition parties.
I'm not suggesting that we
can go back and change the standing rules again. I've been around
long enough to know that standing rules get put in place and get
constantly changed and there's very little hope of unchanging
them. But what this has done-the compromise that was reached by
all three party leaders then provided the committee itself,
through a two-thirds vote, with an ability to deliberate on
issues that are seen to be issues of public concern. My request
to the committee is that we take that seriously as being a
continued way of opening the floor for discussion in this
committee, for discussion of issues of concern.
The Chair:
That's duly noted.
Mrs Elliott:
Just on a small point of clarification, there was some confusion
at the beginning as to where a presentation for a motion of
introduction of a bill or consideration of a bill would be given.
Just for clarification, it would have to be given to the
committee as a whole, not to the subcommittee. Correct?
The Chair:
That's correct.
If anyone wants a copy of
that standing order 124, if they don't already have it, we'll
provide a copy.
Mrs McLeod:
I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Chair:
Anything more? OK, this committee is adjourned.
