Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The committee met at 1617 in committee room 1.

COMMITTEE BUSINESS

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): We will now start the meeting of our committee. The first item on the agenda for the Standing Committee on Social Policy of December 10 is the subcommittee report or the report that we prepared at the last meeting, which the committee has. There are a couple of other items that we need to add to it, such things as the length of time the sittings will be. So if we could have somebody tell us what it is you would like the length of the day—what time do you start in the morning?

Ms. Helena Jaczek: Yes, thank you. I think the suggestion was 9 to 12 in the morning and 1 to 5 in the afternoon.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Okay. Nine to 12 and—

Ms. Helena Jaczek: And 1 to 5, except when we combine London and Kitchener–Waterloo. The suggestion was to start a little earlier to give more time to London. So 8 to 12 and then 2 to 6, and then we’ll definitely need a good dinner.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): I would suggest that the time for the split day, that we change it to half an hour. We want similar lengths in the two stops: 8 to 12—you said 8 to 12?

Ms. Helena Jaczek: Yes. That was the suggestion.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Oh, okay. That’s fine. Eight to 12 and then from 2 to 6. That would be four hours for each one. Is that suitable? Everybody happy with that? Okay.

We need a deadline for written submissions. They would not be equated to any single presentation or any of our locations, so you could put the written presentations at the end of the tour, if you like. It gives everybody as much time as they could possibly want, because the committee would not need those submissions until the tour is finished—in fact, maybe a long time after the tour is finished. So I think it’s just to put a deadline on that when we finish touring, the written submissions must also be there for the whole package.

Mrs. Christine Elliott: Sure. Perhaps if you just make the last day of hearings the deadline for submissions.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Okay, the last day of the hearings.

Ms. Cindy Forster: The last day of the hearings would be February 11?

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Yes, that would be the 11th of February.

I think those that we’ve added complete it. If the committee would agree to this—yes, France?

M^me France Gélinas: I don’t know if it needs to be written down, but let’s say we have made the decision to travel to a site—because we have six—by Friday, January 10, but we have openings where we don’t have a full day and more people ask to present, would we be open to first come, first served? If people are late but we can accommodate them, I would much rather we accommodate them than turn them away. If the roster is packed: “Sorry, you had a deadline to respect.” But if the roster is not packed and they’ve missed the deadline, especially if they are either a community group or people who are not used to what we do—organizations know how it works, but Mrs. Smith from Kitchener–Waterloo probably has never done it in her life before. We could show a little bit of leniency if our schedule allows, and that would be first come, first served.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Yes, I think the committee can make the decision when we get there, if there are openings and there are people there willing to present. But I think it’s somewhat unfair to say that we will have a process that when we get there, if there’s an opening, somebody in the room gets it rather than—

M^me France Gélinas: No, not once we get there; if they apply past the deadline but before the visit. They still have to apply.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): I think that was in my suggestion that it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. If there are more applications than there are people, then we have to have a process of defining the list of those who get to be heard, and that’s when you split it up. But if we have time for 12 delegations and only 11 delegations apply, the caucuses will not have to review them because everybody who applied will be on the list. So we will either have room on the list for people to be added and then nobody has picked any, or we will have them picked and then each list will be full. The lists that are full would have the choices of each party on them.

M^me France Gélinas: I’m talking about the lists that are not full. People coming and submitting late would still be accepted.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Yes, on a first-come, first-served basis, if there’s more room. The one thing I think the committee needs to understand is that if they’re put on the list and then more come than we have room for—there’s one space open and three come—we’re going to fill that on a need-to-know basis. Again, we can’t send that to three caucuses to decide which one of the two are going to be picked to do that. So we’ll leave it to the discretion of the Chair and the Clerk to fill the list. If there’s more than the list will hold, the caucuses will decide who will be on that list. Does that suit everybody?

We need to give the researcher—I think that these are likely the same instructions that they get from everyone: background material, summaries of oral presentations; what is it that the committee wants from the researcher as we go through the process; written summaries, written submissions, interim reports, and by what date. I think, because of the fact that this isn’t one of these hearings that has to be done when we get back, as far as deadlines and so forth, we likely don’t need to release them until we’re back. I don’t see any reason to put everybody on a deadline.

Yes, France?

M^me France Gélinas: I wouldn’t mind if the researchers could give us which LHIN are we in, a little bit as to—most of the LHINs have their top five priorities or strategic plans. If we’re going into a community, it would be nice to know the name of the LHIN, maybe the name of the chair and the executive director, as well as what are the top five priorities of that LHIN. If there are any contentious issues that you pick up through the papers specific to the LHINs, let us know so we don’t look like fish out of water when we get there.

Ms. Helena Jaczek: And further to that, a bit of a demographic profile. I think each LHIN is required to do that—so the population of the whole LHIN, the various distinctive characteristics of that particular LHIN, some sort of description.

M^me France Gélinas: With a map.

Ms. Helena Jaczek: Yes, with a map.

M^me France Gélinas: Some of them are pretty weird.

Mr. Mike Colle: And in the map, can we include the community health centres, the family health teams and the hospitals, anything of a structural nature that deals with health delivery?

Ms. Helena Jaczek: I think the LHIN should have that, actually, on their website. It would be useful.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): I expect in each place that the committee goes, the LHIN will in fact be one of the people that wants to present; that would be my guess. It would also include, as Mr. Colle suggested, a lot of those people funded by the LHIN who want to speak about it too.

I think it would be helpful to have a package for each place we’re going, as to the information that’s available before we hear from them, as to the geographics and the financial situation of it and how many people they serve and so forth. It’s one of these things—if this committee was going out with a bill and having these types of hearings, the ministry would prepare a binder for each committee member with the information on the people you’re talking to and so forth, and we did have a little extra time between the time of the deadline and actually hearing the delegations. If we had a list of those delegations with a bit of information about each delegation as to what to expect from them and so forth, like you would see if you were doing a bill, I think it would be quite helpful.

Ms. Helena Jaczek: Chair, I’m not sure if this is the right time to raise it, but when we come back after the tour—we know that we asked for a number of associations to appear, and the Clerk is working through that; but the other question is, the LHINs from the greater Toronto area will not have had an opportunity to present during our tour. I think, for completeness, I would really like to hear from the ones in—we’ve heard from Toronto, but I would like to hear from Central West, Central East, Central and Mississauga Halton as well, because we’re not going to catch them on our tour. I think the Clerk is looking ahead to some of that—

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): If I might suggest, it’s a very good idea to schedule them for—what should we say—the first week back, and this is the right time to do that, for the first meeting or two meetings coming back, so we can finish those off as though they were part of the traveling process, because we haven’t got anything set up for the other people yet, anyway. I think to put them all in the same package—it would be a good time to hear from them right after we get back, the first meeting. We could just have the Clerk set those up.

Interjection.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): That’s the question: Do you set them up in the same format that we had before, or do we go to the 15-minute presentations?

M^me France Gélinas: To me, the two-hour presentations were really for the main groups that are funded by the LHINs. I’m not interested in giving two hours to each of the LHINs. When we travel, they will have 15 minutes like everybody else. The three Toronto LHINs can have 15 minutes when they come, just like every other LHIN. The people we wanted to give more time to are the major transfer payments, so that’s the hospitals, mental health, the AOHC, the community care access centres—the main provider groups that are funded by the LHINs. Those are people who can tell us an awful lot about the LHINs. But the LHINs themselves, after we will have heard from 11 of them—three more, I agree, but 15 minutes like everybody else.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Okay. I don’t disagree, but I think that we might want to make that a half-hour so there would be time for questions. I think it would be a great idea to have all of the ones that you mentioned, France, put in the same day.

Ms. Helena Jaczek: I don’t disagree with 15 minutes. I think the primary issue for the GTA is boundaries. We will have heard a lot by then, but I really would like to zero in on that.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Okay. We’ll have the Clerk set up the meetings for that first date back with the greater Toronto area LHINs.

Interjection.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Yes, 15 minutes, so they won’t have to spend days writing a speech.

Anything else?

M^me France Gélinas: And the rest of them? We haven’t heard from the Ontario Hospital Association. We haven’t heard from the community care access associations. Those people still need to be scheduled to come.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): As I say, when we get back we’ll have another meeting to set all those up because we’ll have to plan our work plan beyond that. The only reason I think that it’s appropriate to put these in is because if we don’t plan it now, then when we get back, in the first meeting, all we get to do is plan who we’re going to invite to the next meeting. This will give us that next meeting and be part of this package—that same meeting, only 15 minutes. Hopefully that same afternoon we’ll be able to set up how we’re going to hear the rest of the people who are on the list to be heard. How many are there?

Interjection.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): There are 18 organizations on there—

M^me France Gélinas: No, she has added a whole bunch that, to me, we don’t need two hours with.

The Chair (Mr. Ernie Hardeman): Okay, but right now we’re just planning that one meeting and then we’ll go on from there. Is everybody happy? All in favour, say “aye.” The motion is passed.

That concludes that, and now that we’ve got it done, we’ll go in camera.

The committee continued in closed session at 1632.

CONTENTS

Tuesday 10 December 2013

Committee business SP-467

STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL POLICY

Chair / Président

Mr. Ernie Hardeman (Oxford PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président

Mr. Ted Chudleigh (Halton PC)

Mr. Bas Balkissoon (Scarborough–Rouge River L)

Mr. Ted Chudleigh (Halton PC)

Mr. Mike Colle (Eglinton–Lawrence L)

Mr. Vic Dhillon (Brampton West / Brampton-Ouest L)

Ms. Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale–High Park ND)

Mr. Ernie Hardeman (Oxford PC)

Mr. Rod Jackson (Barrie PC)

Ms. Helena Jaczek (Oak Ridges–Markham L)

Mr. Paul Miller (Hamilton East–Stoney Creek / Hamilton-Est–Stoney Creek ND)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants

Mrs. Christine Elliott (Whitby–Oshawa PC)

Ms. Cindy Forster (Welland ND)

M^me France Gélinas (Nickel Belt ND)

Mrs. Jane McKenna (Burlington PC)

Clerk / Greffière

Ms. Valerie Quioc Lim

Staff / Personnel

Ms. Elaine Campbell, research officer,
Research Services