Transcription du comité 1997-avril-09 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Local Control of Public Libraries Act, 1997, Bill 109, Ms Mushinski / Loi de 1997 sur le contrôle local des bibliothèques publiques, projet de loi 109, M^me Mushinski

Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Library

Ms Frances Marin

Ottawa Public Library/Bibliothèque publique d'Ottawa

Mr David Daubney

Brockville Public Library

Miss Margaret Williams

Frontenac County Public Library; Kingston Public Library

Mr Marcel Giroux

Nepean Public Library

Mr Tom Foulkes

Ms Alice Basarke

Ms Sandra Nolan

Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association

Ms Nancy Goodman

Ms Elizabeth Buckingham

Township of Osgoode Public Library

Dr Arthur Conn

Gloucester Public Library

Mr Richard Summers

Ms Lori Nash

Women Teachers' Association of Ottawa

Mrs Padmini Dawson

Mr Geoffrey Sheppard

Major-General Andrew Christie

Kanata Public Library

Mr Alf Gunter

Ms Linda Sherlow Lowdon

Ms Yolaine Munter

Mr Allan Higdon; Ms Barbara Clubb

Killaloe Public Library

Mr Robert Goldie

City of Brockville

Mr John Doran

City of Nepean

Mr Doug Collins

Mr Rick Chiarelli

Cornwall Public Library

Mr Robert Hubsher

Mr Stephen Renner

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

Chair / Président: Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente: Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York PC)

Mr MikeColle (Oakwood L)

Mr HarryDanford (Hastings-Peterborough PC)

Mr JimFlaherty (Durham Centre / -Centre PC)

Mr MichaelGravelle (Port Arthur L)

Mr ErnieHardeman (Oxford PC)

Mr RosarioMarchese (Fort York ND)

Mr BartMaves (Niagara Falls PC)

Mrs JuliaMunro (Durham-York PC)

Mrs LillianRoss (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)

Mr MarioSergio (Yorkview L)

Mr R. GaryStewart (Peterborough PC)

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre / -Centre PC)

Mr LenWood (Cochrane North / -Nord ND)

Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre / -Centre PC)

Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:

Mr TonyMartin (Sault Ste Marie ND)

Mr DerwynShea (High Park-Swansea PC)

Also taking part /Autres participants et participantes:

Mr RobertChiarelli (Ottawa West / -Ouest L)

Clerk Pro Tem /

Greffière par intérim: Ms Donna Bryce

Staff / Personnel: Ms Elaine Campbell, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 0906 in the Delta Ottawa Hotel, Ottawa.

LOCAL CONTROL OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 SUR LE CONTRÔLE LOCAL DES BIBLIOTHÈQUES PUBLIQUES

Consideration of Bill 109, An Act to amend the Public Libraries Act to put authority, responsibility and accountability for providing and effectively managing local library services at the local level / Projet de loi 109, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les bibliothèques publiques de façon à situer à l'échelon local les pouvoirs, la responsabilité et l'obligation de rendre compte concernant la fourniture et la gestion efficace des services locaux de bibliothèque.

The Chair (Mr Bart Maves): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to balmy Ottawa in the middle of April. Mr Chiarelli, you could have ordered some better weather for us, but it's nice and sunny anyway.

Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West): Actually, it was forced on us by the northerners.

The Chair: Oh, was it? Okay. We'll try to drag in something warmer when we go to Thunder Bay.

STORMONT, DUNDAS AND GLENGARRY COUNTY LIBRARY

The Chair: Our first presenter this morning is Frances Marin from Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Library board. Good morning and welcome to the committee. You have 20 minutes this morning for a presentation. If there is some time left at the end of your presentation, I'll divide it up among the three caucuses for questions.

Ms Frances Marin: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Ottawa. My name is Frances Marin and I'm chair of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Library board, which is the most easterly library in our province and also one of the largest county libraries in area. We offer service in both English and French. Our nearest urban centre is Cornwall, a city not known for its prosperity nor for its resources. To the south we're bounded by the St Lawrence River, and the united counties stretch northward halfway to Ottawa.

Our major industry is agriculture -- Winchester is the home of Ault Foods -- and agriculture plays a vital part in our economy. Our town and villages perform a vital function as places of retirement for both country and city folk alike, but with the economy the way it is many of our residents now have to commute to jobs in Montreal, Ottawa and Brockville. An interesting group of our residents have chosen to live in the united counties, both seeking peace and quiet and in search of good services. This is what attracts people to our area.

I'd just like to tell you briefly about the people who live in Dalkeith. Not too long ago, it was rumoured that a popular librarian was going to be retiring. I had no fewer than 40 letters protesting the impending fact. We held the next board meeting on the other side of the county and it was snowing heavily, but more than 50 people took the trouble to come and talk to us about their concern so obviously our libraries are more important to people than merely as collections of books and print material.

Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry have 21 branches like these. When I first arrived there 25 years ago, there was not one bookstore in our 1,200 square miles, and the county library system was in its infancy. We had maybe seven municipal libraries in varying stages of vitality, where they were in fact open. In eight years, we opened 13 branches and we brought the luxury of reading material to settlements that had never before had books or films freely available.

Our county system operates on a system of the pooling of resources and the sharing of books and materials and of professional expertise, and in a way, this is the way the provincial service operates also. It's a very similar setup. The province offers training, consulting and planning services as they are needed, and this is cost-effective and an extremely efficient way of delivering library services. By doing group purchasing of electronic and traditional resources, there are great savings here to the taxpayers. This is the way the service operates and the way it should operate.

The provincial interest in public libraries makes sense. It makes financial sense and it is common sense. Not only does the province provide professional services to the libraries which couldn't possibly afford them on their own -- for instance, to get back to our librarian in Dalkeith, she's only too glad to share her professional concerns with somebody who has more training than she does and welcomes the opportunity to upgrade her skills when it's possible -- but the backbone of the provincial library system is interlibrary loan, the system by which libraries lend books and other information to each other across municipal boundaries.

What makes this system work? Money -- provincial money. How is the interlibrary loan system going to operate without a financial incentive? What are you going to say to the board of a large metropolitan library which loans out more books than it borrows from other libraries when it starts to charge libraries such as ours for the privilege of using their materials? What can you say to them if you can't offer a financial carrot? This already happens from time to time where we receive a bill for books, and it's only the threat that these libraries will lose their provincial grant that stops them from charging. They have to be reminded of this fact from time to time, even now.

Don't forget that interlibrary loaning can only be used if there is a library in your community. Until the current government cutbacks, the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Library received between 25% and 30% of its budget from the province. This money went a long way towards offsetting the costs inherent in running a county library, and this is what the provincial money is there to do. This is what it should be doing. Isn't this the way government works, the way we pool financial, medical, educational resources?

Our public libraries are a vital element in Ontario society. They take over where the formal education system ends. Libraries are social and support centres. They are very often the first interaction that an immigrant has with government when literacy classes are offered in a library. They're a source of information about government services, about the community, about job searching, about updating résumés. They're a source of recreational reading. They are the place where you go for self-education. Where else can you get free education?

More and more, libraries are being called on to provide services in schools. Two of our branches already operate out of public and separate schools, and we're constantly under pressure to provide more service to our schools.

Libraries have always operated on a shoestring and with large amounts of unpaid goodwill and cooperation. Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Library is coping with provincial funding cuts and it will survive if provincial funding does disappear, but I cannot say that its service will improve.

I was talking recently to a local councillor. She exclaimed: "Why on earth would the province hand the libraries over to the municipalities? Most municipal councillors got where they are today without the use of libraries." Another councillor could not understand why we need libraries. "Everything is available on computer, isn't it?" he said.

I don't want to imply that this is a common view among politicians -- my own council is supportive -- but this view is not as rare as one might hope. What about the library that is currently funded 100% by the province, whose council decides it doesn't need a library if it has to pay for it out of its own pocket?

Marilyn Mushinski is still prepared to fund networks between our libraries, but if our libraries are so starved of funds, as may very well happen under Bill 109, that they have no credibility with the public as up-to-date information centres, what is the use of fancy electronic networks? It is precisely those people in the rural areas who have lost so much in recent years in the way of services who need their libraries most. There is only one bookstore now between Cornwall and Ottawa, but I doubt that there will ever be any more.

With Bill 109 handing over library funding entirely to the municipalities, Ontario libraries will come to reflect the characteristics of the municipalities in which they're situated. They will embody the inequities in the different regions of the province. Once again, the Golden Horseshoe around the western shore of Lake Ontario will prosper and we in the outback, as we call ourselves, will just have to make do. Are we really to be second-class citizens? I think we're just as deserving as the people in western Ontario. Which kind of community is going to attract greater investment?

By removing the provincial government's responsibility to address regional inequities, Bill 109, as it stands now, will fragment existing library service into a patchwork of municipal libraries, each one busily doing its own thing and to heck with what's going on next door. It simply flies in the face of everything that libraries have done over the last 150 years. They've built up a network of cooperation based on sharing and cost-effectiveness.

To put it bluntly, the withdrawal of provincial funding under Bill 109 will ruin our library service. The legislation under consideration appears to have been drafted by politicians for the benefit of the municipalities, not the library service. Would you employ an accountant to redecorate your house?

Let me suggest to you a more creative source of action. Rather than assisting at the wake of Ontario's libraries, why don't you turn it around completely and fund public libraries 100% by the province? I mean it's logical, isn't it? If the province is taking over education and the libraries are an extension of the education system informally, you would be able to maintain standards, you'd have equality of access across the province and the province would be able to mandate free access to all. It does bear thinking about, you know.

The question of free access to information leads me to a major weakness with the regulation to the Municipal Act, its definition of information as merely books and printed material. The minister has heard that libraries want to avoid charging for core services. I think someone's done an end run around the libraries by defining core services so narrowly that it makes a nonsense of it. This does not bode well for the future. Here we are in the 1990s. We're entering the information age and you want to define information as books? Magazines and government documents may soon only be available electronically. Indeed, many are only available electronically already.

Let's just get back to our librarian in Dalkeith for a minute. Johnny and his father go into the library to do some research for a paper. She knows the family. They are not well off. Does she show them the books that are available free or does she give them the more up-to-date and the better information which she knows they cannot pay for and then have to explain the municipality's policy of charging them for this material? If Johnny weren't there with his father, she might put her hand in her pocket and pay for it herself. Once again, it'll be the wealthier municipalities and the taxpayers who will be able to buy our library services and the people who can't afford them will just have to do without.

If Ontario's public libraries are not going to offer free Internet access as a core service to those who are already without a computer, the province will be actively contributing to the creation of an information rich and an information poor. Can we afford this? It's already happening in the schools. It's easy to tell which students have computers at home and which ones don't. Here's an ideal opportunity for the province to help make up that gap.

Defining books and printed materials as a core service in the late 1990s is restrictive and backward-looking, and it only pays lip service to the idea of free access to all. I urge you, ladies and gentlemen, to broaden the concept of core service to include all library materials, regardless of format, which do not in themselves have any value added by personnel. The regulation as it now stands amounts to charging people for what they've already paid for out of their taxes.

0920

The final problem I have with Bill 109 is in its dropping of the requirement for citizen participation on public library boards. Time and again it has been shown that volunteer board members contribute more than their weight around the table. They serve because they love books, because they want them to be freely available to other taxpayers, because they're interested in libraries -- they contribute valuable expertise which comes at no cost to the library board -- and because they have the energy to fund-raise and to publicize the library. Why waste this valuable resource?

Citizen membership on a public library board is democratic and it offers terrific value for the taxpayer. Politicians surely have enough to do without choosing books for their fellow citizens. Do we really want politicians to choose our books? Once again, citizen membership on public library boards is cost-effective and it makes sense. Bill 109 needs to mandate citizen participation on library boards rather than merely allowing it.

I talked to Marilyn Mushinski when she was in Cornwall recently for the opening of the new library there and she made it abundantly clear that Bill 109 was far from its final stages. She actively encouraged public suggestions, so I've come here as chair of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Library Board to urge you to consider fully the implications of Bill 109 and the regulation to the Municipal Act as it now stands.

I only hope I have shown you how our provincial library service will be damaged irrevocably by this legislation in its present form. Please recommend that direct provincial funding be maintained. Citizen membership on public library boards is too valuable a resource to squander. A redefinition of the core services in libraries is absolutely essential if you're not going to gut the public library service.

You have the responsibility for shaping one of Ontario's greatest natural resources, its information base. We're entering the information era. Will you please safeguard what has been built up and build on it? Don't weaken it. I'll let one of our library borrowers from Dalkeith have the last word. "A few years ago, Dalkeith was a lively village with a dozen small business establishments. Today, the library is the only informal meeting place we have left and it is warm and friendly because the librarian is warm and friendly."

The feelings of isolation and alienation which afflict so many people these days can be especially severe in rural areas. It may be hard for someone from a large centre to understand how important a library and its librarian are in this community. For many residents these are a lifeline. Ladies and gentlemen, please do not take away these people's lifelines. Thank you.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: I was interested in your relating libraries to the educational system and the fact that the province should be funding 100% of it. You also related some of the problems young people might have, such as between those who have access to computers and those who don't.

Do you not think that in terms of library policy, the province should be addressing the realities of the 21st century and that part of the library mandate should be having a number of computers available, having that wealth of resource available to the general public who might not be able to afford computers so they could come in and access the Internet, access electronically this explosion of information that we have? Should the province not be defining a new mandate for libraries, providing the funding for it, relating it to the educational system as you have suggested?

Ms Marin: Yes, indeed, I do. It is the function of the library, as an information centre, to offer all types of information and particularly the new technologies that are emerging.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: Do you think this bill is a step backwards in terms of where we're going with libraries?

Ms Marin: Indeed I do.

Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): Ms Marin, your brief is truly a reflection of what we've been hearing from almost all the boards. We've been travelling across the province, in Toronto, London, and we're on to Thunder Bay. I think it's really important that you define what will happen in terms of the patchwork and what it will mean for the library system if there are not some substantial changes to this. It was a terrific brief in terms of hitting all those areas where I think we want to have the government members -- they have been listening to the submissions and I hope they'll be open to some amendments based on the concerns you've expressed extremely well. So thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee today.

OTTAWA PUBLIC LIBRARY/BIBLIOTHÈQUE PUBLIQUE D'OTTAWA

The Chair: Would David Daubney please come forward. Good morning and welcome to the committee. At the beginning of your presentation I'd appreciate if you'd introduce yourselves for the benefit of committee members.

Mr David Daubney: Good morning, honourable members. I'm joined this morning by our vice-chair, Alayne McGregor, and our chief librarian, Barb Clubb. We appreciate the opportunity of meeting you and making a presentation on behalf of the Ottawa Public Library board.

Le conseil d'administration de la Bibliothèque publique d'Ottawa félicite le gouvernement d'avoir mené un processus de consultation qui a abouti aux changements proposés à la loi concernant les bibliothèques publiques de l'Ontario. Nous sommes heureux d'avoir l'occasion de présenter nos opinions et recommandations sur le projet de loi 109. Le conseil reconnaît que le nouveau cadre d'action fournira aux bibliothèques une flexibilité très souhaitable dans certains domaines.

However, we have concerns in a number of areas, including governance, financial support, the role of the province, fees for service and confidentiality of user records.

We certainly concur with Minister Mushinski, who stated in her letter earlier this year announcing this legislation: "Our libraries play an indispensable role in the education of people of all ages and abilities, and they make a significant contribution to the well-educated workforce, which is one of Ontario's greatest strengths."

Bref, les bibliothèques publiques sont importantes pour notre santé mentale et la sociabilité de nos communautés. La Bibliothèque publique d'Ottawa est l'une des plus importants établissements de services d'Ottawa. Sa principale clientèle est constituée des citoyens et citoyennes d'Ottawa, mais en sa qualité de plus grande bibliothèque publique bilingue du Canada, la bibliothèque constitue aussi une ressource clé en matière d'information pour la région de la capitale nationale en plus de desservir les Franco-Ontariens de partout dans la province.

Our library is governed by a board of citizens who give of their time, expertise and energy voluntarily. We're supported by a staff of 247, by almost an equal number of Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association, almost 200 library volunteers, and 245 library advocates also help us to provide a local service that has recently been rated by the citizens of Ottawa as second only to fire protection as the most valued.

Our library has close to 200,000 registered users. Our multiformat collection, 20% of which is in the French-language materials, contains more a million items. Last year users borrowed 3.8 million items, which is over 11 items per capita. They asked more than 775,000 reference and directional questions. Users visited our library branches more than 1.8 million times and made more than 4.7 million searches on the computerized catalogue.

One of our major goals is to link our citizens to the information highway to be the public electronic doorway, to information, so we have National Capital Freenet terminals in every branch, we have public workstations to access to the World Wide Web in two of our branches now and we hope we will have more coverage this year and in the future. Our online public access catalogue is accessible at the library or via remote dial-up from anywhere in the world.

0930

I'd like to acknowledge some of the benefits of Bill 109. First of all, we are certainly impressed that the new legislation contains a clear statement of purpose, something that is lacking in the current legislation. We're heartened by the emphasis on our citizens' information needs in an information-based society. Certainly our own goals resonate with the importance the bill places on access to local and global information through a province-wide network.

Le conseil applaudit l'objet de la loi voulant que soient maintenus les conseils d'administration des bibliothèques, et nous apprécions le contrôle local accru en ce qui concerne la nomination des membres des ces conseils. Nous sommes d'accord avec le fait de mettre l'accent sur la création et le financement de l'infrastructure d'un réseau provincial fort.

Let me now turn to some of our concerns. The first relates to library governance. We think the board model has worked well for Ontario's public libraries for many years. Under the current legislation, councils, in our view, already have sufficient control and authority over board appointments and the budget.

The appointment of unpaid volunteer citizens, people of accomplishment in their communities, has been an important factor in the success of Ontario's public libraries. Their contributions help to reduce the cost of local government and provide an opportunity for citizen participation in civic life. Our board believes that majority citizen representation on public library boards, as provided for in the current legislation, is essential in representing the interests and needs of the communities they serve.

A strong citizen-based board is a community advocate for library services. A board composed solely of members of municipal councils or civic employees would be a board in name only and a board of one would be no board at all. Even in Alberta, which as you know has undergone severe restructuring of many public services in the last number of years, the government has seen fit to maintain the board model of governance for public libraries in its latest revisions to its legislation.

The committee may wish to consider and be guided by the Ontario Corporations Act, which provides for a minimum of three members on a board of directors. I think we would agree with the brief of the Ontario Library Trustees' Association that a minimum of five members constitutes a board. Your committee may also wish to have a look at the Police Services Amendment Act, 1997, the model contained there at least to the extent that it provides for flexibility according to the size and requirements of individual municipalities.

We urge amendments that would ensure majority citizen participation on a library board while still allowing flexibility in the appointment process. We think it's particularly important that a board maintain authority and control over the budget and the hiring of the chief executive officer as is provided for now.

Our second issue relates to financial support. The bill would delete section 30 of the Public Libraries Act, which provides for grants to boards. The loss of the provincial grant in our library's case is more than $1 million, and for the 11 public library systems in this regional municipality more than $2 million.

This is having and will continue to have a significant impact on the level and quality of service to our citizens. For example, for two years in a row we have had to reduce hours of service. Our materials budget buys less and less. Our users are demanding more and more services, particularly to support their participation in an information economy. It's getting harder for us to meet those needs.

We're certainly, as a board, committed to providing our users, especially our children, students and job seekers not only with print materials but with electronic access to information beyond the walls of our buildings. Provincial, operational and project funding has been a very important part of our ability to do this. It's been an essential part of our funding mix, especially since operating in a bilingual environment, as we do in Ottawa, we have costs for staffing and collections that exceed those of unilingual libraries.

I think we would all agree that the local level is best placed to manage and operate libraries. Our board realizes that the concept of disentanglement is attractive to those who would like to simplify public services, but the Who Does What panel stated that the province has a fundamental interest in literacy and equal access to information for all Ontarians, so in this case an element of entanglement, if you will, in the form of provincial funding and leadership is desirable. It is also, I would suggest, a very economical way to deliver on commitments to literacy and equal access to informations.

We're all working to restructure and reinvent our institutions in a world of declining resources, but for the public libraries of this province the loss of the provincial grant will translate into decreased access, fewer branch libraries, less reliance on trained staff and fewer resources, both print and electronic. This is weakening an efficient and low-cost public knowledge, education and information infrastructure at a time when the health and growth of the Ontario economy are increasingly dependent on use of and access to information.

We strongly recommend that the grant program be maintained.

Notwithstanding what I've just said, if public libraries lose the per household grant, a portion of the municipal property tax fund freed by the provincial assumption of education must be guaranteed to public libraries. If not, it will be impossible to say, as the minister did in announcing this legislation, that this new framework will "improve the delivery" of public library service in Ontario.

Our third area of concern relates to the second, and that is the role of the provincial government. Consistent quality and minimum standards across Ontario cannot be achieved without a strong provincial presence in both the funding and development of public library services. Unlike a number of other jurisdictions in Canada, Ontario has no provincial library. Our provincial library is in fact the distributed network of more than 1,200 local libraries across the province. Provincial funding and support are essential for the effective functioning of this network, especially but certainly not exclusively, as it relates to the smaller and more geographically isolated and first nations libraries. Our provincial agencies, the Ontario library service, the work of the Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation are important elements of that provincial role.

We support the proposal to focus provincial funds on library networking initiatives, but our whole system, especially major centres like Ontario, must be strong, and the system will only be as strong as its major nodes.

Par exemple, la collection et le catalogue électronique du matériel en langue française de la Bibliothèque publique d'Ottawa dessert d'autres bibliothèques très éloignées de nos frontières.

Our ability to provide that service to Franco-Ontarians will be impacted by these cuts to the provincial grant.

It's not just a question of our telecommunications and electronic networking capacities; there are broader concepts of service, intellectual freedom and open access that require the committed involvement of the senior level of government.

In planning to end the provincial grant to boards, the province is ending not only an important vehicle for the funding of collections to be shared, but also a mechanism to enforce province-wide sharing protocols.

Our board strongly recommends the continued support for a vigourous program of sustained funding for individual public libraries for the Ontario library service and for a ministry unit that can act and speak effectively for provincial library interests in the province in their relations with the federal government and internationally.

0940

Our fourth concern relates to fees. The issue of user fees has been long debated in the library community. We're still having the debate on our own board about it, and I should tell you that early this year we agreed to institute a renewal fee for books. That was only after considerable discussion. The fee is relatively modest, 25 cents, and it's avoidable, but it's an indication of the kind of steps that we've had to take to respond to the cuts that we've already faced.

We are committed, though, as a board to universal open access to information for all our clients and to the concept of free, tax-supported public library service.

We understand Ontario regulation 26/97 under the Municipal Act will permit the imposition of charges for library collections by format. I understand that the historical experience of fees for specific media format is not encouraging and is unlikely to ever solve the severe funding pressures that libraries face.

En outre, même si la loi proposée reconnaît que les bibliothèques publiques doivent soutenir les Ontariens dans une société axée sur la connaissance, il devient clairement évident que la base de connaissance devient de plus en plus électronique.

Why leave open to charges the very things that people increasingly want or need the most? By limiting free borrowing only to print materials, the government is encouraging the creation of a two-tiered library service, contradicting the three purposes which introduce this legislation. At the same time as Bill 109 permits changing by format or media, it precludes imposition of any general membership fee.

The Ottawa Public Library board would recommend against any changes to regulations that would allow user fees based on type of material.

Our final issue relates to the confidentiality of user records. The repeal of section 28 of the 1984 act dealing with the inspection of records is a matter of concern to the library community, which is responsible for the protection of its users. We're advised that our colleagues at the London Public Library have secured a legal opinion to the effect that subsection 28(1)(b) of the existing legislation, protecting individual library records from disclosure, is not covered in other provincial freedom of information legislation. This protection was a long-fought-for and hard-won provision of the 1984 act. The confidentiality of library borrowing records is an important ethical issue to users, staff and board members, and it would be unfortunate to lose this protection in the general haste to eliminate part I of the current legislation.

We would recommend that section 28 of the Public Libraries Act, relating to the inspection of records and confidentiality of users records, be retained.

Monsieur le Président, honorables députés, nous vous remercions de l'occasion qui nous a été donnée de présenter nos points de vue à ce comité. Notre conseil d'administration croit profondément que les services de bibliothèque forment un composant clé d'une communauté saine dans un monde de plus en plus digital.

Our libraries are an important part of modern, contemporary, increasingly digital communities around the world, and we believe that the government of Ontario continues to have an important partnership role in helping us to provide service to our citizens. It's a role it has provided for over a century in this province and is one that we think is necessary.

Certainly we're committed as a board, and the staff of the Ottawa Public Library, to designing future services to meet the needs of our citizens within the context of these tremendous forces of change that we all face. We're in the process of reviewing levels of service, examining our practices and programs, and building new alliances for service.

We're diversifying our funding base, for example. Last year we had our first major fundraising campaign to provide materials for our new branch, the St Laurent branch, last year. It was a successful first start, where we raised close to $100,000. We hope to continue that, but we know that there are limits to what we can do in the fund-raising area, given the competition from other institutions and charities in our community. But we're not afraid of change and we're finding the courage to make the hard choices on behalf of the citizens of Ottawa.

Thank you for listening to us and taking the time to consider our recommendations. I ask you, as committee members and legislators, to give us the tools to provide our citizens with effective public library service well into the next century.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Unfortunately, you've only left about a minute for questions, so I'm going to allot that time to Mr Martin.

Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): Thank you very much for your presentation this morning. It's certainly consistent with the issues that have been raised for the last two, now going on three, days, concerns that people who have a genuine interest in libraries and who are involved intimately in the running of libraries have raised with us across a large swath of the province.

If the government was seriously interested in the betterment of the library system, it would adopt these amendments. We will be putting them. We hope you will participate with us in the development of them and putting them as well, but we know that's not what this is about. This is about money. This is intricately connected with the agenda of this government to download on to municipalities the cost of delivery of services.

We know Ottawa is going to be hit as hard as, if not harder than, any community across the province, and we know that because of that it will find it difficult to partner with the group that came before you, who also gave an excellent presentation, the group from Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. You made reference in your presentation to the need for nodes, strong nodes to support the weaker, smaller, less resource-rich systems that are out there.

What I would like to know is: What is the situation in Ottawa re the impact that it will have to absorb re the downloading? Are you aware? What is the potential for it in any way, if it takes over, as it will, 100% funding of libraries, to actually enrich and enhance the library system that you talk of so proudly today?

Mr Daubney: Well --

Mr Derwyn Shea (High Park-Swansea): That was too many questions.

The Chair: Just let the gentleman answer the question.

Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): Mr Chair, on a point of order: I appreciate what you do. You sometimes give the person or the presenter a little time to wrap up. You say, "Can you wrap up, please?" Yet there were a couple of times yesterday where you cut me off in midsentence. I would just like you to be consistent so we know what's going to happen next.

The Chair: Sure.

If you'd like to answer the question, we'd appreciate it.

Mr Daubney: Well, the impact of a $1-million hit on us is significant. Our total budget is less than $14 million. We've had to respond to date through reducing hours at our library branches, instituting the renewal fee I referred to and a number of other cutbacks in service.

Frankly, our greater concern is that the city of Ottawa is a growing community, particularly in the southern end of the city, and we're underserviced. We have fewer libraries per capita than most public library systems in Canada. We recognize that we're underserviced in the south end of the city, and in the far west of the city, where Mr Chiarelli and I live, we won't be able to respond, if these cuts are maintained, to the need to provide adequate service in those parts of the city. Those will be the major impacts.

In terms of the region and the whole province and our ability to provide support to the smaller libraries, particularly those in eastern Ontario, there is bound to be some impact there as well. The notion of networking is very important but I hope I made it clear that we think the province's role goes beyond that to providing some leadership in these complex issues and important information highway issues that will be so central to the continued growth of this province and country.

The Chair: Thank you very much, all three of you, for coming forward to make your presentation to the committee today.

0950

BROCKVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Chair: Margaret Williams, please come forward. Good morning. Welcome to the committee.

Miss Margaret Williams: My eyesight is not as good as I would like it to be. I'm just trying to see people's names here. Anyway, good morning. I've written letters to some of you people so it's nice to see the faces that go with the names.

I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to address this group. I'm speaking on behalf of the Brockville Public Library board. The issues that concern us are the same that you've heard from the people who have already spoken to you this morning. I had a chance to read the AMPLO brief that was faxed to me yesterday, and it's excellent.

What I would like to do this morning is to try to give you some idea of the impact this legislation is going to have on Brockville. I wanted to start off on a personal note, that I've worked in Ontario public libraries for 37 years. I started when I was quite young, and I was part of the growth of the Nepean Public Library. I was the first page they ever had.

In the 1950s there was no resource sharing whatsoever. We would do our best to help our patrons from our own resources, but that's as far as we could go. Then gradually the province built a system of library resource sharing that also involved access to professional consultants. The province has played a major role in developing the excellent library system we have today. Interlibrary loan used to be something that was done by mail on three-part forms, and it's now moved to a CD-ROM-based system with AVISO as the communications software.

By withdrawing provincial funding, the province removes the incentive for libraries to continue participating in the interlibrary loan resource-sharing network which the province has spent so much time and money to build up. The Brockville Public Library has lost $46,000 in revenue over the past two years, $26,000 of it in provincial funding. Our interlibrary loan staff is one part-time adult and one high school student. We lend more than we borrow. You have the stats in front of you in the report.

Our 1997 provincial grant is $42,000. The question is, will city council find this money in 1998 or will we be facing further staff cuts? In Brockville last year, Phillips Cables closed, putting 350 people out of work. In two years' time, if the recommendation goes forward, the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital will close, putting 650 people out of work. The new welfare funding is 50-50, and I can see the city facing some major decisions about exactly what it can afford to fund in our community.

I am also concerned, as some of my colleagues have already expressed, about the undercutting of libraries on an individual basis. There will be some libraries that will continue to get excellent municipal funding and others will not. How can a network survive when there are individual libraries in the network that are not well funded?

In the cultural partnerships branch, the staff of SOLS, Southern Ontario Library Service, has given our library excellent professional service over the years. At the moment they are helping us to conduct a user survey, they have developed the Excel program to train library workers in the field and they provide a lot of professional expertise. My question is, as a small medium-sized public library, is this professional assistance going to continue?

Under the issue of governance, Bill 109 removes the legislative obligation to appoint a citizen majority board, thereby removing a democratic, arm's-length approach to managing a public library.

We celebrated our 100th birthday in 1995. Over the years, many men and women have contributed to our library. As a recent example, we are nearing the end of our Access Tomorrow funding-raising campaign to raise $600,000 for the expansion and renovation of our 1903 Carnegie library. We began less than two years ago and have raised $576,000 to date. This success is due to the leadership of the library board and the tremendous support from the community.

Giving municipal councils the option of choosing the type of governance leaves the door open for the elimination of library boards over time. The way Bill 109 reads, an administrator of a municipality could become the chief officer of the library, in effect making the library a department of the municipality. This change in governance poses a threat to intellectual freedom, as it puts the library in danger of political interference and pressure from special interest groups. This month alone I handled two requests from patrons for reconsideration of library materials. Do we want this decision to be left in the hands of politicians?

As it stands, the Public Libraries Act gives a municipal council complete authority to appoint all board members and to approve the library's annual operating and capital budget line by line. Volunteer library boards have proven their worth over the last 100 years. Why is this new legislation abandoning it? Municipal councils have always had local control.

Two points on this. Our budget this year was cut $20,000. We're back to 1995 levels of funding. We were told to bring in a budget at that level and that's what we did. If that isn't control over funding, I'd like to know what is.

The other thing I want to point out -- this is kind of jumping around a bit -- is that we've had increasing numbers of questions from patrons needing help with legal questions because of cutbacks in legal aid. Luckily, we have a board member who is a lawyer and happens to be head of legal aid for Leeds-Grenville. He was able to give us some useful hints and guidelines, recommend some additional tools we could purchase, and also give us some idea of what our limitations are as far as providing this kind of information to people. This is somebody from the community who is serving on the library board because he cares about library service to his community. It's invaluable.

On another personal level, I serve on the CAS board for Leeds-Grenville, a 21-member board. It gives me a chance to contribute to my community, and I have learned an awful lot in the three years I've been on it so far.

Core services, user fees and universal access: This new act protects free access to print materials. I agree with the comment made by a gentleman who's head of information services for the New York Public Library that it's flapdoodle, empty nonsense, to say that traditional publishing is going to disappear and that books are not going to be an integral part of public libraries for more than the next 10 years.

More and more information is only available on the Internet and on CD-ROM. I have a couple examples to give you. We are taking part in the electronic publications pilot project which Stats Canada is conducting across the country. We're one of the few public libraries involved in this. Thirty publications such as the consumer price index are available to us only on the Internet and are only accessible on one of our two public Internet computers. There are many problems with this format: lengthy downloading time, inconsistency in protocols used by participating departments and limited user access due to the lack of computer equipment. We have two Internet computers, thanks to a grant, and only one of these computers is linked to this particular database.

But this project points to the future direction of how we are going to have to gain access to government information. A major role of the public library is to promote an open and democratic society by providing everyone with access to a broad range of information. Who is going to pay for printouts of government-generated information? Not everyone has a personal computer they can download to. Will MPs and MPPs be inundated with requests from their constituents for copies of reports and legislation citizens need to make informed decisions? Core services must go beyond books, the traditional and familiar backbone of public libraries, to include information and leisure sources, whatever the format.

In conclusion, the Brockville Public Library board recommends the following amendments to the Local Control of Public Libraries Act: Retain an appointed citizen majority board, and protect non-print sources of information from the imposition of user fees. These changes will ensure active participation by citizens in their library, free of political interference, thereby protecting our intellectual freedom, and will ensure free universal access for all citizens to the information they need, regardless of its format.

Thank you for hearing me. I'd be pleased to answer any questions.

1000

Mr Martin: Thank you for an excellent presentation. As we cross the province, we hear from people who are intimately involved with the delivery of library services re the shortcomings of this bill and what needs to be done to make it live up to the preamble in the bill.

I just want to ask you about one point you made which is a very important one, and that's the question of inequities this will create in the system because not everybody will have the same resource base, access to some of the very expensive, new technological equipment and even access to books. We had somebody come before us yesterday who said that because of the cutbacks they now have no book budget, if you can imagine, no book budget for a library. That's the reality that we're living with.

In your experience -- you probably are in contact with other people who deliver library services -- how extensive will this inequity be across your region or, if you know, across the province?

Miss Williams: Brockville used to be a resource library for Leeds-Grenville, and Leeds-Grenville has a lot of small libraries that do excellent work. I've always been amazed at the commitment and energy from the mostly women who have run these small libraries and developed collections and services for their users and participated in the networks that have been developed. I have a concern that some of these small libraries are simply going to disappear.

It's interesting to note that the Nepean library started out at somebody's house. Ruth Dickinson started that library from her house and it grew into what we have today, the city of Nepean library. If she were alive today I think she'd be amazed.

The impact for some of these small communities, including ours -- we belong to AMPLO, which is an organization of medium-sized libraries, but we're small; the population is only 21,000 -- will be quite dire, I think.

Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): Thank you for bringing your report to the committee. I'd like to concentrate our discussion on the two points you raised at the end of your presentation, particularly the issue of the citizen majority board.

In the part of your presentation on governance, you refer to the notion that this is a democratic, arm's-length approach to managing the public library. You made reference to a couple of issues that you had most recently dealt with. If those had not been addressed satisfactorily, if you weren't able to reach some kind of satisfactory conclusion, to whom would you go or would those people go who had a problem?

Miss Williams: Are you talking about censorship issues?

Mrs Munro: I assumed that's what you were talking about.

Miss Williams: It's my responsibility as CEO to do my best to uphold board policies. We have a collection development policy. We also have an open access policy that says that children have access to all the materials in the library. We do not act as parents. I pointed that out to the two parents who were particularly concerned.

Mrs Munro: If they had not been satisfied with the way in which you handled this, where would they have gone?

Miss Williams: I spoke to them on the phone and defused the situation. If they has still felt the situation was serious enough that they wanted some action taken, I would have asked them to fill out a request-for-reconsideration form. That would have gone to the board for its review, and then the board would make the final decision.

Mrs Munro: To whom is the board accountable?

Miss Williams: The board is accountable to the community and it's also accountable to city council.

Mrs Munro: In your presentation, at the very end of that section on governance, you suggest that the municipal councils have always had local control. If the council had some discretionary power in regard to the board, is there anything in your experience to suggest that they would want to handle anything differently in terms of having some community representation, citizen representation?

Miss Williams: Are you talking again about the issues of censorship?

Mrs Munro: No, just in general.

Miss Williams: I'm not sure I quite understand the question. Are you talking about issues of funding?

Mrs Munro: In raising the fact that there isn't specified in this legislation a citizen board, is there anything in your experience that would suggest that a council would have reasons to want to change that opportunity for citizen input?

Miss Williams: At our local level, our mayor has said that he feels the police services board, as an example, should continue to have citizen participation. He might agree with that as well for the library board. But that is just one mayor this year. What is going to happen with the next municipal council and the next mayor?

Mr Gravelle: I want to thank you very much for making the presentation. Certainly we are hearing a consistent message and it truly is an important message, which is that unless there are substantial amendments made to this bill and unless there is an acceptance by the minister and ministry that there needs to be some form of provincial funding, the very existence of the library system in the province is absolutely threatened. There will be branches, as you said, that will simply close because it's going to be impossible for some municipalities to be able to make up the difference. That message is important and I hope the government members are listening, because I hope they also very much support the library system.

It's important that people understand the importance of the networking that has been discussed quite frequently, but I'm not sure it's really well understood by all of us. I think it's important that people understand what difference the network makes and how it works. I know the interlibrary loan program is incredibly important, and that's very much threatened. Can you talk to us a bit about the networking between libraries and explain to us what value that has to the whole system?

Miss Williams: When you talk about networking, are you referring to associations like AMPLO?

Mr Gravelle: That's right, the whole concept of sharing resources, working in terms of goals for the entire province, informal networks; you mentioned those as well. I'm curious to hear more about it and what value it has, for example, in terms of Brockville and Toronto or Brockville and Thunder Bay, which is my town. Is there an important relationship that needs to be maintained?

Miss Williams: A number of organizations and associations of people are very important in libraries in this province. I can't stress enough the importance of SOLS, the Southern Ontario Library Service, and the Northern Ontario Library Service for the northern libraries. We're conducting a survey right now, just an in-house user survey, but it's very interesting. Most people don't want user fees, by the way. I get access to expertise and advice and help.

Then there are other organizations. Margaret Scratch is here today. She is looking after small libraries in this part of the world. They meet on a regular basis, and I try to go to their meetings because I always learn something. I'm a member of AMPLO. I'm a member of the Ontario Library Association, which was established around 1900. Larry Moore is here; he could correct me on that. These are all organizations that are invaluable for sharing information, lobbying, keeping us in touch with issues that are of concern to our communities.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Miss Williams, for coming forward and making your presentation today.

1010

FRONTENAC COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
KINGSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Chair: Would Marcel Giroux please come forward. Good morning, sir. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Marcel Giroux: My name is Marcel Giroux. I'm chairman of the Frontenac county library board, but I also represent the city of Kingston library.

The two libraries are currently going through a process of their own amalgamations. The local politicians, going through reorganizations of local civic governance, have decided that the city and county libraries would become one library system, which is giving us another little problem to solve. It's like trying to play a baseball game with two pitchers at the same time.

You have a written copy of our presentation. To save both of us a lot of embarrassment, I'm not going to read that word for word.

I'd love to delight you with something new and fresh and unheard of, but I can't. You've heard it all before. As the song says, this verse is just like all the other ones. But I am going to simply hit some of the highlights and try to do the job as I was mandated to do by both boards.

The three main points, as you've heard, are access, funding and governance. Those are essentially the three points I will reiterate at this moment.

The new act seems to indicate that for free you get the book on the shelf, and for fees you get all the other forms of information. By that definition, the words "scroll" and "stone tablets" should have been added to the books on the shelf. That's how far back that goes. All of them still exist, and the books are certainly going to continue to exist, but we feel that the product here is the information and the format is totally irrelevant. Who knows what formats we'll have in the next generation?

We also know that electronically stored information is available sooner and is more easily retrieved. You end up with two groups of people -- I'll exaggerate a bit -- the poor, who plod from shelf to shelf and book to book, and the rich, who have the right buttons to push to retrieve the information immediately. I'd like to point out that when the economy takes a downturn, library use takes an upturn. There are a lot of librarians here who would give you the stats to prove that.

I still have to ask, why is one format of storing and retrieving information in a different category than any other? Fees have an immediate detrimental effect, because we've had the experience in both the libraries -- we started charging a 50-cent fee or a $1 fee for the borrowing of videos, to cover the insurance and replacement costs, and one library went down 37% and the other one went down 50%.

The next point is that a lot of little branches, a lot of our libraries, only have books. They haven't reached the modern age yet. There's nothing left to charge fees, so where are they going to get any other sources of funds?

I've been involved with libraries since 1968, as a citizen volunteer to try to establish a library in the first place in Frontenac county, and I can guarantee you that libraries were never coddled. There were never any extra funds. I've worked on libraries, I've worked on arenas, and I can assure you it was easier to get money for the arena than it was for the library.

I've also served on the library board representing the municipality, as I was on municipal council for 13 years, and the libraries were always the first cut. I know. I was around the horseshoe when it was happening. Elimination of provincial funding is definitely going to undermine the standards. It is going to create wide discrepancies among the citizens. It's even going to kill some libraries. When you look at our county system, the county of Frontenac is 40 kilometres wide and 160 kilometres deep. The roads were paved only within the last 15 years in the northern half. Most of our branches are only open somewhere between six and 20 hours a week, and you're going to cut that some more. As somebody has already said, those who have little will have less.

The province indicates some continued support through the Ontario Library System, which is fair enough. I'm also on the SOLS board. You've heard the acronym: the Southern Ontario Library Service. But its budget was cut 37% in the last year, and if we start trimming down the existing libraries, probably including the elimination of some, who's going to be around for SOLS to help?

In the area of governance, we know the province no longer wants to pay the piper so therefore leaves it to the municipalities to call the tune. Most of us express some fears, and I have been there. The existence of the local library is so dependent on the local municipal councils. I don't want to suggest that all libraries will automatically disappear the next day -- I don't think that will happen -- but it will make a tough job a little tougher. When I was working on the citizen committee to establish a county library in 1968, you wouldn't want to hear what I was told by some of the politicians: "Who the hell needs books? If you've got time to read a book, you should be out chopping wood." I said, "I already chop my own wood, but I also read books." You've got to do one to rest from the other.

At the best of times, when libraries were being funded reasonably well, there was still a large number of volunteers. I wouldn't know the number, but I'd say 40% or 50% of the work of libraries is done by volunteers at the best of times. The new act decides to ignore those volunteers. It doesn't mention that it would be great to keep all those non-elected members on these boards. Boards, if they are made up strictly of politicians, will come under pressures that boards of a mixed nature don't have or have a lot less of.

Somebody tried to throw the word "censorship" around. As school teachers many years ago, the only problem we had with censorship of books in the libraries came from the local politicians. I forget the name of the book now, it was that long ago. But put yourself in the place of the local politician who has a dollar left and his two options are to buy a book or fill a pothole. Which one are you going to do?

1020

Essentially, that's it. Information is information, and the vehicle it comes in or rides on is totally irrelevant. I don't see any reason why one should be free and one should be fee. The fees are not going to do it in many places. We've had good volunteers. Let's make sure we keep them around.

Somehow I seem to have heard many suggestions made that when government funding is retracted in many areas, volunteers and families are going to have to bring in. Somehow it seems to be sort of illogical, in an area where volunteers have already established themselves and proven themselves, a 150-year record, that that is thrown by the wayside.

It also seems a little bit illogical to me that a government that is trying to bring into its own hands the funding and governance of boards of education seems to be going in the opposite direction for libraries. As you've heard before, and I certainly also believe, libraries are just another part, another facet of our education. As a matter of fact, it's the umbrella or the foundation, whichever, it's top and bottom. Schools are very narrow in between: specific dates, specific years for very specific functions. Libraries are always there, from toddler to death, and many of us use libraries from a very early age and continue as long as we can reach them.

I'd also like to remind everybody that libraries existed way before formal education systems, and even before elected politicians. Just check your history. Libraries will survive, but we'd love to remember everybody here among our list of benefactors. Thank you.

Mr Jim Flaherty (Durham Centre): Thank you, Mr Giroux, for your presentation on behalf of both the Frontenac County Public Library and the Kingston Public Library, as I understand it.

Looking at the big picture, I have a bit of a problem with the logic you seem to be following when you say the province no longer wants to pay the piper. Indeed the province has not been paying the piper in public libraries in Ontario for many, many years.

One of the first grants to a public library in Ontario was to Kingston in 1835, to the Mechanics Institute, but the history of public libraries in Ontario has been a history of local funding and local governance, not a history of provincial funding and provincial governance. In fact, the Kingston Public Library, as I understand it, has an operating budget of $1.9 million this year, of which the provincial government will contribute $165,000. Is that correct?

Mr Giroux: I'm not up on all the particular numbers.

Mr Flaherty: The Kingston Whig-Standard says that. That's less than 10%, so if what you're saying to me is that the people of Kingston are not prepared, through their elected councillors, to support their public libraries, then I'm really taken aback. I would not think that would be the attitude of the people of Kingston, since their municipal council has been supporting that public library to a tune of in excess of 90% of the funding of that council.

Indeed, the gentleman from the Bibliothèque publique d'Ottawa this morning said that when they polled the local citizens in Ottawa, they rated their library service second in importance only to fire services in Ottawa, and I would hope that's not terribly different in Kingston.

My point is that we're not talking about, should there be adequate funding for libraries? We're talking about, is the appropriate funding mechanism through the local governance and local elected politicians, as it has been for most of the history of libraries in Ontario?

Mr Giroux: May I respond?

Mr Flaherty: Yes, please.

Mr Giroux: I was referring, as most people here were referring, to the household grants. You're making the very point that anybody who lives in the city will make, that the major population areas have got much healthier tax bases. The household grant in Kingston maybe amounts to 10%, but I can guarantee you that in most other libraries, especially the smaller libraries in smaller communities, that household grant creeps up to 30%, 40% and 50%. That's all those smaller libraries represent. If you cut that in the cities, it's not going to make that much difference. In the field of education, large cities don't get any government grants at all because they have the major industrial tax bases. In the country that's not the case. If you look at all the libraries, that 10% figure doesn't apply.

Mr Gravelle: Thank you very much. I think that point is being very clearly made. Obviously larger libraries, many of them, hope to maintain some proportion of provincial funding because it's very important, but it's crucial for the smaller libraries. They're the ones that we really are going to see closing. They're the ones that are going to be affected. It's important, I think, that the government members understand that. I think they do now, because it's been made consistently clear. This is not conjecture. This is fact. The proportion per household is higher, so it's very important.

But also I think it's fair to say, even just in response to Mr Flaherty's point there, that yes, the municipalities have paid the larger portion, and the amount of money that came in is $165,000 or something, but with the downloading and the fear from a lot of municipalities and the belief, and in some cases confirmation, that there will be a net loss to the municipalities, there are going to be further demands made on them that might make them, as you said, make a decision with that last dollar, between that pothole or the book.

I'm sure that is really the great concern. It's not a question of commitment by the municipalities, nor a criticism. It's that they may be in a bad position. If you want to comment further on any of that, I'd be grateful.

Mr Giroux: The only comment I can make is that if I were living in a major city, I'd probably be glad of the elimination of political involvement at any level. But when you live in municipalities that have very little tax base -- the only tax base is the residential tax base -- it's a different story altogether.

Mr Martin: You opened your presentation by saying that you basically had the same message to bring and then went on, actually, to make a very I thought cogent, focused argument about the issue of format. I just want to say that it's important, though, that we hear the message and that it is a consistent message and that people like you, who are so intimately involved and so obviously concerned, get a chance to say your piece and to tell your story, as you have today so effectively and so personally.

You said that format wasn't important. I would suggest to you that it is important when it comes to the cost of the format. It becomes very important because of the new format that's coming on stream that actually the government, to give them credit, is funding up front. We had a wonderful presentation in Toronto a couple of days ago of the new 2000 project and some of the ability that will provide.

But as you say, if you don't have the down link in particularly the smaller communities, if you don't have the ability as a poor person to afford the fees or have a computer at home, then it's all for naught. It seems to me we're putting the cart before the horse here. Would that be your perspective?

Mr Giroux: Absolutely. The object is to have the information available to all the citizens, not only the rich ones or the ones who have that extra dollar in their pocket. The availability, the universal access of information must be maintained, whatever vehicle that information is carried on. The next thing you're going to find is that somebody says: "That's fine, but you can only buy $20 books. You can no longer buy $30 books." How far are you going to go? In which direction are you going? I still like the idea of the scrolls and the stone tablets. Why not?

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Giroux, for coming forward and making your presentation today.

1030

NEPEAN PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Chair: Would the representatives from the Nepean Public Library board please come forward. Good morning and welcome to the committee. I'd appreciate it if at the beginning of your presentation you'd introduce yourselves for the benefit of Hansard and committee members.

Mr Tom Foulkes: This is Alice Basarke on my immediate left, Sandra Nolan, and I'm Tom Foulkes. We are trustees in the Nepean Public Library board.

Today I will talk about our letter to the minister supporting the Local Control of Public Libraries Act, Bill 109, the superconference and our vision with respect to local needs and service to the public. Ms Basarke will address library boards in terms of citizen participation, board composition, council involvement and rotation. Ms Nolan will speak about the team approach -- libraries, boards, friends and volunteers. In addition, she will touch briefly on funding and Ottawa-Carleton's negatively disproportionate share. Finally, I will summarize.

In our letter to the minister dated January 20 this year, we stated that we had reviewed the implications for public library services of the proposed new act to govern Ontario libraries. The board concluded that the new act is a carefully considered response providing a pragmatic, practical solution that balances the concerns of the various stakeholders in the public library industry and that the Nepean Public Library board supports this legislation.

When I attended the OLA superconference in Toronto in early February, I discovered that our letter had been circulated and that our views were not widely shared at that time. Many people, including trustees, had chosen to see the proposed legislation in a negative light. At the advocacy sessions and other trustee functions, the impact of Bill 109 was widely and heatedly discussed. I believe that by the end of the conference our perspective was better understood and that a number of trustees from Windsor to Kingston and points in between shared our view. Certainly the rhetoric had moderated and the OLTA response to Bill 109 was more balanced. My colleagues will discuss some aspects of the act in greater detail.

The strongest, most vocal opponent of Bill 109 at the superconference told me he could see the act working for us in Nepean, but not for others. I considered that progress after two days. It was my understanding and observation at the conference that there's considerably less angst about the proposed legislation in eastern Ontario than there is elsewhere across the province.

As you know, two of the concerns expressed were that boards would become a committee of council, and libraries a city department. We can be sympathetic to that view, but my personal research as a resident of a major city, cottage country and a small community indicates otherwise. We do not believe these concerns to be realistic.

Libraries are a hybrid, containing elements of both soft and hard services. They serve as a continuous, lifelong learning centre, a resource centre and a place of fun and enjoyment for its users as they satisfy their curiosities or their thirst for knowledge. An elected official is not likely to willingly vote to reduce these opportunities. Hence, he or she will want an intermediary: citizen representation on boards to deal with governance and funding issues.

The Nepean Public Library system was not in very good shape in the early 1980s. It was through the efforts of enlightened councillors, including the mayor, who took over four of the nine board seats, that revitalization of the system took place. Therefore, the Nepean experience of active involvement by council has been a positive one.

The ministry statistics support the obvious pride we have in serving our population in Nepean. We have the highest per capita circulation rate and the second-highest expenditure per capita in the national capital region. A survey conducted on behalf of city council in 1996 indicated that 98.5% of our citizens are well satisfied with their library services.

When discussing restructuring of local government last summer, an option was put forward that would see the area's 11 libraries rolled into one. Upon reflection, our board disagreed with this notion as did a number of other boards in the region. Ottawa and Nepean both made presentations to regional council and this idea was dropped. Our opposition was based on the knowledge that Nepean's needs are not those of Gloucester or Osgoode. Our populations and demographics are different. Our role as trustees is to ensure local needs are met as part of the broader provincial-eastern Ontario requirements in an economic, effective manner as we serve the public.

Trustees do not and should not operate libraries, but rather take a longer-term view to the future with respect to policy, funding and materials. We care for and nurture our libraries. We are appointed to serve the public, to meet local needs. We are volunteers, we all spend more time and energy as members of library boards than we had originally planned, but for the most part we are proud to do so. Libraries are an integral part of our community and we plan to keep it this way.

Ms Alice Basarke: At this point, I would like to mention the nature and importance of library boards. The boards' role is setting policy to operate management and governance of library services. In Nepean we have always found it beneficial to work closely with city council, but we also believe that citizen participation on library boards is very important. It has to be a partnership, working together towards a mutual goal of locally determined public library service that meets the needs and demands of our users. Our method of operation works well for us. Stats prove we are efficient and give the public what it wants. Still, on the provincial level, change is needed. We believe that the new act can encourage and facilitate such change.

The library is there to provide service. Public libraries have the fundamental responsibility for providing access to all expressions of knowledge, intellectual and creative, regardless of any controversial opinions on the subject. Citizen volunteers from the community are essential because there is a vital need to reflect and to respond to the needs and demands of the community. It is only through citizen involvement in governance that we can ensure a library service that is responsive to local needs and, most important, be able to guarantee intellectual freedom. Selection of library materials must not be subject to the political process.

Libraries naturally support formal education and therefore educational institutions at all levels from primary to post- secondary. However, another important role is the support of informal education, that is, intellectual freedom and lifelong learning as well as recreation and enjoyment. Lifelong learning can be promoted best through freedom of access to whatever information any citizen requires. It is important to keep our doors open to all, regardless of the economic situation of that individual. We are therefore pleased that you have agreed with us, and no charges will be levied for basic services.

The Nepean library board supports the proposed act as a reasonable compromise between municipal control and total board independence. Change is needed. The act allows enough flexibility for adjustment to local conditions. Boards and councils must work closely in partnership towards the mutual goal of a locally determined library service that meets the needs and demands of its residents. We certainly do not expect the act to be abused by local councils. Indeed, we are very fortunate in Nepean to have a long and happy record of cooperation and harmony with our city councillors. However, we cannot deny the possibility of potential abuse of power by city councils. Should this ever happen, we would expect your ministry to monitor the situation and take corrective action through legislative amendments.

We sincerely believe that the new act will encourage a closer and more productive relationship between municipalities and boards as well as library and municipal organizations. In Nepean, the process of establishing a new library board under the new act is under discussion at joint board and council committee meetings. The board position is that, ideally, a library board should be made up of a majority of citizen volunteers; there should be a fixed term for board members; membership should be done on a rotation basis to ensure continuity; there should be a fixed minimum of city councillors on the board; and the chair should be a city councillor.

1040

Ms Sandra Nolan: Public libraries are changing because of declining revenues and must provide services in a new way. In Nepean, as a result of Bill 109 and faced with reduced funding over the past few years, we are adopting a team concept approach whereby the library board, management and Friends of Nepean Public Library are pulling together as partners to provide the necessary level of service that our community has come to expect.

Friends support the services of the library through fund-raising, advocacy, provision of special services and communicating to the community about the importance and the role of public libraries. For example and for your information, the Friends of Nepean Public Library is an active and thriving corporation separately governed from the library board. It has a paid volunteer coordinator, does fund-raising activities and has an operational used bookstore. The Friends also offer a variety of special services and activities, including the delivery of library material to shut-ins, special collections and reading programs for seniors' residences, book sales and literacy programs for school-age children, to name a few.

With a view to the future role of Friends within the library community and our own commitment in Nepean, the first national Friends conference will be held in Ottawa this June at the CLA convention and is being sponsored and headed up by Nepean Public Library Board, staff and Friends. However, volunteers cannot take the place of paid workers and should not have to pick up the work that may come about as a result of layoffs. Through their good activities, Friends should remain advocates for the library community for good, strong public information service.

Funding is another issue. Funding issues are critical. Libraries have been heavily impacted this decade by provincial legislation such as the social contract, expenditure control act and the phasing out of all direct provincial support for public libraries. Access to additional municipal funds are limited, as municipalities themselves are also under severe funding problems.

The province must ensure that the lost provincial grants to public libraries are at least partially offset by increased municipal funding or additional access to other revenues. Property taxes alone cannot fund all library services demanded by residents. Core services, including access to educational resources and guarantees of intellectual freedom, should continue to be funded collectively through property taxes. Other non-core services should be partly supported by grants. We agree with the bill that fees for library cards are not appropriate or acceptable because of access issues and because users have already paid for this level of basic service through their taxes. Free access to technological information must be on par with access to traditional information to keep pace with the information revolution.

We want to ensure an equitable distribution of funding. Ottawa-Carleton represents almost 7% of the provincial population, yet over the last four years we've received less than 1.5% of the special grants available. We should have our fair share.

Ms Basarke: Last year the minister met with our CEO and board chair to discuss changes in funding and operations of public libraries in Ontario. Thank you for listening and giving us the opportunity to meet with you again. Your willingness to listen and consider all angles of the problems that confront us shows a commitment and flexibility that is essential to problem-solving.

Mr Gravelle: Good morning and thank you for your presentation. Clearly the Nepean Public Library board has a very good relationship with council. I guess that is one of the reasons why to a large degree you're supportive of the legislation. But I note you do express some concerns about other jurisdictions, because this legislation obviously is province-wide and not just specific to various regions and obviously because each municipality is going to have a different set of circumstances, there is -- you use the term "potential for abuse." I don't think that would be the term I would use but I appreciate what you're saying. But you are saying, "Should this ever happen, we would expect your ministry to monitor the situation and take corrective action through legislative amendments."

Would you think it would be wise to put the legislative amendments in now at this portion of it rather than monitoring it after the bill? In other words, if you think that there may be a need for legislative amendments down the road, does it not make sense to put them into the bill as part of this process we're going through right now?

Mr Foulkes: On a personal basis, I'm more of the carrot approach than the stick approach, and to put those kinds of things in is a stick. One of the reasons that things have worked well in Nepean is we have a positive attitude. That has been in evidence for a number of years. In my opening remarks about the conference and so on and so forth, there's all that negativity and whining instead of trying to look at the glass half full and move forward with opportunity. We see this as an opportunity. Right now, under the current legislation councils can appoint board members, and they do. Every trustee in this province is appointed by a council.

Mr Gravelle: That's right.

Mr Foulkes: That is one of the issues that we're talking about here. It's not an issue; it's a non-starter. We're talking about this being part of the big funding piece. We're talking a total of, what, $15 million, as I understand it, in the order of magnitude of moneys coming out of libraries. The issues aren't really about funding, are they?

Mr Martin: I appreciate your coming before us and sharing with us your thoughts on this issue. You probably recognize -- I think you've been here for a good part of this morning -- that your initial thrust in the presentation is different from the other library boards from your area which you've said are actually more on side than offside with you.

Perhaps your view on that becomes a little bit more clear as we go into the body of your presentation because you raise the same issues that they raised as points of concern. The issue of governance -- you obviously have found a balance in your jurisdiction -- but you also make some points that suggest that there's a need for citizen participation. As a matter of fact, I think you said there was a need for majority citizenship participation; you balanced that with the chair from council, an interesting concept, I think.

You also talk about the issue of funding and make a very important and serious point, that property taxes alone cannot fund all library services demanded by residents. The big question then is, if that is what's going to happen -- because that's what this is about -- where do we get the funding?

The other point you make, which I thought was relevant but you might want to comment on briefly, is the question of a role for -- you said: "Still, on the provincial level, change is needed. We believe that the new act can encourage and facilitate such change." You said that stats prove that we are efficient and give the public what it wants, but there's change needed on the provincial level. Could you expand on that a little bit? Two questions there: Where are you going to get the money, and what does the province need to do to change to help you in your obviously already successful venture?

Mr Foulkes: Our taxpayers in Nepean have told us, rather than reduce services, increase the tax base. That's the message that came in the core services review last year. That's the one answer.

To us, the change that is needed reflects an unevenness that has taken place over time. In Nepean alone we have swallowed over half a million dollars in the last four years in terms of various funding cuts that we have received or other kinds of activity, and the playing field has changed as a result. We think that the legislation needs to reflect that. Give us the opportunity to have flexibility in fees or creating of fees that isn't there under the current legislation. We look at this as a positive as opposed to a negative.

Mr Shea: I really welcomed the presentation. I thought it was very thoughtfully put together and well presented and I appreciate that. As we've gone through the hearings so far -- I know that the opposition tries to characterize Bill 109 as just a financial matter, where the government sees it much more as a fundamental issue of democracy. You have in fact cut to part of that issue in your presentation.

I appreciated that because it appears in some jurisdictions there seems to be some disturbing gulf between what the Association of Municipalities of Ontario speaks about and some members of the library community address. You've found that unique balance. You've found a unique balance of cooperation that the act is trying to encourage and instil. I think you used the word "whining" at the very least, along with a couple of other comments you used that got my attention very quickly.

Mr Foulkes: That's not in the printed material.

Mr Shea: And it's not in the legislation either, I want you to know. But what you're really doing is trying to express a new sense of partnership. You have obviously been trying to move in that direction, driven as much by necessity as anything else. What do you owe that advance to? Is it because of the experience of your board members? Is it because of the sensitivity of council to the board? The way you present council, it doesn't appear as though it's onerous, it doesn't appear that it's anything less than cooperative with the library board.

Mr Foulkes: A number of years ago our library was not in very good shape. When council effectively took the library board over they went out and hired an executive director who was a positive go-getter. He surrounded himself with some people who said, "Nepean is a first-class community and needs a first-class library system." People were upbeat about it and people understood the importance of libraries in our everyday lives in our community -- now, the present and the future. They took an aggressive, positive attitude. People worked on the basis of trust and confidence. We may be naïve saying that, but personally that's my strongly held view.

Mr Shea: But your sense is that the new legislation indeed is reflecting the kind of partnership that you have already been working towards.

Mr Foulkes: It provides that opportunity.

Mr Shea: I'm sensitive to your comments about --

The Chair: Mr Shea --

Mr Shea: Well, there goes the time.

The Chair: Well done. There were only two minutes. Thank you all for coming forward to make your presentation to the committee today, appreciate your coming.

Mr Foulkes: Thank you for the opportunity.

1050

FRIENDS OF THE OTTAWA PUBLIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

The Chair: Would Nancy Goodman please come forward. Good morning and welcome to the committee.

Ms Nancy Goodman: Good morning, honourable members. My name is Nancy Goodman. I've been president of the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association for the last two years, a director of the Friends for the last six. I'm here today with Beverley Rix and Eric Moore, who are two of the other directors on the board, to tell you how strongly we feel about the Ottawa Public Library, to acquaint you with our perspective and to describe our work on the library's behalf over the last 16 years.

Our association of Friends is a registered charity. It was established in 1981, the first Friends of the Library group to exist in Ontario. Our success has made us a model for many new groups which have sprung up across Canada. We have over 250 paid-up members, over 250 Ottawa library supporters. In a city the size of Ottawa, that may not seem like a large number of citizens. However, the majority of these members are active volunteers who commit a considerable number of hours to supporting the library every week of the year.

The Ottawa Public Library is the largest officially bilingual public library system in Canada, serving not just Ottawa but Ontario residents. We contend that it is doing an excellent job in difficult economic circumstances, keeping pace with technological and cultural change. It actively promotes the information highway as the key to a dynamic and exciting 21st century. Judging by the enthusiastic reception accorded the library's two new electronic resource access centres, an exciting part of Microsoft Corp's "Kidreach -- Libraries On Line!" program, Ottawa is keen to explore and benefit from the library's vision and leadership.

We talk nowadays of the importance of the knowledge economy. What we sometimes forget is that if we are to prosper in this new age, everyone must have access to the tools and the information that will stimulate us to learn, to connect and to dare to imagine. The Friends of the Library recognize that everyone, and especially all our children, must have as much exposure as possible to information technology in all its forms, to accept and master it so well that it is as easy as opening a book.

Homes with a personal computer are still in the minority. Schools can provide much-needed computer access, but it seems to us that the library remains the essential and logical venue for the enhancement of minds and imaginations of all ages. I'm sure you wouldn't dispute the fine track record of the Ottawa Public Library in this regard. It has provided tremendous access over the years to traditional, and now to more cutting-edge, materials. Certainly we believe that the citizens of Ottawa think so because they walk through the public library turnstiles at a rate of 45,000 per week, and the circulation increased 10% last year.

Since our inception in 1981, the Friends have worked hard to establish our association as an essential support for the library. We boast a committed volunteer membership which has allowed us to raise $500,000, half a million dollars, over the last 12 years. Through the auspices of a small secondhand bookstore called Ex Libris, located in a quiet corner of the third floor of the main branch, we have built a six-day-a-week operation, selling library discards and donated books. Considering that most of the $500,000 was collected 25 cents at a time, this achievement represents a staggering investment of expertise and devotion on the part of Ottawa area volunteers, and at many steps along the way, library staff and management facilitated our efforts, truly a successful collaboration.

I think it's significant that the majority of our volunteers are senior citizens. They are people who know the worth of a dollar, the power of sustained, focused volunteer work, and above all, the importance of the library as an essential service within a thriving community.

We're well aware of the economic challenges which face both our province and our city. We ourselves on the Friends board of directors are actively re-engineering our skills, our mandate and our focus. We accept that changes must be made to help us adjust successfully to foresee and meet the demands which will be presented to us by the library and the interests of our community.

I've told you a little bit about our association and our demonstrable commitment to quality library service in the hope that our perspective may now be clearer to you.

We are unanimous in our belief that citizen representation is an essential part of public library governance. We believe strongly that our best interests are well served by members of the community such as those individuals who currently serve by volunteering their time and effort on the Ottawa Public Library board. Further, we feel that the board should be composed of a citizen majority, in order to represent the diverse needs and interests of the entire community.

Our library board has shown good judgement and a careful grasp of the many issues it must manage. Perhaps it is because the board members have chosen freely to give their time that they exercise such careful stewardship of the library's funds, its standards and services, and in the selection of its chief executive officer.

The Ottawa Public Library has been successful in selecting extremely capable chief librarians in the past to take its helm, and the present chief librarian, Barbara Clubb, is no exception. In Ms Clubb the library has chosen a dynamic, highly skilled library professional who is able to oversee both technological and cultural change within a complex environment.

Our second concern is the impact on the quality and depth of library services if the library board loses $1 million in provincial funding: $1 million represents two thirds of the annual materials budget for the whole library; $1 million dollars represents 20 to 30 skilled employees. As I noted earlier, it has taken our association 12 years of painstaking efforts to raise $500,000, half that amount. With this funding still provided to the public library, our efforts at the Friends will continue to be put to good use: sustaining the popular home reader service, purchasing multilingual books, compact discs, videos, talking books, large-print books and technology. Without the funding, our efforts will largely be neutralized.

Before you make a decision, please think of all the people who will be affected adversely. Think of the students who won't find materials needed for a school project, the job seekers unable to research employment opportunities, the senior citizens who lose the chance to use a computer for the first time. Think too of the children who will be left behind academically because they've never visited a Web site or heard a book read aloud to them by a children's librarian; the home-based businessperson who won't have all the tools to pursue contracts; and the less affluent who will cease to feel welcome in what has always been a public institution of learning.

Lastly, we are concerned about the loss of the province's involvement in the public library service. It's critical that the province remain an active party, not just for funding, but to continue to set and promote consistent standards which ensure an enviable quality of library service. This is a time when more Ottawa citizens are turning to their library for information and entertainment than ever before. The library is a cornerstone of our cultural and academic life in Ottawa, and indeed in Ontario and throughout Canada. We hope it can remain a resource open to, and accessible by, the entire community, not merely a smaller segment of the population who can afford to pay fees or buy at a retail outlet the materials no longer available for free. We would like our public library to remain public, an egalitarian institution, open to all of us.

Please think carefully about the repercussions that may result from this bill. We respectfully urge you to take this opportunity to maintain this institution whose wellbeing is so crucial to our community. Thank you.

1100

Mr Martin: Thank you very much. It's good that you have come before us today, particularly as Friends of the Library. So far in the three days of hearings we've had it's been obvious to us by the participation of people -- the room today is relatively full, yesterday it was full all day; at Queen's Park on Monday it was standing room only -- that people are concerned about this issue and want to very sincerely and passionately defend a system they've all worked hard at building up over a number of years.

What's happened is that a pattern develops. There are three major issues, and you have touched on them here today. There's the question of board representation and citizen representation, and you make the very strong case for a citizen majority on that board. You also talk about funding and the problem that creates. I suggest that's what this is all about. Then you talk about provincial involvement, which for all intents and purposes is provincial disengagement, in this exercise.

I'd like to question you on the issue of the $1 million. How is that being lost and what percentage of the total budget of the Ottawa Public Library is $1 million? We hear that the provincial retraction is going to hit the smaller boards worse than the bigger boards, but $1 million is a $1 million, and if that's what you're losing, it suggests that the bigger boards are going to get hit pretty hard too. That becomes doubly problematic, because for all intents and purposes you supply a lot of the services that the smaller boards get, because you are a node here that does exchange with some of the smaller areas. Maybe you could talk for a minute to me about the $1 million, where that comes from and some of the impact that will have.

Ms Goodman: That is on a budget of $14 million, I'm advised by our chief librarian, Barbara Clubb.

Mr Young: It's 7%.

Ms Goodman: Yes, and as I said, it's specifically two thirds of the annual materials budget for the whole library or approximately 20 to 30 jobs for a year.

Mr Young: That was actually my question as well, 7% of your budget. What you do as a volunteer group is really fabulous, the amount of work you do, and we've heard from presenters in other communities that also do a lot. What I don't understand is why people think that this good work and the spirit of voluntarism are going to disappear with this bill, because I don't think it will. The people of Ottawa and area obviously feel that libraries are very, very important.

The Who Does What process just takes $5.4 million off property tax and replaces it with other things. It's a revenue-neutral thing for us, and we think it gives better accountability on both ends. That's why we're doing it. Why do you think that if that came off your funding the local municipality, the people of Ottawa, through their municipality, wouldn't put the 7% back in?

Ms Goodman: To address part of your comment, I don't think the spirit of voluntarism will be changed to the detriment of the library. We have a very active association. It just means that anything we do has to go a lot further. It means we'll have less of an impact in the things that we can contribute, and perhaps some of the things that we have contributed over time which could be viewed as non-essentials but extremely popular items.

Mr Young: But there's an assumption that the funding will be cut. I'm just saying I think the municipality will replace the funding because they see it as importantly as you do, so it won't affect your funding at all.

Ms Goodman: I don't know that for a fact. I don't know that the substitution will be made. Our position is that we simply don't know at this time.

Mr Young: So fear of the unknown is what it is, really.

Ms Goodman: To some extent. I guess we're looking ahead at a bit of a worst-case scenario and trying to get our position.

Mr Young: Do you make any differentiation between the use of educational and informational material, which we've heard a lot about in these hearings, and what is recreational, which is toys and movies, music CDs, those sorts of things? Do you make any differentiation between those two sets of needs?

Ms Goodman: This is Elizabeth Buckingham, who is a member of the Ottawa Public Library board and former chair.

Ms Elizabeth Buckingham: Certainly we make no differentiation of material. We believe that all information may come in a variety of material. Going back to your previous comment, the government, as I understand it, believes there will be no net impact and that what you are proposing is revenue-neutral. The politicians of this community believe there will be a significant impact and it is not revenue-neutral. Only time will tell.

Mr Young: But assuming revenue-neutral, you would be all right.

Ms Buckingham: That is a major assumption on the part of the government. The politicians in this community believe there will be a very major negative impact on Ottawa-Carleton.

Mr Young: We heard from people yesterday, for instance --

The Vice-Chair (Mrs Julia Munro): I must interrupt you, Mr Young. We have to move on.

Mr Gravelle: Thank you very much for your presentation; it was terrific. We've had other Friends in various communities, and the role you play is incredible. It's important that you come forward, because you are people who volunteer your time very freely because of how important you think the system is.

But let's go back to the funding issue. The government members continually bring this up as being only 7% and they can't understand why it's a problem. It was interesting to see that "only 7%" is $1 million here, and that's a great deal of money. The fact is -- there's no point in being coy here -- that with the downloading going on, even the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which came forward and in some ways is supporting this bill, now recognizes that there's probably going to be a $1-billion shortfall in terms of what municipalities are expected to fund. What we're getting into is a situation where, no matter how much you are devoted to funding for your library, municipalities already pay a large portion, and when you're battling between road repairs and libraries, we're all worried about that.

It's important to make the case that some level of provincial funding needs to be maintained so we don't get into a situation where we have this patchwork of libraries being set up. I presume that really is your point. I think the provincial funding is $24 million a year, and that makes a significant difference.

As Mr Martin said, we've been told time and time again that a lot of smaller branches are just going to have to close because there won't be that municipal ability to do it. It's not a question of a commitment from the municipalities, because we know it's there with the large amount of funding. But is it realistic to expect them to find another $1 million here when there are going to be these competing interests? I guess what you're hoping is that the provincial government at least through this will consider maintaining some form of provincial funding support.

Ms Goodman: Yes, that's the case.

Mr Gravelle: Defining print material as the core service, which is all that's going to be free, isn't realistic in 1997, is it, in terms of what formats information comes in now?

Ms Goodman: We're trying to be proactive and look at the popularity and the tremendous interest in any kind of electronic technology. Printed material, I would imagine, is going to remain the critical part of the service, but we have to make the electronic technology available, very clearly.

Mr Gravelle: Have you looked at all at how much you could get back through user fees, even though fees will affect accessibility?

Ms Goodman: Frankly, this is not an area that the Friends would be involved in.

Mr Gravelle: Fair game. Thank you very much. What you've brought to us today is invaluable.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for appearing today.

1110

TOWNSHIP OF OSGOODE PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Vice-Chair: I call on Dr Arthur Conn, the vice-chairman of the township of Osgoode library board. Good morning, and welcome to the standing committee.

Dr Arthur Conn: Good morning. I welcome the opportunity to be here.

Osgoode township is about 20 miles out Bank Street from where you're sitting, 15,000 population. We are largely a rural township, with several bedroom communities located within the township. The circulation in our township was about 88,000 last year, roughly six items per head, and we spent about $10 per capita. That gives you a bit of an idea of the size of our operation. We have an interbranch e-mail system which connects all of our branches, we use an interlibrary volunteer-based loan system, and the library board is very active in the operations of the library itself.

I'm here basically to line up in support of the brief that I believe was made to this committee by Hilary Bates Neary, the Ontario Library Trustees' Association. We are very much in accord with that presentation.

We have a couple of recommendations to make in addition to what was presented in that brief, the first being that in addition to boards consisting of a minimum of five trustees, the majority of them being appointed citizens, we feel it's proper that the chair of the board also be elected from among the citizen appointees. This recommendation basically comes from corporate governance in Canada, whereby it seems that shareholders' rights are best protected and furthered when the board of directors and chair are independent of the management of the company. We think the same independent representation of stakeholders applies in this sort of situation. This is particularly important in a situation like ours, a rural situation, because our board is very active. We tend to get very involved with the actual operations of the board.

If I could refer to a comment that Mr Young made with respect to voluntarism, you asked the previous presenter what the downside was of the downloading of responsibility to the municipality from the province. I agree with the representative of the Ottawa Friends that it's very unlikely that the spirit of voluntarism would disappear in this kind of scenario. The only downside I see, the only risk, is if a citizen has the feeling that, "Oh, we'll let the municipality do it; I'm not going to bother volunteering because the municipality has paid people to take care of it." The only downside I see is a slight possibility for the average citizen to say, "We'll let them take care of it." But I don't think these provisions are going to have a huge negative impact on voluntarism.

We feel that a strong citizen voice is really essential to ensuring access to information. This is the key thrust behind our feeling about the chair being a citizen as opposed to a municipal appointee. Universal access to information is essential to maintaining our democracy, and we think that's best promoted by having strong citizen representation.

Strong citizen representation also ensures that the community's needs are really listened to. In our township the community wants a different service from what the library board in Ottawa responds to. The heavy influence of citizens on that board makes it very responsive.

If the Legislature goes ahead with doing away with the per household grant, as you're contemplating in Bill 109, we think the act ought to mandate that municipalities allocate a fixed percentage of their annual expenditures to the library system. I don't know what that percentage would be; it would be very easy to work it out, and it could be based on common practice at the present time. Really, the reason is that in some areas they're concerned that a municipality might allow a library system to become crippled or, in certain areas, perhaps even disappear. If it were mandated that a municipality must spend a fixed percentage of their annual expenditure on the library system, we think that would be a good way to go.

We support the OLTA's definition of "core library service" and that the service must remain easily accessible and free of charge. Again, we feel this is essential to protecting a fundamental democratic right, but even more important, it fosters a certain sense of entrepreneurship. Basically, the library system, certainly in our township, is one of the best bargains going. Anybody who wants to learn anything about anything can do so in their public library, and they can do so in an atmosphere that's pleasant, they can do so with help from very bright, committed people. To me, to be self-reliant and capable of developing your own initiatives in life really requires access to information. The only way you can actually guarantee that to any individual who wants it is by having it available free of charge in a public library system.

There was a question also about the availability of certain services which may be seen as being recreational or entertainment, and this can be a bit of an issue. On the one hand you may have a CD-ROM which contains the Canadian Encyclopedia, and on the other hand you may have a CD-ROM which contains a Beethoven symphony. To me, a library system ought not to compete with the private sector. If that CD-ROM is available in a private sector environment, if it can be purchased or accessed that way very easily, I don't think the library system ought to be in a position of competing with the private sector.

However, if it comes down to a choice, as quite often it does, between whether a piece of material is educational or entertainment, I suggest it's better to err on the side of educational as opposed to entertainment. But if more pieces of material are viewed as being recreational, that presents opportunities to library systems to offer value-added services, for which I think it's legitimate to charge user fees.

Thank you very much for your attention, and I'd be happy to respond to any questions.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We have about three and a half minutes per caucus, starting with the government caucus.

Mr Flaherty: Thank you, Dr Conn, for your presentation. With respect to governance, I look back over what was said when our government introduced Bill 26. The concern from the library community, as reported, was (1) that it might lead to the abolition of library boards; and (2) that it might lead to the abolition of the free circulation of books.

In the discussion that's taken place since and in the resulting legislation, Bill 109, it seems to me that the bill attempts to strike a balance; that is, it preserves the library boards, first of all, but it acknowledges that the vast majority of funding comes from municipalities in Ontario now and that therefore they should have the governance role of appointing the boards without being fettered by instructions about who should be on the board. There's that balance and, second, the balance relating to the free circulation of books. Those two primary concerns are gone.

I heard the presentation on Monday at Queen's Park of the Ontario Library Trustees' Association to which you refer, Ms Hilary Bates Neary. She said, among other things, that across Ontario on the whole there is an excellent relationship between municipal councils and library boards. Is this true also in the township of Osgoode?

Dr Conn: That's my experience, yes.

Mr Flaherty: I wonder about this, since I assume goodwill and good intentions by municipal elected officials. Is there a concern on your part that they would somehow seek to subvert appointments to the board or appoint inappropriate persons?

Dr Conn: Certainly not, no. It's not in their interest to do that.

Mr Flaherty: I'm repeating myself somewhat, but in my community of Whitby, certainly among those of us who have young children, we're great supporters of our local public libraries. Is that also your experience in the township of Osgoode?

Dr Conn: Yes. Public support for the library system in Osgoode township is quiet, just goes about its business in its own kind of way, but it's rock solid and very strong.

Mr Flaherty: This is why I find the suggestion not by yourself but by some of the other presenters here quite at odds with what I sense is the reality in my own community and other communities, and that is that as local ratepayers, we very much support our municipal councils supporting our public libraries. Therefore I do not understand the fear expressed opposite here that somehow this legislation would undermine local commitment, which has been there for more than a century, to local libraries in Ontario.

1120

Dr Conn: The only comment I could make on that is that I think the access to information is so important to preserving the democratic environment that it's worth special steps to ensure citizens have significant input in the access to information.

Mr Flaherty: Is there any reason to doubt that our local elected officials would share that commitment on behalf of the people who elect them and their children?

Dr Conn: I would really like to say in a perfect world there's no doubt, but I think there are enough examples historically that elected systems have gone astray. I'm not referring to Canada necessarily, but I think significant citizen contribution to access to information is really important. I'm talking about a real concern about access to information being a cornerstone of a democratic society.

What you're saying is that elected representatives are also a cornerstone of that democratic society, and I agree with you, but I feel that this is such an important, key element that it deserves that special attention.

Mr Gravelle: Thank you, Dr Conn. I don't think it's an argument about the commitment of municipal elected officials to the library system. That's been confirmed. We know that municipalities provide a large bulk of the funding to the libraries and that's been confirmed. The problem that is clearly happening is that there's the question as to whether or not there will be the ability to fund the difference. With the downloading that's going on -- we can argue about this and we have done so -- certainly there's a great fear that it will not be revenue-neutral. There's a belief that there will be a big gap, so municipalities will be under greater pressure.

I think that's really what this discussion ultimately is all about, that municipalities may not be in a position to fund more than they already fund, and they may want to do it. That's a great concern. That being the case, that funding will disappear. If that funding disappears -- 7%, 10%, and in some communities a larger percentage of that provincial support -- then obviously it makes the stated purposes of this particular legislation almost farcical because you can't meet those purposes.

Dr Conn, there's obviously a very efficient board in terms of the dollars you spend and the per capita; it's pretty remarkable. But if the per household grant is gone, what does that mean realistically if that can't be made up municipally, if there's isn't an amendment that fixes that up? What does that mean in terms of the four branches? Can they still remain open? Are they truly threatened? Have you thought that part through?

Dr Conn: In our township, if the provincial grant were not made up by the municipality, one of two things would happen. One or two branches would close or we'd have to significantly restructure so that staff is laid off and replaced with volunteers. My own feeling is that the likelihood of that happening is not strong. I think they're getting such a bargain in our municipality anyway --

Mr Gravelle: They sure are.

Dr Conn: How they could go otherwise, I don't know. I think they'd face a major revolt, a major problem if they didn't make up that balance. That's not meant to be a threat. I just have faith that that would happen. I'm not an accountant; I'm not an actuary. If somebody says, "We're going to take it out of this pocket and put it back into that pocket," I'll let somebody else figure it out. I'll take their word on that.

What I'm concerned about is that if the province is downloading certain responsibilities and certain funding, if it comes out of one pocket, I want to make sure all of it goes into the other pocket. Library service is so important to a democratic society that whatever is going into that pocket now has to continue to go into that pocket. The municipality stretched with tight budgets may be very tempted to say, "It's just a library; let's close a branch. We don't need that," or "Let them close for an extra four hours a week." Eventually you cripple a thing when you do that.

Mr Gravelle: That's right, and that's what concerns a lot of us. The minister says this bill will actually improve the library service and library delivery in the province. It sure is difficult to understand how this particular bill can do that when what it does is basically take away a number of things. It certainly puts more of an onus on municipalities to increase their funding. It just doesn't seem to me to be a realistic expectation. That's why I think we need to have some amendments and sensitivity by all the members of this committee, and certainly the government members. I know they've been listening carefully. There's been a consistent point of view that we need to look at the government commitment. I mean, we've had government grants since 1899.

Mr Martin: Thank you very much for coming. It's been a rather interesting and curious experience to sit on this side of the room and listen to the exchange that's happened over the last few days. Sometimes we hear the government side suggest that there really isn't anything wrong here re the question of governance, which is the major issue you raised today, that there is a harmonious relationship out there and councils are working with library boards, so what's your problem?

I forget which board it was, but yesterday the chair of one of the boards came and said: "If there is no problem, why are you fixing it? If there's nothing broke, why are you fixing it? Why are you doing something that's going to change the balance of power here that will make for a difference that's creating all kinds of anxiety in people?" This lends to you coming and making this very strong representation for majority citizenship on boards.

On the other hand, we listen to an exchange that suggests that library boards aren't accountable and aren't responsible. That question was asked very directly yesterday to a councillor: "If somebody comes to you with a problem, where do you go, and can you hold library boards accountable?" The response was, "No, not really." Then the other question was, "When you set the budget for a library and you give it to them, do you have any control over that from then on until the next time you come back?" The councillor said, "Well, no," which suggests that library boards are not responsible somehow. What would be your response to that kind of question: Are you accountable? Are you responsible?

Dr Conn: The library board goes to council, asks for a certain amount of money and gets whatever it gets, and then they deal with that money for the rest of the year; that does them for the year. I can't honestly respond to that. It just doesn't seem feasible to me that a library board could go off and spend -- we get $150,000. If we went off and spent it on four sets of Encyclopaedia Britannica where one would do the job, acting irresponsibly, I can't see how the township council would not have access to do something about that clearly irresponsible behaviour by a library board in the legislation as it exists now. I honestly don't know the answer to that question, but the way our democracy works, no public board can behave irresponsibly and get away with it for any length of time. I just can't see it.

Mr Martin: What about the question of accountability?

Dr Conn: By the board to council?

Mr Martin: Yes, and to the citizenship as a whole.

Dr Conn: They are accountable directly to council and the library board meetings are public and the budgets are public. I don't know how much more accountable it could be.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming forward to make your presentation.

GLOUCESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Chair: Would Richard Summers please come forward. Good morning, Mr Summers, and welcome to the committee.

Mr Richard Summers: Thank you. I am the chair of the Gloucester Public Library board, and while I'm sitting here by myself, practically the whole board is in the back watching me, so you can see how keen we are.

Our board has followed with interest and with some concern the developments which led to the introduction of Bill 109. In January we wrote to ministers Leach and Mushinski in response to the recommendations of the Who Does What panel. This morning I would like to address three aspects of the new legislation; namely, access to public libraries, provincial grants to small libraries and the question of library governance.

In reading some of the comments on the new legislation, one might be led to believe that Bill 109 heralds the beginning of the end of free library services in Ontario. The fact of the matter is that the wording of the Public Libraries Act, 1984, was ambiguous and that public libraries can and do charge for a wide range of services. If anything, the new legislation is more precise in defining those services for which libraries may not charge, although there is still a great deal of latitude for raising funds at the expense of library patrons.

1130

While the Gloucester Public Library has its own set of administrative fees, our board believes strongly in the principle of equal access. Because libraries cannot be created overnight, today's institutions are the result of decades or even generations of public investment. They are not just a service; they are a legacy. To restrict access only to those patrons who can afford the current scale of fees would be an affront to all those citizens, past and present, who paid their taxes in the belief that they were supporting a public library system. The Gloucester board would welcome any amendment to Bill 109 which would broaden the range of legislated free services and roll back some of the user fees now permissible under the Public Libraries Act of 1984.

For a number of years now, the city of Gloucester has been reducing its reliance on provincial funding in anticipation of the elimination of provincial grants. Our council's foresight has put the Gloucester Public Library in the fortunate position of being ready for the financial implications of Bill 109. However, the board recognizes that for many smaller public libraries, and particularly for those in rural and northern communities, this type of fiscal planning was simply not an option. For these communities, the public library is a vital and irreplaceable resource. Therefore, we urge the government of Ontario to make some provision for continued funding of small rural and northern public libraries.

All areas of municipal activity benefit from the input of interested and concerned volunteers. The Gloucester board was pleased to note that Bill 109 maintains governance through library boards, which henceforth will be subject to local regulation.

While we do not subscribe to the theory that Bill 109 was written with the eventual elimination of boards in mind, we note that the act is silent on question of the board size and qualifications for board membership. If a board is truly to be a board, it must consist of more than one member and probably not less than three. From experience, the Gloucester board knows that intelligent discussion and consideration of a variety of points of view is the key to providing a library service which is responsive to the needs of all citizens.

In so far as possible, a board should provide disinterested representation of the needs and concerns of library patrons. Elected municipal officials and citizen volunteers each bring their strengths and, to be frank, their weaknesses to the governance process, but both groups can be counted on to maintain a certain objectivity. The Gloucester board believes it would be unfair to expect either municipal or library employees to maintain the same objectivity when faced with decisions on governance matters in which they cannot help but be implicated. These groups were excluded from board membership by the Public Libraries Act of 1984, and this same exclusion should be retained in Bill 109.

The Gloucester Public Library board recognizes that in many respects Bill 109 responds to the needs and realities of today's public libraries. We hope the government of Ontario will consider our suggested amendments in the areas of access, provincial funding and library governance. We look forward to a strengthened relationship between boards and municipal councils as they continue to provide high quality public library service to the citizens of Ontario. Thank you.

Mr Gravelle: Thank you, Mr Summers. Obviously the Gloucester board has done a pretty good job of planning in terms of preparing itself for the changes, but I note your sensitivity about the northern and rural boards. In essence, I take it what you're recommending is quite frankly the maintenance of some provincial funding, per household grants or whatever, something of that nature, in terms of supporting those boards, because otherwise I think we've been hearing quite regularly that a lot of them simply won't be able to stay open. Is that an accurate --

Mr Summers: That's true. This is based on our discussions with staff and trustees from those boards when we go to conferences, and they are really strapped for cash. Even things that we take for granted represent a large challenge to those libraries and I don't think a lot of them are going to survive without provincial funding.

Mr Gravelle: Just going back, I don't know how long you've been here this morning, sir, but we've been operating on the premise or at least have been talking in general terms about how the larger boards can handle this, but it was startling to me, and perhaps it shouldn't have been startling, to hear that for the Ottawa board, 7% provincial funding is $1 million, which is a significant amount of money. To say it will be a challenge I think is probably the polite word, but you're prepared to say that otherwise you don't think the provincial per household grant is necessary or is needed? I know you've done something quite significant, but I'm just curious as to how you feel about it across the province, other than northern and rural boards.

Mr Summers: The problem with being a library board member is that you only represent your own community and you can't talk for other boards. When our board discusses, we realize that other boards may have different problems, but because our council had had this planned for a number of years to make the cities fiscally strong, we couldn't in good conscience say that we simply couldn't live without the provincial grant. We can and we will.

Pragmatically, whatever anybody says, I don't think anything is going to happen but a reduction in the grant to some boards. So we took sort of the last-ditch position, which is that there are boards or libraries that will not survive without provincial intervention and that's where the effort should be put in terms of funding.

Mr Gravelle: Do you believe, though, that the library system is part of the education system, that indeed there is a clear connection in terms of educating, lifelong learning concepts?

Mr Summers: Yes. You wouldn't be a board member if you didn't believe that.

Mr Gravelle: Okay, fair enough, which I guess makes the point. To me, that speaks to the need for the province to be involved, particularly in light of the fact that they are prepared to take over the funding for education totally, but yet are saying, "We don't want to maintain any funding for the library system." To me, this seems like a strange contradiction and I would like your thoughts on that.

Mr Summers: In our letter that I mentioned to ministers Leach and Mushinski, we noted that the province still has a role to play in that coordinating role for services like SOLS, which facilitate the creation of good library service. I don't think I'm really competent to argue whether or not by taking over the education system the province has got a built-in responsibility to library services. I think they do have a responsibility to library services, but --

Mr Gravelle: The minister says it too, may I say, in many of her statements, the importance of the library system in terms of education.

Mr Summers: Yes, but we believe that interest can be maintained by supporting the services which facilitate libraries in Ontario, sort of the linking services, and by supporting the smaller libraries. That in itself would be a significant --

Mr Gravelle: Aren't those linking services threatened?

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Gravelle. Mr Martin.

1140

Mr Martin: Thank you for your presentation. I think we have to, as we go through this process, look at these presentations in the context of what's happening out there to municipalities in all their facets. Right now, municipalities are really under the gun. They have been for a bit, but are going to be even more so as the reality of the download becomes evident.

I don't know if you read the paper yesterday, but there was an admission there by the Minister of Finance that along with the download, we now have the implication of a piece of the budget that came out last year which talked about the removal of the business occupancy tax that's going to have a major impact on the ability of municipalities to get tax money out of particularly larger business entities in their communities.

We've got a major onslaught here, and what this is about more than anything is giving municipalities the tools they need to deal with that in an accountable, responsible manner. In line with that, there's the suggestion made from time to time around this table that the present legislation and structure of boards lends itself to an uncooperative relationship and that boards in fact -- and you heard me ask the presenter before you this question -- are not accountable or responsible, and that supersedes any of the positive things you said here that boards who are citizen appointees as opposed to elected councillors would bring to a board.

What would your position on that be in terms of accountability and responsibility, given the terrible challenge that municipalities are going to have to deal with over the next two or three years as the reality of the fiscal situation unfolds?

Mr Summers: I'm not quite sure where your question is leading, but on the matter of responsibility and accountability our board strongly believes that we are accountable and we are responsible and we are a corporation. Therefore, we have the authority to spend money.

Realistically, most of that money currently comes from the municipality and so your relationship with council is sometimes delicate, but there's also mutual respect. It's the balance between being responsive to the needs of the council because they represent the taxpayers obviously, and being responsive to the specific library needs of the citizens, plus having the difficult job of managing in our case what is a $3-million operation.

Our board can and has taken some hard decisions and we have argued with council over who had the right to do certain things, but at the same time we've got a very good relationship with council, so I think the model works and it works well.

Quite frankly, if any of us in this room think there's no any more fiscal challenges in the future, we're dreaming, and I think the library boards are an appropriate vehicle to deal with those challenges in the future. Whatever happens with Bill 109, as far as funding goes, there will be challenges and the boards that we have now do that well. So yes, they are accountable, they are responsible and they are appropriate.

Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): Thank you, sir, for your presentation. I want to just carry on with your relationship with your council. It seems to me, over the last couple of days, it's becoming a little evident that it's a them-and-us situation with boards and councils. I had a little difficulty when I heard a person the other day make a comment, "Councils got to where they were without the use of a library." I'm from rural Ontario and it appears to me that people think the rural Ontario municipal councillors don't have a lot on the ball and I take a little offence to that.

Anyway, your relationship with your board, I assume, is very good. Can you tell me what the makeup of your board is now in regards to municipal or council members as well as the citizens you represent?

Mr Summers: When the current board was formed, we had nine -- or was it 10? -- members with two councillors. One of them has since resigned from the board and we have just one councillor, but that councillor provides a highly effective link between the board and the council. I probably shouldn't speak for somebody who isn't here, but I believe that when he sits on the board, he does so in good faith as a board member and when he sits on the council, he does so in good faith as a council member.

Your suggestion that there's a them-and-us does not apply to Gloucester. I say that having already acknowledged that we've had our differences with council, but that's inevitable. That's how it's supposed to work, surely.

Mr Stewart: I agree with you and I guess that's what my point was, to try and to hope that it wasn't going to turn into a them-and-us situation, because I think the boards and municipal councils have worked extremely well in the past, and I believe they will in the future. I would suggest to you, as your council said, "If this act goes through, there's going to be a major change in the structure of your board."

Mr Summers: Have they said that?

Mr Stewart: Yes.

Mr Summers: We haven't addressed the issue directly. The source of things we've had we've suggested would set a minimum standard for boards, and we have minimum standards for other institutions like councils themselves. So I don't think it's inappropriate for the province to have a say on that.

Mr Stewart: Certainly most municipalities over the last four or five years have been preparing for zero per cent funding from the province anyway. So certainly the ones that have looked in the future are doing exactly what you're doing.

One thing that seems to be a concern is where some of these municipal councils may get additional funds. That was one of the reasons the $1-billion reinvestment fund was put into existence under the Who Does What proposals. I would suggest that they have committees set up, whether it be through the board or through the local municipal councils, that that type of fund may help to offset any difficulty or any undue hardships, possibly within the library community. I would suggest that the libraries write to that committee and say, "Hey, we may have a problem down the road. Maybe this is a fund that could be accessed through out boards." I would highly suggest that you do that.

Mr Summers: I'm not sure of the details of that fund, but if it concentrates on infrastructure then that's problematic because these boards have problems with operating funds, day to day, year to year.

Mr Stewart: Yes, there are two different funds, one being infrastructure, $800 million, and the other being a reinvestment fund and the criteria have not be set. I suggest to the library community that this is an area where some criteria could be built into it for those people who may have hardship in rural and northern Ontario to access some of those funds. So I think there's a possibility of a --

The Chair: There are about 40 seconds left if you want to use that.

Mr Shea: In the library board as it stands, who is responsible for the overexpenditure?

Mr Summers: The library board is responsible to council.

Mr Shea: To council. Which means -- who is responsible for the overexpenditure?

Mr Summers: I'm not sure. Council is responsible to taxpayers.

Mr Shea: Council is responsible? Thank you.

Mr Young: Can I ask you a question too? We have 20 seconds left.

The Chair: About 10 seconds.

Mr Young: Do the library boards, to your knowledge, ever send the budget back to the city and say, "We don't need that much money"? That doesn't happen, right?

Mr Summers: If you want to know the absolutely truth, we were --

Interjection.

Mr Summers: Can I answer the question?

Mr Young: Sure.

Mr Summers: In preparing for the current fiscal year -- the fiscal year is the calendar year -- our board had set a target which exceeded the cut that the council actually legislated for the year. So we were being proactive. Did we send the money back? No, we didn't. What are we doing with it? We're providing services to the citizens of Gloucester.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee today.

That's our last presenter for the morning, but I know that Mr Gravelle wants to move a motion.

Mr Gravelle: I seek unanimous consent. We have somebody in the audience who wanted to appear before the committee and was not able to make the list. I know our time is tight, but I'm wondering if the three parties could agree to let Lori Nash from Cumberland, Ontario, make a verbal presentation. She has asked for just 10 minutes. Again, she didn't make the request formally; she was late putting that request in and was not able to get on the formal list. I wonder whether we can seek unanimous consent to have her make a presentation of 10 minutes to the committee.

The Chair: Before I entertain discussion on that, normally we would have a cancellation policy and they wouldn't have folks come in the morning, but we haven't had any cancellations. We do have about 10 minutes before noon. But I just want to make clear that normally this happens on a cancellation. We don't have one, but --

Mr Gravelle: That's why I'm seeking unanimous consent.

Mr Martin: There's also, I believe, a policy that calls for people who are on a waiting list to get first priority, but I believe there are none in Ottawa so we're not breaking any list here. It seems to me that while we're here, once we're here, we should hear from as many people as we can, within the limitations, as is possible. So I would support that.

The Chair: Any further discussion?

Mr Shea: I have no difficulty with it if it's kept within the 10 minutes. Some of the members obviously have made arrangements now based upon the schedule, and I don't want it to be taken as a precedent. If I get up to Thunder Bay tomorrow and I find I've got other people suddenly popping in -- that's not what your intent was at any rate.

Mr Gravelle: Absolutely not.

The Chair: Do we have unanimous consent? Yes.

1150

LORI NASH

The Chair: Ms Nash, would you please come forward. Good morning and welcome to the committee.

Ms Lori Nash: First of all, thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity. Due to personal matters, I was unable to get my application in in time to speak.

My name is Lori Nash. I've lived in Cumberland township for 27 years. I was a member of the Cumberland Township Public Library board for one complete term and another half-term, at which point I left. I am presently involved in Friends of the Library for Cumberland Township Public Library. Our library board is not making a presentation and I am not representing either the Cumberland public library itself nor am I representing the Friends of the Library. I'm representing what I think are the interests of the general public in Cumberland township.

To give you a brief overview of our library, our library actually started from a bookmobile at a cost of about $1 in 1978. As some of you may or may not know, Cumberland has been a very fast-growing community, and during the period from 1981 to 1985, I believe it was the second-fastest-growing community in Canada. Growth continues in Cumberland. We are adjacent to the city of Gloucester and there have been many talks about things municipal to do with amalgamation that may or may not impact on library services.

Our library started out of a bookmobile, and it wasn't until 1981 that, through an agreement with the Carleton Board of Education, a small facility was made available in conjunction with that school board for us to provide library services to people after school hours. The library consisted of books from both the school and from the public library. At that time, based on the massive growth of the population, it was evident that the number of books and the services that were being provided did not come near the minimum what would be considered reasonable expectations of any public library.

In 1986 and 1987 a company called Beckman was hired to do a needs assessment study based on the projection of growth in the municipality and its existing situation and what would be needed to provide a minimal service to the public. At that time in 1986, with the population that was there at that time, it was recommended that the collection of books should be 75,000 volumes, we should have a staff of 18 and we should have a facility of about 18,000 square feet. In actual fact council negotiated with the Carleton board again and produced instead for us, despite the recommendations of a needs assessment study and despite negotiations with the library board, a facility of 7,000 square feet.

Today, in 1997, Cumberland township has a population of 46,500 people. We have less than one book per person. We don't even have one book per person. The comments that have been made by our municipal leaders when it comes time for election and this becomes an election issue are really quite amazing, because there are a lot of people, ther is a lot of hoopla going on in terms of this new support that we're going to get that never comes to be. But that's not surprising when we find that we get comments from members of council such as: "Why would we need more than one book per person? Not everybody reads," and "We need computers, not books, to prepare for the future." While our research has shown that in Cumberland township 80% of the households own home computers, we have one of the lowest number of books per capita in the province.

Not only do we just have one book per person but our demographics are very complex. We are a municipality that is divided between a large population that lives in the urban area on a small piece of land, and we have a rural population that is very vast in terms of the population. The urban population represents about 10% or 15% of the total geographical area. In addition to that, we are a bilingual community -- 33% of our people are francophone -- so we are providing both French services and English services through the library. We are providing services to both the urban and the rural area. This creates quite a complexity in terms of providing services.

Although we have less than one book per person, we also have to take into consideration that if you were an anglophone or a francophone, the percentage of books that you have for yourself based on your linguistic needs is even smaller. Usually bilingual libraries or francophone libraries in fact have about six or more volumes per capita. As I said, we have less than one.

I am seriously concerned that the province would put total control in the hands of the municipality. If you have a municipal council that is supportive of library services, and library services are a significant part of what they consider to be a priority, all works well and there is a good relationship.

There's no doubt that members of the board are appointed by council, and in that respect and also the fact that the municipality has control over the money spent by the library -- it has line-by-line control of each expenditure -- this provides a great deal of control already in the hands of the municipality. Only if the province is in control to some extent, even if it's in the means of providing a small amount of funding, can we be assured that, each time the council changes or should the council remain the same, a priority as basic as books and services will be made a priority of each municipality. I don't think governance should be totally in the control of the municipality because of that, and for this, I fear for my community.

The Chair: Ms Nash, you have used the 10 minutes allotted. I want to thank you very much for coming in and making your presentation to the committee today.

We're now in recess until 1:30.

The committee recessed from 1158 to 1332.

The Chair: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the standing committee on general government. I understand a couple of members actually went out during lunch hour to visit a library. Congratulations on your energy.

WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION OF OTTAWA

The Chair: Would Padmini Dawson please come forward. Welcome to the committee. At the beginning of your presentation, I'd appreciate it if you'd just introduce yourselves for the benefit of the committee members.

Mrs Padmini Dawson: I'm Padmini Dawson. I'm here on behalf of the Women Teachers' Association of Ottawa. Next to me is Pat Thurlow, a retired teacher librarian who is here to support us, of course. Last but not the least is Geoff Sheppard, president-elect of OPSTF and the chief negotiator for our collective bargaining, who will be speaking on behalf of the children also.

The Women Teachers' Association of Ottawa has a few major concerns regarding Bill 109's impact on children, women, equity and democracy.

Bill 109 is An act to amend the Public Libraries Act to put authority, responsibility and accountability for providing and effectively managing local library services at the local level. It will accomplish this by taking away provincial funding of $24 million by 1998, thus compelling the local governments to charge user fees for all services except for printed materials and of course the entrance to the public building.

The act states that municipalities will have the full authority to provide an effectively managed library service at the local level. Our local governments are already burdened with the responsibilities of child care, senior care, ambulance services, road services, and the list goes on and on. With this extra responsibility added to this long list, one has to wonder how far down the list libraries will rank. As well, with reduced funding, how will the management of the libraries remain at an effective level?

When local governments are overloaded with hundreds of responsibilities, they are forced to prioritize. This frequently results in limited resources being available for cultural and educational priorities.

The so-called new framework of public libraries is to redefine the provincial role in the public library system. How many of our Ontario citizens understand the difference between a regulation and a piece of legislation? When you start playing with the terminology by taking it out of the legislative or public process and slide it in the regulatory or more hidden process, fewer opportunities exist for public scrutiny, discussion, reaction and input.

This means that regulations can be changed by a decision of the provincial cabinet. There is no requirement that anybody else be notified of any change, and no public input is necessary. The public will be informed after the changes take place, after the decision has been taken. This is not the same level of protection as exists in present legislation, an important point to remember for democracy's sake.

I am not a politician by any means. I am a concerned citizen and a teacher. I am here on behalf of the teachers, but especially on behalf of our students.

Now let me give you a little background of some of our schools and the students we serve so that you understand why we are particularly concerned about the upcoming changes to the public library system. Libraries are critical resources both in schools and in communities. The role of our school libraries has been reduced significantly by cuts in education. Now Bill 109 is going to significantly cut library services within the community.

With current budget cuts in the Ottawa Board of Education, the school librarian teachers have already been replaced by librarian technicians. This means library classes can only be held when a teacher is available to supervise. Small groups can no longer be sent for instruction or to work on projects since technicians cannot assume the responsibility of a teacher.

Most of the Ottawa Board of Education schools do not have full-time library staff. This change has already impacted very negatively on school programs at every level. This change has had a particularly negative effect in schools termed Focus on Future schools, which are inner-city schools where the students come not only from different nationalities but also from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Focus on Future schools begin their day serving breakfast to these students. For many of these children this may be the only balanced, nutritious meal of the day. These schools raise snowsuit funds and the Shepherds of Good Hope visit these schools frequently, providing clothing.

This is a depiction of a deprived, disadvantaged society, and this is indeed a significant element of the present school system in Ontario. These young people are deprived of many things. Let us not deprive them of their imagination. In the words of Ambrose Bierce, the first three essentials of literary art are imagination, imagination, imagination.

Today, public libraries are an important, even essential part of the educational system and provide critical opportunities for these children as well as the more advantaged students in our schools. At the public libraries children can meet authors, attend literary workshops, view innovative film, video and live presentations, participate in regular young reader and young author sessions and interact with a wide variety of positive role models. As educators we must be concerned about any changes that threaten the availability of public library services to our children.

Another important point in this vein is that the new system under Bill 109 does not require that there be public and separate school board representation on the new library boards. Thus the automatic communication link which now exists through the present requirement of school board representation on the library board will no longer be assured. There will no longer be an automatic synchronization of library services. This seems like a retrograde step indeed, and cause for deep concern for all educators.

Also, as Women Teachers' Association of Ottawa members, we are concerned with the issue of job cuts. Typically, lack of funding results in staff cuts. Most of these public library jobs, full-time and part-time, are held by women, who will be greatly affected by Bill 109. It is ironic that the Prime Minister of Canada gives 75 opportunities to women and the Premier of Ontario takes an axe to the jobs dominated by women.

1340

We congratulate the Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation for the steps taken to improve library services by networking, digitization and digital content development. However, user fees on these services will create a society of haves and have-nots. Remember our students who cannot afford to have decent meals and clothing, the bare essentials of life. How can they pay for these services? As well, university students are already burdened with escalating student loans, and these user fees will now add to their debts. Senior citizens on fixed incomes and with limited resources will also be significantly affected.

According to the act, "A board may charge fees for public library services in accordance with the Municipal Act and any regulations made under that act." No limit is suggested or mandated in section 14. So what does that say? The fee could go up and up. What will be the limit? What will this do to those who are already disadvantaged? The concern is that if Bill 109 is not amended, it will contribute to create a two-tier society where students, seniors and women will become increasingly disadvantaged.

There are many unanswered questions. For example, how does Bill 109 improve our daily lives and lifelong learning? How will fewer dollars, and therefore significant cuts, provide the accountability and effective management that is required for a proper library system? How many people will be on the library board? What qualifications will be necessary? What level will salaries be? What will the hours be for libraries? What services will be mandated as essential?

Our suggestions to amend Bill 109: to make provision for free and equal access to all students, seniors and families on social assistance to the public library services; to ensure that school boards have representation on public library boards in order to facilitate the co-ordination of library services in the community; that meetings of library boards be public and that the public library boards include a majority of citizen participants from the local community to meet the needs of community diversity; lessen the impact of job loss to women, since this is the group most affected.

To conclude, I will quote Martin Luther King: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Let's be just to our children, our society, in order to have a better future. Thank you very much.

Mr Geoffrey Sheppard: Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you on this Bill 109.

As Padmini has alluded to, we have lost our teacher librarians in the board and we are now being replaced by library technicians. A lot of things have come out of that, as Padmini has alluded to, with the fact that we are not allowed to send students down in small groups any more to do research. The librarians we had, and Pad is a prime example, used to work in conjunction with the teachers, and when they were doing projects together, when they were doing harmonizing of work within the classrooms, the teacher librarians were a very integral part of what was going on with that process. That has now been left out.

With the fact of the funding gone, what's going to be cut? A lot of areas are going to be cut, including the work with the school boards, as Padmini has alluded to. This we feel is going to be downloaded back down to the libraries as well, and we figure they aren't going to have the time. The librarians are well trained, but they're not the teacher-trained type and they don't know how to work with our teachers and work on various things as teacher librarians used to do.

We feel the libraries should continue to be funded by the provincial government for its share. If it's not, there's going to be a lot of stuff going on that we don't believe in.

The integral links between the school boards and the library will cease if they are not allowed to have representation on there, and we feel that's going to be a very regressive measure.

If that happens, they can make a decision of closing a local library. The boards will have no decision-making power in that. Now all of a sudden we know what's going to happen: It's going to be those libraries right now that do not have all the digitization, the CD-ROMS, all of that automation that is going on, because not all libraries can afford that. Those are the ones that are going to be shut down because they can't afford to upgrade them, and those are usually the ones which are in communities which, as Padmini has alluded to, are in the Focus on Future areas. Those are the schools that need the extra help. We're not going to see that. It's going to be gone if Bill 109 goes through as is.

We feel that things such as the number of books in the library, the number of cassettes, the movies, the slide shows and the presentations that are allowed to be used, if you put user fees on them, you are going to be setting up a second tier of citizens in this province. We're going to be two classes, the haves and the have-nots. To us, that is not a reasonable way of dealing with things in this province.

If this board is allowed to cut these local libraries, it's going to affect those local schools. We feel it's going to be the ones in the areas where the local community is not able to stand up and fight because they don't have the skills, the wherewithal or the money, the backing, to do it, and we feel that's a major, major flaw.

The use of the facilities by teachers is going to be strained because of that, and we feel it's going to have a great impact on access to literacy and learning in a safe environment. Right now, the libraries are a safe environment for a lot of the students in some of these Focus on Future area schools and downtown core schools. They know it's a safe area to go into. They can get into these areas. Maybe it's because they're coming from abused home situations, maybe it's because their parents are in different situations, whatever. Maybe it's a senior who just needs to get out and be able to go to an area to access various items.

By locking this out and saying, "No, we have to close this down because of budget restraints," we feel that downloading is unnecessary. The downloading of the provincial share of library costs to municipalities makes a mockery of the public access, causing the knowledge-based economy to shrink as a two-class system is created in Ottawa.

As far as I'm concerned, "downloading" is a term which is only used with the Internet and e-mail. I have no concept of why you're using it in this process. To me, it's an Internet, e-mail type of thing. It's not public access to knowledge for the base of our children, the families and seniors. I think it's a terrible waste of time by cutting it back. Thank you.

Mr Young: Thank you for your presentation. I appreciate a number of the things that you're saying. At the lunch-hour Mr Flaherty and I went to visit the Rideau Street branch library, which serves some of the clientele you were talking about, apparently a very diverse group. It has a large children's section of books. They have about 150 classes a year visit the library and they also have reading programs after school. They're providing an extremely valuable and important service, and they're partnering with the school boards in a number of ways, which is a very effective use of limited resources.

But I just found that your entire presentation is predicated on an assumption that local leaders, local elected officials, will slash library funding, which I don't subscribe to. I haven't seen any reason to subscribe to that and I don't think it will happen.

1350

You made a comment about cutting teachers in schools, and we are totally with you on that. School boards have not made the right decisions and that's why we're introducing Bill 104, The Fewer School Boards Act, to get rid of duplication and administration so that we can focus a higher percentage of the spending on education into the classroom and the library; there's a lot of teaching that goes on in the library.

With regard to jobs for women: I read in the paper the other day that Mr Snobelen is negotiating with your own unions to try and have an early retirement package so that we can bring in the 5,000 young graduates from faculties of education, many of whom of women, I suspect the majority, who are anxious and excited to get into the teaching profession.

There are a number of things we are doing to make the system better. I wanted you to know about that. I wanted you to understand that. I don't share your dreary outlook. I think there are a lot of positive things to look at.

Mrs Dawson: Thank you very much. I really appreciate what you are saying and I hope that's the way it is, but there are no rules. Nothing is established, and of course when you are giving the responsibility to the local governments and saying, just for an example that came to my head, "This is the road and the potholes have to filled," the money is going to go there before it goes to the library funding. These are certain concerns we have as educators. Already the children are suffering and I think that it will be even more so.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming forward and making your presentation today.

ANDREW CHRISTIE

The Chair: Would Major-General Andrew Christie please come forward. Good afternoon and welcome to the committee.

Major-General Andrew Christie: I have provided you with a statement or a brief that I don't intend to go through in detail, so hopefully we will have a considerable amount of time for questions.

I come before this committee representing myself, although I have the unanimous support of the Arnprior Public Library board for what I have submitted to you. They all agree with it.

I would like to share with you some ideas. I'd like to preface it by saying how important libraries are to me. I guess one would say that if one looked at the neighbourhood and home that I came from as a young boy, I would have been classified as being one of the very disadvantaged. Of the 12 boys who lived on the street, literally facing the railroad tracks, in London, Ontario, where I grew up, 11 of us have all been very, very successful in our careers and one is very content as a very good shoemaker.

A great deal of that success we all attained was due to the fact that we had an excellent public library nearby. It was a walk -- it was eight blocks -- but from the time that we started school until most of us went off to college, that library was deeply inundated in one corner, which was referred to as the Bathurst winkel, or corner, almost every day by that dirty dozen. I've had a passion for libraries since being a young boy and I attribute a great deal of the success I've attained to the availability of libraries and their collections.

I have some difficulties with Bill 109, although I think the intent was right, and there are requirements to amend the present legislation. Being a resident of a relatively small and rural community, I can see the problems that this bill, if it's enacted in its present form, will cause. In the town of Arnprior, which is about 6,800 people, over 30% of the population is over the age of 65. They are very heavy library users.

Very few of the young people coming through school, as they graduate, stay in the community. There aren't the job opportunities. There is not the opportunity to attain what they want in a community that size. Of those who remain in the community after their education, most of them commute to good jobs in Ottawa. The remainder are usually involved in family businesses. The library within that small community is a focal point that very much complements the excellent education facilities we have. We have a very high percentage of young people in that community who go on for post-secondary education and become good, taxpaying citizens.

I am concerned that the importance of small and rural libraries is not accepted in this legislation. It may be that we need to have two sets of standards, one that deals with the large urban area and a second that ensures the continued viability of small rural libraries, which are important to their communities.

The Premier of this province and the members of the House on numerous occasions have talked about the fact that the government of today is attempting to provide equal and equitable access in most areas to all Ontarians. With the legislation that's been tabled, I don't think that will occur in the library sector.

There is a requirement within the community, as councils are downsized and members assume more and more responsibility as we see a transfer of authority and responsibility from the provincial to the municipal level, to continue with the concept that unpaid volunteer citizens will continue to administer and form the decision-making body to support local library services.

I also think there is a real requirement that the conditional provincial grant is continued. The impact of the cuts in the last two budget years has been devastating on many small libraries. Many rural and small libraries in eastern Ontario in fact receive the provincial grant as their only means of financing their library operations.

We're relatively fortunate in Arnprior in that we have three municipalities that support the library. However, we've also been told by the municipal councils of all three municipalities that when the provincial conditional grant disappears, that money will disappear as well. It's unlikely that we will receive any more money from the municipalities than the municipal contributions to support our library as we are finding in 1997. Over the past three years our budget has been cut by over a third: 40% cuts in provincial conditional grants and the remainder through municipal funding.

We've had a very good record in our community. We have had to cut hours by 10% last year as a direct result of the cuts to provincial funding and the drop in the municipal grants, but at the same time we've managed to maintain some reserves and not to have to touch the meagre trust funds we have, and to live off the interest of that money to provide the complete automation of the library. But at this point in time, for a second year in a row, we've had to defer access to the Internet because we can't afford the hardware.

This brings me to the subject of user fees. I'm glad that the initial rumour we heard that user fees would be charged on all items out of a library was in fact not adopted and that the provincial regulation allowed for free use of print materials.

However, as an individual who's been involved in the computer-based training field for the last three years, the head of a small company that deals with it, the Internet isn't the panacea for libraries but it does provide an extra resource. That information, like any information, no matter what media form it arrives in, if it comes through a library should be free to all users.

With that, I think I've said enough. I've covered the major points. There are a number of other points in the submission I have given you. I'd be prepared to try and answer any questions you have.

1400

Mr Martin: I want to say how impressed I am with the preparation you've obviously done to come here, and your knowledge and understanding of the library system and your courageous credit-giving to the library in your own community re your success in life.

Just a couple of things. In your very organized thoughts, you hit squarely the three major areas we've heard consistently over the last three days which are of concern to anybody who has an interest in libraries, who works with libraries, who understands libraries: the issue of governance; the issue of grants, particularly of concern to small rural libraries; and the issue of user fees.

The question I want to ask you is in the area of governance. I quickly went through your submission; it's lengthy and well put together. A question has been floating for the last few days here around the issue of councils taking over the running of libraries, a question of the commitment of elected representatives.

You suggest on page 5: "Based upon my six years' experience as a public library trustee, I have noted that municipal council representatives on the library board are often unable to participate fully in library board meetings and activities due to time constraints and priority conflicts. With the pressure on municipalities to reduce the size of councils, coincident with the assumption of expanded responsibilities, elected officials will have even less time to devote to public library trustee responsibilities."

Do you still stand by that? Is that a concern to you?

Major-General Christie: I not only stand by it, but the three municipal councils that contribute to the support of our library all say they have no wish to govern the library. They want to find a solution that doesn't put them in the same constraints as the present Public Libraries Act of having to have so many people from various sectors. They would like to take from the community at large, but they would like to also have a representative on the board of the library to ensure that there is a communication channel on a day-to-day or a month-to-month basis between the board and the council without having to go through formal submissions.

Don't get me wrong. The three municipal councillors who sit on the library board in Arnprior are all very dedicated people and they bust their butt to get to library meetings. But so often, they're forced, because of other conflicting responsibilities, not to come. We always have at least one of the municipalities represented, but it is a time conflict and one that has to be resolved. I stand behind the point that volunteer citizens are the answer.

Mr Stewart: Thank you for your presentation. You just kind of answered my question. I was going to ask you how many of the local council and how many citizen representatives are on your board now.

Major-General Christie: The figure is three municipal councillors and six citizens from the three municipalities.

Mr Stewart: You made the comment that they certainly are not giving any indication that that would change. Do you believe that could happen?

Major-General Christie: We have three municipal councils whose terms end in November. We don't know what's happening with amalgamation; that's very much up in the air and a political bomb in our particular area at the moment, because the three municipalities can't agree among themselves whether they want to get married, live common-law or separate.

There is no indication that they would have the time to devote to libraries, and there is a real fear that if it was taken over by municipal councils, that lack of time would also see a drift of the library into oblivion. There is always the difficulty of ensuring that the library is properly funded; there, you end up with a conflict of interest.

Mr Stewart: One of the things under the new Who Does What program, when it's all put together -- you're indeed right; it's downloading to the municipalities, as have the feds drastically downloaded to us in the province. The only difference is that we still have to pay them, whereas the municipalities are going to retain the money they have. They're going to have additional dollars to spend in local service than what they've had in the past, plus there's a $1-billion fund that may be applicable to this.

A different type of funding will happen. We've found over the last couple of days some very innovative ways that some of the rural boards and some of the big boards have found to fund these programs. Certainly we're not pushing user fees. It's going to be an option the municipalities have if they wish to do it, which can be offset by additional funds they're now going to have, that are going to be retained --

Major-General Christie: Mr Stewart, sorry to interrupt you, but perhaps we're being misled slightly. Although you say that municipalities and library boards will have the authority to decide what user fees will be charged, when budgeters sit down and start to look at how much money is going to be available, they also look at how much money can be earned. If the opportunity exists to charge for things, believe me, we'll be forced into doing it, perhaps not this year, maybe next year, but definitely the year after.

Mr Gravelle: Following up on that, is it not true that generally speaking, smaller municipalities and smaller libraries probably have less access to format material for user fees as well? There seems to be a stronger percentage of print material.

Major-General Christie: In our particular library, we're talking about somewhere in excess of 79,000 books -- we haven't quite reached the 80,000 mark yet -- and with a book budget that's been drastically slashed again this year, it represents only 50% of the recommended minimum level by the CLA. We have probably 2,000 to 2,500 other items available for circulation, but that doesn't also include what is available through electronic media.

Mr Gravelle: One point I want to get to, because we don't have much time, is that your presentation is reflecting an absolute -- it's not even a common theme; it's just the truth that's being told by people who are representing small libraries in small municipalities. I think 75% of the libraries in this province fit into that category. It's very clear that in terms of funding, the provincial funding requirement is so much more crucial to the small municipalities and rural libraries -- not to deny the importance of larger centres, but it seems a lot of the smaller ones really will have to close. It's becoming clear, I think to all members of the committee, that there needs to be some amendment or resolution by this committee that recognizes that fact.

1410

Mr Stewart has made reference twice now to the community reinvestment fund. If the minister was willing to make a formal commitment that a percentage of that would go to libraries, that would be interesting. There needs to be a recognition that some special consideration needs to be made for libraries like yours or else many of them will not be able to stay open. Is that not true?

Major-General Christie: I would agree with you wholeheartedly, but I don't particularly subscribe to your solution of using this --

Mr Gravelle: It's not my solution.

Major-General Christie: No, but the solution that's being thrown out -- the reason is that this is not continual funding, and one of the things that small rural libraries need is long-term stability and the ability to plan: to plan to improve collections, to plan to improve access, to plan to meet the requirements of communities.

We're now entering what is commonly referred to as the fifth migration period, where people are moving from major urban areas to smaller towns 50, 60, 70 kilometres away from those urban areas, settling down and going back to the urban area to work. That is putting a tremendous pressure on small towns to meet the aspirations of those individuals. We need that type of person living in a small rural community to continue to generate new blood, because our young people are leaving because the employment opportunities are not there.

Mr Gravelle: There clearly needs to be some recognition of that.

The Chair: Thank you, Major-General Christie, for coming forward to make your presentation to the committee. We appreciate it.

Major-General Christie: Thank you very much. My wife said to me this morning before I left that she didn't want me to come because I've had a flu virus for the last two days. She said, "I hope you sit far enough away that you don't infect them all."

The Chair: You can assure her of that.

Major-General Christie: However, she also said that perhaps it would be a good idea if I infected you with the virus that gives me a passion for libraries. I hope we've achieved the latter and not the former. Thank you very much.

KANATA PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Chair: Would the representative from the Kanata Public Library board please come forward. Good afternoon, and welcome to the committee.

Mr Alf Gunter: Thank you very much for inviting us to appear before you this afternoon. I regret that the chairman of our board is out of town on business. He regrets that he cannot be here. My name is Alf Gunter. I'm a board member and also act as chair of the fund-raising committee. To my right is Yolaine Munter; Yolaine is another board member and she is chairman of our strategic planning committee. To my left is Linda Sherlow Lowdon, and Linda is our chief librarian and chief executive officer.

We have left copies of our brief with the clerk, so after you finish listening to me, you will have them available to take back and to study this evening. I also would like to give credit to the two ladies, who assisted me in the preparation of this brief.

The Kanata Public Library serves a growing community of 50,000 persons, of whom about 30,000 are holders of our library cards. We are fairly typical of a medium-sized public library, having two branches of about the same size with a total floor space of 19,000 square feet. Our collection is not extensive, but it is heavily used. Indeed, circulation has more than doubled in the past six years and has increased by 25% in 1996 alone. Our dedicated staff provide the Kanata community with one of the most efficiently operated medium-sized public library systems in the province.

Also, we are grateful to the city of Kanata for increasing our total budget in 1996 and 1997 at a time when the direct grants from the province have been reduced. In company with most library systems of our size, we are net borrowers of the Ontario interlibrary loan service. We currently provide full Internet services at one branch and Freenet services at the other.

The Kanata Public Library board consists of eight citizen appointees and one city councillor. Without exception, the current board members take their roles very seriously and are dedicated to improving the quality of library service in Kanata. Other members of the community give volunteer time to the library, primarily through the board's public relations committee. During the past two years, our fund-raising committee has sought to develop partnerships with companies and organizations in the community with some success. In 1996 alone these partnerships, coupled with other initiatives by board members, have brought some $20,000 to the library.

Our strategic planning committee recently conducted a survey completed by more than 1,500 Kanata residents which has given us a fine sense of the pulse of the community. Due to inventive thinking and extensive use of volunteers, this survey was sent to more than 10,000 homes, collected, analysed and reported at a cost of only $300. As you will have observed, our board is very active and dedicated. Indeed, in total we provide about 2,000 hours of quality volunteer time to the Kanata Public Library each year.

We commend the government for its support of province-wide networking between libraries and other information systems. The government has clearly recognized the public library needs that are developing as a result of rapid changes in information technology. We must stress, however, that continued and increased support of the Southern Ontario Library Service is an essential ingredient if we are to achieve optimal benefits from these networking systems. This is of paramount importance to the many small and medium-sized library systems in Ontario, many of whom will have difficulty providing a viable service without this support.

We would be disappointed if the government were to further lower or to discontinue grants to municipalities for library services. This appears to be in contradiction of the policy of this government in the field of education, where considerable effort is being made to ensure that high standards are being maintained across the entire province.

Unfortunately there is a wide divergence of opinion among municipalities as to the priority that should be given to library services. In 1995, in Ottawa-Carleton region alone the per capita local support given to library systems varied by a ratio of greater than five to one, where local support is defined as the total funds received and generated, less provincial grants. Note that these figures were for the period before provincial grants were reduced, so each municipality had an incentive to provide a reasonable level of library services. If provincial grants are further reduced or eliminated, it appears certain that the gap between the more generously supported systems and those with meagre support will continue to widen.

We commend those aspects of the Local Control of Libraries Act which guarantee universal access to library services, including free admission, onsite use of all library materials, free borrowing of printed materials and all materials formatted to aid the disabled. However, as you are no doubt aware, some materials previously available in printed form are now being developed in electronic format. As this is a trend likely to continue in the future, if no changes were to be made to the act as currently drafted, much of the information presently contained in printed materials will become available primarily in electronic format and would become subject to user fees. This would be contrary to the principle of universality, the bedrock upon which public libraries have been founded.

We are confident that this is not the intent of the government in developing this act and urge you to work with our parent organization, the Ontario Library Association, and with the Southern Ontario Library Service to develop a more complete definition of materials that may be borrowed without user fees. Please note that we do not object to fees for ancillary services such as photocopying, printing of materials etc.

As was mentioned earlier in our presentation, we consider that the citizen appointees on our library board, which is not atypical of boards throughout Ontario, contribute a great deal to the Kanata Public Library and at essentially no cost to the taxpayer. We raise funds to assist the library, promote the library in the community, listen to community concerns, keep up to date with trends that affect our library and make reasoned decisions on policy.

Volunteer boards have the time to devote to library work, and in general they are appointed because they have displayed a genuine appreciation of the role of the public library in the community.

Municipal councillors have many responsibilities, of which the public library may not be of prime consideration. They do, however, play a very useful role on library boards, sensitizing other board members to council concerns and sensitizing council to the needs and aspirations of the library.

Another advantage of independent library boards is that they act as a buffer between municipal council and specific interest groups in the community. One current example of a controversial issue that library boards deal with is the use of the Internet by children.

1420

The Local Control of Libraries Act, as currently drafted, will allow municipal councils the freedom to appoint library boards as they see fit. As we understand it, a library board could consist only of members of council or of city staff or a combination of these. This may work in a few communities, but in many others it will prove disastrous. To ensure the continued effectiveness of library boards, we recommend that they continue to consist of a majority of citizen appointees and that they have the same governance responsibilities as at present.

We must also consider the position of the chief librarian in the act, as currently proposed. If he or she is fortunate enough to report directly to the chief administrative officer of the municipality, his or her influence may be adequate to ensure that essential library needs are met. In many communities, however, the chief librarian will report to another staff person who may have only minimal interest in the public library. In this situation, it is unlikely that the library will receive the attention or the priority it deserves.

We accept that it may be desirable to make minor changes to library boards. As an example, the requirements for school board representatives would seem to be an unnecessary restriction. Also, municipal authorities may require more freedom in selecting the size of their boards.

Of all the concerns we have expressed with respect to the Local Control of Libraries Act, the issue of governance and library boards is paramount. Our concerns may be summarized as follows:

(1) Citizen-appointee library boards offer a great deal to the community. This free service will be lost to many communities if the current version of the act is promulgated.

(2) Reducing the role of citizen appointees on library boards is likely to lead to a lowering in the quality of their decisions.

(3) Municipal council will be forced to involve themselves more in library matters, which will require considerable time and effort, and in all likelihood extra costs, if they are to adequately deal with matters that are currently the domain of library boards.

In summary we feel that: (1) provincial funding needs to be maintained; (2) universality of access is a right of all citizens, therefore free access to materials in all forms should be maintained; (3) the majority of board members should be citizen appointees and library boards should continue to act as governance bodies.

The present system has served Ontario well for several years. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Thank you. We're pleased to accept questions.

Mr Flaherty: Thank you for the presentation. I suppose I might start where you ended, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," because what ain't broke is a system that has developed in Ontario over 150 years or so of local libraries, run by local government, primarily funded by local government. That is the system in Ontario that you are applauding.

The role of the provincial government has been quite limited to relatively minor funding and the interlibrary loan service. Now we move forward into the virtual library and the provincial participation in that, which I think you would agree is an important aspect of access for people all around the province.

Indeed, at lunchtime today at the Rideau library of the Ottawa Public Library Mr Young and I had the benefit of seeing access being made through their system to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and to the University of Toronto library, and we could have gone to the University of Alberta and Trent University in Ontario and other places. These are wonderful developments.

But I go back to this, I suppose, and let me ask you about Kanata as a medium-sized library. We heard on Monday at Queen's Park from the chairperson, for example, of the Huron County Library, which is a large agricultural county in Ontario, that they had a good working relationship with their council. He didn't see the makeup of the board changing very much as a result of this act -- this is Mr Cunningham -- and that library cuts would happen, but they'd only happen in hard times and there would be more money in good times. That's been true for years and years in Huron county, apparently, and I imagine it's true all around Ontario. What sort of working relationship does your board have with the councillors in Kanata?

Mr Gunter: I think most of us are on a first-name basis with all the councillors and with the mayor. I don't presume to ask the mayor what she's going to do next, when she gets more freedom of action, because I'm not that close to her. I'm not quite certain. I believe with our present council, if they remained in, and with our present board our relationship is good enough that we would do reasonably well, but that doesn't necessarily hold in the future.

Mr Flaherty: But it seems to me --

The Chair: Mr Flaherty, sorry to cut you off. That's the end of your opportunity for questioning. Thank you.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: Thank you very much for your submission. I certainly appreciate your comments. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that your submission represents a very broad consensus in terms of the number of representations or the types of representations that have been submitted to date.

My question to you is very specific. I think on May 1 the government committee will be considering clause-by-clause analysis of this bill. That's a process whereby each section is called up and is either approved or amendments are moved and approved or defeated. Do you in your submission imply that this bill should just totally be withdrawn and we should back to the drawing board, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," or do you think that through a series of specific amendments this bill might be fixed?

Mr Gunter: I might ask all three to answer this question. Personally, I think the bill is salvageable. I think there's enough good in there that we could end up with improvements. Do you want to answer that, Linda?

Ms Linda Sherlow Lowdon: I think I would agree with Mr Gunter. Amendments could greatly enhance this bill, just giving libraries some assurances. The gentleman before us spoke of the stable funding. I think that's very important. Libraries have to know. They cannot every year be at the whim of city council as to whether or not they're going to get a piece of the unconditional grant, so I think stable funding is very important. I think this bill could be fixed with some amendments that would give us some assurances.

Ms Yolaine Munter: I agree with my colleagues. We certainly need stable funding. The fact that citizen appointees are working so hard, that really helps because we're volunteers. We're donating time that the councillors wouldn't have. This is an advantage.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: You address a number of principles and you have a number of recommendations. Would you have the volunteer time or the professional time between now and May 1 to draft a series of specific amendments that you could make available to the three party caucuses so that someone might have the opportunity to move the amendments that you want, specifically to the bill, section by section?

I guess it's a request. I know it might be difficult for you to comply. I'm not asking for you to do the committee's work, but sometimes it can be very helpful and instructive to committee members to have specific amendments that are suggested by people who are working on the ground and they could be of assistance to us. Certainly if you could have that before May 1, it might be of some assistance to the people on the committee.

Mr Gunter: Mr Chiarelli, if that's a direct request of this committee, we will find the time.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: That's a personal request from our caucus, but certainly you're free to make them available to --

Mr Gunter: We probably will draft something before our next board meeting, which is about five days before you need the information, and have it approved then.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr Martin had to go out and make a phone call and I've given an extra bit of Mr Martin's time to Mr Chiarelli, so I'm going to go back to Mr Flaherty and give him the other minute to ask whatever question he had remaining.

Mr Flaherty: I'll go back to the subject we were chatting about a moment ago. What I was trying to get at in that discussion was the nature of local democracy, the tradition of libraries being run locally in this province, and my faith -- and I hope it's not misplaced -- in that system working. Particularly in smaller communities -- and I come from a medium-sized community, Whitby, something like the size of Kanata, 50,000; we're a little more than that now -- it seems to me that people feel relatively close to their library board and relatively close to their councillors and there seems to be a beneficial working relationship.

I heard the chair of the Ottawa Public Library say here today that when they asked citizens in Ottawa to rate the importance of services, the only service they rated ahead of the library was the fire service, which gives me faith that local politicians will be responsive to the demands placed on them in terms of priorities by the local citizens. Do you share that?

Mr Gunter: The Kanata library was in a state of neglect for about 10 years, from about 1981 to 1991, and this was a wealthy, growing community. These things can happen. What our community has told us in this survey is that they really value the library services, they think the staff are great, but they're complaining that we don't have nearly enough materials so they look to other library systems for those materials.

It varies a lot from one community to another and from one time to another, and that's my concern.

The Chair: I want to thank you all for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee.

1430

ALLAN HIGDON, BARBARA CLUBB

The Chair: Would Allan Higdon please come forward. Welcome to the committee. You have 20 minutes to make a presentation.

Mr Allan Higdon: Thank you very much. With me is Barbara Clubb, the chief librarian of the city of Ottawa. My name is Allan Higdon. I'm a councillor here in Ottawa for the Alta Vista-Canterbury ward.

I'd like to make just a few brief comments and leave lots of time for questions. I usually find that's most useful for delegations.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss this important piece of legislation. I must stress, it is important to those of us who value literacy, learning and the benefits of a civil society. Think of the polling results which repeatedly tell us of the declining respect which Canadians hold for public institutions and authority figures. In the midst of all this cynicism, our public libraries retain widespread respect because they represent the closest thing we have to totally democratic access to learning.

I'm speaking to you today as a private individual, because I'm grateful for the contribution which the public library system has made and continues to make to my life and the life of my family. My family emigrated from Ireland to Canada because this country offered social mobility and equality of opportunity. However, there can be no equality for our citizens if the basic tools of self-improvement are not freely available. That's why public libraries are so essential to social harmony and comprise one of the fundamental cornerstones of any informed, democratic society.

The Honourable Marilyn Mushinski outlined the reasoning for this legislation we're discussing here today in her remarks to the House, the Legislative Assembly, on February 26. She stated that this initiative flows from the Who Does What panel, which attempted to simplify the relationship between provincial and municipal governments.

In the case of libraries, that meant that Ontario's municipalities, which currently provide 80% of library funding, should have greater control over the operation of library boards, and I agree. There is no purpose served by the province continuing to legislate the composition, qualifications, duties, size and reporting procedures of library boards. Local taxpayers -- that is to say, local users of library services -- should run the system in concert with their locally elected representatives.

I am particularly gratified to note that the legislation expressly states that no fees or charges can be imposed for membership in a public library system, the use of collections in a library or for borrowing books or other printed material. That is the heart of every library's traditional mandate. You have preserved it and declared it sacrosanct. Thank you.

That's enough good news. Now to touch on the concerns.

The minister noted in her second reading remarks that the removal of educational costs from the property tax bill would free up funds to finance local services "such as libraries." I would like to share her optimism, but I strongly suspect that the tax room left by the migration of educational costs to the province is already overburdened, overbooked and vastly oversubscribed. I would be delighted if the minister were to prove me wrong, but I'm sceptical that the funding pool for libraries will be any larger than it is under the current arrangement.

The minister also stated that provincial resources will continue to be directed at the network connecting Ontario's libraries. The importance of services such as the interlibrary loan system cannot be overstated. Talk about cost-effective: One book can be read all over the province. However, I would very much like the extent and duration of this funding commitment to be clearly spelled out so that libraries are not left hanging after the next round of budget cuts. Certainly my greatest area of concern is the announcement that the provincial contribution to the operational funding of libraries will be phased out.

Two years ago the Ottawa library board received $1 million from the province as part of its annual operating costs of $14 million. That $1 million is now down to $600,000 and is slated to disappear entirely. Either we must find new ways to generate money out of the library system or we will be forced to downgrade an already degraded system.

Many information systems have now been developed that are in an electronic format. Within the next decade the majority of titles in our libraries may be in a wide variety of non-print retrieval systems. If we begin to charge fees for these new services, what will become of our commitment to equality of access to material? What choice will be left to the library board but to charge for different levels of service? How broadly should we define the core level of free service?

As a municipal councillor, I realize that money is tight everywhere, but I also firmly believe that residents are very concerned that the fundamental values of our community must not be compromised beyond the point of no repair. People will pay a little more if they are convinced they are getting value for service. Our public library system deserves adequate funding.

If we turn our public library system, our doorway to learning, into an impoverished shell, we will pay the price many times over. Next week I'll be going before city council seeking approval for a small expansion of a library branch in an area of my ward which has experienced a huge growth of new Canadians in the last decade. These residents are very frequent patrons of this cramped and overcrowded facility. I hate to think of the lost human potential our country would suffer if we were to close the door to self-improvement through our lack of foresight. If the current trend in library funding continues, it is possible that such facilities will not be feasible in the future.

In order to ensure continued, consistent and adequate funding for our public libraries, I support the recommendation put forward by the Ontario Library Trustees' Association; that is, that the provincial government continue the per household grants to library boards as a means of funding library resources which can be shared across municipal boundaries and as a mechanism whereby compliance with province-wide sharing protocols can be enforced.

I look forward to the minister's consideration of the recommendations which come from these hearings. Thank you very much.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: Thank you very much, Allan, for your insightful comments and your interest in this issue. To be clear, did I understand you correctly when you said that you didn't think the so-called disentanglement and readjustment of education tax base funding etc was going to be an equal saw-off between the municipalities and the province, that in fact there will not be the extra funding at the local level to make up for the withdrawal of the province from the funding of libraries?

Mr Higdon: I think the temptation is there to pass off services that cost more or in which costs are escalating. It's such a vast proposal, as we all know. The numbers haven't shaken out yet. It's going to take maybe three or four years before we figure out just who is the beneficiary. But if I were running a senior level of government, you can bet I'd be trying to pass the losers down to the next level of government. That's the way it works. We're seeing that from the federal government down to the provincial government. I would like to think there would be a little money left, but I strongly suspect we're going to be on the short end of the stick and we're going to have to negotiate, and they are going to have to be very difficult negotiations to make sure we're treated equitably.

1440

Mr Robert Chiarelli: In your opinion, with the experience you have on Ottawa city council, what would be the inclination in terms of priorities of funding? Where would libraries come if it was determined that there are fewer resources available for a number of things? Where would the libraries come in, competing with recreation, parks?

Mr Higdon: When we did a survey before we set up the budget -- there were remarks earlier. Yes, it's true that the support for the public library only follows that of the fire department. But what people particularly want from us at the city are first the basic services, the cleaning and safety things like snow removal, sidewalk maintenance, that sort of thing. You'd have to put that first, the bread-and-butter issues, issues that might lead to legal liability if you didn't provide an adequate level of service. You've got to deal with that first, and then you start to look at the community centres. Recreational facilities for kids rank very high, and then the libraries are right there. They're somewhat down the totem pole but they are very high in the public estimation of what they look for in terms of delivery of services.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: Dave Daubney was here this morning and made a submission on behalf of the Ottawa Public Library. He indicated that there were several areas of the city which are very much underserviced. I think he mentioned the southeast area and some areas to the west. Are you aware of that, first; and second, do you think that any catch-up would be possible if there is a withdrawal of provincial funds which cannot be met? How would you propose catching up in those underserviced areas?

Mr Higdon: There are areas that are certainly underserviced: the growing suburban areas. In terms of catch-up, that's a pipe dream for us. We've got a $600,000 settlement on employment equity to deal with out of next year's budget; that's out of existing money. Just trying to keep the roof patched, trying to keep the collections up and keep the carpets from being so torn that people don't trip over them and break their neck are really the priorities, keeping the existing branches open. One of the problems I've got -- my little branch expansion is $200,000. That comes out of existing resources.

Mr Martin: I apologize that I wasn't here when you started, but I came in when you told us you were an immigrant from Ireland. That of course piqued my interest, because I am too.

Mr Higdon: God love you. You notice I didn't even ask what part of Ireland. That was big of me.

Mr Martin: Yes. God love you too. My father came to Canada in 1960 with seven of us, not for himself -- he came to work in the mines -- but for us, because he wanted a future for us. Certainly the library played a big role in my life, because we had no place to study at home. I was the oldest in a family of seven. We had a living room and a kitchen and, for a time, two bedrooms, so it was pretty crowded. The library was an important space.

You're a councillor?

Mr Higdon: That's right.

Mr Martin: I want to ask you about an issue that came up outside of this room at lunchtime that you might be able to shed some light on, because it's all connected here, it seems. This is about money more than anything. As to the question of development charges and the portion that is legislated to be given to libraries, how is that dealt with in your jurisdiction? Is that gone now? Has that been removed?

Mr Higdon: Development charges have been removed in the city of Ottawa for five years.

Mr Martin: Was that significant, in your experience with the council and with the library board?

Mr Higdon: We were getting so little money from the development charges because the economy was in the pits that it really wasn't worth it. You're saying the impact on the library?

Ms Barbara Clubb: We stopped that; we got no more.

Mr Higdon: You got $200,000 out of --

Ms Clubb: The reserve.

Mr Higdon: Yes, in the reserve out of the development charges. We cancelled the development charges for five years because we felt it was more important to create jobs and gain money that way than through the direct charges. We were making very little money from the charges. There was nothing happening in town.

Mr Martin: This was raised by somebody who had an interest in libraries who was asking some questions about how that was being flowed or not flowed in some jurisdictions, or not being accessed, for very legitimate reasons, by your council. Anyway, it's gone. It's another example of a decision made that impacts in one instance -- and because we're here, we'll talk about it -- the library system, money gone out of the library system.

You talked about the need to continue to have money in the central pot to make sure that central library services are retained. That's fine if you have a downlink for the new technologies and if you actually have libraries to take the books. You would ask that there be some commitment of money and some time duration put in there. Would you want to expand that in some way to include some of this other stuff? How would we cover that? I have a concern about that a library in, say, Hornepayne that wants to plug into this new Network 2000 that was presented to us a few days ago; not much point if they don't have the downlink for that.

Mr Higdon: That's right, you'd need that across the system. But I think you could probably get more bang for your buck if you had a central investment than trying to have all these separate systems. It's very important that the systems are compatible. You need a protocol that everybody can tap into, and for that you need some centrally directed funding, otherwise you're going to have these little information islands all over the place.

The Chair: The next Irishman on the docket is Mr Shea.

Mr Shea: I'm delegating to the English.

Mrs Munro: Thank you very much. We've heard a number of pairs of delegations, if you like, representing both individual library boards and councillors, the city, the municipality. We've also heard some excellent examples of the innovation and the ways by which those two groups working together have been able to look at various methods of joint venture, various methods of administration, tailoring administration costs and so forth. I just wondered if you see opportunities there yourself, if in fact those have already been done in Ottawa or if you see more opportunities in that direction.

Mr Higdon: We have a very close relationship with our library board and it's a good one. For instance, some of the councillors have done fund-raising -- the councillor for our new St Laurent branch, which was built as part of a community centre. This is how we tied it in. We have one councillor on our council who is always advocating tying in school libraries to public libraries so that there's one facility. I think the old world of schools had to be separate.

Let's get unicentre public facilities and have a firehall tacked on the back of it. Why not? This is the kind of innovative thinking we want to get into with our fire stations as well. Our fire chief is saying: "We're not just fire stations. There should be polling places for elections, we can maybe have a little branch here for some books, all that kind of stuff."

We've been incredibly slack in the way we've used the public resources out there. Also with the library system: We had old trucks, old vehicles, vans. We made them available to the library system so it was able to get six vans for the price of one. They bought the used vans off us, that kind of thing. As I mentioned, the St Laurent facility is what we would like to do in the way of the future: build schools, community centres, libraries at one facility. You're sharing all the fixed costs and everybody wins from that.

Mrs Munro: I guess that's really what's behind the Crombie recommendation when he refers to the fact that municipalities, which have traditionally had so much of this responsibility but obviously have been hampered up to now with certain aspects of legislative framework, need to be able to go further in the kinds of ideas you're proposing here.

Mr Higdon: This is the kind of freedom that I like in terms of the way the board's constituted, that this legislation allows to get into those kind of innovative areas. As I mentioned, it's nice to think that maybe we'll get some money with the education costs moving up to the province, but in fact there probably won't be any more money. We're going to have to be a lot more innovative in how we use what we've got.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming in today and making your presentation to the committee.

1450

KILLALOE PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Chair: Would Robert Goldie please come forward. Good afternoon. Welcome to the committee.

Mr Robert Goldie: I'm a patron and supporter of the Killaloe Public Library. We have a short presentation that's strictly from the perspective of a very small library. Other libraries are in similar dilemmas, although we may possibly be the smallest library board to make a presentation at these hearings.

Small communities today find that their residents are stretched to the limit just keeping their volunteer organizations alive, so a trip to the city is a bit difficult sometimes. There is also the perception that we are too small for anyone to take notice of our concerns, which are different from those of the overwhelming majority. But please don't think that if we are the only library to describe our problem, we are the only library to be faced with it.

The village of Killaloe itself has a small population of just over 600. The service area takes in four other townships with populations totalling 3,842 and with slightly larger libraries in two neighbouring villages, each about 30 minutes away from ours and in opposite directions. We are located in a county with one of the lowest literacy rates in Canada and with a correspondingly high unemployment rate. It is an area that desperately needs easy access to library service, that has few tax dollars to pay for it and that has a population that does not universally recognize the importance of libraries and literacy in the new economy. It is a mix that could spell disaster for our small library and for the future of our community.

People in our community don't expect the same kind of library service that would be considered appropriate in larger communities. Our reference collection cannot be up to date, we have an old-fashioned card catalogue, we're open only four afternoons a week and our librarian can't buy the latest bestsellers because, with an annual budget for books of between $3,000 and $4,000, she usually has to wait until the books are available at a lower price.

What we do have is a small but good selection of books, and we have access to the wider world of reading and information thanks to the provincial interlibrary loan system. We accept the limitations of our library when we choose to live in a rural area, just as we accept the lack of sewers, garbage collection and public transit. We don't need a state-of-the-art library; we just need a library, period.

From our perspective, the Who Does What municipal administration subpanel's statement that "municipalities now fund the major proportion of library costs" did not reflect reality. It may be statistically accurate, but there are many small libraries in the province that rely on provincial funds and on community fund-raising for the bulk of their operating budgets.

In our case, municipal support, not in actual dollars but in value given as free rent and utilities, amounts to 30% of our budget. Provincial library grants amount to 33% and other provincial grants provide 18%. Our library also depends on the efforts of many volunteers and donations of dollars, books and equipment by generous citizens.

We aren't talking about a lot of money. Our library's annual budget has hovered for several years around the $20,000 mark. It's not a huge amount, but it is the minimum required in order to keep the library in the community. While our own village council has provided the library's physical space, there have been no additional dollars from municipal taxes. The four contracting municipalities have traditionally relied on the provincial grant for all of their library funding. In recent discussions with them regarding the imminent withdrawal of provincial funding, they have expressed a general desire, but not a commitment, to keep the library alive. They have stated that our future depends on what is left of their budgets after other expenses.

With all other mandatory programs being shifted to the financially burdened small municipalities, libraries, if not legally mandated, are going to the bottom of the list. At the same time, municipalities are attempting to keep property taxes as low as possible.

In comparison with the impact of the changes in so-called essential services, libraries are barely being mentioned by the media. Under the proposed amendments, many rural libraries will close their doors permanently. There will be no library service in communities where it is needed most urgently unless that service is mandated. With no tradition of municipal support, the last year of provincial support may be the last year of the library.

In the existing arrangement of small municipalities, because of low populations, council members are often put in place not by election but by acclamation. Library supporters are not always interested in being on council, and a particular reeve and council may decide that the library service is not necessary. We are accustomed to riding out their terms of office and waiting for a more supportive council to swing the pendulum in the other direction. The reverse situation also holds true: We know that the assistance provided by a pro-library council may not necessarily remain in place when a new council takes over.

We have until now had the ministry per household operating grant and the support of the Southern Ontario Library Service, SOLS, behind us to weather the political ups and downs at the municipal level. Without this provincial backup and being entirely dependent on the municipalities, some small libraries may not be around to rebuild when the new council takes office and wants to get behind the local library again.

We had hoped that the current municipal restructuring process would solve some of these problems. With larger municipalities, there would be more interest in local elections and the wishes of any small group that doesn't wish to support a library service would not have as much weight. Unfortunately, amalgamation discussions have stalled in our municipalities and they have decided to go their own separate ways for the time being.

We are a two-and-a-half hour drive from Ottawa, but our amenities are few. We have no public transit, so we can't hop on a bus to visit a library. The neighbouring villages, 25 kilometres in either direction, are accessible only to those residents with cars, and even then it is too long a trip to make on a regular basis.

The majority of homes in our community do not have computers. Many homes do not even have books around. Our children sometimes move to the cities to find work, and we would like them to arrive there with all of the advantages of their city-educated peers. A thriving public library network is probably more vital to them than to anyone else. If it is left up to the diminishing finances of rural municipalities, with a growing list of new demands being made on them, we fear that our young people will be left in the dust.

While other libraries have the luxury of worrying about fees for non-print materials, our concerns are with survival. The end of provincial operating grants spells disaster for us. We need library services to be mandated and our municipalities need financial backup in order to comply. Thank you.

1500

Mr Martin: Thank you very much. I really appreciate your taking the time to prepare and to come here today. We've heard on a number of occasions from organizations that represent you and speak your voice at this table, but I don't think we've heard until now from somebody who actually is trying to keep a very small community library together, and I don't think we've heard, in quite the same terms that you've presented it, the fragility of your operation.

You mentioned a number of things, but flowing through it all I sense it's a question of finances, a question of money, a question of where you get it and how you get it, and if you're going to do anything with a future-oriented approach, you need some commitment to some long-term funding.

Of the ways this piece of legislation presents a challenge to you, what would be the most fundamental or most important? If the government was going to pick something to do that would be most helpful to you, what would it be?

Mr Goldie: I would say it would be to make sure the municipalities had the ability to actually help finance us. At this point I've been to a municipal meeting in which this very thing was discussed, and there didn't seem to be any way my municipality was going to be able to free up any money to replace the provincial grants. There has to be some kind of guarantee. I don't know if there would be a cutoff point for a certain-sized library depending on how much their funding was or something along that line. There would have to be some kind of guidelines that would ensure their existence or there's going to be a pocket of people who will not have library service.

Mr Martin: What's the percentage now of contribution to your library by your municipality?

Mr Goldie: I would say it's less than 20%. I should say they provide the building and the utilities, so including that it's 30%, but with the other municipalities it's less than 20%.

Mr Stewart: Thank you very much for your presentation. A couple of questions: I was just informed that your municipality contracts with a couple of other or three other municipalities for library service.

Mr Goldie: That's right.

Mr Stewart: Do you have any schools in your area?

Mr Goldie: Yes.

Mr Stewart: Do they have libraries?

Mr Goldie: They have small libraries. Usually they're at the elementary level, so they don't have the same kind of libraries.

Mr Stewart: They go to high school, then, in Pembroke?

Mr Goldie: They go to high school in Barry's Bay.

Mr Stewart: Which has libraries.

Mr Goldie: Which has a library, yes.

Mr Stewart: Can you tell me why we do not have access to school libraries on a basis of Saturdays and evenings and so on? We've got a great resource here that we're not using, that you've paid for and I've paid for, and we can't get near them. I had a call the other day: The kids in my area went to school nine days in the month of March. Those libraries were closed during that whole month. We couldn't have access to them.

We talk about partnerships. Wouldn't it be wise that we start to get a partnership going with these schools that you and I paid for, and couldn't that help some of the rural municipalities?

Mr Goldie: It could some, but in our case it wouldn't. It would be another case of driving half an hour --

Mr Stewart: I appreciate that.

Mr Goldie: -- to the next community even to get to the high school. So those kids on a Saturday afternoon who wanted to study, to work on a term paper, only have one option right now and that's Killaloe library.

Mr Stewart: But maybe that will free up some money to allow --

Mr Goldie: Possibly, except how would they be staffed?

Mr Stewart: Staffed with volunteers, retirees. That's what's being done in a lot of the rural communities now. Parents, whatever. We don't have to have --

Mr Goldie: No, I agree; they need to be used more --

Mr Stewart: We've got such a mindset that you must be a certain type of person or you can't run a library or you can't give out a book to somebody. To me it's a resource that we have hidden, that we use a few days a week. We talk about your library and mine only being allowed to be open four or five hours a day, and we have this other resource that we can't get at. I think in my mind that maybe if we start to form those kinds of partnerships, that could help.

Mr Goldie: I know there is one consideration in that, and that is that as far as access during school hours is concerned, I know they're getting pretty tight about who comes into the schools, so you'd have to go through the office. It would be quite a bit of bother.

Mr Stewart: I appreciate that, but I maintain some of those are excuses, sir.

Mr Goldie: Perhaps, but that's the policy these days.

Mr Stewart: When the need is there and if we can't access it and it's going to help the kids and it's going to help all of us for that information, then I suggest we should be looking at things in an innovative way.

Mr Goldie: I can see using it a little bit more.

Mr Stewart: Killaloe, by the way, is a great community. I used to travel up that way, so it's an excellent --

Mr Goldie: It's a lovely spot.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: What's the population of Killaloe?

Mr Goldie: It's 600, slightly over.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: As you know, governments make policies and they are sort of broad-brush, cover the whole province. Sometimes they have to make exceptions in certain circumstances. For example, in terms of hospital closings, I understand there has been a freeze on closing small rural hospitals because there are special considerations.

You've painted a very particular special case of a small rural library. If I were a Tory backbencher having heard what you have indicated, and if in fact that's the case across the board, I would want to go into my caucus and say, "Is there any way we can make an exception or an exemption for small libraries that get 20% or 30% municipal funding and probably won't have any more funding?"

How would you define a rural hospital as a separate class, a small rural hospital? If you wanted an exemption --

Mr Goldie: Library?

Mr Robert Chiarelli: Sorry, library. If you wanted to create an exemption, how would you define that exemption in terms of size, population?

Mr Goldie: I think probably the best way to define it would be in terms of accessibility. Especially in rural situations, you know, there are places you can get to in five minutes and there are places that take half an hour to get to, and whether you make that trip or not sometimes depends on how far away it is.

Mr Robert Chiarelli: I guess what I`m saying is one size doesn't fit all. You pass a bill and you say, "Well, it applies to all libraries," and clearly in the case of a population of 600, it doesn't apply and municipalities may not be able to respond. I think it might be useful and instructive if perhaps you and several other very small libraries might come up with some kind of a suggested exemption for small rural hospitals and submit it to representatives of the three caucuses so it could be considered in terms of amendments. It would at least be useful in the ensuing debate.

Mr Goldie: All right.

Mrs Munro: Mr Chiarelli, do you realize that's the second time you've referred to hospitals?

Mr Robert Chiarelli: Thank you for correcting me.

Mrs Munro: I just wanted to facilitate so there was no question about the problem here.

The Chair: Thank you very much for coming forward today and making your presentation to the committee.

CITY OF BROCKVILLE

The Chair: Would Mayor John Doran please come forward? Good afternoon, Mayor Doran. It's nice to see you today.

Mr John Doran: It was interesting to listen to the debate, and the whole debate about hospitals is certainly one that's near and dear to our hearts. Time doesn't allow us to deal with that.

I'd like to give you a little bit of perspective about the community I represent, the city of Brockville. Hopefully you've had an opportunity to visit it. We're a community of 21,000 people located on the banks of the St Lawrence River, approximately 60 miles from here.

The remarks I hope to share with you today are really my feelings and the feelings of some of my municipal colleagues, and we are taking what I would consider a regional approach to this perspective.

It's quite appropriate that we're here today, because last night at council we finalized our 1997 budget and we're starting planning for our 1998 budget. In looking at that budget, some interesting things come to mind, and looking back at libraries and how libraries fit into the municipal matrix, particularly from a funding perspective, and having been a member of the library board a number of years ago, the thing that struck me the most about this whole legislation is that finally the control and some influence and some input into the governance of the library are going to be transferred to those that are paying for the majority of the cost. That's not to talk about the function of the library, the importance to the community; I really wanted to talk about the governance.

We at the municipal level are very quick to respond when we feel that we have been hard done by by the provincial level of government. I thought it was very important that I take the time this afternoon to drive the distance from Brockville to Ottawa to express what I think is the important part of this legislation. From our perspective -- I think everyone who has appeared before you has dealt with their perspective in the environment in which they live, and I know you had a presentation earlier this morning from our own library board in our community. I think it's important to look at it in context. We fund $440,000 to our library. When we look at 1998, we're looking at a decrease of approximately $42,000 in provincial support that will be coming back to us. It's the only part of our budget, it's the only part of our boards and committees that we operate on that to this point we have had really no direct influence or control over.

1510

If we look at the evolution of a number of boards and committees throughout our municipality, we have an arts centre, we have a museum, we have different functions, and over a period of time, we have been able to integrate them with the vision and the direction of our municipality through management boards, through a closer liaison. That's not to say that we've had any problems in dealing with our library. We've had a very close, cooperative relationship. We have just done a major renovation to our library. We are well positioned to use that facility as a complete community resource for the next 10 to 15 years or even further.

But one of the things that we looked at when we went through our budget process -- I thought this was particularly interesting -- is what it costs us per use, per citizen, from a budget perspective to use some of our facilities within our community. Our library last year had 136,600 users. If we look at our municipal contribution of roughly $440,000, we have a net cost per user of $3.22. We now compare that to all the functions that we provide for our citizens, looking at what is our unit funding cost per utilization from our citizens. If you look at our arts centre, it's $3.04; if you look at our transit system, it's $1.74; we have Paratransit; we have an airport; we have a museum, which is one of our highest per cost; we even have a cemetery; and we equate that. It's hard to believe that the utilization of a cemetery may be a user cost, but of course it's a revenue item in our budget that we have to look at.

I think the important part of this legislation addresses a number of concerns. It addresses access to the facility, it addresses the funding of the facility and also the governance of the facility. I think those have been well covered by other presentations you have had before you this evening.

This is a positive opportunity from our community's perspective for the library to become part of the city structure. When I say that, and I had a debate with our librarian yesterday about whether this was a positive or a negative thing to happen, my position is it's positive because it helps them to buy into the vision of what our community is going to be about.

If we really look at the future vision and direction of what libraries may be in a community, of what they can be, how they can be a social gathering place within a community, it allows them to be part of the structure and the vision we have for our community, and it also dials in what we're going to do with our arenas, what we're going to do with our parks, what we're going to do with our cultural activities. It really brings them much closer to the direction of our community. There's no question that direction changes from time to time, and the change is based on the money that's available and the directions we are given from the provincial government. That government changes from time to time, and those directions change from time to time.

I have had the privilege of being part of the municipal scene in Brockville for 19 years, and we have worked with the Liberal government, the NDP government and the Conservative government. I think we clearly understand our role. At times we may not like the decisions that are made, but we're certainly prepared to deal with them and to handle them. I am before you today to reiterate my feeling that the governance issue is one that's workable. I think it can reflect the priorities of the community, and I think it's one whose time has come.

Mrs Munro: Thank you very much for coming here today and giving us your views, particularly appreciated because of the fact that it's very clear this issue is one that is of obvious concern to both municipalities and the library community. In performing our function, obviously it's important to have that balanced picture of comment coming from the two areas, so certainly for that reason I'm very pleased you were able to come and bring us your view.

When you began your comments, I was really struck by what I see as the emerging vision you speak of. Without a copy of your notes, I hope I'm not taking liberties, but it seems to me that what you're talking about is a very old idea in the sense of the citizen and the opportunity for the well-rounded citizen, and what is the role of municipal government in aiding and supporting the development of that individual. I guess the issue we come to in terms of how that plays out is really the opportunity that municipal governments are being given through this legislation.

I wondered if you might also wish to comment on the continuing role of the province in terms of providing a framework and an opportunity to be able to allow communities to be that point of access for information.

Mr Doran: I think the key role, as we see the evolution, and devolution, of powers and responsibilities between the two levels of government, is that we have to handle our affairs given the area in which we have responsibility, but clearly I see when we look at libraries a provincial responsibility to make sure there is that linking among libraries, that there is a very solid base that any library anywhere can plug into, because I think we're going to see evolving over the next 10 to 15 years a different utilization of a library.

As I say, we just went through a major expansion and we have a fair amount of room in that library. Our vision that we're working on with the board is to make it really a gathering place for a number of reasons, to access information but also to socialize. If you look at our population, we have about 20% higher than the national norm of retired people, who are heavy users of that facility. But that facility has to be more than just a receptacle of books; it has to be an entrance point to a number of things, and those things have to be tied in from our local level. We can only do so much. You still need a provincial level to be able to access that information right across the province.

The Chair: There's still a minute remaining if anyone is interested.

Mr Shea: Oh, I'd be happy to have a go at that one.

The Chair: A minute is not a lot.

Mr Shea: Mr Mayor, I must tell you I'm pleased to hear your comments. While the opposition try to argue that this is an issue of nothing more than just financial downloading, your comments have given more reinforcement to the view the government is saying, that it is in fact a fundamental principle of democracy. It is who is responsible for what services and is the community able to clearly see who is responsible, to hold their feet to the coals. That seems to be what you're stating clearly as well.

You are directly elected. You carry accountability in your municipality for specific services. The provincial government is trying to make very, very clear that this is now in your jurisdiction and you stand accountable to your community. Does that trouble you at all?

Mr Doran: No, not at all. To react to your earlier comment, though, there's no question we would like to maintain the same level of provincial transfer payments that we've had in the past, as everybody would in every area, be it libraries, museums, whatever, but the fact remains that that's gradually shrinking, and with that, we need more input into the governance.

When you start talking about change, I think change can sometimes be frightening to a number of people, but it's really a different way of reflecting the priorities of the community. If we're putting the money into that facility and the management of that facility, there are some distinct advantages to having it as part of our structure, not only from the human resource side but also from the benefits side. There are a number of economies of scale to be gained from that. But in the past if we've looked at that, it's always sat out there, it's always been a provincial responsibility, even though it operated in our municipality.

Mr Gravelle: Good afternoon, Mayor Doran, and thank you very much for your presentation. I think your response is one that really is encouraging. There's no question that the fact is that it is your responsibility obviously, as the mayor and as part of the council, to look at the situation realistically and say, "Here's how we're going to deal with it," and obviously you're dealing with it in a very positive way. We have heard that from others, and I think it has been encouraging. But I also heard you say just at the end, it would be nice to still maintain some provincial funding. In fact we probably could get up another discussion as to whether that is appropriate, because that is another one.

The question that has been coming up again and again, though, is whether municipalities can ultimately afford this. There is downloading to municipalities going on. There is an argument going on within this room whether or not it's going to be revenue-neutral. We believe indeed, and I know that the Association of Municipalities of Ontario believes, that there is about a $1-billion gap in terms of services, that $1-billion gap being thrown on municipalities. Have you been able to do an assessment in your community in terms of what that looks like? I appreciate we don't know the final story yet of what that does look like. Is it revenue-neutral in your community as best you can tell?

1520

Mr Doran: We're not sure how the application of the $1-billion fund is going to be applied, but when we look at a direct hit to our community, we're looking at a net of $5,700,000 before any application of any of the access to this community investment fund. But of that whole $5 million, the smallest part of that is the library portion, which is the $42,000, which we anticipate will not be there and it has been indicated that will not be there next year. But again, we've run our figures. We've looked at it. We know where the hits are coming from, but we don't know how it's going to be mitigated yet.

Mr Gravelle: It's clear that your community has a commitment to the libraries, and we have never really argued whether or not communities have a commitment. Every community has got different circumstances, as you certainly would know well, and in some cases it really is going to be a question of competing dollars. There are those who have told us that certain communities simply just won't maintain their commitment, certainly those in the smaller municipalities.

Then you get down to the whole point of what the proper level of funding is. We know that education is being taken over by the province and we know that public libraries are part of the educational process. It seems strange to be, on the one hand, saying, "We'll take responsibility for the educational system, but we're no longer going to have any involvement with the libraries in terms of an operational funding basis." Does that strike you as odd? It seems to me to be a contradictory sort of view. The ministers themselves make those links all the time in their speeches certainly, but it's part of lifelong learning, it's part of literacy. That has been, I guess, one of our points of conflict.

Mr Doran: Heaven forbid. I'd hate to say that anything the provincial government does is odd from time to time.

Mr Gravelle: You would know.

Mr Doran: When you look at the operation of libraries within that whole matrix of things that are happening, and happening very quickly at the municipal level, I think there has to be some flexibility and some seed money to allow things to evolve. As you suggest, we have to decide what the priorities are for our communities and decide how those dollars are allocated. As the gentleman prior to me, who comes from a very small community, said, it's going to be very difficult to maintain the same level of service that he has from his library board compared to, say, our community.

One of the things that struck me, though, listening to the presentation: If you look at Brockville, which is 21,000, we have a catchment area of about 60,000, and within that catchment area I would suggest there are probably two to three small libraries that operate in isolation. To me, it would make sense that if we're going to combine these, there be some kind of a transition to allow one central administration to administer those in different ways. There's no sense to having three head librarians in those three locations when you can consolidate some of those facilities.

If you look at the utilization of our library, we're finding that we're getting more and more utilization for access to the Internet, for periodicals, for those kinds of materials. Our book budget we have been able to maintain at the same level. But I can only speak from our environment. Other communities are going to have a much more difficult time in dealing with this issue simply because of the economies of scale.

Mr Martin: I'm sitting here trying to imagine the conversation that you had yesterday with your librarian. If what you've shared with me is any indication of your position re the question of giving governance to those who are paying the majority of the cost and helping them buy into the vision of the community that you've developed, it smacks of a little bit of -- this relationship between library boards and municipalities is a very special relationship that needs a lot of nurturing and work, I suspect.

It's not unlike, I would say, my relationship to my wife, who has chosen to stay at home with our four kids. I know what she would say to me if I came home one day and said to her: "I'm the boss around here because I'm paying the majority of the cost and I'm making the money. I want to help you buy into the vision of where we're going as a family." That would be the end of the conversation. If I didn't see her, who is most directly involved in the bringing up of the kids and a lot of the decisions around where our house is going, then I don't think we'd be going very far, to be honest with you.

Through the two or three days that we've been gathering here, there has been some back and forth over this relationship between the board and the municipality and who should have control over what and who has the better knowledge base, experience base and all of that kind of thing. This piece of legislation, it seems, and from what you've said here, shifts the control base clearly into the municipal realm. Do you think that's going to be healthy in terms of the long-term viability of the library? Also, is it going to contribute in a positive way to the ability of a library board to actually be excited and enthused about doing the work that they're charged to do?

Mr Doran: Again, I can only speak from the perspective of our community. I think it's a very positive experience. When I reflect back on our relationship, as you reflect back on your relationship with your wife, we've had a very positive relationship. We've worked together to provide for the expansion. If we had not got that expansion completed in the last two or three years, we know that the economics of today would not allow that to happen.

But clearly, if we want to continue on and we have to go together, we need to really understand and come together when we start looking at planning in our community. There's much more to be gained by coming in closer with the city than there is to be staying out there in isolation because when you deal in isolation, there's always this fear of the unknown, and I don't really know what you do, but you come in here and you put this budget on my desk and I'm not spending that money when I've got other things to deal with.

Really what it does is integrate them a little bit more with long-range planning from the community perspective. It allows them to actually have their case, I think, better presented when it comes to budget dollars of saying, "If we only have so many dollars and we have to split them, how do we determine the priorities for our community?" In a lot of cases they're much more than dollars-and-cents issues. They're really kind of the community's perspective of what the community feels is important.

As a case in point in our community, in the last two or three years we've spent close to three quarters of a million dollars on the waterfront and that's an area that everybody can enjoy. We've done this major expansion to our library. We've done a major expansion to our museum. Those all add, I think, to the quality of life. But those come about from working together and not in isolation. If we simply went down our separate paths, there's no way that the library board on its own would have been able to fund, organize and design the expansion that they presently have.

The Chair: Thank you, Mayor Doran, for coming forward and making your presentation to the committee today. We appreciate it.

Mr Doran: Thank you very much for your time.

1530

CITY OF NEPEAN

The Chair: Would representatives from the city of Nepean please come forward. Good afternoon and welcome to the committee.

Mr Doug Collins: Thank you very much. Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Doug Collins and I'm a city councillor in the city of Nepean. With me today is Rick Chiarelli, who is also a councillor there. While both of us are councillors for the city of Nepean, we both have been chairs of the Nepean Public Library board and are quite familiar with the public libraries. Thus, we are speaking as elected municipal officials and as individuals with considerable experience as trustees.

The city of Nepean and Nepean Public Library have had, we believe, a unique history from which useful information can be drawn concerning what factors constitute success for public libraries. Approximately 15 years ago, the Nepean Public Library was not in very good shape. There was significant tension and miscommunication between the council and the board. Two different visions for library services were held with two different perspectives on funding and operations. Consequently, for many years the library had little success in acquiring operating and capital funding, and indeed the city was contemplating a private member's bill to terminate the library board and incorporate the library into the city structure.

Then came the new Public Libraries Act of 1984, which gave councils more control over public libraries. Nepean immediately took advantage of this opportunity. The mayor and three senior councillors were added to the library board, which also had five citizen representatives. When this happened, there were dire predictions -- library services were going to suffer, control of the library would be wrestled away from the citizens etc -- a lot of dire predictions. But what actually happened was that the library was revitalized. The operating budgets doubled. The new central library and an additional branch were built. Two existing branches were completely renovated. The best possible automated system was provided for the library. Library staff were evaluated and compensated as if they were city employees. Services improved dramatically.

Now, 15 years later, Nepean is well known for the quality and level of services it provides. Indeed, in a recent council survey, satisfaction with the library was higher than with any other city service. Only 1.5% of the population expressed any dissatisfaction with the library. Almost 50% gave the highest rating of "extremely satisfied" in this survey. Almost two thirds of the public are registered users of the Nepean Public Library. The fear that a closer relationship between board and council would be ruinous proved totally unfounded.

Now, in 1997, Nepean and its library have a unique and highly desirable relationship. Administrative functions have been almost totally integrated with those of the city in such areas as building maintenance, vehicle maintenance, automation, telephones, records management, human resource services, financial services and so on and so on. The library participates fully with the city in all new capital and renewal funding. The library has access to all relevant city reserve funds. The library works closely with the city on budget issues. The library staff work with city staff in many areas and have achieved an enviable reputation.

Such administrative integration with the city has resulted in many efficiencies and has stretched the library dollars. The result is a service whose excellence is recognized by users and the wider community. However, the administrative integration has in no way hampered the ability of the board to govern the library. Nepean has perhaps the most independent board in the country, I would venture to say. Council is so confident in the board's ability to operate an efficient, effective service that it accepts board decision-making without question. The board's requests for annual operating grants, as an example, rarely -- and I say rarely -- require more than 10 minutes of discussion at council budget meetings and have not been turned down or changed for over 10 years.

Councils and boards can work together effectively as a team to deliver the quality and level of library services that the public deserves.

Why have both councils and boards become involved in library governance? Because public libraries are hybrids. They are a mix of typical municipal recreation services, popular fiction, programming, educational services -- support of formal education at all levels, continuing education -- information services and cultural services. Councils need to be involved because they fund most of the service and because they are elected to govern the municipality.

However, public libraries are in a very real sense the universities of people. They provide informational, educational and cultural services to all segments and age groups. Important issues exist related to intellectual freedom. Public participation in library governance is vital. Therefore, it is very valid that both council and boards form a partnership for the purpose of governing public libraries.

Mr Rick Chiarelli: Good afternoon. My name is Rick Chiarelli. I am currently the chair of the Nepean Public Library board, but I'm not here in that capacity today. I'm here as acting mayor of the city of Nepean.

We believe that the partnerships Doug discussed are both possible and feasible throughout Ontario. It's important, though, because of the intellectual freedom issues involved, that public libraries remain as separate municipal structures. We do believe that. We think the close interrelationship we've been able to cultivate in Nepean, as Councillor Collins said earlier, has not in any way hampered the intellectual freedom of our boards. In fact, when handled correctly, it actually turns into a bonus for them.

Our city council and our board in partnership have gone through many of these recommendations; actually, in the end, all of them.

We believe there should be strong representation on boards from council. When you get strong council presence, you get the kind of trust and reliance that ultimately helps boards function and function properly. As a matter of fact, we believe there should be a minimum number of members of council on library boards. Right now, the number we look at is two for a board of nine and three for a board of 11. That kind of statement makes a positive statement to members of council in terms of how important libraries and the function of libraries ought to be. When it's successful, as it is in Nepean, you end up in a situation where people actually compete for positions on library boards as members of council, as opposed to it being kind of the consolation prize for members of other councils when they are looking for committees to be on.

We also believe that the chair of a library board should always be one of the council members. The reason for that -- there's no great theory behind it -- is just that in the past decade-plus in Nepean we've had that unwritten policy that the board adopted and it's worked extremely well. Having the chair and vice-chair coming from council develops a kind of trust between the council body and the board that would be difficult to grow any other way.

We look at concerns about governance of library boards. We've heard people say, "How independent can you be if your chair or your vice-chair is a council member?" Our board and our council have taken the position that you shouldn't even be looking at the problem from that perspective. You should be looking at it from the perspective of service being provided to ratepayers.

When you look at it that way, there is no question that the service being provided to library patrons in Nepean is far greater and far better than it ever was before this system was adopted. The bottom line is that our regular usership at the library has increased to around 70% of the population of our city, which is extremely high.

When the city, for instance, did a survey recently to determine what services the public wanted to see funded at what levels, we discovered that the only service that the majority of the public was willing to pay a tax increase for in order to maintain funding levels was libraries, and that was over 80%.

That tells us that the hybrid solution that Councillor Collins was talking about produces the best result when you look at it from the perspective of library users. Our board has been extremely good at stepping back from the role as governors of the institution and looking at it from the role of the client. From the perspective of the client it's clearly the best thing that can happen. But again it's a two-way street, and we think there has to be a minimum number of councillors on a library board for this to work.

One of the reasons a minimum number of councillors helps is because it introduces some element of political accountability at the library board level. Members of the public obviously can vote or not vote for people who are on the library board, and while in our opinion they never should have the majority of the board, they nevertheless have significant influence on directing it. At the same time, by keeping them at less than a majority, there is the maintenance of an intellectual freedom component there. You won't have, for instance, members of council deciding that it's time to ban certain books.

1540

On the intellectual freedom issue, we had at our library board, we know, a number of books that other libraries were under a great deal of pressure not to carry. The Salman Rushdie book, the Madonna book -- we had those things on reserve for months and months until the books finally disappeared. We were perhaps the only library that met all those requests. From the perspective of library clients, we think that indicates preservation of intellectual freedom.

We took the position with the minister that we should not change the fundamental principle of free public library service. My ward includes a large population of Somali refugees, and we undertook a project last year to try to get a number of these people just to come to the library. It took a lot of effort, and we finally got around 35 of them to come out to the library. If they had to pay $10 for a library card, we'd be better off spending our time doing something else, because we would not get people to do that.

A minimum charge for library cards is something we were solidly against. I know from talking to people in Toronto that it's the easy solution from the point of view of a library administrator; it's easy to simply apply a charge for library cards. We think this legislation was smart to not take the easy way out on that one and to say, "No, cards can't be charged for." Ten dollars is an issue for the very people you don't want it to be an issue for.

By not allowing a charge for print materials, you do guarantee that many basic library services are free. Our board has taken the position that this is a good thing. Despite the fact that we realize there's no rationale for selecting a particular medium over others, we think it does accomplish the goal.

If you're looking for suggestions in terms of fund-raising or independent revenue sources for library boards, as we mentioned to the minister, you might want to consider limiting the revenues libraries could raise through other sources to a percentage of the municipal grant. For example, if it were 15%, in the city of Nepean that would allow our library board to raise $600,000. That would certainly be a challenge and it would also be a cap on expectations from politicians in our city.

In summary, our board unanimously supports the legislation. I know we were the first board in the province to do so; I'm not sure whether others have supported it this way. We met with the minister well before the legislation was in place and expressed our wishes that there be some way created for other boards to achieve the kind of municipal-board cooperation we have in Nepean that creates efficient service while at the same time protecting intellectual freedom and maintaining free access to basic library services. We think this does that, and for that reason our board, which has members from all three provincial political parties, was unanimous in supporting it. Thank you very much.

Mr Gravelle: Councillors Collins and Chiarelli, you both deserve credit in terms of the success of the Nepean public board. It's quite a story, and obviously there's a remarkable commitment from the whole community in terms of what you're doing.

I appreciate what you're saying, but I guess my confusion, if that's the word, is that you did this under the Public Libraries Act, 1984, under the present system. That is to be applauded, and to me, it says it can be done by others as well. In other words, you did it under the present governance model, you did it with majority citizen participation, although a member of council is the chair, and you recognize that there could be abuse. I heard that from your board trustees this morning. I don't think it's a question of abuse by municipal officials; it may be being forced into a corner and having to do it. Perhaps down the line there could be some legislative amendments to fix it.

It seems to me that if you did it under this system and you do have some concern about it, it makes sense to either put those legislative amendments in now or recognize that the system can work as it is. I asked the same question this morning and I'd like to ask you, because those things seem, maybe not contradictory, but confusing.

Mr Collins: I believe you're putting into legislation the things that will make the types of things we're doing work universally across the province. It will be more recognized that the way Nepean is doing business with council is something that other places in the province don't have to be concerned about, and it will move other library boards closer to that position; as you know, there are not many library boards right now that are that close to that position.

Mr Martin: To follow up on that, your library board was in front of us this morning. They in many ways reflect the comments you made, but they also have some concerns about the bill. They talk about charging for access to the technologies, the other forms of information. You and they speak very highly of a board that has on it citizen participation, a majority in fact. You mention 2 to 9 and 3 to 11, and you've found a neat way of balancing that by having your councillor be the chair so there's not the sort of angst and tension that could possibly be there. I think that's good.

What I'm afraid of is tipping the balance of power. I've used over the last couple of days the example of Ignace, which under this legislation is looking at taking over a building that was built by the citizens in the last few years, in partnership with the provincial government, for a library -- moving the books into the school, and turning that building into their municipal office. That's a bit of a power move that I don't think we'd want anybody to be doing unless there was a good, valid reason for it and it was mutually agreed on that this was in the best interests of everybody.

I guess what I'm afraid of is that this legislation will tip the scale, that instead of doing what you're suggesting it could and should do, which is to have boards and councils work cooperatively, it will turn this into an unhealthy relationship that will see municipalities doing some pretty draconian things that will not be in the interests of libraries and this good service they provide.

Mr Rick Chiarelli: There are a couple of things here. It's true that technically under the law you could do what we did in Nepean today. The problem is that it's not being done, and there's a point where you have to realize it's not being done. The reason it's not being done, we believe, is that you needed more than this law to make it happen. You needed an extraordinary mix of people on the board and an extraordinary mix of goodwill that came into the board at one time. All the planets had to be properly aligned for it to turn out that way. It could just as easily have turned into a fiasco at the beginning of that process.

We think there has to be something there that at least throws up a flag to tell municipal councils that there is a way to do this. The government has for a long time been talking about reducing duplication and through its municipal restructuring process that's kind of the obsession. But it seems to me, before you start reducing duplication outside cities, you should look within them. It does not make sense for a library board, for instance, to be running a payroll service when it can contract out for that either to the private sector or to the municipality at substantially reduced costs to the ratepayer.

1550

Mr Shea: In the spirit of Bill 26, picking up where you just left off, I assume then that you would find it offensive, if the government were to amend Bill 109, to tell municipal councils the size of boards they should have or to tell them the composition of the board.

Mr Rick Chiarelli: Our position isn't that we'd be offended by that. It depends on how it was done. If it were to say there should be a minimum number of councils and councillors on the board and you can't have, for instance, council operating as a board, we wouldn't be --

Mr Shea: So your council doesn't really care if the government tells you how you'll structure the board. You don't want that authority yourself?

Mr Rick Chiarelli: We would like flexibility, but we would like a minimum to be placed on it that will protect intellectual freedom and that will also provide --

Mr Shea: I'll come back to that. You would like the council to have the authority to determine the nature of the board, the size of the board, its functions and so forth.

Mr Rick Chiarelli: Yes.

Mr Shea: Now, isn't it ironic that the opposition members speak about the Public Libraries Act of 1984 as though that has created a whole new world and created a shining star of a library system.

I have a quote that reads, "I have talked to librarians who have told me this is it for them, that if the minister wants to bring in a law that says municipal councils can determine line by line budgeting of the library boards, then let the municipal councils run the libraries and the municipalities and let us stop playing this game of pretending there is a useful role for library boards if the government is going to take all the decision-making away from them." That was Floyd Laughren in 1984.

Isn't it very curious that we go to 1984 and indeed that act is passed, and we find there are some difficulties that this government is now trying to correct and, in the spirit of Bill 26, is trying to give to municipalities the authority to be very responsible to their electorate.

Mr Rick Chiarelli: I guess what we're saying is mainly a message to library boards that if you get involved in a cooperative situation, the success that comes from it gets very addictive. In 1984, our council would probably have been the first council to jump on board and say, "Yes, we want to take over the whole thing." Today, we would never do that because --

Mr Shea: But you've been reasonable the way things have been done.

The Chair: Mr Shea, you're a little bit beyond your allotted time. Gentlemen, I want to thank you both very much for coming forward and making your presentation today.

CORNWALL PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Chair: Robert Hubsher and Stephen Renner, please come forward. Welcome today to the committee.

Mr Robert Hubsher: Members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to address you about this important piece of legislation. Ontario has a proud tradition of public library service with one of the oldest public library acts anywhere in the world. It was in 1882 that the province passed the Free Public Library Act in order to foster literacy, encourage reading and ensure equitable access for all residents of Ontario to the record of civilization.

The elected officials of that time recognized the importance of public libraries not only as a means of life-long education but as a pillar of democracy. They understood that for democracy to function effectively the province needed an educated and informed electorate that understood the issues of the day and hence could meaningfully participate in the electoral process. Without access to information we cannot have an informed electorate. Without an informed electorate we cannot have a meaningful democracy.

The futurists tell us that we have entered the information age, a time when information is growing at an exponential rate and the means of storage and transmission are changing at breakneck speed. In this era, information is power and some say it may even replace currency as a means of exchange. It is certainly a time when equitable access to information, in all formats, for all Ontarians is essential if individually and collectively we are to remain competitive in the global economy.

In 1990, as a result of a cooperative partnership among the library community, the Ontario Library Association and the Ministry of Culture and Communications, the Ontario public library strategic plan was released. This document was the result of two and half years of work by over 300 trustees, librarians, technicians and interested library patrons. More than 200 statements and briefs were received and close to 100 presentations were made at a series of 10 public hearings held across the province.

The One Place to Look, the title of this document, represented one of the most comprehensive strategic reviews of public library service carried out anywhere in the world. I am proud to say that I was the vice-chair of the strategic planning group which spearheaded and coordinated the process. The statement of purpose for Ontario's public libraries, which was the foundation of this document, stated:

"The public library serves its community based on the belief that every individual has the right to equitable access to information.

"The public library is committed to helping people find information appropriate to their needs.

"The public library is concerned with the refreshment of people's spirit by providing books and other materials for relaxation and pleasure.

"The public library promotes an open and democratic society by providing everyone with access to civilizations' thoughts, ideas, actions and the expression of its creative imagination. The public library is the principal means whereby the record of civilization is made freely available.

"The public library is a practical demonstration of our society's belief in the value of universal education as a continuing and lifelong process."

Based on this statement of purpose, the goals of the Ontario public library strategic plan were:

Every Ontarian will have access to the information resources within the province through an integrated system of partnerships among all types of information providers.

Every Ontarian will receive public library service that is accurate, timely and responsive to individual and community needs.

Every Ontarian will receive public library service that meets recognized levels of excellence from trained and service-oriented staff, governed by responsible policymakers.

Every Ontarian will have access to the resources and services of all public libraries without barriers or charges.

1600

Bill 109, specifically section 14 and the proposed amendment to Ontario regulation 26/96 under the Municipal Act, undermines the ability of public libraries to provide equitable access to information for all Ontarians by allowing municipalities to charge fees for information formats other than printed materials.

This change is particularly troublesome in an era when more and more information is being delivered electronically. In fact, both the provincial and federal governments are reducing their printed publications and replacing them with electronic distribution through the Internet or CD-ROM. The commitment of both the provincial and federal governments to the principle of freedom of information and the dissemination of government information would be dramatically undermined by Bill 109.

Bill 109 undermines the ability of public libraries to provide Ontarians materials appropriate to their individual needs since printed materials are not necessarily appropriate for all individuals for all information needs, nor is all information available in printed format. Videotapes, audiotapes or other formats provide unique means of presenting information and may be the best method for some individuals to access the information they require.

The government's intention to phase out provincial operating grants will undermine its ability to set standards for public libraries in order to ensure that all public libraries meet recognized standards of excellence. In addition, it will undermine the integrated information network that has evolved over the last 115 years and turn this valuable provincial resource into a disparate group of individual collections.

I would ask you to consider the words of the Honourable Marilyn Mushinski, Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, when she moved second reading of Bill 109 on Wednesday, February 26, 1997:

"I would like to say how proud we are of our public libraries. Libraries in communities throughout the province have touched the lives of every Ontario resident and have made a very significant contribution to the quality of life that we enjoy.... Our public libraries have served the province for more than 100 years. They have evolved from a disparate group of individual collections of books to an interconnected information network. Ontario's libraries have not only kept pace with the information revolution, they have indeed led the way.... The government knows that libraries are an essential building block in the development of a well-educated workforce, which is one of the province's greatest assets.... Free access to information is the cornerstone of our proud library tradition."

I implore you to reconsider Bill 109 so that we might continue our proud tradition of free access to information within an interconnected information network and that we might continue to strive towards the purpose and goals set out in the Ontario public library strategic plan. Please allow Ontario's public libraries to continue leading the way in the information revolution.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Are you going to --

Mr Stephen Renner: Yes, I would like to say something. Mr Chairman, honourable members, thank you for having us here.

As the last speaker, I wonder what I can add that might be new. I'm sure you've heard everything that's been said already, so I thought I'd start with something that may have been overlooked. The very first thing I see in Bill 109 is not something that one would like to see in library legislation. It looks pedantic to criticize this, but it's a split infinitive. I thought I'd get your attention with that.

Paragraph 1 of section 2, "To ensure public libraries continue to successfully provide." Wouldn't it be nicer to say, "to continue to succeed in providing"?

Mr Shea: Is this an attack on the education system?

Mr Young: You can do it in fewer words, "To provide successfully."

Mr Renner: There must be a better way. You'll notice I did not mention this in my written submission.

Mr Shea: That's about the only legitimate complaint the opposition might have about this bill.

Mr Renner: So, score one? There may be more.

To continue, our budget in Cornwall is made up not of 15%, as I said in the written material, but of about 11%, the provincial funding. What I see, as chair of our board, is that this is going to be discontinued, but at the same time there are major changes to the way the system is going to work. I wonder why a reduction in funding justifies the changes. Are they for benefit or not?

We have an excellent system; you've heard this over and over, I'm sure. What needs to be fixed? That's my question. There are two things in Bill 109 that I'm very concerned about: One is the composition of boards and the second is the matter of charging fees.

On the topic of the composition of boards, my concern is this. We presently have provincial standards for boards and how they are to be appointed. The boards are appointed by the municipality. The municipalities control our budget. How much more control could a municipality possibly want without making this a department of the municipality? My point is that the concept of having library boards, the intent of that, is to have this separation of powers so that there is an independent library board, separate and distinct and independent of municipal council, entrusted with the responsibility of looking after things.

It's an interesting relationship, because the municipal council appoints the board and says, "Here's the money you're allowed to use." As a library board, we're about as independent as a teenager at home: "Mom, can I have some money?" "Dad, can I have the car?" We can't do anything without the approval of council. We have to work together.

What I've discovered in five years as chairman of our board -- and five years is too long to be chairman of a board, but the purpose has been that we've had a building project which has just been completed. We've had very good comments on it. It's been a pleasure, but very time-consuming. What I've noticed is that we have a wonderfully delicate balance of power between the municipality and the library board that has worked very well for a long time. What it creates is this barrier where, as a library board, we're in charge of our staffing, we're in charge of our labour relations.

We have a different union local for our staff. In fact, we pay lower wages than the city equivalent, despite pay equity. We have a very low turnover of staff. I think we have a very good relationship with our staff -- I wouldn't want it to go too far, but probably better than our municipality. That's a tribute to our independence. Also, the benefit of this independence is that the council can use it as an excuse. They're not responsible for boners that we make in book selection or cutbacks in hours or other things that we might have to do with respect to meeting budget cuts.

The concept that municipal councils now have authority to pass a bylaw to make the library boards made up entirely of councillors or municipal employees is basically something that threatens the independence of library boards. It offers no benefits, it offers no cost savings. It promises to be more expensive. My point is that this is not an improvement, this is a step back. We don't need it.

The second point I'd like to address is the matter of fees. The present legislation sets out a provincial standard that requires certain library services to be provided free of charge. This concept is abandoned in Bill 109, which allows the boards to charge fees, and let's not hide from the truth. The budget pressures to raise funds by charging fees will be tremendous on boards. It will be the politically correct thing to do, in terms of municipal council, to start charging fees.

Is this something we want to do? I don't think so. It's been an essential concept of Ontario's public libraries that the variety of information we have is available free. This is a long tradition, and changing it, I suggest to you, is entirely undemocratic. The whole purpose of public library legislation, like the public school legislation, is to make the service available free of charge to everyone, to eliminate financial barriers to success, to give everyone an equal opportunity. Ontario has been proud of maintaining this principle for schools and libraries for a very long time, and I'd like to ask, what could possibly justify the abandonment of this principle of free library service at this time?

We talk about cooperation between schools and libraries. We'd like to see more, especially in changing times when more and more information is going to be available through electronic means. It's going to be much easier to pass things back and forth across town, whether electronically or by bringing the disc over, that kind of thing. As the Crombie-Meyboom report from just before Christmas says, there should be more cooperation between schools and library boards. It's going to happen.

In the past, there was every incentive financially to do this because the taxpayer base for both was substantially the same. This has changed now, because the schools, with provincial funding, and the library, with municipal funding, are exclusively different -- not entirely different, but certainly the tax bases are so different that there'll be a strong incentive for the library to say to the schools, "Why don't you pay for this?" and for the schools to say, "No, why doesn't the library pay for this?" I mention this at this point to point out the advantage of having some provincial standards of what libraries must provide free of charge to continue the proud tradition that has given us the excellent system we have.

Library boards across Ontario, I would say, neither want nor need the headache of trying to determine appropriate fees for basic library usage -- not for all library usage; there are certain things that have to be charged for. But the basic library service that we've been providing free of charge should continue. When we make changes to that, there should be a common provincial approach to this. We should all be doing the same thing. This shouldn't be subject to local political pressure or budget pressure here or there. We should have a common approach to the changing technology that's available on a provincial basis so that we all have the same expectations of our libraries.

In summary, the two changes that I'm speaking against offer no cost savings. They offer a reduction from a system that presently works very well. Reducing our funding does not justify making these changes but it is likely to have a deteriorating effect on our system. At a time of many changes in the forms of communication, we need the benefits of provincial standards so that we don't have a piecemeal approach and so that concepts like interlibrary loan service can continue the way they have been and the way the legislation intends them to continue. What we would like is that the whole system has the benefit of a common, basic approach to the formation of library boards and their independence and the concept of free library service.

The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen. Unfortunately, there are only two minutes left so I have to go to the single caucus for questions.

Mr Flaherty: Thank you both for your presentations. Help me a bit here. More than 89% of the cost of running the Cornwall Public Library is borne by the people living in Cornwall paying taxes.

Mr Renner: Yes.

Mr Flaherty: Some of the functions of the library are educational; some of the services are designed more towards relaxation and pleasure, as you said in your submission.

Mr Renner: As Bill 109 repeats too.

Mr Flaherty: This is why I need your help. You then ask the question, "Is this something we should pay for, something we should do in terms of user fees?" My question to you is, who should be making that decision? I suggest to you that if 89% of the cost of operating the Cornwall Public Library system is being paid by municipal taxes paid by the people living in Cornwall, the people who should answer that question are the people who are elected by the taxpayers of Cornwall; that is, the council. If the council doesn't make the decisions with respect to user fees that the voters, the taxpayers of city of Cornwall want, then they should thrown them out, whether it be pro or con. Where am I off track on that?

Mr Renner: First of all, the city of Cornwall doesn't need to have a library. Secondly, we have all kinds of opportunities to curtail services. We've had five years of experience of meeting a more limited budget. Dealing with budget reductions is nothing new.

When it comes to various other things like public school service, you don't ask local taxpayers when they were paying for it, "Should this be free or should the children be charged something; should there be a free milk program or not?" That is a local problem, I'm sorry. You don't ask municipalities, "Would you like to adhere to the provincial building code?" No. Everybody has to enforce provincial building cods and fire codes. There are certain basic province-wide interests and basic principles that have to be maintained, like free public education, building codes, no tolls on the roads that are being dumped on the municipalities -- not the correct form of words but you know what I mean -- and the same thing with libraries. There is a very strong reason why the province should continue to maintain some provincial standards for minimum service in libraries.

The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen, for coming forward today and taking time to make a presentation to the committee. I appreciate your attendance.

We'll now adjourn until 9 am tomorrow in Thunder Bay. Our flight leaves at 6 pm. I remind members that you don't have a ticket for that; it's a charter flight. They're expecting us to be there, so don't be looking confused when you can't find your ticket.

The committee adjourned at 1615.