CONTENTS
Wednesday 24 April 1991
Appointments review
Appointments review process
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Chair: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
Vice-Chair: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East PC)
Bradley, James J. (St. Catharines L)
Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East NDP)
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East L)
Haslam, Karen (Perth NDP)
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent NDP)
McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South L)
Silipo, Tony (Dovercourt NDP)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay NDP)
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West NDP)
Clerk: Arnott, Douglas
Staff: Pond, David, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1013 in room 228.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW
Resuming consideration of intended appointments.
The Chair: We have got a number of things to do this morning and hopefully we can move right along. We have the determination of the intended appointments that we reviewed last week, and we have up to one hour to discuss the appointees as they are indicated on your agenda. I think -- we have done this in the past -- we will stick with it where I will ask for individual motions in respect to each intended appointee.
Before we discuss it, I would like to have a motion on the floor concurring or to the contrary in respect to the appointment of Rev Lombardi to the Metro police services board.
Mr Silipo moves the appointment of Rev Lombardi to the Metro police services board.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Mr Waters moves the appointment of Laura Rowe to the Metro police services board.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Mr Wiseman moves our concurrence to the appointment of Odoardo Di Santo as director and chair of the Workers' Compensation Board.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Mr Frankford moves the appointment of the appointee selected by the third party for review, Brian King, as the director and vice-chair of the WCB.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Mr Silipo moves concurrence with the appointment of the appointee selected for review by the government party, Greg Burns, as a member of the police services board in the regional municipality of Waterloo.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Patrick Lawlor as a member of the Ontario Council on University Affairs, moved by Mr Hayes.
Motion agreed to.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW PROCESS
Resuming consideration of the appointments review process.
The Chair: All right. Now we have the next item of business, our consideration of the permanent order and our comments in respect to the temporary standing order and the way in which members of the committee feel the permanent standing order should be worded to impact the operations of the committee. I know Mr Silipo indicated that the government party has a proposal and the clerk has a submission which is being made jointly by the opposition parties in respect to this matter as well.
Mr Silipo: Our report is actually just in the process of being retyped and it should be coming down. I did not expect that we would get to this item so quickly. I will call and get it down as soon as I can.
The Chair: I know that members of both opposition parties have obviously had an opportunity to review the submission they have made. I am just wondering if anyone would like to comment in respect to the submission, highlight it for other members of the committee and make some comments for the record.
Mr Grandmaître: On the procedures?
The Chair: On the proposal from both the Conservatives and the Liberal Party.
Mr Grandmaître: Our people have felt from the very beginning that the process was flawed and that this committee was a rubber stamp to the --
Mrs Haslam: On a point of information, Mr Chairman: I would like to have a chance to read it. It is a rather large submission. I feel very badly that this has only come to me now. If it had come to me this morning or if I had had time to look over it, I would feel better about it, Mr Grandmaître. Obviously a lot of work went into this, and I would really like some time to look it over.
The Chair: I appreciate what you are saying, Mrs Haslam. I was just simply according Mr Grandmaître and perhaps Mr McLean the opportunity to make a few comments in respect to the submission and then we could start.
Mrs Haslam: Could we maybe recess for a while so I can read it? I would appreciate that.
The Chair: If you want to delay it until next week, the opposition parties are in the same situation with respect to your submission.
Mrs Haslam: Yes, except I did not remember ours being this thick. That is why I was kind of concerned. If it was a couple of pages, I would not have raised the point, but it is more than a couple of pages.
The Chair: I think it might be helpful for our consideration if everyone here, perhaps a spokesperson for each caucus, put some views on the record in respect of this submission being made and then we can review them: either take a break to do it or perhaps consider them and discuss it next week.
Mrs Haslam: That sounds fine. Thank you, Mr Chair.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chairman, may I suggest that I take three or four minutes and then my colleagues can add whatever comments they wish? Maybe we should be given 15 minutes, five minutes each, to comment on our report.
As I was saying, from the very beginning we thought that the procedures and processes were flawed. We think of ourselves as a rubber stamp to the Premier's recommendation or intended appointment. We read about these orders-in-council a couple of days or a couple of weeks before they appear before us. We learn through the newspapers, through the media that these people have been appointed. It does not say on the OIC, "intended appointment"; it says, "Mr So-and-so or Ms So-and-so has been appointed."
I think it is very unfair to ask these people to appear before this committee because I am sure that the Premier's office or the people responsible for these appointments -- I am not questioning their work -- have done a thorough examination of that person. But when we make a decision after 10 or 15 minutes of interviewing that person, I think it is very unfair of this committee to pass judgement on people that we do not know.
I am not criticizing our research people, but we get very little information on the background of these people. Some of them are known to us and others are less known to us. I think it is very unfair because I do not think we are doing the public or the government any favour by voting for or against an intended appointee.
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I remember when it was first announced in the Legislature, it was a welcome breath of relief for all parties, I think. I realize that it is very difficult for the Premier's people or the Premier himself to pick one individual out of nine million people in this province to chair or to become a member of one of our agencies, boards and commissions -- I know it is a very difficult task -- but the perception out there is that now, finally, we have an open process, and it is not an open process. That is not the way I visualize an open government.
I realize that one of the Premier's responsibilities is to appoint people to these ABCs, but we do not have a veto. It is only a recommendation. I have never seen any member of the government voting against an intended appointee. I realize that they are also under pressure and I am glad to see that they want the process to be changed as well. But I do not see why we should continue to meet this way. I think it is a farce. It is a fait accompli. I know members of the government do not like to hear this, but I know they are intelligent people and they will realize that it is a fait accompli.
For those reasons, Mr Chairman, I do not like what I see or hear around these tables. We will have to take a serious look at sitting on this committee in the next weeks.
Mr McGuinty: Mr Chair, I think it is important not to lose track of what it was the Premier commissioned us to do, so to speak, back in December. The Premier set out on a particular road that would lead to major changes in the system, which was well entrenched, which had to do with patronage appointments. The Premier is to be commended for setting out on that road, but we have not by any stretch of the imagination attained that objective, in my opinion.
I would like to refer to the statement made to the Legislature by the Premier on Monday 10 December 1990. He said at one point, "We are determined to see that the process of appointment is open and clear to everybody." He said, "The time has come to strip away the secrecy" -- he did not say some of the secrecy -- "and mystique which have always surrounded government appointments. The process must be open to everybody. It must be understood by everybody." Finally he said, "I believe we can ensure fairer selection of the best possible candidates."
We cannot in any way hold up ourselves, members of this committee, as guarantors that the best possible candidates are being put in the positions that are being filled by the Premier's office. We have no perspective, we have no access to information regarding other candidates and we have a very short period of time within which to interview these candidates. I feel that, and I have said this before, my hands are tied in terms of assessing people.
My colleague Mr Grandmaître, I think, has raised a very valid point. We were actually doing an unfairness to the people who appeared before us. We were called upon to pass judgement on them, to make some determination as to whether they are the best possible candidates, and we simply cannot do that. Some of the candidates are better known because of what we have heard about them through the media, but many of them are not and we just do not have the tools to do the job. I feel frustrated by it. It came to a head when I had to assess the people on whom we passed judgement this morning.
I take the job seriously. I am frustrated, and in addition to all of that, I feel that we are being used as pawns here by the Premier to lend some legitimacy to the idea that we are ensuring that there is a fairer system of appointments to agencies, boards and commissions, and there is no such fairness. I think the real shame, the real crime here is that some people in the media and in the public actually believe that we carry out a significant role in terms of ensuring that the Premier's objective is met, and we do not, by any stretch of the imagination.
Mr Bradley: I would add very briefly that which I have observed since the beginning of this committee, and that is the gap between the perception that is attempted to be created out there in the public and the reality that exists within the committee. The government is elected. I have stated it on many occasions that if the government wishes to make appointments, it is entitled to do so. It has always been the case, and if I were projecting ahead, that is likely to be the case with this government.
The difference is that this government attempted to create -- and I must commend it from a political sense -- fairly successfully the viewpoint that somehow there has been a radical change. In fact, I have read from time to time of people who believe that this committee has the right to veto, and I think there is a general perception out there that this committee has a lot of power, and in fact does not. It is an exercise in interviewing people, with some interest I suppose, but it is not a very meaningful exercise for members of the committee. My view is that unless the committee has the right to reject, and the government is bound by that rejection, then in fact the committee does not have power at all.
Also, I think it is important to be able to select from all of the order-in-council appointments that are made, not simply the lists that we have to this point in time. I think it is important, if we are to gather some interesting information, some further information on potential appointees, that third parties have that opportunity, either in a written sense or to appear before the committee and indicate why someone should or should not be appointed to the committee. I think that would be helpful to those of us who sit around here.
I think it would be helpful if the committee were composed -- since this is supposed to be a non-partisan committee -- of an equal number of government and opposition members. That would be a departure from established practice in the Legislature, but of course the perception out there is that this committee is a substantial departure from what has happened in the past.
I think certainly the time frames are very tight for the committee. The amount of questioning that can take part in a committee of potential individuals for important positions is somewhat restricted, and I think we have to overcome those situations.
I really see it as more of a going through the motions in this committee. I guess I would not mind as much if it was not portrayed as something else, but it is, inadvertently or intentionally, portrayed as being a very meaningful committee. It was compared, for instance, to the federal committee, and when I read a comparison, I would have thought this committee had a lot of power compared to the federal committee. Well, it does not, and I think for it to be a departure, if we are to really live up to the reputation the committee is supposed to have and the perception out there, the changes that we in the opposition have proposed would be significant changes which would give the committee the kind of credibility a lot of people would be looking for.
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Mr McLean: There is really not much more that I can say, other than what is in this report. When you read our report, it is all there. In my 10 years around here, I think this committee is nothing but a farce. Really, totally, my colleagues have really said it all.
In yesterday's local paper their council went through the motions on Monday, with a letter from either the Solicitor General or the government asking for recommendations for the police services, and the council thought this was just a great, open opportunity to be able to submit some names. Really, the perception out there is that this is an open process, and it is really not. It is a farce and we waste a lot of taxpayers' money and time, unless we have the opportunity to deal with two or three proposed nominees. To deal with one rubber-stamped nominee, all we are doing is saying, "Whoever they recommended is okay," in a very short period of time.
It is really nothing but a farce, and I am disappointed that the government does not have its report here. I mean, they are in government, they should be the first ones to have the report out, not the opposition, and we still do not have it, so what is the point in carrying on?
The Chair: Does anyone on the government side have any questions or comments?
Mr Silipo: Let me just start with the last point that Mr McLean made. I had expected, given the way the agenda was structured, that in fact we would, as I indicated earlier, be getting to decide them later on, and the report is essentially ready. It has been retyped because there were a couple of minor changes that were made to it, and it will be here shortly. What it will indicate is that there are, very clearly, some substantial differences between the government side and the opposition side on this issue. Perhaps that is no surprise, but essentially our report indicates that and I think tries to draw the distinction, which I think has been at the heart of our characterization of this process from the very beginning, between our role as a review committee and not as an appointment body. That really crystallizes, it seems to me, the approach with respect to this whole issue.
The process in my view, notwithstanding what has been said by some of my colleagues opposite on the committee, is certainly much more open now than it ever has been in the past. I think what we need to remember is that in fact it is not and was never intended that the role of this committee be to become the body that would make appointments. The role of this committee was for it to review intended appointees and intended appointments and to make a determination as to whether we concurred with those.
Much has been said, and no doubt continues to be said, about the issue of the rights the committee has, the ability that it has to turn down, and whether it will ever exercise that power. Well, the reality is that we have never come up, so far as I can recall, against a situation where there has been a real division. There have certainly been situations where people have voted in favour or against various individuals, but we have yet to have a really serious difference of opinion about a particular individual. This morning's discussion, I suppose, was another example of that, and so I think a lot can be made of the fact that at this point in our history on this issue, we have not yet, as a committee, voted against the intended appointment of anyone. I think that is, quite frankly, perhaps an indication of the kind of quality of appointments that have come through.
Again, our report states that the fact that the process is as it is now means that in fact the people who are making the selections and the recommendations of the intended appointees who come forward have to be much more scrupulous than ever was the case in the past, because for that very reason, in effect, those appointees are subject to this kind of public review. That has never happened before, never happened in the history of this province. I think that is something we need to keep in mind. In fact when public bodies and other bodies or individuals are being asked to submit names, I think again that is an indication of the openness of the process, and that is also something that is a departure from the past.
In all of this, people have chosen, it seems to me, to confuse the opening up of the process with the notion that by doing so the government and the Premier were in fact intending to give up their right to make appointments, and I do not think anyone, in fairness, could characterize the Premier's statement or any actions from the government as being that. I think the Premier and the government always fully intended to retain their right to make appointments, but -- and this is a very important "but" -- they were quite happy and prepared to have those intended appointees put up to public scrutiny through this committee's process. I think that is a very substantial departure from the past. and it is something that shows very clearly the sense of openness that characterizes the government, on this issue in particular, and I think that it is something we need to keep in mind.
So if people out there have the perception or the impression that in fact the process has been opened up and equally have the impression that this committee has an important role in this process, I suggest that is because both of those are true, and in fact we do as a committee have an important role to play in this process. How important is really up to us. And the process quite definitely has been opened up. It is not simply a perception; it is a reality, for the reasons that I have suggested and for others.
So obviously we do have a fundamental difference on some of those. The suggestions that we make are really much more in terms of tidying up some of the provisions of the guidelines or the terms of reference. They will come, I suppose, as no surprise to the opposition members, because they are essentially of things that we mentioned before, as indeed the things that we are seeing here in this report from the opposition parties are things that we have seen before.
So I suppose we have some fundamental differences of opinion, and that is fine. When we get to dealing with the issues in specifics, Mr Chair, then we will hopefully be able to have some give and take.
Quite frankly, there are a couple of things that we suggest in our paper that, having heard some of the comments, I would certainly be prepared to take a look at changing. We, for example, call in our position to try to tighten up some of the time lines. That is, quite frankly, simply based on our experience that we have not had to use up the time lines in the way, but if that is something that is a major concern, I do not think that is something we are going to be very wedded to in terms of maintaining.
But quite clearly, aside from those kinds of changes, we have some very major differences of opinion in terms of how we should be proceeding on this, and I guess they will get resolved as they will get resolved.
The Chair: I think the reality is that those differences have been there since day one and are simply not disappearing.
Mr Wiseman: I just wanted a little clarification on something that Mr McLean said about his local council having been asked to submit three names.
Mr McLean: I did not say three names.
Mr Wiseman: Or some names. Maybe you could clarify that for me so that I can understand better what your point is.
Mr McLean: I just read in the paper today that council had indicated it was so pleased to have the opportunity to submit names for somebody to serve on the police services commission.
Mr Wiseman: And yet this is different than it has been in the past. In the past somebody would just have been picked.
Mr McLean: But they do not know that it is pretty well all cut and dried anyway. That is not the perception out there.
Mr Wiseman: That obviously is not the reality, or why would we bother asking for three names or more names?
Mr McLean: As far as I am concerned, they are going through a process, and probably a name that the council member knows, who is involved with the government, will know who it wants and will make sure that is one of the names that is submitted. That name will be picked and all the rest will be anticipating getting that and there will not be any reality to it.
Mr McGuinty: Something that we did not raise earlier and which I think is a significant recommendation -- I just want to draw it to the government members' attention -- was the reference in here to the pre-appointments process, the deficiencies we see there and the recommendations contained in the Macaulay report.
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I think the recommendation there that a council for administrative agencies be established is a very good one. I think we all like to think on a regular basis that we are impartial and non-partisan, but notwithstanding that, I think it is impossible not to inject some of that into everything we do. Here we have the benefit of a report that is impartial and recommends that we remove this appointments process from the Premier's office. I think we also make reference to an example that has been in place for some time now, which has worked very well, and that is our advisory committee on judicial appointments. There was an ongoing concern about appointments to the judiciary being patronage appointments, and it had been abused at times in the past. I do not think there was any doubt about that. But the advisory committee on judicial appointments has effectively curtailed all those concerns.
Mr Wiseman: Not really.
Mr McGuinty: It has implemented a program whereby there is public advertising for appointments to the judiciary. The public is involved on the committee and it has been removed effectively from the hands of politicians. That is something that I hope the government members give serious consideration to.
Mr Wiseman: That has not happened at all. There have been patronage appointments done at the level of justice of the peace, and that has continued even up until before we came into government. I can name names if you wish, but I will not here. Patronage appointments have been made even with the existence of this council, names that have not had the opportunity to be vetted even in a process such as this.
So to make that statement with me knowing in my own area who the political and patronage appointments have been, I cannot allow that to go unchallenged.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chairman, we are not saying it does not exist and never will exist. We are politicians. We know what patronage is all about and what appointments are all about. But to give the impression that this committee will turn the world around and we will have only great appointments in the province of Ontario, I think we are leading the public down the garden path. It will never happen. Never.
I think the Premier has a responsibility and he should take that responsibility. He should not slough it off on this committee to become a rubber stamp and say, "Well, you have approved it." I think this is totally wrong. I think the Premier has a responsibility; he should take it and that is it, be criticized or be applauded for it. But do not slough it off on this committee. It is very unfair for the appointees and very unfair for the members of this committee.
Mr McGuinty: I take Mr Wiseman's point well. However, he is mistaken. A justice of the peace is not a judge and is not covered and is not followed in the ambit of the advisory committee on judicial appointments. He has raised a concern about justices of the peace who are not covered by that committee, and I do not think that says anything wrong about the process that was created and is used by that advisory committee. I think what it does say is perhaps that it ought to be broadened so that its scope does cover justices of the peace. That is all that means.
Mr Hayes: I think the thing that makes this committee or this process differ from the past is that -- and members have indicated this -- the Premier or the cabinet just automatically appointed people and nobody had any say or there was no review. The one thing this committee does do is open the process up for anybody who can walk in this room and listen to the review and meet that person, and the media have the right to come in. This has never happened in the past and I think that is very important. To hear the other members in the opposition on this report talk, what I am getting from them is, "Just let the Premier go ahead and make appointments and report them in the House or whatever," and you do not want to have any involvement in that process. That is what I am hearing. Am I hearing it wrong?
As far as the issue about advertising in the paper for councils to submit names, I think that is most appropriate and open. I think if I were sitting on a municipal council and I had someone that I felt was very good for a job in some kind of government agency, I would certainly be recommending that individual, and I do not see anything wrong with that process at all.
Just on the one part here about ensuring public access to all details of appointments by peeling away some of the secrecy surrounding the process, I think that is more fair than anything that has happened in the past. Patronage -- sometimes we are going to get that, but we are willing to sit here and listen to people who are not necessarily of our political affiliation.
Interjection: Andy Brandt.
Mr Hayes: Yes. I think a good example of that is a competent person like Andy Brandt, who came from the Conservative Party. Now of course I have seen people sit here, and that was not the problem when Andy was here. And I respect him too, but it was fine at that time. But then when you get someone who you think may be affiliated or slanted towards the NDP government, then it becomes a problem, and I do not think that is very fair either, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Thanks, Mr Hayes. I was going to say a few minutes ago, as an observer of the discussions that have taken place over the past few months since this process has been put in place, I think it is clear where the lines have been drawn for some time and I think that is reflected in the dissenting opinion. I am assuming the positions taken by government members over the past number of months are going to be reflected in the submission we receive from the government.
There may be a couple of areas in both reports that are quite similar in respect to some of the changes that all parties would like to see occur. I think the reality, though, is that when we table the report in the House -- maybe I am being too presumptuous here, but I think that based on the discussions that have taken place in the past and what we have heard here this morning, we are going to see a dissenting opinion included as part of that report to the House. I think we have to face that fact.
I think we want to have this discussion and certainly put our views on the record once more. I think, as well, we want to take the time over the next week, when we have the government submission, and give the government members as well more time to absorb the recommendations made by the two opposition parties, and once again next week put our views on the record whether there is any room for significant change so we have one report coming out of this committee. I am personally pretty dubious about it, but I just wanted to say that as a contribution to the discussion.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair, I do not mind seeing our joint report being criticized. I think you are absolutely right. I think we should give the members of the government an opportunity to look at our recommendations, but at the same time I would like to see a copy of their own recommendations. How can they improve the procedures of this committee? We have not seen any of your recommendations, Mr Silipo, and I would be very interested. Maybe we could work out something between our recommendations and yours, but we have not seen your report.
Mr Silipo: It is on its way.
Mr Grandmaître: I know it is on its way.
Mr McLean: Mr Chairman, we are playing games here this morning. We came here and there are supposed to be reports from both. The spokesperson for the government side is saying, "Well, the report is coming." They should have been up front with it. We are sitting here playing games and I move that we adjourn. There is no point in spending any more time fooling around here with this conference.
Mr Stockwell: Why do we not adjourn until the report gets here?
The Chair: Actually, a motion for adjournment is on the floor. That is not debatable. If we are going to adjourn, is there any point in coming back, or should all three parties take the next few days to review the reports and have our research people review the reports, and come back prepared to discuss it next week and file it?
Mr Silipo: Sure, but let me just put it on the record. If people want to make an issue out of the fact that our report is not here, they can make an issue out of it. Quite frankly, we had an agenda that was set for this morning. I did not expect that we would get to this item at least until 11 o'clock, so I gave my secretary this morning the last final changes to be made and typed and brought down. That is all there is to it. If you want to make more of that you can make more of that, but that is the way it is.
The Chair: Mr Silipo, if you can have your staff get the reports to the clerk as quickly as possible, he can ensure that they are circulated. One of the things that perhaps we do not have to do until next week when we finalize whatever report we are going to finalize, quite probably with a dissenting opinion, is to have whatever we are tabling in the House vetted by the procedural clerk -- the correct wording, the people who drafted the temporary standing order -- to ensure that what we are doing is procedurally correct before we table it in the House. I do not think anybody has any difficulty with that.
Okay, we will adjourn and meet again next week.
The committee adjourned at 1051.