CONTENTS
Wednesday 30 October 1991
Appointments review
Sharon Laffrenier
David Howard Woodhouse Henry
Neville C. Chenoy
Members' services
Attendance of appointees
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)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough NDP)
Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East NDP)
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East L)
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent NDP)
McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South L)
Marchese, Rosario (Fort York NDP)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay NDP)
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West NDP)
Substitution: Klopp, Paul (Huron NDP) for Mr Hayes
Clerk: Arnott, Douglas
Staff: Pond, David, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1014 in room 228.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW
Resuming consideration of intended appointees.
SHARON LAFFRENIER
The Chair: Come to order, please. The first item on our agenda this morning is a half-hour review of an intended appointment to the Hamilton-Wentworth Region Police Services Board, Sharon Laffrenier. Sharon, would you like to come forward, please, and take a seat. Welcome to the committee.
You have been selected for review by the official opposition. It is a half-hour review, 10 minutes by each caucus. We will start the questioning with Mr Grandmaître.
Mr Grandmaître: Ms Laffrenier, how did you find out about this opening?
Ms Laffrenier: I read about it in the Hamilton Spectator, and I was approached by a council member.
Mr Grandmaître: You were approached by a council member to submit your application?
Ms Laffrenier: Yes.
Mr Grandmaître: How long have you been living in Hamilton-Wentworth? Were you born there?
Ms Laffrenier: I was born in Hamilton.
Mr Grandmaître: So you are quite familiar with the composition of the population. Do you think the police force is really representative of the population in its composition? There are 54 female police officers in the force. Do you think that is representative of Hamilton-Wentworth?
Ms Laffrenier: I think improvements could be made. Police work is tough work and they have made some good decisions, but this area could be improved on.
Mr Grandmaître: Being involved in your community as much as you are, how would you describe the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Force?
Ms Laffrenier: Whenever I have had to work with a client, the Hamilton-Wentworth police have always been quite helpful. I feel they do a very good job in our community. There is always room for improvement, but I am satisfied with the work of the Hamilton-Wentworth police.
Mr Grandmaître: Were you there when the changeover took place from a municipal force to a regional force? You were living in Hamilton at that time?
Ms Laffrenier: Yes, I was.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you think services have improved under a regional police force?
Ms Laffrenier: I do not have information to qualify me to answer that.
Mr Grandmaître: Given that there are five members on the police services board -- three, if I am not mistaken, appointed by order in council and two municipally -- and that regional government is paying 90% or maybe 92% of the total police budget, do you think the municipal people should have better representation on the board?
Ms Laffrenier: I think the budget should be shared and that the municipal people should have equal representation.
Mr Grandmaître: Equal representation?
Ms Laffrenier: Yes.
Mr Grandmaître: At the present time it is three and two. It is difficult to have two and a half.
Ms Laffrenier: I realize that. I think three and three would improve the system.
Mr Grandmaître: Let's face it, you are a member, not an intended member, of this police commission. You have been appointed. You are appearing before us for the simple reason that we wanted to meet with you this morning, and that is the only reason why you are here. It is a fait accompli.
Now that you are a member, what will you be pushing for? Do you have some idea of what you would like to see your police force do?
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Ms Laffrenier: I would like to see new programs for a better relationship with the police in our community and new programs for pre-teens, teens and children. I am a single parent and would like to see this type of improved service. I would like to see some of our existing programs enhanced.
Mr McGuinty: Ms Laffrenier, you are probably aware that the government has set in motion a program to ensure that persons of various prescribed groups will be reflected within the police population, and those groups, as I understand it, are women, the disabled, native persons and visible minorities. What do you think would be a reasonable time for police in Hamilton-Wentworth to reach a point where they truly reflect the population they serve? How much time do we give them?
Ms Laffrenier: I do not think I would put a time limit on it. Plans and policies have to be developed. I believe it is this board's work to get involved in developing some of these policies and decisions.
Mr McGuinty: Among the concerns have been advanced -- they are traditional concerns and heard about in other countries -- is that with respect to promotion, there might be somebody on the force who has served his 10 years or whatever and now feels he is not being promoted to sergeant because he does not belong to a prescribed group. Or there may be a woman with a BA who says she should be hired by the force. In the past a BA would have been sufficient to enable her to become a member of the force, and now she is being discriminated against. I am sure there is going to be all kinds of talk about reverse discrimination. How are you going to contend with that?
Ms Laffrenier: I believe in employment advancement for everyone and I would say that a person not of a visible minority with all the qualifications will be promoted.
Mr McGuinty: But they might not be able to do that because it will be in conflict with the program.
Ms Laffrenier: Even visible minorities would need experience to qualify. But I would try to talk to these groups and point out that part of their job is making way so that minorities will feel comfortable in our society, and they may have to give up something in order for our community to be able to work together. I think it would be a learning experience.
Mr McGuinty: Yes, I guess you could call it that, an interesting learning experience.
Ms Laffrenier: And it should be together.
Mr McGuinty: You have not really addressed the issue I have raised specifically, but I am going to let it go at that. Thank you.
Mr McLean: Do you know any other members who are on the board now?
Ms Laffrenier: No.
Mr McLean: Are you familiar with the police services board and what its responsibilities are at all?
Ms Laffrenier: Its responsibility would be trusteeship, accountability to the community and policy determination.
Mr McLean: I am wondering about a couple of specifics. There has been a lot of discussion with regard to shootings. Do you feel that an officer should have to file a report if he draws his revolver?
Ms Laffrenier: This is quite serious. I feel a report should be filed, yes.
Mr McLean: The government's goal is for 50% females on the police services board. Is that a goal you agree with, that there should be 50% females in government service boards?
Ms Laffrenier: This could be a long-term goal.
Mr McLean: Could you relate your feelings about how visible minorities are treated in your area?
Ms Laffrenier: This would reach out to individuals. There is prejudice in my area, but I feel that if you treat people with respect, that is what you should get in return.
Mr McLean: Are the visible minorities in your area being treated fairly?
Ms Laffrenier: There are visible minorities in my area treated fairly. There are also visible minorities in my area who have complaints about how they have been treated.
Mr McLean: I guess everybody could have a complaint about how he is treated, and not only visible minorities.
Ms Laffrenier: That is true, but I think especially with children that these types of name-calling hurt more and I think there are ways of dealing with this. The community should be involved, especially the police services. One of the reasons I say this is because I feel the police should be a good role model for the rest of the community.
Mr McLean: In order to serve on the board, has anybody investigated your record, if any? I do not know. I am just curious. Does anybody who serves on the police services board have to have a clean record?
Ms Laffrenier: Yes. I believe they do.
Mr McLean: So you were investigated?
Ms Laffrenier: Yes.
Mr McLean: I see. That is interesting.
Mr Klopp: They cannot be a politician.
Mr Frankford: I am from Metropolitan Toronto, and Scarborough in particular. In the municipal elections, crime is becoming quite a big issue. Is that the same in Hamilton?
Ms Laffrenier: That has something to do with my work. I think a lot of it is crime in the low-income area.
Mr Frankford: Yes, but is this something that is becoming a local political issue?
Ms Laffrenier: In the Hamilton area crime is pretty stabilized.
Mr Frankford: So it is not a high priority in the local election. Is that right?
Ms Laffrenier: To me, it is always a high priority.
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Mr Frankford: I was just interested in comparing your metropolitan area with my metropolitan area.
Ms Laffrenier: I see. No, I would say there is no comparison, because Toronto has a much higher crime rate.
Mr Frankford: So it is not such a controversial area, you might say.
Ms Laffrenier: Right.
Mr Frankford: Are there some specific local areas that are seen as higher crime areas?
Ms Laffrenier: Yes, the ghetto areas. I would say the north end of Hamilton.
Mr Frankford: Do you have any thoughts about how you would like to allocate resources to deal with that?
Ms Laffrenier: Yes. There are some interesting ideas I have for programs.
Mr Frankford: If you want to share, please take the opportunity. We would be interested.
Ms Laffrenier: There could be programs set up where teens could get involved, especially pre-teens. I think the problem is mainly in the malls, being macho and violent. It would be nice to see programs set up where the police could interact with these children before they commit crimes, get to the problems before they get out of control.
Mr Frankford: Have you had the opportunity to discuss these thoughts with the police already?
Ms Laffrenier: No, I have not. But this would give me an opportunity.
Mr Frankford: This would address problems of urban violence and drugs, I guess.
Ms Laffrenier: With pre-teens and teenagers, especially males, before the problems get out of control.
Mr Frankford: That gives me the opportunity of asking your impression of the relative importance of things. Presumably domestic violence is another quite significant component of overall crime.
Ms Laffrenier: Yes. I would like to see the police be more responsive to domestic violence, and more action.
Mr Frankford: In regard to domestic violence, "domestics" as they are usually called, which takes up a considerable amount of time in routine police work, do you think this is something which should be a standard procedure done by regular police officers or do you think there should be more involvement of other non-police agencies?
Ms Laffrenier: I think there could be more involvement with non-police agencies, linked with the police.
Mr Waters: Along the lines that Mr Frankford started talking about, with the involvement of people outside the police force in family violence, I know that in Vancouver, at one time anyway, they had a program where a social worker or a specialist rode with the police in cases of family violence to deal with it. Do you think that would be something we should look at in this province, that we either equip our officers or have specialists ride with them so they are right there at the initial scene? Do you think that would be of advantage?
Ms Laffrenier: I might want to monitor the program in Vancouver and see what the advantages and the disadvantages were before implementing a program such as that.
Mr Waters: When I was looking at your biographical background, I see you have been quite active in the Hamilton area. Do you feel that will help you in your job if you get the posting?
Ms Laffrenier: Yes, I do. I feel that working with people living in poverty and on low incomes and with the police department would improve situations in our community.
Mr Waters: The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act: There has been a lot of discussion about what police should or should not release to the public, as in names, etc. Could you give us some of your feelings on that?
Ms Laffrenier: Could I get you to be more specific? What issues?
Mr Waters: Let's say in a violence case, a rape case or something like that. Do you feel that all names should be open in the press or do you feel that people's privacy should be protected at all costs, the victim as well as the accused? How do you feel?
Ms Laffrenier: I feel that the victim should be protected. My feelings would go for the protection of privacy of the victim.
Mr Waters: Let's say for the person who was charged then. He has been charged; he has not been found guilty. Do you feel that his name should be on public record, on the local news broadcast and in the paper?
Ms Laffrenier: I think that would be a legal question that I would have to go by.
Mr Waters: I have no other questions.
Ms Carter: Do you see any problem with police being able to take part in politics in their own free time? We are making changes that are going to give police more latitude to take part in public affairs themselves. How do you react to that?
Ms Laffrenier: I believe police should get involved politically, definitely.
Ms Carter: But not in their official capacity?
Ms Laffrenier: No.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Ms Laffrenier for appearing before the committee this morning. You can relax now. It is all over. We wish you well.
Ms Laffrenier: Thank you.
DAVID HOWARD WOODHOUSE HENRY
The Vice-Chair: Next on our schedule is proposed appointee to the Lieutenant Governor's Board of Review, Mr David Howard Woodhouse Henry. If you would like to come forward Mr Henry and have a seat. Mr Henry was requested to appear as an intended appointment selected by the third party. If Mr Henry has an opening statement we would be pleased to hear it, unless he wants to get right into questions.
Mr Henry: I would be glad to do whatever the committee thinks I should do, sir. I have no opening statement at all. I perhaps should ask how much information the members have. I am more or less -- what shall I say -- ill-informed at the moment, because I have not worked with the board. I know of their work because, having been a judge for 18 years, I have seen the whole process in operation at second hand with my colleagues who have, starting with Justice Edson Haines, come right down to the present.
The application is not my application. I would like to make this clear to the committee. I was approached by the Chair and Mr Justice Callaghan, who got me out of bed one morning at the cottage and asked me if I would consider taking on the post of alternate. I said, "Okay," because it is my line. I am off the bench as of 10 hours ago. Midnight last night I ceased to be a judge. That is apparently what they want, somebody who has been on the bench for some time.
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To make an opening statement, if I could paint this picture -- and anybody stop me if he knows all about it, because I have prepared nothing whatsoever. I was told not to prepare. But according to the Minister of Justice's press release, which is what I am going by -- I assume this gives enough information about what they are going to do -- there are two things you might want to bear in mind.
The first one is that there is a Governor General's warrant system in operation at the present time, which is going to change as soon as the Criminal Code amendments take effect. Some of you know that, apparently. Have you got that in the material?
Mr Runciman: We have that information.
Mr Henry: Okay, so you know there is going to be a change. At the present time the Governor General is the one who releases, at his own discretion, people who are in there, having been found either not guilty by reason of insanity or not fit to stand trial. What is going to change is that it will now be taken out of his hands and placed in the hands of the board and the courts.
The board comes into operation after the courts have made some preliminary decisions, I hope you know that, and then what we do is what I would regard as a quasi-judicial operation, and that is my approach to it as a judge. I will act judicially and I will apply the law as best I can, with the assistance of a panel of about four other people, who are a psychiatrist or two, a psychologist, a lay person, a lawyer and an independent consultant, who I believe will be a psychiatrist, who will give information to the committee which will be divorced from the hospital personnel, shall we say, so that you have an independent outsider making an assessment.
That is my quick overview of what is happening now and what the Minister of Justice has in mind in his amendments.
The Vice-Chair: This is a one-hour review, so we have about 15 minutes for each party, starting with the third party.
Mr Runciman: I thought an hour divided by three was 20, but in any event --
Interjection: It's the new math.
Mr Runciman: How shall we address you, as Mr Henry or Justice Henry?
Mr Henry: I am no longer Justice Henry, as of 10 hours ago.
Mr Runciman: Welcome to the committee. I have some personal interest and I requested your review by this committee because I have a psychiatric facility in my riding, Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, which has a medium-security forensic component.
Mr Henry: Yes, I know one is there.
Mr Runciman: We have had some serious incidents in the past few years related to individuals who have had their warrants loosened or vacated committing serious crimes within the community. There was a recent one this past summer, which you may or may not be familiar with.
Mr Henry: I recall something from the press.
Mr Runciman: I guess I would like to know essentially where you are coming from, your mindset in respect to how you would deal with individuals who have committed very serious crimes.
The two individuals I am talking about have been mentioned in the press, so there is no danger, I think, in respect to naming them. One was a fellow by the name of John Findlayson who murdered a young boy by the name of Deasley a number of years ago in Toronto, a particularly brutal murder, and cut the child up after he had killed him. He went to Penetanguishene, and then he ended up in Brockville and out in the community and then attacked a woman with a knife a couple of years ago.
The one this summer was a guy by the name of Krueger who was responsible for the deaths of three children in Toronto. He was allowed out into the community with an approved escort, as they call them, who himself had been responsible for a murder.
The people in Brockville and the surrounding area are very concerned about the apparent lack of concern, whether it is the board making the decision initially, or the administration of the hospital, which is responsible, following the decision of the board, in terms of monitoring these individuals when they are out in the community.
I am just curious about your approach to this whole thing, having sat on the bench for so many years. I am particularly concerned about people who have committed or who are responsible for very violent crimes. Probably this is incorrect, but certainly in the minds of many people in my community, there seems to be a rather cavalier approach to the release of these individuals.
One of the things I queried Justice Callaghan about was the question of, if someone has been responsible for a murder, for example, or a rape, a particularly vicious crime, again, you cannot do anything about this, it has to do with the federal legislation. But I believe in those kinds of situations a unanimous vote should be required by the board to vacate a warrant, or at least loosen a warrant. Perhaps vacating is based on the experience of this individual operating on a loosened warrant. To vacate a warrant I think should require a unanimous vote of the board. I am just wondering if you have any views on that sort of thing.
Mr Henry: I do not really, for the very simple reason that I do not think judges should have predetermined views about very many things. I have always approached judging on the basis that I am there to apply the law on a case-by-case basis and hear what the evidence is and then, if I have to charge a jury, charge it accordingly, or make the decision if I am sitting as a judge alone. I am not a proponent of trying to get judges to commit themselves to a particular social philosophy, because all judges are there to apply the law. I really cannot say very much more than that.
On the question you are speaking about, based on what you tell me, I do not blame the residents of your constituency for being nervous about a situation like that. About the best I can say is that it looks as though things went wrong in that particular case. I will say very frankly to the committee that it is just like the parole board in Ottawa, which you would know about. You take a risk when you let anybody who has been in there for a particular purpose out of custody.
The work of the review board here will continue on, as far as I can see, in much the same way after the new amendments, except that the board will have more deciding power to make orders. It will not be a Lieutenant Governor's warrant. But the basic problems are the same; they are not going to go away.
The problem is to dispose of the person who is called a patient at the moment, because in any case he has not been convicted of anything. You take that patient who is in a hospital -- I think he is called the accused, by the way, in the Criminal Code, if anybody has looked that up in the new amendments, because he was an accused. Those words mean something, sir; that is why I am just mentioning them.
At the moment he is a patient, and when he gets moved around, he has to be moved around after there has been a hearing take place by the review board. The purpose of that hearing is to do the best they can to handle his fortunes as a citizen who is unfortunate enough to be mentally ill and who is locked up in custody and to decide what ought to be done with him and how long he has to stay in there, at the same time trying to balance it up against the public interest. That is always the job and there is always a risk, sir. I can tell you that right now.
Mr Runciman: Yes, there is always a risk, but I guess one of the -- I do not know if it is a protection built into the system for the review board, unlike yourself sitting in judgement on the bench without a jury; you have to provide written reasons for your decision.
Mr Henry: That is right.
Mr Runciman: This board provides no written justification, no rationale for the decision to loosen or vacate a warrant.
Mr Henry: I understand they do, but maybe that does not get published.
Mr Runciman: It is certainly not available. Maybe it is a secret document not available even through freedom of information.
Mr Henry: It is my understanding that now and in future, under the amendments, reasons will have to be given.
Mr Runciman: I am glad to hear that.
Mr Henry: Anyway, let me say this, sir, that I would give reasons, because I believe in doing that when you have something of that sort. You have not exactly an adversary proceeding here, because you do not always have somebody on the other side. It is the accused who is represented. He is entitled to have a lawyer there in any quasi-judicial proceeding. The Attorney General is not always there, but the panel can always get him in, and I would think -- if I could just express this to you about what you were saying about the feeling in your constituency, and it is about all I can say -- it might well be an appropriate thing for the Attorney General to bring a witness, or several witnesses, in from the community before the panel. As far as I am concerned, that should be accorded to anybody who has anything to offer to the panel, particularly anybody with a particular interest, like yourself.
Mr Runciman: I am heartened by that response, to be quite honest with you.
Mr Henry: It is not new.
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Mr Runciman: It is certainly new in terms of the proceedings of the board up to this point. This is third hand, but certainly when I have inquired with Justice Callaghan, and I know others in the media have inquired with Justice Callaghan in respect to victim rights, the rights of victims' families, the response has not been heartening like yours was.
In the Krueger case, for example, this individual was taken out of Penetanguishene and put in Brockville, and the family of one of his victims resides in that area. I do not think the board even makes an inquiry. I may be wrong on this. I cannot determine whether this is the case or not, but I do not believe the board, when it is deliberating on these things, poses the question, "Are we going into an area, for example, that may impact on the victim or the victim's family?" I do not think that is ever posed and I think it certainly is something that has to be and should be considered.
Mr Henry: I do not see anything wrong with that, if I might answer your unspoken question. The real question is, how much do you publicize what is going on? Could I ask you, just for clarification, did the man Krueger you speak about commit the offence in your constituency?
Mr Runciman: No, it was a young child who was on vacation in Toronto.
Mr Henry: The reason I ask you is, was there something to alert, a little red flag going up saying, "Look here, this man's going back into the community where he committed the alleged offence"?
Mr Runciman: It may be impossible in some situations to determine whether or not this sort of situation is going to arise. All I am suggesting is that the question should be posed.
Mr Henry: I think it should, no question about that.
Mr Runciman: And some discussion take place.
Mr Henry: Incidentally, I would be grateful for any help. If I get on to this thing, which I have sort of volunteered to do -- I was strong-armed, if I could put it that way, gentlemen and madam; I have done it in response to a request. But if I get around to doing this work and find that I am fitting in all right -- and I do not see why I would not, because it is judging work, perfectly frankly -- I would like to know how we can handle a situation like that, Mr Runciman. I would like to know how you do it, because I believe the overture should be made in a general way.
What I would say is that if there is anybody such as yourself who has something to offer, and I say this only because you are knowledgeable about your constituency, the thing to do would be to go to the Attorney General and say, "I would like to have," and it would go to the chair of the panel. If I got a request from you or one of your constituents, I would simply turn it over to the Attorney General and say, "Look, this person might be a witness; would you look into it?" and then have counsel sent down by the Attorney General to see that the witness gets heard. That is the way I would approach that situation. But I will not tell you now what decision I would make until I got hold of the facts.
Mr Runciman: I appreciate that. In the question of the other young child who was murdered by a fellow by the name of Findlayson, who is now back in Penetanguishene, the mother in that situation contacted me after he attacked a woman in Brockville. Her name is Caroline Deasley, and she has been very active in trying to have something accomplished in terms of benefiting victims and victims' families. She has made significant efforts to appear before the board and has had a difficult time even being notified of hearing dates.
Again, I think there is little or no consideration given to victims and the families. I think Mrs Deasley or anyone like Mrs Deasley who wishes to appear before the board when a hearing is taking place and wants to make a contribution to the deliberations of the board in respect to a particular individual should be granted that opportunity. I think it should be a right. I think this whole system is significantly weighted in favour of the patient, if you will.
Mr Henry: I think that is right. I think our whole criminal law system is. The Criminal Code is based upon a person not being guilty until he is proved guilty and found guilty by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, and you and I cannot change that.
Mr Runciman: We can sure try.
Mr Henry: You can try, but I cannot.
Mr Runciman: I want to see more balance brought into the system. The comments you are making I think are going to be helpful, because certainly if we can recognize the rights of victims and their families -- and the other element you brought in which I find innovative -- it is certainly nothing I considered in the past -- is the idea of community input. If the community, through city council or through some agency, what have you, wishes to have input into a particular decision, I think that would be most helpful.
Mr Henry: I would like to just add this caveat: It has to be relevant.
Mr Runciman: Absolutely.
Mr Henry: I would have no difficulty with it as long as you trust me, if I ever get into this, to make a decision with the colleagues on the panel -- do not forget about them -- as to whether or not we exercise our discretion to let somebody in. There is no point in wasting the time of the operation, which I am sure is expensive enough and has a fairly heavy schedule, I am told. Understand that it becomes a case-by-case decision.
Could I add one thing that might help? Have you heard of a victim impact statement at the time of sentencing?
Mr Runciman: Yes.
Mr Henry: I think I was the first, or possibly one of two about the same date, to hear from the parents of a murdered boy at the time of sentencing two offenders who had committed the particularly brutal murder. I cannot put my finger on the date, but it would be about 10 years ago. The crown approached me and I said, of course, they could do that and I somehow got the defence to agree. Now of course that is built into the Criminal Code. If you ask me what my approach is, I will tell you what I have done in court. I did that and it was the first or second time it was done.
Mr Runciman: I know you do not have direct control over the decision to loosen a warrant to give someone community privileges, but it seems to me it should be a concern of the board. I think you should be looking down the road a bit when you allow such privileges to an individual; say, Mr Krueger, who was responsible for three particularly violent crimes against children. When you make that decision, it seems to me there is a tremendous weight on your shoulders and a tremendous responsibility to ensure that once he goes out in the community, Brockville in this instance, you minimize as much as you can any possible danger to the community.
In this situation the decision falls under the mandate of the provincial Ministry of Health, which is a policy that has been in place for some time. To allow Mr Krueger to be escorted out into the community by another individual who himself was responsible for a murder and had a vacated Lieutenant Governor's warrant seems to me to be treating community safety in a cavalier way. It seems to me you are already having a risk in the situation where you are letting this guy out. There is an element of risk there and we admit that.
Mr Henry: There is no question about that.
Mr Runciman: But you compound the risk by assigning someone who himself has been responsible for a murder as an approved person to escort that individual into the community. It boggles the mind. The community could not believe it, and was unbelievably upset about it. The Minister of Health could not understand why I got so upset in the House because she still has not done anything on this issue three months after this murder. We are still allowing this policy to stand.
I guess I am saying to you, as a board member, that this is the sort of thing I think you should take into consideration. You should take a look at all the elements and not simply say we think this fellow or gal deserves a chance to become rehabilitated. Let's look at the whole system and the whole process of how they are going to be handled once the warrant is loosened. How are they going to be controlled in the community to ensure and to put a greater emphasis on public safety?
Mr Henry: All right, fair enough. You do not expect me to answer for the Ministry of Health, because if you do, I am not going to do it. It is not my business.
Mr Runciman: You can say, "Look, we are not happy with the system out there and we are not going to loosen the warrant until you tighten up."
Mr Henry: I am not going to say that, certainly not. I am not quite sure whether I get a copy of this discussion.
The Vice-Chair: You can.
Mr Henry: If I do, I will be able to remember what Mr Runciman was saying.
Mr Runciman: That is right.
Mr Henry: But Mr Runciman, you are telling me really that this has now gone over into the hands of the provincial government. Bear in mind that what the Minister of Justice in Ottawa is trying to do, as his press release says, is to bring about a continuing state of co-operation between the federal and the provincial authorities. Once the man goes into the hospital, he is under provincial jurisdiction, because that is not being taken away. But you have that little box over there and that is provincial as long as he is in the hospital, and he has to abide by the statutes that govern the province. The administrators have to be governed by the statutes that regulate the hospitals, the Mental Health Act and the Mental Hospitals Act.
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All I want to say to you is that I am not going to leap out and say I will go and set the hospitals right. I suppose what I might say is that I do not see why the board should not put a condition on loosening the warrant -- and we are talking about current language and not when the bill comes in, which was supposed to be through in a couple of days, but I do not know where it is -- which is purely discretionary with the Lieutenant Governor. It does have power to make recommendations, but the Lieutenant Governor does not have to follow them. You understand that.
Mr Runciman: It used to be the Lieutenant Governor in Council.
Mr Henry: Well, perhaps; I do not how it worked. All I can tell you is that former Chief Justice Dubin reads these things and makes his decision. I was told about one case where he thought the chair of the panel had not put in some reasons. They got tucked in behind something else; the reasons were there. But Chief Justice Dubin, who was the substitute at that point for the Lieutenant Governor, who was away, looked for the reasons, got them pointed out to him and made his own decision. I think in future that is intended to be remedied so that he does not have that responsibility, because after all, his role as Lieutenant Governor is really to take advice from his advisers.
There is no question about it, and you are absolutely right if you are heading in this direction. I think the board has to do this.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Henry, we have used up a lot of time for the party. We go now to Mr Waters.
Mr Henry: Do not hesitate to stop me.
Mr Waters: Both the Vice-Chair and I share one of the facilities, which I believe is actually in Mr McLean's riding but our communities are neighbouring, and that happens to be Oak Ridge. We have a major concern in our area and that deals with patients' rights, that being that the patients, some in particular, have access to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
They happened to notice that going to this patient were the actual floor plans and building plans of Oak Ridge. It has cost some of the local townships to the point where they have to put full-time staff on because these people have nothing else to do with their time. They are not mentally handicapped. These people border on genius, a lot of them. They are driving the townships literally mad and into debt because of all of the ridiculous things they are asking for.
There is no need for this and I would like your comments on this type of thing. Should this carry on? Do you feel these people have that type of right, to have the plans to the facility they are in? Where do you draw a line on all of this?
Mr Henry: Again, I am not sure I can answer that question because it seems to me that is outside the purview of the board and becomes a matter of the administration of the freedom of information act itself, and whether or not he has access to it. I assume he has, or he would not get it.
Mr Waters: Because you will have the opportunity to have some impact on the board and you will be sitting in a position of some authority here, what I am asking for is your feelings more than what the board's feelings are. I would like your feelings so that we have some idea, as you go into this position, where you will come down on some of this. I think that is a fair question.
Mr Henry: Mr Waters, between you and Mr Runciman, you will have me running a royal commission before you know it and that is not what I am here for. I am sorry; I really cannot answer that except to give you the same answer I gave to Mr Runciman. If the board becomes aware of a situation like this it could say, presumably as part of the conditions of the loosening of the warrant or something -- and incidentally it is not going to likely loosen the warrant in Penetanguishene --
Mr Runciman: Don't bet on it.
Mr Henry: I was there quite a long time ago as a judge hearing many cases of murder, manslaughter, rape and so forth just to see what the people in there are like, what their living conditions are. As you say, some of them border on genius, there is no question about that. The real question here is, what are we going to do with them as time rolls along? Now we are giving them an annual review, but the point I am getting at is, I think that situation has to come before the board. How does it happen?
It is the same problem I have with Mr Runciman's question: How does it happen that the board gets knowledge that there are some people in the community, such as your constituency, who might like to make a contribution? I think the civil liberties organizations have had access and been granted standing by panels of this body. I only hear that at second hand, but I think it has been done, the same as could happen in a court.
If you can do that, maybe you can go down the line a little bit and say, "Look, here's a man who likes to study the blueprints of his prison. What does he want to do that for?" You see? That may have nothing whatever to do with whether he is sane, which is the question. The question is, is the man sane enough to be sent back to his trial or is he sane enough to be put at liberty in the community? The latter one is the one that causes the rub. I make no bones about it.
To answer your question about that particular little detail, I do not know. If somebody would bring it forward and let us know, and probably the hospital might, we could then cope with it.
Mr Waters: It is not only that. When I look at the waste of public money and the whole waste of time of the communities around as well as government, I have here page after page of documentation of charges that have been brought forward for everything from assault, sexual assault and all kinds of things. In most cases they are dismissed or dropped early on, but it costs the people of this province several hundred thousand dollars while these people play games to occupy their minds.
Mr Henry: Mr Waters, there is no question about it being a costly effort we have here. The last figure I have, and do not rely on it, is about 1% of the budget of the Ministry of the Attorney General which goes into the actual administration of justice here. Anyway, it is a small figure: That may be 1% of the whole budget that goes to the justice department. It is a very small percentage. You can do something about this, I cannot, because this is a provincial matter.
The organization of the courts under the old BNA Act, and continued under the Constitution, is a provincial matter. So the Attorney General is in charge of the organization of the courts, although I think perhaps the Solicitor General carries the ball for it, and the can no doubt, but that is where it resides. When you say that, first of all, that money is a drop in the bucket in terms of the total budget. I am not suggesting it is not a lot of money, but in terms of where the money goes in the budget of a whole government, it is pretty minuscule and we do not even have enough courtrooms.
What should I answer about your question? It certainly costs money and it probably should cost more?
Mr Waters: Okay, I understand your point of view. Thank you.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to return to the question of insanity that you just raised. You are going to deal with a very difficult situation, because an inmate or a client may be insane in one venue but may not appear to be insane in another. For example, an inmate who has as his aggression trigger mechanism, say, women in an isolated incident, in a male prison setting may appear perfectly normal.
Mr Henry: Like in one of the 10, whatever it is, hospitals?
Mr Wiseman: Yes.
Mr Henry: In one, he is in hospital X or A as opposed to being in Y.
Mr Wiseman: How are you going to be able to distinguish in terms of the new legislation whether a person is insane or not? For example, it says there is an automatic review after 45 days. Within 45 days of a person being in a situation where his insanity is not triggered by any of the external stimuli, you may well say that this guy does not appear to be having a problem. Then as soon as he is out on the road and in the streets again and into the stimulus that creates the problem, he has another incident. How is the board and how are you going to be able to deal with that?
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Mr Henry: Are you saying that psychiatrists are not going to be ad idem about the state of this man's mind?
Mr Wiseman: What I am asking is, in terms of the changes that Swain has indicated, for most cases indefinite sentences are abolished. Patients will no longer spend more time in detention than they would serve had they received a prison term. The next thing, however, is if the board feels that they should be kept in.
Mr Henry: First of all, for everybody's benefit, I understand you are talking about what is called the capping idea. You put a cap on the length of time. According to the minister's statement in his press release, there will be a capping provision which will only be brought into effect on proclamation, which means when they get other provinces lined up. Have I got it right? You are talking about that.
The person who is in detention because of his mental health, let's say the man who has actually been found not responsible, as we call it, instead of not guilty by reason of insanity, is now called, in 1991 language, "not responsible by reason of mental disorder." Let's say he is there. He could stay there for ever under a Governor General's warrant. You are not going to send that back to trial, because he has had his trial with a jury and it found him not responsible.
The capping idea, which will not come into force immediately according to the minister's statement in the press release, until all the provinces get pulled on side, is to say that in principle a man ought not to serve a term in Penetanguishene, to use your constituency institution, longer than he would for that particular offence if he had been found guilty as a sane person.
Is that what you are talking about, Mr Wiseman? I just want to know what your question is that you would like me to answer.
Mr Wiseman: The question is, what kind of methodology are you going to use to determine whether a person is insane in public, to make that differentiation?
Mr Henry: Right, and how you make that balance. To me it is a quasi-judicial process, and that panel has to be quasi-judicial. The panel usually has on it, according to my information as to how it operates at the present time, a panel of five, and that will consist of a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a lay person and a lawyer. Then there is an independent consultant who is available to each panel, as I understand it, at present.
That independent consultant has nothing to do with the hospital, because the first information the panel gets comes from the staff of the hospital. The thought is that perhaps the staff of the hospital will be biased in the sense of saying, "Well, our administration is pretty good and our diagnosis is pretty good," and perhaps slant it. The purpose of the independent consultant is to put an objective point of view on the same situation.
The chairperson, as the new language is in the code, who would be any one of us who are alternates, should you decide to put me on this work, simply has to carry out the processes of a small court, a very specialized court.
Naturally, on the question of what is the state of mind of the accused, now or at the time when he allegedly committed the offence, that becomes a matter for medical experts to tell us, and we have to get a psychiatric and psychological opinion about that. There are two of them on the panel. Of course, they are not the people who make that decision in the first instance. A diagnosis comes from presumably somebody on the staff of the institution where he is in captivity.
To come back to the very familiar thing of what happens in court every day when there is some question about the state of mind of the accused, the judge -- in this case the panel of five judges -- has to determine what the state of mind of the accused is, or the jury has to. That is done every day. I do not mean it happens every day, but when you get this, it is just standard practice for any criminal judge.
All I can say is this: You go by the evidence, and only by the evidence, which again is part of the general principles of judging. If you ask how we are going to determine what his mental state is, you have to rely on the professionals who give evidence to you as to the state of mind, one of whom is a completely independent man. That happens in court all the time. There is no other way you can do it. You cannot do it on the basis of how it looks to you, I think you would agree, so you must go to the professionals, and it is just a question of weighing the evidence.
The other side of it is -- let's put it this way: Under the Criminal Code, if you are in a trial, the question of the mental state of the accused at the time of committing the offence is for the judge. It is a question of law. Does he have a disease of the mind that makes it impossible for him to know the nature and quality of his act -- I am using the language of law -- and to know that it is wrong? There is a lot of jurisprudence around what that means, but all I need to say to you in general terms is that is something the judge has to cope with. Judges have been coping with this idea from time immemorial.
The Vice-Chair: Objection, your honour. We have one more witness who has some questions, and we have just about run out of time.
Mr Henry: I am glad I ran you out of time. I hope I have answered what you need to know. You say one more?
Ms Carter: Yes. I would like your opinion on something. I am involved with the Ministry of Citizenship, and we have something called the Advocacy Act coming up. There seems to be a clash between, on the one hand, Friends of Schizophrenics -- parents come to us and they say, "If my son," or daughter or whoever it is, "is not on his medication, he gets into a terrible state, and he could even turn around and kill his mother and father." If an advocate goes to that person, obviously he is likely to do what that person wants rather than the parent or whoever else.
We also have a group called Psychiatric Survivors, which has a quite different point of view and say they are not very happy about some of the treatment that psychiatric patients receive. They would be against anybody being forced to take medication if he did not wish to do so. Now, you could conceivably have patients who were quite normal if they were under medication, but might become violent if they were not.
There is a principle involved here: Can you force somebody to take medication? Also there is the practical question: If they were, as it were, out on condition that they did take medication, could you be sure of it? Could you just enlarge on that?
Mr Henry: I think I can answer that. I am not too clear about the detail and I do not have the bill, but I think you will find that the court -- do not forget the court starts it all. Do not think this board is doing it all. The board is picking it up where the court leaves off, right?
The point is that under the new arrangement, as I understand it, when sending a man to a psychiatric facility -- a hospital, in other words -- to see if he is fit to stand trial, the court may order that he be given treatment. That is something new, according to the minister.
I am not quite sure what happens right now. Perhaps Dr. Frankford can tell us something about this. I understand in the last 10 years the development of drug therapy has been extraordinary. I am told -- and I only know of it at second or third hand -- that persons are coming out to go back to court to stand trial after being under some kind of injectables for only a few days, which has the result of removing the particular mental block they had. That is something new; that is a medical advance.
The answer is yes, a person can be forced to take treatment, and only the medical people can tell us if it has been successful. This is one of the reasons why there have been delays in getting the man back to trial, because he has been fit to stand trial, so pronounced, sent back to the court and the court is not ready for him yet. I think that may have been one of the things that happened in the Swain case we heard about, but do not worry about that. Does that answer your question?
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Mr Runciman: On a point of clarification, Mr Chair: As I understand it, under the Human Rights Code, patients have the right to refuse treatment if they are deemed to be competent. One of the conditions of loosening the warrant is that they continue to take their medication. Again, that is a function of the Ministry of Health to ensure that this is being monitored.
Mr McGuinty: Mr Justice Henry, you may not recall, but I have had the pleasure of appearing before you a couple of times, and during those times I could not anticipate ever having you appear before me.
Mr Henry: I think that is a fair exchange.
Mr McGuinty: I want to ask you about the impact you might see the new legislation, Bill C-30, having on the criminal justice system. In particular, I am sure you would recognize that when a defence counsel is discussing the defence of insanity with the accused, a great concern is the nature of the sentence, indefinite in term.
Mr Henry: You mean in court?
Mr McGuinty: In court. There was often a reluctance to advance that in court. Under the new legislation, sentences are no longer indefinite in those cases, as I understand it. I wonder what effect you think that will have on the criminal justice system. What about this question of doing easier time in an institution, a hospital, rather than in the regular provincial or federal institution?
Mr Henry: You mean while they are awaiting trial?
Mr McGuinty: Subsequent, after being sentenced.
Mr Henry: After the case has been disposed of by the court?
Mr McGuinty: Yes.
Mr Henry: On your first question, I did not quite understand about what we now call the defence of insanity under section 16.
Mr McGuinty: Do you think there will be more people pleading insanity, and how will that affect the criminal justice system?
Mr Henry: I think that depends upon the board. Bear in mind there are several boards, because we have to sit -- I am sorry, I should not say "we," because I can assure you I am not assuming I am going to be on this.
The Vice-Chair: You can.
Mr Henry: I never assume I am going to be in any governor-in-council position until I see the order in council in my hand. I hope you understand that. I do not know where I am going on this. Maybe I will be doing photography, which is what I probably should be doing.
Mr McGuinty, coming back then, I do not think I can answer that question, because that is a very difficult decision, as you know, for defence counsel to make. After all, your man can be locked up under the present system for life, theoretically, if it were not for this annual review.
Two things occur to me, and I really cannot tell you how they will work out, but I will take a stab at what I think might happen. I think counsel might be prepared, in effect, to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Let him go to the new language: "not responsible for reasons of mental health." It is a nice-sounding phrase, a little hard to get your tongue around, but the idea is to humanize it a bit more, I gather.
I would have thought perhaps there might be more of a ray of hope in the mind of defence counsel in deciding how to handle his case in court to know that also there will be this cap on it. There will be an annual review at which he could be present with his client or his substitute or successor, and then when this cap arrangement goes into force -- it will not go into force until it is later proclaimed -- to say that, if this is what the minister really means and what the act ends up by saying, the man really ought not to be allowed to stay in Penetang or somewhere any longer than if he had been sentenced for first degree murder, second degree murder, whatever, as a sane person.
So you have two things there. There is a mandatory review by the board every year. It is shorter at the beginning, as you know; 45 days at the beginning after the court has made a disposition, or if the court has not made a disposition, the board does it and the Lieutenant Governor is out. The point, of course, is that defence counsel knows he can get before the board, if the board has to make the decision, because the accused is automatically allowed counsel. The second one is the cap I have told you about; if and when it comes in, I do not know.
Mr McGuinty: I guess I am more concerned with the public perception. It may be that at some time, people begin to feel that more accused are going the insanity route in order to serve easier time.
Mr Henry: That may be. I do not know what the public perception is, except that if I were a member of public --
The Vice-Chair: Which you are now.
Mr Henry: Which I am now, yes. I always was. How can I put that? I will not nibble at that one. Yes, I am released from the rat race. I would have a great deal of apprehension about what is going on in society, as a member of the public who cannot do anything more than try to find somebody to help.
There are a lot of things going on, and some questions that were put to the young lady a little earlier about the police force and so forth indicate what the concern is. I know what it is. In fact, I was involved with a case called Jane Doe, involving a lady who was raped by a man who was out on the street and the police force had let him roam around without telling anybody. I don't know if you know how that one came out, but I wrote the judgement on that one, letting it go forward so that she could sue the police force. I will not tell you more about that one, except there is something I did. So you see that, judicially, I have a point of view in that particular case. I was asked to stop it, so that the police would not be the subject of a lawsuit. That case, incidentally, is now ongoing, I am told, but nobody ever really tells me; it is just scuttlebutt.
The point I am getting at is, there is an example of fear in the community, and our press seems to tell us every day, including this morning, about further cases. How you cope with that, I do not know, until you change society. There are a great many communication gaps in our society, and I for one am completely powerless to do anything about it. But I think you are not, because you are legislators and this is where you should come in, because many of the things you are talking about are matters for the lawmakers -- either Parliament in Ottawa or the legislatures in the provinces.
The courts cannot do these things, and I am particularly nervous about courts suddenly arrogating to themselves the power to set policy. I do not think that is right. I do not think that is judges' work. We have not been elected. I have always thought that and most of my colleagues think that, at our level anyway. I hope you do not think a board like this can do very much more than, say, a judge could. But do not forget that the Legislature has to do it, and you can do this, because half of what you are talking about is within provincial jurisdiction.
Mr McGuinty: Mr Justice Henry, just if I might interrupt you there, you have touched on something I think we all feel quite regularly as political representatives. The criminal justice system today is under assault, and there is a great loss of faith on the part of many of our constituents in the system. It fails to do the job it is supposed to do.
I am going to throw the ball back to you and ask you, what do you think the board could do in order to narrow that gap of understanding that people have as to what the board is doing? In particular, people have a basic difficulty with the concept of somebody not being convicted even though he did it. What role can the board play? You may not have that authority right now, but if you tell us, then we can work towards it.
Mr Henry I would rather try to answer that question a year from now, when I find out how the system works, because quite frankly I do not know how it works and how I could make it do anything different from the present. Therefore I am going to leave you, I am afraid, without an answer. But let me tell you why. At the moment, if I become an alternate chair, I would simply be carrying on my judicial duties, and I would approach the whole thing in the same way as I would approach the Supreme Court of Ontario and the new Ontario Court of Justice over the last 18 1/2 years.
My approach would be a judicial one, and I would not be trying to make policy in the first instance. If there is room to do what you say, I would like to have a chance to consider it. Maybe you would say that perhaps the board could, when it gives its reasons, allow them to be published. I am not quite sure whether that is permitted now or not, but that is about all a judge can do. He could get out his reasons for what he did. That is a thing to preserve: the idea that the judge, even on this board, issues reasons. You know all about that, because it might allow you to appeal. Incidentally, there will be an appeal, as you know, under the forthcoming legislation, from the decisions of the board as well as from the court's decisions, so the reasons will be even more important than now.
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As far as I know, the reasons are not issued to the public. I am not quite sure why they should not be, unless they have information about the accused which is confidential information about his medical situation. You would understand about that. The point is, I am not too sure we can breach that at the moment, because even the accused under the legislation has the right to say, "No, I don't want this information put to any member of the public except a party," or not even to a party in some circumstances. In other words, he has the right to withhold some evidence -- I believe, but I am not absolutely sure -- from the board, but the board would have to perhaps get other parties out of the room in order to get that. Do you get my point on that?
Mr McGuinty: Yes. I am going to push you a little bit here now and I am wondering if you would undertake to provide the Legislature, on or shortly after the anniversary date of your appointment to the board, specific recommendations for the improvement of the activities of the board.
Mr Henry: May I ask a question? I do not think I should ask this question because this board has come under the aegis of this committee, I think, only since the summer. Am I right about that? Some time in June this board was added to your --
Mr Grandmaître: Yes.
Mr Henry: It was just something I read that came from the clerk.
I will not give an undertaking. I will listen to what you say and find out if there is anything that I can usefully say and am at liberty to say. But subject to that, I do not mind appearing, I enjoy it, and if I had something to contribute, subject to my quasi-judicial duties, I would be only too happy to do it. But I have a main chairman of the board, or chairperson, as the language in the act now is, Mr Justice Callon. I think there are disadvantages to being a new broom, if I can put that way, and I do not see myself as a new broom.
I hear what you are saying, Mr McGuinty, and I would be very glad to look at it in a year.
Mr McGuinty: All right. I appreciate that.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Frankford, do you want some information?
Mr Frankford: This is either to you or to the researcher: Do you put out an annual report, or will you?
Mr Henry: I do not know. I imagine the office of the board may. I am sorry, I just do not know.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Henry, for appearing before the committee this morning. We wish you well in your duties.
Mr Henry: Thank you. I may say I have enjoyed it, gentlemen. If I come back next year, I hope we will all be a little wiser.
NEVILLE C. CHENOY
The Chair: Our next witness is Neville Chenoy. Welcome to the committee. This is a half-hour review. Mr Chenoy is an intended appointee to the Child and Family Services Review Board. Mr Chenoy was selected for review by the government party. We will begin the questions with Mr Wiseman.
Mr Wiseman: Do you have any opening comments you would like to make before we start?
Mr Chenoy: No. I will answer some questions.
Mr Wiseman: Do I understand correctly that the review board would be responsible for reviewing the activities and actions of children's aid societies in Ontario?
Mr Chenoy: No. As far as I know, that is not quite what the review board is intended for. It is to look at appeals and issues that people who have been placed in homes and foster homes, etc, may have to make in terms of either a change of placement or some issue related to the placements themselves.
Mr Wiseman: Would the board be responsible for reviewing the activity surrounding the seizure of children from their parents and being placed in the custody of the children's aid society?
Mr Chenoy: I believe that if children make an appeal, then that would be part of the work that would be undertaken.
Mr Wiseman: Would children under the age of 12 have the same rights of appeal to the board as children over the age of 12?
Mr Chenoy: I am sorry, I do not have all those answers for you, essentially because the agency is developing a program to undertake to help new members. That whole program is going to be initiated some time in November.
Mr Wiseman: Would the board be responsible for reviewing the activities of the police if children under the age of 12 were seized from their parents? Would that be something that could be appealed to your board?
Mr Chenoy: That is something I hope I am going to find out when we go through this process. I am sorry, I do not have all that kind of detail in relation to the work and activity of this particular agency. When I applied for consideration for the Child and Family Services Review Board, it was from the basis of a citizen interested in moving on into new areas of community work. My area essentially had been in health care and in United Way activities. I was more interested to move in to the broader area of social work in terms of community service and that is why I put my application in. I am afraid I do not really have all of the technical answers to the questions you are posing.
Mr Wiseman: All right, I will turn it over to my colleagues.
Mr Frankford: One of the areas of responsibility is that licensed day cares can appeal when their licence is revoked, varied or suspended by the ministry. Do you have any knowledge of how that works out in practice?
Mr Chenoy: No, I am sorry, I do not. Again, as I said, I have not met with anybody in the Child and Family Services Review Board as yet. The staff have only contacted me once. We are due to go into our introductory initiation processes in November, so at the end of that time I hope that answers to the kind of questions you are asking will be available to me.
Mr Frankford: Would you see that -- and this might not be a fair question -- as requiring you to develop a position on the broad provision of day care, or is this just to do with various judgements on very specific cases?
Mr Chenoy: As far as I know it is judgements on specific cases, yes. As far as I know the Child and Family Services Review Board does not move in to areas of policy itself.
Mr Frankford: So presumably one could really make a case that universal provision of day care is becoming almost a social necessity, or it should even be a right.
Mr Chenoy: I guess one may debate that in terms of how it is to be done, but I do not think that is the charge in the Child and Family Services Review Board.
Mr Waters: When I was reading the background on this, they talked about foster parents and the lack thereof in the province at the present time. It goes as far as to say that in some parts of the province the decline in the number of available homes has compelled local children's aid societies to consider placing children in hotel rooms because there are not enough foster parents to care for them. I would like you to comment on that because I find it rather distressing that we have come to that.
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Mr Chenoy: Yes, it certainly is distressing in the context of what we are doing. If I may make a comment about a general perspective on that, since I do not have any specifics to address that, it seems to me that very often the way we allocate resources -- and that is from my own perspective -- in health care, or in this new field I am getting interested in, social services, is not really done in the most effective manner in the context of priorities.
Certainly we do not seem to be able to identify priorities, and if we do, we do not seem to be able to allocate resources towards them. I think that is true, both in the area of my particular expertise, health care, as well as in social services, as I get more and more into it. The very notion that we are going to be putting children now into hotels and other places because we do not have adequate foster homes suggests that is another one of these examples where our method, our approach, our philosophy, values and everything all wrapped up in the way we use our public moneys, are perhaps the issue more than anything else.
Mr Waters: Along the same lines -- and it does not refer to this particular thing here -- is that when I talk to people involved in foster homes in my area, one of the reasons a lot of them are getting out of it is that when you deal with especially the teenage children, you have a situation where you either let them do as they please or they will get even with you. They can accuse you of everything from sexual assault to some other abuse and your name gets dragged through the courts in small-town Ontario and you are labelled even when you are innocent. I know it may not be fully within your mandate, but I would like your personal opinion on how we resolve that type of issue, because although it is not mentioned here, it is the reality of life out there and a major part of the problem.
Mr Chenoy: It certainly is much wider than any one particular family or issue that you raised. The problem to a large extent, I suspect, falls more in the area of how families and the communities themselves decide on dealing with children, right from the time they are born. The classic example, I suppose, is the amount of money we spend on day care.
Again, one has to question the values we bring to the way we use our resources, allocate our services, etc. If, from day one, children are given less than they need, then I suspect we are going to have to live with the outcomes of that. The case you mentioned is an outcome of our inability, perhaps, to identify key issues, and of our need to look at and deal with what affects us as a community, as a province, as a nation. We do not do that very often.
Mr Waters: How is our time?
The Chair: You have a minute and a half.
Mr Waters: I will let someone else, then.
Mr Marchese: How does the children's aid society respond to the cultural differences of people in terms of how they raise their children? Is there an awareness that the predominant view in this society about how all of that should happen may not be responding very well to the way other cultural groups perceive how they raise their children, so that inevitably there is a conflict? Is there this growing sense that we have to address this? Do you think people are addressing it? What is your position around that?
Mr Chenoy: It is not so much a position, I think, as a feeling of what is happening out there. I suggest that children's aid societies have historically been established and governed by people who constituted at that time the majority in the community.
Clearly Ontario, and particularly Toronto, has become much more multicultural, and the children's aid societies have perhaps not kept up to date as well as they might have in the context of looking at the needs of children who come from various ethnic communities and how those needs differ, depending on the way children are brought up, the way children are perceived in those communities, and what their expectations are. The children's aid societies have not really, up till quite recently, paid much attention to those issues.
Mr Marchese: I am presuming that you would encourage professional development and training for all the workers on these issues of cultural differences?
Mr Chenoy: Yes, coming from a multicultural community myself, the answer to that is very much so. In fact, that is one of the things that currently is being undertaken in the health care field.
Mr McGuinty: I have a couple of questions. Back to this issue of the dilemma the province faces right now in getting more people to consider acting as foster parents, one of the problems that has been cited is that we are only paying people $23 a day to take in a child. What are your feelings about that? Do you think we should be increasing the per diem? Some people argue, on the other hand, "If people are doing it for the money, then maybe those are not the kind of people we would want to act as foster parents."
Mr Chenoy: Whether $23 is the right amount or whether it is $30, I think some small increase may or may not be relevant. Much more important is that I sense the public do not have a great deal of awareness of the whole issue in terms of what it is they could contribute by way of their particular abilities. There is very little that is communicated to the public at large in terms of what might be expected of them as prospective foster parents, so I would suggest that if you want to increase the number of foster parents in Ontario, rather than looking at strictly the dollar issue, you might want to examine how and in what manner this kind of information gets out to the public at large and how they can respond to and act on it.
To give you an example, my own application for this board only arose because I got to know about it, and I got to know about it because it was published in the newspapers. Then there is the book that is now available on the various agencies and boards and what they do and how you might apply, etc. I doubt whether that kind of information is available for foster parents. If you want more people to become foster parents, give them the information.
Mr McGuinty: A couple of other problems that act as an impediment to people taking on foster children are the fact that there are fewer women at home during the day, and in addition, there is this greater awareness of sexual abuse of children and molestation. Some people are concerned -- in fact constituents approached me about this -- about taking in children because of this apprehension. Some people are even afraid to talk to children on the street now because someone might misconstrue something that is friendly. Something that you could do, apparently, in the old days, you can no longer do today. What can you tell me about that?
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Mr Chenoy: I do not know whether it is a question of "no longer can do today." Certainly there is a growing concern about the problems that you raise in terms of children and molestations, etc. By the same token, I suspect that there is continued interest and desire on the part of people to participate in the work of the community, and taking in children is one of those kinds of activities. There has not been, from my perspective in working with the United Way and all these other agencies and organizations, a diminution of interest on the part of the public to participate and give of their time, energy and skills in voluntary work.
What might be needed is some kind of mechanism by which people who want to become foster parents are more clearly identified. They can come up themselves; they can be identified by other sources; they can be educated and informed. I see a great need as well as a desire on the part of people to serve, and I suspect that is partly because it produces that total fulfilment of themselves which increasingly they are not finding in their work situations. That, perhaps, might be some avenue that should be explored further: How it is that you are going to be able to get people who are committed to community work to become more interested in the whole area of child care?
The Chair: Mr Chenoy, that completes your appearance before the committee. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to be here today. We wish you well.
Mr Chenoy: Thank you.
The Chair: The next matter on our agenda is the determination of whether or not the committee concurs on the intended appointments reviewed today. I will continue to remind you at every meeting that if one member requests a delay in voting on concurrence, then that is automatically granted under the standing orders. I do have a request from Mr Grandmaître that the delay occur, so the votes will take place at our next meeting.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chairman, I want to be very open about this. The lady in question was Ms Laffrenier.
The Chair: That is a police services board appointment.
Mr Grandmaître: Yes, it is the intended member for the Hamilton-Wentworth Region Police Services Board. I find, Mr Chairman, that this lady is a very able and capable person but does not really fit what the police services board is expecting. Maybe she was nervous, but I must say I doubt that Ms Laffrenier could do the police services board any service. That is why I had asked you to delay.
The Chair: Would you simply like to just delay that one vote, which we can do, and proceed with the others?
Mr Grandmaître: I would like to delay just the one vote.
The Chair: All right.
Mr Grandmaître: I want to phone Hamilton-Wentworth. I know people out there and I want to make sure that --
The Chair: You do not have to explain your rationale. If any member makes a request under the standing orders, it is automatically granted.
Mr Grandmaître: If I am holding my vote just on the one person, it indicates that, yes, I would like to have more time to consider her appointment.
The Chair: Understood. That means, unless we have any objections to the other two --
Mr Wiseman: Mr Chairman, we have an objection. We would like to defer all the votes until next week.
The Chair: All right, fine. It will be done.
MEMBERS' SERVICES
The Chair: The next matter on our agenda is the discussion of committee resources. Attached to the agenda is a draft letter prepared by Dr Frankford. As you recall, in our discussion last week when this matter was raised it was suggested that a draft letter be prepared for submission to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly. Dr Frankford has prepared that letter. I think it is well done and outlines his concerns.
Mr Marchese: It is a good letter.
The Chair: I think it is a good letter. We will open it to discussion. If there is no problem with this letter, we will have it prepared and it will be sent out, over my signature, to the Chairman as soon as possible.
Mr Waters: Could you teach me how to run one of those little devils so that I will be able to access everything? It is somewhat ridiculous. I look at today's paper. It gets a bit beyond the way it is, so anything that will alleviate it, yes.
The Chair: I am not sure that will alleviate it because I think, just as my own personal observation, it is helpful to have that in front of us here today. Otherwise you are going to have to have a terminal in front of you as you sit here.
Mr Waters: That way maybe we can look at things on the terminal and Mr Arnott or Mr Pond can give us one copy instead of sending them to our offices and the House and trying to get us to read our information.
The Chair: That is something that is being looked at as well by the clerks in respect to the duplication of this kind of information. Often it is in the House and so on.
Mr Waters: In their defence, I think what they are trying to do is make sure we actually get the information. I know it is difficult tracking us down, so you hit two or three places. It does create a lot of paper.
The Chair: Absolutely. Any other questions or concerns about the letter as drafted by Mr Frankford? We will proceed with the letter.
That completes the regular business of the committee. We are going to have a subcommittee meeting following this.
ATTENDANCE OF APPOINTEES
Mr McGuinty: I had a concern with respect to a memorandum issued by the committee clerk to all members of the committee.
The Chair: Yes, I am glad you raised that. I did want to discuss this.
Mr McGuinty: First, I was wondering if we could have the specific reasons the witness is unable to appear before the committee.
Second, in a larger perspective, the committee is now presented with a problem which it may not have foreseen in the past. As I understand it, unless all members are prepared to consent unanimously to an extension of the time within which we are normally allowed to receive testimony here from the witness, we are going to be prevented from fulfilling our function of reviewing an intended appointment. We have a bit of a problem here.
If I could be a devil's advocate, I do not know Mr Brown from a hole in the ground. He is probably a fine, upstanding gentleman. But if I had to appear before this committee and did not wish to do so, and it was my understanding that the standing orders said that if the committee did not interview me within 30 days subsequent to my whatever it is I would be appointed automatically, then I could avoid that review. That is a problem.
The Chair: Those are valid points.
Mr Waters: I was somewhat distressed when I saw this. It is the first time I have seen anybody refuse to come before the committee. It is something new that we have to deal with. Maybe we need some discussion on it.
The Chair: Perhaps the clerk can elaborate on the specific reasons Mr Brown said he could not be here and outline some options for us, if there are any.
Clerk of the Committee: I do not believe Mr Brown was refusing to attend the committee. I believe he was indicating he was unable to attend on the two dates the committee had given as alternatives for scheduling this particular group of witnesses. I understand he was unable to attend today because of business commitments that he absolutely could not get out of and he cannot attend next week because of a death in the family and a requirement that he be out of the country to attend to wrapping up estate matters. I may be wrong, but I believe he may have been available to attend during the week of November 11, which of course is not an option as the House and committees are not sitting.
The Chair: What about options for the committee? I suppose if the committee wishes to not endorse this individual based on his inability to appear, that is one option.
Mr Wiseman: I think we should extend the 30 days and have this gentleman appear at the earliest possible committee hearing.
The Chair: Any problem with that? Do we have unanimous consent for that?
Agreed to.
Mr McGuinty: At some point we should give some thought to incorporating this kind of possibility into the standing order so that it considers the possibility of this arising. It should be addressed in the standing order itself so that we do not have to get unanimous consent and it will provide for an exception to extend the 30-day period in these kinds of circumstances.
The Chair: I hear you. One of the things I talked about in an earlier meeting was the whole question of devoting a meeting, perhaps during the break period, to review what has occurred in the past year with the operations of the committee and the standing order. We could have Carol Phillips from the Premier's office here and do those kinds of things. We could do it through a report to the House or even simply through a letter to the Premier, the government House leader and the opposition House leaders respecting specific changes, additions or amendments to the standing order.
The meeting is adjourned. I ask the subcommittee members to stick around.
The committee adjourned at 1201.