INTENDED APPOINTMENTS ROBERT WALMSLEY
CONTENTS
Wednesday 11 January 1995
Subcommittee report
Intended appointments
Judge Robert Walmsley, Ontario Criminal Code Review Board
Kenneth Holder, Ontario Realty Corp.
Anthony Carfagnini, Northern Ontario Development Corp.
William Knight, Ontario International Trade Corp.
Diane Besner, Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal
Grant Hurlburt, Council of the College of Dental Technologists of Ontario
Michael George Somers, Criminal Injuries Compensation Board
Penny Milton, Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
*Chair / Présidente: Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC)
*Acting Chair / Président suppléant / Présidente suppléante: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)
*Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)
*Crozier, Bruce (Essex South/-Sud L)
*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)
Gigantes, Evelyn, (Ottawa Centre ND)
*Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne ND)
*Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North/-Nord PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Duignan, Noel (Halton North/-Nord ND) for Ms Carter
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph ND) for Mr Waters
Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND) for Mr Waters
Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent ND) for Mr Malkowski
Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND) for Ms Gigantes
Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC) for Mr McLean
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1007 in committee room 1.
The Chair (Mrs Margaret Marland): Good morning. Today we are going to review appointments to government agencies, boards and commissions.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Chair: The first order of business this morning, you will see on the agenda, is simply approval of the report of the subcommittee on committee business which is dated December 7, 1994. Are there any questions on the subcommittee report? The subcommittee report, as you will see, is basically the report of the selections that have been made for review by the committee. Would somebody like to move approval?
Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): I'll move it.
The Chair: Mr Hope moves approval of the report of the subcommittee. All in favour? That motion is carried.
INTENDED APPOINTMENTS ROBERT WALMSLEY
Review of intended appointment, selected by official opposition party: Robert Walmsley, intended appointee as member, Ontario Criminal Code Review Board.
The Chair: Our first appointment this morning is Mr Robert Walmsley. I'd like to welcome you to the committee. Mr Walmsley, we will start with rotation through the members asking you questions, unless you wish to make a brief opening comment, but you don't have to.
Judge Robert Walmsley: I think I'll just move right into questioning by the members, and I might add something at the end, if I may.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Welcome, Mr Walmsley. You are the first for 1995 and you may be one of the most important appointees to come before us, meaning that everyone now is concerned, especially in this kind of jurisdiction, in regard to people held in custody who will be released out in the public after being accused and serving a sentence for some violation of the Criminal Code.
With the experience you bring to this group, do you feel that adequate provisions are being made in the sense of protecting the public, or is there something that should be done by government to educate the public about those who will be released out into the public, those who have been charged and now are being considered to be released?
Judge Walmsley: May I start by saying that I have no direct, hands-on knowledge of the function of the committee, as I've never been in a position to appear before it, but I am aware of the principles of protection of the public in releasing persons who have been incarcerated in one way or another, whether it be in a mental institution or a regular institution. I've been in the justice business, if you like, for a long time, and ever since I started, the issue of prediction of dangerousness has been a subject that lawyers and judges have studied very closely. It was difficult when it was first raised to us in our educational programs years ago and it's still difficult.
I think what's been happening in relation to the new amendments to the code -- I perhaps should not call them "new" since they've been around since 1991. But that codification which is found in part XX.1 looks to me to be a good step because it spells out very clearly some areas in relation to terms such as "insanity," "mental disorder," "mental disease" and so on that were perhaps not so clear on in the past.
I think what has to be done is not so much in the legislative end but in the application of the legislation, so that persons who have the responsibility of making decisions about release have the best information available.
Mr Curling: One of the things the public is subjected to, especially in certain areas that have a lot of, if you want, outpatient mental patients, is that they cannot be apprehended or taken into custody unless one's life is threatened, an act is done, and the police do not come in until maybe some act has been done, someone has been hurt. Also, in this situation we're talking about, people who have been considered dangerous have served their time, yet one doesn't feel that prison has served any rehabilitation, that someone is now on the straight and narrow, yet we let them back into the public.
The question I'm asking is, do you think sufficient is being done in order to protect the public from individuals like those? Right now regarding the case in Quebec, where the individual was in the Parliament and shot up all these people, there is quite a debate between the professionals, the psychologists and psychiatrists who are saying this man is still dangerous and some saying he's not dangerous. This individual will be released into public again, waiting maybe for something to happen.
You sit on a board that will have to make the judgement about whether that person will be out there or not. I come back to the question, do you think adequate work is being done to educate the public about the situation, or should this person be named, told where their movement is so other people can be protected? Do you feel more can be done in that regard?
Judge Walmsley: I certainly think with the issue of public education, whether it be in relation to persons allegedly suffering from mental disorder or whether it's persons who are on parole or release for dangerous crimes, the education has to be an ongoing process and it has to be very clear.
One of the things I've learned over the years in relation to my work with criminal charges against young offenders is that there is a great distortion of the percentage of the young offender population, in the sense that people feel there are far more dangerous offenders out there than there actually are.
Ontario over the past 20 years has been very careful with its treatment of young offenders in terms of whether they go to adult court, thereby being subject to higher penalties; we have always had a very low transfer rate to adult court. That is because there were resources in place which the courts felt could handle that person, and that is where the prediction of dangerousness came in: The psychiatrist involved in the case would determine whether this young person was appropriate for a program in a youthful institution. As a result, we've had some very serious cases of people who had gone on to commit further offences, but in terms of statistical evidence it's not there. The reason it's not there is that the resources are in place and the care is taken to make the determination.
You will always have something going wrong with a person who's released. There was a study mentioned in the paper just the other day, out of Ottawa, in terms of the perception of the public versus the facts, in terms of length of prison sentences and so on, and that study made it quite clear that the public does have a skewed view of the situation. I think the same considerations would apply to the accused who are seen by the Criminal Code Review Board.
Mr Curling: And that comes to the balance part of it, that the person who has served their term and paid the price, having done that, feel they continue to serve a sort of sentence once they have been released and somehow feel they're not protected in that way: "I've served my time, I've done my five or 10 years and I've gone through my psychiatrist" --
Judge Walmsley: That sounds to me, Mr Curling, as if you're speaking in terms of a parole situation. Is that what you're speaking of there?
Mr Curling: That too. Even after having served the time and being released, the public still demands, "We want to know who that individual is, where he or she lives," and the accused who have served their time feel that's very unfair: "I've paid the price." I think what I am asking is, do you see that there's a fair balance there?
Judge Walmsley: I see a difference between that case and the population that the Criminal Code Review Board deals with, in the sense that they have not been convicted because of their mental condition and therefore they're really under indeterminate sentence. That's a much more difficult case to assess.
You can make all sorts of arguments about fairness when it's a regular sentence of incarceration that has been completed; you could say that person is entitled to go free and it doesn't really matter what his situation is. But the other one, where there's a continuing review and detention, is open to abuse unless boards such as the review board are able to get the proper information to make a proper decision.
If I may add just briefly one point, one of the reasons for the new Young Offenders Act, and I go back to my experiences with juveniles, is that under the old act, in effect, every juvenile sent to a training school was under indeterminate sentence and he was there until the authorities at the school decided that there was a release. That was judged to be grossly unfair, and for that reason the new Young Offenders Act remedied that defect.
Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): Mr Walmsley, did someone approach you about becoming a member of the board, or is this an interest of your own and you simply wrote a letter? What was the process?
Judge Walmsley: I had been aware of the Criminal Code Review Board and its predecessor for many years, because my office was on the 23rd floor of a building over here on the corner of Bay and Gerrard and theirs was on the 24th. When our court amalgamation went through, we moved out and they took our place. Subsequently, one of the persons I knew who was a secretary at that board phoned me to say that she understood the board was looking for members and would I be interested. She knew I was a semiretired judge and that I had time available.
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Mr Runciman: So on that basis you applied.
Judge Walmsley: On that basis, I thought to myself I should keep busy -- it's considered healthful -- so I applied.
Mr Runciman: Where do you live? In Picton?
Judge Walmsley: I used to live in Picton. I spent eight or 10 years there as a judge, then moved to Toronto and spent the rest of my judicial career here in Toronto.
Mr Runciman: So you're now a Toronto resident.
Judge Walmsley: I now live in Toronto, in the downtown area.
Mr Runciman: There have been a number of problems with the board over the past few years. I have a forensic facility in my riding, Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, and we have had a series of serious breakdowns in the system. The latest one was a chap by the name of Daryl Jones, who was given an absolute release by the board. The crown appealed that decision, but by the time the appeal court reached its conclusion, Mr Jones had already been charged with the murder of an elderly widow in Brockville. The appeal court was very, very critical of the board and its decision. They made the decision essentially based on the fact that the hospital staff wanted this guy out of their way because he was just too much of a problem; in fact, they even said he was posing a threat to hospital staff.
I'm concerned about people being appointed to this board. In my view, your number one priority as a member of this board, and that of the membership at large, should be the safety of the public. I don't think in any way, shape or form that you should be taking chances or risks with the safety of the public. I'd like to know your views on that -- if you're appointed to this board, which I assume you're going to be -- where your priorities lie. We have an awful lot of pressure on hospitals and I assume on boards like yours to move these people out of the system because it costs X dollars to maintain a bed and so on.
Judge Walmsley: To make room, yes.
Mr Runciman: There are pressures that sometimes exceed good judgement and common sense in my view. I'd just like to know where you lie on those kinds of questions.
Judge Walmsley: I think it's safe to say that the protection of the public would be the number one or the highest one, in my view, of the criteria they should look to. Having said that, it again comes back to this assessment of risk. What sort of percentage do you say is acceptable? Does a person have to be 99% sure not to reoffend or to get into further difficulties, 95%? I think that area is the difficult one, because then you have to get into the assessment of the facts and the evidence before you as a board and read those facts correctly.
Mr Runciman: If you're talking about if there's a 1% or 2% risk factor involved -- you've said 99% -- and someone does go out and commit a horrific crime, for example the Brockville situation where a very fine lady was murdered, do you think there should be some way of holding the decision-makers accountable for a decision that had such horrific results? Should there be some form of accountability? This has been talked about for parole boards, and I think for boards like the one you want to serve on, it seems to me there should be some way of making these people answerable if significant crimes result as a result of their calculation that this person --
Judge Walmsley: Their miscalculation.
Mr Runciman: Yes, their miscalculation.
Judge Walmsley: As one who might be in that position, I'm not sure I would want to fund a mistake by the board. On the other hand, I can see where there should be a program of compensation similar to that which is in place at the moment, compensation for crime. I think the accountability has to be in the way in which the board carries out its responsibilities in terms of being able to assess psychiatric information to make sure that everything that's needful is before it for consideration. I see it as a procedural issue, and I don't think having some sort of insurance scheme or backup in place is going to make any difference to that. Those events are always going to happen.
Mr Runciman: Talking about some effort to compensate victims or victims' families, how do you feel about victims' rights in the sense of being kept informed?
I'll give you an example of the situation that happened in my area. A guy by the name of John Finlayson murdered a young boy in Toronto a number of years ago and mutilated his body and was sent to Penetanguishene. A number of years later he ended up in Brockville and shortly thereafter was out in the community. I was approached after he'd been charged with a sexual assault. I was approached by the mother of the young boy, who was quite upset. Of course, this individual was being moved around from a maximum security to a medium security, then out in the community, and she had no knowledge of that whatsoever. It was her son who was murdered, and this individual was put back out on to the streets and he reoffended.
I know the former head of the board, Justice -- and I can't recall his name, but this is a --
Judge Walmsley: Judge Callon?
Mr Runciman: Yes. This was attributed to him when talking about victims, that, "I don't want to be bothered with all that emotional junk," in terms of having a victim impact. My own view is that victims should be kept fully informed of what's happening to these people and where they are and when they are allowed into the community.
I had another individual who had been assaulted by one of these chaps, a woman, and she was terrified in terms that she'd been threatened on a number of occasions, and then she bumped into this guy in a mall, had no idea that he'd been out into the community, and he started tracking her again.
I'm just wondering how you feel about victims, victims' rights, victims having every opportunity to be involved and informed.
Judge Walmsley: Well, in the regular court stream, the victim impact statement is increasingly playing a role, and I think that's good, because it leaves that segment of the community with a much better feeling as to how the justice system is operating, and I can see it having some role in relation to the accused population dealt with by the review board. My concern would be, I guess, when it reaches the point where some individual rights are unnecessarily being infringed upon for that accused person. I guess I'd have to say that each case would depend on the circumstances, but I do feel that --
Mr Runciman: What do you mean by individual rights? For example, this is someone who murdered this woman's young child. Where would your concern enter into it in terms of his rights being offended or abridged? I guess I just don't understand that.
Judge Walmsley: If he were released under a set of conditions that effectively precluded him from leading any sort of normal life, that he had to reside in a halfway house, that he could only go out an hour a day, depending on the circumstances of the total case, that might be a situation where that's an improper restriction.
Mr Runciman: What's an improper restriction?
Judge Walmsley: That he would be so confined, which would prevent him from working.
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Mr Runciman: How does that enter into the question of rights? If you're making a decision on loosening a warrant or giving an absolute discharge, all I'm suggesting is that the victim or representative of the victim should have an opportunity to have input into that decision, and I don't see where individual rights of someone who's committed a horrendous crime should override the rights of a victim.
Judge Walmsley: I think the two stand side by side; I don't think it's either one or the other. I think the victim should have an opportunity to give input when the board is making a decision. There's no question about that. I've not sat on the board, of course, I don't know what the priority is in that respect, but I would think it would be quite appropriate for the counsel for the AG or some other counsel appearing at the hearing to use that kind of information to support their particular position.
Mr Runciman: So what you're saying is that every time an individual applies to appear before the board, for whatever reason, going from max to medium or whatever, you're agreeing that the victim should have the opportunity to be present during the deliberations of the board and have input if so desired?
Judge Walmsley: Yes, but I think it should be regulated in the sense that the input forms part of one of the regular submissions.
In the regular courts, the victim's information is funnelled to the presiding judge usually through the crown attorney, and in that way you should get a pretty good representation, if the crown is doing the job, of what the victim would like to see in terms of the disposition.
The Chair: Thank you. We have three government members, starting with Mr Hope, Mr Marchese and Mr Duignan.
Mr Hope: First of all, I want to follow up on Mr Runciman's issue of dealing with accountability. If I believed that every time you made a decision it was 100% I would call you God, because nobody ever makes a 100% decision that comes out right. I've known that and I've had less time in life than you have; I understand that.
If we are going to talk about accountability we have to talk about it from the perspective of knowledge. I'm just wondering what your familiarity is with the role of the Ontario Criminal Code Review Board. That's where I need to start to understand whether you have the ability to sit on the board.
Judge Walmsley: My knowledge essentially comes from very recently reviewing those sections of the Criminal Code which apply to the board in part XX.1, and also the other sections, 619 and section 2 where the definition -- and in the former section 16, too, which is significant. It shows the substantial changes in the definition of "mental disorder."
Mr Hope: Based on your knowledge of the board in dealing with people who come before the board and dealing with, I guess, mental disorders, I'm asking you a very direct question: Do you have the right to prescribe treatment of a person?
Judge Walmsley: No.
Mr Hope: Why do you think you're excluded from that process of providing treatment?
Judge Walmsley: Because the section says so; my recollection of it.
Mr Hope: Okay. Based on your experience working with people with mental disorders, can you highlight what skills you would bring in order to make that accountability that Mr Runciman says on decision-making? I'm not going to give you a hypothetical case, because that's very unfair to throw a scenario at you saying somebody was released; you don't have all the facts. What skills would you carry in making a proper review?
Judge Walmsley: I've been on the bench now for nearly 30 years and over that time I've seen a great deal of change in the role of the psychiatrist and the psychologist in court. The court that I presided in has evolved from a very simple organism to a highly complex one which receives a great deal of evidence, particularly in the area of custody and child protection, respecting mental disorders.
For the past 15 years the family court bench has had the opportunity to hear presentations from psychiatrists and psychologists relating to the types of disorders that we will be seeing in our court. From what I can tell, really it's just a difference in degree. For instance, I've had a number of cases in which the parent of a child was a paranoid schizophrenic who presented enormous problems in terms of treatment and was very resistant to any help. She didn't commit any crime; all she did was commit suicide. But you can see that the continuum of that type of disorder could lead any individual into a criminal situation.
I've had a fair exposure to that both from a practical point of view in court assessing evidence and also assessing the value of report A as opposed to report B, and whether the first physician had done all the things necessary to flesh out a good report or not as compared to the second. So I have that sort of background.
Mr Hope: Just out of curiosity, and I'll defer to my colleagues for questions, because you use the words "based on facts," "based on evidence," what about based on public outcry? Mr Runciman talks about the input of the victim in a decision-making process. What if the general public was to get all up in arms out in front of your office picketing? I'm giving you a hypothetical case, and it is sincere. It does happen that somebody's in front of your office just picketing and the facts go to the side and the issue becomes public.
Judge Walmsley: Public outcry, yes.
Mr Hope: We wouldn't want to hold somebody who has the ability to function properly in the community. We wouldn't want to do it. I wouldn't want to do that. I'd like to believe that people have an opportunity to change their lives. But you're balancing the crime that was committed 10, 15, 20 years ago versus today and what's happening, and I'm wondering how you would perceive -- because I notice you used a lot of the words "evidence" and "facts" in your comments to me today. I've got to get clarification because, to be honest with you, you will get public pressure.
Judge Walmsley: I guess all of us are aware that a lot of judges and justices are inclined from time to time to make pronouncements from the bench as to the prevalence of a particular crime, and therefore the sentence they're imposing is meant to carry a message to the public. In the work that I've done, that is not so significant a factor in dealing with young criminals. I've never been a subscriber to that point of view. I don't think the word really does get out that the courts are coming down heavily, except in some very rare circumstances such as tripling the speeding fine or something of that nature.
Also, I think it partakes of an element of a lynching, if you like, if there's a young person who has certain things going for that young person but outside there are people protesting and advocating for very stiff measures when the material before the court doesn't justify it. So I would tend not to be very much persuaded by that type of outburst.
Mr Hope: I'll defer to my colleagues.
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Mr Walmsley, a quick question: There's a Dr Fleming who admitted that it's very difficult for psychiatrists to predict a patient's future dangerousness. He then indicated that they also have a bad record in assessing the danger posed by releasing patients from the province's psychiatric institutions. But then he talked about the fact that researchers have developed a more objective system for predicting risk. Are you familiar with this possible new system?
Judge Walmsley: I'm not familiar with the specific instance that you're talking about. What I am familiar with, perhaps as an interested layman more than anything, is the extremely rapid development in the medical and scientific community of its understanding of the function of the brain. I don't suppose a week goes by that there isn't some significant article that they've isolated another area that can be productive of research in terms of dealing with aberrant human behaviour. It's like unravelling the genes. They are unravelling the brain, and the literature that has developed over the past five years in this area is absolutely astounding. I don't know how any person could actually keep up with it. I had a book in my possession, written in 1989, which had probably 200 references to learned papers. A new edition came out three years later, and the references were expanded by another 50 or 60 learned papers in that short period.
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Now, this particular investigation was not in relation to criminal activity; it was in relation to the differences between men and women. But it was still fascinating to see how much advancement has gone on in that particular area. I suspect that the next five or 10 years will see considerably more research which will make our job progressively easier.
Mr Marchese: Sure, and I believe you're right. I was intrigued by the whole idea of a more objective system, meaning that in the past it was all subjective and that somehow we couldn't make objective opinions about whether someone was capable of leaving an institution or not, and then all of a sudden we're going to have a more objective system in place. I guess I'm a bit sceptical about it, but I wanted your opinion on it.
Judge Walmsley: Even when you're trying to be objective, you have to be subjective in the interpretation of the results of tests and so on. It is very difficult. But I can see where the individual view of a board member -- and let's say there are five members presiding on a board -- will become less and less important as the accumulated so-called objective evidence becomes available.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Marchese. Judge Walmsley, I'd like to apologize. I addressed you as Mr Walmsley at the opening of the meeting.
Judge Walmsley: I'm semiretired, so that's quite acceptable.
The Chair: Well, I like to do things correctly. I'd like to thank you, Judge Walmsley, for your appearance before the committee this morning. If you wish to make a closing comment, since you didn't do that at the beginning, please feel free to.
Judge Walmsley: I would like to just say briefly that I appreciate being here. I particularly appreciate it because, as you will see from the CV, I've been involved in the interviewing of candidates for appointment to the bench over the past six years, and one of the problems that we have faced consistently is the ability to make a lawyer who wants to be a judge feel comfortable during that interview. I felt quite comfortable here, thank you, but lawyers are not used to interviewing for jobs, and judges are even less so. So I'd just like to mention that. Thank you.
The Chair: We're not used to being interviewed for jobs either, but we may well be.
Judge Walmsley: Your task is much harder. You have to persuade people to give you the job at the hustings.
KENNETH HOLDER
Review of intended appointment, selected by government party: Kenneth Holder, intended appointee as member, Ontario Realty Corp.
The Chair: Our next intended appointment review this morning is that of Mr Kenneth Holder. Welcome to the committee, Mr Holder. Please be comfortable. This is actually a selection by the government. We'll start with Dr Frankford.
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): Good morning. Could you tell us a bit about your understanding of the position you're taking on and what you feel the corporation does and what you would like to do if you're appointed?
Mr Kenneth Holder: My understanding is that I'm being asked to assist the board in making the kinds of decisions that the board has to make. My understanding of the Ontario Realty Corp is that it's a corporation set up to bring some discipline to the management of the government assets, property more specifically. In that regard, having spent a number of years at CMHC and with my professional background, I believe I can bring to the board some sense of the economics of real estate. We ourselves at CMHC had introduced the notion of a cost centre, which brought some discipline to how managers generally dealt with property. So in that sense, I think there is a parallel in terms of what this corporation is trying to achieve.
Mr Frankford: Do you have an overview of what the government actually does own right now, or is that something you'd have to learn?
Mr Holder: Which government do you mean, your government?
Mr Frankford: The government of Ontario.
Mr Holder: Oh, I'm sorry, I mentioned about CMHC and my experience with Canada Mortgage and Housing.
Mr Frankford: Right, yes.
Mr Holder: No, I don't, but I have a sense that it owns a substantial amount of property. Certainly it partnered with CMHC or the federal government in the Malvern lands, with which I'm familiar and have had a lot of dealings, and there are many federal-provincial holdings as such, but in terms of property owned exclusively by the Ontario government, I really do not know in detail.
Mr Frankford: If I understand right, the realty corporation has not up to now been involved in things like planning, say, the Malvern area. If I'm not mistaken, that has not been the thrust; it's just been sort of looking at what land there is, involved in the fiscal management and, as you say, tried to bring some discipline to it.
Mr Holder: My understanding, and I might be wrong and correct me if I'm wrong, was that all the various departments of the government that had dealings with housing might be integrated into the Ontario Realty Corp. Certainly the Ministry of Housing staff that dealt with Malvern had knowledge of planning processes, zoning and that sort of thing, so I would assume that resource is available in the government.
Mr Frankford: I believe one part of the government's property portfolio would be Ontario Housing, MTHA in Metro, and I understand there's some indication in the new direction for MTHA to look at the value of it and perhaps to do things to somehow even sell off part of that land.
Mr Holder: I'm sorry; I didn't quite get the question.
Mr Frankford: I don't know if it's really a question; it's perhaps more of a comment.
Mr Holder: I didn't think MTHA property was sort of the thrust of the Ontario Realty Corp, because MTHA would have the mandate to manage its properties, subject to the rules of the Ontario government itself. They've got that autonomy. But I thought the property that was directly owned by the government and managed by it, offices and so on, and land, would be more the area of the thrust of the corporation.
Mr Frankford: I imagine you're really in a situation where things are not fixed and questions about MTHA may well come up in the future.
Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): Welcome, Mr Holder. I've actually had a little exposure to CMHC. In my other life I was on the incorporating board of a housing co-op and CMHC actually provided some of the assistance to get that co-op built.
From looking at your résumé, you've obviously had a range of experience, including real estate appraising. As far as the realty corporation is concerned, I would assume that you'd be able to bring quite a variety of skills to that body from the point of view of understanding the balance sheet, that you're able to read that balance sheet very well and understand what a property might in fact bring.
Mr Holder: Yes, I do have a fairly good knowledge of the economics of real estate. I was the chief appraiser of our Toronto office for 10 years, and although I haven't been in appraisal directly since 1976, they say you can take a person out of appraisal but you never take appraisal out of a person. So I am constantly wearing that appraisal hat and sort of looking at the highest and best use of property, the efficient use of real estate.
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Ms Haeck: Very good. I will defer to anyone else on our side, if they have any additional questions.
The Chair: I don't think so. That's less than five minutes. That's great. We'll move on to the official opposition.
Mr Curling: Mr Holder, welcome to the committee. It's a reversal now, because I've come to you for advice in the past, and I presume you're giving some of your good knowledge to this corporation and I think you can add, of course, some valuable contribution to this corporation, this questionable corporation as a matter of fact, as far as the opposition is concerned.
The question earlier on by Dr Frankford brings to reality that I don't think even the government knows why it has formed this corporation, because the fact really is that it is setting up a construction business now. They're into the construction business. They say that they're trying to identify surplus lands and surplus assets and then maybe develop that asset and sell it on the market and then use that money to pay off their deficit itself. Would you consider this corporation as one of the construction industry, one of those that is in business like the private sector, to develop and sell their assets?
Mr Holder: My understanding of the mandate of the Ontario Realty Corp is that it will not be building things like a construction company, and if it were operated similar to CMHC, what I would see it doing is identifying land that might be underutilized or land that's available and ensuring that it got zoned properly and inviting the private sector to make bids in terms of getting the maximum benefit to the government.
I don't think it is staffed to go out and build housing. I certainly would not encourage that, because the private sector, the builders, are in the building business, but it's a question of selecting the best builder, that process, and the people who will achieve the government's objectives. I don't believe, unless I'm misunderstanding the role of this corporation -- but they really control what happens. They control the pricing of the property, the design and things like that. That's my understanding of the role it will take.
Mr Curling: All right. I have a somewhat different understanding. I have an understanding the other way, where they will develop the property and put it on the market for sale so they can get a profit and use that money to write down the deficit. That's one part of my understanding of this. It was my understanding too that even with some of the buildings they're going to put up for their own use, or their own property, they themselves would construct this thing. I'm not really quite clear about what they want to do in that regard.
The part I would like to ask you about is, are you familiar with how they value their assets now, their land? In other words, who does the valuation of that? Is it the corporation? Is it a private evaluator who comes in and says that these properties are valued at this rate?
Mr Holder: I'm speculating here, Mr Curling, in terms of how I think it should go as opposed to what actually takes place. I'm not a member of Ontario Realty Corp and it's only within the last month or two that I was given some literature about the mandate of the corporation. It has a lot of similarities to how we manage property and land. In that context, I would expect that we would seek to control what is happening in building -- I'm sorry; I missed the point you had. The government doing things itself? Was this your line of reasoning?
Mr Curling: Yes.
Mr Holder: The issue here is to maintain control of what happens. You invite the private sector to do the things it do best, but you always make sure there's a competitive type of process where we decide this land should be developed, we get planners to tell us how it should be developed, and then we invite the builders to build their housing.
In terms of the appraisal, it again depends on the purpose of the appraisal. If you're looking at trying to establish what your present portfolio is worth, you could do one of two things: Get your own staff to give you a valuation, which I think we did, and if it's something that's likely to be contentious, then you'll get an outside appraisal and give them the terms of reference.
Wherever there is a valuation that is likely to result in questions -- for example, if you're selling property and there is a potential conflict because your inside appraisers might not have as much knowledge as you think they might have about what's happening in the market -- you get a second opinion to sort of help confirm that price.
I would imagine, and I would certainly strongly recommend if I became a member of the board, that where it was not just an academic number but a serious number that would raise some questions, we would, in addition to getting our internal appraisal -- I would presume there is appraisal staff available at Government Services -- get an outside appraisal, and sometimes two. It all depends on how significant the property is, how important the decision is and so on. Then you get enough opinion to confirm the conclusion you want to propose.
Mr Curling: Let me go into your area and just use the opportunity to ask your advice on this. There are many Ontario Housing -- that is, owned by the government -- or some of these non-profit homes that are being financed and mortgaged according to the concept that is set out. Eventually some of them are going to run into big trouble so that they can't pay their mortgage and the government will maybe have to look at buying them back or assuming all these liabilities. Do you see that this corporation will be buying back or taking charge of the non-profit housing that is in deep trouble should they go into trouble? Who will acquire that? Would this corporation do something like that?
Mr Holder: Ontario Housing Corp's property is public housing, owned by the government and subject to a mortgage, I think, that was provided by the federal government.
Mr Curling: Yes.
Mr Holder: I don't believe, given the age of the public housing and unless something fairly sort of radical happens, that the scenario you are envisaging would likely happen, because all the tenants are provided with rent geared to income, which almost ensures there's an affordable rent, and there are subsidies available from the federal government for the 50-year term of the mortgage.
I could see a situation where if the properties started to deteriorate and there was a decision by the government to stop funding repairs and so on, these properties could run into some difficulty, and I think CMHC, as a partner, would have to sort of help come to the rescue.
The role of Ontario Realty Corp might well be one of giving advice on the best solution. The hope is that the expertise will be there, because we've had all kinds of horrendous problems with properties that we have and there are all kinds of creative solutions, including deferring mortgages, taking moratoriums on mortgages. For example, take the sprinkler situation now in buildings as a result of the fire in North York. There might be a reason to need several millions of dollars that are not available, and this could be accomplished by letting the mortgagee, which might be CMHC, agree to a temporary moratorium.
I'm saying I can't give you a sort of black-and-white answer as such, but I know there are creative solutions that can be brought to bear to solve that kind of problem, and Ontario Realty Corp should have that expertise to provide it.
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The Chair: Mr Crozier, there are 30 seconds if you wish to have a fast question.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): A very quick question: Good morning, Mr Holder. How do you feel about selling provincial assets to municipalities at market value as opposed to $1?
Mr Holder: I feel very good about it. I use the analogy of the federal government. We have to compete with other departments. In other words, if you give each department the discipline of managing its own affairs on a businesslike basis, then Revenue Canada will not sell CMHC its property at any other figure than market value. So I think the principle is a sound one.
Mr Crozier: Notwithstanding the fact that the taxpayers are paying for it twice.
Mr Holder: The assumption is that the municipality would have to acquire that property anyway and that if the provincial government didn't have the property, it would have to get it somewhere else and it would have to pay market value. I think they can give them back all kinds of assistance they want to give, but my recommendation would be that you keep these things very pure and discrete and not have these hidden subsidies that create some problems.
Mr Runciman: Mr Holder, from reading your résumé and a few responses I've heard, I think you're a solid candidate for appointment. I have no difficulty with your being here today for appointment to the board. I don't have a problem either with the idea of selling off government properties if indeed the moneys are dedicated to paying down the provincial debt and over time we can see that occurring as a result, and these moneys don't simply go into the black hole and are spent for a variety of political purposes other than the long-term betterment of the province of Ontario.
I'm just curious, and this question may have been answered when I was outside the room, how did you go about getting this appointment? Were you contacted? Were you encouraged to submit an application? Just what was the process?
Mr Holder: I was approached by a staff person from the Ministry of Housing whom I've worked with in a partnership situation with CMHC who invited me to come on board. I didn't know there was a vacancy and I was very delighted to accept it. This person happens to know my workings at CMHC.
Mr Runciman: This is a senior individual within the ministry?
Mr Holder: Yes, an assistant deputy minister.
Mr Runciman: So you were never at any point contacted by an elected official.
Mr Holder: No.
Mr Runciman: Thanks very much. Good luck.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Holder, for your appearance before the committee this morning.
ANTHONY CARFAGNINI
Review of intended appointment, selected by official opposition party: Anthony Carfagnini, intended appointee as chair, Northern Ontario Development Corp.
The Chair: Our next intended appointment for review this morning is Mr Anthony Carfagnini. Welcome, Mr Carfagnini, if you'd like to come forward and be comfortable. Who would like to lead off?
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Welcome to the committee. I know this is very important to the north. I was just wondering sir, what changes you would like to see now that you're going to be the chair.
Mr Anthony Carfagnini: I've been on the board for a little over a year now and I'm still in the phase of learning the relationships between the Northern Ontario Development Corp, other ministries and government policy in general. I don't have a fixed agenda coming in from the private sector to say, "I will change this," or "I will change that." I would like to think that I'm open to change and I have some ideas about improvements that can be made, particularly in communications between boards that are government boards in the economic development area. So I'd like to see some improvement in interboard communication so that small businesses have an easier access to the full range of development opportunities that are provided.
Mr Cleary: I'm more familiar with one of the other development corporations than I am with the north. As you know, and I'm sure in the north it's been the same as it's been in the east and all over where banks call loans on businesses and businesses try to restructure, with the time it takes to get a commitment from the development corporation, sometimes the deadline comes before the commitment. I was just wondering if you had run into any of that in the north.
Mr Carfagnini: That, interestingly enough, was the impression I had as a practising lawyer in my dealings with NODC before, that there was a feeling in the small business community that while there might have been an incentive or something there, the time and trouble of getting it and the delay in decision-making sometimes made it not worth the effort.
Since being on the board, I've been very impressed with the administration and management. I can't deny that there is a time factor and particularly in that area where you're talking about restructuring. The important thing that the various management people have to look at is there are some fairly shrewd people out there in terms of the way in which matters will be restructured and at whose expense. It does require significant time in analysing the security, the share structure and the other elements in the restructuring.
I found, through seeing a number of them being put together over the past year or so, that generally speaking they do come in time, they do save jobs. I'm not sure how to totally do away with that impression. I'm concerned that things not be rushed sometimes for other motives because the guarantee or whatever facility is used to keep that business operating and the jobs in place is something that -- the government of Ontario might be called upon at some time in the future. So a real hard look at the security and attempting to get from the private sector the best deal possible is to me more important than a small delay.
Mr Cleary: I'm sure that in the north you work with consultants too, that you appoint consultants to --
Mr Carfagnini: There are consultants in the Thunder Bay office as well as in other centres across the north, yes.
Mr Cleary: The thing that I'm going through right at the moment where there's a deadline of a week and a half away at -- it's a well-known company that's been in business for a long time and got caught in the recession and downsizing and they have to give a decision to the bank in a week or two. We get all kinds of excuses from the corporation that the person who was in charge of the file, due to a death in his family, is away for a week. These people who are trying to get the loan guarantee are so upset. I was wondering, in the north, would they appoint another consultant?
Mr Carfagnini: Are you speaking of a situation in southern Ontario, the Ontario Development Corp perhaps?
Mr Cleary: I am speaking about eastern Ontario.
Mr Carfagnini: Eastern Ontario. There are strong consultants and there are some consultants who are not strong. I'd be less than honest if I didn't say that to you. Where there is a weak consultant, I think it's the responsibility of management to deal with that issue. It's not an answer to that particular business because they may have a frustration because of that.
I, however, would take the business's view with a grain of salt and would like to see what is really behind it from the development corporation's point of view. I hesitate to try and comment on a situation that I don't have a full picture on.
I also feel, just from having seen some of the restructurings that are done, when a deadline is imposed, the bank may be imposing that deadline for its own purposes. I don't see that the government of Ontario has to roll over and jump when the bank says jump. I appreciate the frustration and perhaps anger of the businessperson you're dealing with. I understand that, but I also think there's a very important responsibility for the consultant and the board members of EODC who are going to have to deal with that restructuring to ensure that things are in place to protect the guarantee or whatever is being asked for. The bank has decided to get out. I have no idea what the deal is, and somebody has to look at that closely.
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Mr Cleary: I understand that it's been a great asset in eastern Ontario to have the corporation. But anyway, I just thought, being this was really fresh in my mind, that I would like to get it out to someone. My colleague wants to say something.
Mr Curling: There's no doubt of course that the Northern Ontario Development Corp can serve a very effective role in assisting development of the north. Do you feel that the government gets value for money?
Mr Carfagnini: Yes, I think they do, and my view has changed in the year that I've been involved. There has been a great turnover within management, as well as at the board level, in the development corporations, and I think the people who have now assumed those positions are fresh, they are very talented. I've been astounded, frankly, with the efficiency of the organization. I guess I came to it with the private sector attitude about government organizations, and I was very pleasantly surprised.
I have also spoken in the last month or so to a couple of accountants with a couple of the major accountancy firms in Thunder Bay to get from them what they thought about Northern Ontario Development Corp, and they have found that the consultants in the field offices are the people they deal with on the nuts and bolts and that the work done is done extremely well.
Mr Curling: I notice too that of course the emphasis in support or assistance or loans given in the manufacturing sector is quite high. Is there any explanation why the tourism here is so low? Is it because not much is being done or emphasized, why more money is not given that way?
Mr Carfagnini: Was that tourism you're asking about?
Mr Curling: Yes.
Mr Carfagnini: In the north, actually, it's quite the other way. The Northern Ontario Development Corp acts as the agency for the ministry of tourism with two of its major programs: the Destinations North program and the TRIP program. What occurs there is that those are ministry of tourism programs to help resorts and other tourism establishments that are really major employers in the north. The NODC people do the details of the loan, and then there's a transfer back of funds.
We include them in our loan administration portfolio and in the north the tourism percentage is quite high, for example, direct loans, as opposed to what we would call agency loans, which would be largely either tourism or Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp loans. In the last several months, out of 160 loans, 130 were agency loans. So the Northern Ontario Development Corp really acts as almost the bankers for a couple of other significant ministries in the north.
I'm not sure if that answers the question.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Runciman.
Mr Curling: That was very fast.
The Chair: Yes, but it's all on the clock.
Mr Runciman: You practise law in Thunder Bay?
Mr Carfagnini: Yes, sir.
Mr Runciman: What kind of law? What does your practice consist of?
Mr Carfagnini: Mostly property law. I'm a solicitor as opposed to a barrister. I don't do criminal law or family law or things like that. It's a small practice: mortgages, real estate, estates, a fair component of work with Indian bands and native organizations, and some small business, corporate, estate planning, that sort of work. So a generalist, I guess, in the property law area is the way I would describe my background.
Mr Runciman: How many lawyers are in the practice?
Mr Carfagnini: Just two: myself and Mr Edwards.
Mr Runciman: Do either you or your partner ever have to deal with development proposals that might have some connection with the NODC? What I'm really getting at here is, is there any potential for conflict? You're in property law. You do deal with real estate development proposals. Is there any possibility of conflict arising or do you see any?
Mr Carfagnini: There's a possibility. The rules with respect to what one should do in that case are pretty clear. But I don't think the possibility is that great because I have a very small practice. If I were a member of a much larger firm, for example, I think the potential for conflict might be greater.
Mr Runciman: So you don't think this appointment would have any impact in a positive sense on your practice?
Mr Carfagnini: In a positive sense?
Mr Runciman: As chair.
Mr Carfagnini: Well, the experience that I hope to gain by doing it. I hope it will be useful in my future. I like to deal with organizations and I'm really enthusiastic about this because I think I can learn a lot here.
Mr Runciman: I see you went to the University of Ottawa law school from 1974 to 1977. Was Howard Hampton a student at that time?
Mr Carfagnini: He might have been, but I don't think he went to the University of Ottawa. I think he was later than me actually.
Mr Runciman: He went to Ottawa.
Mr Carfagnini: Did he go to Ottawa?
Mr Runciman: Yes.
Mr Carfagnini: He was after me.
Mr Runciman: So you don't know Mr Hampton personally?
Mr Carfagnini: Yes, I do know him. He's the sitting member for the riding just west of us, so I have met him, yes, but I've never worked with him in practice or anything. I think he practised somewhere to the west of us.
Mr Runciman: I'm not sure he ever practised.
Mr Carfagnini: I think he did for a couple of years.
Mr Runciman: How did you get your original appointment to the board? Were you approached by someone?
Mr Carfagnini: No. I was interested in doing something and I went to the library and took out the book on government agencies and commissions. I looked through the book for something that I thought I would be interested in and that was suitable for my background and I wrote a letter in to the public appointments secretary with my résumé. About a year later, I got a phone call and then I was asked to participate.
Mr Runciman: So you've never been approached by an elected official or discussed the possibility of an appointment with an elected official?
Mr Carfagnini: No.
Mr Runciman: Well, I guess you automatically conclude these things, and sometimes in error, there's no doubt about it, because you also have some experience in the labour area. You're a part-time lecturer on labour law. So I guess one jumps to these conclusions, sometimes in error, that you may have connections to the current government, the governing party. No truth to that? You don't belong to the NDP or never have belonged to the NDP?
Mr Hope: You should base your information on facts, not on fiction.
Mr Runciman: You're not a financial supporter of the NDP and have not been in the past?
Interjection: There's a tough one.
Mr Carfagnini: You're asking that question directly?
The Chair: Mr Runciman has the floor. I appreciate the interjections from a humorous point of view, but it doesn't expedite the hearing.
Mr Carfagnini: The answer to that question is yes, I am a member of the NDP. I didn't think this would be quite like --
Interjections.
Mr Runciman: I'll put on the record that I'm really shocked by that revelation.
I want to move on to a couple of other areas. You've been a member of the board for, I think you indicated, a year.
Mr Carfagnini: Since October 1993, yes.
Mr Runciman: Do you know in terms of your own board what percentage of loans you've written off in the last year or the last two years, the last three years? Have you taken a look at that?
Mr Carfagnini: Yes. Since January, I've been on the audit committee, which is the audit committee for all of the development corporations. As you may know, this year there was an accounting change with respect to how loan loss provisions are taken into account. I believe the loan loss ratio is about 4%, which I'm told is somewhat higher than a traditional bank would be.
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Mr Runciman: How does that compare with the other development corporations, the ODC and the EODC?
Mr Carfagnini: Oh, I see.
Mr Runciman: Are you running above or below?
Mr Carfagnini: I was referring to the development corporations in total because of the audit committee. Oh, gee, I'm not sure if the ratio of loss is higher in the north. Sorry.
Mr Runciman: It may be something to take a look at. I know in the research materials we were provided with, that issue was raised by this committee with officials of ODC some time ago. The committee at the time made the recommendation about conducting a cost-benefit analysis of the development corporations. I wonder if you have a view on that, and perhaps not simply coming in and doing that sort of detailed analysis of all the corporations but perhaps one at a time over a period of years, or perhaps even taking a look at one, perhaps the most active one, the ODC, I'm not sure, to try and quantify the benefits to taxpayers in respect to the operation of these. Do you have a view on that?
Mr Carfagnini: Yes, actually, that process of going corporation by corporation is already under way. But with respect to the main point of your question, I think --
Mr Runciman: Already under way, and who's conducting it?
Mr Carfagnini: Management of the Ontario Development Corp really -- it has common management, as you know, so it's being looked at corporation --
Mr Runciman: Is that an appropriate group or body to be conducting that kind of an analysis? One would suggest that it should be perhaps someone from the outside, perhaps from Management Board, I'm not sure, but other than -- the development corporation doing that kind of assessment of its own viability, its own structure, strikes me as not something that would necessarily be considered objective.
Mr Carfagnini: Let me answer the main part of your question, which is cost-benefit to the province. I went through the Allen report, which is a report done about two years ago by an outside consultant to get at that very issue: If there is a guarantee or loan given and it's totally lost -- in other words, the business goes completely under and there's no recovery whatever -- what is the cost-benefit analysis to the taxpayers as a result of having made that loan or lost that money? I really think it's a very good report; it changed my thinking on it.
If those people were not employed at a business like that, they would be on the general welfare rolls in many cases. The study effectively takes out all of those federal dollars that go into supporting people who don't have work, makes a very careful analysis, one of which is directly in the north, and I was astounded to see that a payback in terms of cost-benefit analysis often happens within three to five years of a loan being made, and you will find, if you look, that the loss ratios are nowhere near 100%. I think the benefit to the taxpayers of Ontario of guarantees or some incentive loans, or even restructurings, is certainly there and would stand any scrutiny.
Mr Runciman: Okay. Thanks very much.
The Chair: We have actually five government speakers, and it's in this order of surname: Marchese, Frankford, Haeck, Harrington and Hope. So we'll start with Mr Marchese.
Mr Marchese: Mr Carfagnini, it's a pleasure to have you here today. I should just point out that most Italian Canadians are Liberals. There are probably more Conservative Italian Canadians than there are NDPers. It's a delight to have you affiliated to the party.
Mr Carfagnini: Well, I'll shock you further: I'm not a Catholic either, sir.
Mr Marchese: I am. But back to the order of business. One of my interests is access to capital. I've been working with small business quite a long time, the last two years, in fact. We have a Fort York Small Business Working Group and there are about 700 people who are connected to us, and part of the concern they have raised is access to capital. The banks are choking credit to most of the small business people. They do provide big loans to big corporations, but a disproportionate number of dollars to small business. We all know 90% of the jobs, more or less, are created by small business, not by big corporations, so we have a serious problem in terms of how we maintain and have an economy grow when we recognize that 90% of the jobs are created by small business.
We changed the legislation a while ago that would allow credit unions to be able to get into the competition with banks, and I think that's great. My suspicion and hope is the credit unions will also free up more of their dollars to small business in a way the banks have not.
Are you connected to this issue in any way, or are credit unions connected to the ODC in some way or other, or yourself? How do you link perhaps what you do to credit unions as a way of freeing up access to capital?
Mr Carfagnini: I agree entirely with everything you've said. There is a problem in access to capital, particularly for very small businesses. The current chair of the ODC I think is very strongly of the view that access to $4 billion or $5 billion worth of credit union capital for the small business sector should be accessed. I think some of the recent legislative changes will do that.
I have involvement with credit unions. Some years ago I sat on the board of directors of a credit union and I have several as clients where I do mortgage lending for community credit unions. They tend to know their people very well. They know the businesses well. They know the families. They know the property. Their credit committees, volunteer committees, will go out and watch the progress of construction of a home -- very direct control and I don't think you can measure that on paper.
I can tell you that the quality of the loans is likely to increase. There are some warning flags, however. Some smaller credit unions are not equipped to do commercial loans; some larger credit unions are. The development corporations, on a pilot-project basis -- I think particularly more in southern Ontario where you have much larger credit unions -- are going to start encouraging commercial lending by credit unions to get that capital that people save in Ontario, working in Ontario, to create more jobs.
That's certainly a direction that is being pursued and I would like to see it done on a case-by-case basis in the north, because the financial institution has to have the strength and expertise to make those kinds of loans.
Mr Marchese: One quick question, because I know everybody else wants to ask questions as well: With respect to small businesses that your corporation has funded, would you say that you could be doing a more effective job, that the corporation has done the best that it can for small business people? Are there pros and cons, or are there things that you would like to change with respect to the corporation and how it relates to small business?
Mr Carfagnini: I'm going to try to get out to the local business community and get more information from them about what their complaints are about the organization and try to get those concerns or complaints relayed back down to the staff level in terms of improving turnaround times and levels of service. With respect to performing a job and a function, they are filling a gap in financing. If the development corporation were not there, a lot of small businesses would not be operating, particularly in the smaller end with the new ventures loan and the aboriginal new ventures loan. Those loans just wouldn't be made by the banks without those programs.
Mr Frankford: Just following up on the question, are you familiar with the micro-loan lending circle approach? That's called Grameen banking.
Mr Carfagnini: Yes, I am. I'm familiar with that being operated by the Calmeadow Foundation and Martin Connell.
Mr Frankford: Do you think this is something which your corporation could be getting into or do you think it's best left to private things like Calmeadow or perhaps Jobs Ontario Community Action, which I think can also be doing something along those lines?
Mr Carfagnini: A new program started just last year, initiated by the Bank of Montreal, with the development corporations is the aboriginal new ventures program, which is specifically designed for smaller loans -- I think $15,000 or something like that -- for on-reserve loans, because there are problems in conventional lending in that area. That's not quite the same as the micro-enterprise and lending circles. I could talk for an hour on this because I'm familiar with native communities and how they operate. I don't know that it could be done in quite the same way by a conventional bank and with a government guarantee. I don't think it would have quite the same perception in the native community.
Mr Frankford: Looking at your areas of interest, I see that forestry, environmental protection and small-scale hydro-electric development are there.
Mr Carfagnini: Yes, sir.
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Mr Frankford: It sounds as though you're interested in environmental things. Do you have some thoughts about, let's say, green jobs and green businesses that you would like to see created?
Mr Carfagnini: One thing I don't have on the résumé that I'll mention is that for the past couple of years I've been sitting as a citizen on a citizens' advisory committee for the Port Arthur crown management unit. That is going to become a local citizens' committee, as ordered by the environmental assessment panel that had the year-long hearings, many year-long hearings, in the timber industry in the north. I learned a great deal about forestry, forest management, and environmental issues are very much dealt with by our firm. My partner has done a lot of environmental work.
I think those are industries of the future in the north. The pulp and paper industry is changing rapidly and the whole focus of the Ministry of Natural Resources -- it's influence is dominant in the north because we just have a huge area. We have an area larger than many European countries and it's forested and it needs to be reforested. I have a great interest in that area because we're very close to the land up in Thunder Bay.
Ms Haeck: Just following up on that last comment, I had the opportunity to participate in something called the farm exchange and I, shall we say, just blithely put down I'd go anywhere in the province and ended up in New Liskeard. So I got to see the little clay belt and got a bit of an understanding of the joys and challenges of trying to farm in a much more northerly climate than I represent, which is southern Ontario, the Niagara Peninsula. In that process, the gentleman who was my exchange partner made me aware of a project they were trying to put forward which in fact dealt with a poultry processing plant.
In looking at the research document our researcher has prepared for us, I didn't see that agriculture was something that specifically seemed to be an area of interest of the Northern Ontario Development Corp. I was wondering how you would deal with those kinds of projects when they came forward and if they come forward -- probably first if and then when -- how you would deal with reviewing these kinds of applications.
Mr Carfagnini: I think that kind of thing in the agricultural sector would come through a working relationship with the development corporation and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in the same way as we would work with tourism. One of the actual real success stories in the northwest is Vacationland dairies in Fort Frances, which is obviously in the agricultural area. I believe that is a client, if you want to put it that way, of the Northern Ontario Development Corp. It's a cooperative that works with the local farmers to turn that milk into a product that they can sell locally in a highly competitive market, because we're dominated by Manitoba as far as local services in our part of the province are concerned.
I think the development corporations are certainly open to that. It's unusual in the north because those areas where farming is possible are few and far between. There's an area around Thunder Bay as well, but it mostly just serves the local market.
The Chair: Thank you for your appearance before the committee this morning, Mr Carfagnini.
WILLIAM KNIGHT
Review of intended appointment, selected by the official opposition party: William Knight, intended appointee as member, Ontario International Trade Corp.
The Chair: Our final review this morning is Mr William Knight. Welcome, Mr Knight, to the committee.
Mr William Knight: Thank you.
The Chair: Mr Curling, would you like to start?
Mr Curling: Welcome, Mr Knight. I see you have extensive experience in being principal secretary to a lot of premiers, NDP premiers in this country. This becomes a sort of haven now because Ontario's a very active place where things happen, especially having a new NDP government. You applied for this job, I presume, to sit on this board.
Mr Knight: I was approached by I think it's called the appointments secretariat to sit on the board.
Mr Curling: You were approached by them because of your expertise, I presume, or because you are a member of the NDP?
Mr Knight: I think the approach is based on a number of factors. One is that in the province of Ontario, as you're aware, I am now heavily involved in the credit union system and the cooperative system within the province of Ontario and across Canada. We have about $17 billion of assets within the province. Like many small and medium-sized businesses, most of our enterprise has been domestic in nature. Not unlike other small or medium-sized enterprises, we're now moving to have to respond internationally. Historically, we had done a lot of work internationally around development in the Asian region and developmental work in central South America, and now we're into eastern Europe.
One of the interesting factors we found in some of the studies that have been done in the province of Ontario is that we have an enormous opportunity here to take what had been initially international aid development and turn it into trade in terms of exchanges of goods and services between cooperatives and credit unions we've established out there. So we as a sector have decided to take the responsibility to work with governments, federally and provincially, to assist in enhancing trade. That's why we're interested in this. And, yes, there's no question of my background, that I was and am a New Democrat.
Mr Curling: How do you respond to the de-emphasizing of what you just explained in regard to Africa and the Caribbean, that this government has not really shown any great interest in developing some of those developmental funds that are there? As you said, the emphasis now is China and Europe. Do you have a response to that?
Mr Knight: Yes. We're finding, by the way, pending the upcoming federal budget, that we are still bringing Africa and the Caribbean as a priority. Frankly, if the appointment goes through, I will bring that view to the trading corporation as well, that these are significant markets. I have a number of colleagues in Ottawa who are working in South Africa, for example, working very hard with the new Mandela government. I'll try and bring forward that view of the real opportunities we see there of expertise in kind in terms of assisting.
I'll give you one quick example, if you don't mind, on South Africa. The Mandela government had set up criteria for the establishing of state governments. There is no infrastructure to do that. If we're going to trade in different commodities with South Africa, the development of the infrastructure programs is compatible with developing the trade at this point in time, and there is room to have that within the priority list, from my point of view.
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We in the South African market were heavily involved with the ANC historically in assisting in a number of the areas in getting credit unions going. Now they have been sort of compatibly legitimized with the coming of the Mandela government. Using that as the basis, we would like to see an enhanced role here. One of our centrals, for example, has partnered with South Africa in helping to bring financial services etc. What comes with that is that of course the trade of goods and services reinforces those relationships. So I hope to bring that view to the corporation in terms of a number of those areas in the world.
Mr Curling: I think you're emphasizing things that I've identified. South Africa becomes the focus now, and I'm saying that there is more than South Africa in Africa.
Mr Knight: Yes, very much so.
Mr Curling: There's more, and there are other countries that have been conforming a long time and have been cut off by this government and downsized in any way in emphasis. I was pleased actually, and I'm not using partisanship, when the present federal government had extended two CIDA ministers to Asia and also to Africa and Latin America, that there is potential there. I'm very concerned that it is happening, and I know South Africa becomes the excitement now.
In my short time I'm going to jump to something. How do you respond really to some of the criticism that was faced by the dealings with China and their human rights and, say, doing trade with them? How do you deal with that with your philosophy being changed now, that you can now do business with China, and some of the critics about the human rights violations there? The Premier has helped you out somehow; he has changed his view. Do you follow on his view of change too in that regard?
Mr Knight: I have no change in view. We were working in a number of areas, particularly a number of provinces within China for a long time, and I believe that the Premier's view and my view would now be in concert. I state that very clearly.
In order to speak to the issues, the multiplicity of issues related to the People's Republic of China, to now be enhancing a role between China and ourselves in terms of trade and exchange allows us to speak to a nation whose size and strength -- our experience in the cooperative movement was that they could be quite self-contained. With the Middle Kingdom opening up to the rest of the world, there's now opportunity to also raise the fundamental issues around human rights. We have found as organizations, in doing international work in that market, that by creating relationships we're now able to put those issues on the table.
Mr Curling: You're trying to expand trade around the world, and this government has shut down most of the offices while it's trying to expand trade. Do you think that was a good move, or will that assist you, or do you see a recommendation coming from you folks on that board saying, "I think that other areas there should be opened because we really want Ontario to be on the map and we want those trades and exports to be going to those countries, and the facilitation will be helpful if those offices are established"? Do you see anything happening that they open those offices again? I know they kept Japan going -- I have my reasons why -- but do you see an expansion or reopening of those offices again?
Mr Knight: First of all, I think a series of governments, in the provincial jurisdiction and some closings federally in the past were inevitable when you look at the financial restraints governments generally are under.
Secondly, I believe that opening and closing offices maybe is not the issue. I refer the members of the committee to a report on international trade done for the new minister, the Honourable Roy MacLaren, at the federal level. In that report, there is a proposal to be able to combine the activities of the federal government, both its embassies and its trade offices, with representation within those embassies without having to have enormous physical plant re-established and all that goes with that and all of the implications of appointments etc, regardless of who's in power, wherever they are.
I don't think it's a question of offices any more. I think it's a question of coordination. If the chair of the corporation, a former Premier of the province of Ontario, myself between 1978 and 1982, were deeply involved in a lot of discussion between federal and provincial jurisdictions, surely by the 1990s we'd be able, in a fundamental area such as trade, to combine the efforts of those two jurisdictions and bring about some effort where you don't necessarily need the physical office to do it. You already have the facilities of the federal government and you can complement that and combine it. I'd recommend to the committee a read of the MacLaren committee report; it's an excellent piece of work.
Mr Runciman: Mr Knight, welcome to the committee. You've had significant experience in government, both at the provincial and federal levels. I'm just curious: What has been your view generally of these so-called patronage appointments? How have you viewed them in the past?
Mr Knight: A couple of things: In my view, I think all members of this committee sooner or later -- I guess it's a philosophical question for all of us -- will face the challenge of why all of us ever ran for office in the first place or served in government, and that is that we wanted to bring value-added to our communities. All of you, like myself, will sooner or later face the question: Is this a patronage appointment or is it based on bringing value-added to a particular corporation?
It's my hope to bring value-added to this corporation and to assist it in enhancing trade for the province of Ontario and to bring a point of view to it related from cooperatives and credit unions.
Mr Runciman: So what you're saying is that you don't view yourself as a patronage appointment.
Mr Knight: No, I don't.
Secondly, I think this process is a very healthy addition to what I've seen in the past.
Mr Runciman: That's interesting. I guess your response is not surprising. I'm not being critical of you, but I suspect if you were in the opposition, like the folks across the way were in the opposition a number of years ago, appointments like yours would have generated significant outrage among their ranks.
Mr Hope: Just like the appointment of Andy Brandt. I'm sure that was political too.
Mr Runciman: It's passing strange to see how things change and really don't change, other than the rhetoric coming from the different political parties. I personally have no problem with qualified individuals who have connections to a political party being appointed to positions like yours, but it turns me off when I hear the holier-than-thou rhetoric from time to time about these kinds of appointments.
Mr Knight: If I could just comment through the Chair, in my observations, since you asked me about the broader question, if you don't mind me just adding a comment, I don't mind saying that I see a maturing that comes with succession to power. I grew up where we were always in power, and I think you understand that there's a maturing that comes with it.
Mr Runciman: I note that the Chair laughed at that comment. I found it quite interesting, quite revealing.
To talk about taking different positions -- your appointment is secured, so I'd like to explore a few other areas. You talked about your credit union organization, I gather, having connections with the ANC, so this has opened up perhaps some new avenues for you because you established those kinds of contacts prior to the ANC forming the government of South Africa. I'm curious about the linkages here with respect to China and the positions taken by the NDP and others with respect to South Africa, cutting off trade and in fact having sanctions. I'm wondering initially, has your organization established any kind of linkages with democratic movements in China? Has there been an effort made to do that sort of thing as well?
Mr Knight: I believe there have been meetings and discussions. But we're also in the unique position that in a number of the provinces within China there are cooperatives that are in primary production, secondary, wholesale, and we've been working with them.
One of our experiences, and this comes from other parts of the Asian market, is that initially we've been able to assist in the rewriting of the regulatory powers around these cooperatives to open them up and ensure member participation, so we're moving them in that direction at the local level. It's mainly in one or two provinces of China, and we've had some effect in opening them up and helping with the enterprise side of it.
It's a long-term democratic rights experience, because we're getting them to run their own facility, to elect their boards of directors. I couldn't tell you now that it's going to pay off in the long run, but it seems to have some effect on understanding of self-reliance and taking part in their own community and its economic development. It's a real test.
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Mr Runciman: I appreciate what you're saying, but I'd love to hear from someone the rationale for the distinction that members of your party, and I guess others as well, make in respect to the different approaches to China versus South Africa. We're dealing with, I think, a much more repressive, violent regime, responsible for continuing assaults against human rights and who knows how many deaths.
You and others built strong alliances with the ANC, cut off trade. Other than the argument, "We can't cut off our nose to spite our face," in economic terms -- that's the only one I've heard -- how do you justify intellectually, morally, this kneeling at the feet of the dictators of China?
Mr Knight: First of all, let's take South Africa. South Africa was approximately $20 billion-plus, heavily export-oriented -- a lot like us, really, in terms of the nature of resource economy etc. We did not trade with South Africa in the context of commercial business throughout the period of the work done by the previous Prime Minister, Prime Minister Mulroney, but we did conscientiously work on development in South Africa. What we were able to do was build an indigenous credit union system, with self-reliance and with these people learning the process of meetings, the democratic process of electing boards etc. That's how we related to that market.
China is a billion people in a self-contained unit, and you're only getting my view; this is a long-held view, long before there was an NDP government in Ontario. China is the Middle Kingdom. It's a billion people. It's self-contained. Their record on human rights is wholly unacceptable. The question then becomes, how does the world community tactically develop some mechanisms for bringing about a fundamental change in that?
If southern China in particular, extending out from Hong Kong, does not get the economic tools of enterprise and activity, and if we have not made relationships and connections, I'm not sure that China couldn't revert to a very self-contained unit. In this instance the experiences are saying we have to try and run as best we can in parallel, in my view, in terms of effecting a massive change, which I believe will come about in China as well. Personally, I believe that over the next decade we will see a major change in that country, and it will be fundamentally owed to the people in the democratic movement from China.
Mrs Elizabeth Witmer (Waterloo North): Mr Runciman has addressed the concern I had, but just one final question, Mr Knight: Were you involved at all in the debate on free trade, and what was your position at that time?
Mr Knight: Yes, I was involved in the free trade debate. I was involved at the time of the FTA and not the NAFTA, just to separate the two, and I was opposed to the free trade agreement at that time, yes.
Mrs Witmer: What would your position be on those two issues at the present time?
Mr Knight: On both those issues, the question now becomes, in the context of them being the law of Canada, how one operates within the context of the North American market and how to adjust to that accordingly.
For example -- and this is separate and apart from myself, because the organizations I work in are quite divided on the issue; we have a capacity as credit unions and cooperatives to reflect the community, so we have a lot of people who are very pro free trade and a lot of people who are not. We're having to adjust, like many Canadians, to the restructuring -- all those buzzwords -- to do trade in an enhanced way with the United States, Mexico etc. Essentially, we have adjusted to following the direction set by the negotiated settlements, and notwithstanding raising some issues, we're still heavily in developmental work in Central America, in Mexico, but we're also finding opening avenues for trade.
Mrs Witmer: Are you suggesting that you don't support it but because it's now law you reluctantly are pursuing the avenues available to you?
Mr Knight: We're not pursuing them reluctantly; we're pursuing them quickly. I'm just being very open about it. There's no messing around. It's the reality and we're working in it.
Ms Haeck: I want to follow up with a couple of questions on the comments you made regarding finding the cooperatives or the smaller units to work with within countries like China, because I think you're right. You have to basically get down into the grass roots to support the development, be it political or economic, of those individuals so they can finally take ownership of the process, and the political process obviously is very much related to the economic one.
A number of us have talked about micro-financing and finding alternative financing sources for small businesses. With the kind of -- shall we use the word? -- clout the credit unions have, especially in being able to support small enterprises, cottage industries, so to speak, in places like China or the Pacific Rim, how do you see your role, as someone coming from a credit union, in supporting those endeavours?
Mr Knight: I see my role as mainly to bring the experience to the collective wisdom of the board and the corporation, to assist the province of Ontario in enhancing trade. I mentioned earlier that I think over 70% of business in this province still does not do any trade internationally.
We have some phenomenal changes going on that governments, private sector, cooperatives -- everybody -- have to try to get their head around and work together to get their head around. I'll give you an example. For 20 years we did major developmental work throughout Asia. In doing that work, we worked in local areas, communities, in terms of establishment of cooperatives, credit unions. Take Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, India, Sri Lanka: What we're finding now is that a number of those economies, for example Malaysia, are growing at faster rates than we are. Based on that, we are now finding the very organizations and institutions we worked with are not coming to Canada and touring and meeting with our data-processing companies, our major insurance companies, our trust companies etc, to talk about further aid development; they're coming to talk about trade and technological exchanges -- data processing, credit cards, you name it -- to partner.
I think what happens is that the two are combining in that Asian market. One of the really exciting things for us as Canadians, as a trading nation, is to be able to build on that now. Some of it will be cooperatives to cooperatives or credit unions to credit unions, and it'll go right down to that local area, the small micro-enterprise or cooperative, in some instances right in the village.
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Ms Haeck: Do you see yourself being in a position, because of the kind of background you have -- and I can't speak necessarily for the other people I see on my research paper -- that you're able to give the kind of advice to a national government, or even a bank or credit union organization, of being able to support those small enterprises in a way they may not have to date?
Mr Knight: Yes, and some of that would not necessarily involve -- I may have the policy knowledge, but I can find the expertise within our system. Hundreds of our managers have all done international work, and there is real expertise to be brought to the table that I think is ready and willing to assist.
Mr Marchese: I just want to speak very briefly to the issue of patronage, for the benefit of Mr Runciman. For your benefit, and you probably know this, prior to this government there was no process like this where we reviewed appointments. In fact, the various governments before us simply appointed people they liked or were connected to, and for most of those appointments we hardly had a clue that they were appointed. Our process opened it up so that everybody knows where people are going. In fact, what we've done is to have created a forum such as this where we give the opposition parties the benefit of simply reviewing the candidates who have been appointed; what they do is review them. Where they see an affiliation or possible affiliation to the NDP, they call them in, and that's basically what happens.
Mr Knight: Excuse me. Through the Chair, does that relate to the two upcoming people, the one from the chamber of commerce and the --
Mr Marchese: They may ask whether they're affiliated to the Liberal or Conservative Party, but they tend not to; they ask only those who are affiliated or connected to the NDP. The point is, we've allowed a forum where people can interview candidates. Some of you are connected to our party, but I would say that 90% of the appointments are either affiliated to the other parties or not affiliated at all. The ones we get to see are the ones who are connected to us.
I didn't want you to feel an oddity; you are a member of a minority of people who get appointed. I thought I'd put you at ease.
Mr Hope: Your political affiliation means absolutely nothing to the community I represent, but what does matter is the mandate that has been prescribed for you to stimulate trade, growth and economic renewal. With the effects of the free trade agreement, which has devastated my community, NAFTA, which is having an impact on my community, the global economic recession, which has had an impact on my community, the citizens of my community come before me and the federal member, whenever they can find him, and talk about economic growth.
I need to ask you, as a member who will sit on this, what are you going to do for the people I represent, who are citizens in the province of Ontario, to help in the international market trade to bring jobs to our community, to help stimulate growth in our community, to stimulate economic prosperity, while at the same time helping those in other parts of this world for economic growth and economic stimulation?
I have to ask you that because that's what they expect me to ask you, not whether you're politically affiliated or this hocus-pocus of whether you support free trade. Some of the questioning I find very -- I mean, the Liberals talk about now opening up all the trade offices. We've had trade offices open; they haven't done well. We have to move to new technology; we have to deal with the business world's shortage of time; their time is very short. I need to ask you very directly for the citizens I represent, who are part of Ontario, what are you going to do to make sure you can put viewpoints to help us regain confidence in our community?
Mr Knight: A number of things. We have to build on the recovery that's already taking place. There have been thousands of jobs created in the province of Ontario. We might as well build on that. Secondly, there is trading experience and partnering that have been tried throughout the world by organizations within the province of Ontario that the information and the education ought to be shared with others, particularly smaller enterprises out of a lot of our communities around the province of Ontario. Myself, the organizations I work with are in Mississauga, Weston, out in almost every community in the province of Ontario.
I think what we can do through the trade corporation is finally coordinate a series of activities: (1) on the major capital projects ensuring that everybody gets into the action of being able to put the partnering together to go after those international projects and the spinoffs into those local communities; (2) that we are able to enhance trade and trade education for those enterprises that believe their market may be just Toronto or their market may be just the Hamilton area, if you follow me, to assist them to get out internationally.
I've been following what I think is an incredibly interesting sort of non-office approach to trade, and let me just give you an example that I hope will be discussed by the corporation and by the ministry in general.
The exciting part about Compuserve and Internet and those information highways -- that's the buzzword, "information highways," but set that aside -- is that in fact we are now in a position to create commercial networks across the world. I'll use an example from way in my past. I used to work with a little farm manufacturer by the name of Freigstadt and he had a little plant in a town of less than 100. Out of that plant, he shipped all over the northern United States. Now Freigstadt, as a small enterprise, could hook up into a network, and when people are looking for his particular specialty equipment, if they're looking for it in Thailand, Malaysia, anywhere in the world, they can relate back and forth through those networks.
I think the trade corporation will become the driving engine to coordinate that kind of activity; that is, not in the building of physical plant all over the world and sending people in that context. I think that day is over, and again I refer to the MacLaren report that was done last fall on international trade, which is an excellent piece of work.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Knight, for your appearance before the committee this morning.
Mr Knight: Thank you very much.
The Chair: This committee now stands recessed until 2 o'clock this afternoon.
The committee recessed from 1209 to 1407.
DIANE BESNER
Review of intended appointment, selected by third party: Diane Besner, intended appointee as member, Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal.
The Acting Chair (Mr Robert W. Runciman): Our first witness this afternoon is Diane Besner. Welcome to the committee. This is a half-hour review. If you have any brief opening comments, please go ahead. If not, we'll get right into the questioning.
Ms Diane Besner: No, not at this point.
Mrs Witmer: Welcome, Ms Besner. First of all, I would like to ask you briefly, why do you believe that you are well qualified to sit on the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal?
Ms Besner: I believe the reason I'm qualified is that, first of all, with my present employment as a representative for the Workers' Health and Safety Centre, I deal with occupational health and safety on a daily basis in the position of coordinating training programs and working with different employers and different organizations to offer training to workers in the workplace. So I am familiar with different workplaces and different types of injuries and circumstances that could be in the workplace for workers as far as occupational disease and health and safety.
Mrs Witmer: Your name, I understand, was put forward by Gord Wilson. Is that right?
Ms Besner: That's correct, as a worker representative, and I believe I can do that type of representation for the Ontario Federation of Labour.
Mrs Witmer: I'm sorry. Your last comment was?
Ms Besner: Representation for the Ontario Federation of Labour as far as a worker representative.
Mrs Witmer: I'm interested in hearing you say that. How do you then feel you would handle this particular position if you feel you're there as the representative for labour?
Ms Besner: Well, I understand that on these panels there are worker representatives and employer representatives from the different communities, and nominations have to come from those different communities. We bring our experiences from our different representative groups and I think that would just be an asset to this position as far as making sure that both experiences are taken into account on these panels.
Mrs Witmer: I guess I would indicate to you, the expectation certainly is that you come and you have expertise, and obviously your expertise is going to be on the labour side; however, it does become important that you as a representative remove your partisan hat, whatever that hat might be, and then you apply your own good faith, your own best judgement, apply these circumstances and make a decision in each particular case. Do you feel you're going to be able to do that? I'm just a little uncomfortable with some of the comments you've made.
Ms Besner: I feel that I'm capable of doing exactly that, just like any representatives of employers who present themselves to be on these panels. Of course you bring your own personal experiences and so on to the panels, but I feel that each individual case has to be determined on its own merits once you get there. So I feel that's a possibility.
Mrs Witmer: What type of cases do you envision yourself involved in, what type of issues?
Ms Besner: I guess I will know that when it comes to being asked to do different cases. It's pretty hard for me to answer that question when it's not up to me to decide which case they want me to review.
Mrs Witmer: I'd just like to come back to the issue of being non-partisan and I'd just like to quote. In April 1993, the WCAT issued a members' code of professional responsibility and it makes the following comment regarding the ability to render impartial decisions. It says:
"The presence of pre-existing opinions is not intrinsically a problem. It becomes a problem, however, both practically and in law, when members are seen by their colleagues or by parties to be irrevocably committed to those opinions. Accordingly, all members must be seen to be genuinely willing to review their pre-existing views in light of new evidence and submissions" etc.
Can you comment on that particular code?
Ms Besner: I think it makes a lot of sense to have that code in there. It's the reality that you are going to be there and that you have to be there as a member, impartial, and be willing to take in the merits of the case to be able to make a decision.
Mrs Witmer: Have you discussed with anyone the role of the tribunal members?
Ms Besner: Yes. I met with Maureen who is from the WCAT and we went through a lot of the responsibilities of this role. I previously had a meeting with Ron Ellis, who is the chair, and the committee, where we went through the interview process. I had received the code of ethics and the act itself and had a chance to review that.
Mrs Witmer: After reviewing that, you feel very comfortable then that you could do really both things: You could be the link with your respective community, which in this case would be the labour community, and yet you would also be able to look at each individual case and the circumstances, the issues involved, and render an impartial decision?
Ms Besner: Yes.
Mrs Witmer: What do you see the role of the WCAT being?
Ms Besner: I see that WCAT is there to review and to make decisions on final appeals of workers' compensation cases. That's how I see what their role is.
Mrs Witmer: What's your opinion of the Workers' Compensation Board at the present time?
Ms Besner: I don't feel I'm in a position to give you an opinion on their activities.
Mrs Witmer: As a representative of the labour community, do you think it's adequately addressing the needs of the employers and employees in the province of Ontario?
Ms Besner: Again, I don't feel that I'm in a position to answer that type of question.
Mrs Witmer: Do you think that because of the actions of the board you're going to have more or fewer appeals to deal with?
Ms Besner: I really don't know at this point. With my activity being with WCAT right now -- it's really in the beginning stages. It's hard to comment on a question like that from my point of view.
Mrs Witmer: And you're bilingual, are you?
Ms Besner: That's correct.
Mrs Witmer: Now, was that part of the reason then that you were selected for this position as well?
Ms Besner: I understood that WCAT was looking for a part-time member and they were requesting somebody bilingual, maybe to have more flexibility in who they could use to hear some of the French cases.
Mrs Witmer: What have you been doing? You've been with the Workers' Health and Safety Centre?
Ms Besner: Yes.
Mrs Witmer: What has your work primarily involved?
Ms Besner: My work at the Workers' Health and Safety Centre is as a regional representative. Basically, my assignment is to coordinate health and safety training programs in the Ottawa region, working with employers and sponsoring organizations.
Mrs Witmer: And have you had a good working relationship with the employer community?
Ms Besner: Yes. Specifically now with the legislation, the requirement for certification training under Bill 208, we've had to deal quite a lot with employers and it has worked quite well.
Mrs Witmer: So you haven't found any of them reluctant to embark on the training course?
Ms Besner: No. The Workers' Health and Safety Centre is an organization that provides education and research to all workers. It's not biased one way or the other.
Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): Thank you for driving down all the way from Ottawa in this type of weather. My first question was with regard to being able to do hearings both in French and in English. Are you able to fully participate in a hearing in French?
Ms Besner: Yes. Actually, my first language is French. I come from Cornwall -- as Mr Cleary can attest to, the bilingual community of Cornwall. I was born and raised in Cornwall and I always went to school in French and, as well, a completely French high school. It wasn't a French immersion program or anything; French is my parents' first language.
Ms Harrington: I was going to ask you, as we do ask a lot of our candidates, with the appointment that they are embarking on, whether they would like to see some changes over the course of their tenure. But I'm not sure yours is a policy role; it's more the carrying out of a function rather than being involved in changing the organization.
Ms Besner: Right, yes.
Ms Harrington: But I guess I could ask the question and see what you have to say. Would you want to make any changes to the organization as it functions?
Ms Besner: I find it really hard to comment on that type of question because again I don't feel that I'm in a position right now. I've just been asked to be a panel member representing workers on this tribunal and it's very much for me in the beginning stage. It's hard to comment on changes right now, until I really get into it. Maybe I can comment on that later on, but not at this point in time.
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Ms Harrington: I am aware that there have been some long waiting periods for decisions. Certainly we would like to facilitate this organization to make people happy, make things go more smoothly. I'm not sure that yours is a policy role, but hopefully you'll get into the organization, and obviously I hope that you will improve things. I just wonder if my colleagues have any comments.
The Acting Chair: Does any other government member wish to participate? If not, we'll move on to Mr Crozier.
Mr Crozier: Ms Besner, welcome. I want to follow up on the question regarding your appointment to this position because of your ability to be bilingual. Are you aware of how the tribunal operates in that? Will you be the only French-speaking person on a particular tribunal or will you be one of the total number who will be bilingual?
Ms Besner: I really never asked that question myself. I don't know.
Mr Crozier: It was just a bit unclear. Under "Candidate Search Process" it said they were "in need of a bilingual part-time worker member to conduct hearings in French." So I was curious about whether it was to allow more flexibility or whether you would be the interpreter.
Ms Besner: Oh, no. My goodness, I don't think I'm going there as an interpreter, that's for sure. That's not my understanding. I would think that, if it's a French hearing, all parties would be able to understand and converse in the language.
Mr Crozier: I would hope so.
It's been pointed out that there has been a recent increase in the number of cases. We were given material that indicates that since 1988 in practically every year there's been an increase in the number of cases, although the number of cases closed over that period does in fact exceed the number of new cases that come on board, so it would look like we're moving towards improvement in that. Do you have any comment about why there may be more cases than there used to be?
Ms Besner: I don't know. Maybe it's got to do with the workers' compensation system, how the cases are being handled there, that more cases are going to the tribunal. It's the final appeal stage, so maybe individuals are now more aware that they can go as far as the tribunal. I don't know. Those are just my thoughts.
Mr Crozier: That leads me to ask this: In my experience, a workers' compensation case comes into the system and there's adjudication, there are case workers, there are medical reports, reports of various professionals accumulated as this case goes along. In view of all the evidence that's given and the fact that the Workers' Compensation Board has a system in place that is supposed to review these cases and come to some conclusion, you being at this point a non-professional, let's say, how is it that you from your experience will be able to take all this information and draw an unbiased conclusion from it?
Ms Besner: I think that I, as anybody else who sits on that panel, should be able to read the material that's before me and try to understand it as much as I can, and if there is something that needs to be cleared up, have a chance to ask questions at the actual hearing and be a representative on the panel that can look at the evidence before it and make a decision based on the actual merit of each individual case.
Mr Crozier: You certainly have a wide range of experience and education in the workers' health and safety area. During that experience, have you been exposed to actual cases where medical circumstances surrounded health and safety issues? I'm trying to get at the experience you might have to interpret the information put before you.
Ms Besner: I'm in the educational field in terms of bringing health and safety training to the workplace and to workers. Some of our programs actually go into quite some detail, where we've talked about hygiene monitoring, for instance. The centre has worked through a program of putting the message across to workers that hygiene monitoring -- that can be very technical, but it's been put in a way that can be understood by the workers in the different workplaces. If anything is explained clearly enough, and if there's not an understanding of a certain issue, you ask, I think you can get that clarified with whomever is there to represent the party involved in that particular case.
Mr Crozier: You've been employed in the Workers' Health and Safety Centre for about five years. Would you categorize the experience you've had and that you've seen in those five years as an improvement in workers' health and safety in Ontario, or a degeneration?
Ms Besner: I think we've come a long way, even in just five years. I specifically think, especially with certification training provincially, which has been going on for two years now, that we've seen a big change in the workplace, where both sides are taking training together and they have the same goal and they go back into the workplace and try and make the workplace better. I think certification training has done a lot to improve the situation, and I'm sure we're going to see it through a reduction in accidents and so on.
Mr Crozier: Good; that's encouraging. I wish you well. It's not an easy task, I'm sure, that you might have ahead of you. Frankly, I hope you work yourself right out of a job so we don't have these kinds of things any more.
The Acting Chair: That concludes the questioning. Thank you for your appearance here today, Ms Besner. Good luck.
1430
GRANT HURLBURT
Review of intended appointment, selected by government party: Grant Hurlburt, intended appointee as member, Council of the College of Dental Technologists of Ontario.
The Acting Chair: The next witness is Grant Hurlburt. Welcome to the committee, Mr Hurlburt.
Mr Grant Hurlburt: Thank you.
The Acting Chair: Do you have anything you'd like to say at the outset?
Mr Hurlburt: I have nothing to say except my appreciation at being appointed.
The Acting Chair: Fine. You were selected for review by the government party; Mr Frankford will start the questioning.
Mr Frankford: Welcome. We've all been intrigued by your background in your bibliography, but we won't ask about dinosaur brains today, I don't think.
We appreciate having you here as a lay member of a college. It is important, with the legislation, that it has a balance of public and professional members, that we get members of the public who are willing to serve on such bodies. Do you have any special interest in dental technology?
Mr Hurlburt: I don't have any special interest in dental technology. Some of my training in palaeontology would help me understand some of it. Palaeontologists work with teeth; they work with anatomy. So do I. Human skull anatomy especially is something I'm familiar with. I also have done some casting, again as part of my work. So although I am not part of any health profession, I do have some understanding of some of the underlying principles that apply to it.
Mr Frankford: Have you been able to find out anything about the college or about any policy matters or practice matters relating to dental technology at the present time?
Mr Hurlburt: I haven't been made aware of any issues in particular.
Mr Frankford: I guess this is a profession that doesn't deal with patients directly, to any extent.
Mr Hurlburt: I feel that the fact that their work could directly affect the health of a patient does mean they belong to be regulated under a health professions act. Their work does potentially affect the health of a patient by affecting perhaps the anatomy of the face, or perhaps there might be some material that might be poisonous to the patient, so they belong under the purview of health regulation.
Mr Frankford: I suppose it's early days for the college, and you're not on it, in any case, but is this a field in which there are likely to be complaints from the public about inadequate care or unprofessional conduct?
Mr Hurlburt: I have no way of knowing, but of course that is part of the mandate of a committee, to deal with public complaints.
The Acting Chair: Is that it, Mr Frankford?
Mr Frankford: Yes.
The Acting Chair: Any other government member, given that this is your witness? Nothing at all? Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: Let me also welcome you to the committee. The dental technologists are usually trained through the community colleges. They specifically talk about George Brown here and the dental hygienists, and some are trained at Seneca and other colleges. They go through, I presume, quite a rigid apprenticeship program of four years afterwards before they are able to apply for their registration. Do you feel the process is quite a long process for a dental technologist? In other words, you go through a community college for three years, you go through a four-year experience before you're a dental technologist, registered. Do you feel it's an extensive time for being approved?
Mr Hurlburt: That's an interesting point. I don't feel I have enough experience to comment on that at the moment, but from the outset, a four-year apprenticeship following three years does seem a fairly long time. On the other hand, they do have to learn quite a variety of techniques to deal with different materials. Both tooth and facial anatomy are quite complicated; not only is it complicated, but there is also growth in the face. An error could be quite costly for the person who had their face negatively affected by the consequences of an ill-fitting dental prosthesis.
Mr Curling: Are you familiar with the regulations that govern the dental technologists?
Mr Hurlburt: I wouldn't say I'm completely familiar. That's going to be part of my job as an appointment.
Mr Curling: You're not familiar, then?
Mr Hurlburt: Not entirely, no. I haven't started to work as a member of this committee yet.
Mr Curling: I know you explained to us what your interest in this is. You don't know anything about the regulations that govern the dental technologists, but your interest stemmed from what? Could you explain that to me again? Why would you want to serve on this?
Mr Hurlburt: I didn't actually say I knew nothing about it, but I did say I wasn't entirely familiar with it. I would like to serve on a board; dental technology fell into an area in which I had some interest. I have looked at the regulations, I have glanced over them; I have a reasonable understanding of what their purpose is.
Mr Curling: Do you feel that individuals who are not trained in Canada or in Ontario should be accepted as dental technologists?
Mr Hurlburt: As I say, I haven't worked as a board member yet. I think that's an important point. However, I think it's important that the standards to which these individuals have been held in their own country should be taken into account. Generally speaking, within health professions, at the very least people who come in from another country should have to write fairly rigorous exams. That should be, at the very least, a criterion. But again, I'm not entirely familiar with the field yet.
Mr Curling: Would you be receptive to, as you said, rigid exams or having to go through rigid formats in order to be a dental technologist? Would you be receptive to a system set up, that is, a fair way of writing an exam, to be a dental technologist and not going through a very long process?
The reason I am asking you this is that there are many people who are invited to this country, encouraged to come to this country, who have foreign credentials, who upon arriving here, just to be certified or to be accepted, either wait a very long period or are unable to write these registrations to be qualified. I notice you used the words, "They should go through a very rigid process." Do you feel a fair system should be set up, efficient and effective enough that they can be qualified very efficiently and quickly?
Mr Hurlburt: That's a rather complicated issue and a complicated question, and to give a full answer to that I'd like to feel a lot more assured about the particular issue. In certain respects, I would like to decline to answer that, apart from to say that of course I feel it should be fair; I think the interests of Canadians should be met.
Mr Curling: I didn't hear the last part.
Mr Hurlburt: I think the interests of Canadians, the interests of their health, should be met. Certainly, the interests of incoming professionals to a certain extent should be met as well, but I would say that people should adhere to the standards of this country. It's a very difficult issue, of course. It varies not only from country to country, but it would vary from profession to profession.
Mr Curling: Of course, Ontario and all the provinces have their standards. I'm not saying they should not meet their standards. I am saying that to have access to proper registration sometimes is dragged out and confusing and frustrating. Nurses go through that, doctors go through that, lawyers go through that. All these registered professions seem to be frustrated by the system. Sitting on a board like this, since you will be approved, if such registration comes about, would you see that a fair, efficient system be in place so that those who would like certification be treated in that manner? It's a very simple question.
Mr Hurlburt: Well, it's not a simple issue. I think everybody's interested in being fair. But it does, unfortunately, happen frequently, when people have to meet regulations and design regulations, that it can often seem confusing and dragged out. It's frequently the nature of government, of bureaucracies, of many situations. You cannot, I think, say any particular system is completely fair or completely unfair. Like anyone else, I'd want to do the best job possible.
Mrs Witmer: Thank you very much, Mr Hurlburt, for being here and for demonstrating an interest in this particular position. I would concur with you: I don't believe that's a very simple question that can be given a simple answer. It's a very serious issue, and I think the provincial government and the different boards need to take a look at how we can cope with those who come from other countries who are qualified, to somehow facilitate their becoming competent and qualified in our own country. They certainly do have different levels of expertise and experience, so you can't answer it in one or two sentences.
The College of Dental Technologists has a role to play at present. What do you see your job being? How can you help the other individuals, and how would you promote what's presently going on?
Mr Hurlburt: I have been appointed as a member of the public. I am a member of the public, so as far as that goes, I would certainly be representative of the public. As I have said, I do have some familiarity with dental and skull anatomy. The requirements of committee members are laid out in the act, and I would of course do my best to fulfil the requirements of the act which meet the interests of both dental technologists and the public.
Mrs Witmer: So there's nothing more that you would hope to accomplish during your tenure?
Mr Hurlburt: I wouldn't say I've any axe to grind at all, or any great ambitions. I would like to gain experience in this field. I would like to aid in the efficient regulation of health professions. Dental technology meets some of my time limitations. Of course, I would have to become much more involved in my work before I can make a better answer than that, but I'm being hired to perform certain functions and I will try to do that to the best of my ability.
Mrs Witmer: I would like to wish you well. I think you've got some good background experience that does put you in a position where you can deal with the issue of dental technology in this province, and I feel confident you will do a good job.
Mr Hurlburt: Thank you.
Mr Frankford: Mr Chair, could I ask a question which might be directed to the researcher?
The Acting Chair: Go ahead.
Mr Frankford: It sounds to me, leaving aside the question of foreign qualifications, that there isn't the possibility of interprovincial recognition of qualifications. Is that the case? I would also wonder, does that stand up to charter challenges and things like that?
Mr David Pond: Do you want me to look that up for you, sir, on behalf of the committee?
Mr Frankford: Yes, if you have time.
Mr Pond: Sure. No problem.
The Acting Chair: Mr Hurlburt, thank you for appearing today. That concludes the questions, and we wish you well.
Our next witness is Michael George Somers. I gather he has not yet arrived, so I'm going to declare a 15-minute recess.
Mr Curling: Before we do that, Mr Chair, the clerk will tell you that we had a list of people who have declined, a list of declines.
The Acting Chair: I'm not sure what you're talking about, Mr Curling. Are you talking about a subcommittee?
Mr Curling: It really is for the subcommittee, yes, a simple thing.
The Acting Chair: Why don't we recess and have a subcommittee meeting during the recess? How does that sound? We'll recess for 15 minutes and the committee can return at 3 pm sharp. All right? Fine.
The committee recessed from 1444 to 1459.
MICHAEL GEORGE SOMERS
Review of intended appointment, selected by third party: Michael George Somers, intended appointee as member, Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.
The Acting Chair: Our next witness has now arrived, Mr Michael George Somers. Mr Somers, welcome to the committee.
Mr Michael George Somers: Thank you very much.
The Acting Chair: Mr Somers, this is a half-hour review, with 10 minutes allocated to each party. Do you wish to make any brief opening comment or shall we get right into the questions?
Mr Somers: No, I don't, other than an update on my résumé. I am a professor at Osgoode but I am also a sessional lecturer at Ryerson Polytechnic University, and that was not included in the résumé.
Mrs Witmer: Welcome, Mr Somers. I guess the first question is, why are you interested in this position and how did you become aware of the fact that there was a position available on the board?
Mr Somers: First let me answer why I'm interested in the board. Being a lawyer, I'm very interested in the compensation of victims regarding criminal crimes, and I'm also interested in participating in society by using my skills to the betterment of society. I've always been concerned that in some instances victims are sort of forgotten in the criminal process, and I thought this would be a very good vehicle to participate and also to appease some of my interest.
I'm not sure if I found out that there was a vacant position until someone phoned me. I phoned up the appointments office and put in my name, saying that I'm interested in this board because I knew of it. But when I applied, I did not know of any vacancies.
Mrs Witmer: I appreciate that and I think certainly many of us sitting around the tables in this room would concur that oftentimes victims in this province have been neglected. I think there is a desire by many people to make some changes in that process, and that would lead me to my next question.
As a member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, what changes do you feel you would like to make? Are there areas that you'd like to review? If you can't necessarily make changes, are there some issues that you believe you'd like to take a look at to determine if you can assist in making changes?
Mr Somers: My first response is, I would think government will be changing the legislation. But if you ask me from a citizen's point of view, looking over the legislation, as I have, in detail, I thought one possibility may be the change in the limitation period, since after one year applicants are not allowed to come to the board unless they apply for an extension.
That might be one area of interest, because in some instances, sexual assault for instance, I can see that that limitation is going to be passed, and in many other instances -- I know the board will give extensions, particularly in sexual assaults, but it would be good to have it in the legislation, particularly since Manitoba, for instance, has two years.
Again, this is a government matter of whether the compensation is enough. We know from I think it's section 19 that there are limitations, for instance, $1,000 per month.
Mrs Witmer: That's right.
Mr Somers: And also a lump sum of $2,500. Is that enough? I mean, I can't answer that. That's more the legislation.
Mrs Witmer: The lump sum is actually $25,000.
Mr Somers: That's what I meant. I'm sorry.
Mrs Witmer: Okay, just to correct the record.
There was an advisory board on victims' issues that was set up in November 1990, and one of its recommendations was that the limitation period should be extended from one to two years, so obviously that's an issue that is being looked at. The compensation payments are being examined as well, so I guess you will have an opportunity to be involved in the discussion of both those issues in which you've indicated you have a personal interest.
Another area that certainly is causing some concern and interest is the publication ban on the proceedings of the board, and I guess particularly at the present time as we focus on the highly publicized cases of the teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. We know the board held in camera hearings regarding those two cases.
Some people are concerned that publication bans are becoming routine and they argue that that violates the right of taxpayers to know how their tax dollars are being spent. What opinion do you have on that particular issue of publication bans on proceedings of the board?
Mr Somers: To a certain extent I can understand those comments because the foundation, the cornerstone, of any judicial system is that it is open to camera, that the public knows what's happening. Nevertheless, it's a balancing act, and the act, and I think rightly so, has provisions in which if it's prejudicial to the victim, that information not be given, that that be held in camera. I think that makes common sense.
Furthermore, in this administrative tribunal, if a trial is in the near future, it would seem that some of the comments and the decision of this board would have implications, detrimental implications to the offender for instance. So it makes sense that some areas, some issues, are held in camera.
It's a balancing act, and I think it cannot be abused. If it were, I would certainly concur with the comment that you made. However, in this particular board I don't see that happening.
Mrs Witmer: Part of the problem with the board and the limitation period is the fact that there are many individuals who are the victims of crime who really don't have an awareness of the board. My question to you would be, how can you raise awareness in the province to make individuals aware of the fact that this is available to them? Do you see that as a concern?
Mr Somers: I definitely see it as a concern. There are many ways of addressing it: through the members for instance, part-time members and also full-time employees of the board, speaking at certain events, particularly community events.
Also regarding that issue of the public knowing, I'm particularly concerned about certain minority communities. If any community doesn't know of this board -- and I can think of many minority communities that do not -- I think we should have an outreach to them; also by having board members from different communities in our society, and when people come to the tribunal and see somebody they can understand a little bit, those individuals will go out themselves and talk in the community.
I think a public relations effort is needed. I would enjoy participating in such an activity.
Mrs Witmer: Yes, it appears that it's absolutely necessary, and I think you've identified a few of the problems. Some of the cultural and linguistic groups in our province simply are not aware of the fact that the board is there, available to provide them with some form of compensation.
Mr Marchese: The question I was going to ask of Mr Somers was somewhat similar. You literally answered it. I had raised this concern to another member who had come before this committee a year or so ago, and it was my suspicion that within the ethnoracial communities they weren't aware of this program and no one was making them aware of how they might approach or apply for support through this board. This is one of the recommendations that has been made by this advisory board in fact: to do some outreach programs which reflect cultural and linguistic differences of the province.
My concern then is that if we just do a brochure, that would be inadequate. That's my sense, because not every group within the society is a literate group and is simply waiting for a brochure to read or might go somewhere and simply pick it up. It just doesn't happen that way for many communities, so we have to do some outreach beyond the written form.
I think you're very sensitive to these things, obviously, and I suspect you would agree that we have to do something beyond just the written brochure to reach some of these other communities.
Mr Somers: Absolutely. My original response just wasn't to a written brochure. I think what's really important is picking out certain cultural activities and going and speaking. Also, I know there is a limitation on funds, but even on maybe cable TV, or certain advertisements can be done that don't cost too much. But I think a certain amount of originality is needed here.
Mr Marchese: I agree. No, I wasn't saying you were saying that. I was just thinking of how we react sometimes to governments. If people say they need information, we'll produce a brochure. Channel 47, for example, broadcasts in many different languages, and we know that within the Chinese community 80% of the population watch that program, 60% or 70% of the Portuguese population watch that program and 40% or 50% of the Italian community watch that. So we have to find different mediums to communicate. I want to thank you for coming and wish you the best, but I know others have questions as well.
1510
Mr Frankford: It seems to me that the assessment of pain and suffering is at the heart of the work that you'll be doing, and I wonder if you could comment on that from both a practical and an academic perspective.
Mr Somers: As you mention, most of the decisions, most of the compensation that is given focuses on pain and suffering. It's on a balance of probability that we give compensation and if the documentation's there, according to the act, we should give compensation for that.
As I've mentioned before, whether that compensation is adequate or not is a question for the legislation. For instance, for disability, which isn't pain and suffering, but that's just an example, it's $50 a day minus other benefits. From a legal point of view and an academic point of view, when we talk about pain and suffering, what I'm mostly focusing on is a compensation equal to that. I think the act itself is very specific that the board members can take in relevant factors. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't sensitive to the victim, and I think the act is clearly written regarding how we react to pain and suffering.
Mr Frankford: So a lot of the work would be assessing written reports rather than interviewing the victims. Is that right?
Mr Somers: Many of the decisions under this act are done by documents, and of course the evidence will be solely based on that. In oral evidence, witnesses are asked to give their evidence and the board wants to focus to that and be very informed so they can express themselves. Nevertheless, the decision whether to give compensation or not is greatly based on the documents, the evidence. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question.
Mr Frankford: Fine, yes. Thank you.
Ms Harrington: We are all very concerned, I think, across this province about victims in our society, as I sense you are. My question is, what changes would you make to this particular body, if you could, to try to improve our society and how this body functions?
Mr Somers: That's a good question. The first thing I would do is I would ensure that the board and the legislation are very informal, very inclusive in that they're there to listen to the victim. I think one of the big faults of the system is that people aren't being listened to; that's just one aspect, of course. They want compensation. The state is looking after the prevention of criminal activities and it seems part and parcel of that is compensation. You're asking me what I would do regarding the response to victims. I guess I would have to say that, if it is at all possible, they be given more compensation.
Ms Harrington: Recently the Attorney General announced that a surcharge on certain fines, I believe it is, is going to go to this program.
Mr Somers: Right.
Ms Harrington: Are you in favour of that?
Mr Somers: Yes, I think I would be in favour of it. I think it's something like 15% would go into a special fund. Was that what the minister was talking about?
Ms Harrington: It doesn't just fund the compensation board. There are other programs it is intended to fund, in my understanding, but obviously you're saying that you would like to have more money available for this program.
Mr Somers: Certainly.
Ms Harrington: Thank you very much. I appreciate your willingness to get in there and do a job.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee. I guess two of the three questions I had have already been answered on the awareness part of it and the publication ban. The other thing that we hear quite a bit about in our offices is the backlog that you have in the decision-making. Would you make a comment on that?
Mr Somers: Yes. It's my understanding that it's a year, a year and a half for a case to be heard. One resolution of that would be to hire more part-time members. More realistically, I think we could look at making decisions based on documentary evidence if the applicant is willing to consent to that, and also the offender. I think that's a way of speeding up the process and also not costing us much money. We could have more sittings is another response. I think those three avenues would be the best in getting rid of the backlog.
Mr Cleary: How many are on the committee now? Do you know that?
Mr Somers: I think 11 members are on.
Mr Cleary: It hasn't been cut recently?
Mr Somers: I don't think so. I think it has actually been increased.
Mr Cleary: Those were my questions. I know that's a big concern to us, the backlog. We may take a bit of abuse on that, you know, waiting for the hearings, but anyway I just wanted to get that on the record. Good luck.
The Chair: There are no further questions, so I'd like to thank you very much, Mr Somers, for your appearance before the committee today.
Mr Somers: Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity.
The Chair: We are at this point about 15 minutes ahead and the clerk has just gone outside to see if our next person is here.
Mr Runciman: Madam Chair, I just want to interject that during your absence and when we had a brief break earlier, we reviewed the list of people who'd been invited to appear before the committee and for a variety of reasons were unable to be in attendance.
The indication from the Conservative Party was that it was no longer going to request the appearance of Maureen Ruffolo or Wendy Hoy, but Mr Curling indicated a desire on behalf of the official opposition that we ask Peter Engelmann and Gordon Wilson if it's possible to appear before the committee for review in March.
The Chair: Could we agree that we might just deal with this now so we don't have to deal with it at the end of the afternoon?
Ms Harrington: A very reasonable request.
The Chair: All right, thank you. Following on, thank you for reporting that, Mr Runciman. We have confirmed that apparently Mr Wilson is available in March. He is out of town from February 9 to March 2, so he would be here for our review on March 15 and 16. That would address Mr Wilson. Mr Engelmann would be March as well, wouldn't he? He's available on the 15th.
What we will do then is give this request of the official opposition party back to the appointments secretariat and we will, with their concurrence, schedule those two interviews for the March selection meeting.
Ms Harrington: Agreed.
The Chair: Agreed. Thank you very much.
Do you wish just to sit tight or would you like to recess? I think we're okay.
1520
PENNY MILTON
Review of intended appointment, selected by third party: Penny Milton, intended appointee as member, Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.
The Chair: We would like to welcome Ms Milton to the committee. Would you like to come forward and have a seat and be comfortable. We appreciate you being early because we're ahead of schedule. Ms Witmer, would you like to start?
Mrs Witmer: I will. I'm really confused now. I thought at first the name here was wrong, Penny Milton, because I saw Penny Moss and I'm familiar with Penny Moss but not Penny Milton. I guess there's been a change in your status, Penny.
Ms Penny Milton: Not in my status, just my name.
Mrs Witmer: Anyway, it's good to see you. I see you once again have indicated your willingness to assume responsibility, this time on the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. My question to you would be, and I think it's more for the record because I certainly know of your vast experience in many areas, why do you feel an interest in this particular position and what expertise and qualifications do you feel you can bring to the board?
Ms Milton: Thank you very much. I think it's been clear that probably for the whole of my adult life in Canada I've been particularly passionate about the public interest in everything I've done. I've had a number of opportunities to contribute, such as the Ontario Council of Regents. You, Elizabeth, know the school system experience and suchlike. My interest in the health care field began quite a while ago, initially with school health and then public health issues and then through the work of the Premier's Council.
It seems to me that this particular selection offers me the opportunity not just to contribute to something that I think is really, really important to the wellbeing of people in Ontario but importantly brings together that public health and health policy experience, but at the same time interestingly draws on some of the employee-employer judicial kinds of experiences I've had in labour relations and various other justice issues.
Mrs Witmer: Is there an area here, any particular issues, that you feel you would like to become involved in, make any changes to the council, the operation of the council?
Ms Milton: There is a general one. I obviously haven't been with the council yet so I'd be reluctant to say that it's really relevant, but I've been particularly interested in helping organizations actually understand what kinds of processes they have to use if they're really going to reflect public interest and are going to be known to the public. Some of those are education, some of them are communication, but some of them are just the ways they work.
For example, not here but in other experiences, I've seen a reluctance of institutions that have been around for a long time to make public participation really straightforward, such as when they meet, how they meet, where they meet, those kinds of things, the procedural and practice areas for the institution itself.
In terms of their specific mandates, I'm very interested in the question of standards in certification. Again, that's a broad theme in my experience. I am very much interested in the responsibilities for the quality of practice and in fact the discipline as well, but I haven't narrowed a specific achievement that I would be after.
Mrs Witmer: I wish you well, Penny. I know that, as in the other responsibilities that you've assumed, you will do an outstanding job and I know that you carefully research the issues and then bring the expertise to the table. So I wish you well.
Ms Milton: Thanks very much.
Mr Frankford: Just following up on your comment about your interest in quality of practice, how do you feel about the college as the mechanism for doing that? Do you think that it's able to do it? Do you think it needs other mechanisms or do you think it's something which should be done from some other quarter?
Ms Milton: I think it's able to do it. I want to emphasize that I'm not really yet qualified to talk in detail about the college itself. I am somebody with a very clear commitment to self-governance for the professions. I think it is a very important vehicle in and of itself for high quality of practice. I think really there's still more work to be done and I understand that the college is serious about the work it's doing in terms of quality assurance programs and approaches -- peer monitoring, for example, peer reporting, requirements for improvement. I think they're all sound directions.
Mr Frankford: Don't you think that there are some limitations in doing that in the way that we have predominantly set up the medical system right now? We're dealing with people who are mostly individual entrepreneurs. The college, I know, goes in and can review files, but that's a rather indirect indicator of what's going on most of the time.
Ms Milton: Yes, probably. If we were doing it all over again, we may not have created the kind of organizations and systems we have. But we're not doing it all over again. I think there are significant areas of endeavour. I now work primarily with the private sector. I'm amazed by what I'm learning about how they do and don't do things. There are all kinds of mythologies about.
I still believe, though, that quality assurance within the profession itself is likely to be more effective than simple external inspection alone. It's always too random; it takes too many resources if you're really going to do it well. So I think there's a combination of having the right approaches, but at the same time, being a college, there is a level of -- how shall I call it? -- not collegiality as much as at least doctors who have been reviewed know that their reviewers are their peers. I think that's something that all professions value highly.
I will be looking for the opportunities to improve the approaches, the scope, because I really do believe that a complaints mechanism by itself is insufficient to assure the public of the required quality.
Mr Frankford: It's not really much of an outcome indicator, is it?
Ms Milton: No, no. I've yet to actually meet a doctor, or a lawyer, for that matter, who actually engages in the kind of measures of client satisfaction that I'm familiar with. It might be interesting if they did in terms of actually getting a clear understanding of what patients experience as the practice at the hands of doctors.
Mr Frankford: Maybe you should have a study trip to the UK, where I think a lot of interesting things are going on. I think there is much more recognition that it's a public system there. The criticism here of course is that we have a private system publicly funded, and I don't know if that's sustainable.
Ms Milton: It's a long time since I experienced health care in Britain, but it would have to be significantly improved before I'd be willing to make judgements about --
Mr Frankford: But there are all sorts of regional review bodies.
Ms Milton: Yes.
Mr Frankford: Perhaps if I can get on to it, the college in some ways was responsible for health policy, but yes and no. It's not the main vehicle for it, I think it's fair to say.
Ms Milton: No. It can be an influencer but it's not the creator of public health care policy.
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Mr Marchese: Penny, one of the things the college attempts to do, it says, is to "ensure that the public is informed of the college's services; consult with organizations and groups involved in health care and respond in a timely fashion...ensure that the college is accessible and fair to all members...and ensure that the work of the college is publicly visible." That's what it's supposed to do. I'm not sure how well they're doing that job. Are you aware of how well they're doing that job?
Ms Milton: Not at the moment. As a layperson, my prior knowledge of the College of Physicians and Surgeons was as an institution. I had no knowledge of even its governance structure. My knowledge comes from being a pretty regular reader of newspapers and magazines. I don't believe that media stories, for example, are the only way or necessarily a fulsome way of people having access to the knowledge they need.
I don't know what other mechanisms, frankly, at the moment the council uses. I would be hoping to contribute some ideas. I think people need information at certain times, when it's most useful to them; I think doctors themselves, maybe, and their offices and public health and libraries and such. I just don't know what role those other vehicles for dissemination of information are playing at the moment.
Mr Marchese: Right. My sense is that they tend to communicate information through brochures, the written form. I asked the same question of another previous applicant here, person. When we do that, we're excluding a great deal of the population that obviously doesn't read or can't read. So it seems to me we have to find other ways to reach people if we really are sincere about reaching them, and it's got to be beyond the written media.
Ms Milton: I think it's fair to say that print vehicles for information actually don't guarantee information at all; they only give a provided access to it. As I say, it's communication that we're talking about.
I think that you would know from other things we have done together at some times the efforts that you need to go to to help people understand things that they want to understand. There's a long way to go. I'm interested, actually, in some of the new technology solutions in those areas.
Mr Marchese: Thank you, Madam Chair. I wish her luck.
Mr Crozier: Welcome. I certainly am impressed by your background, and I think that you will be an asset to this position and board. But I do have a question, and it perhaps is as much a personal one, as perhaps a general member of the public who's interested. To pick up on some of the aims and objectives of the College of Physicians and Surgeons as well as the legislation under which it operates, and I believe it's the Regulated Health Professions Act, one of the items it does say is "to develop, establish and maintain standards of knowledge and skill and programs to promote continuing competence among the members." It goes on in another area to say that to fulfil the goals "the college endeavours to...monitor the quality of medical practice through programs such as peer assessment."
With 20,000 physicians and surgeons in the province of Ontario, I wonder about the logistics of doing that, considering that each of us at one time or another perhaps puts our life in the hands of an individual whom we trust with our health care. Do you see this as a practical goal that can be achieved, to be sure that we have this level of competency?
Ms Milton: I think that as a goal it's absolutely necessary; in practice, I think you're right, it's probably complicated, difficult, expensive and time-consuming. I'm talking only from general or other spheres, and I don't want you to think that I know too much about the college at the moment, but most of those 20,000 doctors, or many of them, probably don't work in isolation. While their relationships with their patients may be one on one, many of them are in group practices. Many of them are in family practice settings. Many of them have access to hospitals. I think there are other vehicles that are not just how the college deals with 20,000 doctors.
I think the other question is, do those detailed assessments need to be done every year? What do we know about the appropriate time frames in which practice improves or deteriorates, or what do we need to know about how doctors keep in touch with developments in their field? I'd like to recognize that the issue is serious and difficult and then think about what I know about performance measurements and evaluations in other sectors to see what might be applicable and what isn't.
Mr Crozier: Do you have any comment as to whether physicians and surgeons, medical practitioners, should have mandatory career -- I'm thinking of the term in education where the teachers meet for the day. Career updates --
Ms Milton: Development days.
Mr Crozier: -- let's put it that way. Do you feel that should be mandatory in any way?
Ms Milton: I don't know whether by mandatory it should be legislated. What's the expression? You can take a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Our experience in a number of other sectors is that you can require all you like that people take ongoing training, but unless they themselves are motivated to do it, it doesn't actually accomplish very much. What we need to look for is how do you measure, how do you know that the right outcomes are achieved? How do you know that practice meets current standards, is up to date and all the rest of it, and what do you do when you find it isn't?
I think that as a member of the public and very, very occasionally a patient, I'd be appalled to think that the people providing medical services to me might not be current.
I think one has to keep that high level of expectation, that it is a professional obligation on the part of every doctor who's certified and paid in Ontario not to actually -- to put the onus on the individual as distinct from always assuming that the system itself should be responsible for enforcing the appropriate expectations. That's the kind of approach I bring to these issues.
Mr Crozier: And I agree it does not necessarily need to be legislated but certainly in a self-regulatory body. In fact, I would prefer that, but the mere fact that it be done and to work towards that objective, I agree with.
Ms Milton: There may be ways of requiring, for example -- again, I don't know if it's there already, so I feel really tentative -- that doctors demonstrate their annual programs for ongoing development. I require that of my employees now in my company. They're all required to have annual performance development or personal development plans.
Mr Crozier: I wish you well, and thank you.
Mr Cleary: Welcome to the committee. I have a question that I was debating whether to bring up here or not, but I have some of my constituents who have been living by getting chelation therapy treatment. I don't know whether it's an acid or what they do. They pump it through your system to clean out your arteries. They've been really on to me. Anyway, the answer that they get back is that it's the College of Physicians and Surgeons that will not allow this to happen here in Ontario. They are going out of the boundaries of Ontario to get that treatment, mostly to the United States.
Ms Milton: I'm sorry. I can't comment because I don't know the issue at all and certainly don't --
Mr Cleary: No, I know it wasn't fair to ask you that, but it's something that --
Ms Milton: Is of concern to people.
Mr Cleary: It is a big concern and I know that some of my constituents, a couple of them, have been sent home. There was nothing they could do when they were on the operating table and they went down to the States and they've been getting this treatment since 1982 or 1983 and they're still going strong. But it's illegal here in Ontario. Those were my comments.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Milton, for your appearance before the committee today.
That completes the appointments for today.
Ms Harrington: Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion that this committee concur with the intended appointments that we have reviewed this day.
The Chair: Ms Harrington has moved the following appointments, which I would like to read into the record: The first appointment is Judge Robert Walmsley as a member of the Ontario Criminal Code Review Board; Mr Kenneth Holder as a member of the Ontario Realty Corp board of directors; Mr Anthony Carfagnini as chair of the Northern Ontario Development Corp; Mr William Knight as member of the Ontario International Trade Corp; Ms Diane Besner as member of the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal; Mr Grant Hurlburt as member of the Council of the College of Dental Technologists of Ontario; Mr Michael George Somers as member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board; and Ms Penny Milton as member of the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. That is the motion that is moved by Ms Harrington. Is there any discussion of that motion?
All in favour of those appointments? That motion is carried unanimously.
I would like to thank the committee members for their attendance and cooperation today and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1543.