CONTENTS
Wednesday 15 November 1995
Election of Chair
Election of Vice-Chair
Appointment of subcommittee
Briefing
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
*Chair / Présidente: Laughren, Floyd (Nickel Belt ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie ND)
*Bartolucci, Rick (Sudbury L)
Crozier, Bruce (Essex South/-Sud L)
*Ford, Douglas B. (Etobicoke-Humber PC)
*Fox, Gary (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings/Prince Edward-Lennox-Hastings-Sud PC)
*Gravelle, Michael (Port Arthur L)
*Johnson, Bert (Perth PC)
Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold ND)
*Leadston, Gary L. (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
*Newman, Dan (Scarborough Centre PC)
Preston, Peter L. (Brant-Haldimand PC)
*Ross, Lillian (Mrs) (Hamilton West/-Ouest PC)
*Wood, Bob (London South/-Sud PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Wettlaufer, Wayne (Kitchener PC) for Mr Preston
Clerk pro tem/ Greffière par intérim: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1006 in room 228.
ELECTION OF CHAIR
Clerk Pro Tem (Ms Lynn Mellor): Honourable members, it's my duty to call upon you to elect a Chair of the committee. I am open for nominations.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): I nominate Floyd Laughren as Chair.
Clerk Pro Tem: Are there any further nominations? I declare the nominations closed and Mr Laughren Chair of the committee.
The Chair (Mr Floyd Laughren): It's pretty bad when you can't get someone from your own party to nominate you, but maybe that's a sign of things to come. Who knows? Thank you, nominator.
ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIR
The Chair: The nominations are now open for Vice-Chair.
Mr Bob Wood (London South): I nominate Mr Tony Martin as the Vice-Chair of the committee.
The Chair: Tony Martin has been nominated. Any further nominations? If not, Tony Martin is the Vice-Chair. We'll find out later why he's not here.
APPOINTMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE
The Chair: We entertain a motion at this point for membership on the subcommittee, which is an important part of this committee.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): I move that a subcommittee on committee business be appointed to meet from time to time at the call of the Chair or at the request of any member thereof to consider and report to the committee on the business of the committee; that substitution be permitted on the subcommittee; that the presence of all members of the subcommittee is necessary to constitute a quorum; and that the subcommittee be composed of the following members: Mr Laughren as Chair, Mr Martin, Mr Wood and Mr Crozier; and that any subcommittee member may designate a substitute member on the subcommittee who is of the same recognized party and a member of the committee.
The Chair: Thank you for that. Those names have been nominated. All those in favour? That's carried.
Okay, that is the beginning. We will get to know each other much better as time goes on, and I hope we're able to work together as a good, functioning committee.
Of course, as I said yesterday as a member of one of the other committees, the committee system is just as partisan as you want to make it, and I have no problem with that. I'm not complaining about that. It tends not to be as wrangy as the Legislature, which is much more of a theatre than is the committee, but at the same time, we will deal with some issues that will cause some passions to rise from time to time. I'm sure of that.
But we are here to do the work of the province, and on government agencies, as you probably know, we can look into agencies themselves or appointments to those agencies, so there's a double-barrelled role for the committee.
It's an interesting committee and I know that as time goes on, as I say, we will get to know each other better, especially the members of the committee. I think Mr Wood and Mr Crozier and Mr Martin and I, in particular, will get to know each other a lot better, because that really is a very important part of making the committee work well. I hope we do have a committee that functions well and does the bidding of the Legislature.
BRIEFING
The Chair: I want to turn this part of the meeting over to the clerk, Lynn Mellor, who has a lot of experience in clerking committees, if that's what you call it, and I don't want to embarrass her, but who is a very good clerk of the Legislature and of the committees. I want to turn the meeting over to Lynn to explain more precisely and in more detail the workings of this particular committee.
Clerk Pro Tem: I have placed a copy of the standing orders in front of each of you. I'm going to briefly touch on them, but I'll give you a little bit of background on the committee, how it functioned in the last Parliament.
The committee -- standing order 106(g) -- is authorized to review agencies, and then all the details that follow, numbered 1 to, I believe, 14, are the steps that are followed for interviewing the different appointees that have been selected by the subcommittee.
This committee in the past has functioned in the two capacities. The majority of the reviews of agencies have been done when the House is not sitting, although they wrote their reports in many cases when the House came back.
The way the subcommittee had functioned in the past was that there was cooperation on the part of each caucus that each caucus selected from the certificates they had available to them a person who was standing for appointment to an agency, board or commission, and for the most part those interviews took place for about a half hour. In the case of what would be the fourth spot that was available for the committee for interviews, they selected a fourth person on a rotation basis to be interviewed.
The report of the subcommittee: The subcommittee must meet within 30 days of the committee having received the packages of certificates. The subcommittee then, after it has chosen and identified a day it would prefer to meet to review the appointments selected, that report is tabled with the full committee. Then the intended appointees are notified. Mr Pond prepares background material which is distributed to the members of the committee so that you have some material available to you with information on the intended appointee. You'll also receive a package from the secretariat that provides a biographical thumbnail sketch basically of the individual appointees.
The committee last year reviewed the St Lawrence Parks Commission; it reviewed the Ontario Human Rights Commission; it reviewed the Ontario Food Terminal; it reviewed the Workers' Compensation Board. So it has reviewed a wide variety of agencies and David is handing out a list of all the agencies that have been reviewed. Some of the reviews have taken as little as a day or two, others have taken as much as a week or so. In some cases the reports were not completed; time expired before the committee was able to complete its work.
The subcommittee is a very important part of this committee. The subcommittee is the group that is responsible for selecting the intended appointees to appear. Because of the time frames, the subcommittee tries to meet on a weekly basis. The reason for that is that all of the appointees who are listed in a particular package of certificates that are distributed to the committee are held for 30 days or until the subcommittee has met and the subcommittee report has been tabled with the committee.
The Chair: I wonder if members know how those certificates originate, where they come from.
Clerk Pro Tem: The certificates originate as a result of cabinet meeting and approval by cabinet. They're submitted from the ministry to the secretariat to cabinet for final approval. Once cabinet has given final approval, then the certificates are issued and they're tabled with the Clerk of the House who forwards them to the committee. As soon as we receive them in our office we get them out to the subcommittee members.
As to anyone who is not selected from that package, once the subcommittee report is tabled with the committee, then their appointment can go ahead. So the sooner the subcommittee reviews the appointments, the sooner the appointments can go through. It's something that will speed up the process, except for those people who have been chosen for review. Once those people have been chosen for review, then the committee must interview them within 30 days of that selection.
If there is a situation where a member is aware that for some reason they cannot make the selection or have an interview of the selected intended appointee prior to the 30-day expiry, then there is a provision where an extra 14 days can be added on allowing the committee time to meet and review that person's appointment.
That's about all I have at the moment, if there are any questions.
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot): Is it possible to obtain, at least for my edification, copies of any of the minutes of some of the ones that you spoke of, to get a flavour of the discussion when they appear before the committee?
Clerk Pro Tem: The Hansards are available in the committees. We don't retain extra copies of them. They're available in the library, if you wanted to have someone go through those for you, or if there's one in particular, I can give you dates and then you could get copies from the library.
The Chair: Were you thinking more, Mr Leadston, of a sampling of a debate on an individual appointment, for example, and an agency?
Mr Leadston: I'd like a couple of examples of each. Is it possible for yourself or your staff to provide that? Perhaps the other members may wish to have copies.
Clerk Pro Tem: You just want a copy of a Hansard where an interview of an intended appointee takes place?
Mr Leadston: Yes.
Clerk Pro Tem: And what about an agency?
Mr Leadston: Some examples of the various issues that may be dealt with at this committee, just to give myself a flavour of it.
The Chair: I think that's a fair request, particularly for new members, and it would probably be helpful. We can dig up a couple of examples and distribute it to members.
Mr David Pond: Yes, I can do that.
Mr Leadston: Thank you very much.
Mr Bob Wood: Certainly add my name to the list of distribution.
The Chair: We will give it to all members.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): Perhaps we might want to think about one that worked well and one that didn't work well.
The Chair: We'll try, and if there are any controversial ones we'll try and make sure you get one of those too, so you can see how your folks in opposition treated the government of the day.
Mrs Ross: When the certificates are issued, they're sent to only the subcommittee members, is that my understanding?
Clerk Pro Tem: They could be sent to the full committee. It was the practice that at that stage they went to the subcommittee members because the subcommittee members were those people who were responsible for the actual selection. If it's a request of the committee that it go to all members, I will do as instructed.
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The Chair: One of the reasons, it seems to me, that it's important to get it to the subcommittee is that if the whole committee, 13 members, gets into a debate on every name that comes forward, we're going to have quite a problem. So the subcommittee, which consists of a member from each party and the Chair and it tends to work fairly well with subcommittees, would bring their recommendation to the full committee.
Mr Bob Wood: Certainly from the point of view of the government member of the subcommittee, I would have no problem if our members got the full package. Other parties obviously should do it the way they think is right.
Clerk Pro Tem: If we're going to do a full distribution, then I'll do a full distribution. If it's just the subcommittee, then I'll do just the subcommittee.
Mr Bob Wood: From our point of view, it would be helpful to do a full distribution. If other parties don't feel that works properly --
The Chair: That doesn't alter the fact that the subcommittee, in its meeting, will make recommendations to the full committee.
Mr Bob Wood: Absolutely.
Clerk Pro Tem: That's the only way.
The Chair: That's the only way the thing could work.
Clerk Pro Tem: I will give priority to the subcommittee members, making sure that they get them immediately and that the others follow. But I will make sure because there will be times where members won't be here. There could be a constituency week; it could be a case where the House is in recess. What I will do in that case is I will send the packages to the other members of the committee, to their offices, and to the members of the subcommittee, I will fax them, if necessary, to whatever location they happen to be at so that the subcommittee meeting will be able to proceed, and if the members are not here, on a conference call if necessary. We try not to use a conference call unless absolutely necessary, but there are times when it is necessary. That's if that's all right with everyone.
Mrs Ross: I was only asking the question for clarification. I didn't mean to cause more paperwork.
My next question is, once the subcommittee vets which people or boards or agencies they want to review, are we sent a package at that point with background information?
Clerk Pro Tem: No. The report comes to the committee and it's deemed to be adopted by the committee. At that point, packages of background material will be being prepared. Mr Pond needs two weeks, once the selection has been made, to put the packages together for the members and they'll be distributed as quickly as we can.
I hate using what we did in the past, because I don't know what this committee is going to want. What was done in the past was that the packages were sent out Friday afternoon so that they'd be in your offices Monday morning prior to the meeting where the intended appointments would be reviewed. So you'd have two days to review the information. If that's all right with this committee, I'm quite prepared to follow that same routine.
Mrs Ross: That's fine with me. I just wanted to make sure we had something to come to the committee with so we knew what we were talking about.
Clerk Pro Tem: The individual caucus research staff, as well as Mr Pond, have in the past prepared material for each individual caucus. So what you receive from me may not be the only package you'll receive, and likewise with the other caucuses.
Mrs Ross: Okay. Thank you.
Mr Leadston: With that information that we would receive, could we also have your name and extension and David's and any other resource staff's so that if we have any questions prior to the meeting, we could call directly rather than take up time at the committee?
Clerk Pro Tem: You receive a sheet with our names and phone numbers on it. It should be in your office. Someone in your office should have it. If not, I'll doublecheck to make sure that it is there.
Mr Leadston: Wonderful.
The Chair: Already?
Clerk Pro Tem: Yes.
The Chair: Okay, any other questions? Please don't hesitate. I'd like to welcome the Vice-Chair to the committee. David Pond is going to say a couple of words about the research function.
Mr Pond: Very briefly, I'm here from the legislative research service, as you know, which is part of the library. I've been the researcher attached to this particular committee since the fall of 1989, so I've been here for a while. To take the two roles of the committee in turn, the older role of this committee, as you've heard, is to review agencies, boards and commissions. The first paragraph under the letter G of the standing order essentially explains, as Lynn has explained, the committee's mandate in this respect.
Briefly what happens when the committee chooses agencies to review is as follows: The clerk will send a questionnaire to the agency chosen for review and to the minister responsible asking for detailed information on virtually every aspect of the agency's operation -- its mandate, the size of its budget, the size of its staff, who the board of directors are and so on and so forth.
In response to the questionnaire, we will get back a nice pile of paper, if you like. My job is to go into the library and conduct further and more extensive research on that agency to supplement the material received directly from the agency. That generates another nice pile of paper. What I then do is I take the pile of paper and I work up a briefing paper for you on that agency. The briefing papers historically -- again, we have to do what we've done in the past -- have run anywhere between 20 and 50 pages, depending on the complexity of the agency in question.
The papers have two components. The first component is a narrative of how the agency operates, everything from where it gets its money, its statutory mandate, policies it's adopted, ministry policies it's responsible for executing and so on and so forth. The second part of the paper is more analytical. It will analyse in a non-partisan way, needless to say, any controversies or challenges that particular agency is facing presently. At the end of the paper, I attach possible questions you may wish to put to the witnesses when they are asked to appear.
In the last Parliament, it became the practice of the committee not simply to summon the representatives from the agency itself to appear before the committee but on occasion the committee would also ask ministry staff to appear. Client groups affected by the agency would also appear to offer their words of wisdom.
When the committee has decided it's heard enough from the witnesses, it will usually go into a brainstorming session or sessions where it works out a draft report and possible recommendations. Just before the first set of witnesses appear, who are invariably the agency representatives themselves, it has been the practice for me to provide an in camera oral briefing on the agency on the briefing material you've received and, again, on possible questions you might want to put to the witnesses.
Now, as Lynn has mentioned, in the last Parliament we reviewed a number of agencies under this heading. I've given you a package, the first page of which says, "Agencies, boards and commissions reviewed by the standing committee." As you can see from this, in the 35th Parliament, 1990-95, this committee reviewed 18 different agencies, boards and commissions, quite a variety here, from the list.
The next section of this handout lists all the agencies, boards and commissions ever reviewed by this committee and its predecessor since 1978 until 1990. You can see the variety and also the number of agencies that this committee actually does review is quite extensive.
Secondly, as you've heard, the other role of this committee is to review appointments to agencies, boards and commissions, order-in-council appointments by cabinet. As Lynn has already explained, so I'll be briefer here, once the subcommittee has made its choice, my job is to prepare a much shorter briefing note on that agency and appointment. The briefing notes usually run between four to 10 pages, much shorter than the briefing notes I prepare on agencies themselves.
As Lynn has explained, the government itself, under the terms of the standing order, provides the personal or biographical information about the appointee. My job is to complement that with a note about the agency to which the appointee is going to go and, again, attached to that briefing note will be possible questions you may wish to put to the appointee.
Now, in the last House -- turn to the last page of my little handout -- this committee reviewed 352 order-in-council appointments. As I explain here, we do not look at reappointments. That's one of the differences between this committee and the equivalent committees of the House of Commons in Ottawa: We only look at initial appointments. As you can tell here, the 352 appointees this committee did look at is only a small percentage of the total. I suppose that's inevitable, really. I'll stop there.
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The Chair: Just to follow up on that, I was told one time, and I never checked it out, that the Minister of Health alone has 5,000 appointments under his or her ministry. So you get an idea of the number. Now, that includes district health councils and hospitals and you can imagine. So there's a huge number of appointments out there in the province. Sometimes a review can be triggered by, for example, the auditor's report, which came in yesterday, if there was a damning indictment of a commission, which is highly unlikely since it was the previous government that was responsible in those days.
Interjections.
The Chair: Don't get ugly on me now. If there was, then this committee could decide to take a look at that particular board or commission or agency.
Mr Leadston: In terms of reviewing an agency, I look at this list and it's quite extensive. Has there been occasion when the committee actually visits the site of a particular agency to review the assets and the extent of its involvement in a particular community?
Clerk Pro Tem: The committee has been to various sites. Two in particular that come to mind are Science North in Sudbury, and then most recently the committee was down into the St Lawrence Parks Commission area and went through the whole area that the parks commission is responsible for.
The Chair: It's not a widely travelled committee.
Clerk Pro Tem: No.
Mr Leadston: I didn't know whether you'd make the decisions in absentia. You cite two good examples.
The Chair: The committee would make that decision. If we were looking at Thunder Bay -- I don't know what commissions there are going to be, but there must be some -- we would decide as a committee to travel to Thunder Bay and perhaps hold hearings and visit the site and so forth.
Mr Bob Wood: I'm wondering if I might put a question to the researcher. I find these one-page summaries to be quite helpful. Is there a chance of those being appended to some of the work you do?
Mr David Pond: Are you referring to existing one-page summaries?
Mr Bob Wood: No. I'm saying in your future work, to the extent you can have a sort of a summary that helps you get into the material itself, that would certainly be quite helpful to me.
Mr Pond: Something like an executive summary?
Mr Bob Wood: That's what I'm talking about, yes.
Mr Pond: No problem.
Clerk Pro Tem: There's one thing I'd like to add about the packages that will go out to your offices. They're quite extensive packages when they're going out, and if you are not going to be here and you have a substitution, would you please make sure the package is in your substitute's hand, because I don't keep extra packages here. If you don't bring the paperwork with you or you don't give the paperwork to your substitute, then you won't have the material available.
Mr Gary Fox (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings): I would think that one of our first priorities with this committee is that we should be looking at committees to see whether we should have them or not.
The Chair: You mean standing committees?
Mr Fox: Yes.
The Chair: The problem with that is that they are embodied in the standing orders of the Legislature itself, so the change would have to be made by the Legislative Assembly committee.
Mr Bartolucci: No, no, I think Mr Fox is talking about whether or not the boards should be in existence.
The Chair: Oh, I'm sorry.
Mr Fox: Yes, right.
The Chair: I'm sorry; I misunderstood you. Sure, there would be nothing wrong with taking a look at that. If we decided we were going to look at a committee, I'll give you an example: The auditor's report, because I had suggested that might be a place for members to start thinking about things -- nobody's trying to make a decision at this point at all -- deals with the Ontario Board of Parole and the inspections, laboratory, proficiency testing and licence renewals, and a bit on the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. Perhaps this committee would take a look at that agency and say, "This thing shouldn't even exist." I'm not disagreeing with you.
Mr Fox: That's just what I was wondering, if we could get consensus of the group that this was something that we should seriously be looking at.
The Chair: Sure.
Mr Bob Wood: I had a point that I wanted to ask about. Are we authorized to review an office such as the Environmental Commissioner's, which reports to the Legislature? Is that within our mandate or not? It's the Environmental Commission of Ontario, which is not attached to a ministry but reports directly to the Legislature; I think it's within the Legislature's budget.
The Chair: You're thinking of something like the Environmental Assessment Board?
Mr Bob Wood: No, there's an Environmental Commissioner who reports directly to the Legislature. Does anyone know whether or not we're authorized to review that office?
The Chair: That's an interesting question. I'm not sure and neither is Lynn. We'd have to check that out. I do not know the answer.
Mr Bob Wood: Would you mind checking that out and reporting the results to my office, please?
Clerk Pro Tem: We'll have the information for you at the subcommittee meeting.
Mr Bob Wood: Okay. If you can get it to me in advance, that would be even better: just a memo, can or can't.
Clerk Pro Tem: The subcommittee meeting will be shortly.
Mr Bob Wood: That's great. Sure, if we can do it right now, that's fine as far as I'm concerned.
Mr Bartolucci: Mr Chair, just following up on what Mr Fox was talking about, who decides what the agenda of the committee is going to be? Is it in fact the committee, is it in fact the subcommittee, is it in fact the cabinet? Who decides? For example, if we wanted to review the Ontario Board of Parole, would the committee decide that, would the subcommittee decide it, or cabinet?
The Chair: Certainly not cabinet. We have an arm's-length relationship with them. The question's been asked, Lynn, about who actually decides what the agenda will be. Traditionally, in this committee I think it was the subcommittee, which consists of all three parties, of course, which decides on the agenda, and then they rotate each week. Let's say we're dealing with individual appointments for the moment, to make the argument simpler. Each party would get an opportunity to say, "In two weeks," because of the need for time -- we have to notify the person a week ahead and then they need a little extra time for the research to be done. Each party would pick the person or persons they want to appear before the committee, so the subcommittee would make that decision and therefore set the agenda for the committee. The same would be true of the agencies. That's the nice thing about committees, I think, is that in general committees tend to set their own agenda.
Now, I've been around long enough to know that if, for example, the opposition wanted, perhaps not on this committee but in another committee, to deal with a particular issue and the government didn't want to deal with it for whatever reasons, it can be raised at the committee and can be voted down by the majority on the committee. That's true no matter who's in government. So that wouldn't be that unusual either. But on this committee it would be highly unusual, I would think, for the subcommittee not to proceed as they wished.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): One of the more interesting experiences re this committee over the last few years --
The Chair: Tony was actually on this committee before.
Mr Martin: -- well, I served on and off -- was trying to figure out who the Ombudsman reported to and trying to get the Ombudsman to actually appear before this committee. She never did. It was a very contentious piece of business, and I'm not sure if it has any ramifications for any other group that sees itself as sort of, as you've said, reporting to the Legislature and not in turn having to be responsible somehow to a committee of Legislature for its actions deciding, in its wisdom, that in order to maintain its objectivity, it needed to be outside and beyond any challenge we would make to it. So it was an interesting piece of work. Maybe the researcher, who did a lot of work on it, might want to expand a bit on that.
Mr Pond: There is a standing committee which looks at the Ombudsman, and my understanding is she will appear before that committee if requested. This committee, when it reviewed the Human Rights Commission, did ask the Ombudsman to appear, because she had issued a report highly critical of the Human Rights Commission, and she declined to appear. That's all I'm going to say.
The Chair: But it was in connection with her comments on another committee.
Mr Pond: Yes, the Human Rights Commission.
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): When was that report done by the Ombudsman on the OHRC?
Mr Pond: On the Human Rights Commission? Her most recent one was publicly released in 1993. It was very brief. It was a statistical analysis of the Human Rights Commission's caseload. As you probably know, the issue in the previous Parliament with regard to the Human Rights Commission -- well, one of the issues -- was the expeditious processing of its caseload.
The Chair: Or lack thereof.
Mr Pond: There were many client groups who were invited to appear before the committee who felt that the commission was not expeditiously processing cases. So the Ombudsman was asked to do a study and she issued two reports in the previous Parliament, 1991 and 1993, on the processing of the caseload.
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Mr Wettlaufer: So it was 1993 that she was very critical of the OHRC.
Mr Pond: In 1991 and 1993.
Mr Wettlaufer: Both reports.
Mr Pond: Yes.
Mr Newman: I just had a question. What if someone from an agency, board or commission were asked to appear before the committee and refused? You mentioned the Ombudsman. What happens?
Mr Pond: That's a question for the clerk.
Clerk Pro Tem: There is a procedure called a Speaker's warrant. It is a complicated procedure and we exhaust every avenue first before we go along that route. There is a report that goes from the committee requesting that a Speaker's warrant be issued to the House and the Speaker. If the House is not sitting, then it will go directly to the Speaker and then it's entirely up to the Speaker whether or not that warrant should be issued.
I should caution you that the warrants for the Ontario Legislature, it has been determined, are valid within the jurisdiction. So if there's someone who's living, for example, in Manitoba or Quebec whom you wanted to speak to, then the warrant does not go beyond the provincial boundaries.
The Chair: But if the person ignored that warrant, I believe they'd be in contempt.
Clerk Pro Tem: They'd be in contempt, but --
Mr Newman: Does that happen very often?
Clerk Pro Tem: The issue that comes to mind is the review of the Minister of Northern Affairs and Mines --
The Chair: René Fontaine.
Clerk Pro Tem: -- Mr Fontaine. There was a gentleman whom the committee wanted to hear from and he was not prepared to come. Under any circumstances, he was not prepared to come. A Speaker's warrant was considered, but the man was beyond the jurisdiction. After much chasing and much persuasion on the part of the clerk, he did arrive. But sometimes it's necessary to try. It's unusual that a Speaker's warrant is issued.
Mr Newman: I just wanted to know the process.
Clerk Pro Tem: Most people will cooperate with the committees if they understand the process that's going on; not all, but most.
The Chair: Okay, are there any other questions? If not, the committee will stand adjourned.
Mr Pond: There is a question from Mr Ford.
The Chair: I'm sorry, did I miss somebody? Mr Ford.
Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber): Yes. On these agencies, boards and commissions reviewed, these dates down here, November 9, 1978, is this the last time this was reviewed, the Waste Management Advisory Board?
Mr Pond: Not necessarily. On occasion, agencies will have been reviewed more than once. The Ontario Board of Parole, for example, has been reviewed more than once. If you direct me to the specific agency you're referring to -- it's 1978, the Waste Management Advisory Board?
Mr Ford: Yes.
Mr Pond: We'd have to go through that. I'd have to scroll through the list to see if it's been reviewed again. I'm not sure that exists any more, sir.
Mr Ford: Well, why would it be listed here then?
Mr Pond: These are all the agencies that have ever been reviewed.
Mr Ford: Have they been updated? Has this list been updated?
Mr Pond: Yes, if you turn to the second page I have here, the top page lists the agencies reviewed --
Mr Ford: Yes, that's right.
Mr Pond: -- in the 35th Parliament, and then the succeeding pages list all the agencies ever reviewed by this committee. This is not a list of the agencies that exist in Ontario. This is just a list of the agencies that this committee has actually reviewed. There are over 700 agencies, boards and commissions in Ontario.
Mr Ford: Yes. But these dates here, are they redundant or are they up to date? When I review this, I see 1978. Is that the last time they've been reviewed?
Mr Pond: Well, that particular agency, any agency listed next to this date --
Mr Ford: That's right.
Mr Pond: Right. So I strongly suspect that what is listed here as the Waste Management Advisory Board no longer exists, frankly. I'd have to check the book, but I'm almost certainly sure it no longer exists.
Mr Ford: Yes, I see.
Mr Fox: Here's an example right here. In December 1979 the Ontario Food Terminal Board was reviewed.
Mr Pond: Yes. That's a better example. The Food Terminal Board was reviewed three or four times.
Mr Fox: And then here over in 1990 you see they reviewed it again.
Mr Bert Johnson (Perth): I wanted to know, is the green book with the list the Bible? There are none that aren't in there?
Mr Pond: Forgive me, sir, I should have mentioned that earlier when I was speaking about my role. Let me just say a few words about this. The previous government published something called --
Mr Bert Johnson: Do you want to answer my question first and then do your little spiel?
Mr Pond: This was published in February. It's out of date.
Mr Bert Johnson: I want to know if there are any that are not in there.
Mr Pond: Yes.
Mr Bert Johnson: Some time I'd like to know of them.
Mr Pond: There are four of them, according to my research, two created by the previous government between February and April and two created by the current government.
Briefly, this is called A Guide to Agencies, Boards & Commissions; it's the green book. This was published four times by the previous government, in 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1995. This last edition was published in February. It is slightly out of date. A number of agencies have been terminated since this book was published, and of course a lot of the appointments have either been terminated or have ended with the passage of time.
Nevertheless it's the best existing public guide -- I put that diplomatically -- to agencies, boards and commissions. The library has more than one copy you're free to look at. My personal copy is all marked up.
The first few pages give you a very clear and concise description of how the Management Board of Cabinet classifies agencies, boards and commissions and supervises their operation. If you're looking for agencies, when you go back to your caucuses, to choose for review by this committee, this is a good place to start.
At the next meeting I'll bring my list of updates since this book was published, but as I say, it's an unofficial list because it has been pieced together for my own research: How many agencies have terminated -- as you know, many agencies have sunset dates attached to them, but the cabinet, at its discretion, can vary those sunset dates.
But this is your best introduction to the world of agencies, boards and commissions in Ontario, and it's in public libraries. The previous government had a campaign to publicize the availability of positions on agencies, boards and commissions. As part of that campaign this book, in its various editions, was widely distributed around the province and into municipalities. As I say, it is slightly out of date now, but until something else happens, it's the best existing guide.
The Chair: I'm not sure about you folks, but basically all the constituency offices had that because you get people coming in quite legitimately asking about these things. They're a useful thing to have and this should be available to people.
Mr Ford: I was just wondering how many of these areas are reviewed at one time.
Clerk Pro Tem: What was developing at the end of the last Parliament was that during each approaching recess each caucus picked one agency, board or commission that it wanted to look at during the recess. When that work was completed, then they would make an additional selection. Previous to that, they had made many selections.
What happens is that the agencies are then put on notice, and in some cases they're put on notice waiting for a very long time and they have to prepare a lot of material -- there's a questionnaire that goes out. So it was determined that if only one per caucus was chosen, then the agencies wouldn't be preparing and wouldn't be on notice perhaps for a very long period of time, that this was probably the most efficient way to do it. I don't know what this committee's going to decide.
Mr Ford: That's understandable because there'd be a lot of clutter.
Clerk Pro Tem: We'll just have to see how things go.
Mr Bob Wood: Can I make sure I correctly understood your answer about the green book, that the omissions are simply because the committees or whatever they are were created after the book was published?
Mr Pond: There are two aspects to this. Some agencies have been terminated, as you know. Some agencies were scheduled to be wound down in any case by the previous government. But the most substantive point is that the last two governments made it a practice to appoint, in most cases, order-in-council appointments to agencies for a three-year term, with a possibility of reappointment. February, which was when this was published, was a while ago. Many of those appointments have passed away, they've come to an end. So there are holes now on various agencies.
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One thing worth mentioning in that connection, sir, is that it was our experience in the previous Parliament that the reason you have this rule about 30 days -- you know, the subcommittee has 30 days to meet to look at a certificate -- is that the government will be concerned that these order-in-council appointments flow through the committee expeditiously, because many agencies, as you can appreciate, will need new members to make a quorum, to get business done.
I think you'll find, as this Parliament progresses, you'll feel some need to have regular subcommittee meetings to make sure these names are processed through the committee, either yea or nay or not to look at at all, because the agencies have to keep working. They can't stop working just because the House is in recess and this committee isn't meeting.
The Chair: If the committee doesn't want to look at them, of course, they just go through.
Mr Bob Wood: What I wanted to get crystal clear in my mind was, you think that book's complete, subject only to things that have happened after its publication.
Mr Pond: After February, yes.
Mr Bartolucci: David, I think it would be incumbent that this committee have an updated version of that so at least this committee knows exactly what it's committeeing about. I'm wondering, given the complexities of sunset dates and board reappointments etc, is it possible to get the revisions to that given to each member of the committee?
Mr Pond: I can certainly update to the best of my ability the agencies in existence. I can't update the actual membership of every single agency in this book as of right now. There are 700 agencies and it's physically impossible. I'd have to phone every single agency and then they'd have to share the information with me, and sometimes agencies don't want to do that. But I can certainly update the list of agencies actually existing.
As soon as you look at this book, every appointee is listed here, with the length of his or her appointment, or term, next to his or her name. You can quickly tell, immediately, by just opening up any page here, whether a board is losing members, and many of them are. Many of them are losing members. The government will be looking at appointing new people.
Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): We'll all have a copy of that book?
Mr Pond: I don't know.
Clerk Pro Tem: They've been sent out to your constituency offices, so everyone will have a copy of it. The book, when it's issued, almost immediately is out of date, because appointments are ongoing.
Mr Bartolucci: But I guess, to zero in more precisely, I wouldn't want this committee to be reading through and deciding that we should be reviewing an agency that doesn't exist, and unless we know what agencies exist and don't exist -- I would think we should at least get that.
A point you did make is, why would anyone be reluctant to give you information?
Mr Pond: Oh, don't read into that anything. Staff at agencies are often very busy. They often don't have the time to. Many of these agencies are very large. You'll appreciate that. The Assessment Review Board, for example, has over 50 members. Many of these agencies are quite, quite large, and sometimes they can't pull the information together immediately.
Now, of course, as your researcher, these agencies are compelled -- no, I shouldn't say "compelled" -- are usually under some kind of obligation to share information which is public with me, and I can get it.
The point I was trying to make was that it is extremely time-consuming for me to go through every single agency here and figure out what their membership is as of November 1995. The agencies you choose to review, I will get that information in spades. That goes without saying.
Mr Fox: I have one of these green books in my constituency office, but as a member of this committee, I'd like to have one for my office here so that I could spend some time on it when I have time here. Is that possible?
Clerk Pro Tem: I just got the word from the secretariat representative that, yes, they'll provide them to us.
Mr Ford: Are these all on computer and programmed, and can you bring them up?
Mr Pond: The previous government had -- Lynn's already used the phrase -- a secretariat -- it was known as the public appointments secretariat -- that had computerized lists. We'd have to talk to the equivalent office in the present government for information on how the present government is organizing appointments.
Mr Ford: That shouldn't be too much, 700 on computer and you put them in memory and you just bring them up. As the changes are made, you change them. Mr Pond: I agree. On two or maybe three occasions in the last Parliament, members of the government's secretariat, which is the bureaucracy that manages this process, appeared before the committee and gave details on how they were managing appointments. But as I say, if you like, sir, I will contact members of the secretariat before the next meeting and get the details.
The Chair: Any other questions? I think members know that the schedule for the committee is 10 am every Wednesday morning. Try and adhere to that, with the subcommittee meeting at 9:30. I think that'll be enough time for us. Just so you know, when the Legislature's not in session and the committee meets, there is a per diem. But that is all, of course, under serious review and so we have no idea what will transpire. Hopefully we'll find out later this fall. Just so you know that.
Mr Bob Wood: I want speak to a question which may be more properly put to the subcommittee. The subcommittee itself determines when these meetings are going to be held, does it?
The Chair: No. The Wednesday morning is actually set by motion in the House for all the different committees so that there's not overlapping and conflict.
Mr Bob Wood: I was speaking of the subcommittee meeting. What I'm coming to is that 9:30 is bad for me. If the committee has to deal with that, I'll address it now. If it doesn't, why don't we address it in the subcommittee and get a time that works for everybody?
The Chair: Okay. Let's deal with that on the subcommittee.
Mr Bob Wood: As long as there's no procedural reason we have to deal with it here, I'll say no more.
Mr Bert Johnson: I just have a question. I came in this job for the money, so I want to make sure --
The Chair: Didn't we all?
Mr Bert Johnson: -- and that is per diems. Does somebody look after registering our attendance and sending those, making sure that we're registered, or is it our responsibility to fill it in?
The Chair: When the House is in session, it's irrelevant, because there are no per diems. When the House is not in session, yes, the clerk looks after the attendance and you will be given a form to fill in with any expenses that you incur, such as travel, meals and accommodation -- with the per diem. Then you submit that and I have to sign that, and then you'll be paid. Now that's the present system, but it really is under serious review, as you know.
Mr Bert Johnson: If it works, then I don't see any reason why we shouldn't continue it.
The Chair: You're talking to the wrong guy. I don't disagree with you. Is there anything further? Thank you all very much for your attendance. I appreciate that, and I'll see you next Wednesday morning. The subcommittee can stay, if you will, and have a chat.
The committee adjourned at 1057.