ONTARIO NATIVE LITERACY COALITION
ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY OF ONTARIO
WOMEN'S TRAINING COALITION (NORTH SUPERIOR)
ONTARIO NATIVE WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION
ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE-FRANÇAISE DE L'ONTARIO
ONTARIO COMMITTEE ON TRADES, TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS OCCUPATIONS FOR WOMEN
OTAB EDUCATION AND TRAINING INTERIM STEERING COMMITTEE
PERSONS UNITED FOR SELF-HELP (CENTRAL PETERBOROUGH)
CONTENTS
Wednesday 17 February 1993
Ontario Training and Adjustment Board Act, 1993, Bill 96
Ontario Native Literacy Coalition
Doug Anderson, coordinator
Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario
Catherine Henderson, president, Centennial College
Tom Evans, director of training
Dan Patterson, vice-president, Niagara College
Women's Training Coalition (North Superior)
Joan Baril, representative
Ontario Native Women's Association
Leona Nahwegahbow, president
Marlene Pierre, executive director
Holly Hughes, assistant director
Association canadienne-français de l'Ontario
Jean Tanguay, président
Ontario Nurses' Association
Jane Cornelius, vice-president
Seppo Nousiainen, research officer
Carol Helmstadter, government relations officer
Lesley Bell, associate director, government relations
Ontario Committee on Trades, Technology and Operations Occupations for Women
Lynn Cullaton, member
Elizabeth Bohnen, member
OTAB Education and Training Interim Steering Committee
Margaret Williams, member, representing private sector
Jean Faulds, member, representing community-based trainers
Malcolm Buchanan, member, representing school boards
Persons United for Self-Help (Central Peterborough)
Catherine Miller, representative
Committee business
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
*Chair / Président: Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold ND)
*Acting Chairs / Présidents suppléants: Farnan, Mike (Cambridge ND); Sutherland, Kimble (Oxford ND)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Huget, Bob (Sarnia ND)
Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North/-Nord L)
Dadamo, George (Windsor-Sandwich ND)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Klopp, Paul (Huron ND)
*McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South/-Sud L)
Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury ND)
*Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L)
*Turnbull, David (York Mills PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay ND)
*Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Cunningham, Dianne (London North/-Nord PC) for Mr Jordan
Farnan, Mike (Cambridge ND) for Ms Murdock
Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC) for Mr Turnbull
Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie ND) for Mr Waters
Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L) for Mr Conway
Sutherland, Kimble (Oxford ND) for Mr Dadamo
Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Îles ND) for Mr Klopp
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND) for Mr Huget
Clerk / Greffière: Manikel, Tannis
Staff / Personnel: Anderson, Anne, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1002 in room 151.
ONTARIO TRAINING AND ADJUSTMENT BOARD ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR LE CONSEIL ONTARIEN DE FORMATION ET D'ADAPTATION DE LA MAIN-D'OEUVRE
Consideration of Bill 96, An Act to establish the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board / Loi créant le Conseil ontarien de formation et d'adaptation de la main-d'oeuvre.
ONTARIO NATIVE LITERACY COALITION
The Chair (Mr Peter Kormos): It's 10 o'clock. We're scheduled to begin. The first participant this morning is the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition. Sir, please tell us name, your position or title, if any, and proceed with what you've got to tell us, saving, if you will, the last 15 minutes for questions and exchanges, although the half-hour is yours to do with as you wish.
Mr Doug Anderson: [Remarks in native language]
My name is Doug Anderson. I come from Ottawa. I represent the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition. I'm on the board of directors. I've been asked to present some of our concerns to the standing committee on Bill 96. I also coordinate a program in Toronto at St Clair and Vaughan Road.
The Ontario Native Literacy Coalition was formed in 1987 to unify native literacy programs in the province at that time. We now actively support and offer training to 33 programs across Ontario with the network, including programs in native communities, friendship centres and special interest groups.
We are here today to react to the federal-provincial restructuring initiative that will result in the creation of the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. While aware that no final decision has been made as to the future of literacy programs within OTAB, it was felt that an opportunity to offer reasons against such a move was needed at this time.
In the initial review of the text in Skills to Meet the Challenge: A Training Partnership for Ontario, we found the following immediate concerns over this transfer enterprise:
(a) There was little or no consultation with all native interest groups on this impending change.
(b) The objectives for literacy, as described by OTAB, will be bilingualism, retraining and job-specific development, computer literacy, institutionalized training favouring use of colleges, and distance education through electronic media.
(c) The proposal to provide a qualitative assessment of all literacy programs and introduce standardized testing--ie, grade 8--that would eliminate the one-to-one relationship with present clients and reintroduce a classroom-style setting that failed in the first place.
(d) The appearance that OTAB's primary focus is labour-related and would concentrate on retraining and skills development, which would obviously not place a high importance on literacy as those working in the field these last five years have come to recognize it.
(e) No new money has been identified in the proposal. Therefore, there may be a consolidation of provincial ministry funds to meet OTAB's objectives. This will mean reductions or elimination of some programs.
As the representative of the native literacy programs, we carry with us the added concern around what the statement of political relations could mean for our programs. We are aware that discussions have been taking place with AICOT, the Aboriginal Intergovernmental Committee on Training, but again there seems to be no established relationship and no word if it will be identified as a transfer agency for native literacy dollars. While we have approached AICOT and received its support, its background is mainly in training initiatives--ie, Pathways--and it is felt that no other group but the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition can best represent the concerns of native literacy programs.
Native literacy programs view literacy as an integral part of self-determination and the renaissance of native language and culture, a more positive and powerful self-image that will in turn empower the community. This impending shift regarding literacy has made an already unstable environment even more threatening to the further development of our programs. In order to protect this development, the ONLC is presently working towards the establishment of an Ontario native literacy foundation.
In closing, we wish to make it clear that the native literacy programs do not believe that a transfer into the crown corporation of OTAB would be the most beneficial move, and encourage a decision to have literacy remain within the Ministry of Education literacy branch. Thank you. Meegwetch. I'll just say I'll leave it open to answer questions as best I can.
The Chair: I'm sure there are going to be questions and comments.
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): Welcome. Thank you for your presentation. We've had several native groups come before us in the last couple of days--there are still a few yet to come--and we've received a couple of recommendations that, on the face of it, appear to be quite startling; that is, to be omitted entirely from the OTAB process. Now, as you know from the legislation, it's just permissive in the legislation to say that if native groups want to be part of it they can basically petition the minister and the minister can appoint a native representative on OTAB. It's not as if native people are in there right now, but the legislation allows that to happen at a future date. But people have come to us and said: "Just take that out. We've got our own system."
As an opposition member and the critic for the Liberal caucus, I'm in a position to move amendments to try to better the legislation. My job is to listen to people like you who come before us and to pick up your advice. I've received lots of good advice, and that will be reflected in amendments. I'm just a little reluctant to bring forward an amendment to take out, not for all time but for the life of this bill anyway, that permission for native people to be part of this, without knowing a little more about the future of your programs.
Pathways to Success, which you and other groups have mentioned, looks to be a fabulous program, but I'd like to ask, do you think you're going to have that for the next few years and it should be sufficient, so that you would therefore chance it that you would not be part of OTAB; or is the federal government going to get rid of that program, as they are the CITCs in the non-native community, the community industrial training committees, because everything's going to be rolled into these LTABs, local boards?
Mr Anderson: It'll take me a while to answer that one. I can only answer it from my personal experience. I'm not sure if I got the question clearly.
Mr Ramsay: I can just summarize it. Do you want to be part of OTAB? Do you want the possibility of that? Most native groups are saying no, they've got their own separate track. Right now it's Pathways to Success--they really like that--and other programs. Do you want to be out of this entirely and delete any reference to native people being part of OTAB?
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Mr Anderson: I think that's what we're saying, yes. To give an example, again from my personal experience, we run a very small program out of a native agency in Toronto and we have a very small budget, although we've done a lot of fund-raising and things are looking up. We're looking into working in a partnership with the city of Toronto, for instance.
At the beginning, it was apparent to me that I couldn't take care of people's learning needs as completely and comprehensively as they might have wished. I was inclined to try to refer them into existing programs, for instance, at one of the community colleges in town, where they actually had a native outreach program and a native counsellor working within the institution. What actually happens is that I think the person becomes accountable to the institution as opposed to the native community.
Where we're coming from, and where this whole approach is coming from, is probably that our people need to be in control of a lot more than just being a representative of native people within another organization, another branch of government or another institution; that we're in need of developing our own curriculum, of developing our own language classes. I could go on and on, but that's the idea.
Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): I'd like to ask a few questions on your presentation, because I'm getting that sense from a number of people who are coming to this committee. They recognize OTAB, but they also recognize that maybe they don't want to be in OTAB. Their position is, "Listen, I don't want to be part of an organization, no matter what its goals may be, that conscripts me without any voice, without any say, and which might, in effect, harm some of the programs and activities that have been built up over the past." That's what I hear, somewhat, from your presentation, that you've got your programs, you've got a certain structure, you don't want to be brought into another agency, OTAB, in which you're not going to have any say--and you're not going to have any say. The bill is clear; you're not.
I know there must be a great many federal and shared provincial-federal programs. What provincial programs would you access in the area of training or literacy?
Mr Anderson: The programs I'm familiar with have accessed mainly the Ministry of Education literacy branch--
Mr Offer: I thank you for that answer because--
The Chair: Maybe he wanted to finish it, though. Did you want to finish that, Mr Anderson? Go ahead.
Mr Anderson: Yes, because there's a lot more. In my own program that I'm coordinating, we've accessed funds from the United Way, we've accessed funds from the city of Toronto, we've accessed funds from the secretary of state, we've accessed funds from various--there are a lot of small-time attempts at fund-raising that aren't that successful, and presently I'm looking into trying to work in partnership with the Toronto Board of Education in sharing space; I'm talking with them about that. There are also other programs, maybe using certain computer programs; we may have bought into something like that. I can't speak too much to the concept of the Ontario Native Literacy foundation that is in the stages of being researched right now. I think the idea is that they want to begin to consolidate, as much as possible, fund-raising and that kind of thing and to bring together ideas, at least in that respect.
Mr Offer: As you've gone on in your answer, I appreciate that. You'll know we can only be, in the main, concerned with the provincial programs. One you brought forward was the Ministry of Education, the community literacy program. It's interesting: I have a briefing from the ministry which says there is no decision that that's going to be part of OTAB; that's a program they're going to review further.
In one way, I think it meets the concern that you don't want to be part of OTAB. This briefing note indicates that it's not even slated to be part of OTAB, so maybe your concern has been met, but it raises another point: The government has put out the perception that OTAB is the be-all and end-all to all persons, and that just isn't going to be the case. A lot of programs are not going to be part of OTAB: Some of this imagined coordination and concentration just isn't going to be the case. In a strange way, the fact that the program you are mainly interested in is not going to be part of OTAB may in fact help you in terms of your position that you don't want to be part of OTAB.
Mr Anderson: As I said earlier, we are aware that no final decisions have been made on the future of literacy programs. At this point we're just offering reasons against that move being made, at least in our case. Again, I don't claim to be speaking for other community literacy programs at all.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): Thank you very much for the presentation. I don't know if you're aware of this, but in my riding there are a large number of reserves and friendship centres. Some of them made presentations yesterday from the Moosonee-Moose Factory area, as well as the friendship centre speaking on behalf of the 26 friendship centres across Ontario. Some of their concerns are the same as what you've brought forward, that the language is very important, that the literacy and training programs be done in the aboriginal language, whether it be Cree or Inuit or whatever other language.
You're saying that even though the government has training programs in 10 ministries and about 48 programs, your argument is that you'd like to be left out of OTAB. You don't want the gathering of these to include, in this particular case, the literacy training program or any other training programs?
Mr Anderson: Again, I would hesitate to make it something like, "This is it," because I've been asked to say today, on behalf of the ONLC, that we have an opportunity here to offer reasons against the move and to express concerns over the transfer.
Something I should say is that in my experience with the people I've referred to apprenticeship programs or various upgrading programs within mainstream institutions, I guess you could call them, there's a sense of cultural alienation. I've been told by people working within one particular community college that the dropout rate of native adults who've decided to go into upgrading--people who have had to cope with having had an inadequate education all their lives and have made the decision to go back--is over 80%. I think it's compounded by a lot of other problems, but I also think it may have to do with there not being a sense of really knowing what it is that's sometimes needed for our people.
Mr Wood: Once again, in the north and especially in my riding, in the Cochrane-New Post first nation area, in the Hearst area, Constance Lake area, good cooperation has developed with the economic development boards in trying to diversify the economy, and the aboriginal groups are involved as full partners on these boards. I'm curious as to what your feeling would be about being involved in the local boards, and working this in as economic development and retraining and things of this kind in the northern part of the province.
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Mr Anderson: These questions are hard for me to answer, because there's so much going on at this point within the first nations communities and councils and so forth, and that's not even thinking about the transfers and reorganizations or whatever is going on at government level. I don't think I could claim to answer that question at this point. There are a lot of questions around self-government that haven't been resolved. God knows, it may take generations.
Mr Wood: And there are different issues: on-reserve and off-reserve and status natives and non-status natives.
Mr Anderson: In my experience, most of us are interested in working. No one is saying that we want to cut ourselves off from the mainstream community. My main focus and my main interest is in helping people to be able to survive anywhere. I'm not interested in setting up some secluded community so much as helping our people in a way that suits them best to have the skills to survive without sacrificing their own culture and the sense of who they are.
Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): Thanks a lot, Doug, for your presentation. It has certainly raised a lot of issues that I think are going to help us in our deliberations.
Through these deliberations and even probably this morning, you've gathered that it's not always clear just what is happening. We have to evaluate what we're hearing, and one of the things you heard today from Mr Offer was that our government is setting out OTAB as the be-all and the end-all for Ontario's future, that everything that's going to happen from here on in will be affected by OTAB. OTAB, after all, is an acronym for Ontario Training and Adjustment Board and really speaks to training issues, because there's been a perception--you might share it yourself--that training can be improved in Ontario. That's what we're trying to do by bringing together the labour market partners to make these decisions about how training should be met and how it can be improved in the province.
To do that, we've consulted with all groups interested in training, including aboriginal communities through the aboriginal intergovernmental committee on training, or AICOT, and we've heard various views. You yourself have suggested that all these questions haven't been answered and will depend on future discussion. In the legislation, the possibility of a representative from the aboriginal community is stated just that way: If that's the way the discussions lead, that the training of the aboriginal communities can best be met by having a representative on the board, then that's what will happen. But it still requires the consultation and the participation of groups like the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition to say what your interests are, and already we've heard that you are meeting literacy needs.
I would like to focus on your perception of how literacy programs can be coordinated with programs OTAB will be providing so that with the jobs your clients will be going into, there can be the coordination that will best lead to that kind of arrangement.
Mr Anderson: I'll try, in five minutes.
Mr Gary Wilson: Take your time. We have enough time to discuss this one.
Mr Anderson: It may involve working with trainers in specific areas where we may not be able to provide instructors. For instance, it may involve bringing them into a setting that's under our control, in a sense; that we have some control over the learning environment, possibly over helping people to understand just what is required in teaching in the native community. It may involve partnerships. It would involve so much that it's hard to say.
Mr Gary Wilson: Perhaps you can start with what you're doing now: What's on a typical program you're carrying out now, and what contact have you got with the workplace?
Mr Anderson: For instance, we have one individual who is in a carpentry apprenticeship. I think a lot of things tend to happen, and often our people's interests aren't looked out for. It's not that people are maliciously trying to abuse their rights, but they get caught up in institutions that really aren't looking out for their interests. I think a lot of colleges and universities exist to get money, and then people can get money from their band councils to go to college. They may not be ready--
Mr Gary Wilson: Ready in what way?
Mr Anderson: Literacy-wise. They may not be ready to handle the material. At this point, there isn't really a partnership going on, but we're working sometimes in tandem with people who are in existing programs in the community colleges or what have you, and we're trying to help them through that experience. I've gone in to meet with instructors to give them a sense of what kind of patterns or methods of communication they might encounter that they might not understand. It's hard to explain.
Mr Gary Wilson: It's almost like an advocacy role, then.
Mr Anderson: At this point, that's what I'm doing. I can't speak for other programs. I know there are programs that use different methods. Pathways is one that we don't use, but other people do.
Mr Gary Wilson: And of course OTAB has no effect on Pathways at all; it's a separate program. I think you're saying that the training could proceed better if the trainers were aware of the special needs of the people you serve.
Mr Anderson: That's one thing that can have an effect, yes, a positive impact. What we try to do is provide support to people in areas that aren't really taken care of in institutions, and until our own training institutions are developed--that's a whole other question, but until that happens, I see that as being part of my role, to help them and to advocate.
Mr Gary Wilson: So the cooperative and consultative model that OTAB is based on would serve that purpose, wouldn't it? People around the table could find out what the various views are about how the training is being provided for the people they represent.
Mr Anderson: Yes, that could happen. There are so many concerns we're talking about. That's not the main area we're concerned about. The bilingualism is a concern.
Mr Gary Wilson: In what way?
Mr Anderson: In the sense that for me and for people I'm working with, it's more of a concern for us to retain our own languages; we see that as being something more essential for us. Whether we're speaking English or French, both of those should be the second languages. For many people, especially in the more northern communities, they are the second languages.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. I'm going to tell you, Mr Anderson, that you've made a valuable contribution to the committee's process. You've provided some interesting and new insights, obviously, and that's reflected in the conversation you've had with committee members. You've provoked them, and that's a good thing. We thank you sincerely for taking the time to attend and share your views. We trust you'll be keeping in touch if you have more things to say, either to individual members or to the committee as a whole. Thank you kindly. You're welcome to stay. You might find the next presentation from the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario of some interest.
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The Chair: Would that next participant please come forward. I want to remind people that these are public hearings. Here we are at Queen's Park in the Amethyst Room, ground floor. In view of the fact that the Legislature isn't sitting, there is some parking available, and there's the best free coffee in all of Toronto; I'm surprised Toronto Life hasn't done an article on that yet. People are entitled to come here as of right and enjoy the free coffee and beverages. I invite people who find this to be an otherwise cold and slushy day to come and listen to the committee work and to partake of those refreshments.
People, please be seated. Ms Cunningham, don't foul up the schedule, please. I'm doing my best to keep us on time.
Mrs Dianne Cunningham (London North): I've got to get on record here. Good morning, Mr Kormos.
The Chair: Good morning, Ms Cunningham.
Mrs Cunningham: It's good to see you in such a jovial mood today.
The Chair: Well, here we are. All of us are in fine spirits, the weather being what it is. I know that you, driving in from London today, had to struggle with some less than ideal circumstances, so it's nice to see you here.
People, please go ahead. Tell us who you are, your titles and your schools, and proceed with your comments. Please try to save the second 15 minutes for questions and exchanges.
ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES OF APPLIED ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY OF ONTARIO
Ms Catherine Henderson: Good morning. My name's Cathy Henderson, and I'm the president of Centennial College in Scarborough. With me are Dan Patterson, who's the vice-president of Ventures at Niagara College, and Tom Evans, director of training at ACAATO.
The Chair: That's Niagara College in the Niagara Peninsula; Welland, St Catharines.
Ms Catherine Henderson: I'm going to begin with just a brief summary and then have my colleagues fill in a few details, and we will stop for questions after 15 minutes.
The purpose of our presentation this morning is to respond to Bill 96 on behalf of the colleges of applied arts and technology of Ontario. As key stakeholders, the colleges have a sincere desire and significant interest in assisting the refashioning of Ontario's training and adjustment system.
The presentation this morning will cover four main areas; first, the present role and capacities of the community colleges in Ontario. This role has changed from a narrow delivery of post-secondary two- and three-year diploma programs to a broad, market-responsive mix of training and education services.
Second, in the area of partnership development, we recommend that with 25 years of community development and partnership management with various community stakeholders, community colleges take a leadership role in facilitating the aims and objectives of Bill 96 with all labour market partners. The college system's history of community and provincial consultation and our broad range of private sector contacts makes this a logical and appropriate step.
Third, within the context of access, accountability and quality, we recommend the addition of two objectives: first, to establish, in collaboration with stakeholders and appropriate experts, a set of criteria and processes through which any trainer providing publicly funded training must become accredited; second, to develop, in collaboration with stakeholders and the college standards and accreditation council, a province-wide system of credentialed labour force development programs which can be delivered by accredited trainers.
The Ontario colleges of applied arts and technology strongly endorse the commitment to access, quality and accountability which is reflected in Bill 96. A key component in meeting these commitments will be the development of curriculum standards and portability in training. These elements are the strengths of the college system and should be built upon in any new training and adjustment environment.
Fourth, in forging links between labour force development initiatives and economic and social policy, we recommend that a process be established to provide stakeholders the opportunity to review and comment on the regulations governing this act prior to these regulations being adopted; and second, that community colleges, as key stakeholders in training and labour force development, in order to maximize their flexibility be provided the opportunity to review and recommend appropriate changes to these regulations prior to their being finalized.
Two of the critical outcomes of Bill 96 are the definition through regulations of the roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of the local boards, and the partnership with the Canadian Labour Force Development Board regarding federal programs and funding.
Given the essential role of province-wide standards and provincial accreditation systems for programs and trainers, these must not be jeopardized by unregulated decentralization of program control to local boards. Similarly, a balance of centralized and decentralized responsibilities and accountabilities can be achieved by delegating assignments and training resources from OTAB to local boards.
Our purpose in this presentation is to offer you the support, the experience and the many, many assets of the community colleges as one of the cornerstones of the province's training and adjustment system. On a personal note, I would suggest to you that our tale is more eloquently told by the 400,000 full- and part-time students with us right now by choice.
I'll turn this over now to Tom Evans from ACAATO.
Mr Tom Evans: I'd like to spend a moment to give you an idea of what the colleges are, their mandate and the scope of some of their activity.
The Ontario colleges of applied arts and technology were established in 1967 as an essential underpinning of the province's training and education infrastructure. Their primary functions may be summarized as: to provide programs and services in the English and French languages to adults and youth seeking enhanced skills for re-entry to the labour market, to provide community development expertise and labour market adjustment services to individuals and groups in communities across Ontario, and to provide an alternative forum for the delivery of high-quality skills training and education services to adults and high school graduates at the post-secondary level in the English and French languages.
At the present time, there are 23 community colleges with 96 campuses in 55 communities. These colleges offer 1,700 programs and employ in excess of 17,000 people. In this last year, enrolment exceeded 123,000 full-time post-secondary students and another 60,000 full-time adult training students. Part-time course registrations exceeded 1.5 million, including commercial and corporate trainees. More than 70% of the adult training activity in this province is provided through the community colleges.
Direct entrants from the secondary school system account for 55% of our present student population. The second-largest group of students are adults coming from the labour force. This group now comprises approximately 33% of our student population and has been growing steadily over the past five years. The system-wide average age of college students is 26 years. Our other sources of students account for 16% of our enrolment, of which 5% are former university graduates.
Since the inception of the community college system, they have consistently consulted with a variety of community groups to provide the most relevant programs and services in the communities served by each college. A system of program advisory committees was established, comprised of several thousand community leaders from business, labour and other stakeholder constituencies. The high-quality training infrastructure which is the community college system has been developed on the foundation of these advisory committees and support from both the federal and provincial governments.
As crown agencies, community colleges are instrumental in the implementation of the government's social and economic policies. The college system is unique in its capacity to deliver province-wide certification of skills, programs and trainers in a flexible system of prior learning assessment and accreditation.
Community colleges realize that the dramatic changes occurring throughout the world are affecting our students and respective communities and that global markets are a reality. Community colleges have been and continue to be part of the exciting restructuring and reorientation to new business strategies. Each year, approximately 25% of college programs are reviewed and updated as required.
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It is fitting that this year, which is the 25th anniversary of the Ontario community college system, the Ontario training and adjustment board is expected to be formalized. We believe that our track record of supporting growth and delivering quality services positions the colleges to contribute substantially in the new training environment. Community colleges look forward to more fully utilizing a comprehensive, full-service mandate, where each college functions as an education institution, a training delivery agent and a community player.
Colleges have positioned themselves to serve the skills-upgrading demands of the labour force in the open marketplace. In addition to serving over 500,000 adult trainees, significant progress has been made by colleges in serving specific employers or industrial sectors and individuals.
Colleges realize that competitiveness requires market-driven quality, as defined by the client, at a cost-competitive price to meet client needs. Colleges will provide support to the OTAB governors as they forge a farsighted yet obtainable vision for Ontario's training and adjustment system.
I'd like to stop here and turn it over to my colleague Dan Patterson.
Mr Dan Patterson: I'm Dan Patterson, vice-president, Niagara College. What I'd like to do is to cite four key objectives of Bill 96 and speak to those items. Bill 96 cites four key objectives: to include all labour market partners in public training; to give employers, workers and potential workers access to training; to reinforce the principle of access, equity and efficiency in labour market development; and to harmonize labour force development programs with the province's economic and social policies.
I would now like to talk under three broad headings: partnership development, access and accountability, and labour force development in economic and social policy.
The first one speaks to the issue of partnership. One of the things I think that's most critical when we talk about OTAB is the transfer of power, because at the heart of OTAB is the transfer of power and decision-making out of government into the hands of the labour market partners; that's labour, industry, education and social action groups. Bill 96 speaks to the issue of shared leadership, and I think it's very critical to the success of OTAB that we not come with self-interest but talk about how we can work in a consensus kind of way. I think it's absolutely crucial and at the heart of OTAB. So what we believe we bring to the table in terms of partnership are a number of important components, and we'd like to share those with you.
We have a community base with local responsiveness and formal input from both economic and social groups within our college catchment areas. We have a cohesive provincial structure which facilitates communication, province-wide standards and consistent learning outcomes. So rather than having 23 different presentations to this group, we've come under the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, and the document included in your package is a result of extensive consultation with the 23 community college leaders in identifying and responding to OTAB.
We offer a comprehensive, full-service mandate: Each college functions as an educational institution, a training delivery agent and a community player, with extensive linkages among all major labour market partners; the mandate and capacity to act as both an economic and social policy instrument of government; expertise and experience in needs assessments and training plan development for individuals and organizations; curriculum and training material development; and the capacity to deliver province-wide certification of skills programs and a flexible system of prior learning assessment and accreditation.
Examples abound in the college system. Niagara College's Environmental Centre works with industry associations in providing leading edge upskilling for the workforce. The Canadian Plastics Centre at Humber College involves industry, labour, education and government in supporting international competitiveness of the sector. The Canadian Automotive Institute at Georgian College, a college-industry partnership, provides professional training for the automotive industry. Mohawk College, the United Steelworkers of America and Stelco have initiated a long-term, multi-skilling program for workers in Hamilton. These are just examples of a number of excellent programs and partnerships we have.
The second area I want to focus on is access, accountability and quality. We recommend the addition of two objectives as part of section 4 of Bill 96.
First, we believe we should establish, in collaboration with stakeholders and appropriate experts, a set of criteria and processes through which any trainer providing publicly funded training must become accredited.
"4(1)20. To develop, in collaboration with stakeholders and the college standards and accreditation council, a province-wide system of credentialed labour market development programs which can be delivered by accredited trainers as defined in paragraph 19."
We believe standardized outcomes for publicly sponsored training programs are essential for cost-effectiveness and quality assurance. We believe portability through a common accreditation system is a firm guarantor of access and equity. These elements are the strength of the college system and should be built upon in any new training and adjustment environment. OTAB's objectives cannot be met unless all trainers supplying services under publicly funded programs participate in these efforts.
Under the final section, under labour force development and economic and social policy, it is recommended that:
(1) A process be established to provide stakeholders the opportunity to review and comment on regulations governing this act prior to these regulations being adopted.
(2) Community colleges, as key stakeholders in training and labour force development, in order to maximize their flexibility, be provided the opportunity to review and recommend necessary changes to these regulations prior to them being finalized.
Bill 96 is intended, in part, to ensure that labour force development programs and services are consistent with government's economic and social policies. Two critical OTAB relationships which will bear directly on this objective are not well defined: the role, the responsibilities and accountabilities of local boards, and the partnerships with the Canadian Labour Force Development Board regarding federal programs and funding.
High-quality standards and the ability to reinforce those standards must not be jeopardized by unregulated decentralization of program control to local boards. A strong partnership with the Canadian Labour Force Development Board is essential. The local boards would receive assignments and the necessary training resources directly from one centralized provincial body, the OTAB governing body.
The government of Ontario is committed to sharing the leadership in rebuilding the economy of this province with all its labour market partners. To achieve this rebuilding, all stakeholders should be heavily involved in the decision-making of all the regulations that are to follow, and we urge the government to continue its consultation process throughout the regulation development phase.
To date, we've been appreciative of the OTAB project group, which has been very available to help us in our consultation process. I know that in the Niagara region alone they've come down three or four times: a lot of heated debates, a lot of discussions at the local level about this historic transformation and the major changes that are being proposed. I know the OTAB project group has helped us, and we appreciate that very much.
We'd just like to conclude by indicating that we think the shared leadership is absolutely crucial, that we need to work together, that the colleges worked very hard in building and making those links with our networks. As the president of Centennial College has mentioned, we are here in the long run, and we're going to be here for the long run: We've had 25 years of working with the community. We realize OTAB should take into consideration and build on the strengths of the college system, and when we feel that things need improving, then we're ready to work with our various partners to improve them.
I'd like to thank you very much for the opportunity of presenting with my colleagues today.
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The Chair: Ms Marland, three minutes per caucus, please.
Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): How many minutes?
The Chair: Three. It's really three and a half, but I said three, knowing you'll take them.
Mrs Cunningham: We'll take five if you're not looking.
The Chair: I'll be looking.
Mrs Marland: In fairness to the critic, I want to be very expedient. Speaking as someone who's proud to have President Mary Hofstetter's wonderful Sheridan College campuses, some of which are in my riding, are you satisfied that the consultations prior to the drafting of the legislation involved you sufficiently? I know you can't be satisfied with the representation in the end, but were you satisfied with the pre-consultation before the draft?
Mr Patterson: Yes, generally speaking. Every time we called at our local level to bring in resources, they participated. It's difficult to draw the line when you actually stop consultation, but speaking for the Niagara region there were a number of opportunities where key stakeholders did come together. I still think there's a lot of work that needs to be done in building partnerships. I think partnerships take time, and I think those four groups, the labour market partners, have not historically worked together. I think there's still the positioning and a bit of one-upmanship that everyone indeed is concerned about. But given the time frames and the fact that as a jurisdiction we are in deep trouble if we don't make some major changes in the way we position for the 21st century, while we don't agree with all the recommendations in OTAB, we think there are a lot of good principles taken from other jurisdictions that have good track records and success in training to try to build on. There are shortcomings, but we have had the opportunity, through various mechanisms, to respond.
Mrs Cunningham: I have a very direct question. The other education representatives--whether school boards, the universities or private and public trainers--have all stated to us that they feel the education community is underrepresented on the OTAB itself. They have gone as far as asking for five seats; some have asked for eight. They feel you people are the ones who will make certain that people are trained in the business community, within the labour market workplaces and obviously within education and public and private trainers. You haven't mentioned that, and I'm just wondering if you have a position on that.
Mr Patterson: Yes, this is an issue that we have very much struggled with. In our document The Challenge...Training and Adjustment Renewal for Ontario: The Response...A New Role for The Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, we do recommend that the colleges have a seat on the board. But as we got involved in the consultation, we felt we should be less preoccupied with seats and being a power broker and more concerned with the degree to which education expertise can come to bear on the drivers of training, like labour and management. As we developed, we recognized that the emphasis should be more on consensus with the four labour partners, rather than that we need two, four or five representations.
Suppose a college representative were going to be on the board: We would expect that that college representative not just come in with the college interest in mind but come in with the total education and training development of the province in mind, recognizing that there are school boards, universities, private sector groups and community groups that all have a stake. One of the things that has most frustrated us is the sense that some people think that we're in to try to have the colleges be the total picture. That's not our intent. We very much believe that we have to do it through partnerships with others.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you very much for such a comprehensive, dynamic and, I would say, ultimately sympathetic presentation, sympathetic to the ideals of OTAB. I'd like to say too that it reflects the work of St Lawrence College in my riding. Building on that tradition, its new president, Dan Corbett, has some very exciting ideas about how to carry forward into the future the work that has gone on in the past 25 years in areas like training but also other duties and mandate of the colleges.
I want to ask you, though, in the brief time you have--in a way that's regrettable, but at the same time you have presented very clearly the colleges' view of OTAB--about the local boards. We've heard from some groups that they think the local boards should be all-powerful, I think at the expense of the provincial board. You made a comment about that, suggesting that we have to be careful about that balance between the provincial OTAB and the local boards. I was wondering if you could elaborate on some of your concerns there, about how that balance will be achieved and how it should be met.
Ms Catherine Henderson: The balance is essential, in my view, and that comes from working personally with Dan and others at provincial and local levels. It's hard, until one does it, to get an understanding of the differences between the local areas. People are always on the backs of presidents saying: "Why can't they get their act together and respond as a unit?" Because we come from different places, and they're significantly different.
We do need overarching principles and guidelines and operating practices, in my view. but these need to be consistent with local decisions: There are a number of unique local decisions I really believe we have to make. I don't know the mechanism; Dan may be more prepared to speak about a mechanism for doing that, but I can only say that we, as a group of colleges, think it's extremely important.
Mr Evans: I could add too that one of the things we saw OTAB doing was to reduce the amount of duplication. We would like to see a centralized governing body directing local boards, but at the same time leaving enough flexibility for the local boards to respond to local needs. Otherwise, I think we'd have a very disjointed type of training system in our province.
Mr Gary Wilson: I think that's what we are trying to do, because there's a lot of expertise at the local level. But if it's felt to be ignored, then it won't come forward and the system will suffer because of that.
Mr Evans: Yes. There has to be room for that to surface.
Mr Ramsay: I'd like to pursue Mrs Cunningham's question with you, because I would like to get a little more direct response. Do you think the other training partners should be on OTAB? Yes or no.
The Chair: Or however you may want to answer it.
Mr Ramsay: I'd like to hear yes or no.
Mr Evans: The representation on the board should be done by constituency. You mean, would each of the other sectors have a seat?
Mr Ramsay: Yes, the five--
Mr Evans: I don't think it's necessary to have every sector represented on the board.
Mr Ramsay: I see. Why should you be there and not somebody else?
Mr Evans: We're there in the sense that--we're not being represented as a system. One of our former colleagues happened to be nominated by the constituency, so he now is a representative of the five education and training sectors, not the community college.
Mr Ramsay: But what would be wrong with having a representative from each of the five training sectors out there so we know we've got good input into OTAB decision-making?
Mr Evans: If it were the wish of the board and the government to expand the membership of that committee, sure: We would love to have our own seat. But given the reality that there were only two education and training seats, I really think it has to be done by constituency. There are a lot of very good trainers out there.
Mr Ramsay: Absolutely; for sure. The thing I think you need to worry about is, how are you guaranteed that you would always have a seat there?
Mr Evans: We're not.
Mr Ramsay: No, you're not at all. So really, on your behalf, it would be better to make sure all five components of trainers out there have a place at the table, that we put that in the legislation and then you know you'd always have a seat for colleges.
Mr Evans: I think we are part of the education and training sector or constituency. There is expertise out there with the community-based trainers and some with the private trainers; the colleges have their own niche; the universities have their niche. We're one of five.
Mr Ramsay: I'm a little surprised that you--I take from your submission that you really want a fairly highly centralized organization. To quote, "The training programs and the province-wide accreditation must not be jeopardized by unregulated decentralization of program control to local boards." That's fairly strong language, so you're looking for quite a highly centralized control of OTAB. I'm just wondering if you could expand a little more on why you want it so centralized.
Ms Catherine Henderson: I was on the establishment board for the college standards and accreditation group, and that argument rages. I think what we're looking at is centralization around quality and standards, as opposed to the actual content and delivery in the local areas. What we're trying to ensure is that if you're trained by an accredited provider of training, you have some assurance of quality, affordability and consistency of what that would mean. That's what decentralization is about, not the content.
Mr Ramsay: So the local boards should be free to pursue the training programs they want, as long as there are standards there.
Ms Catherine Henderson: It's really necessary.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Henderson, Mr Evans and Mr Patterson for this participation in the committee process. We are grateful to you. We thank you for travelling to Queen's Park today, obviously from different parts of the community and the province, but we're appreciative of the point of view you've expressed and your willingness to share that with us. Thank you kindly. Have a safe trip back to Welland, St Catharines and Niagara Falls.
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WOMEN'S TRAINING COALITION (NORTH SUPERIOR)
The Chair: The next participant is the Women's Training Coalition (North Superior). Please tell us your name and any title or position you've got. We've got your written material, which will become part of the record by virtue of being filed as an exhibit. Please try to give us the second 15 minutes of your half-hour for questions and conversation.
Ms Joan Baril: My name is Joan Baril, and I represent the Women's Training Coalition, the training area called North Superior. Thank you very much for letting me speak to you today about Bill 96.
When you hold Bill 96 in your hand, it's a very short bill; it's just a piece of paper. It's a very administrative and a very bureaucratic piece of paper. You know it's important, but I'm guessing that you know it's important in a rather remote way from the people who are actually going to take this training. I would like to give you two specific examples of how this new training initiative will improve and will affect positive training, especially in the north.
This bill sets the stage at the local level for a cooperative partnership between federal and provincial training. Where I come from, the fragmentation of training and of various training boards is a major problem. In general, there is a lack of training in the north, and we could use some cooperative effort to solve these problems.
I come from Thunder Bay, but I represent the women's group in the training area called North Superior. This is an enormous area, running from the west of Thunder Bay over to Manitouwadge and north for ever, pretty well. It represents--please think of this--an area half the size of France. It represents an area that is the same size as southern Ontario. It represents the common northern expression when people phone down to Toronto: "Turn over the map."
In order to prepare for this presentation, I travelled the north shore. If you've ever done that in the winter, you know what it's like. I just finished that trip, 600 kilometres. I went to five northern towns: Manitouwadge, Marathon, Nipigon, Geraldton and Terrace Bay. I met with interested women in those communities; we had ads in the paper. There were public meetings for women interested in training, and I talked to about 44 women. I also visited training programs, college programs and school board programs in the north. I did this on behalf of our Women's Training Coalition (North Superior), which is a recently formed group, as you can imagine. We are affiliated with the Ontario Women's Action on Training Coalition.
This trip taught me a lot about the north. It's a very different world up there. I want to share some of the things that happened to me. No, I didn't get hit by a moose--almost, though. It taught me that the north represents a different economy, a different geography, a different climate and a different attitude, that these realities have a very crucial bearing on training and that they also should be recognized in this bill.
I'd like to tell you what I learned. I left Thunder Bay on January 27, drove 200 kilometres to Geraldton and met with 15 women, anglophone and francophone. I then drove 100 kilometres to the next town, which is Nipigon. The next day, the highway was closed to the west and to the east, a not unusual occurrence in the winter in the north. I was able to make it as far as Terrace Bay--that's 100 kilometres--but the highway was completely snow-packed. As I was going down a long, twisty, winding hill going into Terrace Bay, I got into a situation they call in the north "360-ing," and I 360-ed faster and faster. I was faster than Kurt Browning going down that stretch of road, across and into the snowbank. I have a four-wheel drive so I was able to extricate myself with no problem and get out. However, a week previously, a woman had 360-ed not far from there on the Steel River bridge into a snowplow and had died.
Transportation is something to take into consideration when we're dealing with the north. There are about 140,000 people outside of Thunder Bay in this area. Last year there were 4,612 accidents and 24 fatalities for that population. I know you have bad weather down here--yesterday it was a little slippery--but until you've seen a storm between Wawa and Sault Ste Marie, until you've seen the whiteouts and the ice--the closure of roads in the north is a weekly occurrence somewhere along the course of those roads.
I want to tell you one more thing that happened. I was coming to the Little Pic River by Neys Provincial Park, which is a stretch of highway that just descends for a mile. The road had been closed. I had to wait about an hour in Terrace Bay to get to Marathon, and as I was going down this one-mile hill--I was halfway down--two transports were coming up. This is a narrow, two-lane highway. On my right is a series of little posts and a drop down to Lake Superior. As I got close to those transports, one transport passed the other and I was shoved off the road, because this is a two-lane road.
Probably the reason this happened--we know about this stuff in the north--is that the head transport was loaded and therefore was slowing down. The transport behind didn't have a load and it couldn't slow down or it wouldn't make the hill, and in no way are those transports going to back down a mile on to the Little Pic River bridge, so it passes. I was seriously worried--if that has ever happened to you--about being sucked into a snowbank and hitting these guard rails. Fortunately, heaven was with me and I survived again.
I mention these driving conditions because it's just one factor that impacts on training in the North Superior training region. I was told of people who routinely drive 100 kilometres each way, from Terrace Bay to Marathon, to go to an evening training program. I met a woman in Manitouwadge who drove from Manitouwadge to Marathon, 100 kilometres each way, Tuesday and Thursday nights for her training program on those sorts of roads.
North Superior is a region where labour adjustment is taking place. The woods industry is downsizing in many places: Abitibi in Thunder Bay has closed a plant; Domtar in Red Rock is downsizing, as are Kimberly-Clark in Terrace Bay and James River in Marathon. People are worried about that. In Manitouwadge, the Geco mine, which has been open for many years, is also closing.
At the same time, training is very scarce, particularly outside the city of Thunder Bay. Many training programs simply do not get off the ground up there. This is why I believe the local boards will have a positive influence in bringing training to this area.
One of the reasons training doesn't get off the ground up there is eligibility requirements. I just want to give you one example: I'm going to use the federal example deliberately, because it doesn't matter whether we're talking about federal programs or provincial programs.
In Geraldton right now, the hospitality people, the people who own resorts on Lake Nipigon, want trained people in the hospitality industry, as you can imagine. Tourism is something that possibly could help offset some of the adjustment that's happening in the north. Canada Employment is offering a course for hospitality workers which has a lot of women interested. I did talk to two women tourist operators who were also quite hopeful.
However, the course might never get off the ground. They must find 15 people who are on UI--they must be on unemployment insurance--who want to take this course immediately. That eligibility requirement might mean that the course will fold, because to find 15 in a town of 6,000 who are on UI--many women are not on UI. They've either been at home as homemakers, their UI has run out, they are on reserves where they're not eligible for UI, they're farm women, they're failed businesswomen who haven't had UI protection or they're on social assistance. So there are many categories of women who are not able to access this training program.
Similarly, if you already have a job, no matter how pitiful it may be, and you want further training, you're not allowed to quit this job to take training. In other words, you're not allowed to upgrade yourself to the training.
So to everybody's horror, this one training program in Geraldton just might never get off the ground. Now, to be fair, when I left town, the person at Confederation College, the local college, said they had heard they were going to open it and allow social assistance recipients to take this training.
A training program like that would start overnight in Metro Toronto. A training program for hospitality, 15 people: You could get that going in a week. But the criteria just don't translate to the north. We're dealing with criteria that are set elsewhere that just don't work. As the francophone women said, we need criteria that are "adaptés à nos besoins," adapted to our needs. We need flexibility on criteria. Let us have training, but let us have the training that we need. I think that's the kind of thing the local training boards can deal with, because they're on the ground and they can talk to the people directly affected.
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Another example is, when I met with the women, they talked about people being laid off in primary resource industries not having enough education to get further training. This is the old northern story. You go to school till you're 16; you quit and you join dad in the mill or you join dad in the mine. I think everybody knows it. Many francophones and Portuguese immigrants who came in in the 1960s can speak English but they can't read and write it, and therefore they can't go back to school.
The only upgrading that's available in these small towns is night classes, and I've met people who've been taking their high school for eight years at night, credit after credit. In other parts of the world you can become a medical doctor in eight years. In small northern towns, you get your grade 12.
The town of Geraldton, for example, is a case in point. They have a literacy class during the day but no other classes during the day. If those adjustment people want to get their education up, they've got to go back to high school with their kids. It's not that they're too embarrassed to do it; it's that they don't think they're able to. It's been a long time. They don't even think they can do the work or the math in grade 9. So a few people are doing it, but it's not really an option.
What the women said was, "Give us two or three rooms here in Geraldton, have upgrading classes during the day, and we can have a centralized facility instead of training scattered all over." So you see, these local people have identified a problem and, sitting together, I thought they came up with a pretty elegant and simple solution. If the training is in one facility, then you can have a day care onsite, and they identified this as one of the barriers for women for training.
When I say day care onsite, I'm not talking about a $50,000 facility. You can--and I saw this--have a day care onsite, with the parents onsite, and after renovations to the facility, whatever you have, it can be set up for $2,000 or $3,000. So we're not looking at enormous amounts of money. Of course, you have to pay day care providers and you have to have a milk-and-cookies fund, but we're not looking at a fortune. So these are the kinds of things that people in the local training areas can identify.
Confederation College provides evening classes. They all like Contact North; I've given you the brochure. However, no day care is involved in any of these programs. It's my conviction that we cannot expect any change in the present situation in the north if we continue to try to import training ideas and training packages and training plans from the south. I would urge you to amend the bill under the section on criteria for directors, subsection 9(4), to ensure that there is at least one director from the north or, more likely, that the geographical realities of Ontario be recognized.
In that section it says, "In the selection of directors, the importance of reflecting Ontario's"--I would like to put in there, "geographical diversity and linguistic diversity"--"and the diversity of its population and ensuring overall gender balance shall be recognized."
Probably on the main OTAB board or on the councils, there will be people from the north, but I would like to see it, and women up there would like to see it, in the bill.
My other recommendations don't take nearly as long. They also deal with the same section, which states, in the selection of directors, as I've mentioned, "overall gender balance shall be recognized." In my opinion, the word "recognized" is a very wishy-washy word. The section expresses an ideal of wish without telling us how it's going to wash. It seems to me as if someone who framed the bill looked at the concept of a truly representative board and hesitated and then hedged.
OTAB, as the first section of the bill makes clear, is an attempt to democratize a process, and I think people in the north are quite excited about this new democratization of training.
It mentions in the preamble the "underrepresented or disadvantaged groups," who, we are told, will play "a significant role in the design and delivery of labour force development programs and services." In the north, women might be underrepresented, but they are very key players in their community. In their volunteer work, in their paid work and in their home work, they have a very good handle on what's going on.
In the past, we have to say, in those communities, decisions about local training have been to some extent in the hands of local élites, and very often in the hands of white male business élites. An official women's representative on the local and provincial board--we have one representative, as you know, for women--is certainly a guarantee that this will change somewhat. But there's no guarantee that the women in the other sections--business, labour, education, or women in the other equity groups--will also find their views represented on OTAB.
As the bill stands, the door to full gender representation is partly open. We recommend that if gender representation is desired--and the provincial government has stated that it is desired--subsection 9(4) should make clear that full gender representation on the board should be ensured. So we recommend that the phrase "shall be recognized" be deleted.
Finally, I'd like to turn to one quick point. If the members of the local training boards are to be truly representative and if we are truly to have social action groups on those boards, then that person, that woman, on our local training board has to have a group behind her that will organize women in our training area and get them together to see what women see as crucial and key in our training area. That woman on the training board has to be representative to somebody. She can't just be there because she's a woman. She has to be responsible to somebody and she has to put forth, and we have to be sure that she puts forth in our local area, what women want. She has to have a women's agenda on training that she can work from. She has to have a backup group.
It's impossible, as you can imagine, without money and without resources, for anybody to organize a women's group on training in an area the size of ours. I was able to take my trip because I received money, not from the OTAB project but donated from local women's groups in Thunder Bay. So without organization and without some kind of money to organize ourselves, the fine structure we're setting up here in Bill 96 will become a sham. We'll simply have a woman on the board responsible to no one, representative of no one. Training will remain a preserve of the local élites, as it always has. They have the resources and, to some extent, they have the expertise right now to dominate the process. It's not going to be easy for the representatives from the social action group to play an equal part without some kind of backup. So I urge you to amend clause 30(1)(i) to specifically authorize the funding of reference groups.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Martin and Mr Wood, please.
Mr Tony Martin (Sault Ste Marie): It's certainly good to hear from you. It's really important for this committee to have the first-hand knowledge you bring to this hearing. I can certainly identify with some of the experience of living in the north, because I have for all of my life, and have been involved in many 360s and have hit the banks and been stuck in snowstorms. It can be rather unpleasant.
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): Have you got a four-wheel drive?
Mr Martin: No, I don't.
Mr Wiseman: You'd better start looking for one.
Ms Baril: That's right. The truck business is an excellent business.
Mr Martin: It doesn't seem to matter what area you look at, as government. I've found that in the last two and a half years. The issue of distance and weather is something we need to concern ourselves more clearly with in the north than in the south. It does affect the delivery of education programs. I certainly see the recommendations you make here as ones that would speak to a resolution of some of the issues you're talking about.
One of the issues that has been raised by others at this table is the issue of who will deliver these programs. You spoke of one education centre. I know that in some communities in the north it is the boards of education that do it, whether separate or public, and in some communities it's the community college that has come in and set up a structure. What would be your strong feeling around who should lead that and deliver those programs?
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Ms Baril: We have two major players, the federal government and the provincial government. We have to cooperate, and I think we can cooperate on the local level better than we're doing on higher levels. We have to cooperate on the local level.
Who should lead it? I don't know. I know there's competition among various groups. But when you come right down to the local small towns, what has to be done is that those groups have to sit down and figure out what they want to do together. They've got to start a cooperative mode, and I think this is what OTAB is going to do, get that process going.
Mr Wood: Thank you very much for bringing forth an excellent presentation and an explanation as to what can happen to you travelling through the north. I know the areas you're talking about. I've been stranded in White River and Hornepayne and Manitouwadge, where I have a good friend, Gilles Pouliot, the Minister of Transportation.
Ms Baril: I was stranded at Wawa.
Mr Martin: That's my home town.
Ms Baril: And it was very nice.
Mr Wood: I can understand and agree with you in a lot of things you've brought forward, because 80% of the land mass of the province of Ontario is in northern Ontario, yet the population is not there. Small communities of less than 5,000 aren't able to put on courses, so they have 100 or 150 kilometres to travel. So I can understand and agree with a lot of the things you've brought forward, lack of dollars, lack of support systems for day care and for out-of-pocket money for travelling and all that. I don't really have a question. I just wanted to let you know that I'm very supportive of the experiences you've gone through to gather all this information in the winter months and come down here and present this in Toronto to us.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Wood.
Ms Baril: I think we could look at some imaginative solutions up there. Once we get people working on them, I think people can come. This is why I think the local boards are so important in the north.
Mr Wood: Things are different in the north.
Ms Baril: Yes, things are different in the north.
Mr Ramsay: Welcome, Joan. Thank you very much for your presentation. I found it most refreshing, because it was just one person's view of part of northern Ontario. I live in the northeast part of Timiskaming.
Mr Wiseman: That's still the south, isn't it?
Mr Ramsay: You can call me a down-easterner, I guess. I'm down east of you.
I think you gave us first hand, especially in contrast with the group that proceeded you, a very good argument for why the LTABs are so important and why they have to be community-based. I was almost a little frightened by what I heard from the community college group. They really wanted some extremely centralized or top-down approach to this and they wanted to make sure that there were province-wide standards in everything. While I believe there's going to have to be standards, you made some very good arguments about why local groups have to be able to maybe set some of their own standards, especially eligibility--I thought that was very important--in order to upgrade people from where they are to where they need to go, based on your local conditions.
Ms Baril: We've got to be flexible for northern conditions. I met a group of women who have signed up for a computer course. It's going to take them six years to get their diploma, going at night. That's the kind of drive people have, and it's hard to sustain that drive when the economy's being undercut beneath them. So I think people can do it.
Mr Ramsay: Just a short question before I defer to my colleague Mr Offer. You handed out a brochure on distance education, and you spoke of several women having to make these long drives every week. Is there not enough use of the distance ed facilities? I know the infrastructure is in place up there. Could we use that more?
Ms Baril: If you look at the distance ed brochure, you'll see that it's mostly college and university courses. It's a fabulous resource for people who already have their high school training. What it doesn't do is upgrading, and it doesn't do the kind of occupational courses, such as welding, meat cutting, tourist industry courses, for which you would really need to have a class. I can't see how you'd teach a waitress how to wait by distance education. Training includes all kinds of unacademic things. But people are very thrilled with that, and that's going to make a big difference in the north, Contact North.
Mr Ramsay: Good. Thank you.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I think you've made a very convincing argument of the need for a strong local board to be able to react to and reflect community needs and ways in which adjustment and retraining programs have to be delivered. I think you've made the case. The problem I see is that the legislation doesn't reflect what you think should be there. I agree with you, but the legislation is silent as to the mandatory establishment of local boards and the criteria. I would like to get your thoughts as to whether you feel there should be a change to the legislation so that individuals such as yourself, who have many years of experience and understanding as to the need to reflect the community, should be able to point to a part in the legislation that says, "That is where local boards must be established."
Ms Baril: You've put me on the spot, because I haven't thought of it that way, but I think you're right that the legislation is not specific.
Mrs Marland: I really appreciated your presentation this morning. I can't say that I identify with your driving experiences; I probably wouldn't want to. But it's a very poignant presentation you've made this morning. I'm sure in some areas of the province people who presently hold jobs are not allowed to quit to go and improve, learn and upgrade, but they also have an option every night of the week, even perhaps on some weekends, to do all of those things and work. As you have pointed out so well, with travelling time and distances, and then on top of that for five months of the year add the climate, it certainly is an inequitable situation. I think your request that the eligibility requirements need flexibility is paramount.
Ms Baril: You mentioned that they have an opportunity in the evening, but in fact there isn't much training in the evening. I didn't want to give you that impression.
Mrs Marland: No, I meant down here they can do it any evening and sometimes on a weekend.
Ms Baril: Oh yes, you have all the flexibility in the world.
Mrs Marland: But if you're driving 100-plus kilometres--I mean, you mentioned one woman who does that two evenings a week.
Ms Baril: Many people do it.
Mrs Marland: Add to it the risk and the hazard for them personally, and it just isn't working. It should be. There should be a recognition of that and some proposals made to remedy that situation.
Ms Baril: It's possible, as your colleague mentioned, that you could put more of these courses on distance education--there's a distance education office in every town now--and that would facilitate that. If we loosened their eligibility requirements and said, "Okay, we could have a class of 12. We can't get 15, but we'll go with 11, we'll go with 12," then it would be simple to do it, to set up a class. Just work things a bit, you know.
Mrs Marland: But to arbitrarily say, "It's got to be 15 or else"--
Ms Baril: That's right.
Mrs Marland: I really appreciated it. Thank you.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you very much. I'm going to ask a practical question, given that I think you're probably representing a lot more people than you think you are, when I take a look at the publication. How do you think the OTAB is going to change what you do?
Ms Baril: I'm a teacher at Confederation College. Did you know that?
Mrs Cunningham: No, I didn't.
Ms Baril: How do I think OTAB is going to change that?
Mrs Cunningham: Yes. Why are you looking forward to establishing this training body?
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Ms Baril: I think the decisions on training have always been very distant from everybody. When you talk to people and say, "We have a community Futures training board," or "We have a Visions training board," or "We have a CITC," people will say, "What's that?" People are simply not involved. They're doing good work; I'm not putting them down. It's just that the average person and people involved in training have no idea that the decisions are being made by these boards; they don't even know these boards exist. When the CITC has a meeting, they don't put it in the paper.
So at this point, this is one board and this will cover everything, and people can say: "Okay, I want X, and I can go to my labour rep or I can go to my women's rep," or "I'm a teacher; I can go to my educational rep." There's a channel for input, and I think that channel hasn't been there before. I have no idea who's on some of these other boards, but I think OTAB will have a much higher profile because it's one board and it's in the community.
Mrs Cunningham: But we'll still have a lot of local boards. In your area, how many local boards are being recommended?
Ms Baril: I don't know. In the training area, I understand there will be the one board representing the local boards. But I'm hoping that many of the other subsidiary training boards will either come under the main board or be subsumed by the main board.
Mrs Cunningham: You should keep an eye on that, because where you notice that there have been good links, keep them.
The Chair: I'm sure she will, Ms Cunningham. Ms Baril, all of us are appreciative of your visit to Toronto today and your participation in this process. We're grateful to you for providing a unique insight into this legislation as it applies to a particular constituency. We thank you for that, and we trust that you'll keep in touch. Thank you kindly, ma'am. Have a safe trip back home.
Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): Mr Chairman, for the record, I believe Ms Baril had indicated that under section 30 there's no provision for funding for reference groups. Actually, the provision for funding for reference groups is under section 20.
Ms Baril: Is it mandatory or is it just maybe?
Mr Sutherland: It's mentioned specifically right in the legislation.
The Chair: Wait a minute. Ms Baril, sit down a minute here. Do you want to respond to him? The cavalry has arrived.
Ms Baril: I think it's "may be."
Mrs Cunningham: "May be established."
Ms Baril: "May be established." Let's change that to "must be."
Mr Sutherland: I'm just drawing attention to that section, that there is reference to it.
Ms Baril: I think OTAB "must" provide funding.
The Chair: You appreciate Mr Sutherland's intervention, but it doesn't necessarily satisfy you.
Ms Baril: That's right.
ONTARIO NATIVE WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Native Women's Association, if their spokespeople will please come forward and have a seat. We've got a couple of minutes, because your materials are being prepared and distributed. If you want to have a coffee or other beverage, they're over at the side.
Ms Marland, bless you.
Mrs Marland: Between the television and all this equipment, it's not easy to see the presenters. I don't like to look at them through the water glasses.
Mrs Cunningham: Be careful, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: I am careful, Ms Cunningham. People, feel free to sit here with your colleagues. Please, as you start, tell us your names, any positions or titles you have within the association and carry on with what you want to tell us. Please try to save the second 15 minutes for questions and conversation.
Ms Leona Nahwegahbow: Good morning. My name is Leona Nahwegahbow. I'm president of the Ontario Native Women's Association.
Ms Marlene Pierre: Marlene Pierre, executive director for Ontario Native Women's Association.
Ms Holly Hughes: Holly Hughes, assistant director, Ontario Native Women's Association.
Ms Nahwegahbow: I apologize for being a bit late, and I hope you get your copies of our presentation as soon as they're done.
For aboriginal women and the Ontario Native Women's Association, we have the most to gain or lose in the proposed changes to the province's labour market training programs as envisioned by the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board.
This stems from the deplorable state we, as aboriginal women, find ourselves in in the areas of education, training, employment and economic development. Over 50% of all aboriginal families, both off- and on-reserve, are headed by sole-support mothers. Aboriginal people have the highest population growth rate in Canada. Eight out of 10 aboriginal women have been victims of some of form of family abuse. Aboriginal women have the lowest income levels in Canada, lower than their aboriginal male counterparts. We have lower education levels than the Canadian average. We have the highest unemployment levels in Canada, and those who are able to work are mostly confined to low-paying, service sector jobs.
It is due to the abovementioned statistics that ONWA is concerned with the proposed direction of the province of Ontario in labour market training. OTAB, or whatever its aboriginal equivalent may be, is a ticket to a better future for aboriginal women. However, it must be based on equity and, more importantly, respect for aboriginal women.
While other groups will talk about pay equity or even employment equity, ONWA has more basic concerns. Before one can have pay equity, one must get a job; before one can get a job, one must have employment equity; and before employment equity, one must have education equity. Education equity and all the supports that come with it, such as child care, income supports, counselling, means of transportation etc, are major keys to aboriginal women's role in self-government.
Our organization has much experience in the area of labour market training, and we have a number of concerns. In 1980, ONWA, along with other provincial aboriginal women's organizations in Canada, initiated the aboriginal women's employment coordinators program with Employment and Immigration Canada. This program assisted aboriginal women's organizations in analysing the labour market situation in their provinces and to initiate processes to better support aboriginal women's involvement in it.
In 1988, ONWA, along with other aboriginal PTOs in Ontario, worked with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities to develop the aboriginal education and employment training strategy. Then in 1990, ONWA was one of the first provincial organizations in Ontario to develop the Pathways to Success strategy. From these experiences, we are learning how to develop labour market training strategies.
One of our major concerns in both these strategies is accountability. In both initiatives, their effectiveness for aboriginal women has been blunted by their lack of accountability back to the aboriginal community, especially back to aboriginal women. Our organization will not be satisfied until such time that women play a more meaningful role in the decision-making processes at the community level and not be paid lipservice.
In the Pathways to Success strategy, we are encountering many difficulties; jurisdiction and accountability are two of them. For aboriginal women, on- and off-reserve, anywhere in the province, the voice of aboriginal women is underrepresented or non-existent. The band government infrastructure does not ensure representation of women for off-reserve. ONWA and OMAA, the Ontario Métis and Aboriginal Association, are the only two recognized organizations in Ontario that speak on behalf of their constituents. We believe it will take some time before an Indian government structure will be in place that addresses the needs of off-reserve people. In the meantime, ONWA must represent the voice of women, and the organization is constantly growing. At this time, we have 65 on- and off-reserve affiliated organizations in Ontario.
Another major difficulty with the Pathways to Success structure--and this is a prevalent experience for ONWA's membership--is that aboriginal women's employment and training needs are supposed to be a priority in the strategy, yet our experiences within Pathways are proving to have the opposite and negative effect.
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We are not about to leave aboriginal women to the mercy of the Pathways structure again or to an OTAB structure which does not guarantee the infrastructural presence of aboriginal women in decision-making at all levels. A major focus of the OTAB activity must be to address the employment and training needs of aboriginal women, with safeguards to ensure this.
Only in the last few days, our organization's women have been experiencing another form of discrimination. Several of the women attending the child care consultations taking place across the province under the Jobs Ontario training fund will not have their child care covered, yet they are being asked to identify how child care spaces are to be used in Ontario.
In addition, OTAB, or its aboriginal equivalent, must be more than just an administration of someone else's system through program transfers to area management boards. We want to see substantive changes to various labour market training programs before they are taken on by the aboriginal community. At present, too much time is spent being accountable to the terms and conditions of treasury board and not to the aboriginal people themselves.
For ONWA, accountability means specific programs designed by, administered by and funded to aboriginal women through their own structures, not government's and not other aboriginal organizations'. To do this, ONWA needs financial resources to adequately address these questions. Consultations, research, program design and evaluation do not come free. Aboriginal women's needs should not have to subsidize other groups in the name of financial restraint. Our membership has always been in a situation of financial restraint.
ONWA and aboriginal women need time, time to develop our own system of employment training, to take into account the needs and aspirations of our people. We should not be rushed to make a hasty decision just to suit someone else's legislative or electoral timetable.
Whatever system is developed must also be comprehensive. Too often, we embark on these initiatives that are only five years in duration, which do not address questions of jurisdiction. Moreover, they fail to develop any kind of holistic structure which takes into account the concerns of aboriginal women, our families, culture and language. More often than not, these are jurisdictional disputes between the federal, provincial and band governments, which leave aboriginal women falling between the cracks.
In addition, there must be equity for aboriginal women. This means that goals for aboriginal women's training as a priority must be established as a principle of the program strategy, and quotas must be established for representation of aboriginal women's groups on whatever structure develops. Only by having goals and targets for aboriginal women's training will there be any means to judge this strategy's effectiveness. Proper statistics will also have to be developed and administered. Such programs as WITT, women in trades and technology, will need to be expanded and brought about under aboriginal control.
While many of our comments have been directed towards the province and aboriginal leadership in Ontario, work also must be done with non-aboriginal employers: small and large businesses and governments. These are the major employers, and they also have a responsibility in the training field. On a per capita basis, the private sector in Canada spends less on training than any other industrialized nation. As half the aboriginal population resides in urban areas, they, along with employers, must play an active part in developing their own training programs.
With regard to the legislation as it now stands, ONWA does have problems with it. There is no reference to any of the concerns we have mentioned, and this very forum in which we speak will not address them. We need our own forums to develop a system of labour market training initiatives for aboriginal women. The very fact that only one aboriginal representative can be selected to sit on the council of 24 is indicative of how little this legislation will serve aboriginal women. Gender balance, which the legislation has called for in other appointments, is impossible with only one aboriginal person.
In summarizing, therefore, the Ontario Native Women's Association takes the following position:
(1) That a separate aboriginal process be established and funded under OTAB with special emphasis on aboriginal women;
(2) That developmental and ongoing dollars be set aside for ONWA to guarantee aboriginal women's active and meaningful participation in the OTAB aboriginal process;
(3) That an exemption to Bill 96 be arranged for a period of no more than one year to allow aboriginal governments, organizations and institutions to design and develop an aboriginal process that ensures accountability, infrastructural requirements, policy and procedural mechanisms;
(4) That at the community level there will be aboriginal representation on the existing local boards for purposes of networking, monitoring and cooperation.
We have attachments to this presentation which we thought would highlight our presentation.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr McGuinty, please.
Mr Dalton McGuinty (Ottawa South): Thank you for your presentation. We have heard from, I believe, three other representatives of the first nations, none bringing a specific focus to women's issues, though. I think I can safely summarize the others as saying they want out of OTAB completely, that they have confidence in the federally funded Pathways program and that their desire is to be left alone and they don't think they should be included. They can't possibly see how one representative can reconcile a variety of differences among the males, for instance, let alone having a special interest and concerns for the women.
But you're bringing a slightly different focus. You are saying, "We don't want out completely." Is that correct?
Ms Nahwegahbow: Yes.
Mr McGuinty: You're telling us, if I look at your summary here, that you're looking for an exemption for a year. I'm not really sure what kind of participation you're interested in having when that year has expired, and I wonder if you might elaborate on that a bit for me, please.
Ms Pierre: The very example you used to highlight your concern is probably one of the most difficult problems we are encountering when we're talking about any element of aboriginal self-government. We're expected as aboriginal people to come forward with one position, and that's not always the case, nor should it be expected to be the case, with each and every issue we are confronting.
However, I think what has to be afforded is the opportunity for all of the aboriginal governments, off-reserve institutions and organizations that have already been set up to deal with employment and training to have the opportunity to say, "This is what we want."
ONWA is coming today with our concerns on how we see our interplay with the provincial initiative. We've already had the experience with the federal initiative. We've highlighted those concerns, about how aboriginal women are being treated in that process, and it has not been a very good one. We don't want that to happen in this one.
First off, we do need the opportunity to talk with the other organizations and say, "This is going to be." If there can be a complete agreement, let's go forward with it. But it's my understanding also that those organizations that deal especially with off-reserve people are pretty much in agreement that we have to have a separate process.
We're suggesting that it be a part of Bill 96 but that there be a creation of certain legislative wording that allows us to build. Give us the time and the resources to build what kind of process we want to engage in. We'd rather work with the other organizations, and I think we have to be afforded the opportunity to do that.
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Mr McGuinty: So you're not looking for more representation on the larger board, but rather a board of your own.
Ms Pierre: Yes, one that would be all-inclusive of the aboriginal governments.
Mr McGuinty: All right. Thank you.
Mrs Marland: I was looking for the business card I received yesterday afternoon from Ms Maracle, who was here speaking on behalf of the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, so that I could refer to her by her first name.
Ms Hughes: Sylvia.
Ms Pierre: I'm surprised you've forgotten her name so quickly. Most of us don't.
Mrs Marland: I didn't forget her last name, and I won't ever forget her, because her presentation to this committee yesterday afternoon, as I told her personally, was one of the most dynamic presentations I've heard at any committee. I was completely impressed with what she told us.
Having said that, and as my colleague Mr McGuinty has said, she was here asking on behalf of the Indian friendship centres for a total exemption. I'm glad that you're here, by the way, speaking for women. That obviously has to become a priority generally overall, but particularly when we are dealing with native women.
You are saying--I just want to be sure I understand this properly--in the second paragraph on page 5, "The very fact that only one aboriginal representative can be selected to sit on the council of 24"--when you're referring to this council of 24, are you referring to OTAB?
Ms Pierre: Yes.
Mrs Marland: Because I thought it was 22. Am I correct about the legislation?
Mr Gary Wilson: It is 22.
Mrs Marland: It is 22. I do not see under subsection 9(2) where aboriginal women are identified. I certainly see in clause 9(2)(8) that one director would represent women, like people with disabilities, and francophones and so forth. This is one of the things that Sylvia was talking to us about yesterday. To use her words, not mine, she said, "Even if there was one, it would be"--she said, "Where could we find one super-Indian?" My concern is that I don't have the answer as to how this can be addressed. I'm agreeing with you totally that it has to be addressed.
I think the problem, when we look through the makeup of this board, is that we say one of this and one of the other. Who is that person ever going to be who is going to really recognize and represent the needs of everyone within that particular category? I'm wondering, as you're asking only for an exemption for one year, whether you see that down the road boards like OTAB and similar conglomerate boards and agencies that are supposed to represent people will eventually represent everybody, including our native women, without it being pinpointed as a special category. If we are really going to work successfully so that everyone will have mandated equal opportunity, do you think that in the future we wouldn't have to be sitting here trying to talk about individual needs being addressed? Would that be your wish down the road?
Ms Nahwegahbow: I guess that's what our objective is. One of our main goals is to be able to work with the other organizations, alongside of them, and once there is recognition that we are being represented in those organizations, I don't think we'll be demanding as much in the future, as long as the recognition is there and the respect is there.
The Chair: Are you going to be very brief, Ms Marland? You've got 30 seconds.
Mrs Marland: I'll be very brief. The figures you have given us on the opening page of your comments, about the issues and the problems and the real-life experience of aboriginal women, are shocking. There has to be a way to reverse it.
The Chair: Do you want to respond to that?
Ms Pierre: In your reference to Sylvia Maracle's remarks, we're also looking to get to the point where we will say that we want an exemption in total, but I think we have to have that period of time to build up and to be able to say that collectively. If only the friendship centres come here and say that, if only another group comes here and says something else, and we're all coming with different stories for different reasons, for us, anyway, we want to sit down with everybody. We need that time to sit down and talk with everyone and come up with at least some general recommendations that we can all work with together. Our feeling also is that we have to have a separate process. How that comes about is entirely--we could fit into the framework of government or within our own framework of government.
Mrs Marland: I agree.
Mr Martin: It's nice to see you again. The last time we crossed paths was in Sault Ste Marie, my home community; you were having your annual conference. As a matter of fact, not thinking that you were going to be here today, I'm still wearing a little sweetgrass circle you gave me. I treasure it, actually, and I get a lot of nice comments about it, so thank you.
It's good to hear from you again, however confusing sometimes it is. You know that we as a government are committed to recognizing your people as a government and working in that way so that there's a level of respect and understanding developed that will in the end be most helpful to your people as you evolve. Obviously, you're having the same problems within your community as we are having within ours in trying to figure out a way to allow peoples who have traditionally not been included in the decision-making process to be included so that your needs are more adequately addressed.
What concerns me, though, is the in-between time. There are things happening that we have no control over. There's an economy out there that's picking up speed that's global in nature and all of that. We need to be able to compete, and the only way we're going to be able to compete, it seems to me, is if all of our people, all of the people who inhabit Ontario, are able to use the gifts they have in ways that are positive and constructive. I hear you saying, "Give us a year," and I agree that we should be able to establish somehow a board that more adequately reflects clearly your position and the things you want to develop. In that in-between time, do you have any thought on how we might do that?
Yesterday, Sylvia talked very clearly about the need for native people to be able to go away and decide themselves what it is they need to do. I guess I have concern about how long that will take and what will happen. We've all seen the horror stories recently of what's happening to some of your communities in the north because things aren't happening quickly enough. What do we do? I don't know.
Ms Nahwegahbow: With the organizations involved right now, each comes to the table with its own agenda. They're saying, "This is a priority with us," and the establishment of policies and the jurisdiction question have to be addressed. We say a year. It may not take that long. We're just saying a year because we know for sure that within that period we will be forced to come together and come up with a solution to where we're at right now. We're identifying a year just so that work is being done prior to having that time come up. It may be shorter than a year.
Mr Martin: That's certainly hopeful. I hope you take some comfort too in the notion included in this bill that there will be the possibility of the development of reference groups, which would include more people in the development of some of the ideas that will come forward.
Ms Nahwegahbow: Also, we thought it was a priority for us to be able to consult with our people at a community-based level so that they would have input into what is being developed here.
The Chair: Thank you to the Ontario Native Women's Association and to you, Chief Nahwegahbow, Ms Pierre and Ms Hughes. We very much appreciate your interest, obviously, but as well your travelling here to Queen's Park to share those views with us. You speak for a significant constituency, and you have provided a unique insight into this bill and this legislation. Obviously, you've piqued the interest of members of the committee, and that's demonstrated by the types of exchanges you were able to have with them. We are thankful to you. We trust you will be following this legislation as it goes through committee for the balance of this week and then, next week, clause-by-clause and then back into the Legislature. We're hoping that if you have any further comments you'll send them to us, either individually or collectively as members of this committee. Thank you and have a safe trip.
Ms Pierre: For the record, it's pronounced Nahwegahbow.
Ms Nahwegahbow: The interpretation is "stand alone."
The Chair: Mine's Kormos, and the interpretation is many things, depending upon whether you work for the Premier's office or not.
Interjection: Kormos must mean "stand alone" too.
The Chair: Well, sometimes you've got to stand alone if you're right. I'll never go as far right as this government has.
Before we recess, there's a query from the research staff, whether an interim--which would be incomplete--summary of recommendations should be made available tomorrow, Thursday, or should it wait until Monday? People can reflect on that over lunchtime. We are recessed until 2 o'clock.
The committee recessed at 1203.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1403.
ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE-FRANÇAISE DE L'ONTARIO
The Chair: It is 2:03; we were scheduled to start at 2. A committee member has finally arrived. The first participant this afternoon is l'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario. Sir, would you please tell us your name, your title or position and proceed with your comments. Please try to save the second 15 minutes of the half-hour for questions and dialogue.
M. Jean Tanguay: Alors, est-ce que tous les membres sont déjà arrivés ?
The Chair: Well, you're quite right. Perhaps we'd better wait five minutes then.
M. Tanguay: Ça va.
The Chair: Thank you, sir, for pointing that out.
The committee recessed at 1404 and resumed at 1410.
The Chair: It's 2:10 and we now have a quorum. My apologies to you, Mr Tanguay, for the delay in getting started, but you were quite right to point out that it would have been foolish to have started at 2 when we were scheduled to without any members of the committee here.
Please, sir, you will still have 30 minutes, of course. I would ask that you try to save the last 15 minutes for questions and exchanges. Thank you kindly, sir.
M. Tanguay: Merci, Monsieur le Président. Étant un politicien moi-même, je comprends que j'arrive parfois en retard à certaines réunions, même si ce sont des comités de cette importance-ci.
Merci d'avoir donné l'occasion à l'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario, car vous savez que je suis le président général pour l'ensemble de la province. Donc, je suis le porte-parole pour la communauté franco-ontarienne. Comme vous le savez, elle se chiffre à environ 500 000 et au-delà.
Il ne s'agit pas de vous le rappeler, mais quand même, l'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario est un organisme voué à la défense des droits de la communauté franco-ontarienne depuis 1910. L'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario se préoccupe au plus haut point de la question de la formation et de l'adaptation de la main-d'oeuvre, en l'occurence la formation et l'adaptation de la communauté franco-ontarienne.
Je n'ai pas à vous faire apprécier le mémoire qu'on vous présente aujourd'hui. Je n'ai pas l'intention de lire les 30 ou 37 pages, mais j'ai plutôt l'intention de porter votre attention aux points essentiels qu'on retrouve dans le mémoire.
Vous pouvez apprécier que ce mémoire est le fruit de nombreuses années -- 1991, 1992 et nous sommes rendus en 1993 -- alors presque trois ans de travail, de recherches, de consultations au sein de la communauté franco-ontarienne et de la communauté ontarienne dans son ensemble. Après cette réflexion de deux ans et demi, lors de notre dernière assemblée générale annuelle, c'est pour cette raison que j'ai ajouté, afin que chacun et chacune des membres du comité ici comprennent bien l'importance de ce document additionnel.
La communauté franco-ontarienne, dans son ensemble, a donné au président général de l'association et son bureau de direction un mandat très spécifique. Si vous permettez, je vous réfère à la dernière page, puisqu'il y a plusieurs «attendu que», ou comme vous diriez en anglais, «whereas», la proposition qui reflète les intentions de la communauté franco-ontarienne et le vouloir de la communauté franco-ontarienne. Ça se lit comme suit :
«Que l'ACFO revendique la création d'un COFAM parallèle, autonome et francophone à tous ses paliers et constituantes et l'établissement d'un véritable partenariat avec OTAB.»
Voilà le mandat que la communauté franco-ontarienne a demandé et a exigé de notre association ; nous devons défendre ce mandat et cette position. Nous vous avons remis dans ce mémoire de quelque 30 pages, où vous retrouvez au début un sommaire, la position de l'ACFO. À notre avis, et je répète, après analyse et travail de deux ans, le projet de loi qui est présentement à l'étude, tel que présenté, n'est pas fidèle à l'Entente Canada-Ontario.
On se souvient bien que le 21 octobre 1991, le gouvernement de l'Ontario et le gouvernement du Canada ont signé une entente de trois ans pour mettre sur pied tout le processus de la formation professionnelle, la création d'OTAB, la création des commissions locales et ainsi de suite.
Si on consulte ce document, l'entente fédérale-provinciale, on constate des responsabilités particulières à l'égard de la communauté franco-ontarienne. Le projet de loi que nous étudions présentement ne les reflète pas du tout. Enfin, dans ce projet de loi, nous voyons la possibilité -- pas la possibilité mais la garantie -- d'un siège francophone.
Nous voyons aussi dans le mandat de la mission du COFAM, à la disposition 17 de l'article 4, que le COFAM devra «promouvoir la dualité linguistique de l'Ontario dans les programmes et services de mise en valeur de la main-d'oeuvre et prendre en considération les besoins de la communauté francophone de l'Ontario en matière de formation».
Ce sont les deux seuls endroits où, dans le projet de loi, on fait référence à la communauté franco-ontarienne. Dans notre mémoire, nous recommandons des amendements précis au projet de loi visant la création du COFAM afin de remettre à la communauté franco-ontarienne des programmes et des services de qualité en français.
Les amendements proposés s'imposent, à notre avis, pour assurer des services équitables en langue française. Essentiellement, les amendements permettent d'atteindre les objectifs suivants :
Premièrement, une représentation efficace et efficiente de la communauté franco-ontarienne au sein des instances décisionnelles de l'éventuel COFAM. Deuxièmement, les amendements qu'on suggère permettent une gestion de fonds pour les services et programmes de formation en français par des représentants de la communauté franco-ontarienne. En troisième lieu, nos amendements permettraient la mise en place de fonctionnaires spécifiquement responsables de l'exécution des décisions prises par les représentants francophones.
Nous allons aller un pas plus loin, et nous recommandons un conseil permanent français. Si on comprend bien la structure, il y a en haut de la pyramide le COFAM, qui est appuyé par quatre conseils spécialisés. Nos amendements, que nous considérons essentiels, suggèrent que plutôt que d'avoir un représentant ou une représentante, nous devrions en avoir trois : un siège francophone, un siège au niveau du patronat et un siège au niveau des syndicats, ce qui nous donnerait, au niveau du COFAM, trois représentants ou représentantes. Au niveau de chacun des conseils, les quatre, nous voudrions et nous souhaiterions voir dans le projet de loi apparaître cette même garantie de trois sièges, ce qui voudrait dire qu'au niveau de la structure du COFAM et de ces quatre conseils, nous aurions une représentation franco-ontarienne de quinze sièges.
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Dans nos amendements au projet de loi, nous recommandons la création d'un cinquième conseil, pas de personnes supplémentaires, juste une structure supplémentaire, ce qui nous permettrait d'assurer la gestion du dossier de la formation professionnelle par et pour l'Ontario français en partenariat avec l'ensemble de la province par le biais d'OTAB and the four councils. Cette structure nous assurerait une planification globale des services et des programmes en français.
Il y a un autre amendement que nous suggérons, soit dans le budget global, parce que l'entente fédérale-provinciale signée en 1991 identifie, pour les trois ans de l'entente, une somme de 1,6 milliards de dollars par année. Nous considérons qu'une enveloppe devrait être identifiée comme une enveloppe francophone tel que nous le faisons présentement au niveau de l'éducation, aux niveaux élémentaire et secondaire, quoique le dossier de la gestion à ce niveau ne soit pas tout à fait complété, comme nous le savons.
Mesdames, messieurs, les amendements proposés par l'ACFO sont nécessaires et sont possibles sans remettre en question les fondements du projet de loi à l'étude.
Mesdames et messieurs les politiciens -- j'en suis un aussi -- vous pouvez laisser votre marque pour l'Ontario français. OTAB est une création nouvelle, est un modus operandi qui apparaît en Ontario pour la première fois. Nous sommes ensemble, comme citoyens de l'Ontario, en train de le créer, ce partenariat, entre tous les intervenants de notre communauté. Pourquoi ne pas bien faire les choses et mettre une structure sur pied dès le début, avec le projet de loi, qui respectera la dualité linguistique qui est, en fait, une des valeurs fondamentales de la mission d'OTAB ou du COFAM ?
Mesdames, messieurs, j'aimerais quand même vous faire noter qu'alors que M. Bill Davis était premier ministre de l'Ontario, il a laissé sa marque en Ontario français en créant les écoles secondaires de langue française en 1967, 1968 et 1969. C'était quand même un moment important dans le développement et l'épanouissement de la communauté franco-ontarienne.
Il n'y a pas très longtemps, avec M. David Peterson, la Loi 8 a marqué l'ensemble de l'Ontario. Dans le domaine de l'éducation, alors que Lyn McLeod était ministre des Collèges et Universités, nous avons eu la création du premier collège de langue française à Ottawa, où on avait prévu un maximum de 800 élèves. Il y en a aujourd'hui au-delà de 3000, deux ans après sa création.
Votre comité, en faisant des recommandations et des changements à la loi qui va nous donner l'OTAB/COFAM, pourrait permettre à la communauté franco-ontarienne de prendre sa juste place.
J'arrête là. Si vous avez des questions, je suis ouvert. Je tenterai de répondre dans la mesure de mes connaissances. Je vous remercie infiniment.
Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): With your proposal that there be a French member of the business community on the board and a French member of the labour community on the board, would that in itself not perhaps negate the reason to have a separate francophone member on the board? Perhaps it might be more appropriate to have a francophone member from the education community on the board representing those aspects of business, but not the separate person just representing francophones.
M. Tanguay: Je comprends très bien. Le membre francophone pourrait venir du domaine de l'éducation. Mais si vous remarquez, dans la composition du comité, le domaine de l'éducation n'a que deux sièges, si je ne m'abuse. Le domaine du patronat et le secteur du syndicat, ces gens ont plus de sièges. Alors, nous avons pensé à ce moment-là, dans le dialogue que nous avons dèjà eu, nous dans la communauté franco-ontarienne, et les gens du patronat et les gens des syndicats, nous nous sommes entendus à cette possibilité d'avoir un siège francophone au niveau du syndicat et un siège francophone au niveau du patronat.
Mais vous savez que, si ce n'est pas écrit dans un projet de loi, quand arrive le temps de le mettre en pratique, ce n'est pas toujours assuré. Nous considérons, et je réitère, qu'un seul membre au sein d'OTAB et du COFAM, pour parler, pour défendre les intérêts de la communauté franco-ontarienne, pour s'assurer que toutes les recommandations et toutes les indications qui existent ici par rapport aux responsabilités et de la province et du gouvernement fédéral, ce serait quasi impossible de réaliser le projet pour ce qui est de la communauté franco-ontarienne. Alors, nous n'avons pas d'objection à ce qu'il y ait un siège francophone chez les éducateurs. Mais jusqu'à ce moment-ci, les éducateurs ne nous ont pas donné d'indice qu'ils seraient prêts à garantir un siège à la communauté franco-ontarienne, quoiqu'il y ait eu des discussions.
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Mr Turnbull: One of the things that has come out of this discussion so far is that there have been many interest groups that have come forward and have suggested that they want a seat. Quite frankly, if there was a seat granted to all of the people who have asked for one, we would have a board which would take up all of the unemployed people of the province. We'd solve all of the unemployment problems in one fell swoop. But quite obviously we have to have a manageable board.
One of the concerns that has been strongly represented is the fact that we need more representation from the education community, and while it's very important to have the user groups, being labour and management, well represented, perhaps we need more from the education community. That's why I'm suggesting to you that perhaps rather than having a special francophone seat per se, we designate within all of these three groups a francophone member who would have to be there.
M. Tanguay: En autant que c'est dans le projet de loi. Ce n'est pas écrit dans le projet de loi. Ce que nous vous recommandons, c'est que votre comité recommande un changement, un amendement à la loi afin qu'un représentant francophone siège en éducation. À ce moment-ci, nous avons recommandé strictement en fonction des sièges du syndical et des sièges du patronat.
Mais d'autre part, ceci étant dit, il faut assurer un forum où ces membres francophones intéressés puissent se réunir et former une entité francophone qui serait responsable de planifier, d'organiser pour la communauté dans son ensemble, en partenariat avec l'OTAB et ses structures, la formation professionnelle dans la province.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
M. Tanguay: Je pourrais peut-être dire, juste pour compléter, que nous agissons ainsi présentement dans le domaine de l'éducation, que ce soit au niveau des conseillers scolaires -- vous avez l'AFCSO, qui représente la communauté franco-ontarienne au sein des différents conseils scolaires ; vous avez l'OSSTA, Ontario Separate School Trustees' Association. Mais en éducation, nous avons notre gestion au niveau de surintendant, au niveau de gouvernement, au niveau du ministère de l'Éducation. Pourquoi pas, avec cette nouvelle structure, réagir immédiatement en écrivant le projet de loi ?
The Chair: Mr Wood, please.
Mr Wood: It's nice to see you again, Mr Tanguay. You've come forth with an excellent presentation. As you're aware, the riding that I represent probably has the highest percentage of francophone population of all of the 130 ridings in Ontario. Hearst, I believe, is 95% French, and most of the other communities are above 50%. Kapuskasing is probably close to 70% French population now.
I just want to continue on a little bit on what the questioning was there. You seem to be indicating that the francophone population would like to have some type of say in the management of OTAB to make sure that there is instruction in their first language, which is French.
I'm just curious as to whether, when we're drawing people at the local board level, the reference groups, the emphasis can be put on that we must draw from what the population is there: If it's a high percentage of francophone population, then labour should draw people from labour whose first language is French, and for business, the first language should be French, and the same with the reference groups. I'm just wondering, for the management of the training, how that would fit in, if that would be good enough, or if you still believe you need it at the OTAB level, at the 22-board member level.
M. Tanguay: Une bonne question. Premièrement, vous avez une région très française que j'ai souvent visitée. La structure veut tout simplement permettre à la communauté franco-ontarienne de planifier et d'être en mesure de garantir une formation professionnelle à ses différentes composantes mais, Monsieur Wood, et je le répète, toujours en partenariat avec la communauté anglophone de la région. J'enrichie en disant qu'à ce moment-ci, nous parlons d'OTAB ou du COFAM. Mais ceci réapparaîtrait aussi au niveau des commissions locales. Maintenant, dans notre mémoire, ici nous vous suggérons une structure pour les commissions locales. Nous l'avons déjà présenté le 6 mai 1992, lors de la consultation provinciale.
J'aimerais peut-être tenter de vous faire comprendre davantage pourquoi nous voulons des garanties dans la loi. Présentement en Ontario, parce que l'OTAB n'est pas une créature encore réelle, il existe des CITC. Il y en a 57 dans la province présentement. Peut-être que je me trompe d'un ou de deux chiffres mais je ne pense pas.
L'autre jour, il y a quelques mois de ça, j'ai eu un communiqué avec une personne d'un CITC -- je vais l'appeler un CITC parce que je ne connais pas la formulation française -- dans une région bilingue à forte pourcentage : la capitale nationale. J'ai demandé s'il y avait un représentant francophone siégeant au CITC de la capitale nationale. Ce n'est pas à Kapuskasing ça ; c'est à Ottawa. On m'a dit que non.
J'ai commencé à faire une vérification à travers la province. Je n'ai pas vérifié les 57, mais j'ai remarqué qu'il y avait une bonne représentation de francophones qui pouvaient participer activement à l'élaboration des besoins de la formation professionnelle de la population, peut-être à Hearst, puis il a un ou deux membres dans la région de Sudbury, but elsewhere, very few.
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Alors, je nous dis, parce que nous sommes tous et toutes des Ontariens et des Ontariennes, l'expérience du passé puis l'histoire de l'ACFO depuis 1910, que ce soit des garderies, que ce soit l'alphabétisation, que ce soit l'éducation élémentaire ou secondaire, que ce soit mon permis de conduire, que çe soit dans le domaine de l'agriculture. Des milliers de Franco-Ontariens et Franco-Ontariennes -- je ne veux pas vous amener tous les cas ; tout ce que je vous dis, c'est que lorsque nous avons un projet de loi, on ne demande pas l'impossible. On demande qu'on respecte le concept de la dualité linguistique en nous donnant des structures qui ne coûtent pas plus cher.
Je parlais à un ministre ontarien il y a à peine quelques jours, et puis je lui disais que les dossiers étaient lents. Il a dit : «On a fait ceci, on a fait cela». Oui, mais avec une participation et une garantie financière du fédérale. C'est rattaché un peu à l'OTAB/COFAM. Le dossier collégial ne bouge pas. Pourtant, les collèges d'éducation postsecondaire sont une responsabilité exclusivement provinciale. Encore une fois je vous invite, pour ce qui est de préparer ce projet de loi avant la troisième lecture, d'y insérer quelques amendements qui permettraient à la communauté franco-ontarienne d'avoir des outils, un marteau et puis une scie, and a level, afin qu'elle puisse planifier, qu'elle puisse s'épanouir, développer, participer économiquement au développement de l'Ontario. Si l'on n'a pas reçu une formation ou si l'on n'a pas accès à cette formation et on ne sait pas lire et écrire, comment voulez-vous qu'on le fasse? Je vous remercie.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. Mr Offer. Quickly, please.
Mr Offer: Thank you very much and thank you for your presentation. I'd like you to help me out on this and I know that you've spoken about this. One of the purposes of the legislation indicates that there will be labour force development programs and services which promote Ontario's linguistic duality. One of the objects of the legislation says that one will take into account the training needs of Ontario's francophone community. There is not now in the legislation the mandatory creation of local training boards. We speak about it, but it's not in the legislation.
If that were in the legislation and if there was an understanding that those local boards would reflect the community that they are responsible for, would you not be given within yourself an assurance that the needs of the francophone community, by virtue of the purpose which I alluded to, an object which I referred to, and the mandatory creation of these boards, would be met, the concerns that you have so properly brought forward to this committee?
M. Tanguay: L'esprit de ce que vous dites, je le reçois bien. Je voudrais qu'on puisse faire ça, qu'on aurait pu faire ça dans le passé. Mais l'expérience depuis que je m'occupe de la politique -- c'est depuis l'âge de quinze ans à différents niveaux -- m'a toujours démontré que pour ce qui est de l'Ontario français, si ce n'est pas écrit et si ce n'est pas dans un projet de loi : «We're thinking about it. It looks good but we'll talk.»
Permettez-moi de vous en donner un exemple de la fameuse Entente. Je ne vous la lirai pas toute ; juste une ligne. Il y a un chapitre sur les francophones:
Article 5.14 : «L'Ontario s'efforcera le plus possible d'assurer que des services soient disponibles en français pour satisfaire aux besoins de formation des francophones.» C'est la phrase suivante que je veux que vous reteniez : «Cette disposition peut comprendre l'établissement d'institutions postsecondaires francophones.»
J'ai approché le gouvernement d'aujourd'hui avec cette phrase-là ; en d'autres mots, qu'on pourrait utiliser une partie des fonds de cette entente-là pour assurer la création du collège dans le nord. Remarquez bien que c'est un élément essentiel à assurer les services de la formation professionnelle. Quel meilleur outil qu'un collège ? Le gouvernement d'aujourd'hui, après avoir analysé ça, m'a dit : «Ça ne touche pas au collège dans le nord ni au collège dans le sud.»
Alors, partout où c'est en rose ou en jaune, on parle des francophones et des garanties. Mais ce n'est pas une loi ; c'est une entente, and we make the interpretation of the entente that we want to make. Mais quand il y a une loi, il y a même une différence entre «should» et «shall». Juste dans les lois sur l'éducation, la communauté franco-ontarienne a dû aller en cour pour une différence entre «should» et «shall».
Je réitère mon invitation, mes amis ontariens et mes amies ontariennes : Nous vous demandons d'assurer à la communauté franco-ontarienne d'être partenaire à part entière sans rien enlever à personne. Donnez-nous l'occasion de gérer, en partenariat avec le reste de l'Ontario, notre formation professionnelle afin que nos Franco-Ontariens développent des compétences afin qu'on puisse affronter le monde, pas simplement ici en Ontario. Nous savons que nous avons une économie qui devient de plus en plus globale et nous voulons être partenaires à part entière.
The Chair: Monsieur Tanguay, the committee, I tell you, thanks you and the Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario for your presentation today. You have obviously captured the attention of every member of this committee. I am sure they will reflect on your comments both as they apply to OTAB and this bill and as they apply to some of the other long-standing matters that you touched on. We are grateful to you. We trust that you will keep in touch and continue to communicate with individual members and with the committee.
M. Tanguay: Si vous me permettez un dernier commentaire, Monsieur le Président, il paraît que c'est entre la deuxième lecture et la troisième lecture que la sagesse des législateurs, des hommes politiques et des femmes politiques se réalise. Alors, je vous souhaite bonne chance et j'espère pouvoir, comme la communauté franco-ontarienne, lire en troisième lecture un projet de loi qui sera à la hauteur pas tout simplement de l'Ontario français, mais de l'Ontario dans son ensemble. Merci.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
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ONTARIO NURSES' ASSOCIATION
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Nurses' Association. Would their spokespeople please come forward, have a seat, tell us your names, your professional titles, if you have any, and proceed with what you have to tell us. We've got 30 minutes. Please try to save the second 15 minutes for questions and dialogue. As you've been able to see or witness, that's a very important part of the process.
Ms Jane Cornelius: My name is Jane Cornelius and I'm the vice-president. With me are Seppo Nousiainen, research officer; Lesley Bell, the associate director of government relations, and Carol Helmstadter, who is the government relations officer.
As vice-president of the Ontario Nurses' Association, I'm here to represent the views of over 50,000 registered and graduate nurses in the province. The Ontario Nurses' Association brings a unique perspective to these committee hearings. We are the voice of staff nurses who work in hospitals, community health, industry, nursing homes and homes for the aged.
The association is in agreement that Ontario needs to create a centralized training and adjustment board with a broad mandate to promote, fund, coordinate and design programs related to labour force training and adjustment. Clearly, new initiatives are needed in this area and it is a welcome move to see the consolidation of existing programs under one centralized authority.
The association is in complete agreement that labour, business, educators, trainers and representatives of underrepresented or disadvantaged groups need to have a legitimate voice in the design and delivery of training and adjustment programs. There is no question that the labour force partners are in the best position to make decisions about these issues.
We agree with the ground rules and the organizational details set out in the bill. However, the association does have a number of comments to make on the areas of this proposed legislation that may be obstacles to the success of OTAB.
The objects and purposes in the bill speak in a sufficiently broad way to enable the board to undertake virtually any mandate. However, it seems odd that there is no reference to the concepts of active labour market policies which would seek to address the anticipated needs and facilitate the required changes. These concepts are well known to the government and have already been presented in the discussion paper, Skills to Meet the Challenge: A Training Partnership for Ontario.
Unfortunately, very little of these concepts can be found in the bill. In fact, what is said seems more appropriate for the more or less reactive polices which have characterized Ontario initiatives in training and adjustment in the past.
The association believes what is needed now is more innovation, a notice to OTAB that it is no longer business as usual. Indeed, what is needed is intervention and operation in the labour markets.
We are also disappointed that there is no explicit mention made of OTAB's involvement in the retention and creation of jobs in the province. The association believes employment retention and creation should be explicitly flagged as one of the roles of OTAB.
Another area the association believes needs clarification is the definition of "public sector." It is not clear whether in the proposed legislation "public sector" includes such organizations as nursing homes, charitable homes for the aged and the Victorian Order of Nurses. These organizations receive a substantial amount of public funding. However, it remains unclear as to whether these organizations would be construed to be public sector organizations. Would the definition also include agencies, boards and commissions?
The next point we would like to address is the appointment of directors who will represent labour. The association is concerned that independent unions that are not affiliated with a central body will not be considered in the nominations process. This would be regrettable and we urge the committee to find some solution to this problem. At the same time, it might be useful to specifically mention that the labour directors should be comprised of both private and public sector representatives, since the bill is clear that both sectors will be under OTAB.
With the incorporation of the suggestions that this association has made, we look forward to OTAB acting in a decisive manner. As the committee knows, the success of OTAB will be critically dependent upon the actions or non-actions of other government departments. For example, a strong argument can be made that advanced notice and severance pay provisions under the Employment Standards Act are not adequate in providing sufficient lead time to engage in comprehensive planning or in providing a sufficient measure of income security. Unless the government changes these provisions, then OTAB's capacity to facilitate change will certainly be limited.
Layoffs in the hospital sector are occurring at an alarming rate. As a representative for staff nurses in this province, we are experiencing the repercussions of the current situation. Tragically, there is no corresponding number of jobs being created in the community health sector as the government cuts back jobs in hospitals. So far, the government has refused to do this, so the current employment crisis in the health care sector will only get worse in the next fiscal year.
Also based on our front-line experience in the hospital sector, there are, we believe, valuable lessons to be learned from the operations of the Hospital Training and Adjustment Panel. This adjustment panel has been in existence since April 1992, yet it is still having difficulties with uncooperative employers. For example, as of January 25, 1993, in the greater Metropolitan Toronto area, 38 hospitals had formed their joint committees, yet 17 others had not.
This lack of compliance by a sector whose funding is tied directly to government policy raises the question of how OTAB will deal with the issue in the broader arena. To make this act work, the association believes strongly that there must be a clear commitment to training and adjustment by both employers and employees in the private and public sector. The lack of coordination and communication among employers, as it relates to labour adjustment, is problematic in that it does not facilitate the ease of labour market adjustment.
There are also problems presently encountered with the federal unemployment insurance program. Unlike the Steelworkers' plan, no allowances have been made for HTAP, under the Unemployment Insurance Act, to extend unemployment insurance benefits to laid-off workers until they have completed a retraining program. There must be recognition of the educational requirements to meet this end. The current provisions do not recognize the barriers imposed in facilitating further eduction.
Our point in raising these concerns is to illustrate some of the obstacles that must be overcome to ensure OTAB's success. While some of these concerns may be beyond your jurisdiction, they cannot be ignored.
In conclusion, I would like to repeat that the Ontario Nurses' Association believes that Bill 96 has considerable merit. New initiatives in this area are clearly needed and it is encouraging to see the government taking this action.
Mr Sutherland: Thank you very much for coming forward and making a presentation today. Certainly, we know the fine work that your members do across this province in the hopefully increasing role they're taking in decision-making in many of our health care facilities.
I want to just ask you specifically about your comment that you thought there should be direct reference to job creation and job retention. The legislation makes reference to helping to provide people with the skills, improving their lives, developing a competitive economy, but also trying to achieve some of the other objectives. I think we all feel that will be the outcome in terms of having a more skilled workforce, that it's going to help retain workers. I'm just wondering if you could elaborate a little more as to why you feel it should be specifically mentioned in the legislation.
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Mr Seppo Nousiainen: It seems strange that job creation and retention, dealing with employment problems, aren't specifically mentioned in the bill. It actually looks like some sort of compromise solution. Perhaps the words "job retention" were too strong. We can't quite figure out why you can't be explicit about that in the bill, because I think that's what the point is. It's okay to say that there will be an indirect effect, lots of other things, but why not say that directly? I think that's the comment that we're trying to make.
Ms Carol Helmstadter: If I could just add, we have a situation, for example, where hospital nurses are being laid off in unprecedented numbers. The former Minister of Health has asked that they be given first crack at all the new jobs in the community, but in fact, the community health nurses are also being laid off. What is the point in having HTAP-trained hospital nurses to do community work if the jobs aren't there? I think this is the sort of practical consideration that we wanted to raise.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thank you very much for your presentation, Ms Cornelius. Of course I'm pleased to hear about your support for the general thrust of OTAB and especially bringing all the groups together, because I think the confusion that your colleague just referred to can be avoided that much earlier if these issues are raised before we're actually in that situation, so that we do have the best distribution of staffing that will work for everybody.
I'd like to know, first of all, what proportion of your membership does work in the private sector.
Ms Lesley Bell: A very small proportion. The only ones we have are a few in industry, and they're rapidly closing, and--
Ms Helmstadter: Homes.
Ms Bell: Homes, nursing homes. The vast majority of our nurses, 80% of our nurses, work in hospitals.
Mr Gary Wilson: Okay, thanks. The next thing is that pulling together the groups that we have will take advantage of the HTAP, for instance. The experience that they've had in training and the kinds of responses they've had can be shared with other groups as well as, I guess, highlighting what your success is with the programs you have and where the trainees are going.
I did want to say, too, that this is a progressive--evolutionary, I suppose, is a better word--kind of model that allows the experience to be built up. For instance, the main emphasis at the beginning will be on the private sector, but the public sector is definitely mentioned. As you know, the public sector now qualifies for programs that are carried out through the government, through the Ministry of Skills Development, that will be brought in under OTAB. So immediately there will be some association for the public sector in programs that are administered by OTAB. But this is something that will, as I say, develop, that there will be programs for all workers regardless of what the sector is, because obviously we need well-trained workers in both sectors. I think the experience that you have in a setting like a hospital can carry over into other health care sectors as well as the community at large.
I was wondering, then, what your feeling is about the local boards and your participation on the local boards, and whether you see that as a useful avenue for the kinds of experience that you have in your workplace.
Ms Bell: I think the local boards are very important if you consider that in a lot of the smaller communities the hospital is the major employer in those areas. So taking a local board and bringing in the uniqueness of the locality and bringing people together to determine what's there is wonderful.
I'm a little concerned that there may be some problems with communication and how everybody decides on the funding envelope and those kinds of things, but I think that bringing in the community at the local level is imperative to make this procedure work.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I want to say at the outset that I found your presentation, in a positive sense, disturbing, and I want to tell you why. I think you've dealt with an issue on which we might not have heard very much before, and it talks about the actual idea behind OTAB. I'm talking mainly about the second page of your presentation. It is, in that job creation which you have so well brought forward, the speaking to the issue of predictive approach to change and consequences.
I think that what you've done is you've brought forward a very important aspect about this whole question of training. When I hear your presentation, I hear really a concern about OTAB, and is it really going to be dealing with in a real way the demands of tomorrow? Are we going to be equipping people with the opportunity to create new jobs, or are we going to be more in a reactive type of mode? I would like to hear from you whether OTAB should be more predictive, that this is an opportunity for this type of organization to be more predictive, to be more proactive in job creation as well as retention. I do not believe that this legislation deals with the matters that you've brought forward.
Mr Nousiainen: I don't think we do either. Most of these concepts are quite well known. If you read the literature on adjustment and training, these concepts are quite well known, and we found it a little bit strange that none of these words actually found their way into the legislation.
So we have the impression that what you're going to do is you're going to cobble together all these programs that currently exist, which essentially are reactive programs, and then it's business as usual, except that you've got this new superstructure. What will change? When you're talking about objectives, purposes--and some of these objectives and purposes are quite ambitious, quite abstract too--I thought you'd find a little bit of room for simple words like "active," "employment creation." We all understand these words, and we wondered why this didn't happen. Really, that was the point of bringing forward these comments.
Mr Offer: It is strange--and I went through the purposes and objects as you were going through your brief--that the words "job creation"--
Mr Nousiainen: Sine qua non, the whole thing.
Mr Offer: --which are so important to so many people in this province now, haven't found their way into so many different clauses in the purposes and objects of this legislation. If OTAB is just a consolidation of existing programs, well then, okay. Fine. But I think that if we really want to deal with the realities of tomorrow, it's got to take on more of the challenge that you've issued today. It's got to deal with the predictive approach. It's got to deal more with job creating, and it can, if it wants to. I'm not certain that the legislation will do it.
Mr Nousiainen: What is the point of a training and adjustment program in the first place? What's it for? It is for job creation. It is for job retention. That's what it's for; nothing else.
Mr Offer: Yes.
Mr Nousiainen: It's not to sort of train people for the sake of training, have them adjust here and there for the sake of adjusting. It's about jobs. That's all we're really saying.
Ms Bell: I think we have to realize that the marketplace is quite a different venue than we used to see, and we absolutely agree that this needs to be more forceful. The idea of only bringing these groups together, while it's wonderful in accessing it, doesn't go far enough in approaching it from a more progressive, "Let's go out there and figure out what it is we need and train these people to do that." The government suggested that's inherent in the bill. I hope they're right.
I would suggest, though, that they could be a little more explicit and a little more forceful in it, that in fact you're going to have a number of people at this table who have never been all together before, all with vested interests, who are going to have to start playing with the same ball and in the same game. I suggest that unless it's pretty explicit, it may just be the same kind of, "Well, look how wonderful what we've already done is."
Mrs Cunningham: It's good to see some of you again. I refer to you as the front-line workers, so I was interested to hear your comments today.
I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, because we've had some input here with regard to the makeup of the board of directors, if you want to look at it that way. I'm looking at section 9 right now. There has been, of course, some concern with regard to labour representing unionized workers only, but you've added something to that, and you talk about having concerns that unions which are not affiliated with the central labour body will not be considered in the nominations process. Have you had any input so far to this whole nominations process from labour? Has anybody asked for your opinion, or have you had any discussion about whether you should be represented there or not?
Ms Bell: Not to my knowledge. This is our first approach on speaking to this issue.
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Mrs Cunningham: Thank you for being here. That's interesting because, of course, they have purported to speak for both unionized and non-organized workforces and we thought their discussions were rather comprehensive and complete, but we're finding that's not so. By the way, I appreciate your thoughts on the retention and creation and we'll take a look at that as part of the purposes.
The other issue I'd like to speak to you about is, what do you think this board will do in the area of health care? You know that it's divergent, that it's changing, with the emphasis on community-based health care. Yesterday I was talking in London about the cutback for ambulance workers and the fact that we've got services that aren't being provided. So there are some service areas in health care that are going to have to be increased. What do you think this board is going to do in that area, because it's one of the more important areas that we live in. It affects our day-to-day lives. How can it be different? Is it going to be better?
Ms Bell: I think one of the problems we're going to face is that by the time OTAB is up and running, the likelihood is that there are already going to have been a lot of adjustments, which is what HTAP, as far as the institutional sector, is supposed to deal with.
But as we've already mentioned, you can't educate someone to a job that doesn't exist. We've had some problems currently in the health care sector where we have areas where there is a need identified and yet we're having some difficulty accessing the programs that would in fact give our laid-off nurses that opportunity to take over there.
One example that we can speak to exactly is in the Sudbury area, where they're looking at radiation therapists in the cancer clinics, and that's what we would have liked that OTAB would do, is kind of get the networking so you can access the programs, get the people there and kind of get along with things. But it's difficult to determine what will be needed when we still don't know what the health care reform is going to bring forward. There's a lot of rhetoric about the move to the community, not a lot of action as yet, and we're a little concerned that it's pretty piecemeal and we see an incredible downsizing in the hospital sector and going nowhere. That's certainly not the first time we've said that and it'll not likely be the last.
Mrs Cunningham: Another issue is the one of sending patients for specific services outside of the country. Yesterday, again, I was at a hospital in London talking to radiologists about--I might not get the right terminology, so help me out--certainly the CAT scanners and the other one was the imaging.
Ms Bell: MRI.
Mrs Cunningham: MRI, and there's just been a document sent out from OHIP advising hospitals that they should be sending patients to Buffalo, to Detroit and somewhere in Minnesota. Of course they were shocked, because we have units that aren't being used and they talked about for two reasons: one was money, but the other was training. I'm wondering how this OTAB in fact could have some influence there. What would be your recommendation, because obviously we want to do this within the closest geographical area for patients, which would be my first priority, and secondly, I want people in Ontario working.
Ms Bell: I think if you look at the concept of the OTAB and then local boards, at least with good communication you'd have the indication that we've identified a deficit here and yet we've got people here who could be utilized there. On paper, it should work if everything's tied together. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Ms Helmstadter: But I think it's a point well taken. For example, Princess Margaret here in Toronto has been importing radiation technicians for some time and yet now we have health care workers being laid off who could be trained to do that if OTAB is working properly.
Mrs Cunningham: I'm glad you raised that today because actually that was a very large issue when the present government was in opposition and I thought something had been done about that. So I'm glad you raised it because we can now move forward and ask those kinds of questions because that, to me, was a flagrant example of where we needed the training, where people were willing to be trained and actually wanted to do the work. So thank you for raising it.
The Chair: Thank you to the Ontario Nurses' Association, Ms Cornelius, Ms Bell, Ms Helmstadter and Mr Nousiainen. We appreciate your participation. You've again shed light on this legislation as it impacts on a very specific constituency. You've made a valuable contribution to the process. We're grateful to you. Please keep in touch. Thank you, people.
ONTARIO COMMITTEE ON TRADES, TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS OCCUPATIONS FOR WOMEN
The Chair: The next participant is the Ontario Committee on Trades, Technology and Operations Occupations for Women. Please come forward, have a seat, tell us your names and your positions, if you have any with the committee. We've got 30 minutes. Please try to save the second 15 minutes for discussion and exchanges.
Ms Lynn Cullaton: Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Lynn Cullaton. I'm representing this committee with the large moniker. I work full-time as a coordinator of the women's access to apprenticeship project, sponsored by the Ministry of Skills Development and delivered through Centennial College. I have a colleague with me today.
Ms Elizabeth Bohnen: I am Elizabeth Bohnen and I am a community adult educator and a member of the committee.
Ms Cullaton: I would like to start off our remarks today on a personal note. Elizabeth and I have just come from the funeral of one of our committee members who passed away suddenly. Gayle Quirie was a civil servant for many years and was very dedicated and worked diligently on the women's access to apprenticeship project to help women in Ontario enter trades and technology occupations. We'd like to state today that the issues presented in our brief are in the spirit of Gayle's hard work and the committee's efforts on behalf of women in Ontario.
We'd like to also thank you for the opportunity to participate today. The Ontario Committee on Trades, Technology and Operations Occupations for Women is a province-wide committee. It's been in existence for the past 12 years and we have representatives from community groups, community colleges, the public and private sector. The committee is also a subcommittee of the senior adult training officers with the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario.
I want to pass you by our mission statement and objectives in the brief we have submitted and take you to a précis of the committee's work. We've been promoting access to women for what unfortunately are still known as non-traditional jobs in order to widen women's employment opportunities. It's essential that women have access to jobs which give them higher pay, increased job satisfaction and job security. Women obviously need suitable training opportunities in order to gain access to those jobs.
What we know historically and currently is that women tend to receive very occupationally segregated training and education. They're often confronted with further barriers if they're from a group such as immigrant women, racial minority, aboriginal, francophone or rural women, women with disabilities, single parent, re-entry and low-income women.
You've heard throughout these hearings from other women's groups about other systemic barriers that are presented to women with regard to training and workplace access and lack of income support for training. There's lack of child care, lack of transportation, the issues of sexual harassment and no recognition currently for offshore accreditation and experience. Those are just a few of the many barriers we're looking for.
In terms of the long-term effects to women of these systemic barriers, these are well-documented statistically and in the context of our comments with respect to the brief, I just wanted to remind us of a few of those. You know very clearly about the wage gap that women are currently still experiencing, $25,000 in 1990 per year versus $37,000 roughly for men.
With respect to the occupational segregation, we know very clearly that 84% of working women are employed in service industries. With respect to the apprenticeship system in Ontario, we're looking at only 5% of women availing themselves of apprenticeship opportunities and only 2% of those are in the non-traditional fields such as motive power, construction and industrial trades. There has been this initiative through the Ministry of Skills Development in Ontario for the past three years, which has been successful in increasing women's participation in non-traditional apprenticeships by 65%. The fact is that the real numbers of participants against men in those occupations are still very low.
With respect to the educational polarization, women are still representing only 29% of the students in math and physics and 12% of those in engineering. Again, with respect to full-time work, women are not as participative as they need to be: 70% of all part-time workers are women and 25% of all women work part-time.
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This polarization and disparity continues to exist despite the fact that women now account for at least 45% of the paid labour force; we spend between 34 and 37 years in paid labour, which is roughly equivalent to men; and most important, by the year 2001, almost 66% of new entrants to the labour market will be women.
In summary, even though women's participation in the labour force continues to grow, women are seriously underrepresented in well-paying occupations. We have low wages and not particularly good access to full-time employment. This is the context of the women's experience from which we reviewed the bill.
With the establishment of OTAB, we feel that this government has an unprecedented opportunity to create an inclusive and integrated training system which addresses these inequities and aims for and achieves economic wellbeing, both for the province on the whole and for all its constituents. This bill potentially enables women and other underrepresented groups and disadvantaged groups to play a significant role in the design and delivery of labour force development programs, as stated in "Purposes," clause 1(a).
It is clear that much work has been done in developing the framework for the board and in preparing this draft legislation. We know that the minister, government, training stakeholders and steering committees have given much thought and engaged in much negotiation to bring the process to this stage.
Our committee also had long and in-depth involvement in training issues. Because of our experience in working towards training equity for women, we also know the importance of articulating clearly and strongly equity objectives, if those objectives are to be met. What's not written in legislation is not required by it.
Therefore, we're saying that for women and underrepresented groups to be effective in their roles and for these inequities to be systematically eliminated, the issues of equity access and measurable goals must be formally incorporated into the legislation and pursuant regulations. The government must be proactive in setting standards for equity, accessibility, quality and accountability throughout the training system.
We'd also like to state here that in order for OTAB to ensure that programs and services are consistent with government economic and social policies, we need to have clear links between pending employment equity reform, pay equity, the Human Rights Code and other policies and legislation under development.
For these reasons, we have come to you today to recommend the following amendments to the act, and we've done them clause by clause for your ease.
Under "Objects," paragraph 4(1)5, which I won't repeat because it's a large clause, we're looking for stronger language, changing "To seek to ensure" to "To ensure."
We understand that legislative language can be limited. However, what we are expecting is more positive and action-oriented language with respect to equity in the training system.
With regard to paragraph 4(1)9, the same sort of logic appears for us. We would like to see "To seek to ensure" replaced by "To develop and implement a training equity policy to ensure access and equity."
The governing body and local boards need to be specifically mandated to ensure that equity needs are adequately addressed. The training system will have to be accountable for measurable equity initiatives, even to the extent of goals and timetables. We're looking also for a mechanism of regular evaluation.
With respect to paragraph 4(1)10, again it says, "To identify and seek to eliminate." We would like to see more proactive language here, where it would be amended to say, "To develop and implement specific measures which eliminate systemic and other discriminatory barriers."
We're far beyond the stage of identification of barriers. In fact, over the last decade there are many resources, from the Ontario women's directorate, from the national association of Women In Trades, from community groups, colleges and private consultants, with respect to the barriers that women face to training and employment, especially within the non-traditional or trades and technical occupations sector. Proactive measures need to be jointly defined by labour market partners and implemented without exception across the new system.
With regard to paragraph 4(1)11, again we would like to see stronger language used to ensure accessibility and accommodation for people with disabilities. We would like to lend our support to that.
On the next page, with regard to clause 4(2)(b), we would like to see that criterion amended to "operate within a framework of accountability to the public and to the government of Ontario." We feel that in the spirit of this consultative process and how the vision of OTAB is seen to be in the future of labour market partner participation right down to the grass-roots level, public accountability must somehow be built in here.
With respect to clause 4(2)(c), the wording regarding the distribution of funding "in a fair and appropriate manner" is too vague. What is fair and appropriate is obviously highly subjective, and we feel that criteria must be developed which clearly set out conditions by which funding is to be allocated. We're concerned, once again, that too much is left to the regulations and may not even be included in them.
We also recommend, with respect to the criteria, the addition of wording which stipulates that funding be disbursed to programs in compliance with equity policies. We feel that it needs to be part of the board's policy that the disbursement of training funds is linked to the delivery of training programs which comply with equity.
Furthermore, all program practices and curricula must clearly not be racist, sexist, ablest, agist or discriminatory in any way. These points have been brought out many times in the local board consultations and we feel it's time they were included in a quite directive manner as this system gets up and running.
With respect to "Directors," subsection 9(4), we would like to see an amendment to see the selection of directors reflecting Ontario's linguistic duality and diversity and overall gender balance ensured.
The composition of the governing body, councils and local boards needs to reflect the value placed on equity. Fully half of the representatives of business and labour should be women, and women and men must reflect the diversity of this population.
With that in mind, we submit that subsection 18(1), on local boards, and subsection 19(1), on councils, should also be amended in accordance with the subsection 9(4) amendment. Again, we're saying that this needs to be stated explicitly in the bill and not just left to the regulations, from which, again, it may be omitted.
With respect to public meetings, we recommend that all directors' meetings be open to the public.
With reference to committees, we have two points, subsections 20(1) and (2), on the next page. We feel that reference committees must be established for equity groups. That should be documented here and funding must be provided for equity groups and reference committees.
These groups need to be established in order to develop systematic and ongoing input to the needs identification, program design and training purchases. For equity groups to truly play a significant role in the design and delivery of this system, these resources are necessary. There's a wealth of experience and information which women have through their experience and training in the workplace which needs to be availed of by both the governing body and the local board level.
With respect to "Regulations," subsection 30(1), we feel that that needs to be amended to state, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council will make regulations in consultation with directors and their reference groups." Again, a great deal of the training system infrastructure has been left to the development of regulations. We feel a clear commitment to the participation of all labour market partners in the development of these regulations is required.
Finally, with respect to the regulations themselves, we feel that a clear commitment to the inclusion of equity principles and policies within these regulations is also required. We therefore recommend the following additional regulations:
--prescribing a system of accountability and evaluation for all the boards, including the local boards;
--respecting the development and implementation of training equity policies throughout the system. We feel that this is the government's opportunity to ensure consistency with other social policies and to ensure equity and access.
--prescribing criteria for equity in the composition of OTAB's council and local boards;
--prescribing a review of the legislation within a specified time period.
In conclusion, I'd like to say that we feel very strongly that the development of an equitable and accessible training system really shouldn't be about equity groups battling obstacles each step of the way. Rather we would like to see an allied effort through which individuals and institutions join on many levels to transform our training programs and the workplaces in Ontario into new models of equity, dignity and cooperation. This legislation has the potential to set the precedent for that effort. We feel that developing Ontario's economic strength in the context of a fair and just society depends on it.
I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to bring forward our recommendations today and look forward to the enhancement of this bill.
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The Acting Chair (Mr Mike Farnan): Thank you for the presentation. We'll see if there are any questions.
Mr Offer: In rotation at this caucus?
The Acting Chair: Yes, it would go to the official opposition.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you very much for your presentation. I agree with just about all of your presentation, actually. I think it's extremely thoughtful and I really have shared your concerns about these regulations. I have already prepared some amendments that would reflect your concerns. Too much of this has been left up to regulation and I would hope that the ministry will be prepared to bring forward next week, in our clause-by-clause analysis of the bill, regulations that it may already have developed so we could see that.
With many of the areas prescribed for regulation, I will be making amendments next week to enshrine them in the bill itself. I really think those should be there. You're right. It's sort of too permissive by the board to do this through regulation. I just wanted to share that with you. I think my colleague Mr Offer has a comment.
Mr Offer: As I was listening to my colleague, I wanted to ask this question dealing with the purpose and objects of the legislation. Individuals, groups and associations have come forward and spoken to the objects and the purpose, which are fairly extensive. In fact, the argument could be made that they are so extensive they blur the focus as to what something like this should be doing.
I'm wondering if you could comment on a general thought as to the type of purpose and objects this legislation has and how extensive they are. Basically, you could do whatever it is that you wish to do, and of course that carries a problem in that the board, the agency, will now lose a focus as to what it maybe should be doing. I'd like to get your thoughts on that.
Ms Cullaton: Maybe I'll begin and perhaps Elizabeth could elaborate on her thoughts.
Our experience with women's training, especially with respect to non-traditional, is that there are some very clear pathways from upgrading to bridging programs to pre-trades-training programs to workplace-based training programs which work. We have many examples of those.
I think in terms of a focus, the continuum of training is something that could be constructed and respected and focused on in the development of this training system. This scattergun approach that we have now is not working, and we have examples in women's non-traditional experience that show that pathing is very good.
We had a woman recently in London who was a single parent who did the women in trades program who took welding who then got a job at General Motors, where she still works, and took teacher training and is now teaching part-time at Fanshawe College.
It's that kind of work, of pathing, that I think we know how to do, and that's why the contribution of equity groups in terms of the structure and the programming and design of this training system is so critical, because we have experience of how that can be done.
The second piece to my response to you would be with respect to the question of training for what. That kind of pathing then must be tied to the economic development issues at the community level, and again, women's experience of community development and economic development is not well known and yet it is very, very worthwhile to tap into. I think that ties for me in the fact that I think there is an opportunity to focus the development of this training system based on the expertise around and we already have some good models to follow.
The Acting Chair: We'll move on to Ms Cunningham.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you for being here today and for making your points and giving us some specific ideas for amendments. We'll look at them carefully. I have to say I agree with you.
At the very beginning, you caught my attention by talking about women remaining occupationally segregated and the lack of emphasis here on apprenticeship training. The numbers are astounding. I thought I knew them, but I did not know that only 5% of apprentices in Ontario are women, and of those, only 2% are in the non-traditional fields, such as motive power, construction and industrial trades. So thank you for that. How do you think OTAB is going to improve that?
Ms Bohnen: What we'd like to see is that training dollars ultimately be directed only to those programs that can demonstrate an equity focus; that they're accessible to women; looking at things like bona fide qualifications to enter training programs and bridging programs to upgrade women to grade 12, if that's a requirement, and expectations that trainers are sensitive to the special learning needs of women, because I think ultimately we need to try to get a critical mass of women into these occupations.
What happens now is that women are very isolated in predominantly male training institutions and workplaces. We do all this work to get them in and then often they're discouraged, and it's really very lonely and isolating out there. So we need to really put more attention and make more training dollars available to that kind of continuum that Lynn mentioned, so that we can start getting a critical mass in there. That, ultimately, will effect retention.
Mrs Cunningham: We're really talking here about focusing on perhaps numbers and a change in attitudes as well.
Ms Bohnen: And the kinds of programs, the continuum, that Lynn mentioned.
Mrs Cunningham: Have you given any thought to the role of education in this whole OTAB structure?
Ms Bohnen: You mean the primary and secondary system?
Mrs Cunningham: Yes.
Ms Bohnen: Our committee has generally focused more on post-secondary, but I think we certainly would be in sympathy with any efforts that are there to support girls and boys having the full choice of careers, and the curriculum efforts particularly to expose girls to trades, technology and occupations in those areas and not drop out of math and sciences, and really keep with it, because that's absolutely critical.
Mrs Cunningham: One of our great fallbacks or neglects in Ontario is getting young people into our apprenticeship training programs. We know if we don't want them to drop out of school, we'd better do it before they're 16, because that's when they drop out. So to talk about apprenticeship training for 17- and 18-year-olds, if you're talking about attitudes and focusing, it's much too late. We haven't had a really great discussion about that here and I think one of my great criticisms has been that there hasn't been the kind of cohesive, focused discussion between education, skills development and training.
Ms Bohnen: We would support that. It's very difficult for a single parent to think about devoting years and years of her life in training and living on minimum wage, even though the ultimate career will be worthwhile if we can just try to get to them earlier.
Mrs Cunningham: I must admit that I thought the same way when my children were younger, but I never thought for a minute that I, who was a school board trustee for 15 years, would miss the boat with regard to my own family. As I look back on it, it's really true that they didn't have the opportunities to have those kinds of attitudinal changes, not my own children particularly, but certainly the school system. We couldn't get moving forward.
The cooperative work programs were developed during the 1960s and 1970s, but that's not the apprenticeship certificate with the secondary school graduation diploma. I would urge your group to take a look at that, because I think we have to start much sooner. What's missing here, of course, from education's point of view, is that there are only two seats. It's hard to have a voice when you've only got two seats.
Mr Sutherland: I want to dispute with my colleague from Mississauga North that this bill isn't focused. I think it is focused and it outlines the challenges of training and the multifaceted approach that needs to be taken to have successful training.
Mr Offer: Multifaceted focus.
Mr Sutherland: Approach.
I just want to take a minute here to talk about what I consider to be a great success story about a woman participating and moving ahead. That is about my sister, who is employed with the Oxford County Board of Education. She was encouraged by the board to go through and get her operating engineer's licence. She is now the head custodian at one of the high schools, the first woman to do that in Oxford county. It's a great success story and we're all extremely proud of that type of accomplishment.
I think that does draw attention, though, to the encouragement that is needed. Certainly, the supervisors and of course the board has an employment equity program, so there was a very supportive environment, workplace environment anyway, to encourage her to go forward. I think with the amount of determination that she had, she was going to be successful anyway and overcome whatever obstacles may be there. She's also now out doing community forums to try and say to other young women that there are opportunities out there and to look at some of those non-traditional roles.
I think your program has been successful, but we know there's still a great deal more to do, as you've presented today, and of course the women's coalition on training presented yesterday in a very theatrical and vivid way. They certainly got the point across quite well about what needs to be done.
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The Acting Chair: Would the delegation care to make a response, or should we move on to another question?
Ms Cullaton: I think my response would be that something you said, Mr Sutherland, caught my ear, which was that your sister would have made it anyway, without the help. Those are the only women without these extra training initiatives who do make it. I think that's why our numbers are staying low, because we need to provide a system that changes the systemic issues and allows the average folk, be they women, visible minorities, disabled or whoever, to enter their chosen occupation and live to their full potential.
Mr Sutherland: Yes, you're right.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks very much for your presentation; I really appreciated it. I was wondering about the question, though--earlier in these hearings Mr Offer mentioned how he thought that the government sees OTAB as being the be-all and the end-all to Ontario's future, in effect, that it's going to change it beyond recognition perhaps. I'm not sure we do see it that way. It is, after all, directed at training, and that's an important element.
I'd like your comments, actually, taking into account that OTAB was set up in consultation with the labour market partners, because it's seen as sharing the responsibility for designing training with the people who are going to benefit from it and, given that, that they've come up with the language that they have in the legislation, that there is some agreement that this is the kind of language we can go ahead with. This reflects, I guess, where we are as a society now.
Of course, the amendments you've suggested would change that, I think, to attempt to change things, to seek to ensure that programs be done in an equitable manner, that there be allowances made for including people who have been traditionally left out. I'm just wondering, how fast do you think these changes can be made, given that this kind of system that we live in now has evolved over a number of years without, I guess, the kind of success, obviously from the figures you've presented--without being successful in including everybody in our workforce in the way that we'd like to see them included? How fast can we move on this, in your view? Can we do it just through legislation, just by putting it in the legislation? In other words, by removing "to seek to ensure," and as you say, to put in, "to ensure"? Can we do that through legislation, considering that the groups themselves that are going to be doing it--
The Acting Chair: There's very little time for a response, and I would urge you to allow the delegation to reply.
Mr Gary Wilson: Okay, thanks. I think they have the idea, though, of what I'm getting at here.
Ms Cullaton: Do you want me to respond?
The Acting Chair: It's up to you.
Ms Cullaton: Very quickly, voluntary efforts through the federal program for employment equity haven't worked. I regret that any kind of legislation in our society is necessary to change behaviour, but if we wait for attitudes to change, it will take for ever. How quickly we can move will depend, I think, on how definitive we make the legislation and this training system, and obligate people to put their minds to these issues once and for all and to act on them.
Ms Bohnen: I think we've seen that Bill 79 is required. We support the passage of Bill 79 to achieve employment equity in the workplace and we would like to see OTAB mimic that in terms of training systems and do feel that legislation is required. Once it's in place, I think we will see change.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Lynn Cullaton and Elizabeth Bohnen. On behalf of the committee, may I thank you for your representation of the Ontario Committee on Trades, Technology and Operations Occupations for Women. Your participation makes democracy work. Thank you again.
OTAB EDUCATION AND TRAINING INTERIM STEERING COMMITTEE
The Acting Chair: The next delegation is the OTAB Education and Training Interim Steering Committee. Margaret Williams, I believe, is presenting. If you could come to the front and identify yourself and the other members of your delegation and the positions that you have.
Ms Margaret Williams: I'd like to start by introducing us. My name is Margaret Williams. I'm a member of the education and training steering committee. This is Jean Faulds, another member, who represents community-based trainers, and Malcolm Buchanan, who represents the school boards, specifically the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation. I represent the private sector, specifically two private sector organizations. I have a private training company myself.
What I plan to do today is read the paper that we've put together as a joint presentation from our committee--that shouldn't take more than 10 minutes--and then open it up for questions. I would like to request about a minute at the end for closing comments just reiterating our main points. Here we go.
The education training sector is one of the four key labour market partners preparing for the implementation of OTAB. The five constituency groups are private trainers, community-based trainers, school boards, universities and colleges. We have demonstrated a consistently high level of participation and cooperation throughout the developmental process of OTAB. We appreciate this opportunity to provide our comments and request that these comments be added to those recorded during the committee hearings.
In the course of the past 10 months there have been two general meetings of the Wider Education Training Reference Group, comprising over 100 educators and trainers. Our 15-member steering committee has met a total of 15 times to nominate, interview and select the education training reps on the local consultation panel and nominees to the proposed board, and to provide feedback on the legislation in general and, once legislation is approved, the mandate in particular.
In this established tradition of participation and cooperation we've identified a number of concerns that we share as a steering committee. These include: The legislation has been drafted in isolation from an overall provincial policy on labour force development and lifelong learning, the legislation does not adequately deal with the issues of accountability and openness, and educators and trainers are not adequately recognized as key players in the development and implementation of future labour force training and adjustment.
To address these concerns, we strongly recommend the following:
(1) That labour force development programs enhance the quality of life as well as the skills and employability of the individual;
(2) That labour force development be part of a comprehensive economic development strategy;
(3) That legislation be amended to include a mandatory audit and review process; that a formal evaluation, audit and review of the composition, mandate and funding of OTAB, its provincial councils and local training and adjustment boards be undertaken within two years of their establishment and regularly thereafter; that a formal evaluation and review of the management structure and associated lines of accountability be completed in consultation with reference groups within two years and regularly thereafter;
(4) That the failure to ensure adequate representation of educators and trainers on the OTAB governing body be addressed by ensuring representation of all five education and training constituencies. This includes private trainers, community-based trainers and educators, school boards, colleges and universities on all OTAB councils, local boards and other future associated committees and boards;
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(5) Subsection 12(2): That before any provincial councils or local boards are established the issue of accountability be addressed through guarantees that there will be public access to all meetings, reports and decision-making processes, both at the provincial and local levels;
(6) Clause 30(1)(b): That the board of governors in execution of its duties utilize a consensus decision-making process and, if and when necessary, a triple-majority decision-making process. We recommend that on any issue the board first endeavour to reach a consensus. Failing this, a triple-majority vote would confirm any motion. This would require a majority of business reps, five of eight, a majority of labour representatives, five of eight, plus at least 50% of the remaining labour market partners, three of five;
(7) Subsections 20(1) and 20(2): That the establishment of permanent reference groups be mandatory and OTAB shall provide funding and administrative support;
(8) Subsection 30(1): That the Lieutenant Governor in Council shall make regulations in consultation with OTAB directors and reference groups.
In section 30 we recommend an addition to clauses 30(1)(a) through (k): "respecting the establishment of an appeals process with regard to funding allocation decisions and respecting the establishment of a review process for OTAB governors."
That concludes our paper, and we'd like to open it for questions.
The Acting Chair (Mr Kimble Sutherland): I believe we're starting with the Progressive Conservative caucus. Ms Cunningham.
Mrs Cunningham: I was looking forward to this presentation this afternoon. I wasn't quite certain what you would say, but I'm not surprised. But I am curious because, in fact, in your position you were advising the government with regard to how education could have input.
Ms Williams: We were trying, yes.
Mrs Cunningham: How come we only ended up with two seats?
Ms Williams: I don't think we're the people to ask that question of. All the way through the process of consultation, since February last year, we have been saying, "Three into two don't go." We are five distinct constituency groups, each of which has got lots of various subconstituencies, and to try and find two people who could represent the interests of all those five, never mind the subsets, is next to impossible. We've been saying this all the way through.
Mrs Cunningham: Well, there seems to be a heavy hand somewhere, because earlier today the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario seemed to think that two were sufficient, but they also advised us that they have a former employee of their colleges in one of the seats. We asked them what they'd think if in fact they didn't have one of those seats. So I'm sure the government members are taking this very seriously. In fact, I can see Mr Wilson thinking out loud right now, because this has been a position that has been put forward by anybody who has any interest in education. We're not certain what people are going to say ahead of time, so I'm happy to know that you feel that way.
I'd like to ask you about the triple majority, too, and ask you how you see that working. We've heard the double majority, but could you explain what you mean by the triple?
Ms Williams: Maybe Jean would like to address that one, or Malcolm?
Mr Malcolm Buchanan: Maybe I'll give it a stab. We're looking at five out of eight for business, five out of eight for labour, and at least three out of five for the remaining groups, which are the advocacy groups and include the education trainers. Now, I should like to point out for the record that we have had some discussions with then-minister Richard Allen on this issue. I'm not sure whether the committee has received this letter dated February 2 from Richard Allen regarding the issue of how to break an impasse, because we try to operate on a consensus model and we agree with that in principle.
For the record, he talks about the following: For any motion, "Only where consensus cannot be achieved, and where any other intermediate steps have failed to yield an acceptable resolution, would an issue come to a final vote. For any motion to be confirmed in that vote, it would require the support of a majority of the full board (at least 12 of 22), including a majority of the business representatives (5 of 8), a majority of the labour representatives (5 of 8), plus a vote from each of at least two of the remaining five labour market partner groups."
Our difference is that it should be at least three out of the remaining five. So he's on the right track. If you take our suggestion as Margaret has read into the record, that's how the triple majority would work, and we think it would be a fair way if consensus cannot rule the day.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you for that. Actually, with respect to the minister, he did say he was listening on that point with the committee, so I'm not surprised that you've got the letter and I'm happy that you did read it into the record.
I'd also like to ask you how you feel about apprenticeship training with regard to--I saw some of you in the room when I asked a question before. One of the great concerns we have in training for our young people is the fact that our school system right now, I feel, is not responding to the apprenticeship training needs. It's because they have never been asked to, and we're looking for that kind of direction from the government. But as students are really dropping out of school around the age of 16, shouldn't we be looking at this apprenticeship training in cooperation with secondary school graduation and our secondary schools? Isn't this a thrust that this committee should be looking for?
Mr Malcolm Buchanan: You're looking at me. There's no question--I think the committee is well aware that there are some existing programs now, such as the school-workplace apprenticeship program, SWAP, which seems to be growing. We're very encouraged in the secondary school area that this is going on.
Yes, we would agree that it should be encouraged. At the same time, I think we have to point out that business and the others who benefit by this apprenticeship program should also be involved in a bigger way than what they currently are to provide the workspaces, and we need to work with the unions to make sure that the interests of the unions are not going to be undercut by displacing somebody with seniority and tenure. It's an issue that has to be looked at; there's no question. We need qualified tradespeople in this province.
Mrs Cunningham: With the lack of your voice--I really feel there is a lack of your voice; if we haven't been listened to in the past, and I don't think educators have been with regard to training at all, and we've had so much to do anyway--at that OTAB level, perhaps the real losers will be business and labour, because if they don't hear it from you directly, how can they then respond to the placement needs in the workforce?
The Acting Chair: A very quick response, please.
Ms Jean Faulds: All I can say is that I affirm what you've said. I agree. I don't know if any more of a response is required than that, which is to say yes.
The Acting Chair: Moving on, Mr Wilson.
Mr Gary Wilson: Thanks a lot for your presentation. I certainly appreciated hearing from you, and the perspective is good coming from three different areas.
Of course, it does raise the question of representation which you have yourself raised, and we've heard that a number of times. It's one that intrigues MPPs because we're expected to represent our constituents. It should come as no puzzle, it seems to me, even though it is raised: How can people represent others? It's just of necessity. Mr Turnbull frequently mentions that we if we had the number of representatives on this board, the number of groups coming before us that think they should be represented there, we would need something like the SkyDome to hold them all. On the other hand, 22, which is what we're suggesting for the directors, seems to a lot of groups to be a good number, a workable board to come to decisions. So there is quite a bit of support for that.
Now, with the educator trainers, it's recognized that there are five groups identified there and two seats. However, there are the steering committees, in the first place, who came together, as you pointed out, a number of times to discuss these issues. We've heard from people who have participated in these meetings that they were surprised to hear the overlap, I guess, in dues, or the amount of agreement they had that they didn't realize was there because they had never come together before. The way they could work together, I think, was never recognized before, leading again to the suggestion that maybe two people could represent the group.
But more than that, I think the issues would be discussed before they went to the board, so that rather than having five people sit down at a board meeting and then having to agree among themselves just how they would put the educator training issues, this would be discussed beforehand and that kind of view would be taken to the board by the representatives. So it was seen that that was--and especially by the group from the community colleges that we heard from this morning from the community colleges. They were comfortable with that arrangement. I'd like to hear your comments about that perspective, that again it's a representational view.
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Ms Williams: I think if I'm to make my comment as a representative of the private sector, I'm quite satisfied that the two people we have nominated are going to represent all our interests on the strategic board very well. We went through endless discussions and ramifications of the various constituency groups and how they would be represented through these two nominees at the board level, and we're talking about the provincial board at the moment, because at that point we need to take off our constituency hats and put on our provincial hats as to what's best for the training systems in this province.
However, when you get down to specific councils and specific local boards, things change. There, the providers of training need to have a more direct voice. I think I speak for most of the committee when I say that. I see Jean nodding. Jean, do you want to add to that?
Ms Faulds: Yes. I would just like to add that I think it does go beyond an issue of representation. There is the whole issue of ensuring that what's about to be done by OTAB is successful. I think that to ensure that it's successful, as many people as possible who have intimate knowledge and intimate experience with training and education being there to provide their input and their experience will only ensure that it happens. I think it goes beyond an issue of representation and is an issue of more guaranteeing that that transference of knowledge goes on among everyone participating in the structure.
Mr Gary Wilson: I think you raised it in your presentation. You called it accountability, if we could call it that, to make sure the system is actually doing what it says it's supposed to do.
Ms Williams: But more than that I think, Mr Wilson, it's a question of not only is it doing what it's supposed to do, but is it doing it in the best and most efficient and most effective manner? That's where the people who are in the business of training and education can provide valuable insights and valuable help.
Mr Gary Wilson: Yes. I think that's been attested to by the fact that you're a part of the process at all levels.
Ms Faulds: Hopefully.
Mr Gary Wilson: I guess the other thing, though, is that one of the operating methods here, or ideas I should say, is that it's a consumer-driven system, and that is something that I think is reflected in the breakdown in the numbers; that is, business and labour taking the lead with their number of seats and then the other groups having proportionately fewer, but again, because it's from the consumer-driven--I'd like your comments on that idea.
While we want to use the expertise of the educators-trainers, we don't want to lose sight of the fact that the people who are going to be needing the training are the people who are going to be driving this system. We think that is the way of guaranteeing that it will meet their needs and that the programs will be suitable.
Ms Williams: Where to start?
Interjection: Where does it end too?
Ms Williams: Personally, I can only speak from a consumer-driven business, because I wouldn't be in business if I didn't listen to my consumers and respond to their needs and story. I don't have the luxury of working for a publicly funded institution. Jean, I think, is in a similar boat and may want to address this too.
Ms Faulds: I think I'd like to address the term "consumer-driven." That would suggest that all of those who are somehow going to consume education and training are involved. I think the reality is that they're not all involved. Who is involved are those groups that have been identified as being traditionally underrepresented or disadvantaged. So we don't have total consumer representation within the proposed structure to begin with.
How that relates to educators and trainers, I think that's putting an awful lot of onus on educators and trainers, not only to be the experts in service delivery and going and providing information from a service delivery perspective, but then somehow to also represent all of those consumers and their individual perspectives.
That only, to me, compounds the issue of two representatives. How can you expect them to fulfil some sort of consumer representation issue in addition to their role as educator and trainer? So I'm not sure "consumer-driven" is a proper word to describe the model to begin with, because I'm not sure we have all consumers there.
Mr Gary Wilson: I see--
The Acting Chair: We're going to have to leave it there, Mr Wilson, sorry. Mr Ramsay.
Mr Ramsay: Thank very much for your presentation. One thing I'd ask is just if Mr Buchanan could submit that letter, a copy of it, so that it would be part of the record of this. You read part of it there, but then it would become part of the record of the committee. That would be helpful, if you have it. We could just get copies of it and give it back to you if that's your only copy.
Mr Malcolm Buchanan: That would be fine; not a problem.
Mr Ramsay: Thank you. I liked your approach really focusing at the beginning on accountability. I think that's very important. I think that's an aspect of this bill that is lacking right now, that we are now bringing together 700 civil servants from various ministries into this one new entity called OTAB and it's just going to get off the ground. It's going to have, I suppose, some challenging days ahead of it to get itself working and getting itself established and then establishing the local boards, and I think a two-year review would be timely. I think that's a very good idea.
I want to talk to you about your idea on the triple majority, because I've got some amendments prepared. They're not going to completely satisfy you, and I want to tell you why and what I want to do.
I like the concept that in a sense the customers, the consumers should drive the training process. I can see why the government has it eight and eight labour and business, but I don't think there are enough of you people there at the table. So what I'm proposing is that all five trainers will have seats on the board but your vote won't count as much as the other two.
To me that's the balance so that you're there, so that you know what's going on and so that you have a say, but I'm going to go with a double majority. To me that's going to be the balance, so I need at least five of business, at least five of labour and then only three of the remaining nine that are now there, because the education equity groups in my model would be nine.
To me that strikes the balance, because I want to try to make this effective and not just sort of curry your favour and say, "Yes, we're going to put you on and you get full votes." I understand that principle of the two main components really driving the system, but I think educators have been left out on the side table in the reference group. You need to be there, and so there's a two-way communication happening. You're informed of what's going on and you're contributing and you're going to have a say but the say will be weighted towards the other two groups.
That's the amendment I'm going to be bringing forward. I just wanted to let you know that, because to me that's sort of the balance, how I see what other people are saying and what you're saying. I certainly welcome any comment you have on that, if you care to.
Ms Williams: An interesting proposal. My initial reaction would be, how would the equity groups feel about that. Let's envisage a couple of scenarios where that kind of a vote might take place and over what issues, and where would the objections be and what might some of the fallout be. That would be my first reaction. I'd want to explore those.
Mr Ramsay: I think the principle, as far as I'm concerned, has to be that the process is driven by the main groups, you know, the workers--
Ms Williams: I agree with that principle wholeheartedly.
Mr Ramsay: --and the employers.
Ms Williams: Yes.
Mr Ramsay: But everybody has to be at the table, and I think you've been underrepresented in this particular model. I think we need to beef up your representation there so we get all aspects of the training and education side.
Ms Faulds: If I could just respond very quickly as well, I think it's possible to go a step beyond just making sure people are at the table, and somehow conveying to them that their presence at the table is meaningful. I think that's the attractiveness of the triple majority, because it still gives business and labour, as the leaders, that leadership role. We'll always be there in fact, regardless of the number of other labour market partners that are there, because at either time if they're not in agreement, then the motion is not affirmed.
I think, to go in another direction which doesn't acknowledge that at least the other partners have a meaningful role in being there and having a vote, sends a negative message to those other partners. Although your suggested amendment acknowledges an increased presence, I think we also have to have a meaningful presence while maintaining the leadership of business and labour.
Mr Ramsay: Would you be happy if it was a double majority plus 50% of the other group?
Ms Faulds: Do you mean 50% of the group or 50% of the total vote of the other group?
Mr Ramsay: Of the total vote of the other group.
Mr Malcolm Buchanan: I think our suggestion of three of five would solve the problem, Mr Ramsay.
Mr Ramsay: Okay. Now the number would change, though, because I've got you up to nine because I've put the three other educators-trainers on the board. All right. Still, over the weekend--
Ms Williams: Then you have to look at where those other six might go, might be, and how they would feel about a voice potentially never being heard. That was one of the issues we had to grapple with around the table when we came to discussing the double majority versus the triple majority, and we felt the triple was the fairest way to go.
Mr Ramsay: There's certainly a risk in giving more input there but not giving the power. Obviously there's a risk, so it's a matter of trying to find the balance.
Ms Williams: I think you're grappling with a couple of issues there.
Mr Ramsay: Yes, absolutely.
Ms Williams: So were we.
The Acting Chair: I think we're going to have to leave it there. You wanted a minute or two to do a wrapup summary comment?
Ms Williams: I really just want to reiterate the key points. The one issue we would like to emphasize is that this whole process be open; the issue of openness and accountability is absolutely crucial. The other issue is the lack of representation, and I've been pleased to hear some of the comments about support for our view that educators and trainers are not adequately represented at the moment.
The final point I'd like to make is that we are the current suppliers of training and education services. We know that we're doing some things right and some things wrong, and we do want this process to work. We think it is too important to get bogged down in partisan politics and constituency issues. We all have to take a broader view of this and look towards the future of Ontario and what is best for Ontario's population. I'd like to thank you very much for the opportunity of being here today, and we will be submitting this written brief within the next few days.
The Acting Chair: Margaret Williams, Jean Faulds, Malcolm Buchanan, thank you very much for coming here today on behalf of the education and training interim steering committee, and I thank you for all your work on that committee as well. We appreciate your input into the process; that helps to make our process work here in the province.
Ms Williams: Thank you, and good luck.
Mr Malcolm Buchanan: I hope this legislation works so I can get on with my life.
The Acting Chair: Is Nicole Galszechy here, our next presenter? I don't see Nicole at this time. Maybe what we should do is take a 10-minute recess, and we'll reconvene at 4:25. We'll recess till 4:25.
The committee recessed at 1613 and resumed at 1630.
PERSONS UNITED FOR SELF-HELP (CENTRAL PETERBOROUGH)
The Chair: It's 4:30. The next participant is present. We are going to carry on. My thanks to Mr Farnan and Mr Sutherland for their assistance. This participant is Catherine Miller. We've got 30 minutes for you. Please try to save at least the second 15 minutes of that half-hour for questions and dialogue with members of the committee. Go right ahead. Tell us what you want to about yourself and then tell us what you will about OTAB.
Ms Catherine Miller: I'm from the Peterborough area and I also am affiliated with PUSH (Central Peterborough) in that area. One of the extra papers that you have in the papers I had given you is just one of the many types of things that are coming out in our own area about what's been happening with organizing OTAB and LTAB and people sort of jumping on the bandwagon before anything has actually been set up.
My feeling is that when people are setting up criteria and things before the government has actually given out its papers of how this process is going to take place, it's already isolating people, segmenting certain groups ahead of other groups. It's already making it very difficult for people with equity issues to get involved, because historically they don't have the funds, the supports and the resources to do that type of thing. It's already setting up a conflict sort of situation between the labour market partners. In that type of situation, I think it's going to be very difficult for people to go back, sit around a table and be in a flexible, participative sort of setting where there is no conflict.
One of the suggestions I felt would be appropriate for the government to take is to set up a non-partisan mediator for local areas, so there would be a way of putting in an appeal process for people who felt they were missing out in fair representation for their areas, and to oversee that selection or election process that was going to be taking place.
I feel that's certainly an area for the disabled community, without having the resources to do outreach as quickly as some other groups may have, and would aid service providers in taking that role over.
Also, I just wanted to say that I think it is a very important thing that we change our training processes in Ontario, and because of our rapid change of structure of our economy and populations of the Ontario community, I think it is very appropriate. But for those populations to have an equal and fair representation on this type of board, so we can utilize those funds for training to the best that we can, I think we're going to have to have some further commitment from the government that is going to state that labour and business will also reflect the community, seeing that only 2% of the seats on OTAB itself have been designated equity groups or equity-seeking groups.
I think government should urge business and labour to take a role in providing a reflection of the community as well, so we don't see, unfortunately, white, able-bodied males on those boards as well, that they can at least reflect some of the diversity of the communities they're going to be serving in. I urge the government to look at that.
I also feel it's important for the local process to be contained within the local board and after the local process and the OTABs are established. It's also important that training to enable the people who are going to be set up to provide that direction of creating new programs, and seeing those directions and programs, have some training in the equity issues, and that the equity groups try to help facilitate that, because in my feeling there is no one who knows more about, say, accommodations than a person with a disability. People with disabilities understand what accommodations mean, they understand what accommodations are and they are the ones who can teach that, just like women are the ones who can teach about women's issues.
I think that type of training is going to have to be done at the local training board level and the Ontario training board level to the representatives, so that they can fulfil their obligations on that board. I would like to see a firm commitment in funding those types of programs for those appointees for those boards.
I think the disabled community is expecting that OTAB and LTAB will be the opportunity they've been lacking in the past of getting involved in the training programs and setting up training programs that will be suitable for their own needs and setting up training programs that can link to other services and other organizations that can aid it in fulfilling those training programs.
Services that are available now are oftentimes not appropriate because they have too long a waiting list to get on them, such as VRS. Some places you have to wait up to three years to actually get a piece of equipment that may help you in a training program. Most training programs aren't three years long, so it would be very difficult to access that type of equipment that would help someone in a training program. I think there have to be direct linkages to services for people with disabilities so they can participate. If not, it'd even be covered under OTAB with that type of thing.
There's been in the past also very inappropriate training where people get on a training loop and never actually get full employment. They're constantly being retrained and retrained and retrained, and they go from one training type of program to another training type of program. They may start out on a UI training program and then have a UI training chargeback program next and then a welfare program training. They never get off the training loop and actually into full employment. I think that for those members of the disabled community who are lucky enough to be on UI, that is certainly the picture they're running into, the fact that they have to constantly be retraining and uptraining, and oftentimes they have more skills than the trainers themselves who are providing that training to them.
With my disability, because I have an invisible disability and people don't see it when I walk in the door, it's very difficult for people to understand that it needs to be accommodated. In my own personal history, I have had a lot of training programs that just had so many barriers that it was pretty impossible for me to actually complete the training program to my best ability, and I feel that's a large waste of funding. If I'm not going to be utilizing those training dollars to get employment, then those training dollars are wasted.
For instance, I was involved in a training program where I took two courses at a university. It started in September, and I didn't receive my books until December and I didn't receive my writing utensil until March. So for all those months that I was going to that course, I really was not able to fully access the written material or fully access my own writing skills in that. It really was inappropriately used funds, in my mind, because I wasn't able to use it to my full potential.
I think that happens a lot when you have to link several different services together, because it's such a long red tape of going through this service and then going through that service and getting assessed and then going through all different types of assessments. Oftentimes, if the individual brings notice to the fact that there is a problem with the training program, he or she is given life skills. I've been given life skills on every single training program I've ever gone on, because they feel I'm a hard person to deal with or someone who has bad behavioural problems or something like that. All it is, I'm asking--
The Chair: Miss Miller, I understand.
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Ms Miller: I'm asking for accommodation, not asking for something that's out of the ordinary, asking so that you can participate in the actual programs that are being offered, nothing that's unrealistically asked. I think that with those programs, because you have to be assessed whether you're appropriate for the program, and you may shift from program to program, it's difficult to have things that aren't linked under one roof. I think that's all.
The Chair: Thank you kindly. I think Mr Wilson, who's the parliamentary assistant to the minister responsible, would like to ask you some questions.
Mr Gary Wilson: I would, Mr Kormos, and I expect my colleagues might as well. You've raised a number of issues, Ms Miller, and I thank you very much for your presentation. It's certainly, I think, fitted in with some of the other things we've been hearing.
First of all, I want to set your mind to rest. You seem to be concerned that the local boards have already been formed, and certainly that has not happened. The legislation refers to them, but they have to be done in conjunction with the federal government and the Canadian Labour Force Development Board, as well as the provincial government and OTAB, when it's set up. So certainly the formation of those boards has not been determined yet.
Ms Miller: I realize it hasn't been determined, but there's a lot of action going on in the community, and people have already taken it on themselves to create an atmosphere where it's impossible for other people to participate, because they've set up the playing field already.
I understand it's not been set up, and I know that the government hasn't even published the book on how the local boards are going to run. The bill isn't even through the House yet. But people are jumping on the bandwagon. I think some form of mediator is going to have to be looked at who can go into some of these areas to help smooth that partnership out, because it's going to be very hard to be screaming at someone one day for your seat and then sit around a table the next day and communicate politely with them.
Mr Gary Wilson: I think from what we've heard from some of the committees, that has actually not taken a day to happen; I mean overnight, that people are coming with interest. We are pleased to see the enthusiasm, and it's not surprising. But given the way our present training system works--and you certainly have very graphically shown why changes have to occur--I was wondering whether you are pleased to have access to the table where these decisions will be made; that is, through OTAB, through the representative of people with disabilities, to know that these issues will be raised very directly to people who have perhaps not taken them into account as well as they should have in the past.
Ms Miller: Yes. I think it's a good step to have people--at least we're sitting around a table now. Before, we were always left out. I think we also have to train people who are also sitting around that table as well to understand why we've been left out.
Mr Gary Wilson: You mean with life skills, is that what you're thinking?
Ms Miller: Yes, they need some life skills too, but they need to understand our language, just like we need to understand their language. When I say "accommodation," I don't mean my hotel room.
People need to understand the language that we're all talking, because I have been involved in some of the reference steering committee meetings and it seems to me that some of the language from each side--I don't understand business' language any more than they understand my language. We all talk in these little catchphrases and technical terms, "adaptive technology" and things like that, and people don't understand what those terms are saying. So I think some of that's going to have to filter through and not just be the responsibility of the person who's sitting on the board for people with disabilities.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly. Why, in your view, should business, for example, come to understand the terms you use?
Ms Miller: Because it could aid them drastically in their own business fields. If they can sit and talk to a company in Germany and talk about how their adaptive technology is creating these jobs--people see disabled individuals as a burden sometimes, and that's sort of a sad note, but all this adaptive technology leads to more technology and we are now a community of technology.
Just because I have a computer to do my work--I have to have a computer that I can talk to. That's because of my disability, but other people can use that computer even if they don't have a disability. The technology was created for people with disabilities, but it doesn't mean you have to have a disability to use that technology. I think people are very afraid of changes, but I think technology is the way we should be looking, and adaptive technology for people with disabilities is very transferable to other areas.
Mr Gary Wilson: I guess there's not only the benefit that others in the community can immediately realize, but the benefit that comes from including people with disabilities in society, in the way society works.
Ms Miller: Yes, because right now it's a wasted resource. There are a lot of people who are a very big, wasted resource.
Mr Gary Wilson: Are you hopeful about this kind of change? Do you think it can come through something like OTAB? Already we're talking about how, when you come together to discuss these things even among your reference group, you hear about the problems that arise with the language, say. But then when you do move beyond your reference group to the table where other people are whom you haven't dealt with in the past, or at least in this cooperative way, do you see that as a hopeful sign and a step in the right direction?
Ms Miller: I see it as hopeful but I think the government's going too fast. I can't educate my community quickly enough for the responses that the government is asking for. I may get something that we need to think about and discuss for the government at a reference group meeting, and we're given two days before a meeting to discuss that type of thing within our own communities and then bring it to a group meeting.
It's too quick. I can't adequately talk to people and see how they're feeling and see what their views are on, and then you're only getting my view. If the restructuring is going to be done, I would hope that it is going to be done in a better manner, therefore it's going to take a little bit of time, and slow down the process so that everybody gets a chance to speak.
Mr Gary Wilson: Are you satisfied with what has come up so far, though, as far as the structure of OTAB is concerned? I can foresee that at least with the structure in place--and then I guess you're still considering about the generation of local boards which you've already mentioned at the beginning, but at least the awareness, for the best results to arrive. We've got to make sure people are aware of what's happening, that the constituent groups are fully aware of what their membership is thinking.
Ms Miller: Have I been happy with that?
Mr Gary Wilson: Yes. Do you think so far that the--
Ms Miller: It certainly has slowed down since last year, but last year at this time it was pathetically too fast. They were asking for us to act too quickly. I'm afraid that as soon as the bill comes in, it'll all go too quickly again and that we're going to have to make responses quickly and we're going to have make decisions quickly. Then obviously it won't be fair because people will be left out. I think when those people are left out, then good ideas are left out.
Mr Gary Wilson: Exactly, yes. Just to go back then to the things that are being left out now, again you say that the reason for going about this slowly is because of the people who have been left out and the waste that has accumulated because of that, the reason for including people in the decision-making and in the wider economy. I would think from what you're saying that there are a lot of people who have been left out in the past in ways that we haven't recognized.
Ms Miller: Right. So you're asking me--
Mr Gary Wilson: Whether you see that at least as a hopeful development, that we are putting in place ways of addressing that kind of waste.
Ms Miller: I think it's a good step but it still says there's only 2% designated for equity groups on the OTABs.
The Chair: You've done your best, Mr Wilson. We've got to move on to Mr Ramsay.
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Mr Ramsay: Catherine, welcome. I really enjoyed your presentation. It's very insightful for me to hear your story. I'm glad you're here to tell your story. I find it interesting that you have required all these life sort of skills and training, that you like to kick up the dust a little bit when you aren't getting the services you require. Good for you. You just keep on kicking up the dust and demanding the services you need.
I'd like to ask you actually about that a little bit because you are saying it's a bit of a mismatch there, so you could help me in understanding what the problems are. You said you had attended university, yet your equipment was late in arriving. I take it the equipment was not being supplied by the university that provided the course, and I'm just going to guess here, but maybe by vocational rehab of the Ministry of Community and Social Services or some agency such as that.
What seems to be the problem when everything seems to be geared up and you're going to a course and you're enrolled but yet your equipment doesn't arrive? What's happening here? What's wrong with the system?
Ms Miller: I was entered in two courses at the university and the training program itself wasn't okayed until a week before the courses were up and going. Trent University didn't actually know I was for sure going to be enrolled, so they couldn't get my books on tape until they knew I was going to be enrolled.
I have severe dyslexia so I cannot read or write. Written information is very hard for me to process, as well as I have to have sort of a one-on-one communication. I can't have outside noises, to understand what's going on. They could not get the books on tape because they really didn't know I was going to be enrolled until a week before and those things take quite a bit of time, because that service is offered through the States, not through Canada. That was the problem with getting the books, and the books didn't arrive till December.
That's one sort of linkage program to the training and then the other linkage program was vocational rehabilitation services. I was okayed for the equipment and everything was going to come through, but the paperwork hadn't been done and the paperwork wasn't going to be done and it didn't get done until March. My device to enable me to write and put writing on paper and get writing back with voice from the computer didn't arrive until March. Basically I didn't have a book until December and didn't have a writing utensil until March and the course was only from September to April.
In my mind, that's very inefficient use of funds because I could not fully participate in that course. I begged and borrowed from all my friends that I could get, saying, "Could you sit down and type this out for me?" as I'm trying to dictate it to them, but that's sort of just because I didn't want to fail in a course. But if people don't have the supports to link those programs together, it's still going to be misused funds.
Mr Ramsay: In your mind, what's the solution to this? How can we organize this better so you're better served?
Ms Miller: They have to be all under one roof, for one thing. I feel that if you need accommodation, whether that be on a piece of equipment or accommodation by just the type of courses that you're taking or less of a course load, that type of accommodation has to be under the training policies. It can't be with another branch of government because it doesn't link together; they never work. It's either they have too hard a case load and they can't get to this case and they can't get to that case, and by the time they get to opening up your case to make sure that you have the equipment, your course is over.
If that had happened on a job site, where I was on work placement or something, I'm sure the employer would have just said: "This is too frustrating for me. I'm never hiring another disabled person again," because obviously I wouldn't have been able to do a work placement in that type of situation because I didn't have the tools to do the work placement. So no wonder the business area is frustrated with that setup as well, because they wouldn't want to hire me if I was unfunctional for all those months before my equipment came.
The Chair: Mr Turnbull, please.
Mr Turnbull: Thank you very much, Catherine. You bring a useful focus to this discussion. In your brief you speak about an appointment of a non-partisan mediator to facilitate selection process. I take it that's selection of the person with disability who would sit on the LTAB?
Ms Miller: I think that's to oversee the entire selection process of the LTAB. This mediator would not be someone who is going to dictate how it is going to go, but there has to be somewhere that people can go and say this, other than me to run to Toronto. This is what's happening in the area and I feel that it's not fairly set up so that there would be a chance for an appeal process for people who feel that it's being railroaded by a certain labour market partner, so that it is a fair selection and so that people will have somewhere to take those concerns.
Right now, as far as I see, there will be no one. Other than the fact that the book hasn't been developed in all the literature that I have seen, the local area will be taking this over and there will be no interruption from government and no one there as an accountability measure.
Mr Turnbull: Are we talking, though, about the operation of this in terms of the services they deliver to people who are consumers of training, who we're obviously most concerned about, or are we talking about the operation of the appointment to these boards?
Ms Miller: I think it's the actual setup of the board, the actual selection process, so that it's not taken over by a labour market partner and no one gets any input into how it's going to be done. That's what I'm really concerned about. I'm concerned that people from the equity groups may be left out because it's going to be taken on by, say, labour and they're going to decide how it's all going to be run and they're going to set up everything. In my mind, I don't see any recourse for that unless there's some one person to take those to before everything gets too involved and everybody builds up all this conflict.
Mr Turnbull: Catherine, really what I'm driving at, though, is that if we're talking about a local board, let's just use as the example, while it's not necessarily the composition of a board, the OTAB has one director who is somebody with disabilities and one representing racial minorities and there's one representing women. The letters say that in some manner or form you have that type of composition in your local board. Recognizing that during these hearings we've had every imaginable group coming to us and saying they should have a seat at the table, if you allowed that, you would have a board which was absolutely dominated by special interest groups. In no way should you read this as me being unsympathetic, but I'm seeking guidance from you as to how we approach that.
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Ms Miller: I sympathize with you, because that's exactly what's happening in the local area. People are fighting for that territory. Hopefully, once the book comes out, they will firmly state that it will reflect the same type of process that OTAB in construction will set up. So it would be the eight, eight, four and two type of setup.
If that's the case--I am a consumer in my area--how will I be able to choose who the consumer for that area is going to be? It may be taken over by service providers. It may be taken over by a number of different areas. What I am asking the government to do is look into having some kind of mediator there so that all these concerns can be heard. If I feel that this individual is not going to best serve the disabled community in that local area, I would be able to state that.
Mr Turnbull: In your example, if you feel the person representing the disabled community, for whatever reason, is not truly reflective of the needs of the disabled community at large, then you would take it to this person and put your case forward and they would be able to adjudicate that.
Ms Miller: Right.
The Chair: Ms Miller, the committee and I thank you sincerely for taking the time to be here with us today. You've provided some very valuable insights into the impact of this legislation.
Persons United for Self-Help has been in the vanguard across the province, certainly in my community of Welland-Thorold, of creating and fighting for access. They've been provocative, they've been bellicose and they've not hesitated to offend if need be when that's what has to be done to attract attention to the need for access and for justice for those people whom they speak for.
I very specifically congratulate PUSH and you now for having played that role and continuing to play that role. I think it's a valuable one. I think the committee agrees with me that there have to be people who are prepared to perform that function or else we all get stuck in some sort of weird static inertia.
In any event, thank you, Ms Miller. It was a pleasure having you here. We hope you will keep in touch with members of the committee or the committee collectively. Have a safe trip back home and good luck with your local LTAB.
COMMITTEE BUSINESS
The Chair: We are now carrying on as a committee. There is at least one issue and that is the matter of the structure of the coming week when the committee is scheduled to discuss, debate, clause-by-clause, Bill 96. Is there are motion or a proposal seeking unanimous consent?
Mr Ramsay: To do what?
The Chair: You can seek unanimous consent to do darned near anything, Mr Ramsay.
Mr Ramsay: I propose that we go in camera and just have a little discussion about--
The Chair: Do you want to go in camera or do you simply want to relieve the legislative broadcast people and let them carry on with the rest of their day?
Mr Ramsay: That's fine.
Mr Turnbull: I really feel that it's quite useful to have this broadcast. There are a few concerns that I'd like to bring to the table.
The Chair: Thank you. There's certainly not unanimous consent. Is anybody prepared to make a motion in that regard? All right, let's go.
Mr Ramsay: I just think it'd be a good idea to discuss next week's agenda as we would be entering into clause-by-clause and try to get a consensus with the committee on what would be the best schedule to adhere to, knowing that we are all very busy and would have other commitments next week, just to maybe have a discussion how we would order ourselves. It might not require going 10 to 4 or 10 to 5 or whatever like it has this week. I just wanted to propose we work on clause-by-clause maybe in the afternoons for the four days or something.
The Chair: First let me ask this, because this wasn't a scheduled part of today's agenda: Is there agreement that if consensus can be reached, we can reach it, because we're certainly not going to have any votes about that this afternoon. Let's have some discussion about it then. Let's hear what people have to say.
Mr Sutherland: We can have some discussion. I think it should be officially put to a vote maybe tomorrow.
The Chair: That's what I just said, Mr Sutherland. Go ahead; we're wasting time.
Mr Sutherland: Sorry. I was just going to say I think some consensus can be reached about how much time. I think the ultimate goal, though, would be to ensure that we had finished the voting procedure next week. As long as we get a sense of a strong commitment that that's the goal of everyone, to finish the voting next week, I think there may be some openness if we feel we can do that in a less amount of time than scheduled.
Mr Turnbull: I would just like to point out that we have the concerns that we believe that there's been very useful presentations made at this committee and some time should be spent pondering them and preparing the amendments, rather than immediately meeting next week. My party is very concerned at the fact that there's a suggestion that the House won't be returning until perhaps May, which is absolutely ludicrous, but nevertheless it indicates that there's certainly plenty of time and we should not be rushing this through at an untoward speed. Rather, we should have some sober consideration of the very useful presentations and come forward with well-balanced amendments to this. I think allowing an extra week would not be unreasonable.
Mr Sutherland: If I could just comment, I don't think we can really deal with speculation as to when the House may or may not return; I think we have to work on the basis of assuming that it's returning during the usual time as regularly scheduled and work upon that basis. I thought our goal was to have the hearings, have the input, have the clause-by-clause vote here at committee and have that ready to go back for when the House comes back in.
Mr Ramsay has indicated his party has put through some of the amendments. We've had interim reports from research, a summary of the recommendations that have been submitted to the committee members, to allow them time to develop some amendments on that. If some people feel there's extremely new information that's come forward, we understand some of that, but I think there has been a lot of information presented and the summary of recommendations should allow people to prepare what their amendments are going to be.
Mr Gary Wilson: I'd just like to say too, Mr Turnbull, that we've had this time booked for quite a while now, with the understanding that we would be using the fourth week for clause-by-clause. I think those of us who have been here every day have taken that into account and are pondering what has been said, both in the hearings and after them over this last--well, it's now been four weeks since we've begun.
Interjection: This is the third week.
Mr Gary Wilson: This is the third week of hearings, but we had a two-week gap that allowed us to think about what was presented in the first two weeks. So we've been intently involved in this. I think there's something to be said for considering them as soon as we can, which would be next week.
Mr Turnbull: With all due respect, I have to point out that we have a legislative calendar, and it seems to have gone out of the window with this government. They have no interest whatsoever in maintaining that legislative calendar, and I think when we're dealing with something as important as this--essentially what you're saying is that we just ignore the people who've made presentations since we came back after that two-week break. Given the amount of time that seems to be contemplated before the House goes back--and it's certainly been floated out by your party; it isn't something that I've dreamt up--I'm suggesting that it might be appropriate for us to take some break and consider the amendments.
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Mr Sutherland: If I could just respond to that, I think the point of the matter is that time has been given to that. I think everyone has been thinking. There have been new points brought up this week, I would agree, but some of those new points have been consistent in terms of the general themes of what people may want to see as amendments, some of the specifics. I assume that people are organized enough that they can be able to put those things together.
I know we all have busy schedules, but the sense is--from the beginning, people knew what the time lines were, but the expectations were to have the votes next week. It would be my view that people were planning according to that and that we would be putting amendments together as ideas came forward on what should be done and can still be putting amendments together tomorrow and on Friday for presentation for next week.
Mr Turnbull: Frankly, with respect to planning ahead, we know how badly the government has planned ahead in the past, and we know that we staggered around with the legislative calendar last year. We came back late. We sat late. Every time that you were going to try some power tactic--"Unless you pass this legislation, we'll sit a little longer"--we were told that you'd sit as long as was needed. Then, amazingly, you took your tail between your legs and closed the House down as soon as scandals broke out. So let's remember what your party has done with respect to planning.
The Chair: Mr Sutherland, do you want to respond to that?
Mr Sutherland: With all due respect, Mr Turnbull, I think what we're trying to discuss here is the process for here. If you want to get into a match back and forth about tactics in the House, we can certainly get into--
Mr Turnbull: It's not tactics in the House.
Mr Sutherland: Mr Turnbull, you've had your turn. It is my turn right now. If you want to get involved about how the House schedule is developed, I can bring up the reading of lakes and rivers into the record as stall tactics that were done as well. So if you want to apply guilt, I think we all can take some guilt.
Mr Turnbull: Let's have no nonsense about this. Mr Kormos here--
The Chair: One moment.
Mr Turnbull: --stood for 17 hours in the House and was plugged and applauded by your then-leader of your party.
The Chair: I am indifferent as to how many people talk at the same time. Indeed, if anything, it makes for good television for the folks who are watching. But we've got people working really hard trying to translate this. We've got Hansard people working really hard trying to record it. You do them a disservice by more than one person speaking at the same time.
Now, which of the two of you wanted to carry this on? Because the reality is that we haven't got any consensus. Even if there was one, this committee is, by legislative resolution, instructed to meet for certain days during certain weeks. Short of a consensus among House leaders, this committee will meet next week and consider this bill clause by clause. Whether it finishes this bill or not, that's what will happen next week. Of course, any member is welcome to go to any number of House leaders--at present there are three--to try to encourage them to arrive at a consensus which changes the resolution that was passed in the Legislature.
That having been said and done and that clearly not having been resolved by way of contacting House leaders--and I would have thought that somebody would have been able to say, "Yes, we've already contacted our House leader and that House leader has contacted the others," but we haven't heard that--Mr Ramsay's question, a valid one, is a question about the hours of sitting next week to deal with clause-by-clause. If House leaders choose to do differently with us, we're all victims of the whim and fancy of House leaders. What have you got to say about hours?
Mr Ramsay: I was just going to suggest that I do have quite a few amendments to bring forward. I'm not sure if the government does and I'm not sure what the third party has, but I would think that four days, three hours a day, might be enough to do it. That's my estimate, but then, of course, I don't know what other amendments might be coming forward. So I was just proposing that maybe we set the time as being between 1 and 4 or something, all four days, something like that. It's just a proposal so that we know and staff knows and the legislative counsel who will have to be here knows. It's going to be the deputy legislative counsel, who is the author of the bill and at this time is preparing my amendments on behalf of our caucus. We should decide pretty soon and let staff and everybody know.
The Chair: Do you have any idea as to the number of amendments, or are you in a position to indicate that?
Mr Ramsay: Actually, I haven't tallied them all up.
The Chair: More than 50?
Mr Ramsay: No, not more than 50; I think there are 20.
Mr Sutherland: Mr Chair, I think your points were well taken about the process. It may be best just to start at our regular time to ensure that we allow enough time, and if we finish early, we finish early. Given the fact that a good portion of us have to come from out of town, if we're going to be here, put in a full day, and if it freezes up for an extra day back in our constituencies, I think that's fine too.
Mr Turnbull: I suggest that is an appropriate course to take, that you sit normal hours, because we remember with great chagrin how during the Labour hearings we were told that we couldn't get all of our amendments read in properly and debated, and they were just deemed to be read at the end of the committee process, which is disgraceful and should never happen.
The Chair: It's unfortunate that the House agreed to that and directed that it should happen, because that was an entirely different scenario wherein there was time allocation, wherein every amendment that hadn't been properly or traditionally or regularly presented was deemed to have been presented and then voted on. Not a very pleasant exercise; I've been involved in it on both sides of the fence and didn't like it in either instance.
But the suggestion is, perhaps much to the dismay of people watching, that this committee meet its regular hours, which are 2:00 to 5:00 on Monday and 10:00 to noon and 2:00 to 5:00 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That's what was anticipated by the subcommittee when it discussed this before these committee hearings started, and it was concurred in by all the members of the committee. Is that what the proposal is right now? There's unanimous agreement in that regard. Thank you. Are there any other matters to resolve?
Ms Anderson dearly wants some direction as to when this committee looks for her summary of presentations. People have been making careful notes, I know that. People have been here sitting in the committee room paying careful attention to all of the submissions throughout these hearings. Ms Anderson is but one person and has been working very hard. The committee doesn't expect her to produce that before Monday of next week, does it?
Mr Ramsay: Mr Chair, I'd like to, as I have already, personally congratulate Ms Anderson for the work that she's done. I found the interim package of the summary recommendations very helpful in my deliberations in preparing my amendments. I have taken my own notes from this week and incorporated any changes there, so I do not require another package to be produced by our legislative researchers. So from my point of view, I don't need any more.
The Chair: What's the position of other members, or do you feel prepared to make one today as compared to waiting until tomorrow?
Mr Sutherland: For the record, I certainly think that a package being produced is good in terms of other people who may want to access that. Obviously, the sooner the better, but if Monday is a reasonable time of expectation, then I think that would be fine.
The Chair: Is there agreement in that regard? Mr Sutherland is right: Individual members who have been here, sitting patiently and listening carefully, might not specifically need a report, but there may be members of the public or other MPPs who would enjoy that. All right, the consensus is that Ms Anderson would be called upon to provide that to the committee when it meets on Monday.
There's one further matter. Is there any agreement as to when caucuses ought to be expected to provide, basically, disclosure of their amendments? Tomorrow at noon would give each caucus sufficient time to contemplate the proposed amendments. Does anybody have a comment on that?
Mr Sutherland: Maybe it would be best if everyone could take some time to think about it, and then when the committee meets tomorrow we could set the exact time.
The Chair: We'll deal with that before the noon break tomorrow, then?
Mr Ramsay: Could I just ask a question, Mr Chair, to the clerk?
The Chair: Yes, sir.
Mr Ramsay: What is the usual manner of filing amendments in a committee? What's timely?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Tannis Manikel): It really varies in the committee. A lot of committees do have time between the public hearings and the clause-by-clause consideration, but generally I think about the shortest time period we have is the Friday, for starting clause-by-clause the following Monday. They need to be in the clerk's office by noon on Friday so that they can be distributed.
Mr Ramsay: So noon Friday could be a possibility. Okay, that's fine.
The Chair: There's no requirement of disclosure, and there would have to be, in my view, some pretty clear and strong direction by a committee that would have the effect of barring somebody from introducing an amendment during the course of clause-by-clause debate. We're talking here about suggested time frames; we're talking about courtesies to parties.
Mr Ramsay: To reproduce these better for all the members.
The Chair: Well, no. Members can reproduce their amendments before they give them to the clerk. We're talking about giving members of the committee a chance to say, "We have to consider this," or, "We have to take it back to our research people." We're talking about not taking people by surprise, and that's courtesy. If you want to take somebody by surprise, then you've got to live with what happens in committee when those things happen, and sometimes that can be more pleasant than other times.
Mr Ramsay: Mr Chair, obviously we're going to engage in this discussion tomorrow, but yes, I think we need some time frame, because I certainly would hope that government members especially would give my amendments due consideration. So I would like to give them as much time as possible for themselves and their officials to give them consideration, in the hope that maybe some of them might be supported.
Mr Turnbull: I can't speak for our critic. She will be here again tomorrow.
The Chair: Okay. We will deal with that, then, in a more concrete way at the beginning of the lunch break tomorrow.
Thank you kindly, people. Thank you to Mr Farnan and Mr Sutherland for their assistance during the course of the day. We are adjourned until 10 am tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1722.