CONTENTS
Monday 10 June 1991
Organization
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair: Caplan, Elinor (Oriole L)
Vice-Chair: Cordiano, Joseph (Lawrence L)
Beer, Charles (York North L)
Haeck, Christel (St. Catharines-Brock NDP)
Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent NDP)
Malkowski, Gary (York East NDP)
Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie NDP)
McLeod, Lyn (Fort William L)
Owens, Stephen (Scarborough Centre NDP)
Silipo, Tony (Dovercourt NDP)
Wilson, Jim (Simcoe West PC)
Witmer, Elizabeth (Waterloo North PC)
Substitutions:
Brown, Michael A. (Algoma-Manitoulin L) for Mrs Caplan
Drainville, Dennis (Victoria-Haliburton NDP) for Mr Martin
Clerk: Mellor, Lynn
Staff: Drummond, Alison, Research Officer, Legislative Research Office
The committee met at 1546 in room 151.
ORGANIZATION
The Chair: Members of the committee, I call the meeting to order. At this time I want to report on the subcommittee meeting that was held last week, 5 June, proceeding on Bills 43 to 64 on health professions. Everyone is aware of those, I hope. It was agreed that the committee would commence its meetings on Bills 43 to 64 on Tuesday 6 August as follows. I will read out the itinerary.
The week of 6 August: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in Toronto starting at 10 o'clock in the morning and recommencing at 2 pm. The week of 12 August: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Toronto again, 10 and 2. The week of 19 August: Monday in Thunder Bay, Tuesday and Wednesday back in Toronto, and Thursday 22 August in London. The week of 26 August: Monday 26 August in Ottawa, Tuesday and Wednesday in Toronto at 10 am and 2 pm, and Thursday 29 August in Sault Ste Marie.
No committees will be scheduled, I believe for research time, the week of 3 September and then there are the caucus retreats that are taking place the week of 9 September. Following that, we come back for another four days of committee hearings the week of 16 September, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Toronto again. That is essentially the plan.
There are a number of other items here to be dealt with following that. These were also agreed to by the subcommittee:
"That Tuesday 6 August be reserved for the ministry and Alan M. Schwartz to speak to the committee; Mr Schwartz was co-ordinator of the health professions legislation review and produced a report entitled Striking a New Balance: A Blueprint for the Regulation of Ontario's Health Professions;
"That Thursday 15 August be reserved for unregulated groups and consumer groups;
"That associations representing regulated associations make their presentations in Toronto with a single half-hour presentation addressing both the omnibus and appropriate practitioner's bill;
"That unregulated groups be allowed 15 minutes and individuals be allowed 10 minutes, whether they are appearing in Toronto or out of town;
"That scheduling of out-of-town meetings give preference to unregulated groups and individuals;
"That invitations be sent to persons on the mailing lists submitted to the committee by each caucus, with a cutoff date of Friday 9 August for oral presentations and Friday 30 August to submit written submissions; and
"That an advertisement appear in the daily papers serving the out-of-town locations, informing them of the date, time and place of the meeting."
This is by edict of the clerk.
Mr Owens: You read so well, Joseph.
The Chair: Is that not a great reading? All laughing aside, this was agreed to by the subcommittee. Are there any questions?
Mr Owens: We do have a request. Hopefully, we can do this by consensus. We have allowed 15 minutes for individuals making presentations. I am hoping we can expand that to 30 minutes so they will have the same amount of time the professional groups have.
The second change is that we had talked about and had also agreed that we would not do any advertising, we would just do direct mail to folks who had sent in notices of interest in appearing at the hearings. I would also like to request that we do advertising to get the kind of broad-scope consultation consumers might want to have across the province with respect to these hearings.
As I say, hopefully we can do this by consensus. I realize this is short notice. I did speak with Jim, and, quite honestly, Jim was not all that excited about doing that.
The Chair: Are the advertisements in place of the mailing list?
Mr Owens: No, that is including the lists as well. To do the direct mailing as well as --
The Chair: So you would like to do both?
Mr Owens: That is right.
The Chair: Is there any comment or discussion on the mailing list being mailed as well as advertisements being placed in local papers?
Mr J. Wilson: That was not the comment. We had agreed to put them in local papers in that vicinity. Were you not extending that to province-wide, in addition to the mailing lists? That is my reading of what you said.
Mr Owens: The local papers, definitely, and then the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Toronto Sun.
Mr J. Wilson: Province-wide, if not national.
The Chair: Can I just point out that advertising in the daily papers is province-wide. That is standard for all committees -- all dailies.
Mr J. Wilson: My understanding from the subcommittee was that we were advertising just in those communities where we were holding -- the four corners of Ontario. We were not going province-wide.
Clerk of the Committee: If I understand correctly, originally what the subcommittee had wanted to do was advertise, giving notice to people just of the meetings. I think what Mr Owens is proposing is a province-wide advertisement soliciting presentations for the committee. Am I correct in my understanding?
Mr Owens: That is right.
Mrs Witmer: I would support that occurring. I think that is important, that all people in the province have the opportunity to be aware of what is going on, rather than just the individuals in the local community where the hearing is taking place, in fairness to all concerned.
Mr Beer: There were a couple of points on the advertising. I think it is important that people be aware so they can prepare submissions, but I wanted to raise a question around the issue of the time. It seems to me that we have, as committees, generally allocated half an hour for groups and 15 minutes or 20 minutes for individuals. I think the reason for that is that often with a group or an organization, certainly with the issues we will be dealing with in these hearings, there are often several people.
I would prefer that we keep to that kind of format; if I understand this correctly, we want to try to ensure that when we are out of Toronto, we are hearing from more individuals in those places. It would seem to me that we would be able to hear from a lot more if we worked the time somewhat differently. The experience with the select committee was that when we did the shorter time frame -- 5 to 10 minutes in some cases -- we got a great deal of participation. My sense would be that we not make the change in terms of the amount of time, but keep it to 15 minutes for individuals and 30 minutes for groups.
Mr J. Wilson: I would like to echo what Mr Beer has just said about the time allocation. I do not think there is any way we are even going to get through the groups that now want to appear before us in the month of August. It was the government's intent from the beginning to have this legislation reported back to the House when it resumes sitting in September. In the government's own interest, to be realistic, the time allocations as set out in the subcommittee report are the best we can do.
Second, on the province-wide advertising, I certainly agree we should hear from as many individuals as possible. I was wondering if the committee would agree that perhaps the advertisement that goes province-wide would invite written submissions. Otherwise, we may be raising the expectation that many other people, in addition to the list we already have, are going to be able to appear before this committee. Given that the list now is some two and a half inches thick, I do not think you can hear all those people in a month.
Mr Hope: We are talking about a blueprint dealing with the health professions of this province. We are talking about province-wide advertising, yet when we come down to reality we are sticking in the large urban areas instead of dealing with rural Ontario, which is going to feel the effects of this legislation more than the larger centres. When I go through this and look at the number of times we are meeting in Toronto, I cannot agree with it for the simple reason that I do not see rural Ontario playing a part in this blueprint.
You may say they can travel to London or they can travel to Thunder Bay. Some of the people who may be questioning this legislation are perhaps people doing a lot of volunteer time on non-profit boards, and they are not going to have the opportunity of being heard in developing a blueprint for the province without extreme cost. I just think it is more important, if we are talking about province-wide advertisement. I think accessibility also has to be key, making sure accessibility is there for people to make presentations.
The Chair: Can I just comment on that myself? I think it is appropriate and fair to say that the schedule before us attempts to cover the province in each of the corners. As a committee, we have been mandated four weeks altogether -- the clerk informs me we still have not had approval for the agenda. Realistically, what you attempt to do in province-wide hearings is to cover the corners of the province. That is all you can hope to do, I think.
Mr Hope: London is far from being a corner of the province. London is in the middle, which is a two-hour drive from Windsor, which is an hour and a half from rural Ontario. That is why I want to put these concerns out.
The Chair: Which part of rural Ontario would we go to, Mr Hope?
Mr Hope: For instance -- it happens to be in my riding, unfortunately -- Chatham is a central location to southern Ontario which leaves accessibility for Windsor, an hour and a half, and leaves accessibility for London, an hour and a half. If you are talking about accessibility for people, let's talk about accessibility in more legitimate forms.
I was one of the people who used to go quite often to these hearings to make presentations, and it was extremely costly for people from rural Ontario, making sure they had a voice and making sure people heard the effects that legislation was going to have on them.
Ms Haeck: I have to reiterate a similar point. After the select committee on Ontario in Confederation was struck and travelling the province, I received a variety of criticisms from my riding, in my area, that it was felt the Niagara Peninsula was ignored and people really did not feel they had the time and that the distances were too large. Even though Hamilton, for a lot of people, is relatively close on the map, they look at it from the point of view of going to Hamilton from Fort Erie and it becomes a major distance. If we are talking about health-related issues or issues like the Constitution which impact on the entire populace in a very large manner, I think it behooves this committee to look at expanding the locations and expanding the time frame of the committee hearings in the province to really and truly say we are hearing from the people of this province on a very important issue.
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Mrs Witmer: I am not averse to the committee going to Chatham, Mr Hope. If that is what you want to do, that is okay with me. We have certainly travelled to Windsor and all over, on occasion, from Kitchener-Waterloo just to make a presentation, and certainly we have to be aware.
I think, though, we also have to be very careful not to become too parochial. Unfortunately, our province is so large that I do not think it is ever going to be fair to all of the players, so that is something we have to take into consideration.
Getting back to the time, I would support the present allocation of time, the reason being that I had about 20 groups not part of the regulated associations and individuals come and see me in my own constituency office in September. I know those people would very much like to participate, and because I would like to see as many individuals and unregulated groups as possible appear before us, I would suggest that we stay with the 15 minutes and the 10 minutes in order to give everybody an equal opportunity.
Mr Brown: I am a little baffled by the procedure here. There has been a subcommittee meeting of all three parties, and everybody knows the government controls this committee, as it does all committees. It would seem to me that if the government members want to take 15 minutes and go outside and make up their minds about what they want to do and come back in here and tell us, it would simplify all our lives.
I would love to go to to Chatham, because that is where my wife studied nursing and I would like to visit again. I would like to go to the other 129 ridings in this province, but obviously there are some time restraints, so I would just implore the government to get its act together and tell us what exactly it wants to do.
The Chair: Mr Brown, you have never been on this committee before.
Mr Brown: True.
The Chair: This has some unique features to it, as you are discovering. We like to build consensus around here, and that is what we are attempting to do.
Interjections.
The Chair: We even have to do it for the government members, while we are at it.
I have three more members on the list. Mr Silipo is next.
Mr Silipo: Actually, I was just going to begin by replying to Mr Brown the same way you have, which is that if he wants us to work it out on this side and just let the rest of the committee members know, we could do that, but we do not prefer to do it that way. This is an important issue which a lot of people out in the province are very interested in. I think it is important that we try to do it in the way that makes most sense to everybody around here and, more important, to the people out there.
The Chair: Could I ask you a question for my own edification? Does that mean party lines will not be upheld in the House as well -- consensus-building?
Mr Silipo: We can go into that at other times, Mr Cordiano.
The Chair: I am sorry. There is a little levity here today, so it is the spirit in which we are dealing with it.
Mr Owens: As long as Charlie wins the leadership campaign, there is no problem with that at all.
Mr Silipo: I have a couple of suggestions I will put on the record as well, but it seems that actually there is not that much disagreement in what people are saying.
One thing I had highlighted from this report that caused me to ask some questions was the allocation of time. I think we found, as Mr Beer pointed out, that you can deal effectively in less than 30 minutes with individuals making presentations, but I certainly would agree that groups, whether unregulated, regulated, consumer groups or whatever kind of group, really should be given 30 minutes in order to have an effective presentation.
That would be the suggestion I would make, that in the paragraph that deals with unregulated groups being allowed 15 minutes and individuals 10 minutes, you simply state that all groups or associations be allowed 30 minutes and individuals 15 minutes. I think that would resolve the matter.
The Chair: It does and it does not. I will use my prerogative as the Chair and just point out that it really depends on the House leaders, in terms of the allocation of the total time the committee is given. That is our constraint here. We are working under the parameters that have been given to us by others. It would be wonderful to continue this for two months, and have come before us every group that would like to. I am sure that could be accommodated if your House leader and our House leaders would be willing to do that, but I think that is what we are working with.
Mr Silipo: We need to put together the best proposal we can in terms of what we feel we need as a committee to have this piece of legislation appropriately dealt with. If that requires asking for more hearing time, I think we should do that. It is really that simple, in my view.
The other thing, and I know Mr Beer will respond to this fondly -- I say this without pushing it because I will not be here for the hearings as I will be involved in other hearings and other meetings -- is that when the committee is sitting, I presume the times set out here basically involve sitting during the daytime. One of the suggestions I would make is that, if you are interested in hearing from consumers and individuals in particular, you might want to look at and schedule some evening sessions. Given that the committee is going to be in and around, whether in Toronto or in other places, that may be one possibility in terms of dealing with the time issue you mentioned.
The other point I wanted to make was more in the line of a question. Is the statement in the report that Thursday 15 August be reserved for unregulated groups and consumer groups a maximum in terms of being the only day that would be reserved for unregulated groups and consumer groups, or is that a day that would be at least a minimum for those groups?
The Chair: I think that is a minimum, but of course that is all subject to revision.
Mr Silipo: If it is a minimum, I am quite comfortable with that.
Mr Owens: As we were talking about consensus-building, we do it brick by brick and granule of mortar by granule of mortar here. My concern is not so much the actual number of minutes people have. I think we all know that this stuff has been around since 1982 and that everybody is going to be organized, from the professionals to the consumer groups. The people we need to get, the people who have been unheard, are the consumers. My colleague to the right proposed 30 minutes per group and, while I applaud his generosity, considering the workload, I think it may be unreasonable to give 30 minutes to each group. I am wondering whether we should just level it off at 20 minutes per group flat, end of story; that the professionals, the consumer groups, the consumers, everybody gets 20 minutes and that is it.
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Mr J. Wilson: I will try to be as kind as I can. Why do we have subcommittee meetings and you guys come in and start debating? Mr Brown made an excellent point, and I welcome him as a member of this committee because he had straight common sense when he brought up the same point. Mr Owens, you should communicate to your caucus colleagues the extent and the numbers of people and groups who already want to come to this committee. Your own House leader mandated the other two parties to have this thing done in a month. Originally, when we got into this, we thought we would go to about December, but your House leader has asked that it be done, and we agreed, with other concessions, to do that.
Second, as for the reason there is 15 minutes for the unregulated groups, you will recall that there are about 75 unregulated groups and I think 24 that will now be regulated contained in these. There are far more groups on the unregulated side. You are going to hear a number of very similar concerns from those groups. It does not take any more than 15 minutes to tell us in a couple of sentences why they feel they should be regulated. We have already met in our caucus with a number of them, and you will find their concerns are very similar, so 15 minutes does give them ample time to state their views for us to consider.
Third, the reason we are in Toronto, and I would ask the clerk to give us a breakdown, is that you will find that most of the groups on the list are from Toronto. In fact, I would venture to say at least 90% of the invitees are from Toronto, and that is some two inches of the list we have to date. If you extend the time, you are not going to be able to get this done in a month.
I disagree with night sittings. My riding is only an hour and a half away, and I am already going to be out of my riding for the whole month of August with the exception of weekends. There are a number of events I must get to after 6 o'clock at night and I cannot afford to be sitting here all night debating this bill, as much as I would like to. That is about what I have to say.
Mr Owens: With respect to night sittings and things like that, I will tread very gently about blocking of things and why we have to go to night sittings. I think the issue here is an equalization of the time. While I appreciate the lecture on communication, I --
Mr J. Wilson: Clearly you have not seen the list. We are only going to hear a few of these every day. There are so many on the list now, it is incredible. You are going to raise expectations and you are going to get the blame as the government.
Mr Owens: What I am talking about is reducing the time for the professionals and the consumer groups. Give everybody 20 minutes, and then the optics of the situation as we described them earlier are much improved. Whether you have one consumer and 14 professionals wanting to testify I do not think is the issue, but clearly people need the opportunity.
Mr J. Wilson: Can I make one point? The reason they get the half-hour is that they are actually in your legislation, so they need to talk about your legislation line by line. They are actually going to be affected. Your government has already said all these unregulated people are not going to be in. Your minister has, and the ministry for the last nine years, had discussions with all these groups. They need to tell us about the omnibus bill. They need 15 minutes or so to address that, plus they are directly affected by this legislation. I believe they need the full half-hour, because when this committee is done and reports to the House, it is a fait accompli for those people directly affected. So we are talking about two classes of groups, one directly affected and the other that wishes it were affected but which has been ruled out by your government to date.
Mr Owens: No, we are not talking about the people on the wish list. We are looking at individuals.
The Chair: We have been around now almost twice on everybody. There are a few more speakers on the list. We will give them an opportunity.
Mr Owens: I suggest we take a 15-minute recess and come back at 4:30.
The Chair: Is that in agreement? Okay, we are recessed. We come back at 4:30.
The committee recessed at 1615.
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The Chair: Members of the committee, we resume our meeting. Can we hear your proposal first, Mr Owens?
Mr Owens: The proposal is simply that, with respect to time limits, we give 20 minutes to professionals, 20 minutes to groups and 10 minutes to individuals, hearing the argument that we want to get through this and understanding, through experience on hearings, that individuals can clearly get out what they need to say in 10 minutes. I think downsizing the other two groups will also help in terms of equalization and fitting these folks in.
It is our understanding from the ministry further that while the list may be long and heavy for potential witnesses, the numbers of witnesses that may be viable is not representative in that pile, and that as we work our way through we are going to find that people have not been active and may not want to testify, and may not be able to pull deputations together in time. While it may seem like a great load, when we actually get down to it, as I say, the total list may not be what we see or what we have seen before us.
Mr Beer: I am just doing a little arithmetic here. I appreciate what you have tried to do, and I think we need to think things through in terms of the 24 acts that deal with those specific groups that will be regulated, Steve. It seems to me that there is one additional level of questioning involved, if you like, for the province-wide professional organizations that are going to be regulated. This level concerns issues they would want to raise around the specific legislation.
If we still allowed those organizations 30 minutes, and 20 minutes for the unregulated groups and 10 minutes for the individuals, by my calculation that would be about four hours out of the total time. This is the first time this has happened in a long, long time, and I think we do have to make sure, frankly, that half an hour would be spent with those organizations, because this is going to be directly regulating their profession and there may be some points that they feel they need to make.
I would still urge that we consider providing them with 30, and then 20 minutes for the unregulated groups and 10 minutes for individuals. Even with the points you make, I think we could none the less find it difficult where, because of time considerations, the subcommittee has to determine who is going to be able to come before the committee. I know I was under the understanding that the House leaders were looking at perhaps just permitting each committee four weeks instead of five. We show on our list at the present time five weeks. If that is accepted, that is fine, but there could be a further problem.
I would say, given the importance of this legislation, that frankly we should keep that 30 minutes for the province-wide organizations that are in effect going to be regulated specifically by this legislation -- I think your point about the 20 minutes for the unregulated groups adds time there -- and maintain the 10 minutes for individuals. That would be my approach.
Mrs Witmer: I would agree with the comments that have been made by Mr Beer. If we take a look at the regulations that are coming forward, they do impact on 24 groups. Those people, as a result of this legislation, are going to be tied in; they are going to be regulated by this new bill. They are going to be the ones who are directly impacted. They are also going to be the people who are probably going to go through the bill's line-by-line discussion. They are also the people who are going to be offering the amendments, because this legislation is going to have a tremendous impact on their membership. I would like you to keep that in mind.
These are the people the bills relate to. These are the people who will be impacted. These are the people who will be looking at a line-by-line discussion, and also at making amendments, whereas the unregulated groups will simply not be looking at the actual legislation. They are going to be telling us why they should be included. That is why I would encourage you to give the regulated groups the appropriate opportunity, because they will not be dealing with the legislation on a line-by-line basis or making amendments. They will be telling us why they should be included, and I would encourage you to be very fair and to make sure those people who are going to be bound by this regulation in the future have enough time and enough opportunity to introduce the appropriate amendments. We should make sure that we hear all of their concerns. The other groups are going to have an opportunity in the future to speak to us again, in an attempt to also receive the same advantages, but there is a significant difference when you are dealing with people who are looking at amendments and line-by-line discussion.
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Mr Hope: Just one general comment on some of the things that Mrs Witmer has said dealing with the provincial organizations that will have line-by-line hearings. There was a reference made that there were 24 groups. If we give them all a half hour, that means 12 hours of hearings, and their provincial organization bases are here in Toronto.
Mrs Witmer: That is about two days.
Mr Hope: Okay, you just proved a point. That is it, nothing else.
Mrs Witmer: I would support the 20 minutes, by the way, that Mr Owens had suggested for the unregulated groups.
The Chair: And the professional groups?
Mrs Witmer: I would strongly encourage --
The Chair: Thirty minutes.
Mrs Witmer: -- simply because of what I have said, the 30 minutes.
The Chair: I am sorry, just for my clarification, were you also suggesting 15 minutes for individuals?
Mr Beer: Thirty. I was going along with the proposal. It was 30, 20 and 10, I think.
The Chair: So 30, 20 and 10. Okay. Mr Owens?
Mr Beer: His was 20, 20 and 10.
Mr Owens: Mine was 20 and 10.
Mr Beer: Yes, but I am just proposing that it be 30, 20 and 10.
Interjection: See if you can compromise on 15 and 20.
Mr Beer: It seems to me that we have added the five minutes for the unregulated.
Mr Owens: You know, there are two things that we can do. I understand the importance of these hearings and wanting to get as many people out as possible, understanding the significance of this legislation. I am just wondering, in order to get this thing cleared up in a less formal manner, if the subcommittee could meet tomorrow at 3:30. As we are usually scheduled for two days anyway, Mondays and Tuesdays, can the subcommittee get together tomorrow and hash this thing out?
We seem to have one item of contention here, which is time limits. As I said initially, I would like to do this by consensus rather than forcing a vote. I think we all are of the same mind. It is just a matter of process and how we get to that middle point. That is my proposal at this point.
Mr Beer: I appreciate that, but the subcommittee met last week and now we are discussing it, and I think we feel it would be better to do the 30, 20 and 10. As the committee goes about its hearings, there may be some days where, as you say, maybe we do not get as many people coming forward as we thought. But I go back to my colleague's point made earlier, that we must be mindful that this legislation does impact very directly on some 24 province-wide organizations.
I think we want to make sure that the unorganized groups can come forward and set out their points and issues, remembering again that they are going to have other opportunities to make presentations, both to future meetings of this committee and to the proposed commission that would be set up. I just think we need to make sure when we are doing the line-by-line that those organizations most directly affected have the time to provide that.
As I mentioned, if my mathematics are correct, I am talking about roughly four hours in total if each of those 24 does an additional 10 minutes to the 20. We could have all kinds of meetings -- I will let the Conservatives speak for themselves -- but it seems to me that what we are saying is that we are better to keep it at 30, 20 and 10. If your view is that this is not acceptable, we will have to proceed and call the question.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, would you like to have a say on this? Then we will proceed.
Mr J. Wilson: Fortunately or unfortunately or otherwise, we certainly agree with Mr Beer's comments; no need to repeat them except to say that the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and the representatives here do not see what another subcommittee meeting tomorrow would accomplish when we spent an hour and a half -- the longest subcommittee meeting I have ever been to -- putting down the proposal we have before us.
Just to stress the 30 minutes, if amendments come forward and creative ideas from the groups about to be regulated, we certainly need time also to ask questions, because we will have to consider their amendments very seriously. I cannot see doing that in under 30 minutes.
The Chair: Do I have a motion to bring that forward? Mr Beer?
Mr Beer: We would suggest, and I can move by motion, that we provide 30 minutes to the regulated organizations, 20 minutes to the unregulated and 10 minutes for individuals.
Mr J. Wilson: I will second that motion.
The Chair: I guess we will call for agreement on that. Failing that, we will have a vote. All in agreement? It is unanimous? We are in agreement.
We will proceed on that basis. We will have 30 minutes for regulated groups, 20 minutes for unregulated groups and 10 minutes for individuals.
Mr Owens: What happened to "all against"?
The Chair: I asked if there was unanimous agreement. There was not? Well, then we will have a vote.
All those in favour of Mr Beer's motion? All those against?
Motion negatived.
The Chair: Mr Owens moves that we provide 20 minutes, 20 minutes and 10 minutes: 20 minutes for professional groups or associations, 20 minutes for other groups and 10 minutes for individuals.
All those in favour of Mr Owens's motion? All those opposed?
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Mr Owens, do you have any other items to bring up?
Interjections.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Owens: At the risk of causing further consternation to members opposite --
Mr J. Wilson: Give us a raise.
Mr Owens: That is what the Tories are interested in, their raises and their money.
Interjection: And how you spend it.
The Chair: Let's keep it out of points of contention.
Mr Owens: I thought I heard consensus with respect to province-wide advertising. Is that correct?
The Chair: I should probably interpret that myself. I do not believe I did get a consensus on that. Actually, there was no further clarification. But I will turn to Mr Beer and Mrs Witmer. Is that in agreement, province-wide advertising?
Mrs Witmer: We are happy to co-operate with our colleagues.
The Chair: Therefore, it is understood we will have province-wide advertisements in local daily papers.
Any other matters? Have we agreed to the itinerary and the stops we are making?
Mr Owens: In terms of the itinerary, and, of course, subject to the House leaders' approval, as we wind down towards the end, if we, as a committee, feel there are still some areas that have been underrepresented, we should leave the option open to schedule another day of travel or another day of hearings in whatever locale may be appropriate.
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Mr Beer: If that is in response to what we get in terms of requests and so on, I have no objection about looking at that. What we may realistically have to consider, though, is taking one of the days here set out and making that change, and hopefully the subcommittee can do that with one voice. Could we take the understanding that this would be our tentative schedule, and we would look at the responses to the advertisements and so on to see whether we want to make any changes? Would that be what you are asking?
The Chair: Did you follow that, Mr Owens?
Mr Owens: If we look at where we could chop, reasonably we might be looking at chopping one of the Metro days; again, depending on the responses. I am just making that as a comment, that if we feel some areas are underrepresented and information may be lacking, we would look at, as we were discussing, chopping a day wherever.
The Chair: I am going to interpret that to mean we can further clarify this some time down the road and get a better indication of what exactly we are going to be doing with the latter part of the agenda.
Mr Beer: But for sort of rough planning purposes, we will take this as a tentative schedule, subject to discussion.
Mr Hope: I am listening to the conversations that are taking place and the arguments that are being put forward. By my calculations of what we will be hearing, I find there is going to be way too much time spent here in Metropolitan Toronto. We are going to have a lot of free time. For the people of rural Ontario who are going to be impacted by this, I think the committee better take a better look at where they are asking these hearings to be held. It is very important. If you look at taking a total of 12 hours just for the professional groups, that leaves another 11 or 12 days to deal with the Metro Toronto area, and you are forgetting all about rural Ontario. I would just like to make that comment.
The Chair: You have raised that on a previous occasion --
Mr Hope: And I will keep raising it.
The Chair: -- and I am sure you will raise it again. It will be duly noted by the members of the subcommittee.
Do I have agreement to adopt the subcommittee's report, with the proposed or discussed amendments?
Report agreed to.
The Chair: Now we have to deal with our budget. It has been circulated. Everyone has a copy.
Mr Silipo: I am moving adoption.
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: I am informed that I need a final authority for the Chair to approve the advertisement copy that will be appearing in the local dailies. Do I have that authority, members of the committee?
Mr Owens: As long as you do not put Mickey Mouse ears or something on the copy.
The Chair: "Yours truly." Agreed?
Agreed to.
The committee adjourned at 1655.