Craitor’s transparency bill clears second-reading

Niagara Falls Review

Bill aimed at open government sent to committee for study

If knowledge is power, opening the doors at public agencies would make Ontarians more powerful, says Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor.

The Liberal MPP’s private member’s bill passed second-reading at Queen’s Park, an important step on its way to becoming the law of Ontario.

“Democracy is well served when everybody has the same facts… A knowledgeable public is an engaged public,” Craitor said during Thursday’s debate on the bill he introduced in March.

If Bill 159, The Transparency in Public Matters Act,were passed into law, it would require a long list of public agencies to hold their meetings in public and establish financial penalties for individual board members who fail to do so. The bill suggests Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner be empowered to investigate meetings where government boards don’t meet in public.

There are more than 400 provincial agencies that account for 80 per cent of provincial government spending. Ontarians should be entitled to scrutinize how those agencies operate, Craitor said.

Craitor said his interest in transparency in government began after he was elected in 2003 when people in Niagara Falls questioned the Ontario Lottery Gaming corporation’s decision to hire Falls Management Co., an American-led partnership, to manage the two casinos in his riding.

He also questioned why meetings of the Niagara Parks Commission, a provincial agency, were closed to the public.

“As an MPP, I had no right to even attend their board meetings,” Craitor said.

Second reading is the stage where a private member’s bill starts to take on some steam in the legislative process.

Having passed second reading, the transparency bill was referred to the standing committee on general government.

“That committee is accustomed to dealing with that kind of legislation,” Craitor said.

The first time Craitor attempted to get a similar bill passed, many of the agencies that would be affected, lobbied to be excluded. That hasn’t happened this time.

“We haven’t had one letter or one phone call. Maybe they’re prepared to make the jump,” Craitor said.

To become law, the transparency bill needs to pass another vote at third reading.

Conservative Ernie Hardeman, the MPP for Oxford, spoke in support of the bill, but said the provincial Liberal government will effectively kill it by ensuring it is not called back for third reading.

“I don’t believe this bill will ever see the light of day for third reading,” Hardeman said.

MPPs from all parties spoke in favour of the bill, including Hardeman, a former Conservative cabinet minister, and Toronto New Democrat Michael Prue, who spoke in favour of it.

clarocque@nfreview.com