Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. General comments, Bill 44. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 248-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2015-2016; Bill 37, Financial Administration Act; Committee Report 15-17(5), Report on the Review of Bill 37, Financial Administration Act; and Bill 44, An Act to Amend the Hospital Insurance and Health and Social Services Administration Act, and I would like to report progress with one motion being adopted, that Committee Report 15-17(5) is concluded, that Bills 37 and 44 are ready for third reading and that consideration of Tabled Document 247-17(5...

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Continuing on general comments for Bill 44 I have the chair, Mr. Moses.

Bill 44 is now deemed ready for third reading. Does committee agree that concludes consideration of Bill 44?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If possible, there were a number of general comments presented on the bill. I was hoping, Mr. Chair, through you, we’d be able to get a reply to those general comments from the Minister. Thank you.

The bill as a whole.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to be here representing the Standing Committee on Government Operations. We would like to commend and thank the Minister and his department and staff in collaboration as we prepared the report and, as well, the final, third reading we have coming up here, hopefully, later today.

The bill is a very complicated piece of legislation, and as we indicated in our report, we needed the expertise of a contractor. Again, we want to echo our thanks to Mr. Lew Voytilla who took a painstaking task to look at this line by line and help educate the committee on some of the...

Clauses 21 to 30.

---Clauses 21 through 30 inclusive approved

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Moses.

Bill 44 in its original form proposed to give substantial new powers to the Minister. The committee introduced two motions to amend the bill to narrow the Minister’s powers. The first amendment will ensure that the Minister can only disregard this act or another enactment for reasons of public safety or to address a pressing gap in service delivery. The second amendment places a restriction on the provision under the regulation-making authority. The original provision would have authorized an exemption through regulations from “any provision of...

Now, I’d like to consider clauses. Moving forward, I ask you to turn to page 1 of the bill, and again, we’re going to go in groups of 10. Clauses 1 to 10. Committee?

---Clauses 1 through 10 inclusive approved