Members Present:
Peter Cozzi
Barrister & Solicitor
Grant Dow
Flaherty, Dow, Elliott
David Draper
Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Eric Endicott
Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Gary Fowler
Hughes, Amys
Michael J. Gillen
Schwarz, Gillen
Eric Grossman
Zarek, Taylor, Grossman, Hanrahan
Elizabeth Iwata
McCague, Wires, Peacock, et al.
Dawna Lange
Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Jan Mackintosh
Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Steve Malach
Malach & Fidler
Stanley Pasternak
Barrister & Solicitor
Frederika Rotter
Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Elizabeth Sachs
Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Claudia Storto
Samis, Blouin, Dunn
Mary Jo Sullivan
Financial Services Commission of Ontario
Minutes of September 24/99 Meeting:
Minutes of last meeting approved and adopted
Mediation – Mary Jo Sullivan:
The Unit has hired additional mediators on contract to deal with the current cases.
The delay of some two weeks from the submission of the application until the mediation has been given to the mediator is due to the resolve of the Commission to ensure that the Applications are complete and ready to go to a mediator. The current delay is 21 – 24 days if the Application is complete and ready to be assigned. The Commission has re-instituted sending a letter acknowledging receipt of the Application.
Peter Cozzi – feels that not enough time has been set aside to conduct the mediation (two hours). Mary Jo says that although two hours is booked, there is some flexibility, in that most mediators have two mediations a day.
Arbitration:
The graph shows that the pending continues to decrease. Volume is also decreasing. Pre-Hearings are currently being scheduled for 8 – 9 weeks after the filing of the Response. Part of this is due to the Christmas break. Hearings are available at 6 months after the PH.
Senior Arbitrator Rotter will be taking a secondment of one year in the Legal Department of Financial Services Commission of Ontario. She will be working on pension issues. Eban Bayefsky is going to WSIAT (Worker's Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal) as a Hearings officer for one year. Nancy Makepeace is finishing her secondment in the Appeals Unit, and is now seconded to WSIAT for one year. Shemin Manji is also on a one year secondment to the Legal Department of Financial Services Commission of Ontario doing pension work. The Unit will extend some of the contracts for contract arbitrators.
The compliment will be 19 arbitrators until March, 2000. The expectation is to decrease to 11 arbitrators by April, 2001. After the meeting, Jan Mackintosh advised that as a result of recent discussions and review of the unit's scheduling needs it looks like some of the contract arbitrators will be extended to as late as Dec 2000, with others leaving in Sept and Oct 2000. But as stated, it is expected that the number of arbitrators will be reduced to 11 by April 2001, barring unforeseen changes in the actual arbitration case counts.
Eric Grossman – wanted to know if there would be a predictable time frame for Hearing dates. The Commission is working towards a time frame of 4 – 6 months, and do not want to set dates later than 6 months.
One member suggested that she has a problem with paralegals who appear at PH's and do not have the skill or authority to deal with the case, only to find that a lawyer has been appointed two weeks before the Hearing. Counsel was referred to s. 393 of the Insurance Act. The Arbitrator does have residual jurisdiction to prohibit a specific paralegal in a specific case from acting, and has done so in the past.
Setting trial dates in Superior Court of Justice and OCJ. The experience of counsel is divided as to whether or not Arbitration dates have been ignored when setting court dates. The Forum reviewed letters addressed to Chief Justice LeSage and Chief Justice Lennox by the Forum chair and the CEO of Financial Services Commission of Ontario, Dina Palozzi. To date, no response has been received by either party, although the letters were only sent recently.
Appeals & Judicial Review:
David Draper – the statistics are relatively stable. Decisions being issued are mostly within 60 days.
Judicial review. The Wood v. Guardian Insurance Company has been issued. The Commission was directed to mediate a case involving a dispute over whether or not a case had been settled.
The Commission will accept mediation where there is an allegation that the matter has been settled.
Eric asked if anything had been done on the suggestion that John Petrosoniak has drafted a Practice Tip on JR. Apparently, this has not been done, but the Commission staff promised to look into it. All agreed that John Petrosoniak is a very knowledgeable and helpful counsel if one is contemplating an application for Judicial Review.
Financial Services Commission of Ontario Educational Initiatives:
Steve Malach – the committee has met and drafted a framework for the program. The program is scheduled for Toronto on April 7, 2000. The hope is to repeat the program in Ottawa on Friday, April 28/00, and are checking out the possibility of London area and Sudbury/Sault Ste. Marie areas. The hope is to do it partly by videotape and to involve people from those areas. The plan is to have two streams – a basic and advanced presentation with respect to the process. Eric Grossman suggested that there be plenty of lead time.
DRPC Amendments:
The Sub-Committee met recently and reviewed possible areas of amendment. There was strong dissent from the sub-committee's report by one member of the sub-committee on the issue of rules relating to production of documents. The issue of productions was discussed by the whole group. There was no real consensus of how to deal with this problem. The subcommittee will meet again to discuss this issue.
Other Business:
Philippa will distribute the new settlement regulation (draft). It will be distributed before the next meeting.
Thank you, for the lunch:
Philippa Samworth, of Fireman, Regan, Samworth offered to pay for the sandwiches and refreshments. We thank her very much.
Next Meeting – January 28, 2000
Financial Services Commission of Ontario