Thank you, Mr. Walsh.
Good morning, everyone.
I have not prepared an opening statement, as Mr. Walsh has; I'm going to give you a presentation ad hoc.
What I've looked at is various examples of rights regimes or interpretive specifications set out in different acts, by which I mean a purpose or guidelines as to how an act is to be interpreted with respect to the rights of certain individuals within the application of the acts.
I've also looked at examples of an ombudsman in order to determine the enforcement of how these rights would be set out. I understand that today you're looking at the veterans bill of rights and not at the ombudsman as such, but it was helpful for me to understand what was being anticipated in terms of the application of the bill of rights you're considering.
As to the architecture of different legislation, I know that in your last committee meeting there was some question as to the legal effect of the veterans bill of rights as it was proposed. As Mr. Walsh will no doubt indicate, the effect of this will really have to do with how it's implemented. If you implement it as part of legislation, then it will have the effect of legislation; where it is in the legislation will have a different effect. For instance, if something is set out in the preamble, it might have a different weight for a court that is going to consider it. If you set it out as the purpose and scope of the application of the act, then it will be considered as interpreting how the act is to be implemented. If, by contrast, it is in, let's say, ministerial directives or what have you, then it may have a lesser effect, as, for instance, quasi-legislation.
I've looked at the example of the military ombudsman. As you know, that example is not set out in legislation but rather is a delegated authority. That may be considered as executive legislation or quasi-legislation and may not have as strong an effect as other implementations of the veterans bill of rights may have if it were to be put into the act as a statutory bill of rights.
Another example we looked at after reading the report of your analyst is the example of the bill of rights for Ontario in the Long-Term Care Act. This is set out in part III of the Ontario Long-Term Care Act as the bill of rights in that section. In that section, the people who are staying in certain care facilities have a certain bill of rights, which, at the end of that section, is deemed to have the effect of a contract: the patients in long-term care would be considered to have a contract with the care provider. That's an example.
Obviously this is a government department you're talking about; it may not necessarily be appropriate, but these are different examples of architecture you can set up. It's up to the committee to make its recommendations as to what it considers to be appropriate.
Thank you.