Excerpt from hansard

Official Record of the Ontario Legislature

June 10, 2009
 

Andrea Horwath, MPP for Hamilton Centre and Leader of Ontario’s NDP, asked the following question during Question Period in the Ontario Legislature on June 1, 2009, in support of Ontario’s court reporters represented by OPSEU:

Court reporters

Ms. Andrea Horwath: My question is to the Attorney General. Court reporters are skilful and do some of the most important work in the justice system. They are in our courts to record the proceedings, and further, are mandated a very specialized task: to produce accurate transcripts of those very proceedings at home on their own time. Now, strangely, the McGuinty government is moving on a system of sweatshop justice here in Ontario.  Why is the Attorney General proposing to have transcripts prepared in regional centres by people who have never actually been in court to witness the proceedings?

Hon. Christopher Bentley: The member is quite right when she says our court reporters do a very important and a very good job throughout the province of Ontario, and have for many years. That’s certainly been my experience as a practicing lawyer.  She’s quite right that we want to do whatever is necessary to support those court reporters. She knows that there were some labour grievances that were pursued, and as a result of the labour grievances, it was necessary for the government to look at ways of addressing them. The proposal that she outlined was one of the proposals. It is not the proposal that we’re pursuing.  We’re going to make sure that we have the appropriate means of supporting the important work that our court reporters do, the important work of transcript production, and we’ll be working through the labour relations process with OPSEU to make sure that we have the appropriate method in the future.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Ms. Andrea Horwath: OPSEU represents 659 court reporters, and it’s fighting the McGuinty government’s proposal to build the sweatshops for the production of court records.  What I want to understand very clearly from this Attorney General is, are you going to guarantee that your solution is going to keep every one of those court reporters who are in the courts employed, doing the transcripts and ensuring that not a single one of them is going to lose hours and is going to maintain wages the way they should be maintained?

Hon. Christopher Bentley: I think what the member will know is that the court reporters were doing their work in a certain way for many years. As a result of grievances that some of the court reporters pursued, a decision was made that has caused the government to sit down with OPSEU and say, “We need to address this decision.” A decision which would suggest that some changes are necessary.  So now we’re working with OPSEU to address the result of that labour proceeding. We will be working very closely with our labour relations partners to address the result of that grievance that was successfully pursued by the union members. We’ll be addressing that, supporting the court reporters and the court reporting system as it needs to, in the interests of justice.