Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services

Executive Summary
In 2010, the government strengthened efficiency and oversight by creating two new agency
clusters of adjudicative tribunals — Environment and Land Tribunals Ontario (which includes
the Assessment Review Board, Ontario Municipal Board and Environmental Review Board)
and Social Justice Tribunals Ontario (which includes the Landlord and Tenant Board, Human
Rights Tribunal of Ontario and Social Benefits Tribunal). Tribunals within each cluster share
common administrative functions, so each can focus on case management. Environment and
Land Tribunals Ontario now occupies a single building, where hearing and mediation rooms
can be shared. Procedural improvements are expected as these cluster organizations evolve.
Other ministries should follow this example; clustering has the potential to achieve cost
efficiencies in health, community and consumer safety, agriculture, commerce and labour
adjudicative tribunals.
The government should also examine opportunities to consolidate training in policing,
fire services and correctional services; these are now delivered individually through their
respective colleges.
To deal with aging infrastructure, the justice sector should continue to work with Infrastructure
Ontario to use alternative financing and procurement for capital projects. Completed projects
should be evaluated to learn if they did indeed deliver value for money as intended.
More federal-provincial co-ordination would be desirable in areas such as policy and
legislation, law enforcement and correctional services. Special attention should be paid to the
impact of federal legislation. Accommodating recent federal crime legislation will place further
demands on Ontario’s court and corrections systems, adding to the province’s fiscal burden
since the federal government has not yet addressed the cost issue. Ontario’s prisons are
now filled to 95 per cent of capacity; the new federal legislation could raise this to over
100 per cent, with rates as high as 150 per cent in some institutions. In the worst-case
scenario, the province would need a new 1,000-bed facility, costing $900 million to build
and $60 million per year to run.
Currently, offenders sentenced to less than two years go to provincial prisons while offenders
sentenced to two years or more serve in federal penitentiaries. Since effective rehabilitation
programs can be provided for inmates serving longer than six months, we recommend
uploading to the federal government the responsibility for inmates serving six months and
more. This would better align fiscal incentives for corrections and would give inmates access
to federal rehabilitation services.
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