Village Squire, 1975-03, Page 5Jack Riddell on a jubilant election night two
years ago.
The other factor, he said, was that it took
some time to get used to being away from
home much of the time.
The other two men agreed these were
problems for them too and added a few
points. Mr. Edighoffer said the reason he got
into provincial politics was that he was in
municipal politics and had been frustrated
there by the fact the hands of the politicians
were tied by the provincial government. If he
went to Toronto, he thought, at least he would
see what was going on and hopefully could do
something about it. "But, I've been down
there/' he said, "and I'm still wrestling with
the same problem."
"But I think the biggest change was that I
was pretty active in my business and home
and so tied up in one small little area and
suddenly I had to project my thinking out into
a wider area."
Mr. Riddell regretted that he didn't have
more experience at the municipal level before
going to Toronto because it would have
helped in dealing with problems like land
severences and other portions of the
municipal act. "It takes a pile of studying to
get familiar with the act, to get familiar with
the procedures of local government and then
to see how provincial politics carries on from
there."
All three members admitted they are asked
to solve many problems that aren't really
within their jurisdiction. Mr. Gaunt said he
has many people coming to him with
municipal problems that they can't resolve
with their own local council. There are also
many people, he says, who can't distinguish
between the federal and provincial levels of
government. He gets all kinds of calls on
unemployment insurance, on Canada pension
and other federal matters.
"It's a funny situation," he says. "People
want their own municipal government to have
more power locally but when something
seriously affects them that can't be dealt with
in an adequate way by the local government
then they want the province to move in. They
want it both ways."
Mr. Riddell says that not only do people
come to their member with problems they
can't resolve at the municipal level, but they
often fail to go through proper channels by
going to their municipal officials. "It often
boils down to the fact that when they do come
directly to us, the first thing we do is go back
to their own mayor or reeve or councillors and
see if we can iron the thing out. We get a lot
of problems we really shouldn't be We.
Mr. Edighoffer says one has to wonder
what the real role of ' the Member of
Parliament is: ombudsman or Legislator. At a
time when the government seems to be
increasing the amount of legislation every
year a M.P.P. should, he says, be spending
more timestudying legislation.
"I've been thinking lately about housing
and housing programs. You know I don't
think its the people's fault that they're calling
us all the time. I think the reason is that these
program just aren't ... well first of all there are
too many programs and too complicated.
When you think about the housing program,
there are so many housing programs that
affect federal, provincial and municipal
governments and some how or other we've
got to get out to the people to tell them what
these programs are all about."
To Mr. Gaunt, the question of whether the
Members is an ombudsman or legislator is a
very key one. He says the constituency
workload is becoming so heavy that a
Member hardly has time to participate
effectively in the Legislative end, which is
unfortunate If the system were working
properly, he said, the M.P.P.s shouldn't have
to cut all the red tape for their constituents.
But it isn't, so the members have to try to iron
out bureaucratic problems for the people of
their ridings.
The constituency workload is much heavier
in a rural riding, he says than in an urban
riding because'a lot of the services are close
at hand in the big urban centres while they're
far away in the rural areas.
Each of the members are critics in the sort
of Liberal Shadow cabinet on a different
aspect of government. This, Mr. Riddell says,
could be a full time job in itself trying to keep
up with the latest information on their field. If
the present heavy flood of problem -solving
work continues, he says, a riding office
system is going to have to be set up. Under
such a system complaints would be
channelled to the riding office where a lot of
the problems could be solved by secretaries
trained in such matters. The Member would
still be available to solve problems but the
burden would be off his shoulders.
"As it is now," he says, "we go back
every week with problems and one problem
generally leads to about six telephone calls
and you find that you're spending a great deal
of your time in trying to resolve these
problems when you should actually be
spending a good deal of time looking over the
various acts and amendments to legislation
that come in and get yourself prepared so that
when you go into the House you can do an
adequate job."
Mr. Edighoffer feels it is harder to set up a
riding office in a rural riding than in an urban
one. He has, for instance, seven Zenith lines
into his home in Mitchell so constituents can
call him without charge. This costs him a
minimum of $80 a month. He feels that
having more staff at the Legislature buildings
would probably be more helpful to him.
Mr. Gaunt says he tries to have his
secretary do some of the calling for him on
constituent problems but finds that in many
cases she runs into the same bureaucratic
roadblocks that the constituent does and only
when the M.P.P. gets on the line is the red
tap cut. He says he's come to the view where
he might as well do the calling in the first
place and save all the hassle.
The other side of the story, Mr. Edighoffer
says is that this kind of problem -solving really
keeps the member up to date on where the
problems are and what should be changed in
legislation.
Mr. Riddell says that he'd hate to have a
secretary try to solve a problem without
letting him know about it, but he thinks that
having her solve simple problems like OHIP
claims could save a good deal of the members
time for other things.
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VILLAGE SQUIRE/MARCH 1975, 3