Evidence of meeting #12 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was commission.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

John Streicker  President, Federal Council, Green Party of Canada
Vivian Barbot  Interim President, Bloc Québécois
Chantal Vallerand  National Director , Federal Council, New Democratic Party
Victor Cayer  Lawyer, Member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec (2004), As an Individual

11:45 a.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON

Okay.

Thank you.

11:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

Have we settled on Mr. Toone for the NDP?

All right. You were “voluntold” you were taking this round.

11:45 a.m.

NDP

Philip Toone NDP Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC

That's all right. It's my turn. It's better than the other time, when you only gave me 30 seconds. I'll try to take advantage of this.

We're dealing with the Carter judgment from 1991. It is true that that decision concerned a province, but it mainly concerned the issue of representation. There is nothing more important in Canada than to be well represented in Parliament. In fact, section 42 of the Constitution Act, 1982, clearly provides that proportionality is the first principle. However, in our minds, Carter added some subtle distinctions to that section. It asserts the fact that our charter, which is part of the Constitution Act, 1982, requires us to ensure that representation in Canada is effective and fair.

We have seen that it is not just the number of voters that counts in Canada. We cannot rely merely on that principle in Canada. We are not like the United States. This is not like in other countries. There are interests across Canada that must be represented in Parliament. The idea is not to determine whether there will be 100,000 voters or 150,000 voters, but rather what we want to put in Parliament, what will be represented. We are really guided by the Constitution Act, 1867, and that of 1982. There are things that are clearly stated in those enactments. There is the Senate floor. There is the principle of representation, which is clearly established in section 42. Carter also tells us that there are geographic conditions and communities of interest. There are also other interests that we must acknowledge. We have to go much further.

I appreciate what Ms. Barbot has proposed. It is true that the Quebec nation must be represented in a particular way in the Parliament of Canada. We cannot overlook that fact. Why would we have adopted the motion in 2006 stating that Quebec is a nation if that is to be merely an abstraction? There must be effective representation. I find it hard to see how a proposal that has the effect of weakening Quebec's representation can be credible enough and respect what Parliament itself declared barely five years ago.

I think it's important that the seats be distributed in a carefully thought out manner. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms clearly requires that we follow the process in full, which Carter also asserted. Is there a need to maintain the distribution as it has been in Canada for decades? Must we represent our cultural communities and the nations that are present in Canada? We must do that.

It has been said that the proposals presented to us are potentially unconstitutional. Note that section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms clearly states that we must do what is necessary in a free and democratic society such as ours. After seeing the proposals of certain other parties, I honestly think we are utterly disregarding our constitutional obligation. I do not at all agree with my Liberal Party colleague, who says we are moving ahead with a proposal that could be unconstitutional. In fact, what is important is to think carefully. We are not in a hurry; the next election will be held in 2015.

Our Green Party witness clearly told us that we had enough time. When we had a number of successive elections, we were in a hurry because there was always a possibility that an election would be triggered in the next few months. However, there will now be no elections for four years. If we follow what the Conservatives say, or at least what Parliament has recently adopted, the dates are fixed. We therefore have the luxury of being able to reflect carefully on what we are doing, and we are not in a hurry. We must go through the entire process calmly and think carefully. That is what Carter has suggested to us. It was the Supreme Court that ruled in that matter. That is no minor authority.

Now I would like to change topics. My next question is for Ms. Barbot.

Let's go back to your comment on the representation of the Quebec nation, which very much moved me. I would like to know what you think about the representation of the other communities of interest across Canada. I'm thinking, among others, of the Franco-Ontarians, of which I am one. I'm a native of Ontario, and I sincerely believe that the Franco-Ontarians have been mistreated in the history of the Canadian federation. Their rights must be asserted. They have to be well represented in Parliament. There are also the Acadians. As I am now from Gaspé, it seems clear to me that the Acadians—

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman?

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

You've used your five minutes.

I'll allow Madame Barbot a quick answer.

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Philip Toone NDP Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC

So, Ms. Barbot, tell us about the communities of interest such as the Franco-Ontarians and the Acadians, please.

11:50 a.m.

Interim President, Bloc Québécois

Vivian Barbot

All right. Some proposals, according to which other groups should be better represented, should be studied. However, for Quebeckers, that all means that we have to preserve the representation we have in Quebec. So we need time to discuss these matters and to see how that could be done in a fair and equitable manner.

However, from the very start, we have said that, in the current economic context, we do not see the need to hurry to make a change of this scope which ultimately would do nothing more than put the Conservative Party in a better position at the next election. These are profound changes. As regards the constitutional changes or constitutional guarantees that Quebec has, we absolutely want them to be maintained.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Thank you.

Mr. Albrecht, you have five minutes.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to each of our witnesses for being here.

I'm going to change course just a little bit here.

Ms. Vallerand, in your opening statement, if I got it correctly, you seemed to question the use of population estimates as opposed to the actual census figures. Have you been able to read the transcript from the November 17 meeting in which the chief statistician clearly said that, for the purpose of this exercise, the population estimates were more accurate?

11:55 a.m.

National Director , Federal Council, New Democratic Party

Chantal Vallerand

It's not that we don't believe them, but we would like to have the time to study those figures to ensure that that's the right way to do it. You mentioned the November 17 meeting. Everything is a rush in this process. We feel we don't have the time to sit down, take a good look at things and ensure that this is the right way to go about it. We are really open to this way of doing things, but we just want to be able to study it a little more.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

But your position is clearly that you still don't feel the population estimates are an accurate enough means for us to be using in this process?

11:55 a.m.

National Director , Federal Council, New Democratic Party

Chantal Vallerand

No, not at all.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Okay.

Secondly, different times throughout your presentation you referred to “effective representation”. Mr. Streicker talked about the same thing.

Mr. Streicker, you tied it into the number of minutes available per MP to speak in the House of Commons. I think you said something like, if every MP were to speak for one minute, it would take five hours or something.

My question is whether effective representation is about the amount of time that a particular MP speaks in the House of Commons, or is it in fact as much weighted upon his or her service to constituents back in the riding? We deal with many issues, a myriad of issues: immigration, EI, CPP, and dozens of others. I would contend that this is as much effective representation as the number of hours that I have or words that I happen to say in Hansard. I think some of our colleagues are in a bit of a contest to see who say the most words, and I question very clearly whether that is effective representation.

11:55 a.m.

President, Federal Council, Green Party of Canada

John Streicker

I completely agree that MPs represent their constituents, both in the riding and in Ottawa. In fact, that's one of the reasons I'm arguing for such an overrepresentation for the territories. I think if we counted up the 10 most northern ridings in Canada, we would probably be covering off over 60% of the land area. So in order to be effective in those sorts of ridings, where there are such huge distances, you need to have more representation in order to be effective. I completely agree.

On the other hand, I don't think it would be effective to have a House of 600 MPs—yet that would be more effective for our ridings. So what is the right balance point? There's my question to you.

When we looked at it, we felt that the size of the House now is about right. In the proposal that's put forward by the Conservatives, the average riding size would now go 102,000 to 93,000. That's not a significant difference. It's better in terms of constituency work, but it's not a gigantic change. Whereas, the change in the House itself, from 308 to 338, is quite significant. That's a bigger...[Technical difficulty--Editor].

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

My concern goes back to the discussion we've had around this table for a number of meetings now, that if you take an MP who is representing a rural or an urban riding and that MP has 170,000 constituents to serve, he or she cannot effectively represent them even though they may have only five hours to debate in the House of Commons in any particular month.

So I think Bill C-20 has in fact found the balance, recognizing the MP's need to speak in the House of Commons on issues that are important to constituents but at the same time saving the MP's time within his or her riding to effectively meet the constituents as well.

Noon

President, Federal Council, Green Party of Canada

John Streicker

I appreciate that if that's the balance you're trying to strike, if it's all about having greater representation within the constituencies, fine, but then the way in which you select the MPs to be proportional should reflect the populations better. With what you have right now, there are still some significant problems within your proposal.

The other point I come back to is that if you want to increase the size of the House, I hope you and all of us recognize that Canadians won't be feeling too keen on increasing the size of the budget for Parliament.

Noon

Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Thank you.

Noon

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Thank you, Mr. Streicker.

Thank you, Mr. Albrecht.

We will suspend for a couple of minutes while we change our witnesses.

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

I'd like to call the meeting back to order.

In the second half of our hour today, we have someone I consider an expert witness. Monsieur Cayer is a former electoral boundaries commissioner. He's here to help us with the process on that, not politically but with the process of being an electoral boundaries commissioner. We've also had a couple of other electoral boundaries commissioners here as witnesses, including some academics who came a day or two ago. So we will ask those questions of our witness.

We also need to save a little bit of time at the end for committee business. There are a couple of things we need to do, so we may carve off a little time at the end.

Monsieur Cayer, do you have an opening statement? Would you like to tell us...?

November 24th, 2011 / 12:05 p.m.

Victor Cayer Lawyer, Member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec (2004), As an Individual

I will tell you at the beginning

that I haven't engaged in politics since I was approached about joining the electoral boundaries commission. Since then, I've tried to read about what is going on outside Canada. I saw what happened in Australia because our system is initially based on what happened there. I have no choice but to follow current events in the newspapers. As my legal profession gives me access to certain documents, I take a look at what is going on.

I definitely won't be talking about the number of seats or about technique because the commissions never have to rule on those matters. That is a strictly political issue, and I don't want to get involved. However, I would like to speak very properly about how the commissions operate.

Certain amendments proposed in the bill have annoyed me. In view of the problems we experienced at the time of the last commission and that caused such a stir, I must tell you that, if the number of seats in a province such as Quebec is increased, we must take into account the existing limits on the number of persons and ridings. There are certain exceptions, but that puts us in a particular situation.

In Quebec, the community of interest was our battle horse. To counter virtually all opposition, especially outside Montreal, we had to rely on the regional county municipalities in order to find those communities of interest more easily. I remember that we even formed one particular riding, combining three RCMs from three different administrative regions. To our great surprise, the three presidents of the RCMs sent us letters saying that finally we had understood. I don't know why, but we had determined that, since the road ran through the three RCMs, there was a certain community. Everyone was in favour of that.

You have to go by the rules. The bill cites timelines that startled me a bit. First, I'd like to note one thing: when reference is made to the chairman appointed by the chief judge of the province of Quebec, does that mean the chief judge of the Superior Court or the chief judge of the Court of Appeal? The chief judge of the province of Quebec is the chief judge of the Court of Appeal. That is not stated in the bill and that's important. Three judges succeeded one another during the last commission. I played my role as acting chairman until they found a retired judge to chair the commission.

The bill also states that a period of 60 days is granted to present a proposal to people. It was initially determined that a somewhat extravagant proposal would be submitted because the people on the boundaries commissions are given only two days of training. Since we didn't have access to the services of experts, we were forced to become experts, something that enabled me to read and learn a lot of very interesting things.

We are asked to prepare an electoral boundaries proposal in 60 days and to add ridings. How are you going to do that? You absolutely have to be able to go and gather ideas and reach communities.

I feel the 60-day period is a bit short because it has to be published in the Gazette officielle du Québec and so on. People have 60 days to appear before the commission. In fact, there was talk of a period of 53 days to appear before the commission after publication of a notice in the Gazette officielle du Québec and in the newspapers. We wrote to all the mayors of the municipalities and to the RCM officials to invite people to come and meet with us.

The commission received 212 briefs, which is a good number. I don't know how many people subsequently came. We held public hearings that sometimes lasted a day, sometimes half a day, sometimes two days. We held a public meeting in Montreal, and people from the high north attended. That shocked me a little because the five of us could have travelled to the high north to hear them. Twenty-two of them came down to Montreal.

We weren't proportionally represented because we didn't have the necessary experience. I knew that two commission members had to be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons, but I didn't know whether that was done by means of a competition or calls for representation. I didn't know how the system worked at all. At the time, I had been approached and had sent off a letter with my curriculum vitae.

Subsection 19(5) of the act as modified would grant people 23 days to send their response; notice would have to be sent within the following 23 days. That's a bit short. Periods of 60 days, even 30 days, seem fairer to me. Weekends should not be considered, and so on.

I of course like the fact that you let our commission waive the notice requirement. I can tell you that we heard from two individuals who appeared in Montreal and who had contacted us 15 days or 3 weeks earlier. We had the necessary space to do that. That didn't prevent us from doing our job. As we had been allowed to do so, we had the right to do it, and we did it.

The bill states that the chief electoral officer could extend the period by six months. Why not set it at 10 months? Why not set it at a year? You can do it within a one-year period. In my humble opinion, a year to draft a final report is enough.

The other periods that you have provided for to respond to the House of Commons are the same as they were. Members propose and sign their amendments. That's work, but everything depends on the number of amendments. In Quebec, we had 17 or 18; I don't remember the exact number. We had to take the time to study each of them, to render a decision and issue a final report on each of them. A 30-day period is nevertheless enough. All the amendments we received came from members in any case. A number concerned names that had not been accepted. Then something a little unpleasant happened when we did a research job with the government. We had requested some research on names and so on, and they came back with three or four names that represented the various RCMs, which we considered utterly illogical. It was as though they were citing the complete Coca-Cola ad instead of simply saying "Coca-Cola". The bill should favour names that aren't too long but that are representative of the past.

We did things differently in Quebec. We gave two constituencies names of painters, Marc-Aurèle Fortin and Alfred Pellan. In Laval, where I live, we had Laval-East, Laval-West, Laval-North; it was Laval-Laval. Now there's a riding called Laval, and the others each have their own name, which is much more logical from a representation standpoint. The situation was somewhat the same in Quebec City.

However, I can tell you about the political aspect and the number of members and so on. The commission is required to comply with the standards and rules set out in the act constituting the electoral boundaries commissions. There are very specific rules that do not allow us much leeway. Those rules must be changed so that there can be larger ridings. Most of the members who appeared before the commission were members from cities. I remember Mr. Dion, among others. We had made a mess in his riding by removing its airport, if I remember correctly. That was corrected, obviously, because people spoke out.

When people come and express their views about the size of their ridings, we cannot respond to their requests. Electoral representation is established based on the number of voters, the size of the population in a given region. It is not the commission's responsibility to make comments on the budgets of MPs of large ridings.

We nevertheless tried to rectify the situation in a somewhat more practical manner, but that wasn't easy. I can tell you that adding or removing ridings will not be easy. I don't know the exact proposals regarding the number of ridings, but I can see that some suggest eliminating ridings and others adding them. Where are you going to put them? In addition, the population will be larger. The basic figure, which was 91,000 voters for our commission, if I remember correctly, will increase. As the population has increased, that number will automatically rise. Consequently, the proportions that must be accepted and implemented will be different.

It addition, competitions should absolutely be held in order to evaluate qualifications. I bent over backwards to become qualified. That took time. I didn't have a choice: I didn't have a chairman. So I did all the work. You can't establish that commission without taking at least a month to understand everything it involves, but, first and foremost, to determine the history of the constituencies. In the case of our commission, we determined the history of each of the Quebec ridings from Confederation to the present. We could see whether there had been a division at such and such a place and why it had been made. We verified all the changes that had been made. Once you have done that, you are able to respond to people.

12:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Monsieur Cayer, thank you for your opening statement and the information you shared with us. I think it's probably brought a few questions to mind for some of the members. Let's see if their questions for you get out some more of this information.

Is it Mr. Reid?

12:15 p.m.

Conservative

Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Cayer. First I would like to congratulate you. You raised an idea that I have always been in favour of, that physically large constituencies, such as in Quebec's high north, for example, we should spend more money on riding management problems. So I support your suggestion.

As you say, it is unreasonable to reduce the weight of the votes of residents in more urban and more densely populated constituencies. That's not fair. I believe you complied with the principle that created constituencies should have roughly the same population across the province. I see from the list that the difference between the largest population and the smallest is well within the limits permitted by the act. Only the riding of Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia is 20% below the provincial average. In any case, the quotient is only a total of 5, which is 10% below the average quotient. On the other hand, there is only one case where the population percentage exceeds 10% of the average.

This isn't exactly a question, but I wanted to tell you that I appreciated what you did. In my own province of Ontario, we have a much greater variance. I believe your model is the one we should follow.

Are there any particular problems? Quebec's high north is uniquely immense, but Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario in a way have the same problem. Are there any practices that the other commission members should adopt?

12:20 p.m.

Lawyer, Member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec (2004), As an Individual

Victor Cayer

There are two enormous ridings in Quebec. The whole area from Sept-Îles to Newfoundland is one immense riding. I'm from Charlevoix and I've known that area for a very long time. So I can say that, at the time, the members travelled there once a year, whereas today, with modern communications, there are resource people everywhere.

However, Quebec's high north poses a lot of problems. People intervened a lot. Aboriginal people live all over this part attached to the base. It wasn't easy, but I believe that, by complying with the rules of the act, we succeeded in ensuring that people felt represented, rather than excluded. They made good presentations and we worked on that.

With regard to your remark about the number of voters per riding, Mr. Massicotte, a political scientist from Montreal like Mr. Dion, for example, wrote an article in the newspaper stating that that was the first time the ridings had been represented in such an egalitarian manner. That's what we tried to do and that's what the commissions should do because that's the very basis of the Constitution. We tried to do the same thing. I think we managed to do it, even with the constraints.

People from the Magdalen Islands came to ask us for a riding. If we gave one to the Magdalen Islands, should we also give one to Île-d'Orléans? Some things are possible, others not. We had to stick to the standards and we took the time to see what had happened in the past. We got into the habit of joining certain places together, but that wasn't done because we couldn't do it.

You're surprised when a Bloc Québécois member who was more or less opposed to everything, congratulates you because you combined such and such a riding with another one. I simply told people who wanted to engage in politics that we weren't doing that and that we were merely implementing the act. We're required to apply it; we don't have a choice. A judge chairs the commission so there will be a certain amount of independence. I must tell you that, during the whole time I was there, no one tried to ask me anything out of line. In any case, I would have refused, efficiently and with great pleasure as well. We received briefs, and we read them all. Everything was done and everything was noted.

I must add that the chief electoral officer provides a geographer to every commission. That was the first time that we could see what we were doing, thanks to a special piece of software. That will be available for the next commission, and it was an enormous asset. With the trends, with the census, we had everything in hand. As soon as we needed a piece of information, we requested it. We asked the people who deal with names in Canada for their authorization because we didn't want to come up with incongruous things. I believe that's the job. It is indeed an independent commission but one that makes use of the services that are offered.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

Thank you.

Madam Charlton.

12:25 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Thank you very much.

I want to ask about a bunch of different areas, so let me just begin with the first one.

Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate that you said that you didn't want to wade into the political questions with respect to the number of seats. I fully appreciate and respect that. But you know there are other parts of the bill that deal, for example, with things like timelines. I want to explore those a little further, because you addressed them in your presentation.

A number of times you made the point that more time would be helpful and, in fact, necessary for doing the work appropriately as we're going through our deliberations. Yet the bill before us condenses the timelines in a number of important ways. The notice period for meetings has been reduced. If one wants make a request to appear before the commission, that timeline has been reduced—and, of course, the commission's time limit for reporting has also been reduced in this legislation.

Would you prefer to see amendments keeping these at least where they were before, or to make them longer? Would that be helpful? Where is it right saw-off with respect to all three of those timelines?

12:25 p.m.

Lawyer, Member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec (2004), As an Individual

Victor Cayer

There should be no periods of less than 60 and 30 days. That's what I believe.

And the time limit for submitting a brief should be 60 days. When you receive 212 briefs, you can't go through them all in a day. Each of the briefs has to be read by each commission member, and the members have to comment on them together. This isn't a decision that is made individually. Three people sit on the commission and three people decide. If there's ever a conflict, there is always the option of appealing to a judge. I believe that people have to agree.

That's why a commission is established. At the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec, the three members agreed on every action that was taken. So when we decided to take a particular riding and do something with it, the three members were in agreement. They had considered the matter. Each one had done his research separately. Each one had a document on the history of the riding to determine exactly what he thought, in addition to the briefs.

Furthermore, the members had an excellent secretary, who moreover was subsequently hired by Elections Canada.