Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 5th, 2013

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think he will be one of the people coming.

The other thing I saw when I looked at this, Mr. Kennedy, is you did a telephone polling and I saw the numbers. When I look at it, although there are 60% in favour with what you're talking about here, there are still a fair number of people who agree that they need changes, or they just simply don't understand what the changes are about. Is that a fair assessment of your telephone polling?

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Everybody should have a sheet on that. What we did here is basically we called every household in the affected areas. We had 1,000 people respond from North Vancouver, and we had almost 1,400 respond from North Burnaby. Of those with an opinion, in North Vancouver 79% were opposed to this; of those with an opinion in North Burnaby 80%. As you can imagine, some people don't care. They're undecided about these kinds of questions. We did have some who were undecided, but if you look at those people with an opinion, and when I talked to the company, they said the response rate was much higher than they would normally get on a poll like this.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I take it that these calls were not interactive.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

People would just vote with their telephone.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

There would be no discussion about what this was.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

No, there wasn't, and the questions I have there I tried to make as unbiased as possible.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I see the questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

One minute.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

My last question would be, these proposals that the electoral boundaries commission have brought forward.... Your proposals were put to them, and they, I guess for lack of better words, ignored your proposals. Is there some reason why now you think we could somehow have them overturn that and go to what you had already proposed the first time? Is there some change that we can look to?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

I certainly think that from the community reaction, which has been extremely negative, and from the testimony that was at the commission as well, there is a moral weight to the argument, and past precedent as well. In 2002, that public reaction was sufficient to nix the idea of a North Vancouver—North Burnaby riding.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

You had public representations?

[An hon. member]

Yes.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Cullen, you're up. Five minutes, please.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you.

The polling feature is interesting. We haven't seen that yet. It doesn't surprise me that you had a certain number of people who either didn't understand or care, but of those who did have an opinion that's pretty impressing. I'm curious, with this having been proposed before and rejected by the community, and then proposed again and with people speaking strongly against this, does this new proposal have a name, Peter? Are you suggesting a name for it, this new riding?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Yes, Port Moody—Burquitlam, which is the two communities that would form the basis for that new riding, as opposed to North Vancouver—North Burnaby. What we would say is Port Moody and Burquitlam have a great deal of demographic similarities and they have an existing community of interest that North Vancouver and north Burnaby do not have.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I don't know this section of road or community very well. I do know a bit about the idea of coming from North Vancouver into Burnaby.

How many offices do each of you have in the ridings?

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

We have just the one.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

One each? I don't know what office rates are like. I have a large northern rural riding. We have a couple of offices, because of the space, but we also get rent for $650 a month in some cases. But when you run a few of them, it adds up.

What's the possibility of opening an urban office in North Vancouver and an urban office in Burnaby, financially speaking?

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

With the MOB, you couldn't open one and staff it. So essentially, if you go ahead with this new riding, you'll have one office.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You'll have to choose.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

The MP will have to choose whether it's on the north side or the south side. I'd like to stress that these are transit-dependent communities, especially Burnaby, and the transit routes are horrendous between the two.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Describe the transit situation in this new proposal for a Port Moody—Burquitlam riding. What's it like to get around?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

There are linked SkyTrain stations and bus stations and bus routes that integrate through Port Moody and Burquitlam. So there is an existing transportation corridor. With North Vancouver—North Burnaby, you have to leave the riding for that one link, and there's a bridge that is sometimes closed because of accidents. As to the transit links, you have to go to downtown Vancouver and then come back, if you're going to hope to have any real connection between the two halves of this proposed riding.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

What the committee often seeks to do—and you saw this in some of our instruction notes—is tick a number of boxes. One shows the number of voters left in any new proposals we see, because we know that's one of the commission's mandates. We also look for communities of interest to understand if communities are inherently connected through past cultural associations, school boards, and the like. Another one is trying to understand it all logistically. This is the one place where MPs talk to MPs, and we know the work and the effects it would have on the ability to serve the constituents in new or old proposals of ridings.

This is my one opportunity to really go after a colleague here, and I'm having a hard time, which is really disappointing for me today. I'd like to go after both of you. There are some old bets.