Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2013

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

The change I am proposing only affects my riding and the riding of Peterborough.

As I said, in my current riding I have three rural municipalities. Rather than giving the two little ones to Peterborough and keeping the big one, we're just saying to reverse those two decisions. It's a difference of 9,000 versus 6,000 people, and so it's a differential of 3,000 people.

The only municipality that has passed a resolution is asking to join Peterborough; the other two have been silent on this. It's a relatively minor change, but I think it makes sense in the broader context of fixing the Peterborough and the Northumberland ridings.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

The challenge I have is that Peterborough and Peterborough County are about 160,000; it's a riding and a half. Everyone in Peterborough County would ideally like to be in the Peterborough riding. That doesn't work, so I believe that the second suggestion I made, which has the support of my colleagues, is the one that makes the most sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Madam Turmel.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

My questions are about the same thing.

Mr. O'Toole, thank you for your presentation. Your explanation was very clear.

I want to pick up on one of the changes you're proposing: removing the eastern part of Clarington from the Northumberland—Pine Ridge riding. That means, then, that below, 14,500 residents would be removed and transferred to the riding of Oshawa—Durham. Is that correct?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Yes.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

So the population of the riding of Oshawa would become 132,000, which, I believe, is above the average.

Is that the suggestion, in other words, increasing the population of the riding of Oshawa to 132,000? Could you give us a bit more information on that?

I see here all the members who are affected by the proposal regarding Oshawa. And I see that you don't agree with that proposal.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Madam Turmel.

This area, the western side—so the ridings of Oshawa and Durham—is considered to be the most eastern side of the greater Toronto area. As you get away from Toronto, moving east along the lake, the population slowly diminishes, and urbanization sort of slowly diminishes, into my riding of Durham, which is a suburban-rural split.

Oshawa has grown to the point where some of Oshawa will need to be in a riding adjacent to it, because its population is just too large. What Mr. Carrie and I have proposed, and what is overwhelmingly supported by regional and municipal governments, is to let Oshawa grow to the size it can, to the large end of what's permitted under the act. That allows it to keep its university whole and to keep Oshawa whole.

I will then just take a small portion, on the edge of my riding, to help relieve the population. By giving up a little more of Oshawa to Mr. Carrie, I'm also allowing Durham to have the population room to keep the largest municipality within that riding whole.

Mr. Norlock, who is on my east, agrees with that proposal as well, even though it means his riding, which is more sparsely populated because it's further from the greater Toronto area, will be slightly under the 106,000 target in Ontario.

All of these factors are permitted by the act to keep communities of interest, history, and identity together, but Oshawa is the largest challenge, because it's the most urbanized. As you go east or northeast into my colleagues' ridings, they're more rural or rural-urban splits, and have more counties and local governments within them.

We think this proposal has the support of all levels of government, federal, provincial, municipal, and the overwhelming support of the population. The result will be that Oshawa is a very large riding, but it's within the range permitted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Scott.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thanks for presenting what appears to be, at least at one level, possibly an integrated package, but it's not entirely clear.

Just for clarification, Mr. O'Toole and Mr. Carrie, keeping Clarington whole, which the commission seemed to feel was almost “impossible”—that was their language—depends heavily on Oshawa going to that size.

Is that correct?

Okay.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

If I may, Mr. Scott, as you may notice from the population threshold, there would be room for Oshawa—Durham to absorb that population as well within that 25% excess. But the best way to do it, we're proposing, is to allow Oshawa to grow slightly larger, and Durham to grow only to 16% over the 106,000.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Great.

Mr. Carrie?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I agree with that.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Del Mastro, there's a little bit of confusion on our side; I think you might possibly be between two proposals, one which your constituents seem to be behind, and one which you're sort of willing to put forward.

In terms of how the committee will deal with the proposals, I guess we're going to ask you: which one is your proposal?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

To be clear, I don't have support among my colleagues, or in fact among any of the surrounding area, for the proposals that have been promoted by Otonabee-South Monaghan and Asphodel-Norwood. Those are their proposals. That's how they would like to see it solved, but there is no support outside of the immediate area for what they're proposing. I promised them as my constituents that I would put that forward.

To be clear, I believe the option where there is agreement around the table, which would see them put into the riding with Northumberland, along with Havelock-Belmont-Methuen, in a new riding called Northumberland—Peterborough South, for example, would actually make the most sense, and provide for a very workable riding.

There is no perfect solution here. There is no agreement on the ground.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Devolin.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

The municipality of Cavan Monaghan, which is in my riding today, is proposed to be in my riding, but in our proposal we're talking about actually adding it to Peterborough instead.

Cavan Monaghan's first preference is to be part of the Peterborough riding, to actually be changed. Their second preference, very close, would be to stay where they are, which is in Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock. They absolutely and vehemently do not want to be added to Northumberland.

That is one of the problems with the proposal from other rural municipalities: it takes Cavan Monaghan out of their first choice, and their second choice, and clearly puts them in their last choice.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you both for the clarifications.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

There's about 10 seconds left.

I think we'll go to Mr. Dion. Do you want to try in 10 seconds, or I could just talk a little bit more? And now your time is up.

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

No, don't do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

There'll be another round, Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Dion, for seven minutes, please.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think the commission in Ontario did not do a service in accepting so much discrepancy in the numbers. In other provinces, the commissions have been very strict and it helped each of us to be reasonable in our request. If it's reasonable for the commission to accept 24.5% for an urban area, it's not the same in the rest of the country, very clearly. That's a problem we need to point out. It's not the fault of colleagues here. They are encouraged to come with requests because the commission allows it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It says in the rules they allow it.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

We have more requests in this province than we should have, otherwise.

Assuming that the commission accepts that Oshawa should stick together at 24.5% starting in the census of 2011, do we know if Oshawa has a big growth coming, or is it a stable population?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

We'd like to see it grow. The northeast portion that Mr. O'Toole is going to be having under the proposal we have forwarded, is probably the fastest growing region. Historically, that was more of the rural area with farm land and now there is growth there. I would predict that would be the part of Oshawa that would grow the most.