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.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that, sir.
Lawyer, Member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec (2004), As an Individual
That's fine.
NDP
Alexandrine Latendresse NDP Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr. Cayer. It was very interesting to hear your opinion on the subject.
We're told that this bill should be passed very quickly, before February, whereas we would like to hear as many witnesses as possible.
Fourteen months elapsed between the moment the commissions were constituted in 2004 and publication of the order. Do you think that made for optimal and reasonable conditions?
Lawyer, Member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec (2004), As an Individual
Yes, strictly speaking, you can say it took our commission 14 months, but I would say it was a little less. At the time of the courses, our commission was not yet operating, I believe, but when it started, we didn't have a judge. A new judge was appointed, but he had to resign after about three weeks or a month for reasons unrelated to the situation. We then had to wait five or six weeks, I believe, for a new judge to take his place. However, that didn't prevent us from working. As acting chair, I put in place everything that could be put in place. That didn't hurt us. We did it within that timeframe. And we didn't make any cuts either. We took the necessary time.
NDP
Alexandrine Latendresse NDP Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Between February 2012, when we're currently being told the bill will absolutely have to be passed, and the spring of 2015, when the representation order will have to be published, there will be approximately 36 months.
Do you think we have enough flexibility to study this bill in greater detail and to hear the opinions of the largest possible number of people on the subject? We think the time we have for that purpose is quite long.
Lawyer, Member of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec (2004), As an Individual
Yes. Once the commissions are formed, the time period will still be the same. You nevertheless have to plan for all the time necessary to hear people, even though, as in many other situations, you never know how much time it will take. You prepare for that.
We didn't hear people without preparing first. Every time a hearing was held, if there were briefs, they had already been read. We were ready. We even met with people individually after the hearings because, in some cases, people are too uncomfortable to say certain things in public. It's very amusing to meet with people and to let them speak. That helps us make decisions. It isn't an easy decision. When you take something away from a person, that's a shock to that person. When you give that person something else, it turns out that it's also a shock. Sensitivities are involved.
Members especially sometimes tend to think of their interests and their voters because they are used to the current situation in a given region. However, depending on population changes, a member could wind up with a population of 118,000 and the one next door with a population of 84,000. The two ridings were side by side, but they wanted to change nothing. It isn't easy. You have to decide at some point, but you don't do it on a political basis.
I never took electoral results into account. We don't see them because they're published, but we can't verify the voting results of every polling station. We rely on previous boundaries in order to establish a comparison with the movements that have taken place in the past. Considering the definition of the community of interest, we felt that, if those people had been together for that long, they weren't necessarily going to feel uncomfortable about being grouped together again. We didn't have too many problems, although I was snubbed by a member for removing part of her riding. She told me I had made her lose the election. I answered that it wasn't me and that the figures proved it. That was in Ahuntsic, if I remember correctly.
In the riding next door—and I believe it was that of Mr. Dion—we went too far in the other direction. We tried to do something in Montreal, but it wasn't very sensible. We stole part of his regional park or I don't know what. Whatever the case may be, that wasn't the issue. The issue was the people who were living there. We did our best to be egalitarian. That's what the act asks us to do. You have to stick to the principle of "one person, one vote" as much as you can. I believe that a gentleman told us that earlier.
It's painstaking work, but it's interesting. Watch out, however: it's based on the number of people, not the number of voters. If a population includes 25,000 people who are under 18 years of age and therefore don't vote, those people are nevertheless included in your calculation.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Madame Latendresse.
Thank you, Mr. Cayer. It was great to have you here today. You've added some knowledge that we certainly didn't have before. I thank you for that.
I'm going to suspend for just a minute while we go in camera for committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]