Thank you, Chair.
Colleagues, I want to thank you for this opportunity to present my concerns regarding the redistribution of the electoral boundaries of northwest Alberta.
It has been my privilege, and it is my privilege, to represent the residents of the Peace River riding for the past seven years. This riding includes the majority of what we locally call the Peace Country. The current Peace River riding stretches from just south of Grande Prairie north to the Northwest Territories border, and from the British Columbia border east to nearly the midpoint of the province.
It has been one of the greatest privileges in my life to represent every portion of this very large riding. It's about 168,000 square kilometres, and it pains me to see any changes that will impact the inclusivity of the Peace Country residents in the new proposal. However, the current riding of Peace River has the largest population of any riding in the province, and thus changes are needed to ensure my current constituents are more democratically represented. As they've been impacted by the increase in population, the time has come for northern Albertans to be represented and to receive their additional seat in the House of Commons. Thus, I advocate for changes based on what I've heard from my constituents and from local municipalities.
The work of the commission and this committee is essential and difficult. I thank both bodies for their diligence and their work. The assignment is difficult, and disproportionately so, when dividing and combining dispersed populations in the most appropriate manner.
Northwest Alberta has seen significant growth over the past decade and is expected to continue to see that growth at the same or higher rate over the next decade. However, the population remains dispersed, predominantly rural, and regionally and socially divided.
It appears to me that the commission in Alberta undertook the division of Alberta ridings with a preoccupying adherence to the balancing of populations between proposed ridings. However, I feel that in doing so, they have compromised other important principles, such as communities of interest, common service areas, municipal boundaries, and practical issues of transportation for MPs and for constituents who might seek meetings with their representatives.
In my time as a member of Parliament, I have learned the important value of being physically available in the communities that I represent. In northwest Alberta, there are dispersed populations of first nations, farming communities, and smaller towns. These populations, especially, expect their MP to be physically available. While social media and other forms of written communication are something the commission has cited, these are not necessarily options for constituents in these areas, as their access to Internet and mobile phones is very limited. In some cases, they are not available at all. Also, in some of these communities literacy rates fall far below the national average.
In order to successfully protect the interests of the Peace Country, it is important to recognize the independence of this region from the central Alberta service area just south of this area, which is represented by Edmonton and its service area.
This disconnect is not only social and economic, but also physical. A forested and relatively unpopulated area lies between Valleyview and Whitecourt. It's difficult to see from this map, but there's a significant forested area, and Fox Creek is in the midst of that. There's a very strong forested swath that, to drive through, is over 150 kilometres. The commission's proposal in their first and revised maps creates a new riding that they propose to call Peace River—Westlock, which spans this large forested area. It has been universally rejected by the community and residents who would be affected by that proposal.
The communities in the northern region of this proposed riding have no meaningful connection with the southern region and would be poorly served if they were combined into a single riding. In their submission to the commission, local residents and communities en masse requested that the southern border of the northern ridings not extend further south than the geographical divide of this large forested swath. In order to accomplish this desired outcome, this committee and the commission would have to accept that the three northern ridings would include small population numbers that would be only marginally smaller than the average Alberta riding.
As you know, reduced populations are compatible with the principles and the legislation that direct redistribution, and reduced populations are often the norm in rural areas and regions where the populations are dispersed.
While the populations would be marginally less in these three ridings, I am convinced that this is the only way to ensure that northern Albertans would be served adequately. Significant efforts must be undertaken to try to address those concerns.
Chair, I'm getting a signal here. Am I out of time?