Evidence of meeting #58 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
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
—down to go up, and then back down again to go back home and then back down to Cold Lake in a different direction, which just doesn't make sense.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Okay, let's let the members ask you some questions to see if we can get through more of that.
Go ahead, Mr. Cullen.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thanks very much for that, Chair, and thanks for the committee's indulgence. As somebody who has to fly into Yukon to visit part of my riding, I get you.
I have a couple of questions. One for Mr. Jean is about the particular nature of the oil sands, the development there, and the mobility of the Canadian citizens who are coming in and out.
You talked about the census being wrong. We have challenges with the census for different reasons. For instance, they use land lines to phone in, and a lot of our communities either don't have land lines due to a lack of resources—they just don't have the money—or the younger folks don't have land lines because they don't think they're useful.
The extra nature of your particular part of the world is that there is a resource boom going on, and a lot of people are moving in. The declaration of where they actually live and where they actually vote seems to be a factor in the population question you've raised.
Is there any way to parse out, in the census data—because that's too old and inaccurate—how many people actually live there, particularly in the unique circumstance—and maybe this is true for Mr. Warkentin as well—of that large population that is not on the electoral map and is not being affected by this thing one way or another?
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Yes. I think the reliance on the municipal census is always best, just as municipal governments spend money better than large federal governments do, in my opinion. The closer you are to the people, the better the job you do. In this particular case there has been a municipal census, because obviously there is a serious deficiency in their funds from the federal or provincial governments.
In this particular case, how can you not recognize that there has to be a problem? There's a 25% difference for the same year.
The difficulty is that people do select where they live. Look at it this way: we have 1.8 million people flying into our airspace every year, and 940,000 passengers are flying into just the regional airport, up from 150,000 nine years ago. You may say that those people don't live there, but somebody is living there and taking their spot when they're not there, so someone's always living there. Fifty per cent of the people in the emergency department in the local hospitals don't reside in Alberta. There are many things like that.
It's not like northern Ontario, where you have a cottage country and people come in for the summer and then leave. It's totally different. Those people come to Fort McMurray; there are up to 65,000 people who don't call Fort McMurray or the regional municipality home, but they're living there and they live there full time and they use our services. That's why you have to wait an hour and a half in line when you want a Tim Hortons coffee.
NDP
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Did Elections Canada consider that?
Elections Canada is putting another riding into two ridings and trying to some effect—to your point, Mr. Warkentin—to alleviate the challenge you have with a large, expansive riding.
You said in your testimony something about the differences between rural and urban in terms of the servicing, or about the realities for a representative. Can you expand a bit more on the implications of that in your consideration of the electoral map?
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Yes, absolutely.
Concerning the proposed Peace River–Westlock riding—which I reject because I feel Westlock has completely different interests and is geographically separated—I believe it's important that the Peace River riding, or that general area, be served by an MP who can connect to all of those areas.
What I proposed is a grouping of communities accessible through highways in such a way that you don’t have to drive six hours to get to another community, because we are constrained by where we can get to by road. I think it's absolutely essential for that to be taken into consideration.
Concerning the deviations in terms of what we had proposed, or that I and my colleagues have proposed, I circulated a sheet about the populations of these proposed ridings as well as the deviations. You can see the largest deviation is negative, nearly around 12% for Peace River.
Like Mr. Jean, I reject the Canadian census data, because my municipalities have also rejected it. If you had an accurate census, you would find that the populations are consistent and would be in the same general areas as the other ridings.
I think it's important that you build a riding connected by roads and with interests that are shared.
Conservative
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
In reply to Mr. Cullen, I think the one thing missing in all of this is where the population is going. It is going to Alberta. You can accept it or not. It's going to Saskatchewan, and it's going to go to Newfoundland as well, and anywhere there's an economy that's going well.
Industry has projected, the Alberta Government has projected, and anybody else involved has projected that Fort McMurray itself is going to have 250,000 people by 2025. Even the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo statistics, based upon the last 10 years of growth, indicate it's going to have 304,000. That's only a third of my riding that's going to be that. That's not the entire constituency. That's just a third of my riding.
The data are wrong. You come up to Fort McMurray and tell me there are only 60,000 people who live there when you're lining up for three hours to go 30 kilometres to work every day. There are a lot more people there, and the data collection by Census Canada is not correct.
Conservative
Liberal
Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To my two colleagues, I have four questions. Maybe you addressed my concerns partly or completely. If that's the case, repeat very briefly what you have already said, but maybe some parts of your answers will be new for the committee.
My first question is on your comments today, your objections. Are they new for the commission, or a reiteration? If they’re new, why? If they’re a reiteration, what can you add to what you have already said to the commission to convince it?
My second question is on how many other ridings are affected by your change. Chris, I think it's seven in your case. Could you just clarify that? Do you have the agreement of the affected colleagues? Did you try? What is your understanding of the consequences on these ridings if you don't have the agreement of your colleagues?
On the demographics, I'm very impressed that in Alberta the commission tried to stay within the 5%, plus or minus, while the law allows for the possibility of going up to 25%, plus or minus. Many commissions try to stay in the range of 10%, as is the case in my province. Maybe for Albertans it is very important to have equality of citizens, and too bad for taking communities into account.
We have these numbers in your case, but, Brian, could you explain how many people are affected by what you are proposing? I understand there is a discrepancy between the official census and what you see on the ground, but it will help us if we have numbers.
Finally, it's the size. I know size and access are not the same. I think that is what both of you are arguing. The commission would argue in your case, Chris, that the riding you have is 162,871 square kilometres, and what they are proposing is quite a lot less, 105,925 square kilometres. It's an argument they put in objection to what you proposed, I suppose.
Could you address that?
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
I appreciate that, and I'll begin with the last question, because I think it's absolutely essential.
The commission has talked about somehow dividing the square kilometres as being the determination of the workload or the population. Unfortunately, what they did in the last proposal is they divided what I currently represent up the centre and created this requirement that now two members of Parliament would travel eight hours to basically meet people on opposite sides of the highway, rather than having one member of Parliament going up the highway to meet with constituents on both sides of the highway in communities that are along the highway or off the highway.
I begin travelling from Grande Prairie. I go through Fairview. I hold a town hall meeting there. The folks from the outlying areas congregate there. Then I go up to Peace River, then Manning, and all the way up the way.
The proposal now is that I would go from Grande Prairie and get to Fairview. Fairview would now be outside of my riding. That's where the highway would take me, but I'm now out of my riding. I would drive for two hours outside of my riding. Unfortunately, all of the rural area surrounding the highway is still my riding, but I can't hold a town hall meeting in Fairview because it's not my riding, so there's not really a congregating point for the rural community.
Then I'd go further up. I'd bypass Peace River. It's not in my riding. Then I'd get to Manning, and I might hold a town hall meeting there, but then the rural community is again parcelled off to a different MP. I'd hold the town hall meeting there and I'd try to convince the local residents that because their farm is on the other side of a fence line from their neighbour, they're not my constituents.
Then I get to High Level, where I would hold a town hall meeting, and I'd have everybody there. Unfortunately, then we couldn't have the folks from the other farming community of La Crete there, because they're represented by another MP.
Then the other MP would have to go up the same highway and do exactly the same thing.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Those are great answers. Mr. Dion asked you both four questions. You partially answered one in most of his time.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
I will answer just in one word. The proposal is not new. Municipalities all proposed exactly what I'm doing. In terms of how many ridings will be affected, the ridings articulated here will be all affected, but it's an attempt to adhere to municipal boundaries. That's what we attempted to do.
As to whether there's agreement, I think you'll hear there's agreement.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
There is agreement, I understand, from all the rural MPs in northern Alberta, in principle, in relation to the boundaries that have been proposed by Mr. Warkentin and me.
I would say, first of all, this is new. I really feel that this process should be independent of politics. I did not get involved with the commission up to this point because of that, but I got involved because there's no common sense to their proposal to include Wabasca.
I knew the population would be an issue. It's an issue with the regional municipality and has been for 10 years. They have opposed the federal census twice.
What I'm suggesting is that you should allow in these ridings—Chris's, my own, and the third one—a negative quota differential of around 20%. I think that would be accurate. It's certainly not outside of the mandate. I think it would be more accurate to depict exactly the rural nature of the riding and also what's going on in the ridings as a result of the economic boom. If you don't know and if you've never heard me talk about it before, the oil sands are somewhere around 8% of the GDP right now. That means a lot of people go there to get work.
I do believe there is agreement, as you asked, Mr. Dion, and I haven't gotten involved before because there was no sense in doing so. In this particular case, it's just because of the common sense element of it. Including Wabasca and doing what Mr. Warkentin described—driving seven hours from my home one way, then seven hours another way, and through another riding for three hours—doesn't make sense.
I think I've answered all of your questions.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
I'm going to ask you to help me sort out the various maps in front of us. This map was distributed to us today. Is this your proposal?
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
That's your proposal. That's not the status quo.
February 7th, 2013 / 11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Okay. That's the proposal.
Then I have this coloured map. If you don't mind, I'm going to bring this up to ask for the distinction.