Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 7th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I call the meeting to order.

We will go ahead and get started. We are in public today. We're here in our first meeting with members of Parliament from Alberta. We're starting at the top with Mr. Jean and Mr. Warkentin. We will give you each five minutes to present your cases today. Then we will ask you questions. Thank you for coming.

Mr. Jean, we will start with you, if that's all right.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

I would like to let you know at the start that like all members of Parliament in this House, one of the greatest honours I have had is to be a member of Parliament. Certainly one of the greatest honours I've had is to represent the people of northern Alberta.

I do not have any difficulties with my north boundary, nor do I have difficulties with the west boundary. If I may, I'm going to illustrate this by showing a map here. There have been many maps circulated, so I'm not sure if you have this. I believe Mr. Warkentin has passed it out. That's excellent.

As you can see, the reason I don't have a problem with the north boundary or east boundary is that both are the Alberta provincial boundaries. The only question, then, is the west boundary and the south boundary. My difficulty with what the commission came out with is simply that they included a community called Wabasca-Desmarais, which is a huge aboriginal reserve, plus one of the fastest-growing areas in Alberta with oil sands. They included that area, not recognizing that there is no direct route from Fort McMurray to that particular community. In fact, if you drive to Wabasca, which is currently in my riding.... I take great pride in representing that area, but the difficulty is that it has no economic ties with Fort McMurray. The economic ties are all with High Prairie, Slave Lake, and Athabasca. In fact, you cannot get—

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

Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Jean. It's not a comment on your testimony. I'm trying to read where Wabasca is.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

That's the difficulty with all of these maps.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

The maps are terrible PDFs.

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

Can you give us an idea of where it is on the map?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I will, and I was going to do that.

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

Sorry, Mr. Jean. I wanted to follow the roads and where the challenge was logistically. I just can't find it.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Yes, absolutely.

If I may, Mr. Chair, with your permission, I will indicate that on the map my current boundary comes down like this, then over here, in essence, and it includes the area of High Prairie, Slave Lake, and Athabasca.

Wabasca is north of Athabasca. In fact, the only way you can get to Wabasca is through Athabasca, through High Prairie, or through Slave Lake, which have highways connecting to them. In fact, that is the trading area. It is an economic trading area and a family trading area. I would suggest that they do most of their shopping in Athabasca, High Prairie, or Slave Lake, with absolutely no connection to Fort McMurray. If you want to go to Wabasca, you have to travel down Highway 63 or Highway 881 over to Athabasca, and then straight back up, which gets you a lot closer to Wabasca, but of course there is no connection.

As there is no connection by highway except through Athabasca, my argument is simply that there's no benefit to including it there. It's a smaller community. In fact, my suggestion is to include only the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.

I'll be very brief on that, Mr. Chair, if you could give me an idea of when my time is at one minute.

The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo has 63,000 square kilometres. My constituency has 180,000 square kilometres. My argument today is based on the federal census, which I do not believe is accurate—I'm just going to do it in summary—and that is primarily because of their data collection techniques.

In Fort McMurray, as you may be aware, most people do shift work. They work 12-hour shifts. Consistently, we have the lowest voter turnout in the country, year over year. In fact, for that low voter turnout in 2008, when I did a survey of my constituents, 52% came back and said they couldn't vote because of work. We all know the reality of that. Their situation or their perception is they're not going to work a 12-hour shift and then return to vote on something, and most of them, since the average age is 29, are not great at voter turnout.

The municipality of Wood Buffalo also did a census for 2010. The federal census came in at 66,000. The municipality of Wood Buffalo census came in at just over 103,000. There is a discrepancy of over 25%.

If you believe the federal census, then you have to suggest that the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo should be included with other areas. If you do not believe that census and you think there is an issue with it, by the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo census there will be 150,000 residents by 2015 in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, and by 2025 they will have 304,000 constituents in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which is only approximately one-third of my entire constituency as proposed by the commission.

That is the difficulty. Even with the federal census, based upon their suggested increase, by 2025 there will be 140,000 people in that riding just in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.

In saying all this, I am in agreement with my colleagues, Mr. Warkentin and Mr. Storseth, relating to the particulars of the boundary redistribution that they have proposed and that most of the Alberta caucus has proposed. My only suggestion is that the boundary should be Highway 63, which is the highway that best represents Fort McMurray and goes straight south, as the map indicates. As that roadway is there, and based upon what is necessary in Alberta, this particular line shown on the south can go north and south, depending upon what you need.

What I'm suggesting to you today, in conclusion, is that Fort McMurray is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country year over year, and I think that growth and the recognition of all the projections that suggest the population is going to be over 250,000 by 2025, which will be the next division, suggest that there should be special consideration for this particular area, especially in giving regard to economic growth.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's great. Thank you very much, Mr. Jean.

Mr. Warkentin, we have five minutes for you, please.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

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?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes, you're out of time.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I have just a few.... I can probably answer in my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes. We'll get to it in questions.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Great.

Mr. Lukiwski, you're first, please, for five minutes.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thanks. I'm not sure if I'll take all five minutes.

Brian and Chris, I agree with both of you, and Nathan over there, that it's tough in these hearings to follow along with the maps in front of us. I think that's the biggest frustration I have, to literally try to follow your recommendations as you're proposing on the map, when we really can't tell the....

That's just my whine for the day. Perhaps, Mr. Chair and the analyst, we could try to do something for future meetings, because it really is frustrating. We're trying to do the best we can here, and for a lot of it I'm just going on the basis that you know what you're talking about. I can't tell by the map.

That said, I want to go back to something you said, Chris, because I think this is going to come up with a lot of boundaries in large rural geographic ridings. You talked about the need for public meetings and having limited Internet access in some of the northern ridings in Alberta.

I have read suggestions that with today's new technology, whether it be email, Skype, or the like, MPs really shouldn't have a concern about how large an area they represent in terms of communicating with their constituents, because they have other accesses to do that.

My question is to both of you, actually, but I'll start with Chris. How important is it to your constituents to have the ability to meet with you as their elected representative on a face-to-face basis, as opposed to meeting over Skype or through an email or even by telephone?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Thank you very much.

I think the best way to answer that question is to ask any person who lives in urban Canada if they would find it acceptable that their member of Parliament never returned home—if members of Parliament all remained in Ottawa all of the time, and people could just Skype in or phone.

It's inappropriate for urban folks and it's inappropriate for folks who live in rural areas, especially when you consider that literacy rates in some of these communities fall below the national average, in some cases significantly.

In my first nations communities as well as communities that have traditionally been farm communities, the expectation is even greater, I find, in those communities than in my urban populations to have face-to-face meetings on a regular basis and be accessible in that format.

I think it's absolutely imperative that this committee and our commissions accept their responsibility to allow constituents to be well served in that capacity to have one-on-one meetings.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thanks, Chris.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I would submit to you that at this stage, I actually have two constituencies; in fact, I have had two for the last nine years I've represented my area.

You might find that strange until you realize that when I fly home, I fly home to Edmonton, rent a car, and drive to the southern part of my constituency. Then I drive back to do any events there, which would be in High Prairie, Slave Lake, Wabasca, or any of those areas that go quite closely up to Chris's riding. I have to fly into Edmonton, drive up, drive back to Edmonton, and fly back here. That's all the time I have. I don't have time to go home.

If I want to go to Fort McMurray for an event there, I have to fly to Fort McMurray and then drive around either to Wandering River or to Lac La Biche, which is even further south in the riding, so I alternate between the two areas on all of my events.

Half of my population, when I started, was in the south, and half of the population was in the north. That's why I had in essence two constituencies. It was impossible to drive in the south and then go up to Fort McMurray on what is considered to be the “highway of death” in Canada, which is Highway 63.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

To the question that I'd specifically asked about, on the importance your constituencies put on the face-to-face—

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I would agree with Chris. Nobody deserves to have less attention from their elected representative, whether urban or rural.

My constituents certainly expect to see me. My number one complaint from my constituents is that they don't see me enough, notwithstanding that I travel home frequently.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

That being the case....

Do we have another minute or two?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You have one minute.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

That being the case, do you think that in general—and I'm not talking just about northern Alberta, but perhaps across Canada—the commissioners should put a greater weight on the geographic size of some of the rural constituencies, versus the population? We all know that many large rural ridings have a relatively small population base but a huge geographical area.

How do you balance that? How do you square that circle, knowing that you need to get face-to-face meetings on behalf of your constituents and that the commission is looking at trying to average, on a population variance, constituency to constituency?