Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 12th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Right. You can think about it while you're on you're break, but the rest of us may have completed it.

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

I thought you said next Thursday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Then we have the access to information report also on Thursday, just so we can fill our time.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Are we doing the standing orders as well, on Thursday?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We could start, yes. All right, let's go ahead and do that then.

It's where we discuss what goes in it. I saw the panicked look. No, you're okay. Thought you were better than that.

Oh, you want the whole week we're home to work on it, okay. I suppose you'll want Christmas off again this year too.

If I can get myself together, we'll call ourselves back to order.

Ms. Crockatt, it is great to have you here with us today. You have five minutes to share your thoughts with us on the redistribution in your riding and around it. Mr. Shory is joining you shortly, but I'm certain he already knows what you're saying.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I'm not so sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Go ahead for five minutes, and then we'll ask you some questions.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate the opportunity the PROC committee is providing to allow me to appear before you with regard to the electoral boundaries commission and to represent the citizens of Calgary Centre so their voices can be heard. That's why I was elected. That's why each of us was elected. I have been hearing from Calgary Centre residents very loudly and clearly.

I'd like to say that I really appreciate, as do they, the fact that the electoral boundaries commission has set as its goal to equalize the weight of each Canadian's vote. It will strengthen democracy. The changes I'm proposing here will leave all the ridings affected within plus or minus 5%, give or take, of the target population. They are strongly supported by the community. No MPs are opposed, and further, they're all within the current boundaries of Calgary Centre right now.

I'd like to make a point about recent history, and then provide three reasons that the commission's new map contravenes the three major objectives set out in the act. I'll argue that the population goal is achieved at the expense of them, and conclude how it can be achieved with these three goals in mind—to rousing applause, no doubt.

The recent history is that as you might recall, the former MP resigned in May. That meant the residents of Calgary Centre did not have a sitting member of Parliament throughout the bulk of the redistribution consultation. As a result, they feel the radical changes that are being proposed to their riding did not receive the attention they deserved.

I was sworn in on December 11, just as the report of the boundaries commission was coming down on December 13. I've heard from my residents over and over, and now I'm here appealing the changes on their behalf. As much as possible these changes we're proposing reflect historical patterns and communities of interest, and they follow the traditional provincial, federal, and municipal boundaries.

There are three reasons that the proposed map should be rejected. Number one, it's radical surgery that's unnecessary. Number two, it's kicking folks out of their historical homes. Number three, it's putting together strange bedfellows.

To the radical surgery, Calgary Centre is currently overpopulated and is therefore under-represented in Ottawa. It's just a question of which area to place in another riding in order to reduce its size. Because this riding is characterized by constant growth, it should really be a priority to maintain cohesion in a riding that's accepting newcomers at the rate of tens of thousands every year.

I was seeking an analogy to describe what the boundaries commission recommended, and it's kind of like slicing off one entire side of your body to lose weight, and then realizing that you cut off too much so you're going to graft on an appendage on the other side. That's essentially what's been done here.

You see the map there. Sarcee Trail is the large ring road on the right. Now, neither of these is the original riding.

On the left-hand side is the Calgary ring road. You'll see that Sarcee Trail is the Calgary ring road. Essentially, what the boundaries commission did was move the boundary on the east side to the middle of a series of residential communities that are very cohesive, residential communities whose traffic patterns are east-west, and it disrupted that long-standing community.

That brings us to number two, which is kicking folks out of their historical home. This community on the east side of the ring road....

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

The ring road is on the left side of your map, Sarcee Trail, and these are all very cohesive communities into the east of the ring road. Signal Hill, conversely, is on the other side of the ring road. It's the highest point in Calgary. There's a huge change in elevation. It's a high-end community, brand new in the last little while. These other communities are 40-year-old communities. Their community associations all work together. They do family days. They have churches and schools and bussing patterns that all fit together in that community. There's virtually—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It's out this far? It used to be in Calgary Centre.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

It is in Calgary Centre right now, and the commission is proposing to take it out and put it in Signal Hill, to the left. Severing these communities all the way from north to south has no persuasive argument at all, and it disrupts all these relationships and common interests and concerns that are inside the ring road where the communities do share commonalities. A primary goal of redistribution should be to maintain strong communities and also enable them to be well served by Ottawa.

That brings us to number three, which is putting together strange bedfellows. I've already talked a bit about this but on the west side, the Signal Hill riding, which we just talked about, has very few ties to Calgary Centre, which is sort of more of a working class area. Signal Hill is kind of tony and upper class. That's where they built the condos for the Olympic Village, etc. This topographical difference is also a very significant one because it means there is virtually no traffic flow on a daily basis between the neighbourhoods inside the ring road and outside the ring road.

Furthermore, the provincial ridings of Calgary-Elbow and Calgary-Currie both use Sarcee Trail as their boundary, and this is recognizing the things I've talked about. We propose the boundary should be east-west from Sarcee Trail as much as is humanly possible. Instead of severing the riding from north to south, if you need to take some land out of it, you make the line east-west and at least keep the communities of interest together.

You'll see in your package something that looks like this, which is what we're proposing. The reason we propose you take the chunk out at the top is, if you look up behind you, you'll see there already is a chunk along the river that's a part of Signal Hill, so we're at least keeping some of the communities of interest there together on an east-west basis.

Finally, on the east side, this is where we've really added strange bedfellows. As much I love them, we have the communities of Ramsay and Inglewood, which have always operated independently from the downtown. I don't know if you can see on my map, but there's a river that goes through on the green map, and the communities of Inglewood and Ramsay are on the other side of the river. Because of that, they have always been very separate from downtown. The provincial and municipal riding boundaries, again, are the river. They are also separated from downtown by three bridges, the Stampede grounds, an industrial area, and the railway yard. It makes no sense to add those into Calgary Centre.

As well, the boundaries commission has also added a very large industrial yard down here into Calgary Centre, which really makes it almost ungovernable. From the point of view of the federal government, you've already got one of the most populist ridings in the country. You have the second largest head office capital in the country and all of those people need to be served. You have some of the largest homeless shelters. You have a huge immigrant population that's moving in every year to that riding. And you also have all of your suburban communities. Why add a big industrial yard into that mix and expect it to be well served? The riding of Calgary Shepard, into which we're proposing you put it, can take the population. There's very little population there. The riding of Calgary Shepard includes the large, industrial area that the riding is actually named for.

That's the end of my presentation, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Shory, you have five minutes.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

I don't think I'll need five minutes because my ask is very, very small.

I'm asking the committee to consider that my riding should be extended, adding some commercial area on 32nd Avenue going all the way to Deerfoot, which will not make any noticeable change in demographics. The reason I'm asking for this is that it will allow me to keep my office at the same place where it has been for the last 25 years or so. The other thing is that quite a few business owners live in my riding and have been living there for a long time. As I said, there is no noticeable change in the population being represented.

If you notice, the committee gave me two scenarios. Scenarios one and two do not make any difference in population. In scenario two there is a difference of five individuals, which is not very noticeable. It does affect only one neighbouring riding, Calgary East, which is currently represented by Mr. Obhrai. I have spoken to Mr. Obhrai and he has no objection. As a matter of fact, I have a copy of the email he sent to the committee confirming that he has no objection.

I would submit that the committee recommend to the commission that this change be made, as it does not affect any population.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Are there questions from the members?

Mr. Lukiwski.

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

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks to both of you for being here.

Joan, just let me say how sorry I am, as I think we all are, about your recent loss. I know this is a difficult time for you, so thank you for being here with us.

I want to go back to an earlier comment you made about the period of time when Calgary Centre was not represented because of Lee's resignation and before you were elected. For how many months were they literally unrepresented?

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Well, Lee resigned in May, toward the end of May, so it was right through.... I was sworn in on December 11 and the report came down on the 13th, so it was essentially from May until I was sworn in.

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

Okay. When during that time did the boundaries commission conduct hearings?

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I believe it was through that period. To be honest, I was engaged in other things.

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

Sure.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I heard about this from people afterward. I knew it was going on. In fact, we asked about it. We just felt at that point that it was not our issue and that we had to focus on the things we needed to focus on. It took place during that period.

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

Okay.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

What I heard from people after the fact was, hey, we didn't know how to get involved or when, and we just feel like we were ignored here.

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

That's what I'm getting to. In your opinion, then, did many of the points you've made here today fail to get made to the commission? I mean, did they have the same information that you were presenting to us?

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

My understanding is that they absolutely did not, that there really wasn't any significant representation, certainly not from the community associations and people from the schools and churches who were talking to me, and who operate on that east-west flow and have their seniors' centre on one side and then the church and the school on the other side. Those people felt that they just had no venue for being able to express their views and kind of found out when it was all over.

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

Okay. Well, that's problematic, obviously, and it just is a question of timing, unfortunately, with the boundaries commission having to do its job within a certain timeframe, but Lee's resignation kind of jumped right into the middle of all of that.

Can you give some assurances, then, to this committee that subsequent to your election you have talked to as many of the stakeholders within Calgary Centre as possible? Are they are all in agreement with what you're proposing today or are there some areas or pockets of opposition to what you're proposing in terms of boundaries?