Evidence of meeting #63 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
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Okay. That's what I wanted to know.
For the riding boundary you suggested for the Willoughby area, you were showing a street that doesn't show up on this map. Right there. That's where you're showing it. That's actually the municipal boundary, is it?
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
That's right. And you can see it over here. Right there, that is 196th Street. There it is, right there. This small circle here is Langley city and the rest of it is Langley township.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Those are two different municipalities.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
You have part of Langley township inside the new Langley—Cloverdale riding.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Correct. That's Willoughby, which is part of Langley township, and this is what they are wanting to put back into this.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
But it's the only part that deviates from the municipal boundary.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Okay.
I'm sorry, I just want to move through because I have some more questions and limited time here. Regarding growth and population of the communities, this is obviously a rapidly growing area. Where is the growth taking place? I ask this because if it's taking place more in the riding that under your preferred scenario is underpopulated, that is more justifiable than if it's an area that's already overpopulated and you're putting.... You see what I'm saying?
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Yes. It's a very good question.
The Willoughby area is expected to increase by about 50,000 over the next 18 to 20 years. It has a higher population now than in the proposal of the commission, and this is where all the growth and development is proposed to grow. It will likely grow faster than this area here.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Just because the commissioners will be looking at our report, you basically said it will be growing mostly to the west of 200th Street, which is in the Langley—Cloverdale riding and not in the Fort Langley—Aldergrove riding.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Correct. This street here is 208th Street, and to the west of 208th Street, the Willoughby area, is the fastest growing area; it's where all the development is happening. It's much slower in this area here, the rest of Langley. So for growth you will see this proposed riding is larger than this, and so by including parts of this back into Langley, it will actually help this to stay in line with the provincial average.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Do I have time for one more question?
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
The one thing I have to ask is this. Willoughby you described as having a single community of interest based on the fact that it has a Korean Canadian population. You expressed a preference for putting it in the Fort Langley—Aldergrove riding as opposed to the Langley—Cloverdale riding. In the event that someone were to try splitting that community and putting part of it in one riding and part of it in the other, would that be worse than having it all in one riding or the other? Do you see why I'm saying that? It helps resolve the numbers question to some degree.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
There is an annual international festival where a cultural diversity celebration happens at the event centre. It's Korean, Ukrainian, Chinese, Mexican. It's a wonderful festival that's actually being funded by grants from the federal government. So to have it now taken out of the community and put in another federal community would have a negative impact, so we're asking that it all be put back to where it came from.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you. I was going to suggest that sounds like my kind of cultural festival.
Madam Turmel.
NDP
Nycole Turmel NDP Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you. I will be speaking in French.
I have a question that follows up on what Mr. Reid was saying. I want to be sure that I understood his breakdown. One would drop to 87,000, and the other would increase to 115,000.
When you spoke about an increase of 30,000 to 50,000, does that apply to the 115,000 or to the 87,000?
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
It would increase. Cloverdale and hopefully west Langley would reduce from 108,500 to 88,000. But that is the area that has a substantially higher growth rate. Langley—Aldergrove, increasing from 94,000 to 115,000, actually increases it in the slower growth area.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
One thing that popped into my mind is we talked about the domino effect a lot. We've talked about Cloverdale dropping down under your proposal to 88,000. Elections Canada has been helping us with getting the numbers exactly right. My concern is that actually what we'll then be asking the commission to do for this now small riding of 88,000, especially in such a high concentration of population, is to seek to pull population up from South Surrey—White Rock— Cloverdale.
I wonder if we could expand the new map to a larger scale so we can see all the ridings.
Do you see the domino that I'm concerned about? They'll say, “Fine, if this committee wants to make Cloverdale—Langley smaller, we're going to go into Surrey—White Rock, into Fleetwood—Port Kells, and we're going to start pulling neighbourhoods and polls out of there.” Do you see how it might weaken your proposal? That domino effect is almost certain to happen if the committee follows through on this.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
The whole area here in Langley and in Surrey is the very fast-growing area. The cultural community in here is very different from in here.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I appreciate that. The fast-growing nature has been something which the boundaries commissions, generally depending on the provinces, haven't made a big deal out of. They haven't counted on fast population growth. So you can talk to Brian Jean about that, where it's obvious and real and it still didn't get as much impact as you'd think.
So the commission stays with what is, is what is. Can you address that concern? If we make Cloverdale—Langley this new riding, 88,000 people, what's to stop the commission from walking around and trying to get another 10,000, 20,000 or maybe another 30,000 folks?
In some of these ridings, Surrey—White Rock, I don't know what the new numbers are going to be, but they're high. So now, in order to satisfy two things at once, they'll certainly pop up pieces of Surrey, or Fleetwood—Port Kells, or Surrey—Newton.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
That's why I was trying to avoid the domino effect. My proposal, by using municipal boundaries, would still be within that quotient variant, and it is probably one of the fastest growing areas and so it is already within the quotient and still would meet that.
The reason for the request is for the cultural community of interest reason. I think it's important that we do keep that. Also, the name changes are a very important part of my request.