Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 26th, 2013

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Okay. So I understand you to say he's not well respected. Thank you very much.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I never said that.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Goodale, do you have anything to add?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

The time is up.

Go ahead, Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

It would be nice if, for future reference on future witnesses, Mr. Scott would not put words into the mouths of witnesses who weren't actually there. He has a mania for precision, and we should have the same respect from him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'm sure you're not on a point of order, but the chair will ask all of you to do exactly that, so that witnesses are able to answer questions on their own without you telling them what their answer might be.

I have Mr. Menegakis next.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our colleagues for appearing before us today.

It certainly is a unique situation: a province with 1,033,000 people and growing; 14 ridings; 75% of the presenters felt differently from what the commission ultimately came up with; and 13 out of the 14 MPs representing Saskatchewan are in agreement with the 75% of the presenters. It's not the first time, obviously, that this issue has come up, this urban-rural riding.

Minister, I'd like to start with you, because of your 16 years of involvement in the political process at the federal level. Is this something that's come up in the past? Was this discussed in the last redistribution process? Can you give us a little of your feedback on that?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

There has not been a redistribution to this extent, sir. As StatsCan does its census, there are always changes made to riding boundaries in a given province. This time around, it's a little different because we're adding some 30 seats across Canada. So there's a different factor in Alberta, with larger cities there: Calgary with roughly one million, and Edmonton with roughly 600,000. So there are distinctly urban seats in that regard.

As Mr. Komarnicki was talking about the breakdown of Regina and the potential growth and so on...we see the hybrid model we have now working extremely well. As I said in my opening remarks, in 16 years I've never heard a complaint from anyone saying they're not being represented properly because they're urban or rural. We just don't hear that.

A good cross-section of knowledge on issues is certainly something that we accept here as we work through issues in the House of Commons and as we vote on issues.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

With all due respect to the credentials of the three members of the commission in Saskatchewan, I find the comment on Skype to be way out there. Skype implies that every house in Saskatchewan has a computer, that every resident in those houses, every constituent, has the ability to use that computer and communicate with it and has the skill set to do so, and that the bandwidth is there for easy communications back and forth.

I'd like to direct my question to you, Mr. Anderson. You may have touched on this before. How easy would it be in such a vast rural area for people to communicate with you, as their member of Parliament, using Skype?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Well, it's basically impossible. First, we don't have the resources across the entire riding. Second, I don't have the staffing ability to handle that if the majority of our contact with people is going to be through Skype or whatever. It's impossible for us to deal with that with the kinds of budgets and staffing we've got. It's not realistic.

It may be used on some special occasions or whatever, but beyond that, people want to see us. They want to meet with us. Even looking at the size of the riding I've got there, I'm sure whoever's going to be in that riding is going to have to have two offices next time.

We've been able to manage with one, although the river goes through two-thirds of the way to the north there, and the northern folks have felt like they need better service as well. So whoever's there will need an office in Kindersley, I'm sure, and one in Swift Current in order to serve that community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You still have one minute and 30 seconds left.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Good.

Mr. Komarnicki, one of the points Mr. Marit made in his dissenting report is this:

There were many letters and public submissions from people concerned about being removed from their normal trading patterns or from their “community of interest”. The mayor of the city of Humboldt, about an hour away from the city of Saskatoon, was very concerned that Humboldt was no longer part of a Saskatoon riding since it maintains a connection to that city.

Can you comment on that, please?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Well, certainly when you look at the community of interest, I would say ask any mayor within my riding whether they want my riding to expand to be what in effect is taking Mr. Goodale's riding of Wascana into my riding. In fact, if you think about it, I get off the airplane in Regina and drive two hours to Estevan, only to drive two hours back to get into Wascana, and here is the community of Regina. It doesn't make sense.

When you look at Regina, it's sort of like a doughnut. If you took 50 or 100 kilometres around Regina, it would make sense for those to be there and have a bit of a mix of urban-rural, because that's where they trade and that's how the economy goes. In fact, when you look at the 1965 decision, they said something that would be a Saskatchewan compromise. They said what we did is held.... In the cities of Regina and Saskatoon...a majority of the population of the riding was urban and a lesser number were rural, to account for that. Therefore, they said that balance truly represents Saskatchewan and the community of interest, and it actually does. That's exactly the point.

Then when we look at the effect of changing from urban-rural to urban only, it by necessity drives the rural constituency larger, when you don't need to do that. In my case, it is remarkable that I'd have to make that extra trip and get an extra area near Regina when Mr. Goodale could service it so very easily.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you. That finishes our second round, and I really don't see time for a third round.

We'll thank our witnesses very much for coming today and for sharing their information with us.

We'll suspend for a moment while we change our panels.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Let's get going. We have one more panel to do today and also some committee business.

Most of you were present during the last panel, so you see what we're doing. There are five minutes each on presentation, and then we'll ask questions. We'll try to get a couple of rounds' worth of questions in.

Mr. Hoback, would you like to go first today?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair and fellow colleagues.

As a member of Parliament who represents the federal riding of Prince Albert in the House of Commons, to say that I was surprised that two of the three members of the Saskatchewan electoral boundaries commission would decide not to incorporate the blended rural-urban model of Saskatchewan communities into its report is an understatement.

Both the Saskatchewan electoral boundaries commissions of 2004 and 1994 agreed that the electoral ridings consisting of a blended rural-urban makeup centred around the province's urban centres best reflected the nature of Saskatchewan's communities. Yet surprisingly, two of three members of the current Saskatchewan electoral boundaries commission decided, in their report, that the rural-urban blend does work very well for those who reside in the riding of Prince Albert but does not work well within the greater Saskatoon or greater Regina areas.

My community, both urban and rural, has been and still possesses the city of Prince Albert as its hub. While the small urban and rural communities of Shellbrook, Melfort, Nipawin, and Tisdale possess their own unique traits and attractions, the centre of trade, commerce, health provision, sports, and entertainment will still remain in the city of Prince Albert. The city remains the hub of our community, as Saskatoon still remains the hub for smaller communities of Humboldt, Rosetown, Biggar, and Warman, and as Regina still remains the hub of the smaller communities of Moose Jaw, the Qu'Appelle Valley, and Lumsden.

Those in favour of the Saskatchewan boundary changes may argue that members of Parliament have the option of opening satellite constituency offices throughout their riding to better serve their constituents. This, I believe, is not in sync with the ongoing budgetary constraints that we as MPs have placed upon ourselves.

Others in support of the Saskatchewan boundary changes point to the fact that the wireless information age has made personal meetings with members of Parliament obsolete, as a webcam meeting is as effective as one face to face. This type of thinking is discriminatory towards Saskatchewan's large senior population, which still employs traditional methods and modes of communication.

Further, much of rural Saskatchewan still only receives the Internet via dial-up modem, which cannot facilitate the data transmission speed necessary for video conferencing.

One can therefore only conclude that the electoral boundary commission member, David Marit, was correct to conclude in his dissenting report to the commission that moving away from a blended rural-urban model of electoral representation in Saskatchewan is a mistake. To quote Mr. Marit:

Close to 75% of the letters and public submissions the commission received were opposed to the proposed boundary changes. The number of replies that the commission heard and read, to my understanding, was the highest in Canada per capita. That is a very powerful argument for leaving the electoral boundaries, as close as the commission can, in their current form in Saskatchewan.

While I will not comment on the specific changes that I believe are necessary to make other Saskatchewan electoral ridings more representative in nature, I have found two small oversights in the commission's report, which are related to the ability of the constituency services to be provided for two areas located just outside of my riding's proposed boundaries.

As indicated in the map I have attached in the prepared brief, population centres located in area 1 and area 2, as illustrated in map number 1—which I believe you have in your possession—should be incorporated into the riding of Prince Albert. The communities of Batoche, Domremy, and Saint Louis, along with their surrounding villages and farms, as illustrated in map 2, as well as the communities of Saint Brieux and Naicam, along with their surrounding villages and farms, as illustrated in map 3, are all considered part of the greater Prince Albert area.

My riding is where the residents of these communities work and shop. It is where they receive their health provisions; it is where they travel for entertainment, sports, and leisure. Dividing them electorally outside the Prince Albert riding simply does not make sense. Placing these communities into separate electoral ridings also lessens the ability of their residents to receive proper constituency service.

As illustrated in map 2, the distance residents must travel to receive constituency service at the member of Parliament's office in the new riding of Humboldt—Warman—Martensville—Rosetown is far greater than the distance such residents would drive to receive the same service in the city of Prince Albert.

With the commission's proposed boundaries, residents in the village of Saint Louis, for example, will now have to drive an hour and a half, 128 kilometres, to the town of Humboldt to meet with their member of Parliament, yet the drive from Saint Louis to the city of Prince Albert, where my primary constituency office is, is only 33 kilometres. The drive takes only 27 minutes.

With reference to map 3, the situation is in fact worse, as residents in these communities cannot drive directly to their MP's office of Yorkton for three or four seasons of the year due to the nature of the roads, as the rural municipal roads, which residents must travel, are only safe and driveable during the summer months.

Under the commission's boundary proposal, the residents in the village of Saint Brieux will now have to drive 35 minutes north to the city of Melfort, in my constituency, change highways, and then turn around and drive south a staggering 295 kilometres, or three hours, to reach the member of Parliament's office in the city of Yorkton.

Option B means driving 55.5 kilometres or an hour and 19 minutes south to Muenster, within the new riding of Humboldt—Warman—Martensville—Rosetown, changing highways and driving southeast 228 kilometres, two hours and 31 minutes, back to Yorkton—Melville riding to reach the member of Parliament's office.

I already provide constituency services in the city of Melfort on the first Wednesday of every month for the residents of the city and the surrounding communities. As you can see, Saskatchewan isn't like Toronto, where population is the concern. In Saskatchewan, distance is the concern. How many kilometres should a constituent have to drive to meet with their member of Parliament, and what is a reasonable size of territory an MP can effectively represent on behalf of his or her constituents?

These changes proposed by the commission in effect create two kinds of MPs for Saskatchewan. One kind of MP, outside of Saskatoon and Regina, represents a vast amount of territory, incurs great travel expenses, has less face time with their constituents, and has to balance competing demands from municipal and provincial MLAs. The other kind of MP, located within the city of Saskatoon, has to deal with only one mayor or one council.

I therefore recommend that both committees of the commission take all these considerations into account and redraw the Prince Albert riding boundary to incorporate these communities in order to ensure that these residents receive constituency services without having to travel exorbitant distances to receive them. I believe moving the Prince Albert boundary line to include the rural municipality of St. Louis, number 431, and to include the northern two-thirds of the rural municipality of Lake Lenore—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

—will address the oversight in this commission.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Your chair nodded off a little there—not that what you were saying wasn't important. I went way over. I'm going to have to give the same extra time, if needed, to the others in as nice a way as possible. Don't take it.

Mr. Clarke, for five minutes.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't mind sharing my time with my colleague.

I'm a little bit under the weather, so hopefully my voice will be able to be heard well.

Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to present to this committee on the Saskatchewan redistribution report. I'd like to let you know why I oppose the final report and why these changes go against the best interests of my constituents and mayors who are affected.

Taking population, geography, and communities of interest into account, the commission attempted to rejig the boundaries. David Marit, one of the commissioners, as well as the mayors of the affected areas believe the Saskatchewan boundary commission missed the mark. So before I explain the objections.... One-third of the commission and the vast majority of the public object to the proposed changes of the report.

I will begin by pointing out that Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River is almost two-thirds of the land mass of the province of Saskatchewan. In a riding with enormous travel challenges for any MP and the constituents, this plan has further disadvantaged some of the constituents by decreasing their access to representation. If you'll notice on the map I submitted, part of the riding in the southeast corner includes the towns of Shoal Lake, Red Earth, and Cumberland House. Because of the changes of the riding, I would have to travel through other ridings to reach these constituents. In addition, as a former councillor has pointed out to me, a company such as Cameco cannot access the northern development moneys for this area since it is not considered to be far enough north. These reserves and towns are not included in northern development planning. This just comes down to northern development. In fact, these have greater proximity and affinity with either Nipawin or Yorkton or Melville.

Not only has the final report diminished voter access, it has also left my riding well below the population criterion. My riding has an 11% deficit compared to Prince Albert. The proposed maps have the towns of Choiceland, Love, Smeaton, and White Fox removed from the riding and transferred to Prince Albert with no exchange—I have to point out—of population being made.

Here are the population facts. The combined population of Choiceland, Love, Smeaton, and White Fox is 991 people. The riding population criterion is 73,813. In Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, under the new boundaries, the population now would be at 69,471, or 5.9% under the population criterion.

With the retention of the four towns of Choiceland, Smeaton, White Fox, and Love, the population would be at 70,462, or 95.5% of the population criterion—a small improvement in numbers, the 4.5%, under the population criterion.

What makes the least sense for the people of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River is for their member of Parliament, or any other member who has to travel through the riding, having to access northern remote highways. By “remote” I mean roads that are either covered in snow and/or mud or are inaccessible during other times of the year.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to testify here today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Clarke.

Mr. Breitkreuz.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I really appreciate the opportunity to discuss with this committee my objections to the 2012 report of the federal electoral boundary commission for the province of Saskatchewan, particularly as it relates to my federal constituency of Yorkton—Melville. I represent a riding with a geographical area of 38,000 square kilometres and a population of about 67,000 people, approximately 51,000 of whom are eligible voters. The largest municipality in Yorkton—Melville, the city of Yorkton, is the third-largest shopping and service area in Saskatchewan, serving some 200,000 people living in east central Saskatchewan and western Manitoba.

Agriculture is the driving force in Saskatchewan's economy, and it is the economic backbone of my constituency. In 2011, real GDP in Saskatchewan's agriculture sector grew by 8.7%. This contributed to making Saskatchewan's economic growth the fastest in almost 15 years, according to the 2012 Statistics Canada report.

Yorkton—Melville is a good example of how the current hub-and-spoke system benefits both urban and rural communities. For example, the city of Yorkton serves as a hub for an otherwise largely rural agricultural region. It's a system based on interdependency and cooperation, a quality of life intertwined with the values and sensibilities of our rural regions, our cities, and our three levels of government. It has worked very well for decades. As an MP, I value the interdependency of those who work and live in the country in small communities and those who live and work in our cities. Our cities are closely connected to the surrounding rural areas and agricultural interests. We need each other, and we need to understand and advocate for what matters to all of us as a whole. That's my key point: creating distinctly urban and rural ridings in this province will undoubtedly diminish the strong voice that our agricultural sector currently enjoys. Creating 30 new seats in the House of Commons, most of which are urban, will further erode that voice.

When the head of an organization like the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities strongly disagrees with these proposed electoral boundary changes and a commission member publishes a dissenting report, I take notice. I had not heard of that previously happening in any commission.

Are you aware that nearly 75% of the public submissions and letters the commission received opposed the proposed boundary changes? I'm sure you have because I've heard it previously. That alone is a powerful reason to leave the electoral boundaries in their current form. But there's more. The changes proposed by the commission would have to be reversed in another decade to compensate for future variances from the population quota that would affect their representation and geographic size. In other words, Saskatchewan would end up going back to blended rural-urban constituencies.

I have a letter from Yorkton's mayor and council. All see the benefit of continuing the current hub-and-spoke model of rural and urban communities working together. They live it every day.

In conclusion, I ask the committee to respect the proposals outlined in the Saskatchewan commission's report. The urban-rural split of the electoral boundaries as proposed by the commission will negatively affect our agricultural voice. As Saskatchewan's economy continues to strengthen and our population continues to grow, I believe we should look at an increased move toward blended rural and urban constituencies. In Yorkton—Melville, both urban and rural communities work well together, as they do elsewhere in the province. The hub-and-spoke system continues to be an effective electoral model in our province, one that we should keep. As the old adage goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Mr. Chair, may I distribute the letter from Yorkton's mayor and council? I have it before me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It's your evidence, sir. There may be a translation issue.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

No, I have it in both languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Then by all means do so.