Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm proud to be here today representing the good folks of Cypress Hills—Grasslands, which is a huge rural area with a low population. We've got about 40,000 square miles of territory in our area, with approximately just fewer than 70,000 people, and I have one city in my riding.
I had the realization that my riding was going to expand a bit, and it has a bit of expansion up in the northwest corner. You can see on the map that there's a line in the northwest. I'm fine with that. I understand the necessity to try to deal with the equality of population; something needed to happen along those lines. I think Mr. Ritz and I have agreed that this is an acceptable way to do that. Actually, I made these suggestions in front of the commission, so in terms of the micro part of the equation here today, I would support what's happening in my riding.
But I have a bigger concern, and that is at the macro level, at the provincial level. We are moving from what is commonly known as a hub-and-spoke system, a combination of rural and urban ridings, to a system that has some strictly urban ridings and then the other ridings would be a mix of rural and urban. I think I've got less of a vested interest, actually, in the changes that are taking place kind of generally around the cities than many of the other MPs, because they don't affect me directly, except in terms of how I see representation being affected over the next few years if the changes go ahead. I want to talk to that for a few minutes.
There is no compelling reason for change. We've had 45 years of a system in place that's worked well. It's been fine-tuned. Actually, I would suggest it's unlikely that anyone could come up with a worse suggestion than what we have right now in terms of the proposal. One of the commissioners said at one point in his comments that we can't have two losers; you have to have a winner and a loser. I would suggest here that we actually do have two losers: both urban and rural lose in this.
I'll go through some of the reasons. One, I believe the proposed changes negatively impact representation in all areas, both urban and rural. History has shown that all three parties actually have done well under this system in the past at various times; there's been strength from all three parties. Right now, obviously, our party has political strength in the province. One of the reasons I think it's worked well is that MPs have had to understand both rural and urban issues in each of the areas and the constituencies they represented. They've been able to represent those issues as a group. I think this has worked particularly well for us over the last few years.
Our economy is still primarily rural based. When you look at the drivers to the economy, it's things like agriculture, mining, oil and gas. Those are rural based; that's where the operations take place, but typically they are managed from the cities. So there is a strong connection, and there continues to be that strong connection, between rural and urban in so many ways. It's frustrating to see a change that would actually enlarge rural ridings. As you bring the focus into just urban ridings, the populations are denser there and it obliges larger rural ridings, but then it reduces representation in the city as well.
The question I really have is this. Why are we doing this deliberately? Why are we creating this divide?
The impact of the present proposal expands rural ridings and creates some very bizarre communities of interest. If you look at Saskatoon, acreage is being tied into the Regina global transportation hub, and it makes no sense at all. It has broken up the Moose Jaw-Regina development corridor there. It does not make good sense, and it reduces city representation from four to three in both major cities.
These changes that are proposed were opposed by 75% at the presentations, and that included members of the urban municipality organizations, which had not been consulted prior to SUMA announcing its position on this. The mayors of Saskatoon and Regina presently have come out against it, and former mayors oppose it. The mayor of Swift Current, in my riding, has opposed it. We have former city councillors who oppose it. The Regina chamber of commerce came out against it, and we have numerous RMs, rural municipalities, that have opposed this.
I'd like to address why I think this has perhaps happened. I think there's been a misunderstanding about the role of MPs by commissioners. There's a failure to understand Saskatchewan communities of interest and what they really represent, and I actually think the commissioners got bad advice from a small group of people early in the process who have presented themselves as experts in this. I'd certainly love to address this a little bit later, and some of the misconceptions they have about Saskatchewan.
It's unfortunate that two members of the commission seem to have embraced the proposal and skilfully ignored the vast number of presentations. Mr. Marit's dissenting report is insightful. It's unprecedented. It's important that we look at that. We will likely be changing back, I would suggest, to the type of system we've had in the past, perhaps 10 years from now.
Hopefully, Mr. Chair, the commission can give Saskatchewan voters their voices back.
We look forward to your report.