Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 16th, 2013

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

They did not gerrymander. By the understanding I have of the definition of “gerrymandering”, it's no to your question.

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

Okay, do you understand that the levelling of the suggestion or accusation of—I'm sorry, what did you call it?—fixed mindset, or the suggestion of denigrating the process are very strong? We've heard a lot of testimony from a lot of MPs right across the country, of all political persuasions. We've not had those accusations made of any commissioner, much less two commissioners, one of them being a superior court judge.

Do you understand, particularly as a minister, the seriousness of making that type of accusation?

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I said no to gerrymandering.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Cullen, you're well past today.

Mr. Dion, you have five minutes, please.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Merci, monsieur le président. We'll continue with the same difficulty that Mr. Cullen mentioned.

I would like to focus on what Mr. Trost and Madam Block are proposing because it is so similar to what we hear when we have colleagues coming from other provinces, coming from any party. They came and said that they spoke among themselves and they had two or three ridings and they would like to see a change here and there, and this would be an amount of x thousand people, and at the end of the day we would see a greater balance. This is something the committee is accustomed to working with. But when we have colleagues saying the whole map should be put into the garbage and we should start from something completely different, and questioning well-known scholars—one of the best political scientists we have in Canada—on his ability to be a fair commissioner, then the committee is in difficulty, especially because we have heard different views.

You're telling us that Saskatchewan is a distinct society in Canada. That's what you're telling us, and I am accustomed to the distinct society arguments, except that many people from Saskatchewan are supporting this map and questioning the number of 75% that has been given. Mayors and councillors have different views. The association of municipalities is supporting the map. The two main newspapers, the Leader-Post and the StarPhoenix, are supporting it, so it's very difficult for me to understand why we would try to scrap the whole map instead of focusing on the specifics that some colleagues are asking for, which may make sense if we look at them very carefully.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I would just simply say that if you won't listen to me then you'll listen to Mr. Courtney, who contradicts himself in reporting from one of his very own books. On page 113, he says:An arbitrary statutory provision that mandates the creation of separate rural and urban seats or that prohibits designing hybrid rural-urban seats ignores the fact that social interests are layered in multiple ways and that only one of these is place of residence. Highways and mass transportation have made it easy for some who live in a city to work, seek recreation, or have a social life outside a city. Equally, many who live on the fringes of a city but beyond its actual municipal borders have their place of employment, are entertained, do their shopping, or are educated in the city.

He disagrees with himself and agrees with me by way of this quote, on page 113, from his 2011 book called Commissioned Ridings: Designing Canada's Electoral Districts. So I don't back away one bit from saying it is disrespectful. It maligns the process. It's not the way. You should have an open mind—I think, Mr. Dion, you would appreciate that—before you come into the process. All of us here, if you're picking up some slight difference, you're maybe overplaying it because we all oppose the proposed ridings and we'd prefer that it goes back to tweaking the boundaries as they currently exist in some fashion to get the equalization of population.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Yes, but other people in Saskatchewan disagree. To show that the commissioner had views before doesn't mean that he has a closed mind and was unable to listen.That's quite a heavy accusation of a very well-respected person of your province. I know the man, and I'm sure he has an open mind. I know him. I argue with him on many issues and I know he may change his mind if compelling arguments are given to him.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Well, they were no compelling arguments.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

There are many arguments to think that we need, in your province, urban ridings and rural ridings and mixed ridings, because I understand that at the end of the day this is what we'll have. We'll have six primarily rural ridings, five urban ridings—three in Saskatoon and two in Regina—and three rural-urban blends: Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, Prince Albert, and Regina—Qu'Appelle.

Do you agree with that?

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I think some of those you were counting as rural ridings actually have small cities within the various parts of them—

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Yes, it's primarily rural.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Percentage-wise they are not primarily rural. They're actually blended urban-rural even at that, so we probably have no ridings. Possibly Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River is a purely rural riding. The others have some small cities within.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Then is it so odd to have five ridings in your province that will be only urban, when all of the cities we know that are of the same size in Canada have only urban ridings? You have the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association supporting it. You have differences between SUMA and SARM. You have the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association and the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. Isn't it fair to say that in your province you have health regions, enterprise regions, and school boards that are divided along urban and rural lines?

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

No.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

None of them are divided on urban-rural lines?

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

The city of Saskatoon takes in rural as well and those particular health regions, which I served on myself, so I know that quite well. Actually, the greater city planning district is also now sectored or divided, if you will, and some of the greater Saskatoon planning district is cut off from the city of Saskatoon.

I live on an acreage on the edge of the city, and it's part of the greater Saskatoon planning district. It's now cut off from the city of Saskatoon, so I'm not sure if they didn't know of those maps or weren't aware of them, but they did not layer them into their equations here at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Dion.

We'll go to Mr. Armstrong for five minutes.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, witnesses, for your presentations.

I'm going to focus on the boundary between Saskatoon West and Saskatoon—University. This follows on what Mr. Trost said and I think it was supported by Mrs. Block specifically.

In the southern change that you're looking to do around the downtown Saskatoon area, you're moving a geographic area from Saskatoon West into Saskatoon—University. Can you describe the transportation challenges there? I see there's a river in that area, is there not? Does that impact upon your proposal?

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

That's part of the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

[Technical difficulty--Editor]

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

If Mrs. Block wants to answer, I have a feeling I'll be answering twice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's what I thought.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

That comes to the core of the proposal. The city of Saskatoon is naturally divided by the river. The areas that are connected in Saskatoon are the areas where you have transportation links, i.e., bridges. In the north part of Saskatoon, you don't have any bridges. They're planning for 2016 and eventually for 2020, but there's nothing there. There's no community back and forth.

When I sat down and talked with Mrs. Block about how we would make this work and what naturally fits, the downtown corridor is the one area where there is back and forth. You have a considerable number of university students who live in that triangle who walk across to the university on the other side of the river. You have bridges that you can walk or you can drive all in that area. That's the one portion of the city—as was referenced in Mrs. Block's testimony talking about municipal wards—where there's been historic back and forth, the original core of the neighbourhoods of Nutana and Saskatoon. That's why we suggested that be moved into Saskatoon—University, because that is a community of interest.

If you look at where we put the red lines, the sharp lines there, that's a commercial district where no one lives. You end up having a portion of several blocks before you start to get into population again. You have malls and office towers, and you no longer have a population there, and you have a very sharp economic divide on the other side of the red line. That's why that little red triangle naturally fits in moving back into Saskatoon—University. That's why, in the original proposal, I think the commissioners put it in.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

In that triangle, about how many people—

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Can I check with Mrs. Block to see if she wants to say something?