Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 18th, 2013

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

If my son were here, he could probably do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

He'd be disappointed that you don't have wireless to use.

[Stéphan Aubé, Chief Information Officer, House of Commons]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The plan this year is to start introducing some wireless functionality in some of the areas on the Hill. We're planning a pilot project for later in the fall. We're looking at using La Promenade as the first step, to minimize some of the risk and test some of the committee areas.

We're also looking at some specific areas within this building. Having said that, it's a partnership that we're moving forward on with Public Works. Public Works, as part of the long-term renovation projects, is investing in our facilities and we're using that program to introduce some of these changes this year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

Madam O'Brien and Speaker Scheer, I honestly miss over the years that we didn't spend a great deal of time when we were looking at estimates...we used to spend most of the meeting talking about the restaurant. We no longer do that. I just wanted to point that out.

Thank you all for coming and sharing your great information with us today. It's always fun to have you.

We'll suspend for a couple of minutes while we move witnesses in and out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We will bring the meeting to order. We are now here talking about riding redistribution in the province of Quebec. We have three members with us today. You each have five minutes to make an opening statement.

Minister Bernier, would you like to go first?

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm very pleased to be with you today.

I want to thank the committee for agreeing to listen to me.

The reason for my objection is very simple. From the outset, however, I would like to say that the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Quebec has done a very good job with regard to Beauce. We went to plead our case in Lévis and to say that we wanted to keep the electoral district of Beauce intact. At the time, they wanted to take eight municipalities from us. The commission very clearly understood the matter and made sure in its report to keep those eight municipalities in the riding of Beauce.

I am here today on behalf of two municipalities that were removed from Beauce following the report: Saint-Robert-Bellarmin and Saint-Ludger. We want those municipalities to be included in the electoral district of Beauce since the central town linking those two towns is Saint-Georges.

These municipalities never had the opportunity to be heard since they were not affected by the commission's proposal in the first version of its report. They issued resolutions when the second version of the Beauce electoral map was made public. They decided that they wanted to remain part of Beauce despite the fact that they are situated in the RCM of Le Granit.

It is important to note that the commission wanted to include those municipalities in my colleague Christian Paradis's riding because they were attached to the same RCM at the provincial level. It should be noted, however, that, historically, the two municipalities have always been considered as part of Beauce and have always negotiated with the Government of Quebec to be part of the RCM of Beauce-Sartigan, which is part of Beauce.

After the latest changes were proposed, the mayors of those two municipalities sent me their resolutions, reaffirming their sense of belonging to Beauce. These people are Beaucerons and proud to be so.

Moreover, the municipality of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon, which is included in Beauce in the latest report, has expressed the wish to be included in Lévis—Lotbinière. The mayor, with whom I spoke last week, sent me a resolution that he had had passed last August stating that the municipality of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon would like to be included in Lévis—Lotbinière and that its residents were very pleased with the service MP Jacques Gourde was giving them. I hope they will be able to continue their productive relationship with their very good member, Jacques Gourde.

That said, I spoke with the two members concerned. First I spoke with Mr. Gourde about the wish of the municipality of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon to be included in the electoral district of Lévis—Lotbinière. I also spoke with MP Christian Paradis about the wish of the municipalities of Saint-Ludger and Saint-Robert-Bellarmin to be included in the electoral district of Beauce. Neither colleague is opposed to those proposals. They are entirely in favour of them.

It must be understood that Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon is a small municipality, which has ties to the central city of Lévis, not to the town of Sainte-Marie. For example, the people of Sainte-Marie and the surrounding municipalities joined forces to create a health coop. Although the municipality of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon is in the same RCM, La Nouvelle-Beauce, it did not take part in the project because the people of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon use the hospital in Lévis. Their ties are therefore with Lévis.

Of course, these changes will have a number of demographic implications. I told you about those consequences. Beauce would lose 4,547 residents, for a total of 107,967. Lévis—Lotbinière would gain 6,545 residents, for a total of 107,870. Note that the commission's target population was 101,322. So these figures are within the 10% variance. Lastly, the electoral district of Mégantic—L'Érable, Christian Paradis's riding, would lose 1,907 residents.

My objection to the proposal is not recent, since they wanted to keep the electoral district of Beauce intact at the time. I am here today to ask that these two municipalities be returned to the riding of Beauce and that the municipality of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon return to Lévis—Lotbinière.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me. I am prepared to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We will get to questions from members right after we hear from the other two members.

Minister Blaney, you are next.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, honourable colleagues, for allowing me to submit to you today a very clear request that the initial decision of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission be respected and that Les Etchemins remain part of the electoral district of Lévis—Bellechasse.

At 2:30 this morning, the citizens of Les Etchemins rose, boarded a bus and travelled six hours in order to be here. They have come to tell you that the Etchemins region wants to remain a part of the electoral district of Lévis—Bellechasse.

I am here today with Hector Provençal, warden of the RCM of Les Etchemins, and with four mayors: Suzanne Guenette, mayor of Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague, Marielle Lemieux, mayor of Saint-Magloire, Harold Gagnon, mayor of Les Etchemins, and Denis Beaulieu, mayor of Sainte-Justine.

The stakeholders of Les Etchemins unanimously request that the boundaries that have been in place since 1867 be respected. I have in my hand a petition bearing more than 1,400 names that was signed in record time, a few weeks, after the change was proposed. The commission wanted to respect that wish last fall.

There are 84 citizens of Lévis here, 200 from Bellechasse and several individuals from each of the municipalities of Les Etchemins. We have Sylvain Talbot, who is a councillor in Armagh, Josie Vermette, from Saint-Gervais, in Bellechasse, and Frédéric Aubin, from Saint-Lazare in Bellechasse, who says he thinks it is important that Bellechasse and Les Etchemins be reunited. Why? Because many institutions and organizations, such as the SADC of Bellechasse-Etchemins, are common entities.

I have in my hand a letter signed separately by 67 businesses from Bellechasse and Les Etchemins. For example, we have François Genest, president of SADC of Bellechasse, Ms. Royer, from the Carrefour jeunesse-emploi organization, and Mélanie Giguère, from Groupe Action Tandem. There are also the people from the Manoir Lac Etchemin, some of whom you no doubt know, Mr. Jacques and Mr. Provençal. from Précisions Provençal in Sainte-Rose, and Mario Provençal, "Super Mario".

If you buy waffles or molasses cakes at Le Jardin Mobile stores, you know they come from Sainte-Rose. Mario says he works with the SADC, with the people of Bellechasse and Les Etchemins. We have a common community radio station and chamber of commerce and three main roads, highways 277, 279 and 281. You have to go through Bellechasse to get to Les Etchemins. The two places are closely interlinked.

People sometimes wonder whether Saint-Léon is part of Les Etchemins or Bellechasse. The same is true of Saint-Magloire and Saint-Philémon. These communities are very close to each other and are in the same situation. The RCM of Les Etchemins has major attractions but also faces significant challenges. To do so, we believe these communities must remain part of a coherent geographic whole.

I am also very proud to have the support not only of the citizens of Lévis, Bellechasse and Les Etchemins, but also of my colleague Maxime Bernier, who was the first person who signed my notice form so that I could appear before you, and of Mr. Lapointe, who clearly said it was logical for Les Etchemins to remain in the electoral district of Lévis—Bellechasse. I want to thank Mr. Lapointe for those remarks. This is an important fact. The district is already very large, and this area in fact represents one-third of it.

Mr. Chair, I want to mention that my colleague Jacques Gourde has also supported my efforts. The parliamentarians from the Chaudières-Appalaches area as a whole support our efforts to ensure that the electoral district remains of a reasonable size. The variances are still entirely comparable. My colleague Mr. Lapointe's riding is very big and there are a lot of municipalities to cover. There, too, the variances are still comparable to those observed in the Bas-du-Fleuve region.

In closing, I ask you to abide by the commission's initial decision based on the community of interest. It is supported by the Etchemins community as a whole.

I must tell you that it is not awkward to be here today with the people from Les Etchemins who are present. Our representatives from the local press are here as well. I remind you that the people of Bellechasse and Les Etchemins have always been bound together since 1867.

I invite you to ensure that trend continues. We have a big country, but we take into account specific regional characteristics. Les Etchemins and Bellechasse are made to be together.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Minister.

Monsieur Lapointe, for five minutes.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This will be the first time I have spoken about Les Etchemins, but that is not because we were not interested in the west side of the riding. In the first version that was presented, a number of municipalities were added to the eastern portion of the electoral district of Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup. That was in Témiscouata, not on the other side. That is why I did not run in Lévis at the time, but rather in Rivière-du-Loup to solve another problem that was going on elsewhere in the region.

I would also like to thank the commission. It divided Témiscouata right down the middle, but it was sensitive to our arguments, and one change was made that suited everyone. I would also like to emphasize that we appreciate the sensitivity the commission showed with regard to our regional realities.

I would briefly like to talk about two points: the second version of the redistribution and the name. That is the second name suggested for a possible change to the name of the electoral district of Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.

This morning, we are defending a consensus view that the municipality of Les Etchemins should remain in Bellechasse. I believe we have the same copies as Mr. Blaney. We have received a lot of resolutions from municipalities and RCMs, all saying the same thing. In addition, the document from the provincial member, Ms. Vien, essentially tells the commission that the RCM of Bellechasse is intimately linked to the RCM of Les Etchemins through its economy, culture, institutions and lines of communication.

That is virtually word for word what appears in all the resolutions that were sent to us from across the region. I have no resolutions from Montmagny, our closest neighbour, but I consulted everyone at the office of the warden, including the warden himself. They are in favour of maintaining the connection between Les Etchemins and Bellechasse. They will publicly support the decision if it ever goes that way.

I think that the major argument is that there is this regional consensus on everything that might be called the eastern portion of Chaudière-Appalaches. Everyone is in agreement, but I will nevertheless take the liberty of citing a few arguments.

Do I still have two minutes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes, you do.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

All right.

I would like to emphasize briefly that, if we were to add a large part of Les Etchemins to my riding, it would contain 67 municipalities. A lot of elected members around the table know that the mayors start telephoning the day after a federal program is announced. In my riding, sometimes 33, 34 or 35 mayors phone the same day, and unfortunately no kind of budget is allocated to me so that I can hire someone else to ensure the quality of services rendered to the mayors. We work very hard, but if we have 170 municipalities in a large electoral district in eastern Quebec, services will ultimately suffer. I also think that what is being requested today would help strike a balance. My riding would still have 58 municipalities, and I believe there would be some 30 in Mr. Blaney's. We would not find ourselves in a situation in which we would have to respond to nearly 70 mayors the day after a federal program was announced.

We are going to talk about the name of the riding in the short period of time I have left. The first name suggested was Bernier, in honour of Captain Bernier, who is one of the great discoverers of the north. There was no consensus in my—

[A voice]

No?

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I do not even know whether he was related to my colleague, but it was not to be named for Mr. Bernier who is here today, but for Captain Bernier, who came from L'Islet. And there was a little support for the proposal there, but none elsewhere in the constituency.

In the second version, the commission suggested Montmagny—Rivière-du-Loup. Kamouraska, whose name has just been dropped at the provincial level, had the impression it was being erased from the map. They reacted very strongly to the proposal, and rightly so. We have just received the resolutions and debate was quite animated. Potential solutions were suggested, but the consensus that emerged in the four RCMs, based on the commission's regulations, is that the name should be kept if the boundaries are maintained. So there is a consensus that the name Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup should be retained. We are asking you, please, not to erase our two beautiful RCMs in central Quebec, L'Islet and Kamouraska. The name is long, but we can function with it. Moreover, the Chair can say it without even looking at his paper. I believe we have some experience and we can keep that name. There is also a consensus across the riding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you. We'll have questions from members.

Mr. Lukiwski, your first five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, and thank you all for appearing here. I apologize, I will be asking you my questions in English

since I do not speak French.

One of the things that I think is important for all of you to know—I hope you know that now—is that this committee cannot change any final recommendations made by your boundaries commission in Quebec. They have the final authority to set the boundaries after hearing testimony from interested individuals, communities, members of Parliament, and the like.

What we are to do here is to draft a report based on the accurate assessment of testimony we hear from witnesses like yourself. So with the help of primarily Monsieur Dion, we have established a series of questions that we will ask all members of Parliament who appear before the committee to try to get an accurate reflection if your recommendations are supported by others.

Monsieur Blaney, I notice with great interest the support from your riding that you brought with you to Ottawa today. I must applaud you. That's the first time we've had this before our committee, where a member has brought in a number of their own constituents to support their point of view, so I must congratulate you for doing that.

The question I would have, and it's indicated in Monsieur Bernier's presentation, but just so that I am clear, are you all stating that this is the first time the commission would have heard your objections because after the first draft of the map, you didn't realize they were planning to make the change that you saw in the second draft? In other words, is this the first and perhaps only opportunity that you all, as members of Parliament and members from your individual ridings, have had to communicate your displeasure or objections to the commission? Is that correct?

I'll start with you, Monsieur Bernier.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski.

The people of Beauce have argued that this region should remain intact and that it should not be touched.

In the paragraph entitled "History and Belonging" on page 10 of the 2012 Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the province of Quebec, the commission itself writes: "For example, we witnessed some heartfelt expressions by citizens convinced of the inviolable nature of their identity." The commission states that it also heard the cry: "'Beaucerons we were born, Beaucerons we shall die!' Expressed elsewhere with greater restraint—"

There appears to be a very significant sense of belonging, as a result of which the commission partly considered our request that we be given back the eight municipalities that it took away from us in its first report.

The commission retained those eight municipalities in its second report. However, there was never any question that the two municipalities in southern Beauce would disappear from the electoral district of Beauce. Consequently, my argument today is the same as the one I advanced before the commission. I asked it to keep the electoral district of Beauce intact and to add those two municipalities.

The commission of course based its work on the RCMs. It thought that the two municipalities in southern Beauce, Saint-Robert and Saint-Ludger, would be transferred to Mr. Paradis's riding, since they are part of the RCM of Le Granit, and that Saint-Lambert would remain in Beauce since it is part of the RCM of La Nouvelle-Beauce.

We believe the people of Saint-Lambert want to go back to where they were. The people of Saint-Ludger have made regular efforts to join the RCM of Beauce-Sartigan, but that has not worked because the matter was the responsibility of the Quebec government. However, we would like the commission to take note of that fact and to consider Beaucerons' wish to keep Beauce intact.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwski. You're right, it is the first time that Les Etchemins as a whole would be separated from Bellechasse.

In September there was an issue with four municipalities from Les Etchemins that asked to stay with my colleague, Mr. Bernier, and they stayed. The commission agreed that those four municipalities wouldn't be part of Lévis—Bellechasse. So at this point, there were no indications at all that Les Etchemins as a whole would be put apart.

I think you have a map that is self-explanatory. Lévis—Bellechasse and Les Etchemins is a corridor between the St. Lawrence River and the United States. That's the corridor, the three-road access, as I've explained, so it's quite logical. You can see it really breaks the harmony of the riding.

There's a saying: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That is the question. Lévis, Bellechasse and Les Etchemins have always been together. The plan in September was not to change that. I understand that this is an independent electoral boundaries commission and that you have a power of recommendation, but the warden and the people of Bellechasse and Les Etchemins contacted me the moment that map was made public. This was something I had to do.

You see, this is not just one member speaking to you; the community has also mobilized. I am their ambassador, as it were. I want to tell you that Bellechasse and Les Etchemins are naturally, historically, culturally, socially and economically complementary. The last version was the first time a proposal was made to change that. That is why the mobilization was so strong but also why it had not previously happened.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I can still give you a lot of arguments against the trend toward increasing the size of electoral districts in the rural regions. For example, if we were to go with this plan, I would have to cover 258 km. In addition, there are two municipalities in my electoral district with the name Saint-Cyprien. And they are so far apart they do not even have modifiers. They are not Saint-Cyprien de Bellechasse, for example. These are two municipalities called Saint-Cyprien and they are approximately 245 km apart.

I could advance a lot of arguments against expanding these electoral districts, but I want to go back to the basic principle we are defending this morning. There is a consensus. The first thing I did when I saw the second version proposed by the commission was to call Mr. Provençal, the warden of Les Etchemins. I told him that he should conduct his consultation, that I was going to defend his positions and that, if a consensus emerged on the idea of keeping Les Etchemins with Bellechasse, I would be there to defend that view. We are dealing with a regional consensus.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Lukiwiski.

Madame Latendresse.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am pleased to see colleagues whose electoral district is near my own. I am very pleased to see that everyone has the same opinion. Matters are much simpler for the committee when members are in agreement.

I imagine you will be asked some quite simple questions. They may briefly explain to you why the commission came to these conclusions. Mr. Bernier very clearly explained how they wanted to do things that way, probably because of the RCMs. However, that does not prevent us from recommending what you propose.

I am going to speak to Mr. Bernier.

Let us talk about the electoral quota. There is a small difference in the figures contained in the Library of Parliament documents, but I believe that is due to the fact that the town of Saint-Lambert was not included. We saw that your riding, the electoral district of Beauce, would change from an electoral quota variance of 11% to 12%, whereas that of Mégantic—L'Érable would change from -12% to -14%.

However, I did a quick calculation based on the figures you gave us and the result was slightly different. We were closer to the electoral quota. You are aware that Beauce is still a developing region and that more people may still be settling there in the next few years. Are you afraid that you will increasingly move away from the electoral quota at some point?

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

That is a good question because Beauce was to have 112,514 residents under the commission's second and final proposal. The commission is aiming for a quota of 101,000. So we are at approximately 12% or 13%. The usual variance is 10%. However, that would be reduced under the proposal we submitted today. The population of Beauce would be 107,967 residents. So that is slightly lower.

At 112,514 residents under the commission's proposal, Beauce is the most highly populated electrical district in Quebec. The member for Beauce would thus have more legitimacy because he would represent more people. I do not necessarily want that title, and I would like to get back down to a variance of 10%. So with the proposal you have before you, we would drop to 107,967 residents and we would be within acceptable limits, which are plus or minus 10% of the quota.

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

That is perfect.

This is not to correct you, but the 10% figure is in fact a goal that the commission set for itself, but that is not in the act.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

You are right.

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

In fact, the act provides for a variance of 25%.