Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Good morning.

We are looking at the redistribution process in the province of Ontario, which is the last province this committee has to look at. We're very pleased we're moving right along. I thank you all for coming early this morning to hear witnesses.

Witnesses, we will be giving you five minutes each to state your case, and then we'll ask you very hard questions and see if we can get everybody to get along.

Ms. Chow, would you go first, please. You have five minutes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Thank you.

I'm sorry that the map is not in front of you, but I actually handed out a map. What I have given you is a map of what I'm proposing, some photos that I will go through, and my submission in writing, in English and French, of course.

Thank you for your effort. I will be talking mostly about the community of interest in my riding and my proposal.

Originally, my riding of Trinity—Spadina went from Dupont all the way down to the lake. Because of the condo boom, the numbers got so big that the commission made the decision to divide it. I went to the commission, and they took my submission to keep the Annex together—it's a very nice neighbourhood—but by making that decision, they didn't take my suggestion around the southern boundaries.

On the southern boundaries, my suggestion was Front Street, but it has now moved to Dundas. As a result, my new riding, called University—Rosedale, now includes Rosedale. Rosedale, you may know, is one of the richest neighbourhoods in Canada—not just in Toronto, but in Canada. My suggestion is to move Rosedale to St. Paul's riding, because St. Paul's riding has Forest Hill. You will note that the median income, the average income, in Forest Hill is $253,000, and in Rosedale-Moore Park, it's $245,000. You can tell that they are economically quite well off, so I thought those two communities had a lot in common.

In contrast, what I want is to have the west part of St. Paul's, which is the Oakwood-Vaughan area, and St. Clair come to Trinity—Spadina. Right now Trinity—Spadina juts up to the east, and we're asking for it to come to the west. The west area, Oakwood-Vaughan, has a lot of things in common with Trinity—Spadina, which I will list.

Their median income is very similar. It is 10% Italian, because of St. Clair, and of course, Little Italy is in my riding of Trinity—Spadina. Little Italy has very nice outdoor cafés, so the built form is very similar. If you look at the photos that I've submitted, you will see the Sicilian Sidewalk Café, and the other one is at St. Clair and Rushton. The photo on this side is the existing built form in Trinity—Spadina and Little Italy. The other side, which is very similar, is St. Clair Avenue. The built form is really quite similar.

Another point is there are extra challenges caused by poverty. In the northern part of the riding that I'm suggesting, there is a neighbourhood called the Five Points. That neighbourhood is very dense with many apartment buildings. It's been known to have some economic challenges, and as a result, some crime rates have gone up. That is not dissimilar to my existing riding, with Alexandra Park and Grange Avenue,when it comes to dealing with drugs, gangs, and some of the challenges facing that neighbourhood. Oakwood-Vaughan would no longer be isolated if it came down to the university area.

The other really important aspect is the college students. George Brown College has a campus at Casa Loma. The students from George Brown Casa Loma would then be united, and a lot of them would live in the Annex area anyway. They would be connecting back to the south of Dupont, which would include the University of Toronto and OCAD students.

There are three other areas. There are many first nations buildings. There's a residence up in that area and they should connect to some of the first nations communities south of Dupont. For the arts community, the western portion of St. Paul's is known to Toronto with the second largest number of arts workers. Of course, in my existing riding, there is the Ontario College of Art and Design, ROM, and the AGO.

In summary, my proposal would bring the community and self-interests together.

Thank you for your consideration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Carmichael, for five minutes.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, committee.

This morning I'm delighted to have the opportunity to speak to the riding of Don Valley West which is in Toronto.

When we began the process, I anticipated that my riding would be moving further to the east, bridging on some natural boundaries, and specifically the Don Valley Parkway. In fact, I was very, very wrong, and I was pushed quite a bit west, and to that end, I think we're arriving with the second set of maps at a very reasonable conclusion.

One of the classic areas of my riding in Don Valley West is the area or town of Don Mills. For many years Don Mills was split into two parts, half into Don Valley East, and half into Don Valley West. With the redistricting and the new boundaries, it has been combined and has been moved fully into Don Valley East.

I'm going to talk to you about a very small portion. My petition today is to address a very small portion of the riding. I note Ms. Bennett is here today, and part of my riding with the new districting has moved into St. Paul's fairly dramatically. As we are moved further to the west, a half of that portion at the southwest corner has been relegated to Don Valley West, which is fine because that part is called Davisville-Leaside, or Davisville, and is an extension of the community or town of Leaside, which actually just celebrated its 100th anniversary in Toronto.

There are two areas I'm going to address. One is called Bennington Heights. Bennington Heights is in the very western corner of the riding. Directly below it is the area called Governor's Bridge. I have some maps, which I think have been distributed, and I apologize for the quality. Some of these are historic so they don't reproduce very effectively. I'll direct you to the very last map, which is the riding of Don Valley West. You can see the two arrows in the bottom pointing to Bennington Heights and to Governor's Bridge.

When we began this process some months ago, it was clear that there were a number of very reasonable and important issues for each of the communities to either remain or to be dissociated from the existing ridings: geography and natural barriers was one; historical and municipal boundaries was another; and communities of interest, or continuous communities, was another. Specifically for these two—they're smaller areas—the revisions that have been made are fairly dramatic. They don't overly impact the riding in terms of population or voters, but they are areas of continuous communities which I feel are important to the residents of those areas, and something which, from a historic perspective I believe should be maintained.

To the west of both Bennington Heights and Governor's Bridge is a deep ravine known as Moore Park Ravine, which forms a natural barrier between these two neighbourhoods and the areas of Toronto known as Moore Park and Rosedale. The bottom of this ravine contains a creek, and from the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, it also contained a railway line. These were natural barriers. Both Bennington Heights and Governor's Bridge were part of the former township of East York, incorporated in 1924. In 1967 the former township of East York, including these two areas, was amalgamated into the Town of Leaside, which is just to the north and east of where we're talking about. This municipal association continued until the amalgamation of Toronto in 1997. Following the amalgamation until the present, Bennington Heights has been part of Don Valley West, and Governor's Bridge has been part of Toronto Centre.

Now, from a communities of interest standpoint, both communities are relatively isolated and their only means of access, or egress, or exit is to the north and east.

For the schools, for the families and their shopping, etc.—

Does that signal mean one minute?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You're done.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

I'm done? My goodness, the time goes by in a hurry.

[An hon. member]

It's very interesting.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

It is very interesting. I have the honourable Bob Rae saying, “Go”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

The two of you should meet for lunch and discuss it further.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

He knows the area well.

Anyway, these carry important cultural relevance to the areas to the east. For that reason, I'm asking that the commission consider keeping Bennington Heights in Don Valley West and including Governor's Bridge in Don Valley West.

I brought only English material, unfortunately. I apologize to my colleagues for that. The clerk has the copies, and they'll be translated and distributed. Again, my apologies to my colleagues for the lack of French.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Rae.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm hoping I can do this by asking that the old map of Toronto Centre be put up. Then I can talk about what's happened.

What I'm concerned about is actually quite simple.

That is the new riding boundary here on the left. I'm wondering if the old one can be put up on the right-hand screen.

If you look at the right-hand screen, you'll see it's a big riding, essentially stretching from the university to the Don Valley Parkway, all the way from the water up to Rosedale and Moore Park. It contains the richest and the poorest parts of the city of Toronto, indeed almost of Canada. It's kind of a unique riding in that sense.

Because of the huge population growth in the south, because of the condo developments in the south, the commission has had to wrestle with the fact that the riding is now very big population-wise, and therefore has had to be cut.

In the first draft of the suggestion, basically the riding was cut in half. The concern at that point was that the gay community in the area of Church and Yonge, and north of Church and Wellesley Street, and north of Wellesley, was being cut in half. We had very active representation from a number of community associations who objected to that.

We managed to persuade the commission to change the northern boundary of the new riding so that it would go further north than Wellesley Street to Charles, and essentially would allow us to make sure that we had a cohesive community, but in so doing, unfortunately as often happens, the commission then said, “Well, we have to cut it off somewhere, so we're going to cut it off at the south end on Front Street.”

The effect of that, for those of you who know Toronto at all, is to say that the area known as the St. Lawrence Market area, which has very active riding associations north and south of Front Street.... You will be familiar with the David Crombie development that's associated with his time as mayor, where a number of co-ops, apartments, and condos were built south of Front Street, which is integrally connected to the area north of Front Street.

What I have proposed to you, and what I've had some discussions about with one of my neighbours, Olivia Chow, is that the boundary should in fact be the Gardiner Expressway and not Front Street on the south, in exchange for which we would give up all of the area west of Yonge Street.

If you see the boundary on the left-hand side, the western boundary, it jogs from Bay to Yonge and then over to Bay again. I'm arguing that if you just went to Yonge Street south of College right down to Front Street, you would probably deal more or less with the demographic issue with respect to whether the population is in or out of line.

That is the proposal I would make. It's not just being made by me; there have been many representations from people who live in the south and who feel that their community of interest has been cut in half. It's not a demographic big deal.

By the way, for some of you who might be of a suspicious nature, politically it's a mixed bag. There's no telling which way it would go in terms of what would happen in the next election.

I've made a point of not referring to it as my riding, because I have not decided whether or not I'll run in 2015, and if I do, I haven't decided which riding I would run in, because effectively my old riding has been divided in half. So if I may try to be modest for a moment, this is not about me. It really is about the representations I've heard from the people in the south end of the riding.

On the suggestion that the apartments that run essentially from Front Street up to College Street to the west of Yonge Street—that is to say, in the Bay corridor—can go anywhere, I think in terms of a community of interest, there are people who are moving in and out of that area all the time. From a downtown urban point of view, it's not really a big deal as to which riding they're in. It is a bigger deal for the more settled communities around the St. Lawrence Market, where there are very identifiable communities of interest that have always been there.

I want to express my appreciation to the commission for the changes they agreed to make in the northern half of the new Toronto Centre, the middle part of the old riding, because they did in fact recognize the community of interest, particularly within the gay and lesbian community in that part of the city. However, in so doing, they may have made a mistake of which they were not entirely aware, which I can fully understand, but I've been receiving very forceful representations from people in the market saying that they want to be part of the same riding and they'd like that riding to be the riding of Toronto Centre.

Quite apart from the rest of what Olivia is suggesting, I think that has implications for other ridings, which I can't get into. However, from the point of view of trying to have a relatively coherent and cohesive riding of Toronto Centre that would not significantly disrupt the demographics of other ridings, that would be an adjustment that I would respectfully request, even though it means that Toronto Centre becomes landlocked once again and is cut off from all access to the lake, which is a historic tragedy and may require more aggressive action later on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

That's a joke, Mr. Chairman. I don't mean to be serious. We're not going to start a war between Bolivia and Peru over who gets access to the water.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We'll expect those to happen later. Thank you, Mr. Rae.

Mr. Menegakis, would you like to lead us off, for five minutes, please.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our colleagues for appearing before us today.

Have any of you made presentations to the commission and at the public meetings that were held in the area?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Yes, I did.

We are very grateful to the commission. They accepted my recommendation to keep the Annex intact. Originally the Annex was divided on Bloor so the northern part of the Annex was separated from the southern part.

By fixing that, they moved up the southern boundaries. I'll show you the map before the commission changed it. My riding, Trinity—Spadina, used to be straight down. I lost the southern part of the riding, all the condos, and now I've picked up Rosedale, which doesn't quite fit into the kind of riding that Trinity—Spadina has been.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I understand.

Mr. Carmichael.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

No, I didn't make any representations.

I made my initial submission; however, we had 15 representations from community groups within the riding, and I was familiar with all of them. The most important was in the area of Thorncliffe Park, which is at the south end of my riding, where one street had been split in half. The community wanted the street to be continuous. The commission accepted that proposal, which we were grateful for.

Bennington Heights, which I've talked about, in the primary maps, I believe, was still part of Don Valley West, and it's only as they've developed the new riding of University—Rosedale, where some of these additional changes have taken place most dramatically in the last—

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Rae.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

No, I didn't appear in person, but I was certainly aware of the representations that were being made. I was satisfied the commission had the arguments in front of them that would allow them to make a decision that would be based on the merits of the case with respect to the question of the boundary on the northern part of the new riding of Toronto Centre.

I accepted the premise that the riding would have to be divided, which was a sad premise for me because I've enjoyed representing the whole riding, and that this would be a pretty dramatic change.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

One of the concerns we have as a committee, as we have colleagues making recommendations, is how adjacent ridings are affected because of that domino effect. That's what the commission will have to deal with as they look at the suggestions you are making here today.

Have you spoken with the MPs who border your ridings, and are they in agreement with the recommendations you're putting forth today?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Rae has asked me about bringing the southern portion into his riding. I really agreed on principle, but the problem is the population numbers. I also suggested moving Rosedale out and then taking the western part. I spoke to Ms. Bennett and she's not in agreement with that, so that's the quandary. For me to make that change in the southern part, it then impacts the northern part.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Carmichael.