Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm pleased to be here today to speak to the boundary proposal to move the rural townships of Harris and Hudson into Timmins—James Bay. The move reflects the opinions that were given at the public hearing held in New Liskeard on October 15, 2012, on the need to maintain the continuity of rural communities along the Highway 11 corridor.
I support the boundaries commission's recommendation for this change. However, I have spoken with the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming about his desire to keep these townships within the present boundaries. I will defer to the boundaries commission either way on these matters and will be satisfied with the result.
I am also here, however, in response to Mr. Hayes' claim that political interference in the boundaries commission has unfairly impacted his region. Mr. Hayes is referring to references made in the federal electoral boundaries commission report for Ontario of February 23, 2013, where the commission referenced two examples of alleged inappropriate actions on my part.
The first was this:
The Member of Parliament for Timmins—James Bay submitted that the community of interest among farmers and people associated with agriculture in the farming area west and north of the City of Temiskaming Shores flowed north along Highway 11, and that there was no community of interest with people involved in agriculture in the electoral district of Nickel Belt.
My involvement was in the form of a public hearing in New Liskeard, where I read a statement into the record. I will quote from the record of what I stated that day:
Cutting a line through Timiskaming will be very detrimental. This will be the third time in just over 10 years that Timiskaming has been substantially affected by dramatic riding changes.... Under the new changes, the line has been arbitrarily moved vertically along Highway 11 so that Englehart will now be in the Nickel Belt riding, while its neighbouring community of Tomstown will be in Timmins—Cochrane—James Bay.
Thus, residents in one community will be a 20-minute drive from their MP office, while their neighbours are 300 km from their MP.... It makes no sense from a geographic or economic point of view.
Moving Timiskaming into Nickel Belt will create numerous problems for the agriculture community of Timiskaming. There are no historic or economic lines of continuity between rural Timiskaming and the Sudbury region.... People in Nickel Belt overwhelmingly see themselves as part of the greater Sudbury region. Timiskaming, however, is part of a growing farm community that is anchored on Highway 11.
The second objection that the boundaries commission referenced as inappropriate actions was also stated in the report:
The member also expressed concern about the ability to serve constituents effectively if the communities along Highway 11 from the Town of Smooth Rock Falls to west of the Town of Hearst were included in the electoral district.
I will therefore read the statement that I gave to the commission:
I know it is not the mandate of the boundaries commission to concern itself with MP staffing and budgets. However, the boundaries commission needs to reflect on the impact of an additional six communities, some as much as 300 km from our existing office, being added to the riding. As no other ridings in the north other than Nickel Belt—Timiskaming are being asked to assume such dramatic new responsibilities, I argue that this recommendation creates an unnecessary imbalance between the smaller urban ridings and the larger rural ridings.
The riding of Timmins—James Bay is already bigger than Great Britain. The northwest rural riding of Kenora has a population that is 40% less than the proposed Timmins—Cochrane—James Bay riding. The new Nipissing riding will have a population that is 11% smaller than the new riding and a land mass that is a mere 4% of the size of my expanded riding. The urban riding of Sudbury will have a population smaller than Timmins—Cochrane—James Bay, while my riding is being asked to assume 17,000 more kilometres of distance and six new communities. There is no reason for such obvious disparities within the ridings of northern Ontario.
The position that I presented was echoed by over 1,000 submissions of citizens, town councils, and municipal organizations. Justice Valin and his commission ultimately agreed with these objections. I am satisfied that the new boundary proposal represents the larger interests of citizens in our region, and that further changes at this late hour would only create a ripple effect across a number of ridings.
I thank the boundaries commission for its excellent work. It is a hard task to fix the issues in northern Ontario, and people were certainly vocal in responding to the problem, with their initial proposals. However, the true test of fairness is noted in the commission's willingness to listen to the issues and attempt to find a balance, given the problems of the vast geography of northern Ontario. I support its recommendations.