I will have a new appreciation for the role of the witness from here on in.
I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here today.
I also want to thank the electoral boundaries commission. They have a very difficult task at hand, and I truly appreciate the hard work they put in.
However, I am proposing a very minor change to the riding of York Centre. The current proposal is to carve off the portion from Bathurst Street to Yonge Street, from Steeles on the north and south at the hydro right-of-way, which is just north of Finch, and put that portion into the riding of Willowdale.
My objection is based on a number of factors, one being population, the other being community of interest. I'll get into all of these in a second. What we're proposing essentially is to move the boundary from Bathurst Street and to include it within York Centre east to Peckham Avenue, and then from Peckham Avenue south as it curves around and then goes straight south to the hydro right-of-way. It's taking back roughly 5,000 people. Under the proposal of the electoral boundaries commission, we're currently at 100,000, so this would put us closer to the 106,000-person target.
My understanding is that Willowdale has about 110,000 under the electoral boundaries commission's proposal. Taking away 5,000 would bring them down roughly to their target of 106,000.
This is the most compelling of the reasons why that area should remain within the riding of York Centre, and that's community of interest. There was 100% community of interest support for this argument. The riding specifically has a large concentration of Russian-speaking voters. York Centre has the largest number of Russian-speaking people of any riding in the country. And these are people from not just Russia but from the countries of the former Soviet Union. By carving off, by making the eastern boundary Bathurst Street, we're segregating a large number of those Russian-speaking people. We also have the third-largest Jewish population of any riding in the country. It would also segregate a lot of Jewish people into the riding of Willowdale and interfere with the community of interest.
I have letters of support from a variety of community groups in the area that I'm requesting be placed back within York Centre. This is all in your packages. They include the Canadian Association of World War II Veterans from the Soviet Union, the Russian Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Russian Canadian Education and Recreational Centre, the Toronto Russian Film Festival, Rabbi Sean Gorman of the Pride of Israel Synagogue, the Jewish Russian Community Centre of Ontario, the Russian Express weekly newspaper, Rabbi Milevsky from congregation B'nai Torah, and Archpriest Sergei Rasskazovskiy. They all are in support.
In terms of the effect that it will have on Willowdale and the opinion of my neighbouring colleague, MP Chungsen Leung, he is in complete support. I have a letter outlining his total support, which has been distributed to the committee and is now being translated, I understand, and which you will have by the end of committee. It's a letter that both of us have signed. He is in total support of what I am proposing here.
It has absolutely no domino effect whatsoever. It's a minor change that we're proposing that both MPs agree upon. It meets the community of interest criteria. It meets the population criteria, and I think it should be included back within the riding of York Centre.
Thank you.