It's a bad habit on the east coast. We talk too fast.
I have substantial complaints and I have procedural complaints, and I hope you'll consider them in earnest.
On the substantive side, there was a decision made by the commission to separate the communities of Pictou County and Antigonish, which have historical links. There was a decision to annex the entirety of Antigonish County to virtually the entire island of Cape Breton, and there was a decision to extend what's largely a small town and rural community riding into essentially suburban Halifax, which will create difficulties for whoever the member of Parliament will be in the future to effectively represent communities that don't necessarily share interests.
On the procedural side, I was really disappointed, frankly, although I don't think it was a mistake made on purpose, that certain communities including the Pictou Landing First Nation community and important historical African Nova Scotian communities were not given an opportunity to give input, nor were the vast majority of municipalities in the community, which have unanimously indicated their deep dissatisfaction with the process and the result, some of which have actually adopted formal motions. I'm happy to get into that in more detail.
On the substantive side, to people who live there, the separation of Pictou County and Antigonish doesn't make sense. The communities have very similar economies in terms of their reliance on the fishery on the north shore of Nova Scotia, if you can picture the stretch of water between Nova Scotia and P.E.I. In the tourism sector, literally the same organization represents the interests of the Northumberland Strait and the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, which roughly mirror the existing federal constituency now. You'll see that these small towns of somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 or 5,000 people surrounded by rural communities have very similar backgrounds in terms of their social and economic features.
The decision to attach Antigonish to Cape Breton is, frankly, stunning to me when I actually look at the changes that have been made to the map, in particular since great changes to the ridings in Cape Breton were not initially proposed. Additionally, Antigonish residents came out in significant numbers and opposed almost unanimously the initial proposal to extend the boundary from Cape Breton into mainland Nova Scotia, because they felt it would be difficult for a person to represent both Antigonish and Cape Breton. The commission recognized this in the report. They said there was some commentary on the strait region in Cape Breton having commonalities with Antigonish. That's true, but then they changed the map to attach Antigonish to almost all of Cape Breton.
What you essentially have now is communities that are five or six hours away from each other in some instances, that have no real common economy or common political issues and that do not attach themselves to one another. If you ask people in Antigonish, they are very much not from Cape Breton, though they love it very much. It simply doesn't make sense.
On the other side of the riding, I'm from northern Nova Scotia and I cover a big part of the Atlantic coast on the northeastern part of the province. There's a decision to make up the population that would extend it closer to the city. The boundary would become essentially Cole Harbour. Rick will appreciate the nuance of this, being on the other side of the city.
The issues that come up in that part of the province deal more with whether they are receiving municipal services from Halifax, the only major city in Nova Scotia, and whether there are public transit stops available for people who commute to the city for work. The economy is largely driven by people who work in the city but live in the area. Further down the eastern shore, which I represent today, a lot of communities are based on the fishery or traditional primary industry or mining, or agriculture if you go into the Musquodoboit Valley.
I have some problems with the name, as well, that I can get to in questions, but I have only about 30 seconds left.
Very quickly on my procedural objection—and I raised this during my presentation to the committee—there are first nations communities that were not consulted and that are not happy about the result. Regarding the African Nova Scotian community, in one instance I received a letter this morning from Mr. Darrell Samson. A decision was made to draw the boundary in a way that actually separates the largest family centre from a community that very much wants to be in the same riding. It's a beautiful community. It would be an honour to represent them, but they don't want to be in my riding. A decision that impacts them negatively was made without their input. I think we should reject the proposal on that basis.
Madam Chair, I'm four seconds over, so I'll cut my comments there.