Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks to the committee for allowing me to present an argument in favour of fair and equitable representation in northern Ontario.
As committee members are aware, the act permits the commission to consider the relative geographical size of the districts, particularly for remote communities, allowing for “effective representation”. This has been upheld in the Saskatchewan reference regarding provincial electoral boundaries.
This was respected when drawing up some of the ridings in northern Ontario, but not the new riding of Sault Ste. Marie—Algoma. Variances from the quota range from 10% below in Parry Sound—Muskoka to as much as 47% quota in the new Kenora riding that has been proposed. The new riding of Sault Ste. Marie—Algoma is only 2.4% below the variance, but the riding is much bigger than many.
By population, the proposed changes to the Sault Ste. Marie—Algoma riding will have populations comparable to many in the south, but by geography it is much larger. In fact, it must be acknowledged that at least nine of the proposed ridings in the city of Toronto and another four in the GTA have populations that are actually smaller than that of the proposed new Sault Ste. Marie—Algoma riding.
For the three ridings in northwestern Ontario, the commission declared “special circumstances” that allowed them to exceed the 25% variance, mostly leaving the region unchanged from existing boundaries. However, they ignored the same logic when drawing boundaries for the northeast, creating ridings that were large in both population and geography. These special circumstances should have been applied across northern Ontario.
In creating their revised recommendations, the commission acknowledged and pointed out in their original proposal that for the member for Kenora—Thunder Bay—Rainy—and I'll quote right out of the report—“the travel time would be substantial: a Member of Parliament would need to travel over 1,000 km to drive the Highway 11 and Highway 17 circuit from Thunder Bay to Rainy River...and back to Thunder Bay.”
However, in the new proposed Sault Ste. Marie—Algoma riding, to do the exact same thing the commission has proposed, it would be 1,300 kilometres to drive to serve the same area. Meanwhile, in a place like Toronto—Danforth, which has a much smaller population than the new proposal, it takes 10 minutes to drive across it. Again, this is completely flawed logic that the commission has placed in the final proposal.
It's clear that when designing this, the commission did not use for these communities any of the latitude afforded to it for remote and geographic areas. In principle, I strongly believe that northern Ontario should maintain its current 10 members, preferably in adhering to the existing boundaries. As has been mentioned, we are 90% of the geography of Ontario with about 6% to 8% of the population. Regarding communities of interest, this certainly affects rural and remote areas and indigenous and francophone communities.
Failing that, I would prefer that the commission take another look at the region to make its vast remote regions more manageable. They need to acknowledge that special circumstances exist throughout the north, and they need to consult accordingly. On their final proposal, they did not consult any of the communities that have been affected, and that's wrong. It's flawed right from the get-go.
Again, status quo, based upon their logic for half of northern Ontario, should be applied to all of northern Ontario.
Thank you very much. I appreciate this.