Debates of March 24th, 1994

Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act

[Ian McClelland, Reform, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

No, you worry about it. That is right.

Lo and behold I am having my corn flakes this morning knowing that I am going to speak to this today and from today's Globe and Mail I would recommend to hon. members and to those of you watching these proceedings on television a very worthwhile article called ``Debasing the Franchise''. This is part one of three articles. I recommend it to everyone so they can catch a bit of the flavour and a bit of the history of just what we are talking about here. It is in today's Globe and Mail and there will be another article tomorrow and then the next day. If I may I will read just a small bit from today's Globe and Mail . It has to do with representation by population and distribution.

In any event in 1947 they had a pretty good idea that what they were going to do was base the number of seats by the representative population that Canada had and then divide that by the number of provinces and presto, you have the number of seats. As one province increases they get more seats and as another province decreases it gets less seats, except in the case of Prince Edward Island which was guaranteed four seats. That seemed like a pretty good idea at the time but it did not last.

I would like to suggest a way out of this muddle. I would suggest that we have a limit on the number of seats. There certainly will not be any problem from this side of the House in saying that we should not be increasing the number of seats in the House of Commons. Let us freeze it at 295. Let us have a strict representation by population in the House. Every province will be represented strictly in its proportionate number of seats by its population with no floors; no floors for Quebec and no floors for Prince Edward Island. Then how do we go about representing the regions or the provinces in Canada?

Let us have a Senate that represents the provinces. Let us have a triple-E Senate. That will get us out of this mess. We can have a House of Commons that will be strictly representation by population. That is magic, is it not? Then we have a Senate that represents the provinces.

A member opposite said they had not heard of this before. There may even be a few people out there in television land who

have not heard of this before. It is called a triple-E Senate. Through representation by population in the House and a triple-E Senate in the other House, we achieve what we want to achieve.

We achieve representation of all provinces equally in Canada and we achieve representation by population in this House without it growing forever. There, I submit most humbly, is my answer to the dilemma that our honourable House faces. How do we go about achieving it? It is simple.

Let us get on with it now. We know how to achieve it. We need to do something about the Senate. We are all in basic agreement with that. We will get representation by population in this House and we can get a triple-E Senate in the other House and we can all go home happy.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Bill C-18 because I believe the present system is detrimental both in general terms to Canadians as a whole and certainly detrimental in specific terms for northern Ontario and for the riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka which I represent.

I do not believe that the present system fulfils the mandate that it was given. I would like to read from the terms of reference. It says that "in fixing the electoral district boundaries, they must take into consideration the community of interest or community of identity in or refer to historical patterns of an electoral district and a manageable geographic size for districts in sparsely populated rural or northern regions".

The present system does none of these things. It was simply a mathematical exercise and then a drawing of lines on a map. This does not serve the interests of Canadian people and it certainly does not serve the interests of people in northern Ontario.

I cannot believe that the Reform Party is not supporting this bill. By not supporting this bill and by encouraging the present system, it is encouraging that we will have more members in this House. That is something that it has railed against time and time again.

It is certainly not something that I have heard from my constituents, that they want to expand government and have more government spending. The opportunity to take a second look at this is probably pretty good idea.

I certainly do not think it makes any sense to change approximately 80 per cent of the electoral boundaries that we have in this redistribution process. It seems like we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is far too extensive. It is costing far too much money and causing far too much disruption.

We need to develop a new system that has public input at a far earlier point. The present system, having redrawn all the boundaries and coming out with a fait accompli and then asking the public to comment on it, is not the appropriate way of doing it. We need to study it. We need a system that is going to allow the public to have input at a much earlier stage.

I certainly think that history speaks to the problem. The hon. member who spoke before seemed to think that we had been doing okay with the present system and asked why we were trying to change it. I would like to read from John Courtney's book Parliamentary Representation wherein he talked about the electoral system in the most recent history:

Since 1964 Parliament has amended the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act seven times; suspended one redistribution in mid-stream; ignored, then replaced, another at the completion of its work; and accepted three different formulae (a different one for each redistribution) for determining the number of seats to be awarded the provinces and the territories. Five starts at electoral redistribution in little more than 20 years suggests that the process has yet to win the measure of support and confidence of parliamentarians needed to ensure its long-term institutional independence.

With all those changes and with all the difficulties that we have had with electoral redistribution in the last 30 years, I do not think support of the present system is appropriate. Indeed we need to go back to the drawing board and look at a better way of doing things.

In addition to the national concerns that I have addressed, I have some very specific concerns as redistribution relates to my area of the country, northern Ontario. It will result in the elimination of two seats in northern Ontario. We have little enough representation as it is now with only 12 seats, but this plan would reduce us to 10 seats. I believe this is unfair. We are a rural area in northern Ontario. We need strong representation. I cannot support a particular system that will see our representation reduced by two.

As the hon. member from the riding of Algoma spoke earlier he described an electoral system that would result in his riding going from Manitoulin Island all the way north to James Bay. It is totally impractical that a member of Parliament could be expected to cover such a large geographic area. The present system that simply divides population on a map and draws lines is totally inappropriate. The plan to reduce northern Ontario down to 10 ridings takes away the collective voice we have in northern Ontario. The system is definitely flawed and needs to be changed.

Then we get to my own particular riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka. It is an area that under this redistribution would be split absolutely in two, with the northern half of my riding going in one direction and the southern half of my riding going in a different direction.

This certainly does not fulfil the mandate of the electoral commission which was to take into account historical, social and economic realities of the situation. The riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka has existed for 60 years, and in one fell swoop of a pen on a map there is a proposal to destroy it and to split it in two. I cannot accept that.

There are the social concerns. We in Parry Sound-Muskoka have developed into a unique community of communities, one that has a cohesiveness of interests, and again a stroke of a pen on a map is going to take that away.

The third area they were supposed to take into account was economics. We have a shared economy in Parry Sound-Muskoka. We have the major industry of tourism which we share. We share the same major transportation links of Highway 11 and Highway 69. We share the same character of rural Ontario. Again these social considerations under the current system will simply be thrown out the window as a result of the stroke of a pen on a map.

I do not believe the system serves the interest of Canadians. I know it does not serve the interest of northern Ontarians. I certainly know it does not serve the interest of my constituents from Parry Sound-Muskoka. I support the bill so that we can go back to take a look at the system and redesign it.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the riding of Chambly I represent has an area of 384 square kilometres. In the last election, it had 76,204 voters; today, that number is down to 76,203, since I spend most of my time here. It was and still is a mostly urban riding that straddles the Richelieu River from Beloeil-Saint-Hilaire to Chambly, including Saint-Bruno, a beautiful city we are proud of.

In my riding, the proposed electoral boundaries readjustment would add 14 small, rather rural municipalities and remove a large one, Saint-Bruno, that would be integrated into the riding of Saint-Hubert. The riding would gain 14 municipalities, and would extend almost as far as Granby in the Eastern Townships.

The problem is, first of all, there is no rush. We can take the time to debate these issues and to understand what is behind the changes proposed by the elections commission.

In my case, I go from 76,200 voters to a new riding with 110,000 voters. But my neighbour from whom I took 14 municipalities goes from a riding of 110,000 voters to one with about 76,000 voters. We merely exchange voters without gaining anything at the administrative level. On the contrary, I think we stand to lose.

What will it be like for the member representing that riding the day after the new electoral map comes into effect? In my riding, which has an area of only 384 square kilometres, all my predecessors had their offices in the middle of the riding to avoid long-distance charges. But after readjustment, the member for the new riding will need at least two offices and will be practically unable to make calls without incurring high long-distance charges.

Some would reply, "The government pays for that". Yes, when the member initiates the call, but when it is the voters who call, they complain that they cannot reach their member. They can reach him but only if they pay charges that can be quite high depending on their complaints. If only for that reason, I think it is a bad idea.

Furthermore, what is proposed does not take into account, I think, the communities' desire to live together because they are used to living together. Over the years, places like Saint-Bruno, Saint-Hilaire, Beloeil, Chambly-the smallest communities have a population of 15,000 or 16,000, while the largest have between 30,000 and 35,000 residents-have developed trade links as well as cultural and other exchanges involving volunteers, regional county municipalities, etc. These municipalities have learned to live together and have become very good at it. And just for the sake of it, we are now going to change riding boundaries to no one's benefit.

As I said earlier, my constituency will increase to 110,000 voters but that of my neighbour will go down to 76,000. What did we gain from all this? I would have understood how, if my neighbour had encroached on someone else and so on, we would have fiddled with the ridings to distribute the population more or less equally among the ridings, but that is not the case.

So I have some trouble understanding why the electoral commission is so eager to impose on us new boundaries that do not reflect local realities and the desire of people to live together, as in the riding I represent; that said, of course, with respect for the people who will join our riding. Shifting riding boundaries around just for the fun of it was not the main purpose of the electoral commission.

As for Quebec, we cannot talk about redistribution without talking about Quebec and its future. This morning, a poll published in the Eastern Townships, on which the riding of Chambly abuts, reports that the idea of sovereignty is supported by a strong majority in the Eastern Townships; the survey says 53 per cent.

At the beginning of my speech, I told you that the house was not on fire and I think that the Liberal Party of Canada has understood that and said to itself: "Better not go ahead too quickly with those changes. Quebec will probably separate in a year or a year and a half, so we would have done all this boundary adjustment for nothing. Better soft-pedal it, if not stop it, and we will see later". I think that is wise on the part of the government. I commend it for that and I thank it for saving the taxpayers in my riding and all Canadians a fairly considerable amount of money.

This morning, we voted against a motion. I hope that you will understand what we on this side of the House were against was the rather high-handed way in which they decided to end this debate. Certain parliamentary principles are dear to us, whether we are independentists or angry federalists, and wanting to cut off discussion and debate on a subject like redistribution which is important for many people is something that my party and I could not support, you understand, and that is why we voted against it. But tonight, for the reasons I explained to you, of course we will support the motion of the party in power, which is a motion from a party that understands things, which sees the obvious and knows that the Canadian federation as it now exists probably does not have much longer to live.

Based on the poll I have here, which is encouraging for my political option, we realize that the strongest bastions of federalism in the Eastern Townships have been shattered like toothpicks, so that is encouraging for my party and me.

With that, I tell you that I will vote on second reading of this Bill C-18 for extending the mandate, that is for postponement, like my colleagues who spoke before me.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Hamilton—Wentworth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to take part in this debate. I found it very interesting. All the various parties contributed to it. I would like to take it though in a slightly different direction, in a media direction that reflects my background somewhat.

Let me first describe my riding very briefly. My riding is Hamilton-Wentworth. It is a large, rural, suburban and urban riding that surrounds Hamilton. It follows the old historic lines of Wentworth county. It has a basic shape, a community centre and a community of interest going back well over 100 years.

There is one corner of my riding, the far southeast corner, Binbrook. It is a village with some farms immediately around it. After the writ was dropped I did a door to door campaign in Binbrook, about five days into the election. I was surprised to discover as I went from door to door that many people did not know who the candidates were. They did not know my name. They did not know the name of the Reform Party candidate. They did not know the name of the Conservative candidate.

I was quite surprised by this. I reflected upon it and asked questions. I discovered that the problem in this one small corner of my riding was that they were not served by a weekly newspaper. They are on the far edge of the circulation of the major daily newspaper which is the Hamilton Spectator which is in the centre of downtown Hamilton.

Again they are on the fringe of radio coverage. Finally, their basic interest was directed not toward Hamilton but directed toward another community outside of my riding, Stoney Creek and down toward the peninsula.

I realized then how absolutely essential it is for a politician to have a media which serves him because no matter what we do in this House or what we do in our lives for that matter, we have to reach the public. The public has to know what we do, whether it is good or bad, and I certainly hope that if it is good it does know. So the media is very important.

The rest of my riding is very well served. There are three weekly newspapers in various blocks of the suburban and urban portion. Of course the majority of the riding receives the Hamilton Spectator and there are two AM radio stations and some FM stations as well. I am very well covered as far as the ability of the media to follow my actions.

This redistribution however changes this picture entirely and it is a great problem. What has happened to my riding under the new redistribution proposal has taken out the urban component. As my riding is presently constituted I have about 30,000 people in Hamilton Mountain. They are completely eliminated. Instead what I have are two new blocks added, one a rural block next to Cambridge and another block between Cambridge and Brantford. To be more precise the one block is near Guelph.

Let me just visualize it for you, Mr. Speaker. You have Hamilton, Guelph, Cambridge and Brantford and the new rural blocks are in between those two areas.

These new blocks would be a great problem for me if this redistribution were to go ahead because they do not receive the Hamilton Spectator , they do not have weekly newspapers that serve them in the same way as my immediate community newspapers and they are out of range of the television and radio stations that are based in Hamilton.

Instead they turn to other communities. Naturally being rural communities they look to their nearest urban centre. So the block called Puslinch looks to Guelph. The block called north Dumfries looks to Cambridge and the block I would call south Dumfries looks to Brantford.

I am sure that you can see, Mr. Speaker, the problem that is presented here. If I say something in this House that is of some importance my chances of getting reported not only in the community and daily newspapers centred on Hamilton, but also in the Cambridge Reporter , the Guelph Mercury and the Brantford Expositor are very difficult.

In fact, those three newspapers that serve the rural areas that we are talking about only form a very small portion of the circulation of those newspapers. There is a great difficulty for me to get any kind of message out into these rural areas by the news media.

It is the same with the radio stations. These three rural areas that I would get in redistribution do not pick up the radio stations centred on Hamilton which would have the greatest interest in what I do. They instead are served by radio stations in Brantford, Cambridge and in these other areas.

Again the difficulty and the reality of the media is if they are going to do a news story on someone and that someone is of importance to perhaps only 5 per cent of their listeners the chances of them actually doing a news story is very limited.

That is the dilemma. The chances of people hearing what I do in these two rural blocks is very, very limited.

There is another side to the coin which is equally difficult. I have a responsibility as an MP to serve the people in my riding, and I have to serve those people community by community. At present I can follow what happens in my community by again turning to the local media. I have three community newspapers, I have the major daily paper and I also have the television station and radio.

The difficulty is that I have to now follow three more communities through the media. That means I would have to pay attention to these three other newspapers, I would have to pay attention to the radio stations and I would have to follow the local governments in three additional cities and municipalities.

I just do not think it is possible for one MP to cover that large a territory successfully, to be up on the news and be up on what concerns people over that vast area. Consequently I find that the kind of redistribution I am looking at is very flawed.

It is a question in my mind of philosophy. The reason we have to bring in a bill like Bill C-18 is not to interfere with a body outside of government that has been appointed to do a particular task. Our job as legislators is to give them the philosophy to operate. We have to define for them when they make this redistribution what they are doing and why they are doing it. It would appear from what I see now that in the past they have looked at the numbers purely and they have not given due attention to the question of community of interest, how our information comes from the politician to the people and how the politician gets the information from the people.

I would strongly support the intent of this bill because I think we are in the business here in this 35th Parliament of looking at reform of institutions in the sense of how better we can serve the people of Canada and our constituents. I think if we re-examine the philosophy of redistribution we may indeed find that numbers are not the last word of this issue, that it is how best the MP can represent perhaps a geographic entity.

Some of my colleagues have mentioned that in northern Ontario, for example, the numbers are sparse but the community of interest is based on history and geography. If you do it straight by numbers of course you are going to skew our historic responsibility to the people of Canada whom we serve regionally.

In concluding, I think this is a very fine move by this government. I really do wish that the members of both parties, particularly the Reform Party, would reconsider because I think this is the kind of reform that all of us in this House wish to see.

[Jim Gouk, Reform, Kootenay West—Revelstoke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to Bill C-18. My riding of Kootenay West-Revelstoke is very adversely affected by the proposed boundaries adjustment act. The riding is currently made up of two specific geographic areas which have much in common. Virtually all of my riding is located in a valley setting on or near one of three waterways.

There are some notable exceptions in this for mountainous communities such as Rossland and Warfield. The entire riding is involved in forestry, hydroelectric power generation and tourism. The Columbia River treaty affects all communities on or near the river from Trail in the south of the riding to Revelstoke in the north.

Many people travel between towns for work and recreational purposes. In the interests of economy we have learned how to share. For example, in 1996 Trail and Castlegar are jointly hosting the British Columbia Summer Games. Either community is too small to host this by itself, but by working together the 1996 games should be a spectacular success.

In short, we are a riding consisting of commonality of both geography and concerns. The proposal under the current Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act effectively dismantles this riding that has so much in common.

The West Kootenay portion of the riding is split down the middle with Trail and surrounding communities being placed in a riding that would find its centre in the Okanagan, 200 miles to the west, an area that has nothing in common with its new addition. The rest of the West Kootenays would find itself in a riding with its centre 200 miles to the east, again with little in common with its new addition.

Revelstoke would find itself in a new riding made up of parts of the north Okanagan where it would likely centre. This riding would then proceed east past Revelstoke and the Rogers Pass, all the way to the Alberta border and include the northern portion of the former Kootenay East. Kootenay East would have to give up this portion of its old riding to make up for receiving the chunk that came from Kootenay West which no one asked for. Revels-

toke has little in common with any of these geographic areas and would be poorly served by the change.

With these changes Kootenay West-Revelstoke would cease to exist and, yes, I would be an MP without a riding. Given all these problems for the riding and faced with the loss of my own seat, one might ask why I am not supporting the motion by the government. Indeed many have asked that very question.

The reason is as follows. In the early stages of the drafting of the bill the government was looking for consent from all parties. Aside from the problems created for individual ridings like Kootenay West-Revelstoke, there were two main areas of concern regarding the current boundary readjustment. One of these is the fact that it creates six new ridings in Canada, two of which are in B.C. The B.C. ridings would most likely end up Reform ridings, but we still oppose this because we feel the last thing Canadians want or need is more MPs in Ottawa.

Each MP adds about half a million dollars in direct costs plus untold costs for offices, printing services and supplies, not to mention the cost of refurbishing the House which has no additional capacity at this time. A condition that would have been necessary for us to support the bill would have been an assurance that no new seats would have been added to any future boundary adjustments. We did not get this assurance.

Another condition we would have required is more public input and control. One of the problems with the current system is that it does not consult the public until the plan is complete, the maps are drawn and it is almost a done deal. The government was not prepared to offer any assurances on this concern either.

Given that we believed these requests were reasonable and in the public's best interest, we had to consider that the government had a hidden agenda. The hidden agenda we suspected was a great increase in the number of seats and the removal of public input into the process.

Following the passage of the bill to suspend redistribution and disband existing provincial boundary commissions, it is expected the government will make a motion to assess continual increase in the number of members of Parliament and to review the selection methods of the commission members, public involvement and the commission's powers.

This assessment will be carried out by a committee of MPs on which the Liberal government would have an absolute majority. In actual fact the government by virtue of its majority can operate in a manner of dictatorship for the next five years. The invoking of closure which the Liberals have strongly opposed in the past is the most recent example of business in the usual style of the former government.

While we have heard of one famous name from the past receiving a dollar a year to advise the Liberals, we cannot help but wonder if Brian Mulroney was also in need of a dollar.

The current process has now reached a point at which public input is heard. As devastating as the current proposed changes are for my riding, I would prefer to deal with it through the public hearing process than take a chance on the government accepting or even increasing the number of seats in Parliament or removing the public from the process.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

It being 6.29 p.m., pursuant to order made Wednesday, March 23, 1994 in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order 78(3) it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

[The Speaker]

I declare the the amendment lost.

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Saint-Léonard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that you will obtain unanimous consent to have the result of the vote just taken applied in reverse to the main motion.

[The Speaker]

Does the House agree?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:

[The Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee.)

[The Speaker]

It being seven o'clock p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at ten o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7 p.m.)