Madam Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to participate in what really is a historic debate. It is historic not because the idea of redistribution is something that is new or that there is anything particularly novel or revolutionary about the bill that is before the House, or will be before the House as a result of today's debate, but because this is the first time in the House we have used a new procedure established about a year ago for dealing with the business of the House in allowing committees to draft and bring in bills.
The 51st report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs contains in it a draft bill to amend the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. In fact it replaces the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. That bill was drafted by the members of the committee who have been working on this for some considerable period of time.
As chairman of the committee I am particularly pleased to be able to speak on behalf of the government House leader to propose this motion for concurrence to the House.
Adoption of this motion will constitute an order to the government to bring in a bill based on the committee's report. I am optimistic that the House will deal with this motion quickly today so that concurrence can be had. The government will then move rapidly to bring in a bill with some minor adjustments possibly in language which can then be referred to the committee once again for a detailed study and possible report to the House and action.
The purpose of this new procedure is to strengthen the role of members of Parliament in bringing their ideas to bear on policy decisions affecting legislation. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs had ample opportunity to hear witnesses put forward views on the bill that has been put before the House as part of the committee's report.
In my view the committee members worked together very well and in a very non-partisan way to come up with what in terms of our best judgment would constitute a good new set of rules governing the redistribution of electoral boundaries in Canada.
I would like to thank the members of the legislative counsel branch of the House of Commons, Ms. Diane McMurray and Mr. Louis-Philippe Côté, for their assistance in the drafting of the bill.
I would like to thank the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, and his staff members, Jacques Girard and Carol Lesage, who assisted the committee in its work.
The committee was also assisted by witnesses from across Canada, who came to Ottawa in July when we spent three days discussing ideas and suggestions on redistribution. I would like to thank them because their help was invaluable.
I would like to thank more particularly the committee members who worked so hard in July and since then, reading the drafts of the report and making suggestions for improvements. My special thanks to the hon. members for Bellechasse, Calgary West and Kindersley-Lloydminster, who, together with government members, tried to find the most effective way to change this legislation.
On this side of the House, the hon. member for Ontario, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell and the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River also made a major contribution.
Our meetings were extremely productive. We worked well together and I think the report reflects that, notwithstanding the dissent of the Reform Party on two important points. I hope to deal with those in my remarks.
How did we get to this point on this issue? People ask why we embarked on a change in the redistribution act. I suggest there were several problems with the old law and those are the problems we have tried to rectify.
First, the proposed maps which came out last year just shortly after Parliament first met came with no forewarning and no opportunity provided to members of the House for input into what those maps might contain. Members of the House and some members of the public were presented with what appeared to be a fait accompli. It was done at the very opening of a new Parliament immediately following an election based on those maps. The committee has addressed this problem. There will be consultation before the first map is produced the next time.
Second, the commissions were not required to provide any justification for their proposals, although some commissions did so in any case. It was accordingly difficult, if not impossible, for members of the public and for members of Parliament to understand the rationale for the changes that were suggested or for them to make constructive ideas as to how the maps might be improved. The committee has made it plain in its report that commissions must explain the rationale behind their decisions.
Third, the criteria for drawing boundaries were very general. Therefore the commissions could take virtually any approach they wished and the approach could differ from one province to another.
We found it difficult as members of Parliament and as members of the public to criticize the proposals because it was almost impossible to have any standard by which those proposals could be measured. The draft bill attempts to clarify the criteria while maintaining the overall principle of effective representation.
Fourth, many members complained that the commissions made completely unnecessary changes to electoral districts just for the sake of doing a redistribution. The committee has also dealt with this matter.
Fifth, many members of the House expressed concern about the size of the House of Commons and its continuing growth. The committee studied the matter but did not recommend any particular change from the present law.
Finally, the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing that reported some years ago made a number of recommendations concerning redistribution which were never considered in the last Parliament.
In fact, the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act really has not been reviewed thoroughly in 30 years. Therefore the committee took the opportunity to look through every part of the act, to look at the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing and make a series of recommendations to this House.
The first issue I want to talk about is the cap or reduction in the number of seats in the House of Commons. Members of all parties came to this issue hoping either to cap membership or to reduce the size of the House of Commons. After very careful consideration of the matter, after hearing witnesses on this point and after reviewing the report of the commission I referred to, the majority of the members realized that a cap or reduction was simply not feasible at this time.
Under the present formula, there will be a modest growth in the House from 295 members to 301 after the next election. The difficulty with a cap or a reduction is related to constitutional problems, particularly the guarantee that no province will have fewer seats in the House than there are in the other place.
The number of senators is not equal or related to population size. It is in no way tied in with population as is representation in the House. The cap in the number of seats here would perpetuate the current inequities in representation by ensuring that the provinces which have hit their senate floor cannot go below that and the provinces that are growing would not be able to get the additional seats to which they might otherwise be entitled.
I am aware that members of the Reform Party disagree with the committee's judgment in this matter. They believe that the House could be reduced to 265 members, a significant cut from the current membership of 295. In their view that cut would not significantly jeopardize the equality of votes in this country. That is not a view that is shared by the majority members of this committee, nor does the majority believe it is what Canadians want.
In the province of Ontario most members will represent a riding of approximately 100,000 people. That is a large number of people to represent. It entails a significant volume of work and transactions with the constituents. The Canadian public would not be well served were we to increase significantly the size of ridings.
The ridings in some provinces would get much larger than those in other provinces. Without pointing to any direct examples there are some ridings in Canada that have fewer than 20,000 people in them. That is a very small riding compared with one with 100,000 although obviously the geographic difference in size may be very dramatic and indeed often is.
The difficulties of representation in a country as vast and diverse as Canada obviously are significant ones. The committee tried to grapple with that, but given that the increase was only six members it concluded this was not the time to make any change or reduction.
Many Canadians say they would like to reduce the size of the House of Commons. However when it comes to accessing a member of Parliament and finding the member available to deal with concerns or to meet with constituents, clearly the opportunities would decrease were we to increase the size of constituencies. My own view is that Canadians would find that they prefer the current set-up or something very similar to it.
In 1986 amendments were made to reduce the growth of the House of Commons. These changes reflected a balance between ensuring representation by population and the desire for a smaller House. Under the pre-1986 formula the House of Commons would have grown to almost 400 members. In comparison, the modest growth to 301 is acceptable and necessary to ensure that the growing places in Canada are well represented.
Given the seriousness of the issue however and the genuine interest in dealing with it, the committee recommends this whole matter of the size of the House be revisited with a goal of overcoming the barriers to a cap before the 2001 census. We will have had the benefit of the quinquennial census in 1996. We will be able to see what the growth in the population is and where the shifts have occurred.
If members in the next Parliament feel they are able to make changes to cap the House at 301 or reduce the numbers, they would be free to make that decision based on the further analysis available to them in the 1996 census.
The second problem is the method by which commission members are selected. According to the committee, there was a problem with the selection process. We heard a number of witnesses on the subject, many of whom indicated that we had a good system but there were always certain considerations, political or otherwise, involved in the selection process.
The committee decided that the process could be made far more open and recommended several changes. First of all, applications for positions will be invited by public notice. The Speaker of the House will have to consult several people before proceeding with an appointment, notice of which is to be tabled here in the House.
If members of this House do not agree with the Speaker's decision regarding these appointments and if 20 members have signed a notice of motion, a member may present a motion requesting a vote in the House on one of the appointments. The vote will be crucial, because if the majority considers the appointment is unacceptable, the Speaker must submit another name.
One of the problems with the way redistribution is done is that after 10 years-redistributions occur after each decennial census, one occurred in 1991 with another occurring in 2001-population growth and shifts are often very significant, resulting in large and disruptive changes to electoral districts, which started out at a reasonable size and have grown into something either very large or very small.
The committee was of the view that if there were more frequent redistributions, this problem could be ameliorated considerably. Accordingly the committee has recommended that after a quinquennial census, that is the short and more simple census that occurs every five years in between the decennial ones, a redistribution would take place within a province. There would be no reallocation of seats among provinces as happens after a decennial census, but there would be within a province a redistribution where figures warrant. We put a minimum on that.
Constituencies would have to be significantly beyond the provincial quotient before such a quinquennial redistribution would take place. By doing this we are optimistic that we will avoid these massive shifts every 10 years. It would happen in certain provinces, probably not very many, after five years. Of course the question of whether or not one occurs depends on the population shifts within the province.
The committee proposes that redistribution will only take place in principle where it is necessary to ensure effective and equal representation.
The second matter is public input and the commissions. One of the major difficulties with the current act is the process for public consultation. Our draft bill proposes a number of improvements that strengthen the role of the public in providing advice to the boundaries commissions. The first is a requirement for the publishing of a public notice at the very beginning of the process. The notice must include the following information: first, the population figures for each electoral district currently on the map; second, the percentage of deviation for each riding from the provincial quotient; and, third, a statement of how the commission plans to proceed.
Each commission, therefore, must issue its own policy statement announcing the principles on which it intends to act in performing its redistribution work.
The second change consists in asking the commissions to produce three maps and include their reasons for selecting these boundaries. In this way, the public will be informed of the options available. The public may take part in the commission hearings and suggest alternatives. It can indicate its preference
for one map or another, without going to the trouble of preparing its own maps. Currently members and the public have a problem because they lack the resources to prepare alternative maps for submission to the commission.
The third change is with respect to the public hearings. The committee was of the view that there should be an additional round of public hearings if the commission makes dramatic changes to the electoral map after soliciting public input.
The final change relates to the process that currently exists whereby there is parliamentary review of the drafts of the commissions.
As members know, following the completion of the commission's second draft, the matter may be referred to a parliamentary committee which may then pass along to the commissions its recommendations. The commissions may accept or reject the recommendations but the process is available only to members of Parliament who make their representations to a parliamentary committee.
This special procedure is being abolished in the new act. All proceedings before the commissions will be in public and there will be no particular special parliamentary input opportunity provided. We think this will make the process more open. We believe it will allow the public to participate in the process and see that there are no back door deals being made between members of the House who may have been considered to be placed in a privileged position vis-à-vis the commissions.
Clearly members of Parliament have an important say in what riding boundaries should be. There are few Canadians more interested in electoral boundaries than the members of the House. However their opportunities to participate in this process should be played out in public in front of the members of the public. We believe that will be the result of this legislation.
The draft bill contains a number of changes to the current provisions that govern how the commissions decide to draw boundaries. We have adopted the principle of the least amount of change. Many members complained that commissions recommended changes for the sake of change rather than because change was necessary.
The hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception made a presentation-it was sent to the committee and I thank him for it-to the commission in Newfoundland where there had been very minor shifts in population and yet boundaries had been altered in several of the ridings in that province when there was really no need to do so on the basis of population change. In his submission to the commission he suggested that the commission should have left the boundaries entirely alone.
We have dealt with that. In a province where there has not been significant change, where there is no increase or decrease in the number of seats and where there is no particular deviation from the provincial quotient there will not be a commission appointed.
Many people expressed concern about the open-ended way that community of interest is defined in the current act. Commissions really have a carte blanche to interpret the act the way they see fit. Therefore, we have changed the definition of community of interest in an attempt to narrow it and focus it so that it will be a better standard against which to measure the work of commissions.
The committee also heard evidence from members in growing urban areas that commissions did not take into account the fact that their riding was experiencing or was about to experience tremendous growth. Often this is measurable. Plans of subdivisions are registered; the construction is ready to proceed; and it is obvious in some ridings, particularly in the large urban centres, that within a year or two there will be another 10,000 or 15,000 people living in a particular riding.
Commissions will now be able to consider evidence about future growth when they deliberate on the drawing of electoral boundaries and adjust the boundaries accordingly.
The proposed bill would also remove the ability of commissions to draw electoral boundaries beyond the 25 per cent allowed variance from a provincial quotient. The current law allows a commission to draw boundaries so that a riding exceeds or is less than the provincial quotient. For example, if the provincial quotient is 100,000 people per riding, the boundaries under the current law could allow for a riding to contain less than 75,000 people or it could allow the constituency to contain more than 125,000.
This will be eliminated in the bill. We will require that if there is to be a riding created that is beyond the quotient I mentioned, the riding must be specified in the schedule to the act. In other words, the House will fix which ridings will be allowed to deviate beyond the parameters set out in the legislation. Those ridings will be named in a schedule and then the boundaries of that riding will not be touched by the commissions.
The committee was of the view that this was the fair way to deal with this issue rather than leave an extended discretion in the commissions.
There was an argument put before the committee and one on which the parties in the committee disagreed, that the 25 per cent deviation was too large. The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing and some of the witnesses who appeared before the committee favoured reducing the variance to 15 per cent. The Reform Party has indicated its desire to limit the variance to 15 per cent.
There is considerable merit in the suggestion from the pointof view of equity and fairness in the electoral system. I will
concede that point, I respect members who have taken the view that it is the right way to go because they have strong arguments on their side. Nevertheless for large parts of rural Canada particularly a change to reduce the degree of variance from 25 to 15 per cent would result in a significant shift of seats from rural Canada to urban centres.
There is an argument made, and a very forceful argument by rural members, that the difficulties of representation in a large geographic riding with many communities that involve extensive travel between the parts of the community is more difficult than representation of a few blocks in a city core. Urban members sometimes dispute that.
I would not want to pass judgment on one side or the other. I represent a riding which is largely urban but which has a modest rural component, in the islands in particular.