Debates of March 27th, 1995

Petitions

[Guy Arseneault, Liberal, Restigouche—Chaleur, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the petition has been certified correct as to form and

content according to Standing Order 36. It has been signed by a number of constituents from Restigouche-Chaleur.

The petitioners pray that Parliament ensure the present provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada prohibiting assisted suicide be enforced vigorously and that Parliament make no changes in the law that would sanction or allow the aiding or abetting of suicide or active or passive euthanasia.

[Grant Hill, Reform, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions today. The first one states that Parliament should bring in gun control measures that are effective, not ones that pick on legitimate sportsmen.

[Grant Hill, Reform, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition asks Parliament to bring in taxpayer protection to limit federal spending.

I wholeheartedly concur with both petitions.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition today signed by numerous residents of the province of Ontario, many from Kingston, some from Toronto, Waterloo and Thornhill.

The petitioners pray and call upon Parliament to put an end to discriminatory treatment in Canada of gay and lesbian citizens and their familiar relationships by amending federal legislation which currently allows unequal treatment, including an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Questions Passed As Orders For Returns

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 121 could be made an Order for Return, the return would be tabled immediately.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 121-

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

With regard to all departments and agencies of the government, what were the numbers of air flights taken during the fiscal year 1993-94 by department/agency, what is the total cost of air travel by department/agency, how many of those flights were business class and how many were economy class by department/agency, and what was the proportionate cost of business versus economy class, again by department/agency?

Return tabled.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there agreement?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-69, an act to provide for the establishment of electoral boundaries commissions and the readjustment of electoral boundaries, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-69, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing line 17, page 2, with the following:

"electoral districts in the province varies by 15".

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think you would find the consent of the House, to save time, that we dispense with putting the question to the House on Motions Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 7, and that they be deemed to have been put to the House as we did on Saturday morning in respect of the other bill.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, could I have further clarification on exactly what is being suggested here?

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the motions be taken has having been read before the House, rather than having the Speaker read each of them.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-69, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing line 2, page 3, with the following:

"in the province varies by less than 15 per"

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 5.

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-69, in Clause 19, be amended:

(a) by replacing lines 24 and 25, page 11, with the following:

"for province shall, subject to subsection (1), be governed by the following rules:" and

(b) by replacing line 34, page 11, with the following:

"than 15 per cent from that quota, which"

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-69, in Clause 19, be amended by deleting lines 28 to 42, page 12.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, here we are again on Bill C-69 which started out as Motion No. 12 or 13 some time ago when there was a revolt on the Liberal backbenches because they saw some new maps which changed the boundaries of their ridings shortly after the last election.

Now we are at the stage where we have a new readjustment act nearing its final stage of debate. We are at report stage. There will be third reading and then it will go to the Senate.

We have proposed several amendments but they can be categorized in two major groups, the first being Motion No. 5 which has implications to Motions Nos. 1 and 2. Motion No. 7 is the other. Motion No. 5 is related to Motion No. 7.

These amendments are proposed to bring Bill C-69 into line with the principle of equality of vote. First, the population range within which constituencies are allowed to vary from the provincial quotient should be reduced from plus or minus 25 per cent to plus or minus 15 per cent. Second, whatever variance is in place should be an absolute limit.

Our second group of amendments takes away the discretion of the boundary commissions to exceed the limit in exceptional circumstances. It relates to clause 19(2) which sets the variable quotient at 25 per cent. Our amendment reduces the quotient to 15 per cent. This change is listed as our amendment No. 4.

Our first and second amendments are consequential to this change and are necessary for the continuity in legislation. They appear earlier in this bill which is why they must be dealt with first, even though they are consequential.

Let me touch on the reasons for moving to a 15 per cent variance in the population quotient for a province. Large variances in the population of constituencies are basically unfair. Constituencies significantly lower than the provincial average population are over represented in Parliament. Because the number of seats within a province is fixed, if one group is over represented another group must be under represented. This unfairness cannot be entirely eliminated but it must be greatly reduced to tighten the variance.

Many jurisdictions would see a variance of even less than 5 per cent. Certainly we are being most reasonable when we suggest the variance be limited to plus or minus 15 per cent of the provincial norm.

Equality of voting power is already stretched because our Constitution provides more seats in certain provinces than they would ordinarily receive based solely on their population.

A 25 per cent variance allows for constituencies to be established with up to a 67 per cent difference in population as of the time of census. Redistribution occurs three to four years later. The population variance could be even greater by the time redistribution is done. By contrast, a 50 per cent variance allows for a 35 per cent variance in population of the ridings within the same province.

A 35 per cent difference in population gives enough discretion to the boundary commissions to allow for considerations such as reasonable criteria regarding community of interest, rapid growth and the concerns of rural areas.

Allowing a 67 per cent difference in the population creates too much opportunity for drawing boundary lines around linguistic, cultural and ethnic communities. It is important that all aspects of electoral law treat all citizens equally regardless of race, gender, culture, religion or ethnicity. A tighter variance encourages the equitable treatment of all citizens by the boundary commissions.

Unusually large ridings do not need significantly lower populations to make them workable. There are other ways to accommodate those members and their constituents; for example, slightly larger office budgets or extra staff for travel. Increased use of communications technology can negate the need for some of the travel. When interconstituency travel is necessary, additional travel points can be used for travel within extremely large constituencies.

One complaint we heard over and over again primarily from Liberal backbenchers and also from a few of the Bloc Quebecois MPs at the committee was they were concerned about the unmanageability of their large rural constituencies. They seemed to feel that putting at risk the high standards we hold for the quality of voting power of Canadians was a worthwhile sacrifice to maintain their rural ridings at their present sizes. Some argued they were too large and should be made smaller.

The House of Commons is built on the principle of representation by population, not representation by geography of region. It therefore stands to reason that if any given area loses population, either in absolute terms or relative terms, on principle the number of MPs should also decrease.

It is important to tighten the variance used by the majority of constituencies because the legislation also proposes allowing special case ridings to exceed the population limits. A large variance in the exception rule is individually bad. In combination they weaken the concept of voter equity to the point at which it is almost meaningless.

A number of rural MPs were concerned about the geographic size of the ridings they had to represent. A smaller but also a strongly supported argument before our committee was that the urban ridings were growing so quickly they also became unmanageable for their members. It was rather odd to see urban and rural members arguing for two different clauses in section 19 of the bill which were at counter purposes to each other, both hoping they would be able to protect their own turf.

What this points out more than anything else is the importance of members not being on the front lines of negotiations when boundary lines are being drawn. In many instances members showed a rather sad self-interest in the whole process. They wanted to maintain the status quo because they wanted to maintain their own riding boundaries so they would be more comfortable. This is natural but that does not mean it is correct.

The other issue that we took exception to is clause 19(3), which allows boundary commissions to go beyond the minus 25 per cent rule. If the plus or minus 25 per cent rule was not enough, this clause actually allows the commissioners to exceed that variance and put additional ridings under a schedule. Our amendment deletes this entire clause. This makes the population variance an absolute number. This is listed as amendment No. 7, and amendment No. 3 is a consequential amendment to this change.

There are reasons for opposing exceptions to the rules. Allowing boundary commissions to exceed the population limits for constituencies makes whatever variance is in the act meaningless. If boundary commissions are permitted to exceed the limit any time they want, why have a limit? It would be like being allowed to exceed the speed limit if it were for a good reason.

The increased over representation caused by exceeding the minimum population defined by the variance would create more under-representation elsewhere in the province and that would stretch voter equity even further.

There are very few ridings under the schedule now. Many MPs were arguing there should be more. They were saying: "My riding is not under the schedule at the current time. I would sure like it to be there. Let us make sure that we draft a piece of legislation that allows for my riding to be included".

We saw many from northern Ontario. We saw a very interesting amendment in the Order Paper. Fortunately it has been withdrawn. It stretches believability that some members from northern Ontario could be so protective of their turf and not want to lose their riding, even though the population of Ontario dictates that should be the case. We saw the same ridiculous arguments from the province of Quebec and the separatists. It is funny that the Liberals and the separatists should be speaking from the same page on this one, both trying to represent sparsely populated rural ridings, trying to put them on the schedule for partisan purposes. It is very unfortunate.

If exceptions to the rules are included in the legislation, everyone with a rural or northern riding will be trying to prove they deserve to be exempted. This will create difficulties for the commissions which will be faced with many costly and time consuming appeals for exceptions.

Liberal backbenchers may again demand the maps be redrawn to their liking if they do not get all the exempted ridings they want. It will be very interesting to see the response of many of these members when they see the new maps, yet again for the second time, and see their concerns were not addressed. We simply cannot draw the boundaries where they were the last time when redistributing the ridings.

If the 25 per cent variance has already passed for ridings within the same province, which will already be allowed to vary by 67 per cent, no further allowance can in any way be justified as necessary to meet the unusual circumstances.

We have in one end of the country Labrador. It is a scheduled riding because it is not a part of the island of Newfoundland. That seems to be justification for this large rural riding to be set apart. We see on the other coast the riding of North Island-Powell River. The boundaries of that riding are partly on the island but extend to the mainland. It is rough, wild, natural terrain, beautiful country. Why should there be two sets of rules, particularly if we have a variance of plus or minus 25 per cent to begin with?

If exceptions are allowed some ridings within the same province could be established at the time of redistribution which would double the population of others. In Newfoundland the difference between the largest and smallest riding population is well over 300 per cent, more than triple. Labrador has about 30,000 people and St. John's West has 101,000. Is that kind of distribution of voting power fair to the people of St. John's? No, it is not. That needs to be looked at.

This legislation will encourage that practice to continue, rather than discourage it because it has the very broad term extraordinary circumstances. Of course, extraordinary can be interpreted just about any way the commission feels reasonable. There is very little direction in this act as to what extraordinary circumstances are as far as isolation and difficulty of accessibility are concerned.

In Ontario the last distribution map stayed within the plus or minus 25 per cent limit. However, the difference between Algoma and Scarborough North, the smallest and largest populations, is 42 per cent.

One of the reasons the Liberals squashed those redistribution maps is they said the maps were unfair to the north. In other words, there already was an inequity of 42 per cent between the most populous riding and the least populous riding in the province of Ontario with the maps brought forth last year. However, that is not enough. They want a greater discrepancy than that. Forty-two per cent is not acceptable to either the large rural ridings of the north or to the urban ridings, particularly those close to Toronto.

Now the Liberals want to put these ridings into the schedule. They want the difference to be greater; they want more than a 42 per cent variance in the province of Ontario. That is not good representation for the voters of Ontario and certainly is not good for all Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure how you are going to be ruling on the Bloc amendment so I will not be able to speak to it at this time. I hope I will be able to because there are some democratic principles in place.

I hope the Liberals will come to their senses and support these amendments. For the betterment of the country, let us finally see them do the right thing, the thing they argued in committee was right but what they then backed away from and voted against, only to bring in an inferior bill.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Since there is no speaker on the governement side, I give the floor to the member for Bellechasse.

[François Langlois, Bloc, Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the comments by the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster. I was very surprised to hear him say that the hon. member for Cochrane-Superior, who made a first rate presentation before the procedure and House affairs committee, had ulterior motives. He defended not only the interests of his riding, but a global vision of rural Canada, which has been slowly emptied of its population and has had to have its boundaries redrawn.

It is with great pleasure that I acknowledge the presentation made by the member for Cochrane-Superior to the procedure and House affairs committee, which revealed, among other things, how difficult it was to work with a schedule, and showed that it would probably be better to include a clause in the bill dealing with the special circumstances resulting from geographical isolation. I will come back to these points in a moment.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster seems to believe that the history of Canada started on October 26, 1993, the day he was elected to this House. Since the beginning of Confederation, we have had nine constitutions, including the 1982 Constitution. If the member had looked at the British North America Act, he would have found that the first schedule to this act deals with the electoral districts of Ontario. The 82 electoral districts are listed in there, and what do we find?

That, in 1867, the founding fathers had decided that electoral boundaries would essentially be determined by county. Therefore, in 1867, counties became the basis for representation throughout Eastern Canada, which included Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. People's sense of belonging started with their county. Suffice it to list the constituent counties of 1867. I will name the first nine only. They are the counties of Prescott, Glengarry, Stormont, Dundas, Russell, Carleton, Prince Edward, Halton and Essex. The list goes on, because there are 82 of them. When a county had to be divided, because the population was too large, it was indicated. However, the territorial division, and people's sense of belonging found expression in the county, as clearly established in the British North America Act.

The riding I now represent, Bellechasse, comprises four counties: Dorchester, Bellechasse, Montmagny and L'Islet. In the past, it was represented by four members in this House-one for each county. Nobody threw stones or threatened to blow things up because representation varied from one riding to another.

It was in 1964, when we began to no longer use the county as the basis for representation in the House of Commons, that we upset the whole system. Now people, wherever they live in Canada, have a hard time identifying with their electoral ridings, which have changed, naturally, because of significant shifts in population.

We believe in the principle of representation by population, to start with, but in a tempered form, which must reflect the history of Canada and the fact it started out as a rural country and remained so for a very long time. People drifted toward the cities, but their first loyalties had been to the rural areas in each of the provinces of Canada-in the Atlantic, in Quebec, in Ontario or in the western provinces.

Today, of course, there are fewer people in the rural ridings and an adjustment must be made. However, does it have to be to the third decimal point to avoid there being any variation between provinces or between ridings? Should we work towards the 15 per cent proposed by the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, or should we stick to the traditional way of doing things in this country, a tolerant and open-minded electoral system which for the fact that the number of voters in a riding which is made up of 50 or 60 different communities is per force much lower, while at the same time allowing for the boundaries

of a given urban riding to be modified to take in new constituents subsequent to an extension to one of this riding's main arteries into what would have been another riding and would have divided a natural community?

We should decide on a case by case basis, determine whether the social fabric is homogenous in a given urban riding and whether adding a block or two would upset anything. If the fabric is not homogeneous in another urban riding, for example, if there is a variety or a mosaic of populations to be represented, the situation is different. Let us avoid generalizations and the Reformers' approach which is to generalize everything, level off both peaks and valleys any way they can and split hairs in their counts. It is an approach, an attitude which, from the point of view of legislation and electoral representation, we believe is to be condemned.

We would much prefer living with a variation of 25 per cent between ridings. But the Reform Party goes much further. It would like to drop subclause 19(3), which would permit commissions to allow a variation of more than 25 per cent because of geography, geographic isolation or inaccessibility. Obviously, we cannot agree with the Reform Party's proposal.

This would rule out a separate riding for the Magdalen Islands, considerably expand the riding of Manicouagan in Quebec, affect the riding of Cochrane-Superior, the riding of Nickel Belt, all of northern Ontario, as well as his own riding. The hon. member may have a death wish, but you can be sure that I will not fly in his plane.

In our opinion, clause 19.(3) is an inadequate safeguard. What we proposed in committee was to maintain the current situation allowing the commissions to depart from the rules on the 25 per cent variation every time they see fit to do so for reasons related to a community's special characteristics or the various interests of people in different parts of the province. The government has considerably reduced the impact. The commission will now be able to deviate by more than 25 per cent, but only below that percentage. This means that it cannot go above 125 per cent. Therefore, this criterion is also inadequate in a homogeneous urban riding.

As you can easily understand, Mr. Speaker, there is no way we can support either of the amendments proposed by the Reform Party of Canada. Could you tell me how much time I have left?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I was not in the chair this morning, and have been advised that we are debating Motions Nos. 1, 2 and 3; Motion No. 6 has been withdrawn; the Speaker will rule on the acceptability of Motion No. 4 momentarily. You should therefore have enough time to finish your speech.

[François Langlois, Bloc, Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what are we to make of a political formation, namely the Reform Party of Canada, which calls for a triple E Senate where the provinces would each be represented by six senators-every one of them, from Prince Edward Island to Quebec, to Ontario, to British Columbia-regardless of their relative population, but not when it comes to representation in the House of Commons? They would like to make this House as uniform as possible, with every member exactly the same height. If they could all come in a five foot eleven and 172 pound format, that would perfect. That is pretty well what the Reform Party of Canada is suggesting.

The Reform Party had better make up its mind. How can it be for a triple E Senate, with six senators representing 120,000 people in one case and the exact same number of senators representing Ontario, the largest province in Canada, with 30 per cent of the total population? This does not make sense. Either the Reformists are for equal representation or they are not. Somehow they manage to be both at the same time.

I hope that Reform members will rise on this issue and elaborate on their view of a tripe E Senate, while the House of Commons can function very well with a deviation of plus or minus 25 per cent.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, so far I agree with the position of the hon. member for Bellechasse concerning the amendments put forth by the hon. member for Kinderley-Lloydminster. I am pleased to speak after him in this debate because he has set out so clearly the major aspects of this issue.

I also want to make my own point to the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster. I know he has had lots of practice in making that speech.

We considered this question in committee in the days of when we were deciding what to do. The House had a debate on this issue in referring the matter to the committee. The issue was first raised then. We studied it in committee and made a report to the House. We had a motion for concurrence at which time this was one of the hotly debated issues and we heard the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster then.

We had a bill for second reading which was passed without debate, but then in committee we went back into this issue as we studied this clause in the bill. We made some changes that the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster did not like. I see that one of his amendments is to delete those good changes.

Then we come back to the House and here we have it again. I will lay dollars to doughnuts that we are going to hear the same debate from the hon. member on third reading. He is persistent, I grant him that and he has had lots of practice giving his speech.

I enjoyed his remarks this afternoon. I know he had hoped he had convinced me that we should agree to some changes in this part of the bill and accept his amendments. I do not agree with the amendments he has put forward and I want to give him, the

House and Canadians the reason the government is not agreeing with these amendments.

I listened to the evidence. After hearing all the evidence, I came to my conclusion. It is a good conclusion and I invite the hon. member to support it.

What he said was that as a result of the changes in this bill voter equity was almost meaningless. I have to disagree with that. The essential principle dealing with redistribution in Canada is set out in clause 19(1) of this bill. If he goes back to that basic principle, I think he will agree with me that what we did was right. It says:

The principle that shall guide each commission in preparing a report is that effective representation be the paramount consideration in determining reasonable electoral district boundaries in the province for which the commission is established.

As a person who represents a mixed rural and urban riding, but almost all urban, I would have expected that equality would require every riding in Canada to be the same size in terms of the number of electors.

[Maurice Bernier, Bloc, Mégantic—Compton—Stanstead, QC]

In principle.