[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, October 24, 1995
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[Translation]
The Chairman: Order, please. We are ready to begin.
[English]
The first item of business on today's agenda
[Translation]
the report from our subcommittee for the Eastern provinces. The chairperson of the subcommittee is Mrs. Brushett who is with us today. Mrs. Brushett, would you please come to the table.
[English]
The question before us is the draft report from the subcommittee, which could become the report of this committee with some changes in wording. The question is whether or not we want to forward the report of the subcommittee directly and adopt it, or whether or not we wish to add our own comments to the report. The floor is open for discussion on these points.
Mrs. Brushett, do you want to say something initially about your subcommittee's work?
Mrs. Dianne Brushett, MP (Cumberland - Colchester; Chair, Sub-committee on the Consideration of the Objections Filed on the Proposed Electoral Boundaries for the Eastern Provinces): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and all hon. members of the committee.
I might take five minutes, if that's permissible, to highlight particularly the general comments and some of the conclusions. Before dealing with the specific objections raised by members of Parliament, the committee did make specific observations. A few of the suggestions were with regard to the content of this report and future reports.
We felt that in future reports, the reasons for changing boundaries of various constituencies should be clearly spelled out to facilitate, for example, the comparison of existing boundaries and proposed boundaries. In that regard, we felt it would be very beneficial if we had the existing map in our book, along with perhaps a transparency overlay of the proposed changes. We could then see the effects they would have on communities as they exist now within the electoral boundaries.
The subcommittee was also quite concerned that too much attention was paid to electoral quota, the criterion that all constituencies in a province have relatively the same population. Considerations such as community of interest, historical patterns and manageable geographic distances were downplayed and, we felt, sometimes perhaps even ignored. The subcommittee believes the commission should make a concerted effort to respect regional and municipal boundaries by regarding municipal governments in order to ensure that relatively stable populations experience minimal alterations and variances in this regard.
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Mr. Boudria (Glengarry - Prescott - Russell): Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order. Just so we can ensure that we follow procedure properly here, this is a report to our committee from a subcommittee. I understand that whenever we adopt a full report - which may very well happen this morning - it goes to the Chief Electoral Officer and it becomes public.
The Chairman: It goes to the Speaker, who transmits it to the Chief Electoral Officer. I believe it will be public; I see no reason why it would not be. As far as I know, it is, and there's nothing in the legislation that suggests otherwise. The committee is free to table its report in the House if it wishes to do so, but the statute requires that it be delivered to the Speaker for transmittal to the Chief Electoral Officer.
Mr. Boudria: The reason I'm bringing this up is to enquire as to whether or not our deliberations until that time are supposed to be in camera. I'm not advocating it, but if this were a report to be tabled in the House, there would be no question that we would have to do so. I bring this up to ensure that either this is public at this point, it is public once we adopt this report, or it is public when it is tabled in the House. Which is it? Could we clarify that and then decide whether our colleagues from the media can remain or whether we boot them out, as it were, or what the procedure will be? I'm unsure of it at this point.
The Chairman: The point's well taken, Mr. Boudria. We're public at the moment. If there's a motion to move us in camera, the chair will entertain it.
Mr. Ringma, do you have views on this?
Mr. Ringma (Nanaimo - Cowichan): This is just a point of clarification, Mr. Chairman, and it's not really relevant to the whip's motion.
These are two of four reports that we are going to get. I presume the timetable has us considering the other two, for Ontario and Quebec, next week. Is that it?
The Chairman: Yes, I expect we'll be considering them next Tuesday. That's the plan.
Mr. Ringma: Okay, I just wanted to clarify that.
The Chairman: The other two are not quite ready, although they are due. We have scheduled business with the Speaker on Thursday, so I've deliberately left those to be dealt with next week. I'm assuming that whatever happens with these.... We may want to do some redrafting. I don't know.
Ms Catterall.
Ms Catterall (Ottawa West): I just want to express a personal opinion, Mr. Chair. I know that when committees are doing reports, they often do meet in camera. This, however, is business that affects millions of people in terms of their relationships with their elected representatives, so I can't see a valid reason for it being in camera.
Mr. Arseneault (Restigouche - Chaleur): I'll say the same thing. In fact, when we made presentations to the subcommittee, it was in the public forum, in the eye of the public. I feel the report should be reported to this committee in public as well. There should be no in camera meetings.
The Chairman: Is there any disagreement?
Then carry on, Mrs. Brushett. We're staying in public.
Mrs. Brushett: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Finally, some of the general comments that we prepared as a subcommittee were meant to observe the value of rural constituencies. Rural constituencies place special demands on members of Parliament. They are more difficult to serve because of their large sizes, difficulty in transportation and communications, and the numbers of municipalities, organizations and counties that exist within large rural constituencies. Moreover, rural constituencies tend to make greater demands on elected representatives because of the absence of services that are more readily available in urban areas.
The subcommittee is concerned that rural constituencies are losing ground to their urban counterparts. It is the subcommittee's view that the commission should make every effort to address the problems of rural constituencies and to ensure that Canada's rural populations continue to enjoy effective representation.
Those are some opening comments that we felt were pertinent to the electoral boundary discussion itself.
Five members from the province of New Brunswick came before our subcommittee. In the province of New Brunswick, two reports were submitted previously, the majority report and the minority report.
I'm only going to give highlights through this, as I understand that each of you has had an opportunity to read it. I will first comment briefly on the presentation of Mr. Guy Arseneault. His chief comments were the following.
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The commission failed to recognize the distinct identities of and geographic differences between the present constituencies of Restigouche - Chaleur and Madawaska - Victoria. The commission did not consider that the creation of Madawaska - Restigouche would deprive northern New Brunswick of a seat in Parliament. The breakup of the Restigouche and Chaleur regions, which have worked well together for many years, would compromise regional, economic, and social development plans. Finally, there are some 200 kilometres of dense forest that separate the ridings of Madawaska and Restigouche, and this is a geographic barrier.
The second presenter from New Brunswick was Madame Pierrette Ringuette-Maltais. To highlight her concerns, she thought the commission failed to respect the community of interest as well as the social, economic, and cultural ties in Madawaska and Victoria counties. She felt the commission did not reflect the wishes of the people of New Brunswick, who suggested only minor changes to the electoral map. The commission failed to consider the natural geography and demographics of northwest New Brunswick. All federal services are provided to Madawaska - Victoria through the same service centre in the eastern part of that region, and previous boundary reports were not taken into consideration by the commission.
Madame Ringuette-Maltais filed additional comments, and this is a summary of those, but she felt the minority report would have been acceptable.
Andy Scott, the third presenter from the province of New Brunswick, objected to the boundaries for the proposed constituency of Fredericton on the grounds that the majority report failed to respect the community of interest. He was also critical of the process used to redraw electoral boundaries; he suggested that the boundaries commission should use existing rather than proposed boundaries as the basis for their consultations and public meetings.
Mr. Scott felt that the radical changes in the boundaries of his constituency would discourage people from participating in the political process. He observed that people at either end of the proposed constituency of Tobique - Mactaquac would have little in common and no sense of cohesion.
Mr. Scott was of the view that the majority report slavishly adhered to the electoral quota and did not adequately consider other equally important factors. He noted that minor adjustments to the boundaries of Fredericton - York - Sunbury would have been sufficient to bring the constituency closer to the electoral quota.
The Hon. Fernand Robichaud, the fourth presenter, objected to the proposed boundary changes on the following grounds. The commission failed to give adequate consideration to the community of interest, the community of identity, and the historic and geographic patterns of Beauséjour. The commission proposed to move the francophone communities of the Parish of Saint-Louis, the Village of Saint-Louis-de-Kent, and the Parish of Saint-Charles from the primarily francophone constituency of Beauséjour to the electoral district of Miramichi. The commission proposes to move the County of Albert from Fundy - Royal to the electoral district of Beauséjour. The majority failed to present the views of the people of New Brunswick, who clearly prefer minor changes to the electoral map.
The final presenter from New Brunswick, Mr. Paul Zed, proposed that the commission failed to take into consideration the community of interest of the residents of Fundy - Royal, who are being moved to other constituencies. The commission erred in using the electoral quota as the sole factor in determining electoral boundaries and did not give adequate consideration to the demographics of Fundy - Royal.
Mr. Zed was of the view that the majority report failed to take into account the community of interest for the residents of Fundy - Royal, who would be removed to the constituencies of Beauséjour and Charlotte, and that the community of interest was not respected in the realignment of the boundaries of Fundy - Royal and Charlotte. The majority report proposes the creation of the new constituency of Charlotte, which would take in, among other things, the parishes of Gagetown, Hampstead, and Greenwich.
Mr. Zed agrees with the conclusions of the minority report with respect to his constituency, which in his view more adequately reflected the community of interest and the demographics of the area.
The conclusions of the subcommittee for the province of New Brunswick on the five presentations that were made.... We have cited two examples that serve as a reflection of the community of interest but that seem to have been neglected by the ELectoral Boundaries Commission.
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These two examples that stood out for the subcommittee were the moving of francophone communities in the parish of St. Louis, the village of Saint-Louis-de-Kent, and the parish of Saint-Charles, now part of the the constituency of Beauséjour, into the electoral district of Miramichi. This was a loss of community of interest.
The second factor that stood out fairly significantly was the moving of some primarily francophone communities: the parish of Grand Falls, the town of Grand Falls, and the parish of Drummond, which are in the upper Saint John River valley in the western part of New Brunswick. It is these francophone communities that are now being drawn from the existing Madawaska - Victoria constituency into the new proposed constituency of Tobique - Mactaquac, which stretches down as far as Fredericton.
The subcommittee requested that the boundaries commission give due consideration to all these objections raised before the subcommittee and make a concerted effort to ensure community of interest is respected to the greatest degree possible when the electoral boundaries are finally established.
I'll proceed to Newfoundland. There was one objection from the member Jean Payne. In her objection she said the commission failed to respect the electoral quota for Newfoundland. The commission failed to consider historical patterns of the constituency of St. John's West, in particular the historical patterns of the communities of Goobies, Arnold's Cove, Come-by-Chance, Fair Haven, Southern Harbour and Little Harbour, Whitbourne, and Markland, and the surrounding areas comprising part of her constituency. The commission failed to give consideration to the main traffic arteries and community axis of the constituency of St. John's West in Newfoundland, particularly to the natural division line formed by the Trans-Canada Highway in the western isthmus of the Avalon Peninsula and the Whitbourne and Markland areas.
She did make a point that the types of fishing were different on each side of the isthmus and that this was definitely a community of interest and an economic factor. The commission did not consider the community of interest that the western isthmus of the Avalon Peninsula shares with that particular riding of St. John's West. The commission did not give adequate consideration to the demographics of the constituency.
In conclusion, about the Newfoundland presentation, the subcommittee agrees with the objections raised by Ms Payne. Specifically, the subcommittee feels the boundaries commission has failed to take into account historical patterns in the constituency and the natural division line formed by the Trans-Canada Highway through the Avalon Peninsula; through the isthmus. The subcommittee therefore recommends that the commission consider the objections raised by Ms Payne and retain within the constituency of St. John's West the present western portion of the isthmus of the Avalon Peninsula.
The final presenter who came before our subcommittee was from Nova Scotia, in the name of Mr. Francis LeBlanc. Mr. LeBlanc objected to the boundaries commission proposals for Bras d'Or on the grounds that the consultation process on the proposed boundaries changes was flawed. Inadequate public information was presented at the meetings and those who made representation learned about the process only after the report had been released. The commission ignored the importance of the Strait of Canso as a hub of economic activity for communities on both sides of the waterway. In the new proposal the division would separate that community in half. The proposed Cape Breton constituency creates awkward rural-urban mixes. The commission relied too heavily on population numbers in redefining the electoral boundaries and did not give sufficient consideration to local communities of interest and historic cultural and economic patterns.
Mr. LeBlanc told the subcommittee the present constituency of Cape Breton Highlands - Canso is predominantly rural at present and the creation of two Cape Breton constituencies, with both urban and rural mixes, would compromise the representation of the rural element and unnecessarily split the community of interest that has developed historically. Moreover, the proposed boundaries run counter to the creation of the new regional government in industrial Cape Breton to focus local economic development in Cape Breton County.
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I might point out that since the 1991 report, regional municipal government has come in in Nova Scotia, and it has made subsequent changes that would reflect in that report contrarily.
Mr. LeBlanc strongly opposed the Strait of Canso being the dividing line between the proposed constituencies of Bras d'Or and Pictou - Antigonish - Guysborough. He noted that the strait is the centre of a larger region on both sides of the waterway that is connected by historic, cultural and economic ties.
Using the strait as the boundary line between these proposed constituencies would result in communities on both sides of the strait being on the periphery of federal constituencies whose population base is elsewhere. In the case of western Cape Breton, the centre would be Sydney and Glace Bay. In the case of Antigonish and Guysborough, the centre would be down in Pictou County, and that is a large distance.
The subcommittee is of the view that there is considerable merit in the objections and comments raised by Mr. LeBlanc, particularly as they relate to the unique situation of the Strait of Canso as the hub of economic activity and the desirability of drawing constituency boundaries to avoid the division of municipal and regional government areas.
The subcommittee is also concerned that the breakup of Cape Breton Highlands - Canso essentially amounts to the loss of a rural constituency in the province of Nova Scotia. This seems to evidence a trend of creating mixed rural-urban ridings where urban interests quickly become predominant. As rural interests lose ground, whether because of unmanageable constituency size or the influence of urban interests, whichever it be, effective representation for rural areas becomes more difficult to achieve.
The subcommittee therefore requests that the boundaries commission consider the objections raised by Mr. LeBlanc and review its decision with respect to the boundary lines of the proposed Bras d'Or constituency.
Those are my comments in very brief summary, Mr. Chair. If I can highlight anything a little more in depth, I'd be happy to do so.
Mr. Ringma: Mrs. Brushett, I appreciate all the work you've put into chairing that subcommittee. In your opinion, having gone through all that work, did you find the parliamentary review, which of course we're doing because of the legislation, worthwhile? Is it a necessary step or is there a better way of doing it?
Mrs. Brushett: Thank you, Mr. Ringma, for your question.
My riding has not been affected. It's the northern part of Nova Scotia, which is a very large peninsula and is very rural, with both coasts. I have lobster fishing on one side and scallop draggermen on the other. It is very immense.
But it seems to me, in looking at the commission's studies and past, that it's been a numbers procedure. We look to the magic electoral quota and it's based on that. More often than not we have lost the community of interest. We have lost that historic, traditional, cultural pattern that communities develop.
You probably know from your own riding or many ridings throughout this country that Canada is one great, broad country and it's very difficult to manage this massive geography. Where you have a rural-urban mix, it seems invariably populations merge towards the urban centre in looking for employment, social activities and so on.
In this merging of populations to the urban centre, we lose that massive geographic riding area in terms of representation. I believe the community of interest must be represented because of our geography of Canada as it is. Because we lose more services in rural areas, the demands on those people are much more immense to be out there serving their public. Therefore I think a greater emphasis must be placed on the community of interest than simply on the electoral quota.
More often than not the electoral quota has been the sole factor addressed. That is important; don't get me wrong. But it seems to me it is easier to service one Rotary Club, one fire department and one set of activities in a three-mile area if you allow the numbers to increase a bit than it is to travel and service 70 fire brigades who want you out there to present medals and awards, who want you out there to talk about taxes and help with income tax forms and do that massive driving and at the same time present representation. So community of interest is a key factor and I think it's very valuable to go through this exercise.
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Mr. Ringma: Thank you. The -
The Chairman: Mrs. Brushett is not a witness. She's here to assist the committee.
Mr. Ringma: What I'm trying to get, Mr. Chairman, is a sense of how much better off we are at the end of all these reviews. To be very subjective about it, I was before the commission in my own riding because I objected to what they were doing in much the manner you were explaining. So I know what happens there.
Then I say, is there real utility for me to appear before the western subcommittee on this and make my case again? But I think what is coming out of it, from your answer, which I will put together with the other subcommittee answers...I'll have a pretty good sense, I hope, that, yes, the parliamentary review is in itself a worthwhile endeavour.
Mrs. Brushett: My view is that the committee was excellent. They served very well. I think the view is that no matter where your riding ends up or what you do, you get out there. This is an electoral process. You get out there and fight the battle when the next election comes.
However, it is important to know that you can serve that constituency with, as much as possible, a common language, and that a francophone community is not all of a sudden safe in a very broad anglophone community where it becomes more difficult to find the common ties, the common culture, and serve it as best as you can, as efficiently as you can as a member of Parliament.
The Chairman: Do members wish to make any comments on the report or what should go in the report from the committee?
Ms Catterall: I believe we should include this report as is in the comprehensive report. Mr. Chair, for clarification, will we be doing a separate report back to each boundary commission?
The Chairman: Yes.
Ms Catterall: Then I would propose that we adopt the report and forward it to the commission with an endorsement of the recommendations. I certainly don't feel equipped, not having heard the evidence that the committee heard, to second-guess their recommendations.
What I want to point out is that I notice a common theme in this and in the report from the western provinces that has to do with the rigid adherence to the quota, and the tendency to tack on parts of rural ridings to urban ridings, which may make sense in terms of numbers but doesn't really make sense in protecting the diversity of this country and the diversity of views that are represented in Parliament. It just struck me that this is a common theme from both of those reports. I think this, perhaps, supports the contention that was being made that a parliamentary look at the bases of the ridings and how those lines are redrawn is extremely important and a good indication that community of interest considerations can't come from the boundary commissions themselves. They can come from the communities and their elected representatives.
So my motion is that we forward the report with our endorsement of its recommendations.
The Chairman: I'd suggest that we not adopt the report necessarily today. We have to draft our own report. We're not sending subcommittee reports on. Perhaps you could make it a suggestion at this point rather than a motion. I think we can adopt the reports at a subsequent meeting.
The purpose of today's meeting is to allow members to express their views in relation to the subcommittees' report so that when the report of the committee is drafted it will reflect the views of the members of the committee, so it will have some introductory words. We may copy holus-bolus out of the subcommittee, but it will be a committee report that we're adopting and forwarding in accordance with the law, through the Speaker to the Chief Electoral Officer and to the commissions.
Mrs. Catterall: Thanks for that enlightenment.
The Chairman: Perhaps I could ask a question of Mrs. Brushett.
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In the New Brunswick case, a minority report was attached to the report of the commission. All of the witnesses who appeared before you, the five MPs who objected and came before you, supported the minority report. Is there some reason why you didn't recommend the minority report as a solution to the problem? Is it not something that maybe this committee ought to recommend to solve this problem? We can just say: adopt the minority report and be gone with you.
Mrs. Brushett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is certainly a valid comment.
There was the majority report, as you are aware, as well as the minority report, and each candidate who presented said that the minority report was acceptable to him.
However, not having heard from those people who believed that the majority report was acceptable - and there are five who did not present before us - and having looked at the community of interests....
For example, if I go to the riding of Restigouche - Chaleur, which would be the present riding of Mr. Guy Arseneault, that abuts onto the riding of Acadie - Bathurst. In the majority report, there are some small communities that are presently in Mr. Arseneault's riding, which, when the electoral commission did its hearings, indicated that they would prefer to be in the riding of Acadie - Bathurst, as we were told. Therefore, since they did make those presentations before the electoral commission and as that was the result of the majority report, we felt that we were in no position to make a recommendation that one or the other should be accepted but that they look at this community of interest very strongly and look at the urban-rural mix and that the electoral numbers not be the sole consideration.
The magic number in New Brunswick is 72,390 persons. Some ridings were as low as 40-some thousand. So they had to balance the numbers, but they also had to look at the community of interest, and my clerk, my researcher, my -
The Chairman: But, to go back to my question, you didn't recommend.... One of the other members, one of the five who did not present, was a member of your subcommittee?
Mrs. Brushett: Yes.
The Chairman: At least one? Were there two?
Mrs. Brushett: Only one.
The Chairman: And was there an objection from that member to the minority report?
Mrs. Brushett: I'm not sure that I could answer that very precisely. There was consensus in tabulating this report.
The Chairman: In the report you have?
Mrs. Brushett: Yes. I believe that we felt we were in no position to accept the minority report per se, because members asked for minor changes but some of them were still major.
Mrs. Parrish (Mississauga West): Thank you very much, Mrs. Brushett. It's a very thorough report and I know that it must have been difficult. However, I would like to comment more on what Ms Catterall said and on what you said.
I have serious reservations about passing this on as a full report, because we have to be consistent.
We had a preamble when we did our bill, which looked at electoral boundaries, and when all of these will have been filed with us, we should go back and look at that preamble to make sure that it's consistent, for our own committee's sake.
Secondly, I, as usual, have strong objections to a heavy concentration on the difficulties of rural ridings. Mrs. Brushett was talking about a difficulty in representing French- and English-speaking communities. I have 40 languages in my riding, and I have a lot of difficulty in representing them. So I would always like to speak on behalf of the urban ridings, and I hope that when we do our report we won't put an unnatural focus on the difficulties of rural ridings, that we won't make that a focus of the full report, and that we will go back and refer to the preamble of our bill, which was drafted at this committee, to make sure that those are consistent.
So the individual sections of this report are terrific. I'd like to see the preamble part and the general comments all coordinated at the end.
Mr. Arseneault: In regard to the minority report that was tabled in New Brunswick, it was the only minority report tabled in Canada from any of the commissions, so it was indicative of some grave concern there.
If you look at the consensus in the province of New Brunswick, not necessarily with the minority report or whatever, the general principle is that there should be minor changes rather than major ones. I think that's why a minority report was tabled, because the majority report asks for some major changes. Some of those changes were in effect 20 or 30 years ago in old ridings and they were reviewed in this new modern system and now they're going back to the old system again, which didn't work at that time.
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I think if you were to poll MPs in New Brunswick, you would find that most would prefer minor changes rather than the major changes of the majority report. I think that's the process. I think Ms Brushett is correct in assuming that maybe the recommendation should not be for the minority report because we haven't heard from all the MPs, but I think most of them would agree with that recommendation anyway.
The Chairman: It certainly appears that if half of them objected there's reason to criticize the majority report, at least in our report. That's fair, I think.
Mrs. Brushett: That's a fair statement. Of the two examples I cited for the committee, one was taking a francophone community and putting it into a very massive anglophone district. This seemed to be a loss of community of interest. It also seemed to be a minor change that could very well be adapted to reflect that.
Mr. Frazer (Saanich - Gulf Islands): Perhaps my background is coming out here. I've been to every part of this country and know it reasonably well, but I have difficulty following some of the districts you're talking about; the towns and the areas.
May I suggest if we're going to consider these reports it might be wise to have a large-scale map of the area in question so we can point out what is being said about what and why. As it is now, the names are fine but they don't really conjure up an accurate picture in my mind of exactly what we're talking about. If we're serious about this I think we should have a viewpoint of what we're talking about.
The Chairman: There are maps in the -
Mr. Frazer: I'm talking about large-scale maps.
The Chairman: Do we have some?
Mr. Frazer: I think it would be beneficial for us if presenters were able to use a pointer to show what they're talking about. Then everybody would be able to follow exactly what was going on, which I have not been able to do up to this point.
The Chairman: Do you want to go through it again, then? Is that your wish?
Mr. Frazer: I don't know. It's up to you, Mr. Chair. My observation is that I'm not up to speed on what Ms Brushett was saying. I have some vague idea of where she was talking about, but when she went into constituencies, I wasn't able to follow her.
Mr. Arseneault: We have appointed a subcommittee to listen to the witnesses. Perhaps we should have listened to all the witnesses and gone through the maps with them to really understand it because Ms Brushett didn't touch on all of the aspects that were presented. That's one point.
The other point is that Ms Brushett and the report have alluded to community of interest. I think it's very important, but the examples of it being drawn are of French communities being minority communities within English communities. But the boundaries also result in the opposite happening in my region where the English are in the minority and with the new riding they would be even more in the minority. They would have some concerns about the types of services they would be eligible for and participation and things of that nature.
So the opposite exists as well. It's not just a one-sided coin here. I just want to point that out to everyone.
Mr. Frazer: I have no quarrel with this whatsoever, but what are we in this committee doing? We either accept the subcommittee's report and go along with it, or we delve into it. That's where I'm lost right now.
The Chairman: I think it's up to the committee. If you want to delve into it, we can delve into it. I think from what I've been sensing members seem happy with the subcommittee reports. If that's not the case and you want to delve into particulars on it, we have large maps here, I'm told, so we can do a demonstration. It's up to members. If you want to do it, we'll do it.
Mrs. Parrish: With respect to Mr. Frazer's concerns, I don't want to go into the details. I think we've appointed chairpeople from the geographic areas and they've done the detailed work.
I think what we're concerned about is the same thing I brought up earlier; the concepts. If we're looking at particular concepts and have faith in the people who have chaired the subcommittees and are very familiar with the areas, I have no problems, nor do I want to sit through extensive map drawings. They've already done that.
As I've said, I'd like to coordinate it with our presentation on the last bill that got blocked in the Senate and make sure the concepts they've brought forward are consistent with that. They're suggesting minor changes and they're most familiar with their areas. So please, I don't want to go into lots of detail.
The Chairman: Unless members have other comments to make on this, I would like to suggest the following. The people who are here to assist us in drafting a report will do some work on this and come up with a draft report, which will be available for members presumably later this week or early next week. It will reflect the comments that have been made today by members. We'll have another run at it because the draft report will be here.
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If members are unhappy with aspects of it or want to look into a particular riding or a series of ridings in more detail, we'll have the maps back here when we consider the draft report and can spend some time on it if members wish to see something in greater detail. Is that satisfactory for everyone?
Mrs. Parrish: I have one question. You've been here a little longer than I have. When they've done this process in the past -
The Chairman: I wasn't here.
Mrs. Parrish: Is there anybody who was?
The Chairman: I think Mr. Boudria is the only one.
Mrs. Parrish: My understanding is that since the changes have been so minor in the past, if we spend fourteen years on this and do all kinds of detail there are going to be three or four changes anyway. The electoral commission does not have to take our recommendations.
The Chairman: No, they don't. It's only been done by a committee once before.
It's true that they don't have to take our advice. We'll see what happens. There's no way of telling what's going to happen when we send it off. It's like publishing a book. Sometimes it sells and sometimes it doesn't.
Mr. Ringma: I think you have a sense of it, Mr. Chairman. I will have a better feel for it overall once I've gone through the four subcommittee reports. I'll have a much better idea then of where our main thrust should be or what principles we should espouse or deny.
The Chairman: That's my view as well and that's why I'm quite anxious that we not adopt one today. There's no need to because all of them have to be sent at one time anyway, and they have to be sent by province, not by region. There'll be three reports in this case, one for each of the three provinces where there are objections.
Thank you very much, Mrs. Brushett. We appreciate you taking the time and very much appreciate the work you did as chair of the subcommittee. You and your subcommittee members are to be commended for their patience and work on this. I know it's demanding.
Mrs. Brushett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If Mr. Frazer does want me to spend some time to see him privately, I'm prepared to do that so that he has a better feel for some of these communities.
I would also like to thank the members of the subcommittee - John Cummins, Joe McGuire and Elsie Wayne - for their sincere interest and cooperation, and I thank Marie Carrière and our researcher, Margaret Smith, for their very capable support.
The Chairman: Members, at noon we have the clerk coming to deal with the procedural matter arising out of yesterday's discussion in the House. So - not to give it short shrift - we may want to move more quickly through the western report. Mrs. Cowling, chair of the subcommittee, is here and is available to answer any questions or concerns members have.
The western report has been distributed to members and I'm sure everyone's had a chance to read it.
Mrs. Cowling, do you have a few introductory comments, bearing in mind that members have read this report?
Mrs. Marlene Cowling, MP (Dauphin - Swan River; Chair, Sub-committee on the Consideration of the Objections Filed on the Proposed Electoral Boundaries for the Western Provinces): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I do have a few, very brief introductory remarks. I am more than honoured to present this report on behalf of those members from western Canada who opposed the changes to electoral boundaries.
The subcommittee benefited from the detailed submissions made to it by the thirteen members who presented their objections to the proposed boundary changes. However, we faced considerable difficulty in making recommendations with respect to individual ridings where it was clear that any such recommendations also would have a significant impact upon some or all of the other ridings in the provinces.
In general, the subcommittee's task would have been facilitated had the boundaries commission's reports set out the reasons for change in greater detail for each riding undergoing significant alterations. Maps setting out more clearly the existing and proposed boundaries would have assisted a fuller appreciation of the nature and extent of those proposed changes.
Particularly in the absence of detailed reasoning accompanying the proposals for changes, the subcommittee gained the impression that matters of effective and consistent representation and meaningful accountability of elected representatives had not entered into the calculation of new boundaries.
A common theme heard by the subcommittee was the boundaries commission's apparent failure to consider the individual riding's communities of interest. Significantly, certain MPs argued that it would be better to add an urban area to their ridings in addition to conserving existing communities of interest than to minimize overall population numbers by severing the community of interest.
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The subcommittee also notes that the consultation process may have been undermined in certain circumstances where significant changes appeared in the final reports but were not indicated to the public in the initial published proposal.
For many of the proposed changes, and particularly in the absence of detailed explanations of the motivating reasons for change, the subcommittee gained the impression that the electoral quota was the sole criterion instigating the proposed changes. This is particularly troubling to the subcommittee in light of the evidence before it that in some western provinces there has been minimal population change or shift - certainly within the allowable 25% variance - and therefore little reason for change. One of the members who came before the subcommittee clearly indicated that the only thing that had changed in his particular province, which was Saskatchewan, was that cattle had moved from one pasture to the other. The population hadn't shifted, or anything. He used that as an example.
Mr. McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra): Do the cattle vote?
Mrs. Cowling: It appears to the subcommittee that in general the boundaries commissions failed to avail themselves of the 25% variance from provincial electoral quotas, which is allowed by the governing statute. The subcommittee wishes to emphasize the importance of making use of the 25% variance to account for the substantially different problems faced by the constituents of rural ridings as opposed to urban ridings in ensuring their voices and concerns are heard by the federal government. In that same vein, the subcommittee also was very troubled by the members' submissions that the newly re-mixed urban-rural ridings will serve to mute further the expression of rural concerns and rural communities of interest.
I might mention that I am a rural member. Many of the constituents I represent and I have to meet with don't have access in the form of paved roads. It takes me eight hours to go from one corner of my riding to the other end of the riding. We must take some of those things into consideration.
Community of interest, community of identity, and manageable geographical size were commonalties within the committee's report.
We also request that the boundaries commissions for the west seriously consider the objections that have been made by the committee and that the electoral boundaries finally established reflect the concerns and recommendations voiced by the subcommittee in this report.
I will make a few comments, because I think it is quite important that you hear some of the phrases that came to us from the presenters.
First I want to say that all the presenters who did come before us...there were many commonalties in their presentations. The 25% variance, the rigid rules and quotas...we felt, and it was noted several times, people should come first, not mathematical equations; the interests of people must be first and foremost. I should say as well that the presenters came from the various parties within the House of Commons, and there was that common thread from everyone who presented.
The community of interest, geographics...keeping in mind that western Canada is very large. We have natural barriers such as mountains and lakes. In the west we're very different, because we are so huge. A comment came from one of the presenters that the drawing of these lines was a complete waste of money; we could be doing better things. With that I'll close.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mrs. Cowling.
Any comments on this from members?
Mr. McWhinney: I'd like to congratulate you on a very excellently succinct report, and for your ability to avoid bureaucratic gobbledegook and to get to the heart of the matter.
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It does, though, direct attention to the fundamental flaw in all these reports. There is no reason, justification, of what has been done. That's regrettable in the two points: in the political level, because we have to try to understand the reasoning, but, too, in terms of judicial review, which I regard as a necessary and vital part of the constituent processes in the future. We're the only major liberal democratic society that doesn't have a continuing judicial review of decisions. So there's no basis for courts to re-examine and decide whether the commissioners are, as it was said of Lord Eldon when he was Lord Chancellor, exercising discretion that's as long as their feet, whatever their feet are. But these were bad reports, and in that sense inexcusable for salaried reports, frankly.
You've made this very clear, but I'd be more interested in your reaction to what has been called, with borrowings from the Vietnam war, the falling dominoes theory. Can you change one without changing others - the ripple effect in relation to each province? From your very carefully chosen words I got the feeling that you couldn't. Am I correct in that?
Mrs. Cowling: That was one of the things that in fact troubled our committee, because we don't know what the ripple effect on another riding may well be. We have no idea, so we were being asked to make decisions without knowing what in fact might happen to those other particular ridings. So that was very troubling to us.
Mr. McWhinney: Did you get an impression of the degree of respect that should properly be accorded, in the views of the members who spoke to you, to continuity in representation? When I sat fifteen years ago as an electoral commissioner, we bore very heavily in mind that members have continuing relations with their constituents that will subsist to the general elections and this is part of the concept of society. Did you get any sense here among the members, a feeling that this had been underestimated or overestimated?
Mrs. Cowling: Yes, we did. One of the things we heard from members is that as members of Parliament we're held to be accountable, and if in fact we have boundary changes, then how do you hold that member accountable if in fact he's moved into an area that he's never had the opportunity to serve? There was a commonality of threads with that as well.
Mr. McWhinney: And in the transition, if new boundaries are approved, from that period to the election period, the effect on the quality of services.... I think we're all conscientious people and would serve, but is that a factor that perhaps wasn't considered?
Mrs. Cowling: Absolutely. That was a factor that was of concern as well.
Mr. McWhinney: In concluding, I'd like to thank the witness but place on the record my concern about the lack of an adequate constitutional basis for the recommendations of the commissions. It's right across the board. These are skeletal documents of justification. They look as if they're written from the top of somebody's head. I don't think that was so, but at least we are entitled, as in any administrative process, to a reasoned statement of how and why decisions were made. It is basic to judicial review, and the potentiality of judicial review is absolutely crucial in ensuring fair and adequate electoral systems consistent with the mandate from our constitutional Charter of Rights.
The Chairman: Are there other comments from members in respect of the western report? Are there no other comments to assist our drafters?
Thank you very much, Mrs. Cowling.
As I said to the previous presenter to our committee, I want to thank you for the work that you and your subcommittee have done in hearing the witnesses who appeared before you and in preparing this report. It is very helpful to us, because it sounds as though we're accepting it holus-bolus, and that's the way I think it will appear when we have our opportunity to review it in the next short while.
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Mr. McWhinney: Mr. Chairman, you twisted her arm, didn't you, to get her to serve?
The Chairman: I didn't. That was done by others.
Mr. McWhinney: I shouldn't mention twisting arms; that's politically incorrect.
The Chairman: That's the whip's responsibility.
Mr. McWhinney: But you persuaded her, and being of good nature, she agreed.
The Chairman: It was very important work, and we appreciate your time. Thank you.
Mrs. Cowling: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the subcommittee members and the witnesses who presented their cases, as well as the clerk and the researcher.
Mr. Frazer: I'd like to clarify my previous comments. I was not for a moment intimating that we should go into the reports in detail. I'm quite willing to accept the amount of time and effort that's gone into them. My question was going to the utility of our reviewing their reports. If we were in fact going to review and gauge them as to whether they were appropriate or not, we would need more than we have right now.
I agree with Ms Parrish's comment that as long as the reports fall within the requirements that are laid down and we make our recommendations, that meets the requirements.
The Chairman: Are there any other comments members wish to make?
We'll see a draft of this again in another week or two, depending on the timing of the other two reports.
Could we move to one other small matter of timing? There's a motion before us about the business of supply. Ms Catterall is not here to discuss this, but I understand there were discussions in the subcommittee on supply and they've recommended an extension in their deadline to report to this committee to March 8 of next year. This will involve us applying to the House for an extension for our deadline to submit our report to the House, which was for December 1.
The suggestion I'd make, if March 8 is the date agreed to by the subcommittee, is that we have this committee report on March 29, which is the last Friday in March. I know it to be such because, as you know, the ethics committee, or the conduct committee or whatever it's called, is supposed to report on that same date.
Do members agree to this extension?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Mr. Laurin.
Mr. Laurin (Joliette): What are the reasons for the extension?
The Chairman: I'm not aware of them since I'm not a member of the subcommittee. Mrs. Catterall is the chairperson of the subcommittee but unfortunately she's not here to explain them.
Mr. Arseneault, are you a member of the subcommittee or are you aware of the reasons?
Mr. Arseneault: It was our opinion that the time period was too short to allow for a comprehensive report and all members of the subcommittee supported the recommendation to extend the deadline.
The Chairman: So Mr. Speaker moves that the committee requests leave from the House to extend the deadline in the order of reference dated June 7th 1995 relating to the study of the estimates from December 1st 1995 to March 29th 1996 and that the Chairman report to the House.
Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt this motion?
[English]
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: Second, Mrs. Parrish moves that the deadline for the Subcommittee on the Business of Supply be extended to March 8, 1996.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: We have with us the Clerk of the House, Mr. Marleau, and Mr. Montpetit, his assistant, to discuss with us the small matter of Standing Orders, which I thought members might want to deal with expeditiously in light of the Speaker's ruling and the point of order raised yesterday by Mr. Ringma.
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Mr. Marleau, the Standing Orders apparently have inconsistent statements in them. I guess you're as familiar with the ruling as anybody here. Have you a recommendation to the committee on how we might solve this dilemma?
Mr. Robert Marleau (Clerk of the House of Commons): It depends on what the committee wants to do, Mr. Chairman. I think the word ``incongruity'' was the one that was used on the floor of the House, and the speaker acknowledged that it could be read that way.
I think I can explain 45(6)(a) along the following lines. While it was rewritten at about this time last year at your request to make it clearer, nothing was changed in the substance of the Standing Order. The language was changed, but the provision for a vote to be deferred from Thursday or Friday to the Monday at the hour of ordinary daily adjournment was retained, as was the original language. The Speaker's interpretation, as per the ruling yesterday, is that it means just that: at the ordinary hour of adjournment.
My recollection is that this was originally drafted, going back to approximately 1986, at the request of the then committee on privileges and elections and at the request of the whips themselves. They were looking for a way to manage the votes. For a vote on a Friday deferred to Monday, it was deliberately chosen to be at the ordinary hour of adjournment to give the maximum notice possible to the House. When a vote occurs on a Friday, attendance is not at its largest in the context of flights going west or east, with people returning from west and east on the Monday.
While I can't substantiate the statement I'm making now, in the proceedings of the committee it was part of the discussions in the drafting. It was also not just the management of the vote deferred from Friday to Monday; the hour of adjournment was selected in the wording of the Standing Order for the management of the member's time when getting back to the House on a Monday.
I'm trying to stay away from the advantages and disadvantages of strategic use of the procedure here by putting it that way. That's my recollection as to why it was drafted in those terms.
The Chairman: Mr. Ringma, you raised this issue yesterday. Is there something in this that you're particularly interested in seeing as a change?
Mr. Ringma: No; the main issue was simply adherence to the rules, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Mr. Boudria.
Mr. Boudria: The first thing I have to do, of course, as I indicated in the House yesterday, is to plead guilty. When I deferred the vote until Monday, in my own mind I used the ordinary rule that applies otherwise, that the deferral is up to the ordinary time of adjournment. Of course, the ``up to'' doesn't apply to Thursdays or Fridays; it applies to Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
The Chairman: And Thursday. You could defer the vote to a later time in the day on Thursday, but if you wish to go over to the next day it's then -
Mr. Boudria: The interesting thing is that there's even a funny situation about Thursday itself. While you can defer the vote up to the ordinary time of adjournment that day, if you defer it to another day, then it's deferred to a specific time, which is rather odd. I'm not married to either way.
Maybe we need to clarify exactly what we mean, although it is a little odd that, for instance, I could defer a vote at 3 p.m. on Thursday until 5 p.m. on Thursday, but I couldn't defer it until 5 p.m. next Monday, and neither could the opposition whip, for that matter, because in those rules they apply evenly. So it's a little odd.
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The Chairman: Although in his ruling yesterday the Speaker seemed to imply that if the two whips agreed, you could do it at any time on Monday, which is odd.
Mr. Boudria: No, that's for private members' hour.
Mr. Marleau: That is Standing Order 346(7), which is new, which was added to the Standing Orders by this committee. Where the three whips agree, you can defer to a time agreed to.
The Chairman: At the end of his ruling he said that if one single whip acting alone did it, he would -
Mr. Marleau: That's right. If one single whip is acting alone on a Thursday for a next sitting day deferral, then it would occur at the ordinary hour.
The Chairman: So that same rule would apply for two.
Mr. Marleau: That's right.
The Chairman: I see.
Mr. Boudria: So essentially, I submit, there is one of two things for us to do.
The first is to leave the rule exactly as it is but ensure that we - which really means me, in relation to the last time - use it properly. If I can say this in my own defence, nobody else - even the chair - noticed at that time that in fact I had not used the rule appropriately. So it's to clarify it.
The second thing we could do is make it the same every day of the week, because I suspect that the reason we got into this to start with is that the Thursday and Friday rule existed before the rule existed for other days. Right? So we could defer votes on Thursday and Friday, and I guess that initially there probably was no such rule for other days.
Mr. Marleau: I think it existed for a very short time. There just were no votes on a Friday.
Mr. Boudria: Yes.
Mr. Marleau: Then very quickly thereafter the deferral provision came in.
To absolve you of your guilt, Mr. Boudria, in terms of making the statement to the House for a 5:30 p.m. vote yesterday, the chair assumed, because it occurred a couple of other times - it's not the first time, by the way -
Mr. Boudria: We've done this before?
Mr. Marleau: - that there was agreement amongst the whips, by the mere fact that the request was for another time. The chair would not challenge a whip coming forward stating that they had made an agreement that day and it would be for 5:30 p.m.
It's just that in the context now of the ruling and with the interpretation of the word ``at'' being so specific, the chair would automatically -
Mr. Boudria: So, just to summarize, we did have a Friday rule before the other day, and the Friday rule was if I -
Mr. Marleau: Deferred to the next sitting day.
Mr. Boudria: - deferred to the next sitting day at the ordinary time of adjournment.
Mr. Marleau: Automatically. At the ordinary time of adjournment.
Mr. Boudria: So that's what happened. So we got into a Friday rule, which gave it a specific time on Monday, and when we added the rule for all the other days, because the deferral of a Thursday vote goes to Friday and because a Friday vote goes to Monday, a Thursday vote is at a specific time on Monday.
Mr. Marleau: That's right.
Mr. Boudria: That's how we got into this thing - right?
Mr. Marleau: Essentially, yes.
An hon. member: Who's on first?
Mr. Boudria: I'm just trying to reconstruct. It was almost an accident of circumstance in that regard. So we can do it in either way. I'm not married to either. I think it's easier if we have the same rule apply every day, that we can defer up to, but....
Mr. Ringma: Since we are the instigators and since we have no axe to grind, my inclination would be to leave the rules as they are. We've now come to grips with the fact. I will reiterate that, since our main protection is the rules of the House, our main point here was to ensure that we shall adhere to the rules. Therefore I would personally be in favour of just leaving it as is. We are all now aware that there is this wrinkle.
Mr. Boudria: Agreed.
The Chairman: So you're suggesting no change.
Is everyone agreed?
Some hon members: Agreed.
The Chairman: And there is no point, then, in clarifying the apparent inconsistency between the two.
Mr. Marleau: It could be made a little bit clearer. If you will look at Standing Order 45(5)(a)(ii) at the top of page 25, the last sentence says:
- Exceptions to this method of deferring recorded divisions are found in paragraph (b) of this
section
The Chairman: Would members agree to have the clerks go away and come back with a draft that would clarify the inconsistency between the two, on the understanding that when a vote on a Thursday is deferred to the next sitting day it will be to the ordinary hour of daily adjournment on Monday?
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Mr. Boudria: Unless the three whips agree.
The Chairman: Unless the three whips agree.
Mr. Boudria: Right.
The Chairman: Is that agreed?
Mr. Speaker (Lethbridge): Yes, we agree with that.
The Chairman: So we might get a technical change in the Standing Orders that clarifies the existing situation, but we're not changing the existing situation.
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chairman: Okay.
We'll leave it in your hands, and we'll look at the recommendation you come back with on this subject.
Mr. Marleau: I'm more than happy. It's always nice to feel needed, sir.
Some hon. members: Oh. oh.
The Chairman: Thank you.
It may be that the whole rule needs some rewriting to make it clearer how these things are supposed to work. If that is the case, we'll look at a rewrite of the Standing Order. Agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chairman: I think that completes the business for today.
I want to say to the committee that at our last meeting I had suggested that today we'd have the Speaker, and that we'd then deal with reports on Thursday. Because the Speaker was unavailable today, I took the liberty of switching the order, putting the reports in today, with the Speaker coming on Thursday. I understand the Ontario report will be distributed to members later today or tomorrow, and the Quebec report will follow soon after. So we'll be in a position to deal with those next week.
The Speaker will be here on Thursday. On Thursday, our business is the expenditure plan of the Board of Internal Economy. Members are invited to come, to ask questions of the Speaker, and to hear what no doubt will be an able presentation by the Speaker and, I believe, the clerk. So we look forward to that very much.
I declare the meeting adjourned.