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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Subcommittee on Electoral Boundaries Readjustment of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, October 6, 2003

1535

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.))

1540

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP)

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley (Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer)

1545

1550

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Sancton (former member of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario, As Individual)

1555

The Chair

Mr. James Bickerton (former member of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for Nova Scotia, As Individual)

The Chair

Mr. James Bickerton

1600

1605

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ)

1610

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Pierre Prémont (former member of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for Québec, As Individual)

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Pierre Prémont

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Pierre Prémont

1615

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Sancton

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Andrew Sancton

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC)

1620

1625

Mr. Andrew Sancton

Mr. Gerald Keddy

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

1630

Mr. James Bickerton

Mr. Gerald Keddy

Mr. James Bickerton

1635

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Yvon Godin

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Yvon Godin

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Sancton

1640

Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.)

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

1645

Mr. Marcel Proulx

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

1650

Mr. Marcel Proulx

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Marcel Proulx

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Marcel Proulx

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Andrew Sancton

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

1655

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

1700

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Sancton

1705

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Sancton

The Chair

Mr. Andrew Sancton

1710

The Chair

Mr. James Bickerton

The Chair

Mr. James Bickerton

The Chair

Mr. James Bickerton

The Chair

Mr. Pierre Prémont

1715

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

1720

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Pierre Prémont

1725

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Pierre Prémont

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Pierre Prémont

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Michel Guimond

The Chair

Mr. Michel Guimond

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

Mr. Gerald Keddy

The Chair

1730

Mr. Andrew Sancton

The Chair

Mr. Gerald Keddy

The Chair

1735

Mr. Yvon Godin

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

1740

Mr. Yvon Godin

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

Mr. Yvon Godin

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley

The Chair

CANADA

Subcommittee on Electoral Boundaries Readjustment of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

NUMBER 025

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Monday, October 6, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1535)

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order.

Thank you all very much for coming to see us this afternoon. We are the Subcommittee on Electoral Boundaries Readjustment, a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

We're very pleased to have with us today, from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, the Chief Electoral Officer himself; Diane Davidson, who is the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer and chief legal counsel; and Caroll Lesage, the director of parliamentary representation. Thank you very much for coming to see us.

As well, representing all of the Atlantic provinces we have James Bickerton, who is on the commission for Nova Scotia; Pierre Prémont, former member of the electoral boundaries commission in Quebec; and Andrew Sancton, with whom I have spoken before, formerly on the boundary commission for Ontario. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming as well.

Colleagues, we had talked about getting some more representation from western Canada. We did try to get representation from Atlantic Canada and from western Canada. Mr. Bickerton was able to come today. Some of the others were not able to be in attendance today, but we will ask them to send us any comments they have. I assume the clerk will do that.

We do thank you for coming on fairly short notice. As this committee did its hearings with members of Parliament about objections to the fine work you have done, it became evident to us there was a need for some changes to the legislation, the guidelines you were given, if we were going to achieve the objectives that a lot of constituents had expressed to us. So it's an opportunity for discussion. We had talked about televising this meeting, but we chose to have a perhaps more open dialogue, although obviously it is being recorded.

I will first suggest that Mr. Kingsley will have five or ten minutes to open up the discussion. If any of the commissioners wish to speak as well, we'd be happy to hear from them. Then we'll hear questions from the members of Parliament around the table.

Mr. Kingsley.

¹ (1540)

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Madam Chair, I would just like to know on what basis our witnesses were chosen. It is a valid question. Were they all invited to come on a voluntary basis?

[English]

The Chair: Let me suggest that we will issue an invitation to all the commissioners right across the country, as I mentioned earlier, to encourage them to send us the benefit of their ideas and experience in written form.

We also have a bit of a challenge, since we don't technically have a budget, so we're not paying for your expenses.... I'm just kidding. We never actually got a budget established, so we set this meeting up outside of that. We'll figure it all out later.

Over to you, Mr. Kingsley.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley (Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer): Thank you, Madam Chair. My presentation will only take up about five minutes of your time. Perhaps copies of my presentation, as well as related documents, could be distributed so that members can follow along as I read. Thank you.

It is a privilege for me to appear before the Subcommittee on Electoral Boundaries Readjustment today to discuss the process as you seek ways to improve it further. As you said, I am accompanied by Ms. Davidson and Mr. Caroll Lesage.

I would like to say a few words about electoral boundaries readjustment, commonly called redistribution, which we have just recently concluded with the proclamation of the representation order.

At the outset, we must keep in mind that Canada, a continually changing and growing country, does not remain static and neither can its electoral boundaries. Perhaps I should refer to this redistribution as a historic redistribution. Since the introduction of the Electoral Boundaries Readjusment Act in 1964, this is the first time that redistribution has not been affected by an interruption in the process. The redistributions of the sixties and seventies were each suspended once; the redistribution of the eighties was restarted after it was completed with a new formula for the number of seats; and the previous redistribution, the redistribution of the nineties, was suspended twice when Bill C-69 was introduced.

Although—or maybe because—it occurs only once every decade, redistribution always proves to be one of the more politically sensitive activities related to our electoral process. The sensitivity lies in the fact that most of the federal electoral districts will have their boundaries changed. In this redistribution, all but 39 (or 87 %) of the 308 districts have had their boundaries changed. In the 1996 redistribution, 90 %—264 of 295—districts were changed.

Certainly, one of the most important activities in the redistribution process is the holding of public hearings to encourage public participation. To be clear, this also means participation by members of the House of Commons at the public hearings and also at the penultimate stage when the commissions' reports are tabled in the House and referred to a House committee, namely yours.

¹ (1545)

[English]

At this point I would like to say a few words about the role of Elections Canada in carrying out redistribution.

Under the provisions of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, Elections Canada provides support services to the federal electoral boundaries commissions. These services include a variety of professional, financial, technical, and administrative functions, including assistance with mapping, census data, publications, advertising, and the administration of the redistribution web module.

Elections Canada also liaises with such agencies and government departments as Statistics Canada and Natural Resources Canada, as well as with the Speaker of the House of Commons, on behalf of the commissions.

All commissions exceeded the requirement of the Electoral Boundaries Act to advertise in at least one daily newspaper in each province. They also placed advertisements about the redistribution in many other papers, including weekly and community papers.

In addition, Elections Canada inaugurated a full-service web module dedicated to redistribution on our website. The module enabled us to make the proposals, reports, and disposition of objections available to the public, to members of the House of Commons, and to all others who have an interest in redistribution—and on their release days. We also provided the facility to e-mail comments and objections to the commissions.

In the year and a half since the redistribution process started, the website dealing with redistribution has had more than 300,000 visitors. The result, I am pleased to report, is that for this redistribution we saw the rate of public participation—beyond what I said about the website, which was used for the first time—triple from that of 1996: 2,090 representations were filed, compared with 641 in 1996. Of these 2,090 representations, 151 were made by members of the House of Commons—half of the House.

In a similar vein, I also took steps to ensure that you as members of the House of Commons were kept informed of the various stages throughout the redistribution process. Starting in May 2001, I wrote to the Chair of the House's committee on procedure and house affairs regarding the expected timetable, in accordance with the statute for the then-upcoming redistribution.

Also in May 2001, I shared with all members of the House of Commons the confirmation I had received from the chief statistician that I would be receiving the 2001 census return in the following year—2002—one month earlier than usual, thus getting a jump start on the redistribution calendar.

At that same time, I also shared with all members of the House of Commons that in reviewing the redistribution process in detail we had come to the conclusion that adherence to the process in detail would result in a draft representation order that could be proclaimed by the end of June 2003, with the caveat that no commission would request an extension to the one-year time limit for completing its report and that the House committee would perform its review function without seeking an extension—you will remember that on the latter point an extension was sought for a short period. This would allow Canadians to benefit from redistribution as soon as possible, and earlier than usual.

Members of the House of Commons were apprised of that projected schedule for the upcoming redistribution at that time. I wrote to all members of the House of Commons at all the key stages of redistribution. I have a package of all these letters for you today, along with a chart outlining the chronology of this correspondence, and a copy of the information kit that accompanied one of the initial letters.

Members of the House of Commons were fully informed of the process before its beginning and during the process itself. In addition to this correspondence, members of the House of Commons committee on procedure and House affairs were invited to attend a session on the concept of community of interest. That took place during the initial information session provided to the members of the electoral boundaries commissions in March 2002. Some members actually took us up on that invitation.

¹ (1550)

Members of the House of Commons were also provided with an opportunity to meet with the chairs and the commissioners at a social event. Some members took us up on that as well.

[Translation]

My office developed redistricting software to assist the commissions in considering various scenarios for dividing their respective provinces into the number of electoral districts assigned to each province. On a number of occasions, I have invited members of the House of Commons and political parties to attend a demonstration of the software. The software was demonstrated to the advisory committee of political parties as well as to this subcommittee when you were reviewing the objections filed by members of the House of Commons on the commissions' reports.

I remain convinced that the readjustment of electoral boundaries by independent commissions with the active participation from the public and members of the House of Commons is the cornerstone of our electoral democracy.

In 1964, when the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act was first enacted and the final decisions on electoral boundaries readjustments were taken out of the exclusive hands of MPs, our parliamentarians were demonstrating the kind of leadership in electoral democracy by which this country has become a world leader.

As required by statute, federal electoral boundaries commissions are independent bodies, chaired by a judge appointed by the chief justice of the province, that determine their rules of proceedings and make all decisions regarding the proposed and final federal electoral boundaries for their respective provinces. As I stated on a number of occasions when I appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the law does not confer on the chief electoral officer any role in the deliberative and decision-making process of the commissions. I have also stated before the House Committee on Official Languages that I have never intervened in the mandate of an electoral boundaries commission, nor would I feel that it would be appropriate for me to have any such role.

In closing, I would like to share with you some of the suggestions that the chairs and other representatives of the electoral boundaries commissions brought forward during the post-redistribution conference held on September 18. For instance, there were some suggestions relating to the earlier establishment of the commissions, a reduction of the deviation from the provincial quotient, special consideration to be given to rural and northern electoral districts, increased public consultation in line with what was envisaged in the former Bill C-69, and further improvements in the dissemination of the commissions' proposals.

Madam Chair, I am grateful for the opportunity to offer you this brief tour d'horizon of the recent redistribution process. I look forward, as do my colleagues, to your questions, or will provide any commentary as appropriate with pleasure. Thank you once again.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Sancton, would you like to say something?

[English]

Mr. Andrew Sancton (former member of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario, As Individual): It's a pleasure to be here. I didn't realize I would be speaking immediately after Mr. Kingsley, so I don't have a prepared statement. I just have three quick related things I want to say about possible changes. They all relate to the public hearings process, in one way or another.

The first relates to the role of members of Parliament in the public hearings process. This would not require any legislative changes at all. As a member of the Ontario commission, I valued the participation of members of Parliament very much. As a matter of fact, I think it's extremely important that members of Parliament be represented there, even if they don't have anything to complain about.

I recall, Madam Chair, you were one of the ones who showed up at our commission and didn't have much to complain about. You said you wanted something to stay as we had proposed. I can only plead with members of Parliament that this is an extremely important thing to do. Quite honestly, what shocks me about the process is that some members of Parliament aren't there at all and don't seem to be represented by their riding associations. I know some riding associations have lawyers. It is possible for somebody to be there.

I work in a university. I'm a chair of a political science department. If there were public hearings in the university about changing what the political science department was going to do, I would make sure I was there, even if there were no proposals on the table to make any changes. This process cannot work, in my view, if members of Parliament and political parties who are contesting the election seriously are not there at the public hearings.

This is something that could be fixed without any legislative changes at all. I just think it's a really important part. It might slow down the public hearings if there were more members participating at that stage, but I still think it's very important. That's my first point.

The second point is related to that, and it does involve a small legislative change. It relates to subsection 19(5) of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act where it says “No representation shall be heard by a commission at any sittings held by it for the hearing of representations from interested persons unless notice in writing is given to the secretary of the commission” in advance.

There is another section that says members of Parliament can speak, notwithstanding that. But of course it's possible a member of Parliament might not be able to be there, and would be represented by somebody else. Of course, there are all kinds of other people who might want to be there to speak.

My recommendation is that if a person gives notice to appear at the public hearings, they have the right to make a representation, but the commission should have the authority or discretion to allow anybody to speak at the public hearings. In fact, the way our judge handled the commissions, that is effectively what happened. But it should be in the legislation, and everybody should know that if you show up at the public hearings, the commission has the authority to let you speak. That would enable an MP or a representative of an MP to participate in the process if a proposal were made by somebody else that impacted on that person's electoral district. It would be very good to hear about that at the time, rather than at some later point.

My third comment relates to this issue of commissions making changes that impact someplace else, and nobody getting a chance to respond to them. I understand that is a serious problem. I would certainly, just as an individual and a former member of a commission, favour a process that involved a second round of public hearings in those circumstances, but I am not in favour of having the process drag out much longer than it does already.

My actual preference--and all my suggestions are linked together here--would be that provision be made for a second round of hearings. That would replace the process where only members of Parliament had an opportunity to make objections. In other words, the second round would involve everybody, just like the first round.

¹ (1555)

That's the end of my comments, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Thank you.

[Translation]

Would anyone else like to comment?

Mr. Bickerton.

[English]

Mr. James Bickerton (former member of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for Nova Scotia, As Individual): I sense that I'd better speak now, because it's going to become quite repetitive.

The Chair: You'll get lots of chances.

Mr. James Bickerton: I'd rather be near the top of the list than at the back of the list, because a couple of the things I would have said today Andrew Sancton has mentioned already, having to do with the public notice provisions, for instance.

There were three things I thought worth mentioning when I came here today. One of them had to do with the public hearing process. My first concern as an electoral boundary commissioner was the lack of public interest and lack of public participation.

We ended up cancelling most of our hearings because nobody gave us any notice that they wanted to appear. That was very surprising, because even in those ridings where we thought we had made significant changes, no MP or other participant asked to be heard. So we ended up cancelling them.

On a point that Andrew made about MPs showing up even if they agreed with the proposed changes, only two of eleven MPs in Nova Scotia showed up at a public hearing.

Subsequently, we had one objection from Mr. Keddy regarding the boundaries we ended up with. He said he didn't come to the initial public hearing we had because he had agreed with our first set of proposals. Therefore, he saw no reason to come before the committee. That was a mistake, because subsequently, in our revised proposals, we made a change that affected his riding. Then he was left with trying to make his objection after the fact and he didn't succeed with the objection. Nonetheless, I think it would have been wise for him to come at the beginning, even though he agreed with the way the first proposals laid out the changes.

I think that's illustrative of something Andrew was saying.

What factors might contribute to the low level of public interest is something I'm interested in. One is public notices. I found the procedure to be very bureaucratic, needlessly so--too long a period of notice required for people to appear before the public hearing.

In this day and age, we can certainly speed up this process. We need to democratize it. It almost looks to me as if the legislation, as it was initially drafted in 1964 or whenever, was excessively concerned about getting people walking in off the street and ranting and raving about proposed changes. In fact, we would have liked to have had a little bit of that; we never had any of it.

I would like to see more public participation and I would like to see you make it easier for people to participate, both in person and electronically. I think one of the big benefits of this particular redistribution was the use of the web by Elections Canada. I thought that was a tremendous innovation, and I would like to see Elections Canada build on that in the future. I thought they did a very good job with that.

I agree with the need for a two-stage hearing process. I think that would be very helpful. I think it was difficult for people not to have a chance to respond to the changes we made in our initial set of proposals, and I agree with Andrew that a second round of hearings would be useful in that sense.

In regard to the maps, I think often the people we did hear from, sometimes through e-mails, complained that they couldn't tell anything from the maps that were published in the newspaper. These were the people, I guess, who didn't have web access, because the web maps were very good. The ones that were published in the newspaper were often not very detailed, not enough for people to tell whether their area was being affected or not. I don't know if that could be improved somehow, but it would help if it could.

My second set of concerns had to do with the plus-minus factor of 25% and the question of relative parity of voting power. We got all of our constituencies within plus or minus 10%. By our reckoning, something like 85% of all the ridings in Canada now are within plus or minus 10%. I think the plus or minus 25% has really become outdated.

º (1600)

Each commission, I suppose, with each redistribution sees it as their duty to do a little better than the last one in terms of getting the ridings closer to parity. Relative parity of voting power is really the hard factor. I think community of interest is often a soft factor, because it's hard to define; there are often cross-cutting communities of interest. I think the momentum on commissions is moving toward equal constituencies in terms of size.

I think it would be advisable, since the commissions have done it anyway, for Parliament to change the plus or minus 25% to something closer to what the situation is in fact. Certainly plus or minus 15% would be plenty, I would think, and then you'd have your exceptional circumstances clause for those large northern ridings that require it.

Finally, on the question of information sharing and some continuity from redistribution to redistribution, we had the idea in our commission of some kind of archive file that could be handed on to the next electoral boundary commission. We would have found that useful, I think, as a starting point for our work, to have something left over from the last electoral boundary commission. We never had anything of that sort, and I don't think it would be difficult to do. It would be part of the information you begin with.

The second thing is provincial electoral boundaries. I think they can be helpful in the sense that they are indicators of community of interest, except in Ontario, of course, where the ridings are coincidental.

In Nova Scotia, we have 52 provincial electoral ridings and 11 federal. Provincial ridings capture communities of interest much more closely than the federal ridings ever can, because most of our communities of interest in rural areas are much smaller than 82,500 people, which is the quotient we're working with. We found it useful to refer to provincial boundaries simply to get a better idea of community of interest and how the provincial boundaries were recognizing it, and it helped in our discussions. I found that useful.

º (1605)

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

As you can see, I did not wait for your permission to take off my jacket. If my mother saw me, she would take me to task, but fortunately this meeting is not televised.

It is not surprising that my first question is for Professor Prémont. First, my training as a lawyer leads me to say that even if a court makes a bad ruling, the court has nevertheless spoken. This is all the more true if the court makes a ruling which cannot be appealed. As my daughter would say—she is a teenager—you have got to learn to live with it.

I am known for not mincing my words. For that reason, I wish to repeat that the electoral boundaries commission for Quebec has made a bad decision and that it produced a bad report.

Perhaps I should not have started by saying this; I was originally going to make some general comments to put everyone at ease and then... Mr. Kingsley is familiar with my tactics. I should not have said that, but I do not regret having said so.

Professor Prémont, your résumé indicates that you are an expert in information techniques. We are at the dawn of 2004, right in the middle of the information and communications age. It is not like the 1920s or 1930s anymore, when people had to take the train and communication was carried out by telegraph—sometimes under difficult conditions—during election campaigns. In your opinion, in the age of the Internet, why do people have less trust in politicians and politics in general?

Evidence of this fact is contained in a poll done by L'Actualité magazine two years ago. Several categories of professions were included in the survey, and politicians ranked at the very bottom of the list. According to the poll, 6 per cent of people trusted politicians. It was a bit higher than people's trust in the mafia, but a bit lower than their trust in slimy used car salesmen. I am not saying that all politicians are bad. But the fact is that only 6 per cent of people said they trusted us.

As well, Professor Prémont, I would like to know why you think the turnout during election campaigns is decreasing. It seems to be a contradiction that a citizenry as well informed as ours is not interested in voting. Again, evidence of this—and correct me if I am wrong—is that last week, during the Ontario election, voter turnout was one of the lowest in the history of that province, namely around 58 per cent. Is that correct?

º (1610)

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: It was under 58 per cent, but we do not have the exact figure.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Ontarians are not ignorant. The education and information systems in Ontario are quite similar to what one finds elsewhere. Since that is the case, why did only 58 per cent of Ontarians vote? According to you, Mr. Prémont, why was the turnout in the 2000 federal election so low? The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada can confirm this; I believe it was one of the lowest turnouts in106 years.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: It was 64 per cent, one of the lowest voter turnouts in history.

Mr. Michel Guimond: I am interested in hearing your views on that matter.

Mr. Pierre Prémont (former member of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for Québec, As Individual): I am not really qualified to answer those questions. I focused on understanding the legislation as it now stands, or the legislation which applied when we fulfilled our mandate as commissioner. Our team made collegial decisions which did not please everyone. Unfortunately, I cannot answer the questions you have just asked of me. I am not qualified to address those issues and, in fact, I have the impression that you have a much better idea of what those answers are than I do.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Mr. Prémont, do you realize that the legislation contains a provision allowing for extraordinary circumstances for certain districts?

Mr. Pierre Prémont: I saw that in the act.

Mr. Michel Guimond: I would like to know what you think about the situation of the member representing the riding of Manicouagan, which will extend over 1,200 kilometres along the coast, beginning at the Bersimis River. You address the matter in your report. If you cannot speak to the content of your report, please say so. We are talking about 1,200 kilometres of coastline starting at the Bersimis River, on the Upper North Shore, and stretching until the border with Labrador at Lourde-de-Blanc-Sablon. The population mainly lives along the coastline. This riding already includes the northern tip of Quebec and it has been made even bigger.

In your report, did you take the community of interests into account? Why did you not treat the riding of Manicouagan as an exception? The new boundaries will have a domino effect reaching up to the Mauricie region. Quebec City, which you know very well since you live there, has a population of 500,000. In Quebec City, every second voter will change ridings because you did not give exceptional status to Manicouagan.

Mr. Pierre Prémont: Our committee unanimously decided not to make any exceptions for any riding in Quebec because this would also have had a domino effect. Had we granted one exemption, in the final analysis many more would have demanded the same treatment. You refer to the riding of Manicouagan. The neighbouring riding of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik is even bigger. There are other particularities, but after having studied the overall situation and spoken with people, we made our decision. We think that we made the right choices and that all Quebeckers are being treated equally.

º (1615)

Mr. Michel Guimond: How can a member physically be in a position to adequately serve his or her constituents and stay close to them in such a huge riding?

I will tell you what I think. What you did was purely based on mathematics. You used a software program. I know, because the members of the Subcommittee on Electoral Boundaries Readjustment of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs have worked with that same software, which is provided by Elections Canada. Incidentally, I would like to thank the chief electoral officer of Canada for having sent André Cyr to work with us. He is extremely competent. Your decisions were exclusively based on mathematics. There are 7,293,000 people living in Quebec. Divide that figure by 75, which is the number of ridings, and you get a quotient of 98,500 people. You made your decisions based on that figure without taking extraordinary circumstances into account.

In the example you gave, extraordinary conditions could have applied to the riding of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik because it faces the same problems as Manicouagan in the other half of Quebec. The riding extends up to the bay and includes every Inuit community. Seventy-two out seventy-five ridings would not have been subject to exceptional circumstances.

I would like to ask a last question of Mr. Prémont.

The Chair: One moment please, Mr. Guimond.

Would anyone else like to address the issue of these calculations?

[English]

Mr. Sancton, I'm thinking you might.

Mr. Andrew Sancton: I will say one thing. Our commission in the end did decide to use the extraordinary circumstances provision for a riding we called Kenora. We established it with approximately 40% below.

Mr. Michel Guimond: It was 44%.

Mr. Andrew Sancton: The member of Parliament objected to our decision to do that. So there is not uniformity of views about how this should be used.

I should say the riding of Kenora is very big indeed. I suspect it's as large as the ridings you're talking about in Quebec, although obviously I don't know those as well as I do the Ontario ones.

The Chair: Mr. Bickerton, you didn't want to comment on the process. Okay.

Mr. Guimond, it has been ten minutes. Can I switch to another person and come back?

Mr. Michel Guimond: I will come back in two or three more rounds.

The Chair: Mr. Keddy, and then I'll go to Mr. Proulx, Mr. Godin.

Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank our panel for appearing here today, of course—Mr. Kingsley and Dr. Sancton and Dr. Bickerton. It's good to see you here.

I just want to make a personal comment first, because I would think two political scientists would understand the politics a little better with regard to the ambivalence members of Parliament have of appearing at a public commission where they would have to reject part of a riding that they would have to represent. It puts members of Parliament in a hell of a position to go to a public hearing to say no, I don't really want those 8,000 people—very dicey ground to plow. It was not a position I relished or wanted to put myself in at all.

The reason I did appear at the second hearing.... Obviously at the first hearing the boundaries weren't changing; I was very happy with them, they were just fine. At the second hearing you can only go and say, listen, we have an urban riding—I'm just talking about my own personal experience here—next door to a very rural riding with part of it being in Halifax County, which is quite urban and would tend to lean toward the Halifax end of the riding.

It's an extremely uncomfortable position for a member of Parliament expecting that this should be mostly a hands-off process. You're going to end up representing that end of the riding, you would hope, some day. No one's going to predict the outcome of the election, but not many MPs are going to run planning to lose and have to be faced on the hustings with the fact that you would have chosen not to represent that area. My submission here is I would like to see this process become less political instead of more political.

I very much agree with having public input, and I would also say for the record that moving the date ahead to April 1 for when this process will actually become legislated doesn't benefit the process at all. If it had been left at August 25.... We've heard great presentations from the government side of this committee on previous governments that moved the date, but that didn't make it right. That didn't correct past injustices. If we have a ten-year process, then my fervent belief is that if we can depoliticize this process at all, it should be that we would bring it in on a ten-year basis after the censuses are done. I fully want to have my day before the microphone, but as much as possible leave the members of Parliament out of it and go with the dates that are legislated.

Yes, governments will interfere, because governments do that. That doesn't make it correct. If we can remove them from the process, they should be removed. I think that would give this whole process.... I like your comment on the ability to use an electronic process for more constituents to become involved, for more Canadians to become involved. I absolutely agree with it. Somehow or other we also need to take governments out of the process. If you're going to manipulate a process by 90 days for your own political opportunistic reasons.... There's just something wrong with something that has waited ten years being moved ahead or being moved back as other governments have done. It doesn't make it correct.

I think that's the one message I'd like to get across. It's a very difficult process for members of Parliament, even if they represent a large rural riding already, to go to a public hearing and in any way to speak against representing that segment of the population in the next election. Regardless of how articulate their arguments may be, it puts them in a very uncomfortable position.

º (1620)

That's a comment more than anything else.

º (1625)

Mr. Andrew Sancton: If I may just comment quickly on that, it does seem to me, Mr. Keddy, that somebody is either going to be in the process or not in the process. If a member of Parliament chooses not to be in the process at all, I can certainly understand that. That's an option. But I heard you say that you wanted to have your day in front of the microphone. It seems to me that is being involved in the process.

All I'm saying is that if a member of Parliament is going to be involved in the process, I think the most appropriate place for it is in the public hearings.

We did have members of Parliament come before us in Ontario and say “I understand that I cannot keep all the people in my constituency as it is now, because there are too many people there; I understand that it has to be divided up.”

I think from the commission's point of view it is extremely helpful to have members of Parliament helping to educate their own constituents on the notion that the boundaries cannot stay the same, particularly in areas of rapid growth.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: The only thing I would say to that is there is a big difference, a huge difference, when you're arguing yes, I'd like to represent these people, but there's a big riding and there have to be electoral boundary changes. There's a big difference in saying that, from going before the commission and arguing against representing an area. It's diametrically opposite.

It's just a very uncomfortable position for a member of Parliament to be in, or at least it is for me. If you put your member of Parliament's hat on for a minute and picture yourself in those shoes, you're arguing against representing a piece of territory that you're going to end up representing some day. I don't know any way around it, but it's an interesting dynamic that I didn't really enjoy.

The Chair: Are there any other comments?

Monsieur Godin.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: I would like to welcome our witnesses. Mr. Kingsley, we missed you last week.

[English]

The Chair: Wait a minute. This meeting was only scheduled for today. This isn't a meeting about Bill C-49; this is just a meeting about redistribution.

Mr. Yvon Godin: I think we understand each other.

The Chair: I did totally miss that.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: I would like to begin by thanking you, and take the opportunity to say that I am one of the members who is most involved in this process. I will not repeat what my colleague Mr. Keddy said, because I feel that elected representatives have a certain amount of responsibility. What is important is to get to know your constituents. In the space of a four-year mandate, many people come into our office and we deal with our communities. I think that the commission has to understand what a community of interests is. We need more dialogue to shed light on the issue and to enlighten the commissions. There is no doubt that they want to be enlightened.

With regard to the second round of hearings, I do not really agree with what Mr. Bickerton, the representative for Nova Scotia, said when he claimed that if a member did not choose to attend the hearings the first time, that he does not have the right to change his position, if I understood correctly, the second time around. When Mr. Keddy showed up, it was too late.

When a commission makes a decision like that one, what kind of process is involved? If memory serves me well, when we were invited, we were told that we could show up if we had any changes to propose, and that otherwise we would have our turn later on. But by that time, the commission had already made up its mind that a member who had not shown up the first time around had missed his chance, and that he should not be heard from at all in order not to waste taxpayers' money.

The commission should remain open-minded and acknowledge that a member can make a contribution as well, and not take the position that if a member did not show up the first time around, he or she did not deserve to be heard the second time around. I would like to know your thoughts on this issue.

º (1630)

[English]

Mr. James Bickerton: There wasn't a second round of public hearings, which is, I think, part of the problem. Both Professor Sancton and I were suggesting, perhaps, that a second round of public hearings after we published our revisions would have been helpful. I'm sure Mr. Keddy would have probably attended had there been--

Mr. Gerald Keddy: No choice.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. James Bickerton: As it was, he was left to make his objection, as MPs have the right to do, but not through a hearing process.

º (1635)

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: With your permission, Madam Chair, I would argue that that is exactly what we did when we held a meeting with all the judges, chairs of the commissions and all the members; you have a copy from that meeting before you. We discussed the community of interests. I then asked the members of the House of Commons Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to participate in our discussions. Only a couple of members showed up, but every committee member had been invited. I do not remember who showed up, but it was only a handful.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Mr. Kingsley, we certainly did not have the experience we have today. I know you are going to say that it is not your fault—

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Well, no.

Mr. Yvon Godin: In the future, but sooner than in 10 years time, you may want to organize a large forum. I do not know if members will be interested in something like that, but we could address the issue of community of interests. It does not only regard language, but also the economic development of regions, towns and villages, and the way economic development is achieved. That is why I say that today, a member of Parliament is not only a single person who votes in the House of Commons; the member also represents a group of people who are attached to a riding. I think that it is important to examine these issues in a democracy.

The Chair: Mr. Kingsley.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I agree with you that this should be looked into well before the next process. I viewed the work of this subgroup as being an effort to improve the process, and I personally agree with the suggestions. I have no problems with them. We learned a few things when we did the redistribution in 1990 that enabled us to improve our work in 2000, believe it or not, and we will learn things from our 2000 initiative that will allow us to improve in 2010 or 2011.

But perhaps there should be legislative amendments. Before amending the legislation, perhaps there should be discussions between the parliamentarians on what constitutes “community of interest.” If you think instruction should be given or there should be a more precise definition given to the commissions and its members, who must interpret the legislation every 10 years, I agree with you.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Sancton.

Mr. Andrew Sancton: Well, I'm a university professor. I love seminars and conferences, and I love talking about what “communities of interest” are, because I studied local government primarily as my academic subject.

My concern is that we could have a conference for three or four days and we would have conflicting views of what communities of interest are. You could write it in the legislation more clearly and give instructions as to what kinds of communities of interest you should pay attention to, but that would be, I think, a very difficult thing for you to do politically—but better you than me trying to describe what communities of interest are more important than other ones.

That is one point. The second one relates to it. It is this question of the quotient.

Our commission in Ontario this time, rightly or wrongly, was probably more spread out in the quotient than many other commissions. I basically get very nervous that we have as much discretion as we have. I think it's quite remarkable that members of Parliament have turned over this job in each province to three unelected people. We are basically not accountable to anybody. That's why I think it's important for us to be here to at least talk about it: we're not accountable.

What you are saying, if you say the quotient should be more extended and we should make more use of exceptional circumstances, is “You three people for each province should be defining what the important communities of interest are and defining which people get more representation than others”. I get very uncomfortable having that kind of unelected authority.

I am very much a supporter of the commission idea, because I think it is appropriate for non-elected people to actually draw the boundaries, but I think we have to be hemmed in. There have to be restraints on what we can do. One of the best ways of putting restraints on the commissions is to say you are not allowed to establish electoral districts that are more than 10% or 15% apart in size. If we had those constraints on us, we wouldn't have as much authority as we have now, and I think that would be better.

º (1640)

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, Mr. Kingsley, Ms. Davidson, gentlemen. Thank you for coming to see us to discuss this so openly and, in some circumstances, dangerously. I presume you realize everyone is trying to act in good faith.

Mr. Kingsley, the commissions studied various factors. For example—and this was referred to earlier— there was the question of numbers, community of interest, identity committees, geographical challenges.

In your view, what would be the best way of... It is fine to have a discussion and say we have to talk about it and come to a conclusion, but in your view, given your experience, what is the best way to sort this out? It is a little ridiculous when our subcommittee is told, for example, that in British Columbia—and this is one example of many, no one should feel targeted here— boundaries are established, but physically or geographically, it is impossible to respect them because to get from one place to another, you have travel a distance of 50 kilometres as the crow flies. Unfortunately, neither the members nor the candidates can fly and there is no air service. So people have to take detours of hundreds of kilometres to serve some corners of this country. This cannot go on. With all the modern means at our disposal, commissioners must be informed of the situation in order to avoid such aberrations.

How should we proceed? Should we look at grouping, a legislative measure that would impose groupings? How can we achieve our goal?

Let me give you another example that applies to Ontario and Quebec on the standard for riding names. My understanding was that the Quebec commissioners had decided—and I presume they had not decided over a morning coffee—that the ridings could not have more than a certain number of names, that as far as possible, there should not be any compound names, whereas in Ontario, that seems to be less of an issue. The example I can give is that of the riding of Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel. In the meantime, on the other side of the river, in a different province but in the same country, there is a riding called Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. Glengarry—Prescott—Russell was acceptable in Ontario, but Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel wasn't in Quebec.

How can we reach an acceptable standard?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: First of all, with regard to the riding names, the commissions have access to the Geographical Names Board of Canada and I presume they base their decision on that.

As for all the other points you raised, if there are no amendments to the act to make things clearer, which seems to be what several people want, the least I —or whoever is chief electoral officer at the time— will do, is to forward the concerns that will have been raised during these hearings. The small group I met with the other day recommended that information exchange sessions be extended so that certain issues can be looked at in depth. So that will be taken into account.

Bear in mind that this was the first time since 1964 that all commissioners and commission secretaries, 40 people, were gathered in the same room. So it was an important milestone, a major step in the entire process which, in my view, was very worthwhile. But what I am hearing is that more focus will have to be put on that if the act is not amended. If there are no legislative amendments, I will encourage members to ensure that the bill reflects their concerns, if they have more specific instructions for the commissions.

º (1645)

Mr. Marcel Proulx: I appreciate your comment. I think the question of distribution must be taken much more seriously. We have a chance to talk to you about it and we will seize the opportunity. This is a lot of work to be added to our existing workload. So we are always in a hurry and have little time to prepare, to listen and to reach our conclusions. I'm sure it is the same for the commissioners. If I understood correctly, there was no full-time commissioner. They had other tasks or responsibilities. I understand some commissioners might have been retirees who had more time than others, but I think the system must be much more systematic, the work must be taken much more seriously and adequate resources must be given to commissioners and members of committees, ours for example, who study the problems.

It is always the same problem: Where will we find those resources? How much will it cost and how can we afford it? In the meantime, you can try to implement several recommendations or save them for the system that will be implemented in seven or eight years. It is certainly not an easy situation.

I would like to talk about the maps and material resources. You may find this amusing, but when we, the members of the subcommittee, want to find our way around our own ridings, we use road maps. I'm sure the commissioners do the same. Surely there must be a better way to proceed. I realize we can't have extremely detailed maps, but the best maps in Canada come from one of our departments. So we either get very detailed maps or we walk around with computers. It is somewhat pathetic to have to use provincial maps or city maps to do our work.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Madam Chair, may I intervene?

The Chair: Yes, Mr. Kingsley.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I would like to talk more about the maps because this is the first time I have heard anyone say that. I think you are talking about the same departments that draw up the road maps that we use. The work is done jointly by the Department of Natural Resources, Statistics Canada and Elections Canada. The entire road system is in our files. I am firmly convinced that next time everyone will walk around with his computer and will have even better software than we had the last time, software that will allow you to get more details and manipulate demographic data. If there is anything else I should know about the maps, I would like you to tell me. We tried to give the commissions the proper tools, but it may be more difficult for a member to get them.

The problems you had may be related to that and perhaps you had them before you became a member of the committee. That is understandable. It is also possible that maps on the Internet site were not detailed enough. I have taken note and can assure you that next time everything will be perfect.

I would like to refer back to the comment you made about how serious the commissions were about their work. Let me assure you that some judges and commissioners worked on this full-time, or nearly.

º (1650)

Mr. Marcel Proulx: I am sure they did.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Bear in mind that the judges are not paid for this work, but they do get their judge's salary. So money is no problem. The subcommittee should feel comfortable making all of the suggestions it deems appropriate.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Does the same apply to the other two commissioners?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: The other two commissioners were paid at a rate approved by the governor in council. There were never any financial considerations, since all of the expenses related to the redistribution were made under the statutory authority of the chief electoral officer and not based on a budget that had to be kept to.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: I think you misunderstood me. I am not questioning the financial resources. However, I am wondering whether all the commissioners across the country do this on a full-time basis.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: If I may, I will ask the commissioners who are here to answer your question; their experience would be more telling than my knowledge.

[English]

Mr. Andrew Sancton: In Ontario, I guess we had the most work to do because we had the most number of seats. None of us worked on it full-time. We had two university professors and a judge who was doing some judging at the time. But I want to be very clear to all of you that I felt we had excellent resources from Elections Canada and we had excellent support.

On the subject of the roads and all of the different geographical factors, let me say quickly how that worked in our commission, and I can only speak for our commission.

We would outline the maps, and we went over it many, many times with different scenarios, and we used, as you know, the same technology you ended up using. We worked with that. One of the layers you can add to that is roads, so you could see the roads as you were doing it. But none of us totally trusted the layer that came on that from roads, so every time we did a scenario we told our staff to get out the road map and make sure we were not even thinking about an electoral district that didn't connect by road.

Then we would go away for three or four days, sometimes longer, and do our jobs that we normally do. When we came back we would have a report, either oral or written, from our staff assigned to us by Elections Canada saying “Here's the road that connects the different parts of the electoral district” or “You have a problem with this one because it doesn't connect properly”.

I don't know what happened or didn't happen in British Columbia, but I know in Ontario that's the way we did it, and I don't see any reason why anybody else couldn't have done it in exactly the same way.

The Chair: Thank you.

Colleagues, I have a few questions I want to ask.

Mr. Kingsley, is it possible this group could get a copy of the instructions that were issued to the commissions?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Instructions?

The Chair: Well, the information and the guidelines they were given. Can we get that document? You don't have it right now, I know, but I'm asking, can we get access to it?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Whatever it is we provided, I'll be more than happy to provide to you.

The Chair: Also, you had the preliminary discussion on September 18. Before we finish our work, is it possible for us to get the benefit of those comments?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Frankly, the professor whose services we retained to do that is not available to complete the work for a while yet.

The Chair: Are there any transcripts or anything?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: There are not transcripts available at this time.

º (1655)

The Chair: Would you mind looking to see what the timing is?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: I'll look into it and see what we can provide you.

The Chair: Okay.

We have some preliminary comments that were provided to this committee, and I'd like to suggest, colleagues, we make that available to Mr. Kingsley and his team, and to the commissioners, and ask them to comment on some of the things we kept finding as we went along. We can provide copies of that now to the people who are present and send them to everybody else.

Is that okay with you guys? It has to be a committee agreement.

Some hon. members: Agreed.

» (1700)

The Chair: Good. Thank you.

In there, you'll see, are some specific things that kept coming up, so let me get them all on the table. One of them is this whole idea of the quotient. Specifically, Mr. Sancton, that works for you.

We really thought there need to be two quotients in places like Ontario and Quebec, where you have a huge difference in the way the population is distributed. We know it's a lot easier for me to serve 150,000 people than it is for the MP for Kenora to serve 43% fewer than the provincial quotient. It's just easier. I have technology, and everybody runs downtown; it's not a big deal. Yet in fact people are going to be forced in one part of my city to go way away from where I am, or in fact they're going to end up using my office.

This came up in different places, cases where it's not so hard to give service in the urban areas but it's certainly very difficult in the rural. So we looked at either a northern or a rural northern or some such kind of definition. If you can help us with whether you think there should be two quotients, and how we would establish them, we'd be more than interested.

On the process itself, one way to elicit more comment from the public would be to have different maps—different scenarios that are proposed—so that people would be forced to comment: yes, I like proposal A or B; I don't like C...something like that. I wonder what the commissioners would think about that proposal. In fact, I think in Bill C-69 that was part of the way the act was written—or it allowed for that in areas that were confusing or difficult to decide.

In terms of the timing, it seems the whole process—the issue of the year to realign the ridings, versus how long it takes for the notification period, the 90 days, and everything else—was designed for a different time of communications.

Even in Hamilton, when we had the hearings there, I had responded in August, because it was a very sensitive issue in my riding the last time and I wasn't going to let anything go by. You can see I responded two or three months before anybody else, because I didn't want that to happen to me again. But by the time the hearing comes along and it's time for you to appear, it's months later. The House schedule could be what it is, and I could have not appeared, and that could have been interpreted by the commissioners as suddenly not caring.

Do we really need some of these timelines? Could we not hurry up the process a little, loading it through first and second rounds before we have the boundaries proclaimed into law, and shorten up this time period as we're doing with Bill C-49? Frankly, it's all electronic now; it's pushing a bunch of buttons and realigning a bunch of ridings. I don't understand why it takes a year at that end.

In terms of the communication, I was stunned by how many of my constituents had no concept that this whole thing was happening once again. How do we educate the public better? It seems to be a constant battle. This was such an important issue in Burlington, and yet still people say to me, “Oh, I didn't know there were hearings. I didn't know this was around.” Whose role is which? I'm concerned, as Mr. Keddy is, about how much the MP takes on and how much, if the MP doesn't win, she wears the results.

Frankly, it's not up to me to communicate; it's up to the commissioners. Yet if there's a mistake or some perception that something's wrong, it's all my fault. That's what happened to me in my first term as a member of Parliament. It was that I gave it up, say the people. I didn't; it was taken from us. And there should be a problem if MPs are gerrymandering.

This is a lot of questions to load on you, but in terms of setting up the commissions, do we have the appropriate mix? Is it too big for you guys to do Ontario, for instance, or Quebec? Should we be dividing them into parts? Are there other types of people we should be looking at to be on the commissions? Should they be bigger?

I know that in the case of some commissions, people talked about former elected officials being good for advising on how hard it is to serve a riding, but others said, “Oh, no, they're too political”, because they used to represent a party. In certain provinces, such as the province of Alberta, they do it not by commissioners, but the redistribution is done by sitting MLAs of various parties. I'd like to hear about that.

Finally, is there a process at the end where the commissioners have looked at the other commission reports and the process that went on? It was really interesting as we went through the reports to see how different each report was. As we were dealing with the objections from members, the set-up of the books was different. Some included things in one order; some included them in another. They were written one by one very differently. It seems surprising to me that there wasn't a formula for how all the reports would be written. Would that be beneficial? I don't know.

That's all the stuff we put on the table. Now you get to respond—and I'll be good on the time; don't worry, guys.

Mr. Sancton first, I guess.

Mr. Andrew Sancton: I have a few responses, Madam Chair, and I'm sure others will as well.

I'm not surprised that you raised the issue of the two quotients, or different quotients for different parts of the province. In Ontario, I guess the main issue is should the north have a different quotient, although arguably you could have the same discussion about rural areas.

This is a very big issue, and I know it occupies members of Parliament in rural areas, and particularly in the north. I just want to make a couple of cautionary notes about that proposal.

First of all, it is easy to say, in theory, but the key question about implementing is that you would have to draw boundaries to show where the different quotients would apply. We have been flexible in the Ontario commission in defining what northern Ontario actually is, so if you were going to have a quotient for northern Ontario, you would have to define exactly what the boundary would be. If you did that, the next step would be to have a separate commission for northern Ontario, which would make perfect sense to me. It would lessen the workload for the commission.

But there is a problem here. If northern Ontario is actually going to have a different quotient, or for that matter, if rural areas are going to have a different quotient, that means a lower quotient. Where are the extra seats going to come from? Where is the compensation going to come from?

Let's say there is just a separate quotient for northern Ontario. Either Ontario would end up with more seats in relation to other provinces, which I doubt that other MPs will support, or the representation will come at the expense of southern Ontario in the urban areas, and I know from speaking to people in urban areas that they say oh yes, the electoral boundaries commission, that's the job that gives the extra representation to rural areas and takes away the representation from the cities. So you would have to think very carefully about how such a double or triple quotient system would work.

On the subject of the different proposals put out there for public response, again I think that's a very good idea in theory, and it might work for small areas, if you divided up the province of Ontario into small areas, or it might work in the smaller provinces. But if you start talking about different proposals for a situation where you have 103, 104, or 105 different seats, you obviously have to do the mathematics. You could have thousands of different proposals out there, depending on how you started at a particular point in the province. It would be very difficult to have different proposals that would all connect with each other. This is the point about both that idea and the previous one about the different quotients.

In Ontario, we treated boundaries flexibly in the north and in the city of Toronto. One obvious thing would be to ask, why didn't you just put out four different proposals for the city of Toronto? We could have done that. In the end, we did something entirely different. As a result of the public hearings, we established an electoral district that crossed the boundaries of the city of Toronto. Nobody would have thought of that when we were thinking up alternative proposals. So there's an infinite flexibility here that people have to take account of.

I think the timeframes could be shortened, in the same way that you do. My only comment on that is because I have a full-time job, I sure liked those intervals between the release of the proposals and the actual public hearings. If the process is much more compressed, I think you might have trouble finding commissioners who will be able to do the job, unless they are retired or are doing the job on a full-time basis.

Finally, we do not get any instructions from the Chief Electoral Officer. We got packages of material, we had discussions about what communities of interest might be, but the only instruction we have about what to do is from the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, and I think that's the way the act reads.

» (1705)

The reason there are different ways of writing the report is because we are autonomous commissions. There is some tension in the process between the commissions and the Chief Electoral Officer's office. Most of the time it provides very good support, and I am very grateful for all the support. It works. But there are times when it says we have to get such and such in because it needs it for its purposes by such and such a time. We say we are autonomous and we go by this.

If you want the commissions to do things in a more exact way, so they are similar across the provinces, you will have to put it into the legislation, because, quite frankly, Mr. Kingsley simply does not have the authority to tell the commissions to do things in a certain way.

It is nice that we all had the same format in the cover of the report, but even that is not an obligation. We could presumably have gone off and used our own format if we wanted to.

The Chair: Mr. Sancton, how different commissions interpreted their obligations is really quite different, one from the other, all based on an interpretation of the act. So would you suggest the act needs more clarity about what it means in terms of a community of interests, or the issue of quotients? Ultimately, even if there's a difference and the rural part of Ontario has 50,000 people versus 150,000 in an urban part of Ontario, lots of commissions talked about the equality of votes and all this stuff. Hello: P.E.I. has 40,000 per person, so there already is a difference in this country. Why is it acceptable that there be a difference in different provinces versus a difference within a province?

Mr. Andrew Sancton: Do you want me to answer that?

The Chair: With respect to my eastern colleagues, yes, I do.

Mr. Andrew Sancton: This is a very important political issue. The distribution of the electoral districts among the provinces is simply not an issue for the commissions. That's an issue that's in the Constitution itself. It can be amended by Parliament, but it's in the Constitution. Every commission thinks of itself as working with a set number of seats and they have to do that in isolation from the quotients that are established for other provinces.

The act tells us to come as close as we can to the quotients, bearing in mind and taking account of these other factors. When you look at that wording, it doesn't surprise me in the least that different commissions interpret that in different ways. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised there's as much similarity among the different provinces more than anything else, because there are not precise instructions in the act about what to do. I say that especially because the quotient is spread out so much—25% either way, and on top of that you can use exceptional circumstances if you want.

» (1710)

The Chair: Let me point out one last thing, then I'll turn it over to Mr. Guimond.

In Nova Scotia you were really hot on provincial boundaries, and I think you've identified why those are important to you. In Ontario, we're obviously going to be out of sync now, and it was of concern to us that you are very keen on provincial boundaries when those could change by very quick order in the province.

In Alberta they had this thing where they wanted Edmonton and Calgary to have the same number of seats, and they went to this satellite thing, spokes of a wheel or whatever they called it, really annoying everybody in Edmonton, disrupting historical community of interests. And there's nowhere in the act that says that in Alberta, Edmonton and Calgary should have the same distribution of seats. It seems very bizarre. They didn't take a single one of our recommendations for change. It was almost like we wasted our time dealing with that report.

I don't know if you have any comments--not to comment too sternly on Alberta, but how these things evolve so differently.

Mr. James Bickerton: That experience, in part, was because there was a provincial redistribution proceeding, overlapping the federal redistribution. One of the commissioners on the federal commission was also on the provincial commission.

So there were extraneous factors that help to explain why this came into our discussions, more so than it probably did in other commissions. But we did find it useful. I don't want to leave you with the impression that this was the most important factor in our discussions. It wasn't.

As for starting with existing riding boundaries and working from them, we did do that. Each of the three commissioners in fact came up with their own initial set of proposals that differed widely from the other two. At the beginning of the process we had three different proposals for redrawing boundaries in our province, which proceeded on very different grounds. I started my redrawing from the north, from the Cape Breton area. Of course, I'm from that region. Someone else started from the south. Someone started from Halifax. You can see we could end up with quite different boundaries based on where one started, and there's no way around that problem really. We had to hash that out, and we had some very lively discussions hashing it out, believe me.

The Chair: Should the public not have had the benefit of those three maps and made their own decisions?

Mr. James Bickerton: Well, there you go, that's it. The way the commissions proceed is together you arrive at a set of proposals that you then publish. I would say the majority of the discussion took place, and had to take place, before the public was aware at all of what the new proposed boundaries would be. In fact, we were under explicit instructions not to talk to anybody about the boundaries that we were going to propose.

The Chair: Should that change?

Mr. James Bickerton: You could change that. I think that if you wanted to have a multi-stage process, one of the things you could do would be to have a public hearing at the beginning before you came out with your proposal to get input. Or you could publish, as you say, two, three, or more different possible redrawings and then get input on more than one set of proposals. Each of those is going to have a different set of problems attached to it, but it would certainly create a lot more dialogue than the way it's done now.

The Chair: Mr. Prémont.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Prémont: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Did you know that we also work on a part-time basis? In my experience, we got a great deal of support from Elections Canada because we had a training session right at the beginning, as Mr. Kingsley said. We also had an experienced geographic technician who worked with us as well as all the computer tools we needed to have a clear understanding of the situation.

I also realize that all of Canada's provinces have their differences. I was listening to Mr. Godin's concerns earlier. In Quebec, when we looked at the community of interest, we tried to understand everything we heard during the public hearings. When we came back after the public hearings, we completely changed the initial proposals we made in our report because we had a better grasp of the communities of interest. But the communities of interest take on a different meaning depending on who you talk to.

In Quebec, the discussion on communities of interest depended a great deal on input from the riding's regional municipalities. We were told there were economic development organizations working together in a regional county municipality. We often used them as our basis, but we couldn't hear from all of them. There is also the entire question of new realities.

Obviously it is not easy for anyone to clearly define community of interest throughout Canada. If we had talked about two quotients or had been able to say it was an exception, that would have made our task easier. But when we looked at the situation in Quebec—perhaps they saw things differently in Ontario, even though the situations are nearly identical; I cannot be specific because I don't have all the information—we saw different things. But we did not think there was anything that was so exceptional that it warranted going beyond a variance of 25 per cent.

We worked together systematically by interpreting the act that was presented to us. If we had had clear and specific instructions on what to do given the circumstances, depending on the size of the territory, obviously we would have abided by the act. But you cannot take away all of the leeway and unfortunately you cannot satisfy everyone with such a complex process, when so many opposing objectives are at play.

If we had seen some consensus during our public hearings, if everyone had really said the same thing and we had been able to interpret it, then we would have respected people's viewpoints. But since there were diverging opinions, we tried to understand as best we could and tried to do our best.

» (1715)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Guimond, go ahead.

Mr. Michel Guimond: When I hear such comments, I must make an effort to control my temper, but then again—

I thought my next question would be for you, Mr. Prémont, but in fact I will ask Mr. Kingsley. You may want to make your comments afterwards.

Mr. Kingsley, I am extremely disappointed with the answer you gave my colleague Mr. Proulx. His question was very relevant. In fact, I would have also liked to ask it. It was about the names of ridings, which was very appropriate. But you just dismissed his question about the suggested names. You answered that the commissions had the catalogue—I don't know whether it is a catalogue or a data base—of the Geographical Names Board of Canada.

Mr. Kingsley, you have always told me that when people complained about the way the Quebec commissions were run, that those commissions were independent. So the commission can have the catalogue or the software, but it can still make its own decisions. We learned through a third party that in Quebec the commission had sworn it would clean up the riding names. I do not know whether Mr. Prémont can confirm that. Proof thereof is that in the first and second versions, there were riding names, and there was a member, sometimes two, who swore to clean them up.

Fortunately, there is a legislative process that enables us to take remedial action. As I recently told this committee, the government leader will listen to our recommendations and these inconsistencies will be corrected. But trying to say that everything was resolved simply by having a catalogue in hand—

» (1720)

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Madam Chair, with all due respect for Mr. Guimond, I must say that I did not refer to a catalogue. I said that guidelines were issued by the Geographical Names Board of Canada and based on that, the commissions were free to do what they wanted.

Even if I wanted to, I could not give Mr. Proulx a different answer. Mr. Sancton told you in very clear terms that he had nothing to do with those commissions and that he had no authority over them. I do not know how many times that must be repeated for it to be understood. I do not understand why my answer upsets you or why you think it is unsatisfactory. It is not up to me to determine those things.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Is there anything you can do when you are confronted with the decision of a commission not to take into account the size of a riding, even though it may contain three or four communities of interest? That's why some ridings have three or four names; it's not because you want to actually have a string of 26 names. It's simply to recognize the sub-regions within larger districts.

In fact, if we did not have the opportunity to table bills to correct this type of situation, we would have been told, too bad, but that's the way things are done.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: You have basically just answered your own question. You intend to correct the situation as you see it.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Unfortunately, that is just not possible with regard to redistribution.

My question is for you, Mr. Prémont. There was a first draft electoral map, and you tabled the first report. You received the report of the subcommittee, which met 24 times, incidentally. The members then proposed certain changes to the final report affecting every province. I would like to know what your reaction was to that. Did you and the two other commissioners show a real willingness to accommodate these proposed changes?

Allow me not to agree with the representative of New Brunswick with regard to his suggestion that it may be a good idea to hold further public hearings. If two, three or four other hearings were held, when the die is already cast, it would be tantamount to organizing kangaroo hearings. Let's not be fooled by the belief that holding more hearings would in any way change the commission's mind.

In our case, everyone was on the same side. You will probably accuse me of once again raising the situation of the riding of Manicouagan, but I could make the same argument for the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region, which will lose a riding. Whatever the case may be, our situation is clear-cut. All the communities on the North Shore were of one mind. I managed to convince all my colleagues on the subcommittee, across party lines and across all provinces, that the district of Manicouagan should be subject to extraordinary conditions.

Just before drafting your final report, how did you react to our subcommittee's report?

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Prémont.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Prémont: Madam Chair, I just want to say that a little earlier, following what Mr. Kingsley said, I wanted to say that never did the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer intervene in our mandate. We were given good support and training from the outset, as well as the tools to do our job. At no point were we told how to do our job, be it with regard to names or boundaries. Everything unfolded as Mr. Kingsley described it.

Furthermore, please understand that I only received notice on Thursday that I would be coming before the committee today, and I was told that the subject would be the way the commissions would operate in the future. I was not at all mandated by my colleagues to... We reached unanimous decisions; I do not have a mandate from them. When we met with members of the public, we had agreed that our chair would be in charge of communicating with people. I did not come here to justify the commission's positions, nor to defend what it did, nor to say that this was done well and that perhaps not. I was in full agreement with my colleagues. We worked together and I think that whatever we had to say is included in our report.

The work was carried out in stages. We came out with a first proposal, as everyone does. After that proposal was made, there were public hearings; after the public hearings, we produced our report, and after the report was made public, you held your deliberations. At every stage of the process we worked very hard to understand what was at stake, to maintain an overall sense of respect and fairness, and that led to the decisions you received.

» (1725)

Mr. Michel Guimond: I apologize for interrupting you, Mr. Prémont. At the moment, we are looking at the way in which the process actually unfolded. When it comes time, I will be recommending on behalf of my party... I'm going to be asking, among other things, whether there is any point in having a subcommittee listen to members of Parliament who make recommendations to a commission, which is free to act in its area of jurisdiction. I am not taking that away from you, but that is why I am asking what your reaction was, what you did with that, whether you studied it with a genuine desire to... My objective is to improve the process. Of course, I may look like I am judging you, but... As far as the Chief Electoral Officer goes, I will have some other questions for him about the training that was provided. Because our intention is to improve the system. So I am simply questioning you on that aspect.

Mr. Pierre Prémont: Well, what do you think yourself, Mr. Guimond?

Mr. Michel Guimond: In my opinion, you did not take the report into account, and we did all that for absolutely nothing. That is my opinion, but I would like to be convinced that the opposite is true.

[English]

The Chair: Can I just ask a process question rather than the specifics on it? Did you have enough time to deal with what we had suggested? Because we'd made some really serious changes to the proposal for Quebec.

It's not a question of whether you agreed or disagreed. Obviously you disagreed in the majority, but did you actually have time to really give it a go with what we proposed to you?

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Prémont: Yes, we did have time to review the recommendations, and we did have time to study the various reports. It was a tedious process, it did take a great deal of time, even though we did not work on it full-time. However, I do think we had enough time to make decisions that the commission felt were enlightened.

The Chair: One final question.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thank you. My other questions are to Mr. Kingsley. The chair of each commission is appointed by the chief justice of the provincial superior court. By whom are the other two commissioners appointed? I cannot remember that.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: You do not remember? They are appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons. I am pleased to refresh your memory on that.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thank you. In the training you provided at the big meeting—

The Chair: This is really the last question.

Mr. Michel Guimond: Did you deal with the issue of extraordinary conditions at the major training session you provided for commission members? Did you deal with the issue and tell members of these commissions that there was such a provision in the act? Do you have any documentation to give us on that, on the comments you made about the definition of extraordinary conditions?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: We have already provided this documentation, Madam Chair. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs asked me the same question. I sent the material to the committee, and Mr. Godin has a copy of it on hand.

The Chair: Time is up.

[English]

I have Mr. Keddy.

We may be in a situation where we're going to have to ask for additional comments later.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: I'll try to be brief. I only have a couple more points. Actually I'm not certain that they're not a reiteration of my original ones.

It would seem to me, if we're here to improve this process for the next time around, and I think that's the purpose of being here, that we've learned a couple of things from this exercise. Although I was not our committee member during this entire process—it was Rick Borotsik—it's ended up that we have certain confounding issues. Obviously we have the Constitution and the terms of Confederation. We have a breakdown of how many seats each province has, and we have an explosion in urban population growth that has to somehow be adjusted. But I think it's obvious—it was obvious to me when I appeared before this committee—that we have three regions of Canada: we have remote, rural, and urban, and they have to be taken at face value.

On remote regions of Canada, there's a geographical and a physical limitation to how much distance a member of Parliament can.... The member of Parliament for Churchill or Nunavut would travel by airplane. There is no choice in the matter. First of all, what I want to say is that there are only a few remote ridings.

The urban-rural split isn't as dramatic. But I think there's a consensus, or at least I thought there was consensus at committee when I appeared, that the urban ridings in Canada can handle 100,000, 150,000 people. I never had one member of Parliament, if we are paying attention to members of Parliament, say to me there was something wrong with 110,00 people in downtown Toronto, or 120,000, or 150,000 people, but I consistently heard, at least in my brief appearance, the rural members of Parliament say that the quotients have to have some room; they must have some room.

In my own instance that was recognized as a given. Again—and I'm not trying to concentrate just on my position—we ended up taking a rural riding, a big rural riding with quite a difference in the communities of interest within it, including the most successful fishery on the east coast of Canada, to a farming community and forestry community in Lunenburg County, versus the Shelburne County, and we moved that along into taking part of Halifax County, which is a bedroom community for the city, and ending up with a riding that has a quotient larger now than the urban riding, which I'm perfectly willing to live with. I understand all the principles behind it.

But if there's anything we can do here, it should be to depoliticize the process, not make it more political. I'm back to my original point—make it less political. I very much believe that.

The Chair: Mr. Sancton definitely wants to answer. Anybody else?

We'll start with him.

» (1730)

Mr. Andrew Sancton: I just want to say two things very quickly about Mr. Keddy's intervention.

First of all, the way the act is constructed, and I would argue the way the Charter of Rights is constructed as well, the primary consideration here is to make the vote of one person in a province equal to that of another person in the province. That is a different question from how easy or hard it is to service a particular riding. The act is constructed around the issue of the equality of the vote. I think a lot of the tension between members of Parliament and commissioners is around that question. We see it as protecting the equality of the vote. You people in your day-to-day lives spend most of your time servicing people, travelling around, dealing with people. We come at it from different experiences. But the act, I would suggest, is primarily constructed around the question of the equality of the vote.

On the subject of servicing, I have to underline this, because it was a surprise to me. If you read Mr. Nault's objection to what we recommended in our report, you will find a quite different version of how easy or hard it is to serve the largest riding in Ontario. Boy, I learned a lot from that process and from reading Mr. Nault's objection. It is one of the most important documents, I think, there is around this process—a member of Parliament serving such a large riding saying that he has no trouble serving a riding of that size.

The Chair: Mr. Keddy, quickly.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: The issue for me is simple here. You have an urban centre with all kinds of government services. You have a passport office; there isn't one in South Shore. You have two, three, four, or five HRDC officers, not one. The only physical presence of the federal government in most of rural Canada is your post office. Think about it. You have one HRDC office in South Shore, a branch office in Shelburne, and Fisheries and Oceans. There's no comparison.

The Chair: Mr. Godin is next, very quickly, and then we will have to come to an end, sadly.

Mr. Godin.

» (1735)

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to talk about the community of interest, Mr. Kingsley. We read the following on page 5 of your remarks:

In short, we are not talking about a process that is uniform across the country, necessarily. Like the diversity that is so much a part of Canada, geographic, historical, linguistic, social and cultural characteristics will have to play a central role in our thinking when the time comes to define the community of interest that justifies electoral boundaries.

These words send out a very strong message to all the commissions about the importance of the community of interest and the circumstances in which the concept should apply.

The composition of the commissions is another important point. Political considerations are not suppose to play a part in the selection of members, but look at how the commissions were established. If Mr. Guimond does not remember, I would be pleased to tell him. What are you proposing? The minister responsible for the province would suggest some names to the Speaker of the House of Commons, who is chosen by the members of all political parties and, thereby, is considered independent. That is probably why he chooses the members of the commissions. Unfortunately, the only names he selected were suggested by Cabinet ministers.

I do not know what suggestion you could make regarding the composition of the commissions. I do not think they should be composed solely of judges and lawyers. There are already some university professors, but we also need people representing various parts of the province. In my province, for example, southern New Brunswick was represented, but the north was not. There is a great difference between northern and southern New Brunswick.

I know we do not have much time, but I would like to hear your suggestions.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: There are definitely some possibilities that could be explored as regards appointments. I must say that I think that the fact that the chief justice of the province appoints the chair, who is a retired judge, is a strong guarantee of the independence of the commissions.

I think it would be advisable to consider as well a greater variety of types of commission members. I will try to comment on all of your points.

As regards the appointment method, I can only refer to Bill C-69, which died on the Order Paper. It was approved by the House of Commons, but died in the Senate in 1995. The appointment process remained the same for the chair of the commission, and the Speaker of the House of Commons appointed the other two members, but their names were posted in the House of Commons before the decision took effect.

I would just like to remind you of something. This approach may have lessened the impact of this appointment process, although the system had worked well since 1964. The House of Commons passed this bill twice, I believe, in 1995, but it never got through the Senate. So that recommendation had been made.

As to your quotation of my comments, I freely admit that those were my words.

» (1740)

Mr. Yvon Godin: Was that just your opinion, or was that in keeping with the act?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: It was my opinion, but it was based on the act.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Based on the act! The act does not talk just about the number of individuals or the community of interest.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Reconciling all that is the job of the three members of the commission. This is an absolutely thankless task, as we can see from the testimony that has been heard and by the sharp criticism of the commissions since their decisions were made public. It was even the case again this evening.

[English]

The Chair: Just to be clear, members of the subcommittee were subject to some criticism from our colleagues with whom we didn't agree. There were more than a few who sent me little notes.

Does anyone else have a response?

You have a copy of our notes, and if there is anything else that comes up we would love to have the benefit of your ideas.

I am personally of the opinion that it should probably happen not once every ten years, but once every five years, partly because of future growth. It isn't considered to be part of your mandate, but in some parts of Ontario, Quebec, and other provinces it could be extremely important in establishing ridings that are going to work.

Maybe Mr. Kingsley would like to comment on that.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Bill C-69 had redistribution every five years. We discussed it the other day, and I'd just like to mention one thing that had not appeared to me when I was favouring the contents of Bill C-69, and that is that effectively, a member of Parliament will always be representing a riding that will change at the next election. That is something you should consider, but it was part of Bill C-69 as well. It's a bill worth reviewing, in terms of your work.

The Chair: We were just commenting here at the head table that we are going to make sure we get the summary of Bill C-69--because some people weren't here in that time period--for the deliberations of this committee.

We thank all of you for taking the time to come to us. There is a round table at six o'clock with members of Parliament. You are more than welcome to stay. I appreciate that you've all come on very short notice and may not be able to stay. There will be transcripts available as well, but I encourage you to stay if you can. I certainly hope the professors are interested in staying--and we have wonderful sandwiches for you.

Thank you all very much.

We're adjourned.