41st Parliament, First Session The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has the honour to present its SIXTY-FIRST REPORT Your Committee, which is responsible for all matters relating to the election of Members of the House of Commons, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(a)(vi), has considered the objections filed in respect of the Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Ontario, in accordance with section 22 of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. E-3, and is pleased to report as follows: After each decennial census, the number of Members of the House of Commons and the representation of each province is adjusted in accordance with the rules prescribed by section 51 and 51A of the Constitution Act, 1867. An independent three–member electoral boundaries commission is then established for each province with the mandate to consider and report on the division of the province into electoral districts, the description of the boundaries and the name of each electoral district. The Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act provides the rules governing the division of a province into electoral districts. The population of each electoral district must be as close as possible to the electoral quota for the province, that is, the population of the province divided by the number of Members of the House of Commons allocated to the province in accordance with the Constitution. Each commission shall also consider the community of interest, community of identity or the historical pattern of an electoral district in the province; as well as the manageable geographic size of electoral districts, in cases of sparsely populated, rural or northern regions. A commission may depart from the provincial electoral quota by plus or minus 25% in order to respect the community of interest, community of identity, or the historical pattern of an electoral district, or to maintain the manageable geographic size of sparsely populated districts. In circumstances that are viewed as extraordinary by a commission, the variance from the electoral quota may be greater than 25%. A commission is required to hold at least one public sitting on proposed electoral districts’ boundaries and names to hear representations by interested persons. After the completion of the public hearings, each commission prepares a report on the boundaries and names of the electoral districts of the province. These reports are tabled in the House of Commons, and referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Members of the House of Commons have then 30 calendar days to file objections to the proposals contained in a report. An objection must be 1 in writing and in the form of a motion. It must specify the provisions of the report objected to, and the reasons for those objections. An objection must be signed by not less than 10 Members of the House of Commons. After the expiration of the period for filing objections, the Committee has 30 sittings days, or any greater period as may be approved by the House, to consider the objections. The report of the commission is then referred back to the commission, along with the objections, and the minutes of the proceedings and the evidence heard by the Committee. The commission has then 30 calendar days to consider the matter, dispose of any objection, and finalise its report with or without amendment depending on its disposition of the objections. Once all the commission reports have been finalized, the Chief Electoral Officer prepares a draft representation order setting out the boundaries and names of the new electoral districts. This is sent to the Governor in Council, who shall, within five days, proclaim the new representation order to be in force and effective for any general election that is called seven months after the proclamation is issued. Objections The Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Ontario was tabled in the House of Commons, and referred to the Committee on February 25, 2013. By the end of the 30-day period, the Clerk of the Committee had received 63 objections. Nine objections proposed both changes to the boundaries and names of electoral districts. 21 objections included changes to boundaries only; 13 to names of ridings only. 20 “objections” expressed their support in the Commission’s Report. General Comments The Committee wishes to commend the Commission for its work on this difficult undertaking, given the large scale and complexity of its task. During its hearings, the Committee discerned a consistent endorsement on the part of MPs for the Commission’s use, in certain regions, of a second round of public consultations in order to arrive at the electoral boundaries proposed in its Report. While this extra consultation is not mandated by the Act, the Committee highlights this practice for the consideration of future Electoral Boundaries Commissions as a way to mitigate potential public discontent over lack of input concerning changes to electoral boundaries made following a first and only round of public consultations. The Committee considers any such mechanism, which has as its objective to deepen public consultations, to be a worthwhile undertaking and in line with the spirit of the Act. Members who objected to the Report generally recommended reasonable adjustments that were well thought-out, well documented and in line with the parameters of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, and in line with the flexible approach adopted by the Commission with regard to the deviation from the electoral quota. The Committee has no doubt that the Commission will find these proposals open-minded, with the general objective of effective representation of constituents by their elected federal representatives. 2 A number of M.P.s filed objections with the Committee in order to express their satisfaction with the Commission’s Report, or to preserve their option of appearing, but that did not necessarily contain a specific objection to any of the provisions of the Report. The Committee included certain of these objections in the body of the Report in instances where the objection had a direct bearing on another MP’s objection. These MPs included: Mr. Malcolm Allen, M.P. for Welland; Mr. Charlie Angus, M.P. for Timmins–James Bay; Ms. Lois Brown, M.P. for Newmarket–Aurora; Mr. Andrew Cash, M.P. for Davenport; Mr. David Christopherson, M.P. for Hamilton Centre; Mr. Jim Flaherty, M.P. for Whitby–Oshawa; Mr. Claude Gravelle, M.P. for Nickel Belt; Mr. Dan Harris, M.P. for Scarborough Southwest; Ms. Carol Hughes, M.P. for Algoma–Manitoulin– Kapuskasing; Mr. Matthew Kellway, M.P. for Beaches–East York; Ms. Kellie Leitch, M.P. for Simcoe–Grey; Mr. Brian Masse, M.P. for Windsor West; Mr. Wayne Marston, M.P. for Hamilton East–Stoney Creek; Ms. Irene Mathyssen, M.P. for London Fanshawe; Mr. Gary Schellenberger, M.P. for Perth–Wellington; Ms. Rathika Sitsabaiesan, M.P. for Scarborough–Rouge River; Mr. Mike Sullivan, M.P. for York South–Weston; Mr. David Tilson, M.P. for Dufferin–Caledon; Mr. Glenn Thibeault, M.P. for Sudbury; and Mr. Mike Wallace, M.P. for Burlington. The Committee also notes that the statistics found in this report, in respect of estimated regional populations or deviations from the province’s electoral quota resultant from an M.P.’s proposal were, in all cases, provided by Elections Canada using current census data. Electoral Boundary Changes Northern Ontario Five of northern Ontario’s ten M.P.s appeared as a single panel before the committee. However, their presentations naturally group themselves around two distinct geographical areas, which will be dealt with separately below. (a) Limits imposed by the decision to award ten ridings to the North. If the Commission had made the decision to maintain strict conformity to the principle of representation by population, Northern Ontario would have eight districts, rather than the ten that it has been awarded. The Committee does not dispute the Commission’s decision to award ten districts to the region, but the Committees thinks it is important to take note of the fact that this decision has an important implication, which—if not clearly acknowledged and carefully managed—has the potential to cause the Commission’s recommended boundaries to fail to conform to appropriate considerations of community of interest, ease of service and access to MP services for constituents in some parts of the north. There is even a danger, which the Committee will outline in our discussion of Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma–Manitoulin–Kapuskasing, of making proposals which do not conform with the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. In awarding ten seats to a region with a total population of 832,014, the Commission has created a situation in which every seat is, on average, very close to the minimum permissible limit of 25% below the provincial quota. The average Northern Ontario seat has a population of 83,201 (21.5% below the provincial quota for Ontario). This population is the de facto quota for the north. 3 This means that the amount of leeway available, to allow individual districts to drop below this de facto regional quota is very slight. Slight variations in population from one census to the next will have the effect of causing individual districts to drop below the 25% mark, requiring remedial action to be taken. In this case, remedial action amounts to removing communities from adjoining districts in order to boost the population of the district which has fallen below the 25%. But as one district borrows communities from the next, cascades are created, since they too can be pushed below the 25% level. This can lead to communities being arbitrarily removed from one district, where they are easily serviced and with which they have a natural affinity, and moved into another, where M.P.