2014 Legislative Session: Second Session, 40th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 6, Number 6

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)
ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Polak: I call continued debate on Bill 2.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 2 — ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES
COMMISSION AMENDMENT ACT, 2014

(continued)

Hon. B. Bennett: It's a pleasure to speak in support of this piece of legislation. I was here for the remarks made by the Justice critic. As usual, he was very articulate and intelligent in the way he put his arguments forth but not, unfortunately, persuasive.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

I'll take some of the credit or, as the case may be, some of the blame for what we are doing with this piece of legislation. I've been here for almost 13 years now. I think the primary driver for me to get into politics and to stay in politics has always been to represent people from the rural parts of the province.

Even more broadly than that, I was raised in a small town. I'd always lived in small towns. I've lived out well beyond small towns for a large portion of my life. I believe there is a difference between the cultures of small communities, the farming areas, ranching areas, out in the north, and in the Kootenays and in the Cariboo, where you have people that live a long way from town and you have these tiny, tiny little villages.

They become so self-reliant. Their values are not any better than the people who live in cities but, I think, different. That's been my life experience. Over the years I have become concerned that those people that live in small towns in rural areas of the province are losing their political power not just in British Columbia but across the country.

[1335]

When I used to run my fly-in fishing lodge in Manitoba, we used to have this little joke. We referred to the province as the province of Winnipeg, because that's where all the political power was. That's where all the MLAs were. If they decided to make a decision that impacted on Lynn Lake or Thompson or some other small town in Manitoba, that's what they did. The same thing to some extent is true here in British Columbia.

Sometimes when I'm out on the stump and talking to local government folks or anybody, they'll ask: "You've been around a while, Bennett. What do you think is the most important issue for rural British Columbians?" The last couple of years I've actually been answering that question with this. I think that the potential for the loss of balance and the loss of political power in rural B.C. is the single biggest challenge to be met, the single biggest threat for rural British Columbians.

We are already in a minority in this House. We could easily be in a much smaller minority. When the commission sat the last time after the 2005 election, I kept their report. I've got yellow stickies all over it; it's highlighted. I kept it, and I remember what they said.

They said that this will be the last time we will be able to avoid reducing the number of rural seats in British Columbia. I never forgot that. I decided then that I'm going to do everything I possibly can on this side of the House to raise the issue and perhaps convince my colleagues when the time is right to make a change like Saskatchewan has done to — I'm going to use the word — protect rural seats.

I was fortunate — I think we were all fortunate — that the current leader of the B.C. Liberal Party won the leadership. She's very open-minded, and she listened. Here is this legislation, with the help of the Justice Minister.

What this legislation does is ensure that the number of rural seats in this province will not decline. It's not going to go down. You look around this House, and you can see we're about…. Rural MLAs are roughly one-third of the 85. If you look at the front bench of the B.C. Liberals and the bench behind it, you'll see there are lots of ministers from rural B.C.

But if you start losing a seat in the north, which is probably inevitable, a seat in the Kootenays, which is probably inevitable, and a seat in the centre part of the province, probably in the Cariboo or somewhere in that area, you're going to…. Well, first of all, you're going to have people trying to represent geographic areas that are impossible for one person to represent. But you're also going to lose the opportunity to represent the people who live in those unpopulated or sparsely populated vast areas and who have, in my view, a different relationship with the land and sometimes a different view, I think, of resource extraction.

You're going to have decisions being made by this preponderance of people who come from cities, who don't know that much about these rural areas. Those decisions are going to be forced on the people who live out in the rural area, and to me, that's not democratic.

I've come to the conclusion that despite the enormous importance of the central principle of democracy which is, of course, representation by population, that principle can actually lead to — and I'll use an expression I don't think I've ever used in this House — a tyranny of the majority. That principle needs to be ameliorated by other principles, and I think those other principles are: are we
[ Page 1574 ]
going to allow this commission to create constituencies that are impossible for one MLA to represent, like the federal government has just done?

I do not agree with what the federal government has done in creating the ridings that they have. I do not believe that the MPs in those ridings — and I won't name them — can represent those ridings. The riding of North Coast comes to mind. My friend Bill Belsey used to have that riding.

[1340]

I don't know if Stewart is still in that riding or not, but it used to be. To get to Stewart, he had to drive from Prince Rupert up 16 and up 37 into Stewart. Maybe he got there; maybe he didn't get there because of all the avalanches. It was a horrible trip in the wintertime. Or he had to fly, and there really isn't a budget for that. To get to Bella Coola, he basically had to go by boat or airplane.

Now, that constituency has not very many people, and ultimately, something up there is going to give. We're going to lose a seat up there in the northwest because of the population. Even with LNG and everything else, there's a chance that we're going to have fewer MLAs without changing the legislation.

I think of the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke. He and I sometimes disagree about things, but I think about his riding, and I think about how difficult it is to represent that riding. You go all the way from Revelstoke…. Try it sometime. You drive from Revelstoke to Kimberley. It's got to be at least eight hours in good weather.

You have four communities that are roughly the same size, so it's not as easy as my riding where I've got one big community and then some smaller communities where I can focus a lot. Sixty percent of my electors are in one place. I can focus on that. That's a riding with four communities roughly the same size. You've got to spend time in all four of them, and you've got all kinds of little places in between.

If that riding was any bigger, it would not be possible to provide democratic representation to the people who live there, and that's wrong. It's why I am so passionately in support of what we're proposing to do. Is there another way to accomplish this? Probably. But this is the way that we're proposing to do it. It's straightforward. It's simple. It's easy for the public to understand.

I am bursting to hear what other members in the opposition have to say about this legislation. Call me crazy. I assumed that the opposition would support this. I know what the rural MLAs on the other side think. They think the same thing that I do. Representing rural ridings, big rural ridings, like my colleague who is home sick right now, the Minister of Agriculture….

Can you imagine if the two Peace ridings were combined into one, which is what the commission actually considered last time? It's bigger than most countries. It would be a provincial riding, represented by one person living somewhere there, bigger than probably any country in Europe, with the exception, maybe, of France. It's not democratic, it's not reasonable, and we shouldn't allow it to happen.

Again, I'm curious to see what rural members from the opposition parties say about this, and I'm even more curious to see how they vote. I believe they're going to vote for this. This is the right thing to do for their constituents. Regardless of what they may have to say in this House, I think that they will stand with us and they will vote with us. That's basically what I wanted to say.

I know that the hon. member from Nanaimo mentioned gerrymandering. I don't see it. I don't agree with that. I look at the last three elections. I look across those seats that are impacted by this legislation, and I think it's a toss-up as to who would win those ridings. Over the course of two, three, four elections, the opposition are going to win them sometimes; the government is going to win them sometimes. It's going to be kind of a 50-50 thing. That's the way I see it. It may be that the Green Party will win several of those seats at some point in our future. It remains to be seen.

I don't think this is unfair to people. The member from Nanaimo mentioned Surrey and Vancouver. I don't think that this legislation creates an unfairness to those folks. I'll choose my words here very carefully because I really don't want to offend anybody who lives in a big city. I remember an urban colleague of mine saying to me that he could walk across his riding in about an hour. I can't walk to the other end of Cranbrook in an hour.

[1345]

There is a huge difference in your capacity as an MLA to represent people when you can't get to them. I don't have this encumbrance, but in some parts of the province there are communication issues. There are transportation issues. It's just not possible to really provide good service to people if your geographic region is too big. You can't have an office. If you're the MLA for the Peace River country, how are you going to service people all the way down in Chetwynd and all the way over in Atlin? You can't do it.

I hope that this can be viewed by the opposition as a non-partisan piece of legislation. We can debate the merits of how we're proposing to accomplish the goal, but I hope that we can all agree that the goal is a correct goal. It's not unfair. In fact, it is actually furthering the interests of democracy, and I hope to see at least the rural MLAs on the other side of the House support this bill.

R. Austin: I'm delighted to take my place in this debate on Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act. It's been very interesting to listen to the comments — first of our Justice critic this morning and then to hear comments from the Minister of Energy and Mines.

Like the minister, I also represent a rural district,
[ Page 1575 ]
Skeena. I'm very proud to represent them. Like the minister and like, I think, everybody here, we recognize that the fundamental challenge in coming to new boundaries, which, of course, has already been alluded to, is the challenge between the fact that we have a large population geographically centred in a small area and then a vast, expansive geography with far fewer people in it.

That's not just the challenge here in British Columbia. Indeed, that's the challenge in almost every province in Canada. Each province has come to try to address this matter in a different way.

I think we can have a non-partisan debate here. I think the fundamental point to be made here is whether we in this Legislature are those who try to create the fix for this and create this balance or whether we say: "Wait a second here. We have an independent boundaries commission."

They have their duty to do this in a non-partisan way. They are not bound to either political party or to the independent members here, such as the Green Party. They have a duty to serve British Columbians. They, I believe, should be the ones to try and rebalance this problem that we have of ensuring that we have fair representation both for the rural districts as well as for the cities.

When I first got elected in 2005, even before this chamber started in operation, we met as a caucus down the street here at a hotel around the corner. I can still remember sitting down with colleagues who I didn't know, from parts of the province that I didn't know at all well. Like at all of these gatherings where you're meeting each other for the first time, you exchange pleasantries.

I was sitting next to Chuck Puchmayr, who was then elected as the MLA for New Westminster. Of course, I had been to New Westminster. Like most British Columbians who travel to the Lower Mainland, I knew what New Westminster looked like. I knew that the houses were close together and there were lots of tower blocks. But he had never been to northern B.C., so his inevitable question was: what's the riding of Skeena like? How big is it?

In describing how difficult it is to get around the riding of Skeena…. At that time, I should mention, it did not include the Nass Valley. It was simply the community of Terrace and surrounding areas, east along Highway 16 for about 80 kilometres to two First Nations communities, then headed up the road to Alaska and then back down Highway 37 to the district of Kitimat and the Haisla village of Kitimaat village.

At that time, it was actually a smaller riding than it is now. But in describing that to my friend Chuck Puchmayr, he was just in awe of the fact that there were people in this province elected the same time as he was to do the same job as he did but had to travel these huge distances.

Fundamentally what this is about is ensuring that we get as close to rep by population as possible while at the same time recognizing that it isn't enough just to have access and be able to vote as a citizen.

[1350]

What's really important in our democracy is the fact that once you've voted, you can actually, maybe, get to go and meet your MLA and tell him what it is you think. If you have ridings that get too big, as the minister mentioned, that becomes very, very difficult.

I do think that this challenge that we're talking about is something that needs to be handled by the independent commission.

The Minister of Energy and Mines talked about making sure to protect small-town B.C. He mentioned his own background and the fact that he has a number of communities, smaller ones than Cranbrook. What he failed to mention, though, is that in this bill, they are hoping to protect communities that nobody would regard as small-town communities. With all respect to the fine people of Prince George, it's not a small village or a small community. Neither, with respect, is the city of Kamloops.

Yet there are other parts of the province that have much more rurally disbursed populations. My colleague mentioned Powell River–Sunshine Coast earlier today. Or the north Island. In speaking to my colleague for North Island, she does way more travelling as an MLA than I do, simply because….

Even though my constituency of Skeena is very large in geography, fortunately — I think I can say that of the eight constituencies in northern B.C. — my travel required to actually meet all of the constituents is fairly good. I can actually get from Kincolith in the furthest northwest part of the constituency down to the Haisla community of Kitamaat village in — well, if I'm not speeding — about 4½ hours, which I think for a rural northern B.C. constituency is remarkable.

If we are going to try and address this issue, I think what we need to do is to allow the commission to do their work. Let's look at what happened last time around. The commission came out with their interim report. Let's remember here that it's not as though as soon as the commission goes and decides this is all done and over with. They go out into all parts of British Columbia. They listen to citizens in all parts of British Columbia. They hear their concerns.

They understand the concern from those who live in the Lower Mainland that they don't want to feel that their vote is not worth as much as a vote in the Peace River or in Skeena. They hear that. They also go out to all of rural B.C., and they hear the concerns of those people, those of us who live in rural British Columbia. Then they come across and make a compromise.

In the last instance, when this was done after the 2005 election, let's remember what happened. There was an absolute outcry when they brought out their first suggestions. Let's not forget that. They were going to reduce rural representation, and people in rural B.C. spoke out
[ Page 1576 ]
so madly against this that they went back and listened to constituents in rural B.C. and then decided to come up with a better idea. Now, it's fair to say that this House did address this in a bill, but the reality is the bill never had to be enforced because the commission, on its own, heard what British Columbians had to say.

We can debate this back and forth, and indeed we will, but really, it is not up to us here. We are politicians. We have a vested interest not simply in speaking out loudly for our constituents, which is our duty and our job, but also in ensuring that our constituency remains at near to what it is, because we spend a lot of time making contact with folks, and we hope that will help us in the next election.

I think it is vitally important that we remove ourselves from the process as much as possible and say: "Enough. Let's take this to the commission. They're the ones who are truly independent." Allow them to do their work. Then allow whatever it is that they decide to come up with to be heard and reviewed by all British Columbians. If they make changes like the kind the minister was suggesting….

Were they to come forward and suggest that, say, Peace River North and Peace River South were to become one, I would imagine that not only would the people of that region in northeastern B.C. be very upset and be heard loud and clear, but also, because most British Columbians are fair-minded people, folks in downtown Vancouver, hearing the hue and cry and looking at the issue — obviously, it would become part of the public debate — would realize: "My goodness, I have the opportunity to walk across town and speak to my MLA" — my colleague for the West End — "and there are some people who, even though they get to vote, are completely unable to ever go and meet with their MLA on any issue that's important to them."

[1355]

I think that British Columbians themselves are fair-minded about this and would understand the complexities and the difficulties in this. They would make presentations to the commission, and the commission would then come forward with better suggestions to rejig this.

This is an old problem. It's not getting any better. We see a movement towards larger cities and urban centres right across Canada. This is a demographic shift that's been going on, well, since the '60s, certainly. It will continue to be a problem.

I think it's not just people who have a sense of fairness; it would appear that the courts also understand the problem. They have in the past allowed for a deviation, plus or minus 25 percent, in order to try and accommodate as many constituencies as possible.

Then as this problem of urbanization or the movement towards cities got bigger, so it was that the courts also recognized a different category and said: "Yes, okay. Most constituencies are going to be close to the average. We're going to have a few that are allowed to go plus or minus 25 percent. Then we'll create a special category recognizing that in extreme cases, if there is a constituency that's created to be geographically too hard and too difficult, we'll allow that to go beyond the 25 percent." The courts have approved that as well.

I think it's fair to say, in all honesty, that British Columbians are fair. We have an independent commission that should be doing this work without us interfering and constraining it. Let them do their work, and let them recognize the challenges and come to the conclusions that they do.

I think for us here to try and constrain the commission's work, to the extent of protecting 20 percent of the ridings in British Columbia, puts a real difficulty on this commission's work for trying to rebalance the rest of the province. I honestly believe that what we should do is set this aside, allow the commission to do their work, and then, quite frankly, if they come out with any kind of suggestion that people think is fundamentally unfair, citizens will get up and speak, and we can get on with it.

I would like, lastly, to comment on this. The agreement in this bill to restrict the number of MLAs to 85, I think, is something that all of us in this chamber would adhere to. I think, in speaking with British Columbians in general, there's an understanding that the solution to these demographic shifts is not to bring in more members of the Legislature, that there are sufficient members in here right now to adequately represent the increase in population since the last time the commission stood. I don't think there's any need to do that.

I think, honestly, that while I represent a rural constituency in B.C. and I am fully aware of the challenges of representing people in rural B.C., I do want to make sure that this is done in a way that is aboveboard, in a way that is not contaminated by any kind of political interference from this Legislature. Let's see what the commission comes up with, because I think that they will do the right thing.

D. Barnett: I'd like to thank the Minister of Justice for bringing this bill forward. I think this is an important piece of legislation for us, and I think it's one that will help move this province forward without a lot of extra expense or time.

People in rural British Columbia, in my riding, are very passionate about their representation. I have been through a few Electoral Boundaries Commission changes or supposed changes. Those people are great people. They're honest people. They're hard-working people. But they do not understand the geography of rural British Columbia.

We just went through a commission for the federal government in the province of British Columbia, and many of you have changes in your riding. Well, in my riding of Cariboo-Thompson, my representative comes
[ Page 1577 ]
out of Kamloops.

[1400]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

The Boundaries Commission drew a map. They took the part of the Cariboo-Chilcotin that I represent…. Two pieces of it, that actually you have to drive through, which is in her riding now, they were going to take out and put in Chilliwack. So here's this piece in the middle. We would be in Chilliwack, and to get to it, you would be in the Cariboo-Thompson riding of the MP.

So this is not the first time that my area has been involved in maps that make no sense. Other ridings have been in this same situation.

We talk about: "We'll let it go to the commission. Then if it's not correct, we can go back, and the people will fix it." You know how much time and energy and conflict that causes? Let's do this properly, and let's do it once. Let's save the people of this province money, for heaven's sakes. Let's save the people of this province anxiety.

Where I live in rural British Columbia, if I get in my car at one end and I don't stop…

An Hon. Member: Or speed.

D. Barnett: …or speed — I think I have to speed; no — I am almost nine hours. That's just going straight. I'm not going off the main corridors to visit anybody or talk to anybody. But I can manage this, because I manage it in such a way that I can represent all of the people in my riding.

If you start taking away from rural British Columbia…. We have enough problems now with resource industries. The people in rural British Columbia have been raised on good-paying jobs in resource industries. Every time we get to some kind of public hearings, we get this group from Vancouver into rural British Columbia. We get this group from Vancouver coming in and telling us: "No, you can't touch those resource industries."

I can just see it. I've got an MLA from downtown who-knows-where, who doesn't believe in resource extractions or resource industries. All those people come up, and he's my representative. I can tell you right now: rural British Columbia will be in trouble.

This is the right thing to do. Thank you, Minister.

You talk about balance. That's an easy word to say — balance. Yeah, balance — which way? Right now we're trying to balance this way with urban input into rural areas. I'll tell you, as long as I'm around, that won't happen. As long as rural British Columbia is around, that won't happen.

We might not have the population. We've got the geographics. We've got the resources. We've got the people. They deserve the best representation possible, and that is what they are getting now with the way the boundaries are.

It just amazes me how the opposition could even consider that we should change and have less representation from rural British Columbia. My constituents are going to be very upset when they hear this. I don't know about the rest of rural British Columbia, but I kind of think so.

It says that the amendments do not freeze the boundaries. We may be able to change a street here and a street there. That's okay. That's not a problem, because some of these should be changed. I can say that even now some of our boundaries are a little difficult because of the way the streets…. For example, in Cariboo-Chilcotin and Cariboo North, I get one side of the highway and Cariboo North gets the other side of the highway. A lot of times people don't know who they should vote for. Fortunately, they figure it out on election day.

The rationale for exempting three rural regions…. I haven't heard the opposition tell me why they should get rid of three rural regions that are part of this discussion. I would like to hear the rationale why they think they should get rid of some of those in the Kootenays and the north and the Cariboo area. I think that would be very interesting information for us to take home. I'd sure like to hear the next speaker give me the rationale.

Twenty-five years ago things were different. Our boundaries were different. I can remember back when Alex Fraser was my MLA. He used to represent from Quesnel to Lillooet to Hagensborg, which was a massive area. Then again, the population was probably not even a quarter of what it is today. But he still had to drive it.

[1405]

Things were different in those days. People were different. Expectations weren't the same as they are today. The pressure on MLAs in rural British Columbia wasn't what it is today.

I'll just say a couple more things, and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues over there, because I really want to hear the rationale why rural B.C. should be left out of the 85 seats in this province and taken care of by more of the urban area.

If you really read this bill, it balances strong fiscal management with the need to represent all communities. That is what the important issue is here today: representing people, communities and also taking care of the fiscal management of this province. That's what we are doing.

That's about all I have to say. I am anxiously awaiting to hear more comments from across the aisle here, from my colleagues. Once again, I thank the minister for bringing this forward.

D. Donaldson: I'm very, very pleased to take my spot today on Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2014. Right off the bat, I'd like to say that there's part of the bill that I agree with, and that's keeping 85 electoral districts in place. I think that's a good recommendation in the bill. There are other parts
[ Page 1578 ]
that I want to discuss now, though, that I don't feel as positive about.

I'm going to start off by saying — and I think many people in the Legislature, especially on the government side will take note of this — that earlier in the debate the member for Kootenay East, the Minister of Energy and Mines, took his place to speak to this bill. And mark this down in Hansard: there are many parts of the member's speech that I agreed with. That might be a first time that I can say that over the five years I've been here.

Many parts that I agree with. However, he's missed something important, and I'm going to get to that in my response in this second reading of the bill.

First of all, Stikine, the constituency I represent — 20 million hectares is the size of Stikine. If you took Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands and combined them, that still would not add up to the size of Stikine. It gives a bit of context to the size of the constituency. There's a little over 20,000 people in the constituency.

We've heard stories today about representing large rural areas. It's the largest constituency in B.C. And yeah, there are many times…. If I hopped in a car and drove for 20 hours straight, I could get from one end to the other, but I'll have to stop every now and then, so it takes a couple of days.

We have communities like Lower Post up by the border with the Yukon and communities like Atlin that are along the border of the Yukon. Oftentimes for Atlin, it's easier for me to fly from Smithers to Vancouver to Whitehorse, to rent a car and drive 2½ hours to visit Atlin. That's a faster way of visiting Atlin than driving from Hazelton. So a huge, huge constituency with the smallest population of any of the constituencies in B.C.

Telegraph Creek, another quite isolated community. You drive north from where I live in Hazelton, and you arrive at Dease Lake after six or seven hours, and then you hang a left and drive through the Coast Mountain range on a dirt road, and you end up two or three hours later in Telegraph Creek.

To think about the access that these communities have to their MLA, I think it really puts in perspective how challenging it is.

I have two offices. Unlike in previous years in Stikine, I have two offices, one in Hazelton and one in Smithers. That creates a bit more access for people. But again, for the more northern parts of the constituency and even just outside of Hazelton — the communities of Gitwangak or Gitanyow — when there's no public transit service for them to get into meeting to meet with me, it's very, very difficult.

[1410]

Yes, the rural areas have their challenges, and I would say that Stikine is one of the most challenging as far as effective representation.

The average population of the 85 ridings in 2013 was 53,905. This is important because under the current act, Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, there's a standard deviation of plus or minus 25 percent permitted for constituencies in regards to the population. So if you're up 25 percent or down 25 percent on the average of 53,000, then you're within the act's requirements. Stikine is 61 percent out — 20,000 people versus 53,000 people. We're 61 percent below the average. This presents some difficulties under the act.

Luckily, under section 9 of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, there are other considerations, other than simply population, for the boundaries of the constituency. Some of those considerations are geographic, including sparsity and including how widespread the communities in the constituency are.

Some of the other factors that the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act can consider are accessibility, the size, the physical configuration, and the means of communication and transportation. In many parts of Stikine there's no cell service. There's still no high-speed Internet service in many areas. The means of communication, even with the communities in Stikine, aren't as easy as other constituencies.

Transportation — I've already described the long journeys along 16 and 37. The Minister of Energy and Mines mentioned in his second reading debate the community of Stewart. The community of Stewart is now in the constituency of Stikine, as well, and is often cut off by avalanches along Highway 37A from Meziadin Junction into Stewart. These are the kinds of challenges that we face.

Luckily, as I said, population is not the only consideration, although it's meant to be the primary consideration. Section 9 of the act says to go away from population…. That can be exceeded, the 25 percent, under "very special circumstances." So very special circumstances, and again, those circumstances, some of them, I've listed.

Luckily for Stikine, the stipulations under the act allow for the accessibility issue. Really what we're talking about, then, is effective representation. Rather than simply population being the primary criteria, it's effective representation: how easy is it for people in the constituency to gain access to their MLA or their MLA offices and the staff in those offices?

Effective representation — that is what I thought that we were addressing in this bill. One way of looking at effective representation…. Another way to look at that is the spreadoutedness. That might not be a word that can be found if you're playing Scrabble or using the dictionary, but "spreadoutedness" is a word that has been used by an analyst, a person who studies these kinds of issues, a database mapping and GIS specialist and analyst, Paul Ramsey Jr. He used it in a report that he did after the white paper that the B.C. Liberals commissioned on this came out in November 2013. The white paper was the basis for the bill that we're looking at today. He coined the term spreadoutedness.
[ Page 1579 ]

[1415]

Rather than looking at simply population, you can look at, using his data analysis and his logarithms, the accessibility and, therefore, the effective representation. He came up with a table in relation to how easy it is for people to access their MLA — transportation means, communication means.

By looking at his chart here, we can look justifiably at perhaps nine or ten of the constituencies that really require protection. They require that the commission and the Electoral Boundaries Act can look beyond the 25 percent. Perhaps they can be looked at under very special circumstances. Perhaps nine or ten. That might even be stretching it a bit, but I think that we're in that range.

However, we have, under this act, 17 constituencies that will be exempted and protected, and that's 20 percent of the 85 constituencies. So my question to the government side is: what criteria did they look at in trying to establish protection for rural constituencies?

I think that it's a very good point to look at rural constituencies that need protection because of the accessibility issue and because of the effective-representation issue. One way of looking at that is through this dispersity model — the analysis that has been done by this database analyst.

When we look at that, again, we see that nine, ten perhaps, could be protected, and that includes many of the northern seats, the northern constituencies. But after that, it becomes questionable as to why there would be another six or seven constituencies added.

I'll give a little bit more detail there. We have a constituency like Kamloops–North Thompson. They're over 52,000, so they're within 1 percent of the standard deviation, yet the minister or the government has chosen to include them in protection under this bill — include them in one of the 17 seats. Well, if you look at the dispersion model that this analyst, using a logarithm, put the numbers through, Kamloops–North Thompson should be 21st on the list. Their dispersion factor has a factor assigned to it of 27.6.

In regards to the North Coast, the North Coast is 126.9. So we're talking about a five- or sixfold difference in dispersion factor.

We look at Kamloops–South Thompson, at 52,710 people, within 5 percent of the standard deviation off the average. Again, it's listed as one of the 17 in this bill being protected, yet Kamloops–South Thompson is 25th on the list if you look at dispersion factors — in other words, if you look at very rigorous criteria about effective representation.

On the flip side, you look at the constituency of North Island, 54,510 people, within a 5 percent standard deviation from the average. Yet the North Island constituency is rated eighth — eighth, hon. Speaker — on the dispersity factor, and it's not protected under this bill. It's not exempted. It's not one of the 17.

It really begs the question of what criteria were used to establish the 17. Again, I would say that if you looked at dispersion — in other words, how widespread the population is in the constituency, how grouped-together it is and, therefore, how easy it is to access their MLA and access the services — then if you look at that, we'd be looking at eight, nine, ten constituencies. We would not be looking at Kamloops–North Thompson or Kamloops–South Thompson.

It really begs the question of what else is at play. I would feel that what's happened here is that the bill has become tainted because of that.

[1420]

I really want to say that I appreciate the genuine attempt by rural MLAs on the government side, including the minister from Kootenay East, including the member for Peace River South, at trying to ensure effective representation. Yet between what they discussed and when it went to the Justice Ministry for drafting of this bill, somehow somebody got a hold of it, perhaps a Liberal spin doctor, and added way more protected seats than would be justified if you used the criteria, the logarithm, for effective representation.

I think that there was an opportunity here — North Coast, Columbia River–Revelstoke, Stikine and a few others — for fairness in protection in order to achieve effective representation. But once we go down the list and get beyond ninth or tenth, then there don't seem to be any justifiable criteria. That's what I believe the Minister of Energy and Mines missed in his analysis when he presented his second reading debate.

I believe, though, that he did say something that made sense. He said, "Is there another way to accomplish this?" — in other words, effective representation in rural areas. Then he said: "Probably."

I look forward to the committee stage of this bill, where we can drill down clause by clause and get to the actual criteria that were used to determine the 17 protected constituencies. Then maybe the Justice Minister, or whoever's answering the committee stage questions that we have, will be able to further elucidate on the Minister of Energy and Mines saying there was probably another way to get to this.

I'm looking forward to hearing that: what was the other way to accomplish the effective representation for rural areas?

Right now we have, justifiably, the genuine effort to get to effective representation. Unfortunately, it's gone beyond what seems fair, and that taints the entire process.

I'm happy to take my place today, and I look forward to the committee stage debate on this amendment.

M. Hunt: I'm pleased to rise to speak to this Bill 2, the amendments to the Electoral Boundaries Commission. I find it a most interesting discussion so far, in that if we look at the situation, I believe that the city of Surrey is
[ Page 1580 ]
one of the big losers in the midst of this proposal that's before us.

I don't have the statistics that my good friend from Stikine had of all the different ridings — I'd like to actually steal this piece of paper from him, but that's okay — but I believe that my riding population-wise is the second largest in the province. I believe that the largest goes to Surrey-Cloverdale. Madam Minister is representing that.

We have those variances even within Surrey. But Surrey has eight ridings, five of which, if we want to get into the partisanship of the House, are on this side of the House, three of which are on the other side of the House.

If we did the proportions that were being represented, that would mean that Surrey should at least get two more seats out of this deal. That would be great for the city of Surrey, but would that be the best for the province? I guess that's what it really comes down to, because we're at second reading. Second reading is approval in principle, dealing with the concepts of the bill itself.

I had the absolute pleasure in '04-05 of being the president of the Union of the British Columbia Municipalities. That was the most interesting time. I think that many members here, when we talk about municipalities and talk about cities, sort of lose the concept. I'd just like to ask the question…. It's rhetorical at this point, because obviously we won't get the correct answer that quickly.

There are — what is it? — 180-some municipalities altogether. We take the regional districts out of that, and we're dealing with 160 municipalities — cities, villages, hamlets, towns, that sort of thing.

[1425]

Take the median of that, so from the 160, we take the 80th-smallest or -largest municipality. What is the size of that municipality? The size of that municipality is 5,000 people. So when it comes to an organization like the Union of B.C. Municipalities, it obviously is dominated by rural B.C.

Those of us that represent larger municipalities are disproportionately represented. Yet there's a convention that we have. We've heard the use of the word "fairness" many times here today in this House. I guess the question is: what does the word "fair" mean? Because fair, when it comes to something like the Union of B.C. Municipalities, is that we have a convention.

We have five different regions throughout this province. We organize ourselves in those area associations, and there's a general rotation that happens within the executive.

Rural B.C. recognizes that they can have their will democratically any time they wish, yet they choose to have a convention where we try to all work together — the rural, the urban, the large, the small, the north, the south all trying to work together — because recognizing representation by population doesn't work in a place the size and shape and configuration of the province of British Columbia. There has to be this balance in the midst of this, because also there have to be those regional voices that need to be there.

There needs to be a balance between the size of it, the population — as the member for Stikine has just commented with his very technical logarithm as to how he was going to make that work. But would that formula be fair? We always have these formulas, but are they fair?

Actually, it's interesting to note that the majority of the members of this House today receive urban expense allowances. That means that the majority of this House right now is urban, not rural — just because of the finances we get to get around our constituency.

Again, back on May 14 of last year — I know that it's hard to remember that far back — the citizens of British Columbia gave us a mandate to grow the economy, not the size of government. They have told us to control our spending. They've asked us to balance the budget. They have told us to invest where it's most needed.

I can assure you — as we've heard from other members — that increasing the size of this House shouldn't be one of our considerations.

Actually, I would just give another little piece of interesting trivia. Birmingham, England — they have about one million people, so that's putting Vancouver and Surrey together. Vancouver has — what is it? — ten councillors, and Surrey has eight, so 18 altogether. Birmingham, England, has 120 councillors. They have a cabinet of 17. They have a cabinet that's just what we have here.

British Columbia has a philosophy, a perspective, of small government. We have a perspective that says: "Yes, let's keep it confined. Let's work with small government." But the question comes: what is fair?

Well, we've heard from the members opposite that somehow this 25 percent deviation is fair. Well, I can assure you…. You come to those eight of us in the city of Surrey. My learned friend from Surrey-Whalley may actually know the statistics, but I don't. But I think the variation…. I think every one of our eight seats in Surrey is either at or over that maximum. I know for sure that the member from Cloverdale and myself are far over that number of 25 percent. Is that fair?

Then we said this 10 percent deviation, and I found it interesting. We're arguing over — or so it seems as though the argument in this House is over — seven seats — the number ten versus the number 17. Well, what is fair?

I find it instructive for us to look at the members for Peace River North and Peace River South. The previous commission said: "Well, we should look at putting that together." Well, my colleague from up in Peace River, the member for Peace River South, is telling me that if those two went together, for him to go to the other end of his constituency and back would be a 32-hour trip — 32 hours.
[ Page 1581 ]

[1430]

Right now he only gets home for one day a week as it is when the House is sitting because of transportation, travel, all the rest of his commitments. His riding would be the equivalent of the U.S. border to Prince George — tremendous distances involved. But those of us who live in the urban areas say: "Absolutely."

What's the word fair? What's the definition of fair? It's reasonable. It's reasonable for us to work with these things. It's reasonable for us to try to work together. I can assure you that the good members of Surrey and the good citizens of Surrey recognize this challenge.

Just to put that in context again, because we have a different audience than I was speaking to yesterday when I brought up this little vignette…. Just so we have the concept, the city of Surrey, since the last census to the current census, grew by Prince George. So all of Prince George in the last five years could have moved into Surrey. That's the growth that we have taken. That's the reality of the changes within our municipalities.

The bill that is before us is simply to freeze, first of all, the number, and I hope there's agreement on that. But there's not the freezing of the actual boundaries of the specific electoral areas. It only requires that they look at these three particular regions, these particular regions that tend to be underrepresented and tend to be very rural. It's saying that those ones need the extra voice here in this House so that those rural needs, those regional needs can be sure to be heard and listened to.

I find it interesting that if we actually look at the elections — both the previous election, the '09 election, as well as the '13 election — we in fact find that those ridings were actually fairly evenly split between the two major parties of this province. So I see this, in principle, as being good for B.C. It's good for representation; it's good for the issues and the concerns of all the areas as well as the people being here.

It's one of those combinations that has been put together in this province to try to be fair. Whatever the word fair actually means, I believe the good citizens of British Columbia have recognized this concept of fairness and in fact support this. I certainly will be supporting this bill as it goes forward.

Hon. D. McRae: Hon. Speaker, I seek leave to make an introduction.

Deputy Speaker: Proceed.

Introductions by Members

Hon. D. McRae: Today in the Legislature, while the Comox Valley is under a foot of snow, we have four students who are spending their snow day not in the snow playing and sledding. They are actually here in the Legislature. I'd like to introduce five constituents from the Comox Valley. Today we have Sarah, James, Rachel, Katherine and their father, John Watson, here visiting the Legislature. This is their first time. Would the House please make them welcome.

Debate Continued

B. Ralston: Mr. Speaker, I rise to join the debate on this amendment to the Boundaries Act. The electoral boundary process is underway, and this is but the first step. With these revisions, there will be an appointment of a commission, which consists of a judge or a retired judge of the B.C. Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal, someone who is not a Member of the Legislative Assembly nor an employee of the government, nominated by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly after consulting with the Premier and the Leader of the Official Opposition and the independent officer of the Legislature, the Chief Electoral Officer.

This is but the beginning of a lengthy process, and these amendments and the act that follows it, if and when it passes, will form the instructions to the commission. I think it's interesting to reflect on some of the speeches that have been given thus far. The member for Cariboo-Chilcotin made some inquiries about what the position of the opposition was. I think there was a sense that the opposition was obliged to justify its position. I will endeavour to do that.

[1435]

I think the most important thing to understand in looking at this very important area, intrinsic to the operation of our democracy, is the degree to which it is bounded by law and by rulings of, in this case, the Supreme Court of Canada. This debate may very well form, should there be a legal challenge to the legislation if and when it passes at some point in the future, extrinsic evidence. Really, the obligation falls to the government, and particularly to the Attorney General, to convince the court, to demonstrate to the court, why the electoral boundaries were arranged in the way that they ultimately will be.

It's a legal test, bounded by law, that the Attorney General would be obliged to meet here, so her explanation for the reasons for the bill is a very important one. Now, I listened carefully. A very brief speech — I think, over in seven minutes. Frankly, I didn't hear a justification for the major amendment here, which is creating three districts and a total of 17 seats which are not subject to the same rules and scrutiny as the other remaining seats of the 85.

Because I think it's important to set the context properly, I did want to look at and quote briefly the defining case from the Supreme Court of Canada on these issues, which is the Reference re Provincial Electoral Boundaries, a case that arose out of Saskatchewan. What that case considered is the application of the Charter rights, sec-
[ Page 1582 ]
tion 3, which reads as follows: "Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein."

The debate in the Saskatchewan reference was a boundary proposal that was challenged in court. What the court — Madam Justice McLachlin, speaking for the majority of the court — talked about was a principle that she called effective representation. Again, I want to quote because I fear being misquoted, despite the existence of 299 scribes in the public affairs department. Sometimes they've been known to misquote me, so I just want to quote directly from the case, just so that we're clear.

It's not my notion. It's a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. I begin:

"It's my conclusion that the purpose of the right to vote enshrined in section 3 of the Charter is not equality of voting power per se but the right to 'effective representation.' Ours is a representative democracy. Each citizen is entitled to be represented in government. Representation comprehends the idea of having a voice in the deliberations of government as well as the idea of the right to bring one's grievances and concerns to the attention of one's government representative, as noted in Dixon v. B.C…"

That's a decision that arose in British Columbia named after John Dixon, who was the head of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association at that point and who challenged the electoral distribution in British Columbia back in the '80s. It led to major changes in boundaries here in British Columbia.

"…at page 413, elected representatives function in two roles — legislative and what has been termed the 'ombudsman role.'"

I want to continue with the quote.

"What are of the conditions of effective representation? The first is relative parity of voting power. A system which dilutes one citizen's vote unduly as compared with another citizen's vote runs the risk of providing inadequate representation to the citizen whose vote is diluted. The legislative power of the citizen whose vote is diluted will be reduced, as may be access and assistance from his or her representative. The result will be uneven and unfair representation.

"But," she goes on, "parity of voting power, though of prime importance, is not the only factor to be taken into account in ensuring effective representation. Sir John A. Macdonald, in introducing An Act to re-adjust the Representation in the House of Commons" — one can see that these issues are not new — "recognized this fundamental fact."

She quotes from the House of Commons debates in 1872:

"'…it will be found that…while the principle of population was considered to a very great extent, other considerations were also held to have weight; so that different interests, classes and localities should be fairly represented, that the principle of numbers should not be the only one.'"

So it's well established that the absolute parity, or even rough equality, of voting power is not what is meant by the principle of effective representation. She goes on to say:

"It emerges, therefore, that deviations from absolute voter parity must be justified on the grounds of practical impossibility or the provision of more effective representation. Beyond this, dilution of one citizen's vote as compared with another's should not be countenanced.

[1440]

"I adhere to the proposition asserted in Dixon that 'only those deviations should be admitted which can be justified on the ground that they contribute to better government of the populace as a whole, giving due weight to regional issues within the populace and geographic factors within the territory governed.'"

That's what I meant when I said it's for the Attorney General to justify the ultimate electoral map. This is the beginning of the process whereby 17 seats have been placed in a different category from others. In my view — and, I think, supported by this decision of the Supreme Court of Canada — it's for the Attorney General to justify that decision. In her seven-minute speech that we heard earlier today, in my view she didn't achieve that. We're not off to a good start, in my view.

It's worth noting the facts that were at play in the Saskatchewan reference. The map that was proposed, proposed 29 urban seats, 35 rural and two northern seats.

"The 64 urban and rural ridings fall roughly into the south half of the province, while the two northern ridings make up its north half. In the southern half of the province the voter population of each constituency is within plus or minus 25 percent of the provincial quotient. The act specifically permitted the two northern ridings to vary from the provincial quotient by up to plus or minus 50 percent. The Court of Appeal…found that special treatment for northern ridings was constitutionally acceptable, and no issue was taken on that point."

That was the factual basis that was being considered there. It's well recognized in the principles of effective representation, as the Canadian law is, that there are exceptional circumstances. Indeed, the act itself eloquently states those in section 9 — quoted by the member for Nanaimo earlier in the debate. This statute is based on the reasoning of the court.

Section 9(1) reads:

"In determining the area to be included in and in fixing the boundaries of proposed electoral districts, the commission must be governed by the following principles: (a) that the principle of representation by population be achieved, recognizing the imperatives imposed by geographical and demographic realities, the legacy of our history and the need to balance the community interests of the people of British Columbia; (b) to achieve that principle, the commission be permitted to deviate from a common statistical Provincial electoral quota by no more than 25%, plus or minus; (c) the commission be permitted to exceed the 25% deviation principle where it considers that very special circumstances exist."

The amendment that's proposed here in this bill is to amend section 9 by adding a following subsection, which describes three regions: Cariboo-Thompson — the seats of the electoral districts Cariboo North, Cariboo-Chilcotin, Fraser-Nicola, Kamloops–North Thompson and Kamloops–South Thompson; the Columbia-Kootenay region, four seats — Columbia River–Revelstoke, Kootenay East, Kootenay West, Nelson-Creston; and the north region, with more seats than that — Nechako Lakes, North Coast, Peace River North, Peace River South, Prince George–Mackenzie, Prince George–Valemount, Skeena and Stikine.

We've heard from the member for Stikine about the very geographic challenges that result in his effort to represent the citizens of his riding. But it is noteworthy, I think, that here included within these three districts
[ Page 1583 ]
are some of, I would say, the nearly biggest cities in the province. The Minister of Health spoke this morning of the great city of Kamloops. I agree with him. Kamloops is the 11th largest city — these are numbers from B.C. Statistics — in the province at 85,678 people.

[1445]

Yet the proposal here is to put Kamloops in and designate Kamloops and the two seats comprising the Kamloops region as a rural district. It seems counterintuitive, let's say, to include Kamloops in any description of a rural location here in British Columbia when it's the 11th-largest city in the province.

Similarly, Prince George is 17th-largest city in the province, at 71,974 citizens — again a figure from British Columbia statistics. Again, describing Prince George, the-17th largest city, as a rural seat seems counterintuitive and difficult. That's perhaps why the Attorney General didn't attempt to justify it. It's difficult to justify that decision.

It's also noteworthy…. I think the member for Nanaimo mentioned this morning in his remarks that he couldn't understand the rationale for designating Kamloops and Prince George as rural ridings, given the size of those cities, when his city was comparable to both of those cities. Indeed, his city, Nanaimo, is the 13th-largest city in British Columbia with 83,810 citizens, according to B.C. Stats in the most recent census. Not only is the designation of Prince George and Kamloops unjustified; the exclusion of Nanaimo, if that's the definition, is equally unjustified.

Something is going on here that doesn't admit a rational explanation, or at least a rational explanation that the Attorney General has provided so far. That's, I think, where we start, when you have a bill that takes 17 of 85 seats — that's exactly 20 percent of the seats — and says they are not going to be subject to the same rules when the commission comes to look at these seats.

Indeed, as members have pointed out, they will be able to readjust boundaries within the region, but they will never be able to, say, in the case of the Kootenays, fall below four seats. They'll be able to adjust boundaries between the four seats but not reduce them in any way, regardless of where they fall in relation to the electoral quotient. Similarly, for the other two regions. For the two Kamloops seats and the three Cariboo seats, there will be an ability to adjust the boundaries within that region but not to reduce the number of seats below the five that have been stipulated.

That's an inhibition, a barrier, placed upon the power of the commission to do its work in accordance with the legal principles that are well established and have come to us from the Supreme Court of Canada. As I say, I await the explanation, if it ever comes.

I think if it doesn't come, it comes at the peril of the constitutionality of the legislation, because the Attorney General really does occupy a special place in this process. This is the nitty-gritty, the guts of our democratic system, the method by which we elect people to this place. It's governed by law. It's not governed by anecdotal evidence. It's not governed by personal whim. It's not governed by inclination. It's not governed by the personal experience, although that's an important part of how we make our decisions. It's bounded by the law.

In fact, in the last report of the commission…. I believe the Energy Minister did mention that he had a copy. I didn't keep mine, but I did go to the Legislative Library and get it. They talk in this report about their definition of effective representation, which follows, essentially, the statute.

[1450]

They say that for an MLA to…. They talk about the functions that were mentioned — the representation role and the Ombudsman's role. They say here, on page 43 of the preliminary report in 2007:

"During our public consultation we were told that many factors should be considered, including the number of constituents; the geography of the electoral district; the number of kilometres of paved roads; a constituent's accessibility to the MLA and the MLA's accessibility to constituents during various seasons; commuting time to and from Victoria; the number of provincial issues confronting constituents; the availability of provincial government services in the constituency; the number of municipalities, regional districts, school districts, health districts and First Nations included within an electoral district; and the various 'community interests' found within an electoral district, including ethnic, religious and cultural groups, and the number of languages spoken by constituents.

"Most of these are consistent with our statutory mandate. We ultimately concluded that our paramount guide in this area must be the statutory criteria set out in section 9(1)(a) of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act."

That is exactly the section that I read earlier. So the commission was very cognizant of its legal duty. That, I think, is a very good summary of probably much of the debate that will take place here to come. But they also went on to define their approach to what are described as very special circumstances.

We've heard from the member for Stikine. If there were any riding in the province, if it were only to be one or two, Stikine would almost certainly be one of those ridings that qualify. It would fall into the description of very special circumstances given the vast geography, the dispersal of the population, the difficulty of access at all different times of the year and the general challenges to representation and the ombudsperson role that we as MLAs perform.

They do go on to talk about their definition, and they do quote a fair number of dictionary definitions of that. But they do go on to say this. I'm on page 44:

"Notwithstanding the challenges posed by our province's unique geography, demography and transportation circumstances, we believe that we should exceed that limit and resort to the 'very special circumstances' legislative provision only in truly exceptional or extraordinary circumstances. We think that to do otherwise would debase the meaning of 'very special.'"

That's their self-imposed limitation in doing their
[ Page 1584 ]
work. Clearly, what has happened here is that that definition of the very special circumstances has not been adhered to by the drafters of this bill, not explained by the Attorney General — completely bereft of any rational explanation of it. Certainly, what the commission understood — this is Mr. Justice Cohen and the then Chief Electoral Officer and the other person — as their obligation was to use it very sparingly, only in truly exceptional or extraordinary circumstances.

What's happened in this bill is that 17 ridings, 20 percent of the seats in the House, have been taken out of that consideration and are allowed to fall, no matter where they fall in relation to the provincial electoral quotient — that the commission is obliged to accept that. That's a legislative direction to the commission and a limitation upon its work.

That's what has been decided in this legislation. I suppose that's why, as difficult a job as is imposed upon the member for Stikine, he has chosen in his remarks to describe this bill as tainted, for that reason. I think that's a reasonable explanation of his reason for having some hesitancy about supporting the bill more broadly.

I do want to talk a little bit more about whether this 20 percent exclusion, this pulling out of 20 percent of the seats, is something that is done in other provinces. I want to do a quick review of what takes place in other provinces. My conclusion will be the one that will be based on the evidence I'm about to go through. It's not something that has taken place in other provinces — very unusual and, I think, therefore, much more susceptible to constitutional challenge.

[1455]

Although, I would expect that the Attorney General has received legal advice about the legal risks that she's running, the damage to the integrity of the chamber, to legislation, to the electoral process, I'm sure that those are risks she's consciously running. If she hasn't been advised on those matters, then that would be rather shocking, but I expect that she has been advised on those and is simply choosing not to share that with the public nor with the members of the Legislative Assembly.

Let's look at other provinces. Alberta, in the 2010 redistribution, increased the number of ridings from 83 to 87. The law required all ridings to have a population within 25 percent of the provincial average but provided that four ridings could have a 50 percent variance from the provincial average if they met certain conditions. No mention of a protected regional area or cap.

Saskatchewan. This is a later amendment, not the one that was referred to in the Supreme Court of Canada case, because time marches on. Their Constituency Boundaries Act was amended in 2012, increasing the number of ridings from 58 to 61. They have a line dividing Saskatchewan in two — north of that line, in rural and remote Saskatchewan, two constituencies; the area south of that dividing line, 59 constituencies. That's the basic scheme that was referred to in the Saskatchewan reference that I talked about earlier.

Ontario is difficult to look at comparatively because they used to base their boundaries entirely upon the federal riding boundaries. They simply adopted the federal riding boundaries. Some years ago, as of 2007, they adopted federal ridings in one part of Ontario and separate provincial boundaries in another. So it's difficult to make direct comparisons, although I understand the standard deviation in what's described as northern Ontario is different from that in southern or more urban Ontario.

Quebec. In their new electoral map in 2011, section 17 allows for exceptions to 25 percent variance. It also protects the electoral division of Îles de la Madeleine, which is out in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and, therefore, falls below the standard deviation.

Newfoundland and Labrador. There's specific constitutional protection for Labrador.

Nova Scotia. The terms of reference mandated a 25 percent variance be applied to the entire province and capped the number of seats at 52.

P.E.I. — no change in the number of boundaries in 2006 and the variation was 25 percent.

Manitoba — a little bit tighter. Where the electoral division is located wholly south of the 53rd parallel, be greater than 10 percent more or 10 percent less than the quotient; where the electoral district is situated wholly or partially north of the 53rd parallel, be greater than 25 percent more or 25 percent less. So there's a difference between the north and the south in terms of rural and remote ridings.

What's being attempted here legislatively, then, by Canadian standards, by the standards of the jurisprudence, by the references in the preliminary report of the commission last time, is unparalleled as a conscious strategy across the country. Therefore, I think it's very important that we hear from the Attorney General.

Ordinarily, at second reading we hear the major reasons why the bill is important, but in her seven-minute speech, she didn't really tackle those important issues. I'm looking forward to hearing from the Attorney General. Perhaps in the committee stage process we'll have an opportunity to ask her more detailed questions.

Now, the record of ministers answering questions in this place is not a good one, but given the importance of this bill, given its essentially non-partisan nature, I think it's important that the Attorney General address this, not as a political partisan, because she does have a dual role, but in her role as the chief law enforcement officer of the province, which is a separate jurisdiction where she is meant to act in the best interests and pursuit of justice rather than in her partisan interest.

I think she has an obligation to come forward and offer that explanation, and so far, it hasn't been lacking. That is her job. That is her role. It's well described in the con-
[ Page 1585 ]
stitutional literature.

[1500]

I think in the case of a bill of this importance, she has that obligation, and she hasn't done it. So it makes it very difficult.

Notwithstanding the speeches we've heard from the member for Stikine, the member for Skeena and the speech we're perhaps about to hear from the member from Columbia River, who are rural MLAs who understand the challenges to representation, the way in which this bill is drafted makes it very difficult for all of us on this side to support it at this time.

I'm always hopeful that the Attorney General will come forward, but we'll see as we move on. With those comments, I conclude my remarks.

Hon. J. Rustad: I'm happy to take my place and stand in support of Bill 2. I want to start just by maybe making a few comments about the previous speaker from Surrey-Whalley.

I want to thank him very much, actually, for the indication and the argument, especially when he came out and commented about the Kootenays and how they could use one less seat or perhaps more. It was a very elegant argument that he made. He said that in an area down there perhaps there might be a seat that needs to be lost.

That was an argument that he made about the Kootenays. I'm sure that the member for Nelson-Creston will get up and talk about how she's very happy about the idea that her area would lose representation. We are going to hear from the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke. I'm sure he will get up in a moment and talk about that as well.

This has been a longstanding issue in British Columbia. When you step back and look at the issue of rural ridings, how rural ridings are represented, the Electoral Boundaries Commission has come out a number of years, a number of times in a row, and said that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. Matter of fact, just in the last report that came out they said this needs to be addressed. The report that came out in the 1990s said that this needs to be addressed.

The NDP's solution in the 1990s was to punt. They said: "No, no, we're not going to make the decision. We're just going to let the boundaries carry forward." They did that so that another eight years went by before the issue was addressed.

The last time this was looked at, which was just prior to the 2009 election, the solution that we had…. We came out and said: "We don't want to see rural representation reduced. We want to be able to make sure that rural voices are present, but we also need to be able to figure out how to balance it." So we decided to add seats. We got up at that point, went from 79 to 85, and the member opposite for Surrey-Whalley waxed eloquently about why we shouldn't be doing that.

You can see, clearly, that it doesn't matter what the option is. What they do seem to want to do is to take representation away from rural B.C. It's the argument that they've made. They made it in 2009. You can go back and read the records. They're making it again here today.

The thing that I find very compelling about what we're trying to do here is this concept around very special circumstances. The member for Stikine got up and said: "We shouldn't be doing this, but it's okay for my riding, because my riding is different."

Well, the area I represent is probably close to about…. I don't know the exact number, but it's probably around 100,000 square kilometres. It's huge. Getting around, being able to represent and having access is very, very important.

The member opposite talks about how Prince George should be excluded. Go represent or think about the idea of Prince George–Valemount. There's a riding that you take 400 kilometres from one side of the riding to the other. Or think about Prince George–Mackenzie and several hundred kilometres of distance. I think it's about 300 kilometres' distance from the south to the north. You go look at Kamloops north. There's another riding that is 300 kilometres from north to south.

These are huge, huge vast areas that take a lot of time — those of us from rural B.C. understand this — to go around and to do a good job in trying to represent your constituents, trying to make sure that you have an opportunity for access.

[1505]

When you look at whether it's the Cariboo, or you look at the uniqueness of the geography in the Kootenays, or you look at the size of the geography in northern B.C., those special circumstances are similar to all of those ridings. So the question is: shouldn't the region be considered from a special circumstance perspective?

The Electoral Boundaries Commission, when they came out with their report before the 2009 election, said that politically, this Legislature needs to come out with a solution. You can't just do as the member for Surrey-Whalley suggested and just let it carry forward. If you do that, you know what will happen. You'll lose the representation from those areas of the province. It will be very, very difficult to be able to carry forward with the same level of effective representation as you do in the larger urban areas.

On this side of the House, certainly for myself, I find that unacceptable, quite frankly. Rural B.C. has a lot of very unique characteristics about it. Part of that is that it is sparsely populated. People live there; they enjoy living there. They enjoy what that brings, but they also want to make sure that their voice is represented in this chamber, that their values are represented in this chamber.

Whether it's mining or whether it's liquefied natural gas and the potential that brings, when you look at the natural gas industry, forestry, all of our resource activities
[ Page 1586 ]
that are the heart and soul of much of what this province is — it's all in rural B.C. It's very, very important to have that voice in this House and have it represented by the people that we have on both sides of the Legislature as part of that.

I find it quite interesting, as I mentioned earlier, that when you listen to the argument from the member for Surrey-Whalley, who arguably represents a very, very urban riding, clearly there is a lack of understanding — and I suspect it's represented across on that side of the Legislature — of what makes rural B.C. tick, what the things are that are important and what we need to be doing.

My perspective on this…. I think the approach that we've found, the balance that we have tried to find — in terms of setting out the different regions, understanding the complexities of those regions and the needs of those regions, and treating them with a different perspective — makes sense. It's very similar in the other cases.

The member for Surrey-Whalley even talked about Ontario and how there's a northern and a southern region in terms of the representation. There are other places in the country that have those representations.

This is the solution that previous Electoral Boundaries Commissions have said needs to be found. This is the way that we can go forward, to be able to make sure that we have those voices from rural B.C., from those important resource regions of our province which are vast in size but unique in character. It's a way to make sure that we have those voices yet still be able to strike the balance and the equality of representation that we're trying to do within the province of British Columbia.

It's with fascination that I've been listening to the discussion coming from the members opposite. Clearly, they want to see seats in rural B.C. gone. I'm sure that the member for Stikine will very much be able to enjoy going out to the people in Smithers and describe how a party he's a part of wants to see representation in rural B.C. lost. I'm sure that the members in the Kootenays will enjoy going to their ridings and saying the same thing.

This strikes the balance that's needed. It resolves the issues that the Electoral Boundaries Commission asked to us resolve, and it creates the opportunity for us to be able to retain the type of balance that we need in this House in terms of representation across all regions of the province so we can carry forward with the important work in a balanced way that needs to be presented in this Legislature.

I'm keeping my comments brief. [Applause.] I know that others want to be able to present the case. I know that the members opposite who've just applauded for that comment about "brief" want to carry forward with their argument as to why rural B.C. needs to lose representation. But you know what? That's their perspective. They will go to the voters, and they will hear back from the voters, particularly as to what rural B.C. thinks of that idea.

I want to close with one last comment from a constituent from one of the Cariboo ridings that talked about the difference between rural B.C. and urban B.C.

[1510]

In some of the urban ridings in the Lower Mainland, in the worst weather you can imagine, it would take them at most maybe half an hour to walk across with an umbrella and gumboots and maybe a jacket. For some of the places in rural B.C. it would take literally several tanks of gas, a couple of days and an act of God to get across the riding. It's the stark difference between representing rural areas and representing urban areas, and it's why we need to be able to make sure that we protect the opportunity for rural voices to be present in this chamber.

N. Macdonald: This debate began with a pretty sparse introduction, as the member from Surrey talked about, from the minister who is responsible for the legislation, and then it went on to the minister who claimed to take credit — the member for Kootenay East, who takes credit for this legislation. Now, there is a good degree of self-interest, of course, in the legislation in that it protects his seat. Let's be clear about it. The seats in the Kootenays will not change, so the poor politicians there have tremendous self-interest in passing this legislation.

It's precisely why you don't put it in the hands of politicians to set the regions that they're going to represent. That should be completely obvious. Even at the most superficial level, this legislation is ridiculous.

The member who just spoke represents an area that's the same size as the North Island, the same complications. One is protected; the other isn't. Even at the most superficial level, this does not make sense.

When I first heard about the white paper, it was November, I guess, of last year. They put out the white paper, okay? This was in the midst of when we should have been sitting here in the Legislature. So when the government members stand up and talk about, oh, the importance of representation and then, just like sheep, go along with us cancelling the session whenever we want — or the government wants — it just rings completely hollow.

Where is the important representation that you needed to make in the fall? We need to remember, especially for new members who are here — maybe you still have come and you're not completely cynical like the members who occupy the front benches here — that this Legislature…. You should know. You've probably had the same speech we did from the Clerk's office about 500 years of tradition, the combination of traditions and the constitution, in terms of how we're supposed to behave here.

These traditions are not to be trifled with, and they're constantly being treated by this government as something that they can either follow or not follow. Whatever they get away with is just fine, right?

Here, with the Electoral Boundaries Commission
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Amendment Act, you're playing with the constitution. There is no informed member here who doesn't think this is a huge stretch that is, if challenged, likely to bring us again into a situation where the Supreme Court is saying we're out of line. I mean, you would have to be incredibly uninformed on this topic to think that that's not the situation we're putting ourselves into.

These traditions, these legal obligations, are our obligation, as individual members, to protect. I said in my first speech that most of the evil in the world, if you go back…. I was a history teacher. Some of the most horrific things…. It's not so much the people who institute the evil; it is the huge number of people that just go along with it. They just stand idly by and somehow justify in their own minds that it's not their problem. "Hey, this is somebody else; it's not me."

Listen carefully to what the two lawyers on the opposition side laid out here. There is legal precedent that lays out clearly the parameters for changes to the election boundary process. It's clear. It's there — a decision by the Supreme Court.

Now what is being proposed is inevitably going to conflict with what the Supreme Court says is appropriate, and that's a problem. It seems — and it's partially because of when I first heard what was being proposed — that it framed how I feel about it. We come here in this House and….

[1515]

Let's talk about traditions rather than the constitution. There are traditions about the executive being responsible to the Legislature. Yet we have been here since the election, and the Premier has not answered a question once — not a question about her role in trying to provoke a full-scale strike, not one answer on her wild exaggerations about debt or taxation or unemployment. But the tradition is here that in this House, the executive is supposed to be answering questions. That tradition — thrown out.

Did any government member rise in the caucus and say that there is an obligation for executive members to answer and to answer accurately? If you read Jean Chrétien's book, Jean Chrétien always answered a question from any opposition leader. All of the differences I have with Stephen Harper and his policies…. I see day after day he stands up and for the most part will take difficult questions from opposition leaders. That's the tradition.

In Britain they have a Prime Minister's question day, where the Prime Minister has to stand and answer for — what is it? — 40 or 45 minutes. The power sits there, as does the responsibility, and the accountability should be to this House. But we let that tradition fall away so that nobody even expects it any more. Nobody expects the Premier to ever stand up. Nobody expects the minister to really even answer a question. So you allow it to degrade and degrade and degrade.

So where are we now? We're treating it like democracy, and this institution isn't a gift. It shouldn't be taken for granted and should not be allowed to continue along the path that this Premier and this government have taken it, which is continuous degradation.

The bill — let's be clear — is about the government interfering in the work of the election boundary commission in a way that I think it's fair to say we know is likely unconstitutional. Unless government has a legal opinion that is contrary to that, then I think we can conclude that that's the case. If they did have a legal opinion, then they should share it with this House.

Instead of a seven-minute explanation on this bill, the Minister of Justice should be standing up and laying out a legal case why this is going to go forward without being challenged. The reason that we have these somewhat independent election boundary commissions is because we know there is a long tradition in history of elected officials playing with boundaries to their own benefit.

If you go back in English history, there was the rotten boroughs. There is all this tradition that eventually, as the system evolved, it tried to work its way out of. Here we set up election boundary commissions to be as independent as possible because of our history here. We have Gracie's finger. We have examples here of where politicians abused the setting of boundaries to their own benefit.

Those are traditions. Those are things you don't just toss away. But that's what this vote is about, and government members will stand up and go along with it and do whatever they're told and vote for it. But don't walk away from here without understanding that it's a degradation, it's an abuse of a system that's in place, and it's wrong.

Whether it is politically useful or not useful, we've got our 300…. What's the term for them now? They keep changing the name because they always earn a bad name for themselves. You've got 300 people in communications that are probably writing their Twitters and the press releases and everything else. They're hard at it right now. But don't confuse that with good governance. This is all about politics and very little to do with good governance. That's the reality of it.

[1520]

If you look at the constitution, I think it's fair to say there may be obscure elements. But the rules on representation by population are set out pretty clearly, and the law presented doesn't meet that standard. I think that's fair to say. If the government is asserting that it does meet the standard, produce the evidence.

This is a place where the government has the obligation to make the case. The minister responsible for this bill should present a legal opinion that says that this is actually something that, fairly, should go ahead.

For government members and maybe for those in the communications branch who are putting together the press releases now, let's talk about representing rural areas. It's pretty rich to me to hear government members standing up and talking about services and representa-
[ Page 1588 ]
tion in rural areas. What a joke.

In my area, since the Liberals have come in, they have closed nine rural schools. In Columbia River–Revelstoke alone — nine rural schools. Wow, that's real B.C. Liberal commitment to rural B.C., right? Don't need those schools. Don't need those.

We've had a hospital closed. Two weeks' notice, hospital closed. We've had three courthouses closed, three out of four. Don't need those. The B.C. Liberals say: "We don't need those. We need MLAs, but we don't need courthouses. We don't need schools. We don't need hospitals."

They've closed three forestry offices, they have gotten rid of conservation officers, and they have closed employment offices — all in Columbia River–Revelstoke. And it's the same across rural B.C. It's the same thing. It's a centralization of services and a cutting of the dirt ministries again and again.

In lucid moments, Kootenay East will even say that. Those are rare moments, admittedly, but he will talk about the dirt ministries and how we constantly take away people that are needed on the ground.

That's not commitment to rural B.C. — to have those services? It's not even just the lack of services that have been taken away. It's the legislative changes that this government brought in to remove the voice of rural B.C., which B.C. Liberal rural MLAs voted in favour of.

You had legislation that removed rural people from any decision-making on the private river-diversion projects — purposefully introduced legislation to remove the rural voice. You have the removal of local people in decision-making on things like Jumbo resort municipality. What a farce that is. Everybody who lives there knows it's a farce.

An Hon. Member: There's nobody living there.

N. Macdonald: Well, there's nobody who lives there. There's our newest community. It has nobody living and never will but has 6,000 hectares of public land. And somehow this government is going to make the case it's committed to rural B.C.? What a joke.

Let's talk about DriveABLE, the cognitive tests for seniors which they can't get done locally. They have to drive…. From Golden they have to go to Kelowna.

If I went to the people of my area and said: "Okay, you have a choice. Where on the list…? Do you want schools? Do you want hospitals? Do you want testing for seniors? Do you want all of these services, or do you want to make sure that there are four MLAs instead of three in the Kootenays?" What are people's priorities?

If you have people doing those jobs, then let's really do work here. If you are going to have MLAs that come here, then do real work. Don't do what we do here, which is….

We don't have committees that work. The member who spoke in front of me was Chair of a committee that made recommendations. We spent $300,000, one of the most expensive committees in the history of this province, on a very important issue around the depletion of fibre in the Interior — hugely important work. I think we did good work. I enjoyed working with the member.

We actually had a real process, but where it broke down was that nothing's happened. Nothing's happened. What was the purpose of the $300,000 spent, the purpose of all of that work, when it leads nowhere, when ultimately this place doesn't respect the work that's done there?

[1525]

So we have a piece of legislation. It will likely join a long list of legislation from this government that cannot even meet the most basic test, which is to be constitutional. How tough is it to pass laws that actually are legal in this country? Like, who is putting this together?

In my time here what have I seen? Health care legislation — unconstitutional, right? Health care legislation that affected thousands and thousands of people — it was unconstitutional. What a disgrace that is. Education legislation — unconstitutional. Wait, not once, twice. What a brain trust to take the legislation that was unconstitutional once and put it back exactly the same. Then — wow, what a surprise — it's unconstitutional again, all right? That's your track record.

Hey, there's more. There's more. Electoral legislation — unconstitutional. Drunk-driving legislation — unconstitutional.

And then add this one to the list. It's a rich combination, I would say, of Liberal cynicism and incompetence. That's what is represented here.

I argued, before the 2009 election, for rural representation at hearings by the Electoral Boundaries Commission, and I am going to do that again. Columbia River–Revelstoke has a really dispersed population. The crocodile tears from Kootenay East about how difficult it is to represent that is…. Okay, that's an interesting thing for him to parrot what I've said in the past. But I didn't…. I said it to the Electoral Boundaries Commission.

It is 5½ hours. They are four communities that are approximately the same in size. That's complicated. But the Electoral Boundaries Commission has the ability to listen to those arguments. It has the ability to take consideration of the need to represent rural areas. It has the ability to frame boundaries that are actually constitutional and go forward. Any person who votes not to do that…. Frankly, it befuddles me.

But, fine. We've got a solid record of unconstitutional law that B.C. Liberals stood up and voted for. Why not do it one more time, and then we can deal with this again, once judges tell us to get it right this time. Here's a good idea: when we do it again, let's not put exactly the same law back again hoping for a different result. There's an idea for you.

It's a pleasure again, as always, to speak. I would like to say "job well done" to the Minister of Justice, but I don't think that's possible. I think she needs to present a legal opinion, if she has one. If she doesn't, withdraw this. Do
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the proper thing. I think that's highly unlikely, but that is what should happen.

M. Morris: I'm speaking in favour of Bill 2 for a number of reasons, and I'll go into some of the philosophical reasons and whatnot shortly. But I have heard some things coming from the members opposite here that I have to speak about and dispel some of the myths and misconceptions that they have about rural B.C.

One of the first things I want to talk about, though…. The member for Columbia River–Revelstoke was talking about the unconstitutionality of the impaired-driving laws that we have in this province. Far from the truth. I think this province has done a great job on impaired driving and has saved over 190 lives. And it's only going to get better.

With respect to Prince George being considered the 17th-largest city in the province, which it is, it's divided up between my colleague from Prince George–Valemount and myself. My riding stretches probably just a tad over 300 kilometres from end to end, most likely about 100 kilometres wide. It includes the First Nations community of McLeod Lake. It includes the community of Mackenzie. It includes a whole bunch of small little rural settings that we have throughout that area.

[1530]

Prince George–Valemount stretches about 400 kilometres from end to end and includes a large number of small communities and hamlets and farmland and whatnot scattered throughout the area.

Two MLAs are looking after that stretch of real estate in British Columbia.

They're talking about Nanaimo. The member for Nanaimo was complaining that we want special status for Prince George when we're the 17th-largest city in British Columbia. I counted — I could be wrong — 12 ridings on Vancouver Island, which stretches, according to the information I had, just over 400 kilometres from end to end and 100 kilometres wide. There are 12 ridings in that small geographical area of the province — very well represented.

Prince George is a rural riding. There are all kinds of rural areas within that particular setting. But what we also have in that part of the world is that every proposed pipeline is coming through the riding of Prince George–Mackenzie.

Every single proposed pipeline is designed to come through there — in addition to the existing pipelines; in addition to the hydro power transmission lines that we have coming from W.A.C. Bennett and the Peace Canyon dams heading south, providing power to the folks in the Lower Mainland here so they can turn their lights on at night; in addition to the natural gas pipeline that's coming down here, providing the natural gas that everybody needs to keep their homes warm down here; in addition to the lumber that's being cut from the 80 million to 90 million cubic metres of wood coming from the interior of the province and shipped down to places like the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island to keep all our citizens happy down here.

There's a difference, a philosophical difference, between the people in rural B.C. and the people in the urban areas of the province here in the way they look at things. My constituents complain to me on a regular basis that their interests in resource development and whatnot are not adequately represented down in the Lower Mainland and the larger part of the province here.

If we were to draw a line across the bottom ten kilometres, perhaps 20 kilometres, of British Columbia, this is where the majority of the population base is — down in the southern part of the province. So 8 percent of the population of B.C. lives in the northern three-quarters of the province — only 8 percent — yet we contribute well over 70 percent to the economic viability of the province here, from the resources that we extract and that we process from that particular area up here.

My colleague from Surrey was saying that his population in the city of Surrey, in all the ridings in Surrey, is growing by a significant number every year. I think he said that 75,000 people in five years are going to move to the city of Surrey.

He broke it down to me that a third are internally coming from within the Lower Mainland here, a third are coming from across Canada and a third of them are immigrants coming from outside of Canada — a pretty reasonable number. Good on Surrey to be growing and expanding its tax base.

But what we do have is we have a philosophical difference in the understanding of a population like Surrey and a population like Richmond and many of the other communities down here with respect to where that power comes when they turn the light switch on, where the heat comes from when they turn the thermostat up in their homes. They're not concerned about that. That is always there.

What they're concerned about is transportation. They want SkyTrains. They want new bridges. They want new highways. They want more hospitals. So they look internally. They look within their geographical area.

It's a human nature flaw, I suppose, in a lot of cases that people always look at things in a parochial manner. They look at things that affect themselves, right around the geographical area in which they live, and they have very little interest in trying to figure out what's going on through the rest of the province.

Whereas the people in the north, in the rural areas of the province…. We rely on the urban centres. The urban centres play a valuable role in British Columbia, in servicing British Columbia and providing a lot of the amenities for us. But the people in rural British Columbia have a greater idea of what's going on globally, or what's going on within the province of British Columbia, because they
[ Page 1590 ]
come down here on a fairly regular basis — or quite often.

They utilize SkyTrain coming from the airport. They utilize the Canada Line. They utilize all the other transportation facilities. They cross the Port Mann Bridge every time they drive down to the Lower Mainland, and they use much of the other infrastructure that's here.

[1535]

We don't see as many people coming from the Lower Mainland or coming from the urban sections or parts of this province and heading north. They might go to Kelowna to get a little bit of sun in the Okanagan. They might go to some of the other more touristy areas. But very seldom do we see large influxes of urban residents from British Columbia travelling north to that proportion, where we have the population here.

I think that needs to be taken into consideration when we talk about electoral boundaries and protecting the rural parts of the province that we have right now. I think, hearing the members opposite…. There were a couple of them that were speaking about the constitutionality of some of the legislation that we're proposing here and the changes.

I think, from listening to the member for Surrey-Whalley read the quote from the Supreme Court of Canada, the decision…. In my mind, there's all kinds of room to make amendments as we're proposing in this particular case here. There's all kinds of room to make them with respect to the other considerations that the Supreme Court has given us the flexibility in.

I think those considerations are…. Look at the fact that 8 percent of the population is providing 70 percent of the economic resources for the province here. I think that's a big issue to have a look at.

One of the other differences we have here as well is that we have ridings in the urban areas where you could probably walk from one side or the other in a very limited time. You have cell phone coverage. You have access by all kinds of transportation links to come to the MLA's office, to meet with his staff, to talk to him and present what issues you might feel are important in your particular riding.

In rural B.C. we don't have that option. Much of my riding is not covered by cell phone. Much of my riding doesn't have access to high-speed Internet. Much of my riding has First Nations, as many of the other rural ridings do, who have different needs, and their needs need to be adequately represented. They tend to perhaps stay more closely associated to their remote communities, and they don't have an opportunity to travel, so they don't really have the opportunity to express exactly what their needs are. The MLA has to go there personally to see them.

My colleague from Stikine experiences that all the time. I've lived in the Nass Valley. I've lived in many of the communities that he represents in that area. There's a significant difference in the way people view the world there than the way people view the world in the Lower Mainland.

I believe there's room to manoeuvre in this. I think this is a step in the right direction to ensure that we safeguard the rural area, the rural representation in the province here. We do not believe…. I heard the same thing from the members opposite, so we're on the same page here: nobody wants to grow government.

The member opposite…. The arguments that I've heard or the presentations I've heard today — everybody's supporting the number of ridings that we have right now. So we're on common ground with respect to that, and I think that's a good thing.

We just have to get across, work through some of the other technicalities that we have here. I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but I've read lots of case law, and I understand when I read this stuff. I don't know of a constitutional lawyer that's in the House right now, so we do leave it to the experts. I'm sure it's going to be closely examined, and it'll be closely debated line by line, I'm sure, but at the end of the day, I think the right thing will be done. So I vote in favour of this bill.

A. Weaver: I wanted to use my time here at second reading to address two general areas of concern that I have with this bill. The first concerns the tool used to ensure "effective representation." I'll speak to an alternate tool that's been alluded to by other members earlier that could be considered. The second concerns the criteria used for identifying the 17 ridings for protection.

[1540]

I must say off the bat that after hearing some of the speeches from members opposite, I'm surprised that they have not bought into the 100,000 jobs which were suspected to be occurring in the north. This legislation may not have actually been as needed as they're implying.

First, to effective representation. In the government's white paper on electoral boundary reform they walked us through a fascinating history of challenges and legal decisions that informed how we determine the boundaries of our electoral districts. These legal decisions highlighted the Canadian right to vote — that this was fundamentally a right to effective representation.

The first condition of this right to effective representation was that of relative parity of voting power, meaning that a citizen's right to vote should not be unduly diluted compared to another's. However, relative voter parity was found to be impossible to achieve in practice and, in fact, could be undesirable as factors like geography, community interests and minority representation come into play. Deviations from this voter parity could therefore be justified insofar as they serve the goal of "effective representation."

You will all have read the white paper, so you will be familiar with these principles. I don't repeat them for the purpose of taking up time but, instead, to highlight the
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essence of the government's justification for protecting these ridings and to build the case for this House to consider an alternative.

I do not think it is helpful for us in this House to pit rural B.C. against urban B.C. Nobody wins when we start to politicize this process.

In its white paper the government paints a picture of the province where certain regions of the province — namely, the Kootenays, Cariboo-Thompson, north Vancouver Island and northern B.C. — are representing smaller and smaller portions of B.C.'s overall population. These same regions are geographically diverse, creating localized communities of interest — interests which need effective representation.

My issue with this bill is not whether or not we need to ensure effective representation in certain regions of the province. Of course we do. I think everybody in this House agrees with that. It seems clear to me that our responsibility is to do just that. My issue is with the proposed tool used to ensure effective representation.

Freezing the number of ridings in three regions of the province while, at the same time, freezing the overall number of ridings at 85 appears to me to be rather a blunt tool to ensure so-called effective representation. In fact, I would argue that it fails to do so. It will inflame the issue of representation in the fastest-growing parts of the province, primarily in the Lower Mainland, making their votes worth relatively less. Frankly, while I'm not a lawyer, I question whether or not this legislation would actually survive a court challenge. I doubt it would.

The communities that will be under-represented are no less localized communities of interest than the ones this legislation seeks to protect in the north. The communities that will be under-represented will include ethnic minority groups in communities throughout the Lower Mainland, who already feel that their voice isn't well represented in this Legislature.

This brings me to an alternative tool that the House could consider when looking to protect everyone's right to effective representation. That tool involves examining voter dispersion, as was mentioned earlier.

Effective representation requires an MLA to be accessible to his or her constituents. Ridings such as North Coast, where the population is dispersed amongst numerous small communities throughout the region, are much more difficult to effectively represent than, say, Vancouver–West End, where the population density is great and population dispersion is small.

Dispersion is different from density. Population dispersion is a measure of the degree of population scatter around a region, whereas population density is a measure of the population per unit area. Mathematically, population density is determined by dividing the total population in a riding by the total area of the riding. Population dispersion, on the other hand, is calculated as the ratio of the distance-scaled population to the unscaled population. In my view, it provides a very effective tool to measure representation, and this brings me to my second point.

Paul Ramsey, a Victoria resident, is a statistician and the author of the Clever Elephant blog. He's undertaken an extensive analysis of population density and dispersion in all 85 British Columbia ridings.

[1545]

In reviewing the white paper and the work that he has done on his blog, I'm really quite uncertain as to what criteria the government used to determine which ridings should be protected. When I look at the list of ridings being protected, I see an inconsistency — a glaring inconsistency — between the arguments put forward by the government in advancing which regions should be protected and those areas that have subsequently received such protection with this legislation.

First, the two major outliers throughout this entire analysis are Kamloops–North Thompson and Kamloops–South Thompson. They appear to share very little in common with the rest of the ridings that are to be protected. They do not significantly deviate from the average population per riding, nor are they among the largest ridings by area or dispersion. The only identifiable characteristic is their proximity to other ridings which appear to significantly deviate from the average. This raises the question of criteria — namely, how the government selects the ridings that are to be protected.

For comparison, I could make an equally if not more compelling case that the ridings of North Island, West Vancouver–Sea to Sky, Powell River–Sunshine Coast and Alberni–Pacific Rim could arguably constitute regions in need of protection under precisely the same arguments put forward by the government for the other regions.

These regions share the same geographic region, contain numerous small communities and challenging geographic characteristics, and in some parts are also seeing a shrinking population relative to the rest of the province. While the population deviation of plus or minus 25 percent from the provincial average is met for these ridings as well as the two Kamloops ridings, a far more compelling case could be made, based on population dispersion, for them to be protected.

I use these ridings merely to highlight the point that there is a lack of explanation around the criteria the government used to select the 17 ridings to be protected. In order to protect the integrity of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, now and in the future, I feel it is in the government's best interest to clarify why certain ridings are to be protected while others are not.

C. Trevena: I've found it very interesting to sit here and listen as the debate progresses and people are talking, particularly on the other side of the House, about how hard it is to represent a rural riding — how difficult it is, what expansive geography you've got to cover, and
[ Page 1592 ]
so on and so on. There is actually almost an arrogance that has come on that side, as if they are the people who own rural B.C. They may owe a lot to rural B.C. for what they've taken away from the rural communities, but they most certainly don't own it.

I've heard from my colleagues who are in this strange ring fencing that the government is proposing. We've heard from the member for Stikine, the member for Skeena. We've heard from the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke, and later we'll hear from the member for Nelson-Creston.

My riding is also a rural riding. It is a vast rural riding that runs from just south of Campbell River — rural areas south of Campbell River — to the top half of Vancouver Island. It goes over to the Mainland, and in fact, it even takes in some of Tweedsmuir Park. I have nine municipalities. I have four ferry-dependent communities that are not on the big Island and, I could estimate, about 15 small islands that are not ferry-dependent. I have people who live on the Mainland in my constituency. I have people who live on the far west coast. I have 21 separate First Nations.

It is a vast constituency, which I'm extraordinarily proud and extraordinarily honoured to represent. It's not easy. I think anyone who represents a rural constituency would say it's not easy. Likewise, I have colleagues who represent Alberni–Pacific Rim — again, a complex rural riding — and Powell River–Sunshine Coast, a complex rural riding.

[1550]

But our ridings, I think, very luckily, are not in this strange fencing that the government is suggesting under Bill 2 that will be protected in perpetuity, as they'd like to see it — at least until the court challenge and it's found to be unconstitutional.

But our ridings are not there, and I think it's right. I think what is happening here is, simply put, wrong. To identify ridings and say that those ridings will not change — that isn't our role. I'll come back to that.

One has to ask, really, what the criteria is for choosing which of these ridings were going to be safe seats, and I think that this might be one of the things.

We have had, as the member previously was suggesting, the two Kamloops ridings, Kamloops–South Thompson and Kamloops–North Thompson. I know that the Minister of Transportation — I am the critic for Transportation — represents one of those Kamloops ridings. I'm sure he, as the Transportation Minister, would agree with me that the transportation challenges in his riding are much less than the transportation issues and challenges in my riding. I represent a very rural riding, and he represents quite an urban riding with rural components.

What is the criteria? What has been decided, apart from looking at the map and looking at the centre of B.C. and drawing a red line around it and saying: "We think that these seats might be winnable"?

I think that what we are faced with here is what this government has done so often. They have politicized something which should not be politicized. They're looking at this map, and they're looking at the changing of the boundaries or the fixing of boundaries, the fixing of certain seats — that's a very political thing — and how they can very much defend their best interest.

I find it exceptionally troubling that we don't have clear criteria. We don't have a real explanation, except according to the government and according to the government's argument and the backbenchers and the members of the executive council. Their argument is that they love B.C. Therefore, clearly, they are suggesting that the opposition doesn't love rural B.C. They're the ones who allegedly understand rural B.C., and therefore, we are the ones that don't understand rural B.C.

Again, I find this very troubling, when we have had 12 years of a Liberal government where their understanding of rural B.C. has been to take services out of rural B.C.; to not provide service to rural B.C.; to underfund rural B.C.; and, in my constituency and many of the coastal constituencies, to dismantle the highway system in rural B.C. with the underfunding and overpricing of B.C. Ferries.

This, again, is why I think that what we have here is a very, very mean-spirited and politically motivated bill. They are looking, essentially, at what they think will be safe or winnable seats come next election. "Let's get it done now. Let's make sure we've got them safe." Then, maybe, in a election beyond: "Yeah, we've got these fixed."

The coastal seats, which aren't in this ring fencing, have been held by the NDP for some time and are traditionally opposition seats. I really have a sense that they are trying in two ways to do…. One is to hold certain areas that could be challenged and, secondly, to create this strange story that they may be the defenders. Whereas we are looking just for urban B.C. and those people in the cities, they are the ones who are standing up there for rural B.C.

That, I think, talking to people who live in rural B.C., has the short shrift. I think that anybody who is actually going out to talk to constituents…. I regularly go out to talk to my constituents in my vast constituency. You talk to them about the lack of services and the lack of support they are getting from the government. They would feel that they have been very neglected.

I've got a sense that the criteria they're using is very sharp. It is being crafted through a political lens. It will be sold through where their main investment is, which isn't in rural B.C. but is in the communications operation — whatever the large newsroom operation they have is called. It is all being crafted there.

I think that what really does trouble me about this…. This is politics. We've had politics for government from this government for the last 12 years. It has become a lot worse under its present guise. We have a Premier who is not allowing herself to be held accountable and doesn't
[ Page 1593 ]
answer questions.

[1555]

We have disregard for this place. We have disregard for the courts. So the very fact that they are trying to, essentially — I'm not sure if what I say next will be unparliamentary — fix the electoral process for political purposes…. It shouldn't surprise us.

It saddens me greatly, because I believe in the institution of parliamentary democracy. I believe in one person, one vote. I believe in what we have really working. It hasn't worked for 12 years, and this is going to hurt it more. That is why I think that we should….

I would hope that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice listens to arguments. What really should be happening here is that this debate is wound up quickly and the Minister of Justice withdraws this bill. What we do need is an independent body, an electoral boundaries commission, making these sorts of decisions.

It's not up to us to be debating. It's not up to me to be saying that I think it's political. It's not up to the government side to be saying: "We're really looking after the best interests of our seats, and really, we're looking after the best interests of your seats. You just don't understand it."

That's not what we should be talking about. That creates not only a perception of conflict of interest but a real conflict of interest. The Electoral Boundaries Commission has their hands so tied before they even start working. They are told that they have to…. "This is the population of B.C. now. This is the population of B.C. within the voting age. We've got to maintain this number of ridings, and for 17 of the ridings, their boundaries cannot be changed." That is simply wrong.

We don't need that conflict of interest. As any legislature, we should not be going to the people we represent and saying: "We have crafted our own little fiefdom here." That should be up to an independent body that is respected by the people of B.C.

I think that it really is very frightening that the government so distrusts an open and transparent process that it will present to us a very small three-page bill which will create this strange centre and east of B.C., not to be touched. But as I say, it is a reflection of what we have seen for the last 12 years: politicization and disrespect — disrespect of the institutions of government, disrespect of the people of B.C. and disrespect of the election system in B.C.

I would hope that looking at this, when we go…. If the Attorney General and Minister of Justice isn't willing to go to the Premier and to her executive council and say, "Maybe we have made a mistake. We actually do understand. We have heard arguments," this could lead to a constitutional challenge. This may not even be constitutional. "Have we run it by all our lawyers? Are we going to end up in the courts again?"

The minister would have…. Hopefully, that should have happened before it was tabled in the House, but assuming that she hasn't actually had that opportunity, I would hope that she takes this back and just says: "Now is the time to reflect, and let's maybe pull this bill."

I've got to say that this bill does reflect a huge arrogance. This government thinks that it can do no wrong — that it can fix the process by which people vote, that when the Legislature sits, it then fixes how open the Legislature is and how accountable that Legislature is. All these things undermine the very basis of our democratic system.

[1600]

My colleague from Columbia River–Revelstoke spoke about people standing by and letting things happen because it's easier just to let it happen. We have members on the other side, like sheep, standing up and reading their speaking notes, saying: "This is what we have been told. I'm a rural member, so I will defend my little piece there."

We have seen the erosion of so much in this place, so much in B.C., that I hope that members opposite realize the damage they are doing to our very institutions. I hope that they stop and think before they vote and decide that they think that this is not the right way to go, that they are eroding what has been evolving for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Our parliamentary democracy is not the best institution. The voting…. First-past-the-post — every year we have questions. Is that the best system? There is no great way. We don't have the perfect way, but what we have has evolved for a long time. It is something that we need to defend.

We need to defend it here on this bill. We need to defend it every time that the government is not holding itself accountable; every time that we do not get an answer in question period, that we do not get an answer from this government; every time this government closes the doors of this Legislature.

I would hope that the people of B.C. realize that that is not the government they deserve, that the very underpinnings of their democratic system are being eroded, that they are moving towards an autocracy, and that is dangerous for the people of B.C., for our province and for our country.

As is clear, I'm not supporting this bill. I find it a bill that is dangerous, that is politically driven and fundamentally unnecessary.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

M. Mungall: It's my pleasure to rise in the House and put my views, as well as, I know, the people back in my riding, their views, on the record around this bill and what the bill attempts to do around the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act.

For the record, I want to state unequivocally that I am for rural representation. I believe in democracy, and I oppose gerrymandering. That's what this government
[ Page 1594 ]
is trying to do with this bill. It is trying to gerrymander electoral boundaries for its own political gain, and there is no way that I will rise and support that.

There is no way that I will be voting in favour of that, because it is wrong. It is wrong to play fast and loose with democracy. It is wrong to ignore basic democratic principles. It is wrong to think yourself above the law when you are, in fact, responsible for enforcing the law, for making the law.

That's exactly what this bill is about. No one with any good conscience who believes in democracy should be supporting this bill, much less putting it forward as legislation.

Let's talk about what this bill does. This bill seeks to ensure that certain ridings will always exist.

The Electoral Boundaries Commission is an independent body tasked with the responsibility of reviewing the boundaries independently, looking at the population and ensuring that representation by population — the cornerstone of what defines our electoral process — is upheld. But this act suggests that they shall not be doing that independently. Rather, they will be taking guidance from this government to protect 17 ridings from ever being changed. They are eight ridings in the North, five ridings in the Cariboo-Thompson area and the four ridings in the Kootenay region.

[1605]

The government claims that this about protecting rural representation, but it is not. The discussion between protecting rural representation and balancing representation by population…. We know that we have dispersed populations in our rural areas compared to our urban areas. The discussion of protecting the balance between those two — rep by pop, rep by region; a Canadian tradition, a Canadian convention — is done between the public and the electoral commission. It is not done between the government of the day and the electoral commission, because the government of the day is inherently in conflict of interest.

When a government interferes with the drawing of electoral boundaries, it is well known, well called, gerrymandering. That is what is taking place with this bill. The government of the day, no matter which political party it is, should never dictate these types of directions to an electoral boundary commission. They should not be doing it, and the fact that it is happening by this Liberal government is reprehensible, but it is indicative of their approach to the democratic process of this House. If they had more respect for democracy in this province, we wouldn't have a 200-day lapse from sitting in this place and doing the people's work.

What would these ridings look like? Well, if this bill is enacted — and I hope to goodness that the Liberal government sees the light of day and decides to get on the side of democracy — these proposals will mean that the average population for these 17 ridings will be 35,600. The average population for the other ridings will be 55,800.

In these protected ridings, in these ridings singled out by the Liberals for their political gain…. And make no mistake. The majority of the 17 ridings that they have singled out, they presently hold. Those ridings would have 1.5 times the votes of the other ridings in British Columbia — 1½. The votes in those ridings would be weighted 1½ times more than votes in other ridings.

This is precisely why the Supreme Court of Canada has been clear and has provided guidance to electoral boundary commissions of how to look at the balance between rep by population and representation by region. The direction is there from the Supreme Court.

I've heard other members talk about how they are not a constitutional lawyer, yet they still support this bill. They wonder if a constitutional lawyer exists in this House. It does. I'm fortunate to sit right next to a constitutional lawyer, the member for Vancouver–Point Grey. But don't take the opposition's word for it that this is going to evoke a constitutional challenge. Talk to constitutional lawyers yourselves.

Look at the decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada, the directions that they have provided to electoral boundary commissions that deviations from the median, from the average number of voters in an electoral district, can only be plus or minus 25 percent. The average deviation in these 17 ridings? We're looking at 31 percent. That's a substantial increase from the direction given by our Supreme Court, by the people who are charged with implementing and interpreting the law of the land, the law that we are supposed to uphold in this House.

[1610]

So the very problems of this bill go to the core of our democracy. It is shameful that that's where things are at, that the governing party of the day has gone to these types of lengths to gerrymander electoral boundaries for its own political gain, and they say it's about rural representation.

Another member of this House was earlier talking about how if this government really believed in rural representation, we would see a much different picture of rural life in our rural communities.

My own rural community, Nelson-Creston. In the time that the Liberals have been in government, we have lost health care services at Kootenay Lake Hospital, at Creston Valley Hospital. Last week we got an announcement from the Interior Health Authority that Kaslo ER is no longer going to be 24-7. After the community has fought so hard, has worked so hard to keep that ER, it's just not possible to sustain it, putting people throughout a region that's two hours away from the next emergency room on a Saturday evening out of a local emergency room.

Cuts to conservation officers. We have the lowest number of conservation officers yet the largest geographic
[ Page 1595 ]
area, when you think about the mountainous terrain. If they cared about rural areas, we would have a greater number of conservation officers — easily, we would.

Closed schools in my area. Collapse of a forestry industry. Meanwhile, this government offers nothing but talk.

Cuts to agriculture. And now the ALR and the Agricultural Land Commission is under threat because of the core review. Not acceptable to the Creston Valley. Not acceptable.

Cuts to employment programs. How are people in my area going to get the jobs that they need if they can't even get the help to get the jobs because this government is cutting?

Let's not even get started on Jumbo Glacier resort. This government is so disrespectful of democracy that they created a fake municipality without a single resident to usher in a ski resort that nobody — nobody except for the Minister of Energy and Mines — wants in that area.

This is unconstitutional legislation. There is no way that anybody who believes in democracy should support this legislation. I will absolutely not be supporting it. I believe in rural representation, and I believe that my constituents have the right to have that discussion with the Electoral Boundaries Commission and not be told what they ought to do by this Liberal government.

V. Huntington: Our gift of democracy, as the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke has called our fragile system, is the result of 1,000 years of blood, sweat and struggle; 1,000 years to achieve a parliamentary system and a judicial system that evolves slowly and methodically for the better. That is the gift we in this House represent and should protect.

It is how we respect this gift of democracy that should be central to every decision made in the place, and it amazes me how seldom that happens — how seldom the government moves to enrich this democracy of ours and how often, in fact, it moves to ensure its own benefit rather than the benefit of the people and their love of democracy.

As is so often the case in what should be reflected in a non-partisan manner, the government instead manages to provoke distrust and bias with a bill that, on the one hand, protects citizens and ridings but, on the other hand, provokes comments of old-fashioned gerrymandering and government political advantage.

Bill 2 creates a conundrum for members of this House. Our instinct is the age-old mantra of representation by population, but the realities of this great big wonderful province of ours make rep by pop essentially impossible.

[1615]

I think we see an appreciation in this House and elsewhere in the country for the need to protect the stability of rural ridings. I know I don't want to see more ridings, nor fewer ridings, and I don't think the people have an appetite for that kind of change.

Increasing the seats in this House is an expensive proposition, especially when one recognizes that without a self-imposed limit, we will eventually have to bear the cost of not only further renovation but also the likelihood of a new assembly hall itself. The dollars would be prohibitive and would not be supported by the voters of British Columbia.

So we need to examine new ways to do our business — be in front of the curve, so to speak. How do we best represent our ridings in the face of both the growing urban population and a desire to stabilize the rural ridings of the province? But neither this bill nor the budget pay attention to how we can remain effective as representatives.

There is a way through the conundrum, and it is offered by the Charter of Rights itself. The Charter right to vote is a right to effective representation but not necessarily the right to equality of voting power. That definition of our right to vote can also be a redefinition of how we adequately represent the voters, especially in urban areas. Perhaps if this bill had considered that, it might not face a potential legal challenge.

There are two ways to approach the question. One is a discussion of how to ensure effective representation by a member of the assembly. The second is to continue the struggle to reform the procedures of this House so that individual members can speak truth to the public interest and their constituent expectations.

First, I believe representation in the urban ridings will come to require a new level of funding for the urban member. Many members will share the reality that our constituency offices are busy, too busy in many cases. Our constituency assistants are flooded with casework. They are awash in e-mails and phone calls. They spend hours meeting with constituents who need to meet them on a personal basis. They attend meetings on behalf of their member.

My assistants arrive early in the day and seldom leave the office before 5:30 or six. Then there are the demands on the MLAs themselves when they are back in the riding offices.

How will we possibly manage as the urban population continues to grow? The answer is: we simply won't. And if we aren't going to increase the numbers of representatives, then we have to make it possible to effectively represent the increasing numbers of voters in our ridings. That will eventually mean the additional resources — larger budgets for the existing urban constituency operations.

Urban MLAs will need larger staffs, larger offices. We will likely need two offices in order that all the voters can substantially have equal access to the services of the member. In the absence of adding more members, there is no other way to go but to add to resources of the existing urban jurisdictions. It will be cheaper than adding new members. It will keep the assembly to a manage-
[ Page 1596 ]
able size and will avoid the eventual need to replace the buildings themselves.

The reality is that effective representation will require additional resources for the representatives. Otherwise, representation will become a thing of the past — an impossibility to achieve, no matter what the will of the member and his or her staff might be. The workload will make it impossible to effectively represent anyone.

I believe this is a concern that members must meet head-on and must resolve. If financial realities and existing space are going to interfere with the quality of representation that the voter deserves and expects, then our challenge is to tackle the problem. I urge the Speaker to consider how this House should prepare itself to respond to this issue.

Of course, effective representation means more than satisfying numbers. It means having the ability in this building to represent the people who voted for you. It means demanding a system that responds to the requirements of effective representation. The question is how British Columbians can have effective representation when they are represented by individuals who won't or can't speak for their interests.

As we look to reforming the manner in which urban ridings are funded, we should also be looking to reform the Legislature to ensure our members can be effective in this place.

We must improve the independence and effectiveness of the committee system. We should have a right to free votes without fear of repercussion. We need to move the election date so we don't waste time talking about budgets that will never be. We need to refer bills to committee before the vote in order that they benefit from questions and improvements. There is so much we could do if we put our minds to it.

[1620]

Effective representation is the foundation of our democracy. It is the duty of this House. We must do everything we can to not only ensure our very reason for being is sustained in the coming world but also to ensure that the voters of this province receive the quality of elected representation they deserve.

D. Eby: It's a privilege to rise in this House to defend the independence of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, a commission that was established by a Social Credit government, defended by a former Attorney General of the B.C. Liberal Party, defended by members of the NDP caucus, when it was first established, and that has a long tradition of non-partisan support.

The reason for the non-partisan support of the independence of the Electoral Boundaries Commission is obvious. If it's not obvious, don't take my words for it. I will quote from Geoff Plant, who was Attorney General for the B.C. Liberals, when he was speaking in 1998, talking about the importance of the commission.

"The truth is that when it comes to fixing electoral boundaries, our political history is colourful, at times, and less than truly principled or fair or full of integrity, at times. The 1989 statute represented a significant change in approach to the way in which electoral boundaries are to be established, in an attempt to move beyond that checkered past and to ensure that electoral boundaries could be established in a way that was, to the greatest extent possible, free of partisan…interests. To that end, this statute, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, establishes a process for appointing commissioners which ensures — again, to the greatest extent possible — that the commissioners appointed are tasked to carry out their duties in a way that will be free of partisan interest and will be truly independent. But to say that the commission is independent is not even to begin to suggest that the task that they face is an easy one."

Those words from the former Attorney General of the B.C. Liberals are especially fitting in this debate, because the piece of legislation that's in front of us proposes to remove authority from the independent Electoral Boundaries Commission.

I've heard many members. I'm going to start by not only agreeing with a former Attorney General of the B.C. Liberals; I'm going to agree with many of the things that were said on the other side of the House today.

First of all, I agree that we should be limited to 85 members in this Legislature. I think that's a good decision. I don't think people are asking for more politicians. It's a sound decision.

The second thing I'm going to agree with…. I heard many compelling arguments. I heard the member for Kootenay East. I heard members from Prince George tell stories. I agree that in Vancouver–Point Grey it is a very different experience representing that constituency than it is representing the constituencies in Prince George, Kootenay East, Nelson-Creston, Columbia River–Revelstoke. I heard that in gumboots, I can walk across my constituency and see my constituents relatively easily. We have transit. We have high-speed Internet. We have cell phones. We have a number of advantages that make life easier.

The strong and compelling arguments that were made on the other side of this House are arguments that shouldn't be made in terms of removing the independence of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. These are arguments that need to be made in front of an independent Electoral Boundaries Commission that is charged with, I believe, the non-partisan principles that this Legislature agrees are important.

The commission should be able to look at questions of: how long does it takes to travel across your constituency? How difficult is it for constituents to come to your office? What are the challenges you face as an MLA? That is the purpose that the commission was set up for.

[1625]

Mr. Plant says it better than I do.

"We are a geographically diverse province. The statute that we enacted in this Legislature ten years ago, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, requires that the commission regard as imperatives the things which the statute calls 'geographical and demographic realities, the legacy of our history and the need to balance
[ Page 1597 ]
the community interests of the people of British Columbia.'"

The statute goes onto in even further detail in setting out a formula for ensuring that those principles can all be accommodated in a way that respects the basic constitutional requirement that all of us in this democracy have a meaningful, effective right of voting.

I think the history around this is helpful. The reason why I think the history around this is helpful is because there has been a non-partisan consensus that there was a problem before the establishment of the independent Boundaries Commission. There was a problem which that commission was intended to address. We are not unique in having an independent Boundaries Commission. Commissions exist all across the Commonwealth.

I've already spoken about Mr. Plant's support for this on behalf of the B.C. Liberal Party. In 1989 when the Social Credit government introduced the commission, there was a rare moment — maybe not so rare at the time but certainly now a rare moment — of cross-partisan agreement that this was a good idea.

At the time Mr. Gabelmann, who was an NDP member in opposition to the Social Credit government of the day, said in relation to the Electoral Boundaries Commission bill that was proposed that year:

"I want to say on behalf of the opposition that in continuing the debate on Bill 87 we are in the middle of what I consider an historic occasion. We have had in British Columbia a history of dubious electoral boundary changes over the years and proposals for changes that I think any fair commentator would say have left a less than decent taste in people's mouths.

"I don't intend to trace the history of gerrymanders and fingers and other activities over decades past, because first of all it would take a long time, and second, I don't remember them all. Thirdly, I'm not old enough to be able to do that history in a comprehensive way. But most importantly, we really are at a significant change, and there's no point now in going back over the bad old days."

Here's the killer line.

"This is good stuff and it needs to be said clearly and unmistakably: this is good legislation."

Now, you can probably count on one hand the number of times that the NDP stood up in the Social Credit government in 1989 and said: "This is good legislation." That happened in relation to the independent Electoral Boundaries Commission. In the '80s — Social Credit, NDP, B.C. Liberals — in the '90s and the 2000s everybody agreed: an independent Electoral Boundaries Commission was critical.

This legislation proposes to take away authority from this commission. It doesn't propose to reweight the principles by which the commission reaches its conclusions or to change the formula by which the independent commission looks at the constituencies or takes into account things that I heard today from the other side of the House — high-speed Internet, cell phones, and so on.

This proposes to carve out constituencies chosen by the government, selected by them, and to tell the commission that they have no authority to look at those constituencies. It may well be that the independent commission would listen to the arguments of my friends and say: "Hey, great argument. Those are the 17. We agree." But it may well be that it wouldn't be the case at all.

I think that the important piece of it, the critical piece of it, is that it's independent, that it is beyond question and that it preserves public confidence in our democracy.

I think it's helpful — because I do think there are some misunderstandings, listening to my colleagues on the other side of the Legislature speaking about this bill — about what the actual act says that this piece of legislation proposes to modify.

The Electoral Boundaries Commission Act in Section 9 says that it's very clear what the commission must take into consideration in its deliberations. It says that in determining the area to be included in a boundary, it must consider "the imperatives imposed by geographical and demographic realities, the legacy of our history and the need to balance the community interests of the people of B.C."

[1630]

That's something I heard on the other side of the Legislature. I heard it on this side of the Legislature today — people standing up, talking about the community history in their constituencies, the need for rural representation. The commission is mandated by the act to consider those things.

If the other side of the Legislature argues, "No, this is not adequate. The commission won't get it. They won't understand it. They won't adequately consider it," then it is certainly open to this government to propose a formula that the commission should be looking at, instead of saying: "You must carve out these constituencies." I think that that is the important….

I heard a lot of talk about principles today — that this side has this principle and that side…. The critical principle of the independence of this commission is just that — that it is independent to make the decision based on the evidence that is in front of it, coming from MLAs, coming from constituents, as we heard today. I would expect and I would hope that every MLA would be in front of that commission, fighting to make sure that their constituents have as much voice as possible in this Legislature, because what we do here matters.

It is profoundly ironic to hear this government, which shut this place for 200 days, argue for the importance of representation for people in this House. There is a profound irony in that. There's also an irony, I believe, that we heard many people on the other side of this House arguing about the priority that should be placed on rural constituencies, when it was this government that is closing schools, hospitals, courts, critical services.

It was just this morning, as a matter of fact, that our side of the House was arguing for better transportation on Highway 16, the Highway of Tears. It was just this morning that the other side of the House stood up and refused to consider that and refused to fund a central
[ Page 1598 ]
transit. So it is ironic to hear this government stand up and justify this legislation because of inadequate transit.

One of the comments that was particularly astounding to me was this government that has failed to provide high-speed Internet and a cyberbackbone for rural British Columbia standing up and using that failure to justify this legislation. Imagine that.

There are a number of critical considerations in front of the commission when evaluating the ability of any MLA to represent their constituency, and I think that those are appropriate considerations — transportation links that are available in the community, community and regional boundaries, the distance required to travel.

There are also ways to ameliorate some of the concerns that my friends raised across the Legislature: additional travel allowances for rural MLAs; allowances for multiple constituency offices for rural MLAs; allowances for increased staffing to make it possible for MLAs to represent what are, admittedly, very challenging constituencies to represent.

I know that when I travelled to visit rural colleges in the north and in the interior of B.C., I heard from the presidents of those schools the challenges that they face as a rural school, compared with a school like Douglas or Langara, in providing those essential services — because of the costs of heating, because of the distance travelled by students, maintaining many small campuses in rural communities.

The issue is the exact same here. I value and I encourage rural MLAs to make those representations to the Electoral Boundaries Commission. I am sure that this side of the House would welcome a dialogue about the mandate given to that commission in terms what it should and shouldn't be considering. I can tell you that when it comes to the principles set out by Mr. Plant in 1998, they're just as true today as they were in 1998.

You heard the concerns from members on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, about particular selections of particular seats that are very similar to seats that aren't protected, that happen to be seats held by Liberal MLAs. I heard the outrage on the other side of the House when that was suggested: "How dare you say we're interfering." But the perception will be there.

[1635]

Even if the other side of the House believes that their decisions are grounded in the most principled way possible, by pulling those seats out of the independent commission and putting them into the exclusive decision-making power of the government, the perception will be there that that is done for political benefit. That is a well-grounded belief in the history of British Columbia, and it is the exact reason why an independent boundaries commission was established.

I point out, in section 9 of the existing act that this legislation proposes to modify, another consideration that the commission is asked to consider. For the purpose of proposals around electoral boundaries, section 9(2), the commission must take into account the following: "geographic and demographic considerations, including the sparsity, density or rate of growth of the population of any part of British Columbia and the accessibility, size or physical configuration of any part of British Columbia."

These are commonsense considerations. Subsection (b) — and these were arguments raised on the other side of the Legislature today: "the availability of means of communication and transportation between various parts of British Columbia." So the very arguments which were raised on the other side of the Legislature.

Not only can the commission consider these things; the commission must. The commission is mandated by the existing legislation to take into consideration every one of those factors. But the difference between the bill that's on the table today and the legislation that already exists is that the bill that's proposed takes the authority away from the independent commission and hands it over to the government.

I did note something, in looking at the quotes that supported the independence of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, and that's that NDP and Liberal — both — quotes were coming from opposition benches supporting the Electoral Boundaries Commission and its independence.

I think there's a reason for that. I do. I think that the principle may be easier to see when you're sitting in opposition, but most parties don't sit in opposition all the time. In fact, we trade back and forth, despite the protests on the other side of the House that that may not be the case.

I think that all of us, knowing that we will sit on both sides of this House, will recognize the importance of principle in setting boundaries and the challenge that that represents to us to talk to our constituents about. No question but that the principle is essential to protect our democracy and to protect the perceptions that our democracy is independent and free from interference.

I'm going to close with a quote from the Supreme Court of Canada, from Chief Justice McLachlin, where she said: "Viewed in its textual context, the right to vote and participate in the democratic election of one's government is one of the most fundamental of the Charter rights. For without the right to vote in free and fair elections, all other rights would be in jeopardy."

This legislation threatens a critical institution, a principled institution that was agreed to by the B.C. Liberal government, by the B.C. NDP government, by the B.C. Liberal opposition, by the B.C. NDP opposition, by the Socred governments, and only today are we looking at dismantling this critical institution. That is why I will not be supporting this bill, and that is why I will be standing up to defend the independence of this commission and the right of every MLA to make arguments for the representation of their constituents in the way that is most
[ Page 1599 ]
appropriate.

M. Elmore: I'm very pleased to rise and speak to Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2014. I rise to speak against it, and I'll be outlining a number of concerns that we've heard echoed from a number of my colleagues.

[1640]

Just to contextualize my comments with respect to the bill that we are discussing, the electoral boundary redistribution process, we are thrust into that every eight years. The history has been that it has actually been a genuinely independent commission that reviews the riding boundaries, and also names, in B.C. The purpose is to ensure that riding boundaries keep pace with population changes.

Certainly, we know that every year, into British Columbia, we have an additional 35,000 to 40,000 permanent residents. That's every year, nearly. It's close to the current average of an electoral district, a provincial constituency and, accompanied by that, a larger number as well as other folks who come in under temporary status.

It's recognized that since the Legislature first sat, there has been a continued expansion of seats to where we are now at 85 seats. It's been a practice that the Legislative Assembly reviews the commission's proposals, and we take a vote to approve them, reject them or make alterations. At that point we have that final decision coming from the independent commission, which is adopted as a bill in this House.

Next year the Electoral Boundaries Commission will be appointed to come out with a report and will be discussing the recommendations that come out in terms of looking at either changing boundaries or making changes to our current 85 seats that we have.

In terms of the principles of establishing, assessing and making recommendations in terms of appropriate boundaries, looking at the fundamental balance between representation by population and taking into consideration representation by geographic area, British Columbia is faced with a unique challenge — a challenge not unlike that seen across Canada and also in other industrialized countries, where we're seeing an increasing number of the population being concentrated around the large urban centres. So there's a need to balance those aspects.

When I was elected in Vancouver-Kensington…. This is now my second term. Vancouver-Kensington, as an electoral district, was created in 1991, so certainly a response to the growth within Metro Vancouver. We see, going forward, that there's the challenge of dealing with the concentration of growth, particularly in Metro Vancouver, but also of looking to balance the principle of adequate representation right across the province.

In terms of going forward now into this next Electoral Boundaries Commission, it seemed…. I guess eight years are flying by. It was just in 2005 when the boundaries were last amended. Going forward, one of the most important….

Besides, I think there's no dispute from either side of the House or from any elected MLA about the importance of those fundamental principles — wanting to ensure that British Columbians are adequately represented, that they have an equal voice and that those decisions are matched in terms of balancing geographic and population considerations.

Within the last redistribution process there was the recognition that generally within plus or minus 25 percent of population over the norm — more than 25 percent or less than 25 percent — was the aim, to try and take in the scope and to adjust to some of those challenges that we face in British Columbia.

[1645]

We see some areas that are close to the size of France and small countries that MLAs represent, contrasted to my constituency that I represent, Vancouver-Kensington. I can walk across Kensington, my area, go from end to end in a nice afternoon stroll, and it takes some of my colleagues about 20 hours driving straight to transverse their whole constituency. Certainly, those are challenges.

In terms of the current mandate to review the electoral boundaries…. I want to emphasize the important principle, also, of the independence of the Electoral Boundaries Commission before I get into some other points. I think this is a key issue and a key concern and something that the government should listen to and consider seriously and also change.

I think they're headed in the wrong direction, going down the wrong route in terms of ensuring that British Columbians can be assured that the process around determining any current changes to our electoral boundaries is not only free from interference but also seen to be free from interference and also gives that assurance.

I'm concerned, too, that this bill we have before us calls into question and undermines the independence, the perceived independence, of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. The provision to exempt 17 out of 85 ridings, a full 20 percent of ridings, in British Columbia from the purview and to dictate, basically, to the Electoral Boundaries Commission that these constituencies, 20 percent, are not subject to completely independent recommendations from the commission I think is a fundamental challenge for us here, for our Legislature, and also casts doubt on this process.

The claim I also want to address, in terms of the rationale for making this claim that's in Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission, is the need to exempt 17 ridings. Both sides of the House agree, and I also agree, on the need to balance our concerns around geographic and representation by population. But I also have to question the inclusion of a number of ridings that have been included under the 17 that are classified as rural but that don't quite meet my expectations of a rural constituency.
[ Page 1600 ]

When we look at and identify, for example, the two ridings in Prince George or in Kamloops, certainly they're in the Interior, but I don't think that they meet the measure of being classified as a…. I don't know. Maybe it's a generous definition in terms of rural.

So you contrast that in terms of the inclusion of those ridings and the exclusion of others that cover a wider geographic area, but those have been excluded. For example, North Island and the Sunshine Coast have been excluded. The inconsistency of the application of that 20 percent exemption under Bill 2 really highlights that discord, and it also calls into question the genuine independence. The selection of those ridings doesn't match up in terms of really making that argument or making that case fully.

[1650]

It's not convincing to me, and I don't think, on the face of it, that it will convince British Columbians in terms of the rationale for that designation. It's quite a significant, I think, departure in this bill — excluding that 20 percent. It's quite a departure from the conduct and the genuine independence of previous electoral boundaries commissions in looking at redefining and making changes to boundaries. Certainly, we see a departure from previous conduct in how these commissions were carried out. That raises questions.

Also, isolating these regions, besides the selection of the specific ridings that are included in the 17 and exempt, as the 20 percent, from the independent recommendations of the commission…. Besides those specific ridings, in the selection of the regions, there's that inconsistency in terms of how that is applied.

When we look at the bill, as well, some of the other questions are raised with this, it seems, unequal application of the selection process to include which ridings would be examined. The identification of specific regions but not other ridings, for example, that would be characterized as a rural riding — that really calls into question this bill and, I think, also raises concerns in terms of the motive behind the bill. It really undermines the independence.

As well, I want to address the challenge…. In redefining boundaries, there is the pressing and challenging difficulty of ensuring geographic representation. I certainly understand that, having travelled across British Columbia with a number of MLAs on both sides of the House and visiting communities. It's important in terms of ensuring that constituents have access to their MLA and that service is provided — and also balancing that, on the other hand, with the pressure of the growing number of folks living in Metro Vancouver.

Certainly, Surrey is a measure of that, having seen the most growth. I think they have the highest per-capita representation in terms of population versus ratio to MLAs. Also, the growing sector out through Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, the Tri-Cities area — rapid growth. We're seeing that growth as well. I'm seeing it in my area, Vancouver-Kensington, in Vancouver — just more people moving into the region.

There's also the challenge in terms of addressing that and ensuring that the principles apply equally and that they're applied fairly. Look at not only geographic challenges but also representation by population to ensure that all voices are heard equally; that the diversity of voices and the diversity of concerns and perspectives are brought forward in this chamber, in our Legislature; and that that's reflected in the process we're going through with the redistribution of electoral boundaries.

I'm disappointed that Bill 2 just casts, I think, doubt on that process. Certainly, it casts doubt in terms of the genuine independence.

I also have concerns in terms of the constitutionality of these changes and that maybe the government isn't going to listen. I know that arguments have been raised in the House here by colleagues and, certainly, have solicited advice from other legal experts.

[1655]

That might not be the test. We may have to test it formally. That seems to be the pattern for this government in terms of legislation. But I just make that….

An Hon. Member: And not very successful.

M. Elmore: Right — and not very successful.

So maybe take some advice now, early on. Reconsider. That's my message in terms of concerns for this bill.

I know that a number of submissions were made. Input was made to the white paper and also with respect to a number of the key principles in the bill. Certainly, this bill doesn't reflect those majority submissions that were made. I think those questions will be raised across the province, and those concerns are also quite legitimate.

When we look at…. I'll be raising this and bringing forward and communicating to my constituents concerns that this raises. I think that we are united in the opposition in terms of our legitimate concerns with this bill and that there is cause for the government to give pause and reconsider the contents.

To conclude my statements and my position and my thoughts with respect to the problems and the difficulties in Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission, I think that it doesn't serve my constituents well. I don't think that it respects the process. I think it will be seen to undermine the independence of the Electoral Boundaries Commission and is, certainly, an unnecessary bill to really constrain the independence and the conduct of the Electoral Boundaries Commission.

I am going to take my seat and register my opposition to Bill 2. I look forward to listening to and hearing the very eloquent arguments from my colleagues, and I hope that the folks on the other side of the House can also reflect on the concerns that we raise about this bill.
[ Page 1601 ]

Hon. S. Bond: I appreciate the opportunity to speak to a piece of legislation that is absolutely critical to me and to the constituents I represent. There are very few things that I am as passionate about as ensuring that the constituents that I represent have the kind of representation that they need and deserve.

One of the things I want to clarify, because we've heard over and over…. We've been singling out Prince George, and I'm happy to single out Prince George any single day of the week. It's an incredible place to live and to work and to serve. But what I am going to do is point out to the members opposite that Prince George is part of a riding.

What I've heard is that Prince George is not rural. That's correct. Prince George is not rural, but the riding of Prince George–Valemount certainly is. In fact, let's look at some of the geographic attributes of the riding that I've been honoured to represent. This is my fourth term as the representative for that urban-rural riding.

[1700]

Prince George–Valemount — and only part of Prince George is captured in the Prince George–Valemount riding — is 31,000 square kilometres. Now, for anyone who knows geography, in fact it's bigger than Belgium, it's bigger than Massachusetts and it's bigger than New Jersey. If the members opposite need to understand why there's some passion behind our support for what is a defining moment, in my view, in this Legislature…. It is a defining moment that the government stands in this House and responds to what the Cohen commission said the last time we had a report.

The Cohen commission actually said this: "The issue of rural representation will not go away. It will only become more pronounced." And what was the advice of the Cohen commission at that time? It wasn't to sit, and let's just pretend we can deal with this every single time it comes up. The advice of the Cohen commission was this. They advised that the Legislative Assembly examine this issue before the appointment of the next commission. Well, it sounds to me like that's exactly what we did.

This is a government that went and looked at the issue of rural representation. It wasn't a surprise There was a white paper. There was a discussion about why it was important to preserve the right of those who choose to live in rural or remote parts of British Columbia to actually be protected. It's about reasonable and appropriate representation.

Let's talk about the areas of the province that are being protected. Once again, maybe we should hear the whole story. The last time the commission did its work, there were recommendations to reduce ridings in each one of these areas. I can tell you this: rarely have I seen the kind of passion and community members, to a voice, coming together in those parts of the province, lined up at microphones — and yes, I lined up too — to talk about the importance of preserving rural and northern ridings.

This today, the bill that's being presented…. I honestly have to say that I don't know how some rural MLAs will go home and be able to explain how they oppose the principles that would protect regions of British Columbia which, in the previous round of this, were at risk. In fact, in the Cohen commission's report it was very clear. "The issue of rural representation will not go away. It will only become more pronounced." Well, in fact, that's why British Columbians choose governments to make decisions.

I can assure you that members on this side of the House will stand with pride and enthusiasm to say that we actually recognize that when you talk about Prince George–Valemount, it is very disrespectful to ignore the fact that it is 31,000 square kilometres and that contained in that riding are communities of Dunster…. Dunster isn't an urban metropolis. Neither is Crescent Spur, neither is Valemount, and neither is McBride, British Columbia.

We've heard members talk about…. It's exaggerated to talk about the lack of effort when it comes to cell phone and the issue of having broadband and high-speed Internet. This government has invested and worked tirelessly to ensure that we are expanding Internet access and cell phone service.

Why is that relevant to this discussion? Because in the supposedly urban riding of Prince George–Valemount, you probably get about 20 minutes out of Prince George before you hit a long stretch of rural highway with zero cell phone coverage. Thankfully, we are now getting some hotspots, so if your vehicle goes off the road, there might be one spot or two along a two-hour stretch — hardly described as urban.

[1705]

This is about…. We in this House hear day after day about the need to serve persons with disabilities, to serve seniors, to serve people in British Columbia. Well, one of the things we need to do to preserve that service is to ensure that they have reasonable access to their elected officials. In my riding, when I start out at six in the morning to go 3½ hours to hold meetings in Valemount and then 3½ hours back, I work tirelessly to make sure that those constituents have reasonable and appropriate representation here in the Legislature.

The other aspect of this argument is the fact that what we have said to British Columbians is that we're going to cap the number of elected officials sitting in this building. I don't know about any other MLAs in this House, but I can't remember the last time anyone came running to my office saying: "Let's elect more politicians, let's spend more on their salaries, and let's put more of you in a seat in Victoria." I haven't heard that recently.

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: Member.
[ Page 1602 ]

Hon. S. Bond: Mr. Speaker, what matters here is that this government has said clearly that we are prepared to stand up in this Legislature, with this bill, and say to those parts of the province which were at risk under the last commission…. In fact, the Cohen commission said that there needs to be work done on this before the appointment of the next commission because, and I will repeat once again: "The issue of rural representation will not go away. It will only become more pronounced."

The people who live in Prince George–Valemount…. I am very, very proud of the fact that it is a rural-urban riding. It's not about Prince George proper. It's about all of those communities that surround it, which deserve the kinds of representation that allow them to have adequate access. There are issues with regard to transportation, with regard to communication, with regard to connectivity. All of those things make a difference.

Today we simply say this: we are prepared to stand up and say that those constituents, those British Columbians, matter. They matter. It's important, and it is a defining moment. It's a government that's prepared to say: "This is what we're going to do, and we're prepared to stand and support it."

I can hardly wait to hear some of the stories…. The last time we went through this and ridings were at risk, those of us who were in that position didn't just hear from British Columbians in Prince George–Valemount. We heard from British Columbians across the province that said: "It is an important principle."

It is about balance. It is about finding a way to deal with large, growing populations to make sure that they have adequate representation as well. That's what this place is about. It's about the opportunity for government to stand up and to say to rural and northern British Columbia: "We support you. We are going to preserve your representation." In fact, from my perspective, it is absolutely critical.

There are few things, as I said earlier, that I care about more than ensuring that if you live in Dunster, British Columbia, you know who your MLA is and that you can access that person and you can expect to do that in a reasonable and appropriate way.

To see a larger geographic area represented by fewer MLAs…. We've said clearly that this is a principle. We are prepared to stand up in this Legislature, and we are prepared to respond to the Cohen commission.

There is another side of this. British Columbians gave us a mandate. They said: "We want to you grow the economy, and we want you not to grow the size of government." So they expect us to look after things like balancing the budget, making sure we are investing valuable taxpayer dollars appropriately, and we need to make sure that they're invested where they're needed most. That mandate was given to us, and we are going to deliver on that.

But as I said earlier, one of the things that nobody is rushing to us to say is: "Let's spend more money on politicians. Let's make sure we have more salaries, more benefits, support staff and pensions." I don't see anyone lining up, asking us to do that.

[1710]

They gave us a mandate to represent the interests of all British Columbians — rural and urban, north, south, large community or small community. That's why this bill is so important.

I can assure you that when I go home I'm going to hear from my constituents about how important this piece of legislation is. We faced this, the previous round, as did other regions of the province. As I said to you earlier, there was more passion about this issue and it engaged British Columbians and, particularly, northern British Columbians in a way that I have seen on very few other issues.

In fact, we look forward to supporting this bill. I look forward to supporting it enthusiastically. I also look forward to the feedback that other rural and northern MLAs are going to get when they get home. I can tell you, whether it is Smithers or Telkwa or Houston or Vanderhoof or Burns Lake — all of those northern ridings, represented potentially by a member opposite — I know they're going to feel very strongly about preserving their representation.

I look forward to hearing the feedback. I can assure you that the members opposite are going to hear it too, particularly in those areas where, in the last process, there was unprecedented engagement. Mayors, councillors, constituents lined up at microphones saying: "Preserve the number of ridings in northern British Columbia. We deserve adequate, appropriate and complete representation."

That's exactly what this bill does. This side of the House is excited about the opportunity to send a message to northern British Columbia that we understand it. In fact, perhaps the reason the members opposite are a little bit sensitive about this is that their leader, during the campaign, did not go beyond Prince George — not one visit to northern British Columbia.

Northerners have not forgotten that. They have not forgotten that, and I can assure you they will not forget the fact that this government stood up for northern and rural ridings across British Columbia. That will be something the electorate will remember.

S. Simpson: I'm pleased to take the opportunity to take my place to respond in second reading to Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, 2014.

For people to understand what this legislation does, you need to understand a little bit about how we make the decisions about representation, about boundaries, about how these things work to create this place and create the space for the 85 of us to come together as legislators.

We appoint an Electoral Boundaries Commission.
[ Page 1603 ]
That commission is appointed every couple of terms. It's appointed with a current or a retired Supreme Court or Appeal Court justice; a representative from the Speaker, appointed by the Speaker; and the Chief Electoral Officer.

They form this commission. It's an independent commission. It's a commission that is beholden politically to nobody. That commission goes out, and it determines a number of things.

Historically, it determines the number of seats — whether you change the number of seats in the Legislature. It also determines the boundaries of constituencies and, in that sense, of representation. It considers a whole range of criteria in doing that and in making those decisions.

It's an independent body. It takes about a year of time to do its work and to produce a report that comes back to the Legislature. We get to deal with that report here in the Legislature, deciding whether to accept that report, reject it or propose an amendment to it. That's the process that has historically been used.

What Bill 2 does is change that process in a couple of ways. The first thing it does is it freezes the number of seats at 85 seats.

[1715]

I would say at the outset that that's a decision…. I would agree with the Jobs Minister when she says that there's nobody clamouring in this province to create more politicians in the Legislature. I think that's true. As our critic the member for Nanaimo said, we'd be happy to endorse that in a minute.

Of course, if the Justice Minister wanted to amend this bill and drop the rest of it and just say we're freezing at 85 seats and go to work, we'd have a unanimous vote in this House tomorrow to support that decision — that we would freeze at 85 seats and tell the commission to go and do its work within the context of 85 seats. That's not the question here.

The other thing that the legislation does is it essentially red-circles a number of regions of the province. What it does is it takes 17 seats, 20 percent of the members in this House, 20 percent of the MLAs, and red-circles their constituencies.

In the Cariboo-Thompson region it takes Cariboo North, Cariboo-Chilcotin, Fraser-Nicola, Kamloops–North Thompson and Kamloops–South Thompson. In the Columbia-Kootenay region, Columbia River–Revelstoke, Kootenay West, Nelson-Creston and Kootenay East. In the north region, North Coast, Skeena, Stikine, Peace River North, Peace River South, Prince George–Mackenzie, Prince George–Valemount and Nechako Lakes.

It red-circles these 17 constituencies. What it says is you can shift the boundaries around but you can't change the number of constituencies. Those 17 will in essence be protected. That's what the legislation will tell the commission it has to do.

In doing that, of course, it limits and fundamentally changes the role of the commission. To understand that when it says that to the commission and then says for the other seats that are in the province, the other 68 seats that are here, in fact looking at boundaries and that is important. It will shift the representation among those other 68 seats. It may mean….

We know we have areas that are fast-growing, whether it be in the suburbs, in the Lower Mainland, in the Surreys and the Abbotsfords and those areas, possibly in the Okanagan. Those areas are growing. They may, in fact, warrant another seat here or there when you look at those 68 seats. If that happens, then those seats will come from elsewhere in the province. So that's the position.

Why is it that this side of the House is saying that this is a mistake? Why is it that we're saying this is a mistake? Well, there are a number of reasons. The first one is: you put the commission in place to do its work, and that's what we should be doing. By putting the commission in place, you take away any of the politics around it and the politics around how you make these decisions.

I heard the Minister of Jobs get up and make an impassioned representation around her constituency, Prince George–Valemount, and talking about the challenges of representation. I absolutely accept all of the things that the minister said about the complexity and the commitment around effectiveness and access and accessibility to your representative. That holds true in a lot of constituencies in the province.

The decision, though, to arbitrarily take 17 of those constituencies and say those are the ones — it raises questions. There are other members….

In the same way that the minister would say that, I might make the argument to say that absolutely, Prince George–Valemount is a challenging constituency to represent, or Prince George–Mackenzie is challenging, or the two Kamloops constituencies are challenging constituencies to represent. But are they more challenging than North Island, with the complexities there? Are they more challenging than Powell River–Sunshine Coast or Alberni–Pacific Rim?

I think in terms of the ability to access your MLA, your elected representative, the ability of the MLA to get around the constituency in an efficient way, there's an argument to be made. But the reality is that it shouldn't be us in this place who are saying we choose these ones over those ones. That's the problem here: the arbitrariness of one side of this Legislature, the government side, deciding to red-circle 17 seats.

That's why when the word "gerrymander" comes out, it resonates. It resonates because we are talking about one side, the government side, making arbitrary decisions about protecting constituencies.

[1720]

It's absolutely appropriate for this Legislature to make the case to the commission and for every member in
[ Page 1604 ]
this Legislature to go in front of that commission when it comes to your community and make the case about the need for effective representation and the need about access and make the case for your constituents to have the representation you believe they should have. It does not make sense to make that decision in an arbitrary way in this place. I expect every member of the Legislature will go and have some conversation or some correspondence with that commission.

When you look at what the rules are today, there are constituencies over and above the 25 percent. As you'll know, the rule generally is that no constituency should go more than 25 percent over or 25 percent under the average across the province, but there's no doubt there are exceptions. The courts have acknowledged the exceptions. They have made the case that, yes, there are times when that makes sense.

I absolutely embrace that, but that's a decision for the commission to make. That's a decision for the commission to bring back here for us to consider. It's not something for us to decide here and direct them, if they truly are to be an independent commission. But that's not what's happening here, so we have this challenge related to that.

Now, the case has also been made, of course, about the legality of doing this. I don't know that — I'm no lawyer — but I know that there are constitutional issues here. We know that there have been decisions in the court before around these things. We know among other things that there are a couple of decisions.

There certainly was Dixon v. British Columbia in 1989, which set much of the standard. Then, of course, there was the Saskatchewan reference in '91. Interestingly, when the court spoke about that, in the Saskatchewan situation, the Supreme Court of Canada talked about effective representation and the obligation to have effective representation.

That is about access, and it is about what that looks like. That should be the discussion that we're having in front of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, and we should be re-emphasizing to the Boundaries Commission that that's the obligation. It's not to red-circle 17 constituencies broadly across three regions of the province and say, "They are all protected," without much sense of what the thought is that went into this. But that's not what we're doing here.

The other thing that it said. When it talked about this in the Saskatchewan reference, it said that voter parity may be justified if they were based on factors such as "geography, community history, community interests and minority representation." It affirmed Dixon when stating that deviations should only be admitted if they could be justified.

That's a good practice. But what that means isn't to take a broad brush and stroke it across three regions and 17 constituencies. It's to look constituency by constituency. It's to look at the unique nature of every constituency, to allow the people in those constituencies to have a discussion with the commission and to look to see if there is a clear rationale for why those constituencies need to be protected, need to be adjusted, need to be changed.

There are places where we know that that argument will hold up and it'll hold up strongly. For other places, maybe it doesn't. The reality, though, I think is that…. I believe every member in this House, regardless of side, would like to have effective representation for all British Columbians.

I believe every member in this House believes that we all know the challenges of representation. They are different. Whether it's urban or rural or northern, we all have our own challenges, and they're different challenges. They challenge our ability to be effective. They challenge our constituents' ability to access us. We all are aware, I believe, pretty keenly of what that looks like.

[1725]

We also sit in caucuses which are diverse, and both caucuses have representatives from across the province. We have these discussions, and we all begin to understand, over time and over the years here, the challenges and complexities of different regions.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

It is that dialogue within our caucuses and that dialogue in this place that helps us understand that we need to have a global perspective on the province when we make these decisions.

Because of that, I am convinced that every member in this House is pretty keenly aware of the challenges that our rural and northern representatives have, the complexity they face in doing the job that they do to serve their constituents, the challenges that their constituents have to access them. We need to resolve those questions or improve those questions. But we don't do that in this way; we do that with a much more thoughtful discussion.

The Minister of Jobs talked about the Cohen commission and what the Cohen commission recommended. Well, there was lots of opportunity since the time the Cohen commission reported for the government of the day, the B.C. Liberals, to have said: "We're going to get our head around this issue before we get to appointing another commission."

They certainly could have engaged thoughtful and intelligent people and said: "We want you to go and take this issue on. Come back to the Legislature and tell us how we meet this challenge that faces British Columbia and faces every jurisdiction in this country."

People are flocking to the more urban areas. You are seeing a greater disparity in terms of population numbers. If you go strictly rep by pop, that creates real challenges, no doubt, and you have to address those challenges — but at the same time, some recognition of the need of fairness
[ Page 1605 ]
in the solution that we find.

We have this situation, though, where instead of doing that — instead of the government in fact appointing some intelligent, smart, thoughtful people to do that work and come back with some advice — we have what we saw with Bill 2.

As we know, of course, we have what happened with Bill 2. We know that most of the people who spoke to this bill didn't believe that it met the needs of the province of British Columbia, didn't believe that it achieved the objectives that we would all want around effective and accessible representation for all British Columbians. We have this situation instead where we have this bill that presumably will pass.

Now, there are questions again. We talked about what the courts said a little bit — about the Dixon decision and about the Saskatchewan reference. There's a case to be made.

Our critic, the member for Nanaimo, spoke about this a little bit — that this decision, this legislation, should it pass, is as likely as not to end up in a court challenge. It may or it may not, but we could see that. Then it will be the responsibility to see whether, in fact, the issue of clear rationale makes sense, whether this bill meets the objective around what is accessible and effective representation.

Now, we're going to get to the committee stage on this, because I'm sure this is going to pass — Bill 2. I suspect — and I guess I would reference this for the Justice Minister — and fully expect that at some point somebody in committee stage is going to ask the Justice Minister whether she has a legal opinion on whether this will stand up and on what basis this will stand up.

It would be good of the Justice Minister to pre-empt that question maybe and just table that legal opinion, should she have one — or tell us if she doesn't have one; that would be fine, too — and let us know on what basis the decision was made that you could take 20 percent of the constituencies and red-circle them in the way that's been done with this Bill 2.

We need to be clear. There will be exceptions. In every jurisdiction there are exceptions, and that makes absolute and appropriate sense, but those exceptions need to be decided by some clear rationale. They need to be decided by some criteria that the Boundaries Commission embraces and takes on. They need to be able to be justified in that way. This bill doesn't achieve any of those things.

We all want a Legislature where members have the opportunity to effectively represent their constituencies. We all want a Legislature where constituents have the ability to access their elected representatives.

[1730]

We all want a Legislature where every region of the province has strong voices that will contribute to the makeup of public policy in this province. We all want a Legislature that moves forward with a coherent view of how British Columbia works and ensures that the voices from all areas of the province contribute to that coherent view.

That's important, and it's hard to do. It is complex, and it is challenging. The challenge gets greater every year as we see the growing discrepancies in population. This is not an easy thing to deal with. This is not an easy issue to address.

The problem with Bill 2 is it simply isn't a good way to do this. It simply isn't a way to do this that is particularly thoughtful. It isn't a way to do this that looks at having to have some in-depth analysis of each constituency and how it meets the needs of the people who live there, in political terms. It isn't fair in terms of looking across the province at the whole 85 seats and what the dynamic of that makeup is. None of that is achieved with this legislation.

What we have is that it may have been a good effort on the government's part, and they may believe it is a good effort, but it looks a lot like a government that was taking an easy way out to get where they wanted to go.

It looks a lot like a government that didn't want to deal with the tough questions, that has left this very late in terms of from the last time we had a commission, the Cohen commission. This has been left very late to deal with and address, rather than dealing with it a couple of years ago when there could have been a much more thoughtful discussion about this. So we have this situation.

The best thing that we could do with this legislation, presumably, would be to say: freeze it at 85 seats. Let the commission do their work, be very clear with the commission that we put a priority on rural and northern representation and be prepared to move forward and allow that to happen in a process that is open and engaging to all people in the province. If we do that, we will get a better result.

At the end of the day, as we all know, whatever that result is, we'll come back to this place. As we know from past practice, we are not above making amendments to what comes back to this place, and we can deal with the report of the commission at the time it comes.

But if you want somebody to do the hard work, the thoughtful work, with some guidance, give them the ability and the free hand to do their job, to make their report and to bring that report back here. Then the 85 people in this chamber can decide whether that report meets our objectives, can decide whether that report satisfies that need for accessible and effective representation, can make the decision about whether it is fair and balanced and can do that with the confidence that it was done by an independent electoral commission, a commission that was not fettered by legislative decisions that many of us believe are suspect and was able to do the work that it was charged to do.

If we do that, we will have a better result here, and we'll in fact have the opportunity then to talk about the report
[ Page 1606 ]
of the commission instead of talking about flawed legislation of the B.C. Liberals.

K. Conroy: I'm very pleased to take my place to speak to Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2014. I stand to speak against this bill for a number of reasons.

First, I need to respond to some of the comments from the government members — such hypocrisy. Politicians are not the most revered profession of late. We have mayors running amuck, senators facing charges of misrepresentation of expenses and MPs accused of illegal actions during the elections. So as politicians, one would think we would be working to ensure we didn't add to these perceptions. We are told we are honourable members, and we should be acting as such. But this legislation just smacks of such hypocrisy.

How can members stand up and defend their own seats to be protected at the cost of others? Where is the democracy in that? Politicians who are out to protect their own seats — that is not why I ran.

[1735]

That is not why I got into politics. That is not why my husband got into politics, why our family has had a history of over 25 years of commitment to serving our communities — definitely not to protect our own self-interest.

How can anyone support the interference of an independent body? Why would we even call it independent? Perhaps it should be called the quasi-independent Electoral Boundaries Commission.

What's next? Is this just the start of a slippery slope? Legislation that doesn't allow other independent bodies to carry out their work? Guidelines — and I quote "guidelines" loosely — for the child and youth commissioner, the Ombudsperson or the freedom-of-information commissioner — all legislated guidelines that benefit the politicians as opposed to the people they have been appointed to serve. One can only imagine the issues this raises.

I do agree, though, that keeping the number of MLAs in the House at 85 is a good idea. I agree that the majority of the people in this province, probably a vast majority, would all agree that the last thing we need is more politicians, especially politicians who are going to pass such self-serving legislation. Whatever happens with this bill, I believe that we need to keep the cap at 85.

I also want to talk about rural B.C. We've been accused of not standing up for rural B.C. in this legislation when we speak against it, but I know all members on this side of the House respect and value the contributions rural B.C. brings to the province.

I know members on the other side are rubbing their hands together with glee to misrepresent our intentions, our words, to take our words out of context. I am sure, as the member for Columbia River–Revelstoke said, it's actually the public affairs bureau, the hundreds of folks down there, who are busy getting overtime getting all the tweets and messages out, with no respect for a process.

We all understand the resources that are produced and manufactured in our province, and we know how it benefits the entire province. We also speak up for our constituencies. Every time this government has taken another service from rural B.C., we stand up for our constituents — not the Liberal members, not this government, who are withdrawing the services from the very communities they are pretending to support now.

I spoke up every time they closed another school, another hospital, another courthouse, as have all of my colleagues on this side of the House.

I know everyone in this House believes that we need to represent our constituents to the best of our abilities. All of us in the rural areas have stories about the difficult travel, the problems with constituents accessing our constituency offices, the difficult terrain we have to travel through — mountain passes, the snow — and hours and hours of driving to get from one end of the constituency to the other. I'm no different in Kootenay West.

From the U.S. border to the lovely Trout Lake in the north, it's an eight-to-ten-hour roundtrip, depending on the road conditions. When I go to the border to the west of us, past Edgewood, it's another eight hours or more, depending on the road conditions again and the ferry. I know other MLAs have it so much more difficult.

I try to get to every community in my constituency at least once during my term. It's difficult. I represent three cities, seven villages, three different regional districts represented by seven different area directors, three different school districts. I also try to meet with all of them in person at least once over the term, but it's usually more.

I am classified as a rural constituency, and anyone who's been there would agree. So why would I have issues with the bill?

Well, first of all, I believe that when you have an independent body that is convened to undertake a specific task, the independence of the body should not be tampered with. How can the commission do its work when it is given legislated direction as to how they should carry out their work — not general guidelines but actual legislated interference — and directions that I would see as extremely risky for a number of reasons?

The protected regional areas have no real rationale. When you look at the actual numbers, there are only 11 seats in this province — 11 seats — that are under the 25 percent margin. Those include Cariboo North, Cariboo-Chilcotin, Fraser-Nicola, Columbia River–Revelstoke, Nelson-Creston, Nechako Lakes, North Coast, Peace River South, Skeena, Stikine and Boundary-Similkameen — all constituencies that are part of this bill.

But no. Boundary-Similkameen — it's not on the protected area list, a community that is indeed rural. It's under the 25 percent classification. So I'm asking: are the Liberal members today saying that rural members in
[ Page 1607 ]
Boundary-Similkameen shouldn't be represented? How does that work?

I'm sure folks in Grand Forks, Christina Lake, Midway, Greenwood, Rock Creek, Bridesville and Beaverdell all feel pretty rural, and I think they feel that they, too, should be represented by this bill. But they are not. Where's the hypocrisy in that?

[1740]

The member for Surrey-Panorama talked about his constituency being classified as an urban area, along with 43 of our colleagues, as far as in-constituency travel goes. When you look at that same classification, I'm rural. So is Boundary-Similkameen; so is Shuswap, actually — communities not protected although they were classified as rural.

When you look at the same classification, you see communities like Alberni–Pacific Rim, Chilliwack-Hope and West Vancouver–Sea to Sky as semi-rural but not protected. I'm sure folks living in Pemberton and north of Pemberton feel very rural. I know when I've travelled through that area, it is definitely rural.

Coastal remote. Well, North Coast and Powell River–Sunshine Coast are part of this list but not protected. So how do the members opposite justify that, justify the fact that some seats are protected and some seats aren't that are definitely rural?

My seat is rural, and I'm proud to represent it. But it is also within the 25 percent margin, just like Kootenay East, Kamloops North, Kamloops South, the two Prince George constituencies and Peace River North. We're all in protected areas.

It reminds me of Gracie's finger, the ultimate in political interference by the Social Credit government. People in B.C. were appalled by the interference with the political boundaries. I can only imagine what they are thinking now. The Socreds were rank amateurs compared to what this government is proposing.

This bill is not written to protect rural seats. If that were the case, it would look at the seats that truly need protection, those with huge geographical areas to cover and populations under 30,000, areas of the constituency that have huge tracts of land only inhabited by wildlife, and not voting wildlife. At last count, there were only six of those constituencies: Nechako Lakes, North Coast, Peace River South, Skeena, Stikine and Cariboo-Chilcotin. Three Liberal constituencies, three NDP constituencies — an interesting mix.

That's what other provinces have done — protected those hugely remote rural areas with a variance, but none to the degree of what the Liberals are proposing with Bill 2.

Then there are the legal issues. I know my other colleagues with far more legal experience than I have, have spoken eloquently on the legal issues this bill raises. Who knows what will happen once this bill hits the courts? We know one thing for sure. It won't be discussed in this House again, as it will be before the courts.

It's unfortunate the Liberals have chosen to take the Cohen commission's recommendations out of context, protecting certain areas and not others — other rural areas too. I agree people in Valemount deserve to be represented, but so do folks in other rural areas who aren't recognized by this bill.

In the last go-round I rallied for our communities. I spoke to the commission. I made sure my voice was heard in a democratic, respectful manner to the process and the people in our region. People in our region also spoke to the commission. They came out in numbers. They made sure that their voice was heard and that the commission could do its democratic job to make sure that the representation was properly done.

It's something I hope to do again, as do other people in my constituency who have spoken out against what's happening with this Bill 2. For that reason, I just can't support this bill.

D. Routley: It gives me pleasure and honour to rise to speak to a bill in the Legislature — this time Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Act. As per usual, the skepticism I bring to an analysis of legislation brought forward from this government is at a very high degree. It is skepticism that is really, indeed, a cynicism about these pieces of legislation that is well earned.

If we look at the record of B.C. Liberal legislation, we see so often they have been completely in disregard of constitutional requirements, whether it be the legislation around health care in the past or the legislation regarding the teachers of this province. They have consistently transgressed the boundaries of law in bringing legislation forward and have been rebuked by the courts. So we are over and over again trotted back into this Legislature to amend or repair faulty legislation, flawed legislation.

[1745]

In the case of the legislation that the government brought forward to tear up the teachers contracts and take away their right to bargain their working conditions, they were instructed by the courts several years ago that that was unconstitutional.

How did the government respond to that? Did they go back and negotiate with the teachers? Did they work with the court decision to arrive at legislation that would suit the constitutional requirements of the court's ruling? No. What they did was reintroduce exactly the same piece of legislation — expecting a different result, I assume — which is really shocking.

This time, though, not only did they get the same result — the decision that their legislation was unconstitutional — but in fact, the court went another step further. After reviewing the communications of high-ranking government officials and ministers, the court decided that the government had, in a cynical fashion, attempted to provoke the teachers of this province into a strike for
[ Page 1608 ]
political gain.

We have a couple of patterns here. First, the government has a pattern of passing legislation that fails basic constitutional tests. Second, they have a pattern of passing legislation that deals with very important institutions of our province — in that case, K-to-12 education; in this case, the democratic integrity of our electoral system — and applying politics, simple and crude and cynical politics, to the formulation of these pieces of legislation.

This is no exception. Bill 2 is a continuation of a constant, 100 percent campaigning government — a government that isn't actually governing, isn't actually bringing forward legislation that deals with the challenges of the province but is using everything it does to simply drive wedges and campaign in a most cynical way.

In this case, it's a clear attempt to play rural and urban communities against one another, to drive a wedge into their opposition and to gain political advantage. They are tampering with the most fundamental democratic institution, that of our electoral system.

This government is carrying out its well-worn pattern. They have risen and spoken of their need to stand up for rural communities — the same communities that we on this side of the House represent, the same communities that that government has penalized through school closures and closure of courthouses and forestry offices and environmental offices, cuts to our provincial park systems. That's how this government has expressed its level of support and respect for rural B.C. — by undermining the health of rural communities. Time and time again they have shown this to be their pattern.

The constituency I represent, Nanaimo–North Cowichan, is right on the provincial average of 53,000 people, roughly. I have a challenge representing my community. In fact, it's a rural-urban constituency as described by this House. In fact, there's kind of an internal conflict there — isn't there? — with Bill 2 setting up a division between rural and urban communities.

My own constituency, the urban southern third of Nanaimo, is a community that I represent — approximately 20,000 citizens of Nanaimo. But I also represent very rural areas. I represent 16 communities, six Gulf Islands with significant populations — one of those Gulf Islands is one of the most populated, that being Gabriola — six local governments, two school districts and six First Nations.

I have seven ferry terminals in my constituency. To service my constituency adequately, I have to make a lot of trips across the water, paying the exorbitant rate that the B.C. Ferries changes have brought. Fortunately for me, I'm able to charge that back to the very people who this government is penalizing.

[1750]

My constituency, being as large as it is and as diverse as it is, is also very difficult to service. I wonder how my constituents would feel, when this government is essentially, through this bill, reversing the priority of this commission and what we consider when we attempt to adjust constituency boundaries to account for shifting populations.

The primary consideration is equality of vote. That's upheld in the courts. The primary consideration in a democracy is that one vote equals another. That, of course, is impossible to achieve in exact proportion, and the commission is appointed and given instructions that allow it to consider other factors in making the boundary decisions that it does and that it has.

Those other considerations are the difficulty of servicing a constituency — the size, the diversity, the communities of interest, First Nations — not dividing First Nations with electoral boundaries, not dividing communities of interest and communities of economy. Those are factors that are considered by every electoral boundaries commission.

But the first guiding principle is that each citizen, as much as possible, should share an equal vote in electing their government. This bill is cynical in that it attempts to drive a very politically handy wedge for the government in dividing communities. It is flawed in that it ignores the guiding principle of electoral boundaries commissions — that being that votes should be roughly equal, as equal as possible — and it attempts to direct the commission well beyond any reasonable bound.

Essentially, the bill attempts to carve out several regions of the province and not allow those regions to have their numbers of seats changed. Yes, the Boundaries Commission can adjust boundaries within those regions to accommodate inflows and outflows of population, but essentially, those regions are frozen.

The judgments that have been handed down by the Supreme Court related to electoral boundary changes have used words like extraordinary. There must be an extraordinary circumstance which would allow the commission to recommend and the government to adopt boundaries that would take the population of a constituency more than 25 percent above or below the provincial average.

The provincial average is 53,000. Essentially, that means a constituency can, within the boundaries of current decisions, vary by 13,000 votes. In other words, on the high side, a constituency can currently comprise 66,000 people; on the low side, 40,000 people.

Now, this attempt to freeze regions is not driven by any kind of consideration of this 25 percent rule. In fact, what the government is calling rural and attempting to freeze are the cities, as some of the members on the other side have referred to them, of Kamloops and Prince George. If we look at Kamloops, the two constituencies, Kamloops–South Thompson and Kamloops–North Thompson, are within 5 percent of the average. In fact, Kamloops–North Thompson, at 52,000, is within 1 percent of the provincial average.
[ Page 1609 ]

Since they are so close to the average, how can the government legitimize freezing the number of seats in that region? Unfortunately, the Justice Minister and the speakers on the other side of the House supporting this legislation have failed to provide any formula or any evidence as to why this is necessary. They have failed to support their own argument.

[1755]

When this is inevitably challenged, we will see, very likely, that this bill, like so many other pieces of B.C. Liberal legislation, will be ruled unconstitutional. There will be an expenditure of perhaps millions of dollars in contesting that, then appealing that, and then finally succumbing to it and re-tasking the commission to come up with a new map that will respect the court's boundaries rather than the political interests of the B.C. Liberal government.

This is a pattern that's troubling. People have become cynical about government, particularly when they see that one of the worst offenders and one of the most frequent lawbreakers is the government itself. It's farcical. It's hard not to laugh. You look at their health care legislation, their education legislation, their last electoral legislation, their drunk-driving legislation — and now this again.

This is a cynical mix of incompetence and arrogance: that this government should feel it has the power to ignore court decisions. Then it has the arrogance to ignore these things and act in aspects of people's lives that are so essential and important, be it K-to-12 education or this basic fundamental institution of democracy, the establishment of electoral boundaries.

The member for Cariboo-Chilcotin, in justifying her support for this bill, said that every time we get some kind of public hearing, we get this group from Vancouver into rural B.C. We get this group from Vancouver coming in and telling us: "No, you can't touch those resource industries."

This was the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin's rationale for supporting a bill that very likely is unconstitutional and forgets that the primary driving motive of the Electoral Boundaries Commission is to make each vote equal in this province, as much as possible, except under extraordinary circumstances. Her support is her frustration that groups from Vancouver come to public hearings related to natural resource industry decisions being made in rural B.C.

There couldn't be a more obvious and awkward example of how the B.C. Liberals, through this act, are attempting to exacerbate already-existing tensions between rural B.C. and urban B.C. We all have an interest in these decisions. We all, as members who represent communities, are asked to make these decisions based on principles that aren't dictated solely by our own local economic interest or our own local environmental interest.

To say that the people of the south coast — which I assume is what the member meant by inferring that people from Vancouver come to intervene — have no say in decisions around resource extraction, particularly pipelines, oil and the imposition of decisions that would imperil the health of our coast, is ridiculous, and it's disrespectful to the people of the coast.

This is why we have a Boundaries Commission that is free from this sort of political motivation. The member for Cariboo-Chilcotin is obviously driven by a political necessity to answer desires within her own constituency around resource extraction. She said it.

Interjection.

D. Routley: The Jobs Minister is noting that she was elected. Yes, she was. She was elected to defend the interests of her constituency, not to have the interests of her constituents and her political interest drive the decisions around electoral boundaries. She wasn't elected to do that.

[1800]

What she offers as support for her decision is that groups from Vancouver come in and tell us, in her words: "No, you can't touch those resource industries."

She also inferred that any opposition to this bill meant that people who were in opposition were obviously in opposition to having any rural voice being included in the governance of this province. Anyone who stood up on this side, we've been warned that our words will be used against us by the B.C. Liberal government.

They will go to our constituents, northern constituents, and tell them: "Those terrible NDP opposition members. They don't care about rural B.C., because they didn't want to gerrymander the electoral boundaries of the province in your favour like we good B.C. Liberals did. Yes, we good B.C. Liberals. We stand up for B.C. by ignoring the Supreme Court of Canada." That's how B.C. Liberals stand up for rural B.C.

Well, I think that every member in this House owes it to their constituents, for a variety of reasons — some of them the same, some of them different between rural and urban British Columbia — to stand up and oppose this bill. This bill ignores the primary motive of the Electoral Boundaries Commission — that is, to make one vote equal to another except under extraordinary circumstances.

How does carving off Prince George, the Jobs Minister's city — city — which is less than 5 percent varied from the provincial average…? How possibly does her attempt to carve off her own city answer the decisions of the Supreme Court in the past, which have put as the primary motive for changing electoral boundaries to keep one vote equal to another except under extraordinary circumstances?

Her extraordinary circumstance is that she has — how many, Minister? — 31,000 square kilometres?

Interjection.
[ Page 1610 ]

D. Routley: Yes, 31,000 square kilometres. She ignores the North Island, which by all accounts is every bit as difficult to service as her constituency, or Powell River–Sunshine Coast, which is completely ferry-dependent. The member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast — if he leaves too late in the day, it will take him 24 hours to get from one end of his constituency to the other because of ferry schedules.

Those difficult-to-service constituencies have been left out of the consideration of the B.C. Liberal government in its attempt to turn the priorities and mandate of the electoral boundaries on its head.

An Hon. Member: I don't think they get it.

D. Routley: Oh, they get it. What they do get is that this is a wedge issue. This is not governance in terms of trying to use the legislation of this province to make lives better for British Columbians. This is not government and governance to make democracy function better. This is a purely political ploy to drive a wedge into their opposition.

They've said it themselves. They've stood in their speeches and told us directly that our opposition means that they will trot up to the north and tell the people of the north: "God, those awful NDP opposition members don't defend you. We B.C. Liberals do. We're willing to ignore the Supreme Court of Canada. We're willing to ignore court decisions. We're willing to break the law again. Anybody who says we shouldn't — they're bad people."

It's really quite sad, and it feeds into the cynicism that has grown and has become so inflamed recently by the Supreme Court of B.C. pointing to their teachers legislation and their attempts to provoke a strike from teachers as being a cynical political ploy. That's the pattern of this government. This bill is no different. This bill serves exactly the same kind of constant campaigning purpose that the B.C. Liberals have become noted for.

[1805]

It doesn't propose to change the way the boundaries are construed as much as it proposes to change the way the Boundaries Commission functions. Their arguments in support have been constant and have been persistent in that they say the difficult service of certain constituencies should be the driving factor in determining electoral boundaries. That is in clear defiance of what Supreme Court decisions have said.

The electoral boundaries' primary consideration is to account for the moving of population from one place to another. In today's terms, it's largely from rural communities into more urban communities. The primary task is to make sure that each person who goes to the polls in a general election in the province of B.C. has an equal say in electing their government — not to make it easier for MLAs to service their constituents, not to make travel easier for MLAs.

It is difficult, far more difficult in terms of travel, for many MLAs than perhaps urban MLAs. But that is not the primary purpose of reconfiguring the boundaries of the province. It's to make things fair. It's to make the election fair, vote for vote.

The Boundaries Commission already considers communities of interest. They don't divide First Nations. They consider communities of economy. They do not divide communities, as much as is possible, given their limitations set down by the courts. They consider the difficulty of constituents in meeting with their MLA, in bringing issues to their MLA. They consider all of these things. And it has been upheld that there are three constituencies currently in the province that are exempted from this rule of each constituency not being any more or less than 25 percent above or below the average of 53,000.

As I said, that presents quite a range for the Boundaries Commission. Essentially, they have a 26,000 population range to apply to their decisions. If the average is 53 percent, then 25 percent below is 40,000; 25 percent above is 66,000. That's a pretty big leeway. That's a 26,000-person leeway in the decision that can be made by the Electoral Boundaries Commission to take into consideration all the things that the members of the government side have brought up as reasons for them freezing these regions and not allowing them to lose or gain seats.

I mean, none of us want to see a loss of representation for any British Columbian. But essentially, what they're doing is guaranteeing a loss of representation for all British Columbians outside of those regions that they have defined — they have defined, not the Electoral Boundaries Commission.

This idea that 17 constituencies should be carved off and frozen from the review of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, makes mockery of the Supreme Court's standard that only under extraordinary circumstances can the commission and the government vary from this 25 percent rule. It makes a mockery of it.

It basically says that 17 constituencies — which is exactly 20 percent, one in five constituencies in B.C. — are extraordinary, are outside of a 26 percent range that could be applied by the Boundaries Commission, outside of all the considerations the Boundaries Commission makes every time it renders a recommendation not to divide First Nations communities, not to divide communities of interest, not to divide communities of economy.

[1810]

It seems ridiculous, and it seems foolhardy that the government would ignore all of this jurisprudence, all of the decisions that have been brought down over many, many years and many iterations of these commissions and simply direct — far outside of those decisions — the Electoral Boundaries Commission to do their bidding again.

It's not about good governance. It's not about democracy. It's not about answering the notion of what is fair.
[ Page 1611 ]
It is about answering B.C. Liberal political priorities. It is about the same kind of cynicism that drove them to provoke the teachers of this province to strike. It is about using the Legislature, the power of government and the representation in a democratic and free society against the people in a politically cynical way to drive a wedge into their opponents.

Minister after minister, member after member, has stood up and warned us in exactly those terms: "If you oppose this, we will take your words and we will use them against you. We will tell the people of rural B.C. that you don't care."

Interjection.

D. Routley: I mean, it's unbelievable. And the Minister of Mines says it's about accountability — this from a government that has been repeatedly rebuked by supreme courts of Canada and B.C. for passing legislation that is unconstitutional, this from the government that is so accountable that it runs an election campaign with a bus that says "Debt-free B.C.," while it adds debt at the fastest rate in the history of the province. But that's what we've come to expect.

It's really sad that, unfortunately, the people of British Columbia seem to have resigned themselves to expect no better from their government. I think that's our number one job on this side of the House: to restore an expectation in people in the province of British Columbia that their government will act for them and in the public interest rather than its own cynical political interest.

That's why I'm standing and opposing this bill. I feel that this bill feeds the most toxic element of political and public discourse in this province — that being the overriding cynicism that has led to so few people participating. It has been made so much worse by a government that absolutely does not care about what impacts it has on the lives of people when it brings forward legislation that it knows will fail constitutional test. It knows.

How can a government be rebuked by the courts for introducing legislation that trampled teachers' constitutional rights and then have the inspired confidence that reintroducing exactly the same bill could possibly bring different results? That's the government we have. That's the incompetence that this side of the House has to fight every day. It is exactly the kind of incompetence and arrogance that the B.C. Liberals have time and time brought to this place. I think we can do better. I'm going to oppose it because I believe it's unfair and it's unwise.

H. Bains: It is again an honour and privilege to stand here and speak on a bill which, to me, I think, is one of the bills that has profound implications, depending on which way we go with this bill — Bill 2, Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2014.

I want to speak about and make a decision based on what our next generation would say when they look back and listen to the debates and the final outcome of this debate on Bill 2. Was this made to maintain the fundamentals, the integrity, the fundamental integrity of our electoral system, by way of representation by population? Currently that's what the Electoral Boundaries Commission is required to come back with when devising boundaries.

[1815]

Yes, there can be deviation from the provincial average by plus or minus 25 percent — or more, if they can clearly justify the discrepancy. That's where, exactly, the debate should take place. Is there justification? As we have seen and heard from many speakers before me from our side, there is no justification.

When I listened to members of the government, they made all kinds of arguments which, to me, were all political rather than what is right. That's why I will be speaking against it.

Now, if there was some justification, then why is a riding such as Kamloops–South Thompson included in their argument and their proposal, and other ridings such as North Island and Powell River–Sunshine Coast are excluded? There is no rationale, no justification. It clearly is political manoeuvring that is going on here. I think they think that it will benefit them. But the damage that will be left behind for future generations when they look back and see how the decisions were made in this House…. I think we will be ashamed if we go through with this.

I want to come back to my area, Surrey. Right now in the eight ridings that Surrey is divided into we have a population average of 61,000 in those eight ridings. The provincial average is 51,700, so we are already higher than the provincial average. We are talking….

These numbers are based on the current population of Surrey. The population of Surrey is increasing by about 10,000 to 12,000 a year. By the time the next election is here, you're talking about another 36,000 to 40,000 new people moving into Surrey. That means our average will be pushed up to 65,000 per seat. How is that fair, then?

If the basic fundamental of our democratic system is that representation by population is the basic fundamental principle to follow, then, how is that fair when you would have ridings that go beyond plus or minus 25 percent without any justification?

I gave you two examples. Kamloops–South Thompson is included, and North Island and Powell River–Sunshine Coast are excluded. How do you justify the rationale behind the argument that is coming from the government side? There is no rationale. There is no justification. It's all for a pure political purpose that the government is working on.

We have a history here that the government makes decisions largely, mostly, based on politics rather than real policy that will affect the population and the residents of our province. I think that has to stop someplace. This government continues on in the same way that they
[ Page 1612 ]
started. I think that's why I will be opposing this, because that's not the right thing to do.

We have some legal arguments clearly showing that unless there is a clear rationale for protecting certain ridings and increasing deviation…. Otherwise, if that is not present in their argument in the bill, then, I think there are legal challenges that will be there, and that will be to protect the integrity of our basic fundamentals of democracy that we need to work under. We need to protect that.

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot more to say, but because my colleague from Surrey–Green Timbers, who will have similar issues, will be coming up and will be speaking on this, I'll take my place.

S. Hammell: I'm also pleased to rise and join the debate on Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act.

[1820]

While taking my place in this debate, I will speak largely on three issues that arise as a result of this bill, the first being the need to preserve the independence of the electoral area boundary commissioner.

The second is the need to support the principle of representation by population unless special circumstances can justify a discrepancy — and then only in plus or minus 25 percent, as this is the position supported by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Third is the need to support limiting the number of seats to 85.

I'll start with talking about the independence of the commissioner and the necessity to have a person with such independence. In this House we are very aware of the need to avoid being, or perceived to be, in a conflict of interest. We have a Conflict of Interest Commissioner and a conflict-of-interest act. We consult with the commissioner when an action needs clarification and the wisdom of a second set of eyes needs to be put on a decision. We disclose our assets yearly.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

All of this is to ensure that there is no need…. We understand that the need to do this is to show, not only tell, our constituents that we are here free of conflict, unencumbered, to represent them and their interests and certainly not to represent our self-interest.

What does this Liberal government do? It brings in a piece of legislation, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, an act dripping with self-interest, one that strips the independent commissioner of acting fairly and freely around the redistribution of electoral boundaries in this province.

I'm particularly concerned about the conflict of interest that is obvious in this debate. The Minister of Jobs from Prince George said: "I want my constituents to get the representation they need."

Interjections.

S. Hammell: Every member — as has been stated by many people, many members, of the House….

Madame Speaker: Member, excuse me.

The member knows which seat he should be occupying, should he wish to participate.

S. Hammell: Perhaps the members across will clap for this also, because every single member in the House wants to ensure that their constituents have effective representation — every single one of us.

The appropriate place to make that argument over representation is not in this House but is in front of an independent commissioner who has the ability to weigh the interests of all parts of this province as they move forward making a decision.

The obvious conflict of interest is we are making a decision that directly affects us. Despite the wishes of members across the floor, no one cares more than we do about the boundaries that affect us. Your constituents do not care as much as you do.

Every single member of this House probably knows exactly what street their boundaries run down, and I bet you very few constituents have that kind of detail or intimacy over the electoral boundaries.

They don't even think about you daily. Most of them would not know your name. Funny — you may be shocked and appalled, but most of your constituents not only do not know where your boundaries are; they don't even know your name.

If you asked them who their MLA was, they wouldn't have a clue. Time after time, people have been asked in all different circumstances who their MLA is, and they don't know. They don't know who their MLA is versus their MP.

Most of your constituents couldn't find your office, your e-mail, know when you're in Victoria, know when you're not in Victoria. You're delusional. You think that they follow you as much as you follow yourself. You have a conflict of interest around these decisions that affect you directly.

S. Hammell moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. T. Lake moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

The House adjourned at 6:25 p.m.

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