2015 Legislative Session: Fourth 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)

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 29, Number 12

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

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2015

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Speaker’s Statement

PARLIAMENTARY LANGUAGE

Madame Speaker: Hon. Members, I reviewed the Hansard of both yesterday and today. With respect to Standing Order 40, Parliamentary Practice in British Columbia, page 99, please note:

“The proceedings in the House are based on centuries of tradition and mutual respect…. ‘Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language. Parliamentary language is never more desirable than when a member is canvassing the opinions and conduct of his or her opponents in debate.’”

I would ask all members to be mindful of this caution in their deliberations.

Orders of the Day

Hon. T. Stone: I call continued debate on Motion 26.

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 26 — ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES
COMMISSION REPORT PROPOSALS

(continued)

J. Rice: I’m pleased to rise today to speak to the motion in regards to the Electoral Boundaries Commission final report and recommendations.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

I’d like to just do a little bit of background for the thousands of viewers that I know I have at home that are watching the legislative channel right now. They’re glued to it. I wanted to talk about the Electoral Boundaries Commission and what the mandate is and, if I could, speak a bit about the background.

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Every second provincial general election, a new Electoral Boundaries Commission is appointed to propose changes to the provincial electoral boundaries. Under the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, the British Columbia Electoral Boundaries Commission must consist of:

“(a) a judge or a retired judge of the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal who is nominated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, (b) a person who is not a member of the Legislative Assembly or an employee of the government and who is nominated by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, after consultation with the Premier and the Leader of the Official Opposition, and (c) the chief electoral officer appointed under the Election Act.”

One of these individuals must be appointed as chair.

On May 9, 2014, a three-person, independent, non-partisan Electoral Boundaries Commission was appointed. The commissioners are Mr. Justice Thomas Melnick, justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, who is the chair; Beverley Busson, OBC, former commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; and Keith Archer, the Chief Electoral Officer for the province of British Columbia.

The function is to make proposals to the Legislative Assembly as to the area, boundaries and names of provincial electoral districts. If deliberations dictate that the number of electoral districts should be increased, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act allows them to make proposals of up to two electoral districts to a maximum of 87. However, they cannot recommend fewer than 85 electoral districts.

The Legislative Assembly is responsible for approving or amending the proposals before passing into law. So here we are today to debate this motion.

Moving on to the geographic and the demographic considerations. “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 and the availability of means of communication and transportation between various parts of British Columbia” are the considerations that the commission must take into consideration.

Speaking from the point of view of the MLA for North Coast, which is an area over 100,000 square kilometres in size, I am pleased to note that there are no recommendations to make changes to the electoral area of North Coast.

It’s a wonderful constituency to represent. I know we’re all partisan as far as our preference to our own constituencies. I can safely say that I think I have, by far, the most beautiful constituency out of the 85 in the province of British Columbia — including Haida Gwaii, Prince Rupert, Port Edward, many First Nations communities down to the central coast of Bella Bella and Bella Coola and Oweekeno territory.

That beauty, therefore, makes for some hard transportation for not only myself but for the constituents I represent. Many of the issues that plague our constituency, whether that be health care or access to ministry services, revolve around the challenge of a lack of transportation options and mobility options of getting around our great constituency.

I must say I think I am the only constituency that has communities that are only accessible by seaplane or by boat.

Interjections.
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J. Rice: Oh, I’m sorry. I already stand corrected. Oh, we have a few.

[1340]

Okay. I must say the MLA for Stikine does have a larger constituency than I. I do have the second-largest constituency by land mass. I do note that I have the largest constituency if you include the water within the constituency — the massive water between Haida Gwaii and the mainland, Hecate Strait, and the amount of fjords and inlets in my community.

Unfortunately, it’s challenging for some of my constituents to access me in my Prince Rupert office, and it’s also challenging for me to get out to see them. I note that last year it took me, I believe, three tries to visit the community of Klemtu on the central coast.

The challenges of the nature of the geography and the weather and the climate make it very hard for people to get in and out. Again, that’s a community that’s only accessible by seaplane or by ferry. You cannot drive there from anywhere in the province. So it’s pretty frustrating for not only myself but for the people of Klemtu, the Kitasoo/Xai’xais, to not have their representative able to come and speak to them face to face.

In the north, we commonly operate by face-to-face interactions. We’re not necessarily a constituency that is using digital technology. Some of my communities don’t have Internet access or have very limited Internet access. Even sending an e-mail is challenging.

I corresponded with constituents via satellite phone, which in itself has its challenges of time lag and the normal snap, crackle, pop that you would hear in ancient technology. That’s a reality of my constituency and the lives of the constituents that I represent in the north.

Again, I’m pleased to say that I am happy that there are no changes to the boundary for North Coast. It’s a difficult constituency to get around as it is. Adding other communities, I believe, would have been a disservice to those communities as well as the existing communities, considering how hard it is for me to get around and for them to get around, as well, and to communicate with their representative.

The Electoral Boundaries Commission Final Report states that there are changes to 48 of the 85 districts plus the inclusion of two new seats that were proposed for Surrey and Richmond, which, if adopted, would bring the total amount to 87 seats in the Legislature.

I would just generally like to note that I think the Electoral Boundaries Commission Final Report and recommendations should be adopted. I will be voting in favour, I suspect, of this report. These recommendations I think are apt.

I guess I would like to speak to those folks at home. I spoke earlier about the thousands of people from the north coast that I know are glued to channel 64, the legislative channel in our region, who are watching this. I wanted to do just a little bit more background so that they understand what’s going on here and what we’re talking about today.

All British Columbians have a right to be represented by an MLA. As you know, there are currently 85 MLAs which represent the 85 constituents in the 85 provincial electoral districts. In accordance with the principle of representation by population, each MLA should, to the degree possible, represent a similar number of constituents.

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Recognizing that population growth is not uniform throughout the province, periodic reviews of the boundaries ensure that the representation of constituents by MLAs remains equitable and effective in all areas of the province.

As prescribed by the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, a new Electoral Boundaries Commission must be established every second general election to propose changes to the area boundaries and names of the electoral districts of British Columbia.

Between September and November of 2014, the commission travelled the province, visiting 29 communities and hearing from 128 presenters. They received an additional 295 written submissions, largely through the website, during that same period. All this input was helpful in understanding how British Columbians interact with their elected representatives and how the electoral boundaries affect and enable these interactions and effective representation.

The majority of the public input received was regarding three areas, Hope and the Fraser Canyon, Surrey and the Comox Valley.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m pleased to say that the commission did not recommend expanding the boundaries of the North Coast constituency, because it is so difficult to get around to the communities within the constituency as it is, even though it is one of the constituencies that does not have the representative population as the other constituencies do. We have a small population in our constituency of around 25,000 people, and many other constituencies have more than double that population.

Nonetheless, even though the population is small, the geography is vast, making it challenging to communicate and have the face-to-face interaction that is so necessary for my constituents in North Coast.

In conclusion, I’d just like to say I think this report and recommendations should be adopted, and as such, I will conclude my remarks now.

D. Plecas: On behalf of my constituents in Abbotsford South, I rise today to speak to Motion 26 on the proposals contained in the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission.

As you know, this government has introduced legislation to adopt all of the commission’s recommendations. We want to ensure that all British Columbians are effectively represented in both urban and rural areas of the prov-
[ Page 9681 ]
ince. This is especially important, because our province, as we all know, has dense and growing urban areas, and we also have the more remote northern and rural areas.

These recommendations proposed increases to 87 seats, two additional seats. These two new ridings will be in Surrey and Richmond–New Westminster. This reflects the growing population in these areas.

As well, boundary changes will be made to 48 districts in our province. Most of these are relatively minor changes, although there are substantial changes in the Fraser Valley — Hope and Princeton — and Comox Valley and mid–Vancouver Island regions.

The riding I represent, Abbotsford South, is one which will have minor changes.

The increase in the number of seats in this House reflects the growing population of the province. As we all know, B.C. is a desirable place to live and work, and people are attracted to British Columbia for many reasons. It’s beautiful in every part of the province, the people are beautiful, and we have great respect for diversity. I might add that we also have great government.

This government recognizes that it’s important that citizens in less densely populated areas and large geographical districts be effectively represented by their MLAs. That is why we are making sure that the current districts in the north, Cariboo-Thompson and Columbia-Kootenay regions are preserved.

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We want to ensure that these areas are not at risk of losing representation and that they retain the existing number of electoral districts. While there are other rural areas in our province, they were not at risk of losing representation. In fact, the commission has not recommended any reductions.

It is not an easy task to balance democratic representation with geography, and finding this balance was a task that the Electoral Boundaries Commission undertook. We all want fair and effective representation for all British Columbians in this House. Urban and suburban districts, on average, have more people than rural districts do. It is generally easier for an MLA to represent and serve their constituents because the population is concentrated in a much smaller area.

Every province grapples with how best to manage the urban-rural divide. The larger provinces, especially, have rules for exceptional circumstances, including how to best accommodate rural areas. B.C. is no exception, and the act has always permitted commissions to go beyond the 25 percent population deviation rule in special circumstances. It is not a new situation in B.C. to have districts outside that threshold.

The commission continues to do a good job of balancing population and taking community interest into account. The commission undertook a public consultation in March through May of this year. Public hearings were held across the province, and dozens of written submissions by the public were contributed. In 2014, we introduced the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act to give the independent commission the ability to adjust the boundaries for all electoral districts while, at the same time, preserve the existing number of electoral districts in the northern and rural regions.

The intention was to help the commission balance population between districts and ensure effective representation. Throughout the process of the electoral boundary changes, politics was not even a consideration for government in preparing this legislation. This legislation is proposing exactly what the independent commission recommended.

These changes will be adopted and in place for the next two provincial general elections. This means all British Columbians will continue to be effectively represented in this House.

S. Fraser: It’s always a pleasure to rise, in this case to debate the motion, Motion 26. I’m going to read the motion in its entirety, for those that are…. The title of the motion and the intent….

It is: “Be it resolved that in accordance with section 14 of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act…the proposals contained in the Final Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission tabled in the Legislative Assembly on September 28, 2015, be approved.” This is the debate for that motion, for those watching from afar and glued to the TV, as my colleague from North Coast was suggesting.

These are very important roles that the commission play. I can’t overstate the importance of the Boundaries Commission’s work. It really goes to the heart of democracy and fairness in democracy in this province and in other parts of the world that have the great fortune, as we do in British Columbia and Canada, of having democracies in place.

That’s why it’s so important that the commission’s work be understood, that it be respected and that people realize that it’s not an easy job, in some cases, to make these decisions. Sometimes it goes against the wishes of the public in individual constituencies that might be facing boundary changes. That is a job that I have great respect for the commissioners in wrestling with, as it were.

I just want to give a little bit of a background from the executive summary of the Boundaries Commission’s work in this case. This is from their executive summary, and this is a good segue to this discussion, I believe, because it’s important that people understand just what the Boundaries Commission is about.

“All British Columbians are represented in the Legislative Assembly” — this place — “by a member of the Legislative Assembly, MLA. There are currently 85 MLAs to represent the constituents of 85 provincial electoral districts.

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“In theory, in accordance with the principle of representation by population, each MLA should, to a degree possible, represent a similar number of constituents.”
[ Page 9682 ]

That’s one of the basic premises for the reviews that happen every second election.

I would further, from the executive summary of the report…. This is from the Boundaries Commission, and this is since the preliminary report, so I should highlight that this is the final report.

The commission’s work began between September and November of 2014. They travelled the province. They visited 29 communities, and they heard from 128 presenters. They also received 295 written submissions, largely through their website, which was well advertised, and that was during the same period.

All this input was very helpful for them, I’m sure, in understanding how British Columbians interact with their elected representatives and how the electoral boundaries affect and enable these interactions and effective representation.

They submitted their preliminary report containing their initial proposals to the Legislative Assembly on March 26, 2015. I’m not aware of any significant changes, or any changes, for that matter, that were made from the original report to the subsequent report that amounts to the final recommendations we see today.

So in April and May, they looked again to British Columbians to provide those opinions on the proposals from the initial report, either on line or at one of the hearings. And they had hearings here in Victoria also. I was able to attend one of those hearings and present to the commission.

They heard from 144 presenters at 15 community hearings and received 426 written submissions. That informed the decisions for the final report.

In making their proposals, they were guided first and foremost by the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which we all hold so dearly.

They also considered all of the input received from British Columbians about the existing boundaries and where they felt change was warranted. They reflected upon that input, and they developed additional guidelines flowing from the legislation that could assist in the decision-making within the framework.

I should note that I am the representative for Alberni–Pacific Rim — sort of central Vancouver Island. It’s certainly not one of the largest ridings in the province, but it’s not a small riding either, and it has, certainly, a great number of geographical challenges, Alberni–Pacific Rim.

But I first got elected to this place in 2005, and it was Alberni-Qualicum at that point in time. That was my first term in office here — for four years, representing the riding of Alberni-Qualicum.

The Boundary Commission, at that point, just before the 2009 election, went through this process. At that point in time, a different commission. They’re appointed for each session, where they do their work, every eight years. They determined that there were changes needed to Alberni-Qualicum, which was, again, the riding which I was the sitting MLA for.

Then in the 2009 election, following that, my constituency became Alberni–Pacific Rim. And I want to thank the citizens from Alberni–Pacific Rim and, previously, from Alberni-Qualicum for electing me for that second term.

So I was able to become an MLA for a brand-new constituency. It was relatively uncontroversial. The change removed one section, Qualicum Beach, from the riding.

Again, this is based on population. There is a formula that says the population for representation in this province. If there is a significant deviation in that population — often from population changes, people moving in or out of the riding — that can certainly affect the boundaries, as the commission reviews the changes that have been made in population change.

This current commission’s work is proposing in their recommendation, in this debate that we’re having today, that my current riding, which was previously Alberni-Qualicum and is now Alberni–Pacific Rim, would now become Mid Island–Pacific Rim.

[1400]

I have to refer to that. It’s going to take me a little while to get used to that. Alberni–Pacific Rim rolls off my tongue quite fluently at this point in time, so I’m going to mess this up a few times. Mid Island–Pacific Rim is a substantial change from Alberni–Pacific Rim.

I should say the current riding, Alberni–Pacific Rim, incorporates Port Alberni as the centre part of the riding — it’s a small city — and the Alberni Valley, a beautiful valley. It’s a relatively small population. There are 20,000-plus people in the valley.

Then the riding continues to the west coast of Vancouver Island. It incorporates all of Clayoquot Sound, from Hesquiaht territory, Nuu-chah-nulth territory at the very north of Alberni–Pacific Rim, right down through Ahousat, another Nuu-chah-nulth community, a large community, isolated. Hesquiaht and Ahousat are both accessible only by boat, not by road or by float plane.

Just moving south, further in this graphic description of my current constituency, there is the district of Tofino. That’s in Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation territory — Nuu-chah-nulth still. Then we go through the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve — beautiful Long Beach; I’m very fortunate to be the representative for this area — and then down through Ucluelet and the Ucluelet First Nation, another Nuu-chah-nulth nation.

The Tla-o-qui-aht nation is there also in Barkley Sound. Barkley Sound is included. If you cross Barkley Sound through the Broken Group islands, that brings you to the town of Bamfield and the Huu-ay-aht First Nation and, further south still, to the Pacheedaht First Nation.

That’s the west coast — very difficult in many ways, depending on the time of year, to get from place to place as it is, a challenge that I’ve certainly taken on. But the
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roads to Bamfield and the Huu-ay-aht and Pacheedaht territory are logging roads. They’re not up to public safety standards. They’re industrial roads, so challenging there. And of course, as I mentioned, to the north on the west coast, many of the communities, the Nuu-chah-nulth communities, are only accessible by boat and by seaplane.

That current riding that I represent — if we move back eastward from Port Alberni, there’s Whisky Creek, Coombs, Errington. Just north of Qualicum Beach, I pick it up along the coast again through Dashwood, Lighthouse Country, Bowser, Deep Bay. The current north boundary, on the east side of the Island, is near Rosewall Creek, which is actually the boundary for the regional district where it moves from the Nanaimo regional district to the Comox regional district.

The proposed changes incorporated within the boundary commission’s work for Alberni–Pacific Rim would be…. It would grow in size geographically — substantially in size. It would increase to include areas like Fanny Bay, Union Bay, Royston and the islands of Hornby and Denman and further still to incorporate a large town, the town of Cumberland — a beautiful historic town, also, which is right in the Comox Valley. That is a big change.

For myself, if I were to be fortunate enough to get re-elected, that riding would increase the size and the challenges that go along with that, the geographical challenges. Again, there are islands that would require ferry travel to get to and from. That’s Hornby and Denman. There are two different ferries required to get to both of those.

I would submit that any future MLAs would need to consider the changes proposed here in the creation of Mid Island–Pacific Rim electoral district. The changes would definitely necessitate incorporating more, better representation through at least another constituency office. I do not believe…. My constituency office right now is in the centre of my riding. It’s in the city of Port Alberni. But Cumberland now creates another anchor area for the new riding.

[1405]

I would like to refer to the boundaries commission’s statements about this new riding. I’m going to read from their report, on the section that deals with Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast. This gives a good background into the issues and some of the decision-making process and some of the controversy from the public that led to the changes from Alberni–Pacific Rim to Mid Island–Pacific Rim.

“Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast are a mix of urban, suburban, rural and remote communities. With a few notable exceptions, they are not densely populated and share many of the accessibility challenges of other remote parts of British Columbia. Consistent with the message received elsewhere in the province, much of the input from residents of this area recommended little or no change.

“We were reminded of the transportation challenges faced by residents on the Sunshine Coast, the islands east and north of Vancouver Island and the remote communities on the north and western coasts of Vancouver Island.” The input “also emphasized the Malahat as a natural divide between districts in the south and the rest of Vancouver Island.

“Most of the current electoral districts in this area are at or near the provincial average. The exceptions are the rapidly growing Comox Valley, which is currently 22 percent above the provincial average, and neighbouring Alberni–Pacific Rim” — my current constituency — “at 18 percent below the provincial average.” This disparity is too great and creates “the necessity to rebalance the population in this area in order to provide more effective representation for both of these communities.

“We also propose changes in the Nanaimo and greater Victoria areas to respond to public input, rebalance populations and provide more effective representation.”

By far, the largest and most significant changes in the boundaries, as they’re being proposed here, are to my current constituency. I’m going to pause from quoting from their report. The rationale for a population change is key here. Now, the growth of the Comox Valley has led to it being 22 percent over the provincial average, which, according to the boundary commission’s mandate, is too high.

When you consider that the constituency that I represent just south of that on Vancouver Island, Alberni–Pacific Rim, is 18 percent low and has not shown the growth potential of the Comox Valley, I can understand the rationale for the proposed changes, which would increase the riding of Alberni–Pacific Rim significantly. It moves it to 14,099 square kilometres. That would be the change, if these final recommendations are approved here in this House.

The Mid Island–Pacific Rim electoral district would have 14,099 square kilometres, and the population would have been brought up within a percentage point of where it’s supposed to be as a provincial average. That population would be 52,833, although friends of ours in Port Alberni have just had a baby a couple of days ago. I bet you that is not in there. That would make the population 52,834. I think that would be appropriate, and I give congratulations to those friends.

These proposed changes did cause controversy. Most of the controversy and the concerns were being raised in the area that currently is not represented in Alberni–Pacific Rim. I’ll speak specifically about concerns raised in the town of Cumberland.

Cumberland is within the Comox Valley, a beautiful town, a historic mining town. Right now it has opened up into an eclectic mix of interesting businesses, attracting young people. There are great opportunities for sports and mountain biking. The area is gorgeous, and it’s so close to Mount Washington, a wonderful ski area — lots of recreational potential. It’s a growing community also. That area, Cumberland, is traditionally associated with Courtenay and Comox — the three major communities within the current Comox regional district.

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The three communities have been together under this rubric previously. Having that separated…. I understand the concerns raised by a number of people to the com-
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mission from Cumberland. Their association, for social, family and economic reasons, spans into Courtenay and Comox. Separating that out into another electoral district causes concern.

I made a point when I addressed the commission in their work, when they had their public hearings…. After their initial proposals for change, when they went through their second round of public consultations, they had hearings here just down the street from this place in Victoria. I spoke to them, and I reiterated the concerns that were raised to me and that I learned about from areas like Cumberland that voiced their concerns already to the commission.

That being said, I do understand very much the rationale of the commission. This is going to highlight that — how the commission arrived at their decisions to change the ridings, such as they did from Alberni–Pacific Rim to Mid Island–Pacific Rim.

I’ll just cite from the report, if I may. This is under the section “Comox Valley and mid-Vancouver Island.” Also, just for those that have access, it’s page 117 of the Boundaries Commission’s report.

“In recent years, the Comox Valley electoral district has shared the same boundaries as the Comox Valley regional district…. However…the population of Comox Valley has now outgrown a single electoral district. At 22 percent over the provincial average, Comox Valley is just within the plus or minus 25 percent population range but is projected to exceed it by 2017.”

That is well before the next Boundaries Commission’s work would begin — six years before. You can see why the Boundaries Commission needs to address these potential changes at this juncture.

I’ll continue:

“Therefore, we determined that we must address this issue now and propose boundaries that provide more effective representation by reducing the population within the district…. The current Alberni–Pacific Rim electoral district” — which I am honoured to be the MLA for — “is by far the smallest electoral district on Vancouver Island by population.”

Obviously, there are many much smaller electoral districts. Certainly, within the urban centres, like in Victoria, you can walk around your constituency in an hour. I would be hard-pressed to walk around my constituency in a year, and even then, I don’t think it would quite work.

That being said, continuing:

“The current Alberni–Pacific Rim electoral district is by far the smallest….

“To provide more effective representation for both communities, the boundaries between the two districts are altered to assign some of the population of Comox Valley to the other mid-Island electoral district” — Alberni–Pacific Rim.

“While the majority of the public input from the Comox Valley requested we not make any changes to the current electoral district, it also emphasized that if we were to make changes, the communities of Courtenay and Comox would be best served in the same electoral district.”

I’m going to pause for a moment, because it’s a good point to remind. This same process that we’re debating today in Motion 26 occurs at the federal level with federal ridings. They had their changes proposed and voted on and adopted just prior to this federal election that we just went through this Monday. There were significant changes made there, too, in this same region.

In the federal boundary changes that were adopted, they actually separated out the two cities of Comox and Courtenay. They actually did the separation that this Boundaries Commission at the provincial level suggested should be resisted because of just the closeness of those…. They’re seamless communities in many ways, Comox and Courtenay. It’s an interesting parallel where the federal process, using….

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The federal ridings are quite a bit larger. Their population requirements are larger also. But they were not able to achieve their changes to meet their mandates of population by representation without separating out the cities of Courtenay and Comox. In this case, provincially, they have worked to keep those two centres together, and Cumberland has become the centre that will be removed from that representation and brought down into the new riding.

“Our preliminary report proposal to include Cumberland in Mid Island–Pacific Rim was not well received by a number of those who provided public input” — as I referred to earlier. “However, we continue to believe that the inclusion of Cumberland in Mid Island–Pacific Rim will provide more effective representation for both communities. With its sizeable population, Cumberland will act as an anchor community for the eastern portion of the district, similar to the role that Port Alberni plays for the central portion and Tofino and Ucluelet play in the west.”

As I referred to the rationale by the commission to make these changes, they did so knowing full well that there was controversy, that there was resistance to the changes being proposed. For the most part, the concerns were raised around the removal of Cumberland from their current riding and moving it southward into Mid Island–Pacific Rim.

I do not fault the Boundaries Commission here. Anyone who is purporting to represent this new, much larger constituency known as Mid Island–Pacific Rim would need to take into account the population changes and the reality that Cumberland and the areas just south of there, which I cited before — Royston, Union Bay, Fanny Bay, Hornby and Denman Islands — would definitely require, I would suggest, an office opened probably in Cumberland to ensure that there is adequate representation and access to adequate representation in that area.

Geographically, getting from Cumberland to Port Alberni is not necessarily practical. Certainly, whoever is the MLA in this future configuration would have other challenges. To get from Hornby and Denman Islands to, say, Bamfield, on the west coast, I don’t think…. In many cases, you wouldn’t be able to do it in the same day and get back again.

There are challenges that the new MLA for this post-election constituency will have to deal with. Certainly, I think key to that is ensuring that there is another office,
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at least another office, available to the people — probably, as recommended by the commission, in the town of Cumberland, which is not currently, of course, in the Alberni–Pacific Rim riding.

I’m going to start to wind down. I think it’s very important that we’re doing this debate, that the people that are watching have some understanding of why we’re supporting the good work, the tough work, of the commission and the commissioners. This is not easy work.

The concerns raised by the public around such changes as are being suggested here — major changes, in my constituency — have to be heeded by the commission. They also have to be tempered by the main mandates of the commission, which largely revolve around population changes and the trends of those changes to make sure that there is some form of consistency in representation in this House.

There are realities in this House that we all know of. For those of us who have been here a number of years, this configuration that we’re facing right here, where it looks like somebody maybe had a couple of drinks before they drew the lines down…. Well, these were always straight lines before. This was not a mistake doing it this way. This was actually very clever engineering. In 2009, the changes moved us from 79 seats, which means 79 electoral districts, to 85, which is the current configuration here.

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The addition of those seven seats was a challenge. It does raise the spectre of what will happen in 40 years, when the population of British Columbia will arguably be considerably larger. Future boundary commissions might have to figure out: “Well, how will we seat that much more representation in this place?” I’m not sure how that will work.

We can’t get too much closer. There is a parliamentary history that suggests we need two sword-lengths apart in this House to keep things somewhat civil. You know, I don’t know how strong that parliamentary history will dictate what we do here, but it certainly is part of the history and the legend of this place. I know we all try to honour and respect that too.

With that in mind, I would just like to close by suggesting that these changes are supportable. I realize they focus primarily on my constituency, but I think that’s appropriate. Others are standing to speak on effects in their constituencies and their future constituencies, and that is appropriate also.

I do support the work of the commission. I will certainly, as this comes forward as a bill in the very near future — probably next week — be supporting the work of the commission. I’m sure that this bill will be passed, and these changes will be incorporated for the future government of this place after the 2017 election.

With that, I will take my seat. I thank those watching for listening to what is sometimes a tedious debate, if you will. But again, I think it’s so important to our democracy that we have a boundary commission process that is objective and is not political.

Just going back in history, there’s a term known as gerrymandering. That is something no government or governance body ever wants to be accused of, trying to manipulate boundaries for political reasons. This process, in my opinion, has worked in a way that that could never happen. The independence of the boundary commission I applaud, and I thank them for their work.

M. Hunt: It’s my pleasure to rise to speak to Motion 26, which, in essence, is saying that we bring forth the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission of September 28, 2015, and that their recommendations be approved.

I want to speak to it because, of course, in 2014, we introduced the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, in which we gave the independent commission the ability to adjust the boundaries of all the electoral districts while preserving the existing number of electoral districts in the northern and rural regions of this province.

It is the case already that urban and suburban districts, on average, have more people than the rural districts do. However, the urban districts are much easier for MLAs to represent.

In my case, I can go from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner of my constituency in 15 minutes by car. It’s not a problem for me to get around my constituency. However, there are others in this House where it can take them a day to get from one corner of their constituency to the other corner of their constituency, because they ultimately have to fly down to Vancouver to fly back up to the other corner of their constituency.

We have these tremendous changes and diversity within this province, but ultimately, the goal is to get fair representation for the citizens of British Columbia by their members. The bottom line, ultimately, is that we need to be fair and effective in our representation, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have equal representation by population here in this House.

By allowing the commission to propose up to two additional districts, the commission has added flexibility to address the population growth in the province. Of course, we know where that growth is.

Right in Surrey, we have the two largest electoral districts — my electoral district being the second largest and the largest being immediately east of my district, Surrey-Cloverdale. Also, the Richmond–New Westminster area is being affected by getting a new electoral district, to try and strike that balance between population growth and the geographical differences that we have in this province.

[1425]

Now, the commission undertook a public consultation through March and May. They heard many comments from this province and throughout this province. Their challenge was to come back with a report that balanced everything, and that is not an easy task.
[ Page 9686 ]

All I have to do is look at my own riding, Surrey-Panorama. We were the second-largest riding by population. Obviously, something had to change. Something had to be done. The question was simply: how would the commission take that? Would they take that off the east side of our riding, or would they take it off the south side? The interesting thing is that their initial proposal was to take it off of the south end, which in fact is the northern part of the South Surrey peninsula.

It was an interesting one, what has happened to that portion of the riding. Before the previous commission, it was actually in Surrey-Cloverdale. That, of course, is a complete anomaly — to think that Crescent Beach is in Cloverdale. It’s not. Geographically, there are a few miles between the two of them. But in order to balance populations, that’s the way it was. We get these kinds of anomalies within the districts in order to try to balance the issues of population.

Obviously, it’s a disappointment to me to lose the northern part of South Surrey from my riding. It’s a great group of wonderful constituents, tremendous supporters down there. Of course, we have Crescent Beach, itself, being Surrey’s only major beach that we have on ocean. I lose that. But this is life. This is democracy. This is how things work in order to get fair representation so that we allow those in the north, in particular, and also in more rural areas to be covered.

I also want to speak of another change that has happened in Surrey. By the stroke of the pen, when the royal assent comes to this, although I still live in the same house, I will suddenly move from Fleetwood to Cloverdale. You know, although I live in Fleetwood — I can guarantee you that I live in Fleetwood — I will live in Cloverdale. I will instantly move, and so will my neighbours.

One of the interesting anomalies of this process was in the first report of the commission where they said one of their objectives was to try to keep town centres whole. That is a good and laudable objective. However, when you start doing those divisions, it becomes a challenge, and particularly when it came to Fleetwood.

The first proposal was that they took the town centre of Fleetwood, and one-quarter of Fleetwood town centre remained in Fleetwood. Three-quarters of the Fleetwood town centre all of a sudden became Cloverdale, which is miles away. That’s exactly what happened. Obviously, the good citizens of Fleetwood raised their objection as the commission came the second time through Surrey and also in their sittings here in Victoria and objected to this.

In that first proposal, Fleetwood high school, Fleetwood Park, Fleetwood Community Centre and Fleetwood Library were all in Cloverdale — which, of course, they’re not. The commission, in their wisdom, has looked at this, and they have at least put Fleetwood high school and Fleetwood Park, the library and the community centre into the continuing of Surrey-Fleetwood. But they have gone from one-quarter now to one-half of the town centre remaining in Fleetwood, the other half going to Cloverdale.

These are the challenges of the commission. These are the challenges to try to deal with these numbers. Like I said, we had that same problem with the south portion of my riding with the previous commission, which had it in Cloverdale. Now we have Fleetwood going to Cloverdale. I don’t know what it is. Cloverdale just wants to attract so much more of Surrey to itself, and it just sort of gobbles the rest of us up.

But we are Fleetwood, we will remain Fleetwood, and we will continue to be Fleetwood, even though we don’t get to vote for Surrey-Fleetwood in the next provincial election.

I would like to thank the commission members for their diligence in creating this report. I want to thank them and all British Columbians for participating in this process. It is a challenging process. It is a difficult process.

Ultimately, as has been previously spoken by members on both sides of the House, no one in this House wants to be accused of gerrymandering. Nobody in this House wants to bring political…. Well, we would sort of like to on a selfish basis.

[1430]

But on the big basis, we don’t want to bring partisanship in this process, because we want everyone in the province of British Columbia to be represented fairly in this House by those whom they choose to elect.

Although it personally affects me, in that I suddenly am no longer in Fleetwood, the Fleetwood that I love, I will be supporting the adoption of the commission’s recommendations and their published final report, because I think, ultimately, it’s good for British Columbia. It’s good for all of us.

I want to again thank the commission for their work. I will be supporting this resolution and the act, when it also comes forward.

D. Donaldson: I’m happy to take my place today in debate on Motion 26, the Electoral Boundaries Commission report proposals.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

Really, what we’re doing here today is considering the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, 2015. I’m going to talk generally about the commissioners’ work, then talk about how that work impacts Stikine, the constituency I represent, and then talk specifically about some of the recommendations of the commission.

I think I would like to start, though, by saying that the comments by the member for Surrey-Panorama…. It’s an interesting juxtaposition. I represent the largest and least populous constituency in the province, and he’s talking about boundary modifications in the biggest city in the province: Surrey. It really shows the diversity
[ Page 9687 ]
of B.C. — what makes it strong, what makes it beautiful, what makes it resilient — and also the challenge that the commissioners had in front of them. I think it’s a great example of what we face in B.C. and what makes B.C. strong. So I appreciate his comments. I’ll be talking about quite a different reality compared to downtown Surrey.

First off, I would like to thank the commissioners who created this final report that we’re considering in this motion, an independent commission that put this together. It was headed by Mr. Justice Tom Melnick, a justice of the Supreme Court. He was the chair. The other two members were Beverley Busson, a former commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Keith Archer, who is the Chief Electoral Officer for the province of B.C. We know him well here in the Legislature. So three very independent people who were on the commission that created the final report.

I thank them for their work. I’ll get into a little bit during my comments as to what challenges they faced. It was difficult work that they undertook, so I thank them for their work and for this final report.

A little bit about the process. The commission, between September and November 2014, travelled around the province gathering input. They visited 29 communities, heard from 128 presenters and received 295 written submissions. They came into Stikine. They visited the town of Smithers in September of 2014. That was just over a year ago. They heard from a number of presenters, and I know that many people made written submissions, as well, from Stikine to the commission.

After they did that, they created a preliminary report that was presented to the Legislature here on March 26, 2015. And then in April and May, again the commission went out to gather input on that preliminary report. They visited 15 communities and heard from another 144 presenters, and another 426 written submissions were received on the preliminary report. So that was in the neighbourhood of over 600 written submissions and about 300 presenters — very extensive work that they undertook. It was important work and difficult work. It’s important and difficult, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

[1435]

Once they started formulating the final report, there were some constraints. We’ve heard about those from previous speakers, and we’ve considered those constraints in previous debates in the Legislature, where in their deliberations, there was an overarching constraint.

There were three regions of the province — the north region, where Stikine is located, the Cariboo-Thompson region, and the Columbia-Kootenay region — in which the commissioners were not permitted to reduce the number of constituencies from the current number. Then they were also permitted to increase the number of seats, in this constituency, from 85 to 87. Those were the constraints, and I’ll get to those a little bit later in my comments.

Again, it’s very important work. It’s really talking about democracy and what democracy means. Every second provincial election, a commission, through the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, considers boundaries of the constituencies, because we see populations increase and populations decline. The essence of the act, the primary consideration to ensure effective representation, is representation by population, based on an average.

The reason I say this is difficult work, and I will get into this as I discuss more thoroughly the characteristics of Stikine, is that effective representation really also means access to the services provided by your MLA and access to the MLA in general. When you’re looking at some of the constituencies in B.C., that’s really impacted by what we enjoy and what we believe in, in B.C. — the amazing geography, the amazing vast spaces where there aren’t a lot of people, as well as the thriving cities and towns that we find in B.C.

Trying to find that balance, looking at democracy meaning more than simply representation by population — these are really important issues. We know in Canada…. Canada has become the most urbanized country in the world: 80 percent of people living in Canada live in urban areas. So it comes down to the issue of fairness and the ability of people that don’t live in those urban areas to be effectively represented in places like the Legislature here so that their views and their perspectives are fairly represented when it comes to making legislation, passing laws, as well as the services that MLA offices and the MLAs can provide to their constituents in the constituency.

We have this trend of increasing urbanization. We’re the most urbanized country in the world. Yet there are people living in rural areas that deserve as much representation in a democracy as those who don’t. This is what the commission grapples with when they try to realign boundaries and yet still try to remain as true as possible to the concept of representation by population based on average.

In B.C., as the report points out, the representation by population based on average…. If you looked at the 87 constituencies that the report lays out, the average population is 53,119. That’s the average in each of the constituencies if you take 87 and divide it into the population of B.C.

Under the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, the population can deviate, in a constituency, by 25 percent — so in other words, 25 percent higher than that average or 25 percent lower than that average. That would mean that a constituency population could be anywhere from 39,839 at the minus-25-percent deviation up to 66,399, and that’s at the plus-25-percent deviation.

The act also says, in trying to be true and have the primary consideration that effective representation is by representation based on population…. The act says that although the deviation shouldn’t be more than 25 per-
[ Page 9688 ]
cent either way, it can exceed 25 percent under special circumstances.

[1440]

I will be talking about that in quite a bit more greater detail when I talk about Stikine, the constituency I’m very lucky and honoured to represent.

The report. The commissioners have done a very, very bang-up job in trying to remain as true to that as possible, as far as only under certain special circumstances should the 25 percent deviation be exceeded. In the report we are considering today under this motion, 66 of the 87 constituencies proposed are within 15 percent of that average. In other words, that 53,199 population average — 67 of 87 of the proposed constituencies are within 15 percent of average. So they’re doing very well as far as keeping the deviation under that 25 percent, either way.

Ten of the constituencies are under the 25 percent deviation. In other words, their populations are below that 39,839. Now, that exceeds what should be, although under the act, under special circumstances, that can happen. The ten that are under the 25 percent represents a number that wasn’t any higher than when the last commission considered a boundaries report, which was back in 2008. So we haven’t gotten any worse on those cases of special circumstances. It’s still ten. It was ten in the previous report as well.

None of the constituencies are over the 25 percent. None exceed that 25 percent deviation. None of the constituencies go beyond 66,399, which again, is a good thing. When you start getting that kind of population per MLA, it does put a lot of stress and overstretches the constituency offices to be able to fulfil their duties to serve the members of their constituency. None, under the report, are over 25 percent.

Stikine, you might have guessed by now…. I know many of the members in the Legislature here know about Stikine from what I’ve talked about over the past six years. Stikine is one of those ten that is beyond the standard deviation on the lower end. Remember, the 25 percent low level would be about 39,839 people. Stikine, as pointed out in the Boundaries Commission report, has 20,166. That’s a deviation of 61.2 percent from the average. It’s the largest constituency in the province with the smallest population. It’s 196,484-square kilometres.

As I said, the previous speaker from Surrey-Panorama was talking about certain boundary changes within his constituency that would move a school into another area or a community centre back into the area he represents. We’re talking, with Stikine, around an area of 196,484 square kilometres.

In their wisdom, the commission decided not to make that constituency of Stikine any bigger in order to try to raise the population from 20,166 up closer to the 39,000 lower threshold. I’m very appreciative of that. I think they understand the special circumstances, which they’re allowed under the act, to grant for the kind of deviation we see in Stikine from the provincial average. So in their wisdom, they didn’t make it larger.

I don’t know how they could have considered making it any larger, when I start to get to explain a little bit more about the specifics of Stikine. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Under subsection 9(2) of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, the commissioners were able to exceed that 25 percent under special circumstances. Some of the special circumstances are geographic or demographic considerations; accessibility to your MLA, to the services offered by the MLA offices; size — and we’ll get to that a little bit more; or physical configuration.

[1445]

B.C. is an amazing province, geography-wise. There are lots of physical boundaries, geographically, between many of the communities, whether they’re mountain ranges, rivers or lakes.

Physical configuration can be a part of the special circumstances. This will be a very important part of what I’m going to talk about as well — communication and transportation. How are the communication systems in a constituency? How are the transportation options and availability of transportation in a constituency?

Those are some of the circumstances that the commissioners are able to consider to grant a constituency-size population beyond the 25 percent standard deviation. These are some of the factors the commissioners took into consideration when they did that with Stikine, as outlined in the report. I’m glad they did that, because that was the real thrust of the presentations made in Smithers that day in September a year ago, and that was the thrust of the written submissions as well.

Again, it relates to effective representation. As the commission pointed out in their report, in effective representation the primary consideration is representation by population, but there are special circumstances to go beyond that. That’s what the commissioners have done when it comes to ten of the constituencies in the province, Stikine being the prime example of a special circumstance.

Interjection.

D. Donaldson: Yeah, very special.

Now I’m going to talk a little bit about Stikine. Again, I talked about the size — 196,484 square kilometres. That’s 20 million hectares. That’s the size of Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark and Netherlands combined. So it’s not a small place, and there are 20,000 people there. There are many places in the northern part of the constituency where there are more moose than people, and sometimes it’s pleasant to be there.

I’m going to describe a bit. You know, I’ve been MLA for Stikine for six years, and I haven’t even been to all of Stikine. There are parts of Stikine, up in the northwest corner, that border the Yukon and Alaska, the Tatshenshini, where there is a road. What you have to
[ Page 9689 ]
do to get there is drive up to Whitehorse, head west from Whitehorse towards Alaska, turn south on Highway 2, and then you enter back into British Columbia. If you ever have the opportunity and want to go rafting on the Alsek-Tatshenshini, one of the best wilderness rafting experiences in the world, a world-class rafting trip, that’s where people put in for the Tatshenshini — although there are no communities.

That’s one reason I haven’t been to that area of my constituency. I don’t know how many other people living in a more urban area can say: “Well, that’s one place I haven’t been in my constituency.” But after six years, I haven’t been there. I think maybe I will find time to go there and say: “I’m exploring my constituency, and I won’t be in touch for a couple of weeks because I’ll be rafting on the Tatshenshini. I won’t have any cell phone service. Don’t worry; I will come back.” It shows the size of the constituency.

I’d like to take you, hon. Speaker, and those in the chamber who would like to listen on a little bit of a travelogue through this constituency, with the intent of showing the special circumstances that relate to this report, as to why the commissioners were able to not add any more to Stikine, to leave it the way it is even though it’s 20,000 people and much below the provincial average.

Atlin is the most northwest community in Stikine. Atlin Lake is the headwaters of the Yukon River. The Yukon River flows north out of Atlin Lake and heads northwest through the Yukon, out through Alaska to the Bering Sea. That’s the northern part of my constituency. The watershed is to the Bering Sea.

[1450]

Atlin, as you might guess, because I mentioned the Yukon River, was a town of 10,000 back in the Yukon-Klondike gold rush days. Now it’s about 300. It is on the traditional territories of the Taku River Tlingit. There’s a Taku River Tlingit reserve right beside Atlin on the shores of Atlin Lake.

Atlin doesn’t have any municipal representation. It’s not in a regional district. Its 300 members have organized under the Atlin community improvement district, so they do have a self-organized group that looks out for the interests of the community but, again, no municipal organization, no regional district.

From Atlin, if you drive north, you can get to Whitehorse in about three hours, maybe a little less, so many of the services they access are through the Yukon and through joint service agreements with B.C., for social services and other services.

They have a school there. Many of the students who are in the more senior grades end up going to Whitehorse and boarding, boarding out with families or in a boarding facility at the school.

The telephone system there — we’re talking about special circumstances involving transportation and communication — is antiquated. It’s serviced by Northwestel. It’s not on the Telus system. Telus, I believe, owns the equipment, but Northwestel services the equipment. It’s very antiquated.

They have a local Internet service provider. Internet is not what we would be used to in places like Victoria as far as high speed.

That’s Atlin.

The road down from Jakes Corner, which is the closest community in the Yukon…. It’s where the Alaska Highway crosses the bottom part of the Yukon, and then you head down to Atlin. It’s about a 100-kilometre drive. In the last, I think, about 40 kilometres of that, you re-enter into B.C. The road can be tricky and at times treacherous.

Transportation and communication are big issues and something that I know the commissioners considered when they decided not to add any more to Stikine. If you head….

I get to Atlin about once a year. I can drive there, take maybe a week or so and visit communities along the way. I drive there, possibly after landing in Smithers and after flying up from Victoria. It is about a 1,262-kilometre drive. I use it to visit other communities along the way.

I’d love be able to get to Atlin more often. It’s a beautiful community, but it’s far away, very far away. Sometimes I will fly up to Whitehorse from Vancouver, rent a car and then drive down back into B.C. and to Atlin.

You can see why the commissioners would consider transportation and communication a special circumstance. The people of Atlin can always try to phone me on their antiquated telephone-line system or send me an e-mail on their less-than-high-speed Internet access. But in the north, we do business primarily face to face. Development of relationships are important, and face-to-face is the preferred way for people to do business.

If people from Atlin are not ending up driving to Whitehorse, flying to Vancouver, and taking a ferry to Victoria to see me, we usually end up seeing each other face to face about once a year.

If I were to start in Atlin and then drive up to the Yukon border, the next town, village, in my constituency is Lower Post, and that’s 473 kilometres from Atlin. There are some neat caribou herds along the way there, but there are not a lot of people until you hit Lower Post.

[1455]

To get to Lower Post, I drive from Atlin up into the Yukon, dip down once or twice into B.C., back into Yukon through Watson Lake, then head a little south and into Lower Post.

It’s the community that’s furthest northeast in Stikine. It’s Kaska territory — Kaska Dena. This is Kaska territory. It’s on the Liard River. The Liard River is part of the Mackenzie watershed, so it flows into the Arctic. So we’re going from Atlin, being the headwaters for the Yukon River, flowing into the Bering Sea.

To the other side of the northern east part of the constituency, the Liard River flows eventually into the
[ Page 9690 ]
Mackenzie and then into the Arctic Ocean. You get some pretty different fish in that river: Arctic char — ones that we don’t see down further south in the watershed.

In Lower Post again, transportation and communication issues, compared to other constituencies. That’s why the commissioners were able to see that Stikine is a special circumstance.

We head south now. Driving to Lower Post, I drive back towards Watson Lake, back into the Yukon west, and then I’ll hang a left and turn south. Now I’m on Highway 37, the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, about one kilometre, and I’m back into B.C. and heading south now towards Good Hope Lake. Good Hope Lake is, again, Kaska territory.

Then after that, there’s Jade City. Jade City has its own reality TV show now, in case you haven’t known that. It’s been on for about a year now, based on the jade trade.

Again, we’re not talking any cell service here. If somebody is on the road and has a question for their MLA, they have to wait maybe a couple, three, five hours to actually get to a phone — a land line — where they can call the MLA office or call me here in Victoria — so no cell service.

Then we’re getting a little further south now. Again — I don’t know — we’re probably talking a three- or four-hour drive, and we’re into Dease Lake. Dease Lake is part of the regional district of Kitimat-Stikine. It does have organized local government, although the regional district is headquartered about a ten-hour drive south of there, in Terrace. It’s a pocket of the regional district, which they voted recently to join.

We’re in Tahltan country now. Dease Lake does have an airport, as the Transportation Minister knows. The airport is in need of repair. It’s in need of resurfacing. Air Ambulance is worried about landing there. People are facing transportation issues. If they wanted to fly out of there to come visit me in Victoria or come to one of the offices, there are transportation issues out of Dease Lake as well.

I’m going to talk about Telegraph Creek a little bit now, which is 150 kilometres to the west of Dease Lake — again, in Tahltan territory — and on the Stikine River, an amazing river flowing out to the Pacific Ocean. Now we’re into the rivers that flow into the Pacific. Telegraph Creek. It was a long time of, obviously, a Tahltan community. It’s their traditional territories.

The reason the road was built down there into it is that it was used as a staging area during the Second World War for the building of the Alaska Highway. The U.S. engineering corps knew that they needed a halfway point for planes to land to refuel. That halfway point was Watson Lake, as I mentioned, up by Lower Post.

Watson Lake was the airport. That airport needed to be built in order to fly in the equipment needed to build out, on both ends, the Alaska Highway during the Second World War. The equipment to build that airport was brought in through Telegraph Creek.

[1500]

It was dragged with D9 cats, I suppose, up to Dease Lake — so Dease Lake became a community then — put on barges down Dease Lake, the equipment, and then down the Dease River to the Liard, to Lower Post, then dragged up from Lower Post to Watson Lake. That’s how the airport there got built to bring in equipment for the Alaska Highway during the Second World War.

Telegraph has a local Internet service provider, and it’s got pretty good Internet. But, you know, telephone systems aren’t good there, either, and it’s a long ways away. Telegraph is probably the most isolated community in Stikine.

I’m just covering…. I see my time is almost out, which I find…. I haven’t even made it halfway down my constituency. It’s crazy. I guess this is why the Boundaries Commission was able to grant special status to a constituency like Stikine. I’m happy to support their report, and I know that we’ll be discussing it further.

J. Martin: It’s a great pleasure having the opportunity to rise on behalf of the fine people, my constituents, in Chilliwack. As one might suspect, I’m very proud to support this motion.

First, though, I would like to thank the members of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for their exemplary work in crafting their report. It is thorough. It is thoughtful and sensitive to the realities of our large province with its densely populated urban areas and vast rural regions where communities are often great distances apart and sparsely populated.

This act recommends an increase in the number of electoral districts in British Columbia by two, to 87 from 85, with new ridings in Surrey and in the Richmond–New Westminster area. There will also be boundary changes to 48 ridings, including substantial changes in the Fraser Valley, where I come from; the whole Princeton area; and the Comox Valley, mid–Vancouver Island region.

Our province is thriving, and it’s no surprise that people from other parts of Canada want to come to British Columbia. They want to take advantage of job opportunities and set down roots in our beautiful province. People want to come here to retire, because our standard of living is second to none in the country. They want to come to a province that has a stable, disciplined government that sees the value in balancing its budget year after year and all the benefits and all the possibilities that come with that.

Our government has introduced legislation to adopt all of the Electoral Boundaries Commission’s recommendations, which will ensure British Columbians are effectively represented in both urban and rural areas of the province.

We live in a province with dense and growing urban areas and more remote northern and rural regions, and we have an obligation to ensure all British Columbians are represented appropriately. We plan to retain districts
[ Page 9691 ]
in the north, the Cariboo-Thompson and the Columbia-Kootenay regions, to ensure British Columbians in less densely populated yet large, sprawling districts can be effectively represented by their MLAs.

I’m reminded that it was just a year and a half ago that members of the opposition were against a bill that protected the number of northern and rural ridings. Amendments to the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, 2014, required that no reductions in electoral districts can occur in B.C.’s north, Cariboo-Thompson and Columbia-Kootenay regions.

Well, during the second reading debate of this bill in March 2014, opposition MLAs unanimously spoke against the proposed bill. Opposition members representing the large, mostly rural ridings of Columbia River–Revelstoke, Kootenay West, Nelson-Creston, Stikine and Skeena did not voice support for the bill, which suggests to me they put the interests of their urban colleagues ahead of the needs of their constituents.

This is despite the fact that Skeena, for example, is one of the ridings that has been protected despite its small population. In debate, the member for Skeena did not voice his support for the bill, despite the fact that Skeena is one of the ridings being protected by the proposed legislation. Opposition MLAs from northern and rural regions should have been standing with the government in solidarity, making it clear that protecting those ridings and giving residents of small, rural and remote communities proper access to their MLAs is essential in a democracy such as ours.

[1505]

Thankfully, hon. Speaker and colleagues, there will be no reduction in the number of seats in the rural regions of the province, because in 2014, we mandated a freeze on changes in remote regions. Now, that doesn’t come as any great surprise. It wasn’t that long ago that the opposition wouldn’t even take their election campaign much north of Quesnel, somehow under the impression that that’s kind of as far as British Columbia goes. Well, we view things very differently on the government.

We gave the independent commission the ability to adjust the boundaries of all electoral districts while preserving the existing number of districts in northern and rural regions. The intention was to help the commission balance population between districts and to ensure effective representation. Our government has voted to approve all of the commission’s recommendations and introduced legislation to support this.

The commission undertook a public consultation in March through May of this year and considered the many, many comments gathered. The commission’s task was to balance democratic representation with geography, which is not an easy task in some areas. Our government respects the commission’s proposal and the independent, non-partisan work they carry out and has proposed legislation that adopts these recommendations.

The commission held significant consultations across the province on the proposals — 44 public hearings across the province and dozens of written submissions. I would like to thank the commission members for their diligence in creating the final report and all British Columbians who participated in the process.

As noted, there is a great desire of people to come to British Columbia. From time to time, we are going to have to adjust our electoral boundaries to accommodate those areas that have seen higher growth than others. Now, this is very, very different than the 1990s, when there was literally a stampede of people trying to leave B.C. as quick as they could. Residents were leaving, head offices were leaving, and investment was leaving for greener pastures elsewhere.

That is no longer the case. Today we have people coming to British Columbia because they understand that this is the best-governed part of the country.

The independent commission has weighed every factor and ensured every British Columbian will have effective representation in the next election, the one after that and beyond.

S. Robinson: That was certainly a rousing little speech that we just heard about representation when in fact we have two seats that are sitting empty, one for 100 days. I would like to caution some of the members from the other side when they talk about representation. That they can actually stand very comfortably, recognizing that there are two seats that are sitting empty right now out of the 85….

I would like to actually start my comments about this motion that is before us, Motion 26, about the Electoral Boundaries Commission. I think it’s really important for us to recognize that this commission’s job was to make sure that democracy was enacted in a way that people can fully participate in the electoral process. That means that when we’re elected as MLAs, we are elected to represent people. It’s a little disappointing that we have two communities that have no representation. I hope that in the days ahead, we’ll find out when they’re actually going to have a representative.

Right now we know that there are 85 seats across the province. The process of getting a commission together to take a look, to make sure that people have access to their elected representative, is a critical component of democracy. So I’m proud to take my place in this discussion on this motion and to recognize the work and the value of the exercise that was undertaken by the commission.

Part of what happens, I will agree with the member for Chilliwack, is people do like to come here. We are a growing province. There are parts of the province that grow more than others. Different parts grow at different rates. It’s always fascinating to me, as the representative for Coquitlam-Maillardville, to listen to my colleagues
[ Page 9692 ]
on both sides of the House who represent, particularly, rural ridings.

[1510]

I come from a suburban part of the province. I’m very familiar with urban and suburban life and the challenges that come with that. When I listen to my colleague from Stikine and he talks about Denmark and Ireland and the Netherlands and Switzerland, all together, is about the size of his riding, it blows my mind. It’s such a vast space. Moving around and being in touch with the 20,000 residents certainly presents some challenges.

I think it’s really important that we do take the time every other election to make sure that people are fairly represented by their MLA. It just so happens that this was the year to do that. I want to take a moment to thank the commission that was appointed back in May 2014 — Mr. Justice Thomas Melnick, Beverley Busson and Keith Archer.

I think it would be a daunting task. When I took a look at all the maps…. I love looking at maps. That has to be so challenging — to take a look at the numbers of people that are in an existing area and making sure that the boundaries are adjusted so that it’s fair all the way across. Once you adjust one boundary, it bumps into another boundary and bumps into another boundary. Being sensitive to all the needs of communities really must be a challenge. So I take my hat off to the members of this commission, because I think they dealt with the issue sensitively.

I do want to let my constituents know that there was a real valuable process that the commission undertook. Between September and November of 2014, they travelled the province, visited 29 communities and heard from 128 presenters. They received an additional 295 written submissions. It was on that basis that they started their deliberations.

What I also really appreciated was that there was a preliminary report that they put out — a preliminary report that just provided British Columbians with another opportunity to take a look. Is this really what representation looks like? How is that going to affect me? I do appreciate that, as human beings, we are all somewhat self-centred. What we want to do is say: “How does it affect me in my community? Am I now lumped in with a different neighbourhood? Am I going to be represented by somebody different? What does that mean for me?”

I also believe that our identities are tied up in the names of these communities. It could have serious implications.

Once they put out the preliminary report, they spent some more time inviting British Columbians to provide opinions. They held some more hearings, and they heard from another 145 presenters at 15 community hearings and received 426 written submissions. Clearly, they had the attention of people around British Columbia. In fact, what caught my attention about this process was that once the initial, preliminary report was put together, there were even more people who wanted to have their say, more people who wanted to make a presentation before the commission.

What that says to me is that British Columbians care. They care about this process, they care about democracy and they care about making sure that their voice is heard in this lovely House.

What we have before us are the final proposals — in this document. They are recommending 48 of the 85 districts have a shift in boundary, and they are proposing two additional seats.

When I squish in here, I try to imagine those who are responsible for adjusting these desks and finding ways to fit in two more seats. I think they’re going to have, perhaps, a far greater challenge than maybe even the commission had, because it’s pretty tight in here. I think it does speak to the importance — and I know that we’ll find a way — of making sure that people have representation and have access to their MLA.

The two additional seats will be located one in Richmond and one in Surrey. That makes sense. They’re high-growth communities, and people need to have access to their MLA. I think it’s really, really important value.

I do also appreciate, in terms of process, that it’s really up to this House. It’s up to the members of this House to actually adopt the recommendations. While the commission does all the work…. They go out into the community. They look at maps. They look at, I suspect, statistics and look at population growth. They go out into the community. They hear from people. They read written submissions. They make some recommendations. They go back to the community. They listen some more. They read some more. They come back with a report, and it’s really up to the members of this House to say yea or nay.

[1515]

When we think about all those British Columbians who took time to make their voices heard, I think it’s important in this House…. All members of this House should take a moment to thank those people. We represent them. This is not about us.

I do remember when the preliminary report came out, this House was all atwitter. It was like people couldn’t get their hands on the copies of the preliminary report fast enough. It has impact on us, on our constituents, on what it means for us as politicians, but the reality is that this is about British Columbians. This is about people and making sure that they have access to this House through us.

There are hundreds of them who took time out of their busy day, took time out of their busy schedule, took time away from being with their kids or being with their parents, time away from their jobs — whatever it was that they might have otherwise been doing. They got informed, they read, they talked, they put together their thoughts and ideas, and they made a presentation to this commission.

Now, people in this House are used to getting up and speaking. We do that all the time. For many, to get up
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and speak in front of a commission — judges and the like here, lawyers…. That has to create some anxiety. It was important enough to them to put their thoughts to paper and to share their concerns — that they liked this boundary change, or they didn’t like this boundary change.

I want to make note…. I mean, I do appreciate when I hear from the member for Stikine and the member for North Coast. Those are two of my colleagues who have talked to me about what it’s like for them to travel their constituencies, to meet with the various groups that they represent, to meet with the various individuals that have difficulty, perhaps, accessing some government service or who are interested in learning more about government. For them to travel their constituencies is quite onerous and quite difficult, and so it has been a tremendous learning opportunity for me.

But I want to focus my comments mostly around the greater Vancouver area, mostly because that is where we’re seeing the greatest amount of growth and because it happens to be where I’m from and I’m most familiar with. Because greater Vancouver has the greatest growth, resulting in most of its electoral districts exceeding the provincial average — some exceed by the permissible 25 percent — I suspect it’s where we’re going to see ongoing changes as we project out. I don’t think squeezing two more seats in here is the end. I think it’s the beginning.

I imagine that over the next 15 or 20 years, we’re going to continue to see some of these challenges about how we make sure that people are represented in the Lower Mainland, in particular, making sure that there’s some balance.

One of the things that was in the report that certainly caught my attention is that the commission notes they received input on the importance of keeping neighbourhoods within municipalities intact. We heard the member for Surrey-Panorama go on about Fleetwood and the tension in that community, and I think that the commission was sensitive to that. I really appreciate that, because people’s identities are tied up in where they live, who they associate with, where they shop and what schools their children go to. Those are the bases for our communities.

People think that the family structure is the most important structure. Yes, it is an important structure, but the community structure is an equally important structure. Community is where we get our support for families. Communities are where we live and where we get our needs met when our families can’t meet our needs. It’s where we make friends. It’s where we have business contacts. It’s where we, I think, do the best and where we thrive. So the fact that the commission was sensitive to neighbourhoods is, I think, a tremendous compliment to them.

[1520]

They said in the report that they’d heard from a lot of community members that they wanted their communities to remain whole. They didn’t want this line. While a dividing line that looked like a straight line down a road would make sense, it really didn’t make sense because there was a park or a school or something that pulled people together, that grounded them. That there was some sensitivity to that, I think, is important to acknowledge, and I think it’s important for my colleagues to acknowledge.

Now, I want to speak more specifically to the Tri-Cities, because that’s where I’m from, and I happen to think it’s one of the best communities in British Columbia. No offence to my colleagues, but Tri-Cities rocks. I’m sure the member for Port Moody–Coquitlam will agree and the member for Port Coquitlam would agree. If we had somebody from Burke Mountain here, I’m sure that he would agree as well.

I really found the report very sensitive to the unique needs and the unique challenges of the Tri-Cities. While those of us from the Tri-Cities speak of the Tri-Cities as a unit, it’s actually three cities — hence Tri-Cities — and two villages. It’s not a municipality like other municipalities. It’s not like Richmond or Burnaby. It’s an amalgam of three distinct municipalities, two villages. Each has its own distinct identity. Creating boundaries — because there are far too many people in the Tri-Cities to be one; there needs to be four — and finding out where to put those boundaries I would imagine would be a very difficult task, to be sensitive to the idea of neighbourhood and to the idea of belonging that people have to their communities.

I just want to read this into the record, because I thought it was done so sensitively. The commission said: “The Tri-Cities is made up of the cities of Port Coquitlam, Port Moody and Coquitlam. Although they are three distinct municipalities, these cities work closely together, and many residents view this area as a community in itself.” I just want to acknowledge that one sentence in this report, because I think they did a really excellent job of capturing how people in the Tri-Cities feel about their community.

We have one school district. We have one chamber of commerce. We live and play and work in each other’s communities interchangeably. It’s pretty unique. You don’t see it in other communities.

We’re bounded by New West on the south, and we don’t have that sort of interplay the same way. We have Burnaby to the west, and again, you don’t see that sort of interplay. That North Road dividing line just really does seem like a barrier, even though that’s where we all go to access the Millennium Line — but not for much longer, because we’re getting the Evergreen line coming into the Tri-Cities. Burnaby is really quite distinct from the Tri-Cities. People have a real sense that it’s in a different place.

Of course, we’ve got Pitt Meadows on the east. Again, it’s a very different place. It’s a barrier. It’s not this flow-through, this easy relationship, that we have in the Tri-Cities. I want to acknowledge the excellent job that the
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commission did in recognizing the uniqueness of this community.

When I take a look at the actual changes…. There are changes that are being proposed to Coquitlam-Maillardville. I have some folks…. What’s very interesting, I guess because there are dividing lines through the city, is that there are some residents who don’t really make a distinction. They say: “Oh, yeah. You’re my MLA.” And it’s like: “Well, technically, actually, I’m not your MLA. You’re over on the Port Moody side” or “You’re over on the Burke Mountain side.”

There’s this little bit of confusion because there’s this sort of dividing line, and it’s going to change again. It’s being proposed that it changes again.

[1525]

I think that, for a while, that might cause some confusion. But when I take a look at the existing map, the 2008 redistribution, and what’s being proposed, I do think that this will really simplify for constituents where the boundaries are and how to determine who their MLA is.

The existing map, if I start in the north, starts at the railway, at the CPR tracks, and moves south. It just follows along Lougheed, and it encompasses Riverview as well as Colony Farm and the Kwikwetlem First Nation. Then it’s easy, because it just goes right down to the water. People sort of recognize that as a natural boundary, so it’s very easy for them to recognize. I don’t have anybody living on the water, at least not yet. And there’s no island over there, so it feels like a pretty clean line.

As we come and move along the edge, there’s another really nice line along New Westminster. It’s a pretty clear, easy dividing line. It goes up North Road — again, dividing from New West, to the south, and Burnaby, over to the west. But it sort of ends there. The existing northern boundary zigzags and zagzigs and dipsy-doodles in ways that…. It’s like you need to sort of superimpose it on a road map. It jumbles around and moves through and cuts through, arbitrarily, different roads.

When people would say, “Well, I live on Blue Mountain,” I’d say: “Okay, are you north or south of Foster?” It just would become this directional conversation about: “Which corner do you live on?” It was hard to communicate with people. They just didn’t understand.

The boundaries perhaps made sense from a numbers game, I’m sure, if the previous commission was running through the numbers and looked to make the numbers work. But from a practical perspective, it’s been a very a difficult map to work with. It is very difficult for people to understand who their representative is. Especially, you know, if their neighbour across the street had a different representative. People would say, certainly: “How come they have you, but I have this other representative? We sort of live in the same area. Our kids go to the same school.” That presented some problem. If they had a joint concern, one would have to go to the member from Port Moody, and one would come to me.

The zigzag that was on the north border has been shifted, and I am quite pleased to let my constituents know that the boundaries have changed. That, I know, will make it so much easier for them and so much easier for me and, certainly, so much easier for my constituency assistants. I know that members here…. We all run constituency offices. A lot of people think, especially in the Lower Mainland, they’re not really sure who their MLA is. There’s only so much time that our CAs have. One of the things they do is make sure that this is actually a constituent, and if they’re not, they send them on to the appropriate constituency office. This will just make it so much easier.

This new map. What’s interesting is they’ve changed it. Instead of following some of the roads, they actually follow a hydro right-of-way, which is very interesting. They follow the hydro right-of-way down Mariner to the train tracks. They follow the old map, following the CPR railway right up to Westwood, the boundary to Port Coquitlam, and then it follows that train track — again, includes Riverview and Kwikwetlem First Nation and then comes out at the water. We have this really easy boundary. It continues all the way to Braid Street.

Actually, what I should articulate…. I misspoke earlier. I do have an island. I have Tree Island. I don’t think there are any people living there. Maybe there are trees there. I’ve never been there. Tree Island — it’s right here on this map. It includes the Fraser River. Apparently, I have to visit Tree Island. I’m going to have to kayak out or something.

[1530]

I follow along the water, up Braid Street. It follows along the border with New Westminster. Then we get to North Road and go up North Road — Burnaby is on the west side; I have the east side — until we get to Foster Road. It continues east along Foster in a straight line. I was so excited to see a straight line.

Now, the people on the north side of Foster are Port Moody–Coquitlam. The people on the south side, however, are my constituents. It makes it super easy for me. The boundary then goes north along Gatensbury. Unfortunately, I don’t have Como Lake in my constituency, which I was hoping for. It’s a beautiful, beautiful lake. It’s small, and you can see seniors fishing there most mornings. You have to be a senior or under 12, I think, or ten. But you can get a licence to fish. Tiny, little fish, but it’s a beautiful spot.

However, I do have the folks across the street. Those folks who live right on that lake are my constituents. Again, there is one little zig, but there’s no zag, and it turns east along Como Lake Avenue. Everything south of Como Lake Avenue is in my constituency, until they get to the hydro right-of-way.

It’ll be easier when I talk with people about who their representative is, and it will be easier to give them guidance on where to go. It’ll be easier to have some clarity.
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There’ll be less confusion, so from my very selfish perspective and on behalf of my constituents, I’m very excited to see this.

Now, one of the things that’s going to be really very interesting is that I do lose a section of folks whose children go to the high school that is in my constituency, because of the catchment area. On the east side of the constituency, there’s the feeder school. That’s in the neighbourhood that I live in, in Ranch Park. But on the west side of the school, they are now in the Port Moody–Coquitlam constituency.

It may change some of the challenges around that school, in particular. I know that there are certainly some people who’ve worked closely with me, who have supported me and who have been very pleased to have me as their representative. I will no longer be, should this pass. I suspect that it will, because I’ve been hearing members on both sides of the House really pleased with this report. It will be very interesting to engage in dialogue when they discover, should this pass, that their boundary has changed, that their identity has changed.

That’s, I think, the thing that has impressed me most about my constituents — that they are proud to be in Coquitlam-Maillardville. They talk about how proud they are to be in Coquitlam-Maillardville. They identify that way, so for them to say that no, they’re Port Moody–Coquitlam, will, I think, provide some sadness to some folks, and I suspect there’ll be people who will be happy with that change. I think it goes both ways.

The other thing that I want to highlight in the changed boundary is that I’m pleased that the Vancouver Golf Club is now in my constituency. There’s an interesting story about this golf club. The golf club itself has to be 100 years old, easily — or close to it. It was considered the rural golf club, way out in Coquitlam. It’s called the Vancouver Golf Club, which is very confusing to people, because they expect it to be in Vancouver.

The only people who played in it were people from Vancouver, because nobody, really, lived out where the Deputy Speaker is from, from Burnaby — or from Coquitlam. There really weren’t many people there. So people would travel the great distance from, I suspect, my colleague from Vancouver–Point Grey’s area. They would travel the great distance all the way out to the Vancouver Golf Club in order to enjoy their 18 holes.

[1535]

Well, that golf club has been the home to several international golf tournaments — the women’s open twice in the last number of years. I’m really quite proud to have the opportunity to represent those that live around the golf course and to have the golf course in my constituency.

I also want to say that it is my honour to represent the Kwikwetlem First Nation, which is on the southeast corner. They are a community that is growing. They have invested substantially in housing in their community. They have worked tirelessly with the city of Coquitlam, the city of Port Coquitlam, Hydro and the gravel operators in the Burke Mountain area to bring salmon back to the river that is part of the dividing line — the Coquitlam River. I’m very, very proud to represent them as well. They’re an important constituent. I always feel honoured and humbled to represent them as the First Peoples of the neighbourhood, of the community.

Noting that my time is running out as I speak to this motion, I again just want to thank everyone who spoke to the commission. I want to thank the commission for their hard work. I don’t think I’d ever want their work. I think this is probably very, very difficult to do. I am pleased to hear of so many of my colleagues who are in support of it. Those who are responsible for organizing this chamber, I look forward to seeing how they’re going to squeeze in two more desks.

M. Morris: It’s my pleasure to get up and speak in favour of this motion, as well, as everybody seems to be in this House — everybody who seems to speak so passionately about their ridings. I’m equally passionate about my riding of Prince George–Mackenzie, which is halfway up the province. It’s not the largest riding by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still a little bit more than a three-hour drive from north to south.

Prince George is the economic hub for much of British Columbia. It’s a major centre in B.C. I host the Natural Resource Forum that’s been taking place there now for a dozen years. Major resource companies from across Canada — and around the world, actually — attend that particular forum, because they realize the importance of resource development in British Columbia and for Canada.

There’s a notion amongst many people in my riding who have come and talked to me about electoral boundaries and representation in the province that many people in urban B.C. don’t really understand the issues and the significance of rural B.C. I’ve got a report I’m going to quote from here in a moment or two. It indicates that we’ve got a high number of people who immigrate to British Columbia and live in urban B.C., down in the Lower Mainland here. We’ve got people that come in from other provinces and take up residence in the Lower Mainland.

I think we also have a significant number of people that, when they get up in the morning in their cozy apartment in downtown Vancouver or Victoria or Surrey or Burnaby or some of these other major urban centres, turn their thermostat up on the wall, and the heat comes on in their gas-fired fireplace or in their furnace. Their apartment gets nice and warm. Then they turn on the lights so they can go into the washroom and shave and shower and get ready for the day before they jump in their car and drive across one of the many steel-concrete bridges that we have in the province to get to their workplace. Then they take up their computers and use the fibre op-
[ Page 9696 ]
tics stretching across the land. A lot of these things come from rural B.C.

The natural gas that they and their constituents use in their ridings comes from northeast B.C. It’s transported through the ground in large pipes made out of steel. The steel is not only made out of the iron ore from back east, but it also utilizes the metallurgical coal that we have in rural B.C. That helps to make the steel that transports the natural gas down to the fine style of living that people have in urban B.C., down south here, and also the electricity when they go to turn on the lights.

[1540]

I have the southern half of Williston Lake in my riding. Williston Lake was created when W.A.C. Bennett created the W.A.C. Bennett dam and subsequently the Peace Canyon dam. Of course, we’re working on Site C up in that area right now. The power generated from that facility is transported by these giant, massive cables — copper, again, that we dig out of the ground from Highland Valley Copper in rural B.C. and from some of the other places that we have. It’s carried on these large steel-structured towers that we have — again, steel, iron ore, copper, or metallurgic coal in the ground in rural B.C. So rural B.C. makes some very, very significant contributions to urban B.C. and to Canadians in general, not only with the products that we bring down here but with the economy that we generate by doing all that activity up there.

But we’re seeing some things occur that have been occurring since I came into this world, and I’m just going to review some Stats Canada figures here. When I came into this world in the early ’50s, we had a population of about 1.2 million people in British Columbia, and 32 percent of the population in B.C. at that particular time lived in rural B.C. Today — well, in 2011 — again according to Stats Canada, we’ve got close to four million people in B.C., and 12.4 percent of those people live in what’s considered a rural environment in British Columbia.

I looked at some other stats on line from B.C. Stats. I looked at our population from the end of the Cache Creek–Nicola Valley area —from, basically, halfway between Cache Creek and 100 Mile House — to the Yukon border and from the Alberta border out, including the Queen Charlotte Islands. We’ve got a population of 322,700 people. It works out to maybe 8 percent, or less than 8 percent, of the total population in British Columbia. That comprises the northern three-quarters of the province. The population in the northern three-quarters of the province is less than the population of Surrey. It is 50 percent less than the city of Vancouver.

The problem that my constituents have brought to me since we had our debate on this electoral boundaries bill last year was that we have a population down in Vancouver with many, many people who never venture north of the Lower Mainland. We have, according to this report here…. I’ll give a quotation from the report here. They say in the report that immigrants comprised 26.1 percent of the provincial population in 2001, and their share increased to 27.3 percent in 2011.

We need immigrants in this province to look after the work, to contribute to the economy and to contribute to everything that is great about British Columbia. We have a lot of immigrants who come into British Columbia from around the world. They take up residence in the city, they create businesses, they create business opportunities, and they work. A lot of them are very skilled and they’re specialized, but they never leave the Lower Mainland, or they never leave the urban population of British Columbia. Their paradigm is centred around the area that they live in.

If an issue comes up in the province here and we need to spend $9 billion on a bridge, or we need to spend $1 billion on a subway system under Broadway street, or we need to build new hospitals or schools or other systems, other infrastructure in the Lower Mainland, a lot of times they have no idea what the priorities might be or what some of the more significant needs might be in rural British Columbia.

That’s our job, as rural members of this House — to ensure that other members sitting in this House when we debate and when we discuss how we’re going to spend the hard-earned money of British Columbians…. It’s to let everybody know what’s going on down here. But when people vote, they vote from the paradigm in which they live. If they don’t have any experience of what British Columbia is all about, then there’s a deficit in how those decisions are made.

This report is called Strengthening Rural Canada. It was written by Dr. Bakhtiar Moazzami on behalf of Essential Skills Ontario and Decoda Literacy Solutions. It’s a new report. It’s been out just a few months.

[1545]

One of the quotations they have in there is on the findings of his research.

“The findings reveal that the population in rural British Columbia is declining in both absolute and relative terms. The rural population is aging rapidly, fertility rates are low, and a large proportion of working-age population aged 20 to 64 are moving to cities for education and employment opportunities.

“This trend is problematic because, unlike the urban areas of the province which are and have always experienced high immigration, rural British Columbia experiences very little immigration. If this trend continues unabated, the rural population will decline even further, going from its current population of 545,000 to 479,000 by 2025.”

I’ve seen statistical data that includes a more drastic drop than that.

Rural British Columbia needs strong representation. As we heard from our member for Stikine, as we’ve heard from many of the other members that work and operate in rural British Columbia, population is getting smaller, and their voice is becoming somewhat muted with the increase in seats down in urban B.C. Because of the population growth that we have down here, we’re going to see two more seats added after the next election.
[ Page 9697 ]

One of the important aspects of strong rural representation in British Columbia is that a large portion of our First Nations populations live in rural British Columbia. In fact, 60 percent of First Nations in B.C. live in the northern three-quarters of the province. Their voice needs to be heard as equally as anybody else’s voice in this Legislature and in this province.

Again, another reason why we need to maintain the number of rural ridings that we have in British Columbia is so that there’s strong — or as strong as we can get — representation in British Columbia to talk about the issues: you know, the school facilities that we need to address, the health facilities that we need to address, the infrastructure needs that we have right across this province.

We have some significant pressures on us in the Lower Mainland to build bridges, to build transit systems, to build all kinds of things — hospitals and schools. But if we don’t have those infrastructure systems in place, as well, upcountry in rural B.C.; if we don’t have adequate highways; if we don’t have the new bridges that we need up there; if we don’t have the hospitals to support the workers that are up there, because it’s such a long distance to bring them down to medical facilities in urban B.C. here; if we don’t have the educational institutions up there to attract and retain skilled workers, then rural B.C. suffers.

All of these things combine to point in the direction that we need strong rural representation from as many ridings as we can maintain in rural B.C., despite what the population figures are, just so that that voice is heard down in Vancouver here.

It’d be great if we could get everybody living in urban B.C. to take a holiday and come up through the Interior and right through British Columbia to get an idea of what we have to offer and to give them a different paradigm when it comes to voting in the upcoming elections and whatnot — or at least to understand a lot of the issues that rural B.C. MLAs have to deal with and contend with when they’re speaking on behalf of their constituents up there.

We spend lots of hours in a vehicle. The member for Stikine was talking about flying and driving throughout his riding. I’ve driven every numbered highway in British Columbia. I’ve driven every resource road and every secondary highway in the northern three-quarters of the province. I’ve been to every community, First Nations community and otherwise, in the northern three-quarters of the province. I’ve flown over the area. I’ve travelled up the coast, in the RCMP patrol vessels, into all the coastal communities.

I’ve got a very good understanding of how this province looks and the socioeconomic conditions that we live in and work under right across the northern three-quarters of the province here. It’s a pretty significant job. I admire the MLAs who work in the more remote communities here, trying to have their voice heard in this big noise in urban B.C. I’ve often referred to it as the insatiable beast.

[1550]

You know, there’s always an opportunity or there’s always a need to spend money at every level of government in urban B.C. here, as there is right across the province.

I support this motion, as I think everybody does. We’re going to accept all of the recommendations of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. I look forward to hearing what my colleagues have during the rest of this debate.

D. Eby: I’m very pleased to rise in this place to speak a little bit about what the member just finished calling the insatiable beast, where I live, the city of Vancouver, the middle of the Lower Mainland. I guess it’s not the campaign slogan the government’s going to be using next election.

In any event, I see it slightly differently, and I’m glad to rise and speak about my constituency and speak about the Boundaries Commission’s work and the report in front of us here today. There are a couple of really important issues that I think need to be raised about this report.

First of all, I’d just like to note from the top that my constituency was altered slightly to include the boundaries of Pacific Spirit Park in its entirety within my constituency, as opposed to just part of it. I’m not sure it will have any major impact on voting. I guess for the sake of completeness, it’s a good idea for the commission to do that. Aside from that, no changes around the borders of my constituency. I continue to represent Kitsilano, Point Grey and the UBC neighbourhoods as well as the University Endowment Lands, also known as University Hill, and it’s my pride and pleasure to do so.

I’m going to focus my remarks on an issue that I think is critically important. That’s the mandate that was given to this commission, as set out in their report, and how they dealt with it in this report, in the context of a critical piece of legislation that governs everything that we do in this House, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Now, this is an entrenched statute. It’s the most important law in Canada. It governs all of the laws that we make, all the administrative decisions made by various bureaucrats at the federal, provincial and municipal levels, government agencies — a critically important law. It speaks directly to a fundamental right of every Canadian — every British Columbian, every Vancouverite, every Prince George resident — which is the right to vote.

The mandate of the commission, the job that these folks were given, is critically important. For those people in the gallery who are just sitting in briefly on the debate, what we’re talking about here is a commission set up every second general election in British Columbia. It’s got three members on it, chaired by a Supreme Court judge — in this case, Mr. Justice Melnick; a former commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Beverley Busson; and Keith Archer, Chief Electoral Officer for British Columbia.
[ Page 9698 ]

These three folks get together. They look at the map of British Columbia. They look at the population. They decide how to break it up into different constituencies to be represented by MLAs.

Now, when they do that, they have to consider some very important issues. I would argue one of the most critical issues that they have to consider is the idea of representation by population and vote parity. That’s the idea that each person that lives in British Columbia…. When they cast a vote, their vote shouldn’t have a disproportionate impact on who forms government over somebody else who lives in another part of the province. Everybody’s vote should have roughly the same amount of power, regardless of where you live in the province.

The reason why that’s an important principle is it’s enshrined within this Charter of Rights and Freedoms that I was talking about — that everybody has the right to vote and that that vote should be, the courts have interpreted, a reasonably equal vote, in terms of the impact and the power that it has.

In order to determine that, the commission looks at what they call the electoral quotient, or the provincial average, and they look at the deviation from that quotient. They take the entire population for the province, they divide it by the number of seats in the Legislature, and they come up with an average population per seat, per politician. Then they look at the actual numbers of people who live in the boundaries that they’ve drawn out, and they say: “By what percentage does this vary from the average for the province?”

[1555]

When they’re doing their map, when they’re doing their measurements and when they’re setting out these areas, they are asked by the government — as is proper, as should be the case — to make sure that they deviate from this provincial average by no more than 25 percent.

That number is not pulled out of the air. That 25 percent is a critically important number. That is the number that our Supreme Court of Canada has said is the constitutional measurement by which the validity of these areas will be determined. If you’re beyond 25 percent, you’re in the danger zone for constitutional validity, according to the Supreme Court of Canada. I’m going to go into that in some detail.

Now, the commission was given this particular mandate. They were also given an exception to that rule. In particular, there are three defined regions — Cariboo-Thompson, Columbia-Kootenay and North region — in which the commission was told…. It encompasses a number of electoral districts, about 20 electoral districts, in which the commission was allowed to exceed this 25 percent boundary. They were allowed to be beyond that 25 percent boundary set by the Supreme Court of Canada in interpreting the right to vote that’s protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

When they provided this report to us today, a key part of the report was to go through this issue of deviation and special circumstances. When are you allowed to go 25 percent beyond the average in either direction? If you’re over the average, it means the people in that constituency…. Their vote counts for less than the people who are at the average. If you’re under the average, it means your vote counts for more than people who are at the average.

How did they do in terms of coming to that 25 percent boundary that the court has said is permissible, constitutionally, in British Columbia? Well, in the appendix, the commission set out the 85 electoral districts. In fact, they did exceed the 25 percent standard in a number of constituencies across the province. I don’t think that you’re going to hear anybody complaining from a constituency where their vote now has a significantly higher impact in determining who forms government. You’re not going to hear people concerned about that.

I think where you’re going to hear the concern and where…. If this report runs into judicial review, which I think it will, I think the areas where you’re going to find concern are ridings like Richmond Centre, Richmond East, Surrey-Cloverdale and Surrey-Panorama, where people find that their votes are now worth less because they’re significantly beyond that 25 percent boundary. For example, Surrey-Cloverdale, at 46 percent over the provincial average, is significantly beyond the margins set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Now, I used to work for an organization called the B.C. Civil Liberties Association before I left in order to run and to be elected. The nice part about the B.C. Civil Liberties Association is it’s a non-partisan organization. I know that the Minister of Advanced Education, a former president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, proudly and rightly proudly states that fact in his bio, as he should. It’s a wonderful organization.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is an organization that has taken a great interest in this issue of voter parity. How close are we to that 25 percent average in B.C.? They provided submissions to various boundaries commissions.

In order to inform this House and to inform our debate, I’d like to read into the record some of their submissions on previous districting efforts that have taken place in B.C. I think the context of the law in Canada is critically important in understanding the impact of the decisions made in this report, to say some people’s vote is worth significantly more and some people’s vote is worth significantly less.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

In addition, I would also note for this House that this organization has not been afraid to take this government to court to challenge where they go beyond that 25 percent boundary. I think there are two considerations that we should have in relation to this report. One is our obli-
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gation, as people who are elected, to respect the laws of Canada, to respect the laws of British Columbia and to put forward our best proposals within those laws, as we understand them.

The second is…. One of the laws that we’re set out to respect is a critically important law that holds us all together as Canadians. That is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — this idea of equality and fairness among all Canadians. That is a particularly important context.

In a piece of litigation where the B.C. Civil Liberties Association sued the Attorney General of British Columbia in the 1980s, after the Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force…. Chief Justice McEachern was then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. He eventually went on to the Court of Appeal.

[1600]

He addressed a preliminary question that was brought by the provincial government. The question was whether the job of drawing these districts was immune from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The provincial government at that time said that since the job of drawing districts was defined in the Constitution Act, it was exempt from this idea that judges could come and review the job that we did and see whether we were within that 25 percent boundary. Chief Justice McEachern rejected those arguments. He started by talking about what the petition of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association was about.

“This petition questions the allocation of seats in the Legislature of B.C. on the basis of uneven electoral representation. In short, the petitioner says the Legislature has created electoral districts, and there are as many as 15 or 16 times more electors in some districts than others.

“The petitioner, whose standing was not questioned on this application, says ‘one person, one equal vote’ is guaranteed by various sections of the Charter, particularly section 2(b), freedom of expression; section 3, voting; section 6, mobility; section 7, liberty; and section 15, equality.

“The petitioner, of course, relies on subsection 52(1) of the Constitution of Canada, which provides that any law inconsistent” with the Charter “is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect.”

In other words, the court can invalidate anything that we do that is inconsistent with the Charter.

The judge, after reviewing the history and the technical arguments, said:

“It seems to me that the exercise of a legislative jurisdiction given by the constitution to a legislature” — like we are here today — “particularly when it results in a law such as the present Constitution Act of British Columbia, is subject to the Charter….

“Applying the foregoing to this case, I conclude that the authority of the Legislature to enact or amend the Constitution Act of B.C., particularly section 19 and schedule 1, is constitutional in the sense that no other body may interfere with such jurisdiction and no body can change that arrangement without a constitutional amendment.

“How the Legislature exercises this authority, and the validity of such provisions in the sense of conforming to the Charter, is quite a different matter. It is the court’s reluctant responsibility to examine the result of the exercise of such authority to ensure it conforms with the Charter.”

In other words, the courts don’t want to do this. They don’t want to look over our shoulders and make sure that we’re following this rule, but they will do it.

“Thus, although the constitutional tree may be immune from Charter scrutiny, the fruit of the constitutional tree is not. If the fruit of the constitutional tree does not conform to the Charter, including section 1, then it must, to that extent, be struck down.”

In this case, very poetic language to refer to the fruit of the constitutional tree being the way we draw these boundaries. If it doesn’t comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then it must be struck down.

It went to a full hearing on merits. It went up to the Court of Appeal. Chief Justice McLachlin, who then went on to the Supreme Court of Canada, reserved judgment, and she found the variation of voters among the provincial ridings to be extreme. She said — and this is where the 25 percent measurements comes from:

“At the extremes, the electoral district of Atlin is 86.8 percent below the equal population norm, while the district of Surrey-Newton is 63.2 percent above the norm, for a total variance of 149.7 percent.

“This is an extreme but not atypical example. Nine ridings are more than 25 percent below the norm, while ten are more than 25 percent above the norm. Twenty ridings are more than 10 percent below the norm, while 25 more are more than 10 percent above.”

She noted in her reasons:

“The effect of the disparities in British Columbia is to enhance the power of the rural voter. Votes in urban areas tend to be worth considerably less than votes in rural areas outside the Lower Mainland.”

She raised concern about that in terms of principles of equality and democratic governance. 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. The Charter reflects this. Section 3 cannot be overridden under subsection 33(1). It is, in this sense, a preferred right that” has special status.

Chief Justice McLachlin was not done then. She said:

“It cannot be denied that the quality of voting power is fundamental to the Canadian concept of democracy. The claim of our forefathers to representation by population — ‘rep by pop’ — preceded Confederation and was confirmed by it.

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“As I’ve earlier noted, the purpose of the section 3 guarantee of the right to vote must be to preserve to citizens their full rights as democratic citizens. The concept of representation by population is one of the most fundamental democratic guarantees, and the notion of equality of voting power is fundamental to representation by population. The essence of democracy is that the people rule. Anything less than direct, representative democracy risks attenuating the expression of the popular will and hence risks thwarting the purpose of democracy.”

Chief Justice McLachlin went on and on and reinforced again and again the importance of the right to vote and the right to voter parity. She said that the “relative equality of voting power is fundamental to the right to vote enshrined in section 3 of the Charter. In fact, it may be seen as the dominant principle underlying our system of representational democracy.”

Here the B.C. Civil Liberties Association’s comments are also worth consideration.
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“These words bear careful consideration. While some modest deviation from absolute or strict voter equality may be tolerated as a practical matter, the fact remains that the fundamental concern must be one of ensuring equality of voting power. Otherwise, pragmatism becomes a tool for justifying ever-increasing inequality and erosion of fundamental principles. Eventually what started off as a mere ‘pragmatic’ response to the situation ‘on the ground’ would become a principle that reverted to the deprivation of Charter guarantees and the loss of confidence by the public in basic democratic institutions and values.”

We have a technical document in front of us, and we have some very impassioned members in this place, on both sides of the House, representing the interests of their constituents in having as much voice as possible in this place. And all of us would stand, and should stand, and fight for as much voice as possible for our constituents in this place. We also have a responsibility, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to ensure that our efforts to make sure that they have as much voice as possible are consistent with the legal obligations that we have under the Charter to ensure equal representation as best we can for all British Columbians.

This is not just a sort of floaty democratic principle. The courts have previously struck electoral boundaries that do not comply with these principles.

There was a reference regarding provincial electoral boundaries in Saskatchewan, in 1991, to the Supreme Court of Canada. In particular, they had legislation that allowed, in Saskatchewan, a 15 percent deviation from the provincial average, and then they bumped it up to 25 percent — consistent with the B.C. litigation that I’ve already told this place about — in particular to favour rural jurisdictions. They faced particular opposition, at the time, in relation to the validity of what they were doing.

The Supreme Court of Canada held its hearing on this matter on an expedited basis, given the fact that it was getting pretty close to election time and they needed boundaries in Saskatchewan in order to do this. The court majority upheld what Chief Justice McLachlin had written in the B.C. case — that electoral districting laws are subject to the Charter and that there is a significant risk in diluting votes when it comes to the right to vote and voter parity.

The Supreme Court of Canada said:

“What are 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 to and assistance from his or her representative. The result will be uneven and unfair representation.”

It’s also important to note an additional point, which the association emphasized in their submission. Formerly Justice McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada, now Chief Justice McLachlin:

“In summary, the evidence supplied by the province is sufficient to justify the existing electoral boundaries.”

That was the 25 percent variance.

“In general, the discrepancies between urban and rural ridings are small, no more than one might expect given the greater difficulties associated with representing rural ridings,” which you’ve heard a number of members speak about, on both sides of this House.

[1610]

“And discrepancies between particular ridings appear to be justified on the basis of factors such as geography, community interests and population growth patterns. It was not seriously suggested that the northern boundaries are inappropriate, given the sparse population and the difficulty of communication in the area. I conclude that a violation of section 3 of the Charter has not been established.”

The important thing here is that that legislation set out 25 percent as the maximum, and that is what Chief Justice McLachlin — then Justice McLachlin — was finding was important to her in terms of acceptable variance.

Now, there was a dissent in that decision. There were three justices who dissented, who would have found that this was unconstitutional. In other words, you had a panel of seven judges. Four of them said it was okay, and three said it wasn’t okay. That was on a 25 percent variation in Saskatchewan. Here, in front of us, we have a report that presents us with variations in excess of 60 percent in some cases, on the low end, and, on the high end, in excess of 46 percent.

I think it’s critically important in this House that we recognize this was hard work and difficult work that was done by the commission. These are three esteemed members of our community who came together and drew the boundaries as best they could within the mandate that they were given by the government through the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act and, in particular, the amendments to the act that created the exceptions for a number of communities in British Columbia.

I think it’s critically important to note and to put on the record that their good work in trying to figure out a way to do this does not mean that this will necessarily be upheld by a court if a citizen in Surrey-Panorama says: “Why is my vote worth so much less than someone in another constituency in British Columbia?” It’s not going to protect this report and the boundaries that are drawn if someone in Richmond Centre or Richmond East says: “Why is my vote worth so much less than someone somewhere else in this province?” I think we need to be alive to that.

I think in recognizing the good work of the commission within the restrictions that they were given by this government, we can say: “These are good boundaries. We accept the report.” But there is also a very serious reality — the distinct possibility of a challenge to these boundaries before 2017. In that case….

To tell you frankly, I haven’t heard in this place any argument that wasn’t raised in front of the courts in these multiple challenges in which the courts intervened and said 25 percent was the maximum. They’re all compelling arguments, and I think they should all be heard. And I think the difficulties of representing rural constituencies should not be underestimated.

There is a law in Canada that has been interpreted by the courts — the supreme law of Canada, the Charter of
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Rights and Freedoms — that says 25 percent is the boundary, despite — because of, actually — all of the good reasons that have been raised by the members in this place.

I’d like to conclude my remarks by thanking the three members of the commission who spent all this time hearing from people across British Columbia, hearing from organizations across British Columbia interested in this issue and hearing from some of us, I think, who have an interest in ensuring that the boundaries in British Columbia reflect the challenges that are faced in rural constituencies — in getting around, geography, transit and all those kinds of things — the issues in urban constituencies, the challenges of language, cultural communities, making sure that they are not broken up and balkanized into different groups when they could have good representation in a language that’s easily accessible to new arrivals.

I think there are challenges — I’ve heard a lot of challenges — in rural constituencies. I think there are challenges in urban constituencies as well. I believe that, looking at these boundaries, this commission incorporated all those challenges into the work they were doing within the restrictions that they were given by the amendments to the act that forced them into a situation with some fairly significant deviations on which the courts will, I’m sure, weigh in.

[1615]

I would like to thank the three members of this commission for their good work, for drawing these boundaries, for hearing from so many people and for preparing such a comprehensive report, because this is not an easy exercise. It is a highly politicized, a highly challenging and a highly difficult exercise, and we should thank them for their time away from their families and their efforts in doing this.

I would also like to thank all of the individuals and all of the organizations that came forward to provide input on how they believed electoral boundaries should be drawn in British Columbia. Certainly, it’s not top of mind for many people in our province, but it is a critical democratic issue, and it’s my pleasure to rise and speak to this report today.

L. Throness: Thank you to all my colleagues.

I’m happy to speak in support of the motion before us. It’s a motion to approve the proposals contained in the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, tabled in this Legislative Assembly on September 28, although they were made public on the 24th of September.

It’s important. The government has accepted all the recommendations of the commission. It’s necessary to do periodic boundary readjustments, but this motion gives me the opportunity to highlight a couple of issues that are related to the adjustment process and that I want to spend a few minutes talking about.

First, my constituents will be interested to know that the commission is reappointed every second election. That’s every eight years. So the changes in this report will take effect in May of 2017 and will be in effect for eight years, until May of 2025. That’s a long time.

My constituents might also want to know that the boundaries will be readjusted on the dissolution of this House, when next it dissolves, providing the law passes, which is, effectively, the beginning of the next election. So some of my constituents will be voting for someone else next time. I would say about 6,000 of them.

Related to this, I want to talk about what I see as a problem with the process and discuss it for a moment, because this chamber is the place to do that. I want to be personally transparent about this and talk about myself alone, although it does affect almost all the members of this House and how they do their jobs far into the future.

All MLAs in this House are good and dutiful people. We all want to do our jobs because we love our province and we love the people in our riding. We have affection for them, and we have a sense of duty to them. But there is another motivation for any politician — that which I would call the democratic imperative. This is the fundamental motivation of self-interest, which in the business world would have its counterpart in terms of profit.

Simply put, we want to please those who elect us. We want to serve them well so they’ll re-elect us. This is not a fault. This is a great strength of democracy, and it puts the right incentives in place.

Sometimes politicians are accused of being weak willed. They follow the polls. They’re people pleasers. They’re motivated by the winds of political opinion. If I’m accused of that, I say: “Right on. That’s a good idea. Within reason, that’s the way it ought to be.”

I tell people that Mr. Stalin and Mr. Mao were not motivated by public opinion. They did not seek public opinion. They didn’t care what anybody thought. They did whatever they wanted to because they were dictators. But we can’t do that.

When we respond to what people want on a provincewide basis, it shows that it’s the people who are in charge. It’s the people who are our bosses. This is the great incentive of democracy — that we have to be accountable to the people who are going to vote for us or vote against us in the next election. This results in very good, very responsive government and in very good levels of service to our constituents because the right incentives are in place — those of duty and ties of affection, for sure, but also the democratic imperative.

The democratic imperative, the drive to be re-elected, is a powerful incentive for good. It is significant. But this system of accountability to our constituents is somewhat disturbed every eight years when boundaries are revised.

I want to point to myself as an example. I knew, as of September 24, that Hope and the Fraser Canyon will not be in my constituency two years from now — that the 6,000 people in those areas will not be able to vote for me or vote against me in May of 2017. This means that
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I am no longer motivated by self-interest in those areas of my riding. I’m no longer motivated by the need to be re-elected in those areas. I’m motivated purely by my affection for those people in that area and my sense of duty to those constituents.

Fortunately, I have a strong sense of duty and a strong affection for those areas, and I want to assure my constituents that I will indeed represent them and attend to them as I did before, right up until the next election. But the democratic imperative, the impulse to be re-elected, is no longer there in those areas of my riding.

[1620]

Writ large and provincewide, and knowing human nature as I do, I think it would be a good idea if that incentive were in place.

The other effect of the boundary adjustment, and I point to myself again as the example, is that in 2017, I will be serving people who are not now in my riding — thousands of people in the city of Chilliwack. I now have the democratic incentive to appeal to those people, to serve those people, to make myself known to those people, who are currently in a neighbouring riding. They will be able to vote for me or against me in 2017.

But I already have all the people in my own riding to serve. Trying to serve people in another riding or to make myself known to them is an extra burden, and it results in a partial mismatch of accountability. Further, this mismatch of accountability is not insignificant. It is significant. Since more than half of all riding boundaries are changing in this boundary readjustment — and there are 48 out of 85 ridings, including two new ridings, all over B.C. — it affects pockets of people all over the province.

Even further, the mismatch of accountabilities, as in the current boundary adjustment, will last for 19 months out of the next eight years, or 96 months, which is 20 percent of that eight-year period. And since the boundary readjustments happen every eight years, forever, it means that on a permanent basis, roughly 20 percent of the time all over B.C., most MLAs have the incentive to serve constituents who are currently in a neighbouring riding and the incentive not to serve some constituents who are currently in their own riding.

This is an odd situation. I never even thought that this might happen when I became an MLA. While all members of this House are motivated by duty and affection, I think it would be better if they were also motivated by the democratic imperative, the imperative of self-interest in pleasing the people to whom they’re accountable. I think it would result, overall, in better government. I see this as a flaw in the process.

Now, what can we do about this? I’ve thought about it. I don’t argue with the need for a commission, the adjustment of boundaries, every eight years. That’s an important thing. It’s a good thing, especially as it shows that our province is growing and prospering. People are moving here. I don’t argue with the commission beginning their work in good time, doing public consultations. I don’t argue with the need to let members and others, like government agencies and political parties, know ahead of time how the boundaries will change. All these elements are good and necessary. Certainly, it is in the interests of political parties and MLAs and government agencies and others to make those adjustments. It’s in the interest of MLAs to have 19 months to prepare for the change.

But is this amount of time in the public interest? This is always the most important question. Is it in the interest of our constituents?

I would argue that it is not in the public interest to allow that much lead time and leave the accountabilities of most MLAs in this House to be partially mismatched for 20 percent of every eight-year period between boundary adjustments. In short, I don’t think that we as MLAs, or any other institution in the province, need to know 19 months ahead of time when and how our boundaries will change. That’s a long time. That’s almost two years. That’s half of this mandate.

While we can’t eliminate the problem of mismatch in accountability, I argue that we could reduce it by a number of months. By how many months? By how much?

The ideal would be to preserve existing boundaries and, thus, the match of accountability for as long as possible while still giving this House a reasonable time to pass the legislation, like the bill that will soon come before us, and for political parties and government agencies and MLAs to prepare for the change.

I think we could get by with an eight-month period of foreknowledge. This would reduce the mismatch in accountability to our constituents from 20 percent to 8 percent of the eight-year period between boundary adjustments. I think it would result, over the long term and over the entire province, in better government.

Now, this, of course, would require a small change, not to the bill that will come before us soon but to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. I would recommend to future legislators that sometime in the next eight years, before the next boundary adjustment, this Legislature change the law in order to keep the democratic incentive in place for as long as reasonably possible and maximize the accountability of MLAs to their constituents — to keep our constituents as our constituents as close as possible to each election and to give MLAs every incentive to focus on their current constituents rather than on future constituents in a neighbouring riding.

[1625]

That’s my first issue. There’s another issue I’d like to talk about for a moment. I’d like to talk about my boundary adjustments in my riding, particularly regarding Hope and the canyon. The district of Hope is located right where the mountains bordering the Fraser Valley meet. They come together in the eastern part of the riding and of the valley.

It’s right at the jumping-off point to other areas of the province — the Fraser Canyon to the north, the
[ Page 9703 ]
Coquihalla and the Crowsnest Pass to the east — but it also is still within the valley. In many ways — geographically, economically and culturally — Hope is connected with the Fraser Valley rather than with the north and the east, in the Fraser-Nicola region.

This was a big deal for my constituents, especially the ones in Hope. When the adjustments were proposed, I immediately received a lot of feedback from people in Hope and from people to the north of Hope as well. They appeared before the commission when it came to Abbotsford, and they appeared again in a hearing in Hope. I was so pleased that the commission actually went to Hope to hear them out, because the change was big for them. I want to thank them for that.

But there was so much feedback that they couldn’t all appear before the commission. I want to quote from the commission’s report, which says: “The majority of the public input we received provincewide was regarding three areas: Hope and the Fraser Canyon, Surrey and the Comox Valley. Opinions were split whether Hope is the gateway to the Interior, and therefore belongs in the Fraser-Nicola electoral district, or whether it is the gateway to the Fraser Valley, and therefore belongs in an electoral district with Chilliwack.”

Now, opinions may have been split, but I’m glad the commission did not say that they were evenly split, because they weren’t. They were split, I would submit, 95 percent to 5 percent in favour of Hope remaining in the Chilliwack-Hope riding. After the local city council passed a unanimous resolution in favour of Hope remaining in the Chilliwack-Hope riding, I began a petition that would allow local people to express themselves. The people of Hope themselves gathered almost 400 names in that petition in a very short time.

In order to facilitate the people of Hope expressing their will in that petition, I placed an advertisement in the Hope Standard, the local newspaper, that invited people to the Blue Moose — anybody who wanted — which is a local coffee house, where I had the petition ready for a few hours one afternoon if people wanted to come in and sign it.

Now, someone on the other side of the House, always vigilant for partisanship, saw the ad in the paper and complained in writing to the Speaker that this was a partisan use of my MLA constituency office funds. Of course, I explained my actions to the Speaker, and I’m happy to report that this matter has been resolved by the Speaker. She’s decided about it. She had a discussion with me as well as the Legislative Assembly’s executive financial officer and decided that she was satisfied that the use of constituency office funding for the advertisement was within the guidelines provided in the Members’ guide to policy and resources and that the advertisement was, after all, non-partisan in nature.

I want to assure my constituents that it was non-partisan in nature. I want everyone in Hope and everyone else to know that I make good use of taxpayers’ funds. I was simply doing my job in representing my constituents, and I duly did that job this summer when I appeared before the Electoral Boundaries Commission myself, when we had the opportunity to do so here in Victoria. I presented the petition to the commissioners on their behalf. Sadly, it had no effect.

I want to suggest, as a second item for a future electoral boundary readjustment commission to consider…. I wonder whether the clearly expressed desire of people to remain within a certain riding should not have some weight in the consideration of the commission, rather than just numbers alone. That’s something for them to think about.

I think it’s unfortunate that the commission finally chose to make the decision it did — that is, to put Hope in the canyon, within the constituency of Fraser-Nicola — but I understand their reasons for doing so. I don’t argue with it. It’s a difficult job of an independent commission to make these tough decisions. Of course, I, and the government along with me, accept their verdict. But I will be sad to lose these areas of my riding.

I have so enjoyed getting to know the unique individuals that live in Hope and Yale and Boston Bar and many other, smaller areas of my riding. I have great affection for them as well as a sense of duty to them. They are the salt of the earth. They are good people. They are hard-working and genuine people, and so it will be my distinct pleasure to serve them for another 19 months.

[1630]

Deputy Speaker: Member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast. [Applause.]

N. Simons: Really, that’s not necessary. Once you hear my comments, you might want to withdraw, but thank you for the encouragement, as it is.

The motion before us today is: “Be it resolved that in accordance with section 14 of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act…the proposals contained in the Final Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission tabled in the Legislative Assembly on September 28, 2015 be approved.” This motion, which I believe has the unanimous support of this House, is before us, dealing with an issue, I think, of great importance to our democratic system — one that is often, perhaps, shunted aside as kind of complicated and mired in statistics, geography and complicated issues that we’d best leave to people who are appointed to make decisions on those issues.

I have to say, it looks like it would be a very, very difficult task. I would echo my colleagues — from both sides of the House, I might add — who have complimented the commissioners on the work that they’ve done. I think that when you look at the makeup of this particular commission, it’s clear that it was led by people who have a great amount of experience and who are well known for their ability to put considered thought into all the issues that
[ Page 9704 ]
they were faced with. They were faced with, certainly, a lot of them — a lot of issues in every single riding.

This particular commission was made up — and has to be made up, by the way — of a judge, a person who’s not a member of the Legislative Assembly and the Chief Electoral Officer, appointed under the Election Act. Now, that position is constant and one that brings some continuity to the particular review.

What I intend to do in my few minutes that I have to discuss this motion is to outline how the process has taken place and perhaps even suggest that there are impacts on our communities that we may not know.

Fundamentally, I think we have to recognize that our system depends on people expressing themselves through the voting system and, with that vote, expecting to have representation — as their neighbour, as their fellow community member, as fellow citizens — wherever they are in the province. What creates, perhaps, some of the complications is that some areas of our province grow faster than others. Some areas of our province actually lose population over time. So every eight years this particular task is put before the appointed commission.

I respect and understand the issues raised by my friend from Chilliwack-Hope. I think he raised some very interesting points, perhaps some that need further discussion. Clearly, you know, there are some issues with this.

We’ve seen it in the federal election. When the boundary distribution took place, we had MPs who no longer would be MPs for their particular complete areas in their riding. West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky lost the Powell River section, which went over to north Island. For over a year, the MP represented the riding in its fullest — perhaps not necessarily in the same partisan view that I have. But he did his best to represent his constituents, knowing that within 18 months, in this case, he would be running in a riding that did not include that particular population.

The mandate, of course, of the electoral boundaries review was to make a proposal to us here in this chamber, as we are ultimately responsible for making these determinations. I think we are better informed by an independent commission. We’re better informed by people who have no partisan affiliation and who are held in the highest regard. They cannot be accused of trying to perhaps favour one particular party over the other or one candidate over another — or any of those possible suggestions that would come from having a lesser, partisan approach.

[1635]

Now, obviously, during these eight years, when it comes time to appoint a commission, they have to look at the population data. In this particular case, they looked at the May 2014 population of British Columbia and determined how many people should be represented by one MLA. The average would be approximately 53,000.

The mandate given to this particular commission was to not exceed an increase of over two seats. They couldn’t recommend fewer than 85 electoral districts, to a maximum of 87. I hope people understand what I am saying.

Now, representation by population. I remember in high school, we would be taught and reminded consistently about rep by pop, as they called it. It being the fundamental cornerstone of our democratic system, we expected that people were represented equally wherever they lived by the same kind of voice that their compatriots would have in other parts of their particular jurisdiction.

To achieve the principle of equal representation, a formula has been derived whereby electoral districts shouldn’t deviate from that particular average by more than 25 percent. Now, there are exceptions, of course. There are exceptions for areas that have very sparse populations — huge geography and not the population to match.

I’ll point out that Powell River–Sunshine Coast is right around the average. It’s good, because our geographical boundaries are such that it would be difficult to gather other areas in and consider them communities of interest.

The representation-by-population principle is that the electoral districts should have relatively equally the same number of people. That’s, as I mentioned, derived by dividing the population of British Columbia into 87. Exceptions to the principle, as I mentioned —plus or minus 25 percent. Now, other considerations, besides population, include geographic and demographic considerations. Those are clearly issues that need to be also considered by the commission.

I think their task has clearly become very complicated when you consider all the geographical boundaries — from municipal boundaries, school district boundaries, regional district boundaries, traditional territory reserve boundaries. All sorts of delineations mark the areas of our province. We’re split up into a 1,000-piece puzzle, and we have to figure out which pieces go closest to each other.

I commend the commission for their important work. I have to say, I haven’t always been happy with the results of Electoral Boundaries Commissions, and I think it is fair to say why you would be or why you wouldn’t be. And if there needs to be changes on how commissions are formed and the mandates they’re given, I think this is the appropriate place for those discussions. I look forward to a private member’s bill proposing changes, perhaps, to appropriate legislation.

Ultimately, the decisions around our boundaries of our electoral district should be left to an independent, impartial body. The commission that I am referring to was the federal boundaries commission, which reconfigured part of the riding I represent in its federal form and caused some consternation. I made my own presentations, and they weren’t heeded.

I go on with it and hope that people can realize that effectiveness of representation isn’t always in the number of people you’re representing or the quality of the individual representing them. There are many factors that help de-
[ Page 9705 ]
termine how effective a person’s representation is. Earlier today we heard in this House from the former leader of the Conservative Party, the member for Chilliwack, talking about making this into a hyper-partisan issue.

[1640]

As much as I’m sure he can make most things into a partisan issue, this particular discussion around boundaries, I think, needs to stay more technical. In fact, some philosophical discussions are warranted as well. As I said, my friend from Chilliwack-Hope has made some very good points.

Relative equality is the principle that underlies the determination of population for each electoral district.

Now, I know that the minister isn’t listening to Miley Cyrus over there. I’m sure my compelling words are not quite filtering through, which is fine, as long as they have musical accompaniment.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — which is one of those documents that not everyone in this House necessarily supports, such as the member for Peace River North — is one of the foundation documents that determine how we are represented and our rights to be represented. In Canada, we have a system of electoral boundaries that allows for more elasticity in the populations that we represent. In the United States, there is certain jurisprudence whereby numbers of…. The population is almost equal for every representation in some jurisdictions.

The relative equality of voting power along with better government and effective representation were the core principles used in boundary readjustments in Canada. I think we in Canada and in British Columbia have chosen to look at more than just population in terms of how we’re represented, and I think that’s fair.

We see enough deviation in the populations of our electoral districts, but it doesn’t necessarily have a material impact on the quality of representation. I’m sure we have some MLAs who work much harder than other MLAs, and the effectiveness of their work…. I’m sure that I have full agreement from my friends on the other side of the House.

Effective representation, as defined for the purposes before us, has to do with maintaining a certain population, an average population, that is relatively close to the provincial average.

The process. As I mentioned, the population of British Columbia in May 2014 was 4.621 million, approximately. So the quotient, as I tried to remember earlier, is 53,119 people, which would be the average of each electoral district. We know that there are some districts that have significantly fewer than that number and some that have slightly more.

The task of the Electoral Boundaries Commission is to figure out if it’s easy or if it’s possible to move a few from one area to another in order to rebalance that representation. Partly because of our unique geography, I think, it makes it even more difficult than in some other jurisdictions. When you look at the cities or the major urban centres, sometimes it’s just a question of moving a few blocks one way or up to a river or, you know, changing the boundaries a little bit here and there and effecting a significant population shift by doing that.

In our more rural ridings, we could add three more islands and still not add enough population to make us closer to or further away from the average. The factors that are considered include, of course, besides the population, the natural boundaries such as rivers, heights of land, rights-of-way, parks and major highways. Those make good boundaries, the commission points out, because they typically divide or delineate communities and provide demarcations.

In the situation of Powell River–Sunshine Coast, we have a body of water essentially separating us from neighbouring constituencies, and on the east, we have high mountain ranges and no transportation links. The area I happen to represent is one that’s entirely inaccessible by road, so the entire constituency that is not accessible by road is within the jurisdiction of Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

[1645]

Now, as I mentioned earlier, when we have one thing that makes boundaries logical…. I think if a boundary is logical, it promotes people’s understanding of where exactly they live and who represents them. They can see where the districts end and begin. I think when there’s no geographical boundary — like there’s no Strait of Georgia or Salish Sea or Jervis Inlet or Malaspina Strait or Coast Mountains range — that’s separating us from other jurisdictions, we have other ways of finding those differences. Regional district boundaries, school district boundaries, even federal riding boundaries sometimes can delineate. And as I mentioned earlier, First Nations communities and large traditional territories can add another layer of complication to the task that is before the commission.

When you combine all of those factors, you realize the immensity of the task before them. I think perhaps this is not one of those processes in government that can be necessarily sped up or even left to the last minute when making a determination — understanding that should your boundaries change two years before the election, it will have some sort of an impact, and it will have some sort of effect on not only the people being represented but also their representative.

In the case of the motion before us, what we’re eventually going to be voting on is whether or not the recommendations should be approved by this House. As I said earlier, I believe that they will be approved.

The final proposal includes 87 electoral districts. I’m not sure where we’re going to put those two other chairs. Maybe we need a balcony or something. We can keep adding, and maybe we need another…. Well, I’ll leave that up to the architects. My fingers get jammed between
[ Page 9706 ]
the chairs as it is already. I’m sure I’m not the only one. This place is getting kind of crowded. Maybe we will be restricted by marble walls eventually. At a certain time, when we’re all standing with our backs up against the walls, we’ll think maybe it’s time to look at another system.

So 87, and 17 vary from the provincial average by about 5 percent. That’s not bad — 17 out of 87. Nearly half of all districts are within 10 percent of the provincial average. That’s a pretty good achievement. And three-quarters, 66 seats, are within 15 percent of the 53,119 average.

Now, ten electoral districts — ten constituencies, as we sometimes call them — are all, by the way, located in three defined regions. I didn’t really talk about regions, but there are three regions that are set aside that protect the constituencies’ existence, in essence.

Ten districts have populations more than 25 percent below the provincial average. I know that in the case of my friends representing these rural ridings, they have wonderful representation anyway. None have more than 25 percent above the provincial average. So the decision and the conclusion of the boundaries commissioners is that all areas of the province have effective representation.

Now, closer to home, the first thing I did when I heard that this report was finally released was to find the index and look up Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

[1650]

You know, I expected the geography of my constituency to provide fairly firm boundaries to maintain, knowing that the population was relatively close to the average and knowing that taking away or adding population to the riding would create some strange links that would not otherwise necessarily be intuitive.

When you think about geographical proximity to Powell River–Sunshine Coast, the population areas, I could think of the islands in the south of the riding — Gambier and Keats islands. On the north, I can think of all the islands — Savary and Texada and then Lasqueti. Lasqueti is in the Powell River regional district but in a constituency in the Comox Valley. The member is here. I think I’m correct about that.

I looked, and the first thing I saw was: “We propose no changes to Powell River–Sunshine Coast.” Okay. Good. That’s fine. Then I looked around, and I saw that there were some changes in areas of interest to me. I looked at the Comox Valley. I saw that, once again, Cumberland, Courtenay and Comox were in the mix, as it were, in terms of some moving around.

As we all saw in the federal election, the Comox Valley was essentially split, with Comox and Courtenay not being in the same riding. In this particular case, now we see that Cumberland has been put back. It was once in the federal riding that included Tofino, and it’s now in the provincial riding that includes Tofino. It would be called Comox Valley and Mid–Vancouver Island.

The two areas in the Comox Valley that really required some attention by the commission were the Comox Valley itself, which was 22 percent above the provincial average. While that’s acceptable, it was perceived that growth in that area would make it quickly beyond the 25 percent. I think because of that, some changes had to be made. Once again, people feel an affinity to their neighbouring communities and community of interest as a historical fact. When areas are split up, it does create, in some cases, some consternation and response.

The problem was that the Comox Valley, with 22 percent above the average, and Alberni–Pacific Rim, at 18 percent below…. Clearly, since they were neighbouring, there was some thought about how to balance those out between each other. The commission’s finding was that the disparity was simply too great. I think that is something that would be difficult to argue with, for sure.

Other changes, of course, in Nanaimo, greater Victoria…. Those are more minor than the one proposed for the Comox Valley and Mid–Vancouver Island.

The current Alberni–Pacific Rim electoral district is the smallest, as I mentioned, on the Island. It’s at 18 percent. Now, don’t forget. The geography of the Island is such that it’s very difficult to attach an appendage, any mainland communities, to those constituencies, so their challenges are greater.

I’m looking forward to the member for Nanaimo. I’m sure that we’ll all be getting a lesson in history or two lessons in history. I hope that people take the time to listen carefully to his words.

In this particular case, the decision was made to put Cumberland into the mid–Vancouver Island riding. To not echo but to almost commiserate, in a way, with the member for Chilliwack-Hope in terms of what he hoped for with Hope — I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to run into that — and the Fraser Valley, anyway….

[1655]

The preliminary report of the commission proposed to include Cumberland in the Mid Island–Pacific Rim. That was not well received. The commission acknowledged that it wasn’t well received and acknowledged that people weren’t necessarily happily with it — among the people who came and made presentations. Their conclusion was that Cumberland would, in fact, become the eastern anchor of the mid–Vancouver Island constituency. So it would go east and west. It would consider that to be a core community of that new constituency.

I’m not sure what the member from Comox thinks about these changes. I’m sure that he and other delegates made submissions to the commission when they made their trip. But I do think that the impartiality of the commission and our ability to have oversight on the decisions that they make makes this a robust process. It’s one that isn’t immune to suggestions of improvement, by any means, but at the same time, meets the needs of our community and of our democratic system in such a way that it’s open and it’s accountable. It’s a rare thing, but when it’s an impartial external body, I think we can
[ Page 9707 ]
have a considerable amount of confidence in its findings.

Essentially, my comments are simply to support the work that the commission has done, to recognize the challenges that it has had in front of it and to hope that, ultimately, the people of all our constituencies, regardless of their population, feel that they can elect someone who will represent them well and who will represent all of them equally in a chamber where our voices are all equally heard.

With that, I thank you for the opportunity to comment on this motion.

J. Yap: I’m honoured and privileged to take my place in this debate on this motion, Motion 26, with regard to this House approving the proposals contained in the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, tabled in this House. As has been said by many colleagues from both sides of the House, this is important work that the Boundaries Commission undertook, work that is foundational for our democracy, for this great democratic institution that we call our Legislative Assembly.

The commissioners discharged their duties with distinction in a non-partisan way, and all three are eminent citizens — high integrity. As my friend who has just spoken confirmed, they approached this in a very thoughtful way and tried to balance many, many different factors and also parameters that they had to work within to come up with recommendations, after undertaking an effort that spanned almost two years.

As has been mentioned, this is a requirement in our democratic process, where, after every second election, we review the distribution of our electoral districts to ensure that the principle of representation by population — rep by pop — is maintained. Many colleagues have spoken about that, and it is one of the principles that the boundary commissioners had to consider.

[1700]

So I wanted to, first of all, thank the commissioners for the great work that they did. On behalf of the constituents of my electoral district, Richmond-Steveston, I thank Justice Thomas Melnick, former RCMP Commissioner Beverley Busson and Dr. Keith Archer, the Chief Electoral Officer of our province, for their great work and the way that they conducted the commission in a very professional way, a very thoughtful way, and have now come forward with this report and their recommendations, which this House will consider and vote on.

It sounds like we have great support for what has been recommended. I just want to highlight a few things here in the time that I have. The commission has recommended that the number of seats, the number of districts, be changed from 85 to 87. And yes, one of the conditions that was laid out by the Legislature was for the number of districts to be no less than 85 and no more than 87. We now have the recommendation to, in essence, add two districts to the mix, and there will be changes to about 48 of the electoral districts.

We’ve heard comments in the discussion today from other colleagues about some of the impacts. It’s not an easy task to try and balance so many different things, and I think that at the end of the day, the commissioners discharged their duties in a very excellent way and came up with recommendations which reflected the principles that they were working under.

Also, the input from British Columbians. Many British Columbians did take the time to provide their thoughts, to give suggestions and input to the commissioners. I thank those British Columbians who participated in this process — again, part of the democratic process.

It’s been mentioned that there will be some variation. It’s virtually impossible, with a province as geographically vast and diverse as British Columbia is, to have perfect equal representation in terms of the numbers in each district. My friend across the way talked about the variation in the different districts, and I think what has been recommended will provide a reasonable balance between districts.

There will be some that will be below the average, but we recognize that all districts are not the same. There are some electoral districts in regions of the province — in the north, in the southeast — where we would have to take a day and a half or two days to travel across the riding. I know, representing an urban riding, that it would take me less than half an hour to travel from one end of my district back to the other end.

It’s important to keep that in mind, as we consider this. Members of this House, representing their districts to the best of their abilities, need to have the opportunity…. There are some districts that just in terms of size and area simply need to have the opportunity to be reasonably represented by a member.

The commissioners concluded that based on all of the input they received, in looking at the democratic changes, two additional districts should be added — one in Surrey and one in my area in Richmond. I know that there are some of my constituents, citizens living in Richmond, who believe that this is appropriate recognition.

[1705]

On behalf of my constituents, I would like to thank the commissioners for considering the growth that has happened, the changes that have happened in my community in Richmond, which will go from three electoral districts to four — or technically, 3½. The one district will be a combination of the city of Richmond area and also the Queensborough part of the city of New Westminster.

I can see my colleague from New Westminster looking slightly sad at losing a small part of her community. I might say, though, that those familiar with geography will recognize that the Queensborough part of New Westminster many, many years ago was a part of Richmond and, in fact, is geographically situated on the island of Richmond, or Lulu Island. So there is an elegance in the approach that the commissioners took in creating four ridings on Lulu
[ Page 9708 ]
Island, including a new one that will include residents of the Queensborough district of New Westminster.

It goes without saying that on behalf of my constituents, I support this motion. I will be voting in favour of it and look forward, in the coming days, to the legislation that will bring into effect these changes that will lead, in the next two elections, 2017 and then 2021, to a reconfiguration of the electoral districts of our province to ensure that British Columbians will continue to be properly represented, within the principles of representation by population, in this House.

I want to conclude by again expressing my thanks to the commissioners, and I look forward to hearing the thoughts and comments from other colleagues on both sides of the House, on this motion, as we move forward.

L. Krog: The very fact that we’re here in this Legislature tonight debating a motion around the Electoral Boundaries Commission report is, in fact, itself a testament to a very significant part of history. There’s a certain serendipity or perhaps, to use the word from the member for Richmond-Steveston, a certain elegance in this — that this is the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, the great charter.

I think, for those of us familiar with and committed to and even passionate about the British parliamentary system, surely this represents an example of the progress — indeed, the great progress — we have made since the barons ran King John down at Runnymede and forced him to sign the great charter and affix his seal to that first recognition of the concept that even the lowly barons, of course, had some rights that needed to be protected against the arbitrary nature of the king’s power and the king’s authority.

We are now, of course, much far removed from those days, where we acknowledge consistently that even Her Majesty the Queen, to whom we have all sworn an oath of allegiance, is not indeed above the law. This is, ultimately, a triumph of the law.

The motion before the House reads: “Be it resolved that in accordance with section 14 of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 107, the proposals contained in the Final Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission tabled in the Legislative Assembly on September 28, 2015 be approved.”

What we’re being asked to do is to approve the recommendations of three independent commissioners appointed pursuant to section 14 of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act.

Now, let’s just step back a little bit, if I may, to the Magna Carta. There was no vote available to the citizens who suffered under King John in Britain as it then was. There was, indeed, I think it fair to say, no unified kingdom in the way that we think of the United Kingdom even then.

[1710]

We were talking about a monarch whose power descended from the successful efforts of a fellow called William, Duke of Normandy. In 1066, his forces managed to stick an arrow through the eye and skull of Harald Hardrada, and thus ended the English kings as we knew them then.

Of course, to those victors in war go the spoils, and what was England as we think of it was divided up happily amongst these various barons and knights and vassals all loyal to the king, having paid for their loyalty and given them some ability to raise funds and deliver armies as necessary to defend the king, his property, his title and his absolute right to govern.

I emphasize his right to govern, of course — the member for New Westminster looks a little quizzical — because the fact that women get the vote is a long way down in this story — a very long way down, indeed. And indeed, we don’t really have a queen until Bloody Mary, of course succeeded, in due course, by her relative, Queen Elizabeth, who was the first real, full-time monarch who represented that great transition from the misogyny of Britain at the time to something a little more progressive. But I don’t wish to be taken too far off the topic by the quizzical look on the face of fellow members.

We discuss all of this in a chamber called the Legislative Assembly but in what is referred to by every British Columbian and the tour guides and everyone else as the Parliament Buildings. Well, of course, we know it’s not parliament. That’s in Ottawa back east, and as some of you have paid attention to politics, there’s been a recent change of government there. I think that brings delight to the face of at least half of the government benches.

Certainly, I can assure the members opposite, a number…. Notwithstanding the dismal reduction of thinking New Democrat members of that august assembly, it certainly brings a fair bit of pleasure to those of us on this side of the chamber as well. I suppose one could say that the old cliché about “half a loaf is better than none” certainly applies.

I want to express, too, while I can — because I know that they’re so rapt in attention to what I’m about to say — to those members across who are, basically, bona fide federal Liberals as opposed to bona fide federal Conservatives…. Although, one can’t really tell the difference in this place.

I want to express my congratulations and my sympathies, of course, to the members of the Conservative Party who so judiciously decided, at the direction of the Premier, not to engage in partisan politics during the last election, lest that unholy alliance fracture itself in a public way and lead, potentially, to the possibility of the New Democratic Party of British Columbia becoming the government at the time of the next election.

So I do wish to express my admiration for their incredible restraint as we debate this motion before the House relating to the implementation of the recommendations of the Electoral Boundaries Commission.

But we know that “parliament,” the term, comes from “parler,” the French. It involved discussion and talk, and
[ Page 9709 ]
that’s certainly what most of us in this place are generally good at and what we spend our time doing — indeed, what we’re arguably paid for.

I know that some of the members opposite have expressed to me, being members of the back bench, that it’s not always that much fun because you’re directed not to say anything, but we in the opposition benches, when it comes to debating the motion before the House, enjoy a certain greater freedom and an opportunity to express our views in a wide-ranging debate involving this important recommendation of the Boundaries Commission.

I’m delighted to think that we have passed through an incredible history in these 800 years since the signing of the great charter of the Magna Carta. And that includes, of course, the beheading of a king, the imposition of the Roundhead government of Oliver Cromwell and changes to how we regard the supremacy of parliament.

All of those things are part of that great history that has led us to this place today, where the members of this assembly every four years or oftener, at the will of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, have to face the voters of the province. It’s a remarkable change in 800 years, indeed.

[1715]

Even the concept that you elected, that you had the right to vote and allow someone to be your representative in a parliament, wasn’t something that happened after the signing of the great charter. It didn’t happen, indeed, for a very long time.

There was a long and bloody history. Hon. Speaker, I trust that’s a parliamentary term within meaning today. I’m not using it in a derogatory sense, but literally.

Hon. A. Wilkinson: Sanguineous.

L. Krog: Sanguineous. Ah, the member…. I do love a Rhodes Scholar when they chirp up. It’s always good to hear from an erudite person. I’m delighted that he wishes to participate in the debate, and I’m sure he’ll want to follow me tonight if there’s an opportunity.

Hon. A. Wilkinson: It’s the medical training.

L. Krog: Physician, heal thyself.

Let me just say that we take for granted now all of these rights that allow us to come here today and debate the recommendations around how many people in a given geographic area get to determine who will represent them.

Following the reinstitution of the monarchy after Cromwell’s rather nasty reign, it was again a long process, a very long process indeed, that enabled electors to actually select members to represent them in parliament. The British parliament, of course, is what I’m speaking of. There were qualifications. You had to have a certain amount of land, and there were other things that basically kept the electorate confined to a very small portion of English society.

The long history that leads us here is filled with the struggles, the sacrifices and the deaths, indeed, of many people who fought for that right to elect their representatives. It was not based on whether they had land or title or some relationship with the monarch, but simply that they enjoyed — as a citizen in a democratic society, based on at least the age of majority — the right to elect their representatives.

When we debate this motion today, I think it’s important for all of us to be extremely conscious of that long history. When we talk about English history, we cannot ignore that the Americans engaged in a revolution supposedly for the right to have greater democratic control over their society.

Now, I know that some cynical left-wing historians, who I’m sure would never be read by the members opposite, suggested that there was a certain impetus among the ruling landed classes of the United States to engage in revolution because, of course, those English bankers were pressing them for payment, and they weren’t all envisaging to pay. That’s just one aspect of American history. I see no need to be taken off course of my remarks to engage in discussions about that, but a revolution was fought.

In France, not long after, the same time, they beheaded the king and queen, established the first French republic.

Interjection.

L. Krog: The member opposite has to take account of the fact that when I’m talking, I can’t hear him talk, and I know he’ll wish to engage in that opportunity later. Having said that, these were, again, bloody affairs — very bloody affairs.

Now, Canada, of course, is a product of the interesting mix of the First Nations who occupied this land since time immemorial and the French and the English. We talk about founding peoples, I think, still. Our democracy represented a great change from what had gone on — maybe not the same kind of bloody history but, nevertheless, a struggle.

We know that people like La Fontaine and William Lyon Mackenzie were people who had to lead struggles for the right to ensure that we were a greater and more democratic society.

We talk about family values in this chamber on occasion. Well, there was something called the family compact that existed in Upper Canada that basically ran the show. It was — I hesitate to use “the corruption” — perhaps the power, the authority of the family compact that promoted the growth of democratic views and ensured that the population of this country was not prepared to suffer under the rule of a small and powerful group of people, a small oligarchy.

[1720]

What that led to, eventually, is what we’re talking about today, which, again, is the concept of representative democracy in the full sense.

Now, it wasn’t so long after the Family Compact and LaFontaine and all of those great historical figures in this country that, in 1867, we put together this interesting thing called Confederation. As the old song of some years ago went — I think it was in 1967, in celebration of the centenary: “They just sat down in Charlottetown and built themselves a land.” I think those words still resonate through my head, and they resonate today when we talk about the Electoral Boundaries Commission. This nation is 148 years old, in terms of the legitimacy of the concept of talking about a Canada as we know and understand it — being a confederation of different colonies, in those days, that became the first provinces.

Of course, British Columbia — where I’m getting to shortly, lest the members opposite think I’m going to drag this debate out unnecessarily, of course…. In 1871, British Columbia becomes part of Confederation. Now, there were great promises made.

Gosh knows, every member of this chamber has made great promises to secure election year. Some have been kept, of course. Some get here promising a $100 billion windfall from natural gas, and others promise a GP for Me or a debt-free British Columbia or maybe something as pedestrian as, you know, child care — something that would actually be possible or useful or important to the citizens of British Columbia. But I digress.

Great promises were made to the good people of British Columbia. If they came in as part of Confederation, not only would they enjoy the rights of being able to elect members to parliament; they would enjoy great prosperity as a result of the building of the railway. Now, as we all know, that took a fair while. Being able to vote, being able to elect, in a reasonable way, your representatives, based largely on population — but not entirely — is something, again, that has developed over a long period of time.

We know that the franchise, as it was initially granted or allowed or protected in the early days of this province, was, again, a franchise limited, indeed. If you were First Nations, if you were South Asian — I’m not sure the history of this province goes back that far, to involve those who were South Asian, in 1871; I’m a little unclear on that, and some members may be able to illuminate — if you were Chinese, you did not get that right to vote. Gosh knows, if you were a woman, you certainly didn’t get the right to vote.

So where have we come to? Well, we’ve come through a fair bit of our own history, not as bloody as the history of France and America and England, as I have talked about. But it was no less difficult a history, which saw the subjugation of the initial occupiers of the land.

I think that’s an interesting concept, when we talk about the occupiers of the land. We rarely ever talk about the First Nations owning the land. The concept of aboriginal title has only become part of the public discourse and public understanding recently. The aboriginal concept of the ownership of the land — the right to occupy, the use, the respect, the integration of feelings about it — is not something that we recognized in our judicial system, in our legal system.

We talked about ownership. If you had ownership of land and certain other qualifications, then you got to elect members. Now, I must say, I’m delighted to represent the constituency of Nanaimo, because Nanaimo has had a member in this Legislature since we became part of Confederation — since the first assembly of this province, essentially.

Hon. A. Wilkinson: Since even before Confederation.

[1725]

L. Krog: Exactly. As the member opposite points out, when it was the Crown colony of Vancouver Island…. Nanaimo has always had a member.

Now, I know that there’s a temptation for some members to comment on the quality of the present membership, but I know that out of good grace and civility, they will refrain from making comment on that subject. After all, we are talking about a motion respecting electoral boundaries. Obviously, the boundaries of the constituency of Nanaimo have changed substantially in that period of time.

But again, I come back to my point. It was a smallish number of people. They were white, they owned land, and they certainly weren’t women, and they certainly weren’t persons of colour. But it was that great struggle for the extension of those rights that Margaret Ormsby, in her British Columbia: A History, talked about.

Now, I must say out of interest, by the way, that the Legislature has an original edition, in the Legislative Library, of British Columbia: A History by Margaret Ormsby. It was regarded as the seminal history of British Columbia at the time. If you look in the fly leaf — for the interest of members who are concerned about economy and inflation — the price stamped on there was $4.75. I’m trying to compare that to the cost of — I don’t know — a cappuccino or a latte or what all those people in those urban constituencies drink. But we’ve come a long ways.

What Ms. Ormsby talks about is that difficult time before the war when Mr. Bowser was the Attorney General. The Premier was a fellow called Richard McBride. What she talks about is after the great strike in Nanaimo. It was put down by the bringing in of the troops, which many will regard as one of the most important parts of the long struggle for labour rights in this province’s history.

She says: “Quite suddenly, the government began to appear not only as partisan but also as reactionary. The impression was enhanced by the Premier’s cavalier dismissal of 72 delegates of the women’s suffrage movement, which, in February 1913, presented a petition signed by 10,000
[ Page 9711 ]
women.” In the province of that day, that was a significant number. They were brusquely told that “as a matter of government policy, we are unable to agree that it would be in the public interest to bring down proposals of the character proposed for the endorsement of this parliament.”

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

You know what they were asking for? They were asking for the vote — the very thing that is the substance of this motion today, the right of British Columbians in this province to vote and to be represented in a fair and just way. They were asking for the right to vote.

Now, it was not an easy path. But, notwithstanding previous efforts, by 1920, it had become imperative to call an election. It was interesting because it was important. As Ormsby goes on to write: “One of the prospects of the Liberal Party, the Premier, received scarcely one encouraging report. From the Kootenays came the intelligence that ‘the Liberals are at sixes and sevens.’” The OBU and the Federation of Labour split them up politically as well as industrially. According to Dr. MacLean: “Our friends are becoming apathetic because they are not being consulted nor kept in touch with the activities of the government.”

To this criticism, John Oliver, the Premier of the day…. Honest John, he was known. When’s the last time you heard that epithet applied to a Premier of the province of British Columbia? Honest John Oliver could only say, in his own defence, that it was a case of either leaving urgent work undone or losing touch with the electorate.

Finally, after hearing that an earlier date would be inconvenient for the women who would be voting for the first time and who, in the autumn, were “also busy with fruits and preserves, pink teas outings,” etc., etc., he fixed election day: December 1.

[1730]

So we come to the first election where women had the right to vote, and, 85 years down the road, we’re debating a motion today that speaks about the refinement, the end result, if you will, the gold spun out of the chaff that gives us the right to vote across this province, regardless of your colour or your race or your religious or political beliefs.

I think it’s worth mentioning because it was such an important change.

Ormsby goes on to talk about the postwar period.

“In any case, by 1947, Premier Hart was informing Prime Minister Mackenzie King: ‘I am inclined to think that the majority of the Legislature will approve the vote for the East Indians. Personally, I am prepared to recommend this action.’ Before the election of 1949, the Johnson-Anscomb coalition was to go still further and extend the franchise to native Indians, as well as to Chinese and Japanese. When the House met in the spring of 1950, the Legislature contained for the first time a member who was a native Indian.”

That person was, of course, the late, great Frank Calder, the Little Chief, the champion of the Nisga’a people. Indeed, she goes on to say, as I’ve noted here:

“Six years later, the citizens of Vancouver Centre chose, instead of the cabinet minister who was their then representative at Ottawa, a Canadian-born Chinese.”

Now, it’s interesting. This history is 1958. For whatever reason, Ms. Ormsby, who was regarded as such a leading historian, didn’t bother mentioning the name of that Chinese Canadian who was the first Chinese-Canadian Member of Parliament. I think it’s appropriate today, as we debate this motion surrounding what is essentially the right to vote, that we mention the name of Douglas Jung, who, by the way — and I know this will be music to the ears of at least half of the government benches — was a federal Conservative.

Now, I must tell you, also, that he was a Progressive Conservative, and I do want to emphasize that there is certainly a difference when we talk about Conservatives versus Progressive Conservatives.

That was the last significant change around the extension of the franchise, which leads us to this debate today. After that, other things became important in terms of electoral and political reform. Amongst the most significant and most important was the question of electoral boundaries, which is what we’re talking about today.

Now, if you’re going to talk about electoral boundaries, you can’t help but make reference…. I don’t regard it as a prop, hon. Speaker, when I bring a volume from the Legislative Library. I have here volume 1. It’s the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform, 1978 — a very interesting piece of work.

It’s addressed to the Hon. H.P. Bell-Irving, DSO, OBE, ED, Lieutenant-Governor of the province of British Columbia, March 16, 1969: “May it please your honour: I, the undersigned commissioner, appointed pursuant to the Public Inquiries Act the 12th day of January, 1978, by Order-in-Council 82, to inquire into the need, if any, for amendment to the Constitution Act and the Provincial Elections Act, beg to submit herewith my final report on electoral reform.”

Now, that commission was famous for a number of reasons. Poor Judge Eckardt, who had sought political office in 1966 as a Social Credit candidate and lost, became notorious for what was referred to rather derogatorily as Gracie’s finger. It was a transfer of a piece of Socred-friendly real estate from Vancouver–Point Grey into what was then her constituency or riding. Judge Eckardt suffered mightily for that. Indeed, there was an investigation later, confirmed in a lovely paper by Norman Ruff called The Cat and Mouse Politics of Redistribution: Fair and Effective Representation in British Columbia, B.C. Studies no. 87, Autumn 1990.

[1735]

When the matter was referred to the Attorney General’s ministry…. This is on page 63: “A subsequent investigation by the Attorney General’s ministry, tabled sixth of August 1980, found no evidence of wrongdoing, but the
[ Page 9712 ]
affair had already played its part in the undermining of a sense of the commission’s legitimacy.”

I think it’s fair to say that Judge Eckardt, a judge of the Provincial Court, got off, so to speak. He wasn’t charged with anything. It left an ugly taste. There was an investigation. But I’m here today to say a few kind things about Judge Eckardt in the context of the debate around electoral boundaries, because it’s important.

He wasn’t just charged with determining boundaries, as the present commission has been, or making recommendations around numbers. He was charged with a number of things pursuant to the Public Inquiry Act, and it was pursuant to an Order-in-Council 82, approved and ordered January 12, 1978.

That commission was appointed to make inquiry into and concerning the need, if any, for the amendment of the Constitution Act and the Provincial Elections Act in order:

“(a) to secure, by whatever redefinition of electoral districts is required, proper and effective representation of the people of all parts of the province in the Legislative Assembly and that, in formulating the recommendations to be contained in the report, the commission take into account, where feasible, historical and regional claims for representation;

“(b) to give consideration to alternative methods of voting to those presently used within the province and elsewhere; (c) to give consideration to eligibility requirements for voters in provincial elections; (d) to make inquiry into and concerning the desirability of assembling suitable guidelines” — wait for it, Members — “regarding the collection and expenditure of funds by provincial political parties and by candidates in provincial elections;

“(e) to make inquiry into and concerning the desirability of an income tax deduction related to contributions to provincial political funds; and (f) to make inquiry into and concerning the need or advisability, if any, of proposing legislative provisions to prescribe requirements for the designation of political parties for the purposes of status in the Legislative Assembly and to report the findings and recommendations to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, in accordance with the act.”

It was a big job, and it was assigned to only one person.

I am the designated speaker, hon. Speaker. I appreciate the desire of many members to follow me, but I’m going to exercise my legislative privilege just a little longer this afternoon as we head into the evening.

Judge Eckardt made a number of recommendations which bear on our debate today on this motion. Obviously, he made a significant number of recommendations around the boundaries, which is, in essence, what we’re dealing with today.

I come to the point I’ve tried to make during my discussion this afternoon around the bill. We have come to a point now in our democratic process where the argument is around how many electors, how many voters, get to choose a given Member of the Legislative Assembly. We are not arguing anymore about the absolute power of the king. We are not arguing anymore about whether you have to own property in order to have the right to vote or whether you have to be of a specific gender or whether you have to be a white person.

We have come a long ways, and part of that is because of the work, in fairness to Judge Eckardt, of his commission. Now, I’ve said it. I’ve praised a Socred. I know that heavens will fall, but I’ve praised a Socred.

Now, obviously, Judge Eckardt came up with those recommendations because, just like the present commission, he heard from British Columbians. That is the great benefit of a public inquiry and a public commission and a process conducted in open. The public attends, makes submissions, is given the opportunity to express and argue and take a position in a democratic and open process so that people understand that when a commission comes to certain conclusions, those conclusions do, in fact, represent the results of a fair and open process where all sides of an issue are, in fact, heard.

[1740]

That is just so utterly crucial to our democratic process. If you go back to the Eckardt commission — which was followed by an interesting commission I’ll talk about in a few minutes — he did make the recommendations around boundary changes, but he also recommended, interestingly, that we retain dual-member ridings. Some of the members here I know have been old enough, like I was, to vote in a dual-member riding. It was rather an interesting function.

Interjection.

L. Krog: Ah, the member for New Westminster claims she’s not old enough. I appreciate that she looks very young, but I think she was around long enough to remember that. But we won’t discuss that in a public way and expose her in Hansard, of course.

Having said that, let me just say that it was a terrible test and trial for an MLA’s ego when in a two-member constituency, one member achieved — I don’t know; I’m not mentioning any names — say, a 1,500-vote difference between the member who won and the second member. It did truly set out, for once, how people really felt about their members — when you’re working in a two-member, or dual, riding.

He also made recommendations around increasing the Members of the Legislative Assembly’s sessional indemnity, allowances around the members’ pension and when to draw it, increase in the tax-free allowance — a number of reforms all the way down to talking about what members would receive for in-constituency travel. This was a good thing. It was, again, the result of an open and democratic process, just as the Boundaries Commission work that we’re debating here today was the result of an open and democratic process.

Unfortunately, as I say, for Judge Eckardt, he will largely be remembered not for what I talked about today, many of which were substantial improvements over the existing system and the way we conducted elections in British Columbia, but he’ll be remembered for Gracie’s finger.
[ Page 9713 ]

Indeed, it became so apparent there was a mistrust arising out of that process that the next time we had a commission, its final report — it was Judge Thomas Fisher who headed the 1988 Royal Commission on Electoral Boundaries — stressed that a successful boundary commission “must be completely open and nonpartisan. Only if those principles are followed, will there be a complete confidence in the fairness of the proposals for needed boundary changes.”

That’s where we are to day. We have an Electoral Boundaries Commission Act. We have a commission that has worked vigorously and had many hearings around the province and that has come up with a final report based on the legislative confines, if you will. I think that it’s rather interesting to note that Judge Eckardt talked about the number of submissions that he had received, which was relatively substantial.

If I just may have a moment, I’ll be able to find the reference. I think it’s interesting to note the difference in the numbers who actually spoke and took time to approach the commission and make submissions. Judge Eckardt says in his report:

“My first concern in embarking upon this inquiry was the manner in which I would approach the public hearings to enable residents of this province from all walks of life to make representations. A total of 44 public hearings were held throughout British Columbia from March 16 to June 14, 1978, and I am pleased to report that 332 witnesses participated in the hearings and 187 exhibits were entered into the record. Transcripts of the public hearings were prepared by an official court reporter, which totalled 2,078 pages with an average 47 pages per hearing.”

Now, I think it’s very interesting to note that in the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, which is the subject of our debate, they said that between September and November 2014, “we travelled the province, visiting 29 communities and hearing from 128 presenters. We received an additional 295 written submissions, largely through our website.”

Then they go on to say, under the heading “Since the Preliminary Report”:

“We submitted our preliminary report containing our initial proposals to the Legislative Assembly on March 26, 2015. In April and May, we looked again to British Columbians to provide their opinions on our proposals either on line or at one of our hearings. We heard from 144 presenters at 15 community hearings and received 426 written submissions.”

[1745]

I think it’s an interesting contrast. I have to laugh, because when you add up the 29 communities the commission visited before the preliminary report and the 15 afterwards…. Interesting. I have no idea if they’re aware of the historical precedents, but as I pointed out, there were 44 public hearings held throughout British Columbia by Judge Eckardt. So the total for the preliminary report and the final report, in fact, represent the same number of public hearings and a far more substantive number of submissions but, most interestingly, a smaller number of witnesses.

Three hundred and thirty-two witnesses participated in Judge Eckardt’s hearings. There were 128 presenters for the preliminary report and another 144 for the final report of the commission. By my math, that’s 276, so approximately 60 more people participated in the process.

What does that tell us? I’ll come back to my point about how far we’ve come. It tells us that the process is better than it was in Judge Eckardt’s time. It tells us that the democratic reforms that this Legislature has approved over time have in fact been successful, I would argue. The fact that this commission didn’t have as many presenters, I would suggest, is not a lack of interest by British Columbians, but it points to a lack of concern around the fundamental work of an electoral boundaries commission.

The reality is that what these numbers demonstrate, in my view, is that people trust the work of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. They are satisfied that what they have done is proper and fair and that they largely, with some exception, have been heard.

In a courtroom, even clients who lose — people who are convicted, etc. — will, if they feel and think they’ve had a fair hearing, often accept the result. In fairness to even the small number of British Columbians who may still not be quite satisfied with what has occurred as a result of this commission, the fact is, I would argue, that this commission has given fair hearing, has given fair time to everyone, and the people who spoke and made submissions feel that they’ve been heard.

That is the great test of administrative and judicial fairness — the sense that those people feel they’ve been heard.

I want to talk a little bit about the report itself now. I’m conscious of that old line about Canada having too much geography and too little history. Certainly in British Columbia, one could argue that.

I hate to admit my ignorance, but like many British Columbians, I don’t have a wonderful sense or grasp or command of the fantastic oral history of the First Nations of this province. I have some grasp, but it’s minor. So when most British Columbians, sadly, talk about the concept of history, what we’re talking about is the history since contact. We’re talking about the history since colonization. That’s the history, I have to admit, and with some embarrassment, that I’m most familiar with.

To talk about that history is to reflect on the fact that where…. We’ll call them the Europeans; we’ll call them the colonizers, whatever you want to talk about — those who came after the First Nations had occupied this land since time immemorial. They have occupied different parts of the province.

It was interesting to hear the member for Richmond-Steveston laud the commission for providing another riding for the Richmond area — entirely appropriate based on population. But again, I turn to the member for New West, because she, like me, represents a constituency that has been part of the history of this province since colonization, since the first elected assemblies under the British parliamentary system existed.
[ Page 9714 ]

Interjection.

L. Krog: She points out — I know she’s going to mention it in her remarks — that of course, New Westminster was the first capital of British Columbia. Now, if the member wishes to brag about the fact that it was the first capital of the colonizers and the imperialists who took over this province from the First Nations, I will leave that for her to explain away during her remarks.

[1750]

Having teased her a little bit, nevertheless the reality is that when we talk about that history, there has been a significant change in the patterns of settlement in British Columbia. I would be remiss if I did not recognize that it was as a result of that contact that significant portions of the First Nations population in this province, who occupied different areas of the land than were chosen to be appropriate by the colonizers, disappeared under numerous epidemics — with diseases they did not understand, with diseases that we couldn’t stop and indeed arguably, some historians suggest, were deliberately perpetrated amongst the First Nations people in order to remove them from the land.

That is a sad part of this history. And so the geographic map of this province, for political purposes, would look much different today if those populations had survived and survived in the numbers where they flourished here before first contact.

But what the Electoral Boundaries Commission is dealing with and has to deal with is the population of the province as it exists today — living on the land that it does today, in the areas where it lives, which present the first and most substantive problem that the Boundaries Commission faced. And that is the basic divide of Canada as a nation, this province as a province: the difference between rural and urban.

It is the great urban-rural divide. How do you fairly allow for representation of people in a vast region of the province with a small population, as opposed to the good citizens of Vancouver and the West End or the burbs of Richmond or even New Westminster or even the city of Victoria? How do you allow for some fair representation that actually protects the fundamental right of people to participate in a representative democracy? That is the great problem the commission has had to address, with constraints placed on it by this Legislature in terms of the boundaries that it had to face.

It was also stuck with the issue of what this Legislature had directed by vote, which was the retention of 17 rural seats and trying to — with the possibility of two other further seats, which they have added in their recommendations — balance off the interests of rural British Columbians versus urban British Columbians.

Now, I still have not finished, and I’m going to go on for a little while. I’m noting the hour and reserving my right to continue to participate in this debate.

L. Krog moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. N. Letnick moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday morning.

The House adjourned at 5:53 p.m.

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