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)

Monday, October 26, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 30, Number 2

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

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2015

The House met at 1:34 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Ministerial Statements

COMMUNITY RESPONSE
TO BOAT ACCIDENT IN TOFINO

Hon. N. Yamamoto: I stand today feeling heavy-hearted for both the families of the lost and those that survived the terrible tragedy off the coast of Tofino. The waters of our rugged coast were cruel in their taking of five British nationals who were exploring our province’s raw beauty and rare glimpses of nature before the sinking of the whale-watching vessel.

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I share with all members of the House today our sadness for the people involved, for the lost and the surviving, for both passengers and crew. We recognize the heartbreak for the families and friends whose loved ones won’t return, and we recognize the trauma of those who witnessed yet survived the ordeal.

I extend our gratitude for the quick and selfless actions of the Ahousat First Nation as well as all rescue and response personnel who responded with help in order to prevent greater tragedy. Their incredible efforts saved lives, and for that we are all grateful.

I want to also acknowledge the people of Tofino, a small community but with a big heart, that came together to show compassion and care. They opened their homes and opened their hearts to victims. They brought food, and they brought blankets. They said prayers and offered unconditional support.

I ask the House today to join me in expressing our deeply felt condolences, on behalf of all British Columbians, for those in their grief today.

S. Fraser: As we all know now, yesterday afternoon a 20-foot whale-watching vessel sank off of Vargas Island, near Tofino. There were 27 people on board. Five have been confirmed dead. One is still missing.

I know I speak for all of us in this Legislative Assembly in offering our sincere condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of those victims. Our collective hearts go out to them.

It is yet to be determined the cause of the accident, what went wrong. That will unfold in the days and the weeks to come. But I want to acknowledge the people of the district of Tofino. They rallied. Everyone who was on the water or could be on the water was on the water to help.

I also want to acknowledge the Coast Guard, search and rescue, Tofino emergency services personnel and the staff of the Tofino Hospital for being there and doing so much.

As well, I’d like to thank those from Ahousat and Opitsat, right across from Tofino, Nuu-chah-nulth communities, who were there to help — who are always there to help.

The town is reeling, including all of those in the whale-watching fraternity. It’s a close-knit group. Their hurt reflects the pain of the loss of the families and the friends of those who lost their lives or are fighting to recover.

I spoke with Mayor Josie Osborne again this morning, and she informed me that there will be a community meeting to help people come to grips with this tragedy. It’ll be held at the community centre, the community hall in Tofino, at five o’clock.

Introductions by Members

R. Austin: It’s my pleasure to welcome to British Columbia and to our House a visiting delegation from the Parliament of Kenya — Sen. Wilfred Machage, MP, the Chair of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Broadcast and Library of the Parliament of Kenya. He’s visiting us here because he’s interested in learning about the broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings and the structures and systems in place to improve performance as well as public participation in parliament.

Joining him in the gallery are two people: firstly, a diplomat, Mr. Edwin Afande, who is a counsellor with the high commission of Kenya — stationed, of course, in Ottawa — as well as Mr. Donald Schneider, a facilitator.

The delegation met with Madame Speaker and members as well as staff of Hansard broadcasting services. They’ll continue their meetings this afternoon and tomorrow with staff from the information and technology branch and the parliamentary education office.

I would ask that all members of the House join me in giving them a very warm British Columbia welcome.

Hon. A. Virk: Joining us in the members’ gallery this afternoon are special guests from the Solomon Islands. The Hon. Rollen Seleso, Deputy Premier of Guadalcanal Province, is accompanied by Mr. Anthony Veke, member of the Legislative Assembly of Guadalcanal Province; Mr. Ashwant Dwivedi, honorary consul general for the Solomon Islands; and Mr. Leni Delavera, news director for the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation.

The Deputy Premier and his entourage are here to strengthen trade ties and educational ties with British Columbia. I will meet with the Deputy Premier and the members of the Legislative Assembly later today.

I would ask this House to please extend a warm welcome to the Deputy Premier and his team.

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H. Bains: In the gallery — I think they’re all there. I met with them. I think they are slowly making their way up to the gallery. Two of the, I would say, world-renowned Punjabi writers are here to claim…. They are the winners of the Dhahan Punjabi literary award. The first one is Darshan Singh, along with his wife, Tarlochan Kaur.

Another one, from Pakistan, is Nain Sukh. He’s also a renowned writer, and he also won the Dhahan Punjabi literary award. Along with them are my good friend, Raghbir Singh, who is also a Punjabi professor and writer himself, and Sadhu Binning, who taught Punjabi language at UBC. He’s retired now. He brought them here. Please help me give them a warm welcome.

Hon. M. Bernier: One of the industries that’s really important in my riding is wind energy. I have three active wind farms right now in my riding, with another one being constructed as we speak.

In the House today, I have the privilege of introducing some friends of mine. First, from ENERCON Canada, we have Catherine Sauriol, Karine Asselin, Nicolas Bourbonniere and Michael Weidemann. From Boralex, we have Alistair Howard and Hugues Giradin. Also, we have the proponent from Blue Fuel, which is a project that’s looking at being constructed just between Chetwynd and Dawson Creek. With us from Blue Fuel we have Juergen Puetter. Will the House please make all of them very welcome.

S. Chandra Herbert: I’m pleased to introduce to this House three people who are probably not strangers to mayors, councillors, labour leaders, business leaders. They really seem to have become veteran activists. I speak of Rupert and Franny Yakelashek, who are eleven years old and eight years old, respectively, advocating for the right to clean, healthy air, water and land and doing so with passion, with smarts and wisdom much beyond their years — and of course, with their able assistant, the very wonderful Skye Ladell. Please make them very welcome, meet with them, encourage them and, hopefully, learn from them.

Hon. T. Stone: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome two individuals to the House today — first off, a good friend and constituent from Kamloops–South Thompson, Ken McClelland. He is here as the president of the B.C. Off-Road Motorcycle Association.

He has been a strong and ardent supporter of the Off-Road Vehicle Coalition across British Columbia and has been involved in working with this government and other organizations that, really, led to today’s event on the front steps of the Legislature, where off-road-vehicle regulations were discussed, all in an effort to promote awareness of the fact that the Off-Road Vehicle Act will come into force on November 1. I’d ask that the House please make Ken McClelland welcome here today.

The second individual is a good friend of mine, a gentleman who I went to university with here in Victoria a few years ago. He actually remained here in Victoria — a very successful practice in a wide range of public engagement, public consulting. I’d ask the House to please make Ross Porter welcome here today as well.

J. Rice: I have five guests in the gallery this afternoon. Michael Smith is originally from the east coast and has recently moved to Prince Rupert from Terrace, B.C., to expand his business as an insurance adjuster. With the frequent adverse weather we experience in Prince Rupert, I am sure that we have enough flying shingles and leaky roofs to see his business prosper, and I wish him well.

I’d like to introduce Faith Bodnar and Danielle Kelliher from Inclusion B.C. Inclusion B.C. held a conference today in Victoria, announcing a plan for regional advocate positions to help families supporting those with developmental disabilities and special needs.

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I’d also like to introduce Kim Heddon from Nelson, a mother of an adult child with developmental disabilities. Kim spoke passionately today and reminded us that without respite and supports in place for families such as hers, things, the basics that we take for granted in this House, such as a night out, a date with our spouse or even caring for our own health, are not an option when you provide 24-7 care for another person.

Cyndie Richdale is here from the Victoria area, who also shared her experience and challenges with accessing services.

Lastly, I’d like to introduce Michelle Watson. Michelle is the sister of Angie Robinson and the aunt of Robbie Robinson, who were lost to a tragic murder-suicide on World Autism Day, in Prince Rupert. Michelle is very grateful that a coroner’s inquest was recently conducted, but she eagerly awaits measurable, tangible results from the recommendations coming from the inquest. Michelle is a smart woman of great strength, and I commend her for taking a public stand on such a deeply personal affair in order to better the lives of other families facing similar difficulties. I thank her for that.

Would the House make my guests feel welcome.

A. Weaver: I’m absolutely delighted today to introduce to the House some very special students and staff from South Island Distance Education School. The students are young adults with special needs who are very excited to be here today. I’d also like to thank the teachers and staff at SIDES for the incredible contribution they make to the greater Victoria community and, indeed, across the province.

The students are Becky Hanson; Ben Valurop; Emily Medwid; Joel Wright, son of my press secretary, Mat Wright. The teachers here today are Elaine Ethier and Dana Crow. I would ask the House to please make them feel very welcome.
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Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

VINEGLASS WINERY CANCER FUNDRAISERS

L. Larson: Roger and Jill Hol, after farming for 27 years, decided to take what they had learned as farmers and develop a refuge of rest and tranquility offering simple food, wonderful wines, recreation and friendship. Seven years ago they put their dream on the ground and began Vineglass winery and B and B in Cawston, along the Similkameen River. Their goal: to demonstrate environmental and social sustainability, practising good land stewardship and good relationships with local First Nations.

Jill, unfortunately, was diagnosed with cancer and after getting through the first rounds of treatment, made a decision with Roger to hold a cancer fundraising event at Vineglass. Four years ago they held their first dinner and silent auction, raising $10,000 for cancer research. The event was so successful they repeated it the following year.

As fate would have it, Jill’s battle with cancer was not over, and in June 2014, she lost her heroic fight. Roger went ahead with the September fundraiser in 2014 in Jill’s memory and again this year. In the years since the event began, it has raised more than $50,000 for the B.C. Cancer Agency, dedicating all the funds to prevention and awareness. I have had the privilege of attending this event for the last three years.

According to the Central Okanagan Development Commission, almost all studies on agritourism indicate the most important factors that determine an entrepreneur’s success are personality, attitude, business experience and physical ability. Roger Hol exemplifies the traits. He is generous with his 30 years of farming experience and has not lost his enthusiasm for creating a farm-to-table experience his visitors will remember always.

People like Roger show all of us every day the dedication to quality and experience that makes the agriculture business in B.C. one to be proud of. I know that Roger and Jill’s dream will continue, and the moneys raised for cancer research will make a difference to the future of others who are still struggling with this disease.

Thank you, Roger.

TRI-CITY CHAPTER OF
VALLEY WOMEN’S NETWORK

S. Robinson: I had the privilege of attending a local business networking lunch two weeks ago. It was a gathering of amazing business owners and entrepreneurs. The Valley Women’s Network, Tri-City chapter, had well over 50 members in attendance. The energy in the room was so impressive. The stories of commitment, hard work and collaboration described how these women were dedicating themselves to establish and build their businesses and to follow their dreams.

What impressed me most was how this gathering is a place to connect like-minded business women to inspire, grow, connect and network toward success, not just professionally but personally as well.

I wish I had known about this group when I was building my counselling practice a number of years ago. I would have loved having a group of collaborative, inspiring women to hold my hand when taking a risk, cheerlead for me when struggling with a business decision, mentor me when I was first starting out.

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These are the activities that I witnessed in just a few short hours in this luncheon. The Valley Women’s Network, Tri-City chapter, has a monthly newsletter, offers seminars and provides marketing opportunities. They have monthly keynote speakers, informative table discussion and provide lots and lots of opportunity to network.

The Valley Women’s Network, Tri-City chapter, understands that coming together, sharing information and helping each other are elements that can bring success to everyone. Witnessing these women of all ages from all walks of life come together on a monthly basis to support each other, learn from each other and inspire each other is what community is all about.

I am proud to have such a wonderful group of women meet each month in my constituency. I look forward to joining them again next month.

CYBERSECURITY AND
PROTECTION OF DATA

J. Martin: In today’s connected world, cybersecurity is more important than ever. We all have devices we use every day. From our cell phones and tablets to our computers at work and at home, we are constantly connected. We want all British Columbians to be cyber-aware and take steps to protect themselves and their data.

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month, and I want to take this time to remind everyone of some simple steps we can all take to make it harder for anyone to access your information or files without permission. Good cybersecurity protects you from things such as identity theft, phone scams, hackers or ransomware. Ransomware encrypts your computer data unless you pay up.

Any password shorter than seven characters may be cracked within a day by the fastest password crackers. We can take all these steps, such as having complex passwords, avoiding strange e-mail attachments and being careful with how you share your information. These are all important ways you can protect yourself and your data.

To learn more, people can visit the Cyber Security Awareness Month page on the chief information officer’s website. You can take a quiz on a range of cybersecurity topics and see how well you do. You can learn more information about how you can protect yourself from cyberattacks and how to talk to your children and help protect
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them on line. With security awareness, you will be able to identify potential risks or threats and avoid becoming a victim. We can all take these steps to minimize those risks.

100th ANNIVERSARY OF
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

D. Eby: In 1908, the province of British Columbia passed the B.C. University Act. The act provided for the establishment of a new university that would provide “such instruction in all branches of liberal education as may enable students to become proficient in science, commerce, arts, literature, law, medicine and all other branches of knowledge.” It was an ambitious goal, to be sure, but one that has been ably met by the university’s teachers, researchers, administrators and students for more than 100 years, as UBC celebrates its centenary this year.

In 1913, the university’s first president, Dr. Frank Wesbrook, was appointed. Dr. Wesbrook set the tone for UBC as a school interested not just in research and learning but how that research and learning affects daily life. As an expert in public health, Dr. Wesbrook was a champion of the idea of chlorinating water to sterilize it, reflecting his engagement in public life linked directly to his research, which I am certainly thankful for today.

In 1918, the first issue of the now famous Ubyssey was published. Their first headline was “Freshman Reception” and that frosh had the opportunity to shake hands with important personages. It is my hope that the local MLA was among those important personages, both as a demonstration of commitment to the community but also to how it’s unchanging that frosh see the local MLA as an important personage.

From a school of all white men studying in shacks in Fairview in 1915 to today’s beautiful Point Grey and Okanagan campuses in 2015 with cutting-edge research facilities and diverse faculty and students from all over the world, UBC has come a long way in 100 years.

I’m honoured and proud to have been a very small part of this tradition as an adjunct professor in the Allard School of Law. I can say based on experience that the UBC students are up to the challenge of the motto — Tuum Est in Latin — It’s Up to You. They’re ready to change the world.

Congratulations to UBC on 100 years of success, teaching, researching and building tomorrow’s economy for our province today.

PALLIATIVE CARE
FUNDRAISING WALK BY IAN BOS

G. Kyllo: An inspirational story of courage, love and determination nears its conclusion in Victoria today just a few steps from here. This afternoon Ian Bos will reach Mile Zero in Beacon Hill Park, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was five months ago, on May 21, to be exact, when Ian set off from the Atlantic Ocean on foot with the goal of walking across our country.

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Ian is from New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, where his father, Ted Bos, passed away last January. Ted died after a valiant fight against cancer, but he died on his own terms, with his family by his side, where he wanted to be. The fact that he was able to die at home was a result of the compassion and care provided by the Aberdeen Palliative Care Society in New Glasgow.

Ian Bos wanted to do something to honour his father and, at the same time, to raise awareness of hospice and palliative care. So Ian set off across Canada, hoping to raise $25,000 for the Aberdeen Palliative Care Society and raise money and awareness for palliative care societies in cities across Canada.

As much as Ted Bos was an inspiration to his son Ian, Ian is also an inspiration to Canadians. On October 12, Ian reached Salmon Arm and was welcomed by Sue McCrae and the great people of the Shuswap Hospice Society.

I want to thank Sue and the society for all the great work that they do and for bringing Ian’s walk to my attention. I also want to bring to everyone’s attention the amazing work and care provided by the Shuswap Hospice Society and all hospice societies across B.C.

On a personal note, my family was fortunate to have experienced the invaluable services of hospice many years ago when my father was battling brain cancer, services for which my family will be forever grateful. The reality of hospice is that most people aren’t aware of the amazing care and services they provide until a loved one is in end-of-life care.

I want to thank and recognize Ian for bringing hospice and palliative care to the attention of people across Canada and congratulate Ian on his life-changing journey from Atlantic to Pacific.

Finally, Ian will be here on the front steps of the Legislature today at four o’clock. I hope that colleagues from both sides of the House will join me in meeting with Ian and wishing him well.

DROP EVERYTHING AND READ EVENT

R. Fleming: Since 2007, the British Columbia Teacher-Librarian Association has challenged British Columbians to drop everything and read for 20 minutes, a challenge that occurs every fourth Monday of October at 11 a.m. Today marks that special day when students and adults are asked to put down the pens and pencils, turn off their computers and phones, and pick up a book and enjoy reading.

Either silently or together, reading strengthens connections, exposes us to different ideas and beliefs, and improves our ability to absorb information. Today’s celebration of reading promotes the importance of literacy and reminds families to make reading a priority in their lives.
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Today also marks B.C. school library day and is the perfect time, across our province, to encourage students to explore their school library, search through the books available to them and choose their favourites.

I want to thank all of our public and school librarians and library assistants for the important role they play in helping young learners explore their love of learning and reading. I would challenge everyone — because there is still time remaining in this day — including members of this House, to find the time to drop everything and read books, articles for their knowledge and for their pleasure.

Oral Questions

GOVERNMENT RECORD-KEEPING
AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

J. Horgan: You’ll recall that last spring we asked a series of questions about abuse of the Freedom of Information Act of the Minister of Citizens’ Services. At that time, the minister insisted that only professional public servants were managing, in a detailed and comprehensive way, requests for information from the public to his government. He even went as far as to say….

I can’t resist but to read the quote back to him, for the record. The minister at the time said: “Well, it’s even more abundantly clear that I’ve got to provide a copy of the act to the member opposite, and perhaps I’ve got to provide the member opposite with training under the act as well.”

Of course, that’s only slightly humorous if it wouldn’t be so absolutely tragic that the minister responsible for the act was holding up his commitment to protecting the rights of individuals in British Columbia and their ability to access information with such a faulty, faulty line.

What we did last November is we asked for information pertaining to any e-mails from the chief of staff to the Minister of Natural Gas, Tobie Myers. Ms. Myers, of course, at the time we asked, was in discussions with people within the sector about legislation that was going to be before this House. What we got back from that request for information over a three-week period were three e-mails, just three.

I’m wondering if the minister can confirm that those are the only three e-mails that were available during that three-week period.

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Hon. A. Virk: The Leader of the Opposition certainly wants to canvass the manner in which government responds to freedom-of-information requests.

The expectation all across core government is that when there are key documents — key documents that record key government decisions, key policy decisions — ministries keep those appropriate records. That expectation is across core government. The expectation across core government is also that all employees, all across core government, follow the letter and intent of the legislation as well.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition on a supplemental.

J. Horgan: It’s always a treat to ask the minister questions because you get, really early on, the message for the day. I think it’s going to be “core government” rather than the political servants that are hired by the Premier’s office to oversee activities in ministers’ offices. Ms. Denham, the Privacy Commissioner, laid out quite clearly for the public what goes on in ministers’ offices, what goes on in the Minister of Transportation’s office, what goes on underneath the nose of the minister responsible for the act and, of course, what goes on in the Premier’s office.

Let’s go back to the minister of liquefied natural gas for a moment. It was curious to us that there would only be three e-mails in existence coming from the minister’s office over a three-week period, when flagship legislation was being tabled. So we asked for the message-tracking documents from the Minister of Citizens’ Services.

We determined through that route — the fine print, if you will, of the government’s access-to-information law — that Ms. Myers sent 800 e-mails over that three-week period. So 797 triple deletes is a whole lot of triple deletes.

In those 800 e-mails, there were e-mails sent to Mr. Spencer Sproule, who may be familiar to members on this side. He used to work in the Premier’s office as her issue management director. He now, of course, is the chief spokesperson for Petronas, the lead agency looking at natural gas here in British Columbia. Several e-mails to Mr. Sproule.

Jared Kuehl, the head deputy of government relations at Shell; Neil Mackie, from AltaGas; and right to the minister’s office in Ottawa — 800 e-mails, and we got three.

My question is to the minister of openness and transparency in B.C. Liberal–land. Can he explain how it is that when we asked for 800, we only got three?

Hon. A. Virk: The fundamental notion that the manner and mechanism by which key decisions are noted is in the ministry’s offices, all across different ministries, and the fundamental notion that perhaps e-mails are the place where those key decisions are noted, are fundamentally incorrect. But it’s a moot point. The Premier has sent a directive, and the members opposite certainly know that.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Hon. Members, the Chair will hear the answer.

Hon. A. Virk: The members opposite certainly know that the Premier sent a directive this last Friday to all ministers and all political staff instructing them, irrespective of whether an e-mail is transitory or not, that all sent e-mails are retained until such time as Mr. Loukidelis has an opportunity to look at all 11 recommendations, provide
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guidance on how to take action on all those recommendations and, further, how to increase the training in FOI.

J. Horgan: What the good news here is, is the minister actually understood what the Premier said last Friday in Merritt, because I don’t think there’s another person on the planet that could make any sense out of what she said.

I recall that the Premier said that the status quo was in play, but things were in flux. Only in Liberal land can you stay firm to the status quo while you’re in flux.

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Technology’s changing. I heard that as well. As the minister made reference to transitory documents — I think that will be the fig leaf, after “core government,” for the day — I want to draw his attention to the document provided by his ministry, the 797 e-mails that were sent from Ms. Myers’s e-mail. Some of these transitory documents are severed on this document under section 17 of the act, which means potentially harmful to the interests of the Crown.

If that’s the case, if 17 of these e-mails can be severed on a transition document, a message-tracking document, because they are harmful to the Crown, then surely to goodness, they weren’t transitory documents.

Can the minister explain to me how it is that section 17 would apply to e-mails that were transitory documents? I know he understands the act fully and has been briefed, so perhaps he can elucidate that information to the rest of us.

Hon. A. Virk: The directive by the Premier was quite clear. The member opposite certainly doesn’t want to try to understand or even try to think about it. The directive is quite clear. Regardless of whether a sent e-mail is transitory or not — whether or not it is transitory — a directive has been sent to all ministers, all ministers’ staff, and in fact, that has been extended to parliamentary secretaries as well. That is until Mr. Loukidelis has an opportunity to examine the 11 recommendations, to provide guidance on how to take action. We are committed to work with Mr. Loukidelis and take action on all of those recommendations.

D. Routley: This government’s evasions don’t end there.

On Friday, the Premier came out of hiding and said that she had never heard of triple-deleting. She said that she was shocked — shocked — to find out that her own chief of staff was breaking the law. The Premier was going to stop this. Of course, we requested e-mails and tracking logs for the Premier for two weeks last December as well. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the Premier’s own e-mails had been deleted.

My question is to the Minister of Citizens’ Services. We know that his chief of staff, Nick Facey, has been destroying his e-mails. But why has the Premier been destroying hers?

Hon. A. Virk: Well, the member opposite is certainly demonstrating his lack of knowledge in this area.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Order.

Hon. A. Virk: Key decisions of government, key policy decisions of government, are recorded in the appropriate places. The suggestion that e-mails are the place where key government decisions are retained is absolutely incorrect. And there’s an expectation. The Document Disposal Act of 1936 makes it very clear. Key government documents are to be retained. However, there is no requirement to keep transient documents, to keep documents that are copies or convenience copies. Those are not key government documents.

Madame Speaker: The member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan on a supplemental.

D. Routley: The minister assures us that he has a plan, a comprehensive plan. He’s going to get to the bottom of this, the man who was forced by a whistle-blower to come clean about his shady dealings at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I think we’ve seen this movie before. It’s Groundhog Day. Rather than just wring his hands and promise to do better…. I have a modest suggestion for the minister, one that will prove how sincere his promises are to do better.

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The commissioner’s report says that the government keeps a backlog of e-mails for 13 months. Will the minister commit to search these backups and to release all the missing records we’ve referred to, including those of the Premier and of Ms. Myers?

Hon. A. Virk: I refer the member back to the recommendations. There are, indeed, recommendations made by Commissioner Denham. They are thorough. They talk…. As I mentioned last week, they touch on operational, on administrative, on technical, on policy and on legislation. We are committed to take action on each of them.

As I’ve said before, Mr. Loukidelis, a respected former Privacy Commissioner of this province — a Privacy Commissioner who consults across the country — has been retained. I have spoken to Mr. Loukidelis. I’ll be meeting with him forthwith to discuss the time period and the scope of him providing advice on how to take action on each of those recommendations, including the one mentioned by the member opposite.

G. Heyman: Last Thursday, the Minister of Transportation expressed disappointment in the actions of his chief of staff. He also said that his staff followed the law 100 percent of the time — except when they don’t, and they have to be fired. Sorry, hon. Speaker, that’s not strictly accurate.

This government doesn’t have the courage to fire staff who break the law. They just let them resign and stick taxpayers with the legal bills. Yet the most interesting point
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is the minister’s admission that he regularly triple-deletes e-mails, casting himself as role model for the law-breaking activities in his office.

My question for the Minister of Transportation is: who taught him to triple delete e-mails to hide important government documents?

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: I would caution all members on the use of parliamentary language.

Hon. T. Stone: First, as my colleague, the minister responsible, has stated….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Just wait.

Hon. T. Stone: Thank you, hon. Speaker.

As my colleague has stated, the official record of government decisions and the actual reflection of those decisions are all retained within our ministry offices, right across government.

I will add this, though, with respect to the member’s question. Prior to being elected, I was a technology CEO for 15 years. It was a matter of policy in my company, from a records management perspective, that in an effort to minimize storage space required and minimize costs related to service space, staff, myself included, were encouraged to manage our e-mails appropriately.

I have carried that practice forward to my current role. From time to time, as I acknowledged completely on Thursday of last week, I would empty my deleted folder. I have never deleted…. I do not delete information that is transitory in nature. I believe that I have acted in compliance, to this point, with the appropriate legislation. As the Premier directed all ministers and political staff and parliamentary secretaries last Friday — which I have embraced and I welcome — I will, as my colleagues will, no longer delete any sent e-mails.

Bottom line is I will continue to operate fully within the confines of the appropriate legislation.

Madame Speaker: Vancouver-Fairview on a supplemental.

G. Heyman: Apparently the Minister of Transportation listened to Colin Hansen’s pathetic defence of government policy on CBC this morning and now thinks that British Columbians who want access to information should engage in a treasure hunt.

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George Gretes said that the Minister of Transportation’s administrative coordinator taught him how to triple-delete e-mails. The minister’s administrative coordinator denied this claim. She said that she had never heard about the practice until she came to work for this minister in British Columbia. She said that she was told she needed to learn how to permanently delete e-mails so that information didn’t “get out there.”

My question to the minister is this. Did he teach George Gretes how to triple delete e-mails, or did he just give the orders that led to repeatedly breaking B.C.’s information laws?

Hon. T. Stone: Let me be really direct and very blunt with the member opposite. The short answer is no. But I will also add this. I have said consistently, including last Thursday — I’ll say it again here today — that I expect that all staff in my office, as all of my colleagues also expect of staff in their offices, to adhere to the legislation. And if an individual does not, there are consequences.

Now, I think that it would appear that the members opposite have actually read the report, and they would know that in the case of the individual in the Ministry of Transportation office…. According to the commissioner, it would appear that he was not in complete compliance with the act, and, therefore, there are likely to be further consequences.

HIGHWAY 16 BUS SERVICE
IMPLEMENTATION AND GOVERNMENT
CONSULTATION RECORDS

C. Trevena: The Minister of Transportation faces a bit of a dilemma. Last week, he insisted that triple-deleting his e-mail was perfectly acceptable practice. Deleting records about his office’s failure to assist aboriginal women in northern B.C. was just fine. He said that’s how everybody managed their e-mail.

Now he says he’s going to do things differently. Does he still think it was okay to delete e-mails about the Highway of Tears?

Hon. T. Stone: All records pertaining to decisions in the Ministry of Transportation are kept within the Ministry of Transportation. That is true for all subjects. That is true for the Highway 16 file.

I also want to take this opportunity to again acknowledge the history, to acknowledge the pain, to acknowledge the suffering that families up and down Highway 16 have endured. I cannot overstate the sincerity of this government or the commitment of the Ministry of Transportation to continue to work with First Nations communities and others on Highway 16 to identify safer transportation options.

I have mentioned a number of those initiatives that have been pursued to date. There are many more that we’re working on. We are looking forward, in particular, to a transportation symposium, which we are co-sponsoring with the First Nations Health Authority, that will
[ Page 9742 ]
be held in Smithers this coming November, during which time we will continue to discuss and identify additional initiatives which will make this corridor even safer.

Madame Speaker: The member for North Island on a supplemental.

C. Trevena: What the minister seems to forget is that this sordid affair started as a result of an FOI request about the Highway of Tears. That’s how we came to know about the triple-deletion of e-mails, because the minister clearly did not want the public to know about the real concerns of aboriginal women in northern B.C. They are afraid for their safety, and they want access to very basic levels of transportation.

[1420]

The minister has claimed that they haven’t got such concerns, and he appeared proud that he had triple-deleted e-mails. These are records — e-mails from families looking for answers, from women who are seeking safety, from relatives and friends and the communities of missing and murdered women. How can he justify that?

Hon. T. Stone: All records pertaining to Highway 16 are intact. These records are all intact. They are all stored appropriately.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members will come to order.

Interjection.

Madame Speaker: Order.

Please continue.

Hon. T. Stone: These records are all retained by the Ministry of Transportation, as per the freedom-of-information legislation. They are all available.

I want to also reiterate the ministry’s commitment to continuing to be as transparent as possible. Just since 2012, the Ministry of Transportation has actually responded to six different FOI requests related to Highway 16. The ministry has released almost 600 pages of information in those FOI requests. Three of those information responses were put onto open gov and are available to members opposite. Three others were responded to, directly to the applicant. This material can….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members. Members.

If Burnaby–Deer Lake made that utterance, she needs to withdraw.

K. Corrigan: Sorry, I didn’t hear you, Madame Speaker.

Madame Speaker: If you made the utterance, you need to withdraw.

K. Corrigan: I withdraw.

Madame Speaker: Thank you very much.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
ON DELTAPORT EXPANSION

V. Huntington: This spring Port Metro Vancouver released its environmental impact statement on the Deltaport expansion. The Minister of Environment agreed that B.C. would do its own assessment but that it would rely principally on the federal assessment. It’s called independence. B.C.’s environmental office, we were told, would request further information when necessary.

There are 7,663 pages in the environmental impact statement. Four federal agencies, numerous individuals and organizations, my own office, and even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified information gaps. But B.C.’s EAO had no comment. It declared the impact statement “complete.” Could the minister explain why her environmental assessment office utterly failed to speak up for B.C.’s interests?

Hon. M. Polak: Whenever we are coordinating processes with the federal government, it’s important to understand firstly that by working together and by relying on information acquired through the federal process, that doesn’t necessarily mean that decisions are the same. With respect to relying on information, our offices assess information that has been gathered.

In the case of responding to information requests or input, I would be happy to provide the member with an opportunity to discuss with the EAO staff in terms of their approach specifically to this application. There are many avenues through which our two offices communicate, especially when we are coordinating environmental assessments.

Madame Speaker: The member for Delta South on a supplemental.

V. Huntington: Let me assure the minister that I’ve been thoroughly briefed by her office. These were comments made pursuant to the public input or the input to the environmental impact statement that was required under the law.

[1425]

Terminal 2 will be in the middle of a wildlife management area. It will impact Canada’s greatest salmon and wildlife migrations. It will require the sale or transfer of provincially owned water lots, and it will impact the agricultural land reserve. Yet the EAO advised my office that B.C.’s jurisdiction was limited to areas like noise, traffic,
[ Page 9743 ]
light and air quality. Even within those limitations, the EAO had no comment.

But the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency had comments. In July, it confirmed that multiple provincial responsibilities had been omitted by the port.

I ask the minister: why did it take a federal agency like Health Canada to discover that B.C.’s air quality objectives, set by her own ministry just last year, had been omitted from the port’s impact statement?

Hon. M. Polak: In fact, most aspects of this project do fall within federal jurisdiction. When we approach an environmental assessment of this nature, if there are, in fact, at the end of the process, matters with which we think the federal process has not dealt adequately, then we can certainly pursue those on our own, and we will. But this matter is still in process, and as such, we rely on the federal government to act within their jurisdiction. We backstop that with respect to validating that those interests of British Columbia’s have been investigated and assessed properly. And if not, then we pursue them.

DEATHS OF MOTHER AND SON IN PRINCE
RUPERT AND INQUEST RECOMMENDATIONS
ON TRANSIT SERVICES

J. Rice: Today Michelle Watson spoke publicly about the tragedy that took the lives of her sister Angie Robinson and her nephew Robert. Her sister was a single mom whose son had severe autism. The coroner’s inquest found that Angie did not get the support and respite care she needed from this government. Angie’s sister said today: “Robert would have been here had our child welfare system been operating effectively. When Angie’s services were cut, there was no longer anything for her.”

Faith Bodnar of Inclusion B.C. said today: “We are a province in crisis when it comes to children with special needs.”

This was a preventable tragedy. When is this government going to stop making excuses and start providing the resources needed to repair the real damage they’ve done to families in this province? When are they going to address two key coroner’s inquest recommendations and finally act to provide safe, adequate public transportation for the communities along Highway 16, otherwise known as the Highway of Tears?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Firstly, our hearts go out to the family who’s grieving and to the community and all of the individuals who loved and cared for Angie and Robert.

The reality is that their situation raises important issues. Inclusion B.C. does very important work advocating on behalf of British Columbians with developmental disabilities and their families. I’ve enjoyed working with them in the past. Today they’ve also raised some very important issues.

We are always looking at ways that we can improve the way we deliver services, the way we deliver supports to families. There is no argument that families who are coping with disabilities that their children have, families that are coping with the stresses — financial, emotional and physical — of dealing with these tremendously complex issues, are struggling. They all struggle. What we do as a government is attempt, as best we can, to provide supports and services to assist those families in managing and creating a good life for themselves and their children.

[End of question period.]

Tabling Documents

Hon. S. Anton: I have today the report of the B.C. ferries commissioner, Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2015.

[1430]

K. Conroy: I seek leave to present a petition.

Madame Speaker: Please proceed.

Petitions

K. Conroy: This petition, originated by Gloria Lisgo, a retired registered nurse from New Denver, has over 4,200 signatures, of which 86 percent are residents of the Kootenays and 14 percent are tourists. It requests that the B.C. government enforce regulations 7.03 and 22 of the Motor Vehicle Act to bring an end to illegal levels of noise pollution and excessive speed by motorcycles.

Orders of the Day

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

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 26 — ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES
COMMISSION REPORT PROPOSALS

(continued)

L. Krog: I’m delighted to rise to continue debate on the motion before the House respecting the Electoral Boundaries Commission report. When I was closing on Thursday evening, I was talking a bit about the urban-rural divide in British Columbia. Of course, with boundary changes, obviously, that becomes of increasing importance over time, and certainly for the constituency I represent, which is Nanaimo.

Historically, in 1871 of course, Nanaimo was both an urban and a rural constituency. Nanaimo was a small
[ Page 9744 ]
community at that time. It didn’t have city status. It had the Bastion, of course, that great historical entity, the symbol of the Hudson’s Bay Company — and colonialism and imperialism, arguably.

A stirring symbol that reflects the way that the First Nations….

Interjection.

L. Krog: The member is calling me to go back to the Magna Carta. He obviously didn’t pay attention on Thursday. I suggest that he read the Blues. I know many of the members are anxious to go back to the Magna Carta. Perhaps it would provide some salutary direction to the government in its ethical behaviour today.

However, I come back to my point. Nanaimo was a recognized constituency in 1871, when we became the province of British Columbia. As the member pointed out the other day, of course, it extends back well before that, into colonial times.

Nanaimo today is a very different constituency. When I was first elected, in 2005, it included a great deal of Cedar and Gabriola Island — a number of rural elements to it. I actually had, honest to God, genuine farmers — people who produce things that we consume. Over time, with boundary changes, there has….

Interjection.

L. Krog: The member is pointing out that we have legal services. Yes, we certainly do have legal services. And we have one of the most beautiful courthouses, I will point out to that member, in the province of British Columbia. It is another Frances Mawson Rattenbury.

I commend the member if he’d love to come to Nanaimo and spend some time in the courthouse. Indeed, given what’s happened last week and the comments made, who knows who will end up in the courthouse in the province of British Columbia from time to time? One can never be too sure about these things.

It was a recognized centre, and it was an historic part of the province — the community I represent. But over time, Nanaimo’s boundaries have changed somewhat. It is now what I would describe as a strictly urban-suburban constituency. Extending from Needham and 5th, out to the Parkway, everything inside the Parkway up to Mostar, which turns into Rutherford Road, down to Hammond Bay. You hang a left on Hammond Bay, so to speak, and then you head down Brickyard. It’s strictly urban-suburban, so it’s a very different constituency.

[1435]

I might say that with respect to the boundaries, when I had the honour of being elected in 2005, coming back to this place, it wasn’t long after that — when statistics were available, before the Conservative government of Mr. Harper decided to kill the long-form statistical information…. In fact, it was the third-poorest constituency in the province of British Columbia. Vancouver–Mount Pleasant was the poorest. I believe Vancouver-Hastings was the next up the line and then Nanaimo. So I am used to representing a population who is often without much hope and who look to this government for support on a whole series of bases.

The most important thing about the Nanaimo constituency with respect to the matter of this debate, I would argue, is that the proposal for its boundaries is, in fact, a fair and reasonable one based on population. Now, I must say I’m not, from a strictly crass electoral perspective, of course…. Not that electoral politics ever, ever enters into the minds of the members of this chamber. There is a slight variation which will benefit my neighbour, the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan, and give me a little bit of what was formally his turf and amend slightly the boundaries for the member for Parksville-Qualicum, the hon. minister. But in essence, Nanaimo, the city and the old city, remains whole with these recommendations and the boundaries proposed.

I come back to my point about the rural-urban divide. There was a time, of course, when the constituency of Nanaimo contained a number of active mills, when forestry was king. Prior to forestry, it was coal. Indeed, as many of the members know, the establishment of the historic Bastion in the constituency of Nanaimo, which has been changed so much over time, represented the interest of the governor of Vancouver Island at that time, Sir James Douglas, recognizing that “Coal Tyee,” as he was known, an aboriginal who pointed out this black rock, was of enormous and significance importance to the Hudson’s Bay Company and, indeed, to the British Empire.

Until then, to fuel that incredible fleet, to fuel commerce around the world, you were running things on coal or sail. Of course, steam was coming in, so the importance of having a ready supply of coal to fuel ships docking at Victoria, particularly with the great gold rush of 1858, was incredibly important. It provided a great basis for interest by the powers that be that existed in London — a great deal of interest in the outport, this far-flung little outpost of the British Empire which was Fort Victoria and, of course, Nanaimo.

The Nanaimo constituency is an historic community in this province. It’s the third-oldest city in the province of British Columbia, actually, after New Westminster and Victoria. And of course, I do want to point out to the members opposite who are chirping in from time to time during the course of this debate that Nanaimo was a city long before Vancouver.

It’s not something that I like to emphasize too often in the House, but I suppose one could make a joke about, you know, it’s quantity over substance or quantity over quality, but I’d be hesitant to make that remark. The member for Vancouver–West End is thinking that maybe one of his colleagues has turned against him, and
[ Page 9745 ]
of course, that would never be my suggestion.

I’m delighted to represent this community and honoured to do so and very honoured, also, that it is a constituency that throughout its history, has had excellent representation. Certainly, in my lifetime, in the constituency referred to as Nanaimo, I was ably represented — wait for it, Members — by Mike Hunter, the Liberal member, from 2001 to 2005. I’m glad some of the members over there recognize that there’s such a thing as a good Liberal.

Prior to that, it was represented by Dale Lovick from 1986 on. Mr. Lovick’s period of time as the representative for Nanaimo itself also takes us back to one of the issues which Judge Eckhart and Justice Fisher recognized, which was a problem with British Columbia electoral politics, which was the issue of dual ridings. In the 1986 election, when Mr. Lovick was first elected to the Legislature, he and Dave Stupich won that election, but it was a dual riding, a dual constituency.

[1440]

By the 1991 election, when the Vander Zalm/Rita Johnston government finally was confined to the ash heap of history, the concept of dual ridings was gone. I suspect, on the basis of electoral reform and people’s attitudes now, it’s likely gone in perpetuity in British Columbia.

One of the reasons is because over time, as this report reflects, the concept around what electoral boundaries commissions do and the work they undertake has become respectable. In other words, there is a significant element of public trust in what electoral boundaries commissions do, and so it should be.

As I’ve pointed out…. The member for Vancouver-Kingsway provided me with the wonderful article I referenced on Thursday: “The Cat and Mouse Politics of Redistribution: Fair and Effective Representation in British Columbia,” by Dr. Norman Ruff, my old poli-sci teacher from UVic back when the earth was still cooling. It was published in B.C. Studies — No. 87, autumn 1990.

We have moved away from that kind of gerrymandering approach to electoral politics. What this report, the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, represents is the essential quality of what good work can be done when you have a completely non-partisan commission.

We have three members of the commission: Mr. Justice Thomas Melnick, justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, who chaired; Beverley Busson, OBC, former commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; and Keith Archer, PhD, the Chief Electoral Officer for the province of British Columbia. All were required by statute; all were appointed pursuant to statute.

Most interestingly, I think it’s really important to note that the commission itself…. The third individual — who’s not a member of the Legislative Assembly, who’s not a retired Supreme Court judge, who’s not the Chief Electoral Officer…. That appointee is appointed or nominated by the Speaker of this assembly after consultation with the Premier and the Leader of the Official Opposition.

Now, members may laugh and see this as bureaucratic. Some people at home may not think this is a terribly important thing. But, in terms of ensuring trust in the democratic process and the work of electoral boundaries commissions, this is extremely important.

As I suggested in my remarks on Thursday, one of the reasons I believe that the total number of submissions in person, arguably, was down from the previous commission some years ago, of Judge Eckardt, was because there is public trust in the process. It is because people don’t feel they have to attend and make submissions, other than what are often, I will call, narrow submissions, based on geography and interest, not on the quality of the work to be done by the commission itself, not complaints about the electoral process, but….

Interjection.

L. Krog: We are indeed well governed by the process. The hon. member says we’re well governed. Well, we just went through question period, and I think some would clearly dispute that. Even the press gallery, actually, saw some of its members come out in person — people we haven’t seen for a while — and show some interest in the debate today. It would suggest to me, notwithstanding the member’s protestations — and I’m sure he’ll have an opportunity to rise and speak later — that perhaps things are not all well in wonderland, in British Columbia.

But I come back to my point. We are well served by the legislation that appointed this commission and that allowed it to function appropriately.

And what is its mandate? Well, its mandate is fairly straightforward. It is to make proposals to the Legislative Assembly as to the area boundaries and names of provincial electoral districts. As the document itself says: “If our deliberations dictate that the number of electoral districts should be increased, the Electoral Boundaries Commission…allows us to make proposals for up two additional electoral districts, to a maximum of 87.”

That is what’s happened. We’ve picked up a couple of seats in British Columbia. That’s probably a good thing. I don’t think I have to mention to the members in this assembly who represent constituencies of some geographic size that feeling that you can represent appropriately all of your constituents is a great goal but not always available to one, in practice.

[1445]

By the time that one spends their time travelling back and forth between Victoria and then trying to attend in various communities, that becomes a real issue.

I come back to my point about the rural-urban divide. It is important that the commission recognize that
[ Page 9746 ]
geography, on occasion, does trump population. And that is what the commission has recognized: that the vast geography of this province means, quite simply, that you cannot have constituencies that have an absolutely equal — or as close to equal as possible — population. It is not only impractical; it is, I would argue, from a representative perspective, undesirable.

We are living in a representative democracy. We’re not living in a democracy where every person elected to this assembly is elected by a constituency of equal size in terms of population. It would be practically impossible.

The commission has recognized, very clearly in this case, as have previous commissions, that it is important to do the best that it can. But it recognizes — as the law recognizes and the commission has decided in this case — the principles under section 9(1) of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, which, as the report says, instructs us to be governed by the following:

“(a) that the principle of representation by population be achieved, recognizing the imperatives imposed by geographical and demographic realities, the legacy of our history and the need to balance the community interests of the people of British Columbia; (b) to achieve that principle, the commission be permitted to deviate from a…Provincial electoral quota by no more than 25%, plus or minus.”

And we may propose electoral districts with population deviations exceeding plus-or-minus 25 percent where we consider that very special circumstances exist.

The reality is that in a constituency like Surrey–Green Timbers, I believe a healthy person in a few hours could probably walk all around the boundaries. I’m sure the member for Vancouver–West End could probably do the same thing. I suppose, in a day, if I were feeling tremendously athletic and were in better shape, I might even be able to do it in my own constituency. But I would defy the member for Peace River North or Skeena to achieve that, even with the benefit of a flying machine, so to speak. It’s not realistic, so the Boundaries Commission has the opportunity to recognize that geographic reality in coming to its report and making its recommendations.

It’s not just the act that guides the work of the commission. It is also the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have had case law help us to determine what is the fair and appropriate process to undertake.

It may well be that even with the commission’s good work, there will be a constitutional challenge. There is nothing in the law that forecloses that opportunity or possibility to the citizens of this province, or any group of them, who wish to make that choice. If the commission has done its work well and the Legislature has done its work well — and there is no guarantee on that — then this report, the subsequent passage of legislation, will survive that potential legal challenge. But we can never know that.

The fact that we live in a democratic society where it is possible to do that — to go back to the Magna Carta, because I know the members love to hear me use the term — in and of itself, is a remarkable and dramatic achievement that took a great deal of time to reach. That we would be in a position that we would try and guarantee the fairness of our system and the representative democracy that it stands for, to ensure that British Columbians, voters across this province, citizens, feel represented appropriately…. Not an easy thing.

When I look at my own constituency, as I say, Nanaimo itself has the honour to be represented, in part, at least….

[1450]

Interjection.

L. Krog: Well, the member says by me. I’m very flattered, and I thank him for that recognition. But it also has the opportunity to be represented by two other very able MLAs — from Parksville-Qualicum, who’s waving over here as if I’d forget her, and the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan, who likewise is delighted to represent portions of the city.

Interjection.

L. Krog: Now, I’ve been so kind, and the member has to breach the rule about commenting on absences. I think the rule-breaking has become so common on that side of the House, they feel they can get away with anything.

It is, as I have said many times in this chamber, a great honour to represent the good people of Nanaimo. I mentioned the names of Mike Hunter and Dale Lovick; but also Jan Pullinger, one of the first of that many of the hundred women elected to the B.C. Legislature that we have most recently honoured; and at the same time, prior to that, Dave Stupich; and Frank Ney, for a short term, 1969-1972.

Now, if there was a character who drew attention to the great city of Nanaimo, that was Frank Ney — of course, a name associated with the bathtub race but who did say, rather unkindly, of my community, many years ago, that if it came to culture versus corn, Nanaimo would take corn over culture any day.

I know I’ve mentioned that in the House before but only because I wanted to emphasize that we’ve have come a long way since then. The Boundaries Commission, in creating this nice, tight little constituency of Nanaimo, recognizes that.

Indeed, one of the things that has helped make Nanaimo a dynamic community for the extension of this boundary is the creation and existence of Malaspina College, as it then was, now Vancouver Island University, previously, the old Nanaimo Vocational School. We have just passed…. I think it’s roughly the 75th year since the founding of the Vocational School.

It is the incredible international aspect of Vancouver Island University that helps make Nanaimo the wonderful place it is. I believe the figure is 17 percent of the students at Vancouver Island University are inter-
[ Page 9747 ]
national students — 83 countries. If I recall the words of the president, Dr. Ralph Nilson, from an address the other morning, 83 different countries have students at Vancouver Island University. The city of Nanaimo itself has a population of about 88,000, just slightly larger than the city of Victoria.

When the Boundaries Commission was met with presentations around this area, one of the things they considered was the existence of Vancouver Island University and the fact that a number of the people who worked there or students who attended there lived within close geographical proximity.

In essence, they extended the boundaries across the inland Island Highway — another wonderful achievement of the previous NDP government, who finally built the inland Island Highway after decades of Social Credit promises that went unfulfilled. The extension of the boundaries across the highway takes into account a number of subdivisions and the homes of people who actually work and/or attend Vancouver Island University. That was a significant shift for the constituency, but a very positive one.

In addition, to try and keep the population within balance and, again, to do the right thing in accordance with the principle of the act and the Boundaries Commission’s work, they extended the northern boundary of the constituency immediately to the south over by one street, from Fourth to Fifth. But all in all, the Boundaries Commission has done good work in Nanaimo, and Nanaimo is, I think, reasonably happy with the proposal as it stands and as is set out in the final report of the commission.

I think it is important to recognize also, however, that the proposals contained in the report are just that: they are proposals and recommendations. They’re not the final decision. The final decision lies with the members of this assembly.

[1455]

Now, the wonderful thing about the whole process is that the deliberations of the commission itself were obviously conducted in private, but the hearings themselves were all public, just as the deliberations by the members of this assembly, which will determine whether the recommendations as proposed by the Electoral Boundaries Commission are accepted, will likewise be conducted in public, open to public scrutiny, an opportunity for the citizens of British Columbia to determine whether or not the members they have already elected to this assembly are actually doing the right job on behalf of the people they represent.

Now, the commission’s work is not entirely perfect. I won’t mention the name of a previous MLA I know who was somewhat unhappy that the old term “Yale” wasn’t left in the description of that historic constituency. These things happen from time to time. We have to recognize that things change. Yale is not quite as significant a population as it once was.

Interjection.

L. Krog: The member for Chilliwack-Hope is perking up. I’m delighted to see him paying attention to the debate.

Yale isn’t quite the centre of commerce that it used to be. I hate to disappoint the member. Perhaps he should drive up there more often and determine that. Chilliwack might be a somewhat larger centre now and provide more economic activity.

I have to recognize that my community doesn’t depend on king coal any more. I don’t think there’s any likelihood there will be a significant enough strike for the provincial government to send the troops in to put it down either, which many regard as the basis which has led to the great divisions in British Columbia’s politics historically — the vicious assault, if you will, on the workers who were struggling to better their lives. I could wander off and talk about the Dunsmuirs and coal for a very long time, and I don’t wish to do that.

Interjection.

L. Krog: The member says: “Tell us about the CCF.” Yes, I say with great pride that the predecessor to my party, the CCF, actually enjoyed a strong and long history in the Nanaimo area. Indeed, this will not shock any of the members opposite. The first Socialist Party of British Columbia member elected was elected in Nanaimo, I believe, in 1903. There’s a long history of radical politics and concern for the welfare and well-being of people in this province reflected in my community.

When the Boundaries Commission considered its report, I’m delighted and pleased that they chose not to change the name. They actually left it simply as Nanaimo. Sometimes people have asked me: “So what do you represent? Is it Nanaimo-Cowichan? Is it Parksville-Qualicum? What is it exactly?” I can always say with great pride that it’s just good old, plain Nanaimo. No adornment. No need to add a Lantzville to it. No need to add a Ladysmith to it or a Gabriola. Nanaimo — the great city of Nanaimo.

One of the sad parts is…. I must say with some regret that when…. I mentioned that I had lost the rural areas of Cedar and Gabriola Island. I also lost all of the Snuneymuxw First Nation reserves, both No. 1 and No. 2. Although obviously many of its members live within the boundaries of my constituency, I don’t actually have any of that land as part of my constituency anymore. I must say that Chief John Wesley and his newly elected council are doing the best they can with the limited resources they have to try and improve the lot of their people, and I wish them well in that endeavour.

As the members may know, we had a fairly radical turnaround in the election of our council in the last municipal election, as did many of the members here in the communities that they represent. Certainly, we have achieved
[ Page 9748 ]
a certain notoriety — not that welcome — for having a somewhat divided council. I’m sure, in time, that common sense and objectivity will prevail, and people will act in the best interests of the people that they represent.

The commission had a big job, and it was a difficult job. Legislative constraints were placed on it, as well, in terms of preserving 17 rural seats. That may well open up whatever we do here to the constitutional challenge that I talked about, and that is a risk.

As someone who was raised in Coombs, B.C., before it became — I won’t call it a tourist trap; that would be derogatory — certainly, a well-known tourist destination, as it is now, I have a great affinity and sympathy for those who come from rural British Columbia and the people who live there and work.

[1500]

They are the people who, throughout this province’s history, contributed greatly to, as I often reference them, the four great initial industries, if you will, of this province that are reflected so beautifully outside this chamber in the dome: agriculture, mining, forestry and fishing. That’s what a lot of those people did to make their living and to contribute to the great wealth of this province.

I didn’t make reference to it the other day, but when you talk about the boundaries of constituencies and the history of this province, you can’t help but reflect on that wonderfully amusing work, George Bowering’s history of British Columbia, B.C.: A Swashbuckling History.

It talks about the many…. I hesitate to call them robber barons, but let’s just say they were people who came to this province with a very much “cut it down, mine it out, fish it to death” kind of attitude and made great fortunes, some of which built some of the most magnificent homes in the great city of Vancouver, which the members there across the way and some members on this side of the House represent.

Hon. A. Wilkinson: What about Oak Bay?

A. Weaver: Lovely homes in Oak Bay.

L. Krog: And Oak Bay. I see a little city rivalry going on here. I knew the member for Oak Bay might be offended, and so as the member across has rightly reminded me, yes, there are some pretty nice homes in Oak Bay too — again, built by the fortunes of predecessors.

Now, of course, that would remind me that the magnificent Craigdarroch Castle was built with the money made from coal in the great city of Nanaimo. It was one of the ultimate symbols of the great wealth that was extracted from this province. And of course, up the road now, Royal Roads University, Hatley Castle, the home of the…. I believe he was both Premier and Lieutenant-Governor in his time, if my recollection is correct. Dunsmuir Jr., we’ll call him. That, again, represented the kind of wealth that came from our initial industries.

I’m proud to represent the constituency of Nanaimo, a constituency that has, as part of its history, coal and logging, a little bit of mining on the side — precious little apart from the coal. But it now, within the boundaries of the new constituency as recommended by the Boundaries Commission, includes Vancouver Island University. It includes a fairly significant high-tech sector that many people simply aren’t aware of.

It includes a magnificent although aging hospital, the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. But I’m sure the government, as we get closer to another election, may wish, in its opportune way, to propose, perhaps, some funding to build a new and better hospital. I know that other communities in the province have received them from time to time, although I must say that I would hope it would be done on the basis of merit and not on the basis of politics.

I would remind the members opposite that back in the ’90s, after the vicious campaign of 1991 when we saw great electoral change in British Columbia, the proposal was that there should be a cancer clinic built at Kelowna or Kamloops. Kelowna, of course, elected Liberals, and I think…. Well, and Mr. Serwa, a Socred. I should remind that we did have what were referred to unkindly as the seven dwarfs, who survived the ’91 election. Kamloops elected two New Democrats.

The Harcourt government of the day did what it often did, at a significant political price. It chose to put the cancer clinic in Kelowna because it was the right thing to do and therefore paid an electoral price in Kamloops, which saw that community elect a Liberal and a New Democrat in 1996, not two New Democrats as it had previously.

But I digress. I come back to my point about Nanaimo and the great constituency of Nanaimo and what this commission has recommended. The commission has done the right thing. It has kept Nanaimo whole. It has, at the same time, recognized that it’s important to take into account those mild variations that occur over time when one has a chance to look at boundary commission recommendations, previous ones, and the practical impact of those decisions.

The one area which the boundaries commission, a couple of times down the road from here, might consider is the consideration to bring Gabriola Island, if possible, back into the Nanaimo constituency. From a strictly geographic accessibility approach, as it exists now and as it’s proposed to continue, the good people of Gabriola Island will have to come into my constituency, to downtown Nanaimo, and then find transport, either by way of public transport or car or foot or bicycle or whatever, to get to a constituency office of their MLA, the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan.

[1505]

That is a bit of a problem. I think that’s a fairly rare circumstance, where in order to get from one constituency to another, you’ve got to pass through. Now, I know the
[ Page 9749 ]
member from Alberni certainly faced the same problem, where you would have to come through the Parksville-Qualicum constituency to get out to Alberni, where he had his office in Alberni. And I think the concept of trying to maintain two offices is not always easy.

Apart from that refinement, I would think that the commission has done its work and has done its work well. So I just want to say, in closing, that I will vote in favour of the motion and approve the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission.

I wish to express my thanks to the commissioners for their work. I certainly wish to express my thanks to the members opposite, who have been so gracious and kind to me during my remarks, always filled with applause and goodwill and love and affection that’s so often absent from this chamber. I can’t….

Interjection.

L. Krog: “My cup runneth over,” the member says. I always like a little biblical quotation. But I’m reminded also…. Isn’t it a line in the Bible that the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine?

That’s what the commission has done here in arriving at the recommendations respecting the boundaries of constituencies across this province, but most particularly my constituency. For their work, again, I express my thanks.

I express my thanks also to those citizens who took the time to come out and express their interest in and their comments upon the preliminary report of the Boundaries Commission and, indeed, made their initial submissions. It is an exercise in democracy that, I think, reflects well on the people of British Columbia and, most importantly, reflects well on the process. We didn’t have a lot of people out protesting or complaining, and there has never been a suggestion that the commission somehow packed a bias or was ill-informed or came to its conclusions for obscure or unknown political reasons.

The fact is this is what a functioning, democratic process should look like, where the people are satisfied that it has been conducted openly and fairly. The results are reasonable, and the people of British Columbia will have their opportunity, based on these new boundaries, to choose, hopefully, a new government in 2017.

D. Ashton: I rise today to speak to Motion 26, the electoral boundary issue, following the wonderful oration of the member for Nanaimo. I will get to the answer substantially quicker than he has.

I will say that at this point in time, the world is always changing, and one of the foundations of our democracy is representation by population. Rep by pop, as it’s sometimes called, recognizes the geographic realities in provinces like British Columbia.

B.C. is like other jurisdictions in Canada, such as the western provinces, Quebec and Ontario, that are characterized by large urban centres in the south and relatively lesser-populated regions in the north. Rep by pop therefore ensures that the electoral districts with lower populations are meaningfully represented in this Legislature. It ensures that rural districts are not dominated by smaller, densely populated urban districts and have an equal voice in parliament.

In a country such as Canada, exceptions are made to recognize unique circumstances. One federal riding in Canada, Nunavut, covers more than two million square kilometres, but Nunavut has a third fewer voters than the average urban riding. Making it larger to include more people is not feasible. I, for one, would not attempt to go door-knocking in a constituency as large as Nunavut.

In a democracy like Canada, we need to make arrangements to accommodate remote communities, and this is the case right here in British Columbia.

Electoral boundaries are established in our province by an independent commission that is out of the hands of the politicians. We want to ensure that electoral representation is fair and not influenced by government. In British Columbia, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act requires that a review is conducted after every second election, and this brings us to our current debate.

[1510]

In 2014, the government introduced the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act. This legislation gives the independent commission the ability to adjust the boundaries of all electoral districts while preserving the existing number in the north and in rural regions.

It became clear during the last Boundaries Commission process that three regions in British Columbia were at risk of losing representation in the Legislative Assembly. People in the north, Cariboo-Thompson and the Columbia-Kootenay regions would have lost representation if the current act had not been amended.

The intention was to help the commission balance the population between the districts and ensure effective representation. The bottom line is that we need a fair and effective representation for all British Columbians, and the act recommends an increase of two electoral districts from 85 to 87 to better reflect the increase in populations in the areas of Surrey-Richmond and New Westminster.

Adopting the commission’s final report will result in changes to 48 of the current electoral districts. I should interject here that my riding, Penticton, will not change as a result of the commission’s recommendations. However, substantial changes will be taking place in the Fraser Valley, Hope, Princeton, the Comox Valley and mid–Vancouver Island.

An example. In the Comox Valley, Cumberland and Royston and the southern Comox Valley are included as part of the proposed Mid Island–Pacific Rim electoral district. In terms of seat increases, the commission recommends the addition of two additional districts in Richmond and in Surrey.
[ Page 9750 ]

To arrive at the recommendations, the electoral commission consulted widely with British Columbians and held 44 public hearings and considered dozens and dozens of written submissions. I would therefore like to thank, at this point in time, the commissioners for their work in helping preserve our democracy here in British Columbia. The changes we adopt will be in place for the next two elections, and the work of the commission will be greatly appreciated for the years to come.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to this.

R. Fleming: I appreciate the opportunity to make some remarks on the motion that is before the House that endorses the work of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. It’s extensive work that was conducted in every region across the province and involved the participation of a number of members of this House. Most importantly and critically, it’s members of the public who followed the work of the commission and attended meetings and shared their opinions with those three distinguished commissioners who have produced the final report that was made available to us in September and that will, I understand, be before this House in the very near future in the form of legislation.

Today, we discuss simply an overview of that work and what it means for, certainly, the province in the next general election in 2017, but I think most importantly, the process itself. Those are the kinds of remarks I want to make this afternoon. It’s about how the commission’s work evolved and just some general observations on what we expect to be in the legislation.

On that basis, because of the wording of this motion, which affirms the conclusion and suggests no amendments to that report, my remarks will be all the more positive in anticipation that legislation that does reach this chamber in this fall sitting will not alter at all the conclusions of the commission.

I think the most appropriate place to start for me, as other members have done on Hansard in this debate — on the record — is to thank all three commissioners who were appointed back in May 2014 and put a lot of work into arriving at a final report that will guide us into the next general election.

Those three individuals are, of course, Mr. Justice Thomas Melnick, who is on the Supreme Court of British Columbia, who chaired this commission and did an extraordinary amount of work…. He interacted, from my observation at the meetings that I attended, very well with members of the public who brought forward their views, as did Beverley Busson, who is a former commissioner of the RCMP, who was a member of this commission; and Keith Archer, who not only has a doctorate but serves, of course, as an independent officer of this House as our province’s Chief Electoral Officer.

[1515]

All three of those individuals, I think, deserve a huge measure of thanks from the 85 members of this House, but from all British Columbians, because the manner in which they discharged their duties and carried on a tremendous volume of work to get us to the stage where we are this afternoon is not inconsiderable. It’s important work, and we have an end product here, an outcome, that just commends the work that was done.

Now, I know there were some twists and turns along the way. The last time I spoke to the issue of the Boundaries Commission and electoral boundaries in different parts of the province was, of course, around the debate over Bill 2. I think that there were a lot of concerns that were shared by the opposition members primarily — actually, exclusively. Concerns that the tradition of having an independent commission, which is not that old…. In fact, an unfettered, independent commission is only a few decades old in the province of British Columbia.

There was a general concern that we were moving from an independent commission model that was free from political intrusion and the unsightly and unfair attempt…. We see it in other political jurisdictions, where politicians essentially sit down with other politicians and draw up their own boundaries — based not on the concerns of their constituents, but based on their own self-interests. The concern was that we were moving from an independent model to one that was semi-independent.

That was because there were a number of constituencies that were, if you like, red-circled or grandfathered, that had some history in the province of British Columbia, but many of them were absolutely inexplicable. You could not delineate between rural…. Although government said it was about protecting rural B.C., there were a number of regional urban hubs included in that.

The concern was that the real denominator between what these 17 ridings had in common is that well over half — in fact, 11 of the 17 — were held by Liberal incumbents. There was no rhyme or reason to which constituencies were included. It was not well articulated by government, so that became the talking point. What they had in common was that most of them were held by members of the government side.

There were also concerns about communities that were not included in this list, that there was partisanship by omission in terms of communities that were clearly rural, where there were historic concerns about constituents having a reasonable access to their MLA — you know, constituencies that are constrained by either island ferry service or the lack of roads between them becoming overly large. A number of those were not included in the instructions that Bill 2 gave to the commission.

I’ll return to some of those concerns around Bill 2 later.

I do want to say that we are very fortunate in British Columbia that over time and, let’s face it, due to certain outrageous, scandalous events in history, we have arrived at a more mature, fair process for deciding what electoral
[ Page 9751 ]
boundaries look like in British Columbia.

My colleague and, I think, others have already referred to the infamous Gracie’s finger, an example of how actual gerrymandering took place once upon a time in British Columbia. Actually, not in the too-distant past. We’re talking about 1979 and the scandal that that brought down upon a government that was actually re-elected on a gerrymandered boundary.

That ensured that going forward…. To my knowledge, it’s still the case that, for example, failed candidates of a political party were no longer allowed to chair that commission. In fact, the Eckardt commission had been chaired by an ex-politician. Not a successful politician, but it was chaired by somebody who belonged to the governing party.

[1520]

You don’t see that in British Columbia anymore. To my knowledge, you do not see the ability for elected officials to directly intervene before a final report hits the Queen’s Printer and is introduced to MLAs, as we did in 1978-1979 when the minister who introduced the bill, Grace McCarthy….

I don’t mean to run her down, because she is associated with many distinguished things and reforms in British Columbia, but this was her worst hour. There’s no question about it, and it spoke to a government culture that took advantage. It had motive and opportunity. It took advantage of a situation that could be manipulated and abused for partisan purposes.

It was the Gracie’s finger episode that changed things, that stopped the ability for a minister to intervene — in this case, go to dinner and go to lunch and apply pressure on commission employees — to change the boundaries of her own riding. This is the genesis of what became known as Gracie’s finger: a neighbourhood in Vancouver that had no connection with adjoining established neighbourhoods, that took a relatively safe seat and added polls that typically returned the government in 70 to 80 percent numbers and included it in that riding.

Sometimes the greatest motivator for reform is not, in fact, the positive movement of people who take charge of their democratic institutions. It’s the failure of them to serve the people’s interests that gives a glaring example that then sparks the uproar of opinion that leads to reforms and changes.

Thank goodness we are in that place in British Columbia where those kinds of egregious interventions that were called out by the leaders of the then opposition New Democrats and the Conservatives that sat in the Legislative Assembly — that that example did not go by lightly. It ended the culture and the possibility of intervening. In effect, I don’t think gerrymandering is too strong a word for it. That’s exactly what it is.

That still exists in many parts of the world. Some of it is changing ever so slowly. In the state of California, not too far from here, the spectacle of governing caucus members sitting down in a back room and carving out their own ridings that seem to have everything to do with race and socioeconomic status and nothing to do with the natural lay of the land and the constituency to which people geographically adhere to — that’s coming to an end in states like California. But it exists, massively, even in the United States still.

The 2012 congressional elections were yet another reminder of how, in this case, the Republican Party was able to manipulate many of the key congressional districts to their advantage beginning by using, actually, state legislatures, where gerrymandering is perhaps less scrutinized than at the national level.

In the United States — I think this will come as a shock to many members of the House and to the public in Canada because this is a problem that we have largely solved through our reforms over time — you actually have a multi-billion dollar industry, a political industry that does data profiling and analysis of voting tendencies and demographic shifts and supplies information, sometimes in a clandestine manner, to get into the hands of legislators who actually have the task, the responsibility, of creating their own state legislative districts which then set a pattern, of course, for national congressional districts.

Just to give people a sense of how this can be distorted, we have states where the governing party can lose by up to eight or ten percentage points and have 20 percent more elected representatives. There are a couple of examples where these electoral college changes exist.

[1525]

The size of the industry, as I mentioned earlier…. I’m just trying to consult my reference here, which is the New York Times, and I trust that people will grant me that that is a valuable source around this issue.

In the case of an organization called REDMAP, which is a Republican state leadership contracted organization, we’re talking about big money — tens of millions of dollars. For example, there was a strategy that was unearthed by a journalist that looked at $30 million in slush fund money that was provided through partisan-affiliated — well, they say they’re non-partisan, but they’re partisan-affiliated — PAC organizations to help a party win five state legislatures, which would then have an influence on those 2012 congressional elections.

Now, as I say, that’s not too far from where we live. That’s a democracy that often calls itself the beacon and the model for the rest of the world to emulate. It’s a feature of a democracy that neighbours us that we have to be on guard against infiltrating jurisdictions like British Columbia.

We have some of the problems that U.S. states have around big money. We have had no interest from this government in bringing in campaign finance reform legislation, even though a number of other jurisdictions…. Federal rules under Elections Canada now govern contributions and, in fact, ban and outlaw big
[ Page 9752 ]
business and union contributions. It’s about individuals. That’s something that British Columbia’s democracy would absolutely benefit from.

We do have to look back at Bill 2 and understand that you can never be complacent around a boundary commission process. There will always be an attempt — and I think there was — to introduce political advantage. Even in our independent system, government names the commissioner and the commission, and under Bill 2, instructions were given about what seats will be protected from population and demographic shifts and which ones will not be.

I said earlier that I salute the commission’s work. I think they were given quite a difficult job, made more difficult by the fact that 17 ridings, more than 20 percent of the constituencies in B.C., were excluded from what is called the 25 percent rule. That is to say that their population must not deviate plus or minus 25 percent from the average size of a constituency. We look at British Columbia — 55,000 constituents on average, 85 constituencies, adding up to 4.4 million British Columbians — and 17 of those ridings were allowed to exceed that 25 percent deviation rule.

Now, it’s an important rule. Why? Is 25 percent an arbitrary number? No, it’s one that has jurisprudence behind it. This is one that comes out of a number of Supreme Court decisions. In order to protect a key demographic principle, which is that all votes are equal — one citizen, one vote — you get to a point where if you unduly weight the value of somebody’s vote in a very small constituency, it essentially cancels out the ability to influence or the equality rights of a vote cast by somebody in a larger urban riding.

A very difficult set of marching orders for the commission to try and accommodate all this. I think, given that there were additionally tasked with having to add two seats in fast-growing areas of the province, they did a remarkably good job of being able to come to the map that was produced that we are considering and the other set of recommendations here.

You know, the provincial overview that I provided…. I’m not going to go into any detail about every single constituency. I think the member for Nanaimo has done a very thorough job of talking about some of the granular details of each different constituency and boundaries that, admittedly, even by his own account, are ones that he has perhaps not even visited.

[1530]

As the respondent for the opposition caucus, I thank him for giving that kind of scrutiny and oversight to the map that was produced by this commission. Because of his painstaking detail, I will not need to go into that level. But I do wish to talk about my own region for some minutes, and my own constituency in particular. I imagine that that pattern will continue. I have said that we are very fortunate to live in a parliamentary democracy where politicians don’t sit down in back rooms and engage in gerrymandering practices — or at least in far less overt and disgraceful conduct than in other democratic jurisdictions.

However, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have any interesting comments or observations to make. Well, they might not be interesting, but I certainly have observations to make about my own constituency, where I live and where I am very privileged to try and represent, to the best of my ability, the people I was elected to represent.

On the south Island, I think one of the key concerns was, obviously, what the map would look like. The capital regional district does not have the demographic growth that many regions of British Columbia have. However, it does have, within the region, some areas that are growing quite quickly.

I’m thinking in particular of the Western Communities. You look at communities like Langford and Colwood, which my colleague, the member for Juan de Fuca represents — very fast-growing areas. Other communities, represented by colleagues like in Oak Bay–Gordon Head, are much less so. My own constituency of Victoria–Swan Lake is somewhere in between.

What has happened, though, between the last time the Boundaries Commission did its work in 2008 and this iteration, is that we have gone from a population that really couldn’t quite support seven MLAs in the south Island but was what you might call a 6.5-member region, with one of the boundaries stretching over the Malahat into the Cowichan Valley area and becoming the other half of a riding — very difficult to represent for that member up and down the Malahat with communities that don’t have a lot to do with each other on a day-to-day basis.

That is now a problem, thanks to the modest but steady population growth, particularly in the Western Communities, as I mentioned. The south Island is now almost perfectly, if I may say, a seven-member riding — with about 350- to 360-odd-thousand people living in the south Island dividing quite neatly into a map of roughly 53,000 to 55,000 constituents per MLA.

In the 2008 draft, there were some concerns that the draft that came before this House recommended something that was quite a lot different and something that was not natural to the lay of the land, the geography and the way communities have been built up over time.

In effect, what was recommended was that Saanich North and the Islands remain substantially the same but that the Saanich Peninsula be flipped sideways in its orientation and no longer have a north-south set of boundaries that were important to communities but be flipped over into an east-west orientation — one that really doesn’t match the way people’s schools, communities and neighbourhoods have evolved, let alone the municipal boundaries. It was a confusing map, yet for a time, it looked like it could be the way this region would be divided and its boundaries would be formed.
[ Page 9753 ]

In the final analysis, it was rejected. Now, that concern existed, perhaps, for this commission, because they would have reviewed the work of the previous commission. But they never, in fact, looked at that seriously, although I am aware of at least one individual associated with the Conservative Party who urged that the east-west draft that had been put into the dustbin in 2008 be dredged up again and considered.

[1535]

Because nobody else spoke for it, I think it’s good that the commission listened to the public and had a good understanding of how the capital regional district political boundaries work — its school district boundaries, for example — and came up with a map that in reality doesn’t change very much.

I had the opportunity, upon the invitation, to present to the Boundaries Commission, and I did so. I actually had very few comments about Victoria–Swan Lake. There are almost no changes in my constituency. But I did think it was interesting that on the principle of trying to keep things simple and trying to have MLAs not cross municipal boundaries unnecessarily and divide up too many municipalities between too many representatives….

In the case of Oak Bay–Gordon Head, which has always been the entire municipality of Oak Bay and the Gordon Head portion of Saanich, now that would include a small sliver of east Fairfield on the border of Oak Bay — the city of Victoria, in other words. This introduces another municipality and, therefore, divides Victoria’s representation in terms of MLAs not between two MLAs, which it has always been historically, but now three.

My concern was just simply that the commission didn’t need to make those shifts. If they wished to include more Saanich constituents in Oak Bay–Gordon Head, they could easily have done so. Victoria has always had two MLAs. In fact, at one time, this was a two-member, oddly elected system in some of those Socred years, in the ’70s and ’80s. It then became single-member proper ridings in the 1980s.

My constituency was known as Victoria-Hillside in the 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2005 general elections. Victoria–Beacon Hill, the same. Listen, it’s not a huge distinction, but knowing Victoria quite well, both as a former elected councillor and now as an MLA privileged to represent at least the north half of the city, I did think the commission, interestingly, divided a community like Fairfield-Gonzales in two and between two MLAs, and that wasn’t necessary.

However, these are not substantive changes. I think that people residing in greater Victoria will adjust quite easily to it. Again, the commission, it must be said, is dealing with a jurisdiction that…. Although it has seven MLAs, there are 13 municipalities here. It’s going to be less than neat and tidy with that many mayors and councils and with some municipalities that are incorporated with as few as 1,000 people.

I did hear some of my constituents arguing for bringing back the name Victoria-Hillside. I think I heard that a lot more in previous years. Sometimes people, including members here in the Legislative Assembly, say privately to me: “Where the heck is Swan Lake?” I think that is less of a problem today than in the past.

I know there’s not just one Swan Lake in British Columbia. I was recently advised of a Swan Lake near Vernon, and there may be others. There may be others in the north part of British Columbia. However, I think people know that this is the Swan Lake of British Columbia. That is well known and appreciated.

Of course, the commission — to go back and call it Victoria-Hillside might unnecessarily alienate and exclude those of my constituents with a particular Saanich identity. Swan Lake is an iconic nature sanctuary in Saanich now, and with 60 percent of my constituents residing in Victoria and 40-plus percent in Saanich, it’s important, I think, to be inclusive. Swan Lake has a significance in this part of the province and in the name of this constituency, so I think that issue disappeared.

[1540]

Somebody is looking it up on their computer now. I would be happy to…. I’ll just put it out there. Any member of either party who would like to see Swan Lake, weather and time permitting, in this legislative session — we’ll see if we can get out there and do a little field trip.

Now, I noted that the Chief Electoral Officer — one of the commissioners in this process — representing Elections B.C. and representing all of us as an independent officer who reports to all elected members, bid for executive support for the Boundaries Commission’s work, put in a proposal and was treated like any other vendor. Now, that’s interesting. Having successfully got the work of supporting the commission, he did a great job.

I think in the annual report, there is a reference to a word that the former Minister of Education liked to use a lot: a shared-services model, where efficiencies were found that did the work with cost savings and with expediency, without any rush to move too quickly. The carefulness was intact.

The Chief Electoral Officer is saying to all of us that there should be a permanence, in fact, to Elections B.C. having that as part of their mandate. I kind of happen to agree.

Electoral organizations. We’ve just been through Elections Canada playing a role in managing a federal election, where there was a very happy outcome in terms of the voter participation. It was able to respond to millions of more Canadians going to the polls than in the previous general election.

I think that should clearly be the goal of our election organization in British Columbia. I think that recommendation should be taken seriously. I also think we should follow up on his recommendation to automatically register all 18-year-olds in British Columbia so they can get to the polls and vote for their interests.
[ Page 9754 ]

D. McRae: I almost lost my place. I was so enraptured thinking about the various Swan Lakes around British Columbia. But I quickly pulled myself out of my geographic vision here.

I rise today to speak about the work of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. I must say as I stand, I do so with a conflicted heart. Of course, I respect the independence of the commission and the hard work they had in front of them, but it does have impacts on some ridings more than others. I would argue that Comox Valley, my home for my entire life, is being impacted — and in a way that is challenging.

The Comox Valley, for those of you who have been there…. Like many of us have been to Swan Lake, I think many of us have also been to the Comox Valley over various times. As an electoral district, it has been in existence since 1991, actually. In 1991, it was represented by a woman named Margaret Lord, followed by Evelyn Gillespie. Members of this chamber will remember working with Stan Hagen for almost two terms and then myself.

Prior to that it was called the electoral district of Comox, and it stretched from parts of the Qualicum area to, I think, just south of Campbell River. It was before my time. It was a larger geographic area, but obviously the population was changed.

I think back about population — how it impacts the changes in our electoral district and also impacts this building as well. If I look in this building and look in this chamber, there are 85 seats. Unlike many constructed chambers that follow the British parliamentary model, we’ve had to make some allowances for it. People often coming to tour the buildings will look down or look through the golden gate here, and they will notice that for some reason it wows out as you get down to this end of the chamber.

I believe when the building was built, in about 1898, there were about 30 MLAs representing the province of British Columbia. Today with 85, it is getting more and more difficult to actually get us all sitting into desks in the chamber. Anybody who’s got up quickly and not protected their fingers with their neighbour beside them knows the price one pays.

The reality is the population has continued to grow. In 1871, the population in British Columbia was about 36,000 through Census Canada. I think it was a bit racially driven at the time because they didn’t do a great job counting First Nations.

[1545]

Even then, if we add 200,000 to such, today our population, where we count all residents of Canada…. We’re now pushing about 4.6 million. It does continue to change and, like the province, so does our riding.

Comox Valley, though, does have some unique features, which I think will be missed as they potentially make changes. We are one of the few districts that share one regional district. We have it for the whole Comox Valley, with the same school district boundaries and the electoral district. It makes it really easy for the residents of our community.

Proposed changes, though, will see parts of our community going to a different riding. Right now to my north there is the riding of North Island, whose member is obviously very proud of her constituency, as I know she would be. I think their population is about 53,000 or 54,000.

Interjection.

D. McRae: It’s 55,000. She knows them all, she says, intimately.

To the south is the riding of Alberni–Pacific Rim, with about 42,000 residents as well.

Comox Valley has seen significant population change in the last 15 years. According to census 2001, there were about 55,000 Comox Valley residents, stretching from Fanny Bay in the south to Oyster River in the north. Today we are pushing 65,000, and we are projected to grow. We are definitely on the higher scale. If we’re using the 50,000 to 55,000 population as a sweet spot, we have exceeded that a long time ago.

I think, since I am speaking about the Comox Valley, I’d like to put some of our communities just on record as I do speak, if it’s okay with yourself, hon. Speaker. To the far west, we have the islands of Hornby and Denman, two unique places by any stretch. Both, geographically, are more isolated, because for Hornby it’s a two-ferry ride from Comox Valley. From Denman….

Interjection.

D. McRae: East. My apologies. I’m just so broken up at this stage here.

Denman Island as well — again, very artistic communities. Hornby has some amazing beaches and some ecosystem, Denman as well. To the south, we have Fanny Bay and Ships Point; the historic town of Union Bay, which was known as a coal export port for a long period of time; Royston, just to the north of that, where they did log exports.

The village of Cumberland — about 3,000 people living there, a long history in our community with coal mining and now today not just celebrating their past history, but they’re going forward as a mountain-biking hub and a really unique place to raise a family. I say unique in a totally amazing, good way. It has more sense of community. The schools are growing. They’re full of families. It’s just an amazing, vibrant community.

The town of Courtenay is sort of the central hub of the Comox Valley with 24,000 residents, providing lots of the services; the town of Comox, which borders the air force base; to the north, the farming communities of Merville and Black Creek. As well, I should also make sure we include the community, near Comox, of Lazo.
[ Page 9755 ]

Our biggest employer is CFB Comox, which has provided employment since World War II, with the air force base, and has been an absolutely key part of our community.

It’s just been a phenomenal place to live, raise a family and, also, to get to represent in this chamber. One of the unique opportunities in this chamber is, while the population is large, you can actually travel into most places in the Comox Valley. I’ll use my constituency office as more of a central place. You can probably reach 90 percent of the citizens within a 20-minute car ride. If you’re going to Hornby Island, obviously with ferries and such, it’s a bit farther. It is a very distinct geographic area.

If I compare it to one of my colleagues’, the member for Peace River North…. For those of you who’ve been there, it is a very, very large riding. I think he once said it could take him up to ten hours to drive from one end of his riding to the far end — 160,000 square kilometres in that area. If we’re comparable… I always like good comparables as a geography teacher. If we were living in Europe, the same square footage would squeeze into…. You could squeeze in the countries of Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Now, there’s a bit more concentration of population in those communities and countries, but the reality is, it is just a massive, massive geographic area. It is also ranging from flat prairie in the east to more of a tundra, almost, in the north, I guess — a nice way of saying it — just a beautiful part of British Columbia.

Again, it all comes back to finding that balance. How do we make sure…? You have an elected representative who you want to know his or her community, be strong for their community and have an understanding of their community, but you also want to make sure they’re actually able to visit their community.

[1550]

Again, with something like Peace River North, it’s just a massive geographic area to cover for one individual. For some of my colleagues who maybe live down in the Lower Mainland in the denser community areas, you could argue that you could ride a bike across certain constituencies in maybe ten or 15 minutes. I don’t want to speak to their ability to ride bikes. But some of them are obviously, because of highrises, much smaller than the ones to the north.

We constantly look at ways to revise electoral districts. When I say “we,” we task individuals who are not part of this chamber to go out and talk to citizens across British Columbia. It is a challenge. We want to make sure we allow these individuals to do their best.

My understanding is that, potentially, we’ll see another two more members in this chamber, if this Electoral Boundaries Commission Act is to pass. If you look in this chamber again, we will squeeze two more desks into an already tight room.

Again, the population of this province grows. We want to make sure we have electoral representative ability to have access to this chamber. At the same time, we respect that the northern parts, the rural parts, of British Columbia definitely have some unique perspective. We want to make sure their representation is there and that it is strong.

It is, again, with a conflicted heart that I stand. I am proud of the Comox Valley. It has been a great place to represent. If it were to go to, as they suggest in the report…. They were talking about putting Cumberland and Royston and Union Bay and Ships Point and Denman and Hornby into the Port Alberni–Pacific Rim riding, which again, makes a substantial geographic area for one individual to represent. That riding, then, would stretch from Tofino-Ucluelet on the west coast all the way to Hornby Island on the east coast. The roads just do not travel straight. It’s hard to travel in the wintertime in inclement weather. It will be a challenge.

But I know, the electoral representative representing Comox Valley — or Courtenay-Comox, as the new one may be called — would still represent what is truly Comox Valley. I think it is much easier for those residents just to the south to make sure they are listened to and served. In some ways, they will get two MLAs to work with as they go forward, which would probably be to their benefit.

Comox Valley is a strong place to live. It’s a great place to live. It will persevere every electoral district change that we have, going forward. I look forward to hearing comments from the members opposite coming up, as they speak about their constituencies.

S. Chandra Herbert: Well, I rise to speak about the Electoral Boundaries Commission report and the motion to support it. I don’t think I’ll dip into Swan Lake, the Magna Carta, the great communities around Comox Valley. I appreciate….

Interjection.

S. Chandra Herbert: Come visit, indeed. I’ll have to visit again.

No, I am here today to talk about some things that I really like about the report, some challenges that I see that will still be with us long past this debate, and some hope that people get better representation and that our government functions better.

What is this process? As speakers have noted, this is a process about deciding who gets to sit in this place. Who gets to sit in this Legislature to defend the interests of their constituents, to advocate for change, to come up with solutions to some of the biggest challenges we have? This is a process, an independent process, which is designed to try and keep the politics out of it, try and keep the partisan politics out of it, and make it about representing people first, not representing parties first or what have you.
[ Page 9756 ]

It’s a process designed, in a sense, to listen to people about where they think the boundaries for their riding should be, where they think communities of interest coincide and where they do not.

It also, we should recognize, attracts the real attention of many partisans in terms of where boundaries should be and how that might affect one party’s vote totals or might hurt another party’s vote totals. That certainly plays a part of it and is why it’s so important that Judge Melnick, Beverley Busson and Keith Archer — the three in charge of this process — had to work so hard to try and stop the political influence from taking over, where you might see a giant jag of a line disappearing somewhere else to include a community that voted one way in order to try to make it more likely that that seat might go one way. But instead, they listened to the neighbours, to the people who live in those neighbourhoods — hearing from them on what is the community interest and what makes sense.

[1555]

In a process like this, as you try to balance population numbers and you balance growing communities and shrinking communities, that can be really difficult. So I do give them credit, and I thank them for listening to so many people in trying to come up with a strategy to have proper representation by the population. But this is the challenge, this is the big issue that will remain long past this motion, long past this legislation. It’s the question of what is proper representation by population?

Of course, you know that in B.C. we work on an idea that 25 percent of the population can be above or below the average in the province, which is set around 50,000 people. That’s the goal. That’s the hope — that you come into some sort of average so that every vote is equal. Well, that’s easier said than done, because you also have to consider how voices are heard.

In a riding like Vancouver–West End, which I call Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour currently, as I also currently represent Coal Harbour, I’m connected closely to a lot of people. The challenge in my riding is that a lot of people move. We have people coming in and coming out. So their connection to the riding, their ability to get to know their MLA and to get to speak up for the community life of the riding, can be more challenging, as they may have newly arrived or they may have moved within the riding a few times. So finding them, necessarily, or having them have the time to find their representative, sometimes can be challenging.

Imagine if you were the riding of Stikine. Stikine is a riding in B.C. that is currently about 14,000 times the size of Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour — 14,000 times the size of my riding, a riding which I can ride my bike across in five minutes. It doesn’t take me 15, as the previous speaker said it might, but, no, about five minutes. It’s a fairly small riding. I guess if you go around the seawall — sure, that can add on some real time. But there aren’t many people who live in Stanley Park, thankfully; although, there are some because of the outrageous challenges of homelessness that we still see in this province.

That’s something to think about. Can you get access to your member of the Legislature quickly and in a way that’s effective if you live in a riding that’s 14,000 times the size of my riding? It’s hard, and I give credit to the current member of Stikine for doing it very well.

Now let’s think about the population numbers between the two ridings. Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour, as it’s supposed to be, as described in this report, will take in about 57,000 people. How many people would be taken in by Stikine — again, a riding that’s 14,000 times the size? Well, that would be about 20,000 people. So in a sense, you’re getting 20,000 people to 57,000 people, each having an equal vote in this House.

That is a challenge, because, of course, you’ve got to balance out representation by population with the ability to have access to that person who is supposed to be a representative. In a riding with 14,000 times the size, that is really challenging.

It is an issue that I think we’re going to have to struggle with some more in this House. That’s one of the most extreme differences in this report but not the most. There are ridings that are bigger in terms of population size. I don’t think there’s a riding bigger in terms of land size. There you have it.

We’re trying to address that in this report, I see, through the direction of the government — to add more seats. The possibility that, rather than a rural area which has few people, lots of trees and lots of land mass, lots of roads, lots of mountains, lots of places and challenges to get around…. How do you deal with population differences without losing that rural representation so that issues are not just decided in the most populous regions?

The government suggested up to three seats. I know the commission has recommended the addition of two extra seats to this House. I’m sure if we all asked our people at home, “What do you think? Do you want another politician?” they’d probably say no. But at the same time, they probably would say that yes, they want better representation.

They want the ability for members to be in communities, at events, listening to them directly, because a tweet, an e-mail, a letter, a fax or even a phone call often doesn’t have the same value in terms of understanding an issue as a person-to-person discussion, as I learn in my riding every day.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

It’s often much simpler to learn things from people when talking to them where they are, even visiting their homes, because while this report doesn’t deal with this issue, it is something, certainly, we as politicians should think more about.

[1600]

How do we get representation? How do we learn things from citizens who do not feel that the traditional political structure is working for them, who might be too busy to come to a consultation we host in an evening because they work at night or because they have kids, or who might not have the time to go to a council meeting on a Tuesday afternoon because they work nine to five?

There are real challenges with accessibility for the public, not just in terms of access but also responsiveness of their government — to see that changes can be made, that they are governing for them, working with them, listening to them.

There are real challenges with having 85 or 87 members elected to represent everyone in the province when, as we know, the popular vote isn’t often reflected in the total number of seats in this House — who gets elected, who wins the majority.

Even the very structure of this government doesn’t always work so well for getting the best solutions. I know it’s an old structure that goes back hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of years: Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and the government. But you know what, hon. Speaker? I think people would ask the question: why in a city, in a province, in a country do we operate in such a way that if you get 43 percent of the vote, maybe 44 percent of the vote, and the other folks get 40 percent of the vote, you, because of those extra 4 percent, get to rule as if you have 100 percent of the support?

That is a challenge that’s not addressed in the report, and it certainly wasn’t the direction the commission had to consider. But it is something I think we need to ask ourselves.

Personally, in my own constituency, in the last election in Vancouver–West End, the folks that voted…. I’ve got to mention that not everybody votes. When we talk about vote percentages, we often forget about the people who don’t vote. Fifty-seven percent of the public felt that I should be their representative — of those who voted. But I work hard to try to represent everybody, including those that didn’t vote, didn’t feel there needed to be a reason for them to vote but still like to complain about the government.

It’s challenging, but I think something we all need to do more of is trying to listen and work with a wider range of the public, whether they be Liberals, Green, New Democrats, Conservatives, independents, no comments. That’s where we get true value, truly good ideas. It’s not just the yes party and the no party. Sometimes there’s an idea in between. Sometimes there’s a tough topic nobody wants to talk about. We as legislators have a duty to try and bring those debates here and actually discuss them even if they’re challenging.

Let me get back to the report. The commissioners recommended that MLAs assess the increasing discrepancies in representation by population. I think we need to do that. I’m not sure that the House is willing to. It is something that is very tough but also could include how we ensure that all members have better support to ensure that they are accessible to the public, particularly in big ridings. It’s not just regional size. Also, language ability can sometimes be a challenge, and the other issues that I mentioned earlier.

What does this report do to Vancouver–West End? Well, let’s think about this. Many, many years ago Vancouver–West End was housed in one riding known as Vancouver. It was a Vancouver riding to represent the people of Vancouver. It did many remarkable things, the riding of Vancouver. It elected the first woman to this Legislature back in, I believe, the ’20s, maybe earlier.

That was certainly a huge change and one that…. We’re still working hard to try and get us to actual population numbers in this House so that women are actually here in the numbers that they are in the population. There we go. It’s slow, often far too slow, because there are those who drag their heels, but things are changing.

The Vancouver riding then, eventually, became Vancouver Centre. It was a riding that elected Emery Barnes, Gary Lauk and others to this place, a riding which was a dual-member riding at the time. As the Chair will know, Emery Barnes, of course, was the first African-Canadian man to be elected to a legislature and to be the first Speaker of our House. Another incredible activist, he made many changes, as did many of the other members who have served the area over time.

Then we shifted and moved from a two-member riding into what became known as Vancouver-Burrard. Now, this is where it gets confusing. Vancouver-Burrard also existed as a two-member riding prior to that but in a different area. So people think Vancouver-Burrard, which was ably served by Tim Stevenson and Emery Barnes, was the same riding that Rosemary Brown represented. Alas, it was not so.

[1605]

Ridings change. Names change. It gets confusing. Anyway, we moved forward from Vancouver-Burrard, which served the area, with slight changes over time, up to 2008. I was elected under those riding boundaries, which included the whole downtown peninsula. So that was Vancouver-Burrard — all of downtown Vancouver.

In 2009, we shifted. We changed. We became Vancouver–West End. Now, the commission didn’t call it Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour — maybe because half of Coal Harbour was chopped off at Jervis Street. Jervis was chopped down the middle of Coal Harbour: one side, Vancouver–West End, the other to Vancouver–False Creek.

The decision had been made by the time I was the member for Vancouver-Burrard running in Vancouver–West End, 2009 and 2013. Now, this riding is changing again. They want it to become Vancouver–West End — same name, so it won’t be changing from Vancouver to Vancouver-Center to Vancouver-Burrard to Vancouver–
[ Page 9758 ]
West End. It will stay the same. The only real difference, though, is they are going to reunite the community of Coal Harbour. On this one, I’m very happy that they’re doing that.

I’ve represented Coal Harbour, as I mentioned earlier, when it was known as Vancouver-Burrard. Currently I represent half of Coal Harbour, but in effect, I end up working to represent the entire neighbourhood of Coal Harbour because they come to me. They say: “Well, you’re that guy who represents downtown, West End, Coal Harbour, right?” I say yes.

Well, if they’re on a certain postal code, they might be in Coal Harbour for Vancouver–False Creek and have to go find the member for Vancouver–False Creek. If they’re across the street, I’m their representative. So it doesn’t make much sense for me to tell somebody who has come to me — says they live in Coal Harbour and surely I’m their MLA and they’re my constituent — for me to say: “Well, what postal code? Oh, no, you’re across the street. Sorry, you’re in the wrong office. Leave.”

It makes much more sense to say: “You want to engage in your democracy? You’re interested in how to fix things? You’ve got an idea, you’ve got a complaint, or you’ve got a concern? Well, sure. I’m a representative. While I may not currently represent you — your MLA is across the way — let us know how we can help.” And we do. My staff work very hard to do that.

So it will provide a good, seamless, one-stop shop for a constituent in Coal Harbour. They’ll know who their MLA is. It will be easy to find them and, hopefully, get them a better response — because in the end, I’ve been told: “You’re the Coal Harbour guy so we come to you, regardless.”

Well, this is also a good thing because this is a change Coal Harbour residents actually requested themselves. It’s not just me saying it’s a good idea that Coal Harbour be united in one boundary, one riding. It’s actually the Coal Harbour Residents Association.

Just if I may, for a moment, I do want to acknowledge them. The Coal Harbour Residents Association is an exciting organization. They’re working to unite neighbours in our community in a way that, from outside, many people don’t think exists. But there is a real community in Coal Harbour.

While it has been maligned as Cold Harbour, folks there will show you and demonstrate every day that it’s got a warm heart with great residents organizations working to help crack down on whether it be crime in the neighbourhood, whether it be making sure that our streets are safer so that you can walk, you can ride your bike, you can be safe and not have to worry about traffic streaming through.

They’re also, of course, very concerned with things: neighbourhood livability and pollution issues — pollution into the ocean, air pollution, noise pollution. Of course, many will know about their fight around the float planes. But they’re also about socializing — finding a way to connect the community.

That’s how I end up working with them a lot — whether through their events, getting to know neighbours or otherwise — and that’s why they, I believe, felt the need to speak out and connected to the commission to say their neighbourhood should be united under one MLA. While I might argue they can get two for one, twice the power — if they’re split between two MLAs, they can get two fighting for them — apparently they said no. They wanted one MLA, and they would like to be reunited as a community in Vancouver–West End. I think that’s a good thing.

I want to thank Neil Chahal, Anthonia Ogundele — who are their co-chairs — Chris Adolph, Rochelle Bruce, Michael Dobbin, Loretta Sieben, Angel Uzunov and Barbara Welsh, who are all on their board of directors at the Coal Harbour Residents Association. Certainly, for those who don’t know of them, I’d encourage you to check them out. They represent the rentals, the co-ops, the 40 condos in that neighbourhood and, of course, the Performing Arts Lodge, and I think they do it very ably.

I want to thank them for the advice to me, thank them for the advice to the commission for recommending that Coal Harbour be reunited in one riding, to be known as Vancouver–West End.

[1610]

I say Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour because, of course, Coal Harbour is just as much a part of the neighbourhood as the West End. Of course, it’s much younger, but that certainly doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot to offer and that its members, its residents, don’t have a lot to offer us and to tell us.

The West End. We’d been told in the last round that the West End should be, in a sense, cut in half too. They were recommending last round that we cut Davie Street in half so that part goes to False Creek, part stays in the West End. People spoke out and said: “No way. The issues that unite us are much more than divide us. The West End should stay strong together.” They lament that they lost sections of Granville Street and other areas which — in the cultural record, at least — would be known as West End, but not according to city planning documents.

We are the West End right at Burrard, and under this proposed change, should it go through, the riding will be everything on one side of Burrard — everything. You could say that north of Burrard is Vancouver–West End under this change, including all of Coal Harbour, including Stanley Park and the West End.

Of course, democracy is not just the riding boundaries. It is not just who you elect. The vote isn’t the be-all and end-all, as we know. I think sometimes in this House we forget that yes, our work is very important, but just as important is the work that goes on in our communities to get us to understand the changes that need to be made.

Changes that I hear about from Gordon Neighbourhood House, which works hard to address issues of food secur-
[ Page 9759 ]
ity, of wellness, of community. They raise these issues with me, and thankfully, we’re close by. We’re able to act on issues like that.

The West End Seniors Network, of course, raises issues for residents, the seniors in the community, about housing insecurity; about challenges with health care; about ensuring that people have the ability to age in place, that they’re safe, that they feel welcomed into the community.

Organizations like the community policing centre, which of course work very hard to make sure people feel safe, are safe and that our neighbourhood is looked after as well. West End cleanup groups that look after the tidiness and the cleanliness of our neighbourhood. The Ecology Society.

I could go on and on and on about those civil society actors, those who work each and every day in the neighbourhood to better things. Groups that may have a name one day, like the West End Residents Association. It no longer exists, but it was just a group of neighbours who pulled together and said: “We want to make some change.” West End Neighbours, another group. Again, residents coming together to call for change here, there and the other way.

That’s why designing boundaries for elections is important. They are about communities of importance, but again, it’s why they’re not the only thing. Without those community organizations, without the West End Community Centre, without the parent advisory committees in our schools and elsewhere, we wouldn’t get good advice for the citizens as MLAs, as representatives, as ministers. We wouldn’t be able to do our job very well.

There are a few things that I wish were in the report but that I know have been in previous reports from Elections B.C. Certainly, I can understand why commissioners did not touch these subjects, as they weren’t instructed to.

Issues around the franchise, about how we ensure people do get the right to vote, have their right to vote and are able to use it. I know that in Australia, they’ve said: “We need mandatory voting.” If you pay taxes, if you’re involved in your community, if you do anything in your communities, chances are you’re going to come across your government. So their thinking was — since the ’20s, I believe — that you need to vote.

Now, you can write “none of the above,” if you don’t like any of the candidates. You can spoil your ballot. But you’ve got to vote. You’ve got to participate in the life of your community in that way.

I think that’s something that needs to be investigated in B.C. and that really does need to be looked at. Again, voting rates have not been where they used to be. Fewer people vote than they did 40 years ago, 50 years ago. There’s a variety of reasons for that. But I think we’ve got to look at it and say: “We pay taxes; you have to pay taxes.” At least, with the new government in Ottawa…. Maybe you have to fill out the long-form census again, and I think that’s a good thing, because we need that data too.

We should look at that. We really should. Again, if we want to talk about a crisis in democracy, how is it that our current provincial government rules with 100 percent of the majority with 44 percent of the vote? But if you included those that didn’t, it’d be a much smaller percentage. Maybe 24 or 25 percent of the total number of people who could vote might have voted for the current government. I don’t think that is something that we should be proud of. It’s something that really does need a fix.

[1615]

Other areas, of course, which I think would help improve the democratic process and which I would have thought would be important, just as much as we value the boundaries of who gets to vote for what and which party and which MLA, would be to ensure that those who pay for the campaigns to convince you to vote for the people that represent a certain riding should also be democratized.

No, I don’t think it’s democracy when you have one actor who can pay unlimited amounts of money — say, a corporation — to a governing party, to say: “Here, we’re giving this to you, because we think you vote this way.” Well, you have, let’s say, a grandmother who is on a fixed income and would like to support her party, her ideas. She can donate $10. That corporation can donate $10 million. That, to me, is not equal voice. That’s not equal vote. That’s not equal power. That’s corporate power, and that to me is not democracy. That’s not what I think we should be continuing to support in B.C. and why I continue to call for a ban on corporate and union donations.

I think the big money should not be buying politics. It should be ideas winning the day. It should be hard work. It should be people putting their ideas, their time and, yes, some money, but not so much that you can swamp everybody else. Small donations to make change, to create democracy. Otherwise, you get a system that people really wonder how much is being bought and paid for and how much is just because people want to do something.

That creates cynicism. That’s not valuable. That’s not helpful. That’s not useful. Cynicism drives people away and stops them from being involved in their communities.

While I support this report and while I think the boundaries are good with what they were given, what they were able to do, I do think that we’ve got some real democratic problems and real democratic deficits that exist in B.C. that make all the hard work and all the findings and all the representations to the committee that much more difficult to carry out.

I think most people that probably participated in this process did so because of the good of democracy. They wanted to make sure their democracy better reflected their communities, that it gave them a better ability to make change.

Well, they did that in terms of boundaries. But we’ve not got there yet in terms of what else is important when
[ Page 9760 ]
you talk about voice and representation, which is economic barriers and economic boundaries.

If you can make a $1 million donation, I think you might get listened to by a cabinet minister on that side more so than the grandmother who can donate $10. Maybe not. It may be cynical. I hope it would not be the case, but I’m not that naive. I may be young, but I’m not that naive.

That would be the next step. Let’s make campaign finance reform. Tick the box. We can get there. Let’s look at mandatory voting. Let’s look at making it so that young people, people 16 and above, can vote. I know it’s controversial amongst some, saying: “Oh boy, how would they ever know who they were going to vote for?”

I met people in this last federal election campaign who would stopped me on the street, and they’d say: “Don’t worry. You’re going to get elected. I’m voting for you.” I said: “Well, I’m not running for a Member of Parliament.” “Oh. Oh well, jeez. I don’t know then.” And then I met another person. “I’m voting for the previous Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.” I said: “Well, why?” “Well, because he likes cats.” That was the answer they gave me. “He likes cats.”

I probed a little bit further.

An Hon. Member: What’s wrong with cats?

S. Chandra Herbert: Well, I said that I like cats too. Maybe we should get every Prime Minister, every candidate to be seen holding a cat, and then you can get their vote.

If that’s the kind of analysis which sometimes leads to decision-making, and it is, I don’t think giving 16-year-olds the right to vote is going to be a big problem. I’ve met many passionate 16-year-olds who have incredible knowledge, who have incredible values, who think about things, debate things, challenge me, challenge each other and put a lot more thought into who they’re going to vote for, if they could vote, than if the person might like a cat. So another thing to consider as we go through this process.

Well, what else? How else do we ensure people can vote? If we’re not doing mandatory voting, how do we ensure people get out to vote? For some of us, that’s fairly easy. We do it all the time. We do it anyways. We go and we vote. It’s become a cultural thing. Our parents did it; our grandparents did it. You just do it. For others, maybe they’ve come from a place where you weren’t allowed to vote, where people knew how you voted and made decisions. Again, that can be a challenge.

[1620]

If English isn’t your first language, it’s even more of a challenge to try and work your way through the system, to get your voting card, to know where you vote, to do all those kinds of things. It can be really difficult.

If you’re homeless, if you’re on the street in B.C. today, it can be very challenging to vote. I understand. I’ve worked with many people to try and help them get in there to vote. But if you don’t know where your next meal is, or you don’t know if you’re safe overnight, it’s going to be pretty difficult to say that voting is your most important priority right now. You know what I’m told when I ask people: “Well, are electoral boundaries, voting and these kinds of things important?” They’ll say: “They are, but getting a meal is more important to me right now, and finding a place to get out of the rain.”

This report does many things. It creates new electoral boundaries or suggests where they should be. It suggests names. It suggests where communities can or cannot be included in different ridings. But some of the fundamental challenges of our democracy are not addressed, nor were they expected to be addressed in this report. I just don’t see them being addressed by this government. So I felt this was an appropriate time to raise them.

I thank the commission for their work. I thank the Coal Harbour Residents Association for advocating to include Coal Harbour in Vancouver–West End. Of course, I’ll continue to work hard to represent the whole riding of Vancouver–West End and Coal Harbour, regardless of if I should run in the next election or not.

But we’ve got to do better for our democracy. People are passionate about it. They care very deeply about how we’re governed. We need to rise to the occasion, to give them a reason to vote, to show why it’s important to be involved and to show them that they can be proud of their government and of the society that we create — that unites all of us rather than divides us and ignores the half that doesn’t happen to win on that particular set of days.

It’s been an honour to speak to this bill, and I will finish at this time.

D. Bing: I’m happy to rise today to speak on Motion 26. On behalf of my constituents of Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, I’m proud to say that our government has introduced legislation to adopt all of the Electoral Boundaries Commission’s recommendations.

This government continues to ensure that all British Columbians are effectively represented in both urban and rural areas of this province. Although I represent an urban riding, it is important that the more remote northern and rural areas are represented appropriately. Although urban ridings tend to have a larger population to represent than rural ridings, it’s generally a lot easier to represent and serve constituents because of the concentrated population and smaller geographic area. For my colleagues in the House that represent rural areas, it takes a greater effort to reach all their constituents.

That is why, during the last Boundaries Commission process, the three regions in B.C. that have the greatest number of large, sparsely populated electoral districts were also the most at risk of losing representation in the Legislative Assembly. We want to make sure that the current districts in the north, the Cariboo-Thompson
[ Page 9761 ]
and the Columbia-Kootenay regions are preserved, so that they can continue to be effectively represented by their MLAs.

To do this, we introduced the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act in 2014, to give the independent commission the ability to adjust the boundaries of all electoral districts, while preserving the 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. That is why the act has always permitted commissions to go beyond the 25 percent population deviation rule in special circumstances.

Some departures from equal representation by population may be necessary to achieve effective representation for all British Columbians. Every province grapples with how best to manage the urban-rural divide, given population density and disparity. Most provinces, especially the larger ones, have rules for exceptional circumstances, including how best to accommodate rural areas.

In B.C., we have the 25 percent population deviation rule. Following the last Electoral Boundaries Commission eight years ago, there were ten districts that were outside that threshold. So this is not a new situation for B.C. In most cases, the population changes in these districts are not very large.

On the other side, for the districts that represent a larger population, there are no proposed districts that come close to the plus-25-percent threshold. Under the commission’s proposals, no new district would be more than 18 percent above the average. Compare this to the previous commission, where there were several districts more than 20 percent above the average.

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As we’ve heard, we are proposing to increase the number of electoral districts by two, up to 87 from the 85 seats that we currently have. These new ridings will reflect the growing population in Surrey, Richmond and New Westminster. Overall, there will be boundary changes to 48 districts throughout the province. Substantial changes will be in the Fraser Valley, Hope-Princeton, Comox and the mid–Vancouver Island regions. The changes will be in place for the scheduled 2017 and 2021 elections. My own riding of Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows will remain the same.

The commission undertook a public consultation in March through May of this year and considered the many comments gathered. It is not an easy task to balance democratic representation with geography in our province. Our government respects the commission’s proposals and the independent, non-partisan work they carry out. We accept all their recommendations.

I want to thank the commission members for their hard work to ensure that all British Columbians are effectively represented in this House.

C. Trevena: It gives me great pleasure to stand here and take my place in the debate on the motion that was moved last week that “the proposals contained in the Final Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission tabled in the Legislative Assembly on September 28, 2015 be approved.”

As I say, I am happy to stand here and take my place, and we do have people in the gallery today. I rarely refer to people in the gallery, but what people are seeing…. Really, this is part of democracy in action. Not only do we actually debate legislation, but this is a very important discussion about the future makeup of our electoral map in British Columbia.

I think many people may be aware, all those listening to my colleague from Vancouver–West End…. A lot of people are not aware of what happened in this House earlier this spring, when legislation was tabled about changing the map of B.C. We on this side of the House had great concerns, and I spoke at that time. I used my allotted time to talk about my concerns about that. I’m going to refer to some of those concerns again today.

That being said, we do have the final report in front of us. I think everybody is cognizant of the hard work that went into it, going out and hearing from people around the province, taking in submissions around the province by the electoral commissioners.

This review of our electoral map happens after every other election. You look at the distribution of seats, look at the population and whether it truly reflects the way that B.C. is evolving. Some of my colleagues have talked about the rural and urban divide. I wouldn’t say it’s a divide, but I’d say it’s the reality of our province.

We have large rural constituencies, very few people living in them, and then the very compact, very dense, urban areas. Just have a look at the Lower Mainland, whether it’s Vancouver itself, whether it’s greater Vancouver over down to Surrey. They’re very dense, urban areas. Trying to get that balance, to juggle the pieces to make sure that it truly reflects, really, the nature of the province is a very, very hard job to do. I join my colleagues on both sides of the House who have talked about and thanked the commissioners for their hard work.

I’d just like to refer a little bit to their mandate, which they refer to, themselves, in their report, the final report that came out in September. Their mandate was looking at: “The principle of representation by population be achieved, recognizing the imperatives imposed by geographical and demographic realities, the legacy of our history and the need to balance the community interests of the people in British Columbia.”

To achieve that principle, the commission be permitted to deviate from the provincial electoral quotient by no more than plus or minus 25 percent, and that they may propose electoral districts with population deviations exceeding that where there are very special circumstances.

We do have representation by population. We talk very
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often about changing the electoral system, looking at proportional representation where you tend to have more balance, that you have numbers of voters to numbers elected. But we do have representation by population at the moment, which means that people can identify with their local representative. Even in a large rural area, you are the representative for that area.

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When you start looking at proportional representation, it does shift. You are oftentimes looking at a list of candidates from a specific political party and choosing by the party or choosing names on a party list, rather than looking at who is going to be the best person to represent you.

I’d just like to reflect a moment. We’ve just come out of a federal election, and there is a real concern that people still don’t quite understand the way our system works, how parliamentary democracy works, rather than a presidential process like we see south of the border. Many times I’d hear people, when I was out campaigning in the federal election on weekends, saying that they wanted a certain leader — this person for Prime Minister.

It’s always necessary, I think, to remind people they’re not talking about who is going to be the Prime Minister, nor are you going to talk about who is going to be the Premier. You’re talking, in our system, about who is going to be representing you in your constituency or your riding. That is very much representation by population. It gives a person the ability not just to look at the party or that approach but to actually look at that person who is going to best represent them, best take their concerns on.

This is something that the commissioners were looking at when they were looking at how to have effective representation. As I say, it is extremely, extremely challenging when you’re looking at British Columbia. I, for instance, represent a riding — I’ll talk a little bit more about my riding in a moment — which is the fifth-largest in the province. It’s got 45,000 square kilometres, a very large rural riding, and at times, it’s very difficult to ensure that I can go to all the different communities.

My colleague just north of me, who represents the North Coast, has an extraordinarily large riding — again, very difficult to access, one of the biggest ridings. We look at the ridings of Stikine, of Peace River North — large land-base ridings again, that much easier to access. But all of these ridings on the north coast and in the interior have small populations.

How can those people be well represented? If you looked at changing the boundaries to make the population around the 52,000 mark in all these ridings, you’d be talking about, really, the whole of the interior of B.C. and out to Haida Gwaii. It would be quite an extraordinary geographical problem, and these are the things that the commission had to address.

That being said, I believe they did have their hands tied because there was legislation which was tabled in this House and approved, and that was what they had to work on. It effectively ring-fenced a number of ridings in the interior. There were 17 rural ridings which could not be changed.

They were defined as three different regions, and in those regions there were a number of ridings. We have the Cariboo-Thompson region. The electoral districts within those had to be kept pretty much as a district, although there was some latitude to shift around, as did happen with one or two communities. We had a reference earlier on to Hope moving from Chilliwack-Hope. The suggestion here is that it move back to the Fraser-Nicola area.

We have the Cariboo-Thompson region, which includes Cariboo North, Cariboo-Chilcotin, Fraser-Nicola, Kamloops–North Thompson and Kamloops–South Thompson. Those were inviolate. You can change within those boundaries, but you couldn’t compress those. You couldn’t make Kamloops one riding, for instance. You had to keep those.

Again, in the Columbia-Kootenay region, it kept Columbia River–Revelstoke — my colleague has very ably represented that for a number of years; Kootenay East, which at the moment is held by the Minister for Energy and Mines; Kootenay West, very ably held by my colleague from Kootenay West, obviously; and Nelson-Creston. These, again, although there could be changes within those boundaries, were held firm.

The final area where the commission was bound was the north. Here, again, very large constituencies, oftentimes with very few people. Going in reverse order, we have Stikine; Skeena; the two Prince George ridings, Prince George–Valemount and Prince George–Mackenzie; the two Peace River ridings, Peace River South and Peace River North; North Coast; and Nechako Lakes. All, again, inviolate. They had to be kept as they were for the commissioners’ consideration.

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I think that, while we do have representation by population, this was an artificial construct. I think if the commissioners had had a freer hand, it would have given them more opportunity to look at how best to shape these constituencies without having to say: “This swath in the centre to the north of B.C. couldn’t be changed.” I do think that really did make it that much more difficult for the commission to work.

The other thing that the commission had to weigh up was the deviation, the plus or minus 25 percent. As I mentioned, we have these vast areas with very few people and some very densely populated areas — how to get that balance.

I’d just like to refer, for a moment, again…. For instance, my riding. The member for Comox Valley spoke a few moments ago, and his riding abuts my riding. His riding, at the moment, despite having rural components to it, has quite a dense population. It has got 74,000 people, whereas my riding is a much vaster area.
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Actually, my riding is just above the norm. It’s 2 percent above the norm. It has 54,000 people in it. My riding, as a rural riding, is actually within the norm. But how to get that balance — I think that this is one of the areas that the commissioners were able to approach, really, with finesse. It was very difficult.

The member for Comox Valley talked about the fact that it seems an unnatural split. He has represented it as being the Comox Valley in some form or other for many years. A while ago, it did actually go up to Campbell River. At the moment and for the past, I should say, more than ten years, possibly 15 years, the Oyster River has been the boundary for the North Island and Comox Valley constituencies.

The member for the Comox Valley is concerned that the new shape that the Comox Valley will have would be unnatural, that it’s much more natural to have the whole valley. But that is a hugely dense population, even though, as I say, you’ve got a rural nature to it.

So the commissioners came up with, “Let’s keep Comox and Courtenay as an entity and move the rest” into what is at the moment Alberni–Pacific Rim, I believe is the name of the riding. So shift things around, increase the population in Alberni–Pacific Rim, which is similar to my riding — it’s sparsely populated and scattered across a number of communities, with a couple of anchor communities; Port Alberni is one of the anchor communities — and then have Comox and Courtenay as an entity.

This is, obviously, a difficult decision. I’ve got to say that I did speak at the hearing with the Electoral Boundaries Commission to talk about this because I knew from talking to people in the Comox Valley that there was a lot of concern.

People, particularly in Cumberland, feel that they are going to be cut off from what are their natural partners. They see themselves as Cumberland, Courtenay and Comox. They see it as a whole. They see that they are the main centre for the smaller communities of Union Bay, of Royston and of the island communities of Denman and Hornby. That being said, having 74,000 people in that riding…. It’s a very, very large riding and, when you also have the rural sense of it, it is, I would say, an unbalanced one.

The other thing, though, to look at politically for these communities in particular is that — again referring to the federal election — these communities had their riding boundaries changed in the federal election, too, which makes it, I think, a little bit more difficult. People feel: “This is my area. This is what I know. This is what I relate to.” They’ve already been challenged once. They saw their constituencies change federally, and they would prefer to be able to keep the same constituents provincially.

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That being said, what has been recommended by the commission is somewhat similar to the federal design. The federal design that we are now operating under has Comox going to the North Island, along with Powell River and part of Courtenay — just a small part of Courtenay. The rest of Courtenay and Cumberland and the islands are actually part of a greater riding that does go over as far as Ucluelet and Tofino. It goes out to the west coast as well as to the east coast.

We already have that general shape federally. In that sense, you can understand the commissioners’ thinking, perhaps. Still, I do understand and feel for the people, particularly in Cumberland, who see themselves as Cumberland, Comox and Courtenay.

To be honest, when I did present to the commission and mentioned that I was very pleased that my own constituency didn’t change…. It did change the last time. The last time it grew considerably by taking in a swath of land on the mainland. Now my constituency even…. My constituency — we all own our constituencies.

The constituency I have the true honour to represent and the privilege to represent goes actually, if you look on a map, up as far as Tweedsmuir Park. So as well as having some of Strathcona Park, on the Island, I actually have, in the North Island constituency, some of Tweedsmuir Park. It’s vast, mountainous and almost empty.

There are people, obviously, who live in the inlets, First Nations. The constituency of North Island goes up to Kingcome Inlet to, basically, Cape Caution on the central coast. That was an expansion that happened at the last round, so back for the 2009 election. It grew considerably, and as I say, I’m very pleased to be representing that. But it’s a difficult one to represent because it is very large, and that was recognized when I presented to the commission to talk about the feelings that I’ve heard from people in the Comox Valley and the feelings of people in Cumberland who talked to me about how they wanted to stay as they were.

One of the commissioners mentioned to me that they saw my riding and were impressed by its size and decided that it really was best left as it is, because of the ability to represent people well. That’s one of the things that has to be taken into consideration when you are looking at how ridings are developed or how constituencies are developed.

My constituency goes…. It’s 45,000 square kilometres. As I say, a large part of that is on the mainland, in to the central coast, and it’s mountains and not inhabited — but, within the constituency itself, accessible.

On the Island, I go from south of Campbell River to Port Hardy. There are communities along the way. Obviously, there are the rural communities south of Campbell River. There’s the city of Campbell River, which is the anchor community. To the west, I go to Gold River, out to Tahsis — including Tsaxana, the First Nations community out near Gold River. Beyond that there is Esperanza out on the west coast. There’s Nootka Island on the west coast.

I mean, it’s absolutely beautiful. This is a place where people come for vacations. People come to find their souls. It is the most extraordinary place to represent.
[ Page 9764 ]

It’s also the most extraordinary place to represent because of the mix of people, of industry. It’s like a microcosm of British Columbia, I have to say, for some of the challenges we face, some of the good stories that come out of it and some of the hard stories that come out of it. Forestry and mining are anchors. We have fishing and aquaculture on the coast. It’s a fascinating constituency, up to the north end of the Island, to Port Hardy and beyond.

I have the islands, really, all the way up through the north part of Georgia Strait, up through Johnstone Strait and north to, again, where many people go on their vacations, up to the Broughton Archipelago and then up to the coast. Getting to the far west of the constituency is a drive along a paved road for a couple of hours. Then it’s a couple of hours’ drive along an active logging road where there are, as I’ve mentioned many times in this House, four communities. The active logging road needs to be kept in much better condition than it is being kept in.

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Then get onto a boat — usually whoever is running what is the water taxi of the day — out for about another hour down an inlet. That is one of the most remote communities, out to Kyuquot, on the west coast.

On the east side, as I mentioned, I have some ferry-reliant communities, which are comparatively easy to get to. A number of other people living on islands and communities on islands don’t have ferry access so, again, need to get out then up to as far as Kingcome Inlet, which is several hours’ trip by boat up to the inlet to the community there.

As I mentioned, it’s the fifth-largest in the province. It is quite extraordinary to be able to represent that and to represent, say, the 55,000 people. My colleague from Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour mentioned the percentage of people who vote for you and the fact that you represent everybody. I think that we all in this House try to do that — try to be the best representative for anyone who comes into the door of our office, anyone who sends us an e-mail, anyone who picks up the phone.

I was a little amused when the member for the Comox Valley mentioned that come the changes — assuming this goes forward with the exact changes — there would still be a representative for people even if they didn’t live in the new constituency of Comox and Courtenay. They would still be represented.

It’s amusing in a slightly sad way because you so often hear people…. It’s a bit like people saying they want to vote for the leader rather than the representative. You hear people talk about the fact that: “Well, we don’t have a government member, and therefore, we’re not going to be represented. We’re not going to get what we need.” That really does undermine the system that we work in when it truly works, which is that everybody has a role to play and everybody can take an active part and make change for people.

I think that’s why we all come here. We want to make things better for people. It doesn’t matter whether we are here on the opposition side at the moment and bringing forward concerns of our constituents, or working with government members, whether it’s in committee or just in general discussion. I mean, we also have the legislative job of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, of standing up and both holding the government to account and holding options and different ideas and trying to ensure that those ideas are well heard.

Although the member did talk about, in fact, “Oh, we’ll have two representatives,” I think that there’s a sense that we could have one government representative there and not to worry. It does reflect badly, particularly for a person who was a history teacher. It does reflect a little badly on what the role of all private members is and what the role of all of us as MLAs is.

The change to the Comox Valley was actually described in the report by the commissioners as they described a number of substantial changes. This one is described as a substantial change. It is significant.

The commissioners write in their report that at the moment the disparity between the neighbouring districts of Comox Valley, which is 22 percent above the provincial average — I mean, 22 percent is huge, really; it’s almost a quarter of the size again — and the Alberni–Pacific Rim, which is the southern one, which is 18 percent under the average…. What they tried to do is literally average it out.

They state in their report they did hear many submissions requesting no change. But their concern is that as population grows…. This is one of the very difficult tasks that the commissioners have, looking to the future and trying to judge what’s going to be happening to communities. As population grows, the disparity is going to be too great to ignore.

The commissioner is right. You see the growth in population in the Comox-Courtenay corridor. Courtenay has become very, very popular. A lot of young people and a lot of young families are moving there.

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I’m extraordinarily pleased to see that this is happening, to see young families moving back to the Island. A number of them, I’ve got to say, are people who grew up in my community. They went off, went to school, have come back, are starting to settle down, have children. It’s affordable. It’s a nice community. It’s a young community. It’s a vibrant community. It would be much nicer if they came back up over the Oyster River and came back to Campbell River and onto the islands, but they’ve decided to stay in Courtenay.

I think that the commissioners clearly picked up on the fact that the demographic is changing, that it’s a growing area and that that change is too great to ignore. It will balance out the population, and while possibly psychologically difficult for people, it will be realistic. It’s not going to mean the end of the world. It does reflect how things are going federally.

The other major areas where they quoted substan-
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tial change, and again, it’s very interesting…. Surrey, Richmond and New Westminster, and Hope and Princeton are the other areas where the commissioners are recommending some substantial changes. I think in two of those areas it’s actually creating complete new constituencies. Hope and Princeton — it’s moving communities into different areas. Again, for the member for Chilliwack-Hope, the community of Hope would move back into its previous area.

I would like to, again, go back to the fact that the commissioners, when they were looking at this…. They made many, many other changes. As my colleague from Nanaimo mentioned, some of the changes are roads or small parts of neighbourhoods.

For those of us in this place, these are significant — particularly, I’m sure, if you represent an urban community and you’re sharing this, whether it is in Burnaby in Vancouver or Richmond or wherever. You actually know: “Well, on this side of the street, it’s my colleague’s constituency, and on that side of the street, it’s my constituency.” Or the boundaries have moved over three or four streets, and you lose what we call our good polls or you gain some places where you know you’re going to gain some votes. People really pass parse these things very, very closely.

For me, I look at more the bigger scale of community and how far and close to the rivers they are.

The electoral commission, when they were looking at this — going, literally, line by line, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, poll by poll — were still, as I mentioned earlier on, confined by the constraints brought by the initial legislation. They say in this: “Amendments to the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act in May 2014 defined three regions” — which I spoke about earlier — “in which the number of electoral districts cannot be reduced from their current number. This has, of course, influenced in large measure our ability to propose electoral districts that are equal in population.”

I think there is a bit of almost a warning to the government on this, “in a large measure,” when we have an independent electoral commission feeling that they have had their decisions and their thinking prescribed.

They say: “This has, of course, influenced in large measure our ability to propose electoral districts that are equal in population. It has also influenced our decision to propose 87 electoral districts.” In the legislation, again, there was a limit on the number of new seats that could be created. Yes, we have a very crowded chamber at the moment. We have the luxury of comfortable chairs and big desks, but we are going to be squeezing in. If this is approved, there will be another two desks and two more chairs coming into this chamber.

This is thanks to the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, which said that there could be no more than two, so we’re going to have the 87 districts rather than the 85. Those two new ones are both going to be in the Lower Mainland. I mentioned Richmond and Surrey. It’s going to be very interesting to see how these play out, really.

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One of the things that is, again, I think an interesting piece to note in their report is the considerations at the end of their report. It’s not going through, literally, the line-by-line, street-by-street and community-by-community discussion they are presenting us with, but it’s looking to the future and for consideration for the future of how this works. I think it’s something that we really should look at, that we really should consider.

They have a couple of areas saying: “A number of matters have arisen during the course of our work that have caused us to reflect on various aspects of the administration…of future commissions.” They’re looking at creating…. “Prior to this commission, the practice…was to create a special separate administrative entity to provide all administrative support” — office space and so on. Then they’re suggesting going to Elections B.C….

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

C. Trevena: I appreciate that, and I think that this is something that we all, as legislators, should look at as well — these last recommendations.

Hon. S. Anton: It’s my pleasure to rise today and speak to the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission. Like many others, I do want to thank the commission for their tremendous work: Justice Thomas Melnick, the chair; Beverley Busson, a former RCMP commissioner; and our province’s Chief Electoral Officer, Dr. Keith Archer.

As required by the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, the commission travelled widely this spring and received a large number of submissions from British Columbians. Twenty-nine public hearings were held leading up to the release of the preliminary report, and a further 15 hearings were heard between the preliminary and final report — also, more than 600 written submissions from across the province.

That is a lot of very engaged citizens, and I want to thank them all. I think that probably most of us knew people who appeared before the commission. They were thoughtful, they were engaged, and they all universally wanted things to be good for British Columbia and good for representation in British Columbia.

The mandate of the commission is set out in the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, and it’s also guided by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Saskatchewan reference case from 1991. That case allows us to be different from some of the American jurisdictions where the population has to be identical. We in Canada can have variation from the equality of the population, and certainly that’s reflected in this final report and in the motion before the House today.
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The commission can consider other factors such as geography, community history, community interests, minority representation or factors relevant to the locality. In other words, they can consider a number of different and interesting things to local areas, to people and to the province as a whole.

In terms of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, the act itself is guided by the principle of representation by population but also takes into account geographical and demographic realities and the need to balance the community interests of the people of British Columbia. It is permitted to deviate from population equality by plus or minus 25 percent and to exceed that only in special circumstances.

Instructions to the commission, under amendments to the act in 2014, were to retain the number of districts in northern and rural regions of the province and proposed between 85 and 87 electoral districts. Given the fast-growing regions in the Lower Mainland, it’s not much surprise that they chose the 87 option over the keeping it at 85 option. As all members know, these amendments were thoroughly debated last year in the House. Their purpose was to ensure that no region of the province would have its representation in the Legislature reduced through the elimination of districts.

Of course, it’s not just a hypothetical concern. The last commission process in 2008 showed that northern and rural regions were at risk of losing districts. In our view, that would have resulted in a loss of effective representation in the Legislature for those areas.

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It’s important to remember that we’re talking about electoral districts that, in most cases, are greater than 20,000 square kilometres, and some are over 100,000 square kilometres. Stikine is nearly 200,000 square kilometres — very massive districts with populations typically located in smaller communities a great distance apart. The 2014 amendments also permitted the commission to add up to two new districts, which I already mentioned a moment ago, to pick up the extra population growth. Of course, those were done in Surrey and Richmond.

The commission has done an admirable job in carrying out its mandate. Its proposal to bring all urban areas well within the plus-25-percent threshold worked because, in fact, no district is more than 18 percent above the average. This is an improvement on the last commission process, where several districts were more than 20 percent above the average.

The number of districts more than 25 percent below the average has not changed. It remains at ten. In most cases, the populations of these districts have not changed much from the last commission process, although some of them have become even more negative than they were before in terms of population.

In all, the commission recommended changes to 45 of the province’s electoral districts. Most are fairly minor, but some substantial changes were recommended for the Fraser Valley, Hope-Princeton and mid–Vancouver Island. In all cases, the commission was careful to note that in its view, adjustments were necessary in order to balance the population or to respect community interests.

We’ve heard a number of people in this chamber talk about the changes to their own ridings. I think it’s obviously the case that we get committed to our ridings. So when there is a change proposed, that we’re going to lose a piece…. Speaking for myself, I did not lose anything in Vancouver-Fraserview, as MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview, but there was some discussion about it, and I felt, at the time, a little bit territorial about my own riding.

Well, it turned out to remain the same, but I know that others did lose pieces of their ridings and have got changes, and it is a bit wrenching to lose those pieces of your riding. You know those people. You know those communities. You know the schools. You know the community associations. You’ve been representing them diligently for the last two years, and perhaps much longer than that. So it can be a wrench to have those changes made, but I think that most people in this House are taking it sadly but philosophically, which is part of the process of balancing the different districts around British Columbia.

The commission did issue a caution that the work of drawing boundaries in this province continues to be a difficult one. The concern is not a new one, as past commissions have also commented along the same lines. And in drawing the boundaries, they did look at things that they have traditionally looked at, namely existing boundaries, natural boundaries such as rivers or major highways, municipalities and regional districts — it’s easier if you can stay within the boundaries of a municipality or a regional district than dividing them — and even individually looking at individual neighbourhoods, as the member for Vancouver–West End pointed out. So they did use those traditional things and their new mandate to come up with the 87 districts, which they did come up with.

I would just like to speak briefly regarding the administration of the commission. They did something new this time. Rather than setting up their own administrative office, which can be quite costly and takes time to get set up, they actually used the office of the impartial Elections British Columbia, and they made, in the course of doing that, a recommendation that this practice continue.

Certainly, we will all know in this House that the province is very committed to balancing the budget and staying within our fiscal means, and I would like to compliment the commission, who spent about $1.5 million of their proposed $4.5 million budget. In fact, they spent about a third of their budget. Would we all be so frugal? But they did it by working, as I said, cooperatively with Elections British Columbia. It seems to have been a very satisfactory arrangement, and one that they propose continuing, so I do thank them for doing that.
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I’d like to compliment the commission on one other thing as well, which is their final report. The preparation that they did in terms of the mapping and the discussions in the report makes it very clear for anyone reading it, any member of the public, any member of this assembly, exactly how they came about their thought processes. Whoever did their mapping work and their geographic work — it really is a beautiful work to look at.

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I, for myself, will be keeping this in my office because it provides a very nice map of every single district in the province. So again, I would like to compliment the commission on their very excellent presentation of the work that they did.

I’ll just talk for a moment about Vancouver-Fraserview. Vancouver-Fraserview will be the largest riding in British Columbia, the largest district in British Columbia, at 62,000 people — not by size, of course, but by population. It is three times the size of Stikine.

There are a couple that are up there with Vancouver-Fraserview. Not quite as big, but the two closest are Vernon-Monashee and Vancouver-Kingsway. So it is really a comparison in these — the large population of Fraserview and small area compared with smaller communities and a massive area.

I should point out, as well, that Vancouver-Fraserview is growing very quickly. It’s the home of the new River District, which actually is the largest new development in Metro Vancouver.

So I am guessing that by eight years from now, when the commission meets again, Vancouver-Fraserview may find its boundaries revised, because it will be by far the largest riding in British Columbia. It’s the largest now, and it will, I am predicting, stay the largest — in fact, grow incrementally larger.

It is only 13 square kilometres in size, so of course, as the representative, I can cross it quickly, unlike, as has been observed, some of the other ridings in British Columbia that take hours or fairly long flights on an airplane to cover. So they are certainly a far different experience in a large rural riding compared to an urban riding such as mine.

Just to speak, again, briefly on Fraserview, there is a very strong community of interest there — circling around, for example, Killarney Community Centre — full of very active children, youth and seniors.

In particular, I would like to point out the Chinese seniors in Killarney Centre, who are there every single day at 7:30 in the morning doing their exercises and, indeed, all day long and are very engaged in the discussion around the new seniors centre, as are all of the seniors in the Killarney neighbourhood. I’d like to point out South Vancouver Family Place, which advocated for and is now getting a new playground.

The elementary schools in Fraserview have a real commonality of interest, and they’re, again, very engaged parents. They do these beautiful festivals in the summer, which are a lot of fun to attend. Champlain’s community centre has a wonderful summer fair and, of course, supports the Everett Crowley Park.

Then there’s the River District, which, as I said a moment ago, is the biggest development in Metro Vancouver. I will point out one interesting fact about the River District. It is the home of the only riverfront restaurant in the city of Vancouver. That’s hard to believe, because we’ve got a lot of waterfront in Vancouver, but there is only one restaurant on the waterfront, and that is in the River District.

So Vancouver-Fraserview is an engaged community. It has wonderful schools, and it has a positive view for the future, and it is a pleasure for myself to be able to be the MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview. It’s the biggest, but it’s beautiful, it’s engaged, it’s hard-working, and it’s a population which is very interesting, very engaged.

They love to talk to me, and I love to talk to them. I think, as many of us have mentioned, all of us walking around our communities…. To be able to talk to people and find out what’s on their minds really is one of life’s great pleasures for all of us, I think, as MLAs.

I would just end by saying that ours is a province with dense and growing urban areas and very remote northern and rural regions. They have interests which are different, and they have interests which are the same.

Of course, what binds us in British Columbia is our interest in the welfare of our families and the welfare and prosperity of our province — the cultural prosperity of our province, the economic prosperity of our province.

We need to ensure that all British Columbians are represented appropriately in this chamber, and I believe that the work that Electoral Boundaries Commission has done does just that. And so, of course, I’m very pleased to support the motion and propose shortly that the new bill be introduced and hope that the House will be in support of that as well.

[1710]

B. Routley: I’m sure it won’t come as any surprise that I will be voting for the report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission and their act — this legislation. I did find kind of a fascinating bit of information. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Cowichan region had a little bit of its own jiggery-pokery, but I hasten to add that I’ll save that for the history lesson that I’m going to go through.

I want to start, first, by talking about the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act. The new Electoral Boundaries Commission must be established, according to the act, every second general election for the purpose of looking at changes to, basically, three parts. That’s the area, the boundaries and the names of electoral districts throughout British Columbia.

The commission must be governed by the following principles: “that the principle of representation by
[ Page 9768 ]
population be achieved” — as much as possible — “recognizing the imperatives imposed by geographical and demographic realities, the legacy of our history….” Again, I’m quoting from the requirements that are in the act. I’m going to be coming back and camping on this “legacy of our history and the need to balance the community interests of the people of British Columbia” in a moment.

I do think it’s useful for the good people of the Cowichan Valley to have some local historical context to these electoral and geographical boundary changes to the boundaries over the history of our riding. It’s very interesting, actually, to me. I took some time over the weekend to get into the computer and do some research on just how far back the Cowichan elected representation goes. In fact, it goes right back to the very beginning.

But first, a little background. By 1866, the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia had merged. I want to start there, for a reason. Then, although the united colony did not join the Canadian Confederation when it was effected in 1867, the worrisome and economic strategic situation here in the province soon made an arrangement attractive, so British Columbia joined Confederation on July 20, 1871.

Now, that same year, 1871, Cowichan was one of the first 12 electoral districts in the province of British Columbia. There wasn’t any electoral commission established. There was a process whereby it was simply decided that there were going to be 12 electoral districts, and they created one of them named Cowichan. The Cowichan electoral area was simply identified back then as located on southern Vancouver Island. It was a two-member riding back in 1871.

At that time, the very first election, there were two MLAs elected. William Smithe — who added an “e,” I might add — decided he wanted to be a little bit different than the rest of the Smiths. He added an “e,” so I’m not sure if his name is William “Smithee” or William “Smythe,” but he nonetheless was elected in the first election.

I happen to have to have right here the actual results for that year. It made, for me, some very fascinating reading to see the 12 electoral areas. The first electoral area was the Cariboo. They had three representatives elected from the Cariboo. Comox was a one-member riding. Cowichan had two. Esquimalt, two. The Kootenays, two. Lillooet, two. Nanaimo was a one-member riding, interestingly enough. I’m surprised at that. New Westminster had two. Victoria had two. Victoria City had four. And Yale had three.

[1715]

It’s fascinating to look at these 12 electoral ridings that elected more than 12 people because of the differences in all of the numbers. But fascinating to me was — and I just want to camp there for a moment — that very first election.

William Smithe topped the polls. He had 58 votes in the Cowichan electoral area, and John Paton Booth was second, with 47. Then the numbers go down. The lowest vote-getter was Henry Fry, with only ten votes. It’s interesting to me that back in 1871, it only took 58 votes to top the polls in the new Cowichan riding at that time. So again, very interesting reading.

Then, I was surprised to learn that in 1886, two members won by acclamation. Then, we come to that…. Well, no. I should talk about William Smithe. In 1871 — again, he was from Cowichan, and he actually became the Premier of British Columbia. He was Premier — I guess that was in the election of…. Actually, let me just continue in my chronological order.

In 1886, there were two members who won by acclamation. Again, that was William Smithe and John Paton Booth. In 1871, he had been first elected MLA, and he had a growing reputation, apparently, in the Cowichan Valley as a community leader in a rapidly increasing farming district around Somenos, near Duncan, in the Cowichan Valley.

I would add that Somenos and Somenos Lake and Somenos Creek region is right near where I live today. When I did my research today, I thought about the fact — when I was walking my two golden retrievers down near the Somenos farmland and the Somenos Lake and the Somenos Creek — that sometime back in the 1800s, a fella named Bill, William Smithe, was walking those same areas and was a farmer and then a politician. It definitely gave me pause to think about all of the changes since the very first election in this Legislative Assembly. Obviously, it’s a lot more crowded today than it was when there were only 12 electoral areas.

I had no idea that he was actually the first MLA in the Cowichan Valley region, right then at the start of elections in British Columbia. During the term, he maintained an independent stance, refusing to support the first Premier. I might add they didn’t have parties back then. And so he didn’t support the first Premier or his successors.

In the election of 1875, Smithe and his friend Edwin Pimbury won the two Cowichan seats for an anti-government force that was campaigning. They were capitalizing on the failure of the Walkem government to begin construction on a road — get this, hon. Speaker — from Victoria to Cowichan. We call that the Malahat. We still talk about issues in between Victoria and Cowichan. Every time I drive over there from now on, I’ll be thinking about the fact that it was an issue in the very first group that were elected in this House and that they were, at the time, anti-government. They were talking about the need for a highway.

[1720]

I’m told by the history books that the reason this was in conflict…. This was a road from Victoria to Cowichan, which had had an appropriation made, here in this Legislative Assembly, for that road to be built and it wasn’t being built. So interesting. Amazing that the Malahat — it’s still an issue today.
[ Page 9769 ]

Anyway, this Cowichan Valley MLA went on to become the seventh Premier of British Columbia. He was representing, as I say, Cowichan — full stop. It wasn’t called Cowichan Valley back then — just Cowichan, full stop.

He became the Premier — again, not running for any particular party because there weren’t parties back then — and he was Premier from January 29, 1883, until March 28, 1887. Unfortunately, he passed away on that day, March 28, 1887, according to the Times Colonist, in the research that I did. We actually found the article in the library here. He died, it was reported in the Times Colonist, of poor health. Well, I know something about that, too, unfortunately. But anyway, it is…. Well, I’m not planning on dying anytime soon. I’m glad that I was saved by our health system. But it is fascinating that this happened.

Now, here’s where we get pretty close to the jiggery-pokery. The early legislative members were first elected to the Legislature during general elections with no party affiliation. That system was in place from the inception of this place, so when it started in 1871, all the way till 1903. After 1903, there were the first parties recognized in this place. Sadly, it was a Conservative government that was the first one, but we won’t dwell on that.

That’s not the jiggery-pokery. The jiggery-pokery that, I dare say, was a bit strange was actually on May 7, 1895. Get this. We actually had two elections in what was then called…. It went from Cowichan, just straight Cowichan, and all of a sudden, we’re Cowichan-Alberni. Now, that’s a bit of jiggery-pokery in itself. It was a long way to get to Alberni in those days.

But what’s really shocking is what it says here in the history books. On May 7, 1895, George Albert Huff and Thomas Anthony Wood turned up with exactly the same number of votes, with 172 for both of them. Now, what’s interesting…. You have to get out your magnifying glass to read this. Apparently, it said that the returning officer allowed two questionable ballots, giving Wood 174. The official report of the deputy returning officer, confirmed later by a Supreme Court of British Columbia, however, gave Huff 173 to Wood’s 172. So actually Huff pulled ahead of Wood.

As well, there were no returns from the Clayoquot region in Alberni, and there were other irregularities reported in the paper. Huff formally claimed the seat and petitioned the Supreme Court. That was in the Nanaimo Free Press, April 27, 1895.

Here’s the interesting thing. Remember, there was an election held for the Cowichan-Alberni seat on May 7, 1895. Then in October, we had a new election, and this time Huff won handily. His votes went from 172, for both of them, to…. He ended up with 253, and his opponent had 175. So it was cleared up once and for all — that matter. And they had an increased turnout as a result of all of the — well, may I say — jiggery-pokery.

[1725]

I think it is appropriate, given the historical record and what it says in the newspaper about election irregularities involving the returning officer.

Before 1903, British Columbia did not have a party system. Instead, the Premiers of British Columbia had no official party affiliation and were chosen by elected members of the Legislative Assembly from among themselves. That’s the way it first started. Candidates ran as government — this is interesting — or opposition, as an independent or in formulations such as opposition independent, indicating their respective positions to the incumbent government.

While this William Smithe with an “e” was an MLA…. He was an MLA from 1842 to 1887 — wow. Cowichan, a stand-alone name — its last appearance ended up on the political area hustings in 1920. So by 1920, things had changed. I, again, think it’s fascinating.

I want to thank publicly the librarian, Peter Gourlay. They do wonderful work in our provincial library, and I really appreciate his work. I went in with some questions, what I thought were dumb questions from the old millworker from Youbou. He didn’t think they were dumb questions. He thought it was an interesting ride. I was absolutely flabbergasted. He just went out of the room, was back in less than five minutes, had the book in his hand and made me a copy of the electoral redistribution in British Columbia from the very first, from 1871 to 1986.

Now, we’ve got the more recent data here, which I’m going to get into in a minute, but I just want to take you down memory lane. Again, there wasn’t an electoral commission, but this is what it says in the legislation, that we need to look at the historical record. Keep that in mind.

The distribution was 12 districts, as I’ve said, back in 1871, and the total members elected were 25. So not a very big, full House. We had 25 people rattling around in here in total. That was the total number. There would have been lots of room for extra tables and chairs. Certainly, the two sword lengths apart would have been no problem whatsoever.

Now, it stayed at 12 districts through a variety of elections. Then finally, in 1882, the number bumped up from 12 districts to 13. But the numbers stayed the same. They kept 25 elected members in the House. The number 25 stood all the way until 1886, when there were still 13 areas but we went to 27. So they’re starting to build the numbers.

In 1890, they bounced all the way from 13 districts to 18 — so wow, substantial. Five new areas, and we went from 27 to 33. The number of electoral districts and members increased. The new districts were Alberni, The Islands, Nanaimo City, Vancouver City — two members there. Kootenay was divided into East Kootenay and West Kootenay, one member each. New Westminster district became Westminster. That’s back then in 1890. That stayed at 18 for a bit. Then in 1894, we went from the 25….

[1730]

Actually, we went up in the number of districts. We went from 18 districts to 25 districts, but we kept the number of elected representatives. They divided some of the two-member ridings and then increased the number of districts, but they didn’t increase the number of members that were working in this House as MLAs.

The next bump didn’t occur till 1898 and right up till 1900, when they went from 25 and 33 to 29 districts, so we went from 25 to 29 — four more districts and 38 MLAs. There were an additional five MLAs. Then in 1903, we went from 29 to 34, with 42 members elected to the Legislature, and that stayed from 1903 for quite a period of time until 1916. So from 1903 to 1916, which was the next one, where we went to 39 districts and 47 members.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

The next bump was in 1924. It went from 39 districts to 40 districts and had 48 members in the Legislative Assembly. The next change didn’t occur until all the way from 1924 to 1941. In 1941, we went from 40 districts to 41, with still keeping the 48 members. The 48 members stayed in place until 1956. In 1956, they increased the number of members in this Legislative Assembly. The number of districts was 42.

You can see that they’re starting to do away with the two members in a riding and started having individual geographical ridings. But we still had in 1956, 42 districts and 52 members in the Legislative Assembly. Somewhere, at least ten areas, there had to be more than one person elected for that individual riding.

Then we bump up to 1966, and at that time, we went from 42 to 48 districts, and we went from 52 members to 55. Again, you can see the gradual bump-up over a long period of time. This was a ten-year period. It took ten years to go from 55…. The next bump-up was from 52 to 55 in 1966. They added two additional members from 1966 to 1979. That’s 13 years later. Thirteen years later they decided to go from 55 members in the Legislative Assembly to 57. Then from 1979, the next change was 1986, where they went from 52 members to a total of 69 members in the Legislative Assembly.

We know that after 1966…. I’ve got the history of the electoral boundaries. I think this document is from 1999, but I’m not sure. This starts up where I just left off, in 1966, where the province had 42 electoral districts electing 52 MLAs, and there were 34 one-member ridings, six two-member ridings and two three-member ridings. That answers the question. As it says here, in 1955, the Legislative Assembly increased the number of MLAs from 48 to 52.

Now, let’s talk about the interesting ride where there wasn’t always a commission. In some cases, they were appointed by government. The next historical date, in terms of a commission, was the Angus commission. In 1966, they did a report.

[1735]

In August 1965, there were no electoral boundaries…. So the three-member commission of Henry Angus, Frederick Hurley and Kenneth Morton were appointed by an order-in-council from government. Again, it was an order-in-council, not legislation, that put them there under the Public Inquiries Act. The order-in-council directed the commission to secure….

I’m going to turn now to the Norris commission in 1975. This three-member commission had an increase in the number of MLAs from 55 to 62. Then the Eckardt commission was 1978.

The Warren commission. That’s a familiar name. There was a Warren commission down in the United States, and we know that that was into the tragic events of a President of the United States. However, the Warren commission was established for Derril T. Warren in 1982. His order-in-council, once again, instructed him to make recommendations on the basis of the Legislative Assembly and that it should comprise no fewer than 57 members, nor more than 71.

The next recommendation was in 1984 — the McAdam commission. There have been a lot of commissions over the history of British Columbia, and I’m emphasizing that. Also, talking about the historical record, the McAdam commission in 1984…. The provincial government appointed a three-person electoral commission. Again, this was appointed, not a legislative action requirement.

They were applying the 1984 legislative amendments, and the commission recommended the 11 one-member electoral districts to be increased to two members each. There was actually a recommendation from the commissioner to increase a number of areas. In 1985, the Legislative Assembly increased the number of MLAs from 57 MLAs to 69. There was a substantial increase, a 12-person increase by that time.

The Fisher commission. In 1988, the hon. Judge Thomas Fisher was appointed under the Inquiry Act again. He went away, and he ultimately recommended that the number of MLAs be increased from 69 to 75. He also decided that in drawing boundaries, he would not deviate more than plus or minus 25 percent. This is where that started, the whole notion of this plus or minus.

Then the commission was permitted to exceed this deviation only where it considers that there were very special circumstances that existed.

We go on, then, to 1999, the Wood commission. There had been a 29 percent increase in B.C.’s population over the preceding ten years. They found that fascinating. Didn’t I hear some folks in this House suggest that there were people running away from B.C.? Well, apparently, in 1999, there was a report that there was a 29 percent increase in B.C.’s population over the preceding ten years.

Interjection.
[ Page 9771 ]

B. Routley: Isn’t that fascinating? Yeah, I know. I found it fascinating.

Anyway, in 1999, the Legislative Assembly adopted the Wood commission’s proposed 79 electoral districts, without change. We know we went from 79 in 1999. In 2008, we went from 79 to 85, the current number of MLAs here in the Legislature. We’re now looking at a report to recommend that we go from 85 to 87. Again, I think it was a thoughtful report, and I congratulate them for their work.

[1740]

R. Sultan: I would like to thank the member for Cowichan Valley for that history lesson and the reminder that, a mere 30 years ago, we somehow got by, managing this entire province, with only 57 MLAs. Obviously, they were smarter and worked harder and perhaps longer hours in those days, but time goes on. And I always appreciate his jiggery-pokery stories, and he never seems to run out of material.

I support this motion to adopt the proposals contained in the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, tabled in this place on September 28. In so doing, I wish to congratulate the Electoral Boundaries Commission — supported in many ways, I’m sure by Elections B.C. — in submitting proposals for redistricting, which are in accordance with the government’s broadly expressed wishes, which are fair and doable and which balance the appetite for representation in this place as between the more thinly populated rural areas and the more densely populated urban areas of the province.

I give an A grade to the commission for dutifully following the wishes of the government to bend the plus- or minus-25-percent rules, the origin of which the member for Cowichan Valley just traced out for us, as regards the ratio of the number of voters per MLA, pushing the variation from the mean to as high as 47 percent in the case of Peace River South.

Whether others regard that as an unreasonably large variation could conceivably generate legal activity down the road. But as for myself, recognizing that if we assigned seats according to economic contribution to the province, as opposed to population, we would see the Peace country by some economic measures, as being grossly under-represented. So I, for one, can live with the proposed discrepancies.

I also gave an A grade to the commission for its budgetary accomplishments, having a budget of about $4 million and spending only about $1 million. If only all of the members, officers, agencies and commissions which are created in this place adhered to a similar degree of fiscal prudence, we would all enjoy louder taxpayer applause.

I also gave an A grade to the commission for its cartography, since for those, such as myself, who love maps, particularly in multiple colours, leafing through the multi-coloured ridings maps of the report is a geographical delight and an education in the many byways of this province — an enjoyable and educational virtual aerial tour of this tremendously big and diverse land that we represent.

Looking at these maps, I was reminded again of the vastness of this province. Many, I’m sure, have not actually travelled much in the north. My first experience in travelling to the Yukon, just beyond our northern border, took place, in my case, in midcareer. I was shocked to learn, or to realize — I mean, I had known it all along, but I actually hadn’t experienced it — that the first leg of my long airplane trip to Vancouver from Toronto was to be followed by an equally long, hour-after-hour, sharp right turn over the wild and lonely terrain, as we crawled our way north to Whitehorse.

It was sobering to realize Prince George really wasn’t in the north. It was only halfway. Folks in the urban south really have to understand this a little bit better, and we don’t. The distances are sobering, and probably would discourage MLAs who can call on their constituents from one end to the other, as the member for Vancouver–West End reminded us this afternoon, on their bicycles.

Well, for all of these reasons, and since the recommendations try so hard to please everybody — and do, it seems — the motion merits all of our support. But I would also suggest future boundary commissions should take into account two more sobering and possibly difficult-to-manage realities.

[1745]

Distance is no longer such a compelling factor when we consider today the vast distances and thin populations which characterize, for example, northern ridings. Thanks to modern communication, our world is shrinking rapidly.

This point was brought home to me only last week when my cousin from Sweden visited for a couple of weeks, actually. One evening he took out his iPhone and said good night to his children face to face. I saw him talking in the corner, and I thought: “Who does he know in Vancouver, really?” Well, he was talking to his kids face to face. I received a quick education in FaceTime. They were in Gothenburg, as we say in Swedish, and he was in Vancouver.

To show how easy it was, he said: “Well, your iPhone has FaceTime.” I said: “Yeah, it does, as a matter of fact. I’ve never actually used it.” So he dialed in for me, and in less time than it takes to tell, his smiling face was transmitted to Gothenburg in southern Sweden and back to the screen of my device. I could look at him in person, holding the device up simultaneously on the viewing screen of my iPhone, having made the round trip to Sweden and back without any noticeable delay.

Well, this technology, which I am sure is old hat to many of you, is universally available and quite inexpensive. The argument that it’s harder to get around northern regions and talk with people loses much of its punch. It’s simply no longer true.
[ Page 9772 ]

The other reality which I believe future boundary commissions must consider is the issue of what I’d call packaging. This place is full. We can’t easily squeeze more MLAs into it, unless we double-bunk at our desks, maybe, or create a balcony around the perimeter to house new MLAs.

The last redistribution had a creative replacement of the straight-as-an-arrow desk layout — which, I suppose, some of you can’t recall — with the present sinuous wiggle of the layout of our desks. That has already, to my eye, violated the two-swords-length-distance rule between the government and the opposition, at least at this end of the House. Dangerous. What sexy new wiggles may be dreamed up by the packaging experts tomorrow? It’s undignified.

The idea of pushing the south wall — I’m referring to the wall to my left; I think it’s more or less in the southerly end of the spectrum here — further south, which, indeed, ran across my mind last redistributing, is not only architecturally ambitious, it would push the Speaker’s chair even further from the centre of action, when rising tempers suggest that a move in the opposite direction would be prudent.

Furthermore, they threaten the perch of such eminent chroniclers of this space as Messrs. Palmer and Baldrey, who probably would lose that balcony. Therefore, let’s concede, ladies and gentlemen, Members and officials, that the inn is full.

In future redistributions, therefore, we shall no longer have the luxury of keeping everybody happy by simply creating more MLAs. The geographic distance, I suggest, is waning in importance — as important as it still is though. I don’t want to minimize that, but the trend line is in the opposite way.

The physical space limitations of this place are becoming more compelling, I suggest. And our speaking notes have let the cat out of the bag, as quoted by one of our eminent cabinet members, by estimating that each MLA costs the taxpayer between $300,000 and $500,000 each and every year. The taxpayers should not, therefore, tolerate further simple numerical expansion of this place.

As I support this bill, I also suggest that it’s the end of an era. Much more tough-minded redistributions will be necessary in our assembly’s future.

[1750]

R. Austin: It’s a privilege to rise in the Legislature here to speak to the motion. “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 here on September 28 — “be approved.” I — like, I think, everybody here in the Legislature, of course — am rising to speak in favour of this report.

I’d like to add to other MLAs and thank the commission — not just Justice Thomas Melnick and Bev Busson and Keith Archer for their incredible work. But also, I would like to recognize all of the staff.

I think people don’t really understand and appreciate that when a commission is going out there to do this kind of complicated work, it is supported by a huge amount of staff from here in the Legislature or, in this case, from the independent B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission. They’re the ones who have to take all of the thinking and listening that happens by the commissioners and put that into reality, to create the incredible maps and book that we see before us.

I’d also like to take a moment to thank everybody who comes and speaks to commissions like this. I think that sometimes in politics we take it for granted. People just assume that other people do the work, and there isn’t a lot of interest in something as important as electoral boundaries. In reality, it is fundamental to the fairness in a democracy to have this kind of important work take place.

Let me just speak for a moment here and speak to what happens in jurisdictions that don’t have what it is that we take for granted here, which is an independent Boundaries Commission — independent of politicians, independent of political parties — that goes out and, every two election cycles, looks at the demographic change in British Columbia and determines changes to our boundaries that ensure that at the end of the day, we can have faith in our electoral system to ensure that it is fair.

We only have to look just south of us, to our cousins in the United States, to see what happens when you have a system that is not bound in fairness with an independent Boundaries Commission as we have here in British Columbia and, indeed, in Canada.

There you see politicians nefariously getting involved in redistribution of boundaries to the extent that in the United States — I think I’m right in saying — about 80 percent of all congressional districts are decided long before the citizens go to the polls. Why? Because they’ve manipulated all of these boundaries in such a way as to make sure that they move geographically in a really fractious state.

It looks almost like a puzzle. Why? Because they want to make sure that either Democrats or Republicans are in that riding, thus making it safe for the sitting member of the Congress. I think we should celebrate the fact that we have set up a commission and recognized that those kinds of manipulating tactics cannot take place here in British Columbia.

I’d like to thank those citizens who go out and speak to the Boundaries Commission. Everybody’s life is busy. One of the things I think a lot of us…. We’ve just gone through a federal election. One of the things that some of us who work in politics full-time don’t appreciate sometimes….

We get a little bit frustrated when we think that perhaps citizens aren’t paying attention to the issues of the
[ Page 9773 ]
day like those of us in here who make a living from doing this. But the reality is that most citizens are busy paying their bills, going to work, raising their families, taking care of their elders and loved ones, and that dominates their lives.

So when people come forward and take time out of their own time to go and sit before the Boundaries Commission to talk to the commission about things that are of interest to them that show that if there are changes in their district, that somehow they will lose out…. The most common reason for that is speaking to the issue of community interest.

As we’ve heard here in the Legislature, the commission has some boundaries itself as to what it can do. It has to look at the population growth. It has to try and balance the difference between representation by population versus geographic representation, and it has to take into consideration historical and community interest.

[1755]

I think that when people, citizens, go and make their facts known to the commission,it enlightens them to understand that this is an incredibly diverse province. You can’t expect three people who are going to various places in the province to understand the various community interests that are prevalent in our province.

With that in mind, I’m just going to speak for a second about my riding of Skeena and speak for a moment to the whole notion of community interest. When I first got elected here in 2005, my colleague from the North Coast, who has one of the ridings with the greatest amount of travel already in it…. It is centred in Prince Rupert and then involves lots of travel to Haida Gwaii and to all the coastal communities up and down the central coast of B.C. At that time, the constituency and boundaries of that riding also included the Nass Valley and — get this, hon. Speaker — Stewart.

Let’s look at this for a second. You had a member for the North Coast. When he wasn’t busy on a floatplane or on a ferry trying to get to the communities that he was supposed to represent, when he was actually on land in Prince Rupert, if he wanted to go and meet his constituents in the Nass Valley, he would drive 1½ hours to Terrace — I’d give him a passport for the day to ride through my constituency — and then would drive for another 2½ hours up the Nass Valley road to get to the Nass Valley as far as Kincolith.

If he wanted to go and speak to citizens, at that time, in Stewart, I’d also, again, grant him a passport through the riding, and he would come to Terrace, 1½ hours, and then drive for 3½ hours each way through the Skeena riding and through the Stikine riding to get to Stewart.

Obviously, people recognize that that Boundaries Commission, when it made that determination…. Obviously, what they were looking at was how they could move people into the constituency. That Boundaries Commission was really focused on trying to add citizens to what is a riding with a very low population. But in so doing, they were taking away the ability of the MLA to do their job properly, and more importantly, they were taking away the right of citizens in the Nass Valley to regularly have contact with their MLA — because of this geographic distance.

If you have a valley like the Nass Valley, where there’s one road in and out and the only road comes into the community of Terrace, it simply makes sense for the Nass Valley to have been connected to the Skeena riding, as it was historically, prior to that one ten-year period when it was removed. There’s a good example of a boundary change that was necessary. Even though it was taking population from a riding that already had a very low population, it still made sense when that change happened to bring the Nass Valley back into the Skeena riding.

The same goes for Stewart. The MLA for Stikine that has now Stewart in that riding….

Most people who work in Stewart are dependent on the mining industry. That’s the big industry that had Stewart booming at one time. There’s been a slowdown as a result of mines that have closed. But when you consider all the mines that are in the northwest of B.C. and the fact that Stewart is a port and the fact that the largest single private investment that’s been made recently is about the ability of the Port of Stewart to be able to take product from any potential mines that get going, it only just makes sense for the member for Stikine, who has those mines in his jurisdiction, to also be taking care of Stewart.

These are just a couple of factors, when you’re talking about a community of interest. I’m sure that every member of the Legislature can speak to various parts of their constituency where they don’t want to see changes made, as a result of trying to keep a community of interest in place.

One of the interesting things about listening to this debate over the last couple of days is, first and foremost, the fact that we can get up and speak about a topic that is non-partisan. You learn a lot about the diversity of this province by listening to MLAs speak about their ridings. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my colleague from Cowichan for his history lesson on the history of this place and how it is that we have gone, over the years, from joining Confederation to the point we are today, where we have an independent Boundaries Commission.

[1800]

As he alluded to, there were some shenanigans that happened before we had set up an independent boundaries commission, where politicians were trying to tweak boundaries in such a way that it benefited them.

One of the things that I have certainly heard in this Legislature for the last couple of days is the fact that there are three very distinct kinds of constituencies here in British Columbia. You have the very tight, highly dense urban constituencies; you have the less densely popu-
[ Page 9774 ]
lated but slightly bigger suburban constituencies; and, of course, you have ridings, like mine in northern British Columbia, with a huge geography and a small population.

I think those distinct differences speak to some of the challenges that this commission and any commission has to deal with. If you look at a map of Canada, what you see is that about 80 percent of the Canadian population lives within about 150 kilometres of the U.S. border.

What we have in this country — it’s not just something that is a problem here in British Columbia; it’s a problem that’s right across the country — is the challenge of trying to create a fair level of representation in a country where you have a massive amount of population in a small area — thinly, right across the U.S.-Canadian border — and then you have a ton of geography, a huge amount of geography, with a very sparsely populated country.

Trying to balance — not just the notion — the right of population by representation versus the ability for people to feel that they are being represented in a fair way is the challenge that takes place every time we have this discussion.

Speaking for myself, let me just give you some idea of the differences. I sit next to a member here, the member for the west end of Vancouver. In his riding, as he alluded to earlier today, he is able to bicycle around his riding probably in less than an hour — bicycle around it. He could probably walk around it in a couple of hours. Certainly, he could walk across it diagonally in a couple of hours. He has a large population in that very small riding.

Compare that with myself. I’m relatively lucky. There are eight ridings in northern B.C. I can stand here and say that I’m the luckiest of the MLAs who live in northern B.C.

In my riding, while there’s quite a lot of geography, the actual distance of population base from the furthest in the northwest to the furthest in the southeast — I can drive that in about 4½ to five hours. I can actually go from one end of the riding to the other in terms of meeting people in four to five hours, which is extraordinary.

There are people who represent northern B.C. ridings…. I’ll take, for example, my colleague from Stikine. When he wants to go and visit constituents in Atlin, he has to either take a plane to Whitehorse — not even in British Columbia — rent a car and then drive down to Atlin. If he wants to drive to Dease Lake or to Telegraph Creek or to Stewart to visit his constituents, he’s looking at a round trip of probably 20 to 25 hours to go and visit his constituents.

When you hear this incredible diversity that we have in British Columbia, you recognize that this Boundaries Commission has a difficult job. If people want to come and visit the MLA in the west end of Vancouver, chances are they don’t need a car. They don’t need a bicycle. They don’t need to get on public transit. They can walk to his office because any place in his riding is within walking distance of his office. That’s not the case for those of us who live in rural ridings.

I was interested to listen to the comment coming from the member who preceded me in talking about modern technology and how, as he said, distance is no longer a factor. I would agree to a certain extent with what he’s saying. But here’s the challenge. MLAs often get to meet their constituents about things that are private — very private, actually. Sometimes you need to meet with people face to face — not just face to face using one of these, but face to face — because the issue is private. It’s emotional.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

[1805]

Frankly, as we know, as human beings, psychologists, I think, would tell you that about 80 percent of our communication is non-verbal. It is actually in the body language that we as human beings communicate, as opposed to many other species.

There are times when technology can replace the fact that we have to be in a room. I grant him that. But there are also times when people come to speak to us about extremely personal challenging matters. I’ll give an example: parents whose children may have been taken into care by the ministry. Those are emotional times and are very emotional meetings.

Families struggling with health conditions, families struggling with elderly parents who have health conditions — those are just a couple of examples where, generally speaking, and I’m sure a lot of MLAs will concur here, this isn’t a conversation you have on a phone. This isn’t a conversation you have via e-mail. This isn’t a conversation you have on FaceTime or on Skype. These are conversations that people want to have face to face with their MLA.

I think it’s fair to say that in those extreme circumstances — we have a lot of them, unfortunately, where I live — it’s important that people have the ability and the right to be able to actually go to an office and sit down with their MLA or have their MLA come to their house or to their community to speak privately about these kinds of issues.

We also have to recognize that while many of us who live here…. I mean, we are given all these things courtesy of the taxpayers of British Columbia. There are plenty of people in British Columbia who don’t have access to the kind of technology that we take for granted or who live in parts of the province where there isn’t even broadband.

In my constituency, when I’m driving from town to town, I don’t even have cell phone service, let alone broadband. There are huge swaths of the province that don’t benefit from the fact that in urban areas, we are really hard-wired; we have broadband.

I’ll give you another example. We could use technology and do use technology now to bring education — not just higher education, post-secondary education — in the school system via the Internet. But there are huge areas,
[ Page 9775 ]
particularly on First Nations reserves and in small communities, where they can’t even take benefit of that.

We have to be mindful of the fact that we still have a long way to go in order to bring this technology to everyone. We also have a long way to go to reach a point where everybody has equal access to this kind of technology, because they simply lack the resources or don’t have the kind of incomes necessary to buy all of this high-tech stuff.

I’d also like to just talk for a minute here about the fact that…. I don’t think the member was being facetious in any way, because it is tight in here, and we have seen changes happen here. But to try and suggest that we can’t have more members in this House is very much pining or whining about a first-world problem. If you look at this chamber, you can see that there are bookshelves that can be removed and more seats put in.

If you look at the Mother of Parliaments and go to the United Kingdom, which…. At times, we all love to stand here and say: “Look at what they do in the United Kingdom, the Mother of Parliaments.” We try to follow in their footsteps in large part. Your position, hon. Speaker, is something that is very historic and comes from the Mother of Parliaments. Our esteemed Clerk, sitting there in his chair, comes from the Mother of all Parliaments.

You’ll notice, if you ever watch parliament in Britain, they long ago gave up the notion of having their own private desks. Oh my goodness, what a luxury it is to have our own private desk. They gave that up a long time ago and sit on benches. The Prime Minister of Britain sits on a bench, as do all of the ministers and everybody else who’s elected to the Mother of all Parliaments. I’m not suggesting that I’d rather give up this lovely desk for a bench, but I’m just suggesting that we’ve got a long way to go before we can say that we can’t have more members in here.

So I think that I certainly don’t want to see future boundary commissions being allowed willy-nilly to create more politicians because, as the member also alluded to, it is costly to have more politicians, and the taxpayers would say that that’s not something they want.

[1810]

But the taxpayers also want to have proper representation. If you end up with a densely populated urban centre where an MLA is trying to service — I don’t know — 75,000 constituents, and you have a rural MLA that is representing a large geographic area and only has 20,000 citizens, at some point, the folks from the city centres are going to say: “Wait a second here. I have the same resources as you do. I have 1.5 FTEs to manage my office, and I’m inundated with the kind of workload that I have.”

At some point, they’re going to say, “You know what? I think we do need a couple more MLAs, especially in the urban areas, to take that population pressure off” so that their offices aren’t just going hair straight back all day long seeing constituents, when in a rural area we might spend way more time travelling but don’t have as many constituents to come in to bring their issues.

These are complicated issues. I have to say this. I’m very glad that, at the end of the day, we can talk about all these issues, and it’s other people who have to go and solve the problems. I’m delighted that the commissioners get to be the ones to go and do this.

Ultimately — and this has also been alluded to here — at the end of the day, the courts also have a great deal to say in this. This debate — about representation by population versus geographic requirements to have access to an MLA and for an MLA to be able to go and serve their constituents — at the end of the day, is going to end up, once again, in the Supreme Court.

We see, no matter what, a demographic shift right across Canada, away from rural Canada to the urban centres. This shift has been going on, certainly, for as long as I’ve been living in this country. You see this happening not just here. You see this happening in Australia. There is a shift to urbanization that is ongoing. We cannot change that.

Even with technology, there is a shift for young people to want to go and live in urban centres. They have access to greater job opportunities. They have access to greater educational opportunities. They have access to cultural events that take place in bigger cities that don’t happen in smaller communities. That’s where they’re going. At the end of the day, this debate is going to continue and will go back to the courts.

I want to take a moment to speak to the legislation that was brought in to protect rural British Columbia. I heard a comment, from one member here, suggesting that because I and others voted against that piece of legislation, somehow we were giving up on rural B.C. and we didn’t really care about the fact that we represented a rural part of British Columbia. That’s not the case at all.

What we were concerned about was that if a large swath of British Columbia was protected, it would invite a court challenge, and it would then be something where the courts, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association or some other body would immediately step forward and say: “Wait a second here. How can you have an independent commission, and then two-thirds of the province is protected from having any changes?” That’s the motivation that got me to vote against that. I thought it would simply bring in a legal challenge.

Of course, as someone who represents a rural constituency, I want to see the ability of my constituents and all northern and rural constituencies to be able to retain as many MLAs as possible. At the end of the day, having seen what it’s like to do this work and to do it effectively, I recognize that we have to try and keep as many rural MLAs as possible. Otherwise, it becomes untenable, frankly.

I think it’s true to say that the commission has done an incredible job. I think that bringing two more seats into the Legislature in the places that they have judged are
[ Page 9776 ]
worthy of them — one in Surrey and one in Richmond — makes, absolutely, common sense. I don’t think anybody here could disagree with that. Prior to moving to Skeena 20 years ago…. In fact, I’m coming up to my 20th anniversary of moving up north. I lived in Surrey for five years prior to moving to the beautiful town of Terrace and finding a different way of life in northern B.C.

[1815]

When I lived in Surrey, it was already one of the fastest-growing communities in all of Canada. Since I’ve been gone, 20 years later, Surrey has just absolutely exploded in population to the extent where I think, at one time, in a month there were more people moving to Surrey than any other city in all of Canada. I know that they’ve had to build schools, and they haven’t been able to build schools quickly enough for the kind of population growth that’s happened in an urban centre like Surrey.

While they haven’t been able to build schools quickly enough for this population growth, in my community we were having to close schools because people were leaving. This, again, speaks to the complexity of dealing with the challenges here around boundaries and the work they have to do.

I think that, by and large, the commission has done an incredible job, and I think that they have been allowed to and have recommended that they increase the number of seats that go beyond the 25 percent standard deviation that has been allowed previously. I’m hoping that there won’t be a challenge to that, at least not this time around, because at the end of the day, the ability for rural MLAs to do their job requires them to have no larger constituencies than they already have.

If the commission decided to err on the other side and limit the number of ridings that have this deviation that’s going to almost 50 percent, we would then have a situation where some of the ridings in British Columbia would become so large and so remote that some people would never, ever get to see their MLA, and I just don’t think that is fair in any way.

I hope that even though we have a very large deviation, we’re going to be able to pass this into legislation, that it will not be challenged in the courts and that, at least for this time around, we can then look forward to the next ten years with the map that has been brought forward.

I wanted to comment around…. This has been alluded to by others here. The commission had a difficult job to do. They had a budget just in excess of $4 million to do this. They came in, I think, at around…. I think I heard the Justice Minister say about $1.2 million. When you consider the amount of work that’s required to bring in a new boundary map, and when you consider all the people that need to be able to come and speak to the commission, it is quite extraordinary that they’ve come in so under budget, and I want to thank them for that.

I think their ability to do this also speaks to the fact that we have used technology so well in this particular Boundaries Commission. It wasn’t as though they had to travel to every community in the province. What they did, very smartly, was have access points where people could use e-mail, could use Skype, could come in to meetings and make presentations even if they didn’t live in that community or didn’t live in the community where the Boundaries Commission was actually having public hearings.

Obviously, they’ve saved a great deal of money in that process, and it bodes well for the fact that we can use this kind of new technology to save the taxpayers a whole whack of money and still come up with a report that is not just fair but is seen to be fair by everybody here in this House.

I haven’t heard a single person here speak against this motion. I’ve heard a few members, obviously, a bit sad that there have been changes made where they have lost parts of their constituencies. That has not really happened to me. I’m an MLA who had a part added in, and I’m very thankful it was, but I can understand that that would cause some concern. But by and large, people have stood in this House and spoken in favour of this commission and the report they’re bringing by.

I’m hoping that when the legislation comes into the House in the next little while, we can debate that moving forward and pass that with the unanimous support of this House. With that, I take my rest and give the floor to somebody else.

[1820]

D. Barnett: On behalf of the constituents of Cariboo-Chilcotin, I am proud to support this important bill. It is important because it is essential that every British Columbian is represented fairly and effectively. Bill 42 does that.

B.C. has experienced significant population growth in its urban areas as people from other parts of Canada and other parts of the world move here because they see a bright future in our province. If passed, Bill 42 will result in two more ridings being created for the 2017 election, both in Metro Vancouver suburbs.

Our rural regions, generally speaking, are not growing as quickly, but I am pleased that this bill ensures rural British Columbians will not lose representation. Population inequality in the urban-rural divide is a fact of life in the western world. It is a fact that urban and suburban constituencies, on average, have more people than rural ridings do. However, urban MLAs generally have an easier time serving their constituents because the population is concentrated in a much smaller area.

My riding of Cariboo-Chilcotin is one of those large rural ridings with a smaller population. We have far-flung communities and several First Nations, plus a wealth of natural resources that are the backbone of the B.C. economy. It is about an eight-hour drive to get from Anahim Lake in the western side of my riding to Bridge
[ Page 9777 ]
Lake in the east. That is eight hours if the weather is good. And you don’t stop. These new boundaries have increased my riding both in geography and population.

We must remember that our riding boundaries must serve the people that live there. I’m constantly told by my constituents that rural interests are not understood in places like Vancouver and Victoria. This needs to be taken into consideration when electoral boundaries are being discussed.

This act preserves current ridings in the north, the Cariboo-Thompson and the Columbia-Kootenay regions to ensure that citizens in less densely populated yet geographically large districts can be effectively represented by their MLAs. The bottom line is that we need fair and effective representation for all British Columbians. In a province with B.C.’s geography, equal representation by population simply isn’t possible.

There were no political motives or considerations by our government in preparing this legislation. The Electoral Boundaries Commission Act requires that there be three members: a judge or a retired judge of the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal, the Chief Electoral Officer appointed under the Election Act and a third member recommended by the Speaker of the House in consultation with the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition.

The Electoral Boundaries Commission undertook a public consultation in March through May of this year and considered the many comments gathered. The commission’s task was to balance demographic 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 their recommendations.

The commission held many 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 diligent and hard work and all British Columbians who participated in this very important process.

I am proud to speak for the interests of rural British Columbia. I ask all members, especially my colleagues on the other side of the House who represent rural ridings, to support this bill.

D. Barnett moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Personal Statement

CLARIFICATION OF COMMENTS
MADE IN THE HOUSE

Hon. T. Stone: Before I move adjournment here, I would just like to correct the record with respect to remarks I made during an exchange earlier today during question period.

During that exchange, I stated: “I do not delete information that is transitory in nature.” This was the opposite of what I intended to convey. It was my intention to state: “I do not delete information unless it is transitory in nature.”

Hon. Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to take this opportunity to correct the record.

Hon. T. Stone moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

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

The House adjourned at 6:25 p.m.

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