2014 Legislative Session: Second Session, 40th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 6, Number

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)

ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

CONTENTS

Page

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 2 — Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2014 (continued)

Hon. B. Bennett

R. Austin

D. Barnett

D. Donaldson

M. Hunt

B. Ralston

Hon. J. Rustad

N. Macdonald

M. Morris

A. Weaver

C. Trevena

M. Mungall

V. Huntington

D. Eby

M. Elmore

Hon. S. Bond

S. Simpson

K. Conroy

D. Routley

H. Bains

S. Hammell

[ Page 1573 ]

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

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

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 2 — ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES

COMMISSION AMENDMENT ACT, 2014

(continued)

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

[D. Horne in the chair.]

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

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

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

[1335]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I've come to the conclusion that despite the enormous importance of the central principle of democracy which is, of course, representation by population, that principle can actually lead to — and I'll use an expression I don't think I've ever used in this House — a tyranny of the majority. That principle needs to be ameliorated by other principles, and I think those other principles are: are we

[ Page 1574 ]

going to allow this commission to create constituencies that are impossible for one MLA to represent, like the federal government has just done?

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

[1340]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1345]

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

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

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

Like the minister, I also represent a rural district,

[ Page 1575 ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1350]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the last instance, when this was done after the 2005 election, let's remember what happened. There was an absolute outcry when they brought out their first suggestions. Let's not forget that. They were going to reduce rural representation, and people in rural B.C. spoke out

[ Page 1576 ]

so madly against this that they went back and listened to constituents in rural B.C. and then decided to come up with a better idea. Now, it's fair to say that this House did address this in a bill, but the reality is the bill never had to be enforced because the commission, on its own, heard what British Columbians had to say.

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

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

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

[1355]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ Page 1577 ]

out of Kamloops.

[1400]

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

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

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

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

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

An Hon. Member: Or speed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1405]

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

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

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

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

D. Donaldson: I'm very, very pleased to take my spot today on Bill 2, the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2014. Right off the bat, I'd like to say that there's part of the bill that I agree with, and that's keeping 85 electoral districts in place. I think that's a good recommendation in the bill. There are other parts

[ Page 1578 ]

that I want to discuss now, though, that I don't feel as positive about.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1410]

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

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

Luckily, under

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

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

Luckily, as I said, population is not the only consideration, although it's meant to be the primary consideration.

Section 9 of the act says to go away from population…. That can be exceeded, the 25 percent, under "very special circumstances." So very special circumstances, and again, those circumstances, some of them, I've listed.

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

[ Page 1579 ]

[1415]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M. Hunt: I'm pleased to rise to speak to this Bill 2, the amendments to the Electoral Boundaries Commission. I find it a most interesting discussion so far, in that if we look at the situation, I believe that the city of Surrey is

[ Page 1580 ]

one of the big losers in the midst of this proposal that's before us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ Page 1581 ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deputy Speaker: Proceed.

Introductions by Members

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

Debate Continued

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

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

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

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

Because I think it's important to set the context properly, I did want to look at and quote briefly the defining case from the Supreme Court of Canada on these issues, which is the Reference re Provincial Electoral Boundaries , a case that arose out of Saskatchewan. What that case considered is the application of the Charter rights, sec-

[ Page 1582 ]

tion 3, which reads as follows: "Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein."

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

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

"It's my conclusion that the purpose of the right to vote enshrined in

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

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

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

I want to continue with the quote.

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

"But," she goes on, "parity of voting power, though of prime importance, is not the only factor to be taken into account in ensuring effective representation. Sir John A. Macdonald, in introducing

An Act to re-adjust the Representation in the House of Commons" — one can see that these issues are not new — "recognized this fundamental fact."

She quotes from the House of Commons debates in 1872:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was the factual basis that was being considered there. It's well recognized in the principles of effective representation, as the Canadian law is, that there are exceptional circumstances. Indeed, the act itself eloquently states those in

section 9 — quoted by the member for Nanaimo earlier in the debate. This statute is based on the reasoning of the court.

Section 9(1) reads:

"In determining the area to be included in and in fixing the boundaries of proposed electoral districts, the commission must be governed by the following principles: (

a) that the principle of representation by population be achieved, recognizing the imperatives imposed by geographical and demographic realities, the legacy of our history and the need to balance the community interests of the people of British Columbia; (

b) to achieve that principle, the commission be permitted to deviate from a common statistical Provincial electoral quota by no more than 25%, plus or minus; (

c) the commission be permitted to exceed the 25% deviation principle where it considers that very special circumstances exist."

The amendment that's proposed here in this bill is to amend

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

We've heard from the member for Stikine about the very geographic challenges that result in his effort to represent the citizens of his riding. But it is noteworthy, I think, that here included within these three districts

[ Page 1583 ]

are some of, I would say, the nearly biggest cities in the province. The Minister of Health spoke this morning of the great city of Kamloops. I agree with him. Kamloops is the 11th largest city — these are numbers from B.C. Statistics — in the province at 85,678 people.

[1445]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1450]

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

"Most of these are consistent with our statutory mandate. We ultimately concluded that our paramount guide in this area must be the statutory criteria set out in

section 9(1)(

a) of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act."

That is exactly the

section that I read earlier. So the commission was very cognizant of its legal duty. That, I think, is a very good

summary of probably much of the debate that will take place here to come. But they also went on to define their approach to what are described as very special circumstances.

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

They do go on to talk about their definition, and they do quote a fair number of dictionary

definitions of that. But they do go on to say this. I'm on page 44:

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

That's their self-imposed limitation in doing their

[ Page 1584 ]

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

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

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

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

[1455]

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

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

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

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

Quebec. In their new electoral map in 2011,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ Page 1585 ]

stitutional literature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whether it's mining or whether it's liquefied natural gas and the potential that brings, when you look at the natural gas industry, forestry, all of our resource activities

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that are the heart and soul of much of what this province is — it's all in rural B.C. It's very, very important to have that voice in this House and have it represented by the people that we have on both sides of the Legislature as part of that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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In some of the urban ridings in the Lower Mainland, in the worst weather you can imagine, it would take them at most maybe half an hour to walk across with an umbrella and gumboots and maybe a jacket. For some of the places in rural B.C. it would take literally several tanks of gas, a couple of days and

an act of God to get across the riding. It's the stark difference between representing rural areas and representing urban areas, and it's why we need to be able to make sure that we protect the opportunity for rural voices to be present in this chamber.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here, with the Electoral Boundaries Commission

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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tion in rural areas. What a joke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1525]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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the proper thing. I think that's highly unlikely, but that is what should happen.

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

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

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

[1530]

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

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

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

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

Every single proposed pipeline is designed to come through there — in addition to the existing pipelines; in addition to the hydro power transmission lines that we have coming from W.A.C.

Bennett and the Peace Canyon dams heading south, providing power to the folks in the Lower Mainland here so they can turn their lights on at night; in addition to the natural gas pipeline that's coming down here, providing the natural gas that everybody needs to keep their homes warm down here; in addition to the lumber that's being cut from the 80 million to 90 million cubic metres of wood coming from the interior of the province and shipped down to places like the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island to keep all our citizens happy down here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whereas the people in the north, in the rural areas of the province…. We rely on the urban centres. The urban centres play a valuable role in British Columbia, in servicing British Columbia and providing a lot of the amenities for us. But the people in rural British Columbia have a greater idea of what's going on globally, or what's going on within the province of British Columbia, because they

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come down here on a fairly regular basis — or quite often.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You will all have read the white paper, so you will be familiar with these principles. I don't repeat them for the purpose of taking up time but, instead, to highlight the

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essence of the government's justification for protecting these ridings and to build the case for this House to consider an alternative.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dispersion is different from density. Population dispersion is a measure of the degree of population scatter around a region,

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

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

[1545]

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

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

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

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

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

C. Trevena: I've found it very interesting to sit here and listen as the debate progresses and people are talking, particularly on the other side of the House, about how hard it is to represent a rural riding — how difficult it is, what expansive geography you've got to cover, and

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so on and so on. There is actually almost an arrogance that has come on that side, as if they are the people who own rural B.C. They may owe a lot to rural B.C. for what they've taken away from the rural communities, but they most certainly don't own it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The coastal seats, which aren't in this ring fencing, have been held by the NDP for some time and are traditionally opposition seats. I really have a sense that they are trying in two ways to do…. One is to hold certain areas that could be challenged and, secondly, to create this strange story that they may be the defenders.

Whereas we are looking just for urban B.C. and those people in the cities, they are the ones who are standing up there for rural B.C.

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

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

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

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answer questions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[D. Horne in the chair.]

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

For the record, I want to state unequivocally that I am for rural representation. I believe in democracy, and I oppose gerrymandering. That's what this government

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is trying to do with this bill. It is trying to gerrymander electoral boundaries for its own political gain, and there is no way that I will rise and su