Hon. David Newman (Deputy Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, would you please call Bill 2 for third reading.

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Madam Speaker, I rise to put on the record some comments regarding Bill 2 and the election process, the way we divide ourselves up in this province to represent the best way possible the people of Manitoba. The people of Manitoba, after all, send us here to reflect their views, and this is an important step. It always is an important step for us as legislators to organize ourselves in such a fashion that we can best reflect the views of Manitobans.

Madam Speaker, it is my belief that we, not specifically we here in the Legislature, but that in the final analysis the legislation that we here in the Legislature pass needs to reflect, as well as we can, several things, several criteria that I think are very important. One obviously is population. Tradition, not only in Canada but in the system by which we govern ourselves throughout the British Commonwealth and other parts of the world, has been based, not entirely but at least in part, on the system of representation by population. Now, representation by population was something that was very important decades and even centuries ago when the population did not have much representation from the people who were making laws and rules that affected the population. So there was quite a move centuries ago to move away from the monarch, as an example, making rules on behalf of the population, or from a feudal lord making rules that affected the population.

Madam Speaker, at that time there was a very great need to make the political system and our system of governance based on something other than the very few governing the very many. So I would suggest that most of us on both sides of the House, if we were legislators centuries ago, would have been fighting for representation by population. I would have. It seems to me that it was a good move in the evolution of democracy to go from a system where very few people govern over the very many people in any country. So that is one basis upon which we divide ourselves up in this Legislature to represent the people of the province of Manitoba.

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I would suggest, along with that, Madam Speaker, that the concept of representation by population needs to be tempered somewhat by other factors. One of those factors, and I would suggest the most important factor that we need to keep in mind whenever we pass legislation in this House having to do with the boundaries, is the very important concept of geography.

It is no secret to members of this House that some parts of our province are much more densely populated than others. As you travel around the province of Manitoba, the sparsity of the population in some parts of Manitoba is very significant. That presents very much a challenge for some of us in this House who represent very large geographical ridings. Distance is another one of these concepts that I think we must consider whenever we pass legislation having to do with boundaries in the province of Manitoba.

Madam Speaker, when I think of geography and some of the problems that poses in representing Manitobans, I cannot help but think of a riding in which I used to live. That riding is Rupertsland. Of course, when I lived in Rupertsland, it was much smaller than what it is today. When I lived and taught school in Norway House in the early and mid-1980s, there was another riding in the area called Churchill.

What happened in the wisdom of those that have been here before me and in the wisdom of the recommendations of a previous boundaries commission was that the North was reduced. The north part of our province was reduced by one seat, and we saw the evaporation of Churchill. We saw the Churchill riding being amalgamated or moved in with the constituency of Rupertsland.

This is where, Madam Speaker, some debate could occur between those who steadfastly believe in representation by population, a concept which on its own merit does have a lot of significance, but on the other hand we have the concept of geography and distance that I think need to be considered in order to produce a riding in which we can at least have a hope of representing Manitobans, especially in those northern ridings of Rupertsland and the former riding of Churchill.

I think this Boundaries Commission had before it the opportunity to rectify what I see as an issue which lessens any MLA's opportunity to serve people in the North. This Boundaries Commission, I think, had an opportunity before it. Instead, what is presented to us is a situation in which some of the boundaries in the North have been changed around, have been moved somewhat, but I think this was an opportunity–

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I wonder if I might ask for the indulgence of the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers). Regrettably, in some confusion here, the motion was not moved, so we will stop the clock and restart it for the member.

Hon. David Newman (Deputy Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would like to move, seconded by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. Render), that Bill 2, The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les circonscriptions J lectorales, be now read a third time and passed.

Mr. Struthers: Do I have 40 minutes now, or do I have–

An Honourable Member: I want to compare your first speech with your second one.

Mr. Struthers: Oh, no. Madam Speaker, for the sake of the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), I will try to recap fairly quickly what I have said previously on this matter.

An Honourable Member: That is okay. We heard you the first time.

Mr. Struthers: Maybe then the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Cummings) could help me out as I attempt to recap what I have already put on record.

Madam Speaker, representation by population is something that is a concept that is accepted throughout democracies of the world, but at the same time it is my belief that other concepts such as geography, other factors such as distance, need to be taken into account when we deal with legislation in which we change the boundaries of our constituencies because, after all, the constituencies are that unit, that very basic unit that we use to form democracy in this Legislature. It, in a way, is a guarantee that Manitobans will be fairly represented in this House, this House, after all, which is the House in which we make the laws and the rules and the regulations by which Manitobans are governed, and that is important. That is a very important job.

We must do everything that we can to make sure that Manitobans have as much say, as much input as they possibly can into their own governance because, when the struggle to obtain representation by population occurred, the people who were being governed did not have much say at all. As a matter of fact, in many cases they had very little say. As a result, in many instances in the past, if someone was to look through their history books, they would see that one of the very few options available for people being governed by a small elite was to take up arms, was to resort to violence. In some cases they were successful and in some cases they were not. In some cases, they overthrew the monarch or the feudal lord or whoever it was that was imposing his will on the many.

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In other cases, the governing elite, mostly through control of the military, mostly through intimidation, were able to fend off the masses, were able to fend off the people who were being governed. Usually what happened was the leaders of the group that was protesting and trying to overthrow the small group of an elite ended up facing dire consequences, years of imprisonment, torture and, sometimes, in the end, death, because they were standing up for what they believed in because they were representing people who were not being represented in a fair, egalitarian way.

Now, I am not going to suggest for one minute that that is where we are headed in this province because of the debate that may or may not occur on this bill, but it does I think place in some kind of context the importance of the concepts which we debate here in this House. I believe that proposals being made through this legislation are absolutely fundamental to the operation of our democracy here in Manitoba. Manitobans have some guarantees that they will be democratically represented in government. One of the guarantees is by electing people of integrity and honesty to positions, electing people who will do as they say they will do and then watching those people when they are in government and then deciding after a period of time, in our case four or five years, whether or not these were actually honest people of integrity. We do that through elections in this province.

Another way in which Manitobans have guarantees is to look at what we have in writing, what we have accepted in this legislation, the acts that we pass in this legislation, the bills that formulate the opinions of Manitobans. That, Madam Speaker, is a guarantee, because it is written down. The debates are recorded in Hansard. The final bills are voted upon, accepted, given Royal Assent, proclaimed, and then kept here on record, kept in the Legislature, kept in public places where people can go and check out what we here in the Legislature have passed. That is another guarantee.

There were several things that struck me as I considered the Boundaries Commission's work this summer and its reports over the course of the fall, the maps that they produced, some of the rationale for changing the maps, and, of course, Madam Speaker, the first criterion that was considered by the Boundaries Review Commission was the census, the most up-to-date census that was available to them. Based on that census, the original map, a first draft map, was put together. That first map was based primarily, I suggest, on the population data that was collected through the 1996 census.

Now, that map, that first draft, did not contain the advice of Manitobans. I am not being critical of that, Madam Speaker. I am pointing out that that is the process, because after that first map was compiled the Boundaries Commission travelled throughout Manitoba and collected the opinions of Manitoba and considered the first draft map that they had compiled.

Well, Madam Speaker, I was not being critical before, but I will attempt to be somewhat critical of that part of the process. I was not very happy that the commission toured the province for a short period of time in the summer months when I do not think they received from the people of Manitoba all the advice they could have if they had approached the people of Manitoba at a different time of the year. I think the process could have been much better if the commission could have either extended its time and gone to more communities over a longer period of time or if they had indeed started earlier with their public hearings.

Madam Speaker, I think it is absolutely imperative that when a commission is drawing and redrawing the constituency maps of Manitoba, that they go to the communities in which they are proposing significant change. As an example, one of the changes that was put forth in the first map was a move that would have seen the community of Cross Lake taken out of the riding of The Pas and moved into the riding of Thompson. It was my suggestion at the time that since that is a significant sized community in the North and that the change that the commission was suggesting was a significant change, that they should go and talk with the people of Cross Lake to see how that was going to affect the people of Cross Lake. It seemed to me to make sense. That did not happen.

I also thought–and I am speaking a little closer to home here–that the commission should have taken a trip down No. 5 highway from Dauphin to Roblin and I think would have heard from more Roblin people as to what those folks would like to see happen with their community in terms of where their town would be in the overall constituencies map. I think that would have been a good, positive suggestion, so I made that suggestion, but that did not happen either, Madam Speaker.

I want to also point out that I think we do not value enough the factor of geography and the factor of distance when we redraw the boundaries for the province of Manitoba. When I lived in Norway House, it was a totally different experience than what I had been used to living up in other parts of rural Manitoba and rural Saskatchewan. As someone who played a little bit of hockey, I remember the days when you could load up the 13- and 14-year-old hockey players in a bus, drive 20 minutes down the road and be at another little town which had a hockey team and play your game and be done and back home all in the course of an afternoon. That, Madam Speaker, is absolutely impossible when you coach a hockey team or play on a hockey team in communities such as Norway House.

Now, that illustrates the differences from one part of our province to the next, as I am sure you would be told if you asked the MLA representing Rupertsland. He would tell you the difficulties he has and any MLA would have representing what I believe is either the largest or one of the largest provincial ridings in the country. Not only is it difficult in terms of its size, but it is difficult because one community to the next is so far apart. It is also difficult because one community to the next does not have a highway or a gravel road or much of any kind of a transportation system other than chartering an expensive plane or in some cases going by boat or in some cases by skidoo from one community to the next.

That is a huge difference from my constituency of Dauphin or from any of the constituencies that fall within the Perimeter Highway. I think that members on both sides of the House understand that. I think it is absolutely clear that some of the members of this House have huge ridings and great difficulty, greater than some of us who are actually quite lucky to represent smaller, more accessible ridings.

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I think that is understood by both sides of this House. I think we ought to do something about it. I would have loved to have seen that recognized by the report of the Boundaries Review Commission and would love to see it recognized by re-establishing a fifth northern seat. I think there is a need for it. I think it is justified. I think there is a rationale to ensure that another seat is added to the North in order to better represent the people living in the northern section of our province. Indeed, Madam Speaker, that is allowed for in the legislation. It is allowed for if the Boundaries Commission accepts the 25 percent variance that is allowed through the legislation for northern communities.

That is not just dreamed up, Madam Speaker. That is not just something that is thrown into the mix just for the fun of it. There is compelling rationale to allow a 25 percent variance. As a matter of fact, I was quite amazed that when you looked at the populations of the original map that was drawn, that a northern seat, namely Thompson, ended up being the largest seat in the whole province–a northern seat the largest in the whole province, and we are supposed to be talking in terms of a 25 percent variance for northern seats. That is opposite. Those two realities are absolutely incongruent. You cannot have both in the same report.

After hearing from the public and after reconsideration, there were some changes made. We still have a long way to go in that regard, Madam Speaker. I fully believe that we should be moving toward a 25 percent variance for northern ridings.

Another good example is the constituency of Flin Flon. I have had the opportunity to join my colleague from Flin Flon and travel around different parts of his riding, bounce in on that road from Thompson to Leaf Rapids. I get a taste of what the MLA for Flin Flon and previous MLAs for Flin Flon go through in attempting to do the best job they can of representing their constituents. It is my contention that we should do what we can to help those MLAs do an even better job of representing their constituents. I do not want to have constituents underrepresented. I do not want to have issues and concerns go unaddressed because we have loaded up too much on northern MLAs, and this was true years ago as well as today.

The other factor that I think we need to keep in mind when we deal with the Boundaries Commission and their reports and the redrawing of our constituencies is the data that we use to make these important decisions. It seems to me that there was a discrepancy between the data compiled by the review commission which relied on the census figures from 1996 and the information that we receive from many bands and chiefs and their councils of the many First Nations in the North who believe that their numbers were higher, who believe that the numbers that they had on their band lists were accurate and were higher than the numbers being used to determine the boundaries and the constituencies by which we organize ourselves here in the Legislature.

I think, Madam Speaker, that discrepancy is worth looking into, because if we are making decisions without the best, most complete, most accurate data, if we are making our decisions based on that, then we are not coming up with the best possible decisions that we can. I think it is incumbent upon us; I think we are obligated to do that. I think we are obligated to get it right. If a substantial portion of our population is saying that they do not believe that the most accurate information is being used to make determinations on something as important as democracy, then I think we have to take that seriously. I think we have to review the way in which we compile the data to be used to make these decisions.

I want to say that I am fully in favour of having the commission operate at an arm's-length distance, if not longer than arm's length, from those of us here in the Legislature whose input is quite properly being put forth as we debate the legislation. One of the strengths of the process that I observed over the course of last year or so is that it was done at some distance from the legislators, from the politicians, from those of us who now will be out campaigning in these constituencies and attempting to represent the constituents to the best of our abilities.

Madam Speaker, the one complaint I have in that area is that it took so long for this government to bring forth the legislation that we are debating here today in the Legislature. I was very disappointed that it took as long as it did for this government to introduce in this House legislation based on the report of a commission that was to be arm's length from us here in the Legislature. What the government did was shorten up that arm's length quite a bit in my opinion.

I think the government should have had us back in the Legislature before Christmas to debate this legislation. I think the government played some politics. I think the government played some politics by taking so long in introducing this legislation. I think we should have done it a long time ago. I think we did not get a chance to debate it in the House, because the government was in some hot water on other issues, namely, the Monnin inquiry, health care, education, agriculture, all those issues that it did not really want to face any questions on here in the Legislature.

As a result, this government stalled the democratic process. This government stalled the democratic process for its own political gain. I think that was wrong. I think every 10 years we have an opportunity to redraw the maps to reflect Manitoba better and that we had our opportunity this time, and the government dragged its feet on bringing this legislation in, tainting the process at the same time.

The other issue that is very important with the Boundaries Review Commission is the actual composition of the Review Commission. There were three people who came to Dauphin representing the commission, three very intelligent, I think, very capable people; three people who are committed to putting together a fair boundary map for us to use here in the Legislature; three people who are committed to providing Manitobans with as good a democratic process as we can. So I have nothing against the three people who performed this duty. Madam Speaker, I just do not think there were enough of them.

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I think somebody from rural Manitoba should have been on that commission. I think that somebody from rural Manitoba who has lived in rural Manitoba, raised a family in rural Manitoba, participated in the community events that take place throughout rural Manitoba, can offer to the commission another perspective, a rural perspective. I think that that person could make the Boundaries Review Commission and the whole process a whole lot better. It seems to me we have had that opportunity. We could have done this already. We had 10 years since the last Boundaries Review Commission which used basically the same three positions–not people, but positions–last time, 10 years ago, as we used this time, 1989 to 1999. We had the chance to do that. We could have added a rural person to the Boundaries Review, to the commission itself. I think that would have been an improvement of the process.

I think so. I also believe that everything I just said–[interjection] For the sake of the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), no one, as far as I am concerned, has ever decided to put an MLA on the Boundaries Review Commission. No one has ever decided that. Now, if the member for Inkster is in favour of something like that, he can stand up and he can say so. I am not going to put words in the member for Inkster's mouth. He can do that himself.

But everything I said just now about a rural person on the Boundaries Review Commission, you can say again and substitute in the word "north." If you put somebody from northern Manitoba on this commission, you will enhance the workings of this commission, and I think you will come up with better recommendations. I think you will put somebody on that commission who understands the problems associated with representing northern ridings. I think you will put somebody on that commission who understands the nuances. I use the word "nuance," but you know nuances might be too smooth a word to indicate the challenges that face rural MLAs in this Legislature.

Somebody from the North, for example, would understand the shopping patterns of northerners, the paths that are beaten down between which two communities rather than being fairly arbitrary and dividing up the map without that kind of information. You can take the hard data that you have got and any census you like. Even if you want to take the hard data available if somebody actually did consider the roles from the band councils, take all that hard data, and you can divide up the map how you like, but if you do not have somebody on that review who understands how the North works, or understands how rural Manitoba works, I think you are missing something.

I also believe that somebody should make the recommendation that an aboriginal person be included on the review, that an aboriginal person represent aboriginal people on this commission. Again that, I believe, would enhance the workings and enhance the final output of this commission. Again, Madam Speaker, we do not appoint people to these commissions, we appoint through institutions. What would be wrong with putting in legislation that the Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs be appointed to the Boundaries Review Commission so that 10 years down the road, when we go through this process again, we will know that aboriginal people will be represented in this process?

How many aboriginal communities did the Boundaries Review Commission visit to get input on something as important as how we divide ourselves up into constituencies? We have to be doing things that includes people, that includes northerners and includes aboriginal people, that includes those of us who live in rural Manitoba.

Again, I want to draw your attention to another aspect of the commission's job that I think they forgot about. I have mentioned a 25 percent variance that is available to the Boundaries Commission in northern Manitoba. There is a 10 percent variance available for constituencies that fall into rural Manitoba as well. There are some rural constituencies that are very large. I need only point to the constituency of Swan River which, under the new arrangements, will be almost as much a northern seat as a rural one. I point to Roblin-Russell, a very large constituency from Boggy Creek in the North along the Saskatchewan border and the Riding Mountains, right down to Hamiota, Miniota. That is a huge riding. Now, some changes have been proposed to that riding which I understand make it slightly smaller, but it is still going to be a challenge for the current member, the Minister for Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), or the next member after the next election. It is going to be a challenge. There are some huge ridings in rural Manitoba.

The other thing I want to point out, Madam Speaker, we will stick to the Roblin-Russell riding or the new Russell riding and just take–I am sure the Minister of Rural Development will agree with me on this–another challenge for any MLA in that riding is that not only is it a fairly large riding but there are little communities spread out right through that riding from north to south and east to west.

I wonder how many MLAs know where the community of Menzies is.

An Honourable Member: The community of who?

Mr. Struthers: Menzies, a small little community that deserves to be represented just as much as Winnipeg, Dauphin, Brandon and the rest of them. But Menzies is a little community right in the middle of the new Russell constituency.

An Honourable Member: It is Menzie, not Menzies.

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Mr. Struthers: You can drive along the highway right past Menzie–thank you–and it would be very tempting to keep driving right along to a bigger community where you are going to talk to more people, but the people of Menzie need to be represented.

The people in Olha need to be represented, and that is just a district. It might be tempting not to do that. It might be tempting not to drive out to Olha, but I would imagine that any conscientious MLA would include that in the list of communities to go and visit and check out with people the concerns. What that means for an MLA is that you need to spend a lot of time on the road. You need to spend a lot of time commuting from one small community in one small district to the next. You can go to some of the communities in the constituency of Dauphin, for example, spend your whole day knocking on doors, and not cover one floor of an apartment in the city of Winnipeg. Those are differences that we have to try to reflect when we put forth our legislation. Those are things we have to remember, and those are things that were allowed for in this 10 percent variance that rural constituencies are allowed.

Again, it is not just something that is made up. It is not just something that is there for political reasons to try to keep us rural people happy. There is a rationale for it. It is an acknowledgment that there are challenges in rural ridings. It is an acknowledgment that we here in the Legislature are taking steps to improve the representation of rural people. I think it makes sense. I think a 10 percent variance is totally reasonable. I think we should draw our maps and set up our constituencies to reflect that 10 percent variance. We have that opportunity. We had 10 years to do this. This government chose not to. We have not done it in the last 10 years. I think we have a chance now over the next 10 years to move forward with some of these ideas. I think it is a chance to move forward with our commitment to rural and northern Manitoba and it is a chance for us to move forward with our commitment to the best possible representation for rural and northern Manitoba.

Having said that, Madam Speaker, I very much look forward to this bill passing. I very much look forward to competing in an election based on the new boundaries. The many changes proposed for the Parkland Region of Manitoba I think are good ones. I believe that they represent an improvement in my chances as an MLA in representing as many people as possible. But what I think we have to break ourselves away from is that feeling that you can simply take the 1.1 million-or-so people in Manitoba, divide them by 57, which is the number of constituencies, come up with an average and then have every constituency come as close as possible to that average. I think what we end up having is a province with 57 ridings that do not reflect the local flavour, the local nature of our constituencies. I think you end up with constituencies that less reflect the people of Manitoba rather than accurately reflect the make-up of Manitoba and the people of Manitoba.

Madam Speaker, what we would get when we simply divide the province into 57 pieces is something that is far less adequate, something that is far less reflective. I think we end up with constituencies that are unable to take into consideration the differences that we all know exist from one constituency to the next. On the other hand, I do understand that you do not want to have a situation in which there are huge differences in population either, and that is not what I have been arguing for. I do not want to have people think that we can have two extremes when it comes to constituencies as well. I do not want to be arguing to make rural ridings so small that in order to maintain 57 in the province that some other seats are huge when it comes to population, and that would not be an acceptable situation either. That is why I am not a fan of one extreme position or another. I think what you need to do is find a reasonable position somewhere between having huge and small ridings based on population and on the other hand having huge and small ridings based on geography.

I think everybody understands that. I think people are starting to understand how important geography is when we organize our constituencies in Manitoba I think everyone understands the challenges that are faced by some of the member of this House when it comes to the size and the distance involved in northern and rural ridings. So I want to just conclude quickly by saying that I look forward to these boundaries being passed through, and I hope that many of the recommendations made during this debate will form the basis of this legislation that would help guide Manitobans and the commission for their next round of census and next round of boundary review.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): Madam Speaker, I choose this opportunity to put a few comments on Bill 2 at third reading. They will only be brief. I commend the commission and its work. Some of my colleagues, members of the House will recall, I think, when it was introduced for second reading that the Premier, First Minister (Mr. Filmon) did make note of the event. For me, as a rural person and as Minister of Agriculture, there is something noteworthy in these recommendations. That is that probably in the first time since this legislation has been enacted, in the early '50s, by the then Liberal Premier of this province, Mr. D. L. Campbell, for the very first time rural and northern Manitoba have not lost a seat.

That is not a comment that is meant to be taken out of context by my friends from the Capital Region, the greater city of Winnipeg; it just reflects the demographics of our province. But it is significant for, I know, my colleague the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), significant for me. In fact, if I can inject a small partisan note, I suspect, on the hustings, I may even want to make some politics out of it: that our policies with respect to rural Manitoba are bearing fruit; that the policies of decentralization that were entered into right at the outset of this government with respect to the public service have added to slowing down the decline in some parts of the rural population move and in some parts of rural Manitoba actually seeing it grow. So it is worthwhile commenting on that about the bill that we are about to pass.

Madam Speaker, I do want to put a few comments on the record because I am troubled by what we are doing. I listened to the government House leader (Mr. Praznik). I listened to the honourable member that just spoke. I listened to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer). We are, obviously, passing a piece of legislation that Her Majesty's official opposition has expressed some considerable concern about, and they have reason to express that concern. I happen to share a lot of that concern. I happen to believe that geography and other aspects of representation need to be taken, and could have been taken, into greater consideration by this Boundaries Commission, but we are being hoisted on our own petard to some extent because you have to remember we as lawmakers have lost sight in this building of what our responsibility is.

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Our responsibility was simply to report the findings of the commission to this Chamber. There was no obligation on the part of this, or any other government, to accept those recommendations, but because of the rhetoric of the times, because of the fear that perhaps this government would take what some might have conceived as unfair advantage on running on the existing boundaries, the troops came in, political scientists from the academe world. Professor Schwartz said it would be immoral, illegal, everything, to run on the old boundaries. The CBC even told them that; the Leader for the Liberal Party and, yes, the official opposition chimed in too: It would be a dreadful, terrible thing to run on the old boundaries. What utter nonsense. That is just simply forgetting who we are.

We are the lawmakers. Read The Electoral Boundaries Act. The Electoral Boundaries Act clearly says to the government of the day: You shall receive this as information and table it in the House, which our First Minister (Mr. Filmon) did, at the earliest possible opportunity.

You recall that we only got the information December 18, but we got ourselves all in such a frenzy about this that, of course, now we have to pass the legislation, and we are. We will pass it. There is nothing wrong with it, but the points that were made by the opposition that reflect on the difficulties of representation in those massive northern seats are valid ones. The reflection that other members have made to take into greater consideration the difficulties in rural constituencies that are ever increasing, and the fact that the legislation specifically allows for some elbow room, 10 percent, 25 percent, those are all very valid comments.

Madam Speaker, you see, there was no particular pressure. One would have thought that that kind of pressure might well have come from members opposite during these past 10 years. I think the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) said it best. An error, if an error was made, was in accepting the last go-around, where the commission seriously moved away from using its opportunities of having those built-in conditions taken into fuller consideration, that is, the 25 percent leeway in the northern seats, the 10 percent in rural seats.

But, Madam Speaker, I just could not help but remind ourselves from time to time that let us not forget our specific responsibilities here and let us not be cowed or coerced into taking action that really is uncalled for. If there was a desire right now at third reading that this is not the kind of legislation that we want to pass, then we do not pass it. There is nothing immoral, and there is nothing illegal about that.

I know full well that that is not going to happen. Members opposite have indicated that they are supporting the bill. Members of the Liberal Party have been in a frenzy about moving this bill forward, and we as a government are obviously bringing this bill in as a measure to be passed. But it is a lesson for us to recall and to remind ourselves very clearly of what specifically the legislation says. The legislation called on us to introduce this measure into the House which we have done. The House is dealing with it, and I certainly will be supporting the bill.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Madam Speaker, I welcome this chance at third reading to put a few remarks on this particular bill, which is of importance, I think, to all members of the Legislature. I was interested to hear the comments of the previous speaker, I think the longest-serving member of this Legislature, and I do wonder what the connection is between the particular speech and ideas that he presented and those of his House leader at the beginning–

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Ms. Friesen: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was simply musing on the contrast between the comments that the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns) just put on the record about this bill–certainly, they are worthy of consideration, but they do seem to me to be quite different both in tone and intent from the way in which his House leader preceded at the beginning of this session.

Nevertheless, I would like to thank the members of the commission, the three main members of the commission appointed by statute, and also the many staff whom they employed and perhaps still employ as we move into an election period, because there is a great deal of work that is attendant upon any kind of commission of this nature. It is one that requires travel. It requires work in at least two languages, and it is one that requires a great deal of listening, of study, of drawing of boundaries, of testing out of certain kinds of assumptions, and one where I think staff are particularly important and very much relied upon by commissioners who also have active and important responsibilities elsewhere.

It is an important task, of course, for all members of the House. It is an important task for all Manitobans, because the task that they are set of essentially drawing boundaries is one also of creating communities. We may think of boundaries simply as lines on a map, but it is much more than that. It is a way of creating a political community. As one redraws a boundary, one also sometimes moves people into communities where they may not feel comfortable. You try in effect to create another kind of sense of community, and every commission that tries to do this, I think, faces difficulties, faces problems of incorporating old loyalties and new realities.

I remember the Norrie commission report faced many of these, and, as I am sure most such commissions do, it employed a geographer. I think the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) made reference to this as well. This is one of the things that geographers do. They are the people who draw boundaries, who reflect upon the nature of community, who look at the lines of communication within a community, and I particularly remember the Norrie commission. I have always said it was one of the best written reports I have ever seen. It certainly had some very well laid-out fundamental explanations of how change had come about in education funding and in education divisions within Manitoba.

Politically, it was a different question. I do not want to go into that here, but I certainly commend that report. I remember that the report also spoke about the difference between lines on the map and the mental maps that people hold. This was certainly true, I think, when people came to respond to the Norrie commission, just as it was when they came to respond to this commission. People spoke about their allegiance to certain kinds of communities, and they spoke about it in terms not just of shifting one community out of Dauphin and into Roblin-Russell or vice versa, but they spoke about it, too, in terms of the names that were given to them. Names and naming of communities also have great significance to people. So people in Manitoba, I think, spoke on this to the commission, and the commission in some situations also changed this. I commend them for that, for listening to a number of the—or at least responding to a number of the delegations that were brought before them.

The drawing of boundaries is not just an issue, of course, for Manitobans; it is one that faces communities around the world. If we look today at what is happening in Kosovo, what happened in Croatia, what happened in Slovenia and even in Czechoslovakia in the last decade, what we have seen, in fact, is a whole redrawing of a map and the creation of new kinds of communities. Whether we agree with them or not, it is a series of communities which have been created out of war, in some cases out of language, in some cases out of religion, in some cases out of forms of communication, of changed means of communication which allowed new kinds of communities to be formed, many of them based upon historical loyalties and linguistic loyalties that go back to the 12th or 13th Century.

In Canada we face similar kinds of divisions. Probably in Canadian history, the ones that we have faced most significantly have been those between Lower Canada and Upper Canada at the turn of the 18th Century and the redrawing of the boundaries in 1774 and again in the 1840s as people tried to come to grips with the issue of the maintenance of a strong French-Canadian, a strong Quebec community, as well as the principle, the growing democratic principle throughout the 19th Century of representation by population. From 1774 right through until 1867, in fact, Canadians in what is present-day Ontario and Quebec grappled with those issues. They formed political parties around those issues. They debated those issues; they created parallel leaderships of Baldwin and LaFontaine basically out of those issues, the desire to retain community, to give strength to both parts of an English and French Canada but also to give acknowledgment and to give support to the growing definition of democracy as representation by population.

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After 1867, of course, the same issues come into play, as we look at the creation of an Upper House in the federal government and the debate here in Manitoba as well as elsewhere over the presence of an Upper House and a different kind of representation across the province. As Manitoba, too, came into confederation, we look at the kind of province that the resistance of Louis Riel tried to form.

Riel had hoped for a larger province; he had hoped for a province which would be hospitable and would represent the homeland of both English-speaking and French-speaking mixed-blood peoples not only of Red River but of St. Laurent and of the Saskatchewan country as well. Through his resistance, he was, in fact, able to achieve a province which did have a kind of democracy, which did have a number of political constituencies in the Red River Valley based largely on the old historic alliances of the parishes of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.

He was unsuccessful, however, in creating the larger province, the larger Manitoba that he had anticipated. Instead, we got a postage-stamp province; we got a very narrowly defined Manitoba, one, in fact, which excluded Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba. The postage-stamp province's boundaries did not even go up to the southern edge of Lake Winnipeg. That certainly was a very narrow definition of the history of Manitoba in the 1870s, and it was one way, of course, in which the federal government retained responsibility but also the authority for natural resources over the much larger Northwest Territories.

So boundaries for Manitoba have always been significant from the initial times of the European legal settlement of Manitoba. But populations do change, and just as we have seen new boundaries and new communities, political communities, created across Manitoba over the 19th and 20th centuries, so in recent years we have also seen a considerable shift in populations around the province. Although the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), the previous speaker, made reference to his pride in the growing rural population and attributed it to the policies of his government, we should also look in fact to the depopulation of western Manitoba, all along the western edge of the province, north to south, tremendous depopulation.

Yes, indeed, there has been an increase, and a very welcome increase, both through migration as well as through immigration in southern Manitoba. We certainly welcome and applaud that too, but it is a shift of population. Overall the population of Manitoba has not been expanding certainly at the rate of provinces like Alberta, British Columbia, or even Ontario.

So, Madam Speaker, populations do change, occupations change, the focus of communities change. Particularly, and this is one point the Norrie commission was very strong on and put very well, that as technologies have changed, both telephone and roads in the 19th Century, certainly railways, the opportunity for creating new kinds of communities has also changed, patterns of marketing changed, the shopping areas of rural Manitoba in particular do change as some communities disappear and others take on a kind of rural node responsibility.

So all of those things have changed, and the Manitoba Legislature over the years has put in place a nonpartisan approach to dealing with this. Now, not all provinces have done that. I think the Manitoba Legislature over the last years, all parts of the House, should be congratulated for the kind of nonpartisan system which people have put in place and in which, in general, the people of Manitoba have great confidence. It is all well for the Legislature to pass a particular law but to develop a system and to have a series of experiences of this type of legislative commission in which people have confidence is another matter. I think that is something which on the whole has happened and which is important for us to identify and to recognize.

I said at the beginning that the people of Manitoba certainly recognize their political communities. In some cases, even though they recognize the loss of population, there is a dislocation which comes with changes of name and changes of boundaries. Political communities, as are social and communities of mentalité, also take on particular characteristics. I was looking recently at a thesis from the political science department which talked about the identification by place of particular kinds of voting patterns so that even though the composition, the actual social and political composition of an area might change, in fact there are studies which show, and with Canadian experience, that the actual sense of a place, whether it is north end, west end, or St. Boniface, for example, there is a sense of place in which when people move into it, they have a sense that there is a political identity and a particular political pattern of voting which has emerged in conjunction with that place. That was a whole new area for me. It was not something of a kind of literature which I had been exposed to before, and it seemed to me very applicable and helped to understand a little some of the reactions to any kind of boundary commission, including the one we have just seen in Manitoba.

In the case of my own riding, Madam Speaker, the commission has extended the boundaries of Wolseley to the west end north of Portage, and I do not particularly want to comment on the rightness or the wrongness of this. The commission has reported. We are now debating the nature of that report and the possibilities for change in the electoral boundary process. It does include the west end, and it is still very much an inner city riding in which it will be possible, and I say this to my rural colleagues, it still will be possible to walk this riding in a day. A lot more houses, a lot more walkup apartments, because my riding as an inner city riding had lost–I think, it was down over 11 percent. There are a number of reasons for that loss of population, and some of them do affect the nature of the discussion we are having today. One of the reasons for that, of course, is the transition in some parts of the riding from duplexes to single family housing, but that in itself could not account for the loss of over 11 percent of population.

In my view, there are two other reasons which are very important for the loss of it, and one is very clearly a political reason. It is the abandonment of the inner city by this government and by the declining housing and by the decline in many elements of healthy communities in parts of the riding. So a loss of population to the suburbs, I think, is there and one that has been experienced by other parts of the inner city as well.

But also I would say one of the difficulties facing any inner city constituency is the difficulty of actual enumeration. This Boundaries Commission, like any other commission looking at population, has to use the numbers of the Canada census. Both on reserves and in the inner city, I think, member after member of this Legislature will tell you that those communities were undercounted, that many people were missed. When the census takers went through the inner city, I know that they had difficulty in getting admittance to many buildings; many of the three-storey walk-up apartments which are very common in my riding, in fact, quite a characteristic of it from around the period, about 1908 to 1914 is when most of them were built.

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Those apartments have become increasingly more secure so that unless you know the telephone number of somebody inside, and if any of the people you are visiting, in fact, do have a telephone number, then you have great difficulty in getting admission to that building even on a second call or on a third call. That is a very common phenomenon through the inner city, and I think that is one of the difficulties that the census takers faced, and we saw it when we looked at the permanent voters' list in the federal election. I have made a number of comments in this House about the inadvisability of the province taking the federal numbers as the gospel for the province because, in fact, in the inner city they were not representative of the nature of the numbers of the population.

Finally, in the inner city, of course, you have areas with very high mobility, people who will move two and three times a year in order to find better accommodation or because the lease changes or for a variety of reasons, or because they are moving back and forth to other communities in Manitoba. That mobility, of course, makes it also very difficult to maintain a good census and a good and accurate permanent voters' list, and that, too, affects the kinds of numbers which any commission such as this has to deal with.

But, Madam Speaker, people cared, I think, about a number of ridings in Manitoba and made strong representations to the commission, and the commission listened to them. They cared about the names of the boundaries; for example, Montcalm, although in terms of the commission's own research, it had a legitimacy in the actual use of that name by the city of Winnipeg.

It actually, I think, to most people in that area tended to mean the Montcalm, a place well known to many students, possibly well known to many members of this House, affectionately known at University College as the Monty and well known, I think, over quite a long period of time. It was not a political community; it was not a mental community; it was not a place to which people felt they had or could achieve some kind of allegiance. Similarly, I think, the loss of the name St. James, one of the historic parishes of Red River, the Parish of St. James, an English-speaking mixed-blood parish, goes back, of course, to the 1830s and 1840s, and people did not want to lose that name from the electoral, political community map of Manitoba.

So names are important, indeed, as any commissioner will find, and the actual drawing of the boundaries are important. I can agree it is a very difficult thing for any commission to accomplish this, and I am sure that the members of the commission and their staff learned a great deal about Manitoba and Manitobans as they did this. It is good process. It is an arm's-length process. It is one in which people have confidence, and it is a neutral process. But it can be improved, and I think what we learned from this particular round of changes is that there are a number of areas where members of this Legislature would look to improving the whole process.

I have heard, I have listened or read a number of the comments made by my colleagues on this side of the House, and it seems to me, Madam Speaker, that the possibilities for change, possibilities for improvement, come in a number of areas. Firstly, I think people have pointed to the membership of the commission. The three-member commission–the Chief Electoral Officer, the Chief Judge, and the president of the University of Manitoba–is one that has served for a number of terms of change now. It may indeed be the time now to look at expanding that to recognize that northern Manitoba, rural Manitoba, would like to have some representation on that commission which makes such a great difference to the political life of the community, as well as, in a sense to the way in which people see themselves and the way in which they represent themselves.

Secondly, I think we need to ensure that the census actually accurately represents the population of Manitoba. The band lists of the some of the aboriginal communities did not correspond, I understand, to the number of people who contemporarily were living in those communities. Similarly, in the inner city we have voiced many times in this House the difficulties that the limitations of that census have offered us.

I think also the timing of the commission itself, the timing of the hearings, is something which posed problems for some communities both aboriginal and for rural members. There was a very short window there for people to make representations, to actually hold the meetings and discussions which they would need to hold before making a commonly accepted presentation to members of the commission. I think in future both the timing and the extent of that need to be looked at. This is something which can be done over a relatively long period of time. We do have a formal process. It is not something which needs to be rushed. It is something which can afford to take the time to be more flexible on that and certainly to be aware of the importance of the timing of hearings.

I would say, finally, a number of the speeches that have been made in this House have spoken particularly to the issue of aboriginal representation, aboriginal representation on the commission itself and also the importance of holding hearings in aboriginal communities. I think that is particularly important not just in a practical sense but also in a symbolic sense. The history of the aboriginal vote in Manitoba is, I think, well, it is similar to Ontario's, but it is unlike that of Saskatchewan or British Columbia or Alberta.

In the first election in Manitoba in 1871, aboriginal people had the vote. They had the vote in the first federal election, as well. It was subsequently taken from them, and you will find this in the records of the Church Missionary Society. I assume they are also in the records of the federal government. They were asked to choose after that election, and, of course, what we are dealing with particularly is the Brokenhead Reserve and what is now called Sagkeeng, what was then called Fort Alexander, and at St. Peters, of course, which was the prime one and from where the correspondence emanated.

The St. Peters people did vote in those first elections, but the federal government then argued with them that they could either take treaty or they could vote, and they must choose. Now, these were people who already had the vote and had it taken from them. We might find similar ones actually in the federal elections of the 1880s on the Iroquois Reserve, where Sir John A. Macdonald did some extensions of the franchise in the 1880s to the Iroquois. Subsequently, I think, some of that was removed.

More generally speaking, the aboriginal vote is one which, of course, has come very late. Not only was it taken away in Manitoba, but then it was also not reinstated until the middle of this century. It was John Diefenbaker, the federal Conservative Prime Minister, who first gave the vote to aboriginal people at the federal level. It was, of course, Tommy Douglas, in Saskatchewan, who gave the first vote–and before Diefenbaker–at the provincial level. I think it was before your time, Jim. [interjection] The member for Arthur-Virden (Mr. Downey) invites me to tell him when his time was, and I am sure, Madam Speaker, it is coming. I am sure it is, and we will wait for it with bated breath, great anticipation.

However, Madam Speaker, the vote to aboriginal women, of course, came later, and in some provinces, Quebec and Newfoundland, was very late, much later than Manitoba's. So the enfranchisement of aboriginal people has come so late and, in some cases, so grudgingly to aboriginal people that I think anything which deals with electoral boundaries and with voting there is an important symbolism for any government to hold hearings in aboriginal communities and to report those hearings and to listen well to the presentations of aboriginal communities, to their mental maps of where they see themselves, of the kind of communities to which they are bound by ties of family, of language, kinship, as well as ties of communication. As we all know, and earlier members have spoken very extensively on the difficulties of travelling in rural and northern Manitoba and argued that there should be different criteria used both in the North and in rural Manitoba for the establishment of those sorts of constituencies.

With that, Madam Speaker, with thanks for the work of the commission and also a sense that there are some proposals that people have made in the House over the past days of debate that are worthy of consideration and ones that, I think, we will be looking at in the future. Thank you for this opportunity.

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Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of this legislation, which continues a long tradition of Manitoba to have depoliticized the process of setting boundaries. Having stated that, of course, I will support the legislation. That does not mean that I believe the process was without problems. I want to echo the words of many previous speakers who pointed out that the role of rural and, in particular, northern MLAs is an extremely arduous role.

Frankly, the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) is not just a person of great integrity and great ability as an MLA, he is a person of great courage. To travel continuously among the many communities he represents under very adverse weather conditions throughout Manitoba's seasons, it is not just an act of representing his constituencies, it is also often an act of courage because, as is common with people who fly in the North, often the conditions are less than favourable. So I believe that it is frankly wrong of the commission not to avail themselves of the opportunity of the legislation which would have allowed for small and northern seats.

While I commend the commission, in particular the president of the University of Manitoba, who I believe was genuinely moved by what she heard in Thompson–I commend them for making some adjustments between the preliminary map and the final map–nevertheless, I believe that the commission did not go nearly far enough in recognizing the unique difficulties of representing northern Manitoba.

I also want to speak about the process of dealing with the City of Winnipeg. It has long been my view that the City of Winnipeg is extremely backward when it comes to dealing with jurisdictional boundaries. We have witnessed, since the Unicity legislation of 1971, frequent and quite massive changes in municipal wards from an original 50 wards down to the current 15. It has meant that not only are the wards extremely large, but the numbers of people represented are not from the same components of the wards. In other words, the boundaries have not just been the amalgamation of three smaller wards but have cut across existing boundaries.

When you layer on top of that the recreation districts which see, for example, things like the Victoria Community Club in my area twinned with Lindenwoods with whom it has absolutely nothing in common–Lindenwoods and Victoria being part of not the Fort Garry area but the Charleswood area, from the point of view of recreation–Lindenwoods having schools that feed Charleswood, the Assiniboine South School Division, whereas Victoria kids go to Fort Garry School Division. You layer, on top of that, the federal and provincial boundaries, you have a situation where there is absolutely no continuity for citizens with their elected representation.

So I have long been of the view that there ought to be some hard work done to align school divisions, recreation divisions, urban municipality wards, provincial electoral divisions, and, of course, if it were possible it would be nice if there were some fit with the federal divisions, although that is probably impossible, but at least the first four are under the legislative control of this Assembly. I believe it would be a service to all of our citizens if we could do the hard work to allow there to be both stable and relatively co-terminus boundaries for all officials and for the most important services that affect our citizens' lives.

The second point about the city of Winnipeg is that I believe the older areas of the city, which are the areas that suffer some of the largest social problems and economic problems but also are the areas that are historically quite stable in population, should be the starting place for boundaries redistribution, not the final piece of the pie that gets cut up every time boundaries are redistributed every 10 years. I believe it was wrong to start with the suburbs and work into the core, that the principle ought to be that the older areas that are stable should have long-term representation that represents that community historically over time, much like in fact happens for the most part in rural communities who for the most part have some stability of their representation because their population has not shifted a lot.

In the city of Winnipeg, the older parts of the city of Winnipeg have been cut up into, I think, unacceptably small pieces and new constituency boundaries which makes it very difficult to provide effective representation when you cannot build the relationships with the community groups, the recreation groups, the school trustees that would allow you to work on those problems in a long-term way.

I believe that this Legislature should consider giving direction to future boundaries commissions that they ought to begin their deliberations and their population adjustments with the center of the city and work out, rather than with the suburbs and work in.

When I look at the situation in Crescentwood, where I am the current MLA–and Crescentwood, of course, disappears in the new boundaries–I had three different city councillors that I worked with, and yet each of those city councillors represented three times as many people as I did. I had two different school divisions and seven different school trustees. I had two different federal ridings. I had four recreation districts. So it was extremely difficult to develop a kind of identity of that community and what it would represent and how it would work together to solve its problems.

The third issue that I want to raise in the short time available this afternoon is the question of undercounting of lower income areas of big cities. This is a problem that has been well documented not just in Canada, but across North America and indeed, I think, is a problem around the world. Where there are people who are disproportionately poor or disproportionately mobile, traditional census techniques simply do not work. People get undercounted and, because they get undercounted, they get underrepresented.

I just give one case in point. In the Point Douglas area, if you look at the changes in Point Douglas on the basis of population shift as counted by Statistics Canada, it is about a 25 percent shift. If you look on the basis of the voters' list, it is about a 36 percent shift. In other words, the enumeration in Point Douglas is so bad that the enumeration has missed at least 11 percent of the people of Point Douglas, at the very least. We would argue that the census missed a very significant portion of people who live in Point Douglas. If you simply talk to the people who run both censuses and enumeration for election, they will tell you that it is extremely difficult to get enumerators. It is extremely difficult to get census people because it is difficult to gain access to many of the homes. It is difficult to find people at home.

I think anyone who has canvassed or campaigned in the inner city will tell you that it is very common for the electoral list to be less than 35 percent accurate. I can recall canvassing in apartment buildings in the inner city in the last federal election where there were no more than one-third of the names on the voters' list correct. Two-thirds of the names were incorrect on the federal voters' list. So the undercounting, underenumeration, undercensusing in the inner city means that it too is not properly represented in this House because, on a straight representation-by-population process, any area that is undercensused will be underrepresented. I believe that that is indeed the case.

I am also very concerned that we are moving in the direction of a permanent voters' list without a process to make sure that that voters' list does grow with time. The current federal list that was used in the city election of this past fall is so hopeless when it comes to the inner city that it is almost useless for canvassing purposes. It is simply drastically, drastically out of date and it undercounts. I went to a number of apartment buildings in the inner city where half of the suites were not on the list, let alone the people in them. So you would have a list that a 24-suite apartment building only had nine or 10 suites, let alone the fact that in those nine or 10 that were on the list, probably half the people were no longer there.

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What that means is that democracy gets weaker and weaker as those who have the most to lose feel themselves having the least voice because they are not there. They are not counted. Their votes do not count as much. Their boundaries change every time there is a change. They feel themselves to be pawns of the system. That breeds the kind of long-term contempt that was evident in the last American elections, for example, where fewer than 35 percent of eligible voters turned out in most of the big urban areas and, given the close result in the popular votes for the American presidency, less than 20 percent of the American people voted for the current president of the United States of America.

If we go the direction of permanent voters' lists and give up on the process of trying to fairly count our inner cities and fairly bring people onto the voters' list, we are simply moving down the trail of more and more alienation from a process which is the only thing that stands between us and totalitarianism as a society.

So I support the independent boundaries process. I think this process had much to be desired that was not accomplished. It was a shame, in my view, that the Boundaries Commission did not avail itself of the opportunity to travel to some northern communities other than Thompson.

Madam Speaker, with these remarks, I am pleased to support the legislation.

Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): I move, seconded by the honourable member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans), that debate be adjourned.

Hon. David Newman (Deputy Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, is there leave of the House to waive private members' hour?

Madam Speaker: Is there leave of the House to waive private members' hour? [agreed]

Mr. Newman: Madam Speaker, is it the will of the House to have recess for a few minutes?

Madam Speaker: Is there leave of the House to have a two-minute recess? [agreed]

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