Commentaire 349 – commentaires et rétroaction

Michael Huang

Dear Members of the Commission,

Thanks for providing the opportunities for public consultation regarding the proposed redistribution of federal electoral districts. I would like to discuss two issues related to the proposal for the Greater Toronto Area.

1. Toronto's Population change: Immigration data vs Census data.

The proposed plan will reduce the number of electoral districts in the City of Toronto by one, from current 25 to 24, and the proposed cut will full into Scarborough. In the proposal, the Commission notes that: "The population of Toronto grew by 6.9%, from 2,615,060 in 2011 to 2,794,356 in 2021. The remainder of Ontario grew by 11.7% in the same period."

This, of course, is based on data from the Census 2021 and 2011. The change of Toronto population is 2,794,356 - 2,615,060 = +179,296 , a number that was also echoed in a City of Toronto report.

As we know with many communities in Canada, immigration is the main driving force in population change, this is particularly true for the City of Toronto, which still remains the number one choice for many immigrants. So I went to the internet and check some immigration data.

As we know with many communities in Canada, immigration is the main driving force in population change, this is particularly true for the City of Toronto, which still remains the number one choice for many immigrants. So I went to the internet and check some immigration data.

The Ministry of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship of Canada routinely publishes their data, I took some data from this form: Permanent Residents – Monthly IRCC Updates - Canada - Admissions of Permanent Residents by Province/Territory, Census Division and Census Subdivision of the Intended Destination - Open Government Portal

The following is the yearly intake of permanent residents to the city of Toronto (not "Toronto CMA") from 2015 to 2021 (I could not find pre-2015 immigration data yet):

Year	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	7-years Total
Number of PRs to Toronto	59,700	57,480	58,735	75,460	83,435	41,835	84,385	461,030

Apparently, the population addition of 461,030 in 7 years from immigration seems to be much bigger than the population change of 179,296 in 10 years.

From the immigration data, the City of Toronto remains the jurisdiction that receives highest number of immigrants every year, even higher than the total number of any other provinces (including QC and BC). It takes only about three years of immigration to fill up that increase of 10 years from the census. I don't think natural population growth and domestic migration would account for that difference from the two sources of data.

I noted that Census data might NOT have been adjusted for "undercoverage". And this undercoverage situation might be particularly higher in Toronto and GTA than any other area of the province, simply because there are more newcomers in Toronto, and it takes some time for newcomers to participate in some civil engagement like Census. So, from the data analysis, it's highly possible that a lot of new immigrants are under-reported from the Census data.

For this reason, I would strongly urge the Commission not to cut the total number of districts in Toronto, and not to "punish" Toronto for being the biggest attraction of immigrants in this great country.

2. Avoid cutting boundary right through the heart of a community

Communities are developed through history, and bounded by schools, Libraries, grocery stores, community centres, senior centres that serves the neighbourhood.

In Scarborough, Warden Ave. has many places that connect people on both sides of the road. It is better to keep the traditional boundary of Scarborough.

In Markham, Highway 7 also has a strong sense of community across the north and south side of the road. I think it's better to keep Hwy 407 as the dividing boundary between Markham-Thornhill and Markham-Unionville, and if changing boundary is needed for population distribution, adjust east or west boundary instead.

Sincerely

Michael Huang