Commentaire 386 – commentaires et rétroaction

Haoran Shang

Electoral Boundary Commission for Ontario
PO Box 37018 Southdale
London, Ontario, N6E 3T3

Re: Federal Electoral Boundaries Redistribution weakening Scarborough representation

Dear Honourable Justice Leitch, Professor Bird and Professor Loewen,

This letter is to oppose the proposal of reducing the seats of Federal Representative of Scarborough from 6 to 5 and break the historical boundary of City of Scarborough.

Lots of my neighbours and residents of the community have talked about how this proposal will damage the community of interest and historical representation of Scarborough community. I would like to speak up for a one of the most vulnerable group - the International Students and Foreign Workers in the Scarborough Community.

International Students and Foreign Workers

I came to Canada as an International student in 2013 and have been living in the riding of Scarborough North since then. Scarborough has 3 major post-secondary institutions, namely, University of Toronto – Scarborough Campus, Centennial College, and Seneca College. Besides that, there are multiple private Secondary schools that are open for international students.

International students from UTSC and Centennial College are mostly resided in the riding of Scarborough North, Scarborough-Rouge Park and some in Scarborough Guildwood. And international students from Seneca College are mostly resided in the ridings of Scarborough Agincourt and Scarborough North where they pay less rent compared to North York and can get to the campus by simply taking TTC line 39 or 939 without any transfer. All these international students in the community make up a huge portion of the migrant population.

From 1991 on, the Census of population has enumerated both permanent and non-permanent residents of Canada. With the effect of COVID-19 pandemic, non-permanent residents count was strongly impacted in the 2021 Census data.

Dwellings Count in Scarborough

Figure 1: Dwellings, 2016-2021, City of Toronto Federal Electoral Districts (FEDs)

The above figure shows the dwelling units count for 6 Scarborough ridings. As stated, all 6 ridings have a positive growth in terms of the dwelling units (Occupied) count, meaning that the actual household units that are occupied by people are increasing in all six Scarborough ridings. Meanwhile the 2021 Census is saying that Scarborough Agincourt and Scarborough North are having a population decrease in total of 5000 people compared to 2016 when they have 1700 more occupied dwelling counts than 2016.

Migrants and dwellings

As I was motioned early in the letter, Scarborough has a huge number of migrants population and these people rent or buy their own dwellings in our community. When the pandemic hits, everything has moved online including remote working, virtual classes etc. This resulting a good portion of the migrant population in Scarborough travel back to their home country so that they do not need to pay rent, electricity, utility, and food. They would rather to stay with their family during this unprecedented time

I clearly remember when I was in my fourth year in UTSG, I was taking my STA437 course, and it was on Tuesday and Thursday 3PM – 5PM EST in fall 2020. I am sure Professor Bird and Professor Loewen can relate that we must take our tests, quizzes, mid-terms during class hour. Because of the significant number of students overseas, our instructor had to accommodate those students that were in a different time zone by offering them an evening test section and different version of the test which resulted in different difficulty between those two versions.

I am sharing this story to emphasize the number of students oversea during the virtual classes and lockdown. These students are now back to school because schools moved everything back to in-person, and companies require their employees to be present in-person.

This important group of migrants were not captured in the 2021 Census since it was taken in the middle of the pandemic and lockdown. Also, I want to point out that school's spring (winter) semester ends at late April. Lots of international students would book their ticket in advance to secure a spot in the pandemic and a lower price and they were not physically present, but they do occupy a dwelling here in Scarborough. Because of the migrant group like international students and foreign workers, that is the reason why we are seeing an increase in occupied dwellings count but a decrease in total population.

Importance of being properly represented

International students and foreign workers have contributed to country's economy, they pay taxes, they shop at local grocery stores, they eat at local restaurants. They are not different than other group of residents in Scarborough community. However, being in a foreign country by themselves, they are facing a lot of challenges. For example, when dealing with federal government, they do not have a proper channel to inquire about their immigration application like study or work permit renewal; when they cannot reach out to Canada Revenue Agency if they are having problem filing their annual tax return; and when they cannot reach out to Service Canada about their Social Insurance Number (SIN). They the help from their local Member of Parliament (MP) when dealing with federal department, they need to be properly represented.

Same things happen when they deal with provincial and municipal departments. They need their MPP to fight for their renter rights, employment rights. They need their City Councillor to help them with their utility bill, property tax bill when 311 takes forever to get through.

Conclusion

Although these people are non-permanent residents, they are included in the census for a reason, they need to be properly represented like the rest of the residents in the community. Taking away their representation simply when they were not present physically during the pandemic census violates their right to seek for help.

It is important for Scarborough to remain as 6 seats especially when Scarborough is an immigrant community. People move to Scarborough because their family is here. There are a lot of immigrants here want to bring their family over by sponsoring them and a lot of non-permanent residents who want to stay in Scarborough afterwards. When Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) becomes nearly unable to reach out, MP offices become their only way to connect with the department to inquire about their life changing applications.

These people are already undercounted by the 2021 pandemic census, taking away their representation will cause more harm to them by making it even harder to reach out to their local representative because of each representatives have more constituents to serve and when the migrants are back, it gives representatives' office even more people to serve.

Please do not take their last way to reach out to the right government departments and preserve their right to be served as the rest of the Scarborough community.

scarborough needs to remain as 6 seats; it needs stronger representation!

Sincerely,
Haoran Shang

Reference

Social Development, Finance & Administration, Social Research and Information Management Unit. (n.d.). City of Toronto - 2021 Census: Population and Dwelling Counts. Retrieved October 27, 2022, from
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/92e3-City-Planning-2021-Census-Backgrounder-Population-Dwellings-Backgrounder.pdf