Requested Change to the Overall Distribution of Districts Across the Province – Ontario

We note that the Standing Committee's report endorsed objections by Members of Parliament that would have the Commission both restore a riding to Northern Ontario (retaining 10 districts) and restore a riding to Toronto (retaining 25 districts). If the Standing Committee had views on which parts of Ontario should lose districts in order to accommodate these objections, it did not share them.

There are two fundamental problems with these endorsements. First, these changes would produce a substantial increase in population inequality across the province. The Commission has articulated clearly its commitment to population equality as a first principle of effective representation, and thus does not look favourably on this recommendation.

Second, encouraging the Commission, at this late stage, to remove ridings from two other parts of the Province without any guidance is inconsistent with the concept of public consultations that the Commission pursued. If the Committee believes that Toronto and Northern Ontario deserve one more seat each, then they should not offload completely to the Commission the difficult work of taking away ridings from two other regions. They could instead, having consulted Members of Parliament, take the responsibility of identifying which parts of Ontario should lose ridings.

In sum, it was not possible to both fulfill the Commission's mandate and return a district to Northern Ontario and the City of Toronto. Those making a submission requesting—and those endorsing—that result did not take into account that acceding to their request would have significant consequences to the rest of the Province and unfairly impact other parts of Ontario.