The Saskatchewan Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission's final recommendation has been tabled in the House of Commons, but not without controversy. The panel of Justice Ronald Mills (chair), Dr. John Courtney and David Marit failed to produce a unanimous report.
"I do not agree with the recommendations outlined in the report being filed by my fellow commission members," Marit wrote in a dissenting report.
Urban-only seats
The majority report calls for the creation of five new urban-only ridings, three in Saskatoon and two in Regina. Currently, the two cities have four mixed urban and rural ridings each. In the proposed redistribution, the mixed constituency of Regina-Fort Qu'Appelle is maintained, although slightly enlarged.
The Yorkton-Melville riding has also been slightly expanded picking up territory from the former riding of Saskatoon-Humboldt that stretches almost to Humboldt to the west and past Lenore Lake in the north. It includes the towns Quill Lake, Watson, Naicam, Englefeld, Muenster, Lake Lenore, St. Brieux, Annaheim, Leroy and Spalding.
Mills and Courtney outright rejected two of the arguments Marit cites in his dissent. First Marit argues that the cities would each lose one MP and therefore be underrepresented in Parliament.
"The fact is that neither Regina nor Saskatoon currently has exclusive urban representation," the other commissioners wrote.
Secondly Marit claims that shifting the electoral map significantly would compound the problem of voter apathy, which is already at an all-time high.
"Assuming that voter apathy is a significant problem, the Commission fails to see how maintaining the status quo will alleviate that problem."
Marit also speculated that if the population of Saskatchewan continues to grow at projected rates, the next commission would be forced to go back to urban-rural ridings in 2023.
Finally, he said, 75 per cent of the written and oral submissions the panel received opposed the changes, although he admitted he tabulated that statistic himself.
Bias claims
Justice Mills sees it a bit differently. He said he wasn't sure exactly how Marit had come up with 75 per cent. If, he said, they had only considered the submissions related to the public hearings the percentage was probably accurate. But, he continued, when they considered all of the submissions from start to finish, more than 50 per cent were in favour and that the communications they received prior to drafting the initial proposal "overwhelmingly supported the concept of dedicated city ridings for Regina and Saskatoon."
Marit came up short of saying he thought the end result was preordained, but that he felt the other commissioners were determined. "I don't know that it was pre-concluded, but, in their opinion they felt Saskatoon and Regina need to have urban-only ridings and that's the way they moved," he said.
The cities themselves did not take a position, but both the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) and the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municiapalities (SARM) did.
SUMA officially came out in favour of urban-only ridings while SARM, of which David Marit is the president, officially opposed the concept.
Marit told Yorkton This Week that he never felt he was in a conflict-of-interest situation saying he had removed himself from the SARM discussion on the issue.
Mills sidestepped the conflict-of-interest question saying only that, "Mr. Marit is very thoughtful and hard-working, there's no question about that."
Procedures committee
Next step for the proposal is the House of Commons Procedures and House Affairs Committee. This is a final opportunity for MPs to file objections to the report, explained Nathan Cullen, NDP house leader and a member of the PHAC.
Written objections must be signed by at least 10 MPs and filed within 30 days. The PHAC will then hear oral presentations, ask questions and pass the report back the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).
"We can make recommendations, but [Elections Canada is] under no obligation whatsoever to accept them," Cullen said.
Battle preparations
Cullen is expecting a fight. Conservative MPs in Saskatchewan have vocally opposed the redistribution plan from the start citing many of the same arguments contained in Marit's report, as well as, the contention that Saskatchewan is unique in that there is no rural-urban divide in the province. That same argument won the battle in 2002, when that commission also proposed urban-only ridings.
So far, no objections have been filed, but Tom Lukiwski who represents the riding of Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, said he will definitely be filing and expects every Conservative member of Parliament will also object.
Gerrymandering accusation
Ralph Goodale, the Liberal MP who represents Wascana and the only non-conservative Saskatchewan MP, said the Conservative opposition to the report amounts to political gerrymandering.
"When it comes to devising electoral boundaries, our democracy should not be distorted by artificial concoctions in which one point of view will always swamp another," Goodale wrote in a blog post February 1.
"Our voting system should enable all citizens to see themselves fairly reflected in their Parliament. If they can't see that, then people grow cynical and stop participating. Democracy is damaged.
"In this spirit of a healthy democracy, the Saskatchewan Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission has done a good job.
"But the Harper Conservatives hate the new map-precisely because it's not rigged in their favour. They're getting ready to interfere in what has been an independent process, so far."
Tory response
Lukiwski said that is ludicrous.
"It's not gerrymandering at all," he said. "In fact, up until the 2000 election, four of the current [urban-rural] seats were represented by members of the NDP for many years."
Lukiwski also took issue with the assertion the process was fair and independent.
"I find it troubling that two of the three commissioners were predisposed to go to urban-only ridings," he said.
Secondly, he said, municipal leaders, the Regina Chamber of commerce and many businesspeople don't like the idea of losing a representative. He said it "makes no sense" that three urban-only MPs will provide better representation than four urban-rural members.
"There is strength in numbers, I can assure you of that," he said. "I find it ridiculous to say that if 100 per cent of my riding was in Regina, I would give better representation. I assure you that is wrong and I find it insulting."
Unprecedented request
It would be very unusual for the PHAC to make anything but minor tweaks to a final boundaries commission report, but it is also very unusual, perhaps unprecedented, that a panel failed to come to a unanimous decision.
Marit has asked the committee to reject the commission's report and request they redraft it to "come back with fairer representation for Regina and Saskatoon and to revisit the blended urban-rural ridings requested by approximately 75 per cent of all submissions received.
