Evidence of meeting #11 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was formula.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Andrew Sancton  Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Michael Pal  Fellow, Mowat Centre, University of Toronto - School of Public Policy and Governance
Nelson Wiseman  Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Kenneth Carty  Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia
Ned Franks  Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Louis Massicotte  Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University, As an Individual

11:30 a.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

Let me start, Professor Wiseman. Going back to 1867, have we ever, on this equal vote—every vote being equal—had that type of equality?

11:30 a.m.

Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, As an Individual

Dr. Nelson Wiseman

No. I think for most of Canada's history, the boundaries were often set by the government, so we had gerrymandering. I think we're really quite advanced because we now have these independent electoral boundaries commissions and the legislation has been dramatically improved. I think this has been a great advance. The problem I'm still having, though, is that it's as if the comments here are from people representing provincial governments.

People ought not to be abdicating their role. This is the people's house. You were elected by Saskatchewanians, not by the Saskatchewan government. So I want to focus--and I would move toward it, although I think the American standard is too tight--toward representation by population. That's essentially not an inter-provincial issue; that's an issue of lessening the divide between rural and urban voters.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

If I understand your position, you would still allow for exceptional cases—the territories, Labrador, and those kinds of examples.

11:35 a.m.

Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, As an Individual

Dr. Nelson Wiseman

Yes. I think you'd have one seat each for each of the territories. I heard Labrador mentioned. I should point out that we have split up constituencies where we have islands and mainland. I'm thinking of Elizabeth May's constituency, which includes the Gulf Islands and a large part of Vancouver, the Saanich Peninsula. I don't think the Gulf Islands should have their own seat. For Labrador, I could see a case being made.

In the case of far northern constituencies, I think the courts have accepted, in a case that came out of Saskatchewan, a variation of up to 50%. Beyond that, these are very small...we're talking maybe a handful or 10 ridings. I think we should move closer toward representation by population, maybe narrowing it down to 10%.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

So do you think Mr. Pal's position on going down to 5% is not doable?

11:35 a.m.

Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, As an Individual

Dr. Nelson Wiseman

I think that's doable. I think you can even drill it down further, as they have in the United States. I just think that in the Canadian tradition, there's been more of a focus in the jurisprudence on community interest, the historical traditions. There's more of a group focus in our constitutional tradition than there is in the United States, which is focused solely on the individual. So I accept that. I just think the variation right now is simply way too wide.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Professor Pal, you obviously want to get in on this.

11:35 a.m.

Fellow, Mowat Centre, University of Toronto - School of Public Policy and Governance

Michael Pal

The act grants the boundary commissions the discretion to operate within the 25% range. One option they could have taken was to say we're not going to use that range unless we really need to.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Historically they have.

11:35 a.m.

Fellow, Mowat Centre, University of Toronto - School of Public Policy and Governance

Michael Pal

Historically they haven't; currently they have. They operate well within that range and consider that normal. So the consequence is for suburban voters; they're underrepresented as a whole compared to rural voters. But you can see that suburban voters are underrepresented compared to urban voters. If you live in Brampton, your vote is worth less than if you live in downtown Toronto. You also see other anomalies where western Ontario has a different voting power than eastern Ontario. What's the principled basis for that?

It doesn't have to be 5%—I think it could be 5% or 10%—but we've used those legitimate exceptions that are out there, like the northernmost riding in Ontario, or Labrador, or the Gulf Islands, to set their 25% rule. Instead, we should have a narrower norm and then exemptions for that small number that are actually exceptional

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

So you would allow for those exemptions. The Timmins--James Bay riding, for example, would be in the exemption category.

11:35 a.m.

Fellow, Mowat Centre, University of Toronto - School of Public Policy and Governance

Michael Pal

I would say probably yes. You'd need to look at which specific ridings would qualify, but I don't think boundary commissions should have that discretion, because they end up using it to over-represent some ridings and under-represent others, where there's less of a case than there is in Labrador, or maybe in northern Ontario.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

So how would you design the exemption? What would the criteria be to fall into the exemption?

11:35 a.m.

Fellow, Mowat Centre, University of Toronto - School of Public Policy and Governance

Michael Pal

That's an interesting question. You'd have to look at geographic size. It could be ridings that are physically really large. You could draw on the expertise of boundary commissions, where they have traditionally found ridings to be over-represented. But--

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

I'm not getting any agreement from your colleague there.

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

You're at five minutes.

Monsieur Dion, for five minutes please.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I would like to say that I'm very sorry, professors, that we are squeezing you in with so little time. It's a debate that we had between us. We did not win this debate. I hope I will convince my Conservative colleagues, though, that it would indeed be good if the Fair Representation Act did not become the More Politicians Act.

I'm convinced that this may be fixed. We all agree that the proportions are right now. Ontario is not left out; Quebec is not left out. We have good proportions, but what we disagree on is the size of the House. I would like to hear from you about that. Two of you have made it very clear that you would prefer not adding seats to the House, and Professor Wiseman would like to decrease the number of seats.

What do you think about the alternative proposition that I think you're familiar with, that we would change the current federal clause by the 15% clause—that would say that a province cannot lose seats more than 15% at each operation? That would allow us to stay at 308 seats and to achieve the same proportion for each province, and then to have equity without ballooning the House with 30 new seats.

So, each of you.

11:40 a.m.

Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual

Dr. Andrew Sancton

Mr. Dion, I basically support that position. That was inherent in the presentation that I made.

If you had a 15% cushion, a province couldn't lose more than 15% of its seats; it would have the effect of decreasing the relative strength of the faster-growing provinces. But I appreciate the difficult compromises that have to be made here, and we've heard about Saskatchewan already. Given those kind of difficult circumstances, I think that would be a very fair and honourable compromise. So I support that formula.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC

Thank you.

Professor Pal.

11:40 a.m.

Fellow, Mowat Centre, University of Toronto - School of Public Policy and Governance

Michael Pal

Would the ideal representation formula be one purely based on representation by population? I think that's probably correct. But given that we have certain constitutional constraints, how can we work within those? If you remove the grandfather clause, what you're saying is, some of the provinces that grow at a slower rate will lose seats and others will not, so you create an inequality between those provinces. I raise the issue that previous versions of this bill didn't treat all the faster-growing provinces in the same way—Ontario was treated differently from Alberta and B.C—so this is in a way the reverse problem with the slower-growing provinces, and that's an issue.

The other thing I would ask is, once you've redistributed some of the grandfather seats in 2011, what do you do in the next redistribution in 2021? It's not clear to me that there would be enough extra seats to redistribute, so you would at that point have to add more seats. As you say, you're delaying adding more seats. If your goal is not to add more seats, you've delayed it by one redistribution; but I don't see from the numbers how you could delay it beyond that, if you want to stick to rep by pop.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC

Professor Wiseman.

11:40 a.m.

Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, As an Individual

Dr. Nelson Wiseman

Well, I prefer fewer seats in the House of Commons. I got anxious about it once it hit about 295. Obviously, therefore, I would prefer 308 seats to 338 seats. I don't appreciate all the technicalities in the bill, but I don't understand, quite frankly, the projections that the current bill would accommodate population growth for decades to come. The issue isn't the overall population in Canada, but interprovincial migration. We can have dramatic shifts, as we have had, out of Saskatchewan and in and out of Alberta, which would result, if you can ever lower those numbers of seats, to a perpetually increasing House.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joe Preston

There's a minute left.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC

Well, I would say that it's not only a matter of cost for me. I have been Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs long enough to know that when you have a lot of MPs, they want to be the mayor, they want to be the MLA. For the effectiveness of our federation, it would be good to not increase the House, but to keep it at 308.

Professor Pal, we have the same proportion as the government does, at 308. If you're right, if you think that in the future we'll need to add seats because of demography—although it's difficult to predict, as you know.... In fact, Immigration Canada came out with new figures today showing that immigrants are now going more to the Prairies than to Ontario. Assuming that's the case, don't you think it's an additional reason to keep it at 308 this time, that we may do it while achieving the same equity as in the government's bill?

11:40 a.m.

Fellow, Mowat Centre, University of Toronto - School of Public Policy and Governance

Michael Pal

In the sixties, as Professor Wiseman mentioned, we had a formula that removed seats from certain provinces. Then in the seventies, we came up with the amalgam method, as Professor Sancton mentioned, which was mainly to prevent those provinces from losing seats. The political pressure from knowing that the formula would reduce seats for specific provinces over time is something for Parliament to decide, but it's a very difficult proposition, I think, sir.