Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here.
I just have to respond to Mr. Christopherson's comments. I haven't gone back and reviewed the records of the debate in 2006. I do not recall anybody saying at that time, whether from the New Democrats or any other party, that the purpose of this motion, or one of the outcomes of this motion, ought to be that in the future, people in my province, in the riding that I represent, should always be proportionately underrepresented vis-à-vis people in Quebec.
On the contrary, the foundational constitutional arrangement of Canada states that we will have representation by population in the House of Commons. And specifically it's stated that it would be based upon a fixed number for Quebec, and every other province being calculated from Quebec. We've violated that arrangement many times. Many provinces are now overrepresented; others are underrepresented. Quebec alone is fairly close to what the original promise was.
I think the idea, Minister, that we ought to fix and establish that Quebec will always be neither over- nor underrepresented is to be commended. It's in some sense the only defensible remaining part of the process that we have achieved now, and I applaud you for entrenching it. My congratulations to you.
What I want to ask, though, is related to Mr. Garneau's proposal. I simply do not accept his math. He says we can set aside the arrangement in the current formula that says provinces are guaranteed no fewer seats than they currently have, and in so doing, we can achieve, with 308 members of Parliament, a formula or a representation level that is effectively representation by population.
I dispute that, because while it is true that you could lower Nova Scotia from 11 seats to 10 seats before you hit it to the Senate floor, which is not amendable by us.... You could lower Saskatchewan and Manitoba to 6 seats each, if you wanted to do this. You could lower Quebec to 24 seats, take away two-thirds of its seats. You could do all these things. You could take away one seat from Newfoundland. You cannot take away any seats from Prince Edward Island--and the four seats it currently has--which means that under his formula, the gap in representation between the people I represent, who, I might add, live in an area larger than P.E.I.... There are 117,000 of them currently. There would be more than 117,000 of them under his formula, and ridings in P.E.I. would still have 34,000 or 35,000 members.
I submit that what the Liberals are suggesting is simply not supported by the facts, and I'm inviting your comment on that, Minister.