Bill C-20 (Historical)

Fair Representation Act

An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867, the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act and the Canada Elections Act

This enactment amends the rules in the Constitution Act, 1867 for readjusting the number of members of the House of Commons and the representation of the provinces in that House.
It amends the time periods in several provisions of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act and requires that electronic versions of maps be provided to registered parties.
It also amends the Canada Elections Act to permit a returning officer to be appointed for a new term of office in certain circumstances.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes. The commissions would have to restart their work if the royal assent is given to Bill C-20 any time after February 8.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thanks for clarifying that. It was certainly new to me.

Later on in your opening statement you refer to the other changes that Bill C-20 brings into place: establishing electoral boundaries, having boundary commissions sooner in the process, commencing hearings earlier, and so on. I just want to confirm that, as you look through these changes, these are ones the electoral officials are able to easily implement.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

I have one last question for you.

You read Bill C-20. Given your expertise, are there any amendments you would have liked to make to the bill?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Okay. Very well.

The representation order comes into force following the first dissolution of Parliament that occurs at least one year after the proclamation. But Bill C-20 mentions seven months. Can you work with that?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

If we agree that it must be ready by April 2014, when would you like to see Bill C-20 come into force?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Assuming for a minute that Bill C-20 wasn't before you as a law, under the existing procedure, how long would it take for it to be completed?

[Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon.

Allow me to introduce my team.

On my left,

is Stéphane Perrault, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, in charge of legal affairs and investigations. On my right is Rennie Molnar,

Deputy Chief Electoral Officer in charge of electoral affairs; and second on my right

is François Faucher, Senior Director, responsible for the redistribution of electoral boundaries.

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to appear before the committee today to discuss Bill C-20, known by its short title as the Fair Representation Act. First, I will describe the role of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada and other participants in the redistribution process. Second, I will address key changes under the proposed bill as they pertain to my office.

My office plays an important but limited role in the redistribution process. The drawing of the new boundaries is solely the responsibility of the 10 independent electoral boundaries commissions created under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. My office is not involved in any of the decisions made by the commissions regarding the choice of electoral district boundaries or names.

The Chief Electoral Officer does, however, perform certain functions that facilitate the redistribution process. Under the act, the Chief Electoral Officer provides geographic information to the commissions, acts as a liaison between the commissions and the House of Commons, prepares the draft representation order, and prepares maps following the proclamation of the representation order. Furthermore, to help make the process more efficient and effective, Elections Canada has, in the past, provided administrative support to the independent commissions. This allows the commissions to focus on the substantive tasks they have been assigned by law. I intend to continue providing such support.

While redistribution will officially start upon receipt of the census return from the Chief Statistician, currently expected on February 8, 2012, Elections Canada has already begun its work. For instance, we have contacted the chief justice of each province, reminding them that they must appoint the chair of the commission for their province. As of now, the chairs of 9 out of 10 commissions have been designated by the chief justices.

I have started to inform members of Parliament about the redistribution process, notably this committee, and I reiterate my offer to provide caucus briefings upon request. In addition, I have contacted the Speaker of the House of Commons to inform him of his responsibilities under the act, including the appointment of the two other members of each province's commission. I plan to meet with him in the coming weeks.

This committee will also have an important role to play in the redistribution process. Once each commission completes its proposal and responds to feedback received during public hearings, it will submit a report describing the proposed boundaries to the Speaker, through my office. The Speaker will then table and refer the reports to the committee. If, however, Parliament is not in session, the Speaker will publish the reports in the Canada Gazette and send a copy to each member of the House of Commons for that province.

MPs may file written objections with this committee for its consideration, in the form of a motion signed by no fewer than 10 MPs. The committee then returns its own reports to the Speaker, who will forward them to the commissions through my office. Once the independent commissions have considered the objections raised before the committee, they then decide whether to modify the boundaries or not before submitting their final report to the Speaker through my office.

After having received the final reports, I am required to prepare a draft representation order setting out the new boundaries as established by the 10 commissions. I transmit that draft representation order to the minister responsible under the act, and the governor in council is required to issue a proclamation of the order within five days. Neither I nor the governor in council may make any alterations to the electoral district boundaries or names presented in the final reports. The representation order is to be published in the Canada Gazette no more than five days after the proclamation is made.

Since the redistribution process will be launched in February, I would expect the initial reports from the smaller provinces to be submitted as early as September 2012, while the reports of the larger provinces should follow through the fall and winter.

As was done in the previous redistribution, my office will hold a conference with the 10 electoral boundaries commissions in February 2012, and will extend invitations to members of this committee. This conference will be an opportunity to familiarize the three-member commissions with the nature of their tasks.

Now let me address four key elements or changes provided by Bill C-20.

First, the bill amends the representation formula found in the Constitution Act, 1867. The new formula proposes to use the population estimates published by Statistics Canada on July 1 of the year of the decennial census, which means that the calculation of seats could be accomplished sooner. This change has no effect on my office. My role as Chief Electoral Officer is to use the formula as determined by Parliament to calculate the number of House of Commons seats allocated to each province.

Second, the bill shortens the timeframe within which the redistribution process takes place. Some of the changes are as follows. One is the possibility of establishing the electoral boundaries commissions sooner--either within 60 days of the census return, as is the case now, or six months after the first day of the month in which the census is taken, whichever is earlier.

Another change is the earlier commencement of public hearings, at least 30 days after proposals are made, instead of the 60 days in the current act.

In addition, reports from each commission would be due in 10 months rather than the current 12 months, with the possible extension of two months rather than the current six months.

Finally, Elections Canada would have seven months rather than one year, as is currently the case, to implement the new representation order before it comes into force for the next general election.

The net effect of these changes includes the earlier establishment of commissions, a two-month reduction in the redistribution process, and a five-month reduction in the implementation of the new boundaries.

The impact of the reduced timelines on the implementation of the new representation order will be mitigated by a third key amendment regarding the reappointment of returning officers. Following the last redistribution, the boundaries of 90% of electoral districts changed in some form. If we assume a similar proportion resulting from this exercise, Elections Canada would have to launch almost 300 competitive processes to appoint returning officers in the affected districts.

Bill C-20 will allow the Chief Electoral Officer to reappoint returning officers based on merit, after consultation with the leaders of the political parties recognized in the House of Commons. This is consistent with the process that my office successfully used when the Chief Electoral Officer was first assigned the responsibility of appointing returning officers in December 2006.

The fourth key change I would like to bring to your attention is the requirement in the bill for Elections Canada to prepare and print a full set of paper maps on completion of the commissions' initial reports. Currently, about 55 maps are included in the commissions' report stage to portray the proposed new boundaries. This bill would require Elections Canada to prepare and print some 400 individual maps at that stage. This would include one for each district; one for each province; and one for each city and metropolitan municipality, portions of which are in more than one proposed electoral district. Currently, the full set of maps is only printed following the issue of the proclamation declaring the representation order to be in force.

The bill also requires Elections Canada to provide electronic versions of each of these maps to each registered political party. We are currently examining how this provision could be implemented with limited impact on the redistribution timeline and its cost.

My office has begun to assess the impact of this bill on the resource requirements of the agency, particularly related to support for the redistribution process itself; Elections Canada's return to readiness; the delivery of a general election using the new boundaries; and ongoing programs and activities in areas such as political financing and support for field personnel. Following the assessment, we may conclude that additional resources are required.

In closing, I wish to indicate that the work of the commissions is set to begin under the current legislation as soon as February 2012. The early adoption of any legislative changes before that date would greatly facilitate the work of the commissions.

Mr. Chair, my colleagues and I will be pleased to answer any questions.

Thank you.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

My question is specifically on consultation, not on the formula. When did you consult with the provinces specifically on this change that Quebec was now finally...? That is a major change from your government's standpoint from the two incarnations before Bill C-20. It's a major shift. You were adamant you weren't going to do that, and then sometime after the last election, in this Parliament, you decided you were going to finally agree that some additional seats should go to Quebec.

When did you consult with Quebec and the other provinces on that change?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks, Minister.

I don't want it to appear that we're all picking on our Liberal colleague, Mr. Garneau, but I have to make a comment. I also want to address something Mr. Comartin said, but primarily Mr. Garneau's comments.

You're quite right, Minister. I don't care how you slice and dice it: under the Liberal plan, certain provinces, including my home province of Saskatchewan, would lose seats. While he is correct in his statement that the guarantee that was provided in 1985 can be reshaped without having to open up the Constitution, it would cause immense problems constitutionally. Any time we start taking seats away or taking anything away from individual provinces, it is going to cause a constitutional crisis. There will be huge problems and huge costs to pay both interprovincially and between the federal and provincial governments in future negotiations, on any matter. It is simply not on.

This is why our party—I know, because as Conservatives we were all very well briefed going into the last campaign—guaranteed that there would be no change to the 1985 provision; that the seat count at that time would be preserved. To suggest somehow that Canada would be better served by reducing the number of seats in various provinces, including Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland, and others, is absolutely sheer folly. It would cause so many problems that I don't think we have enough time in this committee to totally contemplate them.

I congratulate you on sticking to the plan, the commitment that our party made during the last election campaign.

With respect to my friend Joe's comments about looking back on Bill C-12, as compared with Bill C-20, I thought you explained well why Bill C-20 was superior to Bill C-12. It is a better formula—at least, one that I certainly see as being a better formula. I would just suggest to my friend opposite and others that things evolve. We've seen many times in past parliaments cases in which similar bills have been introduced and over time have improved. There have been changes, some subtle, some not so subtle. In this case, taking into account the accurate information that is currently at our disposal, Bill C-20 better reflects the move toward representation by population.

Will it ever be perfect? Of course, it won't be. Population fluctuations are always going to occur; there are only going to be changes made every 10 years. We'll never get to a point where there will be exactly representation by population, but in my view, this bill represents a much better rep by pop from province to province than any bill previously.

Mr. Christopherson mentioned his home province of Ontario. This bill perhaps doesn't give exactly rep by pop for Ontario, but it's a lot closer than Bill C-12 would have been, and a lot closer than any bill prior to that.

I think it is a great attempt, and it better closes the gap between underrepresented provinces and those that were perhaps overrepresented.

Minister, I would only ask you once again to make a comment on why Bill C-20 was introduced and why it was introduced at this point in time to address what I consider to be some rightful grievances from the past.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, minister.

I fully understand the principles that guided you in this undertaking. I share your view that we need fair representation for every province to reflect the changes in their population.

However, I see a big problem with Bill C-20. You went from 308 to 338 seats. In other words, you added 30 new members to the House of Commons.

Canadians are concerned about the added cost of such an inflationary measure. In my opinion, the government's new proposal sends the wrong message to Canadians that it wants to increase the number of politicians while it slashes the public service and the services that are provided by them. It doesn't make any sense. In these days of financial restraint, Parliament must show the lead. Now, we all know that the number of MPs cannot keep growing forever. That's a discussion that comes back all the time. We already have a higher MP-to-population ratio than the norm in many democracies.

In the United States, as we all know, there are 435 representatives for a population that is about nine times bigger than Canada's. To my knowledge, Canada is the only federation that deems it necessary to go through this exercise of increasing the number of federal MPs every time there's a need to rebalance regional representation in Parliament, roughly every 10 years. This doesn't make sense, and it's an unsustainable practice. We must put a stop to it and this is a good time to do it. We can rebalance the House's seat allocation in order to address the needs of the provinces. Parliament has the power to do that. It is something that I think is particularly important to do at this time.

I'd like to, if I may, draw your attention to a document from this committee from 1994, when they were looking at the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, a similar exercise to what we're going through now. It was a dissenting opinion offered by three Reform MPs at the time, one of whom is very well known. He was arguing for the fact that we didn't need to increase the number of MPs, that this was not a good practice.

Perhaps I can quote a little bit:

A smaller House offers considerable cost savings, less government and fewer politicians, and clearly this is what Canadians want.

Another quote:

Advancements in communication technology have allowed downsizing and increased efficiencies in the private sector but also must be realized by government.

A final quote: “Canadians are already amongst the most over-represented people in the world.”

Of course, that MP is now the Prime Minister of this country.

I'd like to know why you did not take this opportunity, because it can be done, to keep the level at 308 and yet at the same time achieve fair representation, which we all support.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

When you say that the formula proposed in Bill C-20 would ensure that if various provinces see their populations increase in the future, the formula would deal with that in an effective manner, when does that occur? How often would we be looking at population changes? Would it be based on a 10-year period like the census, or would it happen more frequently than that?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Sure. Our commitment was to bring forward changes to the formula that would address the fact that Alberta, B.C., and Ontario were underrepresented in the House of Commons because their populations have grown. We also made a commitment that we would maintain the number of seats for the smaller provinces and make sure that Quebec's representation stayed equal to its population.

Bill C-12, the previous bill, used out-of-date population figures, because a number of years have passed, so Bill C-20 has new numbers, new population figures, that are up to date.

There's also a representation rule that's an addition to this bill, that if any province went from fair representation or overrepresentation and became underrepresented because of the redistribution process, we would add seats to that province to bring it back up to fair representation, equal to its population. It would not be fair for a province to be fairly represented today and then become underrepresented because we've fixed a wrong somewhere else and then hurt that province. That would apply to all provinces. The first province to benefit from that is going to be Quebec.

This bill also responds to population growth. The divisor changes to respond to population growth now and in the future as well. We've also streamlined the process for electoral redistribution, so these are the changes that have evolved after the last bill was presented. At the end of the day, this bill fulfills the commitment we made, and it brings every province closer to representation by population.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you.

Minister, this Bill C-20, as we know it, is actually the latest iteration in a line of rep-by-pop bills that this committee has seen in years past.

Could you give an update to the committee on why the formula used in this bill is superior, in your opinion, at least, to some of the others we have seen at this committee, in terms of rep by pop?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

With me are members from the PCO, Matthew Lynch and Jean-François Morin. I do have opening comments, if I may begin.

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to be before this committee this morning to discuss Bill C-20, the Fair Representation Act. Bill C-20 delivers on our government's long-standing commitment to move the House of Commons towards fair representation. In particular, it reflects our government's three distinct promises to provide fair representation by allocating an increased number of seats now and in the future to better reflect population growth in Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta, maintaining the number of seats for smaller provinces, and maintaining the proportional representation of Quebec according to its population.

In my opening remarks today, I would like to provide an overview of the bill's key elements. I will then be pleased to take any questions you may have.

The representation of the provinces in the House of Commons is readjusted every 10 years using a formula established in section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867. The current formula dates to 1985 and was designed to provide modest increases to the House of Commons. While the 1985 formula has been successful in limiting the size of the House of Commons, it has created a representation gap for the faster-growing provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta. The combined effect of fixing the divisor at 279 in combination with the existence of the seat guarantees has prevented these provinces from receiving a share of the seats that is more in line with the relative share of the population.

The formula in Bill C-20 is principled and is a reasonable update designed to bring those provinces closer to representation by population while at the same time maintaining the seat counts of the slower-growing provinces and ensuring that Quebec maintains a level of seats that is proportionate to its population. In fact, the Fair Representation Act brings every single province closer to representation by population. The bill would set the electoral quotient for the 2011 readjustment at 111,166, which reflects the average riding population prior to the last seat readjustment in 2001, increased by the simple average of provincial population growth rates. Once the initial allocation of seats have been determined on the basis of that quotient, the Senate floor and the grandfather clause would be applied. The Fair Representation Act then provides the formula to apply a new representation rule.

If a province becomes underrepresented as a result of the application of the updated formula, additional seats will be allocated to that province so that its representation will equal its share of the population. Based on population estimates, Quebec will be the first province to receive new seats in order not to become underrepresented by the operation of the updated formula. That said, the representation rule applies to all provinces that may find themselves in this scenario.

A further update to the formula is to base the allocation of seats among the provinces on Statistics Canada's population estimates. There is a reason for that. The population estimates provide a more accurate picture of Canada's total population. The population estimates adjust to account for the census net under-coverage—that is, the number of people who were not enumerated during the census--as well as the over-coverage, coming from those who were enumerated twice.

The practical result of applying the new formula will be to add an additional 30 seats to the House of Commons, for a total of 338. In terms of the provincial breakdown, Ontario will receive 15 new seats, Alberta will receive six new seats, and British Columbia will receive six new seats. Quebec will receive three new seats as a result of the new representation rule, which will ensure that its seat total does not come under the number of seats proportionate to its population. Finally, the bill provides an adjustment to the formula in order to account for future increases in population counts following future censuses. For the 2021 and each subsequent readjustment, the bill provides that the electoral quotient will be increased by the simple average of provincial population growth rates since the preceding readjustment.

In addition to the updated formula for allocating seats, Bill C-20 also proposes amendments to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. The changes proposed in the bill aim to streamline the timelines and the current boundary readjustment process. For example, the independent boundary commissions would be established no later than six months following the census.

The timeline for the commissions to produce their reports would be streamlined from 12 to 10 months, with a possible two-month extension. The time period for the implementation of the representation order would be reduced from 12 months to seven months, and the notice period for public hearings by commissions would be reduced from a minimum 60-day period to a minimum 30-day period. There will be no change to the timelines relating to the parliamentary phase of the electoral boundary process, during which time parliamentarians and Canadians are able to provide their comments on the initial reports of the boundary commissions. Most importantly, Canadians will continue to have the same opportunity to voice their opinions on boundary changes during public hearings held by the commissions.

The updates to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act follow recommendations made in the past by this committee, the chief electoral officer, and the Lortie commission.

To conclude, the Fair Representation Act addresses the unacceptable underrepresentation of some provinces and fulfills our government's longstanding commitment to move towards fair representation. The updated seat allocation formula contained in the Fair Representation Act moves every single province towards representation by population.

Thank you, and I look forward to responding to any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We'll call the meeting to order. We're here today, televised, in public, pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, November 3, 2011, Bill C-20, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867, the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act and the Canada Elections Act. We're fortunate to have the minister here today.

Minister, it's great to have you. I understand you have an opening statement. We'll start with that. If you'd like to introduce the people who are with you, and start with your opening statement, then we'll go to rounds of questioning.

Minister, I leave it to you.