It is a pleasure to be here, and as the chair said, I've served on electoral boundaries commissions in Ontario on three separate occasions and I have testified about this kind of redistribution issue on three or four other occasions in the past. Most recently, I wrote a paper on the principle of representation by population in Canadian federal politics for the Mowat Centre in 2010.
The first point I want to emphasize is that Bill C-20 amends the Constitution of Canada. The Constitution provides that Parliament, acting alone, can amend the formula for allocating House of Commons seats among the provinces, providing that it does not violate “the principle of proportionate representation of the provinces” and providing that no province is ever allocated fewer MPs than senators. There are no other restrictions on what Parliament can enact with respect to this subject.
I applaud the government for proposing to amend the formula so as to improve the relative representation of Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta. In my view, lack of such action would have left the existing formula open to constitutional challenge on the grounds that it was increasingly failing to reflect “the principle of proportionate representation of the provinces”. I also applaud the government for proposing that no province that is over-represented by the current formula should become underrepresented as a result of the operation of any of the new arrangements.
But I cannot support any formula that has the effect of adding significantly more MPs than we already have. The government, of course, is absolutely right in pointing out that if we want to treat the fast-growing provinces fairly, and if we do not significantly add to the total number of MPs, the effect would be to remove MPs from some provinces.
By my calculations, since Confederation there have been 22 instances of individual provinces losing members of Parliament as a result of redistributions of seats following decennial censuses. It happens regularly within the constituent units of other federations, most notably in the United States, where the size of the House of Representatives is held constant and the size of each state’s delegation is adjusted up or down every 10 years. The U.S. Constitution does not allow Congress to act alone and do what the government is proposing that Parliament do by enacting Bill C-20.
The so-called grandfather clause, which prevents provinces from losing seats from one redistribution to another, or prevents their seats from falling below what they were in 1985, was enacted by Parliament alone in 1985. It can just as easily be removed by Parliament acting alone in 2011. In fact, that is exactly what I urge you to do.
If Parliament once again makes it possible for provinces to lose seats, then fast-growing provinces can be treated more fairly without significantly expanding the House of Commons—or, indeed, without expanding it at all. By enacting the government’s proposed provision that no currently over-represented province can become underrepresented, you will ensure that no small or slow-growing province is treated unfairly. That's why I support that provision. Some might see it as an advantage that this provision could possibly apply to provinces other than just Quebec, and I'm thinking particularly here of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
As I've followed this debate so far, I believe there has been far too much emphasis on exactly which provinces are getting exactly how many more seats. The key issue is the fairness of the formula itself and how it affects the relative representation of each of the provinces in relation to the others. Except for incumbent and aspiring MPs, I believe the absolute number of seats in a particular province is quite irrelevant.
The issue that the rest of us are concerned about is the relative representational strength of provinces in relation to their respective shares of the total population. I am sure everyone here realizes that floor for the number of Senate seats has the effect of protecting seats in the small provinces of Atlantic Canada, but not in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Under my preferred approach, I'm the first to admit that these two provinces, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, would lose relatively more seats than the Atlantic provinces, and perhaps there is a need for some form of cushioning mechanism.
The problem, of course, is that each time exceptional mechanisms are added, the fast-growing provinces lose in relative terms. The whole object of this enterprise is to begin once again to treat them fairly. My preferred option, in the form of a cushion or a floor, would be to enact a rule that we've had before, that no province can have fewer MPs than a province with a smaller population.
I would like to end my presentation with a personal anecdote relating to my experience on electoral boundaries commissions. The first time I was on one was in the 1980s. I wrote my first academic articles on this subject in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, I was appointed by the then-Speaker of the House of Commons to be one of three members of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario.
Under the terms of the amalgam formula enacted in 1974, Ontario was to receive 10 more seats and the House of Commons was to expand from 282 members to 310 members. We commissioners did what we were supposed to do: We drew our proposed maps, which of necessity led to many significant boundary changes—and I emphasize that. When you have a lot more seats, you're going to change a lot more boundaries. You don't just plop the seats in a neat package; it changes everything. Anyway, we did that and we proceeded to hold public hearings in accordance with the act.
It's not an exaggeration to say that we were met with a torrent of abuse. “Why all of these changes? Why do we have more MPs”, people asked. The wise and kindly judge who chaired our commission, who died only recently, tried to explain that this was all for Ontario’s benefit. Our audiences were not convinced. They knew rightly and instinctively that enlarging the House of Commons to accommodate Ontario’s fast growth could not possibly be the only way of proceeding.
The government of Prime Minister Mulroney then brought in legislation that abolished our commission and created a new formula. That formula is the same one that contained the grandfather clause, and has had the effect over time of increasing the underrepresentation of fast-growing provinces.
This is the formula that Bill C-20 is designed to change but, of course, it's not getting rid of the grandfather clause. My fear is that Bill C-20 is repeating a crucial mistake from the past. Canadians do want fair and proportionate representation. Certainly, Ontarians do, and I fully support that. But people don't want more MPs. Every time I tell people what I'm doing today, that's what they tell me, “We don't want more MPs.” You might not feel the full effect of the anger now, but if this bill is enacted in its current form, I believe you will increasingly feel that anger as the prospect of many more additional MPs becomes real.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.