As long as we have these constitutional guarantees that essentially make equal representation impossible—and that's what the Senate four for Prince Edward Island does—the circle can't be entirely squared. But we can come pretty close to it, if we abolish the grandfather clause and just redistribute the seats in all the other provinces—the large majority of them—and the vast majority of the population on a proportional basis.
I know, as a boundary commissioner, that in almost every single public hearing, we heard people saying, “You know, this isn't fair. You're giving us these large ridings in the north, but look at Prince Edward Island, they've got these tiny things. As a Canadian, you know, we're not being fairly represented”. I was actually quite struck, because I expected to hear, “Oh, well, Vancouver's getting it all, it's not fair”. But those weren't the kind of things I heard. Time and time again at public hearings there was, in fact, a kind of profound sense that the distribution across the country really wasn't fair and wasn't equal. People came to public hearings for boundary commissions because it was one of their few opportunities to make that point.
So the closer we can get to a kind of proportional allocation, the closer we can get to building a sense amongst all Canadians that their voices are more or less equally heard. I accept the fact that we can't do much about Prince Edward Island, unless we want to open the Constitution. I'm not here to advocate that.