Mr. Speaker, I rise today to record my opposition to Bill C-18 which suspends the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.
There are major issues which should be examined here. Some fundamental Canadian human rights are being trampled. Let us look at some of the issues that should be considered before passing Bill C-18.
The first one is that political interference is being proposed. The principle of political interference in electoral boundaries was debated long ago. The decision was it should not be allowed and the concept of an independent drafting of the electoral boundaries was the way it should be done.
Politicians should be removed entirely from the process. Looking back to the 1960s and prior there was a great deal of political interference in the drawing of electoral boundaries. Unfortunately that led to blatant political manipulation of the whole situation.
In his book The Election Process in Canada Professor Terence Qualter identified four roles parliamentarians used when they were allowed to manipulate the system and redefine the boundaries of the electoral districts. Let us look at what he identified.
They were most concerned about maintaining the boundaries for the MPs sitting in the House. They wanted to protect the incumbents' districts so that another election could be fought based on the same old boundaries; if they won last time, perhaps they could win again. It was self-serving from that point of view.
And what about retiring members? They would dispense with those ridings. They would not have to protect those ridings and could use them to their advantage.
What about members of parties in the minority, the smaller parties and the independents? Some are sitting here today. Those were determined to be dispensable. They would draw the boundary to eliminate them rather than ensure fair and reasonable representation for the people across this land and rather than ensure that people who had a different point of view could be elected and their position heard in the House. When the job is left to the politicians, the minorities are left on the outside rather than just being given a seat on the backbench, which of course is the case today.
Of course given the opportunity, MPs would again respond to political pressure to create more seats in the urban ridings rather than do a realignment to ensure real representation for all Canadians.
In the 1960s the need for reform was recognized. They wanted to throw out political involvement. They wanted to get rid of it and bring in a non-partisan commission that would do the job for them.
The act established a commission in every province. The chief justice of every province was to appoint a judge to be the chairman of the commission. That seems to be a great non-partisan way to start.
The proposal at that time was the government would put forward a member and the opposition side would put forward a member on the commission. They said no, that allowed for political involvement and therefore the power would be given to the Speaker to appoint additional members to the commission.
We want impartial non-partisanship to ensure that democracy works in this country. We are the servants of the people; we are not their masters. We are here because the people want representation. They want democracy in the House. It is not for us to take it upon ourselves to manipulate the public to ensure we protect our jobs at the expense of free debate, other positions and real representation of the people.
The commissions were established and today we have Bill C-18 that wants to take that non-partisan, impartial situation and throw it out the window because we do not like what has been done. We established the commissions last fall with the intention that they would come forward, as they have done before, with proposals based on reasoned, rational opinions as to why boundaries should be the way they are proposing.
Once they make their decisions or proposals the whole matter is opened up to input and debate by the people who can then be heard. We could ask them what they think. Is this reasonable? Have we followed the trading boundaries of a constituency? Have we kept the historical names? Have we followed the democratic movement of people across the country? Have we made a reasonable decision? Let us hear from the people, not from the politicians. Let us hear what the people have to say.
That is what the government does not want to hear. It wants to cut the democratic process off at the pass because the proposals being made by the non-partisan, impartial commissions will now affect its ridings. Government members do not like it and hence we are back to political interference through Bill C-18.
Why does the government now wish to scrap their work? The commissions based their work on the census performed in 1991. Have the numbers changed? I do not think so. The government now wants to take these same numbers, massage them and manipulate them for its own benefit.
Have the people on the commissions been incompetent? I do not think so. These are educated, learned people on these commissions who have the country's best interest at heart. Would self-serving politicians do a better job with the same numbers? I do not think so. Do we believe that politicians are better suited than judges and ordinary Canadians to decide how they should be represented? I do no think so either.
That is what Bill C-18 proposes to do. It proposes to take the same numbers or the same figures and rework them or massage them, all for the benefit of themselves. The public would end up with the short end of the stick where the hearing process is short-circuited and the people who are independent and impartial have been told that their work is no good.
Here we are today bringing the process under the scrutiny of the politicians. We wonder why politicians have a poor reputation in the country. I would suggest one of the real reasons our reputation is tarnished and people have no faith in us is that when we appoint an impartial inquiry to do the job and we do not like what it says, we throw it out the window and start again by doing our own.
That brings me to the second issue, the public participation issue. It was stated in 1964 as being one of the main reasons for the act that was introduced at that point in time. We wanted to hear that. We are the servants of the people of the country; we are not the masters. They should dictate to us how they ought to be represented in the House. It is their House; it is not our our House. They are the ones who should decide how it should be done.
That is why we have mass distribution of material by the commission to every household in the land. Let Canadians see what is being proposed. Let them have their input. Let the impartial commission hear what they have to say and decide on the merits of the input whether there should be any real adjustments.
The government seems to have the idea that this input can be dispensed with, that it can be reviewed, and that the time and nature of public involvement should be scrutinized and set aside. That would be a bad day for democracy, a bad day for our reputations. That is why my colleagues in the Reform Party on this side of the House are vehemently opposed to the particular bill.
We have some members on this side of the House who are supporting the bill. Of course I am talking about the Bloc. I wonder where they are coming from on this particular issue. We know what their agenda is: it is to break up the country. Nothing would give them greater satisfaction than to have a referendum tomorrow to say that Quebec wants to go its own way.
I wonder if they are supporting the bill to give them the opportunity to work up or stir up the emotions in the country about real representation by members from Quebec and about their opportunity to sit in the House and have their voices heard. There are only 75 MPs from Quebec out of a total of 295. They can argue about having a minority status, as does every other province including Ontario. Therefore I wonder what is their particular involvement in the bill.
If there is a point to be made, it should be that we capped the number of MPs in the House. We have enough MPs. To create an opportunity to continue raising that number at great expense to the taxpayer who thinks we will add to the number just to help
ourselves to more taxpayers' dollars also tarnishes our reputation.
In conclusion, the Reform Party and I are opposed. The taxpayer is opposed. Every constituent in the country is opposed. I say let the hearings proceed and let us hear what the people have to say.