Debates of April 13th, 1994

Petitions

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think you would find the consent of the Chamber to revert to presentation of reports by committees. The chairman of the fisheries committee is here and wishes to present a report and I wonder if we could do that at this point.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent to revert to committee reports?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Committees Of The House

[Ron MacDonald, Liberal, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages the first report in this Parliament of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans in relation to the Atlantic fisheries adjustment programs.

I want to thank all the individuals who have co-operated with us, most particularly members of the committee on the Liberal side, the official critic and the member from the Bloc Quebecois as well as members from the Reform Party.

I also want to thank the over 92 witnesses who participated, allowing us to come to some consensus on a number of issues relating to the tragic situation of the collapse of the Atlantic groundfishery.

Some of the technology that we used such as teleconferencing, which at first perhaps some, including myself, were a little leery of, has proven to be very beneficial in allowing Canadians access to their parliamentarians and to committees.

I hope that at least some of the recommendations in this committee report find their way into government policy.

This was broadcast live from coast to coast. The process we went through does show Canadians that Parliament can work better and that it can work without animosity and that partisanship can be put aside when we do the job. Our job obviously as members of this place is to represent to the best of our abilities the interests of the citizens of this country, no matter where they live and no matter the political stripe of the individuals who sit on a committee.

I also understand that we have some minority reports which will be appended to the document and there may be one of the members opposite who may wish to add a few words to the record.

[Yvan Bernier, Bloc, Gaspé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, given what the chairman just said, I think I have the unanimous consent of the House to append our document as mentioned. We had to proceed and co-operate with the government to hear the 92 witnesses who testified before us. It was not easy and that is why, given the need to proceed quickly, the Bloc Quebecois as the Official Opposition party wants to point it out. We also want to append to the Standing Committee's majority report a minority report stating the missing elements that, in our opinion, would enable the government to make the right decision.

Our report is generally concerned with the lack of industrial strategy. There is also the question of job training on which a lot of money will be spent. There is a constitutional dispute on the Quebec-Canada agreements, and we wanted to point it out in the House.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I will start by asking, as the hon. member indicated, for unanimous consent to give him the floor. Is there unanimous consent for the hon. member from the Reform Party to say a few words also?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[John Cummins, Reform, Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the words of my colleague from the Bloc and of the governing party. The committee worked very well during the hearings. Unfortunately we were rushed at the end in an effort to get the reports together.

I would like to present a minority report. I think there are some issues on which we were in disagreement with the majority. These issues deserve to be heard as well.

(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Questions On The Order Paper

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the following question will be answered today: No. 18.

Question No. 18-

[Bernard Deshaies, Bloc, Abitibi, QC]

Has the Federal Infrastructure program made provision to allocate funds to the federal-provincial-territorial co-operative program entitled Canada's SchoolNet and, if so, how many Quebec schools will participate in this program and what are the names of the Quebec schools or school boards concerned?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for Infrastructure]

The Canada infrastructure works program is a series of agreements with the provinces to support regional and local needs over the next three years.

The Canada-Quebec infrastructure agreement was signed February 7, 1994. Under the terms of the agreement, the program in Quebec is divided into four parts: infrastructure repair, expansion and construction for municipalities with a population of 5,000 or more; infrastructure repair, expansion and construction for municipalities with a population of less than 5,000; projects involving new technology, and major projects affecting urban areas.

As in other provinces, there is no specific allocation to programs such as SchoolNet or to other similar programs, but the criteria would allow for projects that could support the use of SchoolNet. To date, no proposals have been made to the province of Quebec regarding SchoolNet or the school boards.

[The Speaker]

Question No. 18 has been answered.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions For Papers

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the single notice of motion for the production of papers be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Shall the notice of motion stand?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994

[Fernand Robichaud, Liberal, for the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved that Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak at third reading of this very important bill which has been introduced in the House and which has received considerable support on all sides.

I recognize there is some opposition in the Reform Party to this bill but I suggest it is misplaced opposition and that in the end the Reform Party will really appreciate the fact that this bill has been introduced and dealt with in the House because it will be so pleased with the final result of the thing when redistribution has finally been accomplished.

The member for Kindersley-Lloydminster shakes his head and looks dubious but that has been his problem all along. He has been a doubting Thomas in respect of this bill and I think when he sees the outstanding work that the committee of which he is a member will do in coming up with a new law he will be gratified with the results and say he cannot understand why he did not agree with this bill in the very first place.

The hon. member knows, and all members know, that in dealing with a subject of such importance as redistribution, of great importance to the members of this place, a government is always loathe to act unilaterally and in a way that is unfair, or perceived as unfair, to the other players in the political process.

In this case I suggest that what the government has done is move in a very fair and reasonable way. What has happened as a result of this bill? The purpose of the bill is to shelve the current redistribution process for a period of 24 months. If at the end of that time there is no new mechanism put in place by legislation, the redistribution commissions will restart their work, presumably using much of the material they now have and come up with a new set of maps.

There will be public hearings that follow as there are under the current regime, and everything falls back in place again. This is simply a delay of 24 months. Let us look at the history of this. Why is the government operating in this way? Why would we argue for a 24-month suspension at this point?

Redistribution should have been effected following the 1991 census at an earlier date than this because the very first figures released in 1992 on that census were the ones for redistribution of seats in the House of Commons. However, the previous government, the Mulroney government, introduced a bill in this House to delay the process for 12 months because there was a committee doing a study of the report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing which had been presented to the country by the royal commission in early 1992. Maybe it was late 1992, I cannot remember the date, I must admit.

That report was referred to a special committee of the House of Commons. It was to study the report and come up with recommendations. It seemed pointless at the time. There were one or two in the NDP who disagreed but almost all members agreed that the proper course was to defer consideration of redistribution until there had been a study of the royal commission's report because the royal commission recommended changes to the redistribution law of Canada. The aim was to have that study by the committee done so that legislation could be introduced in Parliament to make changes.

The committee ended up with a short timeframe for such an extensive study of the act because the referendum intervened in the process and disrupted the entire committee work. It took so much time to do the referendum bill and then Parliament did not sit for months and months because of the referendum.

Nothing was done in respect of the redistribution recommendations contained in the royal commission report and nothing was done to change the redistribution law. The law was left in place and began its operations during the summer of 1993, just when Parliament had been adjourned for the summer, and at the subsequent election because Parliament did not sit again until well after the election was called.

There we were in a situation in which these commissions were beavering away across the country preparing draft maps that were subsequently made public and members suddenly discovered that redistribution was back on the table, here were the maps and the public hearings started in another month. These maps were unacceptable to the vast majority of members in this House.

We heard yesterday at length from members of the Bloc Quebecois.

They made several speeches. It was unbelievable to hear so many speeches on that issue yesterday, but each of these hon. members had problems with the boundaries in his or her constituency.

We responded to this. That is partly why the government acted with alacrity to bring in this bill and suspend the process. We spoke in advance with members of the other parties to ensure that there was some agreement on this. We suggested a motion to refer various matters to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in order to allow that committee to do a detailed study.

We invited comments from the opposition and we got some very constructive comments from both parties in opposition. We included in the motion various items at their specific request to make the committee process more palatable to them, to make sure we covered the points that were of concern to the opposition. I think we have covered them all.

The difficulty was that some hon. members on the other side have made speeches in the House decrying this. They wanted us to write in what the committee was to do; that is, if the committee was to bring in a report saying this. We as a government said we will let the committee make its own decision on how it will report to the House. It will consider all these matters but the report is the committee's decision. We would not prejudge it. We would not instruct the committee to do certain things such as limit the number of members of the House of Commons to 295 or reduce the number of members of the House of Commons or increase it no more than by x number. We said the committee would have to look at all the options and come up with a report. That turned some members of the opposition in the Reform Party in particular into nervous Nellies. They became quite upset at the thought that the committee might-

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

Wise owls.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster says: "Wise owls". I say: "Nervous Nellies".

They were afraid the committee would go out of control and come up with something worse than we now have. I suppose that is possible, but I think the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster needs to look at the composition of the committee. He is a member of it and a very responsible member of it.

The hon. member for Bellechasse also sits on that committee and he is very competent. We have several competent members and, as chairman, I can do certain things to assure committee members that everything will go just fine. So, I support this bill because we now have a motion on the Order Paper to refer all these issues to the committee, and that motion is acceptable to the vast majority of members in this House. I am convinced that once the legislation is passed, the Reform Party will support our motion to the effect that the whole issue should be referred to the committee.

I know their doubts will vanish. The committee will be able to conduct a study and come up with a new bill.

How is the new bill to come into operation? I would hope we would have the bill passed so that we would not have the 24-month delay any more. It will simply get rid of the current system and replace it with a new one which would start as soon as the new bill has passed Parliament.

The question is when it will pass. That matter rests very substantially in the hands of the committee because we have adopted for the motion to be referred the new procedure in Parliament of instructing the committee to bring in a bill on the issue.

The committee would come back with a bill to the House. The government could then table the bill. Debate on second reading stage would be very short, as hon. members know, assuming the bill complied in all respects with what the committee recommended. We would have shortened debate and rapid passage of the bill based on the new procedure. The committee would do the work and would do it in advance.

I know hon. members will strive to have the committee achieve agreement on all major points before it. We will look at the alternatives that are available for dealing with the issue for the benefit of all Canadians.

Some members of the Reform Party have said there is not a public outcry on the issue. Of course there is not a public outcry on the issue. Members of the public are not particularly involved in the redistribution process and have never shown a particular interest in the redistribution process. Most members of the public do not worry particularly about where they are voting.

When the new boundaries are in place there will be outcries from people: I do not want to vote with that group; why do I have to drive this far to vote; why is my part of the riding cut off from all the rest, all my friends and neighbours that I normally voted with; why are we suddenly lumped in with so-and-so as our member of Parliament?

That will not happen until the redistribution is complete, the election campaign starts and people find they are in different ridings. In spite of all the advertisements of the commissions most people do not look to see which riding they are in. I have gone around my constituency and have asked, and most of the people I would be losing to the neighbouring riding in this scheme-and there are not many-are totally unaware of it. Members of the public do not know and there is no public outcry.

The people who are interested in the legislation for the most part are right here in the House. It is members of Parliament who have to work with those boundaries during the time they are elected to serve the people in their own geographic areas.

Imagine, if the redistribution came into effect today or very shortly as planned, what members of the House who are losing their ridings would do for the next four years. Who are they going to be representing? Would it be the people who elected them or the people whose ridings they think they are going to be running in the next time?

From the point of view of the public the bill makes sense because it defers the process so that if redistribution is completed in time for the next election it will be done shortly before but not a long time before the election. Members of the public will be fully represented by their MPs during the time they are elected to serve them, without having to cast an eye on neighbouring ridings where members might be running the next time. That is important. It is a significant advantage for members of the public, let alone for MPs. To ignore that reality is perilous, and there are many constituencies that are disappearing.

I suggest that members of the Reform Party, many of whom are suffering substantial shifts in the process and know it, particularly those in British Columbia, must be apprehensive about it. I know they are. I know many members of that party are very concerned about the boundary proposals that have been put forward.

Here is a chance to come up with a new scheme. I am not saying the committee is going to sit there and draw boundaries; far from it. We will come up with a new arrangement that will allow for a redrawing of boundaries on a more equitable basis. We think we can come up with something that is fairer and better for Canadians.

It may be that there should be a more specific requirement for consultation with members of Parliament on the issue, or at least with political parties in the existing constituencies. I do not know what will be the best solution, but the reference to the committee is open-ended and we can look at all possible solutions in the committee.

I know hon. members on the other side are anxious to get on with the work. As chair of the committee I am anxious to undertake the work to see what we can discover. There are plenty of experts on the issue of redistribution in Canada who are familiar with it. Members of these commissions may have views they wish to make known to the committee. It is important for the committee to get on with the work and hear from those people. Passage of the legislation will ensure that will happen.

I invite members on all sides to bury the hatchet they have been wielding in recent days and support the bill. I know the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster particularly has his doubts, but I invite him to cast his doubts aside and walk with confidence into the future the redistribution process holds for all members and for the benefit of the Canadian public. It is a good bill. I know the hon. member in his heart of hearts thinks so and I invite him to support it.

[François Langlois, Bloc, Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak on third reading of Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the electoral boundaries readjustment process in Canada.

I listened with interest to the speech made just now by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, and I am sure he will want to show the same interest in what I have to say about this bill at this particular stage.

When considering a bill that has long-term implications for the future of the Canadian federation, it is always necessary to define the role of the sovereigntist member with respect to such legislation. I have never made a secret of the fact that I was elected by the constituents of Bellechasse to defend and promote the interests of Quebec, which includes promoting the sovereignty of Quebec.

As was pointed out, not by the hon. member from Kingston and the Islands but by the hon. member for Calgary West and also by the hon. member for Fraser Valley West, the seats in this House are ours on a temporary basis. We have them in trust, as it were. We do not own them. It is up to our constituents to determine who will sit in those seats. Of all the members sitting opposite during the 34th Parliament, only one member is left in this House, and this happened when constituents across Canada freely expressed their will that it should be so. It is always useful to recall that this House is not owned by anyone, that these seats are not anyone's property and that we occupy them on a temporary basis, until we are recalled by our constituents or decide otherwise or reach the end of our career.

That being said, I may be a sovereigntist, but it would be irresponsible of me to deny that a decision on the sovereignty of Quebec is still a decision that must be made by Quebec voters in a referendum that will be held in a few months, in Quebec. It will be held after the Quebec elections which, according to the Canadian Constitution, will have to take place in the fall, at the latest.

Since we, on this side of the House as on the other side, of course, are all in favour of supporting the rule of law, the very essence of democracy, we must operate within the confines of the present legislation.

At the present time, we still belong to the Canadian federation, and we must think ahead in case our ultimate goal-we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, since the Quebec referendum is only a few months away-should that light fade away for one reason or another, these seats will still be Quebec's. That is why we cannot afford to ignore the implications of this bill, if there were a change in the membership, since the Bloc Quebecois was elected for a specific term. That is why I took an active part in the study of Bill C-18 at every stage.

I must point out that once again, the government has acted belatedly in presenting this bill. They could have presented it 10 or 15 days earlier, so that it could have followed the normal process. But they chose to wait until the last minute when provincial commissions, especially in Quebec, had already started to hear witnesses or were about to hear them. As a matter of fact, these commissions are operating at the present time.

The way the debate has been going on has forced the government to bring a motion for time allocation, commonly called closure. My colleagues from Calgary West and Kindersley-Lloydminster rose in opposition to that motion. They were protesting against closure, and rightly so, I think. We did the same, even though we support the bill, because we will never accept closure on such a bill. We have been just as vocal as our colleagues from the Reform Party in opposing it.

The bill was passed at second reading and referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs which tabled its report in the House. Then my colleague from Kindersley-Lloydminster, seconded by the hon. member for Calgary West, proposed three amendments at report stage. And curiously, the party which complained so bitterly about time allocation, because debate was cut short, hardly intervened on its own motions. It is the Official Opposition which had to do the job of the Reform Party, which is a bit ironic. Why did they complain about time allocation, and choose not to speak yesterday? There is a logic there that I do not get. Could it be that their caucus meeting, Monday night, caused a number of them to lose their voices? I do not know.

Anyway, we will do our job at third reading. I do believe that Bill C-18 is necessary if we want to review the 30-year old rules on electoral boundaries readjustment. In my humble opinion, we should start this review process, immediately after the bill is passed, by studying carefully section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867.

It is the basis for the entire decennial readjustment process provided for by our Constitution. It will no doubt be the first section we will have to consider in hearing testimony and debating various amendments to provisions of section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867. We may also have to review section 51( a ), the so-called senatorial clause, which prevents a province from being represented by fewer members in the House of Commons than senators in the Senate and which presently applies only to Prince Edward Island.

Perhaps there should also be a section 51( b ) forcing the government to take a member from Prince Edward Island from within its ranks and make him or her a cabinet member, which is presently lacking. Why does a province with such a glorious history as Prince Edward Island have no Cabinet members in this government?

There is another question, but I will not get into it either. We can ask ourselves the question anyway. The criteria have not

been reviewed since 1964. I have no intention of going through the whole list, but it is high time that they we review them.

In 1964, the government of the day, the Pearson government, had the brilliant and worthwhile idea of taking the electoral boundaries delineation process out of the hands of Parliament and members of Parliament and putting it in the hands of independent commissions.

Grasp all, lose all, the saying goes. Perhaps the right balance has not been struck between the role of the legislator and that of the commissions. These are also questions we have to ask ourselves because a number of members have risen in this House to disagree with plans currently before the various provincial commissions.

We need to act, not hurriedly, but swiftly nonetheless, as we are facing some form of danger, a constitutional danger I would say. As I see it, the danger results from the fact that, during the 24 month period when readjustment is to be suspended under Bill C-18, during that time, the Procedure and House Affairs Committee will have to continue to work. The government will make its bed and eventually present a bill or accept the one proposed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. But we should not face the next federal election with a seat distribution based on the 1981 census.

One thing is certain, for the legal security of all Canadians. With all due respect, I wonder whether it is appropriate for the government to submit Bill C-18 with all its consequences, namely that we still have a distribution based on the 1981 census and that the 2003 election could still be based on 1981 census figures. Are we not in violation of section 51 of the Canadian Constitution, which provides for a decennial census and a readjustment of representation after each decennial census?

The Constitution is there for a reason. If it requires us to conduct a census, a census will be conducted, and then we will say, "We need a readjustment". If every time we are about to undertake such a readjustment, some bill cancels or postpones it, it is as though this provision were no longer enshrined in the Canadian Constitution.

I urge the Canadian government to use the authority of the Governor in Council to refer the constitutional problem to the Supreme Court of Canada for advice, so that any challenge is not left to ordinary Canadians already overburdened by taxes, and so that it can be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Bill C-18 also provides for the abolition of existing provincial commissions, a measure which we fully support since we cannot keep on standby-in spite of the comments made by the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, which will certainly be corrected later-and pay the members of those commissions to do nothing.

This provision should also apply. We can start all over again later. When I say "we" I mean this House, because we do not know what the situation will be in 24 months, and what the House will look like. Who knows, there may be 75 fewer seats. It is pointless to discuss the architecture of this House. After all, if the 75 seats from Quebec disappear, there will be enough room for larger desks, to accommodate those who have put on some weight because they do not have time to exercise in the Wellington or Confederation building. This could prove a lot cheaper than tearing down walls, as suggested by our friends from the Reform Party.

We Quebecers will do an immeasurable service to this House by freeing a little more than a quarter of the seats here.

Of course, I am pleased because I did not hear any terms such as break up or collapse. Things went smoothly and I was able to discuss the issue. In fact, I wonder why, when I raise the issue of sovereignty for Quebec, I hear some hon. members use those expressions- but not everyone, far from it. In fact, fewer and fewer do so, and it may be because they understand more and more that Quebec's sovereignty is not directed against anyone: rather, it must be done for our own good. As I mentioned yesterday to the hon. member for Stormont-Dundas, Quebec will always be as open as it is now with its neighbours, and particularly its Ontario friends, who are very close, not only from a geographic point of view but also in terms of the affinities which we have developed. Quebec is a state which tomorrow, just as it was yesterday and is today, will remain open and receptive to the world around it.

Again, Quebec's sovereignty is not directed against anyone. Let me give you an example. If, tomorrow or in the near future, the people of British Columbia decided to become sovereign, I will not get frantic. I will simply say: very good, this is your decision as British Columbians. That is fine, let us try to make some agreements, this is an emancipation for you, this is your choice and I see no point in criticizing it. I will not say that someone is trying to dismantle the country, to tear it apart, to blow it up or whatever. I think that we will have to consider very calmly the implementation of new structures for this country which has already gone through several structual changes. Since 1763, it has been known as Canada, but during the period when it was made up of Upper and Lower Canada, and even before that, at the time of the Quebec Act and the Royal Proclamation, it was a small country. It grew quietly, over the years.

My comments are totally relevant to the debate, Mr. Speaker. In 1949, Newfoundland joined the Canadian federation, but Newfoundland was not destroyed because it decided to give up its status as an independent Dominion. Newfoundlanders were never told that they had destroyed their country. They were congratulated on choosing to join the Canadian federation.

In the second 1949 referendum, because there were two of them, Newfoundlanders voted 52.34 per cent in favour of joining Confederation, while 47.66 per cent voted against. However, that referendum was somewhat special, and we will not have the same kind of referendum in Quebec.

For instance, in the riding of Labrador, the number of registered voters in the second referendum on July 22, 1948, was 2,886. The number of votes cast was 3,447, which means a participation rate of 119.44 per cent in favour of union with Canada. The people in the riding of Labrador were way ahead of the riding of Ferryland, where 3,791 voters were registered but 3,965 cast their votes, which meant a participation rate of 104.59 per cent in the second referendum, which is not bad!

The first referendum was held on June 3, 1948. There again the participation rate showed that the people of Newfoundland, and probably their ancestors as well, were interested in voting in the referendum, because as they say, we have to vote, not just for our own sake and our children's, but for the people in the cemetery. I think that is what happened there!

If we look at the riding of Grand Falls, in the first referendum on June 3, 1948, the number of registered voters was 11,458, but the number of voters on June 3, 1948 was 12,580, which gives us a participation rate of 109.79 per cent, which is quite good! Grand Falls had the best rate, closely followed in second place by Humber, with 10,745 registered voters and 11,588 people who cast their votes, producing a very respectable participation rate of 107.84 per cent. St. John's West was a close third with 19,586 registered voters and 19,880 votes cast, producing a participation rate of 101.5 per cent.

And last but not least among the ridings with a participation rate of more than 100 per cent-something not even members of the former Soviet Union have been able to do, the best record so far being 99.9 per cent in one of the former Soviet republics-the riding of St. John's East, with 16,313 registered voters and 16,322 votes cast, producing a participation rate of 100.5 per cent. A number of ridings reached 95, 98 or 99 per cent. But in spite of all that, the final result was 52 to 48. That did not prevent the Right Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King, then Prime Minister of Canada, from saying in this House, after the results of the second referendum in Newfoundland were announced, that "It was clear from these figures that the majority of the huge number of voters who cast their votes were in favour of Confederation. It would seem that the outcome of the plebiscite was "definitely beyond a shadow of a doubt" a sign of support for union between the two countries. The government, and surely the Canadian people as well, welcomed the results of this plebiscite".

I trust that with the standards now in effect and Quebec's legislation that is almost unmatched for its rigour, a result of 50 per cent of the vote, plus one, will be accepted when Quebec makes its decision.

That being said, you will no doubt allow me to say a few words about my own riding, which is also affected by the bill as all other ridings are. Several of my colleagues in the Official Opposition spoke about their ridings yesterday and I did not yet take the opportunity to talk about mine in the other stages of the debate.

Mr. Speaker, I invite you to visit my riding of Bellechasse. You will always be welcome and I will be pleased to host you if you do not have anywhere to stay, but there is excellent accommodation almost everywhere. Anyway, it will be a pleasure for me to receive you when you come. The limits of the federal riding of Bellechasse are as follows: it is bounded on the east by the riding of Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, represented by my hon. colleague. On the west, it is bounded by the riding of Beauce; on the east, by the State of Maine in the U.S., and on the north, by the St. Lawrence River, although my riding also includes some islands in the St. Lawrence, one of which is Grosse Île, where thousands and thousands of Irish families stayed on their migration to Quebec or Canada.

The riding of Bellechasse could now be described as a rectangle going from Saint-Pamphile in the southeast to Lac-Etchemin in the southwest, and from Saint-Jean-Port-Joli in the northeast to Saint-Anselme in the southeast, Saint-Anselme being the parish adjacent to my own parish of Sainte-Claire-de-Dorchester.

With the new electoral map as proposed, which takes into account regional county municipalities or RCMs, the riding of Bellechasse would include two more parishes in the RCM of L'Islet, namely Saint-Roch-des Aulnaies and Sainte-Louise, which are now in the electoral district of Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, so that the whole RCM of L'Islet would be in the riding of Bellechasse.

More to the west, the riding of Bellechasse would gain the municipalities and parishes of Saint-Cyprien, Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague, Sainte-Rose-de-Watford, Saint-Benjamin, Saint-Prosper, Sainte-Aurélie and Saint-Zacharie, which are all located in the RCM of Etchemins. My federal riding of Bellechasse would then include every parish of the RCMs of L'Islet, Montmagny, Bellechasse and Etchemins, for a total of about 64 parishes and enormous distances we still measure in miles because the numbers are too high when they are measured in kilometres.

The homogeneity is very nice, but the distances are a little ridiculous as a single member of Parliament responsible for such a vast area cannot properly serve all of his constituents. The criteria for readjusting electoral boundaries in Canada must be reviewed.

In closing, since we are talking about redistribution, it would be interesting to say a few words on the redistribution of seats in the other place. We would be in favour of an immediate and total redistribution of the 104 seats in the other house where unelected people are highly paid to sit. I think our friends in the Reform Party would wholeheartedly agree with us that we should abolish, in their present form, all the constituencies in the other house of the Parliament of Canada. We do not need a second house whose members would be working as they are now.

I for one am in favour of the proposal put forward by the Reform Party, namely a triple-E Senate, an equal, elected and effective Senate. In my view, that respects the principle of equality among provinces, where all provinces would have the same number of representatives and all regions would be represented.

Even though I said I would be in favour of such a proposal, I do have one very fundamental reservation. The proposal would probably be acceptable to English Canada, but never to Quebec. Quebec does not belong in another house where there would be equal representation of all provinces. Quebec will have nothing to do with that, nothing at all.

In 1965, the premier of Quebec, or the man who would become premier the following year, in 1966, Daniel Johnson Sr., the "real one" as some people call him, wrote in a book entitled Égalité ou Indépendance that Canada will be binational and biethnic or it will not exist.

It is up to my colleagues and of course to you, Mr. Speaker, to determine if Canada has become binational and biethnic. Not only do we not hear the word biethnicity anymore, but outside the province of Quebec, a lot of people even deny the existence of the Quebec nation-and I use the word nation in the English sense of the word, in its sociological sense, where it means people rather than country. No matter what Mr. Trudeau says in his private meetings, the word nation in French can apply to the existence and values of the Quebec people today, a people who have demonstrated their collective willingness to live in a given territory, to prosper there in their own language while respecting their minorities and to create within this territory a national state, a home for francophones in America.

That is the goal that we, the Official Opposition, along with Quebec sovereignists and nationalists, will continue to pursue until we succeed, hopefully within a few months, in convincing our friends and colleagues in Quebec that Quebec sovereignty is as good for Quebecers as Canadian sovereignty is good for Canadians and as American sovereignty has been good for Americans. Quebec sovereignty is the affirmation of a people who have finally achieved political maturity. In that spirit, we will vote in favour of Bill C-18 at third reading.

[Stephen Harper, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to participate in the debate on third and final reading of Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. First of all, I want to state my party's position. We in the Reform Party are against this bill and continue to oppose it. It is obviously a waste of the time of independent commissions established under legislation passed by this House. Also, it is rather strange to stop the process as public hearings are starting or about to start.

I will be discussing the policy of this government as well as its motives. I must also comment on the remarks made by my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois and his party's position. I understand that the Bloc supports this bill, but I cannot figure out why.

Basically, I do not see why the Official Opposition would support the government in establishing boundaries in Quebec for elections which, they say, will never be held because Quebec will have achieved political independence. I understand the Bloc Quebecois's position on Quebec's independence, but not their position on representation in this House. I do not understand their position on this bill, not at all. I am puzzled by a number of things.

The hon. member for Bellechasse mentioned that we Reformers had moved amendments to this bill yesterday. We made the points we wanted to make. Five or six of our members have spoken on the bill. Now the Bloc, which supports the bill, continues to debate the amendments we moved and that they oppose, thereby delaying passage of a bill they support. I do not understand that and, as I said earlier, I do not see the point, for the Bloc Quebecois, of supporting suspension of the readjustment of electoral boundaries and of the number of seats in a future election if, as they claim, they are not interested in those seats because they would have no use for them in view of the events to come in Quebec.

It is a position I do not understand. I understand somewhat better the position that the government has put forward. I listened very carefully today to the words of the parliamentary secretary who gave for the first time somewhat of an explanation of how the government arrived at its position and how it has conducted itself. I will not comment on that at length. I have said a great deal about it already in the House and in committee.

If one examines very carefully the position of the parliamentary secretary, what he really is saying is that politicians should decide whether these boundaries are appropriate or not. Many of us, Liberals and apparently Bloquiste aussi, think they are not and therefore that really justifies the bill. I know there was more

sophistication to the argument than that. But I heard that as the core of the argument and that troubles me a great deal. It is a fundamentally different concept than the one we have about the redrawing of political boundaries. It is the reason we are concerned about delaying the process for two years and diverting it to a parliamentary committee, dominated by the government majority and then, of course, having on that committee an official opposition that does not think these seats are going to be important to it four years from now.

Let me just comment a little further on that. We had a committee hearing on this bill. We passed the bill on the Thursday before the House rose. Within hours we were in committee and within a couple of hours of that the bill was passed.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster and I were there. Officials from Elections Canada including the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, appeared before the committee. I want to put on the record part of the exchange from that committee if I could because it is very instructive on what the motivations for bringing this legislation were. Let us be clear. They have very little to do with the process that is now under way. I will summarize a few points from that hearing.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster asked Mr. Kingsley:

-were you yourself or Elections Canada in general consulted about the suspension of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act prior to its introduction into the House of Commons?

Mr. Kingsley: -there was not what I would call consultation with me or my office about this bill.

Mr. Hermanson: Is this unusual?

Mr. Kingsley: Well, I've been in the position for four years, and previous amendments to legislation relating to the office have involved consultation with my office-

Mr. Hermanson: -I want to know if the commissions have completed their work under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act to this point? Would that be fair to say overall?

Mr. Kingsley: The answer is yes, they have. They've done their work in accordance with the schedule and in accordance with the requirements of the statute. They are on time.

Mr. Hermanson: Do you know whether they're on budget?

Mr. Kingsley: In terms of the budget that had been fixed, the answer is yes, they are on budget.

Mr. Hermanson: Were the commissions themselves properly constituted as required under the act?

Mr. Kingsley: To the best of my knowledge, yes.

Mr. Hermanson: Was there any indication of incompetence on the commission? Were there any obvious errors or mistakes reported to you or that you observed in supervising their work?

Mr. Kingsley: The answer is no.

Mr. Hermanson: Are you aware of any meetings having been held improperly, say, without a quorum or something like that?

Mr. Kingsley: I am advised the answer to that question is no.

Mr. Hermanson: Do you feel Elections Canada was able to meet the needs of the commissions by providing the maps, the census information and other information you were required to provide to them?

Mr. Kingsley: That is certainly my view because I have heard absolutely nothing to the contrary from anyone.

Mr. Hermanson: There has been no suggestion there were inaccuracies in any of the information received? The census information was correct?

Mr. Kingsley: No information to that effect at all.

Mr. Hermanson went on to ask whether the commissions have the latitude if they hear representation from the public in the public hearing process to make more largely definable changes in the boundaries. Mr. Kingsley replied that in accordance with the statute the commissions have all the latitude they wish on that matter. That is the point of the exercise. I will go on.

I had asked Mr. Kingsley to confirm that the first notification was really with this particular bill. Did it occur after the tabling of the new proposals or the new maps? In other words I was asking if the government showed any particular interest in this to Elections Canada before there were specific boundary proposals that affected Liberal members. Mr. Kingsley confirmed essentially that yes it was after the tabling of the maps that the question was drawn to his attention.

Mr. Hermanson: Are there already a number of people who have applied to meet before these commissions? Are you aware of that?

Mr. Kingsley: Apparently requests have come in throughout the land.

I know that because I was one who along with several other members of our caucus had prepared submissions and made contact with the commissions. I should add that considerable money had already been spent setting up the public hearing process which is now under way.

Mr. Hermanson asked if a review were going on in committee, in other words the review proposed under the government's motion to look at the process, would it hamper in any way the current work of the commissions. Mr. Kingsley replied that from a purely technical point of view he would have to answer no. Of course we do have the bizarre situation that the hearings are now proceeding because the commissions have to do that in law. Of course there is still the intention to shut down the process.

I asked Mr. Carol Lesage, assistant director of operations, electoral boundaries, whether some of the people on the commissions were qualified. Mr. Lesage made the following observation: "In the majority of cases the commissioners are university professors in political science and in most cases specialize in questions dealing with representation".

In fact when I asked my research assistant to find some detailed articles on these questions so we could call some witnesses it turned out that many of the names she came up with were in fact commissioners.

I asked Mr. Lesage whether to his knowledge the commissioners had any particular partisan background. Of course the answer to that was no.

Mr. Hermanson: Has Elections Canada received extensive complaints that the process is too slow, or too fast?

Mr. Kingsley: I am advised that we have not received any complaint in that respect.

Mr. Hermanson: Have you had a large number of calls requesting more information or registering complaints regarding the maps that were distributed?

Mr. Kingsley: I remember looking at some statistics. The number of calls has increased recently as a result of this exercise at the 1-800 number.

It would appear furthermore he went on to say, that a number of those calls were directly related to the fact there were advertisements that the public hearing process was about to begin. It is now under way.

It is fairly clear there is no malfunction in this process. It simply does not suit the political self-interests of members of Parliament, particularly members of the government. It apparently does not suit the political interests of members of the Bloc Quebecois. However I do not understand precisely what those interests are. I am sure they have nothing to do with the referendum in Newfoundland 50 years ago.

There has been a certain amount of public reaction to this event and this bill in the media. Let me just review that because this is what people are reading across the country concerning this piece of legislation.

I will not go on and on about this but the Vancouver Sun said: ``So much for fair play''. That was its editorial on March 25.

The Calgary Herald of March 25 urged the government to play by the rules. The Calgary Herald said: ``The Reform Party is right. On this issue, Reform at least appears willing to play by the rules rather than work them to its own self-interests''. I have to mention that because I certainly do not have an endorsement from the Calgary Herald for the election and I do not suspect I will have one in the future. However, I think it is worthwhile to note that endorsement.

Winnipeg Free Press , March 26: ``A Liberal fiddle''. It goes on to point out the inequities that this legislation will perpetuate.

The Montreal Gazette : ``Redrawing the boundaries. Ridings should reflect reality, not Liberal politicking''.

In La Presse of March 29, Pierre Gravel wrote: Electoral map-millions wasted''. He points out, and I agree with him, thatSince they arrived in Ottawa, the Bloc has pleasantly surprised its opponents, even in English Canada, by behaving as a responsible opposition party.'' This is an editorial from Quebec. But he also adds that ``This is the first important issue on which one can criticize it for not playing its role.''

The Ottawa Citizen , March 26: ``So much for principles. Crass partisan interference by the Liberals in the redrawing of electoral boundaries ensures the next elections will be unfair''.

Edmonton Journal March 26, Norm Ovenden: ``Liberals protect personal kingdoms. Proposals from independent commissions for new riding boundaries would have cut some MPs out of the political picture''. Of course some of them may be cut out in any case.

The Globe and Mail wrote a number of articles on this. One in particular I want to quote at length: ``Ottawa moves to scuttle revisions to riding boundaries. Grits cut off debate, introduce law to help process of redistribution. Using arguments that affected MPs traditionally raised at boundary revision time, Liberal MPs said yesterday that the proposed changes would disrupt traditional communities and social links within ridings and would eliminate historical riding names. The realignment of rural ridings to give them similar numbers of residents to urban ridings would also make them larger and more difficult for MPs to travel''. That is what we heard.

"However, at a closed caucus meeting two weeks ago, Liberal MPs from central Ontario said that the boundary revisions would adversely affect local campaign organizations especially in weakly held ridings. The MPs burst into applause when Solicitor General Herbert Gray, the minister responsible for elections legislation, promised that the government would block the process. The government's move to close off debate yesterday prompted some dissension within the Liberal caucus. Some senior ministers objected to using time allocation so early in the party's term on an issue not crucial to Liberal policy or programs".

"Sources say some Liberal MPs facing another four years with hugely overpopulated constituencies were persuaded to support the move with warnings that realignment could boost the Reform Party's chances in Ontario. Other MPs were told the government will assign additional constituency staff to crowded ridings". I should add that all three parties have agreed to assign this additional staff through the Board of Internal Economy, which we did in any case.

We all know we cannot believe everything we read in the newspapers. However this is a disturbing report, not refuted to my knowledge by anybody in the government to this point. I think the motivations, perhaps not as openly painted by Liberal members as in the article, have been clearly expressed in the Commons that this does affect personal political needs.

I want to shed a little more sympathetic light on this situation. First of all I am glad to see in that article, and I did suspect and have reason to believe there are Liberal MPs and cabinet ministers who do not support what is going on. I wish they had been listened to here.

However I do think there is a problem we should be frank about. Why has this particular issue proceeded this way at this time? In the past there has been a ruckus and concern about riding redistribution. There always will be. Sometimes in the past Parliament has intervened to change the process but it has always given a public policy reason before. It has changed the amending formula in the Constitution that only it can alter, some of the particulars of that. It has through that suspended the process and it has restarted again. Never has it stopped the process without a clear public policy objective other than to study it.

Why did that happen this time? I think the reason is very clear. I saw the map in the Ottawa airport recently. The partisan map of Canada after the last election is very interesting. I know there are some differences here and there, but if you stand back a few feet you see a green bar on one side, the Reform Party and our strength in Alberta and British Columbia. You see a red bar through Ontario where the Liberal Party won most of the seats. You see a purple bar through Quebec where the Bloc Quebecois won almost all of the francophone majority ridings; most of the ridings won by the Liberal Party were ridings with larger anglophone or allophone populations. Then there is another red bar on the other side of Quebec in Atlantic Canada.

What does that mean? It means that you cannot go to an independent commission and make proposals that appear to be sticking up for your own riding without appearing to be against a caucus colleague. You cannot say your riding should be altered a certain way and therefore change the riding next to yours, unless of course you get together as caucus colleagues. That has made it more difficult. I sympathize with that situation because we have had to deal with that in our caucus in terms of preparing our own submissions.

As difficult as that situation is, that cannot block redistribution forever. It certainly is not right to have people represented in the year 2000 on a census that was conducted in the early 1980s. That is ridiculous.

With that all said this is an argument for many, many things. It is an argument for the independence of the process. As the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster pointed out to me today, it is probably also in many ways an argument for the Reform Party policy of fixed election dates every four years.

It is an argument for some of the things that have been raised to restore the Senate to its role of regional representation. It is also an argument for the need for a second chamber. When there is a dominant majority in this Chamber that operates on confidence and insists that the most wildly unjustifiable thing go through and it slams it through as quickly as possible, there is an argument for an elected independent or second legislative chamber. I repeat elected. It would reconsider that measure and force the government and force the House of Commons into some reasonable compromise.

The Senate itself is in a very awkward position in these kinds of situations. The Senate has a clear legal and constitutional mandate which allows it to revisit and to block any piece of legislation. Its unelected status puts it in an extremely difficult position. I am not going to mince words on this, but I hope the Senate studies this thing as carefully as it believes it should be studied. I hope it examines very carefully all the questions, including the constitutional question. To delay this past the year 2000 is in fact a potential violation of our Constitution.

If the Senate believes that is the case, the appropriate thing for it to do, because of its unelected nature, would be not to block the bill, not to vote it down, but insist that the government get a constitutional reference to the Supreme Court on this so that we can be sure that we are not doing anything that is constitutionally or legally untoward. That is very important.

I have spoken a lot on this bill before. I have spoken at length today. Our point is clear. There will be other speakers from the Reform Party and I believe they will all be opposing the bill and we will be opposing it at third reading.

In closing I would like to move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting the following therefor:

Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, be not now read a third time, but that it be read a third time this day three months hence.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The motion appears to be in order.