Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in my place today to discuss the report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding redistribution.
I would like to congratulate the committee for its very thoughtful report. The conclusion of this report as far as I understand it is basically the result that we are going to create six new electoral ridings in Canada.
I had the honour to appear before this committee on June 24, 1994. The substance of my submission to the committee at that time was very similar to my thought process today. The bottom line is that the people of my riding and indeed the people of Canada do not want to see any further increase in representatives in Canada's federal House.
As we look out at industry today the buzzword is downsizing. Everyone is becoming more efficient, more effective. We are analysing the civil service, finding ways it could be more effective with the labour force it has. We have a freeze going on in the civil service to make it smaller and more effective. Today bigger is not necessarily better.
I refer to an old bad joke that Canadians often quip on the hustings: It is fortunate that Canadians do not get all the government they pay for. It is a bad joke, but it is a bad joke on the people of Canada, the taxpayers of Canada.
Today we have telecommunications and all kinds of communication media to access our ridings and the people of Canada. I have become a great user of the information highway, the Internet. I can go to my office this afternoon and broadcast a message across Canada. These are the kinds of efficiencies we have to bring to government and to the House of Commons.
I spend roughly 80 per cent of my staff's time in the riding dealing with roughly 10 per cent of the population base. Obviously members can increase their constituency size, the number of members and constituents they deal with, without an effective increase in the cost of operations.
I look at my own particular riding of Durham which takes in a number of other political jurisdictions. Along with myself, there is one senator. We have five MPPs in Queen's Park. We have a regional government of 32 members. We have 66 mayors and councillors. The question of course is: Is this type of governance giving us better representative democracy in Canada? What do other jurisdictions do?
As I mentioned in my submissions to the committee in June, a fair comparison would be that of our southern neighbour, the United States. In 1911, 84 years ago, almost 100 years ago, the United States capped its system of representative democracy with 435 representatives in Congress and 100 senators.
In Canada, we have one federal representative for every 75,000 people. In the United States, it is one for every 465,000 people. The U.S. manages its system much the way we manage ours. Every 10 years it has a census and it redistributes within the existing system. Some states get more representatives and some less, depending on their population growth.
If we continue our current arithmetical formula, obviously this House is going to extend out on to the Ottawa River. We have over half as many representatives as the United States, yet it has 10 times our population.
I read in the report on page four comments regarding a cap or reduction as not feasible at this time. On page five I read that to change the electoral process significantly would be highly disruptive at this time.
I thought that as members of Parliament we came here to make decisions and that was what we were being paid for. Maybe we are saying we cannot make decisions and we need more members to make them for us. I do not know if that is what we are trying to put across here. I do not believe the people of Canada want any further increase in representatives.
There are basically two issues of concern here. One has been represented by some of my Reform colleagues which is to reduce the actual numbers of federal members of Parliament. The second one is a proposal by the committee that is basically to increase the representation by six members.
I have a better solution that is somewhere in between. This is Canada's constant striving for compromise. I also recognize there is a problem as was mentioned in the committee report itself. A grandfather clause signed back in 1986 with a number of the provinces stated that reductions in the seats by provinces would not change beyond the 1986 level. It is clear that agreement has to be revisited and renegotiated. I am suggesting
that has to be renegotiated and revisited now, not some time in the future.
Six more members of Parliament, people have suggested to me, might cost as much as $6 million. That does not mean that members of Parliament get $1 million a piece, but when we start adding up the duplication in services, duplication in staff, et cetera, we find there is a tremendous increase in cost. My constituents and I are very supportive of reducing the cost of governance.
The problem basically has to do with mathematics. Unfortunately in this House we seem to have a lot of problems dealing with mathematics. In my office this morning I took the existing level of seats and the popular vote and reduced both the seats and the population base taking into account the senatorial floors of the existing provinces that are already at their senatorial floors. From that figure I also subtracted the 75 seats that are now represented by the province of Quebec. After this mathematical formula takes place, the 75 seats roughly equal the 25 per cent of the population base of Quebec as related to the total population of Canada.
The bottom line is a result like this: It would add one seat to the province of Alberta, two to the province of British Columbia, but would reduce by three for the province of Manitoba, increase by six to Ontario, and reduce by four to Saskatchewan. New Brunswick would have no change. Newfoundland would lose one seat. The Northwest Territories would remain unchanged, as it is already at its senatorial floor. Nova Scotia would lose one seat. Prince Edward Island would be unchanged. Quebec would be unchanged. Yukon would be unchanged. The sum total is 295 seats, what we have here today.
Looking at population statistics there is no deviation. Looking at the 1991 census there is no deviation in those provinces greater than 1 per cent of the total population of our country. In other words, it is representation by population which is basically what we are trying to achieve.
I have not dealt with the aspect of distribution within provincial boundaries, the differences between rural and urban areas. Presumably we can follow the guidelines of the report, using an electoral boundaries commission in concert with the provinces.
In conclusion, it is clear to me that the people of Canada do not want an increase in the number of members of Parliament at this time. It seems to me that we should possibly rethink this and go back to see whether we cannot renegotiate that grandfather clause.
I have found there are too many decision makers and not enough decisions being made. Let us refocus our attention to making this a reality today and not pass the decisions off on some future Parliament.