I am telling the whole story. He has a special case. He had a special riding created. The Northwest Territories is assigned two ridings under the Constitution. It will keep those two. They are going to be small for awhile. Some day maybe they will not be, but for the moment they are small.
Looking at the rest of the country we have tremendous diversity. The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster in his speech mentioned British Columbia. There are significant differences in population in ridings in British Columbia. I do not think there were any in the last proposals put forward by the commission that were exceptions in that province. There may have been one before but I do not think so. I do not think there was in 1987 either. Yet still there is a fair variation.
The commissions in the province of Saskatchewan drew the boundaries very close to the limit. They stayed very close to it so there is not a big discrepancy. I congratulate the commissions on their work. However, in some provinces it is hard to do that. In some it is harder than in others. The size of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, for example, has resulted in a difference of view as to whether we should have a 15 per cent limit or a 25 per cent limit in variation. The bill proposed 25; the hon. member in his amendment is proposing 15.
I suggest that his doom and gloom scenario, his suggestion that "voter equity would be almost meaningless" is not correct. Under the previous law where 25 per cent was the variation, in 1987 there were five constituencies in all of Canada that were beyond the 25 per cent limit, either above or below. One was above, four were below. That is five constituencies out of 295. It is not something that renders voter equity almost meaningless, as suggested by the hon. member.
In the 1994 redistribution proposals that the commissions completed that the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster says were so unpopular with Liberal members and I say were unpopular in large part with his own-he does not like to talk about that-