Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made some pretty far-reaching assertions in the course of his remarks. I want to go back to the California example he cited, although he did not specifically ask me a question on it.
He suggested that because in California members of the house of representatives represent huge numbers of people that we should do the same. I do not agree that the American experience is one that we necessarily need to follow. We have never done so in the past on major political matters. I do not know why we would today.
The hon. member, in reflecting on this issue, would agree with me that the American political experience has not been all roses either. He points to the parts of it he likes and says this is what we should do. However he ignores the disadvantages that their system affords, which are significant.
Canadians do not expect their members of Parliament to represent huge numbers of people. They feel they are well represented now with a House of reasonable size. Based on population we have always had a fairly large House compared to the United States and I am sure we are going to continue to have for the foreseeable future.
The second part of his question was about the proposals we have here and if the commissions are coming up with new maps are we going to throw those out a second time. I do not think so. I have no reason to believe that would be the case.
However, the member should bear in mind that in dealing with these maps the government is not throwing them out. The commissions will be free to use them as one of the three they put forward for public consideration should they decide to do so. They do not have to redraw every line on every map. This may be one of the three sets they have to do but I remind the hon.
member that they do now have to produce three. So these maps in fact could be quite helpful.
The census figures that were set out on a geographic basis for the entire country will be available to the new commissions as were to the old. All that work will not be duplicated.
For the hon. member to suggest that we have trashed everything by this bill and wasted $7 million is not accurate. We will have good use for some of things that have happened. Certainly some of the money that was spent on advertising will not be spent a second time. We are not going to trash everything and waste all the money. We are moving to save money with the new redistribution. There will be some loss from the expenses already incurred.
However, had the hon. member been vigorous in supporting our first bill instead of supporting the senators who held it up and cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, we would be away ahead of the game. If those commissions had cancelled as soon as the bill was introduced we would have saved several million dollars. It was wasted because the hon. member and the Senate got into bed together and blocked the passage of the bill and cost us a lot of money as has-