Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-69, an act to provide for the establishment of electoral boundaries commissions and the readjustment of electoral boundaries, at third and final reading today.
I am pleased to have this opportunity because, although I am opposed to the way the Liberal government has handled the issue, the debate which has taken place around the issue of electoral boundary readjustment has produced some very good suggestions for change. This debate today gives me a chance to comment in more detail than I did earlier this year when I spoke on the concurrence motion that was presented before the House.
Bill C-69 was first tabled in the House of Commons on February 16, 1995. It has been dealt with in committee and is now back in the House for third reading. Bill C-69 repeals the existing Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act which has been in place since 1964.
In early 1994 the commissions established under the 1964 rules and appointed in more recent years began issuing their proposals for the new electoral boundaries, which they had been working on for months previous. The proposals generated considerable concern and debate, especially since the federal election had just been held and concluded.
In March 1994 the government introduced Bill C-18 to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. As originally drafted, Bill C-18 would have abolished the 11 electoral boundaries commissions and suspended the act itself for up to two years. Because of concern that this would unduly delay redistribution-and the Liberal majority in the House of Commons refused to acknowledge this-the other place proposed amendments to suspend the act only until June 22, 1995 unless new legislation was put in place before then and rather than abolish the committees to suspend them until that time.
The bill in front of us today is meant to address those matters. The government is doing what it can to ensure it has full passage before June 22. At the outset, let me say that I will be opposing the bill when the vote occurs at the conclusion of the debate. I will do this because I believe the government is interfering with the independence of what should be a completely non-partisan arm's length relationship between the people of Canada and its politicians.
There is a place for politicians to debate process and procedure and to set rules that will apply in the future. However, in this case the independent process had begun its course and was acting according to its existing mandate when the government unilaterally shut it down and began setting new rules that would be applied retroactively.
With the passage of this bill the new rules will be in place and the work of the many existing boundary commissions, much of it completed after numerous public hearings were held, will be put on the shelf to gather dust. I expect such will be the case of the Saskatchewan Boundaries Commission which for all intents and purposes has completed the work of readjusting the federal boundaries within my province. Because of the provisions of this bill, that commission will likely not be reappointed and Saskatchewan residents will vote within the same boundaries that were originally set for the 1988 general election when the next general election is called.
Political constituency boundaries are like provincial and national boundaries. Despite the fact they are often arbitrarily drawn, they help to recognize economic, social and geographic patterns. They are most easily accepted by the public when they recognize those patterns.
We in Canada have developed a system that is based on a reference to population and changes in these constituency boundaries take place when populations shift. I realize that in a system of representation by population this is an important consideration. I agree with those who, inside and outside this Chamber, argue that it makes no sense for one member of Parliament to represent a constituency populated by 110,000 and another MP to represent a population of 55,000 or less.
Even though each citizen of Canada has one vote in a general election, the votes when counted are not equal. In the case I just outlined, those smaller constituencies require only half as many votes to elect their representative as do those in the larger constituencies. Those representatives in turn vote on matters of concern to all the people of Canada in this House on their behalf.
The boundaries commissioners who are appointed to redraw boundaries when populations change are also charged with taking into account local trading patterns, communities of interest, geographical barriers to movement and local economic conditions. Past experience has shown this has not always been the case. Therefore, changes in the way we do this stuff is important.
To a certain extent this bill addresses a few of the problems we should be looking at for the future. I will address some of those changes in just a moment. First, I think it is important that we do
not overlook the fact that the system is in much more need of an overhaul than this bill provides.
There is talk about the need to reduce the number of members of Parliament. This is a matter I support and one which I think this Parliament should examine in greater detail. There has been much talk about building an electoral system around a couple of different concepts, like proportional representation, or perhaps a preferential ballot. This is another matter I support, the discussion of these different systems of elections. We would be doing ourselves an injustice if we did not pursue that debate as well.
The House of Commons is only one part of what we call Parliament. It is impossible and I think irresponsible to reform one part of this picture without addressing the other. I talked about the other place in my remarks on the concurrence motion.
I want to stress again that as long as we are hitching our horse to an electoral system based completely on representation by population, we must address the problems this creates in regional fairness. We can best address this by reforming the second chamber of Parliament. I support the idea of abolishing the currently unelected and unaccountable Senate and replacing it with a new elected, accountable and certainly more useful second chamber that can address more equitably the grievances of the regions.
These matters are all important to addressing the real economic and social issues facing all Canadians. The government should be prepared to take the next step in this matter as soon as the debate on this bill is complete.
In presenting his report to Parliament the chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs which by and large drafted this bill, the member for Kingston and the Islands suggested that there were a number of problems with the process of looking at boundary changes. For the most part I agree with him. Those problems have to be addressed.
The member for Kingston and the Islands said there was a problem with the beginning of the process. Newly drafted boundaries maps often appeared to the general public as if by magic. For most ordinary Canadians the first they knew there was a boundary change in process was when they saw a redrawn map published in a local newspaper. The new boundaries appeared as if they were a fait accompli, a done deal. The work had been completed. Although public input was sought at this point, to many Canadians this seemed like a futile gesture. Most of the work had already been done.
Changes considered and brought forward in this bill now make the consultation process start earlier. The public will be notified before the boundaries commissions begin the process of redrawing the maps. Public input will be considered at that stage. This is very important and I am pleased to see it included. So much of the work goes on in that early decision making that the role of the public must be considered.
At the same time we know today that the existing commissions are not required to justify their rationale for making the early decisions, those decisions which determine the basis for readjusting the boundaries. The new rules will require the commissions to justify themselves. This is also most supportable.
In our own case in Saskatchewan, the most recent commission made its early decision to give our two largest cities, Saskatoon and Regina, four instead of three seats each. That decision subsequently affected every other seat in the province since there were no additional seats to be had in Saskatchewan.
There were 14 seats before redistribution and there were 14 seats after redistribution. When the commission decided to move two additional seats into the urban environment it meant that two rural seats would basically disappear. On that point there was no public input prior to the decision being made. Subsequently the commission was not asked to justify why the two urban seats needed more MPs and the rural areas needed fewer.
In a historical aside, I think it is worth noting that I found in the history of federal representation in Saskatchewan a very interesting circumstance. If we look at the historical record we note that the first federal election in which the newly formed province of Saskatchewan participated was back in 1907. Ten federal constituencies were contested. In 1907 Saskatchewan had 10 seats out of a total of 221 in the House of Commons. That number fluctuated considerably over the years to a high of 21 seats in the elections of 1924 and 1933 when the House total was 245 seats. Today in a House of Commons of 295 members, Saskatchewan residents are represented by 14 MPs.
If the House of Commons expands to 301 seats, we will continue to have the 14 seats for a while but then we will begin to lose seats, eventually ending up with just 10 again sometime in the early part of the next century. After 100 years of history we will be right back to where we started: 10 seats in 1907, 10 seats in 2003.
I might add that according to Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, if the government ever addresses the question of a smaller Parliament, Saskatchewan will again lose more seats. It will likely end up with no more than eight members of Parliament representing every citizen within its provincial borders. This is more than enough reason for Saskatchewan residents to say that we should make sure that we look beyond representation by population in the second chamber and develop a system that will ensure there is fairness in regional representation.
Going back to the bill, another problem in this mix of existing rules left any sort of national standards for the basis of decision making as non-existent. Every boundaries commission made their own set of rules and set guidelines for how they would adjust the boundaries within their area of jurisdiction.
As a result, there was no consistency across Canada. Some constituencies were created under guidelines which took into account normal local trading, economics, social and even religious patterns. Others were created for population or even for political purposes.
This meant that some commissions made changes that were completely unnecessary. They only did so because they were given the opportunity to make changes on rules they established for themselves. The whole matter of unnecessary changes is crazy. I think the committee has recognized that in proposing changes in this bill.
The changes proposed in this legislation will now make public input more useful, consultation more widespread and boundary changes necessary only when warranted by dramatic population shifts. These are definitely changes that have to be made.
I agree that the role of the public must be strengthened because this exercise is ultimately for them. The boundaries on which MPs are elected have an effect on the type of representation the people within those boundaries can expect or should expect. In drawing up those boundaries the needs of those who will be directly affected must be respected.
I also like the principle of "least amount of change" which this bill proposes, although I do not support its retroactivity. The principle of least amount of change means that no boundaries readjustment commission would be appointed when the population does not warrant it. If there is no substantial population change, then there is no new commission, no new work done to adjust boundaries, no public hearings, no new maps or advertising and with that no new expenditure of public money to create something that does not need to be changed. This is a positive element.
For the benefit of my constituents back home in Saskatchewan, as I mentioned earlier, this likely means that there will be no new map for Saskatchewan's federal boundaries. The Battlefords-Meadow Lake constituency created for the 1988 election and which was in place for the 1993 election will likely remain in place for the next federal election whenever that may be.
In conclusion, let me simply say that the changes presented by Bill C-69 do not justify the suspension of the current process and the discarding of the work of so many commissions that was virtually complete. However, the debate has been worthwhile. The changes will improve the process for the future. At the same time, let us not forget there is that bigger picture to look at, a picture that should include a review of the total number of seats in the House, the concept of proportional representation or preferential ballot and the concept of a second chamber of Parliament that is accountable to the people of Canada.
