Mr. Speaker, on behalf of our party, I want to put a few comments on the record about the bill before us.
I agree totally with the comments by my friend from the Bloc who just spoke. His points were exactly the same as the ones we would make.
One major concern we have is the lack of interest in the political system. Every time we have a new election, particularly at the federal level, we have an extremely low turnout. I know some of that is because people are getting so fed up with politics and with the performance of the present government. They are throwing up their hands and saying, “Well, what can we do about it? I am not even interested. I am not going to vote.” Those are few and far between, and that is unfortunate. If people do not vote, there is no way we can change or improve what goes on in our country.
One reason we have such a low voter turnout is that quite often people are left off the list. They are not contacted, they know nothing about the procedure and they do not know where to vote because they do not exist as far as the voter list goes.
The present enumeration system of trying to change a permanent list just does not work. One way that always worked was the regular door to door enumeration. We knew who lived in every house and how many voters there were. All of them were notified precisely about when, where and how they would vote. That is not happening and it is not going to happen now because we are rushing a process that ordinarily took a fair amount of time.
One reason we have been given for this is we are in the days of computers and things can be done much more quickly. I am not aware of any computer or any computer program that can tell somebody when a family moves into an area, takes up residence or shifts ridings. This information has to be found out and input before a computer can produce it. A computer only spits out what we put in.
In my own area we will see significant change. We will see 90% of the district I represent geographically removed when the new boundaries are put in place. We can argue why the boundaries were changed the way they were, how much input government had, and how much political manipulation went on, and we all know there was a fair amount of it. When a Liberal government, and I presume the same would be true of any other party were it in power, looks at changes in boundaries, undoubtedly it says what it wants to say, and people are very conscious of the fact that the government can gerrymander the boundaries to suit itself.
One major concern however is not where the lines are put, it is the philosophy behind it all. When people say that they will make all ridings in the country equal, that they will draw a circle around 90,000 people and that is the district, it does not work that way. Some people in their ivory towers in Ottawa, or any of the larger centres, but I say here because it is where decisions are made, who have no idea of the reality of representing ridings in rural Canada, look at us and ask us what the difference is between representing 90,000 people in rural Quebec or rural Newfoundland and representing 90,000 people in the heart of Ontario. They say that there are still 90,000 people to represent, that we are in the House, we stand to express their wishes, we sit in our offices and we answer their phone calls. We wish it were that simple but it is not. You, Mr. Speaker, have been around long enough to know that representing 90,000 people in rural Canada takes a lot more time, effort and energy than representing 90,000 people in one urban area.
Let me give some examples. If we have an urban riding with 90,000 people, it means we are dealing with one municipality, which in turn perhaps looks after the recreational programs and any other social programs in that area. They are also undoubtedly surrounding the heart of provincial governments, where they can walk into a government office any day of the week and have their problems dealt with.
In rural areas, we have up to 75, 80 or 100 different communities and small towns. They all have municipalities, rural development associations, fisheries committees and recreational groups. They all want to meet, talk and express their concerns and plans with the member representing them. They look to those members for leadership. In none of these areas can the people who live there walk into a government office and get help. The only help they have on problems and concerns relating to government is through their representative.
It is chalk and cheese to try to say that people can be represented in an urban setting the same as they can in a rural setting. When boundaries are determined, we should also be well aware of the problems geography presents to the members who try to do a good job to properly represent them.
This is a very small part of our job here in the House. We are out travelling in our areas, meeting, dealing with, planning and developing a vision for our regions, and that takes time and effort.
To get people interested and to do it properly, we need them on the voters list. I was about to say because of the incoming prime minister, but it is never over until it is over, so I should not say that. However the person perceived to be the next prime minister wants to call an early election so he does not have all those people over there glaring at his back, with knives in their drawers. He wants to get rid of them. He wants to clean house. To do that he needs a quick election.
He can have his election and we can get the extra seats for Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario in proper time, with due process taken care of first. That is not happening in this case.