Madam Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure for me to rise to speak in favour of Bill C-12, the Democratic Representation Act, and to speak against the Bloc amendment that would prevent it from going any further.
The bill proposes a formula that would address the representation gap in the House of Commons affecting provinces with faster growing populations.
Our government is taking a principled approach. The bill, if passed unamended, will increase the number of MPs for faster growing provinces to bring them closer to representation by population while protecting the current seat counts of slower growing provinces.
Under the current formula for readjusting seats in the House, my province, the province of Alberta, has become significantly underrepresented, despite a population surge in the last two decades. However, the democratic representation act recognizes the growing populations of Ontario, of B.C. and of Alberta by providing additional seats for the provinces on a principled basis, ensuring that all residents are fairly represented in this hallowed chamber.
I support the bill unamended, because it guarantees provinces whose populations are in relative decline will not lose any seats.
All members in this place would like their provinces to have as much representation as possible. That is only natural. However, we also have to look at the national interest by ensuring, to the greatest extent possible, that Canadians have fair representation, no matter in what portion of Canada they live from coast to coast to coast.
The need to balance effective representation of smaller provinces with the demographic realities in faster growing provinces has underpinned each formula for distributing seats in the House ever since Confederation.
On the one hand, historically we have recognized that each province should have a number of seats in the House that roughly reflects its population, relative to the rest of the provinces. On the other hand we acknowledge that smaller, or slower growing, provinces need to have sufficient weight in the House to ensure that their voices are heard in decisions affecting the entire country. My remarks today will look at the historic evolution of the constitutional formula for distributing seats in the House of Commons.
The Fathers of Confederation agreed that the House of Commons should reflect democratic principles of representation, or rep by pop, as it is colloquially known. Accordingly, the Constitution Act, 1867, gave Quebec a fixed number of 65 seats, with the other provinces receiving the number of seats in proportion to their population that 65 represented in relation to Quebec's. This calculation was based entirely on the concept of rep by pop.
Each province received the number of seats it deserved, based on its share of the Canadian population. However, from the beginning it was recognized that situations might, and in fact did, arise where it would be necessary to break away from the principles of pure rep by pop. For example, there was a rule in the 1867 Constitution that stated that no province would lose seats unless its population had decreased by 5% or more relative to Canada's total population.
Shortly after Confederation, new provinces entered the confederation. When the new provinces of Manitoba and British Columbia entered in the early 1870s, they received a number of seats much higher than they would have based on pure rep by pop This was an early example of Parliament recognizing that each province required a number of seats to have an effective say in the governance of this country. For example, the province of British Columbia joined Confederation with six seats in 1871 when its population at the time would have resulted in only two seats.
B.C. continued to have six seats, protected thanks to the “5% rule” I mentioned earlier, until the significant population growth in British Columbia resulted in more seats in 1903.
Then there was the senatorial clause. Apart from the core seats that were allocated when new provinces entered Confederation, the formula for readjusting seats essentially stayed constant until 1915. At that point, a new rule was added to the Constitution that provided no province could have fewer seats in the House of Commons than it had in the upper House. This new Senate floor rule came about after Prince Edward Island lost its court challenge seeking a larger share of seats in this House.
Prince Edward Island strongly maintained it should have a minimum number of seats in the House regardless of its population to ensure it could effectively participate in the governance of the country.
Although Prince Edward Island lost the court challenge the province won a political victory in 1915 when the Constitution was amended to guarantee its seat count would never fall below the limit of four members of Parliament.
There have been other changes in the formula. The constitutional formula was again changed in 1946 and then again in 1952 in an effort to guarantee a level of representation for Saskatchewan and Quebec, which had both seen relative declines in their population. The 1952 amendment created a new rule where no province could lose more than 15% of the seats it had under the previous census.
Finally, in 1974 a very complicated formula, the amalgam formula, was adopted. I hope no one during the questions and answers period asks me to explain it.
The amalgam formula applied different rules for allocating seats in the House depending on whether a province was large, intermediate or small. While in theory the amalgam formula was designed to protect provinces with decreasing relative populations, it was soon discovered that applying the rules to the results of the 1981 census would have led to a huge number of new MPs being added to the House.
Because of the problems with the amalgam formula the current formula was adopted by Parliament in 1985. The 1985 formula starts with the fixed number of 279 seats, which was the number of MPs in the House in 1985. Those seats are allocated among the provinces based on their share of the Canadian population at that time. This basically mirrors the rep by pop principle in the 1867 Constitution Act.
Next, the Senate floor was applied to ensure that no province received fewer seats in this House than it has in the upper House.
Finally, the grandfather clause guarantees all provinces receive at a minimum the number of seats they had when the new formula came into effect in 1985.
The seat top-up provided to some provinces represents the belief of the Fathers of Confederation that every Canadian deserves to have an effective voice in the governance of their country.
Ironically, the very rules meant to protect the representation of smaller and slower growing provinces have caused the faster growing provinces to become under-represented. Because of the distortions created by the current formula, MPs in Ontario, British Columbia and myself representing Alberta on average represent 26,000 more constituents than MPs in the remaining provinces.
This balance between effective representation and demographic reality, which our predecessors saw as so essential to Canadian democracy, is now being threatened. Under-representation of people in faster growing provinces will grow worse each time the current formula is applied unless Parliament acts now.
In conclusion, the democratic representation act will bring Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta closer to representation by population while protecting the current seat counts of the remaining provinces. The new formula is principled, fair and will not cause an undue increase in the number of members of Parliament in the House of Commons.
I sincerely believe this solution balances the rights and expectations of all Canadians. As members of Parliament representing every part of this country it is our responsibility to ensure our democratic institutions are inclusive and representative.
Bill C-12 will go a long way toward achieving these important goals. I encourage all members of the House to vote against the Bloc amendment and pass Bill C-12 unamended as expeditiously as possible.