Debates of Dec. 16th, 2010

Democratic Representation Act

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe this disparity has gone on too long. The government of the day had a bill that it tabled in 2007 and then pulled back because it was too nervous. We actually want to get on with this and it should have come to the House in the spring.

The minister had every understanding that all parties wanted it to go to committee but here we are at practically Christmas eve and now the Conservatives want to jam it through. That is where the lack of democracy and the lack of respect for government, for Parliament, for parliamentarians and the good work that we can do to make the bill as good as it can be, instead of this absolute abdication of responsibilities since April 1 and now expecting us to ram it through right now. We will not do that.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to take part in this debate because that way, I, like my colleagues, am fulfilling the mission for which Quebeckers sent us to the House, which is to defend unconditionally the interests of the Quebec nation.

I would like to begin by saying that Bill C-12 on “democratic representation” is a direct attack on the Quebec nation. I am here to say that the Bloc Québécois, as we have been saying for months, will oppose this bill and do everything in its power to prevent the bill from passing. We currently have a minority government, and an election could be called in the next few weeks or the next few months. Our goal is to make this proposed marginalization of the Quebec nation a key issue in Quebec during the next election.

On November 22, 2006, the Conservative government moved a motion recognizing the existence of the Quebec nation. As a nation, we did not need this recognition to exist, but it was nonetheless interesting to see that almost all the parliamentarians in the House recognized the existence of this nation; that was a first. The government should have followed through on this recognition, should have walked the walk by introducing a series of measures.

Naturally, Bill C-12 does not walk the walk when it comes to recognizing the Quebec nation. On the contrary, this bill denies the existence of this nation and marginalizes its representation in federal institutions here, in the House of Commons.

The proportion of the population cannot be the only factor in determining the representation of each of the regions of Canada. If that were the case, Prince Edward Island, which currently has four members of Parliament, would certainly not have as many. Prince Edward Island has approximately the same number of people as a Montreal borough, which generally does not even have one member of Parliament. We understand that, and it is absolutely fine.

We have the same thing with the Îles de la Madeleine in the Quebec National Assembly. We understand that no democratic institution, including the House of Commons, can be an exact mathematical representation of the proportion of the population. This means that an important factor in the debate right now should be that the recognition of the Quebec nation must give it the political weight it requires in federal institutions to ensure that its voice be heard.

Unfortunately, Bill C-12 does the complete opposite. This was mentioned earlier by an NDP member. He said that with Bill C-12, the proportion of members from Quebec in the House will be less than its demographic weight. We believe that Quebec should always have at least 25% of the seats, as was the case at the time of the Charlottetown accords. We should all agree on that. My colleagues know that we are far from agreeing on that.

In Quebec, there is strong, virtually unanimous, opposition to Bill C-12. The Quebec National Assembly has, on several occasions, taken the stance that this bill should be withdrawn. Previously, before the September 2008 election, Bill C-56 gave 26 additional seats to the Canadian nation.

As of the moment the House of Commons acknowledged the existence of the Quebec nation, there have been at least two nations within the Canadian political landscape. In fact, there are more if you consider the first nations, but that is a separate acknowledgement or another way to handle nation-to-nation relationships. In this case, the Canadian political landscape is made up of two major nations: the Canadian nation and the Quebec nation. Bill C-56 would have given the Canadian nation an additional 26 seats, and we were opposed to that. We now have even more reason to object to Bill C-12, which would give it 30 seats.

It should also be mentioned that the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party did not act on Quebec's concerns about Bill C-56. What is worse, Bill C-12 is, in some ways, more reprehensible than Bill C-56. It is clear that this bill is about winning Canadian and Conservative votes. Not only did they not try to find a compromise and a balance to ensure that the Quebec nation is heard in federal institutions, but they introduced a bill that gives more to Ontario, at the expense of the Quebec nation, to ensure that they have more support in the next election in order to perhaps, eventually, win a majority government.

Bill C-12 is even more reprehensible because it adds four seats, which is a slap in the face to the Government of Quebec and the National Assembly after all the submissions they made. I want to remind this House that the 47 Bloc Québécois members and the 125 members of the National Assembly of Quebec are opposed to Bill C-12. That makes 172 out of 200 elected representatives in Quebec who are opposed to this bill, just as they were opposed to Bill C-56. More than 85% of MNAs and MPs from Quebec are opposed to this bill.

Canada should listen to the elected representatives of the Quebec nation and withdraw this bill. In addition, it should keep the proportion of MPs from Quebec at 25%. If the political will is there, formulas will always ensure that the democratic representation in the House reflects Canada's demographic reality, just as it does Quebec's demographic reality. There are other criteria that must be considered, because representation cannot be based on population alone. We can agree on formulas.

For example, if we increase the number of representatives from Canada in the House, we also have to increase the number of representatives from Quebec to keep the proportion at 25%. Quebec would be quite open to this solution, which might make it possible to reflect the demographic realities of faster-growing provinces in western Canada, such as British Columbia and Alberta.

We could also base our approach on what is done in the National Assembly of Quebec, where there are 125 seats and the chief electoral officer of Quebec regularly makes changes to reflect population movements. These are not easy debates. In this case, they take place in Quebec. Sometimes, some regions gain ridings while other regions lose them. But the National Assembly still keeps 125 seats. We could come up with a different breakdown of the current 308 seats in the House, while reserving 25% or so for members from Quebec.

It is not that we do not wish to allow Canada to change its representation to reflect the changing Canadian reality, but rather that this cannot be done at the expense of the interests of the Quebec nation. Benoît Pelletier expressed this very idea, on May 17, 2007, with regard to Bill C-56 which, I will remind members, was the forerunner of Bill C-12, although the latter is even more reprehensible because four more seats are involved. I will thus read what he said when he was intergovernmental affairs minister in the Government of Quebec.

I appreciate that the House is based on proportional representation. But I wonder whether there might be special measures to protect Quebec, which represents the main linguistic minority in Canada, is a founding province of Canada and is losing demographic weight. Why could Quebec not be accommodated because of its status as a nation and a national minority within Canada?

It should be noted that Benoît Pelletier is not a sovereignist but a federalist. He clearly understood the essence of a true confederation.

I would also like to remind members that in 1840, when the United Province of Canada was founded, the population of Lower Canada was much larger than that of Upper Canada. At that time, there was more talk about the French-Canadian nation than about the Quebec nation. The political leaders of the French-Canadian nation made the argument with French Canadians, with the population of Lower Canada, for an equal division of seats between Upper Canada and Lower Canada in the central legislature at that time. From the beginning, it was understood that political arrangements were needed to ensure that the two nations could talk to one another as equals.

The spirit that existed in 1840 should have guided us in 2010. Unfortunately, we are forced to acknowledge that we have lost that spirit because the sense of confederation no longer exists. We have a government that is increasingly centralist and, in reality, this is a confederation in name only. It is a political system where the central government, the federal government, has more and more powers, especially because of its pseudo-spending power in provincial areas of jurisdiction.

In this regard, I would like to remind the members of the House that this winter, during this session, the Bloc Québécois introduced a motion to eliminate the federal spending power in areas under the jurisdiction of the provinces and Quebec. The Prime Minister promised that this would be done and the hon. member for Beauce suggested that this action be taken several days before we introduced the motion. Unfortunately, all the Canadian federalist parties opposed the motion. This is yet another sign that the existence of a Quebec nation is not actually recognized.

This lack of recognition is particularly true on the part of the Conservatives, as we later saw. The Conservatives recognized the Quebec nation for opportunistic electoral reasons. They were trying to show Quebeckers that they were more open-minded than Jean Chrétien's Liberal government. However, this recognition and open-mindedness was merely a symbolic gesture—like a rose in someone's lapel—with no concrete meaning.

We have seen other examples of the government's refusal to eliminate the federal spending power. I remind the members of the House that I myself introduced a bill to apply the Charter of the French Language to companies under federal jurisdiction in Quebec, companies such as banks, interprovincial and international shipping companies, and broadcasting and telecommunications companies. We proposed this bill so that the 225,000 workers in Quebec who are not currently protected by the Charter of the French Language could be. With the exception of the NDP members, who were divided on the issue, all of the Canadian federalist parties opposed the bill. This just goes to show the lack of recognition of the Quebec nation and its common language and one official language, French. Once again, the parties wanted to perpetuate the myth of bilingualism when we know full well that, in the rest of Canada, the French-Canadian minority is, unfortunately, gradually being assimilated, despite the laws that, in theory, are supposed to protect francophones.

This is also quite obvious when it comes to the national culture of Quebec and Quebeckers. The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages once again introduced Bill C-32, which has been denounced by all creators, artists and singers in Quebec. This government has shown nothing but complete indifference. I must say, Quebec is not the only place that abhors Bill C-32. Many Canadian artists are also denouncing it, but Quebec's voice has been much louder than that of anglophone artists in Canada. So, once again, a direct attack is being launched on Quebec culture. This is another example of the failure to give tangible expression to the recognition of the Quebec nation. Very clearly, the bill before us is meant to favour the major broadcasters and the major Canadian and American producers, to the detriment of artists' copyrights.

Once again, this all proves that tangible expression will never be given to the recognition of the Quebec nation—not under the Conservatives nor under any federalist party.

If the government had really taken the Quebec nation into account, it would never have introduced Bill C-12. Something else would have been arranged, like what was agreed upon in Charlottetown, that is, 25% Quebec representation in federal institutions.

The old Constitution, the 1867 Constitution, contained provisions whereby the French-Canadian nation, which was based in the Lower St. Lawrence region and in Lower Canada as a whole, had accepted that the English-Canadian nation should have equal representation. Things have changed since then.

French-Canadians who live within Quebec's borders now identify themselves as Quebeckers. Everyone who lives in Quebec considers themselves part of the Quebec nation. People no longer talk about a nation based on ethnicity. The same is true of the Canadian nation. It is not a nation made up of English-Canadians or people only of British, Scottish or Irish origin. Now everyone agrees that people who live in Quebec, those who are permanent residents, who have citizenship, regardless of their place of birth, their religion or their mother tongue, are Canadians or Quebeckers.

We also have to recognize that in that context, Quebec remains the heart of the Francophonie, not just in the Canadian body politic, but in all of North America and even the Americas. Except for Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe, where French is spoken, the only place where French is the primary language is Quebec.

We have to take this reality into account in order to make the political voice of Quebec heard in the House. Mr. Gérin-Lajoie made the same arguments when he was education minister in the early 1960s under the Liberal government of Jean Lesage in Quebec, during the quiet revolution. He said that Quebec's domestic jurisdictions should be extended to the world stage. He was particularly interested in the issue of education. He said that since Quebec was responsible for education, which is central to the development of a nation and its culture, then Quebec should be heard with its own voice on issues of education and culture in international institutions. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Let us not forget that at UNESCO, we were offered a small ejection seat. If there is no agreement within the Canadian delegation between the representatives from Quebec and those from Canada, then Quebec has to keep mum, and Canada gets to speak on behalf of Quebec even if their positions differ.

This bill is insulting to us. It has to be withdrawn and I will amend it in the following way: I move, seconded by the hon. member for Laval, that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Democratic representation), because the bill would unacceptably reduce the political weight of the Quebec nation in the House of Commons and does not set out that Quebec must hold 25 percent of the seats in the House of Commons.

I am moving this amendment.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The amendment is in order.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard in this House that, regardless of the differences among the federalist parties, we would like to see this bill move forward.

However, we all know that the Bloc's ultimate goal is not to have any seats in the House of Commons. This bill is just another example of why a federalist MP from any province does more for Quebec than the entire Bloc Québécois has done in 20 years.

Having said that, will the member agree that his motion is a delay of the inevitable? That is, we will move forward to ensure that all provinces, including Quebec, are fairly represented in the House of Commons, and the motion is really just a delay tactic to prevent proper representation from Quebec and for other provinces throughout our country, which is most important. We live in the best country in the world and this is just another way for the Bloc to slow things down.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of “democratic reform” is saying that the Bloc has done nothing in the past 20 years. That is untrue. I remind him that his party has been around for 144 years and the report card we saw yesterday was pretty damning. We have accomplished things in 20 years. The proof is that in the last elections, we have received the support of the majority of the Quebec nation. We have had that support seven times, while his party is hovering around 16% in the polls.

That said, nothing in the Canadian Constitution mandates a strict proportionality, and the proof is that when provinces see their demographic weight decrease, their representation does not decrease. So proportionality does not exist, and certainly not strict proportionality. It completely makes sense, in terms of politics, for the House of Commons to decide to protect the percentage of seats for the Quebec nation. It would be possible, if there was a political will, to ensure that Quebec had around 25% of the seats.

This is a debate that we want to keep going for as long as possible and to turn into a major campaign issue in Quebec in the next election a few months from now.

I cannot wait to hear our Conservative Quebeckers defend the interests of the Canadian nation in Quebec. That will be fun to see.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech and the historical context that he provided. He said that when Lower Canada and Upper Canada joined—this is the concept of the two founding peoples—it was easily decided that Upper Canada and Lower Canada would have equal weight in the House, in the central government, even though Lower Canada was much more populous than Upper Canada.

This said, the government opposite, with its question and the heckling from certain Conservative members at the back of the room, seem to be saying that this is a sovereignist debate. But it seems to me—and my colleague can correct me if I am wrong—that this is not a debate between sovereignists and federalists, but between the Quebec nation and the Canadian nation. There is a strong consensus in Quebec among all political parties, sovereignist as well as federalist, and all of Quebec's civil society, that 25% of the members in the House of Commons must from Quebec, and that proportion must be protected.

The handful of people from Quebec who oppose that are here in the House. They are the dozen or so Conservative members and some Liberals as well. Apart from those federalist members here in the House of Commons, the other federalist members and a huge majority of Quebeckers oppose this bill.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber for his question. This gives me the opportunity to come back to this important point. I mentioned that the Quebec National Assembly had adopted two unanimous motions against Bill C-56, calling on the Conservative government to withdraw it. On April 22, 2010, not too long ago, for the third time, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted the following motion:

That the National Assembly reaffirms that Québec, as a nation, must be able to enjoy special protection for the weight of its representation in the House of Commons;

That the National Assembly asks the elected Members from all political parties to abandon the passage of any bill whose effect would be to diminish the weight of the representation of Québec in the House of Commons.

This motion is not directed only at us, as the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber mentioned, but rather at all members from Quebec. All members of the Quebec National Assembly—be they Liberal, ADQ, PQ or Québec solidaire—asked their representatives in Ottawa to call for the withdrawal of this bill or to vote against it. I hope that is what will happen.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier in previous remarks, we in the NDP are very sympathetic and very supportive of the notion that, on the one hand having recognized, unanimously, in this House the Québécois as a nation within a united Canada, it cannot then be watered down and belittled by a motion that gives them less relative strength.

It is not just a nation within Canada, quite frankly, but in all of North America. It is a distinct culture, although that word has connotations; but it is. We believe that if we are eventually going to create the conditions in Canada that will bring Quebec to sign, willingly and voluntarily, the Constitution, because as we know it has not yet, then there needs to be a lot more respect for those motions.

My question is this. Given the fact that the member, if I understood his remarks and I listened very carefully, was not interested in being seen as obstructionist in denying B.C., Alberta and Ontario the seats they should have, why then this heavy-handed motion of getting rid of 12?

Is there not some other way that the Bloc can look to work with us to get to committee so that we can find a way to ensure that those provinces that deserve and need these seats can get them, but at the same time we find a common ground that we can all live with vis-à-vis Quebec?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that very pertinent question. Our feeling is that neither the government nor the official opposition is open to trying to find solutions. We did not sense any openness during the debate on Bill C-56, and we still do not sense any openness in what we have heard this morning.

We therefore cannot run the risk of rushing the debate at second reading to send the bill to committee. As I said, our goal is very clear: we want this debate to take place in the political arena in the next election. We are going to do what we can to make that happen.

That said, I want to thank the NDP for their openness. If the other parties were as open as the NDP, the situation would obviously be quite different. Barring any evidence to the contrary, the majority of the House is completely unwilling to compromise. We may see some openness during the debate, but I doubt it very much.

The hon. member mentioned something that I think is very important. If, historically, in the Canadian political landscape, there had been some tangible recognition of the Quebec nation within the nation of Canada in a common space, we might not be in this situation today. But that never happened.

The unilateral repatriation of the Constitution in 1982, which imposed on us a charter we did not want and had not discussed, was intended to marginalize Quebec. Bill C-12 follows on Pierre Elliott Trudeau's 1982 repatriation of the Constitution, which treats Quebec as just another province. We do not accept that, and for the same reasons, we will not accept Bill C-12.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate.

Let me just state at the outset, for the record, that I am not going to repeat everything that has been said. It does not need a second go-round. However, we do believe strongly in the principle of representation by population, rep by pop. I am from Ontario, the province that, quite frankly, is in the greatest need of more seats to recognize the growing population.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You guys applaud easily. Do you do that for B.C. and Alberta, too? I will mention them. There we go. And one for Alberta. Okay. Now, we have got through that. One would think it would be motherhood, given all that applause, that we would not be stuck in this position where we are.

Mr. Speaker, let me also say that we believe, as we approach this, that we need to be recognizing the constitutional structure of Canada, our history, as well as community of interest, as defined by the Supreme Court. Those are fundamental principles that we hold out as we move forward in reviewing this bill.

Before I leave that, let me also say, and this is important, that this is like fixing one-third of the democratic deficit we have in Canada. The other two-thirds are comprised of, ultimately, getting rid of that other place down the hall that we do not need and, second, getting proportional representation, which would truly give us a House representative of population.

We need to go to a PR House, get rid of the other place, increase the seats that the provinces need to reflect their population, and then all we have done is a major repair work. Then there is the actual onward building of the country. That is the kind of work we need to do. However, this is an important piece of it. That is why we are holding the government to account on not having brought this bill forward for eight months. This argument, because there have been some kerfuffles around other bills, that somehow the opposition denied the minister and the government the opportunity to bring in this bill is just nonsense.

First, most of the time that we took up in this place in the last year was to make up for the ground we lost because the government prorogued. So a lot of the time that was here was time that the government wasted, and those bills have been in here three and four times. The government also could have extended the hours in the last days of the sitting. It did not do that.

I hear the minister over there laughing. I do not know what he is laughing about. It is important work. The hours were there. The time was there to do it. Given that I heard the Minister of Democratic Reform say the reason the bill did not come in was because the government did not have House time, I am pointing out that is not accurate. There was a lot of House time. What was missing was the political will to bring it forward, which brings me to the article that triggered all of this.

I have made the comments here that we had a fulsome debate on April 20, for anybody who is following these things, about the Bloc position and an amendment that we put. I think it very clearly states where we are on this issue. It expands on the principles that I have already mentioned this morning. We support not the 25%, and there is a reason for that, but indeed the 24.35%, which represents the relative strength of Quebec now when this bill is introduced. But more important, that represents the relative weight of the seats for Quebec in the House of Commons as it was at the time that this House unanimously said we recognize the Québécois as a nation within a united Canada.

The reason we are even debating this today, in the last dying moments of the House, is an article in the December 2 Globe and Mail, by John Ibbitson. I realize the reporters do not write the headlines, but the headline is “Federal parties agree to scrap bill to correct voting inequalities”.

I was interviewed for that, and I have to tell members it was one of those moments. We get going through an interview and the reporter throws a piece of information at us that we did not know or that is new or maybe it is something that is thrown out there to throw us off. It is a whole art unto itself, interviewing us types.

I am going to be straight upfront about where we are here, how we got here and the confusion around this article. That is my fashion, as people who know me know.

The reporter was going along sort of normal, so to speak. I do not have a tape but I suspect the reporter does. In the midst of the interview, the reporter said, “I want you to know that I've talked to one your party strategists, who I can't name but who tells me that there's an unofficial, a wink-and-a-nod deal to make sure that C-12 doesn't become law, doesn't carry, doesn't move”.

That caught me flat-footed because I had heard no such thing from anyone. However, I have been around long enough in government and in opposition to know that sometimes decisions are taken at higher levels up the food chain than me and we are not always notified in a quite timely way.

I was sort of dancing a little, thinking maybe there was something going on and I did not know about it. I said as much to the reporter. I said, “To the best of my knowledge all I can do is reflect where the elected caucus is. Unnamed, unknown, confidential party strategists I do not know about. The position of the NDP on Bill C-12 is that, as an elected member, as the elected chair of the Ontario caucus within our federal caucus and as a member from Ontario, I can tell you that we are supportive of Bill C-12 getting to committee so that we can do the work that needs to be done. Nothing has changed”.

I said that. I did not know how the article would turn out. When I looked at it, the whole article was what these strategists in the background said. I know I am wading into waters that I am going to regret.

[Vic Toews]

Go ahead.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks a lot. “Go ahead”, good friends from across the way holler.

One does not mess with someone else's profession. We interact with reporters but it is not our world, not our profession.

I have to say that the comments from the elected people, while in some cases may not have been as clear as one might hope, certainly did not reflect that headline and it certainly did not reflect what the so-called party strategists were talking about. That is what disturbs me.

I want to make sure that I get this in. I am actually glad in the long run that it happened because it did bring about debate. However I would feel a lot better about it if we had actually got to a vote and sent it to committee so that when we returned in the new year we were landing ready to go, ready to start working at committee. As it is, I do not know where we are going to go.

What I do know is, if there are NDP strategists who are saying differently than I am right now, then they should come out of the shadows, come into public and put their comments forward, because those are not true.

What happened was, given the importance of this issue in our country, that there was an avalanche of articles in which people took that starting point as the gospel, then moved from there, and we all got dumped on from all the four parties because the message was out there that there was this secret deal by backroom folk to make sure that the bill died.

I am putting on the record right now for the NDP that there is no such position, no such wink and a nod, no nudge-nudge. The fact is that we desperately need to get the bill to committee. Ultimately we have to get it enacted.

There are 30 members of Parliament who are not here who should be representing Canadians and speaking for them, just as we are. The reason they are not is that collectively, and it is the government's fault because it is the lead, collectively we have not found a way to change the law to allow that to happen.

Here we are in the last few minutes of the last day. Normally the government puts sort of unimportant things here. It shoehorns them in. My sense is the government brought this in today so that it could put forward words about how it wants to make this move forward. Again, in the absence of a vote it really does not mean much other than it is now on the political agenda of Canadians, especially those Canadians in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. who are waiting for their right to democracy and fairness and representation in this place to be delivered to them.

We are the only ones who can do that. That is why I ask the question of the Bloc. I believe if we could get this bill to committee, given the importance, we would be forced to find a way to have common ground to get this through so we can get those MPs into the House doing their job on behalf of the Canadians who have yet to elect them.

We in the NDP believe that the issue around Quebec ought not to be such a huge matter. It is sort of the second part of what we already did with the declaration.

We fervently believe that one of the medium- and long-term goals of all of us from outside of Quebec is to continue to try to create the conditions, with limitations, I am not suggesting we write a cheque and let everything go, but at the end of the day if we truly want a united Canada, all the provinces have to be signed on to the Constitution. In this country, that is not going to happen at the end of a gun and it is not going to happen through any kind of coercion. It would only happen if the people of Quebec decide in their hearts that their future is with Canada as federalists as opposed to sovereignists and an independent Quebec. That is the battle. It seems to us in the NDP that it is only fair that if we are going to go as far as we did on the motion earlier, we at least lock in that relative weight. This is a culture that is trying to survive surrounded by umpteen hundred other cultures and beyond our borders too, and we are proud of what that means for Canada.

That to us ought not to be such a big deal. It looks as though it is going to turn into that. It is a shame. I want to emphasize that I did appreciate the positive remarks of the House leader for the Bloc. He offered, I think, some constructive tone and opportunity as well as his other concerns. My words, not theirs, but I got the sense, and when I did use the word I was not corrected by the member, that they are not looking to be obstructionist about this, that they recognize the need for Ontario, Alberta and B.C. to get these extra seats so they are properly weighted and represented in the House, but Bloc members want to do it in a way that makes sure that it is not the slippery slope so that 50, 75 or 100 years from now they are down to a fraction, percentage-wise, if theirs is not one of the provinces that grows in population. We do not know what those numbers are going to be.

We are in a bit of a spot here. I am glad we are debating it. We will not know until we get back, assuming we do come back, how serious the government is about this. We in the NDP will be looking for the government to put Bill C-12 front and centre when we come back, rather than tagging it into the last day in the final dying hours of the House before we rise for the Christmas break. When we get back, I really hope that some of the positiveness here can be focused and that we can get a quick vote to get the bill to committee, because that is where the real work is. We all know that. Then we can bring in the provinces and all the experts. We can do all that we need to do but try to do it in a timely fashion so that we are not just stuck here, because that is where we are.

We look to the government. It has all the levers of power. We look to it to correct its mistake of letting this languish for so long and give action to its words that this is a priority, that it cares about the people of Ontario, Alberta and B.C. If so, then we would like to see that reflected in government business when we return, that this is up there for debate and we spend as much time as it takes to get to a second reading vote so that hopefully we can get this to committee, and as quickly as possible, get our work done there and then get it back.

Remember, democracy is not perfect. One of its negatives is that it is slow. So we need to recognize that, as quickly as we move in each of the pieces, there are a lot of pieces that need to be dealt with. If anybody is causing us to drag our heels at any of these stages, this is just not going to get fixed, and then, quite frankly, those headlines out there will be probably well deserved.

This is a minority House, a minority government, but everybody is talking about wanting to ensure that Ontario, Alberta and B.C. get the seats they could. Everyone is pretty much treating that as motherhood, so let us find out, what are the rubs; where are the problems? Let us try to get a little bit of grease, a little bit of oil, on that problem and get it dealt with. If the Bloc members are not going to vote for this on second reading no matter what, fair enough, that is their right, but that is not the majority of the House. We can still get it to committee where we can deal with their issues and all the other issues, but that is only going to happen if the government puts the bill on government business in a timely enough fashion such that we can actually do the work.

I will leave it there and I look forward to any comments and questions from colleagues.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Madam Speaker, what we see here are the federalist parties wishing this bill could get to committee as soon as possible.

The member talked about some sort of secret deal. There certainly was no secret deal with the Conservatives, and the Liberals, the NDP and Bloc members have said there was no secret deal with them. Obviously there have been no secret deals, otherwise it would be a super-duper secret, because nobody knows about it and it would still be secret. So I think we can move on from that.

The NDP member said he wants to deal with this bill as soon as possible in committee. Then would the member vote in favour of time allocation, which would reduce the amount of time spent debating the Bloc amendment? Would the NDP support time allocation, yes or no? If the answer is yes, great; if the answer is no, that would demonstrate that the NDP is disingenuous in bringing this bill to committee.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am awfully disappointed. The minister is starting to play games here and that is the last thing we need right now. I am not going to give him a definitive answer and he knows that. I do not know exactly what the minister is doing.

If the minister is asking whether we are ready to move as quickly as possible at second reading to get this bill to committee, then as I have said over and over on behalf of the caucus, yes, we are prepared. We are not going to drag anything out. We will participate in whatever debates are necessary. We will give respect to any caucus that introduces motions. But at the end of the day, the government should try to do something other than either ignore Quebec or come in here with a great big bat and force everybody to do what it wants.

Why will the minister not take an approach of co-operation and collegiality and try to find out where we can work together?

We cannot afford a win-lose situation with respect to this bill. This is about building Canada. We need a win-win situation and that is only going to happen when there is an attitude of respect for each other and each other's positions and thinking, rather than coming in here and ordering that it will be either a yes or a no, cut off debate and ram this legislation through. That is the kind of stuff that drives Canadians nuts.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Madam Speaker, as the chair of the NDP's British Columbia caucus I want to say how important this legislation is to people in British Columbia. We want to make sure that the folks in British Columbia have the appropriate representation in this place so that their views can be appropriately represented to the rest of Canada, to all the parties here in the House of Commons.

The member mentioned that changing the electoral map, adding these seats in British Columbia, is only one piece of the electoral reform puzzle. He has talked about the other things that New Democrats have strongly argued for, such as abolishing the Senate, as well as the importance of proportional representation.

I wonder if he could say a few words about the importance of proportional representation. Is that something that should also be on the agenda of this Parliament to ensure that we have real democratic reform here in Canada?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, Ontario, B.C. and Alberta members are going to speak about the importance of this issue to them. Whether a member is from those provinces or not, it behooves all of us to find a way to get this resolved. That is our major message here today.

With regard to my colleague's direct question about proportional representation, if we had proportional representation in the House we would have a much fairer House, a House that better reflects the political will of the Canadian people. I will give some examples.

Given the amount of votes that the Liberals received west of Ontario, they ought to have more seats, because enough people voted for the Liberal candidates that the numbers dictate they should have that representation here. We could say the same thing about the Conservatives. There are parts of the country where they get a meaningful, significant share of the votes but not enough to win the seat, because of first past the post. Of course, the same applies to the NDP and the Green Party. Enough Canadians have voted for the Green Party that there ought to be at least a couple of MPs here to reflect its point of view.

So this is not just about the NDP worrying about the NDP; it is about the NDP looking at Canada and our electoral system and saying we could do better. Proportional representation would be better.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague question. I know this effort has been around for some time and I understand there were three separate versions of this bill. We have been experiencing this delay since the bill was first introduced in April and there have been three different versions of it. Can he comment on why that is, and how serious is the government about it if it cannot seem to get it right?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is a really critical question in terms of the process and why we are here. This is the third version of the bill. It speaks to the lack of consultation on the part of the government. If the government had done its job and talked properly to the provinces and talked to the other parties in the House, we would have a lot clearer idea of where everybody is from the get-go. However, the government did not do that. The government once again followed its usual heavy-handed, our-way-or-the-door way and that is why we are at this point.

Now we are here debating the third version and we are sort of stuck. We are ending the year having a debate, which is good because we get to put our positions forward and it gets us a little closer to second reading, but without a vote at second reading to get this to committee where the real work will happen, it is all but meaningless.

So a lot of the problem we have is not just the complexity of the issue, which is part of it, but the government's heavy-handed approach to everything it does, the lack of respect and lack of recognition that other people have points of view and that the provinces need an opportunity to express what they want to have expressed here. If the government had done that ahead of time, it would have been a lot easier for the House of Commons to deal with this in a more expedited fashion.

That brings us all the way around to the question of whether the government is really serious about doing this or just trying to find ways to justify not making it the law of the land.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Madam Speaker, obviously the rhetoric from the gentleman is off, but we expect that from the NDP.

The bottom line is that we would like the bill to move forward. Will the NDP help the government deal with the issue of time allocation, which will be necessary to deal with the obstructionist Bloc amendment?

By the way, a lot of consultation has gone on in regard to this bill. Let us get it to committee and continue the process. However, we need the help of the other federalist parties to move it forward. Are they going to help?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, the position of the NDP is to help Canada have the kind of governance structure that reflects what people are entitled to and need in order to have a proper, modern, functioning democracy. That is what the NDP is interested in. I am not going to engage in any kind of gamesmanship with the minister about shutting down debate and who is going to gang up on whom. Let us just focus on the fact that this is about Canada.

It is not about any of our caucuses. It is about the importance of having a democracy that works and is strong and up to date. Right now, it is not, and in a minority government it is going to take all of us working together to correct this and move it along. The attitude and approach that the minister is taking is exactly opposite to the kind of leadership needed on Bill C-12.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is an amendment before us from the Bloc Québécois to defeat this bill at second reading, so it my honour to speak to that amendment and to the broader bill behind the amendment, Bill C-12, the Democratic Representation Act.

My party is supporting the bill and the Bloc clearly is not. Therefore, my comments today are directed toward the Liberals and the New Democrats.

Before I begin, I am splitting my time with the member for Edmonton—St. Albert.

For my colleagues across the aisle, this is one of the most important pieces of legislation introduced into the House of Commons in the last 10 years. It is so important because it ensures compliance with a fundamental constitutional principle, and that is representation by population in this chamber.

The idea in the Constitution is that this is the people's chamber and this principle is fundamental to democracy and an essential element of the Canadian Constitution. Representation by population is the notion that all Canadian citizens are equal and they all should have an equal say in who governs our country.

It is fundamental to our system of government. It is a founding principle of Confederation. In fact, it was the war cry of George Brown, who was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1857, and post-Confederation, to 1873. He fought for that principle in the United Province of Canada and subsequently in Confederation. It was on that agreement, in part, that Confederation was forged.

Today, however, we have gone a long way from that founding constitutional principle. The gap between how many voters an MP represents in a fast-growing province, such as Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, has never been bigger. The gap today is bigger than at any other point in our country's history since 1867.

Under the current formula by which the seats have been distributed in this very chamber, we have reached a point where the difference between the fast-growing populations in provinces such as Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario and the slower-growing regions has undermined the very principle of representation by population. For example, an MP in the House from Ontario, B.C. or Alberta represents, on average, 26,000 more Canadians than an MP from any of the other 7 provinces.

I acknowledge two other constitutional conditions on representation by population: the senatorial floor and the grandfather clause. The senatorial floor ensures that there must be at least as many members in this chamber from a particular provincial division as there are senators represented in the next chamber. The grandfather clause in section 51 ensures that in no circumstance can the number of MPs in any provincial division fall below the number of MPs that the provincial division had in place in 1986.

While the Constitution contains these two conditions on representation by population, the essential element is there and the essential element is clear and overwhelming that this chamber should be representative of the population of each provincial division.

The current situation may very well be unconstitutional. In 1991 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on proposed changes to the electoral boundaries in the provincial division of Saskatchewan. The court stated:

A system which dilutes one citizen's vote unduly as compared with another citizen's vote runs the risk of providing inadequate representation to the citizen whose vote is diluted....The result will be uneven and unfair representation.

When MPs from faster and larger-growing provinces represent tens of thousands more constituents than their colleagues from smaller provinces, it is a violation of the fundamental constitutional principle of representation by population. It is also a denial of a voice for new Canadians and for visible minorities. That fact is when we look at the 30 most populous ridings in the country, more than half of them have greater than 25% visible minority populations. The fact is these 30 largest ridings are disproportionately from Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Those ridings are disproportionately made up of new Canadians and visible minorities.

Denying these rapidly-growing regions new seats is to deny new Canadians, and visible minorities in particular, a voice in this chamber. The new Canada is growing, the new Canada needs a voice and the new Canada wants in. This is where the democratic representation act comes in.

By bringing faster-growing regions closer to representation by population in the House, Bill C-12 would restore the balance in this chamber. By adding seats to faster-growing regions, the gap in average riding populations in the country will be reduced.

For my New Democrat and Liberal colleagues, the longer we wait to make these changes, the more difficult, the more politically tenuous, they will become. The longer we wait to address this inequity, the more difficult it will be to achieve politically, because the gap will only continue to grow.

Population projections confirm this. The GTA, the region which I represent, has eight million people. It is going to grow by 50% in the next 20 years. The greater Toronto area will go from 8 million Canadians to 12 million Canadians by 2031. The same story can be told of Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

The number of visible minorities in the country will also continue to grow. In fact, Statistics Canada recently released a report that said by 2031, one in three Canadians would be a visible minority, up to 14.4 million citizens.

The effects of this imbalance are very real. They are real for Canadians in faster-growing provinces whose voices are not in this chamber, whose voices are not represented here and whose voices are not heard as strongly as they should be. By allowing under-representation to continue, we are sending a signal to these Canadians that their interests are not as important as those from other regions of the country and that they somehow count for less.

This act would strike a good balance between providing fair representation for those slower-growing provinces and recognizing the galloping heterogeneity of the new Canada. It would recognize the demographic realities in faster growing regions of the country.

I encourage my Liberal and New Democratic colleagues to support the bill, to defeat the amendment in front of us and to restore the fundamental constitutional principle, representation by population.

Provinces like Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario have experienced significant population growth and that trend needs to be reflected in the makeup of the House. Under this bill, all other provinces and territories would have their seat counts protected and would continue to enjoy better representation than the three faster-growing provinces. They would continue to be better represented in the House than the three faster-growing provinces.

This act strikes a good balance between the different interests across the country and restores a fundamental constitutional principle.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is very little in the member's speech with which I would disagree. In fact, I thought he was supremely articulate about the necessity to redress the balance among the provinces.

I have listened to the representative of the Liberal Party, my hon. friend from St. Paul's. I have listened to the hon. member from the New Democratic Party. In all three federalist parties, there does not seem to be much daylight among the various positions. There is a recognition that some inequities will inevitably occur, particularly with P.E.I., the territories and things of that nature, and some niggling around Quebec. However, by and large, there does not seem to be that much disagreement.

The member said that this was one of the most important, if not the most important, bills that had been introduced in the House.

This comment is for the former minister. There would have been a lot less heat about the bill and possibly a lot more light had there been some preliminary discussions with the various parties so the differences could have been narrowed and dealt with in a bill.

I would be interested to hear the member's comments on that.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, the government has consulted outside of the chamber on the bill. In fact, I commend the government for listening and taking into account various views outside the chamber.

I note the government, in a former Parliament, introduce Bill C-22. At the time there was much criticism that while it brought Alberta and British Columbia's numbers up, it did not do the same for Ontario. The government listened and, as a result, Bill C-12 has been introduced. It takes into account that criticism. All three provinces will be lifted to the same extent in their proportionate representation.

With respect to consultations with other parties in the chamber, the whole process is for that. We are debating this today. We are consulting today. There is a chance for parties to move amendments. The Bloc has moved an amendment in the chamber, with which I do not agree. However, there is an opportunity for members to be consulted at committee and to propose amendments to further improve the bill.