Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on the fair representation bill. As my colleagues have noted, this is a fair, reasonable and principled bill, and I could not agree more.
During the election we committed to our constituents and to all Canadians that we would come back to the House and pass a formula that would restore fair representation to this House. The election was a time when we got to debate this with the people with whom we should really debate it. As we knocked on doors someone could bring up the representation in the House. In coffee shops we could talk about what the House should look like, and what was possible and what was not.
At the all candidates meetings we certainly had the opportunity to challenge each other, as my colleague from Manitoba just did with another colleague from Manitoba to talk about the issues of the day in the provinces they come from. I come from Ontario and in that province we surely did talk about the need for there to be more seats and a better representation for the province of Ontario. That debate has taken place outside the House, and today it is taking place here.
As the Prime Minister and the Minister of State for Democratic Reform have stated, we made three specific commitments to provide fair representation. We would provide a formula that would allocate an increased number of seats now and in the future to better reflect population growth in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. That sounds like a pretty good plan. We would protect the number of seats for smaller provinces to provide for their effective representation. That sounds like another good plan. We would ensure the proportional representation of Quebec according to its population. We are keeping these commitments with this bill.
My colleagues have spoken passionately about these promises. Some members have explained the details of how the proposed formula would work. I am not going to repeat much of what my colleagues have already said. They have done an excellent job in talking about how it would affect the representation in very large ridings and the representation in the provinces that currently are under-represented. I thank them for doing that.
I would like to discuss some of the details and background of the changes to the readjustment process and the timelines that the bill proposes. I am the chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. That committee will oversee the examination of this bill during the committee stage. I would like to bring some of the experience and ideas of that committee to bear here in the House.
First of all, I would like to thank all of the members of that committee for their great work. We tend to work more as a consensus than we do anything else. It will be quite a load for us to take this on in the short period of time we will have to consider the bill. I ask ahead of time, and I know I will get it, for the co-operation of members of that committee to work together as we always do. The timelines will be tight. We will be able to do it if we work together.
Regarding the boundary redistribution process, our Constitution requires that we readjust riding boundaries every 10 years. Our rules for carrying out this task are set out in a piece of legislation called the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. This law was put in place in 1964. Up to and including the boundary adjustments following the 1951 census, the House of Commons itself was responsible for fixing the boundaries of electoral districts.
A predecessor committee to the one which I chair was responsible for drawing the boundaries themselves. There was a considerable amount of political influence on the readjustment process prior to the 1960s. This was often referred to as gerrymandering, a term we use to describe the manipulation of riding boundaries along partisan lines, usually to the advantage of the incumbent or the dominant party.