Fair share, yes; increasing the actual numbers, no. Therein lies a substantial difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals. As I pointed out, there is a difference in all three political parties.
I have been listening to the speeches given by New Democrats, trying to make an assessment. It reminds me a bit of the debates we had in Manitoba about remote issues versus urban issues. In Manitoba we tried to address that by having percentage variances on fairness in representation. I could be wrong, but I believe it is 5% in the south and then a voter variation in northern Manitoba. Some people want to see the variations increased to a certain degree, but they have been generally well-received.
I have had the opportunity to ask questions in regard to the NDP position on it. The response I have received are have indicated more concern with the numbering issue. For example, one NDP member said that we should look at England where members sit on benches. I have to wonder if the NDP is trying to give the impression that we should be getting rid of the desks and chairs and bringing in benches. Is that what we need in the House of Commons? That NDP member suggested that we just need to look at the other side of the ocean. I thought that was somewhat interesting.
I would like to continue to flush that debate out and the way to flush it out is to allow the debate to occur, but the Conservatives have limited that. I am interested in hearing more opinions from New Democrats.
As a member of Parliament, I love to share with my constituents not only what Conservatives are saying, but also what New Democrats are saying. I am interested in what they have to say. All I know for sure is that they do not have a problem with increasing the number of MPs by 30. They seem to be of the opinion that the percentage in rural ridings has to be increased so the ridings are not as big. They also seem to be of the opinion that it should be at least 25%. I might be corrected on that in terms of the province of Quebec. We will see how this whole discussion evolves.
I want to focus attention on the size factor. How many constituents is the optimum number of constituents that a member of Parliament can actually represent? I suggest a lot of that depends on resources. If members of Parliament are not given any resources, then they will not have the ability to hire people and service constituents, so they will want relatively small constituencies. If members of Parliament are provided with the opportunity to employ people, then they will be able to service a larger number of constituents.
In terms of the size of a constituency, we need to factor in the types of resources provided to members of Parliament to serve their constituents. I would be most interested in hearing about that.
I am quite satisfied, I must say, with the resources that I personally have been entrusted with and I do not take them for granted. However, as compared with being an MLA in the Manitoba Legislature, a member of Parliament gets considerably more resources, but the constituency is considerably larger. I think that somewhat proves the point.
In Manitoba, for example, there are 57 MLAs. An MLA has resources somewhere in the neighbourhood of about $60,000, which allows him or her to have a constituency office and a staff person. Compare that to a federal constituency and we would see is that in Manitoba roughly four and a half provincial constituencies make up one federal constituency. If we do the math, it is not that far off, in terms of resources that are provided to a member of Parliament versus an MLA.
I believe, given the resources that a member of Parliament is given here in Ottawa, that I am quite able to provide the same sorts of services that I would have been able to provide as an MLA, even though it is a much larger population base. That is why when I bring forward the argument asking whether we have to increase the numbers of members of Parliament, I challenge the government to provide a rationale as to why we need more members of Parliament.
The rationale that the Conservatives are using now is just strictly that they want to give more MPs to Ontario, Quebec, well, Quebec is more of an afterthought for the Conservative Party, Alberta and British Columbia. In essence that has been their rationale. They just want to give them more MPs and that by giving them more MPs, they would have more clout and there would be fairer representation, in terms of the equality of one vote.
Let us look at the numbers. We have 308 seats now. That is an actual increase of 30 seats. Ontario would get 15 seats, Alberta would get six seats, B.C. would get six seats, and the province of Quebec would be given three seats.
We have to put that into the perspective of the economy. Here we have a government, in its most recent budget, that is talking about the economy and how it is going to address, in part, the economy by making significant cutbacks every day that we are in session. I participate in many discussions among my colleagues. I hear about cutbacks in Atlantic Canada. Those cutbacks are serious. They would change lives in Atlantic Canada.
I suspect whether it is the Atlantic or the Pacific, from coast to coast, we are going to find that there are significant cutbacks taking place, that the government is wanting to downsize bureaucracy and our civil service, thereby reducing services. At the same time, with this bill, the government would increase the number of politicians. It just does not make sense.
My best guess is that if the Conservatives were to really caucus this and have a free vote, there would likely be more support to readjusting within the 308 seats, so that at least they could be consistent with their budget debates. That is just my best guess. However, the chances of that happening, I suspect, are not great.
I encourage the government to really reflect on what it is that it is doing on two fronts: the time allocation is wrong, the Conservatives are stifling debate; and increasing the number of seats indefinitely is the wrong thing to do. This is not what Canadians want.