Mr. Speaker, I hear my friend. We are to a certain degree, but by the same token I do not think folks want to get into that. If we really wanted to do that then we would get rid of the red chamber. Then P.E.I. would not need four seats anymore. It would get rep by pop. It would not have four seats; it might get two if we rounded it out, but it might only get one. Do we really want to do that?
My friends at the far end suggested they do not lose any seats in their plan because it cannot be changed. If they want to bring it forward and lose two seats that is up to them.
Ultimately, if it were a true cost factor that my friends down at the end are talking about, then we would roll up the red carpet, wish them all merry Christmas and send them on their way. We would give them a pension and save $85 million. An average budget for a senator is somewhere around $400,000 a year. Then we would actually elect folks democratically who come to this House, duly elected by the citizens of this country. They would not be people who sit down in the other place and who are not elected, who are appointed regardless of whether Alberta has an election or not. Someone could get elected in Alberta to sit as a senator and never get a seat if the Prime Minister decides not to put that person there. That is really reformation of this place.
If this discussion is really about how we determine representation in this place and we actually want to save taxpayers' money, then New Democrats will not be against that. However, I would encourage my friends to amend their suggestion to say that they will close the other place. We would be happy to help them do that.
That, indeed, would save us some money. Then we could start talking about what representation, true representation, elected, democratic representation is actually all about. We could decide whether this House should grow or not.
My learned colleague at the other end knows all too well that there is a quotient to do this, and that it is going to happen whether they do it or not. Unless, of course, we say that we should get rid of the quotient altogether and, regardless of where the population goes over the next 25 years, stay at 308. We can find a way to divide the 308 into whatever the country looks like. Maybe we will reduce the number of seats.
My colleague from Burlington talked about the U.S. Congress earlier. Members of Congress certainly represent a lot more folks than we do. I have a basic riding of average size, about 120,000. While it is certainly a lot bigger than those in some smaller provinces, I do not deny those folks the ability to be represented in the way that they have been represented. I think that is fair.
However, I do begrudge the folks in the other place who say they represent Canadians. Nobody ever elected them. Nobody ever marked a ballot for them. They just happened to know somebody. That is really what it boils down to. Heaven knows they did not know me because I did not appoint them, but they knew somebody, whether in the previous government or in this one. That is how this comes to be.
I would ask my Liberal friends to amend their piece and actually talk about rolling up the red carpet. We would save money. I understand what they are saying. We should not be cutting public services to Canadians. Our view as New Democrats is that we should not do that.
However, if we truly want to save millions of dollars, let us find a way to get folks democratically represented. Let us find a way to take the undemocratic red chamber and send it on its merry way.
Clearly for us as New Democrats, it is about making sure that we protect small provinces. We agree that those folks need to be represented. We would not want to see the north represented by one MP. If we did rep by pop, and the suggestion is that we are headed there, we would have one MP for the whole of northern Canada. From coast to coast to coast in northern Canada, beyond the 60° latitude, there would be one MP if we did rep by pop.
That is why I said this is almost fair. One MP would never be asked to represent the entire northern part of this country. In fact it could not be done. The government wants to increase the member's office budget. If this were the case, 15 people could be hired to help do the job across the top of the country, but it will not happen.
Clearly there are challenges in this country. There is the geographical challenge that everyone acknowledged. There is also the demographic challenge. My colleague referred earlier to the huge influxes of population in the greater Toronto area. They are new Canadians, and they deserve to be represented in this place. We have to find the balance.
That is the uniqueness of this country. It is finding that true balance in a place that is so large and that has such great diversity. It brings us together and unites us. It is what makes it such a great place but also a great challenge. That is always going to be the real challenge: how to find a way to approach an approximate to fairness in representation.
Unlike the government's bill, it will never be fair. I would suggest that the government should amend the title to “almost fair”, because it did not quite get all the way there. I would hope my colleagues would say that we need to continue to work at this because we are not there yet. The one proviso that is etched in stone for me as a member is that Quebec cannot go below 24.35% of the seats in this House of Commons.