Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise in the House to speak to the bill. The bill is extremely important because it would affect the makeup of the House and, therefore, directly impact the representation of Canadians moving forward.
The way these seats would be distributed must be discussed. Correct seat distribution is essential to our democracy. Ensuring that Canadians are fairly represented is paramount. As members of Parliament, we must do what we can to ensure that representation is protected in the House.
I am happy to stand and speak to this today because of the significance of the bill to the correct representation of Canadians. I and my caucus colleagues on this side of the House are supportive of the notion of seat redistribution. That being said, we must ensure that seat redistribution is done properly, as the redistribution of these seats will have a direct impact on our local communities, especially communities such as mine.
My constituency is the most populace in the Scarborough region. I represent over 130,000 constituents. How would this bill affect the people I represent? Would my community be divided and, if so, how would this division happen moving forward?
As MPs, we and our teams work as community builders. We have meetings with our constituents. We attend and organize local events that bring our communities together. We visit schools and have conversations with the children and parents. What we are doing is civically engaging the citizens of Canada, one constituency at a time, in our democracy and in our civic processes. MPs and their teams work to build communities and bring communities together.
Moving forward with this seat redistribution bill, we need to ensure that, when the constituencies are broken up, it is done along community lines and that communities are not divided because we need to ensure that we are helping them thrive rather than causing further division within them.
The process of seat distribution should really be an opportunity and an exercise in nation building. It is essential to ensure that each province has the number of seats it is entitled to based on not only its population but also on the principle of proportionate representation.
It is also essential that Quebec, having been unanimously declared a nation within Canada, maintain its current weight in the House, which is historically accurate to the time that our Constitution was written. Unfortunately, that is another area where the bill falls short. The bill would do nothing to protect Quebec and its weight in the House. In fact, the bill would reduce Quebec's weight. It also has no safeguards to ensure that Quebec's weight does not continue to diminish moving forward. This lack of protection is not unique for Quebec only but for all other provinces and territories at well.
I will use Prince Edward Island as an example. It currently has four seats for an Island with the population of almost 141,000 people. That is just 10,000 more people than in my one constituency alone, which is divided into four seats. We need to ensure that these seats and the type of representation that Prince Edward Island has is protected moving forward. The system was set up by the Fathers of Confederation to ensure that the people of our country are represented adequately and well. If Prince Edward Island is working, then we need to move toward a system that ensures that our members of Parliament have the opportunity to meet with their constituents and ensure that we are able to provide the type of representation and service for our communities that the communities in Prince Edward Island get. We need to ensure that we are able to have those conversations with our constituents.
I will now talk about the other areas in the country that would be diminished. Along with Quebec, Atlantic Canada would see its weight of representation decreased or diminished in the House of Commons. Northern Canada would be facing the same kind of problem.
As I have said, the correct distribution of seats is vital for our democracy, so we need to ensure that we get it right. We need to ensure that we are having conversations with the provinces and territories so that they receive the number of seats they are entitled to. Unfortunately, this bill would still leave the provinces and territories under-represented and would not redistribute seats to the provinces that are most populated. We need to do this in a way that allows for proper consultation with the provinces and territories, which has yet to happen. We need to ensure that the provinces and territories have a buy-in to the plan. At the moment, there has been little commitment to this plan by the premiers of the provinces and territories.
If the government is serious about proper representation in the House of Commons, I will make some suggestions about what it should do. It should sit down and have conversations with the provinces and territories to discuss fair representation. A form of fair representation may be proportional representation and maybe even reforming or eliminating the Senate to allow for more proper representation in the House.
The New Democrats are very supportive of seat redistribution. In fact, we were the first party to introduce a bill on this very topic. The difference is that our bill gave additional seats to the fastest growing provinces and Quebec to ensure that the historic weight was maintained.
At the end of the day, we need to use this process of seat redistribution as a nation building exercise. Sir John A. Macdonald, our former prime minister, who was also a Conservative member, was a nation builder, but the current Conservative government is not even living up to its own party's history and is deteriorating the legacy of our Fathers of Confederation. This process needs to bring us together as Canadians and not rip apart our nation and communities or pit region against region. We must consult with the provinces and Canadians and ask whether this bill would do enough to achieve better representation by population while, at the same time, building a stronger Canada. In my opinion, this bill would not.
At the end of the day, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta would remain under-represented in the House. I will throw out some numbers with respect to the proposed new seats in this bill. We would see the percentage of representation in the House diminish and be less than the actual percentage of the population in all four provinces. The projected percentage of population for Ontario, for instance, is 38.91%, whereas the percentage in the House would be 36.12%. Quebec would go down from its historic weight in the House.
This really needs to be an exercise in nation building. Nation building is about true fair representation that is inclusive of all in the country. If we are going to do an exercise in nation building, we need to ensure that the House represents all Canadians. That means ensuring there are more women in the House who represent 52% of our population, more aboriginal people, more newer immigrant communities being represented, more youth and more persons with disabilities.
I will end my remarks in saying that our former leader, Jack Layton, a great parliamentarian and member of Parliament, lived to build this nation and unite this country. That is what we all need to be doing, working to bring this country together and strengthen it, not to be pitting region against region and diminishing the quality of representation in the House. We need to ensure that we are doing better to represent all Canadians.