Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill being studied this evening. However, I get the impression that it makes my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party a little nervous when we talk about the victories secured by the NDP.
That being said, the NDP has long recognized that Quebec is a nation. The NDP already recognized that by adopting the Sherbrooke declaration, thanks to the work of people like Jack Layton and Thomas Mulcair. It truly marked a major turning point in the history of our leftist, progressive movement.
The Parliament of Canada also adopted a motion recognizing that Quebec is a nation. Symbolic acknowledgements are good, but I think tangible action is better. That brings me back to the beginning of my speech, when I was talking about the concrete effects of parliamentarians' work, including the NDP's recent efforts.
What makes Quebec a nation?
It is not because that province is better or worse than the others, but because it is different from the others. We have to recognize that, and that recognition needs to come with consequences.
As my colleagues mentioned in previous speeches, I think we must always bear in mind the idea of the two founding peoples, the linguistic and cultural duality that has long kept us talking and that has fuelled debate throughout Quebec and Canadian history.
However, I must point out that this notion of two founding peoples makes me and my political party very uncomfortable, because it implies that the French, who came first, and the English, who came later, arrived on virgin land that was uninhabited.
This excludes first nations, indigenous peoples and the Inuit from the discussion. I think we must take this into consideration. This notion of two founding peoples is true but seriously incomplete, and we must consider this when discussing democracy, representation and nation-to-nation dialogue.
The basic democratic rule is simple: All citizens are equal. Everyone is equal before the law, and everyone has a vote. Through natural sovereignty, it is the people who decide who will be their leaders and whether they will oust them when they are no longer satisfied with them. This notion of the equality of citizens is the basis for the distribution of seats and representation in the House.
As the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent knows, I would love to discuss respect for every person's right to vote. If we had a proportional voting system, the government could not be elected with a minority of the votes, meaning a minority of popular and national support. This is a discussion I have had on several occasions, and I believe that proportional voting would greatly improve the quality of our democratic life.
Elections Canada decides on the riding boundaries and distribution of seats, but there are many exceptions. In fact, we have a system that functions by exception. We could almost say that the exception is the norm.
Three major clauses govern how seats are distributed in the federation. First is the senatorial clause, which states that no province can have fewer MPs than it has senators, regardless of its demographic weight and the number of voters in the ridings.
Next is the territorial clause. Obviously the large expanses of Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut do not necessarily have the critical mass to justify a riding and an MP. However, we all recognize that Nunavut absolutely has to be represented and that it makes sense to have these territorial clauses, resulting in these three ridings.
Last is the grandfather clause, which states that a province cannot have fewer MPs than it had before. The provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland all negotiated a certain number of seats upon entering Confederation. That has real-life consequences.
If we look at the three territories and 10 provinces, that means seven provinces are overrepresented thanks to different standards or special clauses, in addition to the three territories.
I think it is worth considering whether the Quebec nation could also benefit from a special clause of its own, given that we have all recognized Quebec as a nation. We can therefore say that what is good for others can also be applied to Quebec the exact same way and that this would be a way to recognize the Quebec nation. It may not be the best or only way, but it already came up in past talks, so we are not reinventing the wheel.
As my colleague from Drummond pointed out, this was included in the Charlottetown accord. It was already part of the negotiations to convince Quebec to ratify the Constitution after the lamentable and unpleasant events of 1982. The Charlottetown accord proposed setting the minimum at 25% for Quebec. This was agreed to by the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party of Quebec and, at the time, by the federal NDP, which also supported the Charlottetown accord.
I think this is a principle that is worth discussing and studying in committee so that we can debate Quebec's place in the Canadian federation and in our democratic process.