Madam Speaker, it is very interesting that this bill would come back from the Senate. They have already expressed displeasure with the kinds of bills the Liberals put through and are expressing it once again. Maybe this time the government will get the message.
One of the reasons we had this bill in the first place was the fact that many Liberal members did not like the way the boundaries were changed. This did not suit the demographics that they thought were in their best interests, and without any thought to whether it was in the best interests of their constituents or the taxpayers of this country they set about to basically eradicate $8 million worth of work by the boundary commissions.
In my riding and in all the ridings that are pretty well interconnected with mine we went through the public hearing process in British Columbia, as I am sure all the other provinces did as well. The initial boundaries that were set were not liked there. It is not important whether they were liked by the MPs or not; they were not liked by the constituents of those ridings.
The public hearings were held, which is the process that is in place, and they did their job. The boundary commission came out to the various towns where these were advertised and were absolutely deluged with letters, briefs, and with people coming before the commission at the public hearings to testify. The people who were not happy with those first boundaries explained in detail what it was they did not like about them, what they thought the alternatives were, why theirs were better and how things could work with the new plan they had.
The people from the boundary commission who came out on these public hearings accepted this information. They went to subsequent hearings until they had heard from the entire area. They then went back and considered all the information and input that took place. That is the way the process is supposed to work. If there is something wrong, it is up to the people it affects, not the MPs. It is up to the constituents, the voters. It is up to them to tell the people who have the authority to set these boundaries what is wrong with this in the first place. That is the process that took place. The people involved in setting the new boundaries took this information and decided that obviously it was what the people wanted. So they redrew the boundaries and changed the program based on the input of the people of the affected ridings.
What they came out with for my riding and for those interconnected with my riding was not absolute perfection as we would like to see it, but it was something that was much better than originally brought up. It was something that reflected the wishes of the people in the various ridings and it was something we could all live with. Unfortunately, it was not something, even at that point, members of the Liberal government could live with. They decided that they had to have changes. Well from time to time these things do need to be upgraded and changed, but that does not mean you should spend millions and millions of wasted dollars to make those changes. There is a time and a place for everything.
Simple changes to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act can always be brought in, but they should not be brought in at the eleventh hour, scrapping all the work that had been just about completed before this started.
One of the problems with what the government is doing is that the cost of boundary examination and modification runs about $8 million. As I said, most of that work had been completed. There is only the final step left to take place. Yet the government would have us scrap that so we can bring in a change of rules and have this work done all over again.
The public has already had an opportunity to talk about the boundaries and what was proposed. One of two things is going to happen if this bill goes through and they scrap all the work that has gone before and start back at square one: either the government is going to listen to the people, the voters of Canada, and do what they want, which has already been done; or it is going to ignore the voters of Canada, which is often its style, and do whatever it wants in order to get the boundary ridings that best reflects its members' ability to be elected. The latter is unacceptable.
If we are going to change the act there are a lot of things that should be in there. Some of those things have been addressed by the Senate amendments and some have not. One thing we proposed was a cap or even a reduction in the total number of MPs in this House.
We see the kinds of high jinks and antics exhibited by one side evoking a response from the other side and causing further retaliation. Do we need more people to do that? It costs a lot of money to have an MP here. Are people going to be better represented because we stuff more people into this place, increase the operating budget of Parliament, revamp this whole Chamber so we can squeeze extra seats in, and not only that but leave it in a formula that will see it continue to expand year after year? Is that in the best interest of the Canadian public? I do not think so.
We need elected representatives who are going to listen to the people. It does not matter if there are a thousand people in here, if they do not listen to what the people say it will do absolutely no good. That is what is happening in Bill C-69.
The government is not listening to the people who have already had input to the boundary commissions and said this is what they want. It is prepared to scrap that. There are not enough changes in these amendments or in the legislation proposed by the government, sent once already to the other place and returned to be sent back again, to justify spending $6 million to $8 million all over again. As I said, the end result is going to be the same thing or the total ignoring of the wishes of the public.
I am here to represent my constituents. My constituents can best be represented by the style of boundary changes we already have in place. If this bill goes through, with or without the Senate amendments as they have been proposed, then the wishes of my constituents are going to be ignored. Consequently, I do not support the government's legislation dealing with C-69 one way or another, with or without the amendments from the other place. It is still an unacceptable piece of legislation and I will never support it.
