Lost his last election, in 1997, with 33% of the vote.
Business Of The House June 15th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for being a little slow in getting to my feet after the question was asked of the government House leader.
I wonder if the House leader might expand on the government's intentions as to how many bills it plans to deal with tonight before the adjournment of the House.
Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995 June 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I want the House to know that I do not doubt the abilities of my colleague, the hon. member who served with me on the procedure and House affairs committee, but I brought into question why he and his party would change position on the electoral boundaries process from supporting the government to opposing the government. In fact I believe they changed critics. I think that is fair comment. I do not think I made any personal allegations against the member.
If the House deems that I did, I would certainly withdraw them. It was certainly not my intent. I was trying to deal specifically with the positions taken by the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois with regard to all the legislation including Bill C-69 which we are debating this evening.
Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995 June 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I touched on that in my speech. Saskatchewan is seeing a reduction in the total number of MLAs. They have gone from 66 to 58. The people in the province with whom I have talked applaud that. They want less government.
If we start reducing the number of seats in the House of Commons the way we proposed in the procedure and House affairs committee, Ontario would lose a few seats as well. The province of Quebec would lose a few seats. Instead of B.C. increasing its number of seats it would lose a few and, yes, Saskatchewan would lose a few.
We are fair minded in Saskatchewan. We know what we could lose. We believe in smaller government and we are prepared to accept it.
Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995 June 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question from my colleague, the hon. member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup.
I remember the procedure and House affairs committee meeting the hon. member is reflecting upon. That committee meeting was held just a few days after one of his colleagues made the suggestion that in the referendum we expect to be called this fall, if the separatists have the courage to call it this fall, only old stock Quebecers should have the franchise. Those are not my words. I am quoting his colleague. In other words, only old stock Quebecers should be allowed to vote. Those are not my thoughts and I would certainly not suggest that but one of his colleagues did.
I saw some of the flip-flopping on the whole electoral boundaries issue. For a while the critic for the Bloc was in favour of the bill then later opposed it. He supported some parts of it and then was not sure.
I began to wonder what was the rationale for the Bloc's arguments regarding Bill C-69. I asked the hon. member the reason. I asked whether the member was trying to design an electoral system in Quebec that would give the advantage to old stock Quebecers. That is a very honest question in light of the comments his colleagues made, not mine. I assure the hon. member that I am not as ignorant of the situation in Quebec as he might have this House believe.
This goes to the more important issue of democratic principles. If his colleagues can suggest that democracy can be abused to the point where only certain people would have a franchise based on their ethnicity, that causes some concern as to whether or not they are legitimate spokespersons for the democratic process and the whole process of determining how the electoral boundaries readjustment act is crafted.
The other very interesting question is, why would they even care? If they lose the referendum, they have lost the argument. That means Quebecers have decided they want to stay in Canada. I suspect that is what Quebecers will say when the referendum is held, if it is ever held. Why would they care? They have lost and would not represent Quebecers.
On the other hand, if the separatists win the referendum in Quebec, they say they are going to leave, that they are going to separate. It is going to be unilateral and they are gone. Therefore what do they care about how Canada crafts the electoral boundaries readjustment act?
It just shows how irrelevant the Bloc Quebecois is to legislation we are considering in this House. It shows how irrelevant the Bloc is as Canada's supposedly loyal official opposition.
Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995 June 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' rationale is sometimes very hard to understand. They do not seem to think that debate and taking the votes seriously is important. They have become so arrogant on that side that they think just because they introduce a bill it should get speedy passage through this place without the cut and thrust of debate and serious consideration in voting.
There were a lot of members tonight who put great effort into some of the amendments on that bill. Members on that side would have quickly rushed through the process without allowing those members to stand and vote for the principles in which they believe. We know the Liberals do not believe in free votes because they sent talking points around saying that it was not a free vote. The Liberals want to bring six more MPs in here and tell them that they do not want free votes. The Liberals want them to be their little voting machine slaves. It is a shame and this House deserves much better than what the Liberal government is giving us.
The government is supporting one of the amendments that came back from the Senate. I assure the House that it makes sense. We will be supporting it as well. That is the commissioners must be residents of the province which they are serving.
There are some other changes. The Senate suggested that the variable quota be reduced from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. Of course, the Senate heard us arguing a very good case here in the House and agreed with it. I believe there is one other amendment Reform can support. The other amendments we do not find acceptable.
Part of the reason for the problem tonight was because the Liberal government mismanaged this evening's activities. We talked to the Liberals. We wanted to arrange the situation much better than we did, but they were not interested. It is very typical of what they have done with Bill C-69. They have mismanaged the process. They have set targets which they cannot reach. They have tried to pass legislation that is unacceptable to Canadians. It is receiving obstruction or meeting a roadblock in the Senate and with real justification.
In wrapping up, I want to thank the Senate for sending this bill back. I certainly wish the Senate had been elected so that it would have more legitimacy. It could do this on a more regular basis. It could offer sober second thought, as it is supposed to, to legislation this House passes that is ill conceived and not of the quality Canadians deserve.
The government has introduced a motion to send this bill back to the Senate with some amendments. These amendments do not concur with the wishes of the Reform Party because of the arguments that not only myself, but my colleague from Calgary West and perhaps some others will bring forward.
I would like to move an amendment to the motion. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following:
a Message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House agrees to Amendments Nos. 1, 4(a), 6(a) and 6(b)(i) made by the Senate to Bill C-69, an act to provide for the establishment of electoral boundary commissions and the readjustment of electoral boundaries, and this House disagrees with Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 4(b), 4(c), 5, 6(b)(ii), 6(c) and 7.
Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995 June 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I see by the clock that it is 9.50 p.m. The House was scheduled to sit until 11.30 p.m. because of a special government order. Therefore this party has not cost the Canadian taxpayer one cent. We are taking democracy seriously.
This means that the added costs of having extra members here-
Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995 June 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-69 rings a familiar bell. It was Yogi Berra who said it was déjà vu all over again.
This issue of electoral boundaries readjustment will not go away. Before we get into the amendments that have been proposed by the Senate to deal with Bill C-69, we should quickly review the chronology of events which have led us to today when we are dealing with this bill yet again.
I first became aware of some perceived problems with the electoral boundaries readjustment process when the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands cornered me one evening and said: "We have a real problem with the new electoral maps that are being presented by the electoral boundaries commissions. They are just incompetent. They are doing a terrible job. The boundaries are all drawn in the wrong places. They have made some grave errors and our caucus feels we have to do something about it. We can't put up with this type of incompetence." He suggested that a major review of the whole process needed to be undertaken.
This was shortly after we had launched out on this first session of the 35th Parliament. In fact you could say that those of us who are newly elected were launched from the electoral womb out into the cold, cruel world. It seemed like a number of Liberal MPs were rather unhappy with the uncomfortable climate they found themselves in. They were not prepared for the political realities.
I think there was a little revolt in the Liberal caucus, which I suspect was mainly composed of Ontario members of Parliament, and probably some Atlantic Canada members as well, who found that their boundaries were redrawn and that those people who had elected them and the organizations that had won the election for them had suddenly become irrelevant. They were concerned. They were inexperienced parliamentarians, many were inexperienced politicians, and they were not able to cope with the prospect of change.
With this revolt in the Liberal caucus the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands came with all of this concern. We asked what the problems were. When it came down to brass tacks it was not so much the system that was the problem but the outcome of that system with which they were unhappy. They felt the way to solve the problem was to pretend it never happened, strike new commissions all across Canada and let them redraw the boundaries in a way the Liberal government might find more acceptable. They were quite certain they would be able to draft some master plan, some revolutionary new boundary readjustment plan that would solve their problems.
In March 1994 the Liberals introduced Bill C-18. Not surprisingly, they time allocated the bill. We thought that was extremely unusual. What was the emergency? After all, we had just been elected and they were time allocating this Bill C-18 to suspend the electoral boundaries process so they could cook up some new and wonderful scheme to readjust our electoral boundaries.
We have seen time allocation and closure imposed on this House many times. We should have know then what was coming, that this government is not prepared to deal with reality. It finds unacceptable any opposition whatsoever and uses its clout and the might of its majority to ram things through the House with very little regard to other members.
After the government had suspended the process it had to launch a new process, so it introduced a motion to this House, Motion No. 10. I have an Order Paper from Tuesday, April 19, which has Motion No. 10 in it. For the record I will read the motion:
That the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be instructed to prepare and bring in a bill, in accordance with Standing Order 68(5), respecting the system of readjusting the boundaries of electoral districts for the House of Commons by Electoral Boundaries Commissions, and, in preparing the said bill, the committee be instructed to consider, among other related matters, the general operation over the past thirty years of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, including:
(a) an assessment of whether there should be a continual increase in the number of Members of the House of Commons after each census, as now provided in section 51 of the Constitution Act;
I will break there for one minute and review what happened with regard to that instruction put forward in Motion No. 10.
We considered the expansion of the House that is called for under the existing provisions of the electoral act and the Constitution of the country. Our seats currently are 295. Mr. Speaker, as you can tell, we are pretty well stretched to the maximum, but we are going to have to find room for six more seats in this House. It seems very odd that we would want to be adding seats to this House when the trend in Canada is to go the other way.
Currently in my province of Saskatchewan a provincial election is being fought, and it is being fought for fewer seats than in the last election. In 1991, 66 seats were available for the taking in the election. In this current campaign only 58 seats are available to be contested.
I understand there was an election in Ontario the other day. We do not hear too much about that election from members on the other side, but I happen to know that the successful campaigners were also campaigning for a reduction in the size of the Ontario legislature. They wanted to see fewer seats in Queen's Park, not more. And they won. I think they wanted to reduce the seats by something like 30 per cent, if I am not mistaken.
However, do the Liberals in Ottawa, listen to the Canadian public? Do they think Canadians want smaller government or less government? Did they take it seriously when this motion was drafted that stated we should look at reducing the size of the House or freezing the number of seats so it could not expand? Not on your life, Mr. Speaker. They thought they had it made. They thought they were in lotus land and that no one was going to take away any of their seats. They refused to consider reducing the number of seats in this House of Commons. They wanted it the way it was. In fact they wanted more seats. They refused to do anything that would keep this House from expanding. It would have to go on to 301 seats, and in future years, after censuses, they would see even more seats added to this House.
That was the first point in Motion No. 10, to deal with freezing the size of the House and reducing the number of seats in the House, but to no avail.
The second point in Motion No. 10, point (b), states: "A review of the adequacy of the present method of selection of members of the Electoral Boundaries Commissions". Now these commissions were supposed to be terrible. They had done a terrible job, so we really had to revolutionize the way we structure these committees and the way they choose these commissions.
The Liberals scratched their heads and tried to think of ways in which they could recraft the appointment of these commissions. They tried to think of ways in which they could restruc-
ture them. It was almost to no avail. There was a little tinkering around the edges and a few little new wrinkles were put into the process. But if we look at Bill C-69, the bill we are debating here tonight, we will see that the composition of the commissions and almost every aspect of the commissions is very similar to what was in place before.
We have to wonder about the concerns the government expressed in the first place about the way in which the commissions were chosen or appointed and the way they were to function.
We go on to point (c). Point (c) of Motion No. 10 states: "A review of the rules governing the powers and methods of proceedings of Electoral Boundaries Commissions, including whether these commissions ought to commence their work on the basis of making necessary alterations to the boundaries of existing electoral districts wherever possible".
I will admit that there have been some improvements in this area. The fact that there have been some improvements does not justify suspending the process, wasting $5 million of taxpayers' money and getting ourselves into the bind we now find ourselves in, still dealing with Bill C-69.
Those improvements could have been introduced without suspending the process and they would have come into play when the next boundary readjustment took place. While this is one small reward for the fruit of our labour, it certainly was not justification for all the pain this House has had to go through, the procedure and House affairs committee has had to go through, and those Liberal MPs who were so concerned about the process have had to go through.
Point (d) in Motion No. 10 states: "A review of the time and nature of involvement of the public and the House of Commons in the work of the Electoral Boundaries Commissions". Here again some minor changes were made. Hopefully they will be improvements. They were certainly ideas or proposals the members of the Reform Party in the procedure and House affairs committee saw as small improvements. Again, this certainly was not justification for the suspension of the process and for the dilemma we now find ourselves in, having to deal with Bill C-69 once again.
When I began my speech tonight I talked about this all beginning before March 1994 when a panicked member for Kingston and the Islands said: "Disaster has struck. The sky is falling. Our electoral process has broken down and it is irreparable. We have to fix it."
The Liberals introduced Motion No. 10 on April 19, 1994, and with very little improvement over what we had prior to that.
What did we do? Like all good parliamentary committees, we brought in witnesses. Sometimes the government agrees to bring in witnesses and sometimes it does not. If it is dealing with electoral boundaries, which affects MPs, it is very important that members of Parliament be allowed to appear as witnesses before the committee. It is imperative. No MP should be denied the right to appear before the procedure and House affairs committee. However, if it happens to be MPs' pensions, members of Parliament have no business appearing before the procedure and House affairs committee. They were refused the right to appear before the committee. The Liberals found this issue very embarrassing. We have to question the motives of the Liberal government.
However, we had members of Parliament appear before the committee. We also had expert witnesses who appeared before the procedure and House affairs committee. They told us that we have one of the best processes in the world. We talked about what they did in Australia, what they did in Europe, and how the process works in the United States.
When we started to draft Bill C-69 on the basis of the information from the witnesses, we made very few changes. Commissions are still composed of three members. One is still appointed, the chief justice of the province, and two are selected by the Speaker. There are a few new wrinkles and a little more consultation in the process. That is fine, those are small improvements. But again, there is absolutely no reason to suspend the process, as was the case in Bill C-18.
We heard the witnesses and we met with the government House leader, who appeared as a witness before the committee, and then we began going through the clause by clause study of the bill. We made some changes and achieved some improvements. We found that during our initial discussions with Liberal members on key issues of the legislation there was co-operation and often agreement.
I remember the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands telling me: "I think 15 per cent variable quotient is superior to 25 per cent. I agree with you absolutely." However, as we got near the end of the crafting stage of the bill suddenly 15 per cent was just impossible. "It is unacceptable to my members", he said. He said that it had to be 25 per cent, that it just would not fly if it was 15 per cent. Suddenly the members in the committee who had been saying yes, it is reasonable to have a 15 per cent variable quotient, withdrew that support and went back to the comfortable old familiar 25 per cent variable quotient. Here we are in Canada, in 1995, a modern, highly educated, highly developed country, and we have to stay in the dark ages; we have to stay in the days of yore and allow for a wide variant of at least 25 per cent.
We met with Elections Canada officials and they were extremely helpful. They helped us with the technical components of the bill and they provided resources that helped us in the crafting of the bill.
While the Liberals were inflexible on key principles such as the schedule and the variable quotient, and to a degree on the communities of interest, although we were able to make some small improvements there, this bill was passed here in the House of Commons earlier this year and sent off to the Senate.
I should backtrack for a minute and talk about the Liberal backbenchers who came to appear before the procedure and House affairs committee. They were mainly rural members and members from large, growing, urban areas. It was quite interesting to watch the rural members saying "We want to make sure the bill is drafted in such a way that our already very large rural ridings will not be made any larger, so that in areas like northern Ontario, where we have few rural ridings, we will not lose some of those and have even fewer rural ridings and more urban ridings". They were very concerned about that. The Liberal brass, the chairman of the procedure and House affairs committee and other Liberals said "Don't worry. Everything will be fine. We will leave the 25 per cent variable in there and you will be all right."
The members from the large urban ridings came before the committee and said "We are very concerned. Our areas are growing so quickly and we are concerned that we will be representing 200,000 or 300,000 people, like we are now, if we do not have a readjustment process that takes into consideration the growth in our areas."
Now the Liberal brass had to worry about another problem. They said "Don't worry, we have the 25 per cent variable quotient". They said: "We will make sure your ridings are smaller when we start out so there is room to grow and they will not become too large". They are trying to pull the wool over their own members' eyes.
It cannot be both ways. We cannot have the large growing urban ridings with a small population and maintain a smaller rural riding to keep from eliminating rural ridings. It is impossible. The Liberals try to say one thing to urban members and another thing to rural members to try and sneak this through all on the basis of a 25 per cent variable quotient. It reminds me of Liberal economics: It just does not work and it gets us into trouble. The government is going to pay a price for miscommunicating to its members.
The bill was sent to the Senate without Reform approval. There were flaws. Principles were violated that should not be violated, principles of democracy and proper representation. But the government had its way and the bill was sent off to the Senate. Lo and behold, as our leader has aptly said, the place which is known more for its consideration of protocol, alcohol and geritol actually must have read some of the speeches the Reform Party made with regard to the bill because it actually came up with a couple of conclusions that were the same as ours.
We will be speaking to the amendments proposed by the Senate. The hon. member for Calgary West will deal with them in more detail.
In my concluding remarks I will talk about what is going to happen if we expand the size of the House. What does bigger government mean for Canadians? I just got my statement of expenses, what it costs to keep me as an MP here in the House. We have the average as well, so we know these figures are similar for all members.
Currently there are 295 members. The average travel cost of members of Parliament using the 64 point system is $32,885. If we add six more members as Bill C-69 recommends, the costs would add up to over $400,000 because there are telephone costs and other office costs that are not included in the MOBs. If we take the $66,000 it costs to keep each MP and multiply it by six, it comes to about $400,000. Then there is the MOB which is about $185,000 each. If we multiply that by six it adds up to approximately $11 million in additional costs. Then of course there are our salaries of approximately $64,000 which if multiplied by six comes up to $385,000. The expense allowance of $27,000 multiplied by six comes out to $160,000.
Then there is the big one so many people have been talking about, the pension. Of course, Reform MPs will opt out of the pension plan. However if the impossible happened and the six new MPs were Liberals or Conservatives, and I hope that does not happen, or NDPers or members of the Bloc, we could look at about $1 million per MP for pension costs. That would be another $1.1 million.
We are looking at about $20 million or $25 million just in the basic costs of more MPs in the House, not including the costs of handing out contracts if members of the House are trying to wheel and deal and get special deals for-
Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995 June 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, in light of the proceedings earlier this evening it might be wise to now move that the House do now adjourn.
Criminal Code June 14th, 1995
I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member on the other side impugned that we do not take serious the democratic process. I would ask that he withdraw the comments.
Criminal Code June 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, if we could have unanimous agreement that after the vote on Bill C-41 is complete the House would adjourn for the evening, we would be agreeable. Otherwise we will not give unanimous consent.