Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Motion No. 20.
On April 19 of last year this House gave a mandate to the procedure and House affairs committee to investigate the process of adjusting boundaries of electoral districts and to bring forward a bill for this House to consider. The committee was specifically mandated to formulate a cap or to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons, to look at the
adequacy of the present method of selecting the members of the electoral boundaries commissions, to look at the rules and criteria used by the commissions to alter the boundary lines, and to review the involvement of the public and the House of Commons in the work of the boundary commissions.
Bill C-18 which received royal assent on June 15, 1994 was a serious interruption of the non-partisan electoral process. It suspended the existing Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. Such a move on the part of the government could only be justified, and I stress this, if it makes significant improvements or modifications to the boundary readjustment process.
There are no significant modifications proposed in this bill. That is not to say there are no improvements being proposed. Many of the smaller issues were dealt with in a very satisfactory manner. Where the government proposal falls short is on the larger issues. There are three: the size of the House, the size of population variance of the individual ridings, and the rules governing the adjustment of boundaries.
The positive aspects of the bill are easier to deal with in smaller numbers so I will mention them first.
First, the process of instructing a standing committee to prepare the bill has been a positive and productive exercise. Unfortunately there is a majority of Liberal members on the committee. In the final outcome they have their say. Some very good proposals were set aside because the majority was not willing to listen to other members and participants on the committee.
Particularly I would like to commend the staff of Elections Canada, Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley in particular, whose assistance in drafting the bill was invaluable. I would encourage this House to continue using the committee procedure that we used in the future.
It was also a pleasure to work specifically with the chair of the committee that was very fair in hearing all sides of the presentations with regard to this matter. We appreciated the involvement of the Official Opposition, although it seemed to be a bit of an academic exercise when, as my colleague for Bellechasse mentioned, its motive is to extricate itself entirely from this House. I was rather surprised to see a member of the government, the Liberal side, applauding it. I think it was the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore applauding that. Perhaps there is a separatist on the Liberal side as well. I am not sure.
There was invaluable input by the member for Calgary West who is a constitutional expert and is very knowledgeable about the Elections Act. I appreciated his input on the committee. It was a pleasure to serve with him.
Another improvement is the redistribution of ridings within each province to occur following each quinquennial census. These mini adjustments every five years will lessen the dramatic and highly disruptive changes that have occurred in the past. The Canadian population can change drastically over 10 years. Smaller changes brought about more often are preferable to the current practice.
The government's refusal to accept the last redistribution is evidence that smaller changes are easier for people to accept. An additional bonus of a five-year distribution is a much shorter time frame for the redistribution process.
The boundary commissions will be encouraged to make the public better informed of their work and to provide alternatives to each distribution proposed. While the role and involvement of the public is increased, the influence of members of Parliament is reduced. I applaud that. If MPs have an intervention they wish to make, they are encouraged to take part in the existing public meetings. I see this change as a positive step in ensuring the boundary and readjustment process remains as politically neutral as possible.
I do not believe boundaries should be changed and preserved solely for the ease of the campaigning of the sitting member. Granted all members would like to run in an area where they have already won an election because they have developed many contacts and made many friendships during the years they represented that area. However, deliberately altering the redistribution procedure to give an incumbent MP an advantage would be a very serious breach of political ethics.
The irony of the suspension of the redistribution process is the process that was already in existence worked when MPs or members of the public were dissatisfied with the boundary commission proposal. There was already a procedure in place to have changes made to electoral maps. If the members took the time to make presentations at boundary commission hearings, they could do so.
The member for Prince George-Peace River and a number of his constituents made a presentation to the British Columbia boundaries commission. The commission considered their proposal and made alterations to the proposed constituency lines. Some of the Liberals of Ontario have done the same thing. There may not have been the need for the undemocratic Bill C-18. The Liberals panicked. That was unfortunate.
As for the process of selecting and reviewing the appointment of boundary commissioners, minor but sensible changes were made to the role and authority of the chief electoral officer, and the manner of redistribution has been clarified.
These aspects of the bill are positive. That being said, all those improvements and changes could have been made without interrupting the redistribution process and without throwing out
the $5 million worth of reports produced by the boundary commissions.
The report of the procedure and House affairs committee fails on every major issue on which it was mandated to act, namely the number of seats in the House of Commons, the population variance of the electoral districts and the priority of criteria used to determine new boundary lines.
Most Canadians want less government. Most Canadians believe there are already too many MPs. Even when presented with a workable solution that reduced the number of seats in the House, the Liberals refused to take any action as to its size. They refused to reduce the number of seats, to cap the number of seats both at the current membership of 295 and 301, as is proposed.
They even refused to reduce the growth of the House in the future. It seems like the Liberals were willing to put self-interest ahead of the national interest. That is truly regrettable. Their reasons for refusing to act are pretty flimsy. They claim that such a cap or reduction in the size of the House of Commons is not feasible at this time. They lack the political courage to act because they say the number of seats that would be taken away would be insignificant and could be regarded as highly disruptive.
The Liberals also quote constitutional problems in limiting the size of the House of Commons. These problems arise because of the way Senate seats are allocated. Using the House of Commons to make up for the inadequacies of the other place is unacceptable.
It is the refusal of this government like the Tories before it to reform the upper chamber so that it actually represents the provinces and regions of this country effectively that is creating the problem of uneven representation in this House. The House of Commons is supposed to be the chamber where all Canadians are represented equally.
Representation by population is the principle upon which this House is built. The upper chamber is completely ineffective in representing provincial and regional interests as a result of being unelected and unequal.
Just because the modern Senate is increasingly incompatible with the confederation of today, that is no reason to prevent this House from representing Canadians as well is it could. It would seem that the government's resistance to an improved Senate is hampering the effectiveness of this House.
It is in the best interests of all Canadians to have the House of Commons organized as efficiently as possible. If this arrangement has the additional benefit of creating pressure for a reformed Senate, that would be a bonus. We should not weaken the House of Commons by binding it to its present form, nor should we allow it to grow out of control for the sole purpose of avoiding making changes to an out of date Senate.
There is no excuse for refusing to establish a smaller House of Commons. In my own province of Saskatchewan, people would be willing to accept having fewer MPs as long as the reductions were equitable with reductions to other provinces as well.
As a matter of fact, in the province of Saskatchewan the number of provincial seats has been reduced and the public has accepted it and embraced it. Perhaps it is something that the federal government should have a look at.
If as a result of the reduction of MPs Canadians got a triple-E Senate, elected by them, accountable to them and working in their best interests instead of being partisan rubber stamps, it would make the opportunity to save taxpayers money by electing fewer MPs even more attracted to them.
I have heard that many Liberals from rural ridings in Ontario complain about the problems associated with geographically large ridings. However, I have a riding that stretches more than a four and a half hour car ride in some directions. I can say that if members are resourceful and committed to serving their constituents it is more than possible to adequately serve the needs of a large riding.
For instance, I have set up a mobile constituency office that travels around the riding to get to people who cannot get to me. We already allow extra travel allowances to members with large ridings. If as a result of a reduced House some ridings become bigger, the cost of the extra travel will hardly make a dent in the savings from having fewer members.
Modern communications technology makes more constituent contact possible. Increased use of available technology makes this possible without extended travel. I want to tell members of the House who represent urban ridings that no matter how concentrated and compact their riding is, I can fax across mine faster than they can drive across theirs.
Fewer ridings will mean that each MP will serve more constituents. Again I would argue that the modest increases in resources of a member's office either in staff or equipment is a more cost effective way of dealing with the needs of Canadians than having more members. Not only do Canadians want fewer federal politicians,but it makes good fiscal sense as well.
The Liberals are refusing to do anything about the size of the House. They took the political easy way out. They recommended that somebody else, possibly a future Parliament, do something about the growth of the House.
The time to take action is now because the problem is now. This bill is an excellent opportunity to deal with the issue. No time in the future will be any better than the opportunity we have right now. I would imagine that the Liberals in the future, if there are any, will be no more willing to deal with the problem than those in this government are now. They are simply unwilling to entertain any solution which varies from status quo thinking. Liberals simply never want to take action on anything.
Another major flaw in this legislation is that it does nothing to solve the problem of some ridings, even the ones in the same province, with varied levels of population.
A plus or minus 25 per cent variance means that even within the same province one constituency can have a population approximately twice as large as another. This is an unacceptable variance in voting power. I urge all members to remember that this variance is not between ridings which have suffered recent population changes that are about to be corrected. Rather, this is a starting point. This is how the commissions are allowed to set things up in the first place.
Ridings may start off with this large variance and then go through five years of population change before anything is done about it. As unequal as that may seem, this large variance will be exceeded by those ridings that will be placed into a special schedule.
The schedule ridings are exempt from the allowable quotient. If there is already a huge allowable variance available to the commissions, surely there is no need for a special schedule. Conversely, if a schedule of special cases is to be created, such a large variance is not required.
One member of Parliament can represent anywhere from fewer than 20,000 constituents to over 120,000 constituents. That is incredible and that is the starting point, if we include a schedule plus a huge variance of 25 per cent.
The reasoning behind including both is beyond the wildest dreams of the gerrymanders. If the House determines which seat should go on a schedule, it provides tremendous opportunity for biases along party lines, for biases among rural versus urban members, for the opportunity for infighting and horrible conduct on the part of MPs. The encouragement of horrible conduct on the part of members and parties is not something that I would want to see. It did not have to be there. They could have corrected this problem.
I urge all members of the House to vote against the report until this gross inequity is resolved. Having these two flaws in the bill at the same time makes a mockery of the principle of equality of voting power even within the same province. The situation is further exacerbated by the constitutional requirement to start out with unequal provincial representation.
As it is plain to see, the legislation the report recommends does nothing to guarantee or even encourage the electoral equality of Canadians. This alone is reason enough to warrant the defeat of the bill unless corrected by amendment.
The third area of weakness in the bill is the primacy it gives to community of interest over voter equity. While not stated as such, boundary commissioners are instructed to consider sociological considerations ahead of making constituencies reasonably numerically equal. That is an automatic consequence of having such a high population variant quotient.
This is a social engineer's dream. These considerations combined with overly generous variances will result in a system that represents Canadians by characteristic rather than as citizens of a specific geographic area. It is this manifestation of special interest politics that we wish to avoid.
Some of the considerations found within the definition of community of interest can and should be used to break the tie between alternative proposals with comparable voter equity. They should not be used as a primary factor in determining electoral boundaries.
As I stated in the beginning of my remarks, the minor improvements made to the redistribution process do not save the bill from its vast omissions, flaws and missed opportunities. The legislation proposed by the report in no way justifies the action taken by the government to interrupt the pre-existing process.
The actions of government members in producing the report confirm that the original motive behind Bill C-18 was crass partisan manipulation of the electoral process. Ontario Liberal backbenchers and a few from Atlantic Canada were not happy that their ridings were changed. They appeared before committee and told us that was the problem. When a party wins almost all the ridings in a province, why would it not try every trick in the book to play again on the same field?
The government motive here was to redo the last redistribution simply because the new lines were not put on the map where it wanted them to be. Some of them went down Sixth Avenue rather then Tenth Avenue.
Bill C-18 was brought in as an attempt to cover the whole operation in the guise of opening the process to improve and modernize it. This report and the lack of meaningful change it contains prove there never was a sincere intention of significant improvement or modernization.
Let us talk about the real crux of the matter. The problem is that the country needs reform in many areas. One of the lesser priorities is electoral reform. It is an important area, I agree, and I know my colleagues would accept that. However we need social program reform. We need reforms to the way we expend funds from this place. We need reform of our justice system. The Liberal tradition is to talk about reform but in the end to do nothing about reform. It is becoming very clear that the only
people who will really reform the country are those who bear the name Reform in their party title.
Canada has a very proud democratic tradition. Canadians deserve the best electoral system that can be provided. I assure the House that I will work for positive and constructive electoral reform. I will work for reform of the Senate. I will continue to work for a capping and a reduction of the seats in the House of Commons, not because it helps me out but because it is what Canadians want. They want action. They want real reform.
The motion the government has presented to enact the bill, a new boundary readjustment act, is not real reform. It is a matter of tinkering around the edges, a bit of cosmetics to try to cover up the fact that it did not approve of where the boundaries were drawn in the last readjustment process.
