Blake Richards

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would reiterate again that it is important that we create fairness for all the provinces.

In my province of Alberta, one of those that is currently under-represented, there is broad support for the idea of trying to create fairness for our province in the House of Commons in relation to some of the other provinces, which is what the bill seeks to do. We are proud that we have been able to find a good balance that ensures the smaller province are not losing out, but ensures that provinces like mine, Alberta, British Columbia and the member's province of Ontario receive better and fairer representation as well, which is an important principle.

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would like to point out that, under our proposal, Quebec would gain seats. It actually would give Quebec the exact proportion to its population the number of seats that it deserves. That is certainly what I would call fairness.

The hon. member's party is talking about trying to work with a different formula, but it does not want to define or explain to this House or to Canada what that proposal would do in terms of the number of seats in the House of Commons.

We have been very clear on exactly what the seat counts would be. We have been very clear that Quebec would receive exactly the number of seats it is entitled to based on its population. That is fairness. It is unfortunate that the NDP wants to propose something other than that. We are trying to create fairness for all the provinces of this country and that is what the bill would do.

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that the member across the way cannot accept a little criticism of the proposal. However, there is no question in my mind that it is unrealistic and that it does pit regions against one another. When we take seats away from one province to give to another, we create regional divisions in this country. It is really unfortunate that Liberals would proposal such a measure to do just that.

We believe that our proposal is the closest thing, under the constitutional guarantees that are provided and under the formula that could be created, we can find to fairer representation for the House of Commons. It would not only protect the smaller provinces but it would also ensure better representation and fairer representation for the provinces, like my province of Alberta, like British Columbia and like Ontario which are currently under-represented. It finds that balance that is realistic and as fair as possible under the circumstances.

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill, the fair representation act.

Representation by population was the guiding principle in determining the allocation of seats in the House of Commons at the time of Confederation, but over time the representation formula used to readjust seats based on population changes has actually served to penalize some of Canada's fastest growing regions.

We have especially noted the disparity in my home province of Alberta, where an average federal riding contains some 27,000 more constituents than ridings in most other provinces. In my riding of Wild Rose, I am proud to represent people who live in 28 different communities, a municipal district, three counties, an improvement district in Banff National Park, and two first nations reserves. Those people are all spread out across a big and beautiful 28,000 square kilometre constituency.

As of the 2006 census, our riding was home to more than 116,000 people, but with the explosive growth that we have seen since then, the estimate that we have currently of my riding's population is somewhere in the neighbourhood of about 135,000. If we compare that to some ridings in other parts of the country, we see where the differences are.

For example, looking at the province of P.E.I., it has about the same population of 135,000 as my constituency does, yet there are four members of Parliament to represent them. Voters in Wild Rose have one MP to represent nearly the same number of people that those in P.E.I. have four MPs to represent. I would like to believe that I am as valuable as four MPs, but I will probably have to settle with knowing that I represent the same number of people as the four other MPs.

In all seriousness, in this current state of affairs, one vote in P.E.I. in terms of representation is essentially worth nearly four votes in Alberta. By any measure, that is certainly not fair. However, a constitutionally guaranteed floor of representation for some provinces makes it virtually impossible for the House of Commons to balance its seats in order to reflect strict representation by population. If we were to try, the House would swell to over 900 members. We would be voting from up in the public galleries and spilling out into the foyers, and maybe we could swing a few people from the chandeliers somewhere. That would obviously make for a very cumbersome and expensive Parliament that I suspect very few Canadians would find reasonable or affordable.

Luckily, this hallowed chamber can easily accommodate the 30 new members who will soon take their seats here. On that topic, I will give some interesting trivia. A 1996 study found that the chamber could actually accommodate up to 374 members, if we were to include seating under the side galleries. We are still good for space, and I would like to settle everyone's anxiety in that regard.

Rather than unrealistically expanding the seats in the House as strict representation by population would require, our government is working within the framework of the constitutional realities to deliver on our election commitment to Canadians to move the House of Commons closer to fair representation.

This legislation reflects our government's three distinct promises to provide fair representation by: allocating an increased number of seats, both now and in the future, to better reflect population growth in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta; maintaining the number of seats for smaller provinces; and maintaining the proportion of representation of Quebec exactly according to its population.

The current representation of the provinces in the House of Commons is readjusted every 10 years using a formula established in section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867. The current formula dates to 1985 and was redesigned to provide modest increases to the size of the House. While the 1985 formula has been successful in limiting the growth of the House of Commons, it has also created a representation gap for the faster growing provinces of Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. The fair representation act proposes to address that gap.

Currently, 279 is set as the divisor in determining the average population count per federal seat. As a result, provinces with fast growing populations, like my province of Alberta, are prevented from receiving a fair share of seats because the actual number of members in the House of Commons is now 308. Over 60% of Canada's population is, and would continue to be, seriously under-represented if we were to keep this formula.

The twin problems of fixing the divisor at 279, in combination with existing seat guarantees in the Constitution, have prevented the three fast-growing provinces from receiving a share of seats that is line with their relative share of the population.

However, Bill C-20 addresses that by using Statistics Canada population estimates to determine how many seats each province would receive. Statistics Canada's population estimates are already considered the best data for determining total provincial populations. In fact, those estimates are used to determine the allocation of funding for the federal-provincial equalization program, the Canada health transfer, the Canada social transfer and the territorial formula financing. They are an established way to project populations and to address their needs.

The bill also would adjust the formula to account for future increases in population counts following future censuses. This approach would provide accuracy and certainty on provincial seat numbers.

Therefore, under the terms of Bill C-20, Ontario would receive 15 new seats, rather than only three new seats under the status quo; Alberta would receive six new seats, rather than only three under the current formula; and British Columbia would receive six new seats, rather than only one under the old formula.

I cannot overstate the fact that Canadians living in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta have become increasingly under-represented in the House of Commons. That is not fair and it is unacceptable in an assembly of equals. A Canadian living in Alberta has as much to say about the future direction that he or she wants his or her country to take as a Canadian living in P.E.I., or any other province, and should have an equal say in our Parliament.

That is why our government is taking this principled approach that would strike a balance between restoring fairer representation for faster growing provinces, while protecting the seat counts of slower growth provinces, as well.

For Alberta, my province, this would mean a stronger voice for a province that is among the fastest growing regions in all of Canada.

We must do this quickly. It seems like just yesterday that Canadians voted to give our Conservative government a strong, stable majority mandate on the basis of our election platform, which, of course, included this commitment to move toward fairer representation in the House of Commons. However, it was not just yesterday. It was actually more than seven months ago. Time has passed quickly and it has a tendency to continue to fly. Another election is not so far away as we might think.

As we must give Elections Canada time to properly establish the new constituencies that would come into being under the bill, with the next representation update already due and to begin in early 2012 following the release of this year's census results, we need to be ready with this legislation passed and the work of the provincial seat counts and boundary redistributions complete in order to have these new seats established and ready to be contested by the time the next election rolls around.

With regard to redistribution, it is important to note that Bill C-20 would also amend the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act to streamline the timelines in the current boundary readjustment process. However, there would be no changes to the timelines for the parliamentary phase of the electoral boundary process and Canadians, of course, would have the same opportunity to voice their opinions on boundary changes during public hearings held by the commissions.

Because those important consultations are in place, it is vital that we move quickly to meet the various deadlines that we would face beginning in the new year to most effectively bring these changes into place for Canadians.

We, on this side of the House, invite and encourage our colleagues across the way to join us in making every Canadian's vote, to the greatest extent possible, of course, carry equal weight in the House of Commons. I say this because, with respect, the alternative proposals of the opposition parties fall short in addressing the problem of under-representation.

The Liberals have a proposal that would freeze the House at the current 308 seats, but it would do so by pitting regions of Canada against one another. They would simply shuffle the deck by taking away seats from some provinces to give to others. Given constitutional provisions guaranteeing seats, that proposal is simply not realistic.

The NDP proposal is also problematic. That party wants to guarantee a fixed percentage of seats, now and in the future, to one province, regardless of that province's population. It is proposing special treatment to one province that would not be available to any other. That would undermine the principle of proportional representation upon which Canada was founded and which I referenced earlier. It would lead to far higher seat growth than what Bill C-20 proposes and it would penalize provinces that are already seriously under-represented. That would only serve to kick the problem of under-representation further down the road a ways, and that is certainly not leadership.

Only our Conservative government is taking a balanced approach to this admittedly thorny problem of representation. I would urge all members opposite to support the bill and to work with our government to implement it.

[Business of Supply, December 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it certainly is disappointing for me to hear those on the other side who do not really seem to get it. They really are being irresponsible. They do not want to look at the implications for our economy. They want to talk about things, but they do not want to take any action. We saw that with the previous Liberal government. It signed on to the Kyoto accord, yet our emissions and greenhouse gases went up 27% under that government. We are a government that is taking action and delivering real measures rather than just talking about a problem.

[Business of Supply, December 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the member was speaking about some of our work toward trying to ensure that we were developing green energy and I would like to address those comments.

There are all kinds of measures being undertaken both by industry and our government to try to ensure we are doing that. We understand the importance of our oil sands and the oil sector to our economy, but there are also many other parts to our energy future in Canada.

I look at our natural gas sector and how it has a very strong role to play in our economic future. We are already the world's fourth largest exporter of natural gas and analysts predict that over the next 100 years we will have all kinds of growth potential in natural gas. That is a cleaner form of energy and one that we will have for decades to come in terms of our energy mix. We are looking at other renewables, whether it is biofuels being created through the mandates that we have, biodiesel and gasoline as well. Those are just a few examples. There are so many that I could not list them all. We are certainly doing a lot of great work in terms of greening our energy.

[Business of Supply, December 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, our government is working through regulations on a sector-by-sector basis in terms of dealing with emissions. It is important that we remember, unlike our friends on the other side who seem to forget, that there are two parts to the equation. There is the economy and the environment. We have to ensure that we are being good stewards of the environment and we have to do so while ensuring we are cognizant of our economy, the economic strength of the country and how important the oil and gas sector is to the strength of the economy. It is unfortunate they do not understand that, but we certainly do.

We are working in partnership and collaboration with industry ensuring we develop ways of protecting our environment, while also ensuring we are protecting our economy.

[Business of Supply, December 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, in examining the motion we have before us here today, I have to wonder if the opposition members took the time to consider the implications of what they had proposed. The implications are not only for Canada's economic prosperity, but there are also repercussions for our timetable to make real and measurable progress on lowering emissions in the medium term, which is what the parties across the way claim they want to achieve.

Under the former Liberal government, which signed the Kyoto accord, the gap between Canada's target for emissions and the actual levels just continued to grow. Canada's greenhouse gas emissions increased by 27% under the Liberals. The Liberals utterly failed on Kyoto. As their party's former leader, Michael Ignatieff, famously admitted to the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, “we didn't get it done”.

In the NDP, we have an opposition that seems set on having Canada, which produces just 2% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, to shoulder a disproportionate share of the load, while China and the United States, which together represent more than 40% of the world's output of greenhouse gases, are not even on board. Pushing for an arrangement that does not even include the world's largest emitters will accomplish nothing except to disadvantage the Canadian economy in comparison to those countries.

By contrast, our Conservative government believes in a balanced approach to environmental stewardship, one which weighs jobs and the health of the economy alongside environmental protection.

On that note, this would be a good opportunity to highlight the important role the energy sector is playing in our country's economic future. Our government's top priority continues to be supporting jobs and growth and sustaining Canada's economy. As hon. members know, Canada is not immune to the uncertainties of the global economy, but Canada has come through the global downturn a lot better than most. Today, Canada is continuing to outperform most other developed nations.

Despite this, the NDP, instead of working toward a plan for long-term prosperity, is calling for tax hikes on job creators, on consumers, on investors, on families. Some of its leadership candidates are even supporting a carbon tax that would raise the price of gas, energy and almost everything that Canadians buy. They seem oblivious to the fact that Canada is the only country in the G7 to have gained back all the jobs and all of the economic output lost during the recession. In fact we gained it all back and more, over 600,000 jobs.

Now the IMF is predicting that Canada will be one of the G7's leaders in economic growth both this year and the next. In its annual ranking of global economies Forbes magazine named Canada as the best place in the world to do business.

A large part of our economic success is due to the strength of our growing energy sector. Canada is blessed not only with abundant natural resources, but also with innovators and risk takers. We have built one of the most advanced energy sectors in the world. We have turned Canada's energy endowment into a pillar of our economy. Energy now accounts for about 7% of our GDP. It is the key driver of our prosperity both now and in the future.

Around the world Canada is gaining a sterling reputation as an energy superpower. The numbers speak for themselves. Canada is the world's second largest producer of uranium. We are the third largest producer of both natural gas and hydroelectric power. We are the sixth largest producer of crude oil and we have 170 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

Our renewable energy sector, wind, solar and biomass, is growing steadily. Energy has always been identified with opportunity in Canada, connecting workers with good paying jobs and products with markets. In 2010 total direct employment by the energy sector was 271,000 jobs. It also supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in other sectors such as construction, manufacturing and financial services to name a few.

Canada is one of the few countries in the world that is energy rich, has a highly skilled workforce and a strong innovation system. We are also capable of increasing our energy production in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner. Simply put, we have enormous energy assets that are generating great economic wealth right across the country. To capture even greater benefits for all Canadians, we must invest in the infrastructure necessary so that our energy resources can supply rapidly growing demands, especially in Asia.

One of the prime sources of our energy wealth, of course, is the oil sands in my province of Alberta. When most Canadians think of the oil sands, they think of Alberta, but the benefits of this vast resource extend well beyond Alberta's borders and will well into the future.

Over the next 25 years, the oil sands are expected to support, on average every year, 480,000 jobs. They will pump about $2.3 trillion into Canada's economy, according to the Canadian Energy Resource Institute. That economic activity is creating thousands of jobs and benefiting hundreds of companies all across the country. In Ontario, for example, the oil sands industry is expected to buy about $65 billion worth of goods and services from Ontario companies over the next 25 years.

There is no doubt that the development of the oil sands is in the best interest of all Canadians. Yet, in their zeal to push for a grand scheme that does not even include major emitters, the NDP members have worked to undermine initiatives that are important to the economic health of our country.

Several NDP MPs made an anti-trade mission to Washington recently to actively lobby against the oil sands, the Keystone XL Pipeline and thousands of Canadian jobs. There, they criticized Alberta's oil sands as too greenhouse gas intensive, despite the fact that oil sands account for just one-tenth of 1% of the total.

I could not help but notice that while the NDP were undermining Alberta's oil sands and the Keystone pipeline project during their junket to Washington, they could not find the time to inform our friends about some of our country's many achievements. Rather than building up the achievements Canada has made toward a cleaner environment, the NDP, unfortunately, prefers to tear our country down. We need only remember how the NDP member for Edmonton—Strathcona called for a moratorium on oil sands development, while one of the NDP's leadership candidates, Brian Topp, affirmed his commitment to the same job-killing action.

It is particularly troubling for me that a fellow Albertan, like the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, would take a position such as that. The strength of Alberta's economy has been the envy of other jurisdictions, both in Canada and around the world. It is centred on two things: our people and our abundant natural resources.

The people of Alberta are resourceful, hard-working, self-reliant and entrepreneurial. We understand and appreciate the value in our abundant resources. We are careful and responsible stewards of those resources because we know that by caring for them, they will in turn help to take care of us. Yet we have a member of Parliament who suggests her fellow Albertans are being irresponsible in developing the oil sands resource.

The NDP continues to undermine this resource that will contribute $2.3 trillion to Canada's GDP over the next 25 years. The royalties that the oil sands pays the provinces to explore for resources will total $429 billion in that same period. Some 1.4 million barrels of crude oil are exported every day from Alberta to the United States alone. Our economic prosperity as a nation relies in no small part upon Alberta's oil patch.

Of course, we must ensure the oil sands are developed in the most environmentally responsible way possible. In my opinion, it is being done. Those companies that are developing the oil sands are also on the cutting edge of research into new technologies to reclaim land, manage water and reduce emissions.

Alberta accounts for nearly 73% of national oil and gas development and one in every fifteen jobs is related to the sector. However, that wealth is also being shared. The spillover from oil patch investments in Alberta will contribute another $400 billion to GDP in other provinces. That is because investments in our resource create jobs and demand for service industries right across the country.

Opposition MPs do not really understand the good, responsible environmental work that the oil and gas industry is doing and the enormous economic benefits that result. Their smear campaign against the oil sands is not helping matters.

Canada has a compelling energy story to tell. Our tremendous energy endowment provides an opportunity to create jobs and stimulate growth. We are maximizing our resources and diversifying our markets. With strategic investments in clean energy, we are positioning Canada to lead through innovation and creating the jobs of the future. We are growing Canada's status as a global energy superpower and doing so in partnership with industry in an environmentally responsible way.

[National Parks, November 28th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, a new study confirms something that every Albertan already knows. Nothing matches the experience of a visit to Alberta's majestic Rocky Mountains. The study entitled “The Economic Impact of Parks Canada” finds that visitors to Alberta's national parks account for more than half of the entire contribution that our world-class parks system makes to Canada's economy.

My riding of Wild Rose is home to Banff National Park, Canada's first and greatest national park. People from around the globe flock to this special place where tourists enjoy some of the world's most pristine wilderness combined with incredible visitor experiences.

This past weekend I was honoured to represent our government at the WinterStart Festival in Lake Louise featuring men's World Cup skiing, with the women's races to follow this coming weekend.

The slopes at Lake Louise are in superb condition and there is tons of snow. I look forward to another great ski season in Banff with visitors from around the world increasing the tourism dollars that our parks contribute to Canada's economy.

[Ski Tourism Industry, November 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today as chair of the parliamentary tourism caucus to congratulate Senator Nancy Greene Raine and her husband, Al Raine, on the lifetime achievement award they will receive tonight at the TIAC Canadian tourism awards.

Senator Greene Raine and Mr. Raine are two of the true pioneers of Canada's ski tourism industry. They were instrumental in the early development of Whistler Blackcomb and Sun Peaks Resorts in British Columbia. The senator is, of course, also an Olympic ski racing champion, who continues to hold the Canadian record for the most World Cup victories. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada and was named Canada's female athlete of the century in 1999.

Together, this couple's contribution to the development of B.C.'s ski industry and its integration with the broader tourism sector has helped create an unparalleled experience for visitors and tens of thousands of jobs for Canadians.

I applaud their contributions to our tourism industry.