Harold Albrecht

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, we have many nations within this country. We refer to our first nations. In my recollection of the motion that was put forward, we wanted to acknowledge that the Québécois are a unique group of people who should be represented. However, there was no implication at any point that it had any special determination in terms of the number of seats in this House.

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, it just goes to show where the Liberal Party is. The Liberals are still living in the past, wondering what might have happened if they had or if they had not.

This party is looking forward. There is no province and no individual constituent of the provinces who would be shortchanged by my colleague's proposal. Can members imagine going into Saskatchewan and saying, “By the way, we're removing four of the members of the House of Commons from your province”? I do not think that would be palatable.

Just to address his concern about continual growth, the current projections for 2021 increase the number by 11 seats. We can fearmonger about the total expansion of this place, but the studies have been done. We have many years to go before we outgrow the confines of this chamber without major renovations.

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect, I do not think that my colleague was listening to my speech. I said clearly that the bill would move every single province closer to representation by population. The province of Quebec would have 23% of the seats in the House of Commons, as it has 23% of the population of Canada. However, that is not true for Ontario. Ontario does not quite come up to that threshold, but we are very close to seeing improvements.

It would be totally unfair to guarantee any province, be it Quebec or any other, a disproportionate number of the increase simply to satisfy a particular region. This is important for fairness across the country. That is why the bill is called the fair representation act.

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my support for Bill C-20, the fair representation act. Representation by population is at the heart of our democratic traditions. Our role as parliamentarians in this regard should be and must be to do our best to ensure that the makeup and weighting of the House reflects that of this great country.

We face challenges in this regard. The Constitution and precedents both present barriers to achieving perfect representation by population. Bill C-20 addresses this challenge through that most Canadian tradition: accommodation. Changes in Bill C-20 would allow the representation from our fastest-growing provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario to better reflect their growing populations.

At the same time, Bill C-20 would ensure that our smaller provinces maintain their number of seats in the House. I cannot imagine the citizens of Manitoba, Saskatchewan or New Brunswick, for example, being eager to have fewer representatives in the House of Commons than they have presently. In fact, Bill C-20 would bring every province in Confederation closer to representation by population. It amazes me that there are some hon. members in the House willing to speak against the fair representation act. Why would they insist that we maintain the current unfair system or, in fact, actually make it worse with some of their proposals?

As a member from Ontario, I am obviously concerned that citizens whom I am so privileged to represent receive fair representation in the House. I am privileged to represent more than 129,000 Canadians in the great riding of Kitchener—Conestoga and I consider it a privilege to exercise my responsibilities as a member of Parliament. It is an honour to be their voice in this chamber, where discussions take place on some very important issues. Decisions are made every week when we vote on matters that will not only impact the current citizens of my riding but their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

When I vote on these important issues, my vote in the House is worth no more and no less than that of the hon. member for Malpeque. In spite of my NDP colleague's assertion, Conservatives do love Prince Edward Island. In fact, we on this side have a great member of Parliament from that province. In fact, she is the Minister of National Revenue. However, when the House considers items of business, whether it be putting an end to the monopoly of the Wheat Board, restoring balance to our justice system, or ending the ineffective long gun registry, my vote in the House is worth no more and no less than the member for Malpeque. That is how it should be. No hon. member's vote should be placed above another's. However, this does raise questions.

In the last election, on May 2 of this year, almost 29,000 Canadians chose to entrust me with their vote. I participate in the important business in the House, thanks to the trust of almost 29,000 individual voters. That is more than the total ballots cast for all candidates in the riding of Malpeque during the same election. Does it follow, therefore, that the citizens of Kitchener—Conestoga are worth less than those of Malpeque? I hope not.

I recognize that Bill C-20 will not address this inequity entirely. Ontario will still remain under-represented, while other provinces will continue to be overrepresented. Again, I come back to that word “accommodation”. Because of our principled and reasonable accommodation, real progress is being made toward fair representation. Bill C-20 would not make the mistakes inherent in the proposals emerging from our opposition parties. The fair representation act would move Canada closer to representation by population instead of making the imbalance worse, as proposed by the official opposition. The fair representation act would not pit one province against another or pick winners and losers, as proposed by the third party in the House.

I will also note that while this government has worked through three Parliaments to make Canada's representation more fair, the opposition's proposals came as surprises not only to members of the House but to Canadians who supported them in the last election. By contrast, neither the New Democrats nor the third party made even a token attempt to address this challenge in their platforms, despite the fact that they were well aware of it. We cannot dream up systems of fair democratic representation on the fly. These matters are far too important to try to develop a plan on the back of an envelope.

Bill C-20 delivers on our government's long-standing commitment to move the House towards fair representation. We campaigned on these promises. Canadians voted for a strong, stable, national, Conservative majority government. We received a strong mandate. With this bill, we would move the House of Commons toward fair representation for all Canadians. We are delivering on our commitments.

The fair representation act would add 30 seats to the House of Commons, for a total of 338 seats. Ontario would receive 15, Alberta and British Columbia would each receive six, and Quebec would receive three new seats. More importantly, the bill provides an adjustment to the formula in order to account for future increases in population following future censuses. In other words, the makeup of this House would more accurately reflect where Canadians live, thanks to Bill C-20. Population changes would no longer badly distort our representation.

I too serve on the procedure and House affairs committee that studied this legislation. I was there when the Chief Electoral Officer explained the needless cost taxpayers would bear if the bill is not quickly implemented. The Electoral Boundaries Commission needs to start its work in February of 2012. That is in just two months. If it is to do its job properly and not needlessly duplicate a lot of work, it needs the final seat allocation formula in place by February. On February 8, the process begins when the chief statistician sends the census return to the Chief Electoral Officer.

We promised to reintroduce legislation to restore fair representation in the House of Commons. We promised to allocate an increased number of seats now and in the future to better reflect population growth in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. We promised to maintain the number of seats for the smaller provinces. Finally, we promised to maintain the proportional representation of Quebec according to its population. With Bill C-20, we would honour those commitments.

With the status quo, over 60% of Canada's population is, and would continue to be, seriously and increasingly under-represented. This bill, the fair representation act, brings every single province closer to representation by population.

I really do hope that all members of the House will support this bill. It addresses many of the inequities that exist and restores the principle of fair representation for all Canadians.

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I also want to acknowledge the good work of my colleague from the NDP on the procedure and House affairs committee. We agree on more things than we disagree on for sure.

The NDP proposal suggests increasing the number of seats to Quebec by up to 10. Well, Quebec would be seriously over-represented in terms of the rest of the provinces. I just want to ask my colleague, how would it be fair to Canada and to the other provinces to have Quebec continuously over-represented, and increasingly so, with the formula that the NDP has put forward?

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I want to point out that the fair representation act would give Quebec 23% of the seats in the House and it currently has 23% of the population. That seems fair to me.

My colleague says that we are using preliminary data. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are using the population estimates. The chief statistician of Statistics Canada, Mr. Wayne Smith, appeared before the procedure and House affairs committee and confirmed that the population estimates were a much more accurate way of counting the number of Canadians for the purpose of determining the number of seats required.

The other thing my colleague commented on is the rush. The Electoral Boundaries Commission is obligated by law to begin its work in February. When the chief statistician provides the numbers to the Chief Electoral Officer, the Electoral Boundaries Commission goes into effect on February 8. That means that, if we do not have something before the Chief Electoral Officer before that time, the commission will start its work based on the current formula and then, possibly six months or a year later, that process may need to be started all over again, which is an unbelievable cost and delay. It is important that we move ahead.

Does my colleague think that the additional cost and frustration that the Electoral Boundaries Commission would experience by delaying this bill unduly would actually be in the best interests of Canadians?

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, my colleague does good work on the procedure and House affairs committee. He rightly points out that we have had great discussions there with lots of input from a number of witnesses. We are moving ahead.

At one point in his speech today he said, sort of in a derogatory sense, that we on this side have our own ideas. Well, he is right that we have our own ideas. Our idea is to establish the principle of fair representation in this country.

For far too long we have had provinces that have been badly under-represented. It is to the point where a vote in one province is actually worth only one-quarter of a vote in another.

We acknowledge that this idea is not perfect, but it moves us closer to fair representation.

The NDP position would guarantee Quebec's overrepresentation and add 10 more seats. This would hurt our fast-growing provinces. Our formula says that Quebec is 23% of the population and it would have 23% of the seats. That is fair. I would ask my colleague how he could not call this the fair representation act, when in fact we are moving so close to actual representation by population?

[Organ Donations, December 5th, 2011]

Mr. Chair, once a person goes through a situation like this, he or she becomes aware that there is so much more that could have been done. From here on, there is so much more that we can do.

Members of the House all have access to a regular communication piece that they can send out to their constituents. What would be wrong with raising that issue in a corner of a householder, maybe a quarter of a page, to point out that there is an urgent need and a long waiting list of potential recipients?

In these last weeks as we approach the Christmas season, I have partnered with the Trillium Gift of Life Network in some of the Christmas parades. This is an Ontario organization that does an excellent job of coordinating tissue and organ donations and organ transplants. It did an incredible job of working with us through those gruelling hours of grief. We have partnered with them in spreading the word. In our Christmas parades we handed out little cards with a Life Saver stapled to them. I do not know how many hundreds of people will have received that little card with a Life Saver stapled to it with the website address: beadonor.ca.

I think these are simple yet potentially very effective ways to spread the word and raise awareness. All one has to do is find the website and click on it. Once one is in that registry, it lists the different groups across Canada that are doing this kind of work.

I think if we started to brainstorm for a few minutes, even at committee level, we could come up with many more creative ideas as to how we, as members, could begin that discussion and then perhaps work with community partners at different levels of government to spread the word.

[Organ Donations, December 5th, 2011]

Mr. Chair, I want to thank my colleague for her kind remarks about my speech. Certainly my colleagues in this House have been there for me through these past seven months in incredible ways. Their compassion, understanding and periodic questioning of how I am doing has been an immense encouragement to me.

My understanding is that the federal government does not regulate the allocation of the organs. We talked many times throughout our debate tonight about the areas of provincial jurisdiction, which we respect in this government, but transplant programs across Canada do share organs so that the most urgently ill patients in the country can have transplants first.

I think this is an important issue. When we think of the people who have been on waiting lists, sometimes for many years, coming to the end of their ability to continue dialysis or some other method of medical treatment, it is important that the most crucial needs be met first. Those who may be nearing the end of their medical treatment and are unable to continue on with that process are offered the gift of life and would be the first on the list to access those transplants.

[Organ Donations, December 5th, 2011]

Mr. Chair, as I indicated at the outset of my speech, I do not profess to be an expert on organ donation and transplantation, but I know that Canada has some very stringent guidelines in place as it relates to the safety of transplants. In fact, I mentioned in my speech the safety of human cells, tissues and organs for transplantation regulations. These regulations outline some of the most safe and medically sound methods of organ donation and transplantation.

The safety of organ donation and transplantation is a responsibility shared by numerous parties across Canada. I believe there are some 37 registered organ transplant programs in Canada. Operators of these programs are responsible for declaring that the organs they distribute are safe for transplantation in Canada. We have some very stringent guidelines in place. I share my colleague's concern that we certainly do not want to open up the possibility of a black market for access to organs for transplant purposes.