Justin Trudeau

[Fair Representation Act, December 13th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of provinces losing seats, it is important to underline the fact that since confederation in redistribution, there have been 22 occasions through the course of Canadian history in which individual provinces have lost members and seats in the House. It is not something new. It is not something that has never been done before. It is something that has happened.

Canadians are not worried about how many people are in the House of Commons. They are worried about the proportions of the House that they and their province represent.

My question is specifically on Quebec, where the threshold of being overrepresented or under-represented is so important. How come the member is falsely claiming that the Conservative plan has actually reduced the number of seats for Quebec underneath the actual threshold of population? The proportion of the population is 23.14%, and 23.08% is 78 divided by 338.

There is a real problem that Quebec goes underneath even the basic threshold that the Conservatives have set out as being the minimum requirement for smaller, under-represented provinces. There is a real concern about this because Quebec cannot be under-represented as opposed to its weight by what the hon. member himself had to say.

[Fair Representation Act, December 13th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre for his, as always, impassioned and enthusiastic presentation to the House. I tend to believe that Canada is a little stronger than he worries it is. I think we will do just fine after 2015 when there is a reorganization of the seats of the House, which will be quite radical after the next election. However, we shall see about that.

My question for him is more specific. He does not like this bill because it has not had enough consultation. We have pressed him and his party before for a specific number of seats in which the NDP proposal would result. If he feels there has not been enough consultation, how does he feel about the fact that the Conservative Party has fixed an arbitrary number of 24% for the representation of Quebec, a number that will exist into perpetuity and that his worries about the pendulum not swinging back come from locking something in that will bind us for generations to come in a way that is probably unfair to the rest of Canada?

[Fair Representation Act, December 13th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I ask the member opposite specifically about one of the core elements of what the Conservatives' proposal is reposing on, that is, that Quebec not be under-represented in the House with respect to its actual percentage of the population. The reality is Bill C-20 in its current form fails that test. They are proposing 78 seats for Quebec, which is adding three. Members may want to get out their calculators right now because 78 divided into 338 equals 23.08, when the population of Quebec as a proportion of Canada is 23.14. There is actually a core flaw in the basic principles of what the Conservatives have put forward because the math simply does not work.

The hon. member may talk about the fact that territorial seats are outside of that calculation, but nobody calculates territorial seats as being outside the 308 or 338 seats. On the very principles the Conservatives put forward in their plan, they are failing.

Adding more seats does not make sense either, but that is for another question.

[Fair Representation Act, December 13th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech.

This brings me, first, to two questions. We are entirely in agreement in the Liberal Party that there are better ways to spend our money in the parliamentary system than on new members of Parliament who will not necessarily have the weight or the capacity to serve their constituents well.

So I like the idea that instead of spending millions of dollars more for the 30 new members, we would allocate some additional resources to parliamentarians precisely so that they are able to serve the public in their ridings well. What is being proposed amounts to millions of dollars being spent in the wrong direction.

This brings me to the following comments. Unfortunately, the NDP's proposal offers us no numbers, but as we know, it will require that quite a few members be added to this House to achieve their mathematical threshold. The NDP criticizes the use of mathematics, but it considers the 24% figure to be a magic mathematical number. I think it is unfortunate that it does not directly address the fact that its plan will indeed significantly increase the number of members in this House of Commons, to an even greater extent than the plan in Bill C-10.

[Fair Representation Act, December 9th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I was very interested to hear what my colleague from the NDP had to say.

However, I have to admit that I am a bit puzzled. We, on this side, and on the government side have been asking for concrete numbers. It is not out of maliciousness. It is a genuine desire to understand whether the member is aware of the consequences of her proposal.

The member talked about wanting to reach that 38% for Ontario. She already has said that 24% needs to be held for Quebec. I assume the member also wants to hit the actual numbers and proportions for Alberta and B.C. The reality is we cannot have more than 100% of the House being represented at 100%. It does not work unless we start taking away from smaller provinces.

None of our proposals would ever be able to reach 38% for Ontario. That is why we are so interested in hearing what numbers the NDP have to put forward.

[Justice, December 9th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, last spring, this government chose to be found in contempt of Parliament rather than disclosing the real costs of its tough on crime bill. Today, we know why. The Institut de recherche et d'informations socio-économiques estimates the cost of their more-prisons-less-justice bill at $19 billion, most of which will be paid by the provinces. Nineteen billion dollars for an approach that was a dismal failure in the United States, instead of investing in prevention and protecting our youth. That is shameful. When will they recognize—

[The Environment, December 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that this government is acting in bad faith and is once again bringing shame on us on the world stage. It does and says anything to try to save face in Durban. I do not believe it when it claims to look forward to the future. The only will it has shown for years is not the will to reduce emissions but, rather, its emission targets.

For years, when they sat on the opposition benches, the Conservatives prevented concrete measures under the Kyoto protocol. Now that they form the government, they are turning inaction into a virtue.

Do they really think people will listen and believe what they say?

[Senate Reform Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, a couple of days ago in the House we debated the merits of Bill C-20, which was all about rearranging the distribution within the House. The NDP very clearly said Quebec needed to be better represented with even arbitrary limits and that it could not go beneath 24% so that it would be properly recognized.

The one place that Quebec is properly recognized historically is in the Senate, where 24 senators are guaranteed to be from Quebec. It is the place in our parliamentary system where regional interests get to speak most loudly. Quebeckers, whether politicians or public opinion, have repeatedly said that they want to keep the Senate--maybe improve it a bit, but keep it, not abolish it.

The fact that the member is speaking about abolition of the Senate when over half of his caucus is from Quebec is something I would like him to address. Does he still have the agreement of half of his caucus that abolishing something that is important for Quebeckers is a good thing?

[Senate Reform Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the NDP has long maintained the importance of abolishing the Senate, quite simply. I would be interested to know what my honourable colleague has to say about it now. Since half of the NDP caucus comes from Quebec and since the Quebec National Assembly has repeatedly defended the Senate and its capacity to respond to and represent Quebec, is the NDP's desire to abolish an institution Quebeckers recognize as defending their interests in Canada as fervent as ever?

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives are in government. The Liberal Party has been in government and expects to be in government once again, eventually. If we talk to NDP members, they would very much like to be in government, hopefully, sometime soon. The NDP members are unable to provide actual substance to go with their arguments. They are unable to provide numbers, and we are not even talking about difficult economic numbers. We are talking about basic math right now. The NDP really needs to take its numbers seriously if it is going to begin to gain the confidence of Canadians to be an effective opposition, much less a government-in-waiting.