Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure and honour to talk to Bill C-20, the fair representation act.
I thank the Minister of State for Democratic Reform for bringing the bill forward. It is a difficult file, but he has done a fabulous job in ensuring the public understands the need for us to move forward with fair representation.
I believe in representation by population. It is an important concept that we learn in school as young people. As we understand what is expected from a democracy in Canada, representation by population, as close as possible, includes all the voices that we represent here. We have a representative democracy, not a direct democracy, and we need to ensure that our system, whether at the federal, provincial or municipal levels, has an equalized voice for everyone through the representative the people have elected in whatever election it may be.
I want to talk about the principle of fairness and effectiveness.
To begin with, we need to be clear. Our party, in the last election and over the last number of years, had committed and promised to have fair representation in the House of Commons. We committed to allocating an increased number of seats now and in the future to better reflect the population across the country. We would maintain the seats that were guaranteed, whether through the Constitution or act of Parliament for smaller provinces. We would maintain the proportional representation, including that of Quebec. The bill does that.
Let us talk about fairness. My province of Ontario has had significant growth. The provinces of British Columbia and Alberta have also had significant growth. It is only fair that the number of seats should represent approximately what every other province gets. The bill looks at about 112,000 people, or somewhere in that range. The formula that has been developed by the minister would allow for that kind of representation in Ontario. Is it a perfect system? It is not. However, is it fair? It is fair to those people.
My riding has about 120,000 people, which is relatively close to the number we are looking for, but surrounding ridings in my area have as many as 170,000 people. Is it fair that their representation has 30% more people than mine? Not really. We are in the same geographical area. We need to add seats to give the voices of those constituents the same representation they get from me. I am a few kilometres down the road from them.
Can we do that in every province? Of course not. There are Constitutional requirements, for example, in P.E.I. The number of seats it has in the House represents the number of seats it has in the Senate. In terms of the numbers by representation, it is less. The whole population of P.E.I. would fit in my city of Burlington. Therefore, it will not be completely equal.
We are not calling it the “equal representation act”, we are calling it the “fair representation act”. We are working on making it as fair as possible throughout the regions of the country based on the legislation that exists now, which is the Constitution and legislation that has been passed in the House of Commons.
I was excited to speak today on the principle of being effective. We come here every week and do our jobs between September and December and January and June. However, a tremendous amount of our work is done in our own ridings. I often get asked what the most gratifying part of being a member of Parliament is. The most gratifying part is for me and my staff to be in the riding, helping individuals with whatever problems they may have and helping to solve those issues.
Unfortunately we cannot do it for everybody. Probably the worst part of the job is when we have to say no to somebody. However, what has become clear to me over the almost six years I have been here is that being accessible, being able to reach out to those individuals who come to see us in our offices and to be effective in helping them try to solve their problems is what makes the job of being a member of Parliament gratifying to each and every one of us.
It is a vital and important piece of why we choose to get elected. Not all of us will have a chance. The big national policies move large chunks of the country in directions, whatever direction that may be. We are all part of that, but we can make a difference as individual members of Parliament to individuals in our ridings.
Why this is important? When we get larger and larger ridings, which has happened in my province and in other provinces, it makes it more and more difficult for us to be effective in helping individuals. It is harder to see people. If we represent 180,000 people, we only have so much time that we can see these folks when they come to our riding offices for help.
It became clear to me a number of months ago when a recent immigrant came to see me and was very excited about the opportunity to come to the office of the member of Parliament. I had not given it much thought, but in the country that individual came from the people did not see their members of Parliament. People were allowed to vote for their members, but they did not have any relationship with them. They did not see them or have an opportunity to talk to them about their problems. The members of Parliament would go away with the head of the government for that country and the people would not see them again. The people did not have a relationship with their members.
That makes a member of Parliament much less effective. It devalues their job. That is why a fair representation would allow, if we can get around an average of 111,000 people, our constituents, the people who have elected us to represent them here, an opportunity to be engaged, to have a relationship with us.
We represent a democracy and our job is to represent those folks. If we do not get a chance to hear from them, to see them, to get involved in their issues, how can we represent them properly here? That is why it is important we look at what we can do to ensure we are fair across the country in terms of representation and that the system allows us to be effective. That is why I am in favour of the bill.
I am a bit of a finance person so I like to talk about numbers. In terms of fairness and effectiveness, we are looking at the populations of each province, the percentage they have of the total and the percentage of the seats they have in the House.
The system been brought forward by our Minister of State for Democratic Reform gets us as close as numerically possible and moves us in the right direction. For example, Ontario, which is just shy of 39% of the population, will have 121 seats and 36% of the vote in the House. Is it a perfect system? No. Does it move us from where we are today at 35%? Absolutely. It moves us in the right direction.
Right now British Columbia has just over 13% of the population. It has almost 12% of the representation in the House and this moves it to 12.5%. It is more fair and it will still allow us to be effective in our jobs as members of Parliament.
I want to thank the minister for all the work on this project. I am eager to see the bill passed. I would like to see it in place as soon as possible so that—
