Peter Milliken

[Nuclear Reactor Finance Limitation Act, February 14th, 1995]

And they are opposed to this?

[Questions Passed As Orders For Returns, February 14th, 1995]

I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[Questions Passed As Orders For Returns, February 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 119 could be made an Order for Return, the return would be tabled immediately.

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 118 and 120.

Question No. 118-

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, as always, the government attempts to answer all questions, and we prepare these answers as quickly as possible. I am sorry, but I do not have an answer for the hon. member today. I will ask some questions of certain people to find an answer which I will then report to the House.

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Question No. 123 will be answered today and I would ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

Question No. 123-

[Petitions, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by 44 residents of the Kingston area in which they call upon Parliament not to enact any further firearms control legislation, regulations or orders in council.

I am pleased to table this petition on their behalf.

[Government Response To Petitions, February 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to five petitions.

[Committees Of The House, February 9th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on his speech. I have never heard such a good speech from a Reform member in this Parliament. The principal reason was that he kept quoting Liberal members. If he keeps doing that, he will soon replace his leader who does not quote Liberal members often enough. If he did I am sure he would go up in the polls instead of down.

I want to ask the hon. member a serious question. He went on at some length in his speech about the benefits of a smaller House and suggested the figure of 265. He also suggested that the way we could get away with it was by getting rid of the grandfather clause that protects certain provinces.

I wonder if he and the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, in the course of their considerations of this matter, consulted with the people of Saskatchewan. I wonder if they levelled with them and told them that if the grandfather clause were taken away that province would lose four seats and in the event of a redistribution based on population once it was done Saskatchewan would lose five seats.

Did he in his consideration of this matter advise the people of Saskatchewan through householders, other materials or public announcements that if the Reform policy were adopted that province would lose five seats? Did he advise the people of Manitoba how many seats they would lose? Did he advise the people of Newfoundland and of Nova Scotia how many seats they would lose? Did he review with members opposite in the Bloc and with other members how many seats in Quebec would be lost?

Those are the issues that have to be faced. If we are to cut the number of seats to 265, we have to face the fact that over half the provinces will lose representation in the House. Frankly I do not think the provinces are prepared to accept that, particularly the province of Saskatchewan whose numbers would be decimated in this place.

I know the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster wishes he could answer, but the hon. member for Calgary West says that Calgary does not need more MPs. I agree it does not need any more Reform MPs; it has more than enough. However Calgarians would be well served if it got some Liberal representation. Getting extra seats increases the possibility of that and he knows it.

Alberta is not getting extra seats, but I remember the outcry from British Columbia when there was talk of delaying the work of redistribution commissions. The Minister of National Revenue is from that province. There was a strong outcry against not getting the two additional seats to which it was entitled under the current arrangement to go to 301 seats.

There was an outcry from the minister. The hon. member knows that. There was an outcry from the population. There were editorials. There were telephone call-ins. There was a huge hue and cry at the thought of losing two seats.

If that is the case in British Columbia, how is it possible that the citizens of Saskatchewan would clamour for a reduction in their representation in the House by five seats? That is what members of the Reform Party are proposing in the House. If that happened and there were an election called on the basis of that kind of redistribution, I submit every Reform member in Saskatchewan would be out the window, including the very capable member for Kindersley-Lloydminster.

Can the member comment on that?

[Committees Of The House, February 9th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I cannot resist asking a question of the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster who I thought really scraped the bottom of the barrel to find complaints about the committee report.

However, I congratulate him on his speech where at least he vigorously defended the Reform Party position in respect of the two principal issues on which we disagree. I think he is picking up and harping on a subject that I know the hon. member for Calgary West will harp on when he gets on his feet. That is the bill to suspend the current redistribution system which in his heart of hearts he knows is flawed.

He realizes that many of his own members found the proposals of the commission quite unacceptable when they came out. It just so happens that he did not in his case. He knows that some of his colleagues did. I know the hon. member for Calgary West was not very happy with the proposals when they first appeared. I know that the members from British Columbia were quite unhappy with the proposals when they appeared. That was true across this House in every party where there were members from British Columbia.

I think the hon. member realizes that while he can denounce to his heart's content and look for difficulties, really he knows that the previous process was flawed and needed some repair. He must acknowledge, and I invite him to do so, that the proposals put forward in this bill are not tiddly-winks as he suggests. In fact they are significant improvements on what was there

before, particularly the appointment process for members of the commissions and particularly the requirement on the part of the commissions that they publish their proposed way of doing things in advance before they embark on map drawing. Then when they have done their map drawing they present three maps instead of one.

Surely that is a very significant improvement which cannot be ignored. It is not some minor adjustment as the hon. member is trying to suggest in his speech which I think unfairly represents the very diligent work the committee has done.