Peter Milliken

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I previously addressed the House on the amendment that was moved by the member of the Bloc who spoke second in the debate.

I know there are members in the House who apparently oppose the bill.

I can understand the position taken by members of the Bloc Quebecois because they are the Official Opposition in this House and as such they are obliged to oppose the government's proposals, especially the budget. But they fully realize that we adopted a budget here in this House and presented it to the people of Canada. It is a fair and equitable budget, which is very popular throughout Canada.

I know it is not popular with some members of the House, but the Canadian public thinks the government has performed extremely well in the budget. I know members of the Reform Party in their heart of hearts know that too, but of course they have to oppose it because they want to make more unspecified cuts.

I would love to go on at length today but I realize there are many other members who wish to participate in the debate, and having spoken once I feel it would be unfair for me to continue at length. On the other hand, we are into 10-minute speeches. The speeches are very short.

I commend to hon. members opposite in preparation for their speeches later today the opportunity to reread the words of the President of the Treasury Board which he spoke on the introduction of this bill on March 25. If they have time and if they want to continue, they could read my speech on that occasion which I must say was a masterpiece of clarity and explained all the provisions of the bill in great detail.

With that in mind, I move:

That the question be now put.

[Questions On The Order Paper, April 14th, 1994]

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

[Committees Of The House, April 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, with leave of the House, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Rimouski-Témiscouata, that the 15th report of the Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, presented in the House this day, be adopted.

(Motion agreed to.)

[Committees Of The House, April 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs concerning the membership of committees.

With leave of the House, I intend to move the adoption of the 15th report later today. Mr. Speaker, I believe that you will find unanimous consent to dispense with reading of this report.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, April 13th, 1994]

We could have a vote right now.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam in her speech stressed very greatly the importance of not increasing the number of members of this House.

In the negotiations that were carried on there was some discussion about that issue and I know that members of the Reform Party pressed to have a committee to not only consider whether there would be any increases but to have a commitment that it be frozen. It would have been happy had such a clause been included in this bill.

I have two questions for the hon. member. First, did she in making her statements bear in mind the fact that this bill merely suspends the process for two years? It is not a bill that in any way interferes with the process or changes it. The process will resume in two years time if nothing else has been done. Did she bear that in mind when she quoted from the speech by the Right Hon. John Turner who was after all criticizing a bill that changed the process right away? This was not a case of a suspension bill, this was a change in the process. I note there is no change in this process in this bill.

Second, would she support this bill if it contained a clause that limited the number of members of the House of Commons to 295?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe and I had the feeling that maybe the one who wrote his speech is the same person who wrote the speech of the hon. member for Bellechasse, because both have nearly the same theme. I wonder why he can discuss sovereignty or the separation of Quebec in a speech on new electoral boundaries throughout Canada. It is incredible! Maybe logic defies reason in his speech. In any case, I have a question for the hon. member.

Does he think that he will stay in this House after a referendum, if Quebec says yes to Canada and wants to stay here with other Canadians? If that is the decision, will he remain a member in this House and will he participate as a member, as he is doing now, and abandon his ideas of sovereignty and separation in order to defend his constituents' real interests?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, April 13th, 1994]

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster says: "Wise owls". I say: "Nervous Nellies".

They were afraid the committee would go out of control and come up with something worse than we now have. I suppose that is possible, but I think the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster needs to look at the composition of the committee. He is a member of it and a very responsible member of it.

The hon. member for Bellechasse also sits on that committee and he is very competent. We have several competent members and, as chairman, I can do certain things to assure committee members that everything will go just fine. So, I support this bill because we now have a motion on the Order Paper to refer all these issues to the committee, and that motion is acceptable to the vast majority of members in this House. I am convinced that once the legislation is passed, the Reform Party will support our motion to the effect that the whole issue should be referred to the committee.

I know their doubts will vanish. The committee will be able to conduct a study and come up with a new bill.

How is the new bill to come into operation? I would hope we would have the bill passed so that we would not have the 24-month delay any more. It will simply get rid of the current system and replace it with a new one which would start as soon as the new bill has passed Parliament.

The question is when it will pass. That matter rests very substantially in the hands of the committee because we have adopted for the motion to be referred the new procedure in Parliament of instructing the committee to bring in a bill on the issue.

The committee would come back with a bill to the House. The government could then table the bill. Debate on second reading stage would be very short, as hon. members know, assuming the bill complied in all respects with what the committee recommended. We would have shortened debate and rapid passage of the bill based on the new procedure. The committee would do the work and would do it in advance.

I know hon. members will strive to have the committee achieve agreement on all major points before it. We will look at the alternatives that are available for dealing with the issue for the benefit of all Canadians.

Some members of the Reform Party have said there is not a public outcry on the issue. Of course there is not a public outcry on the issue. Members of the public are not particularly involved in the redistribution process and have never shown a particular interest in the redistribution process. Most members of the public do not worry particularly about where they are voting.

When the new boundaries are in place there will be outcries from people: I do not want to vote with that group; why do I have to drive this far to vote; why is my part of the riding cut off from all the rest, all my friends and neighbours that I normally voted with; why are we suddenly lumped in with so-and-so as our member of Parliament?

That will not happen until the redistribution is complete, the election campaign starts and people find they are in different ridings. In spite of all the advertisements of the commissions most people do not look to see which riding they are in. I have gone around my constituency and have asked, and most of the people I would be losing to the neighbouring riding in this scheme-and there are not many-are totally unaware of it. Members of the public do not know and there is no public outcry.

The people who are interested in the legislation for the most part are right here in the House. It is members of Parliament who have to work with those boundaries during the time they are elected to serve the people in their own geographic areas.

Imagine, if the redistribution came into effect today or very shortly as planned, what members of the House who are losing their ridings would do for the next four years. Who are they going to be representing? Would it be the people who elected them or the people whose ridings they think they are going to be running in the next time?

From the point of view of the public the bill makes sense because it defers the process so that if redistribution is completed in time for the next election it will be done shortly before but not a long time before the election. Members of the public will be fully represented by their MPs during the time they are elected to serve them, without having to cast an eye on neighbouring ridings where members might be running the next time. That is important. It is a significant advantage for members of the public, let alone for MPs. To ignore that reality is perilous, and there are many constituencies that are disappearing.

I suggest that members of the Reform Party, many of whom are suffering substantial shifts in the process and know it, particularly those in British Columbia, must be apprehensive about it. I know they are. I know many members of that party are very concerned about the boundary proposals that have been put forward.

Here is a chance to come up with a new scheme. I am not saying the committee is going to sit there and draw boundaries; far from it. We will come up with a new arrangement that will allow for a redrawing of boundaries on a more equitable basis. We think we can come up with something that is fairer and better for Canadians.

It may be that there should be a more specific requirement for consultation with members of Parliament on the issue, or at least with political parties in the existing constituencies. I do not know what will be the best solution, but the reference to the committee is open-ended and we can look at all possible solutions in the committee.

I know hon. members on the other side are anxious to get on with the work. As chair of the committee I am anxious to undertake the work to see what we can discover. There are plenty of experts on the issue of redistribution in Canada who are familiar with it. Members of these commissions may have views they wish to make known to the committee. It is important for the committee to get on with the work and hear from those people. Passage of the legislation will ensure that will happen.

I invite members on all sides to bury the hatchet they have been wielding in recent days and support the bill. I know the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster particularly has his doubts, but I invite him to cast his doubts aside and walk with confidence into the future the redistribution process holds for all members and for the benefit of the Canadian public. It is a good bill. I know the hon. member in his heart of hearts thinks so and I invite him to support it.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak at third reading of this very important bill which has been introduced in the House and which has received considerable support on all sides.

I recognize there is some opposition in the Reform Party to this bill but I suggest it is misplaced opposition and that in the end the Reform Party will really appreciate the fact that this bill has been introduced and dealt with in the House because it will be so pleased with the final result of the thing when redistribution has finally been accomplished.

The member for Kindersley-Lloydminster shakes his head and looks dubious but that has been his problem all along. He has been a doubting Thomas in respect of this bill and I think when he sees the outstanding work that the committee of which he is a member will do in coming up with a new law he will be gratified with the results and say he cannot understand why he did not agree with this bill in the very first place.

The hon. member knows, and all members know, that in dealing with a subject of such importance as redistribution, of great importance to the members of this place, a government is always loathe to act unilaterally and in a way that is unfair, or perceived as unfair, to the other players in the political process.

In this case I suggest that what the government has done is move in a very fair and reasonable way. What has happened as a result of this bill? The purpose of the bill is to shelve the current redistribution process for a period of 24 months. If at the end of that time there is no new mechanism put in place by legislation, the redistribution commissions will restart their work, presumably using much of the material they now have and come up with a new set of maps.

There will be public hearings that follow as there are under the current regime, and everything falls back in place again. This is simply a delay of 24 months. Let us look at the history of this. Why is the government operating in this way? Why would we argue for a 24-month suspension at this point?

Redistribution should have been effected following the 1991 census at an earlier date than this because the very first figures released in 1992 on that census were the ones for redistribution of seats in the House of Commons. However, the previous government, the Mulroney government, introduced a bill in this House to delay the process for 12 months because there was a committee doing a study of the report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing which had been presented to the country by the royal commission in early 1992. Maybe it was late 1992, I cannot remember the date, I must admit.

That report was referred to a special committee of the House of Commons. It was to study the report and come up with recommendations. It seemed pointless at the time. There were one or two in the NDP who disagreed but almost all members agreed that the proper course was to defer consideration of redistribution until there had been a study of the royal commission's report because the royal commission recommended changes to the redistribution law of Canada. The aim was to have that study by the committee done so that legislation could be introduced in Parliament to make changes.

The committee ended up with a short timeframe for such an extensive study of the act because the referendum intervened in the process and disrupted the entire committee work. It took so much time to do the referendum bill and then Parliament did not sit for months and months because of the referendum.

Nothing was done in respect of the redistribution recommendations contained in the royal commission report and nothing was done to change the redistribution law. The law was left in place and began its operations during the summer of 1993, just when Parliament had been adjourned for the summer, and at the subsequent election because Parliament did not sit again until well after the election was called.

There we were in a situation in which these commissions were beavering away across the country preparing draft maps that were subsequently made public and members suddenly discovered that redistribution was back on the table, here were the maps and the public hearings started in another month. These maps were unacceptable to the vast majority of members in this House.

We heard yesterday at length from members of the Bloc Quebecois.

They made several speeches. It was unbelievable to hear so many speeches on that issue yesterday, but each of these hon. members had problems with the boundaries in his or her constituency.

We responded to this. That is partly why the government acted with alacrity to bring in this bill and suspend the process. We spoke in advance with members of the other parties to ensure that there was some agreement on this. We suggested a motion to refer various matters to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in order to allow that committee to do a detailed study.

We invited comments from the opposition and we got some very constructive comments from both parties in opposition. We included in the motion various items at their specific request to make the committee process more palatable to them, to make sure we covered the points that were of concern to the opposition. I think we have covered them all.

The difficulty was that some hon. members on the other side have made speeches in the House decrying this. They wanted us to write in what the committee was to do; that is, if the committee was to bring in a report saying this. We as a government said we will let the committee make its own decision on how it will report to the House. It will consider all these matters but the report is the committee's decision. We would not prejudge it. We would not instruct the committee to do certain things such as limit the number of members of the House of Commons to 295 or reduce the number of members of the House of Commons or increase it no more than by x number. We said the committee would have to look at all the options and come up with a report. That turned some members of the opposition in the Reform Party in particular into nervous Nellies. They became quite upset at the thought that the committee might-

[Motions For Papers, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the single notice of motion for the production of papers be allowed to stand.