Stephen Harper

[National Defence, February 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask the question again because it demands an answer.

Why is it that the minister does not inform this House of what is going on in his department? Why do we have to learn about this through the media? Why does the minister have to learn of these activities through the media?

[National Defence, February 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on January 23 the Minister of National Defence disbanded the airborne regiment even though he had not seen the videotape of the hazing incident. Apparently his department had not even been in possession of a copy.

Several weeks ago DND obtained what is now reported as a third hazing video. The minister says he was not informed. On Wednesday he claimed he had no knowledge. Yesterday he misinformed the House by calling the video innocuous.

After a year and a half, my question for the Minister of National Defence is, why is it that the minister and the House are continually informed of these incidents through the media? Why does the minister not know what is going on in his own department?

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

Madam Speaker, the whole purpose of my speech was to illustrate what citizens across the country are saying about representation in Parliament. They do not need more MPs. They do not need, in particular, as we will probably see in the bill, more MPs who say one thing when it does not matter and vote another way when the party tells them to do so.

Whether there are 14 seats in Saskatchewan or 20 or 28 is not going to make any difference if they do not represent their constituents in the House of Commons when it matters at voting time.

The other point is that they play little word games. People are not as stupid as some of these comments imply. People understand that under our Constitution-and some people have diffi-

culty with this-we have representation by population in the House of Commons and that the voice of Saskatchewan, whether it has 14 seats out of 301 or 12 seats out of 280 or 10 seats out of 250, is in fact the same voice. The only issue is whether it is going to cost more or cost less to have exactly the same voice.

The fact of the matter is that people realize that if no province can ever lose seats and we have rep by pop, the only way to sustain rep by pop is with a House of Commons that will expand forever. The people understand that. I do not think the histrionics in this debate will change people's understanding of that. It is unfortunate we have not tackled that issue.

If the Liberal government adopted our suggestion it would get considerable credit from the electorate in making this kind of move. We hear that from Saskatchewan, I am assured by the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, as we hear it in Alberta and as we read it in the mail we receive from across the country.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today also to discuss the motion of the government concerning electoral redistribution and to oppose that motion. In so doing I would like to make some complimentary comments with respect to what has transpired.

First of all, as was mentioned earlier, we had excellent support in committee and out in the field from Elections Canada. Mr. Kingsley, Mr. Girard and Mr. Lesage were very helpful to the committee. It is also necessary to mention that the electoral redistribution commissions have transacted their work quite faithfully under quite difficult circumstances during all of this and should be complimented.

I would also like to compliment the work of the chairman of the procedure and House affairs committee. This is the first time that a committee has successfully drafted a bill that we anticipate will be tabled. In spite of the fact that there were significant differences on major issues of principle, we nevertheless were able to work fairly and efficiently in the drafting of a bill and in resolution of those issues on which we were able to reach consensus.

We do not support this motion by the Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for a new electoral redistribution system, and I would like to explain why. There are several improvements in the committee's report, but there are also two major problems. First of all, the five million dollars it will cost to redo the electoral redistribution process for this census, the 1991 census, and second, the fact that the government, supported by the BQ, failed to reduce the number of members and thus the cost of maintaining the current number of seats in the House.

The principal reason for my opposition to this report is its failure to address correctly the issue of reducing or capping the number of seats in the House of Commons. All attempts by the Reform Party to make this an issue and to effect some change now, rather than some mythical change that supposedly will be made some time in the next century were turned down by the committee.

In addressing the question of the capping or reduction of the seats of the House of Commons, let me spend a bit of time outlining exactly what the history has been of this issue. We are all told that the House of Commons has grown from the time of Confederation. Let me review how that has occurred, the reasons for it and why it has become somewhat of a critical issue.

In 1867 there were 181 members of Parliament. Even from the beginning there were elements which encouraged growth and protected smaller provinces, either in the number of seats they had or in cases where they would lose those seats. The original formula that was in the Constitution for distribution of seats in the House of Commons was based on Quebec having a number fixed at 65 and other provinces going up or down, depending on their relationship to that number.

In addition there were changes made to that formula in 1915 to protect the seats of the very small provinces, which is senatorial clause 51(a) that we have heard some mention of earlier today.

Later on the formula was shifted. Quebec no longer was fixed at 65 and instead there were a fixed number of seats in the Chamber and the numbers would fluctuate depending on the relationship to the total number, although once again there were protections against loss of seats. Those amending formulae were introduced in 1943 and 1952.

All through that period, from 1867 through the various changes in 1915, 1943 and 1952 there was really only marginal growth in the House of Commons. It was a 30 per cent growth in total over that period. The primary reason for that growth was the addition of new provinces and the populating of western Canada.

Beyond that the growth of the House of Commons was actually quite marginal. Finally in 1949 there was the addition of Newfoundland.

It was really only with the formulae that came in under the Trudeau government that we began to have excessive growth in the number of seats in the House of Commons. In 1974 the Trudeau government enacted a formula which was unprecedented and which would have gone back to making Quebec a base for fixing the number of seats in the House of Commons. Instead at this time of fixing a number of seats for Quebec, Quebec was fixed at an ever increasing rate around which everything else would grow. Quebec is a province that has tended to have a stable or even a somewhat falling share of the seats. Thisled very quickly to a situation in which the House of Commons

would have expanded by hundreds of members within a period of only a few decades.

We grew from 264 seats in 1979 to the 295 we have today. There were additional amendments brought in, in 1985, to control this situation. Once again they still contain substantial growth elements. In particular no province is now allowed to fall below the number of seats it had in the 1970s. The only way to preserve the principle of representation by population is for the representation of large provinces to continually grow.

To review what I have said, if we look at the history we had both here and in the Senate of the growth of the number of seats over the first almost 100 years of Confederation, about 30 per cent were determined almost entirely by the growth of the country. After that period the Senate has ceased to grow and the House of Commons has expanded by 30 or 40 seats. It will expand by six in this redistribution and it will expand at that rate into the future.

What do we propose to do about this? Obviously we propose some kind of formula which would cap or reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons. The particular formula we introduced or we proposed as the Reform caucus was as follows. This was a proposal that had originally been made by the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster and was supported by the member for Calgary Centre and me.

We proposed that we establish a permanent number of seats in the House at 265. This was the number of seats that had been the case here for a long period of time, through most of the fifties, the sixties and the seventies. On top of that we proposed that there be some provision for small growth in representation.

The reason for that was very simple. The senatorial clause, section 51(a) of the Constitution, requires that no province can have fewer seats than its number of senators. That clause is distortive. It is distortive at any level of representation, whether small or large. Obviously at the number 265 it is not highly distortive and allowing for slight growth minimizes that distortion. I am talking about very slight growth.

We would have had a House under our formula of 273 seats for the next Parliament, growing at perhaps two or three seats every 10 years. We were talking about a very minimal objective.

This was opposed by the other parties for a number of reasons. I will quote a couple of them. One mentioned in the report is a reduction or freeze in the number of seats in the House of Commons would perpetuate and in some cases exacerbate inequities in representation between provinces and would further erode the principle of representation by population. Then it goes on to talk about the effect it would have on provinces losing seats.

Our formula would have caused virtually every province to lose seats, which was one of the reasons it was equitable. Also the statement as contained in the report is factually simply false. The formula we proposed that would give us 273 seats, a modest reduction of 10 per cent for the next Parliament, would have provided an approximation closer to representation by population than under the current formula. The reason is we removed the distortion of the grandfather clause which is far more distortive than the senatorial clause, which this House has imposed and which this House is in a position to remove.

The position that this would distort representation by population is not true. Our proposal would have improved the percentage share of seats that Ontario and British Columbia now have, the two provinces most unfairly affected by the current formula.

There were a number of other reasons given by government and Bloc members for opposing this particular formula but they were really of an entirely different nature. They were not really concerned about the mechanics of the formula or the growth of the House. They were the self-interest issues: "Canadians will miss me as their member of Parliament if I lose my seat"; these kinds of rationales.

Interestingly, very few of these rationales appeared when this motion was introduced. The principal reason we were told publicly by the government that we were suspending the commission and that we were undertaking this committee study was the concern of members of the House about the size of the House and the terrible cost that would entail.

I want to refresh the memory of the House. I could spend a good part of the time I have to refresh the memory of the House about some of the interventions that were made by various members in emphasizing that this report should cap or reduce the size of the House of Commons. I want to remind these members because we expect that when there is a vote they will have an opportunity to get up to oppose this particular motion and to stick to their principles.

The hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka had mentioned when we had the debate on Bill C-18 that it is not something he has heard from his constituents, that they want to expand government and have more government spending. I agree. That is why we must oppose this motion.

The hon. member for Halton-Peel said if one looks at Australia there are twice as many voters per member in that country. We are at the point where we have to make some changes. Either that or we are going to have to knock out one of

these walls. I agree. I would be interested to hear from the hon. member for Halton-Peel.

The hon. member for Nepean said: "They are talking about increasing by six the numbers of representation in the House of Commons. We know it costs at least a million dollars a year for every member of the House. I have great difficulty with how they rationalize that". I agree with that. This is once again why this report should not go through unless there are changes to cap or reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons, precisely so that we can keep those costs down.

All these problems about representation, as the hon. member for Nepean well understood, can be addressed through use of modern technology, through more efficient use of staff resources. It does not require a House of Commons that will grow to 350 seats over the next 20 or 30 years.

The hon. member for Ontario said: "Why do we need new seats? It seems that the addition of new seats flies in the face of the hard earned tax money that Canadians tell us is so hard to come by".

The Liberal member for Victoria-Haliburton proclaimed: "The cost of adding six members of Parliament is something I think the Reform Party and myself included should look very hard at. Why would we want to add that kind of money? Why would we even think in these tough economic times of adding millions of dollars to taxpayers' expenses?"

The Reform Party has looked at this issue, has proposed the alternative. We are looking forward to seeing what the hon. member for Victoria-Haliburton has done as he studied this issue.

The hon. member for La Prairie: "One principle is particularly important. We should not increase the number of electoral districts in Canada. Two hundred and ninety-five electoral districts for 27 million people is already too much". I agree.

The hon. member for St. Boniface, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of public works said: "Would this not be a wonderful opportunity to see whether we could do with one-quarter or perhaps one-third fewer MPs? I think Canadians would applaud such a move. It would mean significant savings". I agree with that also.

Our Reform proposal to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons is comparatively modest. We are talking about a reduction of about 10 per cent. We could go further. If we go further there are some significant problems with the senatorial clause. It begins to become fairly distortive. That does not mean we should not do it. We should be looking at Senate reform. We should be reforming that institution. That would allow us to change the senatorial clause.

I understand the government is not prepared to do that and I understand why. It is very difficult to reduce to the kind of number the hon. member for St. Boniface proposed, but a reduction of 10 per cent is certainly achievable.

The Solicitor General said: "Since Confederation the number of seats in the House of Commons has increased steadily" as I mentioned, the number of members by now would have shot up already to more than some 340. That is something we should be considering.

The hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River spoke quite eloquently in the committee when he said: "Three hundred and one members is not what Canadians want. They want a Parliament that works. They want to see it work with 295 members, not 301 or 310 or 320 as time goes on".

The hon. member for Waterloo said: "If we continue with the process in the longer term we are going to keep adding members to the House of Commons. Therefore time is of the essence. We have to deal with this issue very quickly. However, I will be fighting very strongly to maintain the number of members of Parliament at 295, not of course the 301 it is scheduled to go up to".

The parliamentary secretary to the minister of citizenship, the hon. Liberal member for Halifax said: "In these days when restraint is being urged on us by all fronts, should we really be considering increasing the number of members of Parliament?" I think the question indicates its own answer.

The hon. Liberal member for Hillsborough said: "All kinds of institutions are looking at holding the line, reducing numbers or not going ahead with other plans. I notice new electoral reform has just come forward in my own province. It is not the best time for us to go forward and increase seats in the House with the added costs".

The hon. Liberal member for Perth-Wellington-Waterloo said: "If we approach the population of our neighbours to the south, we will need 3,000 seats in the House of Commons".

This is another reason, as the hon. member for Calgary Centre mentioned, that we should tackle this capping issue. We do not need those numbers. We do not need to have a number of politicians which by an exponential factor exceeds the number of politicians in a state like California.

The hon. member for Algoma said: "We cannot cap the number of seats here forever, but we want to consider how quickly the number of seats rises".

Even that suggestion was not solved by the committee. Even reducing the future growth was not solved by the committee's report. It said it is an issue that should be addressed and studied, that Parliament should be seized with the issue. That was the purpose of the committee and it failed to do that.

The hon. member for Bramalea-Gore-Malton said: "Perhaps this House would operate more efficiently and effectively if there were dramatically fewer members of Parliament than at present and there were a fixed number".

The hon. Liberal member, the secretary of state for parliamentary affairs, stated his own view: "Finally, based on the existing formula, the number of seats in the House of Commons will increase from 295 to 301 as a result of the 1991 census, and that concerns me in light of current fiscal restraints".

I have a couple more I could mention. The hon. member for Carleton-Gloucester, a Liberal member, said:

At this rate there will come a point in 2050 or 2090 where the Chamber will no longer be large enough to hold all the new members. It will have to be torn down and rebuilt further to make room for the extra seats that will have to be made. If you look south, they have only 100 senators for a total population of about 250 million people.

Literally dozens of Liberal members spoke in favour of what the Reform Party is proposing. We look forward to their support when the vote on this issue comes about.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, we have just had a very important vote, historically and for the unity of Canada and Quebec. Where is Jean Charest?

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, on this issue, I am in full agreement with the Prime Minister and my leader. The question that should be asked of Quebecers is this: "Do you want Quebec to separate from Canada?" There are two aspects to that question. The first one is the desire to separate. But a desire is just that, a desire. All details would have to be negotiated afterwards. You cannot table a bill setting forth these details in the National Assembly, because it is outside its constitutional jurisdiction. The second aspect is separation. We know why the P.Q. government prefers the word sovereignty. We have seen the polls. To Quebecers, sovereignty appears less dangerous, less clearly defined. That is why that word is used instead of the real one.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, my answer is that we have to consult the people of Quebec, federalists as well as sovereignists, and people from outside Quebec too, I think. But we must have a real consultation process where the result is not predetermined and where all the available options are discussed. That is not the case in this process.

I would also like to talk about the repatriation of the Constitution in 1981. Someone said today that that process was undemocratic. Clearly, we do not have enough democracy in Canada today. Every day, Reformers call for direct democracy mechanisms. It is a necessity. However, under the law, the Supreme Court decided that patriation was legitimate. This question was put to the Supreme Court. Obviously, it would not have been legal or constitutional to decide to ignore all the provinces. But, in effect, a strong majority of provinces and their legislatures supported that constitutional amendment.

A government here, dominated by Quebec and the Prime Minister from Quebec decided to adopt that Constitution. Indeed, Quebec did not have a veto then, and still does not have one. And why not? We know why. It is because Mr. Lévesque, before the decision, had renounced his veto in an accord signed with the other provinces. This explains the process by which the Constitution was adopted in 1981.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say a couple of things relative to that.

First, obviously this debate and the economic uncertainty that all this will cause will probably lead to no change whatsoever and is already costing us a great deal. It will cost Quebecers in terms of their bonds which already have a tremendous risk premium on the international market as well as the bonds of Canada which are affected indirectly. All of this uncertainty has cost us.

We know the cost it has caused Quebec over the past generation. When I was a boy, and it was not that long ago, Montreal was the major city in Canada. Today that is not true; it is Toronto. A lot of that is thanks to these developments that have occurred in the province of Quebec and this particular separatist debate.

I should be clear that in no way excuses the lack of action on the fiscal situation at the federal level. That is just as serious for Quebecers and for other Canadians and has also impacted negatively on the Government of Quebec.

Second, the member says that we are raising hypothetical scenarios. My speech and the speech of the leader of the Reform Party today were not on the hypothetical issues of separation, but on the real issue of the separatist process that is now under way in Quebec and which is the subject of this motion.

One cannot ignore the sentiments that exist in Quebec or ignore the process that is actually under way. That process is extremely dangerous and misleading. It affects the vital interests of this Parliament that is the responsibility of not only all members here but our responsibility to Canadians. We should be defending those interests much more than we are doing and defending the legal rights of the people we represent to not see this kind of a process go ahead without our participation.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am rising today to speak to the following Bloc motion:

That this House enjoin the government to recognize the legitimacy of the democratic process initiated by the Government of Quebec in order to allow Quebecers to chart their own political and constitutional future.

In so doing, let me be clear that I will be opposing the motion as I believe will be every member of the Reform Party. The motion is truly a test of our commitment to federalism in the most fundamental sense.

The motion talks about a democratic process. Is this a democratic process? The hon. member for Calgary Southwest, the leader of the Reform Party, has spoken on this point earlier. I will repeat some of his points but let me be emphatic in saying it is essential to say those things.

We are talking about a referendum. That is democratic. Before a referendum the bill proclaiming sovereignty or laying out sovereignty will be passed. It will be passed by a government elected by a separatist minority. It will be developed in stages which predefine a separatist outcome in a process completely dominated by separatists and restricted by separatist

options. The question to be asked will be lengthy. It concerns a whole bill. It will contain ambiguities and outright falsehoods.

The PQ government running this process has a very clear interpretation of the results. A yes counts; it is binding. As the leader of the Reform Party said, it is binding on those large unresolved items in the question. A no does not count. A no means we will just try again-some democracy.

The key of legitimacy is whether something is legal. This assumes that only the Quebec assembly, for this particular bill we are discussing, has sole jurisdictions in areas where it clearly does not. Articles 1, 10 and 13 reserve all powers now part of the Canadian state that require the consent of this Parliament to change and in many cases provincial legislatures strictly to the Government of Quebec.

Article 4 would allow the province to alter boundaries. It says it is not altering boundaries but it is a significant alteration to declare interprovincial boundaries to be international boundaries. Under our constitutional law that is a significant alteration.

Article 5 would authorize the Government of Quebec to pass laws regarding the use of Canadian citizenship.

Articles 7, 8 and 9 authorize the ascension of Quebec to Canadian interests and Canadian treaties, which are not just the business of this Parliament but also of our treaty partners, our internationally recognized fellow nations.

Article 11 authorizes the Government of Quebec to pay pension plans which are clearly under the jurisdiction of this Parliament and the Constitution, in some cases constitutional amendments that have been arrived at unanimously.

Article 12 would strip the Supreme Court of Canada and all other Canadian courts of their judicial authority to hear cases related to law. Article 16 would bypass all the legal amending procedures of the Constitution of Canada.

When I talk about legitimacy, I must say that, in my life, legitimacy has two parts: a political project and a political relationship. The first element is the democratic process, which is mentioned in today's motion. It is not a true democratic process, but there will be a vote, and the result of a vote cannot be ignored. I think this is important.

It will be a historic vote, and I hope it will be the beginning of an irreversible process if the result is yes or, more likely, no.

Legitimacy is made up of two other elements which are not mentioned in this motion. First, the interests of others in the political project or relationship. Their economic, fiscal, political, constitutional, social and international interests, as well as their preferences. This does not only apply outside Quebec. There are also the interests of foreign countries, of the Parliament of Canada, of other provinces and even those of hard core federalists in Quebec, in short, anyone who has the right to stay in Canada.

Second, and perhaps more important, there are the rights established by existing political and legal relationships, such as the treaties, laws, constitutions and powers of other governments here in Canada and in other countries. Our words should not be misinterpreted. It is not merely a wish, it is more than that. It is the duty of the Parliament of Canada, of the members of this House, whether they represent the Reform Party or another federalist party, to protect the interests and the legal rights of Canadians. Rights that are recognized by the international community, legal and necessary rights that all Canadians enjoy, in Quebec as in all other provinces.

The legitimacy of a unilateral process like the one proposed by the Parti Quebecois in Quebec cannot be recognized. I am not a Quebecer nor do I pretend to be one, but if I were, I would be proud to be a Quebecer, proud of my history, of my language and of my society, just as I am proud to be an Albertan. It is a choice I have made, not only as my province of residence, but also as a way of life, a vision.

I can understand Quebec's nationalistic policy which, like all nationalistic policies, has to lead to independence. I can understand this feeling, but I cannot share it.

We have to recognize that, in today's world, nationalism has its obligations just as it has its dreams. No group, no continent, no country, nobody can ignore the legitimate interests of others, but that is what the Parti Quebecois and its allies from the Bloc want to do.

This is nothing to be proud of. I think it is a shame and I sincerely hope for the benefit of Canada that the vast majority of Quebecers will recognize the irresponsible and dangerous nature of the unilateral process proposed by the government of Quebec.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member and I think he said that one reason he is for separation is that the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords failed. I wonder what the position of the Parti Quebecois and the PQ government was on these two accords.