CANADA House of Commons Debates VOLUME 138 Ï NUMBER 123 Ï 2nd SESSION Ï 37th PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Friday, September 19, 2003 Speaker: The Honourable Peter Milliken CONTENTS (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) All parliamentary publications are available on the ``Parliamentary Internet Parlementaire´´ at the following address: http://www.parl.gc.ca 7561 HOUSE OF COMMONS Friday, September 19, 2003 The House met at 10 a.m. process we have today although there have been a number of important changes over the years. Prayers For example, the famous Senate floor rule was added in 1915. It states that a province cannot have fewer seats in the House of Commons than it does in the Senate. This clause had the immediate GOVERNMENT ORDERS effect of guaranteeing four seats to the province of Prince Edward Island and continues to provide a floor for a number of provinces Ï (1005) today. [English] In 1946, the formula was changed so that 255 seats were allocated ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT based on provinces' share of Canada's total population rather than the The House resumed from September 17 consideration of the average population per electoral district in Quebec. motion. In 1951, the 15% clause was adopted to prevent too rapid a loss of Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime seats in some provinces. Under the new rules, no province could lose Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to be able to participate more than 15% of the number of Commons seats to which it had in debate prior to second reading on Bill C-49, an act respecting the been entitled in the last readjustment. effective date of the representation order of 2003. In the following decade, we entered what may be referred to as the The representation order referred to in the title of the act is the end modern era of electoral boundaries readjustment. Up to and product of a process for adjusting our electoral boundaries which including the boundary readjustment of 1951, the House of takes place after every decennial census. Commons itself was responsible for fixing the electoral boundaries of the electoral districts through a committee established for that While this process is probably little known to most Canadians, it purpose. is fundamental to ensuring effective representation in the House of Commons for all regions, all provinces, all communities and all Concern about the level of influence exercised by the House led to citizens. Given the importance of this process, I would like to spend the passing of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act in 1964. a little bit of time today reviewing its key elements. The new act was also brought in against the backdrop of the We should go back in this case to 1867 to find the origins of the experience of our neighbours to the south, who were beset by the electoral boundaries readjustment process, or the EBRA process, as problem of gerrymandering. The act, which provides the statutory it has become commonly known. mechanism with which to carry out the constitutional requirements in section 51, is strongly based on the idea of maintaining the In addition to establishing a system that is based on representation independence of the electoral redistribution process. by population, our Fathers of Confederation recognized the geographical, cultural, political and demographic diversity of our In the interests of political neutrality, the act establishes provinces and the importance of integrating these factors into any independent commissions in each province. As originally passed, formula for distribution of seats in the House of Commons. each commission was to be chaired by a judge designated by the chief justice of the province, and there were to be three other In addition to establishing a Parliament composed of two houses, members, including a representation commissioner and a public the British North America Act of 1867 included section 51, which servant who would sit on the commission. The post of representation stated that the number of seats allocated to each province must be commissioner was later abolished and those duties were transferred recalculated after each 10 year census, starting in 1871. to the Chief Electoral Officer. The act included a simple formula whereby the total number of In addition to being independent, it was recognized at the time that seats was to be calculated by dividing the population of each the process should provide opportunities for everyone to express province by a fixed number, referred to as the electoral quota or their views, including the public and members of Parliament. To this quotient. The quotient was derived by dividing the population of the end, each provincial commission publishes proposed electoral maps province of Quebec by 65, the number of seats then held in Quebec in the newspapers and the public is invited to public hearings held in under the Constitution. This formula provided the basis for the various locations. 7562 COMMONS DEBATES September 19, 2003 Government Orders Ï (1010) Ï (1015) Members of Parliament, who invariably have strong views on Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, Canadian Alliance): Mr. both the names and boundaries of electoral districts, can appear Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-49, which talks before the commissions during the public hearings and there is also about boundary changes. As I listened to the parliamentary secretary provision for them to make objections to proposed changes through as he spoke to the bill, I picked up on a couple of words he a committee of the House of Commons. The final decision, however, mentioned, which to me indicate why things are wrong with the rests within the commissions. government and what the problem is with this whole system of boundary changes and representation. He said that the boundary The current guidelines for determining boundary adjustments are changes are effective representation for regions and that the regions found in the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, as amended in of Alberta and British Columbia get the seats they deserve. 1984. As set out in the act, the division of the province into electoral districts must proceed on the basis that the population of each electoral district in the province shall, as close as reasonably Let us in honesty look at this whole thing. This is like giving little possible, correspond to the electoral quotient for that province. crumbs off the table. There is a fundamental flaw in our Constitution, which is that we do not have equal representation. Regions do not However, making changes to electoral boundaries is not just a have equal representation. That is what he did not talk about. When mathematical exercise. Rather, it is a delicate balancing act that must the parliamentary secretary talks about effective representation, I do consider a number of factors, including the community of interest or not know what he is talking about. the community of identity, or the historic pattern of an electoral district in that province, and a manageable geographic size for districts in sparsely populated rural and northern regions. In other Let us look at this for a minute. Historically, one can agree that words, the commissions must consider social, cultural, linguistic, when the Constitution was first brought in for this country the seat geographic and other factors. allocation and representation reflected the reality of that time, which, as the parliamentary secretary said, was around 1800. Today we are The commissions may depart from strict voter parity in order to talking about the year 2004. The dynamics of this country have take these factors into consideration so long as the population of changed. Where are these dynamics being represented in this bill by each district remains within 25% more or 25% less of the electoral the government? Nowhere. quota for that province. Exceptions to this range are possible, but only for remote and sparsely populated ridings. This 25% leeway Now we will have two extra seats for Alberta and two extra seats reflects the Supreme Court's 1991 decision on Saskatchewan's for British Columbia. And guess what: the prime minister in waiting provincial electoral boundaries, which concluded that the objective says that the west needs equal representation and these seats will of the right to vote in the charter was to attain effective give it that representation. Give me a break: two seats will give us representation rather than strict voter parity. equal representation? How can everybody tout that western alienation will be taken care of by these four extra seats? This brings us to our present task. As all members will be aware, we have just completed the redistribution process and have new, up to date electoral maps. The only question is whether or not to Now the Liberals have changed the date. They have brought it accelerate its effective date. If operational concerns are satisfied, forward to April to suit their political agenda. It is all about politics. there is no reason not to do so, since this process is complete. It is to suit their political agenda so that the member who is going to become the prime minister in November can call an election at his I have spoken today about the need for an independent electoral own given time. If this is not political manipulation, what is it? To process. This will in no way change the EBRA process. It remains as couch it in terms of saying that this will address some of the western independent as it always has been. The views of the public and alienation is just plain wrong. members of Parliament have been heard. What has changed is that in this present case, the Chief Electoral Officer has told us that he does not need the full one year grace period that is prescribed in the act.