44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 1, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/1/22 11:36:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, and I would like to ask him a question.
Quebec's political weight is already part of the criteria that must be met in order for Quebec to be brought back into the Constitution, in particular as part of the Charlottetown accord, which guaranteed that Quebec would never have less than 25% of the total number of seats in the House of Commons. This agreement was negotiated by a Conservative government.
As the deputy leader of the Conservative Party, would it not make sense for the member to defend this position, which was put forward by his own government?
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- Mar/1/22 11:37:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this important debate. I will be sharing my time with my wonderful colleague, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, who will have some very interesting things to say. I look forward to hearing him.
Like many of my colleagues in the House, I would like to take a few moments to express our solidarity with the Ukrainian people who have been living through very dark days for almost a week. They have been suffering a brutal assault by a dictator, Vladimir Putin. I feel especially concerned, as the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, since my riding is the area in Montreal where there is the Parc de l'Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Basilica and the Ukrainian Festival every year, which I attend with Quebeckers and Montrealers of Ukrainian origin. We are all very shaken. We are here to support Ukrainians as well as to support the peace process.
Today’s debate is important because it brings up the question of Quebec’s place in the federation and Quebec’s signing of the Constitution, as well as Quebec’s political weight in the House and in Parliament. I will come back to that a little later.
This raises fundamental questions about democracy and the equality of citizens. We are lucky enough to live in a democratic system in which people express themselves because of a notion of popular sovereignty that leaves it up to the people to decide. We must respect the equality of people, of men and women. The notion of democracy stems from the principle that human beings are born free and equal in rights.
The democratic notion of equality—one citizen, one vote—is not always observed in a certain sense, sometimes for the wrong reasons, but sometimes for the right ones. We tend to forget the bad reasons because we are all too often used to them, unfortunately. Our electoral system is designed so that not all votes are equal. Some votes are lost or do not count in a first-past-the-post system like ours, rather than in a proportional system. Many votes do not make it to Parliament and do not get expressed.
I will use Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie as an example. Last fall, there was a general election. I was lucky enough to be re-elected for a fourth time, but with just under 50% of the votes, 49%, to be exact. This means that 50% of the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie did not vote for the NDP. Are these people represented in the House of Commons? Hopefully, their vote was taken up elsewhere in other ridings.
Since members can be elected with 35% or 40% of the votes, the majority of citizens who voted in an election are often not represented by the members sitting here, in the House. This is becoming more common and, very often—this is practically the rule—we end up with a government that represents a minority of citizens who voted for it. A party can win an election with 37% or 38% of the vote and have a majority government with 65% of the seats in the House and impose its views on Parliament for four years.
If we had a proportional system, if the Liberals had kept their promise and changed the electoral system as they promised in 2015, we might not be where we are today. There have even been situations in our history, on a number of occasions, where the party with the most votes did not form the government. The party that came second, based on the total number of votes, had the majority of the seats. This is an absurd democratic contradiction. I do not understand why the Conservative Party does not get more worked up; the Conservatives got more votes than the Liberals in the last two elections and yet they are in opposition, instead of forming the government. That does not seem to bother them. We in the NDP are troubled by this because it touches on a fundamental issue, the equality of citizens.
There may be good reasons for not observing that equality of votes. The electoral system is a very bad reason, because it could be changed quite easily. Most democracies in the world have done so. However, there are good reasons. There are criteria we can use to decide how and when people will be represented.
As mentioned earlier in this debate, certain criteria already exist in our system. For example, we have to evaluate a number of things. Some of my colleagues from the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party have mentioned the senatorial clause, which ensures that Prince Edward Island, for example, cannot have fewer MPs than it has senators. In fact, that was a condition for its entry into Confederation. There is the grandfathering clause that applies to certain provinces; this has also come up. Finally, we have the territorial clause, which says that the territories must be represented even though they have far fewer constituents than more densely populated ridings like mine. I must also point out that Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie is a tiny riding, but 110,000 people live there. That is a lot of people per square kilometre. The territories should have their own MPs even though they have less than half that population spread over a huge area often as big as a number of European countries. These MPs also represent indigenous and Inuit communities, who must be represented to have a voice in the House.
All these criteria need to be examined, which is perfectly normal. That is why an automatic demographic formula is not applied as a basic mathematical rule, but rather a series of exceptions. More criteria are applied, and sometimes for very good reasons.
This system of accommodation means that we can and we must have this kind of discussion, which was brought about by today's motion.
I will refrain from giving a long history lesson and going back to Upper and Lower Canada, but let us not forget that Quebec did not sign the Constitution of 1982. That is problematic. I am very proud of my party leader, who said at a federal NDP convention that that was a historic mistake, which must be resolved one day, one way or another. That said, attempts have been made to heal the scars, the wounds inflicted on René Lévesque and the entire Quebec population. There were two attempts during my teenage years, just as I was beginning to take an interest in politics. There was the Meech Lake Accord attempt between 1987 and 1990, which was rejected, and the Charlottetown Accord that was negotiated afterwards.
I will not rehash all of Quebec’s historical claims and the criteria. There are a number of them, and they are not all mutually exclusive. However, one of the considerations in the Charlottetown Accord was Quebec’s political weight in Parliament, which was set at 25%. This was negotiated by the Conservative government of then prime minister Brian Mulroney. This agreement was approved by my party, the NDP. This is nothing new. The issue of Quebec’s political weight in the House should not be seen as something original or new. There are precedents that were negotiated by the Conservatives and supported by the NDP. I think that this needs to be part of our debate on this motion.
Since the House formally recognized Quebec as a nation, I think that we could have a Quebec clause recognizing that Quebec is a nation and that, as a result, like other Senate provisions, territorial provisions or grandfathering provisions, could be applied to the distribution of seats and that this would not come at the expense of the representation of other provinces. Since Parliament recognized that Quebec is a nation, and that Quebeckers or French Canadians were one of the two founding peoples, then this needs to be meaningfully expressed and have an impact. It would make sense that a Quebec provision—I am not saying it would be the only one—would be one of them.
As a proud Quebecker, I will be pleased to support this motion. I would not want to support the political undermining of Quebec.
I hope that my Liberal and Conservative colleagues in Quebec feel the same way. Immigration is an important and necessary tool to maintain Quebec’s demographic weight, but there are also other ways to do it, and this one would be very effective.
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- Mar/1/22 11:49:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond. I always enjoy having these types of discussions with him. This sometimes turns into debate, but it never really escalates.
His bill is indeed very interesting. It is totally logical and consistent with the point of view I just expressed, in other words, that there are many criteria for establishing the representation of citizens in the House.
His bill, in principle, is interesting. It remains to be seen what amendments might be made, the details of the terms, and, if ever it gets to third reading after review in committee, what the final version will look like. At that point I will be able to make an informed decision with all of my NDP colleagues and the caucus, along with our leader.
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- Mar/1/22 11:50:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
I believe I was quite clear in my speech. The equality of citizens is clearly a basic principle of democracy, but the demographic formula is not the only one we use. There are several others. We have shown that. This has consequences for the Prairies, the Maritimes, and Quebec as well. We can consider this discussion because we live under a system that has multiple criteria and exceptions.
As for immigration, I would say that Quebec and Canada are countries of immigrants. We are all to varying degrees sons and daughters of immigrants, except for the indigenous peoples and the Inuit.
I would like to see Quebec welcome more immigrants. I think that is also a good way to solve the problem of the labour shortage. However, at this time, the Government of Quebec makes decisions about economic immigration, as it should. It is up to Quebec to decide.
Personally, I believe that a good part of the solution to Quebec's political weight is demographics and immigration. It would also help solve the labour shortage.
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- Mar/1/22 11:52:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his question.
I have been a member of Parliament for nearly 11 years now, and in my experience, the NDP has always been focused on Quebec and its place, on respect for the Quebec nation, and on protecting the French language both in and outside Quebec.
The 2012 bill reflects that. Our party also adopted the Sherbrooke declaration, which recognizes the Quebec nation and asymmetrical federalism.
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- Mar/1/22 2:47:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, according to the latest IPCC report, the window is closing for us to secure a livable future for our children and grandchildren. The report is chilling.
According to experts, the climate crisis has already caused irreversible damage. Global warming is happening too fast, and all this Liberal government has to offer is empty rhetoric. First the Liberals bought a pipeline, and now they continue to subsidize the major polluters in the oil and gas industry, the worst in the G20.
When will the Prime Minister stop subsidizing fossil fuels and protect Canadians now and for generations to come?
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