44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 7, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak about Bill C-14, the preserving provincial representation in the House of Commons act.
The seat allocation and electoral boundaries readjustment process is an important part of our democracy. Its purpose is to ensure that the House of Commons reflects the changing nature of Canada's demographic profile and that all Canadian voices are heard.
I will admit that this bill is a small change. It is a small compromise to an elaborate electoral formula that has a long history of compromise, competing regional interests and vigorous political debate.
We can debate about tinkering with the formula to appease political interests, but at the end of the day, most members of the House would likely agree that baked into the redistribution is systemic unfairness. This exists because the redistribution formulas were created for a country that no longer exists. The current formula was made for a country that did not see people living in the west at the numbers they do today.
At Canada's founding, the fathers of Confederation had a vision for Canada, how it would be a place for freedom-seeking people around the world and how it would be a place of economic development and prosperity, but I do not think the fathers of Confederation could have foreseen the tremendous growth and prosperity of western Canada. As a British Columbian, I am proud of the contributions my province and the people I represent have made to our country.
While Canada has changed and grown, we continue to be bound by rules for electoral redistribution that are and always will be systemically unfair for Canadians living in certain regions of the country, namely Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
Let me share an example to highlight this, but first, to preface this, it is important to note that, in 1991, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that representation by population is fundamental to electoral redistribution. My riding of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon currently has 101,216 people. The average riding size of the four ridings—
An hon. member: I am having trouble hearing him.
Mr. Brad Vis: Mr. Speaker, it is just a little loud in here.
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Mr. Speaker, the average riding size of the four ridings in Prince Edward Island is 38,582. Some basic math here shows that, on average, a vote in Prince Edward Island is worth 2.62 times more than a vote in my riding. How is this fair? How is this democratic? How does this live up to the principles upheld in our courts in 1991? Are the concerns of someone from Charlottetown worth 2.62 times more than someone from my riding? Should they be allowed to have 2.62 times the amount of say in the House of Commons?
My riding is significantly smaller than the ridings of my colleagues from Edmonton—Wetaskiwin and Calgary Shepard. The comparison to these ridings is even more extreme. Obviously, I am not naive to the constitutional rules and implications that make this possible, but what I am trying to illustrate here is that there are significant flaws in the way seats are redistributed in Canada. Fundamentally, I believe that one vote in British Columbia should be equal to one vote in Prince Edward Island, to one vote in Quebec and to one vote in Ontario. This is democratic. This is what we should be trying to achieve in Canada, but this is not the case and it should be fixed.
In 1915, the first change was made to the original representation formula by the adoption of the senatorial clause, which is still in effect today. This clause states that a province cannot have fewer seats in the House of Commons than it does in the Senate. It had the immediate effect of guaranteeing four seats for the province of Prince Edward Island instead of the three it would otherwise have had. It still has four seats today.
Every 10 years when the topic of redistribution comes up, we apply duct-tape fixes to a spillway-gate problem. We are elected to the House to be leaders, to have a vision for our country that extends beyond the next time Canadians go to the polls. The actions we take and do not take have a lasting impact on the future of our democratic system. This is the mantle of a member of Parliament, for all of us collectively, and it is the mantle that should weigh heavily on the minds of every single member in the House.
In 2011, the Harper government provided a lump-sum improvement to the under-representation problem by providing 27 seats to British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta respectively. This was a partial fix to our problem, but it still disadvantages those three provinces.
On March 2, I voted against the Bloc Québécois motion that would solidify Quebec's political weight in the House of Commons by redrawing the federal electoral map. My reasoning had nothing to do with Quebec. It had to do with the lack of equal representation in my province of British Columbia.
In retrospect, Quebec is the closest to fair representation that we have in Canada. However, giving Quebec one more seat under the bill so that it would not lose any proportionality in Parliament is a poor solution to an existing problem. The bill would make the under-representation problem marginally worse than it was going to be anyway. Once again, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario representation pay the price.
The reason the bill is before us today is solely in response to the Bloc Québécois motion. As an MP from the west, this drives me and, frankly, makes me a little upset. I predict that we will be here in another 10 years tinkering with this formula again, trying to compromise and appease the greatest amount of political interest. Alternatively, we could use the next 10 years to come up with a permanent solution that can preserve our democracy and last the test of time.
Again, the Supreme Court, in 1991, upheld that representation by population matters. When Confederation took place, nobody ever imagined that British Columbia especially would be as powerful both economically and demographically as it is today.
My argument here today is that our Parliament needs to reflect the reality of the changing demographic nature of Canada. Our Parliament needs to take into account where people are living and working. Our Parliament needs to take into account that all of our systems in our democracy uphold the rights of individuals to have an equal say in the House of Commons.
What we are doing here today is a band-aid solution to a larger problem that we, collectively, have to address.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives moved a unanimous consent motion around the same time as the Bloc Québécois motion essentially asking for this. In my remarks, I pointed out problems that both the previous Conservative governments and previous Liberal governments have had regarding this issue. In fact, this is an issue that extends beyond political parties. It is about fair representation for all Canadians.
British Columbia is systemically under-represented in the House. Imagine today if Quebec had three seats taken away from it and Quebec was 1% under-represented like British Columbia is today. Every Quebec MP, irrespective of party, would be up in arms. I am doing my duty as a British Columbian to make sure that taxpayers in my province have an equal say.
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Madam Speaker, I could not hear most of the question, so I will just say this: The first political experience I had in my life was in 1993 when the previous Reform Party talked about the west wanting in. Some of those structural grievances that led to that populous movement relate to what we are discussing here today, which is that British Columbia—
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Madam Speaker, I did hear one point from the member opposite about the proportionality that Quebec wanted to—
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Madam Speaker, I heard the word “proportion” and that the Bloc Québécois put forward that motion because it wanted to maintain the proportionality of the Quebec members of Parliament in the House. I stand here today as a member of Parliament for British Columbia and my objective is that the proportionality of my province is one day reflected in our chamber. British Columbians only have six Senate seats. British Columbians do not have a guaranteed seat on the Supreme Court. British Columbians pay equalization to other provinces. British Columbians just want an equal say in how our democracy is run.
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Madam Speaker, I think the key thing that needs to be upheld in this chamber is representation by population.
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