44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 7, 2022 10:00AM
- Apr/7/22 3:14:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been almost a year since Greyhound ended its bus service in Canada. Last May, the minister told us that he would provide “safe, reliable and affordable transportation across the country.” One year later, rural communities are still waiting to hear the plan. Without reliable buses, people cannot get to work or access services, and here in northwest British Columbia on the Highway of Tears, it is particularly concerning for indigenous women and girls.
Will the minister tell us when rural communities will have bus service they can rely on?
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- Apr/7/22 3:14:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I share my hon. colleague's concern about several communities in rural parts of our country that have been lacking access to intercity bus service. Our government is very much concerned with this reality. As I shared with my colleague, the issue is a provincial responsibility. We continue to work with our provincial partners to identify ideas of how we can move forward. I met with several bus operators. We are looking for ways to support them, ensuring that residents in rural areas have access to affordable, reliable and safe intercity bus service.
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- Apr/7/22 3:15:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, enough of the political games. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change today is responding to questions from the Bloc and the NDP citing his approval of Baie du Nord, when he knows he is setting a net-zero condition that will not worth the paper it is printed on if we emit up to 100 coal-fired power plants in the year before we even get to that point.
He cites the IPCC when he knows full well it has said that investing in projects like this is a moral and economic madness. Production would not even start until 2028. When will the government realize that being a climate leader means investing in a just transition for workers and not in caving to the oil and gas lobby?
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- Apr/7/22 3:16:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the IPCC did not say what he just said. The secretary general of the United Nations said that. There is a big difference.
The IPCC said every country needs to reduce its emissions by 43% by 2030. That is exactly what we are doing. The IPCC said any fossil fuel that we will still be using needs to be abated. That is exactly what we are doing by putting in place mandatory measures for net zero by 2050. We will continue to do that.
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- Apr/7/22 3:16:46 p.m.
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Following discussions among representatives of all parties in the House, I understand there is agreement to observe a moment of silence. I now invite the House to rise and observe a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the tragic event that happened two years ago in Nova Scotia.
[A moment of silence observed]
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- Apr/7/22 3:18:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a tradition in the House to have the Thursday question done by the House leader, so in his stead, I will do so. There is a two-week break coming up for Easter. It is also the month of Ramadan and it is also Passover.
Upon our return, I am wondering if the government House leader could inform the House how he plans to budget the time of the House of Commons.
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- Apr/7/22 3:18:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me say to my colleague opposite that I hope he and his family are able to enjoy this time and enjoy Easter. I know we will be celebrating. I will say Ramadan Mubarak to those who are recognizing Ramadan and wish everybody a joyous Passover.
This afternoon, we are going to be continuing with the second reading of Bill C-14, the Quebec electoral representation bill. As members know, at 4 p.m. the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance will be presenting the budget.
When we return after the constituency weeks, we will continue debating the budget for a number of days, which will be Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then after that, it will be the budget implementation act.
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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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- Apr/7/22 3:22:29 p.m.
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Order. Can we take the conversations outside, please?
The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.
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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, the member who just spoke seems to have a differing opinion from the official Conservative caucus position on this. I do not know if he was just expressing his personal position and he will be voting against the legislation, but my understanding was that the official opposition recognizes the true value of the legislation and is going to be voting in favour of it. I would like to assure the member that it was not the Bloc that influenced the government to bring forward the legislation. The Liberal caucus, as a whole, recognizes the true value of ensuring that we give that base floor, something which does not necessarily make the government unique. Even Conservative governments in the past have done the same thing.
I would like him to provide his thoughts regarding how he will be voting on the legislation.
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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 too want to reassure my colleague.
Bill C-14 was not introduced by the Bloc. That is not what we were asking for. We were asking to maintain Quebec's political weight. It is not about the number of seats, but a proportion of the total number of seats.
He will be pleased to hear that I agree with him on several points. The Constitution is outdated. The Senate is outdated. I have a solution for that: Quebec independence. Unfortunately, that will not happen here.
My colleague raised some very good points, particularly regarding the proportionality of votes, which is important, but has he forgotten the notion of nationhood?
Is he telling me that the country we are talking about is not that of Quebeckers? If so, the concept of a founding nation would no longer be taken into account.
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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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- Apr/7/22 3:30:50 p.m.
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We have a point of order.
The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.
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Madam Speaker, if I understood correctly, the member had no interpretation while I was speaking. I think it is important that he understand the question.
Could we have consent for me to start over?
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- Apr/7/22 3:31:03 p.m.
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The member was not using his earpiece. The Chair is not to blame. We should not take time away from other questions.
The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.
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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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- Apr/7/22 3:31:26 p.m.
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We have another point of order.
The hon. member for Manicouagan.
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Madam Speaker, I ask you this question with all humility.
If the member did not hear the question, what is the point of him answering a question he did not hear?
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