44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 7, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I appreciated the comments made by the member with regard to the differentiation between urban and rural, because there is a significant difference in the type of representation there.
I am wondering if the member can expand on this. Is he trying to say between the lines that it should be a smaller percentage of population in rural areas than in the bigger urban areas? Is that what he is trying to indirectly imply?
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Madam Speaker, there is already a rule that the boundaries commission uses. It can either increase by 25% or decrease by 25% when it is making the final determination on what the map should look like.
I will raise this interesting point. Many of my rural colleagues have schools in their ridings. I did not have a high school in my riding until just a few years ago, which would be shocking for most people to realize. I now have one high school in my entire riding of 170,000-plus constituents, residents, who live there, but I know that my colleagues in the rural regions sometimes have four, five, six or seven high schools because they happen to represent several municipalities where they have regional feeder schools, basically. Others will have perhaps five, six or seven legion halls. I do not have a single legion hall in my entire riding. I had one that closed down before I even became a member of Parliament.
I also only have one cenotaph in my riding. I have seen the schedules for some members on Remembrance Day, and they have two or three days of Remembrance Day ceremonies to go to as they travel their entire ridings to make sure they attend as many of these cenotaph Remembrance Day memorials as they can. That is one way to talk about effective representation.
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Madam Speaker, from what I gather, my colleague agrees with this motion. That is obvious since Alberta is getting four seats. I guess I would be happy too if Quebec were getting four more seats.
Some hon. members: It is three seats.
Mr. Denis Trudel: It does not really matter whether it is three or four. It is still more seats.
We are going to remain at 78 seats. Let us be frank. This bill reduces Quebec's political weight. I would appreciate it if my colleague from Victoriaville would let me—
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- Apr/7/22 11:15:37 a.m.
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Order. I see that some members who do not have the floor have decided to join in the discussion, but I would ask them to wait their turn.
The hon. member for Longueuil–Saint-Hubert may ask a quick question.
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Madam Speaker, in 2010 the Conservatives introduced a bill that diminished Quebec's political weight. The National Assembly, which at that time included the very Liberal former premier Jean Charest, unanimously adopted the following motion:
That the National Assembly reaffirms that Québec, as a nation, must be able to enjoy special protection for the weight of its representation in the House of Commons;
That the National Assembly asks the elected Members from all political parties [in Ottawa] to abandon the passage of any bill whose effect would be to diminish the weight of the representation of Québec in the House of Commons.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.
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Madam Speaker, I wish I could provide a much longer response, but I do not have enough time.
This was done by Stephen Harper's government in 2011. It added the representation rule that applies to any province that would lose seats in the House. The rule applied only to the province of Quebec.
As a result, Quebec received three additional seats in Parliament after 2011, so I think the demographic and political weight was maintained in 2011.
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Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would seek the consent of the House to share my time.
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- Apr/7/22 11:17:14 a.m.
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Does the hon. member have unanimous consent to split his time?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the outstanding member for Timmins—James Bay.
I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C‑14 in the House today. I take pride in it because of the negotiations that the NDP, my party, conducted with the Liberal minority government. This is one of our very tangible wins, a victory we achieved by negotiating and getting things for people. In this case, it is a net gain for Quebec and Quebeckers.
That is not all we gained from the agreements. I could go on at length about dental care, prescription drug costs and housing, but Quebec was in danger of losing seats because of a mathematical calculation and dropping from 78 to 77 seats.
There was a consensus in Quebec that, at the very least, we had to hang on to all the seats we have, so that is what the NDP got. By applying pressure and negotiating, we protected Quebec's 78 seats for good. I am very happy about that, and it is one of the good things we achieved thanks to this agreement. The NDP achieved a significant victory for Quebec.
Could we do more? Obviously, we can discuss that at some point, but for now we are not losing any seats, and that is thanks to the NDP. I am not sure if everyone is aware, but I wanted to point that out, because the agreement is quite long. It is three pages long, and that was the last item on the third page, so it meant reading the document to the end, and I am not sure everyone did that. Representation in this Parliament is very important to us and to Quebec in general.
Any discussion about democratic rules is an important debate to have. As parliamentarians, as representatives of the people, we must be fully engaged in these discussions, because this has implications for the vitality of our democratic life, the ground rules, and the justice and fairness ensuing from those rules.
In these troubled times, especially in eastern Europe, it is important to remember how vital democracy is. I would like to commend the courage of all the democrats in Russia who dare to protest the war and who oppose President Putin's autocracy.
When establishing the rules of democracy, it is important to remember that these rules must respect what used to be called, at the time, popular sovereignty, that is, the fact that it is the expression of citizens' choice to send people to represent them, with opinions, political agendas and ideologies, and that all these citizens are considered to be equal. That is the fundamental principle of democracy. Unlike an aristocracy, there is no individual who is above any other, who is appointed by God or who has greater powers than others. All citizens are equal, and that is how we start the discussion on democracy.
Are we all as equal as we think under the first past the post system? I will come back to that. There may be an opportunity to have that discussion.
In a federation, there is more than just the rule of the size and weight of the population. We have set other equally important rules. I will name a few of them because it is important to bear them in mind when having these discussions.
Another rule is the senatorial clause, which states that a province cannot have fewer MPs than senators. It could be called the “P.E.I. clause” for those four MPs.
The territorial clause is also quite easy to understand. It ensures that each of the northern territories has an MP, meaning one for Yukon, one for the Northwest Territories, and now one for Nunavut. Although their demographic weight may not justify it under Elections Canada's rules, it is important and essential to keep it that way.
Lastly, the grandfather clause guaranteed that certain provinces were protected and could not have their number of seats reduced. That is where Bill C‑14 makes a difference.
Quebec will be included in this grandfather clause, as will all the other provinces. For now, this protects Quebec, which was the only province at risk of losing a seat under the current redistribution. This measure will serve Quebec in the very short term, but also in future. We are pleased to see that, following the agreement we negotiated, a bill was quickly introduced to uphold this aspect of the agreement.
We have to ask ourselves if we can go further, and I know there have been discussions. Not so long ago, I had the opportunity to deliver a speech on Bill C‑246, which would maintain Quebec's political weight in the House of Commons at a certain percentage.
This is not a new idea; it was included in the Charlottetown accord that Mulroney's federal government negotiated with the Bourassa government in Quebec. The accord was not adopted, however, so it was not implemented, but the idea has been brought up again.
I think there should be some serious discussions on the possibility of another interpretive clause, a Quebec clause. Since Parliament has recognized Quebec as a nation, this clause could be included in order to protect Quebec's democratic weight in the House of Commons.
Furthermore, the House recognized that Quebec is a nation, and the NDP recognized it as well, in its support for the Charlottetown accord at the time, in its Sherbrooke declaration, in its internal documents and, obviously, in its votes in the House. There is this idea of formally recognizing the concept of two founding peoples, which helped create the vision and perception of a bicultural, bilingual federation. That is one of the reasons we still have the Official Languages Act. It is in keeping with that idea.
I must admit that I always feel a little uneasy talking about two founding peoples because this disregards the fact that the first nations and indigenous peoples were already here. Our French and British ancestors were not the first to set foot on this land. There had already been people, nations, communities and cultures here for millennia.
In our discussions of the quality of democratic life and the representation of peoples and nations in the House, I think that we should also take into account the place of the first nations, Inuit and Métis. Other countries do that. I think either Australia or New Zealand does it, probably New Zealand. Perhaps this should be part of our discussion.
Furthermore, in the interest of strengthening our democracy and upholding the equality of our citizens, we should really be discussing proportional representation. Unfortunately, this subject was dismissed by the Liberal government in 2016 when it buried the majority report of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, of which I was a member. We are one of the few countries in the world without a proportional component to our voting system.
If we had proportional representation, the representation of political movements and parties would be based on a very simple rule: if a party gets 25% of the vote, it should get 25% of the seats. The winner-takes-all nature of the current system creates unacceptable distortions, because a party that wins just 40% of the vote can get 60% or 65% of the seats. That means that the majority who disagreed with the government end up in the opposition, and the government can do pretty much whatever it wants for four years.
We must therefore remember to consider the possibility of proportional voting, as well as the other elements of the agreement that the NDP negotiated to facilitate access to the vote, such as on-campus polling stations, the ability to vote at one of several polling stations on election day, and multi-day voting periods for general elections. These are other measures we should discuss in the future.
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Madam Speaker, I would like pick up on something the member made reference to. At the very end of his speech, he started talking about the different potential changes we have seen. For example, in the last federal election, we had more engagement with mail-in ballots. When we talk about electoral changes going forward, there are some very important aspects of Elections Canada and the way we implement things to make sure that our elections are fair, effective and engaging.
I am wondering if the member would provide some additional thoughts in regard to voter empowerment and how we can see a higher percentage of people going out to vote.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.
It is true, there is still much work to do on this bill. There are still many things that need to be improved in order to make it easier to vote. We could, for example, make it easier to vote by mail and count the votes more rapidly.
Unfortunately, in the last general election, there were no polling stations on university campuses. We know that young people are the least likely to vote during elections, and students are part of that population. Depriving them of access to polling stations on campus had a serious adverse impact. We will have to talk about this. If someone does not know exactly where to go to vote on election day, the ability to go to one of several different polling stations in the same riding without being turned away would facilitate voting.
I think that all of the political parties want to improve our democratic vitality.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Quebec for his speech.
Once again, I would like to take the opportunity to ask a question of the hon. member regarding the importance of ensuring that our rural communities and small towns also maintain proper representation in the House because, obviously, we represent, in these types of communities and small areas, a lot of the GDP. It is where a lot of Canadians' food and resources are developed, grown and sent to market.
With all of our deliberations, and as we make sure that the population is properly represented and distributed in the House, we want to also ensure that the voices of rural Canadians are represented as well. Does he have any thoughts on that matter?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.
An urban-rural balance is important. My colleague probably knows that I represent a very urban, densely populated riding, with a population of about 110,000 packed into just 11 square kilometres.
I think that it is important that the electoral boundaries commission's calculations allow for some deviation from the average, so that a riding with a population 20% or 25% lower than the average can still be represented by a member in the House. This would make it possible to account for rural realities in Quebec and Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech, despite our fundamental disagreements. The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie explained how an opposition party can achieve gains in a parliamentary system. We do not agree that the bill before us is one of those ways. In fact, even if Quebec keeps the same number of seats, if its weight declines, it declines. That is what people need to realize, and it is important to mention it.
My question to the hon. member will be two-pronged.
First, the Bloc Québécois tabled a bill that would maintain the number of seats in Quebec at 25% of the total at all times. Will my colleague be voting in favour of the bill?
Also, the Bloc Québécois believes that the only way to really maintain our weight over time is if we are able to make all of our own decisions and place all powers in the hands of the only parliament where the Quebec nation holds 100% of the seats. We call that independence. The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite was once in favour of independence. How does he feel about it today?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.
I would remind him that, to achieve sovereignty, he should get himself elected to Quebec's National Assembly, if that is really what he wants.
For now, here, we are trying to defend Quebec and, above all, Quebeckers. I think that the NDP has represented Quebec by keeping Quebec from losing a seat. That is a victory.
With respect to the Bloc Québécois's bill, I would invite my colleague to listen to my speech. He will find all sorts of interesting information in it.
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Madam Speaker, I am very proud to be taking part in this debate as the representative for the great riding of Timmins—James Bay.
This morning's discussions are very important, because we are talking about the principles of Canadian democracy. The principle of Canadian democracy is based on the need to maintain a balance between individual and collective rights, as well as on respect for Canada's regional differences. This is crucial, and it is especially essential that we respect the unique contributions of Canada's francophone communities.
I represent the great riding of Timmins—James Bay in northern Ontario, and the Franco-Ontarian community has fought very hard for language rights and access to services in French. In Timmins, I have seen the power of the francophone identity at work, developing the entire region while working with anglophones and indigenous communities. For me, that is a symbol of our country's power.
I want to speak this morning on the importance of the bill before us and the reason the New Democratic Party pushed the government in negotiations to maintain the seats in Quebec. It is about a larger principle that we have.
We often talk about representation by population and the right of citizens to be represented, but we know that Canada would not work this way, because we have certain regions that have much larger populations than others. Historically, the compromise that Confederation was built on was respecting that, if we were going to come together, certain smaller regions, for example, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, would be able to maintain their presence with their number of seats.
An hon. member: And Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Charlie Angus: Madam Speaker, as my good colleague says, there is also Newfoundland and Labrador. I should never have left them out. They were the last to the game but brought the best with them.
However, the issue of Quebec is also really important because this is the francophone heartland of North America. They not only have that right as one of the founding nations but it is important to understand that, as the rest of the country grows and develops, and Quebec continues to grow and develop, maintaining that traditional balance is really fundamental.
Representation by population is a principle in Canada, but when we look at the differences in population size, we are dealing with very divergent realities in Canada. For example, in Manitoba, the average riding has about 70,000 people. In New Brunswick, it is about 50,000 to 80,000. In Labrador, it is 26,000 people. Western Arctic has 41,000, and Nunavut has 21,000.
If we say that, because Mississauga—Erindale has a population of 143,361, Nunavut should not have its own separate identity in Parliament, or that Yukon with its 30,000 people should not have a weighted balance, it would, of course, be unacceptable. The issues in the Yukon are fundamentally different from other regions. It is the same thing with Quebec. We need to say that there has to be a balance. We have to have that fundamental principle that we based this nation on.
Of course, we talked about the two founding peoples, which completely ignored the people who were already here. We do need to address the fact that, in our Parliament and in our nation, we have not respected the rights of the original people, and that to have a truly democratic society, we will need to have a much more fulsome revision of how we see our nation based on the rights of the first people and their treaty rights being heard in a much more diverse, democratic form. However, that does not take away the right of Quebec and the francophone community to have a strong presence maintained and supported, and we are sending the message that we recognize this.
One of the principles that we based the democratic representation by population on was sort of representation by population by region. There is this principle that, by region, we are not supposed to have more than a 25% divergence in population, as that would somehow be unfair.
That might work in Manitoba. That might work in New Brunswick. The big failure, of course, is Ontario. Again, there are ridings of 140,000 people down in the suburban belt around Toronto, but in Kenora there is 64,000 people. That is a riding that is bigger than most European countries. My region of Timmins—James Bay is bigger than France and Germany. It is easier for someone in Toronto to fly to Portugal for the weekend than it is for one of my constituents in Peawanuck to fly down to meet me at my office in Timmins.
Those are democratic deficits that have to be recognized. In seat redistribution in Ontario, if we say it is fair to add more seats into Mississauga and more seats into Etobicoke because that is where the population is growing, and that we will take those seats from far northern regions and make them bigger, at a certain point these ridings become unworkable for democratic access. If anybody wants a lesson in this, they could just ask the Speaker in her off time about what she has to travel to represent all her communities. It is a fundamental right of a Canadian citizen to be able to speak to their member of Parliament and get services.
We do know that much of the work that used to be done by the federal government has been devolved to our offices as MPs. We are the immigration service. We are the pension service. For people who are in regions that are so big that it is impossible to access their MP's office or who may only get there once a year, those people are actually facing more of a democratic deficit than others. For example, when I lived in downtown Toronto, I could walk 15 minutes to two different MP offices. That is a huge fundamental difference.
We have an ongoing debate and discussion about democracy in Canada. I would like to say that democracy is not finished business; it is unfinished business. It will change. We have to encourage more diversity. We are not a diverse House yet, yet our nation is increasingly diverse. We have to find ways to make it more diverse. We have to recognize the strengths of rural, isolated northern regions and maintain what democratic access they have, while understanding that urban centres are growing at an explosive rate and understanding that in Canada we have a diversity of languages, which has made us much stronger, but that we were founded on the principle that there was going to be this accord between the anglophone and the francophone communities. That right to bilingual service is important.
As a Franco-Ontarian the Speaker knows this much better than me, but in my region young anglo families want to send their children to the french schools. The growth of the francophone services in the north, to me, is a sign that we are growing in a diverse way and we are building on the fundamental strengths of our nation. We have to add to that strength. The rights of the indigenous communities have been long ignored, but we are seeing transformation there as well.
One of the things that they told us, when Parliament was first formed, was that some of this regional balance would be handled by the Senate. Of course, we were told that the Senate would be this representation for regions. We have Mike Duffy, the famous senator from come-from-away. I do not know when the last time was he ever stepped foot on Prince Edward Island. The two most famous fictional characters on Prince Edward Island are Anne of Green Gables and Mike Duffy, but he got a paycheque and he is there until he is 75.
I would not say that just because someone flipped pancakes at Liberal fundraising breakfasters or was a bagman for the Conservatives they should be in the Senate, but that is supposedly the historical compromise that we created to let them hang out forever and never get fired. We cannot get rid of them. God almighty, look at Pamela Wallin. We are paying those paycheques. To me, that is not democratic.
We have a real opportunity and a necessity in this place to debate how we make more representation, more diverse representation and more democratic representation.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague gave a very interesting speech. However, his party voted in favour of the motion that was debated on a previous supply day that read in part, and I quote:
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(a) any scenario for redrawing the federal electoral map that would result in Quebec losing one or more electoral districts or that would reduce Quebec’s political weight in the House of Commons must be rejected;
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He cannot be happy that, today, Bill C-14 meets and delivers on only one of the conditions he voted for. If he recognizes Quebec as a nation, he will agree with us and vote in favour of our bill, which will ensure that the Quebec nation's political weight is maintained by allocating 25% of the seats in the House to Quebec.
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Obviously, Madam Speaker. I thank my colleague for that great question.
I also appreciate the Bloc Québécois acknowledging the good work the NDP has done to protect their participation in Parliament. That is the result of our negotiations with the Liberal Party.
Yes, we are very proud that we were the ones who said that we were not going to cut any Quebec seats. As for other options my colleague is talking about, he can bring those issues forward. We would be more than happy to look at them.
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Madam Speaker, the member briefly talked about rural representation and the fact he was able to reach two members of Parliament in one of Canada's major cities, but representation by population was part of the great debates of Confederation from Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine. Their statues are right here on Parliament Hill.
That debate, in colonial Parliament, is basically the debate of Confederation. The first part of that debate was about who is responsible to whom. The cabinet is responsible to the House of Commons. The second part was about how the House of Commons is created and who gets to sit here, because originally it was basically a duality between eastern Canada and Upper and Lower Canada.
I wonder if the member may be able to talk more about higher principles that should apply here to the type of representation we need in this chamber. As the three fastest growing provinces gain population, they should receive more members of Parliament, because there is a variety of views from those provinces, and those views should be represented as much as possible, proportionately, here in this chamber.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question.
When we look back on those early debates around Confederation, one of the things that has transformed, now that we have the three territories and the 10 provinces, is that the power has been devolved to the provinces. It is much greater than anyone at that time would have imagined.
It is within the provinces that 80% or 90% of one's engagement with government happens, so the provinces are very strongly represented, in terms of their rights and in terms of how we sit as a federation of various regions. This is an important discussion, and certainly populations are growing in a number of the provinces, but we have fundamental obligations to protect.
I know many people wonder why in God's name Prince Edward Island has so many seats when its population is smaller than the city of Sudbury, but I was not there to sign the original Confederation, so I accept the results. The difference with Quebec is that it is a francophone centre of identity. It is not just a province, and we have recognized in Parliament, including under Stephen Harper, that it is a nation within Canada.
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