44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 15, 2022 02:00PM
- Jun/15/22 2:12:44 p.m.
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Mr Speaker, I recently visited the area around Fort Frances, which is experiencing flooding. In fact, Rainy Lake water levels are currently half a metre higher than they were during the 2014 flood. There are many houses and cottages on Rainy Lake or adjacent waterways, like the Seine River. Many people have spent the last month either sandbagging or pumping in order to try to save their homes, but unfortunately not all have been successful.
I am very proud to represent these people. They really represent the best of Canadians. They have worked hard, and by “work” I do not mean the kind of thing we do here in Parliament.
Neighbour helped neighbour, and despite all the hardship, many people retained their sense of humour and expressed the fact that they were more concerned about others than they were about themselves. In fact, one guy, Bob Feshuck, while standing ankle deep in water in his living room, told me that whenever he starts feeling sorry for himself, he turns on the television to see what is happening in Ukraine. Now there is a real Canadian.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member has seen a lot of the country and certainly understands what is taking place. I would like to talk to him about representation by responsibility. He did mention it when he talked about the size of his riding and compared it with some of the rural ridings that we see all around the country. Certainly in Alberta, in one riding we could have 40 different municipalities that one has to be responsible for. It may take hours or days to get there and back.
Could he comment on how that also tends to affect the ability of members of Parliament to represent their communities?
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Madam Speaker, the member has such a long track record of service in this place, so I have a very broad question for him, because I know he has a lot of knowledge.
This is a complicated thing to figure out, how to best represent our neighbours, given the geography of Canada and how far spread out we are. Could he expand on the importance of ensuring that from a riding size perspective and a population perspective how that representation is important? We are representing people, but we are also representing territory.
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Madam Speaker, that is a wonderful question.
One of the things that I could add to the debate is to say that we all want to have fair representation for the people and communities which we represent. We are talking about the independence of Elections Canada. We could just as equally be talking about the important services that members of Parliament, elected officials, provide to their constituents through the resources provided to them through the House of Commons, for example, a member's allowance, travel frequency and how convenient it is for members to be able to participate. There is a wide spectrum of things that complement a member's ability to represent the communities they have been elected to represent.
This type of discussion would be very fruitful going forward.
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Madam Speaker, I also have a chance to speak to Bill C-14 later tonight, but as the conversation has been unfolding tonight, new ideas come to mind, and I would like to try some out on the member for Elmwood—Transcona.
When we think about our friend, the member for Nunavut, who is a spectacular member of Parliament, we know that one cannot get from Iqaluit to Inuvik without flying to southern Canada first, unless one hires a private plane. The population is sparse, but the job is enormous. What would the hon. member think about us changing representation by population to something that includes funding for individual MPs reflective of what their actual costs are from serving the people of their riding? This would apply to people in about half of the country. If we cut it off, about half of the territory of this enormous country is represented by 12 MPs. Their jobs are very different from those of the people who represent more concentrated, southern Canadian populations.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly do think that the question of how we resource MPs is a very important one. We need to recognize how, depending on what riding one represents in the country, one can have a very different experience as an MP, and the community or communities one serves in those ridings are going to have very different experiences of having an MP.
There is already some provision made and some recognition of that disparity between different MPs, depending on the nature of their riding, but I know, having heard from some of the members of our caucus who represent very large ridings, particularly those in the north, that the resourcing conventions we already have are inadequate to the task. We have only to sit down with them to talk about their experiences to know they are inadequate. It is certainly something that we should be looking at trying to remedy.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to put forward that the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon is such a good MP that he should not worry that he needs more people on his team. We, in British Columbia, represent our constituents well, and I do not think mere numbers make that much of a difference. He obviously is not in my party. I worry, actually, about the way the boundary commission proposes to split up Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. As he will know, I am very attached to parts of that riding, particularly Ashcroft, and would like to see good representation continue.
As for the electoral commission, it was a good experience. I have to say, which has also been confirmed with other MPs, we are not finding a lot of our constituents are super interested in showing up at these hearings. Maybe they are not being well advertised. I do not know, but when voting time comes, I worry constituents who have lived in one riding will suddenly say they do not know where to vote. I worry about making too many small changes that are not necessary, such as on Vancouver Island, but I wish the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon very good luck in whatever is happening to his riding.
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