Senator Miville-Dechêne: Senator Dawson, I want to thank you for sponsoring both this bill and Bill C-11. It must be a lot of work for you.

My question may be a thorny one. As a Quebecer, I will vote in favour of this bill. Everyone in Quebec agrees that it must not lose any seats. However, as someone who studied political science, I am particularly interested in the issue of representation and the somewhat equal number of constituents represented by one member of Parliament. Obviously, I know that Canada’s system isn’t perfect and that MPs from remote areas already represent fewer constituents than MPs from big cities.

Nevertheless, this bill would set a seat floor for provinces with the slowest-growing populations. Are you uncomfortable with this compromise — since this is essentially a compromise on the principles of representation — or, rather, would you say that a number of compromises have already been made in the past? I’m thinking of other provinces that have fewer constituents per MP.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this, since I’ve been pondering these matters of principle myself.

Senator Dawson: Thank you for your question, senator.

I myself studied political science at Laval University and the University of Ottawa, and I agree with you about the inherent problems with representation. However, the bill has nothing to do with that kind of representation at all. That is not what this bill is about. It is about representation among the provinces and a grandfather clause to preserve 78 seats, similar to the one we created to protect the Maritime provinces a few years ago.

We could certainly debate this and even get deeper into issues of future electoral reform, but unfortunately this bill does not give me the latitude to address that.

[English]