44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 7, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I hope the minister does not agree with me too much publicly, because I still have a caucus to go back to. If members see that the minister agrees, I do not think I will make it out of the caucus meeting in one piece.
I want to recognize the minister for also providing me with a briefing session with Privy Council experts on this piece of legislation, and for the fact that he basically took the unanimous consent motion moved by the deputy leader of the Conservative Party.
I would support more resources for members of Parliament. There is already a system in place for those of us who have very large ridings or large population increases. I would love to hire more people and more interns to serve my constituents.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Calgary Shepard said some interesting things in his speech, in particular that this makes sense.
What does not make sense is the pattern of institutionalization of the francophone minority, in particular Quebec, that we have seen since Quebec, formerly known as Lower Canada, was integrated into the Canadian Confederation. Back in 1867, Quebec's representation was 36%, but today that figure is just 22%.
There is another thing that makes perfect sense. In the Charlottetown accord that was proposed in 1992, the Progressive Conservative Party gave the Quebec nation 25% of the seats, even though its demographic weight had declined. In 2006, the Harper government recognized the Quebec nation.
Does my colleague agree that the Quebec nation should always retain 25% of the seats in the House, regardless of its demographics?
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question.
As a francophile from Alberta, my answer to his question would be no, because our country's population is represented proportionally. I remind him that there was a referendum in 1992 and that Canadians voted against this. Furthermore, 58% of Quebeckers voted against the Charlottetown accord, even though it contained this provision to allocate 25% of the seats to the province of Quebec.
We are a bicultural country with two official languages, French and English, and I think that the demographic weight is protected in this legislation.
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Madam Speaker, I am rather surprised to hear that someone read the speeches members gave 10 years ago to find out what people thought of the legislative review.
I disagree with what my colleague said about how the system is based exclusively on the proportional representation of the population, because our system functions by exception, with those exceptions being the senatorial clause, the territorial clause for the three northern territories, and the grandfather clause for certain provinces.
Why then do we not come up with a clause to recognize the weight of the Quebec nation in Parliament? Why is my colleague dismissing that idea out of hand when his government is the one that passed a motion in the House to recognize Quebec as a nation?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the government member for his question. I simply want to remind him that I am not the one who said that. Fifty-eight percent of Quebeckers voted against that in the referendum on the Charlottetown accord in 1992.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Calgary Shepard for the incredible work he has done. It is not a surprise, as he is somebody who dives right into whatever file he has.
I have a question for him, and I apologize if it was already brought up, as I am doing my House duty from the beautiful riding of Cariboo—Prince George.
Does this bill respect the constitutional right to representation by population? I am in one of the largest ridings, at 84,000 square kilometres, and I am proud to represent this riding. I would like to hear my hon. colleague's comment on that.
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Madam Speaker, yes, I believe this is entirely constitutional. It preserves the idea of effective representation in our country, and it kind of looks to the past this time. It takes the representation formula of 2011 to its logical conclusion, which is basically an increase of 34 seats and preserving one seat for a single province that is about to lose one. The total number of seats the Harper legacy added to this chamber will be 35 in the end. It is entirely constitutional.
Again, a banking of seats would be done in Bill C-14, with the addition of seats so we can get closer to representation by population, which is a philosophical ideal that we should adhere to. The Supreme Court said “effective representation”, and that would be preserved through the electoral boundaries commission process.
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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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