44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 7, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, one of the single largest increases in the number of members of the House of Commons was under Stephen Harper. It went from 308 to 338. If we follow the logic of what the member is saying, we would think that it was the previous administration that deferred the decision on something that the member is being somewhat critical of us for not debating today.
Does the member feel this might be a type of ongoing discussion, possibly in the format of an opposition day, in which we could continue to have this debate? I realize there is a need to ultimately see this bill pass so that the Quebec commission is able to continue to do its fine work.
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Madam Speaker, this bill definitely carries on the legacy that started in 2011 under Prime Minister Harper, and that is what we see going through this bill.
I do not know what the member interpreted from my speech. I tried to outline the historical background of what happened and why we are at this stage. Asking for perfection or for better is something that everybody aims for. That is what I was trying to do here in the speech that I delivered today.
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Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague noted that Mr. Harper's government recognized Quebec as a nation. Since then, however, there has been no concrete action.
The bill maintains Quebec's number of seats at 78, but Quebec loses relative weight because increasing the number of MPs in Canada reduces Quebec's weight from 23% to 22.51%.
It is all well and good to maintain the number of seats in Quebec, but if the number of seats elsewhere in Canada is increased, Quebec loses out in the end. What does my colleague think?
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Madam Speaker, Quebec was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the law that was passed under the Harper government in 2011.
The hon. member was asking about the fluctuation of the numbers here and there. I think the speech made it very clear how this happened and what the formula should look like. The bill that is presented here is also very clear. We will wait and see what happens with the vote in a few hours.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to indicate that for us in the NDP it is critical that Quebec in particular maintains its position in Parliament. I would ask my colleague to share his views once more on the importance of Quebec's role in Parliament and the importance of preserving that role.
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Madam Speaker, the motion that was passed with regard to maintaining the number of seats that the province has right now actually came from our side, from our deputy leader.
It is clear in my speech. I am not sure if the hon. member heard the whole speech, but what I was trying to say today was very clear in the speech.
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Madam Speaker, this is an interesting piece of legislation. I wonder if the member could speak more on the importance of the principle of representation by population, the principle that every Canadian should have a reasonable expectation that their vote counts for the same thing and that if they move to a different part of the country, their voice does not suddenly become more valuable or less valuable. That is just a common-sense proposition of fairness.
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Madam Speaker, we can never ask for too much justice. This is about justice, about representation, about having equal opportunity for MPs to represent their different areas, and about having equal opportunities for constituents to be fairly represented by MPs and through proper budgets.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Edmonton Manning for sharing his time with me, and I also want to say hi to him from Yosef, who just cut my hair. I know they are good buddies, and I think they sing together, or something like that, so I just want to say hi to him from Yosef.
I will say off the top that I will be voting in favour of Bill C-14. I want to make that clear to the member for Winnipeg North, so that he does not have to stand and ask me that question. This particular bill would clarify that we would be, from now on, using the current number of seats in every province as the floor for this country going forward. That said, I would like to talk a bit about representation, and particularly regional representation. These are issues that have motivated my interest in politics, and they motivate a great many Albertans' interest in politics, and none more so than a fellow from my riding named Edward Goodlife.
I always wish I had Edward Goodlife's last name. I think he has lived a good life. He is a good friend of mine. He moved to Canada from England. He chose Canada. He moved to a little place called Granum, Alberta, and started a nail factory there. He was driving across western Canada through the Prairies and he noticed that all the houses in our part of the country were built out of wood. He said to himself, “All these houses need nails to put them together,” so he decided to start a nail factory in Granum, Alberta.
One of the reasons we know each other is through politics. His motivation for getting involved in politics was a whole litany of issues he had when getting his nail factory started and profitable in Canada, such as issues of regulation and taxation and issues of regional disparity. The story he told me was that it would cost him something like $23 to ship a pallet of nails on the railway to Ontario, yet his competitors in Ontario could ship that same container of nails to Alberta for $8. This is something that I think is called a mill rate on the railway, and I am not 100% sure of all the details of how that worked, but one of the things that really grated against him was the fact that the system seemed to be set up against him.
In order for him to compete with folks who were manufacturing nails in Ontario, he had to pay three times more in shipping costs than people in Ontario shipping their goods in this direction, particularly nails. He could compete with them here, but he had to work fairly hard. When he tried to break into new markets, particularly in eastern Canada, he was up against that.
It is these kinds of stories and sentiments that bring the frustration we have whenever we get talking about representation in this country. The Bloc members have brought into this debate, and I am not sure where they got it, the idea of proportionality and that somehow Quebec should own 25% of the seats in the House of Commons. I am happy to see that the government did not put into this legislation the maintenance of one particular seat. I am supportive of that, but this idea of proportionality is very interesting and comes up very often in my conversations around northern Alberta.
This idea of proportionality comes up often, and people show me graphics all the time. I see them on Facebook and places like that. People have made graphics showing the proportion of the seats based on regions of the country, and they come to my office and are very upset about this. I will say to them that there is nothing in our system that says anything about proportionality of seats.
Our system is based on having the House of Commons and the Senate. The House of Commons is based on the number of electors, and the Senate is supposed to be a representation of the landowners, provincial interests or those kinds of things. We could perhaps say that, in the case of the Senate, there should be some redistribution of the Senate seats or an addition of new Senate seats so that provincial representation was perhaps weighted equally or on percentage of land mass, percentage of taxation income, resource revenue or something. We can have that discussion, but that is not what this bill is about. Those are some of the things that come up often. Proportionality is not something that comes into the seating in the House of Commons.
The other thing that is fascinating, and that many Canadians, particularly from either Quebec or Ontario, do not think about, is how close they live to Parliament and Ottawa. I have the privilege of touring school groups through the House of Commons. They come up from southern Ontario to have a tour of the House of Commons, and I am happy to oblige by doing that. I note and tell them all the time that they are fortunate that they live a four- or five-hour drive from Ottawa. Growing up and in my high school years, in grade three and grade six we went to the legislature buildings in Edmonton, but I never had the opportunity to do a field trip to Ottawa with my class. That is something that, being from Alberta, we just did not have the opportunity to do.
We see that borne out in lobbying efforts and the way that these systems are set up. Ottawa is a distant place for Albertans. Ottawa is not something that we think about. It is not in our lives every day, and because it is far away we do not necessarily have access to that place as somebody who lives a lot closer has. Sometimes we, who are from northern Alberta, realize that the decisions made in Ottawa are often influenced by the people who live near to it. That makes sense because they are closer. They have access. They can drive there in an afternoon and make their case, whereas people in northern Alberta do not. It is a 3,600-kilometre tour from my house to Ottawa. It takes three and a half days to drive there, and it is an expensive endeavour.
All of these things lead to the sense of a lack of representation in Ottawa. It is not even necessarily that we have more people voting for fewer people, which is the case, but also the distance of it. That is just a reality. Other than perhaps moving the Parliament buildings to Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver or Peace River, that is going to be the reality.
The member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon was making some great points around this as well, and the fact that the representation in our part of the country feels quite a bit different than it does for people who live close to Ottawa. We want to make sure that representation happens. Having a hard and fast rule on representation by population is just a matter of fact, in the same way that Quebec and Ontario being close to Ottawa is a matter of fact. I am happy to support this particular bill, but I would just point out that there are other things that are matters of fact that we cannot change and that we should not necessarily worry about. The same thing goes for representation by population. That is the way the system is set up, and we should work hard to maintain that principle here in this place.
With that, I am looking forward to the budget this afternoon and to having Alberta's interests represented, in particular northern Alberta's. One of the major reasons that I got involved in politics was to represent Alberta in Ottawa, and I am pleased to do so today here in this Parliament.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a fundamental flaw in terms of what the member is talking about.
It is a whole lot easier to get from Edmonton or Calgary, let us say, to Ottawa than it is from many Ontario communities. In fact, one might have to take a long drive to an airport to take another airplane to come to Ottawa: Canada's capital.
My concern is that, number one, the member should not try to give the impression that one has to live close to Ottawa to have influence. I like to consider that I carry some influence, as the member no doubt carries influence, and I am from Winnipeg.
One does not have to be from Ottawa in order to have influence. That is my suggestion to the member. Second, with respect to the bill itself, would the member not recognize that the simplicity of the bill is to ensure that we recognize that no province should have a reduction in the number of seats based on the last federal election? Would he not agree, simply put, that this is a good thing and something worth voting for?
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Mr. Speaker, I did note, right off the top of my speech, that I was supporting this bill. I even noted that I was doing that for the benefit of the member for Winnipeg North, so I am pleased that he listened to my speech.
The other point I would make is that my point all around distances to Ottawa was not so much that we can change that but that this is a matter of fact. We cannot change the fact that Ontario is closer to Ottawa than Alberta is. We should just respect these things that are a matter of fact and respect the idea that representation by population is a matter of fact.
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Mr. Speaker, I thought the member really nailed it, especially with his description of the challenges of the factory owner at the beginning. This country has a unique history: some provinces in the east came together to create the country, but western Canada was always viewed as kind of a colonial possession. It has been a long struggle to work toward some degree of recognition of provincial equality.
Would the member want to comment on some of the legacy of that history, in terms of Senate representation and other things? These really come from the fact that it was originally central and eastern Canada that formed the country, but they viewed the west very much as a kind of colonial appendage instead of as an equal partner.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his question. That is indeed the case. I would just recognize that P.E.I., for example, negotiated its way into Confederation, as did B.C. That is not as much the case for Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, which were more creations of the federal government—
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- Apr/7/22 4:01:08 p.m.
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Order.
Photos in the chamber are not allowed, and a minister of the Crown should know that.
The hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
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Mr. Speaker, in his speech, my colleague from Peace River—Westlock asked a key question, namely, why Quebec should have a special privilege, the “nation clause”, recognizing that this founding nation, which is francophone, unique, and has its own culture, deserves a certain political weight in the House of Commons. For me, this is fundamental.
Would my colleague be willing to take a step to ensure that the Quebec nation is heard in the House and that it has 25% of the seats? If not, we will leave.
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Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the proportion was never part of the discussion. I do not ever remember hearing anything about the proportion. The other thing I would just note for the member is that northern Alberta has one of the largest French-speaking diasporas. It has been there since before Quebec was even founded.
Since the 1700s, we have had Quebec communities in northern Alberta. These communities are thriving. These are born French-speaking people, and places like Falher, Guy, Marie-Reine and St. Isidore have all been amazing French communities that are thriving. We see people emigrate from around the world to northern Alberta.
The French population of Alberta is actually growing, not necessarily in proportion to the rest of the province, but it is a growing population. I would hope that Quebec would see growth in its population and then it could maintain its seats as well.
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Mr. Speaker, some of the things that Parliament can do to augment the representation and balance are things such as more money for rural and larger geographic areas or larger populations. Most recently, the government has limited MPs and their offices to five immigration enquiries, which actually makes it disproportionate. I would like the member's thoughts on the other things we could do to make things more balanced for representing Canadians, even though we might have disproportionate populations.
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Mr. Speaker, once again the member has highlighted one of the things that are a matter of fact. The number of immigration queries that we have has no bearing on where we come from in the country. I would say that the government has totally mishandled the immigration file in this country, leading to the fact that my office has to deal with an inundation of immigration cases as likely the member's does as well. Limiting that to five cases per office seems ridiculous because there is not necessarily any correlation between one member's office having more or less just based on where they are in the country.
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- Apr/7/22 4:04:51 p.m.
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That will finish our discussion of Bill C-14. We will come back when we have the opportunity. We will take a few moments for the minister to arrive in the chamber.
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- Apr/7/22 4:06:09 p.m.
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It being 4:06 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Ways and Means Proceedings No. 3, concerning the budget presentation.
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