June 4, 2011
The Conservative government is going to implement a bill that was raised in the last parliament by Min. Steven Fletcher (Bill C-12) but was not successful because of their minority situation. You can read about this at this link: http://openparliament.ca/hansards/2338/33/
Of course this has led Quebec to start complaining about the fact that this is going to reduce their proportion of seats. Representation by population is the democratic way and Lorne Gunter gives us a run-down on the fact that this basic tenet of democracy is absent in Canada. Adding 30 seats in total to the Parliament is raising a lot of concerns among Canadians because it will mean more money to support the extra MPs. Our Constitution has given certain guarantees to certain provinces for historical reasons and adding seats to the under-represented provinces is the only solution.
Quebec is already over-represented (with 23.2% of the population, they have 24.4% of the seats) but that doesn’t even enter into their heads when their politicians start demanding more seats. The intransigence of Quebec politicians has resulted in more concessions given to them by previous governments because of the belief that their support was needed to win a majority government. The last election has proven that to be false – the Conservatives won their coveted majority without Quebec!!! We no longer need to kowtow to Quebec – let’s not start now by giving them an extra seat that they don’t deserve!!!
Kim
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