No New Seats For Quebec!

The following letter was written by Kim McConnell, and she invites everyone to send a copy to your MP and to the Senators.  --JGP

Dear [insert recipient’s name]

The underlying reason for this correspondence is the persistent rumour that our majority government is now seriously considering giving Quebec new seats in the federal parliament. I can only hope that such rumour proves to be ill-founded. To the extent that it isn't, it's my sincere hope that this letter can convince you to alter course with respect to a decision that can only damage our nation. 

As you well know, the constitutional provision for adding parliamentary seats is one of many democratic measures meant to entrench, in a practical manner, the fundamental principle of equality, and to give tangible assistance to the ideal that Canada should be a place where one elector's vote in one part of our country is accorded no greater weight than another's somewhere else.

Should Quebec be granted new parliamentary seats, an unambiguous message will be sent to Canadians: the votes of "New Canadians", or those who have uprooted their lives and families to move westwards in order to seek opportunity and grow our country's economy, are "less equal" than the votes of Quebecers. The deafening silence on this issue over the past week, as Layton and the self-serving Quebec political class caterwauled for more seats, merely served to diminish us as Canadians.  

Any deviation from a policy of allocation based exclusively on the fundamental principle of equality will almost certainly be construed outside of Quebec (especially in the West) as reeking of corrupt backroom dealings and pandering to the worst elements of the Quebec political class who wish to continue using their excessive political influence in federal affairs to blackmail the rest of Canada.

In the end, we all know that there will never be any satisfying the Quebec political class. Should Quebec be granted one seat they will ask for two. Should they be given two, they'll ask "why not four?" Should they be given four, they'll ask "why not as many as Ontario?" It should be clear by now, that no equitable allocation of new seats will ever satisfy any element of the Quebec political class, who will use the opportunity to further their never-ending assault on our nation's values and institutions. As such, the proposal to toss them a bone in the form of a seat or two is tantamount to the continued appease the province of Quebec.  As Winston Churchill said, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last". Stop feeding the croc!

Having now won a parliamentary majority essentially sans Quebec, it is up to the Conservative Party to boldly take up this issue, and to cast Layton for what he is; an unprincipled charlatan, a hypocritical advocate of asymmetric federalism, and unprincipled enough to play the "knife at the throat" game perfected by unscrupulous Quebec nationalists over generations. Let us never forget, that in the past generation, Canadians have resoundingly rejected by referendum (and continue to reject) this assinine notion of asymmetric federalism. I can only hope that we see fit today to reject it as well.

Best regards,