Prime Minister Stephan Harper has a plan that will provide Ontario with 13 more seats in the House of Commons, but it’s unlikely that any of them will end up in this region.
The Canadian Press reported Wednesday that the Conservative-led federal government has plans to increase the total number of seats in the House from 308 to 334. Besides Ontario, three other provinces would receive additional seats.
British Columbia would receive five additional seats, Alberta six and Quebec two.
The bill, brought up last spring before the May election, originally had Ontario with 18 seats, seven for B.C. and five to Alberta.
MP Bruce Hyer (NDP, Thunder Bay – Superior North) said Northern Ontario won’t get any seats because Election Canada was only going to look at areas with an increase in its population.
“In 80 of the proposed scenarios, Northern Ontario will neither gain nor lose any seats because our population isn’t growing,” Hyer said. “If it does turn out that we would lose seats, I will definitely oppose whatever is proposed but it doesn’t look like that’s the case for now.”
The real agenda for the increase of seats is for the Conservatives to try to get more party members in the House of Commons. If the Conservatives wanted true representation, Hyer said they should do away with the First Pass the Post electoral system and replace it with something that’s far more proportional.
“I think adding more seats to the House of Commons are like adding deckchairs to the Titanic,” he said. “What we really need is a true electoral reform. We need proportional representation. And by proportional I don’t mean based on regions’ population but I mean if the purple party gets 20 per cent of the votes across Canada in a federal election then they should get 20 per cent of the seats.”
MP John Rafferty (NDP, Thunder Bay – Rainy River) said he suspected that the majority of seats coming into Ontario would go to the 905 area near Ajax and Pickering because those areas have had the biggest increase in its population. Although nothing has been confirmed, Rafferty said having more seats in Northwestern Ontario wouldn’t be a bad idea.
“This is a chance to realign the seats,” Rafferty said. “I have something I will certainly fight against and that is losing any seats in Northern Ontario. I believe we could have two more seats in Northern Ontario just because we have the landmass of the two northeast and northwest ridings in particular. I think it would be very good for the people that are living there.”
From end-to-end, the Thunder Bay- Rainy River riding measures out to be about 500-kilometres wide. Rafferty said his riding and many others in the north are large geographically but made up of a relatively small populace.
In order to have a few more MPs, it’s important to make sure that when Elections Canada lays down the new lines that they take into consideration the landmass and the population size in order to make sure it’s not too overwhelming, he said.
“We haven’t seen the plan yet,” he said. “It will be at least two years before Elections Canada will sort this out. When the announcement of seats will be made, people should understand that it is not going to be an immediate thing. There’s quite a process to go through. One is to make sure that the population sizes are not too large for one Member of Parliament to handle and that the landmass isn’t too large to handle either.”
Rafferty added that there’s no formula to go by so it’s importance to trust the judgment of Elections Canada to make the right call.
MP Greg Rickford (Con., Kenora) said the government made three promises regarding representation – to increase the number of seats in the House of Commons to better represent population growth in B.C., Ontario and Alberta, continue to protect the number of seats and ensure fair and proportional representation of Quebec based on its population.
Rickford said any report that says otherwise is only speculation.
“I look forward to the legislation being introduced in the not too distance future to clear up some of the growing rumours,” Rickford said.
“We are already in a unique situation, particularly in the great Kenora riding, where we’re the fourth largest riding in the country and outside of Prince Edward Island one of the lowest populated. We already enjoy an MP to citizen ration much lower than other parts of the country.”
Rickford added that it isn’t up to the government to decide where the new lines will be drawn if the legislation is passed.
