TORONTO — Ontario will no longer be shortchanged under the Harper government's plan to add new seats to the House of Commons, says Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has agreed to revise his proposed legislation, which is designed to reflect population growth across Canada by adding 22 seats to the 308 currently in the Commons, Mr. McGuinty said on Thursday.
“I spoke to Harper about this, and I think we fixed it,” Mr. McGuinty said at a year-end news conference.
He did not elaborate on exactly how many seats would be added in Ontario under the proposed changes but said, “we will get the necessary proportionality.” That translates into another 21 seats in Ontario, bringing the tally for the province to 127, a government official confirmed.
The changes will allow Ontario and Ottawa to bury the hatchet on an issue that sparked a new round of bickering between the Harper and McGuinty governments. The tensions took a nasty turn in November, 2007 when then federal Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan accused Mr. McGuinty of being “the small man of Confederation” after the Premier appealed to his federal counterparts for help fighting the proposed legislation.
Under the original proposal, Ontario was to get 10 of the 22 seats. Mr. McGuinty had complained that the proposed legislation to change the formula for seat distribution would leave Ontario the most unrepresented province in Canada. The proposed legislation would give every province, with the notable exception of Ontario, enough ridings to match the size of their population. All of the new seats would be in fast-growing Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
Mr. McGuinty said on Thursday that Mr. Harper had a change of heart after the two met privately in Ottawa last Friday to discuss a Canadian bailout package for the ailing auto sector. During the one-hour meeting in Mr. Harper's office, Mr. McGuinty also raised the seat legislation.
He said Mr. Harper reiterated his traditional argument that Ontario would be better off than it was with the addition of new seats. “I said, ‘that's not the point. The point is, we should be working toward fairness and over time we would have continued to fall behind.'”
The legislation was written in such a way that Quebec's ratio of voters to MPs became the benchmark. But any provinces larger than Quebec - Ontario is the only one - would not enjoy the full benefits. Ontario's share of the national population will hit 40.4 per cent in 2021, while its share of seats in the Commons will be 35.6 per cent, an under-representation of 4.8 per cent. according to the government's projections.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081217.wcommons1217/BNStory/politics/home?cid=al_gam_mostview
Stumble It!
For that reason, if no other, I support a strong, non partisan senate as the house of sober second thought regarding all legislation. I do agree with Harper (Oh my god that?s hard to write!) that our method of selecting senators needs reforming but an not sure that election by the general populous is the answer. That would reflect too closely the parliament of the day and accomplish little. I have proposed before that the Provincial parliaments (not the provincial ruling party or premier) either select or recommend new senators, this would seem to be the best of both worlds without expensive and, no doubt, spin filled general election of same would ensue.
The Timing of these two announcements from a PM that said he would not do either and during a period when governments must join the rest of us in practicing restraint still stinks though!!
Alternatively, the salaries and perks of the MPs could be tied directly to the voter turnout, if deciding which seats should be left vacant were to difficult to arrange. With this in mind, using the base salary of $141,000, that means MPs now would be making $83,000.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/cdngo ... alary.html
The essence of my caveat is this though: the effectiveness of government is directly reflected by the voter turnout. Our governments for the last decades have seen a steady drop in the voter turnout. Ergo, governments have been slipping in their effectiveness. Why then, should the "honorable members" be entitled to full salary and perks when they are no "putting out" to the extent they might be? Who do they think they are, senior bank executives, or auto company CEOs?