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ONTARIO DEMANDS AMENDMENT TO BILL C-22

December 10, 2007

QUEEN'S PARK — The Legislative Assembly of Ontario unanimously passed a resolution today that calls on the federal government to amend Bill C-22, the legislation that threatens to weaken democratic representation for Canadians living in Ontario. Premier McGuinty introduced the resolution with the following remarks:

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I rise today to speak on a matter as fundamental as fairness, as precious as our democratic principles and as basic as the belief that Canadians living in one province have as much value as Canadians living in another.

I'm referring to federal government Bill C-22. It's designed to change the number of seats in the House of Commons. In a nutshell, this bill is unfair to Canadians living here in Ontario because it undermines the principle of fair representation by population.

During the 2006 federal election campaign, the federal Conservatives pledged to restore representation by population for Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta in the House of Commons. They would do this quite rightly to ensure that Parliament catches up to and keeps pace with growing populations in those three provinces. But that's not what Bill C-22 does from an Ontario perspective. Instead, it ensures that Ontario will continue to be underrepresented.

In fact, it would make the problem worse over time as our population continues to grow. That's because under Bill C-22, and following the 2011 census, Alberta and British Columbia stand to get approximately one new seat for every additional 100,000 people. Ontario, on the other hand, would receive roughly one new seat for every additional 200,000 people. That is a formula for unfairness.

After all, we have to ask ourselves, are newcomers to Ontario only half as worthy of representation as newcomers to Alberta or BC? Yes, Ontario would gain additional seats under this proposal, but the gap between our share of seats and our share of the population would continue to grow.

And as this House has pointed out in the past, when it comes to Canada's finances, a fairness gap should be eliminated, not extended, and certainly not exacerbated.

We Ontarians are proud Canadians.

Working with our fellow Canadians, we built a province we are proud to call home and at the same time a country we are so proud to call our own. We will always work in partnership with our fellow Canadians to build a stronger Ontario and a stronger Canada at the same time. But we expect to be treated as full partners all the time, and that starts with fair representation in the people's house, the Parliament of Canada.

Ontarians accept that Canadians in smaller provinces or those with slower population growth may need protection for their existing number of seats in the federal Parliament. In fact, Ontarians have adopted this very Canadian approach in our own province by protecting the existing number of seats in northern Ontario. Just as we accept the need, for example, of Canadians living in Prince Edward Island to retain their existing number of seats in the House of Commons, so too do we accept the need of the people of northern Ontario to retain their existing number of seats in this Legislature. We Ontarians have never argued that the principle of representation by population should apply perfectly, but it must apply fairly. There is no principles-based rationale for providing citizens in Ontario with less representation than citizens in Alberta or British Columbia. We are all three large, growing provinces.

Keep in mind that this is about more than just seats. Fair representation by population is the best way to ensure the views of all Canadians are represented. When our federal government debates things as crucial as how much to invest in medicare, whether or not to put our troops in harm's way and how best to tackle climate change, all Canadians need to be heard fairly. So to those who would suggest that this is somehow some arcane, academic debate best left to the political scientists, I say this matters to every Canadian because it's about every Canadian having a fair voice in the debates that affect each and every one of us.

I have written to Prime Minister Harper expressing my concerns in this matter. I've also written to all members of Parliament from Ontario. But I bring this matter up here in this Legislature because I strongly feel we need to speak as one on this issue. We did that when it came to Canada's fiscal arrangements, and, in fairness, the federal government has moved towards greater fairness insofar as those arrangements are concerned. There's more work to be done, to be sure, when it comes to achieving fairness, but there has been movement. We need to work together now to call on the federal government to introduce an amendment to Bill C-22.

We must speak as one in demanding an amendment that would ensure fair representation by population for Canada's largest provinces, and we must speak as one in sending a clear signal that Canadians living here in Ontario are entitled to the same representation as those living in BC and Alberta.

We must speak as one so everyone knows that this House believes a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian and there is only one kind of citizen in our Canada, and that's a full citizen entitled to fairness.

So I say to my colleagues on all sides of this House, I believe we owe it to the people who elected us and we owe it to the country that continues to inspire us to stand for fairness, to speak as one, and to vote unanimously in favour of this resolution.