FACE TO FACE: Is the Tory government's Fair Representation Act indeed fair?
Proposing an increase in the number of seats in Parliament is not an altruistic federal Conservative initiative to improve "representation by population" in the House of Commons.
The real purpose of adding seats to Parliament is to solidify a Conservative majority government. It's perfect - the opposition is even helping because the bigger and longer the brouhaha and bickering goes on, the less it looks self-serving on the part of the Tories.
Every seat re-distribution scenario includes at least six new seats in Alberta - i.e., six automatic Conservative wins in the next election. Six new seats in B.C., with a bit of judicious gerrymandering, will yield them at least four, more likely six, seats. Fifteen new seats in Ontario, creatively allotted, will yield probably 10 to 15 additional Tory seats. That's a total of 20 to 25 new Conservative seats in the next federal election - not a bad way to cement a majority government in the name of representative equality.
But "rep. by pop." is an American mantra - it doesn't work in Canada.
As a bilingual nation, we need to assure the representation of our second founding nation, regardless of the arithmetic.
Our population is huddled along the border and the regions of Canada are too disparate in size and population to yield ridings equal in population.
In our current Parliament, representation by population would allot P.E.I. fewer than one MP (instead of their current four) and Alberta and B.C. would each have more MPs than the Atlantic provinces combined.
In order to represent equal numbers of voters, some ridings would need to extend over the northern regions of two or three provinces while Toronto Centre might be one or two square kilometres. Our sparsely populated north would have virtually no representation.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for more equitable representation but let's not fool ourselves that increasing representation for B.C., Alberta, and Ontario is the primary motivation behind this political exercise.
While my "don't tread on me" colleague and others cry for rep. by pop., Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Tories are chuckling all the way to the ballot box; 20-plus additional Conservative seats which will cost a mere $15 million per year - a political bargain at twice the price.
Face to Face columnist Jim Nelson is a retired Tri-City teacher and principal who lives in Port Moody. He has contributed a number of columns on education-related issues to The Tri-City News.
