🚀 go-pugleaf

Yeah, That way we'll save some money for the country.



In article <20110818-152045.911.0@abc.shawnews.vc.shawcable.net>, 
abc@a123.ca says...
>For better an equal representation, cut some seats from other provinces 
>that are over-represented.
>
>Then divide the total in half, and reduce the Parliament by equal numbers 
>(half), so MP represent larger areas and earn their money by working 
>harder.
>
>*************************************************************************
>
>
>NDP leader slams Tory plans to add seats to House of Commons
>
>By Peter O'Neil, Postmedia News August 17, 2011
> 
>The Harper government's plans to re-draw the federal riding map of Canada 
>is 'divisive,' says interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel.
>
>OTTAWA � Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to give B.C., Alberta and 
>Ontario fairer representation in the House of Commons divides the 
>country, interim New Democratic Party leader Nycole Turmel said 
>Wednesday.
>
>Turmel, filling in during Jack Layton's battle against cancer, said the 
>party agrees that the three provinces are under-represented in the House 
>of Commons.
>
>But she said the NDP supports further study of the issue, in particular 
>so consideration can be given to adequate representation of rural 
>regions, the north and First Nations.
>
>"The approach of the Harper government is really divisive right now. It's 
>not constructive, it's not nation-building," she told Postmedia News in 
>an exclusive interview.
>
>Turmel, whose past membership in the Bloc Quebecois raised questions this 
>summer about her own commitment to federalism, also slammed the Harper 
>government over its announcement Tuesday that it would add "royal" to the 
>names of the Canadian navy and air force.
>
>"This is really a divisive approach," she said, arguing that the 
>government should be providing the military with better equipment rather 
>than return to identities abandoned in the late 1960s.
>
>"We need to talk about equipment. It is sad that we're . . . moving back 
>40 years."
>
>The federal Conservatives, who have twice previously introduced 
>legislation to redistribute House of Commons seats, promised during the 
>election campaign to bring forward a bill to ensure that fast-growing 
>provinces are adequately represented in the Commons.
>
>"We are committed to reintroducing legislation to restore fairness in 
>representation in the House of Commons through a principled formula fair 
>to all provinces," according to Kate Davis, spokeswoman for Edmonton Tory 
>MP Tim Uppal, minister of state for democratic reform.
>
>"Canadians have given us a strong mandate to move forward in this 
>regard," she wrote in an email Wednesday.
>
>Some analysts have argued that the legislation is particularly important 
>in urban areas with large immigrant populations, since MPs serving those 
>ridings have heavier workloads due to the disproportionately higher 
>number of people they represent.
>
>The government proposed legislation in 2010 that would expand the 308-
>seat chamber with 18 new Ontario seats after the next scheduled 
>redistribution, which would be based on the 2011 census, giving it 124 
>MPs. B.C., which had 36 seats, would get seven more seats, while Alberta 
>would go from 28 MPs to 33.
>
>The current formula, according to the Tories, would give Ontario only 
>four more seats, B.C. two and Alberta just one.
>
>The Bloc Quebecois has since the 1990s demanded that Quebec be guaranteed 
>a minimum of 25 per cent of Commons seats, a proposition offered to the 
>province in the 1992 Charlottetown accord. That constitutional deal was 
>vehemently opposed by Quebec sovereignists and ultimately defeated in a 
>national referendum.
>
>The province is now slightly overrepresented, since its 75 seats 
>represent just over 24 per cent of the total, while Quebecers make up 
>just over 23 per cent of the Canadian population.
>
>Layton, in a letter to then-Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe in 2010, countered 
>with a proposal that denounced the Harper government's attempts to 
>"marginalize the Quebec nation." Layton called on Harper to drop any 
>legislative step "that would lead to the reduction of Quebec's political 
>weight in the House of Commons."
>
>The NDP was already faced with a tough balancing act following a historic 
>electoral breakthrough that saw the party win 103 seats, 59 in Quebec, to 
>earn official opposition status.
>
>That job got harder when it was revealed last month that Turmel, a 68-
>year-old rookie MP and the former head of the Public Service Alliance of 
>Canada, held a Bloc membership for the five years leading up to her 
>decision earlier this year to run for the NDP.
>
>A self-proclaimed committed federalist who said she voted against 
>sovereignty in the 1980 and 1995 referendums, she said she took out the 
>membership as a favour for a friend who had supported public sector 
>labour causes � former Bloc MP Carole Lavallee.
>
>Turmel said she's confident that Canadians outside Quebec, including 
>British Columbians and Albertans, aren't questioning her credibility as a 
>federalist leader.
>
>"I went west, I went east," she said of her travels after earning the 
>interim leader post.
>
>"People are more concerned about their jobs, they are more concerned 
>about the economy, as well as about health care and . . . pensions."
>
>She noted that the political views of many Western Canadians have 
>changed, "from the Reform to the Alliance to the Conservatives."
>
>One analyst said Turmel's party will struggle on issues where the opinion 
>in Quebec diverges sharply from the national consensus, such as Commons 
>seat redistribution and the Harper government's plan to scrap the gun 
>registry.
>
>"This is the double-edged sword of the NDP victory in Quebec: advance 
>Quebec's interest to placate its strengthened Quebec caucus, but risk 
>alienating supporters in the rest of Canada," said Chaldeans Mensah, a 
>political scientist at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, in an email.
>
>Six New Democrat MPs voted with the Conservatives in an unsuccessful 
>government bid last year to kill the registry, though more had previously 
>expressed opposition to the program that has always been more popular in 
>Quebec than elsewhere in Canada.
>
>Turmel said Wednesday the caucus will discuss its position on the gun 
>registry at a meeting prior to the resumption of Parliament next month.
>