[Terence]

Uh, how it being the RIGHT THING TO DO!

The population grows in Ontario faster than anywhere else and it is simply giving Ontario parity.

How can anyone argue that one province gets 1 seat per 105,000 voters and another gets 1 per 115,000 voters.

It was a Liberal Premier who wanted this, as do Ontarians of all party affiliation. Maybe with 21 extra MPs of all stripes we can elect some decent advocates for Ontario. I only see a few in the 3 parties.

[DerbyX]

Tricks Tricks:

Lets see electoral districts were changed in 97, again in 03, and now in 09. Pattern? Of course not.

Also, the three provinces are the most under-represented based on population. While Quebec is over represented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_House_of_Commons

But why should that matter. Harper is clearly evil.

Seems some of you really need to get over your hatred of Harper and look a little more closely at what he is doing. He isn't perfect, but he isn't Satan either.

Ridenrain and I already went at each other over this very thing when he was just sloberring all over himself thanking Harper and saying that we'd never see this under the Libs. I busted his misinformation with the very data you just provided. We did see it under the Liberals, twice in fact, and using the proper method. The earlier amount Ontario was going to get was woefully low and likely not in accordance with the formula already mandated by parliment.

As of the representation act of 1985 we use the formula:

(pop of provinces)/279 = electoral quotient(EQ).
(prov pop)/EQ = Provincial seat allocation.

Next we factor in the grandfather clause and senatorial clause.

$1:

As we have seen, since 1915, the senatorial clause has guaranteed that no province has fewer members in the House of Commons than it has in the Senate. The Representation Act, 1985 brought into effect a new grandfather clause that guaranteed each province no fewer seats than it had in 1976 or during the 33rd Parliament.

This process is or was supposed to a non-partisan readjustment based on population factors as it was in 02/03.

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2001 readjustment

On March 13, 2002, following the release of the population figures from the 2001 Census, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada published in the Canada Gazette the result of the calculations required by the Constitution Act, 1867. The result was an increase in the number of seats in the House of Commons from 301 to 308, with three additional seats attributed to Ontario, two additional seats to Alberta, and two additional seats to British Columbia. Federal electoral district boundaries are now being revised in all provinces.

To ensure public participation in the process, public hearings were held from August to December 2002. The commissions had all submitted their reports by the end of March 2003. The reports will be examined by a parliamentary committee and then reconsidered by the commissions, if necessary, but the commissions are under no obligation to adopt any suggested changes.

A new representation order was proclaimed on August 25, 2003, and will come into force with the first dissolution of Parliament to occur after August 25, 2004.

The 1996 Representation Order remains in effect for all federal elections and by-elections until the new representation order takes effect. The current representation order allocates 7 seats to Newfoundland and Labrador, 4 to Prince Edward Island, 11 to Nova Scotia, 10 to New Brunswick, 75 to Quebec, 103 to Ontario, 14 to Manitoba, 14 to Saskatchewan, 26 to Alberta, and 34 to British Columbia. The Constitution Act, 1867 allocates 1 seat to Yukon, 1 to the Northwest Territories and 1 to Nunavut. There is currently a total of 301 seats in the House of Commons.

The Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act also requires the Chief Electoral Officer and Natural Resources Canada to publish maps showing the new electoral district boundaries resulting from the redistribution process. Previously, this requirement was fulfilled by the publication of separate electoral district maps that were available only on an individual basis. In 1996, Elections Canada published these electoral district maps in book form for the first time, making all electoral district maps relative to a specific province or to the Northwest Territories – as it was at the time – available in one volume. These atlases are available from Elections Canada.

The federal electoral boundaries commissions are independent bodies that make all decisions regarding the proposed and final federal electoral boundaries.

The role of Elections Canada is to provide support services to the boundaries commission in each province. Elections Canada is the non-partisan agency of Parliament responsible for the conduct of federal elections and referendums.

Bootlegga is entire correct that this is a vote buying grab by Harper. His original proposal, only 10 seats for Ontario, was an insult. It was giving way more seat per population representation to Alberta and BC then Ontario.

Now Harper despite his overall raise in support has seen his chances to win a seat in Quebec go way down and his grip on Ontario growing weaker especially in light of Ignatieff. He knows that if the seat redistribution happens as his original proposal Ontarians will legitimately frown upon getting the shaft as increasingly our voices become worth less then everyone elses. He can't afford that loss in support. Hence by making nice with Dalton and giving us our fair share of seats in comparison it becomes a defacto vote bribe not to mention the idea that he is simply creating his majority out of thin air by adding seats then claiming he cared enough to do it.

He IS EVIL you know.

That rhetoric at least counters the morons attacking that the Liberals never cared to try and give the west its fair share in the HoC when in fact they did so twice via the correct parliment procedure.

A factor I think alot of people are missing is that regardless of who gets the seats this is a very large increase in total seats. 22 extra seats means 22 more MPs along with their staff all on our dime. 22 more expense accounts. 22 more people to abuse the tax-payers money.

At least this dispells the last remaining shred of mythology about the conservatives aschewing big government. Under Harper our govt has gotten bigger and now much bigger and more expensive to maintain.

No matter if Ontario is getting more, the same as, or fewer seats per pop then anybody else this is a bad idea for a PM to be interfering in a non-partisan function of elections Canada and the same cons praising this would be screaming from the rafters like a pack of crap flinging howler monkeys.

This is yet another example of the type of government under Harper that unlines and bolds the sentiment that we cannot trust that man with a majority, not now, not ever.

Thats not Harper hate. Thats reality.

[mtbr]

you Libs never know when to quit crying or when to start crying, McGuilty's happy and your not happy...pathetic partisan hacks.

[Terence]

I am happy. What am I, chopped liver?

[DerbyX]

mtbr mtbr:

you Libs never know when to quit crying or when to start crying, McGuilty's happy and your not happy...pathetic partisan hacks.

Nope. You cons just don't understand when our basic democracy is getting hacked away at for partisan purpose, an act you would freak out if it were done in reverse.

I'm quite sure you are happy with Harper adding 10s of millions more to the federal cost of govt. Less actual services per tax dollars seems about par.

[mtbr]

DerbyX DerbyX:

mtbr mtbr:

you Libs never know when to quit crying or when to start crying, McGuilty's happy and your not happy...pathetic partisan hacks.

Nope. You cons just don't understand when our basic democracy is getting hacked away at for partisan purpose, an act you would freak out if it were done in reverse.

I'm quite sure you are happy with Harper adding 10s of millions more to the federal cost of govt. Less actual services per tax dollars seems about par.

[ridenrain]

Looks like the cheezy wine cart got here early.

[Terence]

better representation at the local level is worth the money. it won't be anywhere near tens of millions.

[DerbyX]

Well if you 2 clowns aren't on the other threads crying about the Liberals you are on every other thread whiping the drool from each others mouths praising Harper.

The fact is that a PM ignoring the electoral protocol set in place to determine fair seat distribution is exactly the kind of power you say you don't want the PM aka "dictator" to wield, assuming of course Harper isn't mearly taking credit for the whoel process anyway.

You would have been screaming murder had the Liberals done this especially considering even using the correct formula would have meant many more seats for Ontario then the west combined (just like now). The west would have been screaming about it being a power grap designed to increase the strength of the Liberal base in Ontario especially when you consider the bulk of the seats will go to urban centres in general and Toronto in particular.

This would have been seen as a fraudulent partisan attempt by the big bad Liberasl to insure their iron grip on the east is all they ever need to remain in power. We'd also hear about how the big bad tax and spend socialists were making big govt even bigger sucking more tax dollars for red tape while yielding less services.

You know damn well thats what would happen.

It was remarably astute of Rev Blair to note then the liberal scandals all seem to be about money but the CPC scandals all seem to revolve around subverting our democracy because deep down they know they have to if they want to engineer Canada to be conservative like they are.

[DerbyX]

InternetChatter InternetChatter:

better representation at the local level is worth the money. it won't be anywhere near tens of millions.

Really? 33 new seats means 33 new MPs. A quick google brings this from 2007.



Thats 147000 per additional MP, 21 for Ontario and 12 for the other provinces makinf 33 in total. Thats 4.85+ million alone. How many extra cabinet ministers? OK, 2. Roughly 0.5 million plus bringing the total over 5 million easy.

Add to that the cost of moving and lodging to our fair capital. Staff costs. Expense accounts, which last time I looked busted the whole conseravative frugal myth.

I think 10+ million is pretty believable. All this at a time when we are supossed to be pinching the pennies and cutting back govt expenses.

Why stop there though? If more representation is a good thing then why not every 50000 citizens? Why not 25000.

The real question is why circumvent a system designed to avoid any cries of partisan favourship. Again, imagine if it had been the Liberals trading off more seats in Quebec for support?

[Terence]

Chretien stacked the senate in 2000, Harper stacks Parliament in 2008.

Same old, same old.

the NDP and Bloc sit in the corner sucking their thumbs, jealously.

[DerbyX]

"stacking the senate" and "adding more seats" isn't the same.

Did Chretien simply create more seats or did he appoint people to seats already in existence?

A very distinct difference.

You might have a point if Chretien was unable to appoint anymore people to the senate so he simply created more seats.

I suspect the senate seat distribution is handled the same way.

Its less about who is getting the seats and more about the way it being done but if we are going to set a precedent that in govt as long as you are doing the "right thing" you are allowed to ignore parlimentary procedures then by all means. Just don't complain if the guys I vote for do something I like (aka the right thing) but you don't and its in defiance of whatever established procedure we have in place.

The next time the Libs win a majority then we should support them ignoring parliment law and have them reset the amount of time they are allocated before being forced to call an election. 100 years should do it.

Sounds unreasonable? Of course it is. Thats why we have a non-partisan procedure in place to avoid a PM from simply allocated more seats to his power base in a blatant attempt to stack the deck in his favour.

[hwacker]

I just love what Harper does to DX. It's better then going to work watching the posts of jealousy and hate.

[Terence]

I don't mind Harper, prefer him to Dion, but that is just like preferring a spit sandwich to a shit sandwich.

When Harper gets sacked like Thatcher, by his own party, I hope another moron like Stock Day becomes leader. It was easy as pie to rip that whackjob a new one.

[Tricks]

DerbyX DerbyX:

Ridenrain and I already went at each other over this very thing when he was just sloberring all over himself thanking Harper and saying that we'd never see this under the Libs. I busted his misinformation with the very data you just provided. We did see it under the Liberals, twice in fact, and using the proper method.

I never said they didn't. But why hammer the conservatives for what the liberals did, twice no less.

$1:

Bootlegga is entire correct that this is a vote buying grab by Harper. His original proposal, only 10 seats for Ontario, was an insult. It was giving way more seat per population representation to Alberta and BC then Ontario.

Actually it wasn't an insult. It was pretty comparable to Alberta's current population against electoral seats. And less so for BC, but still fairly comparable.

$1:

Now Harper despite his overall raise in support has seen his chances to win a seat in Quebec go way down and his grip on Ontario growing weaker especially in light of Ignatieff. He knows that if the seat redistribution happens as his original proposal Ontarians will legitimately frown upon getting the shaft as increasingly our voices become worth less then everyone elses. He can't afford that loss in support. Hence by making nice with Dalton and giving us our fair share of seats in comparison it becomes a defacto vote bribe not to mention the idea that he is simply creating his majority out of thin air by adding seats then claiming he cared enough to do it.

So because he doesn't want to inflate ontario's head further, give them more power in the government, and make the western provinces ever more obsolete he is some how shafting Ontario? Honestly, coming from an ontarian, we need to get our collective heads out of our asses and realise there are other provinces in this country.

Quebec doesn't need anymore seats. Staying as is makes them even with the other big provinces.

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A factor I think alot of people are missing is that regardless of who gets the seats this is a very large increase in total seats. 22 extra seats means 22 more MPs along with their staff all on our dime. 22 more expense accounts. 22 more people to abuse the tax-payers money.

So we should definitely stop having kids. It has to increase with the population.

$1:

At least this dispells the last remaining shred of mythology about the conservatives aschewing big government. Under Harper our govt has gotten bigger and now much bigger and more expensive to maintain.

Bigger, yes, but more involved in our lives? You harp (no pun intended?) on him for not using the proper formula or procedure, when he is trying to met the national quotient for those provinces.

$1:

No matter if Ontario is getting more, the same as, or fewer seats per pop then anybody else this is a bad idea for a PM to be interfering in a non-partisan function of elections Canada and the same cons praising this would be screaming from the rafters like a pack of crap flinging howler monkeys.

So you're sinking to their level?

$1:

This is yet another example of the type of government under Harper that unlines and bolds the sentiment that we cannot trust that man with a majority, not now, not ever.

That's bullshit. He isn't doing anything wrong here. Everything he is doing makes perfect sense, but you people are trying to find something bad in it. It's fucking pathetic.

$1:

Thats not Harper hate. Thats reality.

You have one warped view of reality then.