Feds to protect number of Quebec’s Commons seats, stop province losing MP
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OTTAWA — The federal authorities is getting ready to take motion to make sure Quebec doesn’t lose a seat when Canada’s electoral map is redrawn.
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Plenty of authorities departments are engaged on proposals to guard Quebec’s voice in Parliament because it faces shedding a seat in an upcoming redistribution of seats primarily based on inhabitants.
As a result of Quebec’s inhabitants has declined, it stands to lose an MP, whereas different provinces with rising populations, together with Alberta, would achieve MPs. The final time a province misplaced a seat in redistribution was in 1966.
This week MPs voted to again a movement tabled by the Bloc Quebecois rejecting the proposal to redraw the electoral map in a manner that reduces the province’s political weight within the Home of Commons.
The movement known as for modifications to the method utilized by Elections Canada to allot seats. It was supported by the Liberals, NDP and a few Conservatives.
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The present method implies that on the brand new electoral map Quebec loses a seat, Alberta features three extra, Ontario and British Columbia every achieve an MP, and different provinces and territories hold the identical quantity.
Jean-Sebastien Comeau, press secretary to Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, stated the federal government is engaged on a manner to make sure that Quebec’s share of MPs doesn’t shrink.
“We reject any state of affairs the place Quebec loses a seat. We’re rigorously contemplating subsequent steps when it comes to the redistribution of seats within the Home of Commons and we can have extra to say in the end,” he stated.
The workplace of Pablo Rodriguez, who’s the federal government’s spokesman on Quebec, often known as the Quebec lieutenant, is amongst these engaged on methods to guard the province’s illustration within the Commons.
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A supply within the Quebec lieutenant’s workplace, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to remark to media, stated there have been “stay discussions” ongoing about making certain the variety of seats within the province doesn’t fall.
One of many issues the federal government is is the 2011 Honest Illustration Act, which put ahead methods to keep up the variety of MPs in slower-growing provinces, to see if comparable measures might be used to guard the variety of ridings in Quebec, the supply stated.
The federal authorities can also be wanting on the method utilized by Elections Canada to allocate provincial seats primarily based on inhabitants and whether or not it may be modified to guard Quebec with out extra far-reaching penalties.
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The federal government will probably current its proposal this month earlier than a Bloc Quebecois personal member’s invoice is voted on. The Bloc invoice, if handed, would be certain that Quebec’s MPs by no means fall beneath 1 / 4 of members of the Home of Commons.
Canada’s chief electoral officer calculated the proposed redistribution of seats final yr primarily based on a mathematical mannequin utilized to inhabitants.
The Bloc Quebecois says the proposal fails to acknowledge Quebec’s official standing as a nation and would cut back the facility of Quebecers in Parliament. Bloc Chief Yves-Francois Blanchet believes Quebec ought to achieve a seat, bringing it to 79 MPs, relatively than lose a seat and take it right down to 77.
A spokeswoman for Elections Canada stated it calculates the variety of Home of Commons seats for every province utilizing the inhabitants estimates equipped by Statistics Canada and a method set out within the Structure.
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“This course of is solely administrative on the a part of the chief electoral officer and is finished in an unbiased, impartial and non-partisan method in accordance with relevant legal guidelines,” stated Natasha Gauthier.
Tory MP Michelle Rempel Garner stated the Bloc movement had raised new questions on Canada’s electoral system and in a column urged the Conservatives ought to take a contemporary take a look at reforming the electoral system, together with a type of proportional illustration.
The MP for Calgary Nostril Hill stated the Conservatives, regardless of successful the favored vote within the final two elections, had not made features below the first-past-the-post system. She stated the Conservative celebration mustn’t must depend on splits within the left-of-centre vote to win.
“Some type of electoral system reform may also inject some badly wanted boldness into our nationwide coverage debates,” she wrote in a column in The Western Standard.
