Caucusing is always a privilege, of course, but a bigger house affords more stable factions of opinion within the major party caucuses.

I also think that Canadians need to consider ways to make the House of Commons a more effective chamber for debate, and more members would effectively crowd the chamber; force the removal of those stupid desks. We should have straight benches like the Brits, and scrap assigned seating apart from an assigned “front bench” for government and loyal opposition, and, of course, grouping parties together.

The Canadian Commons, with assigned seating and desks, and party discipline that is too strident, simply doesn’t function as an effective check on government, especially in majority government scenarios. The best way to weaken party discipline is to lessen the rewards each MP can receive from his party, from cabinet and shadow cabinet. More MPs, assuming a standard level of awards for MPs, makes a scarcer economy of privilege for MPs.

But like I write above, trying to fix representation by population in the House of Commons could be very good; even more so if it entails adding significantly more MPs overall.

Last I checked, both BC and Alberta would gain seats if we were to truly allot seats in the House of Commons on the basis of representation by population.

In politics, one should always know who your friends are, which friends to keep, and especially so if you actually want to accomplish what you say you want to accomplish. McGuinty clearly isn’t too serious about more seats for Ontario; otherwise, he’s playing a very poor strategic hand.

Of course. Maybe Stelmach and Campbell should be jumping on this gravy train with McGuinty.

Is BTE trying to be banal?

However, should McGuinty, as the Premier of Ontario, really take into consideration what Alberta wants when speaking to the Prime Minister of Canada?

While I agree that, over the long run, if this issue does go anywhere, that the Prime Minister will need to be mindful of all of the views from each of the jurisdictions. However, it has been my experience in participating at FPT discussions, that provinces and territories don’t really care about the positions of other provinces, as they were elected to improve their own lots. Furthermore, when provinces and territories try to tell another jurisdiction what it should or should not consider, they are usually shut down VERY quickly, and are told to focus on their own jurisdiction.

It isn’t ideal, but that is how politics works in the federation.

When we look at our governmental organization today, we are being naive. We should also ask: what would happen if we did NOT over-represent the less populated regions??

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Does anybody remember when the Soviets sent missiles over to be stationed in Cuba?

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I always liked this little tidbit of Canadian history: the first Confederation hoe-down was hosted in Charlottetown but after the dust settled, the politicians of P.E.I. did not agree to join until much later. Population numbers was obviously not a concern.
It is foolish to think of our current “dependent” regions as being naturally dependent. The country we call Canada is a two-way street.

As for PEI, the “convention” is that once a province has seats, it can’t lose any, from what I gathered long ago, not sure where. In this respect representation by population in Canada’s House of Commons is no where near as strictly adhered to as it is in the United State’s House of Representatives; American states do lose seats from time to time.

While our system is heavily dependent on conventions, I think some semblance of an equal and effective Senate—more legitimate appointment procedures—would be adequate compensation for any province losing seats. And some provinces are going to be losing seats, if you want to do it right, and will demand some compensation.

I don’t suspect an elected Senate is on the horizon because it’s not in the national interest of Quebec. Elected Senators from Quebec would outshine “national” Quebec leaders, there very election further legitimating Canadian federalism; so it’s likely not going to happen, not in Quebec anyway.