McGuinty: 10 More Commons Seats For Ontario Not Enough
Posted November 21, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty wants more seats for his province in the House of Commons, whether he’ll get them is a whole other story.
McGuinty shrugged off Peter Van Loan’s claim he’s “the small man of Confederation,” vowing Wednesday not to back down and extending a war of words with the Conservative government house leader over a federal bill to increase the number of seats to reflect Ontario’s growing population.
McGuinty wants 21 more seats in the House of Commons, 11 more than currently proposed.
“Why is it whenever we Ontarians stand up for ourselves we’re accused of being un-Canadian,” McGuinty said before Wednesday’s cabinet meeting. “That dog won’t hunt. We won’t be bullied or cowed into submission. We’re talking here about an issue of fundamental fairness.”
Under the proposed changes Ontario would get one MP for every 115,000 residents, but McGuinty said all provinces should be on what he calls “the Quebec standard” — one MP for every 105,000 people.
“B.C. is now going to grow to that standard, Alberta is now going to grow to that standard, but Ontario will be left with an injustice . . . and will stick out like a sore thumb,” said McGuinty.
If the current bill goes through, Alberta will get five additional seats in Parliament and B.C. will get seven more. McGuinty said he was pleased that Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to address the problem, but says there’s still more to be done.
“The problem, of course, is that while he’s determined to fix things entirely for B.C. and Alberta by giving them the appropriate number of seats, he’s not prepared to do that for Ontario,” said McGuinty. “He’s only going to provide us with a half-measure.”
On the other side of the coin, McGuinty opponents insist the premier should be pleased with the 10 additional seats, noting that without changes to the traditional formula Ontario would only get four more members.
Also Wednesday, there was criticism from the Ontario Liberals that Ottawa was failing to live up to a two-year-old agreement on help for new immigrants to Canada’s largest province. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Michael Chan said the Conservatives were more than $100 million behind on payments to help new immigrants settle in Ontario.
“This is funding the federal government promised to provide directly to newcomer agencies to province the settlement and language training services that are vital to helping newcomers find work in Ontario,” Chan said.
About 125,000 new immigrants arrive in Ontario every year, about half of all newcomers to Canada.
