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Tory Plan to Boost Alberta, BC in Parliament, Reduce Ontario

Actually Ontario and Quebec had to finance the cost of the pipeline from Alberta, and Alberta oil was subsidized by the federal government up to twenty-five cents on the dollar. That all ended in the 1970's when the price of oil shot up.
 
So Harper has generously agreed to give Ontario 21 more seats in Parliament:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/555294

Ontario getting 21 more federal seats

Dec 17, 2008 12:08 PM
Comments on this story (66)
THE CANADIAN PRESS

A lengthy and often bitter fight between Ontario and the federal government was quietly resolved last week when Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to give the province 21 additional seats in the House of Commons, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday.

That's 11 more new Commons seats than the Conservatives initially said Ontario would get under a redistribution plan announced last year to reflect growing populations in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.

In his end-of-year news conference Wednesday, McGuinty confirmed he and Harper had resolved their disagreement over seats in Parliament when they met in Ottawa last Friday.

"I spoke with him about that and I think we've fixed it," McGuinty said when asked if the seat issue had come up during their meeting.

Harper finally saw that Ontario's argument was valid and agreed to give the province the 21 additional seats in Parliament, without Ontario having to give up anything in return, McGuinty added.

"I think there was a sense that it was the right thing to do."

Ontario complained loudly that Ottawa's original plan would have given Canada's most populous province only one MP for every 115,000 while other provinces moved to what McGuinty called the `Quebec standard' of one Member of Parliament for every 105,000 people.

The seat issue had erupted into such an angry war of words between Ottawa and Ontario that then Conservative government house leader Peter Van Loan called McGuinty "the small man of Confederation" for demanding Ontario get 21 additional seats instead of 10.

McGuinty maintained all along that Ontario was simply asking for fairness and bristled at suggestions he was being un-Canadian for insisting the province get its full allocation of MPs.

The Conservatives had countered by saying Ontario should have been pleased with 10 additional seats because if they hadn't changed the formula, Ontario would have received only four additional Members of Parliament.

During Friday's meeting, Harper initially made the ``traditional" argument that Ontario would be better of than it was before with 10 more seats, McGuinty said.

"I said `yeah, that's true, but that's not the point,' " said McGuinty.

"The point is we should be working towards fairness, and over time we would have continued to fall behind."

The federal Conservatives and Ontario Liberals have been taking great pains to co-operate and refrain from criticizing each other in recent weeks, trying especially hard to create a united front from the two governments on Canada's approach to a rescue package for the auto sector.
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and http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081217.wcommons1217/BNStory/politics/home

Ontario to gain seats in Parliament



KAREN HOWLETT

Globe and Mail Update

December 17, 2008 at 3:42 PM EST

TORONTO — Ontario will no longer be shortchanged under the Harper government's plan to add new seats to the House of Commons, says Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has agreed to revise his proposed legislation, which is designed to reflect population growth across Canada by adding new seats to the 308 currently in the Commons, Mr. McGuinty said on Thursday.

“I spoke to Harper about this, and I think we fixed it,” Mr. McGuinty said at a year-end news conference.

He did not elaborate on exactly how many seats would be added in Ontario under the proposed changes but said, “we will get the necessary proportionality.” That translates into another 21 seats in Ontario, bringing the tally for the province to 127, a government official confirmed.

The changes will allow Ontario and Ottawa to bury the hatchet on an issue that sparked a new round of bickering between the Harper and McGuinty governments. The tensions took a nasty turn in November, 2007 when then federal Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan accused Mr. McGuinty of being “the small man of Confederation” after the Premier appealed to his federal counterparts for help fighting the proposed legislation.

Under the original proposal, Ontario was to get 10 of 22 newly created seats. Mr. McGuinty had complained that the proposed legislation to change the formula for seat distribution would leave Ontario the most unrepresented province in Canada. The proposed legislation would give every province, with the notable exception of Ontario, enough ridings to match the size of their population. All of the new seats would be in fast-growing Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.

Mr. McGuinty said on Thursday that Mr. Harper had a change of heart after the two met privately in Ottawa last Friday to discuss a Canadian bailout package for the ailing auto sector. During the one-hour meeting in Mr. Harper's office, Mr. McGuinty also raised the seat legislation.

He said Mr. Harper reiterated his traditional argument that Ontario would be better off than it was with the addition of new seats. “I said, ‘that's not the point. The point is, we should be working toward fairness and over time we would have continued to fall behind.'”

The legislation was written in such a way that Quebec's ratio of voters to MPs became the benchmark. But any provinces larger than Quebec - Ontario is the only one - would not enjoy the full benefits. Ontario's share of the national population will hit 40.4 per cent in 2021, while its share of seats in the Commons will be 35.6 per cent, an under-representation of 4.8 per cent. according to the government's projections.
Click to expand...

Finally Ontario will be properly represented. I'm curious when the maps for Ontario's new ridings will be available? I'm curious to see how Mississauga and Brampton's ridings get redistributed. I hope Mississauga doesn't have to share seats with Brampton anymore! LOL
 
I believe that part of the problem is that the seats hadn't been redrawn for awhile. I suspect the bias against urban areas will continue.
 
I suspect after the betrayal by Quebec, the Conservatives feel far less charitable and have begun to realize that it's all about Ontario. Now, if only Ontario voters would put this province first, we'd get somewhere.
 
So the 2006 results should be used in the next election, if I'm not mistaken.

I guess my point is that this past election was based on 2001 populations, which have changed.
 
The 2006 census counted 668,549 for Mississauga and 433,806 for Brampton. The Quebec Standard is 105,000 residents per MP.

Mississauga would get 6.4 MPs, plus a bit to account for population growth that has taken place in the last 3 years, as well as up to the next election, so let's round that up to 7 MPs.

Brampton would get 4.13 MPs, plus a bit to account for it's explosive population growth, so it's fair to round that up to 5 MPs.

Currently Brampton has 3 ridings: Brampton-Springdale, Bramalea-Gore-Malton, Brampton West.

Mississauga has 5 ridings: Mississauga South, Mississauga East-Cooksville, Mississauga Streetsville, Mississauga-Erindale and Mississauga-Brampton South.

So Mississauga should get boosted from 5 to 7 MPs, and Brampton from 3 to 5.

Redistributing the seats in Mississauga actually works out very nicely:

Mississauga-Erindale, Mississauga-Streetsville remain, but Mississauga-Meadowvale can be added. Mississauga East-Cooksville can simply become Mississauga-Cooksville. Mississauga South can be split into Mississauga-Clarkson and Mississauga-Port Credit (or Clarkson-Lorne Park and Port Credit-Lakeview if you like). The Mississauga part of Bramalea-Gore-Malton can become Mississauga-Malton (or Malton-Old Meadowvale).

It basically goes along the lines of the pre-amalgamation municipalities/Bell exchanges: Cooksville, Streetsville, Port Credit, Meadowvale, Clarkson, Malton, Erindale
 
I would imagine Brampton would and Mississauga will both get one more seat...


York region will likely 2 more seats...


I wonder where are the 21 seats will go....


Toronto requires 2 more seats actually, but I doubt Harper would allow that as that would be giveaway liberal seats...
 
The boundaries are redrawn every two censuses. The next redistribution will be following the 2011 census.

It's important to note that there's an anti-suburban bias, rather than simply anti-urban. Mid-size cities like Kitchener, Barrie, and Cambridge and 905 suburbs are severely underrepresented. Downtown urbanites and rural residents are overrepresented.

I'm happy that Harper has finally relented, though of course as always it has much more to do with his electoral calculations than any consideration of the principle of representative democracy.

It'll be interesting to see where the 21 seats go. The City of Toronto won't likely get any unless it starts growing faster than it did between the last two censuses. If there were to be a new one, it would definitely be in northeast Scarborough. Waterloo Region will get a fifth riding and Hamilton will likely gain one too. Most of the rest of the growth will be in the 905 and in Barrie.

It's a pretty easy rule of thumb. If we get our legitimate representation, Ontario seats will have about 105,000 people each. With that rule of thumb, it shouldn't be hard to look into it more intensively.
 
I can't believe Harper is doing this. How is this going to help his party? I can't see many 905 seats going his way unless they start creating ridings the way they do in the United States.
 
You mean like this?

Good that this has happened regardless. I hate to give a kudo to Harper, but he gets it this time. Still, the fact that he and his party fought Ontario's basic claim for fair representation for over a year is hard to forget.
 
Harper won a few outer 905 ridings, like Oak Ridges-Markham, Mississauga Erindale, and Oakville. He also came close in Brampton West. Those are the kinds of places where the additional ridings will be located. He thinks he has a better chance of winning more ridings in the 905 than in Quebec, where people will be annoyed about the dilution of their representation. There's nothing altruistic or principled about this.
 
Brampton West was interesting as it did not have an incumbant this time, which would have been a factor. The Conservative running there was a younger, but Brampton old-school Tory with some decent credentials and very personable, which I think made it a tough fight. Seeback is a relatively well-known name as well in my old hometown. Now that there's a Liberal incumbant, it will be even more likely to stay Liberal.

It seemed that incumbancy had a big role to play in the 905, though that didn't help in Oakville.
 
incumbency helps only if your popular or well known.

Beaumier was very widely liked in her riding.

Ruby Dhalla is popular but she has a ton of enemies and they all are united aginst here. It appears a single successful women is a terrfiying sight to some in her community. I know a great deal of people will not vote for her because she is not married. Also people accuse her of being a celebrity, as she gets people thrown in jail and beaten up...

In Bramalea Gore-Malton the long time Liberal faced his first real race since 1993 in the last election. He however beat back the challenge handily but I seriously think he should retire.
 
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