Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty recently has been making a lot of noise regarding the number of new ridings allocated to Ontario if the new Federal government bill to increase the number of ridings in the HOC is passed. This criticism drew a strong rebuke from government house leader, Peter Van Loan.
As it stands now, there are 308 Federal ridings and the new bill would add 22 more to increase the number of seats to 330.
According to this bill the new seats will be distributed as follows
- 10 in Ontario
- 7 in British Columbia
- 5 in Alberta
What Mr. McGuinty conveniently failed to mention was that he did not have a problem with the number of new Federal ridings allocated to Ontario in 2004, when former Liberal Prime Minister, Paul Martin, was in power. This new bill received royal assent on March 11th, 2004.
Lets look at the number of new seats that were allocated in that bill that increased the number of Federal ridings in Canada from 301 to 308.
- 3 in Ontario
- 2 in British Columbia
- 2 in Alberta
Was Mr. McGuinty Premier of Ontario back then? Yes. Did he protest the number of seats allocated to Ontario to Paul Martin’s Liberal government back then? I don’t think so. And it was a worst deal for Ontario compared to the number of seats they are getting right now. So if he did not have a problem with a worst deal for Ontario when his Federal Liberal cousins were in power, but now has a problem when Ontario gets a better deal with the Tories in power, you just have to wonder what his motives are.
3 comments:
Thanks for the background info.
Meanwhile, Warren Kinsella defends Dalton's good name.
Premier McGuinty is just a convenient whiner.
Canada is one of the most over-governed places in the world, if you look at the number of representatives in the federal and provincial/state legislatures and divide by the population. We could easily cut the HofC down to 200 members and we'd be better served. How about we give McGuinty what he wants and then reduce the number of seats everywhere, including the Maritimes who are grossly overrepresented. Addition by subtraction.
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