Quote:
Originally Posted by cal_guy
The Representation Act, 1985 (which cover the Grandfather rule where no province can have less seats than in 1985) was enacted under the Section 44 amendment rules which only required House of Commons and Senate support. The Liberal proposal does not attempt to remove the requirement that each province have at least the same amount of MPs as Senators which would have required provincial support.
|
Which means that the proposed redistribution would continue the over-representation of the four atlantic provinces because all 4 are either one seat over their Senate minimum (NS, NL) or are at it (NB, PEI).
In an ideal world, I'd prefer a constitutional amendment to either option - something along the lines of a minimum of 1 per territory or province plus 1 MP/150,000 people or so to keep the number of MPs at around 250. Unfortunately, the Canadian Constitution is almost unamendable because of the requirement to have 2/3 of the provinces and 50% of the population agree.