Through two minority governments, the Conservatives promised action on rural and prairie promises such as ending the long gun registry and the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, but couldn’t deliver.
Opposition MPs began to suspect the Conservatives really didn’t want to deliver. Promises of future action on the gun registry, wheat board reform or more seats for Western Canada were potent fundraising appeals among Conservative supporters.
The last two weeks in Parliament put a lie to that conspiracy theory.
This government likes to invent goofy themes for its legislative weeks: getting tough on crime week, democratic reform week, making immigration rules fair week.
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The last several weeks could legitimately be dubbed fulfilling promises to rural and western Canada weeks.
While the measures have their critics, it cannot be denied that the Conservatives ran on these promises and got elected overwhelmingly in rural and prairie seats.
In the past few weeks, the government has been checking off its promises and using draconian parliamentary tactics to push them through with little time for debate. Getting that majority with 39 percent of the vote changed everything.
Successive bills – C-18 on grain marketing, C-19 on ending the gun registry and C-20 on giving Alberta and British Columbia more House of Commons seats – were introduced to fulfill promises to loyal rural and prairie voters.
And in all cases, the bills were given priority, being called quickly for debate and in the case of C-18 and C-19, almost immediately becoming subject to government-imposed limits on the days of debate allowed.
This week, after two days of debate Nov. 2 and 3 on a proposal to give more seats to faster-growing provinces including Alberta and B.C., the government almost certainly will announce that debate will be cut short so the additional 30 seats – six in Alberta, six in B.C., three in Quebec and 15 in Ontario to recognize growing populations – can be enacted in time to affect electoral redistribution in time for the 2015 election.
Well, the above paragraph is a bit misleading.
B.C., Alberta and Ontario are being awarded more seats because of growing populations that make their representation in the House of Commons grossly inadequate. However, they will still be under-represented compared to population proportion.
Quebec’s added seats are not so much about growing population because its population is relatively stagnant. Instead, it is to answer Quebec complaints that its power in Parliament is being diluted because its population growth is not keeping pace with other provinces.
Its three additional seats will give Quebec more than its fair share, but then rural Canada, including Sask at c h e w a n, Manitoba and the Atlantic provinces, also have that benefit with a fixed number of seats out of proportion to their population. Complaints from over-represented provinces about Quebec’s special treatment will be a tad underwhelming.
Such compromises are what have helped Canada survive for 144 years.
However, the flurry of “promise made, promise kept” for rural and Western Canada does raise the question – what will be the next agenda? Presumably, it will emerge as we move toward the next election.
