C-22 Democratic Representation

Click here to read the bill

Click here to see vote results

Summary

This bill changes the number of seats in the House of Commons through a mathematical formula based on current and projected populations of provinces. If you're into rockets or brain surgery, the formula can be found as the majority of text in the bill.

The bill also goes on to say that, should it pass and a province finds that its number of seats would decrease as a result of the new formula, that province would be allowed to keep its current number of seats.

Bill History

This bill was originally called C-56 in the last session of parliament, and was reintroduced as C-22. One of the biggest opponents of the bill is Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who has written the PM several times concerned that Ontario is actually losing ground to Alberta and British Columbia with regards to a seats-to-population ratio. Three of these letters (via Hansard transcript) can be found here. Trust me, folks, this was one of the most entertaining debates that I found while researching these bills.

First Reading - November 14th, 2007

Debate at Second Reading - February 13th, 2008

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