From: abc@a123.ca   
      
   NDP leader slams Tory plans to add seats to House of Commons   
      
   By Peter O'Neil, Postmedia News August 17, 2011   
      
   The Harper government's plans to re-draw the federal riding map of Canada   
   is 'divisive,' says interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel.   
      
   OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to give B.C., Alberta and   
   Ontario fairer representation in the House of Commons divides the   
   country, interim New Democratic Party leader Nycole Turmel said   
   Wednesday.   
      
   Turmel, filling in during Jack Layton's battle against cancer, said the   
   party agrees that the three provinces are under-represented in the House   
   of Commons.   
      
   But she said the NDP supports further study of the issue, in particular   
   so consideration can be given to adequate representation of rural   
   regions, the north and First Nations.   
      
   "The approach of the Harper government is really divisive right now. It's   
   not constructive, it's not nation-building," she told Postmedia News in   
   an exclusive interview.   
      
      
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   Turmel, whose past membership in the Bloc Quebecois raised questions this   
   summer about her own commitment to federalism, also slammed the Harper   
   government over its announcement Tuesday that it would add "royal" to the   
   names of the Canadian navy and air force.   
      
   "This is really a divisive approach," she said, arguing that the   
   government should be providing the military with better equipment rather   
   than return to identities abandoned in the late 1960s.   
      
   "We need to talk about equipment. It is sad that we're . . . moving back   
   40 years."   
      
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   The federal Conservatives, who have twice previously introduced   
   legislation to redistribute House of Commons seats, promised during the   
   election campaign to bring forward a bill to ensure that fast-growing   
   provinces are adequately represented in the Commons.   
      
   "We are committed to reintroducing legislation to restore fairness in   
   representation in the House of Commons through a principled formula fair   
   to all provinces," according to Kate Davis, spokeswoman for Edmonton Tory   
   MP Tim Uppal, minister of state for democratic reform.   
      
   "Canadians have given us a strong mandate to move forward in this   
   regard," she wrote in an email Wednesday.   
      
   Some analysts have argued that the legislation is particularly important   
   in urban areas with large immigrant populations, since MPs serving those   
   ridings have heavier workloads due to the disproportionately higher   
   number of people they represent.   
      
   The government proposed legislation in 2010 that would expand the 308-   
   seat chamber with 18 new Ontario seats after the next scheduled   
   redistribution, which would be based on the 2011 census, giving it 124   
   MPs. B.C., which had 36 seats, would get seven more seats, while Alberta   
   would go from 28 MPs to 33.   
      
   The current formula, according to the Tories, would give Ontario only   
   four more seats, B.C. two and Alberta just one.   
      
   The Bloc Quebecois has since the 1990s demanded that Quebec be guaranteed   
   a minimum of 25 per cent of Commons seats, a proposition offered to the   
   province in the 1992 Charlottetown accord. That constitutional deal was   
   vehemently opposed by Quebec sovereignists and ultimately defeated in a   
   national referendum.   
      
   The province is now slightly overrepresented, since its 75 seats   
   represent just over 24 per cent of the total, while Quebecers make up   
   just over 23 per cent of the Canadian population.   
      
   Layton, in a letter to then-Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe in 2010, countered   
   with a proposal that denounced the Harper government's attempts to   
   "marginalize the Quebec nation." Layton called on Harper to drop any   
   legislative step "that would lead to the reduction of Quebec's political   
   weight in the House of Commons."   
      
   The NDP was already faced with a tough balancing act following a historic   
   electoral breakthrough that saw the party win 103 seats, 59 in Quebec, to   
   earn official opposition status.   
      
   That job got harder when it was revealed last month that Turmel, a 68-   
   year-old rookie MP and the former head of the Public Service Alliance of   
   Canada, held a Bloc membership for the five years leading up to her   
   decision earlier this year to run for the NDP.   
      
   A self-proclaimed committed federalist who said she voted against   
   sovereignty in the 1980 and 1995 referendums, she said she took out the   
   membership as a favour for a friend who had supported public sector   
   labour causes — former Bloc MP Carole Lavallee.   
      
   Turmel said she's confident that Canadians outside Quebec, including   
   British Columbians and Albertans, aren't questioning her credibility as a   
   federalist leader.   
      
   "I went west, I went east," she said of her travels after earning the   
   interim leader post.   
      
   "People are more concerned about their jobs, they are more concerned   
   about the economy, as well as about health care and . . . pensions."   
      
   She noted that the political views of many Western Canadians have   
   changed, "from the Reform to the Alliance to the Conservatives."   
      
   One analyst said Turmel's party will struggle on issues where the opinion   
   in Quebec diverges sharply from the national consensus, such as Commons   
   seat redistribution and the Harper government's plan to scrap the gun   
   registry.   
      
   "This is the double-edged sword of the NDP victory in Quebec: advance   
   Quebec's interest to placate its strengthened Quebec caucus, but risk   
   alienating supporters in the rest of Canada," said Chaldeans Mensah, a   
   political scientist at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, in an email.   
      
   Six New Democrat MPs voted with the Conservatives in an unsuccessful   
   government bid last year to kill the registry, though more had previously   
   expressed opposition to the program that has always been more popular in   
   Quebec than elsewhere in Canada.   
      
   Turmel said Wednesday the caucus will discuss its position on the gun   
   registry at a meeting prior to the resumption of Parliament next month.   
      
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