10 Manitoba MPs side with Quebec in representation vote

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This article was published 03/03/2022 (1368 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Most of Manitoba’s MPs looked past a slight from a Quebec separatist, and sided with a proposal this week to give la belle province more representation in the Commons than it’s owed under a longstanding formula.

“No matter what happens in the rest of Canada — which is of no consequence to me — the Quebec nation and its political weight must be protected. Because Quebec is not like Manitoba,” Bloc Québécois MP Alain Therrien told the House on Tuesday.

His party successfully tabled a motion calling for Quebec to maintain its 78 seats in the Commons, after the official formula called for that province to have one less MP.

Under the constitution, electoral districts are set every 10 years, based on demographics from census data.

Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia are all due for more seats, according to last spring’s population count. Quebec is growing slower than other provinces and would be the first to lost a seat since 1966.

The Bloc, which has helped prop up the minority Liberals, moved Tuesday to reject “any scenario for redrawing the federal electoral map that would result in Quebec losing one or more electoral districts, or that would reduce Quebec’s political weight in the House of Commons.”

That vote passed 262-66 Wednesday, with all but one Liberal MP supporting the motion, and split support among the Conservatives and New Democrats.

“I have a great deal of passion for the province of Quebec. There are things that we (Manitobans) have in common, such as a strong, healthy aerospace industry,” Winnipeg North MP Kevin Lamoureux told the Commons. He was among 10 of Manitoba’s 14 MPs who supported the motion.

The four dissenters from Manitoba were all Conservatives: James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman), Ted Falk (Provencher), Dan Mazier (Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa) and Marty Morantz (Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley).

All other Manitoba MPs sided with the bloc, including Jim Carr, Candice Bergen and Leah Gazan.

The debate was generally supportive, but Calgary MP Tom Kmiec argued it was wrong for his peers to vote on rejigging a process MPs had spent years carefully refining.

In the ongoing redistricting process, Manitoba is set to maintain its current cadre of 14 seats, though the riding names and boundaries could change based on public feedback.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca