Right now, our miniscule population compared to the US has 5 more senators than the US and 308 seats in the House of Commons compared to 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Not to mention that Harper has 39 members in his cabinet while Obama at most, has 22.
Don’t you think we are way over represented ?
Now Harper wants to add 30 more seats in the House of Commons
Haven’t we been wasting too much money on representation ? Do Americans feel way under represented ?
Harper’s claim is to restore provincial proportionality in the House of Commons.
That’s a good objective, but it would be nice to start with, by drastically reducing representation to 10 or 20 percent of what it is now and then add seats for the under represented provinces. I really don’t believe we would be less served than now.
I don’t think one federal representative per (approximately) 100k people is an unreasonable figure. This is pretty close to the figure that the UK runs, as well (650 members, 62M people). The US is in a situation where 7 states are represented by only a single congressman, and that figure is almost certainly going to rise. As well, if you (say) tripled the number of Congressman, there’d be less need to have those ridiculously gerrymandered districts (though they’d still of course do it).
The US has a ratio of 700,000 residents to one House member. This is the highest ratio in American history, and some argue that it’s too high and the number of House members needs to increase. For the first fifty years or so, the ratio was about 30-35,000 to one.
Yeah, the real reason the U.S. has so few is that it simply that the House is barely able to function as it is. They need to band together into all kinds fo complex groups just to get votes through, because at over 400 people, they do not, and cannot, let everyone talk. Only a few particularly significant members (Speaker of the House, etc.) have much personal influence, although at times they may be the most powerful and important people in the government - even eclipsing the President.
What you’re proposing is Constitutionally impossible. You cannot reduce the number of MPs some provinces have without a Constitutional amendment, which you won’t get.
What Harper is proposing has at least the advantage of being somethng that is feasible.
Getting closer to voter equality is a good thing. Have a few more MPs is worth it.
One problem with the number of MPs in the UK is that the House of Commons doesn’t have enough seats for them. Does the House of Commons in Ottawa currently have enough seats for its MPs? Would it have enough if Harper’s proposals were to be adopted?
Currently, I don’t feel “represented” at ALL. Actually, it’s been that wayfor quite a while. There is no middle anymore. It’s big business and extremes and “the base” whatever the hell that mess is.
I don’t think they see it as a problem. They could have made enough room when it was rebuilt after WWII, but they decided they wanted to keep it too small.
Canada doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. New Hampshire, one the other hand has a House of Representatives with 400 members, which is clearly overkill for a tiny state.
It does. At the same time, the Centre Block needs a complete renovation anyway. They are actually planning to enclose the courtyards of the East and West Blocks to serve as temporary House and Senate chambers while the work is proceeding over a period of several years.
Eh, I have no problem with it. Maybe we need to reduce the amount of people employed by government, as well as increasing the MPs to more accurately represent our whole population.
They’re going with a retractable dome and real grass, as well as 64 corporate luxury suites, larger concourses and more souvenir and concession stands, and seating for 45,000 fans.