Video Journals

Hello,

I’m here in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

In fact, I’m in the very room where the Charlottetown Conference was held in 1864.

Where some of the founding fathers of this magnificent country of ours — Canada — came together and gave birth to the notion, the ideal, of this new nation.

I want to speak to you today about an issue between Ontario and the federal government. It has to do with our seat count.

We’re asking for fairness. BC and Alberta are going to be awarded more seats in the federal government — the House of Commons in Ottawa — so that at the end of the day, they’ll get 1 MP for every 105,000 constituents. We’re going to get enough new seats to give us 1 MP for every 115,000 constituents. That’s not fair. That’s not representation by population.

We’re not talking about doing anything that would interfere with the rights of people here in Maritime Canada, for example. But we are asking for fairness in comparison to the other three big provinces: Alberta, BC and Quebec.

Fundamentally, it’s all about fairness.