From: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Subject: Re: Oops
Reply-To: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 14:11:58 GMT

In <ikyasB2w165w@cerianthus.pinetree.org> cowan@cerianthus.pinetree.org (Darin Cowan (root)) writes:

>Yes, in my last posting I committed a mathematical faux pas.  I forgot
>to deduct the Quebec population from the total when I calculated the
>number of seats in the examples.

>The net result is that other provinces (using the figures from the
>example) would end up about 5-10% under-represented.

>That's still ridiculous.  No constitutional deal can be
>worth trading in the value of a vote of 76% of Canadians to keep a whiny
>24% happy.  The floor on Quebec's representation in the House of Commons
>is a sellout of all other Canadians.

Currently, the votes of ninety-some odd percent of Canadians are
traded in to give a very tiny minority who happen to reside in PEI or
the territories several extra votes each. Even Canadians who live in
provinces with small populations (Sask., Man., N.B.) are
over-represented more than Quebec would be IF it's population fell to
20% of Canada's total. Also, from my figures it's more like 74% and
26%, so any over-representation of Quebec because of this is entirely
hypothetical.

Further, that variation is calculated by averages over province. I
suspect that if you look at individual ridings it is much worse. I
would be interested to find out how much the vote of someone in Metro
Toronto (or Vancouver, or Montreal) is worth compared to that of a
resident of northern Saskatchewan (or Manitoba, or Alberta).

>There's an old rhyme about "first they came for the ... but I said
>nothing..."  Well, now the government is coming to take away part of the
>democratic RIGHTS of most citizens and giving what they remove to a
>select minority of citizens.  If someone can give a GOOD reason why this
>is appropriate and fair to all Canadians, I'd be glad to hear it.

As you can see, the idea that all Canadians now have equally weighted
votes is entirely mythical. It's a nice democratic principle, but one
that is already routinely disregarded (within limits). The question,
of course, is whether it is worth potentially distorting rep-by-pop
for an entire province in order to accomodate Quebec's fear of being
swamped by English Canada.
 
  Most of the arguments against it seem to be of the form, "But if
Quebec gets swamped by English Canada then they'll have a
disproportionate number of votes". This is true. In fact, it's the
point. One can reasonably argue that accomodating Quebec's desire to
retain political power for French Canada (and Quebec is by far the
strongest voice for French Canada, regardless of French-speaking
populations outside Quebec) is not worth distorting the system in this
way. I think it is, but that's my decision. Others will certainly
disagree.
 What I particularly dislike is those who try to argue that this will
somehow victimize a particular province (usually B.C.). As far as I
can see, these arguments are mistaken, and sometimes willfully
distorted by those who would promote their own side in the debate.
Such people are fearmongers, and in this no better than Mulroney and
company.


-- 
 Alan Knight  knight@mrco.carleton.ca  +1 613 788 2600x5783   Vote
 Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering                Yes/Oui
 Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1S 5B6        Oct. 26