From: thood@corvus.matrox.com (Thomas Hood)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Analyzing the Deal
Date: 8 Sep 92 17:22:45 GMT
Distribution: can
Organization: Matrox Ltd.

robinson@mdivax1.uucp (Jim Robinson) writes:
>This agreement represents a further movement away
>from rep-by-pop. So, it is not just a matter of maintaining the status quo
>as the above question would imply. It is a matter of further degrading a
>principle that just about every liberal democracy considers basic.

As I recall, many contributors to this newsgroup supported the idea
of an EEE senate almost equal in power to the House of Commons, and remote
as hell from rep-by-pop.

Now, Quebec wins a concession that may give it a few percent more seats than
its population share sometime in the distant future, while accepting
an immediate drop from 23% to 10% of the Senate, and there's complaining?

Hypocrisy!

---------

The following people think it is wrong to give Quebec a guarantee of
25% of seats in the House of Commons.  (Please see references below.)
I do not recall which of them, if any, expressed support for an EEE Senate.

David Adrien Tanguay
John Paul Morrison
Ken Mcvay
David Joseph Tegeczi
Crawford Kilian
Jim Robinson
emd

----------

From: dat@thinkage.on.ca (David Adrien Tanguay)
25% for Quebec:
Civilization has been fighting for centuries to win the ideals of liberal
democracy, but here in Canada we're thinking of throwing them away.
If a constitution isn't a place for principles and ideals, what is?
This kills the deal for me.

From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
couldn't agree more.

From: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay)
Ditto here - a resounding NO on acceptance. The rest of the package seems
immaterial in light of scrapping rep by pop.

From: dregeczi@fraser.sfu.ca (David Joseph Regeczi)
25% guarantee : not exactly rep-by-pop.  But then again, Mike Harcourt does
not really know what that is anyway.  25% of the vote for all time is unfair
and undemocratic

From: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian)
"We never had rep by pop" is in essence the fallacy of
common practice. One might as well argue that since women historically never
had the vote, they shouldn't have it now. (And what an uproar THAT would have
caused if it had appeared in the new deal!:))

From: robinson@mdivax1.uucp (Jim Robinson)
No it is more than that. This agreement represents a further movement away
from rep-by-pop. So, it is not just a matter of maintaining the status quo
as the above question would imply. It is a matter of further degrading a
principle that just about every liberal democracy considers basic.

I agree that 24.x% vs 25% is insignificant. Indeed, I did not get terribly
worked up over Mike Harcourt's math failings simply because the differences
were small, but more importantly, because the situation would eventually
converge to the correct percentage. Unfortunately, the 25% floor is an
entirely different matter. We are starting with a good approximation of
rep-by-pop and entrenching a clause that says that no matter how far
Quebec's population falls below 25% it will *forever* have 25% of the seats
in the Commons. In theory Quebec could have 1% of the population, yet 25%
of the power in the Commons - an unlikely, but obviously *ludicrous* state
of affairs. To even allow for such a possibility is, IMHO, inexcusable.
It's like writing code that you *know* will fail at the boundary
conditions.

From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
The 25%. I wonder about it. It seems like a hollow win for Bourassa. Quebec
isn't likely to have less than 25% of the population, so what can he brag
about winning? In *principle* I think it's silly. It's totally against rep
by pop. Contrary to someone who said rep by pop was no big deal; it is!
it goes against the fact that we are all equal. The supreme court twits and
the vague charter have all said that "it's OK to give other groups an unfair
edge" even if that means my vote is diminished. True, rep by pop is a farce
in Canada, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.

From: emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca
Look, let's put it in perspective. Sure, the agreement is flawed in many 
ways - not all the senators will be elected, they sure aren't going to be 
effective, I don't agree with the 25% floor for Quebec, and nobody has 
yet defined for me exactly what aboriginal self government means, etc.
Be that as it may, there is no way at all that Quebec will agree to less 
than the current proposal. 

From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
I don't buy the argument one bit. It's been two years since Meech, and 
Canada hasn't disappeared. Rather than accepting a half assed deal,
the status quo is (almost) preferable. We can afford to ignore the 
constitution for a year or two, and focus on more pressing problems.

--
Thomas Hood                                                    thood@matrox.com
Montreal