The decline in the demographic weight of Quebec within Canada is inevitable. It will only get worse over time. It is likely to be accompanied by a decline in its political weight, although this should not be taken for granted. Indeed, it has happened frequently in history that Quebec has a stronger voice than its demographics in Canada as a whole would have predicted or authorized a priori.
The demographic decline of Quebec within the Canadian bond is necessarily reflected in its representation in the House of Commons. Thus, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada has proposed that Quebec lose a seat on the occasion of the next redrawing of electoral districts and that the total number of seats in the House of Commons be reduced from 338 to 342. Justin Trudeau’s government seems inclined to preserve Quebec’s current 78 seats. For its part, the Bloc Québécois has just had the House of Commons adopt a motion that urges elected officials to reject any scenario of redrawing the federal electoral map that would have the effect of causing the loss of one or more electoral districts in Quebec or of reducing its weight within the Canadian federation. The motion in question also proposes the implementation of a new formula for the distribution of seats and asks the Canadian government to act accordingly.
What the Bloc has in mind, when it speaks of “a new formula”, is the guarantee that Quebec’s representation in the Commons will never fall below the floor of 25% of seats. However, granting this to Quebec would require a formal constitutional amendment, accomplished under the 7/50 procedure. Surely that could not be done by the Parliament of Canada acting unilaterally and passing a single law.
Considerable limit
Indeed, in Canada, the principle of proportional representation in the House of Commons is firmly enshrined in the Constitution. It is not applied in a perfectly rigorous manner, but it nevertheless constitutes a considerable limit to the capacity of the federal authorities to “accommodate” Quebec with regard to its representation in the Canadian Parliament. In other words, you can certainly move away from proportional representation by a seat or a few, but you cannot go much further. In this vein, we certainly cannot guarantee Quebec 25% of the seats, unless we comply with the constitutional amendment procedure as such.
The only exception to the principle of proportional representation provided for in the Canadian Constitution is intended to protect provinces with very small populations, such as Prince Edward Island. This exception means that such provinces may be entitled to a number of deputies at least equal to the number of senators representing them. This exception is of no help in Quebec, for the time being at least. Indeed, it has 24 senators.
Unless there is a formal constitutional amendment, the relative weight of Quebec in the House of Commons will continue to decline within Canada in the future. This is a very sad prospect, it must be admitted.
Gradual decline
In 1992, with the Charlottetown Agreement, Robert Bourassa obtained the assurance that Quebec would retain 25% of the members of the House of Commons in the future. He had accepted in return a dilution of the “distinct society clause”, the reform of the Senate desired by the western provinces and the creation of a third order of government for the Aboriginal peoples. The fact remains that Robert Bourassa’s gain was considerable. Moreover, this gain was underestimated at the time.
Be that as it may, to come back to the Bloc Québécois motion we were talking about above, it should be noted that the very fact that it was so widely approved by federal MPs testifies to a concern of more and more manifest on their part — or at least on the part of a certain number of them — with regard to the progressive decline of Quebec in Canada.
In the context where Quebec is the watchdog of federalism in Canada as a whole, there is reason to wonder whether the gradual and constant loss of its demographic weight within Canada does not augur a more pronounced centralization of the Canadian regime. In other words, is Canada gradually losing this ardent defender of the federal principle, of federative balance and of the federative spirit that is Quebec? Is Canada itself in the process of erasing, perhaps unwittingly, this important bearer and vector of identity that is Quebec? When will we understand that a constitutional reform, favorable to the aspirations of Quebec and bearing among other things on its representation in the House of Commons, is finally necessary, if only to redefine the balance of power between the units policies that make up this country?