Blackjack Ontario

Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and the agreed that Ontario would get an extra 21 seats under the House of Commons redistribution plan, where before Ontario MPs represented on average about 115,000 residents, where the average in other provinces is 105,000.

At first I was like, "Oh no! Not more for Ontario! More Liberals!"

Then I thought, "Wait a sec .., the Conservatives didn't get a majority because Ontario didn't pull through, they did very well in Ontario. It was Quebec where they lost to the Bloc. But the Bloc ain't gonna run in Ontario are they?" If Ontario had those 21 seats in play and the Conservatives only needed 13 of them.... um, majority?

Another brilliant political move by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Many have argued that REDUCING the number of representatives would be better and cheaper. But would it?

Look at it this way... what would be the reasonable number be? 200,000 per MP? 300,000? How far do we go? What's the right balance? Or how about 1 MP per million. Now we're further from a representative democratic system aren't we? If we had 1 MP per 100 people, now THAT would be democracy, wouldn't it? But expensive.

Despite the myth, Members of Parliament work quite hard and are under a lot of pressure. Sure some stay in it for a long time, but there are many who leave on their own accord due to being away from their families and flying back and forth from Ottawa all the time. It's a difficult job. Not only that, but you have a pile of constituents requests to try and handle. Sure they have local and Ottawa assistants, but why would we want to pile more work on them? Then if they've been in politics for so long, makes it difficult to return to private life, unless you're a lawyer.

Anyway, I just hope Alberta and BC get their fair share as well.

Man, the House of Commons is going to get crowded! Pretty soon it'll look like the the British House of Commons (no desks, just MPs packed like sardines on benches).