Ontario gets 21 new seats
2009-09-25
Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to give the province 21 additional seats in the House of Commons.
That's 11 more new Commons seats than the Conservatives initially said Ontario would get under a redistribution plan announced last year to reflect growing populations in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
At present Ontario has 106 seats in the House of Commons.
Ontario complained loudly that Ottawa's original plan would have given Canada's most populous province only one MP for every 115,000 while other provinces moved to the "Quebec standard" of one member of Parliament for every 105,000 people.
"The point is we should be working towards fairness and over time we would have continued to fall behind."
The federal Conservatives and Ontario Liberals have been taking great pains to co-operate and refrain from criticizing each other in recent weeks, trying especially hard to create a united front on Canada's approach to a rescue package for the auto sector.