Back, a few centuries go, when Simon de Montfort was wandering about, we - our political ancestors - decided that we should be represented in the fledgling parliament by people that came from our communities. The French name for our House of Commons, la Chambre des communes, is a more accurate representation of what was intended than is the "commons" which too many people mistakenly think refers to the Lords and the commoners. Anyway, while de Montfort didn't think about equality of representation or even fairness, he did put in place, in 1265 - a long, long time ago - a system which, in my opinion, has served us well and which we would not want to throw out without a lot of thought.
La Chambre des communes brings together representatives of each "community," each remote and rural district, each village and town, each suburb and each district in big towns and cities.
One factor which de Montfort did not consider was federalism wherein each community is represented at two levels: provincially and nationally. Now, the electors of New Brunswick get to send ten representatives to Ottawa to do the nation's business but they send nearly 50 to Fredricton to look after more local affairs.
Maybe, if we look at §§91 and 92 of the Constitution we should ask ourselves if we don't, perhaps, have too many people worrying about a lot of less than really critical issues in Ottawa. I mean everything to do with money - Gresham and all that - and foreign and defence policies are important but do w really need 338 legislators to look after that plus the postal service, beacons, buoys, lighthouses, and Sable Island and weights and measures? Are those things really as important as managing hospitals and public education and licences for shops, saloons and taverns?
I have always maintained that a federal state requires a bicameral legislature: one chamber to represent the people, in their communities, on a roughly equal basis, and the other to represent the provinces as the constituent partners in confederation. But what if I'm wrong? What if we need only one federal legislative body? Maybe an elected and effective Senate that is regionally, and very roughly, equal. That (roughly) equal, effective and elected Senate might need only, say, 201 senators - say 155 elected during provincial general elections and 46 elected, by proportional representation, during federal general elections. BC, ON and QC would each get 31 "provincial" senators, the prairies would get 31 and Atlantic Canada would get 31, also. How the 201 senators - whose political balance would shit with every single provincial and national election - caucused, and, therefore, how they determined who "governed" Canada would be something that would hark back to the 16t and17th centuries when we understood that what really, really mattered in governing was the treasury - almost everything, including defence and foreign and most social policies depends on that.
My 2𝇍 ... for argument's sake.
