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Rob Linke
Telegraph-Journal

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OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper's promise to give 21 more seats in the House of Commons to Ontario is good reason the Graham government should support reforms that would give every province an equal number of seats in an elected Senate with real power.

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Noel Chenier/Telegraph-Journal

Donald Savoie speaks during an editorial board with the Telegraph-Journal on Wednesday, April 9th.

That's the message highly regarded political scientist Donald Savoie says he gave Premier Shawn Graham in a recent conversation.

"What we need to do is get four-square behind Stephen Harper on Senate reform," says Savoie, a professor and holder of a Canada Research Chair at the Université de Moncton.

"It's critical for us."

As long as a federal political party needs to cater to voters in Ontario or Quebec to win a majority government, "we will always be on the outside looking in - it doesn't matter what kind of relationship the prime minister and premier have," says Savoie.

The premier has not closed the door on Senate reform but wants it done in a comprehensive way with input from the provinces.

"Given the economic circumstances the country faces, we don't see a rush for Senate reform," Graham's spokeswoman Nicole Picot wrote in an email.

Savoie says he'd like to see every Atlantic Canadian MP support an equal, effective and elected Senate, even if it meant breaking ranks with their party on the issue.

A triple-E Senate "would be ideal for us," Savoie says.

Harper's office recently blamed Liberal opposition to Senate reform as the reason Harper had to swallow his own objections to appointing senators.

New Brunswick's two vacancies in the Senate were filled Monday with the appointments of veteran MLA and former cabinet minister Percy Mockler and retired Saint John lawyer and community leader John Wallace, who had run for the federal Conservatives in Saint John in the 2006 election.

They were among 18 Canadians - nearly all with Conservative ties - appointed. All the appointees pledged to support eight-year term limits and an elected Senate. A third Senate seat in New Brunswick will come vacant due to retirement next summer.

In 2007, Harper's government introduced a bill to boost representation in the Commons for provinces whose population have grown substantially.

Bill C-22 would have given British Columbia seven more seats, Alberta five and Ontario 10 - about half the 21 it was entitled to if the same formula applied to each of them.

Ontario's Premier Dalton McGuinty cried foul. At one point, things got so acrimonious federal cabinet minister Peter Van Loan called him "the small man of Confederation."

Bill C-22 died on the order paper.

Harper recently told McGuinty his province would get the 21 MPs.

"It dilutes Atlantic Canada even more," Savoie says. "Am I worried about that? Absolutely I am."

Savoie says he doesn't begrudge the right of Ontario or the West to have their growth reflected in the Commons - but he says the Maritimes must recognize it further dilutes its already modest weight on the federal political scene.

The Fathers of Confederation recognized the need to balance the power in the Commons by apportioning Senate seats disproportionately by the regions.

The Maritimes has more Senate seats than its population would dictate.

New Brunswick has 10 seats in the 105-seat Senate, the same as it has in the 308-seat Commons.

Savoie says that as a Maritimer, he's personally "offended" at the public stances McGuinty has taken on behalf of Ontario - that equalization is unfair to his province.

"He doesn't mention that the bulk of the federal public service and the bulk of federal research and development spending is in Ontario.

"He doesn't mention Ontario dominates the House of Commons, or that the seat of government is in Ontario."

A restructured Senate would be better able to live up to its obligation to represent regional interests, Savoie argues.