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By Thandi Fletcher

OTTAWA — The House of Commons is about to get more crowded as the Senate passed on Friday a bill to add 30 new seats to the lower chamber.

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The Fair Representation Act, will see 30 new MPs — which are expected to cost taxpayers $14.8 million annually — split between Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec in the 2015 election, for a total of 338 in Parliament.

B.C. and Alberta will gain six seats, bringing their respective totals to 42 and 34.Ontario is gaining the largest number of seats, with an additional 15, which brings their total to 121. Quebec will gain three additional seats, for a total of 78.

The Senate was quick to pass Bill C-20, which was adopted by the House of Commons on Tuesday. It was the last major order of business for the Senate before it is expected to rise for the Christmas break.

Changing the number of seats in the House of Commons and redrawing political boundaries has long been a sensitive topic among politicians.

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In 1994, the former Reform party used its first filibuster to hold up passage of a vote to kill a process to redraw boundaries every 10 years.

At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, then a Reform MP, attacked the move and said the Liberal government should at least cap the number of MPs at 295.

The Constitution states that no province can have fewer seats in the Commons than it does in the Senate, and that the minimum number of seats in Quebec must be 75.

With files from Jordan Press, Postmedia News