TORONTO - Dalton McGuinty's fight for more Ontario seats in the House of Commons finally got Parliament Hill's attention Wednesday as the Opposition took the Conservative government to task for describing the premier as "the small man of Confederation."

During a raucous Question Period, the Liberals pressed Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan to apologize for the comment, which he made Tuesday in response to Ontario's complaint that it's being shortchanged by Ottawa's proposed changes to the number of Commons seats.

The federal Liberals also accused the Tories of using the legislation, which gives Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario more seats in the Commons, to open a rift between the provinces.

"The only thing small in this federation is this government's sense of responsibility, its sense of respect, its sense of honour," said Deputy Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff.

"Why won't the government house leader stand up in the House today and say that his remarks about the premier of Ontario were out of order, out of control?"

Van Loan, however, renewed his attack on McGuinty and defended the legislation, which is designed to give the three fastest growing provinces more members of Parliament - including 10 more for Ontario.

"Our legislation is going to give them more new seats than any other province, and what did (McGuinty) do? He complained about it," Van Loan told Parliament.

"That's what I mean when I talk about the small man of Confederation: more seats, more for his province, and he complains."

McGuinty dismissed Van Loan's comments earlier Wednesday, and vowed not to be bullied by Ottawa into backing down from his demand that Ontario be treated the same as the other provinces.

He said Ontario should get 21 more seats in Parliament, not just 10.

"Why is it whenever we Ontarians stand up for ourselves we're accused of being un-Canadian," he said.

"That dog won't hunt. We won't be bullied or cowed into submission. We're talking here about an issue of fundamental fairness."

Ontario would get one MP for every 115,000 residents under the proposed changes, but McGuinty said all provinces should be on what he called "the Quebec standard" - one MP for every 105,000 people.

"B.C. is now going to grow to that standard, Alberta is now going to grow to that standard, but Ontario will be left with an injustice . . . and will stick out like a sore thumb," said McGuinty.

"That's unfair, and there's no way to justify that."

Alberta will get five additional seats in Parliament under the proposed changes while B.C. will get seven more.

McGuinty said he was pleased that Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to address the problem, but complained that Ontario was still being shortchanged.

"The problem, of course, is that while he's determined to fix things entirely for B.C. and Alberta by giving them the appropriate number of seats, he's not prepared to do that for Ontario," said McGuinty.

"He's only going to provide us with a half-measure."

Van Loan said McGuinty should be pleased that Ontario would get 10 more seats under the Conservatives' bill because if there were no changes to the formula, Ontario would get only four additional members of Parliament.

Ontario also complained Wednesday that Ottawa was failing to live up to a two-year-old, federal-provincial agreement on help for new immigrants to Canada's largest province.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Michael Chan said the Conservatives were over $100 million behind on payments, which go to agencies that help new immigrants settle in Ontario, not to the provincial government.

"This is funding the federal government promised to provide directly to newcomer agencies to province the settlement and language training services that are vital to helping newcomers find work in Ontario," said Chan.

About 125,000 new immigrants arrive in Ontario every year, about half of all newcomers to Canada.