Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and through you I'd like to thank the minister and departmental officials for being here today.
It's tough because Mr. Kmiec actually asked a few of the questions I was hoping to ask.
As a member of Parliament from Quebec, it was very important to me that Quebec not lose a seat. I know that when we had conversations in the Quebec caucus, it was just not an option that Quebec would lose a seat in terms of representation. In terms of Bill C-14, it looks like we are doing what we've done in the past. In the 33rd Parliament and in 2011, we made that little tweak, the adjustment, the small amendment to make sure that seats were not lost.
In the previous panel, one of my colleagues mentioned that this is like a band-aid solution. We have to fix this, and every few years we go through this situation where we're looking at the census data, we're looking at where we are and we keep making those small amendments.
I'm going to ask a question that probably my colleagues are not hoping I'll ask, but is it time that we also start looking at, for instance, what the Bloc has proposed, which is that we increase Quebec's representation or guarantee the 25%, which I believe will require a constitution-amending formula?
Do we need to look at opening up the Constitution to start thinking about the different ways that we are preparing representation across Canada, whether it be the seats in the House of Commons or in the Senate? Could you elaborate a little bit? Thank you.