Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dear colleagues, I thank the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for having me here today.
I will take advantage of the forum I have been offered to explain my strong opposition to the redistribution proposal presented by the committee to which this important task was assigned. This is quite serious and, given the speaking time I am allotted, I will get straight to the point.
The proposal to decrease the political weight of the regions by eliminating the riding of Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia has to be reversed, since that would reduce the number of federal ridings between Montmagny and the Magdalen Islands to three from four. This is a frontal attack on the representativeness of our regions. To be perfectly honest, I have to say that I take strong issue with this. Even with the attempt to justify the proposal by saying that the population quotas have to be balanced, it doesn't pass the field test.
The realities of life in our region go well beyond columns of figures. The mayors and wardens who have long memories remember this. Until the 1960s, we had seven ridings between Montmagny and the Magdalen Islands. Since then, the redistributions have unfortunately caused an even greater lack of representativeness in eastern Quebec.
As if that is not enough, it is being proposed today that the number of ridings be reduced to three from four—and yet, let me remind you, the area covered has not shrunk. The federal government can keep making big speeches about the services offered in rural areas and the importance of revitalizing our part of the country, but they mean nothing if nothing is done to stop this. Nothing could be simpler: the political weight of whole regions is being wiped out, bit by bit. People who don't live where we do and may have never set foot there will be deciding the policies that affect us. They will be able to decide issues as crucial as how natural resources are to be exploited, and about agriculture, tourism development, fresh air, and heritage. We cannot agree to this. Worse still, eliminating an entire riding would mean reducing the service centres and riding offices people have access to. These are crucial things for people living outside urban centres. These services make it possible to help people who suffer the failures of the federal government and give a voice to the many people the federal machine has left by the wayside. Reducing these services would have a disastrous effect for the most vulnerable among us.
The Commission is using the declining population observed in recent years to justify its proposal. But it is forgetting something: the positive net migration levels observed in the the Gaspé and Lower St. Lawrence regions in the past few years. The advent of teleworking, pressure on the property market in the big cities, and the desire to be closer to nature have prompted numerous households, including a number of young families, to settle in the regions, outside urban centres. That is a golden opportunity to promote our regions; we have to seize that opportunity, not lessen, diminish or erase those regions.
There is a simple, legal solution. Under subsection 15(2) of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, the ridings of Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia and Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine must be granted exceptional status, in order to preserve the status quo. I say this in all honesty: any other solution will be fatal for the interests of the people of the Lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands. This will hurt the development of our territories.
Madam Chair, I will close by saying this. When political voices outside urban centres are stifled, rural Quebec as a whole is weakened. It is our heritage, our roots, our identity and our lower St. Lawrence values that will be wiped out.