Hello everyone. Thank you for having us at this important meeting.
It was a shock to us all to find out that the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Quebec 2022 was planning to repeat the historical error of creating the riding of Jonquière—Alma. Let me read you an excerpt from a letter we received after this news came out. We forwarded it to the committee as well.
No one saw this recommendation coming, and it has caused an uproar among residents and among the elected officials who would be directly affected. Why? Because it's NOT A GOOD IDEA! This proposal would make an already thorny situation even more complicated... Although the name Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean makes it sound like one big region, it's important to bear in mind that it's made up of two separate entities: Saguenay and Lac‑Saint‑Jean. Each entity has its own communities of interest and its own major cities. Alma is one such city; even I personally refer to it as the capital of Lac-Saint-Jean. Lumping Alma and Jonquière together would exacerbate a complicated situation that would just make life harder for everyone. Both for local residents and for the MP.
Who do you think wrote that letter? It was Jean‑Pierre Blackburn, the former ambassador of Canada to UNESCO, former Conservative minister and, most importantly, former MP for Jonquière—Alma. Mr. Blackburn is the person who represented this short-lived riding the longest in the House of Commons, a riding many describe as a historical error.
Let me read you an excerpt from another letter we received.
Imagine how surprised, how flabbergasted, we were when we found out on February 1 that the Commission is now planning to repeat a historical error and add the town of Alma to the riding of Jonquière. We thought this mistake had been fixed in 2013, which is not so long ago. Imagine how surprised, flabbergasted and above all mystified we were by this news, because we had specifically cited the historical error of Alma—Jonquière as an example in our written submission. The idea of going back to that electoral map defies all logic and was not included in the proposals at the public hearings.
That letter came from the Mayor of Alma, Sylvie Beaumont. At the hearings in September, Ms. Beaumont spoke out against the commission's first proposal. Even without being consulted on the proposal we are faced with today, the City of Alma, as well as several other people who spoke at the September hearings, held up the riding of Jonquière—Alma as an example of a mistake that would affect political representation.
Here is the final nail in the coffin. The commission proposal we are looking at today is based purely on one resident's submission. That submission contained several suggestions for redrawing the electoral boundaries of Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean, including one suggestion to resurrect the riding of Jonquière—Alma. I want to read you an excerpt from another letter we got after this news came out.
To whom it may concern: My name is Marc Perron and I live in the region of Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean. ... I am deeply disappointed to see which option was selected...and I bitterly regret having suggested it. I would like to officially retract that suggestion.
To recap, the MP who represented that former riding the longest is opposed to bringing it back. The City of Alma, the city that would be most affected by this change, is opposed to bringing it back. Several elected officials who spoke at the hearings in September 2022 cited Jonquière—Alma as an example of a mistake that should never be repeated. Lastly, the suggestion that the commissioners relied on to draft the proposal that brings us here today has been retracted by the person who made it.
In closing, we know that, if all the members approve the commission's proposal, it's more likely to be adopted. Knowing that the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, Mr. Richard Martel, supported the commissioners' first proposal, my colleague from Jonquière and I are reluctantly joining him in endorsing that first proposal, because we know that resurrecting Jonquière—Alma would be even worse.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.