Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member's question, she is accusing us of aborting the process. Bill C-18 is designed to abort the process that has been in place and has worked for the last 30 years. I find it quite incredible that the hon. member would accuse us of trying to abort the process when the bill is designed to do exactly that.
Then the member made the point about the extra costs of more MPs. We are saying let us cap it. We have more than enough today. Let us put in motion a serious commitment from the House saying that 300 members are surely enough to get an informed debate in the House. That would be quite sufficient.
I address her last point about how the commissions are redrawing the boundaries even though there has been no increase in population. These people had the 1991 census figures to work from. Those are exactly the same figures the government would work from if it proposed to go ahead with Bill C-18. There may have been a population shift from one end of a city to another. I do not know, but that is what we paid these people to determine.
In her final point she mentioned the public hearing process. The public hearing process was about to start. They cut it right off before the public had an opportunity to say that it seemed a bit strange to redefine boundaries strictly for the sake of redefining them. Let us give the public the opportunity to say that. Maybe it will say that the recommendation by the commission is wonderful. If that is the case then let the public say it. Let us hear what the public has to say. That is the whole purpose of public hearings.