Mr. Speaker, I was anxious to rise and speak on Bill C-18, a bill that proposes a review of electoral boundaries. I must say that the current proposals for readjustment are very favourable to my riding of Québec-Est, since it would add to it the beautiful town of Loretteville. Québec-Est is a rather large riding with about 80,000 voters, which also includes the two small municipalities of Vanier and Ancienne-Lorette. They are within the territory of Quebec City, the capital of the future country of Quebec. It is entirely logical to add Loretteville to the riding of Québec-Est.
One of my problems is with the name Québec-Est, because the riding is not on the east side of Quebec City, but rather to the northwest. The name has been kept for the sake of tradition, because the riding has a long history. Several Prime Ministers were born in that riding and at least one has represented it. This is a riding I love, a riding I am proud to represent.
I have no objection to taking Loretteville, that would be an asset for the riding. Québec-Est does not have the ski runs of the Laurentians, we do not have the Rockies, we do not have any geographical feature which would set us apart, but we have a quality of people second to none in Quebec or Canada. It is important to talk of the quality of the people, because a riding links groups together, and in this case it links three municipalities which work well together, and have a special drive because of the quality of the people.
In the town of Ancienne-Lorette-a town I like, and where I live-there is a group called Solidarité Emplois . It was set up by two retired persons, Mr. Dubé and Mr. Déry who said: ``We are fed up with unemployment. We are not going to wait for the Liberal Party to do something, because when the time comes to create employment you don't wait for the government. We are going to act now''.
These people have put in place a program called "Solidarité-Emploi". They have brought together a number of volunteers and have made representations to find unemployed people in the city of L'Ancienne-Lorette. With the assistance of volunteers, they have found some employers and served as contacts between the employers and the unemployed. This is what a number of people in L'Ancienne-Lorette, in my riding of Québec-Est, have achieved.
This is an example of the quality of the people who live in Québec-Est. Surely we could add the city of Loretteville because I have no objection to this revision of the electoral map.
The other example comes from the town of Vanier. The town of Vanier is completely surrounded by Quebec City. This is a small municipality which is pretty dynamic. Vanier also has its own problems of unemployment, among others. Perhaps it is one of the municipalities which has to struggle the most against unemployment and yet, it surprisingly shows lots of dynamism.
There is a particular organization called "l'ADEC-V". We still have volunteers, some good citizens of Vanier, who campaign every year to raise funds to help people on welfare and give Christmas gifts and food baskets to the needy.
In this group called l'ADEC-V run by a certain Mr. Lemoyne, there are 65 volunteers who carry on a whole series of activities all year round.