Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You are quite right and I applaud your great wisdom! I was coming to that. I was going to make the connection between these eminent individuals who live in the riding of Québec-Est and stress with great emphasis how important it is not to change the electoral map
without thinking about it for a while. As we well know, it could have disastrous effects.
In the past, it had disastrous effects and because of changes in the electoral map, people had to get used to a new riding. As we know, it takes years to build a riding such as Québec-Est.
I do not disagree with the planned electoral boundaries readjustment since in my case, Loretteville would be added to my riding, and I welcome this change.
It is obvious that reviewing electoral boundaries takes much longer than 12 months; it takes at least two years. And it requires a lot of serious thinking. We know that the only reason why the Reform Party is putting forward this motion to conduct this review in 12 months is because it wants to take advantage of these changes as soon as possible. Twelve months. In the next election, they could even-As we know, they hope to win more seats.
At any rate, I submit that it takes a minimum of two years to review any changes in the electoral boundaries and that it would give the Reform Party a bit more time to refine its parliamentary strategies so that in two years, when those changes are made, it might actually win more seats. As it stands today, should an election be called, it could lose some of its most important members.
In conclusion, I would say that this bill is very important and that we need at least 24 months to make sure that the readjustment process is fair and equitable. I thank you for your attention.