Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak on behalf of the official opposition, the Bloc Quebecois, a sovereignist party in Ottawa, on a matter of such importance as Bill C-69 entitled an Act to provide for the establishment of electoral boundaries commissions and the readjustment of electoral boundaries.
Why is it an honour for me to speak at this stage? Because, once again, and I invite the government to listen carefully, I have the opportunity to defend the interests of Quebec, so long overlooked by the system.
Furthermore, I have another opportunity to express one of Quebec's traditional demands in this House. I have another opportunity to criticize the big guns in the system and attack the positions held by those across the floor for whom Lord Durham's report would still appear to be bedtime reading. The strategy, of course, has changed. The federal government has become more sophisticated. Things are more subtle now. Gone are the days of the great exploits to assimilate Quebecers.
The approach now is to chip away at Quebec's rights and political weight whenever possible in order to better mix Quebecers in with the masses in English Canada. Bill C-69 is a fine example of this. I must say, though, that this bill is not all bad, on the contrary.
I am delighted by the amendments proposed to improve the mechanism for readjusting electoral boundaries. The main amendments are as follows. Changes to the electoral map following a decennial census will be adjusted five years later in order to avoid too much upheaval in electoral districts. Electoral districts may vary by some 25 per cent from the provincial quota. This is fine.
The provincial commissions will be required to get public input before starting their work. This is fine too. The provincial commissions will have to consider community of interest, the size of each district and foreseeable geographic changes in determining electoral boundaries. Finally, the provincial commissions will have to produce three draft maps and hold new hearings, as required.
These proposals are acceptable, perhaps even necessary if we do not wish to be faced with aberrations again, as with the planned new districts. Without dwelling too much on details, I would like to cite the example of the riding of Berthier-Montcalm which I have the honour of representing. During the last thirty years, this riding has been called successively Berthier-Maskinongé, Berthier-Maskinongé-Lanaudière, and finally the present designation of Berthier-Montcalm. If the proposed electoral division or redistribution plan had gone ahead, I do not know what new designation the devisors of the system would have come up with. If things went as planned, the riding would hardly have been recognizable.
Regional county municipalities would have been divided, natural business and service communities split up; one municipality would have been attached to a neighbouring riding with which it had no affinity, with absolutely no regard for the region's history, all in the interest of numerical consistency and uniform representation. In fact, it was the very epitome of Canadian federalism.
Several members of this House opposed this readjustment of electoral boundaries and rightly so. We were not dealing with apples and oranges. On the contrary, the very essence of the riding and its historical baggage were at issue here. Thus, it was necessary to be realistic, practical while at the same time ensuring that the member of Parliament could be efficient in his work. Unfortunately, legal provisions applicable in this regard did not allow for this rational redistribution.
The report prepared by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs included a number of elements and proposals for improving the representativeness and boundaries of electoral ridings. This is why the Bloc Quebecois was in favour of the preparation of this report. Many ideas were put forward, specifically the official opposition's proposal to include in this legislation a mechanism allowing Quebec to keep 25 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. Clearly, we could not in good faith vote against a traditional demand made by Quebec. The Bloc Quebecois regarded this as a fundamental element of this report and that is why we supported it.
However, the government is as usual systematically refusing to examine Canada's duality. It is postponing studying another traditional demand of the people of Quebec and is doing absolutely nothing to try to find a solution to the demand made. The bill resulting from this report includes only a tiny portion of its proposals. Indeed, Bill C-69 does not mandate a parliamentary committee with finding a solution to the problem of the erosion of Quebec's representation in the House of Commons. Worse still, Bill C-69 does not provide any guarantee whatsoever that the decline in the number of Quebec members in the House of Commons would be stopped. On the contrary, this bill maintains the formula set out in section 51 of the British North America Act, which weakens Quebec's influence within federal institutions.
Until Quebec decides on its future, and undoubtedly, it will vote in favour of sovereignty, you will understand that it is of the utmost importance that it maintain adequate representation within those institutions.
History has proven that despite the senatorial clause and the grandfathering clause, for the 127 years since it was founded, Quebec has been and still is the only province to have a smaller number of members of Parliament than it should get under representation by population.
Ontario, in contrast, was granted several extra seats at the beginning of the century. This eloquently demonstrates once again the double standard, and two occasions where the federal government has shown favouritism towards English Canada. Why should this surprise us; the tower of Pisa also always leans to the same side.
In this bill, the House fails to acknowledge that there are two founding peoples. The central government has been trying to forget this fact for 127 years too. Must I remind the House that Quebec is home to one of Canada's two founding peoples; Quebec is the cornerstone of French culture in the Americas; Quebec has its own separate culture; Quebec is the only French society surrounded by a sea of English; Quebec deserves and has legitimate claim to 25 per cent of all of the seats in the House of Commons.