Madam Speaker, of course I have considerable interest in speaking today, because my riding of Cochrane-Superior is in northern Ontario, and its survival is at stake.
I would first like to pay tribute to the committee chairman and to all of my colleagues who helped draft this report, which I would call apolitical. I attended a few meetings, and I must say in all sincerity that they have done a tremendous job. It was, however, a job that had to be done; it was inevitable, given the situation. First, the act dates from 1964; it bears no resemblance to the way Canada's current electoral map looks today.
On issues of representation, the report focuses significantly on the quotient, the variance of 25 per cent. This remains something that is very important for me, for the simple reason that, because of this quotient, large rural ridings in Canada will never be safe and will never have equal representation here in the House. I need only point out how far we have to travel to serve our constituents. This is our prime function, to serve people.
For example, if a riding like mine were abolished, according to the recommendation of the September report, the four surrounding ridings would simply become bigger. It would therefore simply increase the already excessive demands on each of these members, or rather on their resources, energy and ability to reach remote communities.
If I may be permitted to speak specifically about remote communities, my riding of Cochrane-Superior includes 21 Indian communities, 16 of which are north of the 49th parallel. For the most part, there are no roads leading to these communities, which means that when I want to go there, make myself available to them, I must charter a flight, which is extremely expensive but must be done. This then contradicts the Reform Party's argument that it is too expensive to have a great number of members in the House. This argument verges on being absurd.
What good will it do to increase, to double the population of such a riding while retaining the same member without giving him the resources, both human and financial, to carry out his work?
And what purpose will it serve to do away with many rural ridings only to increase the size of so-called urban ridings and thereby, as stated, make demands exceeding the members' resources and energy. More importantly, should this come about, it would be a direct attack on democracy, here in Canada, because all Canadians, wherever they live, have the right to be equally represented in the House of Commons.
I would of course like to reserve my main comments for the third reading of the bill once it is tabled.
These are the points I wanted to make at this time. I have not addressed the true substance of the report. I will wait for the bill to be tabled. At that time, I will be able to provide the statistics to back up what I have just said.
This report is not acceptable for northern Ontario, not at all. It is not acceptable at this time. I will therefore certainly table an amendment in the House, first and foremost to restore the schedule of ridings called "special" because of their geography. That has been removed from the report. I definitely intend to attempt to have it included again. I hope my colleagues will appreciate my purpose and will support me in this matter.