Mr. Speaker, place names like Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies and Sainte-Louise-des-Aulnaies help me answer the hon. member's question. A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to meet with mayors of that regional county municipality.
Our discussions dealt with the decentralization requested by various regions in Quebec. To go to that meeting, I had to travel 75 kilometres through the regional county municipality which includes those two communities, at one end of my riding.
That shows that having a larger territory would not be a suitable solution, because we already have to cover a very large territory.
However, I would like to suggest another solution. I think the hon. member for Bellechasse will agree. We realize that double representation should be eliminated because it serves no purpose. Today, we have federal MPs and provincial MNAs whose ridings overlap and whose jurisdictions overlap also. One never knows who is responsible for what. When people come to us in our ridings, the last thing they want to know about is whether their question concerns a federal or a provincial jurisdiction. The only thing they know is they want to see their member.
This is what Quebecers came to realize. A great many of them, over 70 per cent of Quebecers according to the polls, would like to deal with only one member of Parliament, someone who would represent them at a National Parliament in Quebec City and who could probably be sent to the joint Parliamentary assembly in Canada to make suggestions on how to manage the partnership between Quebec and Canada once Quebec has opted for sovereignty.
We would then be able to reduce a lot of the unnecessary costs and settle many of the problems we currently have. As federal MPs, if we have to call a provincial MLA who is not a member of our own party, we find it a bit awkward. Oftentimes, when our constituents come to us, they do not know if they will be able to find a solution to their problem at one level or the other. It is up to us to try to find out if there are provincial or federal programs that can be helpful to them. I think this is where we have a problem.
Finally, I want to say that in a region like mine, the riding of Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, as well as in the riding of Bellechasse and all along the shores of the St. Lawrence, home to the only French-speaking community in North America, where a lot of Lévesques, Pelletiers, Ouellets are living-