Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-49. My hon. colleague from Saint-Jean made an excellent speech earlier, as did my hon. colleague from Champlain. I have no doubt that my hon. colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel will also be able to make a strong case with regard to the effective date of this bill, especially since it will have a direct impact on him.
The bill before us seeks to move up the effective date of the new electoral map by six months. The fundamental question behind this bill concerns democracy. It is the very heart of democracy.
Our democracy is what I would call sick. With each passing election, fewer and fewer voters exercise their right to vote, so fundamental to a democracy, and to elect members to represent them in this Parliament or any other parliament in this country.
With this bill, the government is once again making a mockery of democracy. This should be a normal process. It should not be meddled with; it should be apolitical. The electoral boundaries readjustment follows the creation of travelling commissions that go to each region to hear what people have to say. Then, every ten years, after each census, the electoral map is redrawn in an effort to ensure the ridings correspond to the real interests of the people. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
In Quebec, during the last electoral boundaries readjustment, the commission did the best job it could based on the criteria it had to respect. However, with all the conditions imposed on it, its job was almost impossible.
My area is a good example. My hon. colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel came to visit during a storm. He experienced the terrible weather in the Gaspé and the Lower St. Lawrence. He arrived during a snow storm.
I would just like to point out that the two centres in my region where the commission met, that is Gaspé and Rivière-du-Loup, are 600 kilometres apart. This gives some idea of what was being asked of the people who wanted to be heard by it. People had to travel 300 kilometres each way. In other words, a trip of 600 kilometres in order to be heard in a democracy like ours. In this supposedly rich country, people are being made to travel 600 kilometres in order to be heard by a commission on electoral boundaries, a commission whose job it is to apply the most fundamental of the laws of this country: the legislation governing representation.
As far as the process or the commission itself is concerned, I do not really have any comments to make. The only thing I would like to say is that in actual fact people were deprived of their right to come before the commission and express their views. They could do so, of course, but if it had sat at various places instead of two places 600 kilometres apart, perhaps more people could have been able and happy to have their views heard.
Looking at my colleague from Champlain, who spoke a while ago, he too was in my region last week and saw what it is like. This summer he visited the Îles de la Madeleine, and saw the distances involved. The riding is huge.
I think that if we really wanted to bring about changes in our democracy, we would change the underlying principle of electoral district boundaries. More consideration should be given to the distances involved. More consideration should be given to MPs' ability to represent their constituents properly, that is to be more accessible to them, by having electoral districts that made more sense, in my opinion.
We also need to remember what has already happened in our region. The initial proposal was to do away with one more riding, as was done in 1993 in the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspé, when boundaries were being revised.
At the time, we lost the federal riding of Bonaventure—Îles-de-la-Madeleine. There was talk of eliminating another riding and creating an absolutely immense area. It would have been inhuman for an MP to try to properly represent the people, given their interests and given that the communities involved had practically no economic or cultural link.
With respect to Gaspésie and the Lower St. Lawrence, there is a major difference in terms of economy, culture, consumer habits and climate. The difference is tremendous.
Again, there was talk of eliminating a riding. However, through their participation and determination, people were able to persuade the commission to change its mind and keep the ridings that we had, or at least the same number of ridings. Unfortunately, the legislation did not allow us to keep the ridings and make an exception by having smaller ridings in terms of population, but larger in terms of area.
The result was that a regional county municipality was added to the riding of Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, making it bigger. Add in the Îles-de-la-Madeleine and you get an idea of the work that lies ahead for the Bloc Quebecois MPs who represent this riding after the next election.