Mr. Speaker, it will be difficult to describe my riding in two minutes. I will barely have time to get started. Indeed, when I talk about democracy in action, it would be so easy to do that.
The member for Trois-Rivières represents the neighbouring riding. For example, he can very easily go around his riding in half a day and come back home for lunch. In my case, going around my riding requires a week of travel if I want to have time to stop in different places. Indeed, my riding covers 38,000 square kilometres. I think that it is the seventh largest riding in Canada. And I am not complaining when I say this.
However, when I meet people from Lac-Édouard, from Weymontachie or from Parent, they have every right to say to me, “Well, it seems that you do not come to see us very often. You should have consulted us on this or that. It seems that we do not carry much weight”. Indeed, when I explain to them that it takes me four hours to get there and four hours to go back home and that I sit here four and a half days a week, of course they understand that I do not have time to go and visit them. I agree with the question that I was just asked.
Why, in defining new electoral boundaries—and we could ask the commission to do things differently, it is up to us—is the size of the riding not taken into account, so that not only members would represent more or less the same number of voters, but each voter would be able to expect more or less the same services from his or her federal MP?