Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my question of the hon. member for Champlain. The Liberal government has decided to amend the legislation, because we all know that this legislation was supposed to be neutral and protect the chief electoral officer from the actions of politicians, so that they cannot interfere in his work. Then, with this legislation, they have decided to change the effective date of the new electoral boundaries. Thus, the new electoral map was to have come into force one year after it was published in the Canada Gazette , but that is not the case.
We are told that one major criterion was population. In fact, the carefully calculated average for Quebec is 96,250 people. Why has no one realized that in order to represent the people, we must consider not only the number of inhabitants but also the size of the territory?
In this respect, I would like my hon. colleague to use his riding as an example to demonstrate that population is not the only way to measure an area, but that the extent of the land it occupies also plays a role.