Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the member for Mississauga South, who raises a lot of really valid points.
I would like him to comment on the process. We as members of Parliament know best what is going on within our ridings. The two issues I would like him to comment on are the issues of community of interest and community of identity.
I am a rural member of Parliament and in fact the past chair of rural caucus. I was very happy that the commission listened to my concerns and in fact acted on them, but the point is that the reality within Canada right now is this: 80% of the population lives on 20% of the land and 20% of the population lives on 80% of the land. From that aspect, we can see that when the ridings are being put together we have an urban core, and the commission is cutting and pasting rural parts of the riding onto that urban core.
It is difficult for urban members of Parliament to deal with rural issues like agriculture if they have never ever had to deal with them before in their lives. The flip side for rural members coming in is that we can come up to speed when dealing with urban issues because, quite frankly, we have those same issues in rural municipalities. They are just not quite as large or as intense as they are in larger urban centres.
The commission, I believe, has to involve the member of Parliament more on the issues of community of identity and community of interest before it draws up these boundaries instead of just using boundaries and population numbers.