Mr. Speaker, to begin with, since this is my first chance to speak in 2004, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to wish you, and all the people of Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel I have not had a chance to see over the holiday season, as well as all the people of Quebec, and all the people of Canada, a very happy, healthy and fulfilling 2004.
Today I am fortunate to be able to discuss the government motion to reinstate bills. I say fortunate, but it is not an easy task, given the situation.
I am going to try to explain to Quebeckers and Canadians the approach the government is taking to reinstate bills that ought to have been passed in the last session. It is simple. Why are we obliged to have such a motion to reinstate bills? Quite simply because the government, when Mr. Chrétien was in charge, decided in November to prorogue the House and end parliamentary debate. Why? Because there was a new leader of the Liberal Party, a new Prime Minister waiting in the wings.
The decision was made to prorogue because they were thinking that perhaps some outsiders might want to join their group, or who knows what else they had in mind. All we know is that we MPs have been unable to engage in any debate in this House since November 2003. We resumed only on Monday of this week. So, for close to three months, members have been unable to debate bills some considered important. The proof of this is that the government now wants to reinstate them on the Order Paper and in the debates of this House.
Yet, if they were all that important, why did they prorogue the House, when here we are back today with the same members as before. Some have played musical chairs, but there have not been any changes. It is still the same good old group of Liberals running this government.
They made quite a to-do about it. Debates adjourned, members were all sent home, then three months later, this week, today, along they come with a motion aimed at resuming debate on bills we should have debated in the last session, bills that ought surely to have passed.
And that is where we have a problem. The public does not know all that we members of Parliament have to go through. We are here to serve the interests of our constituents, to be present in the House and to debate bills. That is why the people elect us. We are here to represent them and to pass laws to improve the lot of the people of Quebec. That is how the people express themselves; that is democracy. The people send their representatives here to defend their interests and discuss improvements to legislation, to make it more reasonable.
Today, we are debating, discussing and dithering about bills that ought to have been passed in November. That is a very important point in this debate. When bills are reinstated on the Order Paper, the government is very careful to say that it does not want all the bills reinstated, even though some have been tabled. Obviously, this is a question of timing. It was necessary to prorogue the House in November, not to have any debate by the members on these bills, and not to resume sitting until February, and to top it off, we have a Prime Minister who had decided, even before he became leader of the Liberal Party, that there would be an election in April.
Obviously, he was using the House to introduce his bills in September and October, so he could hold an election in April. Among those bills is C-49, on electoral boundaries readjustment. I dare say there was only one non-partisan process in this House and that was the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. Every 10 years, the electoral boundaries are readjusted. That legislation is drafted in such a way that the new electoral boundaries take effect one year after the proclamation of the act.
In the instance before us, the date was August 26, 2003, in accordance with the act that was passed in previous sessions of Parliament, by other hon. members who sat in this House before me, and whom I respect. That is democracy. Other hon. members in this House passed a non-partisan law that says that the electoral boundaries will change every 10 years because the population changes, for one thing. The act is constructed so that there can be no partisan use made of it by any party, particularly the party in power, which, right now, is the Liberal Party. This law must not be used for political purposes.
The Prime Minister, former finance minister, decided to do the opposite of everything that had been passed by other parliamentarians before us in this House. He decided to amend the electoral boundaries legislation so that it would come into effect before the intended one year had elapsed.
That is the hard reality. We end up with Bill C-49 that the government would like reinstated since it is on the list the government leader submitted and read earlier. This bill is entitled an act respecting the effective date of the representation order of 2003. It is straightforward. Rather than take effect on August 26, 2004, this legislation will take effect on April 1.
This will have certain consequences. Legislation was passed and it was non-partisan. In this case, if an election is held in the spring, the application of the new electoral map effective April 1 will penalize Quebec. Before the redistribution, Quebec had 75 ridings out of 301 and now it will have 75 out of 308. That is the cold hard reality.
Legislation was passed by other parliamentarians present in this House before us. They had decided that in order to avoid partisanship, the new electoral map would come into effect one year after the order.
The government, the Prime Minister and former finance minister, were well aware that if he wanted to use the new electoral map, he would have to wait until after August 26, 2004 to call an election. He did not do that. He decided to use his power, the power of the Liberal members in this House, to pass legislation to move up the effective date of the electoral map. If an election is held between April and August, this would effectively reduce Quebec's political weight in the next Parliament. That is the reality.
The Prime Minister goes around with new candidates whom he introduces to us as proof that Quebec will have increasingly greater influence and a role to play in Canada. Yet, the first bill he passes will reduce the percentage of members from Quebec in this House compared to the rest of Canada, if an election is called in the spring. Our political strength will go from 25% to 24%. That is the simple reality.
It will come as no surprise that the Bloc Quebecois opposes the effective date of this legislation. We agree with the legislation adopted. If the government wants to use an amended electoral map, it will have to call an election after August 26, 2004. It is as simple as that. We are prepared to play according to the rules of democracy and the legislation in force in this Parliament when the Bloc Quebecois arrived. It is no more complicated than that. We do not want to change anything, we simply want to play the game. That is why we were elected.
As the saying goes, people have to run with the pack. That is what the BQ is doing: we are running with the pack. Unfortunately, some people decide to use things to their own advantage and to tamper with the legislation so as to organize their own election. That is what the Prime Minister, the former finance minister, did. He tried to use the legislation so as to be able to hold an election using a new electoral map, under which he would have greater influence in Ontario and other Canadian provinces. That is his choice; he is the one who made that decision.
However, it is understandable if we do not agree. It is even more vile when various changes are appended to the legislation and the redistribution of the electoral map. For example, there are changes to the riding names.
This affects me personally. The representatives of the chief electoral officer, who conducted detailed studies and visited the ridings, came to change the name of Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel to Trois-Seigneuries, a name all the local stakeholders objected to.
We decided to contest it. It was a simple request: let my riding keep the name Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel since the neighbouring riding on the opposite side of the river in Ontario, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, had retained its name. It was entitled to three names.
For us on the west side, or the other side of the river, the chief electoral officer had decided there would not be three. There would be only two names for my riding, Argenteuil—Mirabel, and the name Papineau would be dropped.
Those who know a little about history, whether of Quebec or even Canada, know that Louis-Joseph Papineau held a seat in the federal Parliament and made speeches there. History buffs also know that Louis-Joseph Papineau was seigneur of the Petite Nation and leader of the Parti Patriote.
One of the RCMs that is in my riding in its entirety is the Papineau RCM. Indeed there are three full RCMs and a few partial ones. Nevertheless, the RCMs of Mirabel, Argenteuil and Papineau are in my riding in their entirety.
It was perfectly normal for the name of the riding to reflect the geopolitical and geographic reality. Since the government had hauled out its steamroller and decided to move up the implementation date for the new electoral map, which also changed the names, we as parliamentarians requested that the name Papineau be reinstated with Argenteuil and Mirabel. This request was granted. It was called Bill C-53.
I was not alone. There were other members in this Parliament who found that the names of the ridings did not reflect the geopolitical reality or did not represent what the public wanted.
Some 38 MPs managed to get authorization from this Parliament. A bill to this effect was passed and received approval from this House after being read three times and sent to the Senate. It was tied up along with other bills, including Bill C-49 for which the Conservative Party of Canada put forward an amendment earlier.
But these bills ended up paralyzed by prorogation. Today we are told—and I am most surprised to hear it from the leader—that the list of bills to be reinstated does not include Bill C-53, which changes the names of certain electoral districts. I am totally thunderstruck.
They can change the effective date of the representation order, but not reinstate Bill C-53. We think they will bring it back, but the name change cannot be done before April 1.
The Liberal government is talking about taking part in star wars, about contributing to a Mars project, yet is incapable, in three months, of changing 38 names on the electoral map and on the files of the chief electoral officer.
There is something aberrant and incomprehensible about this in the eyes of the public. The reality is that the government chooses what suits it. It is as simple as that. What does not suit it will not get through this House. And at the present time, it does not suit the Liberal Party to have the names of 38 ridings changed before the next election.
I do not want to hear from a delegation headed by the government House leader that the chief electoral officer could not have done this before the next election. If he cannot, let them get a new chief electoral officer. It is as simple as that. And let the new chief Electoral officer be mandated to change the 38 names of electoral districts, 38 out of 308. This is not such a big deal, not such a major upheaval, when we know how things can be done nowadays by computer. That is the reality.
Once again, they are going to try to get 38 ridings to swallow that. Why is this bill not passed? It is quite simply a matter of time. Today is February 6, and obviously there is likely to be an election call in early April, as soon as the law allows, because if C-49 is passed as the government wants, the new map will take effect on April 1. So the Prime Minister cannot call an election before that. Once that is done, there will be an election call in the early days of April.
A budget will be brought down soon, which means that there will be discussions on the budget. We just had a throne speech which, by the way, was monotonously boring, as redundant as that may sound, so much so that even the media did not pay any attention to it. Therefore, the government must hurry to present its budget to try to have something that people will be interested in.
I read in some newspapers that should the new budget not be well received by the public, the government would consider postponing the date of the election. This is how things work.