Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the electoral boundaries act, it is really quite interesting. Every 10 years we have to mandate it. We look at whether the population has increased or decreased and boundaries shift significantly. That is what has happened now.
We do not have a problem with that necessarily. This is something that is good. It helps with democracy. It helps with making sure that some ridings do not get too many individuals in them, where one member in the House would have a disproportionate number of people than another. I think that is very appropriate, but that is all in place.
The population of Canada has increased and this time I think another seven seats are being proposed under the new piece of legislation. As the boundaries are shifted around, there will be another seven seats in the House. We do not have a problem with that. The deadline was set out. It was there. We do not see any need whatsoever for the changing of that date to be moved forward to April.
Why put this legislation in place because of electoral expediency and because of the government's agenda to rush to the polls? That is playing politics with the will of the population. That is very unacceptable and it is inappropriate that we do so.
The democratic process is set. We have always said in our party that the day we win an election is the day we should call an election so we are not playing this silly game. Now we are moving the date up from some time in July or August to April 1. I am saying that is absolutely ridiculous that we move that date up. For what?
We have a government that should govern for a while. Let us let it govern for a while and then go to the polls. Let us see if Canadians will respect the Liberals' wish and re-elect them as the governing party of the nation. To go before it has a chance and to bring forward legislation and to ram it through is absolutely repugnant. It goes against any kind of democratic deficit rhetoric that we have heard in the last few days by the government.
That is something the government is going to have to wear as we go into the election and it tries to jam the election down the throats of Canadians.