Mr. Speaker, I am going to tell you about Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, which was previously the riding of Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia. I will come back to that a little later.
I am very pleased to be speaking about this matter today. I was listening to the speeches by my leader and my House leader this morning, and it was music to my ears to hear them stand up for Quebec. I feel sorry for our poor Conservative colleagues who are again going to listen to us defending Quebec and the nation that it is, because that is essentially the topic of the day.
As my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot was saying, since 2006, we have been reminding the House that Quebeckers form a nation. The House reiterated it last June, when it acknowledged that Quebec forms a nation, and that French is its only official and common language. I believe that when acknowledging this unity and this desire to live together also means acknowledging that we aspire and have the right to a certain form of self-determination and control over our social, economic and cultural development.
As long as Quebec is part of Canada, our nationhood has real political implications. In order for consideration of our nationhood to be embedded in the political decisions made in the House of Commons, it is absolutely essential that we have the political weight to express it.
I am particularly interested in today's topic because my riding was targeted during the last electoral redistribution 10 years ago. As in 2012, the Chief Electoral Officer, or CEO, proposed a new redistribution of seats last October. This redistribution would add four seats in total but would take one seat away from Quebec, dropping our seat allocation from 78 to 77. This would be the first time since 1970 that a province would lose a seat in the House of Commons. I think that is totally unacceptable.
The only way to avoid this would be to change the formula for calculating the number of MPs and their distribution per province, in order to protect Quebec. Earlier, the member for Drummond introduced a bill in the House to guarantee that the number of members from Quebec cannot be less than 25% of the total number of members. I am sure that he explained the ins and outs of the nation clause that we want to integrate.
The principle we are asking the House to adopt today is simple. We want to protect Quebec's political weight. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could be against this. I said that it was important for me to speak. It is not just Quebec's voice that is being weakened, but the voice of eastern Quebec as well.
I want to look back at 2012, when the last boundary changes were made. Members for the region stood together to speak out against the elimination of a riding in our area of the country because that is what was proposed: to eliminate the riding that I represent today. The reasons were essentially based on demographics, since the population of the riding was less than the new quotient of about 101,000 residents that was established at the time.
The Chief Electoral Officer tried to balance the population counts of the eastern Quebec ridings with the Quebec average by eliminating that riding. The federal electoral boundaries commission for Quebec proposed expanding the boundaries of the already extremely large riding of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques and those of the riding of Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine to make two huge ridings and thus eliminate the riding of Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.
That would have created two geographically huge ridings, which would become two of the most heavily populated ridings in Quebec. The MPs at the time—Guy Caron, the NDP member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, François Lapointe, the NDP member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, and Jean-François Fortin, the Bloc Québécois MP for Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, a predecessor to whom I send my regards, presented a brief to the commission to show how terrible of an idea it was to do away with a rural riding.
I got that brief off the shelf and dusted it off because it contains some arguments that are still valid today and that, unfortunately, prove that there is a chance we might end up in the same situation we were in 10 years ago. Eastern Quebec may be targeted and lose its political weight in the House of Commons.
I want to review what happened. Fortunately, in 2012, my riding did not disappear. If it had, I would not be here, obviously. They just redrew the riding boundaries. We ended up losing Haute‑Gaspésie and gaining part of Chaleur Bay, which is way over on the other side of the peninsula. That led to pointless confusion with people trying to figure out who their MP was every few years. Calling on one's federal MP is not an everyday occurrence. The outcome was a victory for MPs in the region who fought to retain their voters.
I would like to go over the reasons why I think rural ridings should not be changed. For one, the territory is huge. My riding alone is almost 15,000 square kilometres. It covers two administrative regions, four regional county municipalities, 56 municipalities and two indigenous communities. It is big, and that makes for challenges that are entirely unlike those associated with urban ridings even though our ridings are a little less populous.
In rural areas, MPs must deal with multiple interests and build a consensus to ensure a certain cohesion of regional points of view. In a riding like mine, when a debate involves the interests of the region, I have to consult my 56 mayors, my four reeves, my two indigenous leaders, the four chambers of commerce and all the agricultural and economic unions, and everything else that is part of it. Everyone deserves to be heard, but covering such a large area comes with certain challenges.
It is a whole different ball game in an urban riding, where some of my colleagues are dealing with a single mayor or a single provincial member. It is not at all the same.
I think that we must be respectful of natural communities, the boundaries of administrative regions and RCMs. We must not split them up. That is just what the 2021 redistribution proposed: splitting up the RCMs. I think we have to be aware of the realities that come with living in a certain political region, whether at the municipal, provincial or federal level. People in a given municipality or other local district are going to form economic, social and political ties just by virtue of sharing the same political community.
People often try to justify these redistributions based on demographic forecasts that show a new urban design based densification rather than sprawl. I understand that, but I think it is a bit excessive to base the redistribution on 20-year forecasts, when the boundary review exercise has to be done every 10 years anyway.
In addition, the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspé regions saw positive net migration in 2021 for the first time in 20 years. I think that also needs to be taken into consideration. It is not the same phenomenon as before. Perhaps this can be viewed as a positive effect of the pandemic, which has allowed people to move to the regions thanks to teleworking, so that also needs to be taken into consideration.
I would also like to mention the importance of constituency offices in a region like mine. I may be one of the few federal MPs who have four constituency offices. The reason is simple. My riding is so huge that it would make no sense for someone from Carleton-sur-Mer to drive two hours to be able to get service at the Amqui office, or for the people of Mont-Joli to drive for an hour to get to the Matane office. That would be ridiculous. It is important to me to be able to deliver services to them.
Riding offices lend a human face to politics and bring people closer to elected officials. In a way, it is the front line, the first point of contact where we attempt to remedy the failures of the big federal machine. The number of immigration and employment insurance cases dealt with every week by riding offices proves that we need to provide this service to the public.
I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the work of my very dear colleagues at my riding office: Ariane, Marjolaine and Ghislain. Without them, I would definitely not be able to do this job, and the problems of many people in my riding would not be solved.
I am going to go straight to my closing remarks as I see that my time is running out.
The 2012 brief concluded as follows: Rural living is not a recognized constitutional right. It is a way of life, an economy, a set of values and interests which, in and of themselves, have a constitutional right to expression through the right to vote equity.
With these words, I will implore my colleagues from all parties to accept the idea that, for all the reasons I have just given, Quebec's voice, and especially the voice of eastern Quebec, must not be weakened.
