(Montreal) The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, is asking the Commission on the Boundaries of Federal Electoral Districts not to eliminate a riding from the Gaspé region, in the name, among other things, of the necessary preservation of the weight of regions.
Posted at 10:57 a.m.
Updated at 12:21 p.m.
The Bloc leader testified at the public hearings of the commission on Tuesday in Montreal, thus defending the riding of Avignon-La Métis-Matane-Matapédia, which is threatened with extinction for demographic reasons.
Before the commission, he pleaded that the only criterion of statistics should not be enough to determine the survival of a constituency, otherwise we would not need a commission to look into the appropriateness of such decisions.
If we only stupidly apply the statistical criterion, we fall into the vicious circle of “the less there are people, the less there is weight and the less there is weight, the fewer people there are”. , he argued.
His plea
“We must preserve the weight of the regions of Quebec which are nourishing, in addition of course to being the base of energy production, extraction of natural resources. They must be recognized for their essential role and their voice must be heard”, he first pleaded.
He also invoked the argument of respecting the boundaries of Regional County Municipalities (RCM), institutions represented by elected officials and which are just as important as Quebec and Canadian institutions.
Also, he raised the criterion of the specificity of Quebec within Canada, which was recognized as a nation.
“I mischievously suspect that my colleagues in the House of Commons who voted for the recognition of the Quebec nation hoped that we would go to another call and that it would be a hollow symbol. It will not arrive. We will keep up the pressure so that it makes sense, ”he said.
“And that makes sense. This means that not only should Quebec have a minimum number of seats, not in number, but in percentage to preserve its weight, but it is also necessary that within the territory of Quebec, the number of seats that we could be laid out with a certain singularity, because indeed, there is a nation, with its differences, its identity, its regions, its challenges which flourishes on this territory, “he said. still supported.