Gaspésie does not intend to lose its electoral weight without first putting up a fight. A mobilization of people “with the knife between their teeth” is underway to contest the division of the electoral map which would deprive the region of a constituency. And some do not rule out resorting to the courts to protect the status quo.
Noting demographic growth which is lower than the Quebec average and which shows no sign of recovery in Gaspésie and Bas-Saint-Laurent, the Commission on Electoral Representation proposed, in a preliminary report presented in September, to reduce the constituency of Gaspé to those of Bonaventure and Matane-Matapédia.
In the eyes of the mayor of Gaspé, Daniel Côté, the loss of another constituency on the peninsula, after the announced disappearance of Avignon-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia from the federal electoral map, would lead Gaspésie into a “spiral of devitalization “.
“The fewer elected officials we have, the less influence we have; the less influence we have, the more programs, policies, etc. are out of step with our reality, and the less we have access to it,” listed the former president of the Union of Municipalities of Quebec.
Result, he continues: an impoverishment of the region, the loss of an even greater number of inhabitants and a general decline in income. “It’s a circle we’ve been in for decades,” lamented the elected official. We want to break this circle. »
500 km from one end to the other
As the commission holds public hearings this week, in the Gaspé Peninsula, a mobilization is rallying under the banner Save Gaspésie, a movement bringing together citizens and elected officials opposed to the planned changes.
“Already we are going to lose a constituency at the federal level, I think that at the provincial level, we really have to stand up,” says the prefect of La Haute-Gaspésie, Guy Bernatchez. “We must avoid this division at all costs, because it would become impossible for an MP to do his job. »
The elected officials of Gaspé and Bonaventure, the Caquistes Stéphane Ste-Croix and Catherine Blouin, sponsor Save the Gaspésie with the blessing of the minister responsible for the region, Maïté Blanchette Vézina.
“A possible merger between the counties of Gaspé and Bonaventure appears to us to be irreconcilable with the very nature of our work,” underlines Mr. Ste-Croix. There would be around 500 km between the two ends of this constituency, then we understand that we do not drive, in Gaspésie, on a highway like highway 20. We drive on a picturesque national road, the 132: it there is a certain reality to consider, I think, in our very capacity to cover the territory. »
Wave of opposition
Tuesday, more than 80 people took part in the commission hearing which took place in Gaspé. All were opposed to the proposed division. This tour traveled to Matane on Wednesday, and to New Richmond on Thursday.
“It seems like we had less of a knife between our teeth at the federal level, it seems like we were resigned,” relates Guy Bernatchez. At the moment, on the other hand, we feel a great mobilization. »
A petition launched by Sauvons la Gaspésie collected more than 500 signatures in 24 hours. A sign, according to the prefect, that this provincial redistribution “comes to seek even more [la] Gaspé fiber”.
“If you remove one MP from Montreal, there will be around twenty others to defend the interests of the region,” explains Claudine Roy, president of Traversées de la Gaspésie and a citizen strongly committed to preserving the current electoral map. “If you remove a deputy from Gaspésie, there will only be one left to make the voice of a region as large as Belgium heard,” she argues. That does not make any sense ! »
Status quo or exceptional status?
Save the Gaspésie first demands the maintenance of the status quo, “without excluding” the obtaining of a special status, which, already, spares the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, for example, from a loss of political weight at the in favor of redistricting the electoral map.
The approach receives the approval of Minister Blanchette Vézina, who said Wednesday that she believes that “there are arguments which must be heard by the commission and which would allow an exceptional status”.
If the commission persists in deleting the Gaspé constituency and the National Assembly refuses to grant a special status to the two Gaspésie constituencies, legal action “could be necessary”, believes the mayor of Gaspé, Daniel Côté. “We ask the commissioners to respect the principle of effective representativeness recognized by the law, that is to say to apply the law as a whole, and not just article 16, which makes them happy,” proclaims he.
“The article in question applies purely mathematical logic to redistricting,” deplores the municipal representative. With article 16, a calculator, a robot would be able to do the job. I expect that the commissioners will be humans who take into account subjective factors such as geography, belonging to the territory and cultural identity. »