Nelson Sergerie

GASPÉ – The CAQ government still does not intend to designate the Gaspé Peninsula with an exceptional status that would allow the region to maintain two constituencies regardless of the number of voters in each.

A parliamentary commission was held on February 13, 14 and 15 during which the Electoral Representation Commission presented the proposed map. Previously, the unveiling of the new electoral map was delayed causing some criticism.

On February 9, in Gaspé, the Minister responsible for the Gaspésie was questioned about the electoral map revision alongside the announcement by the Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon.

“If we had pushed back, we would have been told that we were playing politics with this. We followed the committee’s schedule and we made sure to follow the process so that there is good electoral representation. The fact remains that we will continue to make representations to defend electoral representativeness for the Gaspésie to remain with the status quo with two counties,” explains Maité Blanchette Vézina.

In its proposed reform, the Electoral Representation Commission suggests merging Bonaventure and Gaspé ridings and transferring Haute-Gaspésie to the riding of Matane-Matapédia, a constituency located in Bas-Saint-Laurent, which was unanimously denounced by the political level and the citizens of the Gaspé Peninsula during two hearings last fall.

“Ultimately, the government could change the law. That being said, this is one of the potential scenarios, but we will complete the administrative process. We are going to make some necessary representations next week. We will wait for the report to be submitted. At the same time, we will discuss strategies at the caucus level to arrive at the most sustainable solution possible for the entire representative body. Today, we are talking about the Gaspésie. Tomorrow, we will talk about other regions of Quebec,” says Stéphane Sainte-Croix, Member of the National Assembly for Gaspé.

The law will not be changed

“This is a hypothetical question. We will make the decisions when the report is formulated. We are going to analyze it as my colleague said. We will continue representations within the commission to ensure that the weight of the Gaspésie remains,” adds Ms. Blanchette Vézina.

During his visit to the Gaspé Peninsula last November, the Premier of Quebec had the same position and was not ready to put into law an exceptional status for Gaspé and Bonaventure, as is particularly the case for the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

“We must look and the Electoral Officer must look to make an exception for Gaspésie because it is a huge territory, even if it means having a few more voters in the other ridings because we cannot increase the number of ridings: 125, it is the same number as in Ontario which has approximately 40 or 50% more voters,” explained François Legault at the time.

The premier prefers not to directly intervene in the independent process.

The electoral exercise is purely mathematical, dividing Quebec into 125 constituencies, each with approximately 51,000 voters, with common characteristics wherever possible.

According to the Electoral Act, a constituency can have up to 25% more or fewer voters than the average, with a minimum threshold of 38,021 and a maximum of 63,368.

As of April 30, the Bonaventure riding had 35,898 voters and Gaspé 30,131, falling significantly below the minimum threshold, with a gap of -29.2% and -40.6%, respectively.

Gaspé thus ranked third among the least populous constituencies, behind Îles-de-la-Madeleine, which has an exceptional status, and Ungava.

Based on the projections from the Institute of Statistics of Quebec, the gap in Gaspé compared to the average is expected to surpass that of Ungava soon.

In 2017, the commission maintained the negative exception status for Gaspé and granted the same status to Bonaventure. However, with increasing inequalities in representation, the commission does not wish to renew this status.

However, the constituencies of Abitibi-Est, with 33,822 voters, and Abitibi-Ouest, with 35,527 voters, will retain their negative exception statuses.

The commission notes that in the Bas-Saint-Laurent-Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine region, the low growth of the electoral population has accentuated the differences compared to the average of the constituencies for several decades.

The proposed delimitation reduces the number of constituencies with a negative exception situation and decreases the number of six to five.

Thus, in its proposal, Gaspé-Bonaventure would see the number of voters increase to 56,591, or 11.6% more than the average, which would make it the riding with the most voters in Eastern Quebec, ahead of Matane-Matapédia at 51,394.