electoral map

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ – The judicial review request following the decision to abolish the federal riding of Avignon-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia will not be heard before the beginning of 2025 according to a report by Droits collectifs Québec following a management conference on July 25.

The judge asked the attorney for Droits collectifs Québec, François Côté, to file his brief on August 16.
“The case is continuing but, unfortunately, for a hearing in the fall, hopes have been dashed out of hand by the length of the legal proceedings,” explains Mr. Côté. The Attorney General of Canada contested Droits collectifs Québec’s right to act, a motion that Justice Alexandra Steele dismissed in July.

Thus, the Attorney General and Elections Canada will have until November 15 to file their complete case to defend the abolition of the riding.

“We must file a request for a hearing by November 29, 2024, at the latest. We have completed our steps and the ball is now in the court of the Attorney General and Elections Canada,” said Mr. Côté.
“I don’t expect to get through (to be heard) before November 29, even with a miracle. I would be surprised if there were dates available between November 29 and December 31. We are heading towards something a little later than I had hoped,” notes the lawyer.

In the event of an early election call, the application for judicial review may not have been heard. Voting is scheduled for October 2025.

“We can only find it unfortunate that the courts did not uphold our request for a stay during the proceedings. If we find ourselves in a situation where we win our case while an election is called, there are questions to be asked about the speed and manner in which the rights of voters will be guaranteed by the Attorney General and Elections Canada. For the moment, we are in a hypothetical situation. We will hope for a resolution in the best-case scenario and everything is going well,” says Mr. Côté.

The application for judicial review is based on an opinion rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada referencing the Provincial Electoral Boundaries in Saskatchewan and the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.

“The basic argument is that of effective representation and effective representation is not just a question of numbers. Regions, communities, geographic areas and regional histories also matter. If we only had a system with one head, one vote, we would have a democracy where the large metropolises have all the political power, which means that the less dense regional entities could not make their voices heard in a democracy,” argues Mr. Côté.

“Our parliamentary system tries to balance the two by having a system based on the right to vote, but which also takes into account the regions, the regional specificities, so that the diversity of everything that makes up a society does not only take into account the simple number of the population, but also its variety,” he maintains.

The adopted map presented in the summer of 2022 provoked an outcry from the entire political community in the Gaspé Peninsula.