Outlying Quebec regions rebuff new electoral map

Elections Quebec's plan to redraw the province's riding map has brought strong criticism from residents and politicians in more remote regions that stand to lose several seats in the legislature.

In the proposed redistricting unveiled Thursday, Elections Quebec calls for the elimination of three far-flung ridings: one in Beauce, south of Quebec City; one in the Gaspé area; and one in the Lower St. Lawrence region, the area that includes Rimouski and Rivière-du-Loup.

The provincial elections authority recommends replacing them with three legislature seats in the ever-growing greater Montreal area, and it would also rejig 80 other ridings in the 125-seat National Assembly to account for population shifts.

Chief electoral officer Marcel Blanchet said he's only trying to follow the rules.

"Quebec has one of the most flexible laws on ensuring equitable voter representation in the legislature," Blanchet said in French on Radio-Canada.

"But it wouldn't be acceptable in Quebec for a voter in the Gaspé or another distant region to have twice the electoral power of someone in an urban area. There are rules in the Canadian Constitution that require us to oblige by that."

The plan, which must be ratified by the legislature, would affect two high-level cabinet ministers. Natural Resources Minister Claude Béchard's riding would disappear, and Deputy Premier Nathalie Normandeau's Bonaventure riding in the Gaspé would swallow up part of a neighbouring seat.

Normandeau, who is also the minister for municipal affairs, said she will fight the proposed changes.

"If the chief electoral officer limits himself to drawing the riding map according to demographics alone, that will mean that regions like mine, like Abitibi-Témiscamingue, like Northern Quebec, will always lose seats."

The mayor of the town of Matane, in the Lower St. Lawrence region, said some of the new rural ridings will be immense and have too many concerns for one representative to voice in the legislature.

"We have problems with our forests, we have problems with our fishery, and we're losing a representative to bring these issues to the government," Linda Cormier said. "It's the law that needs to be reviewed."