The block leader testified at the commission’s public hearings in Montreal on Tuesday, defending the endangered Avignon-La Métis-Matane-Matapédia ride.

Before the commission, he argued that the sole criterion of statistics should not be sufficient to decide on the survival of a constituency, otherwise we would not need a commission to examine the appropriateness of such decisions.

If we foolishly apply the statistical criterion, we fall into the vicious circle of less people, less weight and less weight, less peoplehe argued.

We must maintain the weight of regions of Quebec that are sources of food and, of course, are not just the bases for generating energy and extracting natural resources. They must be recognized for their essential role and their voice must be heardhe pleaded first.

He also cited respect for the boundaries of Regional County Municipalities (MRC), institutions represented by elected officials that are as important as Quebec and Canada institutions.

He also highlighted the criterion of the specificity of Quebec being recognized as a nation.

I impishly suspect that my peers in the House of Commons who voted to recognize the nation of Quebec were hoping that we would move on to another call and that this would be a hollow symbol. It won’t arrive. We’ll keep the pressure up to make it make sense he started.

And that makes sense. This means that not only should Quebec have a minimum number of seats, not by number but by percentage, to preserve its weight, but it is also necessary that within the territory of Quebec the number of seats we can get with a given a certain uniqueness. For indeed there is a nation, with its differences, its identity, its regions and its challenges, that thrives on this territory he further claimed.