Thank you, Madam Chair
Thank you to the whole committee for having us here today.
I have a situation that's also overlapping with Minister Lametti's riding. We both have “LaSalle” in our riding name.
Removing it from my riding, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, would be absolutely unacceptable. It makes no sense whatsoever. Half the population in my riding of Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle lives in LaSalle. Of that population, more than half is ethnically diverse. They're visible minorities with different religions, ethnic backgrounds and languages. They will not see themselves represented at the federal level. This will be very harmful.
I was born and raised in LaSalle. I'm here as an MP, and right now I don't see myself in that riding representation with this removal of the word “LaSalle” from the riding. I will not see myself in that riding representation, so I can just imagine what other people who have less of a voice than I do will feel. It will be denying their existence, denying that they are part of the riding and part of the federal landscape. My population in LaSalle that is contained within the boundaries of Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle is approximately 60,000. Minister Lametti has about 17,000 people in his section of LaSalle that is contained in the electoral boundary of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun.
The other thing is that there is already much confusion between our offices. Constituents reach out to Minister Lametti's office as well. With the removal of the word “LaSalle”, his staff is going to be so overburdened when people think that he represents all of LaSalle. Already.... If 65,000 people start calling the office or at least half of them need help, we're going to have a big problem. There's an overlapping problem.
I'm not speaking for you, Minister Lametti, but it's a huge issue.
These are some of the things we have to keep in mind. Added together, the amount of people in Dorval and Lachine is the amount of people who are in the part of LaSalle that is part of my riding. This is something that is very important to look at. It makes no sense to remove the word “LaSalle”. Like I said, it will deny the existence of half the population of the riding and of all those visible minorities and ethnic and religious minorities who exist in the riding.
That's about it. Thank you so much.