No alarm bells have sounded, but councillors in Puslinch Township are curious about the impact of pending federal boundary commission riding changes.
Councillor Susan Fielding raised the issue at the May 2 meeting. She said Wellington-Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott asked her to tell council there is a federal redistribution process now underway.
Ridings must accommodate the addition of 15 new MPs to the House of Commons, and the provincial government has usually matched the federal ridings for the legislature.
Fielding said a three-member commission was appointed to consider each province.
Ontario’s Electoral Boundary Commission, a three-member panel chaired by Justice George Valin of North Bay, is currently preparing a proposal to increase the number of Ontario federal ridings from 108 to 121.
The commission is tentatively scheduled to begin holding public meetings across the province over a six-week period starting in October. Once that is completed, a decision on a boundary plan will be made by the end of the year, according to Elections Canada officials.
Once the panel that includes Dr. Leslie A. Pal, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University and a professor at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton; and Douglas Colbourne, a Toronto land use mediator, completes its proposal, it will be publicly available when published in the Canada Gazette and area Newspapers. Election officials do not know when the draft plan will be completed.
The revised electoral map will be used in the next federal election, scheduled for 2015.
Changing Canada’s electoral boundaries is constitutionally mandated every 10 years to take into account population changes and demographic shifts. The federal government approved the boundary realignment under the Fair Representation Act in December, boosting the number of ridings from 308 to 338.
In addition to Ontario’s 15 ridings, Alberta and British Columbia will each receive six more seats, while Quebec gets three.
Ontario’s population since the last census in 2001 has jumped from 11.4 million to 12.8 million. The commission is required to divide the province into districts as close as possible to the average population, while taking into account communities of interests, identity and historical patterns.
“What they are trying to do is make the [ridings’] population equal,” Fielding said.
She said Arnott’s riding and a number of other local ridings are considered as being over-populated.
“The reason Mr. Arnott wanted to have me let council know about this, is that there will be public consultations in June in regard to the recommendations this committee has made.”
Fielding added, “We don’t know how this is going to turn out, whether it will be good for us or not.”
She said Arnott believes local councils have a lot of clout when it comes to dealing with these committees.
“Often they will abide by council recommendations because they are the grass roots and know how the community feels.”
Fielding said that was something Arnott wanted council to be aware of. “We might need to be ready to make some recommendations.”
Mayor Dennis Lever expected there will be some notification on the public meetings.
For more information on the commission visit www.federal-redistribution.ca.
The last time there were electoral boundary changes, it was initially recommended Wellington County be divided into five different ridings. County council lobbied hard to get that reduced to two.
