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| The commission's report boundaries |
Five provincial boundary commissions
have submitted their proposed federal riding boundaries that will
sent to the House of Commons for review. The deadline for submissions
was December 21, so one can assume that the other five boundary
commissions asked for a two month extension.
This next step in the federal riding
boundary redistribution process means a whole new set of maps of the
provinces from the original proposals we saw earlier in the year.
These new maps came as a result of a series of public consultations
held across the country. These next set of maps will not be the final
boundaries, but they will be pretty close to finalized.
Alberta, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island
(which saw no changes), Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador's
boundary commissions all released their reports, while the remaining
provinces we will not see for at least two months.
Today, I will present an alternate
proposal to the Newfoundland and Labrador map. It will be one that
does not guarantee Labrador its own riding.
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| My alternate proposal. (Inset is St. John's) |
The boundary commission did not deviate
drastically from their originally proposed map. The public seemed
supportive of the new north-south alignment of the three rural
Newfoundland ridings, which makes more sense, as it follows
transportation links better. The commission only made minor changes
such as moving a few villages or neighbouhoods from one riding to
another for community of interest reasons. The commission also
renamed their “St. John's North” riding to “St. John's East”,
as I predicted.
The commission briefly considered the
issue of Labrador, currently Canada's least populated riding. Only
one submitter (from Ottawa – not me I promise!) proposed doing away
with this riding, which is less than one third the size of the
average Newfoundland riding and has less people than any of Canada's
northern territories. Large, remote ridings, such as Labrador are
often exempted from taking on larger territories, and Labrador has
been one such exemption. The riding is geographically isolated from
the rest of the province by the Strait of Belle Isle, and is for all
intents and purposes very much different from the rest of the
province. But the fact of the matter is, the area has seen its
population stagnate in the last decade, and, as mentioned is the
least populated riding in the entire country. There is no reason that
Labrador should be more over represented than any of Canada's
territories. I feel that the commission should have at least
considered a riding which would have consisted of Labrador plus some
of Newfoundland.
My proposal is to link Labrador with
the northern peninsula of Newfoundland, which is geographically the
closest part of the island to Labrador. There is also a link from
this region to Labrador via ferry. My proposal is to make Labrador
roughly 50% of this riding, so that the area is not over-represented
by the Newfoundland portion. This ensures that Labrador will keep its
weight in parliament even though the riding will be twice the size.
However, due to Labrador's size, a riding even twice the size of it
will still be much smaller than the rest of the province (53,000
people compared to 77,000), but at least it would be closer to the
average.
To make it to 53,000 (Labrador has
26,500 people), the Labrador riding would have to include all of the
Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland plus the Baie Verte Peninsula. If
you include all of these areas you get 51,441 people- close enough. I
made the eastern boundary of the riding at King's Point to keep the
larger community of Springdale out of the riding. I would name this
riding Labrador—St. Barbe—Baie Verte.
The remainder of the province gets six
ridings, with an average population of 77,000 people. This new
Labrador riding would take a significant chunk out of the current
Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte riding, meaning that riding would
need to expand. My proposal would take a page out of the commission's
proposal by linking the left over area (the Humber region) with the
St. George's region to its south. However, this would not make a
large enough riding. So, my proposal would be to link the west coast
of the province (Humber and St. George regions) with the isolated
south coast region. The St. George's area and the south coast are
already linked together by the riding of Random—Burin—St.
George's. The south coast is fairly isolated as it is, and while it
may have road links to central Newfoundland (hence why the commission
put the area into the central riding) it still has ferry links to the
west coast of the province, and the community of Burgeo also has a
road link. This riding would have a population of 76,713 and I would
name it “Humber—St. George's—Bay d'Espoir”.
The creation of the new Labrador riding
has meant that some of the existing Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte
riding has been lobbed off. This is the area around Springdale. While
this region does have better transportation links with the Baie Verte
peninsula, it had to be excluded from the Labrador riding so that
Labrador would still be more than 50% of that riding. This area,
which is located on the west coast of Notre Dame Bay, I would have
united with the rest of the Notre Dame Bay shore area which is
presently in the riding of Bonavista—Gander--Grand Falls-Windsor.
This new riding would consist of much of the same areas as this
riding, however the addition of the Springdale area would make it too
over-populated. This is why removed the Bonavista Bay area. I made
the eastern boundary of the riding between Gambo and Glovertown. This
was done for population reasons, but it also makes for a good natural
boundary as it separates the communities on the western shore of
Bonavista Bay (which I would keep in the new riding) from the
communities along Highway 310. This new riding would have a
population of 75,552 and I would call it Gander—Grand
Falls-Windsor—Notre Dame.
With the rest of the Bonavista Bay area
removed from its current riding of Bonavista—Gander--Grand
Falls-Windsor, I had to put the area somewhere. The riding boundary
proposal created a new north-south aligned riding which united the
Burin Peninsula, the Bonavista Bay area, the Bonavista Peninsula and
the Trinity Bay area in one riding. My proposal would call for a
similar riding. It would also include the Burin and Bonavista
Peninsulas, as well as most of the Bonavista Bay area. The riding
would also extend into the Avalon Peninsula and would contain most of
the Bay de Verde peninsula as well. The boundary commission's
proposed boundary in the area goes as far as Salmon Cove on
Conception Bay, but due to population reasons, I had to go further
down the peninsula and stop before Spaniard's Bay. This would add a
significant population centre (Carbonear) to my riding which is why
my name for the riding (Bonavista—Burin—Bay de Verde) would be
different than the commissions proposed name of
“Bonavista—Burin—Trinity”. My proposal contains more of the
Bay de Verde peninsula, and more of an area not on Trinity Bay, but
on Conception Bay. The population of this riding would be 78,132,
This leaves us with an area of the
province very similar to area proposed by the commission. However, my
proposal of what to do with the remaining three ridings is somewhat
different. I started with the riding of St. John's South—Mount
Pearl which has a population of 83,000- which is a bit too big for
quotient of 77,000. My proposal would be to remove the portions of
the riding in the downtown area, and give those areas to St. John's
East. My proposed boundary, which encircles the downtown core, is
somewhat more natural than the present boundary along Gower St. These
changes would bring down the size of the riding to 77,011- a perfect
fit.
Adding the Downtown area to St. John's
East would dramatically increase the size of that riding, even more
than it's already huge size of 101,000. Presently, the western
boundary of the riding splits up the municipalit of Conception Bay
South. The commission's proposal and it's current report split up the
City of Paradise. All of these boundaries seem rather arbitrary (the
report isolates two neighbourhoods in Paradise from the rest of the
city), and my proposal would be to remove all of CBS and all of
Paradise from the riding. This makes the Paradise city limits the
western boundary of the riding, which makes more sense. And it makes
for a good riding size at 77,620.
This leaves us with one last riding,
Avalon, which is very similar to the commission's report for the
riding. The commission's version of the riding would be slightly
larger (81,540) than my proposed version (77,532) as it excludes the
Carbonear area, the Bay Bulls area and the Long Harbour area.
That concludes my proposal. If you want
to read the commission's report, it can be found here.