Canadians risk being sidelined from a major reconfiguration of the country’s electoral map by new rules brought in by the governing Tories that limit public consultation and dramatically accelerate the pace of the process, critics say.
Ten electoral boundary commissions, one in every province, are quietly at work devising ways to re-jig overpopulated ridings in their region based on new census data.
PHOTOS: HOW MANY SEATS IS EACH PROVINCE GETTING AND HOW FAIR WILL THE MAP BE?
The chore, which is revisited every 10 years when new population data is released, is made more difficult this time around by the addition of 30 new ridings, seats that will be added at the next federal election in 2015. The Conservative government has argued the additional MPs are necessary to give voters in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec fairer representation.
This is the first part of an ongoing series on the redrawing of Canada's electoral map. Thursday, we'll look at fears the process may be manipulated for political gain and Friday an example of a riding where those fears have become all too real. On Friday, we'll also be looking at some of the most important ridings likely to be affected by the coming changes. As always, you can find these stories and more on HuffPost Canada's Politics page.
The addition of new seats in Canada’s most populous provinces, which will cost $19.3 million annually, made headlines when it was announced last fall, but few noticed the same Tory bill shrunk the timelines for public input by more than two months. The government also limited notice periods and imposed tighter deadlines on the commissions to report their findings.
“It’s just a way of silencing civil society,” said Liberal MP Hedy Fry, who accused the Tories of making it more difficult for people to participate in the process. “It’s just one way of making sure that input isn’t heard.”
The independent three-member panels, which consist of a judge appointed by the chief justice of the province and two commissioners chosen by the Speaker of the House of Commons, face a delicate task.
They must re-draw the electoral map with an eye on each provinces’ electoral quota, the maximum number of electors each riding should have, a figure that ranges from 35,051 in Prince Edward Island to 107,213 in Alberta. All this must be done while taking into account the unity of various communities of interest, such as ethnic and religious groups, linguistic minorities, cultural groups and people of similar socio-economic status. Commissioners must also be mindful of not creating ridings that are too geographically large and therefore unmanageable to represent.
In the coming months, the commissions will each release a draft map suggesting boundary changes for their province. The public will have 23 days, down from 53, to signal their intention to comment during public hearings, which could be held as early as June but will likely begin early this fall. After hearing from residents, commissioners will go back to the drawing board and finalize a list of changes, which they will hand over to MPs just before Christmas. The House of Commons’ procedure and house affairs committee will then study the reports and if MPs who disagree with the commissioners’ changes gather support from ten colleagues they may be able to tweak some of the recommendations. The three-person panels, however, retain final say and are expected to deliver their final reports by next June.
Because some deadlines could be as short as one week, Fry worries that smaller community groups won’t be able to participate in the process.
“Many people who are going to be coming are local community groups, who don’t have money, (can’t) pay somebody to write a submission for them and are trying to do it on their own, and they don’t have a whole heck of a lot of time,” Fry said.
Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal’s spokesperson Kate Davis said the government has streamlined the process but that commissions have been given the ability to waive notice requirements for those wishing to be present at hearings, allowing for possible exceptions to the 23 day deadline.
“Canadians continue to have the same opportunity to voice their opinions on boundary changes during public hearings held by the commission,”she wrote in an email.
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Posted: 04/25/2012 8:07 am Updated: 04/25/2012 2:57 pm