What is the most effective way to keep rural political representation
visible in an increasingly urban country?
It is a question rural western Canadian MPs will be arguing about,
starting this fall, as they begin the politically treacherous process
of redrawing constituency boundaries for the House of Commons.
The new boundaries will reflect the fact that the 2001 census found a
country in which an increasing majority live in urban centres.
In a representation-by-population system, it means the next Parliament
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should have fewer MPs representing rural constituents.
“My reading of the situation is that the trend to urbanization is
longstanding and the obvious implication is that rural influence in the
political system will decline,” said North Vancouver MP Ted White, a
Canadian Alliance specialist on electoral reform.
How can the system be best designed to reflect that shrinking rural
constituency?
White said there are two alternatives: redesigning constituency
boundaries to create strictly rural and urban ridings or mixing urban
and rural voters.
“I lean to the mixed ridings,” he said. “It means more MPs will have
some rural constituents and understand their issues.”
It is a choice that already confronts Saskatchewan federal politicians.
Last week, a provincial electoral commission proposed radically
changing the boundaries and names of the province’s 14 ridings, cutting
the current regime of four mixed urban-rural ridings in both Regina and
Saskatoon to three city ridings each and larger rural ridings outside
the city boundaries.
Alberta and Manitoba electoral redistribution proposals will be
published later this summer, with public hearings expected to begin in
the fall.
The new boundaries that result, after a 2003 parliamentary debate,
could be in place by the spring of 2004. An election called after that
would be fought in the new ridings.
In Saskatchewan, the proposal to sharply reduce the urban-rural mix
would create large rural ridings and has unleashed a political storm.
Palliser MP Dick Proctor, NDP agriculture critic whose riding now takes
in a chunk of Regina, Moose Jaw and a large swath of rural area west of
the capital, would lose his riding and find his residence in a
reconfigured Wascana riding, now held by Liberal Ralph Goodale.
He is incensed.
The new rural riding of Long Lakes west of Regina would stretch 335
kilometres from the American border north.
Proctor said he will argue at public hearings that an urban-rural mix
is better in Saskatchewan because it keeps seats smaller and means more
MPs must pay attention to rural issues.
“Besides, every urbanite in Saskatchewan has a concern with the land.”
Next door in Alberta, Lakeland Canadian Alliance MP Leon Benoit said
that may be the best solution in Saskatchewan, but in Alberta,
overwhelmingly rural ridings like his are the best solution for rural
interests.
“It means that minority rural issues are not lost in the majority
issues of people in the cities with little feel for the rural areas.”
Manitoba Progressive Conservative Rick Borotsik, who represents a 50-50
split Brandon-Souris riding, said the Sask-
atchewan proposals “just perpetuate the urban-rural split. That’s not
the way to go.”
He said isolating rural representation in fewer ridings and MPs mean
fewer MPs without rural constituents will care.
Borotsik said MPs concentrate on issues that affect their constituents
and have little interest in the concerns of others.
As one of just two westerners in a Tory caucus dominated by Atlantic
MPs, he said he has witnessed it firsthand.
“I’ve had it with fish,” said the Tory caucus chair and agriculture
critic. “But that’s a reality in my caucus because that’s where people
come from.”
