Federal electoral boundaries | Commission sticks to its guns on controversial proposal
The majority on a three-member commission created to redraw federal electoral boundaries in Sask-atchewan has rejected Conservative pressure to drop its proposal to create urban-only ridings in Saskatoon and Regina.
In their final report published Aug. 21, commission members justice Ronald Mills and University of Saskatchewan political scientist John Courtney said three exclusively urban seats in Saskatoon and two in Regina will be in place for the 2015 election.
Saskatchewan’s remaining nine seats will be a rural-urban blend or rural.
Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president David Marit, the third commissioner, refused to sign the report, objecting that urban-only seats will drive a wedge between rural and urban residents and ignores the community of interest between the province’s two major cities and surrounding rural communities.
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He also complained that new large rural ridings will force districts together that have no real economic or community connection and create unwieldy rural constituencies.
“I did not sign off on this report because I think it is wrong,” Marit said.
“I made proposals that I thought would deal with the fact that the cities are growing, but the other commissioners did not even look at them so I think they went into it with a determination to create urban seats.”
Most respondents objected to the rural-urban split proposal during public hearings in Saskatchewan.
Saskatchewan Conservative MPs used Parliament Hill hearings earlier this year to echo Marit’s complaints, arguing that the proposals ignore Saskatchewan’s history of rural-urban connection.
Political analysts also have suggested that creating five urban seats in Saskatchewan cities could change the results of the next election in the province.
The changes could jeopardize at least two seats the Conservatives narrowly won in 2011 thanks to a strong rural vote that countered an NDP majority in the cities.
The NDP has not won a Saskatchewan seat since the 2000 election.
The Conservatives hold 13 of 14 Saskatchewan seats with Regina Liberal MP Ralph Goodale the sole opposition representative.
Marit said the impact on electoral results is not the issue in his opposition to the commission decision.
“I just think the new electoral map ignores Saskatchewan history and traditions of rural-urban common interests,” he said.
“With the size of some of these ridings, I also think this will lead more people to tune out of politics, and more voter apathy is the last thing we need.”
He said one of the new ridings includes the city of Moose Jaw west of Regina and stretches as far north as Lanigan southeast of Saskatoon, 200 kilometres away.
“What is the community of interest there?”
The commission majority also rejected most of the MP proposals for minor tinkering in proposed boundaries for the new ridings.
