Redécoupage des circonscriptions fédérales de 2022

Commentaire 32 (16 août 2022) commentaires et rétroaction

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Les documents ci-dessous sont affichés dans la langue officielle d'origine tels qu'ils ont été reçus.

Jae Eadie

Winnipeg,
Manitoba Septembre, 2022

To: The Manitoba Federal Elecloral Boundaries Commission 2022

My name is Jae Eadie. I reside on Assiniboine Avenue in Winnipeg, which is within the current and proposed constituency of Winnipeg Centre. I make this presentation to the Boundaries Commission on my own behalf and not on behalf of any other person or any political party.

Formal objection

I wish to place on the official record of these proceedings my formal objection to this Boundaries Commission's arbitrary decision to establish a tolerance goal of +/− 5% from the provindal average of people in a riding. This arbitrary decision is unfair and unreasonable, and it creates considerable inflexibility in the drawing of constituency boundaries when endeavouring to keep communities together within a constituency. Your Preamble report outlines examples of this inflexibility in Manitoba.

The Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (the Act), specifically Section 15 (2) (b) allows electoral boundaries commissions to utilize up to +/− 25% tolerance level when drawing electoral district boundaries. There's a good and valid reason Parliament enacted that provision, and that was and is to give electoral boundarles commissions considerable flexibility when drawing a constituency boundary to keep communities of interest or communities of identity within a single electoral district, particulary when the number of electoral districts within a province remains unchanged from the previous redistribution process, as is the case in Manitoba. The Manitoba Commission's arbitrary decision to cap the tolerance level at +/− 5% (except for Churchil-Keewatinook Aski where you used a 7% tolerance) again leaves my neighbourhood in a constituency where it doesn't belong and never has, namely Winnipeg Centre, instead of including this neighbourhood where it properly belongs, that being in the proposed (and lamely named) Winnipeg West. I will expand further in the next section of this presentation. In the meantime I reiterate my strong objection to this Cmmission's arbitrary decision to cap the tolerance level at +/− 5%.

The St.James community

I attach to this presentation a map (Attachment (1)) which outlines what I will be referring to as the St. James Community. This area is bounded on the east by St. James Street, and proceeds north to Dublin Avenue, then west along Dublin to the northern extension of Ferry Road, then south on Ferry Road to the Assiniboine River, then east on the Assiniboine River to the extension of St. James Street.
According to information provided to me by Elections Canada, this area conlains 5,214 electors as of 2021.

The year 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Municipality of St James, which, over time, became the City of St. James-Assiniboia prior to the amalgamation of the present City of Winnipeg in 1972. At all times during this past century, the St. James Community has been within the original St. James municipal boundaries and the eastern boundary of this community has always been St. James Street. East of St. James Street is within the City of Winnipeg and its various iterations. At no time has the St. James Community been identified historically as anything other than an integral and indeed the original part of the St. James Municipality. And yet, not withstanding this lang history, this federal electoral boundaries commission, like its predecessors, ignores al of this history and insists on placing the St. James Community within the constituency of Winnipeg Centre where there is not now and never has been any historical connection or community of interest whatsoever. I submit that the Manitoba Commission's considerable lack of any historical knowledge about local communities is a major part of this problem. The other is the Commission's insistence on utilizing the arbitrary and inflexible 5% tolerance guideline. The end result has been that the St. James Community and its residents have bean kept separated from the remainder of St. James and this is intolerable and needs to be addressed during this 2022 redistribution process. I will suggest a remedy to this issue in the next section.

The St. James Community/Winnipeg West

In your Preamble report, your Commission laments the fact that the current riding of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley posed a challenge for you, as its population was 11.58% below the provincial average for this current redistribution process in 2022. But, instead of resolving some of this problem by adding contiguous territory within the City of Winnipeg, namely the St. James Community, to what you now call Winnipeg West, you have illogically proposed to ignore the St. James Community and instead add territory in rural Manitoba, namely St. Francois Xavier, Cartier, and parts of the RM of Portage la Prairie to what you want to name Winnipeg West. Considering that there's a better option, your proposal makes no sense.

By adding the St. James Community to this riding of Winnipeg West, you could potentially solve about 50% of the population problem, and, at the same time, you would make whole all of St. James-Assiniboia within one electoral district. At the same time you could probably piece some urban neighbourhoods south of the Assiniboine River into this new riding and by utilizing a more flexible tolerance number (as you rightly did with Churchill-Keewatinook Aski) I submit you would create an electoral district that would, for the most part (except for Headingley) be entirely within the City of Winnipeg. And, if this proposal was accepted in your final draft, you could and should restore the name of Charleswood-St. James Assiniboia-Headingly to this redrawn constituency. You would remove fom this new riding as much as possible, those parts of rural Manitoba that you have illogically proposed to be included in a riding called Winnipeg West. Those municipalities should remain in Portage-Lisgar, which is a much more sensible fit for them.

Summation

I implore this Boundaries Commission to go back to the drawing board after these hearings are concluded and make the following changes to the proposed Manitoba federal clectoral boundaries:

  1. Correct the historical and egregious error created by previous boundaries commissions and remove the St. James Community from the proposed Winnipeg Centre riding and add that community to the proposed riding of Winnipeg West in order to have St. James-Assiniboia entirely contained in one electoral district.
  2. When adding the St. James Community to Winnigeg West, change the name of that riding to Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley.
  3. Remove, as much as possible, the RMs of St. Francois Xavier, Cartier and Portage la Prairie from the newly-drawn riding of Charleswood-St. James- Assiniboia-Headingley in order to make this riding more urban in nature.
  4. In re-drawing a new Charleswood- St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley riding, utilize a tolerance guideline that is not rigidly set at 5% (as you justifiably did for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski) in order to get near to the population average.

Winnipeg Centre Riding Name

If this Boundaries Commission finds it absolutely impossible to remove the St. James Community from Winnipeg Centre into a new Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley as I have proposed above, then at a minimum please give our historic community the recognition that it actually exists. If the St. James Community must remain in Winnipeg Centre, then please propose that the name of that riding be changed to: Winnipeg Centre-St. James. That would be the very least you could do.

Respectfully submitted.

Attachement (1)

Map of Winnipeg Center riding

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