Federal electoral districts redistribution 2022

Comment 37 (25 August 2022) comments and feedback

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The documents below are posted in the official language in which they were received.

Vincent Landriault

Report to the Boundary Commission on Proposed Changes
Boundary changes review, Churchill-Keewatinook Aski NDP

The last Boundary Commission 10 years ago add on seven first Nation to the already very large Federal Electoral District of Churchill-keewatinook Aski. Instead of adding the complete area in composed in this distribution they jerry meandered the non-first nation area to remain in Selkirk Interlake. I see this commission is following along in it footsteps by doing this to the more extreme in it's report by only adding in Half of Gypsumville { on east Side} and one street in Bowsman {on west side}and not touching the rest of Interlake that surrounds the First nations already in the riding,

First of all, why is the Commission not including all the lands in the Interlake area instead of going to the west side of the Lake and province. The vast majority of the proposed changes to the riding have nothing in common with the existing communities in the riding. Most of this area is agricultural and have more common interest remaining in Daulphin Neepawa Swan River. If anything is added from the west side, it should only be the area from the present southern boundary across to number 10 Highway and the East side of the highway #10 to the lake and down to Sapoteyakaw First Nation. Wuskwi Sipihk First Nation could be included also and all the geographically area out side the first Nation should stay in District they are in. The Map would look like: #10 10 Hwy. east to lake and include Overflowing River, Dawson Bay, Red Deer River, and the 2 First nation Communities.

These 2 communities at least have a common interest as the belong to Swampy Cree Tribal Council and the rest of the Tribal Council is in the riding and headquartered in The Pas. This should be the extent of the Southern Bounbry on the West side of the province,. The remaining section proposed to add on has nothing at all in common with any of the communities in the North. Part of your duties is to look at communities of interest when proposing changes, and in this case you have ignored that. The area you are proposing to add have no common interest to the rest of the district.

Daulphin Swan River are not out of line with the population Threshold compared to the rest of The Province, so communities do not need to be transferred from that Electoral district. You have also ignored the part of the act that talks about large geographically and rural areas not being required to meet the population threshold. That brings up another issue, I know you go by the latest census that was completed to base your population stats on, but the last census done in most of the communities in the riding had some severe issue with reporting while they were being done, and the population is way under counted. The current member of Parliament wrote a letter to the minister highlighting the problem with the process shortly after it was completed. Census Canada as made to move to correct this issue.

Servicing the riding

Churchill-keewatinook Aski is already one of the largest ridings in Canada with over 80 communities in its boundaries. It is a larger area then some European countries. If your idea by making this a larger riding is to disenfranchise voters in Northern Manitoba you are succeeding. The MP already faces a great deal of complaints from communities for nor making special events when invited. An example is Canada day, she usually does 2 communities that day a 4 hour drive apart. We have had to decline numerous invites because of the distance and HOC office budget allotted for travel. I would suggest that if the City of Winnipeg had only one Electoral district for the whole City, the elected member would have a easier job of representing the constituents then the member from Churchill-keewatinook Aski. They would at least be able to drive across their whole district in just over an hour . In the case of Churchill, on the parts of district you can reach by road you are looking at a minimum of a 20-hour drive if you do not take any breaks. It is even longer for those isolated communities with no road access. {which number in the twenties. }

I believe that by your proposed change you are taking democracy away from the people of Northern Manitoba by making it almost impossible for the members to meet the constituents in their home community. This commission on- like two in other provinces, has not considered the challenges of representing such a large geographical area with several isolated communities in it. The present commission in Sask. has proposed that the district of Churchill- missinnipi be made smaller to give better representation to the remaining constitutes. In Ontario the provincial commission made a new provincial constituency of Keewatinnook in Northern Ontario to give the constituents a better voice and representation at Queens Park. Both these commission did

not take into account population equalization, both just the large geographically area, and the number of communities within the area. In Manitoba the commission both provincially and federally has ignored geographically size and only look at the population equalization side of redistribution.

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