Commentaire 34 – commentaires et rétroaction

James Gilchrist

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the changes proposed to the electoral district boundaries, within Ontario.

To be blunt, I believe that the results of the current review are the most blatant example of gerrymandering I've ever seen in the over fifty years in which I've had an active involvement in federal and provincial politics in Ontario. Almost without exception, the boundary changes pay no heed to traditional definitions of "communities", or "trading markets" or even, in many cases, major barriers caused by highways, rivers, lakes and other landforms.

There is not a single change which I believe is defensible, if common sense and shared communities of interest are the review criteria! On the other hand, the obvious ploy of taking traditionally rural ridings and adding just enough adjacent urban centre voters to skew the voting result in favour of more left-of-centre voters, is particularly obvious in the changes proposed for all the ridings around London. In eastern Ontario, you have created truly bizarre Frankenstein's monsters of ridings, which would be profoundly difficult to manage, by the elected MP, so, clearly, efficiency and voter convenience are not elements for which you have high regard.

The changes proposed here in Northumberland-Peterborough South are truly bizarre. The idea of carving the top section of the Township of Alnwick/Haldimand, including the Alderville First Nation, ignores 150 years of the affiliation of the voters, in the affected area, with communities to the south - not Peterborough to the north. The racism implicit in the belief that adding First Nations voters to the Peterborough riding will affect the voting profile in that riding is truly shocking and everyone in the Commission associated with this change should be ashamed of themselves. There is NO compelling reason to break up Northumberland County and, ironically, create extra challenges for the First Nation (and other Alnwich/Haldimand residents) who would be forced to access federal services in Peterborough, when there is no transit connection that would take them to that city.

I know I'd be wasting my breath to suggest that this entire exercise could have been (and still could be!) distilled into the simple removal of one riding from Toronto and the addition of one riding into Peel Region, but, in the minimum, I beseech you to leave all the residents of Northumberland County in one electoral district and, if there is a need to adjust the population, to balance with districts around it, then simply carve off some of the existing portions of Peterborough South.

Thank you for your consideration. I guess my one consolation is that, left unchanged, the provincial government will end the practice of copying federal election boundaries and logic will still prevail when it comes to the protection of community interests at that level of government!

Sincerely,

James Gilchrist