Comment 59 – comments and feedback

Jody Davis, Mayor of the Township of Terrance Bay

Nancy Wirtz, Mayor & Candy Beauvais, Clerk-Treasurer of the Corporation of the Municipality of Killarney

Good morning,

Please see attached resolution passed by the Municipality of Killarney regarding the Federal Electoral Districts Redistribution 2022 for Northern Ontario.

Thank you

Resolution No. 22-305

Moved by: Michael Reider Seconded by: John Dimitrijevic

Whereas the proposed Federal Electoral Boundary Commission has proposed to remove one of the electoral ridings from Northern Ontario;

Whereas the proposed riding of Manitoulin-Nickel Belt would remove the municipalities of St. Charles, Markstay-Warren, and West Nipissing from the current Nickel Belt riding;

Whereas the municipalities of French River, Killarney, St. Charles, Markstay-Warren, and West Nipissing work together under the umbrella of the Sudbury-East Municipal Association (SEMA) for the betterment of each municipality. Currently SEMA is comprised of one geopolitical entity and any changes would fragment, diminish, and reduce access to federal representation for area residents;

Whereas the Commission is not taking into consideration the uniqueness of the said municipalities in Sudbury-East including the difficulty in competing for limited amounts of funding. Any changes to the current configuration would exacerbate the situation;

Whereas the Commission did not take into considerating that the current Sudbury-East boundaries include a substantial portion of francophone citizens. By removing St. Charles, Markstay-Warren and West Nipissing from Nickel Belt would make it extremely difficult to advocate for our francophone population and would be detrimental for those municipalities being forced into mostly anglophone ridings;

Whereas the proposal to diminish Northern Ontario's voice in Parliament will have detrimental effect on participatory democracy and regional development as issues in Northern Ontario are significantly different than those in Southern Ontario;

Whereas the Electoral Commission did not take under consideration that the courts have rules that representation in Canada's democracy is not based merely on population but on regions of interest and the right of citizens to engage with their elected representative;

Whereas any changes to electoral boundaries should be based on the principles of maintaining communities of interest within the boundaries that are equitable in terms of culture, language, and geography;

Whereas SEMA has a history of working collaboratively on projects and issues in our current riding. It will be inefficient to separate the work between two Members of Parliament and cause a duplication of work for members of SEMA;

Whereas the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission is seeking public input on its proposed riding boundary changes, yet has scheduled ONE in person consultation in Northern Ontario to be held in Timmins;

Now therefore be it resolved that this Council calls on the Electoral Boundary Commission to not reduce the number of MPs for Northern Ontario and it respects the current geographical boundaries for those in Nickel Belt;

Let is also be resolved that the Commission follow its rules and consider our community interest and identity and the historical pattern of our electoral district in the province when determining reasonable electoral district boundaries for our community;

And finally let it also be resolved that the Commission add an in-person consultation meeting to be held in Sudbury in order to fall those residing in Nickel Belt have an opportunity to meet in-person with the Commission.

I, Candy K. Beauvais, Clerk-Treasurer of the Municipality of Killarney, do certify the foregoing to be a true copy of Resolution #22-305 passed in a Regular Council Meeting of the Corporation of the Municipality of Killarney of the 14^th day of September 2022.