Comment 81 – comments and feedback

Craig Sweetnam

I am not in favour of the Redistribution plan which removes the north part of West Carleton, which includes Constance Bay and Fitzroy Harbour from the Kanata electoral district. This area of West Carleton has little in common with Deep River and Pembroke. I believe I have a good sense of where the connections in our community are, as I spent most of my teenage life growing up and going to high school in West Carleton and I still work in West Carleton. In talking with friends I am able to understand many of the challenges my schoolmates and other friends have contended with in other areas of West Carleton.

At the formation of the larger City of Ottawa, when the outlying areas amalgamated with the city, an election was held, and my friends in Constance Bay and Fitzroy Harbour chose to stay in the City of Ottawa, rather than joining Renfrew or Lanark. Over 70% of the people voted to stay with the City of Ottawa. The commission should bear this in mind when they attempt to balance populations in each electoral district - the people living in the north part of West Carleton have local community connections for education plus their municipal services such as garbage pickup, road repairs, snow ploughing and disaster relief come from the City of Ottawa - not Pembroke.

The Redistribution Commission has moved the north part of West Carleton to the Algonquin Renfrew Pembroke (ARP) electoral district to balance the population numbers. If the approximately 7000 people in the northern part of West Carleton were to remain with the Kanata electoral district (ED), the large sparsely populated ARP ED would still have about 110,000 people. The sparse population in this ED deserves a modest population reduction as it will still be well above the 100,000 population in many northern EDs.

To summarize, the Commission's proposal has not taken into consideration communities of interest, which is an equally important part of the commission's mandate when the new proposal prevents the north part of West Carleton from staying in a city ED with their neighbours.

I note that I am not the only one of the views that West Carleton should remain in one electoral district. Eli El-Chantiry who has represented the West Carleton Ward for 19 years at the city of Ottawa indicates it will be more difficult to govern when three MPs represent different parts of the Ward.

The fact that the Community Voice newspaper covering Kanata North also covers West Carleton is a further demonstration that West Carleton and Kanata are considered part of one community.

A further demonstration of the fact that the north of West Carleton, Constance Bay, Fitzroy Harbour are attached to Ottawa is the tremendous volunteer effort offered during two recent floods of the Ottawa River. Volunteers came from Ottawa by the hundreds to fill sandbags, deliver sandbags to appropriate locations, donate pumps and generators, offer temporary accommodations and do whatever they could to assist during this tragic community event.

In conclusion I believe the people of West Carleton would prefer to be in ED in which it is part of a community of interest than to join an area in which they have little in common. I think the residents of Kanata would welcome all of West Carleton to continue to be part of the Kanata ED.

Thanks for considering my opinion

Craig Sweetnam

 

Note:

The 11,000 people in the Bells Corners area of the new Kanata ED could be put back with Nepean. Bells Corners has little in common with Kanata. Several colleagues have indicated that they have made presentations to the commission indicating that they do not wish to be in the same ED as Kanata. They identify with the Nepean community that has traditionally represented them. The population of Kanata ED would then be about 124,000 people which is about the average for EDs in the area. It is certainly less than the 127,000 population of Ottawa Vanier.