Commentaire 43 – commentaires et rétroaction

Jeff Helsdon

I am writing to share my distress with the proposed electoral boundary changes for Ontario.

To provide you with some background, I was the co-campaign manager for the Bobbi Ann Brady Campaign in the 2022 provincial election. For those not familiar with the situation, Bobbi Ann chose to run as an independent after the nomination for the Progressive Conservative Party was given to a candidate that retiring long-time member Toby Barrett could not support. Support came from all political stripes to allow Bobbi Ann to win and become the first independent who was not previously elected with a party in more than 100 years, and the first female independent elected in Ontario. One thing that was heard on the campaign trail was people were dissatisfied with party politics and felt their voice was not being heard. In fact, some said they were voting for the first time.

The current proposal for Haldimand-Norfolk, although federal, is often followed by the provincial government. Your proposal would sever off the east end of Haldimand County, including Dunnville, and assign it to a Niagara riding. The Town of Tillsonburg, which is in Oxford County, will become part of the riding as will Six Nations. On the topic of Oxford, the northeast part of Oxford will be part of a riding with Brant County, cutting Oxford County in three.

This proposal is totally disregarding municipal borders and will play havoc with representation. It will be difficult to have one part of Haldimand County coming to the Haldimand-Norfolk MP for municipal issues, and the east end going to another MP. The situation will be even worse in Oxford County where municipalities will need to go to three different MPs for an issue. This will give less representation to rural municipalities where an already-busy MP will have to keep track of issues in two or three different municipalities. This does not work well in rural Ontario. It is lessening the representation for people in rural areas and giving more representation to people in urban areas, hence lessening the rural voice.

After every election, politicians of all stripes and some bureaucrats muse about lower voter turnout. As was seen in the Brady campaign, people are feeling their voice isn't being heard already. This proposal is only going to make things worse. I would think that is something that Elections Canada would not want to do.

I understand there is a population target for ridings and an allowance how close the riding can be to that target. I would ask the commission go back to the drawing board and allow a greater deviation from the riding population target so ridings can be maintained along county lines in rural areas if this was the previous riding boundary.

Thank you

Jeff Helsdon