Electoral Boundaries Commission Report

The BC EBC preliminary report has been released.

I am not happy they only chose to add 2 more MLAs, that is not enough to maintain the representation of Rural BC.

The North:

There is the loss of a riding in the region. They are proposing 7 ridings instead of the current 8. Changes:
I like the Prince George donut riding approach. Currently there are three PG ridings that take in all the rural areas around PG and Prince George dominates all three ridings. Now you have one very rural riding, one mixed and one urban.

The Peace has sort of lost a riding, almost all the Peace population in one riding and with a new Northland riding that is north of the Peace

It is the Northwest that has effectively lost a riding.


Thompson Cariboo

Loss of a riding in the region. Loss of my old stomping grounds of Yale Lillooet - this will be first time since 1871 there has not been Yale or Lillooet in a riding name.

The change is the loss of Yale Lillooet with the north part of the riding going into what was Cariboo South. The Similkameen going into the Okanagan and Hope in the Fraser Valley.

The Okanagan

Interesting, the new riding is the south Okanagan, which was helped with population from Yale Lillooet and West Kootenay Boundary.

The Kootenaies

Not only do they lose a riding, but the boundaries are odd. The Cranbrook riding is not together with Fernie and Sparwood, but with areas one associates with Nelson. Revelstoke is with Fernie........

Vancouver Island

Hmmm, the Duncan riding is coming down into Langford. the island north of the Malahat goes up to seven ridings from the current 6.

I like the changes in lower island generally. The changes are large enough that incumbents will not obviously have ridings to be in.

Richmond Delta

Almost no changes

Surrey

Gains another riding to take them to 8. Interestingly, Surrey would now have more MLAs than the north of BC.....

Effectively the new riding comes from the division of Surrey Tynehead into two.

Fraser Valley

Goes from 8 to 9 ridings, they gain the area around Hope.

The return of the In-SHUCK-ch communities to a Fraser Valley riding is not, in my opinion, the best way to go. The access in and out is via Pemberton.

The North Shore

No real changes

The Tri-Cities

With the loss of part of Burnaby, the Tri-Cities get four ridings to themselves

Burnaby New West

No more sharing with the tri cities, so Burnaby gets four ridings to itself

Vancouver

Goes from 10 to 11. The main change being the division of Vancouver Burrard into two ridings