ARICHAT: Richmond Municipal Council is criticizing proposed federal electoral boundary changes calling for the formation of the riding of Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish.
Warden Amanda Mombourquette told the Nov. 28 regular monthly meeting in Arichat that someone could drive across the potential riding of Sydney-Glace Bay in about 20 to 30 minutes, while Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish would take hours.
“I heard some blips and rumours about this, but at the end of the day, I was certainly surprised by just the vast area that it turned out to be,” she said. “You’re talking hours and hours of journey to get from one end of the riding to the other. My concern is that the geography proposed will have a significant negative impact on any one person’s ability to serve constituents and effectively represent, municipalities in particular, in the riding.”
The Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish riding would take in rural parts of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, as well as Victoria, Inverness, and Richmond counties, along with the Municipality of the District of Guysborough, and Antigonish town and county.
Mombourquette said the reconfiguration will add to an MP’s already full plate.
“This will add additional municipalities to an MP’s plate, that they’ll have to be working, not to mention all of the fire departments, and all of the constituent issues, and so many things, it’s not just population,” she noted. “I’m really concerned about our ability to be supported, consistently, with this new riding.”
Mombourquette said the new riding would require additional resources and more than one constituency office.
“Many times, people in urban areas are making plans for rural regions. I know what it’s like when you’re trying to represent a region; somebody else is trying to represent a region much, much smaller,” she noted. “Even just in terms of how long it takes to go and meet with people, it takes a day here to go and do that, whereas it can be an hour commitment somewhere else.”
Deputy Warden Brent Sampson said the current riding of Cape Breton-Canso is already large and this proposal “exacerbates a problem that’s already there.”
“Even now, it’s bit of a running joke how huge (Kelloway’s) riding is at the moment. He’s way up in Inverness County and then trying to get to Port Felix or something, that’s quite a haul,” he said. “As far as adding the Highlands into that, that’s a huge change for the district.”
District 3 Councillor Melanie Sampson acknowledged that there’s not much they can do.
“Presumably these new riding boundaries are driven by population,” she said. “Basically, I assume it’s similar to our own boundary discussions that we had just prior to our council meeting that it has to be equitable, it has to make sense. I completely appreciate that this is not going to be in our best interests in terms of who will be our MP.”
Council agreed to a suggestion from the district 3 councillor to write a letter to Cape Breton-Canso MP Mike Kelloway to express their concerns.
“Highlighting the geographic concerns, the service to constituents, and that you would hope that the boundary would be reconsidered,” Sampson added. “I think I would provide solutions, that there would be extra funding attributed to the constituency to allow for more constituency offices that would be geographically located.”