Thursday, August 16, 2007

Release of Interim Report of the BC Electoral Boundary Commission

Hello all:

The Interim Report of the British Columbia Electoral Boundary Commission has now been publicly released. As expected, several ridings are proposed to be eliminated in the North and the Kootenays, while several ridings are proposed to be added in the highest growth areas in BC which are the Okanagan and the Lower Mainland. The number of MLA's will go up from 79 to 81.

For those of us in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, Cariboo-North and South have been eliminated. All of Cariboo-North + portion of Cariboo-South in Williams Lake will be redistributed to form a new electoral riding called Cariboo-Chilcotin. The riding will cover all of the Chilcotin in the west, up north to Hixon, east towards Wells, Bowron Lakes, Horsefly and as far south as Williams Lake (the entire City!!!!). Points south from 150 Mile House, down through 100 Mile House, Clinton, Cache Creek and into the Fraser Canyon and points in between will be called Cariboo-Fraser.

I certainly like what is being proposed so far by the Electoral Boundary Commission

Next Steps:

1) The Electoral Boundary Commission must now put their Interim Report to a 2nd Round of Public Hearings with a deadline of February 15th, 2008 to submit their Final Report to the Speaker (Hon. Bill Barisoff).

2) After Feb 15th of next year, the House shall consider the necessary legislation to implement the Final Report in the Spring Sitting of the 2008 Legislative Session in order to have the new electoral boundaries in place for the May 2009 Provincial General Election

I would suggest those of you who do not like the new electoral districts, please get out and tell the Electoral Boundary Commission. It is your comments that the EBC takes into consideration while drafting their Final Report

No comments: