Being heard
Residents make case for District 24 to remain Acadian-focused
Islanders living in the Evangeline region made their cases Tuesday night as to why they feel the area should continue to have strong Acadian representation in the provincial legislature.
The Electoral Boundaries Commission is studying changes to the map of the province’s districts and held a meeting to collect public input in AbramVillage Tuesday night. Tuesday’s meeting was not strongly attended, about a half dozen people, but those who did speak asked that the current boundaries be maintained to ensure that District 24 remains a primarily Acadian-focused district.
“We don’t think there is a need to change and many reason why it should stay,” said Alcide Bernard, chairman of the community of Wellington. “Any place that you’re going to try and extend the boundaries is going to dilute our position – the proportion of francophones there,” he added.
As part of the boundary review, the commission has released two sample maps showing options for how the district borders could be redrawn.
Since the last review in 2006, more Islanders have moved closer to urban districts and the maps reflect that change. Both maps extend District 24 east into Linkletter, though one version also takes in Slemon Park, Southwest Lot 16, Central Lot 16 and Belmont – all historically anglophone communities. Gerard Mitchell, chairman of the commission, said both maps are only points of reference for the overall discussion and are not set in stone. The feedback provided Tuesday was important, he added, because the commission has a duty to consider factors like minority languages and culture when drawing their maps.
“It’s certainly a very important factor,” said Mitchell.
“It could be such (an important) thing that it could be grounds for departing from strict parity (of population).” The commission still has a number of public input meetings scheduled. They can be found online at: www.electoralboundaries.pe.ca/schedule. It will deliver its report during the spring 2017 sitting of the legislature.