Another round of electoral boundaries review consultations underway
Only scheduled stop in southwestern N.S. for this round Jan. 18 is Cornwallis
The next round of public consultations by the Nova Scotia Electoral Boundaries Commission is underway.
The only stop in southwestern Nova Scotia on the 10-meeting tour is slated for Jan. 18 at the Annapolis Basin Conference Centre in Cornwallis.
The consultations are a follow-up to the commission’s interim report released Nov. 28, 2018. The 84-page report – titled “Striking a balance between effective representation and voter parity” – was published after a round of public consultations last fall that included meetings in Shelburne, Tusket and Clare. The report recommends four options for consideration.
The first option, which is the status quo of 51 seats, was mandated by the terms of reference. In the other three options, the electoral districts of Shelburne County, Queens County, Argyle and Clare would be restored, and the riding of Digby-Annapolis could be created, with 55 electoral districts created in two scenarios and 56 in the fourth due to these and other ridings being proposed.
In an interview, chairman Colin Dobbs said at the moment the commission is not planning any other meetings in southwestern Nova Scotia during this round. They did the tour in the area last fall.
“I’m not saying we won’t be coming down but the way the commission is thinking, given what we’ve gone out with, we will be looking at one of those four options. If it were to be the 51, and we haven’t decided yet because we haven’t finished our consultations for the final report, I think we would be coming down again,” he said.
“The four options, the first one (51 seats) was required by the terms of reference. The other three options are pretty close to what we went out with in September. The commission is leaning in that direction, but things can change,” he said.
Draft boundary proposals that were presented by the commission for consideration when they did consultations last fall included, are in part, to increase the number of seats in the provincial legislature to 55 from 51, which included restoring the seats of Clare, Argyle, Preston and Richmond and creating two additional electoral districts in Bedford and Sackville. Under that scenario, Shelburne County would be its own provincial constituency again, and gone would be the ridings of Argyle-Barrington and QueensShelburne, which were created after the last provincial electoral boundary review in 2012.
Dobbs said the commission hopes to wrap up consultations by the end of January. The final report is due April 1.
The meeting on Jan. 18 at the Annapolis Basin Conference Centre in Cornwallis is scheduled to run from 7 to 9 p.m. Simultaneous interpretation services will be available.
Besides the public meetings, anyone wanting to comment on the interim report, which is available online at https:// nselectoralboundaries.ca/, can contact the commission by email at ElectoralBoundariesCommission@novascotia.ca , by phone at 902-424-4056 or by mail at Nova Scotia Electoral Boundaries Commission, P0 Box 2246, Halifax, NS B3J 3C8.