The B.C. Liberals are trying to manipulate the layout of rural ridings for its own political benefit, according to former NDP candidate Sherry Ogasawara.
The Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act was the second bill the government introduced this session and calls for the protection of 17 rural seats during the upcoming redrawing of the election map. The government said it's protecting the ridings, many of which have significantly fewer voters than larger urban ridings in the Lower Mainland, in order to ensure rural voices are heard at the legislature. But Ogasawara said the government is meddling in what should be an independent process.
Eleven of the 17 ridings proposed for protection are held by Liberals, including both Prince George ridings, while six are held by the NDP.
"It's really, clearly, a case of political interference in what should be an independent process," Ogasawara said. "I'm a little disturbed by the process, but I'm not surprised."
Ogasawara ran unsuccessfully for the NDP in the Prince George-Valemount riding, losing to Liberal Shirley Bond last May. She said the idea of maintaining adequate rural and northern representation is a good one, but that the current proposed legislation won't allow the commission drawing up the new boundaries to do its job.
"They're prescribing some of the outcomes before the commission has even made the recommendations for the electoral boundaries," she said.
Nechako Lakes Liberal MLA John Rustad spoke in the legislature this week in support of the new legislation. His riding is one of the most spread out in the province, going from Cluculz Lake in the east to Houston in the west to Omineca Provincial Park in the north to Entiako Provincial Park in the south.
"These are huge, huge vast areas that take a lot of time - those of us from rural B.C. understand this - to go around and to do a good job in trying to represent your constituents, trying to make sure that you have an opportunity for access," Rustad said in the legislature this week. "When you look at whether it's the Cariboo, or you look at the uniqueness of the geography in the Kootenays, or you look at the size of the geography in northern B.C., those special circumstances are similar to all of those ridings."
While the population is much more sparse in some rural ridings, Rustad said the more populous urban ridings can in some ways be easier to represent.
"In some of the urban ridings in the Lower Mainland, in the worst weather you can imagine, it would take them at most maybe half an hour to walk across with an umbrella and gumboots and maybe a jacket," he said. "For some of the places in rural B.C. it would take literally several tanks of gas, a couple of days and an act of God to get across the riding."
Ogasawara said by protecting so many ridings from redistribution, the Liberals are playing a more active role in trying to control the electoral map than when the Social Credit government was criticized for using political influence to help Grace McCarthy win re-election in 1983 by adding friendly neighbourhoods to her riding in 1982.
"What the Liberals are proposing makes the controversy around Gracie's finger pale by comparison," Ogasawara said.
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