If residents of central and northern B.C. are true believers in democracy, particularly on the sentiment of one person equals one vote, then they should be willing to give up as many as five of the 10 seats they currently hold in the B.C. legislature.
No one is suggesting that at this point but perhaps someone should. Last week, public comment closed on proposed changes to the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act. The suggested changes are minor - keep the current 85 seats and the current riding configurations but protect 17 seats because of their "very special circumstances."
The reason these 17 seats, which include the 10 in this area plus seven more that represent the North Thompson and the Columbia-Kootenay regions, are apparently deserving of protection is because they are all 25 per cent or more below the average population per riding. The current legislation states that no electoral district should be 25 per cent above or below the average population, unless there are "very special circumstances."
Besides the fact that these "very special circumstances" may be in violation of the right-to-vote provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they also shouldn't be allowed to apply to a whopping 20 per cent of the legislature.
This is a sensitive topic in these parts. In 2007, when the Electoral Boundaries Commission had the nerve to suggest the Cariboo and the North each lose a seat so the Lower Mainland could get four more and the Okanagan could get an extra seat, area residents went pothole, snow-removal bonkers.
"Because the North generates so much of the province's economic activity, it should have more votes," was a common but faulty argument at the time.
CBC Radio brought me in to debate a local media personality who was fervently arguing this exact point.
"Jim Pattison contributes more to the economy of this province than you, me, and everyone listening to this program put together," I responded. "Are you saying Mr. Pattison should have his own seat in the legislature?"
Nearly seven years later and that question still hasn't been answered. Tying personal or regional wealth to political power and still having the nerve to call it democracy is ridiculous.
As I pointed out in a column at the time, most local residents mock the demands of Quebec for special federal status and rightly so but have no shame in demanding the same status for themselves in Victoria.
Geographically large ridings are difficult to represent for one MLA. Just two ridings - Stikine and Peace River North - cover more than a quarter of the entire province in the northeast and northwest corners. Contrast that with some of the MLAs in Greater Vancouver who can comfortably campaign through their districts exclusively on foot.
But the number of voters, not the size of the riding, should decide where the seats go. Modern telecommunications makes elected officials, even in rural areas, easier to access, erasing much of the geographical barriers.
Back in 2007, the Electoral Boundaries Commission said the region should lose three seats but decided to be reasonable and keep it at one. The Liberals didn't have the nerve to do the right thing, so they simply added the new seats, without taking any way from the north, which is still a relative decrease but it was somehow still seen as a victory.
As IntegrityBC, a provincial watchdog, pointed out last week, the average number of residents in these 17 special ridings is, on average, barely half of the population of the other 68 ridings in the legislature.
Furthermore, 17 protected ridings in B.C. would be more than what Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have combined. Like B.C., all four of these provinces have significant urban populations to the south and large, sparsely populated northern regions, so there's no reason why B.C. should be different.
A new electoral boundaries commission will be formed this spring to study this specific issue and the number of seats in the legislature in more detail. If history is any indicator, cutting this region's number of MLAs will once again be on the table.
