Proposed Changes To Provincial And Federal Ridings Not Set In Stone: Reid

Jeff Green | Nov 09, 2022

Because of his long career as an MP, Scott Reid is now dealing with his third riding redistribution process. He does not remember all of the details from the 2002 process; he was the rookie MP in the riding of Lanark-Carleton, after beating the Liberal candidate, Ian Murray, in a relatively close race (38.9% to 36%) on November 26, 2000.

After the redistribution process in 2002, the riding of Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington was created, and remained in place for 10 years.

Coming into the 2012 redistribution process, Scott Reid was not only engaged in the process fully, but also brought an explicit agenda to bear on his interventions. He had made a commitment to try to bring his home county (Lanark) into a single riding, based on consultations he held with Frontenac County Council. The Lanark County Township of Mississippi Mills, with a population of over 10,000 people, was not in the Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington riding.

When the initial proposals from the 2012 Electoral Boundaries Commission came out, not only did it not place Lanark in a single riding, it carved up Eastern Ontario on horizontal lines, in a similar manner that the 2022 Electoral Boundaries Commission has done.

In response, Reid made a proposal to create the new Lanark Frontenac Kingston, and three other contiguous ridings, that respected county and township lines as much as possible, while keeping the population within each riding within 10% of the target.

“When you look at the final map in 2012, it bears no resemblance to the map of the commission's first proposal,” he said.

In Eastern Ontario, the map did mirror much of what Scott Reid, and others, had proposed for the region.

The 2022 boundary commission's first proposal is not friendly to municipal boundaries.

It would see most of South Frontenac, along with North Kingston, joining the Leeds-Grenville Brockville riding.

Bedford District, however, would remain in the Frontenac-Lanark riding, along with Central and North Frontenac. Westport would be pulled from the Leeds-Grenville-Brockville riding and join Lanark-Frontenac, and the township of Greater Madawaska would be pulled out of the Renfrew riding, and also tacked on to Lanark-Frontenac.

In response to this proposal, Reid presented two options to the commission. Both of them would result in changes to the Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston riding but would keep both Lanark and Frontenac counties remaining in one riding.

The biggest impact in the Reid proposal would be to the section of Kingston, to the east of the Cataraqui River. Under one of the options, that section of Kingston would be included in the Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston riding, which would lose Smiths Falls to the Leeds Grenville riding.

Under the second option, that section of Kingston would be part of the Leeds Grenville riding, and Smiths Falls would remain in the Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston riding.

Reid appeared before Smiths Falls Town Council last month with his two options, asking which riding they preferred.

Although Smiths Falls is a single-tier municipality and is not part of Lanark County, it has historic and continuing ties to Lanark County, and sends someone to attend Lanark County Council meetings as an observer. Smiths Falls Council passed a motion which concluded:

“WHEREAS Smiths Falls maintains closer institutional links to Lanark County than to the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville;

NOW THEREFORE the Town of Smiths Falls requests that in the redistribution, it remains within the same electoral district as Lanark County.”

“I had no easy mechanism to ask people in the eastern portion of Kingston to see which option they preferred,” said Reid, who included the Smiths Falls motion with his submission to the boundaries commission.

Under the Scott Reid options, especially option 2, the range of population in the four ridings is very close to the target population, considerably closer than in the commission's own proposal.

The riding sizes in the commission proposal would see a range in riding size of 16,322 (14%) with the most populous riding, Kingston and the Islands, at 126,606, and the least populated, Lanark-Frontenac, at 109,784, an 18.9% range.

Under Scott Reid's option 2, Renfrew-Nippising would have the most people, 119,764, and Kingston and the Islands the least, 112,307, a 6.2% range. The target population is about 116,500.

Maintaining a population range under 15% is one of the goals set for the commission, and another is to attempt to maintain 'communities of interest'.

County boundaries are one aspect of 'communities of interest' in Reid's submission.

In the Reid proposals, the 13,799 people living in East-Kingston would be the most impacted in regards to 'communities of interest'. While all of their political and economic ties are to Kingston, they would be part of a rural riding with Gananoque, Brockville, and Prescott.

The same thing happened to residents of Kingston living north of the 401 in 2012, when they were pulled from the Kingston and the Islands riding and lumped in with Frontenac and Lanark County.

With population growth in Kingston, some parts of the city will be pulled from the riding eventually, in 2032 if not this time around.

The townships of South Frontenac, Greater Madawaska, and Elisabethtown-Kitley, who would all be impacted by the commission's proposed redrawing of riding boundaries, all passed motions asking the commission to reconsider. Their motions were included in Scott Reid's submission to the commission.

The comment period, both written and oral (in person and virtual) is now over.

“The timelines for the commission are short,” said Reid. “They are expected to submit their final report by the end of the year I believe, unless they ask for an extension.”

Reid added that when he made his oral presentation, which was the final one during a virtual meeting in late October, he told the commission that he did not envy them their job.

“They have a map to work from. They don't know the patterns of travel, the social and economic ties, etc., especially in rural areas. It's not easy for them to make everything fit,” he said.