Federal Riding Redistribution Finalized

Jeff Green | Oct 17, 2013

It took a little longer than planned, but the new federal electoral boundaries for Ontario have been finalized.

Last-minute proposals by MPs Scott Reid (Lanark Frontenac Lennox & Addington) and Ted Hsu (Kingston and the Islands) were discounted by the three-member panel that was charged with setting the boundaries, and the draft boundaries affecting a handful of ridings in south-eastern Ontario ended up the same as had been proposed in the second draft report of the panel, which was presented to a parliamentary committee in the spring.

Lanark Frontenac Lennox and Addington will be split into two ridings, with Lanark and Frontenac counties remaining together, and the addition of part of rural Kingston. Highway 401 will be the boundary between the Lanark-Frontenac riding and a smaller Kingston and the Islands riding.

Lennox and Addington will join with Hastings County to form the L&A Hastings riding.

The new boundaries are much different from those proposed in the first draft of the panel’s report. At that time, Frontenac County was to be split into three different east-west oriented ridings.

While the current provincial riding boundaries are identical to the federal ones, that may not be the case once the new federal boundaries take effect for the 2015 federal elections.

If a provincial election takes place before 2015, as is expected, the current riding distribution will remain in effect.

Once the 2015 federal election takes place, it will be up to the Province of Ontario to decide if it wants to change its own boundaries in order to mirror the federal boundaries. That’s what they did ten years ago, the last time new electoral boundaries came into effect.