By Pepper Parr
August 31, 2022
BURLINGTON, ON
Where do you vote? Depends where you live.
The boundaries for a constituency (usually referred to as a riding) is determined by federal regulation that is based on the census report that is produced every ten years.
The Constitution of Canada requires that federal electoral districts be reviewed after each decennial (10-year) census to reflect changes and movements in Canada’s population.
The current federal redistribution process began in October 2021. It is led by independent commissions working separately in each province to establish electoral boundaries. The Chief Electoral Officer is tasked with applying the representation formula found in the Constitution to determine the new allocation of seats. Elections Canada is also responsible for providing administrative and technical support to the commissions.
The preliminary boundaries that will be discussed at an October 6th meeting in Milton are shown below:
This map shows four ridings – Burlington currently has three.
On June 23, 2022 , Parliament amended the Representation Formula, which determines the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) to be assigned to each province. The new legislation ensures that every province retains, as a minimum, the same number of MPs that it had assigned during the 43rd Parliament elected in 2019.
What does that mean for Ontario and, more importantly – what does it mean for Burlington. The people of this city get to vote in one of the three current ridings:
Burlington
Oakville North Burlington
Milton.
If the current preliminary boundaries people in Burlington would be in either:
Burlington Lakeshore
Oakville Lakeshore
Oakville North
Burlington Milton West
Walter Byj who covered the last change in the boundaries and has agreed to take on the task of reporting on the process this time around.
Kyle Hutton will be commenting on the changes proposed.
The first meeting for a public hearing takes place on October 6th in Milton
