http://tinyurl.com/y8faqqh
This change won't likely be in place until after the next election but it may well make a difference to who forms the government after the next government. As for the GTA being Liberal, there's some truth there but, especially in the 905 (or suburban region) not as much as once was the case. The suburban seats are certainly not assured to be Liberal.
Ontario to get 18 more seats in House of Commons
Susan Delacourt
Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has given Ontario two surprise gifts – 18 additional members of Parliament and an admission that the province was badly treated in previous attempts to overhaul the Commons.
Many of the new MPs will likely be in the GTA, particularly in the suburbs, where Conservatives have been keen to form a strong base in Ontario.
In legislation unveiled on Thursday by Steven Fletcher, Minister of State of Democratic Reform, Ontario was given 18 additional seats – nearly double the 10 that were offered the last time the federal government tried to adjust representation in the Commons.
"Canadians living in Ontario were saying they were being treated differently than Canadians in other faster-growing provinces," Fletcher said. "We reflected on that and it turns out that there was a case to be made."
British Columbia has been given seven new seats and Alberta five additional MPs, in further recognition of the need for the fastest-growing provinces to be better served in Parliament.
5 comments:
Everyone thinks that the 905 is stricly suburban...I live in rural Ontario and my phone number is a 905.
We are not part of the GTA
Good point -- I am wrong and apologize!
I think for many of us living in the Toronto area, 416 means inner Toronto and 905 means the suburban ring of Halton, Peel, York, and Durham. While there are rural areas in these regions, the 905 does extend around Hamilton to Niagara Falls and Fort Erie.
A few years ago when Harper was trying to get Conservative support in Quebec, his party proposed a few extra seats for Ontario (but not as many as is proposed now). I think that realizing that the Conservatives may not win a majority by wooing Quebeckers, his party is proposing more seats for Ontario, BC, and Alberta because his party might win seats in the growing regions around Toronto.
For those of you who live in downtown Toronto and in rural parts of Canada, the suburban areas around Toronto are becoming more diverse culturally. While one would assume that Canadians from diverse communities may only vote Liberal, they do vote similarly compared to their more Anglo-Saxon neighbours. Conservative blogger Daryl Wolk published a map of how the people in the different polling divisions in Newmarket-Aurora voted. The people in the newer ethnically diverse neighbourhoods didn't vote that much differently compared to their Anglo-Saxon Canadian friends living in the next-door older neighbourhoods.
I did publish a blogpost showing that the Conservatives were shortchanged in the last election by about three seats. This may not seem like much. However, in a redistributed House of Commons, three seats may make the difference between a majority and a minority.
http://skinnydips.blogspot.com/2008/10/brampton-west-almost-equals-six-and.html
I may be wrong, but I read somewhere, that Harper doe not pick where they should be, but some Judge does?
Post a Comment