British Columbia’s provincial government has proposed an electoral district system that will keep rural representation in its legislative assembly at a set level while allowing for more MLAs in areas seeing population growth.
Amendments introduced Wednesday will direct the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission to recommend 87 electoral districts, up from 79 today. From those 87, northern regions will be assured eight MLAs, the Cariboo-Thompson region five, and the Columbia-Kootenay four. The commission will have eight seats to allocate elsewhere in the province, in keeping with areas where populations are on the rise.
The government said in a release that the increase in seats gives the commission “the ability to better achieve parity of voting power and effective representation, without significantly increasing the size of the legislative assembly.”
A preliminary report on new electoral boundaries is due from the commission by the end of January, and a final report by April 15. If passed in the legislature, the new map would be in place for the 2009 provincial general election.
