You would think that the Ontario government would at least look at the results of the last provincial and federal elections before accepting the federal electoral district redistribution in the province. All they needed to do was Google the word “gerrymander” and they would have understood what was wrong with the federal redistribution of the City of Barrie.
And it would have been an easy fix. The provincial government did not have to accept any of the changes by the federal commission. The government decided not to change any of the northern electoral districts because the changes were more of a cosmetic nature rather than fairer.
But by dividing Barrie into north and south halves and adding heavily Conservative rural areas to each half was a blatant attempt to provide a benefit to the Conservative Party. And the line up of local Conservatives at the federal redistribution commission hearings that supported this as a great idea certainly confirmed that it was not a great idea for everybody.
It was when nobody objected at the commission hearing in Barrie that the commission assumed that this was a done deal. And for the Ontario Liberal government to accept this is ridiculous. The current Member of the Ontario Legislature from Barrie was elected in 2014. Her electoral district is all within the city boundaries of Barrie. She is a Liberal.
In the more recent federal election run under the new gerrymandered ridings in north and south Barrie, there was no Liberal sweep. The Conservative candidates won both ridings.
In analyzing the results during the judicial recount in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte it was easy to see that the rural voters mostly voted for the Conservative candidate while the city voters mainly supported the Liberal. You would have thought that the campaign manager for Premier Wynne’s election campaign in 2014 would have told her about the Barrie situation. He was in Barrie for the recount.
Mind you, it might be a bit rude to question whether the Ontario Liberals are lazy or stupid. The third option is that maybe they do not care. Judging by the current beer boondoggle, the carding by out-of-control police, the disaster of selling off shares of Hydro One’s electricity distribution and their general malaise in government, maybe Premier Wynne and her merry men do not give a damn.
-30-
Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]