IT would seem that the Federal Elections Boundaries Commission had their minds made up from the beginning that lumping a chunk of north Burnaby with Seymour was the best solution to the problem of creating a new riding on the North Shore.
Commissioner Stewart Ladyman told the Huffington Post on Aug. 16 last year that "The North Burnaby-North Vancouver issue has been on the table for a number of commissions, and there is just no way this time around but to cross the river."
Burnaby-Douglas New Democrat MP Kennedy Stewart may not have been completely right when he charged at the time that the commission had no real intention of listening to the public on the issue. Clearly the commission listened; it says with "sympathy and appreciation to the cogently expressed objections to this reconfiguration from several sources."
It just chose to go ahead and do what it originally planned: lump together two geographically and demographically different areas that have nothing in common at the east end of that bit of the map above Vancouver while cutting a chunk off of the western end and lumping it in with the northern end of Vancouver Island.
This insensitive manipulation of riding boundaries pleases no one - even the Tory-dominated House of Commons committee that considered the proposal recommended against it.
Creating a second North Vancouver-Seymour riding and adjusted the eastern boundary of West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country would result in better representation for the North Shore. Was that not the objective?
