Citing concerns from Municipality of Chatham-Kent officials, the commission in charge of redrawing the federal riding boundaries has dropped plans to split the municipality from two into three districts.
Instead, all of Chatham-Kent will be part of a single riding and will retain the name Chatham-Kent—Leamington, according to the commission’s final report released Friday. The report will still need to be considered in Parliament and returned to the commission with any objections.
Currently, Chatham-Kent is covered by two ridings – the other being Lambton—Kent—Middlesex – but under this plan communities in the north of municipality, like Wallaceburg and Dresden, will be absorbed into Chatham-Kent—Leamington.
The riding will retain all of Leamington, Pelee Island and Moraviantown, but will lose the easterly part of Lakeshore to the Essex riding.
Chatham-Kent council passed a motion in September asking staff to represent the municipality at a virtual public forum, following the release of the original three-riding proposal.
“The Municipality of Chatham-Kent, a single tier municipality, expressed concern that it was being split from two into three districts,” the report stated.
“In this final plan, the Commission has reconfigured the boundaries so that the Municipality of Chatham-Kent is within one district. Leamington and Pelee Island have also been placed in this district, as they were in the existing boundaries. This reinforces effective representation of these communities.”
Walpole Island First Nation will move from Lambton—Kent—Middlesex into a district called Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, which incorporates all of Lambton County.
Under the original proposal, Chatham-Kent—Leamington was to be renamed Chatham-Kent—Leamington—Kingsville. It would have included the southern portion of Kingsville, more of Lakeshore and extend north of the Thames River, while losing eastern Chatham-Kent communities like Ridgetown, Highgate and Bothwell to a third riding.
The commission was required to redraw Ontario’s federal boundaries because the province’s population had grown to the point where a new riding was needed.
Based on Ontario’s population, the commission set a quota of 116,590 people in each of the 122 electoral districts. It allowed for a deviation from this quota of up to plus or minus 10 per cent, with exceptions made for northern Ontario.
In the new report, Chatham-Kent—Leamington’s population will be 134,226, which is 15.1 per cent higher than the quota.
The report acknowledged the modifications resulted in some electoral districts exceeding the deviation range the commission originally set. Under the plan, 16 per cent of ridings are outside of the plus or minus 10 per cent range and six per cent exceed a deviation of plus or minus 15 per cent.
The report also recognized the deviations with the Southernmost Ontario region were “especially high.” They range from plus 9.9 per cent to plus 15.1 per cent.
“The Commission has concluded that geographic considerations and the need for effective representation warrants these deviations,” the report stated.
“The relatively fewer choices for boundary options on a peninsula, combined with the desire to keep lower-tier and upper-tier municipalities together, makes this plan reasonable. However, this will need to be re-assessed in the future, as the population in this geographic piece shifts.”
According to the commission’s timeline, these changes will take effect for elections held after April 2024 at the earliest.