No matter which party we reached out to it was clear that all of the candidates we spoke with were having to clear up confusion surrounding the new Sudbury East–Manitoulin–Nickel Belt riding ahead of the federal election.
Liberal candidate Marc Serré, who has represented the previous riding of Nickel Belt for a decade, has signs that say re-elect – which he says has voters in new communities confused.
Serré told CTV News that not only is it challenging visiting all areas of the new larger riding but he feels there won’t be enough funding.
“Whoever will be the new member of parliament Sudbury East–Manitoulin–Nickel Belt, from a parliamentary perspective, they will be receiving about $24,000 more in the MP budget to service Espanola, North Shore, and areas and Manitoulin, which is not a lot of additional dollars to help out an area,” he said.
The previous federal Algoma–Manitoulin–Kapuskasing riding that was held by New Democrat MP Carol Hughes since 2008 is no more and its three neighboring ridings have been expanded.
NDP candidate Andreane Chenier said many voters that she has spoken with do not know Hughes is retiring.
Chenier told CTV News that the redistribution has meant more time traveling.
“We just Google mapped it. We were wondering, because there is no public transit to reliably connect all of these communities together. How much time would it take to bike it from Mattagam First Nation, which is, you know, very much north to South Baymouth on the on the island,” she said.
“It turns out that it’s almost 21 hours. Very different from the 45 minutes it would take in some ridings.”
Conservative candidate Jim Belanger was unavailable for an interview but his campaign manager provided a statement which said in part:
“We’ve been tailoring our door to door messaging to help clear thing up, but its certainly something we’re navigating as we work to get the word out.”
Green Candidate Himal Hossain said he has also noticed the distances between canvasing and the redistribution confusion as well.
“One day here in Sturgeon Falls an hour and a half away, and another day you’re in Espanola again, 40 minutes away and let’s just say driving into Espanola is not as fun as driving on the 401 because of the way that it’s set up,” he said.
“I love the people of Espanola. Don’t get me wrong – but I will have to say, when I am knocking on doors and speaking with constituents, the main thing that I hear more than anything is that, you know, they want a different style of leadership.”
David Tabachnick, a Professor of Political Science at Nipissing University, told CTV News that redistricting is a fairly regular event in our system.
“That is partly an effort by the Electoral Boundaries Commission to have a balanced population in each riding and they aim for about 120,000 people in each riding,” he said.
“But, for northern Ontario, we can’t quite get there.”
He said just because we have less people doesn’t mean we should have even less ridings.
“We should have a little bit more representation than our population demands,” said Tabachnick.
“It’s not just a strict, representation by population model. There’s regional considerations and so that has been factored in by the Electoral Boundaries Commission in this redrawing. But I would like to see them, sort of recognize the need for northern Ontario to be better represented, in, in Parliament, because our issues are somewhat distinct.”
The Constitution of Canada requires that federal electoral districts be reviewed after each decennial or 10-year census to reflect changes and movements in Canada’s population, with the last review beginning in 2021.
