This Day In Snookland...All Your Rurals 'R Us.

GerryThis!
ManderVille


Vaughn Palmer, as only he can do, kinda/sorta (but not quite/not really) recently called out the Snooklandians on their plans to make sure that rural British Columbia will get an even bigger proportion of the electoral representation pie as populations increase everywhere else in the province.

So.

What did the Dean offer up as the possible whys and wherefores that have led to this latest bit of democratic bait-and-switcheroo by the Crony party?

Well....

There is, apparently the possibility that 'sentiment' is behind it all:

...“We don’t need any more politicians!” is the cry from many a member of the public, every time government appoints a commission to reconcile electoral boundaries with a growing population.

Mindful of that sentiment, the Liberals, in setting out the mandate for the commission that will redraw the boundaries in time for the next provincial election, have dictated that it cannot expand the number of house seats beyond its current bursting-at-the-seams 85...


This 'sentiment' from a government that is willing to spend, literally, tens of millions on Bogus Bollywood productions and ad campaigns designed to drive Facebook hits?

Well then...

How about the 'preservation' shuffle:

...“The aim of this bill is to preserve representation in the legislative assembly for northern and rural regions of the province that are most at risk of losing seats in the next electoral boundary revision process,” as Justice Minister Suzanne Anton put it when she introduced the legislative amendments to the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act...

Sure thing - this despite the fact that, for example the North currently has half the population of Surrey and the same number of seats.

Well then...

How about a zen-like 'balance' that only a legal genius like Suzanne Anton can possibly achieve:

...“It is challenging to balance urban and rural representation in a province as large and diverse as British Columbia,” as the government said in justifying its latest legislative move...Except isn't the 'balance', right now, pretty much ass-over-tea-kettle 'rural' (see above)?

Well then...

Perhaps after all that we should let Mr. Palmer get right down to it:

...(The Liberals say they are doing this) because the house is already big enough, but suspicions focus on the 17 protected (rural) seats. Eleven are currently held by the government, only six by the NDP...Now.

That sure looked like a knockout punch, right?

Well, not really.

Because the pullback comes on Mr. Palmer's very next passage:

...Still, one should note that the NDP took eight of those seats in the 2009 election, so the balance would not necessarily favour the government in the long run...

Repeating...

The Dean has concluded, by looking at just the last two election cycles, that 'the balance would not necessarily favour the government in the long run'.

Which led me to do something that took about half-an-hour.

Yes, that's right!

I went up the Toobz and had a look the results in those 17 ridings (and/or the almost same-named ridings, pre-2009) over all four election cycles since the BC Liberal government came to power almost 14 years ago.

And here are those numbers:

2013: 11 Liberal to 6 NDP 
2009: 9 Liberal to 8 NDP
2005: 9 Liberal to 8 NDP
2001: 17 Liberal to 0 NDP

****

Look.

I realize that 2001 was a wee bit of an anomaly, Dean-assisted or otherwise.

But no matter how you slice it the BC Liberal Party has won the rural vote in those 17 ridings every single time during their 'long run'.

So.

Why didn't Mr. Palmer come right out and call a spade a spade?

Or at the very least, a fine fellow named Gerry?

Gerry Mander that is.

Sheesh.



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And, if that wee bit of the Little Mountain riding was known as Gracie's 'finger' back in the day, what the heckfire, as Dermod Travis wondered recently,  should we call this thing?

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