Facing a major restructuring of his riding, Kitchener-Conestoga MP Harold Albrecht will now see only some tweaking when the boundaries are redrawn for the 2015 election.
The name Kitchener-Conestoga will remain when a fifth riding is added to Waterloo Region under plans released this week by the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission. The townships of Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich stay together, though the southwest portion of Kitchener currently in the riding will become part of the new riding, to be called Kitchener-South Hespeler.
That all five ridings will remain within Waterloo Region was just the outcome looked for by Albrecht.
“I’m pleased that the commission listened to the people of the region,” he said from Ottawa on Wednesday afternoon.
Albrecht, joined by local mayors and regional Chair Ken Seiling, had objected to the commission’s previous redistribution plan. Under that proposal, Kitchener-Conestoga would have been scrapped in favour of having Wellesley and Wilmot townships joined to Perth County to form the Perth-Wellesley-Wilmot federal riding, while Woolwich would have joined a new Woolwich-Wellington electoral district.
The previous proposal wasn’t workable given the way people and groups associate in the area, he said.
“There are some really strong regional ties that have existed for a long time.”
The boundaries commission has been looking at ways to add more ridings to reflect population growth, while attempting to reach a target of 106,000 residents for every Member of Parliament.
The new Kitchener-Conestoga riding would be home to some 94,000 people, encompassing the three townships and that part of the City of Kitchener lying westerly of Fischer-Hallman Road.
While disappointed to lose the southwest part of Kitchener – “I’ve built up a good relationship with people there over the last seven years” – Albrecht said the riding will gain many of the same kind of neighbourhoods in the reworking of the neighbouring Kitchener-Centre and Kitchener-Waterloo ridings.
Such changes were to be expected with the addition of a fifth riding in the region, he added, noting previous proposals to join area ridings to parts of surrounding counties just didn’t make sense.
“Keeping it all within these boundaries … that’s the key win for the region,” he said, adding that local officials were vocal about that in presentations to the boundaries commission. “I think most people got that.
“I think a lot of us were in shock when that draft proposal was floated last fall. It didn’t make sense for voters in the townships to be separated from the rest of the region’s interests in terms of health care, business development, crime prevention, or their sources of drinking water.”
The commission’s changes aren’t final, as the report has been sent to the House for review by committees, but Albrecht isn’t expecting any changes.
Once finalized, the boundary changes would come into effect for the next federal election, expected in 2015.
