OTTAWA - The Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario has submitted its final report and the Nipissing-Timiskaming riding will be expanding north to include Englehart, Evanturel, Charlton-Dack, Chamberlain and Elk Lake.
The change will come into effect prior to the next federal election scheduled on or before October 20, 2025.
Currently the Englehart and Elk Lake areas are represented by Timmins-James Bay New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus. Liberal MP Anthony Rota currently represents Nipissing-Timiskaming and he also serves as Speaker of the House of Commons.
See: MP cut from Northern Ontario as Timmins riding lines redefined
Englehart Mayor Jerry Mikovitch expressed concerns about the newly proposed riding boundaries.
"I'm not in favour of losing another northern Ontario seat. I believe we have less in common with the other municipalities in our new riding. I feel like we have less of a voice," he stated.
Armstrong Township Mayor Jean-Marc Boileau also is worried about being far from the largest municipality in the new riding, which is North Bay.
He said he agreed with the original proposal, but the final report places Armstrong Township and its community of Earlton as one of the last towns on the northernmost edge of the newly expanded riding.
"I don't agree with being part of a whole big area," he said but added that the Temiskaming Shores area does seem to be well looked after, even though it is still a significant distance from North Bay. He worried that his municipality will have less representation.
"It is one of those things that we're going to have to work with, and see what we can do about it."
The process by which the new riding boundaries were considered by the Commission saw some different scenarios.
In one, Temiskaming Shores would have been added to the riding of Timmins-James Bay, but after comments were received from councils and citizens, the Commission added the Englehart and Elk Lake areas to Nipissing-Timiskaming instead.
The shift of the ridings in northern Ontario also sees one riding lost, reducing their number from 10 to nine.
The shift of the northern boundary of Nipissing-Timiskaming had been expected since February. Even then, Rota commented on the challenges inherent in the size of the ridings in Northern Ontario with his currently covering 13,000 square kilometres.
"We note that the Standing Committee's report endorsed objections by Members of Parliament that would have the Commission both restore a riding to Northern Ontario (retaining 10 districts) and restore a riding to Toronto (retaining 25 districts)," said the Commission in its report.
"There are two fundamental problems with these endorsements. First, these changes would produce a substantial increase in population inequality across the province. The Commission has articulated clearly its commitment to population equality as a first principle of effective representation and thus does not look favourably on this recommendation.
“Second, encouraging the Commission, at this late stage, to remove ridings from two other parts of the Province without any guidance is inconsistent with the concept of public consultations that the Commission pursued. If the Committee believes that Toronto and Northern Ontario deserve one more seat each, then they should not offload completely to the Commission the difficult work of taking away ridings from two other regions,” it continued.
“They could instead, having consulted Members of Parliament, take the responsibility of identifying which parts of Ontario should lose ridings. In sum, it was not possible to both fulfill the Commission's mandate and return a district to Northern Ontario and the City of Toronto. Those making a submission requesting - and those endorsing - that result did not take into account that acceding to their request would have significant consequences to the rest of the Province and unfairly impact other parts of Ontario."
The change is expected to become official in September.
Under the Canadian Constitution, the riding boundaries have to be reviewed every ten years.
Darlene Wroe is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with the Temiskaming Speaker. LJI is funded by the Government of Canada,
