Province Implements Electoral Boundaries Report

Amendments to the House of Assembly Act introduced today, Oct. 25, implement the recommended changes of the independent electoral boundaries commission.

Justice Minister and Attorney General Ross Landry tabled the commission's final report and introduced the legislation, as required by the House of Assembly Act.

The commission presented its report to the Justice Minister in September, after extensive public consultation in communities across Nova Scotia.

Its recommendations include:

• reducing the number of seats in the legislature by one to 51
• removing one constituency from Cape Breton and two from mainland Nova Scotia
• establishing two new constituencies for the Halifax area
• adjusting the boundaries in all remaining constituencies

The amendments will help ensure fairness by adjusting the ridings to allow each voter in the province to enjoy the same voting power, to the greatest extent possible.

An all-party committee appointed the commission in December 2011 with a mandate to adjust the boundaries as needed so all are within 25 per cent of the average number of electors.

The commission was also directed to consider such things as geography, community history and interest and Nova Scotia's linguistic and cultural diversity, in particular the province's Acadian and African Nova Scotian population, when coming up with the electoral boundaries. These factors were to guide the commission in determining how far any constituency varied from the provincial average, within that 25 per cent range.

The House of Assembly Act requires an independent review of electoral boundaries every 10 years. This is the third review of Nova Scotia's electoral boundaries since 1992.

The full report is online at http://nselectoralboundaries.ca/.