{"id":26783,"date":"2022-10-11T14:26:36","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T17:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chmafm.com\/welcome\/?p=26783"},"modified":"2022-10-11T14:55:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T17:55:17","slug":"memramcook-wants-out-of-riding-shared-with-tantramar-says-community-better-aligned-with-dieppe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chmafm.com\/welcome\/memramcook-wants-out-of-riding-shared-with-tantramar-says-community-better-aligned-with-dieppe\/","title":{"rendered":"Memramcook wants out of riding shared with Tantramar, says community better aligned with Dieppe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Memramcook Mayor Maxime Bourgeois in 2020, at a candidates’ debate in advance of the provincial election. Image: Warktimes.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Memramcook Mayor Maxime Bourgeois is calling for changes to the provincial electoral riding of Memramcook-Tantramar, to essentially undo changes made in 2013, when the riding was created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back then, an electoral boundaries commission added the village of Memramcook to the previous provincial riding of Tantramar, to create Memramcook-Tantramar. The move was made to correct an issue with the Tantramar riding, which had a significantly lower population than the provincial average. But, it meant that the French-speaking population of Memramcook would now be a linguistic minority within their own provincial riding, making up about 30% of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The electoral riding of Memramcook-Tantramar was created in 2013 after a report by a previous commission on electoral representation. Image: electionsnb.ca<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bourgeois is asking the a new commission who started reviewing electoral boundaries this year move Memramcook back into a riding with its neighbouring city, Dieppe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s nothing against Tantramar,\u201d says Bourgeois. \u201cIt\u2019s just that if you look at the facts on the ground, we are a lot more aligned with Dieppe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost of the folks in Memramcook either work in Moncton or Dieppe, their kids go to school in Dieppe, and then most of them go to either U de M or CCNB, the French college, and then they go to work again in Moncton or Dieppe,\u201d says Bourgeois. The connections continue through sports and cultural organizations.\u201cI mean, some people do come to Sackville to either go to Tim Horton\u2019s or Patterson\u2019s, or even do their grocery, but the majority of the population is more aligned with Dieppe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bourgeois says it\u2019s not because of current representation that he\u2019s calling for the change. \u201cI have to admit, Megan Mitton has been fairly present in our community,\u201d says Bourgeois. \u201cI don’t think we’ve been ignored. Since the electoral map change we’ve been lucky, because we had Bernard LeBlanc, who was from Memramcook, and then Megan Mitton, who actually does speak quite well in French. So we’ve been lucky, but the chance of having a unilingual Anglophone MLA is still fairly high if the riding doesn’t change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a new idea,\u201d says Bourgeois. Back in 2013, Acadian activists mounted a legal challenge to the decision to lump Memramcook with primarily English Tantramar. The Brian Gallant government agreed that the next time an electoral commission reviewed the province\u2019s boundaries, it would take language and culture into account, and allow for larger differences in electoral population, especially where communities of interest were being accommodated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That \u2018next time\u2019 is happening now, with an electoral commission due to release new draft boundaries for provincial ridings in mid-December. Public consultations on the issue happened earlier in September, and the electoral commission has promised a second round of consultations once a draft map is released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do realize how difficult the task is for the commission,\u201d says Bourgeois. \u201cI think everybody at the Commission realizes that we are more in line with Dieppe. The problem or the challenge is, what do you do with Tantramar? Because the electoral population of Tantramar is so small that you can’t really leave them by themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former riding of Tantramar had about 20% fewer electors than the average riding in the province back in 2012. New legislation passed in 2014 calls for a deviation of no more than 15% in either direction as a general rule, but also specifies that in \u201cextraordinary circumstances\u201d that deviation can go as high as 25%. And those circumstances include, \u201cthe effective representation of the English and French linguistic communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Detail from Elections NB document, Number of Electors, 2014-2022. Darker green means fewer electors than average, and darker purple represents more electors than average. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s not because we don’t want to be part of Tantramar,\u201d says Bourgeois. \u201cI mean, I personally love Sackville, I love Dorchester. I love Port Elgin.\u201d Bourgeois got to know the predominantly Anglophone Tantramar region during the 2020 provincial election campaign in which he ran as the Liberal candidate for Memramcook-Tantramar. But he says that\u2019s not what\u2019s behind his push to see Memramcook return to a Dieppe riding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bourgeois says the change in ridings is something that \u201cpeople from Memramcook have been wanting for a long time.\u201d And the change has been supported by unanimous vote at Memramcook village council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He acknowledges that the make up of the riding had an impact on his success in the provincial election, which he lost to Green MLA Megan Mitton in 2020. \u201cI think it would have changed my chances for sure,\u201d says Bourgeois, if only because Dieppe is known to vote Liberal. \u201cBut it also goes to show when you have a resident from Memramcook getting into provincial politics, he has to get known in Tantramar,\u201d says Bourgeois. And that\u2019s a challenge because \u201con a regular daily basis, we don’t deal a lot with Tantramar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was a lot more known in Dieppe than I would have been in Tantramar, just because we read the same newspapers, Le Monitor Acadien, L\u2019Acadie Nouvelle, l\u2019Etoile\u2026 And when you’re involved in your community, there’s a lot more events happening in Dieppe or Moncton, so you get to know more people in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to the interview with Maxime Bourgeois as aired on Tantramar Report:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n