Councillors voice concerns about ward changes in Two Borders

Redrawing of wards in the Municipality of Two Borders is cause for concern for some councillors, who say there won’t be proper representation if the proposed changes pass.

Council gave first reading earlier this month to bylaws that would reduce the number of councillors from nine to five and increase the number of wards from three to five. The vote was 7-3. A public hearing on the issue is set for next month.

One of the councillors who voted against the change said while the new wards will be more balanced in population, they will lead to “poor representation.”

“The way this is going, either old Arthur or old Albert might never get any representation again,” said Coun. Don Wickham (Ward 2).

“I’m just afraid that by putting all our eggs in that little basket that (the reeve’s) made up there, that they’re going to try and take away our funding,” the longtime councillor said.

The current three wards — which have three councillors each — are based on the former municipalities of Arthur, Albert and Edward, which have varying populations. The three municipalities were forced to amalgamate in 2015.

The proposed new wards are purposefully designed to get away from the old system, the chief administrative officer said on Monday.

The province told the municipality to redraw its wards so that they have similar populations.

Wickham said he lives close to Waskada and represents his ward accordingly, but that the new design doesn’t consider communities and focuses too much on equal population.

“I’m familiar with people that live in the north — 36 miles north of me — but I don’t know what their issues are up there. I have enough issues in my own area,” he said.

Coun. Tom Dickson (Ward 1) said the proposed wards that stretch north-to-south would lead to low representation for people in the northern part of the municipality.

“It could end up not being fair representation for the north part, because the population is all in the south. And in theory, all the councillors and reeve could come from the south,” Dickson said.

“I wouldn’t change it. I don’t think population matters,” he said.

Dickson represents the ward currently in the northern part of the municipality.

Wickham suggested basing the wards on assessment, as it’s more representative of where the municipality’s money is coming from.

“There’s no common sense in what’s coming out of this population thing. We’re different than the urban centres.”

He said the next move is to start a petition to keep the new wards from passing.

“It’s the only way we’re going to be able to defeat this thing.”

Reeve Sandra Clark, who voted in favour of the new system, said there’s at least someone in every ward in every municipality that feels as if they aren’t represented properly, and no map can be perfect.

“You have to appreciate that some councillors were on council at the time of amalgamation, so change is difficult.”

She said having the wards be within 10 per cent of each other’s population is a priority, as the province told Two Borders to do so.

“The old municipalities that have turned into wards — if you look at the population in those, you’ll find that they’re not close,” Clark said. “There’s been some over-representation in areas and some under-representation in areas.”

A spokesperson for the province said councillors must each represent about the same number of residents.

“There were transitional provisions after amalgamations in 2015, for wards in affected municipalities to be fixed to previous boundaries,” the spokesperson said in an email. “However, as of the 2022 elections, all wards must be established in accordance with the Municipal Act.”

The Municipal Act states that when councils create wards, they must “try to achieve an approximately equal number of residents in each ward.”

A public hearing is scheduled for Oct. 16 at 7 p.m., something that Wickham is frustrated by, as people will be harvesting and there likely won’t be a big turnout at the hearing.

He said he would be willing to approve a drop to two councillors per ward, but he doesn’t like the new proposal.

“I’ve been on council for 16 years, and if they go ahead with this, I would not run again.”

» alambert@brandonsun.com