MLA Jackie Tegart said she still plans to represent the Fraser-Nicola riding despite the BC Electoral Commission’s decision to re-draw Ashcroft and Cache Creek out of the riding.
Last week (April 3), the Commission released their final report and it came with some changes that not everyone was happy about. One change was the Fraser-Nicola electoral riding being re-drawn to add Agassiz and Harrison Hot Springs — but excluding Ashcroft and Cache Creek who were added to the Cariboo-Chilcotin riding.
This decision puts MLA Jackie Tegart, whose is the MLA for the Fraser-Nicola, as the representative for an electoral district she does not live in; Tegart currently lives in Ashcroft.
Despite this, she wants to reassure her constituents that she will continue to represent the Fraser-Nicola and plans to run as the riding’s MLA in upcoming elections.
“My intention is to run for Fraser-Nicola, which I’ve represented for 10 years.” she said. “Fraser-Nicola is part of who I am, no matter where they draw the boundaries. And all they did was draw the outside boundary of Ashcroft.
“I’m very aware of what the issues are for the Fraser-Nicola. And my intention, at this point, is to represent.”
The new proposed Fraser-Nicola is now made up of: Hope, Yale, Boston Bar, Merritt, Lytton, Logan Lake, Lillooet, and includes communities on the north bank of the Fraser River such as Durieu, Dewdney, Deroche, Lake Errock, Harrison Mills, Harrison Hot Springs, and the District of Kent.
Tegart, who is representing the Fraser-Nicola for a third term, said she understands how this decision impacts communities — especially rural communities — of her riding. While she understands the commission was simply doing their job, and respects how difficult the process of the final report was, she said there needed to be another “opportunity for people, who live in areas that had significant change happen in the second round, to actually respond.”
“What I’m disappointed about is the fact that there was such a significant change. And it’s a final report,” Tegart said. “In the first draft that came out, the thing that we were looking for, in particular, is that there wasn’t any less rural ridings in the area above Hope, than there were before the commission. And when the first draft came out, we were pleased to see that no ridings had been cut. So, you didn’t see a huge input from my riding because people thought it made sense.”
She also said that the change does not address the unique difficulties rural communities face — often different from those faced in larger, metropolitan areas/cities — and how important it is, for these communities, to access their MLAs.
According to the commission, the changes are due to changing population sizes in the neighbourhoods. The population of the Fraser-Nicola, the commission said, is 41 per cent below the electoral quotient. And it is not expected to grow within the next few years. The commission’s answer to this was expanding the riding to include Durieu, Dewdney, Deroche, Lake Errock, Harrison Mills, Harrison Hot Springs and Kent. Ashcroft and Cache Creek were added to the Cariboo-Chilcotin riding in order to address transportation concerns and connecting communities over the area.
“We recognized that access to larger centres in Cariboo-Chilcotin requires travel over a mountain pass on secondary highways, and that these communities rely on Kamloops as their service centre,” the commission said. “Instead, we propose expanding this riding south to include Cache Creek and Ashcroft, which are now located in the Fraser-Nicola electoral district.
“These communities share the Highway 97 transportation corridor with communities in Cariboo-Chilcotin like 100 Mile House and Williams Lake. This proposal also reduces the large geographic size of Fraser-Nicola. We believe that these boundary adjustments better reflect our guiding principles.”
The commission, which was appointed on Oct. 21, 2021, is made up of Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia (Chair) Nita Lyer, local government advisor Linda Tynan, and Chief Electoral Office of British Columbia Anton Boegman.
A preliminary report from October 2022 first proposed that Agassiz and Harrison Hot Springs could join the Fraser-Nicola. Until April 3, Agassiz and Harrison Hot Springs were part of the Chilliwack-Kent riding.
READ MORE: Agassiz and Harrison Hot Springs added to Fraser-Nicola provincial electoral riding
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