Jeff Burgar
It is often said, “Representation by Population” or “Rep by Pop” is a fundamental pillar of democracy.

The concept has merits. For example, it probably is not fair that a fictional part of a fictional country having 20 million people, would have no votes compared to another fictional part of that same country with only 10 million people.

Actually, that isn’t so much fiction. In the days before Canadian Confederation, it was a big concern in Canada that Upper and Lower Canada would come under the authority of the part of the country with the most people. As a few years went by and talks about forming a new nation continued, the population shifted. The smaller part of the country grew to become more populated than the other part. Fears that one part of Canada would have more power than another part led to our lopsided distribution of votes between Quebec, the Maritimes and Ontario coming to be. Ever since then, “Rep by Pop” has been an argument to take back votes and power from the less populated parts of Canada and give those votes and power to places with more people.

What started as a principle to spread votes all across Canada, now works the opposite way. “Rep by Pop” and urban growth takes away votes from rural areas of Canada, and gives those votes to the urban centers.

Is this bad? Ask the people of Fort St. John. In fact, ask just about anybody outside the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

In a squeaker of an election last week, B.C. folks basically created a “great divide” between rural B.C. and city B.C. The divide is leading to a coalition government between NDP and the Green Party intended to take power from the former Liberal ruling party. Among the coalition plans are the killing of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the Site C hydro dam project at Fort St. John, and a host of other ideas that in the long run, are intended to kill off just about every conventional energy project in that province. A pessimist might say, starting with oil, gas and hydro, all business will be dead in B.C. in 5-10 years.

Of course, some observers don’t care. They argue cleaner water [get rid of tankers and freighters] or the drug situation in the Lower Mainland is much, much more important as addicts, in increasing numbers, die from overdose or contaminated drugs each and every day.

This is an ugly side of “Rep by Pop”. Things that mean nothing to many people in part of the land becomes an entire agenda of government. It is not, as some might argue, an irritating side effect of democracy. It is instead a ticking time bomb that could potentially fire a revolution, for good or for bad.

For good? Yes, indeed. Carve off northern Alberta, from Westlock north and do the same with northern B.C. Make a new province that among many other benefits, has access to tidewater.

Or just add northern B.C to all of Alberta.

A vast majority of people in both provinces, from all political stripes, will like this idea.