Far northern Ontario provincial ridings to be doubled

The Ontario legislature will vote this fall on adding two more ridings to the province.

Over the spring months, an electoral boundaries commission traveled across northern Ontario seeking feedback from residents.

The panel was tasked with finding a way to better represent the Far Northregion at Queen's Park.That regionis currently divided into two ridings: Kenora-Rainy River and Timmins James Bay.

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In its final report published Tuesday, the commission recommends doubling the number of ridings to four.

The other ridings to be created would be Kiiwetinoong in the northwest, and Mushkegowuk in the northeast.Kiiwetinoong would be a mostly Indigenous riding, while Mushkegowuk would be mostly Francophone.

In the northeast, the riding of Timmins-James Bay would be divided into the city of Timminsand the new large riding of Mushkegowuk.That riding would include all communities north of Timmins.

The MPP forTimmins-James Bay, Gilles Bisson,says he's not happy with the recommendation because it doesn't allow forIndigenous constituents to be fully represented at Queen's Park.

"The idea here was, and this is why everybody was pretty excited about this in the First Nation communities, was to create ridings where they would be in a majority and unfortunately that has not happened."

Mushkegowuk would only be made up of 15 per cent of those constituents who identify as Indigenous says Bisson.

"Friends of mine on the James Bay [Coast] were contemplating what this meant to them. [They]said 'listen we're not surprised, it's not the first time that we've been down this road where governments say they're going to do something and we end up getting nothing."

Bisson says it would bepremature for him to decide now which riding he might run in during the provincial election. He says hehas New Democrat supporters all across the TimminsJames Bayriding.

If the change is approved it would take effect in time for the provincial election in June 2018