BCCLU: Looking Out For You. Well, Not If You Live Up North.

The BC Civil Liberties Union has announced that it will challenge the BC ridings map for the 2013 election, as they believe it unfairly boosts rural voters' rights--at the expense of the urban ridings. From the Georgia Straight:

The president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association has said the province's electoral system is unconstitutional because it dilutes the influence of people who live in urban and suburban constituencies.

In a phone interview with the Straight, Robert Holmes said the population differentials between constituencies are so great that it undermines the principle of people having an equal and effective vote. "There are a half-dozen or more ridings that are so out of whack from what they should be that it is just unconscionable," Holmes said.

In Stikine--the least populous constituency--there were 14,708 eligible voters in the May 12 election. In Comox Valley, there were 49,503 eligible voters--more than three times as many. Langley, New Westminster, Fort Langley–Aldergrove, and Vancouver-Fairview each had more than 45,000 eligible voters, and all three Richmond constituencies had more than 44,000 eligible voters. None of the four Kootenay constituencies had 32,000 eligible voters.

I think rural MLAs have enough of a challenge dealing with sheer geography of their ridings now--to get to a certain level of population, one would either need to add 40 MLA seats or give one poor MLA massive geographic swathes of the province.

Do you feel underrepresented, compared to the rural regions of British Columbia?