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But the precedent for enfranchising previously disenfranchised people — women, notably — is generally to give them the vote, not 1.25 or 1.5 or 1.75 votes. And what the commission proposes isn’t a half measure on the way to specific Indigenous seats, but simply a tangent. It does nothing for any Indigenous Ontarian not living in the far north. Franco-Ontarians were never disenfranchised, yet the report folds their concerns into the Indigenous ones: it observes that one riding would be 87 per cent Indigenous or francophone, as if this were some kind of democratic milestone. And while Kiiwetinoong would be 68 per cent Indigenous, and Mushkegowuk 60 per cent francophone, this proposal gives the non-Indigenous and non-francophone majorities in the other ridings the same superballot. Why?

Photo by Errol McGihon/Postmedia

In theory, it could be justified on geographic grounds. Sarah Campbell, the MPP for Kenora-Rainy River, told the commission she only has the budget to tour the far north twice a year. Gilles Bisson, the MPP for Timmins-James Bay, famously flies his own plane around to visit his constituents — a time-consuming and costly undertaking.

But the new Mushkegowuk and Kiiwetinoong ridings would still be gargantuan, stretching from Hudson Bay to Timmins and Kenora, respectively. To function properly, those ridings would require vastly greater constituency resources than their southern and urban counterparts, just as they do now. So give them the resources and be done with it. Effective representation does not hinge on the number of times one’s MPP touches down in one’s little village, and surely two more MPPs will be of little use solving the area’s “significant challenges for transportation, communication and election administration.”