They don't make sense.
That is the common voice heard around the region when talking about the new proposed Federal Electoral Boundaries for the Humboldt area.
When the boundaries were first proposed, Humboldt City Council made a presentation to the commission, asking them to change the proposed Humboldt-Rosetown-Kindersley constituency, moving Humboldt into the potash belt.
"The presentation focused on the fact that we needed to have some socio-economic community connections and the proposed electoral boundaries did not have that," said Mayor Malcolm Eaton.
Since the presentation, some changes were made, but not necessarily for the better in the eyes of City Council. They discussed the changes at their March 25 meeting.
"They did make some changes," said Eaton. "They took us out of the Kindersley-Rosetown area and put us in the Warman-Martensville-Rosetown area. It still does not accomplish our concerns."
Eaton explained the proposed changes to the boundaries come out of a discussion of urban versus rural, but seems to be focused only on that one issue.
"We didn't have any concerns with Saskatoon and Regina having their own urban ridings," said Eaton. "Our concern was that our riding have some commonality to our economic and business (community)."
Now Council's only option is to communicate with the commission through the current Member of Parliament, Brad Trost.
Trost has been working on this issue for about nine months and agrees many of the boundaries do not make sense.
"This doesn't work," said Trost. "Humboldt is becoming part of the real potash hub or potash core. Well, most of the provincial new boundaries are based on what happens around the cities. Everywhere else in Saskatchewan seems to have been forgetten and ignored, their needs not looked at."
There are issues across the board from many communities like Humboldt.
"This new Humboldt to Rosetown riding, to get through it you either have to cut through Batoche or you have to leave the constituency," said Trost. "St. Brieux in with Yorkton, in the winter you actually have to loop through Humboldt-Muenster to get back and forth through the constituency. They are stuck in a little corner there which doesn't make any sense."
He explained the commission did respect Eaton's concerns and he hopes they will again when he presents further changes.
"It's really frustrating when it seems like most of the province has been forgotten and the needs of small towns and cities like Humboldt were overlooked," said Trost. "It's not just Humboldt I've got letters from. I'm working on something from St. Brieux and I've got letters from St. Louis."
