HER MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as follows:

1 Section 3 (2) of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 107, is repealed and the following substituted:

(2) The commission must make proposals to the Legislative Assembly for 87 electoral districts.

2 Section 10 (1) is amended by striking out "the number, which must not be less than 79 nor more than 85, and".

3 Section 15 (2) is amended by striking out "Select Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly on Labour, Justice and Intergovernmental Relations" and substituting "Select Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills".

Direction to the current Electoral Boundaries Commission

4  (1) In this section:

"Act" means the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act;

"commission" means the Electoral Boundaries Commission appointed under the Act to propose electoral districts for British Columbia to be used starting with the 2009 general election;

"preliminary report" means the Preliminary Report of the commission dated August 15, 2007.

(2) The purpose of this section is to provide direction to the commission in order to recognize that, for the better governance of the people of British Columbia,

(a) effective representation in the Legislative Assembly requires that, for the areas of the Province that are most sparsely populated or geographically isolated, or both, there be no fewer Members of the Legislative Assembly than currently represent those areas, and

(b) for the remainder of the Province, increasing the number of electoral districts will allow the commission to achieve better compliance with the principle of representation by population established by section 9 of the Act.

(3) The commission must, by January 31, 2008, submit a report to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly respecting its revised proposals regarding electoral districts for our current electoral system, in accordance with the following:

(a) the number of proposed electoral districts is to be 87;

(b) each of the regions identified in the preliminary report as The North, Cariboo-Thompson and Columbia-Kootenay must not have the number of their electoral districts reduced from the number of electoral districts that currently exist for the region;

(c) for the purposes of complying with paragraph (b), the commission may exceed the 25% deviation principle established by section 9 (1) (b) of the Act;

(d) the boundaries of the regions identified in the preliminary report, including the regions referred to in paragraph (b), may be adjusted taking into account the purposes described in subsection (2);

(e) subject to this subsection, the commission is to prepare its revised proposals in accordance with section 9 of the Act.

(4) The report under subsection (3) must include the commission's revised proposals regarding electoral districts for the single transferable vote system, as required under section 4 of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Amendment Act, 2005, and for these purposes subsection (3) of this section applies, except that the references in subsection (3) (a) and (b) to the number of electoral districts is to be read as a reference to the number of Members of the Legislative Assembly to be elected.

(5) The report submitted under subsection (3) is to be considered an amendment of the preliminary report, and the preliminary report as amended is deemed to be the report submitted under section 10 (1) of the Act.

(6) The deadline for amendments to the preliminary report, as established by section 12 (1) of the Act, is changed to April 15, 2008.

(7) At the request of the commission, either before or after a date specified in subsection (3) or (6), the Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by order, establish a date that applies in place of the specified date.

Commencement

5  This Act comes into force on the date of Royal Assent.

 
Explanatory Notes

SECTION 1: [Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, section 3] requires the Electoral Boundaries Commission to propose 87 electoral districts for British Columbia.

SECTION 2: [Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, section 10] removes an unnecessary reference to the number of electoral districts that may be proposed by an Electoral Boundaries Commission.

SECTION 3: [Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, section 15] updates this section to refer to an existing Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly.

SECTION 4: [Direction to the current Electoral Boundaries Commission] gives direction to the Electoral Boundaries Commission regarding the number and nature of the electoral districts it is to propose and, in relation to this, requires the Commission to prepare amendments to its preliminary report and establishes new timelines for completion of its amending report and final report.