The redistribution of electoral boundaries is an issue of special interest to the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, an organization established and maintained to protect and enhance the rights of citizens, and to encourage them to take seriously the responsibilities implied by those rights.
Voting is an act that fits both categories.
As a right, voting is protected in our society as a personal decision, free from governmental or other forms of interference, a private expression of our hopes for our community. Voting is also a responsibility taken seriously by conscientious democrats, who view the act of voting as both an expression and a confirmation of the citizen's role as the ultimate sovereign in a democratic society. Because population changes over the years have increased the number of voters in some regions and decreased the number in others, and because decisions about electoral boundaries have traditionally favoured rural ridings as opposed to urban, some Canadians are faced with the fact that their vote does not count very much. Citizens in heavily populated areas are frequently underrepresented in their provincial and federal parliaments and voting in those circumstances does not serve or reflect a democratic purpose. Rather, the integrity of the citizen's role as a constitutive part of the ultimate sovereign authority in our community is compromised and undermined.