2006 New Brunswick electoral redistribution
The 2006 New Brunswick electoral redistribution was undertaken as a result of legislation introduced by Bernard Lord, the Premier of New Brunswick, Canada, on June 9, 2005. The legislation establishes a statutory requirement for redistribution of electoral districts after every decennial Canadian census. The redistribution process set out in the legislation took approximately six months to complete, and was overseen by an independent commission. The bill introduced by the government would have required that 55 ridings be maintained with populations varying between 75% and 110% of 1/55 of the provincial population. The Opposition Liberals expressed  a desire for the commission to have greater flexibility either in the variance of the average population or in the number of districts. On June 30, 2005, an agreement was reached and the bill was amended to allow the commission to ignore population basis entirely in "extraordinary circumstances," but should strive to be within the range of 90% to 110% of the average population of 55 districts. There was considerable work to be done as 35 out of the 55 districts that existed from the outset were outside of the +/- 10% range. This is due in part to the  population shifts over the course of a decade, and because the requirement was +/- 25% during the previous redistribution. In the end, the commission was able to maintain most districts in their same alignment by means of minor boundary adjustments. However, two sets of districts were merged and there were considerable changes of district boundaries in the cities Dieppe and Fredericton. Preliminary report. On November 21, 2005, the Commission released its preliminary recommendations for new electoral districts. Despite the fact that the vast majority of existing ridings were outside of the +/- 10% population range, most were retained in the  new distribution through minor adjustments to their boundaries. In all, 46 of 55 districts are largely unchanged. There are five essentially new districts, three of which resulting from a merger of previous districts or large parts of previous districts. Only one district was created using the "extraordinary circumstances" clause of the legislation which allows districts to be less than 90% of the provincial average population. This was the district of Tantramar, which is an anglophone area surrounded by water, Nova Scotia and francophone areas. The Commission argued that the only way to maintain a community of interest was to leave  the boundaries as they were. The districts of Nigadoo-Chaleur, Saint John Lancaster and Saint John Portland were the only others to have no changes whatsoever to their boundaries. These proposals will be taken to the public in a series of hearings in January 2006, and may be subject to change before the commission tables its final report on February 18, 2006. "† represents a proposal that was altered in the final report" Largely unchanged districts. Though these districts were all largely unchanged from their previous form, some new names have been recommended due to subtle community changes as a result  of minor boundary changes or for other reasons. These districts are denoted by an asterisk (*). Final report. The commission released its final report on February 20, 2006. The commission altered the boundaries of 20 of the 55 districts from its proposals in its preliminary report, though many of the changes were minor. It also changed the proposed names of three districts whose boundaries remained the same as in the preliminary report. There was some question as to whether or not these boundaries will be used in the next general election, there has been much media speculation that the government may  fall by April 7, 2006 which would be just two days after the period for appeal of the commission's work will have ended. Government House Leader Bev Harrison has suggested that should the government fall then, it would be unlikely for the government to enact the regulation required to finalize the new boundaries so as to prevent confusion for voters and party officials. The Opposition House Leader, Kelly Lamrock, has suggested he would agree with such a move. However, Premier Bernard Lord went on to say that the boundaries would be used if at all possible as they are  more equitable than the old boundaries. The election was not held, however, until September, and these boundaries were used. Appeals to the final report. The legislation governing the electoral district reform process allowed for appeals to the final report which were signed by two members of the legislature. The commission received 15 such appeals. After considering the appeals, the commission discarded most of them saying that the appeals did not provide further justification beyond those arguments that they had already rejected or that accepting the changes would cause a domino effect requiring a massive redrawing of the boundaries. They did  however accept three appeals: District name changes. The "Electoral Boundaries and Representation Act" forbade the Legislative Assembly from making any changes to the boundaries of electoral districts, but it did allow MLAs to change their names. On May 12, 2006, the Legislature decided to make several changes as follows: