If the province's Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission has its way, Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley could become a little smaller, and that may not be such a bad thing.
The three-person commission faces the task of redistributing Nova Scotia's 11 federal ridings, taking into account the growth of Halifax's population and the fact the number of people living in rural Nova Scotia continues to decline.
Their proposal, released last week, has left a few of Nova Scotia's MPs baffled and concerned because it could split neighbouring communities around Metro Halifax or make some rural ridings too large to manage geographically.
In this riding, the Musquodoboit Valley portion will be shaved off and moved to Peter MacKay's Central Nova riding that includes most of the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia and Pictou and Antigonish counties.
This area's MP, Scott Armstrong, officially has little to say on the matter. While he'd prefer the status quo, he wants to hear what the people who elect him have to say before he makes an official position to take to the Conservative caucus later this year.
That being said, some of what the committee is proposing for this part of Nova Scotia makes sense. In 2002 when the Musquodoboit Valley was added to Cumberland-Colchester, then MP Bill Casey first questioned the attempt to rename the riding North Nova and then expressed concerns with its size - from Stanfield International Airport outside Halifax to the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border.
While Casey, and now Armstrong, have worked hard to serve all constituents it has to be hard to fully represent a riding that's probably larger than Prince Edward Island in size, with a sizeable rural population mixed in with a suburban area around the airport.
Considering some urban MPs can see from one end of their riding to the other, this places rural MPs and their residents at a disadvantage in that serving each corner of the riding equally is very difficult and there may be some voters who never meet the person they cast a ballot for.
If losing part of the riding means our MP is more accessible the federal commission can't go wrong with its proposal, not to mention the fact the new riding name will be much easier to say.
