Electoral boundary move will be hard on us

Ken’s
Korner

In with the big boys... well at least with the biggest one in Northwestern Ontario.
That is one way of looking at the proposal to add us to the Thunder Bay electoral district.
Another way is that life just got that much harder for the smaller communities in the Rainy River District.
Over the decades the small towns have had to fight hard and squawk loudly to get the federal government’s attention. With communities about 10 times the size of Rainy River we stood a chance of achieving that goal. But will we be able to bend the ear of our new member of parliament as readily as we have with Bob Nault or John Parry before him?
I think that the M.P. will pay attention to the needs of Fort Frances and perhaps Atikokan on occasion. But the needs

of smaller towns like Rainy River, Emo, Morson, Pinewood, Stratton, Barwick, etc. Well they might as well get ready to have their interests pushed even further off the political spectrum.
Traditionally we have had strong relationships with Kenora, Dryden, Red Lake and Fort Frances. Our sports teams compete with one another at the high school level and much of our tourist through traffic heads north to our neighbours there.
Thunder Bay is closer than James Bay, the northern perimeter of our riding, but has less of a connection with us.
I think the move to appease population statistics will be hard on the west Rainy River District.
–Until then,
Ken