The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Creighton MLA Doyle Vermette wants to halt a provincial bill that would add seats to the legislature and discount children and youth when electoral boundaries are drawn. Last week, Vermette put forth an amendment to scrap the Saskatchewan Party government's Bill 36, The Constituency Boundaries Act. But while Vermette and his NDP colleagues stand firmly against the bill, it will most certainly pass given the strong majority of seats held by the Sask Party. Bill 36 would redraw the provincial constituency map to exclude people under 18 from being counted. It would also add three MLAs to Saskatchewan. 'Excluding young people is unacceptable,' said NDP leader John Nilson in a news release. 'Representing the needs of young constituents is a critical part of an MLA's job. We should absolutely work on behalf of everyone in our constituencies, whether they can vote for us or not.' Nilson said an MLA's responsibility to young people ranges from education policy to dealing with young constituents' specific concerns. He said the bill sends the wrong message to youth about their role in the political process of their province. The NDP also opposes adding three more seats, noting that Saskatchewan already has one of the lowest MLA-to-constituent-ratios in Canada. 'We can't support spending millions more taxpayer dollars on politicians,' said Nilson.
