(Photo: Town of Riverview website)

Public hearings will be held next week about proposed changes to New Brunswick’s federal electoral boundaries.

Mayor Andrew Leblanc has raised concerns about a proposed riding called Fundy-Royal Riverview.  It would separate Riverview from the current riding of Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe.

“Their proposal talks about Riverview being predominantly Anglophone. And so moving us into the more rural Anglophone communities and combining us into one riding, I do have an issue with that. Simply because we’ve done a tremendous amount of work to be an inclusive equitable and diverse community. And we’ve worked very hard to welcome newcomers into our town. I fear that framing a change like this based on linguistics and language, will be detrimental to the work that we’ve already done. I don’t see that as being a positive thing for our community for our growth, and I don’t see it as being in line with the values of our town where we are labelling ourselves as an Anglophone community. Riverview is not, Riverview is a community for everyone, and that message needs to be said loud and clear. I don’t believe that this proposal is in line with that.”

Leblanc adds the Town’s priorities are mostly aligned with Moncton and Dieppe, and not other municipalities in a Fundy Royal-Riverview riding,

He feels they have a great working relationship as a tri-community, and will continue that moving forward.

“We have a great deal of collaborative services. As the tri-community. The issues recently that we’ve had our federal representatives advocating for are most closely aligned with the Tri-community, the RCMP, for example. I feel that our representatives need to be singing from the same hymn sheet so to speak, “Leblanc says.

Several other Town of Riverview Councillors agreed with Leblanc’s thoughts.

Councillor-At-Large Cecile Cassista says Riverview is growing immensely and needs to have more representation, “I think that we need to point that out. If we can’t be with Moncton and Dieppe, we need to stand on our own. I think we need to bring the people together what we’re doing is being divided by what they’re doing. I really need to think that this needs to be thought out and articulated, that Riverview is carved up pretty bad and we need to address that.”

Councillor-At-Large Heath Johnson adds, “Right now, we have one Member of Parliament who represents all three communities in the House of Commons, which leads to the consideration of the needs and benefits to all three communities when that MP is voting on decisions. This proposal would mean that Riverview’s considerations would be separate.”

He adds if changes need to be made, he would rather see all three represented independently, with three MP’s for three communities.

Public hearings are being held across the province, with one scheduled for Moncton On September 20th at 2 pm at Hyatt Place.