It’s official. County voters will keep their 10 wards at least through another municipal election set for October 25.

In her ruling handed down late last week, OMB Vice Chair Jyoti Zuidema dismissed an appeal brought by Jim McPherson and Lyle McBurney to redraw County ward boundaries to better balance the population between voting districts.

McPherson and McBurney had argued, through nine days of hearings in November, that the population variances between County wards was so great it offended fair representation. There is no question that there is wide population disparity between wards: seven hundred voters in Bloomfield elect a councillor while in Wellington more than double number is permitted just a single member. This imbalance is reflected across all 10 wards.

However McPherson and McBurney were unable to convince the OMB member that population imbalance, in and of itself, amounted to unfair representation.

In her decision Zuidema summed up McPherson and McBurney’s appeal as an attempt to “invoke a system that provides for absolute voter parity.”

To support their view McPherson and McBurney relied almost exclusively on their interpretation of a 1991 Supreme Court ruling known as the Carter decision. They argued, through spokesperson John Legate, that the Carter decision put a limit of plus or minus 25 per cent variance in population variation between voting districts. Specifically they contended that since several County wards exceed a 25 per cent variation in population they were thus in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Zuidema dismissed this argument in clear terms. “Quite simply the Board determines that the appellants’ interpretation of this case was in error and unfortunately, much of their evidence was premised on this flawed understanding.”

In response, McPherson and McBurney remain unmoved. They maintain that the Carter decision does indeed set limits on allowable variations in population per ward or district but their failing was in sufficiently impressing the OMB with their evidence.

In a letter to the editor published today McPherson and McBurney say that Council stood in the way of a solution— forcing them to launch this expensive appeal.

In her decision, however, Zuidema chastised the appellants for continuing to pursue their appeal even after it became clear the timeline to implement changes would not permit public consultation.

She noted how McPherson and McBurney, in response to the timeline obstacles, suggested that public notice could be waived entirely and/or the Municipality schedule a special sitting late in the month.

Zuidema observed that gaining 10 days through the Christmas and Boxing Day period would not enable them to overcome the shortcomings of inadequate public consultation.

“To suggest a waiver of public notice as required by the Municipality’s procedural bylaw on a matter of importance such as this would undermine the validity of the process and the Board will not support such an approach,” said Zuidema in her decision.

Nor was the OMB member impressed with McPherson’s lukewarm enthusiasm for the six-ward proposal he and McBurney were promoting. During the nineday hearing it was established that neither McBurney nor McPherson had developed the proposal; but rather it was the “brainchild” of Concerned Citizen of Prince Edward County member, Gary Mooney.

Zuidema found it illuminating that McPherson considered the proposal a good idea only if it could be implemented by the end of the calendar year; “if it can’t, then it’s not a good idea.”

“The timeframes associated with the issuance of this decision should not be the foundation of whether the sixward proposal is or is not a good idea,” wrote Zuidema. “The board determines that in this instance, moving with such haste has resulted in a proposal based on a simplistic mathematical approach without proper regard to the factors of effective representation.”

McPherson and McBurney concede that their efforts to change ward boundaries for the next election have failed. But it may not be over for the pair. The OMB membercautioned the appellants to prepare themselves for the possibility that the County may seek to extract the costs of the proceeding, estimated in the order of a $100,000, or a portion thereof, from them.