The Mayor of Ashcroft is not happy with the changes to provincial electoral boundaries that puts her community into a new Cariboo-Chilcotin riding.

Barbara Roden’s frustrations were very similar to that of the mayors of Clearwater and Barriere last year after the B.C.’s Electoral Boundaries Commission’s put the North Thompson communities into the now scrapped Cariboo-North Thompson riding.

“They mounted opposition to that. They made their case. They were able to take part in consultation and they had that decision reversed, which I think was the correct one,” Roden said.

“Its seems however that Ashcroft, Cache Creek, and Clinton, which are all in Fraser-Nicola right now, in order to make up the numbers, they looked at the map and said, ‘oh, well, we’ll just scoop up these communities and put them in Cariboo-Chilcotin instead. The difference is, we had no warning.”

Speaking on the NL Morning News, Roden admitted she had to do a double take when the commission’s final recommendations were published.

“In October, when I saw the initial draft report, I looked at Fraser-Nicola and there were a few tweaks and a couple of additions but nothing major. When the final report came out two weeks ago, I looked at it and honestly, I had to do a double take,” Roden said.

“Then I phoned our MLA, Jackie Tegart, and said, ‘am I seeing this map incorrectly? Am I misinterpreting it?’ And she said, ‘no, you’re not misinterpreting it. We’ve been moved.'”

Anticipating that the new MLA will likely be based in the Williams Lake-area, Roden is now concerned about a lack in provincial representation for people not just in Ashcroft and Cache Creek, but also in Tobiano and Savona, which are currently part of the Kamloops-South Thompson riding.

“On a good day that’s a 2.5 hour drive from Ashcroft, that’s a 3.5 or so drive from Tobiano, and for residents on the Tranquille-Criss Creek on the north side of Kamloops Lake, four hours? I don’t know, I’m ballparking, ” Roden said. “And winter time of course, all bets are off.”

“Is the MLA going to have a constituency office down in this neck of the woods? Or are people just going to be told well, I guess, if the roads aren’t good, you’re not making it to Williams Lake, so we’ll see you in the spring.”

Tegart, who lives in Ashcroft, told NL News she intends to run in Fraser-Nicola, the riding she has represented since 2013, even though her house won’t be in it.

“The Ashcroft Cache Creek boundary that changed is the outside boundary of the village of the village of Ashcroft,” Tegart said. “I can actually see Fraser-Nicola from my house.”

In all, the Boundary Commission is proposing six new B.C. ridings – one each in Burnaby, Surrey, Langley, and Vancouver, one in the Langford area on Vancouver Island, and one near Kelowna – taking the total to 93.

It is now up to the Legislative Assembly to decide whether to accept all, some or none of the Commission’s recommendations.

The next provincial election in B.C. is scheduled to be held on or before Oct. 19, 2024.