Saskatoon changing ward boundaries for 2nd straight election

The City of Saskatoon is looking at changing several council ward boundaries ahead of the next municipal election, which would shift where residents will go to vote and their choice of candidates.

A report going to city council’s governance and priorities committee on Monday notes city staff are now allowed to use 2018 health card data as a basis for calculating the city’s population, which shows an increase from nearly 246,000 in 2016 to 270,794 today.

From there, administration divided the estimated population by 10 to represent how many people should live in each of Saskatoon’s council wards.

The analysis found that four wards strayed more than 10 per cent from that average — meaning a boundary change would be required ahead of the 2020 election.

Wards 7 and 10, representing the Stonebridge and northeast corner neighbourhoods, have populations more than 10 per cent above the average while wards 5 and 8, representing the north end and southeast corner of the city, have fewer than the average.

The result could be an expansion of Ward 5, which borders Ward 10 — allowing both areas to draw closer to the average population per ward.

Wards 7 and 8 could prove more complicated, since they are separated by Ward 9, which includes Lakeview and Wildwood. All three wards may have to adjust their boundaries to come within range of the population-per-ward average.

The city report notes a Municipal Wards Commission will be formed to decide how the wards would be redrawn. Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Richard Danyliuk will chair the commission. He’ll be joined by city clerk Joanne Sproule and University of Saskatchewan political science professor Joe Garcea.

The commission plans to review the ward boundaries and talk to the public about where the borders should be redrawn.

They expect the redrawn boundaries would be ready by the end of 2019, and they would take effect during the 2020 election.

It will mark the second straight election in which ward boundaries have been redrawn. The city adjusted voting borders before the 2016 election after data showed the population had grown to more than 240,000 people.