Electoral boundaries commission proposes four restored seats

Three Acadian ridings back on the map

One for Preston

Two more for HRM

I know — it’s complicated

We don’t get many “scoops” at Turpin Labs. In fact, some of our detractors insist we’ve never had a single one, apparently forgetting the time we sent an unpaid intern into the future to see how weed laws will affect Haligonians.

And so I was asleep at the switch Tuesday evening during a consultation held at Acadia Hall in Lower Sackville by the Electoral Boundaries Commission. (Note to peninsular Haligonians: Sackville, aka Bagtown, is a thriving settlement that, remarkably, is part of neither Bedford nor Dartmouth and YOU CAN GET THERE BY BUS!)

I attended because I knew the committee was required by law to disclose its draft boundaries in advance of its first consultation, if only by five minutes.  There were no apparent news-hacks in the room (two of the six attendees were MLAs of some kind), but I assumed some hack somewhere would telephone commission chair Colin Dodds later to “catch up on the story”.

But as of 10:00 p.m. Wednesday there was nothing, so Turpin Labs is THE FIRST TO TELL YOU the commission’s draft proposal is to restore four new seats to the Legislative Assembly.

Three “Acadian” seats would be resurrected: Clare, Argyle and Richmond. All were vaporized by the NDP in 2012. Preston, too, would return. These changes are in response to complaints from Acadians and African Nova Scotians.

HRM could get two more seats, but your correspondent dropped the ball on the explanation, figuring the so-called mainstream media would have filled in the blanks by Wednesday morning. Moreover, my days of calling sources late at night are long gone. My bad.

Unbelievers, I can feel you out there. So you can find the commission’s handout here.

And that, lamestream media, is how Turpin Labs handles a “scoop”. Failing New York Times: I write this more in sorrow than in glee.

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