The new map of Sherbrooke’s districts will be presented to the public this Monday. This redistribution will reduce the number of city councilors from 19 to 14 and the number of districts from six to four.

There will therefore be five fewer elected positions to fill at the next local elections in 2017. According to the project adopted by elected officials in 2014, the Brompton district will be merged with the Rock-Forest-Saint-Élie-Deauville district. while the Mont-Bellevue district is annexed to the Jacques-Cartier district. The town councils represent between 11,000 and 13,000 citizens, excluding those of Brompton (6800) and Lennoxville (5300).

Public consultation requested

A public consultation on redistribution could only take place if 500 people request it. In addition, members of the new city party, Sherbrooke Citoyens, will be at City Hall on Monday evening to make their voices heard. “The citizens were not involved in advance. We will present you with an electoral map that has already been drawn. We could have used citizens’ knowledge to draw a map in their image. That’s what we regret. We hope there will be a public consultation,” said the group’s spokeswoman, Evelyne Beaudin.

However, if the municipal council does not move forward with such a consultation, Sherbrooke Citoyen intends to put pressure on Quebec’s director general of elections to conduct such a consultation. “It is an issue that has attracted attention from the beginning because it touches on the foundations of the city. People’s dissatisfaction with municipal mergers is still high. We’re shaking up the process again. We ask ourselves why such a change is occurring,” asks Ms. Beaudin.