My preference and the preference of my constituents—if you want to read this—is not to have any of Edmonton in the rural riding. They want the riding of Wetaskiwin, the rural area. I don't think that's a reasonable thing to do, given the domino effect that would happen. All I'm here to do today is to try to get as much back as possible of the rural component for those communities that want to maintain the relationships. There are economic partnerships and all kinds of reasons that these things make sense. Rimbey would come back into a central Alberta riding. Rocky Mountain House considers itself a central Alberta community, and these things were out in the west country.
The partnership between Wetaskiwin, Hobbema, and Ponoka in that particular corridor there, with the relationships they have directly with the first nations, has been completely severed. The relationship between the first nations in Wetaskiwin is much stronger than the relationship between Hobbema and Ponoka, yet the commission put the four bands of Hobbema in the riding with Ponoka and not in the riding with Wetaskiwin. Wetaskiwin is a Cree word meaning “the hills where peace was made”. The name of the riding and the city come from that relationship with first nations.