The video is live action.
[Opening music playing.]
[White screen. The title, Interview with an Elections Canada Geographer appears. Medium shot of a woman sitting in a chair. In the bottom corner, the words Joanne Geremian, Geomatics Team Leader and Technical Expert, Elections Canada appear.]
Joanne: Hello, my name is Joanne Geremian and I'm a geomatics team leader and a technical expert in the electoral geography division at Elections Canada.
[Medium shot of the woman and a man walking in an office environment, talking. Wide shot of the woman and the man leaning over a map. Shot of a large map being printed. Shot of the woman and man pointing to the map.]
Joanne: To support the mandate, the electoral geography division updates and maintains various geography databases containing all kinds of different data layers. We use these data to produce maps, we do reports, we do research and analysis.
[Shot of a map of Canada divided into electoral districts.]
Joanne: As we all know, Canada is a big country, therefore it has to be divided in many electoral districts. Population is scattered. There is less population in the North, more density in the cities. Toronto has many districts compared to the north, which only contains one district per territory.
[Medium shot of the woman sitting in a chair.]
Joanne: The federal redistribution is a process that happens every 10 years to better reflect the population movement and growth.
[Animated text appears displaying a legislative document. The following text is highlighted: “The ten commissions established pursuant to subsection (1) shall consider and report on the readjustment of the representation of the provinces in the House of Commons required to be made on the completion of each decennial census.”]
Joanne: For the redistribution process, 10 commissions are established throughout the country, one per province.
[Back to the legislative document. The following text is highlighted: “Each commission for a province shall consist of three members, namely, a chairperson and two other members appointed as provided in sections 5 and 6.”]
Joanne: These commissions are in charge of making the final decisions on where the new boundaries should go.
[Medium shot of the woman sitting in a chair. Shot of the woman and man sitting at a desk, looking at a map on a computer. Medium shot of the woman and man standing over a large map.]
Joanne: Elections Canada's role in the process is to support these commissions by providing adequate tools, quality data and also provide a geography technical expert to help the commissions make the new scenario.
[Medium shot of the woman sitting in a chair.]
Joanne: When determining the new boundaries for the new electoral districts, the commissions must take into account different human and geography factors…
[White screen, with text appearing: Balanced population; Respect communities of interest or identity; Respect historical patterns of previous electoral boundaries; maintain a manageable size.]
Joanne: … such as balanced population numbers in each electoral district, respect the communities of interest, respect the historical patterns and the previous boundaries for the electoral districts, and make new districts that are manageable in terms of size.
[Medium shot of the woman sitting in a chair. Cut to a photo of the woman and a small group of people standing in front of an airplane. Fade to a photo of the woman showing something on a laptop to a small group of people seated around her. Cut to a white screen. A map of Alberta appears, divided into electoral districts. The words 2003 boundaries appear above the map. The map moves to the left of the screen. Another map of Alberta appears beside it, divided into electoral districts. The words 2013 boundaries appear above this map. There are noticeable differences in the number and sizes of the boundaries on each map.]
Joanne: For the last redistribution that happened in 2012, I had the opportunity to be the geography technical expert that was sent by Elections Canada to work with the Alberta Commission. That was a great experience. I had to support the Commission with my customized mapping tool to help them come up with the final scenario for the province.
[Medium shot of the woman standing over a map. Shot of the woman looking at maps on the computer. Medium shot of the woman sitting in a chair.]
Joanne: What I like about working in geography is that we get to do all kinds of different projects. I enjoy having the opportunity to have an impact on what Elections Canada does to make voting accessible for electors.
[White background. Elections Canada logo and the following words written underneath:
This video has been developed by Elections Canada as part of an educational resource for secondary students.
Followed by the website and telephone numbers:
www.electionsanddemocracy.ca
1-800-463-6868
1-800-361-8935 (TTY)]