There will be changes to the changes.

Betting that the federal electoral boundary adjustments will stand as currently proposed would be a sure way to lose money.

The 2012 Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for British Columbia has been charged with the daunting task of carving the province into 42 federal ridings of approximately equal populations.

There's no way to do that in any way that will make everybody happy. For starters, B.C. has been short-changed from the outset.

Riding sizes are based on population figures from the official census held every 10 years, and aimed at providing one Member of Parliament for every 100,000 persons across Canada. By all rights, the 2011 census outcome of 4,400,057 (up from the 3,907,738 of 2001) should have given B.C. 44 MPs.

On the other hand, being two MPs short of the mark this time around leaves this province better off than it was with the deficit of about four it had for the past 10 years. (B.C. currently has 36 seats in Parliament, when it should have had 39 or 40 in 2001.)

But Ottawa's anti-West, pro-Quebec politicking aside, we'll grant that the job of deciding where to draw the lines - especially among the huge growth areas of the Fraser Valley and the Okanagan - is a tough one.

Some of the new boundaries proposed by the commission make a lot of sense, but others have us scratching our heads.

For instance, while the proposed LangleyCloverdale grouping seems fairly sensible, it's unlikely that Abbotsford citizens will like their current riding carved into three pieces, one of those becoming a rump for the proffered Fort Langley-Aldergrove arrangement.

It's reminiscent of the first proposal based on the 2001 census, which would have turned Langley into three separate rumps for neighbouring municipalities - a proposal that fell under the might of local public outcry.

As we noted, it's a hard job. If you have better ideas, help the commission out. Public hearing dates and times can be found at www.redecoupage-federal-redistribution.ca.

If you're going to complain, make your complaints worth something.

- B.G.