If Canada were in the United States and had congressional districts...

[Sol]

Of course these districts might not be the actual ones if Canada was in the U.S.--it's easy to imagine Alberta having a Republican gerrymander which would limit Democrats to one seat in Edmonton at the minimum. Or Democrats in Ontario drawing a Windsor-London-Kitchener-Guelph snake a la Downstate Illinois.

[Sol]

Really unclear to me why everyone is assuming that the Atlantic provinces would vote Democratic.

[Sol]

IMO a northern Ontario seat would probably be likely R or something like that--similar places in the U.S. have pretty much all flipped (MN-08, MI-1).

[Sol]

IMO a northern Ontario seat would probably be likely R or something like that--similar places in the U.S. have pretty much all flipped (MN-08, MI-1).

How many Francophones or Indigenous people are in those districts, though? Also, Northern Ontario is a lot more urban than it seems on a map. Well over half the population lives in one of the five big cities in the region, and all of those cities usually vote Liberal or NDP, and 4/5 could be described as "college towns" as well. Sure, the district would be trending GOP, but not necessarily there yet.

It also doesn't seem obvious to me that Francophones would vote Democratic, tbh. They don't in New England.

I don't know the granular nature of Ontario demographics, so this I'm sure is off in a lot of ways but Sudbury seems like the kind of place which would have been rock-solid Democratic until about a decade ago, but that almost certainly would no longer be the case, though the extent to which it would actually be Republican is a bit harder to assess. The most optimistic scenario is something like Butte, where the presence of massive environmental devastation (due to mining not related to energy production) plus a university keeps the area Dem. But even Butte has seen some erosion in its margins and most places like it, like the Iron Range proper, the Lead Belt, or the UP, have seen hearty Republican gains.

I don't know as much about the other areas of the district (I only know a bit about Sudbury because my post yesterday sent me on a rabbit hole of Wikipedia about this), but generally "lumber country and industrial ex-mining country plus small cities" applies to a lot of Republican-held seats in this country but the only match for a Democratic seat is ME-02. Meanwhile there's MN-08 (which seems like the best parallel), WI-07, MI-01, MT-01, etc.

It does seem like Northern Ontario is a good bit more indigenous than most other obvious equivalents, even in Minnesota, but native voters aren't always monolithic and the exact percentages will matter a lot (would love to see those if you have them!). AZ-01 has a Republican PVI despite probably being equivalently or even more indigenous than this district (plus having Latinos, who can stand in for the urban lefties in places like Thunder Bay or Sudbury)

Not saying that a Northern Ontario district would be super Republican or anything (all of those seat IMO are probably winnable in a good Dem year or with even a slight shift in coalitions), but basically Northern Ontario seems like a classic place where the left in Canada would overperform Democrats.

[Sol]

Playing around with Canada with US districts. Ignorance is liable to appear, please correct:




NS-01 (red): Northern Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, and some areas around the State Highway 102 corridor and eastern Halifax. Probably used to be pretty Democratic; this whole region used to be quite coal heavy, with a few Francophones too. The political shifts of the past 20 years or so have probably cratered Democrats here; Trump probably won it by a similar margin to NY-21, with remaining Democratic strength persisting mainly in Sydney proper and on reservations.

NS-02 (blue): The Annapolis Valley, South Shore, Sackville. This seems less friendly for Democrats historically, despite Sackville. Has probably been Republican for a while and only getting more so.

NS-03 (green): Halifax. Safe D of course, and the base of the Democratic party in the state; Democrats have probably been gaining strength here too.

Overall probably a fairly robustly Democratic state historically, but the collapse of historic industry and economic stagnation have made it a Republican leaning swing state in the mold of North Carolina. Biden is probably holding up pretty well here though.

[Sol]

It'd be too boring otherwise, but wouldn't Nova Scotia only get 1 district?

By my estimation, if district size was kept similar to US House levels, ie. the US House expanded, the apportionment would be as follows:

Province	Seat #
Ontario	19
Quebec	11
British Columbia	7
Alberta	6
Manitoba	2
Saskatchewan	2
Nova Scotia & PEI	2
New Brunswick	1
Newfoundland and Labrador	1
PEI	0
NW Territories	0
Nunavut	0
Yukon	0
Total	51

The territories could go with Alaska perhaps, even lumped together they are way too small in population. 

How many total districts is that? I'd like to work off a similar estimate but would want to guarantee PEI a district per the constitution.

[Sol]

Also, I just realized that a plausible interpretation of the VRA might require Texas style fajitas into Montreal to unpack Francophone voters...

[Sol]

Have been playing with BC (or should I say AC) with 6 U.S.-style districts. A few notes:

• Vancouver Island, plus a few stray islands, is a perfect size for a district.
• Both Washington State and California have drawn somewhat awkward districts designed to maximize minority influence -- WA drew a minority-majority district (WA-09) and California drew Asian-majority CA-17. American Columbia is probably similar to both and tries to draw two Asian-influence districts, one anchored in Southern Vancouver and Richmond and one anchored in Surrey. This probably means a district that crosses the Burrard Inlet, as well as splits of Vancouver and Burnaby.
• AC excluding Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island is a little big for one district, which means that something has to go in a district with the exurban bits of Vancouver. What makes the most sense to put in there?

[Sol]

You have to expand the House a good bit to give more than one seat to the Atlantic provinces. I played with a bit a few days ago and don't remember the exact numbers, but it's over 600 seats. The Atlantic Provinces are really that small and remote.