Canada Federal Representation 2024

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Thanks for all your suggestions.  I've create another site where I've posted some alternative federal riding options.

https://bit.ly/AltFEDs


Occasionally, I will 'promote' some of these alternatives to my main site.

https://bit.ly/Canada342

I'd suggest changing the Hamilton boundaries. Hamilton East Mountain-Fruitland in particular is a really weird one, as it tries to connect two very distinct suburban areas with a huge chunk of Greenbelt in the middle.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I've added two new alternatives to my electoral map.

https://bit.ly/Canada342

(1)  Brampton has been realigned so that all ridings are now below the magical +10% threshold (128,248).  Hatman will like that the entire Springdale neighbourhood is now in Brampton-Springdale.

(2)  Thunder Bay--Rainy River has grabbed Ignace and Sioux Lookout so that it is now above the magical -25% threshold (87,442).

Please let me know what you think.

Ouch, a three-way split in St. Catharines? Tbf I guess Niagara Centre already takes up some parts of the city, and I don't know much about redistricting. I live in St Kits though, it feels a little weird to put downtown and NOTL in the same riding.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Never done this before, but what the heck, decided to try my hand at it. Started with Alberta, not suuuper familiar with the province so I'd love some feedback:

Calgary:



Calgary Centre: 114,741,  -0.7%, the yellow riding in the middle of Calgary.

Bit of a weird shape, it maintains the downtown core and the industrial areas to the east, loses some of the affluent parts to the south close to the reservoir, gains the Wildwood area to the west.

Calgary Confederation: 111,936, -3.1%, pink riding north of Calgary Centre.

No big changes here, loses a bit of land in the northern part of the riding.

Calgary Glenmore: 115,888, +0.3%, orange riding south of Centre.

This is one of two new Calgary ridings, it has no obvious predecessor, as it's carved out of Heritage, Centre, Signal Hill, and a bit of Midnapore. Centred around its namesake reservoir with a slight panhandle to include Signal Hill.

Calgary Nose Hill: 114,677, -0.7%, pink riding north of Confederation.

Just a re-worked version of the existing riding of the same name.

Calgary North--Airdrie: 111,582, -3.4%, light green riding that extends out of Calgary proper (obviously)

This is a new riding. Airdrie, some of the rural areas to its east, a small northern portion of Nose Hill, and the parts of Skyview west of Deerfoot Trail.

Calgary Queensland: 119,911, +3.8%, tan riding straddling the Bow River.

This is Midnapore shifted northeast and crosses the river at some portions, taking from Shepard.

Calgary Rocky Ridge: 117,687, +1.9%, blue riding in the northwest.

Currently overpopulated, so I trimmed away some of its southern portions.

Calgary Shepard: 122,868, +6.4% orange riding in the southeast.

I must admit, not very proud of this one. Currently overpopulated so I took away some of its western portions by the Bow River, but had to adjust northwards and include Forest Lawn. But now there's a huge industrial portion separating the older working-class suburbs and more affluent areas to the south.

Calgary Skyview: 112,420, -2.7%, brown riding in the northeast.

Pretty much bounded by Deerfoot Trail and McKnight Blvd, a trimmed down version of the current riding that focuses more on the Saddle Ridge area. Probably the only seat in the city that would lean Liberal.

Calgary Somerset: 116,794, +1.1%, blue riding in the southwest.

This takes the southern parts of Heritage and Midnapore.

Calgary Sunridge: 111,432, -3.5%, light blue in the east of the city.

Mostly carved out of Calgary Forest Lawn but shifted a bit north, picking up Temple and Whitehorn while losing much of Forest Lawn.

Calgary West: 113,554, -1,7%, purple riding on the western edge of the city.

Carved out of Rocky Ridge and some of Signal Hill.

What do y'all think?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Never done this before, but what the heck, decided to try my hand at it. Started with Alberta, not suuuper familiar with the province so I'd love some feedback:

Calgary:



Calgary Centre: 114,741,  -0.7%, the yellow riding in the middle of Calgary.

Bit of a weird shape, it maintains the downtown core and the industrial areas to the east, loses some of the affluent parts to the south close to the reservoir, gains the Wildwood area to the west.

Calgary Confederation: 111,936, -3.1%, pink riding north of Calgary Centre.

No big changes here, loses a bit of land in the northern part of the riding.

Calgary Glenmore: 115,888, +0.3%, orange riding south of Centre.

This is one of two new Calgary ridings, it has no obvious predecessor, as it's carved out of Heritage, Centre, Signal Hill, and a bit of Midnapore. Centred around its namesake reservoir with a slight panhandle to include Signal Hill.

Calgary Nose Hill: 114,677, -0.7%, pink riding north of Confederation.

Just a re-worked version of the existing riding of the same name.

Calgary North--Airdrie: 111,582, -3.4%, light green riding that extends out of Calgary proper (obviously)

This is a new riding. Airdrie, some of the rural areas to its east, a small northern portion of Nose Hill, and the parts of Skyview west of Deerfoot Trail.

Calgary Queensland: 119,911, +3.8%, tan riding straddling the Bow River.

This is Midnapore shifted northeast and crosses the river at some portions, taking from Shepard.

Calgary Rocky Ridge: 117,687, +1.9%, blue riding in the northwest.

Currently overpopulated, so I trimmed away some of its southern portions.

Calgary Shepard: 122,868, +6.4% orange riding in the southeast.

I must admit, not very proud of this one. Currently overpopulated so I took away some of its western portions by the Bow River, but had to adjust northwards and include Forest Lawn. But now there's a huge industrial portion separating the older working-class suburbs and more affluent areas to the south.

Calgary Skyview: 112,420, -2.7%, brown riding in the northeast.

Pretty much bounded by Deerfoot Trail and McKnight Blvd, a trimmed down version of the current riding that focuses more on the Saddle Ridge area. Probably the only seat in the city that would lean Liberal.

Calgary Somerset: 116,794, +1.1%, blue riding in the southwest.

This takes the southern parts of Heritage and Midnapore.

Calgary Sunridge: 111,432, -3.5%, light blue in the east of the city.

Mostly carved out of Calgary Forest Lawn but shifted a bit north, picking up Temple and Whitehorn while losing much of Forest Lawn.

Calgary West: 113,554, -1,7%, purple riding on the western edge of the city.

Carved out of Rocky Ridge and some of Signal Hill.

What do y'all think?

Whoops, I missed this when you first posted it. As a longtime Calgarian, I quite like those boundaries. The main geographic shift that I would suggest, if it could work, would be to return Signal Hill to Calgary West instead of having it in Calgary Glenmore. While it's not the end of the world, Signal Hill has much stronger ties to the communities in Calgary West, and Sarcee Trail makes a logical boundary. If anything, if extra population is needed for Glenmore, it makes more sense to go south and absorb Woodbine and Woodlands.

Also, I know it's tough to name Calgary ridings, but Calgary Queensland wouldn't work super well as a name - that community isn't very well-known. It would honestly make more sense to either keep the name as Calgary Midnapore, or rename it to Calgary Fish Creek.

What do you think of the idea of chopping off a bit of Calgary Confederation and putting it into Centre? It would create a distinctly "urban" riding in Calgary and chop off some of the leafy suburbs in Calgary Centre that feel a little mismatched with the downtown core, but it would require the riding to be on both sides of the river.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Yet another Calgary map!

The consensus seems pretty strong on concentrating Calgary Centre around downtown by fusing the northern part of Centre and southern part of Confederation. I also took the suggestion to create a whole riding south of Fish Creek. In the end, not too different from what's been proposed by others so far.

Here's a twist though - it is possible to create 11 ridings fully within Calgary and avoid a rurban Calgary--Airdrie riding. This would require the new riding to be an Airdrie--Chestermere type one, uniting the two Calgary suburbs with surrounding rural areas. Here's a proposal for that:



Not sure about the names, but they could be:
Midnapore
Shepard
Forest Lawn
Skyview
Willow Park
Glenmore
Centre
Nose Hill
Northern Hills
Rocky Ridge
Signal Hill
Airdrie--CochraneChestermere

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Moving on to Eastern Ontario, there are 15 ridings here (treating the western boundary as Lennox & Addington/Prince Edward County and ignoring the fact that both of those are currently grouped with Hastings County.) Ottawa could be assigned 9 ridings on its own, but it's a little on the small side for that and doing so would mean you couldn't treat Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry on its own. Given the Ottawa municipality includes a fair amount of rural areas, I instead elected to let SDG stand alone (and Renfrew) and to combine Ottawa with areas both to its east and west.




Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry 114637
Prescott-Russell 119838
Orleans 125268
Ottawa South 114435
Ottawa-Vanier 119112
Ottawa Central 121969
Ottawa West-Nepean 112453
Barrhaven 116678
Nepean-Kanata West 116988
Kanata 112992
Renfrew 106365
Lanark 115761 - there should probably be something in this name to acknowledge the bits of Ottawa, but I have no idea what that should be.
Leeds-Grenville 117238
Frontenac-Lennox & Addington-Prince Edward 109932
Kingston 122734

I suspect this map may not be terribly pleasing to Ottawa natives, not least because Ottawa South is a fairly obvious leftovers seat, but in my defence I have no idea what I'm doing.

Yeah, that leftover Ottawa South is a bit of a monstrosity lol. As a general rule of thumb, I would say don't push Ottawa Centre south of the Rideau River into current "Ottawa South" territory, because the general characteristics of downtown Ottawa are more shared with the areas to the west (Hintonburg, Westboro, etc) than the area south of the river (Alta Vista)

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

There's also a "linguistic community" factor in Ottawa. For example, Sandy Hill/Lower Town/Byward Market/University of Ottawa is effectively a continuation of downtown Ottawa. But there's a stronger Francophone presence east of the canal, so throwing that in with historically Anglo Centretown would be a crime against conventional wisdom about Ottawa. Little things like that do need to be considered when drawing up Ottawa.

I'll post my own version in a bit, I'm curious to see how y'all feel about it.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

This is based on playing around with the current boundaries, which means the colours aren't the best for contrast, but probably easier to get a more accurate map:



Ottawa Centre (Yellow): Same as current, but the small sliver west of Fisher is redistricted away to Ottawa West-Nepean

Ottawa West-Nepean (Light Green): Same as current, with the aforementioned strip from Ottawa Centre added, and a small bit lost to Nepean

Nepean (purple): Not a great name, but oh well. Mainly just loses some land south and west of Barrhaven

Kanata-Carleton (pink): No changes

Ottawa-Vanier (blue): No changes

Prescott-Russell-Cumberland (dark green): Loses North Glengarry (not seen on snip), gains southeastern parts of Orleans

Orleans (pink): In addition to the previously mentioned loss to the PRC riding (unfortunate abbreviation lmao), also loses Blackburn Hamlet and parts of the Greenbelt to Carleton.

Ottawa South (beige): Hard to see the boundary here, damn you ridingbuilder's colour scheme. Slight shift in the southern parts, gaining some territory from Carleton west of the Airport, and losing some to the east

Lanark-Carleton (red): Eastern half of Lanark County (western half taken away, and Smith's Falls given to the Leeds-Grenville riding, not visible on map), plus Stittsville and Richmond Township

Carleton (white): Basically the remainder. Makes up for its loss of Stittsville/Richmond by picking up the outskirts of Nepean, small parts of Ottawa South, and Blackburn Hamlet. Similar rural/suburban mix as the current Carleton riding.

The main thing I'm unhappy about with this redistribution is Blackburn Hamlet, which is isolated from most of Carleton. Also, South Barrhaven is cut up a little arbitrarily to meet population quota. Apart from that, I think this map makes sense for Ottawa.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The problem with arguing for a different arrangement of seats is that you need to convince them twice - first that their arrangements are wrong, and secondarily that your individual seats are better than theirs. Whereas if you accept the arrangement, you only need to convince them once.

Agreed. I'm a big supporter of not using hybrid ridings if it can be avoided anyway, though I don't mind having St. Albert or Sherwood Park be lumped into Edmonton if necessary.

Speaking of Edmonton, I much prefer ridings that follow borders that separate communities of interest (i.e., rivers, creeks, expressways, industrial corridors, railways, powerlines, etc). Here's a good map made by Alex McPhee that shows where the industrial corridors are pretty well:



Here's Calgary:



You can really see how bad the new Skyview riding is on that map.

I don't understand how they thought crossing the Deerfoot with Skyview was a good idea in the first place, because the Skyview Ranch-Forest Lawn corridor so obviously appears as a distinct population centre separated from others by industrial areas. Take this non-Calgarian's take with a grain of salt, but I would think crossing the Bow in the Ogden area or even throwing Mayland Heights into Confederation would be a more geographically coherent choice.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Since the riding builder now has election data, I wanted to see how the Alberta commission's maps for Edmonton and Calgary would have voted in 2021. I couldn't get the exact boundaries in a couple of places but I think I got pretty close.

In Edmonton, I was somewhat surprised to see that the new Mill Woods voted essentially the same way as the old Mill Woods, since the Liberals tend to do better in the eastern part of the old Mill Woods.

Gateway, Riverbend, West, and Winterburn all basically voted the same way as last time and as each other, with the CPC at 43-45% and the LPC and NDP neck-and-neck in the mid-20s. Strathcona was also basically unchanged, shifting maybe 1% towards the CPC at the NDP's expense.

Manning changed less than I expected given the boundary shift. There was a change of maybe 2% from the LPC to NDP, so the CPC margin would have been a little closer, but they still would have beaten the NPD by about 3,500 votes.

As expected, the CPC would have beaten the NDP in the new Griesbach, at a margin of 40%-35%. Given the relative closeness, I wouldn't necessarily write off Desjarlais if he ran for re-election here as an incumbent, but he would start as the underdog.

Finally, in Centre, Boissonnault would have won by an even narrower margin than 2021 at 185 votes, but the territory absorbed from Griesbach would have had the NDP in second place at 32% and the CPC in third at 29%. Still a three-way race, but with the NDP slightly up at the CPC's expense compared to the old Centre.

In Calgary, Shepard, Midnapore, Heritage, Signal Hill, Crowchild, and Nose Hill are all boring at 55-60% CPC. The new Forest Lawn is close behind at 53% CPC.

Centre and Confederation are both basically unchanged from 2021. Progressive candidates collectively got about 49% in both ridings, but were far from unified behind a single candidate. (As an aside, I also tested two versions of the cross-river Calgary Centres that we've been playing with in this thread and the CPC would have still won by about 10 points, with 43%. It looks like at least in 2021, crossing the river would have made the riding about 6% friendlier for progressives, but the LPC would have still needed a little more than half of the NDP's vote share to win.

Finally, in the northeast, the new Skyview would have been a 44%-34% CPC victory over the LPC. It would be friendlier to the LPC than Centre or Confederation, but still likely unwinnable except in a wave election. And as expected, McKnight would be the Liberals' best bet in Calgary. They would have beaten the CPC by 10 points (44%-34%) in 2021, which is up from the 6-point margin of victory in the old Skyview, and even in the 2019 the CPC would have been held to 50%.

Calgary's an anomaly in how the downtown core and surrounding areas are NOT the most favourable turf for the left. I guess Vancouver too has a situation where the East Hastings/Sunrise area (the VanEast riding, basically) gives more support to the centre-left than downtown, which makes sense considering Vancouver East is pretty low-income and downtown Vancouver is full of very wealthy people - though this is less noticeable, because both Vancouver Centre and East always vote for the centre-left with big margins. Vancouver-False Creek provincially is the only "real" indicator of this. Elsewhere in Canada though, this is basically never the case. Even in Edmonton, it's clear that the downtown area and Strathcona are the most left-wing parts.

I guess what makes Calgary unique is that downtown Calgary is largely based on oil wealth - but a more "white-collar" oil wealth which lends itself to a more 'PC' conservatism, as opposed to the "blue-collar" oil wealth of Fort Mac which lends itself to a more 'Wildrose' conservatism. As for northeast Calgary, especially the areas comprising the proposed McKnight riding, is lower-income than the rest of Calgary, and overwhelmingly populated by recent immigrants and minorities, making it favourable Liberal turf. What's even weirder is that northwest Calgary also has a large immigrant/minority presence, smaller than northeast but still significant in the areas consisting the Nose Hill and Crowchild ridings, but there's little evidence of that vote pushing those areas left. My assumption would be that the minorities/immigrants in northwest are generally higher-income and more assimilated into the mainstream politics of Alberta, ergo more conservative. Most of Calgary south of downtown and Forest Lawn seems very much like the old stereotype of Calgary, very white, pretty wealthy, and Tory uber alles, and that is reflected in it being the bluest part of the city.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Since the riding builder now has election data, I wanted to see how the Alberta commission's maps for Edmonton and Calgary would have voted in 2021. I couldn't get the exact boundaries in a couple of places but I think I got pretty close.

In Edmonton, I was somewhat surprised to see that the new Mill Woods voted essentially the same way as the old Mill Woods, since the Liberals tend to do better in the eastern part of the old Mill Woods.

Gateway, Riverbend, West, and Winterburn all basically voted the same way as last time and as each other, with the CPC at 43-45% and the LPC and NDP neck-and-neck in the mid-20s. Strathcona was also basically unchanged, shifting maybe 1% towards the CPC at the NDP's expense.

Manning changed less than I expected given the boundary shift. There was a change of maybe 2% from the LPC to NDP, so the CPC margin would have been a little closer, but they still would have beaten the NPD by about 3,500 votes.

As expected, the CPC would have beaten the NDP in the new Griesbach, at a margin of 40%-35%. Given the relative closeness, I wouldn't necessarily write off Desjarlais if he ran for re-election here as an incumbent, but he would start as the underdog.

Finally, in Centre, Boissonnault would have won by an even narrower margin than 2021 at 185 votes, but the territory absorbed from Griesbach would have had the NDP in second place at 32% and the CPC in third at 29%. Still a three-way race, but with the NDP slightly up at the CPC's expense compared to the old Centre.

In Calgary, Shepard, Midnapore, Heritage, Signal Hill, Crowchild, and Nose Hill are all boring at 55-60% CPC. The new Forest Lawn is close behind at 53% CPC.

Centre and Confederation are both basically unchanged from 2021. Progressive candidates collectively got about 49% in both ridings, but were far from unified behind a single candidate. (As an aside, I also tested two versions of the cross-river Calgary Centres that we've been playing with in this thread and the CPC would have still won by about 10 points, with 43%. It looks like at least in 2021, crossing the river would have made the riding about 6% friendlier for progressives, but the LPC would have still needed a little more than half of the NDP's vote share to win.

Finally, in the northeast, the new Skyview would have been a 44%-34% CPC victory over the LPC. It would be friendlier to the LPC than Centre or Confederation, but still likely unwinnable except in a wave election. And as expected, McKnight would be the Liberals' best bet in Calgary. They would have beaten the CPC by 10 points (44%-34%) in 2021, which is up from the 6-point margin of victory in the old Skyview, and even in the 2019 the CPC would have been held to 50%.

Calgary's an anomaly in how the downtown core and surrounding areas are NOT the most favourable turf for the left. I guess Vancouver too has a situation where the East Hastings/Sunrise area (the VanEast riding, basically) gives more support to the centre-left than downtown, which makes sense considering Vancouver East is pretty low-income and downtown Vancouver is full of very wealthy people - though this is less noticeable, because both Vancouver Centre and East always vote for the centre-left with big margins. Vancouver-False Creek provincially is the only "real" indicator of this. Elsewhere in Canada though, this is basically never the case. Even in Edmonton, it's clear that the downtown area and Strathcona are the most left-wing parts.

I guess what makes Calgary unique is that downtown Calgary is largely based on oil wealth - but a more "white-collar" oil wealth which lends itself to a more 'PC' conservatism, as opposed to the "blue-collar" oil wealth of Fort Mac which lends itself to a more 'Wildrose' conservatism. As for northeast Calgary, especially the areas comprising the proposed McKnight riding, is lower-income than the rest of Calgary, and overwhelmingly populated by recent immigrants and minorities, making it favourable Liberal turf. What's even weirder is that northwest Calgary also has a large immigrant/minority presence, smaller than northeast but still significant in the areas consisting the Nose Hill and Crowchild ridings, but there's little evidence of that vote pushing those areas left. My assumption would be that the minorities/immigrants in northwest are generally higher-income and more assimilated into the mainstream politics of Alberta, ergo more conservative. Most of Calgary south of downtown and Forest Lawn seems very much like the old stereotype of Calgary, very white, pretty wealthy, and Tory uber alles, and that is reflected in it being the bluest part of the city.

I personally attribute a lot of northeast Calgary's political uniqueness to its demographics and relative isolation, for lack of a better phrase. The northeast is not only uniquely-heavily populated by recent immigrants and minorities, but even more specifically, there is a distinct concentration of South Asian residents, including a large number of Punjabi Sikhs. If you look at neighbourhoods like Saddle Ridge, you'll see that the populations are around 60% South Asian and under 10% white - in other words, numbers you might stereotypically expect to see in parts of Brampton or Surrey. Due to their size and presence, ethnocultural communities in the northeast are the closest-knit that I've seen in Calgary. And when I reference isolation, I'm not just talking about geography (due to the airport and industrial areas), but also linguistically and culturally. I've seen statistics that in multiple northeast communities, up to 10% of residents are unable to converse in English, and many more speak languages other than English whenever possible. When you compare this to the rest of the city, even where immigration numbers are high, you have a much higher degree of different ethnic groups intermingling and generally assimilating into the default political landscape in their area.

I'd also say that although the Liberals certainly have a stronger base in the northeast than in the rest of Calgary, candidate quality and connections to the area are more important than average in the northeast. We saw this in the victories of Darshan Kang and George Chahal in 2015 and 2021, but this also applied to former PC MLA Manmeet Bhullar's victories, even in the 2015 NDP wave. The 2019 federal election was probably a lost cause for the Liberals regardless, but the nail in the coffin if there was one would have been picking Nirmala Naidoo, who was from the northwest and didn't really have ties to the local community.

Another indicator is population density. The Forest Lawn-Saddle Ridge corridor generally has a higher level of population density than most of the city's sprawling suburbia, which usually correlates with more centre-left politics. Having grown up partly in Calgary and having family there, there's a certain attachment to the conservative brand and repulsion to the Liberal brand among "old-stock Albertans", even ones who aren't particularly conservative in ideology. Kinda similar to how many Quebecers with fundamentally conservative views don't identify as such and don't vote CPC because they're socialized to dislike that brand. I assume new arrivals in Calgary, especially those who live in the isolated northeast, haven't been socialized in the "thou shalt vote Tory" culture, and are more likely to "shop around"

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Why must they always split St. John's down the middle and make two "rurban" seats as opposed to having a purely urban inner city St. St. John's seats and another seat that is more suburbs and exurbs and some of rural Avalon?

A St. John's-only riding would be 43% above quota. To be fair, the weird Labrador factor means that the ridings on the island are always a bit above quota, but 43% is too much. It would be possible to have one St. John's proper riding, and a suburban riding including the outskirts of St. John's with the surrounding towns like Mt Pearl, Torbay etc, but you'd break decades of custom to do that. And as far as I know, those towns are pretty closely connected to the city, so I think it's mainly a matter of if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Also, tradition. St. John's has always been split in two.

It would also mess with the electoral tradition of the two ridings, which isn't an iron rule that shall never be broken, but it's better to leave it intact. SJE isn't naturally that much more of an NDP seat than SJS-MP (infact I think SJE is higher-income, which usually means less NDP support, but not in this case because of the Jack Harris machine dating back to the 80s).

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Very exciting!

Kiwetinoong-Mushkegowuk --> So small, but I do understand keeping the Indigenous communities together.  At least this way the entire North is below quotient. Before this, the urban (and white) city of Kenora had it "good" by being in a special consideration riding (below quotient) without having any business being given that special consideration.  So, I tend to agree with this.

I'm personally not a huge fan of having huge variations in population, but it's tradition to have "special consideration" ridings for underrepresented communities, so I get it. This would be the only safe NDP seat in Northern Ontario, so Charlie Angus may prefer to run here - although it might not be a good look for the NDP to run a white man in a specifically majority-indigenous riding.

Cochrane - Timmins - Temiskaming --> This is a great riding. Francophone communities of interest together, these communities have much more in common than they did with the previous ones they were grouped with (James Bay coast, Manitoulin Island). I would move Hornepayne to the Sault riding (and name it Algoma).  Oddly, Hornepayne is grouped in with Timmins at the Far north east for its Public Health (Porcupine), but for everything else, it grouped in with Algoma

No comment here, it's a pretty good riding.

Sault Ste Marie --> Add Hornepayne, rename Algoma. Not sure what to do with Chapleau though.

Yeah, Algoma would make more sense for this riding. Most of the population lives in the Soo, but the area is too large to just name after one city. Alternatively, SSM--Chapleau or SSM--Wawa would also work.

Thunder Bay --> Splitting it in two, it is a little unique in the sense it was traditionally 2 unique villages, right?  Is that why they don't make an urban Thunder Bay Riding, and then have the outer suburbs be one riding with the rest of the vast rural North West? In Sudbury (or Guelph), they chose to make the one urban riding, and have the outer portions grouped in with the more rural areas surrounding it.

The thing is, if you made a "Thunder Bay Centre" type riding, you'd have an enormous leftover riding spanning from Kenora to Marathon. For context, that's about a 770 km or 8.5 hour drive. If you're going to have two ridings in the stretch from Kenora to the north Shore of Lake Superior, it's most logical to split Thunder Bay in half.

Collingwood - Blue Mountains --> I like the name, and don't mind that it crosses the Simcoe / Grey boundary.  In fact, these areas should really be in one county as they are essentially becoming 1 community.

Ehh, I would have preferred Simcoe--Grey, just for continuance. Although in terms of common parlance, Collingwood--Blue Mountains is probably more descriptive than Simcoe--Grey, so it makes sense.

Penetanguishene - Couchiohing --> That's a mouthful. I don't like the grouping of Orillia (and areas east of there) with the MIdland/Penetang communities along Georgian Bay, but I don't see any good alternatives.

Again, I'm not sure why they didn't just keep Simcoe North here, it's essentially the same riding.

Brampton - Mayfield West --> I'm not sure what area Mayfield West is? The South Caledon community in this riding is named Southfields I believe. I would change the name. Brampton - Caledon South, or Brampton - Southfields Village

Mayfield is the road that separates Brampton and Caledon, so it does make sense for the local geography.

Brampton North --> Renamed from East? Weird, the region of Peel uses East - West on a diagonal given its location slanted parallel with Lake Ontario. Everyone in Brampton considers this to be the Eastern part of Brampton, even if technically it is the Northern most position.

I would actually prefer Brampton--Castlemore for this riding. Castlemore is a pretty big neighbourhood and central in this riding. But even Brampton East would make more sense.

Brampton Chinguacousy --> I get the change to Indigenous names, but Springdale I think fits better here.

The problem I have with using "Chinguacousy" here is that Chinguacousy Road is a major connector in Brampton, and is nowhere near this riding. If they wanted to include that name somewhere, it would make more sense for the rather uninspired "Brampton Southwest" riding (which is a terrible name to begin with, considering that riding literally spans to the northern end of Brampton). Both "North" and "Springdale" would be better suffixes here.

Humber --> Interesting riding.  We know they needed to cross the Humber river because Etobicoke is too populated for only 3 ridings, but this is a weird place to do it. The demos are very different, ultra rich Kingsway area of Etobicoke, and the old York/Weston areas.

Yeah this riding has to be re-worked. The CoI's on the two sides of the Humber are vastly different in this part.

Etobicoke - North --> Might need a name change as it also crosses the Humber and includes parts other than Etobicoke.

Why not Etobicoke North--Weston?

Taiaiako'n - High Park --> Parkdale is a meaningful name to what has always been a working class (and lower SES) community, not sure replacing that name does much good. If an indigenous name needs to be included here, then maybe remove the High Park name and just name it Parkdale - Taiaiako'n. The Northern Boundary change is odd to me, although I think it only affects a few dwellings, but I think the railway is a more natural buffer between communities.

Yeah, I get that they're trying to include more indigenous themes, but there are better places to do this. The pre-European village of Taiaiako'n is located west of High Park, which is already in the western part of the riding, so it doesn't make sense to substitute Parkdale for Taiaiako'n. Parkdale-Taiaiako'n would make more sense, although from a purely descriptive POV, Parkdale--High Park remains the best name for this riding.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Very exciting!

Etobicoke - North --> Might need a name change as it also crosses the Humber and includes parts other than Etobicoke.

Why not Etobicoke North--Weston?

The trouble with that is that the *actual* former town of Weston is S of the 401, i.e. at the N end of the proposed Humber riding...

I was thinking about Weston Rd, which is probably a more relevant geographic reference at this point than the former town of Weston which hasn't existed since 1967.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Weird ridingbuilder data glitch:



You're looking at the famous Tory stronghold of...downtown Ottawa???