Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts 2012

[Hatman 🍁]

Is Labrador protected from having its sole seat without sharing it with the rest of the "island"?

It was last time, but I believe it lost people compared to the provincial quotient that went up. It is the smallest riding in Canada, so they may decide to alter that.

[Hatman 🍁]

No sub-provincial regional groupings or individual ridings are legally mandated; it has been at the discretion of the commissions. Hopefully it will stay that way.

Yup. But, if they base their decisions like they did the last time, then there is no reason for Northern Ontario to lose seats. Labrador is question though.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Quebec federal commission used 3 regional groupings. Montreal, North of St. Lawrence, South of St. Lawrence.

It would make sense to keep them, because it is sure than the St. Lawrence must not be crossed and than Montreal has to be left alone.

Vaudreuil-Soulanges is too big now to be one riding, so I reckon a new riding will be created that will cross over into Montreal like V-S did in the 1980s.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Quebec federal commission used 3 regional groupings. Montreal, North of St. Lawrence, South of St. Lawrence.

It would make sense to keep them, because it is sure than the St. Lawrence must not be crossed and than Montreal has to be left alone.

Vaudreuil-Soulanges is too big now to be one riding, so I reckon a new riding will be created that will cross over into Montreal like V-S did in the 1980s.

Another option is possible. They can go in the Salaberry Island (currently in Beauharnois-Salaberry) direction and split V-S, to do a Vaudreuil riding and a Salaberry-Soulanges one.

If I remember well, the bridge between Soulanges area and Salaberry Island was enlarged to a 4 lanes one a few years ago.

True, but that requires crossing the St. Lawrence.

[Hatman 🍁]

The quotient in QC is 101321 by the way.

[Hatman 🍁]

The quotient in QC is 101321 by the way.

I know. But I can't cut more into Vaudreuil without spliting a town or drawing something with no road link and the other riding isn't finished.

Oh, I was just stating it, because you had asked.

[Hatman 🍁]

I've been sitting on this for over a week. Haven't had the time to do a write up of it. But, in the mean time, here is the map of Toronto:



I was able to squeeze 5 undersized ridings into Scarborough while keeping the 3 oversized Etobicoke ridings. The Etobicoke ridings are nearly equal in size. As you can see, the major shake up is the Don Valley area, where I squeezed in the new riding Toronto is entitled to.

Politically, not much changes. The NDP would be competitive in Toronto Centre as it loses Rosedale. Bob Rae should run in Don Valley South if this map were to come into affect.

[Hatman 🍁]

Glad you like the map. I dont know if the commission accepts proposals? If it does, then I will send all my maps

[Hatman 🍁]

Here's Brampton & Mississauga



Brampton gets 2 more ridings, Mississauga gets one. I've kept the same boundary between the 2 cities as the last redistribution (with Malton going with a Brampton riding and Brampton South being grouped with Mississauga). I did this because the numbers worked well like that. Malton isn't close to anything in Mississauga, so it made sense to keep it with a Brampton riding. It's closer to Bramalea than Gore, so I put it with Bramalea.

Only Mississauga South keeps its borders, as it experienced minimal growth. Cooksville leaves Mississauga East and Erindale leaves Mississauga-Erindale (now Mississauga--Erin Mills)

[Hatman 🍁]

I've finally done a write up for the Toronto ridings: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-riding-boundary-proposal-for-toronto.html

[Hatman 🍁]

Excellent. If Quebec could be next on your list, 'twud much appreciated.

Im not doing all of Quebec at once. Please be more specific. However, there is a long list of requests to get done first.

[Hatman 🍁]

Populations down to the block level: http://geodepot.statcan.gc.ca/GeoSearch2011-GeoRecherche2011/GeoSearch2011-GeoRecherche2011.jsp?lang=E&otherLang=F

No matter what you do, you have to create the new riding in the Don Valley area, because Willowdale and T-S are the 2 most over populated ridings. That means the domino affect cause by those 2 ridings need to be smaller will meet up half way in the Don Valley.

Of course, I would love to see your suggestion in a map. I could add it to my blog, if you'd like.

[Hatman 🍁]

BTW, they're not going to divide up Davenport, because the Portuguese community neatly fits into that riding. I think that's why the riding exists with those boundaries.

[Hatman 🍁]

Populations down to the block level: http://geodepot.statcan.gc.ca/GeoSearch2011-GeoRecherche2011/GeoSearch2011-GeoRecherche2011.jsp?lang=E&otherLang=F

Thanks! Not exactly the most user-friendly system , but more power to you for making all those maps with it.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well, there's always a bit of a question as to what's "the" new riding and what's an existing riding shifted half-way over, but I see your reasoning; definitely the north-central city has to be shaken up a bit somehow. If the Scarborough ridings are underpopulated though another possibility would be to put the east end of Willowdale with Agincourt; these areas are pretty similar to each other, and I don't really see why Scarborough should be sacrosanct when the other old municipalities are being ignored.

BTW, they're not going to divide up Davenport, because the Portuguese community neatly fits into that riding. I think that's why the riding exists with those boundaries.

The boundaries commissions haven't explicitly used ethnic criteria like that (aside from language and Aboriginal %, both of which are more constitutionally important), and I think it would be pretty controversial if they did. (No VRA here! ). But we'll see how it goes.

It's a good point, but if you look at where the Portuguese areas are in Toronto, they are almost all in Davenport. And the riding boundary seems to follow the edge of the ethnic area as well.

As for geosearch2011, it is a lot more user friendly than the 2006 version. This one allows you to do 2 layers, and you don't have to zoom in to the furthest level to be able to see the block borders.

[Hatman 🍁]

I suppose you could divide T-S into 2 ridings witout altering Daveport. You would be getting rid of St. Paul's though, and you might have to keep Rosedale in TC, which I don't like.

[Hatman 🍁]

Here's Calgary. It should get 2 more ridings.



Might still need to make some minor changes. I don't like how I I had to force Calgary East into the north centre area, but I was forced to, in order to make a more logical Calgary NE riding (where the airport is the boundary). At present the NE riding contains the Harvest Hills area that is isolated from the rest of the riding. I united that area into Calgary North. This map makes Clagary NE more Liberal friendly BTW, but they still would probably lose. I renamed Calgary East because it crosses Centre St, so parts of it are now on the west side of the city.

Calgary--Nose Hill has little in common with the present riding, except Nose Hill itself. I couldn't think of a better name for the riding, and keeping it at "Calgary Centre-North" made little sense. I was going to call Calgary--Glenora "Calgary Southwest", but thought that didn't make much sense.

As Calgary gets larger, having directional names will make less sense.

[Hatman 🍁]

Interesting. I will have to do an analysis now.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ok, well Avalon has become a safe Conservative seat. The area it lost along Trinity Bay is quite Liberal and the area it gains is NDP now, but without Jack Harris on the ballot will vote Tory
 

[Hatman 🍁]

I also appears that none of the MPs will have been put in the same district as each other in terms of their residences. Boring!

[Hatman 🍁]

The boundaries look pretty sound. My only issue is with the names:

St. John's North. Wha?? I know it makes sense if you look at a map, but it's basically a smaller version of St. John's East. In fact, the current St John's East riding was formerly called St. John's North, but it changed names. I reckon they will do this again.

Long Range Mountains: Kind of a weird name, really. Could just shorten to "Long Range". However, I reckon they might have to throw in some place names, and so the riding name might be changed to "Humber--St. Barbe--St. George's"

Bay d'Espoir-Central-Notre Dame: Throwing central in there randomly is kind of weird. Central what? Obviously Nfld, but you just don't throw in a word like that without context. If we use names from the current ridings, then how about "Baie Verte--Gander--Grand Falls--Windsor"? Not enough people live in the Bay d'Espoir area to include it in the riding name, let alone be the first name in the riding! One might conceivably keep Notre Dame in the riding title, perhaps use my suggestion replacing Baie Verte with Notre Dame.

Bonavista-Burin-Trinity: No complaints here. You can throw in "Random" if you want to keep the current geographical names in the riding title, but it would be redundant since Random Island is on Bonavista Bay. It shouldn't even be in the name of the current riding, as it's not that significant.

[Hatman 🍁]

For the order of parts inside names, it doesn't seem linked to population or importance of the area, but rather to the alphabetical order.

That's not a standard though; I wonder why they've done that? That's not the case right now.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ok, well Avalon has become a safe Conservative seat. The area it lost along Trinity Bay is quite Liberal and the area it gains is NDP now, but without Jack Harris on the ballot will vote Tory
 

I don't think we can make any assumptions. In the last election, the NDP just had a name on the ballot and had no active campaign at all in Avalon. Now that the two St. john's seats have become such NDP strongholds I think it's almost certain that in 2015 the NDP will put Avalon high on the target list and pour resources in. The finger of territory that Avalon gains from Harris' seat is small in area, but I wonder how many voters it has?

There must be 15,000-20,000 people there as St. John's East has over 100,000 and the riding was cut down to ~80,000.

Avalon is a potential NDP gain, I suppose. But, it has some factors going against it. St. John's is a good place for the NDP because it's urban, and because they area is very anti-Liberal (Tory tradition, but not a right wing tradition). Avalon has a bit of that Tory Catholic influence like St. John's, but it's more rural and right of centre. They are more hard core Tory. Let's look at the provincial election. Where did the NDP win seats? In St. John's. They didn't win any in Avalon.

A strong NDP campaign could hurt the Tories more than the Liberals, however (one of the few areas that would be true), and keep the seat in Liberal hands.

[Hatman 🍁]

Provincial election patterns don't tell us much about federal voting in Newfoundland. The ories won almost every single seat in the province provincially yet they are totally shut out of Newfoundland in the federal election just six months earlier.

True, but for the NDP there is more correlation.

[Hatman 🍁]

Good point, By that measure, the party could theoretically win all 7 ridings.

[Hatman 🍁]

My analysis: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2012/05/newfoundland-and-labrador-boundary.html