Canada Federal Representation 2024

[Hatman 🍁]

You have not crossed Fish Creek in any of your maps, so I'm happy. I'll be very disappointed if the commission does.

Not sure if Calgary Ogden is the best name of the riding, but I would also say Calgary Heritage is a terrible name, and they still went with that.

[Krago]

Not sure if Calgary Ogden is the best name of the riding, but I would also say Calgary Heritage is a terrible name, and they still went with that.

Calgary--Weaselhead Flats


The federal commissioners try not to duplicate provincial riding names in Calgary.

Provincial

• Calgary-Acadia
• Calgary-Beddington
• Calgary-Bow
• Calgary-Buffalo
• Calgary-Cross
• Calgary-Currie
• Calgary-East
• Calgary-Edgemont
• Calgary-Elbow
• Calgary-Falconridge
• Calgary-Fish Creek
• Calgary-Foothills
• Calgary-Glenmore
• Calgary-Hays
• Calgary-Klein
• Calgary-Lougheed
• Calgary-McCall
• Calgary-Mountain View
• Calgary-North
• Calgary-North East
• Calgary-North West
• Calgary-Peigan
• Calgary-Shaw
• Calgary-South East
• Calgary-Varsity
• Calgary-West

Federal

• Calgary Centre
• Calgary Confederation
• Calgary Forest Lawn
• Calgary Heritage
• Calgary Midnapore
• Calgary Nose Hill
• Calgary Rocky Ridge
• Calgary Shepard
• Calgary Signal Hill
• Calgary Skyview

[Hatman 🍁]

Not sure if Calgary Ogden is the best name of the riding, but I would also say Calgary Heritage is a terrible name, and they still went with that.

Calgary--Weaselhead Flats


The federal commissioners try not to duplicate provincial riding names in Calgary.

I know. Limits the choices considerably.  Heritage could easily be Glenmore.

[Njall]

After the overwhelming response, here is the winner:

Sorry Krago, I was travelling and not checking the forum when you were looking for Calgarian input. With that said, I think this option is the one that I would have picked. One small suggestion that I'd make would be to adjust the border between Calgary Heritage and Calgary Ogden to be MacLeod Trail instead of the CPR line, at least south of 50th Avenue S. MacLeod Trail is the major boundary between communities that it touches in south Calgary, and I would imagine that the Haysboro Community Association in particular wouldn't appreciate having its residents on the east side of the rail line in a different riding. North of 50th Avenue S, it could actually make more sense to keep the rail line as the boundary so that Manchester can be in the same riding with communities like Windsor Park.

In terms of riding names, I agree that Glenmore is a much better riding name than Heritage. I know that the commission tries to not copy provincial names, but they let Edmonton Mill Woods and Edmonton Manning get away with it, so why not Calgary Glenmore too? A possible non-duplicating name could be Calgary Mount Royal, as both the communities of Upper and Lower Mount Royal as well as Mount Royal University are in the riding.

As far as Calgary Ogden goes, I think that it would actually make more sense to stick with Calgary Shepard. Aside from keeping the familiar name, the riding still includes the former hamlet of Shepard, the Shepard and East Shepard Industrial areas, and the Shepard landfill. Alternatively, it could be called Calgary Deerfoot Meadows, after the major retail/shopping hub that's roughly where Deerfoot Trail, Glenmore Trail, and Heritage Drive all converge.

[Krago]

Sorry Krago, I was travelling and not checking the forum when you were looking for Calgarian input. With that said, I think this option is the one that I would have picked. One small suggestion that I'd make would be to adjust the border between Calgary Heritage and Calgary Ogden to be MacLeod Trail instead of the CPR line, at least south of 50th Avenue S. MacLeod Trail is the major boundary between communities that it touches in south Calgary, and I would imagine that the Haysboro Community Association in particular wouldn't appreciate having its residents on the east side of the rail line in a different riding. North of 50th Avenue S, it could actually make more sense to keep the rail line as the boundary so that Manchester can be in the same riding with communities like Windsor Park.

In terms of riding names, I agree that Glenmore is a much better riding name than Heritage. I know that the commission tries to not copy provincial names, but they let Edmonton Mill Woods and Edmonton Manning get away with it, so why not Calgary Glenmore too? A possible non-duplicating name could be Calgary Mount Royal, as both the communities of Upper and Lower Mount Royal as well as Mount Royal University are in the riding.

As far as Calgary Ogden goes, I think that it would actually make more sense to stick with Calgary Shepard. Aside from keeping the familiar name, the riding still includes the former hamlet of Shepard, the Shepard and East Shepard Industrial areas, and the Shepard landfill. Alternatively, it could be called Calgary Deerfoot Meadows, after the major retail/shopping hub that's roughly where Deerfoot Trail, Glenmore Trail, and Heritage Drive all converge.

It's wonderful to hear from you.  By the way, your handle NJALL is the Worst. Wordle. Ever.

I've taken most of your advice.  Calgary Ogden is renamed Calgary Shepard.  Macleod Trail is the border from 58 Avenue south to Southland Drive.  Manchester is in the same riding as Windsor Park.




P.S. I've added some alternative ridings in Scarborough to my main map:  https://bit.ly/Canada343

[EastAnglianLefty]

For Alberta, I know that it's been mentioned that you can do Calgary with 11 ridings, but it strikes me that you can just as easily do Edmonton with 9 ridings (without St. Albert) and that this leaves the rest of the province almost exactly the right size for 17 ridings.

Here's what I got, aiming to follow broadly the outlines of the present ridings, with a bit of minor tidying up to improve connectivity:

Edmonton



Edmonton South 108743 - the Edmonton bits of the present Edmonton--Wetaskiwin. The name isn't great, but I couldn't find any alternatives that fit for the whole seat. East-west connectivity might be improved if it swapped territory with Riverbend?
Edmonton Mill Woods 125592 - unchanged.
Edmonton Riverbend 107962 - as much as possible, tries to use Whitemud Creek as the boundary with Strathcona.
Edmonton Strathcona 116403
Edmonton Highlands 107338 - successor to Griesbach, but no longer contains Griesbach. Almost certainly there's a better name than this, but the biggest central feature I could see on a map was the Yellowhead Corridor and even a Canadian commission isn't daft enough to use that as a name.
Edmonton Centre 115762 - is it still central enough for the name to be suitable?
Edmonton West 115329
Edmonton North 106667 - again, the name is basically a placeholder.
Edmonton Manning 106703

Rest of Alberta




Sherwood Park--Fort Saskatchewan 126313 - unchanged
St. Albert--Sturgeon River 107781
Lakeland 119497 - swaps Athabasca for Cold River to improve the following seat
Fort McMurray--Westlock 109836 - I'm happy with including Athabasca, I worry that including Westlock may make this riding a bit too disparate
Lac. Ste Anne--Mackenzie 123767 - similar to the current Peace River--Westlock, but it no longer includes the latter and the former is on the riding's edge.
Grande Prairie 113893 - loses the far north
Parkland--Yellowhead 125062 - I'm not wild about a constituency which is 80% Edmonton suburbia stretching to the BC border, but I couldn't think of anywhere better to put Yellowhead
Wetaskiwin--Leduc 121764 - in addition its half of Edmonton Wetaskiwin, also takes in Brazeau County
Battle River--Crowfoot 110212 - minor changes
Lacombe--Sylvan Lake 111050 - placeholder name
Red Deer 105997 - how do Canadian commissions usually feel about doughnut seats?
Banff--Cochrane--Clearwater 119756 - Looking on a map, internal connectivity via road seems OK, but this may or may not be true
Airdrie--Mountain View 110946
Bow River 112197 - just donates a few thousand electors to Battle River
Lethbridge 123847 - unchanged
Medicine Hat--Cardston--Warner 108391 - unchanged
Foothills 105954

Calgary



Calgary Midnapore 115238 - everything south of Fish Creek
Calgary Heritage 124430 - or another name of your choice. The arm north of Glenmore trail is only there for population equality reasons.
Calgary Centre 126563 - at the upper end of the allowable range because I wanted to avoid crossing the river. I accept this may not be to everybody's tastes.
Calgary Signal Hill 124848
Calgary Confederation 124064 - unchanged
Calgary Nose Hill 112705 - could probably be improved if you did swap territory with Confederation
Calgary Rocky Ridge 112792 - feels like a leftovers riding
Calgary Skyview 124363
Calgary East 109459 - placeholder name
Calgary Ogden 117388 - could also call this Shepherd or Forest Lawn, as they're both in the riding
Calgary McKenzie 114934 - name is a placeholder, picked as there seemed to be a few separate developments using variations of the name.

Obviously I'm essentially just playing around with a paintbrush, but I thought I'd share it in case it gives anybody else any ideas.

[Njall]

Edmonton

Edmonton South 108743 - the Edmonton bits of the present Edmonton--Wetaskiwin. The name isn't great, but I couldn't find any alternatives that fit for the whole seat. East-west connectivity might be improved if it swapped territory with Riverbend?
Edmonton Mill Woods 125592 - unchanged.
Edmonton Riverbend 107962 - as much as possible, tries to use Whitemud Creek as the boundary with Strathcona.
Edmonton Strathcona 116403
Edmonton Highlands 107338 - successor to Griesbach, but no longer contains Griesbach. Almost certainly there's a better name than this, but the biggest central feature I could see on a map was the Yellowhead Corridor and even a Canadian commission isn't daft enough to use that as a name.
Edmonton Centre 115762 - is it still central enough for the name to be suitable?
Edmonton West 115329
Edmonton North 106667 - again, the name is basically a placeholder.
Edmonton Manning 106703

Rest of Alberta

Sherwood Park--Fort Saskatchewan 126313 - unchanged
St. Albert--Sturgeon River 107781
Lakeland 119497 - swaps Athabasca for Cold River to improve the following seat
Fort McMurray--Westlock 109836 - I'm happy with including Athabasca, I worry that including Westlock may make this riding a bit too disparate
Lac. Ste Anne--Mackenzie 123767 - similar to the current Peace River--Westlock, but it no longer includes the latter and the former is on the riding's edge.
Grande Prairie 113893 - loses the far north
Parkland--Yellowhead 125062 - I'm not wild about a constituency which is 80% Edmonton suburbia stretching to the BC border, but I couldn't think of anywhere better to put Yellowhead
Wetaskiwin--Leduc 121764 - in addition its half of Edmonton Wetaskiwin, also takes in Brazeau County
Battle River--Crowfoot 110212 - minor changes
Lacombe--Sylvan Lake 111050 - placeholder name
Red Deer 105997 - how do Canadian commissions usually feel about doughnut seats?
Banff--Cochrane--Clearwater 119756 - Looking on a map, internal connectivity via road seems OK, but this may or may not be true
Airdrie--Mountain View 110946
Bow River 112197 - just donates a few thousand electors to Battle River
Lethbridge 123847 - unchanged
Medicine Hat--Cardston--Warner 108391 - unchanged
Foothills 105954

Calgary

Calgary Midnapore 115238 - everything south of Fish Creek
Calgary Heritage 124430 - or another name of your choice. The arm north of Glenmore trail is only there for population equality reasons.
Calgary Centre 126563 - at the upper end of the allowable range because I wanted to avoid crossing the river. I accept this may not be to everybody's tastes.
Calgary Signal Hill 124848
Calgary Confederation 124064 - unchanged
Calgary Nose Hill 112705 - could probably be improved if you did swap territory with Confederation
Calgary Rocky Ridge 112792 - feels like a leftovers riding
Calgary Skyview 124363
Calgary East 109459 - placeholder name
Calgary Ogden 117388 - could also call this Shepherd or Forest Lawn, as they're both in the riding
Calgary McKenzie 114934 - name is a placeholder, picked as there seemed to be a few separate developments using variations of the name.

I think these maps look pretty good - I'm mainly just popping in with some riding name suggestions:

Edmonton South: the most logical name I could suggest would be Edmonton Ellerslie (acknowledging that that name exists at the provincial level), since Ellerslie Road runs the length of the riding and there is also an Ellerslie district on the east side of the riding. A second option could be Edmonton Heritage Valley, but that name moreso fits the western half of the riding and doesn't really apply to the east.

Edmonton Highlands: a possible alternative could be Edmonton Blatchford, which would reference the former City Centre Airport (AKA Blatchford Field) that is fully contained in the riding and is undergoing a major redevelopment into a new and relatively large residential area.

Edmonton Centre: I think that name is still fine, since it contains downtown and the riding has historically taken in a number of those neightbourhoods west of downtown. A more accurate, albeit long, name would be Edmonton Centre--Jasper Place.

Edmonton North: if you don't mind duplicating provincial riding names, then Edmonton Castle Downs would be a great fit, as the Castle Downs district is prominently located in the centre of the riding.

Lacombe--Sylvan Lake: This isn't a bad name at all. I might've gone with Lacombe--Ponoka--Sylvan Lake or Lacombe--Ponoka--Red Deer (referencing all the constituent counties), but I know some people don't like triple-barreled names as much as I do.

Red Deer: If a doughnut riding can work for Guelph (and historically did for Moncton--Riverview--Dieppe), I don't see why it wouldn't work for Red Deer.

Calgary East: Could be called Calgary McKnight, as McKnight Boulevard is a major roadway that runs through the middle of the riding.

Calgary McKenzie: This isn't a bad name. One alternative that I could suggest would be Calgary Seton. The Seton community is still under development, but it's home to the big new South Calgary hospital and is being designed as a kind of "town centre" district for the part of southeast Calgary that's largely contained within that riding.

[Hatman 🍁]

I have to insist that for any Calgary map that no riding cross the Airport in the northeast. I know the current set up does that, but it doesn't make sense to include the Country Hills area and the McCall area in the same riding, when they're separate by a large expanse like that.

[EastAnglianLefty]

I think that's more or less baked-in by the internal constraints I set myself - if you're giving Calgary 11 whole ridings and refusing to cross the Bow River, then you either have to have a riding with the airport at the centre, or a riding stretching along the Trans-Canada Highway from the city centre to the eastern edge. I presume the latter option is at least as bad?

Obviously, this may just suggest that the internal constraints I set myself weren't helpful.

[Hatman 🍁]

I'd rather a riding cross the Bow than the Airport. The airport is much bigger than the river, and therefore is a greater barrier. Plus, the areas on both sides of the Bow are similar demographically, aren't they? More urban/dense. Of course, I'm not from Calgary so I could be off base here.

[Njall]

I'd rather a riding cross the Bow than the Airport. The airport is much bigger than the river, and therefore is a greater barrier. Plus, the areas on both sides of the Bow are similar demographically, aren't they? More urban/dense. Of course, I'm not from Calgary so I could be off base here.

That's more-or-less correct. There's quite a noticeable demographic divide (in terms of ethnicity at the very least) between the communities on the east and west sides of the airport. As well, due to the presence of the airport, there are no east-west road connections between McKnight Boulevard and Airport Trail/96 Avenue N. The airport is also surrounded by industrial land, so there's zero residential population in the 5(ish) kilometres between Metis Trail and the CPR line in the Nose Creek Ravine. If someone wanted to walk between the main activity centres on the east and west sides of Deerfoot/the airport, it would take over 2 hours (and even driving, close to 20 minutes). By contrast, downtown is connected to the relatively urban communities north of the river by many short bridges, so it's very easy for people to cross back and forth on foot, bike, transit, or driving. And while the central area is probably the most connected across the river, there are other natural cross-river connections between similar communities, like the link between Montgomery and Bowness. The main Bow River crossing that I would try to avoid would be linking Inglewood and Ramsay with the Forest Lawn area across both the river and Deerfoot Trail, due to pretty wide ethnic and economic demographic differences.

Check out Calgary's current municipal ward boundaries: https://maps.calgary.ca/CalgaryBoundaries/. You'll notice that the lines were drawn to keep Wards 5 and 10 solely on the east side of Deerfoot Trail, while there are five wards that cross the Bow River. Although not all the river crossings are perfect, they do work, and they work a lot better than the old northeast ward that crossed the airport and Deerfoot.

[EastAnglianLefty]

It strikes me that it might be useful to think in terms of the population in the particular bits of Calgary, taking account of what Njall has said about where connections are and aren't good.

Calgary as a whole: 1306784 (11.31 quotas)
South of Fish Creek: 115238 (1.00)
North of Fish Creek and southwest of the Bow: 375841 (3.25 - 'group 1')
North of the Bow River and west of Deerfoot Trail: 415774 (3.60 - 'group 2')
East of the Bow and Deerfoot Trail: 399931 (3.46 - 'group 3')

So you can't get an integer number of ridings out of group 3, which means you either need to add other areas of Calgary or you need to add Airdrie. Assuming you're doing the former and you're ruling out crossing round the airport, that means either pairing with group 2 along the Trans-Canada Highway (so group 1 could stand alone for three large ridings) or you're pairing with group 1 across the Bow (presumably in the Ogden area) in which case groups 1 and 2 also need to be paired.

Krago's suggestion of putting group 3 with the bits of group 1 east of Macleod Trail gives you 457550, which is pretty much dead on for four ridings and you can then get 7 largeish ridings out of group 2 and the rest of group 1.

If on the other hand you're pairing along the Trans-Canada, then it looks like that naturally draws a riding which is made up of the eastern half of Confederation and the northern or western half of Forest Lawn. I defer to Njall on whether that works on a community level, but it certainly looks ugly on a map.

TLDR - yeah, crossing the river seems like a far superior option.

[Njall]

It strikes me that it might be useful to think in terms of the population in the particular bits of Calgary, taking account of what Njall has said about where connections are and aren't good.

Calgary as a whole: 1306784 (11.31 quotas)
South of Fish Creek: 115238 (1.00)
North of Fish Creek and southwest of the Bow: 375841 (3.25 - 'group 1')
North of the Bow River and west of Deerfoot Trail: 415774 (3.60 - 'group 2')
East of the Bow and Deerfoot Trail: 399931 (3.46 - 'group 3')

So you can't get an integer number of ridings out of group 3, which means you either need to add other areas of Calgary or you need to add Airdrie. Assuming you're doing the former and you're ruling out crossing round the airport, that means either pairing with group 2 along the Trans-Canada Highway (so group 1 could stand alone for three large ridings) or you're pairing with group 1 across the Bow (presumably in the Ogden area) in which case groups 1 and 2 also need to be paired.

Krago's suggestion of putting group 3 with the bits of group 1 east of Macleod Trail gives you 457550, which is pretty much dead on for four ridings and you can then get 7 largeish ridings out of group 2 and the rest of group 1.

If on the other hand you're pairing along the Trans-Canada, then it looks like that naturally draws a riding which is made up of the eastern half of Confederation and the northern or western half of Forest Lawn. I defer to Njall on whether that works on a community level, but it certainly looks ugly on a map.

TLDR - yeah, crossing the river seems like a far superior option.

After playing around in the riding builder a little bit, here's what I would likely consider to be the optimal way to modify the map based on that initial division of Calgary into four sections as you outlined above, in order to create new sections with more sensible quotas:

1. Move the part of group 3 south of 50 Avenue SE to group 1. In practice, this would allow you to create the Calgary McKenzie riding from your maps above, and would leave the communities of Douglasdale/Glen, Riverbend, and Ogden to be joined with communities on the west side of the river.

2. Move the following communities from group 2 to group 1: Bridgeland/Riverside, Renfrew, Crescent Heights, Rosedale, Sunnyside, Hillhurst, West Hillhurst, Hounsfield Heights/Briar Hill, St. Andrews Heights, Parkdale, Point McKay, University of Calgary, University Heights, University District, Montgomery, and Varsity. This allows you to take advantage of the numerous central river crossings as well as the crossing between Bowness and Montgomery.

3. Move the following communities from group 3 to group 2: Vista Heights and Mayland Heights, plus the McCall, North Airways, South Airways, and Mayland industrial areas. This move is the least ideal of all that I've listed, but it works because of the cross-Deerfoot connections offered by 16 Avenue NE, 32 Avenue NE, and McKnight Boulevard, as well as the fact that Vista Heights and Mayland Heights are cut off from other northeast communities by industrial areas, and so the residential communities on the west side of Deerfoot are actually closer to them. This crossing of Deerfoot south of McKnight can also be seen in the current boundaries of the provincial riding of Calgary-Klein.

After making those changes, you end up with the following groups, populations, and quotas:
Group 1: 588,900 (5.10)
Group 2: 356,935 (3.09)
Group 3: 245,711 (2.13)

[EastAnglianLefty]

It strikes me that it might be useful to think in terms of the population in the particular bits of Calgary, taking account of what Njall has said about where connections are and aren't good.

Calgary as a whole: 1306784 (11.31 quotas)
South of Fish Creek: 115238 (1.00)
North of Fish Creek and southwest of the Bow: 375841 (3.25 - 'group 1')
North of the Bow River and west of Deerfoot Trail: 415774 (3.60 - 'group 2')
East of the Bow and Deerfoot Trail: 399931 (3.46 - 'group 3')

So you can't get an integer number of ridings out of group 3, which means you either need to add other areas of Calgary or you need to add Airdrie. Assuming you're doing the former and you're ruling out crossing round the airport, that means either pairing with group 2 along the Trans-Canada Highway (so group 1 could stand alone for three large ridings) or you're pairing with group 1 across the Bow (presumably in the Ogden area) in which case groups 1 and 2 also need to be paired.

Krago's suggestion of putting group 3 with the bits of group 1 east of Macleod Trail gives you 457550, which is pretty much dead on for four ridings and you can then get 7 largeish ridings out of group 2 and the rest of group 1.

If on the other hand you're pairing along the Trans-Canada, then it looks like that naturally draws a riding which is made up of the eastern half of Confederation and the northern or western half of Forest Lawn. I defer to Njall on whether that works on a community level, but it certainly looks ugly on a map.

TLDR - yeah, crossing the river seems like a far superior option.

After playing around in the riding builder a little bit, here's what I would likely consider to be the optimal way to modify the map based on that initial division of Calgary into four sections as you outlined above, in order to create new sections with more sensible quotas:

1. Move the part of group 3 south of 50 Avenue SE to group 1. In practice, this would allow you to create the Calgary McKenzie riding from your maps above, and would leave the communities of Douglasdale/Glen, Riverbend, and Ogden to be joined with communities on the west side of the river.

2. Move the following communities from group 2 to group 1: Bridgeland/Riverside, Renfrew, Crescent Heights, Rosedale, Sunnyside, Hillhurst, West Hillhurst, Hounsfield Heights/Briar Hill, St. Andrews Heights, Parkdale, Point McKay, University of Calgary, University Heights, University District, Montgomery, and Varsity. This allows you to take advantage of the numerous central river crossings as well as the crossing between Bowness and Montgomery.

3. Move the following communities from group 3 to group 2: Vista Heights and Mayland Heights, plus the McCall, North Airways, South Airways, and Mayland industrial areas. This move is the least ideal of all that I've listed, but it works because of the cross-Deerfoot connections offered by 16 Avenue NE, 32 Avenue NE, and McKnight Boulevard, as well as the fact that Vista Heights and Mayland Heights are cut off from other northeast communities by industrial areas, and so the residential communities on the west side of Deerfoot are actually closer to them. This crossing of Deerfoot south of McKnight can also be seen in the current boundaries of the provincial riding of Calgary-Klein.

After making those changes, you end up with the following groups, populations, and quotas:
Group 1: 588,900 (5.10)
Group 2: 356,935 (3.09)
Group 3: 245,711 (2.13)

I don't think step 3 is really needed - there's room for those communities to go with Forest Lawn by my reckoning. On the other hand, whilst the boundary between group 1 and group 2 you suggest sounds sensible, I think in practice you would probably need to keep Varsity in group 2 if you don't want the Ogden riding stretching west of Macleod Trail.

[Hatman 🍁]

Funny we were talking about Alberta, considering the commission for Alberta has released their map:

https://redecoupage-redistribution-2022.ca/com/ab/prop/index_e.aspx

They did not use the airport as a boundary

[Krago]

I noticed that all the Commissions proposed ridings are within +/- 5% of the provincial average.

Banff and Canmore are in separate ridings.  For some reason, Banff has been added to Yellowhead.

Edmonton-Winterburn is interesting.

Calgary--Midnapore crosses Fish Creek.  Hatman will not be pleased.

[Philly D.]

I noticed that all the Commissions proposed ridings are within +/- 5% of the provincial average.

I also noticed that the total population of Alberta is 4,262,635, based on the 2021 Census.  My ridings add to the same.  However, RidingBuilder has a base population of 4,273,946.

You have to go to Statistics Canada to determine the incompletely enumerated reserves which are not counted. When you leave them blank in RidingBuilder, the population of the built ridings and the Census will match.

I was getting desperate for new proposals. I thought C-14 had the effect of making Elections Canada make an internal decision to stop publishing them!

As far as Alberta, I'm surprised the Commission gave Edmonton 9 whole ridings (so that they all have negative quotients), and pleased that they put all ridings within 5%, as in 2012, but this map doesn't seem to have anywhere near the same "wow" factor. Outside of Calgary, Beaumont and Sherwood Park don't have a really good road connection. Putting Banff and Jasper in the same riding is a real head-scratcher. I also dislike Fort Saskatchewan in Lakeland, which under this map would better become "Beaver River--Fort Saskatchewan". In fact there are a number of sloppy names: "Gateway" is terrible, Edmonton "West" and "Riverbend" are obsolete, and the changes to Calgary "Heritage", "Midnapore" and "Skyview" seem to be those where the guidelines call for new names. In the latter case, I would go so far as to say it is the new riding in Calgary rather than McKnight. Most of its people now live west of the airport, and most of those who live east of it also live to its north, so perhaps crossing it is not the strike it would otherwise be. However, it would start with a positive quotient, and I don't think it would remain below +25% until 2031.

[Njall]

It strikes me that it might be useful to think in terms of the population in the particular bits of Calgary, taking account of what Njall has said about where connections are and aren't good.

Calgary as a whole: 1306784 (11.31 quotas)
South of Fish Creek: 115238 (1.00)
North of Fish Creek and southwest of the Bow: 375841 (3.25 - 'group 1')
North of the Bow River and west of Deerfoot Trail: 415774 (3.60 - 'group 2')
East of the Bow and Deerfoot Trail: 399931 (3.46 - 'group 3')

So you can't get an integer number of ridings out of group 3, which means you either need to add other areas of Calgary or you need to add Airdrie. Assuming you're doing the former and you're ruling out crossing round the airport, that means either pairing with group 2 along the Trans-Canada Highway (so group 1 could stand alone for three large ridings) or you're pairing with group 1 across the Bow (presumably in the Ogden area) in which case groups 1 and 2 also need to be paired.

Krago's suggestion of putting group 3 with the bits of group 1 east of Macleod Trail gives you 457550, which is pretty much dead on for four ridings and you can then get 7 largeish ridings out of group 2 and the rest of group 1.

If on the other hand you're pairing along the Trans-Canada, then it looks like that naturally draws a riding which is made up of the eastern half of Confederation and the northern or western half of Forest Lawn. I defer to Njall on whether that works on a community level, but it certainly looks ugly on a map.

TLDR - yeah, crossing the river seems like a far superior option.

After playing around in the riding builder a little bit, here's what I would likely consider to be the optimal way to modify the map based on that initial division of Calgary into four sections as you outlined above, in order to create new sections with more sensible quotas:

1. Move the part of group 3 south of 50 Avenue SE to group 1. In practice, this would allow you to create the Calgary McKenzie riding from your maps above, and would leave the communities of Douglasdale/Glen, Riverbend, and Ogden to be joined with communities on the west side of the river.

2. Move the following communities from group 2 to group 1: Bridgeland/Riverside, Renfrew, Crescent Heights, Rosedale, Sunnyside, Hillhurst, West Hillhurst, Hounsfield Heights/Briar Hill, St. Andrews Heights, Parkdale, Point McKay, University of Calgary, University Heights, University District, Montgomery, and Varsity. This allows you to take advantage of the numerous central river crossings as well as the crossing between Bowness and Montgomery.

3. Move the following communities from group 3 to group 2: Vista Heights and Mayland Heights, plus the McCall, North Airways, South Airways, and Mayland industrial areas. This move is the least ideal of all that I've listed, but it works because of the cross-Deerfoot connections offered by 16 Avenue NE, 32 Avenue NE, and McKnight Boulevard, as well as the fact that Vista Heights and Mayland Heights are cut off from other northeast communities by industrial areas, and so the residential communities on the west side of Deerfoot are actually closer to them. This crossing of Deerfoot south of McKnight can also be seen in the current boundaries of the provincial riding of Calgary-Klein.

After making those changes, you end up with the following groups, populations, and quotas:
Group 1: 588,900 (5.10)
Group 2: 356,935 (3.09)
Group 3: 245,711 (2.13)

I don't think step 3 is really needed - there's room for those communities to go with Forest Lawn by my reckoning. On the other hand, whilst the boundary between group 1 and group 2 you suggest sounds sensible, I think in practice you would probably need to keep Varsity in group 2 if you don't want the Ogden riding stretching west of Macleod Trail.

I was annoyed at the map that the actual commission came up with so I made a mock-up of what the boundaries could be using the groups that I outlined previously. Here's what I came up with:



Non-grouped:
Red: Calgary Midnapore: 115,238 (-0.2%)

Group 1:
Blue: Calgary Shepard: 115,118 (-0.3%)
Green:  Calgary Deerfoot Meadows: 116,743 (+1.1%)
Yellow: Calgary Glenmore: 119,422 (+3.4%)
Magenta: Calgary Centre: 118,241 (+2.4%)
Turquoise: Calgary Bowness: 119,108 (+3.1%)

Group 2:
Pink: Calgary Nose Hill: 122,353 (+5.9%)
Orange: Calgary Crowfoot: 117,275 (+1.5%)
Grey: Calgary Northern Hills: 117,307 (+1.6%)

Group 3:
Blue: Calgary Forest Lawn: 123,196 (+6.7%)
Gold: Calgary Saddletowne: 122,783 (+6.3%)

[Njall]

Funny we were talking about Alberta, considering the commission for Alberta has released their map:

https://redecoupage-redistribution-2022.ca/com/ab/prop/index_e.aspx

They did not use the airport as a boundary

Initial Thoughts on the Alberta Map:

Rural:

• Glad that Red Deer is no longer split
• Adding Banff to Yellowhead doesn't make sense - it should be grouped with Canmore and Cochrane.
• The ridings surrounding Edmonton need work. For instance, Sherwood Park being with Beaumont doesn't make a lot of sense. Sherwood Park is more closely linked with Fort Saskatchewan, and Beaumont is more closely linked with Leduc and Devon.

Edmonton:

• I'm actually not mad at it for the most part. However, I'm not a fan of how the Highlands/Beverly/Alberta Avenue area is now split between three ridings, it makes Edmonton Griesbach a weird mishmash of different areas. And on a point of personal political bias, I also don't like the Griesbach boundaries as they would make it a fair bit tougher for Blake Dejarlais to get re-elected. On the upside for progressives, the new Edmonton Mill Woods looks friendlier to the Liberals. Also, the name "Edmonton Gateway" is kind of dumb.

Calgary:

• I'm very annoyed that they crossed the Airport and refused to cross the Bow River.
• Calgary McKnight is probably friendlier to the Liberals than the current Calgary Skyview, but that still doesn't justify crossing the airport.
• North Calgary is a bit of a mess: they cut the Northern Hills area in two and split the Symons Valley area between three ridings. The community of Saddle Ridge is also clumsily divided between Calgary Skyview and Calgary McKnight
• The Calgary Centre/Signal Hill boundary splits the community of Killarney unnecessarily
• The way that the Calgary Midnapore boundary with Calgary Heritage crosses Fish Creek just to take in the community of Parkland is really stupid.
• The name Calgary Crowchild is stupid (although it replaces Calgary Rocky Ridge which was also a bad name). Crowchild Trail is a big road - it runs through two other ridings in addition to Calgary Crowchild, and runs along the borders of two other ridings.

[Krago]

My Saskatchewan 14-seat proposal has been completely revised.

I've left the northern riding as proposed by the Commission, as well as the Battlefords--Lloydminster, Prince Albert, and Yorkton--Melville ridings.  I've created three seats entirely within the City of Saskatoon, and three seats in the combined Moose Jaw/Regina area.  The remaining four ridings were adjusted to balance populations.

See it here: https://bit.ly/Canada343

[Hatman 🍁]

It strikes me that it might be useful to think in terms of the population in the particular bits of Calgary, taking account of what Njall has said about where connections are and aren't good.

Calgary as a whole: 1306784 (11.31 quotas)
South of Fish Creek: 115238 (1.00)
North of Fish Creek and southwest of the Bow: 375841 (3.25 - 'group 1')
North of the Bow River and west of Deerfoot Trail: 415774 (3.60 - 'group 2')
East of the Bow and Deerfoot Trail: 399931 (3.46 - 'group 3')

So you can't get an integer number of ridings out of group 3, which means you either need to add other areas of Calgary or you need to add Airdrie. Assuming you're doing the former and you're ruling out crossing round the airport, that means either pairing with group 2 along the Trans-Canada Highway (so group 1 could stand alone for three large ridings) or you're pairing with group 1 across the Bow (presumably in the Ogden area) in which case groups 1 and 2 also need to be paired.

Krago's suggestion of putting group 3 with the bits of group 1 east of Macleod Trail gives you 457550, which is pretty much dead on for four ridings and you can then get 7 largeish ridings out of group 2 and the rest of group 1.

If on the other hand you're pairing along the Trans-Canada, then it looks like that naturally draws a riding which is made up of the eastern half of Confederation and the northern or western half of Forest Lawn. I defer to Njall on whether that works on a community level, but it certainly looks ugly on a map.

TLDR - yeah, crossing the river seems like a far superior option.

After playing around in the riding builder a little bit, here's what I would likely consider to be the optimal way to modify the map based on that initial division of Calgary into four sections as you outlined above, in order to create new sections with more sensible quotas:

1. Move the part of group 3 south of 50 Avenue SE to group 1. In practice, this would allow you to create the Calgary McKenzie riding from your maps above, and would leave the communities of Douglasdale/Glen, Riverbend, and Ogden to be joined with communities on the west side of the river.

2. Move the following communities from group 2 to group 1: Bridgeland/Riverside, Renfrew, Crescent Heights, Rosedale, Sunnyside, Hillhurst, West Hillhurst, Hounsfield Heights/Briar Hill, St. Andrews Heights, Parkdale, Point McKay, University of Calgary, University Heights, University District, Montgomery, and Varsity. This allows you to take advantage of the numerous central river crossings as well as the crossing between Bowness and Montgomery.

3. Move the following communities from group 3 to group 2: Vista Heights and Mayland Heights, plus the McCall, North Airways, South Airways, and Mayland industrial areas. This move is the least ideal of all that I've listed, but it works because of the cross-Deerfoot connections offered by 16 Avenue NE, 32 Avenue NE, and McKnight Boulevard, as well as the fact that Vista Heights and Mayland Heights are cut off from other northeast communities by industrial areas, and so the residential communities on the west side of Deerfoot are actually closer to them. This crossing of Deerfoot south of McKnight can also be seen in the current boundaries of the provincial riding of Calgary-Klein.

After making those changes, you end up with the following groups, populations, and quotas:
Group 1: 588,900 (5.10)
Group 2: 356,935 (3.09)
Group 3: 245,711 (2.13)

I don't think step 3 is really needed - there's room for those communities to go with Forest Lawn by my reckoning. On the other hand, whilst the boundary between group 1 and group 2 you suggest sounds sensible, I think in practice you would probably need to keep Varsity in group 2 if you don't want the Ogden riding stretching west of Macleod Trail.

I was annoyed at the map that the actual commission came up with so I made a mock-up of what the boundaries could be using the groups that I outlined previously. Here's what I came up with:



Non-grouped:
Red: Calgary Midnapore: 115,238 (-0.2%)

Group 1:
Blue: Calgary Shepard: 115,118 (-0.3%)
Green:  Calgary Deerfoot Meadows: 116,743 (+1.1%)
Yellow: Calgary Glenmore: 119,422 (+3.4%)
Magenta: Calgary Centre: 118,241 (+2.4%)
Turquoise: Calgary Bowness: 119,108 (+3.1%)

Group 2:
Pink: Calgary Nose Hill: 122,353 (+5.9%)
Orange: Calgary Crowfoot: 117,275 (+1.5%)
Grey: Calgary Northern Hills: 117,307 (+1.6%)

Group 3:
Blue: Calgary Forest Lawn: 123,196 (+6.7%)
Gold: Calgary Saddletowne: 122,783 (+6.3%)

This is a very good map, though I may have tried to avoid crossing the Bow in the Varsity area (though, the dominoes from such a move may result in a worse map)

After looking at the Edmonton map, I was unhappy with the new Winterburn riding as it kind of lumps a bunch of disparate neighbourhoods that are separated by large industrial tracts. I've tried to fix that situation with the following map:



The only real "issue" with this map is it splits the downtown up. But it helps shore up Desjarlais, and cracks a Liberal riding, so I'm not complaining

[Hatman 🍁]

My Saskatchewan 14-seat proposal has been completely revised.

I've left the northern riding as proposed by the Commission, as well as the Battlefords--Lloydminster, Prince Albert, and Yorkton--Melville ridings.  I've created three seats entirely within the City of Saskatoon, and three seats in the combined Moose Jaw/Regina area.  The remaining four ridings were adjusted to balance populations.

See it here: https://bit.ly/Canada343

The NDP is not going to be happy with how you split Regina.

[Krago]

My Saskatchewan 14-seat proposal has been completely revised.

I've left the northern riding as proposed by the Commission, as well as the Battlefords--Lloydminster, Prince Albert, and Yorkton--Melville ridings.  I've created three seats entirely within the City of Saskatoon, and three seats in the combined Moose Jaw/Regina area.  The remaining four ridings were adjusted to balance populations.

See it here: https://bit.ly/Canada343

The NDP is not going to be happy with how you split Regina.

The Regina NDP hasn’t been happy for the past thirty years.


Would this alternative make them happier?

88,224 -- Moose Jaw--Regina East
86,971 -- Regina North
89,029 -- Regina Wascana





Does anyone know a simple way to move labels in QGIS?

[Njall]

It strikes me that it might be useful to think in terms of the population in the particular bits of Calgary, taking account of what Njall has said about where connections are and aren't good.

Calgary as a whole: 1306784 (11.31 quotas)
South of Fish Creek: 115238 (1.00)
North of Fish Creek and southwest of the Bow: 375841 (3.25 - 'group 1')
North of the Bow River and west of Deerfoot Trail: 415774 (3.60 - 'group 2')
East of the Bow and Deerfoot Trail: 399931 (3.46 - 'group 3')

So you can't get an integer number of ridings out of group 3, which means you either need to add other areas of Calgary or you need to add Airdrie. Assuming you're doing the former and you're ruling out crossing round the airport, that means either pairing with group 2 along the Trans-Canada Highway (so group 1 could stand alone for three large ridings) or you're pairing with group 1 across the Bow (presumably in the Ogden area) in which case groups 1 and 2 also need to be paired.

Krago's suggestion of putting group 3 with the bits of group 1 east of Macleod Trail gives you 457550, which is pretty much dead on for four ridings and you can then get 7 largeish ridings out of group 2 and the rest of group 1.

If on the other hand you're pairing along the Trans-Canada, then it looks like that naturally draws a riding which is made up of the eastern half of Confederation and the northern or western half of Forest Lawn. I defer to Njall on whether that works on a community level, but it certainly looks ugly on a map.

TLDR - yeah, crossing the river seems like a far superior option.

After playing around in the riding builder a little bit, here's what I would likely consider to be the optimal way to modify the map based on that initial division of Calgary into four sections as you outlined above, in order to create new sections with more sensible quotas:

1. Move the part of group 3 south of 50 Avenue SE to group 1. In practice, this would allow you to create the Calgary McKenzie riding from your maps above, and would leave the communities of Douglasdale/Glen, Riverbend, and Ogden to be joined with communities on the west side of the river.

2. Move the following communities from group 2 to group 1: Bridgeland/Riverside, Renfrew, Crescent Heights, Rosedale, Sunnyside, Hillhurst, West Hillhurst, Hounsfield Heights/Briar Hill, St. Andrews Heights, Parkdale, Point McKay, University of Calgary, University Heights, University District, Montgomery, and Varsity. This allows you to take advantage of the numerous central river crossings as well as the crossing between Bowness and Montgomery.

3. Move the following communities from group 3 to group 2: Vista Heights and Mayland Heights, plus the McCall, North Airways, South Airways, and Mayland industrial areas. This move is the least ideal of all that I've listed, but it works because of the cross-Deerfoot connections offered by 16 Avenue NE, 32 Avenue NE, and McKnight Boulevard, as well as the fact that Vista Heights and Mayland Heights are cut off from other northeast communities by industrial areas, and so the residential communities on the west side of Deerfoot are actually closer to them. This crossing of Deerfoot south of McKnight can also be seen in the current boundaries of the provincial riding of Calgary-Klein.

After making those changes, you end up with the following groups, populations, and quotas:
Group 1: 588,900 (5.10)
Group 2: 356,935 (3.09)
Group 3: 245,711 (2.13)

I don't think step 3 is really needed - there's room for those communities to go with Forest Lawn by my reckoning. On the other hand, whilst the boundary between group 1 and group 2 you suggest sounds sensible, I think in practice you would probably need to keep Varsity in group 2 if you don't want the Ogden riding stretching west of Macleod Trail.

I was annoyed at the map that the actual commission came up with so I made a mock-up of what the boundaries could be using the groups that I outlined previously. Here's what I came up with:



Non-grouped:
Red: Calgary Midnapore: 115,238 (-0.2%)

Group 1:
Blue: Calgary Shepard: 115,118 (-0.3%)
Green:  Calgary Deerfoot Meadows: 116,743 (+1.1%)
Yellow: Calgary Glenmore: 119,422 (+3.4%)
Magenta: Calgary Centre: 118,241 (+2.4%)
Turquoise: Calgary Bowness: 119,108 (+3.1%)

Group 2:
Pink: Calgary Nose Hill: 122,353 (+5.9%)
Orange: Calgary Crowfoot: 117,275 (+1.5%)
Grey: Calgary Northern Hills: 117,307 (+1.6%)

Group 3:
Blue: Calgary Forest Lawn: 123,196 (+6.7%)
Gold: Calgary Saddletowne: 122,783 (+6.3%)

This is a very good map, though I may have tried to avoid crossing the Bow in the Varsity area (though, the dominoes from such a move may result in a worse map)

After looking at the Edmonton map, I was unhappy with the new Winterburn riding as it kind of lumps a bunch of disparate neighbourhoods that are separated by large industrial tracts. I've tried to fix that situation with the following map:



The only real "issue" with this map is it splits the downtown up. But it helps shore up Desjarlais, and cracks a Liberal riding, so I'm not complaining

Yeah, the Varsity-area river crossing was basically unavoidable without a headache of dominoes. I justify it by the fact that Montgomery and Bowness are very closely connected (they used to be independent municipalities until the 1960s and were joined by the same streetcar route historically), to the point where you can go between them while only barely noticing that the river even exists. And then from there, Montgomery connects to the UofC area and Varsity. The same river crossing also tends to happen pretty often in Calgary's municipal ward boundaries, so the communities are used to being connected.

Your Edmonton map is more aesthetically-pleasing than anything I've been able to come up with, to be honest. I'm not nearly as much of a fan of the cracking of the Liberal Edmonton Centre though But voting for Randy Boissonault was one of the last things I did as a resident of Edmonton Centre before moving back to Calgary, so I'm a little biased.

[Njall]

I've attempted a new Alberta map to try and address the things that the Commission did which bugged me. I wasn't able to address everything, but I do think that this is better than what the commission came back with. The biggest frustration in drawing this was that I couldn't find a way around putting Beaumont into Battle River--Crowfoot. I now have a better understanding of why the Commission put it with Sherwood Park, but I didn't copy them because I wanted to keep Sherwood Park with Fort Saskatchewan. And then there unfortunately wasn't enough room for Beaumont in the riding with Leduc, Devon, Spruce Grove, and Stony Plain.

Anyways, this isn't perfect, but I would prefer this to what the Commission gave us:












As an aside, something that struck me while drawing this is just how fast bedroom communities around Calgary have grown over the last 15-20 years. As recently as the mid-2000s, Airdrie-Chestermere was only big enough to be a provincial riding, but fast forward to now and you can draw a federal riding (almost 3x the population) on essentially the same boundaries.