Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts 2012

[Hashemite]

Teddy was banned.

[The Head Beagle]

I find this quite awkward in both of the areas that have been changed the most (west-central downtown and the Don Valley ridings). The northern half of the current Trinity-Spadina is much more oriented towards the inner city than to northern and eastern St. Paul; going from College and Ossington up to Forest Hill and Yonge and Eglinton just feels very unnatural.

With Don Valley Central and South, meanwhile, you now have two ridings that combine a very affluent non-immigrant west side with inner suburban South Asian areas in the east. The existing Don Valley West has this of course, but at least it has a certain logic from using the river valley itself as the boundary.

Since Trinity-Spadina is the most overpopulated riding and is the merger of two historic ridings, I would think a natural starting point might be to recreate Spadina and Trinity, with Spadina including the rapidly growing condo areas on the fringe of the downtown core and Trinity combining the southern half of Davenport with roughly the western third of Trinity-Spadina, which together form a natural constituency of very urban but still low-rise row housing.

How are you doing these, by the way?

[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.

[The Head Beagle]

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.

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.

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.

[Senator MaxQue]

Well, for now. Some Portuguese association could sue than their community of interest was split, like Acadians did in 2004 about Acadie-Bathurst.

I don't think this would work, but, who knows with courts?

[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.

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.

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.

[lilTommy]

I find this quite awkward in both of the areas that have been changed the most (west-central downtown and the Don Valley ridings). The northern half of the current Trinity-Spadina is much more oriented towards the inner city than to northern and eastern St. Paul; going from College and Ossington up to Forest Hill and Yonge and Eglinton just feels very unnatural.

With Don Valley Central and South, meanwhile, you now have two ridings that combine a very affluent non-immigrant west side with inner suburban South Asian areas in the east. The existing Don Valley West has this of course, but at least it has a certain logic from using the river valley itself as the boundary.

Since Trinity-Spadina is the most overpopulated riding and is the merger of two historic ridings, I would think a natural starting point might be to recreate Spadina and Trinity, with Spadina including the rapidly growing condo areas on the fringe of the downtown core and Trinity combining the southern half of Davenport with roughly the western third of Trinity-Spadina, which together form a natural constituency of very urban but still low-rise row housing.

How are you doing these, by the way?

I agree with Hatman, I’d love to see this mapped.
But Pumpkin does bring up an interesting point; in the past TO’s central riding have always had a north south elongation, and not very wide (see 1933-1947) where they followed major roads by looks of the maps on wiki. If we went NS that would mean Davenport would probably disappear and I agree many in the area might fight this, but it’s an interesting idea that has been done before. St. Pauls could be re-oriented to focus along St. Clair… but you would have the Portuguese mixed between two ridings now.
The Don River under Hatmans map is still the major border of DVS which makes sense but now includes Rosedale which is a much better social-economic, ethnic fit than it was in TOCentre.  It looks like the area east of the river in DVC is Victoria Park Village, not too familiar but looks to be an area similar to Flemingdon park except with a high concentration of South Americans (wiki).  It would be almost impossible to have a riding that includes only these ethinic, more mixed income areas… it would look ridiculous but might be fun to try and map

[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.

[The Head Beagle]

Playing around with the geosearch tool, I guess there still isn't really enough population for three west-side districts south of the tracks, so that Trinity plan won't work. But I still think it makes more sense to shift some territory in T-S's northwest quadrant over to Davenport, which would then have to lose its north end, than to bring St. Paul's so far south. Those formerly non-residential condo areas in the southeast of the riding where the growth is would also fit well with Toronto Centre, but that would bring the cutoff of that riding south of Rosedale into the high-rise area, which maybe wouldn't be so great.

[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.

[Novelty]

Wow, Calgary gains 2 seats?  That's a lot.

[Senator MaxQue]

The official website for redistricting is open.

http://www.redecoupage-federal-redistribution.ca

[trebor204]

To get idea an idea when to expected the proposasl:

A list of news releases related to 2004 Federal Representation

http://elections.ca/scripts/fedrep/federal_e/new_e.htm

Newfoundland was 1st to released it proposals on June 1st/2002
NB - June 29
NS - July 13
SK - July 13
BC - July 20
AB  -  Aug 2
PEI - Aug 10
MB - Aug 10
ON - Aug 17
QU - Aug 31

All of them expect AB (FRI) were released on a Saturday

[Senator MaxQue]

Some, since they began working at the end of April last time, I think we can expect first results in May?

[mileslunn]

I find this quite awkward in both of the areas that have been changed the most (west-central downtown and the Don Valley ridings). The northern half of the current Trinity-Spadina is much more oriented towards the inner city than to northern and eastern St. Paul; going from College and Ossington up to Forest Hill and Yonge and Eglinton just feels very unnatural.

With Don Valley Central and South, meanwhile, you now have two ridings that combine a very affluent non-immigrant west side with inner suburban South Asian areas in the east. The existing Don Valley West has this of course, but at least it has a certain logic from using the river valley itself as the boundary.

Since Trinity-Spadina is the most overpopulated riding and is the merger of two historic ridings, I would think a natural starting point might be to recreate Spadina and Trinity, with Spadina including the rapidly growing condo areas on the fringe of the downtown core and Trinity combining the southern half of Davenport with roughly the western third of Trinity-Spadina, which together form a natural constituency of very urban but still low-rise row housing.

How are you doing these, by the way?

I agree with Hatman, I’d love to see this mapped.
But Pumpkin does bring up an interesting point; in the past TO’s central riding have always had a north south elongation, and not very wide (see 1933-1947) where they followed major roads by looks of the maps on wiki. If we went NS that would mean Davenport would probably disappear and I agree many in the area might fight this, but it’s an interesting idea that has been done before. St. Pauls could be re-oriented to focus along St. Clair… but you would have the Portuguese mixed between two ridings now.
The Don River under Hatmans map is still the major border of DVS which makes sense but now includes Rosedale which is a much better social-economic, ethnic fit than it was in TOCentre.  It looks like the area east of the river in DVC is Victoria Park Village, not too familiar but looks to be an area similar to Flemingdon park except with a high concentration of South Americans (wiki).  It would be almost impossible to have a riding that includes only these ethinic, more mixed income areas… it would look ridiculous but might be fun to try and map

Anybody have the results for these.  The 905 belt will be the most interesting as there you will get some more dramatic changes and they could impact who wins.  Calgary is pretty boring as no matter how it is drawn the Tories will probably sweep the city unless Harper becomes wildly unpopular and loses really badly nationally.  Toronto is a whole different ballgame since although the Tories don't have much room for improvement they could still pick up a few suburban ones.  The NDP has plenty of areas it could win.  Southern Etobicoke, areas along Yonge Street, Don Valley, and most of North York are pretty much the only areas where the demographics go massively against them.  The Liberals off course could win pretty much every city under the right conditions as their vote is the least concentrated of any of the parties and they can appeal to people on both sides of the spectrum.  I know many on here assume the Liberals are dead and they may very well wither away, but it wouldn't write them off just quite yet.  They have many experienced people and a core dedicated to winning so they could come back.  In 1958 and 1984 many said the same thing and they were wrong, off course they are in worse circumstances than either of those years, but the point is they can come back.  Or how about the Tories and NDP in 1993 and how far they have come since.  True the PCs and Reform merged but nonetheless neither party was anywhere remotely close to even winning a minority let alone a majority then.

[RogueBeaver]

^ x1000.

[mileslunn]

Any ideas how the provinces that aren't gaining seats might go.  Saskatchewan should be interesting as if they scrap those rural/urban ridings that could make things a lot more competitive.  Also in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, I suspect the rural ones will get larger and the St. John's and Halifax ones smaller which is good news from the NDP, somewhat bad news for the Tories, and really bad news for Liberals (I wouldn't be surprised if Cape Breton-Canso is more evently split between Cape Breton Island and Mainland Nova Scotia in which case the Tories would then have a legitimate shot at picking it up).  By the same token if South Shore-St. Margaret's takes in more of the outskirts of the greater Halifax, that would increase the odds of the NDP (or Liberals if they stage a comeback) winning it.

[Senator MaxQue]

http://www.redecoupage-federal-redistribution.ca/content.asp?section=nfld&dir=media&document=may2512&lang=e

Newfoundland proposal redistricting.

Wierd proposal. Labrador and St.John's South-Mount Pearl are kept as they are.
The rest is cut in vertical slices!

The west coast is "Long Range Mountains" (a truly wierd name), the center is "Bay d'Espoir-Central-Notre Dame", after there is "Bonavista-Burin-Trinity", which looks like the old Bonavista-Trinity-Conception, but without Conception and with Burin, "Avalon which cover rural Avalon (except Trinity area).

[canadian1]

I think it makes a lot of sense. There are actually no road or marine transportation links along the south coast of Newfoundland, so the Random-Burin-St. George's riding really had to go. (It linked far-flung communities with little or no connection apart from the fishing industry, and the whole south coast is very underpopulated). The new vertical slices contain much better road connections from what I see. The Avalon peninsula is handled sensibly, compensating for growth in St. John's East.

My one disagreement is the vastly underpopulated Labrador riding, but it's been that way since the 80's. It is strange that the largest riding by population (Long Range Mountains, 19% above average) is geographically so large, but I can't see any way to reduce its population that wouldn't create headaches. Its population is also in sharp decline, so that should even out.

Long Range Mountains is a good name in my opinion--what's so strange about it? On the other hand, Bay d'Espoir-Central-Notre Dame is way too cumbersome a name for me. I'd prefer Gander-Grand Falls like it used to be (the south coast doesn't have that many people).

All in all a good report.

[Hatman]

Interesting. I will have to do an analysis now.

[Senator MaxQue]

Well, the report seems to say than the central north/south road is new, so there was no connection before.

[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!

[canadian1]

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'm not so sure it's safe--western Conception Bay South votes Liberal in Avalon, so some of those "Harris Tory" voters you mention may actually be "Scott Andrews Tories" as well (assuming CBS is fairly demographically/politically consistent). Still, you're right about Trinity Bay. Adding it to traditionally-Tory Placentia and Conception Bay South was the only reason the Grits could win in this region, and Manning has to be the favourite if he deigns to run again.

The two other St. John's seats don't change all that much and should stick with their Dipper incumbents. Ditto for the Libs in rural Newfoundland (minus the "not much change" part).

Labrador is interesting, but not because of boundary changes (there weren't any).

To the point about the highway--at least there is a highway! The RBSG riding became obsolete the moment they scrapped much of the ferry service all along the south coast (to the Burin peninsula). I'm simply not convinced that Stephenville and Clarenville, connected by no direct highways or boats, ought to be in the same riding any longer given the large geographical disparity between the two. Vertical slices have the twin advantages of compactness and convenience for voters and their representatives.