Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts 2012

[Foucaulf]

Hey, a redistribution I can actually comment on!

The new Delta constituency is a really bad move - what were they thinking? "Delta" is a combination of three distinct cities: Ladner, Tsawwassen and North Delta. North Delta was part of its own constituency, since it is essentially attached more to Surrey. Ought to remain Conservative.

The partition of Richmond: Richmond West is now majority Chinese (60%+) while Richmond East should maintain a non-visible minority plurality.

Vancouver-Granville makes sense. It contains all of the rich suburban homes along Granville Road, with a bit of cosmopolitan Fairview. Ought to be a safe Conservative seat barring further scandals. It is more importantly a gerrymander: Vancouver Quadra is now dominated by Liberal Kitsilano and the University and Vancouver-Kingsway is now safe NDP. Hedy Fry will probably be squeezed out of the new Vancouver Centre and Vancouver South turns a bit more Chinese.

Good news for the NDP in Burnaby. Central Burnaby and New Westminster are now three ridings that should keep their incumbents. In exchange richer North Burnaby is fused with the conservative District of North Vancouver for a lean Conservative seat. But the new Port Moody-Coquitlam is still very winnable for the NDP.

New North Vancouver is no longer safe Conservative, but any challenger has to make an appeal to the immigrant population, especially the Arab community.

Good news for the NDP also in Surrey. West Surrey is very immigrant-heavy and supportive of the BC NDP. The rest of South Asian Newton is in Surrey Centre, also winnable for the NDP. They would pick up North Surrey-Guildford given their current standing in the polls. Splitting up South Surrey and Cloverdale is a good idea given their disparate interests, but both should remain safe Conservative.

more to come?

[Foucaulf]

Don't you think Vancouver-Granville is a good example of the kind of riding the reduced Liberal Party could win given that it will have a lot of "too smart to vote Tory, too rich to vote NDP" types in it?

Oh, of course. I would say the riding's one of the few left where there can be a two-way between the Tories and the Liberals. But even then it's an uphill battle for the Liberals, because the coalition of high-income earners and Chinese immigrants the Tories built will dominate every time. If the Liberals ever win they will have to appeal to one of the two.


There's not much to talk about when it comes to the Fraser Valley. More respect is paid to city boundaries (see Cloverdale and City of Langley together being Langley-Cloverdale). The area is still absurdly Conservative.

Same goes for Vancouver Island. It is substantially NDP, and the party ought to win every riding except the suburbs of Esquimalt-Colwood and May's Saanich riding at this point.

Right now I think it's a good redistricting, apart from Delta. I would divide it into two ridings - one including Richmond East, parts of west Richmond, Ladner and Tsawwassen and one including the far east of Richmond, North Delta and parts of Newton.

[Foucaulf]

Would like to mention BC one last time amid all the Alberta talk. I've been thinking of an alternative redistribution for some time now, following my initial complaints about the Delta constituency. I have basically two ideas:

-Rethinking of Vancouver's affluent west side. First combine Vancouver Quadra and Vancouver Granville and add onto it the part of Kitsilano in Vancouver Centre and Fairview up to Granville Island. That should switch around 3000 people. Now, instead of a vertical cut we make a horizontal one. The Northern riding would have Fairview, Kitsilano, Shaughnessy, Dunbar and the University lands. The Southern would have everything else, like Oakridge, Marpole and Kerrisdale.

-Splitting up of Delta. Richmond's far east is first given to a Burnaby riding, and then Richmond East absorbs Ladner. North Delta is again united with Punjabi Newton. The most controversial part is uniting Tsawwassen with South Surrey/White Rock; both are suburbs but divided by the ocean. A necessary rearrangement of the rest of Surrey follows.


Not sure how many people here are from BC, but I want to throw it out there for criticism. That, and I have nothing to contribute when it comes to Alberta!

[Foucaulf]

Alpha version of the horizontal split.

I took it upon myself to give the ridings tentative names. Both ridings should have around 100000-105000 people if my calculations were correct. I may end up jutting the Northern riding out to include Shaughnessy instead of Dunbar, but that is aesthetically and demographically unappealing.

Anyways, as it stands now the Northern riding is incredibly Liberal and is waiting for a Lib-NDP matchup. The Southern riding would go 45% Conservative on a bad day.