Quebec redistricting, 2015

[MaxQue]

As someone asked on the Canadian Internation thread, here it is.

After every 2 elections, Quebec gets a new electoral map. We are at draft step, after there will be public audiences + written comments, a report and then Assembly voting on it. 36 ridings are modified, 89 aren't.

The draft is there:

http://lacarte.electionsquebec.qc.ca/en/

Main change is adding two ridings around St-Jérome (Les Plaines and Prévost) while deleting two ridings (St-Maurice in Mauricie and merging Mont-Royal and Outremont together to create Mont-Royal--Outremont, with domino effects on D'Arcy-McGee and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce).

Changes are very slight in other regions, if existing at all. Only one slight change in Quebec City...
Only 36 ridings are changing, 89 don't change at all.

I will run calculations for the exact partisan impact of the redistribution later today, but I would say it's good for PQ. St-Jérôme area is good for PQ, the deleted Montreal seat is a PLQ stronghold and Saint-Maurice has a slight PQ lean, but is currently Liberal. More exact numbers later.

Now, in detail:

Abitibi-Témiscamingue: No change
Bas-Saint-Laurent: No change
Capitale-Nationale (Québec City): 3800 electors are moved from Chauveau to Charlesbourg.
Chaudière-Appalaches: No change
Côte-Nord: No change
Estrie and Centre-du-Québec: Valcourt city and three other municipalities (Valcourt township, Racine and Maricourt) are moved from Richmont to Orford.
Gaspésie: No change

Montréal: One deleted riding, Outremont. The Plateau part of Outremont goes to Mercier, Outremont and the Université de Montréal area goes into a new “Mont-Royal--Outremont” and most of Côte-des-Neiges goes in D’Arcy-McGee, which also takes a part of Côte-des-Neiges which was in Mont-Royal. D’Arcy-McGee also loses its part of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce to Notre-Dame-de-Grâce riding. Westmount--Saint-Louis takes a part of Saint-Henri--Sainte-Anne. The Crémazie/Bourassa-Sauvé border is adjusted to follow the Montréal-Nord borough border.

Laurentides-Lanaudière: Two added ridings, both in St-Jérôme area. A new riding called “Les Plaines” is made from Saint-Janvier part of Mirabel city (Mirabel riding), Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines (Blainville riding) and La Plaine part of Terrebonne city (Masson). This allows to put back all of Blainville city in Blainville riding (a small part is currently in Groulx). Finally for that area, Masson is too small after that, so it takes the Lachenaie part of Terrebonne city from L’Assomption riding.

A new riding called Prévost (like the 1973-2012 one) with six municipalities. 4 from Bertrand (Prévost, St-Sauveur, Piedmont and Ste-Anne-des-Lacs) and 2 from Rousseau (St-Hippolyte and Ste-Sophie). That causes domino effect, obviously. Bertrand fixes that by taking two municipalities from Rousseau (Rawdon and Chertsey) and Rousseau takes three municipalities from Joliette (St-Jacques, St-Liguori and Ste-Marie-Salomé). Joliette being overpopulated right now, it’s the end of the dominoes.

Laval: 2500 electors are moved from Chomedey to Fabre.

Mauricie: The other big change. They go from 5 to 4 ridings. The deleted riding is St-Maurice (the one covering the center of the region). It’s splitted between the three other rural ridings of Mauricie. The Shawinigan, St-Gérard-des-Laurentides et Lac-à-la-Tortue parts of Shawinigan city are moved into Laviolette (north riding), municipalities of St-Boniface, St-Mathieu-du-Parc and the Shawinigan-Sud part of Shawinigan city are moved into Maskinongé (west riding) and Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel is moved into Champlain (east riding). Maskinongé becomes too populated, so 10000 electors from the west of the city of Trois-Rivières are transferred from Maskinongé into Trois-Rivières riding.

Montérégie: Only two changes. Hudson and the non-contiguous part of Vaudreuil-Dorion are transferred from Vaudreuil to Soulanges. Also, the city of Brossard is now separared, 7000 electors are moved from La Pinière to Laporte, to make La Pinière smaller.
Northern Quebec: No change.
Saguenay--Lac-St-Jean: No change

Outaouais: Chelsea municipality is moved from Gatineau riding (which isn’t about the city, but is a rural riding centered on Gatineau River valley) to Hull riding. Also, Chapleau (which is the riding centered on Gatineau) has its limit moved east to lower the population of Papineau, so 2300 electors are moved. That change is within Gatineau city.

[MaxQue]

First part of partisan impact:

Chauveau, now: CAQ 52, PLQ 30, PQ 12, QS 4, Oth 2
Chauveau, draft: same

Charlesbourg, now: PLQ 42, CAQ 32, PQ 18, QS 5, Oth 3
Charlesbourg, draft: PLQ 41, CAQ 34, PQ 18, QS 5, Oth 3

Expected, Orsainville is a CAQ neighboorhood, in both ridings. Putting more of Orsainville in Charlesbourg helps CAQ.

Richmond, now: PLQ 41, PQ 28, CAQ 22, QS 7, Oth 2
Richmond, draft: same

Orford, now: PLQ 44, PQ 26, CAQ 21, QS 8, Oth 1
Orford, draft: PLQ 44, PQ 26, CAQ 22, QS 8, Oth 1

Not much to say, they are pretty much average villages.

Chomedey, now: PLQ 73, PQ 11, CAQ 11, QS 3, Oth 2
Chomedey draft: PLQ 73, PQ 12, CAQ 11, QS 3, Oth 2

Fabre, now: PLQ 55, PQ 21, CAQ 18, QS 6, Oth 0
Fabre, draft: PLQ 56, PQ 20, CAQ 18, QS 6, Oth 1

Moving a part of the Liberal stronghold Chomedey into another riding obviously helps Liberals.

Vaudreuil, now: PLQ 61, PQ 16, CAQ 16, QS 5, Oth 3
Vaudreuil, draft: PLQ 60, PQ 17, CAQ 16, QS 5, Oth 3

Soulanges, now: PLQ 54, PQ 32, QS 10, Oth 4 (CAQ failed paperwork)
Soulanges, draft: PLQ 55, PQ 31, QS 10, Oth 5

The very anglophone and wealthy Hudson is very, very, very Liberal. Moving it has a slight impact.

La Pinière, now: PLQ 58, Ind 23, CAQ 13, QS 4, Oth 2 (ind was endorsed by PQ)
La Pinière, draft: PLQ 58 Ind 24, CAQ 13, QS 4, Oth 2

Laporte, now: PLQ 48, PQ 24, CAQ 18, QS 8, Oth 3
Laporte, draft: PLQ 49, PQ 24, CAQ 17, QS 7, Oth 3 (counting Houda-Pepin as PQ)

Brossard is quite Liberal, splitting a part away is helping Liberals.

Current change: nil.

Next: Outaouais, Laurentides, Mauricie, Montreal.

[MaxQue]

Obviously, PLQ loses a seat in Montreal and Saint-Maurice. It looks like the new Prevost riding went CAQ, even though it is carved from two PQ ridings. However, the election day maps are deceiving, as we saw a huge difference between E-Day results and absentee ballots. Are you factoring in absentee votes in your transposition?

Also, Les Plaines looks to be a CAQ seat (also carved from 3 CAQ seats).

No, since it's quite complicated and given than the ridings I did yet are small movements involving around 10%, I thought it was useless.

But, I'll do something for the ridings with more changes or being quite close.

For ridings:

Ste-Anne--La Plaine--St-Janvier is a no, since "St-Anne" is too vague and wouldn't help people. Les Plaines--Saint-Janvier would work, but I prefer simpler, really, for there. There isn't much community cohesion anyways, it's growing suburbia.

Prévost is fine.

I would keep Mont-Royal--Outremont since only the half of Côte-des-Neiges is in.

Bertrand: No, Les Laurentides is still too general. It's a region spreading from Mt-Laurier to Blainville, from Argenteuil to Mascouche. It's also a mountain rage ranging from there through Saguenay.

[MaxQue]

Prevost includes a lot of mountains, so why not call it Sainte-Sophie--Les Monts?

Because there is a lot of mountains in other ridings, too. St-Adèle, Morin Heights, Mt-Tremblant, Ste-Agathe-des-MONTS.

And Ste-Sophie has no name recognition (well, much less than Prévost or St-Sauveur or Piedmont). Old people from my area know it as "the place on the old highway to Montreal where it smells bad".

[MaxQue]

Sainte-Sophie is the largest municipality, so what about Prevost--Sainte-Sophie?

In theory, that might be good, but we know than they will prefer to stick to the previous name Prévost. At least, it's not named after a person.

[MaxQue]

So, critics panned the decision to rename a federal riding after the Rocket, so now they're going to try and do it provincially? Looking forward to the new riding of "Céline-Dion" (née L'Assomption) as well.

Wouldn't be allowed by the Toponomy Board, as she is still alive.