Canadian Redistribution - Federal, Provincial, Municipal

[MaxQue]

I love this page!  https://www.electoralboundaries.pe.ca/new-electoral-map?platform=hootsuite

It has one of those before/after sliders (I don't know the technical term) so that you can compare the old boundaries with the new ones.  The problem is that the position of the province and the insets are completely different in the two versions, so you can't do an actual comparison.  What genius came up with that?

Also, the populations of the existing districts on page 8 of the report adds to 99,837 but the populations of the proposed districts (on page 21) adds to 100,005.  Sample map 1.1 has populations that add to 99,955, while sample map 3.1 adds to 99,904.

Quick notionials have PC gaining two seats on Liberals, Summerside-Wilcot and Brackley - Hunter River.

NDP gets screwed as their best riding gets a tons of Charlottetown suburbs added on, while losing parts of the core city. Greens are helped, their best areas in Charlotteton are moved in the same riding.

[Njall]

Interim Report of the Alberta Commission is here: http://abebc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017_EBC_InterimFULLReport_WEB2.pdf

Edit: Maps of the proposed divisions are here: http://abebc.ca/interim-report-maps/

[DC Al Fine]

Names I don't like:

Calgary-Airport
Calgary/Edmonton East/West etc. They have 20+ ridings. Direction names don't work.

[136or142]

Names I don't like:

Calgary-Airport
Calgary/Edmonton East/West etc. They have 20+ ridings. Direction names don't work.

I never liked the name Windsor-Sandwich.

The Kelowna-Mission riding is very annoying, because Kelowna B.C is nowhere near Mission, B.C.

[Njall]

Names I don't like:

Calgary-Airport
Calgary/Edmonton East/West etc. They have 20+ ridings. Direction names don't work.

Yeeeahhhh, I'm not a big fan of some of the name choices either. Calgary-Airport is definitely one of the worst offenders - they should have left the name as Calgary-McCall since the original name of the airport was McCall field. Calgary-Forest is another one - with that one they're clearly trying to avoid duplicating the federal riding name of Calgary Forest Lawn, but Calgary-Forest just sounds stupid, and a fair portion of that riding is the former town of Forest Lawn. Not wanting to duplicate federal riding names is also why they changed Edmonton-Centre to Edmonton-City Centre, which I'm not a fan of either (although they kept the Edmonton-Manning unchanged for some reason, so the logic doesn't follow through).

I haven't had time to do a more detailed analysis yet, but at this point I'm also displeased with the number of communities in Calgary that are split between ridings - it makes the map look messier and one the explicit directions that the commission was supposed to follow was keeping communities intact within Calgary and Edmonton.

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, "Calgary-Airport" is pretty dumb. I also thought the "Edmonton City Centre" decision to be even more egregious. At least they didn't put "University" in any of the names.

At least they got rid of that awful Calgary-McCall-Nose Hill abomination.

[Krago]

Thanks to Jared Phillips‏ @jaredphi

An easier way to explore the interim report's districts:

http://bit.ly/2rmDZBN

[Krago]

I never liked the name Windsor-Sandwich.

You're dissin' my 'hood!  Are you one of those Walkerville snobs?

[136or142]

I never liked the name Windsor-Sandwich.

You're dissin' my 'hood!  Are you one of those Walkerville snobs?

Heh, I've never been to Windsor.  Another Windsor riding should have been named Windsor-Salad.

[Krago]

The Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission in Ontario was announced on May 8.  They are required to issue their report by August 1, and the government must introduce legislation by October 30.

Here are some sample maps prepared by the Commission.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission in Ontario was announced on May 8.  They are required to issue their report by August 1, and the government must introduce legislation by October 30.

Here are some sample maps prepared by the Commission.

My guess is they go with map 1. All the others have significant draw backs.

My main complaint with all of them is that they put in some White communities (Red Lake, Pickle Lake, etc) into the new district. Also, with the big Hudson Bay district, you have no air links between the east half and the west half. That's the advantage of the current map.

The second and third maps are dumb because they make Timmins its own electoral district (making it the least populous in the province in map #2, and still laughably undersized in map #3). Map #4 creates for a ridiculously underpopulated James Bay riding.

Anyways, this proposal would be great for the NDP, as they're likely to get 80-90% in this new district(s), and will still probably win Kenora-Rainy River and whatever riding Timmins finds itself in (Timmins-Kapuskasing?).

[Hatman 🍁]

Ok, the proposed Hudson Bay District would not be as lobsided as I thought, but still overwhelmingly NDP. The quick & dirty results from the last election would be:

NDP: 68.4%
Lib: 18.4%
PC: 9.3%
Grn: 4.0%

With a total turnout of just 4372 (35.4%), and that's just of registered voters.

[toaster]

Interesting maps.  It really depends on whether they want to create 1 or 2 new ridings.  I really can't see allowing a riding of just 9 thousand people (in Option 4). It also doesn't make sense to have these French communities (Kap, Hearst) in the riding if the entire point is about getting representation that aligns with your community.

I don't think they could justify Timmins having its own riding, although I'm sure this would be temporary until the next re-draw, which is still a far ways away.  Option #1 seems to be the most reasonable, if they are going for 1 extra riding. 

[Krago]

With 12 days to spare, I have completed the revisions to my Alberta Google map.

https://goo.gl/DcCPF0


I have grafted the Commission's northern divisions onto my earlier proposal, and squeezed a seat out of the Calgary area.  I've borrowed heavily from (stole) most of Fmr. Assemblyman Njall's Calgary map and rejigged the seats in Rocky View.  I think the MLAs will like this map much better than the one put out by the Commission a few weeks ago.

I will be submitting this in a few days, so please let me know what changes I should make.

My numbers are based on Dissemination Block data, so they may not match those of the Commission or Njall.  There are a few dozen DBs that are split by my revised boundaries.

[Hatman 🍁]

Your map is definitely an improvement, but I must be nitpicky of course, and I understand if you can't or won't make any of my suggestion.

I'm not a fan of how they split up Grande Prairie. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I think when cities are just a bit too big to be one ED, they should be split up evenly, unless you can get away with a donut hole district (which probably isn't possible in this case).
I don't like that weird panhandle in Drayton Valley-Devon (in the east)
I think Fort McMurray-Athabasca would be a better name for the Fort Mac-Lac La Biche riding. Athasbasca for the river and the town.
While you've gotten rid of that awful Fort Sask-St. Paul riding, you have now created another awful (albeit less so elongated Lloydminster-Cold Lake district). 
Does Red Deer need to be in three electoral districts? The commission has it right IMO. Why should it have 3 when Lethbridge only has 2?
Just like Grande Prairie, I would try and split Airdrie evently in half. Also, your Cochrane-Crossfield riding has that area south of the Bow River which is awkward. I would like to see this area transferred to the Banff-Stoney riding, to make the boundaries less awkward.
Even though this isn't the case right now, I'd prefer to see Medicine Hat split evenly in two.

Edmonton:
You have kept the current border for Edmonton-Decore, but they are very awkward. What's with Kilkenny being in Edmonton-Manning?
Edmonton-Riverview must be destroyed immediately. So awkward.
Edmonton-South West must also be destroyed. Glastonbury is so far away from the rest of the riding.

Calgary:
Not too bad overall, I don't like the Calgary-Kwong riding. The Cranston area is too separate from the rest of the riding. Also, Calgary Lougheed is weird with Fish Creek separating the two parts of the riding. I suppose having a riding cross Fish Creek is inevitable though. I do prefer the commission's map for the south east part of the city better.

Do you hate me yet?

[Krago]

Your comments smell like Polygrip and cat pee.  My map smells nice and is pretty.


Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I have revised my revised map to include some your better suggestions.


https://goo.gl/DcCPF0


I have eliminated the two Edmonton seats that crossed the North Saskatchewan River, and renamed all the SW Edmonton divisions after the Famous Five.  Also, the four seats between Fort Saskatchewan and Lloydminster have been shifted clockwise, to get rid of the elongated ridings that troubled you so.  Sherwood Park has been returned to its current boundaries, and I've renamed the Banff seat as 'Banff-Sheep River' for reasons.

I have left the seven northern divisions as God and the Commission had intended.  As for the others, it's a numbers game.  If you can find a way to account for the 'ripple effect' of some of your proposed changes, I would be happy to consider them.
 

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, I understand that some of my suggestions are impossible to deal with, but thought I should bring them up anyways. As it stands, your map is better than the commission's, and in the end, isn't that the most important thing?

[Hatman 🍁]

Of course, since I hate naming ridings after people, here are my suggested names for your ridings named for people:

Edmonton-McClung -> Edmonton-Callingwood
Edmonton-Parlby -> Edmonton-Jasper Place
Edmonton-Murphy -> Edmonton West
Edmonton-Decore -> Edmonton-Glengarry
Edmonton-Edwards -> Edmonton-Whitemud
Edmonton-McKinley -> Edmonton-Rabbit Hill
Edmonton-Rutherford -> Edmonton-Blackmud
Edmonton-Getty -> Edmonton-Ellerslie (this means re-naming your Edmonton-Ellerslie to something boring like Edmonton Southeast or Edmonton-Mill Woods South)

Calgary-Cross (is this named for someone?) -> Calgary-Village Square
Calgary-Klein -> Calgary-North Hill
Calgary-Lougheed -> Calgary-Evergreen-Woodbine
Calgary-Shaw -> Calgary-Shawnessy
Calgary-Hays -> Calgary-South Trail
Calgary-Kwong -> Calgary-Academy

[Krago]

Don't forget Calgary-McCall, Edmonton-Calder, Edmonton-Manning and Central Peace-Notley.  They can be replaced by Calgary-Airport, Edmonton-Off Leash Site, Edmonton-Institution and Central Peace-Unpaved Access Road.

And St. Albert, Ste. Anne and St. Paul look pretty suspicious too. 

[Njall]

I like the map Krago, I can't really think of anything to change that you could accommodate at this point without messing up something else. I'm working on a new Calgary proposal that's based off of the Commission's recommended map and then modified to address my issues with their map (primarily to do with splitting communities) - I'll post that here when I'm finished. After the Commission released their initial recommendations, I realized that the biggest flaw with my original proposal was that I made several suburban ridings with above-average populations, which would be really out-of-balance after 8-10 years of population growth.

Batman brought up a few points that I'd like to address:

Your map is definitely an improvement, but I must be nitpicky of course, and I understand if you can't or won't make any of my suggestion.

I'm not a fan of how they split up Grande Prairie. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I think when cities are just a bit too big to be one ED, they should be split up evenly, unless you can get away with a donut hole district (which probably isn't possible in this case).
I don't like that weird panhandle in Drayton Valley-Devon (in the east)
I think Fort McMurray-Athabasca would be a better name for the Fort Mac-Lac La Biche riding. Athasbasca for the river and the town.
While you've gotten rid of that awful Fort Sask-St. Paul riding, you have now created another awful (albeit less so elongated Lloydminster-Cold Lake district). 
Does Red Deer need to be in three electoral districts? The commission has it right IMO. Why should it have 3 when Lethbridge only has 2?
Just like Grande Prairie, I would try and split Airdrie evently in half. Also, your Cochrane-Crossfield riding has that area south of the Bow River which is awkward. I would like to see this area transferred to the Banff-Stoney riding, to make the boundaries less awkward.
Even though this isn't the case right now, I'd prefer to see Medicine Hat split evenly in two.

Edmonton:
You have kept the current border for Edmonton-Decore, but they are very awkward. What's with Kilkenny being in Edmonton-Manning?
Edmonton-Riverview must be destroyed immediately. So awkward.
Edmonton-South West must also be destroyed. Glastonbury is so far away from the rest of the riding.

Calgary:
Not too bad overall, I don't like the Calgary-Kwong riding. The Cranston area is too separate from the rest of the riding. Also, Calgary Lougheed is weird with Fish Creek separating the two parts of the riding. I suppose having a riding cross Fish Creek is inevitable though. I do prefer the commission's map for the south east part of the city better.

Do you hate me yet?

1. Grande Prairie: according to a friend from there, your opinion wouldn't be unpopular there. I wouldn't be surprised if they reverted back to two urban-rural mixed seats in the final report

2. The panhandle is weird, but I believe it exists because the riding boundary is following a county boundary

3. Cochrane-Crossfield: did you mean south of the Elbow River? In either case, that area is actually more heavily-populated than you might think, as the largely-country residential properties of Elbow Valley (south of the Elbow) and Springbank (between the Bow and Elbow) are located there. Those areas are demographically-similar to Bearspaw, which is also in Cochrane-Crossfield. (Also, since you're an NDPer, I should note that the new Banff riding, which pretty much combines two large native reserves with the left-voting towns of Canmore and Banff, stands to be a pretty strong riding for the NDP even at their lower current level of popularity. Adding Springbank and Bearspaw could tip the riding to the Conservatives).

4. Cranston: poor Cranston is pretty much as separated from communities to its east by the Deerfoot as it is from communities to its west by the Bow River. It wouldn't make a huge difference which riding it was in in terms of connectedness, to be honest.

Don't forget Calgary-McCall, Edmonton-Calder, Edmonton-Manning and Central Peace-Notley.  They can be replaced by Calgary-Airport, Edmonton-Off Leash Site, Edmonton-Institution and Central Peace-Unpaved Access Road.

And St. Albert, Ste. Anne and St. Paul look pretty suspicious too. 

Lol.

[Hatman 🍁]

Don't forget Calgary-McCall, Edmonton-Calder, Edmonton-Manning and Central Peace-Notley.  They can be replaced by Calgary-Airport, Edmonton-Off Leash Site, Edmonton-Institution and Central Peace-Unpaved Access Road.

And St. Albert, Ste. Anne and St. Paul look pretty suspicious too. 

ha! I would drop Notley of course, but the others are fine, as they are also place names.

[Hatman 🍁]

3. Cochrane-Crossfield: did you mean south of the Elbow River? In either case, that area is actually more heavily-populated than you might think, as the largely-country residential properties of Elbow Valley (south of the Elbow) and Springbank (between the Bow and Elbow) are located there. Those areas are demographically-similar to Bearspaw, which is also in Cochrane-Crossfield. (Also, since you're an NDPer, I should note that the new Banff riding, which pretty much combines two large native reserves with the left-voting towns of Canmore and Banff, stands to be a pretty strong riding for the NDP even at their lower current level of popularity. Adding Springbank and Bearspaw could tip the riding to the Conservatives).

First of all, Batman!? lol.. I am not an electorate in South Australia!

Anyway, I did mean the Bow River, again this a strange panhandle kind of situation. There's one bridge crossing the Bow River, and it's in the far west of the riding. Boo!

I do care more about communities of interest than partisan leanings of the riding. And, let's be honest, it's not like the NDP will win again (not for a long time anyway!)

[Njall]

3. Cochrane-Crossfield: did you mean south of the Elbow River? In either case, that area is actually more heavily-populated than you might think, as the largely-country residential properties of Elbow Valley (south of the Elbow) and Springbank (between the Bow and Elbow) are located there. Those areas are demographically-similar to Bearspaw, which is also in Cochrane-Crossfield. (Also, since you're an NDPer, I should note that the new Banff riding, which pretty much combines two large native reserves with the left-voting towns of Canmore and Banff, stands to be a pretty strong riding for the NDP even at their lower current level of popularity. Adding Springbank and Bearspaw could tip the riding to the Conservatives).

First of all, Batman!? lol.. I am not an electorate in South Australia!

Anyway, I did mean the Bow River, again this a strange panhandle kind of situation. There's one bridge crossing the Bow River, and it's in the far west of the riding. Boo!

I do care more about communities of interest than partisan leanings of the riding. And, let's be honest, it's not like the NDP will win again (not for a long time anyway!)

Haha, sorry about the Batman thing, sometimes when I time fast on my MacBook I miss some of the things it autocorrects.

In terms of communities of interest, I'd certainly argue that it's more appropriate to pair Springbank and Elbow Valley with Bearspaw and Cochrane over Banff, Canmore, and native reserves.

Speaking of communities of interest, Krago: one recommendation that I forgot to make yesterday was to mirror the Commission's proposal to join all four of the Maskwacis Cree reserves into the riding of Wetaskiwin-Camrose. Currently, the reserves are split between Wetaskiwin-Camrose and Lacombe-Ponoka, even though the reserves are right next to each other, and splitting them as is currently done makes the former riding non-contiguous.

[Krago]

Speaking of communities of interest, Krago: one recommendation that I forgot to make yesterday was to mirror the Commission's proposal to join all four of the Maskwacis Cree reserves into the riding of Wetaskiwin-Camrose. Currently, the reserves are split between Wetaskiwin-Camrose and Lacombe-Ponoka, even though the reserves are right next to each other, and splitting them as is currently done makes the former riding non-contiguous.

Done.

[Krago]

Here is the final (ha!) revision to my Alberta map.


https://goo.gl/DcCPF0


I have rejigged the Edmonton seats north of the River to follow community boundaries more closely and to look better on a map.  Let me know if these lines receive the Hatman and Njall Official Seal of Approval.