Canadian Redistribution - Provincial and Municipal

[Njall]

Okay, I have some comments/suggestions for Alberta in no particular order:

• A possible name, while long, for Calgary North could be Calgary--Symons Valley--Northern Hills. For the time being at least, that name would geographically describe the whole of the populated areas there, which is very rare for a Calgary riding
• The portions of the Downtown East Village and Victoria Park should really be in Calgary Centre, not Calgary Shepard. It would also be ideal to put Inglewood and Ramsay into Calgary Centre, but not absolutely necessary if the population numbers don't allow for it.
• I'd recommend maintaining the current southern boundary of Calgary Forest Lawn (26 Ave to the CN Rail track, then 17 Ave to the city boundary) instead of going along 17 Ave for the entire distance. Putting the boundary where the proposal does would mean that the namesake area of the riding, Fort Lawn, would be split between two ridings.
• If you need to boost the population of Calgary Shepard to make the above changes, I would move the community of Kingsland from Calgary Heritage to Calgary Shepard. If this is done, I might also move the community of Millrise to Calgary Heritage from Calgary Midnapore, as there's more new residential development planned for Midnapore than Heritage.
• I would call the Airdrie riding Airdrie--Chestermere instead.
• While it would be a challenge to accomodate, Beaumont and the surrounding area would be a much better fit in the Wetaskiwin-Leduc riding, as it interacts more with the communities in Leduc County than with those in Parkland County
• The boundary between Edmonton West and Edmonton Riverbend would make more sense if it followed the river the whole way instead of temporarily deviating inland
• It's not ideal to have the inner core of Edmonton split between two ridings, but I'm unsure what the best way to fix that would be. With the current proposed boundaries, I would suggest that Edmonton Centre isn't the best riding name given its new inner-west side positioning. A more fitting name could be Edmonton Jasper Place.
  

[Njall]

Okay, I have some comments/suggestions for Alberta in no particular order:

• I'd recommend maintaining the current southern boundary of Calgary Forest Lawn (26 Ave to the CN Rail track, then 17 Ave to the city boundary) instead of going along 17 Ave for the entire distance. Putting the boundary where the proposal does would mean that the namesake area of the riding, Fort Lawn, would be split between two ridings.

If I needed to swap an area from Forest Lawn to Shepard to balance the populations, would you recommend Mayland Heights or Applewood Park?

Shoot just saw this. I would have recommended Mayland Heights, which it looks like you picked anyways. The result's not aesthetically-pleasing, but Applewood Park's a better fit with the Forest Lawn district than Mayland Heights.

[Njall]

Edmonton-Elk Island is very messy. If you're going to have a riding go across Edmonton city limits, it should have St. Albert or Sherwood Park in it, I think.

I'd agree with that. Fort Saskatchewan and Beaumont could also work in combined ridings with Edmonton. St. Albert would probably be the best fit for a blended riding though, in part because the population of St. Albert is around half of a federal riding's population in Alberta, so the Edmonton and St. Albert parts would more-or-less balance each other out (whereas Beaumont or Fort Saskatchewan would be outweighed by the part of Edmonton, and Sherwood Park (if wholly contained in a blended riding) would be the dominant part).

[Njall]

What would you say to a St. Albert--Fort Saskatchewan riding?

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz


This should please Hatman--Sunshine Coast--Sea-to-Sky Country.

All the ridings are within the 5% threshold, and I love the name Sherwood Park-Evergreen (Evergreen is a 'manufactured home community' i.e. trailer park).

Fort Sask is a more natural fit with Strathcona County, but it also works with St. Albert. I like the looks of those ridings tbh.

[Njall]

That reminds me: the City of Edmonton is currently conducting a ward boundary review as well. For the first time, a citizens' commission will be leading the process and making recommendations to Council. This is the first major boundary review since the 2009 review which saw the six previous two-member wards redrawn into 12 single-member wards. Even though Edmonton's population is approaching 1 million people, there was no appetite from Council to increase the number of wards.

The commission put forward two proposals for public consultation, and those can be found here. If I have time, I may make a scenario or two of my own.

I expect Calgary to also be conducting a review this year, but given the relatively-major redraw that happened in 2016, I wouldn't expect that one to result in too much change.

[Njall]

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/new-ward-boundaries-proposed-for-edmonton-ahead-of-2021-election/wcm/4c694988-2d44-4413-94ed-4f9d98b1be75/amp/

http://daveberta.ca/2020/05/new-ward-boundaries-could-shake-up-edmontons-2021-election/

https://albertapolitics.ca/2020/05/guest-post-by-john-ashton-dont-let-inner-city-ward-7s-needs-be-forgotten-in-edmontons-new-ward-map/

Upset that they're not considering adding a seat or two, or more.

Same, although at least this map is better than either of the concepts they proposed.

There's also been talk of them perhaps naming the wards instead of numbering them, which would be nice.

[Njall]

Edmonton’s Indigenous Ward Naming Knowledge Committee has released its recommendations on municipal Ward names for the 2021 election: https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/city_organization/indigenous-ward-naming-knowledge-committee.aspx. City council will debate the report on Sept. 21.