Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts 2012

[Hatman 🍁]

In Quebec the three new ridings seem to be Sainte-Rose/Blainville (Marc-Aurele-Fortin goes), Mirabel and Montarville/LeMoyne (St-Bruno--St-Hubert goes as well). They would have gone comfortably NDP last time. They would also hold Charlevoix-Montmorency, Louis-Saint-Laurent, Honore-Mercier, Chicoutimi and Jonquiere (but not by very much).
However, they do not take anything from the other parties, and NDG-Westmount is now NDP-bomb-proof. The closest seat becomes Levis-Lotbiniere, where Jacques Gourde's majority is slashed to about 554. In addition, they pay in the eastern part of the province. Riviere-du-Loup--Montmagny, while maintained, adds the non-Beauce part of the MRC of Les Etchemins and they lose it to the Conservatives by about 1200. Meanwhile, in Gaspesie, switching the Avignon and Haute-Gaspesie MRC between the two ridings allows the Bloc to win both of them -- in fact without Avignon MRC I think they lost that one. Meanwhile, the Liberals gain Ahuntsic-Cartierville. In sum this is not a great map for the NDP.

Where are you getting those numbers from?

[Philly D.]

Just look at the Elections Canada returns in Levis-Bellechasse, Lotbiniere and Gaspesie.

[MaxQue]

Procedure Committee heard 4 MPs today:
Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior       
David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia       
Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca   
Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River
 

[Poirot]

In addition, they pay in the eastern part of the province. Riviere-du-Loup--Montmagny, while maintained, adds the non-Beauce part of the MRC of Les Etchemins and they lose it to the Conservatives by about 1200.

This could potentially be changed. MRC Les Etchemins are not happy to be put with a longer riding with Rivière-du-Loup. They wish to stay with Bellechasse. They want their MP Blaney to bring the objection to the committee.

I think this change was made because of numbers when they rearrange the eastern ridings due to opposition. The effect of this leaves people involved in the last version change no chance to speak.

I've estimated 10,000 people from MRC Les Etchemins will be transferred to Montmagny-Rivière-du-Loup in a riding of 107,350. Minus ten thousand, the riding would be under the average but not by much.

Bellechasse-Lévis is already at 102,288. With an extra 10,000, it would be above the 10% variance they try to follow. I think it would become the biggest riding in population in the province.

Beauce is already full so that leaves Lévis-Lotbinière (101,416) that could take a few thousands from Bellechasse-Lévis but I'm not sure if it is easy to take another part of Lévis without breaking city districts. And if population growth comes from Lévis it makes sense to keep the Lévis ridings closer to 100,000 than 110,000.

[Wilfred Day]

Looks like Dean Del Mastro (unfortunately) is safe unless the NDP can get a strong candidate (lost Tory polls to gain tory polls).

Peterborough lost 11,060 to gain 7,394. A bit more urban. Goes from 11.98% over quotient to 8.53% over quotient.

[Krago]

So, what do you think?

Downtown Toronto - Option 1 - Federal

Downtown Toronto - Option 1 - Provincial

Downtown Toronto - Option 2 - Federal

Downtown Toronto - Option 2 - Provincial

Downtown Toronto - Option 3 - Federal

Downtown Toronto - Option 3 - Provincial

[Smid]

Welcome back, Krago! You've been missed!

[Krago]

Here is (was?) my alternative plan to incorporate David Marit's objections into the new Saskatchewan map in a way that would benefit the NDP.
 

Saskatchewan - Alternative

Saskatoon - Alternative

Regina - Alternative

[Benj]

Saskatchewan remap makes sense. Of the downtown Toronto suggestions, 2 seems like the obvious choice, though 3 is hilarious. The old proposal before revisions was way better, though.

Spadina-Rosedale must still be pretty strongly NDP on the proposed map, no?

[MaxQue]

Procedure Committee heard 4 MPs today:

Nest Tuesday (March 5th), they will hear 3 MPs:
Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster
Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas   
Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley

[Hatman 🍁]

Saskatchewan remap makes sense. Of the downtown Toronto suggestions, 2 seems like the obvious choice, though 3 is hilarious. The old proposal before revisions was way better, though.

Spadina-Rosedale must still be pretty strongly NDP on the proposed map, no?

Yes, option 3 is hilarious. Any reason you drew that one up, Krago?

[Hatman 🍁]

Here is (was?) my alternative plan to incorporate David Marit's objections into the new Saskatchewan map in a way that would benefit the NDP.
 

Saskatchewan - Alternative

Saskatoon - Alternative

Regina - Alternative

I had been working on my own proposal. I had created a super safe NDP seat in Regina, but it ate into Wascana a lot. I had to make some predictions as to where the hypothetical NDP areas were in Wascana, because I didnt have a provincial poll map handy.

[minionofmidas]

Lol@ the neighboring constituencies of Markham-Thornhill and Vaughan-Thornhill-Markham. They really couldn't find any better solution to the naming issue here? I understand that Thornhill as a neighborhood is politically divided between Markham and Vaughan, and that the latter district while Vaughan-based does include a (Thornhill) sliver of Markham, but... um...

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah.. why did they name the riding "Vaughan--Woodbridge" when Woodbridge would have been fine?

[Hatman 🍁]

That poll maps site has the redistributed results based on the new map: http://fed2013.pollmaps.ca/

[Hatman 🍁]

So, basically the new boundaries are worse for the Tories (-2) and the NDP (-3) and better for the Liberals (+4) and Bloc (+1) from the last proposed map. :S

[Hatman 🍁]

Looks like the Toronto map is an effective gerrymander to ensure the NDP doesn't win the Trinity-Spadina area easily. In a bad year, the Liberals would win both of the new ridings.

I wonder what a map would look like using skinny ridings, like in the old days?

[Krago]

Yeah.. why did they name the riding "Vaughan--Woodbridge" when Woodbridge would have been fine?

Well, the Ontario Commission was never too good with names (Simcoe-Grey, Nepean-Carleton, Oak Ridges).

[Krago]

Saskatchewan remap makes sense. Of the downtown Toronto suggestions, 2 seems like the obvious choice, though 3 is hilarious. The old proposal before revisions was way better, though.

Spadina-Rosedale must still be pretty strongly NDP on the proposed map, no?

Yes, option 3 is hilarious. Any reason you drew that one up, Krago?

Community of interest.  If you're going to have a silk stocking district in Toronto, why not have it (vaguely) resemble a stocking?  And when I transposed the 2011 federal election results on R-B-H, it is almost a three-way tie, with the NDP on top!

It's strange.  When I first came up with the idea, I thought it looked ridiculous.  But the more I consider it, it's not too bad.  Plus the other two seats are almost ideal.

[Hatman 🍁]

Saskatchewan remap makes sense. Of the downtown Toronto suggestions, 2 seems like the obvious choice, though 3 is hilarious. The old proposal before revisions was way better, though.

Spadina-Rosedale must still be pretty strongly NDP on the proposed map, no?

Yes, option 3 is hilarious. Any reason you drew that one up, Krago?

Community of interest.  If you're going to have a silk stocking district in Toronto, why not have it (vaguely) resemble a stocking?  And when I transposed the 2011 federal election results on R-B-H, it is almost a three-way tie, with the NDP on top!

It's strange.  When I first came up with the idea, I thought it looked ridiculous.  But the more I consider it, it's not too bad.  Plus the other two seats are almost ideal.

Might be a good fit for the US, but would be laughed at if proposed to the commission.

[Krago]

Here is my alternative plan for Alberta.  It was tough to add six seats while maintaining existing riding boundaries as much as possible, all while keeping the populations within the range mandated by the incredibly anal Alberta Commission.  In the end, all ridings were within 5% of the provincial quotient except for the three Northern seats, which were within 10%.

Northern Alberta - Alternative

Southern Alberta - Alternative

Suburban Edmonton and Calgary - Alternative

Edmonton - Alternative

Calgary - Alternative

[Krago]

Saskatchewan remap makes sense. Of the downtown Toronto suggestions, 2 seems like the obvious choice, though 3 is hilarious. The old proposal before revisions was way better, though.

Spadina-Rosedale must still be pretty strongly NDP on the proposed map, no?

Yes, option 3 is hilarious. Any reason you drew that one up, Krago?

Community of interest.  If you're going to have a silk stocking district in Toronto, why not have it (vaguely) resemble a stocking?  And when I transposed the 2011 federal election results on R-B-H, it is almost a three-way tie, with the NDP on top!

It's strange.  When I first came up with the idea, I thought it looked ridiculous.  But the more I consider it, it's not too bad.  Plus the other two seats are almost ideal.

Might be a good fit for the US, but would be laughed at if proposed to the commission.

**cough**  Flamborough-Glanbrook  **cough**

[Linus Van Pelt]

That is not at all a community of interest. It might make sense to call it such if all the government had the power to do was to tax income and redistribute it directly in the form of cash grants. But in reality most government spending is on programs whose effect on people of different ages is very different, and a lot of regulation affects different urban forms differently. The waterfront is mostly childless young professionals; Rosedale is inhabited by wealthy middle-aged parents and seniors. They are affected quite differently by policies on education, pensions, health care, etc. The difference between the areas is even more pronounced with regards to zoning and transportation - TTC funding, island airport, the OMB, etc. Try building a 30-story condo at the corner of Spadina & Bremner, and then try building one at Glen Road and South Drive, and you'll get a different reaction.

[King of Kensington]

The previously proposed map made FAR more sense in terms of community of interest.  

Rosedale and Yorkville would have been put into a "silk stocking" riding of Mount Pleasant, with the Yonge and St. Clair intersection as its epicenter.  It seems nonsensical to me that Rosedale and Moore Park was in the same riding as St. Jamestown, Regent and St. Lawrence and in a different riding but then in a different riding from Deer Park etc.  

The Annex had enough of a "community of interest" with St. Paul's: southwestern St. Paul's (Rathnelly, Tarragon Village, Hillcrest, etc.) has a lot in common with the Annex and Seaton Village.  The Casa Loma area always felt to me "half Annex half Forest Hill" geographically and socially (kind of akin to Lower Westmount in Montreal perhaps).  

And there was no way the condo belt could alone make up a riding, so we ended up with Spadina-Fort York instead which ended up stretching up to Dundas, cutting up Chinatown as well as the St. Lawrence/Esplanade area.  And University-Rosedale is an "after-thought" of a riding: with Kensington Market going in with Rosedale...never thought they'd EVER be put in the same riding.  

(I'm guessing Rosedale residents are going to howling about it and demand to be put in St. Paul's where they really belong!)  

[DL]

Its worth noting that the proposed new University-Rosedale seats turns out to be a much safer NDP seat than St. Paul would have been if it had absorbed the Annex. U-R would have gone NDP by 13 points in 2011 while the proposed new St. paul would have been NDP by only 1 or 2%