Talk Elections

There are two (and possibly three) Canadian provinces that will redraw their electoral boundaries in 2017.  They are:

- Alberta - The Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission (http://abebc.ca/ (http://abebc.ca/)) was appointed in late 2016 and has already started public hearings.  An interim report should be released by the end of May with the final report due by the end of October.  There is a fixed total of 87 electoral divisions.

- Ontario - The Ontario legislature voted last year to establish a Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/far-north-commission-1.3908208 (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/far-north-commission-1.3908208) to create one or two new provincial districts within the existing ridings of Kenora-Rainy River and Timmins-James Bay.  Once the members are appointed, they have three months to hold public hearings and issue a final report.

- PEI - Islanders voted in a plebiscite last year to replace their First-Past-the-Post electoral system with a Mixed Member Proportional model.  The website outlining the options suggested that two-thirds of members would represent constituencies and one-third would be elected from a province-wide list.  Whether this means adding 14 members to the PEI legislature, or reducing the number of districts from 27 to 18 has not been made clear.  Considering the clusterhug that occurred the last time the Island tried to redistribute their ridings, anything could happen.

Here's my attempt to equalize the populations of all 87 Alberta provincial electoral divisions: https://goo.gl/DcCPF0 (https://goo.gl/DcCPF0).

The population statistics will be added once the 2016 Census figures are released on February 8.

I don't think anything is changing on PEI, because their Premier has decided he doesn't care what voters think.

Also, Ontario will be matching the Federal ridings that were redistributed in 2015 come 2018 election, minus the North as per Krago. So Queens Park will have either 122 or 123 (federally its 121, but if they maintain the current North then that is 1 more and if they add an additional riding that means 2 more then federally)
http://www.elections.on.ca/content/dam/NGW/sitecontent/2017/preo/Ontario%20Electoral%20Districts%202015.pdf

They may add two additional ridings (on top of the one extra Northern Ontario has in Ontario already), so it would be 123 or 124, assuming it gets approved.

Given the stated goal of equalized populations across all 87 districts, that's a pretty good map in my opinion. With that said, I have a few comments that the commission would likely be faced with if this map was presented in reality, even though following most of these comments would likely detract from equalizing population across districts:

• An unfortunate disadvantage of the carving up of Lesser Slave Lake is that Alberta would be losing its only Indigenous-majority electoral district
• Grande Prairie and the surrounding communities have historically been hostile to proposals that dramatically altered their electoral districts, as the folks up there value the relationships that different communities within each electoral district have built up. This proposal isn't as "radical" as what was actually proposed in the 2010 redistricting, but would likely still face opposition from those who would be moved out of Grande Prairie-Smoky
• The actual population totals from the census may have a substantial impact on the representation from Calgary and Edmonton, compared to what the estimates currently on the website suggest. For instance, the estimates give Calgary's population to be over 1.3 million, while the actual total from the 2016 municipal census was more like 1.235 million. I think that Calgary will gain a 26th district, in reality, but won't go beyond that
• Past commissions have tried to keep all of Calgary's and Edmonton's boundaries within the city limits of the respective cities, so I'm not sure the proposed districts of Calgary-North West and Edmonton-Westview-St. Albert would go over well. On a personal level, the Edmonton district makes sense, but Calgary-North West doesn't sit right with me, as it goes too far into the rural area. It would possibly make sense to have a "rurban" district combining NW Calgary just with the Bearspaw area, but that district wouldn't be nearly as sprawling as the one on this map.
• If one must have "rurban" districts in Calgary, a combination that a friend had suggested might make sense would be putting the Tsuu T'ina Nation into Calgary-Glenmore, as the forthcoming section of the Ring Road will arguably make Calgary-Glenmore into more of a joint community of interest for the Tsuu T'ina than Rocky View County currently is.
• The Bearspaw acreages in western Rocky View County, I would argue, have much more in common with the communities of Springbank and Elbow Valley to their south over the surrounding rural area to the northwest. I would refrain from splitting Bearspaw, Springbank, and Elbow Valley up.
• I would foresee complaints from the portion of Red Deer that is outside of the city's two main ridings about potentials for having their voices cancelled out by the vast majority of rural territory in their new district
• In terms of communities that may protest due to historical links being split up, Vermilion and Lloydminster, Okotoks and High River, and the constituent communities of Cardston-Taber-Warner stand out in my mind as some of the most likely prospects
• The name Calgary-Currie wouldn't work for that electoral district anymore, as Currie Barracks would have moved into Calgary-Elbow. I would see Calgary-Killarney as a likely alternate name for the old Calgary-Currie
• Minor point regarding Calgary communities: it would make more sense for Southwood to be joined with the other communities on the east side of 14 St W, most prominently Haysboro, due to stronger shared links. It also seems odd to have half of McKenzie Lake separated from the rest of McKenzie Lake and McKenzie Towne.

What about Calgary-Redford or Calgary-Prentice (too soon?)  Four of the Famous Five don't have electoral divisions named after them, but I don't know if any had a connection to Calgary.

By the way, I read somewhere that Jim Prentice 'disclaimed' his seat rather than 'resigned' it, since he was never sworn in as the MLA after the election.  I've never heard the term before.

P.S. What do you think of a Lloydminster-Cold Lake seat, as well as Lac La Biche-Bonnyville-St. Paul-Two Hills?

Even so, I'd figure that Calgary-Prentice is all but a given, given the nature of his passing (or the fact that he passed at all, given how many jurisdictions frown upon naming things after living figures) and how he generally inspired posthumous good will all around (notwithstanding his '15 election performance).  And even if he was ill-fated as Premier, his Parliament Hill performance more than compensates (whatever one thinks of Harper).

Now, what about an Edmonton-Stelmach?

Might have to add Nova Scotia, as the court ruled the abolition of the 3 protected Acadian ridings by the previous government was unconstitutionnal.

Here's the decision: http://www.courts.ns.ca/Decisions_Of_Courts/documents/2017nsca10.pdf (http://www.courts.ns.ca/Decisions_Of_Courts/documents/2017nsca10.pdf)

That could be interesting. I wouldn't mind it personally, but I also have very little familiarity with that area and the connections between different parts of that area, so there could be objections that I wouldn't be able to anticipate.

But getting rid of the African Nova Scotian riding was OK?

It was an Acadian group that sued, and the court doesn't appear to have looked at Preston in depth.

I should note that Preston was always the most egregious case here. All four ridings were ~60% of a normal riding. The francophone ridings had francophone majorities, while Preston was only ~25-35% black and mostly elected white MLA's from Cherry Brook, a white community that made up most of the riding.

Here are maps from the proposals I made when the Ontario legislature was debating Bill 115 (Electoral Boundaries Act, 2015) in November 2015.  I got a few pats on the head from MPPs, who proceeded to ignore all my recommended changes.

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I am of course partial to my 170 seat Ontario map I posted a while ago:

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If they do make two "far" North ridings, they would likely only have about 10-15 thousand people in each one, or less.

What gets really interesting is whether or not Kenora would maintain another independent riding of less than 20,000.  I could see Timmins (along with Kap and Hearst, and very small towns in between) forming a riding since it would still be around 70k, but Kenora by itself with the far North cut out wouldn't be able to sustain a single riding. 

The Boundary commission could probably start with the pre-95 electorates which I believe there were 15 seats for Northern Ontario (Including Nipissing but not Parry Sound) It would be easier to get 10 or 11 our of that using updated stats.
http://www.election-atlas.ca/ont/

Let's remember that there are more people in Kenora than the census reported because there were a lot of forest fires during the census season preventing counting being done. Also, some reserves don't like to do the census.

But anyways, I think if you lob off all the northern reserves from Kenora-Rainy River, you are still left with more than half the population of the riding, no?

I believe so... depends where that line is drawn, how far north of Dryden & Kenora would be added to something new. Like a James Bay Riding (Northern Kenora, northern parts of Cochrane and perhaps far north parts of Thunder Bay district, around/north of Lake Nipigon)

In the south you'd have left:
Rainy River District - 20K
Kenora(city) - 15K
Dryden - 7K
Soiux Lookout - 5K

You can't really put two ridings up there, because the only good way to divide the region is how they do it now (which is based on air links), and I think a James Bay based riding would be quite a bit smaller than the other Patricia based riding. However if you put in one big riding in the far north, you will have a problem with there being no east-west air connections.

I think that's why they are going with 2, because it would be almost impossible to serve the entire area (heading east-west) without flying back to Timmins or Thunder Bay first, before heading back to the other area.

It really does put things into perspective though.  People in Toronto complain because they get put into a riding with a community a few blocks away because they are "different communities" with "different interest", yet people in the far North share a riding with an city only accessible by plane, of of different culture, language, and historical significance.

It really isn't fair to either the Indigenous people, nor to the people of the more populous areas of the current ridings, in the case of T-JB, Timmins.  When Governments look at how much each 'riding' gets in terms of funding for a variety of infrastructure and other needs, most of that money doesn't get spent in "Timmins" proper because they have to share what their riding gets with this vast huge area.  It's also not fair for Indigeous communities vote to be diluted by the mostly white, English and Franco cities.

If Timmins - Kap - Hearst did become a riding, would it become the most Francophone riding in Ontario? 

Here's my attempt to make Nova Scotia's electoral map pass constitutional muster.

https://goo.gl/Eg0c6g (https://goo.gl/Eg0c6g)

- the four protected ridings (Argyle, Clare, Preston, Richmond) would return to their previous boundaries

- two seats would be added to the Nova Scotia legislature:

    - the two ridings in SW NS (Clare-Digby, Annapolis) would be split into three (Clare, Digby-Annapolis West, Annapolis East)

    - the three ridings in SE NS (Argyle-Barrington, Queens-Shelburne, Lunenburg West) would be split into four (Argyle, Shelburne-Barrington, Queens-Lunenburg West, Lunenburg Centre) - to match the new names, Lunenburg riding would be renamed Lunenburg East

- there would be several changes to other districts, to make sure all ridings are within plus or minus 25% of the new provincial quotient (13,573, using the electors from the 2013 provincial election)

How did you calculate the electors in each riding?

Here are the poll-by-poll results from the 2013 Nova Scotia provincial election:

https://electionsnovascotia.ca/sites/default/files/PollByPollResults-39Gen_Election.zip (https://electionsnovascotia.ca/sites/default/files/PollByPollResults-39Gen_Election.zip)


And here is the polling division digital boundary file:

https://electionsnovascotia.ca/sites/default/files/NSPollingDivision_20130801.zip (https://electionsnovascotia.ca/sites/default/files/NSPollingDivision_20130801.zip)

The 'other changes' would include:

- moving Cambridge Mountain Road to Kings West to drop Kings South below the +25% threshold

- moving Mount Uniacke to Sackville-Beaver Bank to drop Hants East below the +25% threshold

- moving the area west of Bicentennial Drive to Hammonds Plains-Lucasville to drop Bedford below the +25% threshold

- re-aligning districts in the Dartmouth/Cole Harbour area (Dartmouth East, Dartmouth South, Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage, Cole Harbour-Portland Valley, Eastern Shore) to include the areas relinquished by Preston-Dartmouth, while remaining below the upper population limit

- moving Port Hawkesbury to Inverness and the Big Pond area to Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg

- transferring Whitney Pier to Cape Breton Centre and Dominion to Glace Bay, to avoid exceeding the population limit

Cool stuff. Really the only quibble I'd have is your new map has a riding names Guysborough-_____-____- Tracadie, but Tracadie isn't in the riding.

Those are the current name and boundaries of the provincial riding. I didn't change a thing.

http://electionsnovascotia.ca/sites/default/files/20_guysborough-eastern_shore-tracadie.pdf (http://electionsnovascotia.ca/sites/default/files/20_guysborough-eastern_shore-tracadie.pdf)

Oh I see East Tracadie, but not West Tracadie would be in the riding :P Silly.

The Prince Edward Island Electoral Boundaries Commission (http://www.electoralboundaries.pe.ca/ (http://www.electoralboundaries.pe.ca/)) has kicked off it's public hearings.

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/local/2017/2/7/illegal-districts-on-p-e-i---boundaries-map-under-review.html (http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/local/2017/2/7/illegal-districts-on-p-e-i---boundaries-map-under-review.html)

They are tasked with creating a new map of 27 ridings.  So that means that:

(a) the province is going to add 13 list MLAs to reflect the victory of the MMP side in the recent Electoral Reform plebiscite (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_electoral_reform_referendum,_2016 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_electoral_reform_referendum,_2016)); or

(b) Do a Justin and toss PR out the window.

They've already tossed it out the window. A Liberal, is a Liberal, is a Liberal.

The first census results came out today. Anyone notice anything interesting vis a vis redistribution


True dat.

the new geosearch program makes amateur redistricting a lot easier. I've just put an hour or so into a PEI proposal, and got a pretty good map so far outside of Charlottetown.

Now that it looks like FPTP is here to stay, part of me now wants to put together a Canadian version of Dave's Redistricting App. I may be crazy.

The most populous riding in Ontario is Niagara Falls (136,292).  The least populous riding in Southern Ontario is Niagara West (90,838).

You could fix things by adding Niagara-on-the-Lake (17,511) to St. Catharines riding, and moving that part of St. Catharines riding west of Martindale Pond and Twelve Mile Creek (12,222) to Niagara West.

Niagara Falls: 136,292 - 17,511 = 118,781
St. Catharines: 111,691 + 17,511 - 12,222 = 116,980
Niagara West: 90,838 + 12,222 = 103,060


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What about adding Fort Erie to Niagara Centre, and moving Thorold and the small part of St. Catharines north of it to Niagara West?  The populations wouldn't be as even as your map (NF would be ~105K;  Niagara West would be ~125K), but it avoids an awkward split of St. Catharines.

Here's another option that provides great population balance, and communities of interest, but the NDP would hate Hate HATE it.

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And here is a Hatman-like proposal.  Thorold South would move to Niagara Falls and Fonthill would join Niagara South.

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It's amazing what you can accomplish at work when you don't feel like working!

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Any riding that connects Niagara-on-the-Lake to the rest of the island by a thin strip of land fails compactness. (though I'm aware this was done back in the 1960s with the provincial riding monstrosity of "Lincoln")

If only there was a map that showed some sort of community of interest among Grimsby, Lincoln and Niagara-on-the-Lake, connected by a transportation route along the southern edge of St. Catharines...

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Ahh, I know there is a community of interest, but it's an ugly shape.

I'm working on the revisions to my Alberta proposal using the new Census populations.  What do you think of these?

- Banff-Kananaskis
- Cochrane-Crossfield
- Airdrie West
- Chestermere-Airdrie East

Calgary is turning out to be a bit of a pain with the new numbers.

I'd have to see them on a map to give a firm judgement. But just based off of their names, I feel like a Canff-Kananaskis district would certainly make sense. In terms of Calgary's bedroom communities...that's pretty tricky. In my mind, it would make more sense to pair Crossfield with Airdrie than with Cochrane, but following that path may prove to be too much hassle.

I agree, Calgary is a pretty big pain to try to redistrict. I've been trying to play around with potential scenarios based on the community-by-community totals in the 2016 municipal census, but it's tough to make everything work decently well.

I have revised my proposed Alberta map using the new 2016 Census population counts.  Please look it over and let me know what you think.

https://goo.gl/DcCPF0 (https://goo.gl/DcCPF0)

(Just looking at Calgary) Pretty good map, except for that Calgary-Klein abomination. Was that unavoidable?

In Edmonton, I would want to re-draw Edmonton-Southwest and Edmonton-Riverview. I don't like how the river bifurcates both ridings (Edmonton SW is particularly awful with all that uninhabited area in the middle of the riding). Also, I don't like how Edmonton-Getty crosses the highway. :D

You could combine Calgary-Klein with Calgary-Mountain View, and split it into east and west ridings along Centre St N.  Would that be an improvement?

Do you like this better?  The blue lines represent my revised proposal (the one I created last night) while the colours show the new non-river-crossing boundaries.

I renamed the four SW Edmonton ridings after Four of the Famous Five.  Emily Murphy can go suck a lemon.

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Much better! :D

Oh, and why is Edmonton-Meadowlark called that IRL? The Meadowlark area is not in the riding :P Maybe we should rename it Edmononton-Murphy? Though "West Edmonton" of course is the only acceptable name.

I have added Hatman's suggestions to my Alberta Google map.

https://goo.gl/DcCPF0 (https://goo.gl/DcCPF0)

Those northern ridings would be huge!

I don't think that's any different from any other Provinces Northern ridings, like in SK or MAN. Even then Peace River, as it is here only has 40K, the smallest population.

Does the Alberta Electoral commission "protect" or allow for greater variances in the North? (like ON where they had set a minimum and now are adding more due to their size)

The Northern ridings aren't protected. There is, however, a provision for greater variances that isn't specifically enacted for the North, although both ridings that currently exist under this provision happen to be remote Northern ridings. Essentially, under normal circumstances, ridings in Alberta must be within 25% above or below the provincial average. However, up to 4 ridings can be designated as being allowed to have a population as low as 50% below the provincial average. To be eligible for this designation, the riding in question must meet at least 3 of the following criteria:

1. The riding's area must exceed 20,000 square kilometres
2. The nearest boundary point of the riding along the most direct highway must be at least 150 km from the Legislature Building
3. No town can exist in the riding with a population greater than 8,000
4. The riding must contain a First Nations reserve or Metis settlement
5. A portion of the riding boundary must be coterminous with the boundary of Alberta

As mentioned, two ridings currently have populations below 25% of the provincial average under this designation. They are: Dunvegan-Central Peace-Notley and Lesser Slave Lake.

It's important to keep in mind that some of the Northern ridings can be deceptively big, and have much of their population within a decently-sized urban area. For example, two of the ridings that appear to be among the largest are Fort McMurray-Conklin and Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, but 90%+ of each riding's population is within Fort McMurray itself. A similar concept applies to Grande Prairie-Smoky and Grande Prairie-Wapiti, although the rural areas of each are more populated.

I should note that it's somewhat likely that this boundaries commission may recommend that all four greater variances designations be used this time around. In reading the transcripts from the public hearings so far, it's been suggested that that designation be pre-emptively applied to the ridings of West Yellowhead and Drumheller-Stettler. Neither riding is below the -25% point yet, but they're getting close to the mark, and it's felt amongst local residents and politicians that the ridings can't feasibly grow much more.

That's the sort of thing that local residents and politicians say at every boundaries hearing in every jurisdiction everywhere at all times, past present and future.  That being said, I think my solution to growing those two electoral divisions isn't too bad.

Any other comments about my maps?  I like Hatman's suggestion to use the North Saskatchewan River across the entire city of Edmonton, even though it would require splitting four existing ridings in half and rearranging them.  Which option do you prefer for Calgary-Klein/Mountain View?

Rep-by-pop was popular among Alberta's NDs when it involved taking away die-hard Tory strongholds in southern Alberta to add new seats to Edmonton.  Now that it results in replacing NDP ridings in Northern Alberta with suburban Calgary seats, they have mixed feelings.

The suggestion of using the river for those ridings in Southwest Edmonton is certainly an interesting one. At first glance I wasn't a super big fan, as I tend to favour fewer deviations from existing boundaries where possible. Upon further reflection, using the river as a boundary started to make more sense,in part because (if I recall correctly) the river is also the main boundary indicator in that area for federal and municipal districts. I just wish that it wasn't as much of a tradeoff between either crossing the river or crossing the Anthony Henday.

Aside from that, my only comment pertaining to Edmonton is that I would have preferred to see part of St. Albert continue to be adjoined to Edmonton instead of Sturgeon County.

Calgary-wise, the second iteration of Mountain View and Klein is definitely more aesthetically-pleasing. Either way though, Klein would be an awkward constituency to represent. I tend not to like ridings that cross Deerfoot, at least in the north. Anyone who's lived in Calgary could attest to the fact that Bridgeland and Renfew are very different creatures than communities like Vista Heights and Southview. But anything to address that would require less-strict adherence to the average population.

Other notes for Calgary:

• I tend to not like splitting communities between ridings. I understand why Southwood and Monterey Park as split like they are, but it doesn't make sense in my mind to split part of Panorama Hills off from the rest of the Northern Hills area
• The name 'Calgary-Foothills' actually has more attachment to the area that you have labelled as 'Calgary-Kwong.' As an alternative to what you currently have labelled as 'Calgary-Foothills,' I would suggest 'Calgary-Symons Valley,' as the five communities north of Stoney Trail are covered by the Symons Valley Area Structure Plan, and the two major roadways in the area have the Symons Valley label
• I'm still not a fan of Calgary-based urban-rural hybrid ridings. Again, I understand why you essentially have to use one, but Cranston, Chaparral, Walden, and Legacy have very little in common with the M.D. of Foothills. Further, I'd say that Cranston has much more in common with the other communities to the east of the Bow River than with Chaparral, Walden, and Legacy to the west
• I like the inclusion of Inglewood, Ramsay, and the East Village with the rest of Downtown; I forget whether that had happened or not on your earlier map

Aside from those it looks pretty good, and I'm not sure what you could fix while staying within the population numbers that you're shooting for.

Yeah, my problem with Calgary-Klein was that it crossed the Deerfoot. Krago's fix did not address that issue. I know fixing the problem would create a domino effect in other ridings, but I think it would be nice to see what it would look like.

I have added three more alternative ridings to my map.

https://goo.gl/DcCPF0

Two seats (Calgary-Mackay and Calgary-Northern Hills) have equal populations, no communities are divided, and they aren't any more bizarre-looking than the existing Calgary-Mackay-Nose Hill.

The numbers don't let me use Deerfoot Trail as a boundary all the way from the Bow River north to the city limits, but I did manage to rescue the Southview community by adding it to Calgary-Forest Lawn.  Calgary-Mountain View used to extend east to Barlow Trail, so this is like the good 'ol days.  MAKE MOUNTAIN VIEW GREAT AGAIN!

I've returned the name Calgary-Foothills to the riding that covers most of the current electoral division.  The new seat of Calgary-De Winton has been re-christened Calgary-Kwong, so that Normie can hang out with his old football buddy Peter Lougheed.


P.S. Which configuration do you prefer for the three seats in the Fort Saskatchewan-Lac La Biche-Lloydminster triangle?  Regular or extra-crispy?

The new Calgary split in the north makes the baby Jesus cry :'(

The new North Calgary split is, um...interesting :p But you're right, it's no odder than Calgary-Mackay-Nose Hill, which couldn't exist if it wasn't for such a "creative" use of industrial land.

For FS-LLB-Lloyd, I prefer the alternative to the original.

I was playing around with community population data from the 2016 Calgary Municipal Census, and I came up with a Calgary-specific redistricting proposal. For this proposal, I've assumed that Calgary will gain an additional riding (to end up with 26 in total). As much as possible, I've attempted to create these proposed ridings while keeping community boundaries intact, and I ended up only having to split two communities: Hidden Valley (which is bisected by Beddington Trail) and Richmond (which is bisected by Crowchild Trail).

Although I wasn't striving to perfectly equalize the populations in each district, I wanted to keep them within a reasonable deviation from the provincial and citywide mean populations. I believe that the populations all ended up being within plus/minus 10% of the citywide mean, which translates to a rough range of +12% to -7% from the provincial mean, since the average size of a Calgary district will be slightly larger than the average size of a district in Edmonton or rural Alberta.

I should also note that my population figures will be slightly off what the Commission would calculate if they adopted this map in its entirety. The Municipal Census was conducted around the same time as the Federal Census, and their citywide population numbers diverge slightly (there's about a 4,000 person difference between them). I also had to estimate based on dissemination block-level data from the federal census whenever a community was split between two ridings as to how much of the population went to each riding.

Anyways, here's the map: goo.gl/2emkYZ (http://goo.gl/2emkYZ)

Excellent map (or should I say, Freedom map?)

What about swapping Glamorgan for Bankview and Richmond?  It would follow the existing provincial boundaries more closely.

That could certainly work, and it would barely impact the population balance between the two ridings. I shaped them the way that I did in part because I tend to think of Glamorgan having more in common with Glenbrook and Glendale, but if this were to be proposed in actuality I would certainly change it if community feedback suggested that Glamorgan, Richmond, and Bankview wanted to be included with their old ridings.

Quick update: the Electoral Boundaries Commission was in Calgary for public hearing today, so I decided to head on over and show them my proposal for Calgary. I wasn't registered to speak, but they let me present regardless, so we'll see where that goes. But at face value, they seemed pretty impressed. That is all.

I know you have all been waiting patiently for my PEI proposal.

Well, here it is:  https://goo.gl/TXSu6Z

All proposed electoral districts are within 10% of the provincial average (5,293), with the exception of Tignish-Miminegash.

Has anyone heard about a boundaries commission publishing sample maps before its initial report?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-electoral-boundaries-population-1.3997529

https://www.electoralboundaries.pe.ca/sample-maps

A bit off topic, but here's my plan to redraw the ward boundaries in my hometown - Guelph - using the 2016 Census figures.

City Council has already finalized the boundaries for the 2018 municipal election.

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The maps are for discussion but they say the final map could look diffferent. Are they going to do another round of public hearings when they settle on a map.

Here’s my tale of woe.

A month ago, I sent my lovely proposed PEI map (https://goo.gl/TXSu6Z) to the Electoral Boundaries Commission.  I got back a nice e-mail from the Director of Communications, who thanked me for my work.  He mentioned that the Commission used provincial electors, not Census population counts, to do their maps, and said that he would love to see my map again based on 3,700 electors per riding.

So I asked him for the shapefiles of the provincial polling divisions from the 2015 general election.  He sent me a screen print of a district map with the number of electors per district.

I asked again for the shapefiles.  He said that he wasn’t authorized to do that, but sent me shapefiles from the 2003 general election that used completely different district boundaries.

I asked again for the shapefiles.  He ignored me for three weeks.

I finally tracked down the GIS guy from the PEI Dept. of Finance who sent me the correct shapefiles in about ten minutes.  So I went back to the Communications weasel and asked for the file of electors by polling division (so that I could attach them to the map).  He sent me the same screen print from a month before.

I realized that he would never give me the data I needed to calculate the number of electors per proposed riding on my map.  So I sent him the shapefiles for my proposed map and asked him for pass it along to their GIS technicians to calculate the numbers for me.  No response so far.


This would be a pretty typical example of dealing with petty bureaucracy except for one thing: this is the FIFTH time I’ve had to deal with this sh**t with a Boundaries Commission (or equivalent).  It seems that every time a province or city decides to change their ridings or wards and not use publicly-available Census figures, it is impossible to pry the raw numbers out of them.

•   When Alberta redrew its electoral divisions in 2010, the Commission decided to use 2009 municipal census data, rather than the 2006 Census population figures.  I requested the new data for my proposals and was informed that confidentiality agreements prohibited them from sharing the data with the general public.

•   A couple of years ago, Toronto decided to revised its ward boundaries and used 2026 projections as its population base.  When I contacted the Consultants, they referred me to the City.  A staffer in the Clerk’s office told me that the data was ‘preliminary’ and that the ‘final’ data would be released to the public a year later – after the ward review was completed.

•   Hamilton has spent the past year updating its ward boundaries.  It chose to use 2015 population estimates and 2026 projections that ‘Reflects permanent population including Census undercount of approximately 3.8% as well as non-permanent post-secondary student population.’  When I contacted City Hall for those numbers, I was given irrelevant information, then bounced between departments, and then finally ignored.

•   The new Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission has decided to use 2016 Census population figures for the most part.  However, it also includes an estimated count (not stated) for the unenumerated Saddle Lake reserve and reflects a population drop of 9,180 in Fort McMurray ‘based on a further Statistics Canada census conducted in the autumn of 2016.’  I emailed Statistics Canada and they didn’t know anything about this new census; they stood by their original May numbers.


If this was the United States, there would be phalanxes of lawyers ready to litigate every decimal point.  But since this is Canada, nobody cares.  I don’t have any proposed legislation in my back pocket.  I just wanted to vent.

A fellow geopsephologist with a similar story can be found here: http://labradore.blogspot.ca/2012/09/your-right-to-no.html (http://labradore.blogspot.ca/2012/09/your-right-to-no.html)

It's almost as if they want to keep the public in the dark! Hmm...

Is there any sort of Freedom of Information Act in Canada or your province that would allow you to request the information and threaten them with a court case if they refuse to give it to them?

The Consultants hired to draw Oshawa's ward boundaries released their proposed maps today, only a couple of hours before a public hearing scheduled to discuss them!

Here is the report (https://www.oshawa.ca/city-hall/resources/Oshawa-WBR-Preliminary-Options-Report.pdf).

And here is my favourite map:

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rofl. Whoever designed that map needs to be arrested for anti-democratic treason. It actually appears to be a gerrymander to ensure that left wing councillors aren't elected.

PEI report is up: http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/epeiEBC2017.pdf

I love this page!  https://www.electoralboundaries.pe.ca/new-electoral-map?platform=hootsuite (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 (https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/37f9d9_844c7c53efd243a2b6cc72bc0e54f292.pdf) adds to 99,837 but the populations of the proposed districts (on page 21) adds to 100,005.  Sample map 1.1 (https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/37f9d9_a38b57270a7346c6a7c2616402e49fcc.pdf) has populations that add to 99,955, while sample map 3.1 (https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/37f9d9_d2862aa7d01d4a0fbabcfce68abfdcba.pdf) 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.

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/

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.

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.

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.

Thanks to Jared Phillips‏ @jaredphi

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

http://bit.ly/2rmDZBN

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. :)

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  (http://fnebc-cdcegn.ca/en/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?).

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.

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. 

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.

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? :P

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.
 

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?

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

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.  :)

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:


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.



Lol.

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

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.

Done.

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.

Much, much better :)

I like it as well.

Here is my new Calgary proposal, using the Commission's proposal as a starting point and working from there: http://goo.gl/9aps2w.

Primarily, I was attempting to fix as many community splits as possible, as well as making sure no riding was bisected by Deerfoot Trail in North Calgary (the presence of a major expressway with wide swaths of industrial area on both sides means that ridings shouldn't cross the boundary, if possible, in my opinion).

As I've previously written here, the commission's interim report made me realize that the biggest weakness of my previous map was that several suburban ridings, particularly in the north, already had above-average populations. This would mean that after 10 years of further growth in the city, populations in these ridings would be really off-balance (much the same as the current Calgary-South East riding, which essentially grew to be twice the provincial median population since the 2009/10 Commission).

As a result of this, you may notice two funky-looking riding boundaries in North Calgary. The first, between Calgary-Beddington and Calgary-Panorama Hills, actually looks that way because it adheres to existing community boundaries. A minority part of Hidden Valley is located east of Beddington Trail, and this is rejoined with the rest of Hidden Valley in Calgary-Beddington. The community of Country Hills Village (north of Country Hills Blvd between Harvest Hills Blvd and Coventry Hills Blvd) is also given to Calgary-Beddington. Both of these changes are done to give Calgary-Panorama Hills a below-average population to account for future population growth north of Stoney Trail.

The second odd boundary, between Calgary-McCall and Calgary-Falconridge, looks that way because Martindale would need to be split in order to give the two ridings appropriate population levels. Because of how Martindale was designed, there's no logical road to use as a north-south or east-west divider, so I chose to have the boundary follow Martindale Dr and Martindale Blvd. However, it occurs to me now that a better boundary may be the C-train line that runs through the community, so I may adjust the boundary later.

I have upgraded my proposal to make some improvements in Central Alberta.

https://goo.gl/DcCPF0

The highlights are:
- Red Deer contains two divisions entirely within the city limits
- Sylvan Lake is returned to the renamed Innisfail-Sylvan Lake
- Sundre rejoins the renamed Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre
- Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills regains Carbon, Beiseker and Irricana
- the boundary through Airdrie now follows Highway 2
- Lacombe-Ponoka loses some territory near Gull Lake and a chunk of Wetaskiwin County, and gains the area along Highway 21 from Bashaw north to Duhamel
- Battle River-Vegreville and Drumheller-Stettler both become smaller in area and population

Thanks for sharing.  Your map looks great.  Do you have the population figures for these ridings divisions?


P.S.  Are you preparing to give Calgary-McCall a C-section?

Rough population figures (from the 2016 municipal census), with deviations from the provincial median:
Calgary-Acadia: 45,123 (-3.4%)
Calgary-Beddington: 48,712 (+4.3%)
Calgary-Bow: 47,909 (+2.6%)
Calgary-Buffalo: 52,408 (+12.2%)
Calgary-Cross: 47,734 (+2.2%)
Calgary-Currie: 51,844 (+11.0%)
Calgary-East: 51,546 (+10.4%)
Calgary-Elbow: 47,438 (+1.6%)
Calgary-Falconridge: 47,984 (+2.8%)
Calgary-Fish Creek: 47,059 (+0.8%)
Calgary-Foothills: 43,448 (-7.0%)
Calgary-Glenmore: 52,962 (+13.4%)
Calgary-Greenway: 47,049 (+0.8%)
Calgary-Hawkwood: 54,566 (+16.9%)
Calgary-Hays: 42,874 (-8.2%)
Calgary-Klein: 55,144 (+18.1%)
Calgary-Lougheed: 42,618 (-8.7%)
Calgary-McCall: 40,549 (-13.2%)
Calgary-Mountain View: 49,572 (+6.2%)
Calgary-North West: 48,373 (+3.6%)
Calgary-Panorama Hills: 43,249 (-7.4%)
Calgary-Quarry Park: 45,299 (-3.0%)
Calgary-Shaw: 44,051 (-5.7%)
Calgary-South East: 39,964 (-14.4%)
Calgary-Varsity: 51,463 (+10.2%)
Calgary-West: 46,233 (-1.0%)


Also, apologies, I don't know if I understand the C-section comment :p I must be tired.

Thanks for the numbers, Njall.

Which do you prefer:

(a) leave my proposal as-is, with an urban Stony Plain-Spruce Grove seat (51,255) and a rural Parkland-Lac Ste. Anne seat (44,803); or

(b) separate the cities (towns?) into a Stony Plain-Lac Ste. Anne division (48,879) and a Spruce Grove division (47,179) ?

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I prefer the donut style. I don't like the shape of the Stony Plain division.

I'd say stick with the donut as well. I'm not too familiar with that area so there might be a legitimate historical reason for why the two municipalities are divided between two districts, but personally I've always thought it didn't make sense to not group both of them together in one district when their borders are literally touching.

Oshawa rejected that 'pinstriped' ward proposal in favour of something sensible.

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Does this mean Oshawa is moving to a ward model in how it votes? I think previously they had wards, but they were meaningless. Also, does the size of council change?

Here's one more alternative.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PKUBzfLAhGXFB30TaGDH7xXprMg&usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PKUBzfLAhGXFB30TaGDH7xXprMg&usp=sharing)

- Stony Plain and Spruce Grove are placed in separate divisions
- Stony Plain extends west to take in the rest of Parkland County
- Barrhead-Westlock gives up Whitecourt to West Yellowhead and adds Lac Ste. Anne County

That could actually work better. It occurred to me yesterday that a distinct weakness with placing Stony Plain and Spruce Grove into the same division would be that, more than likely, they would have to be split at the next redistribution anyways. The Commission is really trying to take future growth into account, so I think they'd be more favourable to an arrangement like this one.

Adding Whitecourt in with West Yellowhead is very awkward.  However, the Stony Plain / Spruce Gove split there is better than your earlier split.

The Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission has released their preliminary report (http://fnebc-cdcegn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Preliminary-Report.pdf).

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What are the odds that the first MPP from Mushkegowuk will be a white francophone, and not an indigenous person?

Oh, so they went with one of the more hairbrained options. OK then. Timmins gets to be its own riding now? jfc

The parties will probably nominate Aboriginals, so not as likely as a cynical person might think. But whites will make up a majority of people who actually cast votes, that is for certain.

(ETA: oh, the riding will be majority francophone? Then yes, the parties will probably nominate a White francophone then)

And the one good thing about this is that it probably means two extra NDP seats :D

Well, it's only 15% indigenous.

Timmins gets to be its own riding.  Will return to be a true Lib/NDP tossup, much like Sudbury is.  This will last until the next redistribution, where the rest of the North will likely lose an MPP. 
What this does is create the most Francophone riding in the province, and someone French from Kap/Hearst will be able to run.  Here is a picture from Gilles Bisson with the population of Fr / Aborg. in each "new" riding.

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Interesting that they went with the 4 options, but this does go with the communities of interest since it creates 1 majority Indigenous riding and 1 majority Francophone one.

Actually, going by 2014 results Timmins would be an NDP/PC riding, but NDP dominant. The PC won about 10 polls, the OLP only 1, the rest were won by the NDP. I don't have the actual city figures, but looks like it was close though between the PCs/OLP for second in most NDP won polls.

Mushkegowuk might be interesting; The Liberals won all but one of the Hearst polls, the NDP won all the Kapuskasing polls. Now the NDP won every other poll but two (and one was a tie) but Hearst being the second largest area (5000+ people) could make this mildly competitive for the OLP. There is a good chance the MPP could be both Francophone and Indigenous, I think that would be great! (hint hint NDP lol)

Kiiwetinong, no contest really here, the OLP won two polls, everywhere else went NDP. BUT this area of the riding went Liberal federally, in particular Red Lake. Provincially went NDP but federally went Liberal. So it has the potential again to be an OLP/NDP riding. But the rural areas are dominated by NDP won polls, except for an OLP corner in the west of the riding around Sandy Lake. (anyone know why? its consistently Liberal Prov & Fed.)

Kenora - Rainy River looks like, again based on 2014, a PC/NDP riding... NDP dominated though like Timmins. The PCs look to have won about a dozen or so polls, and the OLP none. Even when we look federally the Conservatives do really well in Kenora and Dryden more so then the Liberals and NDP. Provincially those communities went NDP.

For the NDP, best for Sarah Campbell and Gilles Bisson, the two MPPs, to run in the more urban areas. Campbell in Kenora - Rainy River and Bisson in Timmins. Gives the chance for the new MPPs to be Indigenous and having incumbency advantage in the more competitive cities/more urban areas.

The Liberal candidate the last time was from Hearst, that is why the Liberal numbers were inflated there last time.  That explains not only why they did so well in Hearst, but also why the Liberals did so poorly in Timmins, in addition to the ONTC issue.  You can find articles where prominent Liberals form Timmins were supporting the PCs in an "Anything but NDP" kind of coalition here. So I don't think the results of that election are telling of the actual Liberal/PC support.  Traditionally, Timmins has been a NDP/LIB tossup.
If you look at the last federal election, the Liberals almost won Timmins proper (with a terrible candidate who has since embarrassed himself)

So really was a situational result in 2014. Thanks! The PCs have been polling very well in the north though, so again we might see some more tactical voting OLP->PC in more anyone-but-NDP voting.

The traditional Franco-Ontarian Liberal lean means that the Liberals have *always* overperformed in Hearst.  Kap, on the other hand, was a PC stronghold in 2011--their mayor was the candidate that year, and he really tried to give Bisson a run for his money (while the Grits offered little better than a paper campaign).

It really depends on the candidate dynamics.

Timmins, just like every other major city in Northern Ontario (except maybe North Bay... which is actually larger than Timmins, but would unfairly not get its own riding like Timmins) has a solid NDP base and a solid anti-NDP base that swing between the Tories and Liberals.

For an  historical perspective, the Timmins-James Bay area was divided into two ridings for much of the last century between the Timmins dominated Cochrane South riding and Cochrane North, which would have essentially the same borders as the proposed Mushkegowuk riding (except the town of Cochrane, which was in Cochrane North but would remain in Timiskaming-Cochrane in this proposal). 

Perhaps unfairly, the First Nations communities in the proposed Kiiwetinong riding have historically been split up arbitrarily between the Kenora and Thunder Bay (later Lake Nipigon) ridings.

And there are very different electoral histories in Kenora and Lake Nipigon ridings; Kenora was a PC/Liberal riding (never electing a NDP MPP, at least since 1967) while Lake Nipigon was an NDP strong hold going back at least 1967.

The Commission should have been empowered to review provincial riding boundaries across Northern Ontario, not just the far north.  The lines haven't been touched since Mike Harris adopted the federal boundaries in 1996. 

When Bill 115 was debated two years ago, Committee members were urged to create a boundaries commission to review the Northern ridings.  Despite an eloquent presentation from one individual - accompanied by brilliant maps - the members declined to do so.

Yeah, the map is based on the 1991 census (then again, isn't that the same for Toronto's wards?)

Geez, I was still in kindergarten back then, and most of y'all weren't even born yet!

At least TO is finally updating our wards, to 47 and moving the lines around... well hopefully. GAWD if councillors Mammoliti and DiCiano manages to kill this, it will not be pretty!

I was 10 in 1991... so way to make me feel old there!

Gilles Bisson wants the Commission to return all the communities along Highway 11 to the Timmins riding, and make Mushkegowuk an aboriginal-majority seat.

http://www.timminspress.com/2017/07/13/bisson-urges-boundaries-commission-to-go-back-to-the-drawing-board (http://www.timminspress.com/2017/07/13/bisson-urges-boundaries-commission-to-go-back-to-the-drawing-board)

Hearst and Kap are much more pro-NDP .  The only times this hasn't been the case is when the local candidate was from that municipality (Kap went PC when Kap Mayor Al Spacek was the candidate, Hearst went Liberal when Sylvie Fontain from Hearst ran for the Liberals).  Barring those 2 anomalies, those areas have always been good to Bisson.  Having them in Timmins also helps his chances.

 However, Hearst has been historically (i.e. "naturally") stronger for the Liberals than Kap has been for the Tories.  Again, the Franco-Ontarian thing.

If you remove the Highway 11 corridor, the riding's population becomes what, 10K? Ridiculous. Surely a riding that underpopulated would be considered unconstitutional?

When the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario released their final report, only one seat (Kenora) was beyond the 25% range.  If this recommendation becomes law, then ten out of the 124 ridings (using 2011 Census figures) will be below the 25% threshold, and one will be above (Brantford-Brant).

Using 2016 Census figures (excluding incompletely enumerated Indian reserves), Northern Ontario would be entitled to 7 3/4 ridings out of 124.  This plan would give it 13.  It would be an interesting court challenge.

It's not Northern Ontario's "fault" so to speak, that the southern part of the province continues to grow at exponential rates.  Why would they lose representation?  It would only cause further division, and serve to foster more separation talks.  

Indeed, the proper way to deal with this is to either

A) Increase seats in Southern Ontario accordingly or
B) Create a devolved Northern Ontario parliament :D

(I actually started working on a map for option B)

Oh, and I don't believe anyone takes Northern Ontario separation very seriously. Just because they get a separate curling team doesn't mean there is any appetite in the creation of another economically deprived have not province.

Yeah, don't ruin it for the rest of us :P

Have you now! what's that map look like? That would be a precedent in Canada no? I don't believe any other province has anything like that.

I can see what Bisson is getting at, two new ridings that favour Indigenous communities, But the commissions did create two ridings based on communities of interest, one Indigenous the other Frano-Ontarian, that's something.
SO how could we re-draw Mushkegowuk and Kiiwetinong to even out the populations so one (Mushkegowuk minus the south of HWY 11) isn't so small pop. wise. But in a manner that still makes sense... go!

Rather impossible, unless you take a bunch of FN communities in NW Ontario and put them in the NE.

And that's where this re-draw makes no sense as these communities have no connections to each other correct?
I think Bisson might have to just let that one go, I see his point but unless we can even out the two ridings in a manner that works for an MPP to be able to represent the riding, the commission will go with it's proposal.

I have updated my proposed Alberta electoral map (long after anyone cares) to include an alternative suggestion for Grande Prairie.

https://goo.gl/DcCPF0

I like it given your goal of equal(-ish) representation. But I can say from just having visited the Grande Prairie area and talking to some in the political community there, combining the current Dunvegan-Central Peace-Notley riding with almost any of the rural areas of the current Grande Prairie ridings would be difficult to manage due to differing interests between the areas.

The Final Report will be released tomorrow for Ontario's new ridings.

Pursuant to ss. 4(9) and 4(10) of the Representation Act, 2015, the FNEBC will conduct a second round of public information meetings after the release of this Preliminary Report before releasing a final report (“Final Report”) containing its recommendations on or before August 1, 2017.

The Ontario Attorney General's office (https://news.ontario.ca/mag/en/2017/08/statement-from-attorney-general-on-final-report-of-the-far-north-electoral-boundaries-commission.html) has just released the Final Report of the Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission.  Apart from Marten Falls, nothing has changed from the interim report.

Manitoba will reviewing the boundaries next year.

Using 2008 as a reference:
April 2018: Commission Set to Review Boundaries
June 2018: New Elections Divisions Proposed
September 2018: Public Meetings
December 2018: New Boundaries Released

The new boundaries will be set for the next election scheduled for October 6, 2020.

And now, an alternative suggestion for Rocky View.

‘A missed opportunity for our people’: Indigenous leaders urge province to revisit electoral map (https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/10/07/a-missed-opportunity-for-our-people-indigenous-leaders-urge-province-to-revisit-electoral-map.html)

Will this give Queen's Park the chance to not go ahead with the new borders?

If Gilles Bisson runs in Timmins, then there's a good chance the NDP nominates someone indigenous as their candidate in Mushkegowuk. It might back fire though, as the Franco Ontarien population might want one of their own, and vote for another party.

Makes sense for Bisson to run in Timmins, that will be the more competitive riding, and NDP wants all of these northern ridings. Who says there isn't an Indigenous candidate who is also Franco-Ontarian in the wings? With this riding, it has to be a possibility. It should be possible for all 3 or 4 parties (Greens included) to be able to field and entirely indigenous slate in Kiiwetinoong

The City of Timmins has always been the "weak spot" for the NDP in the Timmins-James Bay riding (they still win provincially, but not by as much).  Federally, Timmins proper would have went Liberal last time around.  So for Bisson, it could be a challenge, particularly since there are mumblings that former Timmins Mayor Jamie Lim may be running for the PCs (I don't believe the Liberals will be a factor in Northern Ontario come June).  If Bisson wants an "easy win", it would be to run in the new Mushkegowuk (sp?) riding.

The Final Report of the Alberta Commission is out. (http://abebc.ca/media/reports/)

Biggest thing I noticed was that they split Medicine Hat into two rurban ridings because of concerns that an all rural riding would be too large.

Queen's Park has approved the 2 Far North ridings :)

Looks like they went with Mushkegowuk-James Bay for the North-East riding.  Unfortunate since some Aboriginals are against the use of the name, and there is nothing to show that the riding is majority Francophone.  Would have went with Kapuskasing - Hearst - Baie-James / or, Corridor 11 - Baie James. Or something similar.

Well, the riding will probably be called Mushkegowuk-Baie James in French (though the French version of the news release doesn't translate James Bay)

Probably means two extra seats for the NDP as I expect the NDP to win it.  While a long shot it will probably make the Liberals winning another majority (not that they have much chance anyways) that much harder.  It does for the PCs mean they need one extra seat, otherwise 63 seats instead of 62 for a majority but the chances of them getting 62 seats exactly seems unlikely although if it does expect a fight over which party will put up a speaker then as whomever does disadvantages their side.

I wonder if Gilles Bisson would run in Timmins or in the new Mishke whatever-James Bay?

It's Mushkegowuk-James Bay

My thinking is he will run in Timmins; he lives there and represented the old Cochrane South riding when first elected in 1990 (Basically was the Timmins, Iroquois Falls area). Timmins will be the more competitive riding and, if the NDP is playing to win both, Bisson's popularity and incumbency will help in a competitive race.
Plus it leaves Mushkegowuk-James Bay open for the NDP to try and recruit an indigenous candidate (top of their list), perhaps one who is also Franco-Ontarian (basically required for the new riding) and a woman (would be nice to see).     

Bisson has kept quiet, though.  He does have his own plane I believe and flies all across the riding on his own.  I believe former Timmins mayor Jamie Lim is running for the Ontario PCs in Timmins (not confirmed yet), and I think the Liberals will be less of a factor in the North this time.  There are many in Timmins who are also Anybody but NDP voters, just because of how long they've been in power in the area, so if they see that the PCs are the best chance to beat the NDP, traditionally Liberal voters would change to oust the NDP.  The Mushkegowuk-James Bay riding is probably a guaranteed NDP seat, and would be one of, if not the safest NDP riding in the province.  If there is no Aboriginal/Franco-ontarien candidate, I expect a Franco-ontarien to win the riding.  But I am excited to see how Timmins turns out, it will be one of the most interesting ridings to watch since it has both a small geographic location AND population, something that has never really been the case in Ontario, which might make the local candidate more important than the party.  Surely at the next redistribution, Timmins won't remain it's own riding (likely combined with parts/most of Temikaming-Cochrane).

You make the wild assumption that there will actually even be a "redistribution". The Ontario government doesn't really care about malapportionment, and will likely stick with the current formula in perpetuity.

I noticed yesterday that someone had tweeted out a link to a transposition of the Alberta 2015 results onto the new boundaries. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/168bRw93DhcIlFq2qR04iIH8c9OKBXy4O-JOF0JjYjEA/edit?USP=sharing#gid=0) I can't vouch for them having 100% accuracy, but I didn't see any results on there that look out of place.

Whoever did this looked at the results both with separate WR and PC parties, as well as looking at their combined vote share as a theoretical UCP. With the PCs and WRP separate, the results are pretty much the same as the actual 2015 election: 53 NDP (-1), 20 WRP (-1), 13 PC (+3), 1 AP, 0 ALP (-1). When the PCs and WRP are combined the results are: 61 UCP, 25 NDP, 1 AP. In the latter scenario, the NDP is left with all 20 Edmonton seats, plus both Lethbridge seats, the urban St. Albert and Sherwood Park seats, and Calgary-Buffalo. Off the top of my head, the 61-25-1 result is one seat better for the NDP at the UCP's expense, compared to combining PC and WRP vote shares on the current map, and that one-seat gain is solely due to the extra seat in Edmonton.

That was most likely done by Kyle Hutton; he deserves the credit.

I've compared my data to his in the past and have noticed we do things a bit differently, but is generally reliable.

Why I Expect OMB Decision on Hamilton’s Ward Boundaries Will be a Landmark Province-Wide Precedent (https://www.thepublicrecord.ca/2017/12/why-i-expect-omb-decision-on-hamiltons-ward-boundaries-will-be-a-landmark-province-wide-legal-precedent/)

This is good news. If everyone complains their voices are being diluted, we will finally get proper representation by population!

(It also means it will be less likely council sizes will be reduced, as it would be hard to do that while attempting to balance everyone's community of interest :) )

Good news! The OMB has approved Toronto's new 47 ward plan :) The plan adds three more wards on council, 2 of which are downtown.

Finally, the 1996 era ward boundaries can be thrown in the garbage.

Hopefully the new wards will get some names. I am available to offer suggestions of course.

The OMB threw out the map drawn by Hamilton city councillors in favour of one recommended by their ward boundary review consultants last January.  Council is meeting on Monday to decide if they want to appeal the decision to Divisional Court.

https://www.omb.gov.on.ca/ecs/CaseDetail.aspx?n=MM170025 (https://www.omb.gov.on.ca/ecs/CaseDetail.aspx?n=MM170025)

https://www.thespec.com/news-story/7994290-omb-rejects-hamilton-council-s-preferred-ward-boundary-plan/ (https://www.thespec.com/news-story/7994290-omb-rejects-hamilton-council-s-preferred-ward-boundary-plan/)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ward-boundary-review-1.4445476 (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ward-boundary-review-1.4445476)

https://globalnews.ca/news/3914515/councillor-voices-concern-as-omb-orders-new-ward-boundaries-in-hamilton/ (https://globalnews.ca/news/3914515/councillor-voices-concern-as-omb-orders-new-ward-boundaries-in-hamilton/)

https://www.thepublicrecord.ca/2017/12/ontario-municipal-board-tosses-councils-attempt-to-gerrymander-wards-axes-ward-14-creates-new-ward-on-mountain/ (https://www.thepublicrecord.ca/2017/12/ontario-municipal-board-tosses-councils-attempt-to-gerrymander-wards-axes-ward-14-creates-new-ward-on-mountain/)

New proposed boundaries for Manitoba

Winnipeg gains one seat, rural Manitoba loses one seat.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4217503/manitoba-boundaries-commission-proposes-changes-to-all-57-ridings-adding-one-to-winnipeg/


http://www.boundariescommission.mb.ca/

I was checking the new boundaries out earlier today, and at first glance, they seem to favour the PCs.

Significantly or no?

Not significantly. They would gain the extra seat, and possibly one or two more.

The PEI Electoral Boundaries Commission was resurrected to develop an 18-district 'Mixed-Member Proportional' map.

Here is the background:

https://www.electoralboundaries.pe.ca/2018-mmp-map

And here is their special report:

https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/37f9d9_9a647b57c74b412f94b019f31d75dadc.pdf

They could go back to the old malapportioned councillor/assembly districts since district size doesn't matter as much with MMP. There were 16, so just give 2 more to Charlottetown and call it a day.

PCs would win the new Waverly and Lagimodiere ridings, in the south end for sure, I think the new Southdale is more competitive for the NDP now, but still lean PC. St. James weird shape looks to benefit the NDP; Tyndall Park looks like a pretty good Liberal target; Garden City I think can go either way, NDP or PC, while Kildonan is more Safe PC.

Keewatinook looks to favour the NDP

I just noticed that there is a new PEI district called 'Stanhope-Marshfield'.

Can we call it 'Stan-Marsh' for short?

I got ahold of some 2021 population projections, so I decided to do what I do best.

Using the provincial figures, Alberta would add five seats in the House of Commons and Ontario would gain one.  All other provinces would remain the same, including BC.

Here’s what an Ontario map of 122 Federal ridings (9 North, 113 South) could look like.

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

I PMed you my commentary (and is now lost in cyberspace). But overall, a very good map except for Conestoga-Brant.

Conestoga-Preston-Hespeler and Galt-Brant?

By the way, having that maple leaf in your name makes it difficult to PM you.  You don't appear on any searches of member's names.  Or maybe that was the point?

Unintended consequence. I'll move the maple leaf to after my display name. But searching my original display name, "EarlAW" should work, shouldn't it?

This works. Cambridge needs to be split up anyways, as it's too big to be one riding. Might as well split it down the middle, Barrie-style.

Have you done an Alberta map. Five new seats would be interesting. Also, you should do an NS one because I said so :)

Isn't it already split with Hespeler off on its own?  At this point, just getting rid of North Dumfries might do the trick (though "Galt-Preston" feels a little too anachronistic as a riding name)

I'm all for anachronistic riding names.

And having a riding named after John Galt would make the Libertarians happy.

Anyway, I've updated my map with changes in Wellington, Halton and Peel.  But Conestoga-Brant stays put.

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

>:(

At least the Brampton-Caledon riding makes more sense. :)

Oh my god, they killed Conestoga--Brant! You bastards!

Please check my new improved map (same URL).

Much better. It's a very natural split for Cambridge.

Any preliminary thoughts on Pictou-Preston and Sackville-Bedford?

Sackville-Bedford makes sense and would make for an interesting district (working class suburb next to a UMC one). No one really lives in between Pictou and Preston though. It's a bit odd.

I second the motion in favour of an Alberta map :D

I don't think ridings of 130k+ are going to fly (when you have ridings of 110k in the same city) particularly in Toronto, when it means residents in those ridings will now be losing out on voter parity at 3 levels because the boundaries will all align. Also, crossing Steeles will be a problem.

Anyway, I've updated my map with 32 proposed federal ridings in Atlantic Canada.

Bonavista--Burin--Avalon!  Truro--Cole Harbour!  Saint John West--Charlotte!

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

Now with 28 proposed ridings in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Saskatoon North--Warman!  Regina South!  Others!

Still working on Alberta, but here are where the five 'new' seats would go:

• Airdrie-Chestermere
• Calgary East
• Calgary North
• St. Albert-Edmonton would split into St. Albert and Edmonton Northwest
• Edmonton-Wetaskiwin would split into Leduc-Wetaskiwin and Edmonton South

Overall, the ridings would be allocated:

- Calgary 12 (entirely within city limits) - avg 121,000
- Edmonton 9 (entirely within city limits) - avg 121,000
- Miscellaneous 18 - avg 117,000

I'm excited to see this.

Alberta is now up.   https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

A few points:

- Every riding is within 5% of the provincial average.  Suck it Ontario!

- Yeah, I know about Vegreville.  Stuff happens.  I guess Battle River-Crowfoot's recruitment slogan ("Come live where the lead singer of Nickelback grew up!") hasn't taken off.  Yet.

- For the most part, the new riding names are rather boring (Edmonton Northwest, Edmonton South, Calgary North, Airdrie-Chestermere).  However, I chose Woodlands instead of Whitecourt (after Westlock's removal from the seat), since the revised Peace River riding does have a lot of trees.  Since Griesbach is no longer in the riding, I came up with Edmonton Commonwealth as a counterpoint to Calgary Confederation.  Finally, I waffled between resurrecting "Rocky Mountain" or "Wild Rose" for the Banff-Cochrane-Sundre-Rocky Mountain House riding.

Is there any reasonable way to put Red Deer into a single district and draw the other district around it? Seems like the rest of the map follows the philosophy of not drawing rurban seats.

Red Deer has approx. 113,000 people while the rest of Lacombe-Mountain View has 123,000.  Just find 5,000 people hiding in the Red Deer suburbs and you have yourself a Viable Electoral District.

I don't know if this would quite get you to 5,000, but the hamlet of Springbrook (adjacent to the Red Deer Regional Airport) is very Red Deer-centric. I believe that most working folks there commute into Red Deer (or Gasoline Alley), and Red Deer Transit actually runs peak-hour bus service to Springbrook.

I'll likely have a bit more feedback for the rest of the map later, but overall I actually really like this.

Got a chance to look at Nova Scotia. A few points:

1) There's a near 20k difference between Sackvile and Halifax. That might fly if the difference was between Halifax and a rural riding, but it won't if both ridings are in the city.
2) West Nova is good, but no one in Nova Scotia calls anything _____ Nova
3) I like how you did Northern NS/Cape Breton
4) Truro-Cole Harbour is awkward.

(1) Sackville/Halifax is now balanced.

(2) Red Deer is now reunified.

(3) Edmonton-Mill Woods is now 20% more Mill Woods-y.


Enjoy your Labour Day weekend.



Any opinions on Wild Rose vs. Rocky Mountain?

DC is right, the Truro-Cole Harbour riding is awkward. Why not extend the Cape Breton riding west to New Glasgow, add Musquodoboit Valley to the Cumberland-Colechester riding and have a Cole Harbour/Eastern Shore based riding?

Wild Rose makes more sense. The short-lived Rocky Mountain riding covered much more of the Rockies. Now, I'm no fan of the name "Wild Rose" as it's meaningless; so we could explore different options. A more descriptive name would be "Banff-Cochrane-Clearwater" or "Banff-Cochrane-Rocky Mountain House".

This makes me wonder how the committee will actually address this after the 2021 census. Southern mainland NS will be fine as is, but Cape Breton/northern mainland already didn't have the population to justify their seats in 2016 census and Halifax will probably be entitled to something like 4.75 or 4.8 seats. They'll probably have to make another Halifax based seat with a bit of rural NS tacked on (as opposed to making four Halifax seats and tacking the remainder onto various rural ridings like they did the last two times.) It's probably going to look awkward as hell.


How would you split Pictou County? All those little towns near New Glasgow all blend together to form one small metro area... and that's the bulk of the county's population. Splitting them wouldn't go over well.

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.
  

Going back to Ontario; I think one recommendation I would make is moving all of the rural parts of Nepean and adding it to Carleton. This both balances population and COI better.

Here are the seat entitlements for each Nova Scotia county.  If an area has 87,200 people (2021 Projection), then it would be 'entitled' to have one Member of Parliament.

1.10 - Cape Breton
0.08 - Victoria
0.19 - Inverness
0.10 - Richmond
0.08 - Guysborough
0.22 - Antigonish
0.50 - Pictou
0.34 - Cumberland
0.59 - Colchester
5.09 - Halifax
0.49 - Hants
0.70 - Kings
0.24 - Annapolis
0.19 - Digby
0.27 - Yarmouth
0.15 - Shelburne
0.12 - Queens
0.54 - Lunenburg


And here's the breakdown by current FED.  Since none of the eleven Nova Scotia ridings are outside the 25% threshold, you could get away with the status quo.

0.81 - Sydney--Victoria
0.80 - Cape Breton--Canso
0.84 - Central Nova
0.92 - Cumberland--Colchester
1.16 - Dartmouth--Cole Harbour
1.09 - Sackville--Preston--Chezzetcook
1.22 - Halifax West
1.20 - Halifax
0.96 - Kings--Hants
0.93 - West Nova
1.07 - South Shore--St. Margarets

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

What if we ignored Cape Breton, rejigged Halifax (add more of the Eastern Shore/Chezzatcook to Central Nova, move some of Darmouth to Sackville, add some Halifax suburbs to the South Shore) and moved Shelburne County to West Nova? Is there a big COI difference between West Nova and the South Shore (fancophones?). Parts of Shelburne were lumped with Yarmouth prior to the 1970s, but that boundary has held firm ever since.

Nah, Shelburne County is only 1% Franco. I think the only reason Shelburne and Yarmouth they were kept apart (Yarmouth is part of the South Shore) was to make West Nova work. You might run into a COI issue sticking parts of Dartmouth in with Sackville, but it might be necessary. Halifax is too big for four ridings but too small for five so it makes drawing the map a touch awkward.

That's an irritating underrepresentation. I get sometimes you need to make ridings bigger or smaller, but the way things are currently drawn, the entire Halifax area is systematically underrrepresented in order to pad Cape Breton and the North Shore.

Halifax+ Halifax West = 2.42 entitlement with 2 MP's
Sydney--Victoria + Cape Breton--Canso + Central Nova = 2.45 entitlement with 3 MP's

>:(

Since we're turning this into a redistricting thread:

I just came back from a trip to Vancouver, so I thought I'd take a stab at a 10 ward map of the city. (currently they have an antiquated plurality-at-large voting system)

()

All wards are within 10% of the average. Unfortunately, my computer crashed and I lost the spreadsheet. In hindsight, I would've changed the boundary between Kensington and Langara a bit.

I've updated my map with 21 alternative federal ridings in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as several changes in Alberta.

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz


For NB and NS, all alternative seats are within 10% of the provincial average.  Saint John is put back together, and the Fish-and-Chips seat (Carleton-Charlotte) has returned.  I also put 5 ridings entirely within Halifax (City?) (County?) (Metro?), and let the dominoes fall along the shoreline.

For Alberta, there are three new riding names (Airdrie-Chestermere, Calgary Northern Hills, Edmonton Jasper Place).  I also moved around a few Calgary communities to give Calgary Centre and Calgary Forest Lawn better boundaries.

I don't hate the changes, but why are you so averse to triple barrelled names? Some of these ridings would need them to keep everyone happy.

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.

Regional Municipality unfortunately.

An alternative Alberta map is up.

- Vegreville is back in Lakeland
- Devon and Beaumont are in a riding with Leduc
- Edmonton now has two rurban seats

P.S. And yes, I added the national park to Edmonton--Elk Island, just so that I wouldn't have to call it Edmonton--Cooking Lake

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).

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.

Parkland-Redwater is now the weird riding :P

I have news from out east...

You may recall that Nova Scotia used to have four undersized ridings drawn to increase minority representation, three for Acadians and one for blacks. The previous NDP government instructed the last boundaries commission to draw the map. Well, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court eventually struck down that map last year. Premier McNeil finally appointed a new commission which began doing public consultations this weekend. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/acadian-electoral-boundaries-commission-hearing-in-tusket-1.4816403)

The commission has already proposed a draft map. (PDF warning) (https://nselectoralboundaries.ca/sites/default/files/ed2018draft_stats.pdf)

Key changes include:

1) Reinstating the old special ridings (Argyle, Clare, Preston, & Richmond, which merit about 2.25 seats between them)

2) Adding a new Acadian seat; Cheticamp (francophone area in northern Inverness county), which merits a whopping .19 of a seat.

3) Dividing Bedford (my seat :)) into two seats

4) Cole Harbour/Eastern Passage get three ridings instead of two.

Also of note, the terms of the commission allow for seats to be non-contiguous. The commission is considering including Cheticamp in Richmond, which is on the other side of Cape Breton and a two hour drive away. Halifax & Kings-Hants are probably underrepresented by a seat or two, because even non special seats are allowed to vary +-25% from the population/# of ridings.

Earl, Krago, Njall what are your thoughts?

Ugh. What a mess. At least they're adding seats, which is refreshing considering what's going on here.

What's the justification of having the Guysborough seat under the 25% allowance? All they gotta do is move the western boundary a bit.

Here was my attempt (from Page 1) to make Nova Scotia's electoral map pass constitutional muster in time for the 2017 provincial election.

https://goo.gl/Eg0c6g

- the four protected ridings (Argyle, Clare, Preston, Richmond) would return to their previous boundaries

- two seats would be added to the Nova Scotia legislature:

    - the two ridings in SW NS (Clare-Digby, Annapolis) would be split into three (Clare, Digby-Annapolis West, Annapolis East)

    - the three ridings in SE NS (Argyle-Barrington, Queens-Shelburne, Lunenburg West) would be split into four (Argyle, Shelburne-Barrington, Queens-Lunenburg West, Lunenburg Centre) - to match the new names, Lunenburg riding would be renamed Lunenburg East

- there would be several changes to other districts, to make sure all the remaining ridings are within plus or minus 25% of the new provincial quotient (13,573, using the electors from the 2013 provincial election)


I will have to get a dataset of the 2018 electors to revise my map.  Any guesses if the Commission will provide it?

Anything specific about it that you dislike?

From a local's POV I can see a lot of community of interest issues, but I don't know a lot about map making per se. Also I can kind of buy having somewhat smaller seats to represent minorities, but Cheticamp is a rotten borough straight out of the 18th century... If they had made a Cheticamp seat last time, my riding would be nearly nine times the population right now!


Honestly, I think they just got lazy. Looking at the map, most of the borders are identical to either the 2013 map or the 2003 one in areas where they brought back the old special ridings.


Maybe? Elections NS is notoriously slow with that sort of thing.

As for revisions, you could probably guesstimate based of the 2016 census and local knowledge. For example, Halifax West has grown the most of any federal riding in NS and most of that growth has been around the intersection of the current Bedford, Hammonds Plains and Clayton Park West seats.

Cheticamp kind of reminds me of the new Mushkegowuk-James Bay. Sure, it's a 'rotten borough', but tiny minority ridings seem to be all the rage right now. And having 2 super safe NDP First Nations rotten boroughs in Ontario still didn't negate the PC structural advantage in the rest of the province.

At first I thought that the Cheticamp area was shown separately to open a debate on whether it should continue to be a part of Inverness, or else added to Richmond to make a non-contiguous Acadian seat in Cape Breton.  But it looks like the only two options are to join Richmond or become its own separate riding.

The website says:

The Commission is seeking input from the public on the following proposals:
 
1. to restore the seats of Clare, Argyle, Preston, and Richmond, as was recommended in the Interim Report of the previous Commission, 2011–12
 
2. in addition to 1 above, to make Chéticamp and environs part of the restored Richmond electoral district

or

3. in place of 2, to make Chéticamp and environs an extraordinary electoral district
 
4. to create additional Electoral Districts in Bedford and Cole Harbour
 
5. to obtain public input on the creation of a Members-at-Large group to provide for effective representation and voter parity

Is this code for proportional representation?

No, it's at large FPTP ridings that minorities would vote in, in lieu of their local riding, sort of like Maori seats in New Zealand. They're used at the school board level here where African Nova Scotians and Mi'kmaq each had their own reps on the various local school boards.

I am not a fan of this proposal.

Manitoba has released it's new boundaries for the next election.

http://www.boundariescommission.mb.ca/report/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/redrawn-boundaries-manitoba-provincial-ridings-1.4946462

What do you think of it? I don't know enough about Manitoba to judge.

Tiny is relative.  People in Mushkegowuk-James Bay still have representation that is about 1/9th that of an average PEI Provincial riding, IE. if Mushkegowuk-James Bay was in PEI, it would be split up into about 9 ridings.  First Nations people of Ontario, because of their position in a province with exponential growth, have far less access to representation than their counterparts in smaller provinces.

Don't be friggin around with me small ridings b'y

I'm no expert on Manitoba, but that has never stopped me from chiming in! :P

Using the last polling from November:
PC - 42%(-11)
NDP - 28%(+3)
LIB - 18%(+4)

The North lost a seat with the shift south of all the riding's, 5 now instead of 6 (Keewatinook, Thompson, Flin Flon, Swan River and ThePas - Kameesak)
Keewatinook lost most of its far norther polls, which were all mostly NDP area to the new Thompson, Keewatinook should stay Liberal unless there is a huge swing to the NDP, could happen with a good campaign and strong candidate but the riding is more Liberal friendly now. Thompson gains NDP areas, to the advantage of the NDP who lost Thompson, I see a gain for the NDP here. But, The Pas-Kameesak has become much less favourable to the NDP. While they gained NDP polls from the old Swan River, the more populous areas of Interlake that are being added were very PC/LIB battles. So this is a toss-up right now.

Winnipeg grows to 32 from 31 if I counted right; seeing two rurban/suburban ridings (McPhillips and Roblin) McPhillps is unfortunate for the NDP, they have some strong polls in the south of this new riding, pulled out of Kildonan and The Maples, not sure if they will be enough to counter the very strong PC vote from St. Paul area. I think the NDP COULD win this riding, but they'd have to pull in like 2007/11 numbers and they are not there yet. St. Paul is now three different riding McPhillips, Red River North and Springfield-Ritchot, all should stay PC. I think Fort Gary is more vulnerable to the PCs now, while St. Vital is more NDP friendly, with the Winnipeg Numbers I think the NDP will gain St. Vital and hold Fort Garry (if the NDP#s are up). (PC 34%, NDP 31%, LIB 21%). Liberals should hold Saint Boniface and Burrows (barring any major shift to the NDP), and have a really good shot at Tyndall Park, but if the NDP vote is also up, could go either way, and of course they will hold River Heights. I don't see other major changes in Winnipeg... not sure what the 2016 Winnipeg vote was, so not sure how these polled number compare.

Also, the name "Union Station" is just terrible... where did that come from? They could have named the district, The Forks, or Broadway or even Winnipeg City/Centre.

I've finally updated my map with 78 alternative federal ridings in Quebec.

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

Here are the highlights:
- Four ridings in Gaspésie and Bas-Saint-Laurent get squeezed into three
- A new seat pops up in Mascouche
- 72 out of the 78 seats are within 10% of the provincial average, with one just over (+10.2%)
- Five northern/Saguenay seats between -10% and -20%
- 34 ridings remain unchanged
- Newly renamed Sheffield-Acton would be the most triangular electoral district in Canada, though Montmorency-Charlevoix would be close

I've also updated my map with 42 alternative federal ridings in British Columbia.

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

Here are the highlights:
- 36 out of the 42 seats are within 10% of the provincial average
- three ridings are just over (+10.01%, +10.04%, +11.8%)
- Three northern-ish seats are between -10% and -20%
- 32 ridings remain unchanged

Your adoption of some of the modern RCM names is disappointing, but I like how you've reverted back to the Montmorency-Charlevoix name.

For BC, is there anyway to rejig the Lower Mainland ridings so there is no crossover of the Burrard Inlet? You would have to move things around in the Interior a bit (like removing Whistler/Squamish from the West Van riding)

By revising the boundaries of 14 seats from Victoria to Coquitlam, I managed to keep them all below the 10% population threshold without crossing Burrard Inlet.

It also places Comox, Courtney and Cumberland in the same riding, and unites all the Gulf Islands in a single district, whether they want to be or not.

Elizabeth May would not be happy.

Interesting! Looks like that makes your Burnaby North and Burnaby South more NDP friendly and New Ewst-Burnaby-Maillairdville and Port Moody-Coquitlam are less NDP friendly?
Nanaimo becomes very interesting; by adding Parksville and the Nanoose Bay areas which were very strong for the CONs and LPC, and removing Ladysmith, Cassidy and Gabriola areas which were strong for the NDP, would be an interesting fight.

Now here's another question: Is it possible to avoid crossing both the Burrard Inlet AND the Georgia Strait?

Depends.  Do you have strong feelings about Skeena-Sunshine Coast?

What if you made a riding that went from the Cariboo to Powell River, and then down to the northern Lower Mainland? (Coast--Cariboo?)

Well, you got your Coast-Cariboo riding, with a little bit of Prince George thrown in for good luck.

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

Check out the green lines on the B.C. map.

I was hoping you'd take in more of the Whistler/Squamish area rather than go that far into Cariboo.

I honestly don't know what you're talking about.  Skeena-Squamish?  If you're talking about a Powell River--Pemberton riding, that would add an extra seat.  Where would you remove one?  Vancouver-Richmond?

Hmm....

How about this:

- Vancouver Island - 7 districts
- Extend Skeena-Bulkley Valley down the coast up to Powell River
- North Shore+Sunshine Coast (+Powell River?) - 2 districts
- Squamish-Lillooet+Cariboo = 1 district

Is anyone interested in taking a road trip to Harvard this May?

https://gis.harvard.edu/event/2019-cga-conference-redistricting

I'm not directing anyone to go, in fact I'm not pressuring anyone either, well, no undue pressure, definitely no overly undue pressure...

Been kinda working off and on on one for a while now.....it's just a matter of what to use for building blocks. StatsCan's block boundaries often make no geographical sense.

That's great to hear - I hope it's going well for you, I look forward to seeing it! Thank you.

To be fair, neither do precincts in the US.

Has anyone heard of the Public Mapping Project?

http://www.publicmapping.org/resources/software

Is that not only for the US?

I hope to have a base map uploaded to the website in the next couple of days (hopefully before the polls close in Alberta).

Edit: Completed.

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And this is the key map:

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In other news:

https://nselectoralboundaries.ca/sites/default/files/electoral_boundaries_2019_english_web.pdf

There are restored Acadian ridings in Richmond, Clare and Argyle, and an African riding in Preston. The tiny riding of Cheticamp didn't make the cut.

In this increasingly misnamed topic, here is my kick at the can for new set of ward boundaries in Ottawa.

Krago's Proposed Ottawa Ward map (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KWLc8oAg2xXWnoivZYODstm1q0mjOCE0&usp=sharing)


Tip of the hat to Hatman for pointing out Mayor Jim Watson's comments on his twitter feed this morning.

Ottawa is one of the few major cities in Canada that seems to have a reasonable number of wards. Calgary having more provincial legislators than councillors is something that seems bizarre to my British-dominated mind.

I of course have been working on my own map.


A few notes (originally sent in a PM to Krago):

- You have to first work under the assumption that the rural wards will not be reduced in anyway. I know you did to keep the number of wards at 23 and add a new one in the south end, which will be inevitable. This why (much to the mayor's chagrin), I am confident that they will be forced to add a ward. Hopefully Doug Ford won't notice!

- In the east (Orleans), your plan is almost identical to what I would do. I would suggest "Gloucester North" or "Green's Creek" as the name of the Beacon Hill-Blackburn ward.
- I haven't taken a good look at the west end yet, but I doubt they will make Stittsville any bigger, as it's a growing community. Remember, when it was created in the last redistribution, it was even smaller in population.
- In the south end, I would add Bells Corners to Barrhaven to make the area worth 3 seats. Geographically, it makes less sense than your plan though, but historically Bells Corners and Barrhaven have been in the same ward before. Plus, it reduces the population of the over-populated College Ward, and reduces the domino affects in the rest of the city.
- I would rename Bell-Centrepointe to Bell-Greenbank. And I'm not sure if College is the best name for that ward anymore, as it's geographically very different from current College Ward. Merivale would be a very good name for that ward, actually (or Merivale North, and rename the other Merivale Ward as Merivale South?)
- I like what you've done with Capital Ward. With my plan (which adds a new seat), Rideau-Vanier becomes too big (I'm also using the city's 2018 population estimates, which has the population of the ward at 50k, much larger than the census numbers), so I have moved the northern border of Capital Ward up to Laurier. I hate splitting up Sandy Hill, but the only other option is splitting Vanier, which would probably upset more people.

Anyway, I think I will use this thread to gather my thoughts on the subject. I think, as someone who has studied Ottawa's ward maps over the course of the city's history, I am uniquely qualified to discuss this matter. Fun fact, after Ottawa annexed parts of Gloucester and Nepean in 1950, we had 33 city councillors (2 from each ward+4 controllers+the mayor)! Each ward had about 10,000 people, I believe. It would be cool if we could go down that route again (though, I would recommend only one councillor per ward), but I can only dream.

First off, let's start with the city's 2018 population estimates for each ward.

1. Orléans   48315
2. Innes   42166
3. Barrhaven   61528
4. Kanata North   37929
5. West Carleton-March   25644
6. Stittsville   37365
7. Bay   45662
8. College   51829
9. Knoxdale-Merivale   39485
10. Gloucester-Southgate   47517
11. Beacon Hill-Cyrville   33504
12. Rideau-Vanier   49632
13. Rideau-Rockcliffe   39801
14. Somerset   41996
15. Kitchissippi   44594
16. River   48566
17. Capital   38332
18. Alta Vista   44939
19. Cumberland   50424
20. Osgoode   28279
21. Rideau-Goulbourn   30650
22. Gloucester-South Nepean   53175
23. Kanata South   50111

The rural wards are in bold. They will almost definitely get special consideration and will not be reduced. So, let's look at the rest of the city.

Next step; let's look at Ottawa's high growth areas: the outer suburbs. Basically, Ottawa has three suburban hubs that are separated from the rest of the city by the greenbelt. At present, the eastern (Orleans/Cumberland) and western (Kanata/Stittsville) have three wards each, and the southern hub (Barrhaven/Gloucester South) have two wards.

Here are the populations:
Orleans/Cumberland   140905
Kanata/Stittsville   125405
Barrhaven/Glo. South   114703

Under the current 23 ward map, the non-rural ward quotient would be 45,343.5. These hubs would this be entitled to the following number of wards:

Orleans/Cumberland 3.1
Kanata/Stittsville 2.8
Barrhaven/Glo. South 2.5

Thus lies our current problem. The south end is too large for its current two wards, but two small for three. We would have to cross the greenbelt to for a third ward, but that would entail creating a new ward somewhere in Nepean or lobbing off Gloucester South and creating a massive domino affect that would alter the boundaries of a significant number of wards within the greenbelt, and would mean removing a ward somewhere. This is of course not ideal. None of the non-rural wards are that significantly under populated (well, maybe Beacon Hill-Cyrville), and removing it would end up significantly alter the remaining wards in the east end, which can be avoided! All this to say, I would recommend adding a ward in the south end. This will force a ward to cross the greenbelt, but will ensure the rest of the map is not significantly altered.

A 24 ward map would give us an non-rural ward quotient of 43,184. This puts the suburban nodes worth these many wards:

Orleans/Cumberland 3.3
Kanata/Stittsville 2.9
Barrhaven/Glo. South 2.7

Now we're getting closer to 3 with the southern hub! This brings me to my next point:

Ottawa has two neighbourhoods that are located within the greenbelt; Bells Corners in the west and Blackburn Hamlet in the east. The neighbourhoods are best suited to be transferred from wards either inside or outside the green belt. At present, Bells Corners is in a ward that is within the greenbelt (College Ward), while Blackburn Hamlet is in a ward outside the greenbelt (Innes Ward). If we move Bells Corners (pop 9200) to the southern hub, the area now has a population of 123,900 and is worth 2.9 wards. Huzzah! And the best thing about this move is that College Ward is over populated, so removing Bells Corners drops its population to 42,600 which is pretty close to the quotient of 43k. The only drawback of this plan is that Bells Corners is rather far from Barrhaven, but as I mentioned in my last post, has been historically lumped with Barrhaven (before 2006).

And in the east end, we can make another easy move. Orleans/Cumberland now has a bit too many people for 3 wards. So, we can move Blackburn Hamlet (pop. 8,100) to Beacon Hill-Cyrville. This is another great move, as Beacon Hill-Cyrville is under populated.  This brings down the population of our eastern hub to 132,800 (3.1 wards) and the population of Beacon Hill-Cyrville up to 41,600, just a but smaller than the quotient. Huzzah!

Now that that is done, we just have to work out the new boundaries for Barrhaven/Gloucester South to accomodate its new ward, and make minor population transfers to even the populations of the remaining wards....

The last redistribution report didn't mention any specific goals in terms of how far off from the electoral quotient they wanted the wards to be. There was a lot of discussion about future growth potentials and populations of the wards in 10, 15 and 20 years. Now that we're in the future, it is fun to see how far off their predictions were, but for the most part, they weren't so bad. I don't own a crystal ball, and I don't have access to the city's population projections by neighbourhood, so I am going to use the 2016 census for the most part, but keep in mind areas where there are newer developments, and make some assumptions.

But first, let's see how far off each ward is from our quotient (remember the non-rural quotient is 43,184 for a 24 ward map; the rural quotient is 28,191). Here is how far off each ward is from the quotient:

Orleans: +11.9%
Innes: -2.4% (without Blackburn Hamlet, this drops to -21.1%)
Barrhaven: +42.5% (with Bells Corners, this is +63.8%)
Kanata North: -12.2%
West Carleton-March: -9.0% (rural)
Stittsville: -13.5%
Bay: +5.7%
College: +20.0% (without Bells Corners, this drops to -1.3%)
Koxdale-Merivale: -8.6%
Gloucester-Southgate: +10.0%
Beacon Hill-Cyrville: -22.4% (with Blackburn Hamlet this increases to -3.7%)
Rideau-Vanier: +14.9%
Rideau-Rockcliffe: -7.8%
Somerset: -2.8%
Kitchissippi: +3.3%
River: +12.5%
Capital: -11.2%
Alta Vista: +4.1%
Cumberland: +16.8%
Osgoode: +0.3% (rural)
Rideau-Goulbourn: +8.7% (rural)
Gloucester-South Nepean: +23.1%
Kanata South: +16.0%

I've arbitrarily decided that each ward should be within 10% of the quotient. %s in red are below 10% and in green are above 10% of the quotient.

Wards in black shouldn't have any boundary changes, but those in green and red should see some shifts.

Ok, let's start with re-drawing the boundaries in the suburbans hubs. First off, Orleans/Cumberland.

Here is the current map:

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1 = Orleans
2 = Innes
19 (number not on map) = Cumberland

Blackburn Hamlet is that subdivision under the 2.

As you can see, the current map has some rather awkward boundaries, especially between Orleans and Cumberland. These boundaries date back from the 1990s, when the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Council began directly electing its councillors. They follow the municipal council boundaries used at the time (e.g. Cumberland Ward was made up of Bilberry and Heritage Wards on Cumberland city council).

Anyway, if we remove Blackburn Hamlet (as I propose), this will have severe domino affects in the rest of Orleans/Cumberland, giving us a chance to fix this awkwardness.

First off, let's focus on what's left of Innes Ward. Without Blackburn Hamlet, it's underpopulated, with just 34k people. We can either expand north or east into the rest of Orleans; I think it makes sense to move north to remove that awkward panhandle from the Orleans Ward. This gives us an additional ~11,100 people for a total of 45,200. Good! Let's rename this ward Orleans West, as it now extends all the way up to the Ottawa River, far from Innes Road. I suspect this ward's population might grow a lot in the south with Bradley Hill Estates and Chapel Hill South developments. With foresight, it might be prudent to exclude these areas from the ward, but let's keep them in for now.

OK, with its northwest panhandle now gone, Orleans Ward has shrunk to 37,200 people. Too small! We need to take some territory from Cumberland Ward. The most obvious thing to do is to straighten that eastern boundary to follow Innes Road rather than cut through the neighbourhoods of southeastern Orleans. This would add about 13,100 people, bringing us to ~50,300 people. Too much! So, why not take off that southeastern panhandle and give it to Cumberland? That's ~2900 people, which would make our total 47,400 - just under the 10% threshold. With Innes now called Orleans West, we should probably re-name this ward Orleans East.

And that population transfer leaves Cumberland Ward at 40,200, with plenty of room to grow, as this ward has most of the east's new developments.

One last note about Cumberland. You will see that it is mostly rural. Well, during the last redistribution, the rural Cumberland population didn't mind being lumped with suburban parts of Orleans. Perhaps better than the alternative of being lumped with far-off Osgoode as it was on regional council. Despite Cumberland and Osgoode both being rural, Cumberland is fairly Francophone, while Osgoode is very Anglophone.

And so, here is my proposed map (very similar to Krago's)

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Now for the south end, where I'm proposing the addition of a new ward.

Here is what it looks like now:

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3 = Barrhaven
22 = Gloucester-South Nepean

Bells Corners is in the top left of the map (not 23).

This is an older map, so it doesn't show a lot of the newer developments south of the Jock River and in some other parts of the ward.

Anyway, let's start with what to do with Bells Corners. We can add it to Barrhaven Ward, but that makes the ward's population over 72,000.  If we lob off the newer developments south of the Jock River (at least 13,500 people) and some territory in the east, we can get the population down to a reasonable number. Because of all of the developments, it's hard to guess exactly the estimated population, but I think this would put us at around 41,000 people. With the addition of Bells Corners to this ward, I suggest renaming it to Barrhaven-Bell ("Bell" coming from the old "Bell-South Nepean" ward.)

Next, we take a look at the other ward in the south end; the awkwardly named, and awkwardly shaped Gloucester-South Nepean. I would've been very opposed to the creation of this ward during the last redistribution, but here we are. We could lump off the far-away developments in the east, but there is no where for them to go (neighbouring Gloucester-Southgate is too big as it is). But if we lump off everyone west of Woodroffe (~13000 people) we get down to 40,000, with room for more developments. Despite the bad name, the changes don't necessitate a name change per se.

So, what are we left with? Somewhere in the 41-42K range living in the newer developments south of the Jock River, plus some parts north of it that used to be in the other wards. You will also note that I have straightened the southern boundary of the ward. The original ward boundary followed the urban growth boundary, which is why its weird like that. However, that area is beginning to be developed and has crossed over the line, so it makes sense to alter the boundary down to Barnsdale Rd.
This ward I would call Jockvale, as that's the name of a now-replaced village in the area and because the ward traverses the Jock River.

Map:

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Wow!  Let me guess, your boss was out of town today.

Just watching the Raptors game and getting re-jiggy with it.  Please let me know if these four wards are an improvement on my original proposal.

O.K. So how long does it take to get a picture approved?

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Slow work day. I too was watching the Raptors, so just checking in now (also, a bit hungover from said watching :) )

This map is pretty good, I'd say! The only issue is it deviates too much from the current map.

One improvement I might offer is moving the Riverside apartments from Capital Ward to Alta Vista. The result is a transfer of about 4,000 people. It always bothered me how that bit was in Capital Ward. I know from reading past reports that the justification was that those apartments are separated from the rest of the neighbourhood (Riverview Park) by train tracks, which don't really have any crossing points. (At the time, there was an illegal crossing so people could shop at the Alta Vista shopping centre, and so people like me could access the Transitway from the other side.  CN has since built large ditches to prevent such crossings :( ) Anyway, there is now a legitimate crossing of the train tracks at the new Hospital link, so you can now justify the area's connection to the rest of Riverview Park. There is also the fact that the area is technically within the borders of the Riverview Park Community Association, though I suspect few in the area go to any meetings.

Krago's Proposed Ottawa Ward Map - Now with Option 2! (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KWLc8oAg2xXWnoivZYODstm1q0mjOCE0&usp=sharing)

Interesting. What I'd really like to see is a 23 ward map that preserves the three rural wards. Now that would be a challenge.

Oh, and it's Knoxdale (not Knoxville).

Fixed.  And check out the new Vanier/Rockcliffe configuration.

More aesthetically pleasing (compact wards), but demographically horrendous. You've divided the francophone populations and having Rockcliffe Park/New Edinburgh and Lower Town in the same ward seems... offensive (though they were in the same ward briefly from 1980 to 1994). Of course, Rideau-Rockcliffe Ward's current boundaries lump wealthy Rockcliffe Park with poorer Overbrook, so no matter how you divide the area, you're going to have to have a ward with a large wealth disparity. I suppose if you wanted to have a ward for rich people, you could create a wealthy ward that extends from New Edinburgh into Beacon Hill, but that would be a bit messy.

Oh, and I oppose "Byward-Rockcliffe" as the ward name. The Byward market is literally named after By Ward, a ward that existed until 1972 (and the name lived on until 1994 with the "By-Rideau" name.  Rideau-Rockcliffe would be a good name for this ward (even though it's very different from the current ward with this name).

As I've said before, I love your work. I try not to be envious, but the main result of this is to strengthen my wish for some redistricting platform.

ok, slow day again this morning, so let's move on to Ottawa's western suburban hub, Kanata/Stittsville.

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4 = Kanata North
6 = Stittsville
23 = Kanata South

Since the last redistribution, there was a secret shift in Stittsville's boundaries. I noticed it last year, and couldn't find anything official about its change, but I think it happened before the 2014 election. Basically, Stittsville annexed a bunch of territory where there are some new homes from Rideau-Goulbourn Ward. Makes sense. Fun fact about Stittsville Ward; it was originally called "Stittsville-Kanata West" as some of its geographic territory covered Kanata, but I don't think anyone actually lived in the Kanata part (at the time; they certainly do now, but since they're in new homes, does it really count, as Kanata hasn't existed as a municipality since 2000?)

Anyway, Stittsville getting its own ward was a bit bizarre, considering it was well under populated and even its projected future population had it being under populated (and it still is). Considering this, and the fact that it's projected to still grow a lot, I don't think it will actually change its boundaries. However, I'd personally like to see it get within 10% of our quotient (right now it's 13.5% too small), so I'm proposing lobbing off some territory from neighbouring Kanata South, which is overpopulated. First, I'm going to lob off the Bridlewood Trails subdivision (pop. ~1200). This is a new subdivision which appears on the map as being part of Kanata, but is in an area that was just outside Kanata's city limits in Goulbourn Township (which is where Stittsville is/was). So, I'm using that as justification for lobbing it off. Next, I'm going to remove all of the subdivisions west of Terry Fox Dr, which makes for a good physical boundary, as it's the major road in the area. This area is home to about 800 people. Next, I'm going to move the southern boundary of the ward to Flewellyn Road. This makes Bridlewood Trails' incorporation into the ward look better on the map, and allows for further growth in Stittsville (and adds some older estates which are sort of 'suburban' that are just south of the ward). This adds about 250 people, removing them from Rideau-Goulbourn Ward. These additions bring the ward's population up to 39,600 - just within the quotient and with room to spare. With the new additions, I propose renaming the ward Stittsville-Kanata West.

The removal of 2000 people from Kanata South to Stittsville was not enough to bring the ward's population to within 10% of the quotient. Kanata North however is underpopulated, so all we have to do is transfer the area north of Katimavik Rd to Kanata North. This area is home to about 2300 people. The existing boundary between Kanata South and Kanata North is the Queensway (a freeway), which makes for a good physical boundary, but we have to make the shift to balance populations. This brings the population of Kanata South down to 45,800 - just under the quotient. The ward has more or less filled up with houses, with no areas to grow, so this is fine; while Kanata North's population now goes up to 40,200 (under the quotient), but has a lot of room to grow. This is all very ideal going into the future.

New map:
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Now that we've dealt with the suburban wards, we now have the fairly easy task of making minor adjustments to the wards within the Greenbelt. Going down our ward list, the first one outside the quotient is Gloucester-Southgate, which is 10.03% over the quotient. So, we don't have to do much to get it to a reasonable size.

Here is the map of the current boundaries:
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(Source: City of Ottawa)

So, we have to remove a few people from the ward. We have a few options, as there are a few subdivisions that are separated from the core population of the ward. I've boiled them down to 4.

- Heatherington: This area in the north part of the ward has a population of 4900 and is separated from the rest of the ward by railway tracks and has more in common with the Heron Gate neighbourhood to its north (both areas are socio-economically deprived and have a large immigrant population). This would bring the ward down to a population of 42,600, very close to the quotient.

- Cedardale: This area in the west part of the ward has a population of 300 and is separated from the rest of the ward by the Airport. This shift would bring the ward population down to 47,200 (9.3% above the quotient).

- Kempark: This area in the south part of the ward has a population of 250 and is separated from the rest of the ward by the greenbelt. This bring's the ward population to 47,250 (9.5% above quotient)

- Mer Blue: This is a swamp/conservation area on the rest side of the ward which is home to just 25 people. It's separated from the rest of the ward by the 417 expressway. Removing this makes sense, but is not enough to reduce the ward's population to below the quotient. Actually, this gives me a good idea; we could also remove all of the rural parts of this ward. The remaining rural parts of the ward in the south and east are home to about 100 people (125 including Mer Bleue). This gets us to about 47,400 or 9.7% over the quotient.

Given these options, I think I like #4 the best. The neighbouring inner greenbelt wards (Alta Vista and River) are over the quotient (River is over 10%), so moving Heatherington or Cedardale would make those wards even more over the quotient. We could put Kempark into Gloucester-South Nepean, but Kempark is actually an older suburban village and so is demographically different than the rest of the newer homes in Gloucester-South Nepean. But, if we remove the rural parts, we remove a community of interest that does not belong in an inner-green belt ward, and we can add to the populations of the under populated rural wards. I propose moving all the rural parts of the ward to Osgoode (including Mer Bleue). While the 417 makes for a good physical boundary, it actually bifurcates the village of Ramsayville, which should be in one ward.

Here is the proposed boundary shift:

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ok, next on the list is Rideau-Vanier. The City's population estimate for this ward is 49,632- which is much larger than the Census population (41,649). What's going on here? Are the condos going up that fast? Does the ward have that many homeless people? I'm not exactly sure. But if it does have nearly 50,000 people, it's much too large. However, 41.5k would be perfect.

Here's a map:

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Source: City of Ottawa

Anyway, we're using the city's estimates, so this ward will need to shrink. Now, at present the ward combines traditionally working class, and Francophone neighbourhoods east of downtown. It's eastern section is Vanier, which was its own city until 2000. At first glance it seems like it would make the most sense to carve this area up as a solution to reducing the ward's population. But I'd rather not cut up Vanier, one of the city's most culturally significant neighbourhoods. But no matter what we do, we're going to have to cut up one of the city's important neighbourhoods, as every neighbourhood in the ward I would say is important.

There are three wards that bound Rideau-Vanier; Rideau-Rockcliffe which encircles Vanier on the east, Somerset on the west, and Capital which shares a small border between the Canal and the Rideau River on the south. Out of these three wards, Capital has the smallest population and is below 10% of the quotient, so could use some territory.

The most important community in the ward is the francophone community. The decision to lump Vanier with the historically Francophone Lowertown neighbourhood and the bilingual University of Ottawa (and its student ghetto, Sandy Hill) was not accidental when this ward was formed. Sandy Hill is not as Francophone as the rest of the ward, and is the neighbourhood which bounds Capital Ward.  While I hate to cut up Sandy Hill, I think it makes the most sense to give some of it to Capital Ward.

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(Map of % French as Mother tongue, made using censusmapper.ca)

If you're going to cut up Sandy Hill, it makes the most sense to use Laurier. Looking at a map of the francophone populations, the area north of Laurier appears more french than the area south. Sandy Hill south of Laurier has about 6500 people (depending on where the ward's estimate vs. census discrepancy is, which I assume is more likely in the ByWard market or Lowertown, not Sandy Hill). Giving this area to Capital Ward gives Rideau-Vanier a population of about 43,100 and Capital Ward 44,800. Both are close to the quotient. 

So, here is the new map:

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ok, the last ward we have to deal with is River Ward. With 48,566 people it is 12.5% above the quotient.

Map:
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Source: City of Ottawa

River is a really weird ward, made up of the left overs other wards didn't have the capacity for. It lumps very different neighbourhoods together which are separated by the Rideau River, railroads and an entire farm (Central Experimental Farm).

Looking at the map, the most obvious place to cut from the ward is the little pan handle in the east, Ellwood.  Ellwood has about 2800 people. It can either join Gloucester-Southgate to the south or Alta Vista to the north. Gloucester-Southgate if you will recall, is just under the 10% cutoff of the quotient, so not a good idea. And adding it to Alta Vista will also put that ward over the 10% mark. Hmm... anything else we can do?

We can't move anything in the south because adding it to neighbouring Gloucester-Southgate is a non stater. We'll have to look elsewhere. Moving anything in the middle of the ward would make it too skinny. Hmm.. Howabout something in the northwest corner? This area appears to be one neighbourhood, but is in fact two; the older much larger Carlington and the newer Central Park subdivision (which includes a bunch of streets named after places in New York, including a Trump Street. Sad!). Carlington is much too big to remove, and would isolate Central Park. But we can remove Central Park.

Central Park's population of 3900 is much larger than Ellwood, but neighbouring Knoxdale-Merivale is under populated (8.6% below the quotient), so can handle a new neighbourhood. It can also go to College Ward (now slightly below the quotient, thanks to the removal of Bells Corners). I'm going to put it in Knoxdale-Merivale, as it's smaller.

So, that leaves River with a new population of 44,700 and Knoxdale-Merivale with a population of 44,400.

New map:

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I've also updated my map with 6 alternative federal ridings in Eastern Ontario.

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

Here are the highlights:
- Southern Lanark County (Perth, North Burgess, North Elmsley) moved to Leeds-Grenville
- Mississippi Mills moved to L-F-L&A
- Renfrew would add the former townships of Fitzroy and Torbolton
- Kanata would include Bells Corners
- Rural Nepean west of Hwy 416 would go to Carleton

Controversial!

I don't like the name "Renfrew" for that riding. The riding's current name is terrible (I would go with "Renfrew-Algonquin" myself), but tacking on anything to it would make it worse. I wonder if a completely new name would be popular: "Upper Ottawa Valley"?.

I'd probably keep the Kanata-Carleton name instead of re-naming it Kanata-Bell. And I'd drop the "South" from Leeds-Grenville-South Lanark. 

The trouble with "Renfrew-Algonquin" is that the heart (or most "developed" part) of Algonquin Park is in Nipissing-Timiskaming--though one could always annex that into the riding, unless that made things too geographically unmanageable.  (Maybe "Renfrew-Madawaska-Pembroke" as an alternative?)


Or invert it to Leeds-Grenville-Lanark South, kind of like Northumberland-Peterborough South.  (Which is a deceiving name, as the "Peterborough South" is P'boro *County*, not the city)

Algonquin Park isn't really developed at all. The only municipality in Nipissing District in the riding is South Algonquin, hence why I'd rather have Algonquin in the name than "Nipissing".

Northumberland-Peterborough South is also a dumb name. Not sure why they changed it from the originally planned "Northumberland-Pine Ridge". I suppose the "South" was needed to differentiate it from the city in someway. Not really a problem with Lanark (although there is a small village in the county also called Lanark).

Fixed

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

Here are the highlights:
- Lanark County kept intact, with South Frontenac (and Kingston north of the 401) moved to Leeds-Grenville
- Renfrew is now Upper Ottawa Valley
- New names includes Kanata and Barrhaven (if Orleans, then why not)

You need a name for the new Leeds-Grenville riding (Leeds-Grenville-Frontenac is the obvious choice).

Barrhaven doesn't work as a name, because a lot of the riding (everything north of Fallowfield) doesn't live in Barrhaven (Orleans is a bit different, as only about 10% live outside of Orleans). "Nepean South" would be a better name. Also, why just "Kanata". Most of the geographical part of the riding is outside of Kanata. Looks like most of the rural area is in what used to be Huntley Twp, so why not go with "Kanata-Huntley"?

Leeds--Grenville--South Frontenac it is.

The 15% of residents living north of Fallowfield Road can suck it up.  Barrhaven rules!  South Nepean drools!

Kanata residents comprise 80% of the population of Kanata riding.  That's close enough for government work.

If I were making rules for riding names, one of them would be that any part of the riding that makes up at least 10% of the riding's population should be represented in the riding's name. If that makes things messy, then the riding needs to adopt very broad, all-encompassing name.

Now that the election is finished, for a few months at least, we can get back to the important stuff.

On September 17, Statistics Canada released a new set of population projections:
Population projections: Canada, provinces and territories, 2018 to 2068 (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190917/dq190917b-eng.htm)

I plugged the numbers for 2021 into the seat allocation formula, and came up with these seat estimates for the next federal redistribution.

Projection scenario	NL	PE	NS	NB	QC	ON	MB	SK	AB	BC	YT	NT	NU	Canada
Current seats	7	4	11	10	78	121	14	14	34	42	1	1	1	338
LG: low-growth	7	4	11	10	77	122	14	14	38	43	1	1	1	343
M1: medium-growth	7	4	11	10	77	123	14	14	38	43	1	1	1	344
M2: medium-growth	7	4	11	10	77	123	14	14	38	43	1	1	1	344
M3: medium-growth	7	4	11	10	76	122	14	14	38	43	1	1	1	342
M4: medium-growth	7	4	11	10	76	122	14	14	38	43	1	1	1	342
M5: medium-growth	7	4	11	10	76	123	14	14	37	43	1	1	1	342
HG: high-growth	7	4	11	10	77	123	14	14	38	43	1	1	1	344
SA: slow-aging	7	4	11	10	77	123	14	14	38	43	1	1	1	344
FA: fast-aging	7	4	11	10	77	122	14	14	38	43	1	1	1	343

In all scenarios Quebec would lose at least one seat.  Here are the relevant sections (51, 51A) of the Constitution, if someone wishes to double-check.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-2.html#h-6 (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-2.html#h-6)

I think with the BQ has the balance of power there is no way they will let the government reduce the number of seats in Quebec. I mean, even the NDP was able to convince the Tories to give seats to Quebec in the last redistribution.

Guelph has hired a consultant (not me!) to redraw its ward boundaries this year.  It currently has six two-member wards.

Here is my first attempt at creating 12 single-member wards, using the 2016 Census figures as a guideline.


Proposed Guelph Ward Map (http://bit.ly/GuelphWards)


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Is it possible to get a Subject renamed?

This thread has become a catch-all for Canadian Redistribution - Federal, Provincial, Municipal.

I sent two messages to the Mods last fall, but have received no response.

Yes, just edit the subject line in the first post.

Bless you.

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 (https://engaged.edmonton.ca/wardreview). 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.

No appetite to increase council size? smh.

I think Calgary's wards are second only to Toronto's in terms of population size. Edmonton must not be far behind.

A few changes to Alberta and Ontario.

https://goo.gl/6UMkjz

Here are the highlights:

- Edmonton South includes recently annexed area
- area between Lacombe and Cochrane changed from north-south to east-west orientation

- Bradford added to SE Barrie and Innisfil
- Wasaga Beach and most of Springwater added to renamed Simcoe West
- SW Barrie added to renamed Barrie--Oro--Midhurst

not a big fan of that Barrie split.

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/

Quebec municipal elections are planned for November 2021. We aree in the period of time cities need to adopt by-laws for districts.

Montreal is proposing changes to the three districts in the Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles borough. The rest stays the same.
https://election-montreal.qc.ca/projetreglement/projet-reglement-districts.en.html (https://election-montreal.qc.ca/projetreglement/projet-reglement-districts.en.html)

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.

What's the historical reason behind Canadian cities having so few wards in comparison to the rest of the world?

Maybe it's just a general North American 'small government' thing. The US also has many ridiculously small city councils.

City council asks for Indigenous names to be chosen for Edmonton’s new ward boundaries (https://www.google.ca/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/7074046/city-council-indigenous-ward-names/amp/)

Twitter user ksituan northland (@kitsuan) created a map showing Ontario with 16 U.S. Congressional-sized districts (avg. pop. 840K).

https://twitter.com/ksituan/status/1274708051610660864?s=20

Here's my kick at the can: https://tinyurl.com/Ontario16CD (https://tinyurl.com/Ontario16CD)

(1)  I allowed for a 1% deviation from the average population.
(2)  Don't mind the names.

Trends are real (even in Canada): https://twitter.com/ksituan/status/1274818911439998976?s=20

But seriously, I find their scenario interesting because Canada would be simply added to the current US House, without increasing the number of representatives. Thus why Ontario has the same number of representatives as Ohio does in our timeline, while having around 3 million more people.

https://twitter.com/ksituan/status/1275071685738106883?s=20

I prefer Krago's can-kicking abiltiies to those of Ksituan Northland

Ottawa's ward boundary review options report is out. I had no idea they were taking feedback from public on this, and there was even a survey on it. >-( Oh well, plenty of time to participate going forward. Apparently, more people wanted to increase the size of council than decrease! I doubt Ford will let us get away with increasing council size. There are five options in the report, two status quo (23 wards), one  that decreases to 17 wards, and two that increase (24 and 25). All of the maps are terrible, gerrymandered monstrosities. I explained earlier in this thread how a 24 map would be best and how it would have the least affect on the current ward boundaries. Anyway, here is the report: https://app05.ottawa.ca/sirepub/cache/2/e2ekqhmi0gcwyjw3dsb022uv/64527106262020093259974.PDF

A bit off topic, but Ksituan also has a DeviantArt (https://www.deviantart.com/strathconabooster) with some cool stuff - a lot of it fictional, but RL maps of all Canadian things political as well.

Follow him on twitter! I love his stuff.

His map of Alberta truly is a work of art.

Here are some new Ottawa ward boundary proposals for those so interested.

https://www.tinyurl.com/Ottawa24 (https://www.tinyurl.com/Ottawa24)

The 24-ward option is the brainchild of Hatman; I take full blame for the 23- and 25-ward proposals.

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.

Cool idea. :) It's going to be fun for locals to try and pronounce some these, though. Especially Ward 10.

Guelph Council composition report recommends eight full-time councillors, one per ward (https://guelph.ca/2020/10/council-composition-report-recommends-eight-full-time-councillors-one-per-ward/)

I know what I'm doing this weekend.

What a catch-22. I oppose reducing the size of councils, but support having one councillor per ward.

General question on redistribution. I've been reading many people want to get out of city to go to suburbs or more rural place because there is more space for families when you have to stay home and now more people work from home so less need to be near downtown.

There is a census coming. Is it possible there is a population shift that could have some effects for the next redistribution? Or is the effect if it exists very small and doesn't matter. There is also less immigration and I think for federal purposes they take into account everyone even if not voters.

The next census is only next May. Do you think there's going to be a lot of people moving before then?

I don't know in absolute numbers, it could be a problem of supply and demand but prices for homes are going up. With the usual movement of people leaving Montreal for the greater region and maybe less immigration to replace those leaving and less university students needing to be near universities I was wondering if it will make a difference. Probably not enough in numbers.

Here are my six kicks at the can.

http://bit.ly/GuelphWards


And here is the exhaustive agenda for the special City Council meeting.  Rather than endorse eight single-member wards, Council asked the Consultants to prepare maps of different scenarios (2x6, 1x8, 1x10, 1x12).

https://pub-guelph.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=10087


https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/council-makes-decisions-on-its-future-make-up-2850227

https://www.guelphtoday.com/columns/market-squared-by-adam-a-donaldson/the-ouroboros-shaped-city-council-discussion-predictably-eats-itself-2857188

https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/have-your-say-about-how-guelph-votes-2862209

Decent job. I know how difficult dividing Guelph's south end is. I split it up nearly the exact same way when I made an 8 seat Wellington County map (from an ongoing project I'm doing of a 508 seat Ontario Legislative Assembly, maintaining county borders)

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Now that the BC election is over and the NDP won big - I wonder how long before the issue of redistribution comes up. Right now BC has a formula that is extremely generous to the depopulated interior and the BC Liberals likely got a bonus of 3 or 4 seats beyond what they should have had because they win a bunch of interior seats with extremely small populations (i.e. Peace River North, Peace River South, Nechako Lakes, the Cariboos etc...). Granted the NDP also has some "rotton boroughs" like North Coast and Stikine.

I wonder if the NDP will reduce the allowable deviation in riding populations and have a new map in time for the 2024 election that would likely add seats in the Lower Mainland and in southern Vancouver Island and subtract seats in the interior?

I'm reminded of when the NS NDP got rid of the protected franco ridings and the African riding, and people got upset. Not saying they lost the election because of that, but these kinds of things can be unpopular. Best to sneakily increase the size of the legislature by adding seats in the Lower Mainland.

I think the issue there was that ridings had been created specifically with the goal of ensuring representation of francophones and for Blacks...in BC the ridings with small populations are not designed to favour any minority group - they are just rural seats with too few people.

Final report from Ottawa's ward boundary review:

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I wonder what the odds are of Doug Ford rolling back any recommendations? :(

On Tuesday, the Consultants hired by the City of Guelph to review its ward boundaries released 13 proposed ward maps.  They also included a link to download the shapefile used to create the proposals.

https://www.haveyoursay.guelph.ca/council-composition


On Thursday, I released my (first) five alternatives.

Alternative Guelph Ward Maps (http://bit.ly/GuelphWards)


I'm going to be busy this weekend.

For what it's worth the second iteration of your 6 ward proposal was my favourite. In the 8 and 10 ward proposals the south of Guelph is a bit cumbersome.

I now have eight alternatives.  I rest my case.

Alternative Guelph Ward Maps (http://bit.ly/GuelphWards)

The Overbrook Community Association is appealing the new ward boundaries to the LPAT.

New ward boundary? OCA objects. (https://www.overbrook.ca/news/ener7dt2y9cne201ujoxm310bn6hgo)

Ward boundary changes appealed by community groups (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ward-boundary-changes-appealed-1.5952224)

It was rather dumb for them to suggest moving the boundary. Vanier may not exist as its own city any more, but it still exists as a neighbourhood, and its southern boundary hasn't changed as a result, even if it runs between houses.

https://bcebc.ca/

Preliminary report of the BC Commission, who proposes adding 6 seats (Burnaby, Kelowna, Langley, Surrey, Vancouver, South Vancouver Island).

Using Ridingbuilder, the results would be:

NDP 61 (+4)
Lib 30 (+2)
Grn 2

New NDP seats are Burnaby-New Westminster, Langley-Willoughby, Surrey Central, Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Vancouver-South Granville
The new Liberal seat is Kelowna Centre

NPD gain over Green in Cowichan Valley, Green gain over Liberal in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, Liberal gains over NDP in Vancouver-Yaletown (former Vancouver-False Creek) and Langley-Aldergrove (former Langley East).

The riding of New Westminster-Mallardville is very odd, What's that justification? it looks gerrymandered but why? Wouldn't it make more sense to have the boundary be either:
a) for Coquitlam, everything south of Hwy1 be in the riding (something like that) or
b) for Coquitlam, everything west of Blue Mountain St (something like that)

I like that Vancouver is finally getting a 12th riding, and still every seat is over quota. in the new Vancouver-Yaletown, even gaining polls from the former Van-Mount Pleasant/now Van-Strathcona, it does not help the NDP when the BCL vote is so strong in Yaletown itself. The split makes Van-South Granville safer for the NDP, but not sure a name change was warranted? Van-Fairview still works here no? Van-Langara looks more competitive for the NDP now too, pulling in NDP polls from Van-Kensington and a mix/ever split NDP/BCL from Van-Fraserview.

They look to be moving away from neighbourhood based names to direction based names: In Burnaby you have East replacing Lougheed, Centre replacing Deer Lake and South replacing Edmonds. I think that works here. But in Surrey you have a City Centre riding and then a Central riding, I find that a bit confusing. They could have easily named Surrey City Centre, Surrey Green Timbers.

Big changes to Kamloops as well; the urban-rural Kamloops South is now an all urban Kamloops Centre, no real help for the NDP though since their vote is concentrated north of the Shuswap. Kamloops North Thompson shrinks down considerably to the new Kamloops North Shuswap.

Yeah, I don't think at the end of the day they're going to have a riding called Surrey City Centre and Surrey Central. Way too confusing.

Maillardville claims to be the only Francophone community in BC (even if barely any of them still speak French), cutting it in two will cause problems and probably a "New Brunswick federal ridings 2004" style lawsuit.

Ah, so there is a community of interest, even if it is small. But I think the commission for some reason made this more difficult then it needed to be. I was able to keep Mallardville in Coquitlam, and still keep the quota for the two seats about the same.
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/GALLERY/7261_07_10_22_11_27_34.jpeg[/img]]() (http://[img width=760 height=456)

someone from BC can verify if that's accurate, but based on maps it looks to be.

I don't know exactly when the next Quebec provincial redistribution will be but I added some numbers following the provincial elections. The website of the director of elections claims there were 6 302 789 electors.

I added the number of electors from the riding results of every riding on the island of Montreal (27 ridings). I got 1 292 848 voters.

This represents 20.51% of all voters live on the island of Montreal. With 125 ridings in total, 20.51%  equals 25.63 ridings so Montreal is overrepresented. It will probaly lose 1 riding. It could lose two with projections showing Montreal growing slower than the provincial average and if they draw a map thinking more in the future but removing ridings is tricky, two might be too much.

The lowest population among the Montreal ridings is Viau (39,883). Pointe-aux-Trembles is at 40,527. In the east Anjou-Louis-Riel is 41,956 and Lafontaine 42,199.

The group of QS seats could be a target to remove a riding. Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (40,699), Sainte-Marie-Saint-Jacques (40,988), Mercier (43,387), Gouin (42,164), Laurier-Dorion (44,943). 

Law says the preliminary report is due by October 3rd, 2023.

Thanks for the info. The mandate of the director of elections has not been renewed yet even if he wanted to keep the job so maybe the government will name a new person first.