Talk Elections

Proposed new boundaries can be found here
http://www.bc-ebc.ca/

They have also created boundaries for an STV system if that option wins the next referendum there.

I like the new boundaries because Carole James' seat disappears. :D

Honestly Gabu, I don't understand why you like the most economically right wing government BC has ever had. But whatever. Carole James will find a seat to get re-elected in, no problem.

BC's doing fine, and I have had little complaints about most of what Campbell's government has been up to.  That and I must admit that I'm a little cynical about the BC NDP's commitment to workers after they passed a bill making it perfectly legal for high-tech companies to work their employees as much as they want without paying them a cent of overtime whatsoever.

Nasty straight-line splits in Fraser Valley. They should do concentric districts around Abbotsford and Langley instead of the proposed abominations.

I'm not a fan of the splitting of Kamloops, either; is it really so hard to put Kamloops in one district with the rural areas around it split up instead?

North Shore has some problems, too. Why not put all of West Vancouver and North Vancouver together in three districts and have the fourth cover Sea-to-Sky Country along with the rural areas currently in the proposed North Vancouver-Seymour?

Of course you wouldn't have any complaints, as you aren't affected by the Campbell government.


Well, to be fair one of those borders happens to be an actual boundary between Langley Township and Abbotsford.

The Northern ridings actually look sane for a change. How odd.

Yeah, they've put Prince George in one district which I like. Maybe it'll make it competitive.

Anyone know what the political impact of the boundary changes would be?

From what I hear, they hurt/help both parties equally. I haven't seen any redistributed results like they did here in Ontario.

My proposal for the Fraser Valley would be:

1. Maple Ridge, containing all of the city of Maple Ridge as well as Pitt Meadows and west to Hayward Lake, but containing none of Golden Ears and ending south of it.

2. Langley, containing the urban areas of Langley only.

3. Milner-Fort Langley, containing the rest of Langley Township

4. Aldergrove, more or less the same as current Abbotsford-Aldergrove

5. Abbotsford, containing the city of Abbotsford itself as well as Clearbrook, not too different from the current Abbotsford Centre but omitting the rural areas to the south

6. Chilliwack, containing the city of Chilliwack down to Vedder Crossing

7. Kent-Hope, the current Chilliwack-Hope district losing some of the north to #9 and all of urban Chilliwack to the new Chilliwack district while gaining the Cultus Lake area and the contiguous rural areas between Abbotsford and Chilliwack

8. Mission, containing all of Mission and along the northern shore of the Fraser River

9. ???, containing all of the rural areas in the current Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge-Mission and Mission-Clayburn

The STV boundaries on Vancouver Island are poorly conceived, too. They should only have two STV districts, with most of the current Mid-Island (save Cowichan-Goldstream) moved into North Island-Coast. 7 seats in Capital Region would be a lot, but not too many IMO.

Similarly, Northeast and Northwest should be combined into "North"; 2 seats are too few for STV districts, never mind the gargantuan geographic size. (They might then reduce the number of seats to 3 for the whole area, too, bringing them closer in line to representation elsewhere in the province.)

What bugs me most is how the northern districts have almost 40% too few people to justify their representation, under FPTP or STV. It should be simply proportional. Of course they did this to prevent whining from there, but it's one person one vote.

Anyway, you can see how Vancouver Island is a bit messed up (why parts of Langford are combined with the Cowichan Valley), and how part of the east coast is lumped in with Port Alberni. Then there's the aforementioned problem with the North Shore. Can't see any significant problem with anywhere else. The STV boundaries make sense, except for the hare-brained idea of lumping the Squamish Valley with the North Shore.


While some of the Liberals' actions have been fishy (like selling off BC Rail for $1 and creating a generation of jokes about CN crashes, their obsession with PPPs that will probably be despised in 20 years, and the 2010 planning), they've been fine. The NDP doesn't seem to address anything and they've been irrelevant to anything going on. Unless James does something other than simply reacting to what the Liberals do in the opposite way they'll go nowhere.

Google Earth animation showing historical boundaries (since 1966) (http://www.bc-ebc.ca/boundaries/maps/historical_maps)

Oh wow. Hadn't noticed that. Neat!

Kamloops has 80% of the population of the two districts.

Okay, so put the center of Kamloops in one district and the outer areas with the rural areas in another.

That's a terrible way of doing things; however I think that's what they did with Prince George. 

Why? It keeps areas with similar demographics together rather than splitting up rural areas and urban areas and making artificial districts that don't have any sort of uniting factor.

I'm just not a big fan of it. You have one little tiny district and one huge massive district instead of having 2 similar sized districts. However in some cases, your method is preferred if the people are being disinfranchised because they are over-represented by rural interests.

But why does geographic size matter? Trees don't vote. Mountains don't vote.

Oh I know. The basis of my argument is on aesthetics.  It's easier to divide a city in half then to slice some of it off.

If you want pretty districts, why not carve out districts in the shapes of hearts and flowers? :P

It looks like Kamloops has two centers.   Kamloops is at the junction of the North and South Thompson Rivers, with the Thompson River flowing to the west, the South Thompson flowing from the east, and the North Thompson entering at a right angle from the North.

North Kamloops is on the west bank of the North Thompson.  There is a bridge over the Thompson to the south, but it is rather on the western edge of the built-up area of Kamloops which is actually a bit further east along the South Thompson.  So you could end up with two central areas that aren't adjacent to one another in one district.  And then another district with less developed areas and then more rural areas attached.

In the case of Prince George they were able include the densely populated center in a single district.

haha Gabu. Everyone knows hearts dont fit together and neither do flowers really... Maybe we need to find Escher to help us out.

If the city is naturally divided, it only makes sense to use this natural division as a border.