Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts 2012

[minionofmidas]

I understand the number of ridings were based on 2011 population estimates, not the 2011 Census Data as before.

Using Census Data
Ontario wil get 116 seats not 121
Alberta 33 not 34
BC 40 not 41
Quebec and the other provinces will remain the same.

1st Column Census Number, 2nd Column 2011 Estimates

Newfoundland and Labrador   514,536   510,578
Prince Edward Island    140,204   145,855
Nova Scotia       921,727   945,437
New Brunswick   751,171   755,455
Quebec †   7,903,001   7,979,663
Ontario †   12,851,821   13,372,996
Manitoba †   1,208,268   1,250,574
Saskatchewan †   1,033,381   1,057,884
Alberta †   3,645,257   3,779,353
British Columbia †   4,400,057   4,573,321

So they overestimated Canada's population bigtime? What, not taking the possibility that some immigrants leave again quickly into account? Or...

And surely, the weird two-different-data-sets thing is because the formula was decided on with both eyes fixed firmly on its results, ie they decided a number of seats per province and then found a formula that fit. Needed to rule out surprises from the census.

[minionofmidas]

Smid, nice map. Shame that it can't take into account the political decisions to keep some intra-province areas overrepresented... Though I suppose you could do a Newfie-sans-Labrador average... but with Ontario you get the questions of will they continue to have 10 seats in the north? Or reduce to nine? Or keep at ten but fiddle with the southern boundary?

[minionofmidas]

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Naming ridings for people who are, or should be, famous is a Quebec thing, not found elsewhere.

Australia wants a word with you.

[minionofmidas]

Australia wants a word with you.

There's also Islwyn in South Wales, arguably anyway.

No. (Well, yes, it's there. But it's named for the hill and ancient parish, and later urban district though that covered a much smaller area. Not for the poet who also styled himself after the hill.)

Leverkusen and Telford, not to mention all the diverse St Albans and Saint-Denis etc pp have a much better claim if you count that. At least the cities are named for the people rather than the other way round.

[minionofmidas]

Given that the commission is clearly trolling us, I feel like seriously proposing the name 'Justin-Bieber' for the new Perth-Wellington riding.

And Prince Edward-Hastings to be renamed Avril-Lavigne?

[minionofmidas]

Of course, Wilf Carter needs to get two ridings. One in Alberta which he's associated with and one in Nova Scotia where he was actually born and spent his childhood.

[minionofmidas]

On the subject of naming ridings after people, 'Mordecai-Richler' would make a great constituency name...

...for whatever includes the former Ghetto nowadays.

[minionofmidas]

That Haliburton-Uxbridge subrural thing looks very odd.

Also, what's with the donut around Hamilton?

[minionofmidas]

Each commission finalizes its report on the new electoral districts no later than December 21, 2012. The CEO may grant a two-month extension if requested. (section 20).

To come: Ontario, Quebec, BC, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick. Any bets?

Well, they haven't looked to keen on extension. Maybe so close to the deadline and now the public hearings are done, they can give an extension (for example to complete the translation). If not, the next three days will be busy for reports!

Or some will deposit late, like Quebec last time.

So have there been extensions or are they just all reporting late?

[minionofmidas]

Reading through the NB report... how many redistributions til they're forced (assuming a stable overall number of seats) to abolish one rural riding and create Moncton West - Riverview and Moncton East - Dieppe? It looks like, though obviously stepping on many people's toes, that would have been the clean and logical thing to do even now, and would probably have happened if Canada used a smaller tolerance.

[minionofmidas]

I'm not sure if splitting Moncton would be necessary. Eventually the city will have the same population as the quota (if it doesn't already have that) and at that point it will be one riding in itself while Beausejour takes in both Riverview and Dieppe. Maybe at that point they will extend Miramichi further down the coast to compensate. 

Well at current half of Dieppe is in Beausejour and half of Riverview is in Fundy, basically. Which basically means that little, uh, "metro area" (Americans WOULD call it one!) is split between three seats.
I've no idea about the distribution of the francophone population, apart from the obvious that it's highest in Dieppe. If Moncton has heavily Francophone parts and they're anywhere near Dieppe then... OTOH if Riverview too is actually more Franco than Moncton then your proposal makes more sense.

[minionofmidas]

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

[minionofmidas]

Part of downtown St. John's had been transferred from St. John's South-Mount Pearl to St. John's East in the Report of the NewLab Commission.  MPs Ryan Cleary and Jack Harris went before the House of Commons committee and politely asked for it to be moved back.  Instead, the Commission split the area, and returned a narrow strip of land below Water Street to SJSMP, but left 92% of the residents of the affected area in SJE.

Lol, what is the point of that?

[minionofmidas]

The actual problem with MMP is how it takes representation away from low-turnout areas (the bigger and more diverse the constituency, the bigger the problem, with national pr of course worst in that respect).

[minionofmidas]

It obviously depends how big you make the constituencies. Thing is, the smaller you make them, the odder and more random the seat distributions can be.

[minionofmidas]

With the regions just being based on the EP constituencies as existed then, because they were there and the right size already, and redrawn as marginally as possible since.