Canadian Redistribution - Federal, Provincial, Municipal

[Njall]

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

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

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.

[Njall]

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

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.

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

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

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.

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

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 North Calgary split is, um...interesting 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.

[Njall]

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

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

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/

[Njall]

Names I don't like:

Calgary-Airport
Calgary/Edmonton East/West etc. They have 20+ ridings. Direction names don't work.

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.

[Njall]

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:

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?

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.

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. 

Lol.

[Njall]

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).

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.

[Njall]

I like it as well.

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

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.

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 I must be tired.

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

Here's one more alternative.

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.

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

The Final Report of the Alberta Commission is out.

[Njall]

I noticed yesterday that someone had tweeted out a link to a transposition of the Alberta 2015 results onto the new boundaries. 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.

[Njall]

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

Significantly or no?

[Njall]

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

I second the motion in favour of an Alberta map

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

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.