Canadian Redistribution - Federal, Provincial, Municipal

[DC Al Fine]

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

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.

[DC Al Fine]

How did you calculate the electors in each riding?

[DC Al Fine]

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.

[DC Al Fine]

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

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

[DC Al Fine]

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

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

True dat.

[DC Al Fine]

Names I don't like:

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

[DC Al Fine]

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

(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

[DC Al Fine]

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

[DC Al Fine]

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

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.

[DC Al Fine]

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

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.

[DC Al Fine]

DC is right, the Truro-Cole Harbour riding is awkward.

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.

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?

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.

[DC Al Fine]

DC is right, the Truro-Cole Harbour riding is awkward.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

[DC Al Fine]

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

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

[DC Al Fine]

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.

Regional Municipality unfortunately.

[DC Al Fine]

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.

The commission has already proposed a draft map. (PDF warning)

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?

[DC Al Fine]

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

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!

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

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.

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?

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.

[DC Al Fine]

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!

 
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.

[DC Al Fine]

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

[DC Al Fine]

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.

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