If Canada were in the United States and had congressional districts...

[136or142]

How would you draw the Congressional maps for each province?

You can come up with either non-partisan drawn lines, or partisan drawn lines.

(I think somebody may have posted this once before, can't remember.)

I'm most familiar with my own province of British Columbia, but I can't draw maps.

British Columbia presently has a population of 4.6 million, which means we'd have 6 House districts.

For non-partisan lines, I'd start with the basics:
1.Vancouver based district
2.Vancouver suburb based district,
3.Surrey based district,
4.Fraser Valley based district,
5.Interior district
6.Vancouver Island district

I know in the United States, each Congressional district in a state has to have virtually the exact same population, but I can't be that precise.

Vancouver Island had a 2009 population of 750,000, which is practically 1/6 of the population of British Columbia.  I suppose it can be argued whether Southern Vancouver Island has much in interest with Northern Vancouver Island, but, it's probably easiest to make it as a Congressional district.

Vancouver has a population of around 650,000, so I'd add about 100,000 from Burnaby to that.

Surrey has a population of around 500,000, so I'd add Delta (100,000) (Langley Township and Langley city 130000) along with White Rock (20,000) to that.

The Vancouver Suburbs (North/West Vancouver and area 200,000 Richmond area 200,000, Coquitlam and area 225,000, New Westminster 65,000, rest of Burnaby 125,000.)  this is too high by about 75,000, So I'd take part of the Coquitlam area and put it in with Fraser Valley area of Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Maple Ridge area and add in the Fraser Canyon.)

The remaining district is the Interior, North and Coast of the Province less the Fraser Canyon (Merit and area.)

[Strudelcutie4427]

Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, and Newfoundland each get 1 district. Manitoba would either get 1 or 2, so if its 2, Most of Winnipeg (pop 700K) would go into it leaving 1/7th of the city and the rest of the province in the other one. Not sure what we'd do about the territories since they each are basically large towns. Alberta should get 6, which I would say should be Calgary gets 2, Edmonton gets one, but half of the city gets lumped in with the suburbs for a 4th, then probably split the rest of the province to get the other two. Im not even gonna try Ontario and Quebec

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Where is a basemap one could use?

[Former President tack50]

Where is a basemap one could use?

I guess you could take a standard canadian election map and just join ridings together? Or alternatively take a county map of each province (or whatever subdivision Canadian provinces use) and do it as usual.

[Former President tack50]

Here's a quick map I did for Ontario, just by joining provincial districts. Apparently 1 district there has 100k people so it's just a matter of grouping them in groups of 7.

However the deviations are a lot higher than in their US counterparts and 107 is not divisible by 7 so there are 4 districts made of 8 pieces.

So while it would never work in the US I guess it could give us a rough idea.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Allotment:
Each of the Territories gets a non-voting delegate.
Alberta gets 5
British Columbia gets 6
Saskatchewan and Manitoba get 2 each
each province in Atlantic Canada (PE, NS, NL, NB) gets one each
Ontario gets 19
Quebec gets 12
total: 51

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

[136or142]

Thanks.  They need names, like is used in Canada

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

From east to west
Labrador and Newfoundland
Prince Edward Island
Nova Scotia
New Brunswick
Gaspe
Ville De Quebec
Nord-du-Québec
Bellechasse
Shawinigan
Richelieu
Laval-Montcalm
Montréal-Nord
Montréal-Sud
Longueuil
Sherbrooke-Saint Laurent
Gatineau-Pontiac
Ottawa East-Glengarry
Ottawa West
Kawartha Lakes-Nipissing
Kingston and the Islands
Durham
York East
York West-Mississauga North
Mississauga East
Mississauga South-Halton
Hamilton
Etobicoke
Scarborough
North York
Old Toronto
Simcoe-Bruce
Waterloo-Wellington
Niagara
Windsor-Elgin
Sudbury-Kiiwetinoong
Nunavut
Churchill—Keewatinook Aski-Brandon
Northwest Territories
Regina-Saskatoon
Prince Albert-Kiwetin
Fort McMurray-Banff-Calgary North
Edmonton North
Edmonton South
Medicine Hat-Lethbridge
Calgary Central
Calgary South
Yukon
Skeena-Prince George-Sunshine Coast
Kelowna-Kootenay
Fraser Valley-Langley
North Vancouver-Coquitlam
Vancouver
Surrey-Richmond
Victoria

[136or142]

From east to west
Skeena-Prince George-Sunshine Coast
Kelowna-Kootenay
Fraser Valley-Langley
North Vancouver-Coquitlam
Vancouver
Surrey-Richmond

You're missing Vancouver Island. It makes sense that you're missing it, because the first three districts are too small in population.  A minor oversight.  The districts could be rejigged as North and part of the Interior and Fraser Valley and part of the Interior (from the Fraser Canyon out - the provincial riding of Fraser-Nicola (formerly Yale-Lillooet) .) Vancouver Island would be its own district.

Anyway, nothing that you've done wrong with these districts, but they wouldn't be popular.  Of course, that's the way it would have to be because as is the case with many of the U.S districts, whether gerrymandered or not: they're just too big and it's hard to keep to 'communities of interest.'

This is clearly seen in how the geography of the U.S House districts often plays a role in the primaries (what part of the district the candidate is from).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

From east to west
Skeena-Prince George-Sunshine Coast
Kelowna-Kootenay
Fraser Valley-Langley
North Vancouver-Coquitlam
Vancouver
Surrey-Richmond

You're missing Vancouver Island. It makes sense that you're missing it, because the first three districts are too small in population.  A minor oversight.  The districts could be rejigged as North and part of the Interior and Fraser Valley and part of the Interior (from the Fraser Canyon out - the provincial riding of Fraser-Nicola (formerly Yale-Lillooet) .) Vancouver Island would be its own district.

Anyway, nothing that you've done wrong with these districts, but they wouldn't be popular.  Of course, that's the way it would have to be because as is the case with many of the U.S districts, whether gerrymandered or not: they're just too big and it's hard to keep to 'communities of interest.'

This is clearly seen in how the geography of the U.S House districts often plays a role in the primaries (what part of the district the candidate is from).

Vancouver Island being its own seat was scrapped for two reasons. 1, my template was of census divisions, of which two cross into the Island; 2, Vancouver Island is too big for one seat.
I calculated seat count by divided the provinces' 2016 population by 700,000. Then I rounded to the nearest integer, unless that number is 0.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

4,648,055 (BC population in 2016 census)/700,000=6.64
That rounds up to 7.
4,648,055/7=664,007
Vancouver Island had 775,347 as of 2016. That's 116.8% over quota.

[136or142]

I've been too busy to look over the other provinces.  Sorry. I appreciate the effort very much. I will do so.

British Columbia is now up to nearly 5 million people, so that should give us 7 Congressional districts.

[Oryxslayer]

If anyone wishes to play with it, the 2014 poll shapefile offered on Elections Ontario has registered voter data attached poll-by-poll. Registered voters are a percentage of the total pop, so you can make your own pseudo-DRA in QGIS with this file after finding the correct ratio for the year of the file. Quebec also does this, but the official shapefile is a little borked and needs to be cleaned to get the polls to merge into districts. You can further download similar files for British Columbia, but the registered voters data needs to be cleaned, sorted, and then attached to the shapefile as a csv for use. The rest well...you have poll maps, but now data.

I had to mess with Canadian shapefiles a little bit ago for an Alternate history project, and made my own districts. This is basically a recollection of my time working with the files.

[Calthrina950]

From east to west
Skeena-Prince George-Sunshine Coast
Kelowna-Kootenay
Fraser Valley-Langley
North Vancouver-Coquitlam
Vancouver
Surrey-Richmond

You're missing Vancouver Island. It makes sense that you're missing it, because the first three districts are too small in population.  A minor oversight.  The districts could be rejigged as North and part of the Interior and Fraser Valley and part of the Interior (from the Fraser Canyon out - the provincial riding of Fraser-Nicola (formerly Yale-Lillooet) .) Vancouver Island would be its own district.

Anyway, nothing that you've done wrong with these districts, but they wouldn't be popular.  Of course, that's the way it would have to be because as is the case with many of the U.S districts, whether gerrymandered or not: they're just too big and it's hard to keep to 'communities of interest.'

This is clearly seen in how the geography of the U.S House districts often plays a role in the primaries (what part of the district the candidate is from).

Vancouver Island being its own seat was scrapped for two reasons. 1, my template was of census divisions, of which two cross into the Island; 2, Vancouver Island is too big for one seat.
I calculated seat count by divided the provinces' 2016 population by 700,000. Then I rounded to the nearest integer, unless that number is 0.

Very good work with the map. I wonder which party would be favored in which districts, and which ones would be tossups.

[DC Al Fine]

From east to west
Skeena-Prince George-Sunshine Coast
Kelowna-Kootenay
Fraser Valley-Langley
North Vancouver-Coquitlam
Vancouver
Surrey-Richmond

You're missing Vancouver Island. It makes sense that you're missing it, because the first three districts are too small in population.  A minor oversight.  The districts could be rejigged as North and part of the Interior and Fraser Valley and part of the Interior (from the Fraser Canyon out - the provincial riding of Fraser-Nicola (formerly Yale-Lillooet) .) Vancouver Island would be its own district.

Anyway, nothing that you've done wrong with these districts, but they wouldn't be popular.  Of course, that's the way it would have to be because as is the case with many of the U.S districts, whether gerrymandered or not: they're just too big and it's hard to keep to 'communities of interest.'

This is clearly seen in how the geography of the U.S House districts often plays a role in the primaries (what part of the district the candidate is from).

Vancouver Island being its own seat was scrapped for two reasons. 1, my template was of census divisions, of which two cross into the Island; 2, Vancouver Island is too big for one seat.
I calculated seat count by divided the provinces' 2016 population by 700,000. Then I rounded to the nearest integer, unless that number is 0.

Very good work with the map. I wonder which party would be favored in which districts, and which ones would be tossups.

They'd all be Dem if you assumed Canada became American today. If Canada was historically American I imagine the GOP would win where the Tories do now more or less... Oh and the Quebec separatists might still be going strong.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

From east to west
Skeena-Prince George-Sunshine Coast
Kelowna-Kootenay
Fraser Valley-Langley
North Vancouver-Coquitlam
Vancouver
Surrey-Richmond

You're missing Vancouver Island. It makes sense that you're missing it, because the first three districts are too small in population.  A minor oversight.  The districts could be rejigged as North and part of the Interior and Fraser Valley and part of the Interior (from the Fraser Canyon out - the provincial riding of Fraser-Nicola (formerly Yale-Lillooet) .) Vancouver Island would be its own district.

Anyway, nothing that you've done wrong with these districts, but they wouldn't be popular.  Of course, that's the way it would have to be because as is the case with many of the U.S districts, whether gerrymandered or not: they're just too big and it's hard to keep to 'communities of interest.'

This is clearly seen in how the geography of the U.S House districts often plays a role in the primaries (what part of the district the candidate is from).

Vancouver Island being its own seat was scrapped for two reasons. 1, my template was of census divisions, of which two cross into the Island; 2, Vancouver Island is too big for one seat.
I calculated seat count by divided the provinces' 2016 population by 700,000. Then I rounded to the nearest integer, unless that number is 0.

Very good work with the map. I wonder which party would be favored in which districts, and which ones would be tossups.

They'd all be Dem if you assumed Canada became American today. If Canada was historically American I imagine the GOP would win where the Tories do now more or less... Oh and the Quebec separatists might still be going strong.

I don't know if Quebec separatism would still be a thing if the US took over Canada early on. There would be vast swathes of English speaking Americans flooding into Quebec and subsuming it's French language and culture over the decades.

[DC Al Fine]

From east to west
Skeena-Prince George-Sunshine Coast
Kelowna-Kootenay
Fraser Valley-Langley
North Vancouver-Coquitlam
Vancouver
Surrey-Richmond

You're missing Vancouver Island. It makes sense that you're missing it, because the first three districts are too small in population.  A minor oversight.  The districts could be rejigged as North and part of the Interior and Fraser Valley and part of the Interior (from the Fraser Canyon out - the provincial riding of Fraser-Nicola (formerly Yale-Lillooet) .) Vancouver Island would be its own district.

Anyway, nothing that you've done wrong with these districts, but they wouldn't be popular.  Of course, that's the way it would have to be because as is the case with many of the U.S districts, whether gerrymandered or not: they're just too big and it's hard to keep to 'communities of interest.'

This is clearly seen in how the geography of the U.S House districts often plays a role in the primaries (what part of the district the candidate is from).

Vancouver Island being its own seat was scrapped for two reasons. 1, my template was of census divisions, of which two cross into the Island; 2, Vancouver Island is too big for one seat.
I calculated seat count by divided the provinces' 2016 population by 700,000. Then I rounded to the nearest integer, unless that number is 0.

Very good work with the map. I wonder which party would be favored in which districts, and which ones would be tossups.

They'd all be Dem if you assumed Canada became American today. If Canada was historically American I imagine the GOP would win where the Tories do now more or less... Oh and the Quebec separatists might still be going strong.

I don't know if Quebec separatism would still be a thing if the US took over Canada early on. There would be vast swathes of English speaking Americans flooding into Quebec and subsuming it's French language and culture over the decades.

Yeah you're probably right there.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Quebec would probably be a French version of Texas.

[Calthrina950]

Quebec would probably be a French version of Texas.

What do you mean by this?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Quebec would probably be a French version of Texas.

What do you mean by this?

In Texas, you've got a clear tinge of Latino culture, despite the fact English is the most spoken language in the state.
In Quebec, you'd have something similar only with French taking the role of Spanish and Latin culture in general.

[Hatman 🍁]

Fun idea. I did something like this on this site like 12 years ago.

If anyone wants to do Canadian redistricting, you might want to use StatCan's geosearch application: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/geo/geosearch-georecherche/index-eng.cfm

[the506]

For what it's worth, I'm in the very early stages of developing a DRA-like app for Canada (only this one would work on most browsers) which would go up on election-atlas.ca. No idea when it will be ready.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

For what it's worth, I'm in the very early stages of developing a DRA-like app for Canada (only this one would work on most browsers) which would go up on election-atlas.ca. No idea when it will be ready.

cool!

[Antonio the Sixth]

For what it's worth, I'm in the very early stages of developing a DRA-like app for Canada (only this one would work on most browsers) which would go up on election-atlas.ca. No idea when it will be ready.

That would help me immensely. Thanks so much!

(PS: will it have past census data, or just the most recent one?)