More Electoral Maps

Oh, dear. All that work, and now it's to be 119 ridings? Is the Krago Commission going to revise its report now, or wait for the bill? And then wait for the final census figures? But that's a tight time-frame: Publication of census data February 8, 2012 Allocation of seats February 9, 2012 Establishment of commissions No later than April 8, 2012 http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=cir/red/over&docume...

It may be only two new seats; anyway, the biggest growth area is the Montreal suburbs. The Outaouais is also a growth area. Maybe the riding that straddles the edge of it (Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel) will become entirely within the Outaouais. The real problem will be, how many seats do the no-growth areas lose (Centre-du-Quebec, Chaudière-Appalaches, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Gaspésie.) Maybe three? and five new ones for the growth areas?

^^ I have a hard time with any province that will be adding seats to take away rural/northern seats.  Just because an area isn't growing (but isn't losing population either) doesn't mean it should lose representation, IMO.  Just because the areas happen to be in provinces where other areas in that same are growing rapidly.  I mean any of the Maritime provinces would not lose seats to be put it Montreal or Ontario, so why should Northern Ontario or Rural Quebec.

While waiting for Krago, here's a start.

Now that we know Ontario will have 121 ridings, we can have another look at boundaries.

I will try to follow districts and counties as much as possible, and District School Boards such as the Near North Board (Parry Sound – Nipissing).

We have some handy 2011 population estimates by districts and counties from the Ontario government:

http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/demographics/projections/table6.html

The North, which now has nine seats north of the French River, but adding Parry Sound, deserves 7.18 seats by population, due to stagnant population numbers and actual declines in Rainy River, Timiskaming and Cochrane. I am assuming they will keep nine by adding Parry Sound, with average populations 80.96% of the Ontario 2011 quotient. In southern Ontario, I am assuming no greater than 10% deviation from the southern Ontario quotient of about 112,191.

Here’s what I find:

Ottawa – Prescott & Russell 9

Renfrew 1

Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry 1

Leeds & Grenville 1

Kingston-Frontenac-Lanark 2

Hastings-Prince Edward - Lennox & Addington 2

Peterborough 1

Northumberland—Peterborough 1

Kawartha Lakes—Haliburton 1

York-Durham 15

(includes a Durham North—Georgina alignment)

Simcoe-Muskoka-Dufferin (excluding North Dufferin) 5

(includes a South Simcoe—Dufferin alignment)

Grey — North Dufferin 1

Bruce-Huron-Perth 2

Toronto 24

Peel 12

Guelph-Wellington 2

Halton-Hamilton 9

Niagara Region 4

(Niagara Falls -– Fort Erie, St. Catharines—Niagara-on-the-Lake, Niagara Centre (includes Pelham and Wainfleet), St. Catharines -- Lincoln (include 31% of St. Catharines)

Haldimand-Norfolk 1

Waterloo-Brant 6

(includes a Waterloo South-Brant North alignment)

Oxford 1

London-Middlesex-Elgin 5

(London 3, Elgin--Middlesex: Elgin + Southwest Middlesex and reserves + 2% of London; Middlesex--London: most of Middlesex and 11% of London)

Windsor-Essex - Chatham-Kent – Lambton 6

(Windsor 2, Lakeshore-Tecumseh-Lasalle-Amherstburg 1; Essex – West Kent 1; Chatham-Kent—Lambton includes 72% of Chatham-Kent plus Petrolia, Oil Springs, Enniskillen, Dawn-Euphemia, Brooke-Alvinston, and Warwick; Sarnia—Lambton 1)

Parry Sound-Nipissing

Timiskaming-Nickel Belt

Cochrane

Sudbury

Sudbury-Algoma-Manitoulin (includes Bruce Mines)

Sault Ste. Marie (includes Michipicoten (Wawa))

Thunder Bay – Superior (includes White River and Hornepayne)

Thunder Bay – Fort Frances

Kenora – West Rainy River

15 more MPs: Peel 3.5, York 3, Toronto 1.5, Durham 1, Halton-Hamilton 1, Niagara 0.5, Waterloo 1, Simcoe 0.5, London-Windsor 1, Ottawa 1, Kingston–Peterborough 1

I've had a preliminary look, using Quebec's 2010 figures for their 17 Administrative Regions which are the first thing any new Commission should look at, and the electoral quotient of 102,303. Montreal and suburbs likely get four more.

http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat/societe/demographie/dons_regnl/region...

Other than the metro Montreal growth area, most of the regions should be pretty unchanged betwen 2010 and 2011.

I don't see as much problem dealing with low-growth areas as I expected. The biggest is Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean which has 2.67 electoral quotients. To keep its three seats, as I have no doubt it will, means an average deviation of 11.1%, hardly extreme. And then there's Maurice—Centre-du-Quebec with 4.84 electoral quotients, where five seats means an average deviation of only 3.3%.

Nord-du-Québec, with 0.416 quotients, is entitled to special consideration. However, it and Abitibi-Témiscamingue, which now has 1.426 quotients, now share two seats, for an average deviation of only 8.1%. No problem.

Manicouagan can claim special consideration. However, the Côte-Nord region has enough people for one seat, with a deviation of only 6.6%. That means adding the 12,000 people of the compact municipality of La Haute Côte-Nord to Manicouagan, but the result is to put the whole Côte-Nord into one riding, a good thing to do.

Îles-de-la-Madeleine can claim special consideration. However, it is already part of Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine riding. To make that riding match Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine region means adding the 12,000 people of La Haute-Gaspésie, again a good thing to do, making a riding 8.3% below quotient. Still, the Bas-Saint-Laurent-Gaspésie regions lose a half a seat.

Bas-Saint-Laurent should have two seats with a deviation of only 1.6% below quotient. Guy Caron will not be happy since the city of Rimouski ends up in Rimouski-Matane-Matapédia-La Mitis where he has to run against the young Bloc star Jean-François Fortin, while the rest of Rimouski county is in Rivière-du-Loup—Kamouraska—Témiscouata—Rimouski where François Lapointe will likely expect to seek re-election.

This assumes that, in the four Chaudière-Appalaches ridings (3.98 quotients), minister Steven Blaney will run in Bellechasse—Montmagny—L'Islet, minister Christian Paradis in Les Appalaches—Lotbinière—Lévis, Jacques Gourde in Lévis (an NDP target riding), and (of course) reborn minister Maxime Bernier in Beauce.

The Capitale-Nationale region will rate seven seats, as it now has.

In Mauricie—Centre-du-Quebec which rates about 4.84 ridings and now has 5.03, Shawinigan—Maskinongé—Mekinac—La Tuque is a little above quotient, Trois-Rivières—Les Chenaux and Trois-Rivières—Becancour—Nicolet are each about 3% below quotient, Drummond is 4% below quotient, and Arthabasca—L'Érable (with a Bloc MP) is 9% below.

Estrie rates 3 ridings, each an average of 1% over quotient: Sherbrooke-nord, Sherbrooke-Magog, and Estrie—Saint-François.

Jumping over to the Outaouais, it rates 3.6 ridings, up from 3.2 ridings today. Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel becomes Argenteuil—Papineau—Gatineau-est.

So now we come to the new seats: Laurentides—Lanaudière (excluding Argenteuil) rates 9.7 seats, Laval 4. Vaudreuil-Soulanges is growing so fast (the second-largest riding in Quebec, by voters on the list) it needs to shift Île-Perrot to Montreal giving Montreal 19.4, and Montérégie about 14. However, due to some of the lower density seats, I have only 46 left, about one short (not bad). Montreal (including Île-Perrot) 19 (up 1), Montérégie 14 (up from 13.2 today), Laval 4 (up one-half), Laurentides—Lanaudière 9 (up from 7.5 today), the biggest winner (Montcalm is the largest riding in Quebec.)

I know you're being snarky; but Poll 2 had 26 votes, Poll 3 had 27, and...well, all in all on L'Île-Bizard on E-day by my calculation, the Bloc got 690 votes and 11.6%, which was well above the just-under-5% it got riding-wide...

Pierrefonds-Dollard was a big upset, as were a couple of the other Liberal strongholds that went NDP (eg. Notre Dame De Grace-Lachine, LaSalle-Emard etc.).

The question is, will these ridings on West Island stay NDP or will they go back to their Liberal roots?  They have large anglophone and federalist populations.  Do these NDP MP's intend to oppose the NDP's pro-Bill 101 and anti-Clarity Act policies?  Because if they don't, they leave themselves vulnerable to defeat next time around.

Closing for length.