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So, if one of the 3 new ridings in Quebec is in the Gatineau area, are the other two in suburban Montreal?
The real problem with Anne-Hébert is, it isn't anywhere: 65,572 people in the Quebec City Region in the present Portneuf riding, and 35,018 residents of the Mauricie region including part of the City of Trois-Rivières, parts of the two present ridings of Saint-Maurice--Champlain and Trois-Rivières. "Given that the most populated part of the district lies all along Royal Road, choosing a representative place name appeared to be a delicate matter." No kidding. "The name "Anne-Hébert," in memory of a famous writer who was born in this electoral district, seemed most appropriate."
Any ideas where Andre Arthur's support might go, since I thought I read somewhere he's indicated that he will not try to win the seat back?
Arthur was the de facto Conservative candidate in Portneuf. He voted with the Tories 100% of the time and they ran no candidate against him since he is an Conservative in all but name. His votes = Conservative votes.
quick points: arthur was a clown and he's done, he was on his way out no matter what, the ndp wave masked a massive rejection of an unpopular mp. laurier-sainte marie will no longer exist if the coming recommendations are adopted, and anyway, it was a named for toponymy (describing the boundaries of the district) than the great wilfred laurier and saint mary. nowadays, many quebec riding names are confusing and unique (!) for bearing little relationship to geography, no matter how interesting they may be, but there was a reason for it before. like i'm actually supportive of a marc-aurèle fortin or alfred pellan riding as long as it's in the montérégie or laval, where there's so little history of large-scale human settlement, and that was sort of the point, at least to my mind. give these places an identity. but this is way out of control. like westmount-ndg becomes wilder-penfield?? that's nuts. ahuntsic is named for the rocket? i could even see in a couple decades, if it sticks, people calling the area maurice-richard district... it's sort of appalling. i suppose it's all of only marginal importance, but in principle names really do matter, especially in quebec, and no coincidence that it's the belle province where riding names have come so detached from geography, so as to speak to social values and to canonize a certain, consensus-derived group of heros of the modern state.
They took away a riding from the Bas-Saint-Laurent--Gaspésie, so there are four "new" ridings. One is on the Island of Montreal.
They say there are two new ridings "in Montréal's northern rim" but really the Outaouais had three ridings and part (Papineau) of a fourth (Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel, 23% over quotient). So now the new La Chute has had Papineau shaved off it, and includes Argenteuil, Mirabel, and the same parts of Deux-Montagnes that were in Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel. Also, they took 42,661 residents (0.42 quotient) of Laurentides--Labelle (which was 9.9% over quotient) to help make the fourth Outaouais riding. The new Laurentides in turn takes 20,254 residents from Rivière-du-Nord (which was 14% over quotient), and another 5,934 from Montcalm (which was 42% over quotient). So Rivière-du-Nord (renamed Curé-Labelle) in turn takes 14,535 from Terrebonne-Blainville (which was 20% over quotient).
So what else happened in the Northern Rim? Repentigny was 18% over quotient. Rivière-des-Mille-Îles was only 3% over, but Laval got another half riding so the North Shore had to find a home for the north half of the old Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. The old Rivière-des-Mille-Îles is renamed Paul--Sauvé while we get a new riding of Mille-Îles. (Are you confused yet?) The rest of Terrebonne-Blainville becomes Terrebonne, and Repentigny becomes Pierre-Legardeur (Pierre Legardeur de Repentigny was Coseigneur of Repentigny in 1715.)
So the two new ridings are actually half a riding in Laval, half a riding in the Outaouais, and Mille-Îles which takes in 0.53 quotients from Terrebonne-Blainville and another 0.55 quotients from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin.
The new south shore riding seems to me to be Lignery, which includes 0.48 quotient from Brossard - La Prairie (which was 26% over quotient) and 0.51 quotient from Châteauguay - Saint-Constant (which was 12% over quotient).
Hard to say, but the four new ridings are all in areas that went solidly NDP last year. The merging of the two ridings on the Gaspe peninsula probably on paper means an NDP loss against the BQ - but in reality, I suspect that Philip Toone of the NDP would pretty heavily favoured over Fortin from the BQ.
But where is Montreal's "new" riding? Is George-Étienne-Cartier the "new" riding? It looks Liberal.
If you consider it's Ville-Marie, parts of Jeanne-Le Ber, Laurier--Sainte-Marie, and Westmount--Ville Marie, that looks good. But Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine has been so chopped up I don't know where it went. The seven ridings of Mount Royal, Westmount-Ville Marie, Notre Dame de Grace-Lachine, Jean Le Ber, LaSalle-Emard, Outremont, and Laurier-Sainte Marie now roughly correspond to John-Peters-Humphrey, Lachine-Lasalle, Outremont, Verdun, Wilder-Penfield, Ville Marie and Plateau-Mile End - still seven seats, with a couple of bits shaved off, and then radically redrawn. It's difficult to say precisely which of the new seats replaces which of the old (except in some obvious cases, such as Outremont and Verdun, and Mont Royal -> JPH), but none-the-less, it's seven seats becoming seven seats.
And the present Brossard--LaPrairie (well over quotient) had a strong Liberal campaign, and the Liberal strength was in Brossard. It is now a riding of its own, with some NDP polls from Saint-Bruno--Saint-Hubert. I'd want to check the votes in the new Urbain-Brossard. It would certainly be closer.
It is a little baffling trying to figure out the effect of the new Montreal riding boundaries but here is my preliminary assessment.
The island of Montreal grows from 18 ridings ( 10 NDP, 7 Lib, 1 Bloq) to 19.
Most correspond roughly with existing ridings. The two exceptions are the new Jacques Cartier and Ville Marie. NDG-Lachne is carved up so minutely that it is effectively eliminated.
Of the two new ridings, Ville Marie should be safely NDP. Cartier would be close bewteen the Liberals and the NDP with the Liberals likely ahead. Ahuntsic, the only Bloq seat, becomes largely Maurice Richard which adds enough NDP polls to become an NDP gain.
So I think the 19 new Montreal seats would have divided 11 NDP (- NDG, + Ville Marie and Richard), 8 Liberals (=Cartier) - a gain of one each.
Overall it is good for the Liberals who not only gain one seat but, as I have posted above, shore up their two most vulnerable ridings of Westmount etc and Lac St Louis.
I have done some preliminary counting of the polls in Paineau which loses some heavily Liberal polls in its west end and gains some NDP polls elsewhere. Justin Trudeau's majority over the NDP is reduced by about 1000 votes and his margin from about 10% to 7%. With a big Bloq vote to squeeze, as Stockholm has noted he may be vulnerable.
The other Liberal seats, Cartier excluded, seem fairly secure.
I was under the impression that Papineau had barely changed at all.
ouch: N.D.G. disintegrated? that is really the heart of moderate middle-class Anglodom, and it needs to be NDP
in better news, imagine the headlines: NDP scores in Maurice Richard !
also, letters in The Gazette today complained about the ham-handed split of Dollard des Ormeaux into 2 ridings without political coherence ...
I have now had a look at the actual maps:
wow, N.D.G. kaputt, vive Wilder-Penfield!
a whole new world ...
http://www.redecoupage-federal-redistribution.ca/map/pwt/pwt.html?lang=f...
http://www.redecoupage-federal-redistribution.ca/content.asp?section=qc&...
You know in the old map, one third of NDG was in Westmount-Ville Marie and two thirds were in NDG-Lachine. Now at least all of NDG is in one riding and to be perfectly frank, it makes a lot more sense to have one riding that simply all of NDG plus all of Westmount (i.e. Wilder Penfield) than to have the old crazy Westmount-VM riding that was a dog's breakfast of a chunk of NDG, the City of Westmount and all of downtown Montreal right to St. Laurent and including the McGill ghetto.
The NDP didn't actually do all that well in the NDG part of NDG-Lachine. They won by sweeping Lachine.
That being said, if the proposed Wilder Penfield riding survives, I still think the NDP could win it - but it would take a high profile anglophone candidate with some sort of personal following. Someone who could sweep NDG and make a credible showing in Westmount. It would also help if Marc Garneau decided to pack it in. The NDP MP for NDG-Lachine Isabelle Morin may not want to run in Wilder Penfield and may want to instead run whereever Lachine is now sitting...and in any case she apparently doesn't speak English all that well, so she may not be all that good a fit for the Westmount/NDG crowd.
you know, I was looking recently at the Monkland Avenue neighbourhood for housing, and only on examining these electoral maps did I realize that the 6-8 blocks of NDG west of Girouard are in fact in (current) Westmount riding -- not NDG-Lachine
but then, I voted on St Urbain in June 2004, and THAT central city area is part of Westmount riding, too
crazy
A high profile anglophone?
Would Brian Topp be a good fit as candidate for Wilder Penfield?
Actually Brian Topp would be a very good fit for Wilder Penfield. Both his wife and his mother in law have run as NDP candidates in Westmount in the past...the only problem is that he doesn't have much profile in English Montreal right now not having lived there since the early 90s. Still it would be as good a place as any to make a stab. I suppose he might also want to run in a seat on the south shore where he grew up...
There seems to be good news for the NDP in the proposed redistribution of seats in the Quebec City region.
The Conservatives now hold four seats to the south of the city. These look to be reduced to three . The new Levis seat is carved out of the best NDP areas of Levis-Bellechasse and Lobiniere -Chutes de la Chaudiere. This should be a comfortable NDP gain. The best Conservative areas of Lotbiniere are combined with the Megantic seat leaving the Conslooking secure there. Bernir looks safe in the new Beauce and Bellechasse, now named Louis Frechette is safer for the Cons with the loss of much of Levis.
In Quebec city itself the only really close seat was Louis st Laurent, won by the NDP with a 2% margin over the Cons. It is replaced by Nicolas Vincent which sheds Con polls in the west and imports many strong NDP ploos from Charlesbourg. NF shd now be safely NDP. The rest of the Quebec City NDP seats also look secure.
http://saguenay.radionrj.ca/Nouvelles.aspx?articleID=224619
Le député de Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, Dany Morin, juge illogique les changements que veut apporter la commission chargée des circonscriptions fédérales au Québec à son comté.
Le redécoupage de la carte électorale prévoit la suppression du secteur nord de Chicoutimi, Saint-Rose-du-Nord, Saint-Honoré et Saint-Fulgence, pour les remplacer par Saint-Siméon, Baie-Saint-Paul et la Malbaie.
La circonscription deviendra Charlevoix-Saguenay.
Dany Morin se fera entendre aux audiences publiques le 5 septembre.
Les circonscriptions de Jonquière-Alma et de Roberval-Lac-St-Jean deviendront respectivement Alfred-Dubuc et Lac-St-Jean. Là aussi des changements sont prévus.
As I noted above, the proposed Charlevoix--Saguenay contains 70,904 people in Saguenay and 29,578 people in Charlevoix (29% of the riding) two and a half hours drive away. The Commission could have made the Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean region three ridings each about 9.6% below quotient. No, they had to screw them around.
Chicoutimi NDP MP Dany Morin will be scratching his head, while Jonathan Tremblay, NDP MP for Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord, finds himself expected to run in Côte-de-Beaupré, only 54% of which is within his present riding (although he does live in that part), while the other 46% is in the Quebec City region. Meanwhile, the new Lac-Saint-Jean riding takes in everything from Alma all around the lake, the most remote communities of the region, but is 4.4% over quotient.
The Capitale-Nationale (Quebec City) region has 700,616 residents, 6.915 quotients, seven ridings an average of 1.2% below quotient. A no brainer. All they had to do was keep Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean's three ridings, and the Quebec City region would have been fine. But no.
So the dominos roll on all the way to Trois-Rivières. "Anne-Hébert" is 65,572 people in the Quebec City Region in the present Portneuf riding, and 35,018 residents of the Mauricie region including part of the City of Trois-Rivières, parts of the two present ridings of Saint-Maurice--Champlain and Trois-Rivières. The City of Trois-Rivières gets split between three ridings.
The Commission respected Quebec's regions when they made the regional boundary the new boundary between Papineau (in Hautes-Laurentides--Pontiac) and Argentueil (in La Chute). And they got rid of the riding straddling the north limit of Laval. And they put Côte-Nord into a single riding. But that's it.
They ignored the regional boundaries between Mauricie and Capitale-Nationale (Quebec City), Capitale-Nationale and Saguenay - Lac-Saint-Jean, Chaudière - Appalaches and Bas-Saint-Laurent, Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie--Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Centre-du-Québec and Chaudière - Appalaches, Montérégie and Estrie, Montérégie and Centre-du-Québec, Estrie and Centre-du-Québec, Estrie and Chaudière - Appalaches, and Lanaudière and Mauricie.
While some could argue against putting ther Charlevoix region into the same riding as Chcoutimi...it didn't make much sense on the old map either where Jonathan Tremblay had a riding that was partly subiurban Quebec City and then ran all the way to Tadoussac which is a 3.5 hour drive away. Its good to get rid of these "rurban" seats in Quebvec City and it probably makes more sense for Charlevoix to be part of a Saguenay based riding than a Quebec City based riding.
I guess we can just hope that the NDP lead in Quebec will be solid enough in 2015 that it doesn't really matter where the boundaries are? :P
The proposed new "Côte-de-Beaupré" riding includes 12,239 residents of the Town of Beaupré and five other municipalities east of the Quebec Census Metropolitan Area, along with 84,578 residents of Quebec and its suburbs.
But the worst "rurban" riding proposed for that region is "Anne-Hébert" which includes about 18,000 residents of Quebec City suburbs and about 25,000 residents of Trois-Rivières and its suburbs, and in between it includes 49,000 residents of rural Portneuf and even 8,000 more rural residents of the present Saint-Maurice - Champlain riding. Can you spell D.O.G.S.B.R.E.A.K.F.A.S.T.? It is made necessary only because they took 29,578 people from Charlevoix. So the dominos roll on all the way to Trois-Rivières, taking 35,018 residents out of the Mauricie region
Can you tell where potential contests between a New Democrat MP and another sitting MP are possible?
(Double post)
The only one I have seen so far is Gaspésie—Les Îles, which now includes Matane, the largest centre in Haute-Gaspésie — La Mitis — Matane — Matapédia held by Bloc MP Jean-François Fortin. Unless he decides to run against Guy Caron in Rimouski, on the ground that Rimouski now includes his home MRC of La Mitis. But I'd guess he's more likely to run in Gaspésie—Les Îles against Philip Toone.
The other odd one is Isabelle Morin, in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine. Although her riding doesn't disappear, it is in a group so completely reorganized that I don't know where she will run. But someone else already discussed that.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the rookies call it quits. I'm sure it's an adventure being a surprise MP, but considering how many of them were not expecting in a million years to actually win an election, I'm sure some of them have life plans that they'll want to resume after 4 years on hold.
So if a few MPs don't run again, it could provide some space for everyone else to find an appropriate seat to run in.
Double post
double post (thanks for the lovely upgrade)