Electoral Maps 5

Aristotleded24 wrote:

As pleased as I am with the proposed boundaries and how they improve the chances of the NDP, I think it's unfortunate that we have to rely on redrawing the map in order to win seats, and it is a strange situation where the number of seats won by the parties can change depending on the boundaries even if people vote the same way. I'd prefer to turn around the cratering of support in the rural areas rather than writing them off completely.

By the way, Winnipeg also has 2 rurban seats: Kildonan-St Paul and Charleswood-St James-Assiniboia.

It's unfortunate, yes. However Saskatchewan is truly an exceptional case on our electoral map of how a sizeable voting bloc can be silenced. If you look at the province-by-province grid for 2011, look for each case where a party got 0 seats in the province and check the popular vote. Setting aside the territories who only had one seat each, Saskatchewan NDP is the most egregious at 0/14 for 32.3%. PEI is next at 0/4 for 15.4% (which actually does make sense), followed by Alberta Liberals at 0/28 for 9.3%. The fact that SK sticks out so sorely is a sign that the boundaries were not in the least representative. 

theleftyinvestor wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

As pleased as I am with the proposed boundaries and how they improve the chances of the NDP, I think it's unfortunate that we have to rely on redrawing the map in order to win seats, and it is a strange situation where the number of seats won by the parties can change depending on the boundaries even if people vote the same way. I'd prefer to turn around the cratering of support in the rural areas rather than writing them off completely.

By the way, Winnipeg also has 2 rurban seats: Kildonan-St Paul and Charleswood-St James-Assiniboia.

It's unfortunate, yes. However Saskatchewan is truly an exceptional case on our electoral map of how a sizeable voting bloc can be silenced. If you look at the province-by-province grid for 2011, look for each case where a party got 0 seats in the province and check the popular vote. Setting aside the territories who only had one seat each, Saskatchewan NDP is the most egregious at 0/14 for 32.3%. PEI is next at 0/4 for 15.4% (which actually does make sense), followed by Alberta Liberals at 0/28 for 9.3%. The fact that SK sticks out so sorely is a sign that the boundaries were not in the least representative. 

The other thing is that the Conservatives won more than 50% of the vote in Saskatchewan, which in FPTP is enough to basically sweep an area. The reason the NDP representation looks as lopsided as it does is because the opposition is squarely behind the NDP, whereas in other cases it might be divided. In other words, the 50% Conservative support in Saskatchewan had as much to do with them nearly sweeping the province as that the NDP support was carved up and diluted.

Hoping one province eastward, I had a chance to look at Brandon-Souris. It's good that the boundaries are drawn a bit tighter around Brandon City as many Tory areas to the north were lost, but unfortunately some Tory polls were taken into the southeast portion, and one of the First Nations was moved out of that riding.

I am very skeptical about many of the interpretations of the new boundaries. First, there seems to be an assumption that people vote more for the party than the candidate which is not always the case. I suspect that as many as 10 to 20% of voters vote for the person. To say that the situation worsened for Lamoureux for example may not be accurate as perhaps more would have voted Liberal in the areas he is gaining if they had him to choose from rather than the options they had last time. That is just one example.

As well, the next election will have bigger differences in the dynamics.

The realignment of opposition parties was not as evident and that will change patterns that may boost the NDP over the Liberals in some places.

The issues are most certainly going to be different-- some mentioned the Wheat Board but there are other issues that could shake things up. The issues that people may vote on in the next election may not even have surfaced by now.

The fatigue people often have with an old government "time for a change" phenomenon is only just starting but by 2015 it will likely be in full swing.

Two of the party leaders at least will have changed and it is unclear who they will be in the case of two of the parties: Harper may stay or go and the Liberals are in  a leadership race. My suspicion is that Harper will go as I suspect the polls will deteriorate to the point where he will choose to leave as a success rather than go down to defeat. It is also unclear how Mulcair will do-- he could turn off some people that liked Layton -- or he could attract a whole new constituency that we cannot identify.

I think parties need to really concentrate on fundamental issues rather than making any assumptions about how seats could-have, would have, gone under new boundaries.

I should add that when the differences are major that we cold draw something from them but a close win from a close loss type of interpretation is not a credible interpretation given the entirely different context the next vote will have both in options and issues as well as public perceptions.

Lord Palmerston wrote:

Well if Bob Rae wants to run again, he can opt for Mount Pleasant.  Just about the most "Liberal" seat demographically.

True. That'd free up Toronto Centre for an NDP "power candidate". Not that they shouldn't run a power candidate against Rae too.

Realistically it's good that Church and Wellesley is no longer grouped with Rosedale.

Will Rathika pick Scar North or Scar East to ran in I wonder. Are both winnable for the NDP?

I just did a double take. Look at Toronto Centre closely. The northern boundary is Wellesley. This splits the Church Wellesley village into two halves. I don't think this will go over well.

Compare to this situation with the last BC provincial redistribution:
http://www.xtra.ca/public/Vancouver/Dividing_the_Davie_Village-3653.aspx

Similar to the Wellesley situation, a new smaller riding was created that would include the West End but excluded blocks that were an integral part of the community.

The second draft of the BC proposal fixed it.

Ridng by Riding has provided some detailed transpositions of votes for some of the new Quebec ridings with a promise of more to come:

GASPESIE--LES ILES:
B: 14530 - 32.6%
N: 12569 - 28.2%
L: 8587 - 19.3%
C: 7772 - 17.5%
G: 1047 - 2.4%

RIMOUSKI
N: 22271 - 37.0%
B: 20589 - 34.2%
L: 8127 - 13.5%
C: 7846 - 13.0%
G: 1351 - 2.2%

 LEVIS:

N: 19163 - 40.8%
C: 16952 - 36.1%
B: 7530 - 16.0%
L: 2537 - 5.4%
G: 801 - 1.7%

 LAC SAINT LOUIS

L: 16747 - 34.5%
N: 14616 - 30.1%
C: 13527 - 27.9%
G: 2173 - 4.5%
B: 1467 - 3.0%

http://riding-by-riding.blogspot.ca/

It seems he has revised his earlier projection that Lac St Louis wd have vote Conservative under the new boundaries

nicky wrote:

Welland would be lost on the new boundaries. the towns of Welland and Thorold wd no longer be in the same riding and are both combined with Conservative rural areas.

Oshawa is chopped up in a bizarre way. Two east-west ridings extending from the city eastward to take in parts of Durham. The south end of Oshawa has always been the NDP end of town but is now combined with Bowmanvile for obscure reasons. 

 

I don't think Welland will be a problem, it gains Fort Erie from Niagara Falls, but Ft. Erie is a pretty working class town that would likely go NDP if it found itself in a riding with an NDP incumbent as opposed to being orphaned in Niagara Falls.

As for Oshawa, the fact is the one NDP stronghold in all of Durham region is the south end of Oshawa. it is not big enough to be a riding on its own - combining it with Bowmanville is really no worse for the NDP than combining it with the more Tory parts of north Oshawa.

nicky wrote:

The new riding of Toronto Centre looks promising for the NDP with Rosedale being carved off into the new Mt Pleasant. For decades, a strong NDP vote south of Bloor St has been overwhelmed by Rosedale where the NDP gets minimal support. TC has had the polarity of rich and poor which has meant that Rosedale has always prevailed. Hopefully the new boundaries will be confirmed so that the new TC does have more of a community of interest.

In which case, let's hope that boundary is adjusted to actually be Bloor St, not Wellesley. It's a little ridiculous to ask just that little section between Bloor and Wellesley to vote with Rosedale and Mount Pleasant.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1247760--gta-set-to-get-11-mo...

Right on, so that'd be good news to pick up Ancaster. I couldn't find it at first because I assumed it'd be call Hamilton something. Anyway I took a look at my area and my riding just shrunk to like one eighth its size! I'm in Aurora-Richmond Hill now, my former riding was way bigger then it was. It used to include Schoberg on one end all the way into Markham on the other. It now goes from Bathurst to the 407. It has expanded north and south a bit. It only went up to Bloomington before, now it goes up to Wellington. It went down south to Elginton Mills for park, with a part that sticks out further to major mack. I'm now in the same riding as the Millpond area, which is such a lovely area. I don't know how it would have faired in 2011 honestly, the change is so major. My riding uses to look like a huge dumbell, now its a tidder shape, a rectangle with a square out cropping. I'd love if it went NDP, but more likely it'll go Tory.

Stockholm wrote:

I don't think Welland will be a problem, it gains Fort Erie from Niagara Falls, but Ft. Erie is a pretty working class town that would likely go NDP if it found itself in a riding with an NDP incumbent as opposed to being orphaned in Niagara Falls.

As for Oshawa, the fact is the one NDP stronghold in all of Durham region is the south end of Oshawa. it is not big enough to be a riding on its own - combining it with Bowmanville is really no worse for the NDP than combining it with the more Tory parts of north Oshawa.

And I'm almost willing to suggest (on grounds of past patterns) that much like Fort Erie, Courtice and Bowmanville are more likely to incline NDPward knowing that it's a potentially "competitive" riding for them.  (And in the post-Orange Crush era, it *should* be viewed as potentially competitive.)

So no personal names, like Quebec. Darn. I was hoping for Oshawa Broadbent.

Waterdown–Glanbrook is going to be an absolute pain to campaign in. There's one road connecting the north and eastern halves of the riding. Ugliest boundary winner, I'd say.

Wilf Day wrote:

No way. The hands-down winner is the bizarre Haliburton—Uxbridge, which unites 16,645 people in Toronto’s Census Metropolitan area (south Uxbridge); 33,008 people in exurban Scugog and Brock; bypassing Lindsay, 34,390 people in the rural half of Kawartha Lakes (Bobcaygeon has 3,533 people, Fenelon Falls has 2,040); 17,026 people in Haliburton County; and 7,394 in north Peterborough County.

I'd love to see the Boundaries Commission make the drive from from one end of this riding (Uxbridge) to the other (Cardiff). From Uxbridge up Highway 12 to Beaverton, along Glenarm Road to Fenelon Falls and continuing on to Bobcaygeon, up 121 to Minden, and on through Haliburton to Cardiff. Only 205 km, a mere 3 hours and 4 minutes drive says Mapquest.  Okay, if you go by highway 45 to Coboconk and on through Kinmount you could get to Cardiff in "only" 2 hours 23 minutes, 165 km, by bypassing every population centre east of Beaverton.

Wow, Uxbridge gets some severe whiplash here. There does appear to be some concern in local media:

http://www.thepost.ca/2012/08/28/proposed-electoral-boundary-changes-wou...

I think the meetings will definitely have an effect on the final boundaries. Once everyone is finished complaining about the details that don't make sense, they'll have to shift everything else to match.

I'd also like to run an idea past some people, in particular, that Far North Ontario

http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/FarNorth/2ColumnSubPage/266506.html

Be assigned it's own riding. 

adma wrote:

Brachina wrote:

Right on, so that'd be good news to pick up Ancaster. I couldn't find it at first because I assumed it'd be call Hamilton something. Anyway I took a look at my area and my riding just shrunk to like one eighth its size! I'm in Aurora-Richmond Hill now, my former riding was way bigger then it was. It used to include Schoberg on one end all the way into Markham on the other. It now goes from Bathurst to the 407. It has expanded north and south a bit. It only went up to Bloomington before, now it goes up to Wellington. It went down south to Elginton Mills for park, with a part that sticks out further to major mack. I'm now in the same riding as the Millpond area, which is such a lovely area. I don't know how it would have faired in 2011 honestly, the change is so major. My riding uses to look like a huge dumbell, now its a tidder shape, a rectangle with a square out cropping. I'd love if it went NDP, but more likely it'll go Tory.

Though speaking of York Region, one thing that absolutely doesn't ring true with me is the riding with the presently proposed name "Oak Ridges"--sure, it technically straddles the Oak Ridges Moraine; however, the actual community which gave the Moraine its name is within Aurora-Richmond Hill, and its presence has defined previous ridings with the "Oak Ridges" name.  To shift the name westward is geographically illiterate--a name like "King-Maple" (or something more euphonious) would be more fitting...

I was basically thinking the same thing. Oak Ridges the community is right in the heart of Aurora-Richmond Hill, which only gets silvers,of Aurora proper and Richmond Hill. Your ideas on names make way more sense.

Still the name is less important then if its,winnable by the NDP. I hope so.

edmundoconnor wrote:

 It's going to be interesting what this means for the provincial situation, and how fast (if at all) the provincial boundaries catch up to the federal ones.

Does the Ont. government have to introduce new legislation to update the ridings, or do they roll over automatically? I'd be curious to take the poll-by-poll results of the last provincial election and put them on the new map, I wonder if the new GTA suburban seats would have been enough to give the Liberals a majority. And if York South-Weston becomes and NDP gain, would losing The Annex have pushed Thompson over the top in Trin-Spa?

StarSuburb wrote:

Does the Ont. government have to introduce new legislation to update the ridings, or do they roll over automatically? I'd be curious to take the poll-by-poll results of the last provincial election and put them on the new map, I wonder if the new GTA suburban seats would have been enough to give the Liberals a majority. And if York South-Weston becomes and NDP gain, would losing The Annex have pushed Thompson over the top in Trin-Spa?

In answer to your questions:

1. Yes, the Ontario government has to introduce legislation to update the provincial ridings and to have them conform to the federal map (or not). it is NOT automatic.

2. Its hard to say if the new map would have given the Ontario Liberals a majority - its true that it would create some new Liberal seats in 905-land, but it would also create some new seats in more exurban Tory areas.

3. I am about 99% certain that York South-Weston would have gone NDP provincially under these proposed boundaries. It was a very narrow NDP loss and the area being shifted out of the riding is heavily Liberal.

4. I don't think the NDP would have lost T-S provincially with these boundaries. First of all Marchese didn't do as well in the Annex as one might think (though her did carry it). Second of all T-S also loses everything between Yonge and Avenue Rd - and that area is full of Liberal-voting luxury condos! so its a bit of a wash

I can't seem to find Teddy's blog.

[double post]

Perhaps the Church-Wellesley situation could be remedied by having Mt. Pleasant's southern boundary go down to College west of Yonge and then up to Bloor east of Yonge?

As amusing as the thought of Bob Rae "fleeing" TC he isn't really doing that as he would be living well within the boundaries of Mt. Pleasant (this of course assumes he runs again which I think is unlikely).  Glen Murray could opt for either TC or Mt. Pleasant provincially.

Population by census tract, 2011 census:

62.01 and 62.02 (Yonge to University, College to Bloor):  11,442

63.01 (Yonge to Church, Carlton to Bloor):  8,293

63.02 (Church to Jarvis, Carlton to Bloor):  6,934

64 (Jarvis to Sherbourne, Wellesley to Bloor): 3,858

65 (Sherbourne to Parliament, Wellesley to Bloor):  13,974

66 (Sherbourne to Parliament, Carlton to Wellesley): 8,032

67 and 68 (Parliament to Don, Gerrard to Bloor):  4,021 

Lord Palmerston wrote:

Population by census tract, 2011 census:

62.01 and 62.02 (Yonge to University, College to Bloor):  11,442

63.01 (Yonge to Church, Carlton to Bloor):  8,293

63.02 (Church to Jarvis, Carlton to Bloor):  6,934

64 (Jarvis to Sherbourne, Wellesley to Bloor): 3,858

65 (Sherbourne to Parliament, Wellesley to Bloor):  13,974

66 (Sherbourne to Parliament, Carlton to Wellesley): 8,032

67 and 68 (Parliament to Don, Gerrard to Bloor):  4,021 

I gather from this data that electoral boundaries do not have to keep census tracts intact since 63.01 and 63.02 are both split along Wellesley between TC and MP

I think Carol Hughes resides in Kapuskasing, but I could be wrong.  Surely Angus will stay in his riding (Kap moves into Timmins-Cochrane-James Bay).  Wonder if she'll move to Algoma-Manitoulin-Killarney, even though it becomes a much more anglophone riding.