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Alberta Politics

Alberta’s new federal ridings released.

The commission responsible for updating Canada’s federal riding boundaries have released their recommendations for redistribution in Alberta. The boundaries make some significant changes in rural areas and create fully-urban ridings in the cities of Calgary and Edmonton (following the 2003 redistribution, many of Edmonton’s ridings were expanded to include surrounding rural areas).

Below are the maps of the new boundaries transposed with the poll-by-poll results from the 2011 federal election. Looking back at the 2011 results, the new riding boundaries would have narrowed the Conservative Party’s margin of victory in a handful of ridings, including Lethbridge, Calgary-SkyviewEdmonton-Centre, and Edmonton-Greisbach (currently Edmonton-East), but would not have changed the electoral map in that election.

Also interesting to watch will be Calgary-Centre, where last year’s hotly-contested federal by-election drew national attention. Was the close race in Calgary-Centre the beginning of a new trend for that city or was it simply a mid-term anomaly?

New federal riding boundaries in Edmonton with poll-by-poll results from the 2011 election.
New federal riding boundaries in Edmonton with poll-by-poll results from the 2011 election.
New federal riding boundaries in Calgary with poll-by-poll results from the 2011 election.
New federal riding boundaries in Calgary with poll-by-poll results from the 2011 election.
New federal riding boundaries in the Lethbridge area with poll-by-poll results from the 2011 election.
New federal riding boundaries in the Lethbridge area with poll-by-poll results from the 2011 election.

A big thank you to Kyle Hutton for creating these maps. Check out his blog, Blunt Objects.

9 replies on “Alberta’s new federal ridings released.”

It was very nice of Mr. Hutton to do those charts.

@ KHutton: When it comes to ‘crunching the numbers’ re:ABC coalitions if you ignore the seat count and look at the popular vote, does your conclusion change?

Unless I am mistaken the Federal Cons received 6mil votes and change, while the NDP alone got around 5 mil.

Canada you say political polarisation?

Interesting. Just a niggle but I expect the folks in Medicine Hat will be surprised to find themselves south west of Lethbridge.

Thanks for the maps, Dave!

I’m wondering if they can also show us specifically what the 2012 Calgary-Centre race would have looked like with the proposed boundary changes. That would be interesting!

@goinfawr,

It depends on how you look at it. Obviously between the NDP, Liberals, and Greens, who earned 7.9-million votes between them (compared to 5.8-million), the advantage is clear. That would show up in seat counts as well. But it won’t be a 1 vote to 1 vote (1:1) ratio, it could be even larger as previous non-voters or ex-Conservatives come in, or much smaller as “blue” Liberals leave. We simply don’t know what would happen, and current polling only tells us so much (mostly thanks to pollsters not even asking the right question). My own conclusion doesn’t change, simply because the data we have right now doesn’t lead to a definite conclusion – the best answer anyone can give is “maybe it could work.” Its still a risk though. This goes doubly for Lib-Green co-operation only.

@Jed Johns

Not to simply advertise myself here, but I plan on doing that exact thing. Unfortunately the data for the by-elections isn’t currently out from Elections Canada yet. Until then, I would guess that the area around downtown Calgary (where Calgary-Buffalo is provincially) would be a heavy smattering of red and Green.

Trying to claim Calgary-Centre might be up for play again is a joke. In byelections, the party that originally held the seat nearly always sees a drop because they don’t have incumbency factor, I’m sure Joan Crockatt will have at least 40% in the next election, if not 45-50%.

Looking at rural Alberta, I’m glad they changed that awful boundary between Foothills and Bow River, but now they’re stretching Medicine Hat to cover nearly the entire border? And that new north-south division of the northern half of the province into three ridings? Not a big fan. I’d be more preferable with two ridings that don’t terminate as far south that encompass Peace River to Grand Prairie, and Fort McMurray to Athabasca.

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