Canada’s getting a new electoral map. Who does it favour?

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings If you get a lot of political news from America, when I tell you our electoral map is changing this year, your stomach probably sinks in America. Redrawing electoral maps. Our partisan nightmares fights over territory designed to pluck votes strategically and put them in columns that are beneficial to whomever’s doing the drawing. And it always ends up in court in many ways. Canadian politics has recently come to resemble some of the madness to the south of us, but not at least in this. The redrawing of Canada’s map for federal elections is done. Every decade is done mostly quietly and without fuss and with a minimum, if not zero, of partisan bickering. But that doesn’t mean the new map. Won’t change anything from new seats to new electoral boundaries. The changes made to this map can have implications coast to coast and with federal politics as incendiary as they’ve been in quite some time right now, elections may get even closer, which would make these new seats and these new boundaries, potential game changers. So what’s changing? Who might it benefit? And who draws these maps and how? I am Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the big story. Eric Grenier is a longtime political and polling analyst previously for cbc, but now as the founder of the Writ, which you can find on CK and the Writ podcast, which you can find wherever you get this podcast. Hey, Eric.

Eric Grenier Hello.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Thanks for joining us today.

Eric Grenier Thanks for having me.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings The first thing I want to ask you, when does Canada get a new federal electoral map? How often does it happen?

Eric Grenier Well, it happens every 10 years. So this is something that, you know, doesn’t happen, every election or two. And we won’t actually have the new map in place for an election that takes place until after the spring of 2024 because it’s such a long process, that elections Canada has to get ready for it. So if an election happened tomorrow, we would use the map that we currently have. But if the election goes ahead as planned in 2025, then we would have this new electoral map in place.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings You just mentioned it’s a long process. Why is it done and who does it? What exactly do they do?

Eric Grenier Well, it’s done because the population is always changing, right?

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Right.

Eric Grenier So the electoral map that we use in one election after a decade, it starts to get out of the population has shifted so much. People are moving around. Some writings get their population increased so much that they are significantly larger than some other writings. It just is no longer fair. So there has to be a new map that is redrawn.

Eric Grenier So how this is done, this is done in a nonpartisan way. In each province, three commissioners are appointed. These are usually, a judge, and then usually some political scientists or demographers people like that. And then they took a look at the map and they come forward with some proposals, and then it goes through a process of public hearings, MPs get a chance to weigh in, and then finally we get a new map that gets put into place.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings And that’s the new map that we use in elections that are held over the subsequent decade. So how are those new seats determined? Is it simply a matter of just like where have people moved and how many people live there now? Like is there something beyond math here that these people will take into?

Eric Grenier Math is where it all starts. First of all, every decade a number of seats has to be recalculated. Now, that is a complicated formula that is in legislation that is based on how much the population has grown over the last 10 years, but also takes new count weather. A province has a number of seats already. There’s a clause that’s been in there for over a century. That pi, for example can’t have fewer seats in the House of Commons than it does in the Senate. And it has four in the Senate. So it has four in the House of Commons. And for that reason, PI is grossly overrepresented in the, uh, house of Commons. So there are those other, considerations that are put into place, but then eventually there’s a number of writings that are determined for every single province, and then they have to make sure that the map will fit that. It is usually just based on population, but they take into account a lot of other things because they don’t just want to take sort of mathematician’s eye to it just cutting across boundaries and communities just for the sake of numbers. They try to get them within a ballpark range of population and ensure that at least you have communities of interest that are stuck together. So you don’t wanna split apart a town if you don’t have to. That you know, minority communities might be represented in single ridings rather than spread out across a number of them, so they take these other considerations into account. Not just the numbers, but the numbers are the most important thing because the goal is to get every writing within a certain amount of the population so that everybody has roughly equal representation in the House of Commons.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Typically when these maps are redrawn, how much do they change things? And, and have there been, you know, notable changes when more seats than typically were handed out?

Eric Grenier There have there been times when almost nothing changed and, and what should we expect this time? Yeah, there are some times when it, it changes a lot.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings The last re redistribution we had, 10 years ago was a big change. The house went from 300. Seats to 338, so that was 30 extra seats that were added to the map, and that required a lot of rejigging of the electoral map. This time there’s only five seats being added, so it’s not as big of a change. Some provinces are having very few changes. Other provinces though the commissioners are, are seeing that because of, you know, for example, a lot of people, Uh, moving outside of Toronto, for example, so Toronto not increasing in population as much as some other parts of Ontario that they needed to redd drop the map pretty significantly. So in some provinces we’ve seen that the, the map is hardly changing and in others they are some pretty significant changes. Ontario is one of those where there’s some big changes BC so this map. I wouldn’t say is one of the more radical changes that we’ve seen over the last few decades, but certainly there are some parts of the country where the map’s gonna look a lot different than what it was, uh, when it was first used in the 2015 election.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings I want to get into specifically where that will change, but first, you know, you mentioned it’s a long process and this new map won’t be ready before 2024. Are we in the process now and what is still yet to happen?

Eric Grenier So the process is pretty close to the finish. Uh, because what happened at first was that the commissioners come out with a report and then they go for public hearings. And that was a, uh, when individual citizens could come forward at these hearings that were held throughout, uh, the provinces. There were some virtual hearings as well. People could give their feedback, they could make written submissions, and then the commissioners took all that back. Rejig their own proposals based on that feedback. And then they came forward with another proposal, the final proposal, and that’s where things currently stand. So the final proposal has been put forward by the commissioners for every single province. And the last step before it actually just gets approved and the house votes. For it to go ahead is the new map, is that mps get a chance to raise their objections in a few provinces already. Newfoundland, Labrador and PEI, the MPs have signed off on the proposal, so those are just gonna go ahead. But in the other provinces, that’s the next step that we’re waiting for. That MPS will have their chance to have a final sort of feedback session. But what’s really interesting about our system and why it’s different from say, the United States is. Once the MPs make their objections, the commissioners can take their feedback or they can reject it. It’s the commissioners who in the end get to decide politics are taken out of it. Although there are a lot of politics in it, because we do hear MPs, particularly if they see that their writing is changing a lot and it might impact their chances of getting reelected, they tend to have more objections than MPs who are not seeing as many changes to their writings.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Well, you kind of just addressed this question, but to be a little more specific about it. The house still needs to approve this map. It’s good that the commission can reject, any feedback that it deems as political, but is the process still vulnerable to the final level of approval and we’ve seen a lot of political norms come crashing down lately. How possible is it here?

Eric Grenier It’s not really that possible. It’s always possible that the MPs could be particularly persuasive, I suppose, for the commissioners. But we’ve seen in the past that commissioners are, are pretty protective of these proposals for them. They’ve been working on them for a long time. So you can almost imagine that MPs, make their objections for a second time because the MPs do have the ability to take part in the public hearings just like everybody else. It doesn’t work out very well, because let’s face it, there is a little bit of some political transparency, or I should say that their motives are a little bit politically transparent sometimes, right? So often it, it can be more that they’ll be more willing to change, for example, the name of a riding because for them that might not matter as much, but when it comes to making changes, the MP’s objections have to be really, really strong for the commissioners to go back on their decision. I’d say that our system, at least at the federal partisanship is really not much of it. When there are complaints, it’s usually that the commissioners are taking too objective of a view that they’re not taking into account people’s communities and things like that, rather than an idea that it’s, it’s politically motivated. At least here in Canada, I feel that our system is pretty immune to that kind of consideration, of that political influence. It is largely because that our commissioners,have proven themselves to be pretty immune to that partisan influence. It is so nice to hear that about a political institution these days. It does make for a change. Yeah. Yeah. But it is one of the things that works well here and you know, there are certainly some complaints about whether the system that we use in our elections to begin with is fair, you know? You know, if you don’t win the R then all those votes don’t count. That kind of thing. But in terms of the actual boundaries, it, it’s not, we don’t have gerrymandering here as, as is is in the United States.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Before we talk about the boundaries, let’s just drill down on the five new seats you mentioned. Where are they and, and who might they benefit? Or is it too early to say that?

Eric Grenier Well, the five extra seats that are being added, there’s one in British Columbia, there’s one in Ontario and there’s three in Alberta. All the other provinces are getting the same amount of seats. Because of how the writings are redrawn sometimes, you know, you can quote unquote have a new writing because it doesn’t really look like old writings. But in terms of these extra writings, they’re probably gonna benefit the conservatives because three extra seats for Alberta is probably going to be three extra seats for the conservatives. Just, just the way it is, uh, with how, voting patterns are there. The extra seat in Ontario, the extra street in British Columbia, that’s a little harder to say, but when you’re looking. Which province is getting the most seats, the extra seats, if it’s Alberta. That’s probably good news for the conservatives.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings And in terms of the new maps, I know we can’t go riding by riding, but in general, as you’re looking at them, as someone who’s really familiar with the previous map, can you gimme a couple of examples of where those changes might flip seats?

Eric Grenier Yeah, there’s a few parts of the country where the changes will make one party more likely to win it next time than they did last time. Of course, you know, we all start at zero when the voting’s counted. So, you know, it’s not just the geography that’s gonna, uh, determine the outcome, but there’s a couple of writings or a couple places I’d look. To One of the most emblematic I’d say of of these challenges that the commissioners have to make is a riding in Northern Saskatchewan. So this is a riding that takes up half of Saskatchewan, that northern 50%. It’s this one riding because there’s so few people who live up there. It’s such a big riding that the commissioners wanted to shrink it a little to make it a little bit easier to represent so that the MP can travel around it a little bit more easily and wanted to keep together the indigenous population in Northern Saskatchewan that makes, really the majority. So one of the changes that they proposed to make because of other changes that were required in Southern Saskatchewan was that they’re removing a portion of the writing that wasn’t as indigenous as the rest of the writing. This portion of the writing was also the part that voted for the conservatives very strongly. So because they made this change to make the writing a little bit smaller, a little bit more indigenous, focused. The riding is gonna be very, very tough for the conservatives to win. They’ve won in the last two elections. It’s been relatively close. The next election, it just seems almost impossible that the conservatives could hold onto the seat because the part of the R that was their strongest is now part of a different writing. So it, it shows how the decisions that have to be made based on population, based on communities can have a political impact. Another one would be, not a riding in particular, but Toronto. Toronto is 25 ridings. It is losing a riding because as I said, it didn’t grow as fast as the outlying areas in Toronto, so Toronto’s not gonna have 24 ridings. The liberals have won all 25 ridings in Toronto in the last three elections, so even if they sweep Toronto again, They’re gonna win one fewer seat. So that’s an example of when you move the ridings around the province rather than creating new ridings, it can have an impact as well. So the liberals are gonna be losing at least one seat in Toronto. It doesn’t mean they won’t win the new riding that’s being created in the G T A, but those Toronto area ridings, they lost one of them.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings As you look at the map as a whole, I know everybody’s starting at zero and uh, lord knows there’s probably 12 scandals between now and the next election, but who would you say the changes favor taken as a whole?

Eric Grenier I think taken as a whole, it does seem to favour the conservatives because, uh, as I said, with uh, few extra writings being added to Alberta, that count there. Uh, there’s a riding that’s probably gonna be created in, in the BC interior. That’s another area that tends to be more conservative in Ontario. The extra riding is going more into Central Ontario. So that’s an area that is probably gonna be, friendly for the conservatives, but not necessarily. So I think that that is likely to be, the outcome in terms of who starts out, a little bit further ahead than they did last time. I try to think. As you know, runners on a race course, right? They still have to get to the finish line, but if someone is starting out a little bit further ahead than the others, then they have an advantage, the liberals would’ve been starting out further ahead than the others because they already had the most seats. But now that the conservatives will be in a little bit of a better position on the map, they’re gonna be a little bit closer. So, so their starting point.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Is a little bit closer to the finish line than it was, uh, in 2021? If you take a look at the changes and the potential they could give the conservative party, how often, if you look at it as a race, does that extra few feet make the difference? You know, we’re talking about a few seats. Um, a few ridings changed. How often is an election close enough that this level of change can make a real. It’s pretty rare, right?

Eric Grenier Because we’re talking about right now five extra seats. And if we’re looking at the map as a whole, maybe you can say that maybe the conservatives are a a half dozen seats or so, uh, ahead of where they were last time. If the election is coming down to just six seats, it’s not coming down to the map. It’s coming down to a lot of factors that are happening across the country in terms of politics, in terms of local races. Uh, so you know, the, the changes of. is not really something that decides, uh, an election or not. It, it has a huge impact on local races. It has a huge impact on the political careers of mps and candidates, uh, which is why they care about it so much. And, you know, for the, some of the communities involved, it does make a big difference because right now, you know, you might be, for example, if you’re in Nova Scotia, you might be living on the mainland and you’re riding encompasses just a portion of the mainland. But one of the changes they’ve made is now. You, if you live in Ganish, you’re right now part of the Cape Breton Rio. That might make a little bit of a difference in your life in terms of who your MP is and who you know and, and that kind of thing. But in terms of deciding the outcome of the election or not, I, this would probably be, you know, 20th on the list in terms of what’s gonna have real impact. It has a huge impact for some individuals. But in terms of the overall outcome, it would have to be super, super, super close for the electoral map to have been the deciding.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Have we heard from, or have you talked to any of the party officials about this map and if you are one of those people working on a campaign or getting ready for a potential future campaign, what do you do with this information?

Eric Grenier We have heard some, from MPs who are objecting to some of the changes, which is really what happens every 10 years. Every 10 years. MPs who see that their, situation’s gonna be worse next time. Raise some objections. Question the process, wonder why there wasn’t more feedback. And that’s nothing new. And we’re seeing that kind of thing around this time as well. There’s a few MPs who their noses are outta joint because they might have a harder time keeping their job in the next election. So that’s nothing new. I would, noting in terms of overall concerns that this map is, is somehow, unfair or that it’s going to change the election in any significant. Because of the changes being so relatively small compared to the past one where there was 30 seats that are added. I don’t think too many, you know, politicos are all that worried about it. But in terms of if you’re trying to plan for the next election, this makes a big difference because if you are someone who runs a campaign in a local writing, you know, you know what parts of your writing are the places that you need to make sure your vote comes out. You know, which places are the places where you don’t need to put much effort in? Cuz there’s not people that are gonna vote for you there. And now you might need to add whole new neighborhoods to your writing. You have never canvased before. You’ve never knocked on those doors, that the voters there don’t know the MP. They don’t know the candidate. So you can’t take them for granted in the same way that you could have in previous elections. You know, if, a riding next door voted for a fellow, MP from your party. You don’t really know exactly if those votes were for that party or for that MP. So you can’t assume that part of your riding is now going to be really strong for your guy, uh, because they were, they were always on the red team or whatever. And so there’s those kinds of considerations that need to be taken in account at the local level, at the national level, things like that. Probably not a top of mind concern for, strategists.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Eric, thank you for this. It’s a fascinating deep dive into something, I certainly didn’t know much about. I wanna ask you one last bonus question, maybe not related to this map, but you mentioned it won’t be ready until 2024. Theoretically, at least we’re not supposed to have an election before then, based on the supply and confidence agreement, what do you think? Are we gonna be using the old map or the new one next time Canadians go to the polls?

Eric Grenier Uh, if, if I had to put some money on it, I’d say they were gonna be using the new. I’m not someone who thinks we’re going to the election, an election campaign this year, but, uh, you know what, when I look at where each of the parties are, I think they had lots of reasons to wait and it’s a bad idea for a lot of them to decide to go to an election campaign. But bad ideas has never stopped, you know, political parties for making some decisions before. So I won’t rule it out. That they will fumble their way into an election in 2023. But my view is that we’ll probably be using the new map at some point in 2024 or 2025. Bad ideas make for great news coverage.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Anyway, thank you so much, Eric.

Eric Grenier All right. Thank you.

Jordan Heath-Rawlings Eric Grenier is the creator, founder, reporter, columnist, analyst, whatever you want to call ’em at the writ. Go and check it out on ck. That was the big story for more from us. You can head to the big story podcast.ca. We don’t have a sub yet. Maybe one day you can find us at the Big story podcast.ca. You can talk to us anytime. Hello, at the big story podcast.ca. You can find us on Twitter at the big story fp n, and you can call us (416) 935-5935. I want to thank you for all your goose stories. We got like five stories of Goose encounters and they’re amazing and I appreciate them. They’re all too long to read on the big story. Don’t let the geese get you down. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.