Few changes in the Montreal area, but a tight race flips
New boundaries impact the Liberals, Bloc and NDP in and around Montreal
In the last election, not a single seat changed hands in Quebec. The new riding boundaries for the province that have been proposed by the commissioners could flip a few seats, including one south of the island of Montreal. But, as a whole, the map has changed very little — particularly around Quebec’s biggest city.
This is the seventh analysis in my series on the federal riding redistribution and focuses on 39 Quebec ridings in the Greater Montreal area. So far, we’ve taken a look at the preliminary and final proposals throughout Atlantic Canada, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and in Quebec outside of the Greater Montreal region.
EARLIER INSTALMENTS IN THE SERIES
Every decade, independent commissions re-draw Canada’s electoral map to reflect the growing population of the country. The final proposals for each province have been tabled and the public hearings have concluded.
The final reports will go through one last step of scrutiny, allowing MPs to make their objections. In some provinces, that step is already completed. After taking those objections into account, the commissioners will submit their final maps that will be in place for the next election, as long as that election occurs after April 2024.
Changing riding boundaries can have a real impact on electoral outcomes. In this series, I’m diving deep into the re-drawn map to see what those impacts might be (with the help of J.P. Kirby’s excellent Riding Builder tool). Paying subscribers of The Writ are taking that deep dive along with me, but before plunging in here’s the TL;DR of what you need to know:
Greater Montreal Redistribution Briefing: The commissioners made limited changes to the map in and around Montreal, so the electoral impact is also limited. One seat flips, though it was marginal to begin with, while two others get safer for the Liberals. Their hold on the island of Montreal is strengthened, while the Bloc remains safe in its strongholds in the suburbs.
Now let’s get into the details of the changes that have been made before I update the scorecard on the 2022-2023 federal redistribution