Stand pat map for Manitoba

Nips and tucks have little electoral impact on the province's federal ridings

There were very few competitive races in Manitoba in the 2021 election, with only one race being decided by less than 10 percentage points. The final proposal for changes to the province’s federal riding map will not change that — and in fact will make the one tight race slightly less tight.

This is the fifth analysis in my series on the federal riding redistribution. So far, we’ve taken a look at the preliminary and final proposals throughout Atlantic Canada and in Saskatchewan. With Manitoba now complete, we’re up to date with all the final proposals that have so far been tabled.

• EARLIER INSTALMENTS IN THE SERIES

  • Saskatchewan

  • Nova Scotia

  • New Brunswick & P.E.I.

  • Newfoundland and Labrador

Every decade, independent commissions re-draw Canada’s electoral map to reflect the growing population of the country. The proposals for each province have been tabled, the public hearings have concluded and the final proposals are in the course of being published. I’ve been keeping an eye on both the proposed and finalized reports.

The final reports will go through one last step of scrutiny, allowing MPs to make their objections. 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 will take that deep dive along with me, but before plunging in here’s the TL;DR of what you need to know:

Manitoba Redistribution Briefing: The commissioners initially proposed more significant changes to the map, but the final proposal has only a few minor changes to what had been a largely uncompetitive map. Each party retains its strongholds in Manitoba, and the Conservatives are in a slightly better position in the one seat that was close in 2021.

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