NDP comes out ahead in Saskatchewan boundary changes

Second in my series of analyses on the federal riding redistribution

The Conservatives have swept all 14 of Saskatchewan’s seats in the last two elections, but that might not happen again if the proposed new federal riding boundaries for the province go ahead, instead opening up the possibility of a speck of orange in what’s been an unbroken field of blue.

This second analysis in my series on the 2022 federal riding redistribution brings us to the Prairies. The first one was published back in August, focusing on the changes made to Atlantic Canada’s 32 ridings. (Note, I’ll have to circle back to Nova Scotia as the commission has come out with its adjusted proposal following public consultations — and they went back on a lot of their initial changes.)

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 and once commissioners have digested the feedback they’ve received from public hearings, they will come forward with their final proposals. I’ll be keeping an eye on both the proposed and finalized reports.

Changing riding boundaries can have real impacts 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 to 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:

Saskatchewan Redistribution Briefing: There are some pretty significant changes to the map in the rural parts of Saskatchewan, but it is the creation of a riding in central Saskatoon that will likely have the biggest electoral impact. Overall, the map is a better one for the New Democrats, giving them improved odds of picking up a couple urban seats.

The Conservatives suffer the most, potentially losing one seat and having their victory margin shaved down in two competitive ridings. The NDP is the chief beneficiary, but the Liberals also have an outside chance of returning to electoral relevance in Saskatchewan.

Now let’s find out which seats we’re talking about before I update the scorecard on the 2022 federal redistribution.