How Canada Votes, Street by Street
Election signs in Calgary, 2006
Canada is in the midst of yet another federal election, one that will, if the current trends hold steady, result in a third minority government for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. It’s a pretty dismal state of affairs. But even the most delicious truffle looks like a turd, so things might still turn out well, especially if Canadians finally wake up and grow tired of having a petty tyrant as prime minister.
In the meantime, my friend Cedric Sam has created a pretty good way to kill time: Google Maps of 2008 federal election results based on data from each and every polling station in the country. Since each polling station serves no more than a few hundred voters, the level of detail is extraordinarily precise, especially in dense urban areas. You can check it out at the website of the Montreal newspaper La Presse, which has published the maps in English.
Sometimes the maps can be surprising. Who knew that the well-heeled streets of Outremont held so many NDP supporters, while the immigrant-dominated, working-class north end of Côte des Neiges was so heavily Liberal? Other times, it looks exactly the way you would expect: in Edmonton Strathcona, the densely-populated streets around Whyte Avenue and the University of Alberta voted NDP, while more suburban areas to the south and east voted Conservative. (The NDP won in both Outremont and Edmonton Strathcona.)
2008 results in Outremont, Montreal
2008 results in Edmonton Strathcona
Most interesting are the swing ridings that will determine the fate of the current election. Many of these ridings are ethnically-diverse, immigrant-heavy areas in Vancouver and Toronto, like Vancouver Kingsway, which the CBC’s national newscast profiled last week. Currently held by the NDP, Cedric’s maps shows it to be a veritable patchwork of support for all three major parties. While Fraser Street is an NDP stronghold, Renfrew Heights went solidly Conservative and Cambie Street leans Liberal, the rest of the riding could easily change its allegiance.
2008 results in Vancouver Kingsway
What would make these maps even more interesting is if they could be overlayed with census data on age, income, immigration status, ethnic origin and language. La Presse didn’t give Cedric a budget for this project — he essentially recycled data he had already compiled — but apparently the people at Elections Canada are very interested in the maps. Maybe we’ll see more of this kind of thing after Canadians vote on May 2nd.
Tags: Cartography, Edmonton, Election, Montreal, Politics, Vancouver
C. Szabla says:
Looks like Heesung Kim wound up losing Calgary Centre pretty badly last time around. Maybe the next Liberal vying in the constituency will address the appearance of the housing stock, if the above example is anything close to representative…
April 11th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Christopher DeWolf says:
I don’t think it’s possible for a Liberal candidate to fare any way but badly in Calgary.
The sad thing is, Calgary Centre is the most liberal/Liberal riding in town!
April 12th, 2011 at 2:09 am
Daniel Corbeil says:
It is interesting how it is possible in Canada to govern the country without being elected properly by the majority of canadians, but only 40 % of so..
Concerning Outremont, where i live, it always been a liberal neighborhood in the past but the NPD candidate – Mulcair, formally provincial liberal deputy – is amazingly popular in the northern part of the district, when liberals are still popular in the southern – and richest part – of Outremont.
Anyway, Montreal is like that kind of cliché where you can still split the city in two sections, while the East (and southwest) vote for Bloc (witch is kind of leftist and in Quebec represent most workers) when the other side vote for Liberal…
Finally, in the suburbs, like around TO and Edmonton, it seems they tend to be more conservatives, like in some part of rural Quebec..
Could we say that people living far away from cosmopolitan centers tend to vote more traditional while cities tend to be more liberal ? Where is the room for the NPD in between those two main parties ?
April 12th, 2011 at 10:08 am
Christopher DeWolf says:
The NDP’s support is split between the old guard of union-oriented, working-class voters (like in Winnipeg or Windsor) and a new generation of urban creative types (like in Outremont or Edmonton-Strathcona).
April 13th, 2011 at 5:14 am
Christopher DeWolf says:
Cedric has created another impressive map. Using public data from Elections Canada, he has mapped all of the recent political party donations from individuals over $200. It’s an interesting way to map support. Though there’s the occasional outlier (like the $1000 donation to the Communist Party of Canada from someone living on Esplanade Avenue in Mile End), people aren’t quite as independent as they might think.
April 17th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Cedric Sam says:
And inspired by your post, I wrote one of my own analysing the Chinese Canadian vote, poll by poll.
April 30th, 2011 at 11:34 pm