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Political Landscape of Toronto (including Ward Boundary Review)

Ward 27 combines a small number of residents north of Bloor with a large number of residents south of Bloor.

No it doesn't. Look at the election results at http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toro...DFs/2014 Election/2014-Councillor.pdf#page=29

You can tell which subdivisions are north of Bloor by looking at the map at http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toro.../ward maps/2014 Ward Maps/2014_polling_27.pdf

The subdivisions north of Bloor are 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 26, and 61. (part of 11, containing Rosedale High School is south of Bloor, but north of Rosedale Valley; and a bit of 16 is south of Bloor (SW corner of Avenue Road and Bloor, but is primarily offices and University buildings).

If you use the number of people who voted as a proxy for population, then 9,389 are north of Bloor and 16,361 are south of Bloor. So 36.5% are north of Bloor and 63.5% are south of Bloor. I wouldn't call 63.5% versus 36.5% large versus small. (another 5,745 voted in the advance poll).

The two geographic areas are radically different communities of interest, to use the phrase on the City's ward redistribution website.
Why does it matter? The results aren't that different north or south. Wong-Tam won 57% of the vote north of Bloor. If you look at individual divisions, Wong-Tam won each and everyone of them.

The division she did worse was Division 87 (Seaton House - a homeless shelter on George Street). However she still more than doubled her nearest opponent.

... the present ward boundaries do ensure that anyone north of Bloor will not be represented by their elected representative.
How can that be, when the elected councillor won EVERY polling division in the Ward, and had over 57% of the vote north of Bloor Street? Who then is their elected representative?
 
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I'm not taking a side on the issue but if you are going to be looking at election results, you should probably look at Wong-Tam's 2010 election instead. Since then, she has incumbent advantage plus 4 years to familiarize herself and prove her worth to those north of Bloor.

I think the recent election has proven that incumbent advantage is the most important factor in Toronto election politics. Hence why capable candidates like Alex Mazer lost, while numbskulls like Mammolitti won.
 
I'm not taking a side on the issue but if you are going to be looking at election results, you should probably look at Wong-Tam's 2010 election instead. Since then, she has incumbent advantage plus 4 years to familiarize herself and prove her worth to those north of Bloor.
She still took 57% of the vote north of Bloor, and took every polling division in the ward.

I think the recent election has proven that incumbent advantage is the most important factor in Toronto election politics. Hence why capable candidates like Alex Mazer lost, while numbskulls like Mammolitti won.

Incumbents can be beaten - look at Ward 32 in 2010. When there's division in the ward, you see the councillor losing some divisions - like Mammoliti. You don't see the unanimity of every polling division choosing the same candidate. Mammo only took 46% of his entire ward. Wong-Tam did better than that north of Bloor Street. Though glancing at it, it would appear that Ken Chan won north of Bloor - but got much less than 50%, and no where near the support that Wong-Tam got north of Bloor in 2014.

I guess since 2010 the Rosedale crowd have realized what a stellar counsellor they have with Wong-Tam - if only we could all be so fortunate.

I tried crunching the 2010 data in PDF, but it doesn't parse well, unlike the 2014 PDF. If someone has it in a more usuable format I'd be happy to crunch the north versus south results.
 
And remember that before KWT, Ward 27 was ably represented by Kyle Rae, who himself ought to have been tarred negatively as an erstwhile gay-village NDPer.

Not to mention that the more common "gerrymandering" accusations I've witnessed have regarded the reverse, i.e. how Rosedale has eternally skunked federal/provincial NDP viability in Toronto Centre (y'know, partisans lamenting that Linda McQuaig was "robbed" in her byelection, etc)
 
I wasn't aware that the wards were so weighted against the core of the city:

WardDeviations2031.jpg
 
Scarborough surprises me.

Scarborough already outnumbers the other Toronto 'boroughs' at city hall. Looks like some of those wards will have to be split further.
 
I wasn't aware that the wards were so weighted against the core of the city:

WardDeviations2031.jpg

That image is the estimate for 2031, based on current boundaries established in 1991. Obviously tons of condo growth in the downtown compared to lush single family homes in the midtown/Etobicoke strip.

Of course, the downtown condo boom could turn into a ghost town in 20 years due to the building falling apart, who knows?
 
I knew it. There was subtle gerrymandering when the current ward boundaries were drawn.

Love how Now "gently" twists the stories so it's always Mike Harris' fault!

The wards were set to be based on the provincial boundaries. Until 2004 they were identical to the federal ridings (and after all of Southern Ontario is based on federal ridings).

Without Elections Canada and an independant boundary setting group, the ridings would be subject to a signficant amount of jerrymandering. Mike Harris did decrease the number of ridings but also ensured that there would not be jerrymandering by the current or future politicians at city hall. I will applaud him at least for the later.

The federal ridings were set a long time ago. I don't even want to guess how they were set back then!
 
Ward 27 is already gerrymandered to ensure that residents north of Bloor are effectively unrepresented. The new federal riding boundaries will address this anomaly, so it would seem reasonable for municipal ward boundaries to follow suit.

The federal/provincial ridings are suppose to be set based on historical boundries, communities of interest, etc. Before there were lots of bridges a river or a railroad created a natural boundary for an area. They were hard to cross so your community of intreest was based on these physical barriers. This made sense 50 years ago. This is why the mid-town line rail line divides up so many areas.

The old ridings/wards were also based on the pre-amalgamated city. Even the current boundaries still look at these as seperate areas (I would contend these borders are not important anymore). This is true other than a few exceptions such as Parkdale/High Park which includes both Toronto and York.

The new federal boundaries do resolve many of these issues. And there is a formala and process to automatically adjust the ridings based on the changing population. The boundaries should automatically be adusted based on these ridings (which would mean as the population increases the number of politicians increase).

If there is a concern about representing too many people (about 100,000) then this is where local community representation comes in. Each riding coiuld be divided into 8 different areas with representation from each area meeting once a week to discuss various issues as well as to be the truly local representative (and with a super-majority vote they could force their councellor to vote on certain issues). They should not get paid much....maybe $5,000. But this is a way that the council is small enough to operate efficiently but still they can understand local issues.
 
Should we stick with federal/provincial ridings cut in 2? Personally I don't think we need to, but politicians at all levels seem to like having it that way.
 
Should we stick with federal/provincial ridings cut in 2? Personally I don't think we need to, but politicians at all levels seem to like having it that way.
It's easy but it is FAR more important to have 'neighbourhoods" together at the municipal level and the recent federal review split several. St Lawrence is split along The Esplanade and the Distillery along Mill - that was just stupid and absolutely should not be replicated at the Provincial level and MUST not be replicated at the municipal level. (Of course there is no sign of any wish to have a redistribution at the Provincial level that I have heard of.

There also appears to be no great wish to have MORE City councillors and I agree that we certainly do not need more and could well do with less (not likely to happen) but if the population in Wards increases the Councillors will certainly need more staff.
 
It's unfortunate that the Electoral Boundaries Commission ceded to the "condo riding" people and then didn't allow hearings for the new downtown map.
 

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