Redrawn ridings could give Conservatives an advantage, say pollsters

Canadians across the country will be voting in new ridings in the coming election.

Pollsters say that the updated districts could give the Conservatives a slight advantage in the race, though the boundary changes shouldn’t affect the election’s overall results.

How many ridings are there?

The country has added five new ridings, bringing the total to 343.

Three of the new seats are in Alberta, one is in British Columbia and one is in Ontario.

Many ridings saw their boundaries changed and some, including one in Toronto, were eliminated completely. Of the 338 old ridings, only 48 remain unchanged.

Why were the ridings updated?

Federal electoral districts need to be reviewed after every 10-year census to reflect changes in Canada’s population, says Elections Canada.

As a result of the review, electoral district boundaries can be changed and new districts can be created. The last federal redistribution process began in October 2021.

Dan Arnold, chief strategy officer at Pollara and former pollster for the Trudeau Liberals, said that while the redistribution process is nonpartisan, one party can expect to benefit from the recent changes.

“The Conservatives will benefit from this new map, but the reason they’ll benefit is because they have more support in the parts of the country that are growing faster, and those changes should be made to our maps,” Arnold said.

How will the new boundaries affect the election results?

Two pollsters say that while there have been several changes to the map, the changes shouldn’t seriously benefit one party over the other.

Philippe Fournier, a polling analyst with 338Canada, said that while the changes to the map are “relatively minor,” there is a “small advantage” for the Conservatives because of the three new seats in Alberta.

“Every party can look at parts of the map that are better or worse for them. Overall, the changes were not that big,” said Fournier.

In some ridings, the changes will be noticeable.

Fournier said the Bloc Quebecois has an advantage in Quebec under the new map, which expands the old Gaspesie--Les Iles-de-la-Madeleine riding, held by former fisheries minister Diane Lebouthillier, and merges it with a Bloc-leaning area.

Lebouthillier defeated the Bloc candidate in the last election by only 2,618 votes.

“That’s a cabinet minister that is going from a favorite to an underdog just because of the way they drew the map,” Fournier said.

He pointed out that a seat was also added to the northern suburbs of Montreal, which went “wall-to-wall” Bloc in the last election.

The riding of Desnethe--Missinippi--Churchill River in northern Saskatchewan has been redrawn in a way that likely will benefit the Liberals, Fournier said, now that it has removed a portion that voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Conservatives.

“The riding is mostly First Nations,” Fournier said. “The Conservatives are still the favorite, of course, in Saskatchewan, but not in that riding because of the new boundaries.”

Arnold said it’s “simplistic” to just look at the results of the last election and attempt to make predictions by comparing them to the new map - because people change their party preferences, new voters are registered with every new election and people do move from riding to riding.

He noted that while Toronto is losing its Liberal-held Don Valley East seat and the suburbs around Toronto that lean Conservative are getting extra seats, a lot of people -- who tend to vote Liberal -- have moved from the city centre into those areas.

“Any shifts that happen because of boundaries are going to pale in comparison to shifts that happen because of the Trump factor or the new leaders for the Conservatives and Liberals, or other factors that are also going to come into play,” Arnold said.

Arnold said he believes the overall impact of the new map will be “minimal,” with some benefits for the Conservatives.

“No matter how you draw the boundaries in Alberta, at the end of the day more seats there is going to be good for the Conservatives, regardless of how boundaries shift and populations move and things like that,” Arnold said, noting the addition of a seat in the B.C. interior is also probably good for the Conservatives.

Arnold said the NDP may be in trouble in northern Ontario, a region the Conservatives have been targeting heavily over the past year.

He said that, based on a mathematical redistribution of 2021 results, the NDP would still win Timmins by about 10 points but MP Charlie Angus, who has said he won’t run again, “would have been a big part of that.”

“If the NDP are down nationally, if they don’t have that incumbent to anchor their vote, the riding becomes very difficult for them,” Arnold said. “Even though the board has been shaken up, losing a seat in Northern Ontario is generally bad news for the NDP, just like losing a seat in Toronto is generally bad news for the Liberals.”

How have politicians reacted to the boundary changes?

Several members of Parliament have expressed discontent with the boundary changes - including Liberal MP for Sydney-Victoria Jaime Battiste, who argued the changes were unconstitutional.

Both Battiste and Mike Kelloway, the Liberal MP for the federal riding of Cape Breton-Canso, announced plans to run in the newly created Sydney-Glace Bay riding.

In February Battiste said on social media that most of his riding will form part of the new riding and that he has satisfied the criteria for acclamation as the Liberal candidate for the riding.

In his own social media post around the same time, Kelloway said the new riding had no incumbent and called on the Liberal party to choose which candidate to nominate. He said the new riding is where his hometown of Glace Bay is located.

On Saturday, Kelloway said he’d been told by the Liberals he would be the candidate for Sydney-Glace Bay.

Battiste confirmed in a written statement posted on his Facebook page that he will be the candidate in Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish.

Arnold said there’s always going to be “points of friction” when boundaries change.

Michael Coteau, who represents the disappearing riding of Don Valley East, said in 2023 that the redrawing process is “flawed” and the results are “inconsistent with Toronto’s economic, social and political role in Canada.”

The MP held a news conference at the time, where he raised concerns about the changes and said constituents were not happy with the decision.

The Liberal party website says Coteau is now running in Scarborough--Woburn, a new riding where no Liberal incumbent exists.

When will the full list of federal candidates be available?

Fournier said the full list of candidates isn’t usually shared until the very last day during the campaign. He said parties are still recruiting and still vetting, noting that they will have to prioritize the ridings “they have a chance in.”

As of mid-March, the Conservatives had nominated 275 out of 343 candidates. As of Friday, the Liberals had nominated 195 candidates and the NDP had nominated 230 candidates.

As of mid-March the Green Party had 208 nominated candidates. The Bloc, which only runs candidates in Quebec, had 11 candidates confirmed as of Friday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 23, 2025.