Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada

This is a list of resources to draw information from. Ideally, the information used should be referenced to the most authoritative sources possible, preferably online. Please add your comments below the appropriate resource. Is anyone willing to research how to cite sources?

Library of Parliament

• Riding history for Avalon (2003– ) from the Library of Parliament = {{CanRiding|ID=705|name = Avalon (2003– )}}

Elections Canada

• http://www.elections.ca

Gives official results, voter turnout, expenditures but is a very difficult website to link to. For example, the individual districts cannot be linked to for the 1997 finances, 2004 finances. Election finance statements can only be found in print at major libraries.

• Official voting results - 2004 Federal election
  • Poll-by-poll results by electoral district and candidate. Various other tables.

Statistics Canada

• http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/standard/fedprofile/index.cfm

Gives all 2001 census data as profiles for the electoral districts that existed between 1996 and today.

• http://www12.statcan.ca/fedprofil/Eng/FedSelect_E.cfm

Gives 1996 census data as profiles for the electoral districts that existed between 1996 and 2003.

• Previous census data may only be available in print form at Depository libraries across Canada.
  • For 1991 Census data and the 1987 Rep order, the following Statistics Canada publications can be consulted:
    • Catalogue # 93-502 has population and dwelling counts for Federal electoral districts (1986 & 1991).
    • Catalogue # 93-533 & 93-534 (two volumes) have profiles (detailed data) of each district.

Simon Fraser University

http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/laws.html

• Comprehensive collection of federal election related info.

Libraries and Archives Canada

• Electoral Atlas of the Dominion of Canada (1895)

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hello, in most Canadian electoral district articles, the table for the list of MLAs are sorted in the order from the first MLA to last (e.g. at the top, you have MLAs from the 1st assembly and at the bottom, 43rd), but in Nova Scotia's provincial ridings' articles, they use most recent on the top to least recent (e.g. 43rd at the top; 1st bottom). I feel like maybe we should change the order of that so it is more consistent with the federal articles? Nova Scotia also still doesn't use wiki table style. I might create an NS-MLA template. — Eric0892 (talk) 00:35, 30 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

All of the riding articles seem to use the em-dash in their titles (where applicable). However, in Canadian writing style, these are all supposed to be en-dashes. A few of the articles have redirects from the correct title to the wrong one. Example: Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Sœurs redirects to Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Sœurs. Will the project fix this? Urhixidur (talk) 15:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I just noticed this and came to ask the same question. I moved one article to the correct en dash (also per MOS:DASH) and then realized that all of the articles listed at {{Ridings in Quebec}} appear to use em dashes when they should use en dashes. Is there any reason for this apparent deviance from Wikipedia's Manual of Style and the Canadian style guide linked above? – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Follow-up: I found this brief discussion in this page's talk archives from 2011, with previous discussions farther down the page from 2006. I am not persuaded by any of these ancient discussions that provinces' mixed forms of punctuation use should somehow cause us to deviate from the accepted site-wide style described in MOS:DASH, most specifically at MOS:ENBETWEEN: In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between. All of these em-dash-joined titles should be moved to use en dashes instead of em dashes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:43, 26 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Elections Canada uses em dashes, which is why we've been using them. I think the only justification for moving them would be based on WP:COMMONAME, but I'm not entirely convinced by that at this point. Anyway, if they are to be moved, we'll need community consensus and this should not be done piecemeal (we've already seen the disaster that that was recently). Someone will need to get a bot going. -- Earl Andrew - talk 13:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Elections Canada is inconsistent. On this page, they use "--" (two hyphens), unspaced, between the names, not em dashes. We can't count on them for style, and we can't use "--", so MOS:DASH, Wikipedia's own style guide, should apply. You are right that we might need a bot; I count 628 articles with incorrect em dashes in their names. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:26, 27 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Jonesey95 You know that "- -" and "—" are the same thing? Some printers don’t have a proper em-dash, so they use two en-dashes instead. Harks back to the time of typewriters or early internet that didn’t accommodate the em-dash. Abebenjoe (talk) 13:48, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

?? It's a web page. They have access to dashes. In any case, here at Wikipedia we do not harken; we follow MOS:DASH. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:50, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Um, no, MOS:DASH doesn't apply. These are the formal names of the electoral districts and they emphatically use EM-DASH. WP:NCGN – Abebenjoe (talk) 16:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

As of 23 April 2024, the Parkdale–High Park electoral district (ED) is now formally named: Taiaiako'n–Parkdale–High Park. Currently, there is a re-direct when the new name is used. It points to this Parkdale–High Park article, the old name for the ED. Should a completely new article, based on this article be made? I think there is a good case for that, as there are slight differences in boundaries as well. Parkdale–High Park 1976–2024. Abebenjoe (talk) 01:54, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

There is no real standard on this, but just because a riding gets a new name does not mean there should be a new article. Sometimes there are very few changes or none at all, and a riding will still get a new name. Those don't warrant a new article. I'd imagine there will be enough reliable sources that treat the riding the same as Parkdale-High Park, but at the same time there were also some significant boundary changes. I won't oppose either plan. -- Earl Andrew - talk 12:46, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Earl Andrew I took a more detailed look at the boundary map for the new ED. The main difference is that the northern part of The Junction was added back to P–HP. Historically, The Junction goes north of St. Clair following the old city boundaries between York Township and the old City of Toronto (post-1909 amalgamation with The City of West Toronto). So, that added a few thousand people to the ED. One historical change, that the new boundaries bring, is it added parts of the old York Township in the northwest. The old municipal boundary was Runnymede in the west, until Annette Street, then Jane became the western border. The new ED incorporates the Lambton neighbourhood, which never was part of The Junction.

So, that being said, those are major changes compared to the 1970s version of the ED, prior to 1976. High Park—Humber Valley, created in 1972, followed the exact same boundaries as its predecessor, High Park (federal electoral district). Yet, it received its own article. Taiaiako'n is more than a name change, it's the first real alignment change since 1976, by not using the CPR railway tracks as the northern border.

I'm now leaning towards creating a new article for it. It may not get contested for up to two more years, as a term can still run for five years, provided the government maintains the confidence of the House of Commons that long. What do you think, create the new article sooner rather than later? – Abebenjoe (talk) 15:56, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

If those two ridings have the same boundaries, then there is a case for the two articles to be merged. Because the name change was in 1976, who ever created the articles may not have been aware of this. More recent examples involve keeping articles together when it is just a name change.-- Earl Andrew - talk 16:01, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Looks like it was you who created the separate article for High Park—Humber Valley, removing the redirect in the process. This should not have been done in my opinion.-- Earl Andrew - talk 16:09, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Earl Andrew I've been around so long that it turns out I was the person that created the original article, because SimonP created the redirect before. Might make merging much easier to revert to Simon's 2005 redirect as long as the information from this article is put back into the High Park article. Another project I'll take on later tonight.– Abebenjoe (talk) 17:35, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Earl Andrew 1972 was when the name change occurred to add "Humber Valley" to the 1966 version of High Park. Other than the addition of the name, they had the identical physical boundaries. 1976 was a game changer. It combined Parkdale with High Park to, more or less, create the current Parkdale–High Park. In terms of boundaries, it has been one of the most stable ED boundaries in the old city of Toronto over the past 45-plus years. Even the new boundaries are just a minor tweak to the 1976 boundaries. So, yeah, sounds like there is a case to merge the High Park—Humber Valley article into High Park (federal electoral district) if that's the current practice. Somehow, the new name and boundaries need to be highlighted better if they remain as a single article. Taiaiako'n is the biggest change to the ED since it was created in 1976.– Abebenjoe (talk) 17:14, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Oh, and to answer your question, we already have separate articles on some of the new ridings (e.g. Oakville West), so if you plan on creating one, do so at your convenience.-- Earl Andrew - talk 16:03, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Earl Andrew ok, I might do it later today. Got get out and enjoy plus 20ºC weather while I still can. Thanks for the insight. – Abebenjoe (talk) 17:15, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply