Winnipeg riding needs less cumbersome name, new boundaries, says federal commission

The federal agency responsible for redrawing Canada's electoral map wants to get rid of the most cumbersome riding name in Winnipeg.

The constituency of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley will have the much simpler name of Winnipeg West going forward, should recommendations from the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission be accepted.

The new moniker is consistent with other riding names in Winnipeg, such as Winnipeg Centre and Winnipeg South. 

"It is clear, concise and practical," said the proposal from the commission, which was posted online Thursday.

The independent agency also said that electoral division should be expanded to incorporate more communities because its population growth is the slowest in Winnipeg.

But it isn't practical to add more community descriptors to the riding name, the report says.

It recommends the swing riding, currently held by the Conservatives, expand to incorporate the rural municipalities of St. Francois Xavier and Cartier, as well as a small area from the eastern part of the RM of Portage la Prairie.

Population disparity

The commission said its aim in redrawing boundaries is to ensure some semblance of voter parity across the province's 14 ridings. The average population for those 14 ridings is 95,868.

Before redrawing the boundaries, the population of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley grew by only 2,903 people between the 2011 and 2021 census, the commission's report says. By way of comparison, Winnipeg South, which had the biggest population jump in Manitoba, grew by 27,830 people during the same time span.

As a result, Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley is now nearly 12 per cent smaller than the provincial average for ridings, while Winnipeg South is 18 per cent larger, according to the report.

The federal government redraws electoral boundaries every 10 years to take into account the ebbs and flows of population changes. An independent and non-partisan body is tasked with preparing a proposal, hearing public concerns and sending a final report for members of Parliament to review.

After the current redistribution across the country, Canada will send four more MPs to the House of Commons, for a total of 342. Manitoba will continue to have 14 seats. 

Other changes proposed by the commission include expanding the already geographically massive Churchill Keewatinook-Aski riding — which includes Manitoba's vast northern region and represents a small and shrinking population — with several communities from the Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa riding, including six First Nation communities and two rural municipalities.

"A large number of constituents who live in the areas that are being added are from Indigenous communities, which presently represent a significant portion of that riding," the commission's proposal says.

To make up for Dauphin's population loss, that riding would absorb the town of Virden and some other areas from the northwest corner of the Brandon-Souris constituency. 

Full details on the changes, including maps, are available here.