Manitoba votes 2019: Borderland riding profile

CBC News | Posted: August 15, 2019 7:32 PM | Last Updated: August 15, 2019

Image | Borderland

Caption: Manitobans head to the polls on Sept. 10. (CBC)

This is one of the oldest ridings in the province and it's been on the books since the province's fourth general election in 1879 under the name Emerson. It got a new name and some additional territory last year in an effort to accommodate growth in the area of Morden and Winkler, as part of a provincewide riding redistribution.

The southeastern Manitoba riding is bounded to the south by the Manitoba-North Dakota border, ending just east of Highway 209 to the east and just west of Thornill to the west, not including the communities of Morden and Winkler.

The riding includes the communities of Emerson, Altona, Dominion City, Gretna, Plum Coulee, St. Jean Baptiste and Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation.

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The region made headlines across the country in 2017 due to a steep rise in the number of people crossing the Canada-US border on foot seeking asylum.

Its population is 22,925, according to the province's 2018 riding profile (compiled from the 2016 census).

The median age of the riding is younger than the overall provincial median, at 30.1 in Borderland compared to 38.3 provincewide, according to the 2018 riding profile and the 2016 census. The census found the median household income in the area is $66,607.

More facts about Borderland:

Almost 18 per cent of residents reported they speak German most often at home, according to the province's 2018 profile and the 2016 census.
Roughly 98 per cent of the population identified as not a visible minority in the 2016 census, according to the province's 2018 profile.
The largest employment groups are in manufacturing (16.3 per cent), and agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (14.5 per cent), according to the profile. Those are followed by retail trade (10.2 per cent) and health care and social assistance (9.7 per cent).