Monday, May 30, 2011

The new Tory constituency: Far less francophone, far more multicultural

Stephen Harper finally won his majority government, but in the process lost more than half of his party’s seats in Quebec. Gains in the rest of the country made up for these losses, however, and with the Conservatives winning a swathe of new seats in the Greater Toronto Area the ridings represented by Tory MPs has become far less francophone and much more diverse.

You can read the rest of the article on The Globe and Mail website. A condensed version of the article with infographic is also in today's print edition.


As I did with the NDP and the Liberals, here are a few extra tidbits on the new Conservative constituency:

Largest population: Brampton West (170,000 in 2006)
Smallest population: Labrador (26,000)
Oldest median age: Chilliwack - Fraser Canyon (50.6 years)
Youngest median age: Nunavut (23.1 years)
Highest median household income: Halton ($93,000)
Lowest median household income: Dauphin - Swan River - Marquette ($34,000)
Ridings in which French is the largest language group: 7
Ridings in which neither English nor French is the largest language group: 14
Ridings in which immigrants are the majority: 12
Riding with the largest aboriginal population: Desnethé - Missinippi - Churchill River (45,000)