Population boom shakes up federal ridings in N.S.

Nova Scotia's recent population boom has triggered a redrawing of the federal political map that comes into play for the first time in a snap election that kicked off this week.

Numbers changed the most in the suburbs around Halifax, where one riding — Halifax West — grew by almost 25,000 people in a decade.

Halifax West became too big according to the rules of the Constitution, and paring it back caused a domino effect across the province. 

All but one of Nova Scotia's 11 ridings have different boundaries for this election than when Canadians last went to the polls in 2021.

Immigration surge

The redistribution of seats used the 2021 census. Carolyn Whiteway said the population at that time reflects significant international immigration from India, the Philippines, Syria, China and Nigeria.

Whiteway, executive director of the Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies, said the lag between the snapshot provided by the census and this election means newcomers who contributed to the redistribution of seats could be eligible to cast ballots on April 28.

"Hopefully, many of those newcomers would have gained their Canadian citizenship in that time," she said in an interview.

Changes big and small

Some of the most significant changes to riding boundaries happened around the Halifax Regional Municipality, where Halifax West shifted south to move away from the densely populated suburbs, including Bedford, and toward more rural parts of the municipality. It picked up part of South Shore-St. Margarets.

The former Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook picked up some of what Halifax West lost, and in turn shifted away from the Atlantic Coast, losing the communities of Eastern Passage and Lawrencetown. It's now called Sackville-Bedford-Preston.

Dartmouth-Cole Harbour also changed significantly, shifting south all the way to Cow Bay, while the peninsular riding of Halifax changed only slightly.

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The other big changes happened on Cape Breton, where the former Sydney-Victoria shrank geographically into a mostly urban riding that now encompasses Sydney and Glace Bay, and is named, aptly, Sydney-Glace Bay.

Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish encompasses the rest of the Island and reaches onto the mainland. It takes over the town of Antigonish from Central Nova.

No impact to 2021 results

Elections Nova Scotia transposed the votes from the last federal election onto the new map and found no changes to the results. But the redistribution has had other impacts.

The two Liberal incumbents on Cape Breton Island, Jaime Battiste and Mike Kelloway, both wanted to run in the new Sydney-Glace Bay. They settled the dispute just before the election call, and Kelloway now holds the party banner in Sydney-Glace Bay while Battiste takes it for Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish.

The change may also require a re-education for voters. Even in ridings that haven't had major boundary changes, several have new names, including the former West Nova becoming Acadie-Annapolis.

Voters can search for their electoral district by postal code on the Elections Canada website.