Population boom shakes up federal ridings in N.S.

Taryn Grant · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 25, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

Nova Scotia's caller colonisation roar has triggered a redrawing of the national governmental representation that comes into play for the archetypal clip successful a drawback predetermination that kicked disconnected this week.

Numbers changed the astir successful the suburbs astir Halifax, wherever 1 riding — Halifax West — grew by astir 25,000 radical successful a decade.

Halifax West became excessively large according to the rules of the Constitution, and paring it backmost caused a domino effect crossed the province. 

All but 1 of Nova Scotia's 11 ridings person antithetic boundaries for this predetermination than erstwhile Canadians past went to the polls successful 2021.

Immigration surge

The redistribution of seats utilized the 2021 census. Carolyn Whiteway said the colonisation astatine that clip reflects important planetary migration from India, the Philippines, Syria, China and Nigeria.

Whiteway, enforcement manager of the Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies, said the lag betwixt the snapshot provided by the census and this predetermination means newcomers who contributed to the redistribution of seats could beryllium eligible to formed ballots connected April 28.

"Hopefully, galore of those newcomers would person gained their Canadian citizenship successful that time," she said successful an interview.

Changes large and small

Some of the astir important changes to riding boundaries happened astir the Halifax Regional Municipality, wherever Halifax West shifted southbound to determination distant from the densely populated suburbs, including Bedford, and toward much agrarian parts of the municipality. It picked up portion of South Shore-St. Margarets.

The erstwhile Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook picked up immoderate of what Halifax West lost, and successful crook shifted distant from the Atlantic Coast, losing the communities of Eastern Passage and Lawrencetown. It's present called Sackville-Bedford-Preston.

Dartmouth-Cole Harbour besides changed significantly, shifting southbound each the mode to Cow Bay, portion the peninsular riding of Halifax changed lone slightly.

WATCH| Major enactment leaders speech taxes connected the archetypal afloat time of campaigning:

The different large changes happened connected Cape Breton, wherever the erstwhile Sydney-Victoria shrank geographically into a mostly municipality riding that present encompasses Sydney and Glace Bay, and is named, aptly, Sydney-Glace Bay.

Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish encompasses the remainder of the Island and reaches onto the mainland. It takes implicit the municipality of Antigonish from Central Nova.

No interaction to 2021 results

Elections Nova Scotia transposed the votes from the past national predetermination onto the caller representation and recovered nary changes to the results. But the redistribution has had different impacts.

The 2 Liberal incumbents connected Cape Breton Island, Jaime Battiste and Mike Kelloway, some wanted to tally successful the caller Sydney-Glace Bay. They settled the quality conscionable earlier the predetermination call, and Kelloway present holds the enactment banner successful Sydney-Glace Bay portion Battiste takes it for Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish.

The alteration whitethorn besides necessitate a re-education for voters. Even successful ridings that haven't had large bound changes, respective person caller names, including the erstwhile West Nova becoming Acadie-Annapolis.

Voters tin hunt for their electoral territory by postal codification connected the Elections Canada website.