The federal Conservatives are likely to gain the most once Canada’s new electoral map is set in place later this year, says the pollster who ran the numbers for the Liberal war room in the last three general elections.
As the country moves from 338 electoral districts to 343, new seats are being created mostly in parts of the country that have tended to vote Conservative.
And a handful of existing ridings currently represented by New Democrat or Liberal MPs are turning more ‘blue’ with new boundaries.
Overall, of the existing 338 ridings, 271 will see their boundaries changed. “I think when you add up the numbers there, the new map does look like it will benefit the Conservatives,” said Dan Arnold, who became the chief strategy officer at Pollara Strategic Insights last year but, before that, was the director of research in Justin Trudeau’s PMO and the polling director for the Liberal Party in the 2015, 2019 and 2021 general election campaigns. “By and large, it’s only minor changes.