Abbotsford (British Columbia) (1/338)

 Abbotsford (British Columbia)

And our inaugural riding is one I know quite well! The neighbour to my right, Abbotsford!

Abbotsford as an electoral riding has been in place since 2004, losing some portions to the west to Langley-Aldergrove and to the north with Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon in the 2012 redistribution. On the edge of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford is the largest municipality in the province outside Metro Vancouver and the largest city by area in British Columbia (Census 2016).

Politically, Abbotsford is a safe Conservative seat. It, like quite a few other metropolitan areas got closer in 2015 with the wave of Liberal representation. It still stayed with the Conservatives, but it went below 50% for the first time ever. It crept back up to 51% in the 2019 election, however. Ed Fast has represented the riding since 2006.

As with other suburban/commutable to city ridings, it has gone further to the left in recent years. Make no mistake, Abbotsford is still a safe riding, having a 29.84 point margin between the Conservatives and the Liberals last election, being 39/42 in BC and 255/338 in terms of margin. 

Rating:

Name: 9.5/10 - Basically perfect, maybe Abbotsford Metro could work as well because of the more rural portions going to the other local ridings. 

Shape: 7.2/10 - It encapsulates the city quite well, but I don't quite get why they made the little part at the bottom part of Chilliwack-Hope.

Individuality: 6.8/10 - Pretty individual, being a commuter city it has pretty equal representation between rural and urban. It isn't as far right as rural BC but not as moderate as Langley/Surrey. 

Total: 23.5/30 (78.3%)

Join me tomorrow with our next riding, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. (If you're a fan of long riding names, you might want to look away for this one.)

Welcome to Riding of the Day!

 Hello!

Welcome to a new project of mine, exploring all of Canada's 338 federal ridings!

This project is inspired by Matthew Klein's (@MattKleinOnline) exploration of the US congressional districts.

I will be posting ridings daily (as daily as I can, I am still human and soon to be in University), in alphabetical order. I'll discuss the riding itself, the municipalities, the landscape, and of course, the politics.

There will be a rating system, because we as humans require order and organization. Ridings will be rated on the riding name, shape and the individuality. The first two are pretty self-explanatory (I CANNOT wait until we get to the Quebec ridings). As for individuality, it will be ranked based on what stands out about the riding, whether it's a unique voting bloc, an interesting landscape, a notable celebrity, etc.

I will be posting all of the ridings before the next election, but due to our current minority government, we don't know when that is. So if a Summer/Fall election is called, we will adjust and go into T U R B O M O D E and posting multiple ridings a day up until the election.

Thank you for joining me on this journey across Canada! 

If you have anything you want to say about your riding, all submissions are welcome at ridingoftheday@gmail.com

Twitter - @riding_day