Change in the Map: New Nova Scotia Francophone Riding

Nova Scotia's Legislature will be increasing to 56 members following the court-ordered creation of Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay on Cape Breton

Great news for everyone - there’s a brand new provincial riding in Nova Scotia!

Something not often done in Canada, unlike the US, is court-ordered creations of districts between redistricting/redistribution cycles. Following a decision laid down by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia that the electoral commission in 2019 violated Section 3 of the Charter by not creating a Francophone opportunity seat on Cape Breton Island. Thus the government of Nova Scotia was compelled to create a whole electoral boundaries commission to add a brand new, small-as-heck seat: Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay.

Carved out of the riding of Inverness, Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay will have a population of 4,602, of which 3,924 are electors. Just 1,656 (36%) of them have French as a mother tongue, so it will notably not be a majority Francophone riding, though a far better ratio than before (Inverness together was just 12%), and as we’ll see it does seem to have some effect on the partisan vote - just some, though.

The southern half is renamed Inverness-We’koqma’q, the addition recognizing the largest First Nations community in the seat. This is the seat that incumbent Inverness PC MLA Kyle MacQuarrie will continue to represent in the Legislature, while Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay will go to a by-election expected to be called within six months.

How Did Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay Vote in 2024?

Don’t get too excited anti-Houston folks.

After sorting through the transposition of the seat, the partisan breakdown of both Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay and Inverness-We’koqma’q is as follows:

While the Liberals do just over 5% better in the seat, an increase definitely attributable to the Francophone communities where they tend to do better. In fact, in the 2021 provincial election the Liberals would have won Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay 49% to 43% (roughly by 200 votes), though this was with the Liberal candidate pulling an average of 54% among the Francophone polls, compared to just 38% in 2024.

And to demonstrate how fickle this all is, they would’ve lost the seat to the PCs 57% to 34% in 2017, a year they formed government. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All this is to say, when the by-election comes, I’d expect it to be a PC hold given the current state of polling - however, with such a low population, almost anything could happen.

This has been exciting, however! For me.