And of course, "Mme Thibault - Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques." (Pay attention to that, BTW -- the first one is a hyphen, the next two are dashes. That's because Rimouski-Neigette is the name of a single MRC, and so are Témiscouata and Les Basques. No word on whether en-dashes or em-dashes are preferable.)Anyway, here's something I wrote a month or two ago about riding names:
My first two campaigns were in the mellifluously named riding of Verdun—Saint-Henri—Saint-Paul—Pointe-Saint-Charles. It's now named Jeanne-Le Ber, only 26% of its former length, which is good because the process of filing nomination papers and many other processes in the election office involve writing out the riding name numerous times by hand.
(Jeanne-Le Ber is an example of the Quebec predilection, recently spread to federal riding names in Quebec, of using an arbitrary personal name, usually with some connection to the riding, instead of a geographic reference. No offence to Sister Le Ber, who I understand to have been an 18th-century recluse and embroiderer from Pointe-St-Charles, but I think a name like Verdun—Le Sud-Ouest would be more appropriate for a riding that covers, you know, the boroughs of Verdun and most of Le Sud-Ouest.)
I've since borne an interest in the length of riding names. There are currently 308 federal ridings in Canada. The mean length of their English-language official names (in total characters, including spaces and punctuation) is 17.3. Interestingly, 17 is also the mode of riding lengths: there are 24 ridings with exactly 17 characters, including Calgary Southwest, AB (Harper's riding), Hamilton Mountain and Timmins—James Bay, ON (NDP ridings), and the lovely Tobique-Mactaquac, NB.
The shortest names are those of four ridings which have 5 characters in the name: Laval (QC), Brant (ON), Essex (ON), and Yukon (YT).
The current longest name is West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky Country, BC. Astonishingly, this name is a changed name, from the much more manageable West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast. (You will not be surprised to learn that this was Blair Wilson's idea.)
WV-SC-StSC, nevertheless, is two characters shorter than my former riding name of V-SH-SP-PSC. Among the ridings of the 1996 representation order, it was tied for longest name at 50 characters, with two other Quebec ridings: Beauport–Montmorency–Côte-de-Beaupré–Île-d'Orléans and Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup–Témiscouata–Les Basques. However, it's an isolated case (along with one or two other outliers, such as Bonaventure–Gaspé–Îles-de-la-Madeleine–Pabok, which was whittled down to Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine) -- the average length of Quebec riding names actually grew in the new rep order, from 17.97 to 18.28. Despite Quebec's reputation for cramming in every MRC into the name, though, only half (38) of Quebec's riding names are above the Canadian average.
Here's a summary table:
Province
Number of ridings
Average
Shortest
Longest
# above fed average
AB
28
15.18
Macleod (7)
Edmonton–Mill Woods–Beaumont (28)
8 (28%)
BC
36
20.11
Langley (7)
West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky Country (48)
21 (58%)
MB
14
16.86
Churchill (9)
Charleswood–St. James–Assiniboia (32)
3 (21%)
NB
10
15.30
Miramichi (9)
New Brunswick Southwest (25)
3 (30%)
NL
7
21.14
Avalon (6)
Bonavista–Gander–Grand Falls–Windsor (36)
4 (57%)
NS
11
17.73
Halifax (7)
Cumberland–Colchester–Musquodoboit Valley (41)
4 (36%)
ON
106
16.47
Brant = Essex (5)
Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington (37) 42 (40%)
PE
4
8.75
Egmont (6)
Charlottetown (13)
0 (0%)
QC
75
18.28
Laval (5)
Montmagny–L'Islet–Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup (44)
38 (51%)
SK
14
18.85
Wascana (7)
Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River (35)
8 (57%)
Terr.
3
8.67
Yukon (5)
Western Arctic (14)
0 (0%)
The ten longest riding names:
1. West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky Country, BC (48)
2. Montmagny–L'Islet–Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup, QC (44)
3. Cumberland–Colchester–Musquodoboit Valley, NS (41)
=. Rimouski-Neigette–Témiscouata–Les Basques, QC (41)
5. Haute-Gaspésie–La Mitis–Matane–Matapédia, QC (40)
6. Montmorency–Charlevoix–Haute-Côte-Nord, QC (38)
7. Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington, ON (37)
8. Bonavista–Gander–Grand Falls–Windsor, NL (36)
=. Ancaster–Dundas–Flamborough–Westdale, ON (36)
10. Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River, SK (35)
Number 11, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC, is the longest without any dashes, at 34. The longest single-word name appears to be Charlottetown, PEI, at 13.
[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: montrealais ]
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posted 24 September 2008 12:53 PM
