Canadian provinces and territories on 30 questions before the 2011 federal elections

[FrAnKs]

I've found it on : http://www.mtlurb.com/forums/showthr...eral-elections

I think it's interesting to share :

[vid]

Look at Quebec and Alberta! Wouldn't want to be caught between the two at a party.

[FrAnKs]

It's a chance we're not next to each other

[Dirt_Devil]

One thing interesting is that Quebec City is quite different than the rest of the province in these results. And this usually shows at federal elections.

[Rico Rommheim]

Very interesting, although I see a major flaw with the presentation, the most important ridings (the smaller, urban) can't be seen due to the scale. So yeah, cities like Vancouver, where more than half the provincial population barely register.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Very interesting, although I see a major flaw with the presentation, the most important ridings (the smaller, urban) can't be seen due to the scale. So yeah, cities like Vancouver, where more than half the provincial population barely register.

Agreed. Instead of a real geographical map with correct proportions, it should've had a format like this:



(The dark blue rectangle southeast of Ontario is TO, the orange one northeast of Qc is Mtl.)

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Very interesting, although I see a major flaw with the presentation, the most important ridings (the smaller, urban) can't be seen due to the scale. So yeah, cities like Vancouver, where more than half the provincial population barely register.

Yeah, similarly the GTA seems overshadowed by the large, rural regions outside it. And the lines are so close it always seems grey. This really needs a close up on the 3 largest CMAs (at least!).

Edit: Lio's solution is good too!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Dirt_Devil

One thing interesting is that Quebec City is quite different than the rest of the province in these results. And this usually shows at federal elections.

Also interesting (and not that surprising) is the fact that those maps show that Beauce is nearly always even more different from the rest of the province than Quebec City is, and always in the same direction (but further in it).

[Dr Nevergold]

Surprised so many anglo Canadians have bought into the lower taxes for well monied interests is a good thing. Or reducing public funding of elections... That's very disturbing. Elections are the most public act of all, it should be shielded from well monied private interests more than any other activity.

[ssiguy]

Ya I couldn't really make out any of Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal.

Amazing how Alberta and Quebec seem to be a polar opposites in nearly everything. Sask is also nearly a mirror image of Alberta whereas BC might as well be on another planet.

BC and Ontario definitely seem to be the middle ground but the urban areas are definitely more progressive.

[SignalHillHiker]

The arctic military one is interesting to me. People here think we'd get it if it happens, but it would presumably be Manitoba, Quebec, etc.

I think you'd see our support drop considerably if that was made clear.

Hate not being able to see the two seats in St. John's.

Surprised to see how conservative the south coast of Newfoundland is. Don't get me wrong, I know we have that... but I would've assumed the stand-out area for it would've been the north, central coast.

[Acajack]

Fascinating stuff.

Interesting how the Acadian areas of New Brunswick (and even some parts of Newfoundland as well) harmonize with Quebec on many if not most of the issues.

[SignalHillHiker]

Found it Franks.

www.votecompass.ca/results/ca-2011/

Includes breakdown for major cities.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Found it Franks.

www.votecompass.ca/results/ca-2011/

Includes breakdown for major cities.

Good stuff. Shading varies but Montreal, Quebec City and Gatineau are fairly consistent with the rest of Quebec on most issues.

[ciudad_del_norte]

Hmm. Well these are kind of interesting, the colours and shading are kind of useless and misleading. It gives an idea, but "agree more than average" and "agree less than average" aren't very helpful as applied. How much more than average? You can get kind of an idea with the spread that is vageuly shown with each map, but its hard to meaningfully interpret when black vs. deep yellow actually mean. The way people interpret colour scales like this is not well translated to this sort of pseudo statistical analysis.

I'm not sure of a better way to present this stuff in such a user friendly format, I just know if I tried to present this sort of information in this format at school I would have been ripped apart.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by ciudad_del_norte

Hmm. Well these are kind of interesting, the colours and shading are kind of useless and misleading. It gives an idea, but "agree more than average" and "agree less than average" aren't very helpful as applied. How much more than average? You can get kind of an idea with the spread that is vageuly shown with each map, but its hard to meaningfully interpret when black vs. deep yellow actually mean. The way people interpret colour scales like this is not well translated to this sort of pseudo statistical analysis.

I'm not sure of a better way to present this stuff in such a user friendly format, I just know if I tried to present this sort of information in this format at school I would have been ripped apart.

Yup. These may look neat to some but they don't provide much information. You can't even see most of the ridings and it's not clear how large the differences are or how big the sampling error was in relation to the differences measured. It looks like they deliberately chose a scale here to exaggerate the differences between ridings instead of representing the actual distributions of responses.

The visualization with the dots is interesting. You still need to be careful about how you generate your colour mappings though. Usually the colourings imply vastly greater differences than what are measured.

[ciudad_del_norte]

Originally Posted by someone123

Yup. These may look neat to some but they don't provide much information. You can't even see most of the ridings and it's not clear how large the differences are or how big the sampling error was in relation to the differences measured. It looks like they deliberately chose a scale here to exaggerate the differences between ridings instead of representing the actual distributions of responses.

The visualization with the dots is interesting. You still need to be careful about how you generate your colour mappings though. Usually the colourings imply vastly greater differences than what are measured.

Yeah, it's definitely set up to exaggerate differences. It's one of the troubles with nuances of using colour scales. Typically in a case like this people will associate anything near whyte to be more 'average' and assume any sort of noticeable contrast represents a dramatic deviation. The colour scale progresses quickly and polarizes the sides when if you look at the actual distributions things are typically much closer to the average than the colours imply. A more realistic portrayal would show a much slower progression to the black/yellow with the more dramatic shift happening towards the extreme, not immediately outside of the average. That portrayal, however, would make the country look much less dramatic (and likely more realistic).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

You still need to be careful about how you generate your colour mappings though. Usually the colourings imply vastly greater differences than what are measured.

Originally Posted by eternallyme

The colors are relative, not absolute. The deepest shade represents the 1st and 308th ranked ridings, not how strongly they share those views.

Yep, from what I gather, the calibration of the yellow->black spectrum is on a per map basis with the two extremes always represented. If on a given issue all Canadians happen to have nearly exactly the same position, you'll still see deep yellow to deep black shades on the map.

I have a problem with heat maps done that way... totally misleading... and it happens really way too often for my taste! So often that it's even happened on here in the past; I remember us discussing misleading heat maps on the subject of renewables on this very forum with Alberta's solar potential map; the heat map made the Lethbridge area seem very interesting, but on a continental-scale heat map (or a global one) the solar potential of the place is actually represented in a weak-ish color from the full spectrum while the strongest color (usually red on those) is reserved for places like the US Southwest (or Middle East, Sahara on a global one).

For the issues presented in this thread, IMO a better way to have done it would have been to calibrate the yellow->black scale in an absolute way using "realistic" global positions for the two extremes (i.e. for each extreme, you stick with the most extreme position that still has decent amount of support at least somewhere on a global scale) and then painting Canada that way.

For example, on gay marriage and rights, the entire map would be ranging from deep black to something like light grey at worst. (Scale calibrated so that places like Iran would be the ones in deep yellow.)

Obviously the maps would convey a different message then... they wouldn't be highlighting the differences within Canada any more, but rather be showing how different or how similar Canadians are on those issues in a global context.

[SignalHillHiker]

I like the shading on the Quebec questions. St. John's is completely opposed to it being recognized as a distinct nation within Canada, but neutral on whether or not it should leave.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I like the shading on the Quebec questions. St. John's is completely opposed to it being recognized as a distinct nation within Canada, but neutral on whether or not it should leave.

A bit of the "me too/us too!" going on there...