40% = 50%

Fred Winsor of the Sierra Club tells VOCM:

We would have like to have seen some discussion about regional public transit. We've got fifty percent of the population living within an hour's drive of St. John's. At least even doing a feasibility study on what kinds of public transit are feasible in terms of trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that would be a big one, because greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles is one-third of the emissions in the province.

Whatever the merits of public transportation in St. John's and area — and this corner is a big fan of public transportation of all modes — fifty percent of the population of the province does not live within an hour's drive of St. John's, at least not officially as of the most recent census.

At that time, about 200,000 people lived in the St. John's Census Metropolitan Area, and in the municipalities and unincorporated areas within an hour's drive, as per the official guvamint driving distances database. That represented about 39.5% of the provincial population.

Big whopping majority

There are 308 ridings in Canada. The current 308-riding electoral map has been in place now for four general elections (2004, 2006, 2008, 2011).

In two of those 308 ridings, the largest (preliminary) number of advance voters was seen in 2004 (Timmins–James Bay and Yorkton–Melville). Thirty-two ridings had their recent high-water advance vote in 2006, an election in which the government changed. Just six saw the high-water mark in 2008, the election with the dubious distinction of having the worst turnout ever.

In 2011, 268 of the 308 ridings have had record advance poll turnout for ridings in the current electoral map.

Conversely, just five ridings have scored record low advance-poll turnout in the instant election: Saskatoon–Humboldt, Red Deer, Vegreville–Wainwright, Surrey North, and Nunavut.

St. John's takes the hit that it can take

Some truly astonishing statistics in the latest Statscan report on Employment Insurance, out earlier in the week.

Year-over-year, the largest proportionate increases in the number of EI recipients were in Alberta (+260%) and BC (+129.4%). Within those two provinces, Calgary (+339.5%), Edmonton (+277.4%), Victoria (+182.8%) and Vancouver (+161.6%) were four of the top five metropolitan areas for proportionate increases in EI rolls. (Windsor, Ontario, up 215.5%, was the only non-western city in that club.)

All provinces and and all metropolitan areas saw increases in EI recipients in May 2009 compared to the same month one year earlier. Newfoundland and Labrador's EI roll was up 20.1%, roughly on par with NB (+20.2%) and NS (+23.5%), but the "least bad" among province with the exception of PEI (+14.9%).

St. John's had the third-lowest increase among metropolitan areas (+31.4%), with only Trois-Rivières and Saguenay being less bad. This says as much about the denominator as the numerator.

The stats also show that, in the past year, the EI rolls have grown at a greater clip in St. John's than in the province as a whole. Subtracting St. John's from the province, the smaller centres and rural areas saw EI rolls increase by "just" 18.7% from May to May. This is consistent with a broader national trend, in which 20 of 28 metropolitan areas have seen their EI-receiving populations grow at a steeper rate than that of their respective provinces overall.