Electoral District (Canada) - Terminology

Terminology

Originally, most electoral districts were equivalent to the counties used for local government, hence the French unofficial term comté. However, it became common, especially in Ontario, to divide counties with sufficient population into multiple electoral divisions; these became unofficially known as ridings, from an archaic British term denoting a subdivision of a county. In some of Canada's earliest censuses, in fact, some citizens in the ridings of Bothwell, Cardwell, Monck and Niagara listed their electoral district as their "county" of residence instead of their actual county.

Soon after Confederation, the urban population grew — and more importantly, most city dwellers gained the franchise after property ownership was no longer required to gain the vote. Rural constituencies therefore became geographically larger through the 20th century and generally encompassed one or more counties each, and the word "riding" was then used to refer to any electoral division.

A political party's local organization is generally known as a riding association.