A new report from Brandon University says looming mine closures in Thompson and Flin Flon may cost the region so many residents that northern Manitoba could lose one of its five provincial ridings by the 2028 election.

The university's Rural Development Institute says that over the last three years, a series of events or announcements have cast a long shadow of economic instability over many communities in Manitoba's north.

The study was commissioned by Manitoba's electoral boundaries commission.

Its authors caution it is more an analysis of the demographics and economies of rural and remote Manitoba than a series of recommendations about specific boundary changes.