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Readjustment of Electoral Boundaries
Criteria for forming
new boundaries
in Canada
Every ten years, a set of commissions goes about the business of
redesigning Canada's electoral boundaries.
Adjustment Commissions
To conduct the readjustment, ten federal electoral boundaries commissions
are established – one for each province – to consider and report
on any changes required to the boundaries of the electoral districts.
The territories (Northwest Territories, Yukon Territory, and
Nunavut) constitute one electoral district each, so no federal
adjustments are required in these jurisdictions.
Each province's Chief Justice appoints the chair of the commission.
Another judge usually chairs the commissions, but any resident
of the province is eligible. The Speaker
of the House of Commons selects another two members of the
commission (both must be residents of the province).
Public Input
The commissions hold a number of public hearings in order to gather
the public's input in the adjustment of electoral boundaries.
Members of the public are also able to send written submissions
to the appropriate commission.
Another process is designated to ensure public input takes place
through elected representatives in the House of Commons. Members
of Parliament (MP's) can give input through an ‘objections process'
coordinated by a parliamentary committee.
In spite of this, the commissions make the final decisions on electoral
boundary adjustments.
For more on the provincial commissions, visit the Elections
Canada official commissions website.
Criteria for Adjustment
There is a basic set of criteria for the commissions to weigh when
establishing the electoral boundaries:
- The population of each electoral district will, as close
as reasonably possible, correspond to the province's electoral
quotient [Number of Electoral Districts].
- Commissions will consider the community of interest or community
of identity in, or the historical pattern of an electoral
district.
- Ridings should be a manageable geographic size for districts
in sparsely populated, rural, or northern regions of a
province.
- Except in circumstances viewed by the commission as being
extraordinary, the population of each electoral district
in a province will remain within plus or minus 25 percent
of the province's electoral quotient.
Reapportionment Versus Redistricting
Many use these terms interchangeably, but there are two distinct
processes that characterize the adjustment of electoral boundaries:
reapportionment and redistricting.
- Reapportionment is the process of dividing
the number of parliamentary representatives among the province's
population in order to assure – as close as possible – electoral
districts of equal size.
- Redistricting is simply the drawing of
district lines in order to demarcate the riding boundaries.
Senatorial Clause and Grandfather Clause
After the provincial quotients are reached, adjustments are made
in a process referred to as “applying the senatorial clause" and "grandfather
clause".
Senatorial Clause
Since 1915, the "senatorial clause" has guaranteed that
no province has fewer members in the House of Commons than it
has in the Senate.
Grandfather Clause
The
Representation Act, 1985, brought into
effect a new grandfather clause that guaranteed each
province no fewer seats than it had in 1976 – or
during the 33rd Parliament.
Both of these clauses were designed to ensure that the smaller provinces
still had a voice in Ottawa. Moreover, the clauses were partly
instituted to ensure that Quebec would not lose seats in parliament
due to a decline in population size.
In fact, the Chief Electoral
Officer of Canada has reported that the distribution
of Members of Parliament (MP's) in Canada is skewed in
all provinces, except Quebec.
He states,
"if one is to apply a strict mathematical population
to the representation and, if one is to look at that,
one will find that only the province of Quebec is right
on. It has 24 percent of the population and it has 24 percent
of the seats.” He goes on to say, “the other provinces
are either above what they would have or below what they
would have, if it were pure mathematical."
And the two clauses have many critics. Some argue that Canada will
be forced to someday reckon with an inherently unequal system,
and that there will be undue hostility between provinces as the
inequalities persist. Others argue that protecting the interests
of historically prominent
and rural regions results in a distortion of federal government
priorities. Some critics go as far as to blame rural voters for
a
deterioration of Canada's urban infrastructure.
In 1999 , the Toronto Star reported
the following.
Variances in riding populations, once intended to ensure those stable
rural folk wouldn't be swamped by the city's mobs, now mean that
a vote in a sparsely populated rural area can be worth 50 per
cent more than a city vote.
“I call it the tyranny of the rurality,'' says Peter Trent, mayor
of the City of Westmount, in urban Montreal, which also suffers
from under-representation.
The under-representation of Canada's city voters helps explain what
urban folk often see as the distorted priorities of their national
Parliament and provincial legislature. Toronto is sometimes jokingly
dubbed The City That Dare Not Say Its Name, in reference to the
scant attention its concerns get in national forums.
While the phrase ‘rep by pop' or ‘representation by population'
is glorified in Canadian history books
as the rallying cry for Canadian democracy, its implementation
has never been fully realized.
The Process of Redistribution
After the calculations, considerations, and clause applications
have occurred, the readjustment commissions submit their findings.
- Step 1: The independent commissions prepare
proposals. The proposals are published in the Canada
Gazette and public hearings are held to ensure
public participation in the redistribution process.
- Step 3: Members of the House
of Commons have 30 days to examine the reports
and file objections with a specified Committee of
the House of Commons.
- Step 4: The Committee then has 30 sitting
days to review the objections for each Commission. The
objections, as well as the minutes of the committee's discussions
and the evidence heard, will be sent to the Chief Electoral
Officer and forwarded back to the appropriate Commission.
- Step 5: The commissions then have 30 days
to consider the objections from the House of Commons and
make their own final decisions, independent of the Chief
Electoral Officer and Parliament. The boundaries commissions
are independent, non-partisan bodies, so the final decisions
rest with them.
- Step 6: The Chief Electoral Officer refers
the commissions' final reports to the Speaker of the House
of Commons and prepares a draft representation order.
The Representation Order
The Representation Order specifies the electoral boundaries to be
used in the next election. It provides the number of parliamentary
members that will be elected from each province, divides each
province into electoral districts, describes the boundaries of
each district, and provides a name as well as population figures
for each district.
The adjustments laid out in the most recent Representation Order
call for an increase of seven seats overall: three more for Ontario,
two more for Alberta, and two more for British Columbia. After
the readjustments, the number of ridings per province will look
like this.
- Newfoundland and Labrador: 7
- Prince Edward Island: 4
- Nova Scotia: 11
- New Brunswick: 10
- Quebec: 75
- Ontario: 106
- Manitoba: 14
- Saskatchewan: 14
- Alberta: 28
- British Columbia: 36
- Yukon Territory: 1
- Northwest Territories: 1
- Nunavut: 1
- CANADA: 308
To find your riding, go to Elections
Canada's official district map website.
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