Electoral district (Canada)

The present formula for adjusting electoral boundaries was adopted in 2022.[9] It starts by calculating an "electoral quotient", based on the average of the growth rate of the provinces since the time of the last redistribution, the previous redistribution's electoral quotient is then multiplied by this average, and then the population of each individual province is divided by this electoral quotient then rounded up to determine the number of seats to which the province is officially entitled. Additionally, one seat is automatically allocated to each of Canada's three territories.[10]

Finally, a few special rules are applied. Under the "senatorial clause", a province's number of seats in the House of Commons can never be lower than its constitutionally mandated number of senators, regardless of the province's population.[9] Under the "grandfather clause", the province's number of seats can also never fall below the number of seats it had in the 43rd Canadian Parliament (2019–2021).[9] Under the "representation rule", no province that had a higher share of seats than its population share in the last redistribution can have its share of seats drop below its population share.[9]

A province may be allocated extra seats over its base entitlement to ensure that these rules are met. In 2022, for example, Prince Edward Island would have been entitled to only two seats according to the electoral quotient, but through the senatorial clause the province gained two more seats to equal its four senators. Quebec was only entitled to 71 seats by the electoral quotient alone, but through the grandfather clause the province gained seven seats to equal the 78 seats it had in the 43rd Parliament. Saskatchewan and Manitoba also gained seats under the grandfather clause, New Brunswick gained seats under the senatorial clause, and Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador gained seats under the grandfather and senate clauses.

In practice, the process results in most provinces maintaining the same number of seats from one redistribution to the next, due to the senatorial and grandfather clauses—prior to the 2015 election, only Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, traditionally the country's three fastest-growing provinces, had ever gained seats in a redistribution. All other provinces still held the same number of seats that they held in 1985, and were thus already protected from losing even one seat by the other clauses. The 2012 redistribution, which added three new seats in Quebec under the newly added representation rule, was the first and so far only time since 1985 that any of the other seven provinces had ever gained new seats.

Some sources incorrectly state that a special provision guaranteeing a certain number of seats to Quebec is also applied. While such a provision was proposed in the failed Charlottetown Accord, no such rule currently exists—Quebec's seat allotment in the House of Commons is in fact governed by the same adjustment clauses as all other provinces, and not by any provisions unique to Quebec alone. However, such provisions have existed at various times in the past. From 1867 to 1946 Quebec was allocated 65 seats, with the other provinces allocated seats based on their size relative to Quebec. The "amalgam formula" of 1976 set the number of Quebec seats to 75, which was to be increased by 4 after each decennial census.[11] Other "large" provinces (over 2.5 million) would be assigned seats based on their relative population to Quebec. The amalgam formula was applied only once, based on the 1971 census. After the 1981 census it was realized that adding an additional four seats to Quebec every ten years would rapidly inflate the size of the House of Commons, so that formula was abandoned in favour of the 1985 Representation Act.[11][12]

In 2008 the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed an amendment to the process which would have given Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, the three provinces whose electoral districts have an average size larger than those in Quebec, a total of 32 additional seats by applying Quebec's average of 105,000.[13] The measure initially included only British Columbia and Alberta; Harper later proposed an alternative plan which included Ontario. However, opposition then emerged in Quebec, where politicians expressed concern about the province losing clout in Ottawa if its proportion of seats in the House of Commons were reduced; finally, three new seats were allotted to Quebec as well. The measure did not pass before the 2011 election was called,[14] but was put forward again after the election.[15] It was passed on December 16, 2011 as the Fair Representation Act (Bill C-20),[16] and resulted in the 2012 redistribution process.

On March 24, 2022, the Liberal Trudeau government tabled legislation to prevent Quebec (or any other province) from losing any seats relative to the number of seats it was apportioned in 2012 Canadian federal electoral redistribution.[17][18] Bill C-14 amended Rule 2 of subsection 51(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867, commonly known as the "Grandfather Clause".[19][20] The Bill passed the House of Commons on June 15, 2022,[21] passed the Senate on June 21, 2022,[22] and received royal assent on June 23, 2022.[23] The Chief Electoral Officer announced the new allocation of seats on July 8, 2022, which would result in an increase to 343 seats.[24] The act was introduced after a Bloc Québécois' motion calling for government action to protect the number of Quebec's seat after redistribution. [25]

When the province's final seat allotment is determined, an independent election boundaries commission in each province reviews the existing boundaries and proposes adjustments. Public input is then sought, which may then lead to changes in the final boundary proposal. For instance, the proposed boundaries may not accurately reflect a community's historical, political or economic relationship with its surrounding region; the community would thus advise the boundary commission that it wished to be included in a different electoral district.

For example, in the 2003 boundary adjustment, the boundary commission in Ontario originally proposed dividing the city of Greater Sudbury into three districts. The urban core would have remained largely unchanged as Sudbury, while communities west of the central city would have been merged with Algoma—Manitoulin to form the new riding of Greater Sudbury—Manitoulin, and those east and north of the central city would have been merged with Timiskaming to create the riding of Timiskaming—Greater Sudbury.[26]

Due to the region's economic and transportation patterns, however, "Timiskaming—Greater Sudbury" was particularly opposed by its potential residents — voters in Sudbury were concerned about the weakening of their representation if the city were divided into one city-based riding and two large rural ones rather than two city-based ridings,[27] while the Timiskaming District is much more strongly aligned with and connected to North Bay, to which it has a direct highway link, than to Sudbury. In a deputation to the boundary commission, Sudbury's deputy mayor Ron Dupuis stated that "An electoral district must be more than a mere conglomeration of arbitrary and random groups of individuals. Districts should, as much as possible, be cohesive units with common interests related to representation. This makes a representative's job of articulating the interests of his or her constituency much easier."[27] Instead, in the final report that was passed by the House of Commons, the Sudbury area's existing ridings of Sudbury and Nickel Belt were retained with only minor boundary adjustments, while the Timiskaming riding was merged with Nipissing. Despite the opposition that arose to the 2003 process, however, virtually the same tripartite division of the city was proposed in the boundary adjustment of 2012,[28] although due to concerns around balancing the Northern Ontario region's population against its geographic size, the commission announced in 2013 that it would retain the existing electoral districts again.[29]

Similarly, opposition arose in Toronto during the 2012 redistribution process, especially to a proposal which would have divided the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood, the city's primary gay village, between the existing riding of Toronto Centre and a new riding of Mount Pleasant along the length of Wellesley Street.[30] In the final report, the northern boundary of Toronto Centre was shifted north to Charles Street.[31]

Once the final report is produced, it is then submitted to Parliament, MPs may offer objections to the boundaries, but the boundary commissions are not compelled to make any changes as a result of the objections.[32]

At Canadian Confederation, the boundaries were defined by the Constitution Act, 1867. Boundaries for one or more electoral districts were updated in 1872, 1882, 1892, 1903, 1914, 1924, 1933, and 1947. Subsequent changes are known as Representation Order, and occurred in 1952, 1966, 1976, 1987, 1996, 2003, 2013 and 2023.[33] Such changes come into force "on the first dissolution of Parliament that occurs at least seven months after the day on which that proclamation was issued".[34]

Prior to 1999, provincial electoral districts were defined independently of federal districts; at the time of the 1995 Ontario general election, the province had 103 seats in the Canadian House of Commons but 130 in its provincial legislature. For the 1999 Ontario general election, however, the government of Mike Harris passed legislation which mandated that seats in the provincial legislature would follow federal electoral district boundaries, both reducing the size of the legislature and eliminating the cost of the province conducting its own boundary adjustment process. After each federal boundary adjustment, seats in the legislative assembly would henceforth be automatically realigned to match the federal boundaries at the first subsequent provincial election.

Although most electoral districts in the province still conform to federal boundaries, later amendments to the 1999 legislation have reauthorized the introduction of some differences from the federal map. In the Southern Ontario region, provincial districts remain in precise alignment with the federal ones; in the Northern Ontario region, however, because the region's slower growth would result in the gradual loss of seats compared to the more rapidly growing south, most districts still retain the same boundaries as the federal districts that were in place as of 2003, and are not readjusted to correspond to current federal boundaries. For the 2018 Ontario general election, further, two new uniquely provincial districts were added to increase representation for the far north of the province. As a result, the province currently has 121 seats in the House of Commons, but 124 seats in the provincial legislature.

When Prince Edward Island joined Confederation in 1873, it set a fixed formula in which each of the province's three counties was divided into five electoral districts per county, each of which elected two representatives to the provincial legislature. These districts were never adjusted for demographic changes, except in 1966 when the district for the capital city of Charlottetown was divided into two. After 1966, however, the electoral district boundaries again remained unchanged until 1996, when the province adopted new single-member districts. Under the new model, electoral districts are now adjusted every ten years, although most adjustments are geographically modest and the district's name is sometimes, but not always, the only substantive change that actually occurs.