Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

The newest math

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, October 27, 2011 11:24am - 16 Comments

After one version last week and another last night, the official House of Commons math now adds 15 new seats for Ontario, six for British Columbia, six for Alberta and three for Quebec.

The provinces thus break down as so.

Ontario 38.8% of the population and 35.8% of the seats
Quebec 23.1% and 23.1%
British Columbia 13.3% and 12.4%
Alberta 11.0% and 10.1%
Manitoba 3.6% and 4.1%
Saskatchewan 3.1% and 4.1%
Nova Scotia 2.7% and 3.3%
New Brunswick 2.2% and 3.0%
Newfoundland 1.5% and 2.1%
PEI 0.4% and 1.2%

Tags: Alberta, british columbia, house of commons, ontario, Quebec, redistribution, Tim Uppal

More by Aaron Wherry

AT

Not perfect, but every province except Ontario obtains seats proportional to its populations, plus or minus 1%.

Sigh, this is probably as good as Ontario can get within the present constitutional constraints.

Kudos to the government for trying, and succeeding, to keep every happy.

OriginalEmily1

‘every province except Ontario’

Strange how often that happens lately.

AT

I agree, but difficult to see how it can be realistically resolved given numerical floors on seats for Atlantic and Prairie provinces.

I haven’t heard a more acceptable suggestion so far.

http://twitter.com/LaxAtlDfwYow LaxAtlDfwYow

“I haven’t heard a more acceptable suggestion so far.”

It’s not complicated: ON +26/ QC +2/ BC +7/ AB +7

That puts ALL provinces within +/-1 percentage point of their population share.

Deets: http://t.co/SwfKqjoF

http://twitter.com/aaronwherry aaronwherry

Lax… Is that your document?
http://twitter.com/LaxAtlDfwYow LaxAtlDfwYow

yeah

OriginalEmily1

Well you don’t do it by denying representation to the biggest province.

Representation isn’t well understood, so politics gets involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_district_(Canada)#Boundary_adjustment

Anonymous

The Harper Government today announced the introduction of the Fair Representation Act.

That’s great and all, but what about the Canadian Government? What are they doing about democratic reform? I really don’t care about the number of MPs an imaginary country.

Snark aside, I’m actually kind of OK with this. Assuming the Conservatives don’t try to gerrymander the new ridings to make them guaranteed Conservative seats (like making Harper’s mother’s house a new riding or something), I think it’s probably about the best anyone could have reasonably expected. It’s not great, but it is the option that puts the least amount of noses out of joint.

Matt

Why do people persist with this “gerrymandering” red herring?? It’s not up to the Conservatives (or any other party) to determine how the ridings are drawn out. It’s up to Elections Canada.
Anonymous

They officially changed the name of the Government of Canada last year. It is now ‘the Harper Government’ in all offficial communication.

http://twitter.com/LaxAtlDfwYow LaxAtlDfwYow

Self serving window dressing…

- the new “Representation Rule” which arbitrarily bumps seats for “overrepresented” provs who would otherwise slide to a (however small) underrepresented state is really a “One Time Self-Serving Gift to QC Rule”

- The proposed new adjustment formula accomplishs nothing except to entrench that provinces growing faster than the national avg (i.e., BC, AB, SK, MB) AND are NOT underrepresented or protected by seat floors (i.e BC, AB) will beyond 2011 just fall further from fair representation

- ON, growing near the provincial avg., but being hugely underrepresented currently and after the 2011 revisions,will never get more seats under the new formula

Short-term it’s self-serving. Long-term, it’s a fraud.

http://twitter.com/LaxAtlDfwYow LaxAtlDfwYow

I should add a caveat to the final point, above: assuming recent growth rates are reasonably representative of those in the future.

Anonymous

It would certainly help the situation if Ontario was to send a fleet up the St. Lawrence and take over PEI. Of course, we would want to upgrade that damn airport.

Anonymous

Stop Raitting on PEI’s airport.

Anonymous

For the sake of national unity, I have absolutely no problem with giving Quebec precisely the number of seats that its share of the population warrants. This strikes me as a pragmatic and effective solution.

Anonymous

I count six provinces – and two territories – with representation that exceeds their population. For the sake of national unity, why not give Quebec the same advantage as the majority of Canadian provinces?