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Parliament and Representation: The Unfinished Agenda of Electoral Redistributions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

John C. Courtney
John C. Courtney
Affiliation:
University of Saskatchewan
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Abstract

Since 1964, federal electoral boundary readjustments have been the responsibility of independent commissions—one for each province and one for the Northwest Territories. The three redistributions completed to date under the new arrangements suggest that the commissions have increasingly accepted a substantial measure of intraprovincial population equality as the standard by which to define electoral boundaries. At the same time Parliament, in its debates and amendments to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, has urged commissions to move in the opposite direction by creating more, rather than fewer, electoral districts of unequal populations. These contrary positions derive from different views of what counts in determining electoral boundaries—territory or population. Drawing on American experience since Baker v. Carr (1962), Canadian courts may eventually be called upon to resolve the issue.

Résumé

Depuis 1964, le travail de revision de limites des circonscriptions électorales a été confié á des commissions indépendants—une pour chaque province et une pour les Territoires du Nord-Ouest. Les trois révisions complétées jusqu'á maintenant indiquent que les commissions ont tendance á admettre de plus en plus le principe ďegalité de population, á ľintérieur de chaque province, comme critère permettant de detérminer les limites des circonscriptions électorales. Cependant, dans ces débats et amendements à la Loi sur la révision des limites des circonscriptions électorales, le Parlement a incité les commissions à agir en sens inverse, à savoir à créer davantage de circonscriptions électorales à population variée. Ces positions représentent des opinions divergentes sur ce qui s’avère important à considérer pour déterminer les frontières électorales–le territoire ou la population. En se basant sur I'expérience américaines depuis Baker v. Carr (1962), les cours canadiennes de justice seront peut-être sollicitées à trancher finalement la question.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 675 - 690
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1988

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References

1 Starting with George Brown in 1853, “rep. by pop.” became the rallying cry of the Reformers of Canada West. Anxious to effect a new constitutional arrangement with Canada East that would replace the representational parity of the Act of Union (1840), the Reformers championed their new-found cause only after it had become certain that the population of Canada West had finally surpassed that of Canada East. See Creighton, Donald, John A. Macdonald: The Young Politician (Toronto: Macmillan, 1952), 183,Google Scholar and Waite, P. B., The Life and Times of Confederation, 1864–67: Politics, Newspapers, and the Union of British North America (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 36–37.Google Scholar

2 On the contrasting approaches to the analysis of representation the best works are Hanna Pitkin, Fenichel, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967)Google Scholar and Birch, A. H., Representation (London: Macmillan, 1972).Google Scholar

3 For the history of Canadian redistributions and the acceptance by Parliament of independent electoral boundary commissions modelled on the Australian system see Ward, Norman, The Canadian House of Commons: Representation (2nd ed.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963),Google Scholar part 2; Ward, Norman, “The Redistribution of 1952,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 19 (1953), 341–60;Google ScholarWard, Norman, “A Century of Constituencies,” Canadian Public Administration 10 (1967), 105–21;Google Scholar and Courtney, John C., “‘Theories Masquerading as Principles’: Canadian Electoral Boundary Commissions and the Australian Model,” in Courtney, John C. (ed.), The Canadian House of Commons: Essays in Honour of Norman Ward (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1985), 135–72.Google Scholar

4 Ward, , “The Redistribution of 1952,” 351.Google Scholar A provincialized redistribution procedure was originally included in the Quebec Resolutions of 1864. Perhaps drawing on the American experience of state legislatures designing congressional boundaries, the 1864 proposal called for provincial legislatures to draw the constituency boundaries of all federal seats within each province. The resolution was abandoned before the British North America Act was adoped in 1867. See Ward, , The Canadian House of Common, 20.Google Scholar

5 Objections filed with the British Columbia commission by MPs, followed by an unprecedented meeting of the Commons Committee on Elections, Privileges and Procedure with the commission in Vancouver, led the commission to make only minor boundary adjustments in six urban constituencies. The Saskatchewan commission declined a request issued by the same House committee to meet with it and to justify the proposed boundaries. It altered none of its proposals in its final report. The decisions of both commissions led to subsequent criticisms by MPs and the public of the redistribution process–particularly in British Columbia where a court case was launched by the City of Vancouver and MrWaddell, M. P. Ian See Reports of the British Columbia and Saskatchewan Electoral Boundaries Commissions for the Provinces of British Columbia and Saskatchewan (Ottawa, 1987).Google Scholar

6 Although each commission is left very much on its own to interpret and to apply the Act as it wishes, Elections Canada as co-ordinating agency has sought to minimize the possibility of divergent or opposing views and interpretations. Heads of all commissions are brought together for discussion sessions before redistributions begin and each commission is provided with centrally-trained support staff.

7 A Gini Index score of complete equality of constituency population size is indicated by 0 and complete inequality by 1. The closer a group of constituencies (for example, within provincial boundaries) approaches 0 or 1, the closer it will be to perfect equality or inequality, respectively. A comparison of pre-commission (1902–1952) with commission (1966–1987) redistributions indicates an improvement in seat equality since 1966 of roughly one-half (Courtney, “ ‘Theories Masquerading as Principles’,” 157–62). The increasingly greater variance since 1966 between the provinces with the smallest and the largest constituency inequalities is seen in Table 1.

8 The debates on redistribution and independent electoral boundary commissions from the first government proposals of 1962 to the approval of the Act in 1964 covered some 450 pages in Hansard. This was easily Canada's longest and fullest debate on representation generally and on redistribution specifically.

9 Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Newfoundland (Ottawa, 1987).Google Scholar

10 Comparative data for selected ranges are presented in Table 2.

11 Hon.Hnatyshyn, Ray, President of the Privy Council, moving Second Reading of the Representation Act (An Act to Amend the Constitution Act, 1867 and the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act). See Canada, House of Commons, Debates, October 1, 1985, 7187.Google Scholar

12 In addition to Newfoundland (2 of 7 seats) the provinces were Quebec (2 of 75 seats) and Ontario (1 of 99 seats).

13 The Gini Index scores for the 1966, 1976 and 1983 redistributions were .084, .093 and .082, respectively.

14 The “density test” added to the Canada Elections Act in 1983 provides that an additional 15 cents per square kilometre may be spent by each candidate (up to 25% of the seat's basic limit) in a constituency with fewer than 10 voters per square kilometre. By authority of the Senate and House of Commons Act, the Board of Internal Economy of the Commons has granted a tax-free allowance of between $23,800 and $25,600 for members from each of the 25 Schedule Three constituencies (compared with $19,100 for all other seats). It has also set the staff salary allowance at $125,100 and the constituency operating allowance at $11,450 for all members, but awarded an additional travel allowance (of between $1,260 and $6,310) for members according to the urban/rural makeup of their seat. The operating and travel allowances may be increased by a “geographic supplement” of between $5,000 and $15,000 for members whose electoral district is in excess of 8,000 square kilometres. (All figures are for 1987.)

15 The supplement increases with the growth in the number of electors, and is paid only for seats with more than 70,000 electors.

16 Since the early 1970s, private members' bills have been introduced calling for a special category of northern seats with +/–50% limits; an increase in the overall tolerance limits to +/–35% and a guaranteed minimum number of seats for nothern Ontario. None was approved by Parliament. The northern Ontario bill was the first attempt to legislate intraprovincial (as opposed to interprovincial) guarantees by way of federal legislation. See John C. Courtney, “The Size of Canada's Parliament: An Assessment of the Implications of a Larger House of Commons,” in Aucoin, Peter (ed.), Institutional Reforms for Representative Government, Research Studies of the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, vol. 38 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for Supply and Services Canada, 1985), 24–25.Google Scholar

17 Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Saskatchewan (Ottawa, 1987), 5 and 6. (The author was one of three members of that commission.) The 1983 commission from Saskatchewan also had designed all seats within +/– 5% of the province's population quotient. When Parliament adopted in 1985 new legislation determining the number of seats in the House of Commons for the post-1981 redistribution, its recommendations (along with those of all other 1983 commissions) were abandoned.

18 On the possibility of court challenges to federal redistributions see Cameron, James M. and Norcliffe, Glen, “The Canadian Constitution and the Political Muskeg of One Person-One Vote,” The Operational Geographer 8 (1985), 30–34;Google Scholar and Pasis, Harvey, “The Courts and Redistribution in Canada,” Canadian Parliamentary Review 10 (1987), 8–9.Google Scholar A challenge to population inequalities among constituencies at the provincial level was heard in Re: Dixon and Attorney General of British Columbia (1986), 31 D.L.R. (4th) 546, with the court ruling that the judiciary has the authority to intervene in the redistribution process. No appeal to this decision was launched by the province.

A challenge to the federal Constitution Act, 1985 (Representation) by the City of Vancouver and Mr. Ian Waddell, M.P., against the formula contained in the Act for determining the number of seats to which each province is entitled, was unsuccessful at the trial division and on appeal. The courts concluded that Parliament has the power to change the representation formula without first obtaining the consent of the provinces and that absolute proportionate representation need not be adhered to in calculating the number of Commons seats allocated to the various provinces. Notably the plaintiffs did not argue their case on sections 15(1) and 3 of the Charter (equality and democratic rights sections), nor did they challenge the +/–25%limits of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. In their factum on appeal they acknowledged that “unlike the U.S. cases, [this] is not one involving equality among ridings within one state or one province. Geographic, historical, economic or topographical considerations are relevant to drawing boundaries within a state or a province” (Plaintiffs' Factum, Court of Appeal, February 5, 1988, 20–21). The British Columbia decisions are as yet unreported. See Reasons for Judgment of the Chief Justice, Supreme Court of British Columbia, 30 December 1987, Reasons for Judgment of Mr. Justice MacFarlane et al., and Mr. Justice Lambert, British Columbia Court of Appeal, March 18, 1988. The application of Mr. Waddell for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was dismissed on May 26, 1988.

It is difficult to conceive of Canadian courts becoming caught, as American ones have, in the tangled web of reapportionment issues. Still, the British Columbia cases may well be little more than the first of many to be addressed by the courts in Canada.

The role of the courts in American redistricting since Baker v. Carr in 1962 has led to a vast literature ranging from Dixon, Robert G. Jr.'s landmark Democratic Representation: Reapportionment in Law and Politics (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1968)Google Scholar to such excellent edited works as Bernard Grofman, Arend Lijphart, McKay, Robert B. and Scarrow, Howard A. (eds.), Representation and Redistricting Issues (Toronto: D. C. Heath, 1982).Google Scholar

19 For an explanation of the Amalgam Method see Mallory, J. R., “Amending the Constitution by Stealth,” Queen's Quarterly 82 (1975), 394–401;Google ScholarBalinski, M. L. and Young, H. P., “Parliamentary Representation and the Amalgam Method,” this JOURNAL 14 (1981), 797–812;Google Scholar and Courtney, ”The Size of Canada's Parliament,” 18–25.

20 The 1971 projections for the total Canadian population a decade later were accurate to within approximately 200,000 of the actual 24.1 million people in 1981. However, Quebec's 1981 population had been overestimated by 600,000 in 1971 and Alberta's was underestimated by a like amount in 1971. If the post-1981 redistribution had been based on the Amalgam Method the Commons would have grown by 28 MPs to 310. See Courtney, John C., “Some Thoughts on Redistribution,” Canadian Parliamentary Review 9 (1986), 18–20.Google Scholar

21 Projections are based on the 1981–1986 population changes. Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta stand not to benefit from either the “grandfather” or “senatorial” provisions in the 1990s. Since the latest redistribution gave those provinces more seats than they had in either 1976 or in the Thirty-third Parliament, should any or all of them lose population or grow at a sufficiently slow rate compared to the rest of the country that they could lose seats, the additional seats they gained in the 1987 redistribution will not be protected. In the event that that would occur, this could lead to yet another special treatment provision for such provinces in the post-1991 redistribution.

22 Approximately three months of the redistribution process could be saved in Canada if the legislation were amended to eliminate the following stages: tabling of commission reports with the Speaker; filing objections by members of parliament; disposing of the reports by the committee; and reporting back to the commissions. Since 1983 Australian commissions have promulgated their own decisions. They become final without any debate in or approval by Parliament. Comparative figures on origins of submissions of briefs to commissions as well as an account of the Australian independent electoral boundary process are found in Courtney, “ ‘Theories Masquerading as Principles.’ ”

23 The only exception was the redistribution of the 1940s which was postponed until the first session of Parliament after the Second World War.

24 The post-1961 census redistribution, which was completed in 1966, became effective a year later and was first used in a general election in 1968. The dates for the post-1971 and post-1981 redistributions were 1976 and 1979, and 1987 and 1988 or 1989, respectively.

25 Figures have been derived from 1986 census data applied to 1976redistribution. Of the 93 seats exceeding the 25 per cent limit, 7 were below it and 86 above. In all, some 40 constituencies had a population 50 per cent or more above their province's 1976 redistribution electoral quota. See Statistics Canada, Population: Federal Electoral Districts, catalogue 92–102, September, 1987.Google Scholar

26 The one-twentieth rule of section 51 the Constitution Act, 1867 provided that no province would lose seats in a redistribution unless its share of the national population decreased by at least 5 per cent between the previous two censuses. A constitutional amendment to the Act in 1946 stipulated that no province could lose more than 15 per cent of the seats to which it had been entitled at the last readjustment. Both provisions are now spent.