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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
In March 1973 this Journal published an article in which I attempted to show that section 51 of the British North America Act had been wrongly applied when seats in the House of Commons were allocated amongst the provinces as a result of the 1971 decennial census. I pointed out that my analysis was in conflict with that of the Representation Commissioner, the official having the legal duty to implement the section in question. In my penultimate paragraph I wrote: “There is a pressing need for some authoritative person or institution to analyse the present ambiguities and to decide which interpretation is correct and for what reasons. Alternatively the Canadian Parliament could clarify the situation by amending section 51 of the bna Act while at the same time retroactively applying the amended rules to the post-1971 redistribution.” While writing these words I actually expected that someone would take some interest in the problem I had discovered and would show me where I had erred. The reference to the bna Act was a theoretical flourish.
More than two years after the publication of this article no one has shown my interpretation to be wrong, although Stanley Knowles has made a number of relevant comments. In general, however, it seems that nobody cared about an argument which was admittedly obscure and even legalistic (surely the ultimate sin in modern political science). Those constitutional lawyers who might have been exposed to the article were no doubt put off by the complicated arithmetic.
1 “The Application of the ‘Senatorial Floor’ Rules to the Latest Redistribution of the House of Commons: The Peculiar Case of Nova Scotia,” this journal 6, no. 1 (March 1973), 56–64
2 Ibid., 63–4
3 In a letter to the author dated 10 April 1973
4 This process was actually started in mid-1973 when Parliament approved the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act. See Canada, Statutes 1973–4, c. 23
5 Canada, Statutes 1974–5, c. 13. Section 3 states that “This Part may be cited as the British North America Act (No. 2), 1974”
6 Canada, House of Commons, Debates 1974–5, 1851
7 Ibid.
8 Using Quebec as the standard is a reversion to an old method of calculation, not a Francophone plot to give special status to Quebec. See Ward, Norman, “A Century of Constituencies,” Canadian Public Administration 10, no. 1 (March 1967), 105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 These calculations used population projections supplied by Statistics Canada. See Canada, House of Commons, Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence 1974, 3:48. This forms part of a comprehensive submission to the Committee by the then president of the Privy Council, Maceachen, Allan. It is entitled “Redistribution 1974: Approaches and Perspectives,” 9 April 1973.Google Scholar
10 Section 51A, which guarantees the senatorial floor, is not amended in any way by the Representation Act.
11 The Gazette (Montreal) 17 December 1974. Section 51(2) of the bna Act currently allocates one seat each to the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. The government has promised to introduce amendments to section 51(2) to give an additional seat to the Northwest Territories.
12 Canada, Statutes 1974–5, c. 13, s. 4 and 5
13 Ibid., s. 7