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Canada is divided into 308 electoral districts, each of which sends one Member to the House of Commons.[11] An electoral district can be defined as any place or territorial area in Canada entitled to return a person to serve in the House of Commons. Following each decennial census, the number of seats to be apportioned among the provinces is decided on the basis of population figures. The boundaries of each electoral district are then determined by provincial electoral boundaries commissions. The composition of the House has expanded greatly since 1867. At the time of Confederation, representation was based on Quebec having the same number of seats that it had in the Legislature of the Province of Canada with the other provinces being granted representation in proportion to that number. At the opening of the First Parliament, 181 Members sat in the House of Commons, representing the following provinces: 82 for Ontario, 65 for Quebec, 19 for Nova Scotia and 15 for New Brunswick.[12] Soon after, new provinces began to seek admittance to Confederation. Representation in Parliament was considered negotiable and often did not reflect representation by population.[13] When Manitoba joined Canada in 1870, four seats were added to the membership of the House.[14] British Columbia and Prince Edward Island each got six seats upon joining Confederation in 1871 and in 1873 respectively.[15] In 1886, the Northwest Territories received four seats and in 1902, the Yukon Territory was granted one seat.[16] When Saskatchewan and Alberta were established out of the Northwest Territories in 1905, they were allotted 10 and seven seats respectively; the Northwest Territories no longer had a seat in the House.[17] In 1947, the electoral district of Yukon–Mackenzie River, comprising all of the Yukon Territory plus the western portion of the Northwest Territories, known as the Mackenzie District, was created and allotted one seat.[18] Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949 and was granted seven seats.[19] In 1952, the electoral district of Yukon–Mackenzie River was revoked; the Mackenzie District of the Northwest Territories was granted one seat and the original Yukon electoral district was restored.[20] In 1962, the Representation Act was amended to give the entire Northwest Territories one seat.[21] In 1975, the number of seats in the Northwest Territories grew to two.[22] On April 1, 1999, the Nunavut Territory was established out of the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories and was given one of its two seats.[23] Today, there are 308 Members from 10 provinces and three territories: 36 for British Columbia, 28 for Alberta, 14 for Saskatchewan, 14 for Manitoba, 106 for Ontario, 75 for Quebec, 10 for New Brunswick, 11 for Nova Scotia, four for Prince Edward Island, seven for Newfoundland and Labrador,[24] and one each for the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut (see Figure 4.1 for changes in representation from 1867 to the present).
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[11] Constitution Act, 1867, R.S. 1985, Appendix II, No. 5, s. 40. Until the 1968 general election, some electoral districts were entitled to return two Members to the House of Commons. In each two‑Member constituency, voters were entitled to cast two votes; the two candidates with the most votes won. For further information, see Ward, N., “Voting in Canadian Two‑Member Constituencies”, Voting in Canada, edited by J.C. Courtney, Scarborough, Ontario: Prentice‑Hall of Canada Ltd., 1967, pp. 125‑9.
[12] Constitution Act, 1867, R.S. 1985, Appendix II, No. 5, s. 37.
[13] Ward, N., “A Century of Constituencies”, Representation and Electoral Systems: Canadian Perspectives, edited by J.P. Johnston and H.E. Pasis, Scarborough, Ontario: Prentice‑Hall Canada Inc., 1990, p. 207.
[14] An Act to amend and continue the Act 32 and 33 Victoria, chapter 3; and to establish and provide for the Government of the Province of Manitoba, S.C. 1870, c. 3.
[15] Journals, March 31, 1871, p. 198; May 20, 1873, p. 402.
[16] North-West Territories Representation Act, 1886, S.C. 1886, c. 24; The Yukon Territory Representation Act, 1902, S.C. 1902, c. 37.
[17] An Act to readjust the Representation of the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta in the House of Commons, and to amend the Representation Act, S.C. 1907, c. 41.
[18] The Representation Act, 1947, S.C. 1947, c. 71.
[19] An Act to approve the Terms of the Union of Newfoundland with Canada, S.C. 1949, c. 1.
[20] British North America Acts, 1867 to 1952, S.C. 1952, c. 15; The Representation Act, 1952, S.C. 1952, c. 48.
[21] An Act to amend the Representation Act, S.C. 1962, c. 17.
[22] Northwest Territories Representation Act, S.C. 1974-75-76, c. 28.
[23] Nunavut Act, S.C. 1993, c. 28; An Act to Amend the Nunavut Act and the Constitution Act, 1867, S.C. 1998, c. 15.
[24] In 2001, the province’s name was changed to Newfoundland and Labrador (Journals, October 30, 2001, p. 764). See also the Constitution Amendment, 2001 (Newfoundland and Labrador), SI/2001‑117.
[25] In 1865, at the time of the Confederation debates, then Attorney General John A. Macdonald (later Canada’s first Prime Minister) explained that Quebec was chosen as the pivotal province because it was “the best suited for the purpose, on account of the comparatively permanent character of its population and from its having neither the largest nor the least number of inhabitants …” (Canada, Legislative Assembly, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of British North American Provinces, 3rd Session, 8th Provincial Parliament of Canada, Québec: Hunter, Rose & Co., Parliamentary Printers, 1865 (hereinafter referred to as Confederation Debates), February 6, 1865, p. 38).
[26] R.S. 1985, Appendix II, No. 5, s. 51. A less detailed census takes place every five years. See also Constitution Act, 1982, R.S. 1985, Appendix II, No. 44, ss. 41, 42 and 44.
[27] Ward, N., The Canadian House of Commons: Representation, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950, pp. 39‑41.
[28] Constitution Act, 1867, R.S. 1985, Appendix II, No. 5, s. 51A. This clause was enacted as the Constitution Act, 1915, R.S. 1985, Appendix II, No. 23. Prince Edward Island was guaranteed four seats and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 10 each. At the time of Confederation, the Senate had 72 appointed members, 24 members each from Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes (12 for Nova Scotia and 12 for New Brunswick). When Manitoba joined Confederation in 1870, it was given two Senators; in 1871 British Columbia received three and in 1873 Prince Edward Island four (two from each of the other Maritime Provinces); Alberta and Saskatchewan were granted four Senators each in 1905. The Senate was reconstituted at 96 by the Constitution Act, 1915 (R.S. 1985, Appendix II, No. 23). Six more Senators were added when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949 and one Senator each was added for the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories in 1975. In 1999, one Senator was added for the new territory of Nunavut. The Senate ordinarily has 105 members.
[29] Journals, July 5, 1943, pp. 582‑4.
[30] Only the provinces of Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia would have had seats in proportion to their population. See Ward, The Canadian House of Commons: Representation, p. 53.
[31] British North America Act, 1946, R.S. 1985, Appendix II, No. 30. For further information, see Ward, The Canadian House of Commons: Representation, pp. 54‑5.
[32] The entry of Newfoundland in 1949 increased this total to 262.
[33] Constitution Act, 1952, S.C. 1952, c. 15, s. 1. This was the first constitutional amendment passed by the Parliament of Canada after the amending procedure for the Constitution was modified in 1949.
[34] S.C. 1974‑75‑76, c. 13. The President of the Privy Council, Mitchell Sharp, noted during second reading of this bill: “The amalgam method was devised as a means of ensuring that the population size of constituencies in Canada would not grow to a point where a Member’s ability to represent his constituents would be impaired, nor the access of constituents to their Member unduly restricted” (Debates, December 2, 1974, p. 1846). For further information, see Dawson, 6th ed., p. 91.
[35] See Debates, December 2, 1974, pp. 1845‑7 where Mitchell Sharp, President of the Privy Council, outlined the amalgam formula.
[36] Journals, January 13, 1981, pp. 1138‑9; July 8, 1982, pp. 5132‑3; October 1, 1985, p. 1051; November 21, 1985, p. 1251.
[37] S.C. 1986, c. 8, s. 2.
[38] As enacted by An Act to Amend the Nunavut Act and the Constitution Act, 1867, S.C. 1998, c. 15, s. 25.
[39] In April 1994, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs was instructed to prepare and bring in a bill respecting the system of readjusting electoral boundaries and to consider a formula to cap or reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons (Journals, April 19, 1994, pp. 368‑70). In its Fifty‑First Report, presented to the House on November 25, 1994 (Journals, p. 939), the Committee concluded that a cap or reduction in the size of the House would not be feasible because of certain constraints set out in the Constitution, notably the senatorial clause, which can only be changed with the unanimous agreement of all provinces. Capping or reducing the size of the House, while maintaining the senatorial floor, would lead to certain provinces losing a significant number of seats while others would be protected. In addition, capping the size of the House would require repealing the grandfather clause which guarantees that provinces with declining populations maintain the same number of seats they had in 1986 (Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, November 25, 1994, Issue No. 33, pp. 5‑11).
[40] During the First Session (2006-07) of the Thirty-Ninth Parliament, the government introduced legislation to amend the constitutional formula for the decennial readjustment of seats with the intent of improving representation for the faster-growing provinces while protecting the number of seats for the provinces with slower-growing or declining populations (Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Democratic Representation) and Journals, May 11, 2007, p. 1394). The session was prorogued shortly thereafter. The bill was re-introduced in the Second Session (2007-08) as Bill C-22 (Journals, November 14, 2007, p. 151) and was debated at second reading on one occasion (Journals, February 13, 2008, pp. 433-4). The Thirty-Ninth Parliament was dissolved on September 7, 2008 without the House proceeding further on the bill.
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