One person, one vote? Oh, that’s not the Canadian way
Since 2011, the City of Toronto has grown by more than 179,000 residents. That’s more people than live in Prince Edward Island. The people of PEI are represented by four seats in the House of Commons, and after the once-a-decade redistribution of seats that is to be completed before the next fixed election date, they will still have four Members of Parliament.
Over the past decade, Ontario added almost two million people, or more than the combined populations of New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. For its nearly 1.2-million residents, Saskatchewan gets 14 seats – around 84,000 residents per riding. New Brunswick’s 789,225 people get 10 seats, or roughly 79,000 people per riding.
The formula is also designed to ensure that this bonus, and the shortchanging of everyone else, increases over time. That’s how two-million new Ontarians translates into just one new seat, and why a growing Toronto is losing a seat to even faster-growing parts of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. That triggered a few people in the rest of Canada. They have a small point, but they’re missing the big picture. The real distortions are happening elsewhere, in the provinces named above. In fact, if you take the national population, divide it by the proposed 343 seats, allocate them based on population and round up to the next whole number, Quebec is entitled to … 78 seats.