Public Involvement in Redistribution: A Reflection

Article 6 / 11 , Vol. 47 No. 1 (Spring)
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Public Involvement in Redistribution: A Reflection

The Canadian Constitution requires that federal electoral districts be reviewed after each decennial census to reflect population changes. This process, known as redistribution, has two phases: representation and readjustment. Public participation is a crucial stage in the readjustment process. The Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act requires each boundary commission to hold at least one public hearing in the province after the boundary commission develops an initial map proposal. This article offers a reflection on the involvement of the public in the most recent redistribution process. The data in this paper is collated from the 2022 reports of the 10 boundary commissions; data collected from the 2012 redistribution is also used as context. The starting place for analysis will be the work of John Courtney where he draws several conclusions about the involvement of the public in his foundational analysis of boundary commissions prior to 1994. Since it has been almost 20 years since the publication of these works, this gives us an opportunity to reflect on those conclusions using the most recent processes.

Tamara A. Small

Tamara A. Small is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Guelph.

By the next federal election, expected in 2025, the House of Commons will increase from 338 seats to 343, with increases in Alberta (3), Ontario (1), and British Columbia (1). The Constitution Act, 1867 requires that federal electoral districts be reviewed after each decennial census, to reflect changes in the Canadian population. This process, known as redistribution, involves many different political actors. The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) is central to the first phase. Under the direction of Parliament, the CEO applies the Representation Formula (or two formulas in this case) to determine the new allocation of seats. This first phase of the 2022 redistribution took place in late 2021. The second phase, readjustment, involves the revising or drawing of new electoral boundaries within provinces. The leading actors here are the members of the independent electoral boundary commissions, one for each province. Each commission is composed of three members: a judge and two other members. Each commission is supported by Elections Canada staff, who provide administrative and technical assistance. The readjustment phase began in early 2022 and the work of the 10 boundary commissions concluded in Fall 2023. Within the readjustment phase, there is one more set of political actors of note: the public. Thousands of people across Canada take it upon themselves to provide feedback on the preliminary proposals of their respective boundary commission. Typically, this feedback is negative in the sense that citizens are critical of changes to their ridings made by the commission in their initial proposal and are hoping for some sort of alteration.1

This article offers a reflection on the involvement of the public in the most recent redistribution process. The data in this paper is collated from the 2022 reports of the 10 boundary commissions; data collected from the 2012 redistribution is also used as context. The starting place for analysis will be the work of John Courtney2 where he draws several conclusions about the involvement of the public in his foundational analysis of boundary commissions prior to 1994. Since it has been almost 20 years since the publication of these works, this gives us an opportunity to reflect on those conclusions using the most recent processes.

Public Hearings: In Law and In Practice

Opportunities for citizens and stakeholders to provide input into the policymaking process is commonplace in Canada. There are different motivations for providing these opportunities. Sometimes public and stakeholder engagement is required by law; other times they are the results of government’s trying to ensure legitimacy of government action.3 In this case, the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1985, known as EBRA, which governs the second phase, requires public participation. More specifically, Section 19 of EBRA requires that each boundary commission “hold at least one sitting in that province for the hearing of representations by interested persons.” Members of Parliament, according to the law, are ‘interested persons’ and can participate in hearings. The public hearings are held relatively early in the readjustment timeline. The public is allowed to provide feedback prior to the production of any final constituency map proposals developed by the boundary commissioners. Based on feedback in the public hearings, the commissioners may revise their map, and usually do. However, consistent with the independence of this process, commissioners are not obligated to accept any of the opinions of the public or MPs. EBRA also requires that a notice of public hearing be advertised in the Canadian Gazette, the official newspaper of the Government of Canada, as well as one local newspaper for at least 30 days before a hearing sits.

The official rules in EBRA represent the bare minimum of how the boundary commissions engage with the public. In practice, notice of public hearings are advertised in a multitude of newspapers and media across the province. For instance, the Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Ontario4 notes that beyond the traditional media, the Commission contacted other organizations across the province including Indigenous organizations and governments; local governments and associations; the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and related businesses and labour councils; and law and political science departments. The Commission’s goal was to reach as many Ontarians as possible.

Moreover, there seems to be a growing recognition of the changing media landscape in the advertising strategy of redistribution. Research by Brin and Charlton5 show that the weekly reach of community newspapers is around 14 per cent. They also note that the internet including social media are now the main sources of news for Canadians. Thus, focussing only on traditional media would no longer be a terribly effective way of informing people about the hearings and changes to the maps. In 2012 and again in 2022, there were two centralized websites, one in each official language, for the redistribution process. In addition to providing general information, each provincial boundary commission had their own section which advertised public hearings. Indeed, these websites are the main sources of data about the involvement of Canadians used in this analysis. In 2022, social media was used for the first time; there was a Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram account in each official language. Consistent with social media use by the Canadian government, these accounts were used to provide unidirectional information about the work of the commissions including advertising public hearings. Written feedback on map proposals was not accepted through social media channels.

Table 1. Public Hearings Held in 2012 & 2022

2012 2022
In-Person In-Person Virtual Both
AB 15 22 1 23
BC 23 26 1 27
MN 3 2 2 4
NB 11 8 1 9
NL 9 11 1 12
NS 6 8 1 9
ON 31 12 11 23
PEI 1 2 1 3
QC 21 17 3 20
SK 12 12 1 13
TOTAL 132 120 23 143

Public hearings during the 2022 redistribution took place between May and October 2022. Table 1 presents a summary of the number of public hearings, by province, in 2012 and 2022. In the most recent readjustment, there was a total of 143 public hearings across the country. Four scheduled hearings (in Manitoba and New Brunswick) were cancelled in 2022 for lack of notice of representation. As we can see from Table 1, in practice, most boundary commissions hold well beyond the required one hearing. Rather, the commissions tend to hold public hearings in various centres around their province to provide members of the public with many opportunities to make in-person presentations. One innovation seen in 2022 was the extensive use of virtual hearings. Several of the reports highlight the practical and technical reasons for this innovation. For instance, in the Ontario report, they note “the public’s ability to utilize and access remote meeting technology in their homes or community facilities, the efficiency of remote hearings, and the potential for restrictions on in-person meetings in light of the pandemic”6 as reasons for their extensive use of virtual hearings. Indeed, they had almost as many in- person hearings as virtual ones. In comparing 2012 to 2022, virtual hearings were generally supplemental. While there were eight fewer in-person hearings, there were still 16 more hearings in 2022. Here, technology was used to create more opportunities for members of the public to get involved in the process. This is consistent with the growing use of digital technologies for citizen and stakeholder engagement with governments in Canada.7

Participation in Public Hearings

There are two ways that Canadians can make a submission to their respective boundary commission. First, they can make an oral presentation directly to the boundary commissioners. EBRA requires a ‘notice of representation’ to the secretary of the commission within 23 days after the date of the last advertisement of a hearing. However, if the commissioners decide that it is in the public interest, they may hear a representation without notice. Though not mentioned in EBRA, the second way that members of the public can participate in the process is to make a written submission in the form of a snail mail or e-mail.

Table 2. In-Person and Written Submission to Provincial Boundaries Commission in 2012 & 2022

2012 2022
In-Person Written Total In-Person Written Total % of change
AB 154 383 537 127 511 638 18.8
BC 354 600 954 211 1000 1211 26.9
MN 59 18 77 28 43 71 -7.8
NB – – 70 37 66 103 47.1
NL 24 3 27 27 13 40 48.1
NS 42 57 99 104 1000 1104 1015.2
ON 509 569 1078 462 1899 2361 119.0
PE – – – 2 1 3 –
QC 237 144 381 161 215 376 -1.3
SK 230 3,000 3230 95 99 194 -94.0
TOTAL 6453 1254 4847 6101 -5.5

Note: The dash indicates that the number was not provided in the report

To what extent did citizens get involved in 2022?

Table 2 summarizes the reported participation rates in the two redistributions by submission type. When discussing public involvement in hearings, one of the first claims that Courtney8 makes in the book Commissioned Ridings concerns participation rates. He writes:

Exact attendance numbers and participation rates have not always been recorded or published, so it is impossible to know precisely how many individuals have taken advantage of the widely publicized invitation to the public to attend a hearing and present a brief or testify before a commission. The available data show that the number of participants and briefs presented to commissions has never been large.9

I come to similar conclusions based on a systematic review of the reports from the 2012 and 2022 redistributions. The total number of submissions in the most recent process, regardless of type, was around 6,100. To be sure, this number is an approximation. Given that each commission operates independently of the others, each commission presents its public hearing data in very different ways. For instance, the report by Newfoundland and Labrador’s Commission simply  lists  all  the  people  (name,  location  and position, if relevant) that attended each hearing. The BC report provides a very useful table that lists the number of presenters and the number of attendees by hearing. The Québec report10 notes: “The Commission received over 300 comments and submissions, and 161 individuals, including 34 MPs, 16 wardens and 41 municipal officials, appeared before the Commission at various public hearings.” As there is no standard table or reporting of this information, it is difficult to come to any definitive statements about citizen involvement in the process. Moreover, any round number in the table is probably not an exact number. In both time periods, the written submission data lacks precision compared to the in-person information. Nevertheless, we can see that written submissions are significantly more common than in-person submissions. In 2022, the ratio was 4:1.

Comparing the two time periods, it appears there was slightly less participation in 2022 compared to 2012 at about five per cent. When you consider in- person submissions, the number is more dire. There were 21.5 per cent fewer in-person submissions in 2022 than in the previous redistribution. This again highlights the importance of written submissions. However, there seems to be more participation overall compared to Courtney’s analysis where he reports that public submissions to all 10 federal commissions came to 928 in the 1980s and 641 in the 1990s.11 What might account for the differences between the two sets of redistributions? Is it that Canadians today are just much more interested in electoral boundaries compared to 20 years ago? We can probably look to technology as one possible explanation for the difference. As noted, the two recent redistributions in this analysis come at a time of widespread use of the internet and other digital technologies. One benefit of digital technology for politics is that it makes participating simpler and more efficient. Thus, sending an email to a boundary commission is significantly easier than by mail. Related to this is ‘clicktivism’ which refers to the “simplification of online participatory processes.”12 Digital technologies can make the work of community and interest groups easier by allowing them to share templates or provide talking points that members can quickly use and send along. Indeed, there was some discussion of this in the Alberta report (discussed below). While not technology related, the Nova Scotia13 report noted that the Commission received “hundreds of postcards…. expressing opposition to a particular boundary change being proposed,”14 indicating a coordinated approach to engagement. 

To what extent is the citizen involvement in the readjustment phase not ‘large’ as Courtney mused? This is a difficult question to answer as there is no compendium of participation rates in government consultations. That said, Justin Longo conducted a fascinating analysis of seven prominent engagement exercises undertaken by the federal government between 1997 and 2017. He reports participation rates ranging from under 1,000 to more than 300,000 Canadians. To be sure, factors such as the topic of consultation, type of consultation activity and the use of technology can affect rates. That said, using Longo’s work as a gauge, public engagement in redistribution fits somewhere in the middle.

Courtney goes on to note:

Commissions in the bigger provinces rarely hear from more than a few hundred individuals, and in the smaller provinces sometimes no more than a few dozen. It is clear as well that the numbers fluctuate from one boundary readjustment to another and from one area within a province to another according to the degree of public concern about the possible impact of the proposals on a particular region or riding.15

Given the differences in how reports provide data, it is very difficult to suss out the extent to which this claim holds. To be sure, the largest province unsurprisingly had the largest number of submissions by a wide margin. The final column in Table 2 is an attempt to assess differences between the two redistributions. Here I present the percentage of change between the total submission numbers between the two points in time. As mentioned, there is a slight decrease in the overall percentage in both types of submissions at 5.4 per cent. However, there is considerable variation in participation between provinces in the Table, with only one province, Manitoba, having very similar rates between the two time periods. Nova Scotia, despite being seventh in population size, had the fifth highest in-person submissions in 2022. Indeed, there was a 1000 per cent increase in participation from 2012 where only 99 people participated overall. This might speak to greater concern in Nova Scotia about changes to boundaries. At the same time, Nova Scotia was the site of that concerted postcard campaign. Saskatchewan moved in the opposite direction between 2012 and 2022, submissions decreased by 94 per cent. Even if we just focus on in-person participation at public hearings, the decrease is still close to 60 per cent. The 2022 redistribution was clearly less interesting or concerning to residents than the previous one.

Recall that EBRA considers MPs interested persons and allows for their participation in the public hearing phase. Of this, Courtney16 notes that participation “come almost invariably from mayors, councillors, and other elected officials, defeated candidates, and constituency party executives taking advantage of the opportunity to express their opinions about the proposed district boundaries.” This claim also remains true in the current redistribution. Every report, except PEI, makes some reference to the participation of politicians in the public hearings. In several of the smaller provinces, politicians were some of the biggest actors. As noted earlier, the NL report lists the names and positions of participants; using that information, we determined that 48 per cent of in-person submissions were from people involved in politics including MPs, former MPs, staffers and local politicians. Using a similar process of reviewing each of the written submissions found on the webpage of the New Brunswick commission, we find that while 61 per cent of submissions were from ‘regular people,’ 19 per cent of submissions came from mayors while four sitting MPs wrote a submission.

Obviously, sitting Members of Parliament have a vested interest in changes to boundaries. As Eagles and Carty17 put it, MPs “are inclined to see themselves as interested and expert parties in the map-making exercise, with something of substance to offer.” The reports indicate that MPs did participate in 2022. However, in line with the lack of consistency in reporting of submission data, I do not have exact numbers for all 10 provinces. Some of the commissions like Québec (see above), Manitoba and Alberta specifically note the number of MPs and the participation type. Manitoba received written or oral submissions, in some cases, both, from nearly 80 per cent of sitting MPs from the province; in Alberta, in-person presentations were made by 12 sitting MPs. In other reports, such as Ontario and BC, they reference participation of MPs more broadly but provide no specific number. One of the more interesting discussions of MPs in 2022 comes from the Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Alberta18, where in a section called ‘A Matter of Concern’ they describe what seemed like “a calculated effort, led by a particular MP, to persuade the Commission to maintain the existing electoral boundaries.”19 After the MP had made an in- person submission at a public hearing, the Commission received a “voluminous influx” of email that “echoed or mirrored the talking points” of that MP. It is worth noting here MPs have a second opportunity to weigh in after the report is sent to Parliament. MPs can file written objections to a report. The general public only participates in the initial stage of the process.  

To what extent does public involvement matter in the redistribution process? While it would be difficult to quantify, the following comment from the Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of British Columbia20 indicates that participation matters a great deal:

The Commission’s collective knowledge of British Columbia was enhanced by the hearing process and travel to the hearing locations. The Commission has endeavoured to incorporate much of the advice it received into the design of the electoral boundaries proposed in this Report. In particular, it has searched for alternatives to river crossings and the division of communities. While not all the submissions could be reflected here, all have been considered, and so the Report provides significant modifications to the Proposal canvassed in the public hearings.

The reports also provide evidence of commissioners engaging with specific feedback from people in their work. Here are two brief examples:

Québec: Lastly, many constituents were critical about the length of electoral district names in Quebec. They urged the Commission to make a special effort to shorten the names and even offered suggestions. The Commission noted that concern and is now proposing several shorter names, some of which are based on those suggestions.

Saskatchewan: Some presenters who argued in favour of blended ridings stressed a community of interest based on individual consumer trading patterns—i.e., shopping, visiting a doctor or dentist, or commuting for work. The Commission agrees with the 2012 Commission that these are important links among communities that should be fostered, but they do not establish a community of interest for federal electoral purposes.

Returning to Courtney, he reminds us that the theory behind the 10 provincial commissions rather than a national one is that local commissions are “more likely to be familiar with the local communities, the history, the population shifts, and the geography of a province.”21 These comments, along with all 10 reports acknowledging and expressing gratitude to all the Canadians that participated by writing a submission or attending in-person, indicate that the true holders of that local knowledge are the people who live in those communities. The participation by Canadians in the redistribution process may not be large, but it is of consequence.

Notes

  1. Courtney, John C. 2001. Commissioned Ridings Designing Canada’s Electoral Districts. Montreal-Kingston: McGill- Queen’s University Press.
  2. Ibid; Courtney, John C. 2004. Elections. Vancouver: UBC Press.
  3. Longo, Justin. 2017. “The Evolution of Citizen and Stakeholder Engagement in Canada, from Spicer to #Hashtags.” Canadian Public Administration 60 (4): 517–
  4. 37. https://doi.org/10.1111/capa.12229
  5. “Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Ontario.” 2023. 2022 Federal Electoral Districts Redistribution. 2023. https://redecoupage- redistribution-2022.ca/com/on/index_e.aspx.
  6. Brin, Colette, and Sébastien Charlton. 2022. “Digital News Report 2022: Country Data Canada.” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. 2022. https:// reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news- report/2022/canada.
  7. “Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Ontario,” p. 16
  8. Longo.
  9. Courtney, 2001.
  10. Ibid., p. 127.
  11. “Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Québec.” 2023. 2022 Federal Electoral
  12. Districts Redistribution. 2023. https://redecoupage- redistribution-2022.ca/com/qc/rprt/qc_e.pdf. p. 10.
  1. Courtney, 2001, p. 134.
  1. Halupka, Max. 2014. “Clicktivism: A Systematic Heuristic.” Policy & Internet 6 (2): 115–32.
  2. “Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Nova Scotia.” 2023. 2022 Federal Electoral Districts Redistribution. 2023. https:// redecoupage-redistribution-2022.ca/com/ns/index_e. aspx.
  3. Ibid., p. 10.
  4. Courtney, 2001.
  5. Courtney, 2001, p. 126.
  6. Eagles, Munroe, and R. Kenneth Carty. 1999. “MPs and Electoral Redistribution Controversies in Canada, 1993-
  7. 96.” Journal of Legislative Studies 5 (2), p. 77.
  8. “Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Alberta.” 2023. 2022 Federal Electoral Districts Redistribution. 2023. https://redecoupage- redistribution-2022.ca/com/ab/index_e.aspx.
  9. Ibid., p. 30.
  10. “Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of British Columbia.” 2023. 2022 Federal Electoral Districts Redistribution. 2023. https:// redecoupage-redistribution-2022.ca/com/qc/rprt/ index_e.aspx, p. 14.
  11. Courtney, 2004, p. 53.
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