When Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Comes to PROC

Changes to Canada’s federal electoral boundaries affect every person living in a particular riding. Yet, the process for changing boundaries occurs only once every 10 years. As such, a generalized unfamiliarity tends to exist among the public, as well as members of Parliament, about how the process functions and unfolds. There is only an upside to having every Canadian gain a better understanding of the steps that are taken to determine in what riding they will live, and who else will reside in that riding with them. In this article, the author first explains how this process unfolds under Canada’s Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (EBRA), including the important role played by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC). He then offers some observations about the 2022 readjustments.

Andre Barnes

Andre Barnes is a Research Analyst at the Library of Parliament and was assigned to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) for its studies of the 2012 and 2022 readjustments.

Introduction

Canada’s House of Commons both redistributes its seats and readjusts the boundaries of its electoral districts (or ridings) at intervals initiated by the occurrence of the federal census. The redistribution of seats is achieved by applying the rules found in section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867. The process for readjusting ridings entails a series of linear, sequential steps, with each step assigned a deadline for completion.

During the electoral boundaries readjustment process, members of Parliament (MPs) are provided the opportunity to express their views about each province’s proposed riding configurations and riding names directly to the independent and neutral electoral boundaries commissions (Commissions). The Commissions are responsible for making these determinations. This step in the process occurs when all 10 Commissions cause their reports to be tabled in the House of Commons. Once tabled, each report is deemed referred to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC).

The focus of this article will be on the work carried out by PROC during the electoral boundaries readjustment process. However, to better understand how PROC’s role fits into the larger picture, I will first provide some context about the readjustment process.

Background

The most recent electoral boundaries readjustment process began in October 2021 and the resultant new ridings will be applicable for a general election held after April 22, 2024.1

As a bicameral parliament, Canada’s Lower House employs representation by population as the basis for determining its membership count. As Canada’s population count changes and relocates internally within the country, the House of Commons alters its seat count to reflect those changes. By contrast, the Senate uses regional representation as the basis for its distribution of seats and its fixed membership count.

The legal basis for redistributing seats in the House is found in the Constitution Act, 1867, while the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (EBRA) provides the legal framework for readjusting electoral boundaries. Further, the constitutional principles and legal requirements of the readjustment process can be challenged in court. As such, certain court decisions serve to inform the exigences that Commissions must follow during readjustments.

In each province, the work of:

• dividing the land area into electoral districts,
• describing the boundaries,
• establishing the population count within each electoral district, and
• giving each electoral district a name,

is carried out by an independent and neutral three- member Commission. Each Commission has the final say about a province’s electoral boundaries and electoral district names. Though Elections Canada supports the work of the Commissions through a variety of professional, financial, technical, and administrative services, it plays no role in deciding the electoral boundaries or names of any riding.

Canada’s three territories are not included in the readjustment process. Rather, under section 51(2) of the Constitution Act, 1867, each territory is itself a riding, with all three territories assigned one seat each. To alter the electoral boundaries or names of a territorial riding would require an amendment to the Constitution Act, 1867.

PROC and the electoral boundaries readjustment process

The Commission’s reports

In carrying out its work, a Commission ends up preparing as many as three versions of a province’s federal electoral boundaries report.

The first version of a Commission’s report must be prepared prior to holding public hearings. As MPs are members of the public, they are permitted to participate in a public hearing.

The second version contains revisions made following the conclusion of the public hearing stage. This second version is tabled in the House of Commons and referred to PROC. At this stage, MPs alone are given the opportunity to object to specific provisions found in the second version.

The third version responds to any objections filed by MPs and is the final version of the Commission’s work. Should no MP object to any provision in a provincial Commission’s second version report, then the second version becomes the final report and there is no need for a third version. 

PROC’s role in the electoral boundaries process begins once any of the 10 provincial Commissions cause the second version of their report to be tabled in the House. The 10 reports are tabled individually and, usually, not all on the same day. How quickly Commissions complete the second version of their reports can be influenced by the relative population size of the provinces and/or other complicating factors.

Due to the sequential nature of the readjustment process, with each step assigned a deadline, it is possible to predict with reasonable accuracy, when PROC’s role in the process will begin. Table 1 sets out the date on which the second version of each Commission’s report was tabled in the House.

The EBRA sets out requirements about the information each version of these reports must contain. In the case of the second version of a Commission’s report, it must provide

the considerations and proposals of the [C]ommission concerning the division of the province into electoral districts, the descriptions and boundaries of the districts and the population of and name to be given to each district.2

Generally, a Commission’s report also sets out contextual information about the process itself, the approach taken by the Commission in carrying out its work, and the reasons for its decisions. Further, Commissions often include information about how they interpreted their legal obligations under the EBRA and how they sought to balance these obligations, which are at times competing.

The EBRA applies equally to all 10 provinces, despite their geographic and demographic differences. However, the statue allows some flexibility for the Commissions to interpret legal requirements determining reasonable riding boundaries.3 As such, each Commission may place greater or lesser emphasis on any of:

• voter parity,
• communities of interest,
• communities of identity,
• historical boundary patterns, and
• manageable geographic size of districts in sparsely populated, rural or northern regions of the province.

Table 1 – A Timeline of the Studies Carried Out in 2023 by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to Review the Ten Provincial Electoral Boundary Commission Reports

Province	Date of Commission Tabling its Report in the House	MPObjections*	No. of MPsAppearing as Witnesses	Start of the Study by the Committee	No. of Mee- ings**	Presentation of Committee’s Report in the House	Objec- tions agreed to***
Nova Scotia	Nov. 17, 2022	3/1	3	Jan. 31, 2023	2	Mar. 20, 2023	0/1
Prince EdwardIsland	Nov. 29, 2022	0	0	Feb. 8, 2023	1	Feb. 8, 2023	—
New Brunswick	Nov. 30, 2022	0/1	1	Jan. 31, 2023	2	Mar. 20, 2023	0/0
Saskatchewan	Dec. 6, 2022	3/0	3	Feb. 2, 2023	2	Mar. 20, 2023	2/0
Manitoba	Dec. 6, 2022	2(3)/0	3	Feb. 2, 2023	2	Mar. 20, 2023	1/0
Newfoundlandand Labrador	Dec. 7, 2022	0	0	Feb. 8, 2023	1	Feb. 8, 2023	—
Quebec	Feb. 1, 2023	11/10	18	Mar. 23, 2023	4	May 17, 2023	3/8
Alberta	Feb. 2, 2023	5/2	5	Mar. 23, 2023	2	May 17, 2023	2/1
BritishColumbia	Feb. 8, 2023	10(21)/10(21)	14	Apr. 18, 2023	3	May 31, 2023	2/6
Ontario	Feb. 10, 2023	19(24)/9(10)	18	Apr. 18, 2023	4	June 7, 2023	5/6
Total	—	53(70)/33(45)	92	—	23	—

Formal objections by members of Parliament

The tabling of a Commission’s report in the House of Commons marks the start of a 30-calendar day window during which any MP may file an objection about the report with PROC’s clerk.4 For an objection to be eligible for consideration by PROC, it must meet  he following requirements, which are set out in the EBRA. That is, the objection must:

• be in writing, in the form of a motion;
• specify the provisions of the report being objected to and the reasons for the objection; and
• be signed by not less than 10 MPs.

The use of the term “objection” in the EBRA, to describe an MP’s desire to provide input about the second version of a Commission’s report, seemingly would imply that an objecting MP disagrees with the Commission’s proposal. However, during at least the last two electoral boundary readjustments, PROC deemed acceptable instances where MPs filed objections that expressed their support for the second version of the Commission’s report, without technically objecting to any provision.

The reason MPs’ objections filed in support of a Commission’s proposals were permitted by PROC could be viewed as an allowance for some counterbalance to the inherent features of the design of the electoral boundaries readjustment process.

The process is sequential, with the next step potentially overwriting the previous step. Further, it is the Commissions that make proposals, and the public and MPs that respond to these proposals by presenting feedback. One could make a case that in seeking public feedback, arguably, one is more likely to hear from those spurred into action by displeasure with a proposal, rather than those spurred into action by satisfaction with a proposal.

Broadly speaking, all MPs’ objections address one of two matters: proposed riding boundaries, or the proposed name for a riding. In filing an objection, an MP ought to consider providing the Commission with an alternative proposal, but they are not required to do so.

In the case of objections to the proposed configuration of a riding, it is not uncommon for an MP to object to the proposed configuration of more than one riding, such as objections to every riding in a city or in a region. Indeed, during the 2012 electoral boundaries readjustment, 12 Saskatchewan MPs each filed objections which, at their basis, challenged the configuration of the ridings for that entire province.5

PROC’s studies of objections by members of Parliament

The end of the 30-day period for MPs to file objections to the second version of a Commission’s report starts the clock on a subsequent period in the readjustment process. PROC then has 30 sitting days within which to consider MPs’ objections and report the matter back to the House.6

In 2012 and 2022, PROC as a full committee dealt with MPs’ objections to a provincial Commission’s report. For the 2002 readjustment, PROC7 empowered a subcommittee (the Subcommittee on Electoral Boundaries Readjustment) to carry out this work. In all cases, each province’s report was dealt with as a separate study and resulted in 10 separate committee reports.

At this stage in the process, the EBRA provides MPs with the opportunity to object to any provision in a Commission’s report. The statute is silent about any qualitative or quantitative information MPs could call to the Commission’s attention to make their objection legally, if not morally, socially, or historically, compelling to the Commission.

In the case of objections to electoral boundary proposals, MPs usually employ, as the basis of their objection, the criteria found in section 15 of the EBRA, which the Commissions must consider in determining reasonable electoral district boundaries.8

For objections to proposed riding names, MPs usually make their case by calling on their knowledge of the local area to propose adding or removing places or names from a proposed riding name. Since 1998, Commissions have consulted with the Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) for naming advice. To this end, the GNBC secretariat has prepared a set of guidelines to assist provincial commissions in their reviews of federal riding names for suitability. However, MPs’ objections to proposed riding names rarely, if ever, refer to these GNBC guidelines.

It’s worth noting that PROC does not study a provincial Commission’s report. Rather, PROC’s role is to only study objections by MPs to a Commission’s report. As such, in the case where no MP files an objection to a province’s electoral boundaries report, then PROC reports back to the House only that no objections were filed for that province.

Some MPs, observers, and even on occasion, a Commission, have suggested that PROC could use its reporting power, at this stage, to raise considerations or make recommendations to the House about the operation of the broader EBRA process or corollary matters. For example, parliamentary resources for members of the House related to their representation function. However, it has been PROC’s view that any such examination ought to be conducted as a separate study, outside of the readjustment process.9 As part of its mandate, PROC is empowered by the Standing Orders of the House of Commons to, at any time, review of and report on all matters relating to the election of members to the House of Commons.10

Further, the EBRA is silent about any evidentiary documentation that an MP may wish to provide to PROC when filing an objection. In 2012 and 2022, PROC received objections from MPs whose length, measured in pages, ranged from voluminous to minimal.

As is the case with nearly all reports by parliamentary committees, it is analysts from the Library of Parliament who draft PROC’s substantive reports for each provincial Commission. For the 2012 and 2022 readjustments, the approach taken by analysts in summarizing MPs’ objections as reflection of the will of PROC, was to put each objection in the best light possible. Or, put another way, to state the MP’s objection in the way that the MP themselves would support.

Reconsideration and disposition by Commissions of MPs’ objections

Upon completing its work of examining, considering, and compiling any MPs’ objections to a Commission’s report, PROC’s Chair presents its findings in a committee report. This report is tabled in the House, along with a copy of the objection(s), minutes of proceedings and verbatim evidence.

Any recommendations made by PROC, concerning the boundary configuration of a riding or a riding’s name, do not bind the decision-making of the Commissions. Rather, section 23(1) of the EBRA requires only that the Commissions “consider the matter of the objection and dispose of the objection.” As such, a Commission will only modify its boundary proposals or proposed riding names where it agrees with an MP’s objections.

The rejection rate by Commissions of MPs’ objections tends to be high. In 2012 and 2022, the number of objections made by MPs that a Commission agreed with, in any given province, usually could be counted on one hand.

An important factor that can lead to an MP’s objection being rejected by a Commission is the interrelated nature of all proposed ridings in a province. The creation of ridings meant to cover the entire geography of a province could be viewed as creating puzzle pieces. Using this analogy, a typical MP’s objection focuses on changing the shape of a single puzzle piece, knowing that this change must necessarily result in a concomitant increase or diminution in size of the neighbouring piece. 

In other words, moving a boundary in one riding often requires adjustments to be made in neighbouring ridings to maintain relative population balance or adhere to other legal factors. These repercussions may then ripple outward across the region, if not the entire province. As such, an MP proposing a change to the configuration of a riding on, for example, Vancouver Island, can end up affecting the configurations of the ridings east of the Rockies in British Columbia.

Observations on features of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act

1. The process is federally run

The advantages are numerous of having a federally run process for readjusting electoral boundaries, as compared with permitting each province to run their own processes, in the manner of their choosing. These advantages relate to uniformity and predictability. The current process is uniform and predictable with respect to:

• the qualifications of the commissioners, the process for their appointment, and their mandates and powers;
• the tasks and timelines for the completion of each Commission’s work;
• the legal criteria that must be used by the Commissions in carrying out their work; and
• the resources, facilities and support provided to the Commissions.

It is probable that economies of scale are achieved by having the technical assistance and corporate memory provided to the Commissions come from a single entity, Elections Canada.

It is also important to be cognizant that a federally run boundaries readjustment process means that it is a “one size fits all” process. As such, the Commissions in, for example Ontario and Prince Edward Island, must follow the same process and adhere to the same timelines, despite their glaring differences in relative population size (14.8 million and 0.16 million, respectively), geographic size (1.076 million km2 and 0.0057 million km2, respectively), and seats in the House of Commons (122 and four, respectively).

1. The 10 provincial Commissions are neutral and independent

The current electoral boundaries readjustment process is designed to insulate the work of the Commissions from the influence of political calculations. The Commissions are meant to operate in a neutral fashion and are independent of Parliament and the government of the day. This was not always the case.

From 1872 to 1903, seat readjustments in the House of Commons for the existing provinces were made by government bills. These bills contained a description of the boundaries for each electoral district. This seat readjustment process has been described as, “a highly biased task focused on maximizing the governing party’s electoral successes.”11

In 1903, the process for readjusting seats and electoral boundaries was changed. While the practice of bringing in a government bill to readjust seats and electoral boundaries remained, the bill did not contain any details about the placement of electoral boundaries. After the bill was read a second time, it was referred to a special committee of the House whose membership was drawn from all parties.12 This special committee was empowered to prepare schedules that described the electoral boundaries for all districts. However, the process “remained highly partisan.”13 Further, members were not provided with guidelines upon which to base their decisions.

In 1964, Parliament passed the EBRA. The legislation assigned the responsibility for drawing and readjusting the boundaries of electoral districts to nonpartisan electoral boundaries Commissions.

The Commissions:

• conduct their work at arm’s length from Parliament;
• have a membership chosen by independent representatives (i.e., the chief justice of each province and the Speaker of the House of Commons);
• consult widely in making their proposals;
• are empowered to modify their proposals following consultations;
• must justify their decisions according to legal criteria and historical precedent, and;
• have the final say on decisions related to boundary configurations and riding names.

1. The relationship between the federal decennial census and electoral boundaries readjustment

Canada’s first decennial census was held in 1871 under the Census Act (CA).14 The CA provided that, following the 1871 census, a census must be taken every 10 years thereafter. According to Statistics Canada, the main purpose of the 1871 census was to determine the “appropriate representation by population in the new parliament.”15

Further, section 51 of the original British North America Act 1867, later renamed the Constitution Act, 1867, provided that representation in the House of Commons must be readjusted following the completion of the decennial census.

1. The electoral boundaries readjustment process is sequential in nature

During the 2022 readjustment, a fair number of objections filed by MPs had, as their basis, an agreement with the first version of a Commission’s report and a disagreement with the revisions made by the Commission following the public hearing stage.

In these cases, MPs told PROC that they had heard from individuals or communities of interest or identity who had studied the first version of a Commission’s report and were highly satisfied with the proposed configurations. As such, they decided not to attend the public hearings to tell the Commissioners about their satisfaction.

However, many participants did attend the public hearings, of which many were dissatisfied with the first version of a Commission’s report. These participants proposed that revisions be made to the report.

As such, during the 2022 readjustment process, there were numerous instances of individuals and communities who had silently supported the first version of a Commission’s report, only to find themselves surprised and disappointed by the changes that ended up being made by the Commission in its revised second version. However, at that point in the process, the public hearing stage was completed, and it was too late for the public to directly provide its input to the Commissions.

1. Some regions within a province lost seats

The formula for assigning seats in the House of Commons to Canada’s 10 provinces is set out in sections 51(1), 51(1.1), and 51A of the Constitution Act, 1867. Section 51(1) contains the six rules put in place through the Fair Representation Act, which became law in December 2011.

In June 2022, Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (electoral representation) amended rule 2, and had the effect of preventing the loss of one House seat for Quebec during the 2022 seat redistribution.

As such, during the 2022 seat redistribution, no province had their seat count in the House of Commons reduced.

However, within two provinces, some regions did lose seats. This was the case in the regions of eastern Quebec, downtown Toronto, and Northern Ontario. Each of these regions saw the seat count for that region reduced by one.

In broad terms, the reason for the seat losses in these regions is due to the uneven distribution of population bases within each province. By total geographic area, Canada is the second largest country in the world. However, in 2022, 73.7 per cent of Canadians lived in a large urban centre.16 Moreover, in 2017, it was found that 66 per cent of Canadians lived within 100 km of the US border.17

Conclusion

With great knowledge of their own riding and the communities that surround it, MPs can make important contributions to the Commissioners’ research and information gathering process through written or oral interventions at public meetings. Further, according to the process set out in the EBRA, MPs have a second opportunity to formally interact with each provincial Commission, after each tables its report for review by the PROC. At this latter stage, whether these objections are accepted or rejected, depends largely on the nature of the objection and its effect on the complex inter-connected nature that an adjustment made to one riding would have on others. This article, which has described the process at the PROC and offered observations on certain features of the EBRA, finds that there are important advantages to having an independent, neutral, federally-run process for boundary readjustment. However, employing a process that follows a series of sequential steps does produce certain inevitable characteristics to the work.

Notes

• Government of Canada, Proclamation Declaring the Representation Orders to be in Force Effective on the First Dissolution of Parliament that Occurs after April 22, 2024.

1. 1. Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. E-3,
   2. s. 20(1).
   3. EBRA, s. 15.
   4. The EBRA is silent on whether an MP from province X can duly file an objection with PROC about the second version of a Commission’s report for province Y. As such, any MP may duly file an objection about the second version of a Commission’s report for any province.
   5. House of Commons, Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, Report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Saskatchewan 2012, Fifty-seventh Report, June 2013.
   6. Section 22(1) of the EBRA sets out that PROC may request a time extension of undefined length, from the House, beyond 30-sitting days, to complete its consideration of a Commission’s report.
   7. According to the Sixteenth Report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The Subcommittee was composed of one member from each party, plus the Chair. Note: at that time, HAFF was the acronym for the committee instead of PROC.
   8. In drawing electoral boundaries, s. 15 of the EBRA requires Commissions to consider the following factors: voter parity, communities of interest, communities of identity, historical boundary patterns, and manageable geographic size of districts in sparsely populated, rural or northern regions of the province.
   9. See, for example, PROC’s Sixteenth Report, 37th Parliament, 3rd Session, presented in the House of Commons in April 2004, or after the completion of PROC’s role in the electoral boundaries readjustment process.
   10. Standing Orders of the House of Commons, Standing Order 108(3)(a)(iii).
   11. Marc Bosc and André Gagnon, eds., “Chapter 4: The House of Commons and its Members – Historical Perspective,” House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 3rd ed., 2017.

• Ibid.

• Ibid.

1. Census Act (33 Victoria, Chapter XXI).
2. Statistics Canada, History of the Census of Canada. URL: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/ ref/about-apropos/history-histoire-eng.cfm
3. Statistics Canada, Canada’s large urban centres continue to grow and spread. URL: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/ daily-quotidien/220209/dq220209b-eng.htm
4. Statistics Canada, Population size and growth in Canada: Key results from the 2016 Census. URL: https://www150. statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170208/dq170208a-eng. htm