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chris selley: in canada, some votes are more equal than others
wide variations in the number of voters per riding are making a mockery of representation by population in canada
aug 7 2024
4 minute read
is one vote per citizen — not 0.8 of a vote, not 1.2 — really too much to ask?
justin tang/the canadian press/file
ontario premier doug ford gave a truly maddening answer last week when asked whether ontario would be realigning its electoral map to match the adjusted federal ridings announced last year , and under which the next federal election will be held.
provinces needn’t align their electoral maps with the feds, but ontario has done so for nearly 30 years. harmonizing the ridings was part of mike harris’s self-titled “common sense revolution.”
but ford’s answer was no.
“why change something that works?” he mused aloud. “it works, so it’s all good.” he then accused “the feds” of “jury-rig(ging) the ridings,” claiming it’s “no secret that governments do that,” and vowed, oddly, that “people will decide if they want to move forward with our government.”
plenty of ford’s opponents see some sort of skulduggery afoot: the current ridings give him an advantage over the newly adjusted ones, or so goes the theory. i’m more inclined to attribute it to an ill-informed, stab-in-the-dark response that totally missed the mark. it’s not just a bad decision; for ford, it’s really off brand.
the current distribution of ridings “works,” yes, to the extent that it manages to populate the legislature with the required number of mpps. but if every ontarian’s vote and voice is supposed to count roughly the same in that process — and presumably ford, populist and enemy of unfairness in all its forms, would agree they should — then no, the decade-old current boundaries definitely do not “work.”
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leave aside for now the fact that rural, suburban and urban votes count vastly differently as a general rule: as of the 2021 census, ontario’s most populous current riding, brampton west, had two-and-a-half-times as many people as ontario’s least populous current riding, kenora. more on that in a moment.
even within the city of toronto, as of the 2021 census, the ridings ford proposes to keep range in population from 94,717 (scarborough centre) to 141,751 (etobicoke-lakeshore). a constituent in the former has 50 per cent more democratic clout than the latter. both are currently held by tory mpps.
most indefensibly to my mind, significant discrepancies exist even within the cities that were amalgamated into what is now toronto: etobicoke-lakeshore is 22 per cent bigger than etobicoke north; scarborough centre is 19 per cent bigger than scarborough north.
but there’s nothing hinky going on here. there’s no “jury-rigging,” or certainly nothing like the gerrymandering insanity we see in a few american states. some parts of toronto have seen population explosions, while others have actually shrunk (and we wonder why there’s a housing crisis). the new ridings iron out those inequities considerably, as they should.
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if liberal politicians in ottawa had their thumbs on the scales, it certainly didn’t wind up disadvantaging ford and his progressive conservatives. the city of toronto actually lost a seat under the federal redistribution, as did northern ontario, while the 905 picked up three. the tories haven’t recently had trouble winning seats in the 905.
so seemingly pointless is ford’s intransigence, i wouldn’t put it past him to change his mind. quite apart from anything else, it’s just easier to have one set of riding boundaries.
but when i see people assailing ford for his decision, i always find myself wishing they would take it further. even after the federal readjustment, the largest riding in toronto (toronto-danforth) is still 20 per cent bigger than the smallest (etobicoke centre).
that falls within elections canada’s definition of a reasonable discrepancy : “(redistricting) commissions should make every effort to ensure that the population of a district is not more than 25 per cent above or below the average district population (in the province).” with very few exceptions, the 2023 redistricting process made that happen.
two of the “rottenest” new federal ridings are in ontario, though — kenora has just 53 per cent of the provincial average voters per riding, thunder bay-rainy river just 70 per cent. that won’t significantly change if ontario keeps the 2013 ridings, but why is this something ford wants to cement in the name of it “working”? quebec doesn’t have such enormous variations, despite similarly vast northern regions. why does ontario?
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and that brings us to the truly indefensible differences, which are between the provinces. british columbians, albertans and ontarians get roughly one seat per 120,000 people. quebec gets a leg up, with one per 100,000, and the leg-ups get better from there: one seat per 84,000 in saskatchewan, one per 79,000 in new brunswick, one per 74,000 in newfoundland and labrador.
that’s born in part of various byzantine constitutional, statutory, customary and political obligations that must be met during the redistricting process, and those are unlikely to change. quebec will never consent to losing a seat, as it should have in the 2023 redistricting, and no government in ottawa is ever likely to let it. but it still makes a mockery of representation by population, and ford changing his mind won’t change that.
national post
cselley@nationalpost.com
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