Seat redistribution in Canada

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

To Al: if you think this better belongs in International Discussion, feel free to move it.

Harper has commented today http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/10/14/pol-harper-new-seats.html that Quebec could get more seats in redistribution. Here is some quick math. There are 63 seats that won't change. 14 in MB, 14 in SK, 11 in NS, 10 in NB, 7 in NL, 4 in PE, and 1 in each Territory. While the boundaries will move about, the number per-province will not change. Therefore the SP or Smaller Provinces, are not part of this discussion.

Current:
SP - 63 - 20.45% = Pct seats - (13.89%) = Pct pop
AB - 28 - 9.09% - (10.91%)
BC - 36 - 11.69% - (13.28%)
QC - 75 - 24.35% - (23.18%)
ON - 106 - 34.42% - (38.73%)
Total - 308 seats

This is as many seats as you could add. Anything beyond this would increase Manitoba to 15 seats.

SP - 63 - 15.87% - (13.89%)
AB - 43 - 10.83% - (10.91%)
BC - 51 - 12.85% - (13.28%)
QC - 90 - 22.67% - (23.18%)
ON - 150 - 37.78% - (38.73%)
Total - 397 seats

The maximum to keep Quebec at it's current level:

SP 63 - 17.12% - 13.89%
AB 37 - 10.05% - 10.91%
BC 45 - 12.23% - 13.28%
QC 90 - 24.46% - 23.18%
ON 133 - 36.14% - 38.73%
Total - 368 seats

This was the originally expected change:
SP 63 - 18.64% - 13.89%
AB 35 - 10.36% - 10.91%
BC 41 - 12.13% - 13.28%
QC 75 - 22.19% - 23.18%
ON 124 - 36.69% - 38.73%
Total - 338 seats

This may become the new change:
SP 63 - 18.10% - 13.89%
AB 35 - 10.06% - 10.91%
BC 41 - 11.78% - 13.28%
QC 85 - 24.43% - 23.18%
ON 124 - 35.63% - 38.73%
Total - 348

Or, this may become the new change:

SP 63 - 18.37% - 13.89%
AB 35 - 10.20% - 10.91%
BC 41 - 11.95% - 13.28%
QC 80 - 23.32% - 23.18%
ON 124 - 36.15% - 38.73%
Total - 343

The more I read the article, the more likely the final proposal seems to be what Harper is thinking. He specifically said population, and not current levels of support, and this is the only proposal that keeps Quebec's seat levels on par with it's population levels.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

For the record, this is what things would look like if we used the current formula.

SP - 63 - 20.06% - (13.89%)
AB - 31 - 9.87% - (10.91%)
BC - 37 - 11.78% - (13.28%)
QC - 75 - 23.89% - (23.18%)
ON - 108 - 34.39% - (38.73%)
Total - 314 seats


And just for fun the only way to get true repbypop

ON-325
QC-195
BC-112
AB-92
MB-30
SK-26
NS-23
NB-19
NL-13
PE-4
NT-1
YK-1
NU-1
Total - 842

[Harry Hayfield]

What are the rules for Canada's seats? Do they work on a set percentage either side of the national average (as the UK does) or is it based on a set number of seats of which the electorate can be any size?

[MaxQue]

What are the rules for Canada's seats? Do they work on a set percentage either side of the national average (as the UK does) or is it based on a set number of seats of which the electorate can be any size?

Seats are apportionned with a formula to the different provinces.

Then, each province has a provincial quota (population/seats), which is used to know the size of an average seat. There is some margins (10 to 25%, I think, depending on the cases.)

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The current formula gives 279 seats to the provinces to divvy up, but special clauses mean that 7 provinces always end up with more than their "fair share". The formula proposed a while ago, would have seen Quebec's 75 seats determine the electorate, and hence, each province (save the 6 smaller ones) would have had seats equal in size to each of Quebec's seats. The "new" formula may be that, plus a clause that allows Quebec to be bumped up to it's proportional share of seats by population.

The 63 seats in the smaller provinces remain, to put it as simply as possible, because provinces are not allowed to lose seats under the constitution.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1071825--harper-to-give-ontario-13-more-federal-seats?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

SP - 63 - 18.86% - (13.89%)
AB - 34 - 10.18% - (10.91%)
BC - 41 - 12.28% - (13.28%)
QC - 77 - 23.05% - (23.18%)
ON - 119 - 35.63% - (38.73%)
Total - 334 seats

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Somehow, Harper has managed to screw Ontario. While the other provinces get within 2 seats of their former expected totals, Ontario is down by 5.

[Hatman 🍁]

So, are these numbers just pulled out of his ass, or are they based on some sort of mathematical formula that will change once the census results are released next year?

[Krago]

Based on the latest provincial population estimates, the numbers work out if:

(a) the divisor is changed from 279 to 304; and
(b) Quebec is guaranteed that its share of seats remains proportional to its share of Canada's population.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Wouldn't the divisor need to be 305? Also, it does not work with Quebec at 75?

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Krago is 100% correct. I ran the numbers with 305 as the factor and I used. Using the current formula I get...

ON - 119
QC - 71
BC - 41
AB - 34
MB - 11
SK - 9
NS - 8
NB - 7
NL - 5
PE - 1

Adding the Senatoral clause

ON - 119
QC - 71
BC - 41
AB - 34
MB - 11
SK - 9
NS - 10
NB - 10
NL - 6
PE - 4

And the Grandfather clause

ON - 119
QC - 75
BC - 41
AB - 34
MB - 14
SK - 14
NS - 11
NB - 10
NL - 6
PE - 4

And this seemingly new Quebec population clause

ON - 119
QC - 77
BC - 41
AB - 34
MB - 14
SK - 14
NS - 11
NB - 10
NL - 6
PE - 4

And we get the exact same results. I used this http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm as the basis for my data

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, instead of trying to make things fairer and more proportional to actual population, Harper has added another damn clause ?

[MaxQue]

So, instead of trying to make things fairer and more proportional to actual population, Harper has added another damn clause ?

He does what he can, on that.
The current formula favorize smaller provinces.
But giving to Quebec less than its share, like the other big provinces could re-ignite the national debate in Quebec, so, he doesn't want that. So, he needed to add a clause.

The new formula is fairer to big provinces than the previous one.

If we want complete proportionnal distribution, it would require a lot more seats in Parliament or reducing the number of seats of the smaller provinces.
The second idea isn't possible without amending the Constitution. And those provinces will NEVER agree to modify it. (In Canada, amendments must be approved by provincial assemblies, the exact number needed depends of the case).

There is two cases here.
Senatorial clause: No province has less MPs than Senators.

Grandfather clause: No province can have less seats than they had in 1984 election. To amend, you need to fill the 7/50. Approval of 7 provinces representing 50% of the population. Obviously, there is more than 3 provinces which disapprove.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I know about the clauses. They are silly and ideally should be abolished, but indeed the provinces will never give up those seats...

Far more simply, raising the seat number to 400 or 450 almost neutralizes any distortion. Instead, by guaranteeing Québec a "fair share" of seats, the new clause results in Alberta, BC and Ontario having an even less fair share of them.

[MaxQue]

Yeah, I know about the clauses. They are silly and ideally should be abolished, but indeed the provinces will never give up those seats...

Far more simply, raising the seat number to 400 or 450 almost neutralizes any distortion. Instead, by guaranteeing Québec a "fair share" of seats, the new clause results in Alberta, BC and Ontario having an even less fair share of them.

Abolition of those clauses would screw Atlantic Provinces, which would be really, really mad. Danny Williams showed to Harper, in 2008. Or in 1997, when NDP beated high-profile Liberals ministers there, because of anger around reform of Employment Insurance. Liberals took most of the seats back in 2000, but, the message of Atlantic was clear.
It is all the difficulty of Canadian politics. You must find an equilibrum between the very different parts of the country without favorising one nor angering one.

As for adding 100 seats, voters won't like at all.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I know about the clauses. They are silly and ideally should be abolished, but indeed the provinces will never give up those seats...

Far more simply, raising the seat number to 400 or 450 almost neutralizes any distortion. Instead, by guaranteeing Québec a "fair share" of seats, the new clause results in Alberta, BC and Ontario having an even less fair share of them.

Abolition of those clauses would screw Atlantic Provinces, which would be really, really mad. Danny Williams showed to Harper, in 2008. Or in 1997, when NDP beated high-profile Liberals ministers there, because of anger around reform of Employment Insurance. Liberals took most of the seats back in 2000, but, the message of Atlantic was clear.
It is all the difficulty of Canadian politics. You must find an equilibrum between the very different parts of the country without favorising one nor angering one.

As for adding 100 seats, voters won't like at all.

Why ? The more seats there are, the more a single voter's influence on the election's outcome increases. And it also makes MPs closer to their constitutents (which should be the point of uniniminal voting).

[MaxQue]

Yeah, I know about the clauses. They are silly and ideally should be abolished, but indeed the provinces will never give up those seats...

Far more simply, raising the seat number to 400 or 450 almost neutralizes any distortion. Instead, by guaranteeing Québec a "fair share" of seats, the new clause results in Alberta, BC and Ontario having an even less fair share of them.

Abolition of those clauses would screw Atlantic Provinces, which would be really, really mad. Danny Williams showed to Harper, in 2008. Or in 1997, when NDP beated high-profile Liberals ministers there, because of anger around reform of Employment Insurance. Liberals took most of the seats back in 2000, but, the message of Atlantic was clear.
It is all the difficulty of Canadian politics. You must find an equilibrum between the very different parts of the country without favorising one nor angering one.

As for adding 100 seats, voters won't like at all.

Why ? The more seats there are, the more a single voter's influence on the election's outcome increases. And it also makes MPs closer to their constitutents (which should be the point of uniniminal voting).

For people, more seats means more MPs to pay.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, I'd be all for reducing the MPs' pay by 1/3 if we multiply their number by 1.5...

[MaxQue]

Well, I'd be all for reducing the MPs' pay by 1/3 if we multiply their number by 1.5...

Well, they obviously won't vote quite a reduction to themselves.
That is normal, who would choose to be cut 1/3 of his wage?

[Hatman 🍁]

Increasing seats isn't popular with some of the populist types out there. Remember when Mike Harris did it in Ontario? Our mayor was talking about it in the municipal election (reducing council seats), and that was one of the reasons I can never vote for him.

The fact that Stephen Harper is willing to increase seats is refreshing, actually. But I guess, it plays to his base more than it doesn't, as it increases representation from Alberta.

My one fear is that overall, these new seats will help the Tories more than the NDP.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

So, instead of trying to make things fairer and more proportional to actual population, Harper has added another damn clause ?

The Senatorial Clause is in the Constitution, and would require the agreement of every province to eliminate.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

All of this discussion is misleading. We've known for years Harper will be increasing seats. None of this is surprising. The only surprising thing is that he's sticking with the old Formula.

[Holmes]

My one fear is that overall, these new seats will help the Tories more than the NDP.

Really depends on where the actual seats end up though, right? The Alberta seats will probably be mostly all or completely Tory, depending on how they end up in Edmonton. The Quebec seats might end up being NDP, the BC seats would probably be fights between the Tories and the NDP, and as for Ontario, it really depends on where the new seats are placed.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Crossposted from the Blog I post on.




I've taken a close look at the proposed numbers in Harper's new plan for seat redistribution.

This is a difficult to understand issue, so I will begin by explaining the history a little bit. Canada has had a number of different formulas to distribute seats across the land.

From 1867 to 1915, we used a "Quebec" based formula. Quebec was guaranteed 65 seats. That number was then divided by Quebec's population, and the size of the electorate in each Quebec riding was thus determined. Each province would then be given seats so that their ridings would be equal in size to that of Quebec. An additional formula made it difficult for provinces to lose seats, though possible.

From 1915 to 1946, the formula we used was nearly identical, except that no province could ever have fewer seats than Senators. The result of this was to raise PEI back up to 4 seats (from the 3 it held, mathematically, for a short time) but this clause, the Senatorial clause, was added to the Constitution, where it remains to this day.

In 1946 the formula was amended to it's first non-Quebec based formula. Canada's provinces were assigned 254 seats (with 1 extra for the Yukon) and these 254 seats were then assigned to each province based on it's fair share of the population. Provinces could now lose seats, excepting the Senatorial clause, and this thus quickly became the new concern. In 1951 a new clause was added forbidding provinces can losing more than 15% of it's seats at any one time.

Between 1974 and 1985 we went back to a Quebec based formula, this time with Quebec at 75 seats. This formula gave different calculations based on the size of provinces, and needless to say, was quite unwieldy. It was used once, in 1976, and never again. This adjustment is important however, as the number of seats assigned in 1976 became the basis for the "Grandfather Clause", which states no province can have fewer seats than they were assigned under this 1974 formula.

The formula in use since 1985 is what we have been debating replacing. This formula gives 279 seats to the provinces (and 3 extra set aside for the Territories) and then gives the provinces it's fair share based on that. The Senatorial clause is then added, which at this time gives extra seats to PEI, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and then the Grandfather clause is activated which gives extra seats to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec.

The current formula ends up being harmful to BC, Alberta, and Ontario. As more and more seats are added due to clauses, there is less and less room for these provinces to grow. This is the basis for the need for change.

The old formula, since it is a mathematical formula, is easy to calculate. Using it for the coming changes, we get 108 seats for Ontario, 37 for BC, 31 for Alberta, and the same 138 for the other provinces combined. Harper proposed a change, that would allow Provinces smaller than Quebec to have riding sizes equal to that within Quebec. This would have raised Alberta to 35 and BC to 41 but kept Ontario at 108. Needless to say, Ontario was not very happy with this, and protested. Harper then responded by allowing all provinces to have equal population-per-riding to Quebec, which raised Ontario to 124

The problem is this huge increase suddenly put Quebec at a disadvantage. Thanks to the "Clauses" Quebec suddenly found itself entitled to fewer seats than it's population would otherwise allow. This is where the debate stood a week ago.

Yesterday, Harper announced new seat counts. 119 for Ontario, 41 for BC, 34 for Alberta, 77 for Quebec, and an unchanged 63 for the smaller provinces. Acting on a tip from an Internet user known to me only as "Krago" I was able to figure out the formula behind this.

What Harper is using is the old 1985 formula with only two changes. First, the number of seats the provinces are entitled to goes up from 279 to 305. 305, plus three for the Territories, is our current seat number; but due to over-representation of the smaller provinces, this new number gives the larger provinces many more seats. Secondly, there appears to be a new "Quebec Clause" that entitles Quebec to a number of seats equal to it's share of the population. If you add these two together, you get the exact results reported in the media.

At the risk of having a post that is a bit TL;DR, I hope that this clears things up.

[mileslunn]

In the case of the BC seats, probably a mix, although the Tories should get some safe ones, most likely in the Fraser Valley.  I also think the Liberals or NDP might pick up one in the downtown as I believe Vancouver Centre will probably be split and with Surrey and Richmond should get more seats so the Tories will probably take the Richmond ones unless the Liberals can somehow regain their lost support amongst the Chinese community while in Surrey it will probably be less of a battleground with safe Tory seats in the South and East and safe NDP in the North, much like it is provincially.  Ontario will probably help the NDP the least as asides from the condos downtown, most of their ridings are not growing.  Most the new seats will probably be in the 905 belt which can go either Liberal or Tory, while Central Ontario should gain some which should go Tory.  The only good news for the NDP is Bramalea-Gore-Malton depending on how it is drawn up may create a safe seat for the NDP.

Quebec will likely be in the Montreal area so definitely not favourable for the Tories, but the NDP gaining them will depend on the Bloc Quebecois not being revived and the Liberals not finding someone who really takes off in Quebec.  Lets remember Quebec is probably the least predictable province when it comes to how it votes, after all just a year ago if someone told me the Bloc would be wiped out and the NDP would have won 59 seats in Quebec, I would have told them they were nuts, yet look what happened.