Mowat Fellow Mike Pal and Mowat Policy Analyst Melissa Molson on Ontario’s lack of rep-by-pop in the National Post.
The electoral boundary commission for Ontario is redrawing the province’s federal ridings at this moment. They must make moving closer toward voter equality a priority.
Independent commissions redraw federal boundaries every 10 years, to keep up with changes in population. Because of serious underrepresentation of some regions in the House of Commons, Parliament passed the Fair Representation Act in 2011, adding seats for Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. Commissions in each province then took on the task of redrawing federal electoral boundaries.
Ontario’s commission published a draft map and received public feedback from hearings across the province. Deliberations on where to set the final boundaries are now underway.
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Unfortunately, the draft map for Ontario moves away from the fundamental democratic principle of voter equality. Voter equality means that each ballot cast should carry roughly the same weight, which requires each riding to have very close to the same population. This is also known as representation by population.
Voter equality ensures that all voters have an equal say on the issues that affect their lives. The draft Ontario map deviates far more from voter equality than any other province. Deviations of 5-10% from voter equality are often used as a baseline for measuring fairness.
All of Alberta’s ridings are within 5%, while B.C. has only one riding deviating by more than 10%. Meanwhile, only about half of Ontario’s ridings are within a 5% variance. In the four provinces that gained seats, 25 of the 29 ridings that deviate by more than 10% from rep-by-pop are in Ontario.
This cannot be attributed to Ontario’s remote and sparsely populated north. When ridings located in rural, remote or northern regions are excluded, there are 15 ridings among these provinces that deviate by more than 10%. All are in Ontario. The irony is that Ontario has for years led the charge to achieve voter equality.
All parties in the Ontario Legislature endorsed rep-by-pop for Ontarians in the House of Commons through a unanimous motion on Dec. 10, 2007. And strong pressure exerted by the Ontario government played an important role in convincing the federal government to add the 15 new seats.
By moving away from voter equality, the proposed map undermines the very argument that allowed Ontarians to secure more seats in the House of Commons in the first place. When the commitment to voter equality weakens, over time the representation of all Ontarians suffers, including those in northern, rural and remote communities.
Ultimately, it will be Ontarians living in fast-growing regions, such as the 905, Kitchener and Ottawa, who will be most under-represented due to the commission’s weak commitment to voter equality. Under the current proposed draft map, voters in Ontario’s high-population growth areas, like Brampton and Markham, will start off underrepresented and become even worse off over the next decade.
The Alberta and B.C. commissions both took anticipated population growth into account. The Ontario commission did not. That’s why the Mowat Centre submitted a number of key recommendations to Ontario’s commission.
First, that ridings should deviate by no more than 5% from voter equality in Southern Ontario.
Second, that deviations from voter equality due to sparse populations over vast geography should only be permitted in well-defined and limited circumstances.
Third, that the commission should consider anticipated population growth to ensure effective representation for voters in high-growth districts through the decade following the changes.
Ontarians have consistently argued for more seats for the province because of a commitment to voter equality. We have made enormous progress in this debate. The current proposed map undermines these efforts. The Ontario commission should redraw its draft map to move toward voter equality.
Michael Pal & Melissa Molson: Ontario abandons voter equality
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Michael Pal and Melissa Molson, Special to National Post | 12/12/10 12:01 AM ET
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The electoral boundary commission for Ontario is redrawing the province’s federal ridings at this moment. They must make moving closer toward voter equality a priority.
Independent commissions redraw federal boundaries every 10 years, to keep up with changes in population. Because of serious underrepresentation of some regions in the House of Commons, Parliament passed the Fair Representation Act in 2011, adding seats for Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. Commissions in each province then took on the task of redrawing federal electoral boundaries.
Ontario’s commission published a draft map and received public feedback from hearings across the province. Deliberations on where to set the final boundaries are now underway. Unfortunately, the draft map for Ontario moves away from the fundamental democratic principle of voter equality.
Voter equality means that each ballot cast should carry roughly the same weight, which requires each riding to have very close to the same population. This is also known as representation by population. Voter equality ensures that all voters have an equal say on the issues that affect their lives.
The draft Ontario map deviates far more from voter equality than any other province. Deviations of 5-10% from voter equality are often used as a baseline for measuring fairness. All of Alberta’s ridings are within 5%, while B.C. has only one riding deviating by more than 10%. Meanwhile, only about half of Ontario’s ridings are within a 5% variance.
In the four provinces that gained seats, 25 of the 29 ridings that deviate by more than 10% from rep-by-pop are in Ontario. This cannot be attributed to Ontario’s remote and sparsely populated north. When ridings located in rural, remote or northern regions are excluded, there are 15 ridings among these provinces that deviate by more than 10%. All are in Ontario.
The irony is that Ontario has for years led the charge to achieve voter equality. All parties in the Ontario Legislature endorsed rep-by-pop for Ontarians in the House of Commons through a unanimous motion on Dec. 10, 2007. And strong pressure exerted by the Ontario government played an important role in convincing the federal government to add the 15 new seats.
By moving away from voter equality, the proposed map undermines the very argument that allowed Ontarians to secure more seats in the House of Commons in the first place. When the commitment to voter equality weakens, over time the representation of all Ontarians suffers, including those in northern, rural and remote communities.
Ultimately, it will be Ontarians living in fast-growing regions, such as the 905, Kitchener and Ottawa, who will be most under-represented due to the commission’s weak commitment to voter equality. Under the current proposed draft map, voters in Ontario’s high-population growth areas, like Brampton and Markham, will start off underrepresented and become even worse off over the next decade. The Alberta and B.C. commissions both took anticipated population growth into account. The Ontario commission did not.
That’s why the Mowat Centre submitted a number of key recommendations to Ontario’s commission. First, that ridings should deviate by no more than 5% from voter equality in Southern Ontario. Second, that deviations from voter equality due to sparse populations over vast geography should only be permitted in well-defined and limited circumstances. Third, that the commission should consider anticipated population growth to ensure effective representation for voters in high-growth districts through the decade following the changes.
Ontarians have consistently argued for more seats for the province because of a commitment to voter equality. We have made enormous progress in this debate. The current proposed map undermines these efforts. The Ontario commission should redraw its draft map to move toward voter equality.
National Post
Michael Pal is a doctoral Candidate at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, a Trudeau Fellow and a Mowat Research Fellow. Melissa Molson is a policy liaison at the Mowat Centre.
