[CivicAccess-discuss] Voting power per Federal riding

[James McKinney]

Our Constitution guarantees one MP to each of the territories, so
unless their populations grow, electors there will always have
disproportionate "power". Other guarantees in the Constitution cause
disparities. See the 1985 Amendment:
http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/ca_1985.html

Two clauses prevent equality between ridings in this respect: a
"senatorial clause" of the 1867 Constitution Act, guaranteeing each
province at least as many MPs as it has senators, and the "grandfather
clause" in the above amendment according to which each province has at
least as many MPs as it had in either 1976 or 1985.

See this table:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_House_of_Commons#sortable_table_id_0

All provinces get bonus seats except for Ontario, BC, and Alberta. Can
you guess which ridings are hanging out in the lower left corner of
the linked graphs?

This situation is unlikely to improve without massive growth in
population in provinces outside Ontario, BC, and Alberta. Anyone with
the political power to push a constitutional amendment through to
rebalance the distribution of seats would be committing political
suicide in the 7 out of 10 overrepresented provinces.

On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 1:27 AM, Glen Newton <glen.newton at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://i.imgur.com/NbiY1.png (by population in riding)
> http://i.imgur.com/KL92R.png (by population of electors in riding)
>
> reddit discussion (includes data sources):
> http://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/helq1/voting_power_per_riding/
>
> -Glen Newton
>
>
>
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