Adjusting Federal Electoral Boundaries in Canada: Redistribution 2022

Bowden describes the general process of decennial federal electoral boundaries redistribution in Canada under section 51(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867 and the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (EBRA), which takes about two years from when the Chief Electoral Officer calculates the number of MPs per province to when the Governor General proclaims the Representation Order. The EBRA provides that a commission for each of the 10 provinces shall establish the electoral districts within its province in accordance with a series of criteria. Each commission consists of a chairperson, almost always a judge, appointed by the chief justice of that province, and two additional members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The broad criteria under section 15 of EBRA give the commissions a corresponding latitude in establishing the boundaries of electoral districts. The various reports of the 10 commissions demonstrate the contrasting--and sometimes contradictory--methodologies and rationales that they each adopted. Some commissions prioritized equality of population within a narrow deviation from the electoral quota, while others took advantage of the wide variation that EBRA permits to keep communities of interest intact.