Parliamentary Bloat

[bjarvis]

The Canadian House of Commons is looking to expand.

Legislation introduced today would add 10 seats to Ontario, 7 to BC and 5 to Alberta, reflecting the population growth in these areas. No area would lose seats. If passed, the total seats would rise to 330, effective in 2011.

The realignment of riding borders is usually a (relatively) non-partisan process, following natural alignments along municipal, county, district and provincial borders & landmarks. Still, I find it interesting to see how municipalities get subdivided or rural areas get lumped together.

My home town in northern Ontario has been tossed back & forth between ridings in each of the last three redistributions but I never sensed any sort of blatant gerrymandering or a reduced representation in Parliament.

Comments

[bearfinch.livejournal.com]

Politics up here seems so bland. I want some gerrymandering and accusations!!

I don't know if you read, but Ontario is looking at adopting a proportional rep. system here and adding 30 seats. There'll be a referendum on it this fall.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I knew Ontario was looking into prop rep but had missed the note about adding 30 seats. 30 sounds like overkill at first glance, but I'll have to see how the new ridings are distributed.

And Gilles Duceppe is looking for a new job! Now the speculation begins on his successor with the BQ... whee! :-)