Chapter 4The House of Commons and Its Members

Composition of the House

Canada is divided into 338 electoral districts, each of which sends one Member to the House of Commons.¹⁰ An electoral district can be defined as any place or territorial area in Canada entitled to return a person to serve in the House of Commons. Following each decennial census, the number of seats to be apportioned among the provinces is decided on the basis of population figures. The boundaries of each electoral district are then determined by provincial electoral boundaries commissions.

The composition of the House has expanded greatly since 1867. At the opening of the First Parliament, the House of Commons had 181 seats, distributed among the provinces as follows: 82 for Ontario, 65 for Quebec, 19 for Nova Scotia and 15 for New Brunswick.¹¹

Soon after, new provinces began to seek admittance to Confederation. Representation in Parliament was considered negotiable and often did not reflect representation by population.¹² When Manitoba joined Canada in 1870, four seats were added to the membership of the House.¹³ British Columbia and Prince Edward Island each got six seats upon joining Confederation in 1871 and in 1873, respectively.¹⁴ In 1886, the North-West Territories received four seats, and in 1902, Yukon Territory was granted one seat.¹⁵ When Saskatchewan and Alberta were established out of the North-West Territories in 1905, they were allotted 10 and seven seats respectively; the North-West Territories no longer had a seat in the House.¹⁶ In 1947, the electoral district of Yukon–Mackenzie River, comprising all of Yukon Territory plus the western portion of the Northwest Territories, known as the Mackenzie District, was created and allotted one seat.¹⁷ Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949 and was granted seven seats.¹⁸ In 1952, the electoral district of Yukon–Mackenzie River was revoked; the Mackenzie District of the Northwest Territories was granted one seat and the original Yukon electoral district was restored.¹⁹ In 1962, the Representation Act was amended to give the entire Northwest Territories one seat.²⁰ In 1975, the number of seats in the Northwest Territories grew to two.²¹ On April 1, 1999, the territory of Nunavut was established out of the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories and was given one of its two seats.²²

Today, there are 338 Members from 10 provinces and 3 territories: 42 for British Columbia, 34 for Alberta, 14 for Saskatchewan, 14 for Manitoba, 121 for Ontario, 78 for Quebec, 10 for New Brunswick, 11 for Nova Scotia, 4 for Prince Edward Island, 7 for Newfoundland and Labrador,²³ and 1 each for Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut (see Figure 4.1, “Representation Since 1867”).

Representation

In 1867, the Fathers of Confederation adopted the principle of representation by population. On the basis of this principle, a formula was derived to calculate the number of seats each province would be allocated in the House of Commons. Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were each allotted a number of seats on the basis of their share of the total population in relation to that of the province of Quebec, which had been guaranteed 65 seats, the same number it had in the Province of Canada legislature.²⁴ As provinces and territories joined Canada and the country’s population distribution evolved, Parliament amended the formula for calculating the number of seats on numerous occasions.

Figure 4.1 Representation Since 1867

Year	Canada	Ontario	Quebec	Nova Scotia	New Brunswick	Manitoba	British Columbia	Prince Edward Island	Saskatchewan	Alberta	Newfoundland and Labrador	Northwest Territories	Yukon	Nunavut
1867	181	82	65	19	15
1870	185	82	65	19	15	4
1871	191	82	65	19	15	4	6
1872	200	88	65	21	16	4	6
1873	206	88	65	21	16	4	6	6
1882	211	92	65	21	16	5	6	6
1886	215	92	65	21	16	5	6	6				4
1892	213	92	65	20	14	7	6	5				4
1902	214	92	65	20	14	7	6	5				4	1
1903	214	86	65	18	13	10	7	4				10	1
1905	221	86	65	18	13	10	7	4	10	7			1
1914	234	82	65	16	11	15	13	3	16	12			1
1915	235	82	65	16	11	15	13	4	16	12			1
1924	245	82	65	14	11	17	14	4	21	16			1
1933	245	82	65	12	10	17	16	4	21	17			1
1947	255	83	73	13	10	16	18	4	20	17			1
1949	262	83	73	13	10	16	18	4	20	17	7		1
1952	265	85	75	12	10	14	22	4	17	17	7	1	1
1966	264	88	74	11	10	13	23	4	13	19	7	1	1
1975	265	88	74	11	10	13	23	4	13	19	7	2	1
1976	282	95	75	11	10	14	28	4	14	21	7	2	1
1987	295	99	75	11	10	14	32	4	14	26	7	2	1
1997	301	103	75	11	10	14	34	4	14	26	7	2	1
1999	301	103	75	11	10	14	34	4	14	26	7	1	1	1
2004	308	106	75	11	10	14	36	4	14	28	7	1	1	1
2015	338	121	78	11	10	14	42	4	14	34	7	1	1	1

Historical Perspective

At Confederation, the Constitution Act, 1867, stipulated that in order for the population of each province to be accurately represented in the House of Commons, the number of seats for each province was to be recalculated after each decennial census, starting with the census of 1871.²⁵ The total number of seats was initially calculated by dividing the population of each province by a fixed number referred to as the “electoral quota” or “quotient”. This quotient was determined by dividing the population of the province of Quebec by 65. There was one exception to this formula, known as the “one-twentieth rule”: no province could lose seats in an electoral redistribution unless its share of the national population had decreased by at least five per cent (one-twentieth) between the last two censuses.

Because the country’s population was growing, the one-twentieth rule caused no problems for the first 25 years of Confederation. In 1872, representation in the House increased following the 1871 Census: Ontario received six additional seats, Nova Scotia two and New Brunswick one. Taking into account the new seats allocated to Manitoba and British Columbia, this brought the total number of Members to 200. Following the 1881 Census, representation in the House increased again: Ontario received four extra seats and Manitoba one, which, together with the new seats assigned to Prince Edward Island, brought the total to 211 Members. However, in 1892, provinces lost seats for the first time. The three Maritime provinces lost four seats in total, causing some concern, particularly in Prince Edward Island. Although the population was growing in the maritime provinces, it was becoming relatively smaller in proportion to the national total. In 1903, the readjustment of representation saw the number of seats for Prince Edward Island further reduced. In arguments before the Supreme Court, Prince Edward Island claimed that it should be entitled to the six seats it was allocated when it joined Confederation. The Supreme Court subsequently upheld that representation must be based on the total population of Canada and that no exception could be made for Prince Edward Island.²⁶

Despite the Supreme Court ruling, there was dissension among some of the provinces whose population was declining. In 1914, the first amendment to the original representation formula was proposed. The amendment consisted in adding a new section to the Constitution Act, 1867, to protect the smallest provinces from losing additional seats because of the relative decline in their population. Adopted in 1915 and still in effect today, the “senatorial clause”, as it is referred to, guarantees that no province can have fewer seats in the House of Commons than it does in the Senate.²⁷

Following the census of 1941, a constitutional amendment was adopted to postpone the redistribution process until the first session of Parliament after the end of the war because the Western provinces were concerned that the displacement of population caused by the war would affect their representation in the House.²⁸ Many of the provinces were also dissatisfied with the redistribution rules, which would have seen four of the nine provinces being allocated representation in accordance with their population while the other five provinces would have been guaranteed extra seats either because of the senatorial clause or the one-twentieth rule.²⁹ The demand for representation by population, in particular by Quebec, led to an amendment to the Constitution Act, 1867, that introduced a new seat distribution formula and repealed the one-twentieth rule in 1946.³⁰ The new formula fixed the total number of seats at 255, one for Yukon and the other 254 divided among the provinces on the basis of their share of the country’s total population rather than the average population per electoral district in Quebec.³¹

However, following the 1951 census, it was soon discovered that, with provincial populations not increasing at the same rate, the 1946 formula would reduce representation in Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where population growth was slower. Thus, in 1952, the Constitution Act, 1867, was amended again to prevent a rapid decline in the number of seats of these provinces. The amendment stipulated that no province could lose more than 15% of the number of seats it was entitled to under the last readjustment. It also provided that no province could have fewer seats than a province with a smaller population.³² Despite this amendment, after the 1961 census, these same three provinces and Quebec lost seats, as did Newfoundland following the 1971 census.

In 1974, concerned about the steady loss of seats in some provinces, Parliament enacted the Representation Act, 1974. This legislation provided a new formula, known as the “amalgam formula”,³³ for calculating representation in the House to ensure that no province lost any seats.³⁴ As in the original representation formula, Quebec was allocated a set number of seats, 75 rather than the 65 it had at the time, and its average constituency population was used to calculate the number of seats in the other provinces. In each subsequent readjustment, Quebec would automatically receive four seats to compensate for population growth and to decrease its average constituency population, the basis for calculating the allocation of seats among the other provinces. In addition, three categories of provinces were created: large provinces (population of 2.5 million or more), intermediate provinces (population between 1.5 and 2.5 million), and small provinces (population under 1.5 million). Only the large provinces were allocated seats in strict proportion to Quebec; separate rules for calculating the number of seats were established for the small and intermediate provinces.³⁵ The amalgam formula was applied only once, in 1976, establishing 282 seats in the House.

Following the 1981 Census, calculations revealed that the amalgam formula would substantially increase representation in the House both immediately and after subsequent censuses. The Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections was therefore mandated to study the issue of representation in both the Thirty-Second (1980–84) and Thirty-Third (1984–88) Parliaments,³⁶ and the Representation Act, 1985, was passed in 1986. In amending section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867, the Representation Act, 1985, set down a formula for calculating representation, starting with 282 seats as established by the 1976 amalgam formula, and abided by the following rules:³⁷

Two seats were allocated to the Northwest Territories, and one was assigned to Yukon.³⁸
The total population of the 10 provinces was divided by 279 to obtain the electoral quotient.
The number of seats to be allocated to each province was calculated by dividing the total population of the province by the electoral quotient.
If the result left a remainder higher than 0.50, the number of seats was rounded off to the next whole number.

Once the number of seats per province was obtained, adjustments were made by applying the senatorial clause and the new “grandfather clause”,³⁹ which ensured that no province could have fewer seats than it had in 1986, when the Representation Act, 1985, came into force.⁴⁰

As a result of this formula, the House grew to 295 seats for the 1988 election, 301 seats for the 1997 election and 308 seats for the 2004 election.

Following the 2011 decennial census, a new formula was developed, which increased the number of seats in the House to 338 for the 42nd general election, held in 2015.

Current Formula

In December 2011, Parliament enacted a law to amend the Constitution Act, 1867, the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act and the Canada Elections Act.⁴¹ Known by its short title, the Fair Representation Act, the Act introduced a new formula for adjusting the number of seats in the House of Commons.⁴² The Act reduced the electoral quotient and required it to be revised prior to each subsequent redistribution. The goal of the formula was to ensure that Canadians living in provinces such as Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta would be fairly represented, as those provinces had become under-represented. In addition, the Act maintained the number of seats in the smallest provinces and proportional representation for Quebec to prevent them from also being under-represented.

Under the new formula:

The initial number of seats allocated to each province is calculated by dividing its population by the electoral quotient, which was fixed at 111,166. The Act provides that the electoral quotient be revised before the redistribution that follows each census.
Once the initial number of seats allocated to each province has been established, adjustments are made by applying the special clauses: the senatorial clause and the grandfather clause.
Next, the rule referred to as the “representation rule” is applied. This rule applies only to a province whose population was overrepresented in the House of Commons after the previous redistribution process. If a province becomes under-represented after the above calculations are made, it is assigned additional seats so that its proportion of the seats in the House of Commons is equivalent to its proportion of the population of Canada.
Once the special clauses and the representation rule have been applied, the number of seats for each province is final, and then three seats are added, one for each of the three territories, pursuant to subsection 51(2) of the Constitution Act, 1867, thereby establishing the total number of seats in the House of Commons.

10.: Constitution Act, 1867, supra note 1, s 40. Until the 1968 general election, some electoral districts were entitled to return two Members to the House of Commons. In each two-Member constituency, voters were entitled to cast two votes; the two candidates with the most votes won. For further information, see Norman Ward, “Voting in Canadian Two-Member Constituencies”, in Voting in Canada, ed. John C. Courtney (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall of Canada, 1967), pp. 125–9.
11.: Constitution Act, 1867, supra note 1, s 37.
12.: Norman Ward, “A Century of Constituencies”, in Representation and Electoral Systems: Canadian Perspectives, ed. James Paul Johnston and Harvey Edward Pasis (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1990), p. 207.
13.: An Act to amend and continue the Act 32 and 33 Victoria, chapter 3; and to establish and provide for the Government of the Province of Manitoba, SC 1870, c 3.
14.: Journals, March 31, 1871, p. 198; May 20, 1873, p. 402.
15.: North-West Territories Representation Act, 1886, RSC 1886, c 24; The Yukon Territory Representation Act, 1902, SC 1902, c 37.
16.: An Act to readjust the Representation of the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta in the House of Commons, and to amend the Representation Act, SC 1907, c 41.
17.: The Representation Act, 1947, SC 1947, c 71.
18.: An Act to approve the Terms of Union of Newfoundland with Canada, SC 1949, c 1.
19.: British North America Acts, 1867 to 1952, RS 1952, c 15; The Representation Act, 1952, RS 1952, c 48.
20.: An Act to amend the Representation Act, SC 1962, c 17.
21.: Northwest Territories Representation Act, SC 1974–75–76, c 28.
22.: Nunavut Act, SC 1993, c 28; An Act to Amend the Nunavut Act and the Constitution Act, 1867, SC 1998, c 15 [An Act to Amend the Nunavut Act and the Constitution Act, 1867].
23.: In 2001, the province’s name was changed to Newfoundland and Labrador (Journals, October 30, 2001, p. 764). See also Constitution Amendment, 2001 (Newfoundland and Labrador), SI/2001-117, (2001) C Gaz II, 1–2.
24.: In 1865, at the time of the Confederation debates, then-Attorney General John A. Macdonald (later Canada’s first Prime Minister) explained that Quebec was chosen as the pivotal province because it was “the best suited for the purpose, on account of the comparatively permanent character of its population and from its having neither the largest nor the least number of inhabitants…” (Canada, Legislative Assembly, Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of British North American Provinces, Third Session, Eighth Provincial Parliament of Canada (Québec: Hunter, Rose, Parliamentary Printers, 1865) (hereinafter referred to as Confederation Debates), February 6, 1865, p. 38).
25.: Supra note 1, s 51.
26.: Norman Ward, The Canadian House of Commons: Representation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950), pp. 39–41.
27.: Constitution Act, 1867, supra note 1, s 51A. This clause was enacted as the Constitution Act, 1915 (UK), 5 & 6 Geo V, c 45, reprinted in RSC 1985, Appendix II, No 23 [Constitution Act, 1915]. At the time of Confederation, the Senate had 72 appointed members, 24 members each from Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes (12 for Nova Scotia and 12 for New Brunswick). When Manitoba joined Confederation in 1870, it was given two Senators; in 1871 British Columbia received three and in 1873, Prince Edward Island received four (two from each of the other maritime provinces); Alberta and Saskatchewan were granted four Senators each in 1905. As a result, Prince Edward Island was guaranteed four seats in the House of Commons, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, 10. The Senate was reconstituted at 96 by the Constitution Act, 1915. Quebec and Ontario kept 24 Senators each. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick went from 12 Senators to 10, Manitoba from two to six, Alberta and Saskatchewan from four to six, and British Columbia from three to six. Six more Senators were added when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, and one Senator each was added for Yukon and the Northwest Territories in 1975. In 1999, one Senator was added for the new territory of Nunavut. The Senate ordinarily has 105 members.
28.: Journals, July 5, 1943, pp. 582–4.
29.: Only the provinces of Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia would have had seats in proportion to their population. See Ward, The Canadian House of Commons, p. 53.
30.: British North America Act, 1946 (UK), 9 & 10 Geo VI, c 63, reprinted in RSC 1985, Appendix II, No 30. For further information, see Ward, The Canadian House of Commons, pp. 54–5.
31.: The entry of Newfoundland in 1949 increased this total to 262.
32.: British North America Act, 1952, SC 1952, c 15, s 1. This was the first constitutional amendment passed by the Parliament of Canada after the amending procedure for the Constitution was modified in 1949.
33.: The term “amalgam method” is sometimes used.
34.: SC 1974–75–76, c 13. The President of the Privy Council, Mitchell Sharp, noted during second reading of this bill: “The amalgam method was devised as a means of ensuring that the population size of constituencies in Canada would not grow to a point where a Member’s ability to represent his constituents would be impaired, nor the access of constituents to their Member unduly restricted” (Debates, December 2, 1974, p. 1846). For further information, see Robert MacGregor Dawson, Dawson’s The Government of Canada, 6th ed., ed. Norman Ward (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), p. 91.
35.: Debates, December 2, 1974, pp. 1845–7 (where Mitchell Sharp, President of the Privy Council, outlined the amalgam formula).
36.: During the Thirty-Second Parliament, the subject matter of Bill C-223 was referred to committee for study (Journals, January 13, 1981, pp. 1138–9; July 8, 1982, pp. 5132–3). In the Thirty-Third Parliament, the government reintroduced the bill as Bill C-74. This bill was enacted (Journals, October 1, 1985, p. 1051; November 21, 1985, p. 1251).
37.: Representation Act, 1985, supra note 6, s 2.
38.: When Nunavut was created, it was given one of the Northwest Territories’ seats (An Act to Amend the Nunavut Act and the Constitution Act, 1867, supra note 22, s 25).
39.: In French, the term “grandfather clause” is most often referred to as «clause de droits acquis». However, on occasion it is sometimes referred to as «clause d’antériorité».
40.: In April 1994, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs was instructed to prepare and bring in a bill respecting the system of readjusting electoral boundaries and to consider a formula to cap or reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons (Journals, April 19, 1994, pp. 368–70). In its Fifty-First Report, presented to the House on November 25, 1994 (Journals, p. 939), the Committee concluded that a cap or reduction in the size of the House would not be feasible because of certain constraints set out in the Constitution, notably the senatorial clause, which can only be changed with the unanimous agreement of all provinces. Capping or reducing the size of the House, while maintaining the senatorial floor, would lead to certain provinces losing a significant number of seats while others would be protected. In addition, capping the size of the House would require repealing the grandfather clause, which guarantees that provinces with declining populations maintain the same number of seats as they had in 1986 (Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, November 25, 1994, Issue No. 33, pp. 5–11).
41.: Three bills on the same subject matter had been introduced previously. The first was introduced during the First Session of the Thirty-Ninth Parliament (Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Democratic representation), 1st Sess, 39th Parl, 2007 (Journals, May 11, 2007, p. 1394)). The session was prorogued shortly thereafter. The bill was reintroduced in the Second Session as Bill C-22, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Democratic representation), 2nd Sess, 39th Parl, 2007 (Journals, November 14, 2007, p. 151) and was debated at second reading on one occasion (Journals, February 13, 2008, pp. 433–4). The Thirty-Ninth Parliament was dissolved on September 7, 2008, without the House proceeding further on the bill. Finally, a third bill on the subject was introduced during the Third Session of the Fortieth Parliament, Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (Democratic representation), 3rd Sess, 40th Parl, 2010 (Journals, April 1, 2010, p. 175). The bill was debated at second reading, but the Fortieth Parliament was dissolved on March 26, 2011, putting an end to proceedings.
42.: Fair Representation Act, SC 2011, c 26.

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