Where to Draw the Line

Where to Draw the Line covers in great depth the most recent federal electoral readjustment – what Elections Canada calls Redistribution 2022 – and all the steps which the ten Federal Electoral Boundaries Commissions (FEBCs) completed under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act (EBRA) in comparison to all the previous federal electoral redistributions from the 1960s to the 2010s. Political scientist James W.J. Bowden tackles the fundamental tension in electoral boundary-setting, contrasting competing theories of parliamentary representation and examining how boundaries commissions balance the equality of population per riding with the preservation of communities of interest. Bowden elucidates the judicial fallout of Redistribution 2022 in the form of two cases brought before the Federal Court of Canada while also looking ahead and helping readers prepare for the next electoral readjustment in the 2030s. The statistics throughout reveal the central paradox of electoral redistribution in Canada: from the 1960s to the 2020s, the malapportionment of MPs per province increased steadily, while the disproportionality of MPs per person within each province decreased over the same period. Readjusting federal electoral boundaries seems like the preserve of bespectacled technocrats or aggressive pedants rather than the stuff that stirs the passions of a people. But the question of where to draw the line strikes at the heart of how the House of Commons represents Canadians and therefore how Canadians govern themselves.