The Partial and Incomplete Metrication of Canada

Posted on 2026/08/20 by J.W.J. Bowden

A Presentation Comparing Metrication in Australia and Canada

One presentation at the Canadian Political Science Association’s annual conference at the University of Ottawa caught my attention as soon as the main conferenceprogram first went online. Patrick L. Desjardins of the University of Ottawa presented a paper cleverly entitled “Give Them an Inch, and They’ll Take 1.6093 Kilometers: Explaining Divergent Metrication Outcomes in Australia and Canada” at a panel just before mine on the afternoon of June 2nd. Funnily enough, attending this panel almost made me arrive late for my own, because the elevators in the Faculty of Social Sciences Building became bogged down in between each set of panels and almost impossible to use. I then rushed down the stairs – considerably better than trundling up them – to the ground floor where my panel took place.

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Posted in Commonwealth Realms, Comparative, History of British North America | Leave a comment

Restoring Michael Chong’s Original Reform Act

Posted on 2026/08/08 by J.W.J. Bowden

 

I thank Lydia Miljan, Professor of Political Science at the University of Windsor, for having invited me to contribute to her series Five Ways to Fix Canadian Democracy Without Constitutional Reform, which the Fraser Institute published on 30 June 2026. The self-explanatory title includes five such essays, to which I contributed on “Strengthening the Reform Act by Restoring Michael Chong’s Original Bill.”

Bowden, J.W.J. “Strengthening the Reform Act by Restoring Michael Chong’s Original Legislation.” Chapter 2 in Five Ways to Fix Canadian Democracy Without Constitutional Reform, edited by Lydia Miljan, 5-8. Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 30 June 2026.

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Posted in Electing & Ousting Party Leaders, Party Discipline | 1 Comment

My Presentation on Malapportionment at the Canadian Political Science Association’s Conference in 2026

Posted on 2026/06/16 by J.W.J. Bowden

I presented an abridged history of malapportionment in the House of Commons at the Canadian Political Science Association’s annual conference on 2 June, which this year took place at the University of Ottawa. Ideally, one would like to go on at great length instead of only speaking for twelve minutes, but the necessities of brevity limited the presentation into a brief overview of the principle of representation by population, the true malapportionment of MPs per province each decade from the 1860s to the 2020s along the Loosemore-Hanby Index, the main features of each Representation Formula, and some basic methods through which Parliament could lower malapportionment in the 2030s. The discussant described my paper (a highly abridged version of the first five chapters of Representation by Population in the House of Commons) as reading more like a work of history rather than political science – which I readily admit and accept, either as criticism or as praise, given that I’ve never thought of myself as a conventional political scientist. Much to my pleasant surprise, my presentation on “Muddling through Malapportionment” generated some genuine interest during the questions and answers and even some praise from various other scholars after the panel.

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Posted in Electoral Boundaries Readjustments | Leave a comment

Changing the Names of Ridings from Redistribution 2022, Part 2

Posted on 2026/06/15 by J.W.J. Bowden

Since last I wrote on “The Last Gasp of Redistribution 2022: Changing the Names of Ridings” in early April, the House of Commons debated Bill C-25 (part II of which contains the Riding Name Change Act, 2026), at Second Reading, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) examined the legislation clause by clause and made some additional changes to the names of the ridings established under the Representation Orders, 2023.  An Act to change the names of certain electoral districts, 2026  as adopted by the House of Commons in June 2026 would modify the names of 17 out of the 340 ridings established under the Representation Orders, 2023; 11 of the 17 ridings, or 65%, would grow in length, and only by an average of seven characters. While six out of the seven from Quebec would conform to the old pattern and grow appreciably, the names of all three of these ridings in Ontario would shrink. One of the three from Newfoundland and Labrador would also get shorter, as would the one from Saskatchewan.

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Posted in Electoral Boundaries Readjustments | Leave a comment

My First Academic Books

Posted on 2026/05/11 by J.W.J. Bowden

I recently completed my first two books, twin scholarly monographs entitled Representation by Population in the House of Commons of Canada and Where to Draw the Line: Readjusting Federal Electoral Boundaries in Canada. The first covers the history and practice of the seven Representation Formulas from 1867 to 2022 which determine the number of MPs per province under each decennial census, the malapportionment of MPs per province, Parliament’s gerrymandering before the advent of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1964 (EBRA), and the origins of EBRA in the two decades leading up to its enactment; the second covers the process and practice of Redistribution 2022 under EBRA, with supplemental comparisons to all previous redistributions under EBRA from the 1960s to the 2010s, and concludes on improving EBRA and preparing for the next redistribution in the 2030s.

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Posted in Electoral Boundaries Readjustments, My Published Works | 2 Comments