The House of Commons will expand yet further in 2031 once the Population Estimates for 1 July 2031 become available.  

On 19 December 2023, Statistics Canada’s most recent population estimates for 1 October 2023,which showed the largest growth in a single quarter since 1957.[1] Canada’s estimated population for that date stands at 40,528,396.[2] The population estimates for each province and territory break down as follows:

• Newfoundland & Labrador: 540,418
• Prince Edward Island: 175,853
• Nova Scotia: 1,066,416
• New Brunswick: 842,725
• Quebec: 8,948,540
• Ontario: 15,801,768
• Manitoba: 1,465,440
• Saskatchewan: 1,218,976
• Alberta: 4,756,408
• British Columbia: 5,581,127
• Yukon: 45,148
• Northwest Territories: 44,760
• Nunavut: 40,817
• Total Estimated Provincial Population: 40,397,671
• Total Estimated Canadian Population: 40,528,396

The Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law published earlier this year my article on “The Ever-Expanding House of the Commons and the Decennial Debate Over Representation by Population.” It includes a breakdown of the Representation Formulas from 2011 and 2022 and how the Chief Electoral Officer calculates the number of MPs per province by plugging in the Population Estimates of 1 July in the year of a decennial census. Parliament amended the Representation Formula in June 2022 to allow Quebec to keep its 78 MPs instead of losing one. The Chief Electoral Officer therefore had to run the calculations twice, initially as schedule in October 2021 and ad hoc in July 2022, though this second set of calculations only affected Quebec by increasing its count from 77 to 78 In total, the House of Commons will expand by 6, from the current 338 to 343: Ontario and British Columbia each gained one MP, and Alberta gained three compared to the previous calculation done in 2011.

The Governor General promulgated the Representation Orders under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act on 22 September 2023, and in any general election for which parliament was dissolved on of after 23 April 2024 will use the new electoral maps created by the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commissions for each of the ten provinces in 2022-2023. These new electoral boundaries for 343 single-member electoral districts are based on the following number of MPs per province, plus the one MP for each of the three territory:

• Newfoundland & Labrador: 7
• Prince Edward Island: 4
• Nova Scotia: 11
• New Brunswick: 10
• Quebec: 78
• Ontario: 122
• Manitoba: 14
• Saskatchewan: 14
• Alberta: 37
• British Columbia: 43
• Yukon: 1
• Northwest Territories: 1
• Nunavut: 1

Already based on the latest population estimates for the 4^th quarter of 2023, the House of Commons would increase by 2 MPs overall, with Ontario and British Columbia having each already gained 1 – after only two years! If the calculation were done using the latest population estimates, Ontario would go from 122 to 123, and British Columbia would increase from 42 to 43. After ten years will have elapsed in 2031, we can expect that the three fastest-growing provinces (Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia) will all gain more.

For my journal article earlier this year, I translated the text of section 51(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867 into a series of arithmetic functions in Microsoft Excel. Once the population estimates for the ten provinces are entered, the spreadsheet automatically calculates the total number of MPs and shows by how much the House of Commons will grow.[3]

• The Electoral Quotient in 2023

The first tab in the spreadsheet calculates the hypothetical federal electoral quotient based on the population estimates for Q4 of 2023 and the average rate of growth of the ten provinces since the last electoral quotient was calculated using the population estimate of 1 July 2021. (In reality, only the population estimates for 1 July 2031 would be used to calculate the new federal electoral quotient for the federal electoral redistribution in the 2030s). The electoral quotient has already increased from 121,891 to 129,081 people per MP, a jump of 7,190 in only just over two years. In contrast, the real calculations in 2021 and 2022 went up from 111,116 people per MP that Parliament established in 2011 to that figure of 121,891 people per MP, an increase of 10,775 in ten years.

• The Number of MPs per Province in 2023

This calculation provides the new federal electoral quotient that goes into the main calculation in the second worksheet.

• Newfoundland & Labrador: 7
• Prince Edward Island: 4
• Nova Scotia: 11
• New Brunswick: 10
• Quebec: 78
• Ontario: 123
• Manitoba: 14
• Saskatchewan: 14
• Alberta: 37
• British Columbia: 44
• Yukon: 1
• Northwest Territories: 1
• Nunavut: 1

The next decennial electoral redistribution will begin in 2031 after the Chief Electoral Officer will have plugged the population estimates for 1 July 2031 into the Representation Formula to calculate the number of MPs for each province. Based on the current rapid expansion of the Canadian population, we can expect that the House of Commons will expand in 2031 relative to 2022 by more than the 5 MPs by which it increased in 2022 relative to 2011.

And we can also anticipate that the result of this calculation will raise the ire of the Government of Quebec, National Assembly of Quebec, and Bloc quebecois in 2031. Quebec’s population grows more slowly than those of Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia; consequently, Quebec’s share of the population of Canada and its corresponding share of the House of Commons will diminish overall, even if Quebec gains one or two additional seats. This, in turn, will fuel nationalist or even secessionist arguments in 2031 just as it raised the ire of nationalists in 2021-2022.

Similar Posts:

•  Electoral Redistributions
• Bowden, J.W.J. “The Ever-Expanding House of Commons and the Decennial Debate Over Representation by Population.” Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 17, no. 1 (2023): 85-122.
• Readjusting Electoral Districts in Federations: Malapportionment vs Gerrymandering(August 2022)

 Notes

[1] Statistics Canada, “Canada’s Population Estimates, 3^rd Quarter,” The Daily, 19 December 2023.

[2] Statistics Canada, “Table 17-10-0009-01  Population estimates, quarterly,” 19 December 2023.

[3] J.W.J. Bowden, “The Ever-Expanding House of Commons and the Decennial Debate Over Representation by Population,” Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 17, no. 1 (2023): 101-110.