Although all adult citizens have the right to vote under section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the worth of one’s vote depends upon where one lives. Representation from Canada’s three fastest growing provinces — Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario — is increasingly out of step with demographic realities. The average ballot cast in these provinces is worth less than one cast in any other province. Moreover, within provinces, rural ridings are overrepresented in relation to urban constituencies.
In a study that I recently published with Michael Pal through the Institute on Research in Public Policy, we revisit this familiar debate in the wake of dramatic demographic change. Canada’s visible minority population is increasing in absolute terms and as a proportion of the national population, and this increase is fuelled by immigration. Moreover, Canada’s visible minority population is growing where Canada’s population growth is increasingly concentrated — in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia and in its urban areas. The new question we pose is whether the underrepresentation of these provinces and urban areas in the House of Commons translates into the dilution of the votes of citizens from visible minority communities. Does promoting the interests of rural minorities and the minority of Canadians who live in smaller provinces necessarily come at the cost of the interests of a visible minority?
We conclude that visible minority vote dilution exists in Canada. The worth of an average vote in Canada is 1. In 1996, the weight of a rural vote was 1.15, while urban visible minority voters had a voting power of 0.95 (83 percent of a rural vote). In 2001, while the weight of a rural vote increased to 1.22, the weight of an urban visible minority vote declined to 0.91 (75 percent of a rural vote). While the trend for urban visible minority voters is downward, the voting strength of urban voters remained largely unchanged, standing at 0.97 in 1996 and 0.96 in 2001. This suggests that urban visible minority voters are concentrated in certain urban ridings.
Moreover, the results broken down by province show the particular impact of vote dilution upon visible minority voters in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. British Columbia’s urban visible minority voters are the worst off in the entire country; their voting power dropped from 0.89 in 1996 to 0.84 in 2001. In Alberta, urban visible minority voters had a voting power of 0.94 in 1996 and 0.87 in 2001. In Ontario, the weight of an urban visible minority vote declined from 0.95 in 1996 to 0.90 in 2001.
To provide a rough estimate of future vote dilution, we counted all permanent residents of voting age as if they were citizens. Under this scenario, they found that national results for vote dilution are even more troubling. In 2001, rural voters would have a voting power of 1.27. The voting power of urban voters would be 0.85 for urban visible minority voters, or 67 percent of the voting power of rural voters. The provincial results for this scenario again highlight the disadvantages faced by visible minority voters in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. In 2001, urban visible minority voters would have a voting power of 0.78 in British Columbia, 0.85 in Alberta and 0.83 in Ontario.
What are the causes of visible minority vote dilution? We explain that it arises from the way seats in the House of Commons are distributed interprovincially and intraprovincially. Interprovincial inequality is the result of two rules that depart from representation by population in the House of Commons: the Senate floor (which guarantees each province at least as many MPs as it has senators), and the grandfather clause (which ensures that provincial representation will not decline below the levels in the 1986 House of Commons). These rules benefit every province except Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, and as population growth is concentrated in these three provinces, their impact is increasing over time. In 2003, these rules accounted for 27 MPs, or 9 percent, of the House of Commons. Intraprovincial inequality results from the decisions of electoral boundary commissions, which consistently overrepresent rural areas, and the federal Electoral Boundary Readjustment Act (EBRA), which permits the commissions to do so.
Visible minority vote dilution must be addressed for three reasons: some of the rules and practices giving rise to minority vote dilution may violate the Charter; visible minority communities are increasingly disadvantaged economically in comparison to the population as a whole, so the way that those interests are represented in the legislative process counts; and to successfully integrate visible minority immigrants, Canada’s political institutions must be scrupulously fair in how they represent the interests of the newest members of the Canadian political community.
To address visible minority vote dilution, we conclude by considering three reform options: amending the EBRA and provincial legislation to minimize variances in riding size; pressuring the electoral boundary commissions to limit deviations from voter equality; and increasing the size of the House of Commons to 327 members to accommodate population growth in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
