Elections Canada has published a full list of each federal riding’s population, and it reveals large variations of nearly 90,000 voters between some ridings.
Stéphane Perrault, chief electoral officer of Elections Canada, published a legal notice on April 22 that details the “number of names appearing on the revised lists of electors for each electoral district.” The list, originally obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter, was published about a week before the April 28 election.
According to the list, the most sparsely populated riding in the nation, Labrador, has 19,893 voters, while the largest constituency, Niagara South in Ontario, has 112,960 voters.
The other four ridings with the smallest populations are Nunavut with 21,316, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River in Saskatchewan with 24,072, Charlottetown with 27,662, and Northwest Territories with 29,943. The other four ridings with the largest populations include North Island—Powell River, B.C., with 108,653; Essex, Ont., with 109,373; Courtenay—Alberni, B.C., with 107,295; and Kingston and the Islands, Ont., with 106,661.
Electoral boundaries are redrawn every 10 years to ensure that most constituencies have around the same number of people, ranging from about 80,000 to 115,000. However, exceptions are made for ridings that are remote or sparsely populated.
The districts were most recently redrawn using a formula that took into account Statistics Canada’s quarterly population estimate from July 1, 2021. However, driven by increased immigration levels, Canada’s population grew from about 38.2 million that month to an estimated 41.6 million by 2025.
According to the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform report “Drawing The Map: Equality and Efficacy of the Vote in Canadian Electoral Boundary Reform,” there has long been a trend for rural and sparsely populated areas to be overrepresented. An argument has been made that being an MP in those areas presents “more challenges in delivering services to constituents.”
On April 28, Canadian voters will elect the largest House of Commons in Canadian history, with a total of 343 MPs, up from 338 at dissolution of Parliament. The ridings are divided up with 122 seats in Ontario, 78 in Québec, 43 in British Columbia, 37 in Alberta, 14 in Saskatchewan, 14 in Manitoba, 11 in Nova Scotia, 10 in New Brunswick, seven in Newfoundland and Labrador, four in Prince Edward Island, and one each in Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
The redrawing of the ridings in 2022 added one seat to Ontario, one to British Columbia, and three to Alberta. While Quebec was set to lose one seat in the initial allocation submitted by Elections Canada in October 2021, opposition from the Bloc Québécois and Quebec Premier François Legault led the federal government to later table legislation preventing any province from losing a seat.
