Canadian federal electoral redistribution, 2012

The federal electoral redistribution of 2012 was a redistribution of electoral districts ("ridings") in Canada following the results of the Canada 2011 Census. As a result of changes to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, the number of seats in the House of Commons of Canada increased from 308 to 338. The previous electoral redistribution was in 2003.

Prior to 2012, the redistribution rules for increasing the number of seats in the House of Commons of Canada was governed by section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867, as last amended in 1985. As early as 2007, attempts were made to reform the calculation of how that number was determined, as the 1985 formula did not fully take into account the rapid population growth being experienced in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.

The revised formula, as originally presented, was estimated to have the following impact:

Three successive bills were presented by the Government of Canada before its final form was passed by the House of Commons and Senate in 2011.

The expansion of the House from 308 seats to 338 seats is pursuant to the Fair Representation Act, which was granted Royal Assent on December 16, 2011. In introducing the bill, the government's stated aims were:

The Act replaced s. 51(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867 with the following formula:

The 1985 minimum has two components:

The addition of three seats in Quebec marked the first time since the adoption of Canada's current electoral redistribution formula in 1985 that any province besides Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia has gained new seats.

The allocation of seats to the provinces and territories was based on rules in the Constitution of Canada as well as population estimates made by Statistics Canada based on the 2006 Census (in particular, the allocation is based on an estimate for the population as of July 1, 2011, "based on 2006 Census population counts adjusted for census net undercoverage and incompletely enumerated Indian reserves").

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