Looking forward to the 2021 Census

The 2021 census is coming! Oh boy! Our first full census since the last Conservative Prime Minister axed it! Oh joyous!

Here, in this time of Corona, I would like to examine a few questions and possibilities I'm looking forward to being answered - or raised, with the census results next fall.

Starting from East and going West:

1) Can Nova Scotia reach 1,000,000 people?

2) Are the Atlantic Provinces going the way of Manitoba? Based on Statscan estimates, the CMAs of St. John's, NL, Charlottetown, PEI, and Halifax, Nova Scotia are already over 40% of their respective provinces' populations. Will the hit 50% or more? How will this re-balance the distribution of power in those provinces?

3) How big is the decline in the rural population, and why? Are they dying out, or is it out-migration, or a mixture of the two to blame? No Canadian region is as rural as Atlantic Canada - which carries significant cost to business and government. How quickly is it urbanizing?

4) Canada's next-most rural region: Quebec. Is it also urbanizing quicker? Is Quebec City taking more of a share in population growth?

5) Just how big is Ontario? and how big is the golden horseshoe?

6) How big is Winnipeg relative to Manitoba?

7) Is Saskatchewan joining the rest of the west with a more urbanized population?

8) What proportion of Albertans live in Calgary and Edmonton?

9) What proportion of British Columbians live in Vancouver?

10) How many people are now identifying as Metis or First Nations?

Why it Matters

1) Population growth in Atlantic Canada seems, unexpectedly, to be happening. This is a good thing, but through the lens of electoral politics, a bigger population in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick should bring their riding sizes more into the national average. The same is true of Manitoba.

2) Electoral Boundary Redistricting (Federal): the federal government will be obligated to look at Canada's federal electoral boundaries. Given the grandfather clauses which restrict the six smallest provinces from losing seats, and the fact it would be politically impossible to reduce seats in Quebec, I expect Canada will go about adding dozens of seats again. Ontario and Alberta are significantly under-represented, but so is BC, and possibly even Quebec.

Even should Canada stick to the arbitrary 111,166 quotient from the last redistricting, based on current (not next year estimates), we should see:
- BC gaining 4 seats to give a total of 46;
- Alberta gaining 6 seats, to give a total of 40;
- Ontario gaining 10 seats, to give a total of 131; and
- Quebec gaining 0 seats - unless politics intervenes.

So we have a total of twenty new seats - minimum, going all to regions west of the Ottawa River. More than that though - where do those seats go within those provinces? Without checking, I would wager all the BC seats go to the Greater Vancouver area; all the Alberta seats to Edmonton and Calgary; and all the Ontario seats to the Golden Horseshoe. We may see boundary re-alignments in the other provinces to reflect urban growth in the preceding ten years. Winnipeg, for example, has 7.5/14 of Manitoba's seats. It would not be hard to see that increase. The same may be likely in the Atlantic Provinces and Quebec, where the increasing weight of their major cities should cause the consolidation of a number of rural ridings.

My modest proposal: the previous electoral boundaries commission, in my esteem, was much too conservative. Thirty new seats was a significant increase - but was so insufficient to keep up with population growth in the four gaining provinces that it was obsolete before voting started. Why do we have such a random quotient of 111,166 persons to riding? We always discuss riding sizes as being 100,000 people, so why not make that the aiming point for the ridings of the big four provinces (and it should even work for Manitoba, soon, too). Were we to do this, a new Canadian parliament would see:
- BC: nine new seats (42>51);
- Alberta: ten new seats (34>44);
- Ontario: twenty-six new seats (121>147);
- Quebec: seven new seats (78>85);
- For a new Canadian parliament with 390 seats.

This, I would think, would better reflect where the Canadian population lives, is moving to, and is doing business, without reducing the number of rural seats in the parliament. In fact, this could even result in an increase in rural ridings in Alberta, BC and Ontario, which are often joined with large urban areas due to dumping too many people into too few districts. Further, this new parliament would stand the test of time better than a more modest increase. Canada has faster population growth than most developed nations, and it tends to go to the larger provinces. Why not future proof the parliament?

3) Provincial Electoral Boundaries

The 2021 census will lead to provincial boundary re-alignments throughout Canada, and this promises to be controversial!

As parties have become divided, at least in the west, along a rural-urban axis, there will be massive opposition to change, which will be seen as partisan (even though resisting change is partisan, too). Perhaps no province better embodies this possibility than British Columbia.

2021 isn't just the census year, but it's also an election year. The BC electoral boundary commission protected a significant swath of the province from changes following the 2011 census. Accordingly, the governing BC liberals won 13 of the province's smallest 17 ridings. BC even added fewer seats to its legislature than Alberta - two compared to four, to compensate for population growth. As things stand now, urban BC ridings are very large, especially compared to those protected ridings (a spreadsheet is available on elections BC). It is clear the BC NDP needs to win the election to ensure a more equitable seat redistribution. This shouldn't be lethal to the BC Liberals - they did garner the most votes, after all, but they clearly have a lot to lose by losing a rigged system. They could certainly lose big - based on Elections BC data, and Statscan estimates, it's not hard to assume many urban BC ridings are twice the size of the worst protected ridings. BC's next electoral boundary commission may have to add many seats, re-align many, or a combination of both, to accommodate the growing population of the Fraser Valley.

Similar experiences are sure to occur throughout the country. One can only imagine how receptive the Ontario PCs will be to either expanding the Ontario Parliament or sacrificing a number of their rotten burroughs. The same is true of Alberta, where the UCP will undoubtedly be hesitant to lose seats in small-town Alberta, regions that they swept in 2019.