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FEDERAL ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES
COMMISSION FOR NOVA SCOTIA
ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT
Preamble
By proclamation, on April 16, 2002, the Federal Electoral Boundaries
Commission for the Province of Nova Scotia (the Commission) was established
under and by virtue of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, R.S.C.
1985, c. E-3 (the Act).
The Commission is composed of Dr. Ronald G. Landes and Dr. James Bickerton,
both of whom have been appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons,
and the Honourable William Kelly, the undersigned Chairman, a Justice
of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, who has been appointed by the Chief
Justice of Nova Scotia. The Commission selected Dr. Landes to serve as
Deputy Chairman.
The Commission’s task is to establish, or more properly stated to readjust,
the boundaries of federal electoral districts (sometimes called constituencies)
in accordance with population figures established for the Province by
the 2001 decennial census. The Province is now divided into eleven electoral
districts and that number will not change.
The 2001 decennial census, released by Statistics Canada on March 12,
2002, established the population of Nova Scotia at 908,007. The population
divided by the number of electoral districts gives an electoral quota
of 82,546 persons per electoral district. The population of each electoral
district must correspond as close as is reasonably possible to that electoral
quota. The Act provides, however, that the Commission may deviate
from that quota to take account of certain factors, such as community
of interest and identity, historical patterns, and manageable geographic
size. Section 15 of the Act directs the Commission as follows:
15. (1) In preparing its report, each commission for a province shall,
subject to subsection (2), be governed by the following rules:
(a) the division of the province into electoral districts and
the description of the boundaries thereof shall proceed on the basis
that the population of each electoral district in the province as a
result thereof shall, as close as reasonably possible, correspond to
the electoral quota for the province, that is to say, the quotient obtained
by dividing the population of the province as ascertained by the census
by the number of members of the House of Commons to be assigned to the
province as calculated by the Chief Electoral Officer under subsection
14(1); and
(b) the commission shall consider the following in determining
reasonable electoral district boundaries:
(i) the community of interest or community of identity in or the
historical pattern of an electoral district in the province, and
(ii) a manageable geographic size for districts in sparsely populated,
rural or northern regions of the province.
(2) The commission may depart from the application of the rule set out
in paragraph (1)(a) in any case where the commission considers
it necessary or desirable to depart therefrom
(a) in order to respect the community of interest or community
of identity in or the historical pattern of an electoral district in
the province, or
(b) in order to maintain a manageable geographic size for districts
in sparsely populated rural or northern regions of the province,
but, in departing from the application of the rule set out in paragraph
(1)(a), the commission shall make every effort to ensure that,
except in circumstances viewed by the commission as being extraordinary,
the population of each electoral district in the province remains within
twenty-five per cent more or twenty-five per cent less of the electoral
quota for the province.
In conjunction with the provisions of the Act, the Commission’s
decisions must be guided by the Constitution Act, 1982, in particular
the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees Canadian
citizens the right to vote in federal and provincial elections. This right
has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada and by a number of
Canadian superior court decisions in a manner that sets constitutional
criteria for the drawing of electoral boundaries.
In what is known as "the Carter decision", released on June 6,
1991, which deals with provincial electoral boundaries in Saskatchewan,
the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the purpose of the right to vote,
as guaranteed by section 3 of the Charter, is not equality of voting
power by itself but the right to "effective representation". First and
foremost, the Court ruled, "effective representation" requires "relative
parity of voting power". Absolute equality of population size among electoral
districts, the Court ruled, was not required. However, deviation from
equality resulting in "relative parity of voting power" for the purpose
of accommodating geography, community of interest or minority representation,
must be "justified on the grounds that they contribute to better government
of the populace as a whole". In other words, the variation from the electoral
quota permitted by the Act is not a licence to be used without
justification.
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