It is said "designers could just group three ridings into two, so an Electoral Boundaries Commission could make short work of the job."
That is to create cookie-cutter ridings of the same number of members - one member each, with each having 1.5 times the number of voters that districts now have on the average.
Even though that sounds easy, it actually means re-drawing boundaries of every district in the country.
But a system that uses present ridings (even just as base for future districts) is not necessary, even for ease of re-districting.
The present ridings are arbitrary anyway so there is nothing sacred about them. In fact the present boundaries are recent creations, some only being used since 2013/2015, .
Voters likely have little allegiance to them - in each election, most of the voters are ignored in many of them under our present FPTP system.
It seems more organic to me to form districts that cover whole cities, of varying number of seats depending on pop. numbers of the city. Multi-member districts thus produced would make district-level PR possible. Also, New Zealand did not simply make districts larger to free up seats for MMP top-up but actually added members overall. We should expect to do the same. My proposal in short, make 76 top-up seats. HofC would be increased by 38 seats, and 38 MPs would be freed up by having 300 district members not the present 338 district members.
300, not 338, would cover the whole country, with 76 top-up members allocated to parties to produce proportionality.
76 top-up members is about 20 percent of the whole, which is a little low but about the proportion that would work well for MMP especially in the system I am talkling about. Districts would be re-drawn to use city corporate limits, with each city allocated the number of seats that correspond to 180,000 to 320,000 pop. per seat. Largest single-member districts such as those covering whole Territories would remain in place. In the provinces, largest single-member districts outside cities would also remain in place. Those larger than 1500 sq. kms would remain as single-member districts.
Districts outside cities that are smaller in size than 1500 sq. kms. would be joined together to make two-member districts.
Where possible, groups of three adjoining districts whose total combined area is less than 3000 sq. kms would be grouped to make three-member district. Elections in these MM districts would use some system where each voter casts just one vote (STV or SNTV). The 76 top-up members are spread among the provinces to ensure the province's overall seats count is constitutional including the provision that each province is represented in proportion to its population as much as possible. Cities, having a large proportion of the province's votes, would be heavily represented by the top-up so the urban-rural disparity in voter per member (of about 10 percent) would be compensated for by urban voters taking more top-up seats. Urban areas would be under-represented in district seats due to rural areas still maintaining their old seat numbers. Anyways the much higher proportion of votes used effectively in the urban MM district elections and the use of top-up members to secure PR means that voters overall should be well pleased by the more diverse and balanced representation produced under this new electoral system. Explanation of rationale for those design decisions:
Best re-districting would allow creation of multi-seat districts. There is much room for that - in the past each province used to have much fewer federal ridings, and back then, even with the primitive transportation and communication of the times, one member was able to represent that area. Multiple members with modern cellphones and automobiles should be able to represent the same size as one member used to in horse and buggy days.
While the number of rural MPs in Ontario and Quebec in there were in days of yore, each rural district in Alberta is half the size it was in 1905 and each rural riding in BC on average is much smaller than it was in 1891.
Quebec in 1891 had 65 MPs (most of which were rural), now it has 78 (seats outside Montreal. Ottawa and Quebec City = 47) so districts are 1.3 times the size they used to be.
Ontario in 1891 had 92 MPs (most of which were rural), now it has 121 (79 seats outside Toronto) so rural districts, on average, are just slightly larger than they once were
There has also not been much change in Manitoba and Saskatchewan:
Manitoba in 1905 had 7 MPs, now it has 14 (6 rural districts outside of Winnipeg) so rural districts, on average, are just slightly larger than they once were.
Saskatchewan in 1905 had 7 MPs, now it has 14 (8 rural districts outside of Regina and Saskatoon) so rural districts, on average, are just slightly smaller than they once were.
But in BC and Alberta there is opportunity to group rural ridings and still have districts smaller than they were in the old days.
In BC, today, each MP represents on average an area one-fifth what each BC MP once represented.
BC in 1891 had 6 MPs. Now it has 42 (29 rural districts outside Vancouver and N. Lower Mainland) so rural districts, on average, are about one-fifth the size each rural district used to be.
In Alberta, each MP represents on average an area half what each Alberta MP once represented
Alberta in 1905 had 7 MPs,
Now it has 34 (13 rural districts)
so on the average, each district today covers half the area covered by each Alberta riding in 1905.
Thus, two rural ridings in Alberta and about five in BC could be combined and still the area in each district would be less than a single MP represented in the old days.
The size of ridings is arbitrary and has changed through time. There is little about the present districts, as arbitrary and artificial as they are, that means they should be preserved.
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The system I am envisioning would use 300 district seats, a nice easy math number that would ease determining party proportions of the country's seats. (This is about 89 percent of present seats). The proportions thus derived would allow for easy visualizing. The proportionality/dis-proportionality of district seats would be easily seen. But such overall proportions would not be used for allocation of seats. Top-up seats would be derived at the provincial level.
Average number of pop. per seat using total pop of 38.19M = 127,000 pop. per district seat
so a city with pop. in range of 190,000 people to 320,000 pop. would be due two seats.
38 seats are freed up and HofC would be enlarged by additional 38 seats as well, giving us a HofC of 376 seats.
20 percent of the new HofC would be top-up. With rough balanced representation being elected in each city, this should be enough to create PR in each province.
Re-districting
Cities' population figures are divided by 127,000 pop. (give or take), and each city of more than 190,000 people is made into a MM riding with two or more MPs. Some cities would remain as single-member districts or be lumped in as currently done with surrounding countryside.
PR Voting
The use in these MM districts of some system where each voter casts just one vote (STV or SNTV) would ensure in most cases mixed representation amonghe city's MPs, thus doing some of the job that the top-up seats in each province would finish and polish.
Under SNTV, the leading candidates in each city would be elected to fill the city's seats. Likely candidates of two different parties would be elected in this system
STV would also secure mixed representation in each city where more than one party takes quota (composed of combination of first choice votes and votes transferred due to preferential voting from other candidates).
Quota under PR-STV (the amount of votes that guarantees election):
one-third of votes in 2-seat city
one-fourth of votes in 3-seat city
one-fifth of votes in 4-seat city
and so on.
Likely, in most cities, at least two parties would take quota, and thus one-party sweeps of a city's seats would be prevented and mixed representation would be produced.
Where a city has more than 1.4M pop. and thus more than ten seats (not usually the case), the city could be divided into two MM districts in such a way that each district would have an odd number of seats, to facilitate the district's PR.
So I believe this new system would work without changing the boundary of every single riding and would produce balanced representation in each large city and in each province, and thus would produce a proportional HofC.
Thanks for reading.
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