Nunavut is the Largest Electoral District (2015)(brilliantmaps.com)
brilliantmaps.com
Nunavut is the Largest Electoral District (2015)
https://brilliantmaps.com/nunavut-electoral-district/
30 comments
PEI has an outsized number of MPs for their population though. Comparatively, Alberta gets 1 MP for each 120,000 people.
Some sort of home ice advantage I assume.
there are a huge number of land areas in Canada that are PEI sized that contain literally zero permanent population.
What's up with the map showing that all of hudson bay belongs to Nunavut? Surely some of it belongs to the other adjacent provinces?
Unlike states, provinces don’t really “claim” land; the land (and especially the water) is all Canada’s, i.e. “Crown land.” The provinces as legal entities are just legislatures that set provincial law for the provincial residents (i.e. the Canadian citizens who are registered as residents of said province), rather than for the geographic area those residents happen live in; and courts that uphold laws for those residents; etc.
Laws about what you can or cannot do on Canadian soil (like, say, use marijuana, or go camping in a provincial park) are all either purely federal, or purely municipal; it’s not a power of the provincial government to make those sorts of laws. (Provinces can restrict or force municipal laws on the municipalities whose residents are all their provincial residents, but that still leaves you free of provincial stricture on unincorporated land “in” that province.)
Another way to think of it is, you could theoretically be a resident of one province (i.e. a person who got their ID from that province’s printer, who pays their provincial taxes to that province, who gets welfare and healthcare benefits from that province, etc.) while actually living 100% of the time in another province. Because the provinces are the sets of registered residents, not the places. (It doesn’t work out this way in practice, because all the provinces have laws that say you must spend at least six months of the year in their federal geographic boundary [see below] for them to consider you a resident of them—but that’s just a policy they each all have, and if in theory a province didn’t have such a policy, you’d freely be able to do this.)
Each citizen of Canada is a resident of one province at a time; and that province decides which riding a given provincial resident belongs to, using loosely-geographic rules. But ridings have nothing to do with geography per se; they’re just political buckets. (Imagine if, say, PEI ceased to exist due to flooding, and all its residents were evacuated to other parts of Canada. In the short term, the PEI provincial government would still exist; PEI residents would still be PEI residents; and each resident would still get assigned a riding. But probably the ridings would become something more like “which province you evacuated to” or something.)
Now, mind you, there are geographic boundaries between entities called “provinces” as part of federal law, but the legal provinces (i.e. the provincial legislatures, courts, etc.) and the federal-geographic provinces aren’t 1:1. The geographic boundaries of federal “provinces” have nothing to do with where one province’s ridings end and another’s begin. Rather, the geographic provinces are entities for the sake of federal laws that need to make a distinction that some part of some law only applies within a particular geographic area (usually Quebec vs. Not-Quebec.) These laws were lobbied for by the Quebec provincial government, among other interested parties—but they had to be put into law by the federal government, because it’s the Crown, not the provinces, that attaches metadata to any particular subdivision of Crown land, and then attaches laws to said metadata.
(Fun note: where I live in Vancouver BC, there’s a part of the city, “Granville Island”, that’s Crown land, i.e. isn’t considered to be a geographic part of British Columbia as far as federal laws concerning British Columbia go. This creates interesting situations: the people who live on Granville Island are still BC provincial citizens [because of the way BC defines its residence policy], so they still vote in provincial elections and get provincial benefits; but they don’t have to obey any of the federal laws concerning BC federal-geographic residents, because of the way the federal government defines geographic residence. I believe this means they pay different taxes, even. However, Granville Island is still a part of the City of Vancouver [a municipality], and the province tries to push them around by getting the municipality to force bylaws on them that replicate provincial law. It doen’t work very well! Granville Island is basically its own tiny little land-locked territory.)
Laws about what you can or cannot do on Canadian soil (like, say, use marijuana, or go camping in a provincial park) are all either purely federal, or purely municipal; it’s not a power of the provincial government to make those sorts of laws. (Provinces can restrict or force municipal laws on the municipalities whose residents are all their provincial residents, but that still leaves you free of provincial stricture on unincorporated land “in” that province.)
Another way to think of it is, you could theoretically be a resident of one province (i.e. a person who got their ID from that province’s printer, who pays their provincial taxes to that province, who gets welfare and healthcare benefits from that province, etc.) while actually living 100% of the time in another province. Because the provinces are the sets of registered residents, not the places. (It doesn’t work out this way in practice, because all the provinces have laws that say you must spend at least six months of the year in their federal geographic boundary [see below] for them to consider you a resident of them—but that’s just a policy they each all have, and if in theory a province didn’t have such a policy, you’d freely be able to do this.)
Each citizen of Canada is a resident of one province at a time; and that province decides which riding a given provincial resident belongs to, using loosely-geographic rules. But ridings have nothing to do with geography per se; they’re just political buckets. (Imagine if, say, PEI ceased to exist due to flooding, and all its residents were evacuated to other parts of Canada. In the short term, the PEI provincial government would still exist; PEI residents would still be PEI residents; and each resident would still get assigned a riding. But probably the ridings would become something more like “which province you evacuated to” or something.)
Now, mind you, there are geographic boundaries between entities called “provinces” as part of federal law, but the legal provinces (i.e. the provincial legislatures, courts, etc.) and the federal-geographic provinces aren’t 1:1. The geographic boundaries of federal “provinces” have nothing to do with where one province’s ridings end and another’s begin. Rather, the geographic provinces are entities for the sake of federal laws that need to make a distinction that some part of some law only applies within a particular geographic area (usually Quebec vs. Not-Quebec.) These laws were lobbied for by the Quebec provincial government, among other interested parties—but they had to be put into law by the federal government, because it’s the Crown, not the provinces, that attaches metadata to any particular subdivision of Crown land, and then attaches laws to said metadata.
(Fun note: where I live in Vancouver BC, there’s a part of the city, “Granville Island”, that’s Crown land, i.e. isn’t considered to be a geographic part of British Columbia as far as federal laws concerning British Columbia go. This creates interesting situations: the people who live on Granville Island are still BC provincial citizens [because of the way BC defines its residence policy], so they still vote in provincial elections and get provincial benefits; but they don’t have to obey any of the federal laws concerning BC federal-geographic residents, because of the way the federal government defines geographic residence. I believe this means they pay different taxes, even. However, Granville Island is still a part of the City of Vancouver [a municipality], and the province tries to push them around by getting the municipality to force bylaws on them that replicate provincial law. It doen’t work very well! Granville Island is basically its own tiny little land-locked territory.)
>The provinces as legal entities are just legislatures that set provincial law for the provincial residents (i.e. the Canadian citizens who are registered as residents of said province), rather than for the geographic area those residents happen live in; and courts that uphold laws for those residents; etc.
That doesn't sound right. How would it work for corporations? If one province has strict pollution regulations, does that mean you can bypass all of that by registering your corporation in another province and bringing in workers from another province?
That doesn't sound right. How would it work for corporations? If one province has strict pollution regulations, does that mean you can bypass all of that by registering your corporation in another province and bringing in workers from another province?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_constituencies_of_t...
A local guy is a member of the Italian parliament, his electorate is Asia, Oceania, Africa and Antarctica.
A local guy is a member of the Italian parliament, his electorate is Asia, Oceania, Africa and Antarctica.
Feels a little cheeky to include so much water, where people little can’t—-rather than don’t—-live.
Lot of that water becomes land during the winter. You’d hope that the people of Nunavut, if anyone, would vote with concern for things like climate change affecting polar bears (which live, as it happens, exclusively in Nunavut.)
Mind you, the real point was just to include all the islands inhabited mostly by Inuit, since the point of the creation of Nunavut in the first place was to give the Inuit a voice when previously they were drowned out as a minority part of the NWT. It’s the “good kind” of gerrymandering, where a distinct population that has a clear geographic boundary gets its own representation.
Mind you, the real point was just to include all the islands inhabited mostly by Inuit, since the point of the creation of Nunavut in the first place was to give the Inuit a voice when previously they were drowned out as a minority part of the NWT. It’s the “good kind” of gerrymandering, where a distinct population that has a clear geographic boundary gets its own representation.
>which live, as it happens, exclusively in Nunavut
Clearly you've never been to Churchill Manitoba.
Clearly you've never been to Churchill Manitoba.
Land area for Nunavut appear to be 1,877,787 km², which would still make it larger than the areas it is compared to in the article, but still far smaller than Greenland, which is right next to it.
I think comments here seem to be missing the point, which isn't so much that Nunavut is geographically huge, but that Canada doesn't seem to have anything like the principle of one person one vote. There's huge disparity between the electors or people per district figures - 1:8. That's some epic malapportionment.
Is there any kind of movement in Canada to introduce democracy? Americans regularly complain about their undemocratic constitution, giving equal say to sheep in the middle of nowhere and humans in New York. The UK has a few problematic cases, but they're easily removed and maintained because they want to maintain them.
But Canada's excuse is that they can't change their constitution — indeed, they continue to use the UK parliament to change what ought to be part of their constitution, that's how cowardly they are. Why is Canada considered so much a centre of democracy when all the evidence is against that notion?
Is there any kind of movement in Canada to introduce democracy? Americans regularly complain about their undemocratic constitution, giving equal say to sheep in the middle of nowhere and humans in New York. The UK has a few problematic cases, but they're easily removed and maintained because they want to maintain them.
But Canada's excuse is that they can't change their constitution — indeed, they continue to use the UK parliament to change what ought to be part of their constitution, that's how cowardly they are. Why is Canada considered so much a centre of democracy when all the evidence is against that notion?
> excuse ... that's how cowardly they are
We ban accounts that post nationalistic slurs, regardless of which nation they have an issue with. Please don't post like this to HN again.
Also, the comment is factually wrong. But we don't ban people for that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We ban accounts that post nationalistic slurs, regardless of which nation they have an issue with. Please don't post like this to HN again.
Also, the comment is factually wrong. But we don't ban people for that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The territories each get their own riding for a few legitimate reasons: one, it would be messy to have a rising cross territorial/provincial borders. Two, the north already gets ignored by southern politicians all the time: they have been suffering from food security issues for decades, for example. Three, the "territories" are a large geographic extent mostly comprised of tiny communities of a few hundred to a few thousand people each separated by hundreds of kilometers. If the entire territories were a single riding, the MP for that riding would have a tough time making herself available in person for all her constituents (they have a tough enough time of this already).
Canada hasn't had to use the UK for constitutional amendments since the passage of the Constitution Act in 1982. There is proscribed amendment formula now: the resolution must pass the Commons, the Senate, and be ratified by the provincial legislatures of at least 2/3rds of the provinces comprising at least 50% of the population.
Canada hasn't had to use the UK for constitutional amendments since the passage of the Constitution Act in 1982. There is proscribed amendment formula now: the resolution must pass the Commons, the Senate, and be ratified by the provincial legislatures of at least 2/3rds of the provinces comprising at least 50% of the population.
Yup. Ive never heard a canadian reference any need to ask the UK for permission to do anything. Such remarks always come from outsiders who have spent too much time on wikipedia reading about how the Queen "owns" canada. Realworld is never so simple.
From Wikipedia:
> Seats in the House of Commons are distributed roughly in proportion to the population of each province and territory. However, some ridings are more populous than others, and the Canadian constitution contains provisions regarding provincial representation. As a result, there is some interprovincial and regional malapportionment relative to population.
In other words, because of a low population, Nunavut has fewer ridings†, but each MP from such a riding has more relative power than they “should” have, which kinda sorta balances out the problems that this causes.
† And the reason Canada went with apportioning Nunavut fewer ridings, is that it’s nearly impractical to expect a sparse population of 30k people to support even one full set of competing MP candidates with their own election campaigns, let alone several such sets operating concurrently. Better that they just elect one person, and that person hold all the electoral power owed to the province.
> Seats in the House of Commons are distributed roughly in proportion to the population of each province and territory. However, some ridings are more populous than others, and the Canadian constitution contains provisions regarding provincial representation. As a result, there is some interprovincial and regional malapportionment relative to population.
In other words, because of a low population, Nunavut has fewer ridings†, but each MP from such a riding has more relative power than they “should” have, which kinda sorta balances out the problems that this causes.
† And the reason Canada went with apportioning Nunavut fewer ridings, is that it’s nearly impractical to expect a sparse population of 30k people to support even one full set of competing MP candidates with their own election campaigns, let alone several such sets operating concurrently. Better that they just elect one person, and that person hold all the electoral power owed to the province.
>they continue to use the UK parliament to change what ought to be part of their constitution, that's how cowardly they are
What? That hasn't been true since 1982.
What? That hasn't been true since 1982.
There's a case to be made that Canada's democratic institutions could be improved. The two that come to mind are the appointed Senate and the use of first-past-the-post voting.
In my experience, no Canadians feel that Nunavut (or any of the other special cases) has too much power relative to its population.
And, as others have said, Canada's constitution was repatriated in 1982.
In my experience, no Canadians feel that Nunavut (or any of the other special cases) has too much power relative to its population.
And, as others have said, Canada's constitution was repatriated in 1982.
Why do you think Canada is undemocratic? Do you really think that Nunavut's riding should be larger, so that the number of people per district are more even? I think that would be even less democratic, because suddenly Nunavut gets even less representation, and I don't think they get enough as it is.
Geography matters.
Geography matters.
You might argue that a political system that takes into account geography is fairer or better in some other way, but it’s not more democratic. Democracy literally means rule by people, not acres (or hectares in this case).
Doing everything by straight up majority rule leads to minority groups whose views can never get heard breaking away from the majority. Most of those so called empty areas, while not highly populated, do actually have some population and the land they're living on often has greater strategic value than the same amount of land located in areas of higher population. Compromises are designed to keep the country together because the sum is much greater than the parts.
Nunavut, Yukon and NWT combined have a land area of almost 4 million square kilometers and a population of about 120,000 people.
PEI has four members of parliament (MP) the three territories combined have three members. Population-wise it works out but the land difference is so crazy. I think Canada should be all PEI-size provinces.