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are toronto political ridings too big?

D

dan e 1980

Guest
this isn't really a poll but rather an opinion question.

are our political ridings in toronto too big?

in relation to other ridings in the nation, how do they compare?

is bigger better?

i personally think there is too much to govern in toronto ridings. i think ridings would see better results with a more intimate size. i think smaller ridings would be better taken care of and maybe there would be less neglect to certain areas.
 
Smaller ridings = more seats overall; y'know, like a 600-member House, maybe. A little tricky...
 
They should be smaller. One of the reasons the urban agenda has trouble gaining traction is that we don't get our fair proportion of votes. Some ridings in Scarborough have 120,000 people while one in Northern Manitoba has just 60,000 or so. Each person in Scarborough is a half citizen compared to the ones in Manitoba. Urban ridings in general have way more people than rural ones.
 
that's exactly what i mean ed. i think urban centers have misrepresentation.
 
Maybe the weight of a persons vote is based on the square footage of their dwelling, thus, urban voters have less voting power.

I know thats nonsense but at the same time, making meaningless connections can be fun.
 
The target riding size is about 106,000. Some smaller provinces and the territories have a lower population per riding because of two riding allocation rules in the constitution. One rule is that a province must have as many seats as it does senators (which is 24 Ontario, 24 Quebec, 24 Maritimes, 24 Western Canada, 1 Per Territory, and 6 Newfoundland). Another rule says the seats a province has can never be less than had in the 33rd Parliament (7 NF, 4 PE, 11 NS, 10 NB, 75 QC, 95 ON, 14 MB, 14 SK, 21 AB, 28 BC, 1 YT, 1 NT).

If the current rules are kept the only way to have equal population per riding (letting the territories have their 3 ridings) would be to have 34,000 per riding (the population in the average PEI riding) or about 950 ridings (compared to 308 currently). With 953 ridings that would be some serious representation... 88 or so ridings for Toronto alone. Some renovations would need to be made on parliament hill to handle MP stadium. :) Note: The US with a population 10 times that of ours has 435 representatives... citizens there are probably a little under-represented... I wonder if they can even call their congressman and expect to talk to them?
 
I can't wait to see the defenders of "true democracy" deal with the issue of the urban/rural vote differential.

AoD
 
For each person that gets elected there is one vote per person so at the riding level it is truly democratic. The situation falls apart when those elected representatives in the house come together representing different sized ridings.

I think we need a system that is as follows:

- locally selected riding candidates similar to how things are done now when the party hq doesn't appoint "star candidates"
- local representation for each riding as is the case with our current first past the post system
- nationwide proportional representation.
- fixed election dates are required.

They way the system would work is that the number of seats for each party would be determined based on national percentage vote. Remainders would be allocated one per party starting at the top party. Here is what the 2004 election results would have looked like:

2004 Under Proportional Representation
L 36.71%=113 + 1 = 114
C 29.61%=91 + 1 = 92
N 15.69%=48
B 12.40%=38
G 4.30%=13
Ind 0.48%=1
CH 0.30%=1
Mj 0.25%=1
Total=306 + 2 remaining allocated from the top = 308

The seats would be allocated to the top ridings, based on percentage vote in the riding, for each party starting with the smallest. This means the most successful locally supported candidates would go to Ottawa AND proportional representation would be maintained. A candidate might not necessarily win the riding by simply beating the other candidates in the riding... the candidate would need to out perform other candidates of the same party across the country to ensure a win.

Using the 2004 results as an example... to start the allocation the top performing Marijuana Party riding (by percentage) would be determined and the candidate would take the seat, next the top performing Christian Heritage party riding not yet taken would be determined and the candidate would take the seat, then top Independant, top Green, top Bloc, top NDP, top Conservative, top Liberal, top Green, top Bloc, etc until all the seats are allocated. The only drawback to the idea is that some poor unsuspecting riding which had a Marijuana party member take last place would have that candidate representing their area, but the positive is that every vote would be heard equally. In the case that there is a block in assigning seats (i.e. a party not running in all ridings can't be allocated a top performing seat because all the ridings that the party ran in are allocated) then the candidate with top performance not yet given a seat within the party will be given a seat in the nearest neighbouring unallocated riding.

The system would still work if the number of seats per province stayed the same as now but ideally it should be changed to be more representative of the population to allow each riding equal voice in parliament.

This compares to the first past the post which ended up with these results:

2004 First Past the Post Actual Results (difference)
L 36.71%=135 (+21)
C 29.61%=99 (+7)
N 15.69%=19 (-29)
B 12.40%=54 (+19)
G 4.30%=0 (-13)
Ind 0.48%=1 (0)
CH 0.30%=0 (-1)
Mj 0.25%=0 (-1)
Total=308
 
If I was in poli-sci I might write a program to model it with all the riding names to see where in the country the seats would end up. It would be cool to play with. :)
 
Perhaps I mis-understood your intent (and it works the same as the below) but here is what I was hoping for:

* Local representation for a riding approximately twice as large as todays -- 154 seats.
* National representation added in from top performers in local vote to fill in the gap between first past the post (local rep) and proportional representation -- 154 seats.

A larger office budget is allocated to the "local rep" since they still have the obligations of dealing with the locals.

This way for local representation you probably get the person you voted for and some incentive to being a local rep but on a national level (across the entire house) there would be votes to cover everybody's needs.
 
In the method you propose, would there be two names from each party on the ballot in each riding (i.e. one running as a local first past the post rep and one as a proportional rep)? Also, how would the territories be represented? If there was only one party candidate in each riding wouldn't the proportional rep always be a candidate that didn't win the riding?

In the system I mentioned above the goal is to try and make the local rep almost always the most supported candidate in the riding. In 2004 only about 47 ridings out of 308 would have had a candidate that wasn't their first choice and in all but 2 of the 47 ridings the candidate would be a candidate which had a lot of votes... and in those 2 ridings the rep would have had greater support for their policy than anywhere else in the country (i.e. the riding deserved the fringe candidate more than any other riding).

One benefit of your system is that there would be one capable local rep per riding... although the negative is that unless there are two separate candidates per riding the second riding rep would always have less local support. If there were two candidates per riding there would need to be two votes per riding... and if there was two votes would all votes (both FPTP and Proportional) count as proportional? In a two candidates per party per riding system I would see the the quality of Proportional running candidates being second best to the FPTP candidates for the Conservatives and Liberals whereas the Green and perhaps the NDP would run their best in the proportional race because that is the race they would get more votes from. A lot of things to consider.
 
some great respones in this thread. <dan sits back and learns> :)
 
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