The size of today's legislative assemblies

by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)

Canada's legislative assemblies vary considerably in size from one jurisdiction to another. Although one should make a distinction between eligible voters and overall population, the table below nonetheless provides some perspective on these variations by listing each jurisdiction with its estimated population in 2024 and the average number of people represented by each member. However, it is important to remember how that average number conceals how some jurisdictions may have:

• protected seats such as the traditional Acadian ridings of Argyle, Clare and Richmond in Nova Scotia as well as Preston, a riding designed to encourage more African-Nova Scotian participation, and
   
• large rural ridings in which the population is much smaller than the jurisdiction's average, such as the Ontario ridings of Kiiwetinoong (which is 68% indigenous) and Mushkegowuk—James Bay (which is 27% indigenous and 60% francophone). Together they cover slighly more than half of Ontario's territory but have less than 0.5% of the province's population whereas, speaking strictly in mathematical terms, a single riding in Ontario would be expected to have, on average, about 0.8% of the province's population.

Also, the population in some ridings might be noticeably higher than the average if it includes many young families, but the number of persons 18 years or over who are eligible to vote in those ridings could be in line with the jurisdiction's average. In fact, to account for such variance, Saskatchewan is one province that, during its decennial redistributions, calculates its new electoral quotient only on the number of persons who are 18 years of age or older, whereas Elections Canada seems to consider total population.

Legend }						p/s: Average population/seat %s: Percentage of seats
Jurisdiction						Federal			Prov/Terr		General Elections
Details			Capital city	Largest city	Population	Seats	p/s	%s	Seats	p/s	←	→
1	CA		Ottawa	Toronto	41,918,379 † 41,785,785	338 335	124,019 124,734	n/a	—	—	2021-09-20	2025-10-20*
9	AB		Edmonton	Calgary	4,888,723 11.70%	34	143,786	10.15%	87	56,192	2023-05-29	2027-05-31
8	BC		Victoria	Vancouver	5,698,430 13.64%	42	135,677	12.54%	87	65,499	2020-10-24	2024-10-19
11	MB		Winnipeg	Winnipeg	1,484,135 3.55%	14	106,010	4.18%	57	26,037	2023-10-03	2027-10-05
3	NB		Fredericton	Moncton	1,494,301 3.58%	10	149,430	2.99%	49	30,496	2020-09-14	2024-10-21
7	NL		St. John's	St. John's	545,247 1.30%	7	77,892	2.09%	40	13,631	2021-03-25	2025-11-24
2	NS		Halifax	Halifax	1,076,374 2.58%	11	97,852	3.28%	55	19,570	2021-08-17	2025-07-15
14	NT		Yellowknife	Yellowknife	44,731 0.11%	1	n/a	n/a	19	2,354	2023-11-14	2027-10-05
13	NU		Iqaluit	Iqaluit	41,159 0.10%	1	n/a	n/a	22	1,871	2021-10-25	2025-10-27
6	ON		Toronto	Toronto	16,124,116 38.59%	121	133,257	36.12%	124	130,033	2022-06-02	2026-06-04
4	PE		Charlottetown	Charlottetown	178,550 0.43%	4	44,638	1.19%	27	6,613	2023-04-03	2027-10-04
5	QC		Québec	Montréal	9,056,044 21.67%	78	116,103	23.28%	125	72,448	2022-10-03	2026-10-05
10	SK		Regina	Saskatoon	1,239,865 2.97%	14	88,562	4.18%	61	20,326	2020-10-26	2024-10-28
12	YT		Whitehorse	Whitehorse	46,704 0.11%	1	n/a	n/a	19	2,458	2021-04-12	2025-11-03*
† Excluding the territories. The average population/seat is calculated with the population of the provinces only. Note: At the provincial or territorial levels, except for the three Maritime provinces, a number of far-northern seats are in fact excluded from the jurisdiction's calculation of the average population/seat, but the calculations presented in this table do not exclude them. As a result, the official figure used by each jurisdiction is higher. * The current context could lead to a general election being held sooner.

What is the right number of representative a jurisdiction should have?

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