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 2025 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	41,528,680 † 41,395,066	343 340	121,075 121,750	n/a	—	—	2021-09-20	2025-04-28
9	AB		Edmonton	Calgary	4,960,097 11.98%	34	145,885	10.00%	87	57,013	2023-05-29	2027-10-18
8	BC		Victoria	Vancouver	5,722,318 13.82%	42	136,246	12.35%	93	61,530	2024-10-19	2028-10-21
11	MB		Winnipeg	Winnipeg	1,504,023 3.63%	14	107,430	4.12%	57	26,386	2023-10-03	2027-10-05
3	NB		Fredericton	Moncton	858,963 2.08%	10	85,896	2.94%	49	17,530	2024-10-21	2028-10-23
7	NL		St. John’s	St. John’s	545,579 1.32%	7	77,940	2.06%	40	13,639	2021-03-25	2025-10-14
2	NS		Halifax	Halifax	1,079,627 2.61%	11	98,148	3.24%	55	19,630	2024-11-26	2028-07-19
14	NT		Yellowknife	Yellowknife	45,074 0.11%	1	n/a	n/a	19	2,372	2023-11-14	2027-10-05
13	NU		Iqaluit	Iqaluit	41,414 0.10%	1	n/a	n/a	22	1,882	2021-10-25	2025-10-27
6	ON		Toronto	Toronto	16,182,641 39.09%	122	132,645	35.88%	124	130,505	2025-02-27	2029-06-07
4	PE		Charlottetown	Charlottetown	179,280 0.43%	4	44,820	1.18%	27	6,640	2023-04-03	2027-10-04
5	QC		Québec	Montréal	9,111,629 22.01%	78	116,816	22.94%	125	72,893	2022-10-03	2026-10-05
10	SK		Regina	Saskatoon	1,250,909 3.02%	14	89,351	4.12%	61	20,507	2024-10-28	2028-10-30
12	YT		Whitehorse	Whitehorse	47,126 0.11%	1	n/a	n/a	19	2,480	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?

---