The Founders Seminar Series

• In-person event
• A220, Loeb Building, Carleton University
• 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6

• Contact
• Natalia Fierro Marquez, Natalia.FierroMarquez@carleton.ca

The Department of Geography and Environmental Studies presents:

Michael Pal, The University of Ottawa

on

“Fair Representation in the House of Commons? Electoral Boundaries and Voter Equality”

Biography:
Michael Pal is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Common Law at the University of Ottawa. He specializes in the comparative law of democracy and election law. He is also a Fellow of the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto. He has a J.D. and doctorate in law from the University of Toronto, where he was a Trudeau Foundation Scholar, and an LL.M in Legal Theory from NYU. He publishes widely in law, political science, and public policy.

Abstract:
The October 2015 federal election will be contested according to a new electoral map. In 2011, Parliament altered the formula for distribution seats in the House of Commons to the provinces by passing the Fair Representation Act. The law added 30 seats to the House for a total of 338. The boundaries of these seats were redrawn in 2014 by independent redistricting commissions. This article investigates the implications of the Fair Representation Act for democratic representation at the federal level. The article concludes that while it takes an important step toward voter equality, the Act makes large deviations from the fundamental principle of representation by population not just possible, but likely in future redistributions. The constitutionality of the Act has also been placed in doubt on federalism grounds by the Supreme Court of Canada’s reasoning in the recent Reference re Senate Reform