Principles and Gerrymanders

Parliamentary Redistribution of Ridings in Ontario, 1840-1954

George Emery

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780773545830
• eBook ISBN: 9780773597518
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Redistributing electoral ridings alters their number, revises their boundaries, or does both at the same time. Ostensibly, the purpose of redistribution is to adjust parliamentary representation for population changes - the growth or decline of population, or shifts in its territorial distribution and social composition. Before an arm's-length commission, headed by a judge, took control of electoral redistribution in the 1960s, parliament - effectively, the majority party - controlled redistribution, raising the possibility that the governing party would adjust the ridings for its own advantage, a practice known as gerrymandering.

Providing detailed analyses of parliamentary redistribution in Ontario that preceded the province’s commissioned ridings of the 1960s, George Emery's Principles and Gerrymanders unravels the mechanisms, operational strategies, and exposure to partisanship of parliamentary redistribution and its influence on general election outcomes. Using quantitative research methods, Emery identifies gerrymanders and demonstrates empirically whether or not these worked. He closes with a discussion of the transition to commissioned ridings, what has changed in redistribution, and what continues from the era when parliament redrew ridings.

Contextualized with detailed maps and political cartoons, Principles and Gerrymanders is a pioneering study and a major contribution to the literature on Canadian and Ontario political history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures, Maps, and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Ontario Setting
• 2 Redistributions in Canada West, 1840–67
• 3 Sir John A. Macdonald and Oliver Mowat: Redistributions of the 1870s
• 4 Sir John A. Macdonald and Oliver Mowat: Redistributions of the 1880s
• 5 John Thompson’s 1892 Dominion Redistribution
• 6 Hitting Back: Wilfrid Laurier’s Redistribution Bills of 1899, 1900, and 1903
• 7 Reversal of Fortune: Robert Borden’s Dominion Redistribution of 1914
• 8 Four Provincial Redistributions, 1894–1914
• 9 Mackenzie King and Howard Ferguson: Redistributions of the 1920s
• 10 R.B. Bennett and George Henry: Redistributions during the Great 1930s Depression
• 11 The Last of Ontario’s Parliamentary Redistributions, 1947–54
• Conclusion
• APPENDIX A Municipal Annexations of Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, and London
• APPENDIX B The Harper Government and the Saskatchewan Boundary Commission, 2013
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index