Canada's system of representation in crisis: the "279 formula" and federal electoral redistributions (1).

The absence of strictly defined universals of representation has

meant that demographic change has not automatically begeted

electoral boundary readjustments.

--RK Carty (2)

In March 2002 Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, announced Canada's revised electoral distributions based upon the recent decennial census. The resulting redistribution of seats in the House of belonging to alls produced some odd results. While the census reported the slowest rate of national population extension in decades, the population of the province of British Columbia