House Of Commons Of Canada

The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada.

The House of Commons is a democratically elected body whose members are known as members of Parliament (MPs). There have been 338 MPs since the most recent electoral district redistribution for the 2015 federal election, which saw the addition of 30 seats. Members are elected by simple plurality ("first-past-the-post" system) in each of the country's electoral districts, which are colloquially known as ''ridings''. MPs may hold office until Parliament is dissolved and serve for constitutionally limited terms of up to five years after an election. Historically, however, terms have ended before their expiry and the sitting government has typically dissolved parliament within four years of an election according to a long-standing convention. In any case, an act of Parliament now limits each term to four years. Seats in the House of Commons are distributed roughly in proportion to the population of each province and territory. However, some ridings are more populous than others, and the Canadian constitution contains provisions regarding provincial representation. As a result, there is some interprovincial and regional malapportionment relative to the population.

The British North America Act 1867 (now called the '' Constitution Act, 1867'') created the Dominion of Canada and the House of Commons, modeling it to the British House of Commons. The lower of the two houses making up the parliament, the House of Commons, in practice holds far more power than the upper house, the Senate. Although the approval of both chambers is necessary for legislation to become law, the Senate very rarely rejects bills passed by the House of Commons (though the Senate does occasionally amend bills). Moreover, the Cabinet is responsible solely to the House of Commons. The prime minister stays in office only so long as they retain the support, or "confidence", of the lower house.

The House of Commons currently meets in a temporary chamber in the West Block of the parliament buildings on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, while the Centre Block, which houses the traditional Commons chamber, undergoes renovation.

Name

The term derives from the Anglo-Norman word ''communes,'' referring to the geographic and collective "communities" of their parliamentary representatives and not the third estate, the commonality. This distinction is made clear in the official French name of the body, ''french: Chambre des communes, label=none, italic=unset''. Canada and the United Kingdom remain the only countries to use the name "House of Commons" for a lower house of parliament. The body's formal name is: The Honourable the Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled (french: L'honorable les communes du Canada assemblés au Parlement, links=no).

History

The House of Commons came into existence in 1867, when the British Parliament passed the British North America Act 1867, uniting the Province of Canada (which was divided into Quebec and Ontario), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a single federation called the Dominion of Canada. The new Parliament of Canada consisted of the monarch (represented by the governor general, who also represented the Colonial Office), the Senate and the House of Commons. The Parliament of Canada was based on the Westminster model (that is, the model of the Parliament of the United Kingdom). Unlike the UK Parliament, the powers of the Parliament of Canada were limited in that other powers were assigned exclusively to the provincial legislatures. The Parliament of Canada also remained subordinate to the British Parliament, the supreme legislative authority for the entire British Empire. Greater autonomy was granted by the Statute of Westminster 1931, after which new acts of the British Parliament did not apply to Canada, with some exceptions. These exceptions were removed by the Canada Act 1982.

From 1867, the Commons met in the chamber previously used by the Legislative Assembly of Canada until the building was destroyed by fire in 1916. It relocated to the amphitheatre of the Victoria Memorial Museum—what is today the Canadian Museum of Nature, where it met until 1922. Until the end of 2018, the Commons sat in the Centre Block chamber. Starting with the final sitting before the 2019 federal election, the Commons sits in a temporary chamber in the West Block until at least 2028, while renovations are undertaken in the Centre Block of Parliament.

Members and electoral districts

The House of Commons has 338 members, each of whom represents a single electoral district (also called a ''riding''). The constitution specifies a basic minimum of 295 electoral districts, but additional seats are allocated according to various clauses. Seats are distributed among the provinces in proportion to population, as determined by each decennial census, subject to the following exceptions made by the constitution. Firstly, the "senatorial clause" guarantees that each province will have at least as many MPs as senators. Secondly, the "grandfather clause" guarantees each province has at least as many Members of Parliament now as it had in 1985.

As a result of these clauses, smaller provinces and territories that have experienced a relative decline in population have become over-represented in the House. Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta are under-represented in proportion to their populations, while Quebec's representation is close to the national average. The other six provinces (Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador) are over-represented. Boundary commissions, appointed by the federal government for each province, have the task of drawing the boundaries of the electoral districts in each province. Territorial representation is independent of the population; each territory is entitled to only one seat. The ''electoral quotient'' was defined by legislation as 111,166 for the redistribution of seats after the 2011 census and is adjusted following each decennial census by multiplying it by the average of the percentage of population change of each province since the previous decennial census. The population of the province is then divided by the electoral quotient to equal the base provincial-seat allocation. The "special clauses" are then applied to increase the number of seats for certain provinces, bringing the total number of seats (with the three seats for the territories) to 338.

The most recent redistribution of seats occurred subsequent to the 2011 census. The '' Fair Representation Act'' was passed and given royal assent on December 16, 2011, and effectively allocated fifteen additional seats to Ontario, six new seats each to Alberta and British Columbia, and three more to Quebec.

A new redistribution began in October 2021 subsequent to the 2021 census, it is expected to go into effect at the earliest for any federal election called after April 2024. After initial controversy that Quebec would lose a seat in the redistribution under the existing representation formula established by the Fair Representation Act, the ''Preserving Provincial Representation in the House of Commons Act'' was passed and given royal assent on June 23, 2022, and effectively allocated three additional seats to Alberta and one new seat each to Ontario and British Columbia.

The following tables summarize representation in the House of Commons by province and territory:

Elections

General elections occur whenever parliament is dissolved by the governor general on the monarch's behalf. The timing of the dissolution has historicall