The Fix Is In

In the lead-up to the 2015 federal election, Justin Trudeau made a significant promise: if elected, the Liberals would enact legislation within 18 months to reform Canada’s first-past-the-post plurality electoral system. The details are still being worked out; Trudeau has tentatively suggested he prefers instant-runoff voting (historically referred to as the alternative vote in Canada), although he has said he will not commit to a specific method until it has been considered by a special all-party committee. Of course, as anyone who has followed the debates on Senate reform knows, promises of electoral reform are one thing: delivering is something else entirely.

With the prospect of months of debate on electoral methodologies ahead of us, however, now is a fortuitous time to consider the last significant change to Canada’s voting scheme: the transfer of the power to redraw electoral districts from Parliament and the provincial legislatures to independent...