This was subject to criticism as being a highly biased task focused on maximizing the governing party's electoral successes, often referred to as “gerrymandering”.
In 1903, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier altered this procedure by placing the readjustment of boundaries in the hands of a special committee of the House of Commons on which MPs from all parties were represented.
Each time a redistribution of seats was scheduled to occur under the Constitution Act, 1867, the government brought in a bill which did not contain any details about the boundaries of the various ridings.
After the bill was read a second time, it was referred to a special committee instructed to “prepare schedules to contain and describe the several electoral divisions entitled to return Members to this House”.
[15][16] Even before Canadian Confederation, suggestions had been made to place the drawing of electoral boundaries into the hands of an impartial body and not with Partisan MPs.
Following the Liberal Party victory in the 1963 election, on November 26, 1963 Secretary of State Jack Pickersgill introduced a new motion, which prepared the way for a bill to provide for the establishment of electoral boundaries commissions.
[18] In accordance with the motion, Prime Minister Pearson introduced the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, the bill took a full year to get through Parliament, with prolonged delays because of disagreements over its major clauses.
Each commission has up to 10 months from the date it receives this return to recommend constituency boundaries in a report to the Chief Electoral Officer.
[16] Members have 30 days following the tabling or publication of the reports to file an objection in writing with the clerk of the committee to which the matter was referred.
The objective of the bill was to stop the ongoing redistribution plans and to start the process over again, allowing the next election to be held on the basis of the 1981 boundaries.
[19] The effective date of the redistribution was moved several months earlier by an act of parliament to allow for the 2004 Canadian federal election to occur on the new map.
The act received royal assent on December 16, 2011, several months before the commissions were established on February 21, 2012, allowing the redistribution to go ahead on schedule.