The House of Commons would be radically reshaped through legislation introduced Thursday by the Conservative government, promoting Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta at the expense of other provinces.
Coupled with recent planned or proposed legislation that, if passed, would see senators elected, with eight-year term limits, the Conservatives' proposed electoral reforms represent the biggest changes to Parliament in a generation or more.
It also means that, for the first time since Confederation, Quebec would be underrepresented in the House of Commons.
"We have another word for 'fair play' in French," Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe angrily told reporters. "It's 'hypocrisy.' "
The legislation, if adopted, would increase the size of the House of Commons by 30 seats, to 338. Eighteen of those seats would go to Ontario; seven would go to British Columbia, while Alberta would receive five.
Constitutional and legislative guarantees have skewed the House of Commons seriously in favour of smaller provinces, favouring the rural over the urban, long-settled Canadians over immigrants - who tend to live in large cities - and smaller English Canadian provinces over large ones.
But if the bill passes, the three fast-growing provinces of Confederation would be represented within the House of Commons almost in proportion to their actual population.
Steven Fletcher, Minister of State for Democratic Reform, said the bill would "bring Canada in line with the principle of representation by population."
But the proposal weakens, albeit marginally, the influence of Quebec in the House, by freezing its representation at 75 seats even as the size of the House expands.
"Under today's formula, Quebec will have 23.1 per cent of Canada's population, but only 22.1 per cent of the seats," said Andrew Sancton, a political scientist at University of Western Ontario who has studied representation in the House. 'If Quebec is a 'province like the others,' this might not matter so much. But it is not."
Although the NDP is undecided, the Liberal Party tentatively supports the bill.
"It's pretty hard to say that if the population of Alberta or British Columbia or Ontario is growing dramatically, that that shouldn't be recognized somehow in terms of the distribution of seats," said Liberal MP Bob Rae, though "we'll have to listen carefully to the representations of Quebec."
Complaints by Premier Dalton McGuinty that an earlier version of the bill penalized Ontario led to tensions with the Harper government in 2007, but Queen's Park is onside with this version of the proposal.
"I think on first blush, it's looking like it's fair," Ontario Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Monique Smith told reporters Thursday. "But we want to look at how this plays out nationally and proportionally for every province to ensure that Ontario is getting its fair share."
To the west, Mike de Jong, the Government House Leader for the B.C. Liberals, said the bill "represents, at a minimum, a genuine attempt to address a problem."
Iris Evans, Alberta's Minister of International and Intergovernmental Relations, applauded the proposal, pointing out that it finally acknowledges the boom her province - as well as others - has experienced in recent years.
Quebec Premier Jean Charest declined to comment on the legislation when asked about it Thursday.
It is expected that most of the new ridings would be carved out of oversized ridings in the Vancouver area, around Calgary and Edmonton, and in suburban Southern Ontario.
Although the Conservatives would probably pocket the five Alberta seats, the other 25 would be in areas where Liberals often prevail.
But Roger Gibbons, head of the Canada West Foundation, said the Conservative initiative reflects Prime Minister Stephen Harper's growing confidence that the party can win in suburban ridings with large numbers of immigrant voters.
The Conservatives "have been working the immigrant file, so to speak, very, very hard," Mr. Gibbons said. He believes that today's immigrants, who hail mainly from South and East Asia, are "people who are very entrepreneurial, very business-oriented, not-big-government people," who "should be hardcore Conservative supporters."
If and when the bill does become law, it is unlikely to go into effect until 2014 or thereabouts, to give time to incorporate the 2011 census results, followed by a year or two of boundary readjustments.
With reports from Justine Hunter in Victoria, Dawn Walton in Calgary, Karen Howlett in Toronto and Ingrid Peritz in Montreal
First number shows rank by population, out of 308 districts.
BIGGEST
1. Brampton West, Ontario Population: 170,422 (Canada's most populous electoral district) Largest visible minority group: South Asian, 45,500
2. Oak Ridges - Markham, Ontario Population: 169,642, second-largest riding Largest minority group: Chinese, 37,185
7. Peace River, Alberta Population: 138,009 Visible minorities: 2.6 per cent
10. Nepean - Carleton, Ontario Population: 133,245 Largest visible minority groups: South Asian (5,660) and Chinese (5,625)
11. Calgary West, Alberta Population: 132,162 Visible minorities: 17.2 per cent
19. West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast - Sea to Sky Country, BC Population: 129,241 Visible minorities: 14.0 per cent Chinese 4,345
21. Edmonton - Spruce Grove, Alberta Population: 128,945 Visible minorities: 13.1 per cent Chinese 4,705
34. Abbotsford, B.C. Population: 124,515 Visible minorities: 26.2 per cent South Asian 23,355
SMALLEST
282. Saskatoon - Wanuskewin, Sask. Population: 72,867 Visible minorities: 3.2 per cent
297. New Brunswick Southwest Population: 63,232 Visible minorities: 1.0 per cent
305. Charlottetown, PEI Population: 32,174 Visible minorities: 3.1 per cent
308. Labrador Pop: 26,364 Visible minorities: 0.7 per cent
John Ibbitson