Hey Ontario, how do you feel about 30 more politicians?

Quarters at Queen's Park could get tight if Ontario adds 15 new ridings. Photo: (Courtesy Wikicommons)

Does Ontario need 30 more politicians?

Well, by the end of 2018 it could have 30 more whether it wants them or not.

Fifteen of them will join the province’s political ranks after the 2015 federal election as Members of Parliament for the most populous province. The other fifteen could be new additions to the provincial legislature after the 2018 provincial election — that is, if Ontario chooses to follow the new boundaries the feds have implemented.

And, for the first time, the Ontario government under Premier Kathleen Wynne has indicated it will review those riding borders, which is mandated at the national level by the constitution but is determined differently in every province and large left up to the legislature to decide.

Wynne, who was reelected with a majority government in June, said she will work “with the Attorney General to bring forward a legislative proposal pertaining to Ontario’s electoral boundaries.”

Premier Kathleen Wynne used her Cabinet mandate letters reveal intentions to review Ontario’s electoral boundaries.(Canadian Press)

The pledge is one of many detailed in the “mandate letters” for members of her Cabinet released Thursday — basically they’re like a job description and to-do list mashed together in government speak. Much of the contents would bore even political nerds to tears, but that one line in the letter Wynne wrote to herself as minister of intergovernmental affairs (a common double hat for premiers) is the first formal acknowledgement from her government that they will revise Ontario’s ridings.

It’s widely expected they will do so by continuing to match the federal electoral boundaries (except in northern Ontario where there’s one more MPP than MP). That means 15 news ridings at both levels of government, bringing Ontario’s representation in the House of Commons to from 106 121 and at Queen’s Park from 107 to 122.

As the population grows in cities and declines in rural Ontario, redistricting would help ensure voters are fairly represented. As it stands right now, some Toronto MPPs represent far more people than large, more geographically vast ridings. But in a country as spread out as Canada, that tension will always exist.

Those 15 extra bodies would add pressure to already constrained quarters at the Pink Palace in Toronto, and whether that means massive renovations, smaller offices for MPPs or a rejigging of current caucus rooms, lounges, large offices for senior (especially opposition) MPPs or even the chunk of space the press gallery uses is unknown. But those who run the physical building of Ontario’s parliament have been fretting for years about the logistical concerns of adding 15 bodies to the century-old space. Cabinet ministers and their parliamentary assistants don’t require office space in the legislature, but backbench MPPs and opposition members do.

While the talk is that new seats will be added, it’s not certain. In 2003, Ontario added four seats to realign with federal ridings; but that was after shrinking the legislature from 130 to 103 seats in the 1990s. Those 27 seats were removed between Mike Harris’s first and second term.

The move was part of the “Common Sense Revolution” and an effort to cut costs.