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A posting on The Shotgun yesterday was about thinking outside the box on Senate reform. The proposed idea was to base the seats in the Senate on GNP. The idea of using GNP was quickly replaced by the idea of using GDP.

I was talking to a friend about this and he was sure that using GDP as a basis for Senate seat allocation would result in a Senate closely following population distribution. So, I decided to take a look at some numbers and see what they showed me.

Gross domestic product, expenditure-based, by provinces and territories

                            2000    2001    2002    2003    2004
                                        $ millions

Newfoundland and Labrador  13,922   14,221   16,615   18,268   19,563
Prince Edward Island        3,366    3,439    3,747    3,858    4,000
Nova Scotia                24,658   25,942   27,247   28,912   30,036
New Brunswick              20,085   20,689   21,168   22,452   23,369
Quebec                    224,928  230,734  243,763  253,657  267,032
Ontario                   440,759  453,931  479,556  494,501  517,614
Manitoba                   34,057   35,157   36,832   37,992   40,265
Saskatchewan               33,828   33,267   34,419   36,544   40,456
Alberta                   144,789  151,306  150,660  170,803  187,430
British Columbia          131,333  134,060  138,368  145,500  156,481
Yukon                       1,190    1,256    1,271    1,327    1,424
Northwest Territories       2,515    2,981    3,023    3,629    4,208
Nunavut                       834      876      942      951    1,023

Population by year, by provinces and territories

                             2000       2001       2002       2003       2004
                                           persons (thousands)
Canada                    30,689.00  31,021.30  31,372.60  31,660.50  31,946.30
Newfoundland and Labrador    528        522        519.4      518.4      517
Prince Edward Island         136.5      136.7      136.9      137.3      137.9
Nova Scotia                  933.9      932.4      934.5      936.2      937
New Brunswick                750.5      749.9      750.3      750.9      751.4
Quebec                     7,357.00   7,397.00   7,445.70   7,492.30   7,542.80
Ontario                   11,685.40  11,897.60  12,102.00  12,256.60  12,392.70
Manitoba                   1,147.40   1,151.30   1,155.60   1,161.60   1,170.30
Saskatchewan               1,007.80   1,000.10     995.9      994.4      995.4
Alberta                    3,004.90   3,056.70   3,116.30   3,158.60   3,201.90
British Columbia           4,039.20   4,078.40   4,115.40   4,152.30   4,196.40
Yukon                         30.4       30.1       30.1       30.6       31.2
Northwest Territories         40.5       40.8       41.5       42.2       42.8
Nunavut                       27.5       28.1       28.7       29.1       29.6

Let’s extrapolate the GDP per capita per province.

                            2000    2001    2002    2003    2004		

Newfoundland and Labrador  26,367  27,243  31,989  35,239  37,839
Prince Edward Island       24,659  25,157  27,370  28,099  29,007
Nova Scotia                26,403  27,823  29,157  30,882  32,055
New Brunswick              26,762  27,589  28,213  29,900  31,101
Quebec                     30,573  31,193  32,739  33,856  35,402
Ontario                    37,719  38,153  39,626  40,346  41,768
Manitoba                   29,682  30,537  31,873  32,707  34,406
Saskatchewan               33,566  33,264  34,561  36,750  40,643
Alberta                    48,184  49,500  48,346  54,076  58,537
British Columbia           32,515  32,871  33,622  35,041  37,289
Yukon                      39,145  41,728  42,226  43,366  45,641
Northwest Territories      62,099  73,064  72,843  85,995  98,318
Nunavut                    30,327  31,174  32,822  32,680  34,561

Let’s look at the GDP/capita/province as a percentage relative to all the others. We will look at 2000 and 2004 since it was suggested that the seats in this type of Senate be recalculated every 5 years.

                            2000    2004	

Newfoundland and Labrador   5.89%   6.80%
Prince Edward Island        5.50%   5.21%
Nova Scotia                 5.89%   5.76%
New Brunswick               5.97%   5.59%
Quebec                      6.82%   6.36%
Ontario                     8.42%   7.50%
Manitoba                    6.63%   6.18%
Saskatchewan                7.49%   7.30%
Alberta                    10.76%  10.52%
British Columbia            7.26%   6.70%
Yukon                       8.74%   8.20%
Northwest Territories      13.86%  17.67%
Nunavut                     6.77%   6.21%

The territories really skew the numbers, and since I am not a politician, I am going to remove them from the equation. We can debate how they should be factored into this in the comments if people want.

                            2000    2004	

Newfoundland and Labrador   8.33%  10.01%
Prince Edward Island        7.79%   7.67%
Nova Scotia                 8.34%   8.48%
New Brunswick               8.46%   8.23%
Quebec                      9.66%   9.36%
Ontario                    11.92%  11.05%
Manitoba                    9.38%   9.10%
Saskatchewan               10.61%  10.75%
Alberta                    15.23%  15.48%
British Columbia           10.28%   9.86%

Now, I am not really in a position to read too much into these numbers, but it certainly looks that on a seat allocation basis the Senate representation would be very spread out. Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and B.C. would have 45.19% of the seats using the above 2004 numbers. That is a lot of power in the West.

Thoughts?