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An electoral district in Canada, also known as a "constituency" or a "riding", is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based. It is officially known in Canadian French as a ''circonscription'', but frequently called a ''comté'' (county). Each federal electoral districts returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the Canadian House of Commons; each provincial or territorial electoral district returns one representative — called, depending on the province or territory, Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Member of the National Assembly (MNA), Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) or Member of the House of Assembly (MHA) — to the provincial or territorial legislature. While electoral districts in Canada are now exclusively single-member districts, in the past, multiple-member districts were used at both the federal and provincial levels. Alberta had a few districts in its history that returned from two up to seven members: see Calgary, Edmonton and Medicine Hat. British Columbia had a mix of multiple-member districts in Vancouver and single-member districts elsewhere until the 1991 election, and Prince Edward Island had dual-member districts until the 1996 election. Since June 28, 2004, there have been 308 federal electoral districts in Canada. In accordance with the Fair Representation Act (introduced as Bill C-20), which received Royal Assent and came into force on December 16, 2011, the number of seats contested in the expected 2015 election will rise to 338. Ontario uses the same boundaries for the electoral districts for its Legislative Assembly in Southern Ontario, while seats in Northern Ontario correspond to the federal districts that were in place before the 2004 adjustment. The other provinces use different electoral districts for their legislatures. Ontario had separate provincial electoral districts prior to 1999. Elections Canada is the independent body set up by Parliament to oversee Canadian federal elections. ==Terminology== Originally, most electoral districts were equivalent to the counties used for local government, hence the French unofficial term ''comté''. However, it became common, especially in Ontario, to divide counties with sufficient population into multiple electoral divisions. The Constitution Act, 1867, which created the electoral map for Ontario for the first general election, used the term "ridings" to describe districts which were sub-divisions of counties.〔(Constitution Act, 1867, First Schedule. )〕 The word "riding," from Old English '' *þriðing'' "one-third" (compare ''farthing'', literally "one-fourth"), is an English term denoting a sub-division of a county. In some of Canada's earliest censuses, in fact, some citizens in the ridings of Bothwell, Cardwell, Monck and Niagara listed their electoral district as their "county" of residence instead of their actual county. Although the term "riding" is no longer used officially to indicate an electoral district, it has passed into common usage. Soon after Confederation, the urban population grew — and more importantly, most city dwellers gained the franchise after property ownership was no longer required to gain the vote. Rural constituencies therefore became geographically larger through the 20th century and generally encompassed one or more counties each, and the word "riding" was then used to refer to any electoral division. A political party's local organization is generally known as a riding association; the legal term is ''electoral district association'' or EDA. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Electoral district (Canada)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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