Electoral redistricting and minority political representation in Canada and the United States

This article compares the political representation of visible minorities in Canada and the United States, focusing on differences in federal redistribution (redistricting) practices and constituency composition. Although the two countries both use territorially‐based electoral systems, they operate under different legal standards and institutional environments for the creation of ridings (districts). In the US, redistricting is a highly political process, yet must respect strict population equality standards. Litigation over redistricting is common, and courts adjudicate voting and representation under a constitutional system enforcing strong individual rights. In contrast, Canada's redistribution process is relatively nonpartisan, permits large population variances among ridings, places more emphasis on community rights, and is seldom subject to extensive court challenges. Despite these differences, the two countries exhibit striking similarities in the overall level of visible minority representation relative to population share. Conversely, Canada's population inequalities among ridings create a systematic disadvantage for visible minorities. Political attention to visible minority representation is stronger in the US, but the means to achieve it are constrained both by the judicial limits on group representation and the constitutional limits on the use of racial identity. Canada has a framework for political representation that could easily accommodate significant visible minority representation but lacks the political imperative to use it, in part because doing so would run counter to Canada's multicultural image of these groups as immigrants rather than as non‐white minorities.     

Esquisses géographiques des récits cinématographiques Canadiens contemporains

Films carry an original geographic discourse. Beyond the vision of an author, they often reflect a society's perspective on territories. The goal of this research is to study the geographic discourse developed by Canadian cinema through an analysis of the places structuring Canadian cinematographic narratives. This analysis is based on the systematic study of a selection of 46 contemporary Canadian films. These films have been transformed into a database of 2200 places using an original geographic reading grid. Analysis of these places identifies the existence of territories under‐ and over‐represented by Canadian cinema, as well as territories of consensus and divergence that exist between different categories of Canadian cinema such as Quebecois, anglophone, and hybrid. Some interesting results include the general lack of interest in the southern hemisphere—notably Latin America—as well as in the Nordic territories (outside of First Nations cinema). It is also interesting to note the quasi‐absence of Vancouver on the screen, while Toronto and the United States appear recurrently. But the most striking result is probably the profound divergence in the way Canadian cinema treats the province of Quebec in general, and the city of Montreal in particular. Montreal is indeed the perfect example of a space of divergence: the city is heavily represented in Quebecois films, but completely ignored in the rest of Canadian cinematographic production. This deep opposition illustrates the importance of downtown Montreal as a symbolic space of Quebec national identity.