The number of MPs in the House of Commons has been growing and now stands at 308. How many seats can Parliament hold?
The House of Commons chamber can physically hold only 308 seats similar to the desk-and-chair combination now used. After the 1997 riding redistribution left the House with 301 MPs, it was renovated to hold 304 chairs for sitting members. That number jumped to 308 with the round of changes that took effect with the vote on June 28, 2004. Before that election, the Speaker’s Office told CBC.ca that four more chairs and desks had been added in the room’s northeast corner, to the Speaker’s left, replacing a sitting area for the parliamentary pages. Now there’s no more room for expansion. However, riding redistribution must by law take place every 10 years, adjusting the federal electoral districts to reflect population changes. All provinces are guaranteed that their number of federal seats will not decrease, even if their proportion of the Canadian population shrinks dramatically. So the number of seats is bound to keep going up in the absence of dramatic changes to the way we elect a gov
