How does Canadas electoral system violate the right of equality?
Section 15 of the Charter protects the right of equality, or the right to be free from discrimination on a variety of grounds, including race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. Winner Take All systems make it harder for women to get elected than election systems that are based on the principle of proportional representation. Most of the established democracies in the world use some variant of proportional representation and many of them have twice as many women legislators. In Canada, roughly one in five legislators is a woman. In countries which use a more proportional system, the percentage is generally twice as large, and even greater in some cases. In the Scandinavian countries and in Germany, for example, over 40% of their national assemblies are made up of women. When New Zealand switched to PR in 1996, the percentage of women in the house of representatives increased by almost 50%. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that a
