Over the past month or so, we've shared with you what the judge made of the evidence we presented in the Charter Challenge and laid out various objections we have related to his findings.

Starting today, we shift our attention to the legal arguments that we've made, and start discussing the various ways we feel that the judge "fell into error" in considering our case so that you'll have a better sense of what we're hoping to prove when we appear at the appeal in November.

Three Main Issues, Plus a Pre-Emptive Argument

In preparing our appeal, our lawyer, Nicolas Rouleau, identified that the judge "fell into error" in three main ways:

1. Dismissing our Section 3 claims that First Past the Post (FPTP) infringes our rights to effective representation and meaningful participation
2. How he treated our Section 15 (equality) claims
3. Finding that the Constitution Act supports the constitutionality of FPTP

In addition, since the judge didn't find any violation of Sections 3 or 15 in his initial ruling, he didn't explore the question of whether the use of FPTP can be "saved" under Section 1 - i.e., if the government can argue that the violations we allege are somehow justified in the service of some other worthy goal that "can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". Presuming that the appeal judges will reverse one or more of the initial judge's findings, Nicolas presented a pre-emptive argument as to why the infringements we claim can't be justified under Section 1.

In the coming weeks, we'll dive into each of these issues in more detail, but, in brief, much of our argument comes down to the judge having applied an overly narrow interpretation of what our right to vote includes, rather than adopting "the Supreme Court’s [more] “generous” and functional interpretation of s. 3, as outlined in its [previous] jurisprudence". More details on that next week.