From Aug 10: In our last few messages, we've been sharing with you the key findings the judge made in our first hearing about how First-Past-the-Post (FPTP). Today, we present the last main group of findings - how FPTP discriminates against minority groups.

Causation Not Proven?

The judge treated the evidence we presented about under-representation of racialized Canadians similarly to how he treated the evidence about under-representation of women - he accepted the evidence of Dr. Erin Tolley that "significant disparities in economic resources, community engagement, organizational efficacy, and political interest, among racialized groups ... lie at the heart of the underrepresentation of minorities in political office [and that] [t]hese factors are all external to the electoral system" and then concluded that, since changing the voting system wouldn't eliminate these pre-existing disparities, it's not certain that FPTP causes under-representation of racialized groups.

Our Appeal Claims

We take issue with this conclusion, as the Supreme Court has previously said that it's not "require[d] that the impugned government action or law be the only or [even] the dominant cause of the prejudice suffered by the claimant" (p76), but only a contributing factor.

Clear Mechanical Effect: In our appeal, then, our lawyer, Nicolas Rouleau, pointed out that the evidence shows that, contrary to the judge's finding, "[b]ecause of its winner-takes-all characteristics, Canada’s SMP has a clear mechanical effect of disproportionately advantaging geographically clustered minorities (eg, the Bloc Québécois and voters of South Asian descent) and disadvantaging more geographically dispersed ones (eg, Indigenous Peoples, Blacks, Filipino Canadians, Chinese Canadians, and Francophones outside Quebec)." He also noted that "a well-designed PR system would incentivize parties to run ethnically diverse and balanced slates, leading to a wider distribution of seats across diverse visible minority groups. These balanced slates would benefit members of geographically dispersed minorities in regions where they are not the plurality, including the 60% of Indigenous Peoples who live in urban centres."

New Zealand Demonstrates Dynamics: Nicolas also pointed out that one of the government's own experts (Prof. Peter Loewen) attested that such dynamics are easily seen in New Zealand, where "the reform to MMP brought about a significant and sustained increase in the representation of minorities, such that the Indigenous Māori population, the Pacific Islander population, and “other” minority populations are now all at least proportionally represented". Nicolas further wrote that "[t]he scholarship confirms that MMP in New Zealand has “clearly been a success” in terms of increasing the levels and diversity of representation in parliament and reflects PR’s ability to “more fully” represent society."

Coming Up: Legal Analyses

This message wraps up our summary of the findings related to the evidence in our challenge. In the coming weeks, we'll turn our attention to the legal issues that the judge raised and describe how we believe the judge "fell into error" in assessing our claims.