ABSTRACT
As Chapter 1 of this book asserts, there are several convincing and compelling reasons to promote women’s descriptive representation. Women ought to be represented in numbers roughly proportionate to their presence in the population regardless of how they conduct themselves as public officials or what interests they represent. Yet women are far from realising gender parity in Canada, comprising an average of 20 per cent of the elected representatives in Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial legislatures. The percentage of female representatives presently ranges from a low of 10.5 in Nunavut and the North West Territories to 30.4 in Quebec, with their presence in Parliament right at the average.1
