Aboriginal Peoples and Electoral Reform in Canada: Differentiated Representation versus Voter Equality

Abstract

AbstractArguments advancing the merits of Aboriginal Electoral Districts (AEDs) for Canada are informed by the view that the democratic integration of Aboriginal peoples into the institutions of the state ought to occur on the basis of their group-differentiated citizenship. This study advances the thesis that the attempt to fuse the conventional concern for democratic equality with a model of representation based on difference such as that offered by AEDs is to try to harmonize objectives that strain significantly against one another and thus are largely incompatible. AEDs are unsustainable as vehicles for the representation of Aboriginal peoples within Parliament because they are too tightly bound to a representational norm linked to a commitment to voter equality which, when measured against the normative thrust of differentiated representation, imposes a high degree of homogenization upon the citizenship of Aboriginal peoples.