The following is a reader’s comment. Readers comments are posted by way of fostering dialogue and debate, and does not necessarily reflect official CAFE policy

This post is in response to a recent article entitled, Group calls on Trudeau to appoint gender-balanced Senate.

This campaign seeks to influence the Federal government to appoint an equal number of women to the Senate.

The issue here is whether members should be appointed solely based on their gender. Certainly, the composition of a government should be reflective of the population it serves. However, this should not be at the expense of outright gender discrimination.

According to the article there are currently 52 men and 33 women and there are 22 possible vacancies. One can argue that as it stands this is not a serious imbalance between the two.

This campaign is also concerning because it was started by former Toronto city counsellor Ceta Ramkhalawansingh. It was Ms. Ramkhalawansingh whom a few years back commenced a campaign to amend the national anthem. It was her position that the words, all they sons commands was discriminatory.

This was not only a slap to the face of the millions of Canadian veterans that fought and died in World War 1 and 2 but was an absurd campaign to start with. It was no surprise that it was then Ms. Ramkhalawansingh who was unable to recall the names of fallen soldiers at a Remembrance Day celebration.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ceta-ramkhalawansingh-apologizes-for-forgetting-fallen-soldiers-titles-1.2831628

Our government officials should be selected based on merit and experience. Whether that be life experience or skill, it should not be based on gender.

Moreover, our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom makes it clear as per section 15(a) that we should all be treated equally before the law. Furthermore, Ms. Ramkhalawansingh’s campaign would not fall into the exception pursuant to section 15 (b).