A case can be made that B.C.'s electoral boundaries are racist

The last time I suggested that an electoral system was racist, I was hammered by a few people in the comments section below. That concerned Vancouver's at-large method of electing councillors.

But it's hard not to draw this conclusion about the provincial electoral boundaries  after a quick look at the populations of various constituencies.

Heavily multicultural  districts  in New Westminster, Richmond, and the East Side of Vancouver have much larger populations than less multicultural rural areas.

For example, Richmond Centre has 65,610 residents and Richmond East has 64,288 residents. Both have large Chinese-speaking populations. Stikine in northwestern B.C. has 21,317 residents, and North Coast has 23,348 residents.

The B.C. legislature, with the support of the NDP,  overruled the recommendations of the Electoral Boundaries Commission in 2008.

I wonder if  MLAs—eager to preserve rural seats—ever  considered what might happen if someone launched a court challenge, arguing that the current setup discriminates on the basis of skin colour.  

Areas with large numbers of nonwhite voters appear to get far  fewer MLAs on a per capita basis.

There's already an argument to be made that the differences based on population differentials infringe on some urban and suburban voters' rights under Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Section 3 deals with voting rights. But I'm curious to know if there could also be a legal argument against the electoral-boundaries system based on Section 15, which prohibits discrimination on the basis ethnic origin, colour, and race.

In the 1980s, the B.C. Civil Liberties Assocation successfully challenged B.C.'s electoral-boundary system, which discriminated against urban voters by including large population differentials.

I would be interested to hear if anyone is interested in challenging the   boundaries before the 2009 provincial election on the basis of either Section 3 or Section 15.

The electoral boundaries favouring rural voters are a factor behind why there is a disproportionate number of Caucasians in the Gordon Campbell cabinet. The current electoral-boundaries setup ensures that this is likely to continue after the 2009 election, no matter which party comes out on top.