Paradise Lost? the Gender Parity Plebiscite in Nunavut‪.‬

Prior to the creation of Canada's newest Territory of Nunavut in 1999 a proposal was developed by the Nunavut Implementation Commission to promote gender equality in the new territorial legislature by creating electoral districts that would each elect one man and one woman. The resulting assembly with gender parity would have been a world's first but this proposal received only 43% of the vote and was defeated. This article looks at events leading up to the referendum and factors that contributed to its defeat *********