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About a quarter of current MPs, 76, are women; that’s up from 64 in 2006.

Ms. Campbell’s plan has attracted criticism from some experts that say blatantly separating candidates based on characteristics like sex could be a slippery slope, with other groups demanding similar provisions and exacerbating divisions among Canadians.

“My own position is that I believe in democracy; that people are free to vote for who they want,” said Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He said the idea is discriminatory, and could ghettoize constituents into picking representatives that appeal to them on a shared-background basis, rather than one of shared values, morals or policy.

“Why don’t we also reserve 5% or 10% for gay people, or 20% for poor people? The reality is that constituents might not think their vote is driven simply by being a woman, but rather by saying, ‘This is the party or candidate that I want.’”

“Gender is not the only imbalance, we have traditionally had race, ethnicity and disability imbalances,” says Constance Backhouse, a professor of law at the University of Ottawa. “You could end up with an unworkable situation.”

But Ms. Campbell said that efforts already exist to preserve diversity of other groups in government, but women, as half the population, are a unique case.

“In no other of those categories is there a 50-50 split,” Ms. Campbell said. “We already have those efforts to add diversity. It’s not the answer to every form of diversity – it’s the answer to one problem.”