According to a Sun news story, Liberal MPP Alvin Curling tells Pundit (www.punditmag.com) that the women and men who sit as Members in Ontario's legislature do not adequately reflect the diversity of Ontario.

The Sun story notes that "Blacks, Asians and other visible minorities are underrepresented in the Legislature and it may take some kind of affirmative action program to change that he said." Mr. Curling is quoted as saying, "if it's not working in any other way, maybe we need to take that kind of step." Well in a word, NO. That's N and that's O. This is one step we must, "never, ever" take.

To be fair, Mr. Curling is absolutely right that the current crop of MPPs at Queen's Park is almost all white and male dominated. That's because it is the result of a free-vote by millions of citizens in something called a democracy.

What Mr. Curling fails to point out is that their constituents, the voting public, voted all of Ontario's 103 MPPs (including himself) into office. Voters who are black and white, heck voters of a variety of skin colours and skin shades. Voters who are women and men. Voters with varying sexual preferences. Voters who cross-dress and voters who simply can't dress also elected them. Voters who are able bodied and others who have physical or mental disabilities. Not to mention a multitude of voters who come from various religious faiths.

In a free and democratic society, this same eclectic mix of voters could elect a legislature of 103 gay and lesbian MPPs or 103 MPPs, all coming from visible minority communities. Again, it would be the result of a free-vote by citizens.

To impose gender and racial balance targets or a quota system in our legislature is something that the CTF will NEVER EVER support. Such quotas run contrary to fundamental democratic principles not to mention the potential Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenges that would surely ensue.

We need look no further than the former Eastern Europe and its experience with gender quotas to se how ineffectual they were. Consider the following extract of a Montreal Gazette editorial last November.

"Before the collapse of communism in the late 1980s, most parliaments, however symbolic they were, had a system of proportional representation of women, assured by state-imposed quotas. With the collapse of communism and its methods of promoting male-female equality, the percentage of women in parliament plunged. Between 1897 and 1994, the percentage dropped from 28 to six in Albania, from 34 to four in

Romania and from 21 to 11 in Hungary. The lesson here is that something that is imposed by the state rather than won on its own merits does not have much of a lasting foundation."

Let's be frank. Quotas in the electoral context are an anathema to democracy. A phrase from noted American academic Robert M. Hutchins best sums up our opposition to this quota idea.

"Democracy is the only form of government that is found on the dignity of man, not the dignity of some men, of rich men, or of white men, but all men."

Of course in a 21st century context we would add all "women and men." But the point is eloquently made … we are all equal at the ballot box and free to choose - free of quotas and targets -- our elected representatives

Mr. Curling, who has served in the Ontario legislature since 1985, was elected due to the strength of his character, his ideas, record of community service and a host of other positive character traits, not on the basis of any quota system. This idea must never, ever be pursued.