Democracy is defined as government by the people; a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system (Democracy, n.d.). Canadians are generally proud to be able to live in this democratic nation. However, does our electoral system reflect this belief? Canada is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy inspired by the British system. Few changes have been made since its inception, leaving our modern nation with an archaic system that does not represent the opinions of citizens. Canada's current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system continues to elect "false majorities" that are not representative of the actual percentage of votes cast. A closer look at the current system reveals that there are a number of discrepancies between our electoral system and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Other countries provide Canada with excellent examples of electoral systems that more accurately represent the views of voters, such as proportional representation. It is a voting system that allocates seats to a political party based on the percentage of votes cast for that party nationally. Canada's current electoral system is undemocratic because it fails to accurately translate the percentage of votes cast into the number of seats won by each party. We should therefore adopt a mixed member proportional representation system to ensure that our elections remain democratic. FPTP poses to democracy the appalling gap between election results and the actual percentage of votes cast for each political party. In the SMU system...... middle of paper ....../democracy. Fair Vote Canada. (2008). Electoral dysfunction once again. Retrieved November 27, 2011 from http://s.fairvote.ca/files/news%20release%20-%20october%2015%202008%20-%20election%20results.pdf?q=files/news%20release%20 - %20october%2015%202008%20-%20election%20results.pdfKarp, JA (2006). Political knowledge of electoral rules: comparison of mixed-member proportional systems in Germany and New Zealand. Electoral Studies, 25(4), 714-730. May, E. (2009). Loss of confidence: power, politics and the crisis of Canadian democracy. Toronto, ON: McClelland and Stewart. Nakhaie, MR (2006). Voter participation in municipal, provincial and federal elections in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 39(2), 363-390. Pammett, J. and LeDuc, L. (2003). Explaining the decline in participation in Canadian federal elections: a survey of non-voters. Elections Canada, 40.