In the space of 48 hours, François Legault buried, one after the other, both literally and figuratively, his promise to reform the voting system and… the Liberal MP Pierre Arcand! In both cases, we can assume that it is an excess of arrogance on the part of a man whose party prances at the top of the polls.
Posted yesterday at 5:00 a.m.
In defense of the Prime Minister, he quickly apologized to Pierre Arcand, after feigning surprise because he was “not dead”.
Nevertheless, the elected Liberal said he was shaken by what François Legault called a “bad joke”. According to Pierre Arcand, it was rather “a blow below the belt”. And “at some point” there must be “a limit to arrogance”, he added.
It is also possible to see arrogance in the way the CAQ buried its promise to reform the voting system in Quebec.
“We realize that this is really not the priority of Quebecers. There is no one jostling in the buses, in Quebec, to change the voting system, ”said the Prime Minister on Tuesday. He thus confirmed that this reform, which died last December, now rests ten feet underground.
See what he replied when it was pointed out to him that once re-elected, he would have the opportunity to relaunch this file: “I have always said that I listen to Quebecers, well, what I hear from Quebecers means, apart from a few people who are in the political bubble, there is no appetite in the general population to change the voting system. »
There is no worse blind than he who does not want to see.
François Legault knows very well that it has never been THE priority of Quebecers. And that while it doesn’t keep anyone awake at night, it doesn’t mean it’s not important.
What’s worse is that after arguing that it would not do “like Justin Trudeau” – who had abandoned his promise along the way – the CAQ is now trying to make us believe that it never promised. reform, which is absolutely false.
The most ironic thing is that this issue probably wouldn’t have come back to bother the CAQ if the party… wasn’t so popular.
Because the domination of the CAQ, combined with the multiplication of political parties in Quebec, makes it possible to illustrate more eloquently than before the extent of the distortion caused in Parliament by the current voting system.
The party currently has the support of 44% of Quebecers, which could result in the harvest of a hundred seats (out of the 125 in the National Assembly) in the election next October, or 80%.
If someone tried to reproduce this distortion on an electric guitar, many would cover their ears.
As a result, the promised consultation on the voting system is more urgent than ever.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Pascal Bérubé, parliamentary leader of the Parti Québécois
The cry from the heart launched on this subject by Pascal Bérubé, who could be one of the only deputies of the Parti Québécois elected to the National Assembly in the event of a CAQ tidal wave next October, is understandable.
It also recalls that of René Lévesque in 1970. The Parti Québécois had finished in fourth place and had obtained only 7 elected representatives (out of 108) for 23% of the votes, while the Liberals of Robert Bourassa triumphed with 72 deputies for 45% of the votes, recalled Professor Julien Verville recently in a very instructive essay on the history of the reform of the voting system in Quebec.1
“In the name of a quarter of the electorate, dangerously reduced to a fifteenth of parliamentary representation, may I finally underline the crying urgency of a vigorous reform of the system and of the card which thus transforms democracy into a pretense », had then written René Lévesque to a newly elected Robert Bourassa.
It was 50 years ago. And no one, since then, has ever dared to change the voting system.
After next October’s elections, several opposition party leaders could be forced to come to a conclusion similar to that of René Lévesque.
In these circumstances, may the CAQ allow itself to be convinced once again of the crying urgency of a reform.
1 Voting System Reform in Quebec: Government Trajectories and Avenues for Reflectionpublished by Presses de l’Université du Québec in 2020.