By assuming that Quebecers are not interested in voting reform, the CAQ does not “respect the intelligence” of Quebecers.
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PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon reacted to remarks the day before by François Legault, who told RDI that the population had no appetite for a reform of a ballot, whether proportional or mixed proportional, where the number number of seats is determined according to the number of votes obtained.
According to Mr. Legault, this debate only interests a handful of intellectuals.
“The CAQ seems to ignore the issues and seems to live in another universe where these issues do not matter. Whereas, when we speak to the population, they tell us that it is important to them,” said Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon during a stop in Rimouski.
For the leader, it goes from “respect for the intelligence of the people who have followed these debates”.
“It’s like assuming that people are so uninterested in politics that they don’t realize that we signed an agreement, that they don’t realize that people think about how we could improve our systems. People follow and are interested, you have to respect that and encourage that,” he said.
When the PLQ was still in power, the CAQ, QS and the PQ committed in March 2018 to changing the voting system.
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“François Legault signed the agreement. If it is not important, and it is something for a few people, why did he do it?”, for his part reacted the deputy and candidate for Matane Pascal Bérubé who accompanied the leader.
“We signed the reform of the voting system in good faith, because we believe that each vote should count. It is about turnout, it is about interest in an election,” he continued.
Mr. Bérubé argues that a more proportional ballot would reduce “distortions with the vote cast and representation in the National Assembly”.
“To say that in such a cavalier way as: it only interests a few intellectuals […] two of his ministers wrote books, I read them, I found them interesting. Does that make me an intellectual? “, he added with a touch of sarcasm.
“The current system is demotivating as for the PQ in D’Arcy-McGee”, illustrated Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon.