There will be no reform of the voting system, we understand. Anyway, that would be for next time. However, it is this time that the distortion clashes with the sense of democracy, the sense of justice, common sense.
If you can’t make the revolution, nothing prevents you from making the reform. The rock blocking the passage is immovable. Nothing prevents you from digging one out and fitting out its interior, as Arsène Lupine does in The hollow needle. (I recommend.)
Adapting to multipartyism
Our Parliament was designed in the era of bipartisanship. We have entered, for good, into that of the multiparty system.
Let us modify laws and regulations to affirm that a party having obtained 10% of the vote, whatever its number of deputies, becomes ipso facto a parliamentary group. The parties which have elected the greatest number of deputies will keep an advantage: each deputy brings with him a budget which the smallest deputations will not have. They therefore have more spokespersons, arms, brains.
This bounty should suffice. For the rest, research budgets and opposition speaking time should be allocated strictly according to the percentage of votes received nationwide. Yes, in this case, the Solidaires and the PQ would have a bit more budget than the Liberals.
This is how to combine the old and the new. The former reserves to the opposition party winning the most constituencies the right to put on the mantle of official opposition, to ask the first three questions at the time provided for this purpose and to enjoy the usual ceremonial privileges. The new one recognizes that opposition voters have not always chosen to offer the lion’s share of speaking time and budgets to the most numerous deputies: it imposes an equitable distribution of pennies and minutes according to the votes cast.
What to do when 13% of the population voted for a party that has no MPs? Innovate. When Liberal Frank McKenna won 60% of the vote but 100% of the seats in New Brunswick in 1987, he was quickly seized with democratic remorse. He decided to allow the representatives of the opposition parties, therefore non-elected members, to take part in the question period from the press gallery which overlooks the assembly.
Proof that, even stuck in the British parliamentary system, one can think “outside the box” of archaism and tradition. And then, we’re still not going to be beaten off the innovation pawn by New Brunswick!
My proposal: in the extremely rare case where a party obtains 10% of the vote, but no deputy, that we add a 126e seat for the leader of that party (if he was a candidate in the elections, otherwise for his candidate who received the most votes).
That he be considered both as a deputy and as a parliamentary group, with budgets and speaking time accordingly. He will have to make choices and it will be a hassle, but at least he won’t be exiled by an unjust system. And the many voters of the party (in the case of Éric Duhaime, half a million) will be represented, seen and heard.
Ban boot polish
The government was to offer some of its own speaking time to the opposition. In committee, the study of the appropriations of the ministries gives rise annually to a festival of obsequiousness which seems to come out of the Duplessis era. Let the minister and his parliamentary assistant be left alone at home and only allow the elected members of the opposition parties responsible for these files to ask questions. We will gain in professionalism and in the quality of accountability.
Let’s keep government members busy with more productive work. For example, at present, citizens’ petitions are tabled daily in the Assembly, but generally have no effect. That the deputies hear in committee the bearers of the petitions which have collected more than 50,000 signatures, then debate and recommend, if necessary, legislative or regulatory modifications. They could be grouped each year in an “Omnibus Petitioners’ Bill”.
In Ottawa, in 2004, Gilles Duceppe and Stephen Harper imposed on Paul Martin, then in a minority, that the opposition parties could submit their bills directly to the House and that these could not be amended without their approval.
In Quebec, this only happens if the government agrees.
Fall back on the preferential vote
Two other reforms could do justice to voters without changing the current architecture of the Assembly.
As we have said, proportional representation is out of reach. Each attempt has been vetoed by deputies who have two valid objections, always the same:
1) by reducing the number of constituencies to make room for list candidates, the reform exaggeratedly widens the territories of each deputy;
2) we would create two classes of deputies, the cohabitation of which can pose a problem.
These pitfalls are completely avoided if a reform is carried out by preserving the current electoral map and improving its representativeness.
First, why not fall back on preferential voting in 2026? The recipe is successfully applied in leadership races. The voter indicates whom he chooses in the first row and, if he wishes, in the second, third and fourth rows. If no candidate obtains 50% of the first-rank votes, the second-ranking votes of the ballots allocated to the candidate having obtained the fewest votes are taken and added to the count of the others. If that’s enough to get a candidate into majority territory, we stop. Otherwise, we remove another candidate from the bottom of the list, and so on until someone gets 50%.
Last Monday, 47 of the 125 deputies obtained a majority, which is enormous. Forty others, having obtained more than 45%, would have, with the preferential vote, quickly crossed the bar. There are still 38 of them, of which we do not know if they really represent the majority choice of voters. When you only get 33% of the vote, nothing says voters don’t prefer you to someone else. Let’s ask them.
Let’s take this opportunity to solve a nagging problem: the inequality of the citizen’s electoral power. In the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, 11,160 electors are entitled to one MNA. For the 63,700 electors of Papineau or the 62,100 of Verchères to be as well represented, they would need at least four MNAs.
With each revision of the map, the pressure is strong to merge less populated ridings, in the Gaspé and in northern Quebec. It is democratically logical. It is operationally cruel, because the poor deputy would find himself surveying a disproportionate territory.
The solution here too is to combine the old and the new. The old one: the current boundaries and the particularity of the Islands are preserved, and their voters have the advantage of being, although less numerous, represented by a full-time deputy. But the new must mean that at the time of the vote, the political weight of each deputy is equivalent to the demographic weight of his constituency. By electronic vote, therefore, the member representing a territory which is in the average, approximately 49,000 votes, counts as one vote. That of the Islands counts, according to the latest calculations of the review committee, for 0.22 votes. That of Verchères, for 1.21 votes. The total remains 125 (or 126 with, in our case, Éric Duhaime, who would statutorily have a full vote). The relative weight of all urban areas would be increased, but the number of spokespersons for regional areas would remain the same.
Introducing these reforms requires only one thing: political will. From, mainly, two people: François Legault and Dominique Anglade. Traditionally, changes to election laws and parliamentary rules require party unanimity. Tradition, not law. If Mme Anglade and his deputies, big winners of an unjust system, stuck to their position, nothing would prevent all the other legislators from overriding it by modifying the necessary laws and regulations.
For the record, remember that the PLQ was also opposed to the adoption by René Lévesque of the Popular Consultation Act, which made it possible to hold a referendum. Lévesque ignored it. The PLQ was also opposed, before the 1995 referendum, to Quebec demanding proof of identity from voters. Parizeau should therefore have ignored it.
An occasion
For François Legault, the situation is different. His track record is flawed on this issue. He reneged on the formal commitment he made in 2018 to reform the voting system. He clings to the commitment he made in 2022 not to reform it. It’s messy.
It has the opportunity to surprise and introduce great democratic innovation, combining tradition and innovation, past and present, heritage and renewal. Will he be able to seize this chance? Leave his name, for history, on the list of the artisans of democracy? The ball is in his court.