“We are at the stage where the project to reform the voting system becomes a reality. This statement is that of Prime Minister François Legault, as it was pronounced exactly five years ago today. “The status quo feeds cynicism,” he added with conviction, during a meeting that was to mark the beginning of the end of our outdated and unjust electoral system.
Indeed, on May 9, 2018, the National Assembly experienced a historic moment. All the leaders of the opposition parties — Jean-François Lisée, of the Parti Québécois, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, of Québec solidaire, and François Legault, of the CAQ — came together in a rare moment of unity to jointly make a commitment common: if one of them won the next election, he was going to repair with the help of the others our broken electoral system. François Legault then adhered uncompromisingly to this will, shared for a very long time, it should be noted, by a majority of Quebecers. It promised in a way to finish the unfinished work of René Lévesque.
Under the spotlights and in front of the cameras of the National Assembly, all the leaders present, accompanied by the leader of the Green Party, signed an agreement whose terms could not be clearer: the establishment of a proportional voting system compensatory mix with regional lists, inspired by the German and Scottish electoral systems, all in time for the 2022 elections.
History was on the way, we thought. How could one have imagined then that one of them was going to deny this promise, signed with his own hand, in the very heart of the house of the people? We had no reason to consider this.
Since 2016, after the CAQ had reopened the debate closed by Jean Charest’s Liberals in 2008, the New Democracy Movement (MDN) has been conducting cross-partisan consultations and work across Quebec, in which current government ministers have actively participated. Benoit Charette, Simon Jolin-Barrette and Bernard Drainville. At the time, they were all for electoral reform. On several occasions during the 2018 election campaign, François Legault reiterated his commitment. In 2019, his government introduced legislation to fulfill his promise and awarded DND two grants totaling $350,000 to support the reform. In good faith, we believed François Legault. We had no idea of his future betrayal.
Moreover. On October 8, 2020, the deputies of the National Assembly voted for the adoption of the “principle” of the bill tabled by the CAQ. This is the important step in the legislative process known as “second reading”. That day, at the Blue Room, more than 60 current CAQ deputies voted “for” the principle of the bill and therefore for the promised electoral reform. Among them, the current Minister responsible for Democratic Institutions, Jean-François Roberge, and the Prime Minister himself. One could not envisage then that this party would deny a year later, in a spectacular and “end for end” reversal, its commitment to endowing Quebec with a democracy that is fairer, more modern, more in line with the expectations citizens demanding that elected officials do politics differently.
The Prime Minister’s decision to abandon electoral reform came on Christmas Eve 2021, with a simple phone call from one of his apparatchiks. As Jean-François Lisée asserts in the pages of Duty of April 26: “His denial of the voting system is certainly the most spectacular, the reasons invoked becoming more and more shabby over time. The Prime Minister himself sabotaged his own law and what could have been an important legacy (find another one…). His convictions having become too cumbersome with regard to his partisan interests, he did what he had sworn never to do!
In 2018, he wanted to embody “change”. Five years later, François Legault more than ever embodies the status quo, that is to say cynicism, arrogance and excessive partisanship. If we try to find a little hope in this historic fiasco that the events of May 9, 2018 constitute with hindsight, let us note that the contempt of an elected all-powerful monarch who governs without sharing, on a short-term basis, reinforces every day our conviction that electoral reform is more than necessary and that it is urgent to reclaim our democracy, as many other Western societies have done since the end of the 19e century.
In his own way, five years after signing the May 9, 2018 agreement, the Prime Minister continues to campaign for electoral reform.