Record democratic distortions | The Press

Distortion is part of our electoral system. But it has probably never been so huge. And that should worry us.

Let’s start with the most obvious distortion: the Conservative Party, with around 13% of the vote in Quebec, has no member of the National Assembly. We may go back to the Second World War, but never has a party with such a percentage of the popular vote found itself without a seat in the National Assembly.

The Bloc Populaire, with 15%, nevertheless obtained four deputies in 1944 in the federal Parliament. It did not represent his real strength, but at least he existed as a legislator.

In Quebec, the Ralliement Créditiste, the brief National People’s Party, the Action Démocratique du Quebec all won a seat with less than 10% of the vote. Québec solidaire obtained only 3.8% of the votes in Québec in 2007 when Amir Khadir was elected. And with 7.6% of the vote in 2014, the party had three deputies.

There are surely some who are happy not to see a reputedly “extreme” party make its entry into the National Assembly. But first, the campaign of Éric Duhaime, if it was camped frankly on the right, did not go on the ground of the extreme right in Europe, it is far from it. And secondly, the British-style “unilateral one-round” system that we have has the merit of ruling out the extremes… but 13% is no longer marginal. Past 10%, a party should reach the threshold of respectability and have a voice in the legislature, if only one.

The Parti Québécois, which obtained slightly more votes than the Liberal Party, finds itself with only three MPs. This is not much more acceptable, but again, the leader will be present, with two deputies (and not the least). Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is right to say that “something is wrong” in the system.

While Quebec solidaire has a dozen with the same popular support.

What we lose in representativeness, we gain in stability, of course. This is the logic of the system, this is its justification. and seeing what is happening in countries that have an opposite system – Italy, Israel – one cannot deny that this is a strong argument for the status quo.

But this time it’s too much. These elections are touching a democratically acceptable limit.

Éric Duhaime spoke responsibly on Monday; he could easily have made bitter remarks and cultivated the resentment of all his supporters whose voice will not be heard in the Blue Room. Especially since he obtained the support not only of right-wing voters disappointed with the CAQ, but also of several “anti-systems”, who do not believe in institutions.

On the contrary, after briefly mentioning this distortion, he spoke constructively. Literally starting from nothing, ridiculed, associated with anti-sanitary extremism and conspiracy, he led this party in two years to this unthinkable result just last year. He deserved, and his constituents too, to have at least one representative. It doesn’t matter: it’s only the first period, the fight continues, he said.

Liberals, on the other hand, experience the opposite phenomenon. They get roughly exactly the proportion of seats in the National Assembly that matches their popular support – a bit more, in fact. All this thanks to the regional concentration of their support.

I know it’s like a plastic sword in political water, writing about the distortions of the electoral system. But at this point, we can no longer pretend. At least one proportional element is needed to minimally correct the distortions.

François Legault had promised (like Justin Trudeau). He had a bill concocted injecting moderate proportional … a project quickly abandoned.

Today, he claims that the subject only interests “intellectuals”.

I believe that we will soon find ourselves with an incredible number of “intellectuals”, all parties combined.