Much has been made in recent days of the low turnout in municipal elections. However, this rate is not only low (38%), but also 6 points lower than in the last elections. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Andrée Laforest, took note of this dangerous slip and promptly asked the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec (DGEQ) to look into possible solutions and consider the use of the vote. in line.
But beyond the act of voting, let’s think about citizen participation in city affairs. According to data from the DGEQ, 6,942 seats (mayors, councilors or prefects) were to be filled. More than half, 4,291, were awarded unopposed. Quick math: 61% of the candidates were elected by acclamation.
In addition, still on the basis of data from the DGEQ, in the 2007 school elections, 67% of the commissioners were elected without opposition. The margin of 6 points which separates the municipal and school worlds is thin. So why talk about this, when school elections, except for anglophones, have been abolished by the CAQ? Simply because it would have been wiser to take what was happening in the school world as a signal. The results of the school elections were the canary in the mine of local democracy.
If we had understood that the setbacks of these local governments responsible for the territorial organization of educational services were in fact the precursors of what was going to happen at the municipal level, we would have reacted responsibly as Minister Laforest did. We would have decoded the signal. Better still, we would have listened attentively to the suggestions repeated many times by school commissioners to promote electoral participation, in particular electronic voting. Why ? Because what was happening in the school network is happening at the municipal level.
The nose riveted on a promise of election, the Legault government did not see the yellow light on the dashboard. He did not understand that local democracy is not only municipal or school and that there are no small democracies, that what happens in the cities is likely to happen in the provinces, where we has also observed a downward trend in participation since 2012.
When we questioned the legitimacy of elected school officials, for lack of vision, we did not realize that it was the legitimacy of all elected officials, at all levels, that we were going to question. Everything is linked, as Edgar Morin would say.
Short view
In this perspective, we better understand the thoughtless and short-sighted side of the CAQ initiative of 2014 which called for a boycott of the school elections. It will also be understood that the Caquist solution to the problems of school democracy had nothing to do with democracy itself, it only aimed at the elimination of a counter-power.
We were told that by giving school elected officials leave, we wanted to depoliticize education. And now, are we going to depoliticize the municipal administration and correct the citizen participation deficit by replacing municipal councils with boards of directors? If the thing seemed fanciful a short time ago, we have to admit that the question arises.