There may be ten months left before the next Quebec general election, but the Legault government has much less time than that to fulfill the commitments it made for this mandate. What is more, since the inaugural speech, he has tabled some 20 bills, in addition to the 70 he passed through from the previous session. To compose his legislative menu from February to June he will therefore be spoiled for choice, but only 16 weeks of parliamentary work before him.
Of this abundance of bills, there is one that his caucus hardly appreciates, but that the Prime Minister and the strategists of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) would nevertheless have every interest in prioritizing. This is Bill 39 “An Act to establish a new voting system”.
The assertion may seem surprising, but it would indeed be in the interest of the CAQ to replace the electoral system which, if the polls are correct, will give it 100 seats for its 2e mandate. You have to go back three or four decades to see such a sweep, the most recent examples having occurred in 1973 and 1985. In both cases, the Liberal Party of Quebec won 100 of the 110 seats and 99 of the 122 seats, respectively. then counted the National Assembly. This profusion of seats was, however, completely out of step with the popular will, ie the 55% and 56% of votes collected.
If the polls are correct for the 2022 election, it would be thanks to 47% of the votes that the CAQ would occupy 80% of the seats. Overrepresentation of this magnitude will come with sharp criticism, especially if it comes after he has watered down or abandoned the promised voting system reform. It will then be easy to say that he did this precisely to obtain so much power. The Prime Minister will then have a hard time convincing the population that he governs for everyone, especially since the opposition parties, although excessively under-represented, will be a constant reminder that the people of Quebec do not is not 80% behind him.
The political domination of the CAQ being predictable, it is currently that François Legault has the opportunity to choose the image he wants to project during his 2e mandate.
He can choose to lose all democratic credibility by governing without correcting a system that he knows to be deficient or by holding a biased referendum without embarrassment, like the one he imagined when Bill 39 was tabled. In the latter scenario, he does not ‘will not gain the confidence of the population, the referendum process being held according to the rules imposed by a party grabbing power to the point of occupying 4 seats out of 5.
But the CAQ government can also choose to give Quebec a brand new voting system, for a first use in 2026. To do this, it must improve its bill and pass it before next June, without imposing an amendment. steps that no other requires to be applied. As the follow-up then fell to the Chief Electoral Officer, the government would carry out its 2e mandate without exposing himself to very easy criticism of his democratic virtues.