Posted at 4:00 p.m.
In this article, the author insinuates that minorities are not registered on the electoral list in the same way as blacks in the United States and that we must mobilize to register minorities and counter this great injustice. It is an insult to democracy in Quebec and Canada to claim that it is comparable to that of the United States.
Sylvie Gagnon
The author of a letter published in the Debates section of The Press last week looked at the reluctance of minorities to cast their vote1.
Even if the participation rate of immigrants remains too low, it should be noted that the situation in Quebec is different from that in the United States, where voters have many pitfalls to register on the electoral list.
Here, Refugees and Citizenship Canada automatically transfers the data of new Canadians to Elections Quebec, with their consent, as soon as they obtain their citizenship, provided they meet the criteria (18 years and older, in Quebec for six months, etc.) 2.
Élections Québec estimates that 95% of the qualified elector population is actually registered on the electoral list.
But Quebec is not immune to the decline in voter turnout observed in many Western democracies. Thus, the participation rate in the general elections, which stood at 78% in 1998, had dropped to 66% in the last elections of 2018.
However, Elections Quebec is not standing idly by. Before the elections, he sends a hard copy of the Guide to Provincial Elections, in a bilingual French/English version. On the website, this guide is translated into several languages, including indigenous languages.
As the next election, scheduled for October 3, approaches, Élections Québec will also launch an advertising campaign throughout Québec to reach all voters.
Since 1996, it has also offered the Je vote au Québec program. to allow newcomers to familiarize themselves with the Québec electoral system3.
Aimed primarily at francization schools and community organizations that work with immigrants, the program offers a self-supporting facilitation kit and access to the advisory services of the Education for Democracy Service team.
Very good. But there is still work to be done, as the turnout of voters born outside of Canada was 20 percentage points below that of voters born here, in the 2018 election, according to a research paper by the Chair. of research on democracy and parliamentary institutions at Université Laval4.
Why ? Immigrants sometimes find it difficult to integrate into the political life of their host country, in particular because of greater economic and social precariousness. New Canadians from autocratic countries are also less likely to participate in politics.