Q: Could you explain to us simply and clearly the issues surrounding the famous debate on changing the voting system that Quebec and Ottawa finally put aside after making an election promise?
Michel Laplante
A: Explain simply and clearly?
Allow us, then, first of all, to attempt an eloquent comparison.
Say Justin Trudeau and François Legault each have a chocolate cake to share and promise to do it more fairly.
However, both of them realize one day that, if they revise the size of the pieces, their own share is likely to shrink. So much so that they and their colleagues come to fear that they won’t have enough cake.
Oh, they know very well that this new sharing would be fairer!
However, they are much less eager to fulfill their promise …
“Each time, there are deputies and political advisers who say: ‘now that we are in power, we must not put forward a voting system that risks making us be in power with less. more power than what we currently have ”, summarizes Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, president of the New Democracy Movement.
Basically, the prime ministers and their entourage are right to be wary of the impact, for them, of such a change.
What would have happened, for example, in the most recent federal election if, say, the multi-member proportional voting system had been introduced?
The creator of the survey aggregation site Qc125, Philippe J. Fournier, made public his estimates on this subject last month after carrying out a simulation. Result: the conservatives would have preceded the liberals, with 115 seats against 111, predicted the expert.
However, he takes care to specify the limits of such an exercise. “In such a system, electoral habits and trends would change a lot,” he explained.
Remember that if Justin Trudeau has put aside his commitment and the case seems closed (even if he has not completely closed the door) in Ottawa, this is not the case in Quebec (at least not yet).
The CAQ follows a tortuous path, but it continues to move forward.
Slower than expected, however. And of course, without any formal guarantee that the reform of the voting system will eventually be adopted.
The problem is that the study of the bill on this subject – tabled in the fall of 2019 – has been paralyzed.
The voting method will therefore not be changed in time for the next provincial elections, even if this is what François Legault had initially promised.
In fact, the bill on this subject might not even be adopted before the end of the parliamentary session.
Jean-Pierre Charbonneau is indignant about it.
However, he thinks that the results of the next provincial elections could bring water to the mill of those who urgently demand a change in the voting system.
“When we look at the current trend in the polls, the CAQ could end up at 45% or 46% of the vote, with 80% to 85% of the deputies in the National Assembly,” he predicts.
A majority of Quebecers could therefore vote for the rivals of the CAQ, but François Legault’s party would nonetheless dominate unquestionably in Quebec, “roughly like when Robert Bourassa had 102 deputies. [sur 110] “.
Let us come back to the idea of a cake to share… but this time among the voters. There could be many, those who will not have voted for the CAQ, to judge that it is particularly unfair to end up with such a small share at the end of these elections.
Enough to rekindle interest in a reform of the voting system and bring this initiative back among the government’s priorities, in the hope of having a truly representative Parliament?
Hopefully …