With less than half of the votes, the Coalition avenir Québec won an even greater victory than the polls had predicted. But without taking anything away from the sweep of François Legault’s party, it is also the victory of a very bad electoral system.
Posted at 12:45 a.m.
With barely more than 40% of the vote, the steamroller of the so-called “first past the post” system gave the CAQ a triumph even though almost 60% of Quebecers voted against it.
The CAQ gets very few more votes than four years ago. And with a platform that contained very few solutions to Quebec’s most glaring problems, whether it be the glaring labor shortages or the fragility of the health care system.
Without taking anything away from the unequivocal mandate given to the CAQ, the government only has free rein to carry out some of its more controversial electoral commitments, such as the third link or immigration levels.
But the price of this victory will quickly catch up with the government if it does not take the time to listen to all Quebecers and not just those who voted for it. Because this victory came at the cost of major divisions that were sown throughout the campaign by the strategies employed by the CAQ.
Very deep divisions between Montreal and the rest of Quebec. A flaw that has widened over the past four years and that the re-elected government must quickly try to fill. Especially since there should only be two MPs on the island of Montreal.
Quebec as a whole has no interest in the metropolis — which accounts for half of all its economic activity — being shunned by the government. With his many statements aimed at exacerbating this division, the Prime Minister has only himself to blame.
But the government will also have to address the gap that has widened between the French-speaking majority and the newcomers. As with the First Nations, by the way.
On these issues, unfortunately, we have mostly seen the CAQ — with an even less impressive mandate — not listening to those who had dissenting opinions. Monday night’s result unfortunately does not suggest that things will change.
But the greatest danger is for democracy itself. There is a democratic and geographic danger that apart from the greater Montreal area, there are only six ridings that are not represented by the CAQ.
Conservative leader Éric Duhaime will not be in the National Assembly although his party won more than 13% of the vote. He deserved to be there.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon will enter the Blue Room, but a lot because the Quebec solidaire candidate in her riding had to withdraw. He deserves to be there, he succeeded in “doing politics differently” and has a vote obtained from esteem, but nothing shows that this will lead to a rebirth of the sovereignist option.
Still, for the quality of democratic debate, the result of these elections is worrying. The elastic is stretched to the breaking point. No less than 57% of the electorate finds itself represented by only about thirty deputies out of 125. The temptation to govern without taking this into account will necessarily be very strong. Even if, in the recent history of Quebec, super-majorities have not been beneficial to the party that obtained them.
In the meantime, all the opposition parties have reconstruction work to do.
The Liberal Party of Quebec has saved the furniture and will be the official opposition thanks to its bastions in the English-speaking ridings of Montreal, to which Mme Anglade therefore owes a lot. But the PLQ only has one seat left outside the metropolitan area. The Liberals will only be able to survive in the long term if they have solid foundations in French-speaking Quebec.
It will be the work of Dominique Anglade, if this party which has rarely given a second chance to its leaders were to agree to offer it to him.
Québec solidaire managed to resist the CAQ tidal wave, which is remarkable under the circumstances. Even if its loss in the regions (Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue) is offset by gains in Montreal, QS remains a party that only survives in the center of the big cities.
But QS still has an important mandate, that of being the party in the fight against climate change and which therefore carries the priority of a large part of the youth of Quebec. It will be more promising for this party than looking for millionaires on whom to impose new taxes…
As for the Parti Québécois, it will survive until the next battle. But if its chief is its best business card, one cannot really say that it made take great steps with the idea of sovereignty.