During the Day of discussion on the Quebec experience of the reform of the voting system held at the University of Montreal on Monday, November 20, Professor André Blais launched at the very end a concise and undebated observation: a system proportional electoral system, and more particularly the compensatory mixed model with regional lists proposed since the end of the 1960s by all the major parties, is a failure!
However, the discussions held and the information presented during this day rather demonstrated that the failure of the last attempt to reform the voting system is the result of the sole betrayal of the head of the CAQ and his close guard, who deliberately chosen by maneuvers not very worthy to favor the maintenance and consolidation of their political domination in the National Assembly. And, in the past, each time we have taken a serious interest in the issue and initiated a cycle of reform of our electoral system, it is also the same taste of the dominant power – and it alone – which has been the root cause of these failures.
Incidentally, in recent years, several polls have established that a majority of the electorate was ready to approve, including by referendum, the establishment of a voting system similar to those in force for a long time in Germany and in Scotland. This is a solution to our democratic evil that has been a consensus for over 50 years! In this regard, it should be noted that several public consultations, notably in parliamentary committees, and two reports from the Director of Elections of Quebec, in March 1984 and December 2007, analyzed and dissected the advantages of a proportional type ballot and, above all, the mixed compensatory system.
After the abandonment of the reform project in 2021 by Prime Minister Legault, some may want us to start from scratch and propose a type of new electoral system other than that proposed in 1969 by René Lévesque, then by Jean Charest in 2004 and finally by François Legault in 2014. Professor Blais today prefers a preferential system which would not guarantee, when we look closely, a National Assembly truly representative of people’s electoral choices. It’s his right. With others, he can get involved if he has the courage and determination to promote this new approach which, according to him, is simpler.
For our part, we trust our fellow citizens, who are as capable as the Germans and the Scots of understanding an electoral system involving the choice of local deputies and regional deputies and making it possible to correct the constant distortions of the first-past-the-post vote. inherited from British colonialism.
That said, the New Democracy Movement and its many allies, the major union centers, student associations, numerous popular groups like Québec innovateur and several political parties (Québec solidaire, the Parti québécois, the Conservative Party of Quebec, the Green Party, Climat Québec), have chosen to continue on the path started by René Lévesque which guarantees both fair respect for the varied electoral choices of the population and stronger representation of our different regions. This is what we are demanding through our petition for electoral reform.
Since October 5, a new bill, 499, has been before the National Assembly. Essentially, it takes up the proposal from François Legault’s government, and integrates the improvements which had been suggested during the public hearings, in parliamentary committee, at the beginning of 2020. It is now sufficient to call and adopt the draft law to implement the proposed reform. We’re almost there, the job has been done!
As for the success expected since 1890, the day will come when a Prime Minister who will have the support of several parties will choose to honorably keep his word and himself proudly and solidly carry the noble cause of providing Quebec with an electoral system. fair and equitable, worthy of a true representative democracy.
And this system is a mixed proportional system.