Quebec has too much geography and not enough voters. This is why the establishment, every 10 years, of a new electoral map has become an almost impossible mission. The government and the opposition parties therefore did well to suspend the exercise.
But if we resort to this measure, which is as draconian as it is exceptional, the exercise must be worth it. We cannot just ask the Electoral Representation Commission (CRE) to start the same puzzle again.
In fact, the CRE is asked to work taking into account two principles which can become contradictory: ensuring voting equality and respecting “natural communities”. As we have just seen with the most recent electoral map project, it has become difficult to do both at the same time.
But, in addition to these two criteria provided for by Quebec law, we must take into account the principle of “effective representation” of voters established by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1991. We must therefore also take into account concepts such as the “community of “interests” and the “specificity” of communities, even if this requires achieving a little less parity between constituencies, said the Court.
The size of the constituency must also remain manageable for an MP. Otherwise we will have constituencies so large that they cannot be effectively represented by a single MP. Talk to Pascal Bérubé, the indelible representative of what is today called Matane-Matapédia.
In the new version of the electoral map, his constituency would straddle two administrative regions (Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie) and its extent would require the MP to have four constituency offices and to regularly travel hundreds of kilometers. He was right to say that on the roads of Gaspésie and Bas-Saint-Laurent in winter, the deputy put his life in danger.
The current law already contains possible solutions. In particular, it already allows an exception for the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, where there are only a little more than 11,000 registered voters, while the ideal number is 50,694 per constituency.
Other very specific exceptions could also be considered. Gaspésie certainly deserves to benefit from such an exception. And we can consider a few others. Thus, we have often mentioned the possibility of creating a constituency which would have a majority of indigenous voters in the communities of northern Quebec and James Bay. This had to be considered.
One thing is certain, with such a large territory to cover, a small number of well-defined exceptions would certainly be acceptable to the majority of Quebecers. The precedent exists. We must ensure not to multiply the exceptions, but adding two or three seats to the National Assembly should not pose a problem.
On the other hand, we should resist the temptation to further extend the other criterion provided for in the law, namely the permitted variation in the number of voters. With an ideal number of around 51,000 voters per constituency, the law allows a variation of plus or minus 25%, which is already a lot.
Thus, in the new electoral map, the vote of a citizen of the constituency of René-Lévesque, on the Côte-Nord (32,540 voters), will continue to have approximately double the weight of that of Arthabaska, in the Centre-du-Québec (62,120 voters). In the circumstances, it would not be surprising to see citizens go to court to challenge such blatant inequalities.
Just on the island of Montreal, there are ridings like Nelligan which will have 57,537 voters compared to 40,527 in Pointe-aux-Trembles. This is a considerable difference for the same urban area.
During his press briefing on Thursday, the Minister responsible for Democratic Institutions, Jean-François Roberge, said that the Electoral Reform Commission had its hands tied by the current law. He is right. Other criteria must also be taken into account.
Prime Minister François Legault has already indicated that the size of the territory of certain constituencies should be a criterion in addition to the number of voters. He is right.
It is necessary – as requested by the municipal world, which must necessarily be involved in this new exercise – that the new constituencies take existing borders into account. We cannot decently ask an MP to represent more than one administrative region or just part of an MRC.
We must also give MPs from larger constituencies the means to do their work, in particular by giving them budgets that allow them to have more than one constituency office, since these are essentially service points for the citizens.
In short, the National Assembly is preparing for work whose scope will go far beyond simply establishing the new electoral map for the 2030 elections. Fortunately, the non-partisan nature of this week’s announcement is very auspicious.
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