Following the snatch victory of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) in the Marie-Victorin by-election, as well as the latest polls predicting a CAQ tidal wave in the next general election in October 2022, many Concerns have been publicly expressed regarding the state of health of our democracy, perverted by a profoundly unfair electoral system.
Posted at 5:00 p.m.
Indeed, if the trend continues, we will once again witness this fall the imposition of a overwhelming majoritya phenomenon that occurs when the electoral distortion implied by our current voting system generates such an overrepresentation of the winner that the opposition is practically evacuated from the National Assembly.
Our voting system in effect since 1792 is obsolete. It transforms our democracy into false pretense as René Lévesque wrote. And in the next election in October, we risk writing a new chapter in this democratic drift. It is therefore a safe bet, as Alexandre Sirois rightly pointed out in The Press of April 28, that the reform of the voting system will continue to haunt the next government.
This cry from the heart in the face of the announced diversion of the popular will was also taken up by the opposition parties, the Parti Québécois (PQ) and Québec solidaire (QS). In his press briefing on Tuesday, April 26, the PQ spokesperson for the matter, Pascal Bérubé, affirmed that we can “anticipate a major democratic crisis in Quebec, an unprecedented distortion between the real voting intentions and the future representation of the next legislature”. For his part, the head of QS, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, clarified that “we can have 40% of the votes, that gives us 80% of the seats in the National Assembly, then that gives us 100% of the power. Is it normal ? Anyone with a head on their shoulders says no “. And to conclude that “our democratic system, it is sick “.
Perhaps the Prime Minister is being overly arrogant right now, as the editorial writer for The Press, but the fact remains that such an attitude only encourages cynicism with regard to the political class. And that is very dangerous in an increasingly uncertain world.
François Legault has now decided to sweep aside a firm and fundamental electoral commitment and to postpone indefinitely a substantial parliamentary and civic work. Let’s take note…hoping, however, that the head of the CAQ will reconsider his choice to definitively abandon this file and that he will remember the strong reasons that led him to commit to replacing our old voting system that René Lévesque had described as “democratically foul”. The fight to make every voice count in Quebec continues.