Four years ago almost to the day, on May 9, 2018, the leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), the current Prime Minister François Legault, committed in writing and in front of cameras, at the National Assembly, to replace our old archaic voting system with a compensatory mixed proportional electoral system inspired by the models in force in Germany and Scotland.
On April 26, François Legault publicly confirmed for the first time what had been announced to me on the sly by one of his apparatchiks on December 17: the abandonment of this important promise. Reason finally confessed before Christmas: the deputies of the CAQ, including the Prime Minister, no longer see the point of honoring the word given. Three weeks ago, the Prime Minister’s explanation was: “We made a commitment to table a bill and we tabled it as promised. And we realize that this is really not the priority of Quebecers. There is no one jostling on the buses to change the voting system.”
However, in addition to the fact that these remarks are outrageously fallacious, because no one had forced the hand of the people of the CAQ to make this promise, he maliciously erases the statements made on May 9, 2018, when the leader of this party now well installed in power was in the company of the other leaders of the opposition, in this case QS, the PQ and the Green Party.
For information and the record, here are François Legault’s pre-election statements: “A CAQ government will table a bill in the first year of its mandate and a CAQ government will set in motion a reform of the voting system so that be adopted in his first term.
The current electoral system […] increasingly showing its limits. Citizens feel that their vote counts less and less. The status quo feeds cynicism in Quebec. Mixed proportional is a proven system […] which will give more weight to each vote. It is a good compromise for our regions, for our democracy, for Quebec. […] Parties working together is possible in Quebec as elsewhere, especially in Germany. We are there, in Quebec. […] The population expects us to collaborate more and show more openness. The mixed proportional voting system precisely helps us to work more together and that there is not a government elected by a minority of Quebecers that makes decisions for a majority. […] Quebecers are tired of the old politics. This is why I am happy that this is part of the program and then of the priorities of a possible government of the CAQ. […] We are no longer at the debate stage, we are at the action stage.
To a journalist who asked him if his government would do like the others before and renege on its commitment once in power, François Legault said: “We are ready, then we will make the change. It’s important to do this and not look at short-term gains. […] Citizens want to participate in decisions and this change is one way to do that. A government that does not respect this will of the citizens would find itself in difficulty in the medium term.
Today, on the eve of a new general election, we are asking Prime Minister François Legault to return to the strong reasons he invoked four years ago to change the old British voting system. Incidentally, the Prime Minister, like many others, is preparing to mark the centenary of the birth of the most admired and respected politician in the population, René Lévesque, in the coming weeks. He would be well advised to once again become the man of honor and his word that he had promised to be, remembering that Lévesque had described the system in place since 1792 as “democratically vile”.
Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, President of the New Democracy Movement
Reference-www.tvanouvelles.ca