Record Democratic Distortions | Pres

Bias is part of our electoral system. But it has never been this big. That should worry us.

Let’s start with the most obvious twist: the Conservative Party, which received about 13% of the vote in Quebec, has no member of the National Assembly. We may go back to World War II, but never before has a party with such a percentage of the popular vote been out of the National Assembly.

The Black Popular, with 15%, nevertheless gained four representatives in the federal parliament in 1944. That didn’t represent his true strength, but at least he was a legislator.

In Quebec, the Ralliement Creditist, the compact National People’s Party, and the Action Democratic du Québec all won a seat with less than 10% of the vote. When Amir Ghadir was elected in 2007, Québec solidaire received only 3.8% of the vote in Quebec. And in 2014, with 7.6% of the vote, the party had three representatives.

There are certainly some who would be happy to see a “radical” party enter the National Assembly. But first, Éric Duhaime’s campaign, if it is clearly camped on the right, has not gone into the ground of the far right in Europe, and it is far from it. Second, the British-style “one-sided one-round” system we have has the merit of rejecting extremes…but 13% is no longer extreme. Above 10%, a party must reach the threshold of respectability and have a voice in the legislature.

The Parti Québécois, which received slightly more votes than the Liberals, has only three MPs. This is not very acceptable, but again, the leader will be with two representatives (and not less). Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is right to say that “something is wrong” with the system.

Quebec Solitaire has a dozen with the same crowd support.

What we lose in representation, we certainly gain in stability. This is the logic of the system, this is its justification. And looking at what’s happening in countries with the opposite system – Italy, Israel – one cannot deny that this is a strong argument for the status quo.

But this time it was too much. These elections touch the limit of what is democratically acceptable.

Eric Duheim spoke responsibly on Monday; He could have easily expressed bitter comments to the displeasure of all his supporters who were not heard in the Blue Room. Not only did he gain the support of right-wing voters disillusioned with the CAQ, but also many “opposition organizations” that lacked faith in institutions.

Instead he briefly mentioned this strain and spoke constructively. Starting from virtually nothing, ridiculed and associated with anti-health extremism and conspiracies, he led the party in two years to an unthinkable result last year. He deserves to get at least one representative and his constituents too. No matter: It’s the first period, the fight continues, he said.

Liberals, on the other hand, experience the opposite phenomenon. They get a proportion of seats in the National Assembly that match their popular support – a little more, actually. All this thanks to the regional concentration of their support.

I know that writing about the rigors of the electoral system is like a plastic sword in political waters. But this time, we can no longer pretend. At least one proportional element is required to correct distortions to a minimum.

François Legault (like Justin Trudeau) promised. He drafted a bill with moderate proportionality injection … a plan that was quickly abandoned.

Today, he says, the subject is only of interest to “intellectuals”.

I believe we will soon find an incredible number of “intellectuals” with all parties working together.