For Immediate Release
April 8, 2014
Philippe Couillard, as the new premier of Québec, has a golden opportunity to act on Quebec’s consensus for a voting system in which everyone’s vote will count, says Fair Vote Canada.
“Quebec voters voted yesterday for cultural diversity, but the result fails to reflect political diversity. We call on all political leaders in Québec to finally adopt a voting system that will treat all voters equally,” says Doug Bailie, president of Fair Vote Canada.
The Liberal majority came with only 41.5 per cent of the vote. “Quebecers’ choices were restricted by the winner-take-all system” says Bailie. “One-third of Québecers voted for neither the Liberals nor the PQ, yet they elected only one-fifth of the seats.”
All four parties in Quebec have agreed Quebec’s political pluralism deserves fair representation. On Nov. 12, 2009, Quebec’s National Assembly unanimously voted for Amir Khadir’s motion that reform of the Elections Act ensure “fair representation of political pluralism.”
“Quebec is a multi-party democracy with a two-party voting system,” Bailie says. “The National Assembly Québecers voted for is not the National Assembly the voting system gave them on Monday.”
The Coalition Avenir Québec received almost as many votes as the Parti Québecois (23 per cent of the vote versus 25 per cent of the vote), yet the PQ won eight more seats than the CAQ.
“Québecers voted with their hearts yesterday. It’s unfortunate they received skewed results that don’t reflect their intentions” says Kelly Carmichael, executive director of Fair Vote Canada. “True unity is a difficult task when you have a voting system that doesn’t respect the equality of citizen’s votes. It’s time for action on electoral reform.”
Fair Vote Canada (FVC) is a grassroots, multi-partisan citizens’ campaign for voting system reform. FVC promotes the introduction of an element of proportional representation in elections at all levels of government and in civil society.