Election reform is being demanded by the opposition parties in Quebec after they outperformed the Liberals in the vote count on Monday but received slightly fewer seats.
With 41% of the vote, the Coalition Avenir Québec was re-elected, taking 90 of the 125 seats in the provincial legislature. With almost 14% of the vote, the Liberals gained 21 ridings and kept their standing as the official opposition.
Québec Solidaire, which came in third, only managed to win 11 seats, although it received nearly 43,270 more votes than the Liberals. With three seats, the Parti Québécois received around 9,420 more votes than the Liberals.
The PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters in Boucherville, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, on Tuesday, “The disparity between the popular vote and the number of seats is historic and it is highly worrisome for democracy in Quebec.”
Parties in the Quebec legislature are financially supported according to how many seats they secure. St-Pierre Plamondon, however, suggested that the leaders of the CAQ and Liberal parties instead agree to pay his party in accordance with its share of the popular vote.
“I appeal to them to see this injustice and not make it worse,” he said. “Allow every voice that expressed itself through universal suffrage to have an operating budget, to have an equal place… on the basis of the result of universal suffrage and not on the basis of a distortion that we can qualify as historic.”
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a representative for Québec Solidaire, advocated for electoral reform during his acceptance address on Monday night.
The electoral map announced tonight, according to Nadeau-Dubois, “does not reflect the political will of Quebecers” and “our political system is damaged, our democracy is sick.” “François Legault must acknowledge the issue.
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Results of the 2022 election in Quebec: Current, live data
Nearly 13% of the vote, but no seats, went to the Quebec Conservative Party. Éric Duhaime, the party’s leader, similarly referred to the outcomes as a “distortion” in his Monday address to supporters.
The question of whether the Quebec election results from Monday represented the will of the people was put to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday in the Halifax region. In response, Trudeau argued that, in comparison to many other countries, Canada had a robust democracy.
However, we also see that millions of people contributed and wanted to have their say on the future of their province, their country, and it’s a good thing, he told reporters. “There are always discussions that we can have about how we can increase the participation rate and reduce the cynicism that people have toward politics,” he said.
On Tuesday in the late afternoon, Legault, the incoming premier, will talk with reporters close to Quebec City.
After the outcome of the election, Quebec opposition parties demand electoral reform.
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