Quebec held an election for its provincial legislature on September 4. Quebec, and all Canadian provinces, use the same election system the U.S. uses, “first past the post”. Whoever gets the most votes in each single-member district is elected.
The Parti Quebecois polled 31.93% of the popular vote, and won 54 seats.
The Liberal Party (the party that had been in power) polled 31.20% of the popular vote, and won 50 seats.
A new party, the Coalition Avenir Quebec, polled 27.05% of the popular vote, but only won 19 seats. It believes Quebec should forget about leaving Canada.
Quebec Solidaire, a party of the left, polled 6.03% of the popular vote and won two seats.
Two other parties polled at least 1% of the popular vote, but didn’t win any seats. They are Option Nationale, which is more in favor of Quebec becoming an independent nation than any of the other parties. It won 1.90% of the vote. Also, the Green Party (Parti Vert) won 1.00% of the popular vote. Thanks to Sam Harley and Thomas Jones for this news.
Is the 3rd place party basically the provincial equivalent of the Conservatives?
@1. Not really and it is complicated. Quebec Liberal Party leader Jean Charest was once leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1993 to 1998, for example. All major parties, including the CAQ would be to the left of the national Conservatives on social and economic issues. The Quebec Liberals are probably closest, though.
FYI: Quebec Solidaire came in a close second in several Montreal ridings and has a strong base in that city.
Thanks, Scott. That’s very informative.
How come their new party gets 27% of the vote, and ours generally struggle to get 2%?
Interestingly, I was in Quebec in 1990 during one of their elections (at a time when language was a burning issue), and the newly-formed Equality Party got 4 candidates into the provincial legislature.
There needs to be a Federal Bill of Voting Rights enacted in Congress.
Ballot access should be easy and fair, sommething like a candidate getting 500 signatures and pay $500.
Debates should be inclusive at the beginning, up until the end. Start with all candidates and have the final debate reserved for the top 2.
Funding should be inclusive for all, duopoly candidates would receive a small share and the other candidates will receive the most.
These ideas I posted above are for Federal Elections, be it President, Senate or House.
The ambivalence over, but continued salience of, the secession issue makes for fragmentation.
Like US 1860, but not nearly as serious-except at some psychological level:
http://www.etymonline.com/cw/1860.htm
Lincoln got 180 electoral votes and 1,865,593 popular votes.
Breckenridge got 72 electoral votes and 848,356 popular votes.
Douglas got 12 electoral votes and 1,382,713 popular votes.
Bell got 39 electoral votes and 592,906 popular votes.
The Quebec Liberal Party is English speaking federalist (anti-independence) conservative.
The Quebec Party is French speaking nationalist (pro-independence) leftist.
The Quebec Future Coalition is French speaking conservative. They believe in having a 10 year moratorium on another independence vote however most of their members are soft-pro-independence. In the meantime, they are are strongly for Quebec being autonomous with Canada. They aren’t entirely new, they include a lot of members of Democratic Action of Quebec, which came in second in the last election and had basically the same platform.