When a reporter asked François Legault on Tuesday about his 2018 promise to reform Quebec’s electoral system — a promise he has since broken — the province’s premier deflected the question. He pointed out that during this year’s election campaign he had made the opposite promise: not to reform the electoral system. This time, he said, he planned to “honor that promise.” Mr. Legault made his remarks after Monday’s provincial election results reignited the debate over a fair voting process in Quebec. His party, the Coalition Avenir Québec, won 90 seats out of 125 with just over 40% support. Three of the four opposition parties have cried foul after being left with crumbs in Quebec’s National Assembly, despite respectable showings in the popular vote. Controversies about the electoral system are not new. What is unusual this time is that it was the CAQ that initiated the latest round of proposed changes, said Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, former President of the National Assembly. Mr. Charbonneau, who now leads the Mouvement démocratie nouvelle, a group that seeks a more representative way of voting, said in an interview that the issue lay dormant for a few years until he was contacted in 2015 by the CAQ , then a new opposition. party. “They are the ones who started the conversation again,” he said. Regarding Mr. Legault’s statements after the election, he added: “We suggest that he does as he did last time and does not honor his promise.” The CAQ’s landslide was facilitated by a fractured political landscape with five competing parties, most of which achieved remarkably similar popular vote rates of around 15%. But Quebec’s winner-take-all system – which it shares with the rest of the country – gave each party radically different seat totals: The Liberals won 21, Quebec solidaire 11 and the Parti Québécois just three. The Conservatives were left empty-handed. “It’s a historic gap between the popular vote and the number of seats, and that’s very problematic for democracy in Quebec,” said PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. at a press conference on Tuesday. Conservative leader Éric Duhaime agreed. During his concession speech Monday night and in subsequent interviews, he said the province was suffering from a “democratic distortion.” Mr. Legault insisted that he had won a legitimate mandate, having received many votes. “There is no such thing as a perfect electoral system,” he added. Mr. Charbonneau recalled that his team and the CAQ were actively involved in the efforts that led Mr. Legault, the PQ and Quebec Solidarity to issue a joint commitment in May 2018, to reform the electoral system. “It’s no longer time for talk, it’s time for action, it’s time to make this project a reality,” Mr. Legault said at the time. Five months later, he won a first term with a majority government of 74 seats, despite receiving only 37 percent of the popular vote. Along the way, his enthusiasm for electoral reform faded. In 2019, the Legault government tabled Bill 39, which proposed mixed-member proportional representation, where 80 ridings would still be contested under the old system, while the other 45 would be decided by popular vote in different areas. But, Mr. Charbonneau said, the bill included a hurdle not previously discussed: the requirement that a referendum be held to ratify the change. The referendum could have passed where other such measures had failed, including just three in British Columbia since 2005. In Quebec, 70 percent of respondents in a 2019 poll said they wanted the Legault government to honor its promise of voting reform. Opinion: Quebec election offers fresh evidence of how broken our electoral system is But after Bill 39 passed second reading, the government let it die under standing orders. “We listened to the population, they don’t care … except for a few intellectuals,” Mr. Legault said during this year’s election campaign. Mr Charbonneau said the prime minister’s argument was “a blatant lie. … He thinks the population is stupid.” With a majority government, the prime minister could strengthen his legacy by changing the system for the 2026 election, Mr Charbonneau said. “He still has time to do it.” The CAQ and the Liberals now hold 111 of the legislature’s 125 seats. They have no incentive to reform the electoral process that benefited them. With no prospect of change soon, the other opposition leaders are now seeking to have their parties recognized as caucuses, a status that provides research budgets and speaking time in the National Assembly. But it is usually only given to parties with at least 12 seats or 20 percent of the popular vote. Opinion: Quebeckers now know what to expect from Francois Legault Mr Plamondon, the PQ leader, called for his party to be given a budget and an allocation of parliamentary questions according to the PQ’s popular vote, “otherwise this would be a deliberate violation of democracy”. As a consolation prize, parties will still receive public funding based on their popular support, $1.71 for every ballot cast in their favor. Quebec’s party field may be divided into five today, but the province has tended to elect majority governments with minority vote totals, even when the Liberals and the PQ ruled the province as a duopoly. The last “true” majority in the National Assembly, when one party won more than 50 percent of the seats and votes, was in 1985, noted Patrick Déry, deputy editor of the Montreal-based magazine Policy Options. Back then, he said, Guy Lafleur had just retired from professional hockey for the first time.