A petition for reform of the Quebec voting system has amassed more than 12,000 signatures

Coalition Avenir Quebec Leader Francois Legault casts his ballot ahead of the election during an election campaign stop in L'Assomption, Que., Sunday, September 25, 2022. Quebecers will go to the polls on October 3rd. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

A petition calling for a reform of the voting system in Quebec, posted on the national assembly's website, has received more than 10,000 signatures since Oct. 3.

The petition, launched by the Mouvement démocratie nouvelle and sponsored by PQ MNA Pascal Bérubé, had collected more than 12,000 signatures by Sunday morning. It is the petition with the most signatures among those currently open on the National Assembly website -- its closest competitor has received around 2,000.

The document calls for the first-past-the-post voting system currently in force to be replaced by a mixed-member proportional voting system, which "would allow for a fairer representation of the diversity of opinions, values and convictions expressed by the Quebec population," according to the petition's instigators.

"This is just the beginning, let's keep up the fight, and we hope that this beginning will give us momentum," said Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, President of the Mouvement démocratie nouvelle and former President of the national assembly, in an interview.

"What I want people to know is that they can join this movement," he added, pointing out that it is possible to sign the petition until Dec. 4.

Charbonneau said that the purpose of the petition was to ask the Legault government to keep its 2018 promise to reform the voting system, but also to show that Quebecers are interested in the quality of democracy.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 15, 2023.