Citizens unite to challenge riding revisions
Revision dilutes influence of racial, ethnic and religious minorities, coalition claims
They fought against municipal mergers and they raised their voices against the Charter of Values. Now many of those who mobilized during those defining battles have been galvanized against a new threat: the suppression of their votes.
A coalition of citizens groups and civic leaders launched a court challenge Thursday against Quebec’s new electoral map, which merges the ridings of Outremont and Mont-Royal and divides D’Arcy McGee among Côte-St-Luc, Hampstead and Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Damede-Grâce borough. In some cases, the revised boundary lines cut through the heart of the anglophone, Jewish, Filipino, black, Caribbean and Bangladeshi communities, thereby diluting their influence.
Led by constitutional expert Julius Grey, the legal action will seek to overturn the riding boundaries revision prior to the 2018 Quebec election.
“It’s unreasonable because it doesn’t reflect the Quebec of 2017,” Grey said, after filing suit against the independent body charged with determining electoral districts, Quebec’s chief electoral officer and the provincial attorney general. “It’s unreasonable because it’s reminiscent of the practice in the United States known as gerrymandering ... which has been universally condemned.”
Those disenfranchised are linguistic, racial, ethnic and religious minorities, said Marlene Jennings, a former Liberal MP and a resident of Town of Mount Royal. She is piloting the citizens group contesting the map along with Suburban newspaper editor Beryl Wajsman.
“It’s simply not right,” she said. “It’s not fair.”
But in addition to diminishing the clout of various minority groups, Jennings said, the redrawing of the electoral map also minimizes the importance of Montreal, which is slated to lose one of its 28 ridings, in order to create two new ridings in the Laurentians and the Lanaudière where the population is booming.
“There is no parity between voters on the island of Montreal and voters in the rest of Quebec” Jennings said. “Our effective influence is being even further diluted.”
Once again, the rights of a few are being sacrificed for the sake of appeasing the majority, since the Commission de la représentation électorale decided from the start that only one rural riding would be eliminated — even though the population in the hinterland is declining. And the power of the metropolis is being subjugated yet again, despite the fact the greater Montreal region is home to half the province’s residents, including most of Quebec’s minorities, and drives the economy.
But the CRE is either too lilylivered or too unimaginative to contemplate any other course of action. Instead of breaking it to voters in one of half a dozen rural ridings that they no longer meet minimum population requirements, the commission has instead focused its pruning efforts on Montreal’s most diverse districts.
The first version of the proposed changes made public in 2015 was identical to the final version, now before the courts. When it was vigorously contested by the same folks raising a ruckus today, the CRE instead tried to slice up Sainte-Marie— Saint-Jacques, home to the LGBTQ community, many new immigrants and pockets of disadvantaged people.
But MNA Manon Massé of Québec Solidaire valiantly fought to preserve her riding, presenting a compelling case against splitting up the Gay Village and sticking the vulnerable residents of Shaughnessy Village in tony Westmount—St. Louis. So the CRE just went back to Plan A.
For the record, no one disagrees with Massé. On the contrary, they applaud her efforts, said Jennings. And her success may even strengthen the legal case, noted Grey.
If the CRE thought the groups the new electoral map marginalizes were too weak or divided to stand up for themselves, it made a mistake.
The court challenge is being funded by ordinary folks, many of whom have pitched in $10 and $20, said Marvin Rotrand, a Montreal city councillor in Snowden district.
“People feel their rights have been violated,” said Rotrand. “This is their way of fighting back.”
But it is also backed by five municipal councils, some offering financial support.
For Bill Steinberg, the mayor of Hampstead, this latest campaign has all the hallmarks of the bitter fight against mergers, which created one city on the island of Montreal in 2002 until demergers were allowed in 2006. It is also reminiscent of opposition to the Charter of Values, the Parti Québécois’s attempt to legislate secularism by outlawing religious garb in the public sector.
“This is a fundamental injustice, it really must be fought,” Steinberg said.
When democracy and basic rights are at stake, never underestimate Montreal’s vibrant and engaged minority communities.