The big day is here. It’s Quebec’s general election for 2012. Me and my neighbor got to our polling station about five minutes before it opened. Already about a dozen people were there and more were coming as we went in. So hopefully we will have a good voter turnout for this election. Here is an alternate process for the determination of the formation of a government.
Custom and precedence
After each General election you would have the following sequence of events. The fourth Monday after each election you would have the swearing in of the elected members of the National Assembly. That Tuesday the Assembly would elect it’s Speaker. On Wednesday the Speaker would ask the Assembly on whom the lieutenant governor should ask to form the Government. On Thursday the top four candidates are asked to form a government by the lieutenant governor subject to the approval of the National Assembly. On Friday morning the Speaker puts to the National Assembly the question which of these Councils has the confidence of the Assembly to form the government of the province of Québec? The National Assembly then votes. The Speaker then swears in the third and fourth place councils as alternate Councils in the Assembly. Friday afternoon the National Assembly votes a second time on the two remaining councils. The winner becomes the government and the loser becomes the official opposition. The following Sunday the losing Council is sworn in as the Council of Opposition and the winning Council as the Council of Ministers for the government of Québec.
This process starts 28 days after each election and ends 34 days after the election with the swearing in of the Opposition and Quebec’s Government. For this General election the process would begin on Monday, October 1 with the swearing in on Sunday, October 7. Of course the negotiations leading up to Swearing In week would already settle the make-up of the Council-designates and almost certainly the outcome of the vote of confidence in the National Assembly.
The Federalist party of Canada 