Quebec's electoral map, unchanged since 2001 and little changed since 1992, is badly out of touch with reality. Fortunately, and unfortunately, the National Assembly appears to be on the way to a half-hearted quasi-solution to the problem.

The principle of voting equality is so old that it's not politically correct: "one man, one vote." But it's a principle now greatly abused in Quebec. To get to one person, one vote today, the pampered and protected status of small-town populations will have to end. They, and especially their elected representatives, are less than enthusiastic, but this reform must go ahead.
The latest available numbers work out to 45,207 voters for each of Quebec's 125 electoral districts. But at present, some ridings, mainly in the fast-growing "couronne" around Montreal, are far bigger, and some such as Gaspe are far smaller. The law permits a 25-per-cent variation from the average -a shockingly high percentage, we think, and much higher than allowed in federal electoral maps. But currently 27 seats violate even that degraded 25-per-cent standard.
A proposal that seemed to be making headway last year, supported by the late Claude Bechard, MNA for Kamouraska-Temiscouata, would have saved the jobs of all rural MNAs by expanding the total number of MNAs from 125 to 142.
We had considerable respect for Bechard and certainly mean to speak no ill of the dead, but this was a terrible idea. More politicians is hardly the solution to anything. True, this approach is essential in Ottawa, where constitutional requirements have made an ever-expanding House of Commons the least bad of solutions. But Quebec has no such constitutional requirement. And modern communication makes it easier than ever for backwoods MNAs to stay in touch.
There's no excuse for anything other than electoral equality. The government's latest proposal barely changes riding boundaries on Montreal Island, which has 28 ridings, but it does add three seats around Montreal by abolishing three in far-flung regions.
Note that Montreal Island, with 24 per cent of Quebec's population, has and would retain 22.4 per cent of the Assembly seats. This is not an unbearable gap but what is intolerable is the impudent suggestion by PQ MNA Pascal Berube of Matane, who wants to cut Montreal Island back to a maximum of 25 seats. Montrealers, after all, aren't really "nous."
The proposal now going ahead is better than no reform at all, and much better than ideas like Berube's. But why not reduce the riding-size limit to 10 per cent, or five? Isn't it time to take this democracy thing seriously?