Democracy

Québec inherited a political system modelled on British Parliamentarism with the Constitutional Act of 1791. The voting system in use in all of Canada's 11 parliaments is known as first-past-the-post and is arguably the worst way to elect the members of a body of representation.

As if the electoral system wasn't flawed enough by itself, a careful study of how Athenian democracy really worked in the details reveals that elections have little to do with democracy and that in fact the majority of the magistrates were taken by lot among volunteer citizen.

The Athenians

The principles of the Athenian system were isonomia (equality of share), isegoria (equality of speech), isocratia (equality of rule) and isogonia (equality of birth). Since we are all equal citizens, no one deserves to rule over the others. Ideally, there would be no rulers at all. But we need some rulers for the organization of the city, so we will pick them at random among us and we will all have and equal chance to be ruler for a short period. That is the logic of designation by lot, one of the main characteristic of democracy according to Aristotle.

• The Athenian Constitution by Aristotle (translated by Sir Frederic G. Kenyon)
• Athenian democracy
• Cleisthenes in Wikipedia
• Isonomia in Wikipedia

Elective oligarchy, aka "representative democracy"

• Voting systems in Wikipedia
• Glossary of Terms of the IDEA
• Voting Theory and Reform on Constitution.org
• Administration and Cost of Elections
• Elections: Results and Voting Systems
• Marquis de Condorcet
• Informative Video on Proportional Representation with British actor John Cleese (Real Video)
• History of the Vote in Canada
• Mouvement Démocratie Nouvelle