Law360 Canada (May 1, 2026, 5:38 PM EDT) -- The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed there was an unjustified infringement on Quebec residents’ voting rights due to a law that interrupts the process of determining electoral boundaries.

On May 1, the Supreme Court provided reasons for its ruling in Quebec (Attorney General) v. Lalande, 2026 SCC 13 — an oral decision made last month to reject an appeal by Quebec’s government involving its enacting of provincial legislation that interrupts the electoral division delimitation process.

In 2023, the Commission de la représentation, an independent body responsible for revising Quebec’s electoral map, tabled a preliminary report proposing changes to the boundaries of several electoral divisions, which would have ended up removing ridings in certain regions — including the region of Gaspésie.

There was reportedly objection in Quebec’s legislature to the redrawing of the electoral map — specifically, to the removal of certain ridings.

In 2024, Quebec’s national assembly unanimously passed the Act to interrupt the electoral division delimitation process, which postponed that boundary rejigging until after the province’s next general election. (According to Élections Québec, the next general election is Oct. 5.)

A group of voters launched a legal challenge as to the validity of the Act, arguing it violated their voting rights because it requires a general election be held based on an electoral map that does not reflect proper representation. (Specifically, they argued it violated their right to vote, as per s. 3 of Canada’s Charter.)  

The province’s argument before the courts was that the goal of the Act was to protect regions undergoing “devitalization” while the government takes time to reflect on the situation.

Quebec’s Attorney General argued the Act was valid as per s. 1 of Canada’s Charter, which allows government to limit certain rights if it can show that doing so is reasonable and justified.

Whether the province could do this had to be answered via the Oakes test — a framework created by the Supreme Court through R. v. Oakes, [1986] 1 S.C.R. 103, which determines whether a government action resulting in an infringement is justified.

Quebec’s Superior Court found that the right to vote was, in fact, infringed upon, but that the infringement was justified under s. 1.

However, the province’s Court of Appeal later ruled that the Act was unconstitutional, finding that the province failed to prove justification.

The Attorney General appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, again using the argument of justification.

On April 22, the Supreme Court dismissed the Attorney General’s appeal in a 7-2 ruling but withheld its reasons. On May 1, it laid bare its rationale.

Writing for the majority, Justice Nicholas Kasirer found the Act did not satisfy the minimal impairment requirement, and that Quebec’s government could have enacted a law that would have temporarily protected electoral divisions in Gaspésie while leaving the commission to complete boundary work in the rest of the province.

Justice Kasirer explained that the legislature had at least one “alternative option” that would be less impairing — one “that would have enabled the pressing and substantial objective to be achieved while minimizing the dilution of the right to vote of half a million electors and the legislative interruption of the independent process undertaken by the Commission.”

He also found that the fact the Act was passed unanimously by the national assembly does not shield it from constitutional scrutiny.

(Dissenting Justices Suzanne Côté and Malcolm Rowe would have allowed the appeal, finding that s. 3 of the Charter does not guarantee absolute parity of voting power, but rather the effective representation of voters.)

Lawyer Daniel Goupil, who represented one of the voters challenging the Act, was asked to comment.

“We are proud to observe that electoral parity is maintained in Canadian electoral jurisprudence and that political majority or even unanimity can’t resist a Charter test in respect of the right to vote entrenched in the Canadian Charter [of Rights and Freedoms],” said Goupil in an email to Law360 Canada.

Lawyers acting for Quebec’s Attorney General did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

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