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Aristotle meets Alex Trebek

What do you get when you cross democracy with a game show? Something that resembles the final session of Quebec's latest estates-general, on overhauling the political system.

The 825 invited participants who showed up at the Quebec City convention centre on Sunday in spite of the storm (out of the 1,000 expected) were to answer 10 questions about proposed changes.

They were to enter their answers on computer keypads. When it was time for them to answer each question, a 20-second digital clock on the large projection screens around the room would start to count down, and Double-Jeopardy-type "thinking music" would begin to play: Aristotle meets Alex Trebek. Almost immediately after the clock reached zero and the music stopped, the computer would post the results on the screen.

In democracy, the right answer is whatever the most people say it is. In a game show, it's the one the judges want to hear. And the organizers of the estates-general dropped some helpful hints as to the right answers, either in the background material distributed to the hand-picked participants or in the wording of the questions.

For example, the question on introducing the electoral system known as proportional representation offered three choices: the status quo, pure PR or the current system with elements of PR to "reduce distortions." Sixty-six per cent of those who keyed in their votes before the music stopped agreed that distortions are not good,and chose the option that would reduce them.

But sometimes, since they thought they were participating in a democratic exercise and not a game show, the participants ignored the suggestions and chose the wrong answers.

They strongly rejected proposals to give sparsely populated regions more power, even though many of them were from those regions.

And in a surprising setback for Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, the Parti Québécois minister responsible for the estates-general and a big fan of the United States presidential system, they voted narrowly (53 per cent) in favour of keeping the British parliamentary tradition.

But since they were for the most part ordinary citizens who had only recently begun considering such questions and not political scientists, they occasionally contradicted themselves. After rejecting the presidential system, they voted 82 per cent in favour of a fixed election date, which is incompatible with the parliamentary system since a government can fall at any time on a confidence vote.

No matter, for the answers they gave weren't the final ones anyway. They're not binding on the estates-general committee, much less the government. And their opinions are only one element, along with the conclusions of earlier regional meetings, briefs and expert opinions, that the committee will consider before it hands in its report early next month.

So the committee, which is headed by retired businessman Claude Béland and includes such political veterans as Monique Vézina, a former Conservative minister turned sovereignist activist, and Jean Allaire, founding leader of the Action Démocratique du Québec, has plenty of room in which to "interpret" the vote results.

Some of the committee members were already playing spin doctor at their wrap-up news conference, talking about how the voters had been easily influenced and confused by new arguments and how they had reversed positions they had taken at regional meetings.

So when the participants left to return home on the buses and planes chartered for them by the organizers, they left without having had the final say in revamping the political system.

On the other hand, they did get a crash course in political science. Those from outside the Quebec City region also got an expenses-paid weekend in the provincial capital; it turned out that any of the 2,000 people who turned out for the regional meetings had a 50-50 chance of being selected for the final session.

And everybody took home souvenir parting gifts: a shoulder bag, a ballpoint pen and a lapel pin, each bearing the logo of the estates-general.

They had to leave the keypads, however.

dmacpher@thegazette.canwest.com