Flush out fake news, check the statements of politicians, find the real figures: our Bureau of Investigation, based in Montreal and Quebec, specializes in the art of establishing the facts. Every Saturday, our journalists and researchers present their findings to you to allow you to see more clearly in the news of the week.

THE STATEMENT

On Tuesday, PQ MP Pascal Bérubé criticized the Legault government for having reneged on an agreement signed in 2018 regarding the reform of the voting system. “We have not reneged on our commitment, however, defended Sonia LeBel, Minister responsible for Democratic Institutions. The commitment was to table a bill in the following year. The agreement was signed by François Legault, as well as Quebec solidaire, the Parti Québécois and the Green Party of Quebec.

FACTS

Minister LeBel contradicts herself. In February 2019, she recognized that the letter signed by the CAQ and the three other parties was a commitment to a new voting system: “As you know, the establishment of a regional compensatory mixed voting system [... ] is one of the main commitments of the government. This is a commitment that our government made before the last election, jointly, among others, with the Parti Québécois, Québec solidaire and the Green Party of Québec,” she said during a press conference.

It is true, however, that the agreement signed in 2018 does not indicate black and white that the voting system was to change for the general election of 2022.

The CAQ government tabled a bill to reform the voting system in September 2019, but later chose not to act on it.

–Pascal Dugas Bourdon and Marie Christine Trottier

This is the number of people who identify as transgender and non-binary in Quebec. That represents 0.23% of the province's population, according to 2021 census data released on April 27.

The majority of these are located in the census metropolitan area (CMA) of Montreal. Some 9,945 transgender and non-binary Quebecers live in the metropolis and its suburbs. In Canada, they are 100,810, or 0.33% of the country's population.

On Wednesday, Statistics Canada released its first data on the subject, which differentiates the notions of sex at birth and gender.

– Charles Mathieu