Recently, the Osler Disputes group team of Julien Morissette, partner, François Laurin-Pratte, counsel, and associates Quentin Montpetit and Rachelle Saint-Laurent went to court as counsel to Bruno Gélinas-Faucher in his challenge to the Québec Election Act (the E.A.), with the ruling being in Gélinas-Faucher’s favour. Gélinas-Faucher successfully challenged the constitutionality of section 282 of the E.A. to the extent that it prevents certain Québec voters who have temporarily left the province for more than two years from exercising their fundamental democratic right to vote in provincial elections.
This particular section of the E.A. allows electors who have temporarily left Québec for under two years on polling day to vote by mail in provincial elections. As a result, electors who have temporarily resided outside Québec for longer than two years are denied their right to vote by mail. Although they could physically travel to Québec to vote, this is a long, burdensome and expensive process that is highly inconvenient at best and often just impossible. Gélinas-Faucher, a student abroad for over two years at the time of a December 2019 by-election in which he could not vote by mail, was thus denied the right to vote.
By denying electors residing outside Québec for more than two years a genuine opportunity to vote in provincial elections, s. 282 of the E.A. violates their right to vote. The Osler team argued that such a violation cannot be justified in a free and democratic society and is contrary to the Canadian and Québec charters of rights and freedoms.
The pro bono cause
Bruno Gélinas-Faucher is a Québec lawyer who obtained his undergraduate law degree at the University of Ottawa and his master’s degree at the University of Cambridge. He then undertook doctoral studies in international law at the University of Cambridge, before returning to Canada to pursue his career in the academic field.
During a December 2019 by-election held in Québec City’s Jean-Talon electoral division, Gélinas-Faucher was domiciled in that division but had been residing outside Québec to pursue his studies at the University of Cambridge. Having been outside the province for over two years on polling day, he was denied the right to vote by mail under s. 282 of the E.A. and thus could not vote in his electoral division’s by-election.
Case updates
In a 2022 article, Osler announced its representation of the plaintiff in this case. From June 2 to 6, 2025, the case was heard by the Superior Court of Québec at the Montréal courthouse. The five-day trial consisted of three days of testimony from Gélinas-Faucher about the details of his story, from a representative of the Director General of Elections of Québec about the Québec voting system for voters temporarily abroad and from two political science professors about political principles underlying the E.A., as well as two days of both legal and factual arguments. On August 14, 2025, the court ruled in favor of Gélinas-Faucher and struck down s. 282 of the E.A.
Volunteer reflections
Commenting on the importance and relevance of this case, Julien Morissette details the benefit to elector diversity that this case will result in, as those living abroad are exposed to a variety of cultures, political systems, and opinions that can provide them with a unique political perspective.
He feels that s. 282 of the E.A. prevents this perspective from being heard by denying such electors the opportunity to participate in Québec’s provincial elections. He emphasizes that this perspective is not distinctly more valuable than the perspectives of electors residing in Québec. Rather, what is valuable is the diversity of perspective that results from allowing those with and without this perspective, those living abroad and at home, an equal opportunity to vote. Such diversity of perspectives ensures the voting population is fully representative of the elector population and that all electors feel they have a voice.
Julien Morissette further identifies a growing and worrisome trend of voter disenfranchisement stemming from this lack of full elector representation and describes how the judgment in support of the plaintiff can combat this phenomenon. Noting that democratic legitimacy suffers when electors are not properly represented and feel they do not have a say, he feels that challenging s. 282 of the E.A., thus furthering the representative nature of the voting population and the degree to which electors feel they have a voice, is “one of many measures that can, when taken together, support the legitimacy of our democratic system and institutions.”
What was at stake in this case was therefore not just the right of certain electors to vote in Québec’s provincial elections, but the legitimacy of Québec’s provincial elections themselves.
