The Quebec government says it intends to soon table a bill to make swearing an oath to the King optional for MNAs in the national assembly, even though it remains unclear whether or not the province has the power to do that without amending the Canadian constitution.
All three elected members of the Parti Québécois (PQ) and the 11 elected members of Québec solidaire (QS) refused to pledge allegiance to the Crown during their swearing-in ceremonies in the Quebec legislature last month. The party leaders say the tradition is "archaic" and has no place in the Quebec national assembly, so they instead pledged their loyalty to the people of Quebec.
Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who swore allegiance to King Charles III when he was sworn in on Oct. 18, told reporters Wednesday that he's hoping to find a quick solution to a political problem that has raised a number of constitutional questions.
"To resolve the situation, we are ready to table a bill quickly," the CAQ minister said in a brief statement, without providing any additional details.
Will a bill solve the problem?
It's not so simple. A lot of the debate centres on uncharted territory — so much so that that there is no consensus among constitutional experts.
Benoît Pelletier, a constitutional law professor at the University of Ottawa, has said previously that he believes the legislature could allow the dissident members to sit by passing a motion. Minister Jolin-Barrette said he disagreed with that assessment, saying members would have to adopt a bill — not a simple motion — to change the rules.
Pelletier said he believes Quebec could change the oath through the power provinces possess to change their own constitutions, but other experts believe it would require the consent of all provinces and the two houses of Parliament.
So, even if Quebec did pass its own bill to make the oath to King Charles III optional, it's not clear if it can in reality be applied since it would likely be directly opposed to the Canadian constitution.
The political dilemma brewing in the national assembly comes as the clock is ticking — the new session of the legislature starts on Nov. 29 and on Tuesday, the Speaker made it clear that elected officials with the QS and PQ cannot take their seats in the Salon Bleu.
Speaker François Paradis ruled on the matter with a decision that left no room for doubt.
MNAs must swear the oath or risk being expelled from the Salon Bleu, he said in a letter to the leaders of the PQ and QS that was made public Tuesday.
"In the event that a person refuses to comply with this order, the sergeant-at-arms shall have the right to expel them," Paradis said.
SPEAKER WENT TOO FAR, PQ SAYS
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon disagreed with Paradis' decision, saying it was the "opinion" of an outgoing speaker who will no longer preside over the national assembly as of Nov. 29. The national assembly will select a new speaker when the session resumes.
Joël Arseneau, the PQ MNA for the Magdalen Islands, said the Speaker went too far with his assessment of the issue.
"I don't think it's necessary in a democracy to come up with threats. Some kind of constitutional opinion and political debate is where we're at. We're not going to force any doors and we shouldn't be threatened by any sort of action," he told a press scrum Wednesday.
"I think he should have left it for the political sphere and the different experts before coming up with [the decision]."
Meanwhile, the prospect of a bill from the CAQ to resolve the issue is an "interesting element" that Québec solidaire will discuss, according to the party's member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Alexandre Leduc.
"This is what we need to do in the next days, the next hours to see how those two new elements impact our behaviour: the decision from the [speaker], the new government bill. Those two things are important. We need to see how it affects our behaviour," Leduc said.
With files from The Canadian Press
