(Quebec) Faced with a “worrying trend toward centralization and encroachments” in Ottawa, Prime Minister François Legault announces the creation of a committee to find ways to “protect the collective rights of the Quebec nation” and “increase the autonomy of Quebec” within Canada.
This “Advisory Committee on Constitutional Issues in Quebec within the Canadian Federation” will be co-chaired by former Liberal Minister Sébastien Proulx – previously an ADQ – and law professor Guillaume Rousseau, ex-Parti Québécois candidate. The other members are René Lévesque’s former chief of staff, Martine Tremblay, tax specialist Luc Godbout and law professors Amélie Binette and Catherine Mathieu.
François Legault made the announcement during a ministerial declaration at the Salon Bleu –– a rare exercise – on the last day of the parliamentary session, Friday. He is very close to completing the first half of his second term.
“The federal government has intensified a worrying trend towards centralization and encroachments,” denounced François Legault at Salon Bleu. Too often he acts as if Canada were a centralized unitary regime and not a federation. I am thinking, for example, of spending and intrusions into Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction, for example in the last federal budget.
“We cannot remain indifferent to this,” added the Prime Minister. Because “federal interference in our jurisdictions causes all sorts of problems. First, they limit the right of the Quebec nation to make its own choices. Also, federal intrusions unnecessarily complicate and slow things down and add bureaucracy. Faced with these issues, we must continue to strengthen Quebec’s autonomy, preserve its rights and obtain more powers in fundamental areas, such as immigration. »
This is why he decided to form the advisory committee. “It has the mandate to recommend ways to protect and promote the collective rights of the Quebec nation; to ensure respect for our values and our common identity; to guarantee respect for Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction and to increase its autonomy within the Canadian federation. »
François Legault has already had his party adopt, in 2015, a complete roadmap so that Quebec “has more powers and autonomy in Canada” (in immigration and culture for example), including without having to reopen the Constitution. However, he eased off on this nationalist plan, also nicknamed internally the “Laval Declaration”, when he came to power in 2018.
François Legault has not made the gains planned so far in this plan. The Trudeau and Legault governments nevertheless signed a few administrative agreements, including one on the appointment of a Quebec judge to the Supreme Court. He had it included in the Canadian Constitution that Quebec forms a nation and that its official language is French, using a unilateral modification procedure. François Legault also argued for the use of the exemption provision in the charters of rights for the laws on state secularism and on the French language (bills 21 and 96), a measure denounced by Ottawa.
On March 15, François Legault received a refusal from Justin Trudeau regarding his request to transfer full immigration powers to Quebec. He subsequently brandished, then put away the threat of a sectoral referendum on the subject. He had already mentioned the possible holding of an exercise like the Bélanger-Campeau Commission among his options to make gains against Ottawa.
François Legault will meet Justin Trudeau on Monday in Quebec. It calls for a “significant” drop in temporary immigrants, a better distribution of asylum seekers and the possibility of approving temporary immigrants chosen under a federal program.