The Parti Québécois (PQ) will table a motion later this week calling for the publication bans to be lifted on a range of documents related to potential electoral fraud during the 1995 referendum.
The leader of the PQ, Paul Saint-Pierre-Plamondon, claims to have received a legal opinion which confirms that “the government can, by simple law, declassify all the information obtained” within the framework of the Grenier Commission.
Screenshot TVA News
At the request of the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec in 2006, Commissioner Bernard Grenier investigated the activities of Option Canada, the “no” camp, before the election.
The final report of the Grenier Commission stipulated that more than $500,000 was the object of unauthorized election expenses in the months preceding the holding of the vote on the fate of Quebec.
Thousands of documents kept secret
The Parti Québécois regrets that the content of more than 4,500 documents disclosed and 90 testimonies heard during the commission have been subject to a non-disclosure order with no expiry date.
“Why hide such important and specific information? There is no reason not to tell Quebecers the whole truth about this period in our history when people flouted our basic democratic rules,” argued Mr. Saint-Pierre-Plamondon, in a press release. press released during National Patriots Day.
Without deadline
The MNA for Camille-Laurin maintains that it is inconceivable that the evidence submitted during the investigation should be protected by secrecy without any time limit. In his eyes, this way of working should be limited to the greatest state secrets.
“We know that there was a fraud, a circumvention to spend much more than the yes camp through all kinds of occult NPOs, but we do not know the extent of these schemes. We suspect that if all this was done behind closed doors, behind closed doors […] when we will have access to these documents, we will learn from them green and not ripe, ”he said, in an interview with TVA Nouvelles.
