The Advisory Committee on Constitutional Issues in Quebec in the Canadian Federation recommends, among other things, the adoption of a Quebec constitution.
Submitted to the Legault government on Monday, its final report – called Ambition. Affirmation. Action. (New window) – was tabled Tuesday afternoon in the Red Room of the National Assembly.
The committee was chaired by former Liberal minister Sébastien Proulx and former PQ candidate Guillaume Rousseau, both lawyers. They briefly presented their report to the parliamentary press on Tuesday noon, alongside the minister responsible, Simon Jolin-Barrette. They did not respond to journalists’ questions.
Me Rousseau notably specified that the six members of the committee had agreed to propose the adoption of a Quebec constitution, a constitutional framework law and Quebec citizenship.
The 108-page report contains a total of 42 recommendations.
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The Advisory Committee on Constitutional Issues in Quebec in the Canadian Federation was placed under the responsibility of the Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette.
Photo : - / Sylvain Roy Roussel
François Legault announced with great fanfare the creation of the Proulx-Rousseau committee on the last day of the final parliamentary session, last spring, in order to face a worrying trend towards centralization and encroachment
of the federal government.
He had to suggest measures aimed at protecting and promoting the collective rights of the Quebec nation, ensuring respect for its distinct social values and its distinct identity, guaranteeing respect for Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction and increasing its autonomy within the federation Canadian
.
Some 44 briefs were submitted to the committee in the months that followed.
The ball in the court of CAQ
Minister Jolin-Barrette indicated that the government would analyze the committee’s recommendations in the coming weeks. The opposition parties have not yet reacted.
Earlier Tuesday morning, MP Pascal Paradis nevertheless recalled that, from the start, the Parti Québécois (PQ) had expressed doubts about the relevance of such an exercise, the Proulx-Rousseau committee having to deal with the Canadian constitutional context
. His report could therefore not propose the independence of Quebec.
The parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire (QS), Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, for his part deplored that the co-chairmanship of the committee had been entrusted to Guillaume Rousseau, whom he presented as a person partisan
who likes to say that QS, it’s a terrible and unfriendly world
.
Besides MM. Proulx and Rousseau, the Advisory Committee on Quebec’s constitutional issues was composed of professors Amélie Binette (law), Luc Godbout (economics) and Catherine Mathieu (politics), as well as Martine Tremblay, public affairs consultant and former chief of staff by René Lévesque.
The idea of giving Quebec its own constitution is not new. THE PQin particular, has already defended it, and the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) adopted it last summer.
More details will follow.
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