(Quebec) After being dismissed by the Chief Electoral Officer (DGE), the National Assembly returned to the charge and ordered Friday the DGE to lift the secrecy on the illegal financing of the No camp in the 1995 referendum.
Prime Minister François Legault avoided saying that this referendum was stolen, as supporters of the Yes to sovereignty claim.
In the House, the Minister responsible for Democratic Institutions, Jean-François Roberge, passed a motion, an “Order of the Assembly”, for the CEO to reveal the documents and testimonies of the Grenier commission, responsible for investigating this case in 2007.
The result of the 1995 referendum on sovereignty was very close and the sovereignist camp has often accused its opponents of No to independence of having circumvented the rules on spending in the referendum campaign.
At a press conference, Mr. Legault said he wanted “to shed light”, but avoided saying that the referendum had been stolen.
“We don’t have all the information yet. When we have all the information, I will be able to answer your question, ”he said during his assessment of the parliamentary session.
Two weeks ago, the Parti Québécois (PQ) passed a motion unanimously asking the CEO to reveal everything.
But the CEO, Jean-François Blanchet, had indicated that the motion led by the PQ was not going to allow “probably a complete disclosure of the testimonies and documents concerned”.
Among other things, he mentioned “the prejudicial nature that certain documents could still contain”.
The CEO said that “it was not so clear, the order of the National Assembly”, summed up the parliamentary leader of the government, Simon Jolin-Barrette, at a press conference alongside Mr. Legault.
“The motion we tabled is clearly worded as an order from the National Assembly,” he explained.
Indeed, it “orders” the CEO to “disclose and make public all the testimony and documents of the Grenier commission as soon as possible”.
In conclusion, the text even specifies: “that this motion be an order of the Assembly”.
Remember that on October 30, 1995, the No to sovereignty won by a narrow margin, 50.58% against 49.42% for the Yes camp.
Sovereignists accused their federalist adversaries of having cheated during the referendum campaign by not respecting the funding ceiling allocated to the two camps under Quebec law.
In 2006, the DGE had appointed retired judge Bernard Grenier to investigate allegations of illegal financing of the No camp. The commission filed a report in 2007.
In his report published in 2007, he estimated at “approximately $500,000 the regulated expenses that Option Canada (the program and the company) incurred that were not authorized and declared”.
No less than 90 witnesses had been heard behind closed doors and 4,500 documents filed as evidence. But everything is struck by an “order relating to the non-disclosure, non-communication and non-dissemination of evidence”, without time limit, issued by Commissioner Grenier.
Bernard Grenier had justified his order by saying that he was “sensitive to the warning expressed by some about the risk of damaging the reputation of people who have worked for the No cause in good faith after 11 or 12 years. “.
He also said that he did not see how he could make the documents accessible at the time: “The damage and injustice that we would have liked to avoid by proceeding behind closed doors would thus be caused. »
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has been waging a battle for weeks to lift the secret of the Grenier commission. According to him, the population must know the truth about what happened during the referendum campaign.
He believes that Commissioner Grenier played politics in issuing his order.
“Why did we have an eternity ordinance to forever bury all documents and testimonies? he had asked in a press scrum. Let’s agree that we are in politics, it is politics. »