Prime Minister François Legault entrusts people from different backgrounds with the task of identifying new powers to be claimed in Ottawa or exercised by Quebec without waiting for federal approval, we learned The duty.
The Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette, — and not the minister responsible for Canadian Relations, Jean-François Roberge — will supervise the work of the advisory committee on Quebec’s constitutional issues within Canada, which will analyze “Quebec’s capacity to make their own choices, particularly in matters of language, secularism, culture and in all areas affecting national cohesion.”
The committee will be co-chaired by former Minister of Education Sébastien Proulx and law professor at the University of Sherbrooke Guillaume Rousseau. They will be supported by the former chief of staff of the PQ prime ministers René Lévesque and Pierre-Marc Johnson and former deputy minister, Martine Tremblay, as well as by the professor and holder of the Chair in taxation and public finance of the University of Sherbrooke, Luc Godbout, and by law professors from the University of Quebec in Outaouais Amélie Binette and UQAM Catherine Mathieu.
Prime Minister Legault made the announcement during a statement to the National Assembly on Friday morning.
“A unique responsibility in the face of history”
“For 400 years, Quebecers have formed a nation with its own values and institutions. The Quebec state, the only French-speaking state in America, has a unique responsibility in the face of history,” he emphasized in the Salon bleu.
The head of the Quebec government said he had “strengthened the constitutional foundations of Quebec” in particular through bills on the secularism of the Quebec state (bill 21) and on the official and common language of Quebec, French. (bill 96), which notably included the specificity of Quebec in the Constitution of Canada.
“But at the same time, the federal government has intensified a worrying trend of centralization and encroachment. “It too often acts as if Canada were a unitary, centralized regime, and not a federation,” he added. According to him, “we cannot remain indifferent” to “spending and intrusions into Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction” on the part of the federal government.
Meeting soon with Trudeau
Mr. Legault will answer questions from journalists on his approach in the afternoon, on the sidelines of the review of his government’s action in the lobby of the Honoré-Mercier building. The Deputy Prime Minister, Geneviève Guilbault, and the government parliamentary leader, Simon Jolin-Barrette, will stand by his side.
The establishment of a committee responsible for identifying new powers to be exercised by the Government of Quebec and the National Assembly with or without the approval of Ottawa comes three days after the meeting between François Legault and his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, on immigration in Quebec on Monday.
During their previous meeting, almost three months ago, the Quebec Prime Minister demanded full powers over immigration, which the Canadian Prime Minister refused.
Mr. Legault is now asking for a better distribution of asylum seekers in the country, reimbursement of expenses made by Quebec to welcome them, as well as better knowledge of French for temporary foreign workers established in Quebec.
The approach announced Friday is part of the “nationalism of results” that the Coalition Avenir Québec says it is leading.
“Ideally, Quebec would have more resources and skills to better promote its culture, integrate its immigration and ensure the services it provides to Quebecers. There are important historical claims there, which we must not abandon,” we can read on the CAQ website. “We must also use the powers that we already have, and which previous governments did not use enough to promote Quebec identity. »
More details will follow.
With François Carabin