The Liberals are demanding that the Speaker of the House of Commons rule that Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet is unfit to sit after he said on Tuesday that he was “not sincere” when he took the obligatory oath of allegiance to the British crown.
“If it wasn’t sincere, it’s like he never took it. As such, I believe that the Speaker should consider whether this Member of Parliament should continue to sit in the House,” said Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Kevin Lamoureux, rising to raise a point of order at the end of question period.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, then invoked a precedent from 1990 when one of his predecessors was called upon to rule on the sincerity of a solemn affirmation by an MP.
“Speaker Fraser has ruled that the Chair has no power to pass judgment on the circumstances or the sincerity with which the duly elected Member takes the oath of allegiance. The meaning of each member’s oath is a matter of conscience, so it must remain so,” he said.
The Liberals did not stop there and Mark Gerretsen, another parliamentary secretary, jumped on the ball and replied that the president is not called upon to interpret the Bloc leader’s intention since “he clearly expressed his intention “. Mr. Gerretsen again requested that the Chair take the matter under advisement.
“I’m not going to stay here and argue,” President Rota replied. What I’m going to do is I’ll look into the matter further and look at different options and come back to the House if I see fit. »
On numerous occasions on Tuesday, the Bloc leader said that his oath of allegiance and that of other members of his party were not sincere, but it culminated in shouting in the House of Commons when he repeated during question period, with deputies shouting at him in English: “resign”.
“I will make this clear: my oath of allegiance to the British crown was not sincere,” he had just said after he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau each questioned the sincerity of the oath. ‘other.
“A forced oath, when the heart is not in it, is worth nothing, declared Mr. Blanchet in the House. My only allegiance goes, excluding the foreign king, to the people of Quebec and to the Quebec nation. And Mr. President, you can tell the Prime Minister and you can tell the King. »
In a written statement sent to The Canadian Press, Bloc Québécois parliamentary leader Alain Therrien maintained that the Liberals are “demonstrating that, for them, allegiance to the king takes precedence over the democratically expressed will of the people”.
“Yves-François Blanchet himself asked the Prime Minister the question yesterday: if loyalty to the king is opposed to loyalty to the people, which would he choose,” added Mr. Therrien. The liberals chose the king. And we will be told that the monarchy is strictly symbolic. »
These tough exchanges occur in a context where the Bloc Québécois is taking advantage of its first opposition day of the parliamentary session to force a debate and a vote the next day on Canada’s independence from the British monarchy, an idea to which the Liberals and the Conservatives are offering a plea of inadmissibility.
During a press conference held in the morning before the start of the debate in the House, Mr. Blanchet explained that the Bloc Québécois take the oath, and will continue to do so despite the debate taking place in the National Assembly of Quebec, because it is a sine qua non for doing their job as MPs in Ottawa. However, he said, they “make an ‘x’ in the back, like when we were in kindergarten.”