On December 10, André Pratte signed a text in The Press entitled “The Sabotage of the Constitution”. He attacked certain provinces, including Quebec. The reason ? They have recourse to the unilateral power to modify parts of the Constitution which concern only them, as the National Assembly did for the abolition of the oath to the king. The arguments of the University of Ottawa researcher are in fact aimed at sabotaging our autonomy.
Mr. Pratte asserts that these unilateral amendments will backfire on Quebec. Ottawa will do the same and we will lose out. What the former senator does not say, however, is that the federal government has unilaterally amended the Constitution a dozen times since the beginning of Confederation.
An anti-Quebec amendment
The most famous episode is certainly the 1943 amendment. For the only time in our history, the census indicated that the demographic weight of Quebec had increased in Canada, because of our high birth rate. The federals were required by the Constitution to revise the electoral map to increase the number of Quebec ridings. Despite our opposition, Ottawa then asked London to vote for a constitutional amendment not to increase the number of ridings here.
Despite these gestures from Ottawa, the former senator maintains that it is the provinces that are weakening the constitutional contract. In fact, they only respond to Ottawa.
The feds refuse on the one hand to reopen the Constitution to satisfy provincial demands, especially ours, while bulldozing the provinces on the other hand.
We can see this phenomenon in the file of the Canada research chairs. Ottawa funds professor-researcher positions in universities, while education is an exclusive provincial jurisdiction. In the name of the principle of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Justin Trudeau even took the opportunity to impose anti-white hiring quotas. This encroachment on our jurisdiction was unanimously denounced by the National Assembly on December 7th.
The feds are acting here in the name of their so-called spending power in areas of provincial jurisdiction. This practice has no textual or jurisprudential basis. Its use also allows Ottawa to circumvent the central government’s constitutional obligation to provide equalization payments to the provinces.
In short, it is the federal government that violates the Constitution. Quebec, and sometimes certain other provinces, are trying to react. This situation does not prevent André Pratte from distorting the reality even more when he talks about the use of the notwithstanding clause. In certain circumstances, it allows Parliament or legislative assemblies to uphold a law even if it has been struck down by judges appointed by Ottawa. For the former senator, this situation is terrible, because it weakens the Canadian charter.
However, it is Quebec that has used the notwithstanding clause the most for 40 years, and by far. Saskatchewan used it once in 1986, Ontario once in 2021 and Quebec more than 40 times.
Three no’s to Quebec demands
From this perspective, it is astonishing that Mr. Pratte does not mention the fact that the Canadian charter was shoved down our throats by English Canada, the Supreme Court and the federals during the constitutional patriation. This charter has no legitimacy with us. According to Mr. Pratte’s reasoning, however, Quebec would be guilty of using a provision of an imposed Constitution, the notwithstanding clause, to protect its autonomy.
It should be noted in this regard that the federal government has announced its intention to challenge before the Supreme Court our right to use the notwithstanding clause, invoked recently by Quebec to protect laws 21 and 96. Like his father, Justin Trudeau is determined to impose bilingualism on us, to anglicize us, and multiculturalism, to deny our status as a founding people. Let us remember on this subject his reaction in 2017 when Philippe Couillard had formulated timid constitutional demands, recalling that Quebecers lived in internal exile in Canada. Like Peter denying Jesus three times during his arrest, three times in one week Trudeau had said no to our demands.
This brings me to the worst assertion of the former senator, who writes that our Prime Minister is too accommodating for Quebec and the provinces. The former columnist has accustomed us in the past to his positions which play into the hands of the feds against his own nation. However, Justin Trudeau is one of the worst political enemies of Quebec in our history. By describing him as a slacker, Mr. Pratte has really outdone himself.