The cries of indignation emitted by Prime Minister Legault when he learned that Justin Trudeau still intended to ask the Supreme Court to ban the preventive use of the notwithstanding clause were eerily reminiscent of those of his mentor Lucien Bouchard in reaction to the Act on the referendum clarity presented by the Chrétien government.
Exceptionally, Mr. Bouchard had requisitioned the television airwaves to denounce loud and clear this violation of the “sacred right” of Quebecers to freely choose their future and to announce that his government was going to respond with a law of his own.
Mr. Legault chose to react more modestly on Twitter to this “frontal attack on our nation’s ability to protect our collective rights”, warning his federal counterpart that “Quebec will never accept such a weakening of its rights. Never “.
In reality, we do not know if, or when, the federal government will go directly to the Supreme Court or if it will simply join the challenge to the preventive use of the notwithstanding clause to put Quebec law on secularism from legal action.
Moreover, even if many jurists from coast to coast are of the opinion that it should only be used to evade the judgment of the courts after the fact, it cannot be taken for certain that the Supreme Court will choose to prohibit a practice that has been permitted for forty years.
One wonders why Mr. Trudeau felt the need to reaffirm now an intention he had already expressed on several occasions, suddenly rekindling tensions with the Legault government at a time when an agreement on the Canada health transfer seems within reach. tomorrow.
Perhaps he decided to prepare the ground for a federal intervention, by revealing the divisions on the use of the notwithstanding clause that exist in Quebec, where Mr. Legault’s position is far from making the unanimity.
In 2000, the Bouchard government would have liked to oppose a united front to the adoption of the Clarity Act, but the debate in the National Assembly on Bill 99 “on the exercise of the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the people of Quebec and of the State of Quebec” instead gave rise to endless haggling with the Liberal opposition.
In the end, what was meant to be an act of solemn affirmation ended in a majority vote amid general indifference. A month later, Mr. Bouchard announced that he was leaving politics, discouraged to see that Quebecers were “surprisingly impassive” in the face of federal attacks that had not ceased since the 1995 referendum.
The National Assembly will resume its work in a week. If the threat hanging over Quebec is as serious as Mr. Legault says, he will have to ask parliamentarians to react in one way or another.
Already, it is certain that there will not be unanimity. The interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay, was categorical: “Any use of the notwithstanding clause, both for the Quebec Charter and for the Canadian Charter, must be targeted and only as a last resort. »
Québec solidaire’s position is more ambiguous. While making fun of the Prime Minister’s “angry” tweets, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois declared that the notwithstanding provision is an essential instrument for Quebec, without however specifying whether it should be able to use it preventively. Another debate that risks dividing the base of the party.
Civil society is no more unanimous. While Bills 21 (secularism) and 96 (language) were welcomed by a majority of Quebecers, the use the Ford government wanted to make of the notwithstanding clause to prohibit the strike of Ontario teachers led many to s ask about the abuses that may result.
Former Minister Benoît Pelletier pointed out that this is one of the rare constitutional provisions that allows Quebec to assert its specificity and to make choices different from the rest of Canada. Prohibiting its preventive use would make its use much more difficult because of the political cost of going against the courts.
With inflation, the labor shortage, the crisis in the health care system and climate change, the public has concerns other than the notwithstanding clause, which seems quite esoteric in comparison. If Lucien Bouchard was unable to mobilize Quebecers against federal attacks, François Legault may have trouble doing so.
In Ottawa, we understand that we should not worry too much about our mood swings. As the saying goes: “The dog barks, the caravan passes.” »