As a good caquiste, the Minister of Culture of Quebec, Mathieu Lacombe, blows hot and cold on the federal government in the matter of Quebec’s presence at UNESCO, as he did recently in a interview given to Duty. However, if he were even remotely familiar with the limits imposed on Quebec by the 2006 agreement with the Government of Canada, he would not put off until much later the fight to be waged so that Quebec obtains a seat on the UNESCO and thus become a full member. Moreover, it should take up this fight now if it is serious when it claims to adhere to the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine, which advocates the extension outside Quebec’s constitutional jurisdictions, such as those in matters of education, culture or health.
However, article 3.1 of the Quebec-Canada agreement of 2006 stipulates the following during a vote at UNESCO: “In the absence of consensus between the governments of Canada and Quebec, and at the request of this last, the Government of Canada will submit an explanatory note of its decision to the Government of Quebec. In light of this article of the agreement, it is obvious that we are far from the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine since in the event of a disagreement between Quebec and Canada, the latter has the last word, even if the vote is on a matter within Quebec’s constitutional jurisdiction, as is most often the case at UNESCO. We have here another example of the incoherence of a government whose Minister of Culture says he wants to avoid any argument with Ottawa in this file while affirming that he wants to be faithful to the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine. In fact, this is nothing more than bluster since he knows very well that Ottawa will never agree to follow up on Quebec’s demands in this regard, and that only a sovereign Quebec can claim a seat at UNESCO.
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