(Ottawa) New Democrats have sided with the Liberals to defeat the Bloc Québécois motion on the legitimacy of Quebec and the provinces to use the notwithstanding clause. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicated in January that he was considering submitting this delicate question to the Supreme Court.
In all, 174 Liberal and New Democrat MPs voted against the motion and 142 elected officials supported it. The Conservatives, including their nine members from Quebec, sided with the Bloc Québécois.
MP Gérard Deltell accused the Prime Minister of “distracting the attention of Canadians” with a sterile debate. “Whether it’s preventive or not, laws that use the notwithstanding clause can be challenged and ultimately end up in court,” he noted before the vote. Preventative or not, those who disagree with the law will use their citizenship rights to challenge it. »
The Bloc Québécois wanted to reaffirm the legitimacy of Quebec and the other provinces to use this provision, also known as the “notwithstanding clause” or “notwithstanding clause”. He had forced a debate on the issue on Thursday. His motion read as follows: “That the House remind the government that it is up to Quebec and the provinces to decide alone on the use of the notwithstanding clause. »
“By this gesture, these federal deputies are turning their backs on their own Constitution, inherited from Pierre Trudeau,” reacted the Bloc leader, Yves-François Blanchet, in a press release after the vote.
All Liberal MPs from Quebec voted against except for Justin Trudeau, who was traveling in the Yukon, and Minister Mélanie Joly who was absent. Her publicist said she was out of town. The only elected Quebec member of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Alexandre Boulerice, also voted against.
During the debate on Thursday, Mr. Boulerice expressed his discomfort with “a certain slippage” when the notwithstanding provision is used to “attack the labor movement”.
The government of Doug Ford in Ontario wanted to use the notwithstanding clause last fall to prevent approximately 50,000 education support workers from exercising their right to strike. He backtracked two weeks later in the face of outcry over his initiative.
“Justin Trudeau’s desire to go and weaken the notwithstanding clause is Justin Trudeau’s desire to weaken the provinces and particularly Quebec,” Mr. Blanchet argued, a few hours before the vote was held.
“There is a derogation clause which serves in Quebec to essentially protect the specificity and identity of Quebec and it is not because the Ford government wanted to make use of it that we could condemn […] that the institution must be abolished or the possibility of recourse to the exemption clause should be abolished,” replied Mr. Blanchet to a journalist who asked him if the exemption clause should be better framed.
The Quebec government has used the notwithstanding clause twice since the Coalition avenir Québec came to power. First, in 2019 when the adoption of the State Secularism Act (Law 21) to prohibit the wearing of religious symbols by state employees in positions of authority, including teachers. Then, in 2022 to try to shield Law 96 from legal challenges. This legislation makes French the official and common language of Quebec. In both cases, the courts will be called upon to decide.
This preventive use of the notwithstanding clause is of concern to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the point where he is considering making a reference to the Supreme Court to rule on this delicate issue. He sees it as a trivialization of the suspension of fundamental rights.