(Quebec) The revelations of the investigation into the illegal financing of the No camp in the 1995 referendum on sovereignty will remain partly secret, indicated on Tuesday the Chief Electoral Officer (DGE), who is accused of playing politics by the Parti Quebecois.
Jean-François Blanchet has indicated that he will not be able to divulge all the testimonies and documents collected by the Grenier commission on this issue in 2007.
The Parti Québécois (PQ) criticized him for ignoring the will of elected officials and pledged to table a bill to force Élections Québec to reveal everything in broad daylight.
In a letter addressed to the President of the National Assembly, Nathalie Roy, Mr. Blanchet responded to the unanimous motion of Parliament, piloted by the PQ and adopted two weeks ago, which asked to make public all the proof of the commission, subject to a publication ban.
The DGE has indicated that it will take him some time to go through the documents and to go faster, he suggests the adoption of a law or an order of the Assembly.
Considering the scope and nature of the documentation concerned, such an exercise will take some time and will probably not allow complete disclosure of all the testimonies and documents concerned.
the Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-François Blanchet
Remember that on October 30, 1995, the No to sovereignty won by a narrow margin, 50.58% against 49.42% for the Yes camp.
Sovereignists have often accused their federalist adversaries of having cheated during the referendum campaign by not respecting the funding ceiling allocated to the two camps under Quebec law.
According to PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the population must know the truth about what happened during this referendum.
Mr. Blanchet explained that he must take into account both the public’s right to information, but also “the protection of personal information given the prejudicial nature that certain documents could still contain”, can be read in his letter.
“The Chief Electoral Officer seems to be ignoring the unanimous directive which spoke of all documents and all testimonies to be disclosed immediately,” commented Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon in a press scrum on Tuesday.
In my opinion, we are faced with a Chief Electoral Officer who puts his opinion and his discretionary power ahead of the very clear will of all the elected members of the National Assembly. […] If you ask me is it political? Definitely, it’s political.
the leader of the PQ, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon
The DGE is however a neutral institution answerable to the National Assembly.
The PQ leader intends to quickly introduce a bill and regrets that the Coalition avenir Québec, which he had originally approached to do this, did not see fit to proceed in this way to force the hand of Élections Québec.
“A law is mandatory. You cannot circumvent a law. […] We will not leave to the discretion of the CEO the choice of documents which will be made public or not. The law will be short, clear and it will require full disclosure of all documents and testimony. »
An opposition party can introduce a bill, but the leader of the government, who controls the legislative agenda, is not required to “call” the piece of legislation for consideration and passage.
It should be remembered that it was the commission chaired by Bernard Grenier which had been tasked with investigating the allegations of illegal financing of the No camp. The commission filed a report in 2007.
No less than 90 witnesses had been heard behind closed doors and 4,500 documents filed as evidence. But everything is struck by an “order relating to the non-disclosure, non-communication and non-dissemination of evidence”, without time limit, issued by Commissioner Grenier.
Bernard Grenier had justified his order by saying that he was “sensitive to the warning expressed by some about the risk of damaging the reputation of people who have worked for the No cause in good faith after 11 or 12 years. “.
He also said that he did not see how he could make the documents accessible at the time: “The damage and injustice that we would have liked to avoid by proceeding behind closed doors would thus be caused. »
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon believes that Commissioner Grenier also played politics by issuing his order.
“The Grenier commission has always been political there. Why, in the first place, did we have an eternity ordinance to forever bury all the documents and all the testimonies there? Let’s agree that we are in politics, it is politics. »