(Quebec) The subject has been at the heart of the debates in recent weeks and the page has now been turned: Quebec officially adopted Bill 4 on Friday abolishing the obligation to take an oath to King Charles III to sit in the Blue Room and in parliamentary committees.
The bill, presented by the Minister responsible for Democratic Institutions, Jean-François Roberge, was adopted unanimously. “We are democrats, we are not monarchists,” said the government minister of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) earlier this week.
Once sanctioned by the Lieutenant-Governor, the law will allow the three PQ MPs, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, Pascal Bérubé and Joël Arseneau, to sit. The latter were excluded from the Blue Room throughout the autumn parliamentary session, having refused to take the oath to the king.
Specifically, Bill 4 amends the Constitution Act of 1867 by removing Quebec from section 128, which provides that deputies must take an oath to the King of England to sit. The law now provides that only the oath of loyalty to the people of Quebec, provided for in the Act respecting the National Assembly since 1982, is necessary to sit in Parliament.
The Liberal Party complained that public consultations were not held before the law was passed. However, the official opposition did not make these consultations an obligation for the bill to move forward quickly and be adopted before the holiday break. The Liberals have said they hope the government has a solid legal foundation for its law, which could be challenged in court.
Quebec solidaire, which had also proposed a bill to abolish the obligation of the oath to the king, during the last term and again in recent weeks, hailed the passage of the law as a “great relief”. .