(Ottawa) Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will be able to continue to sit in the House of Commons even though he indicated that he had not been sincere when he pledged allegiance to the British crown during his swearing in as an MP.
Posted at 4:31 p.m.
In a ruling released Thursday after question period, House Speaker Anthony Rota referred, as he had on Tuesday when the issue arose, to a 1990 ruling by Speaker John Fraser and reiterated that he is not authorized to judge the circumstances or the sincerity with which a duly elected MP takes the oath of allegiance.
“The importance revealed by this oath is a matter of conscience and it must be so. […] Only the House can review the conduct of its members and only the House can take action if it decides that action is necessary,” he quoted.
In other words, President Rota explained, only the Chamber itself has authority over the deputies and can judge their conduct. “That being said, there are some issues that deserve to be approached with great caution,” he added. We may have here a convincing example on one hand or another. »
Liberals had asked him to decide on this issue earlier this week. “If it wasn’t sincere, it’s as if he had never taken [le serment] “, had argued Tuesday the parliamentary secretary to the leader of the government in the House of Commons, Kevin Lamoureux, by formulating the request.
Mr. Rota had said that one of his predecessors determined that the Speaker of the House does not have the power to judge the sincerity of an oath.
Another parliamentary secretary, Mark Gerretsen, then urged Mr. Rota to look into the matter, arguing that Mr. Blanchet had affirmed himself that he had not been sincere.
On many occasions, the Bloc leader has pointed out that his oath of allegiance and that of the other members of his party in order to be able to sit were not sincere. When he reiterated it during question period in the House of Commons, his statement sparked loud cries from some elected officials calling on him to resign.
“A forced oath, when the heart is not in it, is worth nothing,” M. Blanchet had said in the Chamber. My only allegiance goes, excluding the foreign king, to the people of Quebec and to the Quebec nation. And Mr. President, you can tell the Prime Minister and you can tell the King. »
If the Liberals argued that Mr. Blanchet should lose the authorization to sit in the Commons, other members of their caucus were not at all of the same opinion.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ruled out the possibility of preventing the Bloc leader from continuing to represent his constituents in Ottawa.
“The reality is that there are many people who take oaths to the Queen to become citizens [et] who later withdraw it. Mr. Blanchet was elected by Canadians to serve in this House,” he commented.
New Brunswick Liberal elected official René Arseneault went much further in his statements, saying that the compulsory oath is equivalent to “a humiliation for Francophones”.
“For a francophone, are we comfortable taking an oath to the British monarch when in my situation, my story is that it was with the help of this oath that the Acadians were deported ? If we know his story, we are not comfortable with that, ”he said.
Like many other colleagues, he had avoided saying whether he had been sincere in pledging his allegiance during his swearing in as a member of the House of Commons. Yet some 30 years ago he fought a successful battle when he refused to take a similar oath in order to be called to the bar of his province.
Mr. Arsenault nevertheless signaled that he would “absolutely” support a motion that would make the oath to the British crown optional.
In addition, his Liberal colleague Joël Lightbound was the only MP to vote in favor, Thursday, of a Bloc motion aimed at ending Canada’s ties with the British monarchy.
With information from Michel Saba, The Canadian Press