Is it possible to sit illegally in the National Assembly with complete legitimacy or, in other words, can Paul St-Pierre Plamondon have the butter and the silver of the butter in his chivalrous battle against King Charles III? As surprising as it may seem, the answer seems to be yes, but on the condition of being accompanied by the National Assembly in its desire to test the limits of the Canadian constitution.
The obligation of deputies to take an oath before entering the exercise of their functions is well detailed in the Constitution and even goes so far as to prescribe specific wording. In short, difficult to escape with linguistic acrobatics. It is rather in terms of the sanctions applicable to offending Members that clarity is lacking. In the absence of clarity, Parliament potentially has the prerogative to decide how to proceed free from interference from government and even, to a large extent, from judges. It enjoys a legal fortification called “parliamentary privilege”, which allows elected officials to administer their internal affairs among themselves.
Our valiant knight Paul therefore seeks to lower the drawbridge of the National Assembly to take legal refuge there. He seeks to be recognized by motion as a legitimate Member of Parliament notwithstanding his violation of the oath to the king required by the Constitution. This would allow him to continue his act of civil disobedience to the constitutional monarchy without having to suffer the short-term consequences.
However, this approach would have the impact of transposing this act of disobedience from the individual level to the institutional level for the National Assembly. The watertightness of the fortress of parliamentary privilege could potentially be tested. Moreover, if the courts have little influence on the administration of Parliament, they nevertheless have the big end of the stick to determine the constitutionality of the laws which come out of it. It is reasonable to think that the votes of a few unsworn deputies would not call into question the constitutionality of laws adopted by a majority of the National Assembly, it could nevertheless be otherwise if a majority of the members of Parliament turned their backs on the oath monarchy demanded in the constitution.
A more permanent and comprehensive solution to the issue could come through a bill amending the oath formula defined in the Constitution. This avenue also carries its share of risks, since the formula for amending this constitutional obligation remains uncertain. Many constitutional scholars have a liberal interpretation of what is part of Quebec’s internal constitution that can be amended unilaterally by Quebec.
That said, “the office of Queen” is one of the subjects requiring the unanimity of the provinces to be amended in the Canadian constitution. Uncertainty therefore remains as to the ability of the National Assembly to legally and unilaterally amend the practice of the oath to the king.
And this is where the fundamental question raised by the leader of the Parti Québécois comes in. Yes, questioning the place of the monarchy in our constitutional system involves risks, but why not try to update constitutional practices by the means available to us? It is not a question here of questioning the foundations of the rule of law, but of testing the flexibility of the living tree that is supposed to be our Canadian constitution. Do we have more to do with an oak or a reed when the time comes to try to set aside a colonial and anachronistic practice? It is still embarrassing to see the survival in 2022 of an oath that has its origins in the desire of an Anglican king to exclude Catholics from government posts.
There will always be someone to remind us that these symbol stakes aren’t “the real deal”. In return, the medieval struggle led by the leader of the PQ also reminds us that politics is not only made of bricks and mortar, but also of history and institutions. In any case, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon will have succeeded in occupying the vast media space created by the beat between the election and the swearing in of Parliament while pushing the Coalition avenir Québec to come to a conclusion regarding the commitments of its new project. for nationalists.
In all this debate, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon may not have the head of the king, but he will at least have demonstrated that in Quebec, constitutionally, the king is naked.