The elected officials of Quebec solidaire (QS) overstepped the oath to King Charles III on Wednesday, and were therefore sworn in only in “part”. They do not rule out having to swear allegiance to the Crown eventually.
Gathered in the Red Room on Wednesday, the eleven united deputies took turns taking an oath to the people of Quebec without pledging allegiance to the British Crown, as provided for in the Constitution Act of 1867. Conversely elected CAQ and Liberals, they were not invited to sign the register of the National Assembly, the last step before the official swearing in of a deputy.
QS co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois agrees that by taking one out of two oaths, he and his colleagues have only come “part” of the way to sitting in the Blue Room. Between now and the end of the session, he wants to negotiate with the government and the official opposition to allow his party access to the benches in the National Assembly hall.
“The oath in its classic form is the taking of two oaths. It is the accumulation of the two oaths, in the current state of the law, which allows the deputies to sit,” agreed Mr. Nadeau-Dubois at a press conference.
In the meantime, the deputies have nevertheless managed to obtain from the parliamentary authorities their salaries, their operating budgets and permission to occupy a constituency office. They were even presented at the Salon Rouge as the deputies of Québec solidaire for the 43e legislature.
Will they end up having to comply with the demands of Parliament? “We’ll see,” repeated Mr. Nadeau-Dubois on Wednesday.
“We will do everything to avoid it”, for his part meant the united deputy Sol Zanetti, not ruling out this possibility.
Further details will follow.