After Quebec got rid of the oath to the king more than a year ago, federal deputies will in turn have to decide on the obligation to swear allegiance to him in order to be sworn in in the House of Commons.
Last year, New Brunswick Liberal MP René Arseneault presented a bill proposing in particular that members of the Senate and the House of Commons could “choose to take and subscribe to the oath of allegiance, an oath of office or both “.
The oath of office would allow elected officials to take an oath “in the best interests of Canada and in compliance with its Constitution,” we can read in the text of the bill.
To do this, the bill requires amending section 128 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
Ministers will oppose
MPs will have the freedom to vote as they see fit, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, but Trudeau’s cabinet ministers will oppose it, the leader of the government in the House of Commons, Steven MacKinnon, has already indicated.
“The government will not support Mr. Arsenault’s bill. We believe that this is not the time to propose constitutional amendments in Canada, so the government is opposed to them,” he decided Tuesday morning upon his arrival at the cabinet.
The Minister of Public Services and Procurement of Canada, Jean-Yves Duclos, was rather favorable to the idea of making the oath optional, but will have to vote with the other ministers.
“I think that most Quebecers are rather detached from monarchical affection. This is also my case, I have no attachment to a king or a queen,” he commented on Tuesday morning, without wanting to go further.
Several other ministers avoided answering journalists’ questions on this subject on Tuesday morning.
Reopen the Constitution
The Bloc Québécois has confirmed that it will support the Acadian MP’s bill, some of its MPs having already described the compulsory oath as “medieval”.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, insisted that Quebecers, Acadians and “a significant number of Canadians” do not recognize themselves in the oath to the king. It is also not necessary to reopen the Constitution to make it optional, he argued at a press briefing on Tuesday.
“This requires a constitutional amendment and we are not in “constitutional amendment” mode,” however, Mr. MacKinnon specified in the morning.
Mr. Arseneault refused, in 1992, to take the oath of office from Queen Elizabeth II to be admitted to the New Brunswick Bar.
The National Assembly of Quebec no longer requires the obligatory oath since December 2022. Elected officials are only required to pledge allegiance to the people of Quebec — and not to the monarch of Canada — to exercise their functions.
Federal MPs are due to debate the bill on Tuesday afternoon, then vote on it on Wednesday.