The elected members of the Parti Québécois (PQ) would like to “make Christmas wishes”. Barely two days before the adjournment of parliamentary proceedings, they are asking the government to do everything in its power to let them sit on Friday.
With the tabling of his bill to make the oath optional, Minister Jean-François Roberge could allow the three PQ MPs to enter the Blue Room “quickly”. He also assured Tuesday that he was working to adopt it by the end of the autumn parliamentary period, on December 9.
Now, it is only after the sanction of the law by the lieutenant-governor that the elected officials who have not taken the oath of allegiance to King Charles III will be able to sit. To enter the enclosure of the Blue Room, the deputies of the PQ must hope that this is done before Friday.
“There’s no reason it shouldn’t be dealt with today, for example, for a vote tomorrow. We want to enter on Friday, because democracy means that we have to ask questions. We represent 600,000 people, then we want to end the session, ”said PQ MP for Matane-Matapédia, Pascal Bérubé, on Wednesday morning.
He regrets that he still has not received “an indication of the moment” of the adoption of the short bill 4 – it contains only two articles. If the PQ cannot sit on Friday, they will not be able to do so before January 31. “We too would like that, going to make Christmas wishes on Friday,” illustrated Mr. Bérubé.
“Listen, we will have discussions”, was content to say the parliamentary leader of the government, Simon Jolin-Barrette, who manages the legislative agenda in Parliament.
Unconstitutional?
Even though he intends to add a section to the Canadian Constitution Act of 1867, Minister Roberge qualifies his bill as “solid”. However, in our pages on Tuesday, the legal expert Martine Valois wondered about its constitutionality.
“I think that we can modify the obligation of the oath to the king”, but within Quebec jurisdictions, she had underlined, while citing as an example a bill tabled last week by Quebec solidaire. He planned to review the Act respecting the National Assembly to include that “no other oath [que celui adressé au peuple québécois] cannot be required of a deputy to sit.
Asked about this on Wednesday, the interim Liberal leader, Marc Tanguay, recalled that his parliamentary group had requested consultations with constitutional experts. “There, it is Wednesday, time flies. […] We’re not going to do anything other than participate in its adoption, but [les] questions are legitimate. There will surely be a legal challenge, then we will see the result that it will give, ”said the elected official opposition.
“It would have been good to ask the questions before,” he added.
The co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, maintains that the solidarity version of the bill ending the oath is the “best currently on the table”. “Now, basically, the objectives of the two bills are the same, it is to put behind us this old archaic practice of the oath to the king,” he added. “We will have the opportunity to […] ensure that we pass the best bill possible. Basically, I think there is more of a consensus in the National Assembly: we have to put that behind us. »