It shouldn’t be that easy.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
As much for the oath to the king as for the recognition of party status for the solidarity and the PQ, François Legault has the beautiful role. He lets Dominique Anglade slip into hyperpartisanship and enthusiastic defense of the British monarchy.
The CAQ leader doesn’t even need a strategy. He savors this liberal discomfiture in slow motion. When the time seems right to him, he will extend his charitable hand to his rivals.
But for now, he’s in no rush. The show is too much to his liking for him to put an end to it.
Solidarity and PQ received respectively 15.43% and 14.61% of the votes. That is more than the 14.37% of the Liberals. Because of the distortions in our voting system, however, the reds obtained 21 seats, against 11 for the oranges and 3 for the blues.
According to the old parliamentary convention, it takes 12 seats or 20% of the votes to be recognized in the National Assembly. And therefore to have an adequate budget and speaking time. This convention, which dates from the era of tripartism, should be changed. Otherwise, the voice of 1.35 million voters will be drowned out.
After each election, the allocation of parliamentary resources is negotiated between the parties. Nothing abnormal that Mme Anglade defends its interests. But she goes outrageously far. She wants to crush her opponents without even saying what she wants to get in return.
The Liberal leader claims to use this file as a bargaining chip for parliamentary reform. She compares apples with lawn mowers.
Such reform happens once in a generation. The last dates back to the 1980s. This vast project would take months, even years to complete. And the oppositions play it as a team – among other things, they demand that Crown corporations and deputy ministers be more accountable to MPs.
All this has nothing to do with the negotiation on the budget and the speaking time of the parties, a normal practice which follows each election. And in this case, it’s an emergency. An agreement must be reached before the National Assembly sits on November 29.
The total budget is limited. Mr. Legault will probably give some of his budget to PQ and solidarity. But for the speaking time shared by the oppositions, Mme Anglade will have to give in. His anti-democratic crusade cannot last.
With the oath to the monarchy too, Mr. Legault receives the involuntary help of the liberals.
In 2019, the solidarity Sol Zanetti had tabled a bill to abolish this colonial subjection. The CAQ government waited until the end of May 2022 before studying it. Under parliamentary procedure, since the session was ending, unanimous consent was required. The Liberals refused. Mr. Legault was able to pose as a nationalist while leaving Mme Anglade bear the odious death of this reform.
History could repeat itself. By resuming the work of the National Assembly two weeks later than expected, Mr. Legault is once again creating an emergency.
After his inaugural speech and the obligatory debates that follow, there would be barely a week left to study this law before the Christmas break. This is too little to allow detailed study.
To shorten this process, there are two solutions. The first: the unanimity of the parties. The second: change the law by invoking a “gag”. But I doubt that Mr. Legault wants to go that far. He would rather let the Liberals say “no” for him.
According to Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, by tabling a motion itself, the government could let the deputies sit without taking an oath to the king. Would it be legal? Lawyers disagree. But it would be surprising if the Sergeant-at-Arms blocked access to these elected officials. And the courts would hesitate before preventing an elected official from doing his job because he does not submit to King Charles III, who is, among other things, I remind you, supreme governor of the Church of England…
Mr. Legault claims to want to take care of the real business. If that was the case, he wouldn’t postpone the return to the room.
We guess a wound of pride… Caquists did not like having to take an oath to the monarchy. If they did it, the others must too, they tell themselves.
Their original plan was to let the PQ gradually fade into parliamentary limbo until an oath law was passed. Mr. Legault would have simulated a regret while the Liberals would have almost rejoiced, with this self-destructive instinct that has become a reflex for them.
But with the refusal of those in solidarity to swear allegiance to the king, our great political family will have to get along. Because the Assembly cannot function properly without half of the parties.
The Parti Québécois chooses confrontation, while Québec solidaire advocates a negotiated solution. But basically, they are looking for the same thing: not to start their mandate by saying the exact opposite of what they think. How can you blame them?