Politics of Quebec

This is an article about the politics of Quebec, Canada.

Political system

British-type parliamentarism based on the Westminster system was introduced in the Province of Lower Canada in 1791. The following diagram represents the way the political system of Quebec works since the 1968 reform. Prior to this reform, the Parliament of Quebec was bicameral.

Legislative and Executive Powers in Quebec

Institutions

Many of Quebec's political institutions are among the oldest in North America. The first part of this article presents the main political institutions of Quebec society. The last part presents an Quebec's current politics and issues.

The Parliament of Quebec

the big house of Quebec holds the legislative power. It consists of the National Assembly of Quebec and the lieutenant governor of Quebec.

National Assembly of Quebec

The National Assembly of Quebec is part of a legislature based on the Westminster System. However, it has a few special characteristics, one of the most important being that it functions primarily in French, although English is allowed and the Assembly's records are published in both English and French. The representatives of the Quebec people are elected with the first-past-the-post electoral method.

is created by the majority party and it is responsible to the National Assembly. Since the abolition of the Legislative Council in 1968, the National Assembly has all the powers to enact laws in the provincial jurisdiction as specified in the Constitution of Canada.

Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec

A symbolic function by nature, the lieutenant-governor represents the Queen of Canada in Quebec. Appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada, the lieutenant-government formally signs bills into law.

Government of Quebec

The government of Quebec consists of all the ministries and governmental branches that do not have the status of independent institutions, such as municipalities and regional county municipalities.

Executive Council

The Executive Council is the body responsible for decision-making in the government. It is composed of the Premier (in French Premier ministre), the government ministers, the ministers of state and delegate ministers. The Executive Council directs the government and the civil service, and oversees the enforcement of laws, regulations and policies. Together with the lieutenant governor, it constitutes the government of Quebec. See also Premier of Quebec.

Quebec Ombudsman

The Quebec Ombudsman is a governmental institution responsible for handling complaints from individuals, companies and associations who believe the government of Quebec or any of its branches has made an error or treated them unjustly. The Ombudsman has certain powers defined by the Public Protector Act. The Quebec Ombudsman has a social contract with Quebecers to ensure the transparency of the state.

Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse

The Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission) is a publicly-funded agency created by the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Its members are appointed by the National Assembly. The Commission has been given powers to promote and protect human rights within all sectors of Quebec society. Government institutions and Parliament are bound by the provisions of the Charter. The Commission may investigate into possible cases of discrimination, whether by the State or by private parties. It may introduce litigation if its recommendations are not followed.

Office québécois de la langue française

The Office québécois de la langue française (Quebec Office of the French language) is an organization created in 1961. Its mandate was greatly expanded by the 1977 Charter of the French Language. It is responsible for applying and defining Quebec's language policy pertaining to linguistic officialization, terminology and francization of public administration and businesses.

See language policies for a comparison with other jurisdictions in the world.

Conseil du statut de la femme

Established in 1973, the Conseil du status de la femme (Council on the Status of Women) is a government advisory and study council responsible for informing the government of the status of women's rights in Quebec. The council is made of a chair and 10 members appointed by the Quebec government every four to five years. The head office of the council is in Quebec City and it has 11 regional offices throughout Quebec.

Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec

A first in North America, the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (Quebec Commission on Access to Information) is an institution created in 1982 to administer the Quebec legislative framework of access to information and protection of privacy.

The first law related to privacy protection is the Consumer Protection Act, enacted in 1971. It ensured that all persons had the right to access their credit record. A little later, the Professional Code enshrined principles such as professional secrecy and the confidential nature of personal information.

Today, the CAI administers the law framework of the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies and the protection of personal information as well as the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector.

Chief electoral officer of Quebec

Independent from the government, this institution is responsible for the administration of the Quebec electoral system.

Judicial bodies

The principal judicial courts of Quebec are the Court of Quebec, the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal.

In 1973, the Tribunal des professions was created to behave as an appeal tribunal to decisions taken by the various discipline committees of Quebec's professional orders. The current president is Paule Lafontaine.

On December 10, 1990, the Quebec Human rights Tribunal was created. It became the first judicial tribunal in Canada specializing in human rights. The current president is Michèle Rivet.

An administrative tribunal, the Tribunal administratif du Québec is in operation since April 1, 1998 to resolve disputes between citizens and the government. The current president is Jacques Forgues.

Municipal and regional institutions

The territory of Quebec is divided into 17 administrative regions: Bas-Saint-Laurent, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Capitale-Nationale, Mauricie, Estrie, Montréal, Outaouais, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Côte-Nord, Nord-du-Québec, Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Chaudière-Appalaches, Laval, Lanaudière, Laurentides, Montérégie, and Centre-du-Québec.

Inside the regions, there are municipalities and regional county municipalities (RCMs).

School boards

On July 1, 1998, 69 linguistic school boards, 60 francophone and 9 anglophone, were created in replacement for the former 153 Protestant and Catholic boards. In order to pass this law, which ended a debate of over 30 years, it was necessary for the Parliament of Canada to amend Article 93 of the Constitution Act 1867.
* List of Quebec school boards
* List of Quebec schools
* Education in Quebec

Political parties

Major political parties

* The Parti libéral du Québec
* The Parti Québécois
* The Action démocratique du Québec

Other recognized parties

* The Quebec Solidaire Party
* The Bloc pot
* The Parti égalité/Equality Party
* The Parti marxiste-léniniste du Québec
* The Parti démocratie chrétienne du Québec
* The Parti vert du Quebec (Green Party)

Historical parties

* The Union Nationale
* The Parti créditiste or Ralliement créditiste
* The Bloc populaire
* The Action libérale nationale
* The Parti conservateur du Québec
* The Ralliement national
* The Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale
* The Parti républicain du Québec
* The Pro-Sovereignty Political Party
* The Parti bleu
* The Parti rouge

International organizations

Quebec is a participating government in the international organization the Francophonie, which can be seen as a sort of Commonwealth of Nations for French-speaking countries. Since the 1960s, Quebec has an international network of delegations which represent the Government of Quebec abroad. It is currently represented in 28 foreign locations and include 6 General delegations (government houses), 4 delegations (government offices), 9 government bureaux, 6 trade branches, and 3 business agents.

Through its civil society, Quebec is also present in many international organizations and forums such as Oxfam, Clowns sans frontières, World Social Forum, World March of Women, etc.

Politics of Quebec today

Recent political history

When Quebec became one of the four founding provinces of Confederation, guarantees for the maintenance of its language, culture, and religion were specifically written into the Constitution. English and French were made the official languages in Quebec and school systems which provided for public funding of religious schools were established. Unfortunately for French-speaking Canadians, the same was not true for the other provinces. Under the Constitution the provinces had control of education, and in Quebec the school system was entirely confessional. The English-speaking Protestants and French-speaking Roman Catholics ran separate school systems in Quebec until the 1990s which formally secularized the school system along linguistic lines.

The Duplessis Years: 1944-1959

Premier Maurice Duplessis and his Union Nationale party emerged out of the ashes of the Conservative Party of Quebec in the 1930's. This political lineage dates back to the 1850's Parti Bleu of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, a center-right party in Quebec that emphasizes provincial autonomy and allies itself with Conservatives in English Canada. Under his government, the Roman Catholic Church was allowed to maintain control over social services such as schools and hospitals for French-speaking Quebeckers. The authoritarian Duplessis used the provincial police and the "Padlock Law" to suppress unionism and gave the Montreal-based Anglo-Scot business elite a free reign in running the Quebec economy. He also suppressed the circulation of books banned by the Catholic Church, and even shut down Protestant Churches like the Jehovah's Witnesses who evangelized in French Canada. In return, the clergy used its influence to exhort voters to stay with the Union Nationale government. Duplessis resisted the North American trend of massive State investment in education, health, and social, turning away federal transfers of funds earmarked for these fields; he jealously guarded provincial jurisdictions.

The Quiet Revolution 1960-1966

In 1960, under a new Liberal Party government led by Premier Jean Lesage, the political power of the church was greatly reduced. Quebec entered an accelerated decade of changes known as the Quiet Revolution. Liberal governments of the 1960's followed a robust nationalist policy of "Maitre chez nous" (Master in our own house) that would see French-speaking Quebeckers use the State to elevate their economic state and assert their cultural identity. The government took state control of the education system, nationalized Hydro-Quebec (the provincial power utility), unionized the civil service, founded the Caisse de Depot to manage the massive new government pension program, and invested in companies that promoted French Canadians to management positions in industry. In 1966 the Union Nationale returned to power despite losing the popular vote by nearly seven points to the Liberal Party, but could not turn the tide of modernization and secularization that the Quiet Revolution had started. Both Liberals and Union Nationale governments continued to oppose federal intrusion into provincial jurisdiction.

Réné Levesque and "Sovereignty-Association"

A non-violent Quebec independence movement slowly took form in the late 1960s. The Parti Québécois was created by the sovereignty-association movement of René Lévesque; it advocated a reconfederation recognizing Quebec as an equal and independent nation. An architect of the Quiet Revolution, Levesque was frustrated by federal-provinical bickering over what he saw as increasing federal government intrusions into provinicial jurisdictions. He saw a formal break with Canada as the only way out of this. He broke with provincial Liberals who remained committed to a United Canada.

Pierre Trudeau's Liberalism

In reaction to events in Quebec, Lester Pearson's ruling Liberal government in Ottawa sought to address the new political assertiveness of French Quebec. He commisoned the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963. It reported that Francophones were underrepresented in the nation's political and business communities. Pearson also recruited Pierre Trudeau, who campaigned against the violation of civil liberties under Duplessis and the ecomomic and political marginalization of French Quebeckers in the 1950's. Trudeau saw a strong French Canadian presence in Ottawa as the best way of remedying this.

Trudeau's vision was to write a Constitution for a "Just Society" with a strong federal government founded on shared values of individual rights, bilingualism, social democratic ideals, and, later on, multiculturalism. As Liberal Justice Minister in 1967, he eliminated Canada's sodomy law stating "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation." This government also repealed Canada's race-based immigration law.

In 1968, Trudeau was elected Prime Minister on a wave of "Trudeaumania". In 1971, his government instituted Official Bilingualism with the Official Languages Act which made French and English official languages and guaranteed linguistic minorities (English-speaking in Quebec, French-speaking elsewhere) the right to federal services in their language of choice. He also implimented the policy of multiculturalism, answering the concern of immigrant communitees that their cultural identities were being ignored. Also in 1971, Trudeau also failed in an attempt to bring home the Canadian Constitution from Great Britain at the Victoria conference when Robert Bourassa refused to give up a Constitutional veto for Quebec.

The FLQ and the October Crisis

During the 1960s, a marginal yet violent terrorist group known as the Front de libération du Québec was formed in an effort to attain Quebec independence. In October 1970, their activities culminated in events referred to as the October Crisis when the British Trade commissioner James Cross was kidnapped along with Pierre Laporte, a provincial minister and Vice-Premier, who was killed a few days later. Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa called for military assistance to guard government officials, and Prime Minister Trudeau declared the War Measures Act to stop an "Apprehended Insurrection" by the FLQ. Critics charge that Trudeau violated civil liberties by arresting thousands of political activists without a warrant. Supporters of these measures point to their popularity at the time, and the fact that the FLQ was wiped out. Independence-minded Quebeckers would now opt for the social democratic nationalism of the Parti Québécois.

Sovereignists take power

The Parti Québécois won the Quebec provincial election in 1976. The first PQ government was known as the "republic of teachers" for its high number of candidates teaching at the university level. The PQ passed laws to favour equal financing of political parties and the Charter of the French Language (the so-called Bill 101). The Charter is a law making French the sole official language of Quebec, in order to preserve French language, seen as culturally endangered in a vastly english-speaking Canada ( and furthermore, in the whole Noth-America ). The first enactment of Bill 101 became controversial for its regulations banning commercial signs displaying languages other than French. The government claimed that they violated the right of the French-speaking majority. This section of the law was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, see: Ford v. Quebec (A.G.). The law was amended to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. The current 1988 law specifies that signs can be multilingual so long as French is predominant. Most businesses, following their customers' wishes now voluntarily choose to put up French signs. The maintenance of an inspectorate to enforce the sign laws remains controversial.

1980 Referendum

In the 1980 Quebec referendum, Premier Lévesque asked the Quebec people for "a mandate to negotiate" his proposal for "sovereignty-association" with the rest of Canada, meaning political sovereignty for Quebec in an economic association with the rest of Canada, Sixty per cent of the Quebec electorate voted against it. The Canadian government patriated the constitution in 1982 without the approval of the sovereignist Quebec government. From 1985 to 1994, the federalist Parti libéral du Québec governed under Robert Bourassa and Daniel Johnson, Jr. Progress on the constitutional issue resulted in the Meech Lake Accord in 1987, but it collapsed in 1990. Another constitutional deal, the Charlottetown Accord, which sought to resolve a long list of unrelated issues at the same time as it resolved the rest of the nation's relationship with Quebec, was rejected by country-wide referendum in 1992.

1995 Referendum

The Parti Québécois was re-elected to office in 1994, led by Jacques Parizeau, and held the 1995 referendum on sovereignty. On October 30, 1995, the measure was rejected by an extremely slim margin of less than one per cent. The federal Liberal Party under Jean Chrétien came under sharp criticism for mishandling the "No" side of the referendum campaign.

Parizeau resigned and was replaced by the head of the federal Bloc Québécois party, Lucien Bouchard. Under Bouchard, the sovereignist option was pushed aside until they could establish "winning conditions".

Still today, the political status of Quebec inside Canada remains a central question. This desire for greater provincial autonomy has often been expressed during the annual constitutional meetings of provincial premiers with the Prime Minister of Canada. In Quebec, no single option regarding autonomy currently gathers a majority of support. Therefore, the question remains unresolved after almost 50 years of debate. However, after a ten-year rule by the separatist Parti Québécois government, Jean Charest, leader of the federalist Parti libéral du Québec, became premier of the province in the 2003 election.

The National Question

The National Question is the debate regarding the future of Quebec and the status of its State.

Federalism

Federalist nationalism

The federalist nationalists are nationalists who believe it best for the people of Quebec to reform the Canadian confederation in order to accommodate the wish of Quebecers to continue to exist as a distinct society by its culture, its history, its language, and so on. They recognize the existence of the Quebec political (or civic) nation; however, they do not think Quebecers truly wish to be independent from the rest of Canada. Before the arrival of the Parti Québécois, all major Quebec parties were federalist and nationalist. Since then, the party most associated with this view is the Liberal Party of Quebec. On two occasions, federalist nationalists of Quebec attempted to reform the Canadian federation together with allies in other provinces. The 1990 Meech Lake Accord and the 1992 Charlottetown Accord were both ultimately unsuccessful.

"Status-quo" federalism

"Status-quo" federalists defend Quebec's remaining within Canada and keeping the status quo regarding special constitutional recognition for the province. They embrace the vision of Canadian federalism held by former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. They defend the need for the federal government to assume the major role in the Canadian system, with occasional involvement in areas of provincial jurisdiction. They do not recognize the national status of Quebec, formally or informally. The traditional vehicle for "status-quo" federalists is the Liberal Party of Canada.

Sovereigntism

Sovereigntists are nationalists who do not believe Canada to be reformable in a way that could answer what they see as the legitimate wish of Quebecers to govern themselves freely. They opt for the independence of Quebec; however, at the same time they insist on offering an economic and political partnership to the rest of Canada on the basis of the equality of both nations. The political parties that the sovereignists created are the Bloc Québécois and the Parti Québécois, which its members define as a party of social democratic tendency. The Parti Québécois organized two referendums that could have led to negotiations for independence: one in 1980 and one in 1995. The No side won both, but has shown decreased support in the latter, winning to a very thin margin of 0.6% ( 50.6% NO, against 49.4% YES ).

To this day, according to various polls, support for the "yes" side varies between 45% and 55%.

Politics of Quebec: Encyclopedia BETA

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