Even if a Quebec constitution might seem counterintuitive, it does not mean the prospect lacks merit from the point of view of minorities.
Questions have been raised about the political motivations of the Quebec Liberal Youth wing in calling for an internal Quebec constitution, to be written by a representative constituent assembly. Whatever their political calculations might be, they do not take away from the legitimacy of this project in its own right. Separate subnational state constitutions exist in English-speaking federal countries like the United States and Australia. In Canada, British Columbia has one.
In the current National Assembly, the other parties, save the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), support the adoption of such a document. The CAQ’s forerunner, the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), also did. So it is unlikely that the new CAQ government will want to be the lone holdout should the rest of the Quebec Liberal Party follow their youth association’s lead and adopt this policy.
Yet it is understandable that minorities entering into such a drafting process would approach it with trepidation, especially given recent events such as the passage of Bill 21, which many feel was an ominous demonstration of a kind of Québécois unilateralism. But even if a Quebec constitution might seem counterintuitive, it does not mean the prospect lacks merit from the point of view of minorities.
One can look to former prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s past efforts to protect Canada’s French-speaking minority within Canada as an example of how a minority-majority constitutional negotiation can result in augmented minority rights. He argued for, and achieved, a new charter of rights embedded into the repatriated Canadian constitution of 1982 that entrenched official bilingualism and minority education rights. And these protections were further secured through the adoption of a new constitutional amending formula that requires much more than a simple majority vote of Canada’s Parliament.
Likewise, within the Quebec context, should a Quebec constitutional project proceed, minorities could look to address their issues within that process as a precondition to agreeing to the final product, an agreement that would be essential for the result to have legitimacy. Ratification in a referendum should also be required.
And it would not be unreasonable that minorities also, like what Trudeau did federally, ask that the new document also entrench the current Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms and include a new amending procedure that would require more than a simple majority vote of the National Assembly.
Of course, this document will start off being subordinate to the Canadian Constitution unless the rest of the country supports an amendment to its fundamental law to the contrary. But even then, as a precondition for any such acceptance, the rest of Canada would probably first want to make sure that Quebec’s minorities are satisfied with the new arrangement.
Last, and most importantly, that latter prospect offers a chance for all of us to reset how Quebec’s minorities and majority negotiate with each other on constitutionally related issues. We would now be dealing with each other eyeball to eyeball both as minorities (francophone Quebecers within Canada and Quebec’s minorities within Quebec) and as majorities (the francophone majority within Quebec and Quebec’s minorities as an extension of the English Canadian majority’s diversity). So helping each other would be critical to a successful outcome for everyone.
To dismiss such a projet de société prematurely risks having anglophones and other minorities be characterized and resented by the francophone majority for being too pre-judgmental and paternalistic with respect to their ability to draft an appropriate document. Alternatively, we, as minorities who are also Quebecers, can be leaders instead of victims by taking advantage of a historic opportunity to directly forge a common constitutional vision with the people with whom we share a homeland.
Richard Smith and Giuliano D’Andrea were the first two presidents of the Equality Party Youth Association. They argued that association’s case for a Quebec constitution to the National Assembly’s Bélanger Campeau Commission in 1991.
