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Politics of Quebec

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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

Positions

Lieutenant Governor

  • asks the leader of the majority party to form a goverment in which he will serve as Premier
  • enacts the laws adopted by the National Assembly
  • has a theoretical veto power

Premier

  • appoints the members of the Cabinet and the heads of public corporations
  • determines the date of the coming general elections

Members of the National Assembly (MNAs)

  • are elected using the first-past-the-post voting system
  • are numbering 125, so approximately one MNA for each 40,000 electors.

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 overview of Quebec's current politics and issues.

The Parliament of Quebec

The Parliament of Quebec holds the legislative power. It consists of the National Assembly of Quebec and the lieutenant governor of Quebec.

National Assembly of Quebec

Main article: 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.

The government 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 federal government, the lieutenant-government 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

Main article: Executive Council of Quebec

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 (Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission)

The 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.

Political parties

Main article: Political parties in Quebec

The current major political parties in Quebec are:

Other recognized parties include:

Historical parties include:

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 Protestants and Roman Catholics ran separate school systems in Quebec until the 1990s when secularization of schools took place under the Parti Québécois government.

Under the Union Nationale government of Maurice Duplessis and all previous governments, the Roman Catholic Church was allowed to maintain control over social services such as schools and hospitals. In return, the clergy used its influence to exhort voters to stay with the conservative government, which also took firm stands against social reform and unionism.

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. In 1966 the Union Nationale returned to power despite losing the popular vote by nearly seven points to the Liberal Party.

During the 1960s, a group known as the Front de libération du Québec was formed in an effort to attain independence for Québec. Their activities culminated in events referred to as the October Crisis when the British Trade commissioner to Canada was kidnapped along with Pierre Laporte, a provincial minister and Vice-Premier, who was killed a few days later.

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. 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 fundamental law making French the sole official language of Quebec while guaranteeing the rights of the English-speaking community. The first enactment of Bill 101 became controversial for its regulations on commercial signs. It banned English-only and bilingual signs, as 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.

Premier Lévesque put his proposal for "sovereignty association", meaning political soveriegnty for Quebec in an economic association with the rest of Canada, before the Quebec voters in the 1980 Quebec referendum. Sixty per cent of the Quebec electorate voted against it. The Canadian government patriated the constitution in 1982 without the approval of the 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.

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, 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

Main article: Quebec 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 society distinct 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.

Separatism

Main article: Quebec 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.


See also

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