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MINISTER DION STATES THAT THE CLARITY BILL WILL
PROTECT THE RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF ALL CANADIANS, ESPECIALLY QUEBECERS
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, March 15, 2000 – Beginning debate on third reading
of the clarity bill (C-20), the Honourable Stéphane Dion, President of the
Privy Council and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, stated that the bill
will guarantee to Canadians that the Government would not undertake to negotiate
secession unless the population of a province clearly wanted it. It will also
guarantee that the negotiations would take place within the Canadian
constitutional framework.
"The Clarity Act will protect the rights and interests of all
Canadians, but especially Quebecers, because it is in Quebec that the provincial
government is contemplating a secession attempt in an atmosphere of confusion
and outside the legal framework. Quebecers want no part of that disturbing
prospect. The Clarity Act is pro-Quebec and pro-democracy,"
Mr. Dion stated.
Minister Dion then noted that a number of legal scholars expressed their
support for Bill C-20 to the Legislative Committee that examined the bill. His
main conclusion from these testimonies is that the bill is consistent with the
Supreme Court's opinion and in no way infringes on the jurisdiction of the
provinces.
Some of the witnesses added that it is legal and legitimate for the
Government of Canada to assess the clarity of the question prior to any future
referendum. The Minister pointed out that: "In purely practical terms, it
is hard to imagine how the House of Commons and the Government of Canada could
go through the whole referendum campaign without ever answering the simple
question: Do you think the question is clear? Voters would press them for an
answer, and rightly so. They would have the right to know."
Referring to the ambiguity of the question in 1995, Mr. Dion supported his
opinion by, among other things, an excerpt from the testimony of Professor
Maurice Pinard, who stated: "In 1995, only around 50% of voters knew that
[sovereignty-partnership] was divisible. The rest believed that there would be
no sovereignty without partnership at the same time."
Minister Dion then addressed the clarity of the majority and the role of the
political actors in this regard, including the Government of Canada and the
House of Commons. He reiterated the reason why the bill does not determine a
specific threshold in advance: "It provides that the majority would be the
subject of a qualitative assessment following a referendum. In actual fact, it
is very difficult to set a minimum threshold in advance that would guarantee a
clear majority in all circumstances. Indeed, setting a threshold in advance
would likely be contrary to the spirit of the Supreme Court's opinion," Mr.
Dion stated.
"Not setting a threshold in advance is consistent with our law and with
Canadian tradition regarding referenda," the Minister pointed out, citing
the example of Newfoundland's entry into Confederation. "The Government of
Canada [instead] proceeded exactly as provided for in Bill C-20: it waited for
the referendum result before it came to a decision," he added.
With regard to international practice, Mr. Dion observed that, other than in
cases of decolonization, the UN has shown no sympathy for secession whatsoever,
and has even opposed it completely. He also affirmed that the bill does nothing
undemocratic in establishing that a referendum majority in favour of secession
be subject to assessment. Mr. Dion sees this, on the contrary, as "an
unusual openness, in a democracy, toward the widely opposed phenomenon of
secession."
The Minister also responded to the comments made by Quebec's Canadian
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, Mr Joseph Facal, who told the Committee on
the one hand that, although Aboriginals are nations, "Aboriginal rights
must be exercised within sovereign states," and on the other that
accessions to independence for nations such as Quebec were "purely a
factual matter," a political, rather than legal issue. "In other
words, he and his government believe themselves to be free to act outside the
law, but Aboriginal populations, for their part, would have to submit to the
law. Clearly a double standard," the Minister stated.
With respect to the Aboriginal issue, Minister Dion reiterated the Government
of Canada's commitment to addressing, in negotiating secession, "the
rights, interests and territorial claims of the Aboriginal peoples of
Canada." In this respect, the Minister noted that the Government has
accepted two amendments to the bill, proposed by the NDP and supported by the
Liberal members of the Committee, to explicitly mention representatives of the
Aboriginal peoples of Canada among those whose views would be taken into
consideration when assessing the clarity of a question and of a majority.
The bill fully complies with the Supreme Court's opinion, and guarantees to
all Canadians that their federal government will never negotiate the secession
of a province unless the House of Commons has determined that the population of
that province has expressed its will to cease to be part of Canada, the Minister
stated. "It also guarantees them that any such negotiations, should they
occur, would respect the rule of law and constitutional principles. The fact is
that Quebecers, and indeed all other Canadians, have a right to clarity rather
than ambiguity, and to the protection of the law rather than anarchy," the
Minister concluded.
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For information:
André Lamarre
Special Assistant
(613) 943-1838
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