MINISTER DION STATES THE OPINION BY THE SUPREME COURT ON UNILATERAL SECESSION IS A TURNING POINT IN CANADIAN HISTORY

EDMONTON, ALBERTA, September 24, 1999 – Speaking to students and faculty at the Centre for Constitutional Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, the President of the Privy Council and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, the Honourable Stéphane Dion, said today that the opinion on unilateral secession rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada on August 20, 1998, was a watershed in the history of the Canadian federation.

The Minister noted that the Court confirmed that a unilateral secession would have no basis in law. The Court stated that, in law, secession requires a constitutional amendment, which has to be negotiated. The Court added that only clear support for secession can give rise to an obligation to undertake such constitutional negotiations.

The Minister said that he saw this opinion by the Supreme Court of Canada as the confirmation of a right enjoyed by Quebecers: "the right never to have their full belonging to Canada challenged unless they have clearly expressed their desire to renounce it." He indicated that the Government of Quebec, contrary to what it had believed, could not invoke international law to effect secession unilaterally. It would have to negotiate it, within the Canadian constitutional framework and in accordance with the constitutional principles of federalism, democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of minorities, acknowledging that nothing could be ruled out, including negotiations on boundaries, the Minister explained.

With respect to the obligation to negotiate in the event of clear support for secession, the Minister indicated that this position by the Court is perfectly satisfactory to the Government of Canada. He pointed out that then Attorney General the Honourable Allan Rock addressed the moral aspect of this obligation in a speech to the House of Commons on September 26, 1996, setting out the reasons for the reference to the Supreme Court: "The leading political figures of all our provinces and the Canadian public have long agreed that the country will not be held together against the clear will of Quebecers." Similarly, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said on December 8, 1997, that [TRANSLATION] "in such a situation, there will undoubtedly be negotiations with the federal government." (Le Soleil, 08-12-97)

Minister Dion also noted that he himself had stressed this principle many times in his speeches and public letters, starting with his first statement as a minister: [TRANSLATION] "In the unfortunate eventuality that a strong majority in Quebec were to vote on a clear question in favour of secession, I believe that the rest of Canada would have a moral obligation to discuss the division of the territory." (Le Soleil, 27-01-1996)

Therefore, the significant element of the Court’s opinion is not the obligation to negotiate, but rather "the solid and irrefutable causal link that the Court establishes between this obligation to negotiate secession and the clarity of support for secession," the Minister emphasized.

The obligation to negotiate can stem only from "a decision of a clear majority of the population of Quebec on a clear question to pursue secession," the Minister stated, citing paragraph 93 of the Court’s opinion. There is no such obligation, he explained, if the expression of democratic will "is itself fraught with ambiguities. Only the political actors," the Court stipulated, "would have the information and expertise to make the appropriate judgment as to the point at which, and the circumstances in which, those ambiguities are resolved one way or the other." (par. 100)

As a result, Mr. Dion added, "the Government of Quebec is certainly free to use its parliamentary majority to have the National Assembly adopt a referendum question drafted by the Government, and then to put that question to Quebec voters. But the Government of Canada, as a ‘political actor’ and a ‘participant in Confederation,’ also has the duty to make its own evaluation of the clarity of the question and the majority, before concluding that it is bound to negotiate the break-up of Canada."

Could the Government of Quebec then try to obtain international recognition? Minister Dion answered by pointing to the international community’s extreme reluctance to recognize unilateral secession. "There are, unfortunately," he noted, "many populations in the world that desire their independence to an almost unanimous degree, that are victims of unimaginable exactions by the states to which they belong, and yet do not succeed in obtaining international recognition as independent states."

And so, Mr. Dion believes, "we Quebecers should not opt for secession by counting on international support exercised against the will of the Canadian state. Instead, we should count on the honesty of other Canadians. We should rely on the values of tolerance that we all share in Canada, and which would be essential to the conduct of those painful and difficult negotiations. And therein lies the contradiction of the secessionist project: since other Canadians are good and reasonable people, why should we want to separate from them?"

"And yet this whole debate could be avoided," the Minister explained. "All the Quebec government has to do is announce tomorrow morning that it will never hold a referendum unless it becomes evident that a consensus exists in Quebec in favour of its ceasing to be part of Canada and becoming an independent country. If the Government of Quebec were to issue such a statement, the referendum uncertainty would disappear, together with all the costs and waste of energy it entails. We would all do better to work together to improve our quality of life and to solve the social problems that compel all our attention, and all our unity," the Intergovernmental Affairs Minister concluded.

Mr. Dion will address the same topic this evening in a speech to the Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Alberta.

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