Reference Re Secession of Quebec - Background

Background

Following the election of a majority of Parti Québécois (PQ) MNAs with 41.37% of the popular vote in the 1976 provincial election, the party formed a government and, in 1980, held a referendum. The government of Quebec asked the province's population if it should seek a mandate to negotiate sovereignty for Quebec coupled with the establishment of a new political and economic union with Canada. The referendum resulted in the defeat of the sovereignty option with 59.56% voting no on sovereignty. The PQ was nevertheless re-elected in 1981, this time promising not to hold a referendum.

In 1982, the federal government petitioned the Imperial Parliament in London to amend Canada's constitution so that in the future, all further amendments would take place by means of a process of consent involving only the Parliament of Canada and the legislatures of the provinces (several provinces objected). Up until this point, all amendments had taken place by means of Acts of the Parliament at Westminster, since the Canadian constitution was, strictly speaking, a simple statute of that Parliament.

Colloquially, the switch to a domestic amendment procedure was known as patriation. The particular formula for amendments that was adopted in 1982 was opposed by the then-government of Quebec, which also opposed the adoption of other constitutional changes made at the same time, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—although this opposition was not necessarily based on a rejection of the content of these changes, as opposed to the manner of their adoption, and the failure to include amendments specific to Quebec in the package. Also, Quebec had already at that time a more complete Charter that was adopted in 1975.

Two further attempts were made at amending the Canadian constitution in 1987-1990 and 1992 in a manner that, it was hoped, would have caused the Quebec legislature to adopt a motion supporting the revised constitution. These failed packages of constitutional reforms were known as the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord. Thus, in the mid-1990s, there was a widespread sense that the Constitution of Canada was not fully legitimate, because it had not yet received the formal approval of Québec.

In 1994, the Parti Québécois was re-elected, and announced that it would be initiating a second referendum to take place in 1995. This time, the question was on sovereignty with an optional partnership with Canada. The "no" side won by only a slight margin. Prior to this referendum, the National Assembly of Quebec adopted a bill relating to the future of Quebec which laid out the Quebec's plan for secession in case of a winning referendum.

In response to the bill and the referendum result, several legal actions were initiated by opponents to the independence of Quebec, questioning the legality of secession. In 1996, Parti Québécois leader Lucien Bouchard announced that his government would make plans to hold another referendum when he was confident that the "winning conditions" were there, pointing to the political cost of losing a third referendum. In reaction to Bouchard's stated plans, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien initiated a reference to answer the legality of a unilateral declaration of independence from a Canadian province.