Quebec Premier François Legault at the legislature in Quebec City on Oct. 1. The provincial government's Bill 1 proposes amendments to the 1867 Constitution Act and Charter of human rights and freedoms, among other legislation.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press

The initial reaction to Bill 1, the CAQ government’s proposed new constitution for Quebec, was derision, mixed with bewilderment, mixed with hostility. A constitution, supposedly reflecting a society’s highest aspirations and most profound beliefs about how it should be governed, that was wholly the creation of the governing party, drafted in secret and sprung upon the public without consultation? Perhaps the CAQ can use its majority (representing 41 per cent of the popular vote) to muscle it through over the opposition’s objections, but Quebeckers are said not to take kindly to having constitutions imposed on them.

Others have pointed out that much of the proposed constitution was, well, unconstitutional. Indeed the proposed “law of laws” appears to have been scribbled down with a good deal more haste than forethought, lacking even a means of amending itself. It seems equally unclear on the question of how it would be enforced, or whether it would in fact take “precedence over any inconsistent rule of law” (Article 2), given that it also declares (Article 35) that the National Assembly “is sovereign in the areas under its legislative jurisdiction.”

And yes, in a number of places, Bill 1 – an omnibus bill containing not only the proposed new Quebec Constitution Act, but several other new laws and amendments to existing laws – takes flagrant liberties with the Constitution of Canada.

“The only official language of Québec is French.” We’ve been here before, of course: that is also the declaration in Bill 96, passed by the same government, as it was in Bill 101. That doesn’t make it so.

Start with articles 13, 14 and 15, asserting that “the Québec people has, in fact and in law, the right to self-determination,” that it “has the inalienable right to freely decide the political system and legal status of Québec,” and that in any referendum of the Quebec people, “50 per cent of the valid votes cast plus one” is enough to declare a winner. The combined effect, if it does not go so far as to state explicitly that Quebec has a unilateral right to secede, and on a vote of a bare majority – in both cases contrary to the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in the Secession Reference – certainly leaves that impression.

Then there’s article 21: “The only official language of Québec is French.” We’ve been here before, of course: that is also the declaration in Bill 96, passed by the same government, as it was in Bill 101. That doesn’t make it so. The Constitution Act, 1867, is quite clear on this point: section 133 provides for the use of English and French in the debates, journals and acts of both the Parliament of Canada and the legislature of........

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