MONTREAL—Over the past few weeks, there has been extensive commentary in the Quebec media about what is known as the “Gérin-Lajoie doctrine.” It was invoked by Quebec Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon in his petulant refusal to attend the Montreal summit between Canada and the European Union last week.

PSPP, as he is known, was not accorded the privilege of speaking to the delegates, in spite of the meeting being “on Quebec soil.” Given his constant attacks on Canada as a “colonial regime,” it was doubtful his speech would have been statesmanlike. In any event, Quebec premiers did not speak to the G7 meetings when they were in Montebello in 1981, or La Malbaie in 2018. 

Nonetheless, St-Pierre Plamondon accused Ottawa of “imposing economic decisions that fall within [Quebec’s] areas of jurisdiction, in complete departure from the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine.”

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So what is this doctrine? Paul Gérin-Lajoie was the minister of education in the early 1960s government of then-premier Jean Lesage, in what was known as the “Équipe du tonnerre” of cabinet luminaries like René Lévesque and Eric Kierans. 

In April 1965, Gérin-Lajoie spoke to consular officials in Montreal.........

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