“A crocus and fleur-de-lis entwined.
Autonomism forever!:

On 14 November 2023, the Government of Quebec updated its administrative consolidation of the Constitution Acts to what should be its 4^th edition and recognised a constitutional amendment that the legislature of Saskatchewan added to the text of section 90 of the Constitution Act, 1867 as of 15 September 2023.

The 1^st edition from 1 January 2021 did not contain any new provisions but did reject the doctrine of “indirect amendment” that the federal Department of Justice has applied to all its consolidations going back to the mid-20^th century. However, Quebec published a 2^nd edition on 1 June 2022 to assert the legitimacy of and make official its two new unilateral Section 45 constitutional amendments which added sections 90.Q1 and 90.Q2. I covered these developments in more detail in June 2022.

Caractéristiques fondamentales du Québec

90Q.1. Les Québécoises et les Québécois forment une nation³⁶.

90Q.2. Le français est la seule langue officielle du Québec. Il est aussi la langue commune de la nation québécoise³⁷.[1]

Quebec also used the Section 45 amending formula to exempt members-elect of the National Assembly from pledging an oath of allegiance to the King of Canada as a condition of assuming office. Quebec’s legislature enacted the Loi visant à reconnaître le serment prévu par la Loi sur l’Assemblée nationale comme seul serment obligatoire pour y siéger, which added section 128Q.1 to the text of the Constitution Act, 1867 on 9 December 2022 : « 128Q.1. L’article 128 ne s’applique pas au Québec ».[2]  Members-elect no longer have to recite (though they can still choose to do so) the oath of allegiance prescribed in the fifth schedule of the Constitution Act, 1867: “I A.B. do swear, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III.” Instead, the alternate and secondary republican oath of allegiance that Quebec enacted in 1982 under its Loi sur l’Assemblée nationale (National Assembly Act) has become the only oath of allegiance that MNAs-elect must swear to become MNAs proper: « Je, (nom du député), déclare sous serment que je serai loyal envers le peuple du Québec et que j’exercerai mes fonctions de député avec honnêteté et justice dans le respect de la constitution du Québec. » Quebec released a 3rd edition of its consolidation in December 2022 to assert the legitimacy of section 128Q.1. I chronicled these developments in detail in December 2022.

In November 2022, the Moe government tabled the Saskatchewan First Act, which mimics the autonomism of the Legault government in Quebec and affirms Saskatchewan’s provincial jurisdiction. The Saskatchewan First Act entered into force on 15 September 2023 and amended the Saskatchewan Act, the basis for Saskatchewan’s provincial constitution and a constituent part of the Constitution of Canada according to the schedule of the Constitution Act, 1982. Crucially, Saskatchewan also added a new section 90.S.1 directly to the Constitution Act, 1867 and “after section 90Q2”, which means that Saskatchewan recognised the legitimacy of Quebec’s similar unilateral section 45 amendment from 2022.

 “7. – SASKATCHEWAN

90S.1(1) Saskatchewan has autonomy with respect to all of the matters falling under its exclusive legislative jurisdiction pursuant to this Act.

(2) Saskatchewan is and always has been dependent on agriculture, and on the development of its non-renewable natural resources, forestry resources and electrical energy generation and production.

(3) Saskatchewan’s ability to control the development of its non­renewable natural resources, its forestry resources and its electrical energy generation and production is critical to the future well-being and prosperity of Saskatchewan and its people; and

(b) in the French version:

Autonomie de la Saskatchewan

3.1(1) La Saskatchewan jouit d’une autonomie en toute matière relevant de son champ de compétence législative exclusive en vertu de la Loi constitutionnelle de 1867.

(2) La Saskatchewan est dépendante, comme depuis toujours, de l’agriculture ainsi que du développement de ses ressources naturelles non renouvelables, de ses ressources forestières et de la production d’énergie électrique.

(3) La capacité de la Saskatchewan de contrôler le développement de ses ressources naturelles non renouvelables, de ses ressources forestières et de la production d’énergie électrique est cruciale pour le bien-être et la prospérité futurs de la Saskatchewan et de sa population”.[3]

Quebec has now returned the favour. This 4^th edition of its administrative consolidation of the Constitution Act, 1867 from 14 November 2023 now includes section 90S.1. The accompanying endnote 38 explains that “Section 90S.1 is reproduced with the authorisation of the King’s Printer, Government of Saskatchewan, 2023,” which to my mind implies some level of inter-governmental coordination between Saskatchewan and Quebec.

Last year, I wondered whether the federal Department of Justice would likewise recognise the legitimacy of these section 45 constitutional amendments wherein provincial legislatures unilaterally added new provisions to the Constitution Act, 1867. An article from Le Devoir in June 2022 quotes an anonymous “federal functionary” (or civil servant) who said that these amendments will be “reproduced the consolidation of the Constitution Acts” undertaken by the federal Department of Justice “upon the next update.”[4] I suspect that the federal Department of Justice would merely include sections 90Q.1, Q.2, and S.1 as footnotes and not part of the text of the Constitution Act, 1867 itself and that it would contest the legitimacy of section 128.Q1 altogether. The latest federal consolidation came out in 2021, and the Department of Justice sometimes allows a decade or more to elapse before issuing new consolidations, so we might not know the answer until the 2030s.

Similar Posts: 

• Quebec Unilaterally Exempts Itself from the Oath of Allegiance: The Demise of Crown Reinforces Autonomist Nationalism (December 2022)
• The Section 45 Constitutional Amendment Becomes a Vehicle for Provincial Autonomism (November 2022)
• Who Decides What the Constitution Is and Says? Quebec Modifies the Text of the Constitution Act, 1867 (June 2022)
• The Strange Taboo Against Constitutional Amendment in Canada (May 2022)

Notes

[1] Québec. Secrétariat du Québec aux relations canadiennes, Codification administrative de la Loi constitutionnelle de 1867 et de la Canada Act 1982, 4^e édition (Gouvernement du Québec, Lois codifiées au 14 novembre 2023).

[2] Loi visant à reconnaître le serment prévu par la Loi sur l’Assemblée nationale comme seul serment obligatoire pour y siéger (L.Q. 2022, c. 30, art. 1).

[3] Saskatchewan First Act, SS 2023, c 9, at section 5.

[4] Marco Belair-Cirino, “David Lametti c. Simon Jolin-Barrette,” Le Devoir, 18 June 2022.