A handful of Quebec MPs newly elected in provincial elections on Wednesday refused to swear allegiance to King Charles III, Canada’s head of state, as required by the Constitution.
Eleven members of the Quebec Solidaire party (left) took the oath in a speech broadcast on television “to the people of Quebec”, but did not want to take the other oath that binds them to the British monarchy, at the risk of not being so. be able to sit in the Quebec National Assembly at the end of November.
An obligation
The spokesman for this party, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, then assured at a press conference that they had acted “with full knowledge of the facts.” Under Canadian constitutional law, any MP elected at the federal or provincial level must take an oath of allegiance to the British monarchy in order to sit.
On Friday, it will be the turn of the Parti Québécois to take the oath and the three elected sovereignists have already announced their intention not to swear allegiance to the sovereign either.
Trudeau defends the Constitution
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the party’s leader, had pointed out last week that it was “a conflict of interest” because “you cannot serve two gentlemen.” Furthermore, according to him, the monarchy costs “67 million Canadian dollars a year” and this oath is a “reminder of colonial domination”.
On Monday, some public figures had also denounced the obligation of MPs to swear allegiance to the British Crown in a video posted on social networks. Asked Wednesday about the monarchy, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reaffirmed “that there was not a Quebecois” who wanted “us to reopen the Constitution.”
In fact, abolishing the monarchy requires a rewrite of the Constitution and would represent a titanic effort and possibly years of political negotiations, since it requires the unanimous approval of Parliament and the governments of the ten Canadian provinces.
Source: BFM TV
