CAQ's constitution would gut historic protections for minorities, anglo rights group warns

Premier François Legault’s proposed constitution marks a step toward “dismantling democracy” and should alarm minorities because it would erase historic protections, an anglophone rights group warns.

Fundamental rights are the foundation of democracy, and are “integral to the identity of modern Quebec society,” thanks to the province’s groundbreaking Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, says TALQ, a coalition of anglophone groups.

Now, 50 years after the charter’s adoption, the Coalition Avenir Québec seeks, through Bill 1 — the Quebec Constitution Act, 2025 — to “explicitly weaken” human rights, TALQ argues in its brief, which will be made public on Tuesday.

“Bill 1 dilutes the fundamental rights of all Quebecers,” the organization says. “For human rights to be effective, there must be a way to hold the state accountable.” Yet, “a core function of Bill 1 is to make it infinitely harder to challenge human-rights violations in court.”

The CAQ would “neuter the Quebec charter — which was a historic, Quebec-made achievement — twisting it into a tool to defend and expand the policy program of the current government.” The charter protects equality, labour, social and other rights.

TALQ is scheduled to present its views in February at a National Assembly committee reviewing the proposed law.

Legault has said the constitution is part of an effort to affirm the province’s “national, distinct character.”

But critics say the bill, drafted by the CAQ government without prior public input, constitutes a sweeping power grab, amending multiple laws in ways that could have far‑reaching consequences.

For linguistic and ethnic minorities, the threat is particularly stark, TALQ says.

”Rights that were previously accepted in Quebec are relegated to the margins in Bill 1,” the organization says.

Under René Lévesque, the government “recognized the historic rights of Quebec’s English-speaking community,” TALQ says. The former premier argued safeguarding anglophones was a “test of maturity” for Quebec’s francophone majority.

Similarly, “the government of Lucien Bouchard was capable of affirming the rights of the Quebec people while maintaining space, within this collective, for the long-established rights” of anglophones.

Federally, anglophone rights are enshrined in Section 133 of the Constitution Act and Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Yet Bill 1 makes no mention of Quebec’s English-speaking community’s citizens, save for a brief, tangential reference to ‘institutions’ in a preamble that fails to acknowledge any historic rights,” TALQ says.

“A similar observation is true for First Nations: Bill 1 references First Nations and Inuit rights only in the preamble, thereby failing to guarantee any substantive protections for First Nations, Inuit or Métis rights.”

Under Bill 1, “collective rights” — focused on language, culture and heritage — would be predominant, functioning “almost exclusively as a means to weaken individual rights — to enable a government to enact its priorities unhindered by the legal constraints of individual rights,” TALQ says.

Anglophone communities have gone to court over Legault government efforts to eliminate English school boards, revamp tuition at McGill and Concordia, and impose new municipal language rules.

Under the CAQ plan, school boards, universities, municipalities and 120 other organizations would be barred from using public funds to challenge government laws, undermining minority-education rights and exposing leaders to personal financial risk.

TALQ says the plan would also allow the government to audit and punish these organizations, issue broad directives against them, and insert “parliamentary sovereignty” clauses that shield laws from court review.

Bill 1 would also dilute the power of Quebec courts in other ways.

“It amends the Code of Civil Procedure to make it harder to stop unconstitutional laws before they take effect,” TALQ says. And it “creates a new quasi-judicial body, whose members are likely to be favourable to the government, which can issue opinions on constitutional matters, while the publication of any dissent would be prohibited.”

Such changes would disregard those who argue for “limits on the power of each branch of government to prevent despotism and to protect political liberty. Disabling civil-society organizations is a classic step in dismantling democracy, leading to a loss of essential oversight and accountability.”

TALQ says the CAQ should withdraw Bill 1. “If it chooses to pursue a constitutional project, it should launch a multi-year process of broad public and multi-party consultation, including an independent legal review.”

The CAQ’s plan is supported by the linguistic rights group Droits collectifs Québec and Quebec’s French language commissioner.

The proposal has been criticized by opposition parties, constitutional lawyers, academics and universities. Quebec’s lawyers’ order has decried it as part of a “drift towards authoritarianism.”

ariga@postmedia.com

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