Utilisateur:YanikB/Motion sur la nation québécoise

La motion sur la nation québécoise est une motion parlementaire déposée par le Premier ministre du Canada Stephen Harper le 22 novembre 2006 et approuvée par la Chambre des communes du Canada le 27 novembre 2006. Le texte en anglais se lit comme suit:

"That this House recognize that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada."

et, en français:

"Que cette Chambre reconnaisse que les Québécoises et les Québécois forment une nation au sein d'un Canada uni."

Contexte historique

Le débat de la nationalité Québécoise se concentre sur la question du statut de la province de Québec et sa population principalement francophone. Durant la Révolution tranquille des années 1960, l'expression « Québécois » a remplacé celle de « Canadiens français », expression que le peuple du Québec a choisi pour définir son identité culturel et national. L'identité québécoise moderne est laïque, basée sur un idéal sociale-démocrate l'État québécois et sur la promotion de la langue française dans les arts, l'éducation et les affaires de la province. Politiquement, ceci a abouti à un mouvement vers plus d'autonomie provinciale. Ainsi le Québec est la seule province à s'être dotée d'une loi de l'impôt sur le revenu.

In response, the Parti libéral du Canada under Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau advocated an increased role for French-speaking Canadians in the federal government through a policy of Bilinguisme au Canada, a federal presence in social programs that sought to create a unified Canadian identity that resisted demands for more provincial autonomy, and a new constitution based on individual rights that would sever the remaining colonial ties to Britain. This alienated many Quebec nationalists who demanded legal, constitutional recognition of the collective cultural identity in Quebec.

The conflict culminated in the Parti Québécois government of René Lévesque holding a province-wide referendum on Souveraineté-Association in 1980 that proposed that Quebec would assume all federal powers while maintaining economic links to Canada; it was rejected by 60% of Quebecers. Prime Minister Trudeau subsequently pushed through the amendment of the constitution with the Loi de 1982 sur le Canada. This was done with the approval of the other provincial governments, but not the government of Quebec.

In 1987, the Parti progressiste-conservateur government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney negotiated the Accord du lac Meech with the federalist of government of Robert Bourassa. It recognized Quebec as a "Société distincte" within Canada. All provinces originally agreed, but Manitoba and Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador failed to ratify the accord, amid vocal criticism of the accord from Pierre Trudeau. In April 1988, Manitoba voters elected a Conservative minority government, but the leader holding the 'balance of power' in the minority government, Liberal leader Sharon Carstairs, stood opposed to the Accord. In April 1989, Newfoundland voters elected a Liberal majority government, led by Premier Clyde Wells, who held a second vote in the legislature that rescinded Newfoundland's support for the agreement in April 1990. In June 1990, the Manitoba government was unable to even vote on the accord, due to a procedural vote (requiring unanimity) that was brought down by one Aboriginal Nouveau Parti démocratique MLA, Elijah Harper. Premières Nations groups and the populist Parti réformiste du Canada in Ouest canadien also opposed the accord, arguing that their cultural and regional grievances were being ignored.

The failure of the Meech Lake Accord generated a backlash in Quebec. Support for sovereignty soared to above 60%, and the sovereigntist Bloc québécois formed under disaffected Progressive Conservative Cabinet Minister Lucien Bouchard. The Bloc represented the majority of Quebec in the federal Parliament between the 1993 federal election and the Canadian federal election of 2011. However, the federal Liberal Party of Jean Chrétien won power that year by sweeping Ontario and picking up votes in all provinces. They advocated the status-quo on constitutional issues. The conservative Reform Party under Preston Manning displaced the Progressive Conservatives in the Western provinces, and advocated a constitutional reform that would recognize all provinces as equal, opposing special legal status for Quebec. The Progressive Conservative were reduced to two seats. A Parti québécois government held Référendum québécois de 1995 on sovereignty and a "partnership" with Canada in 1995 and lost by only a few thousand votes. A major theme of popular sovereigntist leader Lucien Bouchard the referendum was that Canada anglais did not recognize the Quebec people in the constitution, depicting it as an English Canadian humiliation of French Quebec.

Following the referendum, support for Quebec sovereignty decreased. The Parti Québécois government renewed the push for recognition as a nation through symbolic motions that gained the support of all parties in the National Assembly. They affirmed the right to determine the independent status of Quebec.

They also renamed the area around Quebec City the Capitale-Nationale region and renamed provincial parks Parcs nationaux. In opposition in October 2003, a Parti Québécois motion was unanimously adopted in the Assemblée nationale du Québec in 2003 that recognized the Quebec people as "forming a nation".

Évolution de la motion

Debate over federal government recognition of a Quebec nation was triggered during the leadership race for the Parti libéral du Canada during a September 10, 2006 leadership debate in Quebec City. Leading candidate and political scientist Michael Ignatieff mused that Quebec should be recognized as a nation in the Canadian constitution. When the Quebec wing of the federal Liberals adopted a similar resolution on October 21, 2006, many Liberals began questioning Ignatieff's judgement. In his 1992 book "Blood and Belonging", Ignatieff had championed the cause of civic nationalism based on "a community of equal, rights-bearing citizens, united in patriotic attachment to a shared set of political practices and values." Now he was endorsing "a nation, with a language, history, culture and territory that marks them out as a separate people", which sounded to many like nationalisme ethnique. Justin Trudeau, son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, criticized Ignatieff for lacking political judgement.

Sensing political division in his political opposition, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe scheduled a motion in the House of Commons for November 23, 2006—similar to the 2003 Parti Québécois resolution passed unanimously by the National Assembly in Quebec—that it also recognize "Quebeckers as a nation". He knew that the motion would probably be rejected, but argued he could use this to show that Canadians once again did not recognize the identity of Quebecers. If the motion did pass, he could use it to make claims on Quebec sovereignty.

Liberal leadership candidate (and eventual winner) Stéphane Dion moved to reconcile positions within the Liberal party, circulating a draft of a resolution that would change the wording of the resolution.

On November 22, 2006, the Prime Minister conservateur Stephen Harper tabled the Québécois nation motion the day before the Bloc Québécois resolution came to a vote. The English version changed the word Quebecer to Québécois and added "within a united Canada" at the end of the Bloc motion. Harper further elaborated, stating that the motion's definition of Québécois relies on personal decisions to self-identify as Québécois, and therefore is a personal choice. Dion said that this resolution was similar to the one he had circulated several days earlier. The Bloc Québécois members originally rejected this motion as overly partisan and federalist, but supported the motion the following day.

Vote à la chambre des communes

The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to pass the motion. The motion passed by a margin of 265 (yeas) to 16 (nays). There are 308 seats in the House of Commons, but two were not filled at the time. Of the rest, 283 MPs voted on the motion, 20 were absent for various reasons, three chose to abstain and two had pre-arranged to be paired with absent voters (not counting their votes). MPs then voted down the Bloc Québécois motion.

Conservative members were ordered by the Prime Minister not to oppose the motion or be expelled from the caucus. Many of his MPs had deep reservations about the motion, but only six members of his caucus were absent, all from Western Canada. Harper's Intergovernmental Affairs minister Michael Chong resigned from his position and abstained from voting, arguing that this motion was too ambiguous and had the potential of recognizing ethnic nationalism in Canada.

Members of the New Democratic Party and Bloc Québécois all voted for the motion. Liberals were the most divided on the issue and comprised 15 of the 16 votes against the motion. Liberal MP Ken Dryden summarized the view of many of these dissenters, maintaining that it was a game of semantics that cheapened issues of national identity.

Soutien populaire

A survey of 1,500 Canadians by Leger Marketing for the Association of Canadian studies in November 2006 showed that Canadians were deeply divided on this issue, though polls used wording that did not directly reflect the motion. When asked if "Quebecers" are a nation, only 48 per cent of Canadians agreed, 47 per cent disagreed, with 33 per cent strongly disagreeing; 78 per cent of French-speaking Quebecers agreed that "Quebecers" are a nation, next to 38 per cent of English-speakers. As well, 78 per cent of 1,000 Quebecers polled thought that "Quebecers" should be recognized as a nation.

Notes et références

• « Harper cabinet minister quits over Québécois nation motion », Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 27 novembre 2006 (consulté le 23 septembre 2007)Retrieved 2007-09-23. 
• « Harper pays price for victory on Québécois nation motion » [archive du 9 octobre 2012], Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 28 novembre 2006 (consulté le 23 septembre 2007)Retrieved 2007-09-23. 
• « Kennedy to oppose Québécois-nation motion », Canadian Press, 30 novembre 2006 (consulté le 23 septembre 2007)Retrieved 2007-09-23. 
• « National assembly approves Ottawa's Québécois motion », Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 30 novembre 2006 (consulté le 23 septembre 2007)Retrieved 2007-09-23. 

[[Catégorie:2006 au Canada]] [[Catégorie:Loi du Parlement du Canada]]