New English Standing Orders of the Quebec National Assembly.

• Author: Bogue, Charles A.

In order to clarify why it was deemed necessary to prepare new Standing Orders in English, it will be helpful to review the evolution of the rules of procedure of the National Assembly. By simplifying the facts somewhat, we can identify four major phases in the evolution of the Standing Orders. (1)

Historical Overview

First phase (1793 to 1912): During this period the rules of procedure are virtually identical to those observed in London, with English being the original language. The French translation was at times of doubtful quality and sometimes failed to reproduce precisely the sense of the English. The quality of the French text improved considerably towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Second phase (1912 to 1972): The rules underwent a profound change under Clerk Louis-Philippe Geoffrion. With his vast knowledge of the British parliamentary system, Geoffrion created over time a formidable work that, with its 812 rules, is one of the most voluminous sets of Standing Orders in the Commonwealth. As to their language, these Standing Orders appear to represent a transitional phase: although the French text is in principle the original, some parts nevertheless leave the impression of having been borrowed from English sources and translated into French.

Third phase (1972 to 1984): The revision of the Standing Orders undertaken by the President Jean-Noel Lavoie greatly simplifies the Assembly's procedure while reducing the number of rules from 812 to 180. Written in a more modern French than that of their predecessors, these Standing Orders were also the first whose French version is unquestionably the original.

Fourth phase (1984 to the present): A new revision of the Standing Orders under President Richard Guay brought further improvements to the French-language terminology.

Thus, at the present-day stage of this evolution (which has surely yet to be completed), Quebec as heir to a parliamentary system conceived and transmitted in English possesses Standing Orders in French that do full justice to its own special genius and are suited to its indigenous practice. appeared to have been seriously uprooted, at least as far as language was concerned. Hence the desire to translate the Standing Orders anew.

The Scope of the Project

The first problem was to ascertain whether the uprooting had occurred only on the linguistic level or whether a real divergence had developed between parliamentary democracy as practised at the National Assembly and that of other Commonwealth Parliaments.

Appearances notwithstanding, it was suspected that an important part of the British parliamentary heritage had probably survived in the rules and practices of the National Assembly, albeit in veiled or even profoundly altered form.

But if the core of this parliamentary system has remained intact, would it not then still be appropriate today to employ in the English Standing Orders the terminology by which this system has traditionally expressed...