The Quebec National Assembly.

• Author: Paquin, Magali

The legislature of Quebec is one of the oldest in Canada. Although it exhibits the main characteris tics of a British-style legislature, its history is marked by the cleavage between anglophones and francophones and the affirmation of the Quebecois identity. This unique background sets the Quebec National Assembly apart from the other provincial legislatures and is reflected in its institutional framework, party dynamics and members. This paper is an overview of the principal features of the Quebec National Assembly including its history, procedures and membership.

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The history of the Quebec legislature (1) begins with the Constitutional Act of 1791, which divided the British colony into two provinces and gave each an elected legislature. The legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada were structured like Westminster and saw their share of conflict and experimentation. The system in Lower Canada was composed of the elected Legislative Assembly, the Legislative Council and a governor responsible for the executive function. The latter was assisted by the Executive Council, whose members were chosen by London. The system was only superficially democratic. In fact, the Legislative Assembly's powers were extremely limited. The cleavage between anglophones and francophones was at the forefront of political conflicts. Francophones were determined to see their interests, institutions and language respected as illustrated by a fierce debate on the status of the French language at the start of the first legislative session. The anglophones controlled the legislature and had a firm grip on the budget, which fed the francophones" anger. In 1838, the Patriotes revolt forced a suspension of the Constitution. Political institutions were temporarily replaced by a special unelected council during which time Lord Durham produced his famous report.

The 1841 Act of Union restored the parliamentary institutions, but this time in a United Province of Canada with the explicit goal of marginalizing francophones in its legislature. The new legislature was still bicameral, with the elected Legislative Assembly in which each former province was equally represented (despite the fact that Lower Canada's population was greater than Upper Canada's) and the Legislative Council, an upper house whose members were selected by the governor. The governor headed the Executive Council and appointed its members as well. Tensions along linguistic lines remained high. At first banned from official documents, French became acceptable again in the face of political pressure in 1847. Little by little, francophone members of the new legislature made gains, including responsible government in 1848 and the election of members of the Legislative Council in 1856. At that point, the parliamentary institutions met the standard desired by the Patriotes. However, political instability, the American Civil War and pressure from major business interests forced the political class to consider a new constitutional formula.

Traditional Parliamentarism (1867-1960)

In 1867, the British North America Act gave the province of Quebec its own legislature, sovereign in its areas of jurisdiction. It had two houses: the Legislative Assembly, with 65 elected members, and the Legislative Council, with 24 members appointed for life by the Lieutenant Governor. Based in part on the British tradition, the Legislative Council also took on the role of protecting the anglophone minority, which feared being marginalized in the new province. The anglophones were also granted 12 protected ridings whose boundaries could not be changed without the consent of a majority of their elected representatives.

The Standing Orders adopted in 1868 were nearly identical to those of the United Province of Canada's Legislative Assembly, with the addition of references to the practices of the House of Commons in London. This formal framework underwent only minor changes in the decades that followed. The Standing Orders were overhauled in 1885, 1914 and 1941, but very little changed substantively, and their ponderous nature gave them a traditional bent. By 1960, Quebec's procedural rules were closer to the original British model than those of the U.K. parliament at the time to the point that some remarked on the "legendary inertia" of the Quebec legislature. (2)

Despite the static appearance of the period, important changes were made to the structure and operation of the legislature, consistent with the trend that affected most parliamentary institutions in liberal states. The power of the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Council declined while the executive further strengthened its grip on legislative proceedings.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Lieutenant Governor had considerable influence. Endowed with a number of powers, the Lieutenant Governor interfered with the legislative process in the two houses and thwarted the government. According to Louis Massicotte the Lieutenant Governor's powers had three things in common: "all were a check on the elected Legislative Assembly and the ministers appointed from its ranks; all were exercised at some point before World War I; all fell into disuse thereafter, to the point of being considered anachronisms after 1945" although none had been officially revoked. From the lead role, the Lieutenant Governor "gradually slid into irrelevance" and became a secondary player in Quebec political history. (3)

The upper house suffered a similar fate. Most Canadian provinces had dissolved their upper houses by the end of the 19th century, and after the Nova Scotia Legislative Council was abolished in 1928, Quebec was the last province with a second chamber. Its Legislative Council had significant powers, including a veto on all laws approved by the Assembly, even financial legislation. That was how it brought down the Joly de Lotbiniere government in 1879 and rejected its own abolition twice, in 1878 and 1900. In the 1960s, Quebec's upper house still had "exorbitant powers", while the British House of Lords had lost considerable power over the course of the century. The Legislative Council nonetheless entered a slow decline and exercised its powers less vigorously. Hit by scandals and conflicts of interest, its prestige and political authority gradually crumbled. (4)

As these political counterweights declined, the Premier's dominance and the executive's control over legislative proceedings grew. As Massicotte showed, the members of the Quebec legislature in the early 20th century were active legislators who did not hesitate to cross party lines when necessary. Gradually, this "golden age" of the legislature gave way to members being harnessed, much like the situation today. The Executive Council's stranglehold on the legislative process and the strengthening of party discipline progressively reduced members' autonomy.

The Winds of Change (1960-1985)

Beginning in the 1960s, major legislative upheavals took place as several social and political factors converged during the period known as the Quiet Revolution. The remarkable expansion of the welfare state, the affirmation of the Quebecois identity and language, and the decline in the influence of the Catholic Church reverberated in the legislature. Reforms were set in motion that had the principal effects of relieving the Legislative Assembly of certain tasks, speeding up legislative and financial proceedings, and symbolically adapting the legislature to Quebec's new reality.

The institutional framework established in 1867 lasted until 1960 not only because of the prestige it held in the eyes of the political class, but also and especially because it could handle relatively quickly and easily the comparatively modest volume of business. The functioning of the legislature did not change substantially during the early years of the Quiet Revolution. However, with a rapidly growing budget, increasingly complex public bills and a growing number of private members' bills, cracks in the system soon appeared. The legislature became overloaded, and the length of sessions tripled in five years. The political staff then acknowledged the obvious, that the institutional framework inherited from the past had to be changed.

In the space of 20 years, the Quebec legislature received a complete makeover. (5) The Legislative Council was abolished in 1968, in exchange for continuing to pay the councillors' lifetime salary. Parliamentary terminology was francized (6) and the Legislative Assembly was renamed the "National Assembly." The visibility of the monarchy, and thus of the Lieutenant Governor, was considerably reduced. Many argued for "getting rid of all the pageantry, robes, rituals, the mace, bowing, etc. that makes parliamentarism look like a system from another age" (7) Quebecois sovereignists and nationalists were not the only ones to reject monarchist symbols; even federalists viewed the anachronistic ceremonials as absurd. In an era when a clear separation of church and state was advocated, religious relics were cast aside, and the prayer was replaced by a moment of contemplation. Only the crucifix hanging over the Speaker's chair remains; a majority of MNAs wanted to keep it to remember a momentous era, fuelling further debate.

Although these reforms were substantial, they quickly proved inadequate in the eyes of the new generations of MNAs, who showed a keen interest in rejuvenating the institution. New proposals were advanced such as televising the debates, which began in 1978. A second reform process began with the key aim of restoring the balance of legislative and executive power. A number of changes were made to the legislature's organization and operation. (8) The Legislature Act was replaced by An Act respecting the National Assembly, which established the Assembly's administrative autonomy. The National Assembly's human, financial and materiel resources, previously controlled by...