June 22
250th Anniversary of the Quebec Act of 1774

The Modern Need to Vest Sovereignty in the People

June 22 marks the 250th anniversary of the proclamation of the Act for making more effectual Provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec in North America, known as the Quebec Act of 1774. It was part of a series of “Coercive Acts” passed by the British parliament between 1773 and 1775, which the revolutionaries in the 13 Colonies called the “Intolerable Acts,” as punishment for the Boston Tea Party and to consolidate the British domination of North America. Fearing that French Canadians, who had been deprived of all rights by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 following the British conquest of Canada from France, would join the American colonists, the Act removed the obligation of French Canadians to swear an oath of allegiance to the Protestant faith, guaranteed the practice of Catholicism and restored tithes to the Catholic Church, among other things.

From A Future to Face by Hardial Bains, October 1992:

The Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763 had placed the political power in the hands of an Executive consisting of a Governor and Council appointed by the ruling authority, the Colonial Office in London. It was a direct rule under the sovereign authority of the British King as advised by the 18th century Parliament. The proclamation included a provision for a popular assembly “as soon as… circumstances admit.”

The Quebec Act of 1774 permitted a limited sharing of restricted power with those in the appointed council which was increased in size from 12 to 23 and General Carleton, the Governor, appointed from them a “Board of Council” of five members – a “privy council.” According to Edmund Burke, an open champion of established institutions and oligarchic rule, the introduction of French civil law, the old civil code of feudal France, church titles and the seigneurial system and the appointment of noblesse onto the Council meant:

“…the preservation of their old prejudices, their old customs…, turns the balance in favour of France. The only difference is, they will have George the Third for Louis the Sixteenth.”

This appointment of the Quebec noblesse into the ruling council in 1774 shortly after military occupation was the beginning of using the noblesse to preserve and extend the power established in 1763. Prof. W.P.M. Kennedy, in his book The Constitution of Canada, 1922, writes:

“Canada was to be a military base, held quiet by an endowed church, a vast hinterland, a satisfied noblesse, a recognized priesthood, French civil law, and a disciplined and obedient population.”

Governor General Carleton was not able to secure the obedience of the populace through these measures and through his letters he expressed the fear of insurrection and that the gentry and clergy had failed “to retain their infatuated countrymen.” In anger and frustration, he called them “a wretched people blind to honour.” He condemned them as “the most ungrateful race under the sun.” He had hoped that the granting of seats on the council and the use of their language, French civil law and religion would make the gentry and clergy powerful enough to get the populace to support the British Crown in crushing the seething rebellion in the British North American colonies. But the population of Quebec did not line up behind the British Crown. On the contrary, they sympathized with the rebellion in the 13 Colonies while maintaining their own right to an independent nation. General Carleton’s strategy had created a group of individuals in whose interest it was to defend the power on behalf of the Crown. Kennedy observes that with the Quebec Act:

“the loyalty of the French-Canadian church and upper classes was secured and proved a powerful influence against disintegration. Not only in the American revolution, but in the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, in 1812, and in the rebellions of 1837, the church and upper classes in Quebec set their faces like flint against organized and dismembering nation.”

The Quebec Act was repealed with the introduction of the Constitutional Act, 1791. This Act divided Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada and the legislative authority was vested in the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor acting with the advice of the legislative council and assembly in each of the two colonies. This advisory body, called the Legislative Council, was appointed by the Governor with seven appointees for Upper Canada and 19 for Lower Canada. The members were appointed for life. The speaker was also appointed and removed by the Governor. Along with the Legislative Council, the Crown introduced a form of electoral process with the division of the colonies into electoral districts for the purpose of electing 16 members to an assembly in Upper Canada and 50 to a similar assembly for Lower Canada ,with the proviso that the electors and those elected be men of means. These assemblies met once a year for a period of four years and could be dismissed by the Governor. A bill passed in both the Legislative Assembly and the appointed Legislative Council could be accepted or rejected by the Governor or he could leave the matter to the Crown to decide. Any bill assented by the Governor could be overruled by the British government within two years. The Governor and Executive Council constituted the Court of Appeal, with the right to appeal to the British Privy Council in London as a last resort.

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Today, the Quebec Act of 1774 is often cited by some as having laid the foundations for the Quebec Constitution. That’s a pretty revealing claim, especially when it’s said that Bill 21, the Act respecting the laicity of the State, adopted by the Quebec National Assembly in 2019, which, among other things, prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by various categories of government employees, is a continuation of the development of a Quebec Constitution begun in 1774. When he announced the creation of the Committee on Constitutional Issues on June 7, charged with “strengthening Quebec’s autonomy, preserving its rights and obtaining more powers in fundamental areas, such as immigration,” Quebec Premier François Legault declared that the Act respecting the laicity of the State, Bill 96 consolidating the status of French as the common and official language of Quebec and the affirmation of Quebec’s rights through the use of the notwithstanding clause in the Canadian Constitution, constitute “gains” and a strengthening of Quebec’s “constitutional foundations.”

The practice of deal-making between the ruling elites of Canada can never lead to a modern Quebec Constitution as it is claimed. It is part of the archaic power-sharing arrangements set by the British colonialists to consolidate their domination of their colonies, not to emancipate them.

When decisions are taken by the ruling elites and the interests of the people are left out of the equation the results are never good. Whether we speak of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, or the Quebec Act, 1774, to 1791, 1841-48, 1867, 1930 or 1982 up to the present day, all the decisions were imposed from above. Citizens belonging to an organized body politic have never been the starting point for the drawing up of these proclamations and agreements. While past proclamations have clearly defined the role of the executive power and the sharing of powers, the nature of the democracy has never been clearly elaborated or defined. Unless we ensure that there is an explicit elaboration of democracy, we will have the same negative experience and thinking that exist at the federal and provincial levels now in the arrangements imposed on the people of Canada in 1867 when British North America was incorporated into the present state.

Today democratic renewal requires first and foremost the resolution of who decides before anything else can be decided. Those who speak of “new” arrangements of power-sharing but pretend that the issue of who or what is the seat of sovereign decision-making power is not important, or that it doesn’t even exist, are necessarily self-serving. Legault also gives the example of the motion adopted by the Quebec National Assembly that says that from now on, members of the National Assembly can swear allegiance to the people of Quebec instead of the King of England, as another case of “moving towards” a Quebec Constitution. In fact, the motion, which represents a true step forward, only means that now there need to be mechanisms by which the members of the National Assembly are held to their allegiance to the people of Quebec. It poses the necessity for democratic renewal to vest sovereignty in the people.

Writing on these important matters in the fundamental article “Democratic Renewal” in 1992, Hardial Bains wrote:

“It is this act of becoming superfluous which is forcing those who still want to remain at the centre-stage, even though their time to leave it has come, to speak about democratic renewal for the explicit aim of maintaining the status quo. The definitions of what is democratic renewal, who should be at the centre-stage and what form the centre-stage itself should take, and many other related issues, have become the object of the fight. When one stage of development passes, it gives the impression that it will remain forever and that the next will never come. However, such an impression itself signals that a new stage in the development of society is just around the corner.

“Besides the important questions of economic and political power, there is also the need of the people of various national origins and of different backgrounds, and of women, to live in dignity and fraternal unity, without anyone discriminating against them or subjugating them. There are also problems of the environment, and so on. When all the problems are taken into consideration, it becomes abundantly clear that during this period of democratic renewal, the most essential ingredient for the solution of all problems is to have the working people occupying the centre-stage. Far from ruling out the immediate struggles, this presupposes that the people must make it their business to defend their interests, to orient themselves in such a way that their advanced positions are the ones which are implemented. In the course of this, they will ensure that it is they who come to power.”

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