Sovereignty Bill

The Act Respecting the Future of Quebec, also known as "Bill 1" or the "Sovereignty Bill", was a bill proposed to the Quebec National Assembly by Premier Jacques Parizeau and his Parti Quebecois government in 1995. It proposed to give the National Assembly the power to declare Quebec "sovereign", with the "the exclusive power to pass all its laws, levy all its taxes and conclude all its treaties". It was passed by the National Assembly but never proclaimed into law following the defeat of the sovereignty option in the 1995 Quebec referendum. Had it become law, it would have been the legal basis for Quebec to declare itself a sovereign country.

Preamble

The bill contained a 1,586 word preamble, evoking the history of Quebec and the right of the Quebec people to choose its destiny. It also contained considerable poetic phrases, such as "We know the winter in our souls. We know its blustery days, its solitude, its false eternity and its apparent deaths."

The original version of the bill had a blank page as its preamble. Jacques Parizeau explained it this way: "[T]he preamble... has intentionally been left unwritten. This preamble will eventually become the Declaration of Sovereignty of Quebec. It must describe who we are as a people and who we wish to become. As such, it must be a vivid reflection of our values and our hopes, our traditions and our ambitions. This blank page calls out to all of us. We must devise it together, participate and contribute the best of ourselves."

In the end, the preamble was written by several prominent pro-sovereignty Quebec writers and poets, including famous Quebec singer Gilles Vigneault, author-playwright Marie Laberge, sociologist Fernand Dumont and constitutional experts Andree Lajoie and Henri Brun..

Main text

In addition to declaring Quebec a sovereign country, the bill lays out several key steps in the independence process. It required the Government of Quebec to propose to the rest of Canada a partnership treaty based on a "Tripartite Agreement" signed on June 12, 1995 between Parizeau, Bloc Quebecois leader Lucien Bouchard and Action democratique du Quebec leader, Mario Dumont. This agreement outlined a series of proposals that it would make to Canada to share power between the two countries, including in the areas of:

• customs union;
• free movement of goods;
• free movement of individuals;
• free movement of services;
• free movement of capital;
• monetary policy;
• labour mobility; and
• citizenship.

The Bill provided that negotiations on a partnership treaty could not extend past October 30, 1996 (one year after the 1995 referendum).

The Bill also foresaw the drafting of a new Quebec constitution , the continuity of Quebec's current boundaries, the creation of a Quebec citizenship, use of the Canadian dollar and continuity of current laws and social benefits.

Political significance

A copy of the draft bill was sent to every Quebec household by the Quebec government in advance of the referendum campaign, along with a copy of the Parizeau-Bouchard-Dumont agreement of June 12, 1995.

The bill was explicitly refered to in the question appearing on the ballot in the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum: "Do you agree that Québec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Québec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?."

See also

• 1995 Quebec referendum
• Quebec sovereignty movement
• Politics of Quebec