Quebec defends ‘separatist law’

will of the Quebec people to determine its own future.”

Pleading on Henderson’s behalf Monday, constitutional scholar Stephen Scott said Bill 99 amounts to a repudiation of the Canadian Constitution and renders Charter rights conditional to the will of Quebec legislators and voters in a referendum.

Even though a Liberal government is in power, the Quebec Attorney General continues to defend the PQ law and, on Monday, it introduced a lastminute motion to have the court dismiss the heart of Henderson’s case.

Jean-Yves Bernard, pleading for Quebec, said that when the Court of Appeal narrowed the scope of the case in a 2007 decision, it rendered many of Henderson’s allegations and evidence superfluous. Superior Court Justice Claude Dallaire dismissed the motion, saying Quebec should not have waited until the first day of trial to make the argument.

In an interview, Henderson said he does not understand why the Liberals of Premier Philippe Couillard remain so dogged in their defence of Bill 99.

“The law is a separatist law done by a separatist government. The Liberal opposition at the time voted against the law, warning the Parti Québécois that it could be taken to the courts, that it was potentially unconstitutional,” he said.

“Supposedly Couillard praises himself on being a good Canadian. For heaven’s sake, why is he defending a separatist law?”

Henderson said the current calm on the constitutional front should not lull people into thinking Bill 99 is irrelevant.

“We don’t know if the Parti Québécois is going to get reelected,” he said. “Nothing is certain. You have to have the rules of the game absolutely crystal clear for the future. That’s what this is about.”

For a long time Henderson was fighting alone, supported by the Special Committee for Canadian Unity. But in 2013 the federal Attorney General decided to intervene in his support. In its arguments, the federal Attorney General says Bill 99 “does not and can never provide the legal basis for a unilateral declaration of independence” by Quebec.

The Quebec government maintains that talk of Bill 99 leading to a unilateral declaration of independence is purely hypothetical.

MONTREAL GAZETTE FILES Keith Henderson, former leader of the defunct anglophone-rights Equality Party, has been fighting Quebec’s Bill 99 in court since it was introduced in 2000.