If adopted, Bill 1 – the proposed Constitution of Quebec – would not change the legal balance of power within the Canadian federation. It should be understood, more than anything else, as a desperate effort by François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government to regain voters’ support before the 2026 provincial election. Still, Canadians outside Quebec would be wrong to ignore it.
A symbolic assertion of autonomy
Since it takes the form of an ordinary piece of legislation, it does not change the relationship with Canada as such. It does, however, symbolically reinforce the Parti Québécois’s longstanding project of making Quebec a sovereign country. As a declaration of provincial autonomy vis-à-vis the federal government and the Canadian constitution, it could tempt other provinces to follow suit. Alberta, after all, already has its own “Sovereignty Act.”
The bill reaffirms Quebecers’ right to self-determination and states that a simple majority – 50 per cent plus one – would be enough in a referendum. It also proposes new declarations to be embedded in the Canadian constitution: Quebec is a secular state; its model of immigrant integration is “national integration” rather than multiculturalism; and its legal tradition is civil law. In 2022, the Quebec National Assembly added two such declarations to the Canadian constitution, stating that Quebecers are a nation and that French is the only official and common language in Quebec.¹
As far as Quebec’s institutions are concerned, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette’s plan removes monarchical symbolism, renaming the Lieutenant-Governor the Officer of Quebec. Members of the National Assembly would swear loyalty not to the King but to the Quebec nation and pledge not only to respect but also to defend its constitution.
Nevertheless, the promised “shield” against Ottawa is largely rhetorical. The supremacy of the Canadian constitution and the authority of the Supreme Court remain untouched. Bill 1’s effect is thus declaratory, not constitutional. Beneath its nationalist rhetoric, the primary effect of the bill is to strengthen the provincial government’s authority over Quebecers. It is less a shield than a sword turned inward.
Invoking “parliamentary sovereignty,” it grants the government wide latitude to interpret or restrict individual rights in favour of the vaguely defined “collective rights” of the Quebec nation. This provision leaves out just who constitutes that nation and who speaks for it.
Bill 1 describes Quebec’s constitution, once adopted, as “the law of laws,” which “has precedence over any inconsistent rule of law.” The power of the National Assembly, “the supreme organ” of democratic expression, would be enhanced by Bill 1’s weakening of the courts’ role in reviewing laws, and thus the application of the principle of the separation of powers. Since our voting system, as a rule, turns minorities in the popular vote into majority governments with total control over the legislative agenda, Bill 1 would raise the level of control even further.
Along the same lines, the bill normalizes the use of the notwithstanding clause – rebranded as as an act of “parliamentary sovereignty,” The CAQ government applied such a clause preventively in its Act Respecting the Laicity of the State (Bill 21), even before the law was challenged. The Supreme Court of Canada is expected to rule soon on the law’s constitutionality, and the federal government has signalled its concern not so much about the content as about the preventive use of the clause.
In his roughly 60-page brief submitted on September 17, the Attorney General of Canada argues that the notwithstanding clause (section 33 of the Canadian Charter) confers a power that is temporary in nature and cannot cause irreparable harm to the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Charter. If the use of the notwithstanding clause were to result in irreparable harm to a right or freedom, this would amount to an unauthorized amendment to the Constitution.
Bill 1 further authorizes the government to add a declaration to any law stating that the law or a provision of the law “protects the Québec nation as well as the constitutional autonomy and fundamental characteristics of Québec.” If such a declaration has been made, no publicly funded body would be able to challenge the law’s validity, and directors could be held personally liable for attempting to do so.
The bill also reshapes Quebec’s Charter, the Charte des droits et libertés de la personne, which marks its 50th anniversary this year. Individual rights would henceforth be interpreted “in light of the collective rights of the Quebec nation,” a vague provision that could undermine the Charter’s foundations. It creates a hierarchy of freedoms absent from the Charter, notably that when gender equality and freedom of religion conflict, equality “prevails.”
The Human Rights Commission’s role would also change, it would have to “ensure balance between human rights and the collective rights of the nation.” Meanwhile, the bill instructs judges to interpret the Quebec and Canadian charters separately – though their provisions are nearly identical.
One revealing omission: the bill incorporates only sections 1 to 38 of the Quebec Charter, excluding sections 39 to 48, which set out the right to education, fair working conditions and social protection. This omission creates two classes of rights – those deemed worthy of constitutional protection and those left out, a key one of which is the right of minorities to sustain their own cultural institutiions.
Institutionalizing identity nationalism
Bill 1 formally enshrines the CAQ’s brand of identity nationalism, built on the French language, culture, national integration and secularism. Since the CAQ came into office in 2018, this model has replaced earlier, more inclusive visions of nationalism. That trend is not unique to Quebec; we can see it elsewhere in the world.
A nation, as Ernest Renan wrote, is “a daily plebiscite.” It exists through shared consent, not by decree. For half a century, Quebec political thought sought to reconcile the francophone majority’s affirmation with genuine pluralism. The Quebec nation’s legitimacy rests on inclusion and democracy, respect for minorities and individual freedoms. The CAQ’s bill breaks with that tradition. It proclaims a nation “united around its identity,” without once mentioning pluralism or diversity among its “fundamental characteristics.” It advances an essentialist and homogeneous vision that edges toward assimilation.
Since 2018, CAQ politicians have articulated what political scientists Audrey Gagnon, Catherine Xhardez and Antoine Bilodeau call “an identity-based nationalism characterized by strong interventionism in immigration, secularism and language policy.”² The CAQ’s nationalism has been characterized by researchers as “conditionally inclusive”: open only to minorities who conform to Quebec’s dominant cultural identity. It replaces the failed dreams of sovereignty and constitutional transformation with an “imagined border” around those who count as “real Quebecers.”
We can draw a contrast between Bill 1’s vision and the draft constitution proposed in 2007 by former PQ MNA Daniel Turp. Turp’s constitution began with “Quebec is a free and democratic society.” It affirmed equality, dignity, cultural diversity and sustainable development, noting that national belonging cannot be legislated; it must be nurtured through trust, freedom and pluralism.
Bill 1 states that it would be enacted with “respect for the institutions of the English-speaking community of Quebec.” But nothing in it specifies the nature and scope of the rights of this linguistic community, respect for which is left to existing laws and regulations.
Meanwhile, the bill has already raised serious concerns among Indigenous peoples. In the Canadian edition of The Conversation, Indigenous constitutional law professor Karine Millaire condemned the proposed legislation for ignoring Indigenous peoples:
No provision of the bill addresses Indigenous constitutional rights. Moreover, the few references to the First Nations and Inuit in the preamble of Bill 1 tend to downplay rights that are nonetheless clearly recognized. The Indigenous peoples are mentioned only to state that they “exist within Québec.” The text does not recognize them as “peoples,” contrary to the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but rather as mere “descendants of the country’s first inhabitants.” It even refers to our nations using Frenchified colonial names, recalling the process of erasing our ancestors’ original names.
Professor Millaire adds that while the bill allows Indigenous peoples to maintain and develop their original languages and cultures, “the territorial and governance rights guaranteed under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 are completely ignored – or even denied.” She concludes that the bill amounts to “a colonial imposition of the collective rights of the Quebec nation over the collective and fundamental rights of Indigenous peoples.”
The CAQ’s electoral calculus
Bill 1 is ambitious: it covers Quebec’s territorial integrity, foreign initiatives and the creation of a Constitutional Council. The opposition parties have all opposed it, focusing on context as much as content. But adoption requires only a simple majority in the National Assembly, and no referendum is planned.
The bill was introduced in the National Assembly on October 9; a vote on the motion to introduce passed by a margin of 71 to 30. The Committee on Institutions has received briefs and requests to be heard and is planning hearings. It will then report the bill back to the National Assembly, where there will be a debate on the final version followed by a final vote for adoption. The government expects it to come into force by June 24, 2026.
Many of the proposals included in Bill 1 could spark significant debate. For example, the bill states that “the State protects women’s freedom to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy.” Some feminists have already warned that such a simple legal provision could in fact jeopardize women’s right to choose. They note that it opens the door to legal challenge or legislative changes under a more conservative government, since it could be amended by a simple majority vote.
Public interest is low so far, but the CAQ hopes that as Quebec gets closer to the election, its initiative will distinguish it from its rivals and thus reverse its steep decline in the polls – down to as low as 15 per cent support.
When the CAQ was founded in 2011, it did not have a constitutional position. Legault, a former PQ minister who no longer believed in independence, tried to set the issue aside for 10 years. After two election defeats, he realized that the party needed a new nationalist identity. By absorbing the Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ), which had been founded by Mario Dumont in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Meech Lake Accord, the CAQ began courting disillusioned Parti Québécois voters.
In 2015, Legault unveiled a “new project for Quebec nationalists,” with a blue logo and a declaration: “The CAQ is a modern nationalist party whose objective is to ensure the development and prosperity of the Quebec nation within Canada, while defending its autonomy, language, values, and culture.”
The autonomist tradition is longstanding – from Maurice Duplessis’s refusal of federal subsidies to Quebec universities in the 1950s to Quebec’s constitutional demands in the failed Meech Lake Accord. Rather than through negotiations, which resulted in the expansion of Quebec’s immigration powers of the 1970s, the CAQ now prefers unilateral action: amending constitutional references to Quebec within the Canadian framework and adopting its own constitution.
As Jolin-Barrette wrote in Le Devoir on November 4 – the anniversary of the 1981 “Night of the Long Knives,” when Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and nine premiers, excluding Quebec, agreed on constitutional patriation – “We do not need to wait for a major reform of the Canadian constitutional framework.”
The CAQ is now positioned between the federalist Liberal Party under Pablo Rodriguez and the resurgent Parti Québécois under Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, who promises another referendum in his next mandate. Current polls suggest the PQ could win a majority if an election were held today; yet no more than 35 per cent of the voters would support sovereignty in a referendum.
Bill 1 is therefore part of a calculated strategy: to lure PQ voters who rallied behind Legault in 2018 but are drifting back, and to recapture former ADQ supporters drawn to Éric Duhaime’s Conservatives. In this context, Legault is presented as a man of action while the others dither.
A recycled idea
The idea of a Quebec constitution is not new: subnational entities in many countries, including American states, have their own constitutions. PQ leaders floated it after the 1980 referendum defeat and the 1982 patriation of the Canadian constitution. As support for sovereignty waned, a “Quebec constitution” served as a symbolic substitute.
Liberals have also flirted with it to signal attachment to Quebec’s distinct identity. The late minister Benoît Pelletier supported it; Mario Dumont’s ADQ did so as well in 2004. Such a constitution’s value would be mainly symbolic or pedagogical – much like Lucien Bouchard’s Bill 99 in 2000, passed in response to Ottawa’s Clarity Act. In fact, that law, upheld by the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2021, already contains the key elements of a provincial constitution found in Bill 1: affirmation of nationhood, the primacy of French, the Quebec Charter and the right to self-determination.
Given today’s geopolitical uncertainty – and a cooperative mood in federal-provincial relations in response to Trump – the moment seems ill-chosen for reviving nationalist confrontation. In practice, despite the rhetoric, Legault’s relationship with Prime Minister Mark Carney is one of pragmatic cooperation, not conflict.
If the government heeds criticism and strips Bill 1 of its authoritarian and identity-driven excesses, little of substance will remain. Like earlier such initiatives, this one could well end up in the dustbin of history. We shall see.
Notes
¹ Section 45 of Canada’s Constitution Act, 1982, allows the legislature of a province to amend the province’s constitution unilaterally. The two declarations were added to Part V of the Constitution Act, 1867, dealing with provincial constitutions, as sections 90Q.1 and 90Q.2. They were introduced as part of the Legault goverrnment’s language legislation, Bill 96.
² Audrey Gagnon, Catherine Xhardez et Antoine Bilodeau, “La dimension identitaire du nationalisme de la CAQ : L’affirmation des frontières imaginées de la nation québécoise,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, published online September 5, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423925100498
