Legislation

Quebec legislations

The National Assembly of Québec is the elected house in the Parliament of Quebec.

• Laws and Regulations
• Search Laws & Regulations
• Civil Code of Québec
• Human Rights Tribunal
• Québec Statutes and Regulations

Did you know Québec adopted a Charter of Human Rights in 1975?

• 1975: The Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms

Language management policy

Did you read the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101)?

• 1977: The Charter of the French language
• Regulations adopted under the Charter of the French language
• Infoguides on French language requirements (business, commerce, workplace)
• Questions and answers about Québec's language policy
• Brochure entitled "Living in French in Québec"
• Documents on the Controversy Surrounding the Language of Commercial Signs in Québec (Bill 178)
• The principles and means of Québec's language policy (long)
• Read various opinions on the Charter of the French Language
• Compare Quebec's language policies with that of other States (French)

Bills and Laws on Québec's political status

• 1999: Rights and Prerogatives of the people of Québec - Bill 99
• 1998: Clarity Act - Bill C-20
• 1998: Opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada on the Reference re to the Secession of Québec
• 1995: The Sovereignty Bill

Historical laws

• 1832: Act giving full political emancipation to Jews in Lower-Canada (PDF)

Federal legislations

• 1982: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• 1968: Official Languages Act
• Read on the language legislations adopted in Canada (French)

Laws against ethnic minorities passed by Ottawa

Note: Most of these laws were inspired by similar American or British laws. They were only abolished recently in the 1950s and 1960s.

• 1952: Immigration law specifying "White if possible"
• 1942: Law confiscating goods of Japanese Immigrants
• 1927: National Security Law
• 1923: Empire Settlement Act/Chinese Immigration Act
• 1911: Law blocking the entry of Blacks and Asians
• 1885: Law restricting Chinese Immigration
• 1876: Indian Act
• 1867: The British North America Act makes Indian relations a federal jurisdiction

Laws Against Franco-Catholics in Canadian Provinces

Note: It took the civil movement of the 1960s to abolish these discriminatory laws against French speakers and Catholics. After almost a century of enforcement, the result of the long application of these laws are sound: Canada outside Québec is predominently and irreversibly English-speaking and Quebec is heavily anglicized in spite being in the majority French-speaking.

• 1916: The Thornton Bill in Manitoba completely abolishes the teaching of French in the province
• 1912: Ontario forbids the teaching of French above the first two grades of elementary school with the infamous Regulation 17.
• 1890: Manitoba Premier Greenway diminishes the rights to French in school, abolishes its use in the Parliament and in the Courts
• 1877: The Public School Act puts an end to the teaching of French in Prince-Edward-Island schools
• 1871: The Common School Act imposes double taxation measures against French schools
• 1864: Nova Scotia adopts a law on public schools which supresses all subsidies to Catholic and French language school.

Pre-confederation Laws against Catholics, Jews and French speakers

• 1848: A Law re-establishing the legal use of the French language in the Parliament and in the Courts in passed.
• 1841: London votes the Union Act which bans French in the Parliament, Courts and all other governmental bodies. The French language is explicitly banned in a constitutional text of law for the first time in History.
• 1763: The Royal Proclamation bans French Civil Law in the Province of Quebec (formerly Le Canada, the heart of New-France)