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
• Québec Statutes and Regulations

Human rights

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

• The Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms
• Human Rights Tribunal

Linguistic rights and language 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)

Right of the Amerindians and the Inuit

• 1985: A resolution of the National Assembly recognizes the existence of distinct aboriginal nations on the territory of Quebec and defines 5 collective rights of those nations: right to autonomy inside Quebec, right to their own culture, language and traditions, right to own and control lands, right to hunt, fish and harvest natural ressources and participate to the management of wildlife, right to participate to the economic development of Quebec and to benefit from it.
• Secrétariat aux affaires autochtones Secrétariat aux affaires autochtones

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 and other political and legal documents

• 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)