COURAGE - TRUTH - JUSTICE / COURAGE - VÉRITÉ - JUSTICE
COURAGE - TRUTH - JUSTICE / COURAGE - VÉRITÉ - JUSTICE
Le Grand Jury du Peuple du Canada
Le lien ci-dessus ouvrira le site du Grand Jury(français seulement)
canadagrandjury.ca, September 20, 2015, video 9823
Jacques Antoine Normandin (JAN), president of the Grand Jury
So listen, the session continues, I would ask the assembly to respect a certain decorum, so the terms must be careful and all that. You can ask questions but we will say as we say, we are listening to Master Michel Lebrun (ex-lawyer) and Jean-François here, this is very important, these are constitutional questions, questions of law, so I think that will educate a lot of people.
Michel Hardoin (MH), secretary of the Grand Jury
If we have questions, we will ask them afterwards.
JAN:
No or maybe even during, if it doesn't bother Michel or Jean-François, as long as there are no problems for me, Is it good?
Jean-François Dubois (JFD), attorney
Me it suits me, there are no problems, as long as there are not 10-12 questions at the same time which are going to embark one over the other, I would like that to stay here anyway and I would like that the table, Michel could have it in place instead of witnesses’.
Jean-François Fortin (JFF), People's attorney
I remind you that, we protect our witnesses according to the Rome agreement to which Canada is a signatory .... the Rome agreement is not symbolic . The reason why we do it like that, well eventually, we are looking for law enforcement . Whether it is that one, or it is the criminal code, we know at the same time that these people are illegitimate, so in reality, what is written in the criminal code, all the laws that were made after, after the High Betrayal: are invalid. Those too but they themselves claim that they act by that fact. That it is necessary to have a way of showing them a warrant to try to prove that they are illegitimate to be there. That is the purpose of a Grand Jury, it is to see if there is a case for criminal investigation. Jean-François will talk about what he is going to talk about, so I will let him do it .... For him I should not have to intervene like the others, he did not ask for my assistance so I will find myself sitting in these chairs, therefore, I won't have much to say.
JFD
So Mr. Lebrun probably, will come and testify regarding his experience that he had within the Bar, as a former lawyer. He will also, I would like to specify, that he was head of the National Union, that he was in part the last leader that there was in the National Union at the time which was the party of Maurice Duplessis. It was the party in 1968 which was there during the abolition of the Legislative Council, the power and then all that. And he was the last acting leader of that party, so he knows a lot. He has a good experience also; he is a teacher. So he will explain to you, to the best of his knowledge, how the legislature was changed from, especially from 1968, then he will prove that the national assembly is illegal. It is not only illegal but also illegitimate because we know that the legality, the legal status of the laws is given by the Queen because it is the only affair, a dejure status, therefore of rights to the laws and the legitimacy, it is given by the will of the people who inhabit the territory therefore by universal suffrage, by vote.
And Mister Lebrun will come and prove that the national assembly is also illegitimate despite the fact that there are perhaps 60-70% of the people eligible to vote who will vote, it is nevertheless illegitimate by virtue of certain shorthand transcripts that we have on parliamentary committee in the 80s and where the deputies, all that, admit that the national assembly is illegal. It's very fascinating, you will see that. He will explain this to you in great detail. But above all, I would like to read a paragraph that the Supreme Court wrote in a reference, it was 2 RCS-217 1998, which was the reference on the secession of Quebec where the Supreme Court, it is certain that the Court Supreme says many beautiful things but she respects few. Because we know that there are many members of the Bureau du Québec who are members. They say many beautiful things to appear pink.
So, they clarified in paragraphs 107 and 108(1), they talked about the principle of effectiveness. The principle of effectiveness is a notion that one can break the law as long as the breach is successful. In other words, as long as someone is going to stand up and say: there, it's over, they will do what they want. OKAY? So, it is the role of the Grand Jury, I think, it will be the role of the Grand Jury to judge whether the principle of effectiveness can continue to operate in Quebec, yes or no.
So I'm going to read what it says, it's two short paragraphs before Mr. Lebrun intervenes with his testimony.
In our opinion, the principle of effectiveness which was argued, because it was the Attorney General of Quebec who argued this principle, has no constitutional or legal status, in the sense that it does not provide explanations or justifications prior to the act. Accepting a principle of effectiveness would essentially amount to accepting that the national assembly, the legislature or the government of Quebec, then they are talking about the national assembly, they are aware that there is an assembly national, yet it does not appear in the Constitution of Canada. Forgive me, I lost my line. The legislature and the government of Quebec can act without taking the law into account for the simple reason that they claim to have the power to do so. From this perspective, it is actually suggested that the national assembly, the legislature or the government of Quebec could claim to unilaterally achieve secession from the province of Canada, in violation of Canadian and international law. It is further argued that if this secession project were successful, a new legal order would be created in the province which would then be considered an independent state.
Paragraph 108(2)The proposal is a statement of fact, therefore defacto, therefore not founded in law. It is not a statement of law. It may or may not be true. In any event, it has no relevance to the questions of law before us. If, on the other hand, this proposition is presented as a statement of law, it simply amounts to maintaining that one can violate the law as long as the violation succeeds. Such an assertion is contrary to the rule of law and must therefore be rejected. I would like to remind you that in the Constitution of Canada, one of the first principles is the supremacy of God and then after that, we talk about the rule of law. There are many people who must have read the Constitution and who saw it from the start in the 1982 Constitution.
JAN
Jean-François, where do you find it? Can you give who has ..., who is the author?
JFD
The dismissal? It is the Supreme Court, it is in 2 RCS 217 1998, it is the Reference on the secession of Quebec.
JAN
That's good thank you
JFD
So, I'm going to invite Michel Lebrun, I summon, sorry, yes, it's true, I assign Michel Lebrun to testify, to come and testify, as an expert witness. So, Mr. Lebrun, if you want to explain to the Jury, to the best of your knowledge, in your opinion, could the legislature of 1968, the legislature of Quebec, make the modifications it made.
JAN
Michel, do you want the microphone, does Michel prefer to have the microphone because he has a good voice, but you don't have a good voice...
JFD
So I'm just going to ask the first question, so Mr. Lebrun, to the best of your knowledge, did the legislature of Quebec, and not fromQuebec, of Quebec before 1968, had authorization, within the meaning of the Constitution, within the meaning of the British North America Act at the time, to make the changes it made?
Michel Lebrun (ML)
The answer to that is obviously No, and then I'll explain why. Earlier, just before starting, Mr. Normandin told you that I was a lawyer and he said Maître Michel Lebrun, but I am no longer a lawyer, I resigned from the Bar, the last year. And one of the reasons for that, is that the Law Society, or the Bar's executive, did not want to apply constitutional laws and did not want to take steps to apply them.
So, I am going to explain to you very briefly a little bit about the constitutional history that we have lived and then I think that everyone should be able to understand even if it is perhaps a little, a little difficult. It is correct ? So in 1867 the Constitutional Act of 1867 was created or adopted by the British parliament. This distinction is important here because, it only happens in England and on the other side here, this is what happened in Quebec. So, in 1867 what we created was, for Quebec, it was one, it was the lieutenant governor with the legislative council and the legislative assembly.
So, at that time, in 1867, there was no law (a little closer to the microphone), there was no provincial law. It was around the year 1886 that Quebec decided to make a provincial law on the legislature.
So, they're going to reproduce a photocopy of that and then .... with the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly. This distinction is important here because, until 1931, you couldn't change the laws, you couldn't change the British laws. In 1931, there was the Statute of Westminster where, from that time, the colonies of Canada could change or modify the British laws which would have been imposed on Canada except, except one which was that law, the constitutional law of 1867 that you couldn't touch. And the articles that could not be touched and which ultimately affect us among others, are articles 71 to 79 which elaborate the legislative council then the legislative assembly, but especially the legislative council, and then article 80 which makes it possible to delimit electoral districts, ... then we know that this is very important because when you vote, you vote in a constituency and depending on the vote, you will have your deputy in each of the constituencies.
So section 80 was also protected by the Statute of Westminster until 1982. So what we have here is a law on the legislature of Quebec and then this law continued to exist from 1886 until around 1968 when the Prime Minister of Quebec at the time, Mr. Jean-Jacques Bertrand, we are very close to his street, decided with the other parliamentarians, that they no longer needed the legislative council. So what they did, they asked the Lieutenant Governor to no longer appoint legislative advisers and then in their own laws, in their Quebec law, they eliminated it. But obviously they did not eliminate it in England because, the only ones who could change the statute here, well it was the Parliament of Westminster. So for the Parliament of Westminster to change that, it was necessary for the Parliament of Canada to ask Westminster to change this, which has never been done. So, the structure remained like that, but there were no more legislative advisers because the Lieutenant Governor, he no longer appointed any.
Perhaps make a little parenthesis, it is important to have the Legislative Council because the people here, they are free to say things. While lawyers for the Department of Justice, they are taken with an oath of confidentiality and may not necessarily reveal everything that is going on, all the errors that there may be in the legislature, but they can do it, or at least, they could do it.
Then from 1969, on January 1, 1969, there was a new entity which they called the national assembly of Quebec. This distinction is important because, a bit like before, as Jean-François said earlier, before it was the Quebec legislature, and from 68, at the end of 68, it was in effect on January 1, 1969, well it was called the national assembly of Quebec .... Until 1982.
So, in 1982, something bizarre happened ... Because it must also be said that immediately after 68, the legislature said: section 80 which identifies the ridings and which ensured that the Lieutenant Governor had to sanction the constituencies, the new national assembly of Quebec, in 70, just after the October crisis, because Mr. Bourassa said: we have the October crisis then there, we want to show that we are really independent here and etc ... then on December 19, 1970, they decided that they repealed or that article 80 ceased to be in force. From this moment, the Lieutenant Governor could no longer sanction it and it was a small committee, which is called the representation committee now, which identified the ridings. And then of course, I think they sometimes drew them to their advantage .... but something strange happened that the law on the legislature over time, it provided for 82, 110 seats, so 110 seats, but this small committee, there are, it has 122 ridings so we end up with 122 members but 110 seats. So obviously that causes a problem (musical chair).
JFD
There are 12 who sit illegally.
ML
There are 12 who sit illegally, but it's not just 12 who are illegal, because all the ridings are different, so now that's causing a problem. So, I don't think they told you and then I don't think they boasted about it but it's really important because from that moment, they said to each other: we have a constitutional problem, then in addition, in addition in 1982, the Constitution which was here, which is still in English, which was not changed, but there it had to apply, so they had to apply that but they found themselves in an irregular situation. You understand ?
So that's very important for the rest of things. So I'm going to show you, just a moment ... If you don't mind distributing them.
(1) Court document Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217
107 In our view, the alleged principle of effectivity has no constitutional or legal status in the sense that it does not provide an ex ante explanation or justification for an act. In essence, acceptance of a principle of effectivity would be tantamount to accepting that the National Assembly, legislature or government of Quebec may act without regard to the law, simply because it asserts the power to do so. So viewed, the suggestion is that the National Assembly, legislature or government of Quebec could purport to secede the province unilaterally from Canada in disregard of Canadian and international law. It is further suggested that if the secession bid was successful, a new legal order would be created in that province, which would then be considered an independent state.
(2)
108 Such a proposition is an assertion of fact, not a statement of law. It may or may not be true; in any event it is irrelevant to the questions of law before us. If, on the other hand, it is put forward as an assertion of law, then it simply amounts to the contention that the law may be broken as long as it can be broken successfully. Such a notion is contrary to the rule of law, and must be rejected.
We have endeavored to bring you the English translation of the video 9823 pertaining to the people's grand jury held on September 20, 2015 in Quebec. Much thanks to Angele Prince for the translation https://mega.nz/#!yTxDyIYD!dvHDCd6iHUyXvkvNt8bkfnDbJ-EptuUAOjpBJ4ldsRU
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