Jolin-Barrette fears courts will roll back the right to abortion

The Legault government does not trust the courts to protect the right to abortion in the long term, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette suggested on Wednesday.

He justified his desire to enshrine this right in his draft Quebec constitution, Bill 1, which will be submitted to parliamentary committee consultations starting Thursday. 

In a press scrum Wednesday morning, Jolin-Barrette said he heard the criticisms and suggested he was open to modifying his bill to reassure them. 

Doctors, lawyers and social groups, for their part, argue that enshrining the right to abortion in a constitution would expose it more easily to legal challenges, compared to court decisions that have set legal precedents.  

“My objective is the same as those of the groups,” namely to protect the right to abortion, the minister assured. 

“I am worried about now, about the future too, and we need to make sure we have clear guidelines,” he added, while “women’s rights are under attack everywhere in the West.”

In his view, courts could very well change their minds and invalidate decisions that currently uphold the right to abortion, hence the need to affirm the State’s obligation to act.

“We need to be able to speak out and the Quebec state will defend this right,” argued the minister. 

Québec solidaire (QS) tabled a motion Wednesday morning with the support of the two other opposition parties calling on the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) to back down and remove the abortion provision from its bill, but the government refused its consent to debate it.  

“That the National Assembly take note of the repeated warnings of the Quebec Bar Association and the College of Physicians, who believe that the risks involved outweigh the benefits of including voluntary termination of pregnancy in a fundamental law,” argued the motion tabled by QS parliamentary leader Ruba Ghazal.  

The motion also recalled that, according to these professional orders, “such codification would create ‘a legal framework that could be challenged’ and would offer ‘leverage to anti-choice movements’, thus weakening a right that is currently well protected.”

In an open letter published by Le Devoir on Wednesday, no fewer than 458 doctors opposed to the minister’s approach argued that “abortion is a medical procedure, not a legal debate.”

The consultations planned in parliamentary committee are expected to be the most important of the legislative term to date, since no fewer than 211 stakeholders will be heard.    

“We hear everyone,” argued Jolin-Barrette. 

The Quebec constitution is a legislative proposal that actually covers a much broader range of issues than just abortion. 

In addition to the French Official Language Act and the secularism law, the constitution would protect the Act respecting integration into the Quebec nation, recently adopted by the Legault government, as well as the Charter of the French Language. The constitution itself would also be protected in this way. New laws could be added to the list. 

Also, the draft constitutional text would prohibit organizations from using public funds to challenge laws considered fundamental to Quebec, such as the law on French as an official language and the law on state secularism.

The constitution would also aim to strengthen equality between men and women by giving it precedence over freedom of religion in the event of a conflict between the two principles. 

It also aims to protect the right of Quebecers to access medical assistance in dying.

Similarly, the government wants to amend the Constitution Act of 1867 to incorporate “three new provisions with fundamental characteristics of Quebec, namely the secular nature of the State, the model of integration into the Quebec nation and the civil law tradition”.

The proposed text also includes other provisions:

– replacement of the title of lieutenant-governor with that of officer of Quebec;

– protection of the National Assembly’s right to use the derogation clause;

– integration of an updated Gérin-Lajoie doctrine to strengthen Quebec’s capacity to act internationally; 

– creation of a Constitutional Council which will give its opinion in particular on the consequences of federal interference;

– Quebec’s participation in the process of nominating senators and Supreme Court judges.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews