Quebec accuses Ottawa of silencing it after premier not allowed to address Canada-E.U. summit
Posted October 27, 2026 6:53 am.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s new PQ government is accusing the federal government of silencing it at the Canada-European Union summit, which will take place Thursday and Friday in Montreal.
Ottawa has refused to allow St-Pierre Plamondon to speak at the summit, even though the event is taking place in Quebec, the new government laments.
Furthermore, the federal government is also refusing to allow Quebec to host a reception on the sidelines of the summit, something that the previous government led by Christine Fréchette had requested on Sept. 15, a spokesperson for the PQ government said.
“The federal government would have us believe that the Premier of Quebec being granted permission to serve shrimp cocktails at a reception constitutes an acceptable and sufficient form of influence for representing Quebec’s interests,” St-Pierre Plamondon said in a social media post.
The European Union, the PQ spokesperson added, typically holds an Economic Leaders’ Forum on the sidelines of such summits — an event that Quebec could have organized, even in collaboration with the federal government.
The situation is therefore “surreal,” according to the PQ government spokesperson, since the summit will take place “on Quebec soil,” and discussions will centre on “strategic and economic agreements” — some of which fall within Quebec’s jurisdiction and could bind Quebec for several years — without the Quebec government having any say in the matter.
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday morning, Minister of Industry Mélanie Joly argued that the gathering is “federal in nature” — organized by Canada — and that “geopolitics falls under federal jurisdiction.”
Marie-Claude Sarrazin, minister of justice and minister responsible for Canadian intergovernmental affairs, did not mince words in condemning the federal government’s position.
“‘When you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,’ Prime Minister Carney once told us,” she recalled in an official statement provided to the media. “The federal government has chosen to prevent Quebec from having a say on its own territory. This is a fundamental lack of respect toward Quebec and a denial of the role of our parliament, which reminds us of the need to be fully in charge in our own home.”
The PQ government also pointed out that Quebec did, in fact, have a seat at the negotiating table during the Canada–European Union Free Trade Agreement (CETA) and participated in more than a hundred meetings as part of the process. There was therefore a precedent, they noted.
“Regardless of the agreements or treaties signed during this summit, Quebec is sovereign in its areas of jurisdiction at the international level, so it is Quebec that will have the final say,” in accordance with the Gérin-Lajoie doctrine, they concluded.
This snub comes after St-Pierre Plamondon refused on Monday to attend a summit organized by the federal government with Indigenous peoples and the provincial premiers—a decision that Mark Carney, incidentally, deplored.
In addition, St-Pierre Plamondon spoke on Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron, marking the first official contact between the two men.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
