—Marie-Hélène Lyonnais, PhD candidate, University College London (United Kingdom), affiliate of the Global Center for Democratic Constitutionalism
On October 9, 2025, the Québec government introduced Bill 1, the Québec Constitution Act, 2025 (“Bill 1”), in the National Assembly of Québec (the “National Assembly”). If adopted by the National Assembly, Bill 1 would institute Québec’s first-ever constitution, the Constitution of Québec. It would also result in the adoption of the Act respecting the constitutional autonomy of Québec and the Act respecting the Conseil constitutionnel, while amending the Constitution Act, 1867, the Quebec Charter, and the Civil Code of Procedure.
Bill 1 is fascinating from a constitutional law and theory perspective and worrisome from a human rights standpoint.
At the outset, a few comments on the ‘constitution-making process’ of this subnational constitution are warranted. Bill 1 was introduced following the publication of the Proulx-Rousseau Report, mandated by the Québec government, which recommended various measures that the National Assembly could adopt to promote and protect the ‘collective rights’ of the Québec nation. These measures included the adoption of a constitution for Québec, and an act on Québec’s ‘constitutional autonomy’ (pp. 4-5, 37-41).
Between the release of this report in November 2024 and Québec’s filing of Bill 1, the government did not initiate any consultation with the broader public, nor did it seek to educate the population on the meaning and impact of a constitution-making process for Québec. The governing majority simply introduced Bill 1 as it would have introduced any ordinary piece of legislation.
Yet Bill 1 is anything but ordinary. It brings about fundamental changes in Québec’s constitutional landscape. The type of changes that cannot, in my view, be unilaterally imposed by the government of the day, without a formal process involving broad consultation and meaningful public participation. Not only is the right to take part in constitution-making protected by Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but public participation can ‘enhance the legitimacy and thereby the effectiveness and durability’ of new constitutions.
From a constitutional law and theory standpoint, Bill 1 confirms the Québec government’s clear commitment to political – rather than legal – constitutionalism. It envisages a series of measures that seek to reinforce the National Assembly’s role as the ultimate decision-maker on all legal (and constitutional) matters, while correspondingly reducing the courts’ responsibility for safeguarding constitutional rights.
Bill 1 places the new Constitution of Québec at the apex of the hierarchy of laws in Québec and affirms that it has ‘precedence over any inconsistent rule of law’ (art. 2). However, it does not specify whether the Constitution of Québec will be entrenched. While the Act Respecting the Constitutional Autonomy of Québec includes provisions regarding the examination of ‘motions for constitutional amendments’ (art. 6-7), none of these provisions indicate whether amending Québec’s proposed new fundamental law will be more onerous than amending any other ordinary statute.
We can nonetheless infer from other provisions of the proposed Constitution of Québec that the current subnational government intends to unilaterally grant constituent (and amendment) powers to itself, and to future majority governments. Indeed, art. 39 affirms that the ‘National Assembly is the supreme and legitimateorgan by which democratic principles are expressed and implemented in Québec’, while art. 41 provides that the ‘National Assembly exercises constituent, legislative, deliberative and government oversight functions’.
Bill 1 also contemplates the adoption of the Act Respecting the Constitutional Autonomy of Québec, which contains several provisions placing the National Assembly at the center of its new constitutional model, while curbing judicial review.
For example, art. 9 of the Act provides that the National Assembly can invoke the (in)famous notwithstanding clauses laid down in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in the Quebec Charter (the ‘parliamentary sovereignty provision’) ‘on its own initiative or in response to a judicial decision (…) without any requirement to contextualize or justify’ its use, and that ‘no application for judicial review, based on a right or freedom referred to in such a parliamentary sovereignty provision, may be brought in order to’ have the act declared constitutionally invalid. Article 9 seemingly seeks to pre-empt (and perhaps, influence) the Supreme Court of Canada’s forthcoming ruling on the legality of the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause, and on the proper scope of judicial review when the clause is invoked. The Court is indeed expected to address these questions in its consideration of the constitutional challenge to the Act respecting the laicity of the State (commonly known as “Bill 21”), a Québec statute that prohibits public sector employees from wearing religious symbols, and in which the National Assembly has invoked the notwithstanding clause.
Also worth emphasizing is art. 5 of the Act Respecting the Constitutional Autonomy of Québec, which asserts that the National Assembly can assert, in any law, that it seeks to ‘protect the Québec nation’ or its fundamental characteristics’ (art. 5, al. 1), with the upshot that the use of public funds (or any ‘sum derived from levies, taxes, etc’) to seek judicial review of that legislation is not available (art. 5, al. 2). Not only do these provisions disclose Québec’s clear commitment to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, they also significantly curtail the rights of the individuals adversely affected by such legislation and ultimately, threaten the rule of law.
From a human rights standpoint, Bill 1 contributes to establishing an exclusionary, ‘us vs. them’ narrative in Québec constitutional law. The Bill is completely silent on the rights of minorities within Québec (except for a single mention of the English-speaking community), and focuses on the construction, empowerment and furtherance of the rights of the lay, francophone majority.
For example, the preamble of the Constitution of Québec affirms that the ‘Québec people, in the majority French-speaking, forms a nation rooted in its territory and united around its identity, culture, common language, distinct social values, heritage and specific history’. This nation, according to art. 7 of the draft constitution, is vested with ‘intrinsic and inalienable collective rights’ (namely, the right to protect its distinct culture, language and social values, including laïcité), that the State has the obligation to protect and promote (art. 19, 22). This creates a clear hierarchy between the collective rights of the majority – which are protected by the Constitution of Québec, and which the State must protect, promote (positive obligations) and respect (negative obligations) – and the rights minorities enjoy under the Québec Charter, which give rise to negative obligations from the State (duty to respect, or not to infringe), and which are not deemed deserving of Québec’s elevated constitutional protection.
More fundamentally, the Bill’s emphasis on the single culture and unified nation of Quebecers, reinforces the idea that the Québec nation is composed of first- and second-rate citizens, only the first category being deserving of full recognition and protection in Québec’s new constitution. It ascribes what Marietta van der Tol calls ‘fundamental otherness’ to all Quebecers who, for various reasons, do not identify with this unilaterally imposed vision of the collective that Québec places at the forefront of its constitutional project.
In sum, Bill 1 represents a significant reconfiguration of Québec’s constitutional order: one that strengthens parliamentary sovereignty at the expense of judicial oversight, and privileges collective identity over individual rights. While deeply concerning from a human rights and democratic legitimacy perspective, the government’s majority position in the National Assembly makes the Bill’s adoption a distinct possibility. What remains uncertain, however, is how much political and social resistance it may encounter, and what its long-term implications will be for constitutional governance and minority protection in Québec.
Suggested citation: Marie-Hélène Lyonnais, Constitutional Autonomy or Constitutional Overreach? Reflections on Québec’s Bill 1, Int’l J. Const. L. Blog, Oct. 22, 2025, at: http://www.iconnectblog.com/constitutional-autonomy-or-constitutional-overreach-reflections-on-quebecs-bill-1/