Canadian lawmakers refuse to swear oath to King Charles III

A group of newly elected representatives of the province QuebecIn the Canadarejected this Wednesday, 19, oath of allegiance to King Charles III, which the constitution considers the king of the country. In all, 11 deputies, all from the left-wing Solidarity Party of Quebec, refused to take the oath and are now at risk of not being able to take seats in the Quebec National Assembly at the end of November.

In a televised address, parliamentarians swore an oath “to the people of Quebec.” Party spokesman Gabriel Nadeau Dubois confirmed that they acted with “full knowledge of the issue” in delivering the speech. “We have campaigned to change the eras in Quebec, and if we are sent to Parliament, the door will be opened,” he added.

Under Canadian constitutional law, any deputy at the federal or provincial level is required to take an oath of allegiance to the British monarchy in order to exercise his or her mandate, as Canada is the institutional property of the Commonwealth.

However, the oath of allegiance to the British crown has always been a source of conflict in Quebec, a province often associated with France. The province even held two referendums to secede from the rest of Canada in 1980 and 1995. In both, the majority voted against independence.

Quebec Solidarity leader Paul Saint-Pierre Blamondon said last week that the relationship with the British monarchy is about a “conflict of interest”, because “you can’t serve two masters”. On top of that, he says, the property costs “CAD$67 million each year” and the section represents “the memory of colonial domination.”

Prime Minister of Canada, Justin TrudeauOn Wednesday, he asserted that “no Quebecer” wanted to “reopen the constitution”, because abolishing the monarchy would require rewriting the constitution and the unanimous approval of Parliament and ten Canadian regional governments, which could take years. / France Press agency