'The CAQ is going even further than Duplessis' | The Corner Booth

There's never a dull moment in Quebec politics, but even by the province's standards, these recent times appear to be unprecedented.

And that's coming from some of the province's most-respected legal experts.

According to the head of the Quebec Bar, three bills from the CAQ recently presented at Quebec’s National Assembly — the proposed constitution, one on unions and the other on doctor pay — show signs of an authoritarian drift that threatens the rule of law.

Two lawyers specializing in human rights and constitutional rights, Julius Grey and Frédéric Bérard, joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week's episode of The Corner Booth at Snowdon Deli to sound the alarm on the "autocratic" bills.

" My biggest issue is that it's a constitution that seems to want to freeze present CAQ opinions about all sorts of issues: secularism, language and so on, forever," said Grey. " They claim to be an open nationalism, but their nationalism is a closed one. Become exactly like us, or you're not one of us."

Bérard called section five of the constitution "probably the worst section I've seen in my whole life," before adding "so what kind of regime in the world prevent institutions from challenging the constitutionality of laws? It's not democracy."

Grey said by saying no to challenges, the Quebec government is ostensibly making it impossible for an individual to challenge the province, since the average person can't afford the legal costs it would entail.

"The government is clearly anti-union anyway. It's got a law reducing the powers of unions. It's a government that's reducing the rights of tenants as opposed to landlords. It's a government that is attacking the English minority. It's attacking immigrants. What we have is a clear authoritarian right-wing government," Grey said.

"The CAQ is going even further than Duplessis because Duplessis never thought about preventing people from challenging bills," Bérard said.

"It's a first for Quebec. It's a very sad day, in my opinion."