Quebec abolishes mandatory oath allegiance to King Charles III
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The ruling Coalition Avenir Québec party celebrates a win after it succeeds in making pledging allegiance to the King optional.
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Parti Quebecois's Paul St Pierre Plamondon (La Presse)
Canada’s Quebec witnessed a historic moment for its legislation on Friday after it made pledging an oath of allegiance to King Charles III, the country’s head of state, optional.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois, posted on Twitter: “This is a great moment for Quebec democracy. One more step towards the emancipation of the Quebec people from British colonialism, towards normality,"
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After being proposed by the ruling Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party, the legislative bill now only mandates pledging allegiance to the people of Quebec. "Things that we take for granted, that we think immutable" can change in "just 12 minutes," Plamondon added.
Just last week, Plamondon and two other party members were refused entry to the Assembly for the parliamentary session because they did not take an oath to the King like the constitution at the time required.
As a first in Canadian history, a poll conducted last April, recorded that a small majority of citizens preferred to abolish oath-taking to British royalty.
Canada’s Quebec separatist party leader, Yves-François Blanchet, called for cutting ties in October with what he called the “incredibly racist” and “slave-driven” British monarchy on Tuesday in the House of Commons.
“It’s archaic. It’s a thing of the past. It’s almost archaeological. It’s humiliating,” said the Bloc Québécois leader to lawmakers in parliament regarding Canada’s ties to the UK. He stated that members of his party were “forced” to pledge allegiance to a “conquering” empire, calling the oaths “meaningless”, after adding that Bloc members were true to Quebecers, not to the monarchy.
King Charles, who has visited the country 18 times, was a “foreigner who knows nothing about Canada”, according to Blanchet, and would potentially fail in passing the country’s citizenship test.
