Cowardly Justice Minister St. Arnaud Owes Students an Apology

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Mr. No-Show, makes appearance to make false accusations

If you didn't know that Bernard St. Arnaud is the outgoing Quebec justice minister in Pauline Marois' PQ government, you should probably be excused, because he's been largely invisible these last six months.

It's patently clear that the reason he's been hiding is his reluctance to defend the legality of the Charter of Values, because quite frankly, he can't and in the best tradition of party politics, if you disagree or can't defend a major policy, it's best to shut up or face the chopping block.

One of the few pronouncements that the minister has made in the Charter debate is to repeat that he nor the government will divulge the legal opinions that it received over the Charter, claiming privilege, much to the political consternation of the opposition who demanded that he make those opinions public or resign. Link[fr}

The timid justice minister has been hemming and hawing over the issue and offered this pearl of wisdom as one of his very few contributions to the debate;

"From the beginning, my answer has always been that I am confident in the legal foundation of the guidance document which was tabled by my colleague [Bernard Drainville] last October. There will be a bill introduced [later in November] and I am confident that eventually, when this bill is passed, it will be lawful and consistent with our constitutional charters. " Link {fr} trans.

In other words, the draft Bill presented by Bernard Drainville would have to be modified in order to stand the test of a legal challenge.
Quite a masterful stroke of deflection!

So it was quite surprising that the usually timid and reserved Justice Minister exploded in an unequivocal rage over the alleged voter fraud of Anglo students in Montreal.

"The Quebec election should not be stolen by people of Ontario, people from the rest of Canada!" the outgoing Minister of Justice , Bertrand St-Arnaud, said, not pulling any punches." Link{fr}trans.

Denis Dion, Quebec's neutral election boss, stands up for democracy

Them's fighting words from a man who is supposed to uphold the principle that people are assumed innocent until proven guilty and perhaps is explained by the visceral and widely-accepted notion that Anglos stole the referendum, through voter fraud.

This popular myth in referendum lore has been concocted by separatists unable to come to terms with the close referendum loss and although irregularities were found, just like this time, as described by the DGEQ, the irregularities fell within the norms and were statistically insignificant.

Just to deflate any argument in the comments section, a few dozen students did vote illegally in the 1995 referendum, but the number pales compared to the 12,000 'NO' votes rejected by separatist scrutineers over invented or minor flaws.
The other argument that new citizenship swearing in ceremonies were rushed to accommodate the desire of these immigrants to vote in the referendum may have been political, but entirely legal, all those who were supposedly fast-tracked were qualified Canadians. At any rate, the number of these voters doesn't come close to the forty-five thousand votes, by which the 'YES' side fell short.

As for the money spent 'illegally' by the NO side, the referendum law that limited these type of expenses was deemed overly restrictive by the courts. The idea that a provincial government can enact a law that forbids the federal government from communicating with citizens, presumptuous and ultra vires.
In fact it can be argued that the restrictions in the referendum law were designed to give the separatist side an unfair advantage, by illegally curbing expenses and placing an artificial ceiling on spending, full well in knowledge that the law would be discredited after the referendum, after the unfair advantage had been exploited.

But I digress.....

PQ Election strategy..Panic and Improv...

Now an outraged St, Arnaund demanded that the DGE verify the bone fides of these students and make daily reports to him as to the status and number of these requests by Anglo students, a request flatly rejected by the independent elections boss, who I must commend for acting in a scrupulously impartial and informed manner.

The calm and measured response of the DGE, Denis Dion took the winds out of the sails of the enraged Pequists, telling them that there wasn't any rush of students trying to get onto the election roles and that the unclear criteria used to judge the voter's primary domicile needed to be clarified for the sake of potential voters and those election officials doing the verification.

In other words, no fraud was detected and the numbers of those trying to get on the election roles were no different than in the last election.

Intimating that these students were 'thieves' for trying to vote is the height of misconduct by a justice minister, who even in the heat of an election campaign must defend the principles of our democracy above partisan politics.

As I pointed out in Sunday's column the notion of 'domicile' is what is at the heart of the issue here and the election law bases the notion of the domicile by what is described in Quebec's Civil Code.

That interpretation is open to interpretation and election officials and potential voters haven't been given clear guidelines until now.
The DGE has revamped those guidelines and has published them on its website.

The notion of domicile

Section 1 of the Election Act stipulates that, to be a qualified elector, a person must have attained 18 years of age, be a Canadian citizen and have been domiciled in Québec for six months. However, the notion of domicile can be complex, and questions may be raised as to its interpretation.
Evidence of domicile is first and foremost a question of law, and is demonstrated by intention. Intention is evidenced by material facts, i.e. a person’s actions and behaviours. The domicile is therefore the place with which a person’s important actions or “states” of civic life are associated. In other words, the domicile is the place a person considers to be his or her principal establishment, gives as a reference for the exercise of his or her civil rights, and indicates publicly as being his or her domicile.
The board of revisors has the power to inquire and obtain any information it considers relevant for examination of an application for entry on the list. To do this, it may ask the person to provide additional evidence, including evidence of bank accounts in a Québec banking institution, a Québec health insurance card, a Québec driver’s licence or registration certificate, or an income tax return made in Québec. The board of revisors may also question an elector who makes an application for entry on the list or for a change of domicile.
The more evidence that is provided, the clearer the person’s intention to establish domicile becomes. It is important to note that some specific actions also provide more certain evidence of the person’s intention to establish domicile in Québec than the simple fact of signing a lease. Examples include the fact of paying income tax in Québec or obtaining a Québec driver’s licence.  Link

 The above clarification does fair justice and the DGE must be commended for its efforts in the face of divergent opinions and political pressures.

Students who actually live here in Quebec full-time deserve a right to vote, others who have never even obtained a medicare card don't, regardless of the length of stay.

That said, one student, Sean Beatty, who fervently believes that he fulfills the criteria, recorded a conversation where the election official denied him registration based on a faulty interpretation of the guiding principle concerning 'domicile.'

Listen at 1:56, when the election officer wrongly claims that the definition of 'domicile' as made in Quebec's Civil Code doesn't apply, an egregious error and 100% wrong.






Now the officer can be forgiven, nothing was particularly clear, but it's interesting to observe that these students knew more about the law then election officials.
That is why many of the rejected are not giving up, heeding the DGE's advice to return to the elections office with the new guidelines in hand.

The DGE has recognized the confusion and moved swiftly and decisively to clarify the rules for everyone.
But the idea that those who were trying to register were 'thieves' trying to 'steal' the election, as the justice minister has stated is an unpardonable sin, undignified and slanderous.

It is time for the Justice Minister to apologize to the students or failing that, crawl back into the hole where he is so used to hiding.