National Assembly of Quebec Assemblée nationale du Québec | |
|---|---|
| 43rd Quebec Legislature | |
 | |
| Type | |
| Type | |
| History | |
| Founded | December 31, 1968 (1968-12-31) |
| Preceded by | Legislative Assembly of Quebec |
| Leadership | |
Nathalie Roy since November 29, 2022 | |
Opposition House Leader | |
| Structure | |
| Seats | 125 |
_-_Plan_de_salle_par_parti_(Seating_Chart_by_Party).svg) | |
Political groups | Government of Quebec
Parties without official status
|
| Elections | |
| First-past-the-post | |
Last election | October 3, 2022 |
Next election | On or before October 5, 2026 |
| Meeting place | |
 | |
| Parliament Building, Quebec City, Quebec | |
| Website | |
| assnat | |
TheNational Assembly of Quebec (French:Assemblée nationale du Québec,pronounced[asɑ̃blenɑsjɔnaldykebɛk])[2] is thelegislative body of theprovince ofQuebec in Canada. Legislators are called MNAs (Members of the National Assembly; French:députés). Thelieutenant governor of Quebec (representing theKing of Canada)[3] and the National Assembly compose theParliament of Québec, which operates in a fashion similar to those of otherWestminster-style parliamentary systems. The assembly has 125 members elected viafirst past the post fromsingle-member districts.
The National Assembly was formerly thelower house of Quebec's legislature and was then called theLegislative Assembly of Quebec (French:Assemblée législative du Québec). In 1968, theupper house, theLegislative Council, was abolished and the remaining house was renamed. The office ofPresident of the National Assembly is equivalent to speaker in other legislatures. As of the2022 Quebec general election, theCoalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) has the most seats in the Assembly.
TheConstitutional Act 1791 created theParliament of Lower Canada. It consisted of two chambers, the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly. That parliament and both chambers were abolished in 1841 when theAct of Union 1840 mergedUpper Canada andLower Canada into a single province named theProvince of Canada. The Act of Union created a newParliament of the Province of Canada, also composed of a Legislative Council and a Legislative Assembly. That Parliament had jurisdiction over the entire province, with members from Lower Canada and Upper Canada in both houses.
TheConstitution Act, 1867 (formerly known as the British North America Act), created the Dominion of Canada, and also created the provinces ofOntario and Quebec by splitting the old Province of Canada into two, based on the old boundaries of Lower Canada and Upper Canada. The act created a new bicameral Legislature for the province of Quebec, composed of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.
In December 1955, the assembly passed a bill according the title "Member of Provincial Parliament" (membre du Parlement provincial) and the initialism "MPP" (M.P.P.) to members of the legislature.[4] Previously, there had been no fixed designation, but they had often been referred to as "Members of the Legislative Assembly" (MLAs) (membres de l'Assemblée législative (M.A.L.s)), which PremierMaurice Duplessis noted in his speech on the bill, "can sometimes be pronounced as 'mal', which means 'evil' in French."[5]
In 1961,Marie-Claire Kirkland became the first woman elected to the Legislative Assembly.
In 1968, Bill 90 was passed by the government of PremierJean-Jacques Bertrand, abolishing the Legislative Council and renaming the Legislative Assembly the "National Assembly", in line with the more strident nationalism of theQuiet Revolution. Before 1968, there had been various unsuccessful attempts at abolishing the Legislative Council, which was analogous to theSenate of Canada. With the adoption of the new name, members of the assembly were now designated Members of the National Assembly (MNA) in English. In French, they are referred to as eithermembre de l'Assemblée nationale with the initialism M.A.N.[6] or asdéputés de l'Assemblée nationale du Québec.[7]
In 1978, television cameras were brought in for the first time to televise parliamentary debates. The colour of the walls was changed to suit the needs of television, and thesalon vert (green hall) became thesalon bleu (blue hall).
In 1984,Canadian Forces corporalDenis Lortie stormed into theParliament Building and opened fire, killing three government employees and wounding thirteen others. His intended target was PremierRené Lévesque and hisParti Québécois government. However, he was around 15 minutes early and the Assembly floor was still mostly empty; no politicians were shot. He surrendered to police hours later.[8]
Constructed between 1877 and 1886, the Parliament Building features theSecond Empire architectural style[9] that was popular for prestigious buildings both in Europe (especially France where the style originated) and the United States during the latter 19th century.
Although somewhat more sober in appearance and lacking a towering central belfry, Quebec City's Parliament Building bears a definite likeness to thePhiladelphia City Hall, another Second Empire edifice in North America which was built during the same period. Even though the building's symmetrical layout with a frontal clock tower in the middle is typical of legislative institutions of British heritage, the architectural style is believed to be unique among parliament buildings found in other Canadian provincial capitals.[citation needed] Its façade presents apantheon representing significant events and people of the history of Quebec.
In 1936, Maurice Duplessis hung acrucifix in the Legislative Assembly chamber. It hung there for 83 years, until it was removed on 10 July 2019.[10]
Additional buildings were added, adjacent to the Parliament Buildings:
General elections are held every four years or less. Since 2014, the legislature has had a fixed four-year term, with elections taking place no later than "the first Monday of October of the fourth calendar year following the year that includes the last day of the previous Legislature."[11] However, thelieutenant governor, acting on the advice of thepremier, can dissolve the legislature and call an election earlier. Any Canadian citizen at least 18 years old who has been residing in Quebec for at least six months qualifies to be on theelectoral list.[12]
Normally, the lieutenant governor invites the leader of the political party with the largest number of elected candidates to form the government as premier (premier ministre in French; French does not make a distinction betweenpremier andprime minister).
Quebec's territory is divided into 125electoral districts (ridings). In each riding, the candidate who receives the most votes is elected and becomes a member of the National Assembly (MNA). This is thefirst-past-the-post voting system. It tends to produce strong disparities in the number of seats won compared to the popular vote, perhaps best exemplified by the1966 (wrong-winner result),1970 (false-majority result),1973, and1998 election (wrong-winner and false-majority result).
Quebec elections have also tended to be volatile since the 1970s, producing a large turnover in seats. Consequently, existing political parties often lose more than half their seats with the rise of new or opposition political parties. For instance, the 1970 and 1973 elections saw the demise of theUnion Nationale and rise of the Parti Québécois, which took power in1976. The1985 and1994 elections saw the Liberals gain and lose power in landslide elections. The2018 elections saw the rise of theCoalition Avenir Québec, which took power for the first time.
Cabinet ministers are in bold, party leaders are in italic and the president of the National Assembly is marked with a †.
| Number of members per party by date | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 3 | Oct 27 | Dec 1 | Mar 7 | Mar 13 | Mar 29 | Jul 19 | Oct 2 | Apr 16 | Sept 3 | Sept 12 | Mar 17 | Mar 18 | May 2 | Aug 11 | Sep 4 | Sep 5 | Sep 18 | Oct 30 | Nov 5 | ||
| Coalition Avenir Québec | 90 | 89 | 90 | 89 | 88 | 87 | 86 | 85 | 84 | 83 | 82 | 81 | |||||||||
| Liberal | 21 | 20 | 19 | 20 | |||||||||||||||||
| Québec solidaire | 11 | 12 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Parti Québécois | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||||||||||||||
| Independent | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |||||||||
| Vacant | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |||||||||||
One of the members of the National Assembly is elected asPresident of the Assembly (a post calledspeaker in most otherWestminster System assemblies). Any member of the assembly is eligible to stand for election, other than party leaders and Cabinet ministers. The election is the first order of business for a newly elected assembly. It is conducted by secret ballot of all members, with successive rounds of voting if needed before one candidate gains a majority of the votes.[13]
The president of the assembly is the arbiter of the parliamentary debates between the members of the government and the members of the Opposition. In order for a member to address the assembly, the member speak through the president. The president is usually a member of the governing party.
The proceedings of the National Assembly are broadcast across Quebec on the cable television networkCanal de l'Assemblée nationale.
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|---|---|---|
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| Opposition Leader | ||
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