Whereas English has been an official language of every assembly representing the people of Quebec from 1791 down to the present day;

Whereas the Fathers of Confederation placed English and French on an equal official footing in the parliaments and courts of both the federal and Quebec governments;

Whereas the Charter of the French Language attempted in 1977 to remove English as an official language of the Quebec National Assembly, but this was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1979 Blaikie case;

Whereas passing legislation is the most official function and mandate of a legislature, and in the Quebec legislature English and French are equally official for the purpose of passing and interpreting laws;

Whereas Quebec's federal institutions also recognize English as an official language in Quebec;

Whereas Quebec's political, economic and civil institutional structures were largely - though not exclusively - created and maintained over time by people who spoke French and English;

Whereas the people who speak English at home in Quebec are not in majority of British origin,but rather include people with origins from the four corners of the earth, notably aboriginals whose ancestors occupied this territory thousands of years before Jacques-Cartier caught sight of what was - to him - a new world;

Therefore be it recognized and proclaimed that English is an official language of Quebec; it is not just "une autre langue," a foreign language, but is part of Quebec's constitution, its history, its substance, its very identity.

Whereas all Quebecers are proud of their liberal democratic traditions, including the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;

Whereas all Quebecers are proud of Canada's record in defending human rights, including the role of Canadians in the creation of the United Nations and in formulating its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

Whereas Canada, including Quebec, has been a signatory to all the great international conventions enshrining human rights, including the 1989 U.N. Resolution on the Rights of the Child; Whereas there is reason to believe that some laws and regulations in Quebec infringe our constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association, as well as international standards prohibiting discrimination in education; Whereas the McIntyre case demonstrated:

a) that Quebec's prohibition of Englishon signs violated international standards, and

b) that the judgment to this effect by the UN's Committee on Human Rights persuaded the Quebec government to remove some of the restrictions prohibiting English on signs;

Be it resolved that we will oppose any violation of our constitutional rights or of international standards of human rights that adversely affect Quebec's English-speaking community, and we will seek redress for such violations in the courts of this country or, if necessary, at the United Nations.

Whereas the Constitution Act, 1982, states at Section 52.(1): "The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada, and any law that is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect";

Whereas Jacques Parizeau stated in the National Assembly on May 19, 1994: "Nous sommes un état de droit. Le Canada, le Québec, ne sont pas des républiques de bananes. Il y a le droit. Il y a la Constitution. Il y a le droit international. Et nous avons tous été élus pour défendre le droit";

Whereas compliance with the judgments of the courts is the essential condition for the rule of law,and rejection of the authority of the courts leads to the law of the jungle, to anarchy and chaos;

Whereas Premier Lucien Bouchard, like Premier Jacques Parizeau before him, has publicly and categorically stated that he will not be bound by the judgments of the courts with respect to the legality of secession;

Be it resolved that the rule of law is not negotiable, contempt of court in the matter of secession is not negotiable, overthrowing the constitution by revolution is not negotiable. In case of a disagreement over an issue as charged with passion as is secession, respect for the rule of law is the only guarantee of a civilized, and therefore peaceful, resolution of conflicts. To deter any attempt at a secession that had been declared by the court to be illegal, we must make clear that we would have peaceful means to resist being taken hostage, inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. A withholding of taxes from a clearly unconstitutional regime would be the most obvious method of exercising peaceful deterrence.

Whereas the province of Quebec contains, in whole or in part, many peoples, notably the First Nations and the Canadian people;

Whereas the right of peoples to self-determination, as defined by the United Nations, does not include a right to secede from a country that offers all its citizens full and equal rights;

Whereas the people of Quebec already exercise to the full the right to self-determination within Canada, as the five experts in international law consulted by the Quebec government in 1992 declared unanimously;

Whereas Mr. Justice Robert Lesage declared in his 1995 judgment that a unilateral secession of Quebec from Canada would violate the rights as a citizen of Guy Bertrand under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - and so it would violate the Charter rights of every Canadian citizen in Quebec;

Whereas the government of Canada has stated, nevertheless, that it would not use force to prevent Quebecers from seceding if such was their clearly expressed will;

Whereas the government of Quebec has so far not extended a symmetrical guarantee that it would not use force to prevent the minority peoples of Quebec from remaining within Canada if such be their clearly expressed will;

Whereas it would violate the right to self-determination of the First Nations and of the Canadian people within Quebec if force were used to take them hostage in a secession that was chosen only by the majority French-speaking people of Quebec;

Whereas it would be morally inadmissible for the majority French-speaking people of Quebec to claim a right to secession for itself while opposing by force the right of other peoples in Quebec to refuse secession and to remain with their lands under the constitution and the jurisdiction of Canada;

Therefore be it resolved that:

a) we demand of the Quebec government a clear commitment that it would not use force to take as hostages and prisoners the minority peoples of Quebec in case of secession;

b) we demand of the federal government a clear commitment that it would not permit a secessionist Quebec government to use force to take hostage the minority peoples of Quebec.

Whereas the 1995 referendum showed clearly that English-speaking Quebecers were unprepared,confused, divided, without adequate means to make their voices effectively heard, or to have their views taken into account;

Whereas English-speaking Quebecers are weak individually, numerically and politically, but can be strong collectively if they unite, join their voices and their views, strengthen their organizations which speak for them, such as Alliance Quebec, CASA, CVESPA, the Coasters Association, the Council for Anglophone Magdalen Islanders, Outaouais Alliance, the Townshippers' Association,the Voice of English Quebec, as well as the Organization Member Groups;

Therefore be it resolved that, in the coming year, we make it a first priority to bring all English-speaking Quebecers into the organizations which speak for us, that we make every effort to coordinate our actions and to have a strong core common message, and that we use all the effective tools of communication to get our message across to all Quebecers.

Whereas harmony and mutual respect among all the peoples of Quebec would contribute to a better life for all;

Whereas history has left residues of injustice and resentments from past centuries which have still not been resolved;

Whereas Quebec's French-speaking and English-speaking peoples get along admirably in every-day life (27 per cent of married anglophones are married to francophones), but mythologies and historiography have too often portrayed "les Anglais" as the descendants and reincarnations of those who conquered New France on the Plains of Abraham;

Whereas English-speaking Quebecers today are not descendants of the conquerors; nor are 78 percent of them even British by origin: we are by our origins French, Irish, English, Italian, Jewish,Greek, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Spanish, German, Chinese, Muslim, Polish, Afro-Canadian,Portuguese, Slav, American, Haitian, Filipino, Japanese, of many origins from India, Vietnamese, Hindu, and of every country, race and religion of the wide world;

Whereas we all desire to establish warm, constructive relations as individuals and as communities with our French-speaking fellow citizens;

Therefore be it resolved that the organizations which represent us make a first priority in the coming year to effect a long-overdue historic reconciliation with French Quebec. In particular, the president of Alliance Quebec should rapidly set out on a tour of all the mid-sized cities of Quebec to speak to the Sociétés Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the Chambres de Commerce, the various fraternal associations and clubs, to the regional press, to bring the message of who we are and how much we want to be fully accepted as fellow citizens, fellow-workers, neighbours, playmates, friends,kinfolk and members together of one great family.

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