The Canadian Party of Quebec is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and all federal party leaders, if any of them are PM at the time, to hold a federal referendum prior to a third Quebec independence referendum that the PQ says it will hold if elected in 2026.

A letter to the federal leaders, written by CaPQ party leaders Colin Standish and Myrtis Fossey, says a federal referendum question could be, “as a member of the Canadian people in Quebec, do you consent that the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada separate Canadians and your local territory from Canada in the event of a Yes vote in any Quebec referendum on independence or provincial secession?”

“Now is the time for Canada’s federal institutions to prepare for any referendum or potential secession contingencies,” Standish and Fossey wrote. “In the lead-up to Referendum 3, in no way hypothetical given the threats and realities of two traumatic precedents, Canada and Canadians must be fully prepared.”

The CaPQ co-leaders cite a 1997 letter from then-Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion to his Quebec counterpart Jacques Brassard that said, in relation to the Swiss canton of Jara being created from part of the existing canton of Bern, “our governments too, like Switzerland, could be obliged to find arrangements that would not impose secession on populations that do not want it. If you had won the last referendum, we would have been forced to deal with this issue when no one was prepared.”

Standish and Fossey added that, even with the Clarity Act setting the rules of a Quebec referendum, it does not state “how the provincial boundaries of Quebec might be changed in the event of a successful referendum on Quebec independence.

“In other words, Canadians are no closer to ‘arrangements that would not impose secession on populations that do not want it’ than we were in 1997. As loyal Canadians residing in Quebec, subject to traumatic and repeated threats to our citizenship, we find such a situation both intolerable and negligent in the extreme.”

The CaPQ co-leaders also cited an indigenous peoples referendum held before the 1995 Quebec referendum, which indicated an “overwhelming desire to remain in Canada, whatever the results of the provincial exercise.”

“Moreover, it could not have escaped the Canadian government’s attention that after 1995, dozens of municipalities within Quebec adopted ‘staying Canadian’ resolutions, some even having discussed the possibility of following the Swiss canton of Jura model. The question is simple and pertinent. If the Indigenous people of Quebec were able to conduct referenda to express their desire to remain Canadian, before Referendum 2, why can’t the people of Canada, residing in Quebec, be accorded the same right before a possible third referendum?”

Standish and Fossey wrote that “if such a peaceful, democratic mechanism was good enough for Switzerland less than 50 years ago, why would it not be good enough for Canada today?”