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Ownership of National Assembly land in Que. to be reviewed
By Mike De Souza, Canwest News ServiceFebruary 23, 2009 6:01 PM
Ownership of National Assembly land in Que. to be reviewed
OTTAWA — The Harper government is prepared to revisit its ownership of the lawn in front of Quebec’s National Assembly, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Josee Verner said Monday.
The Quebec government has been seeking to repatriate the land which houses statues of former premiers such as Rene Levesque at least since 2006, but up till now has not received any formal response from Ottawa.
Verner said she addressed the issue during a morning meeting with her Quebec counterpart, Jacques Dupuis.
“We discussed several files, including this one, and we agreed to talk about it again later,” Verner said in the Commons in response to a question from Bloc Quebecois MP Jean Dorion.
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No nation can accept having its national assembly sitting on a piece of land that belongs to another nation,” said Dorion in the House of Commons.
But Verner mocked the Bloc for waiting until now to raise the issue of land ownership.
“The statue of Rene Levesque was installed on federal land by PQ premier Lucien Bouchard in 1999,” Verner said. “Why didn’t they stand up (about this) at that time?”
Former Liberal provincial intergovernmental affairs minister Benoit Pelletier wrote in July 2006 that allowing the federal government to own property with huge symbolic importance to the Quebec nation was undermining the principals of federalism, Montreal daily Le Devoir reported on Saturday.
The newspaper also cited a 19th century document which said the land was leased to the Quebec government on a long-term basis for $50 per year.
The sovereigntist parties in Quebec are also asking the federal government to relinquish its ownership of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City which was at the heart of a political controversy in recent weeks that forced the cancellation of a planned re-enactment of a 250-year-old battle between British and French troops.
Federal Liberals steered clear of the issue, accusing the Bloc of exploiting it for political gain.
“I think that what Quebecers want is for us to take care of the economy, and (the Bloc is) adding fuel on the fire, when we’re talking about an area like the Plains of Abraham which is a national park that belongs to all Canadians,” said Liberal MP Denis Coderre, after question period in the Commons. “
It’s not one nation against another, it belongs to everyone.”
But when asked what he thought about the land in front of the National Assembly, Coderre repeated he wanted to talk about the economy, and not land.
The NDP’s Quebec lieutenant, Thomas Mulcair, was more open to look at the issue of ownership of the Plains of Abraham, although he had his own concerns. “I think that it’s something that can be discussed by both parties as long as nobody builds condos on it,” Mulcair said.
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