Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe said Friday that his party will vote in favour of a motion proposed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week that recognizes the Québécois as a nation in a united Canada.

Duceppe said in a debate in the House of Commons that the Bloc will join the other opposition parties in supporting the government motion that Harper announced Wednesday. 

'If I can get the support even of the Bloc for the unity of Canada, I'm a happy man.'-Prime Minister Stephen Harper

"We are delighted by the fact that Canada will become the first country to officially recognize the Quebec nation. Mr. Speaker, there will be many other countries that will recognize the nation of Quebec and the country of Quebec," Duceppe said.

Duceppe said in a scrum after the debate that he sees the motion as a victory for Quebec because Canada can no longer deny that the Quebec people are a nation. He said the people of Quebec will have to decide for themselves the value of the motion.

"Both options are recognizing from now on that Quebecers constitute a nation," he said. "That's a plus. That's good for us."

The issue flared back to life when the Bloc announced it would introduce a motion in the House of Commons calling for recognition of Quebecers as a nation. In response, Harper said he would table his own motion, which the Liberals and NDP also promised to support.

On Thursday, the Bloc tabled its motion, but amended it to say Quebecers should be recognized as a nation that is "currently within Canada."

Harper welcomes change in position

Speaking after a health-care announcement in Montreal on Friday, Harper welcomed the news that the Bloc had decided to come on board.

"This is the third position the Bloc has taken on this in three days: they moved a motion, they made an amendment to a motion and now they're supporting our motion.

"But I have to say that the prime minister's responsibility — first responsibility, I should say — is Canadian unity. So if I can get the support even of the Bloc for the unity of Canada, I'm a happy man."

Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe speaks to the media on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday.
(Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

He also defended his own motion as a responsible reaction to the Bloc Québécois's decision to bring the nationhood debate back into the House of Commons. His own preference would have been to leave the question of the Québécois nation to the province's legislature, the national assembly, Harper said.

"The world doesn't need more countries. What the world needs is more countries like Canada," he said in French.

The prime minister insisted that his motion will help prevent Quebecers from voting to separate from Canada in any future referendum.

"We believe this is an important act, both an act of recognition and an act of reconciliation."

As for the concerns of Canadians outside Quebec that the motion could reinflame an old wound, he said: "When they see the reaction in Quebec, there'll be a comfort level with it."

Lawrence Cannon, Harper's Quebec lieutenant, said the Conservative motion recognizes the contributions of the Quebec people to the development of Canada.

Cannon said the similar motion proposed by the Bloc left the way open to possible independence for the province, while Harper's motion indicates that the Québécois are an important part of a united country.

The people, not the province 

However, some constitutional law experts say the motion as worded by Harper has no meaning in law.

According to the motion, the Québécois, not Quebec as a province, are to be recognized as a nation within a united Canada. The experts said the people themselves are not a legal entity.

Mauril Belanger, Liberal MP for Ottawa-Vanier, said in the debate that the Liberal party supports the motion. "It is a recognition that there is a society there that has some distinct characteristics. The country has not suffered for this, au contraire," he said.

"Canada is a good representation of the human species. We are not all the same. We take great pleasure in the diversity of our country."

Patrick Monahan, a constitutional expert and dean of Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto, said Thursday the motion could not likely be used by the province to obtain more political power from Ottawa because the people of Quebec are not a legal entity.

"A resolution of the House of Commons is not legally binding," he noted.

Monahan said a 1995 resolution that recognized Quebec as a distinct society has not had any impact on court decisions and has not been referred to in court cases.

It instructed Ottawa to take Quebec's distinctiveness into account, while Harper's motion does not include any instructions.

Motion could offend Quebecers: expert

Peter Russell, an expert on Canadian constitutional law, said the motion "means nothing in law" and might be seen as offensive to Quebecers when they realize it carries no legal clout.

"It's what I call symbolic engineering," Russell said. "It's about hoping you'll make people feel good. The risk is that you'll make others feel awful."

Russell said the motion might make separatists in particular more cynical about Canada, giving them a weapon with which to say that Quebec will never get anything from Canada.

He said it might also increase pressure on Quebec Premier Jean Charest to demand that Ottawa enshrine the notion of Quebec as a nation in the Constitution.

Russell said there would likely be so much protesting from the other provinces that it is unlikely Ottawa would push for such a constitutional change. But if it did make it into the Constitution, there is no telling how judges would interpret the language, he added.

"Judges can be creative," he said. "One of the hardest things to predict is judicial behaviour."

With files from the Canadian Press