Bill C-279 Repeal Clarity Act
C-279 An Act to Repeal the Clarity Act
Bill Type: Private Member’s Bill
Bill Sponsor: Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean)
Status: Outside the Order of Precedence — Introduced June 2, 2026. This Bill has not passed yet.
How would YOU vote? Scroll down to vote and comment below.
What is this Bill For?
Bill C-279 would repeal the Clarity Act — a Federal Law passed in 2000 that sets out the rules Canada must follow before negotiating the separation of any Province.
The Clarity Act requires:
- that a referendum question be clear,
- that a clear majority vote in favour,
- that the House of Commons decide whether both conditions are met before any separation talks can begin.
This Bill would erase all of those rules entirely.
WHO GAINS POWER
- The Government of Québec gains the sole authority to set Referendum questions and interpret results — without Federal oversight
- The Québécois nation, as recognized by the House of Commons, gains the right to determine its own future without Federal conditions attached
- Provincial Governments across Canada gain a precedent that separation can be pursued without Federal rules governing the process
WHO LOSES POWER
- The House of Commons loses its authority to assess whether a Referendum question is clear or whether a majority is sufficient
- The Federal Government loses its legal standing to set conditions before entering separation negotiations
- All other Provinces and Canadians outside Québec lose the guarantee that a separation process must meet a nationally recognized standard before proceeding
WHO GAINS MONEY
- No direct financial beneficiaries identified in the Bill
WHO LOSES MONEY
- No direct financial losses identified in the Bill
- ⚠️ Economic uncertainty risk — Repealing the Clarity Act removes the legal framework that gives investors, markets and trading partners confidence that any separation process would be orderly and governed by clear rules. The absence of that framework could trigger economic instability in Québec and across Canada well before any referendum is held
THE CATCH
⚠️ The Bill repeals without replacing — The Clarity Act is removed entirely. No alternative framework, no new rules, no process. If a future Québec government holds a referendum, there are no Federal rules governing what happens next.
⚠️ "Clear majority" disappears — Under the Clarity Act, the House of Commons determines whether a Referendum result constitutes a clear majority. This Bill eliminates that requirement. A separation could theoretically proceed on a razor-thin result with no Federal check.
⚠️ Question clarity disappears — The Clarity Act requires the referendum question itself to be unambiguous. Repealing it means Québec could hold a Referendum on a question the rest of Canada considers misleading or unclear — with no mechanism to challenge it.
⚠️ Preamble asserts Federal recognition as justification — The Bill's preamble cites the 2006 House of Commons motion recognizing Québécois as a nation. That motion was symbolic and non-binding. Using it as the legal foundation for repealing a Federal statute is a significant stretch of what that recognition was intended to mean.
This Bill is Outside the Order of Precedence and is unlikely to be debated unless drawn in the PMB lottery.