Gilles Verrier
A people without status in world geopolitics
demand robust constitutional recognition for the Canadiens and the Acadians — brother peoples whose existence long predates today's Canada. National status for French-speaking natives, with the rights and protections that apply to minority peoples under international law.
Three demands, one people
Robust constitutional recognition
For the Canadiens and the Acadians — brother peoples whose existence long predates today's Canada.
National status for French-speaking natives
Including everyone who has joined them — a people documented since 1648, the people who gave Canada its name.
The rights of minority peoples
As they apply under international law — notably the UN Declaration of 18 December 1992, signed by Canada.
A people documented since 1648
Capitulation Acts, Quebec Act, Durham Report: its existence has never been in doubt.
Around 1969, the French-Canadian identity becomes Québécois. At the very same moment take shape the artificial identities of provincial francophones elsewhere in Canada. The turning of a people against its own historical identity is a rare thing in the history of peoples.
The structuring — and most underestimated — element of this substitution of identities: the Official Languages Act of 1969.
A poisoned gift from Pierre Elliott Trudeau, dividing a people against itself. Outside Québec, public funds flow on one condition: that French-Canadian nationhood no longer be part of the vocabulary.
Overnight, there were no more French Canadians
Prohibited under international law
The dismemberment of national minorities by a central state is prohibited. Canada did it: a systemic judicial opposition between “majority” and “minority” francophones.
Six cases before the Supreme Court
French Canadians suing one another — six times, all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Québec's victory always came at the expense of the others, and the other way around. É. Poirier, Le piège des langues officielles, 2022.
International law is already there
The UN Declaration — 18/12/1992
Rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. Canada is a signatory — and the 1998 Reference recalls (paras. 123–125) that respect for international law is part of Canada's own values.
Internal autonomy — the proven path
The formula applied successfully to the Indigenous peoples of Canada: keeping one's identity while coexisting with provinces and a central state. It also keeps the number of countries in the world manageable.
A people, not a province — SCC, 1998
“A majority of the population of Québec shares many of the characteristics… of a people” — and that people spills beyond the province's borders. Québec is not a people; the French Canadians are.
A colonialism of whites over whites
Military conquest, deportation, exile — then, from 1969 on, an internal occlusion: the identity reassignment of one people into a mosaic of “provincial francophones”.
Our democratic institutions necessarily allow for continuous discussion and evolution, as illustrated by the constitutional right of each of the participants to the federation to initiate constitutional changes.
— Supreme Court of Canada, Reference re Secession of Québec, 1998, paragraph 150
Can Québec unilaterally amend the Constitution Act, 1982? The Supreme Court itself answered the question —
An article 35-2, mirroring 35-1
(1) The existing rights — ancestral or treaty-based — of the Indigenous peoples of Canada are recognized and affirmed.
(2) In this Act, Indigenous peoples of Canada includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.
The rights of the French-Canadian and Acadian peoples are recognized and affirmed.
These peoples, born of Canada and of Acadia in New France, form a national minority in fact and in law within contemporary Canada.
Four steps to status
Adoption
Québec's National Assembly adopts amendment 35-2 — a constitutional amendment initiative under Part V of the Act.
Referendum
“Do you approve of the Government of Québec's amendment to section 35 of the Constitution Act of Canada, 1982?” YES — NO.
Negotiation
An obligation “to enter into discussions on any legitimate initiative to amend the constitutional order” (Reference, para. 150).
Ratification
The amendment comes into force as soon as the conditions of the amending formula are met.
“The French-Canadian people renounces secession and forms an integral part of the plurinational people of Canada, alongside the First Nations.” — amendment 35-2, subsection 6
Open letter to the candidates in the 5 October 2026 general election
As a candidate in this election, do you believe the State of Québec should formally recognize French Canadians as the founding people of Canada (Sovereign Council, 1663), and grant them the internal autonomy needed to secure their future?
Read the full letter (in French): canadiens-francais.com → Open letter to the candidates
Gilles Verrier's address on 11 February 2026 on Bill 1 — the Constitution of Québec (in French). Watch on YouTube →
Latest publications (in French)
“The people before a country.”
Whether Québec remains within Canada or achieves independence one day, it is crucial that the French-Canadian people be recognized as a distinct entity, able to act collectively through institutions of its own — mirroring the solution adopted for the First Nations.