The National Assembly was formerly the lower house of Quebec's legislature and was then called the Legislative Assembly of Quebec (French: Assemblée législative du Québec). In 1968, the upper house, the Legislative Council, was abolished and the remaining house was renamed. The office of President of the National Assembly is equivalent to that of a speaker in other legislatures. As of the 2026 general election, the Parti Québécois has a plurality of seats in the Assembly.
History
Quebec Legislative Assembly in 1933
The Constitutional Act 1791 created the Parliament of Lower Canada. It consisted of two chambers, the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly. That parliament and both chambers were abolished in 1841 when the Act of Union 1840 merged Upper Canada and Lower Canada into a single province named the Province of Canada. The Act of Union created a new Parliament of the Province of Canada, also composed of a Legislative Council and a Legislative Assembly. That Parliament had jurisdiction over the entire province, with members from Lower Canada and Upper Canada in both houses.
The Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly known as the British North America Act) created the Dominion of Canada and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec by dividing the former Province of Canada along the boundaries of Upper Canada and Lower Canada. The act created a new bicameral legislature for the province of Quebec, composed of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.
In December 1955, the assembly passed a bill granting the title "Member of Provincial Parliament" (membre du Parlement provincial) and the initialism "MPP" (M.P.P.) to members of the legislature. Previously, members had no fixed designation but were often referred to as "Members of the Legislative Assembly" (MLAs) (membres de l'Assemblée législative (M.A.L.s)). In a speech on the bill, Premier Maurice Duplessis noted that the French initialism "can sometimes be pronounced as 'mal', which means 'evil' in French."
In 1961, Marie-Claire Kirkland became the first woman elected to the Legislative Assembly.
In 1968, the government of Premier Jean-Jacques Bertrand secured the passage of Bill 90, abolishing the Legislative Council and renaming the Legislative Assembly the "National Assembly", amid the political changes associated with the Quiet Revolution. Before 1968, several attempts to abolish the Legislative Council, which was analogous to the Senate of Canada, had failed. Following the name change, assembly members were designated Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) in English. In French, the terms used for members include membre de l'Assemblée nationale (M.A.N.) and députés de l'Assemblée nationale du Québec.
In 1978, television cameras were installed to broadcast parliamentary debates for the first time. The colour of the walls was changed to suit the needs of television, and the salon vert (green hall) became the salon bleu (blue hall).
In 1984, Canadian Forces corporal Denis Lortie stormed into the Parliament Building and opened fire, killing three government employees and wounding 13 others. His intended target was Premier René Lévesque and his Parti Québécois government. He arrived approximately 15 minutes early, when the Assembly chamber was still largely empty; no politicians were shot. He surrendered to police hours later.
The Fontaine de Tourny east of the Parliament Building
Constructed between 1877 and 1886, the Parliament Building features the Second Empire architectural style which was popular for prominent buildings in Europe (particularly France, where it originated) and the United States in the late 19th century.
Quebec City's Parliament Building resembles Philadelphia City Hall, another Second Empire building in North America constructed during the same period, although it lacks Philadelphia City Hall's towering central belfry. Although the building's symmetrical layout, with a central clock tower, is typical of legislative buildings of British heritage, its architectural style differs from that of parliament buildings in other Canadian provincial capitals.[citation needed] Its façade features a pantheon depicting people and events from Quebec's history.
In 1936, Maurice Duplessis hung a crucifix in the Legislative Assembly chamber. It remained there for 83 years before being removed on July 10, 2019.
Additional buildings were constructed adjacent to the Parliament Building:
Édifice Honoré-Mercier was built between 1922 and 1925 to accommodate the Treasury (Finance), the Attorney General's Office and the Office of the Secretary General of the National Assembly.
Édifice Pamphile-Le May was built between 1910 and 1915 to house the Library of the National Assembly, various other government offices and the Executive Council.
Elections
General elections are held at least once every four years. Since 2014, general elections have been scheduled at four-year intervals, with the election date set no later than "the first Monday of October of the fourth calendar year following the year that includes the last day of the previous Legislature." However, the lieutenant governor, acting on the advice of the premier, can dissolve the legislature and call an election earlier. Any Canadian citizen aged 18 or older who has resided in Quebec for at least six months is eligible to register on the electoral list.
Typically, the lieutenant governor invites the leader of the party holding the most seats in the National Assembly to form a government as premier (premier ministre in French; French does not distinguish between premier and prime minister).
Quebec's territory is divided into 125 electoral districts (ridings). In each riding, the candidate who receives the most votes is elected and becomes a member of the National Assembly (MNA). This is the first-past-the-post voting system. The system can produce disparities between a party's share of seats and its share of the popular vote, as illustrated by the 1966 (wrong-winner result), 1970 (false-majority result), 1973 and 1998 (wrong-winner and false-majority result) elections.
Elections in Quebec have also resulted in substantial changes in seat distribution since the 1970s. In some elections, established parties have lost more than half their seats as newer or opposition parties gained support. For instance, the 1970 and 1973 elections saw the decline of the Union Nationale and the rise of the Parti Québécois, which took power in 1976. In the 1985 and 1994 elections, the Liberals gained and lost power, respectively, following landslide results. In the 2018 election, the Coalition Avenir Québec formed the government for the first time.
The members of the National Assembly elect one of their own as President of the Assembly (known as the speaker in most other Westminster System legislatures). Any member of the assembly other than a party leader or cabinet minister is eligible to stand for election. The election is the first order of business for a newly elected assembly. Members vote by secret ballot, with successive rounds if necessary until one candidate receives a majority of the votes.
The president of the assembly presides over parliamentary debates between government and opposition members. Members must address their remarks to the assembly through the president. The president is usually a member of the governing party.
The proceedings of the National Assembly are broadcast across Quebec on the cable television network Canal de l'Assemblée nationale.
↑Marie-Claude Nichols was elected as a Liberal candidate in Vaudreuil. She was expelled from the Liberal caucus on October 27 after declining the role of transport critic.
Assemblée nationale du Québec (2000). What is the National Assembly?, Québec: Assemblée nationale, 58 p. (ISBN2-550-30165-X)
Deschênes, Gaston (1983). The Assemblée nationale: Its Organization and Parliamentary Procedure, Québec: Assemblée nationale, 53 p. (ISBN2551047595) [1st ed. in 1977]
Party leaders listed first (in bold italics). Government members in bold denotes cabinet. † Party does not have official party status in the National Assembly.
