Clarity Act

The Clarity Act (known as Bill C-20 before it became law) is legislation passed by the Parliament of Canada that established the conditions under which the Government of Canada would enter into negotiations that might lead to secession following such a vote by one of the provinces. The Clarity Bill (C-20) was tabled for first reading in the House of Commons on 13 December 1999. It was passed by the House on 15 March 2000, and by the Senate, in its final version, on 29 June 2000.

Although the law could theoretically be applied to any province, the Clarity Act was created in response to the 1995 Quebec referendum and ongoing independence movement in that province. The content of the Clarity Act was based on the 1998 secession reference to the Supreme Court of Canada made by the federal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Previously in 1996, a private member's bill, the Quebec Contingency Act (Bill C-341) was introduced to establish the conditions which would apply to a referendum regarding the separation of Quebec from Canada, but it did not proceed further than the First Reading.

Two days after the Clarity Act had been introduced in the Canadian House of Commons, the Parti Québécois government passed an Act respecting the exercise of the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the Québec people and the Québec State in the National Assembly of Quebec.

The motivation behind the Clarity Act was largely based on the near separation vote of the 1995 Quebec referendum, in which the people of Quebec voted against the sovereignty option by a small margin (50.58% to 49.42%). Controversy surrounded the ambiguity and wording of the ballot question. In French, the question on the ballot asked:

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