Justin Tang The Canadian Press “I will have some words to say later this afternoon in the Chamber,” said Marc Garneau simply on Wednesday morning.
Montreal Liberal MP and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Marc Garneau, announced his resignation Wednesday, during a meeting of the party's Quebec caucus.
“I will have words to be said later this afternoon in the House,” the MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce — Westmount said simply, as he entered the National Caucus meeting of the Liberal Party of Canada.
< p>Marc Garneau had just announced at the meeting of elected Quebec Liberals that he was retiring.
“Mr. Garneau has given a lot to our society, now he wants to focus a little more to his family, and I completely understand that,” said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.
Other Liberal colleagues paid tribute to the former Canadian astronaut and federal deputy since 2008.
“Marc Garneau is a man who gave his life for his country. […] He is a friend, a person that I appreciate very much, and I am sincerely sad to see him leave,” reacted, for example, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Mélanie Joly.
One of Marc Garneau's last political fights was his defense of the English-speaking minority in Quebec during the study of Bill C-13, the reform promised by his government to the Official Languages Act.
Mr. Garneau was among the MPs who relayed the concerns of the English-speaking community about the alleged wrongs of the Quebec Charter of the French language. A parliamentary committee heard him call for the removal of any reference to this charter, recently amended by Quebec Bill 96, in the federal bill that seeks “substantial equality between the official languages of Canada”. p>
“It would be a big mistake for us, as federal MPs, in a federal committee, reviewing federal laws, to leave the field open to Quebec to do whatever it might want to do in terms of language in Quebec,” Marc Garneau said in December.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau then had to repair the mess by saying his caucus was “united.” The platform of the Liberal Party of Canada during the last election officially proposed to protect French not only outside Quebec, but also in Quebec.
Marc Garneau avoided answering questions from the parliamentary press since this affair . He is due to speak to the media on Wednesday afternoon.
