At the Parlementaire, “everyone is welcome to eat,” says Nathalie Roy

Photo: Francis Vachon Le Devoir La présidente de l’Assemblée nationale, Nathalie Roy

Marco Bélair-Cirino à Québec

Published yesterday at 5:01 p.m.

• Québec

National Assembly Speaker Nathalie Roy is reiterating that Le Parlementaire restaurant is open to all after an employee “mistakenly” refused a reservation request made by members of the Anglican Church.

“It’s a mistake, it’s a mistake,” she told parliamentary reporters bluntly on Wednesday.

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The bishop of the Anglican diocese of Quebec, Bruce Myers, had his request for a reservation for some 50 people, including a dozen members of the clergy, refused by the team at the Beaux-Arts style restaurant on the pretext that “events closely or loosely linked to a religious movement” cannot be held at the National Assembly, in the name of “neutrality.”

“It was summer, and the person who made the decision did not have it validated by a superior,” explained Nathalie Roy a few steps from the Salon Rouge, where she would preside over question period. “There is no prohibition. The only prohibition is not to hold religious activities, including a wedding,” she added.

The directive on private and corporate activities at the National Assembly states that “any corporate and private activity held at the Assembly must be secular, which means that it must not involve a ceremony of a religious nature or the offering of spiritual services to people invited to the activity, including parliamentarians.”

Nathalie Roy reminded everyone that the doors of the restaurant, which was completely renovated during the COVID-19 pandemic, are open to all. “Everyone is welcome to eat here, sir!” she said. Everyone ? In any case, not those wanting to celebrate “an individual’s life event (marriage, birthday, etc.),” the regulations state.

The Parliamentarian’s refusal to accept Bishop Myers’ reservation request is “distressingly stupid,” says former National Assembly historian Gaston Deschênes.

That said, the specialist is also against the “populist” illusion” that has been conveyed for twenty years, according to which the Parliament Building is the people’s house. “We live in a representative democracy and not a direct democracy; it is our representatives who have their “rooms” in this “hotel”. Saying that it is the “citizens’ house” only contributes to trivializing the role of parliamentarians, who are not only “citizens”, he argues.

Upon her arrival in the Red Room, the President of the National Assembly swept her gaze across the stalls and the stands where the visitors are seated. “Hello, everyone. There are many of you. I see you just as I arrive here. Welcome home!”