4. Only the President or a member of the National Assembly of Québec may apply to the Conseil du référendum to render a decision on the subject of a referendum for the purposes of section 12.
The Conseil must render a decision within ten days of this application, failing which the subject of the referendum is deemed to be not substantially similar to that of a referendum held during the same Legislature.
Such application must be made and, as the case may be, the decision must be rendered before the National Assembly of Québec adopts the question contemplated in section 8 or the bill contemplated in section 10.