Why did trudeau want to patriate the constitution

For two days, in closed-door meetings, the Gang of Eight held together. On the third day, with no deal in sight, Trudeau pitched one last proposal. Shortly after the Quebec sovereignty referendum, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, pictured here with Quebec Premier Ren Lvesque, turned his attention to a lifelong goal: to bring home the Canadian constitution. At the time, he seemed really sincere. All right, ' said. The other premiers were horrified. The last thing they wanted was a referendum because they knew Trudeau had Canadians on his side.

The unity of the Gang was collapsing. They didn't call. Instead there were anxious gatherings in hotel rooms and hallways. They discussed diluting Trudeaus charter of rights, allowing provinces to override the charter.

The "notwithstanding" clause" would allow provinces to declare particular laws exempt from the provisions of the charter. Trudeau had already rejected this watering-down.

The conference was a coup de force during which Trudeau had to break the Gang of Eight. If he failed, Trudeau would be compelled to take unilateral action in the United Kingdom to patriate the BNA Act with an amending process and a far more comprehensive charter imposed on the government by the people of Canada during parliamentary committee discussions over the winter of They got the constitutional deal, and the power that would eventually flow from it, that the West so desperately wanted.

Throughout the negotiating process Premier Davis, who was determined to derail a referendum, remained in constant communication with the group. Davis then played his ace. He called Trudeau to let him know that he thought the deal was a good compromise and that Trudeau should support it.

If the deal was rejected, Davis informed Trudeau that he would not support him in London. The jig was up! A shaken Trudeau told his ministers and advisers of the turn of events. Lyon, in the midst of an election, did not want to be seen to be in bed with the separatists so he agreed very reluctantly to sign on to the deal.

He had gambled by putting his fate in the hands of the premiers and he lost. The narrow-minded premiers had forced Trudeau at the last minute to drop s. The BNA Act quickly became a hotly contested ground of contention between the federal and provincial governments. As the decades wore on, the struggle between governments over the division of powers also eventually extended to competing positions on what would be required for the federal government to make a proper request to the British Parliament, the ultimate custodian of the Act.

It remained the only entity that could enact legislation to alter the Constitution. Even before serious disputes arose, it was apparent that there were several reasons why Canada should bring its Constitution home and assert full control over it. It was clear that the federal and provincial governments, prone to squabbling in all manner of constitutional matters, would have to reach agreement on the formula for making future amendments to the Constitution itself.

The patriation process of was the latest in a long line of seemingly endless federal-provincial conferences aimed at breaking the constitutional gridlock. Given the lack of rules on how to amend our existing constitution, it was unclear whether the government under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau would be able to act unilaterally to patriate the constitution, or whether it would need the consent of the majority of the provinces, or perhaps even all of the provinces.

This high degree of uncertainty acted as a wild card as negotiations unfolded. The national government seems to have first perceived the need to resolve the constitutional issue in the years following the First World War. The sacrifice of Canadians at Vimy, Pasaschendaele and elsewhere led to calls that Canada become a fully sovereign nation. The Mother Country would rather embarrassingly remain the custodian of our supreme law.

This continued at numerous federal-provincial conferences for decades. Even when a basic agreement, called the Victoria Charter , was reached in , Quebec exercised a veto power and refused to ratify it. If the issue of bringing home our Constitution had been limited to finding a satisfactory compromise on future amendments, the lack of excitement coupled with the high probability of failure would have convinced most Prime Ministers and the majority of the population to let that particular sleeping dog lie, at least until a new dynamic could be created.

Indeed, although few in the s would have dreamed it possible, the determined zeal of Prime Minister Trudeau and his federal team in the aftermath of the Quebec Referendum of created the momentum that finally proved to be the successful ice breaker.

To understand the passion that drove the Prime Minister over the period, we must understand that he and a number of other scholars and human rights advocates had begun in the postwar period to link achieving sovereignty through patriation with the need for a charter of rights to place freedoms and rights on a solid foundation. Frank Scott wrote eloquently of this dream, which came to embody an important aspect of the progressive vision in Canadian politics.

Scott acted as an indispensable intellectual guide to Pierre Trudeau at McGill University in Montreal in the s and beyond. Trudeau became Minister of Justice and advocated for a charter of rights almost immediately, building on the work of a few progressive politicians across Canada. One, Tommy Douglas, the long-timeCCF Premier of Saskatchewan, had recommended at federal-provincial conferences in the s that Canada move to give full constitutional protection for rights.

He offered the prescient advice that with such an approach, federal and provincial leaders would have greater political capital to tackle the difficult task of agreeing on an amending formula. Progressive Conservative leader John Diefenbaker became another strong advocate for rights protection in the s. Having witnessed the jaw-dropping violations of fundamental rights in the aftermath of the Gouzenko espionage affair, his concerns culminated with the Canadian Bill of Rights , enacted during his term as Prime Minister.

It offered quite limited protection in comparison with constitutional protection but, in retrospect, can be viewed as a stepping stone to the creation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Graham draws on extensive interviews with key participants and archival research to help readers better understand this momentous event.

Trudeau, as quarterback, handed the ball to him time and again to issue strong statements, but also to sound out his counterparts on their requirements for the making of a deal.

Given provincial resistance to the bold federal plan, various provinces initiated references to their Courts of Appeal to determine if Ottawa could proceed unilaterally in the absence of agreement.

The federal government countered with its own reference to the Supreme Court of Canada.