Charlottetown Accord

Now, there's all sorts of pushback against that, but I would dismiss it as, look, this is reform that needs to happen.

The 1992 Charlottetown Accord, it didn't pass because citizens voted against it.

And I knew people that were not interested in politics or ideas or policy, but became that because it concerned them.

They were able to read up on it and think about it and vote on it.

So Chantal, I wanna start by reflecting back on a lecture you delivered here at the U of A about eight or nine years ago under the title, Canada's Long Constitutional Sleep.

And for our audience, that title was referring to the fact that the pursuit of major formal constitutional change in Canada had pretty much grown to a halt since the failure of the Charlottetown Accord in 1992, and then the Quebec referendum of 95.

And so I'm wondering nearly, Nearly a decade on from that lecture, Chantal, if you think we're now emerging from that long constitutional sleep, and if so, what exactly are the forces that are jolting us

awake? I never confuse constitutional change with democracy.

Yeah.

Right? And the last time I can recall was opposition to the Charlottetown Accord.

Right? I mean, that one brought together, you know, [laughs] Preston Manning, [laughs] uh, along with progressives, right? Um, and, and folks from all parts of the country.

Now, we can debate the merits of the Charlottetown Accord.

We don't have time to go into that today.

But my, my point is, that one looked like it was a done deal.

We had 12 years of pretty intensive constitutional discussions in Canada, starting in the, in the early 1980s.

Well, it went to 19, uh, 92 with the Charlottetown Accord.

Uh, and it exhausted Canadians.

I don't think you can revisit that.

Like, look how long this took to declassify.

Disclosed then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was astonished by the 1992 failure of Charlottetown Accord and blamed the Reform Party and media for its defeat.

Mulroney in one secret meeting compared himself to a First World War general who would fight on.

The Prime Minister opened the m- the meeting by commenting on the results of the referendum, and that was in the minutes of October 29th, 1992, three days after the referendum.

We've done it twice, uh, but those were really... to me, they were ego trips by Mulroney that he was trying to put his stamp on, on the country rather than Trudeau's stamp.

So we had the Meech Lake and the, uh, Charlottetown Accord.

The Charlottetown Accord went to referendum and was turned down.

The Meech Lake Accord got high-centered in, uh, in the legislature in Manitoba.

But those were all just...

So there is a lot of politics that's played.

Now, one of the comforts that I get, you might remember back to the days of the Charlottetown Accord.

I remember them well.

Remember, Prime Minister Mulroney And 10 premiers held a press conference, and they said, we got this accord, and it's going to harmonize relations between the federal and provincial governments, and if you, the public, if we can get this through, this is going to be the best thing since sliced bread.