Thirty years after Canadian voters rejected the Charlottetown Agreement on October 26, 1992, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney says he still hopes Quebec will one day honor Canada’s constitution.

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“I’ve tried everything,” breathes the former Canadian prime minister, whom he met at Laval University this week during the start of the Brian-Mulroney International Crossroads.

In 1990, Prime Minister Clyde Wells’ opposition signed the Meech Lake Agreement’s death warrant.

“It was sabotaged by Mr. Wells in Newfoundland; and what a tragedy! Excuse me Mr Mulroney! But I am convinced that one day it will come back. »

Mr Mulroney believes it takes young people and a new approach.

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courage and political will

For constitutionalist Patrick Taillon, a full professor at Laval University Law School, Brian Mulroney showed great courage and political will to try to resolve the issue after Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s 1982 rollback of the non-Quebec constitution.

“But he encountered the forces of inertia. »

Mr. Taillon also believes a new approach and new generations are needed, but is not overly optimistic. The time for “major, ambitious constitutional reforms” is over.

Small bites

At the political level, it is initially difficult to agree on the basics of common life in this large federation. At the legal level, procedural difficulties doom such reforms to fail.

We are therefore more likely to risk, the professor judges, to accompany constitutional changes piece by piece, “one fight after the other”.

Could this new dynamic change if the Aboriginal or Alberta issue forces a reopening of the constitution? Maybe, says Mr. Taillon, but we tend to see a tendency to demand change in isolation.

Consequences of failed agreements now appear regularly. In particular, the federal purchasing power that would have framed them allows Ottawa to dominate in all sectors that are not its own, such as healthcare.

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