| This is quite the year for milestone anniversaries. 2007 marks 90 years since Vimy Ridge, 80 since Charles Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight and 60 since America proclaimed the Truman Doctrine, which committed the U.S. to the global fight against Communism – a sort of forerunner to Bush’s "war on terror."
More recently, this year also marks the 40th anniversary of the "summer of love," Trudeaumania and the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s 30 years since the happy coincidence of the "summer of punk" and the Queen’s silver jubilee. And this August, it will be 10 years since the monarch’s former daughter-in-law died in the streets of Paris.
Yet just around the corner, there’s one anniversary that’s likely to pass unnoticed. On June 23, 1987, Quebec Liberal leader Robert Bourassa became the first provincial premier to sign and endorse the Meech Lake Accord. In doing so, he set in motion three years of intense political debate that all but tore the nation apart. On June 23, 1990, when the Accord’s self-imposed three-year deadline expired, after NDP MLA Elijah Harper refused to allow the Manitoba legislature to even consider approving the agreement, the deal lay dead.
To some, this is but a brief moment in the tortuous constitutional wrangling – to borrow Preston Manning’s turn of phrase – that had dominated Canadian politics since the 1930s. To others – those who either grew up or arrived here after the dust had settled – it means little or nothing.
Parents did not, it turned out, threaten their children that Brian Mulroney would come visit them if they didn’t go to sleep. No, within a few years, most Canadians had, one way or another, airbrushed the horrors of Meech Lake from their collective memory.
Largely, you can thank – or blame – the federal Liberals for this. Throughout his decade in office (1993-2003), Jean Chrétien resolutely steered his government clear of the thorny constitutional issue altogether, even refusing to enter the 1995 referendum debate until it was all but too late. His successor, Paul Martin, may well have had some thoughts on the subject, but, as with almost every other topic, it was impossible to be sure just what these might have been.
So what was Meech Lake all about? How did a political accord designed to accommodate the demands of Quebec – the perennial Canadian challenge – disappear off the radar so quickly? What, if anything, are the lingering effects?
In 1982, Pierre Trudeau achieved his long-term goal of patriating the Canadian Constitution, but only at the expense of alienating a Quebec that – led by René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois (PQ) government – had refused to sign on. Elected in 1984, Mulroney committed himself to bringing Quebec "back in" to the Constitution, doing whatever – and cutting whatever deals – might be necessary.
This amounted to accepting Quebec’s five main demands. These included giving it an increased say in the areas of immigration and Supreme Court appointments and a veto over federal spending inside Quebec as well as a constitutional veto and recognition as a "distinct society." On the surface, all this seemed rather dry and unexciting, but the last demand – distinct society status – soon pushed Canada to the edge of civil disorder and constitutional anarchy.
By agreeing to accept that Quebec was somehow "different" from the rest of Canada, Mulroney provided a slap in the face to all other groups – notably First Nations and women – who believed their equal (or greater) claims were being ignored.
"The peace of the graveyard" was how University of Calgary historian David Bercuson labelled Meech Lake at the time, noting that Quebec’s proposed constitutional veto would forever block any future changes. "Unless the people of Canada can derail this cozy little deal done by 11 men in a closed room in the dead of night, Canada as we know it is lost."
Others echoed this concern, but it was Trudeau who delivered the most scathing attack. In an essay written for the Toronto Star even before Bourassa signed on, Trudeau dismissed Quebec nationalists as "a bunch of snivelers [who] should… be sent packing and told to stop having tantrums," Mulroney as "a weakling," and a post-Meech Canada as a land "governed by eunuchs."
In the end, the election of anti-Meech governments in Newfoundland and New Brunswick, Elijah Harper’s principled stand in Manitoba and Mulroney’s constant hectoring of the Canadian people all combined to seal the accord’s fate by June 1990. In the years that followed, Mulroney made various attempts to bring it back to life – notably in the Charlottetown Referendum of 1992 – but by then it was evident that Canadians had no more stomach for constitutional fixes.
Mulroney jumped ship before the electorate could pass final judgment on Meech Lake, leaving his hapless successor Kim Campbell to face their wrath in October 1993. In a collapse unprecedented in Canadian history, the Progressive Conservatives were all but obliterated, reduced to a mere two seats.
The immediate benefactors of Meech Lake were, of course, the federal Liberals, who would reign all but unchallenged over the next decade. However, the political estate they had inherited was vastly different from that of the pre-Mulroney era.
The Bloc Québecois had been launched as a direct result of the failure to secure the deal signed on June 23, 1987. At the same time, Manning’s vigorous opposition to Meech had given the newly formed Reform Party direction, ambition and even some grudging respect among reporters, and more importantly an alternative home for disillusioned Tories (especially those in the West).
In short, gone was the old two-party system – or two-and-a-half party, if you count the NDP’s bridesmaid role – that had governed Canada since Confederation. In its place was a more complex and nuanced multi-party system that, once the public’s animus for Mulroney and approval of Chrétien had worn off, has left Canada in an uneasy political flux. Today, no federal party is, or looks, able to form a clear majority.
It’s common to talk of the world in "post-Cold War" or "post-9/11" terms. Canada, however, is still very much living in the shadow of the Meech Lake Accord, 20 years after its demise. |
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