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Meech Lake Accord, agreement by the prime minister of Canada and the premiers of all ten provinces to amend the constitution of Canada and thereby make it acceptable to the province of Québec. The agreement was negotiated in the prime minister’s villa at Meech Lake, Québec, and was signed on June 3, 1987. It was never ratified.
The constitution of Canada, the British North America Act, had been adopted by the British Parliament in 1867 when Canada was still a colony. When Canada obtained full sovereignty in 1931, it was in a position to bring back or patriate its constitution. It did not do so then or in the following decades because the federal and provincial governments could not agree on an amendment formula, that is, on how to modify the constitution when necessary. Another issue arose in the 1960s when the government of Québec requested more autonomy in the federal system. The reasoning was that, as the home of the French language and French Canadian culture in otherwise English-speaking Canada, Québec needed more freedom to develop that culture. In 1968 Québec politician René Lévesque, impatient with the lack of progress on this issue, founded a party dedicated to sovereignty-association. This plan would make Québec a sovereign state, associated with but equal to the federal government at Ottawa. Lévesque became Québec’s premier in 1976, and in 1980 he put the question of sovereignty-association to the province’s voters in a referendum. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau campaigned vigorously against it, offering instead to reform the constitution. He did not spell out the reforms, however. The referendum failed with only 40 percent voting yes, and Lévesque challenged Trudeau to follow through on his offer. In 1981 the federal government drafted a new constitution that the leaders of eight provinces rejected. After much political maneuvering, Trudeau got nine provinces to agree and proceeded, over Lévesque’s objections, to have the document ratified by all the provincial legislatures except that of Québec, where it was resoundingly defeated. Not only Lévesque’s own party, but also the opposition Liberal Party, which desired to retain the federal structure, rejected it. Many Québeckers objected to the new constitution because it did not recognize them as a people. But many also objected because they saw it as centralizing too much power in Ottawa. However, unanimity was not required, and the constitution became law on April 17, 1982.
When Brian Mulroney became prime minister in 1984, he promised to amend the constitution to “bring Québec back to the fold.” Québec’s new premier, Robert Bourassa of the Liberal Party, responded in 1986 by listing the conditions under which Québec would ratify the constitution. Bourassa declared that the constitution must recognize Québec as a distinct society; provide more power to the provinces in immigration matters; limit federal spending power; give Québec veto power over federal constitutional amendments; and allow Québec to participate in appointing justices of the Supreme Court of Canada. These five points were the basis for the Meech Lake negotiations. A major part of the accord was the following declaration: The Constitution of Canada shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with (a) the recognition that the existence of French-speaking Canadians, centred in Quebec but also present elsewhere in Canada, and English-speaking Canadians, concentrated outside Quebec but also present in Quebec, constitutes a fundamental characteristic of Canada; and (b) the recognition that Quebec constitutes within Canada a distinct society. Also included were provisions addressing Bourassa’s other points, as well as concerns brought up by other provinces. Québec was to receive a specified minimum percentage of immigrants to Canada. Federal spending power was to be limited by allowing provinces to opt out of new federal programs in fields considered to be under provincial jurisdiction if the provinces provided their own comparable programs. Instead of the veto power that Bourassa had demanded for Québec, which was a sticking point for leaders of other provinces, the unanimous consent of all the provinces would be required for major constitutional amendments. At least three justices on the nine-member Supreme Court were to be appointed from Québec. In addition, vacancies in the federal Senate would be filled from a list of names submitted by the provinces; this last provision was added to meet demands for Senate reform, brought up primarily by Alberta.
Under the existing rules for amending the constitution, these changes had to be ratified by the federal Parliament and all provincial legislatures within three years. A deadline was set for June 23, 1990. The Québec legislature was the first to ratify, on June 23, 1987. Other provinces moved more slowly. Governments changed in New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador, and the new premiers did not feel committed by their predecessors’ signatures to the agreement. The premier of Newfoundland and Labrador went so far as to have a previous ratification rescinded. Meanwhile, a great part (probably the majority) of the English-speaking population of Canada was becoming opposed to the agreement. Some other minority groups, as well as the indigenous peoples, felt it was unfair to have a constitutional amendment addressing only Québec’s grievances. The distinct society clause was seen as giving undeserved special status to Québec, while many Québeckers objected that it was so vague as to be meaningless. Trudeau came out of retirement to campaign against the accord. Many Canadians also were troubled by Québec’s position on other issues, especially the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States. Québeckers strongly endorsed NAFTA, but most other Canadians rejected it. English-speaking Canadians also objected to Québec’s using a clause in the 1982 constitution to retain its law requiring French-only signs notwithstanding a Supreme Court judgment against this measure. On top of this, the Mulroney government was becoming unpopular among Canadians outside Québec. They saw Mulroney as selling out to the United States and giving in to the demands of the French-speaking population. By the beginning of June 1990, eight provincial legislatures had approved the accord; only Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador held out. The premiers of these provinces reluctantly agreed to submit the accord, along with last-minute revisions granted by Mulroney, to their legislatures for a vote. However, when the resolution came up in the Manitoba legislature, it was successfully stalled by an Ojibwa-Cree legislator, Elijah Harper. The premier of Newfoundland and Labrador then refused to take a vote because, he said, it would be useless if Manitoba did not vote before the deadline. The clock ran out, and the accord died.
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