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Charlottetown Accord

The Charlottetown Accord was a package of constitutional amendments, proposed by the Canadian federal and provincial governments in 1992. It was submitted to a public referendum on October 26 of that year, and was defeated.

Background

Until 1982, the British North America Act, 1867 and later amendments served as the basis of Canada's constitution. As an act of the British Parliament, however, this left Canada in the anomalous position of having to petition another country's government to amend its own constitution. Since the Statute of Westminster 1931, the British government was willing to relinquish this role, but Canadian federal and provincial governments were unable to agree on a new amending formula. Various unsuccessful attempts were made to patriate the constitution. Notable among these was the Victoria Charter of 1971.

In 1981, a round of negotiations led by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau reached a patriation agreement that formed the basis of the Constitution Act of 1982. Although this agreement passed into law, augmenting the British North America Acts as the constitution of the land, it was reached over the objections of Quebec Premier René Lévesque, and the Quebec National Assembly refused to approve the amendment. However, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the Patriation Reference and the Quebec Veto Reference that neither Quebec nor any other province had a veto to prevent the federal government from petitioning the British Parliament to pass the Canada Act 1982, and that the new constitution applied to all provinces notwithstanding their disagreement.

Brian Mulroney defeated Trudeau's successor, John Turner, in the 1984 federal election and was determined to succeed where Trudeau had failed, by reaching an agreement that would allow Quebec to sanction the Constitution. Led by Mulroney, the federal and provincial governments signed the Meech Lake Accord in 1987. However, when the 1990 deadline for ratification was reached, two provincial legislatures, Manitoba and Newfoundland, had not ratified the agreement, and thus it was defeated. This defeat, in turn, led to a resurgence in the Quebec sovereignty movement.

In the next two years, the future of Quebec dominated the national agenda. The Quebec government set up the Allaire Committee and the Bélanger-Campeau Committee to discuss Quebec's future inside or outside of Canada. The federal government struck the Beaudoin-Edwards Committee and the Spicer commission to find ways to resolve English Canada's concerns. Former Prime Minister Joe Clark was appointed Minister of Constitutional Affairs, and was responsible for pulling all of this together to forge a new constitutional agreement.

On August 28, 1992, after intensive negotiations in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, the federal, provincial, and territorial governments, and representatives from the Assembly of First Nations, the Native Council of Canada, the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, and the Métis National Council came to the agreement known as the "Charlottetown Accord".

The Accord

The Charlottetown Accord attempted to resolve long-standing disputes around the division of powers between federal and provincial jurisdiction. It provided for exclusive provincial jurisdiction over forestry, mining, and other natural resources, and cultural policy. The federal government, however, would have retained jurisdiction over national cultural bodies such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board. The accord also required the federal and provincial governments to harmonize policy in areas such as telecommunications, labour development and training, regional development, and immigration.

The federal power of reservation, under which the provincial lieutenant governor could refer a bill passed by a provincial legislature to the federal government for assent or refusal, would have been abolished, and the federal power of disallowance, under which the federal government could overrule a provincial law that had already been signed into law, would have been severely limited.

Federal spending authority would also have been subject to stricter controls. Canadian governments have often struck agreements under which the federal government would partially or fully fund programs (Medicare, social programs, etc.) that otherwise would fall within areas of provincial jurisdiction. The federal government has typically attached conditions on this financing arrangement to ensure minimum national standards. The Charlottetown Accord would have guaranteed federal funding for such programs, severely limiting the federal government's authority in these departments.

The accord proposed a social charter to promote such objectives as health care, welfare, education, environmental protection, and collective bargaining. It also proposed the elimination of barriers to the free flow of goods, services, labour and capital, and other provisions related to employment, standard of living, and development among the provinces.

The accord also contained the "Canada Clause", which sought to codify the values that define the nature of the Canadian character. These values included egalitarianism, diversity, and the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society within Canada. Aboriginal self-government was approved in principle, but to permit further negotiations on the form it would take, there would have been a hiatus of three years before the concept was recognized in the courts.

Perhaps most important, however, the accord also proposed a number of institutional changes that would radically reshape the face of Canadian politics. For example, the composition and the appointment process for the Supreme Court of Canada were to be constitutionally entrenched. Although convention has been that three of the nine Supreme Court justices must be from Quebec due to Quebec's use of codified civil law rather than English common law, this has never been constitutionally mandated.

The Canadian Senate would have been reformed, although the proposed reform fell short of the "triple-E" (equal, elected and effective) Senate demanded by the western provinces. The accord allowed senators to be elected either in a general election, or by the provincial legislatures. Six would be assigned for every province, 1 for each territory, and future seats would be determined for First Nations voters. However, the powers of the Senate were reduced, and on matters relating to francophone culture and language, passage of a bill would require a "double majority" — a majority in the Senate as a whole and a majority of francophone senators.

Changes were also proposed for the House of Commons. Following a redistribution, the number of seats in the House would have always increased, and it would have codified that a province could not have fewer seats than any other province with a smaller population. Following the "equalization" of the Senate, the House's seat distribution would also be based more so on population than previously. However, Quebec would have never been allotted less than one-quarter of all the seats in the House.

The accord formally institutionalized the federal-provincial-territorial consultative process, and allowed for Aboriginal inclusion in certain circumstances. It also increased the number of matters in the existing constitutional amending formula that required unanimous consent.

See the full text of the Charlottetown Accord for more details.

The referendum

Unlike the Meech Lake Accord, the Charlottetown Accord's ratification process provided for a national referendum. Three provinces — British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec — had recently passed legislation requiring that constitutional amendments be submitted to a public referendum. As well, Quebec premier Robert Bourassa had pledged, contingent on the results of the Charlottetown negotiations, to hold a referendum that year on either Quebec independence or a new constitutional agreement.

The impetus for a federal referendum came from the many complaints about the Meech Lake process, and how many claimed it was a backdoor negotiation for the future of the country. Mulroney decided to go with the referendum, against Joe Clark's advice. British Columbia and Alberta agreed to participate in the federal referendum, but Quebec opted to conduct its own separate vote. (For that reason, Quebecers "temporarily" living outside the province could have two votes, since they were enumerated to the voters' list based on federal rules, but people relatively new to Quebec could not vote at all because they had not established residency.)

The referendum's measure of success was an open question. Because all Premiers had agreed to the deal, it could conceivably have passed without a referendum, however Robert Bourassa's promise of a referendum in 1992 on a Constitutional agreement or sovereignty meant one would be held in Quebec. It is debated what measure of voter approval would have been necessary, as the Mulroney government itself left the question open to debate. The minimum standard would probably have been a majority in Quebec and a majority in the other provinces.

Support

The campaign saw an alignment of groups in support of the new amendments. The Tories, the Liberals, and the New Democratic Party supported the accord. First Nations groups endorsed it as did some women's groups and business leaders. All ten provincial premiers supported it. In the English media, almost all opinion pieces were in favour. The campaign began with the accord popular across English Canada, with a statistical dead heat in Quebec. All three major party leaders travelled the country supporting the accord while large amounts of money were spent on pro-accord advertising. While many advocates of the accord acknowledged that it was a compromise and had many flaws, they also felt that without it the country would break apart.

Opposition

The most important opponent of the accord was probably former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In a piece first published in Maclean's Magazine, he argued that the accord meant the end of Canada and was the disintegration of the federal government. He would later grant an interview at a Montreal Chinese restaurant, "La Maison du Egg Roll", where he would deliver a powerful speech, arguing that "This mess deserves a 'no'." One of Trudeau's chief allies, Deborah Coyne, would lead a feminist crusade against the accord.

The No side was a smaller collection of groups. Preston Manning's fledgling, western-based Reform Party battled the accord in the West with the slogan, "KNOw More", opposing "distinct society" and arguing that Senate reform did not go far enough. Quebec sovereignists, Lucien Bouchard's Bloc Québécois and the provincial Parti Québécois led by Jacques Parizeau, were strongly opposed, as they believed it did not give Quebec enough powers.

Waning popularity

As the campaign progressed, the accord steadily became less and less popular. This is often credited to much of the electorate finding at least some part of the lengthy accord with which they disagreed. It is also closely connected to the extreme unpopularity of Brian Mulroney in 1992, and to the nation's general antipathy towards the constitutional debates.

Mulroney was already deeply unpopular with Canadian voters, who perceived him as arrogant, and he made a number of mistakes in the referendum campaign. Most famously, he referred to persons against the Accord as "enemies of Canada", and while speaking about the dangers of voting against the agreement in Sherbrooke, he ripped a piece of paper in half with a dramatic flourish to represent the historic gains for Quebec that would be threatened if the accord failed. This came to be regarded as one of the defining images of his tenure as prime minister, with many voters seeing overtones of belligerence and intimidation. Many voters, in fact, misinterpreted the action as a reference to the potential breakup of the country.

Many critics, especially those in the West, argued that the Accord was essentially a document created by the nation's elites to codify their vision of what Canada "should" be. B.C. broadcaster Rafe Mair gained national fame and notoriety by arguing that the accord represented an attempt to permanently cement Canada's power base in the Quebec-Ontario bloc at the expense of fast-growing, wealthy provinces like Alberta and British Columbia that were challenging its authority. To proponents of such beliefs, opposing the accord became portrayed as a campaign of grassroots activism against the interests of the powerful.

In Quebec, a tape featuring two bureaucrats saying that Bourassa had "caved" in negotiations was played on a radio station. Further undermining the "Yes" vote in Quebec was when British Columbia's Constitutional Affairs minister Moe Sihota, responding to Mair's comments, said that Bourassa had been "outgunned" in the discussions.

Results

On October 26, 1992, two referendums, the Quebec government's referendum in Quebec, and the federal government's referendum in all other provinces and territories, were put to the voters.

Do you agree that the Constitution of Canada should be renewed on the basis of the agreement reached on August 28, 1992?

No: 54.3%	Yes: 45.7%
▲

Breakdown by province

Province	Yes	No	Voter turnout
Alberta	39.8	60.2	72.6
British Columbia	31.7	68.3	76.7
Manitoba	38.4	61.6	70.6
New Brunswick	61.8	38.2	72.2
Newfoundland	63.2	36.8	53.3
Nova Scotia	48.8	51.2	67.8
Ontario	50.1	49.9	71.9
Prince Edward Island	73.9	26.1	70.5
Quebec¹	43.3	56.7	82.8
Saskatchewan	44.7	55.3	68.7
Northwest Territories	61.3	38.7	70.4
Yukon	43.7	56.3	70.0
Federal Totals	45.7	54.3	71.8

CBC Television news reported the result with the words "The Charlottetown Accord is DOA: Dead on arrival."

Notes

¹Quebec's results were tabulated by the Directeur général des élections du Québec, not by the federal Chief Electoral Officer as in other provinces.

Aftermath

The impact of the referendum caused the Canadian Press to label it the Canadian Newsmaker of the Year, an honour that usually goes to individual people. CBC.ca claimed that this was the first time that the "country's newsrooms have selected a symbol instead of a specific person," which would be done again in 2006.

Many thought, from a perspective favouring national unity, that the result given was probably the next-best result to the Accord passing: since both Quebec and English Canada rejected it, there really was not a fundamental disagreement as there was with the Meech Lake Accord. A division in the Quebec Liberal Party over the accord would bring former Liberal youth committee president Mario Dumont to form the Action démocratique du Québec in 1994.

Probably the biggest result of the referendum, however, was the effect of most of Canada's population voting against an agreement endorsed by every first minister and most other political groups. This stinging rebuke against the "political class" in Canada was a preview of things to come — in the federal election on October 25, 1993, a year less a day after the Charlottetown referendum, the Progressive Conservatives under new leader Kim Campbell were reduced to a mere two seats. They were replaced in many ridings by the Reform Party and the Bloc Québécois, the parties who had opposed the Accord. The NDP was also decimated, winning just nine seats, as the party's pro-Charlottetown stance alienated many Prairie voters who turned to Reform as the new party of Western protest. The Liberals remained unpopular in Quebec, especially André Ouellet, the party's leading figure in the negotiations. He was persuaded to retire from politics not long after the 1995 referendum, where the motion for Quebec sovereignty was defeated by a narrow margin.

However, it would be the Liberals who gained the most from the accord's failure at the federal level, despite their supporting it. Their success might have been in no small part due to the fact that Ontario voters in particular had only endorsed the accord by the narrowest of margins, in the process persuading the Reform Party to intensify efforts to win support east of Manitoba. It would eventually become obvious that opposition to the accord in Ontario was motivated more by objections to this or that clause in the accord than by support for Reform's overall message. In English Canada especially but especially Ontario, the failed accord became associated with Mulroney and the Tories, with the federal Liberals' support being either ignored, forgiven or forgotten. As a result the efforts of Reform and their successor party the Canadian Alliance would lead to only three seats east of Manitoba over the next three elections, and would ultimately prove successful only in splitting the right-leaning vote with the Progressive Conservatives, leading to near-sweeps by the Liberals in Ontario in the three elections under Chretien's leadership.

One of the Accord's reforms dealing specifically with New Brunswick was successfully enacted in 1993 as section 16.1 of the Charter of Rights.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, several matters relating to the status of Quebec have been pursued through Parliament (e.g. the Clarity Act) or through intergovernmental agreements. As of 2007 there have been no further attempts to resolve the status of Quebec through a formal constitutional process, although Quebec opposition leader Mario Dumont has stated his support for reopening the constitutional debate.