A Symbol of Sovereignty

After 115 years, Ottawa gets its own constitution

With Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau at her side and 30,000 rain-soaked Canadians looking on, Queen Elizabeth II stood on a huge wooden platform outside the massive limestone buildings atop Ottawa's Parliament Hill. Though the Queen had visited Canada ten times before, this trip was unlike any other. She had left her country as it stood on the-brink of war in the South Atlantic. And her purpose was to preside over a ceremony in which Britain relinquished an arcane but important vestige of its control over the onetime colony. As the Queen signed the proclamation of the Constitution Act 1982, Canada after 115 years finally obtained its own constitution.

The ceremony ended decades of political wrangling that had left the country drained and weary. It was a victory for Trudeau, who since 1971 had sought to gain authority over the basic document governing Canada's federal system, the British North America (B.N.A.) Act of 1867. Although Canadians have enjoyed self-rule since then, the Act was retained by the British Parliament because Canadians could not agree on a formula for amending it. The British have routinely passed amendments adopted in Ottawa, but the necessity of going to Westminster has long rankled Canadians.

Appended to the document is another Trudeau project, a charter of rights, which guarantees Canada's citizens freedom of speech, religion and assembly. It also prohibits discrimination according to race or sex, and grants English-and French-speaking parents the right to educate their children, where numbers warrant, in their own language.

One of Trudeau's chief goals in seeking a home-grown constitution was to strengthen Canada's relatively weak central government. That was precisely why he faced stubborn opposition from the country's ten provincial premiers, who retain primary control over natural resources, education and health. To secure the premiers' agreement, Trudeau was forced to compromise on several important points, including an amendment formula requiring approval by seven provinces comprising 50% of Canada's population.

Even so, Trudeau was able to bring around only nine provincial leaders. Rene Levesque, the premier of predominantly French-speaking Quebec, rejected Trudeau's compromise because it eliminated Quebec's traditional veto, which it has used to guard control over such sensitive matters as culture and education.

Levesque is still fighting. In a fiery speech last week, he called the Constitution Act a "most pernicious document" that would "systematically isolate" Quebec. In fact, polls show that only 32% of Quebeckers back his stand, while 48% feel he should have approved the new constitution. Levesque boycotted the ceremony in Ottawa, but French-and English-speaking members of Quebec's opposition Liberal Party attended. An anticonstitution demonstration organized by his Parti Quebecois in Montreal drew 25,000 marchers.

The constitution that came home from London still leaves Canada's main institutional problem unresolved: how to share power between Ottawa and the ten provincial governments. Though most Canadians feel it is time to move on to other questions, including the country's pressing economic problems, the federal-provincial issue will inevitably continue to complicate Canada's political life.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.