Quebec Wants to Reopen the Canadian Constitution, What a Gift

Canada 150 is shaping up to be the best sesquicentennial ever. For a while it seemed like it would be a really vacuous affair marked by giant fake rubber ducks and some half-hearted July 1st fireworks, but now we are receiving a very precious gift. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard has announced he wants to reopen negotiations to finally make the province a signatory of the 1982 Constitution and "reintegrate into the Canadian family." It's a Dominion Day miracle!

In preparation for this momentous occasion, the Quebec government has prepared a 200-page document, a cross-country tour, and a list of demands written in 1986: recognition of Quebec as a distinct society, limits on federal spending power, guaranteed representation on the Supreme Court, a special constitutional veto, and increased control over immigration. The plan, "Quebecers: Our Ways of Being Canadians," is set to drop in the coming days and I feel confident in saying that it's going to be the hottest read of the summer. (Sorry, Scaachi.)

Of course, that Quebec was iced out of the 1982 Constitution has been a longstanding sticking point for everybody involved. It generated two failed rounds of frenzied renegotiation (the Meech Lake Accord in 1987 and the Charlottetown Accord in 1992) and brought Canada within 55,000 votes of oblivion in 1995.

Thirteen years of existential crisis followed by a national near-death experience has understandably put most politicians off ever touching the blasted thing again. As is the Canadian way, we just ignored the problem and hoped it would go away. So instead, for the last two decades we have muddled through the awkward problem of having one of the country's founding nations bound by a constitution it has never formally recognized.

But with the Bloc Quebecois basically moribund in Ottawa and the Parti Quebecois on the ropes at home, the aggressively federalist Couillard has determined that now is a good time to finally address the problem. I am glad he is opting for a cross-country tour and I look forward to hearing him explain to the all the other provinces and "distinct societies" within Canada why Quebec deserves preferential constitutional treatment.

Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, is less enthusiastic than his Quebec City colleague. Despite being presented with the historical opportunity to complete his father's dream of a truly pan-Canadian constitutional order, he doesn't want to touch it a ten-foot pole. He probably remembers how much fun Pierre had trying to herd all those cats in the early 1980s, and would have lived in Montreal for most of the headaches that followed. Given that his day job puts him in the position of having to listen to all the premiers yell at him about each other, he's understandably hesitant to open the Pandora's Box that Couillard insists on giving him as Canada's 150th birthday present.

Therein lies the problem with reopening the constitution: everybody's got an opinion. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has already declared that he wants to revisit the equalization formula and claw back transfer payments to Quebec, and there is every reason to expect that the other premiers have equally strong opinions on how much money they should be getting from each other. Newfoundland has some constitutional bones to pick with Quebec over Labrador, and Labrador has some constitutional bones to pick with Newfoundland. Scads of other reformers might like to take the opportunity to reform or abolish the Senate, the Crown, and/or private property. And no doubt many Indigenous peoples would like to work some of the recommendations from the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into our constitutional architecture. Maybe Toronto can finally become a Singaporean city-state. Why don't we rip open all these festering wounds and see what we can't find squirming around?

I say we go to town. What's the worst that can happen? Other than another failure to achieve a meaningful settlement that kicks up another decade of intergovernmental grudge matches, leaves Quebec out in the cold again, and reignites the sovereigntist movement, I mean.

We really should hand it to Couillard for absolutely slaying the anniversary gift game. What do you get the country who has everything? A chance to relive its 90s glory days where everyone is pissed off all the time and holding angry referendums. I can already feel the nostalgia.

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.