It is in our nature to travel into our past, hoping thereby to illuminate the darkness that bedevils the present.  - Farley Mowat 

Travel through the eras of  history and the development of the various nations that make up Canada today.

Abstract. The compact theory of Canadian Confederation predates Confederation and sprang from the need to establish a formula for amending the British North America Act of 1867, which contained no mechanism for changing the powers of the federal government.  The theory, developed initially by provincialists, was an attempt to redefine the origins of the country in order to justify provincial control over the amending formula.  The first version of the theory was based on the idea of a compact between equal provinces.  Following the rise of Francophobia in western Canada, Henri Bourassa developed the theory of a compact between two founding peoples.  Over time, the compact theory became a veritable political myth both in Quebec and in Canada as a whole.

 The compact theory of Canadian Confederation has been a part of political and constitutional debate ever since the British North America Act was passed in 1867.  The contention is that Confederation was a compact between various parties which founded modern-day Canada.  So widely held was the theory that, for a time, ever major politician embraced it, making it something of a common thread through Canadian politics.

                 The notion of Confederation being the result of a compact persists to this day.  In his preface to Jacques Lacoursière’s history of Quebec entitled Histoire populaire du Québec de 1841 à 1896, historian André Champagne presents the compact theory as incontrovertible evidence: “ From the outset, the British North America, better known as Confederation, was based on ambiguity: French Canadians viewed it as a compact between two founding peoples, English Canadians as a compact between provinces.”[i]

                 More recently, Paul Romnay wrote in the Canadian Journal of Political Science that: “Historically, Canadian Confederation was both a compact of equal provinces and a compact of founding peoples, which established the province of Quebec in order to conserve French-Canadian culture in its historic homeland”[ii].

     The compact theory is an historical falsehood.  It was invented after Confederation and was an attempt to redefine the origins of the country in order to explain and justify provincial control over the process of amending the constitution.  The theory has seen many variations through the country’s political and constitutional history.  The first version of the theory, namely a compact between provinces, later transformed in French Canada into the compact theory between two founding peoples.  That theory, despite its decline, was not the result of a quest for truth, but sprang from a need for historical justification.  It was invented, in whole or in part, to lend historical credence to a premise for political purposes.

                 It is a fact that when it passed the BNA Act, the British Parliament, at the urging of the Fathers of Confederation, gave Canada a constitution, that is, a basic legal document setting out the rules governing the operation and structure of the new dominion called Canada.  The Constitution establishes the parameters of the powers of the primary institutions and the distribution of legislative authority between Parliament and the provincial legislatures.[iii]  Because the Canadian federation is constitutionally divided into two orders of government (in Canada, municipalities are “creatures” of the provinces), the constitutional amendment process has to be defined so that the federal government does not make a unilateral amendment that would transform Canada into a unitary state.  The BNA Act contains no amending formula applicable to the powers of the federal government, which is extraordinary for a constitution.

                 As might be expected, the failure to include an amending procedure would spark a great deal of debate about the substance of the BNA Act.  The characteristics ascribed to the Constitution or the “spirit” of 1867 shape the decisions made by courts, politicians and analysts examining contemporary Canadian political problems; this is not some vague theoretical problem.  The compact theory came about as a reaction to the omission of an amending formula.

                 Reduced to its simplest form, the legal dispute falls somewhere between the theory of a simple British law and the compact theory.  Proponents of the simple British statute view assume that London alone had the power to amend the Canadian constitution because it was sovereign over its colonial possession in 1867.  The BNA Act followed the Acts of 1774, 1791 and 1840 and changed the territorial jurisdiction of the various colonies by uniting them.  The corollary to that doctrine is that only London had the right to amend the Canadian constitution.  A constitutional practice developed after 1867 was for London to automatically register constitutional requests from the federal government.  In short, the provinces’ consent was not required even though that practice was at odds with the federal principle.[iv]

                 Advocates of the compact theory argue that the BNA Act is essentially a contract.  What that implies is that the consent of the parties to the contract must be obtained before the Constitution can be amended.  They contend that the BNA Act is nothing more than a legislative transcript of a contract between parties.  Any amendment to the contract therefore requires, indeed demands, the consent of all the parties.  The only problem, and it is a big problem, lies in identifying the parties.  Some believe the parties are the provinces, others the two founding peoples, that is, the English and the French.

The compact theory between provinces suggests that the provinces created the federal parliament.  The corollary to that argument is that only the provinces can legitimize any subsequent change in that initial compact.  The previous example is the centerpiece of the compact theory or what would become the constitutional reference point until the 1930s and 1940s.  The federal government is therefore shut out of the constitutional amendment process, and Canada was designed to defend and promote the interests of the provinces.

                 The compact theory between two nations, meanwhile, implies that constitutional amendments require the consent of Canada’s two communities, that is, Anglophones and Francophones.  It suggests that biculturalism is the foundation on which the country was built and that the federal government’s role is to protect and promote that unique characteristic.  As Maurice Croisat said, that principle must underlie every government policy so that the equality of the two founding peoples is respected.[v]

                 These theories (compact between provinces and compact between two nations) are rife with problems.  From a legal standpoint, the United Canada could not act without London, which in a sense acted as notary.  Moreover, of all the provinces in the Union, only United Canada adopted the Quebec Resolutions.  None of the Maritime provinces that took part in the deliberations passed the Resolutions.  On top of that, they agreed to go to London on one specific condition: that the agreement be negotiated all over again.  In Canada’s first election in September 1867, just a couple of months after Confederation, opponents of Confederation in Nova Scotia won 18 of 19 seats; in the subsequent provincial election, they won 36 of 38 seats.  In February 1868, the Nova Scotia legislature unanimously passed a resolution outlining the province’s position.  The most important part of the resolution reads:

                                  “That there being no Statute of the Provincial Legislature confirming or ratifying the British North America Act, and it never having been consented to nor authorized by the people, nor the consent of the Province in any other manner testified, the preamble of the Act, reciting that this Province has expressed a desire to be Confederated with Canada and New Brunswick is untrue, and when Your Majesty was led to believe that this Province had expressed such a desire, a fraud and imposition were practiced on Your Majesty.”[vi]

                 Confederation was a done deal, and London refused to meddle in Canadian affairs.[vii]  As G.F.G. Stanley pointed out, the very idea of a compact would be hard for people in the Maritimes to accept. [viii]

                 With regard to compact theory between nations, it is true that the unnatural alliance between the Reform leader, George Brown, and George-Etienne Cartier, the leader of the French-Canadian supporters, and their proposal for a federal union seem to corroborate the theory of a dualist compact.  However, those dealings were just the preamble to the BNA Act.  The legal nature of a statute must not be confused with its past.  The legal nature or spirit of 1867 hardly validates the compact theory between two nations or between provinces.  The Fathers of Confederation wanted a highly centralized federation, even going so far as to hope for the creation of a new nationality.  Canada could not be built on duality, which was the cause of dysfunction in the 1840 Union.  During the Assembly of Canada debates, the following statement was made in an address prior to the discussion period: “ Careful consideration of the general position of North America has led to the conclusion that the circumstances of the day afforded an opportunity not only to settle a provincial political issue, but also to create a new nationality.”  A.A. Dorion, a member of the opposition from Canada-East (actual Québec),  responded to that rather spectacular statement by proposing an amendment which stated that the people of the province of Canada East were not looking to create a new nationality.  The amendment was lost on a vote of 64 to 25.[ix]  George Brown declared at the end of the Quebec Conference, “Is it not wonderful? French Canadianism entirely extinguished!”[x]

                 An intergovernmental approach and not the concept of two founding nations was the guiding principle behind the Charlottetown, Quebec City and London conferences that precede the Confederation.[xi]  As Professor Louis Massicotte from the Université de Montréal points out, a two-party compact assumes delegations more or less equal in size.  That was not so.  In Charlottetown, there were only 2 Francophones but 23 Anglophones; in Quebec City, the ratio was 4 to 14; in London, 2 to 14.  This speaks volumes about the power relationship between the Francophone minority and the Anglophone majority at the time.

                 A compact between two peoples was unthinkable in 1867.  Anglophones in North America did not have a sense of being a people or a nation.  They shared an attachment to the British Empire, but were also driven by fierce regional affiliation.  Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were unwilling to give up their uniqueness and become lost in Canada.[xii]  In short, what was to become Quebec was not one of two partners, but one of four.

                 On a symbolic level, if the BNA Act was the result of a compact between two founding peoples, it is hard to explain why only the English version of the 1867 statute has had force of law since 1867 and does to this day.  Why is it that there are so few dualistic provisions in the BNA Act?  Why is it that Canadian currency did not become bilingual until 1935; that bilingualism was not introduced in Canada until the 1960s; that the Union Jack was Canada’s flag until 1965; that the bilingual national anthem was not adopted until 1980 (replacing God Save the Queen)?

                 Finally, there seems to be consensus among authors that the compact theory developed after 1867.[xiii]  No contemporary of the BNA Act portrayed it as being the product of a compact between provinces or between two peoples.  It is passing strange that so fundamental a characteristic would have escaped all the contemporaries, including Francophone proponents of the plan.[xiv]

Origin of the compact  theory between provinces

                 The people living in Canada in 1867 did not yet have a strong sense of nationhood.  Anglophones derived their identity from their attachment to their home province and the British Empire.  In Quebec, the “nation” was the Quebec of the St. Lawrence Valley.  This state of affairs made the institutional system of 1840 unworkable.  To rectify the situation, the Fathers of Confederation created a quasi-federalism or a federation so centralized that many experts labeled it a legislative union or unitary state.  John A. Macdonald, a Father of the Confederation and Canada first prime minister, gave the Dominion government extraordinary powers for a federal system in a bid to eliminate regionalism and create a new nationality.

                 The central government exerted its control over the provinces right from the start in 1867.  That strengthened the power of Macdonald’s Conservatives throughout the country.  Not surprisingly, then, the battle for provincial autonomy also came down to a battle between Liberals and Conservatives.  According to Macdonald, the early years of Confederation would set the tone for the new system.  To ensure political stability favorable to the Conservatives, he created electoral conditions favorable to his party.

                 The Liberals challenged Macdonald and the base of his political power.  In 1873, they abolished the practice of the dual mandate and other privileges favorable to the Conservatives.  The Liberals devised a theory of federalism that countered the centralist principles held by John A. Macdonald.  The provinces, meanwhile, were “sovereign and independent” in their areas of jurisdiction and not just “municipal councils” as Macdonald liked to contend.  When, in the 1880s, several provinces rose up against the paternalism of the federal Conservatives, the Liberals became the strongest defenders of provincial autonomy.  The Ontario Liberals were the first to use principle of provincial rights as an election weapon.

                 The first clashes were between two old enemies, Oliver Mowat and John A. Macdonald.  Mowat held the reins of power in the richest province, Ontario.  He was not out to get more money from Ottawa for his province; what he wanted was to make sure that Ottawa did not give more subsidies to the other provinces using money from Ontario taxpayers.  Mowat wanted Ontario to be sovereign in its areas of jurisdiction and tried to limit federal government involvement in provincial affairs.  The conflict between Queen’s Park and Rideau Hall focused on use of the federal government’s extraordinary powers.  Mowat achieved a great deal of success before the judicial committee of the Privy Council in London beginning in 1880.  Around 1884, he started looking for allies in the other provinces, starting with Quebec.

                 In Quebec, disputes quickly arose between the federal and provincial governments. Macdonald’s vision of federalism led him to rewrite as he saw fit provincial statutes that were incompatible with his centralist aims!  The principle of provincial autonomy developed more slowly in Quebec than in Ontario because the province was more dependent on federal subsidies.[xv]

                 In 1883, Mr. Justice T.-J.-J. Loranger tried to convince French Canadians to turn away from the federal government and join Premier Mowat in his campaign against the federal government. The theory Loranger put forward in his Lettres sur l’interprétation de la constitution fédérative dite de l’Amérique du Nord britannique, 1867  [letters on the interpretation of the federal constitution, known as the British North America Act, 1867] was simple: the federal government is a creature of the provinces.  The federal government serves the provinces, not the other way around.  Loranger had a considerable impact on Honoré Mercier, who was elected Premier of Quebec after the Riel affair[xvi].

                 In 1884, the issue of provincial autonomy took on the color of a nationalist debate in Quebec.  MLA M. Duhamel, author of a resolution calling on the federal government to respect the principle of provincial autonomy, declared, “The autonomy of the Province of Quebec is tantamount to the very existence of the nation.”[xvii]  According to Linteau, Durocher, Robert and Ricard, with Honoré Mercier, provincial autonomy was becoming the political expression of nationalism in Quebec.[xviii]

                 In its 1887 Speech from the Throne, the Government of Quebec announced that it would be holding an interprovincial conference, the first of its kind in Canada.  The conference came on the heels of the conferences in Quebec City and Charlottetown.  The aim was to once again discuss the BNA Act of 1867.  The conference was the perfect opportunity for provincialists to develop their argument.  Mercier described the conference as a second Quebec Conference in which the parties to the pact would meet to put right the made mistakes in the original pact, then some twenty years old. In 1870.                 The first ministers in attendance tried to convince the public that the BNA of 1867 was a type of contract or compact between the provinces.  The compact theory was an attempt to redefine the historical origins of Confederation in order to explain and justify provincial control or “national” control in Quebec (in Quebec, “province” and “nation” were one) and the same over the process of constitutional amendment.  That theory was developed originally by provincial politicians sympathetic to provincial autonomy.  They explained how it was that the provinces’ consent was needed to make substantial changes to the BNA act of 1867.  Provincialism was very strong in Canada.  They used that argument to limit the federal government’s ascendancy over Canadian politics.[xix]  Their theory was very successful until the 1940s.

Origin of the compact  theory between two founding peoples

                 At the turn of the century, English-Canadian nationalists wanted Canada to become first and foremost British, unilingual, English, Protestant and unicultural.[xx]  In 1871, they limited the language rights of Francophones in New Brunswick.  Around 1885, the conflict spread westward as Manitoba passed similar legislation.  Immigration was then used to limit the development of French outside Quebec so as to build a British Canada.  Dissident Conservative D’Alton McCathy developed his own version of the compact theory.  To his mind, the compact limited the use of French to the province of Quebec and the federal parliament.  McCathy achieved a great deal of success in western Canada.  Historian Donald Creighton would also endorse that theory in the 1960s.[xxi]

                 In the 1880s, the Riel affair became a symbol of the oppression of Francophones outside Quebec.  French Canadians realized during the Riel affair that the federal government was not willing to protect their rights.  They withdrew into Quebec, the only place in Canada where they could live in peace.  They were wary of federal government measures aimed at the Anglophone minority in Quebec.  Those measures had the potential to jeopardize the unique characteristics of Quebec society at the time.  The Boer crisis and the implementation of Regulation XVII limiting the rights of Francophones in Ontario simply reinforced the sense of urgency.

                 The compact theory between two founding peoples came about as a reaction to anti-Francophone initiatives.  The number of Francophones in Canada had in fact been declining since Confederation.  More and more intellectuals were observing that English Canadians were not amenable to the idea of building a bilingual country.  Anglophones viewed Francophones as an impediment to national unity.  Tensions between the two “nations” in Canada were very high.

                 The compact theory between two founding peoples was developed by the young Henri Bourassa in 1902. Bourassa was a nationalist, but he advocated a pan-Canadian nationalism, not just a French-Canadian nationalism. For Bourassa, Canada was home. He developed a vision of the country which suggested that what the Fathers of Confederation intended was to build a country that was binational and therefore bilingual and bicultural.  Based on that line of thinking, the 1867 Act was more than just a constitution; it was a moral agreement between two equal peoples.  According to Bourassa, the purpose of section 93 of the Constitution was to ensure that every citizen of Canada, regardless of the province in which he or she resided, was guaranteed justice and equality and given assurance that the majority would never persecute the minority.[xxii]  Finally, provincial autonomy in Quebec had to be respected in order to preserve the province’s French and Catholic character.[xxiii]  Bourassa’s ideas were a direct response to the efforts of Anglophones who were trying to make the country homogeneous.

                 Bourassa’s views were not as successful as the compact theory between provinces.  No political party and very few intellectuals would support it.  The theory of an interprovincial compact had the advantage of satisfying French Canadians and English Canadians alike.  For French Canadians, it offered protection for provincial autonomy and Quebec’s “unique character”; for English Canadians, it allowed provincialists to limit the federal government’s initiatives.

                 The compact theory between two founding peoples did not disappear entirely from the political scene.  Bourassa’s successor, Lionel Groulx, also defended the theory.  The evolution of Groulx’s ideas about the compact theory is very interesting.  Like the leading Francophone historians in Quebec at the time, Lionel Groulx did not believe in the compact theory at the beginning of the century.  In a series of lectures published in 1918, he in fact argued the opposite.  However, he quickly (at least from 1927 on) advanced the theory of a triple compact: the BNA Act was a compact between provinces, nationalities and beliefs.  The triple compact theory would subsequently be passed from generation to generation through the writings of Lionel Groulx, founder of the history chair at the Université de Montréal.  Reverend Groulx taught the compact theory to a number of professional historians who then disseminated the concept.[xxiv]

The British statute theory

                 After the crash in 1929, constitutional changes were urgently needed to try to repair the damage.  Many leading figures in English Canada challenged the interprovincial compact theory, which stood in the way of unilateral action by the federal government.  The Rowell-Sirois Commission, whose mandate was to examine the problems associated with Canadian federalism, ushered in the British statute theory.  This new theory of federalism was a determining factor in the decline of the interprovincial compact theory.  Politicians lent credence to the arguments made by those who saw the 1867 statute as nothing more than an Act of the British Parliament.  The debate played out as follows: advocates of the theory of a simple British statute argued on those grounds that the federal government could amend the Constitution without the provinces’ consent, while advocates of the compact theory contended that the provinces’ consent was essential before any constitutional changes could be made.  The constitutional amendments of 1943, 1946 and 1949 were the final blows to the interprovincial compact theory.  Louis St. Laurent, the prime minister of Canada, asserted at the time that Confederation was not the result of an interprovincial compact.

                 Maurice Duplessis, the prime minister of Quebec, launched several attacks on the federal government’s new attitude.  He wrote, “ The British North America Act was an honorable compact between the provinces, between the two great races.  The amendment of the 1867 compact creating a federation and the processes that accompanied it are unlikely to foster national unity.”[xxv]  Duplessis was not just advancing a vision of the compact between provinces; he increasingly added the idea of a compact between two nations.  This was a very significant shift in attitude on the part of the Quebec government.  Before Duplessis came onto the scene, the Quebec government had held to the interprovincial compact theory.

 Affirmation of the compact  theory between two founding peoples

                 The federal government’s centralist policies strengthened the Quebec government’s role as a defender of the Francophone minority.  The Quebec premier was thus in a good position to challenge Ottawa’s “imperialism”.  Such was the context in which the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems was struck in 1956.  The royal commission was a direct reaction to federal initiatives.  The four impressive volumes produced by the commission, known as the Tremblay Report, became the basis for the government’s compact theory between two founding peoples.[xxvi]  Written under the guidance of Esdras Minville, former director of the École des hautes études commerciales, and Richard Arès, author of a number of studies on the compact issue, the report was an official endorsement of the compact theory between two founding peoples.  That theory would have a long history in Quebec.

                 With the coming of the Quiet Revolution in the 1960’s, Quebec shifted from an essentially defensive nationalism to an offensive nationalism and demanded new status for the “State of Quebec”.  The government of Jean Lesage soon proposed liberal reforms in education and other areas, but also opted to take a nationalist stand.  Quebeckers had to become “masters of their own house”.  Once this new attitude took hold within Quebec society, the elite pressed for a complete overhaul of federalism.  The now-modern Quebec wanted nothing less than true equality with the rest of Canada.

                 Quebec’s new nationalism gave rise to calls for a new political order in Canada.  The aim was to bring federalism more in line with Canadian duality and the national role of the Quebec government.  Another aim was to have Quebec officially recognized as a distinct society.  And a third aim was to make a number of structural changes that would increase the Quebec government’s ability to take action.  Jean Lesage relied on the theory of a compact between two founding peoples to win special status and a veto for Quebec.  In the same vein, Daniel Johnson, once he was elected premier, demanded “equality [for the two founding peoples] or independence.”  At the time, there was consensus in Quebec on the compact theory between two founding peoples.  The theory was adapted to legitimize the Quebec government’s constitutional demands.

                 In the 1960s, the federal Liberals and their leader, Lester Pearson, tried while in Opposition to find a solution to the Quebec problem.  With the help of Quebec Francophones like Maurice Lamontagne and Jean-Luc Pépin, Pearson developed a program to adequately address Quebec’s demands.  The program was implemented after the Liberals won the 1963 election.  Pearson’s goal was to strengthen dualist measures within federal institutions; the centerpiece of his program was the creation of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.

                 The royal commission was co-chaired by André Laurendeau, editor in chief of Le Devoir, and Davidson Dunton.  Its mandate was to “inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution . . .”[xxvii]

                 The response from English Canadians to Pearson’s initiatives was, according to historian Kenneth McRoberts, mostly positive.  Even the New Democratic Party, by and large an advocate of centralization, approved of the Pearson government’s actions.  Kenneth McRoberts added that the most common reaction in English Canada was relief.  The first encounter with Quebec nationalism unfolded without incident.  The compact theory between two founding peoples gained respectability in Canada.

                 Pierre Elliott Trudeau came to power in 1968.  Unfortunately for the compact theory between two founding peoples, Trudeau opposed Pearson’s proposals regarding biculturalism and special status for Quebec.  To his mind, those proposals were the product of harmful nationalist initiatives.  Trudeau believed that formal recognition of Quebec’s nationalist demands would be a fatal mistake[xxviii] because it would simply strengthen the legitimacy of the nationalists’ demands.  Instead of focusing on differences, Trudeau contended, efforts ought to be made to integrate Quebec into Canada.[xxix] 

                 To bring Quebeckers into the Canadian fold, Trudeau proposed that the federal government become officially bilingual, despite very strong resistance from Anglophone Canadians.  According to Kenneth McRoberts, bilingualism would have to reach farther; it would have to be established to varying degrees in other Canadian provinces.  De facto bilingualism within Quebec institutions was to become an ultimate goal.  In reality, Quebec would become a province like the others, because the other provinces would be like Quebec.[xxx]  If Trudeau’s plan had been carried out according to his wishes, the Quebec government would have ceased to be the representative of the Quebec nation; that new role would have fallen to the federal government.

In the early 1970s, Pierre Elliott Trudeau endeavored to gain recognition of linguistic duality, not cultural duality.  Every proposal for cultural recognition was rejected because it represented a collective, not an individual, representation of society.  For that reason, the Trudeau government rejected the findings of the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission.  As an alternative, and to break apart the binational vision of Canada, Trudeau proposed a policy of bilingualism and multiculturalism.

The Compact theory between two nations challenged in Quebec

                 The compact theory between two founding peoples was also challenged by neonationalists from the “Montreal school” of history.  Maurice Séguin, Michel Brunet, Guy Frégault and others spearheaded a shift from the theory of a compact between two nations that was so dear to Lionel Groulx to the theory of annexation as a tragic result of the Conquest.[xxxi]   These historians would have a great deal of influence over future generations of Quebec nationalists, especially the members of the Parti Québécois.  What made the péquistes different from other nationalists was that they pushed their thinking to the point of demanding independence.

                 The péquistes readily embraced this bleak vision of history which supported their beliefs.  The Parti québécois government drew on the writings of the Montreal school to support its blueprint for independence.  It wrote on the subject of the compact between two founding peoples in the 1979 document La nouvelle entente Quebec-Canada [the new Quebec-Canada agreement]:

           “  Under the British North America Act, Quebec is not home to a nation, but a mere province, one of four at first, then five, then ten; a province like all the rest, with no more rights or powers than the smallest of those provinces.  Nowhere does the BNA Act refer to an alliance between two founding peoples or a compact between two nations; on the contrary, the Act refers to territorial and political unity and a national government which on the main imposes its will on regional governments.  The English provinces make no mistake about it; local peculiarities aside, they have always thought of the central government as the “senior government”, the one that ranks first, both in their hearts and in their heads, and to which they owe complete allegiance.  It is probably safe to say that Canada’s Anglophones in 1867 designed the BNA Act as nothing more than a British statute, not a compact between two nations.”[xxxii]

                  Following the 1980 referendum, however, the Parti québécois made a dramatic about face.  It became a defender of the compact theory between two founding peoples.  In the wake of its referendum loss, the PQ went back to the constitutional policies of Jean Lesage, adopting a more defensive nationalism and supporting Quebec’s “traditional” demands.  The  Liberal Party under Claude Ryan held more or less the same position.  When the Constitution was repatriated, Trudeau supported the opposite view, namely equality between provinces.

                 The repatriation of the Constitution had a tremendous impact on Anglophone Canadians.  The Charter became the defining element of their identity.  Further, Trudeau’s insistence on the principle of equality between provinces addressed the regionalist sentiments of western Canadians, who since 1975 had been calling for equality among the provinces through the establishment of a triple-E Senate (equal, effective, elected).  The Charter, equality of individual rights and equality of the provinces became fundamental principles in the eyes of English-Canadian nationalists.  Trudeau institutionalized their main constitutional demands in 1981.  As Kenneth McRoberts points out, if individuals and provincial governments have to be absolutely equal in terms of their status and their respective rights, Quebec cannot be anything more than a province like all the rest, and the people of Quebec Canadians like all the rest.[xxxiii]   The corollary to that perception by Anglophone Canadians is that the Quebec government must not be different from any other government.  This means that special status or recognition as a “distinct society” are not options.  Because the new amending formula made it next to impossible to effect any constitutional change, the situation would only get worse.

                 In Quebec, the situation was different.  On December 6, 1982, the Supreme Court handed down another ruling at the request of the Quebec government.  The Court found that Quebec did not have and had never had a veto.  The decision came as a severe blow to the compact theory between two nations.  The theory is mentioned from time to time but no longer has the scope it once had.  However, Quebeckers have replaced the “two nations” theory with the “distinct society/veto” concept, which amounts to the same thing.  If Quebec is a distinct society, then so too is the rest of Canada, which means there are at least two founding peoples in Canada.  The Quebec government’s claim of a veto is the corollary to the compact theory between two nations.  The spirit of the compact theory lives on in Canada and is still giving rise to conflict.

Conclusion

                 Over time, the compact theory became a veritable myth in Canadian politics used to establish the social legitimacy of politicians’ actions.  An entire legend was established based on the theory.  The theory is tremendously evocative.  The myth of two founding peoples grew up around a failed dream, the dream of a country that respects and encourages duality.  The myth serves as a social benchmark that rallies the people of Quebec around a single ideal: national recognition.

                 If the pulse of the Quebec population had been taken during some of the milestone events that have taken place since Confederation, the diagnosis would surely have been high blood pressure.  As we have seen, new historical interpretations of the meaning of Confederation emerged at times of upheaval.  They were not the result of a quest for truth, but sprang from a need for historical justification.  They were invented, in whole or in part, to lend historical credence to a new contractual theory of Confederation.

 These new interpretations of history gave us insight into the unrest of a minority people democratically dominated by another people, a people who are not “masters in their own house”.  They served to mask reality or make it less unpalatable.  People cultivated the illusion or the hope of equality between the two peoples of Canada.  These theories were a salve to ease people’s pain and concern about the survival of the nation.