Constitution-Making, Canadian Style
Just three weeks before the 23 June, 1990 deadline for ratification of the Meech Lake Accord, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney invited the ten provincial premiers to dinner in Ottawa. Mulroney called the meeting to discuss objections to the constitutional deal made in 1987 at a cottage on Meech Lake. Later, he bragged that he and his officials had plotted the event weeks before. They based it on the best time "to roll the dice" (Globe and Mail, June 12, 1990, p.1.).
The "impromptu" dinner meeting stretched to seven harrowing days. The premiers and the prime minister locked themselves behind closed doors. They emerged only once daily to inform the nation on the progress of negotiations. Except for those brief outings, the bargaining--carried out by eleven white, upper-class men--was entirely secret. "Somewhere along the past decade or so in the women's movement," wrote Toronto Star columnist Michele Landsberg, "it stopped looking normal to me to see 11 men on a platform and not a single woman in sight. Now it looks downright peculiar. Unbalanced, unseemly, and unfair" (Toronto Star, June 12, 1990). The lack of women, minorities, and aboriginal peoples in the constitutional male encounter group formed part of what turned out to be an astonishing get-together in Ottawa.
Press coverage of the affair amazed many Canadians. Influential correspondents appeared to be less than impartial. Leading media personalities expressed strong opinions favouring a constitutional agreement that only a small minority of the population supported (Toronto Star, June 17, 1990). On CBC's "The National" secret details of a constitutional deal were revealed twenty-four hours before Prime Minister Mulroney announced the bargain. Persistent reports suggested that the Prime Minister's Office and Ontario officials manipulated the media to put pressure on dissenting provinces to sign the accord.
Leaked accounts suggested the spirit of a crooked poker game mixed with a locker room brawl. Canada's first ministers consumed copious quantities of liquor. One wag speculated that Premier Bourassa may have got the best deal because he restricted his drinking to milk.
Mulroney's officials tried to trick Clyde Wells into signing a document from which they had covertly removed a key paragraph inserted by Wells himself. The other holdout premier, Manitoba's Gary Filmon, complained that federal negotiators intercepted his telephone conversations. Manitoba opposition leaders Gary Doer, and Sharon Carstairs related similar experiences.
Disgusted with the dirty tricks, Wells and Filmon tried to leave at a late stage in the negotiations. Alberta's Don Getty, a former Canadian Football League quarterback and strong Meech supporter, spread-eagled himself in front of the doorway, blocking their exit. At that moment, a tactic agreed upon beforehand by Mulroney and Ontario Premier David Peterson went into action. Peterson threw six of Ontario's twenty-four pork-barrel Senate seats onto the table, promising some of these for Newfoundland and the Western provinces. Wells and Filmon returned to their chairs.
Nobody could explain where an Ontario premier got the authority to give away federal Senate seats "like Crackerjack prizes." But his gesture accurately reflected the mood of trickery, greed, and acrimony that has characterized recent Canadian constitution-making. "I never felt so alienated from Canada," said Landsberg, "as when I watched these turkeys 'save' it."
Sources: Globe and Mail, June 12, 13, 1990; Michele Landsberg, "Macho swarm dominated Meech TV gig," Toronto Star, June 12, 1990; Toronto Star, June 17, 1990.
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