|
|
Article: The Meech Lake monster. (constitutional muddles in Canada) (International)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- November 18, 1989
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The Meech Lake monster
MEECH LAKE is a pleasant enough stretch of water, just north of Ottawa. Beside it, at dead of night in April 1987, the federal prime minister and ten provincial premiers convinced themselves that they had agreed how to share the powers of government. Not so. Canada's constitutional argument is one of the few serious controversies that happy country possesses. It was not drowned in Meech Lake. There are two main problems. Quebec's French-speaking majority insists that its language must have primacy within the province. The western provinces want the federal government off their backs.
Until the late 1960s, Canadians had ...