Failure of the Meech Lake accord lingers on

MONTREAL— There were federalist tears all around when the Meech Lake constitutional accord went down 25 years ago this week, but for contrary reasons.

Its proponents mourned an ominous loss for Canadian unity while its opponents cried in joy over a big win for the future of the federation.

A quarter of a century later, time has been less kind to the victors of the failed Meech round than to those they defeated.

Over that period, Quebec achieved many of the goals it had pursued in the accord.

Its lead role in the selection of its immigrants was reinforced.

A federal law that requires backing in all regions of the country for a constitutional amendment to be approved in Parliament was passed.

Meech opponents, on the other hand, have little to show for their epic battle. Much of what they feared would result from the Meech accord has still come to pass despite its demise, while much of what they hoped for has failed to materialize.

Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau was the accord’s most articulate critic.

He believed it would lead to the balkanization of the federation.

But after Meech failed, Quebec sought and obtained an asterisk at the bottom of every federal-provincial agreement spelling out its sovereignty over areas of exclusive provincial competence such as health care and education.

On the heels of a decade of Conservative tax cuts, the federal spending power that Trudeau defended has fallen into disuse.

The revenues to back up the federal launch of national programs have dried up.

Trudeau argued that recognizing Quebec as a distinct society would only fuel the province’s nationalist aspirations.

Until son Justin took over, a suc- cession of Liberal leaders mostly begged to disagree.

After the 1995 referendum, Jean Chrétien even tried to enshrine Quebec’s distinct character in the Constitution.

When Stephen Harper presented a Quebec nation resolution to the House of Commons in 2006, critics once again predicted that the sky would fall on the federation. It did not, but the sovereigntist hold on the province eventually loosened dramatically.

Harper’s motion was strictly symbolic. The Constitution remains silent on Quebec’s distinct status, but that has not stopped the Supreme Court from consistently giving the province’s historical role in protecting the French language legal standing in its rulings.

Last year, the top court also confirmed that the criteria for selecting the three Civil Code justices that sit on its bench could not be altered without Quebec’s consent.

In the late 1980s, some Liberal strategists feared that if the Meech round succeeded, the party’s former Quebec fortress would be lost to the Tories for all times. They were happy to use Trudeau’s arguments as cover for their partisan concerns. Looking at the state of federal Liberal affairs in Quebec these days, it is hard to believe things would have been worse if the Meech accord had not died! New Democrat MNA Elijah Harper dealt the accord a final blow by refusing to give unanimous consent for the Manitoba legislature to pass it before the clock ran out on its existence. He hoped for a process more inclusive of First Nations aspirations. What followed was another quarter of a century of inertia.

The triple-E senate that the anti-Meech Reform Party championed has wilted on the vine. Notwithstanding his Reform roots, the current prime minister no longer believes it is a cause worth expending political capital on.

In hindsight, Harper would probably have been happy to share the responsibility for his dubious Senate appointments with the premiers — as was predicated in the failed accord.

The point of the Meech round was to draw Quebec back in the constitutional loop so as to move forward on other files.

A few months before the Meech accord was negotiated, an amendment backed by the country’s aboriginal leadership and the federal government had failed because it secured the support of only six of the seven required provinces.

Had Quebec participated fully in the process the aboriginals’ right to self-government would have been entrenched in the Constitution almost three decades ago.

The issues of aboriginal rights and Senate reform were to be at the top of the post-Meech agenda.

Instead the constitutional business left unfinished 25 years ago haunts us still. Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday