Forever Amber: The Legacy of the 1980s for the Ongoing Constitutional Impasse

Agar Adamson is the author of Letters of Agar Adamson, 1914–19 and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

This brief work is another in the Reflections series, published by the
Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at Queen’s University. It is
unfortunate that these publications do not receive wider circulation,
for they are thought-provoking, informative, and educational.

This work is an excellent summary of the 1980s political and economic
developments that led to our current constitutional impasse. Included
are sections called “Trudeau’s Second Coming,” “First and Second
Mulroney Administrations,” and “Global Determination.”

Courchene puts forward a number of interesting and stimulating
arguments for the 1990s. Yet he leaves the reader pessimistic, for, as
he points out, “Canadians are caught in a time warp.” Quebec knows
where it wants to go, but the rest of Canada does not. It is unfortunate
that Courchene was not more forceful in attempting to break the rest of
Canada out of its “time warp”: much of his argument is not new.

The work includes a very useful six-page table titled
“Political/Economic Factors Conditioning the 1980s Constitutional
Climate,” which should prove useful to researchers.