After Meech Lake: Lessons for the Future

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.

The work under review is but another in the interminable list of
publications on this subject that have rained down on Canadians since
1982. The one Canadian industry that is recession-proof is that of
constitutional renovations. Like all the recent works on the
Constitution, this one has points of interest and those of less
significance. Of course, with the failure of the Meech Lake Accord in
June 1990, any work on the Constitution has been out of date before it
even reaches the bookstore, and this one is no exception. However, this
particular work does contain at least two essays that will remain
current and useful for future scholars and interested individuals for
many years.

The first of these is Alan C. Cairns’s paper “The Charter, Interest
Groups, Executive Federalism, and Constitutional Reform,” which
assesses the impact of the Charter on future constitutional reforms. The
Charter, he points out, has become exceptionally important to groups
within society who prior to 1980 were not part of the constitutional
process. The Charter has become equal with federalism as an ingredient
in our constitutional “marble cake.”

The other essay is John Meisel’s piece on Meech and the media. He
illustrates, quite convincingly, how CBC television misled Canadians in
its coverage of the Meech Lake Accord. As he points out, the media were
not simply purveyors of news but actors and manipulators involved in the
entire process.

A third useful paper is that by Ovide Mercredi. In but a few pages he
describes the issues of the First Peoples and the Constitution that has
been imposed on them by “the subsequent peoples.”

Undoubtedly, the editors will shortly present us with “After 1992,”
for the saga continues; but in the meantime, these papers are useful
material for anyone interested in the constitutional process. The
question they pose is, will we learn from history?