Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People? 3rd ed

J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus,
York University, served as Director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998
to 2000. His latest works are Who Killed Canadian History?, Who Killed
the Canadian Military, and Hell’s Cor

Peter Russell, university professor emeritus at the University of
Toronto, is a leading scholar of the Canadian Constitution. The first
edition of Constitutional Odyssey was and remains a most useful study of
the constitution and the long efforts to amend it and make it
“relevant” to a changing federalism. This third edition, which he
decided to prepare only if one of two events occurred—a Quebec
sovereignist win or a sharp decline in sovereignist
support—demonstrates yet again how publishing schedules wait for no
one. Written in 2003 and published in 2004 when it appeared the Parti
Québécois was in ruins, the book came to this reviewer when support
for the PQ and for the Bloc Québécois—thanks to the sponsorship
scandals—was surging. Once again Quebec sovereignists seem to be
riding a wave, and this book, which demonstrates how the constitution
usually resists major change, will be useful to federalists and
separatists alike as it tracks how we made it to our present pass.
Russell himself says that he has become a minimalist in constitutional
terms, one who recognizes that efforts to renew the constitution likely
did more harm than good to unity. Fix problems, he urges, but not by
trying to reform the constitution.