To Match a Dream: A Practical Guide to Canada's Constitution

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is also the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the
Peaceable Kingdom, and the co-author of Invisible and Inaudible in
Washington: American Policies Toward Canada.

Early in this witty and polemical constitutional history of Canada, the
authors review Canada’s pre-Confederation constitutions (1763, 1774,
1791, and 1841) and conclude that the British “created a system of
governance that could not possibly work.” The Fathers of Confederation
attributed the U.S. Civil War to overly powerful states, and to avoid
such a catastrophe here, they tried to design a strong federal
government. Unfortunately, the trend ever since has been toward
decentralization.

Coyne and Valpy vigorously deny the suggestion that the federal
government is the creation of the provinces, which therefore have the
right to withdraw their powers or even secede from Canada. In fact, the
British Parliament, not the provinces, created the Dominion of Canada,
and Quebec’s 1867 boundaries were significantly smaller than those of
today. The authors use the latter point to argue that, if Quebec should
leave Canada, its partition would make good sense. They also demonstrate
how the Parti Québécois has consistently been less than honest in its
statements about past wrongs, current injustices, and future intentions.

The myth of Quebec’s exclusion from the 1982 Constitution is exploded
by the authors’ observation that 70 of Quebec’s 75 MPs voted for it.
Coyne and Valpy question the patriotism of Brian Mulroney, who
surrounded himself with Quebec separatists, tried to placate them with
the Meech Lake Accord (which the authors deplore), and then raised the
stakes with irresponsible rhetoric. They are equally negative about the
Charlottetown Accord and Quebec tribalism. To Match a Dream makes a
convincing case that the devolution of federal authority has already
gone too far.