The Quebec Decision: Perspectives on the Supreme Court Ruling on Secession

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 title of this work, it should be pointed out, is misleading. The
case in question was a reference case and thus only an opinion stated by
the Supreme Court, not a ruling. Almost half of the book is taken up
with the Court’s opinion and the comments of Jean Chrétien, Lucien
Bouchard, and Stéphane Dion on that opinion. The rest of the book
consists of essays, most of which have been published elsewhere, by
leading academics. The two standouts are Alan Cairns’s “The
Constitutional Obligation to Negotiate,” which makes the case that
“[t]he Court’s negotiation proposal ... is incomplete,” and Robert
A. Young’s “A Most Political Judgement,” which provides a sound
review of the politics of the decision. Other authors include
Jacques-Yvan Morin, Claude Ryan, Ted Morton, Jean Leclair, Andrew Orkin,
and Joanna Birenbaum. Birenbaum considers the implications of the fact
that the Court did not mention the Cree in its opinion.

For those seeking to understand the secession issue, this book offers a
treasure-trove of ideas.