What Lies Ahead for Canada

...Publicly, they argued that the accord did not provide enough reform...

...Still, overall 54 per cent of Canadians vetoed Charlottetown...

...Many voters saw the referendum as a perfect opportunity to vent their anger at him and his government...

...Although the Liberals and the New Democrats, the two main national parties apart from Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives, joined the effort to promote Charlottetown, outside of Quebec most of the responsibility fell to the Prime Minister and a few key members of his Cabinet...

...And—despite the distress signal unfurled in Atlanta—Toronto won the World Series...

...Quebec's federalists objected to Charlottetown because they believed it strengthened local power at the expense of the Federal government and the rights of individuals...

...In the months to come Parizeau will declare that Bourassa's rule has been repudiated in Quebec and demand an election forthwith (the Premier is not required to call one until late 1994...

...Should the Liberals hold on to the government, an independence referendum would be highly doubtful...

...The October outcome has left the constitutional negotiations in a logjam: Concocting a compromise agreeable to everyone seems to be impossible at present...

...It should also be pointed out that unlike the Meech Lake fiasco, the Charlottetown referendum stirred few feelings of isolation or rejection among Quebecers...

...the constitutional status quo probably would remain until the end of the century at the minimum...

...Thus, as a crude indicator of independentiste sentiment, the numbers are heartening or disheartening, depending on one's perspective...

...Ontario ended in a virtual dead heat, with a tiny edge opting for approval...

...The Yes vote also prevailed in Toronto and Montreal, the nation's two largest cities...

...This time their vote reflected the opinion of the majority of provinces and of the population at large...

...such as some feminist organizations...

...in reality, they would have denounced any agreement that might solidify the province's place in Canada...

...and the aboriginals were to be granted the right to self-government...

...But the public in a free society tends to be fickle and often defies the pollsters' predictions...

...These pundits believe the inherently cautious Quebecers want to hedge their bets: Understanding that the accord's defeat could boost the separatist cause, come election time they will choose to buttress the federalists...

...who were unhappy with one feature or another...

...The separatists have savored a victory, but only a negative one that after all does not augur well for the independence they continue to pursue...

...The No cause got an added boost from numerous small private groups...

...The main challenges before them were to address the demands of Quebec, to deal with the West's persistent alienation from Central Canada (i.e., Ontario and Quebec) by enacting meaningful Senate reform, and to tackle the question of autonomy for the aboriginal peoples...

...Bourassa's message was severely compromised by the release of an intercepted cellular telephone conversation between two of his aides, both of whom agreed he had caved in to conclude the negotiations...

...and certainly deserved—to fulfill its historic mission of sheltering the French language and culture from an inhospitable North American environment...

...In sum, the defeat of the Charlottetown Accord does not presage a breakup of Canada...

...Predictably, the West grumbled that the new upper house would not meet the three criteria it had been demanding for years: an equal, elected and effective —or "Triple E"—Senate...

...in response to the West, the provinces were each to have an equal number of elected Senators...

...Besides Quebec, Nova Scotia and the four Western provinces said No...

...Many Quebecers, meanwhile, complained that their province had not gained nearly as much additional power as it required...

...Proponents of a Yes vote were further hampered by the fact that Mulroney, their chief spokesman, is terribly unpopular...

...Their position was buttressed by the well-timed and sharply pointed remarks of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, still active and capable of trenchant criticism eight years after his retirement from politics...

...In the meantime, power-sharing adjustments could be negotiated outside the confines of the Constitution, thereby avoiding the apocalyptic confrontations of the last few years...

...But it failed to win ratification in 1990 because of intense opposition in two provinces and among the native peoples, who are seeking self-rule...

...Their burden was to convince the province that it had much to gain without alarming those in the rest of Canada who were wary of ceding Quebec special status...

...The big gainers could be Bouchard and Parizeau in Quebec, even though the province does not appear ready to quit the Confederation, and Manning in the West...

...What next...

...Mulroney claims he will stay on, despite his low approval ratings...

...The imbroglio began in 1982, when Quebec refused to go along with the "patriation" of Canada's Constitution from Britain...

...Thus it is conceivable that Quebec may one day opt for independence, or some variation of it ("sovereignty," as currently construed, does not really amount to full independence...

...In addition, they argue, Bourassa, or at least his party (he is rumored to be ill), could prevail in the next Quebec election...

...Ultimately, they fell back on championing it as the best way to keep Canada together (in other words, to keep Quebec from separating), with even staunch defenders acknowledging its flaws...

...If Canada did not want Quebec, it was argued, Quebec should go its own way...

...On their part, the Quebec separatists have proved incapable of turning Mulroney's misjudgments fully to their advantage...

...They reasoned that this would sidetrack the matter of secession in Quebec, and polls taken at the beginning of September indicated that there was a very good chance of winning an endorsement...

...Bouchard has high expectations of leading the Bloc Quebecois to significant advances in the next Parliament...

...Perhaps the Marines were merely demonstrating a bit of prescience...

...Those attempting to put a positive spin on October 26 note that the No vote prevented the adoption of reforms that would have enabled future provincial governments to further weaken the federation...

...Manning, whose Reform Party has no representatives in the current House of Commons, is expected to become a serious factor in the new one...

...Nevertheless, the dominant sentiment, particularly in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia, was that too much had been surrendered to the demands of others...

...Even Bourassa's Quebec Liberal Party, nominally the province's champion of federalism, veered sharply in a nationalistic direction...

...If he does, no fewer than five parties are likely to occupy seats after the balloting, considerably limiting the chance that any of them will obtain a majority...

...Six years later, his efforts have yielded little besides scores of felled trees (disseminating the different proposals required an immense amount of paper), unfulfilled expectations and a disillusioned electorate...

...As the Yes fortunes plummeted this fall, his Liberals suddenly caught up to the PQ in the opinion polls after a long period of trailing far behind...

...the rout recent polls had predicted came true...

...As far as strong government is concerned, this is not an encouraging prospect...

...For on October 26, about a week later, the citizens of this vast land delivered a resounding No in a national referendum asking them to approve or reject a series of constitutional changes known as the Charlottetown Accord...

...Most experts are convinced that an unambiguous referendum on independence would lose, but the PQ, once in control, would surely try to structure the situation in a manner designed to ensure success...

...And the result has indeed created a distressing situation for Canadians, who, after years of constitutional wrangling, are unsure about where their nation is headed...

...The Meech Lake Accord of 1987, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's initial attempt to resolve the conundrum, had the enthusiastic support of Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa's government...

...For now, though, the uncertainty that has acted as a drag on Canada, particularly Quebec, for more than a decade will continue...

...As the campaign wore on, attention appeared to fix on the specific shortcomings in the agreement, while the totality of the package and the context of the negotiations that produced it went largely ignored...

...Interestingly, the total vote against the accord in Quebec was only about 56 per cent—and that figure includes many who disliked the deal but oppose secession as well, such as the federalists aligned with Trudeau...

...Defenders of the agreement acknowledged that the various parties did not achieve all of their aims, but insisted Canada now had a viable, realistic compromise that went a long way toward meeting everyone's objectives...

...Parizeau promises that should his Parti Quebecois return to power, a referendum on sovereignty will be held within a year...

...Opposition was especially strong in Alberta (60 per cent), Manitoba (62) and British Columbia (68...

...Since then, Ottawa has been trying to produce a package of amendments that would satisfy the Frenchspeaking province's steadily increasing appetite for greater autonomy and recognition as a "distinct society"—without arousing the ire of the other nine provinces...

...Nonetheless, in retrospect perhaps Mulroney was wrong not to realize that he risked stirring up a hornet's nest when he raised the constitutional issue during his first term...

...In any case, after the embarrassing rejection handed to most of the national and provincial political leaders, who had urged a Yes vote, there is no thought of resuming bargaining in the foreseeable future...

...Two years hence, however, it might have better luck, especially since the federalist forces' argument for keeping Canada united appears to have become more narrowly focused ("profitable federalism" is their new slogan) and could be undermined by a sour economy...

...True, that approach fell flat in 1980 when a proposal to enter "sovereignty-association" talks with Ottawa was turned down by the voters...

...As the deadline approached, the prospects for a Yes deteriorated steadily...

...Manning and other Western opponents of the accord decried its failure to achieve complete Senate reform, its excessive concessions to Quebec, and the ramifications of aboriginal self-government...

...Leaders of the other two national parties, reports say, are facing troubles of their own...

...Relatively few people were pleased enough to speak enthusiastically about the complex document, and in the end a majority found sufficient grounds to vote against it...

...Bearing in mind that Meech Lake had been criticized as an elite accommodation with little popular input, and that Quebec had scheduled a referendum on sovereignty for October 26, Ottawa and the provincial prime ministers decided to put the Charlottetown Accord to a national vote on that day...

...October 26 passed with little suspense...

...Quebecers considered English-speaking Canada's inability to approve the pact, though most of the necessary hurdles already had been cleared, a rejection of their culture and a humiliation reminiscent of countless slights over the past 240 years...

...Negotiations were brought to a successful, albeit shaky, conclusion in August...

...In Quebec itself, Bourassa and his Liberals had to carry the ball...

...Yes advocates in the West were slowed by the resignation in September of Alberta Prime Minister Don Getty, and by British Columbians' displeasure with Prime Minister Mike Harcourt's defense of the deal...

...Whatever, the 1992 referendum certainly did not turn out as Canada's political leadership expected...

...The intensity of the feelings surrounding these issues complicated the task immeasurably...

...IN THE WAKE OF CHARLOTTETOWN What Lies Ahead for Canada BY HAROLD M. WALLER Montreal Canadians find a certain poignant symbolism in an event that occurred just before the second game of the recent World Series...

...By contrast, opponents had the luxury of assailing the specifics (such as a perpetual guarantee that at least 25 per cent of the Commons seats would go to Quebec, where the population is declining faster than in the rest of Canada) to the audiences most likely to be rankled by them...

...Guiding the separatists in Quebec were Jacques Parizeau, head of the PQ, and Lucien Bouchard, leader of the Bloc Quebecois, a splinter group in the Federal House of Commons...

...That may be what the future generations of Canadians will remember most about October 1992...

...At the Federal level there will be an election within a year...

...A critic might contend that it should not have been held unless the outcome was assured...

...Consequently, in 1990-91 separatist sentiment—first fanned by the Parti Quebecois (PQ) in 1976 when it scored a provincial electoral victory—rose to unprecedented heights...

...In the process leading up to the Meech Lake failure, and in its aftermath, the stakes were raised substantially—irresponsibly, say some observers...

...When the Marine color guard marched the flags onto the field of Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium, where the city's own Braves were facing the Toronto Blue Jays, Canada's maple leaf was upside down...

...Although hardly soul-stirring, the accord did balance an array of conflicting, at times seemingly incompatible, interests...

...By 1992 the movement alternately referred to as separatist, sovereignist, or independentiste, depending on who is labeling it, had ebbed somewhat, leading politicians to believe a new round of constitutional bargaining was possible...

...Pessimists caution that if the next national Parliament in fact turns out to be too splintered to allow effective government, and the PQ scores a victory in Quebec, conditions for the most serious challenge yet to the existing federal order would be in place...

...Harold M. Waller, a frequent contributor to The New Leader, is Associate Dean of Arts at McGill University...

...The major opposition during the referendum campaign came from two sources: a curious amalgam of separatists and federalists compelled by Quebec law to work under one banner, and Preston Manning's Western-based Reform Party...

...In answering the unending criticisms of individual reforms, supporters of the accord could produce no coherent argument as to why, exactly, it should pass...

...The politicians have instead promised to attend to the lagging economy...

...Quebec was to get its distinct society clause, plus greater powers to preserve its francophone character...