Word: meech
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...months June 23 had loomed as the date of Canada's constitutional Armageddon. If the ten provinces failed by that time to ratify the delicate agreement known as the Meech Lake accord, years of effort at balancing the aspirations of French- and English-speaking Canadians would automatically fall apart -- and so, in the most pessimistic prognosis, might the country...
...outcome was unmitigated disaster for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. He had stressed time and again that the Meech Lake effort would fail unless two balking provinces voted to ratify the accord. At the center of Mulroney's concern was the agreement's recognition that Quebec could preserve and promote a unique status as a "distinct society" within Canada, based on the fact that the province is the only one with a French-speaking majority. Many other Canadians, including former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, charged that the accord might fatally weaken the country...
There was rejoicing, however, among Canadians who objected to the accord's content. The Manitoba standoff was a victory for the legislature's only native member, Elijah Harper, 41, a Cree Indian. Harper had managed to stall debate on the Meech Lake question for almost two weeks. He wanted the accord to fail, on the ground that it did not recognize the unique status of Canada's 700,000 aboriginal people. Thousands of his supporters gathered before the legislature in solidarity, pounding drums and holding prayer vigils...
What next? The entire point of the Meech Lake accord was to bring Quebec into the reformed 1982 constitution the province had refused to sign. Another goal was to short-circuit Quebec's up-and-down aspirations to break away from confederation in favor of separate nationhood. To those ends, Mulroney and Bourassa had supported the "distinct society" clause as the means to preserve Quebec's French language and culture, a deep concern among the province's 6.5 million residents. Seven other provincial premiers agreed, with varying degrees of reluctance...
...arrangement, of course, would demand even more wearying constitutional debates. But if Manitoba and Newfoundland (which joined Canada only in 1949) fail to meet the Meech deadline, or reject the agreement, the issue to be debated may be Quebec's separation. Canada, which frets constantly about maintaining a separate identity from the U.S., could then lose the bilingual and bicultural character that is the country's greatest difference from its powerful neighbor...