Word: newfoundlanders
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...weeks ago, Mulroney thought he had secured an agreement on the pact after a 70-hour marathon of closed-door bargaining with provincial premiers in Ottawa. Last week he saw that deal fall apart when the legislatures of Manitoba and Newfoundland adjourned without taking ratification votes. "Today is not the day to launch new constitutional initiatives," a somber Mulroney said afterward. "It is a time to heal wounds and reach out to fellow Canadians...
Canada's long-running confederation soap opera headed for a cliff-hanger finale last week. In the hardscrabble Atlantic province of Newfoundland, 52 provincial legislators hurriedly canvassed their constituents on whether to accept a constitutional agreement hashed out by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the country's ten provincial premiers a week earlier. In the prairie province of Manitoba, Elijah Harper, a Cree Indian and member of the legislative assembly, repeatedly blocked debate on the same ratification issue. The clock was ticking: if either legislature fails to approve the agreement by June 23, a delicate compromise over Quebec's place...
...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...
...rights, but the then separatist government of Quebec refused to endorse the new document. The Meech Lake accord, based on proposals put forward by Quebec's Premier Robert Bourassa, was designed to overcome the province's opposition. Since then, however, newly elected governments in Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland have refused to ratify it. The holdouts argue that the accord grants Quebec special legislative powers over language and culture that other provinces do not have, and could endanger the civil rights of non-French minorities in Quebec...