Canadian Leaders OK Pact Aimed at Satisfying Quebec

Canada’s political leaders said Saturday that they have arrived at a sweeping package of constitutional amendments designed to keep this country united.

If the deal takes hold--and it could take months to find out whether it will--then the politicians will have resolved years of uncertainty about whether Canada’s far-flung and diverse regions can muster the will to stay together as a nation.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said the package amounts to the most extensive political reform in the history of the Canadian confederation. It includes giving French-speaking Quebec the authority it seeks to protect its distinctive language and culture; granting self-government to native peoples; overhauling Canada’s discredited Senate, and redistributing power between the federal and provincial governments.

Mulroney said the agreement marked “the unanimous conclusion of the Canada round of constitutional reforms.”

And Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa, a key figure in the talks, said, “Canada is on its way to stability after two years of uncertainty.”

If the package of amendments is ratified, Canada will replace its present Senate, in which the more populous provinces have more seats, with one in which every province has an equal number of seats.

Since Quebec and Ontario would have to give up Senate seats, they will get new seats in the House of Commons. Quebec will be permanently guaranteed 25% of the House seats, since it now has 25% of the Canadian population.

In addition, if the package becomes law, the federal government will cede its authority over mining, forestry, tourism, housing, recreation and urban affairs to the provinces. Quebec has been demanding more such governing powers for years.

Saturday’s deal came after five days of marathon, closed-door negotiations between federal officials, provincial premiers and representatives of Canada’s Indians and Inuit, as the Eskimos prefer to be called.

The five days of bargaining topped off months of discussions among politicians and others about how best to reconcile the sharply divergent interests of Canada’s 10 provinces, its two main linguistic groups and its marginalized Indians and Inuit.

Repeatedly during those months, the negotiators had announced that they had the makings of an agreement, only to reverse themselves days later when it became clear that their home-province constituents didn’t like the compromises they were making.

And even as the top politicians sang the new agreement’s praises in a news conference Saturday night, some of them also worked to distance themselves from it.

“The compromises that we’ve made, they’re not necessarily the way that any of us would have wanted,” said Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells, adding that he had accepted the deal anyway in what he believed were the country’s best interests.

Newfoundland has a longstanding grudge against Quebec, stemming from a dispute over a hydroelectric power contract in which Quebec has profited handsomely at Newfoundland’s expense. Wells helped torpedo a previous attempt at reconciling Quebec with English-speaking Canada, and Newfoundlanders hailed him as a national hero for doing it.

Mulroney himself said the new constitutional package was not exactly what he had hoped it would be. “We do not have perfection,” he said. “We do have an honorable compromise.” In a reference to Quebec’s sovereigntists, and to westerners who oppose any concessions to Quebec, Mulroney warned that the “enemies of Canada” would still try to block the deal and tear the country apart.

All the political leaders are to meet again next week to prepare the final language of the amendments. After that, the amendments must be ratified by the provincial legislatures, and voted on by the federal Parliament.

There will be many obstacles on the road to ratification. Mulroney has said that he may put the package of amendments to a national referendum in the fall; it is not clear whether the Canadian public would vote in favor of such an accord. (Polls suggest that millions of Canadians do not understand the constitutional discussions at all, and wish their political leaders were focusing on the economy instead.)

Further, the premiers of Alberta and British Columbia say they may hold province-wide referendums of their own on constitutional change.

Albertans, like the people of Newfoundland, tend to think Quebec gets many unfair advantages, and to oppose any arrangement that they believe gives the French-speaking province additional powers. If Alberta does hold a referendum, the people there would probably vote against the pledge to give Quebec 25% of the House of Commons seats forever.

Meanwhile, Assembly of First Nations Chief Ovide Mercredi has said that while he is pleased with the package, he wants to give Indians a chance to evaluate it themselves, in an undetermined forum.

The driving force behind the just-completed round of constitutional talks was the hope that a deal would keep the province of Quebec from holding a referendum this October on sovereignty. Quebec has said it would hold such a vote unless the nine English-speaking provinces pledged to make significant political reforms.

Now, with an offer from English-speaking Canada on the table, reporters asked Bourassa whether the package was enough to make him cancel the referendum. But the famously noncommittal Bourassa declined to give a direct answer. He said that he is obliged by law to hold the referendum, but that the law could be amended, and that he needed to meet with his Cabinet and his Liberal Party colleagues before deciding what to do.

“We’ll have to see what the policy is at the time, and we’ll advise you accordingly,” he said.

Main Points of Canada Accord

Here are highlights of the constitutional agreement reached in Canada on Saturday:

* Quebec is guaranteed 25% of House of Commons seats.

* New Senate with six members from each province, one from each territory. Senate also gets new powers to deal with taxation and some cultural and language issues. But no deal on how senators elected or appointed.

* Right to self-government by Indians and Eskimos is recognized.