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| supreme court of canada cases | |
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| 1998 in law | |
| 1998 in canada | |
Both the Quebec government and the Canadian government stated that they were most pleased with the Supreme Court's opinion, pointing to different sections of the ruling. As expected by many jurists familiar with the subject, the Supreme Court answered "No" to the first two questions. BACKGROUND Following the election of a majority of Parti Québécois (PQ) MNAs with 41.37% of the popular vote in the 1976 Provincial Election , the party formed a government and, in 1980, held a Referendum . The government of Quebec asked the province's population if it should seek a mandate to negotiate sovereignty for Quebec coupled with the establishment of a new political and economic union with Canada. The referendum resulted in the defeat of the sovereignty option by a margin of 60% to 40%. The PQ was nevertheless re-elected in 1981, this time promising not to hold a referendum. In 1982, the federal government, with the concurrence of all provinces except Quebec , petitioned the Imperial Parliament in London to amend Canada's constitution so that in the future, all further amendments would take place by means of a process of consent involving only the Parliament of Canada and the legislatures of the provinces. Up until this point, all amendments had taken place by means of Acts of the Parliament At Westminster , since the Canadian constitution was, strictly speaking a simple statute of that Parliament. Colloquially, the switch to a domestic amendment procedure was known as "repatriation". The particular formula for amendments that was adopted in 1982 was opposed by the then-government of Quebec, which also opposed the adoption of other constitutional changes made at the same time, such as the Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms --although this opposition was not necessarily based on a rejection of the content of these changes, as opposed to the manner of their adoption, and the failure to include amendments specific to Quebec in the package. Also, Quebec had already at that time a more complete Charter that was adopted in 1975. Two further attempts were made at amending the Canadian constitution in 1987-1990 and 1992 in a manner that, it was hoped, would have caused the Quebec legislature to adopt a motion supporting the revised constitution. These failed packages of constitutional reforms were known as the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord . Thus, in the mid-1990s, there was a widespread sense that the Constitution of Canada was not fully legitimate, because it had not yet received the formal approval of Canada's second-most-populous province. |
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