Reputedly Unamendable Yet Frequently Amended
The Constitution of Canada has gained a reputation for having become unamendable and ossified since 1992 when Canadians rejected the proposed Charlottetown Accord in a country-wide referendum and brought the era mega-constitutional amendment to a grinding halt. This question consumed Canada from the early 1970s to the early 1990s and scared the generations that went through this trauma. They have ever since resigned themselves to accepting this constitutional paralysis and dare not break this uneasy truce. They often speak of amending the constitution as “Opening the Constitution” with audible capital letters yet in hushed tones, with the obvious allusion to opening Pandora’s Box and unleashing havoc hanging over any such reluctant conversation like the Sword of Damocles. This has become of the most toxic and bizarre taboo of Canadian political culture over the last thirty years, not least because it presents a false narrative which…
View original post 2,057 more words

Recent Comments