Meech Lake : : The Inside Story / / Patrick J. Monahan.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Monahan, Patrick J.,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1991
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (368 p.)

From behind the close doors of Meech Lake comes this insider's account of the negotiations that put Canada's future on the line. Patrick J. Monahan was there throughout the negotiations that began in the fall of 1986 and culminated in the week-long meeting of First Ministers in June 1990, after which the accord failed to be ratified. He tells a compelling story of deals and dealmakers, compromise and confrontation. Many in English Canada believe that at Meech Lake the federal government sold out to the provinces, especially to Quebec, and that by conducting negotiations behind closed doors the government acted illegitimately. Not so, says Monahan. Far from being a sell-out, Meech represented a reasonable compromise between competing positions. Going back to the initial position put forward by the Bourassa government in 1986 he shows how that position was modified in the course of the negotiations. And closed doors, he argues, were essential in ensuring effective bargaining. There could have been no agreement without them. Now, in the middle of 1991, Canada is once again negotiating its future existence. There are vital lessons to be learned from the Meech Lake round; Monahan articulates some of those lessons, and indicates how they ought to figure in the current process. Canadians, he argues, ignore them at their country's peril.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface -- 1. 23 June 1990: A Day of Reckoning? -- 2. The Inheritance of 1982 -- 3. The Genie Is Let Out of the Bottle -- 4. The Making of the Meech Lake Accord -- 5. A Marathon at Langevin -- 6. Unravelling a Seamless Web -- 7. Canada on a Collision Course -- 8. This Dinner Has Seven Days -- 9. Why Did Meech Lake Fail? -- 10. The Way Ahead -- APPENDIX 1. Constitutional Chronology 1985-90 -- APPENDIX 2. The Meech Lake Communique, 30 April 1987 -- APPENDIX 3. The 1987 Constitutional Accord -- APPENDIX 4. 1990 Constitutional Agreement -- A Note on Sources -- Notes -- Index