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Can the Canadians Be a Sovereign People?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Peter H. Russell
Peter H. Russell
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

No country had been engaged in macro-constitutional politics so intensively for so long as Canada. Macro-constitutional politics, unlike ordinary constitutional politics are about the very nature of the political community on which the constitution is to be based. When constitutional politics is at the macro level, the constitutional question tends to dwarf all other issues. Except for a few short intervals Canada has been engaged in constitutional politics since the mid-1960s. Through this experience and most recently. Canadians have adopted a new constitutionalism requiring popular participation in constitution-making. Thus, as Canadians enter the fifth, and what they hope will be, the final round of macro-constitutional politics, they will find out whether they share enough in common to constitute themselves a single sovereign people.

Résumé

Aucun pays ne s'est engagé dans un débat macro-constitutionnel aussi intensivement et depuis aussi longtemps que le Canada. Le débat macro-constitutionnel se différencíe des débats constitutionnels ordínaíres en ce qu'il concerne la nature profonde de la communauté politique sur laquelle la constitution est fondée. Quand le débat constitutionnel se maintient au seuil macro, il tend a à supplanter tous les autres enjeux. Le Canada poursuit son d´bat constitutionnel depuis le milieu des années soixante à l'exception de courts intervalles. Récemment, forts de cette expérience, les Canadiens ont adopté un nouveau constitutionnalisme requérant la participation populaire au processus de réforme constitutionnelle. Ainsi, alors que les Canadiens entrent dans la cinquième et—ils l'espèrent—dernière ronde macro-constitutionnelle, ils découvriront s'ils ont assez en commun pour constituer un seul peuple souverain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1991 , pp. 691 - 709
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1991

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