Since 1867 the BNA Act was amended as statutes were added and deleted or rephrased.

Canada was becoming more independent from Britain with each change.

The Statute of Westminster in 1931 was a major constitutional change as it provided dominions of Britain with the ability to make their own laws independently of England.

Canada would not enjoy total independence from Britain as long as the BNA act remained there.

Britain had no problem letting the constitution go home to Canada; however, the federal and provincial governments could not agree on procedures to amend the constitution.

Trudeau was getting so frustrated with the premiers after numerous negotiation attempts that he threatened to patriate the constitution without their approval.

Trudeau asked The Supreme Court of Canada whether he could do this and was told in a 7-2 majority that technically no legal limit existed to the power of the house of commons and the senate to pass resolutions. Thus, the federal government had the legal authority to patriate the constitution. However, the courts warned Trudeau that the unwritten principle was that a substantial level of consent from the provinces should be garnered according to constitutional conventions.

In November of 1981 Trudeau met with the first ministers (the premiers) for one last attempt to come together on an agreement of patriation and constitutional reform. It occurred in Ottawa over four days of heated debates and bargaining. Quebec was consistently seeking more economic and cultural powers.

On The 3rd evening of the conference (November 4, 1981) The first ministers came to an agreement in the middle of the night but Rene Levesque (Quebec’s Premier) was left out of the meeting. A compromise on constitutional reform was reached. When Levesque was presented with the deal in the morning he was very angry and refused to sign. To this date Quebec has not signed into the new constitution even though it is bound by it.

As a point of protest, until the Quebec liberals came to power in 1985, every law passed in Quebec utilized the Notwithstanding Clause.

Queen Elizabeth II signs the Constitution Act into law in Ottawa on April 17, 1982

The division of power between the federal and provincial governments remained the same as previously established under the BNA Act of 1867.

The new Constitution Act of 1982 added five new key elements.

Provinces with small populations such as Newfoundland and Labrador or PEI may not be able to collect sufficient provincial tax to provide services that are accessible elsewhere in the country.

The principle of equalization allows the richer provinces to assist those provinces without the resources to provide the same level of public service.

The Constitution Act, 1982 appears to clarify the degree to which provinces may take charge of their resources, providing them with the power to make laws dealing with the development, conservation and management of nonrenewable resources and forestry resources, and to regulate the rate of primary production from these resources.

However, the federal government has chief jurisdiction to regulate interprovincial and export trade in natural resources, and both levels of government are given full powers of taxation.

source:
Resource Rights - The Canadian Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/resource-rights/

Be prepared to discuss this topic in class.

If a constitutional amendment would only impact the federal government the amending formula is not needed.

Similarly, provinces that want constitutional change that only affects their province can do so with just the agreement of the province in question and the federal government.

The reason territories are not considered in this formula is they are considered under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Much more to come on this in the following unit.

The 1982 Constitution Act goes further than previous constitutional writings in providing additional guarantees for the rights of aboriginal peoples as referenced in Section 25 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Section 35 of the new constitution itself.

These concepts will be developed further in our unit on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The patriation of the Constitution in 1982 was done without Quebec's agreement.

Quebec, being the only province not to sign the new Constitution, was nevertheless still bound by it.

The federal elections brought Brian Mulroney's Conservative Party to power,. In an attempt to persuade Quebec to sign the Constitution, a new round of negotiations were held in 1987.

Quebec was willing to sign the Constitution as long as the changes it was proposing were accepted. Its proposals were separated into two parts. The first part involved including a statement in the Constitution that Quebec was a distinct society in Canada. This clause would acknowledge the government's obligation to protect Quebec's unique status. The second part dealt with various issues to increase provincial powers with regards to the federal government.
All the provincial Premiers agreed and signed the proposals, resulting in the Meech Lake Accord.

The Meech Lake Accord represented the first test of Canada’s new amending formula found in Section V of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Certain sections of the Accord fell under the “7/50 formula” – requiring the consent of Parliament and seven out of ten provincial legislatures (within a three-year-period), representing 50 percent of the population.

Other sections of the accord fell under areas requiring the unanimous agreement of Parliament and all ten provincial legislatures. with no designated time limit.

It was decided to apply the most stringent features of both amending formulas to the Meech Lake Accord.

In order to be enshrined in the Constitution, the Meech Lake Accord would need to be ratified by Parliament and all ten provincial legislatures within three years. 
 
Certain groups, including Canada's Aboriginal population, argued that they had not been included in the negotiations and demanded that the Accord be rejected.

Despite this, most of the provincial legislatures accepted the Accord, with only Newfoundland and Manitoba's approval remaining.

In Manitoba's case, unless it obtained the unanimous approval of all its Members of Parliament, public hearings would be required. On June 23, 1990, the deadline for signing the Accord, Elijah Harper, a Native Member of Parliament, refused to give his approval.

The Federal Government then offered to push back the deadline, but this would force Quebec to ratify the document once more and leave the door open for more potential changes.

This situation irritated Clyde Wells, the Premier of Newfoundland, and he refused to have his parliament vote on the Accord.

This signified the death of the Meech Lake Accord.

The Charlottetown Accord of 1992 was a 2nd failed, joint attempt by the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and all 10 provincial premiers to amend the Canadian Constitution, specifically to obtain Quebec's consent to the Constitution Act of 1982.

The Accord had the formal support of the federal government and all 10 provincial governments, meaning it could have been legally instituted as a constitutional amendment. However, the Mulroney government — still hurting from criticism that the previous Meech Lake Accord had been put together in the political backrooms, without public scrutiny — chose to submit the Charlottetown Accord to a national referendum.

The Charlottetown accord was spoken out against by former prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as he felt that the accord meant the end of Canada and was the disintegration of the federal government as it decentralized many federal powers to the provinces.

The accord was ultimately rejected by Canadian voters in a referendum on Oct 26, 1992.

Be prepared to discuss this in class.