The Patriation Minutes

By Howard A. Leeson and Howard Leeson

For three days in November of 1981 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the other First Ministers met in private in Ottawa to try and get a deal on a new constitution for Canada. No official minutes or recordings were made of their discussions. However, Dr. Howard Leeson, now a Professor of Political Science at the University of Regina, was then the Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs for Saskatchewan and sat in on the private meetings. He took extensive minutes of the actual discussions of the First Ministers and wrote comprehensive memos on other important meetings that happened away from the conference meetings themselves. Now for the first time these documents are being made public. Together they offer a rate insight into what really happened in these negotiation that produced a new constitution for Canada. In particular Dr. Leeson challenges the two orthodox views of patriation which ascribe much of the credit for the deal to Prime Minister Trudeau and the blame for the exclusion of Quebec on the provinces. Instead he argues that Trudeau actually had little influence at the end of the process and that the English-speaking Premiers were far more influential in the shape of the package than they have been given credit for. Book jacket.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0986936502
• ISBN13: 9780986936500
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: CCS
• Length: 109 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 8.9"