Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More
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Okay, so given the restraints that you describe, let’s say this: it would seem to me most reasonable to have Mr. Marshall (given there is no cost) talk broadly about the principles of the Accord and to put it in some 1985 context; then the others, academics from all perspectives to present. I think this would be far more effective and realistic for those who will see/ hear the proceedings. It would give an air of balance and realism. Can one imagine that here is one of the authors right in your midst, a former learned judge, citizen, and public figure extraordinaire, and he is somehow viewed as ineligible from participating in what he helped create, a creation which has seen this land for the first time in its history become financially viable, one of only four “have” provinces in the Canadian Confederation? This is special and unique!
This becomes most bizarre when one looks at the facts. Take Mr. Marshall, for example. Here is a man who distinguished himself as a lawyer, then as a member of the legislature, and most particularly as minister of Energy, and then having an exemplary period on the highest court in the province, the Court of Appeal. He is known far and wide as highly intelligent, learned, and fair, with integrity to burn. If anyone takes the time to read any of his decisions, his fairness, integrity, and sense of justice overwhelms. His formal politics ceased when he became a judge. Please explain to me how the university’s policy of independence can deliberately exclude such a man who was a critical part of the Accord’s creation and final agreement from being asked to participate in a discussion/gathering on the 25th anniversary of the Accord? Remember, it was the province through Mr. Marshall at the table who insisted on principles approved by me and Cabinet that saw this Accord move forward and then accepted by Ottawa. And let’s not forget these principles had already been rejected by an earlier federal government.
It seems to me that the university cannot, on the one hand, espouse open and free expression and independence, if on the other hand it disallows some people who happened to be in politics twenty years ago and just happened to be the author of the subject of a public university–initiated discussion from being a part of that very discussion. I suspect if I was to pursue this through appropriate channels, a legitimate discrimination challenge could be launched.
To put it another way, the university is a public institution. It is to serve that public and provide information and analysis and a very wide, diverse perspective to that public. It prides itself on openness and free expression. It is contradictory to its mission to establish rules and policy for a public forum, which this 25th anniversary discussion espouses, in a manner which discriminates against certain people from being heard because of their political past (or is it something else of which I am unaware?) and who are very relevant to that discussion, especially given that these people were the authors of the subject being discussed and who no longer are formal participants in the political process and have not been for twenty years.
I am, of course, speaking here to the university and not to you as an individual, but obviously this episode has hit a very sensitive nerve.
Brian
If this is not one of the most amazing things you have ever heard, I don’t know what could be.
The university wanted to talk about the pros and cons after the Agreement had been in operation for twenty-five years, fine. But on the 25th anniversary of that which made us a “have” province?
Here is the only university in the province (public and all) to highlight arguably one of the most important economic, resource, and financial agreements ever signed in the history of Newfoundland (and from which they benefited handsomely and continue to benefit), and to do so without inviting those who were the negotiators, signatories, and architects of the agreement.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
IN A PROJECT OF this sort there are many people to thank. Two former members of the House of Assembly, Mr. Charlie Brett and Mr. Fred Stagg, as well as Mr. Ira Bridger, former president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Development Corporation, graciously agreed to provide written material that is used in this book. The Legislative Library in St. John’s was exemplary in its assistance to me, both in person and by email communication. Andy Fowler, the manager, and Andrea Hyde were both enthusiastic in assisting me on various research topics. Andrea was just superb at finding many items. David Vardy, former clerk of the Executive Council, was of great assistance in tracking down information concerning the Atlantic Accord and the Bowater divesture. Ron Penney, former deputy minister of Justice, also assisted on this and provided valuable advice. Hal Stanley and Herb Clarke, two highly competent clerks of the Executive Council during my time as premier, were also very helpful. Leslie Dean, former assistant deputy minister of the provincial Department of Fisheries, assisted me on Fisheries matters; Sandy Roche, former deputy minister of Development, assisted on linerboard mill matters; Peter Withers, former deputy minister of Municipal Affairs, assisted on the municipal issues. Des Sullivan, former executive assistant to me and to Frank Moores, has been very helpful in remembering various important incidents and in general advice to me. Frank Ryan, my leadership campaign manager and in all my provincial elections as premier, was always there for valuable information and insight. My elder bother, Bruce, was also of assistance when I went looking for various pieces of information. Shirley Miller of Cape Breton Island was very helpful on family tree matters. Dr. John E. Fitzgerald provided information and advice relating to the Confederation period. Bill Marshall, as the book clearly indicates, was of immeasurable help and support. And, most particularly, my wife, Carol, who had to put up with the books and papers loosely scattered about for a couple years, not to mention the many mood swings of an aging former first minister. I must make special mention of the public servants and their support personnel who served on the Atlantic Accord and Hibernia Project negotiating teams. The province can be very proud of this group of competent, dedicated Newfoundlanders. The teams’ names are listed in Appendix III.
Thanks also to Flanker Press and Garry Cranford for agreeing to edit and publish.
APPENDIX I: PATRIATION OF THE CONSTITUTION
A. INTRODUCTION
As mentioned in the main part of this book, the events of November 3–5, 1981, that led to the Patriation Agreement have become distorted and in many cases are inaccurate. In researching for this book, I was surprised at the extent of this misrepresentation. Of course, I should not have been so surprised since only days after the Agreement had been reached there were stories in the media that described events leading up to the Agreement that were at variance with what I had experienced at the conference. Disturbed by this, I called a local reporter, Randy Joyce, since deceased, the week of November 8 and taped an interview with him recalling the events of the previous week and how the Agreement came together. I kept the tape; its full contents have not been released. Unknown to me, my two deputy ministers (Cy Abery of Intergovernmental Affairs, since deceased, and Ron Penney, living in St. John’s), who were involved with me at the patriation meetings, were reading the same press reports and had decided that it would be important, for the record, to get together and write down what happened. This document is dated November 12, 1981. It has never been released publicly, until now. Importantly, the two deputy ministers also kept three very important documents of the patriation meetings, also being released now for the first time. The first is a brief proposal that I prepared on the afternoon of November 4 (which was meant to be presented to some of the provinces that day but the meeting never happened) in an attempt to seek common ground on the issues. The second document is the amended version of this proposal and enlarged by the Newfoundland delegation, which included Justice minister Gerald Ottenheimer, my two deputy ministers (mentioned above), and a special adviser, Cabot Martin. The third document is the Newfoundland amended proposal, which became the provincial proposal presented to full conference on November 5.
Here are the three most important misrepresentations.
1. The Agreement resulted from notes on scraps of paper dev
eloped by Attorneys General Jean Chrétien of the federal government, Roy Romanow of Saskatchewan, and Roy McMurtry of Ontario who had assembled in a kitchen of the Château Laurier Hotel in Ottawa.
The evidence points to the Agreement being developed at a suite in the Château Laurier Hotel from a written proposal presented by the Government of Newfoundland—first to British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, and later that evening to an enlarged meeting including Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Four premiers were present (Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), as well as a number of ministers and officials. Amendments were made to the Newfoundland proposal and late in the night/early the next morning, this amended proposal was retyped and became the provincial proposal. It was agreed that night that the premier of Newfoundland would present this amended proposal to the Gang of Eight provinces (all except Ontario and New Brunswick) at an already-scheduled breakfast meeting the next morning, and if agreed, to be presented to full conference later that morning. Seven provinces agreed to the proposal at breakfast, with no amendments, and agreed that the premier of Newfoundland should present it to full conference that morning. Quebec disagreed with the proposal. It was presented to full conference, as agreed, and after a number of amendments the Patriation Agreement was born.
2. The Patriation Agreement was rushed through at the last minute without proper consideration.
The evidence indicates that the Patriation Agreement was the culmination of seventeen months of formal deliberation by the eleven provincial governments of Canada. It began with an agenda of twelve items. It was sidelined when the federal government took a unilateral action to try to patriate the constitution with a charter of rights and freedoms without reference to the provinces. Several provinces challenged this federal action in the courts and the Supreme Court of Canada ruled this federal action unconstitutional. Further meetings were then held between the provincial governments and the federal government resulting in the Patriation Agreement.
3. The provinces were selfish and did not cooperate in this project.
The evidence suggests that the provinces were eager to forge a new agreement regarding patriation and a charter of rights and freedoms. There were obvious concerns regarding provincial jurisdiction and the charter and other matters, but the provinces presented four proposals: the April Accord proposal (1981), the proposal prepared by British Columbia (presented privately to the prime minister on November 3), a proposal by Saskatchewan to full conference on November 4, and finally the amended Newfoundland proposal (now a provincial proposal) of November 5, which led to the Agreement.
These inaccuracies show up in different forms in many publications and websites, including a book written soon after the Agreement was reached entitled The National Deal: The Fight for a Canadian Constitution by Robert Sheppard and Michael Valpy, and in the past year in a book written by Ron Graham entitled The Last Act: Pierre Trudeau, the Gang of Eight and the Fight for Canada. There were even fanciful theories circulating that Pierre Trudeau was the “behind the scenes puppeteer” manipulating all the proceedings, and another even more incredible suggestion that Jean Chrétien was the father of it all.
Chronologically, after I did my taped interview and filed the tape away, and the deputy ministers did their record of events and filed them away (including the proposal documents), the next significant event (at least from our viewpoint) was an article published in the National Post in 1999 entitled, “Night of the Long Knives: Who Dunnit?” by professors Barry Cooper and Ted Morton of the University of Calgary. Here, again, the now established misrepresentations of events were described for all to see. It even had Newfoundland being really “a messenger” in the patriation meetings and proceedings. And some unfortunate slights were directed at us. Obviously, my two deputy ministers and I were not amused when we read the article. Presented here are the responses sent to the professors by my deputy ministers. These are also being released publicly for the first time. Perhaps the most significant is Cy Abery’s letter, which deals with the misrepresentations in the article.
My first comment on all of this was to be in this book, but I was preempted by events of last year when the University of Alberta, through their law faculty, Constitutional Affairs division, held a conference on the patriation issue, it being the thirtieth anniversary of the event, and invited me to attend. Not wanting to pre-empt my book’s publication and the documents I was to release, I simply made a written summary of my taped interview of November, 1981, and hence highlighted my disagreement with the accepted version of events. That same weekend two books were released: one, already referenced, was Mr. Ron Graham’s book (an article promoting it was carried in the Globe and Mail) and the other was the book The Patriation Minutes by Howard Leeson, former Saskatchewan deputy minister, and involved the night of November 4, 1981. His book goes some way to correct the record. This conference was followed by another one on the subject of patriation hosted by the University of Quebec at Montreal, at which time I made a more detailed written presentation. Both the summary of the taped interview and the Montreal presentation are provided here.
I am also releasing for the first time an exchange of letters between myself and Judge Binnie, then a member of the Supreme Court of Canada. This is important because it highlights most clearly the extent of the misunderstanding that existed as it relates to Newfoundland’s constitutional position and, therefore, how easily things could get garbled on the patriation issue and hence gain such public credibility.
What is very perplexing, however, is that on the day of the actual patriation event, Prime Minister Trudeau (well-known to be at variance with many of my views on other matters), in a public comment recognized the role Newfoundland played in the proceedings. Yet a different version took root and the prime minister’s comments were ignored.
Then there is the book written by David G. Wood and published by Key Porter Books in 1985 entitled The Lougheed Legacy in which, on page 229, Mr. Lougheed is quoted as saying:
At the end of the meeting, the Premier of Newfoundland stated he had a proposal, different from Trudeau’s, which he wished to present. Since it was already late in the day he decided not to present it to the conference at that time but defer it until the following day . . . hence, Mr. Peter Meekison, the Alberta Deputy Minister of Federal and Intergovernmental Affairs, was sent to the Château Laurier Hotel to work with Newfoundland on Premier Peckford’s proposal . . .
This book was followed in 1999 by another publication, Constitutional Patriation: The Lougheed-Lévesque Correspondence, with an introduction by Peter Meekison and published by the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen’s University, and the Canada West Foundation. In the introduction Mr. Meekison says, “The fact that a draft compromise proposal emerged should not have come as any surprise to anyone given the various comments during the day, particularly after Premier Peckford had indicated his intention to put forward a proposal” (p. 9).
Also in this publication is Mr. Lougheed’s letter to Mr. Lévesque dated March 8, 1981, which includes numerous references to the Newfoundland proposal, including the one referenced above in the book The Lougheed Legacy. Let me quote another from that letter. This is point number 27 on page 26 where Lougheed is addressing Lévesque and now referencing the November 5 breakfast meeting: “When you arrived at the meeting you were given a copy of the Newfoundland proposal and you had an opportunity to discuss it before the Group of Eight adjourned.”
Further research that I have conducted has uncovered the correspondence of Mr. Mel Smith, deputy minister of Constitutional Affairs for the province of British Columbia and a key player at the patriation meetings. Mr. Smith was involved with Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, and has left his correspondence at the archives of that institution’s library. I have found a letter/memo dated November 10, 1981, that Mr. Smith wrote to his minister summarizing the events of the patriation the week before. On page 5 of that memo, Mr. Smith says the
following:
Mr. Gardom instructed me to attend a working session of officials in Premier Blakeney’s suite in the Château (Rm. 481) at 9: 30 p.m. on Wednesday evening. I did so. At the beginning present were Messers. Cy Abery of Newfoundland, Peter Meekison of Alberta, Howard Leeson of Saskatchewan, and myself. Our work centred around a three-page document entitled “Constitutional Proposals submitted by the Government of Newfoundland, at the First Ministers Conference, Ottawa, November 3–5, 1981.” This was obviously the document to which Peckford had made reference near the conclusion of the Wednesday meeting. [emphasis added]
B. INTERVIEW
The following is a summary of a taped interview I did (the whole interview is twenty-four pages) with the late Randy Joyce of the St. John’s Daily News, conducted on November 8, 1981, at the premier’s office, St. John’s, Newfoundland.
THE PATRIATION PROCESS AND FINAL AGREEMENT OF NOVEMBER 3–5, 1981
When the conference got started, the eight provinces’ position was that of the Accord of earlier that year (April), to which they had agreed. The prime minister’s position, and thus that of the federal government, was the Federal Resolution before the House of Commons. As the conference proceeded, the prime minister seemed to show flexibility on the Amending Formula and the provinces showed some flexibility on the introduction of a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
On November 3, the eight provinces assembled and assisted British Columbia in a proposal that they were crafting. It included the Accord plus a small charter involving democratic rights and fundamental freedoms. That afternoon, there being no closed meeting with the prime minister, we let it be known that we wanted a meeting with him to present a proposal. Premier Davis was contacted and asked whether he would support such a proposal. He said he would study it and indicated that he was willing to act as an intermediary with the prime minister. We had already appointed Premiers Buchanan, Lougheed, and Bennett to represent us but agreed that Davis could be part of the delegation. The meeting was held with the prime minister, but he rejected the proposal.