My Stories, My Times by Jean Chretien

Author:Jean Chretien [Chrétien, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2018-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

32

THE LONGEST SUMMER OF MY LIFE

Referendum night, May 1980: after attending a celebratory rally in Verdun, Aline and I returned late to the hotel, absolutely exhausted. The next day I got up, with great difficulty, to go to the office, and when I arrived I was immediately summoned by Prime Minister Trudeau. He thanked me for having led the defence of the Liberal cause with success, and took the opportunity to tell me that I had to leave that afternoon or the next day to make a start on a series of consultations with all the provincial premiers. Oh là là! This was no small task, when I’d just criss-crossed the province of Quebec, day after day, going from city to city, from village to village, over the forty days of the campaign.

Without any rest, I got on a plane to Toronto to meet Bill Davis, the premier, and some other ministers; the next day it was Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, and Victoria. The third day it was back east to Halifax, followed by Charlottetown, St. John’s, and Fredericton. My mission was to impress on the premiers the importance of fulfilling the prime minister’s promise to patriate the Constitution and draw up a Charter of Rights and Freedoms for every Canadian citizen. After the tour, I undertook a summer of consultations with the provincial departments of justice and/or intergovernmental affairs. From the very first meeting I saw that the task would be enormous.

Quebec’s delegation was made up of the ministers Claude Morin, Louise Beaudoin, and Claude Charron. Charron was young and very engaging. His style came right out of Montreal’s working class; he wasn’t the sort to be subtle about his intentions, and that put me at ease. During a break in our discussions, I mentioned that the polls showed our fellow Québécois in favour of the patriation of the Constitution and the inclusion of a Charter of Rights by a margin of 80 percent. I thought we could come to a fair agreement. Bluntly, he replied, “Listen, Jean, our primary goal is the separation of Quebec. We’ll play along with these consultations, but we can never sign a new constitution of Canada.” He couldn’t have been more clear. After talking with Trudeau, I continued the consultations, hoping that all the provinces would join with us and that we could persuade the Parti Québécois government to respect the popular will. I told Trudeau that it was a long shot but that we would be blamed if we didn’t try. This was the longest summer of my life.

In the month of August, when I was at Parliament Hill with my father, we ran into the prime minister at the entrance to the House of Commons. Although Papa had met Trudeau before, for the former paper mill worker to meet the head of government was always something special. But then Trudeau said, “M. Chrétien, if I did not have your son at my side, I don’t know what I’d do. He won the referendum for me, and now he’s going to solve my constitutional problems.

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