Negotiations
The Charter failed when the premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, stalled and rejected it. In his Memoirs, Trudeau recalled Bourassa had slowed down negotiations after all provinces had accepted the Charter. Bourassa did this by coming up with a new proposal that would give provinces supremacy over social policy, and the federal government would provide the money for such policy. Trudeau replied he could never agree to this proposal, and Bourassa retracted his approval of the Charter. Bourassa's explanation for not accepting the Charter immediately was that he would have to ask his cabinet and he was worried Quebec nationalists and students would rally against the Charter. Eventually such protests did occur.
Read more about this topic: Victoria Charter
Famous quotes containing the word negotiations:
“But always and sometimes questioning the old modes
And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,
Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual
Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,
Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)