Talk:Meech Lake Accord

Terminologies, Revisionary History, and the Arts of Untruth
Errr.onsaaaaaaaaaaa  There's a lot of mainstream-media type information engineering in this article; not surprising since so many of the "primary sources" are media, and the media are in the business of writing our history for us whether we like it or not. The media manipulations of the Meech and Charlottetown Accords stink to high heaven for most people who can see through them; so I've noticed some here and wonder where there's not an NPOV tag on this page (or on Charlottetown Accord). My change to the Manitoba section points to the problem - it's too easy to make pat, short accounts which "sum things up" - incorrectly, and/or pandering to the many myths surrounding the Accord. The old language of the text here made it sound that Elijah Harper voted "no" to the Accord; what he did was refuse - by abstaining on a motion requiring anonymity (IIRC on tabling the Accord in the House); and he did not "feel" it did not involve natives or address native constitutional needs - he KNEW it did not. The next paragraph after that one continues the centralist-revisionist agenda:


 * Even though a legal route was found to give Manitoba more time,(The deadline would be extended 3 months, with Quebec being able to re-approve the Accord) Wells and Opposition leader Thomas Rideout agreed to cancel the planned free vote in the Newfoundland House of Assembly. The Accord was officially dead.

Um, no. Newfoundland cancelled its free vote - which was very likely going to go to resounding defeat anyway - because the "failure" of Manitoba meant that the Accord was dead in the water anyway, as unanimity was required between all provinces, by whatever mandate obtained in each jurisdiction. And E. Harper had made it clear his abstention-cum-opposition would continue and, since Quebec and Mulroney were refusing to entertain amendments or changes to the Accord/process, there was no reason for Manitoba to reschedule the vote. From the outside looking in (i.e. not using Canadian political newspeak) it was not the intransigence of Wells or Harper that blew a constitutional deal out of the water; it was Quebec's intransigence in not allowing an Accord to be brought forward that other groups/constituencies with constitutional aims would be able to vote for, instead of have to grudgingly accept before anything else could get done. Charlottetown was supposed to accomplish that, by combining native and other agendas with Meech-like constitutional finagling (largely centralizing power into the First Ministers' offices and creating legitimacy for their annual meetings as if they had constitutional meaning, which they don't); and when THAT was voted out the media/pols originally admitted it was because the public didn't like having something shoved down their throat - being told they were supposed to vote for the Accord, or they wouldn't be good little Canadians - and spent a few weeks looking stunned at how they realized the public had dared to stand up to them. They've got us all under control again now, though; Charlottetown they now paint as something where people voted "against the Indians" and "rejected Quebec", even though it was the politicians and their media claque that people were rejecting; in the aftermath of that all the Meech-style provisions have been implemented, even though that's what people were actually voting against, and the native and other provisions have still not yet, since the media have joined the pols' interpretation that "we" voted against those measures, and (as brought up again and again by po-mo's and Quebec nationalists) this proves "English Canada" (a myth) hates "Quebec" (which is not synonymous with French Canada but likes to see itself that way).

Soft-soaping public history is one of Canada's greatest failings; rewriting critical periods - or rather, massaging them so they seem innocuous or "well, thank goodness we're all over that and behaving ourselves like good little Canadians again". The Charlottetown Accord article is full of all kinds of neo-revisionist bunk, and I dread to read Oka Crisis, Gustafsen Lake or Yellowknife mine strike (or would that be Yellowknife mine explosion?); or older matters such as the Regina Riots and the Winnipeg General Strike. The Solidarity Crisis is missing altogether. But boy, we sure do like to make lists of all the famous people who've moved to the United States, don't we?

I'll be back to have another crack at this, and also over in Charlottetown; when I can stomach it. What's most discouraging here is knowing that people raised by the media and the official curriculum believe their version of events/meanings; and the media monopoly has the advantage of being able to invent history to suit its biases, wrapping itself in freedom of speech to justify its sordid twistings of untruth and deception and concealment.

I don't particularly like having the Mountie's logo on the CanLaw stub, either; better a graphic of the Supreme Court in Ottawa, or the Peace Tower; the Mountie logo is too political/propagandistic and their own public history is another good example of the variance from real history practiced by Canadian institutions.Skookum1 17:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's a fact - the english side of Canada would NEVER agree to give Quebec more. For many anglo-canadians, what 'they' have is already too much.

Anti-quebecker feelings still exist, and it's a truth.

This article is pretty much unsalvageable. It is riddled with POV and opinions passed off as facts (e.g. all the "many Canadians" sort of crap in the "opposition" section). It reads like it was written either by an irate Trudeauvian or an angry Western Canadian. The real facts include unpalatable truths such as that most Canadians, québecois/es or ROC, didn't know what the hell the Accord actually said and lined up according to their respective prejudices. I'd argue that a complete re-write is in order. Iamuurme 18:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

ambiguous "They"
If it is decided not to entirely rewrite this article -- the second sentence of the last paragraph of "Opposition" begins with "they" and it's not clear who it refers to. Pronouns should always be "re-specified" in a new paragraph, right? 99.233.150.16 12:55, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Senate apportionment
"If a unanimous agreement was not made, the Senate would convert to Quebec having 24 seats, Ontario having 18, Prince Edward Island with 4, and all other provinces with 8 seats. " This default apportionment is not mentioned in the text of the accord. What's the source for it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bancki (talk • contribs) 08:14, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Large Edit
I've made a large edit and added some sources. The article that was here was complete garbage considering the importance of the subject.

What I think should be done:

-A fuller explanation of philosophical differences that gave rise to opposition (maybe even a "support/opposition" summary near the top?);

-Collection of the anti-Quebec incidents that fired up linguistic tensions;

-Deeper view of Aboriginal/Feminist perspectives.

If anyone would like to collaborate, I'd really appreciate a message. :-)

Knoper (talk) 22:00, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

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External links modified (January 2018)
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