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> I couldn't really imagine one of the 13 colonies not signing the declaration or constitution. Canada never declared independence from the UK. That's probabl

by retrac 5y ago

> I couldn't really imagine one of the 13 colonies not signing the declaration or constitution. Canada never declared independence from the UK. That's probably the difference in thinking. The constitution was not revolutionary. It was a reorganization, and that reorganization was carried out according to UK law (which was equivalent to Canadian law as a UK colony) at the time. The law did not require the consent of the provinces to amend the constitution at that time. In fact, the law allowed the UK parliament to simply rewrite Canada's constitution unilaterally. So they did, upon the request of the Canadian federal government after years of consultations in Canada to propose the amendments the UK rubber-stamped, when they renounced all further claim to that in 1982. If you want an analogy, some US states rejected the prohibition amendment, but they were bound by it anyway. Established constitutional law allowed it to be imposed on those states.

908B64B197 5y ago
> If you want an analogy, some US states rejected the prohibition amendment, but they were bound by it anyway. Established constitutional law allowed it to be imposed on those states. Except it was a constitutional amendment. And the process to create such an amendment is described... in the Constitution itself, which, naturally, every state signed.
- retrac 5y ago
  Yes. Exactly the same was true in 1982 in Canada. The UK Parliament commissioned a board in 1867 of elected representatives from the regions of what now compromise eastern and central Canada. They drafted a constitution. Quebec was involved and signed off on the Constitution Act 1867. That constitution was passed into law by the UK Parliament. Per the established constitutional law operating in Canada in the 1980s, following the convention of the previous centuries, the government petitioned the UK government to amend the constitution yet again, this time moving the process of amendment to the Canadian legislatures and fully severing the connection. Constitutional rule in Canada begins when the British first appear and have jurisdiction, as far back as the 1600s in the eastern parts of the country. It was never interrupted. The Crown has always reigned. 18th century treaties and proclamations in UK law are an inherited part of our unwritten constitutional body. It was simply a different historical course from the USA, but not fundamentally less democratic. IMO. (Although I risk sounding like a mad Canadian nationalist at this point, I would note that under the modern constitutional system, Quebec could just exit the confederation. That is not a right of American states.)

by retrac 5y ago

908B64B197 5y ago

> If you want an analogy, some US states rejected the prohibition amendment, but they were bound by it anyway. Established constitutional law allowed it to be imposed on those states. Except it was a constitutional amendment. And the process to create such an amendment is described... in the Constitution itself, which, naturally, every state signed.

retrac 5y ago
Yes. Exactly the same was true in 1982 in Canada. The UK Parliament commissioned a board in 1867 of elected representatives from the regions of what now compromise eastern and central Canada. They drafted a constitution. Quebec was involved and signed off on the Constitution Act 1867. That constitution was passed into law by the UK Parliament. Per the established constitutional law operating in Canada in the 1980s, following the convention of the previous centuries, the government petitioned the UK government to amend the constitution yet again, this time moving the process of amendment to the Canadian legislatures and fully severing the connection. Constitutional rule in Canada begins when the British first appear and have jurisdiction, as far back as the 1600s in the eastern parts of the country. It was never interrupted. The Crown has always reigned. 18th century treaties and proclamations in UK law are an inherited part of our unwritten constitutional body. It was simply a different historical course from the USA, but not fundamentally less democratic. IMO. (Although I risk sounding like a mad Canadian nationalist at this point, I would note that under the modern constitutional system, Quebec could just exit the confederation. That is not a right of American states.)