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The most nettlesome amendment that Trudeau has in mind for the constitution is a U.S.-style "Charter of Rights" that would take precedence over any bills of rights enacted by the individual provinces. Among other freedoms, the charter would guarantee minority-language education. In Canada, education is almost entirely a provincial responsibility. The significance of Trudeau's charter is that it would guarantee French-speaking children the right to be educated in their own language in any province where "numbers warrant," a determination that would be made by the courts. Trudeau regards this language-rights provision as a way of fulfilling his promise of change to Quebeckers who voted non to separatism in last May's provincial referendum.
Trudeau has considerable popular support for his plans to bring home the constitution, thanks in part to a $6 million national advertising campaign in the early fall. But so far, only the premiers of Ontario and New Brunswick have promised their backing. Other premiers, including Alberta's Lougheed, are planning court challenges of the Trudeau patriation bill, arguing that it illegally infringes on provincial rights. Quebec Premier René Lévesque is bitterly opposed to the language-rights provision of the charter because it might restrict his province's legislative powers over education. In his view, Trudeau is "erecting a monument to himself on the tombs of our aspirations and rights."
Lévesque is at least partly right. Bringing the constitution home would be a fitting capstone to Trudeau's long and tempestuous political career, almost twelve years of which he has spent as Prime Minister. As much a philosopher as a statesman, Trudeau sometimes sees himself as the only man who can hold his linguistically divided nation together. Defending both his budgetary and constitutional proposals, he told a rally in Saskatchewan last week: "Let us put reason before passion. Let's talk a little bit more with our intelligence. Then our gut feeling will be more for Canada than for any particular province or division of this country."