The book undertakes the task of applying the idea of constitutional abeyances to Canada's constitutional experience. Abeyances are areas of constitutional unsettlement, detectable by the paradoxical efforts to preserve them relatively undisturbed. Dr. Thomas argues that the term should beadded to our constitutional lexicon, for abeyances are qualitatively different from such ideas as constitutional conventions, myths or fictions. This book examines the constitutional arrangements put in place in 1867, and the mechanisms which enabled us to preserve and accept a lack of constitutional clarity and coherence. What we were able to maintain was a state of "settled unsettlement". The country then entered a period of "unsettledsettlement" that was driven largely by Quebec nationalism. These abeyances became the very essence of a new crisis precipitated by the Meech Lake Accord. It is contended that the Accord itself can be seen as a sophisticated attempt to return certain matters to a state of acceptable imprecision. The overall tone and style of Trudeau's interventions, firstover Meech, then over the Charlottetown Accord, are contrasted with the kind of constitutional wisdom to be found in the work of Edmund Burke, and with the temperament necessary to sustain acceptable unsettlement. The book's final chapter will address what we can do with our abeyances now. It is argued by Dr. Thomas that we can make far-reaching changes whilst, at the same time, maintaining and revitalizing the wider Canada federal system of which Quebec may yet remain a part. Like the Scots, Quebecnationalists may be willing to settle for a certain level of dependency as long as their civil society can flourish.

David M. Thomas is the retired Vice-President Academic of Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, BC. Educated in the United Kingdom, France, and Canada, he has held a number of senior academic administrative appointments in addition to teaching. He has a PhD in political science from the University of Calgary; is author of Whistling Past the Graveyard: Constitutional Abeyances, Quebec, and the Future of Canada; was a co-editor of Braving the New World: Readings in Contemporary Politics; and is the editor of the first two editions of Canada and the United States: Differences that Count.

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