Kitchen Meeting
The Kitchen Meeting[1] is a term that refers to the night of November 4, 1981, when the constitutional act of 1982 had been accepted by the prime minister of Canada Pierre Elliot Trudeau, as well as 9 of the 10 premiers of the provinces, without knowledge of the premier of Quebec René Lévesque, who was sleeping at Hull.[2]
In Quebec, this event is called the Nuit des Longs Couteaux, or "Night of the Long Knives".
Origin of the French expression
The sentence "Nuit des Longs Couteaux", translates to "Night of the Long Knives". It refers to an event that occurred in 1934 in Nazi Germany, during which political individuals who threatened Adolf Hitler's political status were eliminated. The observers of the Canadian constitution negotiations of 1981 coined this expression the day after the deal, which was concluded during the night by the federal government and nine of the ten province governments and without the participation of the Quebec government.
The constitutional problem
In 1981, Canada was still retaining certain links with the United Kingdom: the British North America Acts, in application since July 1, 1867 were still just a law in the London parliament. Pierre Elliott Trudeau wished to end this tutelage by repatriating the Canadian constitution of the United Kingdom. This repatriation was the subject of an important dispute between the provincial premiers and Trudeau.
A group called the "Gang of Eight", composed of all the province prime ministers except Bill Davis (Ontario) and Richard Hatfield (New-Brunswick), submitted a plan of constitution without a charter (for the rights of individuals), and with a veto right on amendments to the constitution. Trudeau threatened to directly deal with the United Kingdom parliament to bypass the Canadian judicial system.
The group immediately contacted the Supreme Court of Canada which concluded that the federal government was legally authorized to proceed with a unilateral repatriation of the constitution, but that it should preferably try to get the approval of a "substantial" amount of provinces. This number was voluntarily undefined, but Trudeau arbitrarily defined it between five and nine, which led to a meeting between Trudeau and all the provincial prime ministers at Ottawa, on November 1981.
The negotiations
After two days of discussions, Trudeau proposed to repatriate the constitution according to his original proposal, but that it could be modified depending on the results of a national referendum for certain controversial points. René Levesque initially accepted this proposition but then expressed reservations. Strangely enough, the memories of Trudeau and Lévesque present conflicting versions of those events.
The other seven first ministers made two major findings:
- The Canadians were mostly in favor with the Canadian prime minister on this issue, including the Canadian West (a rare fact during Trudeau's reign);
- A referendum would give the Canadian prime minister everything he wanted, meaning this would diminish greatly the power of the provinces.
At the end of this period of negotiations, René Lévesque left to sleep at Hull, a city located on the other side of the Ottawa river, before leaving he asked the other prime ministers (who were lodged at the same hotel in Ottawa) to call him if anything happened.
Exclusion of Quebec
That same night, the attorney general Jean Chrétien negotiated with his counterparts from Saskatchewan (Roy Romanow) and Ontario (Roy McMurtry). The provincial prime ministers accepted to eliminate their veto right, while Chrétien, with reservations, offered them a derogation clause.
Hatfield and Davis accepted the compromise and told Trudeau that they should finalize the deal. Trudeau accepted. This deal is known as the Kitchen Deal, because it was born out of a discussion in a kitchen.
The next morning, René Lévesque entered the hotel for the breakfast of the prime ministers and was informed that a deal was concluded during the night. Lévesque refused categorically to sign it and immediately left the room. Quebec announced on November 25, 1981 that it would use his veto right on the deal, but on December 6, 1982, the supreme court of Canada endorsed a decision of the appeals court of Quebec declaring that Quebec never possessed this right.[3]
The consequences
The events created a deep divide within Canada. Several Quebec federalists and independentists perceived the deal like a stab in the back from the other province prime ministers. This deal significantly decreased the popularity of the liberals in Quebec and favoured the victory of Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in the next elections.
Today, Quebec still hasn't signed the constitution, even after several other attempts, like the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord during Brian Mulroney's reign.
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