Memorable Quotations

In a surprisingly candid reflection in his article “Constitutional Reform of the Canadian Judiciary” in the Alberta Law Review  of 1969 (7 Alta. L. Rev. 103 (1969), Professor Peter Russell declares the very obvious basis on which the 1982 coup d’état was pulled off (including with his own collaboration).  Said Russell: “The opening phrase of the American Constitution, “We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union …” provides the main clue to the basic difference between the status and role of the written constitution in our two countries.  Granted there is an element of political mythology.  “The opening phrase of the American Constitution, “We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union …” provides the main clue to the basic difference between the status and role of the written constitution in our two countries.  Granted there is an element of political mythology in those initial words of the U.S. Constitution, but still it is a mythology with very real roots in the American political culture.  For certainly the United States’ Constitution is much more a product and a possession of the popular political conscience of that country than is the B.N.A. Act, with its colonial origins and Imperial trappings, of ours.  In practical terms this means that in Canada there is an insufficient common understanding — at the political level — of the content and purpose of the important provisions of the Constitution, with the result that almost anything goes because few people know.”  [Emphases added.]