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The Canadian Constitutional Experiment, Alan C. Cairns

Dalhousie Law Journal

Amidst the staggering array of possible foci for an essay on the Canadian constitutional experiment I have chosen to stress the recent tumultuous struggles for identity and community which have engaged citizens and governments. My perspective is primarily from the bottom up, not because the recent constitutional exercise shows the Canadian peoples as masters of their fate, which it does not, but because who we are and to whom we relate as fellow citizens are important subjects in themselves. Further, the contemporary democratic state cannot function successfully in a vacuum. Its weight and its pressure are such, and its purposes …