1 From 11 to 15 September 1967 M. Alain Peyrefitte, minister of national education of France, and M. Jean-Jacques Bertrand, then Quebec minister of education, negotiated and concluded a seventeen-point Accord which provided inter alia for a ten-fold increase in cultural, scientific, and technical exchanges between France and Quebec. The Accord represented an expansion of the entente culturelle concluded between France and Quebec in 1965. These arrangements between the governments of France and Quebec were finalized without reference to the Canadian federal government.

2 Gouvernement du Quebec, Ministére des Affaires Intergouvernementales, Document de Travail Concernant les Relations avec I'Etranger, Quebec, 5 February 1969. Hereinafter called the Quebec Working Paper.

3 In 1970 I wrote to the premiers of the ten provinces, asking them their attitudes and observations. All of the premiers except those of Ontario and British Columbia responded to my little “survey” but since the n here was so small, no attempt at analysis will be made. Rather it will suffice here to say that the responses can be roughly divided into two approximately equal groups: 1) those that generally recognize some kind of federal supremacy and 2) those who generally recognize— with or without qualifications—what Premier Strom of Alberta calls “a delicate equilibrium which characterizes division of powers.” [Author's note]

4 Quebec Working Paper, p. 4. See also Attorney-General for Canada (Appellant); and Attorney-General for Ontario and others (Respondents) On Appeal From the Supreme Court of Canada, January 28,1937, A.C. 326 and following. The Law Reports, House of Lords, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1937.

5 Morin, Jean-Yves, “La conclusion d'accords internationaux par les provinces canadiennes á la lumiere du droit comparé,” Canadian Yearbook of International Law III (1965): 126.Google Scholar

6 Stanley, George F. G., A Short History of the Canadian Constitution (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1969), pp. 208-9Google Scholar. See also discussion of Compact Theory, vii-viii.

7 See Castel, J. G., “Canada and the Hague Conference on Private International Law: 1893-1967,” Canadian Bar Review 45 (1967): 1 Google Scholar. See also Head, I. L., “The ‘New Federalism’ in Canada,” Alberta Law Review 4 (1966): 389 Google Scholar.

8 I find the rank of the signer of the letter of transmittal interesting. The Quebec Working Paper is issued over the signature of M. Claude Morin, underminister of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs. Ten months after the issue of this statement the federal government's “reply” (if indeed it is such) appeared in the Department of External Affairs’ publication External Affairs (November 1969) in an article by one Jean-Pierre Goyer, parliamentary secretary of the secretary of state for External Affairs. Perhaps I read too much into this.

9 For a detailed examination of the exchanges and missions carried out under this Commission see Quebec Working Paper, p. 7.

10 Quebec Working Paper, p. 9.

11 Ibid., p. 10.

12 As explained by Ontario Supreme Court Justice Bora Laskin: “It is too much to expect the Canadian courts to torture the words of the section [Section 132] sufficiently to give it modern relevance even with respect to the question of implementation to which it was directly related. Accordingly, section 132 must be deemed obsolete in all practical respects.” Hon. Justice Bora Laskin, Canadian Constitutional Law (Toronto: Carswell Publishers, Ltd., 1966), 3rd ed., p. 290. In March 1970, Mr. Justice Laskin was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

13 Morris, Gerald L., “The Treaty Making Power: A Canadian Dilemma,” Canadian Bar Review 45 (September 1967): 481 Google Scholar.

14 Hon. Martin, Paul, secretary of state for External Affairs, Federalism and International Relations (Ottawa: Queen's Printers, 1968)Google Scholar.

15 Goyer, Jean-Pierre, “Foreign Policy and the Provinces,” External Affairs 21 (November 1969): 387 Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., p. 387.

17 Ibid., p. 389.

18 Ibid., pp. 387-88.

19 Ibid., p. 388.

20 See the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in this case A.C. 352: “In other words, the Dominion cannot merely by making promises to foreign countries, clothe itself with legislative authority inconsistent with the constitution which gave it birth.” See also A.C. 353-54: “It must not be thought that the result of this decision is that Canada is incompetent to legislate in performance of treaty obligations. In totality of legislative powers, Dominion and Provincial together, she is fully equipped. But the legislative powers remain distributed, and if in the exercise of her new functions derived from her new international status Canada incurs obligations they must, so far as legislation be concerned, when they deal with Provincial classes of subjects, be dealt with by the totality of powers, in other words by co-operation between the Dominion and the Provinces.“

21 For example, Goyer makes the statement that “the authority to enter into international agreements resides exclusively with the federal auhority.” To support this thesis he quotes from Federalism and International Relations (1968) cited above, in which is found yet another quotation: “The Canadian Executive, again, constitutionally acts under responsibility to the Parliament of Canada, and it is Parliament alone which can constitutionally control its conduct of international affairs. The above is a statement by Chief Justice Duff of the Supreme Court of Canada, and is part of that court's decision on the Labor Conventions Case. The statement is quoted at greater length in Federalism and International Relations (1968) and is a key stone in Goyer's argumentation. But what must be understood, and what is never mentioned by Goyer, is that this statement was made before the Privy Council :- reversal of the Supreme Court of Canada decision! If one reads only Goyer, one gets the faulty impression that Duff's dictum stands unimpaired, or so it seems to me.

22 The Canadian delegation was led by M. Gerard Pelletier, secretary of state of Canada, and the Quebec delegation was led by M. Jean-Guy Cardinal, the provincial minister of education.

23 Stanley, , A Short History, p. 209 Google Scholar.

24 M. Johnson, then premier of Quebec, described the federal government's note to Gabon as “premature,” especially at a time when both levels of government in Canada were seeking to delimit spheres of international jurisdiction following the previous month's Federal-Provincial Conference. In Paris M. Yvon Bourges, French secretary of state for foreign affairs (Co-operation), said on 26 April that the Quebec delegation had attended as “observers.” On 30 April M. Georges Gorse, French minister of information, stated that M. Cardinal had been present at the Conference “not in the quality of an observer but as a full participant.” The Canadian federal government's note to France was announced by Ottawa to be “part of a dialogue,” and neither the Canadian nor French governments published its contents.

25 Hon. Sharp, Mitchell, Federalism and International Conferences on Education (Ottawa: Queen's Printers, 1968)Google Scholar.

26 Perhaps one reason for the announced suggestions was the fact that on 3 May (five days before the release of the position paper) the French Ministry of Education released a communique announcing that M. Peyrefitte and M. Cardinal had examined the state of advancement in the different questions concerning Franco- Quebec cooperation in educational affairs,” and had agreed in principle on a common program and on measures aimed at “guaranteeing the volume of credits affected by such co-operation.” The two ministers discussed mutual exchanges of civil servants and students, the admission of Quebec students to French schools, the distribution of French-language text books, and the mutual recognition of educational diplomas. In addition, M. Cardinal raised the question of reciprocity in social benefits for French and Quebec students, facilities in France for Quebec archaeologists, and the participation of French television experts in Quebec programs of adult education. For a fuller discussion see Montreal Star, 4 May 1968.

27 Quebec Working Paper, pp. 22 infra.

28 Government of Quebec, Brief on the Constitution: A Document Submitted to the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference, Ottawa, 1968 (Quebec City, 1968), pp. 13-14.

29 Stanley, , A Short History, pp. 208-9Google Scholar.

30 In Edmonton, in December 1970, the Western Canada Party (WCP) came into existence. Aims of the new party are: to hold a majority of western Canada's seventy seats in the House of Commons and to initiate “western teamwork” in Parliament; to give western Canada, through the WCP a strong influence on national policies; to look after the “interests” of western Canada, both national and “international”. At the same time British Columbia has adopted a position contrary to that of the Canadian federal government regarding the proposed raising of the level of Ross Lake. This issue involves serious relationships with the United States and has a twenty-year history of provincial prerogatives exercised in the area of foreign affairs.