In his recent book on the many puzzles of Canadian nationalism, Richard Gwyn (1995, 9) notes that more Canadians (97%) cite their own country as the best in the world than do citizens of any other country. Notwithstanding this coup and the fact that Canada is one of the world's oldest continuously functioning democracies, in an October 30, 1995 referendum, the citizens of Quebec were again asked (as they had been in May, 1980) to vote oui or non on a proposal that would secure the political independence of Quebec. Although Quebeckers rejected the 1980 sovereignty proposal by a three to two margin, the 1995 sovereignty proposal failed by the proverbial eyelash. Why a country described by British writer Jan Morris as “all in all, on the whole, the most admirable on earth” (cited in Gwyn 1995, 51) should periodically appear on the brink of falling apart is a question that has engaged us because of our longstanding interest in the conditions under which democratic political systems are sustained over time.

It can be argued that many of the conditions associated with the emergence and development of a democracy were already obtained in 1867 when the new Dominion of Canada was created by an act of the British parliament. Inter alia, these included a Westminster-model parliamentary government, the rule of law, nascent political parties and free, competitive elections. However, as we have argued elsewhere (Kornberg and Clarke 1992, 12–19), the downside of “Confederation” (as the establishment of the Canadian state is termed) was that it either laid the groundwork for, or exacerbated, many of the national integration problems Canada has experienced.