On This Day: The Kitchen Accord Is Struck, 1981

On Nov. 5, 1981, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and nine of the 10 premiers announced a deal to bring home Canada’s Constitution, with an amending formula and a Charter of Rights, after a night of bargaining that began in a kitchen in Ottawa. Quebec was the lone holdout. According to The Canadian Press, the agreement led to the Queen proclaiming the Constitution on April 17, 1982.

The deal is remembered as the Kitchen Accord. According to a Toronto Public Library history blog post, federal Justice Minister Jean Chrétien met on the evening of Nov. 4, 1981, with Ontario Attorney General Roy McMurtry and Saskatchewan Attorney General Roy Romanow in the kitchen of the government conference centre in Ottawa. The Canadian Encyclopedia says the three men “ducked into an unused kitchen pantry.” The two sources name the building differently, calling it the Government Conference Centre and the National Conference Centre.

The talks were meant to break a stalemate. The Canadian Encyclopedia reports that Trudeau wanted a charter of rights and a way to amend the Constitution without Britain’s permission, and that eight premiers, known as the Gang of Eight, opposed him. After talks failed, Trudeau chose to proceed without them. The encyclopedia says the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Patriation Reference case persuaded him to return to the table.

According to the Toronto Public Library post, the premiers agreed to drop the opt-out clause, which would have let provinces step away from federal programs with compensation. The federal government, it says, agreed reluctantly to include the notwithstanding clause, which lets legislatures override certain Charter sections. Trudeau accepted, and the post says “the Kitchen Accord was born.” The Canadian Encyclopedia adds that the package set an amending formula requiring the federal government and two-thirds of the provinces (seven) representing at least 50 per cent of the population, known as the 7/50 rule.

Historians do not agree on how much credit the kitchen meeting deserves. The Canadian Encyclopedia, in an editorial by historian Stephen Azzi, argues the kitchen accord was essential in shifting the positions of Ontario and Ottawa. It says, though, that Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford’s plan supplied the final package. According to the encyclopedia, Peckford’s document was revised on the night of Nov. 4, including in a meeting in Saskatchewan Premier Allan Blakeney’s Château Laurier suite, and presented the next morning. Peckford makes the same case in his 2012 memoir, as described by the encyclopedia. The encyclopedia adds that few people at that meeting knew about the kitchen discussion.

Quebec did not sign on. The Toronto Public Library post says Premier René Lévesque, whose Parti Québécois government had resisted Ottawa on the amending formula, the Charter and the opt-out right, learned of the deal at breakfast on the morning of Nov. 5. It says he felt betrayed, announced his government would not support the deal and left the meeting. Citing Ron Graham’s 2011 book The Last Act, the post says Lévesque likened the episode to the Night of the Long Knives. It also says Quebec announced it would veto the agreement, but the Quebec Court of Appeal and later the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the province did not have a veto.

The same post says Trudeau later regretted agreeing to the notwithstanding clause. The provision has remained a live argument. Canada Newsmedia has covered the debate in Override or overreach? Canada’s notwithstanding clause and in its report on Quebec’s Law 21 and the new national debate over the clause. Readers can find background in our explainer on the Canada Constitution.

The Canadian Press lists the Nov. 5, 1981, announcement as a patriation deal with an amending formula and a two-tiered Charter, struck by Trudeau and every premier except Quebec’s. More than four decades on, the clause born in that Ottawa kitchen and the Quebec objection that followed still shape Canadian politics.