Patriation Myth

In 1953, Barry Strayer, a University of Saskatchewan law student, was in London on his way to a student seminar in India. He witnessed Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and marvelled at its power and pageantry, reflecting not just royalty but a vast and diverse empire—an empire crumbling yet still grand. Nearly 30 years later, on a wet and dismal day, he joined thousands of Canadians on Parliament Hill to watch that same queen proclaim in force the constitution that would place Canada, at last, beyond the reach of British politics. This moment, far less grand, was considerably more momentous for Canadians, and for very few was it more gratifying than for Barry Strayer. For nearly 15 years he had toiled mightily in the labyrinthine structures of federal constitutional planning and in the chambers of federal-provincial negotiations to get to just this moment. In Ottawa that day Canada’s sovereignty was formalized; it gained untrammelled authority over its...