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Question: What was the compact theory!?
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The compact theory is a theory relating to the development of the Constitution of the United States of America, claiming that the formation of the nation was through a compact by all of the states individually and that the national government is consequently a creation of the states!. Concordantly, states should be the final judges of whether the national government had overstepped the boundaries of the "compact"!. A leading exponent of this theory was John C!. Calhoun!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

My Dear Charlene,
The primary goal of uni!.ca is to foster Canadian unity!. Divisibility is the unavoidable obverse of unity!. It follows that the nature of Canada's divisibility must be considered and come to form part of our fundamental understanding of the unity arena!.

The modern version of the Compact Theory asserts that Canada consists of provinces freely associated as a federation!. The corollary to that is that provinces can secede - ie leave the federation - if they want to!. This divisibility along provincial lines is generally accepted by all political parties, and the Secession Reference of the Supreme Court lays out a roadmap for how it can be accomplished constitutionally!.
February marked the second anniversary of hearings by the Legislative Special Committee on Bill C-20, otherwise known as the Clarity Act!. This year also marks the 5th anniversary of the Secession Reference by the Supreme Court!. The Clarity Act was the federal government's response to the Secession Reference, which itself resulted from the close call in the 1995 Quebec Referendum, which separatists lost by less people than would fit in Montreal's Olympic Stadium!.

The Compact Theory implies that the province is the fundamental and continuing political entity in Canada!. It is understandably popular with provincial nationalists!. However, it clearly infers that Canada only exists conditionally and has no independent identity!.

Where does this leave the notion of Canada as a nation!? Some Quebec nationalists have even questioned whether Canada is a real country - Premiers Bouchard and Landry later recanted, but the seed of that thought still survives and informs much of the discussion!. When the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was negotiated, the provinces - not only Quebec - refused to allow the expression "The people of Canada" in the preamble, whereas "the people of (a province)" is an expression even the Supreme Court recognizes!.

Does the divisibility of Canada, as presently understood, mean that 15 million plus something Canadians, when appropriately distributed among the provinces, can decide to leave Canada and take the 15 million minus something Canadians with them, denying them even a smaller Canada should they still want it!?

The only practical answer to this problem is to embrace the notion of federal-provincial duality in terms of individual identity!. Duality already exists in linguistic terms, in terms of political structure, and in other institutional terms such as intergovernmental agreements and arrangements!. But when federal-provincial duality is embraced individually, it lays the foundation for reconciling Canadian nationalism with provincial nationalism in a way that brings us together rather than by dividing us into this or that political camp!.

This approach challenges the Compact Theory because it gives supremacy neither to the provinces nor to the federal body, nor to executive branch and intellectual and political elites!. Rather, it lodges sovereignty in the individual, where true political sovereignty must reside!. It is then the individual, acting collectively, who decides on the appropriate federal-provincial structures they choose to be governed by, and which may change from time to time!.

Hello! El Vecio




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