6

tional changes before undertaking some of the vitally important adjustments needed today.

Change in our Constitution will not relieve us of the need to make changes in the way we treat and regard other Canadians, in fact, in our daily life.  If “the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life”, so the legal clauses of the constitution can be only the verbal reflection of new facts of relationship that we are prepared to accept and to apply.

Nor should our decision to embark upon a review of the Constitution suggest that everything that is vital and urgent must await a change in the wording of our fundamental law.  Realization of this is especially important when considering measures to adjust the current inequality in the treatment of English and French-speaking Canadians.  The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, in its Book I, has provided positive recommendations that, in its judgement, would render more fair and equal the position of Canadians of French language and culture in Canada.  Only two of these involve constitutional change and in no single case does the substance of action have to wait upon a change in the Constitution.  The Conference could best demonstrate the urgency and importance that it attaches to measures to meet the central problem by accepting now the objectives which the Royal Commission has set out in its recommendations, and by agreeing that the substance of action on the recommendations should not have to wait upon whatever delays there might be in constitutional change.

The Process of Constitutional Review

The review of Canada’s Constitution should take place in this spirit and in this context.  It must take place, too, in the context of the substantial adaptations that have occurred over the years in the facts of constitutional arrangements in Canada.  Our Constitution is not a rigid one, nor has it been interpreted rigidly:  it has provided the kind of flexibility that is essential if the role of government in relation to the citizen and if the relationships between the two orders of government in our country are to be accommodated to the needs of the times.  This quality of flexibility must not be lost from our Constitution; nor must we think of change only in formal constitutional terms.  Nevertheless, we are now at a point where a review of the expression in the fundamental law of the constitutional arrangements which exist or ought to exist is called for.

Wide-ranging adaptations have been required.  The role of the state has grown enormously — in scale and in scope — and government services have developed to give expression to this role.  The potential for the state impinging upon the rights of the individual has increased correspondingly.  The relationships between the federal and provincial governments have
 

6