Bring the BNA Act Home

Canada's founding document is languishing in a British archive. It's high time it was properly repatriated.

Canada took a long time to shake off 200 years of being a colony of Great Britain. Yes, the 1867 British North America Act, an act of the British parliament, created the federal union and established the basic framework of our government. But until my old boss Pierre Trudeau became prime minister, most Canadians were unaware of how this British act restricted our further evolution as a nation. To make any change, it required a petition to the British Parliament. This for an alleged 100 year old nation, whose military had fought and died in two world wars.

Moreover, unlike the founding documents of most nations and in particular the United States, the BNA Act was silent on basic rights. Trudeau made it his life’s work to “patriate” our constitution with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms as its centrepiece.

“Patriation” for Trudeau meant no longer having to go back to the “mother” parliament to amend our constitution. As author Andrew Cohen elegantly put it: “… [For Trudeau] if patriation was the symbol of our nationhood, the charter was its ark and covenant.”

I spent a long six weeks on Trudeau’s 1979 federal election campaign hearing him appeal to basic Canadian national pride, asking how we could call ourselves a nation when we couldn’t even change our own constitution and the need to have our own charter to enrich and guarantee individual liberties and define a pan Canadian citizenship.

So after endless lobbying of then prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the British Parliament finally passed our own spanking new Canadian Constitution, with the charter up front in its first section. The Canada Act of 1982 also severed our last ties with Britain as follows: “No Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the Constitution Act, 1982 comes into force shall extend to Canada as part of its law.”

But there is one last vestige of our colonial past left.

Amazingly, the BNA Act itself, the actual document penned by our Fathers of Confederation which we celebrate every year on July 1, remains in British hands and has never been seen in Canada. This is doubly curious given that the Canada Act of 1982, which has been displayed publicly, references the original BNA Act, which, as amended, is still in force.

It and various other acts that define our nationhood and mark our peaceful evolution from colony to nation are like a tree with many branches, and most still remain in British archives. As University of Waterloo Professor Ian Wilson wrote: “The BNA Act is the very trunk of that tree. It must become a living presence in our national life, permanently available to every Canadian.”

Britain’s Magna Carta and the American Declaration of Independence are enshrined for the public to see; Australia’s actual 1900 Constitution Act has been repatriated from England. All are available to enhance public understanding of their significance in the building of their nations. The same can not be said for Canada’s founding document.

Our founding fathers who wrote the document that propelled us into nationhood would be horrified to know it never came home.

A grassroots movement called Bring back the Act, was launched this month with the sole objective to do just that. It is a national campaign supported by Canadians from all walks of life that will gather thousands of names to petition the British government and Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to allow the original BNA Act to be given to Canada where it will be properly displayed for all Canadians to see.

Bringing the BNA Act to Canada would be the final step in actually “repatriating” it. Doing this would have profoundly pleased Pierre Trudeau, who gave so much of his life to “patriation.”

The campaign is the brainchild of Lori Abittan, president and CEO of Multimedia Nova. Her history series The Canadian Experience inspired her to launch this project to give all Canadians access to the basic documents which are the foundation of our nationhood.

“We are proud Canadians and while many of our citizens were born somewhere else, we have all chosen Canada as our home,” she said. “It is why we decided to undertake The Canadian Experience and why we have dedicated ourselves to bring the BNA Act home for all Canadians. We all need to understand our country’s history with it peaceful evolution to nationhood to truly appreciate how wonderful and unique Canada really is.”

Surely it is high time we broke this last vestige of our long gone colonial past.