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The Clarity Act and Bill 99 exist for one reason. That reason is because Quebec did not sign the Constitution. And because they are not technically part of Canada, Quebec wants to separate and this is how this whole thing started. But this essay will discuss this topic in more depth. On November15, 1976, the PQ government was brought into power. They promised to have a referendum and on May20, 1980, they did. So make Quebec vote no on this referendum, Trudeau promised, that if Quebec votes no and they do not separate, he will make Quebec feel more at home. So because in 1980 Quebec voted no on the referendum, Trudeau had to keep his promise. In 1982, Trudeau kept his word and he held a meeting with all the Premiers to make Canada a better place to live, including Quebec. But Quebec’s Premier, Rene Levesque, was not interested in making Canada better. The only thing he was interested in was to make Quebec better. During that meeting, Trudeau changed Bill 101 a bit, regarding the section on the education and the signs. Now if someone wanted to go to English school on Quebec, they were allowed only if their parents went to English in Canada, from kindergarten to grade 7. And English signs were allowed to appear but they had to be smaller and less frequent. All the provinces were happy and sign the Constitution except for Quebec. So because Canada forced Quebec to modify Bill 101, Rene Levesque was not happy at all. In fact, he was very angry and upset. Because he was upset, then, he did not sign the Constitution and the Constitutional Act failed. These two changes, in a way, prevented Quebec from signing the Constitution. In 1987, there was another attempt to make Quebec sign the Constitution. Mulroney was the Prime Minister and his only concern was to make Quebec sign the Constitution so he can go down in history as one of the greatest PM of all of Canada’s history. So this meeting was in Meech Lake. Bourassa, the new Premier of Quebec, said Quebec will sign the Constitution if you meet these five demands. All the provinces agreed to them but they also agreed to go back home and ask their province what they think about it. Three years later, on the day of St. Jean Baptist, they met again. All the Premiers agree to sign the Constitution except for Manitoba and New Brunswick.
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