Organized Labour and Constitutional Reform Under Mulroney

Often dismissed as the political preoccupation of the chattering classes, constitutional politics has nonetheless had an immense impact on working people in English Canada and Quebec. Constitutional questions have played an important role in dividing workers along regional and linguistic lines, and divisions within the labour movement have closely reflected the common regional and linguistic cleavages in Canadian society more generally. However, in the same way that constitutional questions have helped shape the character of organized labour in Canada, the labour movements of both Quebec and English Canada have attempted to reciprocally influence the character of constitutional questions in an effort to improve the economic clout and political power of trade unions. By adopting competing political perspectives concerning the powerful centripetal and centrifugal economic forces that characterize the changing nature of federal-provincial relations, the labour movement in Quebec and the labour movement in English Canada have attempted to influence constitutional politics in contradictory ways; the latter by attempting to strengthen the role of the federal government at the expense of the provinces, and the former by attempting to strengthen the power of Quebec City vis-a-vis Ottawa. This article is concerned with organized labour’s response to Canadian constitutional politics during Brian Mulroney’s tenure as prime minister (1984–1993). Specifically, the article argues that the political cleavages surrounding failed attempts at constitutional reform under Mulroney were reflected in the internal politics of the labour movement, eventually leading to the creation of a “sovereignty-association” partnership agreement between the Canadian Labour Congress (clc) and the Quebec Federation of Labour (ftq). Despite the establishment of the clc in 1956, it is impossible to speak of a research note / note de recherche

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