OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau says there is no pressing problem facing the country that can only be resolved by opening the Constitution — a laborious, time-consuming road the new prime minister has no intention of going down.
That includes the fact that Quebec has never formally signed onto the Constitution, which was patriated in 1982 with a charter of rights by Trudeau's father, Pierre, over the objections of the province's then-separatist government.
While some continue to complain that Quebec is excluded from the Constitution, Trudeau says in an interview with The Canadian Press that the province is in fact covered by the Constitution and is one of the regions where the charter is most highly valued.
Moreover, he says Quebecers showed in the Oct. 19 federal election that they don't feel excluded, choosing for the first time in 30 years to give the governing party a majority of the province's seats.
Trudeau says his father's constitutional efforts were necessary to redress the fact that, until 1982, Canada couldn't amend its own Constitution without permission from the British parliament.
But he says there's no similar concrete problem today that can only be solved through constitutional change.
