ue with 49% of the votes. With this narrow victory the federal government whipped into action and passed a bill through the house of commons that recognized Quebec as a distinct society and gave the province a type of constitutional veto to convince Quebec that Canada is a great place to live. The federal government also asked the Supreme Court of Canada to decide on three questions pertaining to the legal and constitutional issues of Quebec separation from Canada to illustrate to Quebec that sovereignty-association' was not viable, and that Canada would not accept a unilateral decision on independence. It took the Supreme Court almost two years before it rendered a judgement , during that time the federal and provincial government came up with what is called the Calgary Declaration to once again try to include Quebec in the constitution. All of the premiers (except Quebec) unanimously agreed on a new framework' to open the doors on Canadian Unity. Quebec rejected the Calgary Declaration because it did not recognize Quebec as a people and a nation. The Calgary declaration was declared dead. Finally in August 1998 the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a important decision on the Canadian constitution. The three Questions that the federal government gave to the court in reference to quebec secession. were: 1)Does the Canadian constitution allow the province of Quebec to unilaterally secede 2)Does international law allow unilateral secession 3)if there was conflict between domestic and international law which would take "precedence" in Canada. On the first question the court said secession of a province under the constitution could not be achieved unilaterally "within the existing constitutional framework". On the second question, it ruled that the province did not constitute a "people" and "a right to secession only arises under the principle of self-determination of people at international law where a people is governed as part of a c...
