Constitution Act, 1982
Endorsed by all provincial governments except that of Quebec (led by René Lévesque), this was the formal Canadian Act of Parliament that achieved full and final political independence from the United Kingdom. Part V of this act established an amending formula for the Canadian constitution, the lack of which (due to more than 50 years of disagreement between the federal and provincial governments) was the only reason Canada's constitutional amendments still required approval by the British parliament after ratification of the Statute of Westminster in 1931.
In UK, the parallel act passed simultaneously by the British parliament was called the Canada Act 1982. As a bilingual act of parliament, the Canada Act 1982 has the distinction of being the only legislation in French that has been passed by an English or British parliament since Norman French ceased to be the language of government in England.
Read more about this topic: Constitution Of Canada
Famous quotes containing the word constitution:
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)