ABSTRACT

Referendums are often the culmination of efforts spread over many years, yet the final outcome can be determined in a campaign lasting only a few weeks. More often than not, the outcome is a defeat for political elites who became convinced that it would not be a difficult matter to persuade voters to support proposals that seemed perfectly reasonable to them and that appeared to enjoy broad support across many diverse groups — support which had often been carefully and painstakingly cultivated over a substantial period or time. Over many decades, Canadian political leaders struggled with the problem of securing a new agreement among the ten provinces to replace Canada’s archaic constitutional regime. 1 When such an agreement was finally reached, in August 1992, it appeared at first to enjoy broad support across the country. The long and complex process of reaching the agreement had involved extensive consultation and compromise between the federal government, the provinces, and many other groups and organizations. Yet the ‘Charlottetown Accord’ was soundly defeated in a referendum only two months later. Similarly, the carefully orchestrated attempt to craft a new European Constitutional Treaty to replace the many separate treaties underpinning the enlarged European Union was abruptly derailed in 2005 by referendums in France and the Netherlands. 2