A Decade of Educational Reform in Canada

While economic challenges have forced educational reform and restructuring upon the school systems of many nations, these forces were of secondary importance in Canada during the 1980s. Instead, Canadian education, like Canada itself, was engaged in a reconstitution, the objective of which was no less than the preservation of the nation. Memories of the fierce recession of 1981–2, which devastated parts of Canada’s resource-based economy, will fade; but the 1982 patriation of the Canadian Constitution under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau will not, as long as Canada continues to exist.