Canada Schedules Referendum on Constitution

TORONTO —  Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said Thursday that Canadians will get a chance to vote Oct. 26 on whether to accept a sweeping package of constitutional amendments designed to keep this country together.

“It’s time for Canadians to choose,” Mulroney said.

The amendments, which took months to draft, would make fundamental changes in many basic institutions of Canadian government. They are meant, above all, to please Quebec, which has refused for years to ratify the constitution on the grounds that it does not do enough to protect Quebec’s French language and culture.

Quebec has been threatening to hold its own referendum on Oct. 26 on the possibility of secession from Canada.

Mulroney’s announcement is significant because the nationwide referendum will supersede Quebec’s potentially divisive vote.

In Quebec City, the provincial capital, Premier Robert Bourassa of the Liberal Party sparked an emotional debate by introducing legislation to cancel his province’s sovereignty vote and to let Quebecers vote instead with the rest of Canadians on the constitutional amendments.

Angry sovereigntists, led by the Parti Quebecois, responded by introducing petitions, signed by thousands of Quebecers, calling for the original sovereignty referendum to be held as planned.

The amendments include measures that would restructure Canada’s Senate, giving each province an equal number of seats; compensate populous Quebec and Ontario for their resulting decline in the Senate by giving them more seats in the House of Commons, and give Indians and Inuit (as the Eskimos prefer to be called) the authority to govern themselves.