Cabinet discussions about the doomed Meech Lake accord are still considered so sensitive that the federal government is refusing to release details 20 years later.
Cabinet minutes released under the Access to Information Act have been almost totally blacked out on the grounds that the information could be injurious to the conduct of federal-provincial affairs.
Even the names of some witnesses who testified at public hearings into the ill-fated constitutional pact during the spring of 1990 have been redacted.
The Canadian Press has filed a complaint with the information commissioner of Canada.
Norman Spector, then secretary to the cabinet for federal-provincial relations throughout the protracted negotiations on the accord, says he can't fathom what would be deemed so explosive or damaging that it must be kept secret two decades later.
"It defies the imagination," said Mr. Spector, who was present at all cabinet meetings on the subject.
"As I recall most of the discussions, even if it was like five years (later), it defies imagination that most of the stuff would be blacked out."
The cabinet minutes obtained by The Canadian Press cover the period January to June, 1990, as the clock was ticking down toward the June 23 deadline for ratification of the Meech Lake accord.
The pact was designed to secure Quebec's signature on the Constitution by, among other things, granting constitutional recognition of the Francophone province's "distinct society."
Although initially popular with Canadians and supported by all 10 provinces, the accord eventually almost tore the country apart as opposition mounted to the perception of special status for Quebec. Three provinces withdrew their support.
Fury over the accord's ultimate demise fuelled separatist sentiment in Quebec, which came within a hair of secession during the 1995 referendum on independence.
The six months leading up to the ratification deadline were among the most intense in Canadian political history. But not a hint of the drama has survived in the heavily censored minutes of then prime minister Brian Mulroney's cabinet meetings.
For the most part, the documents include little other than the names of ministers and bureaucrats present for the meetings.
In one uncensored snippet from a May 15 meeting, the minutes record that Mulroney predicted "there would be considerable reaction to the Charest report." Any further thoughts on the matter are blacked out.
There was indeed considerable reaction to the report of an all-party committee led by Tory backbencher Jean Charest, now Quebec premier. Its recommendation of a companion accord to address some of the objections to Meech triggered the resignation of Mr. Mulroney's Quebec lieutenant, Lucien Bouchard, who went on to champion the separatist cause.
But no mention of that pivotal event has survived either, apart from a handwritten notation — "resignation of Lucien Bouchard" —scribbled on the corner of one page.
Senator Lowell Murray, who was Mr. Mulroney's constitutional point man, doubted the uncensored version of the cabinet minutes would make for more riveting reading.
"The discussions were rather desultory to tell you the truth," Sen. Murray said in an interview.
"There weren't many new ideas on the table. There were comments from ministers, mostly I think about the situation in their own provinces."
Both Sen. Murray and Mr. Spector said detailed discussions and strategizing took place outside the cabinet room among a small inner circle of ministers, bureaucrats and advisers. And they said most of the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring has already been long disclosed by key players, including by Mulroney in interviews and his memoirs.
"I don't know that there'd be an awful lot that would be new in (the cabinet minutes) or that would surprise anybody," said Sen. Murray.
Still, Sen. Murray said he doesn't want to second-guess the decision of Privy Council Office officials to black out most of the minutes before releasing them for public consumption.
Mr. Spector said some redactions might be justified in so far as Meech remains a live political issue in Quebec, used by separatists "to beat federalists over the head." Mentions of Mr. Charest could also be legitimately sensitive given that he's now premier and "the only thing that stands between us and another referendum."
But in Mr. Spector's opinion, that would not justify the almost-blanket censorship of the minutes.
Virtually all cabinet confidences are held secret for 20 years, after which they become eligible for release under the Access to Information Act. Disclosure of minutes in the past has revealed details of discussions on events arguably more sensitive than the Meech accord, such as the 1970 imposition of the War Measures Act to combat FLQ terrorists in Quebec.
"The reason there's a 20-year time limit on the exclusion of cabinet confidences is that 20 years later the assumption is it's not going to matter anymore," said Vincent Kazmierski, assistant law professor at Carleton University in Ottawa and an expert on access to information.
In the Meech case, however, the exemptions allowed under the act have been used liberally to maintain almost complete secrecy. In the vast majority of cases, officials cite Section 14 of the Act – potential harm to the federal government's conduct of federal-provincial affairs – to justify the redactions.
As secretary to the cabinet, Mr. Spector used to be the one who decided what information should be exempted as injurious to federal-provincial relations. He said he can't imagine using Section 14 in such a sweeping manner.
Mr. Kazmierski said concerns that revisiting the Meech discussions might insult residents in anti-Meech provinces or reinflame separatist sentiment in Quebec aren't sufficient reason for censoring the documents. The information must be injurious to the ability of the current federal government to negotiate with current provincial governments, "not that it's going to somehow have some impact on the psyche of a provincial population."
There are several chunks from the minutes of the June 22 cabinet meeting that are exempted under solicitor-client privilege. Mr. Spector said that would have been advice from federal justice officials about possible ways to extend the deadline for ratifying the accord, which expired the following day.
At one point during a spring cabinet meeting, a snippet of uncensored minutes shows Mr. Mulroney cautioned his ministers that the planned schedule of cabinet and caucus meetings over the summer "might have to be adjusted as events unfolded."
What events he anticipated is blacked out under Section 15, which exempts disclosure of information that could be injurious to the conduct of international affairs or the defence of Canada.
Mr. Spector guessed that might have been a reference to a possible currency crisis if the accord failed. He insisted that at no time did the Mulroney cabinet ever contemplate that the military might be necessary to keep the peace.
"There was no issue of anything like an insurrection or riots or mayhem or anything like that."
Mr. Spector, a former deputy minister, said the decision to black out most of the minutes would have been made strictly by bureaucrats in the Privy Council Office, without political interference.
"The sentiment against freedom of information legislation is at least as strong within the bureaucracy as it is within the political world," he said.
He recalled attending weekly deputy ministers' meetings at which complaints about access requests and the access legislation "was probably the No. 1 item on the agenda."
"Part of what you're seeing is just a generally excessive use of the exemption powers under the act, which has become kind of standard."
University of Toronto historian Robert Bothwell, who has used archival cabinet material on the 1970 October Crisis and other matters in his research, said information was much more accessible when all cabinet confidences were routinely made available after 30 years. Since the introduction of the Access to Information Act in 1983, he said, bureaucrats have used the exemptions to keep all kinds of material under wraps indefinitely.
"(The act is) at the very best an encumbrance and, at worst, it's a disaster," he said.
Prof. Bothwell said access requests should be taken out of the hands of bureaucrats who have little knowledge of the issues at stake in most documents, and too much to lose in terms of their careers if they authorize release of sensitive material.
"Typically, not understanding what's in front of them, they label it secret because they don't know ... and in self-defence they know there'll be retaliation if they get it wrong."
The Canadian Press