Wednesday marked the thirtieth anniversary of the failure of the Charlottetown Accord. This could have been a good day for the Saskatchewan Party government to capitalize on the hope contained in the state-building plan jointly supported by every provincial and federal government from every political sector.

Unfortunately, what happened on October 26, 1992, when the Charlottetown Accord was rejected by 54.3 percent of Canadians in a referendum, made Wednesday seem like an ordinary day overwhelmed by the politics of anger. Ironically, the basis of Premier Scott Moe's "independent" agenda outlined in the throne speech on Wednesday closely resembles Charlottetown’s pursuit of addressing provincial taxation authority and federal intervention in areas such as natural resources.

While the Charlottetown Accord was not voted on in Quebec to officially grant the status of a distinct society, it called for "social and economic unions" between the federal government and the provinces. It pushed for a "social charter" to enhance and protect provincial autonomy in the provision of health care, social services, and higher education programs under a defined national standard thirty years ago.

The New Democratic Party government led by Roy Romano in Saskatchewan sent a small but strong team to Charlottetown consisting of chief constitutional advisors and University of Regina political science professor Howard Leeson, former legislative drafter Merrily Rasmussen, and seasoned legal advisor George Peacock. (To focus on the "economic union") and a young researcher and former Rhodes scholar appointed from international governmental affairs named Jonathan Wilkinson, whom we know today as a former federal Liberal environment minister and the current minister of natural resources.

Punching well above Saskatchewan’s weight in such matters, this team defended the provinces’ right to retain their natural resource wealth with appropriate compensation if they chose to withdraw from any constitutional amendment. That likely sounded familiar on Wednesday. Moe told reporters on Wednesday, "We will draw a constitutional line, and then we will defend that line and defend our constitutional powers in this nation." To be fair, the 21-page throne speech in Saskatchewan on Wednesday did not exaggerate the agenda of "self-governance."

Saskatchewan’s first bill, which is its centerpiece, largely appears to reaffirm the symbolic constitutional rights of the province in developing its natural resources. The throne speech stated: "To be clear, this is not about repealing or disregarding the Constitution." It mostly avoided Moe’s ridiculous language about a nation within a nation (although one should be disturbed that Moe has not ruled out the use of such phrasing in proposed amendments to the Saskatchewan Act).

The party government had the ability to present a precise and thoughtful argument... if it had stepped away from its endless way and politics. Whatever hope there might have been on Wednesday to hear a coherent argument was likely lost in the distraction caused by the former Progressive Conservative liberation army and convicted murderer Colin Thatcher’s call to action. Christine Tell, the minister of reform and policing, said: the privilege of sitting in the legislature was Thatcher’s right, adding that the former conservative politician, sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his ex-wife, should not necessarily be punished. But even without Thatcher’s side circus, Moe’s government was still struggling on Wednesday to distance itself from its own policies embodied in its decorated and poorly written white paper. Moe and Sask’s party cabinet, the best students of history, might have argued instead on Wednesday that the throne speech was simply the natural extension of the goals of the Charlottetown Accord.

Instead, Moe and his colleagues still seem to be benefiting from the less favorable historical lessons of Charlottetown which led to the referendum's failure. Making a case for constitutional change proved to be highly complex. The Charlottetown Accord failed 30 years ago because voters could not understand its benefits amid all the complexity. The referendum turned into a referendum on the unpopular Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Mulroney's government. Charlottetown was a lesson on how easily anger can be mobilized. Both Moe and his party are aware of this tactic; the party government still draws the wrong historical lessons rather than the right ones.

Editor: Yusra Bamtaraf