However, a differently-constituted majority of the court held that there was no legal barrier to the federal government seeking a constitutional amendment without any provincial consent.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the federal government of Canada sought to patriate the constitution.

Specifically, the aim of the government was to make a request to the United Kingdom Parliament—then the only body with the appropriate legal authority—to amend the Constitution of Canada, adding to it a domestic amendment formula (permitting Canada to henceforth modify the constitution itself) and entrenching the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[4] Newfoundland raised the same questions as Manitoba, and added a fourth: The court ruled that the federal government could not act unilaterally.

The court was unanimous in its affirmative answer to the first question of the Manitoba and Newfoundland References (and the first question asked by Quebec, which the court took to be equivalent): the proposed changes to the constitution would indeed affect the "powers, rights, or privileges" of the provinces.

[5] Seven judges, a majority, found that the federal government had the legal authority to unilaterally seek the amendment of the constitution without consent of the provinces.

As to the second matter, the judges unanimously agreed that constitutional conventions exist in Canada, and a majority found that the federal government's plan to seek the amendment of the constitution without provincial consent did indeed violate such a convention.

[citation needed] In 2013 historian Frédéric Bastien said in a book (La Bataille de Londres, Boréal) that two judges of the Supreme Court, Willard Estey, and Chief Justice Bora Laskin shared confidential information to British and Canadian politicians, as the Supreme Court was hearing the case.