Unsuccessful attempts to amend the Canadian Constitution

On April 18, 1983, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau expressed support for entrenching property rights in the Constitution, but only if debate were limited to a single day.

The debate became engulfed in partisan tactics and eleven days later the Progressive Conservative Opposition introduced a motion of non-confidence in the House of Commons of Canada that sought to entrench the right to the "enjoyment of property" in the Constitution.

[1] In 1984, following the election of a Progressive Conservative majority in the House of Commons and the appointment of Brian Mulroney as Prime Minister, the Senate of Canada came under increased scrutiny.

Doug Lewis, as Parliamentary secretary to Erik Nielsen (the then Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council), spoke on behalf of the government, stating that the motion was not "the proper way" to initiate a constitutional amendment, and that the government felt it "inappropriate" to amend laws dealing with therapeutic abortions at that time.

[4] The Meech Lake Accord was a complex package of proposed amendments designed to address a number of concerns about the Canadian Constitution.

In 1999, New Democratic Party MP for Burnaby-Douglas, Svend Robinson, presented a petition created by members of Humanist Canada in the House of Commons that the reference to God be struck from the preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, citing concerns about Canada's diversity and those Canadians who did not believe in God.