This document represented a failed attempt on the part of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to patriate the Constitution, add a bill of rights to it and entrench English and French as Canada's official languages; he later succeeded in all these objectives in 1982 with the enactment of the Constitution Act, 1982.
Articles 6 and 7 set the maximum duration of the House of Commons of Canada and provincial legislatures at five years (a function now assumed by section 4 of the Charter).
Like section 36 of the Constitution Act, 1982, Part VII of the Victoria Charter addressed "Regional Disparities".
The Charter set up an amending formula that would give vetoes to the federal government and the two largest provinces, Ontario and Quebec.
In contrast, the Meech Lake Accord, proposed amendments in 1987–1990, would have given every province the veto in relation to certain matters.
In his Memoirs, Trudeau recalled Bourassa had slowed negotiations after all provinces had accepted the Charter.
"Much of Bourassa's subsequent career has been spent trying to regain what he was once so unwise as to refuse," Trudeau wrote.