It Was No in Any Language

IT SOUNDED BRILLIANT: WRITE A NEW CANADIAN constitution giving something to everybody. As it turned out, the pact had something for almost everybody to hate, and in a referendum last Monday, 54% of Canada's voters turned it down. The agreement lost from Nova Scotia on the Atlantic Coast to British Columbia on the Pacific; six of Canada's 10 provinces and one (Yukon) of the two territories voted no.

Which proved again that Canadians have seemingly irreconcilable ideas of what their country should be. The pact recognized Quebec as a "distinct society" and guaranteed it 25% of the House of Commons. But the province's Francophones insisted on greater control over tax money as well. A new, popularly elected Senate with six seats per province would have increased the clout of the English-speaking Western provinces. But they too wanted more -- and bridled at any special treatment at all for Quebec.

Resentment of the political establishment weighed heavily too. Brian Mulroney, already the most unpopular Prime Minister in the history of Canadian polling, was a big loser. According to one survey, his campaigning for the accord created twice as many no votes as yesses. Aboriginal peoples -- Indians and Inuit (Eskimos) -- also suffered badly. The rejected constitution would have granted them greatly increased self-government.

Quebec separatists avoided defeat. But to make the province an independent country, they would have to win provincial elections in 1994 and then a provincial referendum. Polls show only about a third of the Quebec vote to be hard-core separatist. Quebec's demands for a looser federation, Western insistence on greater clout, aboriginal longing for self-government -- all are likely to be fought out piecemeal in Ottawa, with uncertain results. The only point everybody can agree on is that the idea of trying to solve all these problems by writing a new constitution is dead for years to come.