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This article aims to study the transformations in Quebec's political culture brought about by the debates surrounding the patriation of the Constitution proposed by Ottawa in the wake of the 1980 referendum on sovereigntyassociation. Specifically, it seeks to trace the changes in the way actors approached the constitutional debates once the Parti Québécois government lost the initiative to the Liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Bridging the gap between a politician-centred and a civil society-centred approach, this paper sheds new light on the interactions between pressure groups and elected officials in the context of constitutional debates. As a broad and complex subject, Quebec's political culture is undergoing at least two major transformations, catalyzed by the "crisis" of the patriation of the Constitution. First, section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives a particular color to the Quebec language debate and crystallizes the opposition between supporters of unilingualism and bilingualism, in addition to giving concrete expression to the intertwining of linguistic and constitutional issues. Second, the decline of the dualist ideal, which has been undermined for years by some Quebec sovereignists, ethnocultural community groups, and Indigenous people, is being precipitated by the patriation project in general and the "Night of the Long Knives" in particular. The decay of this structuring representation of the Quebec political field is giving way to a new one, the "distinct society.". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dialogue theory between courts and legislatures has been successfully picked up by judges and academics alike since its first articulation in the Canadian context by Hogg and Bushell in 1997. The literature is sometimes unclear, however, as to what kind of theory it is. Is it a causal theory or simply a normative reconstruction based on descriptive inferences? What kinds of empirical claims does it take for granted? This paper reviews the literature on constitutional dialogue to critically assess it from a causal perspective. After presenting the main arguments in favour of dialogic constitutionalism, the paper disambiguates three causal models implicit in the various types of dialogue: the ideational, the socio-cultural, and the institutional models. Taking a comparative approach, this paper questions the validity of the causal inferences of the institutional model of dialogue. It points to the incapacity of institutional dialogue to explain two features of Canadian constitutionalism: the stabilization of the constitutional bargain in the context of mega-constitutional politics and the strategic uselessness of the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Given the comparative data and the Canadian experience, this paper concludes that caution is warranted before applying dialogic institutions to socio-political contexts other than mature democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]