Étienne Parent, the Demise of the Mixed Constitution, and the Rise of Liberalism of Government in French Canada

Abstract

Abstract Between the adoption of the Act of Union in 1840 and the British North America Act in 1867, French-Canadian elites had to reconceptualize the nature and virtues of the British constitutional system. Étienne Parent, an early defender of the ‘mixed constitution’ and one of the most influential thinkers among French-Canadian reformists, turned to the civil service to give the new constitutional regime a stable foundation. His theory of the ‘sovereignty of intelligence’ borrowed French liberal ideas to build a distinct model of constitutionalism out of British constitutional institutions. Parent’s thought also exemplifies how the idea that the constitution is the principal integrative force of the polity continued to shape French-Canadian constitutional imaginary in the mid-nineteenth century. Recovering this dynamic and historical approach to constitutionalism sheds light on this distinct constitutional model, obscured by the later influence of AV Dicey and his retrospective interpretation of nineteenth-century constitutionalism. Putting the emphasis on the administration, Parent’s theory of the ‘sovereignty of intelligence’ offered a form of government liberalism which differed from the liberalism associated with parliamentary sovereignty, and republicanism and popular sovereignty. In many respects, Parent participated directly in the consolidation of the constitutional model he defended, and his thought allows us to recapture the synergy and generative tension between the cabinet and the civil service that endures in the contemporary constitutional practices of Westminster parliamentary systems.