The Very Fact that the Premiers Thought They Could Have Canada's Constitution Changed without the Federal Government's Participation Indicated the Growing Strength of the "Compact Theory" of Confederation

Although none of the constitutional changes called for by the Inter-Provincial Conference materialized in constitutional amendments, its resolutions showed which way the winds of constitutional change were blowing. The very fact that the premiers thought they could have Canada's Constitution changed without the federal government's participation indicated the growing strength of the "compact theory" of Confederation. That theory, which had long been an underlying premise of many Quebec leaders, was worked into a full-blown theoretical statement by Quebec judge Thomas-Jean-Jacques Loranger just before Mercier's election as premier. Its central argument was that Confederation resulted from a compact entered into by the provinces, which had delegated certain powers to the new central government. It followed that the provinces, far from being subordinate to the federal government, were equal to it.

--Peter H. Russell, Canada's Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 223-224.