It's possible this is all just a plan to help the airlines. Not only has the prime minister sent the 11-member Citizens' Forum on Canada's future jetting across the country, they will now be crossing flightpaths with the 17-member Senate- Commons committee charged with finding a new constitutional amending formula. That is, if they do not crash in mid-runway with one of the half-dozen provincial commissions already investigating much the same matters.

If we were really serious about saving this country, how would we go about it? Perhaps we can arrive at a more coherent aproach indirectly, by listing the characteristics of a well-made process of national renewal. To begin, it should be neither so broad in scope as the Spicer commission, nor so narrow as the single question of an amending formula.

We cannot hope to reach a consensus on every issue that divides Canadians in six months, nor should we try. We need political structures, rather, that allow our differences to be expressed and resolved in ways that do not tear apart the country. But we cannot treat just one aspect of the Constitution at a time, either: there are too many grievances, too many agendas. Only a comprehensive, once- and-for-all redrafting of the Constitution can provide the setting for the necessary trade-offs; the staged approach only ensures a leapfrogging of claims and perpetual constitutional warfare.

It must be a process of sufficient novelty and impact to distract Quebecers from their self-absorption, and to signal to them that fundamental change is possible - that the old ways of doing things in this country are dead.

This means the process must look past Quebec's provincial politicians, and appeal directly to individual Quebecers. It must involve all Canadians in the same way. Only by daring to ignore provincial politicians altogether can we at last get the constitutional debate off the axis of more or less powers for the provinces, and onto more general questions.

This must be the direction because no constitutional change can take place unless all 10 premiers agree. And since they are unlikely to agree on anything, it cannot be left to them. They must rather be faced with a fait accompli: a process of such overwhelming popular legitimacy, not only across the country but in their own region, that they are left with no choice but to rubber-stamp its results.

Such legitimacy cannot come from mere consultation. Canadians do not want to be listened to; they want to be heard. If the end point of any constitutional process is that it goes back to governments for the actual drafting, most Canadians, beyond the usual activists, will not bother to get involved. The process must enable, indeed force Canadians to decide directly on their constitutional future.

Obviously 26 million people cannot collectively draft a constitution. There must be a representative body of some kind. It cannot be made up of politicians now in office, since they will inevitably represent one level of government or another. It cannot be made up of delegates chosen by the various legislatures, as Prof. Ron Watts has suggested, since that would put us back into the same old dynamic of sending provincial champions to do battle that afflicts the First Ministers' conferences.

Nor can it be a sample of worthies carefully selected to represent various interest groups, ethnic minorities, or schools of thought, not only because accurate and proportional representation can never be given to every possible group, as both the Spicer and Belanger-Campeau Commissions have proven, but because such a process by its very nature encourages the division of Canadians into smaller and smaller groups, and groups within groups.

The one thing we all have in common is our uniqueness as individuals. The members of this representative body must therefore be chosen as individuals, by individuals, as are the members of the House of Commons. If the process is to unify, rather than divide; if it is to blend national and provincial allegiances, rather than oppose them; above all, if it is to command the requisite legitimacy, they must be popularly elected.

Last, it must be one national assembly. Preston Manning of the Reform Party is talking about a preliminary series of regional forums: but this again would harden positions in advance. The place for regional assent is after a constitution had been drafted: ratification by referendum in each region (the Triple-R?).

Put these all together, and what do they spell? A constitutional convention.