The long-continuing constitutional debate within Canada has brought a search today for new constitutional-govermental models of paradigms capable of taking us all safely into the 21st century. For students of contemporary constitutionalism, no country's experience has been more seriously studied than that of the West German federal state formed out of the three Western zones of Germany in 1949 and endowed with what was then described as a temporary governmental charter, pending final reunification of Germany.;This volume is the result of a special bilateral Canadian-German conference organised by the Simon Fraser University and the Goethe-Institute of Vancouver in 1991 on the theme ""The Challenge of Contemporary Constitutionalism: Canadian and German Federalism-in-the Making"". The essays it contains, from many distinguished judges and professors from both countries, form a unique contribution both to scientific knowledge in constitutionalism and to current ventures in constitution-making and drafting in a number of countries - Western and Eastern Europe, North America - around the world.