February 1968, during a constitutional conference in Ottawa, delegates from the Union Nationale-governed Quebec indicated that a provincial president might suit the province better than the appointed viceroy. Two years later, Parti Québécois (PQ) members of the National Assembly refused to recite the constitutionally mandated Oath of Allegiance to the sovereign before taking their seats in the legislature. Sovereignists protested against the Queen's role in officially opening the 1976 Montreal Olympics, with René Lévesque asking Elizabeth to refuse the advice from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and not open the games. Republican options were discussed following the election of the sovereigntist Parti Québécois to government in Quebec, but only specifically in relation to the province. Continuing talks of constitutional reform led to the role of the monarchy in Canada coming under scrutiny in the lead up to the patriation of the Canadian constitution in 1982. However, proposals for change were thwarted by the provinces, including Quebec. The notion of a republic was raised publicly in the early 1990s, when Peter C. Newman wrote in Maclean's that the monarchy should be abolished in favour of a head of state "who would reflect our own, instead of imported, values." Then, in 1997, Deputy Prime Minister John Manley echoed Newman when he expressed at the end of a television interview his opinion that Canada should abolish its monarchy, citing Australia's contemporary discussions around the Australian Crown. Then, in December of the following year, the Prime Minister's press secretary, Peter Donolo, who also complained that the monarch made Canada appear as a "colonial outpost", unaccountably announced through a media story that the Prime Minister's Office was considering the abolition of the monarchy as a millennium project, though no definitive plans had been made. Donolo later supported Manley when, on Victoria Day 2001, Manley said on CBC Radio that he believed that hereditary succession was outdated, and that the country's head of state should be elected. Then, just prior to the Queen's pan-country tour to celebrate her Golden Jubilee the following year, Manley (at that point the designated minister in attendance for the sovereign's arrival in Ottawa) again stated his preference for a "wholly Canadian" institution to replace the present monarchy after the reign of Queen Elizabeth II; he was rebuked by other Cabinet members, a former prime minister, and the Leader of the Opposition, as well as a number of prominent journalists. In 2002, the