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QUEBEC CITY, April 16 (Reuters) What a difference a constitution can make. Twenty years after Canada replaced its original British-based Constitution with a home-grown one, it has better defined its identity thanks to the document's Charter of Rights but the thorny issue of Quebec's status within Canada is yet unresolved.

On April 17, 1982, then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau signed the new Constitution in Ottawa alongside Queen Elizabeth II, giving the country a fresh new start.

The 1982 Constitution, replacing the 1867 act of the British Parliament that created Canada, included a new and modern Charter of Rights, a statement of rights for the country's aboriginal peoples and language minorities, a complicated procedure for changing the Constitution and a selection process for Supreme Court judges.

The Constitution was, however, patriated from London without the support of French-speaking Quebec. At the time, Quebec Premier Rene Levesque said he was sidelined by Trudeau and the other provincial premiers and accused them of conspiring against Quebec.

Levesque, who opposed Trudeau's more centralized approach, wanted enshrined in the document a broader sharing of jurisdictions between Ottawa and the provinces on issues such as taxation and immigration.

He refused to sign on to the Constitution, as have all subsequent Quebec premiers, and the issue dominated the country's political agenda until 1995, when Quebec separatists narrowly lost a referendum on secession from Canada.

Twenty years on, a nagging sense of unfinished business about the Constitution still haunts the country.

"We are continuing to live and ignoring the country's big problem: its Constitution and the status of Quebec," said Desmond Morton, political scientist at Montreal's McGill University.

"Prime Minister Trudeau has left everything in a mess," he added. Mort???n said that the Charter of rights also led to another major problem: too much power for the judiciary. "Democracy is now settled by judges," he said.

Morton said there no appetite today to solve the Quebec question because of public apathy and the country's relative economic prosperity.

"It made us more proud as Canadians and reinforced the right of citizens against the government," Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stephane Dion told Reuters. "In terms of rights, there has been very nice prog??? about the country's centralization and the province's cultural distinctiveness have not materialized. "Their big fears did not come true. They are living in the past and are constantly looking for a fight with the federal government. They like to dramatize things," he said.

Dion, however, said that he was saddened that Quebec was still not a signatory to the Constitution and said the federal government was willing to recognize the province's distinct society within the Constitution.

"It is not an ideal situation to see that Quebec has not accepted the Constitution," he acknowledged, but noted the issue was, at present, "not a priority for the government and for Canadians".

Dion said that a series of events were planned for Wednesday in Ottawa to mark the 20th anniversary of the Charter and the patriation, including a ceremony involving Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

However, Quebec's separatist government, in power since 1994, was quicker to celebrate the event - sort of.

It has published full-page advertisements in the province's daily newspapers over the past week, blasting the federal government's 1982 "coup de force", which it said "weakened the powers and the rights of North America's sole French-speaking parliament".

A senior provincial cabinet minister said that Canada should be ashamed of not being willing to accommodate Quebec.

"Could you imagine what would happen in the United States if the Constitution was changed without the consent of the states of New York, Texas and California?"

provincial Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Charbonneau asked. Charbonneau said the Charter of Rights hurt the language rights of Quebecers, pointing to a 1988 Supreme Court decision striking down provisions of the province's language law that mandated the use of French in commercial signs.

"We have no reasons to celebrate this anniversary," Charbonneau said.

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