 The Premier of Newfoundland at the time, Clyde Wells, said it was "inappropriate for the Crown to be intruding in political affairs that way" and Bill Dawson, a law professor at the University of Western Ontario, described Sauvé's use of the word "pact" as "injudicious".This was a subject on which Sauvé and the Queen agreed; Elizabeth II had also publicly expressed on October 22 and 23, 1987 her personal support for the accord and received criticism from its opponents.Sauvé, though, always held that she had been speaking about Canadian unity in general and not the Meech Lake Accord in particular, or any side of the debate around it.