The Cabinet, in June 1978, put forward the constitutional amendment Bill C-60 that, among other changes, potentially affected the sovereign's role as head of state by vesting executive authority in the governor general and renaming the position as "First Canadian". Some academics, such as Ted McWhinney, supported these proposals, though they were opposed by others, like Senator Eugene Forsey, who said that the government had managed to "up a hornet's nest with a short stick." From that year's First Ministers' conference in Regina, Saskatchewan, the provincial premiers (including that of Quebec) issued a statement against what they saw as a unilateral attempt by the federal government to push through alterations to the monarchy and expressed their opposition to "constitutional changes that substitute for the Queen as ultimate authority a Governor General whose appointment and dismissal would be solely the pleasure of the federal cabinet"—a message that was reiterated at the conclusion of the 1979 meeting and echoed in newspaper editorials. Decades later, David Smith stated that the federal government at the time had "misperceived the complexity of the Crown [and failed... to recognize its federalist dimension."