Parliament of Canada

“ That is what I mean when I say that Canada's constitution is a vital, living, growing thing, not a dead formula by which the Past binds and impedes the Present and the Future.
There must be a session of the Dominion Parliament once every year. Five years is the limit of any tenure of office by the Commons. Every five years the Commoners must go to the country for reelection. Usually the government in power goes to the country for reendorsement before the term of Parliament expires. ”

“ The task will be made easy through Canada and the United States having the same legislature. The local and provincial governments are the same in the Canadian towns and provinces as they are in the American towns and 181 States—a House of Representatives, a Senate, and a Governor, with this difference, this great difference, to the present advantage of Canada: whereas every four years the Americans elect a new master, who appoints a ministry responsible to himself alone, the Canadians have a ministry responsible to their parliament, that is, to themselves. ”

“ The French Canadian party, who enjoyed a large majority in the legislative assembly, strongly desired to obtain control over certain duties imposed in 1774, and certain hereditary profits obtained by the crown from the sale of public lands. In 1831 the British parliament surrendered the former. They resolved to retain the latter, on which the French Canadians demanded that the legislative council of Lower Canada, then nominated by the governor, should be made elective. ”

“ That a representative body similar to that which attempted to overturn the constitution in Lower Canada can work well, and even usefully reform when in the hands of loyal English subjects, is acknowledged by his lordship, who says, “the course of the Parliamentary contest in Upper Canada has not been marked by that singular neglect of the great duties of a legislative body, which I have remarked in the proceedings of the Parliament of Lower Canada. ”

“ In a new country the representatives of the people would, for the most part, be persons engaged in trade, who might be unable to attend Parliament for seven consecutive years. The qualifications necessary for electors in towns and counties were much too high. It seemed to him that ministers intended to prevent the introduction of popular government into Canada. While the number of the members of the Assembly were limited, the numbers of the Council, although they could not be less than seven members, were unlimited. ”

“ There being only thirty thousand inhabitants in the whole province, small as the Parliament was, the people, if not fairly, were at least sufficiently represented. It is somewhat doubtful, nevertheless, that a constitution which gave only a quasi-sovereign to Upper Canada, neither directly, nor, as the Governors of Canada now are, indirectly responsible to the people, could have been the very image and transcript of the British Constitution. There was a misty resemblance to that celebrated and unwritten form of government, in the erection of three estates—King, Lords, and Commons—and no more. ”

“ Ottawa:
Printed by Malcolm Cameron,
Law Printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. Anno Domini, 1868. Chapter Title Assented to 22 Chapter XXII. An Act for continuing the Parliament of Canada, in case of the demise of the Crown. ”

“ The first parliament of the new Dominion met in the autumn of 1867 in the new buildings at Ottawa—also chosen as the seat of government of the federation—and was probably the ablest body of men that ever assembled for legislative purposes within the limits of old or new Canada. In the absence of the legislation which was subsequently passed both in Ontario and Quebec against dual representation—or the election of the same representatives to both the Dominion parliament and the local legislatures—it comprised the leading public men of all parties in the two provinces in question. ”

“ The system in vogue, under which members of the House of Commons were elected under half a dozen different systems, over which parliament had no control, was in his opinion not merely abnormal, but derogatory to the dignity of the superior body. In defence of this system the practice in the United States was sometimes pointed to, but in this matter there was no real analogy between Canada and the United States. The American Union is in reality a federation of sovereign states, of which Congress is the creation. ”

“ In other words, we should have to summon Parliament. The Government of Canada is restricted in its powers. It is responsible [264] to Parliament, and it can do very little without the permission of Parliament. There is no doubt as to the attitude of the Government on all questions that mean menace to British interests, but in this present case our limitations are very clearly defined. And so it is that we have not offered a Canadian contingent to the Home authorities. ”

“ Under the Canada Act of 1791, the provinces had each a parliament or legislature, an upper house, the Legislative Council, of nominated members, not fewer than seven in Upper and not fewer than fifteen in Lower Canada, and a lower house, the House of Assembly, sometimes called the House of Commons elected by the people, not fewer than sixteen in Upper and not fewer than fifty in Lower Canada. ”

“ In eight important cases which he argued before the Judicial Committee of H. M. Privy Council, he established, as against the contention of Sir John A. Macdonald, the proposition that the provincial legislatures were co-ordinate with and not subordinate to the parliament of Canada. ”

“ He advised that Canada should be given Responsible Government, that is, the Governor should choose for his advisers the men having the confidence of the people’s representatives. Besides, he recommended that Canada should have only one Parliament instead of two, and suggested the Union of all the British provinces in North America under one Parliament. ”

“ The Canadians voted en masse, as directed—not by the government. The government was entirely without influence. The Assembly was the most independent in the world, for the government could not obtain even that influence which might arise from personal intercourse. He could not be expected to associate with blacksmiths, millers, and shopkeepers. Even the avocats and notaries he could nowhere meet, except during the actual sitting of Parliament, when he had a day in the week expressly appropriated to receiving a large portion of them at dinner. ”

“ Among other political measures since Confederation we must notice the increase in the number of representatives in Parliament—there being now ninety-two from Ontario, sixty-five from Quebec, sixteen from New Brunswick, twenty-one from Nova Scotia, six from Prince Edward Island, five from Manitoba, six from British Columbia, and four from the North-West Territories. A Supreme Court of Appeal was established in 1875, to avoid the expense of taking appeals from Canada to the British Privy Council ”

“ Of course, if a cabinet is defeated it must resign and give place to one which has the confidence of the House. In this way, the will of the people (or it would be more correct to say of the men, for women have as yet no voice in the election of members to parliament) is supreme in Canada; and they must, in the last resort, hold themselves responsible for the doings of the men whom they put or retain in office. ”

“ The recently appointed Councillors, who were taken from the majority of the Assembly, and had entertained the hope that a sufficient number of independent men, holding opinions in unison with those of the majority of the people, and of their Representatives, would be associated with them, have thus been overwhelmed by a majority hostile to the Country.
The result has been so much the more fatal, because the people naturally looked upon the Legislative Council, recomposed by the present Governor in Chief, as embodying the sentiments of the Colonial Executive ”

“ When Parliament afterwards departed from the principle thus recognized, firstly, by the introduction of the English Criminal Law, and afterwards by that of the Representative system, with so much of the Constitutional and Parliamentary Law as was necessary to its perfect action, it did so in conformity to the sufficiently expressed wish of the Canadian People ”

“ But the fact that the Quebec parliament was an innovation, while the one at Newark was a simple development, had very much more.
There is no need to follow the course of legislation in any of the five provinces. As most of the civil and practically all the naval and military expenditure had to be met by the Imperial Treasury, and as Canada was five parts and no whole from her own parliamentary point of view, the legislation required for a grand total of two hundred and fifty thousand people could not be of the national kind. ”

“ But, it may be reasonably asked, what was Canada doing, with her deeper interests still, to further them in those long years of discussion and delay. With the exception of the Hind Expedition, the Draper mission, the printing and discussion of the Red River settlers' petition and consequent Commission of Inquiry, certainly not much was done by Parliament. More was done outside than in the House to arouse public interest; for example, the two admirable lectures delivered in Montreal in 1858 by the late Lieutenant-Governor Morris, followed by the powerful advocacy of the Hon. ”