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Canadian Constitutional DocumentsA Legal History |
(C) Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 William F. Maton
Unlike the majority of countries whose basic law derives from one document, Canada's basic law derives not only from a set of documents known as Constitution Acts, but also a set of unwritten laws and conventions. This comprises of all the acts passed since 1867 up to and including 1998. As a result, all constitutional documents during that time period have the force of law. This is analogous to laying a foundation (Constitution Act, 1867) and then building upon it and modifying it as the need arises (the successive Acts and Orders).
There are other documents that relate to Canada's development as a country, such as those predating Confederation, which do not hold the force of law, as each act was superseded by the other until the passing and proclamation of the Constitution Act, 1867. Some of these documents include the Charter of Hudson's Bay, the Royal Proclamation, 1763 and the Quebec Act, 1774.
Also, in recent history there have been several proposals (among them the Victoria Charter, the paper A Time for Action, a draft preamble, the Meech Lake Accord and the paper Shaping Canada's Future Together (Charlottetown Accord)) to amend the constitution which either failed to get ratified or were rejected during the original process of drafting the "patriation" formula. Of course, such proposals wouldn't be complete without some committee reports.
Amongst those documents cited, there are other important documents worth mentioning also, that have to do in one way or another with the development of Canada's constitution, as well as that of the country. A few of these are the London Resolutions of 1866 and the Quebec Sign Law, Bill 178 of 1988, as well as the Federal law binding Parliament to use a self-imposed constitutional amending formula.
Finally, one cannot overlook the great expanse of opinion from many people. Arguments for and against constitutional change are constantly thrown into the public forum, and here a small extract can be found.
Still, one can argue that this archive is incomplete, without even regarding documents relating to the evolution of a province, legally, politically and historically. To this end, there is a separate place devoted to that presentation.
As you browse through each document, notice how in many of the older enactments the nouns tend to be capitalized: This was a tradition carried from the United Kingdom and was later dropped by Canada.
Also note that within these documents, at nearly the top of each of these, you will find a date in parentheses. This is the date when the document was given Royal Assent (i.e., proclaimed into law).
N. B. These documents are the English versions. A committee was struck years ago to have them translated into an official French version, but to the best of my knowledge, it handed in its report to Parliament in 1990. Apparently the report was then distributed to the provinces as part of a process to introduce a Parliamentary resolution, but the recent political climate has halted that process.
For more details on this, refer to section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
Contributions (particularly for French language versions) to this project are welcome. I have some more plans for this, so stay tuned! Please see the Acknowledgments for a list of contributors who have helped along the way. Any comments are appreciated.