Keewatin v. Minister of Natural Resources

Part 4. Euro-Canadian History 1758-1871 22The Federal/Provincial Relationship[142] The challenge for the Fathers of Confederation was to reconcile sovereignty with controlover local affairs and to provide continuity with cherished Constitutional principles. (Vipond,February 23, 2010 at p. 55.)[143] Vipond gave evidence that the centralists and provincial autonomists had two differentvisions of the federal/provincial relationship.[144] Proponents of strong central government like Macdonald and Morris hoped to avoid therecent U.S. experience where a decentralized government had resulted in civil war. They wantedthe federal Parliament to have the tools to enforce its will, including a power of disallowance.Section 56 of the BNA Act described the Imperial power of disallowance and s. 90 provided ineffect that the federal government would have the same power vis-à-vis the provinces.2011 ONSC 4801 (CanLII)[145] At Confederation the centralists, including Macdonald, Morris and the majority of themembers of the Euro-Canadian elite, disagreed with the provincial autonomists with regard tothe hierarchy of governments or, to put it differently, whether the federal government wassuperior or whether the federal government and the provincial governments were equal whenexercising their respective jurisdictions.[146] Macdonald and Morris were of the view that the Dominion Government should be asuperior government, and the powers of the provinces, delegated powers. The centralists wantedthe federal government to be clearly sovereign. At the same time, they wanted local governmentsto have control over local affairs.[147] Milloy gave evidence that Macdonald's centralist theories of federalism had their roots inHobbsean political theory, which rejected the idea of multiple sovereigns and posited that toavoid conflict between sovereigns, one sovereign should have power to enforce its will.Macdonald [and Morris as Nova Brittania evidences] advocated a structure of distribution ofpowers similar to that of the Imperial government: control over the colonies and the power tointervene in colonial affairs generally not to be exercised unless mandated by Imperial concerns.[148] Before Confederation, thinking about Canadian federalism had evolved to include aconcept that distinct governments could serve the same Crown. The early idea of one monarchserved by a single government had developed into the concept of multiple independent colonialgovernments with defined jurisdictions and responsibilities, drawing upon the resources of theirown treasuries and responsible to their own electorates.[149] The provincial autonomists did not view provinces as inferior to the federal government.From their perspective, the provinces derived their powers from the Queen, who was as much arepresentative of a province for provincial purposes as of Canada for federal purposes. Theyadvocated that the sovereign constituent, the indivisible authority, was the Queen in the ImperialParliament through the BNA Act. In their view, the two levels of government in Canada wereindependent and sovereign within the spheres granted to them by the BNA Act.