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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
It is appropriate that we should be studying today the growth in the functions and powers of the state. Whether we look at our federal, our provincial, or our municipal governments, whether we look abroad at our sister democracies or toward the less democratic régimes, the same phenomenon is evident; everywhere there is occurring an enlargement of the role in society which is being played by the political organisms created by man for his security and welfare. Political man is at last resurrecting himself, and political science seems likely to challenge the erstwhile supremacy of her dismal sister, economics. As this paper is being written, a second attempt is being made to build an international organization endowed with important functions in the world society, an attempt which, if successful, will add a supra-national authority to the existing state organs on the national plane. Whatever the end result may be, it is apparent that the trend away from an individualistic and unplanned society toward one that is more integrated and organic is not only continuing but is greatly accelerating.
Such a development both within and between the nation states puts a strain upon national constitutions. New functions for the state mean new organs for the fulfilment of those functions, or new uses for old organs. New organs must be added to an existing structure, causing shifts of power and frequent disequilibriums. Legislative processes designed for a smaller sphere of state duties and a more leisurely pace of social change are found inadequate for the increased responsibilities of governments, and a rapid, sometimes alarming, expansion of administrative processes results. No type of state escapes these pains of adjustment, be it unitary or federal. But in the federal state a special aspect of the problem arises, with respect to the distribution of the new functions between the central and local governments. Many fear that a growing centralization may tend to destroy the regional autonomy which is a fundamental part of the federal idea.
1 Up to 1939 the majority of Canadian authorities still believed we had no right to neutrality. But so much attention has been focussed on the separate declaration of war by Canada on September 10 and it has been used so often as proof of our freedom of choice, that it has now become generally accepted as establishing a right. Ireland is, however, the classic example.
2 See, for example, the difficulty faced by the Canadian government in September, 1939, when it prohibited trading with the “enemy” before we had declared war.
3 During argument in Toronto Electric Commissioners v. Snider et al.; see report published by Department of Labour, 1925, p. 166.
4 Reference re Validity of Chemical Regulations, 1943 S.C.R. 1.Google Scholar
5 Hodge v. Regina, 9 A.C. 117.
6 The Province of Ontario is to be complimented on having adopted an Act for the central filing and publication of regulations; this is at least a step toward the publication of this new type of law. See the Regulations Act, 8 Geo. VI, c. 52.
7 In Problems of Modern Government (Toronto, 1941), p. 32.Google Scholar
8 Bill no. 78 of 1945.
9 Vol. XXII, no. 3, winter no. 1944-5, p. 137.
10 I have dealt with this problem in Canada after the War ed. Brady, A. and Scott, F. R. (Toronto, 1943), chap. III.Google Scholar
11 E.g. J. A. Corry, “Difficulties of Divided Jurisdiction” (Appendix 7 to Sirois Report, chap, VI); Gettys, Luella, The Administration of Canadian Conditional Grants (Chicago, 1938).Google Scholar
12 In Unemployment Insurance Reference, 1937 A.C. at p. 366.Google Scholar
13 Vol. II, p. 43.
14 See Trade Union Law in Canada (Canada, Department of Labour, 1935), p. 18.Google Scholar
15 Canada, Senate Debates, 1882, pp. 367–70.Google Scholar The broad, national point of view of the Minister of Justice is well illustrated by the following quotation: “It is because this Bill relates to subjects so important as that, subjects which go far beyond contracts between master and servant, which in their indirect effeots concern the whole community and on which, to a certain extent, and so far as the population in manufacturing establishments go, the future of the country very much turns—whether we shall have a strong, healthy and moral populaition, likely to be creditable to the country or whether we shall have a dwarfed and immoral population and so perpetuate in Canada all the evils which his inquiry has brought out in England and which we are trying to legislate for now—I say if these subjects do not affect he peace, order and welfare of a whole community it would be hard to say what does.”
16 A Gallup Poll of October 31, 1943, showed 48 per cent of Canadians in favour of abolition.
17 See note on “Ministerial Consultations with Outside Bodies” (Modern Law Review, vol. VII, 1944, p. 144).Google Scholar