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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
In its report of 1926 the Duncan Commission found the claims of the Maritime Provinces for a larger federal subsidy so just and so urgent that it recommended an immediate increase in the form of interim payments (which were to form the minimum of any increased subsidy) and that the Dominion government should take immediate steps to secure “a complete revision”, “by detailed determination and assessment”, “of the financial arrangements as between them and the maritime provinces”.
The White Commission was accordingly appointed by the federal government in September, 1934, on the written request of the premiers of the Maritime Provinces to make this financial settlement. Sir Thomas White, as chairman, and Edward Walter Nesbitt, both of Ontario, and Chief Justice J. A. Mathieson of Charlottetown, P.E.I., were the Commission. Judge Mathieson brought in a dissenting report. Another Maritime commissioner would probably have changed materially the amount of the increase recommended, since in a report based not upon any accurate standards of measurement but upon “broad and general considerations”, political opinions and personal bias are important. Probably the personnel of the White Commission was not so favourable to these provinces as was that of the Turgeon Commission to the province of Manitoba. Yet the White Commission accepted without question the recommendations of the Duncan Commission and the Maritime Provinces were allowed to present their case before the Duncan Commission without any contesting case of the federal government.
Report of the Royal Commission on Financial Arrangements between the Dominion and the Maritime Provinces (Ottawa, 1935). Hereafter referred to as the White Report.
2 Interim payments were as follows: Nova Scotia, $875,000; New Brunswick, $600,000; and Prince Edward Island, $125,000 a year until the final settlement was reached.
3 White Report, p. 2.
4 Province of Nova Scotia, Report of the Royal Commission Provincial Economic Inquiry (Halifax, 1934).Google Scholar
5 See especially ch. vii of A Submission on Dominion-Provincial Relations and the Fiscal Disabilities of Nova Scotia within the Canadian Federation, presented by Rogers, N. McL. (Halifax, 1934).Google Scholar Hereafter referred to as Rogers's Brief.
6 White Report, p. 23.
7 Ibid., p. 24.
8 Report of the Royal Commission Provincial Economic Inquiry, p. 217.
9 Ibid., p. 77.
10 Keirstead, W. C., “The Bases of Provincial Subsidies” (Papers and Proceedings of the Canadian Political Science Association, vol. VI, 1934, pp. 134-61).Google Scholar
11 See Rogers's Brief.
12 White Report, pp. 5-6.
13 Carrothers, W. A., “Problems of the Canadian Federation” (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 02, 1935, p. 29).Google Scholar
14 Appendices to Royal Commission Provincial Economic Inquiry, p. 37. See also White Report, p. 6, for position of the premier of Nova Scotia.
15 Ibid., p. 23.
16 Ibid., pp. 6-7.
17 Ibid., p. 20.
18 Ibid. p. 11.
19 Canada Sessional Papers, no. 9, 1869, pp. 2-65.
20 But there is truth in the commissioners' statement that “Original arrangements have been so altered by these readjustments to meet changed conditions that it is not possible to make an accurate comparison of the treatment accorded to the various provinces in this regard” and the last phrase might be omitted.
21 On a 5 per cent, per annum interest basis, these payments represent capitalized sums as follows: Nova Scotia, $26,000,000; New Brunswick, $18,000,000; Prince Edward Island, $5,500,000.
22 See Rogers's Brief, chs. viii and ix.
23 Ibid., p. 123.