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The Rowell-Sirois Report, Provincial Autonomy, and Post-War Canadian Federalism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

D. V. Smiley
D. V. Smiley*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Extract

On May 3, 1940, the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations presented its report to the Prime Minister of Canada. This report, along with the specialized studies undertaken by direction of the commission, constitutes the most comprehensive investigation of a working federal system that has ever been made. In spite of the scope and quality of the commission's work, its analysis of federal-provincial relations has had surprisingly little influence on the directions that the theory and practice of Canadian federalism have taken since 1945. More specifically, the concept of provincial autonomy which is central to the commission's argument has been denied explicitly or implicitly by such influential writings on the Canadian federal system as the so-called Green Book proposals submitted by the federal government at the Dominion-Provincial Conference on Reconstruction in 1945, the Report of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, Mr. Maurice Lamontagne's book, Le Fédéralisme canadien, and the Report of the Quebec Royal Commission on Constitutional Problems, as well as by the actual developments in federal-provincial relations since the Second World War.

At the present time of uncertainty in the Canadian federal system it seems desirable to re-examine the perspectives of the Rowell-Sirois Report. This paper attempts to analyse one of these perspectives—provincial autonomy in the fields of health, welfare, and education.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 1962 , pp. 54 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1962

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Montreal on June 9, 1961.

References

1 Submissions and Discussions (Ottawa, 1946).Google Scholar

2 Ottawa, 1951.

3 Quebec, 1954.

4 Quebec, 1956.

5 Report of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Rehtions (Ottawa, 1940, reprinted 1954), II, 80.Google Scholar All page references in this paper are to the 1954 reprint, hereafter cited as Report.

6 It might be argued that the Report was conditioned by the commission's terms of reference which directed it in part to “… express what in their opinion, subject to the retention of the distribution of legislative powers essential to a proper carrying out of the federal system in harmony with national needs and the promotion of national unity, will best effect a balanced relationship between the financial powers and the obligations and functions of each governing body, and conduce to a more efficient, independent and economical discharge of governmental responsibilities in Canada.” Ibid., I, 10.

7 Ibid., II, 80.

8 Ibid., II, 24–8 and 40–2.

9 Ibid., II, 34.

10 Ibid., II, 34–5.

11 Ibid., II, 50.

12 Ibid., II, 52.

13 See ibid., II, “Abstract of the Leading Recommendations,” 269–76.

14 Ibid., II, 51.

15 Ibid., II, 84.

16 Ibid., I, 257–9.

17 Ibid., I, 259.

18 Ibid., I, 257.

19 Ibid., II, 72–3.

20 Ibid., II, 34.

21 Submissions and Discussions, 55–108, 111–18.

22 Ibid., 75–6.

23 Ibid., 89.

24 Report of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (Ottawa, 1951), 8.Google Scholar

25 “Coordination in Administration” in Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 253–9.

26 “Interprovincial Cooperation,” Canadian Public Administration, 06, 1959, 83–99.Google Scholar

27 A.G.N.S. v. A.G. Can. (1951), SCR 31. For a criticism of the decision see Ballern, John R. in 29 Canadian Bar Review (1951), 79–86.Google Scholar

28 P.E.I. Potato Marketing Board v. H. B. Willis Inc. and A.G. Canada (1952), 4 DLR 146.

29 Revised Statutes of Canada, 1952, c. 6.

30 Statutes of Canada, 1953–54, c. 59.

31 It must of course be admitted that in the case of conditional grants federal legislation is inoperative in the absence of provincial and/or local action.

32 There are some unresolved constitutional ambiguities in this area. The only case dealing directly with such a situation was A.G. Can. v. A.G. Ontario (1937) AC 355, in which the Judicial Committee declared the federal Unemployment and Social Insurance Act of 1935 invalid as an invasion of provincial jurisdiction over property and civil rights. See also Legislative Expedients and Devices Adopted by the Dominion and the Provinces by Gouin, Leon Mercier and Claxton, Brooke (Ottawa, 1939)Google Scholar, Chap. III, “Grants in Aid for Objects not Under Dominion Jurisdiction”; and the evidence given by Varcoe, F. P., Deputy Minister of Justice, to the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on Old Age Security, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence (Ottawa, 1950), 1161–72.Google Scholar

33 Report, II, 34.

34 The Administration of Canadian Conditional Grants (Chicago, 1938).Google Scholar

35 For circumstances relating to provincial-local relations see my article “Local Autonomy and Central Administrative Control in Saskatchewan,” this Journal, May, 1960, particularly 303–6.

36 House of Commons Debates (unrevised), 07 11, 1961, p. 7915.Google Scholar

37 Proceedings, 23.

38 Quebec Royal Commission on Constitutional Problems, Report, II, part 3, especially chap. I, “Culture, Nation, Society.”

39 New York, 1955, 3.

40 Quoted in “On the Theory of the Federal State” in Neumann, Sigmund, The Democratic and the Authoritarian State (Glencoe, Ill., 1957), 220.Google Scholar

41 See the analysis of Arthur Maas on the distinction between the “areal” division of power and the “capital” division of power in Maas, Arthur, ed., Area and Power (Glencoe, Ill., 1959), 9–25.Google Scholar

42 Report, I, 257–9.Google Scholar

43 See the surmise of Premier Shaw of Prince Edward Island at the Dominion-Provincial Conference of July, 1960, when he said in speaking of the conditional grants “There remains the doubt … whether the improvement in certain fields may not in some provinces have been purchased at the cost of some stagnation or retardation of improvement in other fields, such as education.” Proceedings of Dominion-Provincial Conference (Ottawa, 1961), 75.Google Scholar