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"provided the proportionate representation of the provinces prescribed by this Act is not thereby disturbed."

Increase of
number of
House of
Commons.

52. The number of members of the House of Commons may be from time to time increased by the Parliament of Canada, provided the proportionate representation (i) of the Provinces prescribed by this Act is not thereby disturbed.

(i) "The proportionate representation."-See note (i) to section 37, ante.

Appropriation and tax bills.

MONEY VOTES (i), ROYAL ASSENT.

53. Bills for appropriating any part of the public revenue, or for imposing any tax or impost, shall originate in the House of Commons.

(i) “Money votes."-The subject of money votes relates more particularly to parliamentary procedure and practice, and the subject will be found fully discussed in Dr. Bourinot's work upon that subject (2nd ed., chapter XVII). The restriction provided for by section 54 was first introduced into Canada by the Union Act, 3 & 4 Vic. c. 35, s. 57. See Lord Durham's report, p. 34. The restriction is enforced by the Speaker upon a point of order taken.

Recommendation of money

v ote.

54. It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address, or bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue, or of any tax or impost, to any purpose that has not been first recommended to that House by message of the Governor-General in the Session in which

such vote, resolution, address, or bill is proposed.

to bills, &c. (i).

55. Where a bill passed by the Royal assent Houses of Parliament is presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent, he shall declare, according to his discretion, but subject to the provisions of this Act and to Her Majesty's instructions, either that he assents thereto in the Queen's name, or that he withholds the Queen's assent, or that he reserves the bill for the signification of the Queen's pleasure.

(i) "Royal assent."-The provisions of this and the two following sections have been already fully discussed; see ante, chapter VII., p. 147, et seq.

Disallowance

Council of Act

Governor

56. Where the Governor-General as- border in sents to a bill in the Queen's name, he assented to by shall by the first convenient opportunity General. send an authentic copy of the Act to one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State; and if the Queen in Council within two years after the receipt thereof by the Secretary of State thinks fit to disallow the Act, such disallowance (with a certificate of the Secretary of State of the day on which the Act was received by him) being signified by the Governor-General, by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by proclamation, shall annul the Act from and after the day of such signification.

Signification

of Queen's

pleasure on

57. A bill reserved for the significa

bill reserved. tion of the Queen's pleasure shall not have any force unless and until within two years from the day on which it was presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent, the Governor-General signifies, by speech or message, to each of the Houses of the Parliament or by proclamation, that it has received the assent of the Queen in Council.

An entry of every such speech, message, or proclamation shall be made in the Journal of each House, and a duplicate thereof duly attested shall be delivered to the proper officer to be kept among the Records of Canada.

V. PROVINCIAL CONSTITUTIONS (1).

Appointment of Lieutenant-Governors of Provinces.

Executive Power (ii).

58. For each Province there shall be an officer (iii), styled the LieutenantGovernor (iv), appointed by the GovernorGeneral in Council by instrument under the Great Seal of Canada (v).

(i) "Provincial constitutions."-In chapter III. will be found a discussion of the question how far the pre-Confederation provincial constitutions are continued by the B. N. A. Act. That chapter was written in order to show that the working principle of those earlier constitutions was evidently intended to be continued in the constitutions. of the provinces as defined in the B. N. A. Act. Ever since the passage of that Act, there has been in progress a peaceful warfare as to the position of the provinces under our

constitutional system,-a conflict not yet perhaps ended but now become hopeless to those who would deny the full autonomy of the provinces in relation to all those matters which. by the B. N. A. Act, are committed to the legislative authority of the provincial assemblies. In the earlier stages, the attack was directed toward narrowing the range of the legislative power of the provinces, and this phase of the conflict has been already dealt with in chapter X. At the present time the debateable ground is that relating to the exercise of executive power in connection with the government of the provinces, the contention of those who would belittle the executive "sphere of authority" of the provinces being, in effect, that under the B. N. A. Act, there has been a severance of the functions of government in relation to some, at least, of those subject matters which, for purposes of legislative action, have been committed to the provinces. In the earlier pages of this book we have not hesitated to attack this position, and further reference to the question will be found in the following notes. We should mention, however, that the first three chapters of this book were already in press before the report of the judgment of the Judicial Committee. in Liquidators of Maritime Bank v. Receiver General of New Brunswick (Times L. R. Vol. VIII., p. 677) reached us, and this fact will account for the lack of reference to this important decision as supporting the views expressed in those chapters upon this question of the position of the provinces. The particular point for decision was as to the right of the provincial executive of New Brunswick to claim the benefit of the prerogative right of the Crown to priority over other creditors, in the winding up of the affairs of the Bank, but the judgment of the Committee deals with the general question, and, as we have already intimated, affirms, with final authority, the full autonomy of the provinces.

"The appellants conceded that, until the passage of the B. N. A. Act, 1867, there was precisely the same relation between

the Crown and the province which now subsists between the Crown and the Dominion; but they maintained that the effect of the statute had been to sever all connection between the Crown and the provinces, to make the government of the Dominion the only government of Her Majesty in North America, and to reduce the provinces to the rank of independent municipal institutions. For these propositions their Lordships have been unable to find either principle or authority. Their Lordships do not think it necessary to examine in minute detail the provisions of the Act of 1867, which nowhere professed to curtail in any respect the rights and privileges of the Crown, or to disturb the relations then subsisting between the Sovereign and the provinces. The object of the Act was neither to weld the provinces into one, nor to subordinate provincial governments to a central authority, but to create a federal government in which they should all be represented, intrusted with the exclusive administration of affairs in which they had a common interest, each province retaining its independence and autonomy. That object was accomplished by distributing between the Dominion and the provinces all powers, executive and legislative, and all public property and revenues which had previously belonged to the provinces, so that the Dominion government should be vested with such of those powers, property, and revenue as were necessary for the due performance of its constitutional functions, and that the remainder should be retained by the provinces for the purposes of provincial government."

(ii) "Executive power."-In arriving at a proper understanding of the position of the provincial executive, nothing is more essential than to have a definite idea of the necessary connection which, in any country where the government is a government-according-to-law, must exist between the legislative and executive powers in government; and various phases of this question will be found discussed in chapter I. (ante, p. 12, et seq.), chapter III. (ante, p. 45, et seq.), and chapter VI. (ante, 142, et seq.), and in the notes to section 9, ante, and the other notes to this section 58.

(iii) “There shall be an officer.”—Compare section 10,

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