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Canadian Legal System Analysis

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The judicial branch of Canada has played one of the most unique roles in history due to their shaping of Canada. The decisions rendered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (hereby referred to as the JCPC) and the Supreme Court of Canada impacted the values of Canadian citizens. These decisions were often contradictory and exposed the legal system as flawed, inflexible and stubborn. Throughout the decades the judiciary sought to maintain rules crafted by the Fathers of Confederation in 1867, rather than adopt more effective standards for judgement. The Canadian federal and provincial powers were broken into sections 91 and 92 in the British North America Act of 1867. Many interpreted the British North America Act as strongly …show more content…

The JCPC’s ruling in Board of Commerce, solidified the changing interpretation of Russell v. The Queen. In Board of Commerce, the federal government argued that although wartime had passed with the end of World War One in 1918, they needed to expand their powers and regulate financial markets. As a result, the government passed legislation to control distribution and sale. This legislation greatly impacted Canadian citizens economically and regulated numerous markets. In 1921, the JCPC examined this case with the federal government claiming emergency to avoid price gouging and monopolies. Lord Haldane (of the JCPC) clarified that usage of emergency powers by the federal government could only be used in common sense emergency situations, not general conditions. These emergency situations included war and famine. This was a stark contrast to Russell v. The Queen, which argued for broad federal powers and Local Prohibition which argued the federal government could enact POGG powers as long as it was an emergency. In this case, the JCPC did not feel as though economic regulation was sufficient an emergency to warrant the POGG clause and then defined emergency. Yet at the same time, the judicial branch did not view the contradiction in their rulings. In 1882, Canada was not experiencing a wartime or …show more content…

The Queen, the POGG provision was applied solely because Canadian survival was at risk. This proves that the rules were so vague and ever-changing over the application of POGG powers that even the Supreme Court of Canada and JCPC disagree on the usage and interpretation. When both branches of the judiciary cannot come to an agreement about a power that is expansive and impactful as POGG, it only makes the case stronger for abolition of the POGG clause. Instead the judicial branch continued to enforce laws through the perspective of 1867 onto the Canadian

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Robert Borden was Prime Minister during the first World War. He was born on the 26th of June, 1854, in Grand-Pré Nova Scotia. Robert Borden was a Canadian lawyer and politician before he served as the eighth Prime Minister of Canada. He was elected twice on October 10th, 1911, and again in 1917. He retired on July 10, 1920, and was the third Nova Scotian to hold this office.

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772 Words | 4 Pages

The British North America Act created an enduring federation that matured into a peaceful, prosperous and well governed state, while challenging successive governments to alter its amending formula and distribution of powers to meet the needs of its inhabitants, except the British North American Act didn’t take many groups of people like the First Nation, Acadians, and Irish into consideration . The B.N.A Act created the dominion of Canada, established powers of the federal government and provincial government from the dominion of Canada. It set out rules of how the government of Canada work. Although not everyone was satisfied with the outcome of the B.N.A Act. Even though the 1867 constitution did establish a workable system of government, it did not prevent disputes over the division of powers in overlapping areas of authority such as taxation and in new areas

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A reason why the Coercive/ Intolerable Acts had the most significant role to the American Revolution was the British made the Boston Port Act. The Boston Port act was one of the most important acts the British had made. The British were punishing Boston for what they did during the Boston Tea Party. During the Boston Tea Party, the colonist in Boston threw 342 crates of British tea off one of the East India Company ships.

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Sauvé v Canada (Chief Electoral Officer) (2002) Plaintiff - Richard Sauvé Defendant - Attorney General of Canada, Chief Electoral Officer of Canada & the Solicitor General of Canada FACTS The Plaintiff: Richard Sauvé is a former member of the biker gang ‘Satan’s Choice’. In 1975, Sauvé was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for the murder of an opposing gang member. In 1993, Sauvé started a long journey fighting an injustice that denied all inmates the right to vote.

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Was the enactment of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis Justified? When one thinks of a terrorist attack, Canada is not usually the first one to come to mind. Canada is usually regarded as a very peaceful country. But Canada was not always peaceful internally; in fact it had raging internal battles with the French wanting independence.

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The founding fathers of Canada when they put down the agreement of the Confederation did not envisage many cases such as the power of controlling the water sources. There are many differences over the ruling power between the federal government and the provinces, which makes the role of the queen critical in ruling between them (Salter & Hebert, 2014). The second role of the Queen in Canada is leading the crown institutions whose job does not depend on the parties at power, the RCMP, and the Central Bank of Canada are examples of these institutions that are supervised by the Queen and their leaders are nominated by

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1219 Words | 5 Pages

Before the Charter, many people may argue that Canada was a free and democratic country. Canadians had the freedom of expression, equality and the principles of fundamental justice. What changed with the creation of the Charter was that rights and freedoms were given constitutional status, and judges were given the power to strike down laws that infringed on them. In 1982, most Canadians agreed that the introduction of the Charter was going to monumental. But on the contrary, over 30 years later, numerous laws have been struck down by interpretation of the charter and remedial techniques that have been developed by courts.

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The Founding Fathers rebelled against the British government for good reasons, which led to the American Revolution in 1783. The Founding Fathers were justified in rebelling against the Britain because the government was not protecting the rights of the citizens, taxing the colonists, and forced them to house British soldiers. In 1756 Britain put the first tax on the colonists. This was the Stamp Act, it required colonists to pay taxes on certain items such as newspapers, legal documents, licenses, and even playing cards.

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