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Constitutional Documents in Canada
The written part of Canada’s constitution consists of statutes
of the Imperial (that is, the United Kingdom) Parliament, the
Parliament of Canada and the legislatures of the Canadian provinces. The
major constitutional document is the British North America Act, 1867, later
renamed the Constitution Act, 1867. This document is a statute of the
United Kingdom Parliament. By this Act, the United Kingdom Parliament
united three British colonies - Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick -
into one Dominion under the name of Canada, and provided for executive,
legislative and judicial organs of governance for the Dominion of Canada
(we would now say ‘the Federation’, the ‘Federal Government’ or ‘Canada’).
The Act then created four Provinces in the same territory - Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick - and established
executive, legislative and judicial organs of governance for these
provinces. The Act endowed Canada
and the provinces with legislative powers, which it divided between them.
By the terms of the Constitution Act, 1867, the legislative powers
conferred on the Federal Parliament are "exclusive"; so, too,
does the Act "exclusively" confer legislative powers on the
provinces. Because its powers are "exclusive", Canada’s
legislative power acts as a limit on provincial legislative power, and vice
versa.
Canada’s constitution limits
governmental power in other ways, most notably by Part I of the
Constitution Act, 1982 (the "Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms") which guarantees certain rights to individuals and groups;
by Part II of the Constitution Act, 1982 and certain other constitutional
statutes and rules of the common law which reserve rights and powers to
Aboriginal persons and groups, and by other constitutional statutes which
reserve further rights and powers to individuals and groups. These
reservations require government power to refrain from acting in ways that
impinge unduly on these rights, or require government power to be exercised
in prescribed ways: equally, for example, or again, bilingually.
KEY
CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS
OTHER
CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS
PROPOSALS
FOR CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE
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