Section 1 of the Constitution Act, 1867

Section 1 of the Constitution Act, 1867 (French: article 1 de la Loi constitutionnelle de 1867) is a provision of the Constitution of Canada, setting out the title to the Act.

Proclamation bringing the Constitution Act into force, July 1, 1867

The Constitution Act, 1867 is the constitutional statute which established Canada. Originally named the British North America Act, 1867, the Act continues to be the foundational statute for the Constitution of Canada, although it has been amended many times since 1867. It is now recognised as part of the supreme law of Canada.

Constitution Act, 1867

Main article: Constitution Act, 1867

The Constitution Act, 1867 is part of the Constitution of Canada and thus part of the supreme law of Canada.^[1][2] The Act sets out the constitutional framework of Canada, including the structure of the federal government and the powers of the federal government and the provinces. It was the product of extensive negotiations between the provinces of British North America at the Charlottetown Conference in 1864, the Quebec Conference in 1864, and the London Conference in 1866.^[3][4] Those conferences were followed by consultations with the British government in 1867.^[3][5] The Act was then enacted by the British Parliament under the name the British North America Act, 1867.^[6][7] In 1982 the Act was brought under full Canadian control through the Patriation of the Constitution, and was renamed the Constitution Act, 1867.^[2][6] Since Patriation the Act can only be amended in Canada, under the amending formula set out in the Constitution Act, 1982.^[8][9][10]

Text of section 1

Section 1 reads:

Short title
1 This Act may be cited as the Constitution Act, 1867.^[11]

Section 1 is found in Part I of the Constitution Act, 1867, dealing with preliminary matters.

Legislative history

Section 1 is a typical example of a short title used by British and Canadian legislative drafters. It was not used in the either the Quebec Resolutions of 1864, nor the London Resolutions of 1866.

The original name of the Act was the British North America Act, 1867, which appeared in the first formal draft of the bill dated January 23, 1867, and was used in all subsequent drafts, up to the introduction of the bill in the British Parliament.^[7][12] The short title was presumably introduced by the British legislative drafter responsible for the bill, Francis S. Reilly.^[13]

Section 1 has been amended once since the Act was enacted in 1867. The name of the Act was changed to the Constitution Act, 1867 upon the Patriation of the Constitution in 1982.^[2]

Purpose and interpretation

The original name, the British North America Act, 1867, reflected the colonial origins of the statute. It was enacted by the British Parliament in the mid-19th century, when the colonies of British North America were part of the British Empire. The name was changed to Constitution Act, 1867 as part of the Patriation process, to modernise the Constitution of Canada.^[14]

The short title of a statute is generally used for citing the statute, rather than the longer full title. The long title is sometimes used by a court as an aid to interpretation. Both titles are equally authoritative.^[15]

Related provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867

The formal long title of the Act is: An Act for the Union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the Government thereof; and for Purposes connected therewith.^[16]

References

1. Peter Hogg and Wade Wright, Constitutional Law of Canada, 5th ed. (Toronto: Thomson Reuters (looseleaf; current to 2022), para. 1:4.
2. Constitution Act, 1982, s. 52, s. 53, and Schedule, item 1.
3. Donald Creighton, The Road to Confederation (Toronto: Macmillan Publishing, 1864; revised ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) online.
4. Christopher Moore, 1867 — How the Fathers Made a Deal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997).
5. Ben Gilding,"The Silent Framers of British North American Union: The Colonial Office and Canadian Confederation, 1851–67", Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 99, No. 3 (2018), pp. 349–393.
6. Hogg and Wright, Constitutional Law of Canada, para. 1:2.
7. British North America Act, 1867, 30 & 31 Vict. (UK), c. 3, s. 1.
8. Hogg and Wright, Constitutional Law of Canada, para. 4:1.
9. Constitution Act, 1982, Part V.
10. Canada Act 1982 (UK) 1982, c. 11, s. 2.
11. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 1.
12. Initial Draft of the British North America Bill (23 January, 1867), clause 1; reproduced in G.P. Browne (ed.), Documents on the Confederation of British North America (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009; reprint of 1969 edition, with introduction by Janet Ajzenstat), Document 79, p. 248.
13. Creighton, The Road to Confederation, p. 418.
14. Hogg and Wright, Constitutional Law of Canada, para. 1:3.
15. Ruth Sullivan, Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes, 6th ed. (Markham: LexisNexis, 2014), paras. 14.14 to 14.21.
16. Constitution Act, 1867.