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Canadian Confederation and the Influence of American Federalism

Part of: CJP Canada 150 collection 0617

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Jennifer Smith
Jennifer Smith
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Abstract

How did the Fathers of Canadian Confederation understand United States federalism? What lessons did they presume to draw from it and how did they apply them to the Confederation project? In this article, James Madison's comprehensive test of federalism, as set out in the thirty-ninth paper of The Federalist, is used as a tool to examine the Canadians' views of American federalism, particularly in relation to the questions of state sovereignty and the role of an upper chamber. The article suggests that their preoccupation with the threat of state sovereignty led them to concentrate on division of powers issues and, as a result, to pay little attention to the federal possibilities of a second chamber. And it concludes that, because they were working with a parliamentary model of government, not a republican one, these possibilities were not—and are not now—as promising as some political scientists suggest.

Résumé

Quelle compréhension les Pères de la Confédération canadienne avaient-ils du fédéralisme américain? Quelles leçons comptaient-ils en tirer et comment les ont-ils appliquées à leur propre projet de confédération? Dans cet article, l'interprétation du fédéralisme livrée par James Madison (telle que décrite dans le Fédéraliste no 39) est la référence de base qui permet de retracer l'opinion des Canadiens au sujet du fédéralisme américain, concernant en particulier les questions liées à la souveraineté et au rôle d'une Chambre haute. II est suggéré que les craintes entourant la souveraineté du Canada ont incité les Pères à concentrer leur attention sur la question de la division des pouvoirs, négligeant du même coup les possibilités offertes par le régime fédéral concernant l'utilisation d'une seconde Chambre. En conclusion, il est maintenu que le modèle parlementaire—plutôt que républicain—de gouvernement a fait en sorte que ces possibilités n'étaient pas—et ne sont toujours pas—aussi prometteuses que certains politologues l'ont suggéré.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , September 1988 , pp. 443 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1988

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References

1 Waite, P. B., The Life and Times of Confederation, 1864–1867 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 33Google Scholar.

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27 Ibid.

28 Browne, Documents, 159. Section 33 of the Quebec Resolutions opens with the words: “Rendering uniform all or any of the laws relative to property and civil rights in Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island,” and adds a clause on the requirement of the agreement of the provincial legislatures. Section 94 of the Constitution Act, 1867 contains a major substantive addition enabling Parliament, in the event of the passage of uniformity legislation, “to make Laws in relation to any Matter comprised in any such Act.”

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37 Browne, Documents, 44–49. In his letter to Edward Cardwell, the British colonial secretary, Lieutenant-Governor Gordon of New Brunswick reported that the composition and the method of selection of members of the federal upper house was one of two subjects “debated at some length in more elaborately prepared speeches” at the Charlottetown meetings (ibid., 45).

38 Ibid., 68.

39 Ibid., 98.

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41 Ibid., 494–500.

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49 The new amending formula is contained in Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982.

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54 Ibid., 210–11, 199.