Section II, 1922 [35] Trans. R.S.C. 



The Colonial Policy of the Dominion 



By Chester Martin, M.A. (Oxon.), B.Litt. (Oxon.), F.R.S.C. 



(Read May Meeting, 1922) 



The development of the provinces of the Dominion from definitely 

 colonial status has been so prolonged and gradual a process that a 

 similar development within Canada itself has been almost completely 

 overshadowed. As early as Confederation itself an imperial rôle 

 was contemplated in general terms towards those vast areas in the 

 West which remained after the rapid disintegration of Hudson's 

 Bay rule. Over these territories the first parliament of the Dominion, 

 in December, 1867, prayed to be allowed to assume the duties and 

 obligations of government, but it would be safe to say that few were 

 aware of the difificulties of such a sponsorship and that none realized 

 its implications. 



The original Confederation was singularly ill-equipped for such a 

 rôle. Section 146 of the B.N. A. Act of 1867 provided for the future 

 union of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territories to Canada 

 "subject to the provisions of this Act." According to "the provisions 

 of this Act" the control of the Crown lands was vested exclusively in 

 the provinces. The federal government, in fact, was not legally 

 a landed entity; while the transfer of Rupert's Land and the North- 

 Western Territories in 1870 involved the administration of one of the 

 largest areas of ungranted Crown lands within the British Empire. 



The Dominion undertook to create the new province of Manitoba 

 at a time when the Manitoba Act, on the advice of the best legal 

 opinion then and since, was in many important respects ultra vires 

 of the federal government. The Dominion proceeded nevertheless 

 to legislate the new province into existence under conditions which 

 have made of it an exception ever since to recognized British con- 

 stitutional principles. In the case both of the new province and the 

 territories it required an Imperial Act of indemnity "for all purposes 

 whatsoever" — the B.N. A. Act of 1871 — to confirm and regularize the 

 ravages of political expediency. 



Despite this very unpromising beginning, the stages through 

 which these territories passed from primitive colonial status under 

 Governor and Council in 1870 to responsible government in 1897 

 and provincial status in 1905, afford a very remarkable parallel to the 

 various colonial stages of the original provinces of the Dominion. 



