THE CONSTITUTION ACTS 1867 to 1982

1 CANADAA Consolidation ofTHECONSTITUTIONACTS1867 to 1982 DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICECANADAC onsolidated as of January 1, 2013 Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada,represented by the Minister of Public Works andGovernment Services, through your local book seller or by mailfrom Publishing and Depository ServicesPublic Works and Government Services CanadaOttawa, OntarioK1A 0S5 Telephone: (613) 941-5995 Fax: (613) 954-5779 Orders only: 1-800-635-7943 Internet: No.: YX1-1/2012 ISBN: 978-0-660-67458-2iiiFOREWORDC onsolidation of the CONSTITUTION Acts, 1867 to 1982 This consolidation contains the text of the CONSTITUTION Act, 1867 (formerly theBritish North America Act, 1867)

2 , together with amendments made to it since its en-actment, and the text of the CONSTITUTION Act, 1982, as amended since its CONSTITUTION Act, 1982 contains the Canadian charter of Rights and Freedomsand other provisions, including the procedure for amending the CONSTITUTION CONSTITUTION Act, 1982 also contains a schedule of repeals of certain constitu-tional enactments and provides for the renaming of others. The British North Ameri-ca Act, 1949, for example, is renamed as the Newfoundland Act. The new names ofthese enactments are used in this consolidation, but their former names may befound in the CONSTITUTION Act, 1982 was enacted as Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982,1982, c.

3 11 ( ). It is set out in this consolidation as a separate Act after theConstitution Act, of the CONSTITUTION Act, 1867 The law embodied in the CONSTITUTION Act, 1867 has been altered many times oth-erwise than by textual amendment, not only by the Parliament of the United King-dom but also by the Parliament of Canada and the legislatures of the provinces inthose cases where provisions of that Act are expressed to be subject to alteration byParliament or the legislatures. A consolidation of the CONSTITUTION Acts includingonly those subsequent enactments that alter the text of the Act would therefore notproduce a true statement of the law.

4 In preparing this consolidation, an attempt hasbeen made to reflect accurately the substance of the law contained in enactmentsmodifying the provisions of the CONSTITUTION Act, 1867, whether by textual amend-ment or various classes of enactments modifying the CONSTITUTION Act, 1867 havebeen dealt with as follows:I. Textual Amendments1. RepealsRepealed provisions ( section 2) have been deleted from the text and quotedin a AmendmentsAmended provisions ( section 4) are reproduced in the text in their amendedform and the original provisions are quoted in a AdditionsAdded provisions ( section 51A) are included in the SubstitutionsSubstituted provisions ( section 18) are included in the text and the formerprovision is quoted in a Non-textual Amendments1.

5 Alterations by United Kingdom ParliamentProvisions altered by the United Kingdom Parliament otherwise than by textualamendment ( section 21) are included in the text in their altered form and theoriginal provision is quoted in a Additions by United Kingdom ParliamentConstitutional provisions added otherwise than by the insertion of additional pro-visions in the CONSTITUTION Act, 1867 ( provisions of the CONSTITUTION Act, 1871authorizing Parliament to legislate for any territory not included in a province) arenot incorporated in the text but the additional provisions are quoted in an appropri-ate Alterations by Parliament of CanadaProvisions subject to alteration by the Parliament of Canada ( section 37)have been included in the text in their altered form, wherever possible, but wherethis was not feasible ( section 40)

6 The original section has been retained in thetext and a footnote reference made to the Act of the Parliament of Canada effectingthe Alterations by the LegislaturesProvisions subject to alteration by the legislatures of the provinces, either byvirtue of specific authority ( sections 83 and 84) or by virtue of head 1 of section92 ( sections 70 and 72), have been included in the text in their original form butthe footnotes refer to the provincial enactments effecting the alteration. Amend-ments to the provincial enactments are not noted; these may be found by consultingthe provincial statutes.

7 In addition, only the enactments of the original provinces arevreferred to; corresponding enactments by the provinces that were created at a laterdate are not ProvisionsFootnote references are made to those sections that are spent or probably example, section 119 became spent by lapse of time and the footnote referenceindicates this. In turn, section 140 is probably spent, but short of examining allstatutes passed before Confederation there would be no way of ascertaining defi-nitely whether or not the section is spent.

8 The footnote reference therefore indicatesthat the section is probably enactments of the United Kingdom Parliament and the Parliament of Canada,and Orders in Council admitting territories, that are referred to in the footnotes maybe found in Appendix II of the Appendices to the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985and in the annual volumes of the Statutes of are some inconsistencies in the capitalization of nouns. It was originallythe practice to capitalize the first letter of all nouns in British statutes and the Con-stitution Act, 1867 was so written, but this practice was discontinued and was neverfollowed in Canadian statutes.

9 In the original provisions included in this consolida-tion, nouns are written as they were VersionThe French version of the CONSTITUTION Act, 1867 is the conventional does not have the force of law since this Act was enacted by the Parliament of theUnited Kingdom in English 55 of the CONSTITUTION Act, 1982 provides that a French version of theportions of the CONSTITUTION of Canada referred to in the schedule [to that Act] shallbe prepared by the Minister of Justice of Canada as expeditiously as possible . TheFrench Constitutional Drafting Committee was established in 1984 with a mandateto assist the Minister of Justice in that task.

10 The Committee s Final Report, whichcontains forty-two constitutional enactments, was tabled in Parliament in December1990. The French version of the Final Report is available on the Justice CanadaWebsite at the following URL: consolidation of the CONSTITUTION Acts, 1867 to 1982 contains material pre-pared by the late Dr. E. A. Driedger, The material has been updated wherenecessary. The Department of Justice gratefully acknowledges Dr. Driedger s earli-er OF PROVISIONSS ectionPageCONSTITUTION ACT, 1867 Preamble1I.