Please note that the Law Library will be closed next Monday, July 3 to recognize the July 1 Canada Day holiday. Full details of our hours of operation are available here.
British Columbia Election 2017 – Parliamentary Conventions (updated July 1)
Much is being written and discussed in the local and national news and social media about the final results (see Elections BC) of the 2017 BC provincial general election: Liberals 43 seats, NDP 41, Greens 3. Christy Clark was Premier as her party won the most seats, 43 out of 87, but with the NDP-Green agreement inked and signed, her government could, and did, lose on a confidence vote in the Legislature. By convention, only certain pieces of legislation, the Throne Speech and budgets, can have confidence motions and therefore votes, attached to them.
All elected MLA’ s were sworn in the week of June 5th. Cabinet was sworn in June 12. The Premier stated in her May 30 press conference “we have a duty to meet the house and test its confidence.” She acknowledged her party will likely not last long. Pundits predict her government will fail on either the throne speech or a budget bill (which must be tabled and passed no later than September). B.C.’s Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon will then have the option of calling an election or asking NDP leader John Horgan to form a minority government.
The Legislative Assembly, 1st session of the 41st Parliament, sat June 22, for the election of a speaker (Steve Thomson, Kelowna-Mission who as of June 29 is no longer speaker) and the reading of the Speech from the Throne. On June 26 the liberal government introduced two bills which were negatived on motion (did not pass first reading) and will not be part of the official record. The NDP also introduced the confidence motion on the throne speech. On June 29, the Legislative Assembly sat for the vote on the confidence motion. The Liberal government was defeated, thus the lost confidence. Premier Clark then tendered her resignation to the the Lieutenant Governor and asked for the house to be dissolved, which would have triggered an election. The only other option available was to give the NDP the opportunity to govern. The Lieutenant Governor upon the advice of experts and in keeping with convention, asked John Horgan if he had the confidence of the house to form government. His reply – yes.
Sources are available that discuss conventions, confidence motions, the conduct of legislative assemblies, the duties of the Lieutenant-Governor, or minority governments. Below is a select list of sources including legal treatises, parliamentary procedure handbooks, news media, and journals. Feel free to contact lawref@uvic.ca about these and other sources.
Andrew Heard, Canadian Constitutional Conventions: the Marriage of Law and Politics (Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada, 1991) Law Library KF4482 H43
D. Michael Jackson and Philippe Lagassé, Canada and the Crown : Essays on Constitutional Monarchy (Montréal : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013. McPherson Library JL15 C35
Frank Cranmer & Sir William McKay, Erskine May’s treatise on the law, privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, 23rd ed. (London: LexisNexis, 2004) Law Library KD4354 A5M39 2004
Canada. Parliament., House of Commons. Special Committee on Reform of the House of Commons. Report of the Special Committee on Reform of the House of Commons. (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1985). Law Library KF4483 L4C3565 1985
Alistair Fraser, William Foster Dawson, & Holtby, John A., Beauchesne’s Rules and Forms of the House of Commons of Canada, with Annotations, Comments and Precedents (Toronto: Carswell, 1989). Law Library Reference KF4483 R8C36 1989.
Marc Bosc and Audrey O’Brien, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 2nd ed, (Ottawa: House of Commons, 2009) Online and McPherson Library Reference, JL164 C26 2009.
Standing Orders of the House of Commons, Including the Conflict of Interest code for Members (Ottawa : Publishing and Depository Services, 2010). Online
Peter W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada, 5th ed. suppl. (Scarborough, Ont. : Thomson Carswell, c2006). Law Library Reserve KE4219 H63 2006
E. George MacMinn, Parliamentary Practice in British Columbia, 4th ed. (Victoria : Queen’s Printer, 2008). Law Library Reference KEB470 A33M33 2008.
Ronald I. Cheffins, Constitutional Process in Canada, (Toronto, McGraw Hill, 1989) Law Library KF4482 C5
Library catalogue subject keyword searches:
” Parliamentary Practice Canada ” or ” Parliament Rules and Practice” and Canada or Great Britain
News Sources: Globe and Mail, National Post, Times Colonist, Tyee.
Select Journals:
Canadian Parliamentary Review, free online
Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law (Westlaw)
Review of Constitutional Studies (Library e-journal, print also available)
Post originally written June 22, updated July 1.
National Aboriginal Day, June 21
National Aboriginal Day has been observed in Canada since 1996, when the Proclamation Declaring June 21 of Each Year as National Aboriginal Day was declared by the Governor General of Canada, Roméo LeBlanc. One of the recommendations of the 1995 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) was the creation of such a day. Link to a searchable database of the fulltext of the RCAP final report, hearings, and other documents at Library and Archives Canada .
The official version of the proclamation (PC1996-0785) was published as a Statutory Instrument; see the full text of SI/96-55 on the Justice Laws Website or in the Canada Gazette Part 1.
More information about the proclamation the day and can be found on these websites:
Chief Justice McLachlin Announces Retirement
On June 12, 2017, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin announced that she would be retiring from the Supreme Court of Canada on December 15, 2017. Justice McLachlin joined the SCC in 1989 after serving on the BC Court of Appeal and as Chief Justice of the BC Supreme Court. In 2000 she became the first woman to be named Chief Justice of the SCC, and she is now the longest serving Chief Justice. Prime Minister Trudeau remarked, “Chief Justice McLachlin’s judicial accomplishments are unparalleled in Canadian history. She has been a judicial leader and trailblazer for almost four decades. […] After 28 years at the Supreme Court of Canada, her contributions reach into every part of our law.”
Chief Justice McLachlin will be remembered for her effective leadership, her clear writing, and her court’s landmark decisions. As Chief Justice, McLachlin has often led her court to reach consensus, even in controversial cases such as Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2013 SCC 72. She has used the term “cultural genocide” to describe Canada’s treatment of First Nations, and she penned the first SCC case that recognized Aboriginal title, Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44. In her retirement announcement she expressed, “It has been a great privilege to serve as a justice of the Court, and later its Chief Justice, for so many years. I have had the good fortune of working with several generations of Canada’s finest judges and best lawyers. I have enjoyed the work and the people I have worked with enormously.”
We shall see who will be named the next Chief Justice and who will be elevated to the SCC. McLachlin’s place on the bench will be filled under the new Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments Process introduced by the Trudeau government in August 2016. This is an open and transparent application process led by an Independent Advisory Board. The Board has a mandate to recommend “qualified, functionally bilingual candidates who reflect a diversity of backgrounds and experiences,” but it is not obligated to follow the convention of regional representation on the SCC. In the fall of 2016, Justice Malcolm Rowe became the first justice to be appointed to the SCC under the new process. Justice Rowe, the first SCC justice from Newfoundland and Labrador, replaced Justice Thomas Cromwell, the representative of Atlantic Canada, and so his appointment ultimately complied with convention.
You can find several of Chief Justice McLachlin’s publications in our library collection:
- The Canadian law of architecture and engineering – Beverley M. McLachlin and Wilfred J. Wallace. Call Number: KF2925 M34.
- British Columbia Court Forms (2nd Edition) – Beverley M. McLachlin and James P. Taylor, Edited by Fred Irvine. Call Number: KEB140 M25 2005.
- British Columbia Practice (3rd Edition) – Beverley M. McLachlin and James P. Taylor, Edited by Fred Irvine. Call Number: KEB535.4 A6M25 2006.
- A Canadian judgment: the lectures of Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin in New Zealand, April 2003 – Edited by Andrew Stockley and David Rowe. Call Number: KE8244 M34 2004.
New Titles in the Law Library
Watch this space regularly for updates of new print and electronic titles received in or for the law library. We’ll supply the author, title, and call number information, as well as a link to the catalogue record where you can find out more about each title.
- Defences in contract – edited by Andrew Dyson, James Goudkamp, and Frederick Wilmot-Smith. Call Number: K840 D44 2017
- The regulation of international trade – Michael J. Trebilcock and Robert Howse. Call Number: K3943 T72 1995
- Temporary order? : life in East Jerusalem under the shadow of the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law – research and writing, Noga Kadman and Andrea Szlecsan. Call Number: KMK2144 K33 2014
- The dignity of commerce: markets and the moral foundations of contract law – Nathan B. Oman. Call Number: K840 O46 2016
- The Protection of intellectual property in international law – Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan. Call Number: K1401 G77 2016
- Report of the Special Committee on Racial and Religious Hatred – Ken Norman, Chairman, John D. McAlpine, Hymie Weinstein. Call Number: KE4395 C36 1984
- The secret power of juries: what jurors in Canada aren’t told about their rights — and what we can do about it – Gary Bauslaugh. Call Number: KE8495 B39 2013