Daniell Smith on constitutional history

At The Tyee, David Climenhaga expresses astonishment at Premier Danielle Smith's bizarre understanding of constitutional history

Ms. Smith said, “Canada is very different from the United States and many other Western democracies. For example, the U.S. centralizes the majority of power and decision-making in its federal government. In Canada, we chose a decentralized federation composed of very unique and diverse provinces left to govern themselves in almost all matters with the main exceptions of national defence and international affairs.”

This is the polar opposite of the facts. She either missed the lecture on the Constitution during her years at the University of Calgary or someone was guilty of educational malpractice!

For sure it's hard to look at the constitution and conclude that the federal government's role is limited to defence and foreign affairs.  But section 92 did indeed provide the provinces with a broad array of powers, and Ontario Premier Oliver Mowat soon established that the provinces were indeed sovereign in all those matters allocated to them.  

A sovereign Alberta within a united Canada -- Ms Smith's professed desire -- has been on hand since 1905, or at least from the 1930s.  She's the one who wants to move in on a vast array of powers always held by the federal government.  

Despite all the efforts of John A Macdonald, Canada did indeed began -- and continues -- as a notably decentralized federation, with education, health care, housing, and yes, natural resources confirmed to lie within the powers of the provinces. If only they were more willing to use the powers they have wisely, and not blame Ottawa for all their failings.    

Book Notes: Macfarlane and Puddister on lawyers and political scientists; Boyko on Sandford Fleming

I

At Substack, the political scientist Emmett Macfarlane reports on his new edited collection with Kate Puddister, Disciplinary Divides In The Study of Law And Politics, on the subject of how differently lawyers and political scientists look at questions of law and politics and the constitution and federalism and the Charter and all that. It's a set of academic essays by law profs and polisci profs who work on the contested territory between them.

Having written a bit about both constitutional politics and legal history, I'm tempted to read in it. I can certainly believe in the difference in perspectives. I'd be even more interested in a book about how differently historians and political scientists think about these things.  Or about how differently historians and lawyers do.  

I suspect too few historians care about such theoretical matters to engage the way the political scientists and the law profs actually do. Come to think of it, there are not that many who even engage with, say, confederation any more.

But I do sometimes reflect that a lot of political scientists say "in the time of Jean Chretien" (or the older ones "the time of Pierre Trudeau") to mean what other people mean when they say "in the mists of antiquity." A historical sense does not always seem to be a prerequisite.

II

John Boyko is launching a new biography of Sandford Fleming, In Pursuit of Tomorrow. I recall a previous Fleming biography, Time Lord by the Canadian-American novelist Clarke Blaise, an original and idiosyncratic appreciation.  It was very much focussed on Fleming's role in establishing global time zones and, beyond, on the very nature of time and how it was changing in the 19th century. I remember liking it quite a lot.

I have not yet read Boyko's but it is clear this seeks to be a complete and straightforward biography of the man and all his diverse accomplishments (and some failures too, maybe).  More comments may follow, as Sutherland House publishers has kindly send me a copy to peruse.

History of vote-buying, item 4287

Recently Nathan Erskine-Smith, a federal MP and former Liberal cabinet minister, lost a nomination race to determine who would represent the provincial Liberal party in an upcoming by-election.  He appealed the result based on allegations of improper voting.

Tempest in a teapot, sure. Who cares, really? 

The issue prompted veteran Ontario broadcaster and political observer Steve Paikin to write, "The Nomination Meetings are the Problem," an opinion piece that made no accusations against the winning candidate but fulminates over the disgraceful state of party political elections as he has observed them for decades. You might wsnt to read the piece even if you are not a Liberal, not in Ontario, and generally uninterested in minor-league party squabbles. Paikin:

This week on my podcast, I asked former Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay to characterize party nomination meetings. Her answer: “rife with corruption.”

She’s not being hyperbolic, and this isn’t just a Liberal thing. Political parties are private organizations and, as such, are under no obligation to run these meetings under the auspices of more reputable outfits such as Elections Ontario. But after watching these processes for decades, I confess I’ve pretty much seen it all: police brought in to break up fights; lax oversight; dubious ethics; dead people signed up to vote.

After listing more of the routine improprieties that typify party elections, he wraps up, cautiously ("even going so far as..."?) but with a thoughtful suggestion:

It would be a good thing for politics if Erskine-Smith’s experience brought about a renewed commitment by the parties to clean up their acts, perhaps even going so far as to give responsibility over their nomination meetings to Elections Ontario, which has a lengthy history of competent election oversight.

In general, I take the view that if you enter a vote-buying competition and lose, you are not on solid ground to complain that the other side was buying votes. But Steve Paikin, who cares about these things, makes a strong case for a legitimate and independent authority to take over these nomination processes, which undermine the very heart of our parliamentary system, federal and provincial.

And for sure he should extend his analysis to federal and provincial party leadership races, even more corrupt because even more consequential.   

PS (same day):  Today it was reported that an Ontario Liberal Party internal investigation into the contested nomination found no evidence of improprieties.  The matter is closed.

 

History of Maple Syrup

In the Globe and Mail, Maura Forrest reports on how the mayor of Plessisville, QC. (pop. 9000), the until now undisputed "Capitale mondiale de l’Érable" is responding to the adoption by the Montreal suburb of Mirabel of the title "Capitale internationale de l’Érable."

The depth of Mr. Morin’s displeasure is not easy to translate. “J’étais en tabarnak,” he said.

Which is a good hook on which to hang a mention of journalist Peter Kuitenbrouwer's recent history of the industry, Maple Syrup: A Short History of Canada's Sweetest Obsession. and particularly its chapter on Plessisville's own Cyrille Vaillancourt, who in the 1920s organized Quebec maple syrup producers into a cooperative that  helped put an end to the reign of the "Maple King," an American commercial monopoly that for a time had been able to offer "take it or leave it" offers to unorganized producers across New England and Quebec. (That chapter was excerpted in The Walrus last winter.)

Matthew Thomas, the maple sugar historian (who knew!) and biographer of Viallancourt'sNew England rival Thomas Cary, has written an amused and sympathetic review of Kuitenbrouwer's book for the Maple Syrup Digest (again, who knew!), while expressing some observations about the limited amount of history in Kuitenbrouwer's mostly contemporary history.  

The DCB on Herbert Molson

The new Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on Herbert Molson (1875-1938) is a blockbuster, worth reading even if you have no interest in the scions of old Montreal families  -- Herbert being the fourth descendent of the original Molson brewer of Montreal. It's by Robert C.H Sweeny, the Montreal historian and Memorial University emeritus professor.

I'm ambivalent about the little potted summaries that the DCB has started placing at the top of its biographies. At first glance, I thought this one editorialized a little too much about how it felt about the subject of the biography.

Then I got into the meat of this biography, and boy, it delivers. For his account of Herbert Molson's life and career, Robert Sweeny seems to have tracked every penny that ever went in or out from the Molson's business and in or out from Herbert Molson's personal wallet. It's not a pretty picture. The market rigging! The price-fixing! The tax-dodging! The profiteering! The honours for his philanthropy set against the microscopic share of his income it represented.

In 1909 Molson’s entered into a cartel with its much larger rival. From April of that year through to September 1925, the two firms shared monthly returns on how much ale, porter, and lager each had sold in both Canada and Newfoundland. All sales in excess of a set market share were to benefit both firms, at a fixed profit per gallon. 

... 

It is not clear how Herbert managed to avoid incurring a heavy tax bill on these appropriations. His private ledgers show that in 1928 he paid 25 per cent in taxes on a net income of $311,812, but in 1929 he paid only 2.8 per cent on a revenue of $5,187,519, and in 1930 a mere 1.8 per cent on $4,877,352.

...

Throughout the 1930s he donated only 1.56 per cent of his $17.1 million income to charitable causes.  

Lately the DCB has been engaged in an ambitious fundraising project seeking to build its endowment to the size it needs. One cannot help speculating about how potential major donors might react if they saw this work sample. 

Which is why it's important that the DCB has published it. 

 

History of bootin' 'em out

The Guardian publishes a story about a process that is fairly routine in parliamentary governments all over the world:  an unpopular party leader flounders, and members of his cabinet and caucus begin discussing whether or not to remove him. 

It's Britain this time, where Keir Starmer's incompetence is driving Reform toward power, and driving his caucus crazy.  So in the next few days they may launch the process of removing him and choosing his successor.

Why can't we have this in Canada? What is a parliament for, if parliamentarians cannot or will not review and amend the plans of their leaders, and if necessary change them? 

 

Book Notes: Jill Lepore on constitutional amendments.

 "It is intended to be amended," is the epigraph that starts Jill Lepore's We The People, a history of the U.S. constitution .  She actually takes the quoted line from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but it is no joke. 

She means it absolutely seriously, and much of the argument of her book is how the eighteenth century aspirations of the American constitution has hardened into stone, into bone, and how it has in recent decades become pretty much unamendable.

Now the US constitution is well over 200 years old, and showing its age. Many of its fundamentals  -- the Electoral College, the Senate -- were intended to prevent and negate popular (and even representative) government, and have succeeded very well even as popular sovereignty -- "We the People" -- has become the nearly universal expectation. How does the United States move forward when so much amendment is needed and so little is possible?

In general, the mid-nineteenth Canadian constitution is much more flexible and much less in need of fundamental amendment, in my opinion, but the problem is there.  The Canadian amending formula is not yet fifty, but our constitution is also pretty much unamendable. Who in Canada is writing a big popular book about that? 

Book Notes: Carleton and Sinclair on Residential School Denialism

University of Manitoba Press announces a forthcoming title for September 2026: Truth before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism, edited by Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair.

Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair, along with a team of expert historians, educators, Survivors, archivists, and archeologists, analyze the genesis, methods, and consequences of denialism; push back on denialist claims; and highlight some of the primary sources and peer-reviewed scholarship that denialists ignore or misrepresent. Importantly, they also document the harms denialists have inflicted on Survivors and communities.

It's  a timely topic, it seems. British Columbia's The Tyee has a Emily Enns feature up on the topic, focussing mostly on denial actions around British Columbia and the West, but linking in some national organizations and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     networks of retired academics. It doesn't mention Toronto's Canadian Institute for Historical Education, which began mostly to assert that John A Macdonald is blameless in all things indigenous and deserves more statues but has hosted residential school denial talks by Nigel Biggar and David Frum.  

Update, May 11: Molly Ungar comments:

The CIHE should re-name itself The Canadian Institute for Historical Gatekeeping.

 They might take it as a compliment.

History of Governors General

I hope Louise Arbour will be an ornament to the office of Governor General. She is almost eighty, but like a lot of senior judges she seems to retain limitless energy -- enough, I hope, to carry her through a full term of office. Her distinguished public service and her globally recognized achievements in human rights and justice make her a symbol of Canadian respect for the rule of law in these times. It's an excellent appointment.  

Upon her appointment, Mme Arbour declined to call herself a monarchist, and went on to offer her preferred choice of words for her new role: 

I will be the representative of the crown in a constitutional arrangement that I think has served Canada extremely well.

That seems excellently phrased. To my ear, it acknowledges an actual monarch is superfluous to a parliamentary democracy -- as is indeed the case in most of the world's parliamentary democracies, from Ireland to India to Germany. 

Describing herself as "the representative of the crown in a constitutional arrangement," Mme Arbour nicely suggests we hardly need a foreign king and the royal family and all those trappings in our egalitarian society. A distinguished Canadian represents the state, and our politics are handled democratically through our elective institutions. What's not to like?

At his Substack, constitutional scholar Philippe Lagassé, an advocate of monarchy, calls Arbour's statement 

fairly pro-Crown when measured against contemporary Canadian attitudes toward the monarchy. It may not be sufficient for the decorative plates crowd, but it's sufficient for those who emphasize the constitutional in constitutional monarchy.

 I can agree with that. 

Meanwhile, Parti Quebecois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, he of the slightly aristocratic name and the democratic politics, said, "Regarding the institution, I repeat that it is one of the worst wastes of public funds."

It's not in any sense a waste of public funds to support the office of Governor General in the role Louise Arbour explains so diplomatically!  But I agree with him when he goes on to say: 

We are still in an archaic system where the king of England has anything to say in our democracy.

John Fraser approves, too   My notes on his recent book on the GGs here

HIstory of MPs' privileges.

For those who like fine details of constitutional law, or parliamentary history minutiae, Emmett Macfarlane's Substack discussing the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Alford v. Canada might be just your cup of tea.

Alford is a law professor who thinks that a law making it a criminal offence for members of the House of Commons National Security and Intelligence committee to disclose confidential information they receive in committee is an unconstitutional intrusion on Parliament's privilege to make its own decisions about what Parliamentarian may and may not do. 

The Supreme Court did not agree.  It upheld the law, and Macfarlane approves.  Parliamentarians' privileges, they both find, are essential but do not need to be unlimited, and can even be restrained by the criminal law of the land. 

Obscure historical research question about New France

I'm still reading Louise Dechêne's People, State, and War under the French Regime in Canada, which I mentioned earlier. I read it in smallish chunks, with two bookmarks, one where I am in the text and another in the endless endnotes -- which constitute almost a parallel text. 

It takes time, but I admire the book enormously.  I am far from finishing it, but already I go from "Is this the best book ever written about New France?" to "Is Louise Dechêne the best Canadian historian ever?" This sentence from page 168 sums up this book's project and maybe Dechêne's whole historical career. 

The only way to know the thoughts of rural people is to listen to them: to dig through the jumble of judicial archives and find their words buried within, to chance upon a revealing account, to grasp the meaning of a word or incident, and so to elucidate the weaknesses and strengths of rural communities. 

This book does that work throughout.  The amount of work she put into it -- digging through the jumble, as she said, just to chance on something -- for years and years! And from that work she knows the people of New France more precisely (with many qualifications and doubts, to be sure) than one would have thought possible.

To my surprise, I found myself in one of her endnotes. She is discussing how many deaths the Seven Years War might have caused among the population of New France, and the endnote is mostly a long list of the historians who have failed to address this question, failed to do the work, she might say. Then she writes: 

To my knowledge, only Christopher Moore poses the question of loss of life during the Seven Years' War, conjecturing a proportion of 10 percent for the whole population.

I confess this pleased me a lot. I have been aware that I may be pretty much the only historian to have attempted such an estimate in public. I just did not imagine that anyone else had noticed. 

And I have a question for any specialists of New France history who may see this.  Because I didn't pull my estimation out of the air. 

My memory is that when I was preparing the essay in question (for my chapter in The Illustrated History of Canada) I came across an article that put forward something like a casualty estimate.  But when I came to write the chapter, I could no longer find that source. After much unsuccessful searching for it (even wondering if I dreamed it), I went ahead and made an estimate on my own, citing no support or source at all.  

So here is my question:  Does anyone know of a published work (earlier than 1987) that discusses Canadien casualties in the Seven Years War -- not military casualties, I'm talking about the whole population of New France.  I think the one I am thinking of was written in French, by a francophone historian, probably in an article, not a book. (If I could not get back to it then, and Dechêne had not noticed it, it might be rather obscure, even to specialists.

Ever since, I may have been slightly braced for someone to challenge my estimate or the basis for it. Dechêne refrains from making her own casualty estimate, but from what she writes I think she not only thought the question important but felt I was on the right track. She certainly thought the number was large: "the empty spaces left by the war," she writes, may well have left a measurable drop in the post-1760 population. And trauma that can be imagined. 

If you can enlighten me -- there is an email address at right.

 

  

New Map of North America -- (Greg Curnoe 1972)

 

History of empowering MPs

Aaron Wherry, politics columnist at CBC News, has just published a very calm demolition of the Conservative Party's efforts to delegitimize "floor-crossing." He then seizes the opportunity to raise the serious problem: how to empower MPs rather than parties in Parliament:. 

There are some practical questions to be asked about any proposed rules around floor-crossing. 

How, for instance, would Poilievre's proposal or an outright ban deal with a situation like what happened in February 2004, when all Canadian Alliance MPs and 15 Progressive Conservative MPs chose to sit together under the banner of the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada?

What about the Canadian Alliance MPs who, a few years before that, left their party and formed a group called the Democratic Representative Caucus? 

Beyond the practical concerns, limits on floor-crossing risk further empowering party leaders and whips, at the expense of individual members. And at the heart of the debate about floor-crossing is a question about what should be considered the fundamental building block of Canada's parliamentary democracy: the individual members who are elected, or the political parties whose banners they run under?

If switching parties is fundamentally wrong, what about voting against the wishes of your party? Should MPs be beholden to every element of their party platform?

Wherry is not ready to suggest that making MPs the "fundamental building blocks" of Parliament really means making party leaders accountable to their caucuses, rather than vice versa.  That seems to remain beyond the pale of Canadian political speculation. But his arguments do help to move the needle:

Putting committee membership beyond the immediate control of party whips wouldn't necessarily lead to all of the investigations, hearings and legislative amendments that opposition MPs might like to see. But it would at least increase the ability of committees to more often act with a mind of their own — regardless of whether Parliament is operating with a party majority.

In that way, the path forward for Parliament after these remarkable 12 months might have less to do with reinforcing the importance of party affiliation, and more to do with actually empowering the individuals that Canadians elect to represent them. 

Worth Reading: Jean-François Nadeau on secularism

On his Substack, Paul Wells reprints in translation Jean-François Nadeau's recent column on Quebec's secularism law, currently at the Supreme Court of Canada, now leading to hundreds of firings, all Muslims, all women, mostly in child care centres:

We show the door to women who have broken no law, harmed no one, and failed in no professional duty. Their veil becomes a pretext for fantasies and suspicions, in contempt of the essential work they perform every day for children.

In a school system already grappling with challenges like dropout rates, overcrowded classrooms, special needs, and lack of resources, was it really so urgent this spring to fire appreciated, qualified, well-integrated women? Is this truly how the injustices within this leaking-from-every-seam education system will be corrected?