Talk:Amendments to the Constitution of Canada

House of Commons apportionment

Wasn't there recently an amendment to the HoC apportionment formula in the Constitution Act 1867? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bancki (talk • contribs) 08:20, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I believe you mean the Constitution Act of 1982, not 1867 (the 1867 Act is a closed document and no longer amendable) As to your question, there have been two amendment for apportioning seats in parliament. One passed in 1985, and another passed in 1999. Both are mentioned in the article. Mediatech492 (talk) 20:00, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to the 'Fair Representation Act', S.C. 2011, c. 26 [1] amending s. 51(1) of the 1867 Act. This amendment should be mentioned in the list. Moreover, the 1867 Act is clearly NOT a 'closed' 'no longer amendable' document.--Bancki (talk) 07:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

§ symbol

I notice that in this edit and others, the "§" symbol was introduced into this article to mean "section". I think this should be reverted, as the "§" symbol is not used in Canadian legal writing. Ordinarily the abbreviation for "section" in Canadian legal writing is "s.", and the abbreviation for "sections" is "ss." Mathew5000 (talk) 02:30, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

• Fair enough. We should probably just make the McGill Guide part of WP:CANSTYLE. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 05:13, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I took them out. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:07, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Constitution of Canada

The expression "Constitution of Canada" is the proper noun given to the supreme law of Canada. It is therefore written with a capital C as it appears at s. 52(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. When the expression is written with a lowercase c, it then means that we are talking not only of all the documents forming part of the Constitution of Canada (s. 52(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982), but also of other rules of law of a constitutional nature which are not part of the formal constitution, such as the Canada Election Act or the Supreme Court Act, for example. Therefore, an amendment to the Canada Election Act is an amendment to the constitution of Canada, but not an amendment to the Constitution of Canada.

Miesianiacal (talk) made changes without respecting the meaning of both expressions. I suggest that the expression "Constitution of Canada" with a capital C be restored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mariemaude (talk • contribs) 03:31, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

"Ambiguous" cases

I disagree with the section on so-called "ambiguous" cases, for two reasons.

First, on the Succession issue, the courts have ruled: changing from male primogeniture to absolute primogeniture did not need a constitutional amendment, as it did not change the Constitution. The two levels of courts in Quebec have decided it, and the Supreme Court denied leave. That's not the same as an SCC decision, but it means that the decisions of the Quebec Court of Appeal stands as the current statement of law. So, there's no ambiguity there, unless and until someone starts a new court case and it reaches a different conclusion.

Second, on the Quebec amendment to the Constitution Act, 1867, Quebec has passed the amendment, citing its authority to amend its own constitution. The Constitution Act created the province of Quebec, created the Legislature, and created the Lt Gov of Quebec at the head of the executive of Quebec. That's its basis for saying that the Constitution Act is in part its provincial Constitution. Quebec has previously changed its provincial constitution as set out in the Constitution Act, 1867, notably when it abolished the Legislative Council, which was created by the Constitution Act, 1867. There is a law that on its face has amended the CA 1867. Wikipedia is not a court of law. Neither are academics or journalists. Unless and until a court rules against the amendment, we have no authority to judge its validity. Point out the controversy, sure, but from the perspective of NPOV and no original research, we can't say it's not a proper amendment. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:33, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree that "ambiguous" is not the best word. I thought of using "controversial", but that might imply that the effect of those amendments are controversial, when the section is supposed to be about the legality of them. There is probably a third option I'm not seeing.

As for the amendment itself, no one is disputing that Quebec has authority to amend its provincial constitution. The question is whether the Constitution Act 1867 has been amended. In your example of Quebec's Legislative Council, note that all of the sections about the Council are still in the Constitution in sections 72-80. Those sections are now obsolete, but they will remain in the text until the day when spent sections of the Constitution are removed by the official amending process. Similarly, section 90Q is in Quebec's provincial constitution, but not the Constitution Act 1867. At this time, the consolidated and annotated versions of the Constitution, as maintained by the Department of Justice, make no mention of section 90Q. In my opinion, that has to be the ultimate authority on the matter; no one else could make the claim to be a caretaker of the current consolidated version of the Constitution Act 1867. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:01, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, there isn't, in Canada, a caretaker of a consolidated version of the Constitution Act, 1867, or more broadly of the Constitution of Canada. Indeed, the Constitution does not attribute to a particular organ the role of codifying the constitution. Thus, it is not the responsibility of the federal government to carry out this task. However, an official at the Department of Justice, in June 2022, stated to Le Devoir that the additions to the Constitution of Canada made by the Parliament of Quebec would be "reproduced in the Consolidation of the Constitution Acts [1867 to 1982] [...] in the next update". For its part, Quebec has already inserted its amendments to its own consolidation.

Now, the fact that the Quebec and Saskatchewan amendments have not yet been inserted into the federal consolidation does not prove that the provincial amendments are illegitimate or invalid. In our system of government, the presumption of constitutionality holds that a law is valid until it is declared invalid by a court.

So I would agree with Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk). There is certainly a debate of experts on the validity of these amendments as there is for many other subjects of law, but that does not mean that any enacted law is necessarily ambiguous. If the presumption of constitutionality really means something in our country this section should be removed. When a court ruling is issued on the provincial amendments declaring them invalid, they can then be moved to the wiki page titled Unsuccessful attempts to amend the Canadian Constitution. Mariemaude (talk) 02:34, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

To revive discussion on this section: the words "additions to the constitution ostensibly made by the Parliament of Quebec" recently added by Mariemaude (talk · contribs) are vague: what additions? Bill 96? Bill 4? Bill 2568.66? And, on the subject of the word "bill", the Quebec legislature uses "Bill [X]" as short form for a law's title. Marlemaude asserted "Your source only show the origin of the Act". That is incorrect: the source is the law, recording its reciept of Royal Assent on 1 June 2022. The sentence should read, "An official at the Department of Justice, in June 2022, stated to Le Devoir that the additions to the constitution ostensibly made by Bill 96 would be "reproduced in the codification of the constitutional laws [...] in the next update." The "Indeed". part of the next sentence is also unnecessary flourish. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 02:04, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I submit that the words "Parliament of Quebec" are not vague, because they are precisely the words used by the official of the Department of Justice that are quoted in the article in Le Devoir. What additions? The answer can only be the ones made by the Parliament of Quebec. A bill, as the National Assembly Website points out, is only a proposed legislation. If one looks at bill 96, one will discover that bill 96 is totally different from S.Q. 2022, c. 14, An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec. So bill 96 cannot be mentioned as being the legal document making additions to the Constitution of Canada. The "Indeed" part could be changed for something else. For instance, it could be written : The last update was made on 1 January 2021 and the next one has not been announced. Mariemaude (talk) 02:57, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Let me be more clear, then: the words "additions to the constitution" are vague. It doesn't matter those are the exact words used by the DoJ official; the context of the Le Devoir article is different to the context of this article.

Again, the source from the National Assembly of Quebec uses the term "Bill 96" on the actual law. The term is used in the Le Devoir article. It's acceptable here. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 03:35, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I guess the words "Amendments to the Constitution of Canada" are vague too then. This whole article is about amendments to the Constitution of Canada. If one doesn't understand what we are talking about when the words "additions to the constitution" are used, well I don't know what else we can say.

Again, the source is not from the National Assembly but from the Quebec official Publisher, which is the authority responsible for publishing all acts enacted by the Parliament of Quebec. The words "Bill 96" are printed by the Publisher and they appear only as a courtesy so that the reader can find the original bill. Mariemaude (talk) 03:52, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

"Amendments to the constitution of Canada" is a descriptive title for an article about amendments to the constitution of Canada. "Additions to the constitution of Canada" at the end of a section that includes coverage of two pieces of legislation passed by the Quebec legislature is vague because it doesn't make clear which of the two Quebec acts it's referring to. If not vague, it's misleading, as it could be read as referring to both pieces of legislation, when the DoJ official was reffering only to one.

Your personal reasoning for the existence of the words "Bill 96" on the law is inaccurate. However, if you insist on using "An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Quebec" instead of "Bill 96" (meaning the long title is used twice in the section), it's ridiculous, but, so be it. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 04:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

The word "ambiguous" means capable of bearing two inconsistent meanings. As noted above, it is the wrong word, because the intended meaning of these amendments is unambiguous; the issue is whether the amendments are valid and specifically whether the provincial legislature can amend the text of documents included in the Constitution of Canada. Also, the heading "legitimate amendments" isn't NPOV, because it implies that other amendments (not listed under that heading) are not legitimate. Therefore I changed the headings to "Undisputed amendments" and "Disputed amendments". Mathew5000 (talk) 21:29, 31 August 2023 (UTC)