Provinces aren’t states. The powers of the Canadian provincial governments are delegated to them from the Canadian federal government, not the other way around. Canada does not have a constitution that constrains federal power, since it was not formed by the uniting of states wary of federal power, but rather the uniting of colonies which all considered themselves to be under the aegis of a single sovereignty (Britain).
Fun fact: rather than each province having a plain-old governor, Canada (as any Commonwealth country) has one Governor General for the whole country; and then each province has a Lieutenant Governor, also appointed by the Queen, to serve under the Governor General.
Provincial powers are not delegated by the federal government. The canadian constitution lists certain powers the provinces have and certain powers the federal gov has, with basically anything unmentioned being federal. The federal government doesnt just decide willy nilly what is being delegated to the provinces.
The lieutenant governor doesnt serve under the governor general-they just have different spheres of influence . In provincial matters the lieutenant-governor represents the queen, not the governor general.
> The canadian constitution lists certain powers the provinces have and certain powers the federal gov has, with basically anything unmentioned being federal.
That's interesting. It's pretty much the opposite according to the US Constitution, which delegates certain specific powers to the feds, anything else is (supposedly) up to the states. In practice, though, that's been ignored quite a bit in the last century.
I think the joke is, that canada wanted strong federal government and weak provinces and ended up with the opposite. USA wanted strong states and weak fed, but ended up with opposite.*
*IANA political scientist, i dont know how true this actually is.
> The powers of the Canadian provincial governments are delegated to them from the Canadian federal government, not the other way around.
The provincial and federal governments are all sovereign, mutually bound under a single constitution. They both derive their powers in parallel from the Constitution Act.
> since it was not formed by the uniting of states wary of federal power, but rather the uniting of colonies which all considered themselves to be under the aegis of a single sovereignty (Britain).
Quebec certainly did not consider themselves under the aegis of British sovereignty. Much of confederation was effectively about assuaging the concerns of Quebeckers losing their religious, linguistic and cultural identity in an increasingly majority-English country.
In some ways, the provinces have more powers than US states. For example, provinces do have a right of secession. If the majority of Quebeckers do vote to leave at some point, the federal government has no legal power to stop them. Though Quebec can't secede unilaterally, either. Both parties would be constitutionally-bound to negotiate a mutually acceptable path to independence.
This is false. Lieutenant Governors are appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada, but are beholden to neither the federal government nor the Governor General. Lt Governors simply perform the same role at the provincial level that the Governor General performs at the federal level: 99% of the time just a ceremonial rubber stamp of signing a bill into law.
Canadian provinces are spelled out specifically in the Canadian constitution; they are not creatures of the federal government (unlike municipalities, which do exist at the whims of provincial governments, which is a big problem IMHO, but I digress.)
The only paternalistic powers that the feds hold over the provinces are Disallowance and Reservation. Neither of those powers have been used in decades. Despite the failure of constitutional amendments that, if passed, would have explicitly removed those powers from the constitution, their disuse has raised questions as to whether they are effectively defunct by convention. I suspect that any attempt by the feds to disallow or reserve a provincial law would make its way to the Supreme Court of Canada to answer that question.
Furthermore, any attempt to use those powers on a provincial government, especially so in the case of either the governments of Québec or Alberta, would result in a serious crisis of national unity.
Provinces aren't states, but, for example, I live in a distinct nation to you (I assume, if you are under the "aegis of Britain" ;)
There is no written constitution, but there are specific acts, charters and traditions that form constitutional law, and define the clear divisions of responsibility between the provincial and federal government. That includes my government's right to set laws about signage of commercial establishments, specific consumer rights I get, and also the commercial law around the sale of both alcohol and cannabis.
This is canada we are talking about not britian or anywhere else. There is a written constitution (there are also unwritten parts of the constitution but that is beside the point). The written constitution lays out the powers of different levels of government.
>"For example, the federal Trade and Commerce power (s. 91(2)) has been interpreted to mean that Parliament can regulate trade generally in Canada, as well as the flow of trade across provincial or international borders, but cannot regulate the operation of particular industries, businesses or professions within provinces. The provincial power over Property and civil rights (s. 92(13)) gives provinces the authority to regulate trade and commerce within their respective territory."
> I assume, if you are under the "aegis of Britain" ;)
Not me, but certainly the provincial legislative assemblies of 1867 :)
> there are specific acts, charters and traditions that form constitutional law, and define the clear divisions of responsibility between the provincial and federal government
The difference is that these powers are a delegation of federal power to the provinces, rather than reservation of state power away from a federation.
The relationship between the federal and provincial governments in Canada is a lot like the relationship between the Queen and the parliament in Britain: in practice, right now, the Queen is powerless; but technically, the parliament's power derives from the Queen, and there's nothing legally stopping a monarch from revoking that delegation of power. In the current cultural climate, that'd be unthinkable; but all it would take is "mere" sectarian shift to allow for it.
