Alberta’s Sovereignty Act Is a Sensible Step in a Chronically Dysfunctional Federation

Commentary Canada is habitually described as a federation (or sometimes “confederation”). Legally, of course, it is one. But has Canada been a functional federation—and is it one today? Some history is required. In 1867, under the perceived threat of American ambitions directed at British North America, the de facto federation of Canada East (Quebec) and Canada West (Ontario) was expanded to the Maritimes and transformed into a self-governing Dominion. The result found legal expression in the British North America Act (later renamed the Constitution Act (1867). A year later, Great Britain’s Imperial Parliament passed the Rupert’s Land Act specifying that the Hudson’s Bay Company would surrender its rights and privileges over the enormous lands stretching north and west from the much-smaller-than-today Ontario and Quebec, under terms and conditions to be negotiated by Hudson’s Bay, Britain’s Colonial Office, and Canada. The new Dominion obtained these lands via an Imperial Order-in-Council: Territorial expansion was a gift from the Imperial Crown....