Amendments to the Constitution of Canada

[1] Other Commonwealth countries had taken over the authority for constitutional amendment after the Statute of Westminster 1931, but at the time, Canada decided to allow the Parliament of the United Kingdom to retain the power "temporarily".

The request would include a resolution containing the desired amendments, which in turn were always passed by the British Parliament with little or no debate.

[7] It is reserved for the following matters: For some constitutional provisions, amendments can be passed only if identical resolutions are adopted by the House of Commons, the Senate and two-thirds or more of the provincial legislative assemblies (i.e. at least seven) representing at least 50 per cent of the total population of the provinces.

The following matters are explicitly reserved to the "7/50 formula", by virtue of s. 42: No specific mention is made in the procedure for amendments affecting what falls within the federal/provincial distribution of powers.

[7][6] For example, in 2022, the Canadian government used this amendment method to modify the House of Commons seat allocation formula.

[9][10] According to s. 45, each province has the exclusive power to modify its own constitution, if the changes do not concern matters outlined in s.

Amending the constitution has been a topic of much debate in contemporary Canada, and the two most comprehensive attempts to revise the document have both been defeated.

Courts have not yet ruled about whether this kind of language really would bind future legislatures, but it might do so if the higher bar was met when creating the law.

[17][18][19][20][21][22] An official at the Department of Justice, in June 2022, stated to Le Devoir that the additions to the constitution ostensibly made by the Quebec Legislature,[23] through its Act respecting French, the official and common language of Quebec, would be "reproduced in the codification of the constitutional laws [...] in the next update".

There seems to be general agreement among provincial governments that some parts of the constitution need to be amended to deal with long-standing demands from many provinces.

Although the amending formula has not been formally altered, the Canadian government under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien after the 1995 Quebec referendum recognized regional vetoes over proposed amendments, held by the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, and by the regions the Prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) and the Atlantic (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island).

[28] The notwithstanding clause was invoked routinely between 1982 and 1985 by the Parliament of Quebec, which did not support the enactment of the Charter but is subject to it nonetheless.

The parliaments of Saskatchewan and Alberta have also previously invoked the notwithstanding clause, to end a strike and to protect an exclusively heterosexual definition of marriage, respectively.

However, this conclusion is questionable because the "Constitution of Canada" is expressly defined in s. 52(2) as a set of 30 instruments that does not include the Supreme Court Act.

Some scholars, including Peter Hogg, have suggested that the references to the Supreme Court of Canada in sections 41 and 42 are ineffective.

They argue that these references are "anticipatory" and will become effective only if Parliament adds the Supreme Court Act to the list in s. 52(2).

Other scholars, including Professor Cheffins, have argued that the Supreme Court Act is implied as entrenched into s. 52(2) because of sections 41 and 42.

The Supreme Court itself has confirmed in New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. v. Nova Scotia (Speaker of the House of Assembly), [1993] 1 S.C.R.

5 and 6 2014 SCC 21, a majority of the Supreme Court ruled that clauses concerning the appointment of Justices from Quebec are entrenched.

The Canadian Parliament passed the act to give its assent to the Succession to the Crown Bill (then still under debate in the Parliament of the United Kingdom), which aimed to remove male preference in the line of succession to Britain's throne, consistent with the Perth Agreement of the Commonwealth realms.