[4] The constitution of the Council and its form of tenure changed from time to time, usually upon the issue of a Commission to an incoming Governor: During the period of 1845-1846, a sequence of ambiguous correspondence occurred between Lord Falkland and the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (initially Edward Stanley, followed by William Ewart Gladstone), on the subject of granting life tenure to members of the Legislative Council.

Bourinot expressed his opinion that the Crown had effectively yielded its right to appoint at pleasure, thus conferring a tenure for life, but he also conceded that the provincial legislature had the power to abolish the Council.

[14] During the administration of William Thomas Pipes, the practice was altered so that only the Government Leader in the Council would be appointed as a Minister without portfolio in the future.

When the two delegations met together, the Assembly members were surprised that while the Councillors were unwilling to accept abolition, they were quite interested in potential reforms designed to make the Legislature work more effectively, including the possibility of electing the Council.

During the 1924 session, the Assembly once more considered an abolition bill proposed by Howard William Corning, House Leader of the Conservative Party.

After vehement debate, in which Liberal MHAs defended the Legislative Council as a bulwark against radicalism, the bill was defeated in the Assembly.

In February, Rhodes offered the pre-reform Councillors pensions of $1000 per annum for ten years, and the post-reform Councillors $500 per annum for ten years; this proposal was rejected almost unanimously by the Council as a "bribe", and inspired the Council to pass a resolution affirming its important constitutional role.

Rebuffed by Ottawa, the Rhodes government then filed a reference for an advisory opinion with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

In October 1927, the Board, in a decision written by Viscount Cave,[18] ruled that: In the weeks before the 1928 legislative session, Rhodes dismissed all but one of the Liberal Councillors appointed before 1925 and appointed enough new Conservative members to reach the symbolic number of twenty-two (to emphasize the Lieutenant-Governor's constitutional right to increase the size of the Council).