[1] The phrase appears in many Imperial Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent, most notably the constitutions of Barbados,[2] several of the British Overseas Territories,[3] Canada, Australia and formerly New Zealand and South Africa.
While specific authorities are often enumerated in legal documents as well, the designation of a residual power helps provide direction to future decision-makers and in emerging issue areas.
[5] In Canada, "peace, order and good government" (in French, "paix, ordre et bon gouvernement") is sometimes abbreviated as POGG and is often used to describe the principles upon which that country's Confederation took place.
The gap branch is rarely relied on because there is so little left to default to the federal government after taking into account the enumerated provincial power over property and civil rights under section 92(13) which applies to any transaction, person or activity that is found within the province.
[9] Historically new subject matters, such as aeronautics, do not necessarily fall residually to the federal government, per Johannesson v West St Paul (Rural Municipality of), 1952.
This concept further evolved during the 1920s, when in the 1922 Board of Commerce case, it was stated that POGG could be invoked in times of war and famine, to allow Parliament to intervene in matters of provincial jurisdiction.
It allowed Parliament to legislate on matters that would normally fall to the provincial government when the issue became of such importance that it concerned the entire country.
In determining whether a matter has attained the required degree of singleness, distinctiveness and indivisibility that clearly distinguishes it from matters of provincial concern it is relevant to consider what would be the effect on extra‑provincial interests of a provincial failure to deal effectively with the control or regulation of the intra‑provincial aspects of the matter.Despite its technical purpose, the phrase "peace, order and good government" has also become meaningful to Canadians.
US sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, for example, contrasted POGG with the American tripartite motto to conclude Canadians generally believe in a higher degree of deference to the law.
The term welfare referred not to its more narrow modern echoes, but to the protection of the common wealth, the general public good.
In R v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, ex p Bancoult (No 1) [2000] EWHC 413, the High Court of England and Wales struck down an ordinance made in 1971 by the Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory expelling the entire population of the Chagos Archipelago to make way for an American military base at Diego Garcia, purportedly under his power to legislate for the "peace, order and good government" of the territory.
Despite this, in 2008 the House of Lords in R v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, ex parte Bancoult (No 2) held that the plenary power exists to the extent that even legislation removing all inhabitants from a territory is valid;[19] this was later confirmed in the 2016 UK Supreme Court case R (on the application of Bancoult (No 2)) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.