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War Measures Act
the stipulations are which would specify whether war, invasion or insurrection exists, merely that the Governor in Council has the authority by proclamation to declare it so. Once this proclamation has been issued, only a further proclamation by the Governor in Council can declare the war, invasion or insurrection as being over.
The powers of the Governor in Council (Governor General) explicitly specify that it had the authority to make enactments necessary for the ‘security, defence, peace, order and welfare of Canada’, The special powers of the Governor in Council ‘extend to all matters coming within the classes of subjects hereinafter inumerated.’ These include: censorship and control of communications; arrest, detention, exclusion and deportation; control of the waters and movement of vessels; transportation by land, air or water as well as persons or things; trading, exportation, importation, production and manufacture; and control over property and its use. (5.)
The act then puts ‘all orders and regulations made under this section [as having] the force of law’. The Governor in Council is given the authority to enforce them, ‘as [it] may prescribe’ as well as the powers to ‘vary, extend or revoke’. (6.) Now, any law which is put into effect must have some sort of punishment accrued to it, and yet again, the Governor in Council is given complete discretion in this matter. ‘The Governor in Council may prescribe the punishment that may be imposed for contraventions of orders and regulations made under this Act,’. (7.)
Under section 6 of the War Measures Act, Parliament retained the right to check the federal government. In 6.3 it states that where there has been a proclamation pursuant to subsection 2, that the proclamation shall be debated, and ‘if both Houses of Parliament resolve that the proclamation be revoked, it ceases to be in effect.’ (8.) Furthermore, sections 3, 4, 5 – the force of law, imposition of punishment and no release of aliens – ‘cease to be in force until they are brought into force by a further proclamation.’ (9.) This may seem redundant, although it is not, because for the first time in the act, there are stipulations which are put on the Governor in Council. Another proclamation must be made ‘without prejudice to the previous operation of those sections; anything done or suffered under them; or any offence committed or punishment incurred.’ (10.) This is to say that the previous effects of the proclamation must not be used as evidence that a further proclamation should be announced. Further to these stipulations, the act must not in any way ‘abrogate, abridge or infringe’ upon the Canadian Bill of Rights. (11.)
In conclusion, it is important to make mention of the historiographical context in which this act was written. At the start of World War One, the world was changing dramatically. The Industrial Revolution had altered the position of Great Britain in international [next page]