adjournment, as the Canadian Parliament has not adopted the rule that the speeches should be relevant to the question of adjournment. tion. 8. PROROGATION. Proroga- In Canada Parliament is usually prorogued by the Governor-General in person. As soon as the business of the two Houses is completed, the Governor-General, through his secretary, and with the advice of his ministers, informs the Speaker of each House that at a certain hour on a given day he will prorogue Parliament. The Commons are summoned in the usual manner to attend in the Senate chamber, and after assent is given to bills that have been passed, the Governor-General delivers the customary speech in English and French. At the conclusion of the speech the Speaker declares that: Its effect. 'It is his Excellency the Governor-General's will and pleasure that this Parliament be prorogued until and to be then here holden; and this Parliament is accordingly prorogued until The fact of the prorogation is also notified in the "Canada Gazette1." The effect of the prorogation is to put an end to the session. Proceedings on all bills pending in either House cease to have any effect, and such bills will require to be introduced again and go through all the necessary stages in the following session. Where a session ends unexpectedly it is customary as in England to protect parties promoting private bills, and by a series of resolutions to permit such bills to be advanced in the following session by unopposed motions to the stages at which they stood when the prorogation took place. All committees, standing or select, are dissolved by the prorogation. 9. DISSOLUTION. tion a pre The Parliament may be dissolved by the Governor-General Dissoluat any time', and though the Governor-General is expected to rogative right. pay the greatest attention to the advice of his ministers, yet he is not bound to grant a dissolution whenever and as often as they demand it. The dissolution of Parliament is a prerogative right and the Governor-General, as representing the Crown, is required to act on his own responsibility 2. The following examples illustrate the above principle. Sir Edmund Stead, Governor-General of Canada, refused to dissolve Parliament in 1858, on the grounds that a general election had been held the previous winter, that important business remained to be finished, and that there was no reasonable probability that the verdict of the previous election would be reversed3. Lord Mulgrave, Governor of Nova Scotia, refused a dissolution in 1860, on the ground that it was neither expedient, nor for the public interest, that a dissolution should take place a short time after a general election*. When in May, 1872, the Legislative Assembly of Victoria passed a vote of want of confidence in the administration, the ministry informed the Governor that they were bound either to resign or to recommend a dissolution, and they accordingly advised a dissolution. The Governor declined to dissolve, as he believed a ministry could be formed without having recourse to a dissolution 5. In the last-mentioned case the ministers maintained that Position of Ministers. the alternative of resignation or dissolution is left absolutely to their discretion and responsibility. The Governor dissented from this proposition, maintaining that as a colonial Governor, it was his duty to exercise a due discretion. Lord Mulgrave in explaining his conduct in the case referred to 1 B. N. A. Act, s. 50. 2 See post, chap. xv. 4 Ib. p. 537. 5 Ib. p. 539. Lapse of time. Demise of the Crown. above summed up the position as follows:-"I quite admit that when a Council is backed by a majority of the House a Governor is bound in ordinary cases to follow their advice and that it is chiefly by his influence and persuasion that he must endeavour to direct their conduct, but the premier would place a Governor in the same position as the Queen, and the Council in the position of the Cabinet at home, forgetting entirely that the Governor is himself responsible to the home government and that it is no excuse for him to say in answer to any charge against his administration of affairs, I did so by the advice of my Council'." The Parliament is also dissolved by lapse of time, as the British North America Act, s. 50, provides that, subject to the above-mentioned power of dissolution by the GovernorGeneral, every House of Commons shall continue for five years from the day of the return of the writs for choosing the House. 2 The Canadian Parliament is not affected by the demise of the Crown, an Act to that effect having been passed in the first session of the Parliament of the Dominion. CHAPTER XII. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 1. NUMBER. THE House of Commons now consists of 215 members, Number. distributed as follows': Originally the House consisted of 182 members, but provision was made by the British North America Act, s. 57, for a decennial adjustment of representation. To Quebec was assigned a fixed number, viz. 65 members: to the other provinces was assigned such a number of members as would bear the same proportion to the number of its population (ascertained every ten years) as the number 65 would bear to the number of the population of Quebec 1 50 and 51 Vic. c. 4. Electoral so ascertained. Any adjustment only comes into effect on the termination of the then existing Parliament. After the census of 1871 the number of members was increased to 200, and in 1881 eleven additional members were added. Representation was conceded to the North-West Territories in 1886. After the then next general election four electoral districts in these Territories were to return one member each'. The first members for these Territories were elected in 1886". In Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba and the North-West Territories one member is returned by each electoral district: in Nova Scotia, three electoral districts, in New Brunswick and British Columbia one electoral district, return two members each, otherwise in these three provinces the rule of single member constituencies is followed. In Prince Edward's Island each district returns two members2. 2. QUALIFICATIONS OF ELECTORS. By the British North America Act, 1867, it was provided, [s. 41] that until the Parliament of Canada should otherwise provide the voters in each province for members of the Dominion House of Commons should be the voters qualified to vote for members of the provincial Assembly. For several years no attempt was made to introduce a uniform franchise, but with the increased development of the provinces it began to be seen that so long as the Provincial Parliaments retained power to alter the franchise, the Federal Parliament was exposed to serious disturbance. Bills providing for a uniform franchise were brought before the Canadian Parliament in 1883 and 1884, but were strongly opposed by the advocates of provincial rights, and it was not until 1885 |