Disallowance and Reservation - in Canada

In Canada

In Canadian constitutional law, the powers of reservation and disallowance of both federal and provincial legislation still formally remain in place. However, the powers in relation to federal legislation (where reservation and disallowance involved the British government) have been effectively obsolete since the nineteenth century. One notable occasion of a Governor General formally reserving federal legislation in the twentieth century was in 1939 when Lord Tweedsmuir reserved nine federal bills on the advice of Prime Minister Mackenzie King, but in that instance the purpose was merely to give King George VI the opportunity to grant assent to the bills in person during the 1939 royal tour of Canada.

The powers in relation to provincial legislation, which were vested in the Governor General of Canada (and thus, effectively, the Canadian federal government) rather than in the Sovereign, remained in use for much longer; the last disallowance of a provincial law occurred in April 1943, in relation to Alberta's "An Act to Prohibit the Sale of Lands to any Enemy Aliens and Hutterites for the Duration of the War", while the last reservation of a provincial law occurred in 1961.

Early in Confederation these powers were exercised relatively frequently, but soon fell into disuse. Currently, some believe that by constitutional convention, they are regarded as spent powers even though they have never been formally abolished. However, the ability of the Governor General of Canada to disallow legislation has never been tested since it was last used in 1943. An attempt was made in 1971 to remove both powers from the Constitution with the Victoria Charter, but this failed. The First Ministers decided not to include abolition in the Constitution Act, 1982.