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This thesis provides an examination of both the political and legal uses of reference cases to the Supreme Court of Canada by the Mackenzie King government. Attention is devoted to the five-year-period, 1935-1940, in which the King administration submitted several politically motivated references to the Supreme Court. This political use of reference cases to the Supreme Court began immediately after the Liberals returned to power in October 1935 when the government submitted the Bennett government's New Deal legislation for judicial scrutiny. Within the five-year-period the government forwarded two other references to the Supreme Court, again where highly controversial legislation was involved: the Alberta Social Credit statutes passed in 1937 and the private member's bill sponsored by CH. Cahan in 1939 to abolish overseas appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, then the final court of appeal for Canada. The underlying premise of this thesis is that in each of the above instances the King government found it politically expedient to involve the Supreme Court in issues where questions of law were clearly subordinate to the political concerns of the federal government. Furthermore, in each instance, avenues of action, other than a reference case to the Supreme Court, were available to the federal government but were rejected by cabinet. Only in one instance, when Quebec's controversial 1937 Padlock Act was under close scrutiny, did the federal government avoid submitting a patently political issue to the Supreme Court, apprehensive of the consequences of such action. The federal government's reluctance to forward a reference to the Supreme Court in the case of Quebec's Padlock Act thus provides a revealing contrast to both the New Deal and the situation in Alberta where reference cases were initiated almost immediately. The federal government's marked reluctance to deal with Quebec in a comparable manner therefore merits close attention and as such is an important element of this thesis. The background to each reference case, its political origins, the reasons for the federal government's insistence on a reference--or in the case of Quebec, the reasons for avoidance of a reference—are the central issues addressed in this thesis. The cases are examined from another viewpoint as well. Once before the Court, the political issues gave way as the Court focused primarily upon the legal issues involved. The Court's decisions thereby provide another important vantage point from which to view the implications of the federal government's actions. For example, an assessment of the legal argument and judicial reasoning in the New Deal cases helps one answer these questions: First, did King's lawyers really try to win? Second, did the courts (both the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council) simply bow to King's obvious desire that the legislation be declared ultra vires? Third, did the courts, as some have alleged, decide that the depression was not an emergency? Although the King government may have found it preferable for short-term considerations to submit contentious political issues involving questions of law to the Supreme Court for its legal opinion, in the long-term it found itself dealing with unexpected complications arising from the very decisions it sought. Even if the government successfully predicts the legal outcome of a court case, it may find itself dealing with a political outcome it had not anticipated. Certainly if the actions of the King government are any indication in the five-year-period under discussion, this is a complication a government seldom expects, although one as I argue, that it should prepare itself for. This thesis also demonstrates that when reference cases are employed by the federal government, politicians, constitutional scholars, political journalists and other concerned citizens should ask two important questions: First, is the reference being initiated to avoid or delay assuming political responsibility in a given situation? Second, are like situations indeed receiving like treatment? As indicated throughout this thesis, such questions are of great importance. Indeed, this thesis demonstrates that in the period between 1935 and 1940 the King administration initiated not only the New Deal reference, but forwarded C.H. Cahan's private member's bill to the courts as well, in order to avoid dealing with a controversial political issue. So, too, the period provides a telling example of an in-stance where like situations were not treated alike as the striking similarities between the situation in Alberta and Quebec indicates. Clearly, a failure to ask questions such as the ones posed above leads to the possibility that the full meaning of the reference cases themselves, their origins and their implications, will not be realized by the interested onlooker. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

The question of how subordinated groups in democratic states set about shifting their political relationship with their encompassing societies has received little attention among political scientists in Canada. Groups which lack significant political, legal, and economic resources, and which are stigmatized by an inferior status (reinforced by law and policy) do not enjoy the level playing field predicted by pluralist interest group theory. Yet they are sometimes able to overcome these obstacles and to renegotiate their political and legal status. The question is how some groups are able to do this, and what strategies are available to or obligatory for groups wishing to initiate political bargaining. According to the theory of symbolic politics developed here, disadvantaged minorities seeking political benefits from the state will typically conduct politics at the symbolic level. That is, they tend to invoke a range of political symbols and myths: first, to build in-group solidarity by presenting an analysis of a common past and present, as well as a vision of the future society, and thereby legitimate their political aspirations. In the first stage of minority politicization, such groups must: (a) build a sense of community of interests and goals which can be said to represent the reference group as a whole; (b) reverse the stigmatic identity ascribed to them by the dominant society; and (c) find ways of competing with the dominant society, not on the latter's terms, but on alternative ideological grounds. In the second stage of politicization, minorities must: (a) create appropriate demands; (b) learn to use the mechanisms, methods and institutions of the mainstream political process; and (c) eventually routinize conflict by negotiating stable norms to guide on-going relations with government. Subordinated groups do not normally seek purely material benefits. They usually seek symbolic benefits in the form of rights, and a redefined status within society. Thus, much of their politicking is conducted in public, and is largely devoted to capturing public sympathy which can be used as a resource against government. The political myths and symbols employed are characteristically emotive and imprecise. Political goals are presented in symbolic terms, and are advanced at the level of principle rather than substance. When applied to the case of Native Indian politics in the Canadian context, the evidence confirms the accuracy of these hypotheses. Indians have pursued the symbolic strategies predicted by the model: the essence of their political aspirations has been captured in the symbols of aboriginal title/aboriginal rights, land claims, and ultimately, self-government; at the macro level, they have sought predominantly symbolic benefits, as represented by legislative and constitutional recognition of certain rights and privileges; and they have attempted to win public support to use as a bargaining chip vis-a-vis government. However, they have not been entirely successful in their use of the symbolic strategies outlined, and the evidence suggests that they have reached a public opinion impasse. Despite their efforts, public opinion on native and native issues has remained remarkably stable over the last twenty years, so that further effort in this area is likely to bring diminishing returns. In the end, symbolic politics, while necessary for subordinated groups in their fledgling stages of politicization, must eventually give way to more conventional political methodologies as groups become institutionalized in the mainstream political process. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

In the year 1967 the Northwest Territories extend from the 60th parallel of north latitude to the North Pole, and from the eastern boundary of the Yukon Territory to the eastern shores of Ellesmere Island, to within sight of the Danish colony of Greenland. Since 1912 the perimeters of the Territories have remained unchanged. This thesis is an attempt to ascertain the origins of the Northwest Territories as they are presently constituted. It enquires into the reasons for which and the manner by which the Dominion of Canada acquired such a vast extent of arctic and sub-arctic land. It attempts to explain the origin of Canadian concepts and practices of territorial government and how they were applied, or not applied, to the northern extremities of the country. One of the principal expectations of the Confederation of 1867 was the expansion of the new Dominion over the whole of the interior of British North America. Canada consciously aspired to become a transcontinental state; she became the second largest arctic state on the globe unwittingly. From the moment of her national birth Canada intended to extend herself to the Pacific Ocean and forestall the expansion of the United States of America north of the 49th parallel. Canadians, particularly in the Province of Ontario, wanted to secure the fertile plains between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes in order to provide space for the expansion of their own surplus population, for an increase in agricultural production and a market for eastern manufactures. In 1870 Canada took possession of Rupert's Land and the North-western Territory in the hope of attaining these objectives. However neither the people nor the government of Canada had any interest in or knowledge of those regions of the Dominion's territorial acquisition lying north of the Great Plains. Canada made no provision for its immediate control or for its future development. The Dominion took title to the northern extremities of the North American continent simply because they came to her already united with the transcontinental band of land which she did want. She was content to own them, and to ignore them. Sixty years elapsed before Canada’s title to the islands of the arctic archipelago secured international recognition from rival states. Indeed Canada only obtained ownership of those islands because she feared foreign encirclement, particularly encirclement by the United States of America, and when threatened made belated efforts to secure them for herself. Between the years 1870 and 1905 the prairie regions of the original Northwest Territories experienced rapid settlement, and evolved through a Canadian form of territorial government to become the two provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. In outward form Canadian territorial government was much influenced by the example of territorial government in the United States, but in essential spirit Canadian policy towards the Northwest Territories remained close to the model of British colonial government. It was authoritarian and centralized. The federal government retained tight control over every aspect of territorial administration. Ottawa distrusted local elected representatives and reserved to herself supervision of regional law-making. The Northwest Territories long remained virtual colonies of the Government of Canada, in fact if not in name. Until the sudden eruption of the Klondike Gold Rush in the years 1897-98, Canada gave no thought to the organization of territories lying north of the Great Plains. She believed that the north could wait, at least until the prairies were settled and fully developed. The Yukon upset the schedule of national priorities. In the new Yukon Territory an arbitrary "colonial" government was established under the strict and direct supervision of Ottawa. Eventually the "safety value" of an elected council was installed, but the federal government still retained complete control of administration and the management of all natural resources. It has continued to do so until 1967. Once the problems of the Yukon had been controlled, the Territory could safely be left to languish into a derelict mining camp, for the federal government still had no interest in the development of permanent settlements north of the 60th parallel. It might only regret that the Yukon had not declined into oblivion, so that an expensive territorial government might be abolished completely. After the establishment of the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1905 and the northward extension of the boundaries of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec in 1912, Canada was content to permit the residual Northwest Territories to remain a deserted and forgotten national attic. The government might be striving to extend that attic to the North Pole, but it had no intention of furnishing it with meaningful government if the expense could be avoided. No agent of government could be found permanently stationed anywhere in the Northwest Territories until the North West Mounted Police entered them in 1903, and no civil government was established north of the 60th parallel until 1921. In that year the Department of the Interior opened its first offices in the Mackenzie valley in expectation of an Oil Rush which might rival the Klondike Gold Rush. No Oil Rush occured. Nevertheless the foundation stones of civil government in the Northwest Territories were laid in 1921 when a territorial council modeled on the Keewatin Council of 1876 was conjured into reality after sixteen years of only theoretical existance. Laws suitable for the north could at last be made. The Northwest Territories was at last equipped to set sail on the course on which it has continued to the present day, albeit often becalmed, occasionally beset by storms, and usually uncertain of its eventual destination. In September 1967 the territorial capital moved from Ottawa, Ontario to the mining town of Yellowknife on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake. A new era seems to be dawning for the residual Territories which now have reached the constitutional position of the "old" Northwest Territories between 1882 and 1888. If greater territorial autonomy seems likely to be gained in the future, it still remains likely that the influence of 97 years of federal attitudes and policies towards the northern territories will be felt for many years yet to come. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This paper examines the recruitment, characteristics, motivation and functions of "political exempt staff in Canadian government. These potentially influential individuals, free from the political restrictions on public servants, tend to operate in the shadows cast by senior elected officeholders. As a result, too little is known of their characteristics or activities, although they have been the subject of some research. An important aim of this paper is to determine whether political exempt staff, by working closely with prime ministers, premiers or cabinet ministers, have significant influence on public policy-making. Thus, researching the origins, attributes, motivations and roles of these unelected political acolytes may yield useful information concerning the operation of Canadian democracy. Since public office, elected or otherwise, forms part of our social system, a large number of questions may be raised. What are the socio-economic and educational characteristics of exempt staff? How and from where are they recruited? What is it about political life which attracts their interest and helps to fulfill their aspirations? What motivates such individuals? How do such persons influence public policy? In terms of the democratic process, what is the nature and relative importance of the function performed by political exempt staff? For example, how are their duties and responsibilities determined and delimited? To what extent are their activities partisan in orientation? Do they tend to have an appreciable influence on government policies and programs? Further, what degree of control do exempt staff exercise over access to elected officials? To what extent do they shape public office-holders' opinions and decisions? If they act as "gate-keepers" and confidants, do they constitute effective targets for professional lobbyists and others seeking to influence government action? This paper seeks to address these and other questions through analysis of data derived from interviews with 33 former exempt staff who served as political assistants and advisers, primarily in the federal government. The purpose is to gain useful operational insights into a unique position in our governmental system. The findings of this study suggest that political exempt staff play an important role in sustaining a government's "political impulse", the policy momentum it gains from an election mandate. The exempt staff also constitute a valuable point of contact for persons or organizations seeking information, support or a favourable decision from government. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

During the 1968-1972 period attempts were made to introduce 'rationality' into the structures and processes of the Canadian Cabinet. It has usually been argued that these attempts by Prime Minister Trudeau provide an innovative and radically distinct departure from the 'diversified incrementalism' or 'crises management' decision-making under Prime Minister Pearson. Is the usual argument correct? This question is dealt with by examining in turn the role of the Cabinet and the Prime Minister, the development of the committee system (with emphasis upon the Committee on Priorities and Planning), the place of the Treausury Board and especially of the Treasury Board Secretariat, the role of the Cabinet Secretariat, and the role of the Prime Minister's Office. The crucial difference between official actions and political actions is underscored in this examination. While the 1968-72 changes did establish , a more rational basis for decision-making, and may thus be seen as innovative, the changes did not amount to any radical departure — and, indeed, they were themselves the product of an incremental approach to change. While Prime Minister Trudeau presented the changes in terms of a philosophy of rationality, the actual changes must be seen as incremental extensions of changes which Prime Minister Pearson began. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

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