The Constitution of Canada (French: Constitution du Canada) is the supreme law in Canada. It outlines Canada's system of government and the civil and human rights of those who are citizens of Canada and non-citizens in Canada. Its contents are an amalgamation of various codified acts, treaties between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples (both historical and modern), uncodified traditions and conventions. Canada is one of the oldest constitutional monarchies in the world.
The Constitution of Canada comprises core written documents and provisions that are constitutionally entrenched, take precedence over all other laws and place substantive limits on government action; these include the Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly the British North America Act, 1867) and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Constitution Act, 1867 provides for a constitution "similar in principle" to the largely unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom, recognizes Canada as a constitutional monarchy and federal state, and outlines the legal foundations of Canadian federalism.
The Constitution of Canada includes written and unwritten components. Section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982 states that "the Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada" and that any inconsistent law is of no force or effect. It further lists written documents which are included in the Constitution of Canada; these are the Canada Act 1982 (which includes the Constitution Act, 1982), the acts and orders referred to in its schedule (including in particular the Constitution Act, 1867), and any amendments to these documents.
The Supreme Court of Canada has held that this list is not exhaustive and that the Constitution of Canada includes a number of pre-Confederation acts and unwritten components as well. The Canadian constitution also includes the fundamental principles of federalism, democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and respect for minorities. See list of Canadian constitutional documents for details.
The first semblance of a constitution for Canada was the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The act renamed the northeasterly portion of the former French province of New France as the Province of Quebec, roughly coextensive with the southern third of contemporary Quebec. The proclamation, which established an appointed colonial government, was the constitution of Quebec until 1774 when the British parliament passed the Quebec Act, which expanded the province's boundaries to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers (one of the grievances listed in the United States Declaration of Independence). Significantly, the Quebec Act also replaced French criminal law with the English common law system; but the French civil law system was retained for non-criminal matters.
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 ended the American War of Independence and sent a wave of British loyalist refugees northward to Quebec and Nova Scotia. In 1784, the two provinces were divided: Nova Scotia was split into Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island (rejoined to Nova Scotia in 1820), Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick, while Quebec was split into Lower Canada (southern Quebec) and Upper Canada (southern through lower northern Ontario). The winter of 1837–38 saw rebellion in both Canadas, contributing to their re-union as the Province of Canada in 1841.
The British North America Act, 1867 established the Dominion of Canada as a federation of provinces. Initially, on July 1, 1867, four provinces entered into confederation as "One dominion under the name of Canada": Canada West (former Upper Canada, now Ontario), Canada East (former Lower Canada, now Quebec), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Title to the Northwest Territories was transferred by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1870, out of which the province of Manitoba (the first to be established by the Parliament of Canada) was created. British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871, followed by Prince Edward Island in 1873. The Yukon Territory was created by Parliament in 1898, followed by Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905 (all out of parts of the Northwest Territories). Newfoundland, Britain's oldest colony in the Americas and by then also a Dominion, joined Confederation in 1949. Nunavut was created in 1999 from the Northwest Territories.
An Imperial Conference in 1926 that included the leaders of all Dominions and representatives from India (which then included Burma, Bangladesh, and Pakistan), led to the eventual enactment of the Statute of Westminster 1931. The statute, an essential transitory step from the British Empire to the Commonwealth of Nations, provided that existing Dominions became fully sovereign of the United Kingdom and any new Dominions would be fully sovereign upon the grant of Dominion status. Although listed, Newfoundland never ratified the statute so was still subject to imperial authority when its entire system of government and economy collapsed in the mid-1930s. Canada did ratify the statute but with a requested exception—the Canadian federal and provincial governments could not agree on an amending formula for the Canadian constitution. It would be another 50 years before this was achieved. In the interim, the British parliament periodically passed constitutional amendments when requested by the government of Canada. This was never anything but a rubber stamp.
The patriation of the Canadian constitution was achieved in 1982 when the British parliament, with the request and assent of the Canadian Parliament, passed the Canada Act 1982, which included in its schedules the Constitution Act, 1982. The United Kingdom thus renounced any remaining responsibility for, or jurisdiction over, Canada. In a formal ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed the Constitution Act, 1982 into law on April 17, 1982.
The Constitution Act, 1982, includes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Before the Charter, various statutes protected an assortment of civil rights and obligations but nothing was enshrined in the constitution until 1982. The Charter has thus placed a strong focus upon individual and collective rights of the people of Canada. The enactment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has fundamentally changed much of Canadian constitutional law. The act also codified many previously oral constitutional conventions and made amendment of the constitution in general significantly more difficult. Previously, the Canadian constitution could be formally amended by an act of the British parliament, or by informal agreement between the federal and provincial governments, or even simply by adoption as the custom of an oral convention or performance that shows precedential but unwritten tradition. Since the act, textual amendments must now conform to certain specified provisions in the written portion of the Canadian constitution.
This was an act of the British parliament, originally called the British North America Act 1867. It outlined Canada's system of government, which combines Britain's Westminster model of parliamentary government with the division of sovereignty (federalism). Although it is the first of 20 British North America Acts, it is the most famous as the primary document of Canadian Confederation. With the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, this act was renamed Constitution Act, 1867. In recent years, the 1867 document has mainly served as the basis on which the division of powers between the provinces and the federal government is analyzed.
Endorsed by all provincial governments except that of Quebec, this was the formal act of Parliament that effected Canada's full legislative independence from the United Kingdom. Part V of this act established an amending formula for the Canadian constitution, the lack of which (due to more than 50 years of disagreement between the federal and provincial governments) meant Canada's constitutional amendments still required enactment by the British parliament after the Statute of Westminster in 1931.