Document Information
Date: 1936-06-17
By: Canada (Parliament)
Citation: Canada, House of Commons Debates, 18th Parl, 1st Sess, 1946 at 3843-3845.
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UNEMPLOYMENT
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Mr. Cahan: […] But when official action was to be taken, a representation would be made by way of recommendation of His Excellency the Governor in Council, and on that recommendation an order in council would be framed and passed. The order in council which was so framed and passed is the official document completing the transaction, and the hon. Member has no right to call for the confidential communications from day to day in which the final basis of the agreement was developed. I venture to say to the Minister of Finance that even since he came into office this time, and certainly when ho was in office before, he had necessarily to have confidential correspondence with many persons interested in public affairs before ho finally made his recommendations to council dealing with those matters which wore definitely embodied in orders of His Excellency the Governor in Council.
Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, if the Prime Minister were here tonight I am sure he would concede that under an order in council which is passed at the inception of each successive administration the Prime Minister, by order of his colleagues, is given certain exceptional prerogative rights.
Mr. Bennett: Attached to his commission.
Mr. Dunning: That is so.
Mr. Cahan: And for sixty years or more that order in council has been regarded as confidential. That order in council has never been brought down in this house, but it is an order in council passed by each government on assuming office, giving more or less in detail a statement of the rights and prerogative privileges which the Prime Minister’s colleagues confer upon him. More than that, on one occasion I trace back each successive order in council, I think away back to the time of Sir John A. Macdonald, in order to ascertain facts which were important with respect to government action at that time. Each administration, with the exception of a slight difference in wording from time to time as new conditions arose, has followed exactly the same form in respect of that order in council. The Prime Minister, or whoever replied to the hon. Gentleman, indicated to him that there was an order in council outstanding, the order in council constituting the Bennett administration, if I may so call it, which authorized the right hon. Leader of the government of that day to act on behalf and in the name of his colleagues. It is impossible to carry on government unless some person has such authority in case of the temporary absence of some member of the government. That practice has continued to this day, and I suggest that it is quite improper to take from it any undue inference such as has been drawn by the hon. Member for Témiscouata to-night.
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