Document Information

Date: 1875-07-19
By: Victoria
Citation: Parliament of Canada Act, 1875 (UK), 38-39 Vict, c 38, reprinted in RSC 1985, App II, No. 13.
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38-39 Victoria, C. 38 (U.K)

An Act to remove certain doubts with respect
to the powers of the Parliament of Canada
under section eighteen of the Constitution
Act, 1867

[19th July 1875]

Whereas by section eighteen of the Constitution Act, 1867, it is provided as follows: “The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the Members thereof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada, but so that the same shall never exceed those at the passing of this Act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the Members thereof:”

And whereas doubts have arisen with regard to the power of defining by an Act of the Parliament of Canada, in pursuance of the said section, the said privileges, powers, or immunities; and it is expedient to remove such doubts:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

1. Section eighteen of the Constitution Act, 1867, is hereby repealed, without prejudice to anything done under that section, and the following section shall be substituted for the section so repealed.

The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the members thereof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time defined by Act of the Parliament of Canada, but so that any Act of the Parliament of Canada defining such privileges, immunities, and powers shall not conter any privileges, immunities, or powers exceeding those at the passing of such Act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the members thereof.

2. The Act of the Parliament of Canada passed in the thirty-first year of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter twenty-four, intituled “An Act to provide for oaths to witnesses being administered in certain cases for the purposes of either House of Parliament,” shall be deemed to be valid, and to have been valid as from the date at which the royal assent was given thereto by the Governor-General of the Dominion of Canada.

3. This Act may be cited as the Parliament of Canada Act, 1875.