Provincial Responsibility
Overview of Provincial Responsibilities
- Five areas that province responsible for highways, health care,
education facilities, licenses and provincial police.
- Provincial and federal governments share responsibilities.
Provincial Responsibilities
The fight for provincial independence began the day after
confederation. In 1872 Oliver Mowat was elected Premier of Ontario.
He was very active in the fight for provincial autonomy. He
challenged the federal government many times and took them to the
highest court of the time the Imperial Privy Council. The council
favoured the provinces and this until the end of the 19th century
these decisions would help the provinces a lot. After the Louis Reil
incident in 1869 and 1870, then again in 1884and 1885 the premier of
Quebec Honorč Mercier became an eager defender of provincial autonomy.
He had two opinions on Provincial autonomy. One was that the federal
government would not be without the provinces and second the French
Canadians only had one government to represent them, that was the
provincial government. The fight for provincial autonomy went on and
for the first few decades of the 20th century it was called the
"Golden age" of provincial autonomy.
Canada has three levels of government federal, provincial and
municipal. The responsibility of the provincial government is to
look after the highways, health care, education facilities, licenses
and provincial police. The federal and provincial government share
health aid and welfare, transportation and environment, for example
the provincial government takes care of roads and local highways
whereas the federal government takes care of the Trans-Canada
highway.
Copyright © 1998, Phil C. & Hussein B.